Dela-where?

Spring!

2009-04-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

Picture dump. Plus Jack dances.

2009-03-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

Could it be spring? Spring ahead, anyway.

2009-03-07T14:11:00.000-08:00

The weather is so beautiful. Jack spent almost the entire day outside. He played with his dad in the yard while I was at work. And when I came home, we spent the afternoon at the park. He is finally big enough to climb all over the playground equipment. He's still a little unsteady when it comes to edges and ledges. Heights, however do not deter Jack. The sliding board was a little confusing at first. He couldn't quite wrap his head around the whole sliding thing. But once he did, he was hooked.

Now that Jack has walking down to a T, he's been learning new ways to communicate. He doesn't talk yet. He has been using sign language, pointing, making sounds to indicate what he wants (just not real words yet) and of course, dancing. He's been a dancing fool since he learned to stand on his own. My little Bean could dance before he could walk.

Also, Jack will be taking his first international trip in May. We booked tickets to Ireland. So far we are staying in Dublin for three days. Then we are going to rent a car and drive through the countryside. We've never been to The Emerald Isle, so if anyone has any suggestions beyond the normal stuff (i.e. Cliffs of Moher, Blarney Stone, etc. - Don't worry, we'll go there, too.) then please let us know!

Snow? Pssshhh.

2009-01-24T12:57:00.000-08:00

Those of us who live in Delaware claim we know snow. Every year we find ourselves wishing for a white Christmas, but deep down we all know that we will get a wet Christmas. We think we know how to drive in the snow...until is snows and we freak on the road. We long for snow days off from work and school. And we always tell people that we got snow last year. But alas, we are living in a dream world. Observe these two pictures of my son. One is in New Hampshire mid January. The other a week later in Delaware. Can you guess which is which?

Breeder.

2009-01-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

I've always had an instinct to reproduce. For many years before I had Jack, I had a strong urge to make babies. I remember this urge was at it's peak in the week leading up to my positive pregnancy test. I was pregnant and had no idea. I was threatening to break up with my poor boyfriend because I wanted children asap and he wanted them never. A week later I discovered that I was ten weeks pregnant (how did I miss THAT?) and all turned out for the best.

While I was carrying Jack I felt happier and more comfortable than I had ever been in my entire life. I was finally in my element. I felt like myself when I was pregnant. Which is odd, because up until then I had never really been in that situation. How could a short nine months truly be me?

Then Jack was born and all was perfect. I missed my pregnancy state. But I had reached true motherhood. That's what pregnancy is all about, right? So... mission accomplished. Baby born. Tammy is a mom. End of story, right? I thought I had been cured of my crazy baby obsession.

Apparently, not so. Jack isn't even one year old yet and I'm already craving baby number two. I find myself daydreaming about it every few hours. That's silly, right? So yeah, I might have another. Then what? In ten months I might want yet another. When can this end? How many babies until my sick craving is satisfied? I think I would be just as happy with an adopted baby. But again, I could adopt babies until I turn blue. Will I want to do this when I'm fifty? Sixty? When will I decide that I need no more. The instinct to reproduce gets turned off at some point right? Adoption makes menopause obsolete in the baby raising world.

And why am I so concerned? I'm twenty five and I've only had one. I have plenty of time for more. I love being a mommy. And I REALLY love being pregnant. I think I might love pregnant more than I love trapeze. And if you know me, you know trapeze is my true love. (The perfect love, actually...it can never break my heart. Only my bones.)

I believe in large families. Not for everyone. But definitely for me. What is with me? I'm soooooo broody!! Someone pleeeeeeze talk me into sanity!

New Year's Realization

2009-01-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

This New Year has been great for helping me to realize that my job as a stay at home mom is actually important. I'm always aware of my instincts telling me that this is the best thing for our family. But sometimes I get so clouded in self doubt and frustration, that it's difficult for me to see.

