House Beautiful

Have I told you I’m practically Martha Stewart? Except younger and without the criminal record? I mean, my house always looks like it’s straight out of a magazine. It’s amazing. You should be jealous.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Hoo! That was a good one! Whew, I think I just laughed until I peed. Ok, I didn’t actually pee. That really doesn’t happen too often to me. One of the silver linings of having a baby at 7 months (by C) is you have slightly more bladder control as someone who went all the way. I mean, when you miss out on so much you have to find some silver linings.

Anyway, back to my house. My house is a disaster area. It was clean and shiny and pretty for approximately 47 seconds at some point near Christmas and then it immediately went back to looking like a hobo camp. A hobo camp with wood floors and a pretty Christmas tree. The point is, I have never (and will never) be one of those people with the shiny spic-and-span house. I can get it cleaned up if someone is coming over but it never manages to stay that way. Now, having a baby, I at least feel slightly more justified in having a crazy house. Also, because my house does not look like it could belong on an episode of hoarders. Win for me.

What prompted this was the fact that Baby G got to play in my big bathtub the other night. Which he thought was super awesome by the way. But anyway, the next morning I walked through my (cluttered) bathroom and smiled at the bath toys hanging out on the edge of my tub. Don’t get me wrong, I love to look at magazines and wish my house looked like they do. I drool and dream and sigh over the beautiful tile bathrooms, the exquisitely decorated living rooms, and the fabulous master bedrooms. But while my house may not be perfectly vacuumed or have un-scuffed paint or have floor space to walk without stepping on a baby toy or cheerio… my house is home to a wonderful and perfect little person. He lives here. And it’s ok for my house to show that. Right now I’d rather sit on the couch with him and snuggle or play in the (crazy huge) play area we’ve set up for him in the living room than dust. He’s growing so fast and I work full time. So when I am home all I want to do is be with him. Sure I’m also a procrastinator and I hate cleaning. Those are totally valid reasons as well. But no matter what I do, I can’t, and I wouldn’t, erase the things that show he is here. And there are a lot of those things. Like the plastic butterfly I just pulled out of the couch. And the bowl of pump parts that sit on the counter waiting to be washed. We won’t mention the acre of toys scattered through the living room. Or the random socks that Baby G managed to shuck off (and then suck on). Then there are the aforementioned cheerios scattered throughout the house just waiting for Baby G to come find them before we do.

Maybe one day I’ll have a nice house that I can show off to people. Baby G will have a playroom or a toy box that he can put all his toys in each night. Or maybe my house will only be sparkly and clean at holidays and when company is coming over. And that’s fine. Because I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t trade that precious little boy for anyone’s perfectly decorated and spotless house.

Burr-Yup!

So much has happened since we last spoke. We bought a truck. We went to FL. I ate two caramel apples. We went to Disney World. I sewed stuff. I got a nanny. We moved her into a bedroom upstairs. I was introduced to two fun new board games. I flashed several people at Downtown Disney. And I doggedly refused to think about the fact that I would have to go back to work soon.

Two weeks ago we set out at midnight to drive down to FL to see my family and bring my little sister back to live with us to be Baby G’s nanny. We drove through the night while G slept and only had to make one baby related stop. We made good time down to Gainesville and were relieved that Baby G’s first road trip was pretty uneventful (with the exception of the fact that I didn’t sleep AT ALL on the drive and spent the rest of the day in a sleep deprivation stupor).

The car ride home, on the other hand, was just as heinous as you would expect a 600+ mile car ride with a 5 month old to be. The trip should have taken between 9½ – 10 hours. It took us 12½. Between stopping to nurse every two hours to several stints of blood curdling screaming, I don’t think I’ll be doing such a trip again any time soon. It was horrible for everyone involved.

But the space in between the car rides though was wonderful. The other members of my family finally got to meet Baby G and I got to see my Grandfather for what probably will be the last time. God blessed us with a “good day” of his where he was mostly alert and interested in us being there. He seemed very interested in Baby G and my 2½ year old nephew (who is a total card).

So speaking of my nephew. He is 2½ and crazy smart. And very very loquacious. He comes up with the funniest things. Most of them are real words. Some of them are not. Like burr-yup. My brother and SIL have no clue where he came up with this word but he came into the house saying it one night. It is most effectively pronounced by putting your lips together in an exaggerated “b” and flipping your lips out as you say the “burr” part. And the “yup” is actually a mix between a “yip” and a “yup.” Maybe you had to be there. Maybe you’re just saying it wrong. Anyway, it was pretty funny.

