Happy Birthday!

My adorable little boy is one today. It's been a wonderful year.

Nails

Always cut your kid's finger nails. Those suckers are like little razors.

Razor nails on a kid who's already obstinate like his parents is a very dangerous combo. I found this out this morning.

As noted in a previous post, Luke likes to play with the kitties' food despite being told no. This morning he went for the food bowl AGAIN and I said no, three times. After the third time of being ignored, I turned him over my knee and smacked his butt five times (over the diaper and pants). He immediately turned up and swatted at my face, leaving two visible scratch marks.

This happened this morning and they STILL hurt. Always clip kids' nails.

Mt. Mommy

I'm not sure what it is, but my son loves climbing Mt. Mommy. I sit and he pulls himself up to standing using my leg and shirt, tries to bite my shoulder, then flops back down.

This is more entertaining than his toys and he laughs hysterically every time.

I really don't know what to say.

Depression

Since I was a kid, I've had issues feeling down. I get mad at little stuff and have a hard time controlling my emotions. My mom told me this was normal and I'd even out eventually.

Well, I'm 28 and I've never evened out. Since starting working nights, I've been too tired to tired to keep myself in check and it's been rough on everyone involved. A friend pointed out that until I got it looked into, I wasn't being the best Mommy I could be for Luke. That hit home.

I saw our family doctor today and talked about it. She told me I have a pretty classic case of clinical depression. I thought she'd refer me to someone, but she handled it right there. I now have a script for generic Prozac and plan on getting it filled tonight at work.

I really hope this balances everything out and that I stop feeling this way.

Oh The Things...

Take two of "Things You Find In Baby's Mouth!"

I was changing the baby the other day and, as usual, I tickled his tummy. While he laughed I noticed something in his mouth. I reached into his mouth and pulled out...

a kibble of kitty food.

Yes, I'm serious. My son was sucking on kitty kibble. I have no idea if he was enjoying it, but he sure as hell had it in his mouth.

I swear this kid is going to be the death of me.

Our Growing Geek

So I have two pictures of Luke's favorite toys.


The lightsaber was Daddy's (it had M&Ms in it) but someone just had to have it. He carries it with him often.


And this is my sweet boy turning off the PS3 using the controller. He's my smart boy!

Coloring Books (or What Is That In Your Mouth)

My husband just pulled a pulpy mass from my son's mouth and we couldn't figure out what it was. After cleaning the kid up it became apparent, after looking around, that my son was attempting to eat a page of his coloring book.

Now, the book itself is kept by my side of the bed, as is the crayons. This is so he can color supervised (and I can color too). A page of the book got ripped out and somehow found its way into his playpen.

Had I been aware of this, I probably would have taken it. However, my son decided that his drawing would be better in his mouth than sent to grandma. Not a good substitute for gum.

Just sayin'.

Sinuses

Hubby and I have terrible sinuses. We both have perpetual sinus infections, snore terribly, and are often clogged up on clear days. I had hoped that Luke would avoid such issues until I found a healthy amount of green boogies in his nose.

Ugh.

I have a doctor's appointment for myself next week and I intend to bring him with me. Maybe our awesome doc can nip this thing in the bud before it gets out of hand.

More Crayons

Last night, I bought Luke his first official box of crayons. We haven't played with them yet, but I'm curious as to see how he reacts. His first instinct with the other crayons was to put them in his mouth, which is most baby's first instinct, but I want to see if he'll color a picture. We'll see.

Leap Day

I won't be writing in depth today on two accounts: 1) It's my birthday and 2) Luke won't stop crying because I'm trying to eat breakfast without him (he's already eaten).

Happy Birthday to me! Life's so glamorous!

Daddy Centric

Ever since Luke said "Da Da" for the first time (which he has not said since), his attention has been focused on Daddy. Hubby will be sitting at his computer desk and Luke will yell or talk to him to get his attention. He constantly wants Daddy to hold him, snuggle him, etc.