On New Years Eve we had some of our parent friends over, so of course the discussion of the evening revolved around our children (my apologies to my other friends attending, I know for a fact listening to a bunch of people talk about their kids can be super boring and I hope we didn't turn you off to the idea of procreating)Anyway...where was I? Ah yes. Talk of our children. My friend Liz has a newborn. She was talking about how being a parent is a bit different than she had anticipated. The sheer amount of responsibility for this little person is overwhelming. And the sleep deprivation, she said, makes her feel like she's a crazy person. It was comforting to hear that. Not because I'm glad that Liz is feeling tired and mental. But because I know that I'm not the only person that gets that way.

Naturally, I'm totally aware that most, if not all mothers and fathers have their moments. And by moments I mean on the verge of a nervous breakdown, not quite sure if we made the right choice, wondering what we are doing here and wondering how we can just get some freaking sleep. But to hear Liz state it so plainly made me feel like I'm not fighting a battle alone. Thank you Liz and Olivia.

The second half of my realization came the following day. I spent the afternoon and evening with my friend Virginia. She has such a positive outlook on life. I admire her ability to smile through anything and make cooking and craftiness just look so darn easy. I've known Virginia less than a year, but I already feel like I've learned from her. My skills in the kitchen improved ten fold because of something I heard her say a few months ago. She was listening to someone tell her about their adventures in apple pie baking. They went back to the store several times trying to find the right kind of apples to bake with. Virginia said, "I'm pretty sure they are thinking about it too much."

Right then and there, I allowed my instincts and taste buds to take over in the kitchen and now it feels so easy!

Back to parenthood. Virginia is getting married next week, so we were talking a lot about relationships and homemaking. She mentioned a movie that she watched where the mother falls sick with terminal cancer, and the adult daughter comes home to help take care of her and the house and her father. The daughter is overwhelmed with how much work it all is and asks her mother how she could stand it over the years. How she could do all that she does and no one notices. The mother told her that she does it because she loves it. She loves her family and taking care of the house. She doesn't need to be thanked for doing her job. Virginia admired how this woman felt. I must admit, that I do, too.

I'm no breadwinner, that's for sure. But these past two days made me remember that earning money is not nearly as important to me as taking care of my family. Screw resolutions. That's my New Year's Realization.

Tiny steps and no more ghosts.

2008-12-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

Wow. I haven't posted in a long time. These days little Jack has no desire to allow his mom to check her email, let alone write a blog. He gets a little jealous of the computer, I think. At the moment, he's passed out for a particularly long afternoon nap.

The little bugger can walk now! He took his first little steps right around Thanksgiving. And he's practicing up a storm now. He's very proud of this new ability. He does, however find crawling to be the fastest mode of transportation. Especially when it comes to very important tasks, such as chasing the cat and pulling her tail. Once he catches her, he uses his walking skills to step on her face. She just loves that. Luckily, Holly is very tolerant of Jack's antics.

We had a doctor's appointment a few weeks ago. He's tall and skinny for his age. Not underweight, though. Just shaped like his parents. We had to take him to the dentist, too. His front teeth are growing in with part of the enamel missing. I feel guilty for passing him my weak tooth gene. He's only had these teeth for a few months, and they were defective from day one. He really took the bad teeth gene to a whole new level. I at least waited a few years before mine started falling apart. Hopefully, he will have inherited his father's 20/20 vision. Mommy is blind as a bat. My eye doctor actually made fun of me for it. My EYE DOCTOR! Sheesh.

Jack is a bit better with eating and sleeping now. Currently he will eat absolutely anything as long as it is smothered in tomato sauce or ketchup. Definitely his father's child.

As for the sleeping...it's a long story. To sum it up, we happened to have a psychic in the house and she mentioned that our ghosts were waking the baby up. She asked the ghosts to leave the house, and oddly, we haven't had a problem since them. Despite my skepticism, I'm very relieved to get a good night sleep almost every night. Baby books ought to mention the paranormal in the sleeping problem chapters.

Rant

2008-10-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

I'm in a bad mood. I didn't sleep well last night (as usual). That little fact has made me irritable today, which makes me want to rant. Here goes.

Why do people always ask these two questions: "What does your baby like to eat?" and "Is he sleeping through the night?"

As if giving the right answer makes you a good mother. I regularly feel self conscious when people ask me that. My honest answers are "Er....cheerios...sometimes." and "Not in months. If he doesn't have a boob in his mouth, he wiggles and makes lots of noise."

