Friday, April 27, 2012

Date Night

Its past midnight, baby is sound asleep, and I am up blogging. What the heck is wrong with me? I don't know. I am very bad at being "tired" when I am supposed to... like when the baby is tired. I am also bad at napping. Bad combination. I guess it just means more sleep deprivation, lol. My brain is slowly turning to mush! My mom leaves Sudoku books all over the house. I used to be really good at them, but now I mess her puzzles up every time I touch them. Alas. Sleep deprivation.

Anyways, what I was going to say is this: You know your a parent when your idea of a great date night is going out to dinner, then window shopping a bit for house stuff, then going to Target to buy diapers, nursing pads, baby shoes and toys. Its a nice date because you can move at your own pace, get adult conversation, don't have to worry about baby getting upset, and Target has a Starbucks in it. We also considered renting a hotel room for a couple hours... Just to nap. ROFL. Ah, parenthood.

OK, seriously I am going to try to go to bed now.

House Update - We are "homesless!" (Houseless)

I have kept most of the drama surrounding the sale of our house off of this board. Its weird, sometimes when things are difficult and complicated I want to vent to everyone, and other times its practically painful to keep even people who need to know in the loop because I would just rather not deal with it. With the house it has been the later. The good news is now, its all over!! We closed on our house today, and it is no longer ours, which is such a huge relief. DH has been doing most of the leg work for it and for that I am so grateful.

We also have been starting to look at houses here and have some candidates, though we are not sure yet. It is such a balancing act - money versus specific wants... For example there is one house that we really like and is at a good price in a good neighborhood, but has on street parking only. There is another that looks like it has tons of potential and could be so cool, but needs some work and its hard to tell just how much work. And there is a third that is at the very tippy top of our price range and is very nice, but will probably feel small with a growing family and our conglomeration of personal effects. As the list to the right would suggest, we really are hoping that this house we buy now will be our forever home, but at the same time we are in a hurry to move to stop being a burden to everyone. So its a balancing act in finding a house we are happy with (not rushing), and finding a house quickly (rushing). Cross your fingers that the perfect house for us comes on the market!



Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Crazy Changes

I know its been quite awhile since I have just talked about how Benjamin is doing and all the fun things going on with his development. Part of this is because I am busy and lazy, but also I have been struggling with articulating it. It is incredible to me how fast he has changed over the past 2-3 weeks, but when I try to explain how I feel like I am not giving the 2-3 weeks ago version of him justice. So bear with me as I give this a try

3 weeks ago Benjamin could hold things and would sometimes reach for them. Now he reaches for everything and tries to put it in his mouth. This includes when he is in tummy time he reaches out with one hand. He has flipped a bowl of DHs cereal off the table.

3 weeks ago Benjamin would kick and wiggle when we set him down. Now he can spin himself in circles to reach toys, and he twists his body and tries to roll over and tries to move towards what he wants.

3 weeks ago it was nice to give him a toy while you were sitting trying to hold him while you did something else. Now he has to have a toy or book or something to keep his interest or he will get bored and start whining/crying.

3 weeks ago he would "stand" if you propped him up on his legs. Now with encouragement he can go from sitting to standing holding your hands for balance/to get started. He loves to stand holding your hands and look around (very wobbly mind you!!)

Its an entirely different world, and I have to admit it is simultaneously incredible and difficult. He has become so much more interactive, interested, interesting, and demanding. It is so cool to see him grow and learn, but I am not very good at the "entertaining" him part. I don't know what to do after awhile and I get frustrated when he goes a long period awake without being able to entertain himself at all. I would say the last three weeks have been more difficult than the first three months of his life for me because of this.

For the record, I did not get the job I interviewed for, so no daycare needed yet. I said three weeks ago that his sleep was improving, well it went back the other way and he has been back to being up every three hours, sometimes every two. He also has started the habit of waking up at 5am to poop, which is less than helpful to my sleeping pattern and I wish he would wait until 6 at least. His napping has improved, we discovered the magic of white noise for him and have been using it generously. If I put him in his chair under the bathroom fan (asleep already) I can get him to take a good 2 hr nap sometimes.

Monday, April 23, 2012

30 by 30

Have you ever heard of a 30 by 30 list? It is a list of 30 things to do or accomplish by the time you turn 30. I turn 28 in one month, so I think if I am going to do a 30 by 30 list I should get on it. I know I know, here I go making more goals!! I just love to make goals... even though I don't follow through half the time! If you are getting annoyed by it you probably should find another blog to read, because I don't plan to stop anytime soon.

Here is my 30x30 list. I hope to add a widget that lists these to the side of the blog so I can cross them off as I go, we will see!

Life Goals
1. Have a second child
2. Buy our "forever" home

Self Improvement
3. See >160 on the scale
4. Learn to like mushrooms
5. Learn to drive a manual transmission
6. Inline Skate a marathon (officially or unofficially)
7. Do 100 Hours of community service

Because I Live in Duluth (and should therefore have already done these things)
8. Go out on Lake Superior in a boat
9. Drive to Thunder Bay
10. See the "big spoon" in person (Minneapolis Sculpture Garden)
11. Go Shopping at the Mall of America

Because I Have Been Meaning To
12. Learn to Snowboard
13. Read War & Peace
14. Write something good enough to have my friends edit it
15. Dye my Hair Red
16. Teach my mom how to use a computer
17. Go to a midnight showing of a movie in costume
18. Be Rainbow Brite for Halloween
19. Get to the Bottom of Palisade
21. Hike this section of the Superior Hiking Trail
22. Figure out which state park I wanted to go to in 10th grade, and actually go there

Because I Want to Experience Things my Family Likes
22. Ride in a fast car with Max
23. Ride a motorcycle
24. Go Off-Roading

Because I Haven't Done It Since I was Little
25. Go Fishing
26. Do a long trail ride (on horseback) with a "scary" hill

Because I Love Learning
27. Learn Basic Cake Decorating (so I can do kids' birthday cakes)
28. Make a complicated quilt that is not all right angles
29. Learn to cook pancakes, poach an egg, make french toast and cook a souffle
30. Bake 10 different kinds of bread


Thursday, April 19, 2012

"I don't have time for it!"

