I got the blues.

Well, all my company left today reminding me that yet another year has gone by. The house feels insanely empty since Glenn is working tonight. Eliseo misses his cousins and aunt carrying him around everywhere.  He misses his Grammy singing to him and making him laugh. For the first time, tonight I felt a little anxious putting him upstairs in his room to sleep. He feels further away from me than normal. Surprisingly he went down tonight without a fight. We played on the floor this evening and watched The Lion King. He cracks me up...he was singing along to the music in his Eliseo way.  I got some of the house cleaned up, tackled E's room and my huge laundry pile, but there is plenty left to do.

I've been missing my Daddy a lot today too. I keep thinking about how much he and Eliseo would have loved each other. It's so not fair that E will never get to meet him here on Earth. My nieces and nephews all got to experience his love and my children never will. It's a sad realization and is made today that much more difficult to get through. I tell him stories about his Poppy, and I had a thought today that I would write him a bedtime story about him.  There are so many things that I could write about....Poppy was a great and funny guy.

If I don't post again in time, have a happy and safe New Year celebration...at least I get to spend NYE with Glenn this year.

Spoiling an (almost) 8 month old 101

A lesson in spoiling your baby. 

First, never let his feet hit the ground. Do this by ensuring he is in someone's arms at all times. This includes when he first wakes up in the morning, during his morning and afternoon naps, during dinner, at bedtime and anytime in between. It doesn't matter who does the holding, the effect will be the same.

Next, never let him cry. If he cries for any reason, give him kisses and hugs. Even when he's fussing about something or being bad. Reinforce bad behavior with plenty of attention.

Thirdly, push back his bedtime until he is passing or passed out. Refer to topic number 1: holding. If you follow topic #1 effectively, then your baby will already be sleeping in someone's arms when you finally decide it's time to put him in his bed.

Lastly, if he doesn't sleep after you put him in his bed, go get him, feed him and then let him sleep in bed with you.

That ought to do it. If your baby isn't spoiled after a few days of this treatment then try harder, you aren't doing it right.

Check back with me next week for a lesson on how getting your baby back into a routine really sucks!

Eliseo's first Christmas

It was so fun watching Eliseo take in his first Christmas. I think his favorite part was eating the wrapping paper. I was so fortunate this year, that my family came to visit from Michigan to be with Eliseo for his first Christmas. I love my family. Being with the kids on Christmas morning is what it's all about. I couldn't have felt more thankful for the gifts in my life.

It's beginning too look a lot like Christmas

I swear every year I won't let the hustle and bustle of the holidays get me, but I guess this won't be the year...getting out all of the cards and packages, finishing the shopping before Christmas eve, having the presents wrapped to be displayed under the tree....that is just not my life. Maybe next year. However, save the packages waiting add the door to be mailed (obviously not before Christmas) I think I am done! I think Eliseo is ready for his first Christmas! We went to the Wild Lights as the zoo this weekend. This kind of thing is right up my alley. I wish it hadn't been so cold but we wrapped Eliseo up in a sleeper, 2nd pair of pants, winter jacket, South Park style hat, and 3 blankets for the 25 degree weather. I think he enjoyed the lights, he seemed pretty fascinated even though he couldn't move under all that padding. He and I took a ride on the carousel. I have a thing about carousels...memories of my dad always taking us for a ride. I think I foresee another family tradition in the making.  I hope though, that the 2 hours in the cold didn't cause the little fever that Eliseo had come Saturday night :(. He seemed fine all day until the evening, he suddenly had a 100 degree fever and a couple of throw ups. He didn't have the best of nights as I'm sure you can imagine. It carried over to today, but by bedtime he seemed to be feeling better.

So my sister, husband and kids got here tonight, the tree finally looks worthy of a great Christmas morning! I'm bummed that Glenn has to work both Christmas eve and Christmas nights, but at least he will be home by 7am on Christmas morning for Eliseo's first. I'm excited that he gets to experience it with his cousins! He is definitely on the "nice" list this year.

Merry Christmas! I'll be sure to post some fun pics from Christmas morn!

