We are on Vacation !!!!


Mark December 20th on your Calendar to re-visit Hysteria Lane for a detailed account of our trip.

I hope we don't get thrown off the plane .....
; )

Project Runway

Today is the day that i can no longer put off packing for our trip to St. Maarten. It has become such a hassle to travel now , especially with a baby , that i have been dreading it to such a degree that i put it off to the last minute. Part of the reason has been that Buggy has been VERY active lately , too. He is making great developmental leaps in the last week or so and has been more than a handful.

I am a first time Mom so when we found ourselves fitting into a nice little groove lately , i actually thought it might last awhile.
Ha ! What nap schedule ? What predictable pattern ? That was short-lived ...

For one thing he is completely all over the place in terms of naps during the day - even if i nudge him towards his 'usual' time and he is rubbing his eyes with those dreamy heavy-lidded eyes of his - there is absolutely NO guarantee that he will sleep. Sometimes he will fall asleep and when i put him down ( swing , crib , it doesn't matter ) he will pop right awake and start talking or crying until i pick him up again. I actually tried leaving him to cry ( something i don't really believe in at this stage ) and he just stayed awake , even after he stopped crying.

So , i have been just letting him sleep when he actually falls asleep and stays asleep. I guess he will eventually pick up a new pattern . I think he wants to drop one afternoon nap but just can't decide which one he wants to let go of.

One morning recently, he decided to get up at 5:30 and present us with real human speech ! He has been toying around with vowel sounds forever now but no "Mama" or "Dada" yet . Instead he came up with his first two real words - "Hidey Que". Yes, Hidey Que. Nonsense , you say ?
Not at all .

We figured out that since he watches Project Runway every week with us when my stepdaughter Zoe comes over that he must be trying to say "Heidi Klum", which i can only owe to her once-again-pregnant and looking lovely Uber-Nursings -
Bug's favorite thing in the world !
Thanks alot , Heidi.
No MAMA, just the name of some supermodel being bandied about our house. As if having one male in the house under her thrall wasn't enough...

So, the only Project Runway on tap this week is making it to the airport on time, which translates into a 3:00 am wake-up call for us. We drop off Lula at her boyfriend's house tonight ( she is staying with friends and their Shihtzu while we are away ) make one last trip to the pharmacy , me trying to fit all of my airplane baby needs into 3.4 oz baggies and then a few short hours of sleep and we are off.
Wish us luck , i am feeling we are going to need it !

Just Ducky

I am happy to report that Bug is no worse for the wear today. His bruised plum cheek is fading quickly and he is his cheerful , curious little monkey self again. Phew.

Another near tragedy averted. And i have forgiven myself. Sort of. At least the worst pangs of mother guilt have died away. Sheesh. This job is hard !

We made other strides this weekend, as well. Colin succeeded in sleeping in the bassinet ( Da still has to build the crib ) for several hour intervals. Of course this included lots of waking , crying , nursing , patting and placing and replacing of wubba nubs. He came to bed with us in the end , but he did good for his first try. Mommy needs sleep , too.

So he is a serial sleeper, but that's ok -
he is entitled to a learning-to-self-soothe curve. And i love watching his little cherub moon face on the video monitor . Bug TV !

Colin also has made a big leap into the tub. He is no longer afraid of the bath . We got him one of those rotating circle seats by Safety First and he can sit in the tub unencumbered without me grabbing onto him while he slides around like a slippery eelikins.

He is surrounded by his plethora of colorful bath toys and happily splashes around like a little duck while i scrub his nubblies. His favorite things to do right now are watch the water flow through the sea sponge when i hold it above his head and get squirted by his rubber duckies. He cackles uncontrollably , sucking in air and making a oouuuuooot noise like a seal pup. Too much cuteness !

Today , we have a DTAP booster to look forward to ( not ) and packing for our upcoming trip to the Caribbean. A long delayed honeymoon has become our first International travel experience as a new family. We all have new passports , even Bug. His picture is so funny - his head is huge and lilts to one side - he looks a bit like a Most Wanted poster child , but very handsome, of course. I just hope he likes the airplane...

