A Graceful Disaster

Figuring things out

2012-02-06T17:22:00.002-06:00

At the risk of jinxing it, (and if all goes to hell after this is published, I swear I will quit blogging), things are going really well here at the five week mark. The fact that I say that, despite one particularly annoying and nasty setback that goes by the name of thrush, says quite a bit.

We've been keeping really busy. During the week I seem to have something planned most days, whether it's Gus's ECFE class, spending the day with my mom, having a visitor, hanging out at my in-laws, or meeting one of my brothers for lunch, there always seems to be something. This is good for me, because I am totally someone that quickly becomes unhinged when I spend too much time at home. Dan and I really differ on this. So on weekends I'm all, "HEY MAN, LET'S GET GOING, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO TODAY?! BOOK STORE? CHILDREN'S MUSEUM? COSTCO? COFFEE SHOP?" as soon as we wake up. And he has been working all week long, and balks at how much work it is to get out of the house, questioning whether it's really worth it, so we end up at a bit of a crossroads. But all I can think about is the fact that we have four parental hands on the weekends, to combat/control the four child-sized hands that we are in charge of, so we have to take advantage of that and get out of the house and do something fun! fun! fun! Even though, yeah, it's going to also be a lot of work, but that is simply life with two kids.

Louie's first bottle at 4 weeks old

The extra amount of work is just something I'm starting to get used to. The other day I had my first 100% tear-free and no-stress get-out-of-the-house-by-myself-with-two-kids scenario. I got in the car and drove away and just felt so powerful, like, I can do this, I AM doing this! I imagine it would be this song in the background that morning as I drove off, if my life were a romantic comedy.

In other news, I am already, after only five weeks of this, SO SICK of my everyday wardrobe of a nursing tank with some sort of loose top over it, jeans or leggings, and my muffin top. I loathe getting dressed in the morning. I say this even though I realize that yes, just a month or so ago I was making a similar complaint about my maternity clothes and massive belly, so really, can I ever just be happy? The answer to that? Probably not, at least not for another nine months to a year, which I feel like is how long it takes to start feeling like yourself again after having a baby.

4 weeks postpartum - stretchy pants of course

So I also realized the other day that it has been over a year since I've gotten my hair cut or colored. Isn't that ridiculous? I seriously have become some sort of hippie. A very LAZY hippie, that is. Thus, this week I vow to make a hair appointment, because that's something I can control, as we all know my postpartum muffin top won't likely be going away for a while even if I'm just a few pounds away from being back at pre-pregnancy weight. The postpartum muffin top cares not how much I weigh, it will make itself comfortable and hang out for a while no matter what. I suppose it would probably help to do some crunches, but I won't even pretend that's going to happen.

Ok, so how about I talk about that baby of mine.

He turned five weeks old on Saturday, and people he is getting huge! He was already nearly eleven pounds at the two week mark, so who knows what he weighs at this point, but he has been growing out of a lot of his three month clothes and wearing things Gus didn't wear until I had gone back to work. So suffice it to say, he is growing.

Smiles are imminent, I just know it. I swear he is just doing that happy face thing right now, where he makes eye contact coos a little bit, and it looks like he's about to smile at you but he just doesn't quite seem to manage going all the way. I did catch a few smiles at the wall the other day, but I'm not calling it until he's looking an actual human being in the eyes.

Breastfeeding is going well, but I seem to have a bit of an oversupply, or overactive letdown, something like that because we've been dealing with a lot of choking and screaming and frantic gulping. It has been stressing me out, and I finally decided to start pumping in the morning, which seems to help. I get about six to eight ounces every morning, so it's nice to slowly start building up a freezer stash. I also try to recline a bit while I'm nursing which in my head seems like a logical way to slow down the force of my letdown, help him breath a little between gulps, I don't know. But it's been hard to know what the issue really was, since we also had thrush which could have been what was bothering him. Ugh, breastfeeding really does play tricks with your mind. I'm constantly second guessing things, worrying about pumping too much, or not enough. Worrying that the little guy is screaming at the boob because he still has thrush, even though we think it's gone. Worrying that he's not drinking enough milk, even though the child is growing like a weed and that is a completely ridiculous fear at this point. And really, the screaming usually happens in the evening when he gets super overtired and is likely not even hungry at all, just being force-fed by his psycho mother.

What was that I said about being more confident about caring for an infant this time? Ha!

This has been all over the place, and it probably doesn't help matters that it took me three days to write it, but oh well. That is how my life is right now. And life is pretty good, difficult some days for sure, (last Tuesday I woke up whining that I just didn't feel like mothering that day, like I had any choice), but good. We're all four of us figuring things out.

Three weeks with Two Kids

2012-01-24T22:12:00.003-06:00

Goodness, I don't even know where to begin.

It's been three weeks and three days since we met Louie for the first time.

Three weeks and three days since our world was completely shaken up and any semblance of our "normal" was all blown to hell.

Three weeks and three days since we rocked Gus's world by bringing into it a baby brother with whom he has to compete for attention.

It certainly hasn't been easy, but honestly it's been really good. I've really loved getting to know this little baby boy of ours. He is a dream, seriously, and so far (knocks on wood) seems to be super laid back and chill, the exact opposite of his big brother. He sleeps for really long stretches throughout the day in his bassinet or crib, nurses efficiently and quickly, and barely cries. When he's tired, he goes to sleep (what a concept!) and sometimes even puts himself to sleep without being nursed or rocked or bounced. I know he's only three weeks and we have yet to reach that peak "fussiness" stage, but so far, like I said, he is a dream.

Also, I have to say I'm really enjoying doing this baby thing a second time around with a completely different perspective, one of an experienced mother with confidence in how to care for an infant. I feel like I'm so much better at picking up on Louie's cues, understanding what he wants without panicking or giving him the boob immediately. I'm less afraid of crying, if that makes any sense. Of course I'm not going to take my sweet time when the child is upset, but I'm just a little more in tune with the fact that his cries are how he's communicating with me, not to mention that sometimes I can't drop whatever I'm doing to immediately "fix" whatever is wrong. Sometimes I'm making Gus lunch, or 30 seconds away from finishing loading the dishwasher or doing some other household task that I have been trying to find time for all morning.

So to recap: the baby? - so far easy peasy my friends. The toddler who has had to make room in his life for a little brother? Well, he's been a bit more of a challenge.

Gus really does not like to share his mother.

The first week was very hard for him, dealing with such a change, such a shift in his routine. He had spent a few days at my parents house while we were at the hospital, with probably threw him off a bit, and then we were all home together the whole next week, barely leaving the house, hosting a ton of visitors who were all bearing gifts and sweets. The second week was a lot better, as I, myself, seemed to be getting better at managing, Dan went back to work, Gus began to adapt, and Louie seemed to start to really get used to being outside of the belly. The third week... yeah my dear first born became a lot more challenging again. The whining and screaming seemed to amp up considerably. Everything became such a production, so full of drama. He was very demanding and emotional. And of course, every time I dared to nurse or even hold the baby, Gus would start to sob and scream for his daddy or grandma or whomever was near to hold Louie. When no one else is around, he would just scream at the top of his lungs.

I've tried to handle these outbursts the same way every time, I tell Gus that I have to finish feeding the baby, but I would love to have him sit with me. I offer to read him a book, I let him drink his milk and twirl my hair while snuggling next to Louie and I. Then when I'm finished, if I'm able to, I put the baby down or give him to someone else and have some one-on-one time with Gus.

I have to be honest, it's not easy. Sometimes I'm just SO FRUSTRATED with his antics and I lose my patience. Not to mention the fact that I'm nursing a newborn every one to three hours of my life right now, so already I feel a little bit claustrophobic, like my body is not my own and I have very little space. So you throw on top of that a toddler hanging on me constantly... yeah, not easy.

But I am trying to stay the course, and remember how huge this all is for Gus, how stressful it would be to have your whole life turned upside down and not really understand why. As we're almost half way through week four, it seems like he's getting better again, almost as if he's starting to realize that Louie isn't going anywhere, that this is his new life, and that it's not all that bad. It helps that we're getting out of the house much more, and I really focus each day on doing something different, finding some way to give Gus a change of scenery.

I want to stress that Gus hasn't really been aggressive with Louie at all, he's quite sweet actually. He gives him kisses, talks about him, and seems really interested when we change the baby's diaper or lay him on the bed and talk to him. I think he truly would be entirely into the idea of having a little brother if the little guy didn't steal so much of his mama's time. :)

We're taking it day by day, and that seems to be the only way to really do it. And I'm happy to say that I'm having fun. While I don't really technically have any stay at home mom friends, we're finding creative ways to get out of the house and help Gus burn off some of his energy, despite the fact that it's the middle of winter. My mom is off work Mondays and Wednesdays and she is almost always game for some sort of field trip. She has even taken Gus for the afternoon a few times, and given me a chance to get things done at home or just snuggle my baby while watching TV for a few hours, reminding me a little of my maternity leave two years ago. The local community center has this fun toddler open gym thing every Wednesday, which is awesome. My mother-in-law is home with her kids and she's very nice to let me and the boys come and hang out for the day. Today that meant Gus got to go outside and play in the snow with Tim and Julia, which he was so excited about. I've also had some great friends come by a few times over the last few weeks to socialize and snuggle the baby.

I'm starting to get better at getting out of the house with both boys, we're all finding a rhythm. I don't dare take them anywhere in public by myself yet though, (I literally just do not have enough hands for that), but it's temporary. I try to remind myself of that. Temporary. It will be easier some day.

Oh scratch that, I DID go to the grocery store by myself with both of them last Friday. Awesome, right?! We had met my brother at a McDonald's Playland for lunch, and on the way home I decided to just go for it. The baby was asleep in his car seat, and I needed a few things for a potluck the next day. Plus, we were already out of the house, and that is really half the battle. And it went fine. Gus was strapped into the cart, unable to run, and Louie slept the whole time, until the drive home of course when he decided to scream the whole way, but oh well. It was mostly a success, and I felt like I accomplished something, however small, which felt amazing.

All in all, it's been a good three weeks and three days. Some days I have felt like I have my shit together, and on others I have definitely felt like we were all hanging on by a thread. But that is totally life with small children, right? I'm relieved that I haven't been completely thrown for a loop by all of it, and I think it was important that I expected it to be really hard. I've even found some things to go smoother than I had expected. Low expectations... that's the key I guess. ;) Kidding. But seriously.

A few pictures of our new... "normal".

Louie's Birth Story

2012-01-19T22:00:00.000-06:00

December 31st, 2011

Well, I have to say I really truly never ever expected to have this baby before my due date of January 10th. The possibility was always in the back of my mind of course, haunting me really, giving me nightmares. I was so consumed with Christmas for all of December, I just convinced myself that I would have time after the holidays to check off the million and one things on my baby to-do list.

Ahhh crap, that is just how it goes right? Oh well, honestly the fact that we de-Christmased the house on Friday, took down our tree and got our home partially back into some semblance of order was huge for my sanity. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to come home from the hospital to a dying Christmas tree and holiday clutter on top of everything else (freaking mouse!). So there's that.

On the docket for the next day, of course, was to finish organizing the boys' rooms upstairs. But that would have to wait, because our baby and my uterus had other plans.

Gus woke up, per usual, sometime around 3:00 AM early in the morning of New Year's Eve, so Dan went up to help him fall back asleep and, per usual, fell asleep himself for a few hours. Around 4:00 AM I started waking up every ten minutes to go to the bathroom. I would wake up, look at the clock, and be pissed off that it had been just ten minutes since I had last gotten up. I'd haul my beastly body to the bathroom, not actually "go" once I was in there, then crawl back in bed and fall asleep only to do it all over again ten minutes later. This went on until 6:00 AM when I finally realized that I was actually having contractions and that was the reason I was waking up every ten minutes. At this point Dan was back in bed so I told him what was going on, and said I was getting up to play around on the computer because I was too uncomfortable to stay in bed anymore. He didn't really believe me when I said I was having contractions, and went back to sleep.

Thirty minutes later, on the couch blogging and uploading pictures, I started to notice that the contractions were really starting to get annoying, and a lot closer together. I went to the bathroom again and saw that I had a little bloody show, and new that meant it was game time. Whoa. My first thought... we're going to have this baby in 2011? Seriously?

So I told Dan he really seriously needed to get up, and that I was going to get in the shower and shave my legs, because I was in labor. For real. I told him to call the midwife, let her know this was happening today, then call my dad so he was prepared to come over and get Gus at some point.

I talked to the midwife around 7:30 or so, after I had showered, gotten dressed, and eaten a bagel. She said it sounded like things were progressing just as they should, and asked when I would like her to call again, to check on how I was feeling. We thought an hour, sure, it's as good an estimate as anything. Contractions were still totally manageable, but happening about every 4-5 minutes and lasting for about 30 seconds. Before we hung up she told me that I should try to eat some protein, so I promised I'd have Dan make me some eggs. I went about finishing getting ready and timing my contractions with my phone while Dan pulled all the bags together, including an overnight for Gus, and got the car loaded.

By 8:15 my contractions were getting much more intense, I had to really focus on my breathing and do some rocking to get through them. I wandered the house in between, but with each one I could feel them getting stronger, then after trying to eat the eggs Dan made for me I felt really nauseous, and all of a sudden I was like, NO. We have to get going. This is totally happening soon, and though I was terrified of laboring in the car and not being able to move around, I was more terrified of waiting too long and having our baby at home, by ourselves.

So Dan called the midwife, we didn't make it that hour, which she said didn't really surprise her. Then he called my dad and told him to come over for Gus. Amazingly, that child was still sleeping, and never even woke up before we left for the hospital. So awesome, I am so thankful for how all of that went, because my biggest worry/stress throughout my pregnancy when I thought about going into labor was what would happen with him. (It has been ALL about Gus for 2 years really, right? So why would it be any different here?)

We left in a hurry, I barely said anything to my dad because I was in total CRAZY-EYED FOCUS mode. I climbed in the back seat of the car and got through each contraction by hanging over the back seat and moaning some strange rhythmic chant while staring at a box of cheez-its that I had packed in our hospital bag. Random for sure.

At about a quarter to 9:00, we pulled up to the emergency room entrance at the hospital, because this time around we had decided that we would not be parking in the ramp and wandering all over the hospital causing a scene. Dan found a nurse that was just starting her shift to walk with me while he moved the car. I was moving pretty slowly so we didn't make it that far before he was at my side again. We got up to the 6th floor and headed to the assessment room. This is where there was some confusion.

So my midwives had basically just gotten rights at this hospital, after a political fall-out from the hospital I delivered Gus at, and I actually ended up being the first woman from their practice to deliver at this new hospital. Needless to say, transitions like this are usually rocky. Even though I had pre-registered, with my midwife's name, they didn't seem to understand who my care provider was. In fact, once she showed up, just a few minutes after us, they seemed to have made the assumption that we were a home-birth-gone-wrong couple coming into the hospital with our midwife in tow. I don't really understand what was all happening, but I was being told by some random nurse to lay down so she could check me, then my midwife was arguing that, uh, no thanks, she was my care provider and she could check me. The admitting nurse was being super passive aggressive and patronizing, and my midwife was being her no-nonsense "I don't have time for this b.s." self. They were arguing right there in front of Dan and me, the admitting nurse saying, "I need to check her and assess if she is in labor", and my midwife responding, "If she's in labor? Are you kidding me? I can tell you she's probably about 9 cm without even having to check," and finally I think my midwife told her that if they were going to discuss this any further they would need to go outside the room away from the patient because this was all very unprofessional.

Dan later said he was seconds away from telling them to please figure this crap out somewhere that doesn't involve us. Since, you know, we were busy having a baby.

Whatever. I don't know what transpired, but they came back pretending to be BFFs and had everything worked out, the nursing staff had truly had no idea who she was, because with the craziness of the holidays at the hospital, she hadn't been able to meet the nurses or get her badge or any of that. Anyway, I was checked and found to be fully dilated minus a tiny lip of cervix, and at 0 station.

Yes, I was in active labor, well into it in fact. Totally new information!

We got to the delivery room and it is all truly a blurrrrrrrrr. They were trying to put all these straps and things on me to monitor the baby, asking me to get on the bed and lie down, and I kept trying to, but then another contraction would come on and I just couldn't do it. My midwife just rubbed my shoulders and whispered in my ear how great we were doing and that I should do what my body was telling me to do, if I felt the urge to push, push. If I didn't want to lie down, then I didn't have to lie down. She had this amazing ability to take me out of the room and help me shut out all the annoying things that were going on around me. Dan was doing a great job of rubbing my lower back, which near the end was starting to just kill during contractions. When I was finally able to get on the bed, my midwife encouraged me to get in a kneeling/squatting position and hang over the back. We tried that, I pushed a little, didn't love it, but my water did brake in the middle of one of my pushes.

I had to tell them it broke because I don't think people were really paying attention to whether or not my skirt was suddenly soaking wet. Then everyone was trying to help take off my nasty wet skirt and I think it was either my midwife or Dan who suggested maybe I'd rather lay down and push the "traditional" way. I know I heard Dan tell her that that was how I delivered Gus and I seemed to like pushing that way (like being the totally wrong word here).

And that's what I did. I don't know how long I really pushed, but I can't imagine it was more than like 5 minutes. It really did all go so fast, though during I just wanted it to be over so badly. My instincts were just to push one huge monster push and blow that thing out, but my midwife kept telling me to hold back, she would say, "Ok push... good good, you're doing such a great job! Now take a breath. Push... good good! Now take a breath." She encouraged me to go really slow so as not to tear, and I followed her lead, but was sort of pissed off about it, because taking that breath mid little pushes was just pure, ring of fire, torture.

That's really over-dramatic, I know, but in the moment... goodness, I hated her with all her, "Take a breath!" crap. Amazing though, because it worked, I didn't tear at all, and my recovery, if you can even call it that, was so quick.

At 9:39 AM, on December 31, 2011, Dan helped catch our little (or not so much little at 9 lb, 1 oz) Louie. They placed him on my chest and I was just so elated, and so proud of this little guy, and yes, I admit it, SO HAPPY it was over. It was such a surreal experience, never in a million years did I think I would wake up that day and have a baby. Everyone else we called and texted to let them know he was here were just as shocked. Like Dan's mom, we could have just as easily been calling to talk to her about what to buy our niece for her birthday, which we were celebrating the next day. It was just such a wonderful, unexpected surprise. And with that, we were officially a family of four... parents of two sons.

Christmas Part 3

2012-01-11T14:18:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve

We woke up Christmas Eve with the morning and most of the afternoon free to do as we please. With all the hustle and bustle of the days prior, this felt like such a delicious treat, to be honest. Just the three of us.

So the day really began like any normal day, with breakfast (waffles) and trains (freaking Thomas, of course)...

And then we opened presents, and it was lovely. We spent too much money on that child this year, not going to lie. We didn't mean for it to happen but we really got swept up in the excitement of presents and Santa and all that, it being the first year Gus would really truly get it. Both of us were guilty of this, I mean at one point last month Dan even sent me an email at work with links to train sets that were on sale, (like this kid needs any more trains!), and then we spent time on the phone debating the various merits of each one.

Then one evening we were randomly at the Sears in Ridgedale, since Gus loves playing with the train table they have set up in the toy department, and they were liquidating ALL THEIR TOYS. Everything was "Buy One Get One". Every. Single. Toy. We went nuts. I mean of course we bought a lot of gifts for our nephews as well, but yeah. I was rabid for the amazing deals we were able to get on Thomas crap, which never ever ever goes on sale and is so expensive (we're talking $20 for each train).

All this to say, (wow, such a tangent), I'm thinking next year we need to be a little more thoughtful about the whole thing, try to get a little less swept up in our emotions. This year was all, "Oh he would LOVE this, we HAVE to get this for him." It's not like he didn't love everything, but he opened a lot of presents, and I think by the end of it all he was getting pretty "meh" about it. Anyway, lesson learned, next year we take more of a "less is more" approach.

Gus's favorite thing, by far, was this little set of 4 Thomas board books, in their own little travel case. Yesterday I think I read "Stop Train Stop" eight times in a row while nursing Louie. "Read it again Mommy, read it again!"

(Diaper leak in the middle of the night, thus the strange pajama situation going on there.)

So we had a nice morning at home, playing with our new toys, trying on new clothes. Dan went crazy this year, hit up my Pinterest page to see what sorts of things I was digging, and bought me a bunch of really awesome and funky jewelry from Etsy. Like seriously, the guy hit it out of the park, everything was so thoughtful... including a locket with a spot for pictures of each of my boys, and another necklace with Gus's birthstone and a little "G" charm. I plan to add an "L" and Louie's birthstone at some point when I don't spend most of my day nursing and burping and delicately plotting out little ways to get out of the house and help Gus burn off energy.

But yeah, Dan went to a lot of trouble this year, more trouble than he should have. I say it often, I'll say it again, he's just all around, an incredible guy. A great husband and an even better father. Lucky lucky lucky me. Every day I am thankful for this man.

We went to church with Dan's family at 4:00 PM, and I horrified various members with my beastly pregnant-ness. Seriously. I saw the looks. Dan and I tag-teamed to keep Gus civilized with books and cut up apples. He is REALLY not the kind of kid that just sits quietly for more than an hour. Even when he's watching Thomas he jumps around the room and gets up and down from chairs and generally just acts like a lunatic.

Then it was off to Dan's grandparents house for a feast of epic proportions, not to mention presents and cookies and toys and family and loud noises and a singing snowman with gyrating hips that Gus REALLY got a kick out of.

Christmas Day

The morning of Christmas this year was so darn perfect. You know how when you dream about being a parent someday and you think back on your own childhood, there are those certain memories that really have a lasting affect and you sort of idealize them, you can't wait to have those moments, to make similar memories with your own children...

Well, that is totally Christmas morning for me, it's just magical. And comfortable, easy, relaxed, low-key. A lovely little end-cap for the season, after everything that is crazy and rushed and stressful about the holidays you have this peaceful and perfect little time at home, under your own roof, just being with those closest to you in life.

I was up before everyone else Christmas morning, Dan had ended up in Gus's bed after the little guy called out for us at 5 AM, and I had been tossing and turning for a good part of the morning, nine months pregnant and no longer really enjoying sleep as much as I would have liked. So I got up a little after 7:00 and turned on the Christmas tree, tidied up a bit, made a pot of coffee, and started on the cinnamon rolls I had planned to make. The house was so peaceful, it felt gluttonous to have so much lovely time to myself to soak it all in.

Santa had been here, of course. The stockings were stuffed and everything was all laid out in the living room.

And my boys were up about an hour later, Dan was so enthusiastic about the Santa thing, I could hear him talking it up to Gus upstairs through the monitor as they got up. So so so sweet.

I actually followed through on one of my Pinterest craft ideas for Dan's stocking! I even really had fun making this little book for him, I never do anything "romantic", I think I use the fact that I'm the female in our relationship as some sort of excuse to not have to... I mean he would never want me to get him flowers, you know? Well anyway, I did this, and he liked it.

Oh, this is so incredibly ridiculous, but the pictures make me giggle. Gus demanded Cheetoes at like 10:00 AM because I put a little bag in his stocking. He loves them of course, and we never really give them to him, so it was quite the little Christmas treat. He insisted I open the bag, then demanded a bowl, then lounged around on our bed feasting on them while I did my hair. He looked like he was modeling for some sort of risque magazine spread, of the white trash Cheetoes variety that is.

Then while Dan set up our new Keurig (woot!), Gus made us a delicious plastic lunch.

That afternoon we went over to my parents house for Christmas with my extended family. Very low key, potluck dinner, lots of card games and football and some family gossiping.

After dinner, the men all congregated in the living room, watching football. Or was it basketball? Goodness, I so do not care.

And this is so cliche, at the same time, the women are in the kitchen, doing dishes and cleaning up after the meal.

Gus and his great-aunt Martha. She gave him the most kick-ass Thomas sing-along book for Christmas, which I hear on repeat all day long.

Helping great-grandpa open up his presents.

Finally, these pictures are from the day after Christmas, we went for a little walk about the neighborhood, since it was so beautiful. Irrelevant to this post completely, but I won't have any other reason really to post them. And they are cute, and are the last pictures I have of our days before Louie.

A caterpillar!

Give it a kiss Gus!

Christmas Part 2

2012-01-08T20:54:00.000-06:00

Note: I wrote most of this while in labor at 6:00 AM, the morning of New Year's Eve. That is neither here nor there, but for the sake of documentation, there you go. I got to the point of uploading pictures and started getting so uncomfortable I just had to quit. At which point I went to the bathroom, saw a little blood, and realized this was the REAL DEAL, which lead me to wake up Dan and freak him out, and then hop in the shower to shave my legs. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though, we'll save the rest of the details for the actual birth story.

Also, I guess I'm going to have to make this Christmas thing a three-parter, which seems pretty ridiculous now that we're a week into January, but I have all these pictures and there was just so much Christmas-ing this year, I can't help it! Especially now, that we have Louie, I want to make sure to get all this down, so we really remember the last Christmas we had as a little family of 3. Already it all seems like a LIFETIME ago, of course. What a trip this all is, being parents again... to a brand new kid... totally uprooting our "normal".

So part 3, i.e. the actual Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations, are coming soon. Hopefully. Dan IS going back to work tomorrow (OMG) and I officially will be mothering two children on my own (OMG), so... yeah. Let's hope I can make it happen.

Just as we do every year, we spent December 23rd, Christmas Eve eve, with Dan's family. It's SUCH a different dynamic than Christmas with my parents and brothers, it makes me giggle just thinking about what the members of each family would think of if they had a chance to participate in the other family's holiday gathering. It is the yin and yang of Christmas, really truly.

It's a gourmet brunch pulled together from a number of fancy cookbooks vs. a delicious, but low key, spread of chicken legs, buffalo chicken egg rolls, meatballs, cheese trays and other appetizers.

It's slowly opening one gift at a time, youngest to oldest vs. every man, woman, and child for him or herself gift wrap tearing MANIA.

It's sitting around the table sipping coffee, talking and laughing and engaging in lively debates about healthcare and STD testing vs. gathering around a toddler's new Cars race track and cheering on the person who can shake the race car the most efficiently to produce the longest run.

