July 31, 2010

i walk the line

when it comes to middle of the night feedings, there is a fine line between asleep and awake. the ideal experience is for shepard to wake us up, but for him to be just enough awake to nurse, but just enough asleep to go straight back to sleep when he's done. a couple of nights ago, i got too caught up in getting him to eat that i woke him up completely. he was ready to play!!! which means when i tried to put him back to sleep, he pitched a fit and woke up everyone in the house. oh bummer. but last night was perfect. he ate a little and went back to sleep so fast i didn't even have to rock him. now the IDEAL ideal situation will be when he doesn't wake up at 3am anymore...we're hoping it will happen soon.

he's been chewing on his passy and bottle nipple rather than sucking on them lately. could TEETH be right around the corner for him? oh man!! he really is growing up too fast!! he LITERALLY changes every single day.

yesterday i had to go into school to clean up the room a bit before visitors come next week. chris had to go to rehearsal for a wedding, so he couldn't keep him. i was fully expecting our trip to be a disaster because he hates his car seat so much. i was just bracing myself for a few hours of crying. well, someone stole shepard and replaced him with a perfect angel! he was awake the entire way to school and didn't make a peep. he sat in his carseat smiling and happy in the classroom for about 30 minutes with people coming in and out to see him. then he laid on his playmat for about 20 minutes cooing and kicking. once i fed him and he played on the mat a little while longer, he started to get fussy and then started all-out crying. i figured i would have to go home since i forgot the swaddler. but i rocked him just in my arms and shushed in his ear for approximately 2 minutes, and he fell fast asleep! i laid him in his carseat and he slept for about 30 minutes!!! who are you and what have you done with shepard?!?!? it gives me hope that maybe, just maybe he's maturing a little so that he doesn't scream every time he's not being held!!! of course, then i went to bilo and he refused to stay in his carseat. so i had to shop with one hand. my arms sure are getting stronger!!

hutchmoot is next weekend, and we were thinking about trying to sell our tickets. when chris was in nashville a few weeks ago, ap was telling him that we HAVE to still come, and that we have to live our lives no matter what our kid does. well...he hasn't heard shepard pitch one of his fits, has he?? but the past few days have given me hope!! hutchmoot - here we come!!! we'll see how he does....:)

July 28, 2010

the touch, the feel

the slatens have officially gone CLOTH! the best part is that my wonderful, amazingly generous cousin is letting us use all her cloth diapers that her youngest has grown out of! YES! shepard looks awesome in his little cloth dipes, and it just makes sense to use diapers that you can re-use. already in his short life, we have gone through SO MANY disposable diapers. i honestly feel guilty at the amount of grossness we have added to landfills, and we only used them for about 60 days. wow.

all of kendall's diapers are white b/c she bought them before they know what gender their precious little josie was, but about a month ago, i bought 3 colorful ones to try out - 1 of 3 different brands. those are going to be his "going out" dipes. :) and i might buy a few more just to have a few more on hand. i was really hesitant to start using them at first because they're pretty intimidating if you don't know how to use them. but the thing is, using them really is just like using disposables, only you throw them in a laundry bin instead of the trash. and washing them is super easy. i've always heard people say that cloth diapering is "addictive", and i know what they mean now!! (i have a picture of him in his cloth diaper, but it's still on the camera, and it's late...so i'll post one later)
this past weekend was the "meet shepard party" that i've been talking about having with my preschoolers ever since shepard was minus-6 months old. it was at the coolidge park fountain, and we had SO much fun! well, everyone except shepard. he was pretty miserable. he ate his first meal late in the morning, so he went down late, so he only slept for about 20 minutes before the party as opposed to the regular hour. and it was hot. and it was time for him to eat again. he was so hot, tired and hungry, that he couldn't eat, and all he did was cry cry cry. poor guy. but he did finally fall asleep with his daddy. bless him! he was so miserable!! but the kids seemed to have a good time, and it was SO GOOD to see them all again. :)

the glider has officially been taken back. we have a HUGE credit at BRU since we bought it with gift cards. we're thinking about selling the gift card to someone who will use BRU credit, but i'm honestly tired of them. every single time i've taken things back there - various things from our registry that we have wound up not needing - they have tried to not take it back. (you have to either have a receipt or have registered for it for them to even think about taking it back) it's always "this isn't showing up on your registry!" then we actually print the physical registry and they're like "oh, wow. there it is..." today when chris took the glider back, they actually said to him that their system was showing that we had already received credit back for it. are you kidding me? we have the receipt in hand and the actual [crappy] glider sitting in front of them. gross. don't shop there. they're annoying.