Christmas traditions

Sorry for the blogger slackage! As Christmas here closer I find myself more and more behind! I can't believe Christmas is in a week. So we finally put up our big tree upstairs, we are a little limited on space on our main level and since my sister and her husband and kids will be having Santa visit them at our house this year too, I decided to put a 4 ft tree up on top of our corner cocktail table instead of having to move furniture in the living room to fit the tree. But, I still insisted that we put up the big tree up in the loft upstairs. I just felt like the small tree was cheating. We still will open presents in the living room though,  since more bodies can fit in it. We had some fun putting up the big tree as a family. We put on Christmas music (country Christmas), I put Eliseo in the front pack,  Glenn handed me the ornaments and Eliseo and I put them on the tree. Of course,  E had to inspect each one first; I would explain what it was to him and, if it was a special one, I told him the story behind it. Then,  he would try to eat it and I had to remind him each time: don't eat it! We danced around to Rudolph and Jingle Bells, and sang along to each song. Ive decided that we are going to start a family tradition....Christmas movie night! Each year, we will get dressed in our warm cozy jammies, make some hot cocoa, pop some popcorn and watch a Christmas movie (or 2) by the lights of the Christmas tree. I would love to make it the same movie every year: A Christmas Carol...maybe we can vary the second one. I love traditions and I feel like it's time to start this new one. Something to look forward to every year. Maybe we'll even come up with a few more.

I didn't take any pictures, sadly of us working on the tree, but I did take some of E around the house with some of the decorations. I'll be sure to get some with the big beautiful tree.

Prayers.

We had another nice weekend overall. I've been feeling sentimental since Friday thinking about the shooting in CT. Now that I'm a mommy, I can't imagine ever losing Eliseo. I can't imagine what those poor parents are going through. When I was younger I used to think that I didn't want to bring a child into this messed up world. So many tragedies. A failing economy. What is the earth going to look like when E is my age? Will there even be grass or trees? Will there be a horrible natural disaster That affects him in his lifetime? Will there be a war on US soil? But as I got older, I realized that there are a lot of good things in this world, and I can raise my children to bring more goodness and happiness. I feel lately like people are putting pressure on me to not hold Eliseo so much, but I dont care the consequences of holding him too much. After something so horrific, I just want to love and cuddle my baby.
That's really it for today. Some things on the horizon to look forward to: looks like Eliseo should be crawling soon, and I've been spending lots of time on the floor with him showing him that he really can sit up on his own. as always, when something happens, I will post!

Sending my prayers to CT.

This asparagus is pretty good Mom!

Asparagus is a hit! How a kid likes asparagus over carrots is beyond me. I was expecting more gagging but he ate it all like crazy. What's up after this? Peaches maybe? It's time to step it up...time for some mixing and spices. And meat??!! That's going to be an adventure! I have a feeling he's going to be a meat lover like his Daddy.

Any suggestions? Feel free to comment if your baby has a fave we should try.

Mommy and E playing on the floor.

Another weekend has come and gone!

This weekend went by way too fast. It was a good one but I need another day. Friday night we had friends over, Glenn made his famous Mexican food which always attracts a lot of people. We had a great night and most everything was washed up and put away by the end of the night but not all of it...but no chance to clean it on Saturday, we helped our friends move and then had to get some Christmas shopping done. Sunday was the 354th MPs Christmas party, we were there until 3 then Glenn went on Daddy duty so I could chip away a little more at my Christmas list. Almost done shopping, but I'm not happy until everything is bought and given! I've also been freaking out about not having anything Christmas up yet. So when I got home tonight, I put the baby to bed then went into freak out mode. Took out all the Christmas stuff, unpacked it, swapped out decorations with my usual house stuff, meanwhile I have a laundry pile the size of Mt. Everest, the kitchen mess grew from Friday, let's not talk about my bathrooms...so at my typical time (10:30pm) I decided to have a breakdown. But I'm happy to say, I have a clean kitchen and much of the Christmas decorations are up now. Not quite done, so hopefully my motivation will carry over to tomorrow.

Now onto Eliseo...he is the best baby ever. As long as he is fed, he's happy. We were gone from home much of the weekend and he was so well behaved. Everyone is always telling me how good and how cute he is. He is always smiling and laughing and just having a good time. I'm so proud of him. We tried carrots this weekend, he didn't care for them very much! The first night, I had to stop after a few bites because he was gagging and spitting them out. Today I mixed in some breast milk and that seemed to help. He was still making some crazy faces. He was making me laugh. So much joy...what did we do before him?

