BUSY WEEKEND

Trying out his chair... He's not quite ready for it though.

Alexander's first airshow. This is pretty much how he was during the entire event.

Chris and I after the taxi ride. Can you tell who the real fighter pilot is???

This past weekend was quite a busy one in the Troyer household. We had a lovely visit with Chris' parents, participated in Spouse Taxi Day, went to an airshow and I went to a baby shower. I also left Alexander for more than I ever have before. Friday morning during Spouse Taxi Day, he stayed at home with his grandparents. Although I knew he was going to be well taken care of and I was excited about the Taxi Day, I was still super nervous about leaving him. Prior to Friday, the longest I had been away from him had been 1 hour and on Friday morning I was gone for 3 1/2 hours. I was very distracted and having a good time, so that helped, but I was very anxious to get home to him. Of course he did just fine with his grandparents. Some slight issues with eating, but overall very successful. And then Saturday night Alexander stayed home with Chris while I went to a baby shower and stayed out until 10:30pm! I was exhausted! I hadn't stayed out past 8pm since before he was born. But I had a great time and although I missed my guys, I knew they were just fine. And of course they were.

Friday morning was Spouse Taxi Day, aka Take Your Wife To Work Day. I had an absolute blast! I dressed up in one of Chris' flight suits and took a ride down the runway in the backseat of a T38 with Chris in the front seat. We have been married almost 6 years and it was really cool to get a glimpse of what he does all day and of him in action. I am super impressed! The jet has so many buttons and dials, I have no idea how he knows what to do with them all. And the radio! I have no clue how he knows what to listen for, what to say in return, and what it all means. And on top of all that, he has to make sure a student is doing everything properly all at the same time! My husband amazes me. Yet for another reason, he is my hero!!

GET HIM EARLY

Football Fan!!!

Check out his head control

Chris and Alexander at the Friendship Festival

So in the last few posts I have mentioned how Alexander is not a huge fan of napping in his crib. Well, I think I may have figured something out. I have to get him down before he gets too tired, because once he's really tired he is very upset and combative when I put him down. I've tried this for a couple of days and it's working some. The only problem is that he only really sleeps for about 30 minutes at a time. And even though he'll take a couple of these naps, by the evening he is still really tired. So he needs to start sleeping for longer periods of time to truly help his evening mood. But I'm very happy with the progress.

He's just so much fun to interact with now that he's more expressive. I can sit with him and just talk with him (I do most of the talking, he really just makes noises) and he'll smile and laugh and it is just the highlight of my day. I absolutely love that I get to stay home and spend this time with him. It is truly wonderful. And that I get to witness all the little new things that he does. Like the other day, during tummy time he started to pull his knees up. It was so cool, he had never done that before and I was able to see it! He's an amazing little guy, that's for sure!!!

NEW TRICKS

So, Alexander has a few new tricks these days. The first one absolutely cracked me up the first time I witnessed this new skill. We put him to bed one night with his head down at one end of the crib and when he awoke in the middle of the night and I went into his room, his head was at the opposite end of the bed. He had scooted all the way around doing a 180 in his bed - while he was swaddled! I couldn't believe it, it was so funny! I wish I had a video camera in there to catch this on film. I'm sure it's pretty entertaining to watch!

The second new thing he is doing is heartbreakingly cute. When he starts to fuss and gets ready to cry, he sticks out his lower lip. It's ridiculously cute! But also melts your heart and makes you want to stop him from crying right away. It seems like he does it on command when he's upset, just to get you to feel sorry for him! It works, but I have to giggle a little because it's just so adorable.

My mom came for a visit this past weekend and we had such a great time. Alexander and I picked her up on Friday in Oklahoma City and did lunch and some shopping. Alexander did great! He seems to enjoy shopping a bit more than his father!! The trip back to OKC was alright as well, but the trip home after dropping my mom off wasn't great. He kind of had a bit of a meltdown. He started screaming and there was nothing I could do about it until I could find a place to stop. He even hit his famous scream where he holds his breath and his face turns bright red. The one which I HATE because it freaks me out so much. And this was only made worse by the fact that there was nothing I could do while driving. Luckily, by time he hit this scream, we were pulling up to a gas station and I could get to him pretty quickly. But overall, he's a pretty good traveler.