shepard weighs 13 pounds now. that's the 80th percentile. he's a BEEF CAKE!! :)

in other news, i drank a glass of real cow's milk this morning. *GASP* see, when shepard was a few weeks old, he went through these spells of S-C-R-E-A-M-I-N-G in absolute pain and he used to get these little red-rash things all over his body. they weren't baby acne either. so i stopped doing dairy altogether just to see if it made a difference. the thing is, i was also eating a whole lot of prunes (no reason...you know...ahem...) which are supposedly very gas-inducing, and i stopped eating them at the same time. well, he stopped screaming. after a couple of weeks, we said, you know, it could have been the prunes. so one day i tried some cream cheese on a bagel to see if he screamed. and he did that night. and the red rash came back. huh. so it IS the dairy. so i continued to stay away from dairy. well, then he had screaming episodes where the red rash came back even when i wasn't on dairy. so maybe it's just gas or something. so today i tried milk. and so far so good!!!!!!! are you kidding??? tomorrow i'm going to do milk again, and maybe a little cheese. slowly my friends. slowly.
our date night this week is going to be with forrest and alex. guess where we're going????? I CANNOT WAIT!!! :) :) :)










how he chooses to sleep on my shoulder most of the time. i always have to force his head to turn sideways!!











OH!















finally zonked out! check out how his hat matches his daddy's shorts!











some of the kids playing in the fountain!












naps with daddy are the best!







check out how beefy i am!!

July 26, 2010

sittin in the bumbo doo bee doo

whenever shepard sits in his bumbo (see below) i sing a little song (sittin in de bumbo doo bee doo) and he always smiles. then the silly little song gets in my head and i sing it all day with all sorts of words. "eatin up my good lunch doo bee doo." "driving to the store-oh doo bee doo." "i'm losing my mind doo bee doo." etc...

so in my humble and uneducated opinion, i think that a $400 glider rocker should not break after just two months of use. are my expectations too high? there's this crazy awesome feature (or so i thought) on our glider where you can pull a lever and it locks in place. something i was really looking forward to using once shepard is pulling up. i've worked in the nursery at church where there's a glider rocker, and we're constantly making sure the little boogers aren't pushing it around b/c it's SO easy to pinch (more like sever) a finger. anyway, the way it works is...nah. it's too hard to explain. i'll just say that the pieces that are supposed to come together only when the lever is pulled have somehow gotten so close to each other that they knock against each other every time we rock. MADDENING. absolutely maddening. chris says he's going to take it back to babies r us and leave it there. they can have it! we're done with it!!!

the part that stinks is that we have a little boy who FIGHTS sleep EVERY time we go to put him down, save the middle of the night when he eats in a coma anyway. the rocker really does seem to help him relax, and every time we're somewhere else and he needs to go down for a nap, it's an even bigger challenge when we don't have a rocker. add to that a mommy whose arms are weaker than olive oyl's and you've got a pretty miserable situation. *sigh* God is good. all the time. we'll see how it goes until we get a new rocker!

well, it's been 30 minutes since i put him down, and CUE THE BABY. without fail. you could set a clock by him.

more later!










hanging out with uncle forrest - check out my neck control!!!













sittin in de bumbo doo bee doo!








look what i figured out with my fingers!! hah!












wide awake and seriously considering crying on our walk...











but he finally fell asleep!! huttah!

July 23, 2010

happy accidents

so i had a wreck today with shepard in the car.


