Made ya smile didn't I? Come on? How cute is my boy in his surf shorts and rocker, muscle tee? I might be biased but I think he's the cutest baby in the land! ;-) This was his first day of swimming... I was 2 seconds away from trying flip flops on him but I didn't...
It's been an eventful day for Drew and I.
He's been sitting up for a few days now. It's still new to him. He had been sitting up holding his hands in front of him and this weekend suddenly, no more hands. We were so excited.
Then yesterday, I'm out on the deck with him taking a break from work and I laid a blanket out on the floor to place him on and notice that Drew is doing a sort of centipede like maneuver. He is in crawling position then moves his hands forward, lays down to bring his legs forward then gets back up. He's kinda crawling instead of doing the army crawl. Another exciting moment.
But today, not so exciting.
That modified crawl, well he hasn't learned to stop yet when he sees objects like say, a book shelf. Yep, right into it, hitting the side of his head. He had that silent cry for a good 5 minutes before he wailed. I felt so bad.
Then today, I decided, he's 9 months, it's time to try a teething biscuit. He does, after all, have two teeth. He kinda demolishes two. I'm keeping a close eye and sitting right next to him cause I'm just thinking that he's going to choke. His third one (later in the day), I notice him gagging and his face turning red, I jump out of my seat and pull something out of his mouth with my finger then shove my finger back in to make sure nothing is there.
Now Drew is SCREAMING. He's scared and I'm panicking after the fact.
So we took a walk to calm us both down and it did. But no more teething biscuits.
I'm not sure I can handle them. And he has to learn to move so... I guess I'll just deal with that.
Now that Drew is almost 9 months, I wanted to start doing some Mommy and Me classes. So when my friend Brooke said she was doing Mommy and Me swimming with her almost 2 year old daughter Autumn and asked if I'd be interested, I decided to go ahead and sign up. $80 for 6 weeks, not bad, affordable and in the meanwhile I get some really good bonding time with Drew.
So this past Sunday, we started Mommy and Me Swimming. I was kind of afraid of how Drew was going to react since I tried to move him to the big tub but he was way too afraid to go in alone. I've been taking baths with him since the infant tub is really ridiculous for him. He's getting so long!
Andrew came with me to video tape and see his son swim for the first time. It was sweet and nice and I was happy he did. All the dad's came and 2 even got in the pool with the mom's and kids. Drew was one of the youngest there; there was a baby girl that was 8 months old.
When he first saw the pool, he took hold of my bathing suit straps for dear life, I held him close as I walked into the water then he relaxed. Like his dad, he kind of sat back, taking everything in and when he realized he was safe, he started to giggle and have fun.
And while I didn't lose the amount of weight that I wanted to and was uncomfortable at first, my focus really was on Drew and my body didn't matter. I wasn't the largest woman there and wasn't the thinnest either. I was kind of average, which was a relief! Plus the tummy tucker one piece I got helped suck it all in!
I was mostly happy I could do a mommy & me class at all.. After my long journey to motherhood, to be able to say I'm a mom and join classes like this made my bathing suit phobia's seem trivial...
I have a video but Andrew has to do some magic to it before I can post!
Happy Summer!
I'm not a huge fan of Jon & Kate Plus 8 but Andrew watches it often and obviously they have been all over the media due to their divorce. And I don't normally post a lot about things like this because as a child of divorce, I am sad for these children. Sad that they will have to bear witness to the fighting, name-calling and heartbreak that inevitably ensues when a marriage crumbles and that they have to do so with the intense scrutiny of the public eye upon them.
That said, I just want to say how upsetting it is to see Kate Gosselin torn apart by the media and general public alike for her "controlling behavior". While she might be controlling, I have to wonder if the same would be said if it were Jon Gosselin that kept tight reigns on the family the way Kate does.
I also wonder if these same individuals have tried to keep a family of 8 similarly aged children on schedule and in check. I am barely able to do that with 1 child.
While I do not live close to or near the Gosselin's nor do I know what happens when the camera's are not rolling, from what I do see, I don't see Jon stepping up to the plate to become a 50/50 partner in the marriage or the inner workings of the family. If there is no on captaining the ship, then don't we have the Titanic?
