Asher has apparently developed a fear of sleeping.  He spent more time in my arms FREAKING OUT every time I so much as sighed last night then actually sleeping... in his crib... asleep.  Normally he goes to bed around 8-9 PM and I have some time in the evenings to myself, then he gets up around midnight very briefly to nurse and then again around 4ish.  This all varies here or there each night but that's an approximate.  WELL, last night he went to bed around 9 yes, but then he was up at 10 and STAYED up until 2, then he slept until 4 when he STAYED up until 6.  I was thankfully asleep during much of the nursing sessions in his room.  (YEA for big comfy chair!)  Still, I prefer to not sleep sitting up in a chair with an infant in my arms and my chin resting against my chest.  Please let these teeth come in soon!  I'll be bringing the whole crew into the doctor tonight since I got a call from Gavin's school nurse today.

OH, I cannot believe I forgot to write about this!!!!  We got home from my mom's house last Friday night and the front door to our house was sitting WIDE OPEN.  Ya, as in, our whole house was just sitting all day long on Friday with the front door totally open.  Yes, as in, we had shut and locked it before we left and I was scared that whomever may have opened it was still in the house.  Kris and I had driven seperately and he was not home yet as he stopped at his mom's house to pick something up.  So I grab my phone and call 911 and they send the police over to go through the house to make sure no one is in there and the kids and I hang tight in the garage waiting.  here's the thing - I wasn't expecting to be having strange men walking through our whole house - it is the holidays - the place was a disaster.  Ya, it is always a mess, but it was REALLY REALLY bad!  I was so horrified at the thought of the police walking through our house that if it hadn't been for my huge fear of one of the kids getting hurt from someone bad being in the house, I absolutely would NOT have called them.  I'd rather have come face to face with a theif, possibly armed, then have two police officers walk through my house.  Yes, it was that bad.  But I sucked it up and they came and thankfully no one was in the house and it seems nothing was stolen.  Our theory is that the back door had been left unlocked and possibly one of the neighborhood kids that Gavin plays with came over looking for him.  We don't really know.  It's kinda scary wondering who was in our house.  Yikes.

OK, non Asher thing #2, I'm getting set up to digiscrap!  I've bought the scrapbooking MAX! software and I have some 12X12 archival photo paper ordered and I've just ordered my Solstice gift from Kris.  An Epson R1800 photo printer!  It can print up to 13X44 images and it does 12X12 borderless images as a default setting.  The 12X12 paper also comes with free software to use a normal scanner to scan in 12X12 pages apparently - it'll be interesting to see how that works.  I've got that link on my links page and I'm having so much fun with it!  So far, digiscrapping rocks!  :)

 

11-27-06

 

We have another tooth breaking through!  This time it is a top one.  Asher was being CRABBY last night so finally I gave his mouth a good search and I noticed the tiny little spot on his gums.  It is just starting and he must be really uncomfortable.  I gave him some meds and he did settle down - until 2AM when they wore off and he was UP again! 

Well, we've made the 'baby food' leap now.  I've got some little packs of baby mush and he gets to sit at the highchair with us at meal times and eat his goo.  He makes the funniest faces with each bite, but he does seem to like it.  It isn't like this is his first taste since he eats it all the time at daycare, but he sure acts like it is his first taste!  So far he's had peaches and green beans and squash with me.  Over Thanksgiving he had pumpkin pie and real squash and mashed potatoes which he seemed to really like.  This weekend he made it up to about 16 pounds 5 ounces so I think he is recovering from his cold enough to gain back his weight.

Hey, check out our links page because I've put up a link to a scrapbook I've been working on with this trial software.  I really like it so I'm probably going to buy the full version.  Then there is the HUGE task of putting in all our current scrapbook photos back to when Gavin was born.  Yikes!

 

11-22-06

 

6 months old!!  And his weight??..... 16 pounds 0.5 ounces!  I know.. he was 16 pounds back in October.  But ya know, I predicted that he was gonna do this.  He's been so up and down this past month that he really has grown, I mean, at one point he was all the way back down to 15 pounds 9 ounces.  He was also 26.5 inches long, which I put on a growth chart for length that I'm adding here.  Length-wise he has done pretty well so I'm going to use that for awhile.  Maybe then I'll see some actual growth each month! :) 

You know, last night I was thinking about all the weird little things I do when I'm trying to get him to sleep.  My little rituals that I'm totally convinced have something to do with him sleeping or not.  For example, when he is done nursing, I transfer him to my shoulder in exactly the same way.  Then I ease out of the chair and hold him by the crib and EVERY time I whisper "Mommy loves you, sweat dreams, goodnight little Asher." before laying him down.  I then pull the covers over him and walk the same path out so I don't hit the creaky spots on the floor.  I brace the door just right so I can open it quietly even though it brushes the carpet and makes some noise - then the light switch creaks ever so slightly when I turn off the dimmed light.  I have to open the door and flip the switch at exactly the same time because the carpet noise will cover the light switch noise.  Then when I get the door closed I will walk away from the door a little before snapping back the nursing bra because I SWEAR that kid could wake up to that snap from the deepest sleep and in the noisiest room.  Now, does he need this ritual?  Probably not quite to the detail that I do it.  But I continue to do it and continue to think that it actually affects him sleeping or not.  People are weird.

