Andy Cohen Saved my Marriage.

Ok so I missed yesterday. But in all fairness it's only because I just downloaded Andy cohens new book and I am obsessively reading it. Like every waking moment.  I'm supposed to be soaking up my final week with Colin and this epic book has me all wrapped up. 

The positive to this is that it give Brian a lot of daddy and Colin time. I'm so engrossed that I really don't have time to micro manage him. I think this is a step in the right direction. Brian does an amazing job with Colin. He does nothing wrong. I don't know why I can't just back off. I guess it's a learning process and it took Andy Cohen to teach me that. 

Colin and I also went to our first circle time today at the Berlin library. I though there were only three possible outcomes. None of which would work out in my favor. But Colin, being the shining star that he is did not melt down, did not scream or cry and did not sleep!  He was wide awake and alert for every crazy moment. I felt like we were very bonded and that he was actually really enjoying himself. He was very into all of the activity around him. He wasn't getting scared by any of the noises nor was he becoming over stimulated. He just sat and stared taking everything in. 

It was so loud in there that I couldn't really hear him, but I did catch a few little ooh's and coo's. 

I fall more in love with him everyday. It's sickening how much I love him. 

Also, this happened yesterday: the cuteness is unbearable. 

The Disney Mall

Even last week, I felt guilty just being home and not getting out of the house.... Today though, I wanted nothing more. Colin and I took a two hour nap together, him in his swing (what a treat for him!) and me on the couch. We were both exhausted and fell right asleep. We also both woke up at the same time! I didn't have to worry about waking my sleeping baby and he didn't have to wake me up via cryfest. 

Somehow I found the motivation to hit the mall today. I had a bunch of stuff to return to a few stores and I have been itching to treat myself to a new pair of jeans.  

Colin was completely content in his stroller while we were shopping. He slept for about the first 15 min, and then woke up so peacefully and cute while we were in the Gap! 

He just hang out while we rolled around to all the stores. He was smiley and flirted with all the ladies he could find. 

It was his very first time to the Disney Store.... I'm a sucker, I bought him another outfit. I felt like he needed it!!! I couldn't find anything in Gap, so obviously he needed to be disneyfied! 

It was a tradition to go to the

Disney store each time I went to the mall with Auntie as a little girl... And I have been dying to get him there to do the same. We also always used to get cookies at Mrs. fields, so of course I had to get myself one. :) they were as good as i remember. It's probably been over 10 years since I've done both of these things in the same trip. 

Needless to say.... Even with my personal fails at the stores.... This trip is a win! 

About 2 seconds before we both took our nap. Clearly Colin was more ready than I was. :) 

Chick Fil Whhhhaaatttt

With only five percent battery left, all I cAn say is that I ordered (and ate) an embarrassingly large amount of food at chick fil a today. We finally got one in CT and finally got one close!! 

Kristina and I spent the afternoon eating and loving it!! 

Better than TV

Is there anything better than the noises that your baby makes when they are first starting to talk? 

In the last week Colin has really started to become More social. I can put him down on his play mat and he will interact with his little animal friends for an hour!  It's better than TV. He's been talking and laughing with his zebra for a few minutes now..... I have about 6998 things to do and I don't care about any of them. I will

Sit here and listen to him for the rest of time. 

He does this little thing with his lips, he purses them and hoooo's at his zebra... I can't resist it!! 

9am

We had a great day with Colin today! We had him up at like 6ish and because he just didn't seem ready to be up (and honestly neither did we at that ungodly hour), we out him in his rock n play to sleep for a bit longer. Welllll a bit longer ended up being three more hours! The three of us slept like babies (literally) until 9this morning!!   

I spent the day redoing the office. 

I finished the painting on Saturday and today I rearranged the room and got it ready for me to use it when I go back to work. 

Brian had Colin all day so I could finish. 

They were twins. 

Besties

Tonight we spent the evening at Colleen And Jerry's house.  Colin had been fussy all day and I was a bit apprehensive about going. I actually almost cancelled. I figured though, even if I lasted an hour, at least if have left the house! 