Another thing about my family, as I’ve mentioned before, is that we’re all slightly insane. But in a good way. We like to play games; one of our favorites being Apples to Apples. If you’ve never played it you are severely deprived and should immediately go out and buy it. It’s so much fun. Introduced to us this visit were two new games: Castle Panic and Ticket to Ride. Both are non-traditional games and both a lot of fun. Ticket to Ride is a game of trains which gets a little hairy the more people that play. Castle Panic is a cooperative game in which everyone plays together to try to beat the game (and the monsters that are trying to knock down your towers). Both were lots of fun. But Apples to Apples results in the most hilarity; often rendering us to tears after laughing so hard. But games aside, we can still generally find stuff to cut up about.

We also went to Disney. Disney with a 5-month old, you say?? Yup, we took Baby G to meet Mickey. I have some friends from college that live in Orlando who had offered to take us to Disney for the day. G rode the Carousel, Dumbo (which he slept through), and Pirates of the Carribean (which he nursed through). He got his picture taken with Mickey and Tigger and Pooh. He even got his very own “1st Visit” button. All in all he did very well. Will he remember it? Of course not. Did he care one way or another? Not a bit. But I had a good time visiting with friends and he will have some fun pictures to look back on. Oh, and did you know that all the parks have Baby Care centers? Well, I didn’t either. The one in MK was really nice – a room just for nursing mothers, a room for the rest of the family with a TV (playing Disney movies of course), a room full of massive soft vinyl changing tables and a little shop where you could get a drink of water (free) or purchase any number of baby related accouterments.  I’m sure a pack of wipes ran about $17 but hey, they made the effort.

I know you’re curious about the caramel apples. I know it’s been burned into your subconscious and the whole time you’ve been reading you’ve been wondering about them. Well, I’ll indulge you. We went to Downtown Disney for my brother’s graduation lunch. Graduation was in Tampa. Lunch was in Orlando. That’s just the way we roll. So because I can’t have ice cream (there is a delicious Ghirardelli ice cream shoppe there) I decided I was going to get a caramel apple. A custom, made-while-you-wait, caramel apple. It. Was. Delicious. A lovely apple coated in caramel, dipped in dark chocolate, smothered in chopped pecans, and drizzled with a little more dark chocolate. *drools* Sooo good. So when we went back to DD a few days later I got another one. What? I needed a dessert too! Everyone else was eating ice cream. It wasn’t fair…

Oh wait… it wasn’t the caramel apple you were wondering about? It was the flashing part? Oh, silly me. I figured you just read right over that. Well that was at DD too. At lunch. I was nursing Baby G in the very crowded restaurant and felt something wet on my leg. I look down to see that Baby G had had a blowout. *sigh* Why, dear friends, does this have to happen when one is out in public? So I unlatch him and cover myself up. And then move the nursing cover. Only to realize that I haven’t actually covered myself up all the way. *facepalm* Not sure all who I flashed. Could have been all girls. Could have been some boys. That know me. Ugh. Just call me the Flash.

Sooo now we are home and the Nanny-Auntie is moved in and mostly unpacked. The suitcases are still sitting in the middle of the living room floor and the laundry that got washed when we got home (several days ago) is mostly folded and put away. I miss my family already and hope hope hope they will all be able to make it here for Christmas. I think it would be so fun to have the two boys together. Since Nephew is a pro at Christmas now he will be able to help Baby G get the hang of it. And I bought them matchy pajamas. It would be such a shame to waste them.

Darn you auto correct!

The following conversation happened between my husband and I a few months back. Thanks to fat fingers and good ole auto correct for a conversation that left me (and Mom as she was with me when it happpened) laughing so hard we almost wet our pants.

Me: “Btw, I need new windshield wallets.”

Me: “Wipers”

Husband: “Didn’t know they had wallets. If they have wallets they can buy their own suppers.”

Husband: “Wipers”

Me: “They can buy their own suppers? I have to feed them now??”

Husband: “Darn auto correct. No, they get their protein from the bugs.”

If you’re not laughing then there’s no hope for you.

If you DID laugh, as a bonus, I gift you with this, which is so funny you might actually cry while reading it. Or wet your pants. Or both. If you didn’t laugh, shame on you, but I’ll let you read it anyway. And seriously? If you don’t think this is hilarious I’m afraid we can no longer be friends.

