Liam at three months

Bitty Boy,

You are three months old today!  You are getting to be so grown up and so funny.  Daddy can’t get enough of you—at least once every day he snuggles you close and asks, “Isn’t he just so sweet?  Don’t you just love him.”  And sometimes I just can’t stop smooching you.  Or snuggling you.

You are getting big this month. I don’t know your height and weight—we don’t go to the doctor this month, but I know you’re heavier.  You are starting to make my arms and back sore when I carry you for a long time.  You are wearing mostly 3-6 mos. clothing, and your Carters brand clothes are all 6 mos (but that still may be from where I accidentally shrunk everything a bit before you were born).  You are in a size 2 disposable diaper, and you’re in a weird place with your cloth diapers.  You’re between sizes on the Fuzzibunz so they were leaking a lot and aggravating me…so we’re only using a few a day.  You are probably ready for the Bum Genius, but it’s been too hot to use the washer and dryer, so I haven’t had a chance to prep them.

You are a very opinionated baby.  There are specific ways you want to be held, to be fed, to be put down for bed, for everything.  You love being carried.  I tried using the sling and the wrap a few times this month, and you screamed.  I think you might have taken it if I made you stay longer, but you really prefer being held.  You only want Mommy or Daddy when you are tired and cranky.  When you’re in a good mood, you will go to anyone.  At a church supper this month, you got passed around, and loved all the attention that was showered on you.  You were especially fond of Nate, the pastor’s son.  He made faces at you, and you just smiled away at him.  You also really loved your Aunt Elizabeth this past weekend—you and Ollie both were big fans of hers.

You grab onto toys with your right hand and hold on.   You like to pull one of the toys on your activity mat down to where it’s at your face.  You like to grab the elephant on your bouncy seat and move it around.  Everything that you get in your hands goes straight to your mouth—especially fabric, like your burp cloths and blankets.  You rip a handful of my hair out at least once a day, and I often have to groom you to get my hair off of you…partly because you pull it out, and partly because it’s falling out. 

  You slobber all the time.  I am so often covered in your drool, and about once a day you spit up all over one of us.  You are a pretty good night sleeper, but a horrible napper.  We have talked about changing the curtains in your room to see if that helps.  You like to lay out and kick and move and talk.  You have found your voice, and it’s loud.  Ollie likes to lay next to you, and you usually kick or punch him.

You are a lot of fun, bitty, and we love you so much!  We love getting to know you and see your little personality start to form.

Liam’s Education

Before I start this, please realize it’s tongue in cheek.  Clearly this isn’t the most important thing in the world, and it’s really meant as a bit of a joke….I don’t take raising Liam lightly, but there are times when Andy and I joke back and forth about the things it will be important for him to know….and we often have different opinions on the goofier things..this is one of those things.

Now that Liam is a big bad three months old(yes…I’m a week late on that post…what can I say, my days of doing things in a timely manner are gone…I did have them, I remember…it was college, and I wrote down every assignment and due date for the semester in my mortarboard and color coded them according to class…then kept a running list of all assignments so I could cross them off when I turned them in….those days are gone).  Where was I?  Oh yeah…Liam.  3 months old.  It’s time for him to start learning some skills.

Specifically, some lady wooing skills.

He’s got it down now.  Ladies everywhere flock to him.  But gummy smiles and roly poly thighs can only get you so far in life.  Specifically, through the first few months of life. 

So he needs to learn some skills.  And his dad won’t be able to teach him.  His dad thinks that the food court at the mall is an appropriate first date.  And that Frisch’s Big Boy is a good place to go on Valentine’s Day (because we already drove past Bob Evans and who wants turn around?).  (Also, when did we turn 90?)  So clearly his dad is out on the lady wooing education.  Which leaves me.  So today we started step one.

Learn all of Dave Barnes’s best lady wooing songs.  It’s a good repertoire to have.  Hopefully he’ll inherit his dad’s singing and gi-tar skills, and with those songs he’ll be a lady wooer.  In.no.time.  Heck, he might even be able to get away with Frisch’s Big Boy.  But he’d better not try.

