Growing Graham: 6 Weeks

[I know, this is late... I'm playing catch-up again!]

May 18th, 2012

6 Weeks Old

"Got tickets to this gun show?"

• He's getting so much more interactive. He's starting to smile now!

• At church recently Bob was holding him because he was getting fussy. During the Sacrament, while everyone was quiet and being reverent, Graham decided to fill up his diaper in a really loud way. It must have been a huge relief, because immediately after that, he looked up and gave Bob the sweetest toothless half-grin I've ever seen.

• He's been making good use of tummy time every day, because he's now wiggling around more. He holds his head and chest up nearly the whole time and looks at everything around him. He also pulls his legs up and pushes his backside up in the air, which makes me think he may start crawling sooner than later, which, as proud as I am of him, I'm really not looking forward to following him around for the first day or two and baby-proofing everything.

• He loves to stand up. With help, of course. But he likes to stand, and he looks so tall when he does!

• He also took his first airplane ride! 

 He did so well! Bob was with me for the flight there, so that was a breeze. Plus it was early in the morning, when he's usually in his best mood anyway. The flight home was trickier because I was by myself and he's in his least pleasant mood in the evenings, but even then he was still pretty good. The first leg of the flight was fine, but as we landed for the layover, he started getting hungry. By the time I made it off the airplane and got the car seat and the stroller and secured Graham in there and got my checked carry-on suitcase and the diaper bag all situated, I had to use the bathroom SO bad and he was in all-out crying mode. There were no big handicapped stalls in that airport bathroom. The handicapped stalls were maybe 5 inches wider than the regular stalls. So I took a deep breath, pushed the stroller in, sideways stepped in next to it, wedged my suitcase in with what space there was left, and barely managed to close the stall door. The stroller was pushed all the way up against the toilet and there was nowhere else for it to go, so using the bathroom in that scenario gave me a greater appreciation for actual handicapped stalls that are the size of two regular bathroom stalls. I finally stumbled out of the stall, washed my hands, and tried to find the baby changing table because it had been nearly three hours since I had a chance to change his diaper (between driving for an hour and a half, returning the rental car, taking the shuttle to the airport, printing my boarding passes, going through security, getting to my oh-so distant gate and barely boarding my plane in time plus the turbulence on that flight, I didn't have a chance to give the poor kid a fresh diaper until then). I saw door with a sign on it saying "Nursery." I open it, and it's a room no bigger than the bathroom stall I was just in, with a counter and a changing table. What's the point of having a counter in such a tiny room if there's a changing table built in next to it?? Anyway, I finally made it out of the bathroom, all the while Graham was wailing as loud as he could. I made it to my gate, found a seat, and fed Graham. I looked at my ticket and remembered that it said my seat would be assigned at the gate. They would be boarding any second and having a lap-baby requires specific seating on as small of a plane as this was. Halfway through feeding Graham I stopped, put myself back together, and once again situated all of my carry-on items so I could take them all with me to the desk by the gate to get my seat assigned. I ended up being last on the plane because they had overbooked it and were scrambling to find me a seat. By the time I got on, Graham was beside himself because he was so hungry, and I could just feel the tension from the people sitting around me because nobody likes a crying baby, especially on an airplane. I quickly sat down and got to settling him down so he would eat. He was fine the rest of the way, and I was so glad to see Bob. I don't think I'll fly solo with a kid again if I can help it.

Such a handsome baby boy!

My dad finally got to see him! Also, Graham is making a really cute face here.

Tired mommy, wide-awake baby.

Overdue Garden Update

It's been a long time since I wrote about my garden. A lot has (and hasn't) happened with it.

Having a baby sure does have a way of putting other things on the back burner...

My zucchini plants started growing well, and then died. 

The bean seeds barely sprouted, then died.

3 out of 5 sunflowers sprouted and survived. 

The only herb that sprouted was the sage. 

I finally planted everything in my raised bed garden about three weeks later than I should have. 

My yellow squash made it just fine. 

The tomatoes are surviving wonderfully. 

My father-in-law was out doing yard work and stepped on one of my sunflowers, which stunted it and now it's stopped growing while the other two are fine. It looks like we're down to 2 out of 5 sunflowers.

I had to start over with the beans and zucchini. 

Only one of the two more zucchini seeds that I planted survived, and it has completely caught up with the other squash plants. You'd almost never know that I planted it weeks later than the others.

The beans sprouted really quickly, but within a couple of days something had eaten nearly all of the leaves off of every little stalk. I planted some more seeds and investigated the problem. Some creatures live down inside the cinder blocks that make up the walls of the raised bed. I've seen lizards in there, but lizards wouldn't eat those plants. Then I saw a big snail inside one block... And another... And another... And a couple of slugs....