WEEKEND ON OUR OWN

So this past weekend, Alexander and I were on our own for the entire weekend while Chris went cross country to Phoenix. It started off with a bang with Alexander puking on me as soon as Chris walked out the door. He wouldn't nap all day and then puked on me again later in the day. Let's just say I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, but things were getting better. I was starting our nightly routine with bath time. Bath time is much trickier when Chris isn't home. Alexander is just so little and slippery, it always makes me nervous. Well, I was washing his hair with Head and Shoulders because of his cradle cap and a little soapy water must have slid into his eye and mouth. Well, as you can imagine he flipped out! He started screaming like crazy. My blood pressure sky rocketed and my adrenaline started pumping big time. (I realize to most people out there, you're thinking "why would you get so upset about shampoo? " but I got freaked out.) His eye was bright red and he was bubbling at the mouth and he was acting like he was choking. I washed his mouth out but still ended up calling poison control and had to get in the shower with him to let the water wash his eye out. This helped his eye a lot and by the time we got out of the shower it was mostly cleared up. And he was definitely calm. I was still shaking, but he was just fine. He went to bed and slept well. I however tossed and turned worrying about him all night. It's just so hard to handle things like this on your own and not have someone to ask if he looks okay.

Saturday was alright. He wouldn't really nap in his crib, but I needed a nap so badly that I let him sleep on me for a little bit. Of course I can't really sleep well with him, but it helped a little. We were going to go meet some girlfriends for dinner and then my car wouldn't start. Of course my car only has problems when Chris goes out of town! No kidding. It's a definite trend. This was the only car at home, so after fiddling with it with my dad on the phone and I still couldn't get it started a friend picked me up and we picked up our other car. Worked out okay in the end.

Now some of you are probably thinking that none of this sounds like a big deal, but when you are running on empty with sleep, everything seems like a big deal. And of course I am always super emotional when I am tired. I am always very happy to have Chris come home, but this time he couldn't get here fast enough! I cannot imagine ever being a single mom. I do NOT look forward to the next time that he deploys. Luckily it will be a while before we have to worry about that.

It's funny you know, a couple weeks ago I actually said to Chris, "I think I have this figured out." YEAH RIGHT!!! As soon as I feel like we have something working, Alexander changes something up to keep me on my toes. Right now it's sleep. He just doesn't like to nap in his crib anymore and the last couple of nights, it's been tough to get him to go to sleep at night. We used to never have any problem with this. I have ended up going in and nursing him some more to get him to go to sleep. This sort of defeats the point of our current routine which is designed for him to NOT fall asleep nursing. Maybe he's not eating enough to begin with. Tomorrow, I'm going to make sure he eats plenty before putting him down. We'll see.

As stressful and difficult as it is to be a mom, I still love it and wouldn't want to be doing anything else. I've been on "the job" for only 9 weeks, but it is definitely the MOST difficult job I have ever had and I can tell that it probably always will be. But it is also the MOST fulfilling job ever!

2 MONTH CHECK UP

Yesterday was Alexander's 2 month check up. He is doing fantastic! He weighs 12 pounds, 4 ounces and is 24 inches long. We thought that this all sounded exceptionally high, but he is only in the 50th percentile. Surprising! Today Alexander had his immunizations. This consisted of 3 shots and 1 oral medication. This was so hard to go through! Overall, he was pretty good, but he did have these two screams that were terrible! His face turned red/purple and I swear he stopped breathing! Very painful for mommy but he's a trooper. So far the only side effect that I'm noticing is some definite crankiness and some diarrhea. I've given him some Tylenol, so hopefully he won't experience much discomfort. I do not look forward to his 4 month shots!