Saturday, July 31, 2010

Lessons

I know I have used this place as a way to vent about my neighbors before.
But I need to add to the list.

Annabel has been screaming more and more. Yesterday I just about lost it when her yelling woke Liam up and started him fussing. I really almost went outside and just said "I have never met anyone who yells as much as you do. I have to wonder if these kids are going to need therapy later on in life, because between you and the rest of your loud family they will think that screaming is the only form of communication."

But these kids. I wonder really how much of it is their personality and how much of it is parental issues (mostly being ignored I think...) and how much of it stems from not being provided with some sort of structure in their lives. 

They were bored and decided to uproot some weeds and the volunteer peppermint plants and replant them in the back area of the complex and call it a garden. (Hey, it even got them to eat fruit, since they wanted the seeds from it! They went and bought a nectarine, a peach and I think it was a plum and ate them ALL! Reminder: If Liam won't eat his fruit later in life, start his own garden, but he has to get all the seeds from things he eats!)

But, I got some dill seeds out of this massive baggie of them that Dan had. He had once said that he didn't even KNOW what to do with them all. So I took a handful and gave them to the kids in a baggie. Well, Breanna wanted ownership of the whole bag, but I gave each munchkin a handful and still there were some left over. I asked who wanted to use the bag and have the leftover seeds (Bad Idea!!! I didn't think!), and before anyone else could say anything, Breanna SNATCHED it from my hand and then, dumped HER handful of seeds into it so she could claim it was HER seeds in the bag, which of course now gave her twice as many as the rest of the kids. Of course, all the other kids then don't want to play with her, once she starts saying that when she plants all her seeds, most of the garden will be hers but it should be all hers anyways since she was the one who came up with the idea.

Lesson: Even if you thought of the activity, it belongs to everyone who participates in it.

Some days the boys get balloons. And then they each want to pop the others balloons, but don't want theirs to get popped and the last boy with a balloon now has the whole group following after him shouting that they are going to pop it and he is of course trying to keep them from doing this. When they do finally pop his, he forgets how many of theirs he might have popped, suddenly this is a terrible thing and he gets angry at all the other boys. Yet, the same events occur the next time the boys get balloons.

The lesson to teach Liam from this: Don't pop someone else's balloon unless you want yours to get popped as well... a.k.a. Do unto others...

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Two Months or Eight Weeks?

How do you count the time? Technically the "month" aspect of his age would come on the 2nd of each month, So we have longer until he is "Two Months Old", but he is "Eight Weeks Old" today. (ok, so it was yesterday at 10:05 at night, but still...)

At eight weeks old... Lets see. He smiles sometimes. If you catch him in the right moment, or change his diaper. Yup, he loves a bare bum.


And he wiggles. He kicks his legs a lot. He likes to push against things and shove himself along.

He also sticks his fists in his mouth. A LOT! I swear sometimes he tries to catch his tongue.


And he lets us try different outfits on him... Lots of them, because as soon as you get one on he likes to spit up all over it. The only safe things are hats!



 And some of the clothes he was given are a little.... wrong for him. They might fit one part of him right now, but not the rest. Like these cute shorts that fit his waist, but are a little large otherwise!


 He also is very good at making faces! Usually when Mommy is trying to get a good picture of him.


He is learning what his hands are good for as well. Including things like bopping Daddy in the nose and trying to grab fistfuls of goatee. Thankfully he still mostly misses in his grabs, but that will not last long!


He likes spending time close to mommy as well! Thankfully he had become less needy once we fixed his upset tummy problems. It means I have more time to get chores done. The only thing is that now he doesn't want to sit on the floor, or in his chair... oh no, He wants to SWING! I have a feeling we should all buy stock in Energizer now with all the massive D batteries we will go through swinging this munchkin! (and of course all the toys that will need batteries later on).



And last but not least, as we work toward him lifting his head, we try to give him time on his tummy. This usually consists of him drooling on the bed and rubbing his face in the sheets or blankets and eventually screaming his head off. He seems to be more interested in kicking his feet then lifting his head up. Sometimes we can get it to balance or he will hold it for a sec while we are holding him against a shoulder as we walk into the bedroom for a diaper change.


