It would appear that molar number 2 means 2 night wakings. Hopefully #3 doesn’t lead to 3, and #4 doesn’t lead to 4!!!!
I can only assume that the little molar is making its way through the gums. I can’t think of a single other reason kiddo is awake for the 2nd time.
I cannot remember the last time he woke up twice in one night. That’s a lovely thing to be able to say. But it also means that I’m out of practice and I feel like I might die of exhaustion.
I really hate molars.
So the song “a few of my favorite things” doesn’t just talk about nice things like raindrops on roses and brown paper packages tied up with string, it also includes a rather rotten list of non-favorites. You know, bee stings and dog bites and such.
I have one non-favorite to add to the next remix of the song: when your kid wakes up in the middle of the night and you finally get him back to sleep and into his crib, and you make it out of his room, close the door, creep back to your room and get into bed… only to have him wake up screaming again right when your head hits the pillow.
Not sure how they’d fit that into the song. But it belongs there. Because it is definitely not a favorite thing.
I woke up feeling a little sore today. What a wonderful feeling! My body is awake! (Even if my mind isn’t. Kiddo sure woke up early!)
Even better than the physical feeling of being sore is how fabulous I feel today. My body has been asking for this and I haven’t been able to give it what it wanted. Working out changes everything. I feel so good mentally that I actually feel like I already look different physically. But I don’t! I just feel better about myself!
I love that I felt ready for this. And I love that I knew what my body was craving. And I love that I finally gave it a dose of what it needed.
Go me!
I ordered some exercise videos, since going to the gym has not been easy. I have tried doing at-home video workouts before and given up after not very long. But I am feeling so motivated, and I just can’t figure out a different way to enable myself to use that motivation regularly. Getting to the gym with baby duty and house stuff and work is just… way too hard, apparently. I want to go so badly, but after over a week of trying, I still haven’t gone.
And the videos aren’t a big investment, in the end. It’s a small risk, so even if it doesn’t work out (pun intended!), no big loss. Nothing compared to taking a gamble on the gym!
Anyway, I did my first workout today and I really enjoyed it. It was 25 minutes, and even with it being so short, I felt pretty good afterwards. It was challenging!
For further motivation, I took some “before” pictures so as I go I can see my progress. I’m not going to share those with the Internet at the moment, but I think they’ll do wonders for my personal motivation.
I showed them to Kyle, however, and he was horrified and told me that he needed to retake them. I had taken them in our fun-house full length mirror. “Fun” is definitely not the right word to describe what that thing shows you. I compared the pictures Kyle took to the ones I took in the mirror and let’s just say that that mirror does me no favors. Kyle was right – I do not need to live my life thinking that mirror is telling the truth.
Imagine that that mirror is the only resource I have to look at my body! What a terrible message to be sending to myself everyday! I thought it was a good tool to keep me on track with working out and eating right because I wouldn’t be satisfied with what I see, but after seeing how exaggerated things are in that mirror, I’m thinking it is more hurtful than helpful. I don’t think I could ever be satisfied by what I see in that awful fun-house mirror, even if I were in the best shape of my life.
I think we need to look into replacing it.
And I’m excited about my new videos and to watch my progression in my pictures!
Kyle and I were hit with runny-nose freight trains yesterday evening. My cold came on like gangbusters. I went from feeling 100% normal to having a full-blown cold (pun intended) within 60 minutes.
Today, running on less sleep than I ideally get, and rocking the runny nose… phew.
PHEW.
Tired!
Summer colds are silly and unnecessary. I hope this goes away as quickly as it came on!!
We are up in the middle of the night for the first time in weeks. That’s when you really know that kiddo isn’t feeling well.
Our normal has definitely become sleeping through the night, with wakeup time in the morning being quite variable. It is nice to go to bed feeling confident that I’m going to get a decent night’s sleep.
Kiddo’s teeth must really be bugging him to have him up at 1am. He’s now had tylenol and is dozing in my arms. I’m waiting for the telltale limpness that assures me that he’s actually asleep. It has been 30 minutes, which seems like a long time, but I’m guessing that the tylenol needs to fully kick in before sleep can take him.
Poor baby. I wish the pain never touched him.
Hi. I’m Carolyn. Remember me? I’m Lewis’ mom. You may know about him, since all I do is talk about him and write about him and love on him… but I’m a person too. So… hi!
