I usually don't subscribe to the concept of spring cleaning, but this year I am participating, because in a few short weeks any notion of free time will be gone. My version of spring cleaning is more like streamlining and reducing clutter before all hell breaks loose with school. So far I have:
- gone through all of my blog subscriptions on G Reader and deleted all but the best
- made sure that I've stocked up on basics like toothpaste and shampoo so that I won't have to worry about deal-hunting for the next year
- in the same vein, tossed all of my coupons and moved to a clip-as-they-arrive strategy, clipping only the ones I will definitely or probably use
- gotten rid of most of Noah's baby stuff so it's not sitting around waiting on me to deal with it
- organized the pantry (3 times, this might be a little bit of overkill)
- started waking up fully at 6 a.m. when Noah wakes up, rather than trying to go back to sleep
- used all of my groupons except for one that I will use next week
- started a pinterest board of freezer meals and started trying out some easy prep-ahead meals
- in the next few days, I will be trying one formula bottle per day with Noah to start getting him used to the idea of both a bottle and formula. I probably am not going to pump to try to cover this because it's a LOT of time and energy to produce just a few ounces, and I don't think I can manage that on top of everything else once school starts. We'll see.
OK, if I'm really being honest, I'm a little antsy and have a lot of nervous energy to burn off. I'm the kind of person that needs a goal in the future to be an anchor- whether it be planning the next vacation, working towards getting into school, moving, whatever. Right now I kind of feel like I'm in between goals. I've achieved the "getting into school" one, but am not yet in the "pass all my classes and get my BSN" one. I feel like I'm at the very top of a roller coaster, holding my breath, waiting for the drop. Here's hoping I don't go insane in the next 7 weeks! But who's counting? :)
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Noah at 7 months
Noah turned 7 months as of last week, so I thought I'd post a little update on him. He just this week started sitting up independently (for the most part, I still have to stay close in case he topples over backwards). on Saturday, he started rocking from side to side on his belly as if he wants to crawl, but he is getting VERY frustrated because all he can do is spin or roll. I try to show him how to get up on his knees but he'll have none of it.
A lot of the frustration comes from his new-found sense of self-determination; he now knows EXACTLY what he wants and he gets so mad when he can't reach it. I know this because he's also very communicative about what he's trying to get. He will fuss until he gets my attention, then look directly at what he wants, and then look back at me as if to say "get that for me! I want it!" I oblige, but I'm trying to hold off a bit because if I just give him everything, he'll never learn how to go get things for himself.
What he wants most in the world, the majority of the time, are Nathan's toys. I can see that this is going to be a problem, so I'm teaching Nathan to pick up his toys that he doesn't want to share, and also to remove everything small from the family room. A couple of times, Nathan has yanked things away from Noah, though luckily didn't hurt him.
Overall though, Nathan still loves Noah dearly. Yesterday he took it a little too far- I walked out of the room for just a moment while Noah was in his bouncy seat, and returned to find Nathan lifting Noah's head. I was so shocked that I yelled at him, which I don't often do. When I got to the bottom of it, Nathan had been lifting Noah because he wanted to snuggle him. Hard to be mad at that. The adoration is mutual, too; Noah loves to just watch Nathan play and often laughs at Nathan's "funny noises" that he loves to make.
One more thing: Noah is still not sleeping through the night. On the better nights, I only have to get up to feed him once, but on other nights he might be up 3 or 4 times. My goal has been to have him sleeping through the nigh by May, which is rapidly approaching, so it's looking more and more like I will have to figure out some sort of strategic plan to systematically work towards this. His number of feedings per day has really dipped, so I'm kind of thinking it's a matter of recalibrating him to eat more during the daytime hours. He has plenty of days where he goes 8 hours without milk, it's just unfortunately during the nighttime.
A lot of the frustration comes from his new-found sense of self-determination; he now knows EXACTLY what he wants and he gets so mad when he can't reach it. I know this because he's also very communicative about what he's trying to get. He will fuss until he gets my attention, then look directly at what he wants, and then look back at me as if to say "get that for me! I want it!" I oblige, but I'm trying to hold off a bit because if I just give him everything, he'll never learn how to go get things for himself.
What he wants most in the world, the majority of the time, are Nathan's toys. I can see that this is going to be a problem, so I'm teaching Nathan to pick up his toys that he doesn't want to share, and also to remove everything small from the family room. A couple of times, Nathan has yanked things away from Noah, though luckily didn't hurt him.
