Aaarrggh, Matey!

It's Pirate Week at school :)

Little Peanut

And here's what was going on on the floor during this little photo shoot :) Where are his clothes, you ask? Well, "It's time to go swimming. I take my clothes off now". Sometimes, I just lack the energy to fight certain battles....

Just one of those days

Here is the timeline of the series of unfortunate events that made up my day yesterday:

7am: Liam wakes up, I pick him up out of his pack & play, he spits up all over himself and me. We both get new outfits.

7:30am: Liam finishes nursing, I go to burp him, he fountains spit up out of his nose and mouth. Outfit #2 for both of us. Clean up spots on recliner. Brian pours my coffee, I ask him to put it on the counter, I'll drink it once I'm cleaned up.

7:45am: Changing him on his changing table, he turns his head & spits up. Fortunately, he doesn't have any clothes on, so I don't have to bother with that. Pick him up, Brian changes the changing pad cover, resume diaper & outfit change. Change successful, carry him into my room to put him down in the pack & play so that I can wash my face; spits up all over the floor in our bedroom. Brian mops up the floor, I feel a splitting headache coming on.

8:00am: put my coffee in the microwave, but forget about it

8:15am: holding Liam on my lap while reading books to Jake; his first diaper blow out occurs at this time. It's on my arm, pants, up his back. Outfit #3 for both of us.

8:30am: everyone is in new clothes, realize I still haven't had any coffee. Must fix this problem, head back downstairs. On the way back down, Liam spits up. AGAIN. My outfit was spared, his did not have the same luck. stomp back up the stairs & change him. Outfit #4 of the day for him. He has been up for an hour and a half. Wonder if I will ever get to drink my coffee again....

8:45am: put Liam in bouncy and pray that he is content in there so that I can drink my coffee, heat it up again. No luck, he looks like he's being tortured in that seat. Pull him out of it, bounce him around the house for a few minutes until he gets the drunk baby look on his face, while rubbing my throbbing head.

9:00am: attempt seat again-success this time! ahhh....coffee, FINALLY!!

9:15am: dig around medicine cabinet for tylenol

9:30am: he wakes up & wants to eat again. Say a prayer that the vicious cycle of this morning doesn't repeat itself...

Fortunately, the day got better after that. But that first 2.5 hours?? Exhausting!! we had a play date at 10am, the adult interaction was much needed after that morning. After Jake's nap, we headed to the library so that he could pick out some books for the week. I needed to get out of the house for a bit!! Later that evening, Brian gave Liam a bath and Liam proceeded to pee all over him. Twice. Heehee...at least it wasn't me that time! :)

Lamb Roast 2011

Last weekend was the Martini Family's annual lamb roast! We look forward to this every year & it's fun to watch the kids change in the way they play & interact from year to year. Highlights for the kids this year included....

Cookies



Juice Boxes (though sometimes it's hard to take a break from playing to hydrate-it's best to just pause briefly)



Manual labor



Lots of snuggles for Liam



And the biggest hit of the day, the bouncy house!!

Movie Time!

I have a 3.5 year old who is a huge Lightning McQueen fan; can you guess what we did over the weekend?? :) Cars 2 was Jake's first theater movie, and I'd call it a half success. He was very overwhelmed when we first got there...big huge space, kind of dark, really loud. There was a preview for some movie about a dolphin without a fin (??) that was sad-looking, and Jake's lip started to tremble & he said he wanted to leave. Strike one. Fortunately, the next thing on the screen was a Pixar short film featuring Toy Story characters (his other love in life), so that saved the day.

He did pretty well throughout the movie, though he got antsy with about 40 minutes left. I can't say I blame him, it's a long movie for kids and honestly, the plot was somewhat hard to follow for that age, I think. But, we stuffed him full of some gummy bears at that point, and he made it through the rest of the movie.

Here he is, showing off his ticket:



And waiting for the show to start; note the nervous look on his face:

1 month check up

Technically, he's 5 weeks old, but Liam had his 1 month check up yesterday; he was 8 lbs, 10 oz and 21 inches long! So he's 1/2 inch taller than he was when he was born and 2 lbs, 2 oz bigger than he was 3 weeks ago. I can definitely stop worrying about whether or not he's gaining enough weight!

