Spacing out.

Ivan and I left the house around 6:40 this morning to head off to daycare and work. We get down Ryland Pike and make it on to 72, when maybe about a half mile away from Sheilds Rd traffic was at a stand still. So I turn around go back to Ryland Pike to get on Jordan Rd. to get all the way down to Moores Mill Rd. Ok, that worked out fine. I turn on the radio, something I have actually listened to in a couple of weeks right now we're listening to an audio book, to check on the traffic of the morning. Well there was an accident right before Moores Mill on 72. Ok that explains the traffic.

Well at this point it is now 7, and I haven't made it over Chapman Mtn. yet. Kind of disappointing but not unusal for us to get to daycare a little later. So as I'm driving down I565, listening to whatever song was playing, I space out and miss the Memorial Parkway exit. Great, the NEXT exit is Jordan lane. Ok, I thought I could just get on Jordan Lane and go down Bob Wallace to get on the parkway. Nah, there is a school zone, don't really want to mess with that. So I get back on the interstate to get on the parkway. About the time I get to the daycare I've been driving for at least 40 mins. By the time I get to work that amount is almost an hour. Sometimes I do wish I lived closer to work and town. I do love our little house and not having a lot of noise and such, but I loathe driving. I think if I hadn't had remembered to get on the parkway I would have gotten to work and realized that I still have the baby in the car. Just so you know, he slept through the whole trip.

If you broke it dont buy it.

Our house is experiencing good growth in our financial capabilities. We have kept a spreadsheet for years now, Natalie's idea. Now we have moved even further by proactively engaging our credit debt. We took 7 or 8 of our high intrest credit cards and moving them on to one BA card from our bank. The move is saving us doudle digit intrest. I also had my truck refinanced at a lower APR. Just to note credit cards can not be directly used to pay off credit cards.
I believe this difficulty is intentional.
Our new financial heartiness is now leading to willy-nilly spending. Buying things you want is fun. I am hoping to get some games for the PS3 but I also want to do some home improvements. I.e. Last night I bought three cheap bookshelves and another shelf for the kitchen. The bookshelves will go into the study/kitten room, do not worry no kitties are harmed in the room unless they ask for it.
Natalie and I did a good deal of work around the house this weekend. Natalie did laundry and steam cleaned the carpet. She also hung my grilling tools in the garage. I did some dishes and got some things from Lowe's.
The weekend was fun and we had Jason's Deli Saturday.
Yummie

Our first visit to the doctor which wasn't the well baby kind...

It all started on Sunday when I picked up the baby to feed him. He felt warm, but not unusually warm, so I fed him and he sweated from the back of his neck while feeding. Well I decided to take his temperature and it was 99.5. Not high enough to call the doctor, so I thought giving him some water would help. It did, we went to Ocktoberfest and he felt a lot cooler. Well, he starts getting a stuffy nose again, I use the saline drops (as directed by the doctor the last time his nose was stuffy), I elevate his mattress and use the cool mist humidifier. It kind of helped. He could sleep all night (mostly, no different than what he has done before). Well last night, he would wake up every two hours or so screaming like he was in pain and he was tired at the same time. I take his temp, and it is a normal 98.6. Uh, so what do I do now? I have a baby who is uncomfortable, doesn't want to lay on his left side, will sleep on his right side. But still it is only for a little while. After a loonnggg night of trying to get him comfortable, while holding him, we finally get about two hours of sleep on our smaller couch, him laying on top of me on his right side. Now don't get me wrong, my husband and I think he is possibly teething, because on top of all these other symptoms he's been drooling for like 3 weeks, all the time. In the morning I feed him again, his appetite is roughly normal. He is so sleepy from not sleeping well the night before. I feel so bad for him. Tiffani (a co-worker who has 3 little girls) stops by my desk to give money for the gift card to another co-worker who's wife is expecting. I ask her what her kids were like when they were teething, I go through all the same stuff mention above and she suggests to me he probably has/had bad gas or has an ear infection. Ok, I guess that makes sense but no real fever? It is possible, him only wanting to sleep on one side makes sense that this could be the cause.

Alright, so with this thought (bug) in my mind, I call the pediatrician (the advice nurse, because you don't really ever get to talk to the doctor unless it is in person). Well I'm waiting for them to call back to see if I should bring him in. Now keep in mind that this is around 8:45 in the morning I call. Wating...waiting...the time I finally call them back is about 12 saying just make me an appointment, the earliest they can see him is 4. Ok, no big deal I'll just pick him up from daycare take him home so he can sleep/rest there. The people at daycare say he's been acting alright just coughing some.

We get home he passes straight out. I feed him around 3, and we head off to the doctor. And the verdict is:

Poor Ivan has an ear infection in both ears. Don't know how he got it but he now gets some amoxicillin and tylenol for the pain. I feel so bad for him.. :(

First Ocktoberfest

So this past Sunday I took Ivan to the Ocktoberfest held at the arsenal. So we meet up with Walker and Trent. Walker doing his standard picture face and Trent imitating Walker. They are a bunch of monkeys!

There were carnival rides and funnel cakes and even some schnitzel. (Uncle Steve said he couldn't find the schnitzel...but it was under the BIG white tent...)

Well Trent and I had some bratwurst instead of schnitzel. Walker just sat with us...As you can see from the photos it was super muddy.

Well after the food, we got some funnel cakes (Walker and I did). It is a must have at a carnival! But we had to document Ivan being at Ocktoberfest...So Trent was so kind to take those photos.

Carrying a baby around in a sling is almost as bad as being pregnant, except you don't waddle and you get to hold them in your arms, but the gaining weight of a baby sure does pose a challenge to you back muscles! After funnel cakes we decided to go on the Farris Wheel. All of the carnival rides were free, so this one looked the most safe for the baby.

