What I Learned the First Year

An end of a year is rapidly approaching.  O is going to be one on Friday.  In this house we celebrate birthdays.  We celebrate birthday weeks and if you are lucky enough to have your birthday fall on a weekend you by default, get two birthday weeks. It's the law. O is lucky enough to have his very first birthday fall on a Friday, two weeks baby!  Unfortunately the birthday week started off with a minor rash that was preceded by a fever.  Our rambunctious little dude has not been himself since Friday.  He's totally lethargic wanting to do nothing but sit on my lap and snuggle (not the worse thing in the world) but it does make preparing for a birthday party a bit difficult. He's been sleeping like a champ (also not the worse thing in the world) but I do have to say I miss my little guy.  I miss cleaning up the tupperware cupboard 12 times a day, I miss him dancing to his Halloween Frankenstein toy that sings "Monster Mash" (see video below) and I miss him eating me out of house and home. Hopefully by Saturday he'll be his old self because he has a birthday cake to destroy!!

Of course with the birthday approaching I'm feeling a bit nostalgic.  One of my besties just had her beautiful baby boy on April 10th and seeing pictures of him makes me miss those days of napping on the couch with Oliver on my chest and watching hours of television while I nursed. Times have changed around here and that's okay.  Each stage is so wonderful, new and exciting.  Every few months I find myself saying, "this is my favorite, I love this stage". Here are some of the things I've learned during this whirlwind of a year.


1.) I don't regret rocking him to sleep
          There are so many schools of thought on how to get your baby to sleep.  Do co-sleep, don't co-   sleep. Cry it out, don't cry it out.  Create a routine, don't rock them too long.  To all of those first time mommas out there and to the me of a year ago I say "do what works for you!!!!" We have had our ups and downs in the sleeping department so I am in no way saying that I know what is right or wrong but I do know that I do not regret one second I spent rocking Oliver at night to go to sleep.  We eventually did have to practice a bit of the cry it out when sleeping got really bad.  We would get him on a good routine and then life would happen.  Family would visit, we'd be traveling, ear infections and teething would cause routines to go down the drain.  Eventually you climb back out of the valley of the baby waking every 3 hours wanting to be held.  One day Oliver just started going to sleep on his own.  I would lay him down after a few lullabies, he would still be awake but sleepy and I'd tell him sleep tight baby boy and he would miraculously go to sleep.  Cue the Rocky theme and me pumping my fists in the air.  I'm sure there are more valleys that we will have to endure but right now we're riding this sleeping wave and loving it.


2.) I can run on less sleep than I ever thought possible
          Back in my hay day I could sleep like a champ.  I've been known to have a bit of narcolepsy when it comes to things such as riding in a car, watching a movie after 7:15 pm, and if I've just had a good meal, well, forget about it.  In the weeks before I had Oliver everyone kept saying "sleep while you can" and "you'll be so tired in few weeks take advantage of your sleep now".  The fact was, I couldn't sleep then either.  Between laying awake nights thinking about things that still needed to be done and tossing and turning because laying on one side too long would cause such a violent cramp in my hips there wasn't much sleep happening regardless. Then after Oliver came I kept waiting for this wave of extreme fatigue to set in.  To be honest the wave of adrenaline far outweighed the fatigue.  A year later I'm still sometimes riding that adrenaline, oh sure there are days when I'm so tired I could puke but for some reason it's so much easier to power through now.  We've settled into a routine that requires me to wake up at 4:30 every morning, pre-baby this would be BRUTAL, but I've gotten used to it.  When he doesn't wake up at 4:30 I find myself at about 4:27 wide awake, staring at the ceiling waiting for his little cry to signal me to come.


3.) Stop reading things on the internet
          We live in a very self-diagnosing time in society.  With sites like Web MD all of us sometimes have too much information at our fingertips. I very much appreciate the ability to Google, what does a poison ivy rash look like but you have to know when to shut it off.  From the moment I found out I was pregnant every little twinge, every little malady became a cause for concern.  Now with a baby roaming around the house and into every little thing and mixing snotty noses and sticky hands at the park there usually isn't a month that goes by that some sort of sickness doesn't creep into this house.  I have learned though that if you let yourself get caught up in the world wide web of pictures of rashes and descriptions of symptoms a simple cold can go from an ear infection, to influenza, to full blown pneumonia without even consulting a doctor.  12 months later I still consult the internet from time to time to check symptoms but I know that I can't let myself get caught up in it or I will scare the crap out of myself.  Luckily we have a great pediatricians office that has a great nurse line and we have urgent care 365 days a year.