It's quietly snuggling on the couch, reading a book to my son while Ben rambles on and on about Words With Friends vs. helping Gus put sprinkles on a fun fetti cupcake and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus with my nephews.

And you know what? I feel equally lucky to be able to be a part of both families, and experience such equally awesome yet different versions of Christmas.

On that note... on with the pictures from Christmas with my in-laws.

The cutest most adorable walking 10 month old little lady e-ver.

Gus appears to be playing nicely with his cousin, but soon he will decide that she's too much in his bubble, and deserves a monster truck in the face. Not cool my son. Thankfully Dan has quick reaction times and caught the monster truck in mid flight.

Following that incident we have this... looks like he's super remorseful and learning a lot on his time-out on Grandma's bed, huh? Oy vay.

After singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. Cupcake devoured in about 15 seconds flat.

Nephews patiently waiting for GO TIME.

Thomas legos! Had to be opened immediately, of course.

The infamous race track. Dan and I got it for my nephew, it takes up a lot of space, and is sort of loud. I feel a little bad now... his parents probably would have preferred jammies and some small cars. :)

When we got home at like 10:00 PM, Gus stayed up a little longer playing with his new toys... his Thomas legos, motorcycle, and helicopter. He was so excited and we couldn't resist his enthusiasm. Nor can I say no to a kid who looks that freaking adorable in his Christmas jammies.

I seriously can't resist babies (he's still a baby right?!) in pajamas.

He's here!

2012-01-05T09:45:00.001-06:00

My goodness... so yeah. We had our baby.

Louis Daniel was born on the morning of New Years Eve day, surprising us 10 days early, weighing in at 9 lbs 1 oz. We're calling him Louie. What a crazy whirlwind the last week has been. The birth was super quick and really beautiful (yet painful)... and life since we've been home has been exciting, emotional, and exhausting. We're having fun getting to know our little guy.

He looks a lot like Gus did as a baby, with a cute little pointy chin and fuzzy blonde hair. But he's blonder, and he makes the most hilarious grunty noises all the time. Oh my goodness, such a loud sleeper, he grunts and squeaks and gurgles, and his little cry sounds like a Pterodactyl, it is so hilariously dramatic. He's a pro at nursing, which I am so thankful for, he has a perfect latch and is super efficient and fast. Not a little grazer who would constantly fall asleep on me while eating like his brother was.

That first day or two home were hard, I won't lie. I was pretty overwhelmed with the state of our home, in complete disaray as we were still in the middle of getting organized for the baby. We hadn't gotten a lot of things on my to-do list done, and it made me feel really stressed out, trapped on the couch all day with a baby who was quite ready for his mama's milk to come in, and wasn't going to let her put him down until it did and he was good and full. My milk did come in though, on Monday evening, and I can't say how relieved I was. Louie was also releived, and now actually lets other people hold him besides his mama, and is awake and alert and not crying for good periods of time throughout the day, AND he's sleeping 2-3 hours full stretches in the bassinet at night. Things are going good. Also, yesterday Gus went to my mom's house for the day, like he usually does on Wednesdays, and Dan and I were able to get this placed organized, baby's room no longer is full of tubs and boxes, the baby clothes are all organized and in one place, the changing table is set up to actually change a baby on it, rather than store various crap.

I've been emotional about Gus and how this is all affecting him, even though he's doing really just fine, and he's been very sweet to the baby. A few times where he's acted out, but mostly he just has gone on with his life, and stops every once in a while to say something about baby Louie or give him a kiss. Obviously it's a huge change in his life, but I want the transition to be as seamless as possible, and I've tried to make sure I'm the one to put him to sleep a few nights this week, even if it means I was nursing Louie while doing it.

Oh, and did I mention the week we have a baby has to be the week that we get a freaking rodent in our house, for the first time in 8 years of living in this old place. At first we thought it was a shrew, but now we're pretty sure it's a mouse, but we cannot seem to catch the little bastard and it is driving us insane. We came home from the hospital and there was mouse feces ON OUR BED. Seriously. At that moment I was like, "what the hell is the universe trying to do to us?!"

UGH! Freaking mouse. In my house. In the room where me and my baby sleep!

Anyway, I'd like to take some time for a proper update very soon, and of course the birth story, it's just so hard when you're getting so little sleep to use any of your free time to not... well... sleep. Or do laundry. Oh GOOD GOD the laundry.

I'd also like to finish my Christmas post, which I was working on while in labor Saturday morning, but couldn't quite finish since things progressed from relatively easy contractions 10 minutes apart to, yelling at Dan, "We need to go to the hospital NOW" within about 2 hours.

So for now, this mish mash and a few pictures is all I can muster.

Soon, baby

2011-12-29T17:08:00.001-06:00

Just have to interrupt the Christmas posts and pictures withsome pregnancy stuff, real quick like, I promise. We’re nearing the end here, and I feel likeif I don’t write now, it will surely go unsaid… And I like the idea of remembering these last few weeks/days before babynumber two comes and our life gets flippedright upside down, Fresh Prince of Bell Air style.

So there I am in all my 37 weeks of pregnancy glorious-ness,last Wednesday at my parents’ house. Thebelly is really crazy at this point, and I honestly forgot how big you get atthe end. So many of my maternity shirtsno longer cover the bottom of the belly without my constant tugging andreadjusting throughout the day, and that is just not practical, especially whenI spend so much time picking up my toddler or playing on the floor withhim. So my wardrobe is just getting verylimited… I basically wear those longOld Navy or Target maternity tanks under cardigans or button-ups every singleday. I loathe getting dressed in themorning, and really considered buying a few cute new (larger) things to wearover the holidays but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Such a waste of money at this point, and Iwould rather spend it on new nursing bras and tanks, or cute new outfits forthe little one.

Speaking of spending money, I took the advice of my verylovely friend and relatively recent new mother-of-two (miss you Betsy!) and didsome online shopping for some newborn essentials. I purchased a big old case of size 1 diapers,a 12 pack of new pre-fold cloth diapers to use as burp cloths (as I pulled out,washed, and organized all the old ones from two years ago I decided that therewas absolutely no reason to reuse disgusting and old yellow-stained burp clothsthat could be replaced for a total of like $12.99), washcloths, someside-snappy undershirts, and a few other things. Of course, I ended up going a bit crazy andbuying some new expensive outfits for the little guy because when packing ourbags for the hospital last week I realized that the only “boyish” newbornoutfit I had to put new baby in at the hospital was the one Gus came homein. And while on one hand that seemssomewhat sweet, I also just totally want this little guy to have his own look coming home. How ridiculous is that? I know.

Well, Dan called me when the package arrived this week andsaid, “What is wrong with you? Youseriously bought a 0-3 month outfit for $30 from Amazon?” I really had no comeback, because he’s soright. I almost didn’t believe him thatit was $30, because no way would I have ordered something so extravagant… butthe invoice does not lie. So baby boyhas a new organic soy cotton sleeper to wear once he exits the belly, and it ishighly likely to be the only organic soy outfit he will ever wear, so I hope hereallllly loves it.

Anyway, my midwife appointment that I mentioned I had lastweek went fine, but I was a bit concerned about the fact that the week priorthe other midwife that I saw was a bit sketchy about exclaiming the baby’s headdown. She just didn’t seem completelyconvinced to me, even though she didn’t say anything different… it was justthis hesitant vibe I got from her. Alsoover the last week I’ve had moments where I couldn’t feel that big lump of ahead down there, and I just wasn’t sure. So at this appointment I mentioned to my main midwife, Katherine, whowill be at my birth, the hesitation I sensed from Jessi, and she asked if Iminded doing a little check to make sure, to ease both of our minds and thwartany surprise breach/transverse situation.

So she checked, and strangely enough, in two pregnancies, itwas only the second time I’ve been checked “down there”. The first time was 20 minutes before Gus wasborn, upon arrival at the hospital after which I was declared to be completelydilated and at +3 station. I have alwaysdeclined any cervix checks since it’s not really an indication of, well,anything when you’re not in active labor. Well sure enough, head is definitely down, WAY down, and behind mypelvis which is why it’s hard to feel from the outside. I asked if that was something to be concernedwith and she said, “No, it just means you’re probably doing a lot of waddling,huh?”

Yup. I’ve got thewaddle down pat.

And while she was down there, I agreed to my second ever cervixcheck as well, and I’m 75% effaced and 1.5 cm dilated. Sweet. Whatever. Like I said, doesn’treally tell us anything about when this baby might arrive since a woman couldwalk around for two months at 1.5 cm, but… there you go. Pregnant lady TMI for you all, you’re verywelcome.

And here we are today, baby and me, 38 weeks and 2 dayspregnant. Like I said, long tank +cardigan + jeans/yoga pants = all I can really fit into. Though I should note that this tank is dangerouslytoo short (I felt wind on my belly after getting out of my car this morning,alerting me to the indecent stretch-mark exposure that was going on) and thesematernity jeans are just about on their last leg as far as elasticity goes (Iam yanking them up ALL DAY LONG, argh!).

I took a picture from the front to show off the frighteningbelly button situation that is going on. That little thing is definitely out and proud, no? I think it scares people a little, so I liketo dress to accentuate it. Or, not. It truly is just impossible to hide.

I am getting really anxious to have all the unknowns of labor& birth out of the way (really just the when and the how and the dealingwith the what happens to Gus during allthis? situation), and I would like to meet this baby. Oh yes, I really cannot wait. I mean we get to be there for the beginningof a life. As it gets closer, I’m remembering howamazing and humbling it is to be a part of something like that. We are so incredibly lucky to have this opportunity. Until then little one…

A Truly Lovely Holiday (part 1)

2011-12-29T16:01:00.005-06:00

Ahhhh Christmas. Ijust love it, everything about it, the twinkly lights, the mad mall shopping,the little girls in their twirly church dresses, the gifts wrapped in prettysatin bows, the cookies outrageously decorated with sprinkles and red hots atthe hands of excited little children hopped up on sugar, time spent laughingwith and enjoying family.

This year it was great, as it always is.

Our Christmas family time schedule was jam-packed, ofcourse, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Though now that it’s all over I have to say, oh my goodness, I am SO.TIRED.

Just… it’s a lot. I say that every year, but this year it feelsespecially true, since I spent the holiday carrying around what feels like amassive bowling ball in my shirt and chasing after a toddler that justcontinues to do very naughty things to his cousins when we let down ourguard.

(So frustrating, trying to staythe course… remove him from the situation, give him “time-ins” talk about whywe don’t hit or kick or pull the hair of other children, or dogs for thatmatter… but it just sometimes feels so pointless. He looks up at you and in the sweetest ofsweet voices says, “Gus be nice to Abby! No hitting!” Oh goodness. So we know you can say it, but do you getit? AT ALL?)

Anyway, the exhaustion didn’t really hit me until it was allover. The joy of the holiday, theadrenaline, the sheer loveliness of our surroundings, it got me through it, butnow with four family Christmas celebrations behind us, it’s like all of asudden I totally feel 38 weeks pregnant. This lady is spent, and ready for some quieter days to prepare for herlittle bundle of sweetness to make his grand entrance.

So Christmas started with my immediate family lastWednesday, it began with brunch at my parents house and then we spent thewhole day together, which we don’t often have the chance to do. It was really great to not be rushing around,to just be and enjoy each others'company.

Dan had to go in the office for a few hours that morning,and I had an appointment with my midwife at 8:30 AM, so Gus hung out at grandmaand grandpa’s in the early morning while they prepared the egg bake and potatopancakes, and baked delicious apple cranberry muffins.

It was really a decadent meal, absolute perfection.

Gus thoroughly enjoyed his kiddie mimosa in a dinosaur cup, but he did not like bacon. He spit it out in my hand and made the most disgusted face, declaring it to be "spicy". Crazy foolish child, who doesn't like bacon? If I didn't know any better I would have doubts about him actually coming from my loins.

The morning was just, quaint, lovely, relaxing. Wonderful. And beautiful, of course, since it was at my parents house.

After the meal we all needed some fresh air, and since it isthe brownest of Minnesota Christmases and there is no snow and it is averaging something like 40 freakingdegrees these days, we decided to go across the street to the park for a bit. I really thought long ago that we had said our goodbyes to the swings at the park until springtime. Minnesota weather has proven me a fool once again.

Naptime soon followed, and my dad agreed to stay home with asleeping Gus while the rest of us went and saw a movie. Awesome. This is something we’ve always talked about doing on Christmas, butnever have done because we’re always running around like maniacs to multiple familygatherings. Another reason why we were so luckythis year to be able to just set aside a day for our immediate family tocelebrate together. It was just us, andwe just had all the time in the world to do whatever we wanted. Having read the whole Millenium trilogy, I wastotally pumped to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, however inappropriatefor Christmas its disturbing premise may be. It did not disappoint.

After the movie it was back to my parents’ place whereNathan was joining us after work for Chinese food and presents. We ordered too much of course, from ourfavorite little hole-in-the-wall down the street, and feasted and lounged andlaughed and then opened gifts. Gus clearly had to help everyone open each gift, and he reveled in the new trainsand toys he received. He’s a very luckynephew and grandchild, that is for sure.

And that was just the beginning of the present and sugar mayhemfor the little guy, there would be many more gifts and Christmas parties to come…

A Busy Long Weekend

2011-12-20T23:23:00.016-06:00

Whew. We had a great weekend. Just, GREAT.

The funny thing is that just as it feels like we’re getting into the groove of, I don’t know, life… Gus is on a pretty good, if unconventional routine, not to mention he’s sleeping (!) and over the last week has finally given up the glorified bottle he has insisted on drinking his milk out of (only involved 2 relatively short-lived tantrums), and I have been on this streak of cooking comfort food and baking and feeling domestic and just really truly content… well, next month this happy little existence of ours is going to be thrown a crazy curveball when we bring a newborn into the mix. A whole new PERSON in our family! It’s so exciting, but also quite scary, if I’m being completely honest.

Even though we are so busy, with so many commitments and so much to get done before Christmas, and then before baby, and it doesn’t seem like I have a moment to relax and really just do nothing, life still has this feeling almost of, well… the calm before the storm.

These last few days have been really fun and festive and laid-back, yet kind of insane at the same time. I’m feeling pretty lucky to have the husband I married and the son I gave birth to. And in addition to my boys at home, I get to be a part of these two amazing and unique families, and am able to celebrate the season, and the upcoming arrival of a new little one, with such a supportive core group of friends. I’m incredibly fortunate.

We had friends over Friday night to celebrate the holidays. I made Crockpot lasagna and it was so simple and perfect for the occasion. The Crockpot (slow cooker?) has to be one of the greatest inventions ever right? Friends brought other delicious goodies, as well as their adorable children and it was a rowdy bunch to say the least. Twelve adults and seven kids will make an old house with small rooms feel even more cramped than it was before. Ahhh well, that’s okay. I really truly do love our house, I would just love it more if some of the walls were not there and it had a little more of an open floor plan. Residential home builders circa the 1930’s, however, obviously did not favor the idea of an open floor plan.

But yes, it was a fun night, and when things got a little bit too unruly with the kids, some of them up past their bedtime I’m sure, we broke out the Christmas crafts! See, another example of my newfound domesticity… me being all organized and planning ahead with CRAFTS to keep children busy and happy. I am definitely learning on the job at this mothering thing… a year ago I would have never thought to have something for the older kids to do.

Oh but I wish Gus would be into crafts, because he so IS NOT. Lisa snapped this photo as proof that he sat down and worked on one of my little prepared projects, but in actuality this lasted for just a few minutes. See that glue stick? He really didn’t want to do anything crafty that didn’t involve licking that glue stick.

The rest of our weekend was amazingly productive. We spent Saturday finishing up shopping at the mall, and it was of course insanely busy and we were so thankful that we just had a few small things to get. The mall the weekend before Christmas is not quite as horrible when you have a plan, and very little you need to accomplish. Of course Gus had a great time watching the high school band that was playing holiday music outside Macy’s, and it’s always nice to get a change of scenery and help him run off some steam before naptime. After lunch he took a glorious 3 hour nap that allowed us to finish wrapping presents and get ready to go to Dan’s parent’s house for the evening, to welcome them home from their Mexico vacation.

Sunday I had vowed to get all our bags packed for the hospital, and I feel SO MUCH BETTER having checked that off our list. It literally had been keeping me up at night, ridiculous I know, but I pretty much lay in bed overwhelmed with thoughts of all the things I need to do soon-ish so I can feel relaxed and at peace with baby boy making his entrance into the world.

Labor bag, hospital overnight bag, and diaper bag are all ready to go. Suck it swirling brain of stress!

After accomplishing that feat, I went grocery shopping and then baked for two hours while the little boy napped. Yum!

I don’t work Mondays, so along with Fridays, they are my little weekend bookends and I love them. My mom and dad were both off work so we all went down to the Mall of America to take Gus on a few rides and see the mall all decked out for the holidays. I’ve avoided the mall like the plague throughout the holiday season, but we figured it wouldn’t be all that busy on a Monday, and we figured right.

Gus had a total blast, and grandma and grandpa went on a bazillion rides with him.

After a pretzel and smoothie for lunch, Gus took another awesome nap and had to be woken up to go to his very last swimming lesson at the YMCA. So freaking cute. I had never been, because this was something we signed him up to do with daddy, and I worried that I might be a distraction or a nuisance to the whole process, observing from the side of the pool. But with this being the last class, I had to go and take a few pictures and see first-hand Gus in all his “scooping” and kicking and motor-boat singing glory.

And he was such a little pro about the whole thing, so cute to get a glimpse of this little routine Dan and he have had over the last few months of lessons. We all went into the family locker room together and I helped get Gus changed. Oh my goodness, I am so proud of the little boy he’s become, so independent, so smart. He walked me through the whole process, brought me his swim diaper and told me to put it on him, then his plastic diaper cover, then his swimsuit and swim shirt. Finally he showed me how he and daddy have to rinse off in the shower before going to the pool.

Shirtless husband picture ok for the internet? I hope so. We'll keep it small.

This kid is so awesome. Seriously, wasn’t it yesterday I was nursing and rocking you to sleep child?! And now here we are, you showing me how you and daddy get all ready for swim lessons?

Goodness, I was already a pile of mush before he even got in the pool.

Here are a bunch of photos from the lesson, there’s only one other family enrolled in this session and they weren’t there last night, so it was a private session with the sweet-natured teenaged instructor. Dan said Gus was pretty uncooperative last night, compared to all the others. I didn’t notice, because I couldn’t hear a word of what was going on, but he seemed to have thoroughly charmed his instructor, despite his stubbornness, and I wouldn’t have expected any different.

Holidays... still pregnant... that kind of update

2011-12-14T17:53:00.001-06:00

Goodness gracious I am 36 weeks pregnant, when did that happen? Like seriously, how are we here already?

Of course, on the other hand, I am constantly complaining that it feels like I have been pregnant FOREVER, it's that interesting and infuriating dichotomy that I'm sure most women who've been pregnant can remember vividly.

It's all about perspective this late in the game.

And WHAMMO. How's that for perspective? Thats the Belly, with a capital B, for Big, and Beach Ball, and Bodacious, and Baffling, and just flat out Busting out... of many of my maternity tops.

As for how I'm feeling, physically, at 36 weeks pregnant, it's not too bad. I've had a few instances of swelling over the past week, which was somewhat alarming. Once was after a two hour choral/orchestral concert for which I was required to sit in a church pew. Afterwards I stood up and was somewhat horrified to find that my right foot had swelled up over the last hour, to the point where it was difficult to walk and it felt and looked like my shoe didn't fit. Freaky. I blame myself, as I crossed my legs for about half the concert, and also hadn't drank nearly enough water as I should have throughout the day. Lessons learned.

I felt better after hydrating, and walking a bit, but then the next morning woke up to really swollen fingers and ankles. Not cute. My rings are now currently hanging on the chain around my neck because I just don't want to take any chances.

Other than that, baby boy is moving around quite a bit in there, even though he seems to be running out of room.  At my midwife appointment yesterday she declared him head-down (whew) and said that he doesn't seem "all that big".  She referenced how big Gus was (9 lb 11 oz) and said she didn't think this little guy would be quite there, she estimated he was about 6 lbs right now. But who knows... I don't think any of us were expecting Gus to be that big last time, and I can't say I'm all that worried about it. Clearly I can birth big babies just fine.

Oh and yes, people at work specifically are starting to say really annoying/amusing things. It's just too funny, the word vomit that is spewed on pregnant women, most of which I know totally comes from the right place, and is not meant to be mean-spirited or insulting. But seriously people!  Get a handle on it! Yesterday I was in these two ladies' office asking them a totally work-related question, and they just couldn't seem to make eye contact. Instead, they preferred to blatantly stare at the belly, and one of them actually asked me if I was sure there was only one baby in there.

Yeah. I'm sure. Thanks for that.

One guy last week walked by me, and exclaimed wide-eyed, "Whoa! That is... whoa. Must not be much longer now huh?"

It's just really to the point that you can't NOT say something about it, because, well, you saw the belly. So I totally get it.

But please don't say something to me that implies that I might be having twins and I don't realize it. Puh-leeeze. That is really my only request.

Anyway, here we are. Things are going just fine, people ask me if I'm all ready and I flat out say NO, and they sort of give me this look like they don't know how to respond. But really, I am not ready. I want to meet this baby boy, I am getting SO EXCITED about that part of it, but I just haven't had time to properly prepare. Bags still need to be packed. The nursery needs to be organized, tiny diapers need to be bought, pump parts need to be sanitized, maxi pads and stool softeners and breast pads need to be purchased. The list feels neverending, and that is only because I haven't taken the time to make an actual list. I think once I do that, I will feel better about things, but I have just been way too focused on the holidays and family and Christmas shopping and making cookies, and it really has been an excellent December. I just am starting to feel like I probably shouldn't wait until after Christmas to start thinking about things like installing the infant car seat, or throwing towels and plastic bags in each of our cars in case my water breaks in some strange place. Just. In. Case.

We're due January 10th, so I know that most likely there's PLENTY of time for me to take that nesting energy that I've been consumed with (but thus far have dedicated towards cooking and baking for potlucks and wrapping presents and making our house all pretty for the holidays) and put it towards labor/newborn prep. Hopefully, PLENTY of time. Really, I just need to calm down, and get to it.

I really really love this time of year though, and have to say I've been so happy to share all the holiday excitement with our little two year old. We went downtown for the Holidazzle parade a few weeks ago and, goodness, how awesome is it that I now have this little toddler excuse to force Dan to do things that he normally hates, like go to parades downtown in the freezing cold. Pre-dad Dan would never do that. I love pre-dad Dan, but actual Dad Dan, yeah he's much more accomodating, and will pretty much do anything to make his kid happy.  Gus and I are pretty lucky to have him.

We've also made sure to get out and enjoy the snow... BOTH times that we've gotten a little dusting. The amount of snow so far this season has definitely been lame, but really that's ok with me. I know there's plenty of winter left, and from Gus's reaction to "SNOW!" both of those times, there are definitely good times ahead.

Friday night we're having friends over for a relatively impromptu holiday dinner get-together, and I am so so excited. It always ends up being so difficult to get together with friends during this time of the year, we all have so many family/work committments, and it really never seems to work out. But this year, somehow, it did, and I just can't wait to do Christmas with friends, in a super relaxed, Minnesota hotdish potluck kind of way. I put together a few crafts to keep the kids busy, Mandy is bringing her DVDs of Frosty and Rudolph, I will be putting on the holiday tunes, and pretty much the only thing that could make the evening better would be if I could partake in finishing off a bottle or two of red. Oh well... I can wait... only FOUR MORE WEEKS. (Gracious.) Maybe I'll splurge and have a few sips from someone's glass. ;)

Decking the halls

2011-11-28T20:05:00.001-06:00

We went and cut down our Christmas tree this weekend, like we do every year after Thanksgiving, and I gotta say, it really isn't the same without snow. Last year we pulled Gus around in a sled, all bundled up and adorable, and we threw snowballs at Bella and we frolicked and it was all very pretty.

This year was certainly fun, but not nearly as picturesque, as our surroundings essentially amounted to brown, dead November. But that's okay. Snow may be awesome, but so is not dealing with the additional traffic headaches and the shoveling and the slushy goopy sidewalks. So for as long as nature will allow it this winter, I'm cool with no snow.

So no winter wonderland, and my camera died pretty much upon our arrival. This is literally all I got.

And from my cell phone camera, here's Gus "helping" my dad load up the trees.

Such a fun day though, and we picked out a real beauty. It can actually be pretty stressful, wandering around trying to really visualize how certain trees will work (read: fit) in our small home. (This year I think we actually did it... we didn't underestimate the size of the tree and end up with something that takes up our entire dining room!) And then there is some added stress when you throw into the mix a toddler and a dangerously encroaching nap time. One moment he'd be having a blast, running around wildly and fully enjoying the open space, and then all of a sudden he'd appear at my feet, pulling at my pant leg with snot running down his face, whining, "Carry you mommy, carry you!"

His misuse of pronouns never fails to make me giggle, but it really does make sense. He's such a sponge these days, basically repeating everything we say, so since it's common for me to ask him things like, "Do you want mommy to carry you?" or "Do you want me to help you?", it only makes sense that when in need of help, he (quite adorably) exclaims, "Help you! Help you!"

Yesterday was spent getting the tree up.

Uuf-duh.

It really is quite the process isn't it? Especially when you do the real tree thing, because there's just oh so much more cleaning and sweeping and vacuuming of needles involved, not to mention the trimming and the sticky sap and inspecting it from multiple angles and messing with the tree stand to make the darn thing straight. But really, that's only the beginning.

Dan took what felt like 7 hours to get the lights on the tree. We switch off, every other year, because we both hate that part equally, and I was thankful to be off the hook this year. Anyway, he is very particular, as only an engineer could be, but he does beautiful work.

And our house is feeling mighty festive today, I've been reveling in it, seriously soaking up the holiday spirit, trying to drink it in and savor it like a really incredible cup of coffee. I love this time of year.

Charming. This year, I'm getting Gus a stocking with his name on it.

