Weekend in Huntsville

The weekend before last, Austin and I took a weekend trip to Huntsville to stay with my best friend, Jenn, and her husband, Quin. Justin was working out of town so rather than staying home by myself, I packed our bags (and everything BUT the kitchen sink) and left work on Friday afternoon and went straight to Huntsville. After a long detour in Cullman due to a wreck on the interstate, I finally got there around 7:15. We fed Austin his sweet potatoes, which he loved, played with him for a little while until we gave him his bath and put him to bed. This is the first time that Austin has spent the night away from home with me. He has stayed with Justin’s parents a few times but we have never gone out of town together. So this was also the first time he has slept in his pack and play since he was about four weeks old when he was sleeping in our room. I was a little apprehensive about how the night would go, considering he was in a completely different atmosphere and slightly off his routine, but he seemed to go down fine without a fight, so I felt good about it.

Jenn, Quin and I spent a quiet night outside on their deck, having a few cocktails and just catching up. Jenn and I were up til about 1:30am and finally decided we had to get to bed. Once we got ready for bed, I opened up the room Austin and I were sleeping in to peek in at Austin before I turned the light out, and he was wide awake!! I thought, oh no, here we go again. I put his paci back in but that didn’t work. Jenn and I spent the next hour rocking/walking him until he fell asleep, only to have him wake right back up once we laid him back down (WHY does he do this?!?!)

Finally we got him down and Jenn and I went to bed. I laid my head down at 2:30am, and literally seconds later, he was awake again. I just wanted to scream at this point!!! So I picked him up, rocked him for a few minutes, and when that didn’t work I cuddled him up tight and laid down in the bed with him. My plan was to lay there long enough to where he was fast asleep, then attempt the transfer back to the pack and play. By 2:45am, I thought he was asleep enough, but when I started to move, he woke back up again. By about 3:15am, I said screw it. For the first time since he was a baby, he slept in the bed with me all night (well, the few hours that was left of the night!!). Even when he was a baby, I only let him sleep with me a couple of times for a few hours because I was just so paranoid. Saturday morning, he woke up at 5:30am which means Mommy was VERY tired the next day.

That morning, Jenn got up not long after Austin and I were up and we took a morning trip to Target to get some food for the day and some extra PJ’s for Austin (since he pooped all in his and of course I only brought one pair) – oh yeah, and some flip flops for me since I forgot shoes and the only pair I had were the heels I wore to work on Friday. No way was I walking around their back deck and pool all day in heels, even though I’m sure it would have been a funny sight!! We got back to her house and got ready for some pool time!

One of my other bestest, dearest friends in the world, Laurie, came over with her four year old daughter and husband and we all had a great day swimming and relaxing. It was HOT outside but the pool felt great and Austin had such a fun time. He did so great all day, you would have never known that he didn’t get a full nights sleep the night before. He didn’t seem to want to sit in his float like he did the last time, he wanted to be as much in the water as possible!! He even face-planted his face in the water a few times and it didn’t even phase him.
All it takes is a paper towel to make this little guy smile! Austin and Aunt Jenn playing in the pool I love this picture of them!Cool as school in the summertimeOur future little baseball player! Chillin with Aunt Jenn

It’s so funny the things your friends and/or family will do with your baby when you’re not around. For instance, Jenn was watching Austin while I went to change clothes, and I came back into the kitchen to find this: Aunt Jenn gave Austin his first popsicle!! He wasn’t sure what to do with it but he seemed to love the coldness of it and would open his mouth like he wanted to bite into it!!Jenn and Laurie made me lay down for about an hour when Austin was napping so that I could try to catch up on the sleep I lost the night before. When I got up, Aunt Laurie had given him the cutest little Mohawk!! Her daughter, Rowen, loooved Austin, but also got very jealous if her mommy spent too much time with him, which was too cute! Once they seemed to grow tired of the water, we set up blankets in the shade with lots of toys and a box fan to keep them cool. They were so cute and sweet playing in the yard together. Austin was constantly watching Rowen and she was so sweet with him! Austin also enjoyed playing with their German shepherd, Daisy. Daisy wanted nothing more than to lick his face constantly, which he didn’t seem to mind. We let her give him as many kisses as he would allow. He loved grabbing her fur and luckily it didn’t hurt her if he pulled too hard like it hurts our cat.
They sat in the floor and played, and it was so sweet when Austin put his little hand on top of her paw!! Sunday morning I left and spent some time visiting my mom, brother, his girlfriend and my niece and nephew. Brayden was born about a month before Austin and this is the first time they have been together since Easter. It was so cute to see them together and to think about all the years they have ahead of them to be the best of friends. They are so different in so many ways, yet are also very similar. Brayden never stops moving, making it almost impossible to hold him in your lap. Even when he was on his tummy, he legs were constantly flapping around! I tried to get pictures of all three of them together but was not very successful. Either Brilee would start moving around or Brayden would start crawling towards me or Austin would be so captivated by both of them that he just was not interested in me at all. Out of all the pictures I took, I think Brayden is looking at the camera in all buy maybe three – that boy LOVES the camera!! Then of course, my battery died, so I didn’t get near as many as I wanted to. I love how they are making the exact same face!
Brayden and his sweet little smile!This was the best one of all three of them. Brilee and Austin were too interested in watching the TV and Brayden never took his eyes off the camera!How cute are they together?! I love the way Austin is looking at Brayden and touching his armBrayden was trying to crawl towards me and it looks like Austin is trying to hold him back like, "No cuz, stay back here and chill with me!"