Congrats to my 2 friends this weekend who found out they are pregnant! I couldn't be more excited for them! Now that I've been through it, I think I might become a belly toucher. Watch out ladies, Lol.

I'm going to attempt to attach pictures from my phone onto this post ( that is from my tablet...technology these days!) So I hope I don't lose it. Not sure yet if I can post from one and add pictures from another. We shall see!

This is my crib!

I never thought it could be done, 5 nights now in his crib with little to no tears. This is the real deal. I'm so proud of Eliseo, but mostly I'm proud of me. It's obvious Eliseo was ready to make this move. I really wasn't. I feel like we have several accomplishments here. 1: he's falling to sleep within a few minutes of being put down. 2: he's not crying. 3: he's in his bed. Seriously I just can't get over how easy it was when I finally did it.

New topic: lunchtime!! Yep, I added in the 3rd meal of solid foods. I'm still nursing about an hour after I give him his solids, mainly because that's when it's naptime. But he was coming home from day care with bone dry bottles ago I knew I needed to add more food. So we are doing that now too. It just adds to the predictability of the schedule. We also brought him to day care 4 days this week which I think has helped. So tomorrow he gets to stay home with us! More our reward than his. Lol.

The results are in!

I can't believe it!  Last week was so hard, trying to get Eliseo on a somewhat predictable sleeping schedule. So many people weigh in on this topic and it's hard to know who is right and who is wrong. You just go with your instincts. But after 7 months of anxiety over Eliseo sleeping upstairs in his crib at night was for NOTHING!!!! Yesterday I moved his monitor, noise machine and night light upstairs. I thought I would just try putting him up there for an hour,  then if he didn't stop crying I'd get him and put him in the pack n play in our bedroom. I did our normal bedtime routine...bath, book,  nurse, kiss on the forehead and say nite nite...put him down in the crib, and he went right to sleep and slept all night. What??? Of all of the scenarios I played in my head,  this was not one off them!  And guess what...I slept in my bed too! I swore I wouldn't be comfortable doing that,  but this video monitor makes me feel like he's not too far away. I thought maybe it was a fluke and he must have just been really tired,  but he did the same tonight!  So did we do it?  Is this permanent?  Well,  I think so but I won't be hard on us if we have some bad nights. I will certainly try to keep him up there from now on,  cuz that was a lot of hard work that finally paid off.  And to boot,  I even got him to nap in there this afternoon. He is growing up! I'm so proud of us. Picture is to prove it!

I'm 7 months old already! !!

My baby is getting so big!

The last 7 months have been so much more than I could have ever imagined. Eliseo is such a perfect mixture of Glenn and I...Glenn's good looks and my personality!  How did we get so lucky? It boggles my mind how we made this perfect little person...people that don't believe in miracles have obviously never had a child.  We have so many firsts still ahead of us. I'm so excited for E's first Christmas!  The holidays have been losing their special feeling for me for some time, I've longed for a while now to get that feeling back; for my faith to shine through. Eliseo has proven to me that miracles do exist and he has escalated my faith to an all new level. Celebrating the birth of Jesus holds a new meaning for me this year. Now that I have experienced birth and am raising my son the stories are so much more dear.

So a quick update on the dailies: still working on getting naptime established, we haven't made much ground there. It's not so much the nap as it its getting him in his crib and falling asleep without being held (and staying asleep). On Friday I tried for 5 hours and he never fell asleep until I put him in the pack n play. This kid has some fight in him and I haven't won any rounds yet. Luckily a friend reminded me it's not a war to be won, its establishing a happy relationship with sleep. So I will keep doing the work because I know it's the  right thing for E and I know one day he will get it. He is still such a good boy and I will approach this with love.

That's it for today, early exercise day tomorrow so I had better get some sleep! (And I wonder why my child doesn't like to go to sleep...)

I know I'm so cute!

Ok,  short post...we have set a new record,  3 days of day care in a row!  Glenn and I are going to try sticking to Monday through Thursday to start giving Eliseo some more predictability in his days. And we are still working on enforcing naptime. My poor babysitter earned her money in the last 3 days. But what I appreciate is that she sticks to his schedule even if it would be easier to stray. So now I need to keep up the groundwork that she has laid for this week. It's going to be tough to endure all the cries,  but I hope Eliseo can put up with me,  haha. But like bedtime,  I hope that the work pays off in the next week or so.

