Author Archives: metamegan

>Blog It Out

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Monday night I was live blogging our first attempt at crying it out while simultaneously googling “crying it out”. Who knew that allowing your baby to cry causes most of the problems in our society today? Probably lots of people. Of course it wasn’t as easy as letting Jack cry for 10 minutes, as I reported, and the next day I sighed, and rubbed my eyes, and commiserated at work with my fellow mommies about how I was up until 12:45, when I finally gave in and nursed my little baby to sleep. And then we were up again at 6am. Poor me. And then I was banished from the club, stripped of my complaining rights, and that was that.

Since other people have it worse, I did not volunteer the fact that Tuesday night, Jack slept from 8pm to 6am. So it seems that our evening of crying it out was totally effective, just what the doctor ordered, and the answer to everything! (Probably not.) Or maybe Jack was just having a hard time adjusting to the crib after sleeping so close to his mom and dad and brother all weekend on our camping trip. (Oh, the guilt.) Regardless, the damage has been done and Jack is now as ruined as his older brother.

In other sleep related news, I will now begin getting a lot more of it because we watched the last episode of Deadwood this evening. That makes 36 episodes in about 6 weeks. I will now go into withdrawal, and to get through it I think I’ll try to get to sleep before midnight a few time a week.

Now to sleep – last night I dreamed of a skunk eating all the vegetables in my garden. Possibly as it was actually happening. Darn that skunk and it’s zucchini, melon, and pumpkin leaf eating!

>We Try, Not Very Hard, But We Try

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I took a picture of this little tableau before our dinner on the way to Wyoming for our camping trip this past weekend. We try to eat healthy meals as often as possible, but we can’s seem to get it together when we are frantically leaving work and heading to some camping destination on a Friday evening. Since we have been camping about every other weekend… blah, blah, blah, the guilt, etc.

So I tried to feed Jack his whole grain, organic, baby oatmeal and his organic, strained carrots while I ate my crispy chicken sandwich. It didn’t work out for many reasons.

1.) Gross high chair – had to be wiped down with two wipes before we started and I still shudder to think of it.
2.) Hmm, in what, and with what should I mix the organic, whole grain oatmeal? In a tiny paper ketchup holder? With ice water? Yeah, that’ll work! Except Jack wasn’t too happy with the freezing oatmeal. And when I left the spoon in the tiny paper cup it tipped over. And when I accidentally dipped one of my fries in the carrots I gagged a little. But Jack loved it when I fed him ketchup by accident. (Kidding!)
3.) I am not sure if I have posted enough pictures of Jack eating to get the point across, but let’s just say his very involved in his meals. So we both got sort of covered in food.

Here’s an aside – When you have a baby whose face, hands, arms, bib, and high chair tray are covered in food, where do you start the clean up? My strategy is to do the face first, then the hands and arms. Then I whip off the bib and use it to get the majority of the tray. Is there a better way? Where do you start and finish? I guess I don’t really finish at all right now, because I sometimes find a spoon stuck to a bib stuck to a tray about 5 minutes before I am about to serve dinner, and that is the worst.

Anyway – back to fast food. We are going on a big road trip soon and we are planning to avoid fast food as much as possible. Wish us luck!

>Cry Baby Cry

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I wish I was in the middle of writing a wildly creative post right now, but Jack and I are crying it out. Well, Jack is. I am just madly searching google for reassurance that I am doing the right thing. And feeling like I should be crying, but eh, I am ready for this baby to start sleeping more. Dave is acting blasé . Luke is sleeping. I hear Bean checking in on Jack and can feel him silently reproaching me from upstairs. So are you deaf or what Bean? I’m on to you.

I put Jack on notice last week that he had 7 days in which to get it together and start sleeping through the night. He did it once. OK, I am sure we messed up his schedule with our camping trip, but seriously! So after the 17th time that Dave and or I went in to soothe him this evening, it was time to get down to business.

I went in and said, “Jack, I love you. It’s time to go to sleep.” And I turned on his aquarium and hoped that would do the trick. I set the timer for 10 minutes and went downstairs.

After 10 long, agonizing, google searching, ferber reading minutes the timer went off. Dave said, “That was 10 minutes?” No, it was an eternity.

I went back in to his room and put my hand on his tummy. I put the pacifier in his mouth, and I said, “I love you Jack. It’s time to sleep.” Then I wiped the little tears from his tiny, furrowed brow. I left his room and I set the timer for another 10 minutes. But I guess that was unnecessary because he stopped crying right away and went to sleep! Time for a Pear of Panties! And then straight to bed because I haven’t yet figured out exactly what I am going to do in half an hour when he starts crying again.

