A jumbled list of updates

What an adventure the last few days have been. Sunday, we flew home from Seattle. This time the flight connected in Chicago and so we had to worry about take-off and landing two times! Miraculously, John got Davis to use the binkie for take-off on the second leg and so we only had to give him milk/water on the other three take offs and landings. Also, Davis slept the entire way from Chicago to Boston, at baggage claim, and in the car until we were a quarter-mile from home. John and I were getting really hopeful we could just transfer him inside and he would never need to wake up until his night feeding. No such luck, awake and VERY interested to relearn his house and cats. We were up until 2am, I think, trying to get him back down..eventually it happened. I have to say that the trip on the airplane definitely tested our parenting preparedness. I'll have you know that even though his clothing became less coordinated as the trip wore on, we still had one extra outfit at the end of it! Not bad for rookies. An additional adventure we took on was to transport frozen breastmilk on the airplane. Since I had been sick, we went through our entire stock (almost) of milk and I was really nervous going into daycare that he wouldn't have enough and as Grammie found out the night we went away for our anniversary, Davis says "Just say NO to formula"...Not a situation I wanted to leave him in on his first day of daycare.

John and I were really glad to have a day at home to unpack and organize everything for daycare. We managed to break my breastpump and then fix it (phew), unpack, take a walk, cuddle for hours with Lilly and play for hours with Domino and introduce homemade applesauce to Davis. We made applesauce last fall from organic Northeast handpicked apples and Davis was wild about it, in fact I had to refill the bowl. Unfortunately, this is the very last bottle of it and so John and I are in a hurry to make more for this year.

Finally, we get to today, a BIG day in all of our lives. John and I dropped Davis off at daycare this morning for the first time. Even with all our advanced preparation, I still felt disorganzied and hurried. Davis was very unhappy to be transferred from Mommy's arms to Sarah's arms and it was all I could do not to snatch him back, but you'll be glad to know I didn't AND I didn't cry until we left the daycare. Sarah has written an email to let me know that he his happily playing with his new friends (which, we expected to happen). Luckily, I'm madly busy with work and have less time to dwell on it than I would naturally take.

Things I never thought I would say or do...

Motherhood has definitely changed me and I was trying to think of all the things I say and do now that I never thought I would. Here are some examples, I never thought I would...

• Be so excited about poop. "Yay! This one isn't green!" (We've been struggling with what might be a foremilk/hindmilk issue, milk separates and if they eat too much foremilk and not enough of the fatty hindmilk their poop will be green and they'll have increased gas and need to eat more often).
  
• Say "Ow! Don't hug me so hard, you're hurting my boobs!" (One of my friends is stronger than she knows).
  
• Say "My pubic bone hurts." This seems to disturb people, but really, it's just like saying my knee hurts isn't it? This is the only thing standing between me and a good, long, run. Oh, and about 42 weeks of lost fitness.
  
• Refer to myself in third person as 'mommy'. Not just to Davis mind you, but in general. Hopefully, I mostly curb this behavior at work.
  
• Yell "Domino, I swear, if you wake that baby up you're going to the sausuage factory!"
• Say "John, you pointed him down right?" Turns out with little boys you have aim them correctly so as to prevent diaper leaks.
• Open a diaper to double check that I pointed him down.
  
• Go to work with spit up on my shirt becuase "eh, it's not that much really".
• Tell Davis "Niiice one" when he passes wind. Hey, trust me, it's much better out than in.
• Tell another baby "Niice one" when they pass wind. I can be excited for everyone right?
• Tell anyone who will listen what very small thing Davis did that I think is the most amazing thing in the world. I always told myself I wouldn't be one of those people who can't talk about anything but their kids. I can talk about other things, I just generally prefer not to.
• Plead with God every night at bedtime. "Please God, just five hours of sleep in a row, that's all I ask for. Well, that's a lot huh? Ok, four hours, please just four hours of consecutive sleep? No, no, you're right, it could be a lot worse than three hours in a row. Please God, just three hours of sleep in a row."
  

Daddy-Davis time

I'm off of work this week taking care of Davis full time. Davis will be starting daycare on September 8th, so we are patching together care for him until then. My mom (Grammie) came for three weeks which ended last Friday, I have this week, then Kristen's mom comes for 5 weeks (her dad is also coming for part of that). That gets us to August 15th, so we'll probably plan to take some vacation time and hopefully travel back to Seattle for at least a week.

Today was my first day since Davis was born where I had full responsibility for him for the whole day. I really enjoyed the day. This morning, I made Kristen breakfast, then Kristen was off to work and Davis was off for a nap. I took care of some long lingering errands (a theme for the week) and watched the Tour de France on Versus.

Davis woke up smiling after 90 minutes and we some good playtime for about an hour before it was time for his first bottle of the day. After his bottle, he slept in my arms while we watched the exciting finish of stage 3. Kristen accused me of lining up my time off with the Tour, but if that was the case, I would have planned to take the 3rd week of the Tour off, not the first.

Davis woke up from his power nap and we had almost 2 and a half hours of play time before his next bottle. It then took him a while to fall asleep and I had to resort to taking him on a walk to Arlington Center. Fortunately, the raining weather of the last three weeks seems to be abating and we had a wonderful walk in the sun to Jam N' Java for an ice coffee before walking back along Spy Pond and past the Capital Theater. It was a 55 minute walk and a 53 minute nap.

After we got home, I transferred Davis to the crib from his car seat (a daring maneuver) and he is still sleeping after 40 minutes. If you've been following this blog, or talking to us, you'll know that sleeping in the crib has been a real trial for us and Davis, so this gives me hope that we are making progress.

Kristen should be home soon. I have a dinner of sweet-potato quesadillas planned, then I get to go out to Red Bones for a beer with a friend and former co-worker.

Tomorrow, Kristen and Mommy and Me Yoga in the afternoon and I'm going to try to take a bike ride up to the Lexington Farmer's market to pick up a chicken for beer-can chicken while she has Davis for Yoga and lunch. Thursday is a sing-along at the Arlington Library and hopefully we'll find some more fun activities and enjoy more of this sunshine that has eluded us for so long.

Research on autism and vaccines was fabricated

This was a shocking NY Times article we saw last week through various other posts. Appalling that it took this long for them to discover the fabrication, but perhaps we'll see vaccination rates go up now that the link is conclusively dismissed (for the time being).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.ece