Things I never thought I'd do (until I became a mommy)

I realized that I've been skimping on the confessions lately...and as I was catching up on blogs from Foxy Pink Cheetah (access her blog here) I saw that she mentioned me in her blog awards:
Diez: Confessions of a first time mom. Another refreshing blog. Blogs honestly about being a mom for the first time and everything that goes along with it.

 

It made me feel SO GOOD. In one of her other entries she says: "For some of you long-time readers, you know that I make fun of "mommy-blogs." Only the ones that suck, though. Here's the thing: if you're being true to yourself and your personality and you blog about your kid, awesome!"
 
So it made me feel even better that she'd mentioned me. I guess one of the reasons that I don't update this blog every day is that I don't want to brag about my son all the time. (Well, okay, I do...what mom doesn't...but I know people don't want to read about that ;) Lately life has been pretty uneventful. I get up at 6 (after pushing snooze for 30 minutes), work until 3 or 4, and come home to entertain G...which is becoming more difficult because he can't do a whole lot on his own...like sit. There's not much you can do if you can't sit on your own! We read a few books, play with some toys, bounce in the exersaucer, and watch Nick Jr. Yikes...yes, my son is 6 months old and watches TV! I always said that I didn't want him watching TV at a young age, but I can't help it...sometimes it's the only thing that will keep him entertained. In my defense, I usually watch it with him and I sing along or repeat the words (like on Dora or Diego).
 
Here are some other things I never thought I'd do:

• let my house get cluttered with all kinds of toys
• spend lots of time looking for a certain plush toy from a certain show on Nick Jr.
• say "Swiper, no swiping"
• talk to every parent that I see with a baby that looks remotely close to G in age
• ride in the backseat with G if hubby is driving
• give up buying clothes for myself so I can buy an outfit for G
• let G ride in the infant carrier without being strapped in (I really can't believe I've done this...and I've only done it twice...but when you've had a fussy fussy day and your baby finally goes to sleep, you avoid what might wake him/her up!)
• give up watching shows that used to be favorites

My son has stage fright

So far we haven't been able to capture any of G's tricks on video. It's like the minute that camera is on, he forgets what he's supposed to do. Today my mom called and left me a message telling me that G rolled over from tummy to back. (I missed it! So sad!) Hubby and I tried to get him to do it again, but after 6 minutes of just watching/videotaping him fussing on his tummy, we gave up. Hopefully we'll have better luck tomorrow.

Scare of the day

I was standing in my kitchen tonight and thought I smelled gas. My mom mentioned that she thought she smelled it earlier in the day (thanks for mentioning it) so I called the gas company. The last time I did that was back in college when we lived in a townhouse in the ghetto we fondly called "Little Mexico". The firetrucks came a blazin' within 5 minutes. This time, the guy told me to leave the house but stay visible and he'd send a technician out. It took almost an hour for them to get there! I wouldn't have been so upset if I didn't have G out there with me. He'd been yawning for the past 3 hours, so I knew he'd want to go to bed soon. Plus he tends to get cranky from teething around 7 or 8, so I was worried...but he actually surprised us and did really well. Our neighbors across the street who we'd never met before invited us over to sit on their porch chairs and then even invited us inside when I mentioned that G smelled stinky. They happened to have a spare diaper for when their grandson comes over.
Everything ended up being ok and I'm thankful for nice neighbors.

Serious matters

OMG


Yesterday my husband informed me that there are only 66 days until our cruise.

WHAAAAAAT???

Yea...it seems like just yesterday he'd booked it and we had 120 days...and I kept thinking "Oh, I have plenty of time to lose weight and look HOT."

Um yea...so I am embarrassed to admit that I have dropped the ball and I am so not beach ready. Well, I haven't completely dropped the ball...I have exercised 5 days out of the week (with my PE classes)...and I did South Beach for a little while...but I like carbs and I know the human body NEEDS carbs for energy. And along the way I've had a few too many glasses of sweet tea and some bad food choices here and there and long story short, I am only down about 10 pounds...and 8 of those were during a week when I had a 24 hour stomach virus.

So, as Ming Ming (from my oh so favorite Nick Jr. show "Wonderpets") would say:

THIS IS SERIOUS!

I am going to force myself to keep a food and activity journal.

I am going to work out EVERY DAY.

I am going to eat right.

I am going to drink 64 ounces of water a day.

And I am going to plaster pix of my current self and former best-shape-of-my-life self all over our house.

The scale may not lie, but the camera tells the whole truth.

Traveling with a baby: Part II

Subtitle: The airline industry is jacked up

So I mentioned in my previous blog that we didn't fly back home. We ended up renting an SUV for $500 and drove it one way back to Charlotte. It's ridiculous why we had to do that...

