Reality Check

Well I guess this weekend was a reality check on my health.  I NEED to work out on a regular basis.

I  got my blood pressure taken for the first time since the Dr. took it and recommended I try the DASH diet to lower it about 2 months ago. I *thought* I was doing pretty good. I force myself to eat oatmeal every morning. I have really cut out red meat and eat mostly chicken, fish and occasionally buffalo (which I love and figure of all the red meat I could eat that is probably the best ) and I also cut my sodium down  A LOT. I love salt, but I totally don't use salt anymore on my food at all. I know there are still lots of foods that have a ton of salt, but I am trying to avoid them. Sugar... is my weakness. I LOVE sugar! Ha! So with all of that and the fact that I've been feeling ok... besides sleep deprived. I went and willingly got my blood pressure tested thinking it would be good. Lets just say it was an epic fail. 147/92  Ugh :(

The only part of the DASH diet that I am not doing (besides cutting out sugar) is exercising. I can give you a million excuses about why I don't exercise (Although I do think some are valid like how Ryan  does not get home in time for me to do anything or me not getting any sleep and being too exhausted.. ) BUT I really need to get my butt in gear so I don't end up on blood pressure meds...

Plus I saw some pictures of me this weekend that were not very flattering. Lol  For the past 6 months I have been taking pictures of Colin and am rarely in front of the camera. I felt like I have been doing pretty good at loosing weight, I am a pound below my pre-pregnancy weight and about 7lbs away from my goal weight. But really the numbers don't matter much when  I see a picture and think... AHHH I look huge! Lol  I do a million sit ups every morning and I try to walk about 3 times a week... but obviously that isn't cutting it and I need to step up my game.

I had a talk with Ryan about getting off of work a bit earlier so he can watch Colin so I can exercise. I really hate running and the gym, but I LOVE Zumba because you forget that you are exercising and it is a really good workout. I would love to go a couple days a week, but that requires Ryan getting off early. So I hope that works out. I also like having a friend to go with... but I don't know if I can convince anyone. Regardless I am going to try and so is Ryan and hopefully I can get back into the swing of things.  Wish me luck! I hope Zumba combined with walking several days a week and I started hiking a bit more at work will help me feel a bit better about myself and lower my blood pressure.  We will see...

Babblings

I didn't really have much going on this week to blog about.

We went to the big city this week because I had a training there and Ryan went with his  brother to a concert. I got to hang out with Dawn (Holler!) and do some retail therapy which was very nice!  Colin ate lots of guacamole that day... not avocados... guac! Lol He loved it!

We got to inadvertently hang out with my Aunt and Uncle and cousins when we discovered our water pump was going out in the car before we went home! Lol.  Colin had fun playing with his big cousins!

We got Colin's high chair in the mail and set it up this week... he looks soo tiny in it! Ha!

He is still sleeping shitty, but I really think he is going through some sort of growth spurt too... he looks like he has gotten huge in just the past couple days! I however am a walking zombie and would give  anything to get 4 hours straight (or longer) of sleep. Sigh. I can typically fall asleep standing up most afternoons.

He isn't really eating much food. About once a day he will eat a nice bit and the rest of the time he doesn't seem very interested. I made homemade avocados, bananas and sweet potatoes this week for him and sent him to the sitters for the first time with some baby food. He is still giving Ryan a hard time with a bottle, so having him eating food has been a big help! Lol

I have been very busy with work lately and it seems to be getting harder and harder bringing Colin with me. He has become such a busy body lately and crawling more quickly everyday. I am going to try to hold out until June.... so i just need to make it through May! Lol   My mom is coming once a week during her summer break to watch him on the days that I would normally take him with me. I can then put off daycare until August, hopefully and he will be 9 months.

Ok I have to go back to work... so that is enough of my babbling!

Adventures in Eating

It is has been a little over a week since we started Colin on solid foods. We have been doing a very slow approach. We started off with avocados. The first day went well, he LOVED them... but the next couple of days he wasn't interested so I didn't force it. The next food was sweet potatoes. He still wasn't all that into it so I started wondering if I had rushed into it. Then at the end of this week we did carrots, but I didn't make the carrots, it was gerber carrots. He LOVED them... and that was when I noticed they were significantly thinner than the food that I had made.

