three month break

three month break ... whoops!  what's happened in the interim, since september?  a lot!
on the matson front:
- he started eating solids
- he started crawling
- he started standing up
- he started taking steps (only while holding onto something, so far)
- he started seperation anxiety (yaay)
- he started jabbering a lot more and saying "dada" constantly (pretty sure he doesn't know what it means yet)
- he discovered his love for christmas lights
- he started taking showers with daddy instead of baths, which is basically as great as a water park when you're 8 months old

on the me and scott front:
- scott finished his first semester of his mba - hooray!  he just finished last night and doesn't have his final grades back yet, but i'll be pretty shocked if he didn't get straight a's.  so proud!
- scott went to men's retreat for church, which meant he was gone for a whole weekend.  which means that i survived a whole weekend with mats on my own!
- we got our first artificial christmas tree.  the weather was too bad to go cut a tree the weekend we had set aside to do so, and i decided i was tired of paying for an overpriced lot tree on the years we couldn't go to the forest, so we found a nice fake tree on craigslist.
- i finished my first "semester" at mops and women's bible study and am loving both so far.
- i made myself take a break from saver's - it's just too easy to find so many things to buy there!  for the time being, i can only go when i have something concrete i need to look for (personal favorite: picture frames).

and what's happening with us now?
- scott just finished his semester last night at about 10:30pm (online test), so we celebrate!  we're going to look at christmas lights with goo and her boyfriend, grant, tonight.  scott is very excited to have a poker night tomorrow.  christmas party at a friend from nourish's on saturday.  and $5 movie and a fancy dinner out (via a giftcard that scott's first boss left in his desk when he left the company, which a coworker found when cleaning out the desk, and then gave to scott because we live way closer to the restaurant than do she and her husband - very generous!) on sunday evening while mats hangs out with the macauleys.
- finishing up christmas shopping and wrapping so that i can get gifts shipped out asap.
- flying out to illinois to see my parents for christmas.
- re-doing our kitchen!  scott said that we can look at updating our kitchen as our christmas present to ourselves (which we've been wanting to do since we moved in), so just yesterday i started looking at all of that.  the cabinets themselves are still nice, but i want new cabinet doors.  i'm debating painting the cabinets vs leaving them wood, and looking at all kinds of counter options - mostly corian vs laminate at this point.  (granite's out because it's so non-renewable and it makes me sad when we're out hiking over granite boulders to think of people stripping those away from the ground.)

and more immediately:
- i need to paint a bunch of picture frames.  i'm bummed that i slacked on this last month when it was still nice out, because it's chilly enough outside now that i have to clear out my laundry room, lay out tarps, and spray paint inside rather than in my back yard.
- i finally bought myself a sander and need to start using it!  first on the list: refinishing our chipped up cheapo coffee and end tables.  next up: refinish a cool old dresser that i got on craigslist and put wheels on it - sideboard for the dining room that can easily be wheeled 10 feet over into the kitchen as a moveable island when needed!
- finish washing matson's diapers.
- go grocery shopping.  i resolved to not buy meat the month of december so that we can start using up some of the 1/4 cow of grass fed beef that we have in the basement freezer, and the pounds upon pounds of chicken breast that i've been stocking up on all fall since it's been so cheap - $1.67/lb some weeks!  i bought chicken wings last weekend per scott's request because we had a friend over to watch football, but other than that, so far so good!
- figure out why the little man is squeaking rather than sleeping.

two quick notes

first, another matson funny:
last week, scott was laying on the floor playing with matsy (he had mats laying on his tummy) while i made dinner.  suddenly, i heard a squealch, a laugh, and scott spluttering.  (sounds promising, right?)  i come into the room to see what's going on, expecting that mats will have wiggled down onto scott's neck and have tried latching on or something - it really tickles.  no no.  apparently, mats did his usual wiggling trick, but this time ended up with his mouth completely covering scott's nose ... at which point, he stuck his tongue up scott's nostril!  if an adult found himself with his tongue in someone's nose, either by dare or accident, his reaction would be to say, "eww!" and remove it as quickly as possible while trying to suppress a gag.  our little dino, on the other hand, was fascinated by the new textures and tastes and tried to wiggle his little tongue up as far as it would go!

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in other news, i have found a new blog with which i am 100% smitten: young house love.  i happened upon it while looking for design ideas for our living room - actually saw a picture from the blog on another site and loved the picture, but then days later found the blog and realized that the picture i loved so much had originated from them!  it's a young married couple with a baby who are total diy-ers and spend their days frugally updating and redesigning their house.  according to the about me, both of their full time jobs are the blog, which i find both crazy and awesome at the same time.  anyway, i've been through quite a few design blogs in the past few weeks and might find an idea that i love, but then realize that the blog's overall style is just totally not me.  this one, on the other hand, i have already wasted innumerable hours perusing and loving and totally connecting with.  they almost have me convinced to paint all of my lovely black picture frames white!

funny moment

i heard scott laughing from down the hall while changing matson's diaper the other night.  i asked for the story afterward: apparently mats had a really poopy diaper and while scott was wiping the poo off of matson's crotch, mats just starting laughing hysterically - to which scott responded, "dino, this is inappropriate!!"  oh my, two days later and it still makes me laugh!

which is good because dino was a first class crankball today.  or at least this afternoon.  he didn't want to nap, didn't want to eat, didn't want to play - he just wanted to whine!  thankfully scott is supportive and whisked mats off when he got home (after 6:30pm, boo) so i could have a bit of peace.  i feel fully recovered now that it's almost bedtime and i've had some popcorn and chocolate milk (glorious combo, i must recommend it).  hopefully mats will be happier tomorrow while it's just the two of us from 7:30am til 10pm.  i think i might plan our ikea trip for tomorrow afternoon.

savers

one thing that the frugal girl is always talking about is the great deals she finds at goodwill.  we don't have a goodwill super close, but we do have a savers!  i'd been meaning to go there for a while to check out the baby clothes (i've gone once or twice before, but always only to get things like tacky christmas sweaters), and finally found my impetus in needing a fleece sleeper for mats before our camping trip last weekend.  i found the sleeper i needed and was super impressed with the deals to be had - and, even better, i saw a sign for 50% off everything in the store on labor day!  without further ado, my haul of 12 month sized goodies that i hope will fit mats for this winter:

7 - t-shirts/onesies
2 - long sleeve t-shirts
1 - monkey shorts outfit that will likely be seasonally inappropriate but that i just couldn't resist
4 - sweatshirts/sweaters/track jacket
5 - pair of pants (including 2 pair of jeans!)
2 - pair swim trunks (one for this winter, one for next summer - at $.50 each, why not?)
grand total: $20!

i'll have a few more things to pick up as we approach winter (like more long sleeve shirts, some sleepers, and probably a real winter coat), but i think i'm a committed savers shopper for the foreseeable future.  maura said that the kids clothes weren't in nearly as good of shape as the baby clothes (makes sense, since babies are substantially less active than kids), but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

on maslow and babies

i met a friend for lunch today (her little boy is about a week older than mats!) and was telling her how i've been trying to process through things like how much musical enrichment* i should be giving mats and how i should accomplish that, and how much sensory play** we should be doing, and story time***, etc etc.  she paused, looked at me, and said, "you know, i don't think i worry too much about those things - i'm more concerned with just trying to get sleep for all of us!"

and it occurred to me that maslow's hierarchy of needs very much applies to babies and motherhood.  you really need to get the eating and sleeping thing down before you can add in the fun extras - and once you've got those two down, you should really just celebrate that you're in a great place with your baby!  so yay, mats and i are in a really great place!
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* - the place that i go to a breastfeeding support group at is hosting a kindermusik class for 0-12 month olds coming up.  fun, right?  yeah, $160 for 8 weeks!  haha!  i love my 5 month old, but i think i love him too much to pay that much for 8 hours of musical fun.  this friend i had lunch with today is a music teacher and used to teach a kindermusik-like class, so i was also getting her input on what to do with a baby for music stuff, and she said mostly just listening to music, singing, and letting them play with instrument toys.  i can do that!  she's also thinking about starting a music baby class for maybe $5/session.  way more reasonable.

** - take a look at the play at home mom.  so fun, but holy cow!  also, this post on the importance of sensory play with little kids.  while i want mats to have fun, i think i want to make sure that i do that in a non-stressful-for-me way.  fun = finger painting, taking walks, playing in a sandbox, dancing to music, encouraging his imagination.  stressful = creating a light box and setting up "play invitations" with gathered materials.  maybe i'll think differently when we get to preschoolerhood, but for now i think i'd rather have "sensory play" in daily life - life is full of senses!  i don't know that you need to do special things to make it work.

*** - we went to our very first reading time at the library on monday!  it was a little awkward in that it's for 0-24 month olds, but the other kids were probably 18-24mo.  and, none of the moms talked to me or to one another.  in play time at the end, everyone just headed to different corners.  what's that about??  we'll go back, though.  i love reading and grew up loving library storytime and i'm pretty determined that mats will love it too!

enough self-reflection already

with tomorrow beginning september, summer is basically over.  i kind of can't believe it, and i'm a little sad that matsy's first summer is gone so quickly!  but, in true marisa-style, i am making myself realize that the end of summer is the beginning of fall, and there are SO many fun things to look forward to with fall!  my parents are coming to visit (yay!), football season (and while i'm not looking forward to the incessant games, i am looking forward to football parties), sweaters, changing leaves, weather cooling off and letting me open up the house and wake up to fresh air.  and, perhaps best of all: SOUP.  yes, soup.  i realized this year that i really love soup.  you just can't make it too often during the summer since it's, by nature, hot.  like so many things, though, now that i can cook really good soup from scratch, the canned stuff just tastes kind of yucky and way too salty to me now.  alas.  but, without further ado, my favorite soup recipes in no particular order.

