Gramz and the Zoo

Tanner's Grandma Zavoral, whom we are calling Gramz, came to help take care of us from March 5-9. She watched Tanner 3 working days in a row and did all kinds of house work for us. It was wonderful to have her with us!

 Tanner and Gramz did lots of playing, including coloring, finger paints, chalks, stories, cars, walks, and more coloring. They did lots of art projects like making paper boots for Tanner's boy doll and a cheerio necklace for me! 

 One night, we took Gramz to Mama D's Italian restaurant in Newport Beach. Then we tried the famous frozen bananas on Balboa Island. We've never eaten them before and figured we outta since we've lived here for 5 years now (!). 

---Imagine a picture here of us eating the frozen bananas.---

I'm not really sure how anyone ever got the idea to freeze a banana and then eat it. I didn't like the frozen sound that mushes and screeches when you bite into it, but I liked it once it was more melted. The best part was the chocolate topping. Tanner thought it was a yucky treat. 

On Saturday, we all went to the local Santa Ana Zoo. 

 The zoo is just a tiny place, featuring lots of different monkeys. Even though it was small, it far exceeded our expectations. The place was beautiful with lots of tropic plants and nice looking cages. It was the perfect place to bring a toddler to.                   

Tanner LOVED the animals. "Anmul, anmul!" and "Wow!" and just lots of staring. He would sit and watch one area of animals for about 5 minutes. When we said "Okay, time to go see the next animal!" he would get really upset. "Noooo, no anmul!" He wanted to keep watching whatever we were still looking at. He'd wine and push and kick until we would get to the next cage. Then "ohhh!" and the cycle would repeat. 

Watching the parrots.

This time he didn't mind walking to the next place because he had a granola bar in his hand and Dada in the other.

There was a park there, too. Tanner was sooo excited. There were lots of kids there, but he went running up to the jungle gym, climbed up to the tip-top and went down the slide several times without being intimidated by the bigger kids or the big playground. I guess he would be good at that by now since he goes to the park everyday with his babysitter. It's weird how he learns to do things that I'm not really aware of. Alas, that's just part of being a working mom. 

Ever since Gramz came, Tanner has been obsessed with drawing and coloring. "Cahcah, Cahcah!" for "crayon!" (it almost sounds exactly like his word for cracker, but it does have a subtle difference) and "Peh! Peh!" for pen. He's getting really good now and gets very focused on trying to hold the writing utensil with just his pointer and thumb.

Photo Journal from late Feb

Hangin' Out with Tanner after work around Feb 19. 

Tanner is almost 20 months old at this time!

Tanner loves to get into this automen and into our hampers.

 Dancing to Pandora music. He squats his legs and takes large steps around the room, sideways, front and backwards. It's so funny. He also bobs his head back and forth. Sometimes waves his arms, spins, and jumps.

He didn't like it when I put on classical music. "No, no. New song!" I tried several classical pieces. "Nooo. New song!" Then I put on the station with kids rock and roll. He was much happier and danced all over the place. I figured that meant we needed to listen to more classical pieces. So I make sure that we do that on our morning drive to the babysitter's house.

Tanner eating. I love watching him eat! He makes the cutest expressions. He has become an independent eater in the last month or so. He gets up into his high chair all by himself. As of this week, he now consistently eats all his meals at the table instead of with his tray. We sometimes still give him a bib, depending on what he's eating. He uses forks and spoons and eats his cereal without spilling. He keeps his food on his plate or in his bowl while he eats and if something falls off the plate or fork, he puts it back on! 

But, if he gets super frustrated, then we have some issues. "Frustrated" can mean he has been trying to get the food on his fork for a long time and it isn't working. Or it can mean he didn't want that food, or he thinks it's too hot, or he thinks he is done. If he gets "frustrated," then he will fling his plate across the room or dump all the food onto the table and spread it all over the place, followed by a tantrum.  When this happens, I try to give as little attention to him as I can, just quietly pick it all up. There's no point in feeding the fire. Usually, I realize that if I had just listened to him when he was in his early stage of frustration, I could have prevented the outburst.

