Monday, November 30, 2009

More Teeth!!

Today Declan has been super super cranky and upset. Daniel said that the baby was crying and screaming the entire day unless he was asleep or eating his bottle.

Well, tonight I was feeling in his mouth, and I finally felt a little tiny point on his upper gum! I checked his baby book and he got his bottom teeth starting on August 27. It's been three months since then. I was beginning to think his upper teeth would never come in.

He's been drooling a lot and had a bit of a rash around his mouth, but he's always drooling, and we've been saying for 2 months that "maybe he's teething" every time he's cranky.

I'm just so happy that he finally has his upper two teeth coming in!

Scary and Depressing Story

I just deleted this entire post. It was on something depressing and I felt the need to say something. But having said it once, I no longer felt the need to keep something this depressing on my blog. So...Delete.

Did you have fun shopping?

I did all my shopping online, at Amazon. I love that store. You can find anything there. I decided that I needed a better camera, because I wanted to blow up a picture I had taken to poster size, and at the best resolution from my camera, the store still wouldn't print it. Okay, so time to upgrade my 5 MP camera. Found a nice one on Amazon; it's a 12.1 MP Canon. I was happy with my old Canon, so I just decided I stick with the same brand. Makes it much easier to shop when you eliminate 90% of the field right away. I should have my new camera soon! Of course, it won't help me be able to make a print of my pictures I've already taken, but I guess that just gives me a good excuse to go somewhere and take more pretty pictures.

I got a good deal on a cherry-wood, large picture frame (with the picture) last week on the Swap Shop. I don't care about the picture inside, but the frame is nice, and that's what I bought. Unfortunately, it's going to take longer than I anticipated to get a picture to put inside the frame. Not just waiting for the camera; I have to wait for my next vacation.

Yesterday, we made a foray to Ikea so that I could look at the storage/shelving units there and figure out what I needed to replace the old shelving in my garage. Of course, that's after fixing the front yard, on the priority list. That reminds me, I need to call and find out how much delivered mulch will run.

We played with the little guy near all the big stuffed animals and put each one up to him to see which was his favorite. Turned out to be the big elephant, so we came home with it. It'll sit under the Christmas tree for him. He might manage to roll his way over there this month, but if so, that's okay. Christmas isn't a big deal for him this year.

Friday, November 27, 2009

More Random Baby Pictures

Because I love pictures of my baby. I don't need any other reasons.

Rubber Ducky. He outgrew his baby bathtub in the sink and was getting the kitchen soaked by splashing. so I found this. It smells all plastic-y, and I'm sure it's not good for the environment, but I fell prey to the awesome rubber-ducky cuteness.



Baby Football. Easy way to cart the baby around.



Block Contemplation. He's just starting to grasp the concept that he can knock down the tower of blocks that we build.



Bath Time is Happy Fun Time.



New Pajamas. I finally bought him a new set of matching pajamas.



Baby Toys. Why bother buying a baby presents when he's perfectly content for 30 minutes to chew on his sock and play with a can of evaporated milk?



Da Bears!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Fun With Blocks

Last night, Declan finally got the hang of knocking down the block towers I was building. We'd been playing blocks for several days now, and he'd knock them down, but it was more of an accident. He would reach out for the tower and it would fall.

Last night, he actually swatted at the towers to make them fall. He didn't have emotions about it, like giggling. But he's figuring it out.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Memories of Summer

Well, fall, technically. I don't think I posted these after I got back from my parents' house in Illinois in October. I went out one morning to take some pictures around their house. Wish I could still live around there. *sigh*

Hrm, think I might print one out and frame it to bring to work and have something pretty to look at. Which one would be best?

Morning dew:


Wildflowers:


Country Lane:


Fields in the river bottom:


A splash of red:


Sentinel tree:

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Disaster or Vampires

I admit, I really did want to see New Moon yesterday. I went to the theatre to see the 10:45 showing, and it was sold out. So was the next one. And they were lining people up 1.5 hours before the show started. Uh, no thanks.

I decided to see 2012 instead.

