There’s a person in our neighborhood that really, really likes to decorate with inflatables for the holidays.

Either that, or this is where magic inflatable decorations hang out and have a beer.

This Santa had to ski down the roof slope to find a spot.

At last count, the owner said he had about 100 inflatables on the lawn. Needless to say, my son loved them.

Thank you, Mr. Inflatable Man, for our new Christmas tradition. I mean, how can you stay away when your son’s face lights up like this?

Looking for more great photos? Grab a cup of tea or coffee and check out these sites that host more Wordless Wednesday entries: SevenClownCircus, 5MinutesforMom, and WordlessWednesday.

They dug the hole. They poured some concrete, made some walls and now they’re framing up the house! Again, I don’t really know the technical terms but this is pretty exciting stuff!

Last week, we went to a kitchen cabinets place to pick cabinet styles. We already knew what we wanted in the kitchen (Shaker style) so it was a simple matter of choosing which Shaker style cabinet and which finish. (That one! In white!) But because these things are never easy, we were also supposed to pick out the bath cabinetry, laundry room, and butler’s pantry. Well, I haven’t researched all that yet so I have homework to do.

Over the weekend, we stopped by Mitchell Williams + Bob Gold. It’s a great furniture store with a fabulous design aesthetic and wonderful “vibe.” The founders are VERY family-friendly and are known for the great daycare they provide their employees. They are having a big floor sample sale so I took my hubby in there and — just as I suspected — he loved their stuff! They have free design services and we have an appointment to meet with their designer this week. He’s going to help us get a plan together for the WHOLE house and then we can buy stuff here and there as I see it go on sale. (And because they’re so wonderful, they will even help you pick stuff out at OTHER stores!) It will probably take me five years to get it all together, but that’s part of the fun of it. I just really need someone to make sense of all my ideas and make sure I don’t have a Holly Hobby house. . . cuz left to my own devices, each room would be FABULOUS and completely DIFFERENT from one another. You’d have mid-century modern here, arts and crafts there, transitional here . . . dashes of orange in the great room, hot pink in the entry, steel gray in the dining room . . . and well, you get the idea. A room I can do. A house I cannot.

So Ben at Mitchell Gold+Bob Williams – I already love you.

One last picture of my little lumberjack and hubby at the house site.

Look at that cute face. It’s a chubby little face. You’d never guess that this boy won’t eat anything that isn’t pureed. (Sorry; I can’t figure out how to put the accent on “puree.”) And I mean nothing. We’ve tried:

• Cheerios
• Puffs
• Every fiddlestick, cruncher, toddler finger food thing-a-ma-bob
• French toast
• Cake, muffins, pancakes
• Cheese
• Cottage cheese (this is even too lumpy for him)
• Soft cooked veggies
• Teeny, tiny bites of strawberries
• And dozens more

He refuses, cries, and if I get the food in there, he coughs, chokes and spits. He has acid reflux (or had it; I’m still giving him the medicine for now just in case) and it’s possible that foods with more texture irritate his throat.

We were referred to an occupational therapist who specializes in feeding issues. It took four weeks to get an appointment. Four long, agonizing weeks while his non-eating habits solidified. The day of his appointment, they called to say the therapist was sick and the earliest they could reschedule us was three weeks out. So we waited. That day came – last week – and my phone rang. This time, the therapist had a family emergency, and would I like to reschedule?

NO THANK YOU VERY MUCH I WANT TO BE SEEN TODAY!

Actually, the scheduler was very nice and jumped through hoops to find someone to see us that day. The problem was, the therapist we saw usually works with older children, not infants, so we left feeling about as confused as when we arrived. We’re scheduled to go back next week to meet with someone else. <sigh>

In the meantime, we have to do a food challenge once a day. We are to take a pureed food, like carrots or sweet potato, and put chunks of the same veggie in it. We tell our son to “take his bite” and wait for him to take it. We’re supposed to ignore the tears and if he puts his hands up (which he sure does as he tries to bat the spoon away), we are to lay our arm over his arms (push his arms down; don’t restrain his hands) and insist he take his bite. If he still refuses after 20 seconds, we are to smear the “bite” on his mouth (I guess the thinking is he’ll lick it off, which my son never does). If he takes his bite, we’re to praise him and offer a reward of food or a toy.

