Beckett Laughlin - 16 Months

Confessions of Lazy Evenings

When I thought of my evenings as a family woman I pictured eating dinner as a family, giving my kids a bath, supervising as they brush and get into jammies. Then reading them a story, tucking them in with kisses and finally enjoying a glass of wine while Hillary and I read the book of the moment before going to bed.

And actually, it's not too far from that. A little messier than I envisioned, but it makes me happy.

But I have to admit I LOVE when B skips his afternoon nap and is so tired by 5 that we feed him early and he's down for the night by 6:45.

Those nights we make a grown up dinner and eat it on the couch in front of a movie.

Tonight it's red wine with pesto pasta and Super Troopers.

Love these nights, even if it's not quite what I always pictured.

Napping, Etc...

There has been a sea change in our home. It happened little by little, but we noticed every extra minute. We. have. a baby. who. sleeps. ...Pause, for dramatic effect...

Seriously, though, Becks is taking at least one and very often 2 solid, 1 to 2 hour naps - EVERY day. People, come on! Get excited with me - I mean, we can actually accomplish things without going into his room ever 20 minutes because he woke up. It's pretty amazing.

And the cherry on top? I put him down at night around 7 like clock work and he sleeps until at least 10:00. I usually have to nurse him then, but he goes back down. I mean, do you know what you can do when there isn't a baby connected to you for over THREE hours? I feel like we've won the lottery. We can make dinner and eat it! Watch whole movies at a time. It's been 15 months!

On New Year's Eve we had a party and he slept until almost 12:45 - through a party! Even through the countdown and horns and screamed tidings to happiness for the coming year. We were not quiet. He slept. It was amazing.

Now our nights are a whole other story. But this is serious progress. Major motion forward. Toddler hood - I love it.

And yes, my answer to when will you have another has changed because of it. When it was hard, it was like - well might as well just add another little person into the mix and see what we get. But now I think we're going to enjoy this little taste of freedom and of having adult time again. At least for a little while.

More Local Louisville Shopping

Ah, the first post of the year. It always gives such a fresh feel. I do want to back track though, because I'm proud to say I did pretty well at accomplishing my goal to shop locally this holiday season. I'm estimating about 80% of my gifts were bought from small businesses here in town. 

 

In the last few years our lives have been filled with children and I sort of made an executive decision to just buy for the kids. They are the fun ones to shop for anyway, and I would be happy if my friends and family just bought for Beckett, so without really consulting anyone, that's mostly what we've done. 

Why Louisville is such a great store for gifts and their t-shirts for kids are awesome! So I bought several of them for the chillen' in my life and in some cases used them as wrapping for the additional gifts we bought them. 

Amazing Green Planet has an awesome toy section and we bought Plan Toys for some of our baby friends. One of my favorite gifts from AGP, which we gave to my niece, was the cookware and dining set by Green Toys made of recycled plastic bottles. Beckett got a used kitchen from his cousin, Danni, so I just may have to pick one up for him too.

We gave a lot of books this year, they are my favorite gift to give, and Carmichael's has a really amazing kid's section (the rest of their sections are equally amazing). We found all sorts of unique board books with awesome art and super cool pull tab and pop up books for the older kids. I had too much fun shopping there. 

For Hillary I had several photos of Beckett matted and framed at Framers Supply. I was really pleased with how it came out. I highly recommend going there for all your professional framing needs. You know it's a good gift when your husband tears up on Christmas morning - score!

As for the other 20%, we had a photo book printed of Beckett's first year for the grandparents and one for us too. But that's another post altogether, because it's so awesome. We also ordered a Little Pim language set for B to start teaching him Spanish, while he learns English. Other than that, the package deliveries were pretty limited this year.  And happily so.