Weekend Update: we still have a whole 'nother day!

Today was a mostly nice day. Despite a cranky fussy guy at times, we had a great time. We went for a morning walk before it got too hot, then we came home and tried to get our little to nap. That didn't go amazingly well, so we took him swimming. He loved that and so did we.  We came home and tried more nap with little luck. After the failed nap, we went to the apartment complex ice cream "social" at the pool, where we all loaded up on sundaes, and were "gifted" with leftover chocolate ice cream and chocolate syrup by the people doing the ice cream. We also happened to be gifted with a floaty swim suit by some neighbors we had never met while at the pool the first time.

As we were drying off and getting ready to leave, a mom at the pool inquires about Gage's age. I told her, and she told us her little boy's floaty swim thing didn't fit him anymore.  Would we like it, she asked? Never ones to pass up useful free stuff, we said sure. It looks brand new. Kind of a strange day, in a good way. 

Tomorrow we are trying out a new church. Gage will be in the children's ministry, with kids his age and without us for the first time.  We would like to find a good church family to be part of, so keep us in your prayers that this will be a good fit... and that Gage will enjoy the children's ministry. After that, we will try to get a nap out of Gage, then we'll be off to my folks' house for dinner. 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend... we sure will.

Snake-a-phobia (and other assorted miscellany)

Gage and I visited the doctor today. We learned that basically, cry-it-out isn't working for us because we have been doing it wrong since roughly night 5. Sigh. So as of tonight we are trying to get back on track. Gage has woken up once already (it is 12:22 AM) and got himself back to sleep in 10 minutes. Wish I could say the same for me. I just lay here, feeling like I'm waiting for him to wake up. Which is pointless, because I have to let him self-soothe anyway. But really glad the doctor thinks everything is a-ok, we just need to adjust our strategy.

Nothing else amazing going on. Monday morning Gage and I took Chevy for a walk, and had another snake encounter. This one was uncomfortably close to home. I had Gage in his wrap, and I specifically avoided the snakey weeds by our apartment complex park; we were walking there last week and saw a nice snake skin that had been shed. Do you know what a snake skin says to me? Snakes are present in this area. Shudder. So I'm not too comfy over there, especially since the apartment jerks don't bother to knock back the weeds over there. Walking through there I am just waiting for a snake to strike, and the weeds encroach so thickly on the path that it is entirely too easy for me to imagine. Seriously. I have a hearty fear of snakes, that goes without saying if you've read this far.

Back to my recent run-in. We were just getting ready to walk through some rocks to the sidewalk in front of our building when Chevy spotted a rabbit. She went after it, and I yanked her back. As I yanked her almost to me, I looked down at her feet, and saw a tan and brown snake, roughly 3 feet long, recoiling from her and doing the creepy tongue thing snakes do. THANK GOD it didn't bite her. And seriously, thank God for that rabbit. I was not far from that snake, but I would've been right on top of it if not for Chevy's antics. Wearing Crocs flip flops and just ripe for the biting. I did what any self-respecting snake-a-phobic (is there an actual medical term for snake-a-phobes?) would do. I shrieked like a girl and ran away from the snake. A guy getting his baby out of a Hummer nearby surely heard and saw my performance. He likely thought I was absolutely nuts. I may or may not have referred to slithery creatures with an obscene name and hoped aloud to Brian that when the maintenance guys mowed, they would grind up the snakey jerks. I don't like them that close to home. For once I'm kinda thankful we live on the second floor!

Fun ahead this weekend. Friday night (er, tonight, I guess) we are having some close friends over, then this weekend some friends from Albuquerque will be here. We can't wait to see them, too. And they'll be shocked when they see Gage.

Tomorrow, Gage and I have a blissful day of no plans. Hopefully his crib naptime (recommended by the doctor) will go ok. I have a feeling there will be a lot of tears. Gage probably won't be too happy with the arrangement either.

Hope you all are having a blissful night of sleep. I'm off to Google the clinical term for snake-a-phobia. Oh, hush. I know you're curious too.

ETA: Fear of snakes is ophidiophobia. And if you Google that, and your curiosity is peaked, yes, looking at pictures of snakes gives me anxiety and panic feelings.

A brief cry-it-out update

This will be a very brief post because I'm in desperate need of a shower... and sleep. Gage will see the doctor tomorrow morning to discuss his bizarre-o sleep issues. We are at the point where we feel like we've given cry-it-out a fair shake - and it hasn't really worked. Sure, we had a couple of good nights in there where we thought everything was going to be ok, but then we went right back to old patterns. The one good thing that has come of CIO is that he will go to sleep in his crib without crying. Unfortunately, he won't stay asleep in his crib, and many nights he wants to play at 2:00 AM. Clearly, this is an issue for all of us.

