Ceiling fans and Bumbos

I've really tried not to become a "baby stuff" mommy. I've tried not to get sucked into every little baby gadget or toy or item that is supposedly going to make our lives easier. Note: I said "try". In any event, I've heard nothing but great things about this thing called a Bumbo Seat. I'd heard so much about it that I got "Bumbo envy". But I didn't like the Bumbo pricetag. $40 for a foam chair! So I searched our local Once Upon a Child. Apparently, they are popular because all they had were NEW ones. Checked Ebay. You really can find anything there! Found one (slightly used) for half price. So I "won" it and it was delivered last week. We weren't sure how Tyler would like it, but we sat him in it and the "big boy feeling" washed over him and he just grinned! He loves sitting like a big boy and this way he gets to do it by himself! Good investment! (Still wouldn't have paid the $40 for it.....)

Daycare is going well. We bought Tyler a mobile that he can use on his crib there. He loves it! There were 2 days last week that I showed up to pick him up and he was laying in his crib, staring up at the mobile, just laughing and smiling and cooing. I asked the teachers, "Where's MY baby? My baby doesn't like to lay on his back and laugh and smile and coo." They claim something called "daycare rules". Interesting.......

In any event, as much as I still hate leaving him each morning and being away from him all day long, there have been a few positive changes that we have noticed. He's able to entertain himself for more than 5 mintues at a time, which has given us a little break. He also wants to nap in his crib (or bassinet), as opposed to napping in the same room that we are in. We noticed this for the first time at Grandpa Ed's this weekend. He started to melt down, which we knew meant that he needed a nap. So Travis laid him on his chest as we usually have to do in order to get him to sleep during the day. He still fussed. So we thought we'd experiment by placing him in the pack-n-play bassinet. Out like a light. We were impressed and amazed. The rest of the weekend's naps were spent this way as well. We aren't 100% sure that it's daycare's influence, or if it's a combination of that with the fact that he's getting older (& BIGGER) by the minute. Either way, we're happy about these changes. And very happy that he seems to be enjoying daycare.

Speaking of Grandpa Ed's, we had a great time this weekend. We had Mama Ange & Jim, Bridges & the boys, Great-Nana Woody, & Uncle Eddie over for lunch on Sunday. Tyler did a great job entertaining the crowd. And he was in a great mood for most of the day. He also met a new "friend" this weekend. The ceiling fan. He's checked out the fans in our house from time to time, but never seemed as amused by them until he saw Grandpa's. There's a fan in every room and he stared at them all and laughed. He laughed and smiled so much that the adults in the room usually had to look up too, just to make sure we weren't missing something. I don't think we were. But they sure made him happy!!!!

We did have one minor setback this weekend. While at Dad's, we had planned to give Tyler a bottle of expressed breastmilk, to make sure that he didn't fall into the old habit of "bottle strike". Well, I ended up giving the bottle to him, because Travis went fishing with Eddie on a much needed outing. Yeah, that didn't work. He screamed bloody murder again. For 20 minutes. I finally caved and nursed him instead. I thought maybe he was just tired and cranky and figured that this would be a one-time thing and he'd go back to be a happy "bottle baby" on Tuesday in daycare. Not the case. I picked him up this afternoon to hear, "We aren't sure why, but he acted like he didn't want his bottles this morning." *Sigh* I know why. He wanted to be nursed. We've got ourselves a "boob man". I guess I will never be able to give him a bottle......ever. I better get over my inhibitions about breastfeeding in public!!!! (Oh, and if you're concerned, he did end up taking his final bottle of the day, so hopefully the strike is over......)

We've got a short workweek this week and a big weekend ahead of us. We're hoping to transition Tyler into his own bedroom and his crib. Now that he is sleeping consistently until about 3:00 in the morning before wanting to nurse, we feel that it's time. My friend Meredith even made a good point - maybe we'll all sleep better this way. Right now, we're probably waking him up when we come to bed at night or get up to go to the bathroom. And he keeps me up some nights as he makes his sweet little baby noises. This may work out best for us all. Hope to be able to share that good news next week!

Week One - DONE!!!

Whew! Contrary to what I truly believed, we made it through the first week! I returned to work on Monday and there's really no other word to describe it other than "hell". Pure hell. Many tears were shed (mainly mine) and I counted down the minutes until I could leave and pick Tyler up from daycare each day. I was going to go with Travis on Day One to drop him off, but in the hours leading up to that final moment, I changed my mind. I decided that I couldn't do it. Travis was going to have to fly solo on this one. And it's probably for the best that I chickened out. Travis said that the drop off was kind of like taking off a bandaid. If I had been there, I would've dragged it out for hours, making sure that the teachers knew every little detail about him. (Instead, I sent a typed page of "Tyler-isms".) I only called the daycare once to check on him during the day. I was pretty proud of myself for that. I finally told my boss that I was leaving at 4:00, I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to be with my baby boy. I rushed to daycare, hitting every stoplight and getting behind every 145-year-old driver along the way. And once I got there, it was going to take an act of Congress to get that baby out of my arms. I was slightly reassured by the teachers as they told me what a good day he had. He had "tummy time" every day this week. He took his bottles like a champ. He was going to adjust and adapt just fine.....now Mommy had to do the same.

