Relishing all the funny little moments (and outfits)...

Mommy's little monster!

Banner showing where the monster's eyes are...

...and doing his best impression of the monster's wide-eyed expression!

(Hee!!!)

Eight Weeks!

Happy Leap Day!

(I look back at this post from the last Leap Year and smile.
What a difference four years can make!)

First owie...

Well, the first one that bled anyway. Technically, my watch pinched the little guy last week, and he screamed like a banshee. I felt so bad that I haven't been able to wear my watch since. I'm too scared it will hurt him again.

But I had nothing to do with the scratch on his head. That was all Grammy Pammy.

(And, yes, it was an accident.)

My mom was getting a box of crackers out of the cupboard, and the box slipped out of her hand and hit Banner in the head. All I heard was a gasp (from my mother) and a surprised, "Waaaaaaaaa!"


I ran over to comfort my baby, who calmed down almost immediately once back in my arms (there weren't even any tears). Meanwhile, my mother WAS crying and kept trying to apologize to Banner. Except every time she came back into his field of vision, he'd see her and let out an angry "Waaaaa!" in her direction. Which, in hindsight, is kind of funny (because he was essentially telling her off), but only made things worse for my mother who, by now, assumed I'd never let her touch her grandson again.

But don't worry. Grammy Pammy is back in Banner's good graces. I let her feed him just a few minutes after The Incident. Banner is all about forgiveness when milk is on the line, so all is right and well with the world again.

Well, except for the scratch. But I'm sure that will fade away in no time.

Because I don't post enough pictures of my baby...

...Or lists of things I don't want to forget.

(I just can't help it!)

• A kid at the pediatrician's office saw Banner and asked how old he was. Trevor replied, "He is a newborn."
  
  Little Boy: "Does that mean he is a zero?"
  
  Trevor: "A zero? You mean his age?"
  
  Little Boy: "Yeah! He looks like a zero. I bet he is a zero."
  
  Trevor: "Yes, he is a zero. Why?"
  
  Little Boy: "Because zeros cry a lot."
  
  Yes, they do, kid. Yes, they do.




• Banner hates Ashlee Simpson but LOVES Tom Petty. His favorite song is Learning to Fly. He gets this big smile on his face and starts cooing. It is adorable. He is also partial to classical music. But, again, Ashlee Simpson makes him scream. Amy discovered this by accident.




• Banner can see his bottle from across the room and gets VERY impatient when it isn't given to him when he thinks it should be. Trevor thinks it is hysterical to torture the poor baby by dangling his bottle in front of him and then walking away. I keep reminding Trevor that Banner will most likely remember this and pay him back with interest later on in life.




• Banner is also NOT amused when we take his bottle away to burp him mid feed. Oh, the injustice of being a baby!



Sumo baby


• Ceiling fans are just about the coolest things EVER when you are seven weeks old.




• If Banner smiles during a diaper change, TAKE COVER. You are about to witness an explosion.




• Speaking of smiling, Banner is now grinning on purpose. It is just about the most adorable thing in the universe.



Yes. I drew on my baby. Stop judging me.
I think his belly button looks like a big smile. All that was needed were eyes.


• Not so cute? His boogers. I've been dreading this aspect of motherhood since before I was even pregnant. Gag.




• I am slowly becoming more mobile by myself with the baby. On Thursday, I had lunch with a good friend and then ran errands AND SURVIVED. Seriously. This is a huge milestone.




• Banner has now been sleeping from approximately 10:30 PM until 5:30 or 6 AM for the last two weeks. And we are WAKING HIM UP at 5:30 or 6 PM because Trevor gets up for work then, feeds and changes the baby before putting him back down to sleep. This is glorious because it means I only have to wake up ONCE to pump overnight. You never realize how much you value uninterrupted slumber until you have a newborn.
  
  Banner will usually go back to sleep until 8 or 9 AM. It is all pretty awesome considering that this has been his nightly schedule since he was only 5 or 6 weeks old.



Still getting lip with every "Waaa!" and it makes me giggle every time!


• The B-Man is now eating five ounces during the day (9 AM, noon, 3 and 6 PM) and six ounces at night (10 PM and 5:30 AM). And, of course, this is only when I give him the bottle. We have no idea how much the little glutton eats when I nurse him, but I can easily produce 8-10 ounces with every pump. No wonder his little cheeks are finally starting to fill out! He is a piglet!




