A Time for a Baptism

John Michael was baptized on Sunday, February 20. And... he slept through the night for the first time the night before his baptism!!!  He makes lots of noises through the night as he sleeps, so I didn't freak out when I woke up at 6am after putting him to bed at 9pm the night before. But, here's what the week was like before this wonderful marked occasion.

Michael and I didn't really do anything for Valentine's Day on Monday. We're not big celebrators of the day to begin with- but add a colicky, one week out from minor surgery infant to the mix- you forget that it's anything other than "survive through this day so that we can sleep" day. Plus, Michael came home from work saying that he didn't really feel that well. He was achy, and although he forced down some chicken pot pie that I made, I knew he wasn't hungry.

Tuesday morning... stomach virus elite arrived. I say it that way because Michael wasn't the only one who was sick. No, no, no... our little bug was spared. But Max on the other hand had left several presents on the rug in the living room. Our rug is light blue with ivory and brown looking "branches" on it. Needless to say, these presents blended in with the brown branches on the rug. So... while Michael thought that he had cleaned up all of the presents, I found several more as the day went on.

I quarantined Michael and Max in the guest bedroom together, and that's where they stayed all week long. Michael had a balanced diet of Saltines and Gatorade... and Max was fine after Tuesday, but he pretended to be sick just so that he could stay with dad all week.

John Michael on the other hand, decided that this was the week to cry the hardest he's ever cried! After taking him to the pediatrician for the 8,547th time, and being told something different for the 8,547th time, I was a basket case. Plus, with the crying being the worst it had been, and having Michael quarantined and not able to help at all... I thought I was going to die.  But, we made it through the week, and we were all still alive by Saturday, so we packed up and headed to Selma.

Michael took off with John Michael, and my parents and I headed to Orrville to visit a sweet, dear family who just suffered the loss of a family member. Once we all got back, Paw Paw and Nana played with John Michael- and he was doing so well.  In fact, it was the least amount of crying I had ever seen from him (Paw Paw insists that this is because of him). JM got a bath and went down to sleep in a crib that my mom has in the back bedroom of their house. And, he slept all night!

We got up at 6am Sunday morning, had breakfast, and all got ready for the baptism. John Michael wore the Christening gown that my brother and I both wore, as well as my nephew Bradford.  You can see my earlier post of embroidering that gown here. He did so well, and only cried a little bit. Here are some pictures from the day.

John Michael with mom and dad

with Bishop Chuck Jones

And with Father Craig Stull

JM slept through the night last night once we got back to Birmingham too!  And since last weekend, it's been all smiles and playtime. Here's our sweet baby boy at 10 weeks old.

Trying our hand at the Bumbo seat- not quite ready yet

On the changing table, my favorite place to be!

Mom's so funny!

Playing on my activity mat- I love these hanging things!

We're doing much better, to say the least. We have a week of outings planned so that we can take full advantage of this amazing weather before I have to go back to work. I hope that this all means that one day soon I can say, "The colic came quickly into our lives, and it left as quick as it came."

A Time to Organize- Part 2

And here's the more OCD-ness particular-ness (is that a word?) of my "day of organization" documentation.  This is actually something I've been doing for awhile, but I just decided to document it during my organizational scamper.

For any of you out there who don't know this, Dr. Brown's bottles are the BEST for babies who have stomach/gas issues.  There are a lot of parts to these bottles though.  I've found that in the middle of the night, when JM is waking up hungry and the crying is getting more intense... making a bottle in record time is a MUST!  So, here's my lineup.

The kitchen island serves as a bottle making/medicine dispensing station.  Over to the right, we have nursery water and rice cereal.  In the middle is a pre-made bottle with the proper amount of water in it.  Then over to the left is the formula powder, medicine, measuring spoons, and my handy dandy little dispenser.

We have to use Gentlease for JM's tummy, plus he gets reflux medicine twice a day.

 Since we have to add rice cereal to all of JM's bottles, it is impossible to make a bottle in a timely fashion, and more than that, I can't add the cereal without spilling it everywhere (the tablespoon is bigger than the top of the bottle, so it ALWAYS spills). So, I pre-mix the formula and rice cereal in this little dispenser, so that when it's time to make the bottle, all I do is pour.  Shout out to Mary Ann for this little purchase!

When my bottles are all dry from hand washing...

I pre-fill them with the proper amount of water and then set them out just so.

 Then I attach the other parts and set them up on the drying rack so that I can grab them quickly WHILE I'm shaking the bottle to mix the water and formula together.

 And there you have it.  I admit that I have a problem.  But, it sure does make things easier... especially at 3am when my eyes are barely open to put everything together AND get to JM in a timely fashion.  Try it- seriously- try it and see if it doesn't shave some time off of your bottle making.  Or maybe there's something else that you do that is slightly OCD... but maybe you're too embarrassed to admit it.  Don't be embarrassed!  Embrace your extreme organization!  And that, my friends, is me making myself feel better. :)

A Time to Organize- Part 1

OCD Kay is baaaaaaack!  There are some slight OCD "particular" tendencies that never left, but I just finally felt the need to organize the kitchen.  Maybe it's all the time I have at home.  Maybe it's the fact that JM took a day off from crying to allow me to do something else.  Maybe it's the fact that I felt like if I didn't do something soon, that I'd end up on an episode of Hoarders.  Whatever the reason, it's done.  And now, I'm taking bets on how long you think it'll last. :)

First thing that HAD to be done before I could do anything else was cleaning, purging, and organizing the end of our kitchen counter.  Here are some before pictures.

I've decided as the first course of action that I'm going to put "Return to Sender" on all credit card applications that come to me from now on.  I may even do that with all junk mail from now on.  I'm sick of it!  Half the reason we have so much stuff on the end of the counter is because of all the junk mail that I feel the need to shred because I don't like throwing away anything with my name and address on it.  And the decision to return all junk mail feels quite liberating to me.  So, there you have it.

