Not my First Rodeo

But it sure was Sawyer's! My brother thought that 3 months old was a little too little to bring a baby to a rodeo, but I tried to tell him that rodeos are where Montana babies are made (hee hee). Last weekend the PCBR came to the Sears Center in Hoffman Estates. Stephan's parents, two sisters, one brother-in-law and a niece and nephew all piled in a car and met us up there. It started at 7pm and it was indoors, so already it was different from the rodeos we had been to in Montana.

The first thing that stuck me was all the different ideas of what a person should wear to a rodeo. There were lots of people just in city clothes, and a few actually wearing the pearl snap shirts with tight jeans and boots. But the in-between dressers were really funny. Button down Western shirts tucked into baggy low-rider pants... girls in tight jeans, wearing Uggs (those are boots, aren't they?)... lots of boots tucked into jeans (a pet peeve of a few friends of ours)... and hats that weren't quite 'cowboy' hats everywhere.

The rodeo started as they all do, a long tribute to America (eventhough 1/2 the audience was Latino) and a prayer to God that everyone stay safe. They bucked 35 head that night, and had 8 barrel racers do their thing in the middle. It was weird being indoors, with dirt trucked in to cover the cement floor. But the rodeo clown was funny, and the bull fighters kept everyone safe. Stephan and I knew just enough to appreciate the AAA-ness of the bulls and riders. Only one or two bulls were really rank, the rest were pretty tame.

The biggest difference was the arena pricing. $7.00 for a beer?? Heck, the Lutherans bring their own beer and keep it in their trucks!

[I just realized that I never posted the story about when we played Luthran vs Catholic softball in Montana and I realized the true difference between the two religions. The Lutherans brought beer and kept it in their trucks in the parking lot. The Catholics had no beer. So, knowing that, the last sentence of this post should make a lot more sense.]

Overheard: Doing Bills

Me: Can I have some of that orange juice?

Him: Do you just want orange juice?

Me: Um, I'm thirsty. Why?

Him: Well, there's some vodka in this. [hands me juice]

Me: [drinking] Wbewh!! There's a LOT of vodka in this!

Him: Well, okay. The rest of the vodka is in that.

A Big Old Pile of Shi-

-ft Work.

Life here has really been shaken up in the last week. Stephan began working his night shifts about a week ago, and we're still trying to adjust. He leaves the house at 6pm to start his shift in the ER at 7pm. He gets a break sometime between 1-3am to eat whatever-the-name-of-that-meal-would-be. Fourth meal? He is finished at 7:30am, but he goes to the gym before he comes home- so he doesn't get home until after 9:30am. He showers, eats breakfast, and is asleep by 11am. He wakes up at 5pm to do it all over again. He asked to work a max of two days in a row at a time, but next week he works three, and the week after that is four.

Sawyer and I are still working on our schedule. We clean the kitchen after dinner and then go downstairs to either watch TV or exercise. We finish up around 9pm (or not when Lost is 2 hours long!!) and go upstairs to take a tubby. See the below video for tubby details. After the tubby is where the schedule falls apart. Sometimes he falls asleep right after the tubby while nursing, sometimes not. Sometimes it takes until after midnight for him to fall asleep. Sometimes he stays asleep, sometimes he wakes up every hour.

We're back on schedule at 7am when Sawyer wakes up to eat, the dogs wake up to go out, and I could use about 2 more hours of sleep. With all of those things taken care of by 8am, Sawyer is back asleep and I'm wide awake. I watch the adorable kiddo make faces in his sleep until Stephan comes home. We eat breakfast together, and I try to stay quiet while he sleeps. That means laundry, computer time, quiet unpacking, and lots of giggling time with the awake baby. He's usually wide awake by noon, with a few naps in the afternoon.

Playing with the baby includes laughing, smiling, sitting and standing up, shaking rattles (he can't really hold them on his own yet), some tummy-time playing with toys... he LOVES the baby Neptune adventure gym and plays my himself for up to 45 minutes at a time. He's so interested in the dang thing I hate taking him away from it. I love listening to him coo and try to talk to the octupus and whale. I've attached a few other toys to it to try to add some adventure. I make dinner piece by piece throughout the afternoon, chopping, mixing spices, etc. whenever I have a minute. We also do a fair bit of cleaning with Sawyer strapped to my chest.

There's lots of Facebooking, IM'ing, emailing, paying bills, figuring out the budget, and trying to remember to brush my teeth. Speaking of....

Did Someone Say, "More Baby?"

Now that Stephan works night shift (7pm - 7am) I'm trying to find quiet things to do around the house during the day while he sleeps. The hardest part is keeping a three month old (yes, he's three months old already!) relatively quiet. Editing this video fascinated him, since he could hear my voice coming from the computer, and a very familiar baby's voice as well. If you thought that last video was too short, you might think this one is too long.

But "It's Tubby Time!"

Overheard: Looking at Facebook

Him: What's that called again? Googlefart?

Me: What??

Him: People posted photos of famous people they look like. That's a Googlefart?

Me: Nope.

Testing 1...2...3

I hope this works! Thanks again to everyone who gave us money to buy the video camera. I promise to put more of these together soon.

Sawyer makes faces in his sleep all the time. When you say his name he smiles, and sometimes he has bad dreams and he frowns. I tried to edit all the many minutes of video (somewhat successfully) to create this montage (not Heidi) of faces.

Overheard: At the Changing Table

Him: Where's the baby's USB port?