>Sitting Up!

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I haven’t posted Jack’s stats from his 6 month appointment because I lost track of the sheet of paper from the Dr’s office. They said 10% for weight (15 something pounds?) and 50% for height (some amount of unknown inches).

But as you can see, he is sitting up like a big boy these days! I have to do a lot of hovering and propping, but he is doing well. All this new sitting up and growing interest in the world around him have made nursing quite a challenge. I can see why 6 months is a common time to give up on the whole process. Hmm, is it possible that Jack now prefers to nurse a lot in the middle of the night because he is too distracted during the day? Hopefully his 11 hours of sleep on Wednesday night will become more common then the 2 hour stretches we got last night. ZZZZzzzz. Can’t keep typing… falling asssllllleeeeeep.

P.S. Luke got his summer haircut

>Not Reading

>I haven’t been able to add a lot to my list of Books Read for several reasons:

1.) Watching too much Deadwood
2.) Work
3.) Can’t get through A New Earth Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
a.) I feel sort of bad about this, but according to an O I read in a waiting room, it sounds like your Life’s Purpose is to not obsess about your weight. I already don’t do that.
b.) So boring
4.) Can’t get through Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With the Bill
a.) This book puts me right into a nightmarish sleep
b.) Last time I picked it up I thought, “Just tell me what to DO!” Then I turned to the “What you can do” chapter and fell asleep.
c.) Free Lunch has already cost me $0.30 in late fees from the library

Time to cut my losses and head back to the fiction section.

>Customer Support

>I have been working on installing a new piece of software for about a month now, on and off. I finally gave up and put in a ticket with the vendor. We went through three rounds of “actually that documentation is wrong, try this” until the issue was escalated up to the next level. A conference call was planned between Level 1 guy, Level 2 gal, and me. It started at 1 p.m. and first, Level 2 gal validated everything I had done so far. She found one error and we fixed it. Still didn’t work. Then she started instant messaging Level 3 guy and got one more suggestion. We got one step farther, but it still didn’t work. Then Level 2 gal got two co-workers to look over her shoulder and we went through the whole thing again. No good. So by the end of the 2.5 hour call, it was me, Level 1 guy, Level 2 gal, Level 3 guy on IM, and Level 2 gal’s co-worker 1, and co-worker 2 on the call. (And I could hear some of them looking for answers on google.) Oh, and Jack. Did I mention I was working from home and that Jack was also participating in the call? During this call I nursed Jack, burped him, put him down to play, where he screamed happily and then unhappily, then I put him in the sling and set my laptop on the counter so I could stand, sway, and work. Then I put him down for a nap. When he woke up, I changed his diaper and fed him again. He played with books in my lap. All the while I was troubleshooting this problem, and if Jack had been silent I don’t think anyone would have even known. Of course, we was very vocal. And there was one point where I had to put him down so I could type with two hands and he screamed. SCREAMED. Level 2 gal begged me to pick him back up. I am a fast one-handed typer, but sometimes I need to be twice as fast. I picked him up and he was fine.

I wish the problem was solved, but this was just a necessary step on the way to solving the problem. A long, 2.5 hour, headset-less, one handed, baby-holding phone call. And usually I don’t get anything done when Jack is being fussy!

Photo Credit

>Pear of Panties

>Today I stray briefly from the usual standard topics of babies, five year olds, work, and lactation, to the more unusual and eclectic subjects of alcohol, underwear, and magazine gluttony.

Over a year ago, I was reading a magazine and I saw an add for pear vodka. I am not sure what magazine it was, maybe InStyle, or Vanity Fair, or maybe Living, but probably not. I suspect it wasn’t in ReadyMade, or Cooking Light, and definitely not Shape. (I have a slight magazine addiction, made worse by my desire last year to exact revenge on my mailman by subscribing to heavy magazines.)

Now, I am not a flavored vodka drinker, and not easily swayed by magazine alcohol advertising. I am mostly a wine drinker; occasionally I have beer. Although there were a few years (way back) when we declared a Drink of the Summer. Such as the Summer of Corona, the Summer of Vodka (unflavored), and Dave claims we had the Summer of White Russians. The fact that I don’t remember that at all, leads me to believe it might be true.

