Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Homebody

Tristan and I have finally slipped into a daily routine, which makes my life considerably more predictable and easy.  He usually wakes up between 6 and 8 AM, eats, giggles for a little bit and then goes back to sleep.  He'll then sleep till about 10 or 11, wake up, eat and want to play till he gets very grumpy around 1 and needs to go back down for a nap.  Ahhh, this is his long nap, which means mommy gets to take a bath or shower and feel better about herself.  Then, of course, he wakes up around 3 and eats, and is awake till 6 or 7, when he gets grumpy again and goes back to sleep.  Fairly predictable right?  Except last night instead of going to bed at midnight like he usually does, he kept me awake for another two hours.  He kept faking me out, pretending he was falling asleep, but then when I'd put him down, he'd open his eyes and giggle like a mad baby at me.  He thinks he is so clever……ha

And I've also taken away the bottle.  It has mad the last few days crazy, and my patience has seriously been tried.  But I've decided it's time to stop fighting him.  I hate when I try to breastfeed that he will freak out and have a melt down, and all I'm trying to do is feed him!  So, with the schedule, he is now breastfeeding just fine.  I just can't ever try when he is completely awake, it has to be right after he wakes up……he must have some sort of breast phobia…..crazy kid.  I'm hoping as he gets older and realizes it means food, the meltdowns will stop.  

But most days, I just hang around the house, picking up here an there, straighting the bed over and over again, rearranging the magazines on our coffee table, and staring out the window at people passing by.  If I had a house key, maybe I'd take Tristan out.  But then again, the stroller is in the back of the car and Nick takes it.  Limits my life quite a bit.  I usually bake when I'm bored, but I have no one to feed it to, so it's pointless.  I've kinda lost interest in scrapbooking for now, because whenever I start, it's like Tristan has this radar that goes off and he wakes up and wants attention.  So there I am with a giant mess of papers, pictures, glue and scissors that I have to clean up and put away.  I hate that I'm so OCD, I have to clean up one thing before I can ever start another.  And if I leave it, the other furry members of my family are likely to get into it.  

And for Tristan, he has physical therapy tomorrow and I think I'm going to ask about getting a helmet.  Yeah, he's going to look like a special baby if we do it, but he will not sleep with his head the right way and so it's flattening out on the left side and looks completely ridiculous.  If we don't fix it while his head is plyable, he's going to end up looking like Sloth from the Goonies.  So hopefully, his therapist will have some good ideas, because sorry, the stupid "neck stretches" haven't done jack diddally squat.  I've started wondering why we keep going if we're not seeing results.  Maybe we should find another therapist, and start afresh.  

Ah well, off to clean something.  Exciting is the life of the stay-at-home-mom.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Giggles


Comparisons

I love these kind of pictures.  Tristan will be 4 months old this week, and it's crazy to see how much he is changing every day!  He's going to be running around  and talking before I know it.



Sunday, August 28, 2011

Acclimated

So our kitten has finally become part of the family.  Suki doesn't mind her, and she loves to sleep next to Tristan.  She even figured out how to use the cat tower and has been clawing it up all day.  Tristan learned to roll over, but still isn't quite sure what to do when he gets on his tummy.  And he is still having major issues going between breast feeding and bottle feeding.  I blame the lactation and mother/baby nurses who introduced him to the shield and bottle on his second day of life.  It has been a struggle ever since.  Oh well, next time I know how to do it better.  Until then, we fight everyday to eat……and then I give up and give in and give him a bottle.  I've figured it out though…..he will only breastfeed right after he wakes up in the morning or from his naps.  If i'm too late, he won't do it.  No idea why.  Ah well.  In the mean time, while Tristan and I sort out food, enjoy these pictures and videos!

Getting so close!

Stuck on a pole mommy!

Chubby jowls

Hanging out with daddy

Little babies felled asleep

Daddy's little girl

Acclimated and taking over








Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

Nick and I had been talking about rehoming Bastian for a long time.  We just never had the heart to do it.  He was a darling kitty, he just had issues when it came to urine and furniture…… we just figured he'd do better in a home as the only kitty and center of attention.  But we didn't want Suki to be lonely, so we were thinking about replacing him with a little girl kitty.  So finally, I bit the bullet and put him on ksl.  He had a new home by the afternoon, and the search for a girl began.

We wanted something unique, but all the purebreds like bengals, himalayans, savannah cats and sphynx were a couple hundred dollars a piece!  Siamese purbreds were very expensive as well.  We wanted something for free, and we thought rescuing from a shelter would be the best idea.  I had called the humane society because I found a siamese kitten for adoption on their website, but she got adopted literally right before I called.  Then the shelters charge astronomical fees for their adoptions…..it's like they'd rather put the animal down than find it a good home, and that's a problem.  So to ksl we went.  And yesterday, we found the perfect little kitten.  She is a calico ragdoll mix, just as sweet as can be.  The lady we got her from breeds ragdolls and her stud got to one of her son's cats.  And well, this little gal was actually a mistake, haha, hence the reason we got her for $5 instead of $100.  

Nick named her Gigi, because she is such a little miss.  She's very cuddly and playful and loves the feather wand we bought her.  All we have to do now is introduce her to Suki and hope it goes well!  We tried when we brought her home, but Suki wasn't too thrilled and went and hid.  We'll try it again today.

