Gavi smiling? Please?

This is the picture of Gavi smiling I was referring to in my last post. I'm having trouble posting pictures. Maybe Jonathan will have time to update the website soon!

 Amanda replied...

Oh my goodness. I don't even know how to make the stupid picture smaller. He's cute, though, right?!

 

 Anonymous replied...

Yep, he's really cute!

Bob

 

The. Longest. Post. EVER! (Now sub-headed for your reading pleasure)

With respect to anyone NEW reading this, you can get the gist of my commentary by the sub-headings below. For those of you who read it often enough to know what a babbler I am, the headers will simply allow you to remember what I was originally referring to once you get to the end of the paragraph and I’ve veered off onto such a random rabbit trail that you have NO memory of where I started. Perhaps I should put the headers as footers? That might actually be a little more helpful.

Family Pictures: This past Saturday, we went to do Christmas pictures with the Garmanes. We went once again to Portrait Innovations, where I have had incredible luck with Caleb pictures. However, it being the holiday season, they were backed up to where we didn’t get pictures taken until almost eighty minutes after our appointment time. Needless to say, Caleb Zakai was less than appreciative of the wait (*see “crappy Mommy” header below) and was squirmy to the extreme, and Gavi decided that he was done being cute and cuddly and broke out some massive screams. Still, the pics didn’t turn out too badly, altogether. The full family pics were great, the Fashbaugh family pics are beautiful, and there’s one of Megan and me that is one of my favorite pictures ever taken of me!

Crappy Mommy: One of the reasons Caleb may have been more upset than usual at the photographers is because Mommy finally lost all sense of reason and completely fell apart… where the diaper bag was concerned. Caleb Zakai made a poo, and there were NO wipes, NO clean diapers, NO diaper rash cream, etc. But by golly there were four bags of Goldfish crackers! Seriously, I have never felt like more of a failure. I had spare outfits for both boys, every medication known to man and handcream for ME, but Caleb was quite literally poop out of luck. It was miserable. We all made do, but it was a huge lesson to me that I need to have a diaper bag checklist.

Jingy Bells: Between being incredibly late for getting our pictures taken, then taking a long time to pick the best shots ~ when Caleb and Daddy and Grandpa were at Bounce ~ little man didn’t take a nap. Well, not exactly true: he took a ten minute snooze on Grandpa’s shoulder at lunch. His eyes were closing more deeply with every blink, and finally Grandpa just said, “Do you want to come sit on my lap?” Caleb hopped down from his chair, up into Grandpa’s lap, snuggled into his shoulder and crashed. But when he was transported into the car, he woke up, never to nap again. So when we were driving home at six o’clock, we thought he might crash for an early bedtime, and we were trying to avoid it. So Mommy started to teach him jingle bells! He LOVED it! Of course, it devolved into “Jingy bells, HEY! Jingy bells, HEY!” If I had a video camera in the car, I would have sent it to America’s Funniest Home Videos for the sheer fact that he sang that charming refrain for about ten minutes straight.

Dryer Genius: Caleb has been helping me with laundry since before he was a year old. His job is to take the clothes from Mommy from the washer and put them into the dryer, then when Mommy asks, he closes the door and pushes the start button. About a month ago, he discovered the button inside the dryer that makes the light go off when the door is open. But two weeks ago, he discovered that if he pushes that button in, the dryer door doesn’t have to be closed to start the dryer spinning. So now I have to watch him constantly, or he has the tendency to watch the dryer spin. I don’t know how harshly to discipline on this one, because I think he’s just plain brilliant. Jon says that it has a built-in discipline system because the heat from the dryer will hurt his hand before he can do it too long.

Two Blankets (aka: Sick as a Pup): On Saturday night I had thrown up a little, then after a lot of extra rest on Sunday – thanks, honey! – I felt considerably better. Then on Tuesday, I started feeling really nauseous again. Of course, my first reaction was to send Jonathan to the store to buy me a pregnancy test. Thirty minutes after it came up negative, I started hurling my guts out. (If I could have just held out an extra hour, I would have known it was really sick and not wasted money on a stupidly expensive pregnancy test!) So Tuesday night was the night from aich-ee-double hockey sticks, as I puked all the live-long night. Jonathan was in Las Vegas Wednesday, so I called my Mom. (In a Billy Madison sing-song, “Soooo sick, had to call my mommy.”) It took her over two and a half hours to drive here because of the crazy traffic accidents from the black ice on the roads, but she came and took care of my boys and me. Her first order of business was to put me in bed, and Caleb was her enforcer. She made me drink some broth, then was taking my cup to the kitchen when Caleb said, “Night night, Mommy. Two blankets?” See, when we put him to bed, that’s one of the choices he has – “One blanket or two blankets?” It was so precious to hear it echoed back. I almost started crying. Of course, having lost everything in my system for the previous fourteen hours might have had some bearing on that!

