Wordless Wednesday

No Mama, I am not too big for my vibrating infant seat.



See? It's really quite relaxing:

Oh yeah, I needed that!:

Aqua Tots Class!

Ages 6 months to 3 years. Getting kids familiar with water. One happy Goose.

He reached for me!

Goose reached for me this weekend! Amazing. He was playing with his toys and suddenly he just turned towards me and put out his arms. I thought he was just being silly, so I picked him up and put him back down again to test what I thought had just happened. He did it again! Oh God I love that baby!

There's a Goose in my bed!

Perhaps the secret to a baby sleeping through the night is a larger sized bed. Maybe a crib-size is just not large enough for our royal Goose! Here he is, just waking up from a nice snooze in mom's queen size (don't worry he's fixed where he can't roll out!):

After 3 months of sleeping through the night with a few nights of exception here and there, Goose began waking up 1 to 4 times each night with no rhyme or reason. It might be 9pm one night, or 10pm, 12am, 3am, 4.15am the next night. I have been racking my brains for 3 weeks trying to find the problem.

The only correlation I could find was that we began solid foods right around that time. Goose has always been a HUGE spitter. In fact, when the hospital released us after his birth, we were informed that he was "a spitter" by the discharge nurse.

So with the thought that maybe the solid foods were hurting his throat as they came back up, or were causing his tummy to hurt more in his sleep, I decided to count his spit-ups. When we hit 15 before 10 am, I called the doc. By the time we got to the doctors, we were up to 20.

The doctor seemed pretty impressed with the spit-up tally and put Goose on Zantac right away. The first night he slept through the night again!! The second night he woke up 4 times. I was very upset by this since I thought we had finally gotten to the bottom of his night-waking. But then the third night he slept through with the exception of needing a pacifier around 11.30 and then the last two nights - complete sleeping through the night!! I am amazed and I think I LOVE Zantac!

Zantac was a good friend of mine throughout my pregnancy, so I know it works well. I can only imagine how much better Goose feels not having his tummy hurting all day long!

Being in a new place...

...is hard. Recently Goose has realized that he can protest just about anything he doesn't like - especially the car seat. This has made my already less-mobile life into a just about completely homebound existance. Which I find incredibly hard. During the first few months after Goose was born I made monthly trips to visit my friends and he would just sleep the whole way. Now he starts to scream on the way to CVS, so I can't imagine what he'd be like for two hours on an open highway with nothing to look at.

Before we moved I had a great job, worked with amazing women, and lived near to my closest friends. We also had been going to a great church that was changing the way we thought about God and life in general in such a positive way.

Now I spend most of my time at home with my gorgeous baby - which is FUN - don't get me wrong. But I miss my social network and all the things I had come to love about my old town. So recently I have begun trying to connect with my new town. Which is tough. It is SO different from where we just came from. Our old town was on the coast of North Carolina. It was up and coming, a resort destination, a palm trees everywhere kind of place. Our new town has a Walmart...The downer and the reasons for our move, were a housing market that outpaced our income and a job situation that left Hubster wishing for something drastically different. He found his perfect job in a town two hours away, which just so happened to have more than-affordable housing.

So here we are. To try and connect I've joined a local Moms Club, but most of the outings are geared towards parents of older kids, so there is not all that much I can join in on. Plus, we have not come even CLOSE to finding a church that is even remotely inspiring. Nothing like our old church. But I'm still optimistic that we will find something. I think once we do, I will start volunteering and hopefully that will add some zest to things! And hopefully soon Goose will allow me the little road trips that help me stay connected to the friends I love. :)

Goose meets Uncle D!

Having met my husband in Boston, it's only natural that many of our relatives live up North. Yesterday an unexpected opportunity to see my brother-in-law came about. He was traveling through our state on business and just happened to be within 20 minutes of our home! So I spent the day getting the house ready and food shopping. He could only stay a little over an hour as he was traveling with a huge truck full of sound equipment and he and his boss needed to get back on the road and find a hotel for the night.

It was a fun visit! I was so proud to show off our new house and, of course, our new baby Goose! He will be on the road all day today getting back to his family wayyyyy up North, but I'm so glad we were able to see him.