Also,  first day of squash today. He looks it a lot!  So 4 days of squash with some apples, more zucchini, of course his favorite bananas then it's onto the last of the first recommended foods: pears. And since I'm always thinking ahead, carrots will be the first 2nd phase food. I think I'll be adding in a 3rd meal in the next couple of weeks.

That's all folks...picture is Eliseo ready for daycare this morning.

Bad Mommy!!!

Oh boy, today was not my best day. I thought I got a good start, E woke me up at 6:30 and I stayed awake, Glenn worked last night so he took the baby to daycare and I had a pretty productive morning work wise. Then I picked him up at noon, as usual. When I got there, he was being fussy. My poor babysitter informed me that he hadn't slept all morning! Now that just never happens around here. She tied to put him down for a morning nap and he just wanted to be held. Imagine that...so the whole drive home I obsessed over not having him sleeping in his crib yet. I stated thinking, I just need to do it! For every naptime, everyday. I made up my mind...10am, 2pm naptime in the crib and 8:30pm naptime in the crib! He fell asleep on the ride home since he hadn't had a wink yet, so when I got home I took him out of the carseat and into the crib. Cries. I left him cry for half an hour. Then I thought he must be hungry. I took him out of the crib and fed him, then back into the crib. More cries. I won't pick him up,  I told myself. He will go to sleep. We can do it at night, so we can do it at naptime. Almost 2 hours later,  I just couldn't do it. And he still hadn't slept since the morning. Talk about Mr. Crabby pants! He won the battle but he won't win the war, I think.

So I sign off of work and we head downstairs for some peas. Peas down the hatch,  time for me to eat dinner then nurse Eliseo. With both of us full and relaxed,  what did we do? Fall asleep of course!  Ugh!!! And we slept until 8!!! Now what to do?? I was going to go to the store to get Eliseo's next foods and clean the house up a little, not to mention moving the monitor and the noise machine up to E's room! I decided to put him in his jammies and lost him stay up until 9. I nursed him again and he was still tired, so I put him down in the pack n play in our bedroom,  as usual. Oh well. I guess we'll try the crib again tomorrow. I think I'm just not ready for that and am unconsciously screwing up so I don't have to part with my sleepy partner yet. I will do it soon, I swear I will. I want him to be a happy,  well rested baby.

E's first Thanksgiving

Well, I just wrote about Eliseo's first Thanksgiving and my app failed again so it is lost :(.  So here is the shortened version.

Glenn and I hosted thanksgiving dinner this year, even though Glenn had to work at 6pm. My sister and her family came in from Michigan to enjoy the holiday, and we had Grammy, my sister and her family, my brother and his family and my aunt, uncle and cousins with their daughter. We had a great day, but Eliseo's sleep schedule is all messed up so now we are paying for it. I am still aiming to have him up in his room at night by December 1, but I feel like we haven't mastered this phase yet since we were set back this week.

Also...we started peas today. He wasn't loving them but we have 3 more days to see if they grow on him. Then on to more advanced textures and mixing.

Sorry for the short and sweet. I got a new phone this weekend and most of my thanksgiving pics were on it, but I took a couple on my tablet. I may post my phone pictures once I get them moved over.

Testing!

BOO...disappointment.

