MommyBlog

(Kenny took this shot… and fifteen others along with it…)

I mentioned in my last post that we found fleas on Dudley, and had to call an exterminator.  The sentence alone clearly does not capture exactly what transpired.  Before the exterminator could do his toxic dirty work, we had to “prep the house” - which is how Terminix puts it.  This means washing all the rugs, bed linens and blankets that may have come in contact with the infested (poor Dudley!) pet.  It also includes vacuuming the entire house, floors and furniture.  Yeah.  And I don’t have anything better to do with my spare time. 

Fortunately my parents came over for lunch and graciously stayed through dinner to help out with baby wrangling and Kenny-entertaining.  I think they kind-of had fun, too…

(Grampy getting some Cooper-love!)

Between the sheets, duvets, duvet covers, mattress pads, pillow shams and throws, I did TWELVE loads of laundry.  This did not include any clothing or burp rags (which we go through at an alarming rate), towels or other miscellaneous items in the hamper.  Then each load had to be sealed and left in the “laundry room,” which for us is a closet the size of a shower.  Cry me a river.  THEN we had to vacate the house for four hours (minimum) after the service was completed.  And they started at 5 pm. 

Ok, returning home to a smelly and possibly toxic house at 9 pm with the beds completely stripped and a toddler and an infant did not sound fun.  So Casey and I improvised and packed our bags and took a 20 hour vacation downtown!

We made it a surprise for Kenny, and when we pulled into the Lowes hotel (fancy digs and they LOVE dogs) and told Kenny that we were going to sleep there, he whooped and hollered in unabandoned joy.  He kept saying, “Momma!  Dadda!  We’re SLEEPING AT A HOTEL!!!!!”  And it is a really nice hotel, so I was pretty jazzed myself.

Cooper didn’t do so hot on the sleeping end of things, but it was lots of fun to wake up and walk the town and eat breakfast down by the docks.  And it was a whole bunch of fun to not make the bed in the morning, take a steamy shower and leave the towels on the floor, and let Kenny jump on the bed to his heart’s content.   And a hoot to walk through a lobby full of convention-attending businessmen with Cooper in the front pack, Kenny in his stroller and Dudley trotting along side.  I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of Dudley in that fancy lobby…

So now we are home, the house seems flea-free and everyone under the drinking age is sleeping.  Not a bad ending for a disastrous weekend. 

(Cooper getting some Grampy-love!)

Truly, it’s the first comment I get when people, friends and strangers alike, see him.  It’s most striking when he’s in the baby bjorn and all you see are the feet sticking out the bottom, and the hair sticking out the top.  It still has it’s crazy frosted tips, too.  Cooper is one good-lookin’ dude.

I also realized tonight that we have very few pictures of Cooper from the last two weeks.  Partly because the rash on his face really jumps out on film, but also partly because we are barely keeping up with housework and Kenny-work and who can ever find the camera??  Here are a few, though, for the Grands…

 Kisses!

 Cooper loves to help fold laundry…  Hey, the housework’s got to get done somehow…

Kenny actually took this one!  Click on it for a great shot of how long Cooper’s hair is…

Cooper likes to help Daddy work, too!

The little man is doing great!  He slept all night again last night… even through a ferocious hail storm that woke Casey and I.  Casey went in and brought Kenny into our bed, sure that he would wake up scared, but he slept right through it, too.  It was kind of fun waking up this morning with five in the bed.  (Dudley wasn’t about to be left out of that party!)

But, alas, it’s close to bedtime and that means that Cooper wants to drink, drink, drink!  Casey is doing is best at bouncing, singing and pacifying, but I think he’s reached his limits.  And with that, goodnight!

Cooper is an awesome sleeper.  If I let him nurse all he wants in the evening, he’ll snooze most of the night away.  Last night I got 7 and a half hours out of him!  I feel like a new woman after a sleep that good.

Ah, but get that kid in a car seat and all hell breaks loose.  He SCREAMS in the car.  Here, there, everywhere.  Morning, noon, night.  Music up, music down, he screams till Kenny and my face frowns.  I’m about ready to not leave the house until he can drive himself.

As for the dermatitis, between washing his face in Selsun Blue twice a week and then dabbing breast milk on a couple times a day, it’s almost cleared up!  Thanks for the suggestions from you all!! 

What else?  Kenny is hanging in there.. if anything, he’s gone from one of the sweetest boys in the world to The Sweetest Boy on Earth.  He is so loving to Cooper and so sweet and attentive to me.  Of course, he is still WILD as well - bouncing off the walls, most specifically when I am nursing and can’t catch him.   He also waits until I start nursing Cooper to say, “Mommy I want to poop in the potty!”  For some reason, he can’t get his pull-up down himself, so it’s either drop everything (I don’t actually drop Cooper, I try to set him down somewhere safe!) or thwart his efforts by making him wait. 

