A Landslide of Monthly Updates

Remember how I wanted to write a monthly letter to my son with a seasonal monthly photo?  Yeah, that was the plan.  I'm four months behind. 

You might remember THIS POST for November, his first month.

And THIS POST for December, when he had his first Christmas.

Annnnnd.... here we swoosh through four neglected months.  At least I remembered to take the pictures along the way.

Here we go:

Hi, Coleson!   You will be half a year old in eight days.  The cliche about time is most definitely true.  I can't believe you've been in the world for half a year.  Half. a. year.

What a six months it has been!

January...

In January...

* I agonized over whether to stay home longer with you, and finally decided that I would!

* I started hopping in the tub with you for bath time to give us a little extra bonding time.

* After each feeding, you belch like a teamster.

*  You saw snow for the first time.  I love holding you in front of the window as you quietly take it all in.

* You looked super fly in your snowsuit:

Your daddy had several snow days off from work, which we spent snuggling with you (and sitting comatose watching Walking Dead when you napped).

February...

* You giggled for the first time when we pretended our hands were spiders.  It was and is the most beautiful sound in the world.

* We hung with Mali and Missy a lot.  Mali and I joked that you will one day be betrothed to her daughter Ruby.

* You LOVE the song "Time to Say Goodbye" by Boccelli and grin whenever I put it on.

* You started to rock at tummy time.

* We stayed an Nana's for a week to help her while she recovered from surgery.  She didn't have curtains up in the guest room, so we had to tape black poster boards over the windows, so you could sleep in darkness.  It was like a boardwalk haunted house in there.

* Daddy and I started to debate the exact color of your eyes.  Brown?  Green?  Blue?  They vary according to the light in the room, although they seem to get muddier each month.

March...

 In March..

* You discovered your feet!

One day, I heard you squealing after a nap and came in to find you chewing on your toes happily.  Even the doctor marveled at how taken you were with them at your vaccine appointment.

* You met a new friend when Kate and her son Harrison came to visit.  You massaged his hair in this picture:

*  Like many other days in March, you were gassy and fussy during my 33rd birthday, so much so that I made a doctor's 'appointment at the end of the day.  I remembered past birthdays when I was wishing and praying for you, feeling so sad.  It made me smile to have you here, fussiness and all.  This birthday I got to sleep in until 10:00 and kiss your chubby cheeks.  During a calm moment, you looked at my giant birthday balloon with awe... and yanked on the ribbon so hard that it unraveled and flew up to the ceiling.

* You stare at the duckies at the park a few blocks from our house in amazement:

Your hair grew even longer:  I got to try out bad ass hairdos.

April...

* You had your first food!  It was strangely disgusting and enticing at the same time:  HERE

* We switched to the $30 tiny can of the Dom Perignon of formula.  The price makes us want to cry, but your fussy spells start to ease immediately.

* I brought you to one of those Mommy and Me, engaging music classes. It sucked. You mouthed a tambourine that probably had just been slobbered on during the class the half hour before ours and reached out and held a little girl's fingers.  When the moms all started singing a version of Old McDonald on speed, you shut that shit down by whimpering, whining, and then yelping.  You spent the rest of the class angrily sucking down a bottle, brows furrowed, to calm down while all the other babies gleefully crawled around you.

* You "opened" your first Easter basket and gift:

An enooooorrrrmooouuuuss exersaucer:

Here is what the Bunny brought you:

A Superman costume:

Some board books to gum:

And a fancy rattle:

Your Mimi, Grampy, and Nana all came for Easter, spoiling you and feeding you and making it so special.  Everyone fought to have their turn kissing your cheeks.

That's just a peek of the past few months, little meatball.  You are so loved.

I'm one of those people now

You know, those people that bore others with pictures and videos of their kid!

Since my last post was about the fourth circle of hell that has been Coleson's mood as of late (although he's much better now that we've switched formula!), I thought I'd share kind of an endearing quirk... he stops crying when I turn my iPhone camera towards him and start recording.  :)

* Here he is when he was one month old (socks on hands to prevent him from doing that creepy baby thing where they try to gouge their own eye out):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqTiEREIxsU

Here he is a few weeks ago:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKARz0WZWtk

And here he is now that we've changed formula... our happy boy again!  He loves his feet.  :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUmUvsiFfpk

Sorry, it's 11:30, and I just spent thirty minutes with my dad putting together Coleson's Easter present, so I have no energy to figure out how to actually embed these videos in the post.  It's probably a good thing because I don't want this blog to be entirely taken over with the bazillion of videos I've recorded!

