Monday, November 30, 2009

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was pretty awesome. We ended up leaving mid-afternoon on Wednesday. It was slow going though- especially once we got on I-75. But once we got on the turnpike, it picked up a little and we ended up making it into Miami around 1 am. As expected, the craxy traveling schedule+new surroundings threw a wrench in Nico's flow. This meant that instead of sleeping until 552 am, he proceeded to wake up at 3am. AWESOME. Naturally this lead to a lot of napping over the holiday.

Dave's Mom and Aunt made a huge Thanksgiving Feast, which was delicious- including a very tasty cranberry sauce- which I proceeded to eat most of by myself. That is how I roll.

On Friday, we went up to Christian and Heather's place to meet their new baby, Liam. Their older child (Miranda) is about 2 and half and is a genius. Overheard: "Mommy, can I get another marker? The pink doesnt show up well." The pink doesnt show up well? Srsly? Good grammar at two and half? Yes please. Apparently, the fact that she is pretty smart helps- but they dont talk to her like she is a little kid. They talk to her like she is a human. LOVE IT. Of course, Dave and I would like to have a genius kid like that- but I dont know if its worth not talking in LOLSpeak. For real- how much fun is it to say things like, "I can haz some milk?" or "All of ur diapers are belong to us nao!" And its even awesomer since we talk for him anyways.

Saturday we went to a place called "The Field" for lunch (an Irish Pub). It was delicious, thank you very much. I had Bangers and Mash- both of which I highly recommend.

On Sunday, we skipped across Aligator Alley and swung into Ft. Myers to do brunch with my parents. We saw a ton of alligators- which was very cool. They dont play! In any case, brunch with my parents was cool. My dad got to meet Nico for the first time, which was awesome. I think the jacked up sleeping schedule, plus all the stimuli got to Nico, because it wasn't long after we got on the road when he had a MELTDOWN MELTDOWN MELTDOWN. Not a lot of fun. I spent much of the drive on Sunday reclined back in the passenger seat trying to keep him from crying his face off.
We ended up getting back on Sunday night around 930 pm. Not too bad. Was actually a pretty fun weekend, if tiring. Right now, we're just trying to get our feet under us for this upcoming week. Its pretty out of control.

On a completely unrelated matter- I am thinking about entering Nico into a cute baby contest. Trying to figure out what kind of picture to send in. Any thoughts? How do you guys feel about these? I dont have any really great pictures of him smiling...and he's not really extradordinary looking (like the Nelson tripletts who are very adorable, with their curly blonde hair and blue eyes). Advice?



Sunday, November 22, 2009

Rollin, rollin, rollin, keep those doggies rollin...


This is a picture that my friend Dylan took of the boy last week (on our Christmas Photo Session outing to Optimist Park). Isn't our boy handsome? The best thing about this picture? He has his little eyebrow arched. Makes my day!

On an unrelated matter- little homey rolled over today. Front to back. It was pretty great. I had just changed him out of a sleeper (that was covered in drool) and had laid him on our bed and was playing with him. I figured I ought to try to do some tummy time with him... especially since the last time we did it, he was pushing up really high. Unlike before where he just laid there on his stomach and made crying noses until I rolled him over. This afternoon he pushed up really high on to his elbows and kept pushing with one arm until he turned over. It was fantastic!

I yelled for Dave to come from the kitchen to see- but then Nico decided he wouldnt do it for Dad. So Dave went away... and Nico did it again. It was brilliant. Next step: walking!

I took a video of him doing it after I got back from tutoring:

Friday, November 20, 2009

All jacked up on mountain dew...

A new video:



Back story: my moms favorite movie kids are the little boys from Talladega Nights. When Nico is a little older, I'm going to teach him (along with his cousin Maddox) the lines. Until then, this will have to do.

