Review of the Holidays

I have to admit, I am one of the worlds worst picture historians out there. I am one of those people who really likes to be a part of the activities (especially if they involve my family) than be the one outside the fun taking pictures. I have in the past taken picture of fairly staged moments, like all of Elijah's month pictures when I can remember or specific picture moments like birthdays and such. However, with this being said, I realize I did not take many pictures of our Christmas together with Elijah. So here are some of the highlights:

What??? I'm learning how to play!! This is Elijah semi destroying the nativity set. You have no idea how far a little guy can chuck a sheep!

Smile six months old today!

Six months old today and checking out the cool tree.

Christmas outfit, I guess little boys can be just as cute as little girls.

Christmas Eve at my mom's and Sonny's house.

Elijah helping Daddy open his new Remote starter for his car. Please note my beautiful purse Elijah is laying next to as well.

My dad's dog, Jasmine, after we opened all the presents. She thought the tree looked like a good place to sleep.

Christmas with the cousins.

Bath time in the sink of the hotel. Mind you after this picture was taken a magic fountain was added to the bath soaking everything around.

4 generations of Collins family. Bummer the other great grandchild wasn't there too.

Traveling with an infant/not really an infant

Many times as a soon to be parent or a new parent you read about how easy it is to travel with a new baby. They seem to be really go with the flow and ho hum about life and when you travel for long distances they will most likely sleep through the car ride and life will be good.

With this in mind we up and left for a short, long weekend when Elijah was just shy of 4 weeks old. BJ and I took the LONG road trip down to Tennessee for my cousin's wedding. At that time we were still new parents and the challenges that we faced were more along the lines of feeding a child that wasn't on a schedule yet, bringing the right number of diapers, packing the right amount of clothes for the child and bringing things that we just weren't yet used to lugging around with us. The hardest part of the whole trip was Elijah waking up screaming bloody murder as we were stuck in crawling traffic in a construction zone. It was awesome! The second hardest part of the trip was realizing he had blown out a diaper at one of the feeding stops on the way home and not having any way to wash the car seat cover.

Overall, I felt that that trip was relatively easy. Granted I had my wonderful husband with me to help me carry the heavy car seat, and child when my still recovering body just couldn't manage. I also had my wonderful mother with me during some very long and potentially lonely feeding sessions. But as I look back it was very easy to travel with Elijah at less than a month. With that in mind that is what fueled the thought that BJ and I could make the annual trip to Michigan this year to show off the little guy almost 5 months later.

However, last minute we decided that due to BJ's work schedule it wasn't practical (or necessarily safe) for BJ to come out for just over a 24 hour period with the family so we decided I would go alone with the boy. At this point in time we have just passed Elijah's 6 month birthday and I feel that as his parents we are really good about reading him, anticipating him, and fulfilling his needs before he breaks down in utter frustration and anger which makes parenting easier. However, we are able to do this typically when we are at home and have everything our little hearts desire at our finger tips and we also have each other. This makes packing for a 4 day excursion interesting, especially when you throw into the picture the fact that I was now riding up in someone else's car and the instructions were to pack light. Okay well this should be fun. Here is what we brought just for the baby.

8 containers of baby food

4 bottles

1 can of formula

The "pump"

5 outfits

3 backup under shirts

2 sets of pajamas

2 towels

1 washcloth

baby soap

Enough cereal for 3 tablespoons of food 2 times a day for the 4 days way

2 spoons

5 bowls for food

Diapers and lots of them

Swim diapers

Wipes

1 quilt

2 thick blankets

1 receiving blanket

3 stuffed animals

4 hard covered books

1 soft book

2 rattles

Talking Cookie Monster

A Talking spinning ball toy (we knew there would be minimal baby toys)

Ice pack to keep the pumped milk cold

new baby shoes

diaper bag

stroller

car seat

What I learned: It is easy to travel with an infant if, your child has begun to stick to a schedule, is only on breast milk and can exclusively breast feed, you have NO solid food to transport and if you do it doesn't have to be refrigerated, and where ever you are going has infant toys to entertain your child, or your child still is uninterested in toys it doesn't matter if you have toys or not. Even packing light I feel I brought half our house and to make things more fun it is just me lugging (every time we leave the hotel) just about all this stuff. Fun time!! I will eventually post pictures of Elijah's bath time in the hotel.