(This is all I’ve got.  I don’t have a step two at this point.  I’ll figure that out later.)

So without further ado, Liam’s first lady wooing playlist (there are more….more from Dave even, but since is only 3 months old, I’m starting him slow and giving him a chance to take his time….we’ll get to Nothing Fancy, On a Night Like This, and Since You Said I Do next month):

For Aunt Lauren

Aunt Lauren, I know that finals week is rough.  Sometimes things might feel a little blurry, like they are out of focus:

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Or like someone is trying to hit you in the head:

Or maybe just a little spazzy:

Or sleepy or groggy or just plain worn out:

 

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Just remember that I love you and finals will be over in a week.  And you get to hang out with me in one week!  And see me in person, and not just the lousy out-of-focus pictures my mommy took way too late this evening :)

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Love,

Liam

Baby weight drama

Since Liam has been born, my weight has been stationary.  I lost several pounds shortly after his birth, but since he was about 4 or 5 weeks old, I hadn’t lost any weight.  In fact, when I stopped pumping I gained 10 lbs. literally overnight. 

As in, the day after I stopped pumping I couldn’t fit into my pants the next morning. 

My fat pants.  The ones I bought after Liam was born.  The ones in a size I had never even skirted near before.  They were too tight.  So I cried.

  Because I can assure you I hadn’t eaten 35,000 calories, so it was really most upsetting.  I was trying to lose weight, but nothing was really working. 

Then last weekend, Andy was with his friends from college at their annual gathering, and one of the men had lost 70 lbs. on a diet over the course of the past few months.  This is one of Andy’s friends who is the most levelheaded and not at all weird (which is saying something)(my mom wanted this particular friend to date one of her coworkers), so Andy inquired about his diet.  It has a real name, but I don’t remember it, but it’s basically a slow carb diet.  So for the past week, we have tried it.  Andy lost 15 pounds (I know, I want to hurt him), and I lost 5.  So we’re definitely going to keep it up.

The plan goes something like this:

You are on the diet for 6 days a week.  You take one day a week off..for us, that’s Saturday.  On your day off, you eat whatever the heck you want. 

For the rest of the week, you are limited to meat, vegetables, and beans (lentils, legumes, nuts also).  No fruit, no dairy, no sugar, no grains or pasta.  You are supposed to eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up.  So last week we had 2 eggs and a half cup of egg whites and a 1/2 cup of black beans for breakfast (I found a recipe for Cuban style black beans online that used dried beans….and it’s so much better than anything that comes from a can).  We had taco soup for lunch, and then for dinner some sort of meat/vegetable combination.  We are both trying to avoid snacking, which is only difficult at 3 pm and 10 pm for me.  It honestly wasn’t too bad…I think knowing that if I had a chocolate or sugar craving, I could satisfy it in a few days was helpful.

The hardest part so far was today at Walgreens when the cashier tried to convince me to buy a candy bar because they were on sale for 49 cents.  I wanted to shout GET BEHIND ME SATAN at him, but I refrained.  Then came home and told Andy we have to go back on Saturday.

I didn’t know going to the groomer’s was dangerous

I got an injury at the groomer's.  It's not Ollie's fault.  He got scared.  This ill-mannered female wretch named Muffy tried to bite him in the face and attack him.  Muffy and her flaky old people owner's pulled in as I was getting Liam out of the car.  Muffy got loose in the parking lot.  Her flaky old people owner's caught her, and then went inside and just stood in the entrance.  I purposely stalled in the parking lot for a few seconds getting the boys out (and you know, I was pretty slow...since I had a baby and a dog and all) so that they would hopefully not be right in the doorway when I got up there.  No such luck.  Muffy turned and started growling at Ollie....Ollie’s groomer was right in there and she helped me get around the flaky old people into the more open spot when you walk in....where I could put Liam's carseat down out of the way so he was safe.  Ollie was trying to get away from everyone, and tried to jump on me for safety and scratched the crap out of my thigh. The worst of the scratches is like the length of my hand and kind of deep...like blood is at the surface but not pouring out. It hurts.  He wouldn't leave me, so his groomer got down and started talking to him....he went with her, but he looked so sad...like he thought he was in trouble.  His head and ears were down and he was slouching.  Then Liam and I made our way safely outside, staying far away from Muffy's flaky old people owners.