Just look at those chubby little fingers of Gus's from two years ago. Oh I really can't wait to taste this new baby's chubby little fingers.

I love this little kitschy Scandinavian skier guy my mother-in-law gave Gus last year.

It's true what they say about kids making Christmas and other holidays about 1 gazillion times better than they are without (not to mention 1 gazillion times more work, yes that too). It really was so much fun pulling out some of the ornaments Gus has been given over the last few years, remembering the times we've spent as a family in the past two years. Awesome stuff I tell you. Truly awesome, heart-kablooey, sappy stuff.

This was a fun surprise, something I had completely forgotten about, but was reminded of as we pulled all of our holiday stuff out of big blue tubs. Gus was given a Little People nativity set last year by his godparents, and it's pretty adorable. However he refuses to keep the little angel on the top of the stable where she belongs, and tears her off and casts her aside as soon as he sees that we've placed her there. He does what he wants, people.

Of course we also have our boring (really I love it), breakable, grown-up nativity scene set out as well. It, however, doesn't require batteries or play "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

Birds at the top of our tree. We attempted a new star year after year and it just never worked. How do people use those heavy star tree-toppers? Those mothers always just ended up causing our tree to precariously bend and nearly tip over. Whatever. These birds just clip on and I find them delightful.

We have no holiday decor in our bedroom, but look! I made our bed today. So I guess I'm just looking for a high-five for that effort. ;) And I really love this funky quilt we pulled out of the cedar closet when it started to get colder this fall. Made up bed equals me feeling all domesticated.

Gus just came and asked me for blueberries, and about a half hour ago he pointed up to the Bose sound dock thing and asked for us to turn on "the songs". So cool. I just have to say, I'm having so much fun being this kid's mom, and being around for all these little subtle moments of growing and learning and communicating. Just thinking about how different he is and how many new things he's doing from even just a month ago, it's pretty mind-blowing. Makes up for those times when I'm super frustrated with his constant hanging on me, clutching my hair, climbing all over me asking for hugs at the dinner table.

Yeah, that's motherhood for you. One second reveling in your kid's awesomeness, and the next begging him to please just stop hanging on you, feeling claustrophobic, overwhelmed, and stretched thin. It's all worth it. Every second.

Ramblings of a lunatic

2011-11-23T17:44:00.001-06:00

I am determined to get something written here, because it is so NOT Halloween anymore, and that picture of me as a ninja just needs to go away. (Note to self: also change Facebook profile picture asap. Duh.)

What has even been happening, to excuse such an absence? Well, I think we can sum it up.

I am getting huge, that's what's happening.

I am 33 weeks pregnant as of... yesterday, and I am really starting to remember what the end of a pregnancy is like. I'm fine, really, feeling just fine, but it does start to wear on you by this point in the process. The sleeping thing is ok, I am finally for the first time in two years not getting up for Gus in the middle of the night, like, AT ALL, so that is wonderful, but of course I have replaced those wake-ups with those that are a result of needing to pee every two hours or so, or turn over onto my other side to give the sore hip I have been sleeping on a little break.

Whatever, it's not that bad at all, I just, somehow, sort of forgot about this 3rd trimester crap!

Oh, by the way I don't want anyone to get the crazy idea that Gus actually sleeps through the night at 27 months old, so I should clarify my above statement, and say that though I personally am not getting up and dealing with him, someone (Dan) is.

That crazy little boy of ours, he is actually sleeping so much better than he ever was back in the day when it was all I could really talk or think about because I was so sleep deprived. He only wakes up once or maybe twice a night, and if one of us just climbs into bed to snuggle with him (bringing with us some milk and/or a pacifier) he for the most part goes right back to sleep. Which means mom or dad falls right back asleep upstairs, and then zombifies back down to our bedroom a few hours later when he or she wakes up with a toddler's foot in their face. This we can handle though, because EVERYONE GETS TO SLEEP. That is key, we can handle a little bit of "musical beds" if we all GET TO SLEEP.

Anyway, clearly I needed to stop going up there in the middle of the night, because in, ohhhh, about 7 weeks I will have someone even more needy to care for at all hours of the night. And even up until last week, Gus would get RAGING MAD when it was daddy who came upstairs in the middle of the night.  I could hear the hysterics through the monitor and it really is somewhat funny because seriously child? Is that drama necessary?

On one particular occasion while listening in from downstairs, I could tell that he was seeing that it was daddy because he instantly started banging ferociously on the gate in his doorway, and then I could hear Dan's hushed voice, "It's ok, shhhh, Gus you have to move and let me in...", and then a loud screech and what constituted him lurching out of Dan's grasp and throwing himself to the floor to the tune of a big ole pumpkin noggin hitting the hardwood floor. Tears. Hysterics. "Mommy! Mommy!"

Oh buddy. Such drama.  It is so unnecessary.

But like most parenting challenges, we just needed to be consistent for more than a few days, because he hasn't really gotten pissed over the last week, and actually calls out for "Daddy" rather than "Mommy" some of the time. Major progress I tell you! And this is a key hurdle we would like to get through before the baby comes, because I don't want Gus associating the new baby with his mom abandoning him. It cannot be that little baby's fault that I'm no longer available for him in the middle of the night, even though, well... it really is the baby's fault.  Gus cannot know that, we don't need to give him any extra ammunition for resenting the little guy.

Oh one really frustrating pregnancy development over the last month is that my midwives are no longer going to be able to deliver at the hospital we had planned on having this baby at. Some big political something happened with the clinic they are currently associated with, and the hospital itself, and as of Jan 1 they are out, and moving to another hospital that is much further away from home.

So we had to choose between the following crappy options:

Switch to an OB that delivers at our hospital. New clinic, new provider, but same hospital.
Find a midwife at another hospital that is closer than the one our midwives are going to. New clinic, new provider, new hospital, but at least it's still the midwifery model of care that is important to us.
Follow our midwives to this new hospital.
Unassisted home birth.

We chose option 3. Truthfully, at this point a home birth truly sounds the most appealing, even though I'm sure half my friends and family would think I'm crazy to even consider it an option, but I'm being honest here. When I think about all the logistics that go into having a baby at the hospital... getting someone to take Gus on a moment's notice, packing bags for everyone, getting to the hospital in enough time to not have this baby in the car, and spending two days away from home. Ugh.

But I would want a midwife there, which means I'd have to find a home birth midwife this late in the game. No. Just, not going to happen.

So option 3. The idea of completely switching to a new birth team was really stressing me out. We are just going to have to be smarter about things this time and get our asses to the hospital. Goodness, just thinking about last time, laboring by myself in the back of our car, fully effaced and dilated, basically trying to hold that kid in. Yeah, and that was a 5 minute ride to the hospital.

This time, we listen to and trust my body and our instincts. If contractions come on that strong and that fast right away again, then we leave RIGHT AWAY.

Well after we call my parents to come get our two year old! Goodness.

Anyway.  Clearly I'm trying to come to grips with the fact that this is all something I need to start thinking about, but also, quite clearly, I haven't really done the appropriate thinking yet. It's all just coming out as word vomit here.

First step.  Set up a tour of our new hospital. Stat. Yes, that's a good first step.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T15:53:00.000-05:00

Morning

2011-10-21T09:29:00.001-05:00

As much as I am SO NOT a morning person, I sort of do love mornings. Once I'm really awake and forced out of bed, and have a cup of coffee in me, I love mornings.

And this particular morning, well it really is lovely.  Gus and I have the whole day ahead of us, no plans, no appointments, and loads of sunshine at our disposal.

We've had our breakfast, scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast for me, a waffle and strawberries for Gus. Now Gus is downstairs playing with his trains, I've got Nancy Cassidy playing on the ipod for him, to keep him company. We've discovered that sometimes his demands for television ("Watch Tee-Bee Mama! Watch Thomas!!") can sometimes be diverted without tears if we put on some kiddie music while he plays on his own. It's an awesome trick and totally seems to work. Helps him play independently and happily for much longer, without the help of television.

I've worried in the last few weeks or so that the TV thing is starting to get out of hand. He could have cared less about it for the first nearly two years of his life, aside maybe from some PBS in the mornings or when he woke up cranky from a nap, but just recently it's ALL THE TIME.  Demanding Thomas the Train or this weird little live action video that came with a book he got for his birthday showing all different kinds of farm animals running through fields and being generally adorable, with this trippy/happy music in the background and little kids talking about what each animal is called. He loves that crazy video, which he has dubbed "e-i-e-i-o".

Anyway... so yeah.  Just too much TV.  And the more he watches it, the more he demands it, and the more cranky he becomes.  As soon as a 45 minute episode of Thomas is over, he starts screaming for more. Not cool.

So today... what should we do today? It's Friday! I am home with my boy and it's going to be a beautiful day. So much promise. I love that.

Ok, one more cup of coffee, then we're going to go have some sort of adventure. Happy Friday!

This glorious fall

2011-10-18T12:24:00.003-05:00

Fall. It has been extraordinarily wonderful, right? Well we've certainly made an effort to get out and enjoy it as much as possible. Trying not to think about the season that awaits us...

At the cabin in Wisconsin

The "Men" building the deck.

Playing nicely (sometimes) with cousins.

Home and around town

Fall at the Farm

And this past weekend, it was the

Pumpkin Train!

We rode through Osceola to the train depot on this awesome bus. Gus was pretty insanely excited.

And then we told him he got to ride on THIS!

Always trying to get away in pictures with mom.

And the hay bale maze was the best thing yet, surprisingly! He ran through that thing, grinning, about 30 times.

The Haps

2011-10-18T11:19:00.000-05:00

A few things that are all completely unrelated but have been happening around these parts...

Gus is obsessed with frozen blueberries, he goes crazy for those messy, stain-inducing little buggers. Like, last night, wouldn't touch the pizza, yes pizza, that was sitting on his plate all delicious-like and instead opted for two huge bowls full of frozen blueberries. When his first bowl was empty he looked up at me with those big eyes, his entire mouth and chin stained blue, and exclaimed, "Oh NOOOOO! All GONE!" So I filled er up, and that was pretty much it for dinner. Toddlers are so weird you guys.

So... looks like my child is the class bully. Goodness. We've been having separation anxiety issues over the last three weeks or so, which has been super strange for him, but clearly the little guy is going through something. So yesterday he did not freak out when I left him in class with Teacher Ann, Teacher Kathy and the rest of the kids, and he actually looked excited to play with all the toys, running around smiling, still hugging me real tight, but there were no tears, no drama. And I was so relieved, because the whole routine just breaks my heart, and I was hoping that he would get better.

But THEN! At the end of the class, when us parents came in during snack time the little guy was sitting on the teacher's lap, all smiles exclaiming, "Mama! You came back!". And THEN! Teacher Ann pulled me aside to tell me that he had a bit of a "rough morning". My immediate thought was that he was sad for a while, like last time. No, he was just really aggressive with other kids, throwing toys, pushing, not sharing. Ugh. Now I am not at all surprised by this, he also seems to be going through a little aggressive testing limits phase as well, particularly with his little 7 month old cousin. And we are working on it, but he just doesn't seem to be getting it, the "talks" we have about being nice to other kids and sharing, the time-outs. I'm not too concerned, because I think HE IS A TWO YEAR OLD who does not spend a ton of time with other kids his age, and I think this type of behavior is actually quite normal. But jeez, no one wants to be pulled aside by the teacher at the end of class. I felt totally admonished.

I'm sure it's a phase, he's clearly going through something, and that something might even have to do with the fact that he can sense an impending, dun dun dun... new baby to compete with. And I have to keep reminding myself that he is a toddler, and toddlers are, in essence, crazy. Because I simply can't imagine it would be possible for two of the most introverted conflict-avoiders out there (I'm talking about Dan and I) to mate and produce a bully.  No, that just doesn't make sense!  All through grade school and even high school my friends used to yell at me for saying "I'm sorry" too often, or when completely unnecessary.  I am a conflict avoider to a fault, and it's something I have to work on, my self confidence, and the ability to stand up for myself and my opinions. So no. My child the mean kid? No.

Honestly, I have some hard core mama-bear fears about sending Gus off to school someday, and all that potential for him to have trouble making friends, or get his feelings hurt by some other bully kids. Just the idea of it breaks my heart.  But there is the other side of it I suppose.  That fact NEVER even occurred to me, that he might end up being the mean kid, you know? My mind is blown people.

Switching topics...

I am becoming increasingly frustrated by my maternity wardrobe, since I'm doing the pregnant thing on a completely different timetable this time. Blech. So I am getting big, officially in the 3rd trimester today (whoa!), the weather is getting cooler, and my closet full of springy maternity tops and sundresses is looking very out of season. Dern.  I was pregnant in the winter last time, but obviously not wearing maternity clothes yet, so... there you go.

I hate the idea of buying more maternity clothes, I've already made my fair share of purchases this second time around, a pairs of jeans, cords, some simple tanks for under non-maternity cardigans. So I told myself NO MORE! But goodness, it is getting difficult to get dressed in the morning.  I have a lot of great dresses that could work for the office, but now I need tights.  And the non-maternity tights I have are like torture devices, so uncomfortable sitting under the belly all day. I am ready to rip them off my body with my teeth by the time the afternoon hits.

Anyway, such a stupid thing to even be stressing about. I need to just bite the bullet and buy some cheap winter tops from Old Navy, or shut up about it.  I remember getting this way in the third trimester when I was pregnant with Gus, so many changes happening with my body, I just have this intense desire to buy things that might help me feel like myself a little bit.

In other pregnancy news, tomorrow morning I do the lovely glucose tolerance screening for Gestational Diabetes, so that should be good times. I've mentioned this before, but because Gus was over 9 lbs at birth, they do things a little differently, taking into consideration the fact that I could have been borderline GD during my last pregnancy. So I took a two hour test at 16 weeks, which involved fasting for 8 hours, getting my blood drawn, then drinking the nasty flat extra sugary orange drink, waiting an hour, getting my blood drawn again, waiting another hour, and getting my blood drawn a third and final time.

It really was a blast, as I'm sure those of you who have done this screening in any of its forms would agree. Ugh. Actually it was extra horrible to do at 16 weeks because I still had some of those first trimester symptoms, and not eating only made them worse. Whatever, I passed, I was relieved, my midwife was cool. I went about my second trimester.

Tomorrow, at 28 weeks, I do the same two hour test again. And the two hour test is not like the one hour test in that if you fail, you have to do the 3 hour test to confirm and/or rule out a false positive. The two hour test is IT. Do or die.  You fail, you have Gestational Diabetes.

Wow, all this third trimester testing stuff is really bringing things home, I can't believe how quickly these weeks have flown! Should we be doing a refresher labor and delivery class? Gosh, I haven't really even considered it. Just not even on my radar. At the very least, I should start reading through my Bradley books again. Crazy. As I've said, second pregnancy = SO DIFFERENT. At this point in time during my first pregnancy I was obsessing about this stuff, constantly. There really is just no time for obsessing anymore!

Day in the Life

2011-10-06T17:13:00.050-05:00

Laura over at Navigating the Mothership does this Day in the Life project quarterly, and I LOVE reading her posts. There's just something about the completely mundane details of another person's life that gets my engines going. I find it FASCINATING, and a fun way to relate to another's experiences.

So when she announced last week that she would be doing it this week, I decided to jump aboard and attempt to participate.

May I say, whoa. This was way more time consuming to put together than I anticipated. Not the actual taking of pictures throughout the day and writing down little notes to help me remember, that stuff was fun. But the consolidating of all the pictures and the timeline and all that, and then actually typing up completely mundane details about my life, has proven to be the difficult part. More like, exhausting.  And sort of awkward, because when you really put it all together, it's impossible for me to not get a little self conscious that this is SO BORING and no one wants to hear about my morning routine, or lack there of.

But maybe they do? I like reading about your morning routine.

So this is dedicated to weirdos like me who get there jollies from this stuff.  Do not even read ahead if you are not a weirdo like me.

Without further ado...

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

6:00 AM (ish): I'm still laying in bed half asleep as Dan kisses me goodbye and gives the dog some snuggles (guess which one of us is a morning person?).  I continue to lay there a few minutes until I am jarred awake by my toddler screaming into the monitor, "Mommy! WET! Mommy, WET! WET! WET!" Ugh. I know that means his diaper sprung a leak overnight, and he is definitely up for the day. (Also, I will be doing laundry before I leave for work.) He had a rough night, multiple wake-ups almost as if he was a newborn again, lots of tossing & turning, maybe he's finally getting some of those two year molars that we usually blame crankiness and poor sleeping habits on? Poor little guy. Poor me.

So I trudge upstairs. Normally if he wakes up as early as 6:00, I can grab him a sippy of milk and climb into bed with him for fifteen minutes. That usually gets him back down for at least another hour, sometimes more.

But he's definitely not going back to sleep when both he and his sheets are drenched in urine. Gross.

As I'm changing the sheets and getting Gus dressed and changed, I yell into the monitor something to the affect of, "Dan, if you're still here, would you PLEASE come up here and get these sheets down to the laundry."

(We both often use the baby monitor as a one-way walkie-talkie. So does Gus when he wakes up in the middle of the night and demands, "Daddy milk, daddy milk!")

Thankfully, he hasn't left the house yet, and he can do the damn laundry.  I bring a bleary-eyed and slightly crabby Gus all the way downstairs to the basement, and set him up with a netflix episode of Thomas & Friends, his blanket, a piece of pumpkin banana bread, and of course his milk.

I contemplate grabbing my own breakfast and blanket, and doing the same, but instead kiss the little guy on his forehead, say goodbye again to Dan, and head to the shower.

6:15 AM: (That was an exhausting 15 minutes.) In the shower.

6:20 AM: Stupid freaking alarm is going off, just as I'm starting to shave my legs. Ahhhhhhhh!

6:21 AM: Jump out of the shower, wet and cold, and run over and shut off the alarm. Swear a few obscenities.

6:32 AM: Out of the shower and dried off, rocking the towel turban. Take a picture of the offensive alarm, whose blaring ten minutes earlier was just a reminder of the fact that I normally would have gotten another twenty minutes more of sleep than I did today. (At least 20 minutes. Probably another 10 minute snooze.)

Wet hair, in Dan's old robe, feeling super motivated to start the day. Yup. Also, yes, there are bras sitting on my dresser. This is real life after all. For some reason there are always bras sitting on my dreser.

Hair - mousse applied and scrunched, left to air dry. I never thought I would become a wash and go kinda lady, but that is pretty much what has happened over the last two years of motherhood.

Makeup - a little foundation, bronzer, blush, and mascara. Done.

Clothing/accessories - I am feeling on the ball today because I actually picked something out last night. No outfit crisis today! Woot! Non-maternity empire waist dress from Kohl's (stay classy Daisy Fuentes), non-maternity pink cardigan, about 7 years old, pearl earings, gold flats.

I try to take a picture of myself in the bathroom mirror, but Thomas must be over, because all of a sudden Gus is pulling on the hem of my dress, carrying around one of his favorite books, whining, "Monkeys nothing to do! Mama read it!" Picture is blurry, and Gus smells like poop. So yeah. Later with the outfit pictures.

I change Gus's diaper, read him the blasted book (that I read at least twice every day), then I read another one about those darn monkeys (this time baking their mama a birthday cake), and finally have to put my foot down when he requests a third, telling him that we have to get going to grandma's house because mommy has to go to work today.

Out the door, purse, daycare bag, and toddler all in my arms. Bye Bella! (She is not so happy when we leave, I really wish she would just get with the program on that. We always come home.)

And we're off. Today's commute has officially begun.

Cute new handbag's first day!

Clock is 10 minutes fast. We are actually on the road by 7:14 AM.

We arrive at my in-law's home and it is a bit of a ruckus as usual. Dogs barking. My 7 month old niece is looking adorable in her little purple sweater, hanging out in the exersaucer. We chit chat for a bit, I always linger too long I think but my mother-in-law doesn't seem to mind. Gus is extra needy this morning though, so that stresses me out. Is he starting to sense something about the impending second child? I don't know, but he's all about me, all the time these days, and he holds onto my neck tight and doesn't want me to leave.

Eventually I just have to hand him off and he is crying and flailing in her arms as I wave goodbye to them at the door. Boo. I don't get it. I know he loves it at Grandma's, but sometimes he does this, particularly over the last month or so, and I don't get it.

(Later my mother-in-law tells me that he stopped crying as soon as I drove away, and then looked at her point blank, "Waffle?". Ridiculous.)

Onward with the commute. After stopping at Starbucks for a venti 1/2 caff drip (that sounded soooooo pretentious, it's just a large coffee, 1/2 decaf 1/2 light roast) and a donut (yeah, yeah, yeah) I am finally on my way. Throughout the rest of my drive, baby boy starts getting all thumpety thump in my womb as a result of the caffeine and sugar. I still get all ooh and ahhh about baby kicks, because truly, it is just so awesome and amazing and such a miracle.

I finally arrive at work at 8:20 AM. That's not too bad, just a tiny bit over an hour today. (My in-laws house is 100% out of my way. Dropping Gus off in the morning adds about a half hour when all is said and done, partly because I always linger and chat too long.)

Work is stressful because it's Q3 and September month-end close. And month-end close never seems to go smoothly at the end of a quarter. My boss is in my office telling me about the latest EBIT emergency that demaneds my immediate attention before my computer has even booted up.

11:00 AM (ish): I am starving and don't think I can hold out until lunch. Pregnant Alicia eats every two to three hours, or there is hell to pay. So I grab the yogurt that I had left in the refrigerator last Thursday.

Post-yogurt, I am not so super motivated since it's almost lunch, and I remember that I need to take an outfit picture. So I go upstairs to the bathroom that is not used by very many people to do a creepy bathroom mirror shot.

By the way, 26 weeks pregnant today. Hey there little guy!

11:56 AM: Lunch with Ben (brother/coworker/office neighbor). It's Jimmy Johns today, because Ben ALWAYS wants Jimmy Johns. (Yes, I eat deli meat while pregnant.) We eat outside because it is so incredibly gorgeous out.

While dining on our sandwiches (#4, no mayo, add cucumbers) I get a cute picture of Gus via text from my mother-in-law, playing with trucks in their backyard. I do so love these little updates she sends.

1:00 PM: We have been back in the office for maybe ten minutes when there's a fire drill. Sweet! So we all file out and hang out for about five minutes in the glorious fall weather.

2:45 PM: Drive over to the other building (about 10 minutes away) for a weekly 3:00 staff meeting. Exciting stuff. Wow. Day in the life at the office is boooooooring.

4:30 PM: Out of the meeting, setting up shop here in cube land for the rest of the afternoon.

5:20 PM: Leave work and head towards the in-laws house. Dan usually does pick-up in the afternoons, because he only works until 3:30, but tonight we're all meeting there for dinner to celebrate his sister Maria's 17th birthday.

Happy Birthday Maria!

With the hustle and bustle of my commute home, having to pee like an insane pregnant fool immediately upon arrival, and then catching up with my little guy, and the rest of the family, I forget for about two or so hours about this whole "Day in the Life" project. Woops!

A quick summary of those forgotten two hours: Push Gus on the swing in the backyard, eat a bunch of Dan's grandma's amazing bars, coo over my adorable niece and nephews, catch up with sister-in-law Kirsten, reel in horror a little when Dan tells me how many little Halloween-sized candy bars Gus had before I got there, make the child a plate, try not to be annoyed that he eats only the canteloupe and green beans (won't even touch the ham or cheesy potatoes, fickle toddlers I tell you), make my own plate of delicious ham, cheesy potatoes, and salad, eat it all up and go back for just a tiny bit more cheesy potatoes, remember about the "Day in the Life" project just as we're getting Gus cleaned up after dinner, snap this picture of him being a maniac with the place mat.

Whew.

After dinner Gus goes back to playing and causing mischief with his cousins/aunts and uncles, while Dan and I relax and talk with family. It is so nice that he finally seems to have gotten to this point where he kind of just blends in with the rest of the family, hangs out with the kids, follows them upstairs, plays by himself outside on the back patio. I don't know when it happened, but it's like he's growing up or something. There is so much less parental hovering required these days. He is a happy little independent kid, and also just one of the gang. I really noticed this tonight, but I realize it's been happening slowly and will probably continue to happen without my noticing. It's kind of awesome.

Baby girl cheeks. Delicious. This lady is already crawling and pulling herself up at 7 months old! Craziness.

Dan's littlest sister, seven years old, and her (our) nephew. I love that this little guy will stop whatever he's doing, smile big, and say cheese for a picture. He then asks for you show it to him. He is such a sweetheart. Gus could learn a thing or two from his cousin.

Maria opens her presents while Gus assists. I picked her out some clothes and this adorable little canvas cross wrap purse with fringe from American Eagle. I don't quite have a guague as to whether or not my gifts for teenagers these days are lame or cool. It's so hard to know what's cool these days, I am so removed from all things high school. Oh well, I try. I do sort of wish my high school self would have had better fashion sense, and more self confidence, and a straightening iron. I feel like if I got a second chance at being a teenager, 17 Again style, I would be much cooler and more attractive.

Anyway.... Back to the party.

Following presents and cake, the party sort of wraps up. It was fun and lively, lots of kids and dogs, laughter, chaos, this family is great and I am lucky to be a part of it.

We decide it REALLY is time to get home after an incident during which the young kids were playing some sort of hide and seek/tag game in the bedrooms and the hall off of the living room with all the lights off. I unwittingly sneak by the craziness to go to the bathroom, noting that Gus is in the dark room with all the kids, and when I come back out, all hell has seemingly broken loose, my 2 year old nephew is screaming that someone had stepped on his hand, my 5 year old nephew runs out of the room and plows me and the little guy down as I am inspecting said hand, and then Dan's 27 year old sister Heidi, having heard absolutely enough of the ruckus and commotion, tears into the bedroom, turns on all the lights, and scolds the children in an authoritative and no-nonsense way I swear only Heidi can pull off. "That is ENOUGH! What is going on in here?!"...

And then I notice that Gus is no longer a part of the commotion. "Where's Gus?" I ask, tearing through the room, looking in the closet, under the bed. "Julia is Gus in here? He was just here!"

