Oh Happy Day!

I've always been a wannabe scrapbooker, but found all of the supplies too tedious to keep up with. Then, there was the invention of digital scrapbooking, but alas, while I have Photoshop, I'm not so good at using it and I can't afford to invest in one of the snazzy yet expensive scrapbooking programs. But, oh happy day, I've discovered Scrapblog and I am in heaven.

Also, 30 Days with Morgan Spurlock may be the best show in the history of the world.

Planning Already.

I'll turn 29 next February. Is it bad that I'm already planning my birthday party? :)

Birthdays are my favorite; I think celebrations should always be big. I've had great birthday celebrations over the past few years, but I think I've finally hit the age where it is more appropriate for me to host a party rather than expecting (hoping?) people will shell out money for dinner, drinks, etc. So, I'm planning already. Who cares that it's another 9 months away...

Time Flies.

My baby is 3 months old. I'm amazed at how fast he's grown and how much I love him. Night before last, he refused to go to bed on his own. I'd lay him down in his cosleeper and he just wasn't having it. I ended up just keeping him in the bed with us. But last night was great. He fell asleep around 9:15pm, slept soundly in the cosleeper until 3:45am when he woke up for a snack, and then went right back to sleep. I was able to get into the shower at 7:00am and lay back down. He didn't wake up until 8:00am, when he nursed and we napped for another half an hour. And now, he's content in his swing while we "talk." Also, I'm fairly certain he's teething, or pre-teething or something like that. He's always liked to suck on his hands but they are constantly in his mouth and he's gnawing on everything! And the drool-- oh, the drool. But he's so cute, my little turtle.

Attached.

For the first few weeks of his life, Ethan slept in the bed with us (despite the criticism I'd heard). I tried to put him down into a cosleeper that we were borrowing, but he just wouldn't sleep unless he was snuggled right up next to one of us. Around six weeks, he would sleep easy in the cosleeper, but when he woke up for a second nighttime/early morning feeding, around 4 or 5am, I would just put him in the bed with us. And he always napped with me, nestled into my arms, every morning. But right now, he's napping in his cosleeper by himself. I'm a little sad, knowing that while he used to only be able to sleep nestled in next to me, he's okay by himself now.

Cosleeping is a cornerstone of attachment parenting, something I've been doing some reading on. I had heard of AP before I was ever pregnant, having friends who follow the ideas. And we do a lot of 'techniques' (is that what you call them?). We cosleep, I breastfeed, we babycarry, we don't impose our schedule on him, but have allowed him to develop his own and we sort of fall into that. And so far, so good. I did have a fear of some of these things; so many people want to tell you that catering to an infant will spoil him, but I just don't buy it. Of course, as he gets older, some things will change, but I feel confident in my maternal instincts, that I'll just know how to raise my boy. I'm fortunate that I have a husband who believes the same things, so we support one another. I like being so attached.

There's No Place Like Home.

We got home late last night from Kansas. We had hoped to stop and take the boys to a museum or something, but the huge thunderstorms really set us back. Our only stops were to eat (Bob Evans, I have decided, is way better than Cracker Barrel). And we all finally got the best night's sleep in over a week.
It's good to be home.

Late nights are for pondering?

I am currently sitting in a dark hotel room, listening to my three boys snore (or just very loudly breathing while they sleep). We just spent the past week in Kansas. The reason we were there is sad; my husband's grandma wasn't doing well, so we packed up the car, loaded in the boys and drove 18 hours so he could be with her. We got there just in time, on Wednesday evening. She past away in the early hours of Thursday.
But the trip itself wasn't sad. We live minutes away from my family, but 18 hours away from my husband's. He has two brothers whom he's close to and only gets to see them maybe once or twice a year. So the trip was a great time for him to catch up and spend some time with his family, eating at his favorite local restaurant, joking back and forth with his dad (just fyi, my blog title is in homage to my husband and his family; they can come up with the wittiest puns at the drop of a dime and I'm a bit jealous of this talent but hope our boys inherit it), drinking beers and playing guitar with his brothers.
*Edited. I took out a bunch of rambling, but the gist was that I am envious of how close Jason and his brothers are and were growing up. Also, I pondered on friendships and how the affect me.
Maybe I've been on the road too long and just need to stop thinking and get some sleep.

Like I Need Another Blog.

I'll be the first to admit that when I jumped on the blog bandwagon a few years ago, it was because, as a wannabe writer, I thought it would be a good way to get my ideas and written word out to the public. That was a big fat HA. Nobody reads random blogs these days.

Well, nobody but me. I seek out blogs, mostly because it satisifies some voyeuristic nature I have hidden deep down inside. And so, I write a new blog-- apart from the diaryland one I started with and the MySpace one that I mostly keep up with. I'm starting fresh because a lot of things in my life have changed over the past year (namely, I got married and just had a baby) and I want to write about those things without anyone (read: those who subscribe to my MySpace, which I started when I was a much more single, much more party-going girl) feeling obligated to read or comment. Not that I don't want people to read; I just don't want to overwhelm anyone with the mush.

So we'll see how this goes. We'll see how often I actually post; if anyone will actually read. Cross your fingers.