2 New loves

1. Pinterest- Oy, who knew something so simple would take over my life... I do love it though. Anything new I've cooked in the last couple weeks has come from there. In fact, tonight I'm making mini chicken pot pies from a recipe off of pinterest. Warning: you will be on pinterest and then look at the clock and an hr will have passed. This happens to me quite often when Jackson's sleeping and I should be cleaning or something.

2. Florence + The Machine- I realize I'm a little behind the times on this new obsession, but oh well. My little sister introduced me to the song, Cosmic Love (theme song for Water for Elephants). This crazy singer is phenomenal. Another great song is Dog Days Are Over.

Did you need to see bubba? Oh fine.

My hubby's bday

Today is my hubby's birthday. Happy birthday hubby. 

We celebrated with his family last weekend when we went to the state fair. It was super fun. Last night, Leo and I went to a Peruvian restaurant for dinner while Grandma Winegar watched Jackson. And today, we pretty much just hung out around the house. We got Beto's for lunch (Don't knock it til you try it) and then got slurpees and went to the park with Jackson. Man, he's cute. 

Oh yeah, I made him a chocolate chip mint cake. It was all from scratch, thank you very much and let's just say, it wasn't the smoothest baking experience. Then again, whenever I'm in the kitchen, it's an adventure. (Tip: It helps to put in baking soda and baking powder when the recipe calls for it. Not after you've finished and it's been baking in the oven for a minute...) It still turned out okay, just wasn't quite as fluffy as I'd have hoped for. The frosting was super sweet (next time, less powdered sugar). Anyway, 'twas a fun weekend. Here are some pictures from us at the park today.  

Paper?

Yesterday, I went to a well known bagel shop for lunch with my friend Amy. I love their bagels. Especially their asiago cheese bagels. Mmmm. I got a little club sandwich with a yummy chipotle sauce, which is always a favorite of mine. And when I bit into it, it tasted a little funny but I went ahead and swallowed (Yes, I share a lot of details.) And then I looked down and there was paper sticking out of my sandwich. You know the paper that lines meat in their packages. Yeah, I ate meat lining paper. I just pulled it out and finished my sandwich.

Slow Realization

You know, with your first child (sorry all my posts are about my baby...), you can't even fathom how in the world you could ever have more. Not the whole "How could I ever love another baby as much?!" but the actual, literal caring for more than one child. I mean, seriously. I looked at this newborn who needed 24-7 care and I thought, how do you do it? It's not possible. But, as my baby takes his 2nd nap of the day (1st one was for an hr and a half!) I think, maybe it's possible. Maybe you can physically take care of more than one child. I don't think it will be easy, but all of a sudden, with Jackson taking better naps, I find myself with free time. I try to stay on top of the dishes, laundry, and surface-cleaning of my house. I exercise a little bit. I waste a lot of time on the computer. (Beware of the Pinterest addiction to those of you who haven't encountered it yet.) I do a craft here and there. And then I think, man, I can't wait for him to wake up. So we can play and he can giggle when I blow on his belly or tickle his thighs (his thighs are weirdly ticklish). So we can practice him sitting up. So we can go for a walk and check the mail. So I can sing random songs to him. So I can read books to him. It's like I always have a friend, which sounds oddly pathetic and sad. But, it's true. I always have a buddy. And he has no choice. He must be my buddy. He cannot say no when I decide to change his outfit because I'm bored with what he's wearing. Poor child of mine. And now I'm slowly realizing that I want more buddies. People, chillax, I'm not pregnant. Nor will I be for awhile. But I'm not scared of getting pregnant anymore. It's so fun thinking about my future little babies.

P.S. I guess they weren't lying when they said that you forget the whole labor annnnd for me, the whole non-stop crying newborn thing. I honestly can't remember what it was like those first 2 months. I only know this sweet baby. I love being a mom.

Member how I love baby pajamas?

Well... here's some of his current pjs. He has a couple others that I don't like very much so they only get used in pj emergencies. 

Oh em gee. The Skipper ones are soo cute. 

 Remember this little gem of a picture? 

 Ok... this one's pretty awesome too. 

 Sitting up? Yep.

  I love this one. It's the most random design. It has aliens and dogs skateboarding. 

