Bully

My child can't even crawl yet, but he's already a bully. Yes, a bully. On Tuesday I met up with two work girlfriends (Amber and Gretchen) and their sweet girls (Molly and Stella). At one point we sat Ryder and Stella next to eachother so we could try to get a few cute pictures together. First Ryder takes a swing at her. Next he reaches out and "rakes" her face with his hand. Lastly, he grabs her shoulder and starts to push. I happened to quick snap a picture before removing Bully from the situation. Notice Stella's disgusted look on her face after Bully tried to shove her...she's like "uh uh, oh no you DIDN'T!!!" Ryder is just lucky Stella didn't shove him back. He would've fallen over backwards and then been like a turtle on his back flailing around, not able to do anything. But like I said, Stella didn't retaliate because a) she's too sweet and b) Ryder could eat her for lunch even though she's 7 months older than him...



So I was hoping this was a solitary incidence of bullying and it was some sort of fluke thing. Nope. Today I met up with Teri Starkey and her adorable girl Arianna. What does Ryder do anytime Ari so sweetly tries to share toys with Ryder or give him his sippy cup?? He takes a swing at her! One time Ryder was sitting on my lap and Ari was standing infront of us pointing out where my ears and eyes were. What does Ryder do? He pushes her.

Great, my 9 1/2 month old is a bully already....and he can't even move!! I'm having a hard time picturing what it might be like when he can motor around. It could be ugly. Or, maybe it was just two isolated bullying instances??!??! Or a bad week??!!??....cross your fingers :)

Thanks Mom....

After my parents watched Ryder this weekend over night while we had a wedding to attend, we were very excited to get our little Fat Face back! As I was unpacking some of his stuff, I noticed my mom gave us a box of organic teething biscuts/cracker things. I thought it was such a nice gesture.....and then we gave one to Ryder (which he LOVES them) and this is what happened:






This picture doesn't even do justice as to how messy it was in person. I guess when we give them to him, we'll have to strip him down naked or something...the "goo" that the biscut turns into gets everywhere!! Thanks mom!!

It's officially over.

I told myself a couple weeks ago that even though Ryder decided he no longer wanted to nurse on me that I would pump until he was ten months (which is two weeks from now). I have no idea why that was my "end date" I decided on, but that seemed like a good stop time. Then I got serious with myself and decided it was a LOT of work to pump 3 to 4 times a day (wash and sterilize pump parts all the time, figure out a way to entertain Ryder long enough that I can pump, dragging my pump bag with me to work). I mean, I've been doing this for almost ten (long) months and I am now so over it. So, today after I pumped this morning I decided, "Okay, that's it. I'm done after this". Well as I sit here over twelve hours later and I am about to skip my third pump session of the day, I am starting to feel it. I don't think it will be that bad going cold turkey because I don't produce that much anymore anyways, but it doesn't feel that great either. I guess the true sign will be when I wake up tomorrow morning...

I can't tell you how excited I am thinking about all the freedom I will have now!! Like I said, less time spent washing/sterilizing, dragging my bag around, planning when I'm going to do it before I leave the house to go do something, and I can actually go right to bed without pumping, and of course---less time spent actually pumping. I'm FREE! Life is good.

I'm also pumped for my week off with Ryder. Just me and Cubby Bear, my favorite!! (well, almost...my most favorite is when Daddy is with us too!)

Oh, and an update for the New Years Resolutions: I have made good on my working resolution to work all of my scheduled hours without taking on-call or nights off. Yahoo for good paychecks!! I have NOT made good on my ab workout resolution. I at least do the video once a week, but I just can't seem to work in that second time. Well, I could find time easily, but it's more of a motivational thing :/ Oh well. I am going to start fresh this week and get back into the 2x a week (geesh, you'd think that I was training for a marathon or something...it's not like 15 minutes of ab work would be hard to work in to my schedule twice a week. That's pathetic!!)

Have a great week everyone!! Here's a pic of Daddy and Chubs McGee...Gotta love him!

