Trick or Treat

I love holidays. All of them. Seriously I do.

Well, all of the REAL holidays. You know the basics....

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Day (I hate New Years Eve!!) Valentines, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day.

If I could afford it and had, like, an unlimited amount of time I would decorate my entire house for every holiday and have a big party or something to celebrate them all.

Okay maybe not that big of a party, because I move a lot and I don't necessarily have a lot of friends in any one place who would come, but you know, a Bar-B-Que or something.

Anyway.

Halloween for my family growing up was always kind of a big deal. I have no idea why. My parents went a little nutso with decorating one year and stuffed some of my Dad's old clothes and an old Halloween Mask and set them up as a dummy out on our porch. Soon that became a tradition, along with the pumpkins and spider webs and everything.

My brother and I usually got pretty into our costumes as well. And when we were younger Dad took us trick or treating but by 4th or 5th grade we started to be allowed to go on our own with friends and that is when we became some sort of professional candy gatherers. We lived in a small subdivision which sat sandwiched between 4 or 5 other subdivisions that all connected in one way or another so we carefully planned our route well ahead of time. We started in the neighborhood with the largest houses, reasoning the richer people would buy the best candy and easily had to have made it to a couple hundred houses during the allotted "legal" two hour trick or treat hours.

We made out like bandits. I'm fairly certain that we'd often make a pit stop at home midway through to dump out our FULL pillow cases before heading out to find more treats.

When we were done we'd let Mom inspect or goodies for safety before spreading the whole mess out on the living room floor to sort out while we watched The Garfield Halloween Special and It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown on television. We'd be eating the candy for weeks. Months even. And not because we were thrifty about it, but because we had so, so much of it.

One year I remember sorting out all the different fun sized chocolate bars and counting that I had something like 20 Snickers bars. TWENTY. And that was just the Snickers.

I swear, its a wonder I don't weight 600 lbs.

Also, its no surprise I have a mouth full of fillings and crowns where my teeth are supposed to be.

Which brings me to my grown up life.

Now I'm somebody's parent.... you can just bet your buttons I was going to take my child out in an awesome costume to collect some treats and SO WHAT if he's only 4 months old and doesn't know the difference anyway!!

If you're my friend on Facebook, you've already seen photo of Peter's costume. We picked it up back in August when my Grandma, Matt and I were at the Salinas mall picking up pictures and then OHMYGOODNESS but the Disney Store (the only Disney Store I've seen in a long, long time actually) had apparently just gotten their Halloween Costumes in.

I dragged my husband in and started gushing over the adorableness.

Long story short, roughly 20 minutes later, I was out about 30 bucks but I had my boy's first ADORABLE Halloween costume (and also a very, very annoyed spouse. By gones.)

Now, please give me a little credit, I'm not completely insane. Obviously I realize that, even though my son is big for his age, it would be completely inappropriate to take him around the neighborhood begging for candy that I'd most likely be eating myself.

Instead, I decided that when we took the dog for his afternoon nap Peter could wear his costume in the stroller and along the way we could stop at a few neighbor's houses to show him off and take pictures.

So of course, here are some of those photos.

First, I got him dressed.

And a darn cute little Mickey Mouse he is. (Even is Daddy did chop his little yellow socks out of this picture.)

Some of you might be wondering why Mickey Mouse?

Well, first of all I love Mickey Mouse! Just say his name a few times... "Mickey Mouse! Mickey Mouse! Mickey Mouse!" That's like some of the happiest sounds ever. EVER.

Plus, its cute. And its Disney. And I have a son. Who, two or three years from now is undoubtedly going to ask me to be something from Star Wars. And, since I gave out candy to at least a hundred Star Wars characters this evening I'm thinking I've got to take the opportunity to dress him up in something cute and Disney while I still can.

Matt thinks the whole ordeal is the most ridiculous thing ever.

(If he was any fun at all he would have let me dress up as Minnie, and he could have been Donald, Goofy or Pluto.)

Anyway, here is the family, setting out for the afternoon:

We ended up visiting 3 houses, although we only planned for 2.

First we went to see Dan And Stacey and their two kids. Dan made the deployment last year with Matt and they were very, very nice and generous and helpful when Peter was first born and we knew absolutely nobody else here yet. Unfortunately, these days their kids are busy in school and I'm busy getting thrown up on and stuff so we don't see them often enough, so we took this as an excuse to remedy that.

After that visit, their neighbors were out decorating their house for Halloween and they gave Peter some chocolates since they said his costume was the cutest thing ever.

I took a few zillions pictures of all of that, but I'm still working under the assumption that its probably best not to put pictures of people (especially children) up on my blog without their knowing about it.

However, here is one of Peter as he rode along after Matt and our crazy dog:

That child is forever sucking his thumb.

When we got near to our final stop I put his little white gloves back on.

And since he could no longer get to his thumb he just sucked on the gloves.

Anyway, the third house was Dawn and Pat's house. They have a new baby, who was born about a month ago. We enjoy stopping by their house on dog walks to ask if their boy can come out and play with Peter.

He never can.

That doesn't stop us from continuing to ask.

