Hoping and Wishing

2010-04-30T14:40:00.000-04:00

Hey y'all!

Don't forget to fix your bookmarks and make the move with me to the new blog: Not Super...Just Mom

Happy Friday!

EEK! Y'all, I'm excited

2010-04-28T20:52:00.000-04:00

You know those changes I was telling you about? Well, I'm making them.

I've moved the posts to the new blog, but I'll continue to update this one for a bit. At least until I get all settled in over there.

So, without further adieu...

I link you to...

Not Super...Just Mom

AHH! What do you think!? Follow me there and comment. I'm so nervous. And excited. EEK!

People who know me know two things

2010-04-27T09:52:00.000-04:00

1. I've never been very good at letting go of things that get to my heart. I have this hard exterior (I think) but I am a brooder. I ruminate and chew on the things that strike me emotionally until they are virtually nothing.

2. I am also very logical and reason-oriented. I need things to happen in a logical sequence. Which makes no sense considering my hatred of almost all numbers.

This sort of internal conflict is probably why I'm depressed.

But anyway, back to the point.

I have made some amazing friends through the interwebz. Yes, I realize that saying "my friends live in my computer" makes me sound like some mid-20's socially awkward geeky gamer living in his mom and dad's basement. But it's true.

I turn to these women in times of sadness and grief. There's plenty of glorious oversharing. And when there are happy things to be discussed, they are often among the first to find out. It's how we work. I like it.

However, the other day, I joined in a conversation about sleep training that I have not been able to shake since Sunday. One poster asked what sleep training was and said it sounded ridiculous. I responded with a definition of sleep training and a brief description of the common methods and later commented that sleep training usually sparks images of babies crying-it-out, or self-soothing, or whatever you want to call it. Others commented that it made perfect sense to them. That we have to teach our children good sleep habits. That it's our job as their parents to teach them how to go to sleep on their own.

I said that calling it sleep "training" indicated that I could train Joshua to sleep the same way I trained Annie not to pee on the rug and that I couldn't let Joshua cry-it-out after doing it when he was six months old because he KNOWS me now. Like, KNOWS me. He runs up to me and puts his head in my lap and gives me kisses and plays with my nose and laughs when I make silly faces. He. Knows. Me.

And then people began sort of disagreeing with me when I wasn't even really disagreeing with them in the first place. And this incredible sense of unrest has descended on my mind and my heart and it won't go away. I felt attacked somehow and didn't understand it, and still sort of feel attacked. And then, as I chewed on my thoughts some more, I realized why I feel this way.

Because my child doesn't sleep through the night.

It feels like I've done something incredibly wrong because my child still wakes up two or three times a night. Like, if I were a better mother or a better "trainer" then my child wouldn't still be waking up, sometimes just wanting to be held for a few minutes. If I were a better "trainer" then my child wouldn't block attempts at one day, maybe having a sibling. (And no, negotiations for Human 2.0 have not commenced. Nor will they any time soon.)

This is just another time when I feel like a colossal screw-up because I'm apparently creating bad habits by comforting my son.

And then I thought some more about it and here's the thing.

He CAN put himself back to sleep when he wakes up in the middle of the night. He does it on occasion. He'll wake up, fuss or talk for a minute, and then go back to sleep. I know he's perfectly capable of going back to sleep on his own.

But what do you do when the baby/toddler WON'T put himself back to sleep?

I know that he can. But he won't.

He doesn't understand reasoning and logic the way I do, and that, to date, has to be the hardest part of parenting for me, the logical thinker. I can't say "we have to sleep all night long so we can play all day tomorrow." All he hears is "blahblahblahblahPLAYblahblahblah." I can't say "You're too old to have a bottle at night." All he hears is "blahblahblahblahBOTTLEblahblahblah." There is no "If you sleep all night long, you can have oyster crackers for breakfast!"

In that case, my only option seems to be to let him CIO, and if I can't bring myself to do that, what alternative do I have left? How do I "train" him? It seems that, in this case, where he has the skill and chooses not to use it, my option is to "punish" him by not going in to him at night. And yes, it feels like punishment to me. It feels like abandonment and selfishness.

Get my point?

The bigger issue here is, of course, not about sleep training at all. It's about our need to be "right" when it comes to our parenting choices. It's about our need for acknowledgment and acceptance and affirmation.

I NEED someone to tell me that it's okay that my child doesn't sleep all night long. And others NEED to hear that it's okay that they let their child cry until s/he falls back to sleep. And we all NEED to stop jumping on each other for having ideas and opinions different from our own.

::sigh::

Fabulous Friday

2010-04-23T08:00:00.001-04:00

Woot! Three weeks in.a.ROW, peolple! And you thought I wouldn't make it! HA!

Okay, anyway, back to the reason for the post.

Here's what I'm doing to make my Friday Fab:

1. I'm going to pick my son up as early as I can from daycare and we're going to go to the grocery store together to buy diapers and just hang out. That seems ridiculous, right? That THAT's one of the highlights of my Friday? Well, there are afternoons when I sort of prolong going to get him because I'm afraid of the meltdown that will happen once I get him home. Since it's supposed to be pretty tomorrow and storming all weekend, I'm going to get him and take advantage of the nice weather and get some Vitamin D with him. I have a football in the car, so maybe we'll find a park or something on the way home.

2. We're having Korean ribs for dinner tomorrow night. It's a savory, garlicky, thin strip of rib meat that is delish. And I have a ginger-dressing salad to go with it. And I might have wine. Wait. Who am I kidding? It's Friday. There will definitely be a glass of wine.

As of right now, I'm feeling kind of lame :/

I think my Fab Fridays revolve around food and wine. I need new hobbies for Friday nights.

OH!

3. I'm going to have a mini-marathon of Bones since I have a few episodes on Tivo. That's a WIN for a Friday night, right!?!? It is for me. David Boreanaz and some sexy science?! Love.

No..I'm still lame. Food. Wine. TV.

Okay, people, I need some suggestions. Leave a comment and let me know what you're doing or have done to make your Friday Fabulous!

Good day report!

2010-04-22T21:44:00.000-04:00

In my effort to chronicle my good days, I feel I should report to you all that I've made a few personal changes that, I think, are impacting my ability to have good days.

Change #1: I have started washing my face every.single.night before I go to bed. I found a cleansing product that I'm in love with and I'm going to share a review of it with y'all soon. (And no, the makers of this product did not provide me with it for free. I bought it. I'll photocopy the receipt if you want. If I can find it.) There's something about going to bed with a clean face that helps me wake up with a clean mind. I think. Or maybe I'm hallucinating that or something. Anyway, I wake up feeling a little more "clear."

Change #2: I don't hit the snooze button a million times. I don't get up IMMEDIATELY (mostly because Joshua has a knack for waking up five to ten minutes BEFORE the alarm is set to go off which sort of FORCES me to get out of bed) but I don't lay there until the absolute last minute and then scramble to get out of the house, either.

Change #3: I've started taking more care with my appearance before leaving the house in the morning. I've started busting out my cute dresses and skirts and shoes and even though I don't have a tan, I'm still feeling prettier every day. And sometimes feeling pretty is half the battle. I hope that doesn't make me sound narcissistic. But really, when I go to work looking my best, I end up feeling better, too. Which translates into a better day for all of us.

And the best part about all of this is that I've managed to stick to this regimen despite the fact that I still feel sort of gross. I'm not in pain like I was on Monday, but I'm still all goopy in my lungs. It's gross. I don't like it. I'm contemplating calling the doctor and yelling into the phone that I'm a raging, antibiotic-seeking, hypochondriac and could they please just prescribe me some augmentin or amoxicillin so that I don't get meningitis or Mongolian Body Rot from an untreated sinus infection and I don't even care if I develop a tolerance to either of those antibiotics. (Did I ever tell you I'm a worst-case-scenario planner??)

Anyway, so today was a good day. We had something called "Ghost Out" at school today since the prom is this weekend. It's a way to show the prom-goers and young drivers the dangers of distracted and drunk driving. The local service agencies (fire department, EMTs, police, life-flight services) mock up a crash on the track and all of the kids are taken to the stadium and they hear a monologue being read that details the events of a crash that involved three cars, claimed the lives of five of their classmates, and injured a half-dozen others. And then the students who were involved in the crash, either via being killed or injured, don't attend classes that day to show what it would be like if that student was no longer there. The parents of a student who lost her life last year while texting a driving also came to share their story. While it won't stop them all from making stupid decisions while behind the wheel of a car, it might stop some of them. And that's saving lives, so I'll take it.

I did have a hiccup or two with my 9th graders, and it was totally unexpected, but we'll get back on track tomorrow. (What is that I hear?!?! Positivity!?!? What blog have you stumbled upon!?!)

But I picked Joshua up from daycare and brought him home and we had a GREAT time this evening. He rolled around and played outside and then threw a temper tantrum when I wouldn't let him slap the pollen-y mailbox anymore. We perused the items going in our neighbor's yard sale a day or two early and got him a cute little Sesame Street chair and ottoman set. I just have to wash the covers and he's ready to have Katelyn or Austin over for cookies and juice.

But here's the BEST part of the afternoon.

My son ate DINNER. For real. I mean, he ate butternut squash and applesauce puree. Yes, he still eats purees. Yes, he has eight and a half teeth and 20 more on the way. But he ATE, y'all! Oyster crackers, squash and apples, a piece of cheese, and two graham crackers. And some juice. I got a VEGETABLE in him for DINNER. This hasn't happened in two weeks.

HALLELUJAH.

That was enough to make the day AMAZING.

(Until Dan decided to look at me like I'd farted when I pitched my new blog-title idea to him. That wasn't the highlight...)

But it's almost time to wash my face again and then I'll read a bit and hopefully, maybe, fingers crossed, Joshua will sleep all night long and wake up when I go in to get him dressed for school in the morning. Maybe. But I'm not holding my breath.

Fab Friday coming tomorrow!

Change is gonna come

2010-04-21T21:03:00.000-04:00

I've been toying with the idea of changing the blog title/URL for a while now. The current title and URL no longer fit the purpose, and when I started this blog, my Magic 8 ball was broken and I didn't know that it wouldn't work forever. I was trying to be hopeful, and now I'm just trying to be real.

So, today, in the middle of a meltdown of sorts (but I'm okay, I promise), I found the inspiration I'd been looking for. And I finally found a blog title and URL that is cool (in my humble opinion!) and AVAILABLE. So I snatched it.

So this is the warning. At some date in the near future, you'll likely come here and find that there's a link to a new blog. I hope that you'll follow me there.

Or, the alternative will happen and I will have snatched up this new blog title and I'll never make the switch because I'm entirely too much a creature of habit and I'm emotionally attached to this blog. How sappy is that?!?!

Gah. Maybe this warning was all for nothing...

'Cause I'm no....I'm no Superwoman

2010-04-19T21:51:00.000-04:00

It's true. I'm not super. Sometimes I'm just a woman.

I got a shot in my cheek today, y'all. And I'm not talking about the cheek above my neck.

I didn't feel so great last week. I was coughing and kind of snotty and I thought it was just pollen. Well, as the weekend progressed, I started feeling worse and worse. Advil didn't make it better. Excedrin Migraine didn't make it better. And Tylenol is basically just crap, so I didn't even bother taking any of that. And this morning, my head hurt so bad I wanted to cry. But, just like the trooper I am, I went to work. Because what else am I going to do when the 9th graders have to finish their research paper and they can only go into the library as long as I'm with them and the 11th graders are reading Gatsby and are needing me to fill in the details when they get lost in Fitzgerald's beautiful prose.

And then let's not forget that my son needs me and my husband needs me and yes, yes I got a pedicure on Saturday and yes, I took pictures for y'all (because, I mean, what ELSE would I do, right?!) but that pedicure did not make me feel better physically, even though looking at my hot pink toenails makes me smile.

So, by lunch time today, after I had zero appetite and could barely move because the pain was so bad, I called and made an appointment at the primary care office. No more Minute Clinic for me. No sir.

They saw me at 3:00 today. And I have to say that I was not impressed with the PA I saw. At all. He walked in the room and before he even got in there, I think he'd decided what my diagnosis would be and what course of action he'd be prescribing. I'm not even kidding. He walked in and did.not.stop.talking. He launched into a tirade about seasonal allergies and heading them off before they flare up and how I should not go to bed without washing my hair if I go outside at all because my hair is apparently a pollen-sponge and then I'm just creating a pollen nest in my pillow and antibiotics only work on bacterial infections and people will take antibiotics and feel better for a bit and then they'll feel worse afterward because that wasn't the problem to begin with and then they're back and they say they took all of the antibiotics but they still feel bad and did I know that I should just stop the seasonal allergies before they start.

And if you just got a headache reading that, imagine how I felt, as the patient, who was already achy and sore to begin with and multiply that by about a million and that's how I felt listening to him rant. For real. I'm not even exaggerating. Not even a little bit. And Dan doesn't believe that I'm not exaggerating and he thinks I'm a hypochondriac and that I should listen to the PA because he went to med school and I didn't and Dan is the biggest self-diagnoser ever and I love him. Millions. (::smooches::)

See, with all the goop I have coming out of my nose and lungs, I'm 99% certain there's an infection somewhere. Especially since I am on a ridiculous anti-allergy regimen because the two things I'm most allergic to (mold and dust) are two things that I cannot get away from. Dust is everywhere. I can dust and then have to dust again the next day. And there's a swamp underneath my mobile. (Workman's comp!?! Just kidding....)

Anyway, he had a student with him and he left the room so she could do the exam and I almost said to her "Please do not take notes on bedside manner from this guy. Please." but I thought that would be unprofessional of me, so I didn't say anything. But now I really feel like I should have. Because he almost had me in tears with the fact that he never once asked me what was wrong with me or how I was feeling.

But he came back in and she asked me if I've ever had a cortisone shot and how did I react and yes, I've had a cortisone shot and that's the only way I made it through my wedding without hives and I did just fine, thank you very much. So they gave me a cortisone shot and a steroid pack and sent me on my merry way. And I hope I feel better because if I don't, I'll be going back there and paying another $35 copay and I will ask specifically to NOT see that guy again.

And the icing on today's cake came when I called Dan after the appointment and we had to figure out how to switch cars so he could go get Joshua and I could go get a nap. Because we only have one carseat, which is why I'm the one that takes Joshua to daycare and picks him up all the time. But I seriously almost cried at the thought of not being able to come home and take a nap.

I NEED to rest when I'm sick, but I can't rest if I have to chase a toddler. And I can't get better if I can't rest. So it's a vicious cycle of me not feeling better because I can't rest. But my responsibilities are to my family now. Not to me. But I can't do it all. Do you see the dilemma I had brewing in my head today as I almost cried on my drive home?? Seriously. If I cry to my mother one more time about how I am not as strong as her, she might have me committed. And all I kept thinking about is a passage from The Scarlet Letter where the narrator talks about how each successive generation of women is weaker than the generation before. And in moments like this, I think he's completely right.

I'm not Superwoman. I can't do everything.

But I'm supposed to be able to, right?

Guess what day it is!?!?

2010-04-16T15:28:00.000-04:00

No, really, can someone tell me??

JUST KIDDING. It's Fab Friday! (See, you thought I wouldn't do this two weeks in a row, didn't you?)

Whew! It's been a long week of exhaustion and research papers and Gatsby and toddlers and car-swapping and Glee.

To be honest, I almost forgot it was Friday. As in, I felt like this morning was a Monday. But I got to wear jeans to work, so that meant Friday. Or a special day where I get to pay $2 to wear jeans because someone in the building is raising money. But no. Just jeans. Because it's Friday.

So, what am I doing to make my Friday Fabulous?

Well, let's see.

1. I'm teaching my favorite novel of all time--The Great Gatsby. And that's a huge thing for me to say. That it's my favorite of all time. I suppose I should say it's my favorite classic. Anyway, to make my Friday Fab, I read one of the parts in a New York mobster circa 1920's accent today. My students LOVED it. Like, they loved it. So I loved it. Awesome.

2. I'm having wine tonight. A nice, big, cold, big glass of Barefoot Sauv. Blanc. Big. And cold.

3. We're having nachos for dinner. I'm going to eat nachos and drink wine. Klassy and Classy, simultaneously.

4. I am going to give myself a pedicure tonight. I'd go get one but I sort of went on a clothes-buying spree for Joshua and blew our budget this month. So I'll have to paint my toes myself.

***EEEK!! I just remembered that I have a check for $40 in my bag from a reimbursement for some gas! WOOOOTTTT!!!. Maybe I can use that and go get a for-real pedicure. And sneak in some sauv. blanc in a straw cup. (Just kidding. Mostly.)***

So, what are YOU doing to make YOUR Friday Fabulous?

Oh my....not my finest moment...but a funny moment nonetheless

2010-04-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

So, Joshua STTN last night. Woot. And now that I've said that, he probably won't do it again for four months. Awesome.

Anyway, the fact that he STTN does not mean that I woke up this morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and wide awake and remained that way all day long. In fact, I'd say I was only awake through about lunchtime. And then I had duty in the courtyard where we should've been handing out surgical masks to students and teachers to protect against tree cooties (aka, pollen. That horrible, miserable, yellow haze that has descended on us all.)

Pollen basically exhausts me. It takes everything in my body to fight the histamines, or the antihistamines, or whatever the process is that keeps me from sneezing my fool head off.

So, that's the explanation for the story I'm about to tell you. Keep it in mind.

Here goes:

Dan did some yard work this weekend. I had grand plans to help him pull weeds but Joshua had other ideas. He wanted to be held. I couldn't bend over and pull weeds and hold Joshua. So I had to go back inside (which was probably better for my pollen-hate anyway).

That meant that Dan had to pull the weeds. And in pulling the weeds, he managed to get poison ivy. On his arm and his forehead. (Just one strip across his forehead. How does that happen? I don't understand. He got it on his forehead the week of our wedding, too. It doesn't make sense to me. I love you, Dan.)

And there was this other strange spot that appeared on Monday. It was sort of flat in the middle, and black. And there was a red ring around it. And he said it itched. It didn't look like any sort of bite I'd ever seen, but we assumed that must be what it was.

Until it started oozing on Tuesday. And he Googled. And had MRSA come up as a possibility as to what the mystery dot on his arm was. (And people, if you don't know what MRSA is, and I admit I wasn't sure what it was either, don't Google it or you will convince yourself that you have it and are one step away from losing a limb. Especially if you look at pictures. Ew.)

So he made an appointment to go to the doctor to have it looked at. I mean, it was oozing. And red. And black. And sort of angry looking.

***Here's where to beginning of this post comes into play. Remember that I'm exhausted from my pollen-fighting superhero duties, mmkay?***

Here's a somewhat accurate retelling of the email exchange that took place after he got back to work after his doctor's appointment. The only thing missing is pictures of my face. And if I didn't look like I'd been beaten up by Mr. Pollen Man himself (and if it weren't 10:00 at night and my makeup weren't smeared down my face and my contacts were still in and my hair weren't pulled up and still looked halfway done) then maybe I'd take pictures to recreate my facial expressions. But you'll just have to use your imaginations.

Dan's email to me: "Back from the doctor. Just poison ivy. Cortisone shot to the cheek. Love you, Me"

My face: OMGWTFBBQ A SHOT TO THE CHEEK OMGOMGOMG. OUCH.

My email: "OMGWTFBBQ A SHOT TO THE CHEEK OMGOMGOMG. OUCH."

Dan's email: "Not the cheek above my shoulders."

My face: D'oh!

I am not normally this airheaded. I am, however, certain that my husband shook his head and laughed at my reaction. The first one. And probably the second one, if he'd seen it in real time. And I'm glad that I can laugh at myself, too. And now you can all laugh at me. And I'll be too doped up on antihistamines to care.

Today was a great day, until it wasn't a great day anymore

2010-04-12T21:02:00.000-04:00

What an uplifting and down-putting (letting down?) title, right?

Yeah. That's the sort of day it was.

It started out GREAT. I had that nervous excitement that only happens on the night before the first day of school. For some reason, it happened on the first day back to school after Spring Break. Probably because it means I have a TON of stuff to do between now and summer and not a whole lot of time in which to do it. Anyway, I was up on time. Showered, breakfasted, lunched, and coffeed. And out the door by 7:20.

PERFECTION.

And I made it to school by 8:01. PERFECTION.

And I had a great time with my first period and really missed them. Actually, I missed all of my kids. Even the ultra-talkative, bouncing off the walls, my toddler behaves better than them second period. I didn't even mind having courtyard duty during my lunch period. And I made all of my copies for the week and talked my freshmen into giving presentations and successfully (I think) hooked my juniors into reading The Great Gatsby (which might be the greatest American novel of all time and you should read it if you haven't. Because I said so).

Honestly, today could not have been better. It was super-smooth. Joshua wasn't incredibly cranky when we got home. He ate a pretty good amount for dinner, even if it was a sort of hodge-podge meal. (oyster crackers, cheese, banana, graham crackers, milk. That covers the major food groups, right? No veggies. DAMN. I did try to get him to eat green beans. And he vehemently refused. Picking them up in his little baby hands and squeezing the life out of them. Which is actually pretty cute to watch.)

Anyway, it was a smooth evening. We went outside to blow bubbles. We came inside and blew bubbles. We played with his puzzle. He monstered around the house.

And then Dan came home. And the look on his face when he walked in the door was one that told me that nothing good was about to come out of his mouth.

He sat down and asked me if I'd rather him work from 7:30 to 5:30 or from 8:00 to 6:00.

Well, neither, if I'm being totally honest.

But neither wasn't--isn't--an option.

(And Dan, I know you'll read this at some point, and know that I am in no way faulting you for my frustration with this. It is NOT your fault. I just need to process, okay? Cool. ::smooches and clean laundry::)

The fact is that neither of those options is very good. Either he misses Joshua in the morning, or he squeaks in the door (hopefully) right before Joshua goes to bed. Either I have no help with Joshua in the mornings while I'm also trying to get myself ready and out the door, or I have no help with Joshua in the evenings when he is .02 seconds away from a meltdown that would make Chernobyl blush. (That was technically a meltdown, right? I'm too lazy to Google.)

The point is that this is difficult.

On the one hand, I feel like I should be able to handle it. I signed up for this. I'm a mom, and a working mom at that. I'm nearly 30. I should have my shit together enough that getting everything ready to go the night before shouldn't be that big a deal. Why, then, do I start out doing great with the getting-everything-ready-the-night-before and then suddenly crap out on it? I should be able to take care of my child in the evenings before he has to go to bed or also take care of him while I'm getting ready in the morning. I should be able to do this, right???

So what does it mean if I can't? Or if it's really, really, really hard?

I know, I know. I put too much pressure on myself to be perfect. (And honestly, I have NO idea where that comes from. NONE. My mom NEVER pushed me to be perfect. In fact, looking back, I sometimes wish she'd pushed me harder at some things...and yes, I realize I might be insane for saying that.) I can't be perfect. Joshua isn't asking for perfection. He's asking for love and cuddles and someone to blow bubbles with him. I know that.

