The Garden Tour | The Beginning

Hello!

I am finally ready to give you the story of our garden. I say “our” because even though I didn’t do the actual tilling, planting and pull vegetables off the stocks, I am still very much a part of the whole thing. I haven’t had much say on the entire thing, but I thought talking about it on here will bring me closer to each of the sections.

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Since we’ve been in this house and after getting our dog Rumer’s fenced yard earlier this year, my folks have been itching to make the front as pretty as possible. We’ve been in this house four years and my mom has had array of hanging flowers on the side deck and eventually the front entrance, but they took the landscaping up a notch once we started to experience spring weather. There were a few times in those early days where the majority of the plants had to go into my dad’s garage for a night or two, so they didn’t develop any frost on their leaves.

The very first thing my parents bought for the garden was a nod to me, as I had found them on Facebook one day and shared it to my mom and she seemed to like them as they arrived a week later. They are sunflower solar lights. They do not need any batteries nor water but just straight sun to shine bright over the space. Originally, they were going to be in the back deck where I love to spend time hanging out with the cats and reading one of my books, but then my mom wanted some as well. I tried to split them up evenly since it came with 8 sunflowers, but dad ended up scarping that idea as a whole and now we have the majority in the front yard and three are in the back yard.

The sunflowers are in great company to the real flowers along the fence. As you can see from this photo, we have the lights on the inside of the fence while we have a row of plants on the other side, this is actually an almond bush, it was a small section trimmed off the other bush at my nana and papaw’s house. My nana has a section up north and now we have one for our yard.

All of the plants are non-toxic to Rumer so if she does decide to tear into them, she shouldn’t get too sick by them. We’ve had the front part done for five months and she ignores them so that’s great! For the most part, all of our flowers and vegetables are non-toxic to both Rumer and the cats; the cats have hardly made a dent in our gardens. We’ve caught Grumpy, Midge, and Nelson asleep in the big garden in the backyard but they don’t really care about any of the new landscaping, which has really surprised us in the last month or so!

In the front, we have had array of various flowers line up along the fence like the tulips. My parents were really into the tulips, but they were the first to die once we got started with everything. We had orange, pink, and purple tulips and they were so beautiful, but they didn’t really flourish like we thought they would, but by the time we got them it was the end of March, and we were experiencing frosts in the mornings, but we were able to save the hostas and rose bushes they bought throughout March to late April. It was not a good idea to allow my dad to go to Wal-Mart or Menards because he would come home with more plants, especially rose bushes and peppers!

There is a ruse bush closest to the sunflower patch, I will talk more about them in my next post, which was looking really bad at the store and my dad felt kind of sorry for it like Charlie Brown does at the little real tree in Charlie Brown Christmas special. According to them, they left Menards and went around Wal-Mart, but he kept thinking about that sad bush and they literally went back to grab and take it home. Thankfully they did this because it’s been flourishing since the start of April. It is huge! I can see perfectly from the front door and it’s a nice reddish-pink color too! We’re all happy he was able to save it from its humble beginnings and see it evolve over time in the rich soil. If you are really curious, this rose bush is on the left side on the first collage.

While my dad worked mainly in the fence line, my mom focused her attention to the porch. She has had some type of flowers either hanging from the rails of the side deck or on the front steps. We love to make that space in the front somewhat decorated for all seasons!

And since we’ve had a proper porch, she seemed to step up her game with arranging even more flowers around every surface, and we’ve had petunias of various colors like pinks and purples, but she added a couple of different daisies this year, and one of which has become a sort of favorite for me as it has a yellow hue on the outside with a deep purple in the middle; none of us had ever seen this one before but I hope it’ll become a seasonal stable for us.

We also have two cubes at the bottom of the stairs, and there are a bunch of zinnias and another flower we haven’t had before, but they’re called purple waves and whenever I go up next to the screen door I can’t quite see them because of how dad and our family friend built the actual steps and small patio last year, but I’ve learned to live with it as long as they add pretty elements to this part of our home.