I learned how to hate snails and slugs from my Grandpa. When we would visit him and my Grandma in Utah during my childhood, I would inevitably end up out in the dirt helping him tend to his plants and trees. The snails there were terrible. He would hand me a container of salt and I'd follow him out early in the morning and pour a little bit of salt on every slug or snail I would find. It would make them bubble and dissolve, which, as gross as it sounds, was very effective in getting rid of them. So after discovering those slimy critters lurking around my garden, I took a canister of salt and poured some on every snail and slug I could find, and then I poured a line of salt around one edge of the cinder block walls. Take that! Just try getting into my garden now and see what happens.

Miracle of miracles--one little stalk had no leaves on it (dumb snails), but it was still green, so I kept watering it along with planting a few more seeds (yet again). Every day it just stayed the same, looking sad, leafless, and small. However, on Friday when I went out to water the garden it had a tiny little cluster of leaves on it!

It made me so happy!!

My beans are thriving now that I've replanted them 3 times. 

The lettuce patch had the same problem as the beans. All of the tiny little leaves were eaten completely off. Oh, it was infuriating! But I continued watering it, and it made a beautiful comeback.

So now my garden is doing well, after enclosing it in chicken wire and lining the cinder blocks with salt and replanting seeds up to three times.

Too hilarious not to tell...

Sometimes the strangest things happen to me.

And then sometimes, I accidentally do the strangest things.

Lucky for me, both of those happened to me this morning, and it's not even 9am.

I woke up to Bob kissing me goodbye as he left for work. It was about 7am, and he smelled like pancakes and fresh orange juice. I laid in bed a while longer, enjoying how cozy it was under the covers on another chilly and rainy morning. I finally got up and went to the living room, snuggled up under a quilt on the couch out there, and turned on my laptop for my usual online routine: email, facebook, check what new episodes are on Hulu, check for updated comics that I read, play some of my nerdy video games for a little while, etcetera.

At some point my stomach rumbled, so I went into the kitchen to see if Bob had left any pancakes for me. He did. Then I remembered we were out of syrup. I didn't want to wait ten minutes and make some more. I was hungry now. So I peaked around in the fridge and found caramel syrup. Then I found chocolate syrup. They're syrup, right? Close enough for me right now. I drizzled them over my pancakes and decided they would be good enough.

As I walked back to the living room I noticed a spot on my foot hurting. It had hurt all morning when I walked or stood on it, but this time I decided to check it out before I ate my oh-so nutritious breakfast. I set my plate aside on the couch next to me, and looked at the underside of my foot. It was hard to tell because I hadn't turned on any lights and it was still pretty dim inside our house from the rainy-day light coming in through the windows, but it looked like... a hair was stuck in my foot?

I walked into the bathroom to find the tweezers and sit next to the window in there for better light. Sure enough, a half inch long piece of hair was stuck into the bottom of my foot like a splinter. I know I gave Bob a haircut barefoot yesterday, but... That was really weird. I pulled it out, and my foot felt immediately better. Seriously weird.

Somewhere between setting my plate aside and being weirded out by that hair-splinter, I forgot I had a plate of chocolate syrup covered pancakes on the couch....

:)

I sat right on my plate, which was camouflaged so well by the colorful quilt next to it. I had a sudden cold sensation on my backside, so I squealed and jumped up at the same time, and when I realized what happened then couldn't stop laughing. I looked at my behind and it was all I could do to stay upright from laughter as I went into the bathroom, took off my pants and rinsed them under some cold running water.

It was just too hilarious and embarrassing not to mention.

The good news is that my pants are already a brownish-tan color, so if they stain, it won't be too noticeable. The other good news is that fortunately, my pancakes weren't ruined. Just flatter, and I enjoyed them anyway.

It'll make a funny story later...

I know there are a lot of things in life that are painful, difficult, or unpleasant, but a lot of time it makes for a good story later. I have had countless experiences like that--how I got my chipped tooth, the time I got food poisoning and my puke changed every shade of the rainbow in a single day, the time I got food poisoning from Jack in the Box while on a cabin trip, the time(s) I accidentally punched Bob in the face, just to name a few.

Luckily the one that happened today wasn't nearly as unpleasant as those.

I woke up to Bob's alarm around 6am, reached over and tried to wake him up.... And then I woke up at 7:30 because it was getting so light in our room. Bob was still in bed and was 30 minutes late for work. I didn't have to get up until 8, so I reached over and nudged Bob to tell him to call his supervisor.

"Bob, you're late for work. You better call Zack."
No response.
"Bob! Go call Zack!"
To which Bob replied, in a most exasperated, sarcastic and rude voice,"Fine....... ZACK!!!"

