Poop-Oh! in the Bumbo

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Graham. Whenever Graham sat in his Bumbo chair, it made him have to poop. One day his aunt Abbey was watching him while his momma got ready for the day. Sure enough, after a few minutes in the Bumbo, there was a stench in the air. Abbey, being the responsible aunt that she is, immediately picked up her nephew to save his mom the trouble of changing yet another diaper. When she picked up Graham, she noticed that he had left her a little present in the Bumbo. She said to herself, "Well, I will handle the dirty diaper and outfit first, and then I will deal with the present in the Bumbo." She went upstairs and put a fresh diaper and clothes on Graham, then returned to survey the mess. But upon her return, she suddenly realized that the present was gone. Had a cleaning fairy come to the house? Surely not! She hadn't believed in the cleaning fairy for quite some time now. Then she looked around and saw the culprits. Two King Charles Cavalier Spaniels running around the house, happy as could be. The end.

The Crazy Mom Syndrome

I felt like a crazy mom yesterday. You know what I'm talking about. One of those moms whose hair is disheveled. Her outfit has been quickly thrown together. You can tell she is really worn out, she can't handle her kids.....you know, a crazy mom.

Yesterday I planned out some meals for the week and decided to go to the grocery store. When I go to the store, I always take Graham in his car seat and set it down in the grocery basket. It usually works pretty well when Jeff and I are shopping together, but when I'm by myself, the clumsiness is magnified, and I seem to run into things like the security beeper bars. I have no idea what you call them, and I'm sure they have some official name, but you know what I mean, right? One time I couldn't see in front of me because the car seat was sitting up high, and I kept ramming the grocery basket into the security bars at the Kroger entrance. I definitely got some stares, and I think I've since noticed a sign on the security bars warning you of their presence. Hello! If I could have seen the security bars, I wouldn't have run into them! Anyway, back to yesterday. I decided that since Graham is what you call a "supported sitter" and since I am afraid he is going to fall out of the car seat when I run into things, I would try to put him directly in the basket. He can sit briefly on his own and seems to do okay in a high chair, so I thought yesterday was the day to graduate to the big boy seat at the grocery store. Yeah....I have had to do some rethinking! It was fine until Graham wanted to climb out of the grocery basket. He would start leaning over....slowly he would slide. I would catch him, put him upright, and then he would start leaning over again. Needless to say, I had to keep my hand on him the entire time. It takes some serious skills to keep one hand on the baby, one hand on the basket, and find a way to park the basket where you are only an arm's length from whatever you need, because when you reach for something, you've still got to have that one hand on a baby. Maybe if I had played my brother more often in Mario Cart, this would have come easier! You just try doing this at the milk fridge where you add in a whole new dynamic of having to steer, open a fridge door, grab the milk and hold on to your baby. After about an hour in the store, I decided I was finished. Graham was eating my grocery list anyway, so I really didn't know what else I needed. I thought about abandoning the basket and making a break for the door, but I really needed some chicken for dinner! So I got geared up to go through the checkout line. Again, it became quite difficult to reach in the basket and keep a hand on Graham. The sweet lady behind me gave me a pity smile and asked if she could help. "I think I've got it," I replied while thinking to myself, "Yeah, I've got the crazy mom syndrome." I explained to her that it was my first time to try to put him in the basket and that I obviously should have waited. "Yeah, he's probably too young," was her reply. I wish she had been out in the parking lot to tell me this before I had gone in the store. The adventure, however, was almost over. Who would have thought I would need both hands to sign the receipt? After a few attempts, I had to ask the cashier to hold down the receipt so it would stop curling up. Finally, I got my groceries loaded in the car and vowed to not try putting Graham in the big boy seat until he is the most proficient sitter upper you have ever seen.

And just in case you were wondering, I did spend an hour in the store, and I didn't come away with half of what we needed. I got a lemon to make hummus with, but I neglected to get the tahini or the secret ingredient- chickpeas. I got bread to make meatball subs, but I failed to get the meatballs. Where do you find those things anyway? I've never bought them before. Those are just a few things that didn't make their way to my basket during a very stressful visit to Kroger! Yep, I was a crazy mom yesterday, and I only have one kid! What am I going to do if I have any more children? You better starting praying that God will give me a third arm!

