I hate the Easter Bunny... oh, and Santa Claus, too. *UPDATED*

I wish it didn't have to be that way but it seems the past Christmas and Easter have me at odds with their secular mascots.  I wish I was one of those parents that got all teary eyed and excited about the opportunity to build memories for their children around the holidays.  Instead I wonder why I can't just build memories for my son every day and bristle at having to lie to my son about the existence of a large bunny rabbit and a fat man in a suit that just looks sweaty and uncomfortable.  Both of which break into your house at night, but that is okay and all because they leave gifts instead of taking them... like say a burglar... that would then need to be prosecuted and jailed for his actions.

Regardless, I sucked it up and did my best to create fond memories and decided to throw in a little creativity to make the whole experience more palatable.  Here are the obligatory pictures as proof:

Saturday Easter Egg Hunt at Church

River and his cousin T who seriously has a heart of gold and helped make sure River found plenty of eggs.

 I'm trying to get more creative with my picture taking...  Here is an example of my attempt at taking artistic egg hunt pictures.

This is what it looks like when a professional takes the picture!

Easter Sunday Gifts and Play

One of my biggest beefs about Easter gifts is that they are usually hokey or sugar fueled.  So I opted to purchase this rope bin, fill it with water, and a few water toys and let River enjoy the sensory/imaginative play.  He loved it and we will continue to use this bin with water, bird seed, rice and other fun materials to expand our range of play this summer.

We ended the weekend with a game night, a delicious bunny cake and one last egg hunt in the dark with my sister-in-law and her family. The egg hunt in the dark was a hit especially for my SIL's oldest daughter who is 12 and starting to feel "too cool" for childish holiday antics.  I didn't get any pictures of the actual hunt because I don't have a camera with a flash but we placed glow sticks or glow bracelets around most of the eggs and then used flashlights to find the rest.  It is certainly a tradition we will be repeating.  Lots of fun.

My SIL's Rabbit Cake.  De-effing-licious!

Just wanted to clarify the three main reasons why I don't like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus... First they detract from the true meaning of both holidays and I am one of those parents that wants my kid(s) to appreciate the TRUE meaning and significance of the holidays.  The significance is way cooler than some bunny and a fat man.  Second, I feel it can put unfair stress on parents to perform to a certain level.  I am Type A personality and thus I want everything I do to be perfect.  Unfortunately, I lack the creativity and time to really go all out and that feels like a failure to me.  Third, one of my biggest goals as a parent is to raise my kid(s) to appreciate living simply and desire to share our excess resources with those less fortunate than us.  I don't want to teach them (through excessive holiday gift giving) that they are entitled to gifts every time Hallmark wants to make a few billion extra bucks.

Call me overly sensitive.  It won't be the first time!

Diggin' Up Bones - A success story in pictures...

Saturday morning I woke up early to work on taxes and to bury little dollar store dinosaurs and bugs in the fresh patch of earth in our yard where one of our trees used to stand watch.  Later that day when the sun sent the nip in the air off to the mountains for a spa day River and I set out to dig'em up.  To say this activity was a success would be an understatement.  River loved being able to use "shobels" (aka shovels... to-may-to, to-mah-to) and tractors to dig up these little treasures so much that we spent 4+ hours outside doing just that.

We have entered the era of cheesey smiles :)

 

 

I managed to get some yard work in as well and to River's utter delight I found a toy car in the tangle of vegetation and dead leaves I was cleaning out by our deck.  It wasn't just any toy car either... it was Strip "The King" Weathers in all of his Dinoco blue glory which some of you may recognize if you have ever watched the movie "Cars" so many times you want to gouge out your eyes and ears every time your child asks to watch "Tow-Mater" again.  He also dug up his first earthworm which was again cause for much excitement and celebration.

This weekend we are off to Estes Park to enjoy the beauty of the mountains and to scare ourselves silly staying at the infamous Stanley Hotel.  It is absolutely beautiful, notorious, and inspirational for horror writers looking to write a good book about going crazy and trying to hack your family to pieces with an axe (All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy).  And Groupon generally has GREAT deals there once or twice a year so we are staying there for a reasonable price. It is rediculously expensive otherwise.  Bucket list item will be hacked crossed off this weekend :)

"I'm diggin' up bones, I'm diggin' up bones
Exhuming things thats better left alone
I'm resurrecting memories of a love that's dead and gone
Yeah tonight I'm sittin' alone diggin' up bones."