He likes all types of food, there really isn't anything he doesn't eat. Some of Tanner's favorite foods are noodles with marinara sauce, pancakes, oatmeal and cereal, scrambled eggs, beans, chicken, rice, guacamole, hummus, string cheese, yogurt, applesauce, bananas, berries on his cereal, fresh cooked carrots, fresh fruit smoothies, grapes, pineapples, ANY of the fruit or vegetable squeezies, and cookies. He also eats tomatoes, cooked peppers and onions and squash, granola bars, sliced ham, fresh cooked fish (hates the frozen fish sticks), toast, any type of cracker, and ice cream. He can't digest raisins or nuts very well, but still eats them when I let him. 

Tanner doesn't chew a whole lot when he eats. He actually likes to take really big bites, chew a little and then swallow in gulps. Yikes! To get more veggies in him, I blend steamed or cooked green veggies in the blender and then add the mix to pancake batter, yogurt, hummus, and spaghetti sauces. It should also be noted that Tanner snacks a lot. He likes to eat about every 1.5-2 hours. Not a surprise, since that's how I roll, too!

On March 2, we decided we needed to make a trip to the temple. The Newport Beach Temple is only 15 minutes from our house, so we need to take better advantage of that! Our biggest excuse for not going there on a regular basis is because it's so hard to spend another day away from Tanner. I know that sounds silly to some people, but when you hardly see your son or your husband during the week days, your few week nights together (2 or 3 if we're lucky) and your week-ends become extremely precious time.

So to help with that, we came up with a solution. We would both go to the temple on a Saturday, but so that Tanner doesn't have to be ditched again, and so that neither of us have to go alone (which I have a very hard time with), we will all get dressed up together, go to the temple together and split up the time. Jeremy & Tanner dropped me off for my turn, and they stayed in the temple parking lot while Tanner slept in the car. Then, we switched. While Jeremy was in the temple, I took Tanner on a calm walk around Carona Del Mar. Then, we walked around the temple grounds and talked about the gospel until Jeremy was done. It turned out to be a perfect family event!

 On our walk around Carona Del Mar.

It was such a beautiful day!

Brace Face & Four Eyes

This is Jeremy. My sister calls me Brace Face now because I had to get braces in January. I've actually been wearing invisiline for about 3 years now. I originally got invisiline because I have this weird bite problem where my bottom teeth are digging into my top front teeth and have created these notches that are almost exposing the nerves. So my choice was to either get my teeth aligned correctly to keep the problem from getting worse, or I end up with lots more problems down the line. So I got invisiline because it was only supposed to be 6 months to a year. My orthodontist kept saying things were going right along as they should, but I got skeptical after the 2nd year. Then, they stopped making appointments with me. 

(Jeremy has braces in this picture)

After 3 months of not hearing from my ortho and not being able to call their office, I decided to look online to see if anyone else was having the same problem. Turns out the guy is a crook! A complete fraud. He took his Dad's name, who was a real orthodontist, and pretended to be one himself. All this time he duped me into thinking I was actually wearing Invisiline. Instead, he was making the molds himself. No wonder they hurt so much.

So I joined a class action lawsuit against him. I probably won't get any money from that since the guy has gone bankrupt and lost his house and everything. But it turns out that since I paid in full with my credit card, and I can prove that he didn't complete the job, our Discover account paid us back for everything we paid the fake ortho, so that's nice. 

Now I have a real orthodontist. He says that if I want to have my teeth move correctly, it's best to do it with real braces. So I got them on the next week. The first month was terrible because they put these cement risers on my back teeth so that I couldn't bite down all the way. Only two little places in the back of my mouth would actually touch when I tried chewing. This meant that I went about 4 weeks only eating soup, smoothies, yogurt, mashed potatoes and old people food like meatloaf. 

