I Buckle to Peer Pressure… March 17, 2009

Well, I did it.  After getting an “we’re ALL doing it” comment from my friend Christine, I signed up for Facebook.  I had NO idea how many of my friends are doing this – I totally thought it was a teenager thing and made fun of my brother when he signed up and got hooked.  I have to say I’ve logged quite a few hours on the damn thing since signing up just last Thursday…  I’ve also found lots of familiar faces from my distant past!  So I blame Facebook for not blogging in the past week and a half…

Coop will be 3 months old tomorrow!  How is he celebrating?  Fussiness, wanting to be held constantly, low-grade fever and not sleeping at night!  I jumped to the teething assumption because Ben got his first tooth at 3 months, but I’ve also read it can be an ear infection – especially when it happens after a cold.  DAMN DAYCARE!  I’m waiting on a callback from Dr. Breen’s office to hear what they think and if he needs to be seen.  Daycare hasn ‘t sent him home, but they’ve called the past 2 days as a ‘courtesy’ to let me know of his fussiness and low-grade fever.  When I got the first phonecall I was in a meeting and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the daycare appear on my cell display.  I ran out of the conference room to answer it.   So how bad is the fever?  Yesterday it was 100, but down to 99.2 by the time I got him home.  This morning we checked and he was 98.6, so it was business as usual, though he wouldn’t eat much.  They called me this afternoon that he was back up over 100 and was 100.8 when I checked him at home.  I think he’s only eaten 2 oz since noon, but he’s starting to act like he’s hungry now,  so I gotta run!

Daycare Pro – Including the Cold! March 6, 2009

Well, Coop has most definitely been fully initiated into Daycare World – he’s got a cold.  His coughing isn’t too bad, but the little guy has been extra sleepy and has had a lot of congestion the past 36 hours.  He is pretty sick of Mommy sticking that sucky thing up his nose! Last night we gave him a eucalyptus bath and his humidifier got him all the way thru the night (thank you Aunt Jen!!!)  By the way, the past couple of weeks Coop has started sleeping 8 hours at night!  We’re not quite there 100% of the time (Dr. Breen says I’m crazy to expect consistency at this point!) but it has been such a relief to be able to sleep until 6am without interruption most nights!

I have to say the first week went MUCH better than I ever thought it would.  Todd recommended a morning routine that is working out well for us: I get up between 5:45 and 6 and jump in the shower.  When I get out of the shower I wake Todd up so that he can then get Coop up.  Todd takes care of changing, feeding and whatever else to get Coop ready while I get myself ready for work and Coop and I are out the door by 7.  Todd then gets himself ready and off to work after we leave.  I’ve started working a 7:30 to 4:30 schedule so that when Coop starts going to bed at 7 I’ll have at least SOME time in the evenings with him.  Todd has had an 8 to 4:30 schedule for a couple years now (#*@%$! government employees….) so we’re all getting home around the same time.

The first day I was very nervous about how Coop would do.  I tried so hard last week while I worked from home to NOT instantly respond to him when he started to fuss, but he just sounded so unhappy.   I tried to make him sleep in his crib or swing while I worked, but I was able to type just fine while he slept on my chest.   I tried to ignore him while he was making cute faces or talked to the duck than hangs from his floor gym, but he’s just so stinkin cute!!   I knew that he wouldn’t get any of that Mommy-type attention at daycare.  Knowing that I held him to much, gave him too much soothing, and had too many conversations with him and the duck, I figured Monday would be a disaster.   And I told my co-workers last Friday, when I popped into the office for a meeting, that if they saw my office door shut and my blinds drawn on Monday that I was just in my office bawling my eyes out and to leave me the “H” alone. 

Todd went with me on Monday morning to drop him off – he says he needed to make sure I actually left Coop there and went to work instead of turning around and going back home with him after Todd went to work…  Honestly, Coop made it very easy on me.  I laid him in his crib and he just looked up at us and smiled and cooed.  He was perfectly content.  Perfectly content with spending the entire day with strangers!  Perfectly content being away from Mommy for 9 1/2 hours!!! HOW CAN THIS BE?!?!?!  But he was fine, so I was fine.  I never once shed a tear, and I actually only called to check on him once the first day around 10am.  He had already had a bottle successfully and was sleeping soundly.  That was enough to appease me and I didn’t call again – nor have I called since.  So, Coop seems to be fine totally fine with daycare.

We had a TON of visitors last weekend thanks to cousin Sam’s arrival.  Grandma & Grandpa stopped on their way to Florida and stayed with us Friday night.  Then Saturday night Aunt Sharon and Aunt Karen, along with Owen and Brendan, came down and stayed until Sunday evening!  We had all 5 boys together for the first time.  Unfortunately, all of the pictures of the 5 of them are on my brother’s camera, and he has a new Facebook fetish, putting all of his pictures up on his Facebook site.  I am still resisting a Facebook account…

So the week has gone pretty fast.  By the time we’re all home and dinner’s made, eaten, and cleaned up, and get a bottle down somewhere in there, we get a little break to cuddle or play and then it’s time to have a bath, drink another bottle, get Coop in bed, wash bottles, then make the bottles for the next day!  Thankfully Daddy is a pro bottle washer.  I also managed to get to Baptism class Wednesday evening as well as got a haircut Thursday evening - so we are definitely functioning… just probably not quite on all cylinders yet!

This weekend we’ve got a whole lotta nothin’ planned and I’m totally diggin’ that.