Have a great weekend!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Panama City, Pictures and Puppies in the Pool

Had a pretty good weekend. Nico was a peach for the trip to PC yesterday. During the whole 13 hour trip, he only spent about 2 hours with me... he spent the rest of the time with Dave in the car, or with RM and the other parents. Got some good sleeps and came home to sleep about 10 hours (love it). We lost 4-0... to a team who wasnt a 4-0 win team. I could handle the loss, if I felt like this team was that good. But we didnt play very well, and we definitely quit towards the end of the second half. While I miss the hell out of my little brother, its a good thing he wasn't here to see it (he's not dead, he's in Australia). I keep waiting for it... its going to happen. All the pieces are going to click. And I hate to be the team on the other end of it. Sort of like Liverpool last year, when they started the season with several ties and not playing well. Then Fernando Torres opened up on some poor team, maybe Boro or Wigan? Liverpool had 6 goals that game, with Fernando having 3 or 4. That is going to happen to us... I know it.

Lauren and Dylan came over today and we took them to Optimist Park, so that he could take some pictures for our Christmas card- with the dogs, its always out of control. Figured more so with a baby. Was pretty painless and pretty quick. Good stuff.

Later today, we took the boys to Trusdale Pool for "Puppies in the Pool". In the fall, Trusdale shuts down for a weekend and people are allowed to bring their dogs. Its basically just a big dog social at a pool. Its pretty amazing. We took the boys last year. With Nico in tow, we thought we'd hit it up. Here is a video:



Note Drake accosting the little old stranger lady. Man, he is the world's worst dog!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Good to be back here...

So I am about to finish the book, "The Baby Whisperer" by Tracy Hogg. She is British and is apparently widely regarded as the Baby Whisperer. Of course reading it has got me questioning everything. Thankfully I have been down this road before and I have decided to consider our circumstances and our life before incorporating baby advice into our life.

She's anti "attachment parenting" which is apparently, mostly what I do (on accident- turns out a lot of hippie-types do) by virtue of the fact that I wear this little guy. She has this philosophy called EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) and says that bad habits are really easy to learn. She even gives a check list as to how sleeping problems occur. Aparently, Dave and I are on a run-away train on THAT track. Let Nico fall asleep on us? Check? Rock to sleep? Check. Developing a sleeping problem? WIN! For real, though... Usually by 8 or 9 at night, I am so exhausted that I will do anything short of giving him gin to make him go to sleep quickly and with as little fuss as possible.

There are situations like today, where I tried to go with the EASY method... feed him, lay him in his crib to chillax, hoping that he'll drift off to sleep. He doesnt. He lays there for a while, I am walking in and out, putting away diapers, blankets, etc. Eventually he gets pissed. So then I move onto another routine- put him in the bumpo chair, the swing, the papasan chair. Set him on my lap as I look at Failblog.org and Facebook. Nope... still pissed. Because I cant just sit around all day hovering over his crib, I bite the bullet, put the baby wrap on, put him in the pouch, go for a walk around the block and the next thing you know, someone is sleeping up a storm.

Of course, I would love to do her EASY method. It sounds so easy and wonderful. But a little unrealistic at this point. Exhibit A: soccer season is still going on. As long as I am taking him down to Wakulla with me, I think its unrealistic to train him out of the sleeping on us habit. Mostly because when I take him to practice, I put him in the pouch or in the Baby Bjorn. That = sleep. Also- guess who is teething? Yeah. For real. Homey is drooling like his name is Richard Droolfess. I shouldnt really be shocked at this... I have three sets of wisdom teeth. Okay, so I am not sure that is relevant, but thought it would be an interesting anecdote.

So now we have a cranktastic baby who doesnt self-soothe, who only sleeps when he is on one of us. Add to that, he doesnt do pacifiers. WHA-WHAT? How is this possible? Yeah, he wont keep them in his mouth. Literally, we have at least 10 pacifiers, none of which he could be the least interested in. The most recent purchases were two teething pacifiers, with flat textured "nipples" that he is supposed to chew on to help relieve some of the pain of teething. At least that one has a bigger handle thing that I can sometimes stick his fingers in to keep it on his hand.

This brings me to my point: the third hardest thing about having a kid (behind the sleep and the only having two arms thing) is that there is so much advice out there on how to deal with various baby problems, that its hard to know what to do. The book "Happiest Baby on the Block" (which was a boon for us) got us in the habit of rocking, swaddling and shushing. Now this "Baby Whisperer" is saying that sets up bad sleep habits by training a baby to be parented to sleep. So I am back to the drawing board of "Doing whatever works for us." Its good to be back here.