When he was Mommy focused, if Daddy tried to snuggle him, Luke would push Daddy away. Luke doesn't do that with me except on occasion when Dad's home, so I still get my snuggly love bug during the day. If he could stay this way, for a bit, I'd be ever so thankful. Hubby needs to feel appreciated.

Crayons

Luke has discovered crayons. He's discovered that they are fun to shake, taste funny, and can make pictures look even more cool. I got him an orange and a red giant crayon and the red is already destroyed. It's chewed to death, broken, and the orange is on its way.

I think I'm going to buy him a box of crayons and see how well he does.

Tummy Sick

Last night, I got a phone call from hubby while I was at work. Little guy was running a fever and feeling awful. Lucky for me I work for a great company that let me out early so I could rush home to take care of him. While I was on my way, he started throwing up.

He continued to throw up this morning, but his fever broke. Still, he got some pedialite and infant tylenol to make him feel a little better. The sickies didn't seem to last long, but I now have a ton of laundry that needs doing.

Luke is also a sharing type. I started throwing up this morning. It starts!

Elmo

We've been watching a lot of Sesame Street lately (which is AWESOME) and Luke seems to absolutely LOVE Elmo. He loves Elmo almost as much as he loves Cliff Lee.

Right now we're watching a documentary on the fella who created Elmo and it's amazing to me that a young man from Baltimore set his mind to being a puppeteer and achieved great things. The characters he created as he grew up and as an adult were so vibrant and lovable! It takes a great person to bring his love to children just because he could.

This guy, Kevin, is brilliant. Just brilliant.

The Doctor

I'm not talking about our family doctor, I'm talking about THE Doctor. Luke seems to have developed an obsession with Doctor Who. Hubby seems to share this obsession and the two of them seem to bond over the show. While I find it interesting, I don't find it nearly as interesting as they do.

Luke Crawls video!

As promised, here's the kiddo crawling. Please ignore my ridiculous voice in the background. Needless to say, I was excited.

So I feel silly...

Did you know that you can upload videos and photos directly from your smart phone onto photobucket, flickr, and youtube? Yes? Well I didn't.

I've been stressing over how to get videos off of my SD card, but my computer keeps saying I have to reformat. I was messing around on my phone and figured out how to link it to one of my youtube accounts! I feel so silly for not figuring this out earlier. I've had the phone for almost 2 years now.

Anyways, videos to come.

Feet

My feet are huge and generally not well taken care of. I know this does not come as a shock to many of the moms out there since it takes time to care for such things. Who the heck has the time? Not me.

Hubby decided to pay for a pedicure for me as a late Valentine's Day gift so I went and got it today. I haven't had one in almost 10 years! It felt awkward but nice to have my feet pampered, but they still weren't able to take off all of the callouses. I may have to learn how to do it at home.

It was nice to do something for me for once.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We're over here celebrating Luke's first Valentine's Day outside of the womb and having a ol' snuggle fest. He got his very own phone, though I'm sure he'll continue to steal Mommy's when he gets the chance.

Happy Valentine's Day y'all!

Hurt Feelings

On the one hand, I've been thoroughly enjoying my son being as mommy centric as he has been these past few months. On the other hand, I hate seeing how hurt my husband is when Luke pushes him away to get to me.

Yesterday was particularly bad. Whenever hubby would hold Luke, snuggle Luke, give him kisses, etc., Luke would push him away and look for me. The only touching thing he did was fall asleep on daddy's chest when he needed a nap. I try teaching Luke "dada," I get all excited for dad when he comes home, I do whatever I can, but he stays fixated on me.

I get the feeling that this heartache will continue for some time.

Da Da

Luke says Mama pretty regularly, "baba" for bottle, "yayayaya" over and over and other sounds strung together, but he still refuses to say "dada."

I've been working with him on the "d" sound for several months now. Either he refuses to make it or he just can't comprehend yet. He learned the "p" sound yesterday, which was cool, but since we don't refer to hubby as "Papa," it does no good for morale.