~ Diggin' Up Bones, Randy Travis

Infertiles Anonymous

Next week I have the privilege to spend time with Angie* as she prepares for and gives birth to her baby boy who seems bound and determined to make his appearance any day now. Though it may seem odd to the majority of the population that Angie would want me to be anywhere near her when she gives birth to her son (because of the emotions it may stir up) she and I wouldn't have it any other way. We are thick as thieves. Bonded for life. We have shared many good laughs about how weird our relationship must seem to those outside of it. From the inside, though, it feels like it was meant to be. Like that comfortable pair of shoes you've had since High School with your exact footprints molded in. But that is a subject for an entirely different post. This post is about my thoughts as I prepare to drive 10 hours into the land of fertility.

The land of fertility is the mid-sized town in Montana, where Angie lives. Much of my husband's large family lives in the same town. I am ecstatic to see my in-laws as I was extremely blessed with the family I married into. They are hilarious, lots of fun, and health nuts just like me. I wouldn't be raw if it weren't for my mother and father-in-law! However, visiting Montana brings with it quite a bit of anxiety because I will be spending the majority of my time with new and expecting mothers (hence "the land of fertility" title I've given the town). To be completely honest, I usually avoid new and expecting mothers like the plague. I'm not mature enough to be in their presence without lamenting my own conception woes until I eventually burst into tears. But they are my family. I love them. And I can't keep avoiding them.

Luckily, somewhere mid panic attack I thought that perhaps I need to be working on my own 12 Step Recovery Plan and decided to modify the 12 Steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous Program to fit my program (oh, so creatively) called Infertiles Anonymous:

1. I admit that I am powerless over my fertility—that I've allowed it to let my life become unmanageable.

2. I believe that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.

3. I have made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand Him.

4. I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.

5. I have admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs.

6. I am entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. I have humbly asked Him to remove my shortcomings.

8. I have made a list of all persons I have harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. I have made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. I have continued to take personal inventory and when I am wrong promptly admitted it.

11. I have sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, as I understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, I will carry this message to other hurting infertile women and men, and to practice these principles in all my affairs.

 

It made me laugh and cry when I realized how meaningful these steps were to me. I've read and heard in many places that the psychological effects of infertility are on par with those of being diagnosed with a terminal disease. Some people in life are so good at bearing their crosses and making the best of it. By nature, I am not one of those people, though I have always wanted to be. Hopefully this is a good place to start. And I really mean START! I'm not even sure I can say I've completed the first step. But I will continue to write about my process and let you know how it goes.

* For those who don't know, Angie is my son's first mom.

Welcome Toby!

I would like to welcome my newest nephew Toby to the world! He was born last Friday evening to my sister, her husband, and my niece Tessa.
I would also like to welcome the ray of hope that shined down on my aching, confused soul when I got to hold him this past weekend. As I held him an amazing thing happened. For the first time I felt like I would be able to hold a baby that small - MY baby that small one day, too. Usually it seems next to impossible like I'm tone deaf and trying to become your next American Idol.

Note to Toby: I'm not sure if the door to heaven is still open to you or not but if it is would you mind peaking your head in really quick and seeing if any of your friends are looking for a place to stay? If so let them know I have a great place for rent that serves mostly organic, vegetarian, raw meals and is totally eco friendly. Make sure you tell them that is all the rage right now. Unfortunately, my leases are 9 months long. No backing out of leases early. I don't know if I've the strength to handle it. And tell them that after the end of that 9 months they can upgrade to another place I've got for rent that still serves healthy meals but also continues to provide immeasurable amounts of love, an older brother to watch over them, two dogs to play with, beautiful mountains to the west, and a full band worth of instruments for them to play to their hearts content.

Please forgive the horrible picture. It is not flattering for either of us but it was the only one taken and I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to show off the newest member of my extended family :)

... turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers...

No, this is not a belated Father's Day post. Instead, this post is related to my previous post regarding my recent ephiphany. As of late I feel as though I've been consumed with sorrow, anger, frustration and jealousy regarding my inability to get pregnant. It has become an obsession of mine. And obsessions are never healthy. A&E even has an award winning television series proving just that! So, I've reached out to some friends for advice to help tackle my demons because I'm a talker. I want to talk out EVERYTHING hoping someone will say just the right thing to turn that dark bulb over my head light. Unfortunately, this has only taught me that infertility effects everyone differently and most women it has not effected as negatively as it has me. (Don't give up reading now if you are afraid this is just going to be a bunch of whining. I promise it has a happy ending!)