1. baked potato soup
2. roasted chicken and wild rice soup
3. ham, corn, and white bean soup
4. white chili
5. tortellini soup (which has been a favorite to bring to friends with new babies this year)
6. homemade chicken soup

now i just need denver to kick this 90* streak.

tricks

i feel like every day with a baby is full of new milestones and tricks.  tonight, for instance, he started sitting unassisted!  (for, you know, like 10 seconds before he would topple to the side.  but still, 10 seconds of sitting on his own!)  it was just a few weeks ago that he started pushing up on his arms, and now he won't stop pushing up - he just needs to figure out how to pull his knees up under him and he'll be off.  also just a few weeks ago he started flipping onto his belly every time we put him down, but we were so frustrated that he'd flip in his sleep, then freak out about it at 2am.  he hasn't woken us up lately, though, and tonight showed us that he can flip back onto his back - maybe he's been practicing in the middle of the night?  it's so much fun to watch him and encourage him and take delight in his new skills with scott.  i always thought it kind of ridiculous that parents sit around and watch their kids like the kid is tv, but i get it now.
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i think i'm beginning to get a tiny inkling of insight into why moms are the way they are.  he and i don't really have any boundaries at the moment - i am fully up in matson's business all day, every day.  he has a crusty booger, i stick my finger in his nose and pull it out; he has a poopy diaper, i wipe him up and check his little crack and creases to make sure everything's clean; he cries and i scoop him up, hug him, kiss him, feed him, put him down for a nap, whatever it takes to make him happy again.  i take care of him, and somehow as a result want to take care of the rest of the world, too.

it makes me sad to realize that there's going to come a day that he'll be crying and won't want to tell me what's wrong or will have a problem can't be fixed by a hug from me.  i want his little life to be happy and perfect - i've put a lot of effort into making it good thus far, and while i very committedly don't want to spoil him or coddle him unnecessarily ... i also really want to make his life happy and perfect for as long as i can.  even when he's 30 and has kids of his own.  there is certainly (and not anytime soon, thank goodness!) a gradual transition from him being utterly relient on me to being an independent person, and i do very much want him to be a strong, independent man.  nonetheless, i think it'll be hard to put up boundaries where there currently are none, to let him take care of himself and likely stumble and learn along the way instead of scooping him up and making everything right.

changes, changes

life has changed so dramatically over the last six months.
six months ago, i was 36 weeks pregnant, working full time, eagerly anticipating matson's arrival "any day now", and nesting like crazy.

five months ago, i was 40 weeks pregnant, home on early maternity leave, eagerly anticipating matson's arrival "any day now", and nesting like crazy.

four months ago, i had a two week old baby who had just started sleeping through the night, loved him and was glad to have him, but also kind of thought i may have ruined our happy life by deciding to have him and felt totally crazy.

three months ago, i had a snuggly seven week old baby, had put in my notice at work, was slowly but surely finding a rhythm in our new life, and was eagerly anticipating our first roadtrip with matson (and 10 whole days with scott!).

two months ago, i was kind of reeling from the fact that i had asked the previous week to go back to work part time but my office said no, trying to figure out ways to get plugged into ministry and volunteer opportunities with matsy so that we'd be doing something productive and not just sitting around at home alone, but also realizing that eleven weeks is an awesome age and feeling sad for people who have to go back to work at that point - mats was just starting to get so fun!

one month ago, i was back to feeling nice and settled, looking up new recipes, desperately trying to avoid housework, and driving mats all over the front range with my mom and brother visiting.

which brings us to today: realizing that this is real life and not just summer vacation or maternity leave, sometimes still missing having a full time job but knowing that it wouldn't be the same, loving playtime with matson and seeing him discover life - like spend twenty minutes trying to grab his feet through his footie pajamas, glad that scott's starting his mba program this week but not looking forward to him being tied up with school work, and trying to figure out what the future holds for us and where mats and i should get involved.

i realized this week as i was reflecting on the ups and downs of this summer:

1. leaving work and having a baby are two huge stressors and it's normal to feel these ups and downs.
2. most of my friends who are now full time moms had either been working from home or had already left work prior to having their baby which is somehow very different than leaving a full time job at the same time that you have your baby and potentially why i felt like none of my friends had experienced quite what i was going through (although they were still very supportive).
3. i was at my job for four years - the same amount of time i was in college.  even though it had been "just a job", that's still a significant length of time to get used to the relationships at work and that certain rhythm of life.
4. i'm grieving my job and "old life" - and that's good!  i want life to feel happy and normal rightnowplease, and it really truly does most days.  mats and i genuinely have a great time together.  but, scott and i had a really good thing going and i'm glad that i enjoyed my job and our pre-baby early marriage years enough to miss them when they're gone.  grief leads to healing, and even though there are moments (moments now, days and weeks earlier this summer) where it's hard, it's a good thing to go through.
5. god has blessed me pretty significantly.  for some reason, when i feel stressed i also feel lonely.  yet one consistent theme of this summer has been friends.  hanging out and talking with old friends, meeting and getting to know new friends, etc.  on one particularly lonely day, it suddenly occurred to me that i had put five new contacts into my phone that week alone - god has truly given me an abundance of friends to remind me that i'm not alone.  (i know i'm not alone ever in that i always have god to rely on ... but i really like the tangible reminder.)
6. we have a pretty awesome life ahead of us.  things i'm looking forward to this fall and winter include in no particular order: starting to attend mops and a women's bible study at church, playdates with my new mom friends from nourish, hiking and camping with friends this next weekend, matsy starting solid foods sometime in the next six weeks (okay, that one makes me mopey - i like him being my tiny baby who nurses exclusively!), christmas with my parents at their house back in illinois, my parents visiting us here for a whole week in october, hosting a mom brunch, a friend from college stopping by for a few days on a roadtrip west, taking mats to things like free museum and zoo days, a fancy dinner with my sweet husband, seeing scott be excited to learn things in his mba program, and on.  this is life, and it'll change without warning, but it will be good.

a day at 4.5 month

matsy is 4.5 months old now, and it is crazy how time is flying!  i clearly decided to stay home with him and am thrilled with that choice thus far - but more on that later.  i was just browsing back through my blog, lamenting my lack of recent posts, and came across our 1-month "day in the life" post.  i loved re-reading it and reminiscing on how much life has changed, so you get another one!

