Memoirs of a Newborn

I was looking back through some old blog posts and reflecting on the newborn months. It's funny how I (accidentally on purpose) put the first few months of having a baby out of my mind. Looking back they don't seem near as hard as I thought they were back then. Heck, they even seemed easy at times (and no, not just the times when our parents were here). I do remember some of the hard stuff, but only because my friend Katie has a beautiful 2.5 month old daughter that is in the throes of the newborn stage (and is also colicky - Katie is a saint!) But for the most part I only remember the puppies and rainbows. Maybe the odd unicorn thrown in here and there. I recently even thought to myself that maybe having another baby wouldn't be so bad...

Cue Monday. Those first couple of months are flooding back to me. The child is suddenly a bad sleeper. (Yes, I realize that it has only been two nights, but I'm running on fumes here. It seems like months). The routine for the past couple of nights has been this: We’ll lay him down, he’ll fall asleep. 30 minutes later he’s flopping around and fussing. So we go in, rub his tummy, stick his paci in his mouth, move his blankie (also known as the Tater scrubber) up by his face, etc. He falls back to sleep. Thirty minutes to an hour later, we repeat. And then we repeat again. We do this about 3-4 times before we go to bed. After the last time (whenever that may be) he sleeps about 4-5 hours, then he’s up again and doing the same thing every couple of hours from about 2 am on. And each time I lay him down after his nighttime feedings he has started flopping around too. It’s like he’s figured out the rolling thing and his body wants to practice it in his sleep. Half the time when we lay him down he immediately rolls onto his stomach. Why? I don’t know, because it sure pisses him off once he gets there. We'll roll him back onto his back and he immediately tries to roll onto his stomach again. Cue the freak out. Last time I was in Babies 'R Us I saw this infant sleep sack thing that came with a crib sheet – the sleep sack had Velcro on the back of it. You put the baby in the sleep sack and attached him to a Velcro pad on the sheet. Voila! Baby can't roll over. It was being discontinued and was on clearance. At the time I said to Kevin “Well, no shit it’s on clearance. Who in the hell would Velcro their baby to the mattress?” Three weeks later, THIS GIRL would. (Okay, I really wouldn’t, but I can’t help but imagine the possibilities). Aside from sticking Tater to the mattress, I am at a loss as to what to do to fix this. Actually, I do know how to fix it. We wait. Because when you have a baby that's the only thing you can do. A week from now things will be completely different. Hell, it will probably be completely different by tonight (please, for the love of god). But for now I feel like this will never end. No, I don't think there is anything that has caused this change. He's had a cold for a couple of weeks now, but it really hasn't bothered him too much. Honestly I think it is just Greyden being a baby (as in being an actual baby, not a wuss. That would be Mommy and Daddy in this situation).

My fingers (toes, eyes, legs, etc,) are crossed for a good night tonight. Tomorrow morning Kevin heads out of town for a work conference. It's just going to be me and Tater Tot until Saturday. Wish me luck!

Thanks for the rockin' duds, Uncle Cam!

We're learning the art of the sippy cup. Now to learn the art of tipping it up to get the water out.  

  

I made up some peas for Junior this weekend. He likes them. I swear.

5 Months!

And holy cow is mommy late on this one! Greyden turned 5 months on April 1, so I'm only 3ish weeks late posting this. But the pictures were really taken on April 1st, so maybe I get half credit?

We started with some modeling shots. Look forlorn, Greyden:

Aaaaaand "WERK IT!"



Alright, let's get happy!!!

Yes he's 5 months old, but that does NOT mean that he's big enough for his high chair yet:

However he is big enough to look a little too cool for the pool:



The "Show 'Em Yer Nuts!" Tour 2011

Last week my parents made their yearly Spring Break pilgrimage to Texas. We needed a new theme, since the Galveston Devastation Tour that we had gone on every year since Ike hit was starting to get a little old (and less devastated since it has been 3 years - boring). So our theme for the 2011 tour was "Show 'Em Yer Nuts!" (this was followed by giving yourself "moose antlers" with your hands and making blabbing sounds with your mouth - there was no pants-dropping going on and no eyes were harmed or required bleach during the making of this trip.) So let the good times roll - literally.

