Really amazing

We've been taking pictures of Tucker on the couch to see how much he's changed in an objective way. I recently looked at a picture from early April and compared to last week. It's truly amazing that babies grow so much in their first months of life. He's probably doubled his birth weight at this point. We don't know exactly what he weighs since he doesn't have another Dr. appointment until July. We're thinking about taking him to the do-it-yourself post office and weighing him on the scale there. My guess would be he's about 11 pounds right now. He just keeps getting cuter too!

Who's more stubborn?

I am officially more stubborn than my 11 week old. After a somewhat promising day last week, getting Tucker to nap in his crib has proved extremely difficult. We've kept at it and today he actually took a couple of naps sans arms. Of course he's also been unusually sleepy this afternoon, so I can only hope he's getting used to the crib and this isn't a fluke.

He may look more like Ryan, but he certainly gets his stubborn streak from me.

Notes on a crying baby

I'm reading a book called "The Baby Whisperer" (yeah, I know), and the author seems to have a very no-nonsense, practical approach to dealing with babies. The problem we've been having with Tucker is that he will not nap unless he's being held. The cause of course is that we've had visitors almost non-stop for the first 9 weeks of his little life who wanted to hold him all the time (not that we don't love you). The result is that when they all leave, I have an infant who needs 24/7 attention, leaving me no time for indulgences like, oh, showers.

So anyhow, I don't have the heart for the Ferber, "Cry It Out" method. Instead, she recommends that you pick them up when they're crying, comfort them, and when they're quiet, put them back down. When they start crying again (as they inevitably will) you repeat the scenario until they're confident that a crib is a safe and OK place to nap.

Since Ryan is out of town for the next 3 days, I thought it would be an ideal time to start weaning Tucker from constant holding. It took 45 minutes of crying and up and down this morning, but he took a short nap in his pack-n-play. Then, because he was so tired from not really getting a nap this morning, he went right down for an afternoon nap in his crib (and has been asleep for nearly 2 hours now). The fact that I'm blogging right now is evidence that this woman knows something about babies. Maybe it's common sense, but I sense that mostly it's about persistence and consistency. I had to be willing to listen to him scream at me for 45 minutes and pick him up and put him down many many times this morning because he wanted to be held. Had I given in and just held him for his nap, it would have made the behavior even harder to extinguish, because he would have learned he could outlast me.

I've read a lot that says you can't spoil a less than 3 month old baby, but that is certainly where it begins. He's just doing what I (and my well meaning family) taught him to do ... nap while being held. As I told a couple people this weekend though, babies should be a wonderful part of your life, not dominate your life. Anyhow, it was nice to take a long hot shower, throw in a couple of loads of laundry and eat a meal with both hands. Now I want him to wake up so we can play! :) Guess I'll let him sleep.

Chubby bunny

It's gratifying to me to see Tucker getting chubby and round. Take a look at those chubby little arms. It means that we must be doing something right to be making our skinny little boy a fat baby. He has a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, so we'll get the update then on how much he weighs and how long he is. We considered taking him to the post office and weighing him on the postage scale, but decided that the logistics just wouldn't work out, since we'd have to strip him down to his diaper. Oh well, two more days and we'll have the official poundage.

A week of many babies

Autumn has been visiting since last Tuesday. It has really been wonderful having her around to do girly stuff with. I miss having girlfriends. It's also been a glimpse into our lives in about 14 months. Zachary has really been fun. He's at a great age where everything is a toy and a whole meal is a slice of deli meat and some bread. Fun times are ahead.

I have a thoughtful son already

Today was my first Mother's Day. It was a good one. Tucker got me a massage (with a little help from his Daddy). What a thoughtful son I have! Perhaps the better gift was from Ryan, who gave me 2 extra hours of sleep this morning when he took Tucker downstairs after he was awake from 5:30 - 7 am. What a thoughtful husband I have!

Unemployed

I am officially unemployed. Today I turned in my resignation letter to work. It was really nice to see everyone at my office. My boss was disappointed that I was leaving, but not surprised. It's weird to be without job ... and especially without income. Wish us luck!

Shoes on babies are silly

Tucker has really big feet for his age. The socks he wears are 3-6 months, and these shoes actually fit. His Tantie Cathy just couldn't pass them by.

We had a really nice weekend with Jo, Mike and Cathy. It was beautiful outside all weekend and Tucker went on his longest outing yet.
Diaper Count: 498

Hehe

A week of firsts

Tucker was finally big enough this week to ride in his Baby Bjorn. He also tried a bottle for the first time since he was in the hospital. I have to say that using a breastpump is by far one of the more humiliating experiences I've ever had. Anyway ... he's getting older.

How big is Tucker?

Sooo big! As of his one month appointment on Tuesday, Tucker is 7 pounds, 6 ounces and 21 and a quarter inches long. If you consider that his lowest was 5 pounds, 2 ounces, that's a pretty impressive weight gain.