But still, this is a daunting task I have before me.

I feel like this puts me one step away from the loony bin, but at the same time, I have to rise to the occasion because my son needs me. I have to not think about what I need and think about what he needs. At least until after he goes to bed and I can pour myself a nice big glass of Sauv Blanc. (Looks like it might be time for me to join the "frequent buyers" club at Lucky's, hmm?)

::sigh::

So, in short, and in close, I think, my day was great, then sucky, then okay. And it's climbing back into the territory of great thanks to a bottle of Barefoot. And Barefoot people, if you're reading, I'll be your taste-tester ANY TIME. It's legal to ship to my state now!

But it's definitely an uphill climb.

::double sigh::

Cute by Joshua, Hair by Joie

2010-04-10T21:53:00.000-04:00

I managed to get away for a bit on Thursday to get my hair done. It was quite the ordeal. See, I thought my appointment was scheduled for Thursday at 10:00 a.m. So, I got up, took Joshua to daycare, drove three counties over, and frantically searched for a Starbucks (and if any of you have ever heard Lewis Black's bit about the end of the universe being a place in Texas where there is a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks, you know how frustrated I was at not being able to find a freakin' Starbucks).

I finally found a Starbucks in the parking lot of the salon I was going to.

And let me explain why I go to a place that's so far away. It's a school. It's low-cost. The students there are awesome (usually) and I like that it's a Redken school. I'm kind of a sucker for Redken products. So, that's why I'm willing to drive so far away to get my hair done.

Anyway, while I was sitting in the Starbucks sipping my Pike's Peak Roast, I got a phone call. It was the salon. Calling to remind me of my appointment for FRIDAY MORNING AT 10:00. I said "Um, I thought that was today." She was like "Oh, no...we're closed today for a staff meeting." Me: "I'm in your parking lot." Her: "Oh...I'm sorry."

Luckily for me, my best friend decided to go back to school to become a hair designer (that's the new terminology, for those of you who didn't know!). She's only been there for six weeks. But, I trust her with my child so I trust her with my hair. I called her and fortunately, she had an early release because of their staff meeting. So, we went to the beauty supply store and bought the color and she did my hair. And I got to have an afternoon of girl talk, too. Win-win!

We took Joshua to the park today because it was such a beautiful day. He had a blast running around in his new Umi's (and yes, I bought him two pair. The brown and yellow ones and the blue and red ones. What can I say? I love these shoes.) and we had a blast chasing him around and trying to get his picture! I did get him to sit still for one, though. Y'all excuse the spots on his shirt. We're still figuring out the sippy cup.

Happy Saturday!

Fabulous Friday

2010-04-09T20:51:00.000-04:00

So, I'm trying to start something new-ish (although, there are no original thoughts anymore, so I'm quite certain this is already floating in the blogosphere).

I'm calling this "Fabulous Friday."

Crazy, right?

It's simple, really.

What's something you did today/are doing to make your Friday....uh...you guessed it...Fabulous?

In the future, I'll schedule this post to appear on Friday mornings, but since this idea just brewed in my head today, I decided to post it now.

Here goes:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I've done a lot of feeling bad this week. A LOT of it. But I've tried to make the most of the last half of the week, too. Today was no exception.

I got up this morning and went to Target at 8am (Fabulous Friday #1) even taking the toddler along with me. In his pajamas. Because we're klassy. (But really, it was chilly. And EIGHT IN THE MORNING. Pajamas were totally appropriate!)

Then, I shared my Cinnamon Toast Crunch with the toddler. (Fabulous Friday #2) He loved them.

Then he had a meltdown nightmare horrid afternoon nap and his diaper rash FLARED like whoa so his butt is looking a little angry right now and I had to swallow back a huge mouthful of Mama Fail. (In my defense, his diaper didn't feel full of pee and his antibiotic makes his poop not stink. Which is a blessing and a curse. And he's usually a morning pooper and he'd already gone twice today, so I, sadly, didn't think to check earlier. And that's more than you wanted to know about my son's poop habits.)

So, to cap off my evening and make my Friday Fabulous for real, I got wings and fries from Taco Mac for dinner. And beer from the fridge in the garage. And now Dan is gone to the store to get me some sour gummies so I can eat them and drink another beer. Just like I did in college. (Fabulous Friday #3)

What did you do today to make your Friday Fab?

(In the future, I'll also post this as a list, probably, instead of giving you a play-by-play. But I'm quite the lover of words, so who knows!)

Because my husband is a smart, smart man

2010-04-07T22:07:00.000-04:00

Last night as I was recapping my horrible day for Dan, he said "Why don't you ever dwell on the good days?"

Well. Touche'.

It's hard to dwell on the good days because they feel so few and far between. But maybe that was the lack of meds talkin'. (If there's one thing I've learned from yesterday, it's that I must never, never be without my meds. At least not for the foreseeable future. The pharmacy being closed on Easter really threw me.)

So, today was a great day. And I'm going to tell you all about it so that when I'm having another day like yesterday, I can come back here and read about a good day. (And I'm hoping y'all will stick around because I'm not all mopey, woe-is-me all the time.)

I posted earlier about how the day got off to a better start because we got a full night's sleep last night. So that was good. Joshua had about a 1/4 of a pancake and a cup of yogurt for breakfast. I had coffee. Because that's what I do. I drink coffee. It was great.

Then, we watched some Sprout because Joshua has a thing for small puppets with weird voices. They mesmerize him. And it's kind of funny to watch. And don't yell at me for using the electronic babysitter or for rotting his brain. It's not like I parked him on the rug and left him there all day. We chilled. He sat in my lap. We listened to Chica. We pointed at various parts of his face and my face and I tried to get him to say the words. (He knows "eyes", btw, and will stick his finger in his eye and/or try to touch his own eyelashes when you say the word.)

Then he decided that sitting in Mama's lap was not what cool kids do, so he got up and Monstered around the living room. (And any mom with a toddler will tell you that "monstering" is exactly what a new-ish walking child does. It's like Godzilla in your living room. Only instead of knocking things over, things knock him over.)

He played with some of his toys and I played with some of his toys. And I blogged and he played. And we took the dog out and I got annoyed that 1) he didn't want to be in my arms and he was in his pajamas and the grass was wet and 2) she wouldn't hurry up and do her business.

Once we came back inside, he had kind of reached meltdown status. He was whiny and complainy and he kept tripping over his own two feet (and I didn't have a breakdown! WOOT!). That signals naptime. So I made a bottle (SHUSH, people!) and we went to the nursery and he had about half of it and I put him in his crib and he didn't fall asleep. Um. What's up with that, Joshua? You were sleepy. But after about twenty minutes of talking to himself, he did fall asleep. And he slept for TWO HOURS. And I blogged, and Facebooked, and e-window shopped, and just enjoyed the silence.

When he woke up, he was happy. So we played for just a bit and then I decided to try some lunch. I cut a tortilla in half and made him a turkey and cheese quesadilla. He had a half of a quarter of a quesadilla, which I'm told is an eighth, but which is, to me, still a half of a quarter since I didn't make a whole quesadilla. You follow? It's numbers. It's cool if you don't follow. I'm not even sure I follow.

He also had some banana and some milk and then he was making it quite apparent that he was DONE with being in the highchair. So I let him down and he monstered around again for a bit. It's weird how fast time went today, because it seemed like no sooner than I fed him lunch and let him down, he was tired again. I know he's not feeling well, but he slept an awful lot today (not that I'm complaining. Pinky promise!)

Anyway, he fought going down for his afternoon nap. Fought it hard. Fought it so hard I had to go back in and hold him for a bit to settle him down. And then when I put him back in his crib, he whined a bit and then fell asleep. Until 4:00 p.m. So I took that as an opportunity to sleep, too. Because, I mean, I AM on Spring Break and all.

When we got up, we went outside and he monstered up and down the driveway with a stick or two. In true little boy fashion. I took a couple of pictures, and a video, but the video seems to be too large to send from my phone via email I'll work on trimming it and uploading it later. It's one of those videos only a mom could love because it's basically of him doing nothing except enjoying being outside. And man, does this kid love to be outside.

(Nevermind the drool and juice spot on the shirt. I think we might be trying to cut a molar or twelve. And he's still getting the hang of the sippy cup. And we stayed home today and have no one to impress.)

But then a strange thing happened. We came in and he ate dinner. Or he ate some things. And it was a random meal, but he ate them. And I didn't get stressed out until he started trying to throw his bananas in the floor. And no, it's not the mess I was worried about cleaning up. It was the mess the dog would make at 2 a.m. if she overindulged on bananas.

But by the time we were finished with dinner, it was almost time for Dan to be home. And it was a good day! HOLY CRAP, y'all! It was a GOOD day! It was a great day. When he whined, it didn't make me want to tear my hair out. It didn't make me want to runaway and join a convent. It didn't make me want to get my tubes tied lest another whining, screaming child issue from my loins at some distant point in time.

And then we did bath time and bed time and he fell asleep peacefully and we had steak and salad and we watched TV. And now I'm about to be shocked by the results of American Idol. (::jawdrop:: NOOOOOOO!!!!) and soon I'll go to bed and I'll wake up and I'll have another good day tomorrow. Because I'm getting my hair done. :)

And that, loyal readers, is how you have a great day.

Is your child a picky eater?

2010-04-07T13:29:00.000-04:00

Recently I became a BzzAgent. Basically, this means I'm occasionally asked to participate in campaigns to help market new products. But first, I get to try these products. Sometimes the products are free. Sometimes they are just samples. Sometimes they are just steeply discounted. At any rate, it's pretty neat. I'm still new to the process, but I'm a fast learner :)

Anyway, the most recent (actually, the first) campaign I've participated in is for Horizon Little Blends Yogurt .

(Go there now, read all about it, then come back here and read all about how it's something my child will actually eat! Or just read this first, then click the link. Or, well, you're capable of making your own decisions. ::smooches::)

You've all heard me lament how my child is such a picky, picky eater, right? Do you need me to link you to my whining? No? Okay.

The one meal we can get him to eat is breakfast, and that's because we feed him yogurt. We were hesitant to start yogurt because of his dairy allergy as an infant, so we waited until nine months to introduce dairy instead of starting at six.

He LOVES yogurt.

So, when I was sent a coupon to try Little Blends, I jumped on it.

Little Blends is a yogurt. No wait. It's a vegetable. NO! It's a fruit!

Wait! It's ALL THREE.

Yes, all three. And he LIKES it, y'all. He actually LIKES it.

I'm not as "green" as I could be, but I do like that this is organic yogurt. I like that this product doesn't have unhealthy preservatives and ingredients I can't pronounce.

So far we've tried the carrot/strawberry blend and the butternut squash/apple blend. He liked the butternut squash/apple blend better, but I think that's because he likes both of those on their own. And he likes yogurt. All three? It's the baby food trifecta for my picky eater!

You can call off the psych watch

2010-04-07T11:11:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling better today. Much better, actually.

I cried. And I cried. And I cried. And I said, through tears, how I thought I was no good at being Joshua's mother. And I cried some more.

And then I went to a book signing for the new Body Farm novel and heard an interesting lecture by a fascinating man and went out to dinner with a friend. (And I also managed to go out to lunch with a friend, buy a new dress, and get in a nap yesterday, so today, with a clearer mind, I have no idea WHY I was in such a state yesterday. As much as I hate this excuse, it has to be hormone-related. HAS to be. My third AF post-baby is due any minute now and BOY is she wreaking havoc on my endocrine system.)

I felt a little more human when I went to sleep last night.

And then Joshua slept all night long.

(and I'm going to blog about why I think he did that in a bit. Trust me. You moms will want to hear this.)

And when he woke up this morning at 5:30, he drank a bottle (SHUSH WITH THE JUDGING. Yes, he still gets a bottle.) and went back to sleep for three more hours. Or close to three more hours.

And the snot seems to be a little more under control this morning. A little bit. But he's got a cough now, so I'm hoping that nothing bad is settling in.

But he slept all night, so that's worth something.

And I'm feeling much, much better today. It's amazing what a full night's sleep can do for a person's sanity and clarity.

Spring Break sure ain't what it used to be

2010-04-06T09:26:00.000-04:00

In true Spring Break fashion, I started the weekend last Friday night by going out with a friend after work SANS BABY. OMG, y'all. It happened. It really, really happened!

Just one beer turned into...five? eight? Gosh. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I don't remember. Anyway, it was fun while it lasted, but I doubt I'll be doing that again any time soon. The Mom-Guilt just isn't worth it. And boy, do I have a lot of Mom-Guilt.

Saturday was supposed to be a good day. The three of us were going to enjoy some of our new Spring sunshine together and just sort of hang out as a family. Maybe go for a walk. Attend little miss Austin's first birthday party Take in a nice dinner. Who knows!?! The day was ours!

Then Dan got a phone call.

The person who was supposed to show up for work didn't. So Dan had to go to work.

Then Joshua threw up his lunch. And he was running a 102 degree fever. And the snot. OH. MY. GOD. The snot. And the snot still hasn't gone away and in two days I have gone through almost an entire box of tissues.

Then I frantically called the nurse's line because I was terrified he was having some monster reaction to the Chicken Pox vaccine.

While I'm on the subject, let me just say that, AGAIN, I let the nurse get to me. I gave him that damned shot knowing that chicken pox are like a rite of passage for kids. Dan had them. I had them. ALMOST EVERYONE I HAVE EVER KNOWN HAS HAD THEM. And I gave my child a vaccine with a live virus that could be the cause of his ridiculous crankiness. (Wait. Who am I kidding? I have the most ridiculously difficult, cranky, stubborn child imaginable. I swear I was not this bad for my past to be revisited upon me one-hundred-fold like this.) Anyway, regarding the shot, I should've passed.

I called the nurse line and she called me back and asked me a million questions and heard Joshua sneezing and whining in the background and finally she decided that the vomiting was likely just a reaction to all of the snot dripping down his throat and the fever was likely from the ear infection (but he didn't have a fever BEFORE we discovered he had an ear infection and he'd been on antibiotics for two days BEFORE developing the fever?!?!).

So she advised that I just put him on clear liquids for 6 to 8 hours and watch and see and call back or go to the children's clinic if we felt he needed to be seen. So I did.

And did I mention that I might've been a wee bit hungover through this whole ordeal? See, that's where the Mom Guilt comes in. It just isn't worth it for me to go out and have a good time because, inevitably, the gods will smite me. Or God will smite me. Or Buddha. Maybe it was Buddha.

WHO CARES? The point is that it is my luck that when I try to have a good time, I am brutally reminded where my priorities are supposed to be. With Joshua. And with his well-being. This is not the time for me to be selfish.

And while we're talking about being selfish, I totally understand how moms let themselves go after having kids. There just isn't enough time and help for me to take care of me and continue the standard of personal hygiene I was used to before he arrived.

I haven't had my eyebrows waxed since September. (NO WORRIES. There are not caterpillars growing on my face. I have plucked in between. But I can't guarantee that they look good. They certainly don't at the moment.) I haven't had my hair professionally dyed since last January. As in, of 2009. Three months BEFORE he got here. I've had ONE haircut since then. ONE. And it wasn't even a very good one.

I'm trying to remedy that on Thursday, and I have an appointment made. But it's two counties over and since Dan had that employee flake out on him, I have to take Joshua to daycare and then drive to get my hair done and I can't spend the day in a really leisurely manner because I'll have to get back here to get Joshua from daycare that afternoon, which means I have to leave before traffic gets bad between there and here, which means I'll be rushed, which means I just shouldn't do it. But I NEED it. In the worst possible way.

I wish I could be all happy-happy, joy-joy (Ren & Stimpy, anyone? Or, the beginning of when cartoons started to suck.) but I can't. I'm not happy, or joyful, really.

And now I just feel like crying.

A love-hate relationship

2010-04-01T19:47:00.000-04:00

I had to take Joshua to his 1 year well-baby visit this afternoon.

I have a love-hate relationship with WBVs (that's "well baby visit" for those of you not in-the-know...).

I love getting to find out how much he's grown.

I HATE THE SHOTS. OMGWTF. HATE THEM.

And I'm really getting to the point where I don't like taking him by myself because he is a monster sized handful.

He's trapped in this six by six room (okay, MAYBE it's eight by eight). The floor is germ-y. He is wearing nothing but a diaper. He doesn't want to be on the table because he can't play with the eye and ear scope. But he wants to eat the paper. But he doesn't want to be on the table because the floor looks more fun. But I don't want him on the floor because there are germs. And I am a girl and I must have cooties because he doesn't want to be on my lap. NOT. FUN.

So I spent this afternoon baby-wrangling and listening to him scream because it was forty MILLION BILLION DEGREES in that little cell and he wanted DOWN and OUT and ANYWHERE BUT IN MY LAP.

And I'm suffering from some serious Momxiety lately, so this visit was just unpleasant overall.

Here's the gist:

He's 32 1/4 inches tall--97th %ile

He weighs 25 lbs 4 oz--80th %ile

His head is 19 inches--Ninety Somethingith %ile

But he has an ear infection, so she called in an antibiotic.

And I told her about the Minute Clinic thing yesterday and she didn't offer to write the scrip.---OH WAIT. I DIDN'T TELL Y'ALL THE MINUTE CLINIC STORY---

Long story VERY short: I woke up with pinkeye yesterday. Went to the Minute Clinic after work. Nurse Practioner there wrote me a prescription for a SEVENTY THREE DOLLAR eyedrop. (that thing better grow my lashes, brighten my eyes, and do my laundry for $73.) Um, Hold. The. Phone. I'm not paying that. So I tried to call the Minute Clinic to see if she'd switch my scrip only to find out that the numbers for the Minute Clinics are UNLISTED. So the only way to get her to write me a new scrip would be to go up there, potentially pay another $35 copay and/or spend my time waiting. I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS SHIZ, PEOPLE.

---Back to the regularly scheduled programming---

Then I had a BREAK. DOWN. in the office because he was upset and squirmy and screaming and he wouldn't stop crying and he isn't sleeping and I feel bad that I've been feeding him at night and he won't eat his table foods and he still takes a bottle and he won't drink from a sippy cup or a real cup or a straw cup and I need a break and I can't even get one.

I can't.

It just isn't possible. I don't have ILs or parents who will come and take him some place so I can veg at the house. I don't have the energy to go anywhere after he goes to bed, nor do I want to go anywhere at 8:00 at night. I don't have the money to go anywhere on the weekends when DH is home with him. DH doesn't have a work schedule that is conducive to him being home to help me handle Joshua in the evenings between the time we get home and bath time when Joshua has had a rough day at school.

And it is breaking me.

So after I had a good cry and noticed some goop on his face and, through my tears, said I hoped he wasn't getting pinkeye, too, she said she was going to call something in preventatively, but that the dosage would be the same for me and for him, so *hinthint* I don't have to go back to the Minute Clinic.

AND THAT WAS ALL BEFORE THE SHOTS.

So then he SCREAMED. And SCREAMED. And SCREAMED. Even after I picked him up. And the nurse informed me that he might develop the freaking CHICKEN POX near the site of his injection and that it would be contagious. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Mate?

deepsigh

And then the receptionist turned on the bubbles as I was checking out and he almost JUMPED OUT OF MY ARMS.

And then we got stuck in traffic.

I need a beer.

I hope this isn't setting a precedent

2010-03-28T10:17:00.000-04:00

We had two birthday parties for the first birthday. Does this mean I'll have three for the second?

Whew! What a week.

It started with Spring cleaning (most of) the house last weekend for the family party on Monday night. That went well, I think. No one cried or was maimed (OH WAIT. Nephew #2 fell and hit his head on the coffee table. Tears AND maiming.) But really, all parties involved were on their best behavior. The food was good, the company was good. The grandmothers got to play with Joshua. We'll mark it in the win column.

Yesterday was the friends party. We were able to keep the house clean all week (WAHOO!). There was plenty of food (and plenty of leftovers. Except for the nuggets.) I think the babes had a blast playing with Joshua's toys. I think the adults had a blast having conversations with other adults for a change. So we'll mark this one in the win column, too.

Joshua thought he'd hit the sugar JACKPOT with cake twice in one week. And he sort of did. And since there's still cake left from yesterday, I can't guarantee that I won't give him a bite later today. I'm such a bad mommy. Loading my kid up on sweets and sugar and then LEAVING TO GET A PEDICURE. Yep. That's right. I'm supposed to get "me time" today to get a pedicure. Or a manicure. Or something for ME.

WOOT.

I've just been feeling incredibly overwhelmed lately, which is probably the reason for the lack of posting. I've been unnaturally exhausted since Joshua's stomach bug. It's really hard to explain. By the time I hit 3:00 p.m., I cannot hold my eyes open. I feel like I zombie through dinner, bath, bed, laundry, TV, etc. to just get it done.

And it's hard for me to admit that I need time to myself. Because I'm away from Joshua all day, I just want to be with him in the evenings. But I NEED some time to myself. NEED. In the way Amy Winehouse needs hairspray. And crack.

So, time for me will commence this afternoon. And then it'll be back here to clip coupons and go grocery shopping. And grade papers. And finish the laundry. And plan the meals for the week. And...well, you get the idea.

But for the hour I'm in that chair, it's all about me.

So, he's one.

2010-03-22T21:25:00.000-04:00

Crazy, right?

To think that this time last year, I was, apparently, screaming my head off. (I do not remember this. The blog does not remember this. I say it didn't happen. Dan says differently. Tomaytoe, tomahtoe, I say.)

Anyway, he's one now. A whole year has passed.

When I think about how far we've come and what we've OVERcome to get here, I can't help but feel a little triumphant. I mean, I GAVE UP DAIRY FOR SEVEN MONTHS, y'all! We survived reflux and colic and that damned dairy allergy. After he refused to nurse, I chained myself to a pump five to six times a day. I battled a MAJOR case of Mommy-guilt when I decided to stopping breastfeeding (but that first bite of cheesy goodness known as Kasey's hashbrown casserole was enough to let me know I'd made the right choice.)

We have gone from not sleeping. Ever. To sleeping through the night to...wait...we're back to not sleeping through the night. So that's not exactly a win. If he doesn't start sleeping through the night again soon, I'm going to need to invest in an espresso machine because the coffee isn't cutting it anymore.

He's walking and speaking baby jabber. And he clicks like he's speaking some strange tribal baby language. And did I mention he's walking? I'm pretty sure climbing is coming next. He's attempting to climb onto his Learn-n-Groove table and various other toys. And he'd like to nose-dive off of all pieces of furniture if only it weren't for those pesky PARENTS stopping him from ~~making trips to the ER~~ having fun.

We've weathered a few ear infections and a case of projectile vomiting followed by a pajama-leg full of poop and a 3am bath. We've changed more diapers than I can count. My laundry has tripled, just with the addition of this (relatively) tiny little thing.

