Baby Love at First Sight

Meet Holden's girlfriend.... Maya. You can tell by the looks on their faces just how thrilled they are to be smashed together for their moms' amusement.

This may rank up there with my cats in sweaters.

Who's next?

Jordan better sleep with one eye open ... tee hee hee.

-Carmen

Ten Fingers Five Hundred Toes

Holden is getting so big (sniff sniff.)  I retired all 50 of his itty bitty baby socks a few weeks ago.  They have been sitting in a bag ... waiting.  Waiting for what?  I don't know.  I guess it is time to join them with all the clothes he has outgrown in a storage container headed for the attic (triple sniff.)

The cutie pie "undies" are a gift from my good friend DD.  I get the giggles when Holden wears them.  He is in size 3 diapers now and on the verge of another upgrade.  We'll have to add a "C" to the "hunk" on his rear before too long.... except they won't fit much longer (quadruple sniff.)

-Carmen

...Keeps the Doctor Away

I have a confession to make......  

I crossed over to the dark side.

I bought a mac.

I'm posting from it right now.

I thought I could never get past some of Apple's quirks.  

They sucked us in with all their hype and shine. 

PC and mac live in harmony in our home. 

Now I can do cool things like this....

(Click play, let it buffer ... speakers on.)

-Carmen

Stay Tuned

Still adjusting to being back at work..... I don't mean to harp on the subject, I know I talk about it a lot, but man, am I TIRED!

I'll have some cutey cute pictures and maybe something interesting to say soon. Did I mention I'm sleepy. At this particular moment I feel like an old momma so all I've got is a Yo Momma joke so duck.....

Yo momma’s so old her social security number is 1!


(tap, tap, tap) Is this thing on?

Thank you .... I'll be here all week! And goodnight.

-Carmen

Tee Hee Hee

Holden and I were at the mall today, and he broke out into a rant about the price of gas. I, of course, pulled out the ole camera phone. Holden had been talking for several minutes before I started to record. Then we started to draw a crowd so I had to cut off the camera and console the little guy. He was LOUD!

Click on the PLAY button. It should start playing on it's own, but allow it to finish buffering. Make sure your speakers are on.



We had a couple of other cute "happenings," today.

I laid Holden's little blankie with a giraffe head on his chest. The giraffe is named Gerry. Holden chomped on Gerry's giraffe antennae (what are those things, anyway?) and tried to suck on his face. It looked like they were kissing. When Holden fell asleep, he had Gerry hugged up against his chest with his arm. Soooo cute.

Forgive me for posting this, but it was so funny. Back at home, Holden was tooting and Olive, the cat, was meowing in reply. Toot ... Meow ... toot ... meow ... TOOT ... MEOW ... TTTOOOOTTTT ... MMMEEOOOWWWW.

-Carmen

Four Corners

Jordan and I love working on our house, but we are s - l - o - w about it. Holden's room is close enough to done to post some pictures. Click on any of them to enlarge.

I still plan to add some of Jennifer's photos above the crib and I may put something on the wall behind the chair.

Jordan and I painted the walls green when we found out we were having a baby. I painted a sky on the ceiling. It looks kind of like an open skylight.

Other special crafty additions include the blue shelf that Jordan made and I painted, the family tree I made, the H O L D E N above the crib was cut by Jordan and painted by me, I added tags to the baskets that can be changed out when the items inside change, and I added wooden bees with "jet streams" coming from their rears on the ceiling.

Happy 3 Months!

Holden is 3 months old!

Holden had his first sleepover without mom and dad. He stayed with his Nana and Rowdy Friday night.

The mister and I had grand plans to go to a movie, but we were too tired. So, we went home and popped the top on a bottle of champagne from our wedding to celebrate mommy not quitting her job (that is how Jordan put it.) We even dragged out the champagne flutes instead of using coffee mugs. When Jordan left the room to get refills ... I fell asleep.

Onion was really concerned about the lack of baby. She wandered around the house looking for Holden and stood in front of his door over and over trying to peek in until he came home.

Holden and I are just hanging out today. I have some WORK work to take care of, but I'm waiting for junior to nap.

My favorite thing about life with Holden this month is how he tilts his head and shrugs his shoulders when he smiles. He also sticks out his bottom lip when he is sad ... this makes mommy laugh, which usually makes Holden laugh, too.

-Carmen

Patches

When we were kids, my sister and I would spend a week with my grandparents during the summer. During the day we would party it up with Nanners. We could turn the TV up loud, we had music on and danced around the house, we played with anything we wanted, and laughed a ton.

I remember one afternoon while Nanners was ironing Pawpaw’s shirts, I was wadding up ruled notebook paper and dollar bills then asking her to iron them for me. Over and over again, I would crumple up the paper and money and she would iron them flat … just because I asked.

At some point in the afternoon each day we had to stop, pick up the Tinker Toys, and turn off the TV … Pawpaw was on his way home. Our faces were cleaned, our backs straightened up, and our mouths became quiet.

I always loved that. We lived it up all day and no one ever knew.