• I bite Banner's nails because I am terrified of the baby nail clippers. People either think this is brilliant or are completely disgusted.



• I hate Siri. This has nothing to do with the baby. I'm just saying.



This is his worried look.


• Banner is officially in 3-6 month clothes. There are a couple of newborn outfits we can still squeeze him into, but not many. It makes me teary to think he is getting so big so fast.




• Yes. He is still wearing two diapers. But his legs are finally starting to fill out so there is hope for a one diaper baby in our near future. Maybe.



First horseback ride on Peterbilt at Equest on Friday, February 24th, 2012. Wasn't a huge fan of having the sun in his eyes or the face plant he did into the horse's mane, but otherwise he seemed to take the experience in stride.


• Banner LOVES bath time. Too bad the clean baby smell never lasts very long. No sooner do I dry him off, diaper and clothe him does he have the mother of all bowel movements. I swear he does it on purpose.




• I've started calling his paci "The Mute Button". Because, well, it is.



Thanks to Auntie Amy, Banner is now a huge fan of his activity gym. And to think I thought he was still too little.


• Things to possibly avoid while breastfeeding: Habanero Peppers. This is probably obvious to most people. So far, though, Banner has had no ill effects from what I've been referring to as "spicy milk".



I'm sorry, but these ducky shoes are just about the cutest things ever. And they rattle, which makes Banner smile as he kicks his legs in the air. Love! Them!

Would YOU wake this?

Amy's nap time expression is like a billboard-sized warning to beware!

I might be a smidge competitive...

I was finally cleared to work out again by my doctor on Thursday, so today Trevor and I headed to the gym for the first time together since the baby arrived. Amy was babysitting, and - before walking out the door - Trevor joked that we'd be back sooner than later because, "Deal[s] will probably run a tenth of a mile, get winded and decide to call it a day".

My husband is such an a$$hat sometimes.

Granted, I had no big expectations. After all, I had not worked out since before New Year's, or done any serious running since last April (when, thanks to my history of bad veins, my OBGYN pulled the plug on any high impact aerobic activity). Still, I was desperate to at least attempt to jog. I love to run and have really missed it over the course of my pregnancy and early mommyhood. So, it should be no big surprise to anyone really that I made a beeline to the treadmill upon arriving at the gym.

And jog I did. In fact, I ran a 5K. Without stopping. Even with my gigantic boobs bouncing painfully all over the place.

True, it was a sloooooow 3.1 miles. Despite my pace being a leisurely 5.5 mph, my heart rate climbed up to 173. And it took me nearly 35 minutes to complete the whole thing, so I am obviously not winning any races. Still, I was proud of myself and the fact that I made Trevor eat his words.

I stayed on the treadmill for an additional 25 minutes walking at a brisk pace uphill while Trevor finished lifting and impressing the lesser men at the gym with his ability to bench press the equivalent of a small horse.

(Seriously. He lifts a lot. And can make his boobs twitch like The Rock, which - if you are Trevor - is just about the coolest thing ever.)

And afterwards, thanks in part to today's fantastically dreary and incredibly rainy afternoon, I have managed to do more or less nothing except nurse and play with my baby and watch movies. Which, in hindsight, has been pretty wonderful. Why couldn't last year's series of snow days happen THIS year? Because I can't imagine anything better than being snowed in with my little family of three for a few days!

Yet another list of random memories and happenings...

Possibly the worst picture of my baby EV-VER.
But it makes me laugh, so there you go.


• My breast pump talks to me. When I am really stressed out (like the first night home from the hospital) it chants "REDRUM!" over and over again. When I am having a bad body image kind of day, it not-so-gently reminds me that "Lypo" is always an option. It has even gone so far to call me a "White ho".
  
  (My breast pump is kind of an a$$hat.)
  
  But is isn't all bad. Sometimes, when it is on let-down mode, it instructs me to "Wiggle your bum".




• My mother and I stared at the baby stroller for ten minutes in a wasted effort to figure out how to collapse the d@mn thing so it would fit in the back of my car. Finally, we gave up and called Trevor. He laughed at us over the phone and told us to look for the strap with "Pull to Collapse" on it. It couldn't have been more obvious {shakes head}. I don't know how we missed it.




