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!!

We finally have a family portrait!

Thanks to Oliver's Gammie, we have a family portrait! Nich's mom's in town for this week and it's been just lovely :) Oliver is in LOVE with her and all the cute nursery rhymes and songs she tells him while dancing around the house, him in her arms. I'll tell you what, Oliver's so lucky to have the best grandparents ever!!

A REAL smile!

I LOVE my baby! I am so lucky to get to wake up to this smiling, cooing face every day now! My sweetheart! How does he suddenly look so much older than his 8 weeks?

Little Boy

A few pictures of Oliver napping on his belly...another time he slept out of my arms! :)

Not so happy

I love all my pictures of Oliver and all of his little faces he's made that I've been able to capture on film. Here's another side of him - his sad, squished face that we see every night for a few hours starting around 6 or 7. But these are somehow so cute and just tug at my heartstrings!

Not in love with the carseat today

Can't find his pacifier during "tummy time"

Not ready for a diaper change - I got the camera because he had been so happy just seconds before!

And the meltdown...

Oh my sweet boy! He's such a great little guy and he's growing so fast! At 6 weeks, he was 10 pounds 6 ounces and 22 inches long...he's grown 2 inches and gained 3 pounds 4 ounces in his little life! Nooooo!!!! Ha ha ha!

Funny faces!

Oliver LOVES to be outside, in a breeze, under our pecan tree, in the front yard! It's the only place he'll fall asleep by himself (well, not in someone's arms...I don't leave him there ha ha!!) and could spend hours out there! So today I took my camera with me to capture some of his personality and he sure was posing for me! They were all so cute, but here are some favorites...

With Mommy :)

ACHOO!!

That one's just cute!

"I'm gonna knock you out, Momma said knock you out"

Cute profile

Playing drums

Raar!!!!!

Little Face :)

Give us a hug!!

Eh?

Sleepy baby

Oliver's close up

Our blue burrito!

My little baldy :)

So, I have a few more, but I'm realizing I'm "that" mom if I put too many more on! Our little man is just such a cutie patootie!

Which country sounds the smartest?

So I was watching TV this evening when a silly commercial came on trying to convince people they are too dumb and uncoordinated to cut their finger and toenails with conventional nail clippers. "A $60 value for two nail clippers with a magnifying glass and "bright light" for ONLY $10!!" Wow, what a deal! I'm wondering what on Earth the people getting paid to market these goofball products are thinking...surely they know we're not really that dense, and for those who really ARE unable to cut our own toenails, like having a giant pregnant belly, well that's what nail salons and husbands are for - no fancy nail clipper is going to change the fact that pregnant ladies can't even SEE their feet, let alone touch them.

Then it occurs to me, the announcer has a British accent! Oh yeah! That makes her smart, right? So we should buy this product because it's from an obviously smart British lady! (Ignore that it's a really bad, fake British accent, ha ha!)

I think it's awesome how "smart people" in our movies, tv shows, and now commercials all have British accents...as do "bad guys" and aliens, no matter what planet or universe they're from. Oh, and anyone being portrayed from another country or old time period - I saw a movie that took place in Ancient Egypt, and by golly they were all actually British! I love it!

But now I'm confused because when I came back from living overseas, with a British accent, British grammar and vocabulary, everyone looked at me all sideways and mocked my funny words for everyday objects. Huh!

Oh no, I just realized that although I may have sounded audibly "smart," because there was no Hollywood script to follow, I didn't REALLY sound so smart...ha ha ha! Oh dear! :)

Thank you mom!!!

Oliver's asleep, for how long I don't know! But I thought with the few minutes I have right now, I should definitley give a shout out to my amazing mom!! Not only had she stayed with us while I was on bedrest for 3 months (switching in and out with Nich's truly awesome mother!), she also spent over 4 weeks with us AFTER Oliver arrived to help us out! Who does that?? That's absolutely the best gift I could ask for :) Being a new mom is scary enough, then add on trying to recover from 12 weeks of bedrest and a C-section on top of that...but then the emotional stress, left from losing our baby boy, Julian, of constantly worrying if Oliver was going to survive the nights and waking up every 30 minutes to make sure he's still breathing! I am so glad she was able to stay so long, not only for the always clean laundry, clean dishes, clean and sterilized bottles, and delicious and inventive dinners (yes, I stole a few of the recipes to help fill in my now-bored-of meals), but also for the emotional support Nich and I needed when I came to the conclusion that I just wasn't going to be able to nurse my little boy, running myself ragged trying to make sure I was feeding him "right" (trying to follow the "how to" guidlines in a book of feeding and sleeping babies) and it being ok to just listen to my baby instead of a dumb book that mysteriously found it's way into the garbage :), and the long nights where I was afraid to let other people take care of him, but again I was a MESS.

All of us knew things were going to be ok if my mom, now "Omama" (a cute variation of the German "Oma" for "Granny") was able to take him for the night and me not freak out. The last three nights she was here, she took Oliver ALL NIGHT LONG for 3 nights! Amazing!! Again, who does that?? Nich and I recovered most of our sanity back - taking some from Omama I'm sure - and I only checked on him maybe 4 times in those three nights - hey, that's a huge step! It sure helped the transition to him sleeping in the living room now-days...he's moving steadily closer to his own room :)

Now, our little family of three has a pretty good rhythm going where life is a new comfortable-normal...well, pretty comfortable...it'll be even better when Oliver sleeps a little longer at night and his little digestive system is mature enough to stop the silent reflux which brings him to tears nearly every night for a good 2-4 hours :( So, a HUGE thank you to an amazing mom who I grow more respect for with each new phase in my life. Having an infant is a lot of work, and I am so greatful she decided to do it 4 times! (and to Nich's mom for 6 times...especially since my wonderful husband is that #6!)

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Oliver with his Omama

Thank you mom, now, Omama ;)