Grins Galore: Our little Gavi has taken up the mantle of smiliest baby in the universe from his brother Caleb. He is so precious! He’s not only smiley, but he’s really starting to communicate with sounds, too. My biggest thrill came last week when I was cuddling with him on the floor and saying “hi” in that stupid mom voice over and over. He repeated back the “i” sound with the same inflection. He’s also really big with the stereotypically baby “goo” sound. He’s so much fun! And he really loves Caleb. He’ll just follow him with his eyes and smile at him all the time.

Crayon Madness (aka: Thank the Good Lord for Magic Erasers): When I was fighting the sick and being so weak on Wednesday morning, my little munchie Caleb took it upon himself to use his crayons to color all over my coffee table. Seriously, how did Moms survive this phase before the Age of Magic Erasers? (Mr. Clean, I would like to volunteer to be in a commercial. I am THAT passionate about your product. I sound like a commercial every time I talk about them.)

Timing is Everything: Gavi slept through the night for the first time last night. From 10:30 to 5:00. Other than my milk-makers feeling like they were going to explode, I have never been more grateful for anything in my life. (The night before had been puke-a-palooza, so sleep was a real blessing.) When I told Jonathan, he responded thusly: “Why? Is he finally fat enough that he can secrete milk from his cheeks?” While I resent the fact that he called my baby fat, I’m thinking there might be something to that theory.

I’ve got to try to go clean up a little now. Grandma and Grandpa Fashbaugh are coming the day after tomorrow! I’m still too sick to do much – as a matter of fact, just standing up still sends shooting pains through my stomach. But I can sit down and fold laundry at least while Caleb takes a nap.

Oh yeah, Thanksgiving was great. My turkey was flat-out AWESOME. I’m not generally a bragger about my cooking – Jonathan and I had wraps four times a week the first few years of our marriage! – but for a first-time effort, I have to say that it was pretty incredible. And Jonathan and I are going to start eating a lot more sweet potatoes. Yummy!

'twas the Tuesday before Thanksgiving...

After dreading it since his birth, I finally tried to put Caleb’s diaper on Mr. Gavi! It wasn’t nearly so traumatic as I thought it would be. I’m not a bad mom because I put a big diaper on my baby’s tiny behind. I’m just tired.

I got some great pictures at gym time last Thursday! We won’t have it this week because of Thanksgiving, so we’re trying to do some fun things at home so Caleb won’t lose practice. He’s getting pretty good at somersaults. He still won’t do them on his own, but as long as my hand is on him, he’s providing the whole effort.

Gavi Z is almost thirteen and a half pounds! And would you believe that he’s only in the 75th percentile for height and weight? The kid seems GINORMOUS! This morning he got some immunizations – two shots in the legs and a liquid shot that he had to drink. The nurse warned me that it was kind of a hassle because it had to be dripped in so slowly because babies try to spit it out and everything. Of course, Gavi would have chugged it if she let him. She’d put in a drop, he’d chow, and fuss until she gave him some more. It was so cute.

He’s so smiley, too! See pictures for photographic evidence of how adorable he is when he does so!

The puking has not gotten better, though, so the doctor told us to try to give him some cereal for a week to see if that helps. If he’s still urping so voluminously after every feeding, we’ll get him some medication to keep stuff down. It’s not a matter of him not getting enough to eat – please note the girth on that little monkey! – but the fact that the acid in his throat could cause more issues down the road.

I’m hoping that having the doctor’s blessing to give him a teeny bit of cereal he might sleep a little longer at night. He’s only getting me up twice a night now, but when he’s not going to bed until 11:30 most of the time and wakes me up for forty minutes at 1:30 and 3:30, it’s still a little rough on me. If I put him down earlier at night, he fusses and frets until I finally get up and feed him until around eleven after which he falls back asleep. BUT! I’m moving him out of our room tonight. I can’t keep going at this rate, so I’m going to let him fuss to his little heart’s content after his nine o’clock feeding, and I’ll be happy to get up two more times, but he’s going to have to get used to a little less feeding and/or carrying.

It stinks for me to feel bad about that. I do feel bad. But I have to take care of ME these days, too. I’ve had kind of a martyr complex. I wasn’t even using my electric toothbrush because it’s got a two minute timer and I felt like that was too long to be brushing my teeth when my boys needed me. I flat out can’t keep going on this little of sleep and maintain a good attitude during the day for Caleb. (And it’s even tougher to stay pleasant with Jonathan, and he doesn’t deserve my poopy attitude, as much as I’d like to believe he does sometimes!) So Gavi and Mommy are both going to have to make some changes for the benefit of the whole Fashbaugh family.

Gotta go start getting Thanksgiving stuff ready! I’m making my first turkey this year!

