The Big Kids

I guess Eli and I have a lot in common- the whole chunky baby thing, and parents who put us next to little babies to show off how big we were! Eli and his friend Gavin, about 5 weeks apart, and me and my cousin Jon about 7 weeks apart. You should see the two of us together now! In my defense, my mom probably starting stuffing solids down my throat at 3 weeks, I don't know what Eli's excuse is he only gets breastmilk.

What was with these seats- aren't they awful? Is it a carseat or just a seat?

Two Months w/ Pics

Today was Eli's 2 month appt. He's absolutely perfect- of course. My aunt works at the office we go to so he gets (Rowan too) LOTS of attention when we go to the doctor. And I do LOVE hearing from every single nurse there how cute he is so that's fun! His height was 23 1/4in. and weight was 14lbs 9oz. Wow big chunker baby!! He got a shot and it broke my heart to see the look on his face when he realized it hurt. We are breaking up the vaccines so he only got one today, i rpobably would have cried if he got all 3. I try to take a pic each month to see how he's changing, I did it with Rowan too and with the paper I always know what the date was. Rowan and I were trying do hard to get him to smile..
But he was just not interested...

Nope, no smile....

I think he's starting to get annoyed with me...

Yep, I pissed him off- no it was Rowan, yeah we'll blame him...

Later, inside, he shows off his how strong he is during naked tummy time...

A bit of a smile..

Kisses from big brother.....

Finally... sheesh that took forever!
(Ignore the bad flash, I swear he is not that oily)

My screwed up Trashy family

My parents never married and my dad really wasn't around that much. I usually saw him at Christmas and my birthday. He was one of those that tried to buy my love by spending a lot of money on me as a child. I was fine with this, but never had a "real" relationship with him. He is not interested in spending all that money on me anymore- fine I don't care. He's seen rowan a handful of times and Eli once. I personally don't care if they ever see him, but I won't keep him from seeing them, I'm just not going out of my way for him to see the boys. So to sum it all up we are not close and never will be.

This past winter my dad called me, one of the few timew I can ever remember him calling me. He chats for a few minutes about my pregnancy and my gestational diabetes (my mom talks to him occasionally), then just casually mentions that he just found out I have a half-brother! WHAT! He was on his way to missouri to meet him, he's coming up here in a few weeks and would I like to meet him? Two seconds ago his guy doesn't exist to me and now I can meet him in 2 weeks! Yeah that's a little much for me. I actually had a lot of questions, but since we are not close I really didn't want to ask. Of course he never called me when the brother came for a visit, not that I would have gone anyway, but still.

Well my mom is a lot braver than me, and she calls him up to find out about this kid. Apparently when I was a few years old he lived in Chicago with a women we'll call her "K". They broke up, she moved away, and got married. Twenty-some years later this guy ("J") finds my dad and blah, blah, blah..or something. My dad tells my mom he "kind of always suspected" he had a kid with her. WHAT- who "suspects" they have a child for 20years but doesn't do anything about it?! When we see him at Christmas he talks about how close he is getting to J and that J might move up here, apparently he has a child that lives in the area (a 4 year old).

So months pass, I have a baby and a life so I have pretty much forgotten about the half-brother. Yesterday I went with my mom to Decatur, she was closing on her house over there, so I took the boys to see my grandma( my dad's mom). Now my dad happens to live with my grandma, but I try to only visit her during the day when he's at work- yeah I'm a bitch! When we get to the house Rowan is eating culver's ice cream, so we sit in the car so he can finish. My grandma lives in a split-level house and she doesn't get around to well, so we go around to the back door(which is upstairs) cause she can unlock the door. My mom gets out to smoke her nasty cigs and yells up to the window that we are here and will be in in a minute.

Then the front door opens, I'm thinking great my dad is here. It was some women I figure she is there cleaning. My first thought was actually that she may be someone from the type of houses I use to work at(I now realize that would insult THEM, so I'll just say she was Mega Trashy looking)! My mom is by the door and asks her who she is, I can't really hear them, but hear my grandma say " remember B(my dad)'s friend K". Mom says no, and we give each other wierd looks wondering what's going on. K goes down stairs and we go up. Mom asks about her, grandma acts like we should know her. I don't have a clue. My mom then says- something about her being the boy's mom. Then I start to put it all together- remember I had forgotten that he even existed!

Apparently K- who lives in another state- was in Chicago for something and called my dad to come pick her up and take her back home or something. She starts talking to me about J and if I want to meet him... Of course she sits down rightnexttome, as I am just starting to nurse Eli and is kind of staring too much.

My mom asks her if J is moving up here, cause my dad said he might. She says, very casually, "No, B(my dad) and I will probably move to Missouri or Chicago." We both kid of just wonder if we heard her right. She leaves, but I thought she was just down stairs so didn't mention her to my grandma. The second we get in the car to leave we both start talking about it. So we are guessing that her and my dad are together and are moving somewhere. They don't talk (and she hides a child from him) for 20 years and now they are "together"? It is all so very confusing. My grandma acted like it was completely normal that she was there, and couldn't believe my mom didn't remember her. How very very strange!