Busy Busy Busy

I feel like I have been very busy this weekend, in retrospect, I really haven't been. Saturday we took Elijah into the Doctor for his 6 month check up, 18 pounds 10 ounces. He also received two sets of shots and on oral vaccine. Then we came home and celebrated our first day of Christmas with our neighbors then headed out to Portillos for lunch. We stopped by the grocery store on the way home and bought all the ingredients for the worlds best Christmas cookies and came home. Then we ended up watching Cars. Before we knew it it was time for Elijah to eat dinner, take a bath and head to bed. Then we had dinner, as I was getting ready to make Christmas cookies, Elijah woke up and hand a low grade fever and was very crabby. I finally got him back to sleep by 10 but by then it was to late for cookies so I played on the computer. Sunday we headed to church, came home, had lunch, and we all took 2 hour nap. Then I FINALLY made cookies while BJ and Elijah played and did the laundry.

I think I set a record for longest time spent making one batch of cookies. I think from start to done baking I spend about 3 and a half hours on them and they still are not frosted yet. Oh well, they are absolutely worth it. It wouldn't be Christmas without these cookies. Last year in Michigan we had a discussion about the cookies and how everyone starts with the same recipe but no ones cookies are the same. As it turns out nobody had the correct original recipe. Most people had ended up adding or subtracting ingredients to the cookies while other changed the cooking times and temp. Grandmother still has the original recipe and we were going to scan it into the computer to mail to all but we forgot. This year we will. Tomorrow we will frost these babies and then my yearly baking will be done.

Things that make me smile!

In light of my extremely crabby mood this last week and in anticipation of of my crabby mood next week I decided to make a post about the things that make me smile.

• A whole family of Mr. Potato Head's
• Children's faces between the ages of 3 and 6 when you mention Santa or Christmas
• A street full of Christmas lights on houses
• An awesome sale
• My baby's toothless smile
• My baby hanging upside down from his bouncy seat with a look on his face like he should have figured out how to do that sooner because it was so much fun.
• A Christmas tree full of sentimental ornaments
• My Christmas Village
• Nativity sets with sentimental meanings
• Elijah exploring his world
• Iced tea
• Hot tea
• Candy Cane Christmas Cookies
• Fisher Price Little People

Doctor appointment

Yesterday Elijah met with the surgen to look at his butt issue. And the doctor confermed our thoughts, Elijah is going to be getting surgery on his buttocks. It seems really simple, we hope. The Doc will go in and basically cut out the hole and let it heal up on its own. But I feel bad for the poor kid. Oh well, at least it is all going to happen before he will be able to remember.

Happy Birthday Plants

Just for the record I am the worlds worst person to keep plants alive. However, I do have to say that last year the week before Thanksgiving I got two bamboo shoots. Now you may say that bamboo plants are fool proof. All you have to do is give them water. They don't even need sunlight. Well I have actually killed one once. So they are not that fool proof. But the two I got over a year ago are still alive and growing. I guess Elijah has hope that he will live to see his first birthday.

I will post about Elijah's doctors appointment too tonight.