Here is Pat, with his baby boy in the Baby Bjorn giving Peter (and Matt) some Halloween candy.

Please take special notice of the fact that this photo is 100% staged for the camera so that Mommy can have a picture for her scrapbook of her boy's first time Trick or Treating.

:)

Anyway, after that we went home. Matt had a friend over to study and I sat on the front porch handing out A LOT of candy and enjoying all the costumes.

That's the thing about military housing. EVERYONE has kids. I went through five jumbo bags of candy there were so many kids.

Literally, there were swarms. They were like little bees hopped up on sugar.

There were lots of Disney Princesses, Dark Fairies, Spider Queens, Witches and Kitty Cat girls. The boys showed a lot of super heroes (Superman, Batman, Spiderman) GI Joe (mostly Cobra,) Transformers and oh but of course, Star Wars characters.

Some of my favorite costumes included an old fashion Scuba Diver (with the metal Helmet,) an Angler Fish (they were brothers and their mom had made both of their awesome outfits,) a hammerhead shark, Little Bo Peep and 3 Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (not that I'm a fan of Dallas, but the girls looked super cute.)

Finally, to wrap up this Halloween special blog,

I'll include a few photos of my decorations. There might not be a dummy out front, but I'm proud of them none the less.

First the lights:

Our Jack-O-Lantern lit up:

And my personal favorite...

Off to the side of the house, under the flag pole (which bears an Ohio State Flag) lies this poor unfortunate fellow (his arm fell off when he partially blew away in the storm a few weeks back, but I thought it was funnier that way so I left it off.... )

The Dead Michigan Fan.

:)

Happy Halloween and, as always, Go Buckeyes!!

Pumpkin Carving

Since tomorrow is Trick or Treat, today it was time to carve Peter's pumpkin.

As you can see below, Peter fell asleep in the stroller while we were walking the dog immediately prior to this activity and sadly really wasn't into it.

Don't worry, I didn't let that ruin our fun.

First, I drew the Jack O Lantern face on.

This picture amuses me as every member of the family is included (besides Matt, who's behind the camera.) Take a minute and you will see not only me, the dog and the baby, but also the back end of both cats as well. It really is a zoo around here.

Anyway, here's a close up of my sleepy child, because he's just so darn cute.

So then of course Matt cut into the pumpkin and took the top off.

Brutus helped him clean out the inside, while I pulled out the seeds to roast this evening for a tasty snack.

Then Matt set to work cutting out the face. I think its sweet that he's kind enough to humor me with these Daddy activities, even though I'm positive he thinks I'm insane.

While he worked Peter woke up, so he watched carefully from the safety and comfort of his stroller.

In the future, please remind me not to stand with the sun at my back as I left I scary shadow of myself in all the pictures.

Finally, here is Father and Son with their very first Halloween Pumpkin.

Why Halloween will forever be a special day for me

It's hard to believe really, but this time last year I didn't even know for sure that I was pregnant.

Matt had been home from deployment for almost 3 weeks and there had certainly been a lot of trying but I wasn't deluding myself into believing we'd actually be lucky enough to make a baby that first month.

Except that for a week or two I'd been feeling kind of strange. Certainly not nauseous or anything, just, strange. I can't really explain it.

The 23rd had been the date on the calendar to dread, so the speak, for most of that summer, so when it came and went I started to get suspicious. The thing was though, that the stress of Matt's homecoming had made me a week late the previous month so I really didn't know when to expect anything.

On the afternoon of Saturday the 25th I took a pregnancy test just for the heck of it. I guess it was a lame attempt at finding some peace of mind so I'd stop thinking about it. The test was negative. Sadly I shrugged away tears and tried (in vain) to put it out of my mind.

Except that the test had come in a pack of two. So the next morning I took another one. It was still negative. I think. Because, you know, those old fashion cheapy line tests are really hard to read.

Monday "it" still hadn't come so on my way home from school I stopped and bought a 2 pack of the more expensive "digital" EPT tests. I told myself that I was NOT going to take them. I wasn't! I would just keep them around for a few more days and if still nothing happened, then I'd take one then.

(Yea right.)

The next day, Tuesday morning, on Oct 28, 2008 I peed on a stick for the third time that week and 3 minutes later the little screen said "PREGNANT."

Interesting. Maybe we are actually that lucky. Maybe a woman can trust her intuition after all.

I called and made an appointment with my Primary Care doctor to confirm, but unfortunately they didn't have anything available until FRIDAY AFTERNOON!!!

It was going to be a very long 4 days.

After school I stopped again and bought more tests in about 3 different brands (spending something ungodly like $80.) I took them all and they all confirmed that I was, indeed, pregnant.

Just, you know, not officially.

I called Matt who was at work and had overnight duty. Obviously he knew my suspicions so I just told him I'd made an appointment to see the doctor. My very sweet husband, ever the funny man, asked me why and said that I didn't seem sick to him.

I think he was in denial.

That Friday was Halloween which made it a great deal easier to dash out of work early and head to my appointment. Once there I had the pleasure, once again, of urinating, this time in a cup. After that, a Doctor (who was not my regular doc and seemed to have been out of med school for something like 15 minutes) came in to confirm that officially, medically, I was "with child."