I originally thought it would be the stupidest movie ever. And the plot wasn't any good (although it was better than Day After Tomorrow). But face it, you don't go to those movies for the plot. You go to see things blow up! And hey, how much bigger can it get than the entire planet destroying itself? Plus it was a long movie. Again, it takes a long time to destroy the earth, especially when we're watching John Cusack and a couple of cute kids go through one amazing escape after another.

Was going to work on my jewelry box, but the interfacing I got to line the fabric was sew-on, not iron-on. D'oh. And the fabric glue said not to use in cold, humid weather, and it was very cold and humid last night. So instead I framed up a quick picture for Declan's room, made pumpkin butter, cooked up some bread and played some video games until I couldn't keep my eyes open any long.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Baby's New Bathtub

Declan finally outgrew his infant bathtub that fit in the sink. He loves to splash and by the time he's done, the entire kitchen and myself are soaked. So off I went to Target and found a cute rubber ducky bath. Yeah, it smells like plastic, so I'm sure it's offgassing and full of nasty petrochemicals, but it's a cute yellow duck, damnit!

Anyway, here's my son in all his bathing glory in his new bathtub.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Shuttle Launch Pictures

I got some very nice pictures of the launch of STS 129, Atlantis, on Monday, November 16. Thanks to Carolyn who passed them along to me.

1)


2)


3)

Saturday in the park

Saturday I actually got to meet up with some moms in my meet-up group.  Usually, I'm too busy or can't make the time or something.  I actually got dropped from the other mom's group I was in, but that's okay. They were mostly (all?) stay-at-home moms, and they were always doing things during the week and I couldn' participate.  Because I work, you know.  And a lot of the stuff they did on weekends or evenings was for moms only, and I have no one to take care of Declan.  It's not fair to Daniel to leave the baby with him in the evenings as well as during the day.

So anyway, I was happy to get out to the park and visit.  They seem like very nice ladies, and very mature, in a good way, not in an old way.  So Declan got to look at lots of other kiddos, and he had a great time just sitting and watching and eating his sweet potatoes.  There was another 7-month old, and he was crawling on hands and knees already.  Declan, by contrast, is still at the rolling stage, but he's really good at it.  He will roll and roll across the floor until he hits something, half the time, with his head.  I try to tell him that if he learns to crawl, he won't hit his head nearly as much.  He's sort of getting the idea of a military crawl.

Toward the end of our park trip, I discovered they had baby swings, so I had to put Declan in them.

At first he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. (PS, don't you love those chubby legs? :))


Then after some gentle pushing, he decided it might be fun.



And just for fun, here's a couple of other pictures of him from this week.

Dinnertime.


Getting ready to nap in his swing.


Mom and baby.


He discovered my yoga mat and unrolled it to play in it.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Wordle

Came across a very cool site that takes your blog or any text you put in and makes a cool picture of it.  Here's my first attempt.  Wordle.net


Tuesday, November 10, 2009

My Tuesday To-Do List

Make it through the work day without biting any heads off (yes, I'm tired and grouchy)

Finish up a WAD on the trash area re-do

Do some public announcements for our office

Prepare for and host our guest speaker at our environmental brown bag talk today

Put together a book list for purchasing

Investigate recycling disposable garmets at work

Feed the baby dinner

... hrm, I'm thinking there's nothing else at home tonight that's absolutely critical.

Nothing Much

Been organizing my crafting thoughts.  I printed out pictures of each project I want to do (eventually), and pasted them on a 3x5 index card with a hole punched in the corner.  I wrote any relevant notes about the project on the back of the card, then I'll put them all together on a ring to keep them together.  This way when I need something to do, I can go to my new little index of ideas and start working on a project. 

I still need to get some new velvet for my jewelry box redo, and I have some plates that need a decorative something. 

Last night was tiring.  I seem to be working in cycles now.  Last week I was incredibly productive at home.  I did all kinds of projects, cooked a bunch of food for Declan and us, cleaned the house and got some me time.  Yesterday, though, all I did was feed the baby, play with him for a while, then play my video game after he went to bed.

Speaking of little guys and bed, I think we finally stopped the habit of waking up at 3 or 4 am for a bottle.  Now he's sleeping until 5:30 or 6 and getting his bottle, plus fruit and cereal.