• 1:49am - little turkey awakes crying.  he loves flipping onto his belly these days, but even though he knows how to roll back, he doesn't do it very often and hasn't put together that those two actions can go hand in hand.  (which is fine, because he'll be mobile once he does put them together!)  i think the number one reason why he cries in the middle of the night anymore is because he's on his belly, wakes up, and gets freaked out by being on his belly alone in a dark room.  i can get that.  anyway, i gave him his pacifier, stroked his forehead, patted his tush, gave him his snuggly blanket (crocheted for him by grandma anne), and he went back to sleep.  one of these days i might make him cry it out when he wakes up like this in the middle of the night, but that day is not today.
• 2:45am - crying, again.  for real, kid?  i promise this is a super rare occurence - i'd say at least 90% of the time, he'll sleep straight through the night without waking up.  we've just been on vacation for the last week and a half, though, and i think he's still re-adjusting.  not sure what his problem was this time - maybe he bumped his head on the side of the crib through the bumper?  either way, paci, stroke the face, let him hold my finger, and he's back out.
• 5:45am - scott gets up for the day.  he does his bible reading and prayer time in the mornings before work.  i really need to work on prioritizing that, because i haven't done my bible reading in an embarassingly long time.
• 6:45am - my alarm goes off, but i loaf in bed for a few minutes.  then i hear matsy talking to himself in his crib and decide to brush my teeth and get my contacts in before he needs to eat.  mid-tooth brushing, scott comes in and asks if i want him to get dino (one of our current favorite nicknames for mats) for me.  i ask him to hold off until i get my contacts in.  it's really sweet how much scott loves matson.  he's always the one who wants to get mats up from a nap just to play or to snuggle.  don't get me wrong, he's also very responsible ... he just loves hanging out with mats!
• 7:00am - i feed mats.  we're still nursing full time and it's going well!  honestly, nursing matsy is probably my favorite time(s) of the day.  probably around 2 months, i decided that we needed a consistent wake up time for the day.  i picked 7am, in part because that's typically when he starts to stir anyway, and in part because that way we're up and get to see scott before leaves for the day.  sometimes matsy will wake up on his own around 6:45-7, which is fine.  if he's asleep, though, i'll let him sleep until 7:15 before i get him up.
• 7:30am - matsy's done eating, and scott appears to ask if mats needs a fresh diaper.  (impeccable timing!)  while he changes matsy, i head to the kitchen to grab my pump.  i haven't pumped in probably two weeks since i didn't take it with on vacation, so i got a good 4oz.  scott deposits matsy on our bed when he's changed and gets ready for work while i pump.  scott leaves around 7:45, and mats for some reason starts melting down as soon as scott leaves.  i pump one-handed and dangle matson's giant purple elephant over him, talk to him, help him sit up, even set aside the pumping to walk matsy around the house and flirt with him in the mirror (sometimes he gets cranky if he feels you're not paying full attention to him), but he's still clearly ready for a nap by 8am.
• 8:00am - nap time!  we had tried to use a sleep sheep as a white noise option for matson, but the thing turns off after like 45 minutes - not conducive to helping him take a good long nap!  i bought a cd player/ipod dock with the intention of downloading a white noise track on an old ipod and using that for naps, but the first time i turned the stereo on, it was on a staticky radio station.  mats seemed to like it, so now i just turn that on during his daytime naps.  (he doesn't sleep with any white noise at night - just his humidifier and admittedly loud ceiling fan.)  he fussed for a few minutes, but then passed out.
• 8:15am - meanwhile, i check facebook, send a few e-mails, read my google reader blogs.  yes, a waste of time on most counts ... whatever.
• 9:00am - shower and get ready for the day.  i've lost weight like crazy since matsy was born.  it's totally not been on purpose - i haven't been dieting at all since i know that my body is what's providing matsy's nourishment right now.  nonetheless, 4.5 months in, i find myself about 6-7 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight.  as such, i took the opportunity this morning to try on some skirts that i hadn't worn in a while because they were getting snug - and they fit again!  i was excited.
• 10:00am - get a bowl of cereal (cheerios with a banana cut up in it - yummy!)  matsy's still asleep, so i eat.
• 10:15am - still asleep, so i finally get him up to eat.  he'd leaked around his diaper and the side of one of his hips was wet, so i decide to change him before he eats.  he was not a fan of being awake and hungry but not being fed.  i typically change him afterward just because i like routine and it helps keep him awake.  it used to, at least, when he was tiny and that sort of thing mattered.  now, i don't think he really needs to be woken up to stay awake ... but like i said, i like routine.  that, and eating tends to be a favorite time to poop.
• 10:45am - his little back is really scaly, so i take him back to his room to lotion him up.  i had noticed some eczema patches and was worried that he had allergies or something going on - nope, just dry skin, according to his pediatrician.  she told us to use better lotions like aveeno and eucerin (no baby lotions), so he gets to use my anti-itch winter aveeno lotion.  kid has expensive taste.
• 11:00am - target run!  we're taking dinner to a friend with a new baby tonight, but i'm out of green beans, and since the meal consists of honey mustard chicken, couscous, and green beans, it's worthy of a special trip.  i needed to go anyway at some point this week, since we're also out of face wash and the lid to a bin that i bought a few weeks ago to house his nb-3 month clothes was broken.  by the time that we're done there, mats is beyond tired - even his pacifier isn't doing the trick!  and of course i forgot to bring his cozy blankie.  alas, i get to be that mom at target with the screaming kid.  i promise he's typically super mellow!
• 12:00pm - get home, mats goes down for a nap.  i start this blog post (hello!).  he's going to eat again at 1, though, and we're heading to our friend's with the new baby (potential future girlfriend for matsy) right after he eats, so i'm off to eat lunch, make dinner, and start a load of laundry.  25 minutes - wish me luck!
• 1:10pm - laundry started, dinner cooking, lunch eaten, so i get matsy up to feed him.
• 1:45pm - baby's fed, burped, changed, loaded into his carseat, new load of laundry is running, dinner is packed up, and we head out to our friend's house.  mats spends the car ride there squeaking and cooing in bliss.  seriously adorable.
• 2:20pm - arrive at friend's house.  her husband is still home on paternity leave (he gets 13 days!  lucky!), but they let me intrude on their afternoon to hold their sweet baby girl and chat.  my friend holds matsy and marvels at how much he's grown in the month since i saw her last.  also, and this is new, he's afraid of their dog!  he's always been fine with her in the past, and even would reach out to grab the fur of another friend's dog last week in minnesota.  today, though, abby would come stick her face in his, and he would just yell in fear!  poor baby.
• 3:15pm - head home.  i still occasionally get books/cds from the denver library because they have a better selection than my local library district, but since it's a further drive to any of the locations (10-12 minutes minimum), i like to take the opportunity to combine library trips with other errands whenever possible.  one branch is more or less on the way home from their house, so i dropped off a book that scott just finished (the girl who kicked the hornet's nest) and a cd that was due back last week.  not looking forward to that fine.
• 3:50pm - home!  matson's next scheduled feeding time isn't officially until 4:00, but i go ahead and feed him since he's awake now.  my mom calls in the middle of it and we chat for a while, then my dad got home and walked me through how to set up an old unused laptop as a wireless printer server.  so tech savvy.
• 4:30pm - i had set mats down on his back on his little baby gym while i was running around doing the printer stuff, but when i came downstairs after hanging up with my parents, he was on his tummy, pushed up on his arms and grinning at me!  such a sweet little boy.  i tossed him a mardi gras necklace to play with (he loves how shiny they are, i think) while i caught up on e-mails from the day.  he merrily played with the necklace, gnawed on a washcloth that was on his playmat for some reason, and rotated himself in a full 360* circle while on his tummy.  he's nothing if not active.  i also noticed a few bent staples on the necklace, so if you're going to let your baby play with mardi gras beads, be aware!
• 5:10pm - fussy fussy fussy.  i get his cozy blankie and put him in his crib with the staticky radio on.  he continues to fuss, and i let it go for a while, but it starts to escalate around 5:30, so i head up there to see what's going on.  lo and behold, he'd flipped onto his tummy and didn't know how to get off of it.  i put him back on his back, gave him his pacifier and blankie, and stroked his forehead until he calmed down.  scott called to let me know he'll be home around 6 - hooray!  we're planning to work out tonight, but i feel like i might should get chicken at least thawed for dinner.  in the meantime, i also watched the promo videos for the pioneer woman's new food network show.  made me kind of excited that we're getting cable back for football season!  (i feel like i've been way less impacted by going to basic cable for the summer than i had anticipated.)
• 5:46pm - he's fussing again, so i go up to check on him and the tiny turkey flips onto his tummy as i'm standing there watching.  he had ditched his paci on the opposite side of his crib and then migrated.  oh matson.  i give him his paci again, pat his tush, rub his head, and he seems to calm down.
• 5:49pm - just got the chicken out ... and crying.  this is where scott would say in a stern voice, "captain ..." (captain being our other main nickname for mats besides dino.)  i run up to check on him (a video monitor would be so handy), and he's on his side where i left him.  i figure at this point he has to be so tired that he'll figure it out, so i leave him crying.
• 5:52pm - ahhh, silence.
• 5:56pm - cooing and happy squeaks emanate from matson's room.  adorable, but for real, kid?
• 6:00pm - and we're back to crying.  at this point, i'm leaving him be and he'll likely be able to coax scott to rescue him when he gets home.  this is, for the record, typically matsy's worst nap of the day.  (i don't think he slept at all after his 1:00 feeding, but he was happy as a clam to be awake, at least.)
• 6:30pm - off to the gym!  matsy was totally content once scott picked him up, of course.  we left him with the babysitter at the gym ($2.25/hour - i think we can swing that!), and apparently she commented to scott when he picked matsy up that he was giggling and smiling the whole time, and asked if anyone has ever told us how strong and active he is for his age.  short answer: yes!
• 7:10pm - i finished my workout (elliptical, stretching, weight machines - my usual) and picked up matsy from scott.  the gym nursery closes at 7, so scott picked him up so that i could do a full workout and get cappy home in time to eat while he (scott) would finish up his workout and then run home.
• 7:45pm - finished feeding the little man, and on to making dinner!  matsy fell asleep mid-feeding (shocker, since he skipped two naps) and i utilized the time to trim his finger nails.  one of our best manicures yet, i must say!  he's typically so wiggly and resistant to having his hands held still, so this was rather refreshing.
• 8:00pm - scott gets home from his workout and run.  he texts a former co-worker with our address - she had found a giftcard to a really nice steakhouse near us that was left in a former executive's desk at his old job, and she, scott, and another of their work friends had intended to go do lunch there together, but it never happened.  she and her husband live across the metro area, so she's sending it to us to use!
• 8:15pm - dinner's ready, so scott puts our cranky captain down for a nap in his swing while we actually sit at the table and talk over dinner!  it was rather refreshing.
• 8:45pm - scott showers, then we hang out and look at his book list for his online class (ordered his books for the on-campus class yesterday).  also, he finds out that there are apparently several pepole in the class with less than 5 week olds.  wow!  i order his book online and am slightly aggrieved that it costs $190.  we ordered four books yesterday for his on campus class, and all together they cost $50.
• 9:30pm - i'm projecting into the future now, but we'll wake matsy up at 9:30, feed him, change him into a disposable diaper and pj's midway through, then put him right back to bed after he eats.  we'll likely get into bed around 10:15.

and on that note, happy monday, friends!  hope you've had as lovely of a day as we have.

rei giftcard link

wow, i haven't posted on here since may!  i'm working on changing that.  in the meantime, though, i was catching up on my blog reading post-vacation (we spent a week in minnesota with scott's family, and i came away with 103 unread posts ... not sure they'll all get read!), and saw that the frugal girl is offering a $100 REI giftcard.  i love the frugal girl, and i love rei, so i'm entering.  and i think you should, too.  (plus, i get an extra entry for mentioning the giveaway on my blog - done and done!)  it looks like it's open to entries for another month (til 9/20), but there are only 330 entries so far.  your chances are good!
go here to enter: http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2011/08/we-took-a-trip-to-rei-the-six-of-us-did/

six weeks in

i was just in for my 6 week postpartum doctor visit - wow!  (at which i got a $50 parking ticket because i didn't see the sign that it was a street sweeping day.  grrrrr.)  i've heard people say "the days are long but the years are short", and six weeks into the first year, i will wholeheartedly agree with that.