Spring Break For-Evah?

I'm so thankful that Dan's on spring break just so we can tag team take care of Coleson. 

 For some reason, our little man has been crazy fussy the past four days: fine for about thirty minutes and then he is arching his back, shrieking for food, refusing food, stuffing toys in his mouth, screaming when they don't fit, spitting out his pacifier, refusing teething rings.  No fever, taking Zantac regularly, we've been to the doctor six times about acid reflux and never get new advice, so we're kind of at a loss.  All day long the past four days has been a constant troubleshooting match:  when did he get up?  Is he tired?  Let's try a nap.  Let's try strapping him to us and walking around.  Let's give him a tiny bit more Zantac.  Let's leave him alone.  Let's try to cuddle.  Let's call the doctor. Let's put him in a vibrating seat... swing... chair... laying down... on his tummy.  Let's rotate his legs.  Let's try a different nipple size on the bottle.  Let's try gripe water.  Did you take his temperature?  Is he wet?  How about a bath?  Let's try going in our backyard and letting him have fresh air.  Let's try feeding him less at a time... more at a time... thickening it with rice... a new formula... maybe he's ready for food... how bout a cold wash cloth to chew on? 

I feel like a shitty mom when I can't console him, you know?  Fellow moms, I'm hoping some of you have dealt with this at some point.  It just seems like he gets more agitated when I hold him sometimes, not less.  I try him on my shoulder, I try him reclining, I sit him up on me, I rock him... he just squirms and gets more and more wired and slams his hand in his mouth and then screams.  I hate that breastfeeding didn't work for us and think of that every time he gurgles, wondering if he was drinking that liquid gold nectar of the gods that every study and doctor and La Leche League champion talks about ... that he just might be completely fine right about now.  I wonder if he would relax in my arms more.  I worry that we missed that bonding, something I wanted so desperately for us.  Then, I give him a bottle, and he takes a few sips and then chews the nipple and then fusses.  Eye rubbing.  I realize that since he refused to nap earlier that maybe he is just plain exhausted, so I sing him his lullaby (which he harmonizes with frustrated shrieks) and put him down.  He cries like his heart is broken, like he's just been dumped.  I go downstairs and turn an episode of Four Weddings up to max volume and cry into the couch cushions.

 Today, Dan left to take care of dealing with an issue with his Smart Tag pass and stayed out for two hours of quiet.   Later when it was my turn, I went to Old Navy to buy new socks and then the grocery for allergy medicine.  It was blissful.  

Not really asking for advice... I guess I just needed to vent and maybe see if this has happened to anyone else at five months (I thought we left extreme fussiness behind at eight weeks, but I guess I was wrong).  It's hard to see that this too shall pass when my little love is in pain...

Home trend bandwagon

I am realizing that I tend to jump on home trend bandwagons with gusto (*cough... chevron! numbered stairs! decals! ikat!).  Add a new one to the mix: Moroccan stencil!  

My before of my dining room:

And now with a new paint color and after stenciling one wall:

The paint color is toasted almond, which I had leftover from my living room and foyer.  The pea green paint just had to go.

This accent wall was the Everest of getting all DIY-y and crafty for me.  There was swearing, people.

I just used this stencil I bought at Hobby Lobby and leftover trim paint in a satin sheen finish.

The sections around the door were mind-numbingly slow to do...



Basically, I grabbed a piece of cardboard and an Exacto knife and traced a small piece of the stencil onto it so that it would fit in the area between the un-stenciled wall and the kitchen entryway's moulding.

I have to say that I love the finished product:

It looks even better at night, but I couldn't get a photo that accurately captured it.

What else?  Oh, I moved the photos of my grandparents and of Dan and I on our wedding day:

The mirror was a Target find ($25 during recent home sale!)

The first time, we didn't secure it to the wall well enough and it crashed down in the middle of the night, and Dan ran downstairs in his boxers with a baseball bat and I was clutching my cell phone and standing at Coleson's door all, "Try to take my baby and I'll throw your ass down the stairs!!"  See, you thought this was just a home post, but you are getting peeks into our world!  Anyhoo, Dan discovered that the mirror had just fallen (miraculously not breaking), and it took us about an hour to get back to sleep after all the excitement. 

This bad boy is now practically soldered to the wall.

So call me a follower, but I have jumped on this trend.  I'm thinking this is one that will seem silly ten years from now, like 80's floral border or something, but right now I am loving it.

My Sister's April Shower!