No one seems to know where he is, and Dan's mom and I start tearing around the house looking for him. Finally I notice that the door to the basement is open a crack, but the light in the stairwell is off. He wouldn't have gone down there in the dark?

Of course he would!

It's a basement, typical. Cold, dark, cement floors, laundry, an extra refrigerator, my father-in-law's big desk full of paperwork and clutter.

But Gus is hanging out down there all by himself, had climbed up on the rolling office chair and is jabbering about some of the model cars and other trinkets his grandpa has displayed around the desk. Playing with an economy size bottle of Asprin. Jeez.

About 5 minutes later Dan and I find him down there again, and this time he has just discovered a little metal motorcycle. And a pair of scissors underneath a pile of paperwork.

Alright, it's really time to go home.

It's 8:53 PM. A very long, but lovely day, and we're finally headed home.

Gus's eyes tell me he's ready for bed.

It's a race to bedtime as soon as we walk in that door. No bath tonight. Jammies, books, let's do this. Gus gets a little bit of last minute playing in, hanging out in baby brother's nursery, what used to be Gus's nursery. That hasn't really totally been converted back to baby nursery because it's still full of Gus's stuff. A project for another day...

Since Gus soaked through his sheets this morning (seems like so long ago) they are still in the dryer. But they're dry, cause Dan has the forsight to run it this afternoon when he came home to pick up the dog for the party. Dan = Awesome. But ugh. The fun never stops...

Bedtime stories. We have been reading these three books at bedtime for about the last month or so. Puff the Magic Dragon (he makes one of us, preferably mom, sing it), Day is Done, and Little Bear's Bedtime. That last one is really starting to grate on me, so we may have to switch things up again soon.

His lovey is my hair. He falls asleep clutching it. (Amazing that I'm still wearing what I wore to work today. Normally I would totally be in sweatpants by now, probably for the last three hours.)

After stories, we say prayers, kiss daddy goodnight (tonight is my night to lay with him), and Gus and I snuggle until he falls asleep. It was a very very long day today, and the little guy passes out within about 10 minutes. And I sneak out...

I come downstairs, Dan has packed Gus's bag for tomorrow, and is in the shower. I grab the tupperware container of cut pinneapple from the refrigerator, a fork, and my water, and go downstairs to relax, finally. I watch the end of the DVR'd episode of Pan Am that I started last night, and when it's over, decide I'm too tired to relax any longer. My pillow is calling me. 10:30 PM.

Today

2011-10-03T16:21:00.001-05:00

So there is something wrong with me. There HAS to be. Because I just can’t stay home on my days off, I can’t relax with Gus and get something done around the house. Instead I run around and make all these plans and come home at nap time feeling SO EXHAUSTED that I’m close to keeling over. Gus fell asleep within 5 minutes of me lying down with him, so I’m doing it to him too.

I think deep down I’m trying to compensate for the fact that I may be somewhat housebound in a few months, with a newborn and a 2 year old. But this can’t be good for me, running myself ragged all day long in the name of “fun”, different experiences for Gus, taking advantage of the beautiful weather before the dreaded first snow.

Today was just, in a word, hectic. And it didn’t have to be!

And I don’t necessarily think it’s the best thing for Gus either, to be run around all over the world, shuffled from one place to another.

Our morning did not start out awesome. It’s nothing new that I was running late to ECFE, because my gosh, it’s at 9:00 AM and it’s actually quite difficult to get out of the house, with everything I need (including my dressed and fed child) before that time. Of course, I could actually get up before him, which would make things quite a bit less stressful and rushed, but heck if I’m going to do that on my day off!

So we run in 10 minutes late, I’m rushing around to help Gus do the damn fall leaves painting craft that they’re working on, before circle time. Then circle time is over in no time and we’re supposed to say goodbye and leave the kids there to go do mom discussion stuff. But of course Gus is feeling super shuffled and rushed and probably picking up on my stress, not to mention a bunch of the other boys were crying and sad, so for the first time he is really emotional about me leaving. Hugging me, “Mommy no!” sobbing and flailing when I finally just have to hand him off to one of his teachers.

Ugh. Parenting fail. Because that is not even Gus. This was all my doing.

And I’m pretty sure the teachers were judging me a bit. They are normally so good about soothing the crying kids, helping those of them that are going through a little bit of separation anxiety, but they saw me rushing in all late and frazzled, and they gave me the “look”. That first 30 minutes of class is supposed to be Mommy and toddler time, a time for us to be in-the-moment, engaged, one-on-one, helping them with a fun craft, showing them how to take their little picture and stick it on the wall that says “Who’s here today?”, and I totally did not do my part. I mean I was sweating and panting people.

Ha. Whatever. We ALL have those mornings, just feeling sort of bad about it, and I will try to do better next week. I guess that’s all I can do.

Of course, after class, Gus and I ran off to my mom’s to hang out with her and my brother. We decided to go pick up some salads to-go and then come back home, get the dog, get the stroller, and take a walk to the park for a little picnic. All fine and dandy, and it was just fine, but also of course hectic. More shuffling. More yelling at the psycho hyper dog. And holy mother, it is warmer out there today than I thought it would be, so lots more sweating and panting after the 3 mile walk from this pregnant lady.

I’m tired.

But Gus did get a huge kick out of seeing the guy with the dump truck come to the park and dump a big pile of fresh woodchips. And then he got even more of a kick out of climbing up on the pile and swimming in them.

Worth it for that smile?

Yeah, probably.

Family Pictures

2011-09-29T23:06:00.001-05:00

Here they are! Courtesy of the super talented toddler-whisperer that is Jill Berry Photography. I love how they turned out, though of course there are about a million things about my own appearance that I can't stop critiquing in my head. I am not going to allow myself to list my insecurities here though, no need to draw attention to them. Let's just say, I'm relieved that I have the perspective of someone who has been pregnant before and then not pregnant afterwards. It doesn't last forever, someday I'll look and feel normal again.

I'll be repeating that little mantra throughout the remaining 14+ weeks of my pregnancy. Ugh. It does sort of freak me out that I look and feel this pregnant already. There is just so much time left for me to keep getting bigger and bigger.

I'll shut up. These pictures are just so great, my boys could not be any more handsome. I'm just amazed Jill was able to get so many smiling/happy Gus is looking at the camera shots. Yay! Sorry for the picture overload, I just had such a hard time choosing my favorites.

Weekend in Wisconsin

2011-09-28T14:31:00.002-05:00

You know those weekends that are jam packed and pretty much fantastic, but leave you feeling so exhausted that you almost crave getting home and back into your boring old routine?

Totally had one of those weekends.

It’s Wednesday and I’m just now finally starting to feel like a normal functioning person.

Friday night we met up with a friend of a friend of a friend for a little family photo shoot, in honor of Gus turning two and me being pregnant and holiday card season coming up. How on the ball am I this year right? Total fluke I tell you, normally I think of these things approximately five months after Gus’s birthday, or two weeks before Christmas, that sort of thing. But this time? I am channeling the tiny shrapnel of type A-ness that does, I swear, exist somewhere within the depths of my being. Somewhere, deep down, I am that chick who has everything together. Sure.

The session went really well (aside from my hair), but holy mother I felt like I was going to keel over from exhaustion at the end of it. Our photographer Jill was such a patient and energetic person, full of amazing ideas and seemingly boundless energy. Here’s the sneak peak she sent us, these were from the beginning of the session, after which we drove to the Lake Harriet rose gardens. I can’t wait to see the rest, and will surely post a handful of my favorites as soon as I have them.

Gus was mostly uncooperative, but honestly that came as no surprise to his parents. We were as mentally prepared as we could have been. I even sent Jill an email a few days before to warn her of what she might have gotten herself into. The thing is, she has her own two year old, and we all know how two year olds are, so I didn’t want to come across as that a-hole mom that thinks her kid is so much more unique and different and difficult than anyone else’s kid. I swear I am not that mom. It’s just that I have met other calm, sweet, angelic two year olds, and I’ve also met two year olds who are more apt to cry and pout and hang on their mom when in this type of situation, and I know neither of those are Gus.

He takes the typical craziness of a two year old and ramps it up about 2,000 notches. Case in point, Friday night’s photo session. He arches his back and screams, “Mommy RUN!” when you try to get him to sit still and smile for a picture. He tears off down the street laughing maniacally the second he is given an ounce of freedom. He drags his feet and goes limp when you try to make him hold your hand and walk somewhere he doesn’t want to walk. Towards the end of the two hours, I think we finally kind of figured out little tricks to make him smile and sit still longer than .3 seconds, but yeah, I definitely could have used a bubble bath and a long massage after that experience.

I got neither of the two, I’d like to point out, however after grabbing a bite to eat in Uptown we did go home and immediately got Gus down for the night, and by 9:00 we were both fast asleep having nightmares about future family photo sessions with two little boys. Maybe that was just me. But you get the idea. 9:00 PM Friday night bedtime. Woot! Living the life.

Gus slept until almost 7:45 Saturday morning, which was gloooorious, and I felt like a new woman. We immediately tackled the tasks at hand, which were (1. ) Breakfast, (2.) Scramble to quickly pack our bags and the car for an overnight at the cabin, and (3.) Hit the road towards Wisconsin.

On the way out of town, we stopped for coffee, of course, at the place down the street, and I had to also grab a pumpkin muffin for the three of us to share. Yes, I’m pregnant, and I often eat two breakfasts.

Two hours later we pulled into Dan’s grandparents hobby farm where we spent the rest of the day visiting with family, lounging on the hammock, giving Gus “tractor” rides, and stuffing our faces with cookies and candy corn and delicious tater tot hot dish.

(Val, I’ve swiped a few of your pictures, hope you don’t mind.)

Because we didn’t decide to try to get Gus a nap until super late, he slept for two hours all cozy on the guest bed until 6:30 PM. This is ok, we go with the flow, we cool like that, he wasn’t going to make it without a nap and this meant we were in no hurry to get out of there.

We left the farm at 8:30 to drive the hour through rural Wisconsin to Dan’s parents' lake cabin, where we planned to spend the night. The drive felt more treacherous than it really was, Dan just drives way too fast down those windy little roads, and the GPS had us taking all these crazy dirt roads through the middle of dark nowhere, and I kept waiting for a deer to jump out in front of the car. And then our car would be wrecked, and we’d be stranded in the middle of nowhere, where we would eventually meet our doom via an ax-wielding toothless serial killer in overalls.

We made it to the cabin of course, and I should say I became much more reasonable after 30 minutes when we were on an actual County road that wasn’t named “something and ¼ street”.

Of course, Gus was off-the-wall hyper at the cabin and didn’t go to sleep until after 11:00 PM, due to the late nap and all the driving and the excitement of being at the cabin. And then he woke at 6:00 the next day, raring to go, hearing his little cousins awake and running around out in the living room, and after an hour of trying to force him to go back to sleep, I gave up. And was of course all doom and gloom, “The end is near, 7 hours of sleep?! He will never make it through the day, we are surely in for it!”

Because Sunday afternoon was the big 89th birthday celebration for Dan’s Great Grandmother at another Wisconsin family farm in the area. Blerrrrgh.

Funny how everything is always SO MUCH WORSE in your mind. He was FINE. He slept for an hour on the way to the party, and then seriously just lived it up, running all over the property, pulling wagons, riding trikes, climbing on motorcycles and lawn mowers, going for a walk in the field to see the cows, climbing the fence to feed them grass. Adorables. I was kicking myself for forgetting my camera. The property and views were breathtaking, and the day was just, without a doubt, one of those perfect autumn days. And Gus wore a new sweater that could not have been cuter. Ahh, well.

And the food! Holy delicious, we dined on a huge smorgasbord of hotdishes and homemade bars. (You really can’t get much more Midwestern/Minnesotan than that sentence eh?)

Amazingly, the child did not sleep the whole drive home that evening, which was actually good, because we were able to get him to bed at a reasonable toddler bedtime rather than his usual 9:00-9:30. (He is on a very annoying schedule these days, a product of continually pushing back/fighting his nap to the point that he goes down so late in the afternoon, and then ends up taking monster 2-3 hour naps, so he’s up until almost 10:00 PM every night, and Mommy and Daddy get NO EVENING DOWNTIME. Bugger. We are a bit at a loss as to what to do, because every time we’ve tried to adjust or control his sleep patterns it ends up backfiring on us. Instead I choose to believe/hope that it’s a phase. It’s a phase… It’s a phase…)

So yes the weekend. It was a good one. It was exhausting, lots of driving, traveling, chasing, redirecting, eating, and not sleeping. And I was so happy to be home. Back to things like bills, work emails, a dentist appointment, grocery shopping. Boring. Routine. But home. And I love our home, even when I come back from a weekend to the complete disaster we left as we were racing out the door. I can even appreciate the mess, because I can putz around and tidy up on my own time, in sweat pants, from the sanctity of my own familiar, blessed home.

A few pictures of my youngest son...

2011-09-21T11:53:00.003-05:00

I feel a little bit terrible about this, but our ultrasound was about 4 weeks ago and the CD with all the images has just been sitting unopened on our dining room table since the appointment. I haven't once popped it in the computer to check them out, I haven't shown anyone else the first pictures of our little baby. No upload to Facebook.

Goodness, this pregnancy is just so so different. It's so much more just a part of life, like time keeps chugging away, life keeps on, and yeah, I'm pregnant, and yeah, our lives will change drastically in less than four months when this baby boy is born, but I just don't have as much time or energy to put into thinking about all that, worrying, hoping, wishing, wondering. There's a lot less of all of that this time around, and I don't think it has anything to do with us being less excited about this new baby, it all just feels so much more natural, more of just this lovely little existence.

This is us, this is now.  Expecting our second son, the belly getting bigger every day, but no time to dwell on that too much because Gus is demanding that we play Thomas trains again. To heck with the developmental milestones and what fruit my fetus resembles this week, I'm going to go for a walk around the neighborhood with my little guy on his new bike, breath in this glorious crisp fall air. Or it's bedtime, so we all lay in Gus's bed and, by the dim light of the cute little green lamp, we read sweet stories about dragons and little bears and their mamas, and all the while baby boy kicks and bumps and moves all over inside me and makes those moments all the more special.

Sometimes I have guilt, like I need to be making a bigger deal about things.

I should take more belly pictures.

I should know what's going on with my baby's development now at 24 weeks, but I totally don't, because I haven't logged into Babycenter since about week 7.

Am I totally setting this child up to have the stereotypical "middle child" feelings of inadequacy or of being less loved?

But usually, no. No guilt. Because I know how happy and blessed I feel to be pregnant with our second son, things are just different now. I'm not the same person I was when I was pregnant with Gus. Older? Wiser? Not really. Just different priorities.  I don't have any problem with other people doing those things, not at all, I just can't seem to muster the energy it takes to get all obsessed. I don't know why it's so different, but it is. And for some reason, this time I want to keep things a little closer to my heart. I feel like this is my family's story I'm living now, this baby, this pregnancy, he's not just mine, he's Dan's second son and he's Gus's little brother and it all just feels so much more special, and private. I know, it's sort of strange and hard to explain, but it's how I feel.

Anyway, I am excited. And I do want to share my excitement and get all proud mama and show off my littlest guy.  I'm so glad I finally took a look at these pictures again, because my heart is all a flutter this morning looking at them and thinking about him. Wondering if he'll have that little fuzz that Gus had when he was born, thinking about what it will be like to look into his eyes and kiss his delicious little dome of a head.  I'm already just so happy to be his mama.

So here he is. And no, we are nowhere near deciding on his name...

How cute is this chubby/muscly little arm? Reminds me so much of Gus's little muscles when he was born.

Specifically, of Gus in this picture. That's him and me taking a lovely (much needed) nap when he was less than a week old. I mean right? They are totally brothers. (Also, I fear these are the naps I will be pining for come January when in addition to a newborn, I've also got my loud, truck-obsessed little toddler to entertain/care for. Goodness. That is an exhausting thought.)

Long and lean legs, like his dad's.

Classic profile shot. He was moving around a ton during the ultrasound, thus the reason why he's laying completely the opposite way from the first picture.

There you have it. The first pictures of my youngest boy. I'm happy I finally shared them.

School

2011-09-13T17:38:00.001-05:00

Just because most of the pictures I take with my phone never see the light of day, here are a few recent ones, mostly from last night at our neighborhood’s annual “meet and greet”. It was a lovely evening.

So fall is here and school has started, for Gus and I that means Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) classes have commenced, and we went to our first “toddler” class yesterday. I’m bummed that it seems none of the ladies I got to know last year in class have stuck with Mondays. Actually it surprises me (and annoys me a little) that a few of them have contacted me to ask if they’ll be seeing us again on Wednesday, and others have left me nice Facebook comments being all, “See you Wednesday!” Nice gesture, thanks for thinking about us, but no. We’re in Monday’s class. I work Tuesday through Thursday. I have always made this clear. That’s why we were in Monday class, WITH YOU, last year.

It shouldn’t bother me, but I just don’t get where the confusion comes from. I sat with these ladies in a circle talking about mom stuff and the elusive work/life/childrearing balance every Monday morning for about 9 months last year. We aren’t best friends, we don’t talk about everything, but jeez, my only days home are Mondays and Fridays, THIS people know. Just like I know the one chick’s husband is a podiatrist and she has become obsessed with running over the past six months, and the blonde perky lady with an Australian accent is from New Zealand and she has two daughters and a son, and that other lady’s little girl was a preemie born at 30 weeks, and that one girl talks loudly and rudely to her neighbor while other people are speaking, and that girl’s kids are always sick and believe it or not, suck at sleeping even more than Gus.

Whatever, it just feels like that classic high school “thing” where I pay attention to other people, I know who they are, I remember the things they say. I know them, but they don’t know me, you know? I always felt that way about the popular kids in high school. Though mommy-hood and parenting groups and all that can be a bit like high school, if you haven’t noticed, so whatever. It really shouldn’t bother me, but I guess I’m admitting it does.

Anyway… this means we know no one in our new class, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else really knows each other either, so this could be good. Clean slate. It really is a new school year, new teacher, new classmates, starting fresh.

Did I mention it’s all boys? Nine two year old boys. Goodness. As you might expect, I was exhausted after our hour and a half class yesterday, because that’s a lot of two year olds all up in one room for the first time scoping out a bunch of new-to-them toys.

Gus and I are both so far removed from all things “school” and routine, it will be an interesting experience. Circle time. Singing songs. Crafts. Sharing. Sitting at a table for more than 45 seconds to eat a snack.

I am hopeful for a fun little adventure each week. And I am getting pumped about the fact that for an hour every Monday I get to go sit in a quiet room and talk to other moms of toddlers and drink coffee while someone else helps to teach my son things like shapes and colors and days of the week, and maybe even to be a little civilized. Though I dare say that last one would probably be asking too much of my little guy. ;)

I am hoping none of the moms are a-holes, but again, that is probably me asking too much of the program. Every moms group needs at least one or two of them, I suppose, keeps things interesting.

TWO

2011-09-06T12:03:00.003-05:00

Dear Gus,

You are two. TWO. Can you believe it? Yeah, me neither. Two whole years with you and I just don’t know if I can find the words that convey how wonderful they have been. What did we even do before you? I vaguely remember those mystical days, lots of studying, working, television, happy hours, softball games, wild weekends with friends up north… and beer, lots and lots of beer. Yeah, your mom and dad had fun before you were born, but something was definitely missing, whether we realized it or not.

Guess what buddy, it was you. YOU were missing. And now that we have had you for two life-altering, exciting, exhausting, joyful, overwhelming, perfectly chaotic years, we get it. We get what we were missing.

We are so lucky to have been blessed with you, not just anyone, but YOU buddy. And as you have gotten older and we’ve started to see what kind of person you are becoming, well life just keeps getting better and better.

You are so talkative, chattering constantly about trains and bulldozers, back-hoes, dump trucks, police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, motorcycles. Yeah, you most definitely are into vehicles, and you point them out to us on the streets, you read about them in your books, and you tell us all about the noises they make. You spend your days vroom-ing them around the living room, pulling out Thomas trains for daddy to play with you, getting angry and frustrated when you inadvertently mess up the track or have trouble pushing your trains.

Buddy, two-years-old is all about the frustration and the fury, because you so badly want to be able to do all these things that you just can’t quite do. You think you’re much more grown up than you are, and we have to remind you that it’s ok to mess things up, big kids and grown-ups a-like mess things up all the time! Sometimes we just have to say, “Train time is over for now”, and pull you away, when exclamations of “Oh no! Oh no!” turns into throwing and kicking and screaming and attacking the dog even though it’s really not her fault that Toby flew off the track when he went down the hill.

There’s just so much going on in that little blonde head of yours, I often find myself thinking about what you might be thinking, your tiny awesome brain is fascinating to your mama, kiddo. All of a sudden, it seems, you know your ABC’s and can count to ten and beyond. When did that happen? I don’t know, it just did, and no doubt about it you make your mother and father beam with pride over these new skills.

Of course we think you are just the smartest, funniest, kindest little two-year-old there is. We realize, there are a lot of really fantastic two-year-olds out there, but you’re definitely our favorite. Without a doubt, you are rough-and-tumble, you have one speed and it is very fast, you love to jump on the bed singing “Train is coming! Train is coming! Train is coming, to our town!” and sometimes at bedtime it is very difficult to calm you down. We know we’re in for it when after your bath you take to racing around your bedroom in circles, or doing little toddler killers, sprinting from one end of the house to the other. Wow. Those nights we make sure to read lots of very calming bedtime stories, we lay in bed all four of us (yes your doggy too) drinking milk and saying goodnight to the moon and stars, and noises everywhere.

So yes, rough-and-tumble, but there is also so much sweetness in you. You have such a tender heart. Almost as often as you attack her and pull her tail, you give your doggy as many kisses and snuggles, and you go crazy asking us to get down her bag of treats. You’ve started to say, “Lub you too!” when we tell you we love you, and I almost can’t stand it. Gotta admit, you’re pretty stingy with your kisses for most people, but not with mama. Some days after a long day of being apart, the kisses I get from you are a little overwhelming, the sloppy, open-mouthed, teeth smashing, chubby hands pulling in my cheeks kinds of kisses that you really have to see to believe. Ridiculous and hilarious little make-out sessions that you reserve just for mommy.

Oh my goodness, you have so much love for your grandparents and all your aunts and uncles. The other day on one of my Fridays off, you and I got in the car to run a few errands, and we drove past the place we would normally turn to go get grandma, and you started crying little guy! You pouted and yelled “Gwamma!” as we drove past, clearly confused as to why she wasn’t coming along on whatever adventure we were off to, as she so often does. That was very sweet, and I should tell grandma that story because I think it would make her very happy to know that a trip to Costco is just not the same without her.

I think you have a bit of an infatuation for your uncle James, you talk about him with me a lot, and you seem to just gravitate to him or his exciting bedroom when you are at your Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I don’t really get what it is about him particularly, but there’s probably not much to get. He’s very cool, great hair, funny but super easy going, gives you lots of attention, I guess it makes sense.

Anyway, yesterday was your birthday my sweet Gus. And we had a very quiet, laid-back day, just you, me, and your dad. We had a busy weekend, and had spent Sunday up at the cabin, so your routine was a little messed up. But in a good way. When we were at the lake on Sunday you got very sleepy from all your hard playing, and you ended up taking a very late nap until 7:00 PM, so that meant you were a ball of energy late into the night when we got home. So we snuggled downstairs eating a delicious pear and watching a movie until after 10:00 when you ventured into the basement bathroom and found your birthday present hidden in the shower! Darn it! We almost made it to your birthday, but you are just too curious, and you happened upon our hiding spot for your new wagon! (We’ll find a better spot for Christmas presents I suppose.)

Well, you loved it. You spent the next half hour climbing in and out of it, dragging it around the basement, jabbering away telling us all about how wonderful it is. We’re so glad you like your present buddy.

The next day, on your birthday, while dad made cupcakes and mom made a big batch of soup for dinner, you sat in your wagon and watched cartoons for much longer than should have been allowed. But that’s okay, it was your birthday. After all the cooking and baking was finished we went for a long walk in your new wagon, and picked up a Happy Meal along the way for lunch at the park. Another great birthday indulgence. After the park, we sang Happy Birthday to you, and you blew out the candles on your cupcake, which may have been the most adorable thing I have ever seen, and then we listened to a message from your cousins Marcella, William, and Lucas singing you Happy Birthday. You exclaimed for the rest of the day, “Appy burtday Gus!” and just generally seemed quite pleased with all the celebration.

And the rest of the day was pretty much like any day, ending with a bath and stories and mama snuggling with you until we were both fast asleep. A good day. A good life.

We love you buddy, two is going to be a BIG year for you, because you’re going to have a baby brother! I know it will be an adjustment, but I really think you’re going to love it. So thank you for being our guinea pig these two wonderful years, we don’t always know what we’re doing, but we must be doing something right because you are you, and you are perfect. And we are so lucky to be your parents.

7 Posts

2011-09-01T10:01:00.003-05:00

A blog meme! How very, 2005 of me!

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What this is about:

To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.

Rules:
1) Blogger is nominated to take part
2) Blogger publishes his/her 7 links on his/her blog – 1 link for each category.
- Your most beautiful post
– Your most popular post
– Your most controversial post
– Your most helpful post
– A post whose success surprised you
– A post you feel didn’t get the attention it deserved
– The post that you are most proud of

3) Blogger nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part.

4) These bloggers publish their 7 links and nominate another 5 more bloggers

5) And so it goes on!

6) The site Trip Base is sharing the best posts from participating bloggers on their blog and everyday on Facebook and Twitter at #My7Links

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Alright, so Erin tagged me in this meme a few days ago and I felt quite honored, like I’m a real blogger or something.