Unfortunately, a lot of flowers we planted in the spring are dead, but my parents really enjoy their flowers so as the weather turns, we grabbed others that would relish in the sunlight. The rose bushes are still going strong, but we did replace the tulips with yellow marigolds. The best way to describe what they look like are dandelions when they become bright yellow, but they have more petals, they look like those 80’s or 90’s toy balls with those silky-soft hairs. I hope you understand what I’m saying, because that’s all I have at the moment.

We have a group of marigolds next to the legendary rose bush and it wasn’t supposed to be, but I think of it as a nice nod to my great-great-great Aunt Mary and her husband Gen, short for General in fact! I’ve talked about them a few years ago, my nana and I found a file of letters and photos that were supposed to be put with Mary when she died, but they never were, and everybody has always talked about their love of roses. Apparently, Gen was obsessed with them, they had all kinds and bred different ones, and in one of the letters we found, his pet name for his wife was Marigold, which is so, so sweet! It does make me sad we weren’t able to give her back the file in the end, but it is a nice memory to have for newer generations.

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I’ve been reading the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder on Spotify, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about how they did back on the wild frontier, and even my mom has said things that would make Charles Ingalls very happy too! We had a storm back in early June that was semi violent and shook our tomato and cucumber plants to the point they were bent a little and she said, “I now understand what Pa Ingalls went through when it hailed and destroyed their field.” Thankfully, we didn’t lose anything, and they felt a lot better than while they watched the wind mess with the larger plants.

So, that’s all I can say about the front part of our house and when I come back with my second post, it will be about the side yard and I’ll be talking about how my folks decided to dig further on the eastern side of our property and tell you more about the process of our sunflowers, and if you know me well enough, you know how excited I am to chat about them. And if you’re wondering if they have names like my indoor plants, they do! I also share our first experience of canning the large cucumber harvests we’ve had lately! So, I really hope you have enjoyed reading this first section and continue learning about little homesteading journey.

What kind of landscaping have you done to your home? For those who live in apartments, what are some of your future ideas to create your own garden? What are your favorite flowers/plants?

Meet Our New Puppy!

Hello!

This year has been a little bittersweet for my family as in late March, we lost our beloved dog ChiChi, three days before we left to visit some family up north. For those of you who never had a chance to meet ChiChi, she was a feisty little thing! She barked at literally everything, people, dogs, the cats, and even poor Nolan… We were happy that she had turned her tune of him in the last two months before her passing, but if he was outside and she was sunbathing in front of the screen door she would bark and bark at him for trespassing on her property.

Her death was hard on all of us, but it probably affected my dad the most as they were best buds, although I clearly remember him almost keeping her away from him when we first brought her home. I remember coming home from school and hearing my mom tell me about how they went to Walmart and dad was so worried about her getting stuck in the couch and being like that for a couple of hours, so they ended up taking her with them. Apparently she was stuffed inside mom’s purse because at that time she had a big purse and she told me, it was like Bruiser bobbing his head out of Elle’s bag at the end of Legally Blonde, she was so alert and curious of everything, but this was also before she learned how to be a guard dog too!

When my mom goes to work, it was just the three of us. Dad, ChiChi and I hanging out and fighting against sleeping the whole afternoon. ChiChi would sleep a lot. She was as bad as the cats sometimes! However, when she was awake, dad would cuddle and play with her, until he would venture outside and it was just me and the dog. Once he would leave, it was hard to resist making her sing while inside her blankets in the living room. She loved to howl (sing) to the theme songs of Cops, The Golden Girls, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the operatic J.G. Wentworth commercial. After she died, I have heard that commercial five times and my parents do not watch Cops anymore because that was one of her absolute favorites!

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Since she’s been gone, we’ve had three chances to get a new dog.

I think the main reason why it took so long was because my dad was very committed to the possibility whereas my mom wasn’t feeling the idea at all. I actually remained pretty neutral about it. I understood why dad wanted another dog but also get my mom’s reasons behind it too. I tried my best to talk them into letting my cat Stormy inside instead but neither one thought it was a good idea since he sheds quite a bit and he has never spent a lot of time indoors either.

