Mr. Charming

I am beginning to notice personality traits in Colin and it is so much fun to watch. Colin's daddy is very laid back and extremely mellow. It is one of my favorite things about him because I tend to be really loud and passionate and he tempers that. So, I am noticing both sides of us in Colin these days. He is a pretty mellow baby...he loves to go out with me and is content just to watch the world around him. He smiles at everyone he sees and has yet to cry even once when we are out (I know I just jinxed that). As I watch him regard the world around him with quiet calmness, I am definitely reminded of his father. I have also noticed that he loves to get the attention of people around him, which is FOR SURE a trait he gets from me. He likes to be the center of attention and loves for people to pay attention only to him. If we are out talking to people, he will begin trying to get our attention with all kinds of sounds, laughs, and yells. If we continue to "ignore" him, he then begins screaming at the top of his lungs until we all turn around. At which point he laughs. Now THAT is my baby! :-)

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

It is 4:30 in the morning and I am sitting here in front of the computer like a zombie. Colin has had a bad night...I have been making great headway in getting him to sleep longer at a time, but tonight has been a complete reversal. I am sure it probably has something to do with teething, but I am too tired to really think straight at this point. He has been up just about every two hours since he first got up at 10:45 (he goes to sleep at 7:30 sharp). Our home office is right beside his bedroom, so I here I sit waiting to see if he will possibly fall back asleep. Since he is talking loudly to himself right now, I doubt it. Colin has a very hard time sleeping...he falls asleep at night like clockwork, but he wakes frequently during the night. I am a very bad sleeper myself...my mom says I was even worse than Colin was as an infant and I still have issues to this day. It seems like I may have passed this trait down to my son, and I hate that! The poor little guy!

Random Musings

I had lunch today with one of my best friends, Ellen. She had her little girl ten weeks after Colin was born, so we have shared a LOT together the past year. They have just recently begun casually looking at homes in our neighborhood and the thought of them living close by thrills me to no end! So, that was good news to hear about, even if I am getting my hopes up way too soon! :-) After lunch, we ran errands and picked up a new winter coat for me. It is fun to see how much more Colin enjoys outings as he gets older...he really loves to be out and about. He is a people watching champ!

I was thinking about a second child today...Colin is our first baby and I can't help but think about when a little brother or sister will join our family. Since I am staying home with Colin right now, all the advice I have been getting is to go ahead and have our second child sooner rather than later. That way they will be somewhat close in age so that I can raise them together and go back to work when need be. This makes sense to me too, but I also tend to think that having Colin at least potty trained when number two arrives would be smart also. I like the idea of giving Colin a playmate close in age, so that is another aspect to think about. My good friend Shannon has the sweetest twins and I am thinking more and more that she was SO lucky to have her second child question answered for her right off the bat!! There is so much to think about with this!! I also have a husband to think about who will need to be talked into whatever scenerio that I come up with! :-)

Another day, another change

Well, today was going the way of yesterday....gloomy outside, gloomy inside. Colin was bored to death and really fussy, so we finally decided to pack up and do something. I boxed up all of my previously read books (before I had Colin, I read at least one full novel a week, sometimes more, so this was a LOT) and bundled Colin and the husband up for a trip to Half Price Books. We traded in all my old books and spent the next hour or so picking out lots of new books and videos for Colin. Colin was thrilled to be somewhere other than our living room and he honestly looked excited when I showed him the different books they had. Then we went next door to Pei Wei and had one of my favorite meals while Colin flirted with everyone around us. I swear that baby knows that his dimples make people want to eat him up...he shows them to EVERYONE! ;-) Our little trip definitely helped with the blahs and we all felt better when we got home.

It was dinner time for Colin when we got home and he was famished! He ate THREE tubs of food: carrots, green beans, and pears. He even ate the last few bites of the bananas from this morning! That was the most he has eaten at one sitting by far! Afterwards, I knew he had to be thirsty, but he was not interested in a bottle at all after all that food. I thought, what the hell, and put a little bit of water in a sippy cup that my nephew left at my house. And my little baby tilted his head back and drank the whole thing! The first few sips dribbled out of his mouth, but he quickly got the hang of it and slurped his water right up! I can't believe it....I swear he was a tiny little 8lb squirt just days ago and now he is drinking out of a sippy cup before my very eyes. Another day, another change...they grow up too fast! And now I sound like my mother!! :-)

My new favorite book

Another very gray day here...I have that tired feeling in my bones that makes me long to retire into my bed with a big fat book and flannel pajama pants. Alas, my sweet little boy has decided that my old winter habits must be broken. Instead, I find myself reading aloud about puppies from a book that has around four words per page. It is a huge, glossy monstrosity with plastic "googly" eyes glued to each little dog....and Colin simply adores it. So plastic puppies it is!!

I love every inch of my little baby. I hope he lets me read to him about googly eyed puppies forever.

Mundane

Today was rather uneventful...it is freezing cold here, which kept Colin and I indoors for yet another day. I have quickly gathered that the key to keeping ones sanity as a stay-at-home mother is to stay active. Colin gets quickly bored these days and without the ability to hang out outside, options are limited! We made a trip to Wal-mart to get some odds and ends, but that was the extent of our "fun". It was 30 degrees when we walked into the store and Colin's little face was too funny! He was in total shock to feel such cold on his cheeks!