 

11-21-06

 

Well, 1 day before he turns 6 months and he is a grand total of... 16 pounds 0 ounces!  I told you he had stalled out in the weight gain department.  He actually made it up to about 16 pounds 5 ounces awhile back but then he was sick and well, who knows what happened.  We'll see what we get tomorrow I guess.

I had put Ash down in his crib last night to watch his mobile while I started some diaper laundry.  When I got back he was on his hands and knees!  He has only done that a couple of times, and he needs something to brace his legs against to get up like that.  *Sigh* Lay back down and be a baby Asher!!  Yesterday Kris and I were dropping the kids off at daycare and Ash was doing his baby babble and evidentally Kris heard "dada".  Don't tell him, but I heard it too.  Whatever.  That totally doesn't count because, um, well, I'm sure I'll come up with a reason.  Of course, I don't have to come up with a reason if I continue to not admit having heard it in the first place.  I guess we'll see if he actually reads these.

BTW - I put new pics up on the link on the main page and on the bottom of Ash's page I added one of him sitting up all by himself.

 

11-14-06

 

What a lot to share!  Asher is sitting on his own!  OK, so it only lasts about 30-40 seconds before he tumbles, but he is getting better each day at it and really, 30-40 seconds is a long enough time to show that he is balancing himself.  He is also talking baby talk!  For a little while, I wasn't sure if he was getting constants out or not because he was so into blowing raspberries when talking, but he is really talking up a storm now with his ga-ga-ga-ba-ba stuff now!  I am keeping up my "mamamamama" to him but he hasn't said that one yet. ; )  He is still suffering from his stuffy nose, as is pretty much everyone else in the house.  Yuck.  People have been asking about wish lists for the holidays so I added a page here that is on the 'links' page to our family wish lists.  I need to think of some things to put up there for Asher.  Really, anything that he can chew and drool on is fine by him, but I'm sure I'll come up with a few things. 

This weekend Asher came with me to a little scrap-booking party at a friends' house.  He did pretty well but he had a hard time going to sleep.  I think he missed having his siblings around a little as he got bored quickly playing by himself.  He LOVED the dogs!  There was one that kept licking him and he would just laugh and giggle at that!  It was really fun to watch because he was so interactive with the dogs.  He would hold out his hands to them so they could lick him and then he'd laugh and hold his hand out more.  He also was trying to give the dogs one of the little toys he was holding.

OH!  I went to sleep last night around 10:30 and didn't get woken up by anyone until 5:30!!! 

 

 

11-9-06

 

Have you seen the evil formula ads on the top of my site?  I asked Tripod to stop that - and the grief counseling ads that always show up on my main page - and they sent me this:

Angelfire and Tripod only provide advertising space for legitimate commercial sites.  We do our best to make sure that we do not host controversial ads. There may be some ads that are objectionable to individuals, unfortunately we do not have the ability to change them at this time. We are working on making this option available, so please be patient.

SO... I guess I'm stuck with them.  They put the ads up based on the content of the page so what I write about, they use for their ads.  *sigh*  I better not write something like: President Bush is the worst president in the history of the world and I'm actually frightened by what he might do next - or - I would be - if he ever actually seemed to not be on vacation all the time not doing anything.

 

SO, ignore the ads.  I don't promise that I approve of any of them.  BTW - what is UP with people calling us at home for some dumb charity or political message or poll?  Don't these people KNOW how annoying that is???  Especially the "vote for so-and-so." ones.  Those I TOTALLY don't get.  Don't you KNOW you are hurting yourself by calling everyone at home and making them mad at you?  Plus you are spending money on this by paying these morons that actually have jobs of calling people at home and disrupting their lives.  (In the case of the individual that called at 8:45 PM and WOKE UP MY BABY - 'moron' is really too nice of a word.)  If someone ran on the sole possition of STOPPING people from calling me at home - including political and charitable and poll type calls - I'd probably vote for them regardless of what else they wanted to do.  Maybe now that voting day has come and gone Asher will be able to get some sleep!  (And YAYAYAYAYAYAYA Kennedy lost!  Supporting the bill to make it illegal in AMERICA to protest by burning the flag... sheesh... what was he thinking? Next thing you know there will be people out there thinking it is OK in AMERICA to make legal marriages from the government limited only to male and female people because of some religious agenda.  Oh wait, there actually ARE people out there that think that.  I hope they are nice and pissed off because my PAGAN husband and I got married by a PAGAN priest and priestess by calling the gods and drawing a circle at the beginning of the cerimony.  Heck, if gays offend their religious sensitivities, why not limit all marriages to only people willing to sign a document stating they will uphold a CHRISTIAN household?  I'm pretty sure their christian god didn't approve of my marriage any more then he does a gay couples' marriage and yet - because we are opposite genders, that's OK.  DUMB.)

