Blessed

Colin has been having a rough week with naps probably due to teething. He has not been taking a nap at all for days and with each day he has been more exhausted. This has resulted in poor sleeping at night and early wake-ups. Today he finally took a decent nap, so I am really hoping he sleeps better tonight! Colin's nap is also my only time to shower, get dressed, brush my teeth, return emails, breathe...you know, the basics. :-) It is very nice to have clean hair.

Despite his lack of naps and extremely swollen gums, he has been as happy as ever. Colin is a smiley faced little man who brings me limitless amounts of joy. He runs around this house laughing and smiling all day long. Shannon told me today about someone who might lose his newborn son and it has reminded me very intensely how lucky that I am to have such a precious healthy light in my life. God has blessed me so much and I am thankful for sweet Colin every single day!

Saturday Updates!

Today was an interesting day...Colin woke up screaming just before 5:00am this morning and was up for the day. He has been grabbing the sides of his head above his jaw line and around his ears for two days...I think this time it is for sure molars. He walks around crying and banging his hands on the sides of his head! YIKES!! Thankfully he has been to the doctor twice in the last week, so I know his ears are fine. He has not broken any new teeth in the last couple of months and I think teething is back in full swing. Poor baby!

In good news, his diarrhea is finally starting to ease up!! Thank GOODNESS!! He is not back to normal quite yet, but it is much improved. I know that everyone will be happy to stop reading about poop for a while. ;-) We took Colin to lunch at a new mexican place that opened close by and it was fantastic! I am always so happy when yummy locally owned places show up in the suburbs. The main thing I miss about living in downtown Dallas is the food. Oh, the food. Jer and I are complete and utter foodies and nothing brings us more joy than finding a great place to eat! Colin ate my entire plate of rice and beans, a flour tortilla and my guacamole. That was the most he has eaten in over a week, so I was thrilled to see his appetite back in full force. We also managed to fit in a trip to Sam's today, but other than that...totally lazy day. We caught up on our DVR shows and both took a nap when Colin went down this afternoon. Getting up before 5:00 am this morning reminded me how thankful I am that Colin sleeps through the night now. I have been worn out all day!

Shannon posted recently about the classes for toddlers that she found through her city and I have started researching that this week. I have found a couple of options that Colin can attend now that I am looking into and several that will be great when Colin is 18 months old. I can't wait for those! I am trying to line up some fun stuff for us to do together this fall that won't be expensive. Colin is getting progressively more bored being stuck in our living room, so I hope to find some fun activities soon. Oh, and I am also getting geared up to take Colin to the pumpkin patch...I can't wait for that!! :-)

Lazy Weekend

This is an extremely lazy Memorial weekend! Colin slept really fitfully on Friday night...waking up screaming at 11:30pm and again at 4:00am. We finally had to get up with him at 5:30. He had been running a low grade fever on Friday evening and it stuck around all day yesterday. I kept waiting for him to get sicker, but he just kept the low fever all day and was generally a fuss pot. As we were getting ready for bath time last night I noticed that his top "fangs" are coming in on either side of his front teeth. (they are so cute!!) I am therefore guessing that the fever and fussiness are due to teething yet again. My sleep book claims that teething "does not cause night waking" and each book I read has a differing opinion on the fevers... "Teething does NOT cause a fever or runny nose!".... "Teething can cause a fever and runny nose!"...etc. However, because I am his mother and that automatically makes me smarter than all doctors and authors...I say it is teething. :-)

The bad news is that we skipped a party at my friend Dana's house yesterday due to said fever. I was really looking forward to going and having a good time, but I was so worried that Colin's fever was an illness. I hate nothing more than when people bring a sick child out and get Colin sick...that really pisses me off! Therefore, we kept Colin home yesterday. Now that it looks like Colin is not in the least bit sick, I am sad that I missed out on the festivities. Oh well. Colin slept much better last night and this morning we all had waffles for breakfast, including the little man. He loved them! He probably fed at least half of his share to Enzo, but I finally gave up trying to stop him. Enzo loves Colin more than ever now. ;-)

As we speak, Colin is sitting behind me playing with the big diaper box that I just opened. We buy the family pack of Luvs that comes in the box and Colin likes to turn it into a baby sized fort. Right now he is beating it like a drum. Our panther of a cat is laying beside him just out of baby grasp. Ferris Mewler likes to keep an eye on Colin. It is really sweet considering that the cat is mean to pretty much everyone else that lives here. :-) This afternoon we are planning on making a trip out to an adorable little specialty toy shop that I found. Colin's friend Hunter is having her first birthday next weekend and I know exactly what we are going to get her. I can't tell, though, because her mom reads this blog! Hi, Mel! HAHA!

Runny Noses and Sleep Books

Well, Colin still has his cold that started back on 5/3. It has not gotten worse, but he is still so snotty! Yesterday he was grabbing at his right ear all day, so I decided to take him to the pedi just to be sure it had not escalated into an ear infection. We just got home and I am glad to report that he is just fine with no infection. Our clear record of no ear infections remains! I feel very lucky that Colin has been so well...so many of my friends babies are battling ear infections and six of them (including my nephew) have gotten tubes put in within the last few months!! I feel so badly for them! Colin is a very healthy baby...he weighed 23 lbs, 2 oz this morning! The pedi had him open his mouth and his exact response was, "WOW...here is your problem!". Apparently my little man is still in teething hell...not only is he cutting those top two teeth, but his gums are bright red and swollen all the way around his mouth. The poor guy is getting all of them at the same time!! He thinks this explains why Colin has been so upset and needy the last few weeks and it certainly makes sense. I wish I could take the pain away for him!