So far this morning….

We woke up at 6:27 AM for the third morning in a row…I think the light must get in his room at that time…or his internal clock is set to wake up at 6:27.

Liam ate a bottle and got a diaper change….I passed him off to Andy in bed and went to make breakfast.

Andy, Ollie, and Liam made their way out of bed while I fixed breakfast.  We ate. 

I took Ollie to the bathroom.  He pooped on himself.  It required a haircut on his posterior.  Then Andy combed out his hair.  Then we gave him ear drops because he has a slight ear infection.  It was a rough morning to be Ollie.

Andy got in the shower for work while I played with the boys and poured his coffee.

After Andy left for work, Liam and I went for a walk for about an hour.  He fell asleep and then woke up the second we got home.

Liam ate again…..it was a difficult eating time.  He kept smiling and laughing and pushing his bottle out of his mouth with his tongue.  Then he started kicking and moving and trying to headbang.  Basically the kid uses feeding time to practice his roller coaster moves.  Sometimes when I burp him, he looks like he’s riding a bull in the rodeo.    It’s pretty funny stuff :)

The neighbors #$%^ dog jumped in our window to torment Ollie.  Ollie went nuts and I locked him in the bedroom.  If that dog ran behind my tires, I wouldn’t stop.  I know it’s horrible.  But he is awful.

While Ollie was cooling off, I gave Liam a bath.  Then we finished the bottle from before the bath.

I let Ollie out and spent the next 35 minutes playing with both boys.  Liam started to yawn and yell which is a good sign he needs to nap.  He is really good at going to sleep at night, but naptime is a nightmare.  He’s currently in his crib screaming as I type this.

And it’s not quite 11 AM and I’m exhausted.

Insurance Issues

One of the biggest obstacles we have faced with me leaving my job to stay at home with Liam is insurance.  My job provided our health insurance, and Andy’s job carries absolutely zero benefits.  He works for a smaller company, so his boss isn’t legally required to provide his employees with anything, so he doesn’t.  This was my biggest hangup when deciding whether or not to resign.  I researched for months, trying to figure out what the best option was.  I had finally decided to go with one company, which was actually the same company my school insurance had been provided through.  In hindsight, I should have realized that this particular company had been incredibly difficult to work with during my hospital stay after Liam’s birth, but I didn’t process that.

It was a nightmare.  Somehow we had applied online, but then an agent also contacted us, and it took them well over  a week to figure out that we somehow had two applications in the mix.  Then they wouldn’t cancel the first application.  I spent HOURS of my time on the phone trying to deal with this situation.  It was literally every nap Liam took during the day for a week before I finally got everything figured out.  Then our quote came back—at 694 dollars a month.  Our original was 285.  Apparently we are all on death’s doorstep because there was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for our payment to be this high.  At this point Andy took over and cancelled everything with them.  Because I couldn’t pick my head up off the pillow long enough to stop crying.  Because I was frustrated and angry and sad.

But then…I had an idea.  I had been using an online site that pooled plans from a variety of companies.  I decided to go to individual company’s websites and look up their options straight from the source.  I found several do-able options, and finally picked one.  With this second company, all I did was fill out the application.  Then a week later, we got a packet in the mail saying that our coverage would begin on X date, and that our payment was 15 dollars higher than originally quoted.  15…not 400.  I can handle that.  So we finally have that figured out….after a solid month of dealing with one company, I got the other in less than a week and only maybe an hour of my time.  Now it’s too bad that insurance premiums aren’t tax deductible….I think we may hit the income percentage to make out of pocket medical costs tax deductible this year after all of my complications….I just have to keep track of all of my paperwork, and check with my dentist’s office and see if they can reprint a receipt for me.