The Stuff Dreams are Made of

I don’t often dream. I assume it’s because I fall into bed exhausted at night and there just isn’t enough brain function left to do so. When I do dream though, it’s usually in the second (or third or fourth) part of our night after Baby G wakes up, eats, and goes back to bed. Those dreams are generally bizarre. They tend to have some kind of overall theme and often are filled with anxiety or some kind of stress (late for a flight and haven’t started packing yet is a common one). Also they are often influenced by what’s going on in my life.

Last night’s (this morning’s?) dream was true to form. The underlying “theme” was I was late for my first day back to work. I don’t remember a lot of the first part of the dream but somewhere in the middle it got awfully strange as we were running away from some assassin-bad-guys or something to that affect. At some point there was a big machine chasing us and we were scaling what I’m pretty sure was racking. Like The Big Orange Box has. But apparently we weren’t in The Big Orange Box because I was still late for work. Must have been some other warehouse. But, *whew,* we made it through.

This is where I love how my mind works. It’s apparent where my priorites lie. After we made it past the bad guys we happened on a candy aisle (very convenient in a warehouse) and stopped to stock up. I guess we felt safe enough at that point to satisfy the munchies that crept up from running for our lives.

So, like most of my dreams, it then transitioned into something else and I ended up in a mall on the other side of town where I had to run through the place to get to work. But I ended up at home instead of at work and had to get ready. I think by this point I was already hours late but I just couldn’t seem to get myself out of the house. I’m pretty sure by the time I woke up I hadn’t made it to work yet.

There ya go. An insight into the inner workings of my mind. I think we’ve learned a few things here. I’m obviously apprehensive about going back to work (read: dreading like the plague), I get too involved in whatever I’m reading (I’m rereading Eldest right now so I’m assuming that’s where the bad guy chasing stuff came into play), and I always have time for candy. Oh, yeah, and I’m always late.

So THAT’S How They Do It!

As amateur photographers (read: people with fancy cameras who know enough to be dangerous) and broke ones at that, my Mom and I decided we would do our own baby photos. Newborn sessions are expensive and at this stage of the game with being out of work for an extended length of time I can’t afford much that’s not a necessity. Chocolate is a necessity by the way. I didn’t have any for over 7 months so I have a lot of catching up to do.

We bought some fabric for drapes/backgrounds and started with Easter pics. Since I couldn’t take Baby G to see the Easter Bunny (unwashed masses) I bought a bunny hat & diaper cover set off Etsy in order to make my very own EB. So stinkin’ cute! The first attempt went pretty well, working with the light we had. Which, this Spring, is not proving to be much light at all. The bunny hat, although “newborn” sized, was HUGE so we had to stragetically clothespin the backside of the hat so it didn’t look ridiculous. So, clothed in a diaper and diaper cover (complete with fluffy bunny tail) and a pinned-together bunny hat, we loaded Baby G into a wicker basket and proceeded to snap a bunch of pictures while continually trying to keep him from falling out. Lots of shushing and patting and tucking little feet back under resulted in a few good shots. Then we moved to another room and got a few more. He actually cooperated relatively well except for the few times he hooked his toes at the edge of the basket and tried to launch out. Squishy soggy newborn shoot this was not.

The next day (actually Easter) we took some more pictures of Baby G in his Easter outfit (which was so sweetly provided by my cousin). It was a little big as it was a newborn size so he looked a little saggy baggy in it but they still came out cute. Maybe not professional quality but still sweet just the same. We waited until the next day to get pictures with his Easter basket as the shoot had to be abandoned in order to wash his outfit which he managed to both barf and pee on. He tends to pee a lot when he’s getting his diaper changed. He also tends to pee  a lot while in the bathtub. And he waits until you uncover him to do it. Stinker. Anyway. We got several pictures of him with his basket and with his Easter toys. Again, they might not be exactly what we envisioned beforehand but I think we did well for what we had to work with (again with the crappy lighting outside).

