A Cacophony of Sounds

Kelton is experimenting with his voice. He especially likes to do this while in the carseat where he has his back to you and the only focal point you have of him is his reflection in a mirror in the rearview mirror. Yes, you read that right...it's his reflection times two. See, the baby seat has to face rearward where you can't see this precious little life that just entered your world. Like you don't already have enough issues between sleep deprivation and figuring out this new little bundle, you now have to drive in traffic while your child faces away from you. So, to solve this issue, the makers of all fine baby products decided to rip you for a little more money by making a mirror that installs on the backseat and faces your child. I'm sure it cost them around 99 cents to make and they, in turn, charge you about $15. How do you like that for a return on investment? The next time you see someone driving a Hummer down the highway just remember they probably made their money in baby mirrors. Anyway, so you install this mirror to face the baby, and then position your rearview mirror to catch his reflection in the other mirror. I now know why mothers drive like they do. I always thought it was because they were busy yelling at their toddlers to "sit down or else!". Now I know it's because you feel like your driving the house of mirrors from the carnival because you are trying to watch your child through the distorted views of one convex mirror mounted on the backseat and a funky mirror mounted to your windshield. If the insurance companies studied this, I'm pretty sure they'd come up with a justification for increasing premiums.

So, now when we take rides, I no longer need the radio or my ipod. The surround sound in the car emmanates from a 20 week old who has learned to use his full lung capacity to say, "ooooooaaaaaaaaawwwwwaaaaaaaaaooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh". I can't believe he can hold that much air. He can also say "mah-mah" but that is usually associated with a frown, some fussing, and an occasional tear. I'm going to pretend that he's not using my name in vain and one of these days will say "mama" with a grin. Or perhaps it will come out, "maaaaaaaaammmmaaaaaaaaaaooooooooooooeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh". I'll take that, too.

Doctors, Baths, and Diapers

Can you find the baby in the clothes stack?

I remember the first time I had to take healthcare into consideration. My first job out of college. HMOs, PPOs, premiums, deductibles, in-network versus out-of-network. The possibilities abounded, and they all stemmed back to the charge that appeared on my paystub every two weeks. Now that Kelton is here, I've also been educated in FSAs (flexible spending accounts). These handy little things allow you to stash money back pre-tax in order to pay for co-pays and prescriptions. The trick is that you have estimate what you are going to need for the entire upcoming year before Christmas of the present year. Like you need something else to think about around Christmas while you're already trying to figure out why that stubborn little light won't burn on the top string of lights on the tree and where in the world did I pack our Christmas table decorations? Now we get to calculate the number of times we will and we might be visiting the doctor's office for check-ups, sinus infections, and the occasional unknown.



We took Kelton to another pediatrician yesterday to evaluate his eczema. It's taken me a month to remember just how to spell it. One of Kelton's finest motor skills accomplishments is scratching his noggin. He's very good at it, but I suppose when it itches all the time, that would be a priority on the learning scale. This doctor was much more helpful than our last, and she reassured me that babies really don't need a bath everyday. That one has been nagging at me. There's this little voice in my head that says, "Wash that baby every day!" and then there's the other little voice that says, "His ears won't fall off from skipping a day or two!" I preferred the latter of the two, and now I have a doctor's statement to back me up on this one. Washing dries out the skin, so the fewer washings the better. I don't think Kelton minds this either. Not that he minds baths, but I'm pretty sure it's not on the top of his list of fun things to do.

The other thing that is healthy for baby skin is air circulation. And as most mamas know, air circulation around the hiney means cloth diapers!! So, Kelton and I visited a cloth diaper store this afternoon, and we came home with an assortment to try. At the very minimum, my goal is to get him into cloth for the nights and most of the weekends (so basically maybe about half the time). Let me digress, remember my profile where I said I'd come up with another "plan" soon? Well, this is it! Back to the story...So, now there are more options than the cloth diapers that my grandmother used on my mom and her brothers. There are all-in-ones (all cloth, completely padded, velcro closures, use it like a disposable but don't throw it away), there are pocket-diapers (all cloth, but you have to remember to stuff it with absorbent material), there's cotton, hemp, and bamboo, there are the original cloth diapers but they come in two types of cotton, and then there are the waterproof covers that only some of them need and they abound in options too. (I'm pretty sure that was a run-on sentence) We're going to try two different types of pocket diapers and a half dozen of the regular ole stand-bys.