On a completely unrelated note- I have taken to calling Nico "Baby Head". This comes from what Dave and I call the boys sometimes (Dog Heads) and what I sometimes call Drake in my sleep (Dog Fish Head- a micro brewery), but think it comes originally from Doug and Bob McKenzie, who called their dog Doghead. Coincidentally, "Baby Head" has the same number of syllables as "Spider Pig" (of Simpsons Movie Fame). I think you know where this is going:



"Baby Head, Baby Head, does whatever a Baby Head does.
Does he fly through the air, no, cuz he's a Baby Head."

Okay... so now that I have accomplished the ever-important blog for the day and now have 45 minutes left till I have to leave for Leon (game tonight)... this is fantastic! Never mind that I have approximately 10 job applications that need to go out this month. Lets talk about the state of my desk.... not one bare spot. Its covered with all variety of items- thank you notes, ipod accessories, papers, books, pens, cartridges, old bills that need to be shredded, etc. Seriously, what Dave and I need is a stay at home wife. Of course, now might be the time to resurrect talk of starting a commune with some of my friends. I am thinking of a set up where I dont have to work, nor do I have to clean or cook. I was kind of just hoping for a set up where I could hang out with my kid and watch TV all day and do some crafting type things, and someone cooks meals for us, makes the money, pays the bills and does the cleaning. That's a commune, right? No? FAIL!!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Great News!!

So we got some *very* good news today. When I suspected that I might be pregnant, just about the first thing I did (aside from scheduling prenatal care), was go to the FSU Childcare center and enroll my fetus. Backstory: when I first moved to Tallahassee, I taught preschool at this place up on the north side of town. I had the privledge of working with two women who are amazing (JL and SC). JL taught the 4 year olds, I taught the 5s and SC taught everywhere. It was one of those amazingly fun jobs, where I would go to work at 7am, and it would be 3pm before I knew it... then it was time to go out and play, come in and clean up, and go home. It was awesome. I think that there was a gentle rivalry among us (and the other teachers) over who could have the cutest projects, the nicest rooms and the best art. The place was better for it. Our center had a reputation of sending kids to kindergarten ready to be successful (we fed into two "A" schools on the northside).

In any case, shortly after I quit to do grad school full time, JL and SC ended up at the FSU Childcare center. Its FSU's "research" based daycare/preschool. I always knew that if the time came for us to put our kid in a daycare/preschool setting and we were still in the 850- that taking them to JL and SC would be almost as good as me staying home with him. That is how amazing they are.

So, imagine my concern when I got the wait-list number of 157. Bummer... so I resigned myself to the fact that Nico might be 8 or 9 years old by the time it was time for him to go. I checked his status about a month ago and he was 85. Bummer still. Then today I got an email saying that they are ready to enroll him. Isn't that awesome?

We can start in the spring- and it probably wont be full-time full-time. I am going to try to arrange a schedule of tutoring that is more hours there, so I dont have to get a job-job. Which means that Nico will go there for a couple hours a day to start. Since soccer will still be going on, I will need to pick him and head down to practice, so he'll likely be gone by about 100. I think its pretty much the perfect situation. I know I will probably meltdown the first day I leave him there- but I think its for the better. He will get to be around other kids... so far his most consistent companion is that little dude that sits in the backseat with him when we drive down to Wakulla, who he can only see when he looks into the mirror :)

So that is definitely good news. Knowing that he is going to be in good hands there takes a load off my mind...I was definitely thinking that by the time I got a job-job in Tally-nasty that I would have to just stick him in whichever place will take him- envisioning the kinds of horror stories that only former preschool teachers can come up with.

Other good news is that Dave has tomorrow off. The girls and I decided to practice tomorrow- so he will get to go. When we get home, I have to do something with my office space. Its pretty much a disaster area. I also need to finish his nursery... we have pretty much everything set up in there- changing table, crib, book cases. I need to hang a shelf and maybe hang some picture frames. Its rapidly becoming my favorite room in the house- mostly because its so clean!