And no matter how hard or scary this has been, or how anxious and thankful for anti-depressants I have become, I wouldn't change it. (OKAY THAT'S A LIE. I'd TOTALLY change that sleeping thing. In a heartbeat.) I should say I'd do it all over again. Because I would.

As we begin to look at tax-sheltered college savings accounts, I know that my days of 2am baby snuggles are numbered. At some point, he won't WANT me to hold him anymore. Someday, he's going to be the boy standing in the Sears parking lot looking longingly at his parents as they drive away after moving him into his very first college apartment and buying him a hammer and two screwdrivers (one Phillips, one flathead. And yes, my parents and I parted ways in the Sears parking lot in Athens.)

But I might be getting just a teensy bit ahead of myself.

I have enjoyed watching him hit every milestone. I have agonized over those milestones, too. And I think it's normal that I've agonized. I think that's the one thing that I've done right. I've proven, through my worry, that I care. I will never stop caring. I will never stop worrying. I will never stop hoping that I've done the best I could for him.

I love him. More than I ever thought possible. More than I can ever put into words. More than I can ever hope to be loved in return if I lived a thousand lifetimes.

And now I'm crying all over my keyboard because my heart is so full of love for this little person that Dan and I created who is thriving and learning and growing more and more every day.

Joshua is ONE YEAR OLD.

2010-03-22T14:48:00.000-04:00

::hyperventilates::

::cries::

::sobs hysterically::

I can't believe this, y'all. I really can't believe it.

He's a whole year old.

::sigh::

Where has the time gone?

I'll wax poetic a little later this evening. I promise to try and ~~make you cry~~ not make you cry.

It's okay. You can call off the search party.

2010-03-14T11:01:00.000-04:00

I am still alive. I promise. For real. And I turned 28 yesterday to boot.

I've been taking a bit of an internet hiatus to work on my family. And life has been pretty routine and boring anyway, so there's not much to report. And I've been feeling sort of "meh" and it's hard to write about the mundane when you're feeling "meh."

So, yeah.

I fell comPLETEly off the McFatty Wagon. Hard. I think I have bruises from how hard I fell. My life has been full of party pizzas and full-fat ice cream. And going to bed early with a full stomach. So now I'm finding that my stomach has kind of gotten enormous (to me, at least) and I'm feeling all sorts of fat. I did, however, manage to lower my cholesterol by 50 points in under three months. And I have NO idea how I pulled that one off.

Joshua is a walking machine. He's into EVERYthing. And I think he's trying to be an over-achiever and enter his "Terrible Twos" before he even hits one. Temper tantrums abound in our house right now. Does anyone know how, exactly, I can keep him from screaming out randomly like he's ready to chuck the remote at the TV when 1) he shouldn't have the remote in the first place and 2) the TV may or may not even be ON?? I am, however, happy to report that no more cell phones have been sacrificed to the toilet gods.

Preparations are in full swing for his birthday party. We're actually having two parties. The grandmothers work on the weekends, so in order to make sure they can celebrate, we're having a family dinner on his birthday. Then the following weekend is his birthday party with friends (and more family). I can't believe he's a year old. He'll be in college before I know it.

So, that's the past three weeks in a nutshell. I promise to try and do better.

McFatty Monday--Week 7

2010-02-22T10:38:00.000-05:00

I took a week off from posting on McFatty Monday, mostly because I'm now weighing myself on Wednesday morning instead of Monday morning, but partly because Dan bought me a box of Pinot Grigio and I *might* have indulged a little too frequently last week. And we had rice four times last week (or was it five?). And burgers on Sunday. Geez. I was bad.

Anyway, last Wednesday I was still 188.5. No gain, no loss. But I'm stagnant. Which isn't good.

I also started birth control again and, oddly enough, I feel more like myself than I have in a long time. Weird. I don't feel nearly as moody and hormonal and sad. That, coupled with getting lots of good rest last week seems to have done me good.

I have an appointment with the PA next week to talk about how I'm doing on the birth control and I'm going to mention to her the stagnant weight loss despite the five weeks of good eating. I'm also going to buckle down and eat better and limit my wine to once or twice a week. We'll see how it goes on Wednesday when I weigh in again.

Now that I have a spare moment...

2010-02-14T11:20:00.000-05:00

it's time for a real update. For real.

The last two weeks have been kind of crazy. And I've been kind of depressed. So rather than blog about all the things I can't even keep straight in my head, I just retreated into my own little world of TV and wine and coffee and sleep. ::sigh:: I'm on the mend now, though. I think. I hope.

Since we last met, Joshua has weathered another cold, become a Tiny Terrorist, flailing and screaming and biting and spitting and fighting me tooth.and.nail to not have to do what I need/want him to do. He's also started holding his own bottle, which was a "skill" I didn't want him to acquire for fear of him getting too attached to his bottle for me to take it away from him but which has proven to be quite beneficial when he wakes up while I'm trying to get ready for work. Dan can get him out of the bed while I'm in the shower, put him in the high chair, give him a bottle, and continue making his lunch/coffee/breakfast AND feed Joshua at the same time. PERFECTION!

And, y'all, the biggest development--HE IS WALKING. OMG! Not full-on WALKING walking, but he'll take a few steps here and there and then drop to a crawl. But, I'm assured by mothers who know, this is walking. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

But let's get back to that Tiny Terrorist thing for a minute, mmkay?

If I show up to work and my boss asks me "Are you okay?" because there are bruises on my chest, it won't be because Dan has suddenly decided to "put me in my place." It'll be because Joshua thinks it's AWESOME to pound/slap my chest because he likes the way it sounds. And he's interested in my eyes. Actually, he's interested in EVERYONE'S eyes, so he eye-gouges me (and everyone else) quite frequently. And he HATESHATESHATES having his nails clipped, probably as a result of my first Mommy Fail, so it's a battle to trim the baby talons. Which means he scratches me all over the face in his attempts to figure out what those blinky things are that are staring at him all the time.

And he bites. OMG does he bite. Everything. You're sitting in the floor minding your own business while he's playing with his stacking rings? BAM! Bite on the knee. You're holding him on your hip while trying to also pack a lunch, make coffee and load the car? BAM! Bite on the shoulder. You're playing with his hands and he grabs your finger and you think for one split second "Noooo, he won't bite my fingers!"? BAM! He bites your fingers. Baby teeth hurt. A lot. I'm not joking. And we say "NO BITING" very firmly and he does it anyway. I don't know what I'm going to do the first time he bites another baby at day care.

And spitting the food. Holy crap. This might be the single most frustrating thing I've encountered yet as a parent. More frustrating than reflux and not napping. More frustrating than spending what felt like four months glued to my recliner, afraid my skin would fuse to the fabric, because Joshua would scream if I moved. When he spits his food out I want to scream!! I was raised in a house that didn't let food go to waste. When he spits carrots all over his clothes (because God FORBID the child keep a bib on) I just want to cry. There's another shirt I'll never get clean. And another meal he won't swallow. And, wait a minute, do I have pears on my face now?? Yes. Yes, I do.

I hear from moms who know that the spitting thing is just a phase. "Just a phase" is a phrase that I am beginning to detest as much as I loathe the phrase "just a cold."

Along with spitting, my child won't eat table foods. Sure, he'll munch on some french fries (and by munch, I mean make them a soggy mess and then SPIT THEM OUT!) or some pita chips or some cheerios. But grilled cheese? Chicken? Turkey? Veggie pieces? NO WAY, JOSE. He is not gonna do it. He'll feed them to the dog. That's lots of fun. But he will not put them in his mouth. And if you put them in his mouth for him, he sticks his tongue allllllll the way out to make sure the food doesn't stay in there. 'Tis frustrating.

He also hates getting dressed, or diapered, or diapered AND dressed. He'd be content to be naked for the rest of his life. He is such a little man. Putting his pajamas on after bath time takes both of us, and sometimes I wish Annie had opposable thumbs and could lend a paw or four. He flips and flops and flails and screams and cries and fights and it is such a workout. The power of language and comprehension and bargaining can't come fast enough for that fight.

And yes, I know it seems like I'm wishing my child's life away, and really, I promise you I'm not. I want him to stay little and innocent for as long as possible because if there's one thing I've learned from working with teenagers it's that they are jaded beyond belief. By fourteen years old. And it saddens me greatly to think about it. BUT, I maintain that life will be made infinitely easier by Joshua's ability to say "NO MORE PEAS, MOM. I'M GOING TO TURN GREEN. GIVE ME SWEET POTATOES, PLEASE." For real. It will be. You can't convince it won't.

Sure, he'll likely ask for marshmallows instead of sweet potatoes, but at least then I'll KNOW what he wants instead of trying to guess and failing miserably at this game of Baby Charades we've been playing for the past few months.

But, he's walking. And he's happy (most of the time) and he's napping consistently and sleeping well at night. so I should be thankful for the little things, right? The beautiful little things. Like a son who "gives kisses" by trying to EAT MY FACE (which is really cute, albeit sloppy--I'll have to explain to him that this is not a good quality in twenty years when he's ready to date). Or how sometimes he stops mid-bottle to smile and laugh at us, which makes us smile and laugh, which prolongs the time it takes to get him down for a nap but are moments I wouldn't trade for the world.

My son is SO a boy.

2010-02-10T20:16:00.000-05:00

Tonight, while I gave Joshua his bottle....errr, well, while he gave himself his bottle while I held him....I looked down to gaze into the wonder of my sweet boy's face. And just smile at him and love on him.

And then I really looked at him.

And he had his bottle in one hand and the other hand was casually resting on his baby junk.

HE IS SUCH A LITTLE MAN!!

I promise, promise, promise, I'll write something of more substance soon. Work has been crazy and home has been crazy and we've all been sick and I just want to go to bed the minute I walk in the door!

McFatty Monday--Week 5

2010-02-08T14:47:00.000-05:00

***I pinky promise there's a real post on the horizon for the faithful among you who do not care about my weight.***

This morning's weight--188.5. Not a gain. Not a loss. Another week of breaking even. I'll take it.

But I've decided that I'm changing my weekly weigh-in day to Wednesday morning instead of Monday morning. In the past, I've never had my weigh-in day on Monday because when you eat well all week and splurge on the weekend, it shows on Monday morning. If the weigh-in day is on Wednesday and I splurge on the weekend, I have Monday and Tuesday to get back on track. So, I'll be posting my McFatty entry on Monday from now on, but it'll have Wednesday's weight. Cool? Cool.

Last week I wasn't good. I ate cake and cookies and pizza and I WAS BAD. And then on Friday, the skies parted and lo and behold, my period showed up. Which explained the ridiculous amount of food I consumed last week. Aren't YOU always starving the week before your period shows up? I can't be the only one, right? No, of course I'm not.

Anyway, what's interesting about the arrival of the dreaded Aunt Flo (aside from me having to dig out the granny panties I haven't worn in two years) is the fact that this is two years to the week since my last "normal" period. Two years ago this month, I took my last Yasmin and we embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. The adventure to parenthood. (HOW THE HELL HAS IT BEEN TWO YEARS ALREADY????)

Taking that last pill was also momentous because it led to my diagnosis with PCOS. And it seems fitting that just last week, I was in the doctor's office having bloodwork done to check my hormone levels. As it turns out, they're fine (which is a relief!) but I'll never be able to NOT wonder if my body is broken. When we're ready to have another baby, or to try to have another baby, I have no idea what to expect.

And along with having no idea what to expect, the innocence that comes along with being pregnant has been shattered for me through the losses so many people about whom I've come to care have suffered.

So, today is a bittersweet entry for me, I guess. It's about more than just weight loss. It's about more than just fitting in my clothes. Or NOT eating a second slice of cake.

It's about how quickly time has passed and where has it gone and what do I have to show for it, aside from the most precious gift I've ever been given.

Don't say I never gave you anything, mmkay?

2010-02-01T21:09:00.001-05:00

My child is a genius. And I may or may not sound ridiculous. And I definitely say "ummm....fork" during this video. Focus on the genius baby, okay? Mensa will be calling soon. I just know it.

McFatty Monday--Week 4

2010-02-01T09:04:00.000-05:00

Or, the week where I totally fall off the wagon.

I'm up to 189.5.

I blame the fact that last week was so busy I could barely breathe. (Okay, okay....I'm overstating just a bit...)

Anyway.

I did NOT work out. At all. Because I FAIL at working out. I always have. I probably always will.

I did NOT drink more water. Because the water from the fountains at school tastes gross and I don't have my mini-fridge in my classroom yet to stock with bottles of water. And then I'll feel bad about all the bottles of water I'm going through instead of just using a reusable bottle (like, oh, I dunno, the stainless steel one Dan got me for Christmas?). Maybe I should invest in a Brita pitcher for my classroom fridge. When I actually get the fridge to my classroom.

I also blame the half of a Mellow Mushroom pizza I had yesterday. And the Sauvignon Blanc from Saturday night. Oh, and the Totino's party pizza. God, I fail at dieting.

I also think that the PCOS is back. Despite the few bad meals I had last week, I ate well overall. The fact that in four weeks of eating well I've yo-yoed with five pounds tells me that there's something not right with my hormones. Looks like I'll be calling the doctor to have another blood panel run. Awesome. I love needles. (THAT WAS SARCASM. I AM NOT A JUNKIE!)

So, goals for the week? Should I even bother?

I guess I'll attempt to NOT overdo it with the wine and pizza. But fried chicken is on the menu for the week and I make no promises when fried chicken is involved. (I have a craving.)

I suppose I'll also attempt to drink more water. And I should probably make a couple of dates with Jillian Michaels, too. Particularly since the pants I'm wearing today are too short because of my gigantor thighs. (No, I'm not even kidding a little bit. My pants are too short. I look ridiculous.)

I really don't like my body very much.

I need a brain-cation

2010-01-26T20:55:00.000-05:00

I have so many ideas for entries to write swirling around in my head and when I think "HEY! I need to write about that" it's always when I'm in the middle of holding a screaming, squirming baby, or being spit up on, or teaching.

I have no idea how to keep things straight and orderly and WRITTEN.

::sigh::

I'm too sleepy to even think about trying to catch up tonight.

McFatty Monday--Week 3

2010-01-25T09:56:00.000-05:00

I'll begin this weeks' McFatty Monday with telling you about the dream I had last night. Seriously. It's a good one.

~~~cues sleepy-time dreamy music and weird screen shadowing~~~

Last night I dreamed that I, along with several other people (some of whom were students, most of whom I did not know) found ourselves in another "realm." In this realm, there was no food. It LOOKED like our world, but we seemed to be the only people alive.

We began a trek to find the rest of civilization, should any civilization exist. Along the way, we found trees FULL of bananas. I mean FULL of them. And then we encountered some tigers who informed us that we could ONLY eat the bananas from the trees that didn't have yellow leaves. (WEIRD!) So, we continued our trek surviving on bananas. Eventually, we found water, and we performed a ritual and called up the water to wash away the tigers so we could eat the rest of the bananas. And it WORKED! Then we had MORE bananas and plenty of water.

And we continued our trek.

Eventually we found ourselves inside this convention hall. It was, of course, abandoned. But we explored to see what we could find that might be of some use. We found some sort of schematic and believed it would be beneficial in the future. And it was.

These people showed up from the REAL "realm" and we bargained with them. Our safe passage back into the real realm for the schematic. And they said okay.

---Here's where the dream gets to the point. I promise, there's a point.---

THOSE A-HOLES SENT ME TO "HELL" BECAUSE I WAS THE LEADER OF THE GROUP.

For real.

And my "Hell" was a department store full of beautiful, wonderful, expensive, designer clothes that DID NOT FIT and an endless buffet of decadent sweets.

Seriously.

The clothes were BEAUTIFUL. And they almost fit but not quite. There was a little something about each piece that made it just uncomfortable enough that I wouldn't want to wear it all day long. And I was miserable. Miserably uncomfortable in those beautiful clothes and knowing that I'd spend eternity NOT fitting in them.

And then there was the temptation of the dessert buffet. There were pastries and brownies and cookies and tarts and creme brulees and just all sorts of wonderfully tempting things. And because I wanted to fit in the beautiful, expensive, wonderful clothes, I did not eat the delicious smelling (Yes, I could SMELL the chocolate in my dream. And I dream in color, too.) and amazingly delectable treats.

And I STILL couldn't fit in the clothes.

My own personal Hell is apparently a never-ending fat day.

Awesome.

~~~cues sleepy-time dreamy music and weird screen shadowing~~~

This morning I woke up determined to find something comfortable and fashionable to wear, and I mostly succeeded. But still. Y'all. I have visions of amazing clothes dancing in my head this morning and the defeated feeling that they will never fit. In my dream last night I had on this really cute black skirt that sat up just a little too high on my waist and a button up shirt that pulled just a little too much across my boobs. This is basically the story of my life. The clothes "fit" but they don't really fit.

So I stepped on the scale, totally naked save the glasses on my face (I even took off my star necklace, lest it add an ounce to my weight) and discovered that I have not lost any more weight beyond the five pounds from last week.

That's not TOO bad considering I had four Dove chocolates and two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc on Saturday night (and I'm sure the extra parmesan noodles with dinner didn't help either). AND I didn't use the Wii Fit A SINGLE TIME last week :( and I didn't drink any extra water either.

DIET FAIL.

This week. Oh, this week.

I have a vision in my head of a super cute black skirt and button up top into which I MUST fit (and do I own either of the items from my dream? No. Which means I'm on a mission to find these items for CHEAP so I can fit into them!)

I WILL drink more water this week. I will. A million trips to the faculty bathroom be damned. I will drink more water. And I WILL count my points as I'm supposed to instead of just guessing/rounding like I did last week.

I must fit into that skirt once I find it! MUST.

Joshua is TEN MONTHS OLD!!!

2010-01-23T10:43:00.000-05:00

He has grown so much and so fast. I don't know where the time has gone.

We're weathering our fourth ear infection in as many months. And he now has EIGHT teeth. Some babies don't get ANY teeth until they are over a year old. My child has a mouthful. And he LOVES to bite me. LOVES it. He'll bite my fingers, my arms, my hands, my shoulder. He even tried to bite my neck the other day. Perhaps me reading the entire Twilight series with him in utero wasn't such a great idea.

He is speed-crawling and into everything. He thinks it's funny to escape down the hallway when we accidentally leave the baby gate open. And when we say "you better get back here" he turns around and smiles and laughs at us. And then keeps crawling in the opposite direction.

Speaking of laughing, the dog might be the funniest person living in our house. He is fascinated with her. She is only mildly interested in him. And her interest peaks when he is in his highchair. At that moment, she is firmly planted underneath the high chair. She tries to look all innocent by laying there like "What? I'm just being part of the family!" but we know that she is secretly hoping he'll reach his hands over the side of the chair so she can lick his fingers. Or that he'll bang on his highchair tray and send a spray of Cheerios all over the kitchen in the interest of "sharing." I have smart children. And for now at least, they get along.

We've tried to move into table foods and he hasn't really taken to them like we'd hoped he would. It's okay, though. We got the okay from the pediatrician to wait for a while and then try them again. When he does decide he likes table foods, we'll have to buy a third baby gate to keep the dog out of the kitchen. She's not going to like that so much.

Joshua can put the circle block into the circle spot in the mouth of his Tiny Love Pelican. He also thinks it's great fun to slam the other three shapes into their respective places when I set them up for him. He would play this game for an hour at a time if we would play it with him. (My attention span for this activity is about 15 minutes. I must work on this.) He can ALMOST get the rings on his Mula Stacking Rings every time but thinks it's way more fun to let me put the rings on for him so he can dump them off and send them rolling around the living room. He also loves his Mula Stacking Nest cups. They provide countless minutes of entertainment!

I suppose that now it's time for me to start REALLY thinking about his first birthday party. Yikes!! I can't believe he's been outside longer than he was inside.

I haz a sick baby :((

2010-01-21T10:37:00.000-05:00

I got a call from daycare yesterday letting me know that Joshua was running a temperature and she was going to give him some Tylenol. He's cutting his EIGHTH tooth, so we thought it was probably just that. She called back right as my last class for the day was ending and said that his fever had gone up. So I called the pediatrician, ran out of the building and flew like the wind to get him picked up and to the doctor's office.

I do not mess around with fevers. There is almost nothing about illnesses that scares me more than fevers.

So, we got to the pediatrician's office and as we were sitting in the waiting room, I noticed that Joshua was just really...listless. He wanted to look around at things, but he mostly just sat with his head on my chest. That is not normal behavior for my little guy.

We got called back and he tore up the paper like he usually does, but he wasn't as enthusiastic as he normally is. (Normally, I'm begging to take a roll of that home with us. Mess be damned. He loves that paper.) The doctor came in and checked his lungs and said they sounded fine. Then she laid him down to check his ears. When he was laying down, she couldn't see any infection behind his ear drums, but then she sat him up and looked again and sure enough, another ear infection. It's only in his left ear, though, instead of both like last time.

She called in a prescription, we paid our $35, and we were on our way.

--sidenote--
I'm over this ear infection business. For real. I'm tired of my son getting ear infections for no good reason and me not being able to do anything to really help him. I hate when he feels so bad. HATE it. I want to take it away for him and let him be his normal, relatively happy-baby self. Stupid, stupid ear infections!

Anyway, we got home and he just wanted to snuggle. He'd soaked through a diaper, so I changed his clothes and we came into the living room and sat down and within minutes, he'd laid his head on my chest and gone to sleep. Just like that. No fussing, no rocking, just asleep.

(Excuse the baby drool on my shirt and my double chin, mmkay? MY SON IS SICK!)

MY POOR BABY! It broke my heart and soothed my soul at the same time. I love having him nap on my chest, but I hate that he felt so bad.

He seems to be feeling a little better this morning, but I stayed home from work today to snuggle him if he needs it. We'll see how the day goes.

McFatty Tuesday?

2010-01-19T10:54:00.000-05:00

So, I broke my cardinal weight-loss rule and I weighed myself again this morning. (I NEVER weigh myself more than once a week. Ever. But this morning I did.)

I lost another two pounds.

I don't know exactly what to think about that.

On the one hand, I LOST ANOTHER TWO POUNDS!!! On the other hand, I lost another two pounds??? ::gives scale the side-eye::

I think the scale might've been on crack on Monday morning.

All the world's a stage...even when you don't want it to be

2010-01-18T11:12:00.001-05:00

So Joshua is mobile now, right? We've discussed this, yes?

What this means is when I go into another room, he can follow me. This includes, but is not limited to, the office, the bedroom, the laundry room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. Basically every room in my house.

This morning I found myself, um, going to the bathroom with an audience. Both Joshua and the dog followed me. The dog to make sure she wasn't missing out on anything cool. Joshua because he cannot be out of my presence for half a second, which is endearing most of the time. But not when I need to do my business.

However, the only options I had were to invite him in or leave him in the living room and risk him eating a shoe or chewing on a book or pulling all of the wipes out of his travel-pack of diaper wipes--wait. He definitely did that already this morning, and it only took him .02 seconds. (And let's not let the opportunity to point something very important pass, okay? Why is it that when I NEED to get the wipes out of the case quickly lest he flip off of the changing table with poop all over his booty the wipes all stick together and refuse to come out of the package? But when he gets into his diaper bag in the 60 seconds it takes for me to refill my coffee?? Yeah. Wipes are going to be ALL OVER the living room.)