Joys of Parenthood - Explosive Pooing

I swear I'm not making this up (and why would I?). Those of you who have been around Tucker know that he can be quite noisy when filling his pants. Those of you who have changed baby boys know you need to be careful when changing said pants, as they are loaded.

Nothing prepared me however for the events I'm about to relate. I was changing Tucker in his pack and play (the changing table is the blue in the picture). He had been quite gassy all day, so I was trying to be diligent about keeping him covered up. Apparently I wasn't careful enough, as he pooed so explosively that he hit the baseboard of the bed (again, see the picture for the visual). He also soiled a good portion of the changing table and the carpet below. He also got my jeans. I had no idea that a person could poo a good yard, yard and a half. I started laughing and couldn't stop for at least 20 minutes. I also decided that this was Tucker's subtle way of requesting a bath.

Getting cuter

I swear he gets cuter each day. Yes, I realize I've become one of those people who talk incessantly about their kids, but to be honest, my days are taken up with him, so there's not a lot else to share right now.

Tucker was 5 pounds, 15.5 oz at his last check up (a week ago). He must've seen that as a challenge because he's been eating almost nonstop for the past week. He doesn't go for a weigh in again until the 17th, so I don't know how much he weighs now. I do know that a lot of the clothes that were insanely big on him 3 weeks ago are starting to fit. They really do grow quickly. They should really make disposable clothes, since they only get a few wearings anyway.

Diaper Count: 262

My kind of company

This makes me smile. The best part is that the website is www.buttpaste.com. Apparently, it's good stuff. Maybe Boudreaux's and I should get together to expand their product line. They could get behind some of my products, I'm thinking.

If I owned a baby stuff company ...

It would have a "unique" marketing plan. The first item for sale would be the Baby Box of Crayons, complete with "Angry Baby Red", "Merconium Green" (if you don't know, don't ask), "Poo Yellow", "Baby Eye Blue", "Jaundice Yellow", "Spitup White", and "Baby Bottom Pink."

Diapers would be marketed as "Doo Rags" and instead of coming in Regular, Jumbo and Mega sizes, they would be packed in Little Squirt, Streams of Poo and Sh*t Storm sizes.

More to come ... crying hungry baby.

Diaper Count: 207.

Tucker found his thumb

This had to be the cutest thing ever. Tucker is starting to be alert for a lot more of his day. He found his thumb a few days ago.

Diaper Count

Current diaper count: 158

Our little burrito

He looks like a little russian man ... or a burrito.

Baby looks good on him

Ryan has been glowing for 4 days. He's going to be a terrific Dad.

New Mommy and Baby

They let us take him home!

Here's Tucker ready to come home from the hospital. I kept thinking they'd come running and tell us that they weren't actually going to let us take him home or I would wake up from this crazy dream that he came early. Even though he was over 3 weeks early, he's perfect. Aside from a bit of trouble keeping his body temperature in the first 48 hours, he had no problems.

Tucker comes early

Early Tuesday morning, my water broke, and at 8:58 pm, Tucker Franklin Thomas arrived. He was 3 and half weeks early, weighed in at 5 pounds, 13 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. He's the cutest baby on the planet, don't you agree? I'll post a few of our favorite shots, but I'm sure we'll also be sending periodic email updates.

Watching the kids play

I realize I may have been a little sneaky when I told Ryan "they do better in pairs" when we got the cats. That being said, we get some of the greatest joy from playing with them and watching them beat each other up. I completely understand the studies that show that people with animals are happier and live longer lives. It's just hard to be in a bad mood watching the animals jump, beat and bite on each other. Watching them run into the wall chasing a laser pointer is pretty funny too. I'm glad they have each other for company since we're gone most of the day.

Chief really likes the baby. He's almost always on Ryan's lap if we're both home, but for the past 3 weeks or so, he really likes to lay on or near my belly. It should be interesting to see what happens after the baby is born.

Swollen

I'm officially huge. At this point, everything is swollen. The nurse at my doctor's office even pointed out to me that my ankles are swollen (which was very nice of her, I might add). I'll definitely take this stage of pregnancy over the 5 months of puking I did, but dude, I'm ready to have my body back. Next week, I am officially considered a "full term" pregnancy.

I've been bumping into people with my belly, since I'm apparently still not aware of the extra padding I'm carrying around. They feel bad and I feel silly.

Friday is also my last day of work. I have a lot to get finished up, but I am really excited to spend some time at home, getting the nursery ready and catching up on sleep (since I'll be quite sleep deprived for a while afterwards). The nurse also told me I need to spend more time laying down with my feet up (that swelling thing again), so not working will help with that. Hooray for maternity leave!

