Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Ride

There's some baby product that shows commercials of weird situations that only happen after you're a parent and they refer to parenthood as "the ride". Huggies I think. Anyway, the commercials will show parents doing something ridiculous that you would only do as a parent and would never dream of doing otherwise.

This morning was one of those mornings. I HAD to wash my hair - it was getting skulptable. Which is impressive seeing how it's an inch from touching the seat of my office chair. My little boy was especially needy today and was not content to play on the bed while I showered and dressed. When I came out from the shower, there were real tears in his eyes! Poor little guy! I picked him up and the crying ceased within about 15 seconds. I hold him for a minute or two, just hoping that he just needed to see me to be content playing on the bed - frequently that's enough in the mornings. As long as he can see me walk in and out of the bathroom, he's good. Not today. Incredibly pitiful crying as soon as I laid him back down. I pick him up again and he cuddles in to me, something he only does now when he's really needy. Hmmm.... what to do.

I went and got the harness from downstairs, strapped him to my chest, and then proceeded to comb out and blow dry my hair. Yup! Get a good mental image of that one! He was a little surprised by the blow dryer for about 30 seconds, and then he snuggled onto my chest and started sucking his hand with owlish little eyes. I hope he's not getting sick.

Anyway, you know you're on the ride when you blow dry your hair with a child strapped on your chest.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Cheetos

OK, see, this is why I NEVER should bring the whole bag of cheetos to work with me. I cannot control myself. Yesterday I brought the whole bag in, thinking I'd make out my little portion bags with baggies I had here at the office. Do you really think that happened?! Of course not. So here I am, 4:30 in the afternoon, on TUESDAY, and I've eaten the whole stinkin bag already. Usually, if I'm good, that thing can last me a week. But no. I've got cheese powder...everywhere....

I WILL eat something nutritious for supper....

maybe...

Road Trip

A very brief update on the road trip: It went great!

There were so many things that could have gone wrong, but it all just fell into place. My prayer life, I'm sorry to say, is not what it should be, but I prayed a good bit yesterday. I prayed that if I was supposed to be trying to do this road trip, that things would go smoothly. And if not, please make it super-duper clear, Lord, by putting some obstacle in my path. If I hadn't been able to find my cell phone immediately upon arriving home, if I hadn't figured out that something was poking Quint in his carseat and just to switch carseats, if Quint had needed to eat before I arrived at the visitation, if Quint had not handled a long car ride well, if I had needed to get gas before I arrived at the visitation, if Quint had had some huge diaper mess... if any of these had happened, I could have been delayed by 20 minutes and completely missed the visitation.

A friend of mine from my home town in Texas has recently died of melanoma. My friend was only 53, leaving behind a young widow, and a grown son. The burial, oddly enough, is quite close to me in Kentucky. Visitation before the burial was the one service I could get to, so I took my first road trip with the baby to go last night.

I arrived at 7:35 and the visitation didn't end until 8pm. Quint woke up once I was inside and was mostly friendly and happy despite him being an hour overdue to eat. It was really good to see my friends and I hope it helped them to have a friendly face present, and not just seldom seen relatives. I went back to the house with them where I fed Quint and then he was really happy. I think they were ready for a happy distraction from 4 days of funeral activities. At one point, Quint was playing on the floor and I noticed that 5 people were watching him with a small smile on their face. It was great to catch up with my friend's son, the only kid I ever baby-sat. It was fun to get to know him as an adult.

The drive home was blessedly uneventful, and Quint slept pretty good for the rest of the night, despite having slept for 4 hours in the car.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Saturday night and Monday morning

Saturday night, we had a sitter for 5 hours and we got to have some date activities! My friend watched Quint at her house, so we could hang out at our own house. I was rather upset last week (not sure why) to realize that have never done date-type things. People keep telling us that we need a date now that Quint is 5 months old, but we never have. And we don't like date things. Eating out at a nice restaurant is ok, but one of my husband's personality quirks is that he doesn't speak while at a restaurant. He doesn't want anyone to overhear us, so we sit there in silence. How boring, and how sad. We don't like paying $25 for movie tickets and we hardly ever like the same movies.

