Weekend Cuteness: New Dipe Cover

, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

We're entering Finn into America's Next Top Baby Model. Here he is in another Top Model pose. Can't you see that he's smiling with his eyes??????

We have a busy, busy weekend. BFF KK is getting MARRIED to her BF in a week and M. and I are taking them out for brunch tomorrow morning. Then we go to a baby shower. Then DtD's bf is coming over to hang with the mamas and the boy.

We've gone wool for covers. We decided to do a trial run so now we are the proud owners of three new Sugarpeas wool covers - one aqua, one charcole and one red. So soft and pretty. Finn promptly blew this one out in what I have termed a Double Gurgle Poo. It was EVERYWHERE. Oh well.

This is crazy but I have ONE more weekend I'm not working until Christmas. We need to focus on presents, no matter how meager they are this year. And our familiy holiday photo. And, and, and...

Happy weekend all!

Nightmare Nights

Finn was a good sleeper for a month. Then he wasn't, but it's usually not a big deal because we get him out of the crib and bring him into the bed, sidelie nurse, and it's all nice and snuggly.

The one constant about babies is change.

The last couple nights have been rough. Made rougher by the fact that I'm still sick and can't shake this bug if I can't sleep. Finn has been going down as usual. Then we wakes up in a couple hours, as usual. Then 3 am hits and all hell breaks loose. He wakes up crying, digging his head into the bed, unable to settle. Then the crying turns into red faced, scrunched up wailing. He pinches us, screams, digs at us with his feet. Teething tablets, teething drops then finally Motrin are used. Sometimes that works. Then last night he was restless despite our efforts. At one point he finally fell asleep kneeling next to me in the bed with his head resting on my belly, only to wake again 30 minutes later. We didn't get him back down until 7:00 and then he woke for the day at 7:48.

Wahhhhhh.

Thoughts of Baby Cabo are returning. Surely Finn needs a nice little vacation to a warm sunny spot WITHOUT us. It's certainly better than M.'s suggestion of putting a baby gate on the porch and leaving him there overnight.

The top two teeth are officially fucking mother fuckers. We hate them.

Not looking for solutions here. Just need to whine a bit. I know he'll get through this, and so will we, and we'll get back to our "blissful" nights of feeding every 3-4 hours. But I have to go back to work tomorrow and I need to feel better because I'm depleting my sick time.

What is THAT?????? and can I have some more, NOW!!!!

...is what Finn says to pho. He was climbing up me to get another taste.

Another Benie of Being Sick...

It's easy to entertain your baby just by talking.

My voice is shot and has long passed Kathleen Turner territory. I sound like some sort of strange honking and wheezing goose that could probably be found in a Dr. Seuss story.

Other than what seems to be a complete inability to move my secretions, I actually feel mostly good. This is from someone who also thinks she functions perfectly fine on pain killers and "drunk called" people right after her son was born regardless of the fact that she was on about three heavy-duty narcotics and could only speak in hoarse whispers. Our poor DtD got a call from a crazed sobbing woman who could barely squeak "thank you".

New Glasses!

New Glasses, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

I admit it. I love my glasses. Thank goodness I'm blind as a bat, otherwise I'd never know the joy of wearing them. Okay, it's not all that and a bag of chips, but having kick-ass urban chic specs makes it all so much better.

It's time for my next pair. I've had the current pair for almost five years and I still lurve them but I need something new.

M., Finn and I made a trip to my favorite high-end jaw-dropping spec shop, Market Optical (yes, Seattleites, I know Eyes on Fremont has better pricing but I love the service at Market Optical so I keep going back), and picked out three possible pairs. From top to bottom:

1. Futurama. These look almost like I should be flying a spaceship. The side benie is that I can futher my existance as an OUT lesbian by announcing it via the cool lilac accents on my glasses..

2. Orange Crush. Bold and orangy, these go nicely with my hair. The frames are plastic but the arms are bright orange TITANIUM. Sizzle!

3. Eyes of Titanium. Super light and strong titanium frames in a bronzish brown are spiced up with moss green plastic arms with mod accent roundish squares Devo would be proud of.

Opinions?????? What do you think?????? Click on the pic for a bigger view.

Up in the middle of the night...

Finn and Mama, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

...no better time to blog photos!

Finn and M. at the park. One of my favorite pictures yet.

What he does back there, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Chewing on his fingers in the new car seat! Tasty Finngers.

My best friend, vacuum!, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

He seriously LOVES the vacuum. It's just about the coolest thing ever, and even better if we let him chew on the hose. Which we NEVER do. Even if it does buy mommies five minutes. Never.

never

Little Blue Eyes, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

His eyes just kill me. Dead. Every time. I love my boy.

How to get a Break when You have a Baby...

Get sick!

I'm at home in a totally quiet house at the moment and M. is out with our boy. Ahhhhhh, peace. I'm going to lay in bed and take a needed nap.

I can see your tiny teeth...and a turkey of a Turkey Day

The upper two central incisors have made their appearance. This would explain why Finn has been taking an hour and a half to go to bed the last three nights. We are the House of Motrin. We may have a few more days, but the end is in sight.

Thanksgiving...

We had a pretty horrid Thanksgiving. I won't go into too many details, only will say that it's really sad when you're very first of ANYTHING with your child is ruined. It was made better when we came home and a message from DtD was on the voicemail. He called us from the hinterlands on Thanksgiving. It was nice to hear his voice, even if he did sound tired. We miss him.

We are tired and cranky. It's a common byproduct of parenting.

I LOVE YOU New Car Seat

New Car Seat, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

We made a mad dash on Sunday morning to Babies-R-Hell, installed the seat in the parking lot, and were subsequently late for a baby shower, but it's in.