 But he is doing pretty fantastic, weighed in at 12 pounds last week when he got his shots! We got his upset tummy issues fixed, just needed a formula change and some new eating habits, like eating upright!

He is spending more time awake as he grows, which of course means more time to be bored and scream at us when we can't figure out what he needs. Sometimes I don't think he even knows what he wants!!!

I just want him to learn to sleep longer than 2 hours at a time and figure out how to keep his thumb in his mouth, or at least not try to jam a thumb in there with the pacifier and end up flinging them both out!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Sleep and No Sleep

So right now I just can not sleep.

I tried, but I am not tired. Which is crazy, since all last night Liam was up every hour, at one point I think I was so tired that I passed out... all I remember was hearing him start to fuss and going to stand up and get a bottle for him, I woke up in bed, it was about half an hour later and he was one FURIOUS baby.

But of course he would only eat one ounce. And then would not wake up. Until I put him in the bassinet. Then he woke up and fussed for 15 minutes before falling asleep only to wake up an hour later and demand to eat....... but once more, only ate an ounce. And fell asleep. And this went on and on and on from 1am until about 9 this morning when I finally say SCREW THIS and just got up.

Only to pour myself a bowl of cereal and pour milk into it and get it all the way to the desk, eat a HUGE bite of it, make a bottle, get the cranky baby and sit down to feed him.... and then I discover that my cereal was invaded by ants. I ate ants. They were floating in my milk.

So I had to throw out a brand new box of cereal, since that was only my second bowl. Later on I wanted to try that again, so I got into the box of honey nut cheerios. Once more, ant infested. Thank goodness I checked this time BEFORE I even poured a bowl.

So, since Liam was actually ASLEEP FOR THE FIRST TIME ALL DAY IN HIS CHAIR AND NOT IN MY ARMS, I cleaned the kitchen and set up a water pan with a dry pan in it to store my cereal boxes in. Yay for multiple sizes of cookie sheets.

Then I discovered a MASSIVE trail of ants leading down to the cat food bowls. So I had to clean that up, and lacking any ant killer I felt safe using in the house, I sprayed those little bastards down with Multi Purpose Kitchen/Bathroom cleaner with Oxy Power. Oxy Power the HELL OUT OF THOSE LITTLE FUuuuuu..... oh, sorry. Can you tell I hate ants?

And this is just an addition to the ant killing I must do every time I am in the bathroom. they get on the counters. And in the kitchen, they get all over the sink. EVEN WITH NO FOOD OUT, they are all over.

I find them on my desk, and on my nightstand, and IN MY SHEETS!

I am so grossed out at this point, I don't know what to do.

So I asked the apartment manager to ask the apartment owners to spray for ants. And she shrugs it off, nothing they can do really. And I call bullsh*t on that. Even if it won't take out the piles of ant hills under the building, it should at least cut down on the ant problem for a little while.

The ones that were going for the cat bowls were coming in through the TOP of the window. Now... short of going to Home Depot and buying some sort of sealant and re-sealing ALL THE WINDOWS, ALL THE DOORS AND ALL THE GAPS ALONG THE FLOORS...... there is no way to keep them out.

Seriously, this place is so poorly built that the ants are coming in through gaps between the cabinets and the walls that have cracks that lead down into the foot or more of space beneath the building. The entire underside of the building is a... a pocket. Over dirt. Ant filled dirt.

But in good news, Liam is fine. He is... well, right now he is being fussy and cranky and needy. I hear this is just a phase. I really hope it is because it breaks my heart to hear him cry whenever I put him down, but I have to put him down, at least to eat and do other necessary things. I would leave him to cry it out, but it seems like he will fuss for 5 minutes then put up a HUGE fuss, crying frantically like something is drastically wrong, but when you pick him up, he stops and falls asleep, until you put him down again.

Or then there are times when he just cries and cries and cries. Usually after spitting up, so I am going to call his doctor tomorrow, maybe he has that baby reflux problem and needs something new to happen to fix it.