Anyway, back to the story.

So, this morning, Joshua followed me into the bathroom. When I picked up my Real Simple magazine, he picked up a magazine, too. Which is cute, now that I think about it. But not at that moment. It wasn't cute then. Because he doesn't flip mindlessly through the pages thinking "Ohhh, those shoes are cute!" No. He flips through the pages thinking "mmmmmm! FIBER!" and proceeds to munch on the pages of the magazines. Right at my feet. With his head between my knees. And the dog lays down in front of the door and stares at the two of us thinking "WTF is going on in here and WHERE is my water dish!?!?" (and thankfully, I'd picked that up upon entering the bathroom out of preparation for my little audience.)

So, I did my business and flushed and washed my hands and noticed that the toilet didn't sound quite right upon flushing. So when it finished filling up, I flushed again. And then OMG IT STARTED OVERFLOWING!

And I had a baby on my hip! OMGOMGOMGOMG!!

So I grab the plunger and plunge the toilet whilst balancing a baby on my hip who thinks we're playing some cool new game and he should kick his feet and slap at my back and chest in appreciation for said new game.

And I'm trying to plunge the toilet, not let the water soak my slippers (and it really was only water or else there's no way in hell I'd be telling y'all this lest you all think I live in a dump without proper plumbing), grab a towel from the shower curtain bar to soak up said water, not drop the baby, keep the dog out of the water, and save my Real Simple magazine from total destruction. ALL AT ONCE.

That was a workout.

And I will relish every moment in which I can do my business in peace from here on out.

McFatty Monday, Week 2

2010-01-18T07:22:00.000-05:00

I lost 3 pounds! WOOT!

That's kind of fake excitement. I'm only sort of happy about three pounds. Weird, right? I've had trouble mustering excitement about anything lately, so I guess that's my "reason."

I know I didn't follow Weight Watchers quite like I should have. I mean, don't get me wrong, I didn't fall totally off the wagon. But I didn't follow as strictly as I should have, either. And I didn't drink enough water. And the wine on Friday AND Saturday night was probably not a good idea, either. And I refused to give up cream and sugar in my coffee. And Splenda is expensive. And I only Wii'ed once. ::insert frowny-face here::

Part of me thinks the PCOS is flaring up. I'll know that for sure after a couple of weeks of following Weight Watchers with little success.

Until then, I'm GOING to Wii more than ONCE this week (because really, that's just abysmal) and I'm GOING to drink more water this week. But I'm NOT giving up my good creamer. I'll just Wii for an extra five minutes or something...

So, I know why toilet locks were invented

2010-01-15T11:21:00.000-05:00

And it wasn't to keep babies from drowning. Although that is a noble and worthy reason.

Let me tell you a little story, mmkay?

My son does not understand the concept of sleeping in. He wakes up every morning between 5:00 and 6:30. There is no rhyme or reason to what time he will wake up, save that it will be somewhere in that hour and a half window. I have tried and tried and tried to get him to sleep until 7:00. We have adjusted his bed time forward and back hoping he'd sleep for twelve hours a night like we've read that babies his age normally do. It's not happening.

There are things about the morning that Joshua doesn't understand. And of course he doesn't understand them. He's a baby. But,

He doesn't understand that my mornings are less hectic without him underfoot while I try to do my hair and makeup. He doesn't understand that the hair dryer is not his plaything. He doesn't understand that the Exersaucer will not eat him alive. He does not understand that Play with Me, Sesame! can be GREAT entertainment (although, this morning, oddly enough, he did seem to get that...Thank GOD for the Sprout Network!). He does not understand that it is nearly impossible for me to make my lunch and my coffee, pack his lunch, load the car, get him dressed and get out the door at a reasonable time so I won't be late to work without having a near nervous breakdown.

Now that he's mobile this is both easier and harder. I can put him in the floor while I do these things and he will occupy himself long enough for me to get these things done. However, what he chooses to do to occupy these minutes might mean destruction to my prized possessions.

Here are two things you need to know and keep in mind before I finish this story:

1. I cannot see without my glasses or contacts. At all. I mean, I can see a little bit. If what I'm trying to look at is no more than 12 to 15 inches away from my face.

2. We sometimes "let it mellow" if we pee in the middle of the night. The toilet in the master bathroom occasionally runs, so instead of getting up to pee, laying down again and getting comfy and then having to get back up to jiggle the handle, we don't flush at night. (I can't believe I just admitted that to the entire internet.)

In an attempt to occupy Joshua for .02 seconds while I put in my contacts this morning, I didn't stop him from playing with my cell phone.

And he dropped it in the toilet.

In a toilet that had PEE in it.

And I had to reach my hand INTO the toilet to retrieve my life line.

And I really, really, really wanted to cry. Apparently I wasn't gifted with the eyes in the back of my head. I had no idea he was even IN the bathroom with me until I heard the "bloop" of the phone dropping into the pee water.

(I was, however, momentarily blind and in the process of putting in my contacts. Let's not forget that.)

Luckily (or just "not so sucky"), we have Dan's old phone for me to use as a backup until mine either 1) dries out and I get over the fact that it has been in PEE WATER or 2) we figure out how to afford a new phone for me. But, it has very little battery life and I don't know where the charger is.

The End.

Enter the Walrus

2010-01-11T10:53:00.000-05:00

Seems like a fitting title since it seems my child is turning into one of those burly, ornery, oyster-eating creatures. Well, okay, let me rephrase. We've had a lot of snot this weekend. OMG a lot. And when he sneezes his snot looks like walrus tusks. And he HATES tissues with the fiery passion of a thousand Devils. (And no, his hatred for the tissues does not stop me from wiping the snot from his face. I'm not raising a ragamuffin!)

Capt. Crankypants made an appearance this weekend. The boy took a TWO HOUR LONG afternoon nap yesterday. He has never, in his entire life, taken a two hour nap in the afternoon unless I was holding him. Ever. So I knew he didn't feel well and called to get a substitute for today. And I was told that there were no subs for today. Awesome.

Then the skies opened up and the angels began to sing. Hallelujah!

School was cancelled. Again. Really, not-sarcastic awesome.

There is nothing I enjoy more than a good ol' fashioned snow day. Except I didn't get to sleep in this morning because, well, I had to weigh myself for McFatty Monday (see the post immediately preceding this one!) and I had to take Joshua to the pediatrician.

I was CERTAIN that his ear infection was back. CERTAIN. Apparently, my mom-tuition is broken. It's "just a cold." It's JUST A COLD.

Do you know how frustrating it is to hear "just a cold" when you take your snotty, whiny mess of a child who will not let you put him down nowaynohownonononono to the doctor and hear those words?

Well, it's really freaking frustrating.

And then the doctor proceeds to tell me that on average, children get 4 to 6 colds a year.

Okay, so, that's not too bad.

Then she tells me that children in daycare get THREE TIMES as many colds as children who aren't in daycare and those colds typically occur between October and March and that he should be better by then but if he's running a fever in a week then come back in and see her and did I have any questions and no his Monster hat won't keep him from getting an ear infection because ear infections aren't caused by wind in the ears. (Which was NOT a question I asked, by the way, because I already knew that.)

But O Holy Night, people! Up to 18 colds between October and March? Way to make a girl feel okay for NOT being a stay-at-home-mom there, Doc.

So, we're here, nursing another cold with saline rinse and snuggles. And I'm hoping for another two hour afternoon nap so I can take one, too.

McFatty Monday, Week 1

2010-01-11T07:58:00.002-05:00

So, here it goes. I'm about to embark on a weight loss endeavor that will have me, hopefully, fitting into my fat jeans again in no time. Hopefully. (Here's a link to the other McFatty posts if you need encouragement!)

I weighed myself this morning and it wasn't pretty. 193 lbs. That's what I weighed the day I went in for my first prenatal appointment at a whopping four weeks pregnant.

To monitor how and what I'm eating, I'll be doing Weight Watchers. For those of you not familiar with this program, every food is assigned a "point" value based on how many calories, grams of fat, and grams of fiber the food contains. The idea is to eat low calorie, low fat, high fiber foods and to round out your meals with fresh veggies and some fruits. And water. You have to drink your water. I've been really, really bad about this lately.

I'll be doing the Flex plan (which I think Weight Watchers has done away with, or revamped into something new). With the flex plan, I get a certain number of points per day (I'll get 27) and then 35 additional points per week to use at my discretion. When I was in college I saved up the 35 points to use on the weekends. I think those points will be a little more evenly distributed now that I'm also feeding Dan.

I did weight watchers during my senior year of college and I was really successful with it. Part of my success, however, is due to the fact that I was a broke college student! Protein was a luxury for me. Oatmeal for breakfast, a salad for lunch from the amazing cafeteria salad bar at the school where I did my student teaching, and then a handful of pasta and some sauce with a side of veggies for dinner. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Occasionally I'd throw a piece of chicken into the toaster oven to have with my pasta.

Now, I have Dan to think about in my meal-planning. He is not going to be okay with eating pasta and sauce five nights a week. At all.

And eating healthy gets expensive when you're trying to make actual meals and menu plans. Our goal for this year is to spend less than $100/week in groceries for all of our meals. That might seem like an astronomically high figure for some of you, but we prefer to eat fresh or frozen vegetables. And we also like protein. I'm clipping coupons and shopping as thriftily as possible, but I'm suffering from a bit of sticker shock at the supermarket. I know I'll figure this out eventually, but getting to that point is going to take me a few weeks.

While I'm figuring out our budget, I'll be weighing myself weekly and attempting to Wii Fit four times a week. I'll also be upping my water intake and ::sigh:: lowering my coffee intake. Until I channel enough of my mother to be able to drink my coffee like a trucker. Don't count your chickens on that one, though. I love some Vanilla Caramel creamer enough to sacrifice a point or two for it. It's all about balance, right?

Y'all like me! Y'all really, really like me!

2010-01-10T15:45:00.000-05:00

Okay, I couldn't resist the cheesy title. Seriously.

E at Completely Eclipsed gave me the "Honest Scrap" award! Yay!

I'm supposed to tell you ten random, honest things about myself. Here goes:

1. I don't like to eat alone. I feel like a big ol' loser if I have to eat somewhere in public by myself.

2. When I was a toddler, I was a model for Montgomery Ward department store. I was super cute. Then I grew up and got a smart mouth and stretch marks.

3. I will watch almost anything on TV, no matter how cheesy or terrible it is. And part of me will probably enjoy it. But it bugs the crap out of me when Dan comes into the living room, turns the TV to something, watches it for five minutes, and then leaves the living room. Particularly when he strands the remote control across the living room from where I'm sitting.

4. When I was in the 3rd grade, I wanted to be a pediatrician because I was the only kid in my class who could spell the word pediatrician. I should've known then that words would be my thing.

5. I knew Dan was "THE ONE" when my cat broke his leg (the cat's leg was broken, not Dan's...damn pronouns!). Cooper was playing "Action Cat" in the living room and fell off a chair and broke his leg. Dan took him to the vet for me while I took myself to work and Dan paid the vet's bill because "he had more money to spare than I did." We'd been dating for about three months at the time. I knew he was a keeper right then and there.

6. We do not own said cat any longer and will never own another cat as long as we both shall live. If we'd thought about it then we probably would've put it in our wedding vows. I do not have the patience to clean a litter box or sweep up cat hair or cat barf or cat urine that hasn't made it into said litter box. Ever. No more cats.

7. I cannot wear hats. The distance between my ears and the top of my head is freakishly small (which helps give our child a normal head size when combined with Dan's GIANT cranium) and hats just look dumb on me. The bill of a ball cap will sit down in the middle of my eyes if I try to wear them like normal people. And then I can't see anything at all.

8. I need more sleep than the average adult. Seriously. I could sleep 12 hours a night, every night and take a two hour nap every afternoon and still not feel like I got enough sleep.

9. My college roommate and I used to drive almost an hour just to eat at Cracker Barrel. And her husband (then boyfriend) can leave one peg in the little peg game on the table every single time he plays it. And I have only done it once in my entire life. I am incredibly jealous of people who can defeat this "game" and I won't play the game in front of Dan because I feel like an "ignoramous" when I play it and leave four (or more) pegs standing.

10. I have a tattoo. I love it and at the same time, wish I didn't have it, or wish I had something different. Part of me would like more tattoos and part of me (the rational, spend-your-money-on-something-worthwhile part of me) knows I'll never get more. But I still want them.

Okay. So, there's 10 random facts about me.

Now I'm supposed to give this award to five people, so, I'm awarding

Dana @ Growing up Graham

R @ Full Circle

Cate @ Speak of the Indescribable

S @ Life with the Sweetpeas

and

Heather @ Sometimes and Always

Go visit them! They are awesome women!

McFatty Monday begins tomorrow.

Happy Sunday!

Baby, it's cold outside!

2010-01-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

In 1993, I was turning 11 years old. And on my birthday, the blizzard to end all blizzards (speaking from a Georgian's perspective, that is) dumped out of the sky and ruined my slumber party plans. I'm still bitter. (Not really...)

It hasn't really snowed here since then. I mean, it HAS, but there hasn't been an accumulation of more than two inches or so. Ice, however, is another story. We'll get a mean ice storm every couple of years or so and then it's humorous watching all the idiots who think they can carry on, business-as-usual, end up in ditches. I don't WANT to laugh at them, but I can't help myself. When the weather outside gets bad, I take that as a sign from Heaven that I'm supposed to remain in my pajamas huddled under a blanket watching Law and Order reruns on TNT.

So, we had a "snow day" on Friday. And they released us from school early on Thursday, too. For an accumulation of about 1/2". Yes, I'm serious. All you readers who live in places where it snows a foot a week from November to March can continue laughing. My state doesn't even own a snow plow. Not a single one in the ENTIRE state. We have farmers with plows that can be attached to tractors and in some cases, those are called to action. But the state of Georgia does not own a snow plow.

Despite the fact that we had an accumulation of 1/2", it's not going to be above 22 degrees today. Which is really freaking COLD, people. And it didn't get much higher than that yesterday, either. Which allowed me to bundle Joshua up and take him outside to "play" in the "snow."

Hey...what's all this white stuff on the ground? Wait...what's a "ground"?

This is really fun! I like it out here! I get to wear my cool Monster hat and everything!

Oh, Mom! You're so silly! Of COURSE you're the prettiest Mommy ever!

Wait a second...what just happened? You want me to what? What's a "snow angel?"

And then we went back inside because I am not equipped to handle temperatures below 40 degrees for longer than it took me to snap those four photos. (Okay, I actually got SIX photos...) I think if Joshua were walking, and if his mother had bought him a winter jacket that isn't actually a size too big thinking he'd grow into it, we might've stayed out a little longer. Or maybe not. Because it was COLD.

A nip here and a tuck there

2010-01-08T23:26:00.002-05:00

What do you think of the new look?

:)

My very own McFatty Monday

2010-01-07T10:30:00.003-05:00

So I'm a few days behind...it takes me a while to warm up to the idea of dieting/exercising.

Blair at The Heir to Blair started McFatty Mondays. I thought "BAH! There's no need for me to participate in that. I'll just read everyone else's stories."

And then I got dressed for work this morning.

Remember a few days ago when I posted about wearing my Tummy Sleeve with my jeans? Well, I thought it was just a one-time thing. That those jeans were being mean to me. Or that maybe I'd had a few too many yorkies at Christmas (which is true, probably). Or that maybe it was a sign that good ol' Aunt Flo was getting ready to make her return after a nearly two-year hiatus.

Imagine my shock when I put on my pants today, my size 16 pants, (the NEW pants that I bought when I came back to work because NOTHING ELSE IN MY ENTIRE CLOSET FIT), zipped them up, couldn't button them, and had the feeling that a camel-toe was forming and I was losing circulation in my thighs.

Maybe shock isn't the right word. Maybe horror is better. Maybe shock AND horror. And a bit of embarassment. And discomfort. Lots of discomfort.

The pants are too tight! They are a size larger than anything I've ever worn before. I know, I know, size is just a number. I believe that. I firmly believe that. But, y'all, they don't FIT. Size can TOTALLY be just a number provided the pants FIT.

I couldn't comfortably zip my pants. So I grabbed the Tummy Sleeve. I am so thankful for that stretchy piece of lycra, or nylon, or whatever this thing is made of. Otherwise, I might've had a full-on meltdown into my Very Vanilla yogurt this morning.

The downside of this Tummy Sleeve is that I am afraid that at any moment, my pants will fall down, baring my backside in front of a class of 15 year olds and scarring them for life. This, in turn, causes me to keep my hands in front of my lower stomach, which in turn reminds me of the early days of my pregnancy with Joshua. Does anyone see where I'm going with this???

Because of the way I'm cradling my lower stomach, I'm afraid I'm going to inadvertently start rumors about myself and whether or not Baby Human 2.0 is or is not occupying my ute. (No. That's a firm, resounding, N.O.)

(And y'all, I really wish I could take a picture of the Fashion DON'T I am today, but I'm far too self-conscious for that. Suffice it to say that beige socks with brown pants, even if your sweater happens to be beige too, is never a good idea and makes you look kind of like an idiot. But it hasn't gotten above 30 degrees here all week and the socks are cashmere and I don't care. I mean, I DO care or I wouldn't be posting this here. But the too-tight pants and the beige socks...yeah...I'm looking a little um, not cool, today. Thank the sweet baby Jesus for early release day so I can go home and put on my comfy sweats and L. L. Bean Hearthside slippers.)

So, in case I didn't already know, it's time to get serious. I cannot afford to buy a new wardrobe every time I outgrow my clothes due to my own self-indulgence and lack of self-control when it comes to chocolate and cheese. And rich, creamy Caramel Macchiato goodness in my coffee every morning.

I also cannot afford to not be healthy because I want to see my son grow up. And I want to set a good example for him.

I know HOW to make healthy choices. I've done it before. I've never been particularly good at exercising regularly, which is something I need to change, but I know I can make good choices regarding the foods I eat. So, I'll be back to counting points and following the Weight Watchers Flex Plan starting next Monday. And I'll be participating in McFatty Mondays from now until my pants fit again.

I'm a Boy Mom

2010-01-05T21:59:00.000-05:00

Jill at Baby Rabies (seriously one of the best baby blogs on the internet) posted "So You're Going to be a Boy Mom" the other day and I've had a hard time not thinking about what this means to me since I read that post.

When we found out Joshua was a boy, I won't lie. Part of me was disappointed. Not because I wanted a girl. But because I had NO IDEA what to do with a boy! I don't have boy parts! I know NOTHING about slime and bugs unless that knowledge includes a particularly hairy incident in my first apartment when I killed a roach the size of my FACE with AIR FRESHENER.

So yeah, the prospect of becoming a boy mom was daunting.

As it turns out, I love being a boy mom! I'll never have to explain tampons to him in detail! Or listen to endless "Mooommmm, do these jeans make my butt look big???" whines from the dressing room at whatever clothing store happens to be hip at the time. Or get into a fight with him because the swimsuit he wants is too revealing. I'll never have to worry about buying ridiculously expensive prom dresses that will only be worn once. And I have completely and totally avoided the money-suck that is American Girl dolls.

(I have, however, purchased every single item of clothing I've found since his birth that has a car, truck, or motorcycle on it. And no, I don't think I'm kidding.)

One of the things that sticks out to me about the time in the hospital right before I was wheeled into the OR is looking at Dan in his scrubs and thinking about Joshua and wondering how I'd ever be able to turn a baby into a man. That still kind of baffles me in an "I'm not worthy" sort of way.

But, I love knowing that I'm trying my best to raise a man every bit as respectful and good-hearted as Dan is, or at least, that's my goal. I love being a boy mom because I know that I can raise a guy who will make some girl really happy some day (far, far away from now...a long, long time in the future). I hope I am raising a man who respects women and loves animals and has a desire to help others but who is also strong and who stands up for himself.

I love being a boy mom because my boy LOVES his mom. Joshua has been asleep for several hours now and while writing this entry, he started crying. All he wanted, all he NEEDED, was a few minutes of cuddle time with me, his Mama. While he loves his Daddy, there's something about ME, his mother, that is incredibly soothing to him when he bumps his head, is tired, or is sick.

I am his MOTHER. How amazing is that??

There was a comment on Jill's original post that really struck a nerve with me. The mother** seemed incredibly disappointed that she'd never had a girl after trying multiple times for one. Aside from the "be happy you were able to have a baby at all" argument (which is a completely relevant and valid argument to have, coming from someone who faced a potentially harrowing experience trying to conceive and got lucky), I'd like for this mom to just be happy her sons are healthy. And she'll never have to pay for a wedding!! SCORE!

Does all of this mean that I don't want to one day be a "girl mom"? No, not at all. I do very much want to have a little girl someday. Will I be disappointed if I only ever get sons? Not a chance in hell! But for now, I'm loving my little man and I couldn't be happier to be his mom.

**(I can only hope that the commenter meant some of her words in jest. As I do not know her, I cannot, in good conscience cut and paste her response here. Nor would I want to start a frenzy on Jill's blog of people replying to that commenter for her feelings.)

365 photographs

2010-01-05T12:46:00.000-05:00

I'm fortunate enough to have some amazing friends, both in real life and on the internet. Recently, a group of us decided to undertake a collective 365-day photography challenge.

Now, I'm no Annie Leibovitz, but I do love taking pictures.

The hope behind this challenge is that each of us will learn how to take pictures with whatever camera we have. Many of the women in this group have fancy-pants DSLRs (that make green with envy because I want one SO BAD). In my case, I have a six-year-old Nikon Coolpix point-n-shoot. Regardless of the camera, the point is to show that we can all become good (or great) photographers.

Monday was my day to post, so I wanted to link y'all to the photo blog.

Enjoy!

A whole decade? Really?

2010-01-01T17:00:00.002-05:00

I've seen this done on several blogs in my blogroll today and, being the lemming that I am, decided to follow suit. (Although, I read somewhere that lemmings don't really march off the cliff after one another...hmmmm...must google that...)

First of all, it's weird for me to think of today as the start of a new decade because I was taught to start counting at 1. Not 0. So I feel like the new decade shouldn't start until next year. This should be the close to the previous decade. But I'm assured that's not how it works. And when I asked Dan about this, he told me I should ask Jesus since He's responsible for "year zero." That'll certainly go on my list of things to ask when I meet my maker, along with "why does my dog eat plastic?" and "why do grown women like the Jonas Brothers?"

Anyway, ten years ago, I was a senior in high school. And on New Years Day in 2000, I was working at Sears. Yep. I rang in the new millenium by ringing up ugly women's dresses. I remember being an hour late to work because I overslept (no, I was not drunk or hungover or under the influence of any illegal substance. I was a good egg!).