Finally Dudley, who obviously is getting very little of his share of attention, decided to go and get fleas to bring home and infest our house.  Casey is out on the back deck right now spraying down couch pillows and chairs with hopefully-not-too-toxic flea killer, and the exterminator comes Monday.  Yee haw.

 Pictures to come soon, I promise!!

I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.  Cracking up as in laughing my head off, and “cracking up” as in oh my goodness I’ve done five loads of laundry in the last ten hours and Kenny still doesn’t have a clean pair of shorts that fit him to wear to church.  And then Casey does something innocent like turn the sprinkler on at noon on a 90 degree day and I find myself choking back tears as I nurse Cooper on the couch, watching the water evaporate in thin air and wondering how our eco-inconsiderate action will affect his availability of natural resources in the next twenty years. 

I actually  got them both to nap at the same time.  In  their OWN BEDS.  I am not holding, nursing, burping, soothing or jiggling Cooper, nor trying to catch up with all the inanity called housework while attempting to give Kenny some much-needed attention.  This infant+toddler equation is not an easy one.

Yesterday found both of them at the doctors’ office - Croup.  Yuk.  Poor baby Cooper needs the boogers suctioned out to nurse and Kenny sounds like a baby seal.  After the un-planned appointment, a group of dear friends had a baby shower for me.  I was so overwhelmed with these incredible women, who are so busy with their own broods, that they put together this beautiful brunch and showered Cooper with adorable gifts.  It is humbling.  It was also delicious!  Fruit “pizza” and french toast strata topped the tastes, as did tender blueberry muffins and a fluffy quiche that they swear they just “threw together.”  HA!  Thank you girls - you are over the top!

As I write, Kenny has wandered into the office - only 45 minutes after I left him (how did 45 minutes speed by so fast and I STILL didn’t have a chance to go to the bathroom?), and is climbing onto my lap asking to “see something,” which is how he asks to watch anything animated, be it a cartoon or an uploaded curious George snippet on YouTube.

So I must be brief with my main question to pose here:  Anyone out there have an infant with seborrheic dermatitis on their face???  This is called cradle cap when it’s on the head.  Kenny had an awful case for about six months, but it never crept onto his face.  Now Cooper has it on his face and neck, but not yet on his head.  It is definitely not infant acne, as the pediatrician has seen it.  It breaks my heart to see my beautiful Cooper with this rash on his perfect face.  I can’t imagine that it will last as long as Kenny’s did.  Our doc said that we could use hydro-cortisone every few days to keep the itch away, but to wait five days or so in between each two days of using it, because it can damage tender baby skin.  Any advice would be appreciated.

Oops… now Cooper is starting to grunt… So much for naptime…

Cooper is an addict.  A very adorable and sweet addict, but an addict all the same.  In the evenings, it’s all I can do to get five minutes without him crying so desperately for milk that you’d think I hadn’t fed him all day.  The trade-off is that he’s been sleeping 5 to 6 hour stretches, then another 2 hour stretch at night, so the binging is obviously worth it.  But these hours between 7 and 11 are tough on the old mama. 

This weekend, we decided to venture out of the house.  On Friday, we went downtown for sushi…

Cooper was a dream-boat and Kenny was so thrilled with a night out on the town that he was in his most charming comic form. 

On Saturday we headed out to my parent’s house for my Dad’s 62nd birthday party…

And today we made it to church not only all clean and dressed, but early.   Yeehaw.  Ah, but we make it look so easy, and the reality is that I have four loads of clean but unfolded laundry on the guest room bed, a full dirty clothes hamper, still at least 10 thank-you’s to get written and mailed for Cooper gifts we got that first week, two weeks worth of mail to open and bills to pay, dirty dishes in the sink, a dog who hasn’t been pet all day (and oh my, have we even fed him yet today?!?) and a husband who hasn’t had a kiss in days, much less a hug with both of my arms.

Ah, but I have managed to find time to nap… me and the exotic new man in my life…

Well, we found the camera.  After ransacking the house, making a list of theft possibilities (we’d had a cleaning service and two construction workers in the house on the day the camera disappeared), we finally thought to ask Kenny.  He said, “I know where it is,” then gave us a bunch of bogus locations.  But it did trigger us to look on his level, in some of his favorite spots.

We found the camera in one of the living room toy boxes, with 87 unauthorized photos, including about 15 like this:

Not his best angle, but it gave me the first belly laugh that hasn’t hurt in two weeks.

I also noticed in a few of the recent pictures of Cooper, he looks more like baby Kenny than I’d thought at first:

Can you guess who’s who?

Our household is beginning to resemble a little more of a circus, as Cooper and Kenny (and Casey and Dudley!) vie for attention.  But all is well… I still haven’t had to get up more than once a night so far.  Cooper certainly makes up for it by daytime feedings, though.  All in all, I’d say we’re experiencing a little bit of heaven.

Cooper’s still adorable and STILL only waking