Kind of an update...need more time!!

Ok, it has been FOREVER since I posted last, but it's harder and harder to find time! I know I need to catch up on Christmas stuff, Oliver meeting his great grandmother (Oma) and all kinds of other things, and as soon as I figure out how to upload video, I'll do that. Probably in the evening sometime when Nich's home, not studying, and can watch Oliver. Right now I am so thankful Oliver is napping in his crib, and am hoping he can stay asleep a little longer than his 10 minutes of late :( He'd been sleeping between 1 1/2 and 2 hours at a time, but with this cold and terrible constipation, he's a really light sleeper. Probably on account of him not being able to breathe very well. We use the aspirator about 3 times an hour (he hates it and we've even killed the electronic one we got), he's on Clariten now to help dry him out, and even the dogs try helping him out by licking stuff out...gross and we stop them all the time...but the momma-dog in Daisy can't help herself!!

Here's the 4 generations picture we have of Oliver, me, Omama and Oma. Oma was so so excited to meet him, and the first thing she said, in thick German accent, when she held him was, "Oh this is so right!" Oliver was happy to be loved on for a little while, and then after a bottle, even happier for his Oma to give him lots and lots of love! Oh, there's so much to write about over Christmas, and video to go with it, but I'll get to that later. Here's the photo:

In silly dog news, Chester licked and licked (kind of manically) Oliver's head for about 3 minutes. I'm assuming he really wanted all of Oliver's hair to be pointed toward his face because when he was done, ALL of Oliver's hair was cemented in one direction...all going in his face. Only then was Chester satisfied and left him alone for me to capture this great hairdo on film :)

Oh, and I love love love Oliver's pediatrician! On our last visit (from Oliver's cold not improving and actually getting so bad he was up several times a night caughing and I was afraid he could stop breathing at night - he would stop while I was listening to him until he'd wake up and open his mouth, then he was up!) I told Dr. S that Oliver was rocking back and forth, and had figured out how to crawl backwards, but not forward yet! His response? "Oh, I call that the Aggie-crawl!" Ha ha ha ha! That's great :)

You know, the longer Oliver sleeps, the better chance I will have of trying to get some video on here, but a warning, only check it out if you're really bored and have a lot of time! Like most video of people's babies, it's pretty boring unless you're the parents...in which case you can't watch enough of it! I was playing the video of Oliver for Oliver, and the whole time, he was glued to the moniter and was screaming and laughing at the cute little baby on the screen! I don't know if he knew it was himself, although I'm sure he recognized the spitting, gooing, laughing noises coming out of the voices on the computer :) Ok, if there's no video below, then Oliver woke up before I could figure it out...if there is, then enjoy!

Oliver's up

Puppies and Babies

A recent conversation with a friend who got a dog a few weeks after Oliver was born prompted this memory...

2 Years ago, we bought a 6 week old little boy dog named Chester. The baby Australian Shepherd was so rambunctious yet cuddly, and made our old dog, Shadow, find her puppiness again as she tried her best at 12 years old, to keep up with him -- it took all WE had to keep up with him! Although it only took about 2 1/2 weeks to have him completely housebroken, it was a long 2 1/2 weeks, what with keeping an eye on him at all times, waiting for that tell-tale sign of needing to pee, day and night...watching even closer after every meal or sip of water. Being sleep-deprived by letting him sleep on our too-high-to-jump-off-of-bed so he would wake me up to go out. Even after the potty training, buying special puppy food and trying to stop Shadow from eating it all - she was convinced the tasty, high protein puppy chow was better than the old-lady-high-fiber-chow; yet for all my watching and scolding, she still gained a good 5 pounds that first month... We couldn't be gone for more than 2 hours at a time because SOMEONE'S bladder wasn't strong enough to last much longer than that, Chester. ;) Finding the time to walk him several times a day and trying to teach a shepherd to catch and retreive a frisbee instead of corralling it, was quite a challenge. All the training, or bribing rather, for simple commands like "sit," "shake," "down," "drop," "stop chewing on that," "STOP CHEWING ON THAT," and "use your inside voice." (Yeah, anyone who knows Chester knows that command is an utter failure), to help mold our dog into the now goofball family member he has become.

At the time I was 3 months pregnant and thought, wow, this is a lot like what having a baby will be like!

I am wiser now.

One day my friend will be too :)

Wow! It's been so long since I've updated the blog!! My sweet little velcro baby doesn't really let me do much, but he now is ok watching me check email for about 5 minutes at a time, I'll take it!! So, I think Oliver may be teething...WHAT?!? Yes, he's 3 1/2 months old now, and it's freaking me out. In a bad way. When he has teeth, he's officially not a baby anymore! :( He's already not an infant, and now he won't even be a baby! (to me anyway, his age tells another story)

I had a dream the other night that I woke up and Oliver had a little tooth that had come out about half way. I just started bawling. I woke up in real life, and was so scared to look in his mouth! Thankfully, no teeth yet. Just lots and lots of drool. and Tylenol. and teething rings. So, they make teething rings to freeze, cool, microwave, vibrate, textured, smooth, anything you can think of, it's out there! Oliver LOVES the frozen one (but it makes him drool like crazy) and likes to just sit with his gums on the vibrating one until he screams in what I assume is pain from the vibrating that originally felt good but got to be too much? I don't know, but it's a little sad and exciting to see my little man growing up so fast.

I haven't been able to take as many pictures as I want in the past few weeks, so here are a few I took today. I can't get enough pictures of him - he's just growing like a weed! I'm really excited for my family to see him over Christmas. They haven't seen him since he was born, and then he was in the NICU so they couldn't really hold him or anything. So the holiday season should be a lot of fun, his first Christmas! Ok ok, I'll post the pictures already :)

He's so adorable! I love his different expressions - he's quickly showing me his amazing personality, I love it!

These are my latest favorite pictures - such a SWEETIE!! I am so in love! :)

Happy Halloween!

I know everyone is doing a Halloween blog post, so I thought I couldn't leave out our little family, ha ha ha! It was fun dressing everyone up in costumes - Nich and I dressed up as tired parents, Oliver was a "sweat pea," Chester was a lobster, and Daisy was Dr. Daisy, a surgeon actually. Clearly we didn't have enough creativity to do a theme, actually, I'd like to blame it on not enough brain cells left! Here are a few pictures documenting our Halloween 2009:

Our little sweet pea :)

The velcro strap couldn't reach around his double chin, ha ha ha!

The two goobers

It looks more like the lobster is eating Chester.

"I'm being swallowed by a giant lobster, and I don't like it very much...Oh no, (oh no) he's up to my toe (he's up to my toe), Oh gee..."

And Dr. Daisy showing some belly there...not very sterile ma'am

Doctoring up Nich's foot:

It was quite a fun Halloween, and afterwards, the dogs tore their costumes off of each other, then ran to the park and caught frisbees. Oliver pretty much slept. Happy Halloween!!