Progress

Well, we now have two cribs in our house. Crazy! The baby's nursery furniture arrived late last Sunday, and Nick was a good sport and put it all together for me that night. Charlie had a blast helping Daddy. Nick gave him a spare Allen wrench to play with while he worked. Charlie imitated Nick by twisting the Allen wrench into pieces of styrofoam from the packaging. He also loved playing in the big boxes that the furniture came in. He and I were able to sit together in the cool fort that Nick made out of the crib box. We just got the mattress yesterday, so Charlie decided he should test out the bed for his baby bro. ***Excuse the bed head in the picture below. He just woke up from a nap.***



Putting the furniture together brought back so many memories from when we got Charlie's nursery ready. It felt like just yesterday that I held the sides of the crib while Nick worked on getting Charlie's crib together.



I have to say, I love the baby's furniture. It is more ornate than Charlie's, and I really like the sleigh bed look. The wood is lighter than Charlie's, and I like that too. Overall, I am very pleased with it. Now, if I only had the bedding! I hate that I have to wait on the back ordered bedding before I can paint and decorate. I am so ready to see the finished product. The bedding will probably arrive during the second week of December, which means the nursery won't be complete until after the New Year. That is cutting it a little too close for me, but there's not much I can do about that.



The room may not be done, but thanks to Grandma, the baby has his first lovey. We found a different version of the same lovey that Charlie has on-line. Mom brought it over last night. Charlie saw it and looked a little confused. I think I am going to have to keep it out of his sight so that he does not start to get attached.

I am Losing My Mind

When I first got pregnant with Charlie, I kept reading about how pregnant women can become absentminded and forgetful. I did not give it much thought until I found myself entering the pregnancy fog. I started to forget dates, which really drove me crazy because I am the type of person who used to never need a calender. You could tell me a date and time, and it was locked and loaded in my memory. No big deal, right? I just needed to keep my calendar updated.



But, then it started to get bad. I would walk into a room and forget why I had gone in there. I would get completely dressed for work only to realize that I had forgotten to put underwear on, and one day I drove all the way to school in the pitch blackness of winter with no headlights on (in a black car). I looked forward to the day when I would regain my sanity once Charlie was born.



Once Charlie was born, however, something called "Mommy Brain" kicked in. This was caused by a combination of hormones and lack of sleep. It was just as bad (if not worse) than the pregnancy fog. Mommy brain, unlike the pregnancy fog, did seem to get better with time.



Now, I find myself in quite a dilemma. You see, my friends, I have a combination of mommy brain and the pregnancy fog these days. And, I have it BAD. To illustrate my point, I would like to share a few incidents from the last week alone:



-I put a load of laundry in the washer. When it was done, I realized that I had forgotten to put detergent in with the wash. So, I ran the load again. I came back a while later to check on that same load and the detergent bottle caught my eye. Yep, I ran that load twice without detergent either time.



-Charlie and I were getting ready to do the weekly grocery shopping. He was dressed and ready to go, but I needed to find my shoes. I checked every room of the house, every closet, under the beds, and after ten minutes of searching I found the shoes on my feet.



-A teenage clerk at Publix asked me how old Charlie was. To which, I responded, "7 months old." She exclaimed, "Wow, he's REALLY big for his age!" I then said, "No, he's just average." Upon exiting the store, I realized that I had told her how many months pregnant I was instead of Charlie's age. I will be avoiding her check-out line in the future.



-I opened my car one day to find a very strong odor coming from inside. I found a bag of food that I had left on the front seat from the day before. The worst part is that I had forgotten that food the day before that at a friend's home. I even made a special trip back to pick the food up...just to forget it again.



So, please forgive me if I tell you a story more than once or forget a story that you have already told me. Don't hesitate to let me know if I am repeating myself or not making any sense at all. I fully realize that I AM LOSING IT!!!

28 Week Baby Update

I am a little over 28 weeks today. This means many things for a pregnant woman: I am now in the home stretch...my third (and final) trimester; My doctor's appointments will now be every two weeks instead of every four; And, I am about to feel and look like the Goodyear Blimp.


