"Break"'s Over

Hello again! First things first: welcome back to me! Okay, not really…sorry. Well, our house guests left this morning. We had a nice visit with the Alabamaws. Easton enjoyed mooching food off them whenever they’d share (which was always—E got to try coconut and a sip of Coke Slurpee for the first times) and showing off all of his latest tricks. They learned what Easton’s signs and words mean. They jumped right in. It was great. I hope they enjoyed the visiting as much as we did. Our weather was unseasonably hot for their visit, I bet they felt right at home. But, to quote our weatherman, "we seemed to have skipped right over June and moved on to the heat of July and August." Hot hot hot.

Sidenote on our health before I go too far: we are finally feeling a little healthier around here. We all are still hoarking and hacking ourselves to sleep at night but oh well.

So anyway…my sidebar--it’s different again. A new clickable picture to whisk you off to a video from this time last year. Neat feature, I know. Hee hee. Also, my book has changed. Now you get to see the immature silly side of me. Even more than you usually see, anyway. This book I’m reading is the 7th and most recent in the series of Georgia Nicholson (the character) books. It is for teenage girls and I LOVE them. It is basically Bridget Jones but for teens, it’s even British like Bridge is. I, however, think they’re hysterical. Much more than Bridget Jones was. Yes, I read those books too. The Chicago Tribune is quoted on the “Georgia book” saying, “We’re talking laugh-till-the-soda-comes-out-your-nose humor.” Seriously. I got into the series when I moved back in with my mom and sister when my ex-husband and I separated. I was bored and raided Lauren’s shelves and seriously laughed out loud at these books. Often. I’m not saying I recommend them, but I enjoy them. A lot. Oh, and also I have a new music video. Norah Jones playing Jason's and my song. Since our wedding anniversary is Sunday the 11th I thought I’d switch it up for romantic purposes. Alrighty, so that’s that. Now back to the recap of everything I’ve missed sharing these past few days or so. Ready for a long post? If not, too bad. Here’s a picture of Easton giving his grandma a kiss to kick things off…
SATURDAY
Easton wanted a fancy spikey ‘do for his reunion with his Maws so I obliged and did my best…see how he helped…

Okay, so this is where we left off…spending the morning getting ready and then Jason was off to the airport to pick up his mom and July. Our visitors got here bearing Chick-fil-a so no fajitas that night. Fine with me…less cooking! Then that night was the night from hell. Easton was the worst sleeper ever. He was up just before 4, so technically I guess this brings us to…

SUNDAY
Okay, so he was, like, up for the day at not even 4 a.m. Huh?!?! He was fussing and talking and just generally awake. We let him stay up later than usual visiting with The Alabamaws the night before and this is how he repays us? Apparently. I tried Motrin in case of teething. I tried nursing in case of hunger. I felt awful for our guests…their room is right next door to his. Eventually Jason brought him into our bed. E wanted to play. We didn’t. So, we put him in the pack n play where he could play all he wanted. Well, he didn’t want to play there so we brought him back to lay down in bed with us. Eventually we all fell back to sleep for a couple of hours. Well, the boys slept. They can both snore up a storm, my goodness! The stuffy noses made it worse. Ugh! Still, I loved having E to snuggle with. I wish it was easier to get him to do it more often. But, since we don’t want to do it every night I guess it’ll just have to be a special circumstances thing. I sure enjoy the sleeping and cuddling parts. Not the part preceding it. Not at all. Bad boy, bad boy…whatcha gonna do???

Sunday afternoon we just hung around visiting and such. Jason and I took Eastie on a walk and to the little park. He fell down and got his first skinned knee. No biggie…he didn’t cry or really even seem to notice. But, I did have to take a picture because that’s how I am.

Sunday night was not much better than the night before, sleep-wise anyway. Easton woke up crying about an hour after he went to bed and puked so much all over himself and me that we both ended up in the shower to clean up. Yuck.

MONDAY
Well, Monday was my first day back at work ha ha ha. Okay, so not really “at” work but I did have Baby John for the first time. It went even better than I expected thanks to Grandma ‘Gette hanging out with The E while I tended to Baby John. However, Easton did get a little more clingy and cuddly than normal and he did a few “acting out” things to get my attention. Oh well. He’ll get more used to it and I’ll figure things out a little better too. He seems to like Baby John just fine and Baby John likes E for the most part-- John certainly smiles at Easton a bunch. A few times Easton was loud which has scared John. They’ll get accustomed to each other and Easton will learn to deal with the change. It’s only 2 days a week and so far John was super easy. At nap time I watch for his sleepy cues which so far only seem to be rubbing his eyes and maybe a yawn or two. Then I take him to the Pack n Play, lay him down and when I peek back 2 minutes later he’s out. Easy enough. Even in the days when I didn’t have to rock and rub E’s head it still took him longer than 2 minutes to fall asleep on his own. I hope he continues to be so easy going. It’s a welcome change even though I love my Eassie Kai to pieces.
Oh my gosh…how cute is that picture of their little feetsies? It was totally candid. I love it.