I did have some concerns going into the appointment; to sum up, he's been spitting up mass amounts after nursing (sometimes during, then immediately after, then pretty much randomly until the next feeding). And when I say spitting up, I mean a ton and often fountain-like/somewhat projectile. On top of that, he would be content for a bit, then get super fussy, spit up, and be content again after spitting up. It was heartbreaking to see, he just seemed miserable during those times. The doctor said it was most likely acid reflux and put him on zantac, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that it will bring him some relief. Aside from that, he checked out perfectly and we go back next month for the first round of shots (fun, fun!)

He still sleeps most of the time, but is starting to be a bit more alert during random times of the day. His eyes have changed to be more of a darker blue/slate color, we're really curious to see what color they actually end up being. He checked out his swing for the first time this morning; he seemed to be a bigger fan of the bouncy seat.

Monkey business

While the trees at our house are all way too tall to climb, GG & Pappy have some great trees for being monkeys at their house:

Survey says....

I forgot to include this questionnaire that Jake filled out at school, in honor of Father's Day....love his answers :)

Oh the shame!!!

I have a confession: I started giving Liam a binky. He loves it. So why do I feel like such a mommy failure??

Jake never took a binky, despite my best efforts to make him love it; with him, I was the human pacifier. I was desperate for a break & tried all different kinds of binkies with him, but he rejected them all. So, I accepted my fate as being his item of comfort and moved on. So if I was so willing to give one to him, why do I feel guilty that I'm giving one to Liam, who is more than willing to accept it?

I think there are a few reasons...the social stigma (you know, the Look you get from other moms who DON'T do things the same way you do), the fear of breaking the habit later on, my personal fear of him wanting it at night (so far I've only been giving it to him during the day) and then starting a cycle of retrieving it at 3am when it falls out of his mouth and, maybe the biggest reason, feeling bad that he needs a binky to be soothed, instead of me. Not that I want to be used as a human pacifier again, but more that sometimes, there are just no other ways to comfort him, regardless of how much bouncing, singing or swaying I might try.

I know they're all pretty silly reasons and that no one will be permanently damaged from him using the binky....so I guess I'll just give it to him when he needs it & appreciate the content state of being that it brings:

TIME OUT!!

We've been relying on time-outs as our main form of "discipline" for Jake. However, they were not very effective and generally resulted in more frustration on our end. The main problem was (and it's totally our fault) we had never enforced the whole "you stay here until your 3 minute time out is over", a la Supernanny. So instead of making him learn to sit still & take his time out, we would pretty much hold him in place.

This was becoming a huge problem for many reasons. First of all, there was screaming involved (Jake), crying (Jake and sometimes me), as well as headaches and frustration (anyone within earshot of this scene). And the biggest problem (at least for me) is that Jake is strong-willed AND very strong, physically. He was hard to hold during the time-outs, and us trying to keep him still seemed to make the situation escalate far beyond how it started.

So, not too long ago, we decided that enough was enough & he was plenty old enough to figure out how to do this whole thing the "right" way (because Supernanny is always right, right??) So after an offense, Brian carted him off to the bottom step on our staircase & explained to him what was about to happen. We set the timer for 3 minutes; 30 seconds in, Jake tried to get away. Timer reset. 15 seconds in, escape attempt; timer reset. Rinse, lather & repeat for about 20-25 minutes. FINALLY, he sat there for the full 3 minutes, we reminded him why he was in time out, passed out "I love you's" and hugs and moved on with our day.

I'm sure progress might be slow & painful, but the end result will be worth it!! Please feel free to leave words of encouragement in the comments section, as a form of motivation for me to stick with it, especially when the inevitable happens, and it's me by myself with a newborn AND a strong-willed child, trying to reinforce this concept.......hold me.

Happy Father's Day!

I have to start this post off by saying that this past weekend was the first overnight trip for us since we've had Liam; granted, we only had to drive to Washpa to my parent's house and it was only for one night, but if you saw what we had stuffed into the car, you would have thought we were going on a week-long vacation (my longing for a minivan is back full-force!) I must have blocked from my memory how much stuff is required for such a little person! But I digress....

On Saturday, we went to a wedding reception for my cousin, Alex and his new wife, Kristin (congratulations you guys!) :) Jake had a great time running around with the other kids there and it was nice to see the rest of our family.



Thanks to the magic of grandparents, Brian & I were both able to sleep in on Sunday (glorious!)



We had a visit from our friends Cortney, Kerri & Judy that afternoon:



We played outside & went for a walk...



