Hump Day (Wednesday)

Wow I realize I haven't written in a while. Nothing really happens here except that James got double ear infection and pneumonia. He's still on antibiotic  and has to have breathing treatments with a nebulizer up to 3 times a day. James didn't mind the treatments for the first couple of days, but now whenever he sees me get it ready he runs the opposite direction. Crying is actually good cause it expands the lungs and therefore more treatment gets in. As his mom I hate seeing him wiggle ans squirm in my arms to try to get out of reach. I literally have to put his legs between mine while using one arm across his chest so he can't reach up to take the mask away and with that same hand hold both of his hands down. The other hand is holding the mask to his face. I put put it on cause it looks uncomfortable, but keep it close so I can see the medicine get into his lungs. With him fighting the whole time putting the mask on his nose and mouth is the best I can do. Distraction used to work with a movie, but he's gotten to the point that it doesn't matter what's on he doesn't care. With him and Donny both trying to get over sickness I feel drained. I'm waiting for me one day to get it, but I have a very high immunity to any sickness. It takes a lot to get me down. With Donny being sick and going to work it makes me more appreciative of him. For him not to complain much or hardly at all and to do manual labor for almost 9 hours sometimes even longer is beyond me how anybody can do it. Kudos to him. Makes me wish I can hidden money somewhere so I can buy him something he really wants. Telling him "I appreciate it" doesn't do justice. As of right now he is currently in the kitchen singing Madonna "Hey Mr DJ" although he just informed me he has no idea who sings it. :) He makes me laugh.

On a side note. I just realized that James who is currently 18 months old still has not been to a park of any kind. There isn't one anywhere near us and I don't really want to go by myself. I could take him to the one in the mall, but I don't think of it until it's too late in the day. Plus all the toddlers we know are girls. I know nothing is wrong with that, but I would like him to have a  guy friend that he can say that he grew up with him and that they are best friends. I can't and don't really want James to have that close of a relationship with a girl. Man I am thinking too deep and way too far ahead in his life. 

James just woke up

5:42pm

Typical Tuesday

Usually on the weekend there is either not much to do or we are so busy that I don't remember to blog until it's too late. Hence this past weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday was just like any other weekend with the exception of getting together with Donny's family Sunday afternoon for lunch. Nobody had really seen James since last Christmas other than Donny's parent's. This was the first time everybody got to see him walk and to hear it over and over about how cute it is that he walks on his toes got really old quick. James has been walking almost 5 months now so it's not new to us, but when he would walk across the room they made such a big deal like it was his first time. Can't say I blame them since they haven't seen it before. "Ballerina is in his future" said like they came up with that joke. James does walk on his toes and almost never flat foot. I must be at that point where their advice (mostly negative) is an unwelcoming thing. I appreciate advice if I need it and usually it will go out one ear if I don't, but I do say "thank you" One of Donny's relatives suggested putting James in weighted shoes to bring down his heel! I was like "WHAT????" or when he was eating a hot dog asking me in a negative tone if that was all her ever ate. Guessing last family event we were introducing James to food and at that time that was all he wanted to eat. 

     I dread going to Donny's family events and I seem like I always put up my defense even before I walk through the front door. Maybe it's the large family that I'm not used to dealing with. Way too many people. There is less than 10 people on my side of the family including my sister in law and my niece. Donny's family consists of 30+ and that's including all the kids and spouses and partners.

New Subject :)

     James has most certainly been a bundle of energy lately. Climbing onto everything and even hurting himself in the process. He has learned to climb onto a ladder. I was on the ladder cleaning a high area and I look down and James was already 2 steps off the ground laughing hysterically. This kid is quicker than lightning. He has already learned to push our dining room chairs out and climb on those. He thinks it's so funny to see mommy run for him as he is rocking the chair so hard that it falls. James needs a padded room until he's 18 

Gonna be a good day. I can feel it part 2

Okay what I originally thought was gonna be a good day turned into a bad midmorning. My mom and Isabel came over for a bit to play with James. James was already being a grump (getting up at 5:30 and it was around 9) so mom tried to distract James while Isabel water colored. Not long after Isabel started to show signs of being tired (she had gotten up earlier than normally) so mom packed up and she and Isabel left while James was screaming cause he didn't want them to go. I got the room dark for his nap and started to rock him. That didn't work he cried harder so I laid him down without a cup cause yesterday he wouldn't drink his cup for a nap. He screamed/cried for about 30 minutes before it got quiet. I had walked in at some point to give him his cup thinking he would drink from it. He woke up not even an hour later wanting to get out. I was expecting for him to scream or cry, but neither of those things happened. He was smiling and in a good mood. His cup still full of milk. 

