Silly pictures

Just for fun...

One step closer

...to being on the East Side again.

Enchanted Island

Paul's sister, Meghan, has asked us to join her and some of the rest of Paul's family at Enchanted Island again today, so we gladly accepted. The first time we went there, Paul and I had never heard of it. Enchanted Island is a amusement park for children located on Encanto near 7th Avenue. They have various rides, a water area, and a train.

Evan and Grandma

Practicing drinking water

Protected from the nasty sun!We were able to go on Evan's first train ride. He even had a meltdown! There we were, enjoying the ride while Evan was eating apples and playing with the top of his bottle. All of a sudden, he started shaking and crying. Even the train operator turned around to see what he was doing. I think it was the combination of heat + new environment+ almost meal time + almost nap time finally got to him. He calmed down shortly after and enjoyed the rest of the ride.

Prior to the meltdown...

and after.

Thanks for inviting us again, Meghan!

pre-baby life

My mom has offered to take Evan overnight since the moment he was born. Lately, she has been offering more and more, so Paul and I finally decided to take her up on it (with some hesitation on my part).

Last night, we took Evan to my parent's house for the night. Paul and I went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Abuelo's, and then watched a movie in the theaters. (You know you're a parent when you have no clue about any of the movies that are playing.) After the movie, we had some Dairy Queen Blizzards! They were delicious! Besides, they were buy one get the other for $.25 this week for their anniversary, so how could we resist?

We were able to come home, relax on the couch a little while watching some t.v., and then we fell asleep by 11:00. Exciting, right?! I actually woke up at 5:30 am (Evan's wake up time) and got up to pump. I was back in bed by 6 and slept until 9:00. It was AMAZING! Even though we were able to rest and sleep as much as we wanted, I'm still tired. I have a feeling that I won't get a chance to truly catch up on sleep until we're done having kids and they're much older, but for now, it was wonderful.

On the other-hand, I missed my baby. The house seemed so quiet and empty without him here. When we arrived at my parents, I imagined being greeted with a huge smile and him wanting me to hold him. In reality, it took him a few seconds to register who we were, but the smile finally came. (Although I think some of the delay came from the fact that he had woken from his morning nap just prior. At least that's what I'm telling myself.) The best moment of this morning was when I was able to nurse him. How I missed that feeling.

I am so thankful that my parents were able to give Paul and I some much needed alone time and rest. I am also thankful that we got our baby back....I was afraid my mom was going to keep him!

Ten month amendment

I failed to mention a few things in my previous post. First off, Evan has discovered doorstops. Booooiiiinnnnggggg!!!!!

His new favorite sitting position is...

and he loves to shake things in his hands: the tin of cashews, a baggie of pacifiers, a box of crackers, my camera. The list goes on!

Ah...and the seperation anxiety. I will leave the room to shower and he starts getting upset. Yesterday when my mom left to go home he became VERY upset that he almost started crying. Poor guy.

Ten Months

We're 5/6 of the way to a year! I'm constantly boggled by how quickly time seems to be flying past. Today is Evan's 10 month birthday and he celebrated by taking barely any naps.

Apparently this day I missed the red memo.

If you ask me, I think Evan will be walking before he's a year old. He cruises around the furniture by either holding on with two hands, one hand on and the other with a toy, or one hand on and the other gripping your finger. Even when you support him with your hands, he loves to "run" around the house.

Lately, Evan has also been crawling even faster than before. He's quite silly - now when he crawls he loves to keep something in one of his hands.

Evan still loves milk, but has really caught on to other solid foods. He has now added cauliflower, cottage cheese, plums, strawberries, pear juice (for his #2 issues) and teething crackers. His favorites include apples and yellow squash.

As far as sleeping goes, he's still waking up every 3-4 hours at night. We spoke to our doctor about our developmental concerns that he might have if he's not getting the REM sleep that he needs. He recommended that we do a modified version of the Ferber Method. This would now the third time we tried this with Evan. Again, it didn't work. Ferber says that by the third or fourth night it should be better and the child should be falling asleep quickly. YEAH RIGHT! Evan would cry and scream each time we put him down for naps and bedtime for at least 30 minutes. We stopped (yet again) after the 4th night when it wasn't improving. To make it worse, during this third attempt Evan became so fearful of his room that he would even start to cry when we would go in to change his diaper. Since then, I still nurse him to sleep and my mom rocks him for naps. Even though he's not sleeping through the night, at least he's not crying and he loves his room again.

During this last month, Evan has been teething a lot. He now has four teeth to prove it! I think more are on their way since he still gnaws at everything, including us!

One of Evan's favorite games is peek-a-boo. He'll crawl around corners to see if he can find us. He even pulls blankets and pillows off in order to find us underneath them. Lately, he's become amused with my belly button. He will move my arm if I'm covering it and then poke it. After that, he'll try to nurse it. What a silly kid!

He's definitely at the stage where he loves to take things OUT of their place. Including: his clothes out of their drawers, dad's clothes out of the drawers, toys out of their basket/box, and books off the bookshelf. See...