So I've been trying to "back up" as I told my son to do and figure out how I can get rid of all of this anger and negativity. I am proud to announce that I have FINALLY found the solution to my problem. THANK GOODNESS the answer is NOT to pretend to be excited for expectant mothers and try to subdue my feelings of jealousy in hopes that eventually my pretence would become sincere. I realized this effort was my equivalent of River's cart wheel stuck on a post. When has pretence ever lead to sincerity? Instead the answer came as I was preparing a lesson for the Sunday School class I teach at church. (Again, don't give up reading now if you are afraid this is going to be a bible thumping post, the answer is not for religious folks only). As I prepared the lesson I read the following verses:

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers..." Malachi 4:5-6

and

"... he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias (another name used often to refer to the prophet Elijah), to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke 1:17

The lesson, in case you can't tell from the super cryptic bible verses, was about keeping family history records. Yes, I'm LDS and we "Mo-Mo's" love ourselves some good ol' fashioned geneology!

I know this is dramatic but sometimes it feels like I've reached MY great and dreadful day, and I would LOVE the wisdom of the just to get me through it. Come on down Elijah, the price is most certainly right! So I've decided to turn my heart to my "fathers" through family history work so that I may ground myself in the life lessons of those who have come before me. So many of which involve the loss of many children in pregnancy, labor, and in childhood. And turn my heart to my "children" by keeping River's records so that he too can learn from them.

Please know that I am under no false impression that this will solve everything. There will still be difficult, angry days but they will be far less in number and that's all right with me. My plan is to work mostly in Cory's family history as both of my grandparents have done amazing work totalling 20,000+ names on both my maternal and paternal sides going as far back as the 15th century! I also want to compile River's biological family history and I am the most excited about this work.

Since I don't want a pictureless post again here are a few pictures of my famous/infamous ancestors...

John Henry "Doc" Holliday

(great, great, great, great, great, great, great cousin)

Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in the movie Tombstone back when he was SSSSEXY!

Ben Holladay the "Stage Coach King" who sold his business to a little known company at the time called Wells Fargo.

(great, great, great, great, etc. cousin or uncle)

That makes me an heir to Wells Fargo fortune then right? :P

And finally (you might as well hang in there, you've made it this far!) here is an amazing story of loss and endurance from the life of my great, great grandparents. This happened before my great grandfather was born.

"When my parents had five children, the oldest being eight years of age and the youngest only one year, my mother sent the oldest girl, Julia, to the Hyrum Bryan house to borrow some sugar. Because the family had diphtheria, mother told Julia not to go into the house but to leave the sugar bowl by the front gate and call to the family. Instead, she went in and got the disease, which she carried home. As a result, Julia Lovisa, Sarah Melissa, Mary Louisa and Thomas Riley, the baby, all died within twelve days. Mother also caught the disease as well as six-year-old Allen Jedediah. They both lived because a doctor arrived in town in time. The 5-year old girl, Mary Louisa told my father and mother that she knew the baby, Thomas Riley, would also die. She said that Sarah Melissa would get well. She promised father she would look after the other children. Mary Louisa died early one morning and at nine o’clock that morning Thomas Riley appeared to be well and was playing on the floor. He took sick and died by noon. They buried Thomas in Mary Louisa’s arms. Julia Lovisa died within the twelve day period but Allen Jedediah was saved."

Okay so that story didn't have a happy ending. Sorry! I just thought it beautiful that they buried some of the children together so they could take care of each other.

Nothing like a little cat pee to get you motivated in the morning!

Two weeks ago I rushed home from work, quickly packed myself and River, fed everyone, bathed River and brushed all necessary teeth. We then packed our entire family (canine members included) in Cory's work truck and embarked at 8 pm on an all night drive from Ft. Collins, CO to Great Falls, MT. All said a 10 1/2 hour drive. Kudos to Cory (and his trusty engergy sodas for the assist) for driving all night after spending an exhausting day packing the truck and getting most everything ready. We arrived at 6:30 am the next morning. The purpose of the trip was to help my father-in-law with some major construction and remodeling projects around the house, and most importantly spend some much needed time with Gala, Papa Bear, Kelli, Angie, Brandon, Preston, Jodi, Jeremy, Noah, Jeremy (yes, there are two in the family one born into, one married into), etc.