What I see is not a "control freak". What I see is a woman trying to manage a very busy household and bring income into her family. Working a conventional job is not an option with 8 tiny mouths. And when you have a husband who is very laid back, it's imperative that you step up and guide the reigns. Do you think it wise if Kate sat back and waited for Jon to go against his nature and be more active and take charge?
I'm so tired of hearing how enterprising women are greedy or controlling when men with these same qualities are rewarded by society.
I think Kate is great. End rant here.
This year was Andrew's first father's day and I tried to make it special but things didn't exactly work out the way I wanted them to. I tried to set up a little something for him every weekend in June leading up to Father's Day. Weekend #1 went by great. I set up a biking day with his good friend in Westchester and the weather was perfect... he went, had a blast.
Then it started to rain. And it hasn't stopped yet. So golfing the next weekend was out. Then this weekend, I tried to set up a day at the horse races at Belmont for him, his father and his two brothers but that never happened (don't ask).
So he got the new iPhone instead and I think he's happy. I wish it could have been more special but I'll try to coordinate with mother nature better next year. :-)
Andrew's been stepping up more lately and its nice. He's been spending more and more time with the baby and letting me get an hour or two a day where I'm able to work out, shower etc. While there are times he still gives me attitude about it, I think he's getting better. I'm skeptical over whether or not it's going to last since many times with Andrew, he will make positive steps to help me out more with the house, the baby but then it all fades after a week or two but I'm praying this will last.
I want Drew to have quality one-on-one time with both of us daily. It's as important to me that we each have that as well as family time. And I know it's important to Andrew too... I just think he gets really caught up in the many hobbies he has.
In any case, I am enjoying the effort he's putting toward taking care of the baby more and am also making an effort to not TELL him HOW to take care of him aside from he needs to eat at such and such a time. It's hard but I think I'm doing well.
And Remember the resentment I spoke about? To refresh, I was shocked at how much I resented Andrew when I first had Drew because my life changed so much and his didn't. Well, with him making efforts to take care of the baby more, it certainly helps me to deal with that resentment.
I want to start a tradition for Mother's Day and Father's Day... any ideas on family traditions for the three of us?
I have to say that I've lucked out with Drew. He's a good baby. He is a wonderful napper, he plays by himself and loves to giggle and smile. Not a very high maintenance baby. At all. Must take after his father. ;-)
Or he wasn't.
Until he started to teeth.
Motrin. Frozen washcloths. Frozen rattles. Tylenol. Nothing works to relieve this kids discomfort. And now, he doesn't want to eat anymore. He won't open his mouth for anything except Juice.
He's driving me crazy cause I'm terrified he's not eating enough. I turned to my trusty Supernanny book (I really heart Jo) and she basically says, he'll eat when he's hungry. Try to stick to the schedule and if he doesn't eat at a meal, just say alright and wait till the next.
Why is that so freakin' hard to do? Do we as mom's inherit some gene where we need to see our child eat everything we give them? WTF?
And on the sleep front, just when a full nights sleep was in reach, teething took that away. For the past few weeks, Drew's back to waking up a minimum of twice during the night. Sleep was nice while it visited. Does it come back? God I hope so. This luggage underneath my eyes is a not so nice shade of purple. It looks like Andrew punched me. Which he just might have with the attitude I've had because of the lack of sleep.
But he's been amazing at really picking up with Drew... he's doing much more to relieve me with the baby... of course, he's been off from work, so we'll see if that continues when he goes back next week. But this week has been nice... Especially when Andrew took care of him for a full day by himself while I went to the office. I came home and Andrew said, "How do you do this every day?"
Vindication! Any advice on getting Mr. Closed Mouth to eat. God, if that could just be my problem, this baby weight would be off already.
Doesn't this look just scream "Get that camera out of my face?" And isn't he jut the most amazing baby ever? Do I sound like an annoying mom yet? ;-)
I wish this was a fake conversation between Andrew and I but it's not...
