before sunrise

there is only one thing in the world that would make me happy before the sun comes up. i'll give you one guess what (who) it is.

the past two nights we have tried letting shepard sleep without being swaddled. we still put the swaddler around his body to give him another layer, but we leave his arms out. yesterday, he woke up crying at 5:30, and i was just going to feed him early. (we like for his first feeding to be between 6 and 6:30) but by the time i had gotten my head together and used the restroom, he had already gone back to sleep! and he slept until 7:30!!!!!!! wow. and then it was the first time he had woken up in his bed happy. at 7:30 he was just rolling around cooing and talking. awesome.

this morning, he woke up cooing and happy and talking at 5:00. ouch. since he wasn't unhappy, i just took the monitor out to the couch and listened to him/dozed. anyway, he's a little early riser, but i think the unswaddling thing is working!! HE'S GROWING UP!!!! :(

we have so many awesome new pictures, but i have to clean the house up this morning. (plus it probably won't even let me upload pics...) you'll just have to wait!!

off to start the day!!

90 days

today our baby is THREE MONTHS OLD. whew. that's insane.

and that's all the blogging i got done on thursday! hah! now it's saturday morning, and i'm watching my sweet baby boy sleep on his back with his arms and legs all sprawled out. he's officially sleeping in his room in his crib by himself. no more pack and play beside our bed!!! for one thing, he's three months old, and "they" say to start doing what you're going to do with routines and schedules and stuff by about three months. also, he's outgrown his "bassinet" attachment of the pack and play!! it says to stop using it when your kid can push up on hands and knees (not even close to there...) or is 15 pounds. whichever comes first. my kid is a BEAST!!! so anyway, this makes me very sad. i like having him sleeping right beside me all night long!! i do not like him being in his own room!!!!!! WAH! my baby is growing up. way. way. way. too. fast.

several hours have passed since typing the above, and now i'm listening to chris play the guitar to a full-tummy'd shepard. he is mezmerized by his daddy's playing! it's awesome to watch.

some ways shepard has changed recently:

sucking his hands. one day last week, he just stuck them in his mouth!! and now he can't keep them out. it's all he wants to do. when he's eating, he'll push the booby out of his mouth and suck on his hands. when he has the passy, he'll push it out of his mouth and suck on his hands. he's a little obsessed.

rolling. not rolling over. but he's started rolling side to side in his crib so much that he'll start with his head at one end of the crib and wind up with it at the totally other end. one day last week, it was about time for him to wake up and i realized i hadn't looked at the monitor in a while. when i did, i couldn't tell what he had done. he wasn't moving so i knew he was still asleep, but it looked like he was on his side, which would be a first. i very quietly opened the door and peeked in to see what was going on, and there he was. peacefully laying with his eyes open, on his side, with his foot sticking out through the slats of his crib! BAHAHAHA!!! i almost died laughing. (if blogger will straighten up and let me upload pictures, see below for a shot of it!)

grouching. he's been talking for a while now, but now he furrows his brow and growls and groans and complains. it's different than crying or fussing. i call it grouching. it's hilarious!! i don't know if he's actually angry, or if he's just experimenting with tone and inflection. i need to get it on video and post it.

sleeping through the night. (!!!) he sleeps through the night more often than he doesn't lately, and this makes us both very, very happy. :) :) :) his last feeding is usually around 9:30. i usually have to wake him up to give it to him, and he almost always eats in his sleep, which is just adorable. he's usually laying in his crib for the night by 10:30 at the latest, and most of the time we have to wake him up at 6am for his first feeding. it's funny too b/c when we wake him up, he almost never cries for food. he will just lay in his crib and smile and laugh and coo at us for a while!! it's SO awesome to wake up to!!!!