     One thing he loves to do is chase the vacuum when I vacuum. So I turned it on and handed him the hose and attachments thinking it was time to teach him to vacuum. All he did was put the end of the attachment in his hand and feel the suction. I took it out of his hand and placed his right hand onto the handle and started "sweeping" the floor like he normally does. He didn't care about that he wanted to feel the suction again.I took off the attachments and handed it to him so I could put the hose back on the vacuum. James looked at the attachments and then at the vacuum and started "vacuuming" the floor. Practically running while pushing the attachments to "suck" up dirt. He came back to me every few seconds to see how far I got. 

     Can't wait until breaking him of the bottle is finished.

Finished at 12:12 pm (stupid time stamp is off)

Gonna be a good day. I can feel it

Last night was a success for James for going to bed without a bottle. I did however give him a cup with milk and of course he didn't want that, but some time during the night he did drink it. He did go to sleep without a fuss. Donny and I tried to wear him out before bed and it worked :) I did get him Silk Almond milk. Tastes okay. I think next time I'll get the vanilla cause I don't think James cares for it. He gave me a strange look and put the cup down. I don't know if he finished it or not. I should probably go check in a bit.

     I went through all of James' toys this morning and realized that he had toys from when he was a newborn and decided to get rid of a bunch of toys. I seriously have a bunch of clothes and toys to take to Goodwill. I'm not a big fan of passing down newborn toys or toys that are being chewed on to any of my friends. I do however wash them and put them into bags for Goodwill. I also went through his extra clothes bin. The bin contains all different sizes from 2 years to 5T. As I was pulling out his 24months/2T I noticed that he has a lot of sweaters and jackets. What in the world?? We live in FL and I don't think it's gonna get that cold to where he'll need all that hot clothes. Then I realize where the majority of them came from: my mom. She loves sweaters on boys. Well if it doesn't get that cold we'll have to turn the AC down quite a bit so he'll get some use out of them and my mom will see them.

     As I type this James is already down for his first nap, but is crying hard because there is no bottle in there with him. He woke up at 5:30 this morning and was yawning and rubbing his eyes to signal that he was tired at 8:30. For him to cry this hard is not normal and I can only assume he's having bottle withdrawals. Okay I got him up. Apparently he wasn't tried. Usually he lays down and cries which means "I'm tired, but I don't want to go to sleep". This time he was standing up which means "I'm not tired" so we are currently watching Toy Story and he is trying to decide if he likes the Almond milk or not. I might mix a little of the whole milk in it and see if that makes a difference to him.

     The mowers are here and that means James can stand at the slider doors and watch them. Usually there is a crew of 5 guys, but so far I only see 1 guy today. James gets so excited that he knocks on the glass to get their attention, but they are so busy and can't hear him that they pass by. Although 1 time the weed guy did notice him and waved and James ran off being all shy.

     James just said a new word"CUP" I'm so excited!!!!! That's his 2nd word that he'll actually say. He knows many words, but hasn't said any until now. Soon sentences will flow......hopefully. That concludes our morning

No More Bottle part 2 (Small blessings in disguise)

I figure since I can't turn my back on James for more than a few minutes at a time I will do several posts throughout the day and call them "parts"

     So far the no bottle hasn't really been much of an issue today. All I could think of as I was throwing them out was "Perfect timing" since I just bought a brand new bottle brush, nipples, and the drying rack was less than a couple of months old. We were spending so much on replacement nipples it was crazy! You pay something like $3.00 for 2 nipples and James loved to chew through the nipples so every week we were buying at least 2 to 3 packs of them (I had 7 bottles). When I would watch him just sit there and chew on them while drinking his milk I would thank the Lord that I wasn't nursing anymore. 