It will have to wait

Last night I was getting all ready to post on my nativity sets that I have and that I get so excited about at Christmas when a giant spider shot out from under the couch that I was sitting on and went strait for my pump. I started freaking out, and go figure the dog was all the way upstairs sleeping on the bed, so it took her about forever to get down stairs. Now just for the record, this spider was smaller than the one found back in October by the back door, but this one had some sort of caffeine in it's system. I don't think I have ever seen a spider go so fast. It was crazy. I actually think that is what scared me most about this spider. Well Rescue came down and was all ready to play...with me. She had no clue about the spider. Since it had made it's way to the pump I had no idea where it was hiding so i just started staring at the pump thinking that would get the bug to leave it. Well if finally did but it ran out to the middle of the room then turned around and went right back to where it came from. I was freaked out and mad at the darn bug. I was also on the phone and trying to have a real conversation but I could only half concentrate. Then it was gone for a bit. Then it showed up again on the wall and was making it's way toward the ceiling. This is when BJ suggested through text message that I get the neighbor to kill it. I felt bad asking the neighbor to do it, and by this time it was on the ceiling. Way far away from me. Well, he must have asked for me, because about 5 minutes later there was a knock on the door and as I answer it I realize the spider is completely gone. We looked everywhere. For someone who was keeping her eyes glued to the bug to make sure it didn't eat me, it really un-nerved me to think it could have been anywhere. Jon left and about 10 min. later the spider reapplied, however, it had trapped me into the living room. After I had seen how fast it ran I was not about to go anywhere with in 2 feet of it and to get out of the living room I would have had to do that. So you ask, how did you get out? Oh yeah, I jumped over the back of the couch, and texted Jon to come back and kill it. He did, and I still had to do the hebi gebi dance. Blah. But at least I was able to sleep last night without having to worry about the spider getting me.

Post to come:
Nativity sets/Christmas village
Happy birthday plants
Wrapping paper invention.

Limited Christmas Spirit

As the Holidays approach many people are getting into the Christmas Spirit. I, however, am having a very hard time. I feel extra stress at work and with the new baby, I don't have the time after work like I used to to go shopping. I even feel slightly Grinchy. I am also having difficult creating "lists" for what I want for Christmas. And tonight while talking with my dad, I realized why. He said that he just saw an article about how what used to be a holiday of "here you go I saw this and thought you would really like it," or "the second I saw this I thought of you and how much you could use it." Now a days Christmas is more like "can I have a shopping list." I don't like requesting stuff, I like giving. But in order to give, I have to be able to shop. And I want to go shopping.

So after thinking about it this year I will try to get gifts that I think someone will like, verses only what they asked for. I will also take into consideration the lists that were made but we will see. Now if only I could solve the stressful work deal. Again everyone pray for snow Thursday or Friday.

Snow, Snow, Snow

Just in case you have been locked in a cave for that past 3 days, and the cave is located somewhere 1000 miles away from the USA, you will have noticed that there was a major winter storm across the US. Apparently everyone that has a client that needs therapy saw this storm coming and canceled there sessions, just in case. We also had cars not starting and lots and lots of sick people. It's kind of funny, in college I worked for a place that thrived off of sick people. Now I work for a company that will go under if kids keep getting sick. Other than being sick and the weather, cars wouldn't start and other people just didn't want to go out. It has been very slow at work these last few weeks, however, in the next week I have 4 evaluations and 7 reports due. Why couldn't the snow come like next Thursday so I could catch up on the paper work before the holidays. Blah. I see stress soon.

Keeping Score

Why must everything in our lives revolve around keeping score. Lately this has really been bugging me and it has finally reached a breaking point. So, since you read the blog you just have to deal with the post. And if you think that I am talking about you some where in it, I probably am which means you need to reconsider your actions. If you don't think I am talking about you then I probably am not. The biggest theme of this post is GET OVER IT!!

Alright, so back to the issue at hand. Why must we continually keep score in our lives? I mean we all feel the HUGE need to make sure everything is "fair," however, when life really is fair we then spend the rest of our lives trying to do better than everyone else. I think it all starts when we are kids. I can vividly remember my brother and I keeping score religiously about who got to sit in the front seat when ever we would go places. It got so bad that my mom had to implement a rule that one of us would get the front going to a place and the other would get the front going back. Heaven forbid we make two stops and were in the car 3 times. After a while we started calculating time we spent in the car. And if one of your front seat trips was shorter than the other persons then you got the front again next time we left. It even went so far as my brother stating the argument that I was born first so I had 6 more years on him that he should be able to catch up.

Then when we are in school we feel the need to be better than everyone else in school. We compete in sports, academics, who gets their licence first, who graduates first, and who gets the highest grade point average.