In the wake of my completely uninteresting day, I will share some details about me. I have always loved to read and write...both soothe my soul and make me truly happy. I also happen to be very good at sales, so that is where my career has taken me the past 10 years. As I get into week two of being a SAHM, I am thinking more about getting back into writing. The problem is that I have no clue where to start and this is reminding me exactly why I got into sales in the first place. I don't think that my writing falls into a category that would ever generate any income for me. I am very happy to write for my own happiness, but as far as a career...I doubt it. I don't have any desire to write for a newspaper or tv broadcast. I don't know where to begin when contemplating writing a fiction novel, although those are what I love to read the most. What I enjoy writing the most are short stories, and I have no clue where that would ever get me or if anyone would even want to read them. SO, long story short...I am going to start writing again, but I may be the only person who reads it! And I guess that is better than not writing at all!! :-)

Too Much Love

(Colin is finally asleep, so I will try this again!)

As a mother, I find myself getting all kinds of advice and anecdotes from just about everyone that I encounter. This is not a big deal to me at all...I appreciate it and know that everyone is just trying to help. Generally, they mean well. However, there is one little bit of advice that makes me furious. Very recently, I was in the middle of a conversation with someone when Colin started to cry. I immediately picked Colin up, while continuing the conversation. Colin stopped crying and smiled at the other person. Her response to me?

"Hmmm....looks like someone gets held too much! Do you ever put him down?!"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!

I am still bothered by this days later, as I have heard variations on that comment before. Usually it comes from women in my parents generation, but this came from a friend my age! I looked her square in the eye and said, "If the worst thing I ever do is love my son too much, I think I am doing a pretty damn good job." What a bunch of idiots. The woman who took care of Colin when I was working told me the same thing once...that the reason Colin liked to be held so much was my fault and I should try to "stop". I almost threw something at her.

The bottom line is that I really and truly do not care if I am teaching Colin to enjoy being loved on and spoiled by lots of hugs and kisses. He spends plenty of time playing with his toys and doing things on his own, believe me! I come from a very loving and touchy feely kind of family. My childhood was so full of love and I will continue that tradition with Colin. I have people that I am very close to who grew up in much colder, more hands off environments, and trust me...it affects the way we love as adults. So Colin, you can crawl in my lap anytime you want!! :-)

Typing with one hand

This is going to be a different kind of post, but I am laughing, so I thought I would share! As I sat down at the computer to look at my friends blogs and type my own, Colin started to holler to be picked up out of his exersaucer. So I gave up and put him in my lap at the computer, which is where he sits now. He LOVES sitting here! He is talking to the computer screen and trying to grab my fingers, and now I am typing with one hand while holding him back with the other! He wants to type, too! Anyway, I will post a more legitimate version when this guy decides to take a nap...Colin and Chalna signing out! :-)

The Formula Issue

Let me start by saying that today I officially begin blogging for real. I created this blog before my son Colin was born with every intention of writing often, but once the reality of working full time and having an infant hit home, the blog went by the wayside. I am officially a stay-at-home mommy as of one week ago, so I am determined to start blogging now! Here goes!

I am feeling like a bad mother this morning for not trusting my gut instinct. Colin is six months old today and has been spitting up a lot since he was born. Everything I read in the beginning said that was normal for a newborn. Then as he started to get older, I started to get worried. He seemed to be hurting often after he ate and the books said it must be gas. I can't tell you how much mylicon I have given that boy! Things did not get better. I just knew that Colin should not be spitting up as much as he was! He would soak himself and me after every single feeding. The backs of all the sofas and chairs in my house have been cleaned over and over from vomit cascading down them. I would go through around 10 cloth diaper rags a day. Colin would not only spit up following a feeding, but then also would continue to spit up randomly all day long. I changed his clothes up to 5 times a day and all the blankets that he plays on during the day would have to be cleaned every night. I KNEW something was not right. When he was 4 months old, I made an appointment with the pedi and they put him on two kinds of acid reflux meds, rantidine and another one that apparently makes the stomach muscles stronger to hold in food. We jumped right in and gave the medicine like clockwork. And still he spits up. He did not get better. I would start to tell myself that maybe there was a slight improvement...just trying to make myself feel better. There was really no difference. Also, I should note that Colin was breastfed for the first 5 months of life. We started supplementing about one bottle a day of formula when I went back to work, but 90% breast milk until almost 5 months old. He spit up from day one.

During all of this, I kept thinking that it might be lactose intolerance of some kind. I just had a feeling. However, when I would get out one of my many baby books (I hate them! That is another discussion later) and they all said that cow's milk was by far the best. They all said that babies are gassy and colicky and it does not mean you should change formula. They all said that switching to soy would not help. They were so discouraging! I started to think that it would be failure to use soy, so I did not try it. So fast forward to last week. I finally bought a can of soy formula just to try it out. And low and behold, Colin is a new man. He has been on soy for 5 days now and he has not spit up ONCE. NOT ONCE! All the diaper rags are clean in his drawer, all the blankets stay dry. He has not had either medicine in days. Literally a complete recovery. I feel like such an ass! I can't believe that my poor son suffered for months for no reason. I don't know why our doctor did not recommend giving soy a try. He never even mentioned the possibility! I should have trusted my own judgement instead of letting those stupid books talk me out of trying the other stuff.

I am an idiot, but I did learn my lesson. As a first time mother, I tend to be worried to trust my instincts in case they are wrong. I now realize that I am innately connected to Colin and if I think something is wrong, it probably is! Also, don't be afraid to try new things! And DO NOT listen to every word you read in baby books!!