Xmas Smiles

Chasing Lights

Well, Floyd wrote a song for the season, and recorded it with his friend Carter Butler for the GREAT SUFJAN STEVENS XMAS SWAP competition. While they didn't win the competition, they were one of the favorite 35 out of over 600 submissions. Currently Sufjan's record label (Asthmatic Kitty) is streaming the song on their website on their AKradio player. However, if you don't want to navigate to the website and upload the player, Floyd is allowing anyone who wants the song to DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE at his myspace page as a Holiday Blessing to you and yours. The song is called "Chasing Lights". Enjoy and be well.

here's some links:
William F. Gibbs --- come download "Chasing Lights", it's already a holiday favorite in our home. Merry Christmas!

puppy playdates... and girl talk

Well, it turns out puppies need playdates more than babies. (I suppose playdates are really for moms to catch up on gossip anyway.) But JH the third has been feeling a little neglected. After all, he has been hard at work protecting yet another member of the family, and exercising greater loyalty beside the bouncy seat by day and cribside by night. So off we went to the Plyler House for JH to get some free time in the yard with Nellie while momma here got to have coffee AND lunch with very little interuption.
RM was kind enough to take a nap.

But woke up for lunch to show off his latest tricks: smiling and standing (virtually unassisted - he's so advanced).


Also check out the new-mommy-do I am sporting these days... turns out it is much nicer to have shorter hair again and Locks of Love is grateful for the 12 inch donation.

Did we mention this was all about the dogs? See how nice it is to sit in the sun?

2.5 months...

RM is 2.5 months now... he's a whopping 14 lbs, 12 ozs.

He loves a bouncy seat (which is riding lower to the ground now)

hanging out with dad after the yard work was done on Saturday...

And drumroll please, this new little trick has attributed to his new sleeping through the night habit. Lets hear a hurrah for 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep!

adventures for me...

there are some basic skills i have acquired in the last two months that can only be gained from experience. No one tells you how to "Aspirate" your child's nasal passages, but it must be done to dislodge stubborn boogers and help them breathe. No one teaches you how to take your child's temperature rectally, but it is the most accurate way, and must be done as well. I just think nurses should tell parents these things so they don't have to learn by taking their child to the doctor unneccessarily as sometimes happens. Fortunately, i have Sister #1, Sister #2, and Sister #3 to lean on for advice in these simple tasks.

One recently acquired skill however, was not learned from these professional mommmies. They would never have gone to the mall to do Christmas shopping with only three spare diapers. But i did. And while nursing my child in the ladies' lounge at Belk, he naturally blew out a diaper. After the first change you think i would have learned. He blew out another one. AND ANOTHER ONE. So i had used up all of our diapers (and yes, they were all quite full), so the only thing left to cover his little rear was the burp cloth i had been using... a "cloth diaper" if you will. Unfortunately, i did not have these handy instructions, but i think i did an okay job of it in the pinch i was in. But even after scurrying to the car and home as quickly as possible, he was in hysterics again because he had completely soaked through this one too by the time we got home.

The moral of this story should be, always have at least four diapers in your diaper bag. But my moral is NEVER entertain the idea of using cloth diapers, no matter how environmentally friendly someone thinks they might be. There is no wicking moisture away from the body... and really, they don't work. Just keep filling up the landfills with pampers. Your sanity as a mother depends on it.


ps - i had a full unopened box of pampers in the car... realized much too late.