So I thinned out my sweet potatoes and he liked them much better. I've yet to retry the avocados thinned out, but I will this week. This food thing has really worked out great because on Saturday Ryan was having a terrible time giving Colin a bottle, as usual (I guess he screamed for an hour or two) when Ryan called and asked if he could give him some sweet potatoes. I said sure and  man that kid ate a TON of them! I guess he was hungry. But ever since then he has been eating much better! Lol 

I definitely don't force it. If he isn't into it, I put it away. This morning I tried feeding him and he wasn't having it, so we put it away, but at lunch time he kept smacking his lips when we were eating so I gave him some of my avocado and he gulped it down!  

This week we are going to continue with sweet potatoes (because I have them in the fridge :) ) and add bananas and squash.

I am going to try to make as much of the food as I can, but I am not opposed to buying it. I was looking at it in the store and found some, like the carrots I bought, that just had carrots and water as the ingredients and nothing else. I am going to try to make the food during my weekend and then refrigerate or freeze it for the week. I already did the bananas today for the week :)

Here are some fun pictures of his messy food faces! :)

Phone Dump!

Sleeping hugging momma's shirt at my work

That smile is deceptive... he is about to be gross...

Spit Bubble time!

Look at that bunch of nasty spit! Sick!

Colin and his Nana. (she'd be mad if she knew I posted this! Lol)

Mating snakes at the visitor center! :) We asked them to take their business somewhere else...

What?

Great Uncle Vernon rocked him to sleep

Chillin with the dog in the backyard while mommy and daddy work on the yard

kicking the soccer ball

His new way to sleep... butt up

New shades, but they are too big. :(

Watchin his dad and dog...

Another army crawlin video

This video cracks me up because he reaches up with his left hand to see if he can reach my phone before he continues moving forward everytime! Lol. I wonder if he is going to be a lefty he seems to prefer that hand! :)


This was taken on Weds. and he is moving a LOT faster than this now... scary how fast they learn what they can do!

South Carolina

In a couple weeks Colin will be making his first BIG trip and plane ride!! Ryan has a training in South Carolina... when he found out he had the training I thought, what are the odds this training is anywhere  near my family that I have in SC. I looked it up and to my surprise his training was 17 miles from where my Great Aunt and Uncle live. What were the odds?  My Great Uncle is pretty sick. he was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure earlier this year, which is essentially what my grandma died of. He seems to be doing ok though I heard he is living off of one artery because the other is blocked and they can't do surgery because they don't think he would survive it. Eeek.

I *barely* had enough leave to make this trip... in fact when we get back I won't have any at all again! lol. But I thought it was really important to go see him and so he can meet his Great Great nephew! How cool is that?  We have this longstanding joke that every time I talk to him I make a point to call him my GREAT Uncle. He gets a big ole kick out of it. When we called to tell him we were coming he was so excited. He said he will get to see his "Great niece and Great nephew and Great Great nephew... that's a lot of Greats!" Lol He is such a cute and sweet little old Italian man and I am really excited to go visit! :) His kids also live in the area and one of them lived in NM while I was growing up and I was pretty close to her and her kids and haven't seen her since she moved back when I was in high school! It will be nice to catch up for sure and everyone is excited to meet Colin!

That being said I am incredibly nervous to be flying with a baby!  Lol  Any advice? I don't even know where to begin. I need to do lots of research. Like how do you fly with a carseat? Do you check it as baggage? I hope we will be able to occupy and distract Colin for the plane ride (or he will sleep) so he isn't one of those screaming babies! I suppose I will do lots of breast feeding so his little ears pop... poor guy! I hope we survive ok! Lol.

