T-minus 1 day

This time tomorrow, I will be driving to work, probably crying my eyes out thinking of B. Good thing is, he'll be with his daddy.

I've been off for three months and it has all been great, but since nearly all of us have to work, I know it's what I've got to do. I'm sure it will get easier, but just thinking about it makes me sad.

So in the meantime, I'm going to truly enjoy the next 24 hours!

Rockin' the ear flaps

Before becoming quite ill Tuesday, I finished knitting a new hat for B. We are, after all, traveling to Minnesota on Friday. He'll definitely keep warm in this, plus it will be harder for him to tug it off once I have the ear flaps fastened underneath his chubby chin.

Here he is before I did all the finishing, yarn ball still attached:


Here he is sporting nothing but his stylish lime green hat (well, a diaper, too, but had you wonderin'!):

And, yes, those eyes still are very blue!

1,000 words

B. with Great Grandma F. My brother and I were saying how special it is to have her hold my child in a room where she held all of her grandchildren and her own children when they were the same size. Wow.

B.'s first whole bottle.

More rolls than a bakery!

Can we get the camera any closer?

Oh, you're in trouble when I go to Grandma's.

Flashing smiles while playing in his gym.

Only I can look this cool covered in olive oil (some silly cradle cap treatment Mom read in a book).

Vaccinations suck

Big B. is lucky his legs are so chunky. The nurse at his 2-month appointment said the vaccinations hurt a lot less for kids with a little meat on their legs.

So now at every upcoming checkup, B. gets the same round of shots. Three shots and an oral medicine, not counting the infant acetaminophen to help him deal with the soreness at the injection site. I got the adult version of one of the same vaccinations about three weeks ago and my arm hurt for a good five days.

Sorry, little dude. We've got to go through the same routine at 4, 6, 12 and 18 months. But with as great a job as you did yesterday, methinks you'll be an even bigger rock star next time.


Here's B. just before his shots. He put his head right on Daddy's chest, calmly listening to his heartbeat. He just didn't know what was in store next.

Just below are the big guy's battle wounds. He has another bandage on his left thigh. Besides being a little cranky afterward, he really handled the needles like a champ.

Back in the saddle

C. and I are getting ready to go donate blood to Bonfils.

We were regular donors before I started having miscarriages and before we were deferred for a year because of one scuba diving trip far out in the bay off Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We were a malaria risk, they said.

So now that I'm completely healthy and we're both feeling well, we're definitely down to shuck some blood!

(We also get free long-sleeve T-shirts, too!)

United Way spoof

As promised, here's my favorite skit from Petyon Manning's appearance last spring on Saturday Night Live. Genius.

D'oh!

It finally happened. Up until now, B. had been going, at most, six hours between feeds. We tried to time those at night, of course, but they've been few and far between.

Well, last night he went a whopping eight hours between feeds (sleeping for seven of them)! And what was I doing?

I was wide awake, waiting it out. I fed him at 8 o'clock, he got sleepy around 9, so we decided to forgo his bath until he ate around 10 or 10:30 (that has been the trend, or so I thought). After he went to sleep, C. and I finished watching the rest of the Steelers-Jaguars game (sorry to all my peeps in PA!), ate hot dogs for a late-late dinner, and watched a Saturday Night Live rerun that had one of our favorite skits (promise to post that later).

When 11 o'clock rolled around, I started to get antsy. Should we B. to feed, burp and bathe him? Should we let him sleep? Only one problem with the latter: I was still awake. I would be missing out on valuable ZZZZs if this was his long sleep of the night.

We just said, "Screw it! Let him sleep!" and C. and I started playing Tiger Woods '05 on XBox. We played 18 holes at St. Andrews and I scored a 63 (woot!), all the while hearing little peeps out of B. on the baby monitor. He never full-on woke up, and I even joked to C. this is going to be the night he's going to sleep for eight hours.

At 1:30 a.m., when I needed toothpicks to keep my eyes open, I tiptoed into bed, trying not to make a sound. B. didn't rouse until 3:50 to feed, then again at 8:20 a.m.

I've had six hours of sleep, which is usually great in my book, but I'm lamenting the precious seven-hour stretch of uninterrupted sleep I missed out on. Hopefully this wasn't a freak occurrence and he'll do it again this week, then more and more until it's a nightly ritual.

No respect

I just found out recently that C. was a victim of theft. And this personal attack seems worse to me than anything just anonymous.

A few months ago, he was working a valet parking event for his former employer. It was cold and one of the valets did not have a heavy coat, so C. produced his trusty blue Obermeyer jacket. "Wear this."

Well, he still is. After using the ski coat that evening, the guy left with it, quit his job the next day (more like "no call-no show") and has not been heard from ever since. C. tried calling the guy's cell phone, even had a coworker call his parents, and they had no idea of his whereabouts.

It's this sort of thing that just makes me so very angry. When did people stop caring about each other? Just when I see a flash of kindness in others, here comes someone to mess it all up. I know heaps of kindness still exist somewhere out there; I just hope I can experience more genuinely good souls than the dark kind that too often stand right next to us.

Missy mouser

After watching my own cat play with her toy mouse -- and that's another story entirely -- I remembered something that happened on Christmas Day at my grandma's house in New Mexico.

