Seriously?

Henry is afraid of the clothing dryer.

Like seriously dude?

Of all the things this kid could be afraid of...he decides to be scared of the dryer. The kid doesn't flinch at loud noises. He has no fear of new people. In fact, he happily lunges into the arms of anyone who holds their arms out for him. Of couse, as a mother, this baffles me after hearing horror stories of seperation anxiety, but not Mr. Henry. His kryponite is the dryer.

Our dryer is in our hallway. It's behind a door that stays closed 95% of the time, BUT if you open that door, he will crawl away screaming. If the door is open and he on one side of the door frame and we are on the other, he will sit at the other edge and wail. See...

If you can't tell...That's Henry....crying...staring at the dryer....It's bizarre.

If he was an adopted child, I would be convinced that he had once been put into a dryer. Not the case, though. Sigh..

What is so scary about a dryer? Am I just not seeing it? What are your kids afraid of??

Poop or Chocolate?

I had one of those moments the other day that felt like a slap in the face reminding me, "hey! you're a mom now!"

In most aspect of my life, I still feel relatively normal. I do the same things I've always done...I just have a little sidekick by my side while doing them. There are, however, moments that come up that really crack me up when I think of how becoming a mommy has actually changed me.

Case and point: I was driving in car with Henry in the backseat. I had recently bought 4 bags of Halloween candy because they were on sale and I had to buy 4 to get the best deal. Because I can't be trusted alone with candy, I left the bags in the trunk and planned on bringing them in closer to Halloween. Also because I can't be trusted with candy, I had opened one of the bags and had been enjoying a piece or two every time I opened the trunk to put the stroller in.

Anyways, I was driving down the road enjoying my Hershey's with Almonds fun-sized candy bar. I finished the chocolatey treat and continued on my drive. A few moments passed until I felt something on my hand. I looked down and there was a little ball of brown on my index finger. It was no bigger than the size of a pencil tip.

Now here's the moment that made me laugh at myself -- My immediate reaction to this ambiguous brown ball -- I sniffed it.

Only a mom! Only a mom would sniff the little brown ball she found on her finger. Was it poop that mysteriously migrated it's way onto my finger during baby's last diaper change or was it leftover chocolate?!

Phew...

It was chocolate...So I ate it!



Happy Halloween, Moms! Enjoy some yummy treats and don't forget to check your hands when you're finished!

Urgent! Question.

Okay okay. Today, I experienced something I just have to share. It had me so baffled, so surprised, that I really just need some clarification on the topic.

Here's the beef:

With Henry in the backseat, I pulled our SUV into a parking space at the South Run Rec Center in Springfield for our weekly baby sign and sing class.

As I was getting my stuff together and getting Henry out of the car, I saw a mom with three small girls heading towards their van.

The three little girls must have been about 2, 4, and 6. The mom loaded the little girls into the van as I was wrangling Henry into his stroller. I shut our car door and started pushing the stroller towards the entrance of the rec center, when I couldn't help but notice this jaw-dropping incident happening right before my eyes.

Read the rest HERE

Vacation + Baby = Regrets

Before I was a mommy, I looked forward to vacations. Tom and I took many a vacation together. We went to Las Vegas, Chicago, Ocean City, New York, England, etc. Travel was fun and aside from the occasional airport snafu like a delayed flight or one of us having to be pat down, we usually enjoyed our vacations with hardly a second thought.

Enter baby.


Read more here.

Snot Bubbles

I knew this day was bound to come. I'd been bracing myself for it ever since Henry was born. I'd heard stories from other moms about how miserable their babies are when sick, so imagine my horror when I woke up the other morning to snot bubbles.


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Stolen Sleep

Now it's one thing to have to wake up in the middle of the night with your child. Luckily (knock on copious amount of wood), Henry never wakes up in the middle of the night. So, I go to bed at 11 planning on waking up at 7 or whenever the babe rises. Good deal.

It's a whole completely different thing to have to wake up in the middle of the evening, night, morning, naptime with your baby monitor. As a mother, I didn't sign on for taking care of a sweet baby boy and an *sshole baby monitor.

Let me explain. We have the Angelcare monitor that detects motion. We bought it as a recommendation from friends who have a young son. They said it was the best thing they owned. It was especially nice once Henry was born considering he spent the first week of his life in the NICU with breathing problems.

Early on, my relationship with the monitor was chummy. We had a few false alarms where we jumped out of bed like someone had told us Oprah was outside, but all in all I gleefully smiled every time I saw the monitor blink. Our baby boy was breathing and all was right in the world.

Then. One day. One day that monitor lost it's cool. Maybe its monitor girlfriend had broken up with him. Maybe the diaper stench had become too much. That monitor started alarming all day and all night. Naptime would be ruined because it would go off and Henry would wake up after being down for 7 minutes and decide it was time to play. It would go off in the middle of the night when Henry was dead asleep. He'd sleep right through it while we'd (mostly Tom) would be stumbling blindly into Henry's room to reset the damn thing.

I was on the brink. I'd been woken up one too many times from dreams about the baby napping 3 hours while I sipped lemonade and read an actual book.

It was immature and not mommylike but when the monitor alarmed this morning, I tore the covers off, threw myself out of bed and across the room, and karate chopped that monitor to kingdom come.

Hours later when I woke up for the day, Tom had left for work, and I felt bad. I plugged Mr. Monitor into the wall to see if he still worked and he does. Hopefully now he'll think twice before false alarming again.


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Crawling. Like actually moving himself to places.

Ok, I hope this doesn't make me a bad parents, but crawling is one of those baby milestones I am not looking forward to. Eating solids was gross at first, but got better as Henry go the hang of it. Sitting up on his own is great because he can play with his toys more easily. But crawling? There's not really anything good about crawling, and it definitely won't get better as he gets the hang of it.

Crawling is scary for many reasons. First, learning to crawl is terrifying to watch. Henry will get up on all fours, scoot his legs forward, and because he can't figure out how to move his arms, he will nose dive into the floor. I can't even tell you the amount of times I was positive he'd broken his nose.

Second, mobility for an infant = no mobility for mom. I use to be able to plop Henry on the couch and run to go pee. When he started to roll, that became a no no. So, when my bladder was full, I could lay him on the floor and leave him for 90 seconds. Now that he is able to wiggle himself forwards and push himself pretty confidently backwards, I don't dare leave him alone on the floor. I learned my lesson after I walked away for a minute only to come back and find him under the sofa. Once he starts REALLY crawling, I'd probably find him in the oven or out on the balcony.

So. I guess it's great that Henry is learning new things, but one that kid gets the hang of this crawling thing, I'm worried for my sanity.