10....11...12...?

Okay, I've completely lost track of weeks. In all fairness, after the first two months, I don't think keeping track of weeks is really necessary. Those first two months, it seemed like each day was a huge step towards his progress from newborn to infant, which made weeks really significant and different. Don't get me wrong, my little man changes every day still, but I think it's more appropriate to assess his achievements by the month from now on (until I lose track of those). Here's how his age is going to measure: "Oh look, he's 2 months!" "Now how old? Oh, a little over 2 months." "He's about 2  1/2 months." "What's that? Oh, he's just about three months old." "Oh yay! He's finally three months!" And so on.. Plus, what kind of sick person makes you do math when asking for your age? That's why they ask you on forms at the doctors office your date of birth, and then also your age. No one needs the extra math. Not even those who went to medical school.

This past week was a big one for me! Well, nothing too big, but I got back and taught my first Zumba class since before the baby!! I was going to go to an instructor's class to see how I'd do getting back into full swing Zumba for an hour (I'd only built myself up to about 40 minutes in my family room), and instead, she ended up being sick and asked me to sub. I'm still no where near 100% to how my body used to move or even my endurance, but I lasted the hour and felt so amazing afterwards. I felt like my old self again. Just me. I wasn't a mom. I didn't have the stress of going back home to take care of everything all by myself. I didn't even care that I wasn't at my best. For that hour, I was in my happy zone and there was nothing that could take that feeling away from me. It was pure freedom. Yesterday, we had a Zumbathon. I wish I could say it went as well as that Thurs night class, but I somehow got a stomach flu bug the night before so I was incredibly weak and tired, but managed through.

Which brings me to my next point. Being a sick mom sucks. It really sucks. There were a few times I thought I'd throw up on Ryan while trying to feed him. I went from chills to hot sweats. I could barely move from the couch to change his diapers-I stacked them all up next to the changing table so I didn't have to go out of my way to throw them out. At one point, I went to get water, but left my cup by the couch so I just made a new one because it hurt so much to travel. Ryan was a good sport though. He didn't mind snuggling all day on the couch with me, or even having his play time on the couch seat next to me while I sluggishly waved stuff in front of his face. It was miserable. And the puppies didn't even want to cuddle me-which they usually do when I feel sick. I felt so abandoned. The good news is at least I'm used to it. I usually only get extremely sick on the days G ends up working over night, in the field, or just super late. I'm used to being miserable by myself-I guess that's a good thing since I really have no choice. I'm just so glad I was able to sleep it off and make it to the Zumbathon the next day-with whichever energy I had left in me.

Other than the sickness, being a mom has been so great. Seeing my little boy's smiles every morning makes each day worth it. Same with the pups, watching the weird little things they do cracks me up. I love all of my babies so much (right now, Cato and Denali are both trying to lick the exact same spot on Cato's leg. What?). I've discovered that all of those love songs I've listened to throughout the years about people from my past now all apply to my little man. I think Elton John's Your Song is my favorite to sing to Ry. It's so cliche, but it's so true-once you have a baby, nothing and no one else in the world really matters besides him. He becomes the center of your universe and the love of your life. I read this article online and it said, "You never realize how much your parents loved you until you have a baby," and it's true. The love you feel is incomparable and it makes you appreciate your parents even more. It's such a crazy thing. How could I have gone 27 years without realizing this? It's almost a cruel lesson-I wish I'd have gone my whole life knowing this feeling from the start. And now this little man will grow up having no idea what I've endured until he has his first child.

Anyway, I got my little guy to sleep, which means I have maybe 15 minutes to get ready for the day. Must make use of my time. Until later my friends! Love to those who read :)

Patron on the Rocks, It's Time for Baby's Shots

Since we were out of town for Ry's 2 month appt, we rescheduled it to last week-only one week overdue. This was the first appointment for him to get his baby shots. I was really nervous! People explained this appointment to me saying that I had to strap him down and he'd look into my eyes screaming and begging for the pain to stop. No mother wants to see that look in their child's eyes. Safe to say, I was a little shaky going into immunization that day.

So we get there and there's one person ahead of us. Go figure, it's another mother taking her baby in for her 2 months shots as well. It was awful. I heard that baby screaming bloody murder and continue to cry for about 5 minutes before she calmed down. A few minutes later they walked back out to the waiting room. I had tears in my eyes because I felt so awful that I was going to do that to the boy I love most in the world (even though it's obviously for his benefit). I sucked it up and shortly after we got called back.

Ry was sleeping so I pulled him out of his car seat. They gave him an oral medication and then got his thighs ready with bandaids and sanitizing swabs. The dr did the first injection, and Ryan started to whimper a little bit, then the dr quickly did the next two, covered the spots with the already placed bandaids, and before I knew it, everything was over and Ryan had already stopped crying. I even had to ask, "Is that is?" because I expected it to go way worse like that little girl ahead of it. It was awesome! My boy is such a trooper. I can't believe I cried over someone else's stupid baby getting shots. (No, their baby isn't stupid, okay?)

