Dude

I just got full-out pooped on.

If you liked Harry Potter

There is a bitingly witty series called "The Dresden Files" by Jim Butcher you should check out (also a highly-watchable TV series on the SCIFI channel). It's Harry Potter for grown ups ... on crack. I've ripped through the first 8 in about 3 months. They're a quick read, and I usually end up laughing out loud at least 3 or 4 times.

Potter Finale

I bought the final Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows on Saturday at 4 pm. I had it finished yesterday by 2 pm. Say what you want about Rowlings, she has a knack for creating highly readable, engrossing prose. The final book was a great read. I won't go into detail for those who haven't finished it yet, but I was very satisfied with the ending. I'm looking forward to seeing the Order of the Phenoix when it comes out on DVD (since our little one keeps us from the theater). All in all, it's been fun to be part of the Harry phenomenon. Hopefully our kids will have something similar when they get older.

Not everyone likes to eat

This pretty well sums up our experience with eating rice cereal over the past few days. He's not a big fan. I have to assume it'll get better.

The cutest

I was downstairs working out last weekend. When I came upstairs this is the site that greeted me. How cute are they? I am so blessed.

4 Months

Tucker was 4 months old on Friday. At his checkup Monday he weighed 14 pounds, 6.5 ounces. He was 25 inches long. That made him just above the 50th percentile in height and just below the 50th in weight. Yeah! He's caught up! Doc also said that he was right on track developmentally.

We also get to start some cereal with him. I'll post some pictures of that pretty soon. It wasn't pretty.

A giggle

Your baby's giggle has got to be one of the most beautiful sounds on the planet earth. Tucker giggled for the first time on Tuesday night. He's been making noises and cooing for quite a while, but this was the first honest-to-goodness giggle we've gotten out of him. Apparently blowing raspberries on your belly is pretty funny. It makes all the crying seem insignificant. I can't believe how blessed we are.

Just cause

He's just so darn cute. I can't stand it.

Mulch Mania

Ryan bought 4 yards of mulch and spent the better part of two days mulching our little property. It looks great ... and damn 4 yards is a lot of mulch. It was a pile about 4 feet tall and at least that far across. It's a huge difference from what our yard used to look like. Remember this?

Just so I don't get cocky ...

Tucker is finally napping in his crib for 1.5 hours or so. It was a long couple of weeks, but the consistency seems to be agreeing with him. He is generally much better rested and happier in the evenings (which makes Ry very happy, since that's his primary Tucker time). Bedtime is pretty consistent at 8 pm, which nice cause we get some couple time. I was feeling pretty good about my parenting skills, but Tucker likes to keep me on my toes. Last night, he woke up at 11:20 and 11:40 and 3 am and 5:30 am and 6:00 am. The first two times were gas and I just had to pat him back asleep (by the way, if any of you decide to have kids, The Baby Whisperer is a must read). He ate at 3 and then wanted to get in bed with us at 5:30. In addition to him being up a lot, I couldn't sleep after he woke at 11:20 until 1:30 am. I got a grand total of 4.5 hours of sleep last night. It's like he was 3 weeks old again. There's a good chance I'm going to be out when Tucker is tonight.

Baby Power

On Wednesday, Tucker was 3 months old. He weighs approximately 12.5 pounds. We think he's going to be right handed. This is his beat stuff hand. Currently, he's pounding on his barnyard friends and occasionally his football.

Passed out baby

An open letter to US Airways

Dear US Airways Customer Service:

My husband and I recently booked multi-city tickets from Philadelphia to St. Louis and Memphis to Philadelphia on your website. The experience was nothing short of mind-blowing frustration. You see, we had to book our tickets separately since my husband was flying back to Philadelphia several days earlier than I was. We had two browser windows open at the same time so we made sure to get seats next to each other for the outbound flight (shocking I know). My ticket was booked. My husband's ticket purported to be the same price. Little did we know that your website has the same accuracy as the pathological liars we call weathermen. We clicked "purchase" and anxiously awaited our simple transaction to be completed.

Hahahahahahaha. We received an error code that politely requested we try the transaction again in a few minutes. Naively, we did just that. Imagine our surprise when the ticket was $50 more than a "few minutes" before. OK, we thought ... surely the nice people at the reservations desk will understand the situation at hand. My husband called the number listed on your error code and explained what happened. Naturally, the person he spoke with could not help us.

Apparently, the evil computers at US Airways confound the nice people at the reservations desk such that there is no possible way to change a price that the "system" spits out. Stupid "system" anyway. You would think that the "system" should be working for your friendly reservations desk people, not acting like a school yard bully. After speaking to three people at your super reservations department (none of which were the supervisor my husband asked to speak with), we asked to lodge a complaint.

My husband was given a phone number for the "customer relations" department. The "customer relations" department was an answering machine that asked us to call again later. Glad you're saving money on the "customer relations" department. This must be how you can claim low complaint numbers ... people can't actually complain. Undaunted, I clicked through approximately a dozen links on your website to lodge our complaint. I'm sure it will go into the same circular storage as your "customer relations" answering machine.

Please rest assured that you will not be receiving any further complaints from us as we will no longer avail ourselves of your services.

Your very best friends,

Jenn and Ryan

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!