Child Labor Laws be DARNED!

This morning, Jonathan was sick as sick could be. He's had a cold coming on for a couple of days, but it finally kicked in down last night - when he was out insanely late for a Nuggets game. So while he slept in, Caleb Zakai and I had a great morning together.

Weeknights have gotten ridiculously lazy around here. I get home with Caleb, make dinner - most of the time - and after Jonathan gets home and we eat, we have "baby time." It consists mainly of Jonathan and I sitting on the ground and hassling Caleb. He loves it! Anyway, by the time he goes to bed, we're usually either ready for bed ourselves, or not up for anything more than watching a little television. So the house gets pretty stinking messy for those five days. Saturday morning is my day to catch up.

This morning, Caleb and I got up a little before six, and once I popped a Zofran, I was raring to go. I got us some breakfast, then we got dressed and started our workin' morning. Don't get me wrong, there was a healthy dose of pushing him around on his Kawasaki motorcycle that Miss Teri bought him, and pushing around the big firetruck Auntie Meg got him - but we did it between bouts of cleaning up toys and shoes, and sweeping. The one thing that I don't do well with Caleb around is the dishes. Because I throw everything in the dishwasher, and Caleb gets a power trip out of closing the dishwasher, I generally try to do it while he's in the high chair or otherwise occupied. However, he would not be distracted this morning, and I just kept looking at that pile of dishes and feeling it loom over my entire day.

Until we got our next load of laundry going, and Caleb decided that it was his job to load the washing machine. We have a front loader that is right at his height, and he's expressed interest in loading it before, but generally just when it's his toys or something. So I let him put the next load in, while I ran over and unloaded the dishwasher, re-loaded it, and folded half a basket of laundry! I tell you what, good parenting advice would be to get your kid excited about chores REALLY early! (Let's see how quickly we can get him vacuuming now!)

He kicked the soccer ball today for the first time I've seen him! He's really loved throwing balls around, but I was having trouble getting him to figure out how to kick them. So today, with the help of positive reinforcement, I think we've guaranteed that he'll be kicking everything he sees until the end of time. Seriously, we were clapping and cheering like he'd scored the winning goal at the World Cup.

And you know as well as I do that he won't play in the World Cup until 2021. Let's not rush things.

We've tried to make a big deal out of the fact that his baby brother or sister is in my tummy, and so I'll pat it once a day and say, "Hi, baby!" He's started patting his tummy, which is adorable, but he also likes to smack mine! I'm starting to think we'll wait on this one until the baby is a little bigger, because I'm getting tired of being beaten on by my exuberant sixteen month old!

There's a lot of people that are going to have babies this year! I can think of four people that I love that are having babies! But since I don't know that everyone is telling everyone yet, I'll keep my monumentally large mouth closed.

In similar news, Josiah Van Ryn is new to the world! And if y'all want to hear an amazing labor and delivery story, you should talk to Josiah's proud Mama, Wendy. (And if you've had babies, when you do hear the story, be prepared to bite your tongue to keep from calling her names. I didn't bite quick enough. Dang it.) If all deliveries could be like that, the medical establishment would lose a lot of money.

And if mine could be like that, I'd really be grateful. Lord? Did you catch that prayer cloaked as a comment?

I'm off! Caleb Zakai is flying around like an airplane - but his wings seem to be coming out of his back. I'd better do some flight checks!