We ended up staying until 10:00. Colin is so comfortable at Colleen and around Lucy & Jack. Lucy was being so so sweet with Colin. She kept coming to up to him and giving him kisses. She helped me change his diaper, and was so loving I think my heart broke. 

Column was the best behaved little baby too. He was happy and excited to be around his friends!! Jack and Colin were cooing and staring at each other, and even though it doesn't seem like it from the picture they really love each other! 

Trifecta.

I have no words for this little boy. He just melts me. I couldn't resist this outfit when I was out shopping last week. It's 3-6 and apparently my two month old is very advanced in the weight department. 

We hit the mall with Colleen, Lucy, and Jack today. It must have exhausted Colin because he has been in an out of sleep ALL AFTERNOON.   He was in some of the deepest sleep I have ever seen him in. I was trying not to worry too much, but around hour 2.5 I began my 3 hours of trying to wake him up. I sang, danced, made frog noises, clapped my hands. Dances with him, jiggled his legs, toes, arms, eyes, hair... I hollered, I narrated my every move in loud high and low pitched voices, I dropped a hammer in the floor, I Put him on his back.... 

I exhausted every idea, and myself. He would alllllmost open his eyes, and then they'd droop right back to closed.  

This is how it went, for three hours!! 

If nothing else at least he didn't have a very restful three hours. I know you aren't supposed to wake a sleeping baby... And i know that "sleep begets sleep". But i just couldn't watch my 5 hours of blissful nighttime sleep happen while the sun way still up. 

What finally woke him was my furniture moving skills. In between my circus act, I was trying to finish painting the office.... I have one wall left and its behind a bed. I had to move the entire room around to get access to it. It was all this McKinney that awake the beast! He was none too pleased...like not at all. There was screams that is never heard!!!  And it took the trifecta to call him. The trifecta is what I call the three thins that I do, and in this order, that I know will calm him down. First I pick him up snuggle and talk softly to him while we walk to the changing table. Then I change his diaper. I take this sort of slow too, even though he is so upset because I noticed that he calms down a bit if I work slower. Then after a nice clean diaper, we sit somewhere quiet and I feed him. Sometimes he doesn't want to eat... And those time he will appreciate the closeness and take a pacifier.  

These three thins together, almost always work for us. In fact, I'm writing this in our post meltdown snuggle sesh and he is just cooing away looking around his room.  

Deep Breath now that that's over....

Tonight is a bath night... it's a late night for Brian and I'm so exhausted I could probably sleep for three days. 

I also ate a peice of cheesecake for dinner because it was the only thing we had that wasn't moldy, didn't need to be heated up and i could grab from the fridge one handed. 

Three Hours

When you have a baby, they should just reprogram your body to only be able to do things in three hour increments.  Feedings now rule my life schedule. I'm constantly looking at the clock calculating how much time has elasped and how much time remains between feedings. I started out in the hospital using an app to time it all because I was on so much pain medication I couldn't be held responsible for remembering. As Colin has gotten older (2.5 months now) I have begun to learn his real hunger cries from his, I just want to be close cries and usually those occur right around the same time. However, I have days, like today, when I am reminded that even though he looks like a big boy he is still a baby and those two cries are really one in the same. 

This morning Colin woke up early, but if just couldn't face the world just yet. He has been sleeping in his own room and his his big crib for almost two weeks now, so I thought as a treat, I'd bring him into my room and out him in his rock n play for a little bit while I geared up for the day. The little guy LOVED IT. I think he knew it was a treat because he cooed and laughed and sucked on his hand (his new favorite trick), for almost an hour. I lay there watching him, responding a bit, but mostly just watching him entertain us both.   Then something magical happened. We both fell asleep... I'm not sure who was first (I'd bet it was me...) but I awake with a start 45 minutes later to a sleeping, smiling, snoring little boy.  I let him sleep for a bit, I wanted to soak up the peaceful moment and to put that memory in my storage bank for a day when I'm teaching again and miss my baby.   It was inevitable, it had been three hours since his last feeding and once it hits 5am, I have a rule that I don't let him go longer than three hours. I like to calorie load during the day so he will have those stored for the night time. It works too.. On days he has good eating habits, and when he calorie loads on this few feedings before bedtime he always sleeps better. 