It wasn’t until late July that my folks were on the same wavelength and decided to search for another dog. They were mainly searching into German Shepherds since they are mom’s favorite breed. I wanted another pittie and I almost got dad to follow along with me until they stumbled upon a couple of Belgian Milionis puppies. They are one of my dad’s favorite breeds, and I think what got his attention is that the guy who was saling them was a police officer or something like that and the father of the pups was his K-9. The guy was also looking for $800 but got him to go down on the price by half and that’s how we ended up with Rumer.

She was born around Memorial Day weekend so she is around 13 weeks (I think) by the time this post goes out, and she has finished with her final shot, and I’m happy to say as the vet was not ChiChi’s favorite person, Rumor loved him! Technically, dad and I spell her name with a “U” instead of an “E” so don’t be surprised if you see some mistakes on here and my social medias!

One of the things that the breeder told my parents was she likes to bite feet… And for the record, she does in fact enjoy this hobby, but the only time she bites me is whenever I try to play with her. For the most part, she would rather lick my feet instead and we are very grateful for it. She is actually incredibly adorable and is already showing off how she will protect you or me in this case. If you want to get close to me, you have to get through her first. She doesn’t quite know the deal about my wheelchair, much less how I go to the bathroom. If dad is helping me, she barks at us. I think she thinks I’m hurting him because she is ALWAYS around dad, but when mom takes me, she barks at her.

She has figured out how to jump into my bed, but not the couch, and I’m sure dad is hoping that day comes soon because she continues to eat like our cats, which is all the time. Speaking of the cats, her welcoming present from Bootsie was a big wack on the head when she went over to sniff at her. Two days later Grumpy got ahold of her as they walking outside for a bathroom break. Rumor is very curious of our cats though, and thanks to our back deck, they are able to see each other and watch the other’s movements. According to my mom, Felix did let her smell him the other day without any attacks so there is hope that maybe some will become friends with her one day.

Lastly, we kept ChiChi’s bed (although she mostly used it as a toy box than a bed!) and since she’s still small, she fits perfectly in it. Unfortunately, she’s ripped a hole in it and now she only has her blanket to lay on but I think she’s better with it, everytime she gets a toy or dental bone she’ll put everything on the blanket. My parents purchased a medium size cage for her and that’s where her food bowl is located but she hates being in it obviously. The other day Nolan came over and we had to put her in it and she actually did better than she had earlier this month.

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When you have lost a family pet, how long did you wait until you brought home another animal? Are you familiar with the breed: Belgian Milionis? Do you have any advice on training or anything else for my family? Please share down in the comments.

Blogmas | The Christmas Day Tag!

Howdy!

I think every Blogmas I’ve done, I always have some kind of Christmas tag in the lineup. I’ve never planned on any of them, by the time the season rolls around, they just appear at the right time, so I just end up doing them anyways!

I found this one while on Twitter. A fellow blogger Nina posted her link through the many retweet accounts and it came up on my newsfeed. When I first read it, I quickly realized that I hadn’t done it before and that it was all about what goes on Christmas day. I thought it would be fun to kind of guess what’ll happen that day a few weeks in advance, and maybe I’ll find out everything I said in my answers was right. Sometimes I like placing bets on myself, keeps things entertaining on those boring gloomy days!

It is a tag, but I am opening it up to anyone who wants to do it. If you end up answering the questions below, I would like to read your posts! So, please link it back to me at the end, okay? Have fun!

What time do you wake up?

It varies with every year honestly, but it is always very early! I’m not saying we get up at like three or four in the morning–when I was little, my sister and I tried to make this happen on more than one occasion; it actually happened once, we were proud of ourselves!–but we tend to get up around sevenish. When my grandparents lived in town, this was our usual schedule: wake up at 7am, play for 10 minutes and then rush to get ready to go to nana and papaw’s by 8am. This might be the way, Blondie and Brandon do it this year, but I could be wrong.

Where will you be spending the day?

So, since we no longer go to my grandparent’s house, it’ll just be my immediate family gathering at our new house! I am actually really excited to celebrate it here, we were jipped last year but we want to make up for it.

What will you be wearing?

I have a really cute pajama set, they are white with little Cardinals sitting on tiny branches and red leaves. It is made of velvet, so they are comfy and warm – perfect for Christmas I think!

What games will you be playing?