But then I started to try to do it, and now am cursing Erin’s name (not really), because man, this was not an easy task. I’ve been reading through a lot of my old posts and having quite the trip down memory lane, but really most of what has been documented on this blog is so haphazard and nonsensical, not to mention the fact that my posting has been so sporadic over the course of, like 7 years. I mean, I talked A LOT about TV back in the day, it’s truly amazing to have such tangible evidence of how drastically my life changed when we had a child. Crazy. Like this post that I wrote when I was starting my MBA studies, in which I complain incessantly about how busy I was and how terrible it was that grad school was going to have such a drastic affect on my social life and television-watching habits. HA! Oh lady, you have no idea what’s in store for you in just a few short years! It’s honestly like reading something someone else wrote. Who is that crazy girl? She sure complained a lot about really ridiculous things like… static cling, tampons, her seemingly constant 9-5 funk, and hanging Christmas tree lights. I was just a barrel of joy. Jeez.

So now that I’ve sent you back to a lot of old things I wrote that actually make me cringe, I’ll try to complete this meme. I may have to make some modifications and break the rules a little, because I had a really hard time finding things that fit some of these categories. I clearly am NOT a real blogger, like I let myself believe for a few seconds there.

Most beautiful post

I should probably link to Gus’s birth story here, but I’m not going to. Because while lovely, it’s full of a lot of the gory details that I just can’t classify as “beautiful”.

Instead, I really like this one that I wrote last summer, in which I come across very… zen. It brings back such wonderful memories of our first year with baby Gus, it was a glorious summer, and, my goodness he was a delicious 10-month old. It’s short and sweet, but I love it.

Most popular post

At first I thought my method for choosing my “Most popular post” would be to find the one with the most comments from people that I don’t know in real life. So that would be this little ditty with lots of cute pictures of my 1 year old in a snowsuit at the tree farm, for which I received FOUR whole comments from “strangers”. Look at me, I am so popular!

But then I thought I would check my blog stats and see which post has the most page views of all time, and it is this ridiculousness that I wrote last winter, all about my search for the elusive, non-frumpy clog. Clearly there are others out there like me, constantly on the lookout for sensible mom footwear that does not make you feel like a complete fashion “don’t”.

A very close second in page views is this doozy in which I wallow about the poor start we got to 2011, via “The Sickness”. Ahh man, those were some rough months. But seriously, I wonder what brought so many random people to that specific post, is it because I mention Sister Wives? Or do people just like to hear about others vomiting all over each other? Very interesting…

Most controversial post

I am admittedly not very controversial on this here blog, I write what I feel, say what I think, but I am not out there preaching my opinions on things like politics, religion, or parenting. Even though yeah, like most people, I have some strong opinions.

Thus, I’m going to say my most controversial post is about the stealth pooper in my office a few years back. I’m saying this is controversial because I was being kind of snotty and judgy, especially about her white high tops, and I think talking about pooping at your workplace is somewhat uncouth and always going to be a little controversial.

Most helpful post

No idea. Literally none. I am not helpful, and don’t post anything informative for anyone else. I am totally selfish like that.

So instead, I’ll link you to my least interesting, most unhelpful post, in which I ramble about Lost. Yes, the TV show. I told you, I wrote a lot about TV back in the day. Oh those were the days…

A post whose success surprised me

I think this post triggered a lot of good discussion amongst people I’m close to, and I still stand by it. I think every new mother should embrace her instincts and disregard any unwanted piece of advice from other people that just doesn’t sit well with her. You are the mom, OWN IT. You know your kid best, you know your family best, and you need to stand up for what you believe in. And then… be flexible, throw out any preconceived notions about motherhood that you had. Because your former twenty-something self was probably an ass hole. (No offense.)

A post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved

I don’t know how to judge this at all. Clearly I do not have a popular blog with a plethora of readers that is updated frequently, so this is really just impossible to answer. Plus, back in the early days of blogging I used Haloscan for commenting, which, I have no idea what happened to it, but I swear it was the thing back then. When I got rid of it, I lost all those lovely comments, so it looks like basically I had no one reading back then. But I swear I did. My friends mostly, but still.

Instead, let’s break the rules again, and I will give you this post I wrote about one of the most wonderful people in the whole world. I was missing her like crazy back then because she went and moved to Costa Rica for three years, and she was making a trip back for the holidays and I just couldn’t wait to see her. So, because I love her, and I love that I happened upon this when I was reading through my archives, here is my little ode to Lisa, the best friend a girl could ask for.

The post I am most proud of

Of course I’m talking about my poor sleeper of a son, and the years of sleep deprivation he has already brought us, because really that has been probably the toughest part of parenting so far. But it’s not insurmountable, because he is my child. I brought him here, I am the grown up and he relies on me for safety, stability, love. And I will do everything I can to provide him with those things, just as any parent would.

Edited to add............

Oops! I forgot to tag people. I don't think I'm going to actually, because I'm a rule breaker. If you feel like doing it friends, go for it, I would love to read it!

Thinking, worrying...

2011-08-25T10:33:00.000-05:00

So lots on my mind lately, but the most prominent has to do with work. My career. If you can really call it that.

The future of my company, or my division really, the locally-based part of my company, is not really certain. Right now it’s just rumors, and foreboding “what-if’s”, but it’s highly possible that 9-18 months from now, we might not exist. Or what is currently here might exist on a much smaller scale. Who knows, I’m being vague because that’s what you do when you talk about work on the internet, but also because I have no idea. There have been no official decisions, it’s just water cooler talk at this point, but it’s scary, and I don’t like feeling like my family’s future is so up-in-the-air.

When I came back to work after my maternity leave I was lucky enough to go part-time. Half-way through my leave, after much soul-searching and crying over not being able to leave my baby, I made a proposal to my boss in which I stated that I felt I could come back to work just three days a week and do my same job. To my delight, he and those above him went for it, and my work-life balance ever since has been, well, AWESOME.

There have been bumps in the road, some having to do with finding part-time childcare (so much more complicated!), and some having to do with finding myself having hard-core landed on the mommy-track in the eyes of pretty much everyone here. You can’t really progress in a company as a part-timer, that is clear. There’s no such thing as a part-time manager, so any aspirations for that have been shelved. My “5-year plan” is currently an awkward little one-sentence blurb that basically amounts to staying where I’m at, plugging away, doing my best while doing the same thing I’ve been doing for SEVEN YEARS.

And that’s ok, I expected that to happen when I made the decision to cut back my hours, because in the corporate world, to be considered a top-tier employee, to be thought of as “going somewhere”, you have to at least have the illusion that you are always available, that you will take on extra work, jump when asked to jump, all that. Even if no one is asking for “extra”, it’s just assumed that when you aren’t there every day, you aren’t able to go that extra mile.

The funny thing is, I never worked an hour of overtime before I went-part time, because I didn’t need to. But now? I’ve definitely had my share of those weeks where I’ve had to work from home for a few hours on my day off, or had to go in on a Saturday when Dan could watch Gus in order to meet a deadline. I HATE having to leave early for appointments, or having to call in because the little guy is sick, because I feel like I need to constantly prove that I am available, I am reliable, I am HERE. It’s not as if my dedication to the company or my job has changed because on average I work 10-12 less hours per week than my colleagues. Still. Mommy-track. No way around it. That’s where I am.

I’ve completely gone off on a tangent here. The point is this, if I have to find another job this whole work-life balance thing I’ve got going on will be totally thrown for a loop. Corporations are not looking to hire someone for my position part-time, that’s the kind of thing you do once you’ve been well established within an organization, obviously. No, the part-time options for me are very limited. Starbucks Barista? Bookkeeping? Ha! No. Every part-time job posting I have seen would involve a massive pay-cut, and not only that, I’d be extremely over-qualified and not likely to be hired for that reason alone.

So I’m just sort of at a loss. I don’t want to go back to work full-time. Really really really I do not. Not to mention, I’m pregnant, if you didn’t know. Another wrench thrown in there just for fun. So it’s not like I can really even do anything at this point, I don’t plan on bringing this belly with me on any job interviews. If I did decide to find a new full-time job, then we’d likely be in the position of having to completely change our plans for childcare.

I have started looking into what it would take to become a CPA, so that maybe down the road I could be a part-time consultant for small companies, sort of make my own schedule, be my own boss. It sounds someone appealing, though the whole process, which would include additional schooling (I don’t think it would be much) and lots of studying for this massive test does not sound super fun. And to be certified you have to actually work under the guidance of a CPA for a year after doing all that and passing the test. That could be… complicated.

Anyway, I think for now I just have to hunker down, hope for the best, and realize that I can’t plan for every different possible scenario. Things change, things evolve, and you roll with the punches and figure things out when life throws you for a loop. Right now I have to plan for this new baby, I have to assume I’m going back to work sometime in early April and will need childcare for my two children just three days a week. Yes, that is the future I have to plan for at this point, and all that other stuff may keep me up at night, but there’s really nothing I can do about it right now. Ugh. I hate that. Need to just let go, and trust that future Alicia will take care of this stuff if she has to. ;)

Tidbits & a Little TMI

2011-08-11T16:59:00.003-05:00

I can’t seem to fully empty my bladder. Don’t know what’s going on in there, but baby/uterus/etc. must just be taking up too much room, or my tiny little bell pepper sized baby is situated in a bladder-constricting position, but yeah. I would like to pee like a normal person one of these days, please.

I spent about $50 on a ton of clearance clothes for Gus at the Carter’s store during my lunch hour. I am preeeeeetty sure this little shopping spree was me compensating for the fact that it is DRIVING ME CRAZY that I can’t buy my child in-utero anything gender-specific. I don’t know, not finding out the gender last time was such a no-brainer for us, and I didn’t feel really all that constricted by remaining in the dark throughout the pregnancy. With your first baby, you still have all the other fun stuff to put your nervous energy into, like choosing crib sheets, purchasing a pack-n-play, deciding between the Sleep Sheep or the Twilight Turtle, or even picking out cute little gender-neutral swaddling blankets.

But now?

We have all that stuff, we don’t really need any more baby trinkets, and we certainly don’t need any more blankets. But of course this baby deserves a few of his or her own things, we will want to have a few baby blankets that don’t already have lots of Gus memories attached to them. And of course, there is PLENTY of time for this baby to accumulate STUFF and there’s a whole lifetime to acquire things that will eventually have sentimental meaning. It’s not about the things, the stuff. I realize this. I don’t know, I guess just more than last time I’m itching to give this little one his or her own identity before he or she is on the outside. I am impatient. I want to know who he or she is right now! I want to see his or her face, I want to know what my baby’s cry sounds like, I want to look into his or her eyes, I want to smell that smell of my little one, that smell that you can just taste, it is so delicate and perfect and his or her own, no one else’s. Like my mother and sister-in-law always say, “Who is that in there?!” The frustration with not really needing to buy stuff but feeling like I really really want to is just a symptom of my excitement and wonder over this whole amazing gestating and mothering process. I clearly am in love with this baby already, there is no question of that.

On the other hand, in no way do I want it to be January tomorrow. I want to really soak in the second half of this pregnancy, and I hope that in the coming months, Gus will start to understand that he’s going to be a big brother and that we will be bringing a new baby into our home. And I want right now to be right now. This is life, what’s happening now is where I want to be.

Speaking of getting Gus familiar with bringing a new baby into our home, I bought some books to read with him, of course, since books (and trucks) are pretty much Gus’s whole world. I think I bought four of them, and they were definitely hit or miss. I hate buying children’s books online, it’s so hard to know what you’re getting (thank God for Amazon reviews). It was important to me that the books be (1) a little crunchy (no thank you to lots of pictures of hospitals and bottles and jarred baby food) and (2) not focus too much on the whole sibling jealousy thing, or Gus having to be a “big boy” now that he’ll have a little brother or sister. I don’t know, of course we’ll have to deal with the jealousy thing, I’m not naïve enough to think that this will be a totally smooth transition for him, but I certainly don’t need to put ideas into his head or tell him all the things he shouldn’t do with the new baby, like push or hit, pull hair, feed him or her pennies, that sort of thing. We will cross those bridges when/if we get there. And then the whole “big boy” thing bothers me. He is, of course, constantly growing and learning and becoming more independent, we don’t need to push him. He can do his growing up at his own pace, and he certainly doesn’t need that kind of pressure from a stupid book. There will be no deadline coming from me for how long it is he stays my baby. (Forever kiddo.)

Anyway, this is my favorite book, by far, by Rachel Fuller.

Picture from Amazon

It is wonderful. Sweet, simple, great illustrations. Multiple pictures of mommy breastfeeding baby, and even a picture of baby being worn in an Ergo–like carrier! Perfection. We just need to figure out how we’re going to refer to breastfeeding with Gus, because we certainly didn’t really think that through before reading the book, which in the past month has become part of our bedtime routine. On a few occasions, Dan has ad-libbed something to the affect of, “Baby is drinking milk from mommy’s boob and Gus is eating a sandwich and an apple!” So now sometimes Gus will proudly exclaim when we get to that page, “Baby! Mommy! Milk! BOOB! Apple!” Errrrr… Is boob the appropriate word for him to use? I’m guessing not, but I honestly don’t know what else I would teach him. The idea of Gus saying “breast” makes me break into a giggle fit. I’m doing it right now! Really, how old am I? That is just ridiculous. It is a breast. It’s called breastfeeding. Period. I mean, get over it Alicia.

Finally, I’ll quit rambling and leave you with one more bit of pregnancy TMI. Undergarments. I officially can no longer stand wearing thongs, maybe it’s the warm weather, the pregnancy, I don’t know, but it is just so uncomfortable and sweaty and especially under skirts and dresses, chub-rub inducing. Ugh. Gross, I know. So last night during a trip to target I swung into the ladies unmentionables department and picked out two packages of hard core, yeah you betcha, granny panties. Yes, I purchased undergarments that come in packages of three. And in nude/white/black color assortments, so that means there aren’t even any cute pink polka dots or lace or anything to make them feminine. Just big, huge, suuuuper comfortable but relatively inconspicuous under clothing UNDERWEAR. I will also admit to have bought a size up from what I normally would wear, just because I figured I’m pregnant, and this should guarantee added comfort. However, once home last night, and taking them out of their packages, I became seriously disturbed. Because they are just MASSIVE. They look like something that should be hung on a flag pole. And yeah. I guess that’s all I wanted to say about that. Felt like sharing, I suppose? Maybe I’m hoping someone will reassure me that I’m not alone in loving some big ole granny panties. Because I do. I love them. So comfortable. (What’s it to you 21 year old Alicia? Shut it, go bong a beer or something.)

June 23, 2011 (11 Weeks, 2 days)

2011-07-27T12:48:00.001-05:00

This is the last one of my rambly boring first-trimester posts. Look for my quick updates below!

We heard our baby’s heartbeat last week! Such relief to have some proof that baby is still healthy in there. Obviously that means we finally had my first appointment with the midwife, and I am in love with her all over again. I wish more women would seek out prenatal care from midwives, regardless of whether or not they’re looking to have an unmedicated birth. I am just in awe of their model of care for women and their passion for what they do. We sat with her for more than 40 minutes, just talking. It wasn’t her talking at us, rather a real conversation, driven by our questions, our concerns, our wishes. She is an amazing listener, and she has a knack for understanding what I might be anxious about, reading between the lines, and she cuts right to that. There were a few instances during which I did that thing I do where I get all self-deprecating and make a joke at my own expense in order to mask my insecurity. Anyway, she looked me in the eyes, and said very simply, “You are a good mother, Alicia. Pregnant women have enough to deal with; don’t let yourself get caught up in that mother’s guilt crap. You’re a good mother.” Yeah. She’s amazing.

We have now told most extended family, and a few close friends. I really badly want to just be out with it, but there are a few girlfriends who I haven’t seen in a while, and since we’re doing a ladies weekend in just two short weeks, I’m thinking I should wait so I can tell them in person. Also I still haven’t told my boss and coworkers. The plan is to do that today, but I’ve been saying that for a few days now, and I have backed out each day. Why am I so awkward about this? I would really like to get things out in the open because I am majorly showing (I know! Already at just 11 weeks, it is ridiculous. The only thing keeping me from going full neurotic pregnant lady is that there hasn’t really been any corresponding weight gain.) So I’m thinking at this point people either suspect, or they think I have really started to go crazy with the cheeseburgers. Or maybe I’m paranoid and no one really pays attention to what I look like or how I dress? Who knows. Whatever. Point is, I want to tell them today. There’s about a 50-50 chance I’ll actually follow through.

I finally told my boss that day, after I instant messaged my coworker asking if she wanted to be let in on a little secret. She immediately guessed my news, and ran down to my office and insisted that I go tell my boss that very moment and stop being such an idiot. WHY AM I SO AWKWARD?!

I am really tired this week. More than usual. Gus has even been sleeping uncharacteristically well lately, so it’s strange. I’m finally getting more sleep, but I feel like even more of a zombie. Nice timing baby!

I am leaning towards wanting to find out the sex of the baby this time, but Dan is adamantly against it. Being pregnant the second time is just different, I feel like doing the practical thing. The surprise was awesome with Gus, but I guess I keep thinking about how like life is about to get much more insane and little tasks that seem difficult now with just Gus, will feel impossible with Gus plus newborn. If we’re having a girl, I want to be able to go shopping for adorable little girlie clothes while I still only have one child to haul through the mall! If we’re having another little boy, I want to get all of Gus’s old clothes washed and ready and organized! Gosh, I don’t know. But I do know that this is a decision that Dan and I need to make together, and if we can’t agree, then I will respect his right to not find out. So I guess that means I have about 8 and 1/2 weeks to make my case!

Pretty sure we will not be finding out the sex. I don't want to force Dan into something he doesn't want to do, and now I am even questioning if it really matters. I made my appointment today for our ultrasound a month from now, so there's a 5% chance we'll actually both change our minds before that, but it's unlikely.

Also today, I got to do an early screening (at 16 weeks) for gestational diabetes, which is something I guess they force on ladies these days who have had big babies. So really, that means they think I could have been borderline GD with Gus, since he was so massive (9 lb, 11 oz.).

I do not like this test. Chugging that nasty orange drink on an empty stomach. Sitting in the waiting room of the clinic for two hours. Having my blood drawn three separate times, the final time being super painful as she jabs around with the needle in my poor abused vein only to have to eventually give up and hit up the other arm for the good stuff.

No I do not like this test one bit.

And I do not like the implication that I may have had gestational diabetes just because I had a big baby. Lots of people have big babies, and the whole thing just makes me feel super insecure. Also, pretty sure that I'm going to have to do the standard screening at 28 weeks as well, provided this all comes out fine. Ugh. Cross your fingers that everything comes back fine.

June 8, 2011 (Jinxed Myself)

2011-07-27T12:31:00.000-05:00

Another quick oldie...

I am such an idiot. The morning after writing all about how mild my first trimester symptoms have been with this pregnancy, I find myself running to the toilet for a lovely little vomit fest.

Doing the puke thing this time around is distinctly different, because for some reason, I really don’t want Gus to see me do it. I just really don’t want him to be scared, to see his mommy feeling so terrible, and so, while back in the day I might have lay on the bathroom floor for ten minutes after such a session, feeling sorry for myself, this morning I had to rally. My little toddler was at the top of the stairs yelling “Mommy!?”

And sure enough, he had a massive poopy diaper that needed to be changed.

Yup, things will definitely be different this time.

So I will no longer be talking about the morning sickness stuff, I’ve learned my lesson.

June 7, 2011 (9 Weeks)

2011-07-21T13:39:00.000-05:00

Look for my little updates throughout the post below, because without realizing it, we've actually accomplished quite a bit in the last 6 weeks!

I just can’t imagine writing here and not talking about the baby, so I guess I’m going to keep on writing without actually posting until after I have finally seen my midwife (next week!) and heard those lovely little “thump thump” sounds of a healthy heartbeat.

So it seems this baby is going to be a little gentler with me during the first trimester than his or her older brother was two and a half years ago. A very lovely surprise, I had really prepared myself for the worst! I’m 9 weeks today, and yeah, there’s been some reflux , exhaustion, and tinges of nausea (usually when I’m hungry), but I am just so thankful that most of my symptoms have been really mild. (Does this mean I'm having a girl?!)

What I really was afraid of was a wasted summer in which I neglected my little rambunctious toddler and was forced to choose the couch over the park, or television over the backyard for that matter. I saw myself wallowing in my own misery instead of living in the present, enjoying life with a delightful and thriving little boy who is currently talking up a storm and demanding hilarious dance parties multiple times a day. (Dance parties these days are usually only initiated when he's hit a manic tired stage because we've kept him up past bedtime. Manic tired Gus is pretty freaking hilarious.)

When I first wrote after finding out I was pregnant, I was clearly a little freaked. Good freaked, but yeah, freaked none-the-less. The sleep issues we’ve had with Gus just remain a dark cloud on my mind, and I was initially terrified and frankly overwhelmed with the progress that would HAVE to be made before the baby was born, just in order to survive.

It just seemed so daunting, as big changes always do, but what I have been able to remind myself of is that everything is so gradual. Gus will do so much growing up before next January. So much. When I think of how much he’s changed just in the last six months, how much better he’s sleeping included, it’s monumental. But it happened slowly, and didn’t feel monumental as we were living it.

Weaning is something that immediately became a big bold TO DO item as soon as I saw that second line, and it is so entwined with all the sleep stuff, of course, so yeah, just… so daunting. Also, though I never wanted to push it on him, I have come to the realization that it might not ever happen if I don’t push a little bit.

Good news is that it’s been not even a month and I already feel like we’ve made significant strides. I’ve stepped up my game with the “don’t offer, don’t refuse” strategy, and Gus has been completely fine with things. We were still basically nursing at nap time, bedtime, night-wakings, and in the morning, it all was such a routine that I realized I was just doing it out of habit, whether or not he really “asked” for it.

Well I haven’t nursed him at nap time for an entire week, and he has gone down just fine and has been consistently taking 3 hour naps when he’s at home. Victory! The past few nights have gone fine with just a bottle, when before we were doing a little of both. (Yeah, I’m admitting it; he still takes a bottle at night and usually before his nap. Judge if you’d like, but we pick our battles, and this one just seems so, well, low on the list of things that actually matter in raising a child, so we have simply chosen not to get ourselves riled up about it.)

I find that setbacks in the weaning process usually have to do with me and my laziness. He was up at 6:00 AM yesterday, and so even though I hadn’t nursed him all night long, which is a pretty huge feat, I was so tired that I grabbed him from his crib and brought him to bed with me for a lazy morning nursing session, simply to give me another 20 minutes of rest. I did this without even thinking, it was like my brain was on auto-set.

Ah well, setbacks are inevitable, and overall I feel like I can actually see a future not too far out where I am not nursing my toddler. So yeah, I’m feeling much more zen about the situation now, and am blaming my little helpless baby less and less for it, because really. I am READY TO BE DONE nursing Gus. Really I am. This time was coming, whether I had a baby in my uterus or not.

A little update on the weaning thing, yeah, I think we are officially DONE. It's been many many weeks since we've nursed, actually, can't even remember the last time. Oh, that's sort of sad isn't it? Ahh well, not really, that just means it was time. So glad and lucky we had such a great breastfeeding relationship for so long, and so thankful that it ended slowly, quietly, painlessly, just like I always hoped. (Boosh. Told you so Dan.)

Also on the "big changes are coming to this household" front, we have started setting a plan for our family of four living situation. I know the baby will probably be in our bedroom for a while at the beginning, so it’s not completely necessary, but the idea of him or her not having their own space, for their little baby things, their clothes and toys, and a crib all ready to go when we decide the time is right for that… well I’ve realized that not getting all those logistics figured out before the baby is born just is not an option for me. I thought I could be laid back about it, but I really can’t. Mostly because I’m guessing that I’ll have even less time for big projects like that when I have to take care of both a baby and a 2 ½ year old.

So a tentative plan is at least set. The nursery will pretty much stay the same, one of the benefits of decorating it gender-neutral. We’ll get rid of the stupid toddler bed that’s set up in there (failed experiment), shift furniture back around, take the changing table back out of the closet, throw Gus’s hand-me-down drop-side crib out with the trash, and purchase a new one that isn’t a death trap.

New baby will take up residence there, and Gus will be moving on to bigger and better things across the hall: his big-boy bedroom, a.k.a. our current bedroom! I found some beautiful Danish modern furniture at an estate sale this weekend, an entire bedroom set for $180 that looks like it came straight out of the Dania catalog. Pretty pumped about this furniture, despite the fact that we have a garage/house full of unwanted furniture for which that we need to find homes. I think this new (to us) stuff will be perfect for Gus’s room, and I’m excited to put my energy towards creating a great space for him there. The nursery was my nesting project during pregnancy #1, and a little boy’s room will be my nesting project during pregnancy #2. This time around will be a little different, and mostly I’m excited to actually get to design a room based on a little person’s personality, his likes and dislikes, not just for some imaginary baby/child that I don’t really know yet.

This past weekend we actually made hard-core progress here! My dad came over and in 100+ degree heat indexes, he and Dan shuffled around furniture for two hours. This little project involved taking our mattress and box spring out through the roof access because they don't fit down the stairs. And moving a huge bulky desk outside to the garage that we literally just moved downstairs a year ago. And moving Gus's new dressers from the garage to his new bedroom on the second floor, and my dresser from the second floor to its new home in the first floor bedroom, and Dan's dresser from the second floor to the basement bedroom. Good Lord. My dad definitely didn't know what he was getting himself into when I casually asked if he'd come over and help Dan move around some furniture.

So each piece of furniture is in its respective new home and we are one step closer to Gus's big move across the hall. Dan and I are in the first floor bedroom now, and while I don't love trudging up the stairs in the middle of the night when the little guy wakes up, it's not that big of a deal. It's actually quite lovely to pee without having to tiptoe past his room.

We bought a new bed frame from IKEA that is low to the ground and more baby-friendly (going to try to avoid having new baby fall out of our bed in the middle of the night, OMG that was traumatizing). So we are no longer sleeping on just our mattress on the floor, all co-ed like. By purchasing the bed from IKEA though, we were able to hold on to our twenty-something roots a little longer. ;)

Moving to his big-boy bedroom will involve transitioning Gus from his crib into a bed, i.e. a full size mattress on the floor. There’s no pressure there, but I would think it will have to happen before the baby is born. A few weeks ago he started climbing out of pack and plays, but he still hasn’t attempted the crib. I worry it’s only a matter of time though, ugh. Inevitable, I suppose. But again, no pressure, when we move him into our bedroom, we might even set up both the bed and his crib, make it a slower, smoother transition, so it’s not all, No More Crib! New Bedroom! New Baby Brother or Sister! All. At. The. Same. Time.