If anyone out there in Internet Land has any suggestions, I'd be very open to them.

My Eye

While snuggling the baby today during book time, I put the book down just in time to have the one cat sprint up the bed and over my face. I now have two cuts on my right eyelid and two huge scratches on my arm. I had it checked and my eyesight will not be affected.

The only thing I'm super thankful for is that she did now scratch up Luke. I can deal with the pain and blood, but I'd never forgive myself if I wasn't able to protect him.

Babies

Hubby stayed home yesterday because he was feeling ill. There's a tummy bug going around the area, so I didn't argue.

The problem with being sick is that Luke has decided he no longer likes sleeping in his crib. He'll lie there fine if we place him in while asleep, but he'll freak out and start crying when he wakes up. The same reaction does not apply when he's snuggling with me or hubby.

When I go to work, hubby and baby are left to their own devices. Luke wants to sleep in the bed, hubby wants Luke to sleep in the crib, so no one gets sleep in the end. This doesn't allow for hubby to get rest to get better.

I got called into work last night and didn't get home until 3:30am. Both of the boys were still up with hubby lamenting the situation. I don't blame him. I ended up staying up til 4:30am getting the kiddo to go to sleep and to stay asleep in the crib. He woke up at 8am.

Needless to say, I'm pretty tired. I forsee an early bedtime for all of us in the near future.

Wrapping corners

It wasn't long ago that Luke could barely pull himself up to standing in his playpen. Now he does it regularly and quickly with the added bonus of being able to wrap around corners with no issue.

Here's the problem- the kid is smart. Normally this is something to celebrate (and even in this case there should be a little celebration), but this time it's getting him into trouble. Luke has figured out that if he piles his toys in a particular fashion and climbs on top of them, he can see higher over the playpen walls. He's also figured that he can use the toys as a ladder to try and vault over the wall to get to me. We also had to rope tie the walls together because the little bugger learned how to open one of the sides once.

Needless to say his crib has been lowered further and stuffed animals have been removed to make it so he can't vault over the side. He's getting big fast and I have no idea how long that will last. He may "graduate" to a toddler bed faster than other kiddos.

Day Trip

My son left about 45 minutes ago with his Poppy, Grandma Jen, and Uncle Chad to go visit Jen's mother and father. It will be several hours before he gets back and so I'm left to my own devices.

So what am I doing? Laundry, dishes, cleaning, crafting, and such. I'd really like to take a nap, but I have no idea if I'll be able to do that and get everything else done. It's weird not having Luke around. I miss my little goofy boy. I know it's only a few hours, but I really miss him.

Crawling!

Luke actually crawled last night!! He has army crawled before, but he picked up his tushie and moved his arms and knees back and forth across the floor.

Video to come, but my computer is telling me I need to format the disk before I can use it. This would erase all the data, thus defeating the purpose of me uploading the movie.

Last Night

I should have gone to bed early. I should have. I didn't.

As I probably have mentioned before, hubby and I play Star Wars: The Old Republic. After working for 6 days in a row then visiting my family then working for 2 more days, I haven't had much time to play video games. I can't even remember the last time I logged into World of Warcraft, but that's also due to Luke stealing my authenticator.

Hubby and I hit the hay around 11:30 and his snoring kept me up til midnight. Around 1am, Luke started crying really hard. Hubby brought him to the bed, where I snuggled him back to sleep. I then had baby snores and hubby snores to contend with as I tried to sleep. I woke at 2am to find hubby had taken ALL of the blankets, my pajama pants had slid up to my knees (exposing my feet and calves), and my back was spasming. I took a smaller blanket for Luke back from hubby and tried to sleep the rest of the night.

I woke up every 45 minutes or so until hubby's alarm went off at 6am. I was able to sleep solid after he left at 6:30am, but then Luke decided it was time to get up at 8am.

I'm sitting here trying so hard to stay awake with a heat pack on my back while Luke watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I think I may scoop up the baby for a good snuggle.

