Postcards From A New Day...

If all the other bloggers jump off a bridge, does that mean I have to too?

Tis the season for updates...

Oh how life changes. I read Lyndsay's recent entry about her weekend of parties, camp, sauna's, swims, sleeping until 1pm, going out after going out, (and partying with MY family (in-laws)) and coming in at 4:30am, only to sleep some more... and I had no idea such a life could exist.

The funny, or sad depending how you look at it, thing, is I didn't even do that much stuff before I had a kid. I think that's why the decision to have kids was so easy for Kim and I. We didn't really lose a life when we opted for kids, we were hoping to get a life. I guess that's why I never really understood why people needed to 'wait' to have kids - I would hear "It's just not the right time in my life"... ah, YOU have a life...Now I get it.

I'm not complaining though - I love my 'new' life. I get to have the late nights (diaper changes, feeding etc), parties (with other babies and parents, mind you they are usually early afternoon and end when someone poops all over their new pants), and now that Gordie is swimming... heck we have it all!

There are quite a few differences mind you. I can't imagine what it's like to actually hear the T.V after 7pm. I haven't brushed my teeth with cold water in, well, 6 months (see the hot water runs quieter than the cold water, so we end up brushing our teeth with the hot water to be quiet). We brag to one another if we just changed the 'most massive POOP' - and sometimes save it to show later when the other is around. My shoulder is wet pretty much all day (from the drool). Our 'special time' (wink wink) music is lullabies through the baby monitor. I get my daily dairy requirements through breast milk (well, more so when we were bottle feeding), but the greatest difference is probably my permanent excuse for acting like an idiot all day and doing my 'jig'. Oh, and I went to bed when it was still light out 2 nights ago... yeah... exciting!

Tangent: Gord is in his Jumperoo right now, and fascinated with the outlet behind him... what's the deal with making electrical outlets look so friendly and inviting!! You think they would make it look more scary, like throw some fangs and evil eyebrows on it.




So Gord is in full swing with his solids. He is up to 3 times a day now, and eating a good 3 tablespoons at each sitting. He is now sampling a variety of grains including rice, barley and oats (mmm...oats... my favourite!). He even has real veggies in the mix now... squash! He is pretty good most of the time... he seems to get bored very easily though.

On another 'new' note... I would like everyone without kids to try something. Find the loudest, most obnoxious sounding thing in your house... ok got it? For most it is probably your smoke alarm - which I suppose will suffice... Alright, now, tonight, when you go to bed, wait until 2am (or 8am for those of you who don't go to bed until 4:30) wake up and immediately turn it on. Break off the 'off' switch and try and figure out a way to get it to stop. You will then have a slight idea what we went through last night.

Now that the boy is eating so much (and over six months), we have decided to wean him off of his nighttime feedings. He tends to wake up at least twice a night for some snacking, but we all know he doesn't need it. So, last night was our first attempt at dropping one of the feeds. We decided the first (usually between 11 and 1am) feed would be a good one to drop.

He woke up surprisingly later than usual - 1:30. We had made a pact that a) we were both going to get up and suffer er, I mean try to put him back to sleep, and b) we would not cave in for a feed until after 3am.

Well...
1:30 - screaming starts. We both get up and head to the room ready for battle.
1:31 (literally) - I'm ready to throw in the towel.

I couldn't handle it.

Major kudos to Kim for not giving in. HE WAS WAILING. And not just 'scratchy-throat-this-is-the-loudest-I-can-possibly-scream' scream... he does this little arch the back and head and try to roll over trick making it IMPOSSIBLE to get him flat on his back. After my brief premature surrender, I was head strong to make it through, no matter what. It took a few pick up - put downs, but round 1 was over after about 10-15 minutes.

Intermission was a brief 2 minutes before 'Round 2' began.

This round went fairly smooth, and he was soothed quite easily.

Second Intermission - a little longer than the first.

Round 3 - back to square 1. A few pick ups required, plenty of back arches, and quite a few shared looks between Kim and I that silently screamed 'What the hell did we get ourselves into'.

45 minutes after we started, he appeared to be down for good. A very quick round 4 only requiring a soother re-submission, and he was out until 4:15am.

Yay for us.

It's insane seeing your child screech knowing that it can very easily be stopped by putting a breast in his mouth.

So, 1 night down, who knows how many to go... and this is only the first feeding we need to wean him off of.





So, that's that for now.

Cheers.