We love it.

Finn can actually look out the window and it actually entertains him. I love the cover, especially that it's cotton and he's not against all that velour fakey stuff. Our boy is a wee sweat bomb and the cotton will keep him a bit cooler.

Yay new car seat. Goodbye nasty bucket. May you rot in hell. Okay, in the attic until we need you again.

Croup de Loop

Sorry I've been bad about blogging lately. I'm a bit down with the weather change. I'm tired because I'm starting to take on some overtime to keep our little family afloat. I have a cold. It all feels a bit crappy right now. There's the rub.

Anyhoo...

Our beautiful boy has turned into a vomit-spewing, barking little seal with diarrhea. It started last night with the barking cough. Then today after we all went out for breakfast his delish ginger pancake came right back up. The bad thing is that it went ALL OVER the car seat. The good thing...we get our convertible car seat tomorrow so we have to suffer with the nasty, stinky bucket just one more day. After the vomit came the diarrhea. I knew when I heard the gurgle that it was going to be bad. Finn hasn't gurlgled when he poops for months now. It was pretty much on all surfaces of his body except his face.

Finn smiled through all the vomiting and diarrhea and snot and coughing, because he was telling us that he was still therer.

He had a bath. We started the humidifer. He had some boob and didn't vomit. Now he's sleeping and I think I'm going to cancel the appointment at the after hours clinic. We'll just get him through the night and see how he's feeling tomorrow.

The best part...I was instructed by the ER triage nurse on the phone last night that we would HAVE to sleep with him overnight. Oh, the hardship considering that we all sleep together anyway.

Finn's World

Finn's World, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Weekend Cuteness: Look at that Smirk!

Cutie Pie!, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

I am in love with this picture of Finn. He has the sweetest, most mischievious look on his face. M. took it and she has a way of capturing him at just the right moment.

No story! Bedtime. NOW!

When we started putting Finn to bed before I came home from work, M. and I also decided it was time to establish a bedtime routine. After all, children are supposed to thrive on structure and routine, and it's important to have good cues for sleep. Up until that point we'd had a very basic routine that wasn't much more than put on PJs and read a quick story then nurse to sleep.

We decided on this: quiet time and lights down at six; PJs and night diaper on; brush teeth; rock and read up to three stories; nurse to sleep. Simple. Should be somewhat easily achievable.

HA. Ha ha ha ha.

Finn goes to bed regardless of routine. It's turned out that about halfway through the first story he'll decide BED. NOW!!!! We're lucky if we end up with 1.5 stories. Last night it went like this: 6:15 story...BED. NOW!!!! and he was asleep at 6:25. I know routine is important, but I don't know how much routine we really need with a baby who basically puts himself to bed.

Oh, and I have to admit that although I miss putting him to bed when I work, it's nice to come home to a less chaotic house and no rush to put a screaming baby to sleep. He is almost always waking up before I go to bed so I do get to nurse him, and I get treated to my baby boy holding himself up on the crib rail, hyperventilating and bouncing up and down because mommy is home.

He's too much.

Yummy Boob Sound

When the boob is especially good, Finn makes this really funny sound. It's a groan followed by an inspiratory wheeze and so on. It's very cute, somewhat strange and really not fun in the middle of the night when I'm trying my best to sleep and feed at the same time.

We had mac and cheese last night. I made it with brown rice noodles so Finn could have some. I used my favorite Beeches signature and this quite tasty English coastal chedder. I put some in Finn's bowl, watched him grab a noodle, shove it into his mouth, and waited for the reaction...

He sucked on the noodle, smushed it into his mouth with his hands, and then some kind of horrible noise exploded out of his mouth. I looked at M., sure that a noodle had slicked itself over our son's airway, and then I suddenly realized what that sound was...

THE YUMMY BOOB SOUND.

I think I can officially say that Finn might like mac and cheese almost as much as the boob.

Weekend Cuteness: Bad Ass

Hands, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

I love how bad ass Finn looks in this picture. His hat is pulled a bit over his eyes and he's just chillin'. And look at those chubby little fingers.

We ended up taking a three hour walk for his seven month b-day. I walk so much more now that we have a little one. Sometimes just to get out of the house. Sometimes because we're out shopping and it doesn't make sense to load him back into the careseat to go to the other end of the strip mall. So we walk. It's a nice change of pace and we get to explore all the nooks and crannies of our neighborhood.

Happy Seven Months

Harbinger of Toddlerhood, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

I've been feeling really down lately. Just crappy and ugly and unhappy. It sucks because I'm not usually in this crap-ass of a mood. Then my period started this morning and I thought GLORY BE, THAT WAS IT!! Seems the post-partum version of Sacha is even more hormonal than before. Uh, yay.

Anyway...

SEVEN MONTHS. TODAY.

I woke up this morning thinking about the morning my water broke. Then I figured out it was his birthday, so no wonder my mind was wandering back to that fateful morning. It seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago all at the same time.

It's funny because pregnancy and labor felt so significant at the time. Probably because I had the time to sit around and think about things. Now that Finn is very much a presence in our lives...an all-consuming presence, his gestation and arrival seem less significant. I still maintain that a long labor culminating in a c-section does not pale next to the end product. They are different creatures. The whole thing just feel further away and a little less painful. That's nice.

Thank you, seven months.

And how is the boy? Well, FINNtastic, thank you. He's our boy wonder who is currently trying to eat a paper bag. Life with Finn continues to be 100 miles per hour but things are getting so much fun now.

How will we be celebrating the day? I'm making Finn mini pumpkin muffins and it's a beautiful day so we're going to take a walk and enjoy each other's company.