I had my OB appointment earlier in the week, and everything looks great with the baby. He was in no mood to sit still so that the midwife could check his heart rate. After a few minutes of chasing him around, she and I concluded that he was indeed in there and obviously had a heartbeat. I had my glucose screening test (oh, yummy), was checked for anemia, and had a liver function test done. They finally decided that my rash and itchiness might be a sign of a more serious problem, so that was the reason for the liver function test. All of my test results came back normal, which is wonderful! I also got my admissions papers for the hospital at this last visit. That was a little bit of a reality check!


Sorry for the lack of pictures. I am not feeling very photogenic at the moment, but I promise to post them in the next few days.

Trick-or-Treat

Halloween started with a bang. Literally, Charlie banged his mouth on the windowsill. He hit it so hard that his tooth actually chipped the paint and left an impression in the wood. Shortly after that, Nick left to play football with some friends. Daddy leaving coupled with a sore mouth was more than Charlie could handle, and he never really recovered.

We had been invited to a Halloween celebration at 11:00 by our friends, The Jordans, and I decided that we definitely needed to get out of the house. I proceeded to get both of us ready, which took extra long with a super unhappy Charlie in tow. I tried letting him watch his favorite Elmo clip on YouTube, playing some music, and just about every other trick in my mommy bag, but nothing seemed to be working. I thought maybe he was tired, so I put him in his crib to see if a little alone time would help. For ten minutes, he just babbled to himself in his crib as I finished getting ready. Perfect, all he needed was a little time to himself to calm down. I went in to get him from his crib, and he seemed to be happy. He ran out of his room as I collected his diaper and shoes. As I approached our bedroom, I heard Samson yelp followed quickly by Charlie screaming.

I knew immediately that Samson had bitten Charlie before I even got into the bedroom. He has never done it before, but Charlie has been soooo mean to Samson lately. He hits, pinches, pushes, pokes, and sits on Samson all of the time. He knows not to do it, but he continues to abuse the poor dog. Sure enough, Charlie came running towards me, tears in his eyes, holding his little hand out for me to see. Samson was laying on his doggie bed and looked absolutely terrified. Samson hit his breaking point, and I am hoping Charlie has learned not to mess with the poor dog any more. Charlie's pinkie finger had little teeth marks in it, but he was fine. I think it scared him more than anything else. Samson on the other hand may not be okay. He has been yelping when Nick and I touch him and threw up this afternoon. He seems to be better tonight, but I am worried that Charlie sat on him and broke rib or something...lovely. You may think I am a bad mother for being more concerned about the dog than I am about Charlie, but you haven't seen what this kid does to Samson. It was just a matter of time before Samson fought back.

Anyway, after that incident, I did not have the energy to meet up with the Jordans. Instead, Charlie watched a little TV while I did some deep breathing and prayed for a fresh start after nap time.

Nick got home right around the same time that Charlie woke up, and I had high hopes for a better afternoon. We headed over to our friends' house to watch the GA vs. FL game before trick-or-treating. Charlie was in a great mood and even got to play outside in the leaves with some of the boys. My nerves had recovered, and at 6:00 we headed home to get Charlie in his costume and get ready for trick-or treating.

Charlie did not protest putting on his Elmo costume at all, and I was so excited to take him out. I had Nick take out his red wagon so that he wouldn't have to walk. This was a fatal error. Mr. Independent did not want to ride in the wagon. No, he wanted to pull the wagon. That was not easy with cars and kids everywhere, so I decided the wagon had to go. This sent Elmo into a fit. He stood on the sidewalk and screamed at us. Our neighbor came out of his house because he heard him crying from inside. I am not proud of what I did next, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?. I gave Charlie an M&M to make him happy. Yes, I am the mom who bribes her child with candy. What can I say...it had been a long day. The M&Ms seemed to do the trick and we managed to make it to a few houses without anymore tears.

Once we got home, Charlie seemed to perk up and enjoyed watching the kids come to our house to trick-or-treat. He looked super cute in his Halloween skeleton PJ's from Grandma, and we managed to get some cute pictures of him playing in them before bed time.

