Yes, We Are Still Alive

So...I have so many things to say and the actual will to blog, I don't even know where to start.

I read this post today and thought that I could copy it word for word. I am weary, I find that most days I barely get a lunch in or complete a project before I am running home to a house and a family. A house a and a family where projects never feel complete and no ones needs ever feel completely cared for and filled with the joy and love that should be there. I want to have the laundry done and put away, the toys and kitchen cleaned every night, return giggles and smiles to a cute boy that aren't laden with fatigue and longing for when he is in bed so I can just have a few moments before I crash into bed exhausted, to wake up the next morning to a list a mile of long of things work and home related that I just wish could be finished in a manor that left me feeling fulfilled and accomplished. I also read this today and it also expressed just how I am feeling and the mindset that I am trying to achieve "lots of time in your life will be spent 'doing something you don't want to do'...and that it might be years and years before you see the rewards of that."
So that is how we are right now. I am working everyday to appreciate all of the wonderful things in this phase of life, because we are blessed, and our life is so full!

So here is random list of updates!

1. Garrett is a champion eater! Jinny at the daycare always compliments on the amount of food he eats, three meals a day, filled with vegetables, fruits, and dairy!


2. We are going to California the second week of February! I have a conference but Brian and Garrett are going to come down so Garrett can meet his great grandparents.


3. We are getting more and more involved in our church and loving every minute of it.


4. Garrett is sleeping through the night, turns out he was ready, and we were just getting suckered into feeding him every night. We are such amateurs!


5. No crawling, but we did finally buy cabinet locks and plug plugs (? riiiiight...I don't remember what they are actually called!)


6. Christmas in Wisconsin was totally worth the drive, which says a lot considering the long drive and the brevity of our stay!

And a little Garrett love:

This should NOT be this hard!

We are trying to introduce solid food to Garrett. To say it isn't going well would be a horrible understatement. Isn't introducing solid food supposed to be a fun time? Full of laughs at a silly baby who makes a mess and gobbles down a bowl of oatmeal? This is not us at all... I supposed it had to happen at some point. We breezed through breastfeeding, bottle feeding and formula. Never had a colicky baby, or a overly cranky one. He is always full of smiles for everyone, so naturally our time has come.

He HATES solid food. I have tried twice in the last two months and stopped because he just wasn't into it, okay because it was a battle to get him to even open his mouth. I started again last week because I was getting nervous that we would try after we went to the 6 month appointment, he wouldn't like it, and then I wouldn't have an appointment to talk over concerns with the pediatrician. Sure enough it has turned into a battle again.

I say turned into, because he started out fine. The first night was hard, which is to be expected right? Then we had a couple more okay nights and some not okay nights. He seems to like applesauce and plain oatmeal. He will suck a banana out of one of those mesh bag feeder things like it is going out of style. All of the sudden in the last couple of night he has REFUSED to eat. And the worst part, it frustrates me so bad that I have to make Brian try because I can't even handle it. Oh and to stick a knife in the gut and twist it...the daycare reports that he eats like a champ for them. Riiiiiggghttttt...so it's me then????? I know, I know, its not me blah, blah, blah.

No but really, am I doing something wrong? I try really hard not to force it in his mouth. Sometimes if you make him eat the first couple of bites then he eats the rest like "oh, this is what we are doing, okay!" Tonight we tried carrots. He sort of gagged his way though the cereal in the few bites I tried to get him to eat in the 15 min we were sitting at the table for dinner. Then two half bites of carrots, more like licking of the lips, some major gagging and he starts PUKING!!!! everywhere!! I mean wide open gag and formula pouring out! Ughhhh!

What are we going to do? I need some major advice! If you have any please let me know!!

Picture Dump

I am still alive, I have no energy to blog. I used to do most of my blogging at work, now I am too busy to even check my personal e-mail most days. Anyway, because it is what most of you want, here is a photo dump. All of Garrett. Each of these could be their own blog post but alas, I do not have the time. Hopefully I will find a good balance and start blogging again. Now for the fun stuff!

After bath time, notice my shirt. It has water spots all over it. This is a nightly occurrence, anyone in the bathroom during bath time gets soaked from all the splashing:

Watching daddy shovel after the first big snow storm of the year:

Five months:

Helping mom with laundry. We pretty much have a full on sitter now. I still put the bobby down when I am busy doing things so he doesn't slam backwards on those occasional falls:

Spa Night! Garrett had HORRIBLE cradle cap. With his hair you couldn't really see it but finally I got grossed out enough to do something about it. I took olive oil and rubbed it onto his head and then back combed pretty much everything out. If I would have known how well it was going to work I would have tried it way earlier. I also to the opportunity to cut the hairs on the back of his neck. The baby mullet was getting out of hand:

And to close, how can you not just want to squeeze this everyday?

Uhhh...

I feel like our family has been hit by a tsunami and we are trying to tread water until we figure out what the hell to do. Here is the past 6 days:

Friday: Find out in the evening that I got the promotion I applied for. Yay!
Saturday: Work and find out that I HAVE to be at work for a meeting Monday morning. Scramble for a babysitter for Monday.
Sunday: Church, sleeping on the couch and small group.
Monday: Work until 1pm, catch up on cleaning at home that has not been done very thoroughly in weeks, and monitor work e-mail all afternoon to deal with things that I did not have time to handle while I was at work.
Tuesday: Work until 3, which includes leaving an hour late. Feel guilty about picking him up from daycare an hour late. Brian has a meeting at 7pm that lasts until midnight
Wednesday: Brian leaves for meeting at 5:30am, get Garrett ready, go to work. Leave work a half hour late (feel guilty). Do the hand off with Brian as he heads out the door for a meeting at 6:30pm.