After that, we headed to his actual doctors appointment. He's a little giant! He weighed in at 13.75 pounds. No wonder I can't carry him! (I picked him up this morning, and I'm pretty sure he's already hit 14-he feels heavier). Between him and that car seat snap and go thing that I drag him around in EVERYWHERE, I'm carrying 20+lbs. Yet with all this weight lifting, I still can't do a push up.. He also measured in at almost 23 inches. My brain can't process circumference so I have no idea how many inches his head measured around, but the doctor told me that he's right on track and is a healthy boy! We also had to take a little survey thing, and it said he's a little behind on his motor skills (like, grabbing toys and holding on to them) but it's nothing to worry about-which I'm not. He's only 2 months. I'm not going to start measuring how "great" he is compared to every other baby at this point.      Unless he's showing signs of underdevelopment, I'm not going to fret. And he's not.

One thing I brought up to his doctor is his belly button! He has the weirdest thing going on down there. It almost looks like an outie, but it has some brownish color on it, and it pushes in like a bubble almost. The dr explained it as almost an umbilical hernia. He said he's seen really big ones, and Ry's in minor and it may get pushed in as he grows. If not, it's until until he's 3 or 4 years that they can even cosmetically do anything about it. I thought it was interesting. I knew I wasn't crazy that something wasn't right with his belly! Is it bad that I'm glad it's a hernia and not an outie? I don't want him to grow up looking like a cabbage patch kid his whole life. Again, this is another thing I shouldn't worry about, according to him.

Look at that belly button! Not to mention that big boy belly... :)

Ryan's getting so grown up. I bought him a Bumbo (from someone selling theirs for $20-sweet!) and he loves just sitting in, staring at his hands. He looks like a little person in it! It's crazy how he can go from looking like a little baby to a child within seconds. He's already growing up way too quickly.

All grown up in the Bumbo!

Saturday, we went to Babies R Us for a baby's 1st Christmas event. Not gonna lie-it was lame. We got there at 10, and there were maybe 6 other babies that showed up. They had one thing that we could do-make ornaments which actually was really cute!! I'm glad we got to do that, but they other thing they had was coloring and story time. Okay, this event is for babies. Under the age of 1. My baby got absolutely no benefits from a story time read by someone standing half a store away (which is good, because we missed it anyway to go shop instead) nor can he hold a freaking marker to color. And if he could, I wouldn't want that scribble up on my tree. Let's call a spade a spade, it would have sucked. The only other thing they had was a raffle for everyone. But! They waited til the very end to do it. They wouldn't pull any numbers until 11 o'clock. I'm sorry, but I had other things to get done and had a baby with me. It was almost feeding time and nap time. I'm not going to sit there doing NOTHING for an entire hour. We left early. Plus, the giveaways weren't very exciting.

The. Cutest. 

It's things like this that make me really want to get into event planning. I could have taken over and the whole thing would have been way better. Pretty much, everything they had lasted a total of 10 minutes and the rest was 50 minutes of standing around. So dumb. But I do have to say, my little boy was best dressed and the CUTEST because he had on his Santa outfit. And since he had on his Santa outfit, I was able to get his pictures with Santa at the mall that day. They were adorable together, and this Santa didn't smell, seem drunk, and was very jolly! He absolutely loved Ryan and played with him. It was adorable seeing Santa and Santa jr together. Of course, Ryan smiled after we got the pictures done... Oh well. (This paragraph is really poorly structured. I was going to go off on a rant about how I could have bettered the event, but decided to change topic to avoid complaining too much-I'm sure my readers can only take so much.)

We met the real deal! Lol. That face. 

Now that I'm a mom, I am terrified all the time. I feel like I'm constantly feeding or trying to get this baby to sleep and have no time for myself, but when I do have time for myself, I'm constantly running over to him to make sure he's still breathing. I had a scare a couple weeks ago. This is my biggest mommy fail yet. We had just gotten back from "vacation" and I was trying to get him used to not being held all the live-long day. He was tired so I put him down. He started crying. I tried to let him cry it out, but he didn't stop. Finally, I brought him downstairs to his swing. He didn't stop. He wasn't wet. He was fed. So he was just tired-crying. Finally, I tried to hold/walk with him. He didn't stop, so I (what do you know, he just started crying! I think he has a 6th sense) put him with his toys so I could keep an eye on him while I tried to finish my workout video. All of a sudden, I see his eyes bulge, his face red, boogers pouring down his face, and he's gasping for air. I'd never been more scared in my life. I grabbed him so quickly and tried to remember everything I learned in CPR about infants. I was hitting his back and he finally coughed and was back to crying/breathing. Never been more thankful in my life. It was terrifying.