Kevin was hell-bent against sitting around all week and staring at each other (his actual words were "I refuse to sit around and stare at you people all week") so we decided to whip out the old RV, pack up every piece of baby gear that we own, and stock enough food to last us 4 weeks (we are Shagenes after all) and hit the open road.The only problem was that we didn't have a destination in mind. We figured heading South down the coast sounded like a pretty good option. Then we got on the road and decided that West sounded more fun. (No, none of us could tell you why.) We were off!  

Grandma and Greyden playing in the RV:

The first day we spent driving. Well, we did stop once when Kevin saw a sign for the Kreische Brewery State Park in La Grange. (Ha! I say stop. He actually took the corner on two wheels and came to a screeching halt in the parking lot. Turns out the brewery was actually built in the 1860s and was nothing more than a stone foundation now. Poor Kevin.) That night we ended up in Blanco, TX at the Blanco State Park. It was tiny but nice. Our camp site backed to the woods and the park was pretty much empty. We unloaded, grilled (again, we're Shagenes) and were sitting around the campfire relaxing and drinking when we almost got eaten my a mountain lion. Okay, maybe it was just two cats fighting in the woods, but still. When it's pitch black out and you're sitting next to the woods with your only source of light coming from a tiny campfire, "stray cat" isn't the first thought to pop into your head when you hear screaming coming from the blackness only yards away. And actually, if you're me, it was (in this order): snake (really???), racoon, big foot, abominable snowman. My mind apparently doesn't function rationally during mountain lion attacks.

Our first campsite:

Greyden was fascinated by the goose that came to visit: 

 
The next day we packed up and hit the road again. This time we ended up at Natural Bridge Caverns near San Antonio. I have to say the caverns were gorgeous. Well, what little we saw. The tour was about 75 minutes long, but Junior only lasted about 15 before he decided that he was hot and bored and chose to entertain himself by talking loudly. And when you're in a huge, underground cavern, loudly quickly becomes LOUDLY. Kevin and I hightailed it out of there while my parents finished out the tour. I say hightailed, but to be honest, when you're climbing up what feels like miles and miles of steps in 99% humidity, it was more like we huffed and puffed our way out, only to get to the entrance and find that there were steel bars across the door and we were padlocked in. Yes, for real. Thank goodness for modern technology - Kevin called the customer service line in the brochure (that he luckily had stuck in his pocket) and told them to get their a$$es down there and get us the #&@#$%#$ out of there (actually those may have been the words that I was stage whispering into his other ear while he was talking to them. I don't remember for sure.) Even for someone who isn't claustrophobic, being locked underground doesn't sound like the ideal way to die. And if the other people on the tour thought Junior was loud, they wouldn't have heard anything until mommy started panicking and shrieking for help at the top of my lungs. I was getting pretty close.

At the Natural Bridge Caverns:

Once we escaped the depths of hell (which was actually quite lovely now that I'm going back and looking at the pictures) we headed out to Gruene, home of Texas's oldest dance hall. It was a cute little historic town, but it was HOT and mommy Junior wasn't thrilled with sweating his balls off for hours on end in the blazing Texas sun so we only stayed an hour or so. We hopped in the (wonderful, air-conditioned) RV and took off again, this time heading back to the east. This time we landed in Gonzales, TX, home of Palmetto State Park which is by far the most gorgeous state park I have ever been to (and if you want to get technical, yes it is only the second that I've been to, with Blanco being the other one. Whatever.) After meeting one of the park hosts and asking him about snakes (my standard introduction - "are there snakes here?"), then promptly ignoring him when he started talking about a 6 foot long shedding they had found just the week prior, we got to settling in. Luckily there were no mountain lion attacks (that we heard anyway) so it was a relaxing night of just hanging out around the fire. Oh, and getting up approximately every hour to hour and a half to rock Tater back to sleep. Nothing like tossing an infant into an RV for a "Who in the Hell Knows Where We're Going?" road trip to mess up his schedule. *Big Sigh*

Campsite Numero Dos:

Greyden helping Grandpa grill:

The following day we realized that we just happened to be 30 miles from Shiner, TX, home of the Spoetzl Brewery and the world's best beer (funny how that happens, huh?) Seriously, if you've never tried Shiner Bock (or any of the other amazing brews) get thee some. (Miller, what???) Lucky for us, Junior slept through this tour so we actually got to enjoy the entire thing. Then we got to enjoy the gift shop where they gave us 4 wooden nickels to redeem for not-small samples of different Shiner beers that were on tap. And because Junior was taking the world's longest nap (thank you Jesus!), even mommy got to chug like she hadn't had a beer in the last 14 months sample a few. Which resulted in Junior spending the entire tour with his pacifier on his head. (I swear I checked on him under the blanket - I just missed it.)

