New Year's Eve is here and I'm wondering whether I can even hold out until the end of this Auburn bowl game before putting on my sexy Breathe-Right strip and hitting the sack.
Today has been busy, and my pregnancy brain can be to blame for some of it. Buying a dead Christmas tree can be blamed for the rest of it.
After observing this Christmas tree for a few weeks now, I've started to wonder whether or not this thing was dead when we bought it. We bought it from Lowes, and I didn't even get to see it before it was loaded into the car, as it was raining and we were in a big hurry to decorate before Steve went to training for a couple weeks. So it's been pooping its little pine needles all over my floor (not that that stresses me out- thanks to my SHARK!) and ever since we got back from Philly after Christmas, ornaments have been dropping like flies. The branches seem to point straight down. So after picking up one too many ornaments and worrying that some of our "good ones" would break, I made the executive decision to take the tree down today instead of our usual day, January 6. But I couldn't just take down the tree... I had to rearrange all the Christmas bins! And I needed to gather up ALLLLL of the Christmas items so that I could organize it all! right! now! So we got all the ornaments off the tree and Steve got the tree out the door and there were pine needles EVERWHERE. Steve seems quite resistant to the charm of the Shark and opted to sweep. Like, the old-fashioned way. Which kind of blew my mind. Because why would you bother sweeping up 56,987 pine needles when you could suck them all up with a super vacuum in three seconds?
So while Steve went outside to do something (most likely to pick up leaves with his bare hands instead of using a rake), I picked up Sam and read him a book in order to keep him from crawling in the massive mess of pine needles.
I will backtrack and say that we introduced peanut butter to him for the first time this morning. I woke up thinking about it and thought that today was the day. Unfortunately, I am an idiot and since I'm on "vacation time" and can't remember what day it is, I had no idea that it wasn't Friday, or any other day that our doctor's office might be open. Steve swears he said something to me about what a bad idea this was before I fed him the poison, but I cannot recall such a comment coming from his mouth. (In addition to the raging, moody hormones, I have acquired quite the case of selective hearing.)
Anywhoodle, I gave Sam a piece of peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast and his airways didn't immediately close up, so I figured we were good. He did however, refuse to eat any more of it after two bites. I figured that maybe peanut butter might be an acquired taste for him (THIS IS CLEARLY NOT MY CHILD) and gave him his regular breakfast of carrot cereal. (I KNOW. Again, questioning whether ANY of my genes were absorbed during the reproductive process.) He drank an obscene amount of milk, but I figured that he wasn't used to the peanut butter, he slept for something like fourteen hours last night and was probably genuinely thirsty. So we obliged and gave him three cups of milk (approximately 12-15 oz total).
BACK to the story. I'm reading this little angel a book and he starts babbling at me and getting fed up with the reading. I turned him around so that we were face-to-face. I picked him up over my head to distract him momentarily and then I see the face. The panic face that says "omg Mom I'm fixing to UNLOAD all over you." And I put him in the burping position and started patting his back and he unleashes the most VIOLENT puking rampage EVER. It was so rancid and undeserved as I had been so kind earlier to make him the best breakfast on the planet (the PB&J, of course). Anyways, he goes through about three barf sessions and each one smells worse than the one before and Steve is still NOWHERE to be found. I'm yelling for him and wondering if he has moved on from the leaf-picking to something more ridiculous like starting our car with a hand-crank. Or his feet, a la Fred Flintstone.
EVENTUALLY, he reappears and I hand him the screaming baby who is pretty well covered in a carrot-cottage-cheese mixture and instruct him to strip Sam in the bathroom and close the front door so I can strip and shower. Steve offers to cut the shirt (his, by the way) off of me because "there is just no salvaging that." But it's an AUBURN shirt and I strongly disagree, and I plan to wash my ratty puke-covered yoga pants and Sam's pj's with this nasty tshirt as well.
Steve does redeem himself immensely by talking sweetly and calmly to Sam while giving him a bath and brushing his teeth and letting me wash the nastiness off of myself.
But back downstairs.... there is now puke MIXED IN with the pine needles and it's enough to make me break out in hives... Needless to say, the Shark was fully employed today. Steam action and all. We are fully sanitized around here. And not a pine needle to be found.
While I was showering and wondering how bad Steve was going to rag me for jiggling a baby that had just drank a load of milk, Steve tells me that Sam is allergic to peanuts. After bathing him, it is obvious that the child is breaking out in hives and his nose is running like Niagara Falls. He is also doing this ridiculously disgusting thing where he sneezes and ORANGE PUKE flies out of his nose. So that's lovely.
