Tears for Fears

MOTHERS GUILT! Well today was the first time (of I'm sure many) that I hurt my little man. I recently decided I wanted to try to instill the love of reading in my child by starting to read to him early. While reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" today I accidentally dropped the book on his little face. In a split second he was screaming, not just his normal cry, but all out squealing. It wasn't but a couple seconds later I realized I gave him a bloody lip. And with the recent development of real tears this seemed all the more traumatizing. I then started sobbing as well.

So instead of instilling the love of books, I'm instilling a fear of them. Way to go mom.

The following picture is not from this incident but shows his poor little face nonetheless.







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Long Weekend

This past weekend went too quickly. It is always sad when a long weekend comes to an end. We did a pretty decent job this weekend of balancing productivity and relaxing. Friday night Matthew and I left Noah with a sitter and were able to go out to dinner and just reconnect and get on the same page. It was great to just check in with each other and laugh together. It is true we still see each other every day, and chat even, but since Noah's arrival I can't count how many times I've thought, "Matt and I should talk about this", or "I want to share this with him, I wonder what he would think." But when it comes down to it and we actually have a few free minutes I am too tired to engage in real discussion. So a night out was refreshing.

Truthfully, I can't even remember what we did Saturday, so probably not much. That night we had movie night with my brother and sister-in-law. Good times.

Sunday Matthew and I actually made it church. Noah was put in the nursery so we could focus on the message. Finally, success. Later that day we took Noah swimming. Actually, Matthew took him swimming with my family. I sat on the side and took pictures. Noah loved it! He is such a water baby. We finished off the day with family dinner at mom's house.

Then Monday the 4th, we started off the holiday going to the local parade to see our church's float. Noah was such a trooper in the rain. He watched the doggies and police lights go by, and eventually fell asleep. After the parade Matthew and I spent a good portion of the day cleaning our house. Very productive of us! And concluded the day visiting friends whose daughter is in the hospital. This holiday was very different from how we usually spend the fourth but was good nonetheless.

Below is a picture of Noah and Daddy enjoying the pool for the first time.

Date Night!

Matthew and I decided long before Noah was born that we would continue to have regular date nights. We've had three since his birth eight weeks ago. Not too bad. Well tonight a dear friend offered to watch our little man. We didn't have plans so we went to dinner at a local mediterranean restaurant and followed it up with dessert at a French restaurant close by. The hot chocolate I ordered was enormous. And the cup had no handle so I ate with a spoon like soup. Delicious.

His and Hers

So if you know my husband, you know that he gets very excited about anything related to technology and loves his toys. Electronics are toys to him. He researches and studies programs, equipment, and well speaks a language that is completely foreign to me (as you can tell by this post). I joke with him that I don't understand the majority of his Facebook posts because they are all about technology. And well when the latest toy is released it is always at the top of his wish list. Recently, I had to get a new phone because mine was having issues. He struggled with the fact that his wife had a better phone than him, in which I did not know how to use to its fullest extent. He is always trying to teach me how to better use my toys but really, it usually goes over my head. This leads me to the latest additions to our household.

My computer has been slowly beginning to not work as it should. It will only connect to the internet for a minute or two at a time. And even my technical genius of a husband can't get it working. After some thought we decided it needed replaced, and instead of a computer I considered getting a tablet. I won't go into details but for what I currently use it for, it was just as practical.

So last Saturday I woke up and asked Matthew what our plan for the day was. He half-jokingly (actually I thought he was half-joking but apparently he wasn't joking at all) said, "Go to get you an ipad." We headed off to Easton, played with the toys a little bit and somehow walked out with two ipads. His and her ipads. Yes, it was a little impulsive. But if you know us at all, that is often how we buy new toys. (I must make this disclaimer: This is not how we make life changing purchases like houses or cars.) And for myself, it made more sense for each of us to get one because if I bought one and he didn't I would never see it anyway, and I would probably hear continuous pouting about how he wants one too, after all he wanted it first.

So here they are, his and her ipads... cute right?

Routine

As a new mom, I find myself frequently being asked two questions... 1.) "Are you getting any sleep?" and 2.) "Have you gotten into a routine?" Currently the answer to both is "no".

Last week, Matthew and I decided to attempt going to church for the second time with baby Noah. After the service concluded I basically made the decision that I will not being going to church again for a long while, at least without a babysitter. Both times we made this attempt baby Noah has forced one of us to miss the service and stand out in the hall calming him down. The other parent of course, although able to sit through the rest of the service is too busy wondering what is happening in the hallway, and misses the sermon anyway. Anyways, Matthew who was standing in the hallway was approached by a few of our friends that are also moms. They recommended to him the book "On Becoming Babywise" by Gary Ezzo. It took me a few days to get a copy but I managed to read the book in of two days time. 

Basically the book suggests that if you get your baby on a flexible routine during the day, (feeding, waketime, naptime) waking them up every three hours to eat, then the will sleep long stretches through the night. The book is full of information on all sorts of things such as baby's crying, spitting up, growth spurts, feeding issues, etc. as well as statistics as to why routines are important for even the youngest of babies. I am interested to see if the plan this book lays out helps our fussy little man, and sleepless nights.

Tomorrow is Monday, and after a weekend of visiting family and lots of events on our calendar, I think it is a great time to start trying to establish this "routine". Currently the biggest challenge in our house is getting him to lay down and sleep, on his own. He will fall asleep and we will leave him, and within about 10 minutes he is wailing. He absolutely does not want to be put down. We are hoping we can overcome this battle soon and that Noah will learn to sleep and we (or myself 5 nights a week) can get some sleep.

My hope is that soon I can be one of those mothers that says, "Yeah my tiny little man is sleeping through the night," like I hear so often. And when people ask if we are getting sleep or in a routine I can answer with a resounding "YES!" :)

First Time Posting

Well, This should be interesting..

Thank you to my amazing sister-in-law and my loving husband who took time to help me create this blog after many failed attempts on my own. I am not sure really what I am going to use this blog for other than to document some of my family events. This takes me back to my high school days, where an unnamed blog site caused a great deal of controversy, and I spent hours writing about all the drama in my life or confronting people in an ugly, yet non-confrontational way. Well, that was a long time ago and I think I have matured a great deal since then. I hope so anyway.

Here we go...