Another Doc came in, (confirming my suspicions that the original fellow was still very wet around the ears) and directed him in what papers I was supposed to be given, what labs needed to be ordered and what needed to be submitted to Tri-Care. They spoke to me for a few minutes and in the course of the conversation decided they needed to test my wee for a UTI since I've had one many times before. They told me to "Sit Tight" and said some one would be back shortly.

So I sat.

And I sat.

Nobody ever came.

Ever.

Eventually, it seemed really quiet in the hallway and it had been nearly an hour so I opened the door to the exam room and peeked out. The lights were mostly all off, and there was one lone Doctor down the hall in her office apparently finishing paperwork.

Apparently everyone had forgotten about me. :(

Maybe they were all in a hurry to get home for Trick or Treat.

The Doctor that WAS still there was very nice, and helpful and swore that heads would roll in the morning for my embarrassing situation. She finished up my paperwork and sent me on my way.

I was mortified. I would never go back there, that was for sure. I switched to the Navy clinic and tried very hard to forget about the big, ugly, dark cloud that had blown in over one of the happiest days of my life.

Because the fact of that matter was I was pregnant! God had answered my prayers.

Granted at that point Peter was nothing more than I a small bundle of rapidly dividing cells trying desperately to implant itself safely in my uterus. But still. Wow.

It's a lot to think about.

In 2008, for Trick or Treat, I got a fetus.

(Except, technically I don't think it was a fetus just yet, but whatever.)

Please go to sleep Baby, Mama is busy hallucinating.

Sorry there haven't been any posts lately.

Towards the end of last week Peter entered into what I can only hope was a growth spurt or a developmental milestone spurt (because he did just master rolling over the other direction,) or something because suddenly he wasn't letting Mama get any sleep.

Let's see... if I back track back about 3 weeks there was that one BLESSED night where he slept through.

That ONE night.

'Cause it hasn't happened since. Prior to that glorious night he'd been getting up once a night between 2 and 3 am and everything was kosher.

However, after my one glorious night of rest, everything sort of started breaking down. First he was getting up twice, at around 1 and 4 am. This then evolved into his getting up three times, at like 12, 2 and 4. That was about when I started to tear my hair out.

On top of this, sometime last week, and forgive me because everything is a big, humongous sleep deprived blur, in addition to the getting up 3 times a night, he started to not be able to be put down. I'd nurse him and then rock him until he fell asleep but the absolute instant I made a move towards his crib he'd start to wail.

It didn't matter what I did, how I held him, which direction we were facing or any of it. As far as he was concerned my moving him towards that crib might have been me trying to toss him into a fiery pit filled with spiders and snakes and I don't know, brussel sprouts, because Kiddo wasn't having ANY OF IT.

At this point some of you might be thinking something like, "So what Jen? No big deal? My baby never went to sleep easily..." But see, the thing is, MINE DID.

Sure, he woke up to eat or needing a fresh diaper, but I never had much difficulty laying him back down. I mean, he might fuss a little if I did it to soon and we'd have to start the whole rocking him process over, but I could always get him asleep in his own little bed with a bit a patience.

Last week he decided he was done with that.

Which was fine. I guess. I mean.... I can't complain much. Matt is home every night (which is a BIG DEAL when your married to the military, even though he sleeps through EVERYTHING) because he takes over baby watch for a few hours every morning until he goes to school so I can get some sleep.

But at night, I pretty much gave up sleeping. Peter's three (and sometimes four) feedings at night, where each was dragging on to something like 2 hours didn't really leave me any time for shut eye, aside from the 2-3 hours when Matt took over for in the morning.

And of course, Peter seemed to have no problem going to sleep, and staying asleep for his Daddy.

Saturday night I think it hit its worst. Somewhere around 3:45 am I'd fed my son for the 4th time and I'd rocked him and then he'd crapped everywhere so I'd changed him and then resumed rocking him and then when I put him in his crib he started screaming BLOODY MURDER at me, so I started rocking him again in his darkened room and I started to outright loose my damn mind.

I was staring down in the dark at my baby's face, trying to see if he'd dozed back off yet when I swear to God his eyes started to glow red. I blinked hard and shook my head to chase away the exhaustion and obvious hallucination.

Then, a few minutes later, while we kept on rocking (I might have even dozed off for a minute or two in there) I looked down at my sweet boy again and I would have sworn snakes were crawling out of his eyes.

Needless to say, I immediately turned the light on.

Sleep deprivation and frustration and darkness and paranoia were clearly getting the better of me. Peter most certainly did not have evil glowing red eyes or snakes but was, in fact, staring happily up me with his best (and most defiant) "aren't I cute when I'm not sleepy" face.

I rocked him some more until he F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. seemed to be asleep again and then I

very

very

slowly

and

gently

moved towards his crib

and

very

slowly

and gently

laid him back down

and

held my breath.



I quietly stepped back.



And then, Peter stirred....



3-2-1...



BIG BREATH


and



"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"


I literally swore (a lot) and started banging my fists on the edge of the crib.

