It's Finally Fall!

     It's finally my second favorite season of the year: Fall! I love everything about fall, namely the fact that they start making just about everything pumpkin flavored. I just found some pumpkin marshmallows the other day and I have one word to describe them: Yum! From pumpkin shakes to pumpkin beer there is nothing I won't try if you flavor it with pumpkin. There is something I love more than pumpkin ice cream though and that is the cooler weather. I love to be outside...but I hate to sweat more than a polar bear in Ecuador. I love having the doors open and feeling the cool breeze flow through the house spreading the scent of my pumpkin (can you tell I like pumpkin stuff yet?) candle. Yes, I love the fall season and I really wish we lived somewhere that the leaves changed color so we could go oooh and ahhhh at the pretty colors, but we don't. Cactus is always the same color. Anyways, enough of my day dreaming about autumn leaves.
     I can't believe the year has gone by this fast, it will be Thanksgiving before I know it...then Christmas...then it will be 2013 and we will be celebrating Roxas's first birthday! I know the time will just fly by and I'll be asking myself what just happened as I cut the cake. Things have been moving so fast and the holidays are just speeding it right along.
     Roxas is growing SO fast. He is 17lbs now and very tall for his age. He is getting a second tooth (finally!) and nearly crawling. Personality just shines through him, and he's always got a sweet smile for you. Watching the process of him learning to crawl has been so fascinating. He gets so, so, so close to cross crawling I am sure he will be speeding around by Turkey day. He gets up on his hands and feet, like doing a push up, all the time. We have daily baby training sessions where we put him on the floor and place things he really likes just out of reach to try and get him to crawl. He does have an amazingly long reach, but sometimes he will get the idea and make an honest effort to get whatever we put in front of him. He has been eating like a little piglet too. So far there are very few foods he isn't a fan of. Broccoli and green beans are about the only two foods he makes the "yuck" face for. We also have a puff addict on our hands. Gerber makes these awesome little baby snack things called puffs (for those of you without biological sub-unit experience) and Roxas looooooooves them. I swear I should buy stock in them. He also loves other finger foods like cheerios and cut up fruits/veggies. When we go out to eat he gets to eat "big people" food sometimes, which he thinks is about the coolest thing ever. I love watching him grow and learn all these new things. Just watching the neurons make connections is absolutely amazing. I can't wait to see him learn even more.
     School for me is absolutely insane. I'm thrilled to report I now have an "A" in the class thanks to a good grade on my last test, but I'm still unbelievably stressed out about this whole thing. They weren't kidding when they said this program would be one of the hardest things you would do in your academic career. We are held to an exceptionally high standard and it's nerve wrecking trying to live up to it. We began our clinical hours in the hospital this past week and I can honestly say I felt like just giving up and walking out that day. I was so flustered, upset, stressed, confused and just plain done. Our instructors are working hard to make us not just good nurses, but exceptional. That means we are put under an incredible amount of stress and given a monumental amount of responsibility. I understand why they do it, but it doesn't mean I like it. We only have five more weeks of school left and then we get a few weeks break so I know I can do it. I'm very hard on myself when I goof up and that makes for even more stress than truly needed. I spend a great majority of my time reading or studying for tests. There have been points in this past week or so when I've asked myself if this is really, really what I want to do. The answer is yes, but it is going to take a lot of hard work and I just need to hang in there until I can get to that light at the end of the tunnel. No, not death...although sometimes........but my end goal of being a labor and delivery nurse or maybe even a nurse midwife (still undecided on that one).

     So that is the update on me and Roxas. Since it is fall I just had to stick Roxas in a pumpkin and take some pictures. I'm no photographer by any means but I really wanted to do some of the classic, albeit cliche, fall baby pictures. It was a pretty fun afternoon. I hollowed out a pumpkin that I thought Roxas would fit it and when I went to put the lid back on the thing I found it to be missing. Now, pumpkin lids don't just wander off on their own....unless you have sneaky dogs in the house. I found the lid to my pumpkin being gnawed on by the three dogs in the backyard. That was the first of a series of hilariousness. Then I tried to stick Roxas in the pumpkin. Turns out my pumpkin wasn't quite the right size to get Roxas in it so I had to cut little leg holes in order to get him in it. Not exactly what I wanted but it worked. Then even more fun ensued when I tried to get him out of said pumpkin. He was stuck. So. I had to cut him out of the darn thing. It was a pretty fun afternoon for us and I think we got a few decent enough pictures to commemorate his first Fall and Halloween. So until next time...