The main reason that I wanted to check with the doctor is because it looks like Colin is going to have to do some crying at night and I wanted to be sure that he was not in pain from an infection before I began. I am going to give the cold another couple of nights to go away...I tried to start our sleep plan, but with Colin's cold in full swing, after a minute or two of crying, he is covered in snot and can't breathe. I can't start this when the little guy is sick...it just won't work. So I am hanging in there for a few more days. I am about half way through with the Weissbluth book and let me tell you, I am learning A LOT. I had no idea how much I had to learn about sleep...I am not only learning about Colin, but myself also. I can't tell you how much I recommend this book to all of my mommy friends...even if your child is sleeping through the night, it is well worth the read!!! I was way WAY off in a lot of my perceptions about sleep and I am so glad that Dana told me to get this. Almost immediately, I learned that I have been putting Colin to bed too late. He has been going down at 8:00 or 8:30 and that is far too late. I had no clue!!! The doctor suggests that babies should be going to bed by 6:30 or 7:00!! That hour difference seems like no big deal, but just that short amount apparently changes a lot. He suggested that night wakings and early risings can result from a too late bedtime. So last night I put Colin to bed at 6:45 with no problem (I thought he would not go for it)...and he slept until 6:00am as usual. He really did need that extra hour!!! He woke up briefly at 11:00 and he put himself back to sleep and then he woke up crying at 1:00. I fed and rocked him (since he is sick) and put him back to bed and he slept until 6:00. That is a really good night for Colin....no fighting me at all. So the good doctor is apparently right about something! I am going to keep reading and try to soak up all the information that I can. Hopefully Colin will be much better soon and we can really start our plan of getting him more sleep!!

Picky Eating, Here We Come!

Colin has officially entered his first hunger strike. Well, not really a hunger strike so much as a certain foods strike. He will eat the following:

Peach Puffs
Cheerios
Ritz Crackers
Mild Cheddar Lil' Crunchies
Fruit only baby foods
Yogurt

He normally eats lots of other stuff baby food wise. At the moment, he won't eat any of the veggies, even his favorites. He won't eat any of the pastas, or any of the breakfast foods he normally loves. He would not take a single bite of his oatmeal this morning and ate yogurt for the 6th day in a row! He has cut way back on his formula...he takes bottles at 7:30am, noonish and 5:30ish. Since I added the lunch solids, he has really made a change on the formula consumption. I think that the more I am introducing table foods to him, the more he is shunning the baby foods which are pretty bland in comparison. Luckily I have several friends who have gone through this stage (Shannon!) so I know that it is normal and he will work through it. I also heard that teething causes them to not eat much and lord knows we have that going on. His poor top teeth are still just little white spots and have not poked all the way through yet. They are torturing him!



Tomorrow I have a happy hour party to attend for one of my best friends and Jer is watching Colin for me. I am looking forward to a couple of hours of grown up conversation and it should be a great time. Then on Saturday I am actually having my hair cut and colored and a pedicure!!!!! This is a HUGE deal for me...these are my birthday presents courtesy of Jer's parents. I am getting my very first whole afternoon to myself since Colin was born and I am pretty excited about it. My hair looks horrible, so this is a very good thing! :-)

The Battle with Top Teeth Continues....

This has been a long day here in our house...it is always hard to say goodbye to loved ones and we have been a bit melancholy today since Jer's parents left. They headed back East this morning and Colin and I spent the day together missing all the extra love and attention! Poor Colin is having a horrible time with his top teeth...I actually came close to taking him to the ER this afternoon because I started to doubt that teething could cause such intense crying. After trying everything, I loaded Colin into the car and took him to the pharmacy for new infant orajel. Once we started driving he finally got distracted and calmed down, thank goodness. I stocked up on everything related to pain relieving for infants. We literally tried everything today...Tylenol, Motrin, Orajel, teething tablets, frozen rags, teethers in the fridge, water...gracious!! Not much helped, so I spent the day trying to distract him from the pain. I can see that his top front teeth are heading in, so hopefully these are the worst for awhile. I have felt like a bit of a failure today...I hate to see him hurt like that! I wish I could have done more. He had two naps that were all of 30 minutes before he woke up crying. Now it is 10:15 and he has already woken up crying twice since he went down at 8:00. I know he is tired...I have said my prayers that God will help him to get some rest. I think he is the only one who can help us now!! :-)

Jer was forced to attend a BBQ at his bosses house without us today...I hate when Jer has to attend work functions wifeless, but Colin was in no shape for a party. I am heading to bed now with the hopes that my little buddy will get some sleep. Poor angel!!

A Day of Firsts!

Well, here is the first video of Colin that I have ever posted on the blog for your viewing pleasure. :-) I had to grab the camera today because Colin decided that he was not satisfied with walking around the kitchen and decided to go explore the house. When I first put him in the walker, he would just rock in one place. My how times have changed! In fact, Colin pulled himself to a standing position all by himself for the first time today! We were playing in the office and I have a little table sitting on the floor. Sure enough, he planted his little hands on it and pulled himself up. I did not have time to get misty about it because he immediately fell down. I had to jump in and distract him quickly so that he would not scream. It worked and he went right back to trying to pull himself up. In the matter of mere hours today, my world has changed again. I won't be able to take my eyes off him now unless he is restrained in the walker or exersaucer. I would walk all around the house while he played on the floor with his toys, but I see now that he could pull up on something and fall down within a second! So there goes that! I can't believe how fast time is flying by me. Also, I noticed a second tooth popped in overnight right beside the first one on the bottom. Sure enough, that would explain the horrible week of sleep and Colin staying up all night the other day. I am starting to get this figured out. Now just...um...30 more teeth? :-)