We didn't leave the house today... He was very much attached to me and it was proving difficult to shower. Not the worst thing in the world. We snuggled, and played and watched Top Chef!! 

When it came time for bed, he was so sleepy so I brought him upstairs to feed him and put him in his crib.... This is the end of my fabulous day.  It wasn't a bath night (those are always the best because he calms down immensely with a bath), but I still changed him, read to him, rocked him, and held him.  All in a dark room with a soothing voice. None of this mattered. The little guy was basically comatose in the living room, but as soon as we got upstairs it was party time. 

An entire three hours of rocking and diaper changes and three feedings (on the hour), and many many tears , went by before he fell asleep. Now, I know... He's a baby, and schedules are the easiest For them.  I just don't know what was so different about today than yesterday. Why was today's fight?  

In fact, I've gotten up twice while writing this. Once to calm him, once to give him a pacifier. 

I'm so sleepy that I'm not sure any of this makes sense.... And now that he seems to me calm and in a semi deep sleep, I think I should make the call and do the same. 

(Spoke too soon, time to soothe the baby). 

Good night.

Colin is sleeping so soundly right now that it is honestly scaring me a a little bit. It's funny because all I ever want is a string of hours where he "sleeps like a baby" and when I get them, I spend the majority of my night hours watching the monitor for signs that he is breathing.  I have also creeped into his room on multiple occasions to enure that my eyes weren't tricking me, but Brian always yells at me, so I try and keep those visits for extreme circumstances only. 

I've been trying to figure out his sleep patterns, but I think he's either too little still, or I'm not regulating his day enough. I'm selfish in that I don't get up early right now. He regularly wakes between 4-530 for a morning feed...  And This will help when maternity leave ends because that's when I'll be needing to feed him before I get ready for work. However, since I have the luxury if sleeping in now, I put him back to bed and he will sleep until 7 or 8. This morning he work at 6 to eat and then he slept until almost 9!!!

During the day though, I'm not sure he even knows when he wants to sleep. He would sleep all day. Literally. His mornings are great. They are my favorite time with him. He happy, and talkative and I get the most smiles from him before 11am.   Eventually he hits a wall and he falls asleep. I usually try and calm him down for a nap around 11am and let him sleep until 1 at the latest. 

If he doesn't wake up on his own though (and the doctor recommended to not let him sleep more than two hours at a time) then he will not fully wake from his sleep cycle. He will eat (but then pass out again).  

I guess these last two weeks together will be a lot more of trying to find the pattern.    

Flop

This guy barely fits into his bumbo and he's only used it twice. 

I also think the only reason his head doesn't flop all around us because of how all his baby fat is being squished up. 

Three More Monday's

Counting today, I only have three more Monday's left with Colin before I have to go back to work. We decided that we would stay in today and enjoy some quality time together.....  Then we decided the best way to do this was to show our love for our favorite band and snuggle the day away. 

On my own.

For once my mind is at peace as I lay down for bed.  I can't think of much that needs to be done, except hope that morning hurries up and gets here so I can play with Colin again!

He makes every night feel like Christmas Eve... I can't wait to wake up and see what fun we will have. 

Before I came up to bed I made sure the house was in order and organized the kitchen and living room so I can just spend the morning with Colin.  

-------

I think my mind is so at peace is because I spent the majority of the day alone today. I think Brian could tell I needed some me time (it's only been 11 weeks since I've been alone) so he was amazing and just sort of made it happen. Brian was on full time daddy duty. He did feedings and diapers and play time. He let me sleep in, and took Colin for a man play date to watch football with the big boys. This meant that I could do anything I wanted. I thought when this time came, I would luxuriate in bed and binge watch Netflix while falling in and out of sleep.... But that didn't really appeal to me today. Instead, I of course spent the day at the mall. I spent an obscene amount of money.... But I feel not one ounce of guilt. I needed new clothes, ones that make this post baby body look decent. Annnnd I love all my new clothes, not a little bit, but a whole lot! I want to wear them all tomorrow.... The best part is they make me even more excited to go back to work!! I'll have fun making plans for my new shirts and pants and dresses!!