• I spend a significant amount of time worried that Banner will be smothered by my substantial bosom while nursing.



• Banner's latest "talent" is projectile pooping during diaper changes at 5:30 AM. He is counting on us putting too much effort in covering his...ahem, "Fire Hose", and then shocks and awes with a wet fart that has been known to splatter paint the diaper genie, hamper and - once - the far wall on the other side of the nursery.




• On Wednesday morning, Trevor got peed on, pooped on and spat up on in a span of less than three minutes.



• I am within three pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight, and my regular jeans fit again. I don't even have to suck in to get them buttoned.



• The last week has been a bit of a challenge for me. All of a sudden, I was hit with a case of the baby blues. It came out of nowhere and hit me like a mack truck. I cried at least once a day from last Friday until Wednesday, and my ability to sleep was close to nonexistent. The weird thing was, nothing was wrong. The baby was fine. I knew what to do, and wasn't actually overwhelmed (although, I FELT overwhelmed). Banner was even sleeping better and more consistently at night. And yet there I was: a weepy mess. For no reason at all.
  
  My way of dealing with this was to - literally - try to will myself out of the funk and out of the house. On Tuesday, I spent most of the day with my mother. Banner and I went with her to her dental appointment, watched her get her teeth cleaned and took her to get the Pertussis vaccine at Daugherty's. Then, we had lunch with her at North Park before taking Banner to Neiman's to purchase a wedding gift for Anni and a shower gift for Amy. I pumped in the car for the first time and got to experience changing a diaper in a bathroom without a changing table. It was all very stressful for me, but I survived and Banner seemed no worse for wear. And, if nothing else, it showed me that I could leave the house for an extended time period with a baby and survive.
  
  I DID tell my doctor what I was experiencing at my six week appointment yesterday, and he wrote me a prescription. Apparently it is either a third or a fourth of the potency of whatever they would prescribe for a depressed person, and is just supposed to help pull me out of said funk. I filled the script, but haven't started taking it yet. I really don't want to take anything because it will all end up in my breast milk. But, on the other hand, I don't really want to risk the blues becoming a full fledged postpartum depression, either. So, I've decided to keep the pills close by, but only start taking them if things get worse.
  
  The good news is that I seem to be pulling out of the blues on my own. I haven't cried in over 48 hours and slept better last night than I have in days. Of course, this doesn't mean that I won't be figuratively hit by another truck tomorrow or the day after, but - if I am - I always have the pills.
  
  In the meantime, I have plans to take a lot of walks with Banner (bring on spring temperatures!) and be more proactive in seeing friends and making more plans to get out of the house. My sister has also been a Godsend this week and has come over multiple times to help with the baby. Just having someone else in the house seems to lower my blood pressure and raise my confidence and mood. THANK YOU, AMY!




• Today's outing was to the barn to watch my mother and sister school horses over jumps while I watched with Banner all snuggled in the Baby Bjorn. This might become a weekly ritual as the weather improves this spring.
  
  And, yes, I'm saying this even though it took me THREE HOURS to prepare to leave the house with a baby on my own (and I STILL managed to be late). Obviously, I need a little more practice in this regard.

Trevor and his own personal mini me...

Some favorite pictures from WEEK 5...

Can't believe I have a six week old already!

Happy Valentines Day!

Unfortunately, I didn't even realize it WAS Valentines Day until my mother came over and wished me a happy one.

(Occupational hazard of motherhood, apparently.)

To make up for it, though, here are a couple of pictures of Sir Bannerman taking the wheel of his very first automobile during an impromptu front seat diaper change while running errands with Grammy Pammy:

Eat your heart out, Dale Ernhardt, Jr.!

Technically, it snowed yesterday...

...which means that we got to put Banner in his fleecy cold weather outfit and take him for a stroll down in Cedar Hill.

(Hey, how often do we get "winter" down here? And the Ban-Man is outgrowing clothes daily. Think of it as a cuteness survival tactic...for his parents)

And, of course, he took it like a champ:

Well, sort of.

Granted, it was still a little big...

...But he was absolutely squeeeeeezable in it!

And, hey - at least the little guy was warm during his first "snow"!