musings of Mother Hood

Peas and Carrots

Sunday night was not our best work. Colt had the sniffles and didn't really know what to do with himself. He couldn't breathe out of his nose very well, so sucking his thumb was a little tricky. And sleeping was darn near out of the question. He finally convinced us that NO ONE would be getting ANY sleep unless he slept as physically close to me as humanly possible. I would like to be able to tell you that I stood my ground and made him sleep in his crib, but I gave in and he got to spend the latter part of the painfully early morning in the big bed. Score one for the small fry.

Monday night was better, he slept till almost 6 - in his own bed -- so no complaints. Still sniffly, but still no fever. Tuesday brought more fun. Jeff called me from work to say he had a sore throat, I started to notice my own runny nose, and the three of us spent most of Tuesday afternoon and evening sneezing all over each other at home. Super.

So we've been doing what any logical family would do - drink a lot of OJ and cross our fingers that it's not the flu. We have plans to visit Arkadelphia for Thanksgiving - I think we're leaving this afternoon. So I hope whatever has infested our house is neither persistent nor contagious.

Enough phlegm and foolishness -- on to cute pictures of sleeping babies!

 

The Johnny Jumper is beyond fun. Colt LOVES it - and seems annoyed when we have to take him out to, you know, eat and sleep.  And as you can see, sometimes it wears him plum out. And since I think he is the cutesht widdle thing when he falls asleep like this - you get a whole slew of sleeping baby photos. I have more. Don't make me use them.

This week we had a few milestones. Well, besides Baby's First Head Cold... We have added peas to the menu, allllmost moved up to 6 month clothing, and officially grown out of our first item of baby "gear". 

We started peas last night and he knocked out his half-a-jar before I knew it. The munchkin likes peas. Noted. We'll probably stick with peas for a few days before we move on to really exciting things like squash -- but for now, he's lovin' him some sweet peas.

I had almost forgotten how fun it is (for me) when Colt grows out of some of his clothes. Because growing out of one set of clothes means growing intoa whole new set. New clothes! Yah! So I got to wash the 6-9 and 6-12 month clothes this week because he can already wear a few of them. And I discovered something heartbreaking. Unaware of the unnecessarily confusing way that baby clothing is sized (which is another story for another day) I had placed several items of clothing in the 6-12 section of his closet that are actually things he could and should be wearing NOW. Ahh! So now I'm frantically trying to dress him in a handful of outfits he could have been wearing for months - that he will now probably grow out of in a matter of weeks. Bleh.

And the first item of baby gear to bite the dust - the bouncy seat. With all of the Johnny Jumping and sitting-up practicing, Colt has gained some serious confidence in his skills. So, since we are bad parents and do not strap him into his toys, he was able to maneuver himself out of the bouncy seat and onto the floor. He was not unhappy about this, mind you -- and those of you who are familiar with bouncers know that he traveled all of 3 or 4 inches to the ground. He acted pretty proud of himself. And the bouncer has been relieved of its services.  

Looking forward to a long weekend of food, family and hopefully some rest. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

___________________________________________________________________

Reminder

I've added two new features that I hope will be of use to some of you as I slowly but surely reattain my pre-baby blogging frequency.

1. Email Subscription. You can now enter your email address in the box in the upper left hand corner and receive an email notification when I post a new entry. You aren't subscribing to anything but me - and you'll only get an email when I post something. Within the email is a link to the site so you can get back here without having to remember the address.
2. RSS. I won't even try to explain this one - feel free to Google "RSS" if you really want to know - but it's there if you want to read me via Google Reader or your reader of choice. Just click the little orange icon up there in the corner and it'll set you up.

To Each His Own

I have a lot of respect for personal referrals. When I waitressed in college, I finally started carrying business cards for the girl who cuts my hair because I got tired of writing down her name and phone number every time someone asked for it. And I definitely appreciated the people who actually DID call her and make an appointment - because it finally got to be so many that she gave me a SERIOUS discount on my haircuts.

And I can't tell you how many times I've seen some I-Must-Have-This-Or-My-Baby-Will-Be-Uncomfortable-And-Unhappy-And-Hate-Me-For-Life product in a catalog or baby department and called one of my Mommy friends to get the real scoop. "Yes, Sarah, Colt will probably survive without a contraption to warm the wipes you use on his behind."  Word of mouth is very powerful.