Momma's boy

Last night was interesting. Colin was really tired... he usually is after the day with the sitter... so we was asleep and in his crib by 8:30. I was really trying to get some good sleep because I was REALLY tired, but I just layed there wide awake not able to sleep. Grrr... I was watching TV (the voice to be exact) when I heard the baby monitor go off. He was only asleep in his crib for an hour and 15 minutes. Ugh... he hasn't had that little of a first sleep stretch since he was very little.

Ryan was up so he went and got him and was going to rock him back to sleep. He rocked him and went to put him down and the second he touched the crib he woke up and started crying. Rinse and repeat several times and Ryan gave up and brought him into our room. Colin saw me and started reaching for me and within seconds of laying down next to me his eyes closed and he passed out.

We kinda chuckled because it was like, really??? That is all it took. Ryan said he even tried laying down with him in the nursery and he wasn't having it. He said, I guess he just wanted his momma... and I think he is right.

He wasn't hungry because I never fed him and he slept next to me until 1:30 or so... about 5 hrs between feedings. I honestly don't think it is solid foods because he wasn't sleeping well for about 2 weeks before I started solids and his sleeping is still crappy. Plus he isn't actually eating very much food... he still is getting the hang of the whole eating thing. Some nights I wonder if he even swallows any, but rather just makes a mess... but that is a whole other blog and boy do I have some cute pictures! Lol

Someone told me something today that totally stuck with me.... sometimes babies just need their Mommies. With life changing so drastically, mommy is the constant and provides lots of comfort. With all day at the sitters and learning to crawl and eat... there area a lot of changes going on in his life and I can't fault him for wanting a little bit of extra mommy time. I think he is a lot more needy when it comes to me than most babies. I learned that in the beginning of his life when he ONLY wanted to sleep with me and no where else... he is definitely a momma's boy right now. I need treasure t his time because in a few years he probably won't want anything to do with me! Lol

Crawling?!

Sleep or lack there of...

Man I am tired.  Colin was doing very good at sleeping for a couple weeks. Sleeping maybe 4 or 5 hour stretches and getting up only about once or twice during the night. I don't know what changed, but for 2 weeks now he's been getting up every 2 or 3 hours, sometimes less and it stinks! I am so tired, I feel like a walking zombie. Night before last he was waking up sometimes every 45 minutes, so I knew he wasn't hungry. So I thought maybe I would try to skip nursing and just rock him back to sleep.

Last night after only being in his crib for like 2 hours he woke up crying. So instead of feeding him because that is usually what I do, nurse and then back to bed, I decided I would just rock him. He fell back asleep within seconds after I rocked him. BUT when  I tried to put him in his crib... no bueno. He screamed the second I put him down. I did this 2 or 3 times and then finally gave up. It was like 11 and I was exhausted already so I brought him back to our bed. The SECOND I layed him down in our bed... he was OUT! I was so mad! Lol. I contemplated going and sleeping in a spare bedroom, but I crawled in next to him. Little booger slept 3 or 4 hours, almost kicked me off the bed in the meantime and I didn't get hardly any sleep.

I honestly was really hoping that solids was going to help him sleep a bit longer, but no. Although I am not sure he is really getting a whole lot of food still, he is still learning how to eat and hasn't quite mastered that yet.

I try not to complain about it too much, because I always get people saying, 'Well have you thought about giving him formula before bed instead of nursing him.'  And my answer is always no.  I hate how everyone always assumes that breast feeding is the problem. I know lots of breastfed babies who are sleeping long stretches and Colin is capable of doing the same because he was a couple weeks ago. I don't know what the answer is. I was hoping maybe he was teething and those darn teeth would come in and he would go back to sleeping... ha!   But I really feel like there are days when I may not ever get sleep again.  I know they tell you when you are pregnant something about that whole not getting any sleep thing... but I guess I thought by 5 months my kid would be sleeping a bit better! Lol

Ok that is my rant for the day. I did notice that when I'm not getting as much sleep I don't blog as much... so I apologize!

Avocados and Dirt....