We don’t really play any games, at least not with my parents. Nolan will probably play with his cars for the “short” time before we unwrap presents. I don’t think my parents, mainly my dad, to have my little nephew wait even five minutes to dig into the gifts under the tree! He’s always been awful about that, but he has turned into a big softie when it comes to him.

What will you be eating and drinking?

So, during Thanksgiving, my mom is the one that tends to do the bulk of the cooking but dad is in charge of the turkey and gravy. However, when it comes to Christmas, this is where he tends to shine the most. He loves making big Christmas breakfasts.

We usually have any way you take your eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, sausage and cinnamon rolls. Sometimes he makes me breakfast burritos or quesadilla, but if he doesn’t, my go-to is the potatoes with ketchup, plus two or three cinnamon rolls for good measure!

As far as beverages go, we never have anything fancy. Nolan will probably drink apple juice and the rest of us will have milk, which seems like the perfect breakfast to me.

What will you be watching?

Okay, since dad gets up pretty early to cook everything, he usually takes over the remote and turns it to TBS for the 24 hour broadcast of “A Christmas Story”. Here’s the funny thing about that, I haven’t watched it all the way through since I was in middle school!

Now, after all of the festivities die down a bit, I have a full afternoon of NBA basketball games. I like to think it’s a Christmas gift to myself because it’s usually all of the teams I normally watch during the season playing on that day. Last year, I only missed one game, because I was so exhausted and because the Lakers were having an awful bout of games, I figured I wasn’t going to miss much and I think I was right too. I might end up recording them all and watch at my own time, but who knows!

What do you hope to find under the tree on Christmas Day?

You’re allowed to laugh at this answer, but I haven’t really asked for much this year. My mom said she has gotten me something that will be signed “From Santa Claus” on Christmas day, but the only thing I really hope to see is a giant pillow.

I sleep with three pillows at the moment! I have my childhood pillow down at the bottom because I can’t get rid of it for the life of me, plus two extra ones I’ve had to include because of my neck. So, I am hoping for one, hard, giant pillow to solve all of my problems.

Who will you be spending day with?

I am spending the day with my parents, Blondie, Brandon, Nolan and our dog ChiChi (and yes, she has a stocking and is getting her own gifts!). I feel like it could be chaotic because of the excitement in general, but since Nolan is walking now, we can’t just place him in his high chair and have him unwrap his presents there. I have a feeling, he’ll be attempting to help everyone with their gifts!

When will you be opening your presents?

It’ll depend on whether or not we eat breakfast first, but like I said, I don’t think it’ll take my nephew long to convince papaw that we need to do this first, but you never know – although when it comes to these two, I’m hardly ever wrong!

Blogmas | Bad Kitty (writing prompt)

Howdy!

I was really in the mood to write some holiday inspired stories this year as my original idea of double the amount of Christmas albums didn’t exactly pan out, so I thought maybe this would be a better option for myself!

I found this prompt on Pinterest, and the site where you can visit to see more is Holloway’s Hideaway. As a cat owner, I thought this was just the perfect prompt for me to do. Although I have to say, none of our cats (including Oliver) are never inside long enough to take an interest in the actual fully decorated Christmas tree. My sister and brother-in-law’s cats are another story, they came home one night to find that somebody might’ve been stuck some place and managed to take the lower half of the tinsel off the tree entirely as there was a long strand lying across the floor.

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They watched endlessly as the family cat began the assault on the newly decorated Christmas tree.

We start our story in a family home out in the country, the closet town is about 15 miles so the people that normally live in the house, don’t get very many distributions unless it’s grunting noises from the cows getting comfortable outside in the stable. Other than that, it’s relativity peaceful.

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and the family has their daughter Karri and her children staying over for the festive time. Bob, the patriarch of the household is the last to go to bed but first he silently checks up on everybody in the guest rooms to see them queityly dreaming away in their beds. He notices that the family cat Bozo has made himself a nice little bed in between his daughter’s legs, which made him smile because he knows how much Bozo misses the family being around the house constantly. After overseeing the rooms, he slowly makes his way into his own bedroom to fall asleep before the real fun begins.