Setup: Baby is crying because he's tired. He was just fed and is fighting sleep, as usual. I was holding him but sometimes, he doesn't want to be held while drifting to sleep and he actually cries MORE because he wants to be down. He actually wants to go to sleep on his own in his crib. He was whining when this conversation happened.
Andrew: Jen, did you feed him?
Me: Yes I did. He's not hungry. He's tired. Just leave him be and he'll fall asleep.
Andrew: No. I know he's hungry. I'm heating a bottle.
Me: Please don't waste the formula. He was just fed 30 minutes ago.
Andrew: Jen, he's obviously still hungry. I'm feeding him.
Me: Do what you want I'm only his mother.
Needless to say, he heated the bottle, the baby screamed when Andrew was nearly force feeding him and eventually fell asleep when he left him in his play yard (play pen for us old timers) with his blanket. Alone.
Sigh.
He's still for sale. And I haven't gotten any respectable offers. Very disappointing.
We had a rough night last night.
Drew slept a lot during the day and decided that 1 am was a perfectly sane hour to get up... and stay up. Being that I work from home on Friday's, I got up with him. He fell back asleep by 2 then proceeded to cry any time I tried to put him in his crib. So at 2:30 am I fed him a bottle, which he downed in about 15 minutes and fell asleep. Until 3 am.
At 3, it started to thunder, loudly, which woke the dogs, the baby and Andrew.
Andrew gets up and starts to complain about a multitude of things. The baby crying, what I should be doing to keep him quiet etc and I nearly lose it. Okay. I admit. I completely lost it.
Instead of getting up and asking how long I've been up with Drew or asking what I have already tried to get him to sleep, he goes right into "Ya know Jen, you can't just let him cry like that... I mean, give him a bottle... you know he's teething, soothe him. Give him something for his mouth."
Oh, that's right, I let my son cry hysterical, starve to death and stay awake in pain. That's me. Mother of the year.
We fought. Loudly. Which of course scared the baby so we stopped. Now it was 4 am. Andrew got the baby to sleep and came to bed. And I was too angry to sleep. So I watched the minutes on the clock go by until I couldn't anymore and fell asleep about 5 am.
When I woke up this morning, I tried to wake Andrew 3 times. He wouldn't budge. So finally at 8 am, which is very late for him to wake up, I tell him it's the last time I'm trying to wake up. He finally gets up and what does he say?
"Why didn't you wake me".
Oh. My. God.
I hold it in and simply say, I did, 3 times in fact. He goes into the bathroom.
When he comes out I'm making his lunch, as a gesture of peace and again... he says..."Why are you using a roll? Can't you just use bread?"
Are all men this dense?
Does he have anything nice to say to me?
With the amount of interrupted sleep I get, the taking care of Drew while working 2 jobs sometimes 3 and the taking care of the house... I really have very little patience left over to train my husband on how to give me a compliment.
So I've decided to sell him. He's somewhat house trained. He is wonderful at running errands when asked. He loves washing the car and taking care of the lawn. And, as my good friend pointed out, he's good looking.
Any takers?
This past weekend I set up a Saturday mountain biking expedition for Andrew with a friend of his in Westchester so I was home alone with Drew all day. It was part of my father's day gift where each weekend in June I've set up something for Andrew to do for himself. I won't elaborate more but you get the gist.
So I was laying on the couch with Drew when he took my finger and put it in his mouth to suck on. I felt his lower gum and lo and behold a sharp object ran against my fingertip. I pulled his lip down and saw - a tooth! My baby boy has his first tooth breaking through.
Like the sap that I am I started to cry. And going to Babies R Us to pick up formula made it even worse. There I am with my smiling boy and ahead of me are two women with newborns. And by newborns I mean less than 1 month old. I was in tears walking out of there. I have no idea why and this was the very first time since having Drew that I saw a baby and thought, Oh my God... how absolutely precious... I'm sure it's a combination of hormones and the idea that Drew is growing very fast but GAWSH, I feel like he was 5 lbs just yesterday.
So my boy has the beginnings of a bottom tooth and made his mama cry. I can't picture him with teeth... but I'll soon see!
So adorable!! And dude! I love your tile!!!! LOL read more
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