Maybe thats why it takes him 15-20 minutes to fall back asleep at night after eating.

But he is gaining weight, when he isn't crying and upset he is a happy baby as far as I can tell. No real smiles yet other than a few random ones that might not be real yet.... Hopefully soon he will start having a Social Smile. I need some kind of reassurance from him that I am doing this right.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Visits!

So this past weekend it was a family visit, Liam's Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Dave came to see him, along with Uncle Diego and Great Aunt Saskia!

Here are some pics from the visit. Will get Kathy and Saskia to send me their pictures as well.. then post some of them. I didn't get many, I was too busy!



We went out to lots of places and he came along and did pretty good. Got his first trip to Multnomah Falls and he got to go to breakfast at the cafe where Daddy works and get oohed and aahed over by the other people there.

Too fun!

Friday, July 9, 2010

Busy Busy Busy!

Liam is growing fast, he can lift his head for a second or two when he wants too. He smiled for a bit the other day too!

I know he weighs over 10lbs now, and he is another 1/4 inch longer. (We measured at home!)

He looks around a lot, actually tracking things with his eyes. He likes to look at his Daddy's face, I think its more interesting than Mommy's face, it has hair on it, and more contrast to the features.

He eats well, if at odd times. Sometimes he will put away 3 ounces and sleep for a couple hours, other times he has just one ounce and will be fussy for hours but won't eat more!

It really is a full time (an I don't just mean 40 hours a week, I mean, FULL time) job taking care of him. Getting him down for the night is a challenge. He wants to be AWAKE between 10pm and 1am and be cranky the whole time. Sometimes he will be content playing games for a bit, but not for long. I hope this phase goes away soon.

It is weird, I am finding myself having to correct my typing more as I write this. Maybe I am just tired, or maybe distracted as I turn to look at my sleeping baby boy in between words. Or maybe its that Mommy Brain people keep saying is real.

I am going to blame sleeping in 2 hour sessions and not enough food. I don't want to think that being a mommy might make me more likely to make spelling errors.

At night he will sleep for about 3 hours at first, then 2 hours after a feeding, then somewhere between 6 and 7 am he will wake up and simply not be content without being next to me. So we snuggle up in bed together, (Keeping in mind please that I have gotten a total of MAYBE 4 hours of sleep at this point, I want to keep sleeping.) and he will happily lay there and play with his hands while I doze off. (keeping him safely ON the bed, and not going to be rolled on or in a place where he can roll over and get his face into blankets.)

We sleep that way until noon most days, then wake up and start the day.

And I have tried getting him onto a schedule of going to bed earlier, I would LOVE to be able to go to bed around 10pm or so... even 11 would be ok. But he will have NONE of it. He sleep from 8-10 usually, but I just simply can NOT sleep at 8pm. It is too early! Sometimes I might map a bit, but even then, he won't go back to sleep after that. He wants to be up until 1.

But thats about all. Just normal baby things!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Not so good...

I am less than impressed.

$150.00 later, I get the pump home, and I don't think it's really all that good.

I will try again later on tonight. Every 2 hours.... thats what all the info says for building a supply back up.

Do this every 2 hours.

Maybe it will work.

I really hope it does. If not, then I just wasted a bunch of money and I am PISSED about that.

Last thing to try...

Well, it is clear that my little guy just won't nurse normally or regularly, so I have ONE last thing to try to even keep him getting SOME of my milk...

Today I am going to go out and rent a hospital grade breast pump.

I thought that it would be outside of our financial scope, but Bev offered to pay for the deposit and the supplies and the first two months rental. She says "I want the puppy to have the best food he can get!"

Yes, she calls my boy "Puppy" and it stuck, cause I find myself calling him that too. It is an awful cute nick name...

Plus, if he is the puppy, that makes me the Alpha Bitch. Which is what a mom should be. Strong and protective and willing to do ANYTHING for her puppy.

Anyways.

He is growing well and doing well. Sleeping a little bit longer at a time, which means that at night once I get him to go to sleep he will stay out for a solid two hours, sometimes even more!

So I am getting just a smidge more sleep here and there.

Search Engine Submission - AddMe