some ways i have changed recently:

i have muscles. if you know me, your jaw just hit the ground. i have always had issues with my arms and weakness and pain (well, i still have issues with pain sometimes...my answer lately is "olbas analgesic salve" - LOVE it!!!) but the other day, i was sitting on the ground with my knees to my chest and my arms crossed on my knees. i felt a weird lump in my bicep area and was genuinely freaked out for about a minute. i rubbed it and rubbed it and rubbed it thinking "oh my gosh...WHAT is that???" it was hysterical when i realized, duh, it's a MUSCLE. wow. i've never had one of those in my arms before!!!! awesome! i have a little 15 pound weight that i'm carrying around all day long. i would hope i would get a muscle or two!!!

blogger is being retarded. well, i don't know if it's blogger or our computer (which SUCKS, btw). but either way, i can't get pictures on here right now. check facebook if you're dying to see the latest.

making crap up

there have been times in the past that i've wanted to be able to add minutes or hours to my day. add a child to my life, and that desire is multiplied by a gazillion!! there are not enough hours in the day to spend with this child. not to mention to get stuff done.

stuff. blech.

i'm weary of the spoils of my ambition, and i'm shackled by the comfort of my couch. i wish i had the courage to deny these of myself and start to store my treasure in the clouds. 'cause this is not my home. i do not belong where the antelope and the buffalo roam. (a little ap to drive home the conviction)

so last night's blog originally started off with something to the effect of "it's late and i should be in bed." repeat that for tonight!! (i don't know why i get the itch to blog late at night when i should be sleeping.) to sum it up, it basically said that work is going fine, shepard has done great being with his grandmothers while i'm getting the year started, and that i'm pretty sure we'll all be fine in the longrun. *groan* but i have such a hard time leaving that little face!!! have you SEEN him??

this thursday, shepard will be three months old. good grief. i remember saying that we would start putting him to sleep in his own room in his own bed at three months. i said we would really start solidifying the routine/schedule at three months. i said we would start simply putting him down for naps and helping him learn how to soothe himself. what's funny is that i feel like he's ready for all of that!! he's already sort of started to self-soothe, which is just amazing. here's to a good transition week!!!

thought for the night: how many times a week do you wake up and realize that you're going to have to just totally and utterly fake it? meaning, fake smile, fake enthusiasm, fake friendliness to everyone. does faking it count? i mean, if i'm totally dying on the inside and hating the world, and i'm fake nice to people, does that make me a liar? or a nice person? just wonderin...

chris got some hilarious pictures of me and the little guy tonight. i'll post them soon. :)

state of rebellion

oh. my. gosh. i had the longest blog entry yet, and i just lost it. i am SO not going to try to recreate it. too bad. so sad. life goes on. at least the pics are still here.

growl.



i'm flying!!



blue dipes make me feel tough!!


yellow dipes make me happyyyyyyy!!!

cry me a river

it's 12:20 am on tuesday...or i guess really it's wednesday at this point. orientation for school starts tomorr...i mean, today, and i am LOSING MY MIND. i haven't cried this much in a long, long time. i can't believe i agreed to go back to work part time. my entire life - all 31 years - i have always said that it's my dream, my goal, my plan to STAY HOME once i had kids. a couple of years ago, i started this job teaching preschool. when my boss passed around the little survey saying, "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" i went to write "at home with my kids", but paused. for the first time in my life, i paused and said, "whoa! i don't know if i want to be home with my kids! i LOVE this job!!!" which is GREAT! it is so good that i love my job. right? yes.
well, last year when i got pregnant, i decided that i would go back to work part time as a little compromise. WHAT WAS I THINKING????????????? why would i ever want to take time away from spending with my kid to spend it with other people's kids?

i know it will be good for me, good for shepard, good for the grandmas that are keeping him. but the thing that's getting me is that he is just SO young. not even 3 months. i wish i had told them that i would come back part time once shepard was, like, 4 months or something. GAH! this is so hard. the hardest thing i've done in a while...if not ever done.

just LOOK at this guy!! why am i leaving him??????? he is JUST starting to settle into a nice routine.