And then Steve reminds me that it's a HOLIDAY WEEKEND and this was a really stupid idea and I'm still stressing out about the hives and if it's possible for his throat to close up this long after being exposed to the peanut butter and there is still puke and pine needles all over my kitchen floor OMG.
I finally get out the door to trusty ol' Walgreens and grab some children's benadryl. I stopped by the pharmacy to ask how much to dose a 15-month-old and she was all, "I don't have a chart for that." SERIOUSLY? Did you not go to school for this very occasion? I ended up calling the emergency number at the hospital on post and was told that he needs one teaspoon for his weight. Once I got home, Steve informed me that the rash was gone and his nose had stopped running. I still gave him half a teaspoon of benadryl and put him down for a nap. He woke up in a great mood and seems to be back to 100%. I still feel AWFUL about the whole episode though...
So that was my New Year's Eve! My house is totally de-Christmas-tized, I'll be in bed before ten, and I'm hoping that 2012 will be gentle! No more allergies for my sweet Sam! Easy delivery for Second Baby! Happy husband at work! Increased metabolism for Mama so that all of this holiday food will just MELT AWAY....
Here's to dreamin' big. Happy New Year! See y'all in 2012!
A really long Christmas recap- in photos mostly
12.29.2011
We had a very merry Christmas in Pennsylvania! The flights to and from Philly were not unbearable, but it's certainly not something I would sign up to do again real soon. And whenever we do fly with a wee one again, we will most likely pop for the extra seat and bring along a carseat. Sam wore us OUT on those flights. Since he wasn't strapped into a seat, he was in need of constant entertainment, which is how he is at home, but at home he can at least occupy himself with crawling all over the floor and climbing on things and pushing his trucks all over the floor. I think I've mentioned before that he is not the cuddly variety of child and enjoys sitting on my lap about as much as he enjoys haircuts. So we brought books and books and books and new snacks and old snacks and messy snacks and clean snacks and drinks and some trash (to play with of course!) and I downloaded two toddler apps on my phone, only one of which was of any use to us. (Color Drops, in case you are curious. They basically draw on your phone with their fingers while it makes noises. It took up a good ten minutes of time. And it's free!!) Here is one such creation.
I know. My kid is a creative genius.
Speaking of the flights, I highly recommend the Nashville airport. It is so CLEAN and EMPTY and FRIENDLY and we wouldn't mind flying out of there again. They even have a kids' play area (over in the corner) that looked so clean that I didn't feel the sudden and very urgent need to douse Sam in hand sanitizer the moment he came out of there.
Here is Sam taking Steve for a walk before our flight to Philly.
We flew on the world's tiniest airplane (also known as an "express plane", although they don't seem to go ANY faster than a bigger plane soooo....?).
We finally made it though and Sam immediately passed out in the carseat. Go figure. We got to the house and were immediately relieved of our most exhausting parental duty: Entertainment Coordinator.
Here is Sammy's Mom-mom taking one for the team and eating some of his cardboard Cheerios with him.
After we put the little nugget to bed that night, Steve and I got to go out! On a date! Alone! It was AWESOME. We actually got to go out a lot by ourselves while we were in Philly. We visited the cute little town of Media and finished some Christmas shopping,
ate lunch out alone, picked up a few items from the grocery store and oogled at the $3,000 bulldog puppy at the local pet shop. Yes. Three. Grand. How any dog other than my Odie could be worth that, I don't understand.
The next day we took Sam to Nifty Fifty's, which is the first place Steve, his mom, and I went after arriving for the first time in Philly (MY first time in Philly, obviously). Steve and I usually go here once while we're in town because the cheese steaks there are UHmazing. Also, their milkshakes are pretty darn tasty too. We knew that Sam would love the busy atmosphere in the place and would be thoroughly entertained the entire time we were there. And we were right!
After trying his first-ever milkshake:
The star of the show:
Steve enjoying the milkshake:
That evening we went over to Steve's brother's house for a family get-together and I took zero photos because I was busy doing my part to eat all of the spinach dip and triscuits and make sure Sam wasn't being trampled by cousins who can walk or the dog the size of Seabiscuit. Since Steve and I were the first ones to leave the party (we are slaves to the sleep schedule! because we love sleep!), we sat up looking at family photos until our bedtime. I could see from these photos (mostly taken of Steve around one year of age) that my genes/DNA did not put up much of a fight when creating Sam.
The next day, Christmas Eve, we spent at home doing a lot of relaxing and hanging out.
Watching Daddy hang the stockings.
We went over to Steve's grandparents' house to wish his Pop-pop a happy 85th birthday! I swear there were something like six photos taken and this is the one with the most people looking at the camera. I don't know what our problem is either.