But my answers usually come out like this: "Cheerios are his favorite!" and "Not too bad. Sometimes he wakes up to nurse."

Lies. Total lies. My son will only eat food if he can feed himself. And he sucks at getting it into his own mouth. He's working on it, and improving every day. But for now, the floor has a more balanced diet than this kid.

He uses me as a pacifier at night. This was a great plan when he was a little guy. He didn't really move or make much noise, so it was easy to nurse him while sleeping. Now he climbs, crawls, bites, whimpers, and pinches in his sleep. He technically doesn't wake up all night. But he sure wakes me all night. (and isn't that what they are really asking anyway) This waking occurs whether he sleeps with me or in a crib. Makes no difference.

My son is not a consistent eater or a heavy sleeper. But he is very happy and very healthy. And he grows like a weed. We must be doing something right.

So why do people keep asking these questions? Can't they think of anything else to say to a mother of a baby?

Okay. I think I'm done ranting now.

Fall Family Fun Day

2008-10-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our annual Fall Family Fun Day. We all went to the Schuykill Valley Nature Center for a nice Autumn walk. Then we headed over to a church in Flourtown for pumpkins. And we wound up on Forbidden Drive at Valley Green for dinner. It turned out to be a pretty good FFFD.

We dressed Jack up like Dennis. We are always joking about how alike they look. Keith and I had a Free Kenny Rice shirt made up. (Infamous, if you know Dennis McCarthy) Kenny Rice is a plumber Dennis knows. About 20 years ago, he was incarcerated for DUIs and spent six months in county prison. Gerry Kehan had these t-shirts made up with a picture of Kenny's cell stating FREE KENNY RICE. This has been a staple in Denny's wadrobe ever since. Jack donned his FREE KENNY RICE onesie, his side parted hair and his argyle sweater. He was very Dennis McCarthy.

More and more Jack hates the car seat. It's almost time for him to switch to a bigger one. Perhaps that will ease his anxiety.

He's also reverting back to newborn like habits with breastfeeding. Actually, at night, he's feeding more frequently than he did as a newborn. This is making me nuts. He woke me up seven times last night. This has been going on for weeks now. I don't know quite what the problem is here. I guess he's just gotten into the habit of finding boobs everytime he rolls around in his sleep. Whenever this has occured before, the problem solved itself in a week or two. But we are going on four weeks now. I'm at the end of my rope in terms of sleep deprivation. Something's got to change.

Perhaps it's our irratic schedule. Because I sometimes work at night, Jack doesn't always get the same bedtime routine. I think it's time I was more consistent with our night time rituals.

I'm getting really excited about the pending birth of Baby Elzie. Tomorrow is her due date. She's gonna be so teeny and cute!

The Orange Ball

2008-10-15T13:51:00.000-07:00

Jack has become very attached to his orange ball. Actually, it isn't his. It's mine. I stole it from an arcade in Niagra Falls when I was 19 or 20. It was perfect for self-massage. It's small and hard (that's what she said) so it's great at zapping trigger points. Anyway, I gave it to Jack the other day to play with and I swear he hasn't let go of it since.

The ball has gone grocery shopping. It has gone to the bank. The ball tags along with Jack to every meal. Jack chases the ball down the hallway. Jack tries to eat the ball. Jack tries to eat the ball while he's nursing. He climbs on the furniture with the ball in his his hand. Jack loves the little orange ball and the little orange ball loves Jack.

I also wanted to confess that Keith and I have been eating ice cream for breakfast all week. Over the weekend we made a whole lot of apple crisp. It contains oatmeal and apples. So Keith figures, why not eat it for breakfast...with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I'm not so into apple crisp for breakfast. I have, however, been scooping the vanilla ice cream into my morning coffee. Yum!

Baby proofing? Oh my.

2008-10-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

So the kid is mobile, no question. He gave us no time between learning to crawl and learning to climb up on things. He just crawled over to the couch one day and stood up. We think he's part monkey. As a side note, he also loves bouncing in his bouncer, being thrown up in the air and spun around in circles. I cannot wait to take this kid to trapeze class in a few years.