Then we grow up and get over it all. NOT!!! Nope then you get to the working world. There you compete with all the people around you, do they get the same number of vacation days, are they being paid the same as you, does your boss give them extra privileges that you don't get?? I mean today, even after I was all worked up about this topic to begin with, I was looking at the schedule and realized that this week I have 2 evals, and 6 reports due, next week I have 3 evals and 7 reports due and other therapist don't. Really that's my deal? I know things will work out, they always do, but it is stressful to look at the schedule and think that I will have no time to write up the reports that need to get done. I also need to not get annoyed at my coworkers when they have just as much work to do, just different kinds of work.

Now when I look back getting mad at my brother over the stupid front seat of the car was ridiculous and I am past that now. So for all you people out there who have difficulty with their family not treating everyone identically and extending all privileges to everyone, here is a social story for you. When you feel a situation that you are angry about please refer back to the social story.

My name is ______.

I have a large and wonderful family.Sometimes, my parents do things special with just me.We have dinner, get special presents, and they spend special one-on-one time with my children.

Sometimes, my parents do things special with my siblings and not me.They have dinner without me, they get special presents when I don't, and they spend special time with my nieces and nephews and not my children.

This is okay. My parents love me and my siblings equally but they show it in different ways.

I need to get over being obsessed with equality and be happy when my siblings get special treats.

Now this has been posted on the world wide web. I know you will all find it and I am sure half of you will be angry at it. Well get over it, and let's all move on. However, this stands as a warning. This was my discrete way of tell you all about it. Next time you complain out loud, I will not be so discrete and nice about it.

I can see!!

In the words of Batty for Ferngully... "I can see! It's a miracle!"

Let's rewind to 6:30am Friday. I was getting ready and getting Elijah ready all at the same time. Before I did anything though I put in my contacts. They were a bit blurry to begin with but we are pushing 4 weeks in two week contacts. So I didn't think anything of it. I proceeded to do my makeup, change and dress the baby and leave the bathroom. I continued getting ready by making breakfast, making lunch, getting all of Elijah's stuff ready. It was kinda a busy morning. Actually now that I think about it, all my mornings are busy now that BJ is up and off to work way early. Anyways, there was a massive amount of fireman activity right outside my door, sorta distracting.

I then ran Elijah over to daycare, hopped in my car and drove off to work. About a block away I realize that my left eye is still really really blurry. After driving by the fire trucks and around the block an extra time I kept rubbing my eye to get what ever it was off my contact that was making it blurry. About a mile from the house I started thinking maybe I put the contact in backwards, but that usually hurts and my eye didn't hurt. Except for the rubbing that I kept doing. I then spent the rest of the drive switching between eyes trying to get the blurriness under control so I could focus.

Once at work I pull down the visor to check out the contact and realize...there isn't one there. Umm... Okay, could have sworn I poked my finger in my eye today. Great this should be interesting. Only one contact. I soon realized that if anything was less than 5 feet from me it was clear. However, if I was closer than 1.5 feet from something it was a whole new type of blurry. By 11:30 I was so nauseous from what my eyes thought were motion sickness and I had a splitting headache in my left eye. I ended up typing a report for about an hour and a half with only one eye open. I was so excited to get home and put on my glasses. That's when I started the search for the long lost contact.

Found it, stuck to the floor hard and dry from a day without moisture. It was right next to where I was getting ready. Must have stuck to my finger or something and never made it in my eye. All I have to say is, "man that was a sucky day."

Tis the Season!!

I enjoy this time of year, however, with Christmas cards comes Christmas letters. It is hard for me to just send out picture cards to all. I feel that with the warm thoughts and well wishes I should also send you a brief review of our last year. However, I always have difficulty remembering what all happened in the past year. This next year I think will be a little bit easier if I keep up with the blog. I mean, all I would have to do is review the blog for the highlights of the past year and summarise. Or better yet, just refer people back to the blog and they can review it themselves.

On a side note. Right now we are watching Discovery Channel and they are looking at Kimono Dragons and are walking around the wild ones. The wild ones are actually trying to eat them slowly. Nope not for me. I'm scared just sitting here on the couch millions and millions of miles away form them.