Overall though, Nathan still loves Noah dearly. Yesterday he took it a little too far- I walked out of the room for just a moment while Noah was in his bouncy seat, and returned to find Nathan lifting Noah's head. I was so shocked that I yelled at him, which I don't often do. When I got to the bottom of it, Nathan had been lifting Noah because he wanted to snuggle him. Hard to be mad at that. The adoration is mutual, too; Noah loves to just watch Nathan play and often laughs at Nathan's "funny noises" that he loves to make.
One more thing: Noah is still not sleeping through the night. On the better nights, I only have to get up to feed him once, but on other nights he might be up 3 or 4 times. My goal has been to have him sleeping through the nigh by May, which is rapidly approaching, so it's looking more and more like I will have to figure out some sort of strategic plan to systematically work towards this. His number of feedings per day has really dipped, so I'm kind of thinking it's a matter of recalibrating him to eat more during the daytime hours. He has plenty of days where he goes 8 hours without milk, it's just unfortunately during the nighttime.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Nathanism of the week
At my parents' house this past weekend, after Nathan insisted on wearing his socks outside:
N: my socks are dirty!
Me: Yup, because you wanted to wear them outside. That's the trade-off.
N: No, mommy, that's the consequence.
He had my whole family cracking up :)
N: my socks are dirty!
Me: Yup, because you wanted to wear them outside. That's the trade-off.
N: No, mommy, that's the consequence.
He had my whole family cracking up :)
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Cruise, Part 2
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| view of one of the forts (don't ask which one) from the ship |
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| watching the sail-in |
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| atop the first fort, San Cristobal |
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| in the dungeon |
We walked across the wall which extends along the tip of the island from one fort to the other, and then headed downhill back to the ship.
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| our ship from atop the fort |
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| La Perla, for Stephanie |
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| remembering how to swim |
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| towel animals in the cabana, too! |
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| one of our many diversions |
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| refusing to take his eyes off the "chocolate pirate money" |
Thursday (sea day again): Let me be honest for a moment. At this point in the vacation, I was seriously 50/50 as to whether I'd rather be on land or on a cruise. The boys had been rather "trying" and I was tired. I knew I had signed up for a different vacation that just the two of us going, but we were still at times pulling our hair out. I was getting, quite literally, cabin fever.
Since getting off the ship and going home was not an option, we soldiered on. :)
And were thusly rewarded with another towel animal.
On this night (I think), we actually made it to a restaurant that's on the buffet level, so it's more casual, but still has table service. We had dropped Nathan off at the club. Noah was awake but happy. Until we sat down. He wasn't crying, just fussing, but we were getting LOOKS from people. So back into the stroller he went, as I proceeded to do laps around the buffet for thirty minutes, stopping to whisper to Jason through the partition each time I would pass by: "I think he's about to fall asleep! One more lap and I'll come sit down. Go ahead and order for me." It was so bad that the head of the lido area told me that he'd make a special accommodation and have the food sent to my room if needed. LOL. Noah finally dozed off and we had a hurried meal together.
Friday (Half Moon Cay): HMC is supposedly the highest rated private island of all the cruise lines. We've been to Coco Cay, Castaway Cay, and have seen Great Stirrup Cay from the ship, so we are no stranger to private islands. I have to agree with the experts that this is the nicest island. It's spacious, with tons of infrastructure and a beach that is just breathtaking. It's the kind of beach that sears its beauty on your memory forever. Lucky for us, since it looks like any old regular beach on our crappy camera. Ugh.
We had to tender to the island (for you non-cruisers, this means you take a boat rather than have the ship dock at the pier). I successfully managed to get ashore WITHOUT having a heart attack- for some reason having the boys, especially Noah, on a small boat makes me nervous.
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| The plaza at the entrance |
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| ready for beach day! |
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| great playground on the island |
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| a bar that's in the shape of a shipwrecked boat |
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| the beach- imagine it bluer, clearer, and brighter |
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| going back to the ship on the tender- do I have a death grip on the stroller??? |
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| happy boy |
Cruise
We're back, and I'm here with the post-cruise update!
Friday: We pack up and leave for South Florida. Noah begins to cough, a fake sounding little cough. By the time we arrive in SFL I am debating whether I should take him to a walk-in clinic, but worry that he'll be exposed to even more germs at the clinic. For those who remember, the last time we cruised, Nathan got sick the day before we left, we took him to the doctor the morning we were to board the ship, she cleared him, and then he proceeded to spike a 105.1 fever at 2 a.m. onboard the ship, which resulted in a panicked trip to the ship's medical facilities. So we might be a little paranoid in this area. I called our ped and they recommended taking him in just to have his lungs listened to. My mom found us a walk-in clinic and they determined that he had bronchiolitis, but no way to tell whether it was viral or bacterial. Either way, the PA said that it was mild, prescribed antibiotics just in case it was bacterial, and sent us on our way.