Second course of action was to come up with something to put all of my coupons together in one place.  I want to save money, especially on things like formula and baby items, so I needed to find something- luckily I had an old check box in the office, so I made that into my coupon box.  I know, I'm super fancy.

I threw a BUNCH of stuff away, shredded a ton of mail, and moved some things around (like putting the recipe books and box up on the upper counter, and scooting the canisters down).  After all was said and done, this was the new end of the kitchen counter!

Look at that open countertop!  It actually has one less item on it now, as I ended up using that side canister in the pantry.  Oh, and speaking of the pantry, I organized that too.  Exceeeeeeept, I forgot to take before pictures.  So, just imagine the most unorganized and messy looking pantry.  And then here are the after shots.

I may even add labels if I ever get around to it.  Ahhhhhhhh... I'm tired now.  Stay tuned for Part 2, which is a tad more OCD and a little less organizational.

A Time for Creativity

Oh, the creative juices are flowing!  I can't help it, I'm just so stinking creative.  Okay, just kidding.  I don't know if losing brain cells during pregnancy and childbirth also goes for losing your creativity too, but lately, I've been struggling to even get a shower everyday... much less be creative!  Buuuuuuuuuut, I do know some people who are EXTREMELY creative.  Okay, that's a lie too.  I don't actually know them.  I follow their blog, so I guess you could say I stalk them?  Well, maybe it's not that severe.  A LOT of people follow this blog, and I can totally see why.  Um, it's because they're AMAZING!  Yes, I'm using a lot of CAPS in this post.
Anyway, shout out to John and Sherry Petersik, the authors of Young House Love- my favorite blog.  They are serious DIY'ers and just reading their blog makes me feel somewhat empowered to tackle any job around my house- and to jump in feet first and make something myself.  So, with that being said... what do these items all have in common?

They're the ingredients to the new mobile I put up in John Michael's nursery.  I never bought a mobile because the ones I thought were reasonable in price just weren't my style.  My style is more along the lines of the ones that have a hefty price tag.
But that's when I saw the mobile that John and Sherry made to go in their daughter Clara's room.  They also posted instructions on how to make your own version.  So, with a little 1, 2, 3... I made two to go up in JM's nursery.  And, I decided to hang them from the air vent in his room in hopes that our air/heater might stir up a little action for them.  Well, probably not.  I think it's more the fact that I have some unreasonable fear of putting holes in the wall/ceiling/cabinet.  I'm getting better about it, but in the meantime, I'm just going to tie them to the air vent.  They do have a nice twirling action going on though.  Here's my final product!

And here's my trusty assistant, Maxwell vonSeeberg Schnauzer Sanford, posing with the finished product.  He held the ladder while I hung them.  You should comment on how nice you think his new haircut looks- seriously- he got his feelings hurt because he thought nobody liked his new do.  Nana had to Skype him last night just to make him feel better.

Mine don't look as cool as the Petersik's, and I could only get two done- which I know goes against all decorating rules (hang/organize things in odd numbers).  Who cares- I'm a decorating REBEL!  Or I have a baby with colic... whichever one you want to go with.
But I think it'd be cool to chill in my crib and look up at this view.

Stay tuned as I share in my next post about getting organized... and my OCD tendencies.  But, let's not call it OCD.  Let's just call it... particular.

A Time for Friends!

John Michael is 8 weeks old today, and he's really starting to come out of his shell.  He loves playing on his activity mat with his daddy.  They just play and JM smiles and gets praised every time he touches the rattle.  He's rolling over which is insane to me- but I put him down on his stomach the other day, and walked over to the other side of the room to get a rattle- and when I turned around he was on his back!  Maybe Max has been helping him with that. :) It has happened several times though. But he's holding his head up alot, and we're able to get him to stay on his tummy for longer periods of time.

Last weekend, we were so blessed to get to spend some time with our friends Woody and Kristen.  They brought their adorable son Foster along, who is a couple of months older than John Michael.  I think JM was a little jealous of how much hair Foster had.

Foster is such a cutie!  I got tickled at one point because JM had been in a cranky mood, so he was swinging in his little swing (which is usually the only thing we can do to calm him down).  We were playing with Foster, and I looked over at JM, who looked like he was in time-out over in the swing.  It was really funny.  After daddy fed him though, he was a little more sociable.

Somehow I caught Foster making some really funny expressions- he looks a little nervous in the one above.  And then this one cracked me up so much, I just had to share...

It was so nice to be with friends and get to hang out a little, share stories, and just catch up.  We had not had a chance to meet Foster yet because I was SOOOOO pregnant when he was born, and then he was still so new when JM was born.  So needless to say, this was a welcomed visit for us all.

One other thing that has been happening this past week has been the mysterious "changing of the sounds" from JM's sleep sheep.  He loves his sleep sheep, so much so that we have two of them... one for the crib and one for traveling.  But we usually set the sheep on "rain" and it goes off by itself within a certain period of time.  Michael and I laugh at the "heartbeat" and "whale" settings, but we don't ever use those unless we're playing a joke on each other.  However, the other day, JM was swinging with his sleep sheep set on "rain" as usual.  All of a sudden the rain stopped, and I heard whales speaking and singing in our den.  After I busted out laughing, I changed it back to rain.  But, it has happened several times now, so either JM really likes the whales and is changing the sounds himself, or we need to sprinkle some holy water on ol' sleep sheep #2.  Regardless, I found JM petting sleep sheep yesterday, and it was so cute!

Next week's post will hopefully include a little nursery project I've been thinking about.  Stay tuned...