Birthday Boy

I feel a bit guilty that this blog is coming 4 days late. Ooops!

This year has gone by much, much too quickly. It's hard to imagine to me that a year a go today I was sitting at home with my 4 day old baby boy. And right now he's walking around the living room attemtping to beat up my exercise ball! How did he get so big so fast??

We had a nice little party for him Tuesday evening. My inlaws and Nathan's grandparents came over and we enjoyed presents and cake. I don't have many pictures because I spent the time filming on the video camera or helping him open his gifts, but hopefully Nathan's step-grandpa will share the pictures with me he took. The gifts Gabe got were wonderful of course and he's in love with all of them.

Gabe didn't really enjoy the cake, but I'm not surprised. I enjoyed watching him hesitantly test it out anyway! Nathan finally thought it would be fun to shove Gabe's hands into the cake and see how he'd react. He wasn't super pleased and it resulted in him needing an immediate bath!

Gabe only a few minutes after he was born:


My big boy on his birthday:


Motherhood is quite different than I thought it would be. I knew of course that I would love my child. But I never understood what the depth of my love for him would be. It's been a wild ride this year, and I'm looking forward to doing it all over again!

Nook!

Today I had quite a surprise when my husband came home from work. He had to drive out to Tigard today for work, and he told me when he was driving home that he'd gotten me a gift. Now when I thought gift, I was thinking flowers or perhaps a box of my favorite Tim Tams or some random baby item. Instead I about fell over when he handed me a Nook.

I was, at a time, totally against e-readers. I heard of the kindle and was just not impressed. To me, I felt books should always be read on paper. I didn't like this new idea of turning a book into something similar to an ipod or a small laptop. I also was under the assumption that it would be similar to reading a book on a laptop - something I have done and do not enjoy. After awhile it really starts to hurt my eyes.

Once I had Gabe though, I started to really see the advantages of an e-reader. I honestly haven't read much since he's been born. I'm too busy and by the time I get a moment to myself, I'm usually falling into bed out of exhaustion. It was simply not practical to hold Gabe while holding a book at the same time. So my books have been collecting dust on my shelves. And admittedly, some of my borrowed books are gathering dust too (really must return them...). I started thinking recently how much easier it would be to have an e-reader that I could just carry around the house with me. Something I could hold in one hand while also holding a child. Not to mention I'm running out of room to store books. I still wasn't totally sold, but was thinking of it. Then whem mammagriffith got one and I saw it I was definitely in love with it. I like the digital ink screen the absolute best. No eye strain! I have all ready started to pour into one of the free classics provided with the nook - Little Women.

I'm still in awe that Nathan even thought to get me the nook. He knew I wanted one, but I didn't imagine us purchasing it anytime soon. It was very sweet of him. He told me I deserved something nice for myself. Yes, I almost started tearing up.