mats and i are happily settling into more of a rhythm together at home.  for the most part, at least.  he's at the tail end of his 6 week growth spurt, so for the past week he wasn't sleeping quite as long at night and was eating more often during the day - monday he ate every two hours all day!  it was a long day, especially since scott had to work late; he got home to me preparing dinner and mats crying upstairs (he was supposed to be napping, but hadn't wanted to nap all afternoon) and i just gave him a look that apparently said, "it's your turn now."  (i had intended it more to say, "do you see what i've been putting up with all day?"  same difference, really.)

the highlight of yesterday was that i got the bathrooms cleaned, dishes and laundry done, and house vacuumed!  (vacuum is one of the few words i almost never spell correctly on first attempt - i always want to spell it "vaccum" for some reason.)  i've realized that of the many things that change when you have a kid, sense of accomplishment is right up there at the top.  it really is amazing, though, how much more you can get done when you have to feed your kid only every 3 hours rather than every 2 hours.  (when it takes 30 minutes at a time.)

last night goo and a friend came over to hang out with mats while scott and i went to see "thor" - fun movie!!  the theater just down the street from us has 1/2 price tickets on tuesdays, so i foresee a fair number of tuesday date nights in our future.  highly recommend "thor" for a fun movie night, and i'm sure i'll be recommending the sequel that the movie totally set itself up for.

a day with baby

just for fun, i decided to keep track of what matson's 1 month birthday looked like for us.

• 5:10am - wake up to matson crying, go to his room to pick him up, bring him back to bed and feed him.  (scott gave him a bottle the previous night at 9:30pm, and this was the first we heard of him all night.  we have the greatest baby ever.)
• 5:40am - hand the little man off to scott for a diaper change and to be put back to bed.  i go back to sleep.
• 6:20am - scott leaves for work.  not typical, but his company is doing a big accounting system conversion starting this week which is making his days crazy busy.  plus, we have friends bringing us dinner tonight and i had invited them to stay and eat with us before i realized what scott's week would look like, so he wanted to make sure he has enough time at work to get stuff done before coming home for dinner.  so that's kind of my fault - sorry, dear!  meanwhile, i again go back to sleep.
• 7:20am - matson's hungry again.  i had hoped to sleep in until 8 today, but i guess that wasn't meant to be!  i nurse him in bed and browse facebook on my phone while he eats.
• 7:50am - take mats in to change his diaper, and he pees on me (and his own face) again.  for those keeping track at home, i was not peed on for the first three weeks of his life - but this is now the 3rd time being peed on in the last week and a half.  two of those times, it ended up on his face as well.  (his expression when he realizes that he's peed on himself is pretty priceless!)
• 8:00am - after changing his diaper, we sit in his glider and play for a few minutes.  by play, i mean that i propped him up on my legs, he wiggled his arms and legs and i made faces at him.  he stared at the light coming in through the window, then stared at the lamp.  i discovered an awesome blog yesterday entitled "chronicles of a babywise mom" which has tons of great real life tips and insights into parenting using the babywise system.  anyway, she says that about 45-60 minutes of awake time is the ideal amount for a 4 week old ... lo and behold, at 8:05 on the nose (exactly 45 minutes after he woke up to eat), mats started yawning!  if i put him down right after he starts yawning, he usually goes down well - if i wait til he gets to the fussy-tired stage, he'll usually cry for like 10-15 minutes before falling asleep.  i swaddled him, rocked him for a minute, his eyes got reeeeally heavy, and i put him down in his crib for a nap.  he still sleeps nights in his bouncer seat, but we've been trying to do at least a few naps a day in his crib so that he gets accustomed to it - so far, so good!
• 8:20am - i go back to bed to finish my bible reading from yesterday (i had opted for a nap instead), get up post-reading to brush my teeth and realize that scott forgot to take out the trash for pickup this morning (understandable since he left the house before 6:30!) so i take it out, have a delightful bowl of frosted mini wheats and am mildly horrified to realize that i've gone through almost a whole box since scott bought it for me on saturday.  i read a few blogs, then start this post.  we're switching to cloth diapers this week, but i have to wash the dark colored diaper covers 6 times (separated by color) before we can use them - i did the blues 4 times yesterday, so i start the 5th wash.  i get a shower in before mats wakes again.
• 10:30am - little man was still asleep, so i woke him up to eat.  his waking up is adorable - i opened the curtains, rubbed his tummy, undid the velcro on his swaddle sack, and talked to him; he slowly opened his eyes, looked around, yawned, and stretched up his arms while curling up his legs.  (i watched the end of "legally blonde" on tv while he ate.)
• 11:00am - upstairs for diaper change - no peeing on me this time!  i decided we should do some tummy time for this awake time, so we did that on the floor of his room (burp rag under his head - i've learned that lesson!).  he starts out with moving his head from the right to the left, is happily wiggling around for a few minutes, starts to get a little bit frantic ... and rolls over all by himself!  he was so surprised!  he's rolled over a few times before, but i've always attributed it to some sort of environmental accident - too close to the edge of the towel after bath time, i left his arm too far underneath him when putting him down for tummy time, etc.  this time, though, it was all him!  (we called daddy right away to brag.)  i celebrate his success with using his new snot sucker - he's not a fan.
• 11:30am - down for another nap!  i pump and make my to-do list for the day.  then proceeded to ignore my to-do list and watch tv/browse facebook until time for his next eating.  :)
• 1:45pm - i was a little late in waking him up for lunch, but it worked fine since he was just waking up when i got up there.  post diaper change, we went out to run our errands - returning a cd to the library and stopping at the grocery.  some highlights of the grocery trip were picking up ribeyes to grill for mother's day (yay!), getting a giant box of goldfish crackers, and lemons to make homemade lemonade.
• 4:10pm - home again.  kiddo decided he didn't need a nap this afternoon - he was absolutely mesmerized by the lights at the grocery store!  i had him in the moby wrap (which typically puts him right to sleep), and he got many compliments from fellow shoppers on his cuteness.  grade school girls seemed to be his biggest fans.  i decided to go ahead and feed him early in order to get him down for a nap since he didn't get one at all this afternoon.
• 4:45pm - i decide to go for the gold and make it a huge day for matson ... and put his first cloth diaper on before his nap!  i have the diaper snapped in to the smallest size, so i'm not sure they really would have worked much prior to this.  i had read that you're supposed to fold the insert down so that the excess is in front for boys and in back for girls, but it kind of makes him look like he has a giant front butt!  i think i'll see how the excess in back goes for the next change.  i get to work putting away the groceries and picking up the house.
• 5:45pm - scott's home!  mats was asleep, but scott's first order of business after hugging me is, as usual, to go in and look at our little guy.
• 6:00pm - a couple from our small group brings us dinner and stays to eat with us (per my invitation) - fun!  they're having a baby next month, so we got to talk all about baby stuff with people who are actually interested.  matsy is definitely prey to the witching hour (and lack of nap all afternoon) and fusses throughout dinner.
• 7:10pm - enjoy dessert and feed the kiddo.  nick and anna get some snuggle time from matson after he ate (and he very kindly didn't spit up on either of them).  we try to get him to show off his new rolling skills, but it's a no go.  first cloth diaper was a success, but no poos yet.
• 8:15pm - down for another nap.  he's kind of overtired at this point and gets a few extra snuggles from scott.
• 9:40pm - last eating of the night.  and then bedtime for the whole family - hooray!

1 month

happy 1 month birthday, baby boy!

highlights of the 1st month: matson rolled over for the first time this morning!  he's been practicing his smiles more recently, and while i don't think he knows what it really means ... still fun.  he's slowly becoming more aware of his surroundings and loves looking at lights.  mats adores snuggle time, and i think cries sometimes just because he's lonely and wants a hug.  he loves being in the moby wrap (again, snuggle time), sleeps amazingly well at night as well as for most naps, nurses like a pro ... and is all around basically the greatest baby ever.

my favorite things

my favorite things about matson thus far, in no particular order:

1. the way he stretches and yawns when he wakes up.  as scott says, "it's like he's a real person!"
2. he loves to sleep with his arms straight up.  even if he's wrapped up in a tight swaddle, he'll try his hardest to work his arms out so that he can have them next to his face.
3. when we take him out of his swaddle sack, his little legs are all curled up in a knot.
4. that he gives us so much sleep at night!  i think he gets his love of sleep from me.  (i hope this one continues to be true of him.)
5. his little squeaks and grunts.  we have taken to referring to him as "the little dinosaur" (or babysaurus, or matsysaurus rex, or dino) and while i'm not entirely sure where the name came from, i think it might be because of his squeaks.  and his size.
6. he folds his little hands together while he eats.  it's adorable.
7. watching him explore the world around him and become a little more aware every day.  i think he's starting to recognize the things he sees every day, like the dangling toys on his playmat.
8. he often falls asleep while being burped, and will fling his little arms out around your arm and neck like he's hugging you.
9. no matter how fussy he is, he'll calm down almost the second you put him in a room with a running dryer or running water.  strange, but it makes us laugh.