It actually hurt my feelings at the time because of how much of a jerk he was being about it.
'Fine,' I thought. 'I'll just let you be late. I won't even try to wake you up again.'
So I got up at 8 and showered, and as I was getting my wallet out of my purse in the bedroom to put in my backpack just before walking out the door, Bob woke up and said good morning to me. I just glared at him and said, "I'm going to class," and forced a goodbye kiss out of myself.

It wasn't until he came home for lunch that I told him about it. And we both laughed about how silly we were. "So that's why you were being mean towards me this morning...." Bob realized through his chuckling. "I don't even remember doing that. I'll have to tell Zack about it!"

And so, the moral of this story is don't ever take Bob seriously or personally while he's sleeping, even if he seems like he's awake....


On second thought, don't even take him seriously or personally while he's awake either.

They hired the right girl.

I've been a little stressed and overwhelmed by my new job, even though I love it. I worry that they're gonna decide that I'm not capable enough for it, because Marcel (the other designer they hired that I work with daily) is really good at it. So I've been trying to keep from being an annoying overachiever or just shutting down completely. Polar opposite reactions, I know. I'm a little nuts.

So yesterday at work we were dissecting part of a working prototype to look at its components. It was a simple handle that was screwed into the side of this product, and we were looking at how it works exactly. We needed a philips screwdriver, and Zack went to look around for one. He came back with a really insufficient, too-small flat head hoping it would work because it was all we had.

And then I hoped beyond anything I'd ever hoped for that I hadn't unloaded my backpack completely from when we went camping a couple weekends ago... I usually keep it in there anyway....

"I might have my Leatherman in my backpack," I said as I dashed back to the other room to check a certain pocket on my backpack.

Zack looked up with an expression of complete awe on his face and said, "If you have one I'll be really impressed."

Needless to say, he was really impressed.

They did hire the right person for this job, girl and all. So, Russ, it looks like I am getting paid to be awesome.

The best Christmas present ever.

stitches, Smash Burger, & soccer

On Saturday Bob and I woke up at 9:30am. My parents had been in town and left that morning. I had nothing scheduled except for a soccer game that night. So we grabbed our old-school laptop (that Bob's dad gave us after mine crashed last semester) and got online to watch an episode of Castle. Then we watched another one. And another, and another... and then we finished season one before I knew it.

At 7:00 I went to pick up a surprise visitor for Jennie Ray. Our cousin, Katelyn, came to visit for her spring break. I stopped at her sister's house to get her, and when we got back to our place Bob was doing the dishes. He got all excited or something, because suddenly he made an odd sound and said, "Uhh Janae....? Janae?!" I was standing five feet from him and looked over to see him holding his hand under the stream of water from the faucet and a big kitchen knife in the other hand.

"Did you just cut yourself?" I asked.
"Uh huh," he responded, in a worried voice.
"Bad?"
"I'm not sure."

I walked over to the sink and looked. There was a pretty good amount of blood draining, though I didn't see the cut very well. I got him a paper towel and he wrapped it up, then went to the kitchen table to look at it. I got some super glue, Q-tips and cotton balls so that he could bandage himself up.

"Is it deep?" I asked. "Do you think it's bad enough to go get it checked out?"
Bob got up from the table and as he walked into the living room said, "Maybe I shou... Uh oh... ohhh..." And proceeded to half sit/half lay on the couch as his lips turned white and his face turned greenish.
"Bob?" I turned around to see him pass out. I got him some water and rubbed my cold hands down his face, talking to him until he came to.

I apologized to Katelyn and told her Jennie should be home from work by 7, then left her by herself at our apartment. I drove Bob to the Instacare facility a few miles away. It was cold and snowing, after it had been gorgeous weather all week. We arrived and checked in, and as we were waiting in a room to get Bob evaluated by a nurse he started looking pale again. After getting him a glass of water and he slowly got color back. The nurse decided that he did need stitches, so we went to another room to get it all taken care of.

We sat waiting, and playing with a fun doctor's chair for a few minutes. Then the same nurse came in to get things started. She got out a syringe and some stuff that would numb the cut, and I watched as she poked and injected until the cut and most of his finger was all numb. I hadn't really looked at it until then. It was right on his second knuckle, and was bigger in surface area than it was deep, but it still went in pretty far. I thought it was kind of fascinating and gross at the same time as I watched.

The nurse finished and started to clean up the blood and bandages.
Then it hit me.
A wave of nausea, light headed dizziness, and static started in my ears.
"Oh I gotta sit down..." I mumbled as I stumbled over and collapsed into a chair by the door.
I think Bob said something, but I couldn't hear him.
I remember quietly saying, "This is lame."
And then I blacked out.