Not-so-quick-update

Another adventurous week in the Fashbaugh fam! Grossness: I got a wart on my hand when I was first pregnant with Caleb, and it didn’t really faze me because it quit growing once he was born. But then when I was pregnant with Gavi, it started growing right away and no home remedies were working. The day before he was born, I went to the derm and had it acid-ed. A week later, it was bigger and hurtier than before. Two weeks later, I went and had it frozen. A week later, it was even BIGGER and hurtier than before. So for this appointment, I told them to do whatever it took to make it go away.

Wrong thing to say to a woman with a low pain tolerance.

They surgeried! It was the size of a quarter, and took almost thirty shots to numb it to the point that they could work without my girlie shrieks interrupting the process. I just had a baby, right? You’d think that six weeks later, the memory of that labor would be enough to make this pain pale in comparison. Nopers.

Anyway, it made for a hand-painy week. I go back next week to have them see if they need to cut any more. Blech.

We did Mommy and Me for the first time last week, and we liked it so much we went again today! (I have to wait until January to get into MOPS at the place I called, and I’ve been busy enough lately that it seemed soon enough!) Caleb ran around and played at an open gym time while I carted Gavi around in my Moby carrier and enjoyed the ride. I need to take a camera to get pictures of my little bug swinging on the bars, jumping on the tiny trampoline, and building giant towers out of foam blocks. He builds them just high enough to scare everyone when he knocks them down. My favorite part of it is when we get home and he takes a TWO HOUR NAP! He found a little boy at his energy level today and ran around the gym close to a dozen times. I love gym days!

Speaking of naps, the little booger has taken to removing all clothing and diapers every nap. I don’t know how to make it stop. Any suggestions?! He actually does it during the day occasionally as well. We’ve tried to say that only mommy and daddy can touch the diaper, but it’s not flying. Maybe duct tape until he forgets about it?

My tiny Gavi is so congested that I can’t sleep in the same room as him. It’s further up his nose than I can suck with the bulby thing, so I’ve got no recourse. I give him some infant decongestant, but it doesn’t seem to be working. The first night it was really bad, Jonathan jumped out of bed two times thinking that he was choking. I ended up sleeping with him laying on my chest on our recliner in the living room. Not comfortable under the best of circumstances, but when you’ve got a teeny snorflebug grunting in your ear it becomes even less lovely.

Gavi isn’t as smiley yet as Caleb was at this age, but his fewer smiles are mainly reserved for his brother. I have a really good feeling about their relationship. Did I already mention that I’m praying that they never fall in love with the same woman? They’re close enough in age that it’s not inconceivable that it would happen.

OH! Inconceivable! When Gavi falls asleep in his car seat, his little face smooshes down to look like the inconceivable actor from Princess Bride. Not flattering, I know – to either of them! – but it makes the transition to beautiful little monkey all the more striking!

Last weekend, we ran the social gauntlet for Caleb Z. He’s starting to do so well with other kids close to his age! We saw the Fisks Friday afternoon. Caleb and Dean kind of played around each other, if that makes sense. But at least they didn’t fight over the same toys all the time. (And Abi is just as beautiful in person as she is in her photos, Terra!) Then that night, we went to some new friends’ home for dinner, and their son Quentin is just a couple of months younger than Caleb. They again sort of played on the edges of each other, and Caleb did steal his toys a LOT, but toward the end they were chasing each other around like mad.

Then we saw Kevin, Christina and Jasmine. Miss Jasmine is starting to crawl, and it’s impossible to remember that she ever wasn’t a constant ball of motion! She’s one of the girls that it struck me that my boys could grow up with that could be a problem. We have lifelong friends in them, and I remember how many crushes I’ve had on kids of my parents’ friends! NO NAMES. But if there was a guy within three or four years of my own age, it’s a pretty safe guess that I had designs on him at some point. Ugh. Please, Lord, don’t let my children suffer my same weaknesses!

We’re actually getting ready to go visit my folks again. Jonny is in New Orleans now, so we’re going to celebrate Grandpa and Caleb’s birthday this weekend! I’d like to take Caleb to feed the ducks again as well. And I bought new batteries for my film camera and FOUR ROLLS OF FILM. My baby Gavi is almost two months old and I’ve already slipped into the nasty habit of failing to take a million pictures of him. Part of the problem is that Jonathan takes the camera with him on his trips, and this is his fourth trip since Gavi’s birth. Hence the film camera hopes. But then I have the added step of having to get film developed. It cuts into my “forgetting to do stuff” time.

 michelle replied...

Hey Amanda, Gwendolyn did the same thing with her diapers when Kyle was a baby. After a nap one day I went into her room to find poop smeared all over the room... walls, bed, door, and carpeting. It was so gross. After that I used tape so she could not get the diapers off ever again. It was only a phase though it didn't last forever. Whatever works!