So my last few posts have been heavy on the pictures, which I know is what you are all really interested in, but this blog is also my way to document the things that happen in our lives so I’m going to catch you up on what Charlie is up to these days.
He turned 8-months old this past Tuesday, and I feel like this is the best age yet. I know you say that the whole time – how fabulous is it that it just keeps getting better and better (until perhaps we hit those terrible 2s or if we are lucky enough to sail through that perhaps when we hit those awkward middle school and teenage years. As a sidenote, I am so thankful that Charlie is a boy while I’m thinking that far ahead. Yes, we would love to have a little girl and we’ll enjoy that if we are blessed with one, but I’m glad the first run will be with a little boy.)
Anyways, he is so much fun. He laughs a lot which just breaks my heart and makes it swell at the same time. It is amazing the embarrassing things you will do just to make your child laugh – and do them over and over without being exhausted because somehow that little belly laugh gives you energy you didn’t know you had.
He is also very into his mama right now (I keep trying to teach him to say mama while he’s busy babbling, and every time I do, he stops babbling, looks right at me and….smiles/laughs at me as if to say, “haha, nope, not gonna do it”). Whenever I come in the door, especially when I come home from work, he gets so excited and jumps, smiles, laughs, squeals. Usually I have a bunch of milk with me that needs to go in the refrigerator or need to write the nanny a check, so I try to do that before I pick him up and play with him so that our play time is uninterrupted. If I leave his line of sight or don’t pick him up in what he deems a reasonable amount of time (usually 5 seconds), his little face just crumples and he starts hiccup/crying at me. Disclaimer: he does this even with Travis or Dana sitting right there with him and playing with him – he’s not being ignored. Am I a bad mom that I find it hilarous, cute, and also fabulous that I’m that important to him?
For the past three weeks he has been on the move. He can get places so fast, and right now it’s always wherever I am going – he follows me around his nursery, to the laundry room, into a closet until I start moving too fast, he gets dizzy/tired, and waits for me to come back and get him. He is also constantly trying to stand up beside anything (whether it looks sturdy or not). You lay him down in his crib and as soon as you let go, he sits himself up and then is standing up looking over the edge at whatever we are doing.
Travis and I are also trying to find a new way to shower. Previously, when one of us has Charlie in the morning by ourselves and need to get ready for work, etc, we just closed all the doors, put a bunch of toys on the floor and some pillows on any hard-looking edges and let him play for a couple minutes until we got out. Now, he crawls over to the shower door, climbs up on it and has figured out how to slide it open. Not only is he letting in all the cold air, but it’s hard to shampoo your hair one-handed while you hold the shower door closed for dear life as your 8-month-old child with the ridiculous pushing strength of a full-grown man tries to open the door. (He thinks he’s hilarious by the way – and he’s right, but still…)
I hesitate to write this next paragraph for fear of jinxing us and upsetting the balance of the universe but…we are sleeping through the night now. Sleeping might be a little generous a term for it, but let’s say that Charlie stays in his crib from about 7:45 at night until somewhere between 6:00 and 7:00 the next morning. This has been going on for a week and a half now. I do realize he is 8-months-old and most babies having been doing this for months now, but we didn’t for a variety of reasons. Reason 1 being that we didn’t have a video monitor. We thought spending hundreds of dollars on a monitor was ridiculous. Well, it turns out that hundreds of dollars are nothing compared to the peace of mind that seeing your child is okay provides and that it allows you to let him cry a little longer and fall asleep on his own (before my cry limit was about all of 30 seconds before I needed to see what was troubling my poor sweet bundle of joy). Reason 2 was that when I was home for 3 months on maternity leave I took naps and let Charlie sleep with me some and he got a little used to it (I’m not even sure it was me, I think he may have just liked our comfy bed as opposed to his crib). Reason 3 was that when I got back to work I was so exhausted getting up in the middle of the night and working during the day that it was easier to just bring him into our bed when he woke up at midnight than to fight the battle of trying to get him back down in the crib. He would fall asleep so soundly in our bed. Reason 4 was that he still seemed a little helpless, pitiful, and small for awhile (once he started standing and crawling I felt less sympathy for the little booger – he wasn’t quite so helpless and stuck where we put him anymore). And the final reason was that part of me did like that sweet snuggle time during the night that kind of extended the time I spent with him since I wasn’t home all during the day with him. Anyways, I have finally overcome all those things and gotten comfortable with him in the crib. He hated it the first couple nights, and finally wore himself out after about 20 minutes of crying. He still wakes up periodically throughout the night – usually only for about a minute or two which I don’t think he’s really awake for – but occasionally at 3 am he will be standing in his crib crying for 5 minutes until he tires out again. He’s definitely eating better during the day now that he is not nursing during the night and I think he and I both wake up with more energy – his naps are also going a little better during the day. Travis still can’t get him to nap, though unless they are riding in the truck. Last night was the best night we’ve had yet. He let out one little cry at 10:30 (during the Wii tournament Travis and I were having downstairs), and then I didn’t hear another peep out of him until 5:45 when he cried for about a minute and then I looked on the monitor at 7 and saw he was sitting up in the crib playing with his pacifier so I went and got him.