Peter stopped crying long enough to look at me and figure out that I wasn't actually yelling at him, and went right back to his fit.

That was when Matt came in, took our son and I went back to bed.

So you see, I haven't really had the energy, or the motivation to blog.

If you're wondering, this pattern continued for one more night, and then on Monday night (sweet glorious Monday night) he randomly went back to only getting up once!

Now he wakes up for his middle of the night feeding closer to 12:30 am, and its a nightmare getting him into his crib, but at least once he's there he sleeps through til morning.

Can I get a Praise Jesus?

No?

Alright fine.

Because of course, Tuesday, after he finally went back to sleeping he didn't want to eat and when he did eat let's just say that nothing (and I do mean NOTHING!!) seemed to stay down.

Which made Bible Study, um, "fun."

And for that matter, if you ever randomly find yourself in the old Fort Ord Military Post Chapel sanctuary, its probably best to avoid sitting in the 8th pew on the right side closest to the windows, because let's just say that there is a seat cushion which will never be the same.

**********

In our other top story today, we did actually get in to see the doctor at our Pediatrician's visit yesterday. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, skip down two posts, I'm too lazy to make a hyperlink.)

First she looked deeply into his humongous blue and now also a little green eyes and declared that he is most definitely NOT going to have brown eyes if they haven't started getting darker yet. When I later told this to my brown-eyed husband he said he'd be calling Maury Pauvich about a paternity test any day now. Har har har.

Dr. Ruckle is very pleased with Peter's growth. At 16 weeks old, he weighed in at 16 lb 7 oz which is STILL the 85th percentile and is a very good weight considering he is now 26 3/4 inches long which is greater than the 95th percentile. His head, however, is only the 75th percentile, but now measures 43 centimeters.

At no point in the entire check up did she use the word humongous.

Thankyouverymuch!

Of course later someone said something about how she couldn't believe that there are 15% of babies Peter's age who are actually bigger than he is and I very nearly slugged her. Mama is working on her temper though, so she let it go with a shrug and a very fake smile.

The Doctor and I discussed flu vaccinations at length, but he's not eligible to get them for 2 more months so he had his second round of shots, about which he was very, very angry.

For, about 5 minutes.

I, however, managed not to cry about it this time.

It's no wonder the cartoon is so dumb

It isn't like our neighborhood is lacking in perfectly good trees, so why is this stupid bird attacking the side of my house????
** Edit (10/19 at 12:09 pm) A maintenance man was just out here repairing our leaky (cheap, base housing) toilets so I let him know about my feathered friend up there. When we first glanced up, all we saw was what appeared to be a golf-ball sized hole in the wall but in actuality is the entrance to Woody's new home. The bird was all the way inside and kept poking his little head out at us menancingly. Apparently, the decorative facia on these houses is just styrofoam covored in the stucco material and the whole peice has been hollowed out by Mr. Woodpecker. I suppose this also explains why there was been styrofoam nubbits all over our yard for the last week or two. Hopefully, a work crew will be over in a day or two to plug up the hole. Let us just pray that there are no eggs inside.

The Doctor's Visit that Wasn't

You know what is REALLY stellar?

When you ran around like a mad woman all morning to get yourself presentable and your child fed and clothed in order to make it to the Pediatrician's office for a 9:30 am appointment and then when you're calmly sitting in the waiting room trying to entertain your 3 1/2 month old and ignore the fact that in a few minutes nurses are going to be sticking needles into the love of your life the receptionist calls you back to the front desk to inform you that your incredible insurance company has switched your baby's Primary Care Doctor to someone you've never even heard of and they send you away because your not covered for the visit.

Yes, this actually happened to me yesterday.

I was so upset I very nearly punched somebody.

But of course none of the people around me actually had anything to do with the problem.

I ended up running home and then all over creation to find the paperwork verifying Peter's pediatrician (it ended up being in the glove box of the car Matt had at school, so there was a lovely 15 minutes or so of me driving around the NPS parking lot looking for his car while Peter hollered at me from the back seat) before heading over to the Tri-Care office to have them correct the problem.

The actual solution took all of about 30 seconds as the dude changed it in the computer.

Of course the damage was already done and we'd missed our appointment. I rescheduled it for next week but that is beside the point.

The point is that this kind of crap shouldn't happen. Seriously. It's bad enough that our Doctor was changed but why didn't we even get notified?!?!

Forget the fact that our original appointment had been made 2 months ago and we'd missed it.

And also please forget the fact that as a new mother I can think of a reason to consider calling or visiting the Pediatrician at least once every other day because most of the time I have no idea what the hell I'm doing and they don't do "well baby checkups" regularly and I have to go a lot longer between visits than I'd prefer. And my baby's skin is all weird and his diapers keep changing colors and consistency and he might be teething and is he growing too much or maybe not enough because I really can't tell...

AND...

... as I've mentioned at least 4 zillion times, I AM A WORRIER by nature.

(Yes I know worrying is pointless. But it's what I do. Let's just say I'm working on it.)

But forget all that, because Tri-Care certainly doesn't care.

So, now I'm waiting another week to take my son to the doctor to see how he's doing.

