First try at video...

Ok, here is the first try at uploading video from the new camera. Wesley at 4.5 months old. Hope it works!

Shopping bliss

Like many women, I like to shop. I haven't had the opportunity to do much of it since Wesley was born so last night I grabbed my chance when I had one. You see with the Holidays approaching, the stores have these strange hours. Kohl's was open until Midnight last night. So I plopped Wesley in his crib at 8:30pm and took off for an uninterrupted personal shopping spree. It was glorious. When I usually go into town I have roughly two hours to run around and buy everything needed before I need to think about going home to release Sean from his Dad duty. Well it looks like I found the Mommy loop hole with these late closing stores. The sad part was that I spent an hour trying on a ton of clothes and I liked nothing, I usually like everything. It seems once you have a baby the days of shopping in the juniors department are over (not that I've shopped in juniors for awhile now), but I also can't stand the frumpy Misses sweaters and Mom jeans. I seem to be in the gray middle area. So I bought nothing for me and instead bought Wesley some really cute new duds. Looks like he's in 6-9 month stuff now. Dang he's growing too fast.

I love the "hand" in all the photos. I can't wait till he can sit up by himself.

The end of an era

So when we moved out to the country I decided that it was finally time for me to buy a horse to ride. I'd been wanting one for ages. I read up on everything I'd need to know about horse ownership and proceeded to start buying gear. I bought a nice saddle, pad, bridle.....and so on. Well today I posted everything on eBay. The horse riding dream has died. For one, we don't have enough land for a full size horse. Two, I don't want to blame the kid for it....but I seriously don't have the time or energy to go horse riding on a whim. Three, I can't afford any more animals. My neighbor used to say "I wish you'd just have a baby and you'd stop buying animals." I always just laughed, but now I understand. It's hard to take care of 19 pets with a baby needing constant attention. I do love my animals and each and every one of them will have a forever home with us, just not a full size riding horse. I've decided whatever money I make on the horse gear I'm going to go buy Wesley a kick ass exersaucer. How sad, I'm trading my beautiful saddle for a brightly colored plastic toy. Anything to make the kid happy.

Enjoying the Holiday

Sean, Wesley and I have been really enjoying the five days off for Thanksgiving. It's been a very relaxing break. I put Wesley in the Bjorn and decorated the house for Christmas today. I'm excited for this to be his first Christmas. Having a youngin around for Christmas will be a lot of fun, especially in years to come as he gets older. I'm already having way too much fun buying him stuff. I'm not alone. My father can't wait for Wes to be old enough to play with trains (so HE has someone to play with). He found a train layout that's built into a table with wooden track and asked if it would be too soon to buy it for him this Christmas. It's for 3-6 year olds. Hmmm, yep might be too early seeing as he'll be 6 months around Christmas. Can't tell this child's going to be spoiled by the Grandparents!

We are the kind of people that "if it ain't broke don't fix it," we have a perfectly fine digital camera that we bought 5 years ago that I use every day. It's a 1.2 mega pixel camera that in it's day was a pretty cool camera. Well, I took it to the funeral and actually had someone laugh at it....at how old it was. So Sean ordered a fancy schmancy new digital camera for us today. It's an 8.1 Mega pixel camera. I'm really looking forward to it because it doubles as a camcorder. This way I can stop using the dinosaur of a camcorder we currently have and have a way to upload clips directly to the blog. This way the Grandparents that live 15 hours away can see video of little man. Isn't technology amazing?

Wesley goes to see the Doc

Today Sean and I took little man into his belated four month well baby visit. Here are the stats:

Weight: 15.5 pounds (70%)
Height: 25.5 inches (55%)
Head circ: 44 cm (90%)

Doc said he looked great, but we knew that already. He got the first of his vaccinations and will go back the beginning of December to get one more. He did really well with the two shots, only cried for a few seconds. He's such a trooper. Doc said we can start him on cereal if we want but I'm going to hold out until around five months. That's all the news from the doctors office.

Falling into a routine

Life with baby has leveled out and we have fallen into a regular routine. Not much new has happened lately. It's just Sean, Wesley and I for Thanksgiving this year. My family will be out of town. I'm thinking of making pumpkin pancakes for Thanksgiving. A turkey would be too much food for just Sean and I. Maybe we'll just go out for dinner, we'll see. Wesley is going in for his belated four month well baby appointment tomorrow so that will be fun. I'm interested to see his weight and height. He seems to be growing out of his 3-6 month clothing, he seems too tall for them. He's still sleeping like a champ. He goes to bed at 8:30 pm and wakes up around 8:30 in the morning. Just a wonderful little sleeper. Well, that's about all...not much new happening.

What am I chopped liver?

I believe Wesley is getting bored with me. Sometimes I think he just sees me as a walking milk buffet. I say this because the moment Sean walks in the door after work the child turns into a smiley, laughing, adorable child. It's like he just puts up with me until Dad comes home, then the real fun starts. He just loves Sean, it's quite cute. I'm going to have to devise a scheme to turn myself into the most favored parent...hmm but how? Offer him oodles of cookies? Nope can't eat solids. Play video games with him? Nope no hand eye coordination. Produce chocolate milk? That might be the ticket! Ok, I'm going back to bed now.