4.) Sometimes babies just cry
          When I was about 6 months pregnant and still working at the bank a new mom came in to do some business.  Her baby couldn't have been more than a week old and she had her all bundled up in her carrier and sitting on the ground while she was filling out her paperwork.  About a minute into the transaction the baby started crying such an awful gut wrenching newborn cry.  The kind of cry that makes you want to slam on your brakes in the car, pull to the side of the road and comfort the crap out of this kid.  But the mom just kept filling out paperwork, occasionally trying to soothe the baby with a shush but still continuing to do her thing.  The baby kept crying, the mom kept her cool and I became borderline frantic.  I was anxious, I was trying so hard to get the business done quick so this poor mom could be on her way and help her baby.  I swore I wouldn't let my baby cry like that, the poor thing all it needed was to be held. HA!  Was I in for a rude awakening.  Here's a news flash sometimes babies cry!  Sometimes you can comfort them but sometimes you are in a car going down the interstate at 80 miles and hour and there is nothing you can do but just let them cry.  Sometimes even when you can pick them up an shush and sway and swaddle they still  cry. I learned very quickly that as long as he wasn't in imminent danger it is okay for him to cry a bit. It's what they do.


Well I have long been procrastinating cleaning toilets and dusting.  We have family coming to town this weekend and we couldn't be more excited for the big celebration.  Next week I'll share with you pictures of the party, in the meantime here are a few pictures from the past few weeks! Happy Tuesday!

Enjoying a meal at HuHot Mongolian Grill

Poor sick little bubby

This and That

It has taken us a while to truly believe that Oliver is saying his first word.  Maybe I shouldn't say believe but actually realize.  I'm not sure what I was expecting but I was thinking more along the lines of a well pronounced "dog" or "ball" or "Lola stop eating the baby's food".  Instead it was "that".  He's been saying it for about a month but we just took it for his usual babbling. Corey and I are constantly asking him, "what's that?" and then answering so I guess it makes sense.  Oh, but a wicked little game it has created.  Everything now is "that?" and then sometimes he'll look at us for the answer, sometimes he'll just point at something else and say "that" and then something else and so on and so forth.  I know that his little developing baby brain probably doesn't realize that he is asking "what's that?", "that" probably means "ball" or "dog" or "mom I'd like a snack" but as a human adult we are engineered that when asked a question we answer.  So when he points and says "that" 8 million times a day I am so inclined to answer. Quite exhausting really.  I thought we wouldn't hit this stage until he was about 2 and half or 3 but that is parenting...having an expectation and being completely blindsided by a very different answer or result.

In less that three weeks Oliver will turn one and it seems like just yesterday I was walking up and down the blocks of our neighborhood trying to bring on labor.  It was all in vain, an eviction notice had to be delivered and I was induced and after 14 hours of labor came this life changing little person and here we are 12 months later.  He is now using walking as his mode of transportation about 80% of the time. Crawling is saved for really crucial matters that require getting someplace at warp speed, like the stairs or Lola's dog bowls. He gives kisses on demand, big open mouthed kisses.  The really special ones are the kisses he doesn't have to be asked to give, those I want to wrap up in a tiny brown package with twine and put them in a time capsule to be opened 17 years from now. He still just has two teeth, the top ones have been working their way in for weeks but to no avail.

With the big birthday coming up I've been planning his birthday party.  Nothing over the top, just some family and friends and of course cake.  I've also been working on some special crafties for the day.  I'll share those after his party.

We've gotten one more room finished at Casa de Rekers.  The laundry room has now been painted.  I want to put in some cupboards and a shelf eventually but here is the before and after.  The paint color is Tranquility, it's from Lowes, it's a Valspar color I think.

Laundry room before

Laundry room after

Well we have places to go and people to see.  Namely the Children's Museum in Indianapolis.  We're going on this little adventure with Greta and her mom Carrie.  Thank goodness for the distraction too because those aforementioned top teeth are giving us heck and that makes for one clingy baby.  This adventure could be a success or it could be a total snot dripping, leg clinging, screaming from the back seat failure.  Let's keep our fingers crosses for success!

