Showers and Flowers

Ah the smell of blossoming spring flowers, fresh mowed grass, and the replenished ground from a recent rain fall must mean that summer is approaching. Which also means the bathing suits that I've been ignoring for over a year are eager to make their comeback. Ruh-roh. Guess all those Christmas cookies weren't such a good idea. Pfft, who am I kidding of course they were!

The girls I work with are all fitnessfinatics, healthy nutritioners, and encourage each other in the process to keep going. So one of them recommended I check out the post-pregnancy plan under bodybuilding and follow the meal plan and work out guide. Especially since it's free online, right? I did. I'm in week 2, but I'm kinda counting it as an extended week 1 since it was Easter and conference and I totally cheated with some bomb diggity yumminess. So far so good. Wish me luck... I guess.
This post is coming to you out of the fullness of love in my heart outpouring for all of the blessings I have. It's easy to overlook the simplest of blessings in your life when you are fixated on looking outward at the work that still needs to be done, has yet to be done, or flat out is being neglected. This month as been a great big smack in the face of, "Oh... Yeah okay I have much to be grateful for." For that fact alone, I am grateful.
Moving on a little bit.... Troy asked me to post for him because he's busy being too cool for me playing with his teething ring. Yep. TEETHING RING. My drool machine has officially made it known that those chompers are comin', and quite possibly sooner than we would like them too... Mostly for my sake and nursing. Nursing and teeth? Nu uh. That's where I put my foot down.

FOUR MONTHS OLD:

Troy enjoys being outside and going on walks or even simple car rides with his window rolled down, taking baths and splashing as hard as he can, standing with assistance, sitting in his bumbo chair (I say that hesitantly because he likes to lean on one side or another and he gets upset that he can't pull himself back up), having tickle fights, reading with mom, playing with his toes, and talking real loud.

This little tot is the best. I'm obviously bias, but in truth we lucked out with him as our first in many ways. One I'm particularly proud of is his sleep. He calls it quits for the day at 7:30pm, we do our nightly routine starting with a bath, and he's asleep no later than 8:30pm. He doesn't wake up until 7:30am. WHAT? Yeah for real though. I've had a lot of people ask me what our secret is... Are you ready? THERE IS NONE. I made the mistake of reading the stupid baby books before Troy was born such as "What to expect when you're expecting" and "Baby Wise." I will say there is a lot of great information to gather from reading those books, however what I took away from it is that I HAVE to start my children on a schedule ASAP otherwise they will never sleep through the night and I am screwed. After he was born, I tried doing the baby wise method. Though it may be necessary for some children to be on those types of schedules, Troy made it clear in the beginning that it did not work. He was fussy all the time, and wouldn't sleep well at all... Family members gave us advice that at his last evening feeding at whatever time it was, that we needed to put him down for the night and just let him wake up on his own. So we started doing that. It helped a ton. We also gave him a nightly routine so that he knew that bed time was approaching. We give him a bath, put on jammies, put him in a his woombie (google it dude you want it), turn off the lights, turn on the box fan for white noise, give him his last feed in a bottle (to make sure he really was full), and lay him down in his crib to fall asleep. Once he started sleeping through the night for 5 hours or more, we would push back his bed time. For example, his night time routine would start at 11. Then he started sleeping through until 6am, so we bumped it back a half hour to 10:30pm. Every time he would sleep through, we pushed back his night routine. If he wasn't ready for an earlier bed time, we would go back to pushing it later. Eventually he would give us signals he was getting tired and ready for bed time, so we followed his lead. We have never had to do cry it out. We have never had any issues with him fighting bed time. Mostly, our kid rocks. I don't know what else to say.

Another thing I'm very proud of is how stinkin' happy he is. He's not one of those kids, (yet), that needs to be with his mom or dad constantly to be happy. He can go to anyone and be chill. Though, he's not quite to that age yet that he has a preference I think... There are days however that he does just want me. I soak those up. They won't last. I just really love him a lot. He's my buddy.

Okay.. so to explain the picture on the left... Super scary right?! No matter what I do, he scoots his little bum to one of the corners of his bed and stuffs his face in the corner. Without the bumper on, he cries and cries because he wants something to snuggle next to. Even when I nurse him or feed him in a bottle, he turns his body towards me and buries his face into me arm. I'm at a loss... 

When the kid is asleep, guess what that means? DATE NIGHT FOR THE RENTS. Never have I ever been more enthused by a red box movie and homemade popcorn. Have y'all watched interstellar? We give it a thumbs up. Go rent it, eat that popcorn, and get a foot rub.

Whoop there it is.............. zzzzz