Between being a mom, maintaining some kind of contact/relationship with my husband, doing dishes/laundry, working full time and preparing for the appraisal for our refinance, I sometimes forget about me, too.
I’ve been putting in an honest effort at remembering myself. And I’d have to sum up my success with one pseudo-word: Meh.
I am craving change in my body. I even put the classes at my gym that I wanted to attend on my calendar last week. There were 4 of them, including reminders. Would you like to guess how many I went to? Correct! Zero.
The excuses are both ridiculous and valid at the same time. Like the day I had to do dishes so we’d have sippy cups to send to school with Lewis the next day, and by the time I was done with that (and dinner!), the class had been over for 30 minutes and it was Lewis’ bedtime.
Or the day when Kyle didn’t make it home from work until about 8pm because there was a sink hole at one of the projects he is working on that literally shut down an entire city block (I mean… you can’t make this sh*% up!). And that meant I was on baby duty.
I have also been dying to work on some quilts that have been in the works forever. Similar excuses. Mostly: baby duty.
My back has also not recovered still. I haven’t even found the time to call anyone to make an appointment to get it checked out. Probably because I’m terrified that then I’ll actually have to find time to go to said appointment. *shudder*
I’d even like to – just once – blow dry and straighten my hair in the morning before work. But that takes like 5 extra minutes. And thinking about doing that makes me laaaaaaugh.
It’s a good thing that my reason for not being able to do all the things I want to do is also my reason for living, for breathing. Each moment I can’t spend doing things for myself is a moment I am spending comforting my teething baby, or laughing with him, or playing a game with him. Even admonishing him for his naughty behavior feels kind of wonderful, because I can see him listening and learning. And I’m so entranced by this tiny person that… wait. Who is Lewis’ mom again? What did she want? I can’t remember. Did you see what Lewis did? Awwww.
But seriously. I have been remembering myself occasionally. Like doing some small exercise routines every 90 minutes at work, eating better, getting myself out of the house with Lewis this weekend while Kyle was away doing other things, and seeing my family. And I cut my toenails, which feels like a huge win (why is that so hard for me to find time to do?!).
So “Meh” is the most accurate summary of my success at maintaining myself. I’d like to shoot higher than that, and I’m going to keep trying. But again… did you see what Lewis just did? AWWWWW!!!!
Last night, a discovery was made. We were at my mom’s for dinner, when she said that she could see where Lewis was getting his molar. This was interesting to me, since I had had to pull back his lip in order to see it myself, and I hadn’t caught my mom with her finger in Lewis’ mouth.
Well… Mom had seen some molar action in an entirely different spot: on the bottom. No manual exploration necessary when the kiddo laughs with his mouth wide open and gives you the show effort-free.
I fished around in his mouth to confirm, and sure enough! He is getting his bottom molars and his top molars at the same time.
What is that about, Mother Nature?! Only one on the top has popped through partially, as I mentioned previously, but you can feel the hard, distinct bulges on the bottom gums as well.
Kiddo has been waking up at 4:45 screaming for 4 days straight, but he has been sleeping well otherwise, and has been generally cheerful during the day. Nothing compared to the two days a couple weekends ago where he was sad all the time (although I am quite tired). This says to me that his molars will annoy him in general until they are working on actually popping through… at which time the entire world will end.
At least I know it is coming.
Lewis has been so clingy and sad lately. I thought it was something to do with the shots, and that may have been true to some degree, but I have found a much better explanation.
Lewis is finally getting his molars! I spotted the corner of one already through the gums on one side. Aha! That clears that all up!
Molars suck and make my baby sad. Got it.
Also a possible explanation for some of his lackluster eating.
Silver lining? So many baby snuggles!!!
After over 15 months, we’ve finally had a special milestone. Yes, my friends, Lewis finally pooped in the tub.
Hooray.
I was watching The Bachelorette while Kyle bathed the child, and I suddenly heard, “ahem. Carolyn? Can you come help?”
Hahaha the rest is history.
I got a dose of good news last week – Starting in August, I get to work from home another day each week, and Lewis gets to be home with me. Wednesdays and Fridays we’ll be home together!
I’m very excited about this change for a number of reasons:
Another exciting daycare change is that Lewis will be moving up to Wobblers a month earlier than they initially planned. A spot has unexpectedly opened up, and Lewis will take it. I think he will thrive in there, where the environment and activities are more age appropriate. Additionally, they will finally be providing food for him in that classroom, which means I don’t have to schlep things back and forth or spend 15 minutes each morning pouring milk and packing lunch/snacks for kiddo. BONUS: that means 3 days a week where food is covered. AKA we don’t have to pay for it. We’ll save money there too!
