Garrett: Four Months!

Height/Weight: Twenty-five and a third inches, fifteen pounds. Not petite, by any means, but also not as big as they come. He's just right  ;-)

Wearing: Size two diapers (although not for much longer) and mostly 3-6 month clothing. Based on the way clothes fit him, it seems that the length of his torso is not proportional to the size of his waist: anything that snaps in the crotch or has feet in it is bordering on snug (in the 3-6 month size), but most 3-6 month shorts are completely loose around his waist. Whatever. Thankfully I have totes of William's clothes to dig through until I find stuff that fits and don't really have to go out and buy things to keep up with his growth (although I still manage to find plenty of reasons to buy stuff for him anyway)

Eating: Still all breast milk, although we definitely had some major headaches in this department over the past month. Anything (and everything) was a distraction from nursing, so I would have to do my best to completely isolate ourselves to have any hope of getting him to eat (not easy with William, mind you). And even then it was only about a 50% chance that he would nurse well. Not surprisingly, he made up for those lost daytime calories by waking (super) frequently at night, which made for some really rough days. Thankfully, things seem to be improving, although our pediatrician said he doesn't typically hear parents complain about distractibility while nursing until nine months. Here's to hoping this doesn't keep up for the next five months! I also had been pumping once a day since Garrett was about three weeks old, but stopped doing that right around four months because I'm pretty confident that I have an ample freezer supply built up--more than enough for the periodic date night and even less frequent full days/nights away from the boys.

Sleep: Well, if it hadn't been for the fact that he was getting up at least every three hours to make up for lost calories, sleep has been going great. At night at least. Naps are still a crapshoot; at best he is a serial cat-napper. Rationally, I know this is nothing terrible unordinary, especially since he exclusively naps in the crib (when we're home), but I am so ready for him to consolidate them into fewer, longer naps. Especially if I can get one of them to occur while William naps (that's not asking for too much, is it?)

Likes: For reasons that I will probably never understand, Garrett is obsessed with his big brother. Despite the fact that William kicks him, lays on him, rolls over him, tackles him--you name it, he does it. He does know his boundaries and will (usually) back away when Garrett starts to fuss, but most of the time Garrett just smiles and laughs through the abuse. And despite how uncomfortable it looks to me, I have a really hard time telling William to stop when Garrett seems to be enjoying it. Garrett also loves playing with the cute baby in the mirror, and any time in front of one is sure to elicit some squeals of laughter.

Dislikes: Well, the big one this month was that (for the most part) he disliked nursing during the day (or at least that's the only "dislike" I remember because it was such a headache and stressor for me). I did not know how angry this kid could get until I tried to nurse him when he didn't want to be nursed. It seems the stubbornness gene will be strong with this one. Oh--he also dislikes things that he can't get to his mouth. In his world, if he can get his hands on it, he should be able to pull it to his mouth. He's an unhappy camper when that doesn't happen.

Firsts: Garrett did his first overnight with my parents while Darrell and I went away to celebrate our anniversary, and not only did he do well taking the bottle, but he also slept better at night than he had been for us (figures). We celebrated Garrett's baptism at the end of May (that counts as a first, right?); maybe someday I'll get around to posting a few pictures from that. Other notable firsts? Rolled from tummy to back, went to the lake, watched Uncle Mike and the Saints play baseball, dipped his toes in the neighborhood wading pool... I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of others, but such is the life of the second child!

Five Years

So technically our fifth wedding anniversary was back in May, but because life is nothing if not busy, we didn't get a chance to celebrate it until a few weekends ago. In keeping up with the tradition that we unintentionally started on our honeymoon, we ventured off to a nearby winery for some much needed rest and relaxation (and, of course, wine consumption). After a little cajoling, I convinced Darrell that we needed to book a room at the attached bed and breakfast, and we were so glad we did. The winery was hosting a live band the night we were there, which meant that not only were we able to enjoy a delicious dinner right on site, but also that when the band ended (a little past our bedtime, mind you), all we had to do was meander upstairs for bed. No driving necessary. Plus the breakfast. Oh the breakfast. It was fantastic. And guess what? We actually remembered to take some pictures!

The view off our private balcony. Not too bad for farm fields in the middle of Iowa!

Another shot of the property, with evidence of the buffalo that are raised on the property (and--we assume--butchered for our dinner of buffalo burgers that night) as well as the namesake of the winery: Little Swan Lake

 

Enjoying the band!

 

The owners of the winery--never in a million years would I have looked at this couple and thought "they look like the kind of people to run a winery/bed and breakfast". Plus they moonlighted with the band for a few numbers--definitely goes to show you should never judge a book by its cover!

 

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

What Every Woman Wants to Hear

After some recent online shopping (because let's face it--corralling two kids does not a pleasant shopping experience make), Darrell uttered the four words every women loves to hear: Just Keep Them Both.

You see, I have been on the hunt for a new swimsuit. I'd go so far as to say that I need a new swimsuit, but that's a little bit of an exaggeration. I needed new swimsuit after William was born--the girls no longer fit into the skimpy swimsuits of my youth--but an additional new swimsuit was mostly for convenience. I can only assume that at the beach this year William will be "forcing" us to spend much more time in the water, and since I absolutely hate putting on a wet swimsuit, it is only logical for me to have two suits that I can rotate (we plan to have two suits for William, so it's only fair for Mommy to have two as well, right?). So after multiple purchases--and subsequent returns--I finally hit the jackpot. And found not one, but TWO suits that I adored. Thankfully, before I had spent too much time deliberating the pros and cons of each suit, Darrell perceived my dilemma and solved it for me by allowing me to keep both.

