Colin goes swimming!

Today was Colin's very first time in a swimming pool! It was muggy and 95 degrees today, so when the sun started setting we took Colin to the pool that is a few doors down from the house. He loved it! It was his first time in cold water, so he was a little surprised at first, but once he got going in his float he was thrilled! What a great time!! These pictures may be the cutest I have ever taken...at least as of this moment. :-)

Growing Up!

Well, it is time to make note...more changes from the little man! As you will notice in the first photograph, he loves to drink out of his sippy cup now. He has been drinking from it for about a month now as long as someone holds it for him, but last week he took the cup out of Jer's hands and has been on his own ever since. It is the cutest thing. As you will notice in the second picture, Colin now wants to "walk" all the time. He would have me bending over and breaking my back like that all day. As for his interesting "outfit", we had just finished dinner and were heading to our bath. His new hat was sitting on the kitchen table, so I stuck it on his head to be funny. I am sure that will be one of the pictures that I will bring out for a girlfriend and he will put his head in his hands and ask God why I am torturing him. I love it. ;-)

I have been spending every available second today reading about baby sleep and I have my new game plan all ready to go. I am going to start on Sunday night and I am ready to go. I have read the whole book that Melanie suggested to me and started the one Dana suggested this afternoon. I feel pretty silly...I now see that a lot of the things that I have been doing for Colin have actually prevented him from learning to put himself to sleep. I knew from reading all my baby books that after 6 months, Colin was old enough to put himself to sleep, but at that point I just did not know what to do. I thought that Colin would just start sleeping through the night when he was ready...I see now that I am going to have to help him. I actually feel better knowing that I have a plan and it does not involve letting Colin scream all night by himself. I can actually do this!

A Fun Afternoon!

It is BEAUTIFUL outside today and Colin and I are in such a great mood after our full night of sleep! We decided to go to the bookstore to pick up the suggested baby sleep reading materials and then browsed the shops afterwards. Of course I had to go in Janie and Jack, which is the cutest little baby boutique you ever saw!! I rarely buy anything because of the enormous price tags for clothes he grows out of in five minutes, but the hat was on sale for $4 and I could not resist. How cute is he!?!? We were outside the store, so the shot is from my camera phone and not the best quality, but I had to post it. We browsed around for awhile there at Southlake Town Center, got a sweet tea from Chick-Fil-A (my favorite!), and even stopped in the new Family Video that opened within walking distance of the house. That place is fantastic! They have free kid movies all the time! FREE! So I rented "27 Dresses" for me and "The Wiggles" for Colin. One thing that I noticed immediately is how far behind I am on my movies. There were like 50 movies that I wanted to rent. It is going to be a long time before I am caught up on movies/books/music/news/pop culture....or do you ever catch up? :-)

A New Day!

Colin must have felt all the sleepy vibes everyone has been sending us because he slept through the night for literally the very first time last night. He woke up once at 2:30 briefly and put himself back to sleep. He woke up for the day at 6:20. I know this is because he was exhausted after this week of being sick and not sleeping at all. He is in good spirits this morning and I, of course, feel like a new woman after getting an actual night of sleep. When he wakes up from his nap we are going to make a trip to Barnes and Noble to purchase the books that my friends suggested. It is time to get some real help for Colin...I know he needs more sleep than he is getting and it is my job to figure out how to make that happen. I have read the Dr. Sears Baby Sleep book (it was a shower gift), but it does not offer any real help for babies that have serious trouble sleeping. I love the ideas behind the attachment parenting that the Sears family promotes and fall in step with a lot of their practices. However, they have not helped much when it comes to sleep. They advocate responding to your child when he cries, but they don't offer much help for the baby that will not put himself back to sleep. So I am getting ready to try the methods that worked for Dana and Melanie and see what happens. Since both of them have happy babies who sleep, I am getting on board!! :-)

Now I have a question for my wonderful mommy friends...did any of you start letting your babies drink milk before the one year mark? I know that after a year Colin will transition to whole milk (I can't wait!), but I am thinking that maybe since he is about to be 10 months old, he should start trying some in a sippy cup every now and then. Right now he drinks water in his sippy cup when we eat...should I give him some milk then? I was wondering if you started to get them used to the taste early or if you held off....

Night Battles

I have not been posting much this week because it has not been a very good week in general. I also know that all I seem to write about these days is Colin's trouble with sleeping, but that is my life right now. I try to remind myself that this is my journal as well as something other people read so that I won't feel so bad about writing the most boring stuff in the world. :-)