Poor Ivan was so sleepy. But he enjoys going out and seeing places. It was so bright (The first time in days! It's been raining for like 2 weeks straight) so the baby needed to have some sun protection.

Once done on the Farris Wheel we decided to head back to the cars. Can you believe 2 hours past with walking around eating and riding the Farris Wheel?? It sure was hot but fun!
This baby sure was pooped!

12 weeks old but not 3 months yet...

3 months old will happen next week. You go through your whole pregnancy thinking that one month is 4 weeks long, and then once the baby is born a month can either be four or five weeks long. Insane I tell you!

Ivan's progress thus far is:
Can almost sleep through the night. There are only a couple of times he'll wake up, but once that paci is back in his mouth, he's right back to sleep.

He will soon be in size 2 diapers, once we're done with the size ones (on our last package of those!). The size ones are starting to act like the newborn diapers did when he out grew those. (he ends up peeing out of them easier, especially at night) I'd hate to waste what we bought. But this means he's almost 14 lbs. 13lbs 5 oz last Friday!

He's wearing 3-6 month clothing. The arms are kind of big, but he sure does fit them length wise.

He smiles more frequently. Sometimes I still have to coax it out of him, and others he'll just smile. He has a precious giggle/laugh as well.

He doesn't cry as often. His high pitched squeals are getting less frequent as well. He'll mostly scream when he doesn't want to be put down or if his diaper is getting changed when he doesn't want it to.

He talks to us more, I should say cooing, but they're more than just one or two syllables.

AND...The big one here...He doesn't cry at much or not at all during car trips anymore! Though I think his limit for car trips is around an hour to an hour and a half at a time.

So Ivan has now turned into a thumb sucker. Sunday morning I hear this sucking noise coming from Ivan's room (it isn't audible on the baby monitor with the paci). So I go in to check it out and turns out he has his little left thumb in his mouth. So I decided to put the paci back in. What does he do, takes out the paci and puts him thumb back in. His little thumb was so red. I eventually was able to get him to trade out the thumb for the paci. But it is good to know he is learning to self soothe.

So lately we ended up buying Ivan an gym mat play thing. He seemed to really like the ones they have at his daycare. He would just lie on his back and wiggle his arms and legs acting like he was enjoying trying to reach them. So we bought the Fisher Price Ocean Kick and Crawl. It turns into a tunnel later on. So here Ivan is playing with the dangling toys. He'll just lay there and stare at them for right now. He's not much into moving them yet with his hands. Sorry for the picture being blurry, my little Point and Shoot camera does alright in the light from the room, but I have no way of controlling my shutter speed.

Also we have this bouncy seat thing that attaches to the door frame so when the baby is put in it they can bounce. Well right now he doesn't bounce so I just raise it up and push him in it like a swing.

He has a blast in it. His BeBe got it for him. I don't know where at, so please don't ask. The kittens think it is fun to try and play with this bouncy seat as well, when the baby isn't in it. But they like to get into everything anyways.

I'm thinking about buying this stroller:

It's handle is reversible. It doesn't cost more than $200 and I can buy it off of amazon.

10 weeks old

Ivan is now 10 weeks old. He's doing pretty good. He is getting so big! Right now he is transitioning from 0-3 month clothes to 3-6 month clothes. (I just put away all of the newborn clothes) In some respects this makes me sad, that all those cute little clothes he wears I'll never get to see him in again. In others, I'm looking forward to playing more with him. He's starting to smile more frequently now. He can almost sleep through the night in his own crib. He occasionally wakes up because he looses his pacifier, but after it is back in, he goes right back to sleep. His cries have started to change. When he gets tired it is more of the classic crying sound but long and drawn out. He definitely knows how to milk that one. He still has a high pitched (like a screaming girl in a horror movie) when he looses his pacifier at night, or if I stop in the middle of giving him his bottle to burp him. He likes to talk a little bit, he'll sit in his bouncy seat and just start cooing. It is really cute. Then after a few minutes of doing that he gets tired, uses his tired cry and then takes a nap (because mommy can tell he's tired and wants one).

Daycare is going alright. I still think I pay too much money a week for it. But oh well, they are treating him well and he seems alright while he's there. I do miss getting to hang out with him all day long, take a nap together in the morning, attempt at doing tummy time (maybe he'll like it one day), and just playing around. But we do enjoy bath time and reading before bed (still on Harry Potter book 1)

I'm working on making a diaper bag for my team leads wife who is having a baby in October. I'll put up pictures when I'm done. Right now the bag is getting the baby's name put on it. Also, I'm making the matching burp cloth, changing pad, bib, and pacifier clip. My mom helped me out with the majority of the bag and a little on the other stuff. There were a few things I haven't learned about sewing yet that I needed help on.

This weekend is Labor Day weekend and we'll be busy. We're going to go to my Aunt's house on Saturday and then the in-laws on Sunday for dinner. Thank goodness we have Monday to rest. :) Traveling with a baby can wear you out. Especially when you can't take him out of the car seat to console him if he won't stop crying (while driving, I understand he'll be consoled once we get to certain places). (Which by the way, he is getting better at car rides, he doesn't cry the whole time anymore, but I do think my shoulder will be deformed for after all the reaching back I do to put the pacifier back in his mouth.) I personally can't wait until I get to turn the car seat around so it faces the front. I'll get to put my seat back some then! But sadly that won't happen until he's almost a year old.

I'm exicted for our Christmas photo this year. Ben will probably grow out his mustache again, he has for the past two years. This year we're getting someone to take our Christmas photo for us! I just don't feel like making one this year on my own. Anywho, that's about it!