Holiday Road

The 3 of us (nope, not bringing the dog) are going on our first family vacation to the lovely town of Fredericksburg, TX. We are staying in a private cottage Friday & Saturday night, then staying with Petey's aunt & uncle in Boerne on Sunday night.

4 1/2 hours in the car (one way) with a 4 month old and all his stuff. I made a list so I don't forget anything. It's really long. I took a picture and will upload tomorrow. It's quite comical.

I hope we survive. I'm sure we will. He does great in the car. He either poops his pants or sleeps. I think I can handle that.

I've got to plan the "pit stops" so we aren't in some ghost town while I'm trying to breastfeed my son. Especially since we are going down Hwy. 281 instead of I-35.

Anyway, it's our first trip as a family. I can forsee the future of family vacations. It doesn't look pretty.

Updated Weight

Last Saturday my mother, George Thomas & I went to donate breastmilk for the Mothers Milk Bank of Texas. We had to drop it off at a hospital inside their Breastfeeding Store. It was like Medela hog heaven with pumps, bras, pillows, stools...you name it, they had it. They had a scale as well so I asked if I could weigh my son.

So at 16 weeks, 4 days my son weighed (with his clothes on)

21 pounds 3 ounces.

Needless to say, this weekend we are putting in the bigger car seat. Our Graco SnugRide maxes out at 22 pounds.

Sigh.

HE SLEPT ALL NIGHT!!!

10pm - 6am! WOO HOO!

Now we just have to repeat everything we did last night to get him to sleep that way again.

This time last year...

I was sitting on my couch, not feeling too well. I kept telling Petey that I didn't feel right. I felt dizzy and like I was on another planet. I couldn't concentrate on anything. I tried to throw up in the sink but couldn't. I wasn't running a fever, sneezing, coughing or anything like that...so I kept wondering what could it have been.

Our 1 year anniversary of finding out we were pregnant is Saturday. We are celebrating by going to Pappas Bros. Steakhouse in Dallas. Ironically, we aren't taking the baby.

But I'm sure he'll be the main topic of discussion.

Hand Vs. Man

George Thomas LOVES his hands. He has for a while. He will sit there and suck on his hand and fingers and be perfectly happy. It's a cute little love affair.

But now he'd rather have hands than me. How dare! What did I do wrong? So I fight back. Me and the hands. It's hard to juggle a baby, breast and moving his hands out of his mouth all at the same time. It has become a three-ring circus at bedtime!

Cereal time has become a lot more fun with the Battle of the Hands. I have to hold them down and manuever a spoon in his mouth without having cereal all over the floor or me.

Sometimes I lose. Sometimes I give up. Sometimes he takes my hand and puts it in his mouth.

It's pretty cute.

He's hasn't been drinking much milk out of the bottle lately. So I've kinda got an overstock. Still haven't used my frozen stash from May, and REALLY don't want to throw that away, so I called the Mother's Milk Bank in Fort Worth and am going to donate to them. Which is what I wanted to do in the first place.

Obviously, he is getting all the milk he needs. I'm not worried.

It's Football Time

"Just wait 5 minutes...it'll change."

Only in TX:

Unexpected Guest

My aunt is coming to visit. I haven't seen her since July 19, 2006.

I'm really upset about this. I thought she wasn't coming to visit until much later.

Ugh. How am I supposed to entertain her and the baby at the same time? Luckily, I still have some pain medication from the hospital I can take while she is here. Especially, since I really can't drink much.

This is no fun.

Cereal Song
(to the tune of "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John)

You give me all the clues that you can
You are still very hungry
I can't give you all you want
You know what I mean?


It's difficult to feed a growing boy
Who wants to eat all the time
I'm trying to keep up with the demand
It's hard naturally

Let's Eat Cereal, Cereal
You wanna eat cereal
Let's eat some cereal
Let me hear your tummy talk
Your tummy talk
Let me hear your tummy talk

Thursday, August 2nd. First day of cereal. Yes, I got the doctor's approval, since we aren't at 4 months yet. But since he is on his way to TRIPLING his birth weight, we got the OK.

Didn't sleep through the night (like I hoped) but now after 5 nights of cereal, we are sleeping 9:30p-5am. WOO HOO! Much better than the 2:30 & 4am wake up calls I WAS getting!

Now I just have to deal with the odor in the diapers. (There is always a catch.)

Might as well face it...

I'm addicted to...........................buying baby food.

Isn't that sad?

I found this great coupon for $1 off 2 Gerber Food items at Target. Normally each food item will cost you between 50 cents and 2 dollars. You can use as many as you can at each transaction, there is no limit.

So, think about it. You pay 50 cents for a jar of peas. Times that by two and take $1 off. What do you have left?

Exactly.

I've made 7 trips to 4 Targets in the past 2 weeks. I'm going to 3 more on Friday, possibly 4.

I've got all the cereal, strained veggies, strained fruits, meats, dinners in a jar, toddler food and juice you can imagine.

But I'm not done yet!

I have made an inventory of all the food I need to still get. I carry it with me at all times along with a huge stack of coupons.

I'm glad I saved the boxes that the diapers we bought came in. I've filled all 4 of them up with food along with a shelf in my pantry. I think I have over $250 worth of food and I've spent $80. Mom has bought $40 worth of food so add that up and we've saved about 50% off of what it would cost normally.

I get so excited thinking about it and then I hurry over there and go straight to the aisle in case someone is on the same mission I am.

Friday morning GT and I are going to hit up the others I can "reasonably" drive to.

The poor baby has to deal with his mother's addiction.

(Hey at least I'm not at Gymboree buying clothes)