Huh, maybe I'll talk about Ash now.  :)

My little guy has a stuffy nose and I want it to stop.  He has the hardest time nursing.  Suck suck suck... GASP FOR BREATH suck suck suck... it makes me cringe just thinking about it.  This morning I used that saline dropper and the sucky bulb thing and it really did clear out his nose but BOY did he hate it.  You gotta wonder what it must feel like to have that bulb suck your boogers out like that.  He does seem to be sleeping better though - cross your fingers that he keeps that up!

 

11-3-06

 

We have stalled out completely in the growth department.  Hopefully he will pick up again here soon - but I guess I knew this was coming.  At nearly 2 weeks after he turned 5 months, he has gained a whole total of 1/2 an ounce.  I guess this is better then losing weight, which is really what he did right away.  He did make it up to 16 pounds when I posted that - I think it was last weekend - but he didn't stay 16 pounds very long.  I honestly think it is funny how upset I get when he doesn't show that weight gain.  I mean, I know my other kids have done the same thing so he is growing just as he is genetically programmed to.  I also know that I love that my kids are so skinny and healthy and I certainly want Ash to be the same way.  But I'll worry anyway - just like I did with Gavin when he sat at 16-17 pounds for forever.  I read that the kids today are in "generation XL" due to so many of them being overweight.  I have to say that I suspect a lot of that is because of how programmed we are to make our babies gain so much weight and if they don't do so, we force feed them and give them formula to keep them on those growth curves.  Well, time will go by and Ash will grow however he does.  For the first time last night someone called Ash "small". 

Sorta related - to eating anyway - Kris gave Asher that mesh thing with some watermelon in it.  He totally loved it!  Jessie had that big hive-thing-break-out when she had her first taste of watermelon, but he seemed to take it just fine.  I gave him a bath after that and he was not as happy about the water as he has been in the past.  I think I need to get this boy swimming!  I checked out the Foss schedule at my gym and it doesn't start until january so I'm kinda bummed about that.  Maybe I'll just have to try to get him into the pool at family swim time a little.

Asher is getting better at sitting up these days.  He can sit up proped up against the couch with blankets all around him and such.  He is not quite balanced enough to sit unassisted though.  I also don't see him making much progress on crawling, but he is just too busy with rolling around.  Speech-wise I'm hoping for some legit consonant sounds real soon here because I know that real speech won't come for quite some time after he gets that first step.  Right at the moment he is really into spitting and blowing raspberries so he is getting the idea that he can do more then just vowel sounds.  I keep repeating "mamamamamama" to him, but he just thinks I'm being funny and he laughs at me. - OH he has a great laugh!  When we walk around in public and I get him laughing everyone has to come over and see the funny baby.

 

11-1-06

 

Ash made it through his first Samhain night.  He only made it to the end of the driveway for trick or treating because that was when Jessie decided she needed to be carried and I was not about to carry both of them around.  We decided that Ash could sit this round out at home.  When Jessie and I got back he wanted to nurse but kept getting interrupted when the doorbell rang. 

 

Yesterday I picked up this little mesh thing that you can put fruit in and the kids can chew on the fruit without getting big pieces to choke on.  I gave him some of the beans and carrots out of my soup at dinner time and he loved that.  This morning I gave him a piece of pear which he was pretty peased with.  I also picked up a couple 6-12 month things for him.  This weekend I'm going to switch out his closet from 3-6 month so hopefully I'll have a few things to ebay from that soon.  I'm excited to get him into his new stuff but of course, it'll be sad to pack away the little stuff.  It is very different this time knowing that I'm not storing any of it for the next little one.  It is nice to clean all that out but I know that I'll look back at pictures and remember the little outfits and just... *sigh*. 

Ashy is growing some hair!  It looks to me like he is going to be another little blondy.  Maybe even as light as Gavin's.  It is hard to tell because there is not that much of it yet - and I wonder if there will be any curls. 

Oh - and if you were wondering - he was up last night from about 2:30 to 4:30.  I finally put him into bed at 4:30 even though he wasn't really asleep, but he was content to stay there and eventually went to sleep.  I did that at 3:30 too, BTW, but he started talking.. then louder.. then louder.. then fussing.. then crying.. then REALLY MAD so I had to go get him.