Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Getting Out

After a minor break down, a bit of a squable and some quality time talking with my Dan, I decided that I need to do more than just go for a walk every day. I need to GET OUT of the house.

So on Tuesday night at 7:00 I packed me and Liam into the car and drove for two hours out to Bev's new farm. Well, its more of a house with a lot of grass and work that needs to be done on it.

I spent the night there, Liam slept pretty good too for being in a different place. He got a nice mattress instead of his bassinet and I think he enjoyed it. He sleeps on his side now more often than not. I lay him down on his back and he fusses and squirms till he is on his side. I suppose I could just put him down on his side and save myself the fussing.

I woke up twice in the night to feed him which is about normal. Then at 10am we were up for good.

I got to have coffee on the porch with Bev while Liam sat in his stroller. Then we played a bit and walked around the porch. And the last few hours of the day were spent watching Bev pull rocks out of the dirt, helping to pull rocks out of the dirt, leveling the ground where we had pulled the rocks out, then Bev and Kelly's friend Wes built a step that was sorely needed. Did a pretty good job on it too for something done in half an hour.

Then after feeding Liam and getting him content again we put the rocks BACK... but this time in a nice way and made a rock garden out of them. Bev had bought some blue star creeper to plant there so we put it in between some of the rocks. Next time I go up there I will get a picture. By the time we were done and I had fed Liam and realized I needed to head home I was pretty tired.

But I enjoyed the time away from the apartment, and I really enjoyed being out at the farm. It rained in the morning and cleared up and got sunny. Liam was only slightly more fussy than he would have been at home.

I know that I have to get him out more just to get him use to being out of the house.

We drove home and Dan was happy to see us. We all lay down on the bed and played some wiggly games with Liam. It was so much fun to be there with Dan. I missed him a lot.

Now we are winding down for the night, doing our normal routine of watching a show on the computer while one of us snuggles Liam. Right now Dan has him so I can type.

I know I need to give Dan a greater share of the duties. I think I will try to make a habit of asking him to take Liam each evening long enough for me to just update my blog.

As much as I love holding him, I need some arms free time. I wish I didn't feel so guilty putting him down in the swing or anything like that. I know it won't hurt him to swing until he is asleep.

I wind up feeling pressured to get him to sleep after he finishes a night time bottle so that I can get to sleep, but he just WILL NOT go to bed before he is ready to sleep. I try to lay him down just 15 minutes before his normal sleepy time and he will stay awake until he is good and ready to sleep. I do tend to top him off with food before bed if he will take it. Sometimes he won't and I know I will be woken up earlier than normal to feed him.

But thankfully, he is starting to get the hang of sucking his thumb, and that is fine with me. He will just soothe himself for now, and later on I will worry about breaking the habit. It has even let him go longer between feedings when he sucks his thumb. Though he still seems to eat his normal amount even when going longer between eating.

Tonight I found my cousin-in-law's blog "Life in a Pink House" and was reading her post about bed times. Hearing how hard it is now to keep the kids out of her bed after letting her first child sleep in the family bed for so long makes me worry about taking Liam into my bed in the mornings. He will sleep alone just fine until about 6 or 7 in the morning, and then I put him next to me just so I can get some more sleep. Since his normal "bed time" is about midnight, or even 1am sometimes. And he wakes up at 4 or 5 for a feeding right now.

That is ok right now, staying up so late, since Dan and I are both night owls. I guess if we ever need to change it, we will deal with it when the time comes.

Liam seems to resist the idea of a schedule. We have a routine, but it can be off by an hour or more from day to day depending on him. If he sleeps till 11:00am, I let him, if he gets up at 8:00am I get up with him, though he tends to nap for a few hours after waking up no matter HOW much sleep he got the night before. And sometimes I use that time to let him nap in the swing while I nap on the couch.

But getting out was such a blessing. I will have to do that more. I really will... I need it. And Liam needs it.

And to end this, the cute face I woke up to this morning...

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