The baby isn't a baby anymore...

I would like to put out a missing baby report. He's short, kinda fat and the happiest baby you'll ever see. He has a lot of hair and blue eyes. If you see him, send him back my way. I kinda miss him!

Seriously.

My baby is gone. I'm not quite sure when this happened or how I missed this monumental transition, but it came and went. And I've been left with this heart-breakingly handsome little BOY. One who walks around and brings me tubs of goldfish crackers when he gets hungry. He smacks his lips together when its time for lunch. He brings me books to read and stacks his blocks all by himself. I can't believe the past year has flown by. This time last year I was wondering if he would ever grow out of his newborn clothes, and if the day would ever come that those 12 month clothes would fit around his tiny waist. That day, too, has come... and almost gone! And every few days we find another shirt, pair of pants or pair of little socks that stretch a little too tightly around his little body, and it gets tossed into the ever-growing bin of too small baby clothes.

I hate to admit it, but I'm incredibly sad and missing my little baby enough to ask Husband if we could maybe consider possibly having another baby... someday. He laughed at me when I said it. And I cringed inside when I said it. I can't believe I said it. I must have had a temporary lapse in judgement because this little guy we have here is more than enough to keep me busy. I pick up toys like, 4 or 5 times a day and I'm constantly finding cheerios under the coffee table and sippy cups dripping onto the carpet. Those are the times I ask myself what the hell I am thinking when I get the ache for another little one. Because for now, Stinky Bean is MORE than enough. At least until he's out of diapers...

I'm such a liar. And I'm lazy, too.

Remember, oh, about 2 months ago, when I promised and swore that I would update you THREE followers on our life? Yeah. Sorry about that. I've been trying to stay busy and I've been pretty successful.

We've had dinners with friends and taken walks. We go to Target every other day just to get out of the house. We went to Ohio for almost a month, which was... interesting. To say the least. More overwhelming and stressful than happily busy like I wanted it to be. Unfortunately this deployment landed right on top of every single holiday that holds any significance for our family. I had to fight to put on a smile for Stinky Bean's first Christmas, our wedding anniversary and then when we got back home, Bean's first birthday. It was hard, but we made it through. I can't tell you how happy I was to sit in the car with a smelly dog and a fussy baby for 36 hours, because it meant we were going home. And that's all I needed, to be among our things and have our family photos around me and sleep in the bed I share with my husband.

Now that we're back home and getting into the swing of things again I am so grateful. The day we left Ohio for the long drive back here marked the halfway point. Now its time to clean out closets and find homes for the clutter and toys we managed to collect over the last few months. Its time to order banners and paint white bedsheets to hang along fences and over the garage door. We can breathe a little more easily because he's coming home soon. One day, not too far away we'll dress in our best and go hold up signs to welcome daddy home! I can't wait. I want to cry thinking about how that day will go. I can't wait for it.

N knows who his daddy is. He walks around the house looking at all the faces in our photos and points out "dadada" to me. He absolutely lights up when he sees a picture of his daddy. We have this (slightly creepy) thing called a "daddy doll" which is basically a full body shot of a daddy (or mommy) that is cut out and printed onto a pillow-doll-thing that little ones can hold and hug and carry around. And the kid loves it. The picture my lovely husband chose was one that depicted a man who hadn't had access to showers in upwards of 3 weeks and obviously hadn't shaved in a week or two. So he looks preeeeety rough to say the least. Its cute though. I miss that man. Even when he looks like he's homeless.

So all is well for now. Except that our tiny, little baby has grown up and learned to walk and is tearing apart every single thing he can get his chubby little hands on. Which means I'm constantly cleaning up some mess. Like the bowl of cheerios he dumped on the living room floor and the contents of his dresser drawers he so thoughtfully rearranged and relocated to the living room.

At least I'll be able to stay busy through this last stretch.

Two days in a row. WHAT?

Yep. I posted last night... And here I am doing it again. Crazy, right?

So... I made the cookies and they were great. The cream cheese frosting is sweet. Obviously it's sweet. I know, it IS frosting. But its just not my taste. A little bit goes a long way with this stuff. But it goes great with the cookies. The recipe I used didn't say whether I should use milk chocolate chips or semi-sweet. I used milk chocolate. Next time I'll definitely go with the semi sweet. I think it will just balance out a little better. All in all though, the recipe is a winner. I'll link when I have a chance to log on with a different browser.

I've been catching my monster cruising, and every now and then he'll be standing next to the couch or table and he'll take his hands away to see what happens. What happens is that he can stand on his own. He just isn't too interested in doing it. He is perfectly happy crawling, which is fine with me. Less of a chance he'll fall and hurt himself. Which he already does. Often. He's going to be walking before too long though. I can't believe how big he's getting. He is going to be 10 months next week. I just can't believe it!