There for several days, I went through this whole huge thing of "what do we have in common, do we have anything in common, what does this say about the future of our marriage, why is it that we don't do things together like...ever, oh no, is our marriage headed down the tubes".

Perhaps there was some melodrama involved. Or some winter blues mixed with postpartum something.

But after 2 or 3 long talks, I realized that A) we're both very cheap and can't enjoy something if it costs too much and B) of course we do things together, but they just don't cost money. And C) I don't suddenly need to fit in to everyone else's idea of dating just because they said so. Whoever "they" are.

So, my friend watched Quint at her house so we could do some together things at home. My mom seemed to think this only meant sex, but in reality, there was lots more to it. We went for a really long walk with just the two of us. It's amazing how much more fun the talking was because I wasn't distracted with "is the baby happy/warm". We walked for longer. We got to hold hands instead of both holding the stroller with one hand. We got to clean up at the same time and get ready to go out without pausing in conversation to go tend to the baby.

And then we went out to a brand new pub! For years, this was the big thing we did together - go to the Irish pub downtown. After I started showing, I felt self-conscious about being "that horrible woman who is pregnant in a bar". Despite the fact that I don't drink. It is incredibly smokey, though, and while pregnant, I did worry about smoke inhalation. This new pub has fantastic music, really great food, is no smoking, and is like 7 miles from our house. I got dressed up in my little Dress Stuart kilted skirt (yes it still fits!!), my 3.5 inch heels and off we went! We had a great time on our date.

Our little guy did pretty good with our friend, (who was in heaven!) but he was really glad to see me. He was all cuddly and cute.

Monday morning was incredibly efficient, until the last second. A friend of mine in Texas has recently died of melanoma. While there was no way for me to go to the funeral in Texas, there is a visitation and burial service quite near where I live. I really want to go to that for his wife and son who hopefully will both be at the visitation. This will involve a road trip, however, and we've never done a longish road trip with little Quint. Hubby can't go with me because a standard, yet important, meeting starts at 5pm on Mondays. I hope to pick up Quint this evening, drive for a little over 2 hours, and arrive at the visitation. So this morning I managed to pack into the car....ready?! here we go...

Quint's daycare bag with 4 nipples and 4 bottles.
My breast pump bag to use at work
Quint's standard church baby bag with clothes, diapers, blankets, and the nursing drape.
Rice cereal, bowl and spoon if by some fluke I get to feed him cereal tonight.
A large sack with my lunch things for the week inside,
A bag full of spiral notebooks I was giving to the daycare.
Toys for the drive
My purse.

I manage to get all this done and am only running about 3 minutes late! Wonder of wonders!! I arrive at daycare, and pause to trim all of Quint's nails. He was likely to start scraping himself if they went a day longer. I remembered to tell Priscilla that I've got a road trip tonight, try to feed him after 4:30. After dropping Quint off, I was only running 5 minutes late which, depending on traffic, could be absolutely no big deal. I could still make it to work on time. Woohoo!!

Then I thought about my traveling safely short list. GPS, AAA, gun, phone. S*#! where's my phone! Where IS my phone. I pull over outside of the daycare and go through my coat pockets, the church diaper bag, my purse, and under the seats of my car. Do I really want to take a longish road trip by myself with a baby and no phone....no. So I go back home to look for my phone. I call it about 3 times walking all over the house and past the pile of trash by the curb. Nothing. I remember that I put it on vibrate during the early service at church yesterday. I call it about 3 more times listening extremely closely for a very faint buzzing. Nothing. Tried to call Hubby. Nothing. Finally I have to give up and leave for work - now at least 20 minutes late.