Unfortunately, he made a bad mistake by leaving the bedroom door of Karri’s room slightly open. Bozo wasn’t necessarily getting a good night’s sleep with his former buddy, he was getting popped on the head and at the last, she rolled over both of her legs together in a tight squeeze that caused the cat to snap and start growling at her. At this time, Karri was in and out of consciousness and heard a growl coming from below her legs. She turned around halfway to see a furious cat missing half of its tail. She began to look around the headboard in case there was a bug of some sort and he was warning her about it, but nope. As soon as she made the turnaround, her legs spread apart and the cat took off running out of the room!

Bozo got the entrance of the living room before stopping to lick himself at the tail to make sure everything wasn’t damaged or worse fluffed up more than usual. He thought about trying out the kid’s room but figured that was a death trap waiting to happen, so he decided to stay out of those rooms completely.

Since it would be Christmas tomorrow, the children talked their grandparents to leave the twinkle lights on so that Santa would be see them from the patio doors. Bozo was over nine years old, he’s been around Christmas trees before but for the first time ever, the lights were enchanting to him. They were almost like a siren calling out to him, and once he saw them, he immediately was put into a trance-like state and began to sniff the pines and ornaments from both the past and present. The smells were intoxicating for the old cat, he suddenly lost control of his body and got up on his hind legs and started to pick at the wires of the lights and fluffy strand of tinsel that surrounded the tree from top to bottom.

What puzzled Bozo was the fact that he wasn’t interested in the nativity scene that was about two inches from his back paws. He has a history with rubbing up against them that would result in knocking one or two down but for once he turned his attention to the actual tree itself.

Despite being colorblind he quickly figured out the lights were three wires fused together to create a small but strong band. When he was a kitten, Bob’s children used to feed little Bozo small bites of Twizzlers’ so he mesmerized that twisty pattern and just assumed this was a special treat all around the Christmas tree. He began to chew on the cords and with his sharp teeth made some tiny puncture marks along the bright lights. He wasn’t very interested in the lights themselves, as they were slightly warm on the roof of his mouth, the wires were cool to the touch so there wasn’t anything to worry for that.

Once he realized that he wasn’t able to swallow anything with each bite, he decided to walk around on his back legs to the other side but still the same result happened. Bozo grew frustrated, he hated to be teased with his food, especially his treats so then he became radical with his decision to sit back up and lick the sides of his mouth, all the while still looking up at the tree, contemplating a good spot to try next and he latched onto a spot directly in the middle of the tree, where all of the glass and memorable baubles were placed.

Once finding his prey, he took a couple of steps back from his original position and crouched down to the floor, never breaking contact with his special spot. He was ready and used all of his energy to leap across the room to land at the wrong spot and he realized how bad he calculated his misfortune and when he went to climb the rest of the way, the hook of an ornament stab him in the padding of his right back paw and he let out a high-pitched meow, suddenly spooked he jumped off of the tree for good but not without it falling down with him.

He landed at the corner of the tree so when it fell in front of him, he wasn’t injured by it too much. There were small droplets of blood that came off the bottom of his paw but all the floor contained was a dark green mess with golden-sparkled tinsel and rainbow colored lights that were slightly dimmed as the plug was almost out of its socket in the wall. There was also shattered glass on and underneath the disgraced tree. Bozo was stunned as he just stood in front of him. The puzzled look on his face continued as the family, who were awaken by the sheer thud and glass breaking, ran into the room with their mouths open wide looking at both the mess and the unsuspecting cat at the side.

So what did you think of this? Tell me a story about your cat (or dog) ruining something very beloved to you? How do you keep your animals away from the Christmas decorations in your home?

Nolan Update

Howdy!

Before I officially begin with this post, I thought I would mention to everybody reading this, to not steal my pictures used below! They’re not yours and if you want to ruin my generosity to freely show him off on here, you will ignore the urge to take the photos! Thank you.

It’s been a long time since I talked about my nephew, the only post I’ve managed to publish is his birth announcement back in July! It doesn’t really seem that long age since that day, but it has! I constantly fight with my parents (and sometimes my grandparents) to stop calling me a “baby” when I’m clearly not one anymore, but I get why they never stopped calling me that because now I’m saying it about him! We all call him “our baby”, which really ticks off my sister and she’ll tell you right off that he’s not ours, he is her baby!