Evidently these people agree.

I hesitate to call these people our neighbors, though I guess it's technically true. This house is between our house and the nanny's house -- so Jeff and I each drive by it several times a week, and - usually being on our way to either work or home - neither of us had ever stopped long enough to read the sign. Little did we know what we were missing.

About a month ago, we were headed to eat somewhere and decided to take a few extra minutes and drive by "the sign". We parked in front of this house and I am sorry that this photo does not do it justice. This yard is completely packed with trees and plants and bushes and planters - WAY too many for any reasonable people to have in their yard. I'm all for trees. And I'm all for gardens. This house is ridiculous.

The sign:

And in case you aren't able to read that:

THIS "TREE" WAS PURCHASED FROM AND INSTALLED BY WESTWOOD GARDENS IN THE FALL AT A CO$T OF OVER $100.00! IT WASN'T PLANTED ACCORDING TO THE INSTRUCTION SHEET (THAT THEY GAVE TO CUSTOMERS) THE "TOPSOIL" IT WAS PLANTED IN HAD A STRONG SMELL OF CRUDE OIL & WITHIN A MONTH IT STARTED TO DIE I TRIED TO GET SOMEONE TO COME LOOK AT IT & TELL ME WHAT TO DO. BUT WAS TOLD THAT THERE WAS NO LIVEABILITY GUARANTEE - NOT EVEN FOR A WEEK! COMPARE THIS TO THE TWO WEEPING CHERRY TREES" I GOT FROM LOWE'S (ALONG THE SOUTHERN EDGE OF THE LAWN) FOR $16.00 EACH, WITH A ONE-YEAR LIVEABILITY GUARANTEE!

TREES DON'T LIVE ON REPUTATION ALONE!

Seriously.

I am able to overlook the obvious issues here: all caps, using at least three colors in no deliberate way, and writing a freaking NOVEL when a simple "Westwood Gardens" with a line through it probably would have been just as effective... And are trees "installed"?

Aside from just thinking this was hilarious - which it was - it's also worth mentioning that we sat in front of this poor house for several minutes trying to decide which tree they were complaining about! It was that bad! But if putting up this sign makes these people feel better about their $100 dead tree, and if staging their own private "protest" makes them confident that telling all 12 people who might see that sign on any given day might influence a few of them to boycott Westwood Gardens - more power to 'em. It's a free country.

I blog instead.

ohmygoshmybabyisfivemonthsold! ahh!

Yup. 5 months yesterday. 22 weeks today. When do I get to drop the weeks and just go with months?  "22 weeks" sounds kinda ridiculous. And I'm kinda over the entertainment I get from watching people do the math in their heads when I say his age in weeks. ...So 22 weeks... there's 4 weeks in a month, carry the 2, wait, how old again?... It's kinda like how Americans measure in inches and pounds instead of meters and kilograms like the rest of the world. Why be difficult? He's 5 months. Done.

5 months, beautiful, and brilliant. He's starting to sit up some, but we have to be careful as he'll sit up for about a second and then face-plant into the floor. We've been doing a lot of "practicing" on our bed so he has a soft place to land. And his favorite thing to do BY FAR is to sit - and jump - in the doorway Johnny Jumper. I'm talking HOURS. Jumping. And Jeff and I find ourselves trying to think of ways to grease the spring in the jumper so it doesn't make so much damn noise.  I wish there were a way to capture the jumper in a photo - but you just don't get the full effect.

The 5-month milestone brought the introduction of veggies. And for no particular reason, we decided to start with carrots. Cold, organic, liquified carrots. Yum. And over the course of the last three days we've progressed from my stuffing a spoonful of carrots between his pursed lips and being greeted with a wrinkled nose to his lunging at the spoon - open mouth first. The boy likes to eat. 

And I'm sure you think I'm being dramatic about the smell - which is still going strong, by the way. I googled "my baby stinks" today and I'm beginning to think I'm either the only Mom with this problem or the only one willing to come forward. It's offensive. But we laughed about it this week and agreed that we're glad he's a boy - as opposed to a girl - because somehow it would be really embarrassing for a girl, but it's ok for boys to be stinky.