Every day was exhausting, and every day was fun. My mother-in-law took advantage of having us in town and took all the grandkids in Great Falls at the time (only 5 of the total 16) to Sears for portraits. Let me tell you that was an adventure! 5 children ages 4 1/2, 21 mo., 1 year, and 3 mo. old twins. Tears were shed by all, adults included. Luckily we did get some cute pictures and Gala gave River a cute haircut and bought him an adorable little suit to match Preston and Noah's. We got to help dig out the foundation/root cellar area for their new green house using a rented Bobcat. That was fun as I hadn't been able to play around in one of those since I was back in college working for the Engineering Research Center making physical models of rivers. Angie dyed my hair. Black and auburn low lights. It looks super cute and she doesn't even have any formal training yet!

But I digress, because what I really want to talk about is cat pee. Yes, cat pee! Fast forward three days later. We left Great Falls around 8 pm and decided again to just drive straight through. This time it was a colaborative effort between Cory and myself. We got in to Ft. Collins at 7 am dirty, tired, and grumpy because not only had we driven all night but we had also been working hard outside all day prior to leaving. Immediately when we get in the house I hear the warbling meow of my cat Louie. The kind of meow indicating something is wrong. It also was a muffled sound which baffled me because she should have had free reign of the house. Well, much to my chagrin when I closed the door to River's nusery with the express purpose of keeping Louie OUT (she loves to lounge in or under his crib, in the bags of clothes in his closet, etc.) I accidentally closed her IN his nursery. When I opened the door out flew an angry, hungry, thirsty cat, and of course the pungent, dizzying odor of cat pee... Going to work the next day was officially out of the question as I refused to leave the pee festering for any longer than necessary.

Luckily, River's Nanny Debbie had a carpet shampooer and I purchased carpet cleaner at a Janitorial Supply store, the most effective I could find, pre-treated the areas where she peed and then shampooed all the carpet in his room. Did you know you can use a black light to see all of the organic matter on any surface? Well, I know this now and I effectively used this technique in my efforts!

The Good News: While giving the pre-treatment time to work I had some extra time on my hands and FINALLY got around to changing out all of the clothes in River's dresser and closet. Up until this point there were still size 0-3 month clothes in the mix. As a result I didn't have enough room for the clothes size 9-12 month so I was just pulling them out of a tub I had stored clothes this size that we had received as gifts or that were hand-me-downs from friends and family. I also put away all of the big items that are now too young for him like the swing we have and a gym/playmat. They are all now tubbed or bagged up for the next baby. I must say I did tear up as I put everything away. I love to watch how River grows and becomes more interactive each day but seeing all of the little clothes makes me wish he was able to stay that little for a little while longer. And I also was sad because I'm not sure if/when we will be able to have another baby. We couldn't afford fertility treatments or another adoption right now so hopefully good old fashion baby making will work for us this time around.

The Bad News: Unfortunately, though I've repeated this process several times the smell is still detectable. To minimize it we constantly have a fan going in his room and I plan on one last big clean this weekend involving some serious sudsing because apparently cat pee is oily and suds help break it up. Even still this carpet only has to last another month or so until we can finally get an appointment with the hardwood flooring company that Cory is going to exchange work with. Then we can replace the carpet in his nursery with the carpet in the living room (which is only 1 year old) that we are replacing with hardwood floors.

I will post pictures of our trip to MT soon! We didn't take out our camera once so I have to have my MIL and SIL Kelli email me the ones they took on their camera. Hint, hint to both of them if they are reading this ;)

On a lighter note... Casa Bonita!

Though River's birthday is still 4 days away, we joined family last week in Denver for a big celebration of 1st birthdays for River and my niece Tessa who's first birthday was August 26th. My sister and I contemplated and debated for a month or so where to hold this momentous occasion and in the end only one place made the cut. None other than the infamous Casa Bonita. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Casa Bonita, it is a true Denver landmark. It is a very large entertainment style Mexican restaurant with a 3 story waterfall that cliff divers jump from and where they have little skits every 30 minutes or so. The skits always center around Black Bart the outlaw or a gorilla that always manages to outsmart its trainer. Generally in either skit SOMEONE ends up falling into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. Here is a really bad picture of the gorilla skit we watched just before we left.

