Teething Blues

Gunner is cutting teeth. He is cutting his first molars. He currently has one fully in already. That one wasn't too terrible, but it's these next three that are causing problems. Molar 2 is almost all the way through, 3 is halfway in, and 4 is mocking me just underneath the gums. All three of these are hurting him at the same time. That's why it's so bad.
How can I tell when he's teething? Well, aside from being able to see them, there are a few signs. First, he drools...a lot. Next comes the chewing. He has his hand stuck so far back into his mouth he can probably feel his small intestine. Seriously though, he just digs at his gums constantly until it's over. This is usually accompanied by extreme neediness. He is usually quite independent, but when those teeth start coming in he is constantly in my lap. He doesn't want to play or sit alone and he requires cuddling most of the day. He just lays on me quietly, and if it's really bad he cannot sit still. Fourth, he has the most incredible dirty diapers. He poops like 5 times a day, and half of them are diarrhea diapers. (Yes, gross) I wish someone could figure out why this happens with teething. The last, and by far, most exhausting sign of teething is the refusal of sleeping at night. The last time he was teething he would wake up many times at night. Now that his molars are coming in, once he wakes up he will not go back to sleep unless I'm holding him or in the bed with him. Last night he actually wouldn't go to sleep to begin with unless I was holding him.
Every kid has different symptoms of teething, but these are Gunner's. He feels miserable, and I hate that he is hurting. It's something every kid has to go through though. If I had to, I would do it all over again. I probably will at some point. Until then, we will eat a lot of cold fruit, and after he's done I will sleep... Someday I will sleep again.

Cooling Off

Gunner has officially been introduced to the redneck way of cooling off in the summertime: the back yard sprinkler! I remember many hot days as a kid running around the yard, covered in grass, jumping over the sprinkler. Such fun. He wasn't sure at first, but now he loves it.
For Memorial Day, we had a couple of friends over who have kids the same age as Gunner. They all played in the yard together, but the girls weren't as excited about the sprinkler as Gunner was. They liked the little pool best. It was really cute seeing the three of them play.

Just Thinking

I'm guessing since Gunner was about 3 weeks old, I started looking forward to the next step. Nothing major, just little things like him growing too big for his newborn clothes, being able to wear the next size up, holding his head up long enough to do tummy time...you get the idea. I was always so excited for the next step. I couldn't wait until he was able to eat his first foods and sit up on his own and play by himself. I'm still doing it too, and I wonder if I will ever stop!
This time, it's potty training and a toddler bed. I keep trying to remind myself that all kids are different and they don't all move to the next step at the same age. Some kids are ready earlier, some later. These two things could really change life around here so that's why I've been thinking about them a lot. I do not want to rush Gunner into anything too soon and him not be ready since it might cause problems later on, but it's hard to tell when they're ready sometimes.
This kid is smart. I know every parent says that, but he really is. He picks up on new things so quickly it's kind of strange. I guess in the back of my mind I'm hoping he will be able to pick up on potty training as fast as he does other things. I've read my fair share of baby websites, blogs, and other moms comments online and a lot of them tend to state that 18 months is a great time to try potty training. Then there are those moms who say they barely got their kid potty trained before kindergarten... This makes me terrified! What if that is going to be my kid?! What if he refuses until he's 4?! Oh boy, I don't like that idea at all.
The toddler bed transition isn't something I'm wanting to do soon, I just know a lot of the time it tends to come along soon after potty training. These two things will pretty much catapult him from a baby to a little boy. The word baby won't apply any longer.
Maybe that's why I'm dreading it so much.

Dream Weaver

I've been having a harder time sleeping lately which causes me to have some wild and crazy dreams. Last night was a great example.

First off, I was dreaming about getting an enormous sandwich cookie at the Great American Cookie Company. (I actually woke up wanting a cookie this morning...) Somehow, after that I was kidnapped by the guy who plays Roger Sterling on Mad Men. (see below) I was placed with the other hostages and Daniel was one of them. The bad guys made my legs numb, I guess so I wouldn't be able to escape. Then, they picked me up to take me away and I was trying to tell Daniel goodbye, you know, all dramatic like in the movies but he was busy talking to another hostage about Star Wars.
"DANIEL!!!!! Hello?! They're taking me away!!" He responded "Oh yeah! Oh, sorry!! Be careful! I love you!" [awkward hug]
As I was trying to crawl feet first into some random air duct, I was able to feel my feet but acted like they were still numb so I could later run away. 'Roger' grabbed a knife to see if I was faking and started stabbing my feet! I had to act like I couldn't feel it.
We got to a warehouse where a guy was acting like he was helping work on the plane, but really was about to help me escape. We started walking, the guy threw me a box cutter, I lunged for it but before I could do anything 'Roger' had a gun to my back! It was at this point in the dream where I pushed 'Roger' away and said "This is ridiculous!!" and woke up.

I have no idea.

Good Riddance?

[This post was written some time last year when I couldn't post anything. I thought I would share it now.]



We all have too many friends on Facebook. That's a fact. Some of the people I am "friends" with, I don't know that I have ever met! They may be friends of a friend, or heard about me through someone I met once. It's hard to keep up with everyone on there. And it's impossible to talk to each friend regularly. If you have no trouble doing this, you clearly have only seven Facebook friends.

Occasionally you find out when someone deletes you as a friend. You don't get an email or anything, but when I see another friend has tagged a picture of them or wrote on their wall, and then when I go to their profile it says "Send Friend Request" I'm always in shock! What?! Since when? What did I do?

I pretty much go through all the stages of grief within about 2 minutes.

Denial: Well, they probably didn't mean to, or they left facebook and when they came back forgot to add me as a friend.

Anger: I hate them! What a jerk! They are stupid, and I remember when they were mean to me that one time in Wal Mart...

Barganing: I wonder if I can message them and ask what I did? Maybe if I offer an apology for doing the thing I did that I don't know what it is...

Depression: I am a horrible person. Why else would someone delete me? I have no friends...

Acceptance: It's only Facebook! Whatev.

Vacant

It's been nearly a year since I've blogged. It's not because I don't have time, even though that is quite a fact. It's because my dadgum blog wouldn't post anything I wrote! So... here is a small post to see if it's working better now that they've made some changes to the site. Let's hope so!