Saturday (boarding day): Noah is coughing more, and I'm seriously questioning whether we should go. He spits up his entire breakfast, which doesn't make me feel any better. Nevertheless, we decide that if the doctor said it was okay, we can go safely.
We arrived at the pier around noon and were able to board pretty quickly. On Holland America, you can go directly to your stateroom, so we went there first to drop off the big box of diapers and wipes, Noah's medicine, toys, etc. I had meticulously researched cabins and had secured one of the largest available, but I was still skeptical of how big it would actually be. As it turned out, the cabin was super roomy, probably over 200 sf, with a sizable bathroom/shower and plenty of room for the pack n play. I was happy.
Next we went upstairs, where under the guise of "checking out the pool," I had a surprise waiting. The ship we were on (Eurodam) has private "cabanas" poolside that can be rented by the week. They include lots of amenities as well as a shady, private, and secure space. I thought that this would be a nice way to have an outdoor space for the boys to lounge so that we weren't stuck in our room as much. I think I succeeded in surprising Jason- he must have been happy, because he immediately took a picture and emailed it to all of his friends :).
We hung out in the cabana until well after sailaway and enjoyed our champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. Unfortunately, by this time it was too late for naps for the boys, so we ended up in the room, ordering room service for dinner. Somehow it got screwed up and we waited nearly two hours, so the first night was basically a wash. Oh well.
Sunday (sea day): Noah was still coughing, but was his usual happy self more or less, so I was happy about that. Honestly I don't remember too much of what we did this day. I think we hung out in the cabana, mostly.
Unfortunately, we couldn't get the boys to nap in there, so we had to take a several hour time out in our room.
We did tag team that so that I got my gym time and Jason had some time to explore. The one particularly memorable thing that happened is that when Jason left the cabana to get some lunch, Nathan had to go pee. Of course, for some reason neither stroller was in the cabana, so I couldn't take him to one of the public restrooms (he needed to be lifted and I couldn't do that and hold Noah at the same time. So we rode the elevator nine flights down to our room with him holding himself, because he thinks that's what I mean when I tell him to "hold your peepee." We got a lot of comments in the elevator (none mean, just amused). That night, we went to the buffet and then explored the ship in search of live music.
Monday (Grand Turk): All of the ports of call during this cruise were new to us, and we were not disappointed. We were greeted in the morning by an unbelievable turquoise sea, sparkling white beaches, clear blue sky, and a cool light breeze. This turned out to be a great port because you can just walk off the pier into an open air shopping plaza that leads right onto the beach. We secured a spot on the beach (they have free lounge chairs out there too) and hung out there for a while.
As J was taking Nathan to the bathroom, he discovered "Margaritaville" just 100 yards or so from where we were. Margaritaville is kind of a resort area minus the hotel part- pool, chairs, shade, swim-up bar, music, etc. All free. So we stayed there for the rest of our time on the island.
We didn't want to keep Noah outside for too long, so we went back onboard for a late lunch/nap. I believe this is the first day we dropped Nathan off at the kids club,just to see if he would like it. He didn't like it. He LOVED it. They did art, went on pirate treasure hunts, ate snacks, and generally just goofed off. I think he might have enjoyed his time there more than his time on the ship with us, which is okay because honestly we needed a little break.
I had been concerned about how Nathan would respond to the lack of structure and our inability to deliver real consequences, and sure enough I was right. He just couldn't quite handle it all, which is totally understandable for a three year old. Even though he is smiling in all of the pictures, I can assure you that there were numerous tantrums and power struggles each day. We didn't eat in the dining room once because we couldn't get him to behave well enough to risk it. Luckily for us, the buffet was fantastic, so we never were underfed, but still, we'd have liked to go the dining room. We did in fact try to go on Grand Turk day, just with Noah after dropping Nathan off at the club. But the only table available was up two stairs in a back corner where we'd barely be able to squeeze the stroller. Neither of us felt comfortable risking a meltdown, so we left and went up to the buffet.
To be continued...
Friday: We pack up and leave for South Florida. Noah begins to cough, a fake sounding little cough. By the time we arrive in SFL I am debating whether I should take him to a walk-in clinic, but worry that he'll be exposed to even more germs at the clinic. For those who remember, the last time we cruised, Nathan got sick the day before we left, we took him to the doctor the morning we were to board the ship, she cleared him, and then he proceeded to spike a 105.1 fever at 2 a.m. onboard the ship, which resulted in a panicked trip to the ship's medical facilities. So we might be a little paranoid in this area. I called our ped and they recommended taking him in just to have his lungs listened to. My mom found us a walk-in clinic and they determined that he had bronchiolitis, but no way to tell whether it was viral or bacterial. Either way, the PA said that it was mild, prescribed antibiotics just in case it was bacterial, and sent us on our way.