That year, I started dating the person I thought I'd marry and spend the rest of my life with (and he turned out to be a cheater-cheater-pumpkin eater so I'm glad that fell through!) and I graduated high school. I got accepted to UGA and postponed my enrollment because of the cheater (a decision which I both regret and for which I am glad). I also started working at the bank. 2000 was quite a tumultuous year for me.

In 2001, I moved to Athens to live with my bestie Gina. I had nothing there other than her and my job. I was miserable. She was my only friend. And making friends is HARD when you get older. HARD, I tell you. Because I couldn't transfer to UGA because I'd started taking classes at a local community college, I enrolled at Athens Tech. (College #2)

In 2002, I don't really remember much of this year aside from the fact that I was still miserable in Athens and driving home almost every weekend. I got two speeding tickets that year, the first of which I plead No Lo Contendre to and the second of which I got out of by writing an essay on why I shouldn't speed. Yes, I'm serious. I also started Truett-McConnell College that summer (College #3, for those of you keeping track!)

In 2003, I finally made some friends in Athens! WOOT!! And I bought a townhouse. All on my own, at 21 years old. I also finally made it back into UGA after continually getting screwed by the admissions office. (College #4!) Double WOOT! That's really all that happened in 2003. Oh, and I pledged a local sorority. (This is important only because of what happened in 2004.)

In 2004, I MET DAN! YES!! THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!! And I met him in a bar! Seriously. And we gave him and his friend a ride home and he hit on my roommate the entire way back to that apartment. And when he asked for our number, she gave him mine and I said "But you won't call...guys never do" and he stole a kiss through the window (he'd had a few vodka tonics. This is WAY out of character for him, and anyone who knows him will attest to that fact!) and then, y'all, he CALLED. At 4:00 a.m. Two weeks later, we went on our first date and second dates (only about 6 hours apart!) and we've been together ever since. I was also accepted into UGA's College of Education. I'd say that was pretty monumental.

In 2005, I quit my job at the bank, we got engaged, and I lost 30 pounds from the stress of planning a wedding while student teaching and NOT WORKING. (I'd had a job since I was 16! That was QUITE a new experience for me!)

In 2006, I found a job at a school that I love, graduated college and two weeks later, we got married. And then I had the longest, most boring summer of my life. I had nothing to do. I was living in a new place. I had no friends. It felt like 2001 all over again except I was married and sort of responsible for cooking and cleaning and laundry. And then fall rolled around and I started teaching. And I realized that I am truly doing what I'm called to do.

In 2007, I finished my first year of teaching and started my Master's degree. That's pretty much all that I can remember happening in 2007. I don't know if I'm happy or sad about that.

In 2008, we decided to start a family, I started blogging, and then I got my diagnosis with PCOS. I was really broken hearted, and then I got this and wrote this and spent the rest of the year in a panic attack that I was going to becomea mom. The neurosis set in early with me. I also graduated from my Master's program.

In 2009, well, I think we all know my major accomplishment for 2009, right? Let me just remind you, then.

I'd say 2009 has been my best year yet. It's hard to think about how far I've come in 10 years. I'm glad I've made the changes I've made and I'm glad I've become the person I've become, neuroses and all.

Here's hoping the next ten years are just as full!

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T11:05:00.000-05:00

Tons of people on Facebook were posting "Happy New Year" as their status updates YESTERDAY. Which was weird to me because, well, YESTERDAY WASN'T NEW YEARS' DAY. Today is, so Happy New Year.

I'm not really a resolution kind of gal, but I've got a few this year. I will probably abandon them somewhere between now and next week, but at least I can say I expected this when I fail miserably.

Now, let's see what I want for 2010.

1. I want to be a better blogger, preferably with more exposure. This means I should probably start whoring myself out on Facebook. But to do that, I'll have to let go of the fact that my mom will venture over here. Because if I post a link, she will follow it. However, I'm going to take the plunge. I love you, Mom. Please forgive me for saying the word "ass" and discussing my love of wine.

I also need to start making notes when I think of a good blog topic so that when I sit down to write it out I don't find myself going "Ummm....now what was I going to say again!?" Because y'all really don't want to read that. I don't even want to read that. And it makes me sound boring. And even if I really AM boring, I can make myself sound more exciting than that on screen.

2. I want to not get more fat. Would I like to lose a few pounds? Yes, of course. Who wouldn't? But instead of saying "I'm going to lose 40,000 pounds this year and look like Heidi Klum by April!" I vow to not GAIN 20 pounds this year. That seems WAY more attainable. WAY.

3. I want to pay off some debt. And I will. Somehow, someway. I will do this. It will probably require the usage of our tax return money and the consumption of more than a few PB&J sammiches. But it will be worth it.

4. ummm...uhh....I have typed "I want to" four times now and I cannot think of anything that seems worthy of making an official New Years' resolution.

Is it bad that I can only think of three things that I resolve to do??

I know I want to be a better mom, wife, and teacher, but somehow, if I make resolutions for those things and KNOW that I'm going to abandon them (except for that whole 20 pounds thing...I will keep that resolution!) then I'm a double-failure.

So, I'm just going to work on those things like I do every day.

This means not stressing over Joshua's lack of napping, and not worrying that he's not reciting Kublai Khan by his first birthday. He's fine. He's healthy. He's smart. He's fine. That is my mantra.

On the wife front, I need to get over my fear of "times of marital closeness" (thanks for the phrase, Aggie!) There, blogosphere. I'm putting it all out there, in the name of more exposure. I love you, Dan. And I vow to keep your laundry clean and iron your shirts when I say I will. Or find a nearby dry-cleaners to press them for me.

And finally, as a teacher, I need to be more patient with my freshmen. My juniors are ANGELS and I love them and am thankful every day for the opportunity to teach them the things I love. My 9th graders? Well, let's just say that I hope they were all given the gift of maturity for Christmas.

So, faithful readers, what are YOUR resolutions?

2009 Year In Review

2009-12-31T17:31:00.000-05:00

Or is it Year-End Review?

I suppose either works.

I've hardly noticed that today is the end of 2009, aside from the RIDICULOUS lines at the grocery store and the lack of black-eyed peas on the shelves. (Never fear. I found some. In the freezer section. But I forgot ham chunks, so I think I'll be making a return to the grocery store. Bummer.)

Anyway, I thought I'd link you to some of my favorite posts from the year, the good, the bad, and the funny.

New Years Day Last Year

My Pregnant Battle with Support Pantyhose

A Little Inspiration for You

The Day I Became a Mom

Meatloaf Meltdown

Joshua's 100-Day Birthday

Busy, Busy Bee

One of Many "Is It Monday? 'Cause it sure feels like it" Posts

One of Many Posts About How Much I Love My Husband

Cheese, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways!

So that was longer than I intended. Read one, read them all. It doesn't matter. I just wanted to share. In looking back through the year, one topic that received regular attention was Joshua's lack of naps. And it makes me realize that he has NEVER been a good napper. Why, WHY do I think this is going to change? I have no idea.

Anyway, here's to 2010. Cheers!

See you later, 2009.

Just so y'all know...

2009-12-29T22:14:00.001-05:00

I can totally work the Wii now.

There's no more excuses for me to NOT get my ass kicked by Jillian Michaels during nap time.

Yes, he walked me through it step by step.

I love my husband.

Jillian Michaels can have my soul tomorrow

2009-12-29T19:12:00.000-05:00

Tonight, my heart belongs to a bottle of Three Buck Chuck Cabernet Sauvignon and leftovers of The Pioneer Woman's Fancy Macaroni.

OY! What a day.

This ear infection business can kiss my ass. I don't know what's been up with my child today but I am literally exhausted from watching him. I haven't been this exhausted from watching him since he was a colicky, reflux-y, put-me-back-inPUTMEBACKIN newborn. For real.

He woke up at 7:30 almost every morning last week. This week? No way. 6:00 am. At the latest. And then it's "WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH PICK ME UP!!! WAAAAAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHHHH PUT ME DOWN!!! HAHA The dog is funny! WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH PICK ME UP" Wash, rinse, repeat. All. Day. Long. With a grand total of 80 minutes worth of naps, each of which occurred after 20 minutes of bouts of screaming alternating wth bouts of idle chatter with Curious George alternating with bouts of minimal whining.

I feel like he has cried or whined almost all day long. And I think it's all due to the fact that he's so over-tired. And there's nothing I can do about it.

The NP said to call back if he didn't seem better after two days on the new antibiotic. If he doesn't wake up a new baby in the morning, Sarah's getting a call from me.

Or I'm buying ear plugs.

And more Three Buck Chuck.

The sexiest feeling in the world

2009-12-29T10:19:00.001-05:00

is not smoothly shaved and moisturized legs and well-coiffed hair with a fresh mani/pedi in a brand new, stunning outfit and high heels.

It's baby spit-up.

Between the boobs.

That smells like sour yogurt.

(I hope you can all feel the sarcasm dripping from my words right now.)

Seriously. That has got to be the most disgusting part of motherhood. Spit-up between the girls.

Especially when said spit-up happens when you really just want your sweet baby to go back to sleep so you can do the same thing. And then, "BLECH." And "EWWWWW." Followed by "::GAG::"

It's awesome, really.

Yogurt bombs, as we've lovingly come to call them, have to be the smelliest, most foul things I've experienced as a mother. And I've got a baby who poops four times a day, minimum. Getting poop on my hands or underneath my fingernail (as has happened more than once!) is nothing compared to the stench that is yogurt that has been souring in your child's stomach. And which has just found its way to your cleavage.

What's YOUR sexiest feeling in the world?

AHEM! ::points to the Piglet box::

2009-12-28T21:02:00.000-05:00

We had Joshua's 9 month well-baby visit today. I have a monster.

We went in because I was pretty sure he still had an ear infection, or had a reoccurrence of the ear infection from two weeks ago. My mom-tuition was right. He was just a cranky mess ALL WEEKEND LONG and this morning he could NOT make up his mind what he wanted (after waking up at 6:00. Doesn't he know I'm on vacation?!?)

So we left with a prescription for a stronger antibiotic than the one he's taken for the past two ear infections and new height/weight stats.

He weighs 22 lbs, 4 oz, and is in the 75th percentile, which is exactly where he was percentile-wise at his 6 month appointment. He's 30.5 inches tall!! HOLY CRAP! That's the 97th percentile! Our little piglet is growing up and he's in to EVERYTHING. I love it. Does it get a little crazy keeping a constant eye on him and wondering what he's getting in to if I step into the next room to pee? Yes. But I love it. It's hard to remember what life was like before he was mobile. (Easier in some ways, harder in others.)

But anyway, back to the appointment. Aside from his ears, he's as healthy as a horse. Since he's tolerated the yogurt well (did I tell y'all we started yogurt? I can't remember...must be the cabernet...) the NP wants us to start giving him more table foods. If we're eating it, he can have small bites. How FUN! And challenging. It's fun because I want him to love food. But it's challenging because I don't want him to have an unhealthy love of food the way that I do.

I guess I want him to love healthy foods. Which means I've got to make sure I (and Dan, too) eat healthy. And we're on a budget. See the challenge?

I can do it, though. I'll make it happen.

The NP also asked me about his sippy cup usage. To which I laughed. I mean he uses it if by "use" you mean "turns it into a projectile for throwing at the dog." If that's what you mean, then sure. He's a professional sippy cup user.

Then she said that she'd like to see him off his bottle by his one-year appointment. Y'all. This baby LOVES his baba. You've never seen a child get so excited over powdered soy juice and water. If you're holding him when you mix his baba, you better prepare yourself because he'll wiggle so hard and so fast he might take flight. If he knew how to clap, he'd clap. (Is it bad that my child doesn't yet know how to clap?? I constantly feel like I'm not teaching him enough things that he should know...like how to shake his head "no." Apparently, he should know that...)

Well, I don't know how I'm going to get a child who only throws a sippy cup to only take a sippy cup. And I don't know if I want to force the issue. He doesn't hold his bottle to feed himself. The bottle NEVER goes into his crib, even at daycare. Is it bad that he's getting comfort and cuddles and love when he gets his bottle?

I don't know the answer, obviously, because this is my first rodeo.

Aside from that, my neuroses are mostly in check after today's appointment. As long as the antibiotics give me my healthy, happy baby back (and a baby who takes a good afternoon nap wouldn't be too bad, either), I can dodge the bottle-bullet for another few months.

An email from my husband...LOL

2009-12-28T10:40:00.000-05:00

LOL!! Turning on the Wii is not any more clear to me now than it was before I read this email. I love you anyway, Dan. :)

Alright, I read your blog this morning. So here goes.

First off, pick up the remote and hit Play Wii.

Then open the cabinet.

On the bottom shelf, there are a bunch of video cables. Each component gets three video cables – red, green, and blue. Each cable is bundled and tagged with things like “SAT” (for the DirecTV box), DVD, Wii, and TV. Right now, SAT is plugged into TV using small, black cable couplers. You’ll want to unplug SAT from TV and plug in the Wii cables (they are the only ones that are actually gray in color). Then turn on the Wii and you’re ready to go.

At some point, I do want a new receiver to make all this switching easier. But we have other things to take care of first.

Love you!

Mii

Do you think you could figure this out??

Okay, Jillian Michaels, give it your best shot

2009-12-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

Today I put on a pair of jeans.

I could not comfortably fasten them without giving myself a muffin top and a lower gut.

So I grabbed my tummy sleeve from the early days of my pregnancy, slipped it on, unbuttoned my jeans, and AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! Sweet JESUS, how comfortable!

And then I went to the bathroom. And on my way out of the bathroom, you will not believe what I did.

I turned to the side, stuck out my belly, and I looked a little pregnant. Like, early on, cute pregnant. Not big-as-a-whale-fatty-fatty-two by four-pregnant. And I thought "awwwww" and I missed being pregnant in that instant.

(HOLD YOUR HORSES, PEOPLE. No procreating for us yet! We've got some debt and the fact that my body still has not resumed her regularly scheduled programming keeping us from Baby #2! And the fact that I've JUST gotten Joshua to the point that he sleeps all night long and MAN am I loving this!)

But then, as I walked out of the bathroom, I realized, HOLY CHEESE AND CRACKERS. I LOOK PREGNANT. This is not good! I am not having Irish twins. Or two under two. NO WAY NO HOW! This means that I look F-A-T. Despite my husband always telling me that I look beautiful to him. Which I appreciate. And don't believe (I believe that he believes I look beautiful. I'd like to check his vision, though.)

So, we went to Target and purchased a Wii Fit Plus. We have a gym membership, but we're cancelling it because 1) we never go, and 2) well, yeah, we never go. So why are we wasting the money?? I'll take Wii Fit in the privacy of my own living room while my husband does his best not to bust out laughing at my ridiculous self trying to Wii Hula Hoop over a state-of-the-art facility with bleached-blondes and buff muscles pointing and laughing at my frumpy ass and thinking "MAN, she REALLY needs to get on that treadmill. Hang a chocolate cupcake in front of her the way you would a horse and an apple!", thank you very much.

I did the Wii Fit Body test and, yeah, I'm obese. Awesome. Like I needed some chipper little balance board telling me that. However, I'm making a goal to not stay this way. I have two dresses that I want to fit into again. And my last visit to my PA revealed that my cholesterol is slightly elevated. (I'm 27 years old, for crying out loud! How do I have high cholesterol?? I'm not totally sedentary, and I eat a healthy diet [relatively, okay...I won't say I haven't binged on all the dairy-laden goodness I missed out on for seven months because that would be a lie. And we all know where liars end up. Congress.])

The Wii Fit Plus comes with Jillian Michaels' Fitness Ultimatum when you purchase it at Target. I'm thinking of firing it up tomorrow if I can figure out how to turn the Wii on. We have the most confusing home theater system known to man, complete with a touch-screen remote control and components that I don't even know how to operate. It's probably not as complicated as I'm making it sound, but I'm always afraid of screwing something up in the middle of the day and being stuck at home with no TV. Which is kind of my nightmare.

Anyway, I managed to get in my 30 minutes tonight and I burned 140 calories. This is EASY to do, y'all, and fun! I can totally do this! We'll see how I feel in the morning, but right now, I'm feeling good.

Did Santa bring you everything you asked for?

2009-12-26T23:42:00.000-05:00

Because he sure brought the toy store to Joshua.

When Dan and I first got married, we decided we'd do Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with his family. It works for us. My parents live 1.5 hours north of us and his parents live an hour east. There is no "two-Christmases-one-day" for us. NO WAY NO HOW, Buster. I like to ENJOY my holidays. Not spend them in the car. So, this is our arrangement. And it works.

So, on Thursday we got up, did our usual morning routine, put Joshua down for a nap (which turned out to be a good, two-hour nap!) and then we loaded up and headed north. Everyone was ready to eat right as we walked in the door, so we ate. Then we listened to my two-year-old niece whine for my mom to carry her around and I wanted to yell at my sister for not doing something, but I didn't. I should have. But I didn't. I just thanked my lucky stars that my child isn't capable of speech yet.

Then we opened presents. While small in quantity, the gifts there are always large in thought. Mom has bought every child who has been born into our family a Bumble Ball or something extremely similar. Joshua got a bumble pig. Press the pigs nose and he oinks and snorts and then the ball starts to shake. That thing helped keep Joshua quiet for a third of the ride home. I really learned to perfect my pig oink. Annie has discovered a love for pork ears as the bumble pig has already been chewed on (just a little bit. Thankfully, she didn't destroy it!)

Joshua is unsure of the Bumble Pig

Joshua also received a Leapfrog Learning Turtle thing (I'm not sure...it has paper pages. He likes to eat paper. This one is going on the shelf for the time being...) and a play cell phone. He likes the cell phone. He is my child.

He also got a Step-Start Walk-n-Ride from my cousin. Like most of his toys, his favorite part of the car is the spinning thing on the back of it. (If it spins and has a rattle inside, there's a good chance he's going to love it.)

Joshua shows off his new ride. It must be European because the trunk's in the front. Fancy!

Joshua's favorite part of the day. Hugs from Nana.

We got home, put Joshua to bed, and then I got too excited to sleep. (Okay...that's a lie. I've rarely had trouble sleeping since he's been born. But I was VERY excited for his first Christmas. VERY.)

Joshua woke up early on Christmas day and we opened presents. He was quite impressed with his gift from Santa.

YAY!! Just what I always wanted!! Thanks, Santa!!

He really does love the Learn-n-Groove table. And Dan and I LOOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEEEEE the voice of the woman who sings the numbers. Love her. If by "love", we mean "want to stab ourselves in the ears with pointy objects." But he loves it, so that's all that matters really, right? (Every time I see that little book in the middle flipped onto the "ABC 123" page, I will have to fight back the compulsion to turn it to the music page to avoid hearing the counting jingle...)

Paper!?! You got me PAPER!! YES!!!

Mmmmm! This is the yummiest paper ever, Mommy!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T EAT THE PAPER!?!?!?

Then it was on to Harmy and Grandbob's house for Christmas dinner. (Roast beef and yorkies! YES, PLEASE!)

Joshua and Harmony play with the Bop-em Lion.

We had a really great couple of days. I got a gift card to Ann Taylor Loft (WOOT!!) and Dan enrolled me in a beginner's wine class (Yippee!!!). Joshua got some much needed toys (I realize the irony of me saying that I wanted him to have toys. There's got to be something wrong with that statement, right?) I mean, look at his haul.

Uh, mom?? Dad? How do I get out of here???

We got to spend time with family. We're all healthy and happy. I really couldn't ask for more. It's been a wonderful Christmas season.

So, how did you make out for Christmas? (and no, I don't need to know details of your under-the-mistletoe escapades. That's not what I mean by "make out," people? What are you, seventh graders?!?! :p ) Did Santa bring you what you asked for? Did you just ask for health? Time with family and friends? World peace?

Joshua is NINE MONTHS OLD!!!

2009-12-24T11:45:00.000-05:00

And I'm two days late in posting this even after I promised to post this on Tuesday. Mommy FAIL.

This month Joshua has learned to crawl and cruise and he's in to EVERYTHING. He figured out how to get into the kitchen when I'm in there and he's in the living room, which requires him to navigate around the recliner and not get sidetracked by the laptop cable or phone charger on the way. That's a hard task for him. He loves cables. What he really loves is chewing on cables. I don't love the idea of him being electrocuted so chewing on cables is a strict no-no in our house.

With his new-found love of crawling all over the place, I think he's going to be moving up to the crawler's room at daycare soon. I'm a little sad about that. I love Ms. Nancy and I love that she loves on him. I know Ms. Kayla and/or Ms. Janet will love on him, too, but there's just something very, well, grandmotherly about Ms. Nancy that I like. (That can't POSSIBLY be due to the fact that she has seven grandchildren, can it??)

He's growing up too fast.

We have conquered the first Christmas tree with nary an ornament broken. He has only been mildly interested in the packages underneath the tree. He'd much rather go for the extension cord that the tree is plugged into. (I promise my house isn't THAT unfriendly to babies. PROMISE. For real. This post is making me sound like I have all sorts of electrocution and strangulation hazards just laying around daring my child to live on the edge...)

Anyway, he'd much rather cruise the coffee table than play with the shiny things on the tree. I'm thankful for that.

He has also learned to transfer himself from the coffee table to the loveseat or couch. Sometimes he falls down. Most of the time he makes the switch. People tell me I should be scared because this means he'll be walking soon.

Y'all, I was scared nine months ago, mmkay?? This is a challenge unlike any other.

Speaking of challenges, we still haven't conquered naps. As long as I'm taking my best friend, I'm okay. When I'm off the Celexa for a day or two, I become super-neurotic mommy who is convinced her child is going to become a homicidal maniac because he didn't nap as an infant. Naps might be the one thing about all of parenting that always stresses me out. Naps are GOOD for you, Joshua. GOOD, I tell you!

We also started Joshua on yogurt this week. Remember the dairy allergy? It's been really hard to have Joshua try new solids because so many foods have dairy in them. I don't want to overload his system by feeding him milk and cheese and butter and bread with whey in it, so I'm excited to see that he's had no reaction to the yogurt so far. And? He LOVES it. LOVES, I tell you. I'm happy for that. After a few days on yogurt, we'll try some cheddar cheese. I suspect he'll love it because he is, after all, his father's child.

Oh, why, hello there!

2009-12-22T10:33:00.000-05:00

It seems I've got some catching up to do. Last week was finals week for the semester so it was pretty crazy at work. Which is why I've been a neglectful blogger. Let's kiss and make up, shall we? ::muah:: All better? Excellent. Here goes:

Joshua had his second round of ear infections last week. AWESOME. Not really. He was incredibly cranky the weekend before the one that just ended, so Dan took him to the pediatrician. Double ear infection. So Joshua and I spent a lot of time like this:

because it's the only way he'd take his naps last weekend. Don't get me wrong, I love the cuddle time. LOVE it. I just wish it didn't take him feeling so crappy for me to get my snuggles in.