Hopefully, next year our Halloween will be a little bit calmer and less eventful! We hope that you and your family had a very Happy Halloween!!!

What a Mess!

Charlie feeds himself all of the time, and it is always a mess. Dinner last night was a whole new level of messy, however. You can't really see just how bad it was from this picture, but Charlie had decided to wipe his hands in his hair and all over his face when he was done. Oh my! Needless to say, he took an early bath last night.

Balloon Love

Oh how we do love a good balloon around here! Last night, my mommy friend, Stacey, gave me this pumpkin balloon to give to Charlie. It was for her daughter, but unfortunately, it scared poor Miss Matney. So, we scored a free balloon. I knew that Charlie would be thrilled to see it when he woke up this morning, and boy was I right. The little guy nearly jumped out of my arms when he saw it waiting for him in the kitchen this morning. He took that darn balloon with him all over the house today. When I walked into his room to get him up from his nap, he started asking for the balloon right away.

Thank you to Stacey and Matney for the balloon! It provided hours of entertainment on this dreary day.

Halloween Fun with Friends

We hosted our play group's annual Halloween party on Thursday. All of the kiddos looked so adorable in their costumes, but they were NOT happy about the pictures that the mommies tried to take of them. There were a lot of tears and children trying to jump off of the couch. I took about 20 shots, and the one below truly captures the moment.

Charlie was a real trooper about wearing his Elmo costume. It is super furry, and he had to have been hot. But as long as I kept feeding him pretzels and had an Elmo DVD playing, he kept his costume on until everyone arrived. I did not get any great solo pictures of Charlie, but I will try again tomorrow.

Retraction

I have to make some corrections to the information that I posted a few days ago. Nick was highly offended when he read the post "Take my Hand" and saw that I only gave Charlie credit for saying a dozen words. I have to admit, I was very wrong. Charlie says almost twice as many words, and I want to give credit where credit is due. So, I apologize to both of my boys for making such a big mommy mistake. Here are all of the words that our little man can say:

Momma or Mommy

Dadda

Baby

Ball

Balloon (pronounced "balllll")

Banana (pronounced "nana")

Puppy

Lovey (pronounced "wubie")

Hot

That stinks (usually said during a diaper change)

What's that?

Elmo (pronounced "melmo")

Bubble

More

No

Wow

Bye-bye (pronounced "eye-eye")

Uh-oh

Noodle

Bug

Tickle -tickle

Photography Class

I am SO in love with my new camera that I decided I wanted to take a photography class to learn how to use it properly and take great pictures. I did a simple Google search and found The Showcase School in Atlanta. Their courses run in six week sessions, so it is not a huge commitment each time you sign up. I loved the class and my instructor, and I cannot believe how much I learned in such a short amount of time. I know a lot of you have a similar camera, and if you are interested in taking a class, I would highly recommend this program.

Well, my last class was this Monday. Our final homework assignment was to choose a theme and take ten photographs that demonstrated what we had learned. For those of you with Digital SLR's, you will be proud to know that I shot all of these pictures in Manual Mode. Basically, this means I had to adjust the settings on the camera specifically for each picture. It's a lot harder than you might think, and I am still practicing every chance I get. You'll notice that there are no pictures of Charlie. He has proven to be a tough subject to photograph. By the time I get my settings perfect, he has moved and I have to start all over. So, for now, I am practicing with stationary objects.

Here are the pictures from my final project. Enjoy!

Take my Hand

Charlie is a man of few words. Even though he only says about a dozen words, I know exactly what he is trying to say most of the time. Maybe it's because we spend almost every waking hour together. I took the picture above to illustrate one of the nonverbal ways that Charlie communicates. He will often come up, take my hand gently, and lead me to where he needs help with something or to where he wants to show me something interesting. I love it. Each and every time (even though it means I need to get up off of my pregnant tush), it makes me smile. I am so glad that I captured this picture today, because I never want to forget how good it feels to be needed by my sweet boy.