Settling Back In

Did you think I fell off the face of the earth?  In some ways I did for a bit.  We went on a much needed vacation....without the baby.  Although in reality I knew that this was much needed and that he was going to be well cared for it still was nerve wracking and anxiety inducing.  We flew to Scotsdale, Arizona and enjoyed good food, the sun and the spa.  I missed the crap out of Ollie but I came back refreshed and I like to think I came back as a better mommy, one with more patience and a little more sleep under my belt.

Dropping  us off at the airport...I think he knows something is up...

Now that vacation is out of the way we're working on getting our house to feeling a bit more homey.  The house we bought only had one room painted a color, all of the rest of the rooms are an eggshellish white.  A rather mopey white at that.  It's wonderful to have the blank slate but the white walls are bringing me back to my apartment living days and that feeling must be eradicated soon!!  We know that we can't make ourselves crazy with home projects and expect to get more done in a weekend than is humanly possible so we've made ourselves a goal to paint one room a weekend.  It's been difficult since we have been coming and going but this weekend we did manage to get Oliver's room painted. Here is a before and after.

BEFORE...have you ever seen more disgusting walls?

BEFORE #2

AFTER

AFTER #2

I'm not a huge fan of the painted woodwork, I would rather it be white but painting trimwork is a HUGE job and one that I don't really have the time and/or patience to deal with right now so we are leaving it as is for now.  We also still need to hang more pictures and wall decals,  I'll update you with the completely finished project soon!

I need to mention that Oliver has gone down for his nap twice today without so much as a peep.  I have laid him down still awake with his binkies and he chats with his stuffies for a while and then nods off. Yes binkies is plural, he likes to suck on one and hold onto one while he falls asleep. Apparently he finds much comfort in knowing that he shall never be binkie-less during his slumber.  So I would love to stay and chat awhile but I need to go high five myself for being an awesome mom and getting my baby to nap so easily. (HA! Yea right, like I had a stinking thing to do with it, I'm sure he'll be back to fighting naps like the plague tomorrow.)

10 Months

We are actually well past Oliver's 10 month birthday but we had a couple of kinks to deal with.

Kink #1: His first ear infection.  We have been very lucky to make it this far without one but as most of you know, ear infections are no time to be doing photo shoots.

Kink #2: As you can see our trusty friend the lion, Rasputin, is not pictured.  Rasputin went missing during the move.  We filed a missing persons report (after 24 hours of course) and I am happy to say Rasputin has been located.  However, we were not able to track his cell phone records in time to locate him for this photo shoot so Bennett the Giraffe had to sit in.

We have made a complete turnaround from this:

We call this our Gary Busey look

I am happy to report that all of us at House of Rekers are now feeling much better and looking more like this:

Oliver has had a lot going on this month.  He has been seeing a lot of his friend Greta lately which has been great.  This is Greta:

Look at how stylish she is in her mixed prints!

Both Greta and her mom are fabulous.  We have been so blessed to find a group of friends that we get together with on a regular basis and bring some sanity to our days that are normally filled with dirty diapers, making messes and finding sharp objects that haven't been properly baby-proofed.  Greta and Oliver have been teaching each other a lot. Oliver is trying to teach Greta how to crawl and Greta is teaching Oliver how to make pterodactyl noises. I'm not going to say that they are an exclusive couple but they have been seen hobnobbing around town together.  The paparazzi snapped these pictures of them at Fair Oaks Dairy Farm a couple of weeks ago on their trip back from Chicago.  Fortunately they didn't capture on film the Clampett style unloading of the car when it was decided to make an impromptu stop at the farm.  The wind was wildly blowing, random toys were falling out of the car, strollers were caught on seatbelt straps, a binky was almost left in the parking lot and there may or may not have been some curse words spewed out.  All in all we'll still call it a successful trip.  We did get to see a baby cow being born after all!

Oliver has also been spotted going to Greta's house and they were seen together at the Edinburgh Outlet Mall shopping for swim attire for their trips to the pool this summer.

The adventures continue this week, we are preparing for Oliver's first airplane ride.  On Thursday we are flying to Minneapolis to visit Desi and Kiley.  I am driving to Chicago and flying from there so that Edie can help out with what is sure to be a chaotic adventure.  I'm hoping that we make it through TSA smoothly and that we timed our flight appropriately, at Oliver's bedtime. I'm sure we will have many stories to tell when we get back so stay tuned for those. For now here are some more pictures of our growing little man for you to enjoy. Happy Tuesday!