Fanya Kaplan

My soon to be brother-in-law Brad is an aspiring (and talented) filmmaker. His short film, Fanya Kaplan just won the Best Picture award for Georgia for Campus Movie Fest. My sister is the star of the film, and learned how to speak Russian phonetically for the movie. Take a look here: Fanya Kaplan

RIP little car

Last Tuesday, I got a call on my way into work from Ryan. We had an ice storm a few days before and he was heading down a hill about 3 blocks from our house when the car started skidding. Apparently, it did a 180, hit the guard rail and did another 180, leaving most of the passenger side of the car mashed up. He's OK. He's also very very sad. The car is 13 years old, and the collision center stopped adding up the damage when it reached $4288.

When I arrived onsite, I saw Ryan picking up pieces of the car from the road. Sad. The damage looks mostly superficial, but when he started to drive away, I saw green liquid (which turns out to be normal in a car) gushing from the underside and black plastic (which turns out to be a fan) falling under the car. We don't really know how much the damage was, since our insurance company considered it a complete loss.

It's one of those situations where no matter what the insurance offers you for the car, it's not enough to replace it. It was a great little car. We knew it had been well taken car of and Ryan loved that car. Sorry little car, you were well loved.

As clean as it'll ever be ...

Here are a few completely finished shots of the nursery. How cute is it? I'm starting to feel quite oppressed by all the stuff we have. I kind of like looking at the nursery now because it's so empty and clean. Soon it's going to be filled with all the stuff that's currently taken over our master bedroom. Makes you wonder how people made do with a baby sling to cart the little buggers around.

As big as a minivan

I don't know how many of you watch Studio 60, but you should it's a clever show. Anyhow, one of the main characters is pregnant and was described as "As big as a minivan." That, my dear friends, is how big I feel right now. I've gone from cute pregnant to oh my goodness pregnant in a few short weeks. According to my handy dandy pregnancy book, I'm going to continue to get bigger for the next 2-3 weeks, when my size will stabilize. Then, the baby will just have less room in his little hacienda until he's so cramped he can barely move.

A few more

I'll add some more pictures once we've got the decorating done. That'll probably be once I go on maternity leave. 3 weeks left ... scary!

A few misc pictures

Floor before and after

Nursery Fest

Nursery project: nearly complete. This time our agenda was a little less intense than with the Patio Fest and there were no OSHA recordable accidents. Well, Ryan had a splinter, but I don't think that counts somehow. I'm posting a few shots of the evolution of the nursery. I have to say, it went from a weird, non-used room to perhaps my favorite room in the house. It really makes me want to put hard wood in the rest of the house. Guess we'll have to wait until we win the lottery for that one! Thanks lots Dad and Laurel!

Much love to you Peewee

Our newest penguin

So just after we arrived home from Champbana, we came home from work to find this little guy on our lawn. As-yet unnamed penguin sparkles and lights up at night. We racked our brains trying to figure out who would've left us a penguin (and who out here knew the story of Peewee the traveling penguin). We even called people back home to find out if Chris and Wendy had been passing through New York.

The mystery was solved when our friend Sean came over to help us move our old couch and chair into the basement. We told them the Peewee story well over a year ago. While we were away Sean said they looked high and low for one of the giant, inflatable penguins (know how much we love inflatable lawn art) and finally found this little guy. I really like him. I think he's going to become part of our yearly Christmas display.

Nursery Project

Another lesson in "what were they thinking?" We are turning our second upstairs bedroom into the nursery. We found out that all the beadboard, trim and molding is some kind of weird compressed cardboard product. After tearing it all down, it became very clear to us that putting up wainscotting is our only option. Trying to re-drywall and all that is just too much effort for too little reward. The room should be very cute when we're all finished. Dad and Laurel are coming out to help next weekend. This time we're taking a day to go into New York and won't spend the entire time they're here working.

More and more pregnant

I was just looking through pictures from Christmas time and realized how much more baby there is now. This picture was taken last weekend ... and I still have 8 weeks to go!

Trying on clothes

I tried to find an outfit to wear over the Christmas holiday to church and any other dress up gatherings. This is not an easy task since there are about 3 places to shop for maternity clothes in our town, all of which apparently think that pregnant women don't need to get dressed up (unless dressed up means a big shirt with stretchy black pants ... why is it even remotely OK to wear stretch pants when your middle is twice as big as the rest of you?). After trying on every dress in the aforementioned stores, I finally found one that's as cute as it's going to get. As if going clothing shopping wasn't depressing enough ...

On the upside, we are finished with Christmas shopping aside from 2 people! It's a nice feeling considering that I'm going to Toronto Sunday through Wednesday this week (yep, a meeting the week before Christmas). It should make the week fly by though and we're leaving to go to Champaign on Friday!!!! I'm really looking forward to 10 days with family and friends.