Teething Pains

Luke has his first two teeth poking up from his bottom gums and has just been so hurty for the past week or so. He's got two more teeth coming in on the top gums (he'll look like a rabbit) and it's making him miserable. Thank goodness for Orajel or he'd get no relief.

Routine

I've started really sticking to a routine on weekdays for Luke. I've always had a loose schedule, but lately I've been giving him a bit more structure.

We wake up at approximately 9am and Luke immediately gets fed. I then turn on his Your Baby Can Read video and go upstairs to sanitize his bottles/ use the bathroom/ brush my teeth/ etc. After that, I eat breakfast while Luke watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. We then play patty cake, peekaboo, and sing songs for an hour or so then watch some educational programming. After that is lunch followed by another round of Your Baby Can Read while I get some cleaning done. There's playpen time while I eat my lunch and then nap time. When we wake, it's a sippy cup of formula while we have reading time and then more playpen time.

I asked for advice from a fellow mommy who has done a great job with her babies and she said I'm doing fine on educational stuff. She suggested that I start teaching Luke some sign language so I can know what he wants and he can be less frustrated. She suggested teaching him the sign for Mama, Daddy, up, milk, wet, food, and tired. It'll be a learning experience for the both of us!

Home Again

Luke and I went to visit my folks in Virginia this weekend and I forgot how much I missed the area. I got to see a decent amount of folks I grew up with, see other kids' babies, and got to hang out with a former teacher who's the coolest chick I've ever known.

I want to look into becoming a teacher down there if I can. I'm not sure how difficult it will be, but it's worth looking into.

9 month Well Baby Visit

Luke saw his doctor today who told us he's right on schedule for every major landmark this month. He also impressed her with his ability to stand and his pulling up to standing in his playpen.

Luke now is 28 inches long and weighs 18lbs stark naked. He's in the 70th percentile for both height and weight. Big boy!

Winnie The Pooh

I remember watching Winnie the Pooh as a kid, both the live action/adults in costumes version and the cartoon. They've recently revamped the cartoon into shorts in between kids' shows on Disney and I have to say it feels weird.

It's the same content and the same animation. The difference is the voice over work, which sounds out of place with the older style of animation. The only voice kept the same is Kanga with Owl having the biggest change. It just doesn't mesh and leaves me disappointed.

Slacker

Sorry for not posting the past few days.

Yesterday was a busy day for me. I had to work til 3am that morning and driving home was difficult because of snow still on the ground. I was going to go to church with Luke, but upon waking realized that I had a TERRIBLE headache and needed some extra rest.

We went to visit Luke's Nana for a few hours then took her out to lunch. I tried meat again after being a vegetarian for two months and I can't remember the last time I felt that icky. It was awful. Unfortunately though, I still had to work from 6 to 10:30pm that day, so I had to suck it up and be as positive as possible. There's no reason Wegmans customers should have to suffer because I'm having an off day.

I got some great advice from one of the gals at work who also teaches pre-school. She told me to add more finger play to our routine, to increase his dexterity. He's already pretty dexterous, but it can never hurt to keep him going. I should also add more books to our reading time (even if the books sometimes make me yawn).

Snow Day

It started snowing last night while I was at work, making it so my 20 minute commute took over an hour getting home. It continued to snow into today with the downfall ceasing not long ago. Luke has a snow suit, so he could play in the snow without issue, however, he has no real concept of snow and I get the feeling he would be confused like last time.

I might take him out in it later though and take pictures.

Momma Laura

If you like scrapbooking, I have a blog you might enjoy.

My mother has been scrapbooking for as long as I can remember. She loves to document everything important in the lives of her kids and have a safe place to put all of her pictures. Recently she started digital scrapbooking, which cuts down on the paper mess and might save a few trees. It's also a fun way to organize photos!