A New Place to Call Home

Oh, so much to share.  It's been weeks since I've been able to move thoughts from brain to blog.  In the past month we have sold a house, bought a house, moved into said house and began a myriad of home renovations both DIY and contractor led.  It has been an exciting and stressful time and all the while I've tried to maintain some sense of normalcy amid the sound of nail guns and contractors yelling to one another to "shut off the main water" as a pipe burst out of the wall and soaked one of our spare bathrooms.  Luckily the pipe burst before the renovation of that room was complete so no big worry there, it has been fixed and we have moved on.

Buying and moving into this house has been quite the story but I won't bore you with the long drawn out version. Basically it goes something like this:  We really weren't planning on moving so quickly but it was one of those cases where the stars all aligned and everything seemed to fall perfectly into place, so much so that every now and again Corey and I would look at each other and say, "when is this going to go wrong, this is too good to be true". A few months back, before Christmas to be exact we decided that we would like to think about moving into a bigger space.  Not much was wrong with our current house, we really liked it actually but when Baby O came into the mix a house that was already filled to the brim seemed to bulging at the seams and we were starting to feel more cramped by the day.  This isn't to say that a family can't make it in a small space, people do it all the time but we were aching for a basement and for more trees and something that felt more like ours, not just a stopping point along the way.  So we would research online, never really finding that house that made us excited and we would drive around on Sundays with Ollie strapped in his car seat snoozing.  Then one day we took a left turn on a road we had passed many times but never given a second thought to and we discovered a small neighborhood half a mile from our house that we didn't even know existed.  We saw a house that made us both say, "yea, I could see us pulling into this driveway every day for the next decade" and so we called the Realtor and saw it the next day.  When we walked in we had to look past the outdated fixtures and the forest green trim and make it a blank slate.  As they say on HG TV, it had good bones and we could both see that.  So we put in a low ball offer that we eventually negotiated and could still be happy about, we listed our house and sold it in a week and we sat back and said to ourselves "holy crap are we really doing this?".  We knew it was going to be a lot of work but we were up for the challenge.  I engrossed myself in Pinterest and came up with a plan for paint colors and got a little giddy planning out my new kitchen and Corey mulled over budgets and plans and contractor bids and now here we sit in our almost completed renovation.  We still have many walls to paint and our counter tops don't arrive for another two weeks but the contractors will be done this week and we couldn't be happier with our new home. I will share before and after pictures in blog posts to come.

This past Thursday would have been my mom's 59th birthday.  It's also a year to the day since it was confirmed that she had stage IV pancreatic cancer that had spread to her liver. We are quickly approaching the anniversary of her passing. A year later and it still feels like the rug has been pulled out from beneath all of us.  We go about our business day to day, it still seems unreal that she's not here with us.  I still get the urge to pick up the phone and call her to tell her about something funny or cute that Oliver has done and it still feels like a punch to the gut when seconds later I come to the realization of her absence. I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to that.

About a year before my mom passed she had in a way started a new life.  She was an empty nester.  All of us girls had moved out and our sister Karley had also been moved out,  as on her own as she ever can be.  She lives in a small house with a couple of other girls that also have special needs.  My mom had spent the majority of her adult life caring for others.  Caring for 5 girls was no small task and she did a fantastic job.When she found herself in an empty nest she started doing more for herself.  She was working a job that she loved at Mariposa Farms.  She sorted and packed culinary herbs and I have never seen her so happy in a job before.  She was meeting friends and she loved the people she worked with.  They would go out for birthdays and other special occasions at Casa Margarita, a Mexican restaurant in Grinnell.  My sisters and I would joke that she didn't have much time for us anymore because it seemed every time we would call her she was always doing something.  Every so often her response was "well I can't really talk now I'm at Casa with the girls".  We would feign that our feelings were hurt but in all honesty we were so happy that she was taking time for herself and really enjoying her time.

As we tackle these firsts without her; first birthdays, the first anniversary of her death, first holidays without her, we do so with as much grace as we can.  We try our hardest to honor her memory and the legacy that she left behind.  We hug each other a little tighter and try even harder to enjoy the time we have together.

We toast her birthday with a margarita glass raised in her honor, we spend time with our sisters crying but also laughing.

Her most adamant request on her death bed is that she never wanted us to lose our sense of humor.  We have tried our hardest not to and I hope that when she is looking down on us she is overcome with a sense of accomplishment and pride at how we have honored her.