I must admit, this has been a huge setback of trying to get him to sleep at night in his crib. If I put him down and he fusses, I try to wait it out, but once there's tears, I don't care, I'm cradling this baby in my arms. Every time. We'll get there at some point, but right now, I am too scarred from that incident to leave him crying somewhere. No no no. And he's stayed sleeping with me so I could watch him.

With that being said, this week I really am trying to work on getting him out of my bed and possibly getting him closer to sleeping through the night. Last night, he lasted 5 minutes in his crib before waking himself out and freaking out. It's a start. He's nowhere near making it through the night either.  His diapers can't handle it. I changed him a few times last night and tried to make it from 11-4, but there was some leakage anyway. We'll get there when we get there. I'm in no rush. Waking up at night still sucks a lot, but I'm not desperately trying to eliminate them right now. I can tolerate it.

I've been awake for almost 4 hours and haven't accomplished anything! This boy is so fussy-looks like another day for Tylonol for him :( Poor guy. I wish my entries were more exciting. I'm still just trying to catch up on life. So much to do. I'm not going to re-read for typos so ya'll will have to deal with it right now. I've got an angry bird on my hands. Until next time! xoxo

2 Months

I have a 2 month old baby! I cannot believe it. He's HUGE. I swear, there are days when I pick him up in the morning and realize that he's heavier than when I put him to sleep. I am in absolute disbelief. Two months. Wow. That also means I have been renting away my boobies every 2(ish) hours for 60 days. It's really not nearly as bad being a mommy slave to your baby's mouth as I thought. I'm now used to planning my time around his schedule and sucking it up when he's going through a growth spurt and wanting to eat every hour during peak hunger times.

My little 2 month old!!! Getting so large :) 

After three weeks of being back in IL/IN and living out of suitcases and going between families and packing and unpacking and repacking for the day or night, I am happy to say that I am finally home in Alaska. Home sweet home. I got in late Thurs night and picked up the puppies yesterday. My crazy, chaotic, non-stop life style is back. I really miss my husband being here to help out. I was spoiled these past 3 weeks. I think the thing I miss the most is having time to get ready and being able to shower without hearing my baby screaming from his crib. That, and just having extra support.

My little t-rex on Halloween. 

I had to drove G off at the airport on Wednesday. It sucked. Another heartbreaking moment to add to this accumulation. I miss him so much already-and it has nothing to do with the extra help for the baby. At least this time our countdown begins at 8 months instead of 9? I'll take what I can get.

Now that this baby is bigger, he's screaming a lot these days. He fights sleep like none other. I think it's because he's more aware of his surroundings and being awake is a lot more exciting than sleeping.  For me, that means I need to make extra time in my day to give him extra cuddles. Sucks when I'm trying to get something done (it took me two days to unpack and finish 1 load of laundry) but at the same time, I love my little baby boy cuddles. Chores (and make up) can wait; he's only a baby once :)

Being gone for a week is exhausting. Times that by three, and I'm just overwhelmed. Next week, I'm already trying to squeeze in all the appointments I had to cancel while I was gone-including baby Ryan's appointment for shots :/ I feel so sorry for him. I'll have to give him extra love when it's all over. I had a whole laundry list of things to do today (including laundry) and only got about 40% of them done. There's always tomorrow.

One thing I did get done that was on my list was give Ryan a massage with coconut oil. I read about it in the What to Expect book. Cosmo got me through college, now What to Expect is getting me through motherhood. This thing is brilliant. If only it had more half naked men in it. So I did this massage and he loved it! He was so happy and kicky the whole time and the best part? He's passed the eff out right now. Glorious.

The boys trying to lick off the coconut oil from Ry's massage

Earlier, I took him for a run. I signed up for a 5K on Thanksgiving Day and just realized how incredibly close Thanksgiving is, and how incredibly out of shape I am. I ran about 2 miles (went to Red Box and back...and may have picked up a bottle of wine for my stash). There was one of those electronic speedometers on my way back, and as I passed it, it tracked me at 5mph! LOL! I thought that was hilarious, yet also really sad. I usually run at a 6.5 pace. Looks like I'll use these next few weeks getting my run on.

I think I'm too behind on life to make this post more interesting. That, and I'm still on Chicago time which means I wake up at 3:30, eat lunch at 9:30 and dinner at 3:30 to pass out at 6. The fact that the sun is starting to set at 3:30 these days adds to my exhaustion. Good old Alaskan winter. It's Saturday night which means I'm going to use the rest of my night to absorb as many puppy and baby cuddles as possible and email my man before passing out. Hope whoever is reading this is doing something much more interesting! Until next time.