I tried several times with the flash on our camera but the lighting on the little stage conflicted with the flash. It may be difficult to tell but the trainer is in the middle, his assistant is on the left with the blonde curly wig and the gorilla is on the right in swim trunks. In this particular skit the assisstant ended up in the water and proceeded to splash all of the onlookers. That was until my mom scolded her! Oh my, did my sister and I get a good laugh out of that one!

In addition, there is a live mariachi band to create atmosphere. There are arcades, puppet shows, magic shows, a place where you can get your old time photo taken, and my personal favorite Black Bart's Cave which is a "haunted cave" you walk through. It is quite an eventful restaurant and growing up in Metro Denver it is inevitable that you will have at least ONE birthday party here! Some people love it, some people hate it but you can't deny the impact of the place. It even has an entire episode of South Park dedicated to its glory. (click here if interested in watching the episode)

Here are the pictures of The Official Casa Bonita Birthday Party Experience.

Standing in line to get our food
(Mimi, River, Tessa, Kristen)

You don't go for the food... except for the sopapillas
(Me, River, Shawn, Papa)

1st Birthday Party, 1st sopapilla... not so much of a fan
(Cory and River)

One.Happy.Family
(Cory, River, Me)

River opening his presents
(Mimi, Gigi, River, Me, Kennedy)

Tessa's turn :)
(Jenny, Tessa, Abby)

River's new truck
(River, Mimi)

I want to jump off the cliff now!
(Cory, River)

One.Loved.Little.Boy
(Kennedy, River, Collin, Abby)

To illustrate the exhaustion that comes after an over stimulating, fun night with family, sopapillas, gorillas, and Black Bart, here is the first thing River did when we got home. I wish I would have snapped the picture in time to catch him with his thumb in his mouth!

In the Casa Bonita episode of South Park Cartman convinces his friend Butters that the world has been destroyed by a commet and that canibal zombies now roam the earth just to keep him hidden in a bomb shelter so that he can go to Casa Bonita for Kyle's birthday instead of Butters. Butters' parents are a mess, the community is in upheaval and Cartman almost gets away with it. In the end the police chase Cartman through Casa Bonita while he does everything he had been dreaming of... eating sopapillas, watching the cliff divers, getting his old time picture taken, going to the puppet show and going through Black Bart's Cave. When they finally catch him one of the officers asks him if all of the trouble he had caused was worth it. Cartman's response? "Totally."

I love Hippos, Hippos love me!

Ahhhh! I am finally back to blogging. I didn't realize how much I would miss it until I went without it for over a month. I last blogged back in December but only recently published the post because I didn't have pictures downloaded from the camera yet. Also check my November blog again as I have added pictures there as well. We are picture fanatics and have millions of pictures of River (he is an irresistible subject to photograph) but when it comes to following through and downloading and/or printing them out, we were failing miserably until recently.

So here is a list of the latest developments I've been dying to blog about. It is amazing the difference that one month makes!

On December 27th River rolled over from his back to his front for the first time. He rolled from his front to his back for the first time at 2 weeks old and did it a handful more times between 2 weeks and 8 weeks old. But this was only when he was on his tummy and didn't want to be. Now he is highly entertained by his new mobility. We could tell he was getting ready to roll over right before Christmas because he kept on making what we called the "fish out of water" move... This move included practically throwing himself to one side like a fish flopping around on the ground or a fish jumping out of the water. Now he can roll over to his tummy and back very easily occasionally pinning one of his arms in the process. He also loves to curve his body into a C shape and then roll over to one side or the other for a different perspective. The downside is now it is not uncommon to find him sleeping on his tummy at night. This definitely scares me since pretty much every doctor and nurse that we've seen since the moment River was born has told us "Back is Best" and made it sound like sleeping on their tummy almost always resulted in SIDs. We have always had him sleeping on his back but apparently now he has decided that he wants to try tummy sleeping occasionally. The first night I found him on his tummy I barely slept after feeding him and returning him to his back. Sure enough when I went to get him up for his first morning feeding he was back to sleeping on his tummy! The paranoid mother in me is cringing just thinking of this. Any other moms have this problem and have any words of wisdom on how to deal with this?

