Get That Out of Your Mouth!

 I have a feeling I will be saying that a lot to Jack.  He puts everything he can into his mouth.  Usually it's things he shouldn't be putting in there.  So far today these are all the things he has put or tried to put in his mouth. (in no particular order)

Dog food

Used Q-tips from the bathroom garbage can
Dryer lint
Daddy's sandals
Sammy's (our dog) ears
The fireplace screen
The paper bag our farmbox veggies came in
Something brown off the floor in Daddy's office
His diaper (clean)
Cardboard pieces from the cat scratcher
The lamp cord
Post office receipt
Magazine off ottoman
Sprayer hose on bathroom floor

Nothing in my house is safe.  Jack has also figured out how to pull himself up in his crib.  I had to lower the mattress a week or so ago.  Talk about a heart attack walking in to your baby's room and seeing him just about to swan dive over the edge!  He's figured out real quick that he can still pull himself up though.  So instead of napping, he wants to stand up!  Problem now is, he can't sit himself back down and he screams.  Poor little guy gets stuck standing up.  I have to go in and unstuck him and that usually means a naptime fail.  This does not make me a happy mommy.  I actually hear the "I'm standing and I can't get down" scream right now.  Oh the adventures in mommying...

News Flash: People eat on Sundays

 And sometimes they eat on Mondays too.  Amazing I know.  Are you confused yet?  Well Bobby and I sure were when we moved to the South to discover that the majority of restaurants in our town (and stores in general) are closed on Sundays and Mondays.  I don't get this at all.  I still like to eat out on Sunday.  But apparently no one else does.  I want to open a restaurant that is ONLY open Sunday and Monday.  I bet I would be pretty busy...

I've mentioned how crazy I think this is to a few people and I always get the same response. Well they want to spend time with their families.  Tough.  That doesn't fly with me.  That's why you hire people to run it on days you want to take off.  You opened a restaurant to serve people food, not to spend time with your family.  If you want to only work 5 days a week, you don't open your own business, everybody knows that.  Don't they realize how much business they are losing being closed for two days?  The only place in Savannah to get a real bagel is closed on Sunday.  Can you guess what day Bobby and I always want to go get a bagel?  Yup, Sunday.  So we rarely go.  Well their loss.  And ours cause I really want bagels on Sundays...

Today I stopped by the deli on the way home from the grocery store to get some lunchmeat.  They have Boar's Head deli meat for like $2/lb cheaper than the grocery store.  I pulled in the parking lot at 3:58pm.  I parked right in front of the deli windows.  I could see people inside watching me.  I walked around the car, unbuckled Jack, got him out of his carseat, wrestled my purse out and walked up to the door.  As I got to the door, the 10 or so year old son of the couple who own the deli poked his head out and said we're closed.  I looked at the sign.  They close at 4:00pm.  Thanks kid, you could have at least asked what I needed cause it would have been quick.  This whole post was inspired by that kid.  As I walked away I looked back at the hours sign.  They are closed on Sunday and Monday.  Jerks.  And who closes at 4:00pm anyway.  They aren't a deli that sells only lunchmeat and cheeses, they make sandwiches and happen to sell the meat also.  I think people eat sandwiches after 4:00pm.  In fact, I had a sandwich for dinner, at 7:00pm...

Recipe Exhaustion

 I used to love to cook.  I didn't mind spending a few hours prepping and putting together yummy meals.  I didn't care if I had to run to the store to pick up one or two things.  I could look into my fridge, grab a few ingredients and whip up this awesome meal.  Now I would rather pluck all my eyelashes out.  With tweezers. 

Looking at a chicken breast no longer gives me inspiration.  It gives me hives.  I dread putting Jack in the car just to pick up one or two things at the store.  I buy the same ingredients and make the same boring dishes.  It doesn't help matters that I can be slightly picky.  Not picky like I won't eat this or that food.  Picky as in I want to eat a certain thing but I have no idea what that certain thing is but I must eat it and only it.  I try looking for new recipes online and in my cookbooks, but then my grocery bill goes through the roof since I have to buy the $7 spice just to use like 1/4tsp.  And I am more of a wing it kinda girl.  I'm not so much into measuring things.  But I'll gladly take suggestions of new dinners, even if I do have to measure.