After I got on the highway, I remembered that I took a different purse to the early service at church than to the later service (we played handbells at two services yesterday). So maybe it's in my brown purse.

So as it stands now, if, after I pick up Quint, I can drop by the house and lay my hands on the phone pretty quick, I'll go to the visitation. If it takes me a half hour to find it, and traffic is non-existent, I will arrive about 20 minutes before the visitation ends. If I can find it and leave immediately, but need to stop to nurse the baby on the road, it will cut my visitation short also. If I can find it immediately, and Quint doesn't need to eat before we arrive, I'll get most of an hour to visit! So there are a few things that could still go wrong and prevent me from getting there, but they're not really expecting me. If I have to turn around halfway there and come home, I'll have had a weird night, but not have disappointed anyone but myself.

Wish me luck!

Monday, February 15, 2010

They say it's your birthday!!!

Happy Happy Birthday! Today is, obviously my birthday and I'm celebrating yet another 29th Birthday. My wonderful birthday gift from Mother Nature today was ......a.......SNOW DAY!!!!! Yes, last night it rained a little after midnight, and then promptly dropped from 41 to way below freezing, and then snowed. Now it only snowed like an inch or two, but it's that thin layer of ice under there that's wonderful. Well, as long as you don't have to go anywhere. And thanks to a call to my works' snow delay phone message thingy, I didn't have to. Teehee!

And my precious little boy slept until 8:45!!! Now that was nice. And when I went to fetch him when he cried, he immediately started to grin and give me the full body wiggle hello.

And then he had a nap:


And then we got some shots with me.


My little boy is 5 months old today. I had him weighed Saturday and he was 16 lbs and 14oz with a onesie and a bib on, so maybe he was really, officially 16 lbs and 12 oz. He now eats nearly 2 oz of thick rice cereal, twice a day. Some of his onesies are about to be too small. I can tell because I've felt the need to pull the snap ends up and shake him like a pillowcase in order to get the snaps where they can reach. He gives me the oddest look when I do that... I checked on the next size of clothes in our closet, and I think I'm more than covered. Perhaps I should wash those this week.

That's my big birthday snow day update!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Baby pictures

We all had a really rough night last night. Our little Quint was as hungry as 3 bears last night after having slept through 2 feedings at daycare during the day. He nursed at 5:30, ate 3 tablespoons of rice cereal at 6pm, nursed at 8:30, 9:30, 11:30, 4:30, and 7am. And he would not take a bottle from his daddy! And then he got me dirty, and then threw up. After I finally got him completely cleaned up at 5am, then he was the picture of cuteness and sweetness. You better be, buddy, after all that.

So, since I have nearly nothing positive to say about motherhood this morning, here are some adorable baby pictures from last night around 7:30 - before the main festivities of the night.

Cute little drooly boy!


Posing for the camera.


The new game is "what was that baby thinking?" Channeling Winston Churchill...


Last night I found some lost pictures from November. So here are a few from when Quint was 2 months old and had cradle cap that apparently needed cleaning.

Mom? MOM? What is GOING ON HERE?!


Oh, it can't be that bad.


Is this part of my regular bath regimen?

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Milestones

In my past life (pre-baby) I kept a 10+ year journal. It's a journal designed to have 4 lines of writing for every day of the year for actually 11 years. Four lines is really quite easy to fill and it's not too much to ask from most folks. I, however, have not actually written anything in it since maybe October or November. Usually, this is when I'd use the calendar, receipts, emails, this blog, etc, to catch it up. I also might use the weather.com to add in the significant weather. Like the 2 weeks straight in January when it didn't get above freezing.

What I really need to do is let myself off the hook for catching it up and just start writing in it every day when I can. Basically, I need to lower my standards for what I consider "doing the job well".

