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!!!

A few upgrades

Well, my baby's booty must be getting bigger cuz I moved him up to a size 2 diaper! Surprisingly it's really not much bigger than the size 1. We use Pampers (Huggies are completely useless to us) I like Swaddlers the best, but the Baby Dry ones aren't bad. The size 1 Swaddlers compared to size 2 Baby Dry look like exactly the same, so I compared the size 1 to size 2 Swaddlers and I see the difference a little more. I guess they are a little wider. So we are using size 2 now, exciting stuff right? I just hope the size 2 holds all this strange poop! Its weird looking now that we are playing around more with solids. One more day of sweet potatoes and next we are on to zucchini, batch just made a few minutes ago :). Now I'm working on apples, that should get US through the next week. I bought more bananas since we know those are a hit, and I'm only supposed to introduce new foods every 4 days. I'm feeding him solids twice a day; once in the late morning and once at dinner time. I guess by next month I'll be adding in a lunch serving too. I also gave him water yesterday and he drank it from a bottle, no problem! He is really interested in food...he watches Glenn and I eat and he starts licking his lips. I think we have a good eater.

Also, a quick update on the sleeping...after a week of crying, Eliseo is finally going to sleep pretty quickly and hardly any tears. It continues to get better every night, and I'm really kind of amazed at how quick he's catching on now. Bedtime has been at 8:30, it's been working out pretty well so far. Good news right? I'm adding a picture of my kick ass video monitor so you can see what I stare at all night.

I hope that my post is successful tonight...it hasn't happened in a while, but my app failed again last post and I didn't feel like rewriting it. I'm adding a few pics so crossing fingers!

Up a diaper size

Retired the size 1 diapers today. We are a Pampers family, usually we use the Swaddle because I like the changing pee stripe (changes from yellow to blue when wet). But occasionally we use the Pampers wet n dry I think they are called. So I pulled out one of the size 2 wet n dry's and they are virtually the same size as the 1's. Then I pulled out a size 2 swaddle and I see a small difference in size. I don't think he'll be in 2's for long.

I've still been focusing on his schedule and getting him to sleep earlier, the same time as the last few days...it's getting better. He successfully has fallen asleep in the room by himself for 5 nights now. Tonight was about an hour of crying. I hope it stops soon, but making progress.

Sorry.....boring!

Sweet potato pie

A quick post tonight since I have a pretty good headache and ready for bed. Day one of sweet potatoes went great! Eliseo loved them..like seriously loved, he couldn't eat them fast enough. He was acting very tired again around 7pm again today, so I put him in his jammies and then nursed him...sure enough fell asleep. I thought he hadn't taken a nap today, but when I called Glenn he said he had. So I held him for a bit (just cuz I can) and then about 830 put him in the pack n play. He slept for a few minutes then woke up, I let him cry for about 30 minutes and he's been out ever since. He rolled onto his tummy to sleep which is making me a little nervous but I'm not going to worry. He had rolled over early this morning and slept that way before I woke up too. He can roll onto his back from his tummy so if he needs to he can do it.

That's about it...sweet potato face :)

Starting to get on a schedule, slowly but surely

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not good at following a "schedule."  I'm definitely a planner, but not a scheduler. And you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I am the old dog. I guess the caveat to having a baby at 38 is needing to change everything that I have done up until now. Babies need a schedule, and I'm learning this. Now that I no longer have a newborn it's time to become the enforcer. I have to figure out a schedule for Eliseo, learn how to stick to it and not to second guess my decisions.  I've been trying to enforce a consistent bedtime, and again there have been tears but I'm starting to see the progress. For the last few nights I've put him in the bedroom and haven't let myself go back into it until he's asleep. We started this process with 2 hours of crying. Its so heartbreaking!! 3 days later, he's down to an hour of crying and then he stops. Not that he's sleeping, he just entertains himself. We have a video monitor so we watch him play, eat his feet, roll around...not falling asleep for a while but it seems like good progress that he realized we aren't going respond to the crying. Now hopefully he will start falling asleep quicker with less or no tears. But I'll take it, its so much better than listening to him cry. I'm going to try to be strong and hope the rewards follow soon.