Bobby has it so easy.  He gets to go to work for 14+ hours a day and come home and dinner is magically in front of him.  No thinking or chasing a baby involved.  I wish dinner would magically appear for me.  I thought the delivery of our farmbox would help dinner magically appear, but that hasn't happened yet.  What the heck am I paying $26.75 for anyway??

I also want to eat healthier.  We actually eat fairly healthy, but I want to incorporate more whole grains.  I made a yummy quinoa salad for our dinner last night.  It was southwestern flavored with nectarines, grilled corn, tomatoes, green onions, and a honey-lime vinegarette.  Randomly I get the inspiration...

Part of my problem is the grocery stores fault.  None of the grocery stores around here live up to my expectations.  I don't really blame them for that, afterall, who can really compare to Wegmans anyway?  I used to get so many great groceries at Weg's.  I would spend hours shopping and always leave feeling so accomplished and happy.  I leave Kroger or Publix trying to figure out what the heck I just spent $100 on...  Everything in Wegmans is just perfect.  They make it so easy to shop for meals.  I am so excited to go home in August and walk around a real grocery store.  I swear, anyone who has been to a Wegman's feels the same way I do, I am not crazy, repeat, I am not crazy.

Another Tooth!

 Another tooth is on it's way in!  Now Jack has his bottom central incisors.  He also has a snotty nose.  And a stuffy, can't nurse real well nose.  Every time I wipe his little nose off, he sneezes and more snot comes out.  Please don't tell me we have to do this 18 more times until all 20 of his baby teeth come in.  I will just go nuts!  Er, more nuts...

And now he's such a little cranky butt too.  We are already on nap #2 and it's only 11:45am.  I feel so bad for him that I can't fix it.  He's had teething tablets and tylenol so hopefully something starts working or else Mommy is going to need some medication too, like wine or vodka. 

Annnd... to top it all off, my weekend reinforcement, Daddy, has to go into work tonight.  I really count on him taking over helping on the weekends.  Doesn't the Army realize I have a baby that needs his Daddy?? I mean a Mommy that needs the Daddy...

So I've got some strawberry ice cream in the works.  I finally found a use for my strawberry sauce!  Hopefully later tonight we should have some yummy ice cream.  Also in the ice cream making list are a honey lavender ice cream and a good old fashioned chocolate ice cream.  Yummm...

My Little Hansel

 Jack loves puffs.  Like loves them so much he wants to shove 5 or more in his mouth at once.  They dissolve quickly, so I don't mind so much.  And usually 3 stick to his hand so only like 2 get in there.  I bribe my baby to be good with these bad boys...

We are on the one canister a week plan.  I have a little puff-a-holic on my hands.  He'll probably have to go to rehab with that milk-a-holic Lindsey.

Since Jack is surviving on puffs, we leave a little puff trail everywhere we go.  Today we went grocery shopping and to keep Jack occupied we broke out the puffs.  I had to backtrack to the produce a little bit and noticed on the floor a few puffs we lost.  Then down an aisle we already went down and there were a few more puffs on the floor.  I think Jack was making sure we would find our way home.  Don't worry buddy, I know where we live...

I find these puff everywhere now.  In my car.  In his highchair.  On the bottom of my shoes.  In the bathroom.  In his crib.  In his diaper.  It's a good thing the dogs like them too, they help me clean up.

On another note...

Anyone have any good homemade ice cream recipes??  I have this great ice cream machine that we got for our wedding, yeah three years ago, and I need to use it!  I have some lavender just screaming to be ice cream, I scream, you scream, but I don't know really how to turn it into yummy ice cream.  Suggestions??

My Happy

 I love walking into Jack's room after he wakes up. As soon as he hears the door open, he pulls the bumper down to check out who's coming in his room. Then I get the biggest smile ever. It melts my heart. And then my favorite part, I pick him up and he grabs either side of my face (and a ton of my hair) and pulls me in for the biggest, slobberyest openmouth kiss. He loves to give hugs and kisses. It makes us laugh so much when he does it.