It's almost midnight, and I feel like I have been hit with a tranquilizer dart. I got my ass handed to me this weekend from all the OCD planning of my sister's bridal shower, the military level of organization that I used to set it up, the non-stop sugar and sangria, and then taking care of a demanding yet adorable, fifteen pound little meatball all day today. Guess he didn't care that his mama was a little hungover!

You might remember that I decided to milk the "April Shower Brings Wedding Flowers" theme. 

 Unfortunately, our venue was all Ron Burgandy-esque, an upscale steak house with dark wood paneling and manly bottles of whiskey.  After three hours of putting girly touches everywhere and getting my Dad to hang tissue paper flowers and my mom to help arrange tulips, I was so happy with the results!  The pictures still came out wayyyyy too dark and/or washed out from the flash and don't really portray how fun the atmosphere ended up looking.  I mean, not to toot my own horn, but five of the waitresses came in to ooh and awww over the decor, and then the hostess broke out her iPhone to document everything so she could duplicate it for her upcoming bridal shower!

Toot!  Toot!

I hung tissue paper rain clouds with pink drops, and covered the ugly stain glass windows with fun paper (which, sadly, looked so cute in person, but not as cute in the below picture).  When guests arrived, I had them sign rain drops to hang from a pink polka dot umbrella as a guestbook:

Here's what was in the sign to the right of the umbrella:

Terrible dark picture of one guest using it:

The guests came up with the best "date" ideas, like catapulting popcorn into each other's mouths on a rainy day.  It turned out very cute.  They also dropped off recipes for Bethany to use on cute recipe cards I had included in the invitation.

Next to the umbrella, I set up a candy bar:

Yep, milking the theme dry:

I was most excited about the old-school candy buttons.  Let me tell you, these girls did not disappoint when it came to partaking in this bar.  They're all mostly health nuts, but they filled tons of bags for their husbands!

I somehow neglected to take pictures of tons of areas, but there were pink and orange pinwheels, blowpops wrapped up as dahlias "growing" out of pots, watering cans of tulips, and tissue paper flowers and rain clouds everywhere.  You have to use your imagination because it was much prettier in person, promise!

In the back room, I hung tons of photo garland of Bethany with each of her guests (pilfered from her Facebook page), a banner that read "Bethany's April Shower"), pink flowers, and set up the menu cards and gift bags:

The chevron bags said, "From Bethany's Shower... to Yours!" and had this vintagey looking clip art that I bought:

Inside were raspberry pink louffas and little bottles of cherry blossom scented shower gel.  I was way too excited about these damn favors.  The shower gel bottles even said "April Shower Gel" on them which pretty much gave me a party planning "O" face.  :)

The menu cards I created and put at each place setting:

What else??  We started the shower by dividing into teams and playing "bathroom bride" where each group chooses someone to be a bride and then decorates her using only two rolls of toilet paper. They were divided into groups according to which photo they had on their nametag necklace. Bethany voted on a winner, after she took pictures with each group in my make-shift photo booth:

Prop table for photo booth (way more fun than it looks in this picture):

My parents before the shower started:

I was the "groom" in this picture rocking Dan's t-shirt tuxedo and looking completely like a dude.

All the bathroom brides (this cheesy game was kind of a hit!)

We our decadent three course meal and chatted it up.  

During dessert, I passed out this little game I created (idea stolen from Pinterest):

It was a hit, especially the third fact.  Bethany can't stand buttons, even as a kid.  She used to say they were gross if they were loose, like a tooth about to fall out.  Weird girl, that one!

I guess there's not much to tell about the rest of the shower.  We ate, drank a ton of sangria, played Bridal Bingo while Bethany opened her gifts... you know, the usual.

I'll have to share the survival kit basket I made for Bethany later because I was really proud of it.  Below is her crying when she opened the last package in the basket... her "something old."  It's the hankie that I used on my wedding day from our beloved Grammy.  I also gave her a pale blue thong as her "something blue" and she's using my lace mantilla veil as her "something borrowed".

So that's my insanely long midnight recap so I don't forget all the effort that went into this day.  The bride was happy, so I guess that's all that matters in the end.

 Now I am apparently on planning the bachelorette party... yeesh!  I'm not exactly the "Come on, you bitches!  Let's parrrrty!!!!" kinda girl.  More like a, "Come on, ladies!  Let's drink martinis in our pj's and talk all night!!" so I guess I will need to steal ideas from the interweb for that one.  Although I do love to dance and I do love a theme, so I guess I am beginning to brew some ideas already...

Anyhoo, thanks for your virtual attendance at this one!