I also learned that you have to "prep" your diapers by boiling them for 20 minutes. This breaks down the fibers and oils - termed "stripping". So, our kitchen now smells of stripped cotton. It's a new smell for this household, and I'm not quite sure it will catch on as fast as vinegar did when I switched us to non-chemical cleaning a couple of years ago. To put that in perspective, the vinegar is still catching on!


boiling diapers

I'll let you know how this cloth diapering regime works out. It should be interesting....very interesting....

Matching Socks

I reached a new low this morning in my journey as wife. I was going to settle for socks that didn't match! (gasp!) I know, you're wondering what the big deal is. Well, the big deal is that I've spent the last 2 and a half years ragging on my husband about his sock sorting talent. To Neal, the socks are sorted if they're in two piles (his and hers) and they don't necessarily have to be matched and folded together. The matching socks will eventually find their way to their mate and wind up a happy couple on his feet when the need arises. However, he does take the time now to match and fold them together (in that fold that produces a sock ball). What we're still working on is the fact that sometimes our socks land in each other's chest of drawers. That then requires me to reiterate, "Hanes" in red is for boys and "Hanes" in pink is for girls. He's positive of his innonence when this happens, and I get a reason to giggle.

On to my next point - we are great at washing clothes! We have hot water, cold water, warm water, infinite water level settings on the washer, 2 kinds of laundry detergent, Clorox 2, Shout stain remover, vinegar, borax, baking soda, and a toothbrush especially dedicated to stubborn stains that won't yield to the scrubbing power of my finger nails! You want it clean, we're the team to do it! However, once these clothes are clean and dried and piled into a laundry basket, that's where our masterful skill stops. Unless clean clothes piling has become an olympic event, I'm pretty sure we won't win any awards for our inability to take the 5 to 10 minutes it requires to put our clean clothes away. That has led to a new skill for us, though. The art of sorting through 4 laundry baskets of clean clothes to find that one piece of clothing you're just dying to wear for the day.

That brings me back to my original post. I was hunting for a pair of low cut socks this morning to wear with my little ankle boots for work. Mind you, regular ankle socks will not suffice because they are just tall enough to stick out the top of my boots. And my pants are just a wee bit short since I hemmed them and THEN sent them to the dry cleaners, who so kindly shrunk them for me. (I think this must be payback for all those times I snickered at people in high-waters.) So, when I wear my boots and my slacks that ride halfway up my calves when I sit down, I have to make sure of two things - 1. my legs must be shaved in a recent enough time frame so as not to appear like a pin cushion from some 1950's horror movie and 2. my flaming white socks must not be peaking above the top of my boots. Nothing says geek like violating those two rules. And no, my TI-86 calculator with the 3" screen, graphing abilities, and 103 different buttons and calculus functions does not make me a geek either. The correct term is nerd, thank you very much. Back to the socks - I couldn't find a pair in my sock drawer (which is so full I can hardly close it), so I went to digging through our laundry baskets. I found one...then found another...and they didn't match. And for that brief instant in time I thought to myself, "You know, they don't really have to be matching, right?" But, you see, if I succombed to that thought, I wouldn't be able to keep myself from telling my husband. And that, dear friends, would totally undo all of my sock-harrassment he's endured. So, I kept digging and found my sock's counterpart. I can maintain my title of Sock-Authoritarian. Now, if only I had shaved my legs last night.

A typical Saturday morning

Below is what I composed a few weeks ago regarding how I expected my Saturday morning to progress given that it was Neal's weekend to be on duty. I shared it with a few ladies in the office who got a kick out of it. Boo-Boo is our nickname for Kelton. I can't really remember how it evolved, all I know is that it stuck!