baby sleep

i would say that matson and i are settling more into our days together, but really, he could mostly care less - so instead i'll just say that i'm settling more into daily life with matson.  my crazy hormones seem to mostly be back to my normal stability (thank goodness!), mats is sleeping really well both day and night, denver's having some spectacularly sunny and warm days - hooray!

if you know any parents or have ever looked at parenting books, you know that sleep is a HUGE (and hugely divisive) issue.  everyone has an opinion, and everyone seems to have the magical answer that will make every baby sleep well.  i never got that until we had a newborn in the house and was woken up every 3 hours all night to feed the kid - and it's not a quick thing you can do half-awake like a middle of the night bathroom break.  you're awake nursing and burping the baby for 30 minutes, then off to do a diaper change and put him back to bed.  it kind of makes you feel half-human after a few days.  anyway, the feeding stuff is hard enough - if you have a baby who wants to cry all night or not go down easily, or wants to continue the trend for months on end, even harder!  mats is pretty awesome when it comes to sleep, and i will pretend to have no answers, but i will share our experience with sleep thus far - primarily for my own future curiosity.

regarding sleep, our moms had been questioning why we were still setting an alarm to wake mats up in the night to feed him.  at the hospital, they'd explicitly told us to feed him every 3-4 hours, and i knew that it's important to nurse at least 8 times a day to keep both my milk supply up and make sure he's getting enough to eat.  he'd been gaining weight like a pro, though, and consistently giving us 4 hours at least once a night between feedings ... and i really wanted more sleep.  so last thursday i asked at breastfeeding group about nixing the alarm and letting mats wake us when he needed to eat.  the lactation consultant said to give it a shot, just make sure that i pump before and after bedtime to keep milk supply up and prevent engorgement, maybe move daytime feedings closer together to make sure he's still eating 8 times a day, and weigh him to make sure he's still gaining weight after a few days.  that night mats was extra fussy and ate every 2 hours like i'd been starving him his whole life - we really anticipated being up with him all night.  we fed him at 9:30pm, though, turned off the alarm ... and woke to him crying at 5:15am!  what?!  that's right, my 17 day old went 7 hours and 45 minutes between feedings!  awesome!

he went back to 3-4 hours the next night, but then did 7h45m again for the next three nights.  he hasn't given us quite as long of a stretch since monday, but last night was the shortest all week with just over 5 hours between feedings - for a 3.5 week old, that's still really amazing.  i can't even express how longer stretches of sleep make you feel like a human being again!  last thursday he weighed 9lb 2oz, and come tuesday he weighed 9lb 10oz, so i think it's safe to say he's still gaining just fine.  (thursday was pre-feeding, whereas tuesday was post-feeding ... but saturday at the pediatrician's office, he weighed 9lb 6oz post-feeding, so that's still up 4oz in 3 days with sleeping longer stretches.  doctors recommend at least .75-1oz of weight gain per day, so he's doing great.)

for daytime naps, mats had been getting really fussy - crying hysterically prior to going down, so i'd rock him, put in his pacifier, and get him down.  he'd fall asleep, but invariably he'd wake up in 5-20 minutes, crying hysterically.  (i think he'd fall asleep just enough for his pacifier to fall out, which would wake him up.)  repeat the cycle for the entire hour of his nap time.  not really sustainable, in my opinion.  i was reading babywise the other night, and it suggested that if your baby is waking up early or getting extra fussy, he may need more sleep.  i started putting him down in his bouncer when i first start to see his yawns, and while he doesn't necessarily fall asleep right away, he'll happily lay there quietly looking around until he falls asleep.  and when he falls asleep, it's pacifier-free (thus no pacifier to fall out and wake him) and he'll stay soundly asleep until his next feeding time.  i know babywise is a fairly divisive book, and i have no intention of being hardcore about it, nor do i think that that us following it will make him a better person - but we're really finding the general sleep-eat-wake cycle to be totally spot on with what mats wants/needs.  honestly, it's a cycle that seems pretty natural for him, it's just a matter of being intentional about making sure it happens.

whoops, naptime is almost over and i still have a few things i need to get done.  off to the races!

processing motherhood

so, taking care of a baby is much easier when you have someone else around.

for the first week that we were home with matson, my parents were here.  that was an awesome decision, because my parents are spectacularly supportive, and i was super-duper hormonal and thus emotional.  i cried at least once a day, and it was so nice having them here to both to lend a hand with making dinner and holding/playing with matson, and to have them to talk to about how hard it was.  honestly, matson's first week home was right up there among the hardest weeks of my life.

the second week we were home with mats, scott's family was here.  (we had a day gap in between them - tuesday, i went to breastfeeding support group, walked with a friend, then cried for the 45 minutes i was alone with mats before scott got home.  wednesday, scott stayed home with me, and i still cried.)  that was awesome because they're so much fun and have such a high energy level that there were always things going on, always people to hold mats, errands to run, games to play, etc.  i didn't actually cry at all the week that they were here, probably largely because i was so distracted.

mats also was sleeping better by this point - his first two nights at home, he cried unless he was being held, which was so so hard.  i stayed up most of the night with him, then would give him to my dad for a few hours ... but i'd still sleep restlessly for fear that he'd cry.  that friday, we discovered that he'd sleep in his bouncer seat, so we began to get 3 hour stretches from beginning of feeding to beginning of feeding at night, but i'd still wake up every time he squeaked in his sleep since he was in our room.  the first night that scott's family was in town, though, we moved him to his own room (still in his bouncer), and my own sleep transition was amazing - actual sound sleeping!  he's started to give us at least one 4 hour stretch between feedings at night, sometimes two, which i know is really spectacular.  unfortunately, i don't think i've actually had a real nap since he was born - in part because i just can't fall asleep, and in part because i've been so anxious that laying down and trying to be quiet just seems to be fodder for my internal anxiety.

yesterday, we took scott's family to the airport, and it's now officially just me and mats all day.  i know that he's a great baby, but his cries are way less cute when it's just the two of us at home - no one else to laugh with, or to provide perspective that there is life outside of us right here and now.  i actually got through today without crying - success!  i was so in awe of scott's ability to play with him and have fun with him last night, though.  he'll sing to him, splash the water at bath time, bounce him on the bed, and just take pleasure with snuggling mats when he's crying.  i'm so not there yet!

(now friday - didn't get this finished yesterday!) i actually spent a fair bit of yesterday looking at day care options online so that i could go back to work. i always thought i'd be thrilled to stay at home with a baby, and there are aspects of it that i totally love (more doing the stuff that i was able to do on maternity leave - getting the house clean, running errands, cooking so that we could enjoy our evenings and weekends together). i like the idea of taking mats to storytime at the library, and joining a daytime women's bible study at church, and hanging out with friends and their babies - and more than anything being matson's primary moral guide and teacher as he's figuring out life. but if i can't get to a point where i enjoy being with him all day, that won't mean terribly much, or be a great experience for either of us.  per scott's encouragement, though, i am going to try my hardest to stop thinking about work vs home and trying to lean one way or another. i really need to give it a few weeks and re-address things then.
on the plus side, matson is gaining weight like a champ! he weighed in at 9lb 2oz at nourish (breastfeeding support group) yesterday, which is up 7oz from his doctor appointment last friday, 6 days prior. babies are supposed to gain like .75-1oz/day, and any more than that is apparently just awesome. so, he's awesome! and, he is a really good sleeper. he typically gives us 3-4 hours between feedings at night (at least one 4 hour stretch). last night, we decided to stop setting an alarm to go wake him up to eat, and just get him when he'd cry. he ate at 9:30pm, fussed for a while (by which i mean screamed bloody murder) until scott got him down at 11 ... and didn't wake us up to feed him until 5:15am! i actually woke up at 2am to check on him (i think my body was like, "alright, it's been a few hours, it's time to get up!"), but he was sound out so i left him. that's 7h45m between feedings!!! i'm not going to hold my breath that it'll happen again for a while - but still, so so nice to get 6 hours of not really interrupted sleep.

matson, in birth story form

matson has finally arrived!  a friend suggested that i write down matson's birth story before i forget the details, so i figured i'd take advantage of my blog for that.

our due date of march 22 came and went with no sign that mats was interested in joining us, and other than the occasional light contraction, the trend continued as we hit 41 weeks and moved closer to 42 weeks.  my doctor's practice doesn't deliver babies post-42 weeks and doesn't schedule inductions for the weekend, so they initially set us up to induce at 41 weeks and 2 days, which was a thursday night.  we'd been planning on a natural labor all along and were really hoping to avoid induction if at all possible, and thankfully my doctor was willing to work with us to get the induction date moved back to sunday night, 41 weeks and 5 days.  (i know that pitocin makes contractions a lot stronger and harder than normal, which makes it all that much more likely that you'll need an epidural; i was hoping to avoid an epidural because it seems as though it's better for your body to be able to work naturally through labor and delivery - better success with breastfeeding, easier pushing, etc.)

the friday before our induction, we had a non-stress test where i was hooked up to an external fetal monitor to check contractions, heartrate, and movement just to make sure things were still looking okay for matson.  he was super active, i had all of one contraction in the thirty minutes i was hooked up, and as the doctor said, baby was just too comfortable in my womb to want to come out on his own!  i wasn't quite a centimeter dilated and my cervix was still pretty far posterior, so they decided that when i came in sunday night, they'd do a cervical ripening gel (turned out they used a tablet) overnight to get my cervix in motion, then start pitocin in the morning if it was needed - about 30-60% of women who have the cervical ripening treatment end up having it jump-start their labor.

