Grandad Walker and I Head to the Space and Rocket Center

So my dad came down this past weekend, and this was his first time getting to see Ivan. I think he enjoyed his trip. On Sunday, we went to the Space and Rocket Center. My dad and Catalina stayed longer than they usually do when they come down, so it was time for a fun activity! Also, being that we have a knack for going sight seeing on days when it is extremely hot or extremely cold, poor Ivan got super bundled up. The high for Sunday was like 29. Brrrr....

Well it started off with a 3D movie on the Sun. FYI... If you had a NASA badge you can now get into the Space and Rocket Center for FREE!!!! (This includes all of your family members) The only cost is the movie, which was $4!

This was Ivan's first time at a movie theater. I made him sleep. If they had made baby sized 3D glasses, I might of let him partake in the fun. But alas, they didn't have any Ivan sized glasses, and thankfully he fell asleep. Here he is after the movie...

The newer movie theater there lets out to the new Saturn V facility. And I must say I'm always impressed by how big that rocket it is. It took Ivan a little while to wake up. But the rest of us walked around, and under the rocket hanging/supported in the middle of the building. The facility decided that moving, oh, 40 - 50% of the displays from the old building to the new building was a good idea. It made for more room in the other building, now I wish they would update a lot of things that are outdated, i.e. The wall of women astronauts, it stops at 1994!

Some of the things we saw were rocket engines, the new CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle, aka Orion) capsule, the new Ares I and Ares V rocket models,  the Apollo capsule, and the lunar lander. There were more things there, but I didn't get a picture of everything. 

Ivan finally woke up, and we got a shot of him under the Saturn V rocket. Of course you can tell he's impressed!

 
We tried out the Shuttle landing simulator. My dad had a hard time landing the space shuttle. Good thing he's a musician. :o) I didn't have a problem landing the Shuttle though. The simulation said I did a good job, and I've got Ben to back me up!

He looks like he's having fun right?

Then we got some pictures with Dad, Catalina and Ivan in front of the Ares I rocket.

And then just pictures of my dad and Ivan.

Ivan did pretty well for this trip. He's mostly calm when we go out, until he figures he's done with it.

And to finish off the excursion, I got Ben to take a picture of me and my dad. Notice the Saturn V in the background and the CEV capsule too.

Sleeping Babies

So I'm sure a lot of people out there have the perfect solution for putting babies to sleep. Let me just say I've read a lot of them already. Some seem like they could work, others are a bit out there. But getting a baby to sleep all night, to me, is quite challenging.

First off, let me say that we're trying to do a routine, and not sleep in mommy and daddy's bed. So far it's been going pretty well, only two days of pretty well, but two days is progress. Our routine goes something like this:

We get home from daycare, and I try to the best of my ability to keep him awake until his next feeding. His last bottle at daycare is usually around 3 - 3:30, depending on how demanding the other babies are. So that puts his next bottle between 6:30 and 7:30. But that also comes with the challenge of waking him up after the car ride home and keeping him entertained. So for his entertainment I talk to him, change his diaper, sing to him...well most of the time he wants to take a nap. (Insert lots of crying here) So for this evening it was at 5:30 and lasted until 6:30 when he kind of woke up on his own, but also with the help from mommy. He look was priceless though, kind of like the way my husband looks when I make him wake up. Well I gave him his bottle, he ate about 90% of it. I honestly don't believe in trying to make him eat more than he wants. There is no point because he'll spit it up.

The next step is an established bath. I give him a bath every night. Mostly because I don't like the way his daycare smells, not much I can do about that, but what I can do is not have him smelling this way. So he gets a 'bubble' bath, I just take the lavender soap and put some in while the water is running into his bath. He enjoys it. I'll use his legs and splash them for him and watch while he thinks how he could do that himself. It is fun to see his brain working.

The last step after the bath, getting dressed of course, is reading him a story. Right now we're reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. I figure why not start at the beginning and work my way through all 7 books. Ben also wants to read some philosophy books to him too. At some point in time while I'm reading to him, he'll get fussy wanting me to stop, to which I will put him into his crib. I'm able to get about 5.5 hours of consecutive sleep out of him. To night he was asleep by 8, so maybe he won't wake up until 2 this morning. I'm hoping that by getting into this routine he'll be able to sleep all night long at some point in time. Though I've often heard that his sleep habits will change suddenly. Eh...anyhow, he's asleep now and we'll see what happens from here.

The Horde Mt. Dew + Breastfeeding not a good thing

So my husband bought some Horde Mt. Dew (a WoW drink), and I thought I would try it the other day. Well, I had the red can, which tasted alright. I only had a couple of sips (I just dumped out the rest of the can this morning). But since it was like a crap load of caffine all at once I got some cleaning done, put up some shelves and the baby's coat rack in his room, which right now is holding the diaper bags. I got to use power tools and everything! :o)

Exhibit A (my rewarding energy experience):

Well silly me forgot the one major rule while breastfeeding a baby; The baby gets what you get. But honestly I thought I was in the clear, it had been awhile since I drank the Mt. Dew that I thought it wasn't going to affect the baby. (I've drank some tea and coffee and none of that seemed to effect the baby) Well it did. It made him soo fussy. He didn't want to be held or anything. And when I laid him down in bed, he would just wiggle and make baby wiggling noises. It was kind of funny. Ok, not really because I didn't get to sleep until 12:30 that night (I drank the Mt. around 3 or so, he didn't breast feed until 7 ish) and he ended up sleeing in his bouncy seat (he crashed from his caffine high). Ben woke up around 4 for work, and decided to see how we were doing, both of us asleep, and he decided to touch the baby's head. I was literally going to strap the baby to him if the baby had woken up so he could deal with him at work. So silly me didn't realize that it was the Mt. Dew until the next day. So out of that adventure/learning experience, I know now my kid doesn't have ADHD (still kind of premature to tell but if he did, more than likely the caffine would have put him to sleep), and that I am never going to drink that stuff again while breastfeeding.

But I do have some pictures of what the baby looked like while on his caffine high.

Exhibt B (The screaming):
And just the paranoid I've got to much energy nothing can calm me down:
(Yes I know the boppy is pink, I bought when I thought I was still having a girl.)

One month ago today

Ivan Jeremiah was born via C-section. It's amazing that it has already been a month since that day. I was 40 weeks an one day pregnant. I was ready to have this baby!

The day first started off with an induction with pitocin. I wasn't progressing as planned. So around 6 that night they said that a C-section was in order, but there were four other people ahead of me.

Then at 8:18pm Ivan was born. 8lbs 3oz 21 inches long.

Now we've got a big baby boy! :)

7 weeks and counting

So to start this blog off:

There are only 7 weeks left until the Baby arrives. Both of us are really excited. We have one wall painted in the baby's room, a lot of furniture to put together and a lot of baby clothes to wash and put away. We just finished the childbirth classes last night, so bring on the labor right?