Uncle D 'n' Me

Hair Phenomenon Part II

Yesterday I posted about Goose's spikey hair and how it looks just like his Uncle Tator's hair. (Click for Part I) My dear mama, Debbie J., has sent me some additional evidence:

Uncle Tator: Approximate Age: 6 months

Hair Phenomenon

When my brother was little, his hair would stand straight up. I'm not exaggerating the straight up part. All over his head until his hair was probably 2 inches long it stuck straight out on all sides. I still remember being in Wal-Mart one Sunday with him and my mom (and I think my grandma too) and someone said to their friend that he looked like we had stuck him in a microwave!! They said this where we could hear it too! Shame... Anyway, I think that Goose has inherited his Uncle Tater's hair!!!!!!!

Here's the preliminary evidence:

The Cute Factor

Babies have cute factors. Let me tell you, my baby's cute factor is off the charts! (As I'm sure all mothers say of their children!) Goose has really turned up the charms the last few days. He has started taking things in with a look of quiet ingenuity in his eyes. And I think this is adorable!

Yesterday I got an oil change at BJ's and it took over an hour. So I strapped Goose into his "portable womb" AKA the Snuggli Baby Carrier and we walked around the store for the whole time. He opened his eyes so big and just GAZED at all the merchandise (sign of Christmases to come??) He was so enthralled that he would forget to suck his pacifier and I had to hold it in his mouth. The look of wonder on his face was amazing.

He has also started "talking" to his toys. He coos at them for about ten minutes and then starts to get mad when they don't talk back. Its very funny!

Karma, or, Our First Glimpse Into Goose's Personality

My karmic retribution has arrived in the form of a tiny, adorable, helpless creature. My child is me...Stubborn and determined to do what he is not yet able! Irritated by his inabilities. Curious beyond all curiousness!!

Yesterday my child cried all day. This is not an exaggeration. He had small breaks in between the crying, but really he just cried all day. All day I tried to figure out what he wanted. Two days ago I could have just offered him milk and he would have been sublimely happy - but not yesterday. The "feed me" signals were going haywire and when I tried to feed him he would scream. This went on into the night when we finally figured out he wanted to be up and about LOOKING. He wanted to be held in a facing forward position and he wanted to be carted around the house for the rest of eternity.

Around 10.30pm he got drowsy and we put him in his crib and turned on his mobile. This got him so excited that he was up for another 2 hours! I thought mobiles were supposed to help babies sleep, not get them all riled up!

He would stare up that mobile and smile and then suddenly start kicking and swinging his arms as fast as he could and then he we would stop and cry. This scene just kept getting repeated and getting repeated. He was trying to get up there to play with his mobile! Poor thing! He just kept moving and moving and then not getting anywhere. He was very frustrated. So I picked him up and brought him level with the thing and then he cried even more! This is just like me - to be frustrated with my inability to do something BY MYSELF. Oh boy. Karma.

He is just like me I know it. He is going to want to do everything for himself and then get frustrated when he can't. He is going to fight with his stubborn nature until 20 years from now when he learns how to graciously accept help. As we southerners say - "Bless his little heart!"

Frugal and the "Re"-Gift

Has anyone ever "re-gifted" an item? You know, you receive something for a gift you either don't like or already have and so you RE-gift it to someone else? I have never actually done this, but have often thought it made a lot of frugal sense. I mean, no one would ever know you had not actually purchased the gift yourself, and then you save the money you would have spent on a brand new gift and everyone wins...right? Well...

Back in April these friends of ours brought a sweet baby boy into the world. They had not been given a baby shower that I knew of, so I went out immediately to do some shopping! I looked around the children's clothing department to pick an outfit that would be the cutest, most adorable outfit in the store, and when I found that PERFECT outfit, I bought TWO! Yes, one for my baby boy (still in the oven at that point) and one for our friend's baby boy. When I got home later that evening, I tenderly packed one of the outfits away for our baby, and wrapped up the other one for their baby. I then mailed it and haven't thought of it since - until last Wednesday.