we spent all weekend hoping and praying to be in active labor by the time sunday night rolled around for us to head into the hospital, but while the irregular light contractions continued, they never morphed into anything more.  as we were finishing packing up our bags, the full weight of the situation - heading to the hospital knowing that we were absolutely going to have a baby in the next day or so - hit us, and while we were so excited knowing that matson was coming, we also found ourselves grieving the end of the first part of our marriage.  not that life with kids isn't good, but we've had a really awesome first five and a half years of marriage, and have so much fun together just the two of us.  even if the change is good, having a baby is still a huge change for our relationship, and change is hard. 

we still went to small group that night, then headed up to the hospital in snow flurries, to be there at 9pm.  by the time we got checked in, monitored, and had the first tablet inserted, it was close to 11pm.  they offered me an ambien to help me sleep through the night, and while i refused at first, i called the nurse in for it by 12:30 as i realized i was getting no sleep which wouldn't be very helpful for labor the next day.  i slept soundly til 3am when they came back to check me and insert the second tablet - pretty shortly after that tablet started to work, contractions started coming on more strongly and quickly, and i dozed off and on until around 7am when i decided sleep was a lost cause and woke up scott to start our day.  i had had grand intentions of taking a shower, fixing my hair, and putting on a bit of makeup before the induction started since i had to have it at all - the shower was as far as i got, though, and even at that, i had serious thoughts of sitting down in the tub to finish my shower as contractions continued.  they started pitocin around 9, but by 8:30 i told scott to call our doula, liberty, to come in - i was already in such pain from the contractions that i figured we'd have our 10 hours of laboring with her, then just go ahead and get the epidural.  (i think scott made the call just after i ate a grape popsicle and promptly threw it up.)  she arrived by 9:30 to me sitting on the birth ball next to our bed, moaning, with my head propped up on some pillows on our bed and scott sitting behind me rubbing my back.

from there, everything is kind of a blur to me.  i had my eyes open for maybe a cumulative grand total of 2 minutes in the next seven hours, and spent a bit of time sitting on the birth ball or leaning against it while kneeling on all fours on the bed, but most of it laying on my side in bed clutching at either scott or liberty's hands while the other one rubbed my back or my feet.  at one point, since i was having crazy contractions but wasn't dilating, the doctor (dr. moore) came in and inserted a balloon to force my cervix to dilate - it would fall out naturally once i hit 4cm.  i have no idea how long it was in there, but while it was still in, my water broke on its own - which was awesome news, since it meant that my body was starting to take over labor and things should be progressing faster.  liberty left the room to tell the nurse that my water had broken, which i assumed (correctly) meant that there was meconium in my amniotic fluid.

one memory i do have is, as they came back to remove the balloon for me since my water had broken, was scott saying, "woah, is that her mucus plug?!"  (apparently it came out attached to the balloon.)  i think around this time, after a few hours (scott thought maybe 2?) of pitocin, they stopped pitocin since my body had taken over - hooray!  i was relieved to hear it, but when someone said that i could now labor away from my bed and liberty was running through my options - walk around, birth ball, tub, etc - all i could say was "tub".  (scott said that i only spoke in verbs and nouns the whole time.)  i was in there for maybe 40 minutes (again, per scott, who wasn't positive) when i started feeling like i needed to push, so they made me get out.  i was very sad about this, because my legs were shaky and i was super cold in the room, having just been relatively cozy in a warm tub.  i was only at a 7, so they let me back in the tub for a while more.  i think i felt the urge to push again, so i had to get out maybe a half hour later, and didn't get back in again.  i did some pushing on the bed, got checked a few times, and after approximately an eternity, was finally at a 10 - again, hooray!  i was super cranky, because while i was able to continue pushing for a while, when they were able to see the head, they made me stop pushing until dr. moore made it to the room.

finally dr. moore came in, and i was able to commence pushing again.  i know i'd been falling asleep between contractions throughout the day (probably because i'd only gotten about 3.5 hours of sleep the night before), and while i feel fairly certain i was awake throughout the final pushing, i can't be sure.  scott thinks i was only pushing for about 10 minutes after dr. moore arrived, and it felt like each time i pushed people were saying, "just one more push and his head will be out!"  so i'd push, then, "just one more push!", etc.  about two minutes before matson came out, i felt my leg on scott's side being shifted, and realized that a nurse was taking my leg as he was being led to a chair - he said later that he was pretty sure he could have made it, but was starting to feel woozy and didn't want to be that dad who passes out in the delivery room.  his head was finally fully out after an enormous pushing contraction, and then i think just one more push and his body followed.  i'd been in intense pain all day, and it was suddenly just ... gone!  someone told me to open my eyes, and i saw a gray-ish baby being taken to the warmer in the corner so that mats could be checked out by a nicu nurse for the meconium in my fluid.  he was in great form, though, and checked out wonderfully other than a pinched nerve in his neck so that his head was pulling to the left and his left arm was sticking out at a wonky angle.

matson is a fabulous baby.  his neck thing was fine by the time we got to our room, he started nursing right away and is a champion feeder (he only lost about 5.6% of his birth weight in the hospital, and was up 2oz from that at his 4-day pediatrician checkup today, which she said is pretty remarkable).  he's got adorable blue eyes and loves snuggling.  hands down the hardest part right now is that he doesn't like to sleep unless he's being held - sweet during the day, but makes for reeeeeeally long nights.  i got about 6-7 hours total sleep two nights ago, but other than that have averaged about 3-4 hours a night/day since sunday night when we went in for our induction.  my parents are here to help out, which is awesome, but if they have him and i'm trying to sleep, i wake up as soon as he starts to fuss.  i discovered cotton swabs this afternoon to take a nap, but was only able to sleep for an hour.  sigh.  i'm trying to remember the joys of being matson's mommy, though, because there are so many, and that he'll figure out the sleep thing sooner or later and we'll be a little rested again.  he's been going longer stretches on his own, though, and the pediatrician suggested letting him sleep in his car seat since he likes being snuggled up in close quarters.  (he also likes his bouncer seat and the curved pad on the changing table??)

so that is matson's birth story!  overall, i am so happy with how things went, and incredibly proud that i was able to make it through labor with no pain meds.  liberty has since told me that it's incredibly rare to have a pitocin labor and not have an epidural.  honestly, even though i didn't mention her much through the story, i don't think that scott and i could have made it through without her.  her encouragement and support (and massages!) gave both of us the energy and motivation to keep going without an epidural, and made the pain bearable.  if you ever have any intention of doing a natural labor, i 100% recommend getting a doula - she was completely awesome, and a great supplement to scott's incredible help.

done and to-do

nursery is getting closer to completion by the day!  this weekend, i made and framed a collage for the wall above matson's crib, had scott paint the edges of the closet where i spackled last week, we got the closet doors re-installed (and by we, i mean i mostly watched while scott did all of the work), i got fun fabric put into embroidery hoops to hang on the wall above matson's changing table, i ordered everything remaining from our target registry (have a few more things to get from babies r us, as well as finishing buying our cloth diapers and accessories), and i sorted through all of his clothes, took tags off, and bought a free and clear detergent to wash them in.  yes, i am nesting, why do you ask?

(speaking of clothes, by the way, we are so set!  i was looking through our stash thus far, figuring that i had enough newborn clothes and debating whether to get a few more 0-3 month items.  my friend jami has a 10 month old son, though, and graciously offered to lend us his clothes if we were interested - i said sure, and holy cow!  she gave me a box and bag of just newborn/0-3 items, and between her clothes and what we had for mats already, we filled his hamper to the brim, all with tiny, adorable clothes for his first few months of life!)

remaining on my list is having a maid service come in next week (my birthday gift from scott :)), washing matson's clothes, organizing the nursery and closet, attaching the cushion to the gliding ottoman (ahem), hemming/cute-ifying matson's curtains, doing some general house organization, freezing some meals for nights we don't have family around and no friends scheduled to bring us food, and trying to remind myself that mats won't really care how perfect his room and our house looks or doesn't look.

squeaky clean towels

last summer, a coworker and i were talking about how frustrating it is when your towels begin to get that stench - you know, the one where you pull a freshly laundered towel out of the closet, and as soon as it hits your wet skin it gives off that over-used, needs-to-be-washed bacterial/mildewy odor.  her solution is to throw out towels once that happens.

throwing away perfectly good towels and buying replacements just doesn't work for me, though, so when it seemed like every towel in my linen closet had reached that point a few months ago, i started looking for a real solution.  (all of our towels are a lovely chocolatey brown, by the by, so bleach is not an answer.)  turns out that it's a fairly common problem caused by using too much detergent, which builds up in the fabric and thus traps icky odors.  the solution?  i googled around and found out that we needed to strip our towels.  i ran them through a hot wash with an extra rinse cycle (no detergent), put vinegar into the fabric softener cup - and voila!  clean smelling towels!  (i also did them a second time with baking soda, but apparently with a high efficiency machine, you have to add water to powdered detergents first, making a paste, which i didn't do, so i kind of ended up with a very grainy lint tray after drying them.)

anyway, super easy, and much more efficient than throwing away and replacing a full set of towels.  also easy: halving the amount of detergent i had been using, so that i don't get fresh-yet-stinky towels again.