Hopefully the doctor can shed some light on why he is so against sleeping. Because right now, he won't even really sleep well with me. He just doesn't seem to be interested. So, who knows? I've done well logging our days, so I just need to organize and print those so I can take them with us. Also need to go through the blog and make note of the first 20 days or so and how they went, since I logged pretty faithfully here.

Keep us in your prayers. The sleep is something that affects all of us and we are all definitely feelin' it right now! I'm sure you can tell, seeing as how it's almost all I've written about for the better part of a month.

Flash card project, part 2

Here's some pictures of the finished product! Between Brian and I, it took most of Sunday and part of today.

The cards are totally worth it though. Gage loved them, and I think the engage him more than typical flash cards.

You'll notice some of the color cars look weird, like yellow, green, purple and orange. I had to color white cars, and shiny brochure paper isn't the easiest to color. Nissan doesn't have a large selection of purple, green, yellow, or orange cars. I know they aren't perfect, but I like them! And Gage likes them; that's the important part!


The above shot is of the colors, obviously.

This shot above is the number cards. Number 9 cracked me up because it got pretty hard to stack that many cars on and still have room for the number, word, and dots. Hee.

Finally, a picture of them all together. Is it funny that I'm really proud of these? Next up is a matching game made of cars and then a couple posters made of cars. Can't wait until the weekend for more car art baby projects. 

Flash card project

For a few weeks now, I've been wanting to make Gage some flash cards for letters, numbers, and colors. I wanted to do colors first because that's most age appropriate. I originally planned to just get a note card and make a color block on it, then write the color below the color block. Pretty normal, average flash card, right?

But then, I saw how Gage took to the colorful car sales brochures that Brian brought home from his work to read to Gage. He LOVES cars and trucks. So I thought, what better way to make engaging flash cards than to cut out pictures of the cars, stick a few of the same color to a card, then write the color below?! I got off track after cutting out the first few because, let's face it, it is tedious and difficult with a curious toddler.

This morning over breakfast, Brian took the idea one step further. He thought for each number, we could put that many cars on a flash card, plus that many dots, the number, and the word number. I love this idea! So while I try to get Gage napping, Brian is busy cutting out cars and trucks. We have a poster idea for him too, but I will have to post a picture because I can't adequately describe it.

I can't wait to show you the finished product! I will post a few pictures up when the flash cards are done.

Prayer request

I stumbled onto a blog yesterday that weighed heavy on my heart. This family's precious 7.5 month old son was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and 24 days later he passed away. You can imagine the nightmare this family is facing; if it weighs on your heart as it did on mine, please say a little prayer for the parents. And hug your littles a bit tighter. You can see their story here:
www.Jamescamdensikes.blogspot.com.

A brief update because there's not a lot going on

There really hasn't been much going on. I've spent a fair bit of time tracking Gage's days with an app I got for my Droid called Cub-Cal tracker. It cost $2.99 but has been totally worth it. It is so much easier to keep track of his days with it. He had a pretty rough night last night; he woke up at 1:30 AM and just simply wouldn't go back to sleep. He played until 3:30 AM and then never really got back to sleep. Nor did I. Needless to say, we are all a little brainless today.

My nieces are in town and Gage has quite enjoyed playing with them when we are at my folks' house. There has been some serious drama going on with their family up north but I don't feel it is my place to post it here. Suffice it to say, their summer here is definitely for the best. Thursday, while we were at my parents', the two younger girls wanted to run through the sprinkler. Gage kept trying to, but the water falling on him made him so uncomfortable at first. He did enjoy his kiddie pool and running around. Right before I took him in to get him cleaned up for home, he decided to get into the sprinkler full on! It was excessively cute.

Yesterday morning we walked for close to three miles. I need to get an earlier start because by 11:15 AM when we were coming home, it was blazing hot. Gage seemed ok but I was sure hot. I took water bottles for each of us; I imagine Gage got tired of me shoving his water at him and telling him to drink. But when it is hot and dry I so want him to stay hydrated.

No plans for the weekend, Brian works a half day today so hopefully we can come up with something fun to do! I started my day with some Bible reading... I've been doing the chronological one year reading plan for 50 days now. I'm in the midst of Leviticus which is one interesting book. Reading Leviticus always makes me even more thankful for Jesus' sacrifice. The rules in the old Testament are intense.

Hope you all have a very enjoyable weekend!