I think that’s all of Charlie’s big news for now. So what are Travis and I up to lately. Travis went to the Jiffy Store (I called it that just to irritate some of you when you read my blog – for those of you who found this blog by accident or haven’t know me forever, I call all “convenience stores” Jiffy Stores – that’s what I learned growing up – take it up with my parents or grandparents if you have a problem with it – that’s what I’ll call them until the day I die). Back to the story, he went to the jiffy store to buy some dog food because we ran out and poor Amy had to eat 2 hot dogs for dinner. He came home and told me he had just bought the most expensive bag of dog food ever. I put on my “I-told-you-so” face that said he should have planned better and known she was running out of dog food (it’s his dog, not ours, she was pre-marriage – love/like her, but she’s his responsibility – she’d starve if I was in charge of her full-time. We just didn’t have pets growing up so I’m not used to thinking about one everyday. Travis used to say it didn’t bode well for my parenting skills that I couldn’t even think of the dog. Somehow I’ve managed to remember to feed Charlie so far, though.) Turns out, it wasn’t the jiffy store prices that made the dog food so expensive – a deer ran in to Travis’s truck on the way home. I thought he said it wrong, so I tried to clarify “You ran into a deer?!?!”…apparently we have stupid deers in Augusta – the deer actually ran in to Travis’s truck – it hit right in the middle of the truck. We are currently in a stand-off of how to fix the truck. I think we should take it to an actual place to be fixed. Travis thinks he can pound out the dent with a rubber mallet…a rubber mallet??? At this point, my head starts swimming with thoughts like “how much does a rubber mallet cost in comparison to how much a professional would cost” “what happens if he gets halfway through the process and something goes wrong or it doesn’t work like he thinks it should?” – in our old house we had quite a few projects “in process” until the day we moved out – that’s why we moved into a brand new house – no projects to do!
As for me, I currently have a Wii injury. I don’t play the Wii often, but when I do I really play. Travis and I played table tennis and bowling last night. Don’t judge us for being boring- it’s hard to have date nights with an 8-month-old so we improvise. According to Travis, I am the only person in the world who can work up a sweat from a game of Wii-bowling or table tennis. Surely there are others of you out there like me – you know who you are – you have to do the actual motions in order to play the game. When I Wii bowl, I back up and get a run start at the tv just like in the bowling alley. I even assume the follow-through pose crouched down with my leg slid behind the other one and I jump and lean the way I want the ball to go until it hits the pins (just as I do in the real bowling alley). For table tennis, I also jump around trying to “run” get the ball and swing my arms (with gusto when I’m trying to hit a real winner). Travis plays the Wii standing or sitting in one position by just flicking his wrist. I don’t think any other muscles in his body move but his wrist and his finger…it’s infuriating…and not any fun in my opinion. So what kind of Wii player are you – the kind like me who risks injury, life, and limb for a good shot or the kind like Travis who has no imagine whatsoever and constantly remembers it’s a computer game and not real life?
More pictures to come soon from our weekend with my mom at the beach.
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Life with the Cain's 