I got an email from the mall Santa people. They said I could bring my CD back and they'd retake the picture. That sounds great and all, but I haven't had time. Oh well. You live and learn, right? I'll start calling around in February to get an appointment for the really really good Santa for next year. And next year he'll probably scream his fool head off out of fear of Jolly Old St. Nick. I may not get good Santa photos from him until he's too old to believe any more.
I didn't win the Dyson. But I did win a super cute Christmas banner from Jeannie. It was adorning my mantle, but then I put up a third stocking (because there are three humans in the house this Christmas!) and moved the banner. I haven't taken pictures yet because the memory card on my camera is full. So I'll be clearing that out soon and then I'll post pictures. In the meantime, go visit Jeannie.
I have about a million gifts to wrap. And I have no desire to wrap them. Normally, I love wrapping presents because I love having pretty packages under my tree. Because so much of my shopping has been done so close to Christmas, I really just want to leave gifts in their store bags and bring them out on Christmas morning. I feel like such a Scrooge just typing that. Maybe it's time to invest in some gift bags and tissue paper.
We had our Christmas party on Saturday night. It was great fun! The White Elephant game gets more and more hilarious every year. This year, the big hit of the night was a pair of race-car shaped nail clippers. They are real, working nail clippers and a real, working matchbox-looking car combined. Hilarious! I picked the bag with four mini-bottles of vodka. I must've instinctively known that gift was meant for me.
Joshua's cutie girlfriend Katelyn came to the Christmas party (along with her parents, of course, who, along with Dan and me, chaperoned the two lovebirds).

Joshua, the gentleman, shows Katelyn how the toy works

Katelyn is surprised by how gentleman-like Joshua can be

Joshua plans to whisper sweet nothings in Katelyn's ear

Joshua, once again, starts to laugh at his own jokes...never a good sign

Katelyn attempts to look innocent, while Joshua looks around to see if the chaperones are watching

He makes his move

ANNNNNDDDD, we've got to have a talk with him about how to behave on dates

(Anyone who knows the story of the night Dan and I met knows that Joshua's behavior is very much "like father, like son" only without the excessive amounts of vodka tonics.)

And that, my friends, pretty much gets us up-to-date, I think. I'll have another post this afternoon because, y'all, my kid is NINE MONTHS OLD today. Nine months old! Holy crap!

The Official Santa Pic

2009-12-13T21:24:00.002-05:00

My friend Hunter photoshopped the Santa photo so that it didn't look so washed out. I'm thinking that the people at Santa Plus at the mall are getting a phone call from me tomorrow because the coloring in the original photo is really, really bad. (Update--I emailed the person in charge of my region. I sort of feel like a rebel as I've never actually formally complained like this before. I have knots in my stomach. I'll keep you posted.)

Despite the photo coloring (and this is the good one!), my kid is adorable. I'm seriously in love with him right now.

Joshua visits Santa:

I became "that" mom yesterday

2009-12-13T10:50:00.000-05:00

You know...the one who licks her finger and then wipes her kid's face.

Yeah. That was me.

We took Joshua to see Santa yesterday morning. This was actually the first weekend that we've had the opportunity to take him. We tried to time it so that we could get him there at 9am when the line for Santa opens. We got there at 9:30. And we were already about 20 people deep in the line. Apparently all of those moms had the same thought I did--beat the crowd by getting there early.

Joshua was a trooper, though. An adorable, amazing, sweet little trooper.

He sat in his ~~Baby Escalade~~ stroller (The Maclaren Techno XLR, a stroller I am in love with) for half the time we were in the line. Then he started getting a little cranky. So we held him for the remainder of the time that we were in the line. We played "Catch the drool" the entire time we were waiting for Santa. (And when, exactly, do kids learn to swallow their spit instead of letting it run down their chins? Never? Okay...good to know...)

While we were waiting, I noticed something crusty on the side of his face. Did I get a wipe out of the bag? No, of course not. Why would I?? I did what mothers have been doing to their children for decades...no, centuries. I licked my thumb and wiped the crusty stuff right off the side of his face. There can be no crusties on the side of his face in his pictures with Santa.

So, after the drool wiping and face-crusty-getting and baby juggling while waiting for Santa, it was finally our turn. Here's the thing about pictures with Santa. They are highway robbery. Yesterday, we paid $25 for a photo CD with ONE photo on it. One. And the coloring on the photo isn't even great and I'm having a friend doctor it for me. (So I'm reserving the right to share the official Santa picture of 2009, the first of many to come, until then.)

I also felt really rushed to throw him at Santa, snap the picture, choose the picture, pay, and get the hell out of Santa's area. I get that the job of being the official Santa photographers has to be a thankless one full of screaming children who are scared of the jolly old man, but I seriously felt rushed. As a result, Joshua's pants' leg is hiked up, he's barely smiling, and in the picture where he WAS smiling, he wasn't looking at the camera. In the haste not to be an inconvenience, I picked a picture I was only sort of happy with.

Regardless, my kid is adorable. He looked so cute in his little argyle sweater vest and his pinstriped pants. And his pediped loafers. SO CUTE. I just want to eat him up.

Here's the unofficial Santa pic.

One cute thing I noticed, however, is that Santa asked "And who do we have here!?" when I put Joshua in his lap. I thought that was a cute touch since Joshua had no idea who this bearded man was. At first, Joshua just stared at him. That was probably the cutest picture of the three the photographer snapped, but since it didn't show his face, I didn't choose that picture. When I went over to get Joshua from Santa's lap, Santa was singing to him. I thought that was really sweet.

Anyway, his first Santa picture is a success. He's not screaming his lungs out in terror. The picture will be great once it's properly doctored, and I'll be sure to share the cuteness with y'all.

Happy Sunday.

Mama needs a new Dyson vacuum????

2009-12-10T20:18:00.001-05:00

Okay, okay, I fully admit that I have never bought into the hype that is Dyson vacuum cleaners. Never.

But Jill at Baby Rabies has a contest going where one lucky reader will win a Dyson vacuum. Oh yeah, you guessed it.

I want to be that lucky reader.

Like, seriously want to be that lucky reader so much I'm considering becoming a Twitter-er so I can get an extra two entries. (Don't worry, Aggie. I haven't succumbed to peer pressure yet!)

Why? I'm not sure. Maybe because I can't remember the last time we vacuumed the bedrooms and I'm scared we'll break our current vacuum when we finally get around to it. Or, maybe because Joshua is only going to get more mobile and I need to quadruple my efforts to keep the dust bunnies at bay. Or, maybe it's because this is a trendy vacuum and I'm far too cheap to be this trendy if I have to spend the money on it.

Or, maybe I secretly believe the hype.

Regardless, I want to win this vacuum.

Happy SITSmas!

2009-12-08T00:00:00.001-05:00

Happy SITSmas, y'all!

I hope you all have a happy holiday season and a prosperous new year full of comments and blog hits! :)

On your mark....get set...

2009-12-07T21:14:00.000-05:00

CRAWL!

Yep, that's right. Joshua is crawling.

He's been pretty mobile for a week or two, but I've been reluctant to actually call what he does crawling. It just seemed so NONcrawling to me. But in the past day or so, he's definitely started crawling. He's also pulling up on just about everything. And cruising in his crib and around the coffee table (just a step or two at a time, though, and then he's like "Oooh...shiny thing!" and forgets what he's doing...). We've put corner protectors on the coffee table and a crib rail cover on the crib to protect our investment. The next thing I'm buying is a crash helmet for the babe.

See for yourselves!

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care"

2009-12-06T13:22:00.000-05:00

We successfully decorated for Christmas yesterday. Joshua has not yet destroyed the emblems of festivity. In fact, he hasn't really been interested in the tree at all. Cool. However, there are no shiny, pretty packages under the tree yet. I'm sure once those appear he'll get more curious.

I love the tree. Love it. It's beautiful. It might just be our most beautiful tree yet. I gave in to colored lights instead of white and I have to say, the tree looks more festive.

Dan's family has always had what he calls a "junk tree." There's a random string of chili pepper lights, several birds, and an ornament made from a cigarette butt that adorn the branches of the tree at Dan's parents' house. My mom's tree, when she puts one up, is filled with store-bought Precious Moments and Looney Tunes ornaments. And, when she can find them, ornaments my brother and I made in school (but she always manages to find HIS ornaments and not MY ornaments [but she says she doesn't know which is which, but I know. I KNOW.] which leads to feelings of rivalry rearing their ugly heads, even though I'm the Golden Child and he's a screw-up). Oh wait...what was I talking about??

Oh yes. The tree. There were times growing up when we couldn't afford a tree, so I'd draw one on paper and hang it in the living room window. I still remember how that felt and I don't want Joshua to ever feel that.

When I went off to college, I was DETERMINED to have a tree in my first apartment, even though my roommate didn't seem to care if we had one or not, because there's just something about a Christmas tree that makes a place feel home-y. I was broke. And I REALLY wanted a tree. And a kid in my biology class was a slacker. So he paid me $50 to be his partner for an assignment (GET YOUR MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER PEOPLE!...oh god...I just realized this was a genetics project. Wow...HILARIOUS!) and teach him what we were supposed to know for our final. (I'm seriously chuckling over this...why? I have no idea.) So I took my $50, bought a PINE tree for $20 (yes, a pine tree) and shoved it into the trunk of my Corolla, spent the remaining $30 on the cheapest red and silver ornaments I could find, and went on my merry decorating way. I had my tree, damnit.

And I've had a tree every Christmas since then because the Christmas tree means that much to me.

And it can't be a fake tree, either. I don't understand people who are gung-ho fake tree afficionados. I don't get it at all. I don't care that you're a neat-freak and you don't like the little needles getting in your carpet. Fake trees aren't REAL.

So, taking Joshua to pick out his first Christmas tree yesterday was so much fun. Even though it was so cold and he was so bundled up he reminded us of the younger brother from A Christmas Story. And decorating it and figuring out which ornaments weren't breakable and could go on the bottom was fun. I love Christmas.

Yes, it's ye olde big box home improvement store and not a cut-it-down-yourself tree farm. Oh well.

The finished product. I've got to remember to get a picture tonight when it's dark outside so you can really see the lights.

O Christmas shopping, O Christmas shopping!!!

2009-12-05T10:34:00.000-05:00

Can I just say that I am so excited for Joshua's first Christmas I'm probably bordering on clinically insane? It's ridiculous how excited I am to try and keep him out of the Christmas tree and to keep him from eating the wrapping paper.

There's just something about this time of year that makes me really, really happy. I hate cold weather with a fiery passion, but I love the holidays. I think it makes people nicer and generally happier. (Or most people, anyway. There are always selfish Scrooges.) Post-holiday, all bets are off, but the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas might just be my favorite time of the year.

So, even though he has no idea what Christmas is, I'm really excited to give him his presents. Dan and I (okay, this was my idea and Dan humored me) decided that in order to keep some surprise in the holiday, we'd each buy Joshua three gifts with a $50 maximum on each of our three gifts combined (so, up to $100 in gifts). And we're not telling each other what we've purchased for him. But, what if we each get him the same thing, you ask? Well, one of them will go back to the store and we can congratulate ourselves on really knowing each other and our son. It's a win-win.

From Santa, Joshua is getting the Leapfrog Learn and Groove Musical table because I got a smokin' deal on it on Black Friday ($20 shipped to my door for an item that usually retails for $45? Yes, please!). Actually, I've gotten a smokin' deal on all of Joshua's Christmas gifts because I'm a coupon-crazy bargain shopper. (For my three gifts, I've spent $30 total. WOOT!) No, I can't tell you what I'm getting him because Dan reads the blog and that would ruin the surprise. But, if you need ideas for your little one or for a friend's little one, leave a comment and I'll respond via email.

Joshua has also gotten into the holdiay spirit. The other night he decided he would help me shop for Dan. Here's how this idea-gathering venture went.

Mama, this Christmas shopping is FUN!

Ooohh...do you think Daddy would like that?

It's really hard to buy gifts for Daddy.

Oh, fine then. I give up. He can get a stocking full of coal.

Wait. Maybe we should just get him these shoes. They're tasty.

No, Mom. Not those shoes. THESE shoes.

WHY is he so hard to buy for?!?!

WHY?

What a difference a year makes!

2009-11-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving last year:

Yes, that's me. Looking like a hot mess after cleaning for two days prior to the glorious day of gluttony and cooking all morning long. You'd have shiny cheeks, too. And yes, I mean the ones on my face.

Thanksgiving this year:

(Sorry for the picture quality. I'd like a new camera for Christmas, Santa.)

This year I had my own little turkey to take care of! He was a good boy even though he's been kind of reluctant to nap for the past couple of days. I'm not loving that. We got a pretty decent nap out of him this morning and then we got about a 25 minute nap out of him this afternoon. He wasn't too terribly cranky though. Both his Harmy and his Nana were here to keep him occupied. And GrandBob and Pepaw played in the floor with him.

He tried plain mashed potatoes (no butter, no milk, hardly any salt...) and I don't think he was too impressed. I probably should've given him some gravy. I'm sure he would've been all over that! But, he sat at the table with us while everyone else ate and he seemed to be pretty entertained.

Today, I'm thankful for a loving husband and a beautiful, healthy son. I don't know what I'd do without either of them in my life.

Joshua is EIGHT MONTHS OLD!

2009-11-24T10:54:00.000-05:00

How?

Every month I ask myself this same question? How is it possible that Joshua is already eight months old? How has it already been eight months since my water broke while waiting to eat dinner at California Pizza Kitchen? Have we really survived the "fourth trimester" or am I dreaming?

Wow.

We went out to lunch with my friend Dana and her little guy Graham yesterday and the whole time we were there, as Joshua ate his peas and applesauce and squirmed and sat in a highchair, I just kept thinking, "Was Joshua ever that small??" While I know he WAS that small, he never seemed that calm, or maybe he was and I was too caught up in the throes of post-partum depression to realize it. I don't know. There was just something that I realized yesterday about where we were then and where we are now and I can't quite put my finger on it or articulate it but it's just different.

I love that he's exploring so much and figuring things out right now. It's fun to watch him raise the window on his Laugh-n-Learn House and then look at me and smile as the house says "uuup!" or "doooown!" depending on what he's doing. It's fun to watch him try to stand and reach the clock on the top of the house.

It's fun to watch him maneuver around the living room without having to actually learn to crawl. He's got this crazy roll-and-sit thing he does to get wherever he wants to go. I had to bust out our first baby-proofing item the other day to close the doors to the entertainment center because he figured out how to open them.

He has six teeth, the majority of which are on the left side of his mouth. Weird, I know. Four middle teeth and then one tooth each on the top and bottom on the left side of the middle teeth. I think his right side is going to have some catching up to do.

He's getting more, um, for lack of a better word, convenient. (Hang on...let me explain...) Since he hated sitting in his infant seat unless we were in the car (and even then, he hated that for the first four months or so of his life...) it was hard to go anywhere with him. I could Moby him to go shopping, but I couldn't Moby him to sit down at a restaurant and eat dinner. So we were kind of stuck in the house. In the past few weeks we've learned how to time his meals so that we can actually go to restaurants and sit down and eat dinner. It's nice to be able to do that again. He's actually going to his third restaurant in a week today.

He's just really, really fun right now. And I love him. A ton. His laugh makes me laugh and his smile makes me smile. I was meant to be his Mommy.

This one's for you...

2009-11-15T09:45:00.000-05:00

This new layout is for you, Aggie, and everyone else who was "Hoping and Wishing" for a new picture of Joshua. I've got more to upload, but the child needs a bottle. And mama needs a trip to Starbucks and the Sunday paper.

::smooches::

"Look at you, you have a baby...In a bar!"

2009-11-14T20:56:00.001-05:00

Yep, that was me.

I was invited out for a post-work drink or two yesterday and as I am severely lacking for socialization these days, Joshua and I went. (For the record, before y'all get all flustered, it was a restaurant with a bar...a big bar...on the roof. And it was 5:00 o'clock in the evening. I didn't take my child out for some wild night on the town. What kind of mother do you think I am?!?) I enjoyed a couple of Dos Equis Ambers (with lime!) and he enjoyed chewing on my Coach wristlet. He was amazing. He sat in my lap and talked to everyone and enjoyed the sunset. He was great until we left. Then he cried the whole way home. He didn't want to leave the party. He gets that from me. It was a good start to the weekend.

Also, I haven't pumped since Thursday morning. And today I had a chocolate milkshake. It was like sweet nectar from Heaven.

Signs you need wine, or a vacation, or both

2009-11-09T19:51:00.001-05:00

Case #1:

Tonight I actually uttered the words "This makes me just want to have the smelly kid" in regards to how difficult it is to bathe my child in the big tub. I hate that our bathroom is designed so that the toilet is about 12 inches from the tub. If Dan and I both want to be in the bathroom with Joshua during bath time, one of us has to squeeze between the tub and the toilet. Since I'm the "bendy" one in this get-up, I'm the lucky winner. That's not even the big issue here.

The big issue here is that my child is about as coordinated as an elephant trying to dance in The Nutcracker. I blame his lack of coordination on his father. (Love you, Dan!) I think that's why he's not crawling yet. Or pulling up. Or any of the other things I feel ridiculously obsessed with getting him to do. (Why? I have no idea. Anonymous--I'm talking to you here. I fully realize that this obsession of mine is ridiculous and no, I don't wish to wish away my child's babyhood. But I cannot help but compare my child to other children since I have no other children of my own to which I can compare my child.)

So this lack of coordination, coupled with his not napping during the day, makes it so that he's one slippery, cranky mess of a baby. He doesn't want to sit up the whole time he's in the tub. He wants us to HOLD him in a standing position. He doesn't want to try and stand against the side of the tub, nor do I think it'd be safe to let him try that. And he hates to have his hair washed or his face wiped or well, anything else cleaned up either. In order to bathe him, I have to stand up and bend over the tub. And he fights me tooth and nail and I'm afraid he's going to crack his little baby skull wide open on the side of our tub. This is about as much fun as I'd imagine a root canal to be.

So tonight, I actually said "This makes me want to just have a smelly kid."

Case # 2

I seriously almost cried at the thought that him not taking naps is detrimental to his development. I am that stressed about how my child doesn't sleep. And I'm tired because I only got four hours of sleep last night. And I know that sleep is good. And I don't know how to teach my child that sleep is good.

I think the fact that I'm a teacher works against me when it comes to Joshua. I have an understanding of childhood development. I understand how sleep and nutrition and the right kinds of visual and intellectual stimulation work to help children, well, develop. And I know that my child isn't getting enough sleep. But I don't know how to help him get more sleep.

On the weekends, we have little to no trouble getting him to nap when we stick to a routine. During the week, for.get.it. He slept for a grand total of 50 minutes over two "naps" today. This means that he woke up at 7:00 (after waking up for a bottle at 4:00am), and was up for TWELVE HOURS (with the exception of his "naps" of 20 and 30 minutes, respectively).

One day when he's an ornery teenager and he wants to shut himself up in his room and take naps, I will refuse to allow him to do so and will instead make him mow the yard or walk the dog or something. No napping when I want you to=no napping when YOU want to, Buster.

Guess what, y'all

2009-11-09T10:20:00.000-05:00

Cheese still tastes good, 6.5 months later.

I've been down to one pumping session a day since the nightmare couple of days I had last week where I was only able to pump once. I think I got over the initial engorgement and then my supply regulated really quickly. I barely pumped 3 oz. last night before bed. (Which was bittersweet and more appropriate for another post where I set the Medela PISA on virtual-fire...)

Someone brought in hash brown casserole this morning and I was like OMGMUSTEATTHATNOW. And I had a little scoop.

::swoons::

I love cheese.

I've got some dairy-infested milk in the freezer to donate, so I'm going to add whatever I pump tonight to that stash and donate that as well.

Did I mention that I love cheese?

An Unhealthy Obsession

2009-11-07T11:19:00.000-05:00

Why are baby shoes so expensive? This makes no sense to me at all. I mean, one could argue that since babies can't walk, shoes are unnecessary. I get that. But they're so damn cute.

Take these for instance: RileyRoos

These shoes are just too adorable. Joshua needs a pair. In a bad way. Because they are cute.

But I cannot see paying MORE for shoes for a child who DOES NOT YET WALK than I would spend on shoes for myself. And I have a hard time spending more than $20 on a pair of shoes for me. Seriously. Target and Old Navy are my go-to stores for shoes because they are cute and cheap. Sure, they only last for a season and a half. But shoes go out of style every year. Joshua would probably outgrow these in LESS than a season, so why would I spend $35 on them!!? (Or $32...whatever!)

I also love these: Robeez

At one point, I laughed and laughed and laughed at how ridiculous I thought Robeez were. Then I became a mother and someone bought me a pair. In a desperate attempt to keep socks on my child's feet, I put the Robeez on him and lo and behold they were the cutest things I'd EVER seen in my LIFE. Thus began my obsession with all things Robeez.

However, because I'm a supreme cheapskate, I cannot pay $20 for these, much less full price. Because he outgrows them entirely too quickly. I'm thinking (actually, I'm planning on) putting many pairs of these (okay, three or four) on his Christmas Wishlist. I love them that much.

And while the pair he currently has (of Ministars by Bobux, but not this pair exactly) gets a great deal of wear and has a great price, I want a little variety. I want a pair for every day of the week. What can I say? I like to have a well-dressed child. It makes me feel a little better about my own hurriedly-thrown-together appearance. But my local Target caters to girls' attire and not little boys'. Apparently girls need to be perfectly coiffed at all times. Boys can run naked through the streets, because, well, they're boys, right?

And TJ Maxx? Forget it. Unless I want my child looking like he's ready to star in a Baby Hip-hop music video, I needn't even attempt shopping there for more than plain white onesies I can embellish with neckties and fabric paint.

I even have a friend who MADE him a couple of pairs of shoes (Hi Rebecca!) that are adorable! (And if I had time and a little more patience, I could probably get into my sewing room and make these too. But I'm too instant-gratification for that. And I'm skeered of screwing up and wasting fabric.)

I need baby shoes. Joshua needs baby shoes. We NEED baby shoes like an addict needs a fix.

But my son has a mother who suffers from SERIOUS Buyer's Remorse and so, he might just end up running naked through the streets one day after all...

Let's hope he makes it to college first.

Talk me down from the ledge

2009-11-06T16:27:00.000-05:00

I am having such an emotional day. SUCH an emotional day.

It started with a fight over the dog and shared responsibilities around the house and how I'm feeling overwhelmed. Progressed to me leaving my super yummy lunch (and breakfast) on the kitchen counter where it is now ruined (and I hate wasting food). And culminated in me feeling a giant case of Mommy fail.

Annie decided that Joshua's bath toys are AWESOME snacks. AWESOME. So she ate one. There's probably a drying pile of dog puke on my rug at home as I type this. Fab. Joshua loved that toy (I should say "toys" since this is the second one she's eaten this week...). I want to cry because my child can't play with that toy anymore and they were a gift so I don't know where they came from and why can't I just be responsible and pick up the damn toys instead of leaving them on the side of the tub.

