Stuff you weren't wondering about but I'm telling you anyway

Posted by Colleen     February 15, 2010

What’s New Monday

It’s been awhile since I just updated everyone about what’s going on around here.

Let’s see…

Wade is nine months old now. He’s growing, and doing new things everyday. But he’s not the early bloomer that David was. He isn’t crawling or talking yet. He isn’t even sleeping through the night. I keep reminding myself that he doesn’t need to keep up with David. He’ll do everything in his own time. But sometimes I think, “Why isn’t he doing this or that yet? Is there something wrong?” I know there isn’t. I’m just impatient.

I do wish Wade would sleep through the night. I’ve had enough of his 2 a.m. wake up calls. He isn’t hungry. He doesn’t need a diaper change. He just wants to hang out. Sometimes he’ll be awake for an hour or two. I think some of it is because of teething. For a few nights he was waking up every one to two hours. That I’m pretty sure was his teeth. And I wonder if he naps too much during the day. I’ve been trying to get him to do less of that.

So I’m tired, and coffee is my best friend lately.

I LOVE coffee.

Have I ever mentioned how much I really, really love coffee?

David is his usual smart, funny and stubborn self. Last week you may have read my plea for help with getting him to clean his room. Thank you to all who offered suggestions. I will be trying them out.

Dave is enjoying college. He’s been back in school for a little over a month now. I think he’s decided to major in International Business. He’s doing really well. I guess I’m not as distracting to him now as I was 14 years ago.

We had a nice Valentine’s weekend. Dave’s quartet sang at a Valentine’s dinner Friday night. My mom and dad came up to watch the boys, and I went with him. It was nice to have a few hours away. Then David went home with my parents for a few days, and it was just the three of us on Saturday.

We spent Saturday catching up on everything on our DVR. You know you’re an old married couple when that’s your idea of fun.

I also spent Saturday laying on a heating pad on the couch. Somehow I hurt my back. I have no idea how, but I woke up Friday, and could barely walk or bend over. Picking up Wade wasn’t easy either. I’m all better now thank goodness.

Sunday Dave had another concert so it was just Wade and I on Valentine’s Day. It was nice to have him all to myself for a little while. I called him My Funny Little Valentine all day. Since he’s only nine months old I can still get away with stuff like that.

And then there were two. Again. When David came back today.

Wade and David were both so happy to see each other. David keeps hugging Wade. Wade keeps looking at David and smiling and squealing with delight. They’re already two peas in a pod. Can you imagine the mischief they will get into together in a few years? David is so much older. I can just see him putting Wade up to stuff.

There you go. Are you bored yet? I know. My life is so exciting.

So, what’s new with you?

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Posted by Colleen     February 3, 2010

Girl Trouble

David: What’s a girlfriend? A girl that’s your friend, right?

Dad: Well, yes, but she’s a really special friend.

David: Was Mommie your girlfriend?

Dad: Before we got married.

David: I want a girlfriend.

Mommie: When you’re older I’m sure you will have a girlfriend David.

David: Yeah, you know, I try to make friends with girls. But they won’t talk to me. I try to play with them at church, and they just tell me to leave them alone.

Dad: Live and learn, David. Live and learn.

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Posted by Colleen     January 7, 2010

Live Blogging the BCS Championship, Sorta

I had a fantastic idea for a post while I was eating lunch today.

It was funny. It was clever.

It would have Rocked. Your. World.

But…

I can’t remember for the life of me what it was.

I need to start carrying a notebook around with me to write that stuff down in I guess.

Right now I’m watching the Big Game with Dave. I’m not a Texas fan or a ‘Bama fan. But I like sayin’, “ROOOOOOL TIDE!”

It’s fun.

More fun than sayin’ “Go Irish.” Go. Go try and actually win a game.

Maybe I’ll switch loyalties.

I do like the color red.

Am I the only woman who’s ever rooted for a team based on the color coordination of their uniforms?

Ooh, I can’t stand those ugly brown and orange uniforms the Cleveland Browns wear.

I mean, I get it. The Browns must have brown on their uniforms, but there are other colors that compliment brown that are so much nicer.