My favorite photo session so far has been the naked booty session. The biggest thing with taking pictures of babies is expecting messes and their general noncooperation. You have to keep the room nice and warm so that they are super comfy and the photographer and any one else in the room is so hot they’d also like to run around naked. Which is much less acceptable when you’re an adult. So we just sweated through the process. We started trying to take pictures of him on a stack of towels but he wasn’t asleep enough and kept trying to launch himself off. Seeing  a trend here? He has really strong legs. So we scrapped that idea for the time being and decided to do pictures of him in my arms. I was wearing a black shirt, sitting in front of  a black drape. He had already peed a fountain all over the changing pad when I took his diaper off so I figured he was good for awhile. I should have adjusted my figures. He ended up peeing on me 3 or 4 times during the whole shoot. We ended up doing an entire load of dark laundry due to baby pee (and poop). We started with him in my arms but couldn’t get him to settle down enough to make it work. The peeing started then and he peed down my arm. Hilarity ensued. He seemed pretty content with it too. I guess if you’re a baby it doesn’t matter were (or who on) you pee. I laid him in my lap at one point (probably to wipe up pee) and we realized the way he was propped made his positioning perfect to get booty pictures. He’s still pretty small (around 6 1/2 lbs at this shoot) so he still has a tiny little butt. I wish we could have gotten pictures of his little booty when he was first born. It was the tiniest thing!! So we tried to get him to face the camera but he just wouldn’t cooperate so the pictures we ended up with are him facing away (which worked out great because he could suck on his paci that way). I would tuck his feet up, Mom would focus, then I’d move my hand away quickly and she’d snap the picture before he could shift his feet. Once during the process he stood up on all fours. The kid is not even born yet and he’s standing up on all fours. He also farted at one point, shooting poop across the room. Very glamorous. Lots more hilarity. Ok, so maybe not across the whole room but it went far enough that our cleverly placed waterproof pad on the floor didn’t cut it. *sigh* I think we laughed so hard we almost wet our own pants. We do that a lot. Not the pants wetting part… the laughing part.

In the end we got a few good shots and had quite a bit of fun. We are learning a lot as we go and each shoot we do a little better. There are lots more things we’d like to do but getting up before noon seems to be trouble for me lately and we haven’t had much natural light in the past few days either. But hopefully we’ll be able to get in a few more shots before he gets too big. Which he’s working on faster than I’d like.

Maybe I shouldn’t be fed after dark.

Last night I had the weirdest dreams. All night long. I’m not sure what was in what I ate last night, but it seriously affected my brain. This is actually happening on a regular basis now. The main part of the dream that I remember had to do with my baby shower but it was filled with anxiety and stress. Apparently my subconscious decided to blow my wardrobe issues out of proportion and continue to torment me with them throughout the night. The whole dream was basically me trying to find something to wear and failing miserably. I find dreams to be very weird as they don’t really make any logical sense most of the time. I have anxiety dreams about time a lot – generally it has to do with flying and being late for my flight. Most of the time in the dream I haven’t started packing yet and my flight leaves in an hour and then I’m still frantically packing after the flight has left but that doesn’t seem to phase me as I still madly pack. Last night it was essentially the same thing except I hadn’t found anything to wear and then was late to my own shower. Somewhere near the end of the dream a specialist was called in who brought in a bunch of clothes for me to try on. My self-deprecating sense of humor decided that the first dress she pulled out was a size 4. Haha, self. The last part of the dream I remember is putting on a white dress and shoes and having the lady dye the dress blue while I was wearing it. Oh, and she dyed the underside of my hair (which ended up blond and short) pink. What? Why??

Now, I am having a little anxiety about the baby shower. Not only about what to wear (because I can’t find anything that fits me that hides the blob that is my belly) but the planning of it too. It’s a non-traditional type of situation, with me being involved in the planning, as well as three other people. But the theme is great and so far everything is working out to be fantastic. The biggest problem I’m having is finding something to wear though. I’m not really happy with my pregnant body at this point or my apparent lack of self control when it comes to food. I was doing so well for awhile until my sweet little child decided he no longer hated sweets. It doesn’t help that my equally sweet husband has no ability to tell me no if I ask for a treat. Add both of those to my deep lack of self control and the result is that I’ve packed on quite a few more pounds than I had intended to at this point. Then there’s the fact that I was at a higher weight when I started this pregnancy than I wanted to be and it’s no wonder that my dreams won’t let me rest.

I realize that I haven’t told you about being on anti-depressants or finding out we are having a boy. I think for fear of censure I left it all out. But it’s truly hard to tell my story without you knowing the whole thing. So I will go into more details in another post and hopefully catch you up on my mental and emotional state pre-pregnancy through now.