And no doubt he's doing just fine.

But still I'll worry. :)

************************

In other news... Peter finally stopped being super sneaky about his new talent of rolling from his back to his front and I got it on video:



It's not very graceful yet and is almost as painful to watch as my husband when he attempts to bust a move on the dance floor, but he's doing it.

After this he kept right on rolling very, very slowly onto his back, then to his front again, then his back, and then again to his front and before I knew it he'd made his way from the dining room floor almost all the way to the kitchen.

It might be time to start thinking about baby proofing.

The Storm

It's Wednesday!

Ohmygosh thank goodness it is Wednesday.

And I can't actually think of another time in my entire life when I was SO happy to make it to Wednesday, but after yesterday I really really am.

Because.... oy.

Seriously.

It's interesting because Monday night I was thinking to myself and I was all, "Self, here we go, time for the week to begin but NO worries because with the Columbus Day holiday and Matt not having class on Fridays, this week is only three days! I can do anything for three days! Anything!"

(Especially when that holiday meant one less Monday when Matt had to be in class at 7 am.)

But oh how wrong I was.

The trouble actually begun on Sunday morning. Matt went for his usual run with the dog at 4:30 am and sprained his ankle. He claims there may have been a rock involved, that he may have stepped on. Either way, he rolled his ankle and by the time he hobbled back home he was limping badly and the swelling had started.

For the record, my husband never gets hurt or sick small. IF he's going to do it, which is rare, he goes all out. For him sickness.... which is only does very rarely.... is SICKNESS!!! Vomiting is nearly always involved.

The same goes for getting hurt.

Case and point, last year while on deployment he woke up one morning with unexplained severe back pain. Several weeks and many tests later it was revealed that he had a herniated disk in his neck. A year and half later he still suffers some numbness in one of his hands from it.

But see, he also happens to be the MOST humongous pain wimp. For reals. A teeny little splinter is like, the end of the world for him. So Sunday morning, when he was limping around and complaining, I just sort of ignored him.

Then the ankle started turn dark blue.

Crap.

Of course this happens 2 weeks before Matt has to run the Navy Physical Readiness Test... the one he has to pass semi-annually to be allowed to stay in the military... which might be difficult on a dark blue bowling ball sized ankle.

He kept it iced and wrapped as much as he could on Sunday and also all day on Monday but he couldn't actually go to the Doctor yet, since it wasn't life threatening and the clinic was closed for the weekend/holiday.

He left the house at 6 am Tuesday morning to try to get into the clinic before class so he could ask for a medical waiver for the test.

(He never did get in to see anyone, so I guess he'll have to go back later, but that's sort of beside the point.)

The point is that Matt was long gone at 7 am Tuesday morning when the Baby woke up and started to wail.

Mommy was exhausted, since she'd been up at 1 and 3 am to feed her little man, but we got up anyway because that's life as a parent.

That's when I noticed it pouring rain outside.

I didn't even know we were expecting a storm.

Somewhere in there I fed Peter, and he crapped ALL over himself, me and the blanket I we were underneath so I started a load of laundry.

And that was when I noticed that the power was flickering on and off. Each time the power flickered the washer started its cycle over.

Charming.

Outside it really was a bit of nightmare. The rain was coming down in buckets. The back yard was turning into a swamp. The wind was howling. Leaves and branches and bits of trash and loose Halloween decorations were blowing up and down the street. Which wouldn't really be that exciting except that this is California and, generally speaking, it never rains here.

It was around 1:30 that the power shut off for good.

It was fine, except that Mommy wasn't exactly running on a full tank and entertaining the child without another hot cup of coffee, the ability to turn on music or in the very least the TV for background noise was difficult.

Brutus was also sort of a problem. First I found him hiding behind the washing machine. Then he was alternating between an over powering NEED to go splashing around outside through the backyard and strong desire to cuddle up on my lap and tremble in fear at the storm.

As you might guess, a terrified neurotic and very soggy dog sitting on your lap doesn't generally work very well when you already have a rather demanding 3 1/2 month old child to tend to.

It was a very, very long afternoon.

Time seemed not to move at all.

Around 3:30 my very soggy husband came home. The school had lost power too but was running on emergency generators. Regardless, Matt'd decided to skip out on the boring afternoon presentation he was supposed to attend.

He and Peter napped for a while I stared at the storm outside our window wondering if the tree next door was going to give in and fall over.

The power hopefully clicked back on 2 or 3 times but always after a few seconds it went back out again.

We went to Chili's for dinner. While I'm sure we could have cooked at home, since we have a gas stove and plenty of matches to light it, but it was just easier to go out. Thankfully they had power even though most of the street lights were out on the way there. Lots of large branches were down near our neighborhood, including some that had obviously hit the power lines.

Around 6 pm when we came home everything was still out. Matt took the dog for a quick splash around the block and I set to work pulling out candles and the flashlights (again) in case everything was off for the night.

The problem of course, was getting Peter to bed. We skipped his bath, assuming there might not be hot water and I set to work giving him his evening meal at the usual time about 7:15 but without his bath he seemed unsleepy.

At 7:45 the power returned (hallelujah!) so we started the process of getting the boy to bed.