How about a lovely Tiffany blue with the brown. Very mod.

What? Not manly enough?

And looking like a giant Tootsie Roll is?

Uh-oh.

Dave’s yelling out football terms I don’t understand at the TV. Things must not be going well.

He’s cheering for ‘Bama.

He lived in Alabama for six months when he was a kid.

Not that you care. Just thought I’d throw that in there.

Oh, and I’m against the BCS ranking system by the way. I don’t know why. I just like to be contrary.

Are these one and two sentence paragraphs getting on your nerves yet?

I’m running out of stupid things to say, and I still can’t remember my award winning post idea. So I guess I’ll go.

‘Bama is ahead now, and Dave’s getting bored. He switched the channel to FOX News. He’s yelling out things at politicians instead.

Oh, before I go…

I’m posting my first Vlog here on MommieDaze tomorrow.

All the cool kids are doing it.

So if you ever wondered what I really look like or sound like (You probably haven’t), stay tuned.

Just remember the camera adds 10

or 20

or 30

pounds.

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Posted by Colleen     December 22, 2009

Family Photos

We went out this morning to have some family pictures taken.

I know it’s too late for the Christmas cards.

Ha! Like I got around to sending out Christmas cards this year. I haven’t sent out Christmas cards since 2004.

Why?

Mostly because I’m lazy.

And because 2004 was the last Christmas I was without children.

Anyway, I decided it was time we had an official family photo with Wade in it, so that when he’s sixteen he doesn’t accuse us of leavening him out. Who knows all the emotional problems, teenage angst and jail time that could lead to, right?

Three days before Christmas we packed in the car and headed to Target for our appointment at their portrait studio. I was worried about how crowded the store would be. The parking lot was full, but I don’t know where all those people were. It really didn’t seem busy at all.

This was our first time going to the portrait studio at Target. It turned out to be a very pleasant experience. They were on time, friendly and I think the pictures turned out nice. (This is not a sponsored post by the way.) We’ve had some bad experiences at a few other in-store portrait studios.

And the price was right since I had a coupon.

They emailed digital proofs to us after our session.

David was a rock star, co-operating and doing everything the photographer told him. Truthfully, I think he liked all the attention.

We couldn’t really get Wade to smile. I think he was a little stunned. Most of the time he had kind of a pained expression on his face.

But the photographer got a few good shots of him.

The group photo turned out nice.

Please ignore the big black streak through the top of my hair. I forgot until an hour before we were supposed to leave that I needed to color my hair. I had the hair color. I thought about doing it all week. Except for last night.

Oh, well. Let’s just pretend that’s a weird shadow.

On the upside, I’m starting to get white hair, so the roots aren’t as dark as they could be.

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Posted by Colleen     November 9, 2009

Happy Days are Here Again

Alright, I said I wasn’t going to post about being sick anymore, but I thought I should let you know we are alive, well and pretty much recovered from our afflictions.

The general consensus is that we all were stricken with Swine Flu. The doctor Dave saw last week told him Swine was the only kind of flu going around where we live, and our symptoms matched the diagnosis.

Wade was the last to go down, but his case was the mildest. He’s already feeling better. My theory is that he got well faster because he sleeps so much. I’m sure Dave and I would have felt better more quickly if we took three naps a day. Besides the lack of time available for sleeping during the daytime, we were up all hours of the night with two sick kids.

I learned yesterday a six month old baby from our area passed away last week after getting Swine Flu. I’m glad I didn’t read about that until Wade, who will be six months old tomorrow, was better, or I’m sure I would have completely freaked out.

Even with rest this stuff just hangs on for a long time. It left us feeling exhausted long after the fevers, sore throats and sniffles were gone.

I’m pretty sure it left a couple extra pounds around my middle too. All that laying around, and when I get sick I get hungry. Other people are always telling me, “Yeah, I was so sick, but at least I lost five pounds.” Not me. I guess I’m of the Feed a Cold school. But then I feed so fever too, so whatever. It didn’t help that there was Hall-o-ween candy hanging around.