I love when he puts his arms up for me to pick him up. He gets so excited. He makes this little happy grunt squeal. And then I usually get one of those big kisses too. Sometimes when he's playing on the floor, scoot-crawling all over, he comes over to me and wants to be picked up. He puts his arms out to the side like he's flying and smiles at me. Of course I have to pick him up for a squeeze. Who could resist that??

I love how determined he is to do things. He just started picking up pieces of food and putting them in his mouth. He will try over and over until he gets it into his mouth. We got blueberries in our farm box this week so I let Jack have fun with some halved ones. He loved them! And they made it in the mouth pretty quickly!

I love how he loves the water. Bath-time is so fun with him. He spins around the tub a million times chasing his toys and trying to get all the shampoo and soap bottles. He loves the pool too. He has started to really swim for toys in his waterbabies class. It's so funny to watch him kick his legs and splash around.

I love how curious he is.  He wants to check every one of his toys out.  And of course everything that's not his, like cords, magazines, shoes, and the fireplace. I'm pretty sure I am in for a wild ride when he starts to walk.  Nothing will be safe! Remind me how I said I love this when I post that I'm ready to pull my hair out if he gets into one more thing...

I love how he loves his Daddy.  When Bobby comes home from work, Jack gets the biggest smile on his face.  He loves to play on the floor with his Dad, and crawl all over him.

I love how everyone just loves him. He gives the best smiles to everyone. He's pretty much the happiest baby I know. We are so lucky to have him. I love you baby Jack...

Quarrantined

We're sick.  All of us.  Jack started it.  His snotty runny nose got to us.  But his snotty runny nose lead to HIS FIRST TOOTH!  Its just starting to sprout up.  I can't believe my baby is getting teeth!

I started getting sick Friday night.  My throat was hurting and my head felt loopy.  I don't take any medicine now since I am still breast-feeding so I just tried to shake it off.  Saturday when we woke up I didn't feel that great but decided to go running to see if that would kick it out.  Usually when I run, it's just me, Jack and the jogging stroller, but Bobby came with us, so I got to run with both arms swinging.  And pulled some muscle in my shoulder blade area swinging my pushing arm.  Great.  When we got home, we were all sleepy, so Jack was put down for a nap and Bobby and I put ourselves down for a nap too.  Bobby got me an ice pack for my back while I read a book.  Next thing I know, it's two hours later.  I had fallen asleep with the ice pack still under my back.  And slightly frozen my muscle.  It hurt worse than before. So the rest of the day was shot since I could barely walk anywhere.  At least this stuff happens when Bobby is home...

Sat. night, my sick throat gets worse and it hurts to swallow.  Thankfully, Bobby gets up with Jack on Sunday morning and gives me a little time to unsick myself.  By the time I get out of bed, Jack is almost ready for his morning nap.  After putting him down, Bobby and I head out to get some lawn work done.  My garden is getting overtaken by weeds.  It has just been so hot lately I have no desire to sit in the sun and pull 4,359 weeds up.  But I started on Friday and got half the garden done, so I attempted to get the rest out.  Bobby fixed up the compost pile, mowed the lawn, and filled in some of the dogs escape tunnels.  He's much more dedicated than me...  By the time we threw in the towel, the sickness had gotten Bobby.  He started to feel nauseas so tried to nap it off.  That night when we went to bed, while it was still light out, both of us still felt pretty sick.

Having a sick baby that doesn't sleep through the night and two sick parents is no fun.  Luckily, Jack only got up once.  Sometimes, he pulls the let's get up every two hours routine.  Maybe he knew we needed some sleep?  But today, we both feel just as bad.  Poor Bobby has a verrrry busy week and I still have a crawling, curious, into everything 7 month old to run after.  Is it August yet?  I'm ready to go to NY and get a break...

Snotty

Jack is all stuffy, snotty, runny, drippy, can't-breathe-or-nurse-or-sleep kinda sick. It's no fun. For him or me. Poor little man. Can you imagine not being able to blow your nose or fix it when you can't breathe?? Funny thing is he did sleep pretty well last night. We had his humidifier on, so I think that may have helped a lot. It just takes him a while to settle down and fall asleep. Maybe we need to take him to see this lady...