So, knowing I have about four months to get you updated with what’s been going on has been a little daunting for me, because there has been lots of things happening, but let’s start at the beginning, okay?

1st Month:

I have to say, my sister and brother-in-law have been doing a very good job at raising him, since neither one have really been around a baby before. Blondie had never held a newborn before Nolan, so this has been a totally new thing for her, but I think she really loves it! Brandon has really young cousins in his family, but I doubt he’s been up and down throughout day and night because of a crying baby before this!

Unfortunately, my sister gave up on breastfeeding him in the early part of July, because she honestly didn’t feel comfortable and was always worried she wasn’t producing enough milk for him. She really didn’t want to give up and felt extremely guilty but I think she felt better giving him formula and knowing he actually eating well. Although when he is hungry, in the way he cries (and screams) he expects that bottle to be there immediately, and it doesn’t matter who’s around him at the time. There’s only so much I can do to console the little guy, but I did figure out he likes to have his head rubbed, there’s only a 50/50 chance it’ll work but hey, at least I try!

The animals are really great with him. Chipper is very curious and protective of his little brother. The cats are interested in him too, they want to be around and even try to touch him. There’s a cute video of their gray and white cat Gru attempting to pet him on the head and he’s being incredibly gentle, it’s so cute! Blondie and Brandon try to keep them at a small distance so neither one hurt each other by accident.

During the first month Nolan was here, we (my parents and I) were basically fighting to be the first ones to have him when they came down. I always felt that my time with him was short and somewhat shared with other people who came to check on the two of us, but after a while I grew out of that because as he grew and created more facial expressions, there would be someone else to bring out that smile of him. I wouldn’t get him to be happy like that as easily, but we quickly figured out what he really enjoyed while being with me. My bed.

When he was real little, and it was time to switch and let him have some Aunt Meggie time, everybody would put him out on the right side of my bed where I have two layers of velvet blankets and if he wouldn’t roll over on his side on his own, somebody else would, so I could see his little face. He loved being so close to me, and frankly I loved getting baby hugs and giving him kisses on the top of the head too. Everytime they’d bring him and I cuddled up to him in my blanket, I’d talk about all of the animals in the world, plus superheros and the Transformers, and eventually he went to sleep. Sometimes when he’s a bit fussy I’ll sing to him a made up lullaby for him that he just loves and my dad thinks is adorable too!

I think we were shocked to see how fast he started to really discover emotions. We don’t think he was trying to make faces at us, but there were expressions he’d make during that first month that would make great pictures and videos. At this point, they were trying a lot of things to keep him entertained and one of the things he kind of fell in love with was the movie Moana. He just loves the music and would get excited at different scenes and songs. This movie is about the only thing he’ll calm down to, and I think they started it was when they introduced tummy time to him. He was always fussy in the beginning and then he’d hear a familiar song and his mood would change instantly.

2nd Month:

Despite the fact that he was constantly teething (and still is!) August was interesting because he slowly showed how smart he is, the first thing being how he managed to talk or in this case “sing the music of his people” (cry) his way onto Blondie’s chest day and night. He also loves Snapchat filters, and I know that’s weird to say out loud but this kid loves seeing himself on the screen in different scenarios, like one of his favorites is the “Dog” filter that allows you to have a fake tongue of a dog stick out with the nose and ears. Well, he had finally figured out how to get his tongue out, he’d do it instead! Everytime she told him to open his mouth, he’d stick out his tongue!

One last thing he learned to do was keep his head up on his own. Shockingly, he was already trying this out probably three days after the little dude was born! He was an overachiever as he was rolling around at that time too! Whenever he was doing tummy time, they’d put him up on his small pillow so he had some help leaning up on his arms, but he was still bobbing his head some days, for the most part he’d nod at you and look around the room. I think he really loves tummy time, well maybe for the most part!