I FULLY intended to go to sleep for the night myself the second he went down.

Unfortunately, Peter wasn't having ANY of it. I am choosing to blame the fact that he didn't get a bath. Because, frankly, I have no idea what else it could have been.

Lots of SCREAMING.

Lots.

He'd fall asleep sure, for a moment. Only to wake up and scream again the second we moved towards his crib.

Matt tried. I tried. I took his temperature (no fever.) I changed his clothes. I tried teething rings, and orajel.

Baby was screaming!

I got more and more exhausted and grouchy, which I'm sure did NOT help.

I yelled at Matt. That didn't help either.

Finally, at 10:15 the baby crashed out.

F.I.N.A.L.L.Y.

And thus ended one of the longest days of my life.

Thank God it's finally Wednesday.

And also that after a quick breakfast at 6 am Peter went back to sleep and let me do the same until almost 10.

The Pumpkin Patch

Today since it is Columbus Day and Matt didn't have class we decided to head down the road to a local Organic market called Earthbound Farm which according to the internet features a fairly substantial Harvest Celebration each Autumn and a lovely Pumpkin Patch.

I'll be honest, my entire goal was to get a picture like this:

A shot of my adorable little Pumpkin sitting on a pumpkin bigger than he is.

Of course, in my imaginiation Little Man wouldn't look quite so grumpy whilst perched on the future Jack-O-Lantern or yummy pie, but for some reason that was the way it was going today.

Not to worry. Peter won't remember this trip anyway, aside from the photos, so we powered on and checked out the rest of the farm, starting with the corn maze!!

Which seemed a little off to me, because while I'm fairly certain I never actually went through a corn maze in my own childhood, I have seen them in pictures and on TV and in the midwest the corn is brown and dried out, not all green and still fruit bearing as these were.

Go ahead an add that to the list of weird things about the climate in California. It can go right after the bit about how it almost NEVER rains and how most of the leaves will eventually change color and fall off the trees, they just choose to wait to do so until about December or early January. (If they ever get around to doing it at all.)

Anyway, Matt, Peter and I explored the Corn Maze which was fun until Matt ran off and went all Blair Witch Project on me and started to freak out for the camera.

Nice shot of all those nose hairs honey.

Anyway, here we are once I caught up to him and he regained his normal composure.

Stop laughing, the tongue sticking out is normal for him. The only really troubling part about that is he's teaching Peter to do it. Please join me now in saying a brief prayer that my first born grows OUT of that lovely habit. Because while its cute now....

Anyway.

Eventually, we did find our way through.

See, we came out by the actual exit sign and everything and did not just end up circling around and retracing our steps back to the entrance as my husband suggested. Although, thinking about it now, I guess we could have done that and just cheated and made our way around the outside of the maze to find the exit that way and get our photo, but that is not what we did!

Honest!

(Why don't you believe me?)

Next, we spent a few minutes sniffing our way through the enticing aromas of the Herb garden.

Pronounce the H please. Say it with me now. "Haa-urb Garden" It's just so much more amusing that way.

Evenutally we made our way back to the pumpkins and Daddy went off to select the perfect future Peter's first Jack-o-Lantern.

And oh the choices he had!!!

California has a lot of very odd looking sort of pumpkins.

Here we are at last with Matt's selection.

Please notice that the baby still couldn't care less.

And I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking "Jen, seriously, he's 3 and a half months old! What do you expect of him?"
Well, actually I expected a lot more. If nothing else, he usually loves being outside. Even more than that he loves being in the Baby Bjorn. (Pronounce the J please, cause that's how we say it around here. "Ba-jorn." Heeheehee.)

Peter also loves, no make that L-O-V-E-S the color orange. Seriously. He'd stare at an orange washcloth (ask Gramma) or an orange pillow or Mommy's orange t-shirt or even our mostly orange-ish colored dog ALL DAY if I'd let him.

But, not today.

Peter could have cared less about all those lovely orange pumpkins.

See?

I even tried giving him one his own size, proportinately.

Still nothing.

In the end, do you want to know what DID make him happy?

Putting him back in the car seat.

(Notice the tongue.)

*Sigh*

The best laid plans.

I asked Matt if we could go back on Halloween Night and camp out to wait for the Great Pumpkin, but he said no.

(He never let's me have any fun.)

Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Peter Eater

"Alright Mommy, since Gramma Terri was nice enough to send me this silly jack-o-lantern shirt, I suppose I can wear it and smile for a picture."

"Cheese!"

"Honestly though, making me sit on the Halloween blanket and pose with the stuffed ghost is a little ridiculous. Let me just take care of this silly fellow for you.... "

WHAM!

"What's that? Oh... I thought you wanted me to destroy the ghost."

"I'm sorry Mommy."

"Well what the heck?! Why am I down on the floor now?

Can't we be done with the pictures already?"

"Hmmm. This stuffed pumpkin is new. I wonder where he came from?"



"Oh great and now the ghost is back.... I think these two may me plotting something against me."




"AAAAAAAHH! Mommy he's after me!!!!"



"Now seriously Mother, are we done yet? I'm hungry when do I get to eat again?"
 