All of this money saving with daycare/food/commuting costs combined with the money we’re saving through refinancing (rate locked this weekend! YAY!) means that we’ll be feeling a lot of relief financially. I redid our budget-forecast through December 2017, and things are looking much brighter.
Unfortunately, they’re not so bright that we’ll be able to have a second kid when we want to. But they’re bright enough that we can see the kid at the end of the tunnel. Before these financial changes, we felt hopeless for growing our family. But now hope has returned, and where there is hope, there are happy people.
We’re the happy people, in case that wasn’t clear.
Kiddo seems to have had a bad reaction to his 15 month shots. He’s been feverish today, and veryclingy.
We wanted to get a million things done around the house so it will be ready for our appraisal in 2 weeks, but because of veryclingy kid, we only did half a million.
He woke up from his afternoon nap after only 30 minutes, which isn’t nearly long enough. So I went in and he napped in my arms for an hour or so. It was the only way he would sleep. Like I said… veryclingy. And not a lot accomplished in that time.
He has been funny about naps lately in general. Some days he takes one and does smashingly. Other days he needs two or else. I guess we must be in a transition period, and flexibility is the name of the game. But with him feeling a little under the weather, there was no doubt today was a two nap day!
Hoping this silly fever is gone tomorrow and that my independent, energetic, happy kid is back.
Progress on the house continues tomorrow as well, with reinforcements in the form of Kyle’s dad. Out to the yard we go!
Kiddo had his 15 month checkup yesterday afternoon, and by almost all measures, he is perfectly average! 45th to 50th percentile for all physical measurements, on track for all motor skills, all body parts are healthy, social skills are normal. What a guy!
The only area where he stood out a bit was his language development. The doc asked how many words he had and I said I estimated about 20. Her jaw hit the floor! She said 15 month olds usually have around 5 words. So King Lewie is kicking some butt there.
Kyle and I could not be happier. He is gaining weight (slowly), and growing and learning. That’s all we want! We’re so proud that he is on track in all areas, and totally shocked and thrilled that he is ahead of the curve on something too.
The only thing the doc wasn’t 100% thrilled with was kiddo’s milk intake. She’d like to increase that a few ounces per day. So we have homework. It’ll be tough since Lewis knows he decides what he does and doesn’t eat/drink, but we will keep offering milk as much as possible, and that’s all we can do!
Additional developmental news from daycare: Lewis has started taking instruction very well, and will mostly listen when you tell him “no thank you”, which is how they have decided to redirect behavior. We mirror their techniques at home for consistency, and I have definitely noticed that verbal redirection really is starting to be more effective, and I find myself physically intervening much less frequently. What a rewarding milestone, and what a good boy!
I happened upon this article about navigating the loss of a longtime friendship today, and parts of it really hit home for me. The author’s lost friendship looked different than mine, but loss is loss, and the feelings she described were very familiar to me.
I’ve been struggling to understand the loss of some friendships in my life, see-sawing between anger, disappointment, self-doubt, blame, and indifference. Most of the feelings have been so negative, and without true closure, I’ve been unable to move on and see any positives.
But I don’t like how that feels, so reading this article was refreshing, and gave a new perspective. I hope remembering the words the author shared will also be a tool to help me navigate through and past my own friendship losses.
The ending, in particular, will be helpful for me, I think.
…that’s exactly what it means to be an adult — it means accepting change without burning the thing that has changed to the ground. It means moving forward without trying to minimize what’s being left behind.
It means looking out at that horizon and bearing witness to the loss of a friendship without denying everything that was once beautiful about it.
I hope that someday I can look back on the lost friendships and be grateful, instead of feeling the horrible, ugly feelings I’ve been feeling. I want to file those feelings away for good. But before I’ve achieved that, I also hope to remember in the moments of weakness where I’m feeling hurt and angry that I don’t have to burn the friendship to the ground.
I admit, sometimes I am tempted to lash out and be vicious, to burn the friendship to the ground. The sudden “ghosting” without explanation is so uncomfortable and unclear, and I have nothing to latch on to in order to move on. Something inside me thinks that a violent ending would at least be an explainable ending – something I understand – instead of this strange nothingness. I have resisted that temptation so far, and I think after reading this article, I may be able to finally accept the nothingness of the end of these friendships and find peace in putting them behind me.