Overall, we had a great weekend trip and I feel much better having conquered it without any major mishaps! Now I know we can do it again! That’s a good thing too, since we are planning to visit them again next weekend!

Where is my Angel?!

So Austin is gone...and some monster child has taken over his body and possessed him!!!  He is no longer my little angel and I have nothing to blame for it except maybe his tummy!!  It's become very frustrating over the last few weeks.  It started the week he began waking during the night to eat, then last week he just never seemed to get back on track and ended the week with some major stomach problems.  He was constipated on Wednesday, by Thursday he was having very small bowel movements (skid marks according to his teacher) and then by Friday, he opened up the flood gates and pooped like he's never pooped before.  The school called me at work on Friday afternoon to let me know that he had already had five poops - typically if they have five poops that resemble diarrhea, they send them home.  They said his poops were not quite runny enough to send him home, but they wanted me to be aware in case I felt like I needed to call the doctor before the weekend started.  The last time he had a lot of poops in one day, the doctor said to call if he had 10 or more.  That seemed pretty excessive at the time but by the end of the day Friday, he had pooped eight times and had gone through six outfits.  Wow.

So you can imagine that his disposition was just not normal.  I guess mine wouldn't be either if I pooped on myself all day.  I felt so bad for him on Saturday because it was just obvious that he didn't feel good.  He wasn't running a fever or showing any other symptoms that indicated something else was wrong, but by this time he was only eating an ounce or two at a time, or completely refusing the bottle all together.  I was trying not to get too worried about this and told myself that if I was having the stomach issues that he was having, I probably wouldn't want to eat either.  I knew if I called the doctor he would tell me that he will eat when he's hungry and ready to.  I think he had about five poops on Saturday and he spent the night with Justin's grandparents that evening.  Unfortunately, their time with him wasn't exactly fun, as Grandad was up most of the night with Austin.  He said he just wouldn't go back to sleep and was just fussy and whiny.  Par for the course lately.

Their power randomly went out around lunch on Sunday so we went over to pick Austin up so he wouldn't get too hot.  He had started eating a little more from his bottles and had finished all his carrots at lunch.  By late Sunday afternoon, he had the nastiest, orange poop I've ever seen.  Even though it was disgusting, it made me feel better to see that what he had eaten a few hours early had already made its way out, meaning he wasn't stopped up anymore!!  So I felt really good going into dinner time at 6pm.  We are now on 2nd foods, so lots of different combinations and bigger containers.  On the menu for the night was pears and mangos.  Austin had gotten almost the entire container down before he seemed to not want anymore.  This is usually when I make his rice cereal because even when he acts like he's full, he seems to find room for rice cereal.  I'm still not sure why he loves that stuff so much.  Well, one bite of rice cereal and he started gagging.  And gagging, and gagging until he finally puked.  Anwhen I say puked, I mean PUKED.  It just kept gushing out and it was like all I could do was just stare at it and wait until he was finished!!  It was a total mess by the time we finished and called it quits.

So who knows....it may just take him some time to get his tummy back to normal and it may take some time to get back to his old schedule.  Regardless, I want my sweet baby boy back!!  I hate it when he doesn't feel good, it just breaks my heart knowing I can't do anything about it.  As much as it sucks for Justin and I when he is off schedule and not himself, I know it's part of it...but that still doesn't make it any easier to deal with.  Hopefully it won't take him much longer to get back to normal!!  (Oh, and sorry for all the poop talk....it becomes normal conversation once you have a child.