Anyway, here are the things that I've been meaning to put in the 10 year journal.
Jan 22nd it snowed
Jan 28th it snowed enough to basically shut down the city for 4 days. FUN!
Jan 29th - dude down the street ferried kids up the hill in the snow for 2 hours so they could zoom down the hill in the street. Very fun to watch from indoors.
Jan 31st we put Quint in his fuzzy snow suit (turning him into an EWOK) and took him out in it.
Feb 1st - amazing cleaning spree and "bonus reward" for such later
Jan 31st - Quint tried green beans for the first time with little success. Green bean mush from Gerber tastes good and really fresh! Go figure.
Jan 23 or 24th - Quint has started eating rice cereal every day and gives me a whole body "gimmie gimmie" wiggle while I'm feeding him. He even brings my hand to his mouth with his hand. He really likes his cereal mashed potato consistency.
Feb 3rd - 2nd try with green beans thickened with rice cereal has great success.
Feb 4th - Quint has a toy bug on his carseat that you can pull and it will zip back up in an amusing fashion. Today, he learned to pull it for himself! First time!
Jan 22nd - I started taking Zoloft for postpartum depression
Feb 1st - I feel really good and not depressed most all the time
Feb 3rd - Hubby decides not to pursue law school or public office (the bigger one) this year. I am relieved on both counts. His running for public office would have meant no income for the few months while he ran. We can't do that right now. Hopefully law school is permanently off the table.
Jan 18th - Quint weighed 15 pounds at his 4 month appointment.
Feb 2nd - the new Corinthian Lodge opened with a very fun first meeting dinner. It's beautiful.
The bridge between my house and Priscilla's is going to be widened soon - it will be a one lane bridge while this happens.
Feb 3rd - Quint spent 10 minutes on his belly without screaming! He was raised up on his elbows with his head at a 90 degree angle. This is a first. Apparently yesterday was a big day!
Jan 24th - I bought baby food for the first time ever - Jackie says I should make my own and keep it simple.
Jan 30th - rearranged the pantry
Jan 21st - Hubby started collecting names on the petition for the smaller public office.
Jan 28th - I actually got to talk to Erin for the first time in maybe years!

OK that's all I can think of for now. But now I've got it down somewhere and can refer back to it if/when I ever update my 10 year journal. I am kinda sad that a lot of Quint's milestones - like consistently sleeping through the night, and starting to want 20 ounces of milk during daycare - didn't get recorded. I keep telling myself that even less of these things will be recorded for our second child.

Like I said, I need to let myself off the hook for some of this stuff. I need to be glad that I've recorded .... anything!

Here's some more, obviously added later:
March 3rd Quint sat up on his own at daycare from a propped position.
March 17th Quint hugged my neck with both arms and kissed (lovingly mouthed) my jaw at the same time.
March 11th Hubby had his lap-band surgery
March 6th, Quint attended his first Tea-Party Republican breakfast
Feb 26-28, Mom and Dad were in town
March 8th Quint started eating peas and likes them better than green beans
Feb 20th, evening at home alone since Quint was born. Ate at new Irish pub and had a nice walk. Leanne kept Quint.
March 7th - Lunch with Leanne's family, supper with political friends
Feb 23rd - lap-band class to learn about his diet
Feb 15th - snow day, cleaning spree after an episode of hoaders
Feb 19th - my birthday lunch which was rescheduled
Feb 12th - very bad birthday supper
Feb 17th - Ash Wednesday service at church
Feb 6th - new catalytic converter for Grand Marquee
March 4th - tune up on my car
March 15th - Quint is 6 months old! Great pictures
March 16th - sent thumb drives on their tour so everyone can get current video of Quint.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Lodge meeting

Last night was the first meeting in my husband's new lodge. Several years ago, they sold their lodge building to a developer for a rather large chunk of money. They've been sharing meeting quarters with another lodge here in town while renovations were completed on their new lodge. The building is really beautiful now and is well built for their purposes. The only drawback is the tiny parking lot. More on that later.