I’ve been feeling a bit down lately. Lonely still, mostly. But there are definitely other contributors to the dip in my morale. I’ve been trying a few things to get myself feeling good again, and I’ve been somewhat successful.
Exercising: I still have that goal of getting my weight into the 150’s again, because my body feels its best there. I’m not seeing any progress on the scale, but I did exercise 6 out of 7 days last week. Granted, most of that “exercising” was daily walks to the park with Kyle and Lewis. But it counts, dammit. It has to count because it is all I have time for. My eating hasn’t been perfect (or even anywhere close to perfect), but I choose to be proud of the fact that I’ve moved almost daily recently. The numbers on the scale and my reflection in the mirror will change eventually. I’ve started the process.
Lewis: There is nothing better than your child learning and changing to make you feel amazing. Lewis has learned so many new things lately. He has a ton of new words (diaper! socks! hi! the sign for milk!), which makes me so proud. It feels like there is a new word every day, and I just can’t believe it! He also loves to give kisses. He kisses his stuffed animals, he kisses me and Kyle, he kisses books (last night he kissed every single page!)… it is so sweet and wonderful.
And yesterday, after the bridal shower I threw, a 7 year old boy and his mom were leaving the party when Lewis did the most adorable thing. The boy had given Lewis a high five earlier, and apparently Lewis loved him after that. He was terrified of all the women at the party, but when the boy was leaving, Lewis chased him to the back door and just stood there with his arms open waiting for a hug, which the boy happily returned to give him. Watching my son connect with other people ignites my soul. I can’t describe it any other way. I just feel this inner joyful burning, which is pleasant and explosive at the same time. I felt like I was bursting out of my skin I was so proud.
Friends: I’m trying. I’m trying really hard to connect with people again. I can’t understand what has happened that I feel so utterly friendless and alone. My confidence is completely gone. Because of the actions of a few (formerly) close friends, I suddenly feel like no one likes me and, well, why would they? This feeling has led me to question every friendship I have, even the ones where my friends have not “ghosted” me. But I’m trying to remind myself that I’m not a hateful person, and force myself to reach out to the people who might still care about me. Two friends I hadn’t seen in a while were at the bridal shower I hosted yesterday, and we’ve already got a playdate scheduled for our kids in a couple weeks. It is a good start. I initiated the plan, despite the little voice in my head saying, “they’ll only say yes because it’s awkward to say no”. I just need to get my confidence back. I already feel better after the party yesterday and the new entry on my social calendar. New mantra: “not everyone hates you, dummy.”
Refinance: Money is a constant stressor. As I mentioned before, we’re refinancing our mortgage in an effort to help with our budget. We had looked into it a few months ago, but it didn’t seem to be the right time. Now, however, it is an excellent time. Interest rates dropped even more (thank you, Brexit!), and our property value went up enough for it to make sense mathematically. We’re not going to see our PMI completely drop off, but it will decrease significantly, and our new loan-to-value ratio will be much better, so the PMI will drop off automatically in the not-so-distant future. We’ll see a break-even point on the savings vs. the closing costs within 14 months, which is totally worth it. We can’t do a cash-out refinance to pay off debts, but this all works out to a lower monthly mortgage payment by a couple hundred bucks. It isn’t a total financial game changer, but it will make a difference. Additionally, there will be one month without a mortgage payment after closing, which means we can replenish our savings account for emergencies and make an extra payment towards a debt or two. I feel very positive about making this change, and I hope it will make every month’s budgeting process slightly easier to manage and significantly less stressful.
So I’m working on improving my life, my outlook, and my mood from as many angles as I can manage. Through physical changes, financial improvements, social interaction, and focusing on the joy brought by my family, I hope my mental and emotional outlook continues to get better. There is no quick fix, but I’m proud of myself for working on things instead of wallowing in self pity. Self pity never helps anyone, and I would much rather feel happy and positive. Your mood is ultimately your choice, so I’m making my choice.
Dad took Lewis to the Oregon Coast while I threw a bridal shower. Perfect day for a baby Oregonian. Socks with sandals premiere for the kiddo.
Steady diet of cheerios, toast, bananas, saltines, and water today. Trying not to push the limits of baby’s little tummy. Been getting some smiles out of him here and there! On the mend, for sure. Let’s hear it for 14 hrs vomit free!