Then we were joined by Nate & Katie later in the afternoon. It took some coaxing, but Nate did hold Liam, under the strict supervision of Larry the Pug:



Brian's gift from us was a certificate for a massage and while he was excited about that, I think he was even more excited about the gift from my parents. He had been eying up this hideous shirt in my dad's store, Columbia, a few months ago; I was pregnant, nauseous & hormonal that day & pretty much screamed at him for even thinking about buying something so ugly. My dad was then nice enough to secretly buy the shirt for him & hold onto it for a special occasion. Here he is, rocking the shirt with fish all over it:



Seriously, on a scale of 1 to 10, what level of horrid would you rate this shirt? I'd give it at least a 19.

Happy Father's Day to Brian, Jake & Liam (and Gracie) are lucky to have you as their daddy :) And of course, Happy Father's Day to OUR dads and all of the dads, dads-to-be and hopeful dads out there. We hope everyone had a great weekend!

FAQ's

Inquiring minds seem to want to know....

1. How is Liam sleeping?
*knock on wood*, pretty well so far. He's up frequently to eat (about every 2-3 hours, he did one glorious 4 hour stretch one night...I'm still waiting for a repeat of that), but he goes back down very easily most of the time. He's a pretty efficient nurser if I can keep him awake, so he takes care of that, gets his diaper changed & I'm normally able to plop him back down in the pack & play without hours of bouncing and singing and walking up and down the hallway.

2. How is Jake adjusting?
Again, pretty well! I think it's really helping that he's still going to school 3 days/week, I think we made a good decision there. It keeps him on a semi-regular routine and allows him to spend a lot of time outside and with his friends, but also gives him something to look forward to on Fridays & Mondays, which are his "home" days. The nice weather we've been having is helping, too...I love being able to step out on the patio, find a spot in the shade with the baby & turn Jake loose on his play set to burn off some energy.

He's very sweet toward Liam most of the time, and the other day he said out of the blue, "Mommy-I'm so happy that baby Liam is out of your belly & here with us". awww!! Which is a welcome change from a week or so ago when he said "I want baby Liam to go away!" and when I asked where he would go, Jake replied, "Let's put him in the refrigerator". (mental note-do not leave baby & toddler unattended for any period of time in kitchen....)

3. How is Gracie adjusting?
MUCH better than she did with Jake! Not sure if I ever mentioned it on here or not, but she totally shunned me after I had Jake. She didn't seem to mind the baby, it was ME she had a problem with! In my postpartum hormonal state, I was mess over this...shunned by my first baby, can you even imagine?? She eventually came around, but I was nervous that the same thing would happen this time. Fortunately, she never gave me the cold shoulder and seems protective of Liam, running to him when he cries, looking for him when we walk in the door and just showing a lot of interest in him (which is new for her-she has very few interests aside from treats & sleeping).

4. How are you feeling?
I'm feeling good, thank you for asking :) It was strange, but I felt better the day after giving birth than I had in months! I really don't think I realized how blah I was feeling at the end from my blood pressure until it was semi-under control after having the baby...what a difference!! Even with getting up a few times a night to nurse, I don't feel too sleep-deprived; I think my body got used to getting by with very little sleep from the pregnancy-induced insomnia in the last 2 months or so. And (not to be too graphic here), but my actual recovery from the delivery seemed easier this time, too. My tear was not as severe, and I didn't feel nearly as run down after.

I promise a post with pictures soon!

Gracie did it.

I came across this fabulous onesie this morning, made by my friend Michelle for Jake, and had to see if Liam could fit into it yet. It was still big, but of course I snapped some pictures.

3 weeks, 2 days:



And Jake sporting the same shirt, at a little over a month old:

You're never too young for a trip to the zoo.

Technically, it was Liam's first trip to the zoo, though he spent the entire time doing this:



Of course, Jake had a great time, as always.



For some odd reason, creepy Steely McBeam was there....



It was nice to go out as a family, I'm sure we'll make many more zoo trips this summer!

A catch up post

We've been keeping busy the past 3 weeks...WHAT? You heard right...Liam will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. My due date is Wednesday, haha! I shudder to even think of still being pregnant in this heat we've been having....

We were lucky enough to have my mom stay with us for almost 2 weeks, she just left this past Saturday. We were both weepy as she was leaving, but it's nice that she's close enough to come up to visit often while I'm on leave.



Memorial Day weekend was spent as it should be....playing outside, going into a pool, making s'mores and grilling yummy food!




This past weekend, the BFF's came up to visit!! :)



And of course, someone has been busy being cute...it's an exhausting job.