note: if my boss or any of my co-workers read this, know that i'm super emotional, and remember that i'm completely sleep deprived. my next blog post will probably be about how much i love being back at work and how shepard is doing beautifully with his new schedule. i'm just saying...!



freaking out about haley!!! sorry girl. :)


i'm worried. i think he's joined a gang!!



hanging out with dad before he leaves for work!




i'm such a bad mom. i wanted a picture of him in his awesome baseball outfit, and he really didn't want one...but i took it anyway. sorry buddy!!



oh no...why is this sideways???? turn your head and just LOOK at that smile!! he's just so proud about busting out of his swaddling AGAIN.

entranced.


swinging with daddy!



chillin'.



thinkin'.

bubbles!!

it's the end of the summer

i realized something the other day. i am not a housewife. i am a stay at home mom. (save the 10 hours a week i'll be in the classroom) so when the clock somehow reads 6:00PM and the dishes are still piled up in the sink, and i still haven't vacuumed, and the clothes still aren't folded, because all i've done that day is take care of shepard, my day is a success!! when i realized this, i felt a weight lift off my shoulders and i said a little prayer of thanksgiving. whew!

shepard's latest amazing feat is sleeping through the night!!! yes, yes, yes. it might have just been a fluke. but last night, little guy slept from 11:00 until 6:00. he usually wakes up for a 3am feeding, and he was grunting like crazy last night right at 3, but when i stood up and went to get him, he was very obviously still asleep. he was totally comatose between half-hearted grunts. so i tiptoed back to bed and cautiously went back to sleep. about an hour later, the same half-hearted grunts started. i watched him for a little while, but then laid back down. i didn't even get under the covers b/c i was so sure he would wake up starving any minute. an hour later at about 5:30, i woke up on my own and thought he had died for sure!!! when i gently put my hand on his beautifully breathing chest, i almost YIPPED out loud! if he woke up right then, i would consider it sleeping through the night. i laid back down, and lo and behold, when my alarm went off at 6:00, it woke him up too. a-ma-zing. i unswaddled him and took him to our feeding spot on the couch and looked at him. "you're growing up little man!!" i said. his response? BIG GRIN!!! i love that kid.

he is also very consistently smiling at his parents like CRAZY. all the books say that he will prefer us to anyone else, and it has been SO amazing to witness that the books are right!! he doesn't mind going to other people at all. but when he sees or hears either one of us, it's a huge face-squishing smile! *wow* makes me cry just thinking about it!! i LOVE that kid!!

today is chris' first day back at school for a week of inservice before the students start back next thursday. so i consider today my first real day of stay-at-homeness. today marks the beginning of me getting both of us on a real, set schedule. regular feeding times, regular bath days and times, regular grocery planning and shopping. or at least it's when i start figuring out when all that is going to work best for us. and it's been awesome because i have actually been motivated to DO things between his naps and feedings. usually i just want to veg out and either watch tv or get on the computer. you need to know that shepard sleeps for literally only 30 minutes at a time. here's what a day looks like for us:

6:00 am - feed shepard
~6:45 - awake time for shepard, breakfast for me
~7:30 - shepard to sleep
8 - shepard awake
8:00-9:00 - more awake and play time for shepard
9:00 - feed shepard

and it starts all over and repeats until 9 or 10 at night. did you see that? the only time without shepard was from 7:30 to 8:00. do you know how fast 30 minutes goes by when you're trying to get something done??? and you could set a clock by this kid! he is so eerily accurate about that 30 minutes. but good news is that he has started to be willing and able to either sit in his little seat or lie on his playmat for at least 20 minutes during the hour before his next feeding, so i can sometimes get some more stuff done. but usually we're either reading books or swinging on the porch swing or just hanging out and talking. have i mentioned that i love that kid?

wow. i haven't uploaded pictures from the camera in forever. sorry about that...new pictures of our little man soon!!

i started blogging at 12:00. it is now 12:36 and he is awake. wow. a long nap!! hah!