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.