Can't wait for this transition. YAY.

The piece of this plan I’m not super happy about is that Dan and I will be moving our bedroom to the main level of the house. A whole level away from my babies! The idea of it makes me a bit sick to my stomach, but I’m sure we’ll manage, others out there do. We will be getting a video monitor though, this time around, we’ve both decided that they offer a convenience and peace of mind that are most definitely worth the price tag. Funny that some things that seemed so extravagant or ridiculously unnecessary the first time around now seem like no-brainers, and some things we blindly put on our registry (like a bumbo, multiple boppy covers, tiny receiving blankets, bottle warmer [ok this one is so dumb, and not just because I planned to and did exclusively breastfeed]) were found to be just, well a huge waste of other people’s money.

Gotta say, it is nice to have a somewhat “seasoned” perspective going into baby number two. I’m hoping that it will help me avoid getting all riled up about things that don’t matter.

Nah. I’m sure I’ll find plenty to get riled up about this time around. That is my way after all.

May 24, 2011 (7 Weeks)

2011-07-19T12:07:00.000-05:00

More of my ramblings, when we weren't yet telling anyone I was pregnant. I'm pretty lame, clearly I really wanted to talk to someone about it, thus the typing and blathering about nothing. Dork. And yes, still can't believe how quickly I showed with this baby. I am currently 15 weeks and I just look so darn pregnant, and I'm of course now gaining weight like a champion, nearly 10 pounds at this point. It's weird. Last time I barely wore maternity clothes before 18 weeks. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, I haven't really changed my eating habits or activity level, other than needing something small every once in a while to curb the slight nausea I sometimes still get, but I just don't like it. I thought I'd know what to expect the second time around, but I guess not, and that is unnerving. Ahh well, here we go with the blathering about nothing...

So it’s been a few weeks since we found out I’m pregnant, and I’m going a little insane not telling anyone. I feel like this huge walking imposter, I have literally nothing to say to anyone because my whole life revolves around feeling nauseous and being so bloated that I already, at 7 weeks, cannot fit comfortably into most of my pants. But I can’t talk about any of that with anyone, so I don’t have anything to talk about.

Anyway, you read that correctly, already I’m having trouble finding things that fit me. Clearly I’m not ready to jump into wearing maternity clothes already, especially since NO ONE KNOWS I’M PREGNANT, but most of my spring/summer stuff from last year makes me look like a stuffed sausage. The bloat is insane, it started the week before I took the test, and it has gotten worse with each passing day. Funny thing is that I gained about 4 pounds that week before I peed on the stick, and I had total fit. Nearly 5 pounds in one week? What is going on with my body? Ha.

And now two weeks later, I weighed myself and I am down a pound and a half. But I have this massive bloated belly. So massive, I found myself Googling all weekend about showing early with your second pregnancy, how early is normal? Could I be pregnant with twins? Ahhhh, pregnancy. 1st trimester. My old friend. I forgot about what a serious mind-f$#% you are.

The nausea and reflux is going strong, but no vomiting yet. I need to be eating or drinking something pretty much constantly, or I feel nauseous, but then half the things I try to eat leave me feeling just as terrible. With my first pregnancy, I started getting pretty heavy duty morning sickness around week 7, to the point where I threw up every single morning before work, at least once, and then would often have to pull over on my commute to dry heave/vomit. The rest of the day was just torturous nausea. So I’m nervous, to say the least, that things are about to get a lot worse. Knowing what may be to come is just torture, but then I am, at the same time, too superstitious to even consider or hope for one second that it might not be that bad this time.

We’re planning on telling family this weekend, really there will be no hiding it, we’ll be at Dan’s family’s cabin for the holiday weekend, confined in a tiny little house with nearly 20 people, surely there will be drinking, of which I would normally partake, and quite honestly, I look and act like a pregnant chick, and I am a terrible liar. Keeping up the charade just seems so pointless.

I am feeling so much more cautious the second time around, I’ve known a number of people, friends, acquaintances, who have lost a baby in the first trimester over the past year, and I guess it’s just hit close to home. I’m irrationally scared of sharing our excitement with others, of talking about the future, of seeing the smiles on their faces. None of those things are going to cause me to miscarry, so what am I afraid of? It’s not as if I wouldn’t need the support of my family if we lost our child. Ugh. And now I’ve thought and written about this way more than I would like.

So yeah, telling family. YAY! I can’t wait to not feel like Dan and I are in this little bubble that no one can actually see but makes me feel sort of lonely and claustrophobic. I need to talk to people! I made a call to my midwife last week and it was strangely comforting to actually acknowledge this pregnancy with someone in the outside world. She said, “Another January baby, how exciting!” and my heart sort of skipped a beat.

A baby. My baby. Another baby. Whoa.

Don’t even get me started on the idea of having a baby in January. Right now, it sounds like the worst idea imaginable, but I guess that’s our reality right? I know Dan gets all annoyed with me when I rant on and on about it, but honestly, the idea of my maternity leave being in the middle of the three most horrible months of the year (come on admit it, January and February suck, and March is just barely tolerable), well I get sort of panicked thinking about it, and annoyed at myself for not “planning things” a little better. I craved the outdoors those first couple months with a newborn. I needed to be around humans, at least a little, or I went crazy. And now we’ll have a second baby, and a cooped up toddler in the middle of a Minnesota winter. Yeah, well, I’m sort of a downer about it. But maybe? Maybe a new baby will be what makes January and February not suck? Maybe we’ll have our breezeway project completed by then and we can hang out in that sunny little space and feel like we’re out doors? Maybe Gus can play in the snow in the backyard and I can supervise whilst sipping cocoa safely inside our cozy, warm little porch, cuddling and nursing my snuggly little newbie?

That is the image of my future life I will just have to believe in.

May 12, 2011 (5 Weeks, 2 days)

2011-07-14T09:08:00.001-05:00

So, my first secret pregnancy post. My goodness, it is awkward reading this stuff, I was really laying it all out there, mostly because I knew I wasn't going to post it, at least right away, and now, it's just embarrassing. Like reading an old diary from when I was fourteen. Ha, those are gems let me tell you, I love the teenage angst!

(I must add that when I first wrote that, pre-spell check, I spelled it jem, rather than gem, as in Jem (and the Holograms), my all time favorite 80's Saturday morning cartoon. If you're a fan of Jem, and I know you are, you HAVE to go read the Plot summary on that Wikipedia link. Priceless! So many awesome and ridiculous things I forgot about... like Synergy, the holographic computer that made the Jem alter-ego possible, and how Jerrica became Jem with just a touch of her awesome starlight earrings!)

(Picture from Wikipedia)

If that wasn't a random digression I don't know what is, goodness. Anyway, as I was saying, I didn't realize I'd feel so awkward about this writing I did only a few months ago, but whatever. I promised I'd post them. So without further ado... here's something I wrote two days after I found out I was pregnant.

Okay.

Whoa.

The test was positive. That really really faint second line that I had to convince Dan was there, yeah, that means we’re having another baby.

A family of four.

Two kids and a dog.

A 2 ½ year old and a newborn.

In the middle of winter. (Ugh.)

Holy mother.

So I took a test two days ago, the Tuesday after Mother’s Day. I had a feeling. And by feeling, I mean that quite literally. That morning at work I felt horribly nauseous, so that, combined with the fact that I’ve been feeling like a bloated rhinoceros for about a week… yeah. I had a bit of a realization, like, whoa, seriously, get with the program Alicia, you better take a test tonight, at least then you’ll know one way or another.

I’ve been nonchalant about the possibility that I could be pregnant, which I’m sure sounds sort of crazy, but it’s true. I couldn’t remember when exactly was the last time that I had, ahem, taken my monthly trip to the drug store, and we sort of decided a few months ago to just throw caution to the wind and see how quickly it happens without really trying.

That was our way of just dipping our toes into the waters of going for number two, because I don’t think either of us were really willing to say out loud, “Yeah, I’m totally ready for this, I can’t wait to have another baby!” It’s such a different mindset the second time around, I can’t really explain it. Of course we want more than one child, maybe even more than two, but now that we’re sort of finally getting into the groove of this whole parenting a toddler thing, and we kinda-sorta know what we’re getting ourselves into by willingly inviting a newborn into our lives again, but not really, because we’ve never had to care for a newborn AND a toddler at the SAME TIME… I don’t know. It’s scary. Exciting. Unreal. But yeah, that’s why we had to just sort of ease ourselves into it. Nothing like last time, which involved obsessing and taking my temperature every morning and charting and examining cervical mucus and completely refraining from any alcoholic beverages.

Shit though. It still only took like, two months. Ridiculous. Ease ourselves into it my ass.

It’s been two days, and it definitely doesn’t feel real yet.

Of course with everything I do, I’m thinking about how different it will be when we have another baby. When I nurse Gus I start to panic a little that now I REALLY need to get serious about weaning him, because no way am I going to tandem nurse a tiny baby and a two and a half year old. Now I feel like, in a weird way, I’m leading him on every time we nurse, and it feels mean, and it makes me sad that now there’s this deadline for his babyhood and he doesn’t even realize it. Or get a say in it. I know, it’s stupid, but it makes me really sad.

On top of all that weighty stuff, I feel like I’m just waiting for the 1st trimester agony to hit, the anticipation (dread) is killing me. I was sick almost every day until about 18 weeks when I was pregnant with Gus, and I remember what a baby I was about it, and I am really worried that I’m just going to be wishing away the next three months, and missing out on a fun summer with my son.

Oh, and yesterday I stopped for my morning coffee on the way to work, and just as I was about to order, it hit me. Oh yeah. Decaf it is. Blergh.

Of course I’m also nervous, cautious, because it’s still so early, haven’t even called my midwife yet, so many things could go wrong, and have gone wrong for so many other women before me. But yeah. THIS IS HAPPENING.

So anyway, that’s where I’m at, two days later. Believe me, even if it doesn’t sound like it, I am happy about this baby, it’s what we wanted. I’m so excited about growing our family, I look forward to what’s next, I can’t wait to see the belly grow, and to bring more giggles and smiles, and yes cries into our home. All of those shiny happy butterflies are there, they’re just surrounded by a little bit of shock and panic.

We’ve got quite the adventure ahead of us.

And because it's awesome, and "truly outrageous!" For your viewing pleasure...

Gus has a secret...

2011-07-12T09:34:00.001-05:00

...and he'd like to let you in on it!

It’s a good thing he’s got such a great best friend in his doggy, because life will be changing around our household in about 6 months.

NO NO NO Gus! We don’t ride Bella! She’s not a horse, she’s your puppy. GENTLE Gus!

Wait, what’s that say?

You’re going to be a big brother, in 2012?

Whoa.

How do you feel about this news?

Yeah, we’re all pretty excited.

Little guy, you’re going to be a great big brother.

We can’t wait to see if your brother or sister has that same bright smile. It has just been the light of our life these last, well nearly two years. The greatest joy we’ve ever known has been watching you grow into the silly, charming, precocious little boy that you are and we get to spend every day with you! How lucky are we, to be your parents?

Okay, we said NO GUS! Get off the dog, we’re serious about this!

Goodness, people keep telling me that he’ll do a lot of growing up between now and January. Are they just being nice?

Probably.

But I’m still going to hold them to it. ;)

(I've been blogging since we found out I was pregnant, but have been waiting to post them until friends and family were all in on the secret. So over the next week or so I'll be publishing some of those "flashback" posts. Warning: I was very neurotic and frazzled at the beginning, I'm happy to say I've calmed down a bit since then, though I'm sure all my worrying and fears about being a mom of two will only intensify as my belly grows. Truly though, we're so so excited, and feeling incredibly blessed to be adding to our family!)

Until I have the real ones...

2011-07-06T09:29:00.000-05:00

So I promised pictures, but my sister-in-law stopped by last night after dinner (which was lovely and it was so nice to catch up with her) and then the rest of the evening sorta got away from me. Bath. Books. Snuggles. Rocking. Laundry. It was almost 10:00 by the time I finally sat down. I only got as far as getting the pictures off my camera, didn't even go through them, let alone get them uploaded.

Instead, you get the two pictures I took with my phone this weekend.

You're welcome. ;)

The Fourth

2011-07-05T15:04:00.004-05:00

We headed up to the cabin this past weekend, like we do every year on the 4th of July. The weekend started out crazy sauce on Friday night with some insane weather, and things got a little better the next morning when the sun came up, and then it got a LOT better when FINALLY we got power back after about 22 hours of flushing toilets with buckets and opening the refrigerator only when absolutely necessary and running to the store to buy more flashlights. Eff.

So yeah, Friday night at around 8:00 we were hanging out in the cabin, just having finished doing the bath and jammies thing for the little ones, getting them all ready for bed, when all of a sudden the weather turned… weird. Dan and his brother were roaming around outside, I think putting away all of the crap as thunderstorms were supposed to be rolling in shortly. And then the lights started flickering and the trees started dancing (seriously, it looked like the Lost smoke monster might be coming for us from the woods) and all of a sudden John (my brother-in Law, not John Locke) burst into the cabin screaming, “I think there’s a tornado coming, A TORNADO! Everyone RUN! To the shower house! QUICK! MOVE! RUN!” And that very moment the power went out and children were screaming and people were tripping all over each other, and I held on to my baby as tight as I could and raced outside toward the cement shower house with him in my arms.

Dan was the last one in the shower house, and we did a little headcount. Four children, three dogs, six adults, everyone was accounted for. The door was closed, and along with the wind howling we heard cracking outside and tree branches falling on the roof. It was dope scary people. Bella hid under the bench we were sitting on and was probably the last one to come out when it was all over. Poor little pup.

I wish I would have taken a picture of the sky over the lake; it was the freakiest thing ever, this huge dark foreboding wall cloud just hanging there. The stuff on the roof that we heard coming down on us were just a handful of small branches, no big deal, but just 150 feet down the road there were huge trees down blocking the road and on top of cabins.

Wow.

I guess the same storm ripped through the greater area of Wisconsin that we were in, power was out all over vacation-land, and though there were no actual tornadoes, the wind caused a lot of damage.

Thank God we were all safe, yes, I am thankful for that. But seriously… we were out of power after that until the next evening. UGH. And I was SO WHINY about it. Mother Nature is so inconvenient! I wanted to go home.

First of all, already we have this notoriously horrible (adorable) little sleeper. When we were at the cabin for Memorial Day Weekend, we had one terrible night where he screamed inconsolably for almost a full hour and a half in the middle of the night. We could do nothing to calm him, he didn’t want to be held, but if we put him down he’d just aimlessly stumble around and bash his head against the bedside table. If we put him in the pack-n-play he’d climb right out and stumble around and bash his head against the bed. Milk? NO! Boob? NO! Book? NO!

So was it night terrors? Scared to wake up in a strange place? We have no idea what his deal was, but it was just the worst thing I have ever experienced and everything I have done since in my life has been in an effort to avoid a repeat middle-of-the-night screaming scenario.

As an aside, I have to give the kid props, he’s sleeping so much better these days, which means we’re all getting much more sleep and the bags I’ve had under my eyes since he was a newborn are starting to fade slightly. But of course, all bets are off at the cabin. AND THEN Mother Nature has to throw a curveball at us, take away our blessed electricity so that it’s dark and scary. We were night-light-less and worst of all, without our beloved fan for white noise.

Gus wouldn’t go to sleep at first, he was understandably freaked out, and those walls are so thin, he could hear everyone loud and clear in the next room. We finally resigned to just hang out with him until he passed out. Reading books on the couch, chatting with my brother and his wife. After 10:00 we finally went to bed, mostly out of boredom, and of course the night went better than expected. I freely admit that I tend to overreact, anticipate the worst, and blow things out of proportion in my mind. I can be a real peach to live with sometimes.

Anyway, we remembered that we had brought this battery-powered portable ipod docking station, so we put Jack Johnson’s Curious George album on repeat and prayed for the batteries to magically never die. What’s amazing? They didn’t until 6:00 AM. Of course I barely got any sleep, because I would wake up every hour, look at the time on my phone, and be amazed that an hour had passed and the music was still going. Then I would convince myself that it was about to die… any second now, and Gus would be awake screaming, and he would NEVER go back to sleep with the deafening silence! Surely we were doomed! So I would just lay there, waiting, listening, afraid to even move and cause the bed to creak. Surely then he would wake up and we would be doomed!

Freak.

We were not doomed. The sun came up, and life seemed much more manageable.

Still, I was pissed and annoyed that the $130 of food I had purchased the day before was busy going bad in the refrigerator, and all of our phones were nearly dead so we couldn’t sit on hold with the power company to find out when we might have electricity again. We went into town for breakfast and it was crazy packed, because seemingly everyone outside of town was out of power, and there was talk that it could be anywhere between 3-5 days.

I was ready to pack up the car and head home the second I heard that, but cooler heads prevailed, and instead we ran some errands. We bought a power adapter thing for the car to charge our phones, a battery-powered radio to play static while Gus took his nap, more batteries for the flashlights, ice so we could save some of our food in coolers, and gallons of water to do dishes with (the water at the cabin is from a well, which is pumped by electricity, thus, I was not even able to wash my face that morning).

And we managed, and it wasn’t a bad day at all. And I read half of my book that afternoon lying out in the sun. In hindsight it was actually beyond lovely. The worst was just in the not knowing how long we’d be without power. My brother says it’s because I’m a woman and we worry about things that are out of our control. Yes, it’s insulting that he’s making a broad stereotype about women like that, but seriously, OF COURSE I worry about things that are beyond my control! I want to control everything! Everything would spiral out of control if I couldn’t, well, control it!

He may have me pegged.

Well as I alluded to at the beginning of all this, power was back on by the time we had dinner on the table. A few hours before we saw a couple trucks from the electric company drive past, and I did a little happy dance, and relented my earlier stance that if we didn’t have power by evening we were packing up and heading back to the city. Clearly they were working on it, and it was only a matter of time, and my need to control the situation in the only way that was possible started to subside.

The rest of the weekend was just perfection… beautiful weather, a happy little swimming toddler, blowing bubbles, tranquil boat rides, laughs around the camp fire, card games, sitting in the water with a good book for two hours. Funny how none of those things involve electricity, but still I let myself get so worked up about being forced to go without it.

Was this weekend just one big lesson about going with the flow, making the best of things, not sweating the small stuff, and all of those kinds of clichés?

Hmmm… maybe. Cruel lesson Mother Nature. Not. Cool.

(I'll be back tomorrow with pictures, still have to get them off my camera.)

We've been busy

2011-05-11T13:34:00.000-05:00

But not really, busy, per se. More like eating playdough.

(Not me.)

(Well maybe just a little, just to figure out why he's so obsessed with shoveling the stuff in. Because he makes the most horrible "yuk" face, but then just goes to town on it again as soon as I fish it out of his mouth. I still don't get it.)

Playing in the backyard.

Going for long walks, drinking iced coffee.

Running amok at the playground.

Just life.

For as crappy of a spring we've had here in Minnesota this year, we've been having a lot of fun. Life with a toddler is pretty awesome.

I'd like to get back here, hope to find time this week to write.

Vintage Gus...

2011-04-06T08:15:00.001-05:00

...with his first girlfriend, Isla.

Such little chubby-cheeked punkins. I am thinking about the baby days these days, and missing them. It just went too fast. Life just goes too fast.

Except in the winter, after the holidays are over. Life really slows down then, when we're all wishing for spring. Thank God for April.

Life... according to my phone

2011-03-31T14:25:00.007-05:00

I could go on and on about how much my new smart phone has changed my life, it's like when we got a DVR years ago, a whole new world opened up before my eyes.  I mean, EVERYTHING is at my fingertips, I can barely comprehend what I did without it, and it's only been a few months!

I know, so cliche. But seriously. I have become one of those annoying people who is always messing with her phone. Because it is just that awesome. I'm sure it'll lose it's appeal a little bit as times goes, and I'll get less annoying.

Well since I finally got with the times and upgraded to said life-changing smart phone, I have pretty much stopped taking pictures with a real camera. So the tale goes, I never have my camera with me, but always have my phone.

Anyway, thought I'd finally get a bunch of random pictures off my phone, so I'm sharing here. They are not great pictures, obviously, but it's fun to look back and see what we've been up to. Lots of random, but lovely moments in life that have been captured, because of my new, awesome, life-changing cell phone.

Ok, when I was pregnant we got a huge bin of Thomas train stuff (probably worth $500+) from my old boss, and Gus is totally into them these days, as this picture from some Saturday morning a few weeks back suggests. Really, he's just hardcore into trains of any kind.

Big news this week is that he has finally moved on from saying Beep Beep! when referring to his beloved trains. The back story on that is, that I think my mom taught him Beep Beep!  The same woman who also once pointed to an animal in a book that she was reading to Gus and asked me what it was.  When, incredulously, I told her that it was an, um.... giraffe, she replied, "Oh yeah, that's right, I get those and zebras mixed up!"

Yeah, we had a good laugh about that, I love my mom. But needless to say, sometimes she gets things wrong, and while we can chalk up the giraffe/zebra mix-up to the theory that animals may not be her strong suit, I think we can also all agree that trains, decidedly, do NOT say Beep Beep!

Anyway, like I was saying, Gus now says his own toddler-ized version of chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-CHOO CHOO! It is, without a doubt, the most adorable thing ever, and I dare you to find something cuter. Other moms, we'll just have to agree to disagree if you think your kid does anything cuter than mine. ;)

We've hung out at the library a couple times during this looooooong never ending winter, and Gus just loves it, they have an amazing children's section, with loads of educational toys, puzzles, and set-ups, and of course, books. It's fantastic, though we were there on Monday, and I don't think I'll be going on Mondays at 10:30 anymore, because it was insanely packed due to toddler story-time. As wonderful and hilarious and cute as they are, that many young children (mainly, other people's children) in one setting, stresses me out.

As you can see, this picture was taken pre baby's first haircut, back when my boy still had a lovely little mullet.

This girl doesn't get a lot of blog-attention these days, but she is doing just fine. She's as sick of winter as the rest of us, but she suffers silently. Such a good dog, and seriously, I can't say enough how proud I am of how well she's taken to having a baby, and now a toddler take over our household. She just loves Gus, and though she certainly gets less attention from us than she did when she was considered the baby of the house, I think she prefers this life with him in it.

Oh goodness, is there anything sweeter than a sleeping child? Usually we stay as far away as we can from Gus's room during nap time, but that day we had to wake him up to go somewhere. I couldn't resist snapping a photo.

At the park. Sure doesn't look like spring does it? Whatever, so tired of feeling cooped up.

Bucket head! Gus plays peek-a-boo wherever, whenever he can, using whatever props he has available to him.

In our backyard, playing fetch with Bella.

His dad came home from work last Friday with cupcakes from Cupcake! Yum. He got Gus a Banana Fluffernutter cupcake, because it had banana in the name, and bananas are Gus's absolute FAVORITE thing in the whole wide world.  I don't think Dan realized that fluffernutter implied peanut butter filling and marshmallow frosting.  We were both a bit turned off by the combination, but Gus clearly enjoyed it.

We hit up the model train museum last Saturday, and it was a huge hit.

Gus just kept saying, over and over, WOWWWW! when a train would go by. We had a blast, and I have to say, doing stuff like this with your very own kid is simply, really freaking awesome. Showing them things for the first time, watching them be amazed and excited, seeing their little pint-size wheels spinning, well it's exciting and rewarding to be a part of it.

I know, this picture is frightening, with my blurry ghost-like head in the background, and Dan's face lit up green by the sun. But whatever, it is hilarious. We were at Costco and, without us even realizing, Gus snatched up this unripened pear from our cart while we were shopping. He was extremely proud of himself and after refusing to give it up, he continued to gnaw on it while we checked out, hit up the liquor store, as we got him in the car seat, and then throughout the entire drive home. It kept him quite content actually.

Ok, these are really random, but I liked my outfit that day, was excited for my new oxford shoes, and was kind of obsessed with the fact that I was wearing a wool blazer. For some reason I felt very 80's collegiate in my blazer and wine corduroys. Or very Jessi Spano. I dunno.

Blazer! Ok, now I'm obsessed with saying it.

We just do

2011-03-29T14:31:00.005-05:00

People ask me how I can stand it. The sleep deprivation. The every-other-hour wakings. I mean 18 months of this! How have you survived? I can’t believe he’s STILL NOT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!

I know they mean well, but that doesn’t help. The incredulousness, the pity, mixed with undertones of, they must be doing something wrong…

After really bad nights, I start to believe them. He’s a walking, talking, happy little toddler. Why doesn’t he sleep like he’s supposed to? Why can’t he be normal? And I hate that I let that crap in every once in a while, because really? For the most part, we’re cool with it. We joke around, we’re self-deprecating, and I suppose it comes up in conversation. Because sleep seems to be like, the most important topic when you have children. But whatever. This is our life, we roll with the punches, we love our son so much, and truly? It’s only been 18 months. Of a LIFETIME. His lifetime. Our lifetime. He was a baby for like what, a year? Not even. It was gone like that, before I even realized it, that bald head was covered in scraggly blonde hair and those squishy little sausages he had for legs were walking (running) him all over his little world, which was just getting bigger and bigger by the day.

I feel like toddlerhood is just the same, fleeting, and I’m not going to get hung up on trying to make him sleep like we want him to sleep, because I truly think it’ll happen eventually. I’m not going to waste these precious days on sleep training, and I’m not going to get so obsessed with having a perfect sleep schedule that I have to constantly refuse invitations for family gatherings where Gus so joyfully participates in trouble-making amongst his numerous cousins and aunts and uncles.

He’s been sleeping a lot better over the last few weeks, after pushing through 2 of the 4 eye-teeth he’s been working on. (His poor gums are big giant puffs of redness.) A few nights ago he only woke up once, at midnight, then afterwards slept six hours straight. Not going to lie, it was glorious.

