s.u.i.m.m.

after a night of screaming by my child that i have seemingly scarred for life by an excessively long road trip, i thought nothing could top the cake... until i experienced for the first time the notorious 'spit up in my mouth.'

my brother recently had a baby and my mom and i decided it would be a great idea to drive 1,000 miles to biloxi mississippi with a four month old baby. not a great idea. he did really well on the ride down; we broke it up into three days and he really only got fussy on the third day. the ride home was a completely different story, from the moment his little heiny cakes touched his car seat it was clear that he was not going to be a happy or cooperative baby.

so because my poor child was in a car seat for a little over 2,000 miles, i am fairly certain he hates the car with a passion. we were in the car for about 10 minutes last night on the way to dinner and im pretty sure he cried for 9 and half minutes. same goes for the ride home.

we finally get home and i get my little man calmed down, were playing and hes giggling and having a good time. and im doing the whole lifting him in the air like hes super man, working on those little core muscles and then it happens. out of nowhere there is spit up in my mouth! i didnt even see it coming! he was laughing and i was laughing and then i had a mouthful of spit up. pretty disgusting but surprisingly i didnt gag at all. i just put him down, wiped my mouth, and drank a bottle of water.

luckily for you i do not have a picture of my spit up mouth experience because i think that wouldve made me spit up. but here is a picture of my little man with my brothers little lady.

my favorite.

i cant believe i havent posted this pic yet, its my favorite.



it probably took me a good hour to get this shot. for some reason, dublin can be smiling and happy as can be, but the moment the red light from my camera's flash hits his face, the smile instantly drops into the saddest and funniest little frowny face ever. i now have about 30 pictures of odd faces of my child saved in a folder. ive decided that i should compile all the weird pictures i accidentally take throughout the years and give it to him on his 18th birthday. ha.

the pits.

this dairy allergy thing is the pits.

i had what i thought was the best non-dairy snack ever that i had been totally chowing down on until last night. who would ever think that tortilla chips have dairy in them? worst mom ever.

not even cool.

babies and b-dogs.

so im back after a crazy holiday season that included celebrating christmas a week late and almost ignoring new years eve altogether.

the hubs and my pops ended up having to work a lot of extra hours so we kept postponing and postponing until we were able to spend an entire day together, it was pretty great once we finally got it! the moms and pops got avery an exersaucer which is awesome, and he loves it.

and i am currently writing this blog while watching hours and hours of 'the office,' because i received the entire series for christmas from wil. it is spectacular.

we had a pretty rough day today because the little man is having some sort of issue which caused him to scream for the better part of three hours. after finally getting him in to see the dr where he made me look like an absolute crazy person, he was happy as can be... but i do have to somehow collect and store four liquid poo samples for some tests to be run to make sure everything is ok. it is proving to be fairly difficult. im pretty sure they expected the samples to be in sometime soon but im thinking it might take a few more days than that to get the amount of liquid poo required. gross.

and the b-dog is now limping around...

days in the life of moms.

the long awaited return.

wow, it has been a long time. sorry kids, having a tiny angry man does not make for easy blogging.

so a lot has happened in the past six weeks since i have neglected my blog... lets start with the stats: he now weighs 11 lbs and is 22.5 inches long and wearing clothes for 3-6 months. he is no longer my tiny tiny little baby. it is outrageous how fast they grow and no matter how many times you hear that before you have your baby, you truly have no idea until you see it for yourself.

after 6 weeks of a fussy (i thought colicy) baby, a red rash on his face, numerous vomitting spouts, mucousy and finally bloody poop, we found out that the little man is allergic to dairy. you also have no idea how many foods contain some form of dairy until you are no longer allowed to consume it, and since i am still determined to nurse him, i cant have anything he cant have.

but its not all that bad, there are actually a lot of soy substitutes for dairy that are pretty good, and i am actually a fan of the soy milk silk, especially the chocolate. and there is an absolutely delicious ice cream that is dairy and soy free made with coconut milk, i am currently enjoying its deliciousness as i write this entry. there are also a ton of really helpful websites that have dairy free recipes, and luckily i have an awesome mom that made us a completely organic and dairy free thanksgiving, and a great hubs that found me the fabulous ice cream and is always bringing me new treat finds that are dairy free.

hmmm... what else... he had his first round of immunizations a couple weeks ago and he did great! i think i may have cried more than he did. but he took it like a little trooper. sweet little guy. it was just really hard to think that i was bringing my baby to have something done that would physically cause him pain. i also cried when the nurses took him from my hospital room to get his circumcision. clearly my hormones have turned me into a girl.

overall, he is a totally happy little baby man now that the dairy is completely out of his system. hes always smiling and laughing and 'talking' it up. i can be so frustrated if hes having a fussy day and all he has to do is look up at me with that huge gummy smile and all the frustration is totally gone. i know that sounds silly and mushy but its so true.

84+ in 7.

if you think you have an idea of just how often and how many diapers you will change when you have a newborn, you are sadly mistaken. i thought i was pretty mentally prepared to change a million diapers, but i didnt expect that my little man would need to be changed just about every five minutes.

not only does he poop every single time he eats, which lately has been about every two hours, he poos just for fun in between feedings and pees almost constantly. the best part is when im changing him and the exact moment his little heiny feels a clean diaper underneath it, he feels the need to poo again, so then we get to start the entire process all over again. fun fun. especially when hes a little cold and hating the fact that the lower part of his body is uncovered.

a word of advice.

in my head the reason that people enjoy my blog is because i am brutally and sometimes too honest with the things that i go through. but i have always been an open person and i believe that a lot of other women have gone through these same things but are too embarrassed to talk about it. and even if they havent, who cares?

as i am sure many of you remember, i touched on the subject of kegel exercises back in march when i first realized that every tiny sneeze or burst of laughter may cause me to pee on myself. i started the kegels and after a short while i did notice that i was no longer crossing my legs to prep myself before every sneeze. this particular blog is to warn all you preggos out there that you must, i repeat, you must continue the kegels as soon as you can after you give birth.

once home from the hospital after pushing a 6 lb baby (i know, hes little, i have no right to complain) out of my downtown, i was not thinking of the kegels or anything else that work the muscles of that area that was already sore, stitched up, and swollen beyond recognition. bad move. once i was healed, or on the way to a normal vagine, i shouldve started those kegels back up with a vengence! and you should too!

after returning home from some errands the other day, i squatted down to unbuckle avery and save him from the confines of his car seat. while in this fabulously attractive squatting position, i felt a sneeze coming on, and then realized that is is terribly difficult to clench the downtown muscles during a squat and that there was no possible way that i could stand up in time... so i sneezed in my squat and i didnt just pee on myself a little, i definitely peed. i peed like i had been holding it for ten minutes and finally reached a bathroom. it was absolutely no fun and all i could think was 'thank goodness this happened while i was home.'

so to all you pregnant women out there reading this blog, continue with your kegels, they may just save you from peeing on yourself during a squat.

in other news: we had some pics taken of the little man! you can go to this website to get a little sneak peak at whats to come... hes just too cute!

libby benson photography