Project de-stuff the house is going full speed ahead. Looking to get rid of another 10 "larger" items this week... then Dave and I dont have to have a nomad cleaning strategy (moving stuff around the house).

Saturday, November 7, 2009

All day long, just takin it easy...

Nothing new on the Nico front to report. He's getting big and is more fun every day. The whole "wearing" him during soccer games is working out pretty well. Its funny, though. Last night at Chiles one of the Chiles players asked Stevey as she was walking off the field, "Is that a baby on your coach?" Even funnier, is that in the second half, one of their players cleared a ball out of the back to the side line, kind of close to Nico and me... A collective gasp went up from our parents when I reached up and caught the ball over his head. Someone said something like, "Watch out for that baby!" to which I replied, "Its okay- I am a keeper"... and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
He doesnt seem to be bothered by it much...except when we have to practice at Medart and he gets eaten up by the sand gnats... which is fair, because I hate practicing there (the sand gnats are awful). Of course it might help if I didnt always forget the bug spray. Its something I have been thinking about a lot lately...I have just kind of treated this little dude, like, "Alright little homey, we gotta do this, then this, then we gotta go to practice. And then..." Maybe I should be more like Betty Draper, and stay at home only doing domesticated stuff with him.

Speaking of Chiles. Wow. So back story: we lost to Chiles 7-0 our first year coaching. Last year we lost 6-0. We had sort of been resigned to the fact that anytime we play Chiles that its going to be a beating- they have too many elite club players, we have a lot of girls that only just recently got serious about playing soccer. But, it is what it is. We actually went into last night's game with a game plan- and executed it. It was pretty brilliant. Without getting into too many specifics- we needed to be patient and disciplined last night. Patient and disciplined. The plan worked pretty well and we lost 3-1. It would have been 2-1, but about half the team got willy-nilly when one of our girls straight jacked the ball from a Chiles player. One of our captains, Mandy had the goal, a really nice set piece half way between the side of the box and the sideline. And Shay. Wow. Shay. She was amazing. She didnt really have much to do through out the game, not like some games in the past where its like shooting practice. During most the game she made the saves she should have, and in the last five minutes, came up with two ridiculous, game winning saves. It was awesome!!

So today we've just been taking it easy. My girl Julia came to town this weekend and we went to get pedicures. Just in the nick of time really, because my feet were FUNKY. And not in a good way. Mostly doing cleaning and stuff around the house... listing stuff on Ebay (so I can get rid of it- man we collect some stuff.)

The picture below is from Friday morning... I had to meet with Ike in the morning and I got us up and going- but had to put him down to do some stuff (get the diaper bag ready, get dressed, etc). He eventually fell asleep in his crib... isnt he precious?

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Not too bad actually.

So Nico went to his first high school soccer game last night. We played at Maclay- which is a small private school up here. Most of the girls who play at Maclay play in the TUFC system, so we knew that they were going to be tough. When we played last year, we played mid-season and lost 3-0.
We ended up losing 3-0 last night. We defended for 80 minutes- which is always tough. But not bad... considering that this is our first game, that we were trying to figure out how to replace our sweeper from last year and that we took one of our main attackers and stuck her in the back.... not bad at all. Even awesomer? Our GK had probably one of the best games I have ever seen her play. She probably had close to 20 shots taken on frame, and only gave up 3 goals, including one that was a rebound off a kick save.

Something that many of you probably dont know about me, is that watching good goalkeeping at any level gives me goose bumps. It does. I get goosebumps when Shay Given (formerly of the no-defense at all New Castle) comes all the way across the goal to pick a ball out of the upper 90. And I get goose bumps when a kid from a scrub highschool team makes a one on one save. I guess because I know how hard it is to be a good goalkeeper... and that for every night that you're on fire, you might have a night when you cant do anything right. In any case, she was awesome. She made it a fun game to watch.