Grandma's cat Missy had been staying at a relative's house while the rest of us celebrated Christmas Eve. When she was brought back home the next day, she was settling into her familiar digs, but something was amiss.

A cousin had heard rattling in the corner where Grandma's recliner is. She didn't say anything; don't want to scare Grandma. As a good number of us gathered in the kitchen to watch Grandma cook, which truly is a sight to behold, we heard a shriek: "Omigod, omigod!"

Then coming toward us is Missy the cat, proudly displaying her fresh catch, which still was wriggling to get free from her grip. The mouse wasn't very big, but it was big enough to give some of us a fright.

My hubby grabbed the cat, another cousin snatched a plastic bag to transport the mouse outside. I'm still not sure if our grandma found out what the hubbub was about.

Not until later after the commotion dissipated did we realize where Missy was taking her kill -- straight to her beloved owner.

And here's Missy the mouser (who resembles my big girl cat Booty).

MSP, here we come

We've booked the first airplane trip for our family, so B. will get his first taste of airline travel when we head to the Twin Cities in three weeks!

Only one question remains: Will he like the Minnesota winter?

In other news, I have a date for my return to work. It's Jan. 30. Ho hum.

Happy 2008

How did you ring in the new year? I guarantee you it wasn't as "wild" as mine.

After making plans of watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve and sipping champagne while the ball dropped, I wound up sleeping next to B.'s Pack 'n' Play by 11:15 p.m., snoring loud enough that C. could hear me downstairs on the baby monitor. I woke up an hour later, frantic that I had missed the ball, the toast and the kiss.

I sipped a little wine anyway, had the kiss and fell asleep again, rousing about 3 a.m. when B. was ready to eat again.

So there you have it. The New Years Eve of a new parent.

A new set

Some more recent photos of Big B. are on my Snapfish album page, so if you require the link, just comment here or e-mail me.

Ah, Pueblo

Check out the ornate design adjacent to I-25 in Pueblo. We're just now passing through; be home in a couple hours!

Ho ho ho

Merry Christmas from Taos, N.M.! :)

State line

When we cross the Colorado-New Mexico state line this afternoon, I don't think we'll be snapping B.'s photo in front of the sign. If you remember, I talked in this space about how I planned to get photos of us at state-line signs as a new tradition, but since B. is so small and we'd have to wake him to get him out of the car seat (and there's the possibility of it snowing or being rather cold today), we'll wait until his next trip to Grandma's!

Meantime, I'm back to hit the hay for a couple more hours before packing up a suitcase for B. and me, plus all the gear that goes with a 6-week-old. Wish me luck!

MOY, I am not

Well, I won't be getting the Mother of the Year award.

Yesterday while taking B. off the scale for his naked weigh-in at our lactation class, I scooped him up and banged his head on a row of cabinets above the counter. I looked at the nurse, she looked at me with weepy eyes, and for a split second, I didn't think it was bad.

Then I looked at B., he took in a deep breath and I hugged him close to me, bouncing and "ssshh-ing" him. That's when he started to cry. He was so startled by the jolt, he peed all over me, and wouldn't you know I didn't bring a clean shirt for myself. (Payback, perhaps? He said, "I'll show you, Mom!") I peeked at his noggin, and he had a tiny red welt with a little bit of scraped skin. No blood. Just a lot of heartbreak on my part as heavy tears welled up in my eyes.

I know he's going to get banged and bruised as he grows up, but his first little scratch was not fun -- and especially not fun since it was my fault. So every time I look at his tiny head, I keep replaying the event in my mind, wishing I would have taken more care in lifting him off the scale.

Luckily, he's a tough cookie and hasn't seemed to let the bump bother him. He even gave me and C. a marathon smile session last night.

Oh, and as far as his weight, he's 12 pounds even! Packing on the pounds like a champ!

Grab some popcorn

Here's a tiny snippet of B. It's not super exciting unless you're me, so dim the lights and watch one of his first movies (and don't mind the clicking from my camera; still don't know why it does that).

Bah humbug

Me with a cold sore and mastitis; B. with a little rash on his face. :(

I'm too sexy

Need I say more?

Trying

I'm trying my hardest not to make this into a baby blog, but since this space is all about me and my life, frankly that is all that is going on with me right now. It's all baby, all the time.

Rest assured I'm doing fine and getting as much rest as I can (though not as much as I'd like), shockingly I've almost lost all my baby weight (though there's another 10 pounds I'd like to lose) and I feel like I'm getting the hang of this mommy thing. It's quite fun! B.'s really adorable, which makes it easier, even when he's screaming his head off. Knocking on wood, he's really a good baby.

So since we're talking baby, I'll update his latest weight: 10 pounds, 9.5 ounces. At yesterday's weigh-in at our lactation support class, the nurses weighed B. before and after a feeding. He gained 2 ounces in one sitting. The nurses were so supportive and excited that he is putting on weight so well, and despite my struggles with nursing, it's good to know I'm doing something right. It's also nice to meet other moms and know that we're all there to support each other. Yesterday, there were 11 babies in class and next week probably will be just as busy.

And now, it's off to JC Penney for B.'s first photo shoot. I hope he stays awake for this!