A great way to waste time

We got the Wii on Thursday. It is the most fun I've had outside a video arcade in years. You get to create a Mii that looks like you (or not) to play the sports game. Ryan got a kick out of watching his 6 month pregnant wife kick the crap out of a grizzled dude on the boxing game. You actually have to stand up and use the remotes like boxing gloves. We're gonna bring the Wii when we come home at Christmas time. I think it will provide some entertaining stories for years to come.

We also got a game about Rabbids (yes, correctly spelled) in which you throw cows, shoot plungers and race warthogs, to name a few activities. So far it consumed our last evening (after we got home from Christmas shopping at 8 pm) and all of this morning. Ryan ran out to mail a package, and I got stuck on a level, thus the blogging. I'll get some pictures up of us playing the sports game. Absolutely ridiculous.

Ryan wins a Wii!

Ry buys computer stuff from newegg.com from time to time. Apparently, he entered an online sweepstakes a while ago for free Wiis. Yesterday he was notified that he won one! Christmas is coming early to the Thomas family. Unreal.

Finally

I'm excited to finally be looking pregnant instead of looking like I spent too long in the buffet line. I'm also excited to be feeling good again. Aside from the occasional kicks in the kidneys, it's kind of fun being pregnant. I think he's gonna run us ragged. At least we've still got a few more months. How scary is it that we're going to be parents?

The (unsuccessful) Wii hunters

All Ryan really wants for Christmas (well, the thing he wants most for Christmas) is a Nintendo Wii. As most of you probably know, this little gem is nearly impossible to come by right now. Nintendo has come up with a brilliant marketing strategy that hinges on sending only enough to stores to keep people lining up each Sunday to wait for the stores to open.

And so, on Sunday morning, I found myself outside Target at 7:50 (10 minutes before they opened) waiting for a Wii. Target had given all theirs out already, so off we trouped to Circuit City, which didn't open until 10 am. There, we thought our luck changed, as we were 5th in line. Alas, the manager came outside around 9 am to tell the unfortunates in line that he had given out the 15 vouchers in his possession at 7:30 that morning. Apparently, the serious die-hards had camped out the night before.

While I can't say that I understand this behavior, I have to admit it was kind of fun to talk with the people in line. It was like an experiment in psychology. What makes people stand outside in 40 degree weather and wait for a game system? In some cases (like ours) it's just a "what the heck" attitude for a much-anticipated toy. In others, it is the parents of kids who "only want a Wii" for Christmas. I'm sure there will be many tears on Christmas morn without that white box. And then there are the die-hard fans. These folks wait outside overnight (sometimes multiple nights) for the elusive Wii. I don't know what's wrong with these people. I look at them with the same befuddlement as the people who dress as Klingons before the Star Trek conventions. I've also never been one to freak out about celebrities or wait in lines for concerts. Hey, I guess everyone needs a hobby.

A Moral VIctory?

Yesterday we once again watched the Illini football team lose a close football game. The commentators kept saying this was a "moral victory" for the Illini to come so close to Ohio State. Anyone watching the game would agree that the defense played an outstanding second quarter. If the offense had showed up a little earlier, we could've won that game. At least next year we'll have the record to support the quality of the team.

Ok, but seriously ...

How cute is he?

Elf Likes to Help

Ryan put up a banister on the top part of our stairs. Elf wanted to help. It seems he has an unhealthy fascination with the tape measure. I spent most of the time cat wrangling while Ryan got the banister up. It's a good thing the cats are cute, cause they're a pain in the rear most of the time.

Lazy Saturdays

I really love weekends, especially since I'm so exhausted by the time Friday night comes. I was trying desperately to stay awake last night and still fell asleep at 8:30. This means that we wake up at 7:30 in the morning and have all day to enjoy on Saturday. The Illinois-Ohio State game is at 3 pm. That's the only thing in our agenda for the day.

Expecting

I guess most of you know by now that Ryan and I are expecting our first child at the end of March or beginning of April! I apologize for the severe lack of posting over the last weeks. It felt weird to post about stuff going on in my life when I wasn't posting about the biggest new part of my life. Plus I felt like so much crap so blogging wasn't high on my list of priorities. I'm finally feeling better, thus I should be blogging again now.

The Fam and a big pig

Just cause it's fun.

Like walking into Willy Wonka's Factory

Butchart Gardens is the most unbelievable place. The only thing I could compare it to is the kids walking into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Truly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

House boat dog

Nothing special about him, aside from that tongue.

The coolest boats ever

I have never seen house boats like these. They are literally houses that float. There are about 3 docks full of house boats. I wouldn't like living there because it's such a tourist attration. People are constantly walking by and peering in windows.

A great time in BC

This is a (much delayed) post on our vacation to visit Ry's mom in British Columbia. All I have to say is that it's really beautiful there. It seemed like everywhere we stopped was a picture spot. These are the Olympic mountains as seen from the coast of Vancouver Island.