Saturday

-Feed Boo-Boo
-Change Boo-Boo’s Diaper
-Play with Boo Boo
-Put him in the bouncy seat
-Fix my breakfast shake
-Pick Boo up because he’s fussy
-Finish my shake with one hand while walking around
-Set Boo on our bed while I get dressed
-Stop halfway through my make-up to change a diaper
-Play with boo and put him back on the bed
-Finish my make-up and get my pants on
-Time to feed Boo again
-Change Boo’s diaper
-Change top because Boo urped all over me
-Change Boo because he also urped all over himself
-Put him back on our bed
-Put a shirt and shoes on
-Put Boo in the swing while I gather my thoughts
-Pick Boo up because he’s throwing another fit
-Walk around getting things together with one hand to run errands
-Pry Boo’s fingers out of my hair while trying not to scream like a bangee
-Sit down to rest
-Get back up because he just urped again and I didn’t have a burp rag
-Wipe us both off and not bother to change shirts
-Boo needs a snack since he’s puked most of the last meal up
-Get him in the car seat.
-Realize I forgot to charge my cell phone and say a bad word
-Check to make sure diaper bag is packed
-Run around frantically trying to find a darn pacifier since he's fussing
-Stick the pacifier in his mouth and make silly noises
-Realize I’m hungry because it’s now lunch time
-Take Boo out of the carseat and put him in the pack n play
-Get halfway to the fridge and turn back around because he’s griping
-Pick him up and go fetch the bouncy seat and its frigging toy bar
-Set him in that in the kitchen so he can watch me
-Make a sandwich (bread, mayo, meat)
-Put his pacifier back in his mouth
-Get halfway through eating my sandwich and pick him up because he’s griping again
-Finish eating my sandwich with one hand while holding him on my hip
-Switch hips
-Time for Boo to eat again, heat the water to warm the bottle
-Play with Boo while the bottle heats because he will go ballistic if he's not distracted from his rumbling tummy
-Grab the warm bottle and make a mad dash for the couch and plunk the bottle in his mouth
-Realize I forgot to grab an urp rag on my way to the couch
-He gets 2 ounces out of 5 down and decides he’s really not that hungry and gets mad at me for trying to get him to eat more
-Get up and go get an urp rag...he spits up halfway there on him, me, and the floor
-Go get 2 urp rags to clean us and the floor
-He’s decided he’ll take the rest of the bottle
-Now he wants his pacifier and a nap
-Put him in the swing, pray he takes a nice long nap
-Go change my shirt
-Plop on the couch and forget the errands because after all of that, there’s no way in hell I’m waking him up!

Of air conditioners and poopy diapers...

Kelton has had a bug for 4 days now. He hasn't run a fever, no upset tummy, in fact he's been in a really good mood despite the fact that he's filling his diaper at just about every feeding. It was hard enough adjusting to formula poo's. That took some Vicks under my nose and some serious girding of my inner fortitude to tackle those diapers. This diarrhea stuff, though, is a whole nother thing. Just listening to him produce it invokes the gag reflex. It's much worse for him than for either Neal or me, though. I never knew that a baby could produce something so terrible as to cause the skin on their little bottom to instantly become red, raw, and irritated. No amount of diaper rash paste seems to help once he's filled his drawers. I also never exactly knew what a diaper "blow-out" was until 3 days ago. My my my. It just so happens that in my search for green cleaning alternatives that I learned a basin full of cold water and a heavy dose of baking soda can cure all sorts of stains - baby poo included.

