Labor Day

The upcoming three day weekend only reminds me that this little boy will soon be arriving and truth be told, I'm not feeling 100% ready for his arrival :)

Sure, the crib is set up, the newborn clothes are washed and we already have the main things like carseats and diapers, but...
the crib needs a mattress pad and clean sheets on it, the newborn clothes are clean but have been sitting crumpled in a laundry basket in my closet for weeks, the diapers need to be washed and hung to dry (not to mention I need to get some baskets to store them in), we need to buy another base for the infant seat and actually install them so the hospital lets us take him home... I could go on and on. Instead, I'll revel in the fact that I get to meet this little guy in about a month (maybe a little more, maybe a little less) and then we get three months home together as a family.

I am so looking forward to that. PB's mom has been in town and it's been nice to have her helping out. Too bad PB hurt his ankle while sliding into 2nd base at this weeks' softball game and therefore he hasn't gotten to do near as much as he'd have liked. My mom will be coming in soon for about 5 days to help as well and hopefully he can do the things he wanted to do this time around. Mom and I will spend some time making some freezer meals and doing some other chores around the house to make it easier when the little guy gets here.

In the meantime I've been knitting up a storm, making wool longies and shorties - the newborn size it so darn adorable! I've got another set of newborns on the needles right now, and another skein of yarn waiting to be cast on for a pair for poopster so he doesn't feel left out. I'd post pics but I think they are on the home computer...

I'm back...for now...

Things here are going strangely well. The little one is sleeping better and better everyday (though now that I've been open about it I'm sure it will change again). He has 7 teeth (7!) and is walking around like crazy. He loves to dance and it appears that Madonna might be his favorite :)

He's the absolute greatest thing I've ever "done" in my life, and I'm so glad to be his mama. He is in the sweetest, cuddly mood lately and will just wrap his arms tight around my neck and lay his head on my shoulder for a while when I ask him for a hug - I love it. He loves playing catch with daddy and checking out the tomato plants with me everyday after work.

We are slowly preparing for the arrival of his little brother - which we still can't believe could be as soon as 4-5 weeks away. The crib is up and the newborn clothes are clean, but that's about it! I need to pull out the carseat, wash the newborn dipes and generally do all the things that I want to do (you know, the knitting, sewing and making really cool things for him like I did when I was pregnant with Poopy). We toured the hospital this past weekend and are happy to know that we will not be splitting our family up for the first few days of this new little ones life. We can all be together in the hospital until I'm ready to go home which gives me a large amount of relief.

PB is doing well and enjoying being home still. I think we are all looking forward to my maternity leave when the four of us will get three months together - all of us at home. What a gift that many families don't get a chance to have.

Work is still crazy busy but that is life. I've been handed more and more responsibilities and can only hope that means good things for the future. Until the little ones are big enough to get overseas, this job is treating me pretty well and I'm learning a lot on a daily basis.

Life is great

Life

Life has certainly been moving quickly this past year. Poopster turned one last week and I really had to stop and wonder where time went - he is sooooo big. He's taking steps, though crawling is still much faster and therefore his preferred method of travel for now. He is saying mom/mama and dada, dah (for duck and doggy) and is getting bigger and bigger every second. He does not look or act like a "baby" anymore which has been a hard thing to come to terms with. Sometimes late at night (or in the middle of the night) when I'm rocking him to sleep and he cuddles in next to me he seems like my baby again, and I know that the feeling will never entirely go away. Even when his little brother arrives in October.

Didn't you hear? We're having another little one and it's gonna be a boy. PB and I are thrilled of course and poopster loves to give his little brother zerberts through my belly which is the cutest thing in the world. It's amazing how blessed we are as a family and I'm honestly in awe of everything that we have going for us.

We're taking him camping for the first time tomorrow which should be really fun - can't wait to see how he handles it as he adores being outside. I've been very bad about updating the flickr account but hope to do so before the end of the weekend...

Ahh, life

So, it's been a bit crazy these past few weeks. We've got poopster on his new medication and the doc thinks it's working...(we're not 100% convinced yet) and we'll take him back in for another visit in a few weeks. Good news is thta the allergy test came back negative, which means that I got to start adding dairy back into my diet and means we got to give buster some mac&cheese last night - he LOVED it! I'll add some pictures just as soon as I get them uploaded on the computer.

My mom flies in this afternoon and I am really excited for her visit. It's been a while since we've seen her, and poopster has grown so much since December.

Not much else to update on, I'm trying to study as much as I can because my certification exam is in 1 month - eek. I guess it's good I was always better at test taking when I crammed rather than smartly study..

Easter

Happy Easter all! We lounged at home and had a wonderful time. Didn't even color the eggs until this afternoon but I'm so glad we did it. Poopy loved the brightly colored eggs and couldn't really understand why we didn't want him to eat them...

We're on day 4 of his new medicine - not sure if it's working yet or not, doc said to give it minimum two weeks before we'll really know if it's working or not. He seems to be doing well, Friday night he didn't sleep too well but last night was great. He came to bed with us around 6 or so and all three of us slept in until approximately 8. I love those mornings. Poopy cuddles up next to the hubby and seems pretty content to share the bed with mommy and daddy.