This phrase, "I don't have time for X", is an excuse. Some point in the past year I came to the conclusion that saying you don't have time for something is neglecting to take responsibility for your own choices concerning time.* I have tried to banish it from my vocabulary. I would have time to read, but I choose to spend a lot of time on the internet. I would have time to clean if I did not spend so much time watching TV. I could spend more time organizing if I spent less time on Facebook. I could work out more often if I slept less.

There is always time for something, but it comes at the cost of something else. We choose how to spend out time. Its not about being perfect, its about taking responsibility for our own lives and what we can control.

*admittedly there may be people in the world who really have no flexibility with their time due to circumstances beyond their control... they are few and far between.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Spring Easter Festival

Easter was wonderful. We started the morning with an "egg hunt" for Benjamin. It was DHs idea and turned out absolutely adorable. We put him down on a nice pastel blanket and spread the eggs out around him. We then spent a good half hour cooing over him and snapping pictures. Pictured also is the easter basket I made for him using a stuffed animal. I use "I" lightly as my mom (grandma!) made lot of it... but I did to the last bit of hand stitching that is holding it all together! Anyways, we also filled it with candy for DH and I to partake in.



After the photo op, we went off to a fabulous lunch at a resort of the shore. We had 17 people (16 adults) in our party! My parents, DH and I, my three siblings and their respective SOs, four family friends, and my sister's ILs. It was a lot of fun! Benjamin slept for most of it, which was good for me! After spending two hours eating we came back to my parents house with everyone and talked and napped for a bit, then got out the supplies to do Ukrainian Eggs. Ukrainian Eggs are a non-edible egg decoration technique. You take an egg and put wax on it where you would like it to stay white, then you put it in a light color, like yellow. Then you put wax on it where you would like it to stay yellow, and then you dye it orange, then you put wax on it where you want it to stay orange and dye it light blue. etc etc etc. When you are done dying the egg, it is almost entirely covered in black wax. You melt off the wax and it reveals your design. I admit my eggs this year turned out mediocre, but I do have past eggs that are neat, and my littler sister did some cool eggs. The first (blue) egg below is the one my little sister made for us that shows two adult panda bears and a baby panda bear, and has our initials, anniversary, and Benjamin's birthday on it. The second egg (dinosaur) is the back of the one I made for Benjamin this year. The third egg is one I made a few years ago and is just decorative.


After we were done dying eggs it was just a relaxing evening. I don't even remember what we did other than we were all VERY FULL of food. We were talking in the car about how many of us there are, and how big our table had to be, and what it will be like when more kids get involved (siblings or cousins for Benjamin!) We were also saying that one of us needs to get a VERY BIG DINING ROOM for future family meals.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Three Months Old

Benjamin turned three months old today! See? He says so!!


I have not had a chance to weigh him this week. He still seems to be 24" long, not growing very tall at the moment! Last weight was on 3/24 and was 14.1 lbs. I have heard some kids grow like accordians (gain a lot of weight, then shoot up in height, etc). I am hoping he will do this a bit since he is gaining a lot of weight but no height at the moment!! He is grabbing things. He is more interested in toys everyday, though I would say he still prefers interactions - people talking, singing, smiling at him. Last night he accomplished a new feat! He slept from 10:30 - 2:30, got up, ate, then slept until 6:30! It is the first time he has only gotten up once overnight (prior to last night he had been getting up at like 2,4:30,7 or so, sort of making up for the longer gap at the beginning by putting the others closer together). He still has not rolled from back to front, though he has come close at times! He still occasionally roles front to back, but I still am not sure he can do it on demand. I admit we have been spoiling him at naps a bit. At night he sleeps fine on his own, but during the day he wants to be rocked to sleep either by me or the swing and then not put down. I probably should work on this as I am doing job interviews and could need him in daycare as soon as the beginning of May. I have also started pumping every morning for this reason. He likes to sit in his bumbo, he likes his Eric Carle kangaroo when we bounce it around him with sound effects, he likes his Eric Carle duck that hangs above him and can quack. He also likes the hanging toy that vibrates when you release the draw string. He likes his fabric blocks that crinkle and ring (he prefers the crinkly ones!) - he can pick them up with both hands and chew on them! He likes his crinkly books, especially the one with a mirror in it. We read to him every day, often multiple times a day. He loves to eat/suck on his hands and we "tease" him for it all the time. He can tell now when you leave the room, and this upsets him. When he gets tired he only wants his Mama.

A new development that bodes of things to come - on Tuesday I went out and about shopping etc with my mom. In the past, Benjamin would have fallen asleep in the car and then stayed asleep for the majority of the time, sleeping in his Moby wrap or stroller in stores and of course sleeping in the car. He hardly slept at all. He fussed a lot in the car before giving in, and then was wide awake in the Moby, which he tolerated for about 45 minutes/an hour before wanting out. In the evening we went to meet our realtor and he was fussy and active the whole meeting. I am thinking its about to become much harder to be out and about. We shall see!! And now, for some more pictures!