Our air conditioner unit (the one that lives in the garage) also decided to let us know that its drain is clogged. It was kind enough to fill the hall closet with water (that leaked in there from the flood in the garage), such that when I stepped in there last night in my socks, I was prompty greeted with wet cold feet. I hate that feeling. Had this happened more than 5 months ago, I would have promptly hollered for Neal to indicate that there is a problem in the house. Not to be confused with the holler that is associated with needing his assistance. Two very different tones, mind you. But, seeing as how our poopy, non-sleeping baby was actually asleep, there was no way in Hades that I was going to do anything to wake that child. So, I suffered cold, wet, soppy socks and padded to the back room to let him know that our house had become, once again, aquatic. We've been through this before with a busted washing machine hose, so we went into action mode. He started pulling stuff out of the closet while I emptied my rag baskets for absorbent towels. We make a good team...especially as we stand there staring at our new mess thinking bad words. Hubby had already cleaned out the a/c drain that afternoon and ran a water hose from the unit to the end of the drive since putting the drain back together would require PVC that we didn't have on hand. So, the air conditioner got its fair share of attention yesterday, and will today, too.

Kelton also showed us his latest trick yesterday (no, not being able to fill a size 2 diaper with unmentionably horrible stuff in less than 3 seconds). He has figured out that he likes rolling over. However, once he's tired of being on his tummy, he gets rather frustrated and mad and forgets that he can employ a similar movement to get back onto his back. He voices the same frustration with his stuffed chicken. For some reason, that particular toy really ticks him off. He does enjoy the pig (he chews on the pig's feet) and the cow (he licks the cow's tail). It appears he's more interested in consuming his animals than his baby food. Wonder if I need to give them a lick to see if they really do taste better than Gerber....

Kelton (around 12 weeks old) and Neal - I think K-man is more interested in the bottle than the laptop.

Day One

Kelton - about 12 weeks old with his hat on

Momgineering...it just came to me. It's a combination of a mom and an engineer. It's the way someone like me tries to apply the analytical to the unreasonable. It's why I keep trying to fit my new little family to a premade, foam injected, bpa-free, polyacrylamide mold, and why I keep learning that life is now about "winging it". I decided that I need a way to keep track of this crazy existence that now knows no bed time, no nap time, no me-time...it is also free of any boring time, any dull time, and any quiet time. And for that, I am amazed and thankful. Kelton was born to Neal and I on Wednesday, December 5, 2007, by c-section. He weighed in at 9 pounds, 7 ounces and measured 22 inches long. I didn't learn that big babies ran on my side of the family until 4 days before the surgery. Not that I think it would have changed my mind about ever having children, but I sure wouldn't have spent all that time researching "natural" child birthing methods. Of course, hindsight is 20/20...if I had known how much weight I was going to gain, I also wouldn't have eaten all of those Whataburgers with mustard, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, and cheese...and a side of french fries and a root bear, please. What was I thinking? Oh yes, I was thinking "OH! I'm pregnant! I can finally eat what I want!". WRONG.


This little man has turned our lives upside down, inside out, and on a sleep schedule that has taught me that I really don't need 8 hours of sleep a night to function. Correction...I don't need it to function and get through the day...I do need it to function and stay healthy. Hence, the respiratory infection that's been harranging Neal and me for about 2 weeks now. Bodies can't heal without sleep. But when you have a 4 month old that has taken to waking up every 3 or 4 hours with a siren like wail "wwwwwaaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!", you sure as heck aren't getting any sleep listening to that. We wouldn't have it any other way, though. We never knew he'd be so much work, or that we could love our little baby this much!


The latest with him is that he is now four and a half months old, weighs 16 pounds, measures 26" long, and we are starting foods! Below are a few pictures. Apparently, he doesn't take too kindly to his mama putting oatmeal or sweet potatoes in that precious little mouth. He'll learn...food is good! I did taste the sweet potatoes before giving him a bite...I don't blame him on that one. I'll be tasting whatever I put in his mouth from now on...I don't want him thinking that this new routine is some special sort of punishment. Poor baby!





Oatmeal - I smelled it. I don't blame him for that look.




Sweet Potatoes - he's still not sure about that spoon, it always has something awful tasting on it




He should appreciate Buck Owens...they've both got a tiger by the tail!


Kelton's Easter Picture - courtesy of Mom-Photography


Giving me the look because I'm interrupting his bouncy-seat time


He was hamming it up for me on this one - about five minutes later, he was in super sleep mode.