Bought a bread maker yesterday and have already made two loaves - the garlic, black pepper bread I made to go with our steaks tonight was fantastic. Can't wait to try out some sweet breads, I'm thinking cinnamon raisin... yum.

Still studying for my certification exam at the end of May. I've got a long way to go to be prepared for the test so here's hoping I start having time at work to read some of the books (still on the first of 5 - eek!)

spring snow

Thursday brought the first real snow storm we've seen this year. I went in to work for about an hour just to grab everything I needed and proceeded to get my butt home! We ended up with 15inches at our house which meant I worked from home Thursday and Friday which was really nice. It was great not having to pump and was just fun overall to be with the hubby and poopster all day - I got to see how they spend their days which was cool.

Saturday and today have been hard - we think the poopy has a soy allergy as well as the milk protein allergy as the last two nights have been no sleep, pained cries, hard stomach and a very unhappy baby who is fighting sleep. So we're pulling back on the soy yogurt and the tofu that he had been getting and we'll see if that works. I just hate to see him in pain :(

Hubby built him a fort today, it's in our living room and poopy loves it! he can crawl around in it and hang out - he just has a ball. I'll get some video of it at some point and hopefully I can figure out how to get the video on the blog...we'll see.

The Poop

We have tons of crazy nicknames for the little one - Poopster, the poop, buster; we joke sometimes that if we are overheard by strangers they are going to think we are crazy... either way, he does look at us when he hears any of the nicknames in addition to his name.

He grins like a maniac when he sees me come home from work. It's the absolute greatest feeling in the entire world. He is showing incredible personality and is soooo alert. So many people have said this to us - how he's more alert and focused than any other baby they have seen. Frankly he's been that way since he was born. He is constantly checking out the world around him.

His sleep is still touch and go - I think he's finally starting to teethe although I've been saying that since 4 months and he doesn't have any teeth yet :). I think the trips and lack of continuity in routine has definitely affected him. Although last night he only woke up at 2am to nurse and then again at 6am. After nursing at 6am I thought he was going to be up for the day (it's pretty standard) so I brought him into our bed thinking I'd get another 15-20 minutes if I was lucky. He slept between us for the next 2 hours! I can't remember the last time hubby and I got to sleep in together. It was great - add to that the fact that poopy was absolutely adorable, snuggling in next to each of us to get comfortable, and I was just in heaven.

When I was feeding him his dinner tonight he started to make a funny face so I make a fish face at him. He laughed so I kept doing it, and he started to make his own fishy face! I called hubby in (he was getting ready to go play poker with the guys) and poopy made the face for him too. Of course as soon as we got the camcorder out he just smiled for the camera, but I was glad that hubs got to see it before he left.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend - we all got to relax and hang out. Played mini-golf with friends yesterday, planted my seeds for the spring/summer garden, and just got to have fun together. The naps I got both yesterday and today also helped - my energy lately is just shot. And now I get to chill, make some cookies while poopy sleeps and wait for hubby to get home.

Cali

At the last minute I was told I needed to make a trip to one of our offices in CA - to do more layoffs. Not fun. Add to that the fact that I've never left poopster overnight (or even with a babysitter) and the tears started flowing (damn hormones!). Thankfully I was alone at my desk when the waterworks started, otherwise it would have been worse. I called the hubby and at his recommendation I started looking for flights for him and we ended up going out early, making a weekend trip out of it and having a ball!

We got to take poopster to the beach...

He ate some sand...

Played in the pool for the first time...

And just generally had a great time. Yet another reason why I love my husband so much - he made something that could have been so horrible for me into a fantastic weekend with the family.

He's crawling all over the place now - has pretty much given up on the scooting as he found that he moves more quickly when he gets up on his knees. When he gets on tile it's even better - he gets in a downward dog pose (hands and feet) and walks/crawls like that. It's hilarious to watch and I think it's because he doesn't like how the tile feels on his knees. Either way he's adorable.

MIA

So, I've been missing in action for the past few months - It's been hectic with the holidays, the babe's sleeping habits (which are finally getting better!), and all the crazy things going on with my job. So, to recap breifly, we moved the poopster to his own room right after Christmas :(. He actually started sleeping much better pretty much right away which means that PB was right when he said we were probably keeping him awake at night. Sleep has been touch and go but for the most part it's significantly better than it was from months 4-6. He's also now napping in his crib thanks solely to my superhero husband and fab stay-at-home-dad. I can't take any credit for that one.

We had visitors and went to Tulsa for a short weekend. It has been fun but honestly I'm looking forward to being just the three of us again for a while.

We switched to cloth diapering at 7 months and haven't looked back - I love it! It is saving us time and money, and poopster hasn't had any issues. While the initial start up was a couple hundred, we won't have to buy any more diapers - ever. These will last him until he potty-learns. So, we'll definitely be saving money in the next few months.

We've had the mildest winter that I've seen in Colorado in a long time, and I must say I'm pretty thankful. I'm not sure I'm digging the snow and cold much anymore especially now that I'm worried about how warm poopster is when we're out and about.

Speaking of poopster - he's getting bigger and cuter every day (if that's even possible). He is a total ham and loves the camera!!