We had some super-yummy sandwiches for Christmas Eve dinner and then Steve and I played a little friendly game of Scrabble after Sam went to bed. Notice how I'm strategically placed next to the cookie plate. Also, we are awful at taking self-photos with my phone.
Think, think, think...
We are at a fifth-grade reading level! Yay for us!
Christmas morning finally came...
And that shape-sorter isn't even his! Ha! But he sure had fun messing around with it until we got ready to take him downstairs.
We had breakfast and talked about the usual things people talk about on Christmas mornings- penile pumps, immigration issues, why nuts in bread are a bad idea, etc. You know, the usual.
And then I proceeded to dump a ton of milk all over the counter. Not my most graceful moment. (AND I WASN'T EVEN DRINKING MIMOSAS DAMMIT.)
I make up for those awkward moments by producing the cute babies.
We then moved on from solving the world's most pressing issues to opening gifts. Sam doesn't understand what Christmas is yet or that he's supposed to receive gifts, so I think we could have gotten away with getting him nothing, but instead, opted to get him the World's Lamest Christmas Present Ever: a pillow. Well, it's technically a pillow PET, and it's Aubie, and it actually turned out to be the greatest gift in all the world. Score one for the parents.
Look at that cute TUSH!
I don't know how we will top this pillow gift next year, but we'd better start scheming now.
Steve got a couple stocking stuffer jokes from me- an awesome mug that PROUDLY displays his rank, as well as a challenge coin (butterbar as well). I thought about getting him a mug from the PX that had a rank much higher than his on it (because how funny would that be to walk around with at work??) but decided that it would be much funnier for him to walk around with this low-ranking mug for years to come.
We proceeded to laze around most of the day and be absolutely no help with the giant family dinner that my in-laws were hosting at their house that evening. I played the piano for a bit (my fingers still work!), Sam took a nap or two, and I most likely ate some more chocolate. Not gonna lie- I've probably reached my quota for the year.
This family dinner took place with Steve's mom's side of the family and Sam was quite entertained by all of the talking and food. Dinner was so stinkin' good and I would have definitely gone back for seconds (or thirds, or fourths...) if I hadn't been watching Sam (and, let's face it, my waistline too. The last thing I want is tight MATERNITY pants. How embarrassing would that be?). We sang happy birthday to Steve's Pop-pop and visited with some more family before everyone left for the evening. Not that you wouldn't guess it, but that is MY CHILD screaming his head off because he thinks everyone is singing to him. A slight case of Only Child Syndrome we think?
And look! We somehow managed a photo with EVERYONE looking at (and smiling at!) the camera! We are getting AWESOME at pictures!!
Steve and I opted out of another family get-together that night and instead, went to bed. Because we are super-exciting like that. Also, we'd been staying up later than our usual bedtime (whoo!) and eating about twice as much as usual, and that can really make a person tired, so we decided to rest up before our hellish return flight the next day.
We got to the airport on time, only to find out that our flight was delayed by an hour. UGH. Steve's mantra for the entire flight was that "things could always be worse!" which is true, but still. (!!!) We walked around the airport for a while and were finally able to board an exact replica of the World's Tiniest Plane that we flew in on.
The flight proceeded to take forty forevers and Sam ate more in those two hours than he usually consumes in a day.
We finally made it off of the plane, out of the airport, off of the shuttle, and back to our car, where Sam konked out almost immediately.
We drove straight to the luxurious pet palace where the dogs were being boarded and dragged them out of there, kicking and screaming. They had been given baths AND bandannas (although Odie prefers the term "cape.") Here they are, sulking at the injustice of not having a proper television in their bedroom (aka my laundry room).
Close-ups of the "capes."
Since Steve's gift from me was a little large, I gave it to him after we got home.
He has been requesting a beanbag chair for some time now, and while I hate the look of the things, I figured an Auburn beanbag chair was the best compromise. Here he is, fixin' to open his eyes and see this wondrous gift that his thoughtful wife picked out for him.
My parents and sister drove up the day after we got back from Philly to visit and to have Christmas with us, and sadly, I did not take a single photo the entire time they were here. Trust me when I say that we had a good time and had some (more) good food. I made my first EVER spicy turkey and it was FABULOUS and Steve is already requesting I make it again. My dad made his famous peas, I made mashed potatoes, Sister Schubert baked us up some rolls, and Jack Daniels mixed drinks. It was a good night. We cooked breakfast and had our gift exchange the next morning. Steve got new sweatpants (praise the LORD), I got a cookbook about bread that Sister Schubert herself SIGNED. To ME. She cautioned me to be gentle with the bread. And while I'm not exactly sure what that means, I will try to figure out the hidden meaning behind that the next time I am "gently" punching my bread down.