     I'm so thankful we are over the teething stage!!! Our furniture looks like we had a dog at one point. I would catch James chewing on the table legs and our computer chair arms. It was pointless to even look for new furniture cause James would make his many marks all over them. Even caught him chewing on baseboards. Teething rings and toys would not help. When he was real young we would put water in the nipples and freeze them and that seemed to ease his pain. That's another thing I'm thankful for he decided to give those up on his own. One time though I threw them out too soon thinking he was done with them, but not yet. Had to spend a bunch of money replacing those and not even a month later he was done with them for good.

     As I write James is currently sitting on the floor (under the dining room table) hiding from me so I wont take the bottle brush away. I keep forgetting he can reach onto the counters and open drawers to get stuff out. Every day is something new and not exciting cause I am waiting for the day that we rent a room in the ER because we'll be there every week. James' favorite thing to do is to push his firetruck toy  over to wherever he  knows he shouldn't be, hence the picture and use it to touch things. He used to need it to climb unto the couches, but today he learned he can do that all by himself. Thankfully we have carpet and it's not a long fall plus he can get down all by himself too. Well he opened the entertainment drawer and is dragging all the stuff that he found inside all around the house. He has a basket of toys just to his left as you can see in the picture that he can play with, but instead wants to play with mommy and daddy's stuff. Well I better go check my cookies. James wanted oatmeal cookies today so I said okay :)

No more bottle

Today is the day where I threw all of James' bottles away. Apparently being almost 18 months and on a bottle is a big no no. Did not know that until I did a little research all on my own after women hounded me wanting to know why he was still on the bottle. His Dr. said it was fine so I was okay with it, but it apparently it isn't socially acceptable. This morning wasn't too bad (yes I know it's still considered morning, but he gets up at 6) He did whine for a bottle, but as soon as I fed him he was fine. I put milk in his cup and placed it on the floor and every time he cried for a bottle I would say "There is milk in your cup" He knows the word "milk", but not really "cup" so I repeated "cup" until Donny was ready to throw me out of the house. He finally agreed to the cup and gave me a big smile when he realized milk was in it. Success! I thought. He drank that cup of milk pretty fast so I was content.....until nap time. Got the room ready i.e. fans on curtain closed. Poured more milk into his cup went and brought him into the room as soon as I laid him down and he realized I wasn't handing him his bottle, but his construction vehicle themed cup he started to cry. I repeated "There is milk in your cup" He threw it hard and cried even harder. I picked up the cup and went to place it back in the crib. At this point James was standing in his crib crying hard tears streaming down his face with his hand reaching out for his bottle. I handed the cup to him and he pushed it aside. I put the cup in his crib and walked out closing the door behind me. James still standing there crying. I hate being this kind of mom. You know easily swayed by my crying child that I give in. I always thought I would be the harder parent, but every time I see his face and hear him cry my heart melts. Hopefully this transition doesn't take too long and he'll enjoy drinking out of his cup. Next on the list of things to do is switch him over to lactose free milk

I did it. I joined the crazies

Okay I had this whole blog typed out and I must have hit the wrong button cause it vanished! What a way to start my blog lol 

     I figured since I have time during my day when my little one naps I can do this. I have loved writing or blogging since I was a kid cause I always carried my journal every where I went. I even wrote in it during church. Just to warn you this is gonna be a blog of bad grammar, but really down to Earth. 

     A little about me and my family. I am married to a wonderful man, Donny and have been married for 5 years this October. I gave birth to our son Donald James IV who we call James on March 31, 2010.

     I love being a stay at home mom, but realize that we can't afford for me to do so. Right now we are living in a 1 bed 1 bath. How do we do that with a kid you might ask. Easy! He naps in the bedroom and at night he gets moved to the living room. So thankful for portacribs :) I love never missing a moment in my son's every growing life. Just this week (it's Wed.) he has learned to turn on light switches by using the dust broom or the vacuum attachments. He still can't talk, but has learned word recognition. My favorite word that he knows is "hugs". My blogs are mainly going to consist of him cause that's who I spend most of my time with. Well that's it soooo far. James is taking the vacuum attachments to the TV so I have to go protect it. (Monsters vs. Aliens is on)