Declan is working on crawling.  I'll put him on the floor and sit behind him and push his knees forward so he crawls, even though he's not the one initiating it. I'm hoping he realizes soon that he's moving forward toward the toys he's interested in.

And today he finally gets his H1N1 shot.  The pedi clinic finally got in some shots for babies under 2, so he's going in this morning. I'm sure he'll be grouchy all day for Daniel, but at least he'll have his shot.  Now if we can just find some for us.  But we do both have our seasonal flu shots, so that's something.

Friday, November 06, 2009

So glad it's Friday

Little guy hasn't been sleeping well and waking up several times during the night. He's not too good at soothing himself back to sleep, or else I'm unable to let him cry very long and let him cry himself to sleep. That just doesn't work very well with me.

Last night we went out to dinner with a friend.  Got home in time to give the little guy his bath and bottle and put him to bed.  I kept him up until about 8 pm or a little later, and he was happily playing away on the floor and with me.  But when it was time to go to sleep, he screamed for 10 minutes while I was holding him until he eventually screamed himself out and fell asleep.  While sniffling.  So sad. 

I wonder if I kept him up too long and he was over tired.  How can you tell if a baby is over tired if he won't give you any signs, like yawns or eye rubs?

While I was rocking him to sleep, I fell asleep too, and jolted awake feeling like I almost dropped him.  So he went in the crib, and I went to bed.  At 9:30.  Yes, 9:30 pm, I was in bed.  I needed it though, because he was awake again at 3:20 am and kept me awake for an hour.  And during the day today, I'm noticing I'm not so quick on the mental uptake.

So I'm glad it's Friday and I can have a chance to nap or maybe sleep a little longer tomorrow morning if I put him back down for a nap after breakfast.

Plus I'm really looking forward to some me time to work on projects and things around the house.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Reconciling the Irreconcilable

We've been having trouble the last few days with the baby waking up in the middle of the night (11 pm, 1 am) and wanting either food or attention. Not sure which.  Last night was particularly bad.  He went to bed at 8:00 pm (part of our strategy for getting him to sleep later in the morning), but woke up at 11 pm.

At first he was just whimpering and crying softly.  Breaks my heart to listen to him cry like that.  All I want to do is go in and pick him up and cuddle him back to sleep.  There's a large segment of the parenting world that advocates doing just that for babies under 1 year old.

Then there's the idea that babies have to learn to soothe themselves back to sleep.  Plus when we go in there, we tend to wake him up and make him cry even harder when we leave, so it seems counter productive to go in and try to soothe him at night.

So how do you reconcile those 2 notions? I don't think you can.

Finally, last night, he started to cry in earnest, and I decided that he needed attention.  He greedily sucked down 4 ounces of formula, so I think he was legitimately hungry.  We're trying to get him to eat more solid foods, and I'm wondering if we're not feeding him enough between the solids and the formula.  He's got a solid belly and thunder thighs, though.  He's definitely not starving.

Monday, November 02, 2009

A better Halloween picture

In that first one, he looked mostly like "why, Mom, why??"

So here's a better one. And he's wearing pants!

Happy Halloween (Part 2)

Did someone cancel trick-or-treating and forget to tell us?  The kids didn't start coming until 7 pm, and even then, we only got about half of what we normally do.  I wanted to answer the door with D in his bumblebee costume, but by 7, the little guy was cranky, so I decided it was time for his bath and bed. 

I was worried the door bell ringing constantly would wake him up, but he slept through it all.  Hurray!

Of course, he's not fond of daylight savings time.  He doesn't understand that mommy wants to sleep until the new 5 am.  He wants his bottle when he always gets it, and if it just happens to be the new 4 am, well, too bad for mommy.  Same thing happened Monday morning.  I hope he gets adjusted to the new time in the next day or two.

We went to the Houston Habitat For Humanity ReStore on Saturday to check out what they had.  I was disappointed.  I was hoping for much better prices on stuff than what they had.  Cabinets that went from $100-420 and weren't even in all that good shape.  No thanks.  I'll keep looking.

Also did some of my own baby food this weekend.  Little D loves my banana oatmeal that I make for him.  Tonight, I'm thinking pumpkin pancakes for mom and dad, and maybe some pumpkin oatmeal for him.