I was so looking forward to Eliseo's 6 month pictures. I wanted to do a Christmas card in his cute new First Christmas sleeper, and I brought several different things for him to wear: a Ralph Lauren orange and gray knitted sweater with his little jeans and Gap baseball hat; a hand knitted baby blue sweater someone made him with white jammie pants ( I pictured him holding his bare feet in this one); and I wanted to do a few diaper shots: one with a white scarf that was my brother's that my mom gave me recently ( I love pictures with a meaningful item) and I bought a navy blue knitted hat that matched the decoration on the scarf; and lastly I brought a blanket a friend made me with a baby blue winter hat and a Pooh bear. (I am obsessed with hats for him).  I walked into the studio and it was like a circus. There was a family of about 20 from adults to toddlers that were all wearing red pajamas. There was the 2 year old that was having a temper tantrum because he had to wear the button down shirt that his parents made him wear that he apparently hated. There were the 7 year olds chasing each other around the openings of overcrowded people. Literally, I couldn't even walk in from the door. I also showed up a little early ( never happens) to be told that they were running late. So...it had been over 2 hours since Eliseo last ate, and I knew he was verging on the hunger breakdown if he had to wait another hour. There was really no where to nurse unless I went to the car in the crowded parking lot, and with all the kids I didn't feel comfortable nursing with my apron in the studio ( not that there was anywhere to sit). I brought a zucchini puree with me, so I fed him that, hoping it would hold him over. I guess it did the trick, he never went into full meltdown mode. I changed him into his $32 sleeper ( I only bring up the price because in the picture I settled on, all you can see is the arm). They called us in and were ready to snap away. Well, he can't sit up on his own yet, I'm working with him but he throws himself back too hard, so while he sits for a few seconds at a time, he may have cracked his head open and it really wasn't worth the risk. Out came the bean bag. I knew from the start it wouldn't be a good session because in the Christmas set, she looked at him and said, lets put him on a blue blanket cuz it will look really good with his red outfit. I was going to question, personally I would have preferred green, but I figured she was the professional so maybe she knew something I didn't. She started with the pics, before he was even smiling, she wasn't even really trying to make him smile. So I started with the peek a boo and the boo's and doh's and he laughed...the only problem is, he was never looking at the camera, always at me. Then she started tickling him with a feather duster...WTF!!!! And that's exactly the look he was giving her. I think she took more time doing the Christmas pictures than she intended to, because then she said "oh...let's move into the other room to do the black background." I said " you know I have other outfits, right"? To which she said, " Hmm well we can do a few pictures in a couple of them".  I was like, Huh??? I have 4 and I wanted to take more than a few in all of them. Onto the next fiasco, the diaper shots on the white satin sheet. So she props him on the famous bean bag again, puts the white satin sheet over it. Well, he slid right down it. So she asked me to hold him there. That resulted in my hands being in all of those pictures. Next outfit, the scarf and hat. She didn't even allow me to get the scarf in position and she's clicking away. Now she says "Ok, one more outfit". Grumble. So I can't decide which, I go with the Polo sweater and Gap hat. I don't have the hat on his head and there goes her trigger finger again. Someone needed to take that camera away from her. A 10 year old would have taken better pictures. And that was that.

Well, surprisingly (not), when it came time to choose pictures, they starting popping up and they were all lame. Half smiles, no smiles, side smiles, hands in the pictures, hats not all the way on, WTF feather duster expressions...and her reaction to each one was " oh this one is so cute!!!" and "Awesome!!!" Obviously she was the world's worst saleswoman. She was trying to explain the things I could buy with my crappy pictures, like photo books and calendars. I said to her "I can't find 3 pictures I like, much less 12 or 22".  I don't know what she expected, but the word "awesome" came up a lot less after that comment. I felt like "that girl" that couldn't make a decision. Last time, I had too many I loved to choose. This time, I didn't love any. I decided to start at least with the Christmas card. There was one decent picture of him actually looking at the camera. I didn't notice until later that it didn't even show his cute sleeper, I was just glad that he was smiling at the camera. But honestly, that was the only picture I could bring myself to buy.

Needless to say, I'm not sure I'll go back there, like ever. If I do, it won't be on a weekend, and surely not before Christmas. So, I left feeling very disappointed and now I feel like I need to reschedule 6 month pictures. I think I might try them myself, first. It's obvious that I can make him smile at a camera at least.

Ok, rant is over, thanks for listening (or reading...)! I attached the 1 picture that I walked out the door with, and if you are on my list of Christmas card exchanges, you will see it soon in person too.

Merry Freaking Christmas...LOL.

Oooooooooh yeaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Today is a day to make note of! Eliseo went to bed, still awake, I kissed him goodnight and walked out of the room......NO CRYING!!! And he has since fallen to sleep :))). I put him down a little later than the last few days, about 9:30 (cuz it's a Friday so we partied a little bit) so maybe that had something to do with it. We went to Von Maur to use the rest of my gift card and buy him something to wear for Christmas card pictures tomorrow. Got home about 8:45 and wanted to get him right to bed, but it was bath night. And as a mentioned as a Friday, that gives me license to stray from the schedule, right? I decided I'd rather have a clean baby so got him in the tub, then nursed him. After nursing he was playing and talking, so I let him expend the energy. That's why it's surprising to me that he didn't put up a fight. I'm not sure if this will happen again tomorrow, but I'll just be thankful for today :).

6 month pictures tomorrow!!!

More pics of my Cutie Pie!!!