I was supposed to go to my mommy’s group this morning, but still didn’t quite feel up to it. Some of that was the flu, and some of that was Wade waking up at 5 a.m thanks to the glorious effects of Falling Back for Daylight Savings Time last week.

Who’s time is that saving exactly?

Not mine when I go through weeks after bleary-eyed with something akin to jet lag.

I felt better later in the morning after a good strong cup of coffee and a shower, so we all ventured out of the house together for the first time in about two weeks.

We really needed to go out.

Cabin fever was about to eat us alive.

I think the flu may have fried my brain though.

I went into The Children’s Place to buy some new jeans for David. Their 2 pairs for $28 is a good deal, and I had a coupon for 20 percent off. I was congratulating myself on how thrifty I was to be getting those jeans for less than $12 each when the confused clerk interrupted my self-admiration to inform me that the coupon was no good.

Because it was for Gymboree.

Whoops.

I got the jeans anyway, and the clerk has a good story to tell everyone about the ditsy mom who can’t read.

My bruised ego was soothed by a delicious Pumpkin Spice Chiller. I usually have the Pumpkin Spice Latte, but today something cold and creamy was very appealing. And indeed it was delicious. I’m not sure you could really ever go wrong with pumpkin spice anything to be honest.

Maybe I wanted something cold because the weather was just lovely. Today and over the weekend we managed to hit 70 degrees. That’s unheard of this time of year in West Michigan. I know I’ve driven through more than one snow storm on Nov. 9th.

Speaking of driving, I hate doing it at night in the fall. Deer are on the move, and I am so worried I’ll hit one. I’ve seen several along our road. I try to stay alert, constantly scanning the woods on either side me looking for venison as I go down the road. But it’s almost impossible to see them until they’re leaping through your windshield.

David wants to know why deer don’t know to look both ways before crossing the street.

In spite of not liking to drive to at night, I went to the grocery store after dinner anyway. Thanks to DST it’s dark at 6 o’ clock now.

Anyway, I went ALONE.

No crying.

No whining.

No arguing.

No stopping to feed the baby or change a diaper.

No one putting extra things not on the list in the cart.

It was so fast. So stress-free, and so much less expensive.

Grocery shopping should always be done alone.

And now I’m completely worn out so I’m off to bed before I have a relapse.

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Posted by Colleen     October 20, 2009

Baby in a Bag

It’s the little things that really make motherhood great. Like when you finally get the baby to lay down and go to sleep on his own!

Yes!

For the first time on Saturday I got Wade to fall asleep for two naps and bed time without our usual routine of rocking, and walking a mile up and down hall until he was asleep. (I’ll have to find another way to get my exercise now I guess.)

Then there was that treacherous moment laying him down, ever so gently, slowly pulling my hands out from under him as I held my breath, praying that he didn’t startle and wake up. Oh, how my heart sank when I spent a half an hour getting Wade to sleep, only to lay him down and see his eyes pop open a second later.

Dave and I were both sick over the weekend, and I just wasn’t up to Wade’s usual bed time routine. I’d been trying to lay him down awake for a few weeks, but he’d cry and I go pick him up, afraid that if he got too loud he would wake David up. But a bad cold quickly brought me to the end of my rope, and I decided it was just too bad if he woke David up. Let him cry!

I know, mean Mommie!

But to my amazement, Wade just fussed for a few minutes, and he was out.

I really can’t explain it.

I didn’t do anything different from any other night.

I always watch for signs that he’s getting tired. Rubbing eyes, yawning. And I try to lay him down before he gets too sleepy. A cranky baby is harder to get to sleep. The only thing that was different was Wade was wearing his new Halo Sleep Sack.

Wade hasn’t rolled over yet, but I think he will any day now, so I took the blanket away. I was laying him on top of a quilt, then folding the bottom up over him. Since he didn’t move around much in the crib yet, his weight on the blanket kept him from being able to pull it up over his face. But I know that won’t be safe anymore when he rolls over.