That was the day we got a package in the mail from these same friends. When I saw the package, ever-so-sweetly addressed to our new son, I ripped open the wrapping to see what cute new outfits or baby gadgets it might contain. Well, what was in there was cute all right! It was the exact outfit I had sent to them 6 months ago in April!!!!

Now, I will admit this hurt my feelings slightly. My optimistic side said maybe they had recieved two and sent me the spare. My pessimistic side said maybe I have poor taste and they just plain didn't like it. Either way, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had recieved a RE-gift. After the initial shock wore off, I found the obvious humor in the situation. I mean, it really is funny! And, luckily I have a cousin whom is also preggers with a little boy, so I figure I'll give it to her and it won't be wasted. The question is this: Is it a re-gift if you re-gift an item that was re-gifted to you if you were the one who bought it in the first place?

The moral of the story? YES, Re-gifting is a very frugal way to give presents. But just make sure you don't re-gift it to its OWN giver! That's all I'm saying! :)

I've Been ReGifted My Own Gift!!

My Kid 1.0 Automatically Upgraded!

Has someone replaced my child with a bigger, more interactive version?? The Kid 1.0 version was so cute and cuddly, but this new Kid 2.0 is incredible!! The 1.0 version mostly cried, pooped and took intermitten naps, but the 2.0 does all that and more! PLUS: Kid 2.0 is almost twice as pudgy, making cuddle time even more snuggly!


Yes thats right everyone, my child has reached a milestone. Almost overnight, he has become a roly-poly smile machine!! Its awesome! I don't know when it happened, but yesterday I just realized that "Goose" (his other nickname!) has become substantially larger. He was nearly 7 lbs at birth, but on his gangly 22 inch frame, it made for one skinny baby. Well, our two month checkup isn't until next week, but I just know this kid has nearly doubled his weight. And he's stronger too. When I put him on my shoulder, he holds himself there and snuggles himself to sleep. What a wonderful feeling.

And then the best Kid 2.0 update - the SMILES! Goose has been smiling for a while, but never for a discernable reason (other than the usual prelude to a poop). Well, last night hubby and I were giving Goose his nightly bath when suddenly he shot pee straight up into the air! I screamed and tried to cover him up but it made both hubby and myself squeal with laughter. Then the most amazing thing happened - Goose looked up at us and smiled too!! It was his first interactive, social smile and it was beautiful - pee and all...!

Kid 1.0

Kid 2.0

Thanks to everyone who commented on my first post yesterday! I have really been enjoying reading my mama's blog and I guess I just finally caught the blogging bug! :)

Evenings with New Baby, by: New Mom

My beautiful son is 7 weeks old. He has changed my life, definitely for the better, but I just never knew how hard it really is to be a parent. The most difficult thing, and most people have agreed with me on this, is the lack of sleep. I just never knew! You really just never know until you have a kid!

My evenings 2 months ago consisted of the following:

2 hours of tv, 1 hour hot bath, 30 minutes reading in bed, 8-10 hours of blessed sleep. I look at this list now and realize what a luxurious life I once had!

Now my evenings go like this:

Feed baby, bathe baby, feed baby, rock baby, feed baby, put baby down, lie down in bed, worry that baby isn't breathing, check breathing, lie back down, say prayer that baby won't stop breathing, sleep for 4-5 hours, wake up and praise God that baby is still breathing, change baby, feed baby, put baby back down, say another prayer that baby won't stop breathing, sleep for 2-3 more hours and then start day...WHEWWW!

And just when you think they have their schedule down - they change it! Night before last, my son, who usually falls asleep between 10 and 10.30 for the night, did not fall asleep until midnight. I was so tired with just this two hour change. And of course he wasn't happy about either! He cried the whole extra two hours he was awake. Yikes. (Does anyone out there have any tips on soothing baby in situations like that? Is that what is known as colic?)

All-in-all though, I think little "d" is doing pretty well in terms of night sleeping. I've heard so many horror stories from other super moms whose little darlings only slept for 2 hour increments at a time for months! My little guy usually goes at least 4.

And I really do miss my evenings of luxury, but now "d" is starting to smile up at me when he sees me hovering over him, and that small ounce of recognition is full of enough love to get me through. (That, and my husband draws a hot bath for me when I look a little too stressed!!) hehe. ;)