Colin's cold this week has caused a bad sleeping situation to go to worse. Now instead of waking up two or three times a night to pat his back and gently whisper him back to sleep, I have to comfort a child that is literally screaming bloody murder. He won't go back to sleep and it takes an hour to get him back down. An hour of me rocking him, walking with him, singing to him...all while he is screaming. He is not running a fever, but he is stuffy and I think the rough breathing is the culprit this time. I have the humidifier going, the vapo steam going, but to no avail. His cold is getting better and I really thought he might get better sleep last night, but no. On top of his middle of the night issues, he has woken up for the day at 4am all week long. I spent a solid hour each morning trying to get him back down and finally ended up watching TV and making coffee. I am actually starting to feel sick at this point and I know it is exhaustion. Jer got up with him yesterday morning so that I could get a couple of hours of sleep before he had to go to work, which was very helpful. I decided last night that with Colin's cold being better, I was going to attempt to let Colin cry it out if he tried to wake up at 4am again. So, sure enough, at 3:45 Colin woke up and started to cry. I had given him a full bottle at midnight, so I know he did not need food. I went in, made sure his diaper had not leaked, put his pacifier back in, and kissed him goodnight. I closed the door, turned off the monitor, and put ear plugs in. And Colin cried for 45 minutes straight. Full on screaming. I could hear him through the ear plugs, but at least it slightly muted the sound. I laid awake listening the whole time and after 45 minutes he passed out. I do not consider this a victory at all because he then woke up at 5:22. Yep, all that screaming for 45 minutes of sleep. I thought that I might be helping him by letting him cry...I thought maybe he needed to just get it out if meant he could get much needed sleep. But it did not work at all. I just can't let Colin scream like that every time he wakes up. I don't know what to do....I am honestly not worried about me, I am worried about Colin. I want him to get enough good sleep and I just don't know how to help him do that. Hopefully this, too, shall pass.

Other than the sleeping issues, things are going very well. My new short hair is a snap to get ready, which is a god send!! I am so glad that I cut it!! Colin is as happy as ever...he is always smiling at people when we are out and about. Everyone that meets him always comments on how happy he is. I think that is the best compliment I could ever get about Colin. If he is happy, then I am doing my job! I hesitate to write about the hard times on occasion because I don't ever want Colin to read this blog and think that he was a burden to me. I would stay up all night for the rest of my life for that little boy. He is literally the air that I breathe.

On this day in history...

I got out Colin's baby book today to do some much needed updating and noticed something...exactly one year ago today we had our 3D ultrasound to look at Colin. It was a huge day for us and something that was scheduled months in advance. It was a Friday afternoon (leap year this year means today is Sunday instead of Saturday...that confused me at first!) and I took off work early for the appointment. My parents came in town and my sister Alieson was also with Jer and I. I was beyond excited. I had friends who did not want the 3D ultrasound because it "took away the surprise" of seeing the baby for the first time, but I did not feel that way at all. I was beside myself to see his little face. It was all I could do to make it until May 4th!! I was lucky because my doctor actually had the 3D equipment on site and patients of my doctor only had to pay $95 for it. We got stacks of pictures out of the deal as well. So we went in, the lights were dimmed, and everyone turned excited eyes to the monitor. And Colin had both feet and hands in front of his face. He was contorted in the worst possible way for the ultrasound. The sonographer spent 30 minutes manipulating my belly, sending little shocks with a joy stick looking object (Colin did not even flinch) and having me turn in all kinds of odd positions to get Colin to move around for a good shot. She was so sweet...she told me that I could go have a snack and walk around for awhile so that she could see her next patient and then she would try again. So my whole family sat in the waiting room while I literally jogged around my doctor's office begging Colin to move his feet so that I could see his face! Out of breath and sweating, I headed back into the office and we tried again about a half hour later. Colin was still covering his face with his feet. After a lot of work, we were finally able to get two pictures that actually showed his face. The sonographer was upset that she was not able to get lots of good shots for us, but I had what I needed. I finally got to see Colin's little nose and eyes and his sweet mouth. It was unreal. I spent the whole evening looking at the pictures over and over again. When I pulled out the shots today, Jer and I were taken aback at how much he looks like those pictures even now. His little nose and mouth are perfectly recognizable as my Colin. What an amazing day that was...one year ago today.

Weekend Wrap Up

Our pool opened this weekend! YEA! We have access to five community pools in our development and one of them is actually on our street just a few doors down. That was one of the main selling points of our particular home. This is as close to having your own pool as you can get without taking care of it yourself! I having everything ready for Colin's first visit to the pool...swimsuit, swim diapers (two kinds), baby sunscreen, hats and a special floaty with a sun cover. We are ready to go! Unfortunately, Colin came down with a horrible cold yesterday and is a snotty mess at the moment. Therefore, no pool this weekend. That is probably best because we had some random cold nights this week and the water is probably still freezing. This week is slated to be warm, so hopefully Colin will christen the pool when he feels a bit better. I was forced to buy a new bathing suit today, which is probably the most horrible shopping experience of all time. I finally found one that was not too bad.

There is really not much else to report at the moment...I had a great time on Friday night at the party I attended. We went dancing, which I absolutely love to do and never ever get to anymore. We were dancing machines and I had the best time. The only down side is that I rarely have the chance to drink anymore, so I felt rather icky on Saturday. We have been laying low with Colin since he is not feeling well. In fun news, he started drinking out of his sippie cup all by himself on Friday!! He just took it right out of Jer's hands and has been doing it himself all weekend. He looks like such a little man drinking out of his cup...I can't take it!! :-)