I should have asked the therapist to show me how to do all this, not just tell me cuz I’m not sure I’m doing it right. Plus, our little guy just swallows those soft chunks. It’s just like a Level 3 food. He doesn’t chew. (She did test to see if he could chew and he does know how, so that’s something.)

We reward him with yogurt because that is his favorite thing in the whole world. There isn’t much he won’t do to get his yogurt at dinner.

It went well the first two nights, but has been awful every night since then. I was so exhausted at the thought of it last night that I didn’t even try. My husband did it one night and he said he clenched his jaw so much that his neck was sore.

This is not fun.

I’m confused and unsure if we’re doing the right thing. I hope this next therapist is better. I’ve heard that there are groups that come into your home and work with your child. If this next appointment isn’t more useful, then I will look into that . . . and probably have to wait forever to get an appointment again.

Anybody out there who’s been through this successfully? Care to share your insights?

And what causes it? Could this all be stress-related because we moved when he was 10 months old? He got a new nanny at the same time so there were a lot of changes. And then he started cutting molars, caught a cold, then a stomach virus, then another cold, and an ear infection. All within about 2.5 months. Can that much stress cause a baby to delay his development in one area? He’s on track with everything else, I think. He used to eat puffs and gnaw on teething biscuits or cookies – not often, but he did do it occasionally. Just will not do it at all now.

Here’s the other frustrating thing about this food challenge program. He’s not really doing anything different by eating chunky sweet potatoes than if he were eating a Level 3 food (which he eats every day). All I’m doing is pissing him off by making him wait for his yogurt. If I gave him the yogurt first, he would then eat those sweet potatoes like no big deal.

The therapist didn’t teach us how to get him to take finger food, which is the real problem. I don’t want to force his mouth open to shove a puff in there. I guess we’ll learn that next time.

Reader Marie posted a comment last time I blabbed about this that she is going through the same thing with her son who is two months younger than mine. One of the great things about the Internet is the opportunity to connect with people like Marie to share our stories and swap tips. For those of you who are going through this, too, we’ll keep you posted on our progress!

I don’t write resolutions. I’m a product of the 80′s — the goal-setting, overachieving, Michael J. Fox in “Family Ties” win-at-all-costs mindset. Around ten years ago, I gave up on formal goals. I still have goals; in fact, I write a business plan (sort of) for my company every year. I just don’t make it all such a big deal and resolutions feel WAY TOO FORMAL for me.

What I have done every New Year’s Eve since 2000 is write a journal entry. Once a year, I write about the preceding year (all in the same notebook). I’ll jot down who was who in pop culture that year, what happened in politics, what the big movies, music, and television shows were. I might write down the price of gas. And always, I write about what my hopes (note: NOT resolutions) are for the coming year.

Last night, I totally forgot it was New Year’s Eve. So I’m going to cheat and write in my New Year’s Eve journal tonight. If I can find it here in our little rental house.

Speaking of our rental house, we’ve affectionately dubbed it our “little lemon house.” If it can go wrong, it has. This week, we had no electricity in our den/playroom. It took the landlord five hours to fix it. (Well, five hours and one week cuz it took a week to get them out here.) We have to call them every few weeks because we keep getting ROACHES! Yeah, it’s gross and it’s not like we leave food out or anything.

On a happier note, our new house has started the framing stage. It’s starting to look like a real house! Yesterday, Chris and I went to a kitchen cabinet store and chose our cabinet style (Shaker). We’re going with white cabinets and dark granite counters. The island will be the opposite: dark wood with white counters. I’d love to have marble on the island but it nicks too easily and requires more maintenance. We’re looking at some granite that resembles marble (sort of).

We had our son’s OT appointment earlier in the week to deal with feeding issues. I’ll blog about that later for other moms who are dealing with similar problems. It deserves its own post!

For now, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope you’re having a wonderful day!