Nico was pretty good for most of the game. He was a little bit fussy when we got to Maclay- but got to hang out with the girls a bit- which he seemed to like. When it was getting close to gametime, I tucked him into his little pouch and he went to sleep... and stayed that way until about 15 minutes left to go in the game... pretty good, I'd say. Of course, he's regressed sleeping-wise the last couple of days... seems really needy. We're on try #4 of getting him in the bassinet. :(

Funny story: so I am kind of hard core about being on time. So when a girl comes running up to practice late, it irks me a bit. My line for them is usually, "Lauren, what time is it on your planet? I got 304." So yesterday, its about 230 and I have figured that I need to start moving in the direction of getting our show on the road to go to Maclay for the game. I get some diapers out of the dryer. Look for warm clothes for me, for Nico. Get bottles ready. Get blankets in the car. Chase down extra pairs of white socks. I finally get us in the car and start heading towards Maclay and I see its 415. And I think, "Holy Crap! What just happened? How in the world did I manage to waste almost 2 hours of my life...and now I am late?" (The teams were to arrive by school bus at Maclay by about 330-345.) The stress level goes through the roof because I have half of the balls and the JV team needs them to warm up. SUCK!! So I manage to get out to Maclay by "435". The JV team hasnt even started warming up. WTF? Why aren't you warming up? What time did you get here? Why dont we have our act together? Where are my captains? Why cant they help the JV team get their act together? Did it really take two hours to get from WHS to Maclay? What the hell? Then my JV coach tells me that its not 435 (Neither Dave or me changed the clock in the 4Runner). Its 335. I felt like an idiot. She told my girls... who thought it was hilarious.

They wanted to know what time it was on my planet. Burn...
Daylight Savings Time: 1
Jessi: 0

Sunday, November 1, 2009

LAME

So we were pretty lame for Halloween this weekend. Originally, we were supposed to be spending most of our day on Saturday down in Wakulla for the Big Bend Preseason Classic- but there was some communication problems with some of the coaches that we usually do this thing with. So we could have had huge plans for Halloween. But then, Dave and I have been getting our butts kicked by life these days. Turns out Life+1 is pretty crazy. So much so, that I have come to realize that the greatest Saturdays aren't lounging on the couch watching soccer, napping, and eating donuts. Great Saturdays are when you can put the house together from the tornado that went through it during the week.

Its even worse these days because we are working on *(FINALLY)* setting up Nico's room. This is good for several reasons, but mostly because it might help us corral some of the accoutrement that is ALL OVER THE HOUSE. Unfortunately, it means that DR and I no longer have a place to corral all of OUR stuff... so I am trying to figure out what to do with it all. Hiking Backpact I bought for EuroTrip 2006? Seems kind of useless now... dont foresee backpacking anywhere with a kid in the near future. Fencing foil? Taking up precious space in closet. Taking down the bed in the guest room has meant that stuff that was under our bed in the Master bedroom was displaced. And this is how we spend our life: moving stuff from place to place around the house. My college roommate called this "nomad" behavior. Seriously, I wish it didnt take so much time and effort to list stuff on ebay, because I would get rid of half the stuff in this house- I am so OVER stuff!!

So Halloween was pretty low-key this year. We got some candy and stayed in: doing some work around the house. I worked on job market stuff and Dave did some whatnot. Nico did get to chill out on the porch and wait for trick or treaters:


Per usual, we only had a handful of trick or treaters. I don't know why this is the case, except that maybe most of the people that live in our neighborhood dont have children? We wanted to dress Nico up in his tiger suit, but "one one of us" seems to have lost the top that goes with it (by "one of us" I mean, not me :). Good thing Nico's parents are weird enough to dress him up in animal outfits year round. That purchase may have gone to waste if we weren't strange!

Soccer season starts tomorrow night (Monday) against Maclay. Should be a nice test to see where we are at. Am really looking forward to it. It is the team that Dave and I have been waiting to coach for 3 years. Everyone on the team has comparable levels of skill and they look good in practice (so far). So it should be fun. Should also be cold. Which lets be real here, is the way it should be for highschool soccer. I would so much rather deal with cold and trying to stay warm than "oh-my-God-why-is-it-so-sticky-outside?" I feel that I am adequately prepared for the game and being on the sideline: warm pink hunting socks (check), blue and red waffleknit footie sleeper for Nico (check), blankets for girls (check), blankets for Nico (check), thermos for hot chocolate (check), hat/gloves/scarf (check).