This all includes Garrett getting up at 5am every morning since Monday because of the time change.

I am so excited that I got the dispatch supervisor's position at work. However, now I am now dealing with being incredibly busy at work (hence leaving late almost everyday) and feeling so guilty about the time that it is taking away from Garrett and Brian. I am hoping that it will get easier as I settle into things.

I have tomorrow off for Veteran's day, so Garrett and I are going to catch up on grocery shopping and errands that I have not had the time to deal with. I also have to get Garrett all packed up because he is going to my mom's for the weekend. I feel bad that I have been so busy and now we are "shipping him away" for the weekend. But it is something that we have had planned for awhile, and something that I know Brian and I need and deserve. My mom is going to pick him up on Friday afternoon from daycare and then we are going to go down to Gardiner on Sunday and get him. Brian and I are planning on doing some hunting on Saturday or Sunday morning and also celebrate my promotion on Saturday with a night out. I cannot wait but I also cannot imagine Garrett not being here to cuddle and hangout with.

I have a 5 month picture to post of Garrett, YAY for five months! I have not had time yet though to sit down and write a post. I think I am having a hard time because I feel bad about work being so crazy and I CAN NOT believe that he is five months.

Baby Gear Review Part I

So I have been wanting to do this post for awhile. We have some great baby gear and some not so great baby gear. Here is how I feel about the stuff that we use:

Playtex Drop-In Bottles: I sort of feel like a bottle is a bottle is a bottle. We don't mind these, but I also don't love them. My main thing is that the liners are another bottle part to remember to throw in the diaper bag (I have forgot, we were screwed) and they are another thing to have to remember to buy at the store. I have also seen people rave about them because you don't have to "clean" the bottle. Hello people, you still have to wash nipples and caps, and rings and the holder bottle thing! Formula is sticky and messy and gets everywhere either way, hence they need to be washed. If you are eco-friendly, (which we really aren't, I know shame on us, blah, blah, blah) they do create extra garbage. At the end of a full 24 hours at home we probably have gone through at least 9 liners. However, I refuse to try something new because I refuse to have more than one type of bottle to be digging for parts to and we don't have the money to invest in a whole new "system." So with drop-ins we stay! Chicco Car seat: I love it. I really love the pattern on it. It looks super comfy for Garrett as well. This car seat is definitely hefty though. The rating on it is up to 30lbs which is great but it means that it is also heavy duty. I see smaller car seats that other people have and they seem so flimsy compared to this one. If you don't mind heaving and ho-ing (hoeing? hoing? ho'ing? You get the point!) your baby around it is great. You could get the stroller that comes with it and then things would be much easier, especially when there is no shopping cart to just throw it into (like at the mall.)

Combi Flare Stroller: I got this because I wanted a lightweight stroller that folded up small to fit into the trunk and not take up a lot of room, and also reclined so that little ones that couldn't sit up could still use it. This stroller matches all that. I figured that if I could sacrifice not having a whole system where the car seat fit into the stroller for a couple of months then this would be the best overall purchase, which kind of worked. This stroller is great for the mall and walking on sidewalks but not on gravel. So I purchased a used jogger as well. Between the two we have been pretty well covered. The under basket in the Combi is realllly small and there is no cup holder which can be a pain. I love though that I can always leave it in my trunk and it doesn't really take up any cargo space.

Every once in awhile I curse and swear because we didn't get anything that the car seat can fit into, so I either have to lug the car seat around or take Garrett out. I thought about buying a frame thing with wheels to click the car seat into (they make them) but in the long run it doesn't seem like a good purchase. So I will continue to curse and swear and whine and make Brian carry the car seat!

PRIMO Infant Bath Seat: This, this lovely thing...I love it. Love, love, love it! I had a baby bath tub that I borrowed from a friend. I hated it, the angle that Garrett sat at was all weird and he would slide around the whole time. This thing is awesome. We just put it in the bath tub and fill the tub up to the level of the arms and away we go. There is plenty of room for him to kick his legs and he doesn't slide around at all. I think a smaller baby, like a newborn might slide around a little, but I am pretty sure that putting a hand towel in it and then the baby on top of that would take care of the slippage (hehe slippage!)

A problem we have noticed is that when Garrett really gets moving and excited he pushes his legs against the bottom of the tub and lifts himself up. He has yet to get all the way over the middle "bar" but I am thinking it is only a matter of time. however, since we would never leave him unattended I just make sure I put a hand on him to hold him down a little (which is so fun when water is flying in all directions) so that he doesn't vault himself out of it.

More reviews to come!

Another One Bites the Dust

This is how I feel today. Another weekend down, another cold hits our house, another week of work looming....

Halloween was really uneventful for us. We went to church and then had small group and dinner with our growth group from church. They purposely held it somewhere that there would be no trick-or-treaters. By the time we got home we had missed all of the little monsters from our neighborhood, which was fine because the candy that Brian and I had bought last Sunday before we realized that we were going to be gone was pretty much gone. I let myself feel guilty about not getting Garrett a Halloween costume at all on Thursday because of the party at daycare. When it came down to it though I think it would have been a waste of money, I mean we didn't even go to any Halloween parties, no trick-or-treaters at the door...blah, blah, blah.

We got a cold from daycare last week. Garrett got sick on Friday and was already feeling better by Sunday, I think he might have an immune system of steal like his dad. I am hoping that my cold goes away as fast as his did, we will see.

I had an interview for a new position at work last week. I didn't say to much about it here because I wanted to wait to see what happened and I have co-workers that read this and all that jazz. I still haven't heard yet, hopefully tomorrow. At this point I want the job a lot but I would be fine with it going either way. I am just ready to know.