Ready or Not!

I was going to wait until Graham was six months old to start solids, but because he is starving and only a couple of weeks away from six months, I threw a bib on him, sat him in his cute high chair, and shoved some oh so delicious rice cereal in his mouth. Then I freaked out. I'm not ready for this baby food thing. I have been planning to make baby food for Graham, and I am just not ready. I don't even know how to work my Beaba Babycook machine. When do I give him baby food? Does it have to be three meals a day? How much do I give? How long do I need to give a certain food before introducing another? What foods can he eat at this age? Do I have to add milk to make the foods thinner? In the past two days I have done some research and more importantly asked several moms how to handle the baby food situation. Who would have thought that baby food would stress me out so much? So for any of you wondering.....here's a little bit of what I have discovered.

Don't worry about three meals a day. You can slowly work into it. Some people just give 1 or 2 meals for a month or two when starting solids. Lots of people start with rice cereal first and then begin introducing vegetables and fruits. Some good first foods for babies are sweet potatoes, avocados, bananas, apples, and pears. You have to cook fruits for the first 8 moths with the exception of avocados and bananas. Who knew? You usually wait on meat until your child is 8 months old. Don't give honey or corn syrup to your baby before he is a year old. Don't give cow's milk to your baby before he is a year old. You should not give coke to your baby or to any other living being! (A friend let me borrow a book called Super Baby Food. The book is very helpful, but the author can be a little extreme about some things like not even approving an occasional soft drink for an adult!) You don't want to wait until your baby is starving to give him baby food. Babies should still be getting most of their nutrition from breast milk/formula; baby food is not a replacement. When you introduce a new food, you must wait 3-4 days before introducing another new food. This does not mean you can only serve that one food in the interim. You can continue to feed your baby all the food that you know he is not allergic to. You may have to change your baby's clothes as well as your own clothes at every feeding. Go to http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ for recipes, tips, schedules and more. It is a very helpful site! There is so much information out there on a simple thing called baby food! I'm sure I'll make adjustments along the way, not adhere to everyone's advice, and end up doing what works best for our family. I'm sure I won't buy all organic foods, and I'm sure I will have jars of commerical baby food in my pantry to go along with the food I make.

So ready or not, we've progressed to the baby food stage. I'm off to plan some baby food meals. What do you think the theme of week 1 should be? Mexican? Surely it would be okay for me to throw in a few tortillas and some spicy chicken with the avocados I had planned on serving Graham!

Sunny San Diego

Well we did it. We took Graham on his first trip across the county and succeded with minimal crying and fussing. Jeff, Graham, and I hopped on a plane to San Diego to see my dear friend Lydia, her sweet husband James, and their adorable daughter Ruby. Graham and Ruby were supposed to be only 2 weeks apart, but Graham changed that when I had to deliver a month early! However, 6 weeks isn't that big of a difference, and the older they get, the less of a difference it will make. Graham had lots of firsts this past week. His first airplane ride, his first trip to the zoo, his first time to pet an animal, his first time at the beach, his first time to see fireworks, and his first time to hold a girl's hand. I'm just hoping he didn't see the fireworks while he was holding Ruby's hand. I don't think I can handle this romance moving that swiftly. The babies were quite adorable interacting with each other. They were especially adorable when they were screaming in unision as we fought our way through LA traffic! Fortunately the majority of the time they were good tempered babies which made for a fun and relaxing trip. We ate lots of Mexican food, went to a Dodgers game, saw Michael Jackson's star and people trying to sell Micheal Jackson T-shirts for $100, saw the Hollywood sign, went to a couple of beaches (This time, thankfully, we did not accidentally end up on a nudist beach!) roamed around for hours at the San Diego Zoo, and simply enjoyed the company of good friends. I am so sad they live so far away! It was a great trip, and even though Graham will never remember it, I think he had a great time as well.

