Ah-Hah Moments

There is little that tops an ah-hah moment. As a young married couple who's greatest concern this time last year was getting our home study scheduled and making sure our Sunday NFL picks were in on time, and who today are parents to a beautifully active 15 month old boy, you can imagine we're experiencing quite a few ah-hah's these days.

Ah-Hah #1: Beware the bright night light

Ashton has been waking up at least once a night in need of 15-20 minutes of cuddle time before he'll go back to bed. He didn't do this at all when we introduced him to the Brooklyn apartment nor did he when we were visiting family in MN. Last nights wakeup frustrated me more than usual as I already hadn't been sleeping well, and as I was pushing back the urge to give him a stern "go to sleep it's 2:30AM and you're OBVIOUSLY tired why wont you just go back to sleep!" kind of look I quickly refrained and began thinking about what could possibly be different between his crib at home that would be causing the middle of the night stirrings. Ah-hah. The night light. We didn't have a night light for him in Brooklyn and there wasn't one in his room in MN either. And the one at home is pretty bright. So I removed it, and he went back to sleep. Tonight is the real test - wish us luck. I'm hopeful we'll wake up at 7:30 tomorrow morning wondering, "did he really sleep 11 hours through"? Again, wish us luck.

Ah-Hah #2: Renting is really sexy when what you own is on the fritz

In the last year we've either had problems with or had to completely replace our septic system, furnace, washer, dryer, shower, outdoor pipes, indoor plumbing, car, CAR CAR CAR, and are in the process of replacing 28 windows and scraping and repainting our porch. Who's idea was it to buy a house? Oh right...we fell in love with the 100 year old original windows (that we now have to replace because of lead content). I love our home, but ah-hah...renting is sexy sometimes.

Ah-Hah #3: I'm never going to get it and shouldn't even concede to being open to never getting it. Karma will step in and make sure that the next thing I don't get will still surprise the hell out of me as her way of proving that not only will I never get it, but I'll never get not getting it either.

Tonight we were in a restaurant eating dinner (trying to keep Ash up past 6PM...waking up at 6:15AM and only taking one 20 minute nap makes a guy tired early) when at the end of the meal he decided to go for a walk. He walked past a few tables, through a crowd, and directly in to the arms of a woman sitting in a booth. She didn't call to him, didn't put her arms out, he just walked right up to her and stuck his arms up ASKING to be picked up! He rarely does this to mom and dad let alone a stranger, and NEVER a female. She must've just had a look or a touch or a vibe or something that called to him - it was tres bizarre. She enjoyed it as much as we did and after explaining to her why we were absolutely dumbfounded we all had a nice laugh and just savored the moment. I have no idea what to expect next with this boy, it's so much fun most of the time. (Oh come on, we all know it can't be all fun and giggles all of the time...surprises are surprises and sometimes they kind of suck. I'm going to refrain from giving examples because the most recent include more bodily fluid than is probably OK to post publicly...I'll spare you the details for now.)

Tomorrow is our first post placement visit with our social worker and today marks the first day of my last two weeks as a stay at home home. Has it honestly been 10 weeks already? Ah-hah...