How Do You Do It?

Yesterday afternoon I an errand that couldn't be avoided. We left the second David woke up from his nap and only had about a 5 minute drive. I frantically completed the errand in less than half an hour and resisted the urge to stop by Walmart on the way back to pick up a few things we need. So far so good. Then as I was about to turn onto our street I realized I was too late. David had fallen asleep. I brought him in the house as gingerly as I could and put him in his room where it's nice and quiet, but true to form a few minutes later he was awake as soon as he noticed he wasn't in a moving car anymore. Even if it really is naptime, the only way to get him to sleep more than a few minutes when he falls asleep in the car is to keep driving around until it's time to wake up. Even then it's pretty dicey since a prolonged stop at a traffic light is often enough to wake him up.

So what's the problem with that you ask? Even just that few minutes of sleep ensures that when it is time for his next nap he won't sleep. He'll still get tired and I'll have a very cranky and clingy baby on my hands until he finally collapses, but sleeping is out of the question. It's bad enough when this happens in the morning, but in the afternoon I don't have time to get him back on schedule before bedtime. The time that he's finally ready to drop winds up being a couple of hours before he goes to bed. Falling asleep then will mean that come 3 am he's wide awake and ready to play the night away. I try to keep him awake until bedtime, but sometimes he's so tired it's just not possible.

Unfortunately I often need to run to my office in the afternoon to hand in the previous night's paperwork. I can't go in earlier because it usually takes me until the afternoon to finish it and handing it in the next morning isn't an option. On the rare day that we can avoid any errands David's so happy and well-adjusted. I feel so guilty about going anywhere even in the morning because it makes him so miserable and cranky. I know I'm not the first mom to ever have difficulties like this, but why do I feel like I'm the only one who can't deal with it? Other moms manage to get out with their kids. What am I doing wrong?

Happy Mother's Day and Nurses Week

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. Obviously this is the first year that I've been on the receiving end of this holiday (I'm not counting all the geraniums and other assorted flowers I've received over the years at church for being a 'Potential Mother'). Of course I think last year should count too seeing as I was pregnant and miserably puking my guts out, but I digress. Mostly this year I wanted to pamper my own mom a little so I invited my family over for dinner and cooked Indian food. I tried a couple new recipies which turned out okay but definitely need some tweaking. Also I baked a cake and decorated with fondant, something I haven't tried before. The finished product was far from perfect (see below), but it wasn't as difficult as I feared and I learned a lot from it.
It was so much fun that I made another fondant cake for Nurses Week (see header photo). I was even brave enough to try 2 tiers (another first) and while still not perfect I was pretty pleased with the results. The nurses I work with definitely appreciated it when I brought it to out meeting today.

Last but definitely not least David loves bouncing in his jumperoo more and more all the time. He'll literally go to the point of exhaustion where one minute he's happily bouncing away and completely conked out the next. I managed to snap this photo on Mother's Day.

Our New Old Dining Set

I've posted before about why I love craigslist. Here's another reason. Our old dining set was a piece of junk with rickety chairs and I'd been meaning to replace it for quite some time. Yesterday I found this set and fell in love with it. It's an older set but excellently built with solid pecan wood and only a few minor scratches and signs of wear- just enough to give it an antiqued look. I love the chair backs especially. Working as a home health nurse for geriatric patients I have seen many dining sets from this era and more often than not the meticulously carved chairs are a little too overdone for my taste. These chairs sport the same attention to detail but a design that is much simpler and elegant. Best of all we got the table, 6 chairs, and 2 additional leaves for the very reasonable price of $375. That's hard to beat even with poorly constructed particle board furniture.

Cousin Fun

The past few days my sister has been in town with her husband and two boys. Obviously David is still a little small to really play with his cousins yet but it was still fun to see my sister and her little family. At first Mathew was pretty excited to meet David and exclaimed "Baby! Baby!" as soon as he saw him. He got a little nervous though when he saw Grandma holding David, and he REALLY didn't like seeing his mom with another baby in her arms.

My mom wanted an updated family photo with David in it so we put the boys in their Easter sweaters and headed to the portrait studio. Getting all 3 boys to cooperate was no easy feat! David was relatively good-natured having just napped and been fed, but getting a toddler and a preschooler to want to sit still and smile isn't easy. Brian soon tired of holding David and tried shoving him off his lap (luckily I was there to intervene) and Michelle had to hold Matthew's legs down to keep him from bolting. In the end we got some nice pictures though.

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a great Easter. David must have been really excited for the Easter Bunny to come considering that he was up every couple hours in anticipation. What actually happened was that I went to the store for some last-minute shopping and when I got home it was around bedtime so we fed him and put him to bed. I hadn't realized he'd been napping most of the time I'd been gone (I usually make sure he's been awake at least a couple hours before bedtime).
Anyway, between his two grandmas and the Easter Bunny David managed to clean up this Easter. He loves all the toys he got but his favorite is probably the jumperoo we found off of craigslist. He thinks he's pretty hot stuff bouncing around and making the lights and music play. Sorry that the pictures are kind of poor quality. I was all set to get some really cute photos of David in his cute little sweater I got him but of course he started screaming as soon as I pulled out the camera and then spit up all over everything before I could get pictures.

We've Got a 4 Month Cutie!

Four Months

Three Months

Two Months

David's 4 month check-up yesterday went well. I was told his height is above the hundreth percentile but since that's not really possible we'll say 99.9th and his weight is in the 90th. That's not surprising considering how fast he's outgrowing his clothes (he's already wearing 9 month sizes). Developmentally he's doing great as well. He still loves to coo and gurgle and this month he's figured out how to laugh and make different sounds. Ocasionally he'll try to imitate sounds that we make. His reaching and grabbing are better too and he's much more alert and interested in the world around him. Because he's growing so fast the doctor recommended we start solids every night to supplement what he gets from nursing. The picture below is his first experience with rice cereal (Sorry about the not so flattering view of me. I really am losing weight but this photo doesn't exactly show that). It was messy but he did well and ate more than I expected for his first time.

Books Schmooks

(playing in front of the mirror is one of David's favorite activities now)

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I don't really have a good excuse other than I've been somewhat of a slacker lately. I'm now a mostly stay-at-home mom because the ladies in my office had a harder time with David than they anticipated. I guess they've been able to make it work with some babies in the past but David seems to demand more attention than a lot of babies (I could have told them that). He wants to be held CONSTANTLY, and just holding him's not enough. If he doesn't have my undivided attention he lets me know who's boss (as if that were in question). He even insists I hold him during naptime and if I try to put him down he'll wake right up. Or if I do happen to get him to fall asleep on his own he's awake within 20 minutes or so.

When I was pregnant I started boning up on parenting books and sleep guides so that I would be prepared. I even recommended Dr Ferber's book to a mom who had difficulties getting her son to nap. HaHa!!! Following his methods I get David to sleep after about 20 minutes of screaming. He'll sleep for about 15 minutes and then resume screaming for the duration of the nap. Has anyone else had this problem?