Because of her having so much fun with this new venture, she's started a blog to show her creativity and to help others who may be interested in taking the digital plunge. She'll be posting sales as she sees them, example pages, and more. I've put her blog in my blog roll (located on the right side of the screen), so I'll introduce the url here: http://mommalaurasmemories.blogspot.com/

SOPA

No thanks SOPA. I like my Internet the way it is.

Sleep is for the weak

I worked a long shift at work last night (which was fun) and my inlaws volunteered to watch the baby for a few hours while I took a nap. This was a lovely idea and I agreed. Two or three hours of sleep without the interruption of hubby's snoring or baby's needs was very tempting. I did not, however, count on the cats.

Marian and Dagmar wanted food. This is a reasonable want, but when I don't watch them eat Marian tends to eat Dagmar's food. Dagmar eats a little and walks away, leaving Marian to swoop in and eat her fill. To prevent this, I take Dagmar's food and put it up on the bed so I can encourage her to eat more. Since we've done this, Dagmar's gone from 8 lbs to 11 lbs and Marian's gone from 22 lbs to 17 lbs.

Since the point was to sleep, I decided to hold off on feeding the girls. They did not like my decision and decided to keep me awake until I fed them. First, they started fighting. After they stopped, Marian decided to attack my makeup and Dagmar started playing with a ball. Then the girls decided to walk on my head, run across the bed as fast as they could, and play with every bag they could find.

Needless to say I didn't get much sleep.

Bedtime

We coerced the baby into falling asleep around 9pm last night. Since neither hubby nor I get to have time to play games and such at night, we decided to stay up for a bit and let him sleep. This was our first mistake.

Luke woke up 3 times during the course of the night. He just woke up whining the first time, but was easily put back to bed. The second time we had to take him out of the crib and put him back to sleep. We should have just gone to bed after that but no, kiddo woke up a third time. This time he had had enough rest to keep himself awake for a bit. He would not go back to sleep until 4am. Hubby got to rest a bit, but I stayed up. Needless to say we did not make it to church in the morning.

I had a short shift at work tonight and I'm just drained. I would love to go to sleep but laundry needs doing and (surprise!) kiddo's very awake. Ugh.

Our Date

Hubby and I got to have a date tonight. Luke hung out with his Grandma and Poppy while we went out to Indian food followed by frozen yogurt. While the food was lovely, we did not really talk about anything we wouldn't have normally. It was almost awkward without the baby.

I do not want us to be one of those couples who has kids and then doesn't know what to do with themselves once the kids leave. I think I may be over thinking things.

Early in the morning...

It's not fun rolling in to the house at 4 in the morning only to have the baby wake up and not be able to coerce him to go back to sleep.

When hubby woke up and found the baby in the bed with me again, he was not happy. We've been trying so hard to keep him in his crib at night, it might be a set back to have had him with me last night.

On a cool side note, Luke pulled himself up to standing in his playpen yesterday! He grabbed onto the netting and stood. It was so cool!

No Rest For The Wicked

So I got Luke to sleep around 9:30 last night. Father in law called downstairs to chat, so I brought sleeping baby upstairs so FIL could say goodnight. It was easy enough to encourage the little guy to go back to sleep and everything seemed peachy keen.

We live near a volunteer fire company and the sirens are incredibly loud. The in laws have never trained the dogs not to bark and howl when the sirens go off, so when they sounded at 11pm last night, the dogs started freaking out. I ran upstairs to calm them down but the damage was done. Luke was awake and refusing to go back to sleep. At midnight, kiddo was still awake and doing everything in his power to remain so. Hubby fell asleep and I had to fight consciousness in the dark while I waited for Luke to find his happy place.

Sometime around 1am, I was finally able to put the baby in the crib. I had to cover his ears at one point because the dogs started barking AGAIN, but luckily he slept through it all. I'm so tired.

Wit's End

I've found that the lack of sleep is catching up with me. Luke is now sleeping in his crib, which makes my sleep fitful, and I'm not doing so well with everything. I'm cranky when I shouldn't be over absolutely nothing.

I have tonight off from work. I'm going to try and do something relaxing.