I was told a million times this week, "Welcome back, we missed you." Every time that was said to me, I honestly replied with, "Sorry, I can't say the same." Rude? Maybe. But it is the truth. Priorities have changed. Luckily, there was enough going on at work this week that made the days not seem so long. But the week still sucked. No other way to put it. Yes, I've heard that it will get easier. But for now, it hurts like hell when he leaves in the morning. And I feel like there is so much that we are missing. Our time with Tyler is so precious. And there's so little of it now. We get home after 5:00 and he's in bed by 7:00. That leaves very little awake time together. But we just make the most of the time that we do have. I treasure our nursing sessions so much more now and Travis has bath time with him. And the weekends are OURS. ALL OURS. Make the most of what you have.

To backtrack a bit, I enjoyed my first Mother's Day. I spent the day with my two favorite guys in the world. Travis & Tyler gave me a sweet card and a Willow Tree figurine called "Angel of Mine". It's a mother holding her newborn baby. Travis also made me a wonderful dinner that night. Filet mignon topped with hollandaise sauce and lump crab meat. It was a perfect day.

And we're about to hit a pretty big milestone around here.....12 weeks. It's so hard to believe that Tyler is almost 3 months old. Sometimes it feels like he just got here, and sometimes it's hard to remember what life was like without him. I fear that before we know it, he's going to be walking and talking and all that. The cliche term "they grow up so fast" is so true.

Tyler's still working on trying to roll over. He has it in his head that he WANTS to roll over, but hasn't quite figured out the logistics of the whole thing yet. His head and neck control gets better with each day and he "talks" to us a lot more. I swear that he's bigger every morning. He doesn't have another doctor's appointment until the end of June, but I can't wait to find out how much he's grown.

So that's really all that there is to report this week. I wish there was more, but honestly, a lot of the week was spent in a fog. I had one goal - get to my baby. We should have some interesting stuff next week! We're headed to Lynchburg for a long weekend visit!!! It's been a few weeks since we've traveled, so it will be interesting to see how it all goes!

One good week together

I'm not gonna cry, I'm not gonna cry. OK, that's out of the way. Tyler & I had a great week together. We had lunch with Travis on Monday. We've been able to meet him for lunch several times while I have been on leave. So we had to fit one more lunch in before D-Day. As usual, Tyler slept through lunch. It's a miracle, really. It seems that whenever we take him into a restaurant now (which isn't often), he sleeps right through the meal (which is nice). There are a few exceptions, but all in all he behaves.

On Tuesday, Tyler & I went over to the daycare. I wanted to meet with the director again and ask some questions and make sure that I had all of the paperwork that I needed to get him started on Monday. We hadn't been over there since November, so it was a good idea to get back over there and get reacquainted with everyone and everything. As I expected, I burst into tears the second that I walked in the door. I felt like a fool - I wasn't even there to drop him off!!!! But they reminded me that I wasn't the first parent to have that reaction, and I most certainly wasn't going to be the last. We took him into the infant room where he met the instructors. One of the girls, Renee, picked him up and played with him and talked to him. At first, he seemed a bit wary but warmed up very quickly. He even started to flirt a bit with a little girl in a crib nearby. Not even there and he's already causing trouble! I felt a little better after I left. Again, we are very happy with the decision that we made to go with this daycare and we have no concerns about it. We know that he will be in very capable hands and that he will undoubtedly handle this transition better than Travis or I. But it's still hard. I have spent the last 10 and a half weeks with my little boy and 9 months before that.....I'm not ready to give him up.

Moving on, Tyler had his professional portraits done on Wednesday at JC Penney. We never got any real smiles out of the session, but the pictures came out great anyway. I'm really pleased with them and can't wait to get them back. This is the outfit that he wore in some of the pictures. He looks like such a BIG BOY!!!!! Go figure...he smiled for me at home, in his carseat. What a professional-looking background - haha! But it was a special day for the pictures to be taken - it was his "10 week birthday". Wow, has it really been 10 weeks already???? I say it all the time, but time really does fly.

After the portraits, we had lunch again with Lori & Evan again. We put the boys in the pack-n-play again and watched them interact. I just kept watching them thinking how much that they had changed in just a few short weeks. Before we know it, Tyler & Evan are going to be tearing through our houses together. It all goes by so fast.