Monday night for dinner we headed to the Olive Garden, I was afraid I’d be too beat from watching the two boys to cook so we had planned to go out in advance. Easton is more antsy at restaurants than he used to be. Not as much fun, if you ask me. He ended up choking and puking at the restaurant which made him even antsy-er. G-ma and I took turns walking around with him and while she had him on one of their journeys he came back knowing how to say, “light”. Woo hoo! Go, G-ma!

TUESDAY
Pretty much a repeat of yesterday with the added bonus of Easton changing up his napping yet again and having a near meltdown at the end of the afternoon. I even had to cave and give him his paci which proves I was desperate. He only gets it for sleep-time these days. Wowsa. The Maws turned on a Backyardigans from TiVo and I had Eastie under one arm and John in the other until J came home for some relief, at that point even Grandma wasn’t enough for Mr. Cranky Pants, but it was just before Baby John’s parents came to get him so it wasn’t too miserable for anyone. Glad that’s over but I have no clue what I’ll do if it happens again. I hated plopping down in front of the TV like that but it worked so I guess I’ll get over my guilt.

The noteworthy thing about today was that Easton’s nose was pretty much done running. He hardly got any “boops” at all. We call wiping his nose, “getting a boop” because that’s the sound J started making as he’d wipe it. Fun, huh? Even G-Ma was in on both the terminology and the booping itself. Pretty nice of her, eh? And she didn’t shy away when E would come in for bites of her food with a big bubble of snot in each nostril. What a grandma!!

WEDNESDAY
Well, we tried to make today a fun “let’s-get-out-of-the-house” day because we’d been stuck inside with Baby John the last two days. I took E to Circle Time in the morning and it was actually one of the better times. He was very well behaved, we didn’t have to leave early! After his nap we all (Easton, Alabamaws, and me) headed to the cool park stopping at Sonic for frozen treats on the way. We pulled in to the parking lot of the park to hardly any cars. I’m thinking: NICE! Um, duh…it was in the 90s yesterday. It was too hot to play at the park let alone sit, slide, or swing on anything that had spent the day baking in the sun. D’oh! We tried it for a little while whilst we finished our ice creams then opted to head back to the house to let E play in his pool. Well, wouldn’t you know it, by the time I got the pool filled, sunscreen and swim trunks on, the stupid sun had gone behind a bunch of rain clouds and a cool breeze began to blow. Eastie was still excited to get in and splash but only until he got cold which didn’t take too long. Brrrrr!
We went out again last night for a “farewell” dinner. Easton was crazy again but he lasted through dessert.

Oh yeah, and in the morning he fell head first into our bath tub for the first time. Proof that he’s getting taller, I guess. He was fine. He didn’t really cry. Tough little booger, he is.

THURSDAY
Wouldn’t you know it, the day Easton decides to sleep late is the day we have to actually be somewhere: the airport to drop the Alabamaws off. Ugh! He is usually quite cranky when I wake him so I took a picture of him so the flash would wake him up. Here’s the pic:
Worked like a charm and it made him feel like he was waking up on his own so he wasn’t cranky at me.

We headed to the airport and he actually fell asleep on the way back. Holy cow! He must’ve been tired. To make ourselves feel better since we were now guest-less we stopped to get some “nuh nuhs” E-speak for doughnuts, apparently. He just started saying it today, but look how he enjoys nuh nuhs.

Okay, well now that our visitors are gone I’m going to be cracking down on E’s sleep habits again. It won’t be easy but hopefully I can get him better before Baby John comes back on Monday.

Oh, and we’re still the same with “weaning”--just nursing at the first wake-up of the day. Usually 5-6 ish. I don't know when we'll be cutting that one out. Probably when he starts staying asleep for longer...that's when.

So, now I think we're all caught up. Tomorrow we plan to work on sleep habits some more and head to Gramoo's second Field Day (she teaches at a year round school so she has to do two a year). Gotta show off The E to the rest of the peeps. Catch you on the flip side...