 But this might be favorite. It's so soft and snuggly. It's a bunch of robots. 

 I wish I would've gotten the pants of these in the picture. The pants are orange with brown knee patches. Genius. 

P.S. Yesterday was a "bad mom" moment. My bubba burned his little hand on my crockpot. Soooo sad. You can barely tell in this picture but there's a teensy blister on his knuckles. 

You probably wanted to see my craftiness, huh?

I made a wreath! I bought a styro-foam circle, a W, some twine. And then I had felt, black paint, and ribbons on hand. I wrapped the circle in twine, painted the W black, made some cream flowers out of felt, and then went hot glue crazy! 

The W is crooked, but oh well. I'm trying to not care. 

My baby is growing up.

Jackson is 5 months old today. My little bubba is getting so big and I don't know how to stop it.

Milestones going on:  He sat up for 1 minute today. He still doesn't roll from tummy to back. He's done it on accident before but not purposefully. He can quickly roll from back to tummy.

Eating: He's been having oatmeal cereal for the past 2 weeks and although his system still isn't normal from that, we started squash today. He didn't hate it. Other than that, he still prefers nursing to anything else.

Personality: Happy, giggly boy! And it's sooo fun! His favorite things to laugh at are: my noises (yes, I'm very creative when it comes to noises) It might surprise some of you that my beat-boxing is impeccable. He loves to be thrown in the air and he is
super ticklish. Especially when his daddy rubs his scruffy beard on his belly and face. And he still looooves bathtime.

Quarks: He still sticks his tongue out all day long. He also gags himself with his fingers nonstop. It was frightening the first couple times and now I'm over it. He is part-vampire and bites/sucks on my cheeks and chin. One time, he left a hickey. Weird, but also adorable. He enjoys TV prolly a little too much, but then again, he is my child and I enjoy TV prolly a little too much. (This morning, he literally laughed out loud at a cartoon. Not just once, several times. I can't wait to introduce him to Spongebob.)

P.S. He will probably be a redhead. I call him ginger boy sometimes. 

Day 4

Going strong people. Yesterday was fine. He didn't cry for more than 15-20 minutes and it was never screaming, just the slowing down cry. His naps are still rather short, but I'm not going to worry about that yet. I just want him to be able to fall asleep in his crib. Hopefully, he'll naturally transition into the 2 big naps. He went down at 6:30 pm and woke up at 8:30 last night and since I was still up, I went ahead and fed him and then he fell asleep in my arms and I got to rock him for an hr. Still my favorite thing in the whole world. Especially because it was accompanied with The Office.

 I got the first 3 seasons for my birthday and so I've had a bit of a marathon going on this week. Man, that second season is still so stressful with the whole Jim & Pam debacle. (p.s., I've been spelling debacle wrong in my head. I spelled it like this: debaucle. I like mine better.) But yes. So stressful! It's wonderful because of all the cute flirting, but remember this painful moment! The karate episode where Michael beats up Dwight, but Jim is teasing Pam and he accidentally lifts her shirt and then it's awkward the rest of the day. And then, Casino Night. It's like I was watching it again for the first time. Oy, and the episode where Roy almost punches Jim. I swear I've never seen that one before. Roy was freakin' scary! By far though, one of my top 5 favorite is the bat episode. Fantastic.

On another note, I decided to be healthy and go jogging this morning and one of my tires went flat. We were a good 20 minute walk from home and it was slow moving.

Day 3 of sleep training

Warning #2: again, no need to read. It's just so I can remember. P.S. there is talk of poop.

Yesterday was better. He didn't cry for more than 20 minutes and that was only for the last nap. He only cried 10-15 minutes the rest of the day. One nap, he slept for almost an hr too which is great for him. The night was a little different. He slept from 7:30-8:30 and then from 9:15 - 12:20. I went ahead and fed him and then he woke up again at 2:30. I went in and patted him and it took him about 30 minutes to cry himself back to sleep. Then, he slept til 4:40 and I fed him. He woke up at 6:30 and I fed him, mostly because I wasn't cognizant of my surroundings. It was more of a stumble in and feed him because that's what I used to do. Next time, I'm going to try to wake myself up more. But then, when I laid him back in the crib, he had a big pooper so it was time to wake up. He gets the worst diaper rash, so I never let him sit in poop if I can help it.