Lucky Number Thirteen

For me, 13 has always been my lucky number. I was born on December 13th, so I always wanted to be number 13 when playing basketball or softball. If I ever needed to choose a number for an activity, it was number 13. It just made sense that I found out I was pregnant on June 13th of last year. I took a couple of pregnancy tests on June 11th and a few more on June 12th. The results? Well, two times I was pregnant and three times I was not pregnant. How are you supposed to know what to do with that information? Can you be quasi pregnant? The first positive was so faint that I had to make Jeff look at it closely to insure I wasn't hallucinating and making a plus appear. He confirmed that it was a very faint plus mark, but how could we explain the negative tests? On Friday, June 13th I left work early and went to the doctor's office to have a test. I saw the nurse practitioner and she told me because it was so late in the day, she would not have the results until Monday. I burst into tears. I'm not talking about a few tears rolling down your cheeks. I'm talking about the tears that make it hard to breathe. I couldn't even finishing talking to her because I was so upset. There was no way I could wait until Monday to find out if I was pregnant. She tried to console me and sent me to the lab to have the blood test done. While I was waiting, the receptionist told me I had a phone call. Who could be calling me in the lab? Of course it was the only other person who knew I was in the lab, the nurse practitioner. She told me that my doctor was on call that weekend and he had agreed to wait and and call me with the results. I was so relieved but still completely emotional. I continued crying while they were taking my blood. It was not that it hurt me, it was just that I needed to know if I was pregnant! The nurses probably thought I was dying of some disease. Anyway, after I got home, Dr. Chesney gave me a call. "It's positive," he simply said. It is so sweet for me to remember what I felt like after hearing these words. After absorbing that information for a second, I told Dr. Chesney that his office probably thought I was crazy because of my crying. In good humor, he said they were used to that sort of think in an OB-GYN office. Crying and women just go together I guess. I should have known that my tears were just another symptom of pregnancy. Yes, I was finally pregnant and a year later I have a sweet little 4 month old. As Jeff continues to remind me, God has been so faithful to us, so why wouldn't He continue to be faithful? It would go against His very nature not to be faithful. But I have to remember that even if God hadn't given us Graham, He would still be faithful. Reading about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is a clear reminder of that! So the 13th, even Friday the 13th, is a very very lucky number for me. Okay, it's not lucky. It is a very very very providential number for me, because I know there was actually not even an iota of luck that brought this baby into our lives. I am so glad God gave us Graham.

Cute as Can Be

Baby boy clothes- sometimes I feel like its so hard to find ones I like! When I was first pregnant, I always looked at the girl clothes. I could find girl clothes that I liked just about anywhere. Boy clothes, well, that was another story. They have to be soft and you still want a boy to look like a sweet baby even though he's a boy, right? The problem is that some of the boy clothes that I really like are really expensive. Now that Graham is getting a little older I have started to put him in some more "manly" attire, and I'm sure Jeff is quite thankful! But even as Graham has outgrown the newborn stage, he is still a little baby that needs to look cute and cuddly. My mom just bought a few new outfits for Graham from Janie and Jack, and I think they are adorable. They are retro, cute, and oh so soft. The prices were reasonable too! I think Graham is going to look like quite the stud in his new clothes.

"Just a Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down"

Graham does not like medicine. And when I say doesn't like, I mean he absolutely abhors, completely detests, would rather do anything else in the world than to take a few drops of medicine. Graham got sick for the first time last Wednesday. Ironically he was already scheduled to go to the doctor that day for another round of shots. I told the doctor that he felt really warm to me, but my thermometer said he only had a temp of 98.6. The nurse took his temperature and sure enough my little baby had his first fever. For some reason Graham has the tiniest ear canals and none of the doctors can see in them to determine if he has an ear infection. The doctor said the pressure in Graham's ears was a little unusual, so he went ahead and prescribed some amoxicillin. I had forgotten about the good old bumble gum medicine. It used to be like dessert when I was a kid. Almost as good as Luden's cherry cough drops. Come on, do those cough drops do any good whatsoever? They taste like candy! Anyway, I was trying to give Graham his medicine, and as you can see, I don't think he got much of it. He goes into freak out mode when he sees the syringe. He closes his mouth, tries not to swallow, and arches his back like he's trying to jump out of your arms. I was defeated by a four month old. Oh well. Maybe next time I'll get it down.