__________________________________________________________________

Programming note: I've added two new features that I hope will be of use to some of you as I slowly but surely reattain my pre-baby blogging frequency.

1. Email Subscription. You can now enter your email address in the box in the upper left hand corner and receive an email notification when I post a new entry. You aren't subscribing to anything but me - and you'll only get an email when I post something. Within the email is a link to the site so you can get back here without having to remember the address.
2. RSS. I won't even try to explain this one - feel free to Google "RSS" if you really want to know - but it's there if you want to read me via Google Reader or your reader of choice. Just click the little orange icon up there in the corner and it'll set you up.

You can always just keep visiting old school style like I do. I just run through my Favorites every morning - to see who's updated. I'm a little afraid of RSS. Hell - it took me six years to get on the iPod bandwagon and I used disposable cardboard cameras until 3 years ago... And for those of you who haven't updated your bookmarks to the new address - and still go to the old xanga site to get the link back to here - let's get with it. You know who you are.

I am playing hooky today.

And had to look up both the spelling and the actual meaning of the word 'hooky.' Best I can tell, it originates from kids skipping school to go fishing-- something like that.

Anyway, I'm taking a mental health day. No plans. Thought about going to get a massage - but then thought I would be just as rested if I stay at home, find some Jon & Kate reruns on TLC, take six or eight naps, and maybe start my online Christmas shopping. I'm pretty excited about it. And my family will no doubt reap the greater reward - a rested and happy Mama!

There's No Accounting for Smell

Evidently I have bad taste in scent. That's right. One of the great desires of my adult life is for people to walk into my house and say, "mmm, it smells great in here." And it's beginning to look like a pipe dream. Which is especially alarming now that there's an urgent need for some relief from the "baby" smell...

Something like three years ago, I decided on my favorite candle at what was then White Barn Candle Co. - now part of Bath and Body Works. Creamy Caramel. It was the candle of all candles. It literally smelled delicious. Notice how I refer to it in the past tense...

This spring sometime, after we moved into the new house, I decided we needed to make it smell like "home" so I went to the mall to pick up a few of my favorite candles. I walked past the fairly pushy sales people who loiter at the front of those stores - because I knew EXACTLY what I was looking for. Creamy Caramel. Yum. I walk to the back of the store and stand in front of the candle display - looking for the distinct burnt orange slash cinnamony brown color of the Creamy Caramel candles. And I don't see them. Sally Salesgirl sees me looking confused and comes over to save me. She informs me that Creamy Caramel is a "seasonal" candle and won't be available until the fall. Damn. But! She is able to convince me that I will like a "similar" candle called Vanilla Coconut. Surprisingly, I do! I buy several and start thinking that maybe I've found a new favorite.

Fast forward to fall. Not that I don't like the Vanilla Coconut candles - because I do - but candles don't last forever, right? So I venture back into BBW to pick up a year's supply of my favorite "seasonal" candle. And I don't see it! No Creamy Caramel! So I ask someone - only to find out that they've discontinued it! How can that BE?! Bring them back! I promise to single-handedly buy enough of them to make producing them worthwhile!

I calmly make my way over to where I remember picking up the Vanilla Coconut candles six months earlier - thinking that I'll just accept this turn of events and settle in with a new favorite. I glance over the shelf. No Vanilla Coconut. In fact, I don't see anything from that entire LINE of candles. What the? Can it be that I have such bad taste in something that my first AND SECOND choices have been wiped off the map?! So few people bought what I considered The Perfect Scent - that the company decided it wasn't even worth stocking on the shelf. Nice.

Sally Salesgirl came over to suggest I look at some oil-burning contraption that - surprise - costs a fortune. I politely turned her down. And on my way out of the store - empty handed - I decided to take a look at some of the scents that have been deemed worthy. More worthy than my crappy, poor-selling favorites...

In case you can't read that - it says "LEAVES." A candle that smells like "LEAVES" is on the shelf in place of Creamy Caramel. There is no justice in this world.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Seeing as it is Friday and I received a fabulously futile (but fun!) website in my email this morning from a coworker -- I thought I'd provide a throwback to Fun Fridays with this link. Enjoy.

Happy 21!

21 weeks. And less than a week away from officially being a 5 MONTH OLD. Ahh! That sounds so OLD!