Day 2 of Sleep Training

Warning: This is rather detailed. Mostly so I can remember it later on.

Alright. Yesterday was rough but I only cried twice. He cried 40 minutes for the first nap to sleep 30 minutes. 45 min to sleep 20 min, 45 min to sleep 20 min, 15 min to sleep 30 min, & 45 min to sleep 10 min. The last nap was so confusing. I went up to get him after he only slept 10 minutes and when I picked him up he looked wide awake, so I fed him as I always do after he wakes up. Annnnnd, he fell asleep and slept for 2 1/2 hrs in my arms. Poor baby was so exhausted. Leo kept asking me if I should go put him in the crib, but he never takes long naps (he hasn't taken a nap longer than 1 hr in the past month), so I thought for sure, he'd wake up at any moment. It's so hard to know exactly how to react! Holding him and rocking him was wonderful. That's what I'll miss for awhile. It's my favorite and I kept second guessing myself last night. But then when he finally woke up, I changed and nursed him and put him back in the crib. He cried for about 25-30 minutes and then slept for 4 hrs!!! When he woke up at 1:45 am, I went ahead and fed him. And when I put him back down, he fussed for maybe 20 minutes and then slept another 3 hrs. At 4:45, I fed him again and when I put him back down, he fussed for just a minute or two and then slept until 7. I kind of think he would've slept longer except he peed on himself. Poor bubba.

This morning, after being awake for a little over an hr, I did my routine and laid him down and he cried for about 15 minutes and now he's been asleep for 20 minutes. We'll see how today goes. I'm trying so hard to stay committed. I think the best thing yesterday was that he figured out to roll to his stomach quickly and that's how he's been sleeping. It totally freaked us out the first time because of all the SIDS issues but they say, once they can roll over, you can't stop them. So, we haven't and I think that's why he slept so long in the night. Anyway, sorry for the boredom, but I wanted to write this down so if my next child is a poor sleeper too, I can remember how it went.

Sleep, anyone?

So, my sweet boy has become the worst sleeper ever! As a colicky newborn, he actually did pretty well at nights. He would fall asleep rather quickly after eating and by 6 weeks, he was sleeping 4 hrs at a time and then by 2 - 2 1/2 months, he was hitting the 6 hr ranges (which if you read sleep books, 6 hrs is considered sleeping through the night). However, since the beginning of August, sleep has been brutal! He won't sleep longer than 2 hrs and he wakes up crying, not fussing, not stirring, but crying crying. Plus, trying to get him to sleep is beast! Because he was colicky, I held and rocked him a lot, which I looooved. It was sweet and I adored that time together. However, since the beginning of August, getting him to sleep has become a battle! Every nap, every  night, a battle. He's never loved his pacifier, but he used to take it to fall asleep. Nope. Go ahead and throw that out too. Picture me trying to cradle him in my arms, humming sweetly to him, and him flailing his body and clawing at my face. Clawing. I have a scratch.

I have done my fair share of research and there could be many reasons. 4 month sleep regression is a big factor. We were on vacation for the entire month of July. Because he was so colicky, I was in survival mode. I did whatever I could think of to make him happy, which included, sleeping with him, holding him, nursing him whenever he wanted. Basically, he doesn't know how to fall asleep on his own at all.

So. What does this mean? It means, I'm doing the cry it out method. My sanity is fleeting and I would like to be a happy mom during the day. I've been inconsistent the past 2 weeks with crying and what not because it breaks my heart. But, I decided last night that it's time. If it works, it will help him feel more rested and me feel more patient and energetic. I'm doing it with a routine. We read 3 books and I rock and sing to him for about 10 minutes and then lay him down while he's still awake. (P.s., this might seem like I've been doing it for days. I just started this morning but I've been preparing myself for awhile and reading on all of the different methods.) He woke up at 645 this morning and at 740, I started the routine! I laid him down at around 7:50 am and he finally fell asleep by 8:30. It took 40 minutes! But, I waited 10 minutes at first because he was crying at all and then I went in every 5-6 minutes and patted him chest and tickled his face.

Fingers crossed that this works people. Most people say it takes 3-5 days. If things aren't different by Friday, then I'm going to feel like a terrible parent. Let's hope it works!