Looking back

Sean and I were lying on the floor with Wesley this evening soaking up his new ability to laugh at everything and I realized how wonderful having a child is. He is such a joy and a blessing and I look forward to the years ahead with all the new experiences Sean and I can teach him. I think about next summer when I plant a garden and how he can "help" me, or in a few years when he's old enough to ride with me in a cart behind the miniature horses. Sean is looking forward to the day he and Wesley can ride the mini motorcycles around the acreage or help him work on cars. But for now we are just engrossed in his ability to do nothing but smile, laugh and drool. Sean actually said something the other day that made me just about fall over, he said "If I had known how wonderful having a baby around was I'd probably have had one sooner." That's big for a man who wasn't sure he wanted children. I'm glad I talked him into it! I can't imagine missing out on this experience, how dull our lives would have been.

Sitting in the recliner....




....Hey Gus when did you get here?....



....come sit on my lap....



.....I do love Gus the giraffe....

Four months old

Our big boy is four months old and getting bigger every day! He's 15.5 pounds according to my baby scale but we'll get an official weight when he goes in for his appointment next week. I guess they are supposed to double their birth weight by six months and he's almost there at four so he's right on track. Not much to report here. We are back into our regular no napping routine today, so I bumped back his bed time to 8:30....his little grumpy butt is going to get more sleep somehow.

Recuperating

Who knew A four day trip and 600 miles could wear us all out so much! All we did today was sleep. Wesley who never takes a nap during the day took a four hour nap, and I had to wake him up from that...so who knows how long he would have slept. I passed out in the chair with him for a couple hours. Sean was the only one that got anything done today, he was outside tearing up the deck around the pool. He's such a good worker. I'm such a slacker.

Ring Time

I had fun with his toy rings and the camera. Poor kid.

Wesley's sad road trip

I'm sad to write that my beloved grandfather passed away last Wednesday. The funeral would be held in Illinois which is 600 miles away. So Thursday we started loading up the car with everything we could possibly need for four days, you would think we were going to be gone for a month. We've decided that the amount of luggage you need is inversely proportional to your age. For example if Sean needs one pair of jeans then Wesley needs five....you never know when you'll need that cute little pair with the frogs on them. We each had one little suitcase, Wesley had four. It took us three trips to bring everything from the car into the hotel, including his full size swing. He slept the whole night in it in the hotel room. That swing is worth its weight in gold. I was so worried about him traveling eight hours in the car but he is such a little champ. He slept the entire way there. We broke the trip up into two days so he only had to sit in the car seat for four hours each day. After the funeral at the grave site they did a military salute for him with the shooting of the guns and taps. It was a beautiful and moving thing to witness. Wesley slept through it all, even the gun salute. As I write this we are traveling through St. Louis and will get home tomorrow. Grandpa, you will be missed.

Snotty little man

Well last night was a new experience. I went in to check on Wesley at 4 am and he was so congested. Poor kid was kicking around and was obviously angry that he couldn't breath. I then picked up my new handy automatic, battery operated aspirator (booger sucker outer) and tried sucking out his snot while he was sleeping....yeah that didn't work. It just pissed him off. So I took him into the bathroom and ran the shower on hot while sitting on the toilet lid and breast feeding him in the dark. The hot vapor opened up his little airways and off to sleep he went. Man I'm good.

Marbles? Where are my marbles?

Oh that's right I've LOST them! It's days like today that I'm certain Wesley will be an only child. There will have to be a whole lot of forgetting the first several months before I agree to do this again. Don't get me wrong, Wesley is a good, really mellow baby 90% of the time...but that other 10% is rough. Today being a rough day. He woke up at 9am smiling and cooing as usual, fed him and he started screaming. We played on the floor and he screamed. I fed him again he screamed. You get the idea. The only way I could get him to sleep was taking him for a walk in the stroller. We walked for four miles. The backs of my heels are bleeding, but by God he slept. I know it's a growth spurt, this is how he acted at the two and three month marks. I hope this one goes by quickly. And I hope I can find my marbles one day soon.

Chapters

With the birth of my niece it got me thinking about the first few weeks home with Wesley. You can read every parenting book on the market and you will never be fully ready for that little pink newborn once you bring it through the front door. In fact I remember setting down the car seat and turning to Sean and saying "Now what?" For nine months you build up in your mind what having a baby in the house will be like. The happy cooing baby comes to mind. In reality it's a lot of work! Feeding around the clock, changing countless diapers, dealing with crying. I remember feeling like I was chained to my recliner. Sean had to bring me meals and drinks because Wesley would cluster feed for hours. Going to the store was scary stuff. I was so afraid he would start crying and people would stare. I would make whirl wind trips for the basics like diapers and milk just to get him back in the car. Now at almost four months old, I could CARE LESS! Go ahead and stare if he cries....believe it or not, that's what babies do. I often see Moms with well behaved toddlers and wonder if Wesley will be like that. Then I realize that woman is just a few chapters ahead of me in this child rearing game and was probably just as scared of her newborn wailing in Wal-Mart as I was in the beginning.