I know there is a lot of controversy about when to start babies on solid food.  Some say 4 months others say it is definitely best to wait until 6 months.  There is a lot of evidence that shows it is best wait as close to 6 months as possible and I was definitely on that bandwagon…. BUT I’ve been watching Colin’s cues and I just felt like he was ready.  I was trying to wait as close to 6 months as possible, but as someone brought up to me, it isn’t like at 6 months something  just snaps and they are magically ready,I am following his leads and in my opinion (and mommy knows best ;) Ha! ) Colin is ready. 

He has been watching us eat very intently, grabbing at our food and pretending to chew when he sees us eating for a couple weeks now. Wednesday I was holding him while I was eating a banana and he pounced at the banana and tried to shove it in his mouth. I gave him a tiny itty bitty piece of the banana and he attacked my finger like a rabid dog!  I gave him 2 more tiny pieces and he gobbled them up and wanted more! I put the banana like 2 feet away so he would forget about it and he just stared at it for like 5 minutes! Lol  That is when I knew he was ready!!

Tonight was the night. I did some research at work today and came home and pureed half an avocado with some breast milk so it was extra soft and smooth.  Here it is, isn't it pretty?

We don’t have a high chair (although I think I’ll be ordering one!) so I used the Bumbo chair.

 He was grabbing for the spoon before I could even get it anywhere near his mouth! He definitely ate some avocado, but I have no idea how much and it didn’t seem like a lot. They said their tummies are the size of their fists, so they aren’t very big and to start off with and I read that a teaspoon or so is probably best to begin with. I pretty much fed him until he seemed disinterested. .. which wasn’t very long, but he loved eating it! 

And .the dirt part..

 I was taking video and pictures and before I knew it Colin had reached behind him and grabbed a handful of potting soil from one of my plants and shoved it in his mouth…  After I had a heart attack and rushed to the sink to rinse out his mouth (don’t worry I think he spit most of it out because he figured out it didn’t taste very good! Lol) I had to laugh when I realized his first solid foods where avocado and dirt…  oh what a boy I have! Ha!

We are definitely going to be taking it slow when it comes to food, especially since we started a bit early. I wrote this yesterday but my computer was broken until today. :) We tried avocado again tonight and he wasn't interested, so I didn't push it and just put it away. I am also pretty concerned about food allergies because it is pretty prevalent in our families and he already has eczema. I've done a lot of research to avoid food allergies and that is another reason why we will be taking feeding him solids very slowly!  Oh and I was  hoping that solids would help him sleep better... apparently that is a myth, he slept terrible last night! Lol

`

Colin's Easter

My mommy dressed up in my Sunday best and we went to Church, lunch and then took pictures. I squealed throughout church... especially when everyone was singing.

She then dressed me up like this...  I had fun playing with the grass stuff in the basket.

I took a massive nap on Grandpa.

Grandpa is my new friend, he is soo funny!

Then Mommy took me in this thing filled with water!

It was kind of fun...

Ok, a lot of fun and I did NOT want to get out!

Then I came home and got snuggles from my Daddy!

What a great day!  And now a note from Momma:

As you can see, we had a great Easter. We really missed Ryan, but it was nice to spend time with my parents and Colin had a blast with his grandparents. Ryan did get off early that day and we got to see him before Colin went to bed for the night and his project is officially over! Hooray! I think I have the next Michael Phelps... Colin absolutely LOVED the water. He kicked and splashed and had a great time! I cant wait until we take him swimming again... and next time with Ryan!  Hope everyone else had a great Easter weekend!  

5 months

Is my kid really almost a half year old? Lordy!!

At 5 months I think he is 15 lbs and close to 26 inches (We had to move his jump up higher, his car seat straps higher and take the pillow that he was standing on cause he was too short away from his activity center... so I think he grew and is taller than 25 inches! Lol)

He is still solely breastfed and hasn't had anything other than mamma's milk!  I am getting excited for solid foods! I already have a menu set up in my head for his first couple weeks and I am planning on just making most of his food!

He is getting much better at napping during the day and will take 2 good naps in his crib... even at my work!

Sleep at night still stinks... but is getting better. For the past 3 weeks or so his schedule has been in bed between 8:30 and 9 and then he will wake up around 1:30 for a feeding, then again around 4 or 4:30. Then he will either wake up with my alarm at 5:45  or sometimes he will sleep in until 6:30 ish.

