thundering silence

We're in the money!

Well the condo went to settlement today. By tomorrow afternoon our bank account should have a HUGE amount of money in it. And for the first time in my life I'm SUPER excited about paying bills because we are going to be able to pay off every dime of credit card debt. To be debt free, except for student loans and the car payment, is going to be AMAZING.

We're going to be able to put a chunk of money towards a college fund for Dylan, invest a chunk for a house at some point, and finally buy a bedroom set. We'll no longer be sleeping on our mattress and  box spring on the floor. I don't think we'll ever have this much money again so I'm a little nervous about screwing it up. Michael and I are not very good about money management so we have to be VERY careful and attentive with this.  We are FINALLY going to be able to put ourselves on a budget and without having to pay $500 a month in credit card bills we'll have a LOT more breathing room after we pay bills each month.

Oh it's going to be so much easier financially from here on out. And once I finish the taxes we should be sitting pretty as well. We are getting a big deduction plus a one time credit for Dylan. YAY for babies!

Now if Michael's job from hell would just settle out life would be good. He launches tonight. After four months of never being home and working 80 plus hours a week, he'll hopefully be getting back to a normal schedule. I know I could really use the help at night. I've just been feeling totally fed up with being a single parent. It's been hard on Michael too as he works so many hours we never see him except on the weekends when he usually also has to work and is so tired that he doesn't have energy for anything else. Then I usually feel guilty about asking him for help with Dylan. It's just been super hard and I've been really angry about it in the last two weeks. 

The other thing is that my brother in law is living with us and that's been hard for me too. I am not a good roommate and I don't like to share. Especially in a small, cramped apartment. Plus I feel like he's loud. It seems like every time I get Dylan to sleep, he comes home and makes noise and BAM baby is awake. What sucks is that this is not going to change because wherever we move next he is coming with us. Ugh.

Oh well. You can't have everything.

Five months

Oh my little love bug,

You are such a joy! I can't believe five months has just flown by. You're growing so big and strong. Daddy calls you his little bulldozer.

We've had an eventfull month. I got sick not once but TWICE. First with a stomach virus, sickest I've ever been with one, and next, two weeks later, with a cold. You were a trooper! Only had a touch of the stomach bug and so far, FINGERS CROSSED, you've been cold free. Although you could still get it in a day or two. I pray you skip it this time around.

You still don't really roll over but you are learning to sit up really well. You sit supported just fine.

You LOVE your bjorn still and prefer to ride around during the day while I'm doing the dishes and whatnot. I've even gotten used to your weight.

Speaking of weight... this month I've almost gotten back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Only 8 more pounds to go. I'm wearing my old skinny jeans too! I credit carrying you around all the time as my weight loss workout!

Cathy, Patrick, you and I went to a baby sign language class recently and now we are signing with you as much as possible. Even though it will be another five or six months before you start signing back, it's going to be worth it. And it's fun! All the other babies in the play group are learning too so that all the mommies and babies will be able to communicate before you have words to use.

You decided mid-way through the month that you were no longer going to sleep more than two hours between feedings at night again. After about a week of hardly any sleep and lots of trial and error on ways to deal with it, your father and I finally decided it was time for you to start solids. We hoped that maybe this might give you a few more hours at night between feedings. Seems like it has. You started with rice cereal which you like okay but it isn't your favorite. Bananas seemed to make you spit up a lot. But sweet potatoes... those are HEAVEN for you. You holler at me if I don't keep them coming at you fast enough. You can't get enough of the taste.

Feeding you solids is so much fun. I've ordered the equipment I need and as soon as it arrives I'll be making all your food for you. I'm hoping that your well balanced and totally organic diet will help my diet to become the same. You'll be teaching me by example!

Your father is still working mega hours and hardly gets to see us at all. But this is all going to get better by the end of this week hopefully! We miss daddy!

Finally, we are going to settlement on our condo tomorrow and that means that we can finally do some things for you we've been wanting to do for a while, like getting you a savings account and a college fund started. Time flies little man and before you know it, you'll be using that money.

The coming months are going to mean travel to Florida to see Grandma and Poppa and to DC to see Nona get married. You'll also get a chance to play in the snow when we visit Tahoe in a week or two.

Before we know it you'll be sitting alone and contemplating crawling! I just can't even imagine!

LOVE YOU BABY!

Mommie

Oh Sweet Potatoes...

sweet potatoes 001, originally uploaded by mmarano.

You are so yummy!

Star babies

Star babies 004, originally uploaded by mmarano.

I swear...

Purissima take two 052, originally uploaded by mmarano.

if you get that thing anywhere NEAR my mouth I'm gonna eat it!

I WON'T SLEEP, I WON'T!

Why has my previously great sleeper suddenly started getting up every two hours to eat again all night long? I'm exhausted and it's only been a couple of nights like this. He's really cranky during the day again too and he eats non-stop. Could be another growth spurt I guess. But DUDE the kid is five months old and 19 pounds. How much bigger can he get???

We've decided to try a new bedtime tactic. Up to this point I've been nursing him to sleep everynight which has been nice for both he and I. But now I think that he can't get himself to sleep without nursing anymore. So the new tactic is that I feed him. We play with him for a little while, except he's usually really grumpy, doing that "Now I'm mad. Now I'm not. Now I'm mad. Now I'm not.", thing, and then Michael rocks him to sleep.