Back to Jack's crawling habits. We are quickly learning that our house in not babyproofed at all. We had plans to baby proof as soon as we moved in, but we never did. Now the need for it has snuck up on us. Check out this picture of my bathroom. Note the hanging wires and bottle of bleach. Eek! It's not safe!

But how far does one go with babyproofing? I'm overwhelmed with all of the products on the market to keep my baby safe. Obviously the bleach and the cords have to go. But what else? Should we bolt down all furniture? Should we put padding on corners? Should we put bars on the windows? Or should just we strap a pillow to him and hope for the best?

Yes. Maybe instead of babyproofing the house, we should house proof the baby! Ha ha.

And I say to myself....

2008-09-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

I'm having one of those weeks where I wish I was the kind of mom who had it all put together. You know, the kind of woman who actually washes her hair on a semi-regular basis. That kind of lady must have a nanny...

Anyway, I don't have much to say today, but I do have a video!

Sleep. Well. Lack there of.

2008-09-22T07:06:00.000-07:00

Jack has just learned how to crawl and he's beginning to fine tune his skills. The only problem is that he wants to fine tune those skills at 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am and 5am. In his sleep.

We co-sleep. I'm not changing my mind about that one. Even if putting him in the crib would keep him from crawling on my head in the middle of the night, I would still be awakened by his frustrated cries. And then I'd have to get up and out of the bed to help him. That is not an option. (You don't want to hear me rant about my distaste for Dr. Ferber, either.)

I know that this too shall pass. It always does. The same thing happened when he learned to roll over and when he learned to get up on all fours. He practiced it in his sleep for about two weeks, then he got over it. I hope the next week and a half flies by with minimal grumpiness and caffeinated jitters.

Despite not sleeping, I'm proud of my little boy. It's bittersweet. Everyday, he's one step further from being my little baby. I'm trying to enjoy his baby-ness. Even the really hard stuff. Because in fifteen years, I'll be able to sleep through the night, but I seriously doubt my teenaged son will give me a big toothless grin whenever I walk into the room. And he certainly won't let me call him Wiggle Pants in public anymore.

I hear crawling leads to walking. I'm coming to terms with the fact that crawling and walking means he can get himself to the electric outlets and the good crystal. I'm just loving these baby days while I still got 'em.

I hope I'm able to maintain a good attitude about all of the stages of my son's life.

First Post

2008-09-16T11:08:00.000-07:00

I have joined 2008 and started a mommy blog. Now all of Jack's (and my) adventures can be recorded on the internet like normal moms do. ;)

But I'm a little late, huh? My son is seven months old. Okay....quick update:
After a near perfect pregnancy, Jack was born on February 13th, 2008 at Bryn Mawr Birth Center. He was born five days over due in the middle of an ice storm during morning rush hour traffic. Jack wanted to make an entrance. He was fashionably late.

Since that day, Jack has mastered breastfeeding, pooping and wiggling. He can also roll over, sit up and crawl. He went through a squealing phase at about four or five months old. I bet the neighbors thought we were killing kittens in our apartment. Now he mostly just babbles.

He found his hands in April. Almost immediately after, he found his feet. To this day he still enjoys nibbling both. Currently, Jack's favorite body part is his penis. Typical man.

He has grown almost eight inches and gained nine pounds since birth. He also sprouted ungodly amounts of hair and two cute little teeth. Watch out! This kid bites. (What kid doesn't, huh?)

Jack is his given name, but this child had many aliases. The most common of these is Bean. He also goes by Wiggle Pants, Wiggle Worm, Munchkin, Scrunchkin, Stinker Pants, and Monchichi.

Sometimes we think Jack might have Pica. He wants to eat everything but food. He has rejected rice cereal, peaches, avocado, peas, cheerios, watermelon, applesauce and bananas. The only three things he will eat are lemons, butternut squash soup, and large quantities of breast milk.

Jack's best friends are his cousin Madi, our cat Holly, his stuffed fish Fishy and his parents. He enjoys long walks, boobs, Sex and the City, and rubber duckies.

That about sums it up, I think. :)