It's been a good week. Still sleeping and eating well. And still stinking to high heaven. Colt is now one of three infants at his daycare -- and he's the most senior member of the crew.The other two babies - boys, Ryan and Bishop - are almost 4 months and almost 3 months old. There are two older kids - both around 2 years old - who are making the transition to preschool at the first of the year, so Ms. Barbara will just have the three little dumplins pretty soon. Colt seems to really like Ms. Barbara and we enjoy the benefits of having someone like her so close in the neighborhood.

Ms. Barbara tells me nearly every day what a handful he'll be when he becomes mobile - and I can always hear the voices of Jeff's family warning telling us that if Colt is his Daddy's boy... we'll have our work cut out for us. And I had my first taste of it yesterday. I picked up Colt from daycare and put him in his crib when we got home -- the last few days he's been getting a little cranky right about 5:30 so I thought I'd head it off and let him rest for a minute - maybe take a little nap. I turned on his mobile and turned off the overhead light and went to put some things away in the kitchen. A minute later I thought I heard clicking noises coming from his room, but I could still hear the music from the mobile and I could still hear him cooing to himself. I walked back there to look in on him - and saw this:

Here's a picture from the weekend back in May when we started putting the nursery together -- that's what the mobile used to look like.

I really don't know how he did that. Last week some time, I mentioned to my Mom that he was almost able to reach up and grab the little animals on his mobile -- so she suggested I lower his mattress. I did. Quite a bit. There is no way he reached up and grabbed one of them. The only thing I can think of is that he rolled over to the side of the crib - where the mobile attaches to the crib - and pulled it down from there. Not sure if he was protesting naptime or the mobile itself, but either way - Mission: Accomplished.  

I've had a few comments about the load time for these pages - because of the photos. So here are a few - and you'll have to go hunting in the photo album for more -- they load easier from there.

 

Remember. And say "Thank You" today.

The Soldier

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the soldier,
who salutes the flag,
who serves under the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
who allows the protester to burn the flag.

-- Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

List of things I want to share with you that - alone - do not each warrant their own blog entry, but as a list serve a dual purpose of updating you on the last few weeks as well as satisfying my desire to make a list.

1. I am completely addicted to "17 Kids and Counting". It's a new show on TLC about the Duggar familydown the road in Tontitown, Arkansas. It is a close second to my first love - Jon and Kate Plus 8.
2. ORGANIZE Magazine has closed its doors. This saddens me (and the other 12 people who subscribed to it). It was satisfying my secret compulsion desire to organize other people's kitchens and closets and suppressing my desire to try to do it for a living. 
3. We've had our share of plumbing issues at the house the last month or so. Our water bill doubled from one month to the next and for a short time there was a serious possibility that Rick the Plumber would have to tear apart walls and floors to get to a leak under our house. It seems to be repaired - though the toilet in our bathroom still has issues from time to time.
4. The Ephs have done it again! The Biggest Little Game in America was played yesterday for the 123rd time. Go Ephs!
5. My girlfriends at work bought me Scene It? Seinfeld for my birthday. You have no idea how exciting this is - or how badly I want to get it out and play it (by myself if necessary) for hours and hours and hours. No doubt I will not be well received at Christmas when I suggest it for Family Game Time...

The Honeymoon is Over

We're all friends here, right? I can feel comfortable talking about things like breastmilk and baby poop. I'm not gonna post pictures or anything...

Almost everything I've seen and read about breastfed babies describes what we've been dealing with as "sweet smelling stool". While I think "sweet smelling" is a stretch-- let me tell you that what this kid is puttin' out now that he's eating rice cereal STINKS! And it didn't come on gradually. No. One day - sweet smelling stool. Next day - WOW. Until now we really haven't had a "diaper disposal system" like a Diaper Genie -- but I am seriously considering looking into it. Somehow, our little baby powder scented plastic baggies are just not getting the job done anymore. I was telling my girlfriend Teresa about it - as she has a 13 month old little boy and is one of my sounding boards for all things baby - and she asked what I had given him. When I told her we're still just eating rice cereal - no veggies yet - she smiled knowingly and shook her head. "Oh, it gets worse."

