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blueberries and new babes

We went to the Girdwood Blueberry festival this weekend. We made the hour drive (with Emmett screaming most of the way) mainly to see our friends Cyrus and Tina and to meet their brand new babe, Joya. She was so adorable and tiny. She weighed 6lbs 14oz at birth, which is the same as our Mr. E. I cannot believe that he was ever that small or frail. No wonder I was scared of him when he was so new. I remember having friends visit when he was new and they commented about how they couldn’t believe that their daughter (who was 4 months old) was ever that small. At the time, I remember thinking that their baby was huge. Now, I’m sure Emmett seems huge. It all comes full circle.

The blueberry festival looked fun. It is probably really enjoyable for people with children old enough to pick berries. There were TONS of children, all running around with blue stained faces and appearing happy. The drive back was also filled with screaming by Emmett for the entire trip back. Poor Guy.

Sunday, we had an awesome day. It was rainy out, so we smoked some ribs, and did some cooking for the week. I’ve heard that babies sense when you are about to lose it and turn their acts around at the last second. True, of our lad. Whereas, Saturday he was grouchy, and couldn’t sleep unless he was being held, Sunday he was mellow and took naps like a champ. And we had a terrific day.

He had his 4 month check-up last Wednesday, which included some vaccines. This is probably what led to most of the fussiness. On Thursday, his daycare teacher called me to tell me he had a fever and needed to be picked up. His “fever” was 98.6, which she insisted was a fever for a baby and that he should also stay home on Friday. I didn’t know much about these things so I took him home and looked into it. It turns out a temperature isn’t a fever for a baby unless it is 100.1 or higher. I’m not sure where the miscommunication was. Aaron stayed home with him on Friday. Daddy daycare!

updates! updates!

Well, I’m a horrible blogger. I’ve thought about trying to update the blog on everything that has happened in our lives since mid-June. But that would lead to more procrastination…

So in short:

Emmett started daycare. He didn’t want/take bottles. For the first two weeks I had to go back and forth from work to daycare to feed him. After this he started taking bottles, but then threw a nursing strike. Sigh. This has also resolved itself.

My parents came to visit. It was great to see them, and ultimately much easier than flying to the Midwest, renting a car, and driving 5 hours to Kansas. This coincided with Emmett starting daycare so it was nice to be able to cry to my mom about that. I was really excited to introduce them to Emmett.

I started work again. I thought this would be horrible. But, it wasn’t bad. I would still prefer to spend all day with my little boy, but ultimately for now daycare it is. I think being a mother has helped me put aside work stress. Ultimately, little work things that used to stress me out I have a new attitude about. The do not matter to me anymore. It’s only a very small part of my day. And not an important part at that.

Aaron has done a few stints of field work. I feel like I just recently became ok with his stints away from home and used the time to watch shows he would hate and enjoy food he would dislike (olives, popcorn, pickles). Having a child makes fieldwork just awful again. It is hard work being a single parent. Kudos to all of you out there, seriously. It takes a lot of energy and isn’t for the faint of heart.

Chris and Rachel our friends from our Seattle days came to visit us. It was so great to see them both. I can’t believe I haven’t seen them in 5 years. That’s downright silly. But, you know how it is with good friends, how you can just pick right back up where you left off? I love that. I wish I could move all of our Seattle group up here (or at least, have us all live in the same spot again). It’s hard work making friends when you are adults.

We went on our first camp trip with Emmett this weekend. We went to the Lake Louise area. We didn’t stay in the campground, for fear of annoying other campers with cries. But it was great to watch Emmett. He is so curious and wants to look at absolutely everything. He also gets a little attitude when you try to prevent him from getting the absolute best view. We all had a lot of fun, and I think Emmett loved it. It was really hard to put him down to sleep at his normal 6:30pm bedtime. It doesn’t get dark here until after 11 and he was, let’s say, very reluctant to go to sleep. After 2 hours he finally crashed. He had his own tent that was set up in the vestibule of our tent (trust me, he was safe and warm). The highlight of the trip, for me, was when he woke up in the middle of the night and I unzipped our tent to get him, he saw me and the look on his face was an incredible mixture of happiness and excitement almost as if to say, “Mom! You’re here?! Isn’t this awesome!!” It melted my heart and made my night.

Aaron was hired on permanently here at AVO. This is really great for us, because we can finally settle down in one spot at least for the foreseeable future. No more moving every 2-5 years. We are excited to stay, and I would say lucky. But Aaron is terrific at his job, so whereas there might be a bit of luck involved, a large majority of it is talent and hard work.

There, I think you are caught up. Hopefully, updating now won’t seem like such a major chore. 

daycare update

we officially started daycare this week. we are only going for a few hours-half day this week to try to adjust. he had been at the daycare for 4-5 hours yesterday, and we got a call from the daycare teacher. she was concerned because he had been crying most of the day, and not really eating or sleeping. i would like to think that this is harder on me than for him; however, he does have a few problems:

1. he hates eating from a bottle. he is what you would call a "boob" man
2. the daycare isn't allowed to swaddle babies (a law). he is only used to sleeping while swaddled, and will constantly wake himself up and have really small naps un-swaddled.
3. this week has been unusually hot. apparently our babe overheats really easily and sweats, which leads to crying

poor guy, it seems like it might take awhile for him to get used to it. aaron is gone for 10 days so we can't really practice bottles without him (babies smell their mothers milk and generally will not accept a bottle from her). we have been practicing swaddling him at home with one arm out, to try to gently transition him to sleeping without the swaddle.

any mamas out there have any other ideas to help the process? the ladies at the daycare do seem really sweet and nice. i do trust them. i've heard that it can take a few weeks for little ones to get used to daycare. it just makes me sad when i go there to pick him up, he seems so sad and vacant. once we get home and play he goes back to normal.

birthday swag

thanks for all the birthday love, everybody. aaron surprised me with a 3.5 oval dutch oven from le creuset. 

i'm in love. 

sew sugar pie

my dear friend, nichole, has her own company called sew sugar pie. check out her etsy page here. she is so super talented and sweet. she sent a large package a while back to spoil us.

she doesn't just make baby gear either. she also has sweet scarves and headbands for the ladies. she sent me two scarves (not pictured) that i adore. i've received several compliments on them. 

go check out her store and spoil yourself or your favorite babe.

attention working mamas

thanks so much for your concern and kind words for emmett. good news. the meds have started working and he is doing much better. he is almost like a new baby. seriously.

which brings me to my next topic. in a few short weeks (actually 17 days) i have to go back to work and the little guy goes to daycare. the thought has been bothering me for awhile, and has actually caused a few panic attacks as of late. those of you that have done this...do you have any pointers? i understand lots of moms are very excited to go back to work and have conversations with adults, yada, yada, yada. i'm not one of them, not even remotely.

to make things worse, aaron will be off doing field work on my first few days back, so i have to navigate it all by myself. i understand that in a few months this will not even be an issue. but it brings me a lot of tears now.

how do i leave this guy?