Luckily, I can bite down better now and eat more normal foods. It's still really annoying though because I constantly bite my lips. And food gets stuck in them all the time. And Tanner thinks it's really cool to smack me in the face so that the inside of my cheeks get smashed into my braces. I can't wait until he's 14 and has braces because then I can get some proper revenge.

Now it's SarahLynn writing. Jeremy is brace face, and I'm four eyes. I've actually had glasses and contacts since I was 18. But in Feb 2012, I lost my glasses and couldn't find them anywhere. I kept thinking they would show up, but no luck. I am near sighted, so it only becomes an inconvenience to not have glasses when I'm driving, going to the movies or looking at the view. So I let time go by without replacing them (and I don't wear contacts because they irritate my eyes).

In the summer, I had time to get new glasses, but it turned out I needed a new prescription. Of course, that took a few more months to do. Not because of the Dr. It was because of life just making it very difficult to actually go to an appointment. I think by August I had one, so in November we chose some glasses from Walmart. But then Jeremy realized that if we waited until January, our insurance would cover most of the costs. So in the end, I went an ENTIRE year without seeing anything far away.

The first day that I wore my new glasses, I was shocked at how much I was missing out on. There were at least four signs on my way to work that I literally noticed for the first time. I could see the shapes of the clouds in the sky. I could see the leaves individually on trees. I didn't have to squint to read the clock in my classroom. I could see the facial features on my students that sat in the back row. It was amazing! I'm so grateful for my glasses and I never want to go that long without seeing again.

Company!

 We did a Valentine's Babysitting swap with our friends, the Bendheims. They watched Tanner on a Saturday while we celebrated Valentines by eating at Cafe Rio and going to a comedy improv show in Irvine. Then, we watched their little guy on Monday while they went out.  

 The boys played ball, cars, trucks, more ball, puzzles and read books. It was really fun to watch them play together because they are only two months apart, so they are learning and doing lots of the same things. Tanner was really good about sharing all his balls, except the best one. He kept that tight in his arm the whole time!

For President's Weekend, my parents came to visit us! Tanner had a super fun time playing with his Papa and Nana.

 Jeremy and DadR went golfing Sat morning. MomR and I took Tanner to the beach. He wanted to jump off the huge steps by himself, but we had to help him. Once he got to the sand, he was enthralled by the guys playing volleyball. Then, he started walking around asking "Oh, no! Huh Dada? Huh Dada?" He was looking for Jeremy on the sand because the previous two times we had been at the beach, we went to meet Jeremy exercising with some friends from work. He expected to find Jeremy again, and was NOT happy that we were leaving without him!

 Here's me pregnant at 26 weeks! Mom and I went to the spa later that day and it was soooo nice to get a back massage. I also got my first ever professional pedicure! My pregnancy is going really well. Up until about 21 weeks, I often forgot that I was pregnant (mostly because of being so busy with work), but lately I am feeling much more pregnant. My ankles are starting to swell if I don't drink enough water, and I'm getting heart burn if I eat too much at one time (which is hard not to do because my appetite is huge!) I feel a lot slower this time around than I remember being with Tanner. So I just have to pace myself a little better. One thing I'm looking forward to with this birth is doing hypno-birthing! We should start our classes in the next week or two!!

Work

(Me with my Tan Man after a busy day of work)

So to be honest, the past month or so has been extremely difficult for me, mostly because of all the stresses with work. I directed a show in late January, and that was exhausting both physically and emotionally (being prego slows you down a bit!). It took me about 5 days to physically recover from the show. The hardest part was going a whole week of just seeing Tanner 1 or 2 hours during the day, and 2 days in a row without spending any quality time with him at all.

(Tanner waiting for Daddy to come home)

Directing shows is a big part of my job because the school wants me to do a separate performance for every grade level. I love doing the shows, but sometimes I wish that I could just focus more on actually teaching music instead of being a production manager. The shows are a pretty big deal and take a LOT of work - even for someone who is physically normal.