*SHOCK VALUE*



the real story is that i loaded the both of us up to go to coolidge park to take a walk (the 2nd day in a row we've actually done it!!) and i was so focused on talking and singing and keeping him distracted and happy, that i *BAM* backed into the honda. BIG sigh. the bad news is that the nanawagon (what i was driving) has a giant crack in the bumper. the good news is that it's a 1992 station wagon that we'll probably never trade in. the other good news is that the honda - the one we probably will trade in soon - wasn't hurt at all! sheesh. what a ditz.


in other, better news, CHRIS IS HOME! you may not have known he was gone. i don't like to broadcast it when i'm home alone. you know. stalkers. he was in nashville all week recording his two new songs with ben shive, his [awesome, amazingly talented, ridiculously fabulous] producer. i could ramble and rant all day long about how awesome a songwriter my husband is. his songs are always so thoughtful, catchy, fun, beautiful, meaningful. i LOVE his music! and you will too!! his first album came out in 2004 and you can get it on itunes or amazon.com. this new album will hopefully come out sometime in the spring. you are gonna LOVE it. the new stuff absolutely blows me away.


i started this post on friday. it's monday. oh well...

July 22, 2010

pondering these things

usually when we sing to shepard as he's going to sleep, he fusses and would rather us "shhhh" in his ear. (see "happiest baby on the block" techniques) which bums me because i love singing to my baby!! well, last night he was SO happy after his awake time, and kept the mood through his diaper change and swaddling. when we sat in the rocking chair, i laid him on his back on my legs (which i will not be able to do much longer - that guy is getting LONG!) i quietly sang "you are my sunshine" and "you can always come home to me" to him, and he absolutely gazed at me in wonder with a huge smile on his face! A. MA. ZING. i melted. and i totally understood what mary meant when she pondered these things in her heart after Jesus was born. i love that kid.

in one of the recent blogs, i mentioned that he has started "talking". well - wow. in just the past day or two, his "speech", i suppose, has totally taken off! he will fix his eyes on something in the room and just coo and talk! i cannot wait to hear him actually say words. it is hilarious and wonderful and amazing!! i have yet to get it on video. i swear that kid KNOWS what a camera is and stops his cuteness the second he sees the camera on him. it is SO weird. 

we had a breakthrough moment this morning! we must get in the habit of going for a walk on most mornings, so i just DID IT this morning. this time i attached one of his little toys that makes noise to his carseat, hoping that his presence would create some sort of calm in his life. well, he cried in the car, cried in the stroller (which is just his carseat snapped down into our jogger), but would stop when i would take him out. we had a little talk, and after a minute, i put him back down into it. he sat bewildered for a little while, and right before we turned onto the walking bridge, he started crying again. i looked at him and asked "what changed buddy?" and just kept asking that. he stopped crying, looked up into my eyes, and held onto his little giraffe. hah! i think it was an accident that his little hand wrapped around it, but it was still pretty cute. then, about 20 seconds later, he was asleep. GLORY!! i got a walk in and didn't have to a) carry him and push the stroller with one hand, or b) stroll with a crazy screaming baby! 

he's hungry!! he actually SLEPT until the time for his next feeding!! no 30 minute nap for him this morning. once again - GLORY!!!



happy boy!



he really does enjoy listening to stories! we are reading about joseph and his rainbow coat from "the Jesus storybook bible".


 
so happy with gan!

July 20, 2010

car time vs. bath time

yesterday shepard pulled his trademark move and woke up 30 minutes to-the-minute after i laid him down for EVERY nap. you could set a clock to his accuracy! it was almost like, "3...2...1. cue the crying!!" well, i *know* my child usually cries in his car seat, but i also know that he will sleep in it if he's nice and relaxed. after one of his wake-ups, he was still so sleepy, but every time i laid him back down, he would wake back up. so i decided we would take a drive. i got him sleepy, put him in the car seat and off we went. 30 minutes later, i was about to turn back onto our road and he literally threw up because he had been crying so hard. the ride would have lastest shorter than 30 minutes, but by the time i realized he was NOT going to fall asleep, we were already 10 minutes or so away from home, which meant 10 minutes or so BACK to home. not to mention the fact that the car was completely out of gas, so he had to endure a fill-up. *sigh* bless his heart! WHY does he hate his car seat so much??? the second i got him out of it, he stopped crying. we sat on the porch swing for 20 minutes in beautiful peace.