new camera

so our 6-year old point-and-shoot camera finally died.  i think it actually died on our chicago trip last september, but i haven't used it since then and finally got around to troubleshooting it last week.  it had been turning itself off when you would try to take a picture, even with brand new batteries.

i discharged and fully recharged my batteries last weekend, and was able to take a few pictures when i put them back in.  i turned it off and let it sit for a week, though, and it now powers down as soon as you turn it on - with the lens out!  very sad.  i do have my lovely dslr, but it's nice to have a smaller camera on hand for easier portability for traveling and long hikes.  in particular, though, with matson coming soon and scott being designated photographer of freshly-newborn matson, i think it's a good idea to have an easy to use camera alternative.

thus, i spent the last two days scouring camera reviews on amazon, consumer reports, and cnet.com (my favorite go-to spot for tech product reviews) ... and we bought a camera last night!  if you know me at all, that is pretty much record-breaking turnaround time on a buying decision.

i was debating between the canon sd1400 is, which consumer reports picked as one of their "best buys", and the canon sd1300 is.  they are essentially the same camera, both rated "very good" by cnet.com and with glowing customer reviews on amazon, with the slight difference that the 1400 has 14.1 megapixels where the 1300 has 12.1 (not a huge deal with the size of the pictures that they take), and the 1400 has slightly better video - a feature we're unlikely to use a great deal.

i vacillated between the two (and approximately 45 other cameras) and finally decided on the 1300 on sale for $110.  yesterday afternoon, armed with my $30 office depot rewards card and $20 off coupon and excited to get a nice camera for $60+tax, i went to officedepot.com and clicked "add to cart" ... and got a pop up saying that it wasn't available at that price any longer!  grrr.  i spent the rest of the day re-researching cameras, finally deciding to go ahead and do the 1400, which would be $130+tax after my discounts.  i decided to sleep on it, though, and talk it over with scott.  we had to return a dvd last night, though, so while we were out, we decided to drop by the office depot down the street from us to look at their cameras in person ... and lo and behold, they had the 1300 in store for $110!  hooray!  final price was $66 after discounts and tax.

today i'm going to utilize my amazon prime membership and get a case and a good memory card for it (memory cards are atrociously expensive at office depot), bringing our total cost for the whole camera package to ... $86!  great bargain shopping if i do say so myself.

more baby preparations

this has been the month of preparing for baby - we started off the first weekend of the month with our childbirth class, have taken infant/child cpr and breastfeeding since then (and have a baby care class this upcoming saturday), signed up for a doula, had my work baby shower, began weekly doctor appointments, packed my labor bag, and have finally begun to finalize nursery decor plans.  i think that's about it.

regarding the baby classes - i think we're both glad that we're taking them.  as i've said before, we've been reading through "natural childbirth the bradley way", so there wasn't a ton in the childbirth class that we were surprised by, but nonetheless we found it both helpful and affirming.  some of the things that the instructor talked about, such as relaxing through contractions to manage pain (even for women who are planning to get an epidural), are right on par with what the bradley book talks about.  we came out of the class feeling like we've been doing the right things in preparing and that while some parts of the book are outdated (which we recognized already), others are right on track.  breastfeeding and cpr both gave us a little more confidence with things that neither of us is familiar with, which i think will be helpful.  (hopefully no need for familiarity with cpr, though!)

we signed up for a doula through our hospital a few weeks ago, and i finally got to chat with her on the phone for a bit this weekend.  from her website, in which she offers crystal healings and features a photo of herself at her wedding wearing fairy wings, i feared that she might be a little flaky - but after talking with her, i think she'll be great.  she worked as a nurse for 12 years and has been doula-ing for about 2 years, so she's been through a ton of births and seems like a great source of experience and calm.  she was excited that we're planning to do a natural (pain med-free) birth, but is supportive of whatever clients end up doing and says that her goal is to make sure that however baby comes out, that we're happy with the experience.  i'm down with that!

you'll notice, by the way, that i earlier said "begun to finalize nursery decor plans" - i don't yet have any nursery decor completed, and changed my mind on half of it last friday, but i do have plans!  i think it'll be cute when it's done, but you'll have to wait until then for pictures.  (and by the way, mom, i finished the ottoman cushion!!!!  i'm going to stop at joann's tonight to pick up some sturdier thread/cord to adhere it to the ottoman - but the cushion itself is done and looks great.  i actually did it last monday on my day off, but slacked on picking up the thread all week.)

saturday's dinner cost breakdown

i think it's worth mentioning that both of the dinner recipes i made this weekend (refried bean tostadas and salsa chicken)  came from my hunt for inexpensive dinner ideas!  my rough cost break-down to feed 8 adults and a 3-year old on saturday night:

• salsa chicken: total cost: ~$13.20, cost per adult: $1.65
• chicken: ~$6 (actual cost unknown - had chicken breasts in my freezer, and i have no idea how much they each weigh, but i typically get chicken for around $2/lb and i used 4 chicken breasts)
• salsa: $1 (used 1 jar of generic salsa on sale for $1/jar)
• cheese: $1.50 (shredded half of a large block of cheeddar that i think cost around $3 total)
• green peppers: $3 (might omit these in the future and just get a better salsa, though)
• black olives: $1.50
• sour cream: ~$.20 (bought a tub for about $2.25, but we used a small amount)
• spices: minimal cost, used what i already have at home
• refried bean tostadas: total cost: $5, cost per adult: $.63
• tortillas: $1 (doubled the recipe to make 12 tostadas, used a whole 12 pack of tortillas that were on sale for $.99)
• refried beans: $1 (used leftover refried beans in the fridge and another 1/2 can that was on sale for $1, but i'll use the price of the can since i now have new leftover refried beans)
• salsa: $.50 (1/2 jar of generic salsa)
• cheese: $1 (high estimate - shredded the other half of my large block of cheese, but we have quite a bit of shredded cheddar left over)
• sour cream: ~$.50 (again, used a small amount overall)
• tomatoes: ~$1 (chopped up some roma tomatoes that i had on hand to put on top - have some leftover)
• other sides: total cost: $10.25, cost per adult: $1.28
• guacamole: $6 ($1/ea for 3 avocados, a few roma tomatoes on sale for $1/lb, and some cilantro that i had going bad in the fridge)
• chips: $.75 (we keep these on hand, bag of la favorita costs $2, we used less than half)
• rice: ~$.50 (total guess, we keep rice on hand, and i have no idea what the bag cost or what percentage we used)
• salad: ~$3 (bag of greens with some veggies on sale for $1.50, added some green bell pepper and carrots that we had on hand)
• total cost of the whole meal including sides: $28.45
• total cost of the whole meal per adult: $3.56

and really, the cost per adult is actually high as we have lots of leftovers: 4 of us had dinner from it last night, and scott and i still have a few lunches/dinners left!

for january, i have $2 left in my grocery envelope at the end of the month - which means so far so good on my quest to keep my grocery budget in check! i just went shopping last week, though, and am pretty well stocked up, so i'm going to try to drop my grocery budget to $300 in february to prep for march when i'll have to be feeding both of us 3 meals a day from home.

i'm trying to figure out how to balance stocking up on items (especially meats) that are on a good sale with what we actually need for that week or two weeks.  i guess to a certain extent, the trick lies in making sure that if i stock up on steaks or pork chops, that i plan meals that actually use up those items, rather than buying them and then not using them for months at a time.  (meats we freeze, at least, so i guess it's easier to stock up on them - produce, not so much.)  how much stockpiled loss-leader frozen meat do you really need in your freezer, though, before it's just not worth it?  i think that in general, i still need to work on being more strategic with my menu planning.

weekend via recipe review

we had a super fun weekend: my parents came into town, i had my baby shower, scott and my dad installed closet doors and put together the crib, etc.  with the furniture in and the rug down, the nursery is finally starting to really look like a nursery, which is so fun!  the crib kit was missing one bolt, so i need to contact them this week - we finally got a crib mattress this weekend ($82 after tax at walmart!), but we're waiting until the bolt comes to put the mattress in.  we also played boggle, and not only did i not win, but i lost to scott (and to my mom, i think!).  i blame pregnancy brain.

and, of course, since we had company, i spent a lot of time cooking!  friday night, we had cooking light's slow cooker beef stroganoff and steamed broccoli, saturday for breakfast i made cottage cheese pancakes which were amazing, and for dinner, we had friends over in addition to my parents, so i made guac, cooking light's salsa chicken, and refried bean tostadas.  sunday, we went out for chinese for lunch and had leftovers for dinner.  i'd made the beef stroganoff before and knew that it was a good solid recipe, but all of saturday's cooking was with new recipes - all three were big hits and definitely keepers!

of the three, i think the cottage cheese pancakes were hands down my favorite - a coworker gave me a tip this morning that they freeze well, so you can make them ahead of time, freeze, and microwave them as needed.  you can count on finding some cottage cheese pancakes in my freezer before matson comes!  they're a great way to add extra protein and calcium to your breakfast, even if you're not otherwise a fan of cottage cheese.  the cottage cheese made the pancakes a little denser than normal, perhaps, but in a really yummy, filling way - and the cottage cheese all seemed to melt into the pancakes so that there weren't white chunks as you cut up your pancakes.  the cinnamon in the recipe also gave it a great flavor.  honestly, i can't recommend these highly enough!  we had them on their own, but i think a fruit salad would go perfectly with them.