I could hear what was going on around me, but it seemed like slow motion and I couldn't move, or didn't want to move. When I finally came to a little more, I felt a cool wet washcloth that the nurse had put across my neck and the doctor was in there already stitching up Bob. I had a glass of water in my hand that I vaguely remember the nurse handing me. It felt like I had been passed out for a while, although it was probably just a few minutes.

So apparently I'm a pansy. This does not bode well for motherhood in my future. I think I'll try to grow and man-up a little more before I start trying to have kids. As I was sitting there thinking that, Bob told me that I was kind of cute, laying in the chair and pale and sick-looking. Then he corrected himself and said I was cute because I'm me.
Oh, how flattering.
Thanks Bob.

We went out and got dinner afterward. Smash Burger. It was delicious.
Then we had a soccer game at 11:25 that night. Late, I know. But it's indoor, so it doesn't really matter. We lost, 8-4.

New team = we don't play together well yet = I got frustrated.

But it was Bob's first time playing soccer, and I think he did really well. Things should get better. Besides, Bob and I can go kick a soccer ball around during the week together and it'll count for something for both of us now.

Babysitting continues, with hilarity.

Thursday. I woke up at 6:00am to make sure Jacob had gotten up and was ready to go to Seminary. He was. Good kid! Gabby woke up early, but I didn't go in to get her until 6:30am. She complained about her tummy hurting. As she ate breakfast and watched her TV shows, I was in and out helping Angelica get ready for school. at one point I walked by where Gabby was sitting and got a good whiff of a dirty-diaper scent. I stopped and asked her if she needed to be changed. She said no. I asked if she just was passing gas. She said no. I went on helping Angelica but being wary of Gabby too.
Then it happened. Gabby ran over to me crying and holding her rear-end. I asked if she needed to be changed and she nodded her head rigorously then screamed, "It hurts!!! It's hurting me!!" and continued to scream and roll on the floor still holding her hind-side. I rushed her into the bathroom and began pulling her pajamas off. She was already yanking her pull-up down before I could take her feet out of the footies. All I can say about that particular diaper is WHOA. Talk about explosion! It reeked so I decided I'd just throw her in the bathtub earlier today. Then Gabby kept crying and saying she had a rash. I didn't notice one, but I have no doubt that she was in pain. I calmed her down and cleaned her up a bit until she felt okay to take a bath on her own. I still monitered her, but she played with her toys and washed her own hair, although i had to help rinse it out.

By that time Angelica was waiting for her bus, so I was going back and forth from the front door to the bathroom every few minutes to check on both of them. As I was back watching Gabby for a minute, Angelica yelled "It's here! My bus is here!" So I ran back to see her off.
Not ten seconds later I hear Gabby, "Gelica!!!! Wait!!!" and she comes streaking out of the bathroom and through the kitchen, stark naked and soaking wet.
My first thought was, 'Oh no, I can't let people see a naked, wet toddler chasing her sister down the sidewalk,' plus it was freezing outside. And then Gabby tried to slow down as she neared the front door. She slipped on the wood floor and slid into me like I was homeplate. I yelled for Angelica to come and give her sister a hug inside as I gripped the slick and soaked three-year-old like a bear to keep her from jetting out the front door. Angelica obliged, afterwhich I told Gabby to get back in the bathtub because it was cold. She took off running naked through the house again and I yelled for her to walk so she wouldn't slip and hurt herself. I waved to the busdriver as Angelica got on the bus. Then I closed the door and cracked up laughing. How adorable is it that Gabby thought it was so crucial that her sister gets a hug from her before school? Talk about having her priorities straight.

And thank goodness, Gabby went down for a nap just fine today. Earlier she threw some tantrums and yelled for no reason, when I did or didn't do what she wanted. But when I asked if she wanted some yogurt before her nap she happily accepted it, even asking for seconds. Then as soon as she was done she said "I need stowies! I need my stowies!!" She picked two story books, I read them to her, and then as I put them away she made her way to the stairs. Then she pretended to be a snake all the way up the stairs, across the TV room, to her room, and into her bed. I gave her a couple of books to 'read' as she fell asleep, tucked her in, turned on her music, and closed the door on my way out.

And I haven't heard her wake up yet. Ah, the peace and quiet is absolutely wonderful! I finally showered again and ate lunch. I'm sure if my mom reads this she'll just be smirking at this point thinking, "Oh yeah, you just wait until they're actually your kids..."

So, about that appreciation for moms... I knew I'd develop that gratitude one day when I had children of my own, but I feel like I skipped that whole pregnancy/childbirth/newborn/infant/baby process and jumped into full-on motherhood for the past two days. I'm glad it's something you work up towards usually. I've officially decided I could never marry someone who already has kids, for this reason alone (although there's a lot of other reasoning behind that statement too, obviously).