Happy October everyone!

Halloween is just around the corner!!!!

What a Difference

It needs to be noted that this time last year I was frantically trying to make it through teaching my last few classes before skipping out of work a little early to get my hair done and clean my entire house and finish the last preparations before Matt finally came home from deployment tomorrow.

What this meant was that I when I got home I couldn't sit still for more than 12 seconds and I ended up calling my good friend Olivia to go to dinner with me and provide a distraction.

Anyway, its just strange to think about all that's happened since then.

Fun Before Bathtime

Have I mentioned how my husband should have been the Prom King?

No?

Well, in my opinion, and granted that is without any real knowledge of his high school experience, because I didn't know him then, he is exactly the type of person who people elect prom king: that person who is fun loving and silly and can find humor and pleasantness in almost every situation. That person who makes friends easily and doesn't discriminate between who he'll hang out with. That person who is naturally pretty darn good at everything.

My husband is that person.

It's a large part of why I fell in love with him.

And also why, most of the time, I love him still.

Then of course there is the other (evil or sleep deprived) part of me that finds this IRRITATING beyond belief.

He's just so darn good at everything.

And I am really, really not.

For example, and I have no earthly clue why this surprises me in the least, he's a naturally good father.

No, make that a naturally GREAT father.

Seriously, dude's a natural.

Peter is very blessed.

And so am I to have him as my parenting partner.

But as I've said before in earlier posts, sometimes, when I'm tired or frustrated and, as a totally made up and hypothetical random example, the baby has been screaming at me ALL day only to transform into the most joyful, giggling, happy child 10 seconds after his father walks in the door... I go a little crazy and I really hate my husband a little bit.

(Luckily the feeling passes quickly and you'll see why in a minute when you get to the pictures I'm about to post.)

Because as a dad, Matt just naturally does everything right. The books say you should gently sway when you hold a fussy baby, and Matt gently sways. They say you should talk to a baby, narrate what you're doing while you change him or dress him or pack your lunch or whatever, and Matt talks. They say babies love to smile and make faces, Matt smiles and makes faces.

Except Matt hasn't read ANY of the books, sought the advice of other parents or listened to "they." He has no idea about the advice and the research and the developmental needs, he just does what feel natural to him and is amazing at it because he's the sort of guy who ought to have been the frickin' Prom King.

And I love him for it.

(Most of the time.)

So of course the books also all say that babies love to look in mirrors and recently before baths Matt started to stop and look in the mirror and let Peter look at and make faces at himself. Never mind the fact that my hubby STILL hasn't read any of the books, he just started doing it because he thought it would be fun.

So, this evening when I came from putting some of the baby's things away to prepare the tub, this is what I found going on:

Cutest. Thing. Ever.

Stress and stuff

It should be noted that I am having a TERRIBLE week.

First I found out some bad news, then I found out more and then I found out even more than that. Then the way I reacted to some of this bad news was apparently bad and it caused a lot more badness.

This is important for me to mention for a few reasons:

1. If you're my friend on facebook you've probably seen some really strange status updates and potential might be starting to worry which I urge you not to because what's done is done anyway and I'll eventually learn to deal.

2. The things that are bothering me are big and personal enough (for me and other people) that they can not be discussed here (no matter how much it would feel good to spew all the crap right out...) so all I can do is pray that stuff gets better. What this means though, is that I am ABSOLUTELY about to start to really ramble about nothing important here in a minute.

and

3. I didn't really mean to just glaze over my son's 3 month birthday yesterday with only a photo. I had more planned to discuss, but then the badness took over and it got lost along the way.

Meanwhile.....

I'm doing my very best to be a decent mother this week despite all the badness but my baby has been spitting/throwing up a great deal these past few days and has had some very suspicious diapers and I convince myself in and out of believing he's sick at least 9 times daily.

*In- because of all the spew and extra-runny poo and potentially less eating, although I'm not entirely sure about the eating part

*Out-because he's still as happy as ever and might even be crying less than normal, he doesn't have a fever, and is still producing an adequate amount of wet/dirty (although runny) diapers.

Oh, and last night he slept through the night.

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.

So he can't be sick. Can he?

I don't know. The jury is still out because maybe he slept so long because he's sick.

And actually there's a whole 'nother story all of its own there because MY BABY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!

Ahem.

So, last night for various reasons we didn't get Peter up and into his bath until close to 7:45. By that time he was pretty tired, pissed off and really starting to wail. He calmed down a little in the tub but was still pretty distraught (tired) so we sped through cleaning him and hurried to get him moisturized (remind me some other time to dive into the already seemingly eternal nightmare of the potential eczema or psoriasis devouring my poor little boy's skin) and into his jammies so I could feed him and put him to bed.

By 8:15 he was out cold, but then my putting him into his crib awoke him and reminded him he was still hungry just in time for the power to go out.

AGAIN.

(This is the third time in the 3 1/2 months we've lived here.)

So there I am, standing next to the crib, leaning down over my child, who's doing his best pathetic frowny-in-a-second-I'm-absolutely-going-to-WAIL-at-you-mom face and then suddenly we're plunged into TOTAL darkness.