So it was odd that over a year ago, I saw an advertisement for Pear Vodka and thought, “Yum!” But before I could put down my magazine, hop on my bike, and ride to Liquor Mart, I found out I was pregnant. Shortly thereafter, while fake drinking and pretending to have a back injury that would preclude me from mountain biking during a trip to Fruita, I was introduced to a drink called A Pear of Panties. Or maybe Pear O’ Panties. Pear a Panties? Regardless, it looked and smelled delicious. Sigh, it was not to be at that time.

Days and weeks and months past until this past weekend: pear vodka reentered my life. We had friends over for dinner, the same friends with whom I concealed my pregnancy many months before by fake drinking, yet mysteriously turning down the enticing Pear of Panties. I said, “Don’t bring anything! We have everything we need.” But my eyes lit up when I saw that green bottle.

All this is to build anticipation, what, what, you ask, what is the recipe for the Pear of Panties? Well, I don’t really know, having not been paying attention when the drinks were made, nor did I ask for details after the fact. But I do know this: Ice, Pear Vodka, 7-Up. And for a Pink Pear of Panties, add a splash of cranberry. Yum. Enjoy.

>The Race is On

>On my way to work today I managed to get over the really big hill without using my granny gear. Over a year ago I stopped exercising due to major first trimester fears, which were followed by second trimester heat exhaustion, followed by taking it easy to prevent pre term labor, which inevitably led to actual labor and recovery, winter weather combined with a newborn and going back to work, and then finally, laziness. But after a couple weeks of riding my bike to work occasionally, I may just be coming out of my year of sloth.

And that means the race is on. I like to race people on my way to and from work. Especially people who are all dressed up in lycra with really fancy expensive road bikes. I think my cruiser and my skirt with heels ensemble can take them. Most smart people pack a spare inner tube and a bike pump. I have a pump, but at 15 pounds it’s more likely to contribute to a flat tire than fix one.

When I pass someone going uphill on my fabulous pink bike, and the someone I pass has the look of a serious biker, then it is makes my day. Or at least I assume it would, it’s only happened once. Six years ago. And the gentleman said, “Whoa, do you have a motor on that young lady?” He was about 105 years old. But the point is, it could happen again!

>Bike-tastic

>Today I had many adventures while biking the kids to daycare, then biking to work, back to the daycare, back home with the kids, down to Pearl street to meet my friend Laura, and then back home. In my mind it was 18 miles, but google maps said 15 or so. I thought about plotting my travels on gmaps pedometer and then posting a link and then I thought, why share a map to my house and the daycare with the internets? Trust me, it was 15 miles that felt like 18.

The first thing that happened was that 3 blocks from home, the trailer came part way loose and got lodged in my wheel spokes. I don’t know what I would have done if an kind, older, handsome gentleman, lazily driving to work, hadn’t stopped his car to help me. (Thanks Dave!)

Secondly, there is a serious down hill section where Luke usually gets going pretty fast. So fast that he can’t quite keep up with the pedals. Today he was really flying when he got to the sharp left turn and he slammed on the brakes, skidded out, rode it out into the grass, and then jumped off and flew through the air with an “Aaaaaaaah!” and landed 4 feet away in the grass. I could tell by the “Aaaaaaah!” that he was enjoying himself, but even so, it was risky for me to allow myself to laugh hysterically. (He tends to be quite sensitive.) But it was so funny. And I was glad that he laughed too. (And of course we were both glad that he wasn’t hurt.)

>Play Date with Pinchy

>Jack had a play date today with his friend Katie, who as you can see in the picture, was all over him. Jack likes to roll to his tummy, play for a while and then scream bloody murder. This is the reason that I have not been keeping up with the section called “Hours of Sleep for Mommy.” It’s just too depressing to keep track of the fact that I get up every three hours to flip my baby over onto his back. Katie, on the other hand, only rolls from front to back and never gets any tummy time at all. She is supposed to sleep on her tummy, so her mommy gets up periodically in the night to roll her from back to front. So, I had the brilliant idea to make coordinating velcro outfits for them. I figured if I attached them back to back, they would be an unstoppable rolling machine. We put Jack down on his back so he could show off his skilz and Katie was on her tummy. They just stayed there happily not rolling at all. There was a lot of “seriously, this never happens!” from both mommies. And now I have to find a receipt for a bunch of velcro.

Also, we biked all over town this afternoon, and I have a picture of the Dave-Luke-Jack train – the best I could do while we were all in motion. (This picture was taken last week – I should have taken one today since part of our trip was to Target and we returned with a box of diapers bungee-corded to the back of the trailer.)