the refried bean tostadas were also really good, super easy, cheap, and reheated well.  (i think they're intended as a main course, but i'd probably need to add a little ground beef to them to get that one past scott.)  you bake tortillas in a muffin tin for a few minutes, throw in some beans, salsa, and cheese, and put them back in the oven to heat up - no actual cooking involved!  the most challenging part of that recipe was making sure that the tortillas (which you stuff into muffin tin holes) had enough of an open bowl in the middle before you heat them up, to make it easier to get beans and salsa once they're a little crispy.

the salsa chicken seemed to be well received, and it was so easy (brown up chunks of chicken breast, throw in a pyrex, cover with salsa and cheese, and bake for ~10 minutes) i'll have to experiment with it some more.  i didn't think it had a ton of flavor, but i use my own spices rather than a packet of taco seasoning, and i think that i just didn't use enough spice for the amount of chicken i had.  plus, i used super generic mild salsa - i think going with a medium spiciness rather than mild would help, in addition to maybe getting a better salsa.  (or using a fruit salsa, as they recommend!)  worth playing with, for sure.

am i really so demanding?

answer: probably, yes.

for our fourth wedding anniversary (yes, way back in 2009), i had the brilliant idea of creating an anniversary memory album for us - a book that would have, for each year, a spot for a photo, note on how we celebrated the anniversary, and memories from that year of marriage.  i am a huge lover of tradition, so i thought this would be an easy project leading to years of happy tradition of filling out our memory album on our wedding anniversary.

my general vision (in a microsoft paint mockup - probably without a wedding pic on our one year anniversary):


not so easy!  at first i tried prefab anniversary albums, and was soundly disappointed.  they were either completely and utterly hideous, had lots of awkwardly specific categories rather than room for us to detail our own memories, or skipped through later anniversaries by decade. 

then i thought of making a photo book that we could paste pictures and write in in later, but found them pricey, or using a "self-publish" site to make a book with the same thought ... but realized that in either case, pasting a picture a year for 50+ years would probably not work too well with a hardbound book.

i turned to scrapbooking/photo albums, and love kolo's albums so i browsed their website.  i was considering the trivino, which is a glorified binder - i could just design and print what i want on 8.5 x 11 pages and slip them into sheet protectors.  problems: it's an inelegant solution (but a potential), and they don't say how many pages will fit in the binder ... i don't want to get to 30 years and have our binder filled up.  i like the newport, and with the larger size could fit the picture and memories on one page, but the formatting and headers would all be by hand rather than printed since their pages are bound.  and inserts to add extra pages add up quickly - $18 for another 10 sheets/20 pages.  (yes, you can create a digital photo book version of the newport, but that gets really pricey really fast - especially that larger size, yikes!)  i saw the geneva and thought that if i was going to compromise and do handwritten rather than printed, it was perfect!  blank spot for a picture on one side, lines for writing on the other ... but i don't like their album color options, and it's a 30 page max.  sigh.

end result is that we're now rapidly approaching 6 years of marriage and i still haven't gotten an anniversary album together for us.  any other brilliant ideas on where to look?

how to sleep well while pregnant

so the bradley method of labor is largely about relaxation - relaxing your body through contractions rather than fighting against them, which apparently helps to minimize pain and help you keep energy to make it through to the birth without needing pain meds to get rest.  the book we're reading gives you a certain position to lay in (on your side, one leg propped up on pillows, one arm in front of you the other behind you), and has your "labor coach" guide you through relaxing all of your muscle groups while giving you a lower back massage.

i really hated the position at first and thought it awful and forced.  not going to lie, though - we've been practicing our relaxation techniques the last few nights right before bed, and i am sleeping better than i have in months!  i had been waking up probably 2-5 times a night on average (sometimes to go to the bathroom, but often just to sit up, look at the clock, and go back to sleep) since about 23ish weeks.  on the nights that we've done our relaxation practices, though, i have slept soundly straight through the night, not waking up at all until my morning alarm.  it's wonderful!  and i hope scott doesn't mind, but we'll be practicing every night until this kid comes.  and maybe continue afterwards.  (i like the backrubs.)

thoughts on groceries

we sat down a few weeks ago and set a budget for life with a baby - goodbye, dink-hood.  (i'm taking maternity leave in order to not burn the bridge of my awesome job before we need to, juuuust in case something happens to scott's job, but we're planning that i'll stay on at home as a full time homemaker.)  since we have two more full months before i start maternity leave and matson joins us, we decided to start enacting our baby budget now.  it's honestly not too terribly different than our current budget, mostly things like smaller allowances, vacation budget, and monthly entertainment budget.  in discussing how much we want to alot for grocery in the future, though, it came up that one of scott's biggest pet peeves of late is how much food we waste, most of it either leftovers or uneaten vegetables going bad in the fridge.

the frugal girl is one of the few blogs that i subscribe to and actually read faithfully, and not going to lie, i more or less want to be her when i grow up.  as it relates to the situation at hand, though, two of the big things in her blog are eliminating food waste and keeping a food budget of $100/week ... for her family of 6!  and they actually eat real, healthy foods, without the crazy couponing.  compare this with a grocery budget of about $80/week for just me and scott - and all of my food from 8am-5pm is provided by my company: breakfast, lunch, and snacks.  when i start maternity leave, we'll suddenly be responsible for that other 2/3 of my daily food consumption, not to mention that i won't be bringing home lunch leftovers for scott like i do now.  fg, by the way, homeschools her kids and packs lunches for her husband, so that $100/week provides all food for the six of them for every meal of the day, seven days a week.  as far as food waste elimination goes, in trying to cut down on food waste both as an environmental and a financial concern, she posts a photo every friday of the food that went bad as a motivation to herself to do better the next week.

anyway, i've been reading about her grocery budget amd food waste stuff for a while thinking that was awesome for her, but not thinking there was much application for my busy life.  with our life already entering a transitional phase, though, i decided that we have a perfect opportunity to make some changes with the way we do groceries.  since we'll be adding a lot of extra food for me to the budget, i don't necessarily want to try to trim our overall monthly grocery budget at this point, but i do want to try to keep it more or less the same as it is now.  so, rather than $80/week feeding scott breakfast and lunch and both of us dinner, i'd like it to provide three meals a day for both of us.  (yes, clearly we'll need to start figuring in food for mats by the fall, but i'll cross that bridge when we get there.)

how are we going to accomplish this alongside lowering our entertainment budget (thus limiting our eating out)?  very good question.  thus far, i have a five part plan:

1. get back in the habit of planning meals.  if i look at the calendar and have a mental expectation of what we'll be having for dinner, i find it a lot easier to muster up motivation at the end of the day to cook it, which drastically lowers the likelihood that i'll say, "screw it, we're getting taco bell."  plus, if i have meals planned out, i can be more efficient with my grocery shopping - looking for sale items or coupons, and only buying produce that we'll actually need, rather than just seeing that bell peppers are on sale, buying a bunch, and then forgetting to use them before they mold.
2. plan simpler meals.  i do love to cook, but i think i get too overambitious in my menu planning sometimes, and after a long day at work end up nixing complicated recipes for something easy to put together or doing take out, which often leads to wasted produce and a boosted grocery/entertainment budget.  (i get the impression i probably won't have too much more motivation or energy for a while with a new baby!)  fg, on the other hand, has lots of simple meals on her calendar.  like one night this upcoming week is asian meatballs, brown rice, and grapefruit halves.  nice and easy!
3. find frugal meal ideas.  my friend lianna is hands down the most intensely frugal person i know - a few years ago, in order to aggressively pay down debt, she and her husband eliminated eating out from their budget for a full year!  i asked if she had any advice on cutting our grocery budget, and she recommended the $5 dinner mom cookbook.  the $5 dinner mom also has a website with a bunch of recipes posted.  i normally am not much of a cookbook purchaser, but i got duplicates of a book at christmas, so when i return the unneeded extra copy, i'm planning to use my credit to get this book instead.  (last night's baked ziti, salad, garlic rolls, and blueberry apple coffeecake was inspired by this goal, by the way.  the plan to host small group sunday night came together on saturday afternoon, and i made it my goal to have dinner for six using only ingredients we already had on hand, with no extra grocery store runs.  i succeeded!)
4. use cash envelopes.  we took dave ramsey's financial peace university class probably about five years ago (one of the best decisions we've made, both for our finances and for our marriage), and he's a strong proponent of using cash envelopes to track your spending.  we did that system for a year or two, but then got back into just using our debit cards for everything.  we were all over the board with monthly grocery spending last year, but in the end hit a $350/month average for groceries, which was our budgeted amount.  entertainment, though ... i think we ended the year with a monthly average of spending that was about 27% higher than we'd budgeted.  ($190/mo avg instead of $150/mo.)  whoops.  since we will be cutting our entertainment budget and are effectively cutting grocery without really cutting it, i think being limited to the cash in an envelope will be helpful for us.
5. eat our leftovers.  currently, this end of eliminating food waste falls primarily on scott since he's the one who eats lunches provided by us every day.  once i'm home, though, i think it'll be a lot easier to monitor the status of leftovers in the fridge and make sure that we're eating stuff before it goes bad - and to make sure scott actually remembers to bring leftovers for his lunch.

so there you have it, my five part plan to keep my grocery budget the same!  i think i need a more exciting thought life.