Nueve (Nine)

Hi, I'm 9 months old.

Friday Oliver turned nine months old.  I carried him for nine months and with all the anticipation that comes with carrying a baby it seemed to drag on and on.  This last nine months has gone by in a flash. From the first smiles, to rolling, to crawling, to pulling up to standing and everything in between, what a roller coaster it has been.  I've said it before and I'll say it again this kid amazes the crap out of me.  Once again here is Oliver in a nutshell. Some things remain the same, other things are new. Regardless these are the things that I hope I can burn into some back portion of my brain, never to be forgotten.

-He has a little dimple in his nose that only shows up when he's smiling really big.
-Loves to pull Kleenexes from the box and then tear said Kleenexes into tiny bits. I'm certain when he can talk he'll blame it on the dog.
-Likes to throw balls, and anything that resembles a ball, like last nights peas.
-Has figured out how to feed the dog. (See above pea throwing)
-Favorite foods are pears, bananas, sweet potatoes and black beans. I season the beans with my southwest seasoning and the kid can throw back some black beans, he obviously has his mom's more spicy palate and not his dad's wimpy  mild palate.
-Loves teasing the dog with a sock. I'm fairly certain they can communicate with each other because they had a pretty rowdy game going the other day and Lola, who is notorious for taking it to the next level when playing stayed miraculously cautious.
-Loves digging in purses, diaper bags and anything else that could possess worldly treasures like pens and shiny objects.
-Dances like nobody's business, especially to the Spanish version of the ABC's and 123's on his Leap Frog table.
-Is so proud to stand unassisted for a few seconds at a time.
-Rather enjoys being the loudest thing in the room. This involves competing with the dog barking, the vacuum cleaner and the hair dryer among other things.

Happy Birthday baby! We love you!

We had a little reign of terror this evening.  I fear this is a sign of things to come. It started with a five minute nap in the car on the way home from the hardware store. Here is the progression, the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Needless to say I embraced bedtime this evening.  So now that our little monkey is resting safely in his bed it's time for this momma to deflate.  Good night all!

Rocking It

Some days you rock at being a mom. Other days you find a used diaper at the bottom of the diaper bag that has been there for a week.

Yesterday I found that diaper. Dishes were piled up the sink, dinner was burning on the stove, Oliver was clung to my leg whining to be held because he had decided earlier in the day that he did not need his afternoon nap and the dog was constantly under foot, in other words the wheels were falling off.  These are the days that you just pray to God that they'll be over soon and that you don't drink a bottle of wine to recover at the end of the day.  Half a bottle, okay. Full bottle, not okay.

An almost full night of sleep helped to refresh me and this morning at 8 I gave myself a little pep talk and got out of bed and went to the gym.  Today I was blessed with one of those rockstar days.  I had a great workout and then we had a great playdate.

I am so thankful for this group of moms and kids that I have gotten to know over the last several months.  They bring sanity to a crazy week and a chance for me to sit back and watch Oliver socialize and it gives me a chance to socialize as well. We are an eclectic mix of moms and babies.  Moms from Iowa, moms from Louisiana, moms from California and moms from Indiana.  Regardless of our hometowns and backgrounds we all now call Bloomington home and are raising our babies here.  Our group keeps getting larger and new babies keep joining and today I sat back and listened to the dull roar of several conversations going on around me.  I thought back to the first playdate I went to. I was so nervous.  Would everyone like me? Would I like anyone? Would I meet any friends or would they all be dorks? Would they judge me on how I take care of my baby? Since I set foot in that first house I have felt welcome and there rarely has been a dull moment or moment where there is nothing to talk about. This group of women is amazing and regardless of our choices in childrearing we never judge and can have the fantastic feeling of never being judged.  Some of us still nurse, some of us formula feed.  Some of us feed all organic and some don't.  Some of us use cloth diapers and some of us use disposable.  Some of us work outside of the home and some of us are stay at home mommas. Some of us are content having one baby and some of us want more.  Some of us gave birth naturally and some of us said "bring on the epidural".  Regardless of our choices, we are all moms and I have to say, we are ALL rocking it! It really does take a village to raise a child and I am so, so thankful for my village.  I have a great support system.  I have a fantastic husband, amazing siblings, awesome parents and awesome in-laws, a wonderful extended family and a great group of friends near and far that complete my village. These are the people that help me move past the occasional forgotten diaper and help me to have more rockstar mom days.