Reunited...

As mentioned in my Mother's Day post below, I was able to catch an earlier flight on Friday that got me in 4 hours earlier than planned, which meant I was able to see Dylan before he went to bed!! I even got to go with Shane to pick him up from day care. When we got there, he was playing on the floor in a little play gym. I put my face over his, and immediately got a huge smile...kind of like this one:


I picked him up and squished him and he was all smiles. It was so nice to know that he remembered who I was. We took him home and hugged and kissed him all night long. It was wonderful!

I also learned from Shane and the babysitter that maybe my absence was a good thing. In the five days I was gone, Dylan learned to: (1) sleep through the night, (2) fall asleep on his own for naps, (3) STAY asleep for 1.5-2 hour naps at a time, and (4) reach for and grab everything in sight! I'm pretty sure the last one was just his normal development, but the other three point to one major factor: I was the source of a lot of Dylan's sleep problems.

Anyway, my posts have been lacking pictures lately, so here are some picture-filled updates:

First, I know I mentioned it in passing, but my work paid for nightly milk shipments from Chicago to Phoenix. It was quite amazing, and quite a process... My hotel room was full of little bottles, styrofoam coolers, and ice packs but it was definitely worth it. I came home to a counter and dishwasher full of bottles as well. To be kind to my work's budget, we're saving them for my next week-long training in June. And luckily, my sweet boy had no problem transitioning back to nursing after five days of bottles!

Part of the reason Dylan has been taking longer naps is that we discovered how to help him sleep comfortably... The babysitter lets him sleep in a beanbag-ish thing and now, so do we, but even being propped up by a pillow works. If he's comfy, he falls asleep on his own, stays asleep, and sleeps through almost any noise!

When I left, Dylan would grab things if we put them right on his chest near his hands...but I came home to the grabbiest baby ever! He'll reach his arms out/up as far as they go to try and grab anything and everything he sees. For example, my camera:

Shane was good and kept up with the Daily Dylan pictures while I was gone...that will be another post of it's own, but here's a sneak peek:

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll post a Daily Dylan catch-up soon...

Mother's Day

Due to my all-day travel session on Sunday, we chose to celebrate Mother's Day when I got home from Chicago on Friday. Shane was expecting me home late that evening, but I got an earlier flight so he and Dylan had to do a bit of scrambling to get everything ready...

First, Dylan made me a bouquet of flowers in day care. At first I thought they were just paper flowers, but then realized they were his little handprints. I need to post about the wonderful person Dylan's babysitter is another time, so for now I'll just say it was very cute.

Then, Dylan and Shane bought me some REAL flowers and gave me some cute new shirts (no pictures of the shirts...):

And to top it all off, Dylan wrote me a card and signed it with his footprints. I bet very few 5-month-olds can do that! ;)

All in all, it was a great mother's day!

Single Parenthood

Shane and I have each gotten a brief glance into the lives of single parents...

Last week, Shane spent 3 days in New York City, leaving me and Dylan to fend for ourselves (dramatic, I know). We did fine, but Dylan wasn't feeling well and he and I would spend about 2 hours at a time awake each night. It was hard not having Shane to take turns with, but we survived.

This week, I'm in Chicago, leaving Shane and Dylan for a fun adventure together. They've had two nights together... Sunday night, Dylan woke up once and cried himself back to sleep, then woke up again, ate, and went back to sleep. Last night, Dylan slept all night long! Of course he'd save his all night sleeps for when Dad is watching him...

Now, I'm not claiming to have any idea what real single parents go through. But it was definitely hard knowing that Shane wasn't coming home from work each night...even just for moral support. We have plenty of family and friends around to help, but it was still a different feeling. I'm so glad to have Shane...I can't imagine life without him.


[End of cheesy, ridiculous post]

Another wonderful Mother's Day...

They say history repeats itself, and for me today it definitely did... If you're an avid reader, you may remember this post and this post from last Mother's Day. Due to work travel last year, we had to accelerate our Mother's Day plans--which included announcing the imminent arrival of our dear baby Dylan to our families. We had dinner with Shane's parents the night before and a quick Skype call with my parents on Sunday morning before I had to head to the airport, where my flight was delayed, I missed my connection, and ended up getting to my final destination (Lubbock, TX of all places) in the middle of the night.

This Mother's Day (my first Mother's Day as a real mother), I travelled all day and will still be travelling tonight. The first half of my travel wasn't so bad... I spent all morning and afternoon in the car with Shane and Dylan driving home from a weekend in San Diego. Dylan slept most of the drive (he's an awesome road-tripper) and Shane and I ate a chocolate croissant and watched a movie on Shane's new stereo (I guess I should clarify... I watched, Shane listened).

But now I find myself sitting in the airport blogging because (1) I'm not with my family on Mother's Day and (2) my flight is delayed... As of now, I'm scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 1:00 AM local time...awesome. That's right, I'm off to Chicago for work training. And I'm going to be gone until FRIDAY! That's five whole days away from Dylan...the longest I've ever been away from him so far is 10 hours so I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with this. Isn't that a nice mother's day present from my work? Mandatory training and travel on mother's day??

To be fair, my work has been very accommodating with everything thus far. They're letting me work part time, giving me flexibility as to where I work (some work can be from home), and they're even paying for daily overnight deliveries of milk to Dylan... But still, who sends a mom one week off maternity leave on a 5-day trip??

Alright, I'm done venting. I really do hope you all had a wonderful mother's day!