One of the things that makes Evan extremely happy is being outside. He loves feeling the wind in his hair and looking at all the plants. I keep telling Paul that I wouldn't be surprised if he grew up to be a botanist.

Evan also loves riding in his stroller, either outside or inside. The other day we went to get my oil changed and took his stroller along. I tried to take him out and he fussed. Don't most kids cry when you put them in? Not mine. He also loves riding on our computer chairs.

Happy ten months, beautiful boy!

It's been a long time coming

I've been thinking about starting a new blog for a while about invitations that I design as well as other ideas that I fancy. I wasn't sure if I should do it, but I've been inspired lately by a few people. Two of them being my friends, Sarah and Ashley, who have both started additional blogs. The other is my sister. She's considering starting her own business. If she can start her own company, I can start a new blog. So here it is...

Tea Time

Yesterday was my mom's birthday, so today my sister and I took her for tea at the Phoenician. This is something everyone (at least everyone woman or girl) should do. It's relaxing yet it makes you feel sophisticated and elegant. I just wish I had taken my camera.

We started by selecting our tea from a menu of more than 20, including decaffeinated teas. My sister and I also chose to have champagne, which was an extra $9.00 and was unlimited! You get your tea served in beautiful floral porcelain teapots and you have to use a tea strainer too!

Then came the finger sandwiches. My favorites were the egg salad and cucumber ones. After that, we enjoyed cranberry and buttermilk scones with strawberry preserves, lemon curd, and yummy Devonshire cream.

And the last course was desserts.

Chocolate covered strawberries, mini fruit tarts, shortbread cookies, chocolate somethings, lemon somethings, raspberry cake, and fruit cake. DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!

Easter

I must admit, we were bad Catholics this year. We did not attend Easter mass.

I also know that there really is no excuse that we shouldn't have attended, but I must also say that when you live 40 minutes away from your church and all the mass times fall during or just before naps, it's tough to do. So instead of going to church, we watched it on t.v.

Afterwards, we headed to the Phoenix Country Club to have brunch with Paul's family. First off, we tried to take a picture of the cousins. Notice that it's our child that's not cooperating?
Evan was also able to see his first farm animals since the club had a petting zoo. Evan did no such petting and decided to play with my water bottle instead.

Poor guy did not nap well beforehand and passed out soon after we put him back into the car.
My family came over in the evening for hamburgers and Bailey's cheesecake brownies (thanks, Emma!). My mom even showed us how much Evan loves getting pushed around in my computer chair!

It was a hectic day but I'm glad that we were able to spend it with our families.

Nick

My dad posted this on Nick's Facebook memory wall. This day is such a vivid moment that I will always remember. Makes me laugh every time...

I am sure my daughter will right some thing later. She was Nick's seat partner during the 2003 Cadets season. I first met Nick by phone, during one of the calls home for my daughter. In San Antonio we bought them some goodies, and my daughter said "get Nick some Dr. Peppers" he loves them. So we got him a 12 pack, and ...a small 6oz Dr. Pepper too, when we arrived we gave our daughter her big bag of stuff for both of them, then I handed Nick the little Dr.Pepper and said "enjoy" he looked at me and the expression on his face was like..."you bastard, you brought your daughter a big bag of stuff, and you bring me this stupid little Dr. Pepper" then I gave him his 12 pack, and he was all smiles and happy. My last image of him and my daughter, was thru the window of the bus as they proceded to try and get there stuff in the already packed overhead of the bus.
Thank you Nick for watching out for my daughter that summer. May your family find peace in this difficult time.

In shock

I received a phone call from my dad today and after further research and finally speaking with a friend, it was confirmed that my dear friend, Nick Saputo, was killed in a car accident on Saturday night.

I met Nick when we marched The Cadets together in 2003. He was my bus seat partner during the season. We became such good friends during our time together. I confided in him when I was having miserable days and he made me laugh every single day. He will be greatly missed.

Milk reversal

Believe me, I love that I'm still nursing Evan. I love the bonding time that we get when he nurses. Lately, however, that time has come at night. All night.

Over the past week, Evan has decided to take in his calories at night. So much so that he's been going through at least two-three diapers each night and STILL leaking out of them. In fact, I've been peed on three times. Not during diaper changes, but while nursing him. So really, it's either our diapers suck or he's drinking too much. I think he's drinking too much. It probably doesn't help that I still nurse him back to sleep. (Although Evan's getting better at falling back to sleep with Daddy.)

My mom says that during the day he doesn't want to drink much milk and he doesn't have many wet diapers. That again leads me to believe that he is reverse cycling.

I know that I should consider it a compliment that my son would rather eat from me than a bottle. I LOVE that he chooses me. But I wish that he would choose me during the DAY. Today for instance, he only had three good feedings. One of those was 3 ounces from Paul who gave him a bottle.

I'm tired. I need sleep. Paul needs to sleep. I want my baby to get good night's sleep. At the same time, I'm sure the fact that his top teeth are coming in must have SOMETHING to do with it. RIGHT?!