Mother's Day

There are two types of people in the world: those who hate Mother's Day, and those who love it. I love Mother's Day. Especially now that I'm a mom. It's a great opportunity for me to evaluate where I'm at and where I want to be as a mom. A reminder that all the little everyday stuff adds up and really matters. A chance to reflect upon the great examples of motherhood that I have been blessed to be surrounded by my whole life. It's just a great day!
This Mother's Day was especially cool for me. I started the day out with a beautiful early morning stroll with Rudy while I listened to talks from the last session of Conference on my new TOTALLY FREE iPod. It was marvelous, invigorating, and inspiring. When I came home, I found a note dangling from the stairwell at eye level that said:"Maria, I love you so much that I don't think I can count the ways...but I can list them alphabetically." Going up the stairs, to our door, and throughout the house were 3x5's with all the letters of the alphabet on them, a word to correspond with each letter, and an explanation of how that word describes the things that Jason loves about me. My heart was all a flutter. :) I'm going to put all the little cards in my journal, so that I can read them when ever I have one of those "I'm the biggest loser in the world" days. I'll also list the words here, so that I can remember them in our family history too. :) So, here's me alphabetically, according to Jason:
Amazing, Brilliant, Crazy love (one of "our" songs), Delicious, Extraordinary, Fantastic, Generous, Humble, Inspiring, Jubilant, Kind, Lovable, Mama, Nurturing, Original, Patient, Queenly, Reverent, Splendiferous, Tenacious, Unique, Vibrant, Wife, XOXO, Yummy, and Zippy.
Anyway, maybe it seems cheesy to some of you, but this is right up my alley when it comes to romantic expressions of love. :) I melted. After great church meetings, Rudy actually took a nap (Wahoo!) and then we went to Jason's parents' house for dinner. Rudy and I spent the night so that Jason and I could stay up talking and playing games with Mom and Dad. Like I said, it was a great day.

Mama!

Yesterday, Rudy finally said Mama, clear as a bell, in context. He's repeated it a few times since, though it's definitely not a key word in his vocab right now. No matter-it's cool enough to just have heard my little boy call my name. I've been pining for the day that little ones would call me Mama for what seems like FOREVER. So, yeah, though it doesn't really change a thing, it was a treat to hear Rudy's sweet little voice addressing me directly. I'm counting it as his Mother's Day gift to me. I don't know if he'll ever be able to top it. :)

Hooray for Hand-Me-Downs!

Lauren, my friend and neighbor, dropped off three gigantic bags of hand-me-downs from her new step-brother. Rudy loved sorting through all the stuff with us, and insisted on putting a few things on. Here he is with a pair of footsie jammies half on, and two different shoes on his feet. I think he really felt cool in his 'new' clothes. And about that dreamy far away look on Jason's face: I don't know, but maybe he was thinking of all the money we were saving as Rudy's clothes pile got bigger and bigger. :)

The Great Coupon Crusade!

So, I have a bit of a conflict going on in myself. Here I am, trying to save the world by cloth diapering, and I've just signed up to receive THREE Sunday newspapers. Do you know how fat the Sunday paper is?! It's GIANT-and I have three of these suckers arriving at my door every Sunday. Hmmm. What's goin' through that tree huggin' mama's head? I'll tell you:
MONEY. Saving it. Feeding my family and having some dough left over to put away for a rainy day. Or a down payment. Or both. :) Besides, I'm cloth diapering first and foremost for economic, not environmental reasons, and I recycle all my paper anyway, so the whole 20 lbs of newsprint every week thing is not so far off my true priorities. :) Let me explain why I've got half a tree coming to me each week:
I've just been introduced to the coolest coupon organizing, list making, deal digging technique ever: http://www.grocerysmarts.com/. It combines manufacturer's coupons from the local Sunday paper with specials at local grocery stores to come up with stellar savings. And it's super easy and quick to use. Hooray! I'm diving in with three papers to maximize my savings. I'm planning on giving this a shot for 3 months or so, and then deciding if I want to continue. I've heard from a few people (besides the chick who was promoting it) that it's been really great for them. And the best part of it all is that the entire service is FREE. I only have to pay 12 bucks a month to have the 3 Sunday papers delivered. If I really like this, then I think I'll go super stingy and see if I can bum the coupons off neighbors who don't use them, and thus save myself the 12 bucks and the weekly trips to the recycling bin. :) Wish me luck!

Jason and Rudy beginning the great Sunday comics reading tradition. I used to read the comics with my dad. It was so cute to see these two at it. :)

I'm in Love!

Dear Jason and Rudy,

At this point in my life, you two are just about my whole world, and I'm glad. It's a beautiful world to live in. I love you both. Thanks for hanging around with me!

Love,

Maria Mama :)

Rudy's Got New Shoes!

We bought Rudy some summer shoes yesterday. I put them on him right after we bought them, just for the fun of it. I remember how cool it was to have new shoes as a little kid. We used to believe we could run faster and jump higher than ever before in our new kicks. Thinking Rudy wouldn't really care about his new possessions, I was just celebrating my own childhood memories as I popped his new shoes right on his feet and sang the new shoes song that Jason's mom used to sing to him. "Rudy's got new shoes, new shoes, new shoes, Rudy's got new shoes on today!"
Well, turns out Rudy was totally enamored by his new shoes. This morning, the first thing he did was find his new shoes and bring them to Jason to help him get them on. And after that, it was all about looking at his shoes. Here's a couple shots of Rudy's stealing a glance at his ultra cool shoes. Hopefully he'll get more discrete as he grows...some people might think him vain, should he keep up these self admiration habits. :)

Bruce, the fish formerly known as Fred

Well, after some time to re-coop from her harrowing stay in a tiny plastic cup at the pet shop, Fred's fins really fleshed out, and it became quite apparent that Fred (short for Winnifred), was no female at all. She, it turns out, is a half moon male Betta. Which means, I got a $14.00 fish for $2.50! And it means I needed to change his name, even if Fred is technically a boy name. It was just weird calling him his old 'girl' name. So, we changed it to Bruce, because Bruce seems like an ultra manly name to me, and because the dude that is Bruce the shark's voice in Finding Nemo is famous for a transvestite character he did in the 80's named Dame Edna. So, there you have it. Fred's arrival to manhood is complete, and she (he) shall from hence forth be known as Bruce. :)