A moment later it occurred to me that there was a full moon outside and I opened the drapes and the blinds to let in some light.

Then I remembered the little Fisher Price Roaring Lion Flashlight that I put next to Peter's nightstand after the second power failure.

(Technically speaking, I have to admit that the flashlight is actually Matt's. It was sent to him by his good friends Mike and Mishana after we took a trip to the zoo during which Matt spent the entire day doing the gay lion "Roar!" from the Big Gay Al episode of South park.)

Anyway. I picked up Peter and fed him some more in the dull light with an occasional roar sound being produced by the Fisher price flashlight. Eventually Matt came up with a better flashlight, and after close to another hour, the baby finally went back to sleep. By then it was around 9:15 and since the power was still out Matt and I headed to bed.

Matt was asleep before his face hit the pillow. My obsessively worried self had to wait about 20 minutes more for the power to come back on so that the baby monitor was working again and I could relax enough to sleep. Not that I slept. I stayed up playing on the computer and reading.

At 2 am the dog woke me up with his scratching and obsessive butt licking. Yes, the scratching was back, as were the fleas (I noticed them all over the cat again yesterday but don't worry because Matt got the really good flea stuff from the vet today,) and what's that? I hadn't mentioned the dog's obsessive butt licking? Well there isn't much to tell really, other than the fact that after the original flea episode a few weeks back Brutus developed a neurotic need to lick his ass all the time.

A google search for "dog licking his butt too much" told me that this lovely behavior probably meant that for some reason my doggo's anal glands were clogged and he'd be needing a trip to the vet to have them squeezed out. This is something I'd heard of before (my brother had a cat like that once) but it also horrified me to the point that I was living in denial and procrastinating about calling the vet.

Until last night, when the butt licking dog woke me up again and then left me a surprise for the morning.

As you might have guessed, the dog got the boot right out of our bedroom.

Which I paid for in the morning, because after I shooed him away, my dog apparently took his problem anal glands and rubbed them all over the carpet on the stair landing. (THANK GOD I just bought a carpet steamer.) After this discovery, Matt immediately called the vet, and an hour or so and 20 bucks later, the problem is solved. (Phew!)

Cut back to my bedroom at 2 am, now sans nasty-dog. That was when noticed that the baby hadn't woken up hungry yet. I checked on him and the monitor (to ensure it was working) and dozed back off, assuming I'd hear something soon enough.

But, but, BUT!!!

The next thing I heard was Matt waking me up around 7am to give me the baby (who Matt told me had been up for around an hour) so that he could take a shower and go to his morning appointment.

Groggy, I immediately realized that my chest was about to EXPLODE. Painfully, I sat up and thought back, remembering that the last time Peter had nursed had been at his bedtime, during the power failure.

HOLY CRAP!

(and also OUCH!!!!)

But oh, the sweet, sweet bliss of all that sleep. Aside from the brief 2 am encounter with Mr. Fuzzy-Butt-Lickingness (stupid dog) I'd slept straight from 11:30pm until 7am! And Peter had gone 9 hours without crying hungry!!

I was much, much happier about all of that AFTER I'd fed the boy, relieved the pressure and changed into a nice dry shirt.

Because my baby slept through the night.

For reals.

Can I state for the record that something like this makes all the badness a little easier to deal with?

I mean its all still there.

But its easier to ignore.

So then this morning, there I am trying to forget about how awful the world is in a lot of ways and I'm trying to help Matt clean out the closet under the stairs. Peter is sitting in his little bouncy chair next to me when I decide to pick up a lamp and move it out of the way.

And as I move the lamp the loose end of the cord sort of spun out and wapped my baby in the face.

er, the forehead to be specific.

Shocked, Peter looked right at me, made his sad/betrayed face and whiney-cried.

His whiney cry is always SO SO SO much worse than when he screams.

It's the cry he makes when he gets a shot, if that puts it in perspective

Or when I walk out of the room too quickly and he thinks he's alone.

Its the "How could you? I thought you loved me! Why don't you love me? Look how cute I am! How could you hurt me?" cry.

The. Worst. Sound. Ever.

Heartbreaking.

Rightly so of course, because I'd just wapped my child in the face with a plug.

I kissed it and rubbed it gently and hugged him for a minute before Matt came and took him to change his diaper, which he was hoping would be enough of a distraction to calm him down.

It was.

But then from the closet where I was still sitting a little stunned I heard Matt say "Wow" in reference to the small grain of rice sized welt which was now appearing on Peter's forehead.

I jumped up and ran to see the mark. Then I completely went to pieces. (LOTS of recent badness remember and then I dented my baby...... how could I not cry?)

Matt turned from the baby, who was laying in the pack and play commando from the waist down, to try to console me with a hug.

Then Matt screamed. The sprinkler was going off.

Except when I turned my head to look, the peeing had stopped. It seemed Matt's shriek had startled Peter into closing the pipes. Which is weird to me, because I've heard people say things about having the piss scared out of them but I've definitely never heard about it going the other way round.

Hm.

I told you this was all going to be completely random.

Three Months Old!!!!!!