Things I never thought I'd say #1

Lately, I've found myself saying some things that I just never imagined would come off of my lips. Most of them have been said to Asher, and mainly are related to his continued obsession with cleaning - which we keep waiting for the day that will stop - but I also have found myself saying things to Walter that I immediately want to take back.

Walter is studying almost constantly these days (ok maybe not that much, but it feels like it), and last week we actually had a night where we were both home. I wanted to watch one of our favorite shows, but he was reading a book I had just ordered on a really interesting topic to us lately. Now, I LOVE to read and I do read almost every night.

During my single days when I spent many evenings reading for the entire night after work until I went to bed, I dreamt about the time when I would have a husband to sit on the couch next to me. We would both be reading our books and would pause every once in a while to tell each other some insightful things we had just read and then after some brief discussions or a quick laugh, we would return to our own books to be lost again in the words of the pages.

This was my romantic dream...that totally did not become reality.

Walter tells me that he enjoyed reading while he grew up and throughout high school, but then in college it become "uncool" for him to read other than if it was assigned reading. So he just kind of stopped reading. He will read if we are reading aloud to each other, or if we are on vacation and I have my nose in a book all day and he has nothing else to do (this was before Asher - now he gets to chase Asher while I read!). But other than that he doesn't just pick up a book and dive in.

So the other night when I told him, "Honey, please stop reading." I couldn't believe what came out of my mouth! I immediately asked to take the words back and changed them to "Wait wait, please keep on reading!" but it was too late. He put down the book and we went to watch The Office leaving a missed opportunity for my romantic ideal to become a reality.

Since this post got way longer than I intended, maybe this will be the first in a series of "Things I Never Thought I Would Say."

He Chose Mommy!

We (I) have had an incredibly busy week. I was gone several nights (and even a day) in a row leaving Walter and Asher home alone together. Asher loves his daddy and they did a lot of fun things together. But Asher kept my heart missing him yesterday while I was gone. He said exactly what I needed to hear during a conversation over Cheerios.

Its always fun to talk over the events of the day with him. There's usually something going on that's really exciting. Yesterday, there happened to be lots of exciting things lined up for Asher's day. We told him that throughout the day he was going to get to play with his friend Grant, go on an Easter Egg hunt, see his Aunt Becky, and go to a hockey game! We are starting to ask what his favorite things are just because his opinions are so important to us. So we asked which of those was his favorite thing. And guess what he said?

Out of all of those fun things, he said..."MOMMY!"

I'm still his favorite! :)

Our Little Boy is Two

Happy 2nd Birthday Asher!!

Two isn't exactly the age when children leave the house and start spreading their wings, but somehow, Asher seems older to me now that he turned two. He strings words together now, he wakes up and gets out of bed on his own in the morning, and today he even reprimanded me when I sloshed some coffee out of my mug by telling me that I needed to use "two hands!" (Hmm...maybe he's heard that somewhere before!)

This weekend, Walter's parents came in for the celebration and Aunt Becky and Uncle Sam drove over for the evening. We had so much fun together and even our shy little boy enjoyed all of the attention.
Asher requested an Elmo cake this year which is what I made. When we talked about his birthday in the days leading up to this weekend, he would always say, "mommy make Elmo cake." So mommy made an Elmo cake.
Much to everyone's dismay, but to mommy's delight, Asher was very organized as he opened his presents. We had made Asher's cleaning obsession public knowledge previously but until Saturday, no one knew that the obsession extends to organization. After he opened each present, Asher would go put it away where it belonged. Here he is putting away the Elmo movies he just opened.

In the Ifft Family growing up, we loved the Bernstein Bears. I think my sister had every one of those books and bought the new ones as they come out (just like with the Babysitters Club). One of our favorites was Bernstein Bears and Too Much Birthday. I think Asher and Grams illustrate that title exactly!