Grandma had this ceramic dog (I’ll call him Patches) in what was my mom’s room when she was a kid. I was always a little creeped out by it, but now I love it. I brought it home for Holden.





















-Carmen

Back Off Ladies, He’s Mine

Usually I say that as a joke when the husband does something gross like burp the alphabet, but this time…….

Per suggestions I found in a Baby Center article about two income households and sharing chores, we made a list of all the things we have to get done each day and then each week … the usual suspects like laundry and mowing. We divvied the chores and typed up the list.

One of the big things that Jordan claimed was dinner. Jordan has greeted me with a warm home cooked meal for the last two nights. And he didn’t phone it in, either. We had baked tilapia, rice, and broccoli with cheese last night, and we had meatballs, pasta, and green beans tonight.

My beloved husband has taken a HUGE load off my shoulders not only with the daily task of dinner, but with housework and help getting Holden ready to go in the morning (when he isn’t working.)

So burp on, baby!

Baby news …. Holden laughed real laughs, today. Mrs. B had him rolling when I arrived to pick him up. I tried to recreate the moment for Jordan when we got home, but Holden wasn’t interested.

If you have seen Holden lately you are probably talking about his hair, behind his back. It is getting so thin and patchy. Gone (or fading) are the dark locks he arrived on the planet with. So sad. On the upside, Jordan and I examined his receding hairline and there is blonde hair growing in. He is going to be a calico baby before long.

-Carmen

The Worst Day of My Life…

… was down-graded to intensely frustrating and sad.

My first day of work, yesterday was very hard, but everyone lived.

I sobbed a wee bit after I dropped Holden off and felt really nauseated most of the morning. I must have looked back at the baby rearview mirror a dozen times expecting him to be there after I dropped him off.

I think the thing I found the most bothersome was sitting in traffic. I never enjoyed the one hour commute before (which is now more like a one and a quarter hour commute with all the new residents in this area, and not including drop off time at Mrs. B’s,) but now I think about things in “Holden time.” I couldn’t believe I was sitting in my car inching along when all I wanted was to be with my son. I also had another excruciating commute at the end of the day to look forward to before I could hold him again.

One of the things I will hop up on my soap box about in a split second is freewill and CHOICE so I am VERY aware how whiny I sound right now … I choose to work where I do … I choose to live really far away from that location….

The day was ok when it got going. I didn’t realize how much I missed my coworkers, my desk, my chair, my email, my job.

Don’t get me wrong, I was still running out the door when it was time to leave and pick up my baby boy.

Holden was in his original packaging when I arrived at Mrs. B’s. He was content.

OK, I have to be honest. I don’t know what I was really expecting … he is only 3 months old … but I don’t think he had any idea I was missing from his day! OUCH! I certainly don’t want him to be upset, but a “hey, mom … I’m so glad to see you,” wouldn’t hurt.

Moving on…….

One of my bestest friends in the whole wide world had a birthday celebration last night and Holden and I attended her birthday party at a Greek restaurant. The food was fab and we had a great time.

As mentioned in a previous post, Holden demands to be bathed at 8:00 pm. I started to panic around 7:30.

Poor baby didn’t get his bath until 9:00 pm. He was extra fussy by the time we got home, and I laid him on his changing table to get him ready for bath time. Also mentioned in a previous post, we are using baby sign language with Holden. I made the sign for “bath” with my hands and he magically calmed down, smiled, and cooed! I took his hands and made little fists with them, and moved his hands the same way to sign “bath.” He smiled even bigger. “Well look at that!” It is working! Thank you KD for giving me that sign language book!

We were really rolling along.

Holden enjoyed his bath as usual. I dried, lotioned, and PJed him before his last bottle for the night, all the while reflecting on how the day really went much smoother than I anticipated.

Then…..

I was feeding Holden and I started to sweat profusely, I started getting really lightheaded, and I was shaking. As some of you know, I have hypoglycemia. Well, I was “crashing.” And as my mother and husband have observed, when it happens, it happens fast. I hate to take the bottle from Holden during a feeding, but obviously it was necessary. I laid him down to find something to eat and shove it in my mouth so I could return to feeding Holden. I felt awful. He was screaming and I was shaking trying to hold the bottle to his mouth. A pitiful sight.

My body finally started to relax and the shaking started to subside, then Holden spewed milk all over my new work clothes. It ran down my sweater, down my pants, and all over the chair. I was sitting in it and it was soaking into my clothes and the chair, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to finish feeding him so we could both go to bed.

Eventually I got everyone and everything cleaned up (it was the most spit up I have ever seen,) and we went to bed.

I melted into my bed, a bed I LOVE by the way, and drifted into sleep.

Holden woke up at 4am and we started a whole new day. Complete with a VERY poopy diaper as we were suppose to be heading out the door.


THIS JUST IN … BREAKING NEWS!!!

Olive the cat, walked up to Holden, who was sitting in his bouncy chair and Holden noticed! This is the first time he has paid any attention to the cats. They were nose-to-nose, checking each other out. When Olive walked away, Holden’s eyes followed her.

I am sleepy and delirious. Time to put all the Stogsdills in bed.

And goodnight to all!

-Carmen