I guess we could have called her Prof. Fate 
since she's only got a half a mustache

She is crazy!

Such a pretty pattern on her back

She loves feathers, and whining until 
someone is paying attention to her

Monday, August 22, 2011

Buh-Bye Bastian Boo

After two years, we are saying goodbye to our boy kitty Sebastian.  We hope he'll be able to be happy in his new home with a loving family in Highland.













Bye baby, mommy and daddy will always love you.  




Saturday, August 20, 2011

Hungry

Mommy, I'm hungry, won't you feed me?

Mmm, bottle, I like to hold it by myself sometimes

How big was it?  It was thi….*snore*

Baking

Once a week I get together with my friend Amber to hang out and have some Mommy/baby time.  This week we made meringue mushrooms and changed poopy diapers.  And she told me she might be moving this winter, which is only slightly depressing.  What am I going to do?????

It was funny though, when she came over, the maintenance man was working on changing out our water heater, so we had a giant hose from the back out to the front  door and the water had been turned off.  Yeah, that's a problem when you are trying to cook, wash your hands….etc.  But we made due.  They actually turned out splendidly!  Very tasty and melt in your mouth goodness.  I'm so glad Amber has a crazy little boy like me, it's nice to have someone to relate to.  Being a stay at home mommy is very hard, a lot harder than I ever thought it would be.  Working was definitely easier.  But being with Tristan is much more rewarding.

Well Amber, at least we'll still have our blogs to catch up if you guys do leave!!




Friday, August 19, 2011

Oh the faces you make!

I cried the whole time daddy was gone, 
mommy almost sold me to the circus!

Then during tummy time, I wiped my face so hard 
a booger ended up on the tip of my nose

Bastian doesn't like being photographed when eating

Shhhhh, I have a secret

Oops, just came out!

Sitting up is too hard mom, I'll just fall over instead

Mmmm, toy

*sniff* It wasn't me!  Ok, maybe it was…..

I know, I'm such a ham

Mommy's nice, she let's me sleep in her bed
(I think it's really because she's too lazy to put me
in  my own, oh well)

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Playtime

Neck exercises….

include watching Hulu…about the only thing 
he holds his head up for, silly baby

Mmm, chew toys

Finally made it to his mouth

Lonely

So, as a graduate student, Nick leaves me to go on collecting trips every once in a while.  When we were first married, he worked for a professor that was doing a project on pigmy rabbits, and so he was gone a lot of weekends and weekdays on trips as well.  Back then, I really had nothing to do.  I would go to work, come home, cook something, watch a movie, read a book…..and cry myself to sleep.  Later, he ended up going on lots of fishing trips and school fieldtrips overnight, and what would I do?  Watch 50 First Dates and eat waffles.  This year, it's been graduate trips and bug collecting.  But no more Henry Roth and waffle houses……now it's cat turds and baby barf……

Yes, Nick left on another trip this morning and will be gone for the next 3 days.  I always hate it when he leaves, but now even more so with Tristan.  I couldn't imagine being a single mom, handling a baby by myself is one of the hardest things I've ever done.  Already today he's had three melt downs and I can't ever figure out what he wants!  I suppose all mommies go through that, but when he's screeching in my ears for hours on end, I get super frazzled.   I don't even think he knows what he wants most of the time.

I tend to bake when I get bored and lonely, but I've already made 6 batches of cookies in the last week and a batch of cakebites.  I've had a hankering to make sour cream coffee cake, but then what will I do with it?  That and when I start on something, Tristan starts screaming, so there I am, my fingers coated in dough and he wants to be held.  Get Nick to do it.  But he's not here.

I really do hate when Nick leaves.  I miss him terribly.  I used to let the cats sleep with me when he'd go away, but they are just too naughty to not be monitored.  And I don't want Tristan to get used to sleeping in our bed, so he's in his crib, and I'm alone.  Friday could not come any sooner.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Perspective

A healthy dose of perspective is always nice.

Tristan goes to physical therapy twice a month for his neck, and he's only just starting to show some progress.  After his most recent appointment, I was sitting in the lobby giving him a bottle, and mourning the fact that at 3 months old, he still won't hold up his head.  He doesn't even attempt to pick it up during  tummy time, no matter how I try to entice him.  Then, something rammed into my foot.

I looked up and saw a 6 year old girl pushing a walker, her ankles braced.  She must have only weighed 40 lbs, and was skinny as a rail.  I heard her mom call from the scheduling desk to be careful because of the baby, but I could see the little girl wasn't very alert.  Then another family walked into the lobby, their little boy in a wheel chair, his legs completely braced.  And I realized just how blessed I am.  I had forgotten what pediatric physical therapy mainly deals with.  It's not just little stubborn babies with torticollis.  It's for children with much more severe problems.  I felt very silly for ever complaining.

So when Nick and I went to Walmart for our groceries and he pointed out a tiny little girl sitting up in the shopping cart, I didn't get jealous.  The parents walked up to us and Nick told them what a cute little girl they had, and it was neat she could already sit up.  She was smaller than Tristan, but 5 months old.  He'll get there eventually.  It is going to be harder for him because he does have a neck problem, but I'm just going to keep pushing him.  I bought him a couple of toys as incentive, and I think it's helping.  We'll see what happens.  Just remember, no matter how bad things get, someone always is worse off than you.  Be grateful for what you are given, and always try to give back.