That afternoon, we ventured out to the PX to hunt for some after-Christmas deals and then the girls hit up a few stores to try and find next year's Christmas wrapping paper and decorations. We rounded out the evening with a Mexican dinner at Pancho Villa (with the live music!) and left quite stuffed. We drove downtown to look at the "Christmas On The Cumberland" lights and then came home to realize that the Mexicans must inject tryptophan into their cheese dip because we were all in bed early.
We are now doing laundry and changing diapers and lazing around, enjoying the last few days of leave before Real Life starts back up again. We realized this morning that our New Years' plans will probably consist of a lot of nothing, followed by our normal 9pm bedtime. We continue to be The Most Fascinating People In The World.
If you stuck it through to the end of this post, you really deserve a prize of some sort. The most fitting thing I can think of would be a load of chocolate, which I happen to have plenty of. So come on down and take it off my hands. My hips will thank you!
I know. My kid is a creative genius.
Speaking of the flights, I highly recommend the Nashville airport. It is so CLEAN and EMPTY and FRIENDLY and we wouldn't mind flying out of there again. They even have a kids' play area (over in the corner) that looked so clean that I didn't feel the sudden and very urgent need to douse Sam in hand sanitizer the moment he came out of there.
Here is Sam taking Steve for a walk before our flight to Philly.
We flew on the world's tiniest airplane (also known as an "express plane", although they don't seem to go ANY faster than a bigger plane soooo....?).
We finally made it though and Sam immediately passed out in the carseat. Go figure. We got to the house and were immediately relieved of our most exhausting parental duty: Entertainment Coordinator.
Here is Sammy's Mom-mom taking one for the team and eating some of his cardboard Cheerios with him.
After we put the little nugget to bed that night, Steve and I got to go out! On a date! Alone! It was AWESOME. We actually got to go out a lot by ourselves while we were in Philly. We visited the cute little town of Media and finished some Christmas shopping,
ate lunch out alone, picked up a few items from the grocery store and oogled at the $3,000 bulldog puppy at the local pet shop. Yes. Three. Grand. How any dog other than my Odie could be worth that, I don't understand.
The next day we took Sam to Nifty Fifty's, which is the first place Steve, his mom, and I went after arriving for the first time in Philly (MY first time in Philly, obviously). Steve and I usually go here once while we're in town because the cheese steaks there are UHmazing. Also, their milkshakes are pretty darn tasty too. We knew that Sam would love the busy atmosphere in the place and would be thoroughly entertained the entire time we were there. And we were right!
After trying his first-ever milkshake:
The star of the show:
Steve enjoying the milkshake:
That evening we went over to Steve's brother's house for a family get-together and I took zero photos because I was busy doing my part to eat all of the spinach dip and triscuits and make sure Sam wasn't being trampled by cousins who can walk or the dog the size of Seabiscuit. Since Steve and I were the first ones to leave the party (we are slaves to the sleep schedule! because we love sleep!), we sat up looking at family photos until our bedtime. I could see from these photos (mostly taken of Steve around one year of age) that my genes/DNA did not put up much of a fight when creating Sam.
The next day, Christmas Eve, we spent at home doing a lot of relaxing and hanging out.
Watching Daddy hang the stockings.
We went over to Steve's grandparents' house to wish his Pop-pop a happy 85th birthday! I swear there were something like six photos taken and this is the one with the most people looking at the camera. I don't know what our problem is either.
We had some super-yummy sandwiches for Christmas Eve dinner and then Steve and I played a little friendly game of Scrabble after Sam went to bed. Notice how I'm strategically placed next to the cookie plate. Also, we are awful at taking self-photos with my phone.
Think, think, think...
We are at a fifth-grade reading level! Yay for us!
Christmas morning finally came...
And that shape-sorter isn't even his! Ha! But he sure had fun messing around with it until we got ready to take him downstairs.
We had breakfast and talked about the usual things people talk about on Christmas mornings- penile pumps, immigration issues, why nuts in bread are a bad idea, etc. You know, the usual.
And then I proceeded to dump a ton of milk all over the counter. Not my most graceful moment. (AND I WASN'T EVEN DRINKING MIMOSAS DAMMIT.)
I make up for those awkward moments by producing the cute babies.
We then moved on from solving the world's most pressing issues to opening gifts. Sam doesn't understand what Christmas is yet or that he's supposed to receive gifts, so I think we could have gotten away with getting him nothing, but instead, opted to get him the World's Lamest Christmas Present Ever: a pillow. Well, it's technically a pillow PET, and it's Aubie, and it actually turned out to be the greatest gift in all the world. Score one for the parents.