New Shows

So Luke and I watch a decent amount of television. I know you're not really supposed to do that with babies, but I'm an auditory learner and I attribute a lot of my elementary knowledge to my mom having educational shows like Sesame Street on for me in the background while I was a kid.

There's a new show on Disney Junior called "The Octonauts" about little animals living underwater that help sea creatures live comfortably. The captain is a little polar bear, his first mate is a cat, the med officer is a penguin, etc. Every episode, they help at least one creature and then at the end there's factual information on said creature.

The show only started airing yesterday and Luke already loves it. The animation is cute, the animals have all kids of accents (the bear and cat are british, the sea otter sounds scottish, the penguin sounds hispanic, etc.) and it's educational. Since I'm really hoping that Luke gets into a science when he gets older, I think I'll continue to watch the show with him.

Baby and Daddy

Luke has been very Mommy centric, so much to the point where he won't behave for Daddy at all. He fusses constantly while sitting with him and reaches for me while Daddy's holding him. I can see it breaking hubby's heart, but I have no idea how to fix it. Any suggestions?

Family Guy

I used to love the show Family Guy. The first few seasons were hit or miss, but after that, the show had me rolling in the aisles. The social commentary was great and it was unlike any other show I'd seen before.

Unfortunately, the show has now gone past humor and into the realm of shock factor. Before, I'd consider letting Luke watch it when he's old enough, but now I think I'd block it from our television. I recently saw a piece of the show that referenced a woman being attacked while Aquaman shouted at the assailant from the water. Rape was mentioned. Needless to say I was not thrilled.

What makes a show resort to something this terrible? Ugh.

Little Einsteins (A Rant)

There's a television show on TV called "Little Einsteins" about how 4 kids and their pet rocket ship go around helping animals and musical instruments using music, art, and dance to achieve their goals. As a former music major, this thrilled me to no end when I first discovered the show. However, as I watch it, some things become a bit apparent to me.

First off, there are two white kids (Leo and Annie), an Asian kid (June), and an African American kid (Quincy). The show centers mainly on the white kids, which I think is a bit crappy. The boy is the conductor and the little blonde haired, blue eyed girl is the singer. She makes up almost all of the songs for the show while (mainly) singing out of key. The other kids have to constantly compliment her on her singing skills, which just makes me sad.

The Asian girl is the dancer of the group. After watching almost every episode this show has to offer, I've only seen one where she was the main feature (she helped a robot get back to his planet through dance). She's a better singer than Annie, but never gets the opportunity to show it off. Not cool.

Leo conducts, Annie sings, June dances, and what does Quincy do? Oh he only plays every instrument known to man. Why isn't this prodigy the main star? I have no idea. He mainly plays a background role, playing what he can to help a lost animal or instrument find their way home. He seems to always get the short end of the stick and does a significant amount of work. This ticks me off to no end.

I love being a singer, but I almost feel like the show is biased against instrumentalists. The bad singer gets praised, is featured in almost every episode, but the kid who can play anything is a background character. Blarg.

Sleep Rituals

I think we need to establish new sleep rituals for the baby.

As it is right now, I seem to be the main person putting Luke to sleep. If I'm not here to do so (like when I'm working), the kiddo doesn't fall sleep til the wee hours of the morning and hubby gets exhausted. Luke is a good kid, but he inherited his stubbornness from both my hubby and I. When he gets an idea, like "I don't want to go to sleep for Daddy," he sticks with it.

I wish I had a better plan on how to go about getting a new ritual since I'm the one who gets him to take naps during the day. As it is, when hubby does get him to sleep, he wakes up within 2 hours.

Any suggestions?

Baby Snuggles

The baby is sleeping currently and while I'd love to lie down and take a nap with him, I can't bear to move him. He's snuggling up against my thigh at the moment with his pacifier hanging partially out of his mouth. He's so frickin cute, I can barely stand it.

We had a good amount of shopping today, so it's no surprise he's whooped.