This works but with lots of screaming, something the nursing eliminated all together. So I sit out in the living room and try with all I have not to run in there and nurse him to calm him down.

On top of that, he doesn't sleep a six hour stretch after this so I feel like I'm waiting on pins and needles for him to wake up screaming and want to eat. I feel like we've returned to the early days when I had to rush myself to bed as soon as he went down because I never knew when he was going to wake up.

I told myself this morning that tonight I would try to calm him down without nursing him after his second night waking if it's only been two hours since he last ate. However, when it's the middle of the night and you are exhausted and you know that the option is nurse him and he won't scream, or try something else and he'll probably scream for a while, it's really hard not to go for option one.

I know that it usually never works, but I think I'm going to go on and introduce rice cereal so that maybe he'll not wake from hunger. I just don't think it's hunger that's waking him though. I think that since he is is starting to work on rolling over and is getting better and better at sitting, he's waking at night because of these developmental milestones.

Maybe I just read too much and this is just another phase that will pass right when I think I can't take it anymore.

Then again, maybe I won't get a full night sleep again until he's 18.

Idiosyncracies and other stuff

1) Once body hair leaves the body, mine or anyone else's, it totally disgusts me. This makes living in a house with one bathroom and two hairy men a real challenge for me.

2) I HATE to be breathed on, even if it's unintentional. Breath smells from the nose are just as disgusting to me as from the mouth. At night I build a little barrier with my pillow to block Michael's breathing on me. The only human alive who's breath doesn't bother me at all is Dylan and he doesn't have teeth yet or eat any solid foods. We'll see how that goes right?

3) Even though I'm not currently practicing much, I consider myself Buddhist.

4) I was an archaeologist for 10 years and worked in the Southeast US and Belize, Central America.

5) After three horribly abusive relationships in my life I ended up with an amazingly gentle, kind, caring and loving man.

6) I have had a recurring dream my whole life about tidal waves. I found out a few years ago that my mother and sister also have the same dreams.

7) I've experienced five tornadoes in my life and I'm totally terrified of them.

8) I'm a recovering arachnophobe.

9) I hate the smell of cut grass.

10) I hate onions and only started eating tomatoes a few years ago.

I've been to the depths of H.E.L.L

and SURVIVED.

This week SUUUCCKKKED.

It started Monday morning at 11 am when I thought my stomach felt odd. I spent the next 36 hours thinking I was going to die. Hello Mr. Rota virus. Would you like to come in? You can make yourself at home and feel free to get rid of all that pesky body fluid. Oh, also feel free to continuously try to catapult my stomach out through my nose. And while you are at it, make my kidneys throb and raise my body temperature real high. Cool. Thanks.

I spent my time in hell alternating between lying in bed praying for death and lying on the bathroom floor praying for death. The bathroom floor location is ironic considering the bathroom floor is the one thing I complain most about. The hair and cat litter always grosses me out. I sweep it three times a day and I still won't go in there without slippers on. But there I was, cheek to the floor, staring at random pubic hairs and feeling the scattered cat litter under my legs. AND I DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT.

It's Saturday night and I'm FINALLY able to eat a full meal again.

Thank GOD for Michael who came home from work to care for Dylan because I was completely incapacitated. I've never been so sick from a stomach virus in my life. I rarely ever get them. I think the last one I had was back in my senior year in college, 1992.

Michael had it rough too because little D refuses, by screaming his head off, the bottle so Michael had to deal with a VERY cranky and VERY hungry little baby for about 12 hours. I did feed him on and off when I could tolerate it. Although unfortunately for Dylan, twice I had to unlatch him to run for the bathroom. IT SUCKED.

After I entered recovery my biggest fear was Dylan getting it. I thought that if I'd been that ill, it would be really dangerous for a four and a half month old to get it. Turns out that breastfeeding him through my illness was the best thing I could have done. On Thursday morning both he and Michael came down with it. Michael got really sick just like me, but Dylan just had a mild case of diarrhea and was a little cranky and slept more. I kept worrying for days, thinking that at any time he was going to start vomiting and get really sick. But I finally settled down tonight when I read an article about breastfeeding through maternal illness.

Typically we are infectious before we even know we are sick. So babies are already exposed to the illnesses we are trying to protect them from. Breastmilk, in addition to being really good for their intestines, has our antibodies in it and most often prevents them from getting sick at all. If they do get sick it's usually much milder than what mom got.

So now I'm hoping that Blair doesn't get it. Blair by the way is my brother-in-law who moved in with us in January. I know I've been lax in posting. I think he probably feels like the last man standing.

I came down with it Monday morning and Michael and Dylan got it on Thursday morning, that's three days later so if Blair gets through tomorrow without it, then he's probably escaped.

I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom today. I hate the feeling that the house is a big germ factory. I know three of us are immune now but after being so sick the house feels like an icky place to be.

The one bright spot this week was that we now have a contract on the condo. If all goes well and there are no problems, we will close on the 28th of this month which is AWESOME because we won't have to figure out where to get $1000 to pay the mortgage for March. AND we can pay off all our debt too. I'm trying not to be too hopeful because nothing is ever certain until the sale is closed. But we'll see.

Okay I'm taking my ravaged body to bed. Oh and Mr. Rota virus, Don't ever come back.