The good news is that the addition of "solid" foods is going really well so far. He's getting a little better every day at manipulating his tongue to get some of the food down his throat. And he LOVES the spoon. Truth be told, I have always looked at those pictures that people take of their babies eating, covered head to toe in green peas or tomato sauce or some equally messy food, and thought, "I cannot believe that people think it's FUNNY to ALLOW their kids to eat that way! It's gross and soooo not cute." I had every intention of feeding Colt very neatly and that his bib would only be necessary if there was some sort of accident. Ha! It took literally one spoonful of rice cereal for me to realize that it takes a split second for him to grab the spoon and wave it wildly above his head while spitting out anything that's in his mouth, raspberry-style, and laugh the whole time. It's not an accident that EVERYONE has pictures of their kid covered head to toe in green peas or tomato sauce...

Big weekend! Almost all season we've been 1 for 3 at our house as far as football. If Arkansas wins on Saturday - it's likely ULM lost and it's not lookin' good for the Cowboys on Sunday. But this weekend, the Hogs pulled it out at Homecoming against Tulsa. Jeff couldn't help himself - trying to teach Colt to say, "the Gus Bus ran outta gas!" - and ULM won, too! We thought we were going for our first 3 for 3 weekend of the season, but the Cowboys lost to the Giants on Sunday night... But Texas lost, too! So we're calling it good.

Also this weekend brought both the end of Daylight Savings Time and the maiden breakfast with the new griddle! DST wasn't too bad - Colt slept in on Sunday and has almost adjusted to the time difference with his sleeping. And Saturday and Sunday mornings I got to cook breakfast on the griddle that Grandma and Grandpa Martin gave "Jeff" for his birthday. It's actually the third griddle we've had since we got married -- we go through griddles like my Dad goes through coffeemakers. This time they decided we needed a stainless steel, commercial-grade model-- I felt a little like we were at the Waffle House!

Colt has found his feet the last few weeks and is absolutely fascinated by them. With the way he's pulling everything into his mouth these days - I'm sure it's only a matter of time for the feet! He continues to have NO volume control with his squealing and laughing - which we love. You can hear him anywhere in the house. And he's somehow figured out how to roll his tongue and make a gargling noise. While squealing and laughing at the top of his lungs. It's great.

So last night Colt busted out his Election Night jammies. (No - I did not buy him jammies specifically to wear on Election Night. He just happens to have red, white and blue jammies. You might see them again next week for Veterans Day.)

  

Regardless of how you voted, it was a historical day. I heard countless journalists say that yesterday and thought it was getting cheesy - until I thought about it from Colt's perspective. He will grow up in a world where there is an African American president in his history book. And considering that segregation was so recently common practice in this country that we are still able to see live interviews on television with people who lived it, I think America should be proud of how far we've come. It's exciting. And it doesn't matter how you voted.

To lighten the mood -- click here to read about Adam Fire Cat, one of Fayetteville's mayoral candidates this year...

Please forgive the lack of pictures today - the poor kid was a little overstimulated by the 600 pictures I took to document Halloween -- so if you need a fix, be sure and browse back through those.

Baby's 1st Commercial Holiday

Happy Halloween! And due to a lack of self-control on the part of Colt's Mama and Grandma -- he had a full week's worth of clothes in which to celebrate...

 

(Tuesday's shirt reads: "I *heart* My Mummy" and Friday's shirt reads: "this is my costume...")

And the official Halloween Costume!

 

Isn't that the cutest Linus you've ever seen?

    

Friday night we went to Nancy's to spend Halloween with her family and a few friends. There were four boys - ages 0,1,2,3, and three girls - ages 3,5,5.  It was a lot of fun - and a lot to see and hear for Colt! We joked that even with the house full of kids, we weren't even HALF of the Duggars!

Colt went Trick-or-Treating with the big kids, but he let them take care of the candy. It was a nice night out, and we had a good time walking around Nancy's neighborhood. Nancy's husband Matt has quite the magic touch with babies and volunteered to hold Colt the whole time while I helped corral our entourage that included a fairy, a ballerina, a tiger, Superman, a High School Musical cheerleader, and Handy Manny. We were quite the crew!

                      

             

We also waited around for the the Great Pumpkin but he didn't show up. Maybe next year.

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin." -- Linus van Pelt