This isn’t supposed to be an advertisement for the Halo Sleep Sack. And just so you and the FCC know, I bought it all on my own, and no one is paying me to write this. I do have to say I love it. Because it’s sleeveless, it’s easy to get on over Wade’s sleeper, and it breathes, keeping him from getting too hot. He can’t kick it off like the blanket. It’s possible that it contributed to him to going to sleep. If it did, God bless the Halo Sleep Sack people. Here’s a photo of him in his sleep sack.

Before this weekend I had at least another 30 minutes of baby duty after we got David in to bed. And I was the only one who could get Wade to go to sleep. Dave would walk him around and rock him, but Wade would never go to sleep for him. Lucky me, right?

Whatever it is that’s putting Wade to sleep, I’m happy to have a few more child- free minutes before I go to bed. Those moments are few and far between lately. (Also why my blog posts are few and far between these days.)

Now we’re working on sleeping through the night. Wade wakes up to eat around 11 p..m. He doesn’t eat again until morning, so that’s progress. But I have to go in and stick the pacifier in his mouth two or three times a night when he starts to fuss. I’m not picking him up anymore to get him back to sleep either, so that’s progress too.

Like I said, it’s the little things!

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Posted by Colleen     October 14, 2009

There Really is No Headline to Tie Together All this Randomness

Well, it’s been a few days, so I have lots of random, miscellaneous bits and bobs to share.

On the top of the list, Wade turned five months old on Saturday. By my calculations it’s been 143 days, give or take a few, since I last slept through an entire night.

Now, Wade was eating more at one time, going longer in between meals, and sleeping longer at night and nap time as well. But then, all of a sudden, about two weeks ago he started eating smaller amounts every three hours again.

So I decided to whip up some of that fantastically bland rice cereal, and give Wade his first meal on Saturday, hoping it would fill him up and help him sleep.

I know these days doctors recommend holding off on solids until six months, ideally. And they say that cereal won’t help them sleep. I do, however, think it does help them stay full longer, and thus sleep longer. (Hey, doctors say teething doesn’t cause fever and irritability in babies either. What do they know?)  And, frankly, rice cereal hardly qualifies as solid or even as food for that matter. Besides, Wade seemed pretty eager to start eating. He’d watch us eat dinner, drooling and chewing on his little hands like he wanted some too.

You know, when David was a baby I did everything according to what the doctors and the books said. With Wade I’m a bit more relaxed. If we have another one, I just may end up letting he or she run naked and wild in the back yard all day.

All that to lead up to these adorable pictures.

Yes, I know Wade’s eyes are glowing. No, my baby has not been over taken by some evil force. I was just too lazy to edit out the red eye in Photoshop today.

Wade did seem to sleep better after I started the cereal, but he was still just kind of snacking on bottles far too frequently. Suddenly it dawned on me what the problem was. I switched out the stage 2 nipples (how many creepy search engine hits am I going to get from that word?) for stage 3, and he drank down six ounces in no time flat. He was just having to work too hard to eat. See, I’m a little slow, but I get it right eventually.

Speaking of getting things right, you may recall that I had a nasty allergic reaction a few weeks back. I thought it was oven cleaner that did it, but I was wrong. Saturday I discovered that it is the cheap, generic knock off of Pine-sol that I bought at Walmart. I started mopping my kitchen floor that morning, and about five minutes later I started itching.

And now you also know how infrequently my kitchen floor gets mopped these days.

This has nothing to do with anything, but do you know how difficult it is to try and explain Twitter to someone who has no idea what it is? Their eyes kind of glaze over, and I can see the, “Why?” in their expression. Oh, and have you heard about Google Wave? It’s really cool. It will revolutionize the way we use social media to communicate.

There, that’s me trying to sound smart. As if I know anything about social media. But Google Wave is neat. Check it out.

As for being full of crap, our septic tank is apparently also. Too full, so it’s getting pumped tomorrow. Yep. That’s the big excitement around here. I know you are jealous, and wish you had this life.

David, I am sure, will be fascinated by it all. Hopefully the smell will be enough to keep him in the house.

Well, I’m off to bed to get rested up for the big day tomorrow.

And because I’m nearing 800 words. The mark at which they claim readers decide a blog post is too long, and click away.

Honestly, I’m surprised you made it past the first 200.

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