A better day!

I'm happy to report that today was nothing like yesterday :) First of all, Ryder slept until 8am. HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THINGS GOOD, right!?!! It's a freakin miracle. So our day started great--happy baby, playful baby, giggling baby and he ate a great breakfast and didn't even get ticked when I gave him his milk in a sippy cup instead of our usual morning bottle. (As of today, I'm cutting him off of bottles during the day and only giving him a sippy cup with milk with his meals--but I'll still do a bottle before bed. Don't ask me why I decided that today was the day I was doing this, but whatever) Anyways, he went down for his morning nap just fine. When he woke up, I knew that typically he's been good for about an hour and then that scary afternoon baby emerges like I said yesterday. My girlfriend Jenna was coming down to hang out so I thought I'd "pre-medicate" for a "just in case he turns into scary baby" kinda thing. (terrible, I know). Anyways, so Jenna got down not too long after he woke up from his nap and we had a great time. He was happy, laughing, and flirting like crazy. We had no issues with lunch and we took him for a walk and he even was perfectly good until I laid him down for his afternoon nap, which he promptly fell asleep without a peep. (Usually he gets fussy before his nap) I think I just may have to always pre-medicate this child....kidding (I think.)

If I'm counting right...

If I'm counting right, Chubbs McGee is cutting three molars and an eye tooth at the moment. It's been super fun around our place lately. That....well that was sarcastic...if you couldn't tell. We've been having some issues with the second part of our day. He's totally fine in the morning/morning nap and then when lunch wears off and we're ready for our second nap, a new scary child emerges. Today was the worst one of the last week: Ryder cried the saddest cry a baby could cry for 2 and 1/2 hours on and off. I've never done this before, but there's a first for everything---I packed him in the car and drove around for 45 minutes so he could sleep. I know, TERRIBLE thing to start. Mostly because of gas prices... Anyways, he took a little nap in the car and was ok when he woke up...and I wasn't messing around with dinner (that's also been an issue with this scary afternoon child. He fusses and refuses to eat dinner this past week) so I caved and gave Ryder a PBJ sandwich. I knew he couldn't resist and it was (ahhhh) a happy dinner for all three of us. I was talking with some friends this past weekend and we were talking about all the things we said we'd "NEVER do" before we had kids...because only "bad" parents do that stuff. [insert a LOT of hysterical laughing here]. I'm pretty sure I've done almost everything I said I never would do. Whatever works is now my new motto. So I'm hoping that tomorrow is a better day. After I was just re-reading this post quickly, I realized that I do a LOT of complaining and blogging about what a crabby fussy child Ryder is...and that kind of makes me feel bad (but not bad enough to erase this post...haha). I think this is my venting place. So really, overall Ryder is the most laid back, chill happy child ever. Just not when he's cutting his chompers apparently!! For the most part, Ryder is a sweet little child like this:

Vlogging: Guilty Pleasures

Vlogging topic of the week: Guilty Pleasures-you know you've got em, share em! I have a ridiculous amount of guilty pleasures and I won't share them all (you're welcome). Reality TV: of course I enjoy the classics--bachelorette, biggest loser, dancing with the stars (I am watching it while I type actually), keeping up with the kardashians reruns....but the ultimate guilty reality tv pleasure is (drum roll...) Heavy on the a&e channel. Tune in on Monday nights at 9pm. You'll be hooked. By the way, that is a loooong list of reality tv. my life appears to be very sad, huh? Internet: when I hop on the internet during ryder's nap or after he goes to bed for the night, I have my usual rundown of sites I visit: facebook, check all the blog stuff, both email accounts, and my bank account. And if time, I like to do some online shopping (another guilty pleasure. Who doesn't love shopping in your sweats while sitting on the couch. Type in your-memorized-credit card number and it appears on your door step in a couple days!!) Target soft pretzels: yes, I said Target soft pretzels. Joe, Ryder and I love going (sadly a few times a WEEK) to get one of two pretzels: cinnamon sugar or cheddar soft pretzels. Or, sometimes both.... Dessert: any form. anywhere. anytime. I'll stop now. Have a good week! By the way, Ryder turns ONE YEAR OLD next week!!!

Vlogging

Hey, I've seen some fellow blogging friends participate in vlogging wednesdays and just as Jenn blogged about in her blog, I'm not going to the video part of the vlogging, but I will answer the questions for something fun and different for all you readers out there :)

Questions for "Q&A" day:

1. Why did you start blogging (answer: Joe and I found out we were preggo and all of our friends and family were asking us for updates all the time. So it made sense to put it out on a blog so everyone could tune in and get all their updates in an easy and convenient way.)