5 months!

Tomorrow our little boy turns 5 months old!!! Where has the time gone??

An unofficial weigh-in (performed minutes ago on my bathroom scale) puts our boy at 20 pounds... To see what 20-pound Dylan looks like, here's an updated bath picture:

{Click for larger version}

[I realize the pictures aren't in order, but the only way I knew how to move them around was to click "Shuffle Pictures" over and over again in Picasa. If anyone knows a better way to get pictures where you want them...let me know.]

While finding the old bath-time pictures, I looked through a lot of old Dylan pictures. It's hard to believe he was ever as little as he was in his newborn pictures, but it's definitely been fun watching him grow and learn new things. Although our little boy isn't very mobile (still no rolling...), he's becoming quite good at grabbing things (and putting them in his mouth, of course) and he's discovering the different ranges in his voice (including his loud one). Now, if only he could remember how to sleep through the night (which he did for two weeks straight around 3 months and then just somehow forgot)...

In other news, Dylan has been to day care twice and he seems to love it! He is doted on by 4 little 2-year-old girls who all apparently want to hold him, feed him, burp him, and give him his binky anytime it falls out of his mouth. He and I had our first day home together today and I think he was bored :) I'm just happy we found a place where he can get the attention he needs! But more on that later....

Happy 5 months baby!!

Catching Up... by Dylan

Hi folks, this is Dylan...you know, the baby that's featured in almost every post since the day he was born. Since my mom has been such a slacker, I decided to catch her up.

A couple weeks ago, Mom took me on my first plane ride to Salt Lake to visit my Grammie and Grampie. I was so good on the plane ride! Mom fed me during take-off, then I slept for a little bit, woke up and smiled for the people around me, and then fell back asleep for landing! Woohoo! Here I am on the plane... Mom had a hard time holding me and taking the picture:


When we got there I was a little grumpy because I didn't get much sleep the night before and my naps were all off, but Grampie was so nice and still played with me even though I would fuss. He even sat outside with me for long periods of time to calm me down:



My first night there, we celebrated Aunt Jessie's birthday and got to watch her and cousin Vera dance around for us. We had yummy fruit pizza instead of birthday cake (well, everyone else had fruit pizza...):


The next night, lots and lots of people stopped by to visit me and Mom. They started rolling in around 4:30 and kept coming even after I was in bed! It was nice having so many people willing to hold me since I was still a little fussy... Look at all these people (and these are only the ones who were in the pictures...there were more!):







The rest of the week, I spent time with my cousins. Cousin Vera loved helping to take care of me and holding my hands. She also would remind me not to suck my fingers. Cousin Reuben would get so excited when I was down on the floor with him. He really liked to touch my face and I'd let him, but our Moms kept stopping him...




I got to see snow... Mom even made me hold some, which I really didn't like:


I went for walks in the cool air and got to use my super-cool sweatshirt:


I got my picture taken...a lot! Mom loved Grammie's awesome camera so she would snap pictures of me all day long. These are from a shoot that lasted all morning (yes, all in one morning). There were a total of 47 pictures by the time she was done:







I also spent lots of time with my Grammie. She makes me so happy! We have lots of videos of her making me laugh and laugh and laugh. I just think she's the funniest person I know!


I also got to try peas for the first time...and I loved them! Eventually I couldn't get enough of them. I'd lean forward for each bite and get antsy in between. Needless to say, I made a bit of a mess:


The last day we were there, Mom went out with her friends so I could have some alone time with Grammie. She went to a yummy dinner and then decorated some Tax Day cookies with her friend Natalie. If you ask me, I think they're all a bit crazy...





For the flight home I was just as good. I ate on take-off, slept for a while, smiled and cooed at the man next to me, then sucked my binky nicely for landing. No problems!!

The day after we got back, I got to play with my cousin Jack all day long! He tried to beat up on me, but since I'm so big and tough his punches didn't bother me one bit...



I'm also learning how to grab things (and put them in my mouth, of course). I especially like my stuffed animals because they're so big and easy to grab:



We've also discovered that I must be allergic to rice cereal. The last two times I've eaten it, I've done this to Mom two hours later. We're going to experiment once more in a little while just to be sure it's the rice cereal, but we'll be better prepared for the possible result:


Other than that, I've just been working on being a cute little boy:



Thanks for reading. If you made it this far, you must really be my friend!!

P.S. I start day care this week... Wish me luck!

Frame of Reference

I know, I know...I haven't posted in a while and I have quite a bit to post (like almost a month's worth of Daily Dylans, which I'm debating, and all about our trip to Salt Lake), but today I got a very clear picture of just how much our little boy has grown since he was born.

In our birthing class, the nurse suggested that we take a picture of our baby next to the same stuffed animal throughout his life as a frame of reference. I thought this was a great idea but for some reason I never really thought about doing it. (I know, with all the pictures I take of him each day you'd think I'd remember to take one with a stuffed animal once a month).

Anyway, today I was taking pictures of Dylan with his monkey because he was squishing him and eating him. Then I remembered that my mom took a picture of Dylan at 2 weeks old with the same monkey:


I realize he's grown in the last 5 months (yes, he really is almost 5 months old!), but it was shocking to see how much he's actually grown...and I'm not sure how I should feel about this. Excited that he's growing up and learning new things? Yes! In awe at how amazingly fast our bodies develop? Yes! Sad that my little boy isn't so little anymore? Yes...