February 2017

The past two months have been good. I swear Dean is growing right now- he is eating like a tank and snacking all day long! He also seems to be hitting more milestones, like starting to say words and express himself more. For awhile, the only thing he ever said was "dada", and maybe something that sounded like "water." But after I took him to his 18 month doctors appointment in January and the doctor said he should be saying at least 20 words by now, we started pushing him to talk more and I think he is finally progressing. Spencer especially has started sitting with him and trying to get him to mimic the sounds of letters. A couple weeks ago spencer taught him to say "mama" and it was just about the cutest thing I had ever heard. It just melts your heart to hear your kid say mama and dada for the first time. Now he says it all day long. His most frequently used words right now are: mama, dada, "Eee Eee" (for train), no (usually he says "no no no," like that), he nods "mm" for yes, "mo" for more, "mo" for "moe", the Lego guy he named Moe, "mmmMmm" for when something sounds good to him, like waffles or any other food he wants, hi, bye, sounds that sound like "one, two three... Go!" And then he races off, and then he is really into the alphabet letters right now and loves to watch the alphabet train YouTube video and can mimic some sounds/consonants and say "E", "A", "three", etc, but his strongest letter is definitely "E" for some reason. He is getting loud and talks to himself and plays all day long. He has started roll playing guys in books, giving them low funny voices

He does funny things every day. For instance, today he found a pack of cheese-whiz and crackers thing and I opened it for him and sat him down on the floor to eat it and then I zoned out scrolling the Internet and Facebook and stuff, and when I looked up 5 minutes later he had the empty plastic packaging smashed to his face and was trying to lick the cheese whiz out of the little square cup part. He was covered in cheese whiz- his hands, face, and pants for some reason. He loved it so much. And then he just took an early bath. 

We splurged this past weekend and bought a bob jogging stroller. It has been amazing! We walk a lot and it is so nice having big tires that can handle any bump or sidewalk crack in our old city streets. It was a little expensive (it was 10% off at buy buy baby and then I talked an employee into giving me a 20% off coupon on top of that for a grand total of $150 off, and we bought it for $350), okay, probably our most expensive baby purchase ever, but we rationalized it with the child care stipend that we have been getting for the past year and a half and never used. Plus, we bought or first stroller for 30 bucks off craigslist, so I guess it evens out. I have no regrets. I'm sure bob will make a better stroller one day, but we got the newest 2016 model with the seat that sits up straight (the old ones reclined awkwardly and Dean hated it), and the flex handle bar, and it's a cool black color, unlike our old nasty brown and polka dot stroller. I love that old stroller though, and we fully intend on still using it, especially for traveling or for keeping in the car. It can handle over a hundred pounds of weight, in either human form or Costco/Aldi/Walmart groceries or luggage, we never had to worry about it being stollen, and it had a huge basket and parent tray, collapsed easily, and only weighed 17 pounds. This new bob weighs 28 pounds I think!

Spencer is chugging away at his seminar paper and research and stuff. I still can't believe it's permanent, but inherited a really nice iPhone from my dad, because my dad got a free work iPhone. He is enjoying it and although he is still too cheap to say he would ever buy one himself, he says he doesn't know how he lived without it. We have started working out at the uchicago gym lately. I did a free trial membership last week and it was really great. Basically I have no idea what I am doing or how the machines work, but I can run a mile and ride a stationary bike for a little bit. The gym is a mile walk from our house so you get a nice warm up on the way there. I want to try to go 2-3 times a week in the morning, and spencer wants to try 2-3 times a week in the afternoon before dinner. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday they have family swim time from 6-8 or so, and I would love to take Dean. He is really scared of deep water usually. It would be good to let him get use to swimming. Now that I have discovered the vitamin c crystals trick, I'm not as scared to go swimming in chlorine. It's amazing. 

I cleaned the car yesterday. You wouldn't think it's a big deal, but the only quarter vacuumes I see are in sketchier parts of town, and I feel like a hill billy running extension chords out our garden apartment windows (in the dead of winter) to our car parked out front (if we are lucky and get a good spot), so that the last time our car was vacuumed and cleaned was last Easter when we went to visit Angie and Nate's family and borrowed their vacuum and did it in the garage. It's the small things. 

We are TAing Devin Pope's negotiating class though the booth school and it has been a lot of fun. Spencer picks up the assignments on Thursday or Friday and we grade them and report the grades online by Saturday night. We are Gods. It is funny because there are a few guys in our ward taking the class, and we love getting their papers and assignments to critique. The nature of the class, being a negotiating class, is really fun too. We don't know what we are doing, but I try negotiating with spencer sometimes and wait to see how long it takes before he either gives in or realizes I'm negotiating with him. It's great. There is a set pay for the quarter, but I'm not kidding, for some of the assignments, if you calculate the hourly pay, we made over $1000 an hour. It's ridiculous. The booth school has way more funding than the history department! Haha. And we are so grateful that Devin Pope chose us to TA for him. I'm about to start marketing myself to all these booth school teachers from now on though, geez. I could TA and make 4 times our current stipend. Haha. And only work 5-10 hours a week. We are in a place where we are doing really well financially, saving a ton for the first time in our marriage, and it is nice to be able to afford the nicer things we want, like Spencer's new computer, our warm winter coats, and this great stroller. We look back to when we lived in Columbus and can't believe how we survived on less than 15,000 a year after taxes and school fees. Spencer is really good at securing funding through stipends and scholarships and grants, but it is so nice knowing that if he doesn't get funding for China or whatever, we will have savings to cover everything. I am still working with Mancl, I went out in December, and basically she pays for my travel and accommodations and all my gear and I work for free, so now I own thousands of dollars worth of great film equipment to use at my leisure. I'm still not sure what I want to do with this "business," if you can call it that, but I am set up with the gear and at least some experience. It's hard to want to take on much more work when I have Dean to take care of full time and a fort to hold down. I don't really like working, but it's nice to have something every once in a while.