2. If you had to eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? (answer: This question is almost unanswerable because there are just way too many things that I enjoy. But I would agree with Jenn when I answer with: any form of potato. Baked, mashed, fried, hashbrowns, whatever I will take it! Most would think I'd pick some dessert, but I thought in the long run I dont think I would get sick of potatoes like I would dessert--> gut rot city...)

3. What is the biggest personal change you have ever made? (answer: without hesitation---having a child!! It is the most incredible thing anyone could do, but your life is flipped upside down and shaken side to side and all around!!)

So those are the questions for the week, tune in for more next week!!

A failed sump pump

Who doesn't love to come home after being gone for five days to find your basement looks like this:

Joe's work files in storage...bottom half ruined. Check.

We didn't get home from dog-sitting my in-laws two dogs while they were out of town until yesterday evening. When we got home, we put Ryder to sleep and unpacked. Just before checking out for the night (yes, that would be like 930pm...ryder had been choosing to wake up really early while staying at grandma and grandpa's house) when Joe was going to quick check his emails and noticed the internet was out. So he ran downstairs to reset the wireless internet thingy when I hear him yell up the stairs, "Carly, come down here". I knew something was wrong in his voice--and I found out what that was when I came down the stairs. BLAH! Luckily we're so handy when it comes to fixing stuff.....bahahaha, just kidding. So D&S plumbing came down. AKA: donn and sharol bartlett plumbing came down and my dad installed a new sump pump---our motor on the old one failed. Awesome. So he put a new one in, and alacazam the water starts draining! Of course, not without a great deal of a mess. Thank goodness we do not have our basement finished or this would have been an even greater disaster!! Also, thank goodness I didn't get called into work last night because we were up till past midnight trying to clean up some stuff and I think I would have blown a fuse if my cell phone started ringing at like 2 or 3am to tell me to come into work.

My dad said it perfectly, "Welcome to being a homeowner". That's why we bought a new house, so we wouldn't have to fix stuff. haha, dang...he is so right....

Weddings

So I saw my friend and coworker, Deb, had posted this video and I had to watch it like two or three times I laughed so hard. I absolutely could not IMAGINE how crappy this would be...and the best man seriously could never live this down. So I thought I'd let you click the link below and be thankful this didn't happen to you on your wedding day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0DmtmmFEVo

Speaking of weddings, I'm surprised we only have four weddings to go to this spring/summer/fall wedding season. But I do love wedding sesason, especially when some of my best ladies are the ones getting married! Can't wait :)

Here's a little memory of our wedding day...

Mr. and Mrs. Haskins

And of course, the ladies :)

Just like Daddy!

Tonight after Ryder's bath, we noticed his hair is getting so long. It's curly just like his Daddy's!!

Crazy man hair :)

I almost forgot!

I have been meaning to make a quick post about a milestone for Joe and me for awhile now, but I always forget to do it. Joe is always very good at remembering dates of random stuff we do (I'm am terrible at it). But one weekend that I always remember is our first weekend we met and hung out. It was the third weekend in January of 2004 (eternity ago, right?). The rest is history:

Here is the first picture we ever took together. I was 18 and Joe was 20. It was taken very late at night so it's not that great, but nice to have anyways. Look at Joe's Bozo the Clown hair! I loved that hair :)

Physical therapy update

Yes, we are still doing physical therapy once a month with Ryder. Yesterday we went again and Ryder got a great report. When we initially started going when Ryder was 2 months old, his head tilted at a 15-20 degree angle. Last month we went and his head was tilted at a 5 degree angle and yesterday his head was only at a 2-3 degree tilt. And when he was on his tummy, he had no tilt! I will be honest, I'm not very good about doing Ryder's exercises anyways anymore. He's too stubborn and gets so ticked when I attempt to do them, so I just gave up because what's the point of doing exercises where he's resisting and not doing them properly? Or maybe that's just my thought process to justify not doing them very often! So either way, it seems as though he is correcting his tilt on his own as he's gotten bigger.

Speaking of getting bigger, I cannot believe that Ryder is going to be ONE YEAR OLD in a month. That is the craziest thing in the world. We're doing a little birthday party with my immediate family and Joe's immediate family and then I'm sure we'll be doing more first bday parties with extended families too. I've been trying to think of something to get him for his first bday, but really, he's going to get so many gifts it's almost silly to try and think of something extra we could get him. Any ideas of gifts out there that a one year old would love to have? Let me know!