Anyway, I've been having a rough few days. I haven't heard from Zach in a while, he broke the power cord for his computer (Which was actually mine... Go figure!) so he hasn't been able to email or anything. It really sucks, because I'm having a hard time with the holidays getting closer and all. It doesn't exactly help that I am obsessively counting down the days until his approximate return date. I have plenty to do, but I'm just not interested in it right now. I have some projects in the works though, and hopefully I'll be able to stay busy enough to get through until I can start preparing for his return.

And for now that's all I have. I'm tired. I'm going to bed before the babe wakes up and wants to hang out.

See ya.

More Promises. That I'll keep this time! I PROMISE!

Internet Explorer 9, the worst browser ever, (I know, I know, its a beta. But still... It blows. And Husband is gone, and I can't figure out how to go back to the old one. So I'm just stuck here whining about it.) (Anyway...) just deleted my entire entry. And I had a real one. One full of promises to update my blog. You know, the ones I make every time I write on here. But this time I'm not lying. I'm really going to do it. Because now I have time.

I'm past the crying all the time stage. Now I'm just crabby and bored. And I can't sleep at night because 7 pillows are not equivalent to Husband. Not even close. They don't cuddle back.
They are remarkably quiet though, and I never wake up wondering where my blankets are...
In all seriousness though, I miss the snoring and blanket-stealing.

But we're getting by.

Bean is dealing with some separation anxiety I can only guess stems from the fact that Daddy left so suddenly. It isn't like he knew what was going on when we said goodbye. So when Daddy wasn't there to play every day, I think he started to get concerned that I would leave too. So we dealt with a lot of night-waking and not being able to walk into the other room without a full blown meltdown. Luckily its getting better. He's still very clingy, and actually wants me to HOLD him from time to time, but he's almost back to sleeping all the way through the night. It's hit or miss though. He wakes up from time to time for some snuggles. We usually watch some late night tv and then he goes back to bed without a fight.

Otherwise we're pretty boring. Which is really getting to me. I do the same thing every day. And every night. I'm planning on going to the fabric store and starting some new projects. I have a few in mind, including an attempt at a portable fabric highchair that I found on this Mama makes stuff. I'll post a link as soon as I can figure out how to get it to work. IE9. Sucks. I'm tellin' ya.

Anyway, that's all I have for right now. I'm exhausted and if I get to bed fast enough I might be able to fall asleep instead of watching reruns of Family Guy and Good Eats.

OH! I'm gonna try some pumpkin choclolate chip cookies with cream cheese frosting tomorrow. Which I found on MADE. (Again... I'll link when I figure out how to do it. When I click the link option above nothing happens.) I'll report back with the results (:

Goodnight!

I'm reviving this thing

Zach is on his way overseas. And we're learning how to get by without him. So it's only fitting that I put all this extra time to use and start posting on here a bit more.
I have lots of new things going on, and lots to be excited about, so hopefully in the next few days (or weeks) I can rally a little bit and get back to myself. Hopefully it doesn't take long. I need to get out of the house and get some stuff done. Like grocery shopping and getting ready for our trip to Las Vegas!
I'll have more later, but for now the little one is demanding I give him the run of the house.

I'm back!

I know, it's been a long time... But seriously? Nobody reads this. Maybe if I updated once in a while. Or once ever. I think my entire pregnancy I wrote on here like 15 times. Maybe I'm being generous.

Whatever.

The point is: I'm here. And I promise I'll update more often. Besides, I have LOTS more to talk about now. Now that the constant nausea and bathroom breaks have come to an end. THANK GOD. I don't know what I would do if I were still pregnant. No, I do. I. Would. Die.

Ok. So. Nathan is 5 months. Good golly. When did that happen? I seriously feel like the past 5 months have absolutely flown by. I don't know where my tiny baby went. Now I have this giant thing who rolls over and constantly pulls on the dog's ears. Oh. And he sits. On his own. He has likes and dislikes. And I suspect he is forming little baby opinions in his little baby head. Thank God he can't talk yet. I'm not ready to hear those little baby opinions.

I'm good, Zach is good. The dog... Well, he is great. I have a feeling Max and Nathan like each other more than they like Zach and I. They are like soul mates. I've caught Max licking Nathan's face a few times, and what does Nathan do? He opens his mouth. Lets the dog get a nice taste of Enfamil and sweet potatoes. Awesome right? It's disgusting, really. But they love each other. So it's good. I was worried there would be problems... Nope. Not in our house. They are obsessed with each other. I cannot give an accurate enough description of how much they love each other. It's kind of weird.