By this time it was Friday. We discussed resurrecting our original plans and heading South, but after a few calls to some random state parks, we weren't finding any availability. Apparently Texans are smart and aren't waiting until May when the temperatures will spike to 200 degrees before getting their camping fix. We decided to head home to good old Spring and brought the "Show 'Em Yer Nuts Tour 2011" to an end. Well, we did hop in the RV to do a mini-road trip up to Wolfie's on Lake Conroe for some crawfish and beer, but that was it. Exorbitant fuel prices be damned!

Grandpa got Greyden his first watermelon. I think he liked it!

He was also put in charge of keeping an eye on it while Mommy and Grandma got the food ready to grill.

Solids = WINNING!

We seem to have found a winner! Rice cereal was a no go (and for good reason, have you tried that stuff???) but Junior loves himself some oatmeal. And he's actually starting to get the hang of swallowing too (meaning most of it goes down his throat instead of squishing back out of his mouth). We're still working on the "no talking with your mouth full" rule though. Of course regardless of whether or not he's talking (and therefore spraying oatmeal everywhere), this is one place where he takes after his mommy. Meaning we both prefer to wear more food than we actually eat. This is also where that vinyl tablecloth would come in really handy. Now to just get over our sheer laziness and get the damn thing out before he's 20. (Of course if he's still taking after mommy at 20, the table cloth will still come in handy.)

 I have to admit, I was actually looking forward to solids this time around. Mainly because I have got to start getting more sleep. Poor Kevin is tired of me going to bed at 9:30 every night, but that's about the time of night when I can no longer keep my eyes open. I've done my research and know that according to studies done by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) there is no link between infants eating solids and sleeping through the night. However after listening to person after person (after person, after person) INSIST that giving him solids will fill him up so that he'll sleep, I figured it couldn't hurt to try. We gave him some oatmeal about an hour before bed on Saturday night and lo and behold, he slept for 7 hours straight. He hasn't done that since he was 10 weeks old. My initial thought (at 3:30 am when he finally woke up) was "Are you freaking kidding me? That's all it took?!?!" "YES! The AAP is WRONG!" Of course that didn't stop him from getting up at 6:30 on Sunday morning, which normally would have sucked, but we used being up as the crack of dawn as an opportunity to visit the International House of Pleasure (see the note below). So on Sunday night we gave him his oatmeal again. This time we got to see his bright shining face at 11:30p, 2:30a, 4:30a, and 6:30a. So now I'm back on the "if you think solids help, you're smoking crack" bandwagon. The next person that tells me that I need to give him solids to make him sleep through the night will probably get a boot upside the head. Which in my sleep-deprieved state of mind, I am allowed to do.

Besides the oatmeal, he's only tried one other food. We were out at a restaurant a few nights ago and I had ordered a baked sweet potato. Grey was busy checking out our plates and trying to figure out what to grab for first, so I took some of my potato and put it on a bread plate for him. Oh. My. God. To say he loved it would be the understatement of the year. He kept trying to lay his face down in it on the plate. We had to keep pulling his head back up and spooning it into his mouth. The second we slowed down to reload the spoon he was faceplanted in the plate again. So I guess he likes sweet potatoes. I'm curious to see if we'll get the same reaction when we try broccoli.

Just ignore the horrible looks on his face. He really does like it. Oh, and you can obviously disregard Daddy's beer soda too.

 NOTE: In an effort to extract your minds from the gutter, I need to explain that my parents are NOT chain restaurant people. My dad's favorite Texas breakfast place is a run down wooden shed building with a corrugated tin roof out in the middle of nowhere. So the morning after having Greyden, I called them to find out what they were doing and when they were heading up to the hospital. Imagine my disgust surprise when Mom told me that they were just finishing up at the "International House of Pleasure" and would be at the hospital shortly. I don't remember if I responded before or after vomiting in my mouth and beginning to cry. I mean, I'm stuck in the hospital while my parents are staying at MY house and frequenting the International House of Pleasure. Eww, eww, eww. (Although now that I'm thinking about it, if that was actually the case being in the hospital and not at home with them would have been a blessing.) Come to find out, the International House of Pleasure is what they decided to rename the International House of Pancakes. Apparently they liked IHOP's breakfasts. (Biiiiig sighs of relief.)