So without further ado, allow me to introduce the two newest swimsuits to my collection--and probably the last two that I'll be adding for a long, long time!

Adidas Swimsuit at Kohls

Liz Claiborne Swimsuit at JCPennys

 

So technically (technically) these could count as four new swimsuits since each "suit" is a three-piece ensemble: a tankini top, a bikini top, and a bottom, but I've officially decided this is the only way to go when buying suits anymore and that each ensemble only counts as one (the other suit I have is also a three-piece set). I do not like one-piece suits (see note about pulling on wet suit), so the tankini is a great option for when I'm feeling the need to be a little more covered up (or when I know that I'll need to be super active chasing around children), but I still have a nice bikini top option when I want to go that route. So really, doing it this way is saving money, because if I didn't buy the three-piece set I'd need a suit with a tankini top AND a suit with a bikini top. At least that's what I'm telling myself (and Darrell).

Wordless Wednesday

 

Little Sponge

You know how some people say that little kids are like sponges and that they will remember and copy everything you do? Well, that couldn't be more true. William is ALWAYS trying to copy us--and it only takes us doing something one time for it to stick with him (and for him to think that is the "right" and only way to do something). Most of the time this isn't an issue--I like to think Darrell and I tend to carry ourselves in ways that are okay to mimic--but it hasn't been without its problems. Like the time William watched me eat soup with a cracker like I was eating chips and dip and tried to do the same (which, for him, proved to be a very ineffective way to eat soup and a very effective way to eat a lot of crackers. Probably a win-win for him). Or the time Darrell was trying to get him to eat some baked beans and they ended up playing a game of peak-a-boo with the beans before he would put them in his mouth. Next time we had beans--guess who wanted to play peak-a-boo at the dinner table?

The other night, though, we realized that one of our unintentional lessons about cleaning up was sticking--and we realized it in the cutest way possible. As I've mentioned, we've had some bedtime issues after taking away William's pacifier. The biggest one is that he basically doesn't go to sleep right after we put him to bed. Some nights he will just lie in bed and talk and kick the wall and move around until we either go back in there or he settles himself down; some nights he gets out of bed and sits on the floor by his nightlight and reads himself stories, usually until we go in there and put him back in bed. We've started giving him up to an hour of unwind time before we go in there because we've decided he isn't really doing any harm, and for whatever reason he always stays in his room (unless he poops, although even then he never actually leaves the room, he just opens the door and slams it shut until we go get him).

Well, one night during his unwind time we heard him scream, so Darrell went back to look in on him. Turns out he was just reading "Goodnight Gorilla", and he was screaming in surprise with the zookeeper's wife when she woke up to find all the animals in her house (the cuteness with which he "reads" books is fodder for a whole different post). Since everything was fine and it was still within his window of unwind time, Darrell left him lying on the floor with three or four books spread out around him. Thirty or so minutes later when I went in to check on him he was asleep in bed (which is standard--since we gave him a little stool he no longer falls asleep on the floor), with all his books stacked up nicely against the wall. You see, after bedtime stories every night, Darrell and I return the books to the stack of books in his room (maybe someday we'll get an actual bookcase for the room, but for now they just live in a stack on the floor), and without our even realizing it, William was watching this and started copying it at night when he would read books to himself after we left the room. Most precious thing ever.

Of course, he (and life) isn't perfect, and sometimes he falls asleep in bed before the books make it back to their pile... But that's still just as cute.

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

Making Excuses for No Good Reason

Last night, an old soccer teammate since me a message about the USA vs Australia World Cup game, assuming that I--like any good soccer fan and former soccer player--was watching. Not only was I not watching, but I couldn't have even told you who the US was playing (for the record--I did know the World Cup was going on, and did know it was being held in Canada, but that's about it). But instead of just being able to admit that the World Cup isn't high on my priority list, I felt compelled to make excuses and justify my lack of spectatorship: I was home solo with both boys and we don't have cable, Darrell had the laptop at his meeting which is what we use to stream sporting events online, and kickoff was too close to bedtime for me to take the boys out (which--in hindsight--was way more of a lie than I intended. Turns out I forgot about the whole time change thing when I frantically Googled the game, so I thought kickoff had happened at 730, when it was actually at 630 local time. My friend probably thinks I'm either crazy or awesome for putting my kids to bed at 630). And then, like any good over-analyzer would do, I found myself wondering why I had felt the need to make excuses instead of just admitting that I wasn't really all that current on the happenings of the USWNT. The only explanation I could come up with? Mom Guilt. You know what I'm talking about. It's the constant pressure moms feel to do it all and make their lives and the lives of their children run beautifully and flawlessly. And while most of the pressure is self-inflicted, social media sites like Pinterest don't help the issue any. Because no matter what you are doing, it always seems like there is a mom who is doing more--and doing it better.

So to my friend: Sorry for feeling like I couldn't be honest with you about why I wasn't watching the World Cup. I shouldn't have let Mom Guilt get the best of me and I should have just admitted that life has been too crazy for me lately to worry about the World Cup. Now excuse me while I go eat some peanut butter out of a jar with chocolate chips on top while I survey the mess that is my living room because, well, priorities.

Monks

Darrell and I have been on two date nights since Garrett was born. Both times we have ended the night at Monks House of Ale Repute. Enjoying their beer (and my dear husband's company, of course), makes it totally worth having to pump and dump (with beers packing a 9.0% ABV punch, pumping and dumping is kind of necessary).

If you aren't from around here, you are totally missing out (and should definitely come visit so we can take you there). If you are from around here and have never been (or don't like it), I'm not sure we can be friends.

Wordless Wednesday