Doggie Daycare

This weekend was not as bad as I thought it would be. (This also could be because I stayed inside with Ryder while Joe walked the dogs most of the time!) BUT I will definitely say I will not have two dogs ever with little babies. Too much work! Here are a couple pictures from the weekend:

Roxie and Kit snuggling on the bed with me :)

The first attempt at a bath with Ryder. I slipped off the back ledge of the tub and fell in with him...in my clothes....

The second night we just put him in the kitchen sink...much better :)

Eyes wide shut

I am at work right now for the 4th time this week (keeping up my New Years resolution of working what I'm scheduled on my long stretch on even!) and I have slept next to nothing. Literally. I will give you my sleep breakdown of when I worked this past weekend (sat, sun, mon): I was up 27 hours by the time I went to bed after my first night of work (that happens when you wake up at 6am with your kid and then don't get a nap in before work and then work all night), then I slept a total of 3.5 hours that day...no clue why, I am messed up. Then I worked the second night. The next day I slept a total of 4.5 hours of broken up sleep. yay. then I worked my 3rd night shift and got a grand total of 5.5 hours of sleep the next day (thank God I got to sleep that night again). oh, and ps: I totally was hallucinating in the car on the way home. I was seeing someone in my periphery sitting in the car with me once and then I also kept "floating" above my body...scary, I know. Don't drive on Hwy 7 around 8am on the mornings after I work a night shift...

Then I had wednesday off, which was nice that I could have a normal schedule. Then after a short cat nap this afternoon, I'm back at work again and I already drank my one diet coke for the night (if anyone knows me, they know that I never drink caffiene...so I must be desperate). I'm d.y.i.n.g. I feel like I'm sitting here with my eyes wide shut. This whole "work what I'm scheduled" resolution might be one of those resolutions that don't make it past January....blah.

On another note: Ryder is cutting his second of the top two middle teeth. He is going to be looking so cute :)

Formula

If you remember from my last blog post, I was going to try to add in one bottle of formula a day to supplement the boob milk. I was all worried about introducing formula. I thought "oh, he's going to hate it" "oh, he's not going to drink it" and "oh, he's going to be all fussy and gassy with the new formula". Well, I should have known that my child would love it. (he loves anything). No, I'm not kidding at all: Ryder loves formula. Normally when he takes a bottle he takes a few chugs, tries to sit up and look around, chews on the nipple, drinks a little more and repeat the whole playing around thing. It seriously takes him like ten minutes to finish 4-5 ounces. Well today Joe and I gave him 4 ounces of formula and nervously wondered what would happen (we are so first-time parents, can't you tell?? ahaha) Well, he literally CHUGGED the whole thing in about 2 minutes. He never stopped once, except to catch his breath and go at it again. He was actually sad when it was gone. Apparently the transition wasn't so bad. Now I won't feel so bad if I have to stop the boob feeding and just do formula.

On another note, this weekend we are staying at Joe's parents place and watching their two dogs: roxie and kit, while they are in the Cayman Islands (I'm jealous.) I think it's going to be a loooong weekend: a baby out of his routine, two dogs, and FREEZING cold weather. Good thing we love those dogs :) Wish us luck!

9 month appointment

Today we had Ryder's 9 month appointment (he officially turns 9 months tomorrow). We tried a new pediatrition (if you remember, our beloved first pediatrition retired) named Dr. Oneil and we really like her. She's young and very genuine and you can tell she loves kids. She was good with Ryder and answered all of our questions...so I guess she's a keeper :)

Anyways, here are Ryder's stats this time around compared to his last appointment at 6 months:

6 months:
height--26 7/8 inches (70%)
weight--20lbs (90%)
head--80th percentile

9 months:
height--28.5 inches (60%)
weight--23 lbs (80%)
head--70th percentile

*I swear his head looks way bigger than 70th percentile...see for yourself! (although, it could be the angle maybe...haha)



The funny thing we found out today?? We are technically not feeding him the "average" diet that someone his age would eat. Based on the handout they gave us and talking with the pediatrition, she stated we needed to start feeding him more protein (the examples she gave us?? turkey, chicken, or hamburger casserole....) and we could also add in yogurt and cottage cheese among other things. So we feed him three times a day, but we're missing out on the two "snacks" a day. But she said that each child varies and she's not worried that we're not feeding him enough because he's a "tub". Another adjective used to describe Ryder by the pediatrition? TANK. haha. She said that he's bigger than average on his height/weight/head categories, but since he's big in all three, it's fine for him--he's just a "tank".