this is not good b/c christopher and i are travelers. we go everywhere! three things are about to happen. 1) shepard will get used to his carseat and ride in peace b/c we go so many places. 2) shepard will not get used to his carseat and will continue to ride in agony while we go so many places. 3) we will stop going so many places. *sigh* i have a feeling #3 will win.


in contrast to his feelings about his carseat, check out how he feels about his bath! he hasn't exactly figured out how to splash and play in the water, but he sure does seem to love the feeling of the water. :)





however, to dry him off, you'd think he was in the carseat again. is it because he wants to stay in the water? because he's cold after getting out? or because of the towel's texture?


gan (my mom) has taken a few days off work and is helping me out while chris is out of town for the week. (he's recording his new songs in nashville with ben! WAHOO!!) and she just accomplished what i thought was impossible. shepard woke up after 30 minutes of napping, and she put him back to sleep!! and he's still asleep after a full hour!!! a-ma-zing. way to go ganna!!!!


in completely other news, please visit this website and watch/listen to this song. i promise it will not disappoint. and when you're done with that song, head over to andrew peterson's website and order his new album!! it's definitely going to be his best one yet!!

July 18, 2010

60 days

*disclaimer* i can't seem to ever get blogger to align things correctly. forgive me if the spacing is weird!!


chris and i mentioned the other day that we really wanted to start journalling about shepard's days. i'm inspired to journal from reading anne lamott's "operating instructions" - one of the most hilarious and wonderful books i've EVER read. (iseriously could not read it in bed after chris had gone to sleep because i was constantly waking him up from laughing out loud.) anyway, inspired though i may be, i'm always overwhelmed at journalling b/c i'm always behind. i started a paper journal (remember those? they involve using some sort of writing utencil to record one's thoughts) when i found out i was pregnant, and i claimed i was going to keep track of all the little fellow did inside me. well, there are approximately 5 entries. maybe more. but certainly not enough to count as a thorough journal! anyway, overwhelmed though i may be, HERE I AM. i just have to start. so there. it is hard to start though, b/c i could ramble for DAYS about the first two months of his life. i'll pick a few highlights...


tomorrow, july 19, shepard will be two months old!! simply amazing. it truly does feel like we were just in the hospital. forget that, it feels like yesterday that we found out we were pregnant! i have never experienced anything like parenthood before. (duh) people say it, but you don't really understand until you do it: parenthood is the most wonderful, exhausting, exciting, terrifying, fun, frustrating, natural, and hard thing you'll ever do. i look at shepard's little face and fall in love more each time. sheesh.

he has started "talking" to us, which is just so much fun! whether he's happy or crying, his little sounds are more than just a BLAT! they have inflections and changes in volume and personality. when i realized that he had been doing that for a while, it hit me that whoa! this little baby is going to grow up to be an actual person who can talk and ask questions and give opinions and stuff. whoa!
some ways that he has changed recently:
- he doesn't make sweet little sighing squeaks when he's nursing anymore :,(
- he can scoot backwards.
- he reaches for things.
- he SMILES all the time - especially when he sees his parents!!
- he doesn't scream NEARLY as much as he used to! :)
- he seems to have stopped taking a bottle. this is NOT good for the girl who wants to go back to work part time...
- he will lay and play on his play mat for up toabout 20 minutes by himself!
- despite being 2 months, he's wearing 3 month clothes.
and now for some pictures:
the first time mama caught me smilin on camera!












i'll get you, you dirty monkey!!











i do NOT like tummy time, mama.















i LOOOOOVE my daddy!!!











chillin' with my jungle friends.











sleepin' in my uncle's old room at gan and grandfather's house!











stylin in my suit and hat!










cheeeeeese!











my first photo shoot in the really awesome outfit that gan bought me!











i was screaming at mommy by this time in the photo shoot. she's a torturer and will do
anything to get a foot shot.

check out my muscles!!













i love taking baths, but drying off always makes me feel a little crabby...



spending some good time with my great-grandmother, nana. she sounds like she knows what she's talking about!