I busted my ass on Tuesday to clean parts of the house and asked Dan to clean the kitchen. It hasn't been done yet. In his defense (y'all, seriously, I'm defending him because I love him) he started a new job this week (WOOT!) and has been mentally overwhelmed and exhausted this week because of all the new things he has to learn to do. I get that sort of exhaustion. I really do. But this morning, I snapped and it wasn't pretty. I feel like we don't appreciate each other and I feel like we fight all the time and I don't know how to fix it and I want to cry.

I was in a furious rage while I finished getting ready this morning. I loaded my stuff in the car but left my lunch sitting on a counter that is not by the coffee pot. Then, I got the boy and loaded him into the car and got all the way to work before realizing that I did not, in fact, have anything to eat. Because of ye olde dairy, it's not like I could swing through McDonald's and get a biscuit, or visit the school cafeteria (yuck!) for lunch. The prospect of having no food made me want to cry (and the fact that I'm still dizzy and swimmy-headed from too much coffee, the inability to breathe through my nose, and not consuming my regular number of calories in a day isn't helping).

(Thankfully, a co-worker rescued me from no-food-land by going to Subway and getting me a sandwich. Otherwise, I'd be passed out in a mobile unit somewhere from low blood sugar. But I'm still starving.)

Then, while milking myself like a good dairy cow (because I need a bottle to give my kid before I feed him dinner tonight and since he won't be going home until after dinner, I have to feed him at school), I read a blog and saw a baby younger than Joshua who regularly gets himself into a sit and who is already pulling himself up. I literally almost lost it just a minute ago.

Things like this make me feel like I'm doing something incredibly wrong. Like I'm somehow failing my child because he can't pull himself up to standing at almost 8 months old. Like I haven't given him enough experiences or opportunities to work on skills like these. For crying out loud, he isn't even crawling yet.

I don't know why I care. I don't know why this bothers me. I don't know why I even keep up with what other babies are doing. But right now, I feel like bawling my eyes out. I just want to cry for days because I feel like my kid is "behind" somehow. WHY DOES IT MATTER?!?! WHY AM I PUTTING THESE SORTS OF EXPECTATIONS ON AN INFANT~!?!?! WHY!?!?!

I have no idea.

But I'm about to cry about it.

Something I've wanted to do for a while

2009-11-03T09:43:00.000-05:00

I started this blog as a way to process my thoughts about trying to conceive, being pregnant, and being a mommy, and I love this blog. But my work life didn't fit into this equation.

So, I did what any good blogger would do.

I started another blog for work related thoughts.

Tales of the Teacher Lady

Happy Tuesday!

This post-partum falling apart business is for the birds

2009-11-02T12:27:00.000-05:00

First, there were stretch marks and saggy boobs

Then, my hair started falling out.

Now, it's growing back.

But there are these little baby wispies framing my face that make it look like I've either A) severely damaged my hair by constantly pulling it back into a ponytail (which, let's face it, is a go-to hair style for new moms) or B) I have the hair of a brand new babe. Soft and unruly.

But whatever. It's growing back in. I'll need plastic surgery to put the girls back in place one day. I'm thankful for the little things. Even if it will take me three YEARS to have these little wispies long enough to not be incredibly annoying at the rate my hair grows.

Next up on the things-I-hoped-would-never-change-but-have docket...my fingernails.

Once strong, long, and beautiful, they are now brittle and broken. I am incredibly saddened by this. Incredibly. Like, crying into my coffee sad. I strongly dislike having short nails because my hands seem a bit, um, mannish, with ragged, frequently broken nails.

At one point in my life, I would've run out to the nearest nail salon to have this situation rectified. That just seems a little too frivolous for right now. Man, the most random things depress me...

This too shall pass, right??

Daylight Savings Time can KISS MY ASS.

2009-11-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

Okay, so not only did Joshua get up at 5:30 this morning, but he won't go back to sleep. In looking at the clock on my computer, I don't know if it's the REAL 9:18 or if it's actually 8:18, but regardless, this kid has been up for WAY too long. And he won't nap.

We put him in the crib. He screams and writhes around like the crib is eating him alive.

He's so tired, though, that he keeps hitting himself in the face with his toys because his coordination, which is already lacking because HE'S A BABY, is waaaay off.

It's fun in our house this morning, let me tell you. Barrels of fun.

Happy Halloween, y'all!

2009-10-31T21:03:00.001-04:00

Me and my little Pirate. Joshua says "Arrrrggghhhhh! Give me yer candy!"

Joshua was SUCH a trooper today.

He took excellent naps before we headed over to J & T's house to watch the Georgia/Florida game, so we were hoping he'd be a happy baby when we got there. And he was. Mostly. He got a bit cranky but refused to take a nap, which is nothing new for him when we're in a new place. ::sigh::

Before the game was over, we decided to put the boys in their costumes and head out for "trick-or-treating" (i.e. go to a fancy neighborhood and ~~teach our kids to trick-or-treat where they give out the GOOD stuff~~ take lots of cute pictures of the boys trick-or-treating.)

I like this one because, even though it isn't the most flattering picture of the mommies, the boys are both looking at the camera.

It was drizzling by the time we got to the subdivision, but we were troopers.

Pirate Joshua tries to help me hold the umbrella-ella-ella, eh, eh, eh....

We kept getting strange looks from homeowners as we stole their porch steps and Halloween decor to take pictures of our little guys in costume. Some were kind of like "Umm.....y'all are weird" and others were all "oooohhhhh CUTE BABIES!" (I'd say the latter outweighed the former. I mean, who can resist cute babies in costume??)

Have you ever tried to get a seven month old to look at a camera? Yeah...you'd look like a moron, too.

Hi, Daddy! Can you please rescue me from this crazy woman who is supposed to be my mother but who insists on dressing me in ridiculous pieces of clothing? Please? I'll give you my candy if you just rescue me.

Dude, can you believe they dressed us like this??

Don't look now, but they're taking pictures. Again.

Mom, seriously. Do you think a REAL pirate would pose with a giant, fake PUMPKIN? No way.

The boys were OVER trick-or-treating when this little cutie in a tutu wandered out to try and steal their candy.

Joshua was a trooper on the way home from trick-or-treating, but he fell asleep on the way. Normally, his eyes snap open when we pull into the driveway. Not tonight. I was able to get him out of the carseat and hold him for a minute and he didn't wake up at all. I put him straight to bed, still in half of his costume. The kid was EXHAUSTED.

I think he had a fun first Halloween.

Things that will give you a heart attack at 4:30 in the morning

2009-10-31T10:50:00.001-04:00

Hearing your son on the monitor and walking into the nursery to see this:

I didn't know he could do this.

I saw him and immediately said "Dan...DAN...GET IN HERE" and hoped after saying that that he (Dan) didn't think there was a giant baby-eating monster in the middle of the room that I was asking him to kill. Or some other equally panic-inducing thing.

I think it's time to lower the crib mattress.

Naps? Naps are for losers.

2009-10-28T19:45:00.000-04:00

I am so tired. So, so incredibly tired. So tired I'm getting headaches from it. Joshua is mostly sleeping well at night, and for the past two nights, Dan has gotten up with him. But I'm still exhausted. What gives?

Joshua won't nap well at daycare. We're talking an hour, hour and a half tops ALL.DAY.LONG. OMG!

So when we get home, he's tired. It's obvious. I fix him a bottle and take him into the nursery to give it to him. He falls asleep in my arms. I put him in the crib. BAM! He's wide awake. And screaming. And he will not go back to sleep. Even after finishing the bottle. It's like the 30 seconds he was asleep in my arms was enough to recharge his batteries for a little bit. Only they weren't.

This makes me want to cry because I KNOW the kid is tired. KNOW IT. And I really, honest-to-God need to lay down some afternoons or I don't know how I'll make it through the evening with him until Dan gets home. I'm cranky and irritable and I have less tolerance for his crankiness when I'm like this. And that's not fair to him.

Above all, I feel like he's not getting enough sleep, and like somehow, this is going to eff him up for life. Like, he's not going to be as smart as he could be or he's going to have ADHD or he's going to turn into a sociopath one day because he didn't sleep well as a baby.

I'm sick of hearing my mom tell me I've just got a cat-napper on my hands like that's supposed to somehow make me feel better about the fact that I KNOW he's not getting enough sleep.

I don't know what to do, but I'm exhausted and unhappy right now. Why won't my kid take naps???

Cause if Mama ain't happy....

2009-10-28T13:17:00.000-04:00

I'm breaking up with my Medela Pump-in-Style-Advanced. I'm tired of hauling the thing back and forth to work every day and milking myself like a dairy cow. I've reached the point where I just can't do this anymore.

When I was home on Friday with Joshua, I tried to pump while he was playing in the floor. He decided he didn't want to BE in the floor anymore and started screaming at me. I was so stressed out I barely pumped five drops in that session. I did manage to pump (for real) later that day, but that experience was enough for me to know that I'm really ready to be done with this.

I know that breast milk is best for my baby. But at this point, I'm not sure if it's what's best for ME anymore. I think pumping is making me depressed (and as someone who already battles depression and anxiety, it's not like I need help getting that way).

It seems selfish to think about quitting just so I can eat regular foods again, but I'm tired of not being able to have cheese or cereal. I hate the thought of asking everyone who comes to our Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations to buy special butter or not use milk in their dishes just so I can eat them.

I'm just not happy with this arrangement anymore, and truth be told, I haven't been happy with it for a while.

However

None of this makes me OKAY with the idea of stopping breastfeeding. I don't know that I'll ever be okay with this. I think some part of me will always feel guilty about stopping. And even though I'm cutting down the pumping sessions gradually, I still get a bit panicked when I pump and only get 6 oz. combined. The sirens go off in my head and I'm all like "AAAAAAHHHHH!!! HOW WILL I FEED MY CHILD TOMORROW!!!"

And then I have to think about what's best for me and I think it's time for me to be a little bit selfish.

Fountains of fun

2009-10-27T13:02:00.000-04:00

I hated shots growing up. HATED them. But my mother insisted on me getting a shot of antibiotics every time I had strep throat. I used to think she was the meanest, cruelest mother in the universe for that. I begged and pleaded with her to just let me take the medicine in pill or liquid form, vowing that I'd swallow whatever disgustingly horrid flavor of medicine she could find if only I didn't have to get a shot.

Now I understand why parents opt for shots of antibiotics when they're offered instead of the traditional pepto-pink, bubblegum flavored option that is traditional amoxicillin.

Joshua has learned how to spit. And by spit, I don't mean blow spit bubbles or be cute. I mean, we put something in his mouth and he spits it out. Including the medicine that will make him better.

He took the first three doses of amoxicillin like a champ and I thought, stupidly, that there'd be no problems with giving him twenty doses of this stuff.

WRONG.

We've taken to mixing the amoxicillin into his applesauce. That's got to taste WONDEFUL.

Next time, as much as I H-A-T-E them, I'm asking if there's a shot available to get the dosing over with more quickly, at least until he's able to understand that the medicine will make him feel better.

And so it begins...

2009-10-23T13:53:00.000-04:00

Joshua had a bit of a fever on Wednesday evening, so we gave him some Motrin and all was well when he woke up the next morning. Daycare called me on Thursday afternoon to tell me that he had a fever. Again. Poor kid.

He's also been coughing and this morning he had snot pouring out of his nose. It's a good thing he's too young to be embarassed by blowing snot rockets out of his nose every time he sneezes. Come on...you know what I'm talking about. The kind of mortification that only has to happen once in your life to make you afraid to ever sneeze in public again. Yeah...that kind of snot. Fun times.

So, I got a substitute for today and took him to the pediatrician's office.

He has an ear infection.

DAMNIT!

I've *never* had an ear infection in my life. Ever.

(People don't believe me when I say this, but I swear it's the honest-to-God truth. Strep throat...now, that's a whole 'nother story...yeesh!)

Dan was one ear infection away from tubes.

I hope that Joshua has decided to split the difference between our respective DNA donations and maybe he'll just have a handful of infections in his life. Or just this one. Just this one would be great.

Oh, and we're on tooth #5 now. It'll be in by Sunday.

7 months old? Really???

2009-10-22T09:41:00.000-04:00

I feel like I JUST wrote this entry for Joshua's 6 month birthday YESTERDAY. It's been an entire month already. Ridiculous.

My child is closer to one year old than he is to the day he was born (I mean originally born, as in, the first time I saw him...I realize that his birthday IS the day he was born...).

He has four teeth now, has weathered several colds and a bout of recurring diaper rash and has come out a champion.

He is so close to crawling he can taste it. Then it'll be time to figure out how to contain him in the living room. Multiple baby gates will be involved, no doubt, as will a new configuration of furniture.

He visited the pumpkin patch for the first time, and was an AWESOME dining companion at Taco Mac last weekend.

He celebrated his buddy Collin's first birthday, and in another week, the boys will celebrate their first Halloween.

He has also started consistently sleeping through the night. We put him down at 7:30 and he doesn't wake up again until sometime around/after 4 a.m. Yes, yes, I know, 4 a.m. is a ridiculous time to get up, but we give him a bottle and he goes right back to sleep until I wake him up to take him to daycare. I never thought the night would come when he consistently slept through the night. Never. But it has.

He's growing up so fast. My heart kind of hurts to think about it. I think it grows two sizes every day just looking at him and seeing his happy, smiley face.

I love this boy so much.

It Does a Body Good

2009-10-21T10:19:00.000-04:00

Joshua has decided that naps are for losers. And he cannot, under any circumstance whatsoever, be a loser. I mean, like, no way, dude.

::insert sarcastic eyeroll here::

Captain Crankypants would NOT let me put him down yesterday afternoon. He needed to be held until the time he went to bed last night. I almost lost my cool with him when I was trying to put his pajamas on and he kept flipping over and trying to shove everything on the dresser off into the floor. He thought it was great fun to try and do ANYTHING in his power to keep me from getting him dressed for bed.

I was so exhausted when I finally went to bed last night that I did not even hear Joshua when he woke up coughing. Like a seal. Again. Awesome.

Dan got up and gave him the rest of his bottle and Joshua went back to sleep. But he woke up at 3am so that he could have a serious conversation about life with Curious George. Thankfully, he went back to sleep on his own.

But then he woke up at 5:45 and it was more of the same from yesterday afternoon. He would NOT let us put him down this morning. Do you know how impossible it is to, oh, I don't know PUT ON YOUR CLOTHES while holding a baby? I mean, you've been there, right? RIGHT? If not, I pray that someday you get to experience the joys of packing a lunch one-handed.

Then, he whined alllllllllllll the way to daycare. And when we got to daycare, he was happy as a mother effing clam to see Ms. Nancy. Which makes me happy. And furious.

At some point in all of this I realized that my student teacher is coming for her first day of observation today which meant that A) I needed to do a full face of makeup to hide the designer luggage I’m carrying under my eyes and B) my clothes needed to NOT be pulled out of the questionable laundry pile. And what’s that I feel?? Engorgement. Yep. No skipping the before school pumping session today. AHHHHHH!HH!H!!HH!!H!H!H!H

So here I sit, milking myself, typing a blog entry, drinking my 6^th? cup of coffee, and hoping beyond hope that my child will take some good naps today and not be such a cranky kid. Seriously. Sleep is goooooood. It’s better for the body than milk.

Decisions, decisions.....

2009-10-20T12:20:00.000-04:00

I counted up my freezer stash last night and I have 96 oz. of usable milk. There's close to 30 oz of milk in the freezer that is infected with dairy-goodness from a slip-up I had back in May. So I can't give that to Joshua. So I have to dump it. That really, seriously hurts.

I feel like I'm nearing the end of my willingness to pump three or four times a day and it's all because of that stupid, fatty cake. And Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

And I'm exhausted. There are times when I just want to go to sleep but I can't because I've still got another pumping session to do before bed. Which means I have to be up for at least a half an hour past the time I want to go to sleep. Now, of course the solution to this is simple. If I know I want to be in bed by 10 I should just pump at 9:30, right? Right. But sometimes, I get caught up in doing other things and then I realize "Man...I'm exhausted...I should go to bed" but I can't.

I still don't know what I'm going to do, but this is weighing quite heavily on my mind lately.

This is getting tough

2009-10-19T09:52:00.000-04:00

The dairy-free thing is starting to wear on me. After almost seven months of not eating milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, or ice cream, except on accident, the thing that made me the most sad was birthday cake.

Yesterday was our friend K & J's little boy's first birthday party. The cake looked and smelled so good. But it was from Publix. And it had buttercream frosting. And it was totally off limits. I could've cried I wanted a piece so bad. I could still cry about it right now. I honestly have not felt this worked up over dairy the entire time I've been going without. I have no idea why it was so hard to deny myself yesterday.

I keep telling myself that I'm doing what's best for Joshua, and really, I am. I know that. But part of me, that nagging part of me that lives in the back of my mind, tells me that I'm trying to make myself some kind of martyr. That I'm secretly screaming "LOOK AT ME AND ALL I'VE SACRIFICED. I'M BETTER THAN YOU." And that's not who I want to be. That's not why I want to do this.

So, I still don't know how long I'll keep up the dairy free diet. I know that with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, this is going to be ridiculously difficult. Hell, with the way we prepare the feast in our house, I can't even eat TURKEY, much less the yummy deliciousness which are side dishes.

::sigh::

A Not-Totally-Baby-Related post

2009-10-09T08:47:00.001-04:00

Since I've been back to work, the age-old question of whether a woman's place is in the home or on the job has plagued me. I love my job. I truly feel like being a teacher is my calling.But, so is being a mom. I love my son. I can't wait to see him after work and squeeze on him and play with him. Do I ever get extremely tired and frustrated with him? Yes, absolutely. But guess what. I get that way with my students, too.

Being back to work has been really frustrating because it has taken so much of my time away from Joshua. In addition to my regular classroom responsibilities, I'm also the Color Guard sponsor/instructor. The hours I spend each week preparing for games and competitions amount to at least a part-time job, if not another full-time job. Thinking about how many hours a day Joshua spends in day care makes me want to cry.

But there have been a few events recently that have made all of this time away from Joshua a little more "worth it" (if time away from him can ever be "worth it"...aside from when I'm getting a massage or a facial or a mani/pedi or something else that makes me feel a little less like a frumpy, stretch-mark covered mom...).

We had a marching competition on Saturday. My girls took first in their class and our band took "Grand Champion" for the whole competition. Considering the way our season has gone, this is more than fantastic. We had a choreographer. In July, he "had to go to a funeral" and took a job with another Guard. We had to scramble to find someone to write flag work and just finished teaching the girls the work on Monday. The Monday before the competition. I am so, so proud of the hard work my girls have put in for this. They earned it.

The second event came this morning. I opened my email to start the day and found the following email from a student:

I've NEVER liked reading... any other day... if you would have asked me... I would have said to you I hated reading... I got this book today and I'm already on chapter 8... that may not seem like a lot but if you knew me... it is... its hard to put the book down...

I haven't read that much since I've been in middle school... probably not as much as I've already read in this book.

When you first told the class and myself that we would have to start reading a book... I was horrified...

But also... you said you would give us a list of books and also a one that you thought we would like... well when you said only a few could read each book I immediatly went for "Something Wicked this Way Comes" and then when you told me that that book was the one you would have chosen for me... I was nothing short of ELATED!

I cannot believe you were able to get me interested in a book and for that I thank you for being my teacher. You are definitely my favorite of the year as well as my entire high school career so far.

Ellipsis abuse aside, this is a pretty fantastic way to start the day. I cried at my desk this morning when I read this email. It may not seem like a big deal, but I've always been an "If I can just reach ONE kid" kind of teacher. As far as I'm concerned, this is my year. Right here. In this moment. I've "arrived," so to speak.

I don't know that I'll ever be able to answer the question of where I think my "place" is. Would I like to be a stay-at-home-mom one day? You bet. But right now, I'm feeling pretty damn pleased with my career choice.

One thing I wish

2009-10-07T15:20:00.000-04:00

I wish it were easier for me to slouch and lean my head on the wall when I'm in the book room pumping. It'd be nice to be able to take a little catnap while I'm milking myself.

I have hit a wall with the exhaustion. I'm sure it's from a combination of things. I've had a cold since last Thursday. I was on the go ALL weekend long (seriously...I was out until midnight on both Friday and Saturday evenings for work related events.). Joshua slept like a big ol' heaping pile of poop on Monday night (why, WHY did he think it was necessary to talk to himself for an HOUR on Monday night??? Why?) keeping us awake with him. I was at a work-related event until 9:30ish last night, and didn't get to bed until 10:30 because I had to wash and make bottles and pump.

I was seriously falling asleep on my way to work this morning. If that's going to happen, it needs to happen when Joshua is NOT in the car with me. I was doing everything I could think of to stay awake. Talk radio. A/C on, followed by the heat. Windows down. Windows up. Loud music and trying to sing along at the top of my unable-to-be-filled-because-of-this-cold lungs. Nothing. My eyelids are still droopy right now.

The exhaustion and not getting enough sleep makes me want to go home and take a nap before I go pick Joshua up from daycare, but the gas mileage and driving says that's ridiculous and I should just suck it up. So I will, and I'll survive, because that's how I roll.

But still, I need some sleep.

So here's what I'm going to do

2009-10-06T11:39:00.000-04:00

I've mulled over this whole breastfeeding issue and the drop in supply and I've agonized over what to do until I'm sick of agonizing over it. I'm also certain you're all sick of reading about it. So, I'm going to give my best effort to rebuilding my supply (Fenugreek, extra pumping sessions, drinking lots of water, oatmeal [which I haven't stopped eating], etc.) and if the supply continues to stay low, I'm going to take it as my body's way of saying

"YOU ARE NOT A DAIRY COW. QUIT MILKING YOURSELF LIKE IT'S YOUR JOB."

I feel relieved to have a plan. It may be that I am weaning by next week. But it may be that I'm still pumping until Thanksgiving. Who knows. We'll see.

In other news, we took Joshua to the pumpkin patch on Sunday with some friends of ours. Growing up we NEVER did things like this, so I want to do things like this with/for Joshua. I think it's important for families to have traditions and my family didn't really have any growing up. So, now that I have a family of my own, I'm starting new traditions. The pumpkin patch is one of them.

Here are some cute pics!

A breastfeeding post. Yes, again.

2009-10-04T19:39:00.000-04:00

My supply has taken a nosedive in the past few days. I don't know if it's because I'm sick (even though I haven't taken any medicine at all for it), or because I've started wearing regular bras again (weird...but it's the only thing I can think of that's been different) or because I was stressed at the end of the week (but that stress is gone, so I should see a return to normal and I'm not).

On Friday, I was down about 3 oz for the day. Saturday, I was down about 5. Today, I'm down about 5 oz. or so, too. Not cool, ladies. Not. Cool.

