Monday, October 31, 2011

A visit from Uncle

This weekend I went down to Des Moines to pick up my little brother Nicholas. It was just Gabe, Nick, and I Saturday because Jaime was learning how to combine with his NRCS friends. It was really nice to catch up with my lil bro. He's my little green-eyed blonde-haired mini me :)

Gabe walking with Pooh in his mouth and trying to give it to Nick


Nick reading his book on my messy couch (the boy loves to read :)

Banging his brush and the remote together





"Yes mom, I'm chewing on my brush! Gotta problem with it!?" lol silly guy













We also went to the Library and picked out a free movie, ate pizza, and watched a lot of Spongebob Square pants. During commercials Nick drilled me with questions like "Who was the only Egyptian pharaoh to worship one god?" and "Did you watch the Nova about the discovery of the ancient Ice Man?" I swear, that boy is going to grow up and be a famous scientist or historian the way he soaks up fascinating little facts. If he takes after his big sis and becomes a historian, well all the better.

Friday, October 21, 2011

I Finally Did It

Considering I have a 7 page paper due in a week, 2 midterms to study for, and my "regular" readings to do, I probably should have spent my afternoon studying, right? But did I do that? No! I ORGANIZED! And it felt soo good :) My son's room has been needing a tidy-up for awhile now but it kept getting pushed down on the list of To-Do's.


When my husband got off from work I sent him and Gabriel off to the Bookmobile that visits our apartments every Friday and got to work cleaning and organizing Gabriel's room. Usually I do my cleaning after he has gone to bed, unfortunately this doesn't work well for his room (because he happens to be sleeping in the crib and I'm not a stealthy ninja). I wish I had thought to take a before picture so you could fully appreciate how beautiful the current state-of-room is. This is what I accomplished in my 45 minutes while Gabe and husband were away:


  • Organize closet (hang all onsies, mate socks, etc.)
  • Arrange items on changing table (diapers, towels, bibs, etc.)
  • Vacuum
  • Fresh crib sheet
  • Put toys away
  • Lay out bedtime stuff
  • Search entire room for missing teething medicine
  • Vacuum living room
  • Put toys in living room away
  • Start a load of laundy





It is AMAZING what a mom can accomplish in 45 minutes she has the house to herself! Even though I know by 10am tomorrow nobody will be able to tell all I accomplished, it still feels great.

And while my wonderful husband was feeding Gabriel I switched the laundry and made the grown-ups diner (nothing fancy, just some hamburger helper). Probably the most successful Friday night I've had in a long time. And the best part? I got to spend quality time with my son for a few hours before hubby got home! After a week of trying I finally captured him walking on my video camera!!! He's getting too big!



Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Poor Baby

So...called the doctor this morning because Gabriel has been having these weird little black string-looking things in his poop that kind of freaked me out. After a week of this I finally call the doc.

Once we get there, however, the doc has no clue what they could be so I get to take 3 samples of Gabriel's poopy and bring it to Mercy tomorrow :) I felt like a scientist (my husband was very grossed out to see me scraping diarrhea off a diaper with a tongue suppressor) but my husband says I'm weird.

AND it turns out that my poor baby has an ear infection on top of the teething and weird poopy. At least I can do something about the ear infection and hopefully he feels better in a few days.

Monday, October 10, 2011

That's Right...One Year pics are in!

 My little Tigger :)



 I had to tickle him to get him to smile!


 Trying to get away from the tickle monster...hehe

 He DID NOT like the bathtub!


 And apparently he didn't like standing by himself either.
 But he was all better when he got to cuddle with mommy's boobies.




I love this one of him and daddy.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Bye-Bye Baby

Because Jaime and I both go to school full time we have to put Gabriel in day care (unfortunately all of our family is in Des Moines so no help there). We were able to find an in-home day care just a few blocks down from our apartments who would watch him from 9 to 5pm.

However, each day that I dropped him off something just didn't feel right (not creepy-bad or anything). The lady's TV was always on really loud, there were toys everywhere and a lot of them were way too small for Gabriel's safety. Also, he started to get a REALLY bad diaper rash and I realized she wasn't cleaning his butt well at all. There would be poop residue on his but when I got him home and she left him in a diaper every day for about 4 hours, which wouldn't be too bad if she actually cleaned his butt properly. After about 2 weeks my mommy instinct was just too strong and Jaime and I started to look into other providers. It seemed like everybody was full or only looking for a part time spot. Then I thought of something genius....

Why don't we have Jaime's sister come live with us as a nanny!!! She just got her CNA certificate and therefore has child CPR/first aid and she absolutely loves Gabriel. Also, Jessica is 18 but has never had a job before and just found out she is pregnant so she definitely needs a job right now. Luckily, she agreed to it and will be living with us Monday through Friday and going back to Des Moines over the weekends (her parents and very recent husband are in Des Moines). We provide room and board plus $100/week and we have a baby sitter we can trust to follow our values and guidelines and she gets to make some money and spend time with her nephew. Plus, I'm sure she'll appreciate the practice :) Today is her first day on the job so we shall see how it goes!

Jessica holding Gabe when he was ohh...about 4 months or so.