He is sleeping in his crib for his first stretch of sleep. Which is awesome.  When he wakes up at 1:30 he comes to bed with us. I've tried putting him back in his crib for his second stretch of sleep, but he will only sleep about an hour... if that.... for some reason and I am too tired usually to keep trying so I just bring him to bed. Truth is, he is fun to snuggle with! I sleep on my side with my knees pulled up and he sleeps with his feet touching my legs, also on his side holding onto my chest (boob usually! Lol ) or the straps of my shirt. He is so fun to wake up with. These big ole baby eyes staring at you and his big ole smile! The other morning he was looking back and forth at Ryan and I trying to see if we were awake. We were tired and pretending to sleep so that he might fall back asleep.  He very quietly started talking and whispering his words to himself while we were sleeping. I thought it was the sweetest thing. Then he got bored and started grabbing our faces... Lol.

He is close to crawling. He can get on his knees and move a couple inches. He can roll at least 5 feet at a time.  You put him down somewhere,... he will not be in the same place when you return! I am betting he will be crawling by 6 months... we will see!

He is such a wiggle worm now. When you hold him, he doesn't just sit still he has to be moving, shaking or doing something or else he wants down already and starts arching his back to wiggle away from you. Unless he is tired, then he will snuggle you. I still think he is going to be a very active child!

He can grab almost anything. He is really perfecting the use of his hands and grabbing. Now if he drops a toy you can lean him over and he will pick it up all by himself. My favorite thing is that he started grabbing or reaching out for things... namely me! :) When he is on the ground, in a toy or someone else is holding him he will reach out for me. I love it! I think he is a mamma's boy.....

Loves his puppy and his daddy a lot.

He still isn't fond of bottles, but the baby sitter can get him to drink no problem. Ryan still has a very difficult time.

He squeals screeches and makes ALL kinds of noises and is very ticklish. I love when he cracks up laughing.  He is practicing his consonants. I heard him say the "D" sound the other day, and his new favorite is "S"! Lol  He likes making the Ssss sound.

Umm this is rather long and I could probably go on about how awesome my kid is for like an eternity so instead i will just show you a million pictures! Here are his 5 month shots!

Is this week over yet?

My husband has been working like crazy... which I guess isn't anything unusual. BUT he just started a big work project that is going to go 13 days... which apparently means we won't really see him very much for 13 days.  We are only on day 4 and I already miss him. :(   He typically works late... but is usually always home to play with Colin for at least an hour or so before he goes to bed and home during the weekends. Now he is working until 11ish and goes into work after we leave in the morning. So unless he gets up for a couple minutes in the morning... which he has been... we don't really see him.  I think the worst part is that I can't even call and talk to him during the day. I'm lonely! Lol Usually after Colin goes to bed, at least Eric Cartman would come talk to me or cry for attention and now even he is gone! Lol

Thank goodness my parents are coming this weekend! I just need to make it to Saturday! Almost there!

I am very excited for this weekend! Saturday is Colin's 5 month birthday! I plan on taking some fun easter pictures of him on Sunday, going to church with my folks, hanging out and a nice dinner. I think my parents are staying at a hotel and I am going to attempt to take Colin swimming again. hopefully it goes better than the first time we tried.

And I am off to take care of a fussy baby! :) Peace!

Phone dump!!

Yeah... its safe to say he is moving around a bit! Lol The only reason he stopped was that he ran into the couch!

My new favorite picture!

Napping at Momma's work... notice that is my shirt next to him... that is how he sleeps now, with an article of  clothing that I've worn that smells like me. :)

Yeah I'm eating my sock... and what?

Falling alseep during his bath! <3 Love this sleepy little face!

Talking away

Naked boy!

The kid is obsessed with tags. He can find a tag on anything. Ths is on his play yard. He has a million things on there for baby fun and stimulation and he goes for the tag to eat.

Talking away again!

Isn't very happy about these shades that his momma got him.

Now that was hard work... time for a nap break!