Other than our excursions, we've been working on sleeping at night around here. Tyler used to go to bed when we went to bed. It worked for all of us, and we didn't really notice any issues. But as he got a little older, I noticed that he seemed to be tired more often and he was fighting Travis at night to go to sleep. At the recommendation of our pediatrician, I started reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Though we aren't following the practices in the book very strictly, we have taken a few things from it and have seen a wonderful difference. We start Tyler's bedtime routine sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 each night (depending on his mood). Travis gives him a bath (which he now LOVES), gets him dressed for bed, then gives him a bottle of expressed milk. Yes folks, I just said BOTTLE. Tyler must have known that I was bad-mouthing him to people about his bottle-taking abilities because last Monday was the first time in over 2 weeks that he took a bottle with NO complaints! It was as if he had never stopped taking a bottle! We still aren't sure what caused the "bottle strike" around here, but all we do know is that it seems to be over....and boy are we happy!!! Anyway, after the bottle, it's off to dreamland for our little one. He usually falls right asleep (though as I write this, he is upstairs with Travis fighting sleep tonight....go figure) and will usually sleep until anywhere from 1:00 to 3:00, when he wakes to eat. Then it's back to sleep until 5:00 or 6:00. So we are really proud of him, and are expecting that he will start sleeping longer at night within the next few weeks. At that time, we will transition him into his room (you know, that nursery that we worked so hard on before he was born???) and his crib. We're hoping to have that accomplished within the next month.

So Tyler & Mommy's last week together was a success - and a fun one. I'm really going to miss being at home full time with my baby boy, but I know that he will be just fine at daycare. As if I didn't already do so, I will learn to cherish every waking moment that I have with him. And Travis will be there to help us all adjust to our new routine.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!!!! I can't wait to spend my first Mother's Day with my 2 favorite men in the world.

The countdown is on.....

Yep, one week til Mommy has to go back to work. And boy, does the thought of it suck and make me cry like I've just had my own 2 month shots. I'm not ready to leave my little boy full-time in the care of strangers. I'm not ready to pump 3 times a day so that a stranger can give my baby boy a bottle. I'm not ready to have all of his "waking hours" spent at daycare, while we are left with very few "awake hours" and all of the "sleep hours". I'm just not ready. And neither is Travis. We have a feeling that Tyler will adapt better than we will. One week til we find out..... OK, I'll stop complaining about this now.

As previously mentioned, Tyler had his 2 month appointment this week. He's now up to a whopping 12 lbs. 9 oz and he is 23 inches long. This puts him in the 50th percentile for height and 75th for weight. The doc is very happy with his progress! She gave us some reassurance that we are doing the right things as far as sleeping at night and bottle feeding are concerned. (Not sure if I have mentioned this or not, but all of a sudden, he no longer wants to take a bottle and screams bloody murder each time that we give him one. But the doctor promises that the tide will turn.....yet again.) And he did very well with his shots. He had 4 shots in his little chunky legs and one oral vaccine given. As promised, Travis held him for the shots while I paced the exam room with my back turned to the table. Tyler wailed for a few moments but was quickly soothed. I, on the other hand.........But he did so well and sucked down that oral vaccine like it was candy. We all got a good laugh out of that. He didn't have any ill side effects from the vaccines. He just slept it off for the remainder of the day, only waking to eat. On the plus side, I got a lot done around the house that day! Luckily, he never developed a fever or anything like that. All in all, it wasn't as bad as I expected. And our son was quite the trooper. He got a "Perfect Exam" from his doctor and we don't go back until his 4 month appointment at the end of June. Ugh, more shots......

Developmentally, our little one is doing well and is right on track! He's already holding his head up really well! He loves to look around and we are amazed at his neck strength and control for his age. He's starting to look like he might roll over soon too. When we have "tummy time", he gets really excited and starts to kind of bob back and forth. It looks like the beginnings of a roll. He's also really vocal now and we love to "talk" to him about his day. He "oohs" and "ahhs" and coos. It's the most wonderful sound in the world! He'll stand up on those chunky legs of his when we stand him up on our knees. He'll hold his toy keys if you place them in his hand and he's starting to maybe reach for his toys on his toy bars. We just bought a bouncy seat this week and he loves it and just stares forever at those toys. (Note: We have a Baby Papasan chair too. He used to love that chair when he was a newborn. But it doesn't bounce and apparently, we didn't realize the importance of the bounce when we registered. So he has rejected the Papasan and embraced the cheap-o bouncy seat. Go figure.) Before we know it, he's going to be crawling and talking and driving (wait, I jumped a little on that one, huh?).

We've got a busy week coming up, as it is mine & Tyler's last week together before D-Day. We're having lunch with Travis one day, lunch with our friends Lori & Evan another, a meeting at the daycare, and portraits at JC Penney. I plan on cherishing every single moment that he & I have together..........