The Night of the One Armed Sock Monkey

I really should have known something bad was going to happen . The end of the week was going WAY too smoothly - i actually finished all of the laundry this week ( a feat comparable to running a 10K for me ) and we got a sitter for a Friday night and Colin stopped teething long enough to afford us a full night's sleep for two days in a row.
Then i noticed it.
The dismembered arm of Lula's sock monkey lying on the cold tile floor in the kitchen.
It was a bad omen.
I casually picked it up , the stuffing bleeding out of it's unsewn socket ,making a mental note to add it to the pile of "things that need to be sewn, mended , fixed, etc. and then went on about my business. Where the rest of the sock monkey was , i didn't know.
As i went on with my 'peaceful weekend' i started to clean the kitchen , unload the dishwasher , and make coffee , i mused to myself how i was really getting the hang of this mothering thing - my baby was healthy and happy and virtually trouble-free , all due in no small part to my innate and extraordinary ability to be attentive, loving and on the ball at all times when it concerned my wee one.
Ha , so you are feeling just the bit smug , are you ?
Well , that was all about to change.
I was about to get slapped upside my head...

Colin woke up a tad too early Yesterday , and as he still sleeps with us in our bed, this can be a pain when you NEED your sleep and don't want to get up at 5:00 am on a weekend morning. So , i got up, changed his diaper and put him the papasan cradle swing ,where he has happily slept when not in our bed since he was born. Yeah , i know , but we tried THE CRIB and it didn't work for us.
Getting up and down a flight of stairs several times during the night to nurse a baby that wakes up crying and then staying up another hour to get him back to sleep , is not my idea of fun. I have come to the belief that whatever works best for you and the baby is the RIGHT thing to do.
Well , it all worked just fine for us until yesterday.

Colin fell out of the swing onto the ceramic tile floor in the sun room.
He was strapped in , like aways , but apparently is now too big and too strong to be left unattended in his swing. The ironic thing is i just weighed him and when the scale registered 22.5 lbs i said to myself "wow". Of course , NOW i remember that 22 lbs is the cut-off weight for the swing. Damn hindsight and addled post-partum brain syndrome.
The good news is that i had a heavyweight blanket covering Colin and this and his wubba-nub frog ( a pacifier with a stuffed froggie attached) went over the side with him and broke the fall. He also fell on his arm onto his side, so only his little apple cheek hit the bar and made a little bruise.
THANK GOD , he is ok. I had nightmare visions of a cracked skull and , i can't even bear to think any further than that.
I know babies fall and accidents happen but this truly made me heartsick. We couldn't figure out how the buckle came apart - we tried it over and over and it didn't give- so it makes no sense. I KNOW i snapped both sides but there is a nagging doubt that maybe i did something wrong - i didn't secure him properly and this makes me feel inadequate to the nth degree .

It isn't the first time something like this happened.
I left him on the changing table once ( for literally a second while i reached for a stack of diapers in a cabinet below) when he was only 4 months old and he wiggled and flipped himself over the table edge like a Chinese acrobat, landing on his cheek on the hardwood floor and vent cover.
Miraculously, he survived that virtually unscathed too - my Pediatrician answering my panicked phone call while i sobbed and rushed him to the emergency room - only to be told to turn around and bring him home that he was fine and that babies are tougher than they seem.
It seems on two separate occasions i have missed his huge developmental leaps into the next stage of physical prowess and caused him to be in pain. And it really feels bad.There is a type of guilt that no one talks about surrounding these inevitable accidents with your own flesh and blood , the kind that makes you feel ashamed and at a loss to explain why it happened. I just sat with Colin for hours afterward , holding him and nursing him until he fell asleep . My husband , who bounded out of bed like a pole vaulter when we heard the baby cry out , was as relieved as i was but remained speechless for several hours . I think both of us , all of us, were in a state of shock.

I am transitioning Colin to the crib this week. No more swing. He will stay in the bed with us a bit longer until nursing slows down but he can handle some naps in the crib.
The question is , can I ?