Author: Shannon

Somehow end up on a list that results in a call from the nurses at Humana because they “understand that I may be expecting.”

So. Not. Funny.

Today will be a good day. The reasons for this are:

1: Today is Friday and Friday is always a reason to celebrate.

2: Tomorrow is Saturday and will be the first Saturday in two weeks that Matt will be here with us. This is also always a reason to celebrate (even a day early).

3: (and most important) My son has currently been asleep for 2 hours during his morning for the first time in a week.

TGIF, indeed.

So what they don’t tell you about stay-at-home motherhood is that it perpetuates the “mommy brain” that starts the second you conceive. I’d been told that as soon as the hormones subsided I’d regain my brain. It was a complete lie. I can’t remember words. I get to the store and if I don’t have a list I can’t remember what I went to get. I can easily forget what it was that I was doing an hour ago. What I also didn’t count on is that this apparently extends beyond the trivial. I say this because I have apparently agreed to run a half marathon in November. Now I know I’ve definitely lost my mind.

…if I didn’t openly admit that although the Baby Bjorn is fantastic for carrying a baby around, hands-free, I feel that this is not its greatest purpose. Its greatest purpose is to serve as the only known way to make my belly cute again, by simply attaching a fantastic, good-natured, smiling baby to it–this time from the outside. Genius!

Now–I know that we don’t really get political with this blog, but I feel that recent events call for me to say something…

I just can’t believe (although Matt keeps telling me it was expected and the lady at the polling place yesterday did say “See you in August” as I was leaving, so clearly she expected it too) that a guy that would actually create (and I use that word lightly as it is clearly very poorly done) campaign literature like this:

could possibly end up in a run-off. Frankly–I’m dismayed that he was on the ballot at all, but this is America and he qualified to be on said ballot so I guess that makes it okay in a sense–but a lot of people actually voted for him. Seriously. We can do better than this. Plus–now I have to figure out how to get an absentee ballot or find out if there’s early voting available for this race so I can vote before we leave for Florida. Hmmph.

I did; however, appreciate the Creative Loafing blog entry on the issue.

On a happier note–Liam didn’t completely refuse the homemade baby food I gave him yesterday afternoon. He ate three whole bites before he refused to eat anything else at all, homemade or otherwise. I’m hoping that it’s related to teething or generally just feeling under the weather and that he’ll happily chomp down lots of it soon. I mean–my freezer is full of the stuff and I’m not even finished making it!

I’m trying very hard to remain patient with my child who just gobbled up the remainder of a container of Gerber food and then completely refused to eat any of the sweet potatoes that I spent 8 hours making yesterday.

Sigh.

It’s kind of like jazz hands, but with poop.

This morning Liam was able to get his hands directly in the poop and give it a good squeeze.  I’m just not fast enough anymore to catch him before it happens.  Can you give yourself E-coli?

On a happier note–Matt is home and I woke up this morning at 7:30 to a toasted english muffin and a pot of coffee.  Man, I love my husband!

Also–my mom and I spent a total of 8 hours yesterday making baby food.  We used just about every pot and pan in the kitchen and I’ve got bruises from the ricer (see–Marianne, I told you I’d use it!) we used to get everything to the right consistency–but we now have tons of homemade, organic sweet potatoes, peaches, plums, applesauce, and carrots.  I’ve still got some pureeing left to do and several things need to be frozen (we ran out of ice trays) but we made good headway.  I hope to finish everything up next weekend with the peas, green beans, and blueberries.  After that we should be set for a while.  Thank goodness for the Dekalb Farmer’s Market!

The first disappearing act performed this weekend in the Connolly household was performed by Matt who is off on a rafting trip for three days with his college roommates. This has been traumatic in certain ways (and to any of those of you who are single parents or were raised by single parents you should either give yourself a pat on the back or call/hug the person who raised you because single parenthood is no joke)–but at least it was planned.

The unplanned disappearing act was performed by Liam this morning while I went in the kitchen to grab my coffee cup and go back into his room to play. In the 10 seconds it took me to do this the baby who was sitting in the middle of the carpet when I left the room had disappeared. Luckily my heart had not had time to fall into my stomach quite yet when I spotted the foot. It was the only visible part of my son who had somehow managed to get himself completely underneath his crib in 10 seconds time. I don’t want to know how he did it and am in the process of convincing myself that he simply rolled over there. It is also possible that he crawled there but I’m choosing to deny that possibility until I see it with my own two eyes.

I also had to move the basket that contains mostly medical supplies and has had a home on the floor by his hamper since he was born. He spotted it when I removed him from underneath the bed and immediately went for the one thing in the basket with a cord. It’s now on the shelf above his dresser…you don’t think he’ll eat any sand at the beach, do you?

This morning I went into Liam’s room to find two dirty outfits in his bed. I thought that I heard him about 15 minutes earlier than I actually got up, but since I didn’t hear him again I figured he was just in the process of waking up and that I’d go get him when he made noise again. He was clearly awake in the interim and had pulled the two outfits I’d left on top of the hamper (because he’d gotten Tylenol and sweet potatoes on them and I wanted to treat the stains before washing) through the bars of his crib and into the bed with him.

The good news is that (knock on wood) we think he’s figured out how to lie down after he sits up (which he’s learned to do with alarming swiftness in the last couple of days). Again, I’ve not actually seen him do it but the couple of times he’s cried out after going down for a nap since yesterday afternoon have been short. He might also just not have been sitting up those times, who knows?

We also had his six month check-up on Tuesday. Everything looks great: his head is in the 90th percentile (I can’t remember the exact measurement), his height is also at the 90th at 27.5 inches, and his weight is holding steady at 50th at 18 pounds. The doctor says that they don’t make height predictions anymore but that based on his current measurements he’ll probably be taller than average–not a huge surprise. The only thing we learned we should be doing differently is that he needs the grains from the dreaded rice cereal so we’re going to try that again and if it fails on the 6th go-round we’ll move on to oatmeal or barley.

We also had a photo session with a friend of my Mom’s on Monday and from what she’s sent me there are some really good shots. I’m waiting to get my hands on the CD so I can upload some shots, but I’ll hopefully be able to do that by the end of the weekend.

I hope everyone’s having a great week!

So apparently Liam can now not only sit up on his own when you place him in a sitting position, but he can sit up from a horizontal position as well. I say apparently because he decided that he would master this skill between 1:30 and 3:30 am last night and we didn’t actually see the process, only the end result. The first time Matt went in his room after he woke us up with his screaming he found him sitting up in the middle of the bed. This was strange to Matt since Liam had never done this before–but he just rocked him until he calmed down and put him back in bed. The crying went on and on and when I finally decided, at around 3:30 that I couldn’t take the crying or the back and forth anymore I went in to get him and bring him to our bed in a last ditch effort to sleep at all. When I opened the door he was sitting up at the end of the crib. He looked up at me and grinned, and then began crying again. When I brought him into our bed I basically had to sleep with my hand on his chest to keep him from sitting up again. I fear that crawling is right around the corner…