Living in the City

So you know when it's time to go to sleep, you make the room all dark and quiet, you lay down somewhere comfortable and you close your eyes? That's like Montana.

You know when you're trying to sleep in an airport, it's bright and there's noises everywhere, and you just can't quite get comfortable in the chair? That's like the city.

Don't get me wrong- it's always nicer to be at the airport with people you know who will stay awake and tell you when your flight is bording, watch your bag, and let you lean on their shoulder. But you're always going to fall asleep better in your own bed.

End of Feb Photos

Stephan fell asleep last week and Sawyer and I were bored. So we played dress up for about an hour....

Back on Schedule

A week ago, Stephan and I were clinging to each other, me in tears, baby monitor clutched in our trembling hands. The first night following Dr. Ferber's plan he cried on and off for an hour. The second night it was only 30 minutes, and, more or less the times got shorter and shorter after that. When he first cried I told Stephan, "he's mad at us!" and Stephan told me this will not be the last time he will be mad at us, that I have to get used to it. There will be plenty of times in his life that we do things to help him that he doesn't like. At 2am I sat up staring at the baby monitor (it's a video monitor, totally worth the extra price) and sighed...

Me: There will be a day, in about 17 years when we are sitting up at 2am and he's not at home, and we want him to be safe, but we can't protect him from everything... and it'll me much worse than this won't it?

Him: Yep.

"Original Sin Loses a Nail Biter in Overtime"

After nearly 4 months of shouldering the burden of original sin, Sawyer was baptised on Sunday. The following video condenses 4 hours of hoopla into a 1 minute and 45 second highlight reel. Thanks to Uncle Jimmy for capturing a unique selection of the festivities.

A Post Where I Talk about Religion

Sawyer was baptised this weekend! Yippie for the Holy Spirit! We don't much talk about religion on this blog, mostly because it's such a hot topic, and so many of the people who read the blog have strong and different opinions about it. But, here I go anyway.

The thing I'm thinking about religion today is: why is this an all-or-nothing topic? It seems that people either have very strong beliefs (i.e. "I believe this and therefore YOU MUST believe it too, here are the 1,000 reasons I've prepared to convince you of that"), or they are totally apathetic. Where are the people who just believe in something (whatever that means to them) and practice their religion (whatever tht means to them), are open and honest when asked about it, and then go on with their day?

I think this was the dilemma Stephan and I faced when it came to deciding how we wanted to raise Sawyer. Do we have to pick between these two opposites? Or can our family just quietly do our thing? When selecting godparents we really struggled with finding people who would support us in our walk, no matter where that walk would lead us, and not ignore that walk either. We wanted people who will sit down with Sawyer when he's older and talk to him about their own lives. People who, more than talk about being Christian, live Christian lives. I think we found those people, and I think that's a pretty smart way to do things.

Doing the Do

Not much to report here. Life as usual: Stephan working nights, I'm gearing up to start work next week, and The Little Man is working on growing and learning things. We play every day and it's so amazing to watch him discover his body a little more each day. Last night he found his ears and thumb, so he alternated hands poking himself in the head and face. He's also trying to roll over by kicking his chubby legs in the air and trying to throw them over his shoulder. We have little conversations sometimes where we take turns imitating each other. Last week he repeated "Ahh OOO Gooo" after I sang that I loved him. There's dancing and supported sitting up lately too. Hopefully with Stephan's next few days off we'll get some of these things on tape.

And, no, I didn't feel the earthquake yesterday. I'm sure I woke up when it happened at 3:59am, but then again, I also probably woke up at 1:30, 2:45, 5:15 and 6 am as well. And (blush) I'm still loving every minute of it. One day I'm sure I'll sleep more than 3 hours in a row again, and maybe then I'll realize what I've been missing. For now though, I really don't mind snuggling a crabby baby. I feel honored he picked us anyway.

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.