(I love these commercials, there are a couple others and I could watch them over and over and over...)

On a wonderful-happy-can't hold in my excitement note, my bestest friend had her baby girl last night!  Welcome to the world Millie Louise!  I can't wait to go home in August and snuggle her up!  And Jack needs to meet his future wife...

Mini Vacation

 And by mini I mean one day, but it was great.  Bobby's parents got in on Friday and went with me to Jack's waterbabies class.  They loved watching Jack swim for the toys.  I think he really is trying to swim since both the arms and legs get kickin' and splashin'.  After the class, we headed over to Fresh Market to pick up some lunch and dinner stuff.  Always suggest Fresh Market when other people will be paying...  Then we headed home to see Bobby who was back after working a half day on his supposed day off.  True four days weekends are scarce in this household...

Bobby and I were able to get a mini-date in on Saturday.  We wanted to go find Bobby's mom copper or bronze salt and pepper grinders, but had no luck.  You'd think they'd be a little more popular.  But we did get to have lunch together at Panera Bread and I actually tasted the food.  I also had to get a strapless bra for the dress I wore to the wedding.  I wore this dress last year at this time to another friends wedding, but went braless.  My girls have changed quite a bit since Jack has been around.  The girls are not in braless shape these days.  Of course I couldn't find anything comfortable at Macy's, where things are always on sale, I had to fall in love with one from Victoria's Secret.  They always make things so comfy and expensive.  But I do have a few shirts I haven't been able to wear since the girls grew.  Now I just need Bobby to take me on another date...

Sunday morning we packed up the car with unbelievable amounts of stuff, mostly for Jack, and headed up to Charleston, SC.  I had big plans of hitting up the Aquarium and downtown, but we just hung out at the pool until it was time to get ready for the wedding.  Of course Jack loved being able to swim!  I regret this now, but we didn't bring our camera to the wedding.  I didn't want to bring a purse, since it's also a diaper bag and I didn't think to bring a smaller real purse, and I didn't want to carry the camera. The last wedding we went to, we lost our camera so we didn't need a repeat of that!  So we just took a family pic before we got on the bus to take us to the wedding.

Jack was way too interested in the other people to look at the camera.

The wedding was beautiful.  It was at the Pepper Plantation, where I plan to move to.  A gated equestrian community, sign me up!  We ate a low country boil, roasted marshmallows for s'mores, watched fireworks and danced under the stars!  It was great. 

Well all was great until later that night.  I woke up in the middle of the night scratching my skin off.  I really didn't want to turn any lights on since Jack was sleeping in the room with us, but he must have heard all my fussing and woke up anyway.  Turned the lights on and I was covered in a splotchy red puffy rash.  I have no allergies and really have never even had a rash, so I had no idea what was doing this to me.  But I sucked it up and went back to sleep.  The next morning when we got up I was still kinda itchy but it was much better.  We packed up the hotel room and headed to the aquarium.  Jack loved looking at all the fish.

We probably made it through the aquarium in record time.  I guess thats what happens when you take a 7 month old there right?  Yes, I said 7 month old, can you believe it??;)  For lunch, we were touristy and ate at Bubba Gump's.  It was quite tasty.  The shrimp were very yummy.  I liked Bobby's better than mine, but we were sharing so it didn't matter much.  Since we were ready to get back, we skipped walking around Charleston and got on the road back home.  In the car, I started getting all itchy again.  My stomach, arms, and legs were covered in the same splotchy red puffy itchiness.  I was pretty miserable on the way home.  When we got home, I had to take all my clothes off since they were so irritating. Bobby slathered me in hydrocortisone cream and I popped a benadryl, which knocked me out.  I've never taken one before surprisingly.  But we can't figure out what happened to me though.  Either the sheets in the hotel bothered me or the shrimp I ate got me.  I had shrimp at the wedding and for lunch the next day.  Here's the strange part.  I eat shrimp all the time.  I worked at a seafood restaurant where I've slung millions of shrimp, and probably ate that many too.  So what gives?  As long as it doesn't happen again, I'm ok with never knowing...