Other than that everything is good. I'm getting more and more tired of California, and our recent trip to Ohio doesn't help. I miss the seasons. I miss thunderstorms and rainy days. I have a pair of rainboots that decorate our patio because you know what? It doesn't rain here. Ever. In Nathan's short little life it has rained maybe 5 days. I need to clarify. When I say rain I mean sprinkle. Drizzle at best. It sucks. I miss the anticipation of fall and those hot days where the only thing on your mind is the cooler breeze and the changing leaves. When you long to pull out your sweatshirts and make a pot of chili. When grilled chicken and corn on the cob get old. I miss Christmas. This past Christmas we had the patio door open and I wore jeans and a thin turtleneck with flip-flops. FLIP-FLOPS! On Christmas. I need piles of leaves and frosty windows. I need April showers and fresh-cut grass. Don't even get me started on the earthquakes and fires. Over the weekend there was a fire on one of the ranges across the street from our neighborhood. Too close for comfort if you ask me. It's been cold lately too. That stupid June gloom won't go away. Needless to say California has lost it's appeal. It's nice, don't get me wrong. I'm just an Ohio girl to the core.

With that said, it's actually warm here for once, so I'm going to go on a walk with my baby man and some of our friends. And later on I get to catch up with a very old friend who happens to be in the area for a few days. I love when that happens!

I'll post a few pictures later. I can't for the life of me figure out what I did with the stinkin' camera.

See ya!

Bean is here!

This is just a repost of what I put up on facebook after we got home from the hospital. After I make dinner tonight I'll give you all an update from the past 2 weeks and his 2 week checkup and I'll put up a few NEW pictures of him! Enjoy!

Since we are finally home and starting to settle into a little routine I figured I would post an update on here about our new little family member (:

Nathan was born on Sunday night (January 24) at 9:05, weighed 6 lbs 10 oz and was 18.25 in long!

Saturday night Zach and I decided to drive down to San Diego to get some yummy fried seafood, do some walking and just enjoy what I hoped would be our last weekend as a couple. Everything went well and I was having contractions but they weren't painful or particularly close together so I assumed (like every other time) that I wasn't going into labor anytime soon. After going to dinner, the mall and target to pick up a few last minute baby things we headed home and watched a movie on the couch together and went to bed.

I woke up at 5:30 the next morning with some painful contractions and went to the bathroom (where my water broke as I would later find out), came back to bed and woke Zach up. I told him I thought my water broke and we might have to go in and he woke right up and started timing my contractions to see how they were progressing since I wasn't sure it actually was my water. They were closer together than they had been, but still not very regular and we just laid in bed and watched tv to see what was going on. After a few hours I decided that my water definitely had broken and told Zach we needed to get ready to head in to the hospital. We called our parents and let them know and finished packing the bags for the hospital and we left around 8:45 or so.

When we got to the hospital a nurse took me into a triage room to check me out and took one look at me and walked me back to my room. I got all hooked up to the monitors and she started my IV and we waited for the dr to come check my progress. Well wouldn't you know that I had made ABSOLUTELY NO PROGRESS since my 38 week appointment! I was still a "fingertip" dilated and about 50% effaced. Since my water had broken, they couldn't send me home so they monitored me a little longer and decided give me pitocin to actually put me into labor, which made the contractions come much stronger and closer together. After a little while on the pitocin I was starting to feel a lot of pain so they gave me some morphine in my IV and a shot in the butt to help take the pain away since I was still a long way from pushing.

After a few hours with the morphine my contractions started getting stronger and the morphine started wearing off and I was prepped for my epidural which I was very grateful for. It actually didn't hurt at all and I would absolutely do it again in a second. Once I got the epidural it was smooth sailing and I actually made a lot of progress really quickly. The dr came in and checked me around 8:20 and I was fully dilated, 100% effaced and ready to start pushing! I only had to push for about 20 minutes and Nathan was born at 9:05. His apgar scores were 8 and 9 and the only problem we had was that he didn't cry much after he was born so they were worried he wasn't getting the fluid out of his lungs. It turns out he was just fine though.

We stayed in the hospital for about a day and a half. Nathan has a little bit of jaundice, but his levels were low enough that they sent us home a few hours early on Tuesday with instructions to come back and have his levels checked Wednesday morning. At his appointment the nurse told us his bilirubin levels had dropped and he gained 2 oz since his discharge and that everything looked really good.

Now we're just hanging out at home getting adjusted to our new lives as parents. I'm very tired and still pretty sore, but I couldn't be happier with everything. Zach has been absolutely wonderful and is so excited to be a daddy. He is absolutely in love with Nathaniel and so am I. I can't wait to introduce him to all of our friends and family, and really wish we could be closer to share him with you all!