Now that he has conquered the task of rolling over like a pro, he is showing some interest in crawling. The other day River was laying on his jungle mat and I was laying on the ground next to him. He rolled over onto his tummy and had himself propped up on his elbows and was looking around. All of the sudden he raised his little bum up in the air and started trying to get his legs underneath it. I clapped proudly and complimented him in typical proud mommy fashion. All the while I was internally fretting over how much this was going to change things... flashes of baby gates, stairs, dogs, glass tables, plants, power cords, cleaning supplies danced through my head. Since that initial attempt to crawl he loves to lay on his tummy (especially while he is nude after his nightly bath) and kick his legs out wildly. He gets going so wildly with his legs that he arches his back like he is doing the yoga pose called locust.

River had his 4 month well baby exam today. He has had a huge growth spurt as of late and so I was surprised to see he weighed only 13lb 11oz. That dropped him from the 25th percentile in weight down to the 10th percentile but the doctor didn't seem to be concerned as he is obviously a well loved and well taken care of baby. He shot up from the 25th percentile to the 50th percentile in height and his head circumference stayed in the 75th percentile. We left the doctor with a clean bill of health and the go-ahead to start feeding him solids in addition to his regular formula feedings. Not that we needed it, though. I had been mixing rice cereal in his bottle to help him sleep at night (it didn't work AT ALL!) and last week I started feeding him rice cereal from a bowl. Next week we will start on baby food sweet potatoes. I wonder if they'll taste as good as real ones? UPDATE: We started on to sweet potatoes with great results. Only bad thing is, they stain big time and eating is always a messy affair.

While at his appointment the doctor and nurses noticed how happy and smiley River is. He knows how to work a crowd giving these cute smiles all while turning his head to the side shyly. A lady we go to church with recently told us she thought River was the happiest, smiley-est baby she had ever seen. A lady standing behind me in line at the post office told me that River was quite the flirt giving coy little smiles to those standing in line behind us. He loves to smile and laugh when you tickle him, bounce him up and down in the air, and sometimes he laughs for no apparent reason. His Nanny Debbie told me that yesterday he was laughing at her dog Troy (a VERY cute little wiener dog) while he ran around and hopped up on the furniture. This has been a pretty recent development as it has only been a month or so since River started to show interest in the world around him... with the exception of Mommy and Daddy. We have always had the honor of his interest and attention :)

Another big development has been the improvements in his sleeping pattern. At the end of last year he was getting up every 2 hours and it was exhausting! Luckily, (for mommy reasons NOT for money reasons) the company I work for decided to close down for the holidays starting on Christmas Eve. Business did not resume again until January 5th. I decided to take advantage of the the opportunity to nap during the day and the four large books I had to read by staying up with River all night to help gently nudge him into a schedule. The schedule is as follows:

• 9 pm River gets his nightly bath followed by tummy time play and then prayer and scripture study with mommy. You would not believe how effective praying and reading the Bible is in getting this kid to sleep. When all is said and done he is conked out! But then again, aren't we all after that ;)


• 10 pm, take him down to his crib once he is asleep. I decided to encorporate the switch to the crib at the same time in hopes that all would go well together. He has had no problems adjusting to the new sleeping location, luckily.


• 2 am, wake up and feed him. At first I would wake up at 2 am to feed him regardless of whether or not he was awake because I was afraid of how difficult it may be on him not to have enough to eat at night. However, now that he is used to the schedule we let him decide when he is ready to eat for his mid-night feeding. Usually he wakes up at 2-2:30 am on the dot, though.


• 6 am, wake up and feed him and get him up for the day.

It only took a few days for him to get into this schedule. He did MUCH better than I expected and it has been a huge blessing. Now he gets 8 hours of sleep at night consistently and when DH and I take turns with the shifts we both get much better sleep. Backing up a bit, I must confess that the four large books that I had to read were none other than the entire Twilight series... and yes I am referring to the ridiculously popular (amongst teen girls) series who's first book was recently made into a movie. Funny thing is, I got DH hooked on them too and together we read all 4 books in 8 days! And then rushed out to see the movie as soon as we were finished. It is painful to admit that I succumbed to the series but then again DH and I are also HUGE Harry Potter fans. I was a sorry sight on the day the last Harry Potter book came out trying to track it down on CD so Cory and I could listen to it together. But this blog is about adoption, not the less impressive moments of my life :)

Well, I will leave it at that for the evening. But I hope to get back to blogging at least once a week now. I have quite a list of topics that I really want to write about and I am even hoping to incorporate some guest blogging. Cross your fingers I'll have the time to follow through and that it won't be another month before I blog again!