For some reason, that night when he awoke at midnight, he was so alert and wide awake, his big blue eyes staring into mine. We snuggled together in the rocker, and he pointed at things throughout the dark room, his sweet voice, jabbering on, telling me things in his own little language that I couldn’t understand. But I insisted with him that it was nighttime, and we needed to go back to sleep. So he laid his head on my chest and spent about fifteen minutes trying to get comfortable, changing positions, turning his head. He would sit up and look at me, then reach his arms around my neck and pull me in for tiny kisses, then lay his head back down.

Oh the sweetness. I held him long after he fell asleep, his delicious little head in the crook of my neck, still smelling of bath time. It was one of those moments… where I thought… if this is wrong, well then screw them, no this is perfect.

Of course I wish he slept better, but no, I don’t think we’re doing anything wrong. I think I have a sensitive little boy who wants his mama or daddy when he wakes up all alone in the middle of the night. Sometimes he chooses to go back to sleep on his own, but most of the time, no. He wants one of us.

We have a little boy who doesn’t brush off things like teething or sickness like they’re nothing. No, he needs help. He demands help. On those nights he gets up constantly, and he wants someone near him when he wakes up in pain. I do not love it. And sometimes I drag my tired body into his room and grumble under my breath in frustration. But he’s only been alive for 18 months, and I’m not going to expect him to be able to handle those things on his own. Sure, it’d be nice if he could, but I’m not going to push him. And I’m his mom, I brought him into this world, and I just can’t let him fend for himself when he so clearly tells me that he needs me.

Yeah, he needs me a lot at night. But in the morning, he is an exuberant, independent, and ferociously funny little boy. He is a blur in almost every picture I take. He climbs up on coffee tables and dances and cackles until you drag him off. He jabbers on and on, tells us jokes and long stories about trucks. Dan will draw him little pictures and he tells us what they are. Bus! Stop! Aaaps (Apple)! Ask him where something is in a book, and he points, “There it is!” He dances and jumps all over the house. He laughs and laughs as you sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and then pounces and attacks you in a fit of giggles when you put your arms up in the air singing, “Out came the sun and…”. (Sometimes we do not know why he does the things he does.)

He is a normal 18 month old. And maybe there are a lot of normal 18 month olds out there who don’t sleep very well, like our little guy. Maybe people just don’t talk about it? Maybe they all cry themselves to sleep? I don’t know. Whatever. He’s happy, growing, learning, and constantly changing. And so are we. We’re not just “surviving”, like I think people sometimes believe. We don't deserve a "medal". We’re living and laughing and smiling and having adventures every day. And at this point, we're quite used to doing it all on little sleep!

On my ineptitude in the kitchen

2011-03-24T15:55:00.001-05:00

Our refrigerator is barren… and in that I don’t mean that it can’t get pregnant. I’m talking about the other kind of barren. It is desolate, bleak, and deserted (according to my thesaurus). Really, we are in desperate need of a trip to the market, but that has proven to be an impossible task this week. Between a lovely late-March snowstorm and fitting in a long-overdue oil change on our car Tuesday… it just hasn’t happened. Maybe tonight? Oh if there were only a few more hours in each day.

I hate getting home after work at 6:00 and scrambling to get something on the table by 6:30. HATE. I think it probably goes without saying, but a pretty big part of having children means you’re in charge of feeding them, and it just feels inappropriate to have cereal or ice cream for dinner. At least until Gus is a little older. So anyway, poor me, it is the cross I bear.

On days that Dan’s not around, I am so that mom who runs around putting together a balanced meal for her 18 month-old that includes multiple fresh fruits/veggies, a form of protein, and some sort of whole grain, and then sits down and eats an orange and a bag of microwave popcorn whilst he feasts.

Yeah, I know. That’s not going to fly for much longer, as Gus gets older I think he may start to revolt against a system that involves broccoli for him, and Starburst jelly beans for me.

So we try to eat meals as a family as much as possible, preferably most of the same things, and especially at dinnertime. But yeah on those three nights a week after which I’ve worked 9 hours (especially after a busy weekend that did not involve grocery shopping)? Blergh.

I must say, after this loooooong winter, (right? it has seemed exceptionally long hasn’t it?), Gus has become quite the little connoisseur of take-out. Granted, (disclaimer!) we always supplement these meals with fresh fruits and veggies from our refrigerator, but seriously the child could eat his weight in chow mein, vegetable fried rice, chicken curry gyros, saffron rice, cilantro lime rice with black beans, and mostaccioli.

I am not proud.

On the other hand, he will turn his nose up at pizza, or anything that resembles a chicken nugget or fast-food sandwich. Go figure. But I can’t really take credit for that. Toddlers are weird and they have their own ideas about pretty much everything, don’t they?

Sooooo even though I have no idea what we are going to eat with it, I will take this opportunity to brag a little that I had the where-with-all to defrost a pork roast earlier this week, and actually threw it in the crockpot (slow-cooker?) before I left for work. I had to put my cell phone on top of the crockpot last night to make sure I would actually remember to do it this morning, and that did the trick.

And it has been lovely going about my day without that sense of DREAD about what we will make for dinner. It has been decided! The crockpot is a wonderful thing isn’t it? I should really take advantage of its awesomeness much more often, but again that would involve some foresight and meal planning, which you may have gathered by now is not really how I roll.

I fear the poor dog has felt tortured all day, with the smell of onions and peppers and meat wafting throughout the house. Don’t pity her too much, though, I’m sure she’ll get her share tonight during dinner, via the tiny hands of her favorite little toddler. Oh I can’t wait to kiss his cheeks, just a few more hours…

Attachment

2011-02-22T14:14:00.004-06:00

Gus is at Grandma's house today while Dan and I spend the day staring at spreadsheets (me) and going to countless meetings (him).

Well, sometimes she sends us little updates. I absolutely love them, love getting a little insight into his day, love to think about something other than sales forecasts and financial reports.

This is today's update that she sent Dan, I hope my mother-in-law doesn't mind me sharing...

Gus is seeming to have a great day. He’s playing, happy, ate, adorable. THEN he pulled some little photo albums off the end table shelf and looked at pictures. One is a picture of you holding William when he was a baby, and it made Gus CRY. The lip, the crumple, and he came and got in my lap, weeping. I thought is he missing you? He’s so little, and he’s seemed perfectly happy! So we came in here to facebook, and he stared at the picture of you and Alicia and got all depressed again. I think we should go find a cooky and see what James is doing. Diversion time. Who knew??? Love, Mom

Oh my goodness, the sweetness. I am verklempt.

What a great kid. Oh I love him so.

A few pictures from this weekend... It was lovely.

It was so sunny out on Friday, and Gus was finally feeling better after so many weeks of being sick. So we ventured outside to check out the neighborhood. It was colder than I thought. Unfortunately our little outing didn't last long.

So we went inside, had a snack, and watched some Curious George. And played peek-a-boo. And had a tickle fight. I hadn't seen Gus giggle and laugh like that in months. So happy to have our boy back.

Dan bought him that hat when he was just a tiny little thing. Came home from Target with it one random evening, proud papa, and we tried it on the little dude. It was massive then, still a litle big now, but gosh I can't believe how much life has changed in a year.

Blurry, because they are having a blast!

Trekked out to Midtown Global Market for lunch on Saturday. Super fun place for a toddler to explore.

Oh jeez. Look at the way his hair wings out, I just can't get enough. Never cutting it.

Family self-portrait. Sorta. (Yeah, that's Dan's blurry face up there.)

TMI Alert! Gus is Regular

2011-02-16T13:43:00.002-06:00

I know I’ve mentioned here before that Gus had some constipation issues, and I wanted to update on that. I know. A whole post about poo? Gross. When did I become THAT mommy blogger?

I swear I’m not.

The thing is, we solved our problem, and I just want to put it out there because if, through the power of Google, I can help out anyone else that’s going through what we did, it’s worth it to talk about poo for a few paragraphs.

Just thinking about those dark days makes me stressed out. For months, from the time he was about 11 months old, until sometime after 15 months, Gus was pretty much chronically constipated. He would go about 3-7 days between. Sometimes he’d have to work so hard that he’d cry and sob. A few times we had to help him out, rub his tummy, put him in a warm bath while he screamed and grunted. His poos were like big hard rocks. Oh, and sometimes there would be blood in his diaper. Yeah.

It was really really really stressful.

We tried everything diet-related we could think of. Cut out anything that’s binding. No carrots. No bananas. We limited his dairy. We loaded the kid up with fiber, and at the same time kept him super hydrated. We even gave him about 6 ounces of prune juice every day by mixing it with his milk. He ate tons of green vegetables, fruits, kidney beans, you name it and we tried it. We got to the point where we were afraid of giving him even a bite of cheese or white pasta. Our life revolved around getting our kid to poop. I was constantly counting the days between. It was always in the back of my head, I looked at everything through the scary “Toddler Constipation” lens, and it made for really stressful mealtimes.

We had people tell us to give him Miralax, but we were pretty adamant that we wanted to treat the problem, not the symptom. We try to avoid giving him drugs if we can, I mean Dan and I are both the kind of people that, for the most part, stay away from over-the-counter cocktails. Tylenol is pretty much the extent we go to for treating our own illnesses.

So I started really doing some heavy research, and found articles talking about evidence that linked cow’s milk with constipation in babies and toddlers. It seems to be a very common problem for young children to have intolerance to the dairy protein found in cow’s milk, and usually most grow out of it by the time they’re school-aged. There were hundreds of comments on these online articles with parents just like us, who ditched the cow’s milk with their toddlers and saw an immediate change.

It was worth a try. Gus was drinking less than 12 ounces of cow’s milk a day, which our pediatrician thought was perfectly acceptable, but it was the only thing we hadn’t changed in his diet. And coincidentally (duh), it was the only thing that we had introduced into his diet at around 11 months old, when this mess started.

Then I started researching all the alternatives to cow’s milk. Soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, hemp milk… Wow. It’s sort of overwhelming how many alternatives are out there, but it’s pretty evident that Soy is the closest alternative to cow’s milk. It has loads of protein and calcium, just not as much fat as whole milk, so you have to compensate for that lack of fat in other areas of the diet.

We thought we’d give it a week.

Holy crap (literally). It was an almost IMMEDIATE fix. I am not exaggerating. Within a week we had a whole new “regular” kid. And we didn’t even realize it at the time, but he was so blocked up you could see it in his big tummy. He went from having a protruding baby pot-belly to a flat toddler’s stomach within just a few weeks.

Craziness. The most frustrating thing is that it took us so long to figure out. And now that we have, people in my life are coming out of the woodwork left and right with opinions in agreement with the research I found. My mom is a nurse, and she’s talked to a number of doctors now that shun the cow’s milk, especially for little ones, and will go on and on talking about its detractors. I guess I live in a bubble, we just always drank milk, in mass quantities… does a body good right?

It all just goes to show that we know our kid best, and we need to trust our instincts instead of waiting for someone else to solve our problems. We had consulted with our pediatrician, but she just kept telling us to do the same stuff that we were already doing. Give him more juice? First of all, juice isn’t good for kids, and I’d rather not give it to him at all, and secondly, we were already giving him up to 8 ounces a day! Then she said 6-8 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Umm… he pretty much was only eating fruits and vegetables at that point because we were afraid to give him anything else. The kid ate broccoli and green beans and pears like he was stranded on a desert island and hadn’t eaten in weeks… shoveled the stuff in. It wasn’t until I really started to put things together, the time-frame, the fact that we had given up all other dairy yet the kid was still chugging 12 ounces of cow’s milk a day. So dairy like cottage cheese and yogurt is constipating, but whole milk is fine?

Ugh. Now I’m rambling. Anyway, there you have it. Problem solved! I have to admit, as a parent of a toddler, I don’t usually get to say that. We never seem to actually solve problems, usually solutions are only temporary, or they’re of the, “he’ll grow out of it” category. We zig, he zags. One little issue sort of dissolves over time and a new one pops up. It all sort of runs together.

But this problem, I declare, has been solved. And it is awesome. For the first month or so after we made the switch to soy, I was excited when Gus would have an uneventful, normal poo, nearly every day. This is what we were praying for during those dark days!

So the definitive sign that we are really done with that horrible problem? I now dread poopy diapers, like any normal mother who does not analyze and obsess over her kid’s bowel movements. That normalcy is extremely comforting.

17 Months

2011-02-15T12:04:00.003-06:00

So I haven’t written for a while because if I had, it would have probably sounded a little something like this:

Wah wah wah, my poor little baby is sick again, or still, or whatever… blah blah blah, I hate winter and don’t know if I can stand one more -15 degree day… whine whine whine, my life revolves around scrambling to figure out what to do with a sick toddler and still somehow make it into the office… woe is me, in the last month I have slept in the nursery’s rocking chair more than in my bed… my life is so terrible, I have been vomited on (we’re talking insane amounts of puke) more in the last two weeks than in all four years of college.

I have tried to write here on a number of occasions, but I have just been so invested in moping about how spectacularly crappy we have had it with The Sickness (yeah, it is so bad it requires capital letters) this winter, I never got around to it. I’m just a big ole Debbie Downer these days, and I don’t want to bum everyone out. Or at least, I’m trying not to dwell on this “rough patch” that we’ve been wading through.

Now that all of that is out there, hopefully we can just MOVE ON.

You hear that universe? We are MOVING ON from this past month of boogers and missed play dates, 103 degree fevers and projectile vomiting, child care scrambling and endless streams of apologies and excuses to my boss.

Moving. On.

So my kid is 17 months old (CRAZY!) and despite being sick all the time (not his fault) he is pretty cool, and that is what I’m choosing to focus on these days.

Gus is still head over heels for books. He flips the pages, and ever so slowly and deliberately, he absorbs himself in everything going on in each page. His eyes go from the left, to the right, back left, up, down. He points at certain things, and babbles about what’s on the page. If we ask him where George is (Curious George is still just the best thing ever) he points to him and grins and giggles.

Of course he knows all the animal sounds, the typical Moo, Baa, Ooh-Ooh-Ahh-Ahh, Wow-Wow (that’s a dog), Rawrr (for a Lion, Tiger, Rhinoceros, and pretty much any animal that looks big and foreboding). When you ask him what a llama says, he does this little spitting/blowing raspberries thing. He just started saying “Me-Oww” when he sees a cat, and he does it in just the most adorable little person voice. It makes my heart flutter and soar and go ker-plunk all at the same time.

We have books stashed in every room of our house, there are piles of them in our car, in the diaper bag, he’s even got a bath-time book that he loves. He cleans the little animals with his washcloth, then washes his own body. The chicken on the last page of the book is deliberately upside down (“Silly Chicken!”), but Gus has to turn him right-side up before chicken gets the scrub down.

So yeah, he’s our little reader, and an endless supply of books keep him happy in the car, in the stroller at the mall, eating out at restaurants, everywhere.

He loves to play fetch with Bella, yells at her to “Rop” (drop) when she brings the ball back. If we ask him if he wants to play hockey, he runs over to the basket and pulls out his hockey stick and a ball. He brings Dan the little toy microphone he has, and in his own way, orders him to sing “Down by the Bay” (daddy rocks the old-school Raffi), and proceeds to dance and hop around the room, beaming from one ear to the other. The only way Dan is able to stop singing without eliciting a meltdown is if he switches to a “boring” song, like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. Without fail, Gus promptly loses interest and moves onto something else.

17 month old Gus is also very affectionate. He hugs and kisses his little stuffed animals, he loves his doggy and tries to give Bella snuggles. (She’s not too fond of the toddler hugs, but she tolerates them, probably because it usually means she will get some love and attention from Dan and me as well.) I come home from work and he just wants to hug and love on me forever. All of a sudden he is all about giving me big wet sloppy (snotty) open mouth kisses. He holds tight on to my hair, and rubs it between his thumb and pointer finger. I think he is definitely going through a bit of a mama’s boy stage, and while that can be difficult on me, it’s also very sweet.

My little Baybee can now reach doorknobs, and can successfully open doors when he chooses. So we may be entering into a whole new ballgame of baby-proofing. Things Future Alicia and Future Dan were going to deal with are all of a sudden on the forefront. Last Friday I was in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast, and it was suspiciously quiet in the next room. No monotonous “Beep Beep!” coming from his toy train, no sound of Gus running around the room, terrorizing the dog with a plastic bat. So I peaked in to check on him and he wasn’t there. I look in the spare bedroom. Not there. The bathroom? Nope. OMG! Then I noticed the door to the staircase was open. And I definitely closed it when we came downstairs this morning. PANIC! I ran up the super steep, slippery, wooden staircase and heard his favorite little buddy singing one of his songs. Yeah. He’s just sitting there on the rug holding Scout, reading a book, and he gave me a real nonchalant look like, “Hey mom! What’s going on? Yeah, I’m just hanging out in my room, playing with my toys, it’s allllll good.”

Gah!

So yeah, he can open doors. And he can climb really dangerous stairs. We definitely need to get that carpet guy out, like NOW, to install a runner on that staircase.

Food! Gus has become quite the little eater, we’re constantly trying to find new things for him to try, broaden his palate if you will. It is so easy to get in a rut with mealtimes, Dan and I do, so it’s no surprise that by extension that happens with Gus. We finally have just started to venture into the “raw” veggie territory, cucumbers, zucchini, bell peppers. That probably could have happened quite a while ago, but now that he has 12 teeth, including 4 molars, this first time mama feels a lot more comfortable with his food being a little more “crunchy”. He’s also finally getting better at eating things like sandwiches, which is nice, makes for finding meals that we can all eat together much easier. The kid still pretty much shuns all meat, but what can you do? I keep offering, he keeps refusing, we sneak it in there every once in a while, but whatever.

We’re still nursing. It’s usually been just at nap time if I’m home with him during the day or after work on days when I am at the office, and of course bedtime. However, over the last month or so since he’s been really sick, he wants to nurse much more. Sometimes it feels like I have a 3 month-old again, because he’ll be having a spectacular meltdown, for no discernable reason, and the only thing that calms him down is nursing. Poor little guy, The Sickness has just really taken a toll on him physically and emotionally.

I actually have been feeling some regret lately about tapering off my supply too soon, because I wonder if getting more breast milk would have helped him have a more healthy winter. If only he was being pumped with more of those breast milk immunities! I don’t know, I’m sure that’s me just being a crazy psycho guilt-ridden control freak, thinking I have anything to do with whether or not my kid gets sick.

The transition to breastfeeding a toddler has been pretty seamless actually, so I don’t have a lot to complain about. It’s a little bittersweet though, because like I said, Gus is so much more interested in nursing now than he was six months ago, and the whole thing is relatively relaxed and lovely, but I just don’t make nearly as much milk anymore and I know he sometimes gets frustrated with that. I guess it just makes me wish I hadn’t let myself get so worried about every little breastfeeding-related setback in that first year. Hindsight is 20/20 though. It IS a lot of pressure to have an infant completely rely on the milk you produce for their growth and nutrition, to be unsure of what going just a few extra hours without pumping or nursing might do to your supply, to feel like you need to be constantly offering yourself to your super distractible 9 month-old because he can’t seem to stay focused enough to nurse for longer than 2 minutes at a time. All of that pressure is just not there anymore, and it’s really awesome.

I still pumped once a day at work up until about mid-January, and I dropped the session after we went to Colorado. I have to admit, THAT has been GLORIOUS. Love to have given up the pump, being able to walk into work with just my purse and my laptop… for some reason it is just liberating! It feels like I’ve gained an entire arm or something.

While nighttime still has its challenges, I love our bedtime routine. First it’s a bath, then we brush his teeth (if he allows it), and Mama rubs him down with lotion before getting him into his bedtime diaper and jammies (usually this is somewhat of a wrestling match). When all of that business is taken care of, Daddy and Gus do “One for the Money” and/or “Rocket Ship” to get into our bed for a few books. I keep telling myself I need to videotape their little ritual, because it’s one of those perfect things that I just want to fold up and keep in my pocket to remember forever. It basically involves getting Gus sort of hyped up, right before bedtime, so yeah, maybe some of those sleep “experts” would have a problem with it. But whatever, it just pure childish fun that ends with Bella barking like a maniac and Gus soaring through the air and landing on our bed giggling and rolling around amongst all the blankets.

I have no idea when or why that all started, but it’s a perfect example of how different Dan’s relationship with Gus is from mine. I swear, dads come at this parenting thing with a different viewer on that moms do, I definitely see that with Dan. Thank goodness for Dads.

Ok, see? Life is good, when I let it NOT be all about The Sickness. Gus is as wonderful as ever, watching him become the little boy he is has been amazing.

And we are more than halfway through winter. It’s 40 degrees out there today, and we got to spend some time outdoors this weekend! Things are good.

2011

2011-01-04T13:11:00.003-06:00

So.

2011 is officially kicking my ass. We have not had a very good year so far… luckily there is a lot of time for it to turn it around… but egh. I am just spent.

Gus brought the stomach flu home with him from daycare last week. He goes to a “kinda-sorta” daycare environment ONCE a week, so you’d think the odds would be in our favor. But yeah, it’s January, a month that tends to suck, so really I shouldn’t have expected anything less than ringing in the New Year hanging over the toilet, puking my guts out.

The Tuesday before Christmas we had decided not to send the little dude to daycare when we found out Monday evening on Facebook (via a status update) that the provider’s kids had been puking all day long. Since Dan was on vacation the next day, and was just planning on working on some on-going projects around the house, it seemed like a no-brainer to keep him home. But yeah, I wouldn’t be lying if it didn’t piss me off that I had to find something like this out from Facebook, and didn’t actually get a call from our provider to warn us that we might not want to bring our kid to her germ-infested house the week before Christmas.

We have a VERY casual thing going on with this woman, no contract, just sort of a gentleman’s agreement and a check every month for $50 per week. She’s a nice person, she only watches two little girls (the daughters of someone I went to high school with) on a full-time basis, and it was a huge relief to get introduced to her this past summer when we needed to find someone new to take care of Gus on Tuesdays.

So I’m not expecting much in the way of some professional notification, I know this thing we’ve got going with her is pretty informal, but it seems like we should have been at least told that she had a sick house. Maybe she expects me to see her status updates on Facebook? I don’t know, that’s pretty ridiculous, so I hope not.

Clearly, I’m a little annoyed.

Yeah, well I felt sort of vindicated… that’s the wrong word, I should say I was thankful that I trusted my gut… when Christmas came round and I found out that the two little girls both got sick, and gave it to their parents, and the whole family spent all of Christmas day puking and what-not. Ugh, poor dears, poor family. It sounded rough. And I was so glad that we paid $50 to keep our kid healthy for the holiday. Money well spent.

Fast forward to the week after Christmas, we thought we were in the clear to send Gus on Tuesday. And then on Thursday, Dan gets a call at work from his mom letting him know that Gus had vomited at lunch a few times.

Duhn duhn DUHN!

I was hopeful it was a fluke. Maybe the broccoli we had sent with him that day had spent more time in our fridge than we thought. Or he was eating a little too fast, causing him to gag, and that’s why he threw up.

I was in denial.

We were invited over to Dan’s grandparents house that night for an impromptu dinner, since we missed seeing them on Christmas Eve, so we scooted ourselves over there after I got home from work.

Mere moments after getting there Gus was in the corner of their living room making “that face”, so I got out the supplies for a diaper change. And yeah. Won’t go into details, but by then it was clear he was definitely sick.

Twenty minutes later, strapped in the highchair, he’s spewing all over himself.

Ok, so now he’s cleaned up, out of the chair. We’re trying to quickly finish dinner ourselves while he runs around the table, laughing hysterically. He reaches for me to pick him up, he’s on my lap, nibbling on a cookie [what idiot gave him a cookie? (it was me)], and it’s round two. All over me.

Gross. Also: my poor baby!

The amazing thing is that it didn’t seem to faze him. A minute later he was stripped down to his diaper, and again, running around the kitchen screeching and laughing and trying to jump in his own puke while we were on clean-up duty.

Dan’s poor grandparents did not have this in mind when they invited us over for pizza.

I mean come on.

Anyway, a baby/toddler with the stomach flu is actually kind of a scary thing. I was freaked out about him getting dehydrated, and he couldn’t seem to keep anything down but breastmilk and water. Thank goodness we’re still nursing, totally put my mind at east about the fact that he wasn’t getting really anything else, nutritionally, for two days. A little bit of pedialyte, but he wasn’t very into it. A quarter of a freezie-pop. A little bit of dry cereal. That’s about it.

So we survived, and on New Year’s Eve we put him to bed, hopeful that he would be on the mend the next day. We settled in for a movie. I ate a whole bag of microwave popcorn, because the holidays and my insane over-eating throughout have made my stomach the size of a dinosaur’s. I just can’t seem to eat enough.

Scratch that, I just couldn’t seem to eat enough.

Because with about 7 minutes left to go on the movie, I knew IT WAS COMING. The inevitable. I had caught it.

So I spent the night on the couch, Dan on Gus duty upstairs, and vomited off and on for about four hours. Around midnight, right after a particularly horrible trip to the bathroom, I got a text from my brother-in-law wishing me a “Happy New Year” and I was this close to texting back a big F-U. The only thing stopping me was that I knew he’d probably immediately call me back, and I didn’t have any desire to talk to anyone who wasn’t, at that moment, feeling as horrible as I was.

I woke up around 4:30 AM feeling a bit better, and went upstairs to check on my boys. By then, Dan was feeling it, so we switched places. And he had his little bout of sicky fun downstairs for the next few hours.

The next day was not pretty. Since having a child, Dan and I have never both been sick at the same time. Wow. We could barely pull ourselves together enough to feed Gus (who thankfully was feeling quite a bit better). We watched a lot of TV. There were a few instances where we both unintentionally dozed (on the couch or floor) while he busied himself with his toys around us.

A few times I started to feel really sorry for myself, mostly when Gus was being needy and a little sicky himself, wanting to nurse CONSTANTLY (which normally I would find incredibly sweet, especially when compared to that period of time when he was about 10 months old and too distracted to nurse, causing me boatloads of anxiety and engourgement), and I felt like I couldn’t even sit up without wanting to hurl.