One bummer that I've had to come to terms with over the last week is that ryder no longer will nurse during the day with the exception of the morning. That first feed he will do, after that, he wants NOTHING to do with being laid down to eat and stare at mom. He gets so ticked, seriously it's kinda funny. But sad at the same time. I know he's just getting bigger and all, but it kinda made me sad! Obviously considering he eats more regular food during the day over the last few months, he in turn drinks less milk. Therefore I'm drying up like the Sahara Desert. In my peak I put out 10ounces per pump session, and now I'm pumped (no pun intended...) if I can put out 2 ounces. Based on what I have in the freezer, I would not be able to make it to the one year mark alone for breast milk only :( My goal was to get to the one year mark with only breastmilk and then he could switch to whole milk. But I'll fall short by about 5 or 6 weeks...so the solution? Give ryder one bottle of formula a day to supplement my supply. Now I know it's not that big of a deal, but you know me...I set a goal...I want to achieve it. Oh well, he'll still be getting mostly breastmilk till one year. The downside of this (besides having to introduce formula) is that I am pumping three times a day now! blah! I'm back to lots of washing bottles/pump parts and it sucks. Oh well.

Anyways, one more picture for you all...it's of Ryder in his overalls that have English Setters on them. It's kinda hard to tell, but it's cute (joe's family has two english setter dogs, so it's an ode to the haskins family)

New Years Resolution time...?

So each and every year most people make resolutions for the New Year. This year I have made myself a couple resolutions. My first resolution is to work my scheduled amount of hours....I know that sounds really bad, but it is what it is!! See, I am scheduled to work 48 hours in two weeks, but I take on-call or absent nights everytime they call me. Now Joe (and his dad) think my resolution is dumb.......they think I should stay home with ryder when I can.

But here is my rationale: if I work all my scheduled hours through this year so we can save money like little crazy money-saving demons...then I won't feel so bad when I drop my hours again after baby #2 (I bet a LOT of my family just secretly got really excited after reading "baby #2"....). I am in my friend Jenna's wedding in August this year, then Joe and I will start to try to get pregnant at the end of the summer/beginning of Fall. So like I said, I will work through the 2011 year at my full amount of hours, then when baby comes (hopefully as planned....I probably just jinxed myself though...) in 2012 at some point, then I can drop my hours knowing that I worked all I did and we saved what we saved!

Okay, after that side step, my second resolution is to do the "ab ripper" video from the P90X workout dvds with Joe twice a week. I'm dreading this one because I haven't worked out for real (besides walking) in about a year and a half....oops. Joe says the video is really hard, so we'll see how I do!

I suppose I could also throw in a third resolution of not eating a carb-only diet, which I do more often than I like to admit....but I don't want to get in over my head or anything. So I better just stick to the first two....ha!

I'll keep everyone updated on how these go. Wish me luck!

Oh PS: Ryder's New Year's resolutions that he asked me to tell everyone is that he's no longer going to wake up for his pacifier at 330 in the morning just so he can go back to bed (but his mommy can't) and he's going to try and only poop non-stinky poops too. Let's hope he can stick to these two resolutions!!!!

A toast to 2010

The morning Ryder Francis Haskins was born. We were beyond excited.
Ryder in the hospital. We had NO clue what we had in store for us!!

Ryder at 7 days old. Thank God for photoshop...otherwise our family pictures would have looked like one sweet sleeping baby and two zombie parents!

Opening his eyes to the world at 2 weeks old.

So sweet at 2 months. Starting to get those famous chubby cheekers!


Starting look a little older and getting the best personality at 3 months

A devilish grin for a cute little stinker. 4 months

Still one of my all-time favorites of my baby! Five months (and sleeping through the night now!)


A sweet cherub face at 6 months

The cutest lion baby ever at 6 1/2 months

The world's greatest smile at 7 months

My Fat-Faced friend at 8 months.

It couldn't have been a better year for Joe and me. We enjoyed it all (yes, even those first few sleepless weeks) and we can't wait to see what 2011 brings us. Happy New Year to all!!