Look at that cute TUSH!
I don't know how we will top this pillow gift next year, but we'd better start scheming now.
Steve got a couple stocking stuffer jokes from me- an awesome mug that PROUDLY displays his rank, as well as a challenge coin (butterbar as well). I thought about getting him a mug from the PX that had a rank much higher than his on it (because how funny would that be to walk around with at work??) but decided that it would be much funnier for him to walk around with this low-ranking mug for years to come.
We proceeded to laze around most of the day and be absolutely no help with the giant family dinner that my in-laws were hosting at their house that evening. I played the piano for a bit (my fingers still work!), Sam took a nap or two, and I most likely ate some more chocolate. Not gonna lie- I've probably reached my quota for the year.
This family dinner took place with Steve's mom's side of the family and Sam was quite entertained by all of the talking and food. Dinner was so stinkin' good and I would have definitely gone back for seconds (or thirds, or fourths...) if I hadn't been watching Sam (and, let's face it, my waistline too. The last thing I want is tight MATERNITY pants. How embarrassing would that be?). We sang happy birthday to Steve's Pop-pop and visited with some more family before everyone left for the evening. Not that you wouldn't guess it, but that is MY CHILD screaming his head off because he thinks everyone is singing to him. A slight case of Only Child Syndrome we think?
And look! We somehow managed a photo with EVERYONE looking at (and smiling at!) the camera! We are getting AWESOME at pictures!!
 |
| Sam, Steve, Steve's dad, Steve's Pop-pop |
 |
| Overly chubby pregnant lady, Steve, Pop-pop, and Mom-mom |
 | |||||
| Diggy, Pop-pop, Steve, Mom-mom, and Bob |
We got to the airport on time, only to find out that our flight was delayed by an hour. UGH. Steve's mantra for the entire flight was that "things could always be worse!" which is true, but still. (!!!) We walked around the airport for a while and were finally able to board an exact replica of the World's Tiniest Plane that we flew in on.
 |
| My HAIR, good GOD, you'd think we'd been on a 20-hour red-eye flight instead of a 2-hour "express" flight. |
We finally made it off of the plane, out of the airport, off of the shuttle, and back to our car, where Sam konked out almost immediately.
We drove straight to the luxurious pet palace where the dogs were being boarded and dragged them out of there, kicking and screaming. They had been given baths AND bandannas (although Odie prefers the term "cape.") Here they are, sulking at the injustice of not having a proper television in their bedroom (aka my laundry room).
Close-ups of the "capes."
Since Steve's gift from me was a little large, I gave it to him after we got home.
He has been requesting a beanbag chair for some time now, and while I hate the look of the things, I figured an Auburn beanbag chair was the best compromise. Here he is, fixin' to open his eyes and see this wondrous gift that his thoughtful wife picked out for him.
 |
| BEANBAG CHAIR! |
My parents and sister drove up the day after we got back from Philly to visit and to have Christmas with us, and sadly, I did not take a single photo the entire time they were here. Trust me when I say that we had a good time and had some (more) good food. I made my first EVER spicy turkey and it was FABULOUS and Steve is already requesting I make it again. My dad made his famous peas, I made mashed potatoes, Sister Schubert baked us up some rolls, and Jack Daniels mixed drinks. It was a good night. We cooked breakfast and had our gift exchange the next morning. Steve got new sweatpants (praise the LORD), I got a cookbook about bread that Sister Schubert herself SIGNED. To ME. She cautioned me to be gentle with the bread. And while I'm not exactly sure what that means, I will try to figure out the hidden meaning behind that the next time I am "gently" punching my bread down.
That afternoon, we ventured out to the PX to hunt for some after-Christmas deals and then the girls hit up a few stores to try and find next year's Christmas wrapping paper and decorations. We rounded out the evening with a Mexican dinner at Pancho Villa (with the live music!) and left quite stuffed. We drove downtown to look at the "Christmas On The Cumberland" lights and then came home to realize that the Mexicans must inject tryptophan into their cheese dip because we were all in bed early.
We are now doing laundry and changing diapers and lazing around, enjoying the last few days of leave before Real Life starts back up again. We realized this morning that our New Years' plans will probably consist of a lot of nothing, followed by our normal 9pm bedtime. We continue to be The Most Fascinating People In The World.
If you stuck it through to the end of this post, you really deserve a prize of some sort. The most fitting thing I can think of would be a load of chocolate, which I happen to have plenty of. So come on down and take it off my hands. My hips will thank you!
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