Scanning

I finally figured out how to use our scanner, actually I figured it out a while ago but just found the pictures on the computer. To prove it I scanned a picture Rowan colored (it is quite old, although he really isn't A LOT better now).

Remember when I saw Matt Damon?

Well I finally found the picture that Mike's grandma's friend (who probably didn't know who he was) took for me. It's a little blurry since it is so zoomed in, but it's him. Not as exciting 4 months later though.

Lonely Nights

It's that time of year again. Today Mike started school, and I am back to single-parenting. His schedule was looking pretty good, but now he's added a class and will be in class or working until almost 10pm Monday-Thursday. Since we live SO far away if he goes in town earlier (which he most likely will) then he's gone ALL day. Maybe it would be easier for me if we lived in town or knew people close by, but it gets very lonely when the only one you ever have to talk to is a 3 year old!! This is when I almost wished we didn't live here.

Tonight wasn't too bad, we got home from playgroup at the park in time for me to eat supper. Rowan did pretty well and I even made banana splits for dessert. I think I will need to work on the whole bedtime routine since Rowan goes to bed at the same time that Eli is nursing for bed, and it's kind of hard to nurse a baby while sitting on the floor reading books, but I'm sure it will all work out eventually! I hope! Now we'll see tomorrow if I can get them both bathed by myself.

Tomorrow my mom is closing on her house in decatur. We've decided to ride over with her so I can visit with my grandma while she's at the closing. The only reason I ever want to go there is to eat La Gandola so that will be our lunch- YUM!! I'm excited about that, but dreading the car ride- two hours in the car with my mom!! Help me- maybe I'll get to talk to my best friend the 3 year old and can ignore her!

Hopefully I will start finding something more productive to do after the kids go to bed and I won't just sit here on the computer every night.

What Happened to my baby, and other ramblings

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I have been looking through all my old pictures on flickr from when Rowan was younger and it makes me want to cry he was so little- and sweet, and now he's huge and talkes constantly (and not always very nice)!

Side note- for some reason I couldn't sign into my old flickr account because they changed to yahoo, or something and I can't get my old sign in name to work, so I had to start a new account to put new pics up, and just added myself as a friend. I'm still not sure why?

The boys are in bed and I am enjoying the first beer (well full beer) I've had since Eli was born. When Mike and I went on our road trip out west we drank Fat Tire the whole time.Back then you could only buy it west of the Mississippi River so whenever someone would visit from that side of the river we would ask for it. Mainly his brother, who lived in Cape Gireaudo (no idea how to spell it), I mean we aren't just going to insist everyone bring us beer! It was always like a special treat since you couldn't get it everywhere. But now they sell it everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE you can probably get it at Casey's. I still love it, but it seems to lose some of it's appeal now that it's so common. Alright enough rambling, I'm going to enjoy my first beer after baby buzz!!

Sleep

Eli has decided against the long stretches he was giving me (5-6hrs a night!) and now wants to eat every 2-3hours again. Lovely. I was hoping it was just a growth spurt, but it has now been about 2 weeks. How long does a growth spurt last? Unfortunately he never wakes at the right time so I can watch blind date.

Rowan has decided he can only sleep on the floor. He moves around so much at night that this might be better for him. Half the time he ends up with only his head on his bed- strange child! I don't know what we'll do when he outgrows the little-low to the ground- toddler bed, probably just put a mattresson the floor.

Not to worry his perfectly good bed is not left unused, he has lined up lots of cars on it so at least they can get a good night's sleep! Sometimes we wonder about OCD??

5 Things About MeMe

Mommy Schiff and Quigs tagged me for this meme. This is my first one ever so I apologize if I do it wrong! :)

1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read the player's blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.


What were you doing five years ago? Mike and I had just gotten back from our graduation trip to ourselves- 6 weeks traveling/camping out west, and I was starting to look for a "real" job.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?(tomorrow)
1. Go to Old NAvy for cheap jeans (cause I'm not paying full price till more baby weight is gone!)
2. Deep clean Rowan's room (he seems to be getting a lot of strange bites).
3. Sew my diaper I bought
4. Clean the office
5. Take a nap- or drink a lot of coffee

What are five snacks you enjoy?(this is why the gest. diabetes really sucked!!)
1. Ice cream
2. Dark Chocolate
3. Brownies
4. Cookies
5. Fresh Fruit with Yogurt


What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?
1. Go to school forever (and not work)
2. Buy/Build our dream house in the country with a lot of land and buy a place in a city
3. Set up our futures and people we are close too
4. Do fun stuff with my boys all the time
5. Have more babies and hire a nanny to help


What are five of your bad habits?
1. Spending WAY too much time online
2. Laziness
3. Eating too much
4. Biting my nails
5. Being too unorganized


What are five places where you have lived?
1. Decatur, IL
2. St. Joe, IL
3. Boody, IL (yes it is an actual town)
4. Charleston, IL
5. Longview, IL


What are five jobs you've had?
1. Arby's
2. Direct Care at a CILA and Day Training Program
3. CILA Supervisor
4. Teacher's Aid
5. Only 4 jobs, and 2 were at the same company- I like to stay places for a while.