Ducky Bath

First off, Ryder is back to sleeping through the night and seems to be feeling better. I heart antibiotics! He's still coughing, snotty and can't breath through his nose and makes me want to suction him (if only I had a suction canister from my work at home)...but better nonetheless.

Anyways, on to a funny situation. So Ryder is too big for his baby whale bathtub that he's been using since he was about a month or so old (before that, we dunked his butt in a large mixing bowl he was so small). He sits up on his own very well, but in a bathtub with his dimple butt all wet and slippery it makes me nervous to sit him by himself in the tub, even if there's a towel or something underneath him. They can fall so fast and that chubby body is so slippery when wet!

So I found a blow up ducky that he can sit in and play, but the first time I used it, he was super scared of it and cried. (now that was a fast bath: in and out before a complete meltdown happened. Just ask my mother-in-law who was here that night helping me while Joe was out of town). Here is a picture of me trying to get Ryder used to the ducky before we put him in it again.

So he wasn't sure of it at first. Then he would get a little more brave and put his hand out to touch it and then quickly pull it back before actually making contact. We did that for awhile until Daddy came downstairs (still in his boxers after just waking up) and got in the ducky to show Ryder it was okay to sit in the ducky:

As you can see, Daddy didn't like me snapping his picture quickly before he could move fast enough to avoid a picture (I always keep that camera handy for moments like this!) Ryder was enjoying the show though. But it worked because after Joe got out of the tub, Ryder was touching the duck and soon after that he was sitting in it playing. Now he loves it during bathtime! Good job, Dad ;) Minus the finger of course.

Double ear infection, double the fun.

Unfortunately I feel as though I'm the worst mom ever. Ryder has been sick the last three days and last night was even worse. I made a post yesterday complaining about my lack of sleep (weird, me complaining. huh, odd.) And I had three comments from some lovely ladies all stating that I should get his ears checked out. I will admit that I thought about it yesterday afternoon, I mean it was a horrible cold, yes, but I thought it could be something else too. I thought about how it could be an ear infection but "they" say that babies will pull at their ears and be inconsolable all the time and be feverish. But Ryder never grabbed at his ears, was his normal happy but I also wouldn't call him inconsolable (only at night he was), and he didn't have a fever. So we took Ryder to the open clinic at our Peds office and the doc said both of his ears had an ear infection. So we'll start him on some antibiotics and hopefully in a day or two he'll be feeling better. Like I said, I feel like a terrible mom for not doing this earlier. Joe keeps telling me that it's our first baby and he's never been sick and we didn't know. But of course I still feel bad! I just hope he feels better sooner rather than later so that we can get back to this:


So thanks ladies for the suggestion to get his ears checked out!

It's amazing what you can get used to...

As I was in bed last night at 9pm (yep, on a Friday!) about to fall asleep, I did a quick mental calculation and realized that I had slept only 3 1/2 hours in the last FORTY (40) hours. Yes, you read that right, 40 hours. Oh, and might I mention that those sweet 3 1/2 hours were not a straight shot, it was two separate times. I owe this lovely revelation to two things: a sick baby the last few nights and a horrible night at work Thursday night. Like I said, it's amazing what you can get used to, right? So when I was falling asleep, I was praying to God that Ryder would sleep through the night. That did not happen. Awesome. He woke up at 1am and till 4am he literally cried and flung himself about. He didnt want to rock, swing, walk, be bounced, lay, or do anything. You pick him up, he flails about and acts like he wants to get down. so you put him down and he cries harder (the worst cry you've ever heard) and wants you to hold him. It's sad because you cannot do anything, you feel so helpless :( I truly think there is nothing more horrendous than a sick baby. You just have to ride it out I guess. So he finally fell back asleep at 4am and was up by a little after 7am. (oh and his morning nap was 20 minutes by the way). I need to invent some cough/cold medicine that can be given to an infant. Poor buddy!!

I would have loved to take a nap today but we had too much planned already. So let's just say that if you thought being in bed at 9pm on a Friday night is sweet, then you'll think getting to bed at 815pm on a Saturday is even better. Keep Ryder in your thoughts for a better night tonight!

Happy 50th Birthday!

It's a big week for my (old) parents! My mom turned 50 last Thursday and my dad turned 50 today. (and to throw it in the mix, they also had their 29th anniversary on Sunday...get it all done in one week I guess). But you'd never know they were 50--they are young at heart. Happy Birthday, we love you!!