When we got tickets for mom, G, and me we were planning on coming back on Saturday so I'd have a day to recouperate before going back to work. We thought that if grandma took a turn for the worst and mom needed to stay and take care of her that we'd just reschedule mom's ticket for a later date and G and I would still come back as planned. Our tickets were almost $1000 for 3 round trip and my aunt made sure to get the $18 insurance on each ticket thinking that would make it no problem to change the flights.
Well, my grandma ended up passing away on Wednesday night. (7 hours after they let her go home from the hospital.) The funeral was scheduled for Saturday morning and there was no way we could make our flight. On Friday when I went to pick up Robert from the airport my aunt called and said Expedia was telling her it would be almost $1000 to change the flights. I tried to talk to a ticket guy in the airport and he told me it would actually be $3000. I didn't have a whole lot of time to figure this out because the viewing was in a few hours...so I decided to just rent a car and drive since it would be cheaper.
*I think it's SO RIDICULOUS that we had to do this. I still haven't written letters to Expedia or United, but you better believe I'm going to.
Thank goodness the guy at Alamo rentals was nice and gave me a free upgrade to a Tahoe. That thing was super nice.
Crazy us decided to leave at 5pm on Saturday and drive through the night so hopefully G would sleep. I must say...except for one meltdown at dinner time he did really well. However, we were so tired that we had to stop several times for potty, caffeine, and stretch breaks...plus a 2 hour nap in a hotel parking lot. It took us almost 24 hours to get home!
I thank God for letting me survive those trips...and guess what...in June we're driving BACK to NY for the burial and a family reunion! Yikes!

Traveling with a baby: Part I

I used to be one of those people at the airport who shuttered when I saw kids waiting to board a plane. I wasn't sympathetic at all...in fact, I probably uttered some snide remarks loud enough for the parents to hear me. Wow...if I knew then...
In my last blog I mentioned that my grandma was really sick and that my mom (G's caretaker) was going to go to NY asap to help take care of her. Well in a sudden turn of events, we got a phone call the next Monday saying we needed to get up there pronto. Yes, we as in mom, G, and me. They weren't sure if we would even make it in time.
So, plane tickets were booked, bags were packed, and within 12 hours we were headed to the airport.
YIKES
Am I the only one who feels the need to pack everything and the kitchen sink when I take G out of the house? Now that I'm a mom I go by the Boy Scouts' motto: Be prepared...for everything. That's not easy when the airline industry decides that they need to charge per checked bag.
I managed to fit 5 days of clothes for G and me, baby food, diapers, bibs, and burp clothes in one suitcase ($25). For carry ons I had his diaper bag and a toy bag. Plus we toted his travel system and pack-and-play (which thankfully United didn't charge us for).
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6am. We left the house at 4:30. G was peacefully asleep. We managed to get checked in and to security by 5:30. This is where it got fun.
I want to reiterate that G was peacefully asleep. In his carrier which was in the stroller. I was the next in line to put my stuff on the xray belt and the old man says "You have to take him out of the seat and put the stroller and carrier on the belt". WTF? I hate to pull the old do I look like a terrorist card, but geez. I'm all for safety, but isn't there a better way? Doesn't everyone know NOT TO WAKE A SLEEPING BABY? I think I would be a much better sport about this whole thing if I'd known ahead of time. There are tons of reminders about the 3-1-1 rule (3 oz. of liquid per container and they must fit in a 1 quart ziploc bag)...but nothing about taking your baby out of the seat. And to top it all off, I had a 4 oz. tube of Baby Aveeno sunscreen that I forgot to take out of the diaper bag and I was okay with having to throw it out...but they let me keep it! So apparently I could smuggle something destructive in my baby stroller, but not in a tube.
So anyways, I removed G from the seat and of course he woke up. Then I had to get all my crap resituated. We made it to the gate at 5:55. When I stepped through the plane entrance I saw that we were on the tiniest plane ever. 4 seats per row divided by an aisle and I could definitely see the back row. If someone crapped in the bathroom the whole plane would smell it...and if G had a meltdown the whole plane would hear it! As I struggled with my 20 baby in the car seat I looked at my fellow passengers, smiled, and said "I think I might be the person everyone hates on this flight."
Of course they say your kids will make a liar out of you and thank God G did. He was so good! Of course in DC we didn't even get a gate...I had to carry him down the stairs onto the tarmac and then back up the stairs for our next flight (on another tiny plane and he was fabulous for that flight too!)
It wasn't horrible, but I don't want to fly with him again any time soon. Stay tuned for more of this story...we took a different form of transportation home!