(Our home suffers from both of us working. I guess Tanner is getting sick of dirty laundry, too, because he has become very interested in picking clothes off the floor, shaking them out, and strategically putting them in a new place in the room).

Our plan has been that once baby #2 comes along, I will stay home full time for several years. Two main reasons influenced this decision. 1- I want to be with my children. 2- I won't make any money if I keep working. We figured out that with my current salary, after daycare costs, tithing, taxes, and gas fees for my commute it does not leave much left as a profit. It's just not worth it!

So that means that this is my last year teaching at this school and teaching in general for awhile. I thought I would be more sad about it, but I'm actually looking forward to it. I've been learning that God has His way of preparing you for what He wants you to do. And plus, the timing worked out so perfectly that I accomplished one of my goals- to teach full time at least one year longer than it took me to get my teaching degree. It took me 5 years to get my double major and I have been able to teach for 6 years straight since I got my degree. I did it!! Plus, this doesn't mean that I will never go back to teaching. If all goes well, I plan to get my Masters in Education, do more research in education, teach more and prepare for one of my biggest dreams- to open my own school.

 (Tanner attempting to play with his toy airplane after "doing" our laundry)

But I digress... back to being stressed. I have 5 more different shows to direct before my due date (May 15). One of the shows is actually the day before my due date. The administrators and I are trying to figure out how it will all work out.

 (These are Tanner's photo jobs!)

I've been learning a lot about myself and about life by going through this all- not just in the last month but basically ever since I've been a working mom. The good news is that when I turn to the Lord, things are always better. I got a blessing from our home teachers (Jeremy was out of town), and that helped a lot. Jeremy made a CD of audio scriptures for me to listen to during my commute and that has made a big difference, too. Also, when I'm feeling really down, I am singing more hymns or folk songs to myself  that I know will make me happy. And I've been trying to not focus on all the time I am missing with Tanner, just trying to make the most of the few hours of quality time I have with him each day.

Trip to the Desert

For MLKDay, we decided last minute to go on a little overnight trip. Sunday night, we drove to Palm Desert (just 2 hours away) and stayed in a nice hotel. We played in the hot tub, ate lots of snacks, watched TV and played Dominion! The next morning, we ate the continental breakfast, which was the best ever. You ordered your food at the bar and the cook made whatever you wanted- eggs, pancakes, sausage. Tanner was a wonderful little guest in the hotel. He loved exploring all the drawers and cupboards, organizing all the towels and pillows and emptying all the tissues and toilet papers. Best part- we didn't have to clean it up.

 After breakfast, we went to Palm Springs to ride the special tram up San Jacinto Mtn. That was way more interesting than I anticipated. The tram rotates while you stand in it so you get a 360 degree view of everything. And it was a long ride- 10 minutes!

As soon as we got to the top and walked outside, Tanner started saying "snow!" (okay it was more like hhnow!) We had never taught him this word, so we were pretty surprised. He was definitely pointing at snow and was really excited about it. The only thing I can figure is that he learned it from Baby Einstein. He had been watching the one about seasons recently.

 It was a gorgeous day in the mountains. The snow was pretty icy, so we sat Tanner on a little slope and he slid down on his bum. He loved it! So we did that for a little while.

 When he touched the snow the first time he said "Hot" (but it really sounds like "hos, hos").

 We explored the lodge and visitors center. Then headed back down the mountain to go play in the sand. "San! San!" was the word of the afternoon. 

 We spent the late afternoon and sunset at Joshua Tree National Park. It was like being on a different planet. Kind of like a world made by Dr. Seuss. Apparently, Dr Seuss got inspiration from this area when he wrote about the Lorax tree! We really enjoyed the atmosphere and wish we had more time to explore the area.

For dinner, we ate at a yummy Mexican restaurant. The highlight was the mariachi singer that serenaded us all night long. After that, we drove home and got in bed before 11:00 pm. It was the perfect family trip to take our minds off of the stresses of work and school.