Whatever helps, right? 

..... Colin was sleeping soundly as I began to write this and now is starting to grunt for some lovin. Hopefully he will eat and then sleep soundly for more than three hours.

...... Colin ate a bit, fell soundly back to sleep. He's an angel. 

Lone Wolf

There's nothing better in life than getting to share your greatest moments with the people you love most. So when I found out I was pregnant, I wanted only to be able to share it with my family and friends. Not just the news, but the experience as a whole. Being the oldest, I knew I'd have no one there to go through it with, and my best friend had just had her first baby. In fact, it seemed like everyone I knew was either in the "no way" category, or the "inbetween kids" category. 

I was quickly surprised to find out that two of my closests friends, one being my best friend since forever, were also pregnant and due the same month as I. 

To go through the 9 months with them was invaluable. We laughed over silly pregnancy moments, cried over silly pregnancy moments, and were each other's shoulders to cry on. 

I feel silly though... Because I'm the only one who is going through this for the first time. I had questions and concerns that they were seemingly unconcerned about. Same thing goes for the child rearing. I am experiencing all of these moments for the first time and having all of these emotions and feelings, and I have no one to experience them with. 

I'm having a hard time putting into words exactly what I want to say, but essentially I feel like a fool with my concerns over time management and sleep schedules and feedings because I just have the one baby to worry about. And not only that, I feel foolish being so stressed out about it all and having such anxiety over all the details because again, it's just my one baby. I've read enough articles online to know that comparing myself to others isn't worth my time... And I don't feel like I'm comparing... It just feels lonely. 

I just sort of want someone to say, hey this is new and totally scary for me too. And I want them to say that they too stayed up for their baby's entire first night in their own room staring at the monitor just to make sure they were breathing. And what I really want is someone to say, yeah, breastfeeding is super hard and I get it if you don't want to feed your baby in front of me, or miss a feeding, or that they too think that formula might not be a terrible option (usually around 4am every night). 

I value my materity leave girls more than they will ever know.... I just wish I had one more, One who could say, yea I also had no idea what kind of diaper rash cream to buy.... So I bought one of each. 

Milestones

Big day for us today!! 

Milestone 1)

We went to Enfield for the first time today and had a really lovely and relaxing time. 

Milestone 2) 

There were no solid naps for Colin today, and I blame myself for not sticking to his schedule more rigidly.  His meltdowns are 100% because he was not rested properly and not fed properly. Granted this little guy isn't on a perfect schedule, but he has a consistant morning nap that lasts two hours every day. It made for a difficult afternoon and evening.  Colin is an amazing little guy though. He was certainly bothered, but he seemed to know that I wasn't hindering his naps or feedings on purpose and sort of held off for one big meltdown. It was a lesson learned for sure though.  Naps come fist. 

Observation)

Every single feeding today was a challenge, as I find that it is anytime we are not at home. Colin can feed off of my insecurities and really fussed when we are around unfamiliar people.  He doesn't love being under the "tent" either, but I'm just not comfortable whipping my boob out in front of anyone but Brian. 

After we left Enfield we stopped at home to restock diapers and feed the baby. Colin wasn't up to the task and barely ate. I was able to pump a bit and decided I'd use that as an excuse to have some Wine with Lea!  

While wineing, Brian was able to feed Colin (after a pre-wine Colin feeding super meltdown). I was exhausted from hiding under a glorified sheet all day, and I could tell Colin was tired of sweating under there. When he saw that bottle go towards his face, he sucked it down. It was as if it was his last meal!  That didn't necessarily calm him for the remainder of the evening, but it did somewhat passify him. 

The ultimate milestone of the day)

The day Colin learned to Roll Over!! He can now roll from his belly to his back!  He doesn't cry when he lands on his back, he just sort of looks around, some what curious as to what just happened. 

It's the cutest thing, and it was an amazing moment for us to experience with Nancy and Bob!