On the food front, he had his 4th day of avocados today. So tomorrow we start sweet potatoes. Cereal down, bananas down, avocados down, sweet potatoes made. Apples next. And I'm still nursing at least 6 times a day. My pediatrician Dr Oswald says I should start giving him some water so he learns to like it too.

Below are pics: awesome toy Jessie loaned us and my batch of sweet potatoes.  Lovin my baby bullet!

6 month checkup

I have new official stats...I was way off on the weight. He was actually down 2 oz from his visit a couple of weeks ago. Here goes:

Height 25 1/2"  20%
Weight 14 lbs 2 oz. 8%
Head circumference 16 1/8"  3%

4 vaccines and a flu shot.  Lots of hugs and kisses from Mommy.  Even with all this, he still gave me a big smile for the picture. Another flu shot due next month. I need one too.

We are on to the next food...the avocados now. He had bananas for 4 days and loved them! He's doing well with the avocados too. Next up either apples or sweet potatoes. I have both here at home so I guess I'll puree them both and decide when it's time. I think it would be better to do another veggie though.

We are making changes with bedtime, changing around the schedule a little and getting closer to the big move upstairs. Still a few weeks to go with that. That's it for now. Nice 3 day weekend ahead!

Movin on up!

So....I finally got my dang crib mattress! I picked it up from my friend on Sunday night, had it in E's room on Monday morning and by afternoon I had him in it for an afternoon nap. Did he like it? I'll let the picture do all the talking. By the way...I will not have all the lovey's nor the blanket in the crib when he sleeps in it for real. The plan is for him to get used to the crib by using it for afternoon naps and my goal is to have him sleeping in it by 7 months old...December 1. But don't judge me if we don't get there...secondary goal is by the beginning of the year.

On another note, we went to visit a friend in the hospital today, the hospital that Eliseo was born in. I'm not sure why I was emotional as I approached it! I stopped at labor & delivery on my way out to see my favorite nurse, but sadly she wasn't there. But powerful emotional memories.

All for now...6 month doctors appointment tomorrow so I will have new stats! My guesses:

Weight: 15 lbs 8 oz
Height: 26"
Head: no clue...small.

Lets see tomorrow how close I was.  Until then...enjoy the pic :)

Solid food = Solid poop

Ok now that Eliseo is officially 6 months I have to start him on solids. I've been avoiding it,  mainly out of convenience and fear. But alas, the time has come. I unpacked the baby bullet and did my reading. Mainly I wasn't sure what schedule to follow, what foods were safe to start with, how much I should give him, how often...ok pretty much everything there is to know! Lucky for me, my Baby Bullet came with instructions about all that YAY! After washing it all up, I felt confident and ready. Pureed up a banana ( I know I said avocado first, but it needs to ripen and it was morning, banana seemed more appropriate), positioned him in his Bumbo and watched his reaction. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get a funnier face, but he liked it :). I used my cute little containers to store the rest of my 4 days worth of puree. We have a list of first foods to get through before I start getting fancy, simplicity is good for now. I think its time to bring down the high chair too.  I definitely noticed the difference in his poop, and I think he did too. He usually doesn't cry at a dirty diaper, but he did today. I guess I'll be the typical mom and talk about it...a little browned and thicker. At least I didn't take a picture ;). So a big day today!! First fruit, officially!

Oh and in other good news...I figured out how to rotate my pictures.

I'm 6 months old!

It's going so fast, it's hard to believe that half a year ago Eliseo made his grand entrance into the world! On one hand, it seems like it just happened, but on the other it seems like he's been part of our lives forever. It's been challenging, but mostly fun and rewarding.  I'm trying to cherish every moment but I can't wait to have conversations with him and find out how that cute little brain of his works. I cant imagine life now without Eliseo. He has made my life worth living.

Our first Halloween!

We had fun Trick or Treating, but it only lasted for about 15 minutes. We've already gone through most of the good candy. My baby E wasn't feeling well yesterday, so it was a pretty early night (except for Glenn who was hanging out with the neighbors until 3am). Eliseo and I hung outside with our friends the Bests for about an hour since he was in a warm cozy costume. It was too cold for Baby Bond to make another appearance, but Grammy bought us something that was perfect for the cooler temps. Next year hopefully he feels better. He'll be a year older, we'll have to do up the costumes a little better and be a little more festive...although my pumpkin turned out to be pretty cool. I also added a picture of bathtime just cuz it's so cute.