We were hesitant to call anyone for help, because we didn’t want to put their health at risk. I mean, our house, at that point, was like a pit of despair. It smelled like sickness. But I convinced myself that Gus couldn’t be contagious anymore, and broke down and called my dad and pleaded for him and my mom to take Gus for a few hours when she got off work, so we could get some simultaneous REST.

Also, even though I was on my deathbed, the mom-guilt was still there. It is ALWAYS THERE! I could tell Gus was going a little crazy being in our house for the second straight day, and was feeling very neglected. So I knew it would do him some good to get out of the house, and my wonderful parents were up for it.

While Gus was running around at the mall and having a grand old time, we changed the sheets and did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and we slowly started to pull ourselves out of it, with the help of a Sister Wives marathon on TLC, and a quick trip to Subway for something bland to put in our stomachs.

Holy crap, that Sister Wives show is just… completely engrossing and compelling. I don’t really have much of an opinion about it, just that Cody and his family seem both wackadoodle and oddly normal at the same time. What a bizarre existence. But how awesome would it be to get to live with your girlfriends and your husband like that? To get to have these women right there to depend on and shop and cook dinner with, and raise your kids with. I mean, sharing your husband with them is bound to get a little weird, but I would think once you got over the initial hump of weirdness, it could be a pretty good life, no?

Any. Way.

Like I was saying, 2011 can go suck it.

We’re getting back to normal at home, but still, Gus’s sleep has been completely screwed up. He was getting a lot better, we were starting to have less and less night-wakings. We started having Dan more involved at night a few weeks before the holidays, and it seemed like the little guy was beginning to realize that his sole purpose for getting up at night (my boobs) were no longer something he could expect to be there. So for the most part, we were getting a lot more sleep in our house. Well, I should say I was getting more sleep, Dan was getting up in the middle of the night, consistently, for the first time, so short term it wasn’t necessarily a better situation for him. But yeah, we felt like we were making progress.

And then our four-day Christmas extravaganza happened, and Gus’s schedule was all outta wack.

Oh well right? C’est la vie. We were rolling with it.

Now, it is straight up horrible again. Worse maybe. He slept with us when we were all sick the one night, which was fine, probably because he was sick and actually slept, but for the most part, co-sleeping just isn’t working for us anymore. Sunday night was a prime example of that. All he did for about 2 hours in the middle of the night was roll around half asleep smacking us in the face, one second rolling on top of Dan and pinching and pulling at his facial hair, and then in the next moment he’s rolling the other way towards me, mouth open, looking to nurse and angry to end up with a mouth full of t-shirt.

Last night Dan was up with him three times between 11:30 and 1:30 AM. Between 2:00 and 3:30, he was up three more times, and I was the lucky winner who got to deal with him then. At 5:30 AM, as Dan was getting up for work… another waking.

We know he’s teething again, but also, this kid just sucks at sleeping. I hate saying that about him, because gosh I love him, but we’re getting to the point where I just can’t wait for him to grow out of it anymore. For my sanity, for his health. It’s just not working.

Last night I was helping him put himself to sleep at 2:10 AM, laying him in his crib as he scrambled to grab his blankie and stand up, reaching up to me. But I wasn’t having it. He doesn’t even want to be rocked to sleep, he can’t seem to get comfortable in that rocking chair anymore, so when he arches his back and head-butts me when I’m just trying to cuddle him and help him go to sleep, clearly that means he needs his own space.

So I’m crouched over the crib, got my hand on his back, he’s tossing and turning, but not crying, not even really fussing. This boy is tired. And not minutes later, he’s asleep. Hallelujah! I sneak back to bed, fall asleep, feeling smug. My inner monologue gushing all over the place, “See! He can put himself to sleep! We can do this, soon he will be doing it on his own and everything will get better and he won’t make my parents’ brains explode when he stays with them for four whole nights while we’re on vacation and away from him for the first time (tear!).” And then I drift off to sleep.

And then I’m awake again, he’s whining in the next room again, and I look at the clock.

2:35 AM.

Seriously. It had been about twenty minutes.

I still can’t stomach a hard-core cry-it-out approach, it’s just not for us, but I think we’re going to have to do something different. What’s that Albert Einstein quote? “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Yeah.

Also, I shouldn’t even be writing about this sleep stuff right now, because clearly we’ve had a bad few weeks, and some outside influences have been the major culprits. We’ve got like the holy trinity of sleep problem contributors happening: (1) Screwed up schedule, (2) Sickness, and (3) Teething.

So I’m totally in “that place” right now where it just all feels so dire and unbearable. It’s not always this bad. But the fact that it gets this bad is a problem. Because eight night-wakings is a problem.

Blergh.

So don’t comment and tell me how terrible this all is and how you feel bad for me. That’s not at all what I want. I’m not trying to throw a pity party, just getting it out there, purging.

Instead, if you’re looking to make a girl feel good today, tell me something sucky that happened to you recently. Come on… make it something really terrible. We can all be miserable together!

Oh oh! Something I alluded to above, the silver lining, if you will, of not eating for two days straight, is that my stomach has seemingly shrunk. I can’t eat half of what I was eating, portion-wise, a week ago. Awesome right?! Also, I don’t seem to want to really eat much of anything, since the SICKNESS it all makes me a little queasy. So if anything, the stomach flu was like a Christmas cookie/candy/cheesy-potato detox of sorts. Hopefully this will lead to my pants fitting a little better again.

Or I'll just buy something that is decidedly NOT a clog

2010-12-30T16:08:00.002-06:00

I ditched the clog fixation. I mean seriously, what was that?

I think all the analysis I did to put together yesterday’s post really helped make it clear that none of those shoes were really what I wanted. I should put that kind of consideration into every purchase I make, write out detailed pro and con lists, ask people for advice. Just think of all the money I’d save! (Not to mention all the time I’d waste…)

My brother and I ran into Kohl’s at lunch today because he had to get a few links taken out of a watch he got for Christmas (we work for the same company, in the same department, with the same boss… if you didn’t know). While he was dealing with his little errand, I ran up to the shoe department to check out their selection, to see if they had the perfect elusive clog I was desperately searching for, at a much cheaper price mind you. And they were all ugly. Because Newsflash! Clogs are ugly.

But they did have these cute little boots on sale, for $30. And they totally fit the bill.

Cute. Flat. Not bulky. Inconspicuous. Comfortable. Easy. Cheap. Perfect.

So behold, yesterday I was prepared to embrace my inner frump and purchase a pair of $100 clogs, and today, instead, I bought $30 boots from the juniors section at Kohl’s.

Yeah, I’m pretty much THAT all over the place in the rest of my life as well. Thanks for humoring me yesterday ladies.

Sensible Shoes

2010-12-29T17:15:00.002-06:00

Ok, so this is going to be a bit of a tangent from my normal postings of domesticated mom-ness, but bear with me. I need some advice.

I’m in the market for a pair of clogs. Yup, you read that right, I said clogs. FRUMP ALERT! Yeah, I know. Seriously though, over the last month I’ve come to the realization that I need the Minnesota Winter equivalent of a basic flat or moccasin, which is what I live in during the spring through fall months. Something with a little more oomph than a flat, that I can easily throw on with jeans or cords, or maybe even work trousers, that will not freeze my little toes off while I’m running multiple errands with Gus in tow, or trouncing through fresh snow in the darkness of my work parking lot at 5:00 PM, brushing off and scraping the windows of my car.

If anyone has a better idea than clogs, please, I’m listening. I simply can’t wear boots every day; they don’t work with all outfits. Skirts and dresses, sure, but it’s not feasible to do that every day, nor is it feasible to wear skinny jeans every time I go casual.

I’ve considered these cute oxfords pictured below, but when I really think about it, I only see myself wearing these with dresses and tights, skinny jeans or slim cords. If I threw these babies on with a basic pair of boot cut jeans I’d look like a little boy. Or just a really unfashionable, dumpy woman, stuck in the 90’s.

But hell, maybe clogs will just give me the same look?

I don’t know, am I being that person on What Not To Wear who keeps whining to Stacy and Clinton about how “comfortable” a certain pair of really ugly shoes are?

I swear, I’m not going to throw out all my cute heels and boots. It’s just, well, some days, when there’s a foot of snow on the ground and you’re looking at a day of doing the car seat dance with your toddler, (in and out, in and out, “Please cooperate honey, I know you’re sick of being repeatedly strapped into this thing, here, how about a cookie! And here’s your favorite book! {singing} The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout…”), well you know what I’m talking about. I need an easy pair of mom shoes that are not hideous and are not tennis shoes (puke).

So I’ve found a few clogs that might work, all of them have their own virtues and follies… you tell me. Which pair of only slightly offensive sensible footwear is worthy of my spending my Christmas money from grandma and grandpa?

1. I know these pretty much look like slippers, but they sure look sensible, and comfortable! And I like the red. If I’m going to embrace this kind of look, then why not do it with a funky color at least? These I would definitely not wear at work, maybe on the way to work, but I’d have to change into something once at the office. They sure look like good car-scraping shoes though. But definitely, ultra-casual. Too casual?

2. Gosh. I don’t know about these babies. Every time I look at them I change my mind about them. First I’m all, “cute details with the stitching, I like the buckles!” Then the next moment, I don’t even know if they’re even remotely cute. The width of the toe frightens me a little, do they resemble clown shoes a little too close for comfort?

3. Very simple, classic clog, but with a twist. And that twist is metallic? A little wedge? Hmm… I like the slight heal, but the metallic thing reminds me of Betsy’s silver spacey moon shoes from our freshman year of college. This could be shaky territory.

4. These are adorable. I mean right? Adorable. I could even wear these with a cute little skirt and tights, or a sweater dress. They are almost in that bootie territory, but not quite. Definitely chunky, but for some reason the chunkiness is not freaking me out. And chunky seems to sort of be coming back into vogue. I also like that the toe doesn’t seem so wide, it’s a bit more tapered than a lot of the other clogs I’ve seen. My only hesitation is the heel. Does it go against my driving need here for something that I will be able to slip on and run out the door with the boy? Will it go with a tee and cardigan, my basic at-home uniform?

5. I am a lover of all things moccasin, and these are cute… and simple, and inoffensive. And very Minnesooootan (said with my very best Midwestern accent). Not as versatile as the last ones though, that’s for sure, you can’t dress these guys up. But yeah, I like. And they’re on sale and much less expensive than the others. I could take my remaining $50 and go buy a sweater!

6. Gosh, I like the last two, and now the rest of these shoes seem really lame. These last ones especially, I mean, ugh. I don’t even know why I bookmarked these ones. At this moment I can find no reason to put these anywhere above any of the others. I guess they’re pretty classic Danish clogs. So there. With ugly buckles. Ok, no.

Ok, so there you have it. Now I’d like your opinions, if you have them. Which ones are contenders? Or are you still reeling from the fact that I’m considering buying clogs, and that I’m talking about them on my blog?

Ha! Clog! Blog! Sweet, an unintentional rhyme! Neato. Seriously though, help!

And so it begins

2010-12-23T11:44:00.003-06:00

We’re in the home stretch, of the “Holiday Season” that is, and I could not be more excited. Per usual, it’s a little overwhelming, juggling both of our families and trying to find a way to actually spend quality time with everyone rather than feel like we’re constantly running from one place to the next. There always seem to be hurt feelings on someone’s part, but we really do try so very hard to make it work.

We kicked off Christmas last night at my brother’s house with a laid back night of Chinese take-out, a huge batch of my mom’s home-made Chex-mix, and pecan turtle cookies purchased from the local bakery down the street from my house. Dinner was followed by some competitive Wii tennis, a rowdy game of Pictionary, and Sid the Science Kid.

Re: Sid the Science Kid… our rambunctious little toddler had to be somewhat distracted whilst the adults attempted to play a board game. And for the most part, a few episodes of that strange PBS show did the trick, though Gus did steal the little plastic hourglass timer at one point. I won’t lie, getting it back involved a bit of negotiation.

After getting home last night at 9:30 and putting a very sleepy little boy to bed, I had the very sudden realization that the rest of our weekend looks to be insane. And that made me very sleepy as well. My friends, we are in for lots of CHRISTMAS over the next few days.

Tonight is Christmas with Dan’s immediate family. I can’t wait. There is likely to be insane amounts of shrimp and cheesy potatoes and cookies eaten, hilarious stories told, squeals from little children, manic dogs ripping apart wrapping paper… all the stuff that you can expect from a big family being together to celebrate the holiday. It’s hard to explain it, but the chaos, the anticipation, the wide-eyed babies… it’s just all so wonderful and insane. It is Norman Rockwell on crack. It is family to the nth degree. It is CHRISTMAS.

Friday I will hopefully have time to get a few of my last-minute things done, Santa still hasn’t wrapped Dan’s stocking stuffers that he went out and bought yesterday during his lunch break, and a long time ago I promised to bring a salad to my grandma’s, so that probably means a trip to the grocery store on Christmas Eve. Hmm… that sounds pretty much like my worst nightmare. Maybe I should try to take care of that today.

We attend church on Christmas Eve with Dan’s family and it’s my favorite service of the year. All the little girls decked out in their white tights and satin and velvet dresses with big bows, the beautiful sanctuary decorated for the holiday, and the countless familiar hymns… The closing hymn is always “Silent Night”, for which they turn down all the lights and pass out these little white candles to everyone in the church. It’s incredibly serene and beautiful, and every single year leaves me with goose bumps and a little lump in my throat as the service comes to an end.
We don’t make it to church very often throughout the year, but the Christmas Eve service is usually one that rejuvenates my faith and sort of inspires me to get more serious about joining a congregation. I’d like to really do that this year, instead of talk about it, and I think Dan and I have decided to become members at the Lutheran Church his parents belong to, and to really get more involved in their community. So hopefully we make that a reality in the New Year.

After church, this year we’ll be heading to my grandparents’ house for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner of potato soup, sausages and sour kraut. How very Midwestern-y German of us… It’s so funny to hear what every family’s traditions are, I love that they all seem to have their own very distinct way of celebrating the holiday. Especially here in the Midwest, everyone’s meals are so… well, weird. I’m not going to pretend that my grandpa’s (very distinct) potato soup (lots of onions, very thin cream based, mashed potatoes as opposed to chunks) is not a strange tradition to have on Christmas Eve. But for me, it is Christmas Eve. Just the smell of it brings back memories of thirty people all crowded into their tiny living room, opening gifts, one by one, youngest to oldest. My brothers and I sleeping on the floor of my grandparents’ porch, dreaming of Santa Clause and candy canes and scooters, while my parents sneak out to midnight mass.

On Christmas morning we’ll have brunch with my parents and brothers, and exchange gifts amongst my immediate family… then it’s off to Dan’s aunt’s house for more food and cookies and games and family.

It’s a lot. And my motto is definitely to “go with the flow…” Because if I think about the logistics… about Gus staying up super late 4 days in a row and how THAT might go, about fitting in his nap on Christmas day during the one-hour drive from my parents house to Dan’s aunt’s… about making sure we bring the right gifts to the right houses… it all sounds very overwhelming. But I do think it’s worth it, and it’s hard to complain about the fact that we have “too” much family to see over the holiday. We’re really so lucky and blessed to spend time with all these people we love so much.

Soooo… here goes nothing. Merry Christmas everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2010-11-30T21:46:00.003-06:00

The tree is up! Saturday after Thanksgiving we drove an hour north to our favorite little family-owned tree farm and cut down a beauty. And this year we didn't inadvertently pick out a massive monster of a tree that would completely take over our sweet little old house with its charmingly tiny rooms and little walk-ways. Yay!

This place is really everything you could ever ask for around the holidays. It is quintesential Minnesotan. A family who runs it that remember you year after year, homemade spritz cookies, popcorn, and apple cider to warm you up, a bin of toys in the corner of the cabin for the little ones to play with, and plenty of room for little pent-up city dogs to run. The absolute perfect place for Gus to have his first dose of "winter wonderland".

Gus went crazy for the sled, even cried if we would attempt to take him out. He took a face plant in the snow at one point, but didn't seem to mind.

He did plenty of exploring in his ridiculous outfit that is way too small for him and is made for big babies, not little toddlers. I bought that blue Columbia suit for him last year. Yeah, he's our little guy and we love him and his tiny-ness.

Look ma! No hands! (He refused to wear his mittens, so he lost the priviledge of having hands.)

Then he went on the swing with his cousin Megan (how cute are his little boots?). Not sure what to think at first, but then loved it. And again, cried when we tried to get him down.

He loved when Daddy would throw the leaves up for Bella to go crazy at. What an insane dog.

But yeah, tree is up, lights are on, and that's as far as we've gotten. And it's crooked and we can't seem to get it to not be crooked. Ughhhh. I think we may just have a crooked tree this year, because I can't handle any more putzing with it. So all my pictures of the tree may have to be angled like this, because it sort of disguises the bastardly crookedness.

Doesn't look crooked from the kitchen.

But yeah, crooked.

Baby sneak attack!

On the other side of the dreaded Baby Cold

2010-11-17T10:38:00.006-06:00

Wow. What a difference a week makes.

The fog of sickness has lifted from our household and we seem to be on the other side of that mess. And people, may I say, the other side is lovely.

Relief. I feel like myself again.

Gus slept like a dream last night. I woke up to him babbling to himself on the monitor in the middle of the night, and almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked at the clock. A quarter to two! What what?! I know, some of you who have good sleeping babies are amazed that I would be happy with being woken up at 2:00 AM, but honestly, that is HUGE for us. Gus is usually up around 10:30 PM, which corresponds to when we’re going to bed, at which time he refuses to go back in his crib.

When that becomes the norm, when there are too many nights in a row where I just finally go to bed at 10:00 PM because Gus won’t go back down by himself, I start to feel like I’m suffocating under the weight of the mass amount of nighttime parenting he seems to require. I resent him for not being able to snuggle up with my husband at the end of the night, laughing and talking about whatever it is we talk about as we fall asleep. I resent him as I lie in bed, starting at the clock, afraid to fall asleep because hearing him cry out right as I’m drifting off is just about the worst thing ever. I resent him on Saturday nights when we are hesitant to start a movie at 8:30 because it’s so unlikely that we will actually be able to get through it before he wakes up.

On Monday night, Dan and I started an episode of How I Met Your Mother at like 9:45, and when Gus woke up about 10 minutes into it, I released my inner five-year old, outwardly groaning as I whined, “He ruins EVERYTHING!” (I did not stomp your feet, in case you're picturing that.) To which my level-headed and wonderful husband replied, “No he doesn’t, you don’t mean that. It’s really not a big deal, we’ll watch it tomorrow.”

And he’s so right. This too, shall pass. I need to constantly remind myself of that, and of the fact that I am committed to this kind of parenting, because it is what I believe in. I believe that Gus will benefit from a secure attachment to his parents. He will be a better child, a healthier, more emotionally developed kid, because he has parents who were steadfast in responding to his needs, who didn’t leave him to cry-it-out, alone in the dark, hurt that no one is coming to his aid, confused by the fact that his only way of communicating is being out-right ignored.

When we decided to become parents, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, there would be sacrifices, and this first year (plus) of parenting? Well, I’m realizing it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s hard to have that kind of perspective in those moments of frustration, but I’m working on it. Dan is better at it than I am. He makes me smile on those difficult nights when I am feeling bitter and annoyed, when he kisses Gus’s little head as he lies between us nursing, whispering to me about how sweet and cute our little boy is, legs all curled up into me, his arm reaching up to touch the hairs on the back of my neck.

So last night I was almost joyful as I stumbled into his room, scooped up my baby, and climbed back into bed with him in my arms. He promptly fell back asleep after a short nursing session and barely stirred the rest of the night. Maybe once or twice more I nursed him. I don’t even know, but it was a great night. And when I snuck out of bed this morning and watched his little perfect eyelashes flutter while he slept, I remembered that this was all worth it. When I had to wake him up this morning to get dressed for Grandma’s house, and he proceeded to wrap his arms around my neck and burrow his head into me, smelling of apple-scented baby shampoo and just pure deliciousness, yeah. I remembered then.

This life is good. Not always easy. But really, really good.

We had our first appointment with our new pediatrician on Monday. Since he was about 6 months old, I've complained ad naseum about the fact that I hate Gus's doctor, and this week, we finally moved on.

I knew it was time, when I realized that I had continued to put off making his 12 month appointment because I dreaded seeing her so much, dreaded her judgement, dreaded the way she talked to you without making eye contact, or the way she would answer my questions with lectures about something else entirely. It was definitely time.

I am so relieved. This new pediatrician is so perfect for us.

Perfect example... Gus has been having constipation issues for a while now, the dirty details of which I will spare you , and we're sort of at our wit's end about it. We're constantly worrying about everything he eats, when the last time he "went", trying to get him to drink more fluids, it's exhausting. And Dan and I, being really adverse to using medications when there are more natural ways of approaching things like this, were both at the point where we were ready to medicate away, if it would solve this problem. Poor guy, it kills us.

Anyway, our doctor is not ready or willing to resort to that, and I took that as a really good sign. We discussed a lot of different methods of attacking the darn pooping issue, and I feel so much better about it.

Then there's the weight thing. Our old doctor gave me an insane complex about his weight, I swear she was "this" close to suggesting we supplement with formula on multiple occasions, all because Gus was dropping percentiles very slightly at each visit. New pediatrician didn't even say a word about it until I mentioned it, at which point she looked at the growth chart and said, "Looks pretty normal for a breast-fed baby, especially one that had such a high birth weight, they have a way of self-correcting for being born big. Slim is better! Considering the high rates of obesity in children, I prefer that they're in the lower percentile range. He is perfectly healthy, perfectly normal."

I was practically grinning from ear to ear. While my instincts had told me to ignore the stupid comments my mis-informed doctor had made, that hasn't always been easy. For a majority of his baby-hood, spurred by her comments, the thoughts were constantly in the back of my head, that I didn't produce enough milk for my son. That I wasn't enough for him, that I was going to fail at this breast-feeding thing. That by continuing, I was somehow not doing the right thing for him. Ugh. I wish I could make it so that no breast-feeding mother ever has to feel that way, it is such an isolating place to be.

I am so happy to have found this new pediatrician, all thanks to Dan's mom and Aunt. And as if I need any more examples of how much we jive with her, on the sleep front she recommended a book that I have already read, cover to cover, and loved, Elizabeth Pantly's "The No Cry Sleep Solution". I openly shared that we co-sleep, and there was no judgement, no pushiness, and instead she presented a relatively good case for why we might not want to wait for Gus to just magically start to sleep better, especially since it is causing us some issues during the week with napping when he's not with us. And she didn't simply present a good case for change, she gave us ideas for how to attack the issue, gently. Without crying. All while reiterating that if we're fine with how things are going, and aren't ready for a change, that we don't need to, and shouldn't push it.

So yeah, like I said, what a difference a week makes.

A good night's sleep. What's that like again?

2010-11-08T13:57:00.000-06:00

Whew. It was a long weekend, and not really in a good way. Gus has been sick since Thursday evening, and has basically been terrorizing our household with his runny nose and neediness and inability to sleep more than 45 minute to one hour stretches. I am exhausted. He’s only had about three colds since he’s been born, but gosh, I forget how horrible they are until we’re in the trenches again.

Of course I got whatever he has, and tending to my poor sick child pretty much all night long has not helped with my recovery. I feel like death.

In related news, I’ve created a monster. My child is obsessed with his mama and basically only wants me in the middle of the night. He gets so worked up when Dan tries to take a shift, to the point that it will take him two to three times as long to get him back to sleep, so it just doesn’t seem worth it to switch off. Half the time I lay in bed listening to them in the other room, stressing out over Gus’s cries, getting frustrated that Dan can’t do it right. Also note: I am a control freak. So yeah, my control freak ways REALLY come back to haunt me when I’m sick and my child wants me and only me.

Last week we toyed with the idea of taking down Gus’s crib and setting up a Montessori style bed on the floor in his room. This would make it easier to help soothe him back to sleep in his own room, because when I am faced with the choice of the rocking chair or our bed, in my hazy middle-of-the-night state I will almost always choose our bed. And there he will stay for the rest of the night. If I could curl up with him in his own bed and sneak out when he falls back asleep, that would be a hell of a lot more preferable to the careful dance of leaning over the crib ever so slowly, trying to be as still as possible, inching my arm out from under him ever so carefully. I hate that dance. Damn crib.

We know we need to make some sort of change because we’re going on a ski trip in January with some friends, meaning we’ll be leaving him overnight for the first time. 5 days, 4 nights at my parents’ house. Good God, suffice it to say, I am freaking out a little.

So we need to get on top of this sleeping thing a little, try to get him to the point where he will sleep by himself in his own bed for a good portion of the night, and if that’s not working, at least get him used to having someone tend to him besides his mother and her almighty boobs. We decided against ditching the crib for good at this stage in the game, (mostly because we do like having a place in the house where he can be safely contained!). So we set up the toddler bed in our room, right next to our bed, up against the wall. So basically we are a bunch of hippies with a big old family bed that takes up our entire bedroom. The plan is to get him to sleep more on his own in that little bed, where he’s still within arms reach, he’s not alone in his room which we know he hates, and he can still be soothed quickly and easily when needed. And the best part of this arrangement is that it gives us so much more room. Like seriously, the extra space is a god-send.

Since he’s been sick this weekend, we haven’t seen much progress, actually it’s probably gone the other way as anyone who has dealt with a sick baby would probably guess, but hopefully the little change will be good for our family.

Seriously though, he is such a stubborn little stinker, the kid just wants to sleep snuggled up to you all night long. If he’s not face all up in my chest, he’s spreading both of his arms out to touch Dan and me, making sure we’re both still there, and sleeping spread eagle, taking up about ½ the bed himself. Last night I kept trying to put him in his own little side bed, and he would just roll and squirm over to me within 5 minutes. At one point, I think it was around 3:30 AM, he dive-bombed over my body to get between Dan and me. And when there was no room between us, he just snuggled up, closed his eyes, and decided he would sleep sprawled out on top of the both of us.

When Dan left for work this morning he was sleeping horizontally, half in our bed, half in his, his head in my armpit and his feet up on his pillow. I mean this is what I’m dealing with. Such a character, it’s a good thing he’s so gosh darn cute.