3rd Month:

So, this past month has been fairly normal, except for the fact that everybody had been showing signs of allergies and/or sickness, and we having to be really careful with Nolan as we don’t want him to get anything either. No kissing on the cheeks, only on his little hairy head and everybody’s been washing their hands plus using hand sanitizer if they want to hold the kid. I know it’s for his own good so I’m not too bothered with it!

Nolan really likes books now! My mom and I each bought him a book after a visit to Walmart earlier in the month, and we got him a baby book that he can hold in his little hands and put into his mouth to chew on, but it’s a mini fabric number book, that has different animals of the pages. He really loves it! The book I got him is a baby touch and feel type of book, it’s about Baby Animals and on each page has a small portion that a child can touch to feel the various textures whether they’re soft or rough on their skin. I showed it to him while he was in his vibrating chair at the foot of my bed, and he just stared at it as I propped it up on the side. I desperately tried not to drop it while I was attempting to turn the pages in the process. He was so calm and seemed to be really happy too!

He has recently learned how to “talk” now! So far he’s favorite word is “nuh uh” and it’s freaking adorable! I swear I even hear him say “mama” every once in a while, but he hasn’t said it on command yet. The day he does say “mama” or “dada” is when we’ll all start crying for joy! He is a storyteller himself, even if you can’t understand him yet. It’s so cute on how he’ll be very quiet and take a big sigh before start talking to you. He seems to love it when papaw (my dad) threatens to ground his mommy, I mean literally, the kid has the biggest smile on his face everytime he tells him that.

I mentioned in the beginning that whenever he is in my room, he is laying out on my bed? Well, by the middle of August, it was too difficult to see his face without him rolling over to where I can’t move him back without feeling like I could hurt him, so I started sitting up with him and now I can really talk to him and if he wanted to, he could watch TV since we usually try to prop him up a bit so he’s not lying flat on the bed. He loves to watch both Tom & Jerry, Paw Patrol, and Bubble Guppies. Whenever the last show is on, I like to say “bubble-bubble-bubble guppies” at a very fast pace which usually makes him laugh at me. We discuss the animals and what they’re doing, and everytime  they have music on, I try to get him to dance or wiggle, he likes to watch me wiggle than do it himself, but I don’t care. I like keeping him entertained!

Recently he experienced a “leap” where he has a growth spurt and gets very curious (apparently more than he already is!) of his surroundings, and I’ve noticed that he’s been watching my arms a lot lately. It’s incredibly tough to explain to a child that small what a disability is; he loves to kick and feel my right hand since it’s lower than my left, but one day when Blondie had a hold of him, he just stared at my hands. He doesn’t really understand why my hand can’t grab him like everybody else’s, but instead of frowning at the Tarzan like movement I do when around him, he smiles his head off. He’s a curious baby that’s for sure!

4th Month:

Since it’s the start of a new month and the fact that he doesn’t really turn four months old until next weekend, I think it would be kind of silly to really discuss his accomplishments for October! I’m sure he’ll do a lot though. One thing that I keep telling him is how long it is until basketball season, because he’s finally big enough to fit in his little Butler Bulldogs onesie! The weird thing about it was my mom also put me in my Butler shirt without knowing he was wearing his too! Of course, the picture was so adorable as he gave a slight smile behind his chubby little hands.

I do want to end this with an interesting fact about Nolan. When he was born, my sister noticed something about his feet, one both feet his index and middle toes were webbed together. The nurses and his doctor told him that was common with premature babies. Nolan was supposed to be born on July 2nd, but he came on the second week of June instead, so he is considered a premature baby. Everybody has told them that it should fix itself in time but it doesn’t and he’s not able to walk, then they’ll worry about it. So far, nobody in either family has any feet defects, but one of my fellow Arthrogryposis made the point that it could be an effect by AMC itself, but we’re really not sure about it. I think it just makes me him unique, but I still hope he will be able to walk nonetheless!

I think I’ll wait to do my next post probably before NYE, so I can get his Halloween costume and what he wears (and eats, as he’ll be starting on solid foods soon!) for both Thanksgiving and Christmas! I also have another baby post coming as my cousin Kristi recently had her new baby a few weeks ago, so I’ll try to have that name reveal and update on them soon!

So did you enjoy this little update about my nephew? Do you think I should continue these types of posts or not?