Here is some parenting realness for you – kid vomited in the middle of the night. We got cleaned up, did laundry, comforted the kid. Then the kid wouldn’t go back to sleep unless I was touching him. So we slept on a pile of towels on his bedroom floor. The sun is up now, we’ve gotten a couple hours of sleep, and the kid is up and at it. I, on the other hand… 😴
Welcome to our house, stomach flu. Now please go away.
This hasn’t happened since Lewis was old enough to eat solids. And it has never happened when I wasn’t in the same room as him, but I knew what the sound was over the monitor right away.
I dashed into his room and turned on the lights to find a very sad, very sticky baby.
He barfed again while I was undressing him. I grabbed Kyle for cleanup duty and went to sit in the bathtub with the kid. He barfed again.
At this point, I have vomit literally on my face. And plenty of other places too.
Kyle completes the sheet change and carpet cleaning, and laundry is started. He makes a throne for us out of the rocker by covering it with towels.
That’s where kiddo and I currently sit, both of us in our underwear.
I guess this is where I’ll be all night. He is asleep, and I’m not sure how to handle this, seeing as it is my first time. Do I put him back in his crib and go hose down/go to sleep? That doesn’t seem right… but sitting here sucks too.
I imagine getting sick myself is just a matter of time now. Lewis and I shared a spoon last night at dinner. And, of course, he vomited on my face. So there’s that…
Life has been full speed ahead since arriving home from California 9 days ago. Lewis was an angel on the airplane home, even jumping into my mom’s lap before takeoff – his first willingly-initiated interaction with another person all weekend (and a big step for him and my mom!). Then he slept the whole flight.
Once we arrived back at the house, it was as if he was a brand new baby. My baby. We had thought he might be sick while we were in San Jose, and even almost took him to urgent care to check his ears… but I guess the real explanation is that I accidentally took Mr. Hyde with me to California, and my sweet baby Dr. Lewis Jekyll was left behind in Portland!
Despite the trials of having kiddo with me, I do think that the trip to California helped me to mourn and find closure after my Grandad’s death. I particularly notice a difference in my ability to track and focus. I have been much less forgetful and overwhelmed. This is why funerals are important – those left behind need them in order to heal and move on.
I can’t even remember what happened during the work week last week. I think that’s what happens when you’ve been away from home for a weekend and have to dive right back into working-mom life with a toddler without any room for a breather (although Kyle did take Lewis to his dad’s for a few hours after we landed so I could do laundry and rest. He’s a saint). I managed to keep my head above water, though, and the long holiday weekend saved me. I feel like a new woman this week!
The holiday weekend was lovely and relaxing for us. We have decided to refinance our house (more on that later), so we started a couple small things to get ready for the appraisal. And we did a few errands here and there (washed cars, groceries, haircut, shoe shopping for Lewis, etc). But mostly we relaxed, took walks, went to the park, saw family, and napped. I’ve been trying to take it easy due to Lewis-carrying induced back pain since California, so a calm, relaxing weekend was just right.
Lewis went to sleep around 8 on the 4th, and when the fireworks started just before 10, he didn’t even stir. I couldn’t believe it! The noise was insane, and kiddo just slept right through it. He’s been a good little sleeper most of the time lately, including two weeks straight of me not needing to get up for him even once. I know this streak won’t last forever, but I like that it is becoming the “norm” and I’m enjoying it for now!
We had a suspicion that we would be able to see all of the fireworks across the river in Vancouver, where the ground-to-sky fireworks are legal, from our balcony. Those kinds of fireworks are not legal for personal use in Oregon, so we were pretty excited about the potential for a free show. Therefore, we elected to stay home and see what we could see from our house (AKA no one invited us anywhere and we were too lazy to make other plans). It turned out to be a great way to spend the evening. We saw thousands of fireworks going off across the Columbia from Portland, and we even got to see the Fort Vancouver fireworks show!!! I have a feeling that hanging on our balcony for the 4th of July will be a tradition for years to come.
Upcoming plans include: trying to get my back to stop hurting so I can sleep better, staying active and eating healthy in order to lose a few pounds, working on the refinance, throwing a bridal shower for my best friend, working like a madwoman, cleaning the house, and keeping our everyday life going. Lewis has his 15 month appointment next Thursday, so we’re looking forward to getting his stats then!
Happy 4th from this goober! Wearing his stars and stripes today.
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