A story about a mattress

Ryan and I decided that it was time to be grown ups and get a queen sized bed. Since craiglist is our friend, we found a rather nice used one for a fraction of the new cost. We went and picked it up with no problems...just strapped it onto the top of the Pathfinder. Then we tried to get it in the bedroom. The mattress went up no problem. The box spring was another story. Even my engineer husband couldn't twist it in enough directions to get it into the bedroom.

So he called another engineer buddy and the discussed what to do. What he decided was to take the 3 wooden braces off the box spring. We got it to flex just enough to get it into the nursery and then into the bedroom. Now Ry just has to put the braces back on. We figured worst case scenario was that we destroyed the box spring and had to buy a platform bed frame or one of the box springs that comes in two. The funny part about this is that there are a ton of queen size box springs on craigslist from people who couldn't fit them up the stairs. Guess they didn't have engineer husbands.

Becoming a mom

Becoming a mom ...

Has given me a new sense of humor. I have laughed more in the past 5 months about poo than in the entirety of the rest of my life.

Becoming a mom ...

Has taught be about patience ... and frustration. Only when your child is crying for the 45th straight minute can you understand how both emotions can co-exist.

Becoming a mom ...

Has taught me about love. I love my husband in knowledge. I can explain all the reasons I love him. I love my son almost without knowledge. All I know about this love is that it fills my heart every time I see or think of him.

Becoming a mom ...

Has given me a mother's heart. Now when I see a child cry or hurt, I want to scoop them up, pet their hair and soothe them. Hearing my own child cry hurts in a place I didn't know existed.

Becoming a mom ...

Helps me to understand my own mother. I now understand why she cried through every school event, why she gets so angry when she feels I've been poorly treated, why she still calls me her baby.

Becoming a mom ...

Has taught me that sometimes doing the right thing for your child means that they might cry and

Becoming a mom ...

Has taught me that listening to those cries still hurts.

Becoming a mom ...

Makes me grateful. Grateful to God for blessing our family with such a tremendous gift. Grateful to my husband for being such a loving man and supporting our family. Grateful to my parents for teaching me right from wrong and how not to be a brat. Grateful that every morning I get to look into the eyes of my son and see trust and love shining from them.

Becoming a mom ...

Is my greatest accomplishment.

We've raised a ham

Tucker was a bit of a crabass all day. Ryan decided to get a picture of him throwing a fit, but as soon as he got out the camera, Tucker did this. I can't believe he's already learned how to turn it off and on at 5 months old! I didn't think I'd have to deal with these kind of temper tantrums until he was much older. Too funny.

Burning up in Memphis

Tucker and I spent 11 sweltering days in Memphis visiting my mom. It was a nice trip, aside from being over 100 degrees every day we were there. I also got a chance to spend time with my Aunt Chrystal, who I haven't really spent much time with since I was 7 or 8. It's been fun getting to know people as an adult that I only knew as a kid. She's fun.

We found a ton of Tucker clothes at garage sales. I ended up with a second piece of luggage to get it all home. I probably bought $300 worth of clothes for $15. Great find!

I was glad to come home. 2 weeks is just a little too long to spend away from home and way too long to spend away from Ryan. Ahh, home.

Ignore Cathy's foot

Isn't this the best family picture? Ryan thought of having us lie on the carpet and get our picture taken from above. This is one for the frames I think.

Ryan family reunion

We spent a weekend in Marion IL visiting with just about all of the Ryan side of the family. Everyone was very excited to meet Tucker. Here is Ryan's Mummu with Tucker. He is their first great grandchild.

It was a really fun weekend. We got to hang out with all of the cousins, who have changed a ton since we last spent much time with them.

Tucker held up really well until we drove for 4 hours down to Memphis. As it turns out, Tucker's bucket limit is about 2 hours. Not a happy baby.

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!