Because it was the very first meeting, and everyone would be there, we took Quint with us. That meant me going to pick him in our suburb and then driving back downtown. I hadn't seen a lot of those people since I was pregnant so they were surprised to see a little boy who can always hold his head up. Our little guy did great with a weird situation! Over the coarse of an hour, I bet 30 different people held him and he only got a little upset twice. Both times, whoever was holding him realized immediately that he needed to see Mama for a minute. One person handed him over, and the other put him on their shoulder where I got really close to his head, petted his head, told him it was alright and he calmed back down. He never did really cry that whole time! He didn't even cry during the prayer over the food. When it was his supper time, there was a tiny little room for us to go to that was comfy and quiet.

Because of the tiny parking lot, three of us ladies got our cars blocked in and couldn't leave until the meeting was over. After filling all the parking spaces, they double parked three more rows of cars in the parking lot. Luckily, I was only blocked by one car and I knew whose it was! I sent word into the meeting and he came out to rescue me. So I got to leave an hour into their lodge meeting. The other ladies had to wait until it was over. But I had diapers and milk so the waiting wasn't so bad. There's a nice rug in the lobby and comfy chairs. I could play on the floor with Quint and keep him happy. They've installed two huge sliding doors - sliding walls really - in the lodge so that the men can start their super duper secret meeting preparations (everybody put on a masonic apron) while non-members are still in the dining room.

Anyway, the three of us had a fun night out last night, and still got to bed at a decent hour!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

snow days

Yesterday morning, my work office didn't open until 11am. The roads were still pretty icy in patches (mostly neighborhoods) and Hubby had trouble getting out of the driveway. Hubby took QUint to daycare by 9am (of course!) so I was AT THE HOUSE BY MYSELF FOR THE FIRST TIME IN QUINT'S LIFE!!!! And you know what I did? I put all 4 TVs on the same station - MY CHANNEL! - which happened to be Clean Sweep. Only my favorite TV show. And it always inspires me to clean.

For 2.5 hours, I cleaned every room of the house and had a perfectly clean house when I left for work! The kitchen table had just two short stacks of papers on it. The kitchen counter was completely cleaned off and wiped off. The dishwasher was running. The dining tale only had my pyrex bowls and Hubby's computer on it - with a clean table cloth! The coffee table near the couch had only coasters, remotes and the clock sitting on it. I even dusted it! The pillows were arranged prettily. All the toys and blankets were picked up and put in their baskets. There was now no junk on the wingback chairs or under the wingback chairs, humidor, or baby swing. The entryway was cleared of 3 rather large boxes which had started to live there. One was trash, the other two were big toy sets that have been given to us. The toy sets are now stored in the loft ON A SHELF waiting for Quint to be the right age. All things waiting on the stairs to go upstairs have now gone upstairs. I put the rest of the Christmas stuff in the attic. I re-arranged some things in the loft to make more floor space. I gathered all the dirty burp rags and blankets. In my office, I picked up everything off the floor, cleaned off the futon so it only had remotes on it, and stacked the big toys (boppy, bouncy seat, and floor gym - yes they can stack!) I filed all the filing. I made a pile of tax stuff. I gathered all the dirty dishes from feeding Quint in that room. I cleaned off and dusted my filing cabinets - this seems miraculous. In Quint's room, I made the bed, neatened the stacks of blankets, and arranged the pillows. In my room, I made the bed, gathered all the shoes into one huge shoe soup pile. Cleaned all the floor space near the edges of the room so I can now baseboard gaze. I even folded a load of baby laundry and put it away. Uncle Vester at daycare said of all this that I was a white whirlwind and he was right! It was sooooo much fun! And so much fun to think about it being that way while I was at work.

I got home and it was beautiful! I told Hubby about the wonderful house cleaning and when he got home, I raced downstairs to see his reaction. He was just as excited as I was. He said it made coming home so much nicer, and he was right.

Maybe it will stay that way for a day or two! I even took pictures that I'll have to post later.