Now I'm supposed to tag people, except I don't have anyone new to tag and everyone I do know already did it so I guess it will just end here :( I guess I need to meet more people online and in person!

The Garden/ Pumpkin Patch

Our garden is pretty much all Mike's I really haven't done much to it at all, but remember I started the summer out HUGE and now usually have a baby in my arms so I'm not much help at all. But NEXT summer I am getting into the garden. Mike has a dream for our future which involves us having a farm, not the corn, beans, tractor kind of farm, but an organic garden kind of farm. I'm starting to get into the idea so I figure I'll have to help and maybe even learn something about the garden ( I barely know what the weeds are, Rowan probably knows more than me). I've decided that the way for me to get involved and learn more is to start a blog all about the garden- OOHH exciting right? Then I can keep track of what I learn and how the garden is doing- like where everything is planted, Mike sometimes forgets little details like that!

Anyway the garden is doing great and we are trying to come up with creative ways to eat tomatoes everyday. Mike underestimated the germination power of the pumpkins and we now have a gazillion (or like 13) pumpkins, BIG, ORANGE pumpkins, so we are ready for fall and Halloween- if only it weren't the end of August!

Not the best pic. but the left side is pretty much all pumpkin- behind the sunflowers is a corn field, that's why it looks so tall!
This is the left side of the garden, Mike says this is one large pumpkin plant- I don't really believe him..

To Do, To Do, To Do...

I think that maybe having my internet FINALLY fixed (and new computer that works!) is a bad thing for me. It is so easy to get caught up in what is going on with everyone else than to actually do what needs to be done. Luckily Eli is napping and Rowan is at daycare so I won't be neglecting anyone while I get caught up in the lives of people I don't know (or barely know).

After I'm done here I will....
-Clean the kitchen
-Clean off the dining room table (I hate this table, everything sticks to it!)
-Pay Bills
-Attempt to sew the diaper I bought from here
-Hook up the new printer (and possibly learn to scan something)
-Find a kickass WAH job, that I love and pays great, or an out of the house one with perfect hours, or one that lets me take my baby with me (I'll let you know how this one goes!)
-Laundry- including folding and putting it away when dry
-Pick green beans from the garden for supper- YUM

Maybe if I post this it will encourage me to at least do some of them, , now I'll have to learn how to cross stuff out when i'm done- how do you do that?

Future X- GAMER?

Last weekend we went to a birthday party for one of Mike's friends, of course it was really a party for kids so Rowan had to entertain himself. When he noticed the skateboard someone so generously offered to "teach" him how to do it, thanks!! I was not too excited about it, but was told "kids can get hurt anywhere!" And then I remembered a doctor's appointment a few weeks ago that left Rowan with a lovely scar going through his eyebrow- so I guess they CAN get hurt anywhere!

They said he was pretty good, and he loved all the attention!!

Trying to do a trick...

(Is that what it's called?)

Yeah he did it... and is quite proud of himself!!

And the little one, just cause he's so cute!!

Green Baby

Eli is now only being diapered in cloth. We did this with Rowan but would use disposables at night and on outings- so we really weren't saving money. We have only bought one pack of diapers for Eli and we were given one as a gift. So we've only used 2 bags of disposables, not bad for 6 weeks of diaper changes!! We just tried out the cloth on outings this week and so far so good. I also just found a site where I can order a kit to make my own so i think I'll try it out and sew some- very excited about this since I love to "try" and make stuff! We will probably buy disposables for longer trips/outings but I'm thinking (if I can remember) to keep track of how much we spend on them, I'd hate to know how much I've spent on Rowan's. I've heard kids potty train quicker when using cloth, hopefully we'll keep it up and find out- maybe Eli will be trained before Rowan!

1 Month Appointment

Eli had his 1 month last week and is doing great. He weighed 11lbs. 11oz, that is up 4lbs!! from his initial weightloss. Chunky boy!! He was 21.5in, but I really don't pay attention to length since it is so hard to measure a squirmy baby. At his checkup at 4 days he had lost 2 inches, pretty sure that's not right!

He is holding his head up really well, and got praise from the doctor for that! He likes to "stand" on us, loves to be held like that and facing out to see the world. I'm also realizing he doesn't really like to be cuddled with, Rowan could sleep on us or right next to me for hours. Eli fusses when I try to lay close to him for like 5 minutes. Oh well, I guess they are different people and will have different personalities (hopefully Eli's will help him to listen better than his big brother!).

Rowan has his 3 year check-up today and I also have my lovely 6 week this week, can't wait. We are getting our computer fixed and should have it back today.