Saturday (boarding day): Noah is coughing more, and I'm seriously questioning whether we should go. He spits up his entire breakfast, which doesn't make me feel any better. Nevertheless, we decide that if the doctor said it was okay, we can go safely.
We arrived at the pier around noon and were able to board pretty quickly. On Holland America, you can go directly to your stateroom, so we went there first to drop off the big box of diapers and wipes, Noah's medicine, toys, etc. I had meticulously researched cabins and had secured one of the largest available, but I was still skeptical of how big it would actually be. As it turned out, the cabin was super roomy, probably over 200 sf, with a sizable bathroom/shower and plenty of room for the pack n play. I was happy.
Next we went upstairs, where under the guise of "checking out the pool," I had a surprise waiting. The ship we were on (Eurodam) has private "cabanas" poolside that can be rented by the week. They include lots of amenities as well as a shady, private, and secure space. I thought that this would be a nice way to have an outdoor space for the boys to lounge so that we weren't stuck in our room as much. I think I succeeded in surprising Jason- he must have been happy, because he immediately took a picture and emailed it to all of his friends :).
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| the cabana |
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| The outfit matching the pillows was totally coincidental :) |
We hung out in the cabana until well after sailaway and enjoyed our champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. Unfortunately, by this time it was too late for naps for the boys, so we ended up in the room, ordering room service for dinner. Somehow it got screwed up and we waited nearly two hours, so the first night was basically a wash. Oh well.
Sunday (sea day): Noah was still coughing, but was his usual happy self more or less, so I was happy about that. Honestly I don't remember too much of what we did this day. I think we hung out in the cabana, mostly.
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| sea day |
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| they deliver ice cream to the cabanas |
Unfortunately, we couldn't get the boys to nap in there, so we had to take a several hour time out in our room.
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| naptime |
We did tag team that so that I got my gym time and Jason had some time to explore. The one particularly memorable thing that happened is that when Jason left the cabana to get some lunch, Nathan had to go pee. Of course, for some reason neither stroller was in the cabana, so I couldn't take him to one of the public restrooms (he needed to be lifted and I couldn't do that and hold Noah at the same time. So we rode the elevator nine flights down to our room with him holding himself, because he thinks that's what I mean when I tell him to "hold your peepee." We got a lot of comments in the elevator (none mean, just amused). That night, we went to the buffet and then explored the ship in search of live music.
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| buffet dinner |
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| relaxing |
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| raptly watching a string quartet |
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| what cruise is complete without towel animals?? |
Monday (Grand Turk): All of the ports of call during this cruise were new to us, and we were not disappointed. We were greeted in the morning by an unbelievable turquoise sea, sparkling white beaches, clear blue sky, and a cool light breeze. This turned out to be a great port because you can just walk off the pier into an open air shopping plaza that leads right onto the beach. We secured a spot on the beach (they have free lounge chairs out there too) and hung out there for a while.
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| Jason says I look like a bag lady |
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| classic Noah pose |
As J was taking Nathan to the bathroom, he discovered "Margaritaville" just 100 yards or so from where we were. Margaritaville is kind of a resort area minus the hotel part- pool, chairs, shade, swim-up bar, music, etc. All free. So we stayed there for the rest of our time on the island.
We didn't want to keep Noah outside for too long, so we went back onboard for a late lunch/nap. I believe this is the first day we dropped Nathan off at the kids club,just to see if he would like it. He didn't like it. He LOVED it. They did art, went on pirate treasure hunts, ate snacks, and generally just goofed off. I think he might have enjoyed his time there more than his time on the ship with us, which is okay because honestly we needed a little break.
I had been concerned about how Nathan would respond to the lack of structure and our inability to deliver real consequences, and sure enough I was right. He just couldn't quite handle it all, which is totally understandable for a three year old. Even though he is smiling in all of the pictures, I can assure you that there were numerous tantrums and power struggles each day. We didn't eat in the dining room once because we couldn't get him to behave well enough to risk it. Luckily for us, the buffet was fantastic, so we never were underfed, but still, we'd have liked to go the dining room. We did in fact try to go on Grand Turk day, just with Noah after dropping Nathan off at the club. But the only table available was up two stairs in a back corner where we'd barely be able to squeeze the stroller. Neither of us felt comfortable risking a meltdown, so we left and went up to the buffet.
To be continued...
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