Dan says the decline in production is because I'm thinking about the fact that production is down while I'm pumping. Maybe. I try to read or watch TV or blog or surf the internet to keep my mind off of pumping while I'm pumping, but maybe there's something going on in the back of my mind of which I am unaware. (Stupid subconscious!)

Anyway, the thought of stopping has entered my mind. If I stop breastfeeding, I want it to be on MY terms, you know? and not because my supply tanked and I couldn't keep up and had to stop. I don't want to be robbed of this the same way I feel I was robbed of nursing (because aside from reverse cycling, there was no way for me to keep up with nursing Joshua).

I keep telling myself that I've made it to my goal of six months, and it'll probably be almost seven months before he's totally on formula, but I just have this overwhelming sense of guilt about thinking about quitting.

I don't know what to do.

On the one hand, I'm ready to have my body back, plain and simple. On the other hand, being a mom is about selflessness. I know that I'm doing the best thing possible for him.

Any words of wisdom out there in the interwebz?

Joshua goes on his (second) date

2009-10-04T10:40:00.001-04:00

If you'll remember, his first date was with this super sweet girl, Austin, at his 100 day birthday. He managed to get her into his bedroom on the first date. The kid's apparently got some game.

Joshua gives Austin his best jokes and she plays hard-to-get.

Last week, we took dinner to our friends Clay and Alison to help out while she was recovering from knee surgery. While there, Joshua started putting the moves on their daughter Katelyn.

They meet. They hug.

Joshua looks to his Daddy for advice. Katelyn looks to her Mommy for advice, too.

Joshua leans in and goes for it!

Katelyn rebuffs his advances and Joshua's feelings get hurt. Katelyn feels bad for hurting Joshua's feelings.

Joshua goes for an eye-gouge as his way of saying "It's not you. It's me."

He attempts to put the moves on her once again. What can I say? He's persistent.

His "moves" consist of the "Baby Steamroller." We'll have to work on this before he actually begins dating. I'm pretty sure most girls won't like being steamroller-ed.

Joshua leans in again for another kiss. And misses. Poor kid. He was off his game that night.

And that, my friends, is the beginning of true love. We had a great time talking with Clay and Alison, and Joshua loved meeting Katelyn. We're looking forward to getting these two together again.

Productivity at its finest

2009-10-03T12:06:00.000-04:00

Wow! Has this morning ever been good.

I really, desperately needed it in a way a fat kid needs cake (or a diet. EMBRACE THE ANALOGY, PEOPLE!)

I got home last night at almost midnight, just as I thought I would and, while I enjoyed spending time with my mom while watching the game (which was in my hometown), I really could've used the time at home. I've recently become more easily frustrated with having a messy house. I'm not entirely sure why because I've NEVER been a neat-freak. While I still wouldn't classify myself as a neat-freak, I am suddenly finding it necessary to keep things a little more picked up or I feel really, really bad about myself. Weird how that works.

Anyway.

I got home last night and Dan had swept, like I asked him to. But the little piles of sweepings were scattered around the house. I understand that this was because he didn't want to use the vacuum and wake Joshua, so I shrugged it off and thought "That'll be easy for me to get tomorrow morning." Then I walked into the kitchen.

And my heart sank.

The stove was dirty (like, diiiiiirrrrrrtttyyyyy) and there were dishes in the sink and there was crap all over the countertops (not literally crap...clutter...stuff...things we should've already put away...notice I said WE [Hi Dan!]).

My heart sank even more as I realized that it was midnight. I was exhausted. My throat was killing me. I couldn't breathe through my nose. The house was a wreck. Someone new was coming over today and someone old was coming over tomorrow and I had to get up in about six hours and start this mess all over again. Then I opened the refrigerator and discovered that there was no fruit for Joshua's breakfast/lunch today. ::insert nearly crying into the mustard and jar of pickle juice that's been in the refrigerator for God only knows how long here::

I pumped in the living room so as to not wake Dan and Annie and didn't cry. Thankfully. Because that would've made my nose even MORE stuffy.

I must've exuded frustration when I went into the bedroom to go to bed because Dan woke up and said hello and asked me what was wrong. Apparently, feeling overwhelmed is palpable to others. I said I didn't want to talk about it and went into the bathroom.

When I laid down, he asked me again what was wrong, so I told him. And then I went to sleep, knowing I'd have to be up soon and feeling incredibly frustrated that my job keeps me so busy when it should be a job that is very conducive to having a family.

When I woke up this morning at 6 to feed Joshua (who slept through the night last night! WOOT!) Dan had already done the dishes, made Joshua's pears, and straightened up the kitchen.

I love my husband. I love him. Truly. Madly. Love him.

I tried really hard to not complain in a way last night that would lay a guilt trip on him (and hopefully I succeeded...) but he got up this morning and rose to the occasion in a way that I am truly thankful for.

I, after going back to sleep for an hour, vacuumed the sweepings piles, cleaned the stove top, scrubbed the toilet and front bathroom, played with my child, put him down for a nap (from which is just now waking...), showered, did my hair, pumped, made bottles for Joshua for today, and washed/dried/folded four loads of laundry (but it's not put away because, I mean, really, I'm not SUPERWOMAN or anything...).

And now it's time for me to go to the school for rehearsal and competition and start the "tough" part of my day. And the part of my day that won't actually end until midnight tonight when I finally make it home again. But at least the laundry is done and my house is clean.

I feel remarkably at peace with how busy my week and weekend have been because I've been able to get things done.

Mostly because I have a wonderful husband and son.

Another story about pumping at work

2009-10-02T09:10:00.001-04:00

I promise to stop with these stories soon, really. But this one is too good not to share.

Probably the thing that makes me most uncomfortable about pumping in public is the idea of being "caught," or the building catching fire while I'm pumping and I can't get out of the building and I die a horrible, firey death, or something equally catastrophic. Seriously, being walked-in-on is more devastating to me than forgetting the lids (or the fire...imagine the departmental lunches when a coworker has seen your breasts hooked up to a milking machine).

Today, I went into the book room to pump before the day started and while there I was checking my email and getting ready for the day. Just doing my thing...drinking my coffee...surfing the web...you know, the usual.

Suddenly, I hear keys jingling in the lock and the voice of one of the men in my department on the other side of the door.

REDALERTREDALERT!!! AAAAAHAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHH!!! REDALERTREDALERT!!! OMGWTF!!!

I SLAMMED my hand on the door, HARD, (seriously, my palm is still stinging half an hour later) and heard a female on the other side of the door go "AHHH!" Apparently, she didn't expect the door to the book room to attack her. Male coworker started laughing at her reaction.

The moral of the story is:

It's a pain to pump in a workplace that doesn't have a designated place for women to pump. I guess it's just not common (I'm only the second person in my department to pump while at work and only the third person that I know of in my entire building since I've been working here) so there's no reason to have a designated place for me to go. So, I take over the book room three times a day for up to 20 minutes at a time and do what I need to do to feed my child. And I hope and pray that no one decides that THAT's the moment he or she needs some new textbooks.

The result of this almost-over-exposure to my coworker is that instead of my usual 8 or 9 ounces in my morning pumping session, I only pumped 5. Couple that with the fact that today is going to be a really, really long day for me (seriously...I probably won't be home until almost midnight...) and I feel like today is going to be a low-volume day.

Thanks to my new friend

2009-10-01T14:39:00.001-04:00

Helen, from Scotland (Hiiii!!!!) I've figured out the email comment thing! Woohoo!!

hopingwishing@gmail.com coming to an inbox near you!

Let me tell you a little story about why I dislike pumping

2009-10-01T10:10:00.002-04:00

I've been in the routine of packing up my pump parts in the evenings so I won't forget them the next morning if I get in a hurry. I wash the bottles/parts, let them dry, put them in the bag, and put the pump in the floor next to Joshua's diaper bag. Before I wake Joshua up in the morning, I make my lunch and put it, my coffee, the pump, and his diaper bag in the car so I don't have to carry all of those things AND a baby.

This morning, I arrived at work, made my oatmeal, and went to the book room to pump. I milked myself like a good dairy cow and then the 2-minute warning bell rang to alert me that the day was about to begin.

I was finished pumping by this point and just needed to put the bottles in the cooler and roll up the tubing and go to class.

So, I take off the horns and put them on the shelf and roll up the tubing and then I look into the bag and lo and behold what do I NOT find there?

THE LIDS TO THE EFFING BOTTLES!

OH.MY.GOD.

I put the bottles in the cooler and gently, like I was carrying radioactive material a la Jack Bauer, placed the cooler in the pump. Then I cautiously, again, like the Medela would explode at any moment, tiptoed from the bookroom to the office and placed my bag in the little nook next to my filing cabinet, daring some almost-tardy student to bump into me so I could go postal on him or her.

I currently have two bottles of milk (about 8 ounces worth) sitting UNOPENED in the cooler that came with the Medela pump. And now I have to race home on my lunch break next period because I feel absolutely certain that Publix and Walgreens and CVS won't have milk storage products available on their shelves. I could be wrong, but something tells me I'm not. That would certainly be closer and faster than going all the way back to my house, eating lunch while driving, coming all the way back to work, and NOT being able to pump like usual.

I seriously just thought to myself THISFREAKINGMORNING how proud I was that I haven't forgotten any pump parts yet. Seriously. This morning. While deciding what to wear. And THIS!?!

Fabulous Thursday I'm having.

***UPDATE***

Thanks to my wonderful friend Callie, I was able to run to Walgreen's and buy some breastmilk storage bags AND pump during my lunch break. Woohoo! This day might just be turning around.

How's yours going? (seriously...you can leave a comment and let me know how your Thursday is going. I want to know...)

Mama needs a new wardrobe

2009-09-30T12:40:00.000-04:00

Or, Joshua needs a new wardrobe (for Winter, y'all...I mean, it does get a *little* chilly around here...) and Mama's B-R-O-K-E. So, I entered my child in the BabyGap Casting Call.

Please take a minute, follow this link, (HERE) and vote for Joshua.

I mean, he's cute enough to be the next face of BabyGap.

Calling all SITStahs (or anyone else who is in-the-know)

2009-09-28T08:49:00.001-04:00

I want to enable receiving follow-up comments via email, I think. (I'm not entirely sure what this will do, but it seems that it'd be easier to respond to comments left on my blog since blogger doesn't currently have threaded comments a la Wordpress. Blogger should really get on that.) However, the email I use to log in to blogger has my first and last name and is the one that currently appears ("Email follow-up comments to firstnamelastname@blahblahblah.com") when I leave a comment. I've created an email account for the blog and I'd like to use that one to receive email comments but I can't figure out how to do what I'm trying to do.

Also, if I enable this feature, is it going to give my email address to everyone, thus the reason I (smartly) created the blog account?

Someone please 'splain this to me like you'd explain tying a shoe to a four-year-old (but without the "bunny ears").

Hook a sitstah up, please!?! Anyone??

As for the rest of you...normal blogging will resume as soon as I've figured out this little issue!

"I gotta feeling..."

2009-09-26T08:31:00.000-04:00

As much as I dislike immensely the Black Eyed Peas for their asinine lyrics and Fergie's eyebrow piercing and marriage to Josh Duhamel, I can't help but feel like tonight (and other nights) are going to be good, good nights. Last night certainly was.

Joshua went to bed around 8:00 and by 10:00, he was chattering to himself over the monitor. Dan and I braced ourselves for a long night. But that long night didn't happen. Thank the Lord! WOOHOO!!

Joshua talked to himself throughout the night, but didn't really wake up until 3:15 or 3:30. (I got up to pee at 3:30...which is another post all to itself...and looked at the clock. I think he'd been talking to himself for a little longer than that, though.) Anyway, since he was just talking, I didn't go in to him at the 20 minute mark. I waited for him to get a little more urgent, and then I realized that he might be hungry because it was 4:00a.m. and he has a tiny tummy.

So, I grabbed a bottle from the fridge and fed him and he was pretty drowsy by the time he finished the bottle. He woke up when I laid him back down in the crib. I braced myself for disaster, and that disaster never came.

AWESOME!

Seriously, he chattered for about 5 minutes and then he was out. Just like that. He slept until 7:45, and so did Dan and I. HEAVEN! Sweet, sweet, glorious, heavenly sleep.

I have no way of knowing if this has been the fastest, most successful "sleep training" (blech!) in the history of said training (and really, I know it's certainly not the most successful...and probably not the fastest, either) but wow. That one night of torture and we've been sleeping better ever since. I can take that.

We'll be putting the sleeping-better-at-night to the test as we take Joshua for a sleepover with his buddy C. Dan and K are going to the Georgia game and J and I are keeping the boys at home for a baby tailgate party. It's BYOP (that's Bring Your Own Puffs, for you laymen out there).

Hopefully, this doesn't derail our new regimen and hopefully, we're not starting all over again from square one on Sunday night. When I have to go back to work on Monday. Hopefully.

Definitely better than the longest night of my life

2009-09-25T06:43:00.003-04:00

We followed our amended go-to-bed routine again last night and I have to say that the family time at the end of the day is really nice. I know there will be times when both of us aren't here with Joshua at bed time (like tonight, for example, when I've got to go to a football game, and tomorrow night when Dan is going to a football game) but I like the time after his bath when we sit down in his bedroom floor, Dan, me, Joshua, and Annie, and read/eat books. (Dan and I read books. Joshua eats them. Annie plots her revenge when Joshua won't share the book. He's a selfish little booger when it comes to books, which must be quite tasty.) It's nice.

Dan gave Joshua his bottle while I cooked dinner and then Dan and I watched Glee, which might be one of the best shows on television right now (and I watch a lot of TV, so I should know), and then we retreated to our respective computers to check in with the interwebz. Business as usual, really.

When we went to bed, I had knots in my stomach. I started panicking when I realized that I had no idea what to do if he woke up at 3:00am instead of 12:00 or 1:00. If he woke up at 12:00 or 1:00, I knew I had to let him cry because that's what we'd done the previous night. But if he woke up at 3:00, then it would've been 8 hours since the last time he ate, and what should I do? Do I let him cry? Do I feed him? Do I do feed him and then let him cry? If I feed him, will I undo whatever we did last night by letting him cry?

It was kind of difficult for me to fall asleep last night with so much uncertainty swirling around in my head. But I managed.

I heard a peep on the monitor and by the time I'd found my glasses on the nightstand (why, oh WHY is it so hard to find my glasses in the dark when I put them in the exact.same.place night after night? WHY? I smack my hand around on that table feeling for them and knock half the stuff on that table into the floor every night only to realize that I'd had my hand on my glasses the first time I put my hand on that table and now there are smudges on the lenses and the crap is in the floor....so sorry for that tangent) the sound had stopped.

It was 3am.

Panic ensued very briefly.

What would I do if the noises started up again? What should I do!?!?

Luckily, that was a non-starter.

He was sound asleep. Until 5:15 am.

WOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!

Dan gave him a bottle and put him in the crib and came into the bedroom and said "I don't think he wants to sleep." To which I replied "Let him work on it for a minute or two." And so we did. Only, about 10 minutes later he was NOT happy. At.All.

So I got up and went to him and thanked God for the night of sleep I'd just been given and when I picked Joshua up, I realized that he'd pooped.

No wonder he was cranky. I'd be cranky too.

So I changed him and then rocked him and cuddled him and calmed him down and he is blissfully snoozing right now.

I realize that last night was probably a fluke, but man, was it nice. A full night's sleep AND I'm going to the spa today for a facial and massage!!? I must've done something right!

The longest night of my life....

2009-09-24T12:32:00.002-04:00

since...well...the other longest night of my life.

We started the "sleep training" (and really, I hate calling it that. Hate it. It makes me sound like I think my child is a circus animal or something and I just hate it.) last night. It was...interesting?

If the definition of interesting is "Run screaming for the nearest bottle of Absolut you can find and shoot it straight with a beer chaser and then clamp a pillow over your head and wonder if you're going to have your very own poopsplosion from the nerves," that is. And no, I didn't actually run for the Absolut...or the beer...or the bathroom. But I did clamp the pillow over my head and choke back some Mom-guilt induced tears.

We changed up Joshua's bedtime routine just a little bit last night. Instead of giving him his reflux meds after dinner, I gave them to him before. Then Dan fed him and we let him play for a little while in his Jumperoo before giving him his bath. After his bath, we sat in his bedroom floor with the lights dimmed and we read a few books ("Jerry Jordan's jelly jar...j...J...j" was a particularly laugh-inducing line from the Dr. Seuss ABC book...) and we played with some of the soft blocks that I made and then Dan gave Joshua his bottle.

Let me interject here and say that it's been a while since we've had any trouble getting Joshua down for the night. We've done this fuss-yourself-to-sleep business once before when we first put him down for the night. He's been pretty good about falling asleep on his own at bedtime for at least a couple of months. Developing a solid, consistent nighttime routine and sticking with it, even if we're not at home, helped immensely with this. We give him his bottle, he drinks it, then we put him in his crib whether he's wide awake, drowsy, or asleep, and he's out.

Our problem has been with the middle-of-the-night waking. Joshua wakes up and can't get himself back to sleep. I know he knows how to do this because he's done it before, but he's not consistent about it. And sometimes it takes us up to an hour of going in to his room, soothing him with rocking or bouncing on the exercise ball, feeding him, holding him, whatever it takes, to get him back to sleep. Only to hope that it lasts until 5:30 or so, and most of the time, it doesn't.

It seems that intervention has been necessary for us for a while and I've been too afraid to admit it to myself. I'm afraid I'll psychologically damage my child by not coming to his rescue when he needs me. But then I think about people I know who are nearing 30 who still have their parents coming to their rescue and I shudder. Literally. And let's not forget the countless students I see on a daily basis who have to have their parents email their teachers when they've forgotten to do something because they can't ask about an assignment themselves. There's an entire segment of the population that is so co-dependent they probably can't tie their own shoes (and that segment might be the people who wear Crocs because they think those shoes are "cool" and are really just trying to cover for the fact that they can't tie their own shoes...)

Needless to say, I don't want Joshua to become a kid who can't deal with some things on his own. But back to last night...

Joshua went down like always and then woke up at 12:45. Dan and I laid there awake listening to Joshua on the monitor while I nervously watched the clock. The fussing started out really low and manageable and by the end of the 20 minutes, it was obvious that Joshua was getting frustrated that no one was coming to rescue him from the Baby-Eating Crib. I went in there and instead of picking him up like I did the last time we did this, I just rubbed his back and patted his butt and then left the room.

He was pissed.

I turned the volume all the way down on the monitor and listened to him yell at me from down the hall. Then I shoved a pillow over my ears and watched the red lights on the monitor and wondered how the hell people do this. But I didn't give in. Even when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, I didn't give in. I stayed the course, and I have to say I'm kind of proud of myself for that. I was sweating and my stomach was churning and I hated every minute of it.

At the 20 minute mark, Dan went in and patted/rubbed/soothed him and then came back to the bedroom and at that point, there was no more laying down for him. He went to the office to surf the internet. I think laying in the bed was making him a little stir-crazy. And he can't stand to lay in the bed if he's not sleepy. And who can be sleepy when your child is accusing you of being the worst parent in the history of parents? I laid in the bed and waited. And waited. And at about the 10 minute mark, I noticed that the cries were less loud and less urgent. And by 13 minutes, they'd stopped completely.

I tiptoed across the hall into the office and looked at Dan like "Did it work!?!" and he shushed me because apparently I was looking at him too loudly. And we went back to bed. Joshua wasn't totally asleep. We could hear him chattering to himself for a little bit, which is fine by me. If the kid needs to talk himself back to sleep, I've got no problems with that.

Then he didn't wake up again until 5:45 at which point I fed him and he went right back to sleep until 8:30 with absolutely no fussing. And he was so happy when he got up this morning. So happy.

So, the longest 53 minutes of my life netted Joshua 12 hours of sleep last night, which is more sleep than he's had at night in maybe his whole life.

I have no idea how tonight is going to go. I've heard that the second night is easier and I've heard that the second night is more difficult. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Yao Ming ain't got nothing on Joshua

2009-09-23T13:01:00.002-04:00

Joshua's 6 month well-baby check up was today.

His head circumference is 17 3/4 centimeters--75th percentile.

He weighs 18 lbs, 14.7 oz.--75th percentile.

He is 29 inches tall!!! ---he's off the freaking growth chart for height.

I don't know where he gets it. Dan isn't short by any means, and from what I hear Dan's mom's family members are unusually tall for Asians.

At any rate, it might be time for me to get interested in basketball.

We're also supposed to start trying to work harder at getting him to fall asleep on his own. This means a probable change in our bedtime routine. I'm thinking we've got to switch up when he gets his bottle so that he doesn't get it right before bed, but I'm not sure. We're also supposed to let him fuss for up to 20 minutes before going in to him. And when we go in to him, we're not supposed to pick him up. We're only supposed to pat his butt and/or rub his back. And we're supposed to stay in there for less than a minute.

I'm not sure how well this is going to work. I might need more than just Celexa and Sauvignon Blanc to make it through the next few days.

Y'all pray for me, mmkay?

(And if you have any words of wisdom regarding how to get your baby to sleep through the night, suggestions are always welcome!)

Has it been six months already?

2009-09-22T17:29:00.004-04:00

Half a year? Really? Already gone? WHERE has it gone? I'm not sure I've fully appreciated the fact that he's been with us here on the outside for six months. SIX months?! Unbelievable.

Let's see...in the past month, he's started napping better for the ladies at daycare and, for the past two days, for me, too. In fact, he's the only baby in his room who naps consistently. He doesn't sleep all night long, but he sure can sleep through the little girl in his room screaming her happy little lungs out.

He's sitting up on his own and he's trying so hard to figure out how to get his knees AND his hands underneath him that he'll be crawling before I know it. He mostly practices this at 3am when I want to sleep. He thinks it's GREAT FUN to try to crawl then. Great fun. Once he's crawling it'll be time to move up a room at daycare. And that saddens me a bit because I really like Ms. Nancy and I know she loves him and loves ON him.

He's also starting rolling with a purpose. If he sees a toy on the other side of the blanket and he wants it, he just rolls right over to it. Then he whines because he can't figure out how to get back to me.

He's eating puffs (okay...he's getting them stuck to his hands and then he's shaking his hands over the sides of the highchair and he's feeding ANNIE the puffs...but whatever...) and he likes them. We're practicing using a sippy cup. He can pick the cup up, and he knows the spout goes in his mouth (although, sometimes, he gets the spout and the handle confused) but he hasn't quite mastered the art of tipping it back. (Let's hope he doesn't master the art of tipping one back until college...)

He's growing up so fast! SO, SO fast.

Because I might just be shameless

2009-09-22T10:30:00.002-04:00

As I like to fancy myself a pretty decent writer, I think I could be a contender in the "Working Mom" category. But, I'd rather not be so bold as to nominate myself. So, if someone wants to take the time to hop over to thebump.com and nominate yours truly, I'd be thankful. If more than one of you want to nominate me, awesome.

At the very least, this will generate some traffic on ye olde blog.

Love to you all!

(Six month photos of Joshua coming later today!)