The Informavore

Even though we have a new play yard in our guest room, when we visit his grandparents in Texas, Elliott sleeps in my old cradle that my grandfather (his great-grandfather) made.

Riddle me this:

What happens when a baby sleeps for 80-90% of an 11.5 hour car ride on a Wednesday?

Answer:

You get a social butterfly on Thursday. ALL of Thursday.

Thanksgiving morning, Elliott was up at 3:30 a.m. and took a handful of tiny naps throughout the day. At 5:30 a.m. he was talking and singing so loudly, I had to go check out the party. I saw all the grandparents gathered around his jumper swinging in the doorway.

The rest of the day – he was all about the party. Until he got overwhelmed and had to be carted off into another room to quiet down. Plus – the fact that he barfed on two of my shirts. Guess I have to do laundry before we leave.

One hypothesis: he’s on the verge of teething. That would explain the massive amount of drool. So we let him teethe* on a turkey leg**.

*This post raised many a grammatical question about the verb tenses of teething.

**Not really.***

*** Yes, good parenting is all about the photo ops.

We made it to Texas yesterday. Barely.

After waking up to feed Elliott at 12:30, we got up at 2:30 a.m. We hit the road at 3:30 a.m. And drove for 11 1/2 hours. It was worth it for an extra half day with his Nana and Papa.

Girl.

It is ten shades of cray cray around our house this week.

On Saturday, we took Elliott to the photography studio to have his picture taken with Santa. Y’all – this Santa was so legit I nearly climbed in his lap and told him my own Christmas wish (to fit into the skinniest jeans I own). The weekend was nonstop errands, cleaning, laundry, auto repairs and chaos.

Today – more auto repairs, more cleaning, more laundry, more errands. We depart for the first leg of our Texas caravan trip tomorrow. Elliott and Lily are packed. Corey and I, on the other hand, may wear the same yoga pants and tees through the holidays.

The transition back to work has gone fairly well. I’m only responsible for one event right now. Since the biggest tournament of the semester ended right before I returned, it has been pretty low-key. I have still found ways to keep myself busy. As you can see – blogging isn’t one of the things.

Now, to continue multitasking – I’m going to see about downloading some holidays tunes while I wait for my car to get new tires.

It may surprise some of my non-babified friends to know that infants sleep longer when they are full and dry. Crazy, I know.

Elliott had been napping most of the evening and I went to wake him for go pre-bedtime bottle. I turned on his lamp and he squinted his eyes. When I cooed, “Hey sweet boy,” he slowly opened his eyes, saw it was me then grinned a huge smile and sleepily wiggled around. It was as if I alone was a good enough reason to be woken up.

Ovary ‘splosion. Like I said, I can’t handle him. He is too sweet. He is going to make someone very happy one day. Well, someone he’s not already genetically related to. Times like this make me very happy.

Good night.

I have a dilemma. I am in a relationship that Facebook would label, “It’s Complicated.” The relationship started off with fireworks, but after a few months, the sizzle began to fizzle. Sure, there were still glimpses of why I fell in love in the first place. But now, I find myself frequently agitated, confused and disappointed. I stick around, not only because I hope things will improve, but because everyone else around me seem to say things look wonderful.

Oh, Glee. I believe we are at a crossroads.

WARNING – if you follow this post, there are some small spoilers. If you have not watched the show up to “Never Been Kissed”, then either don’t read further until you have, or don’t complain if I vaguely ruined something. No major spoilers, though. Continue Reading →

When you register your child for day care – you get bombarded by information. Medical history forms, emergency contact forms, who is authorized to pick up your child, what your child is authorized to do, what you’re supposed to bring, rules, drop off times, fees, medicine forms you have to fill out on each visit and when, penalties – all collapsed into a 45 minute meeting.

Last week was the first week Elliott went to day care and today was my first day back. Two days last week, he came home with different clothes on. When I picked him up – nobody said anything about the dirty clothes. (They were very helpful about the forms for his Mylicon and Desitin.) Now – we leave his bottles there. Formula is provided and they wash the bottles there. We also leave his pacifiers there and they get washed also.

So, last week I kept wondering if they washed his clothes too. When I registered him, I remembered being asked if he had any skin sensitivities to laundry detergent. I peeked in his diaper bag Friday afternoon – which I leave there and periodically restock – and saw clothes in plastic bags. I pack clean clothes in ziploc bags. I meant to take the diaper bag home with me on Friday but I forgot it with not enough time to turn around.

So. Imagine how mortified I was this morning when I dug into his diaper bag to find plastic bags of dirty clothes and bibs. The clothes looked fine. Some of the bibs will need a soakin’.

I wanted to crawl under a blankie and die of embarrassment.

I keep telling myself – I get a week to make mistakes and get in the groove. I say, “I can’t be the only one to mess up.” I thank God I brought him fresh clothes today and didn’t have to endure a “Your child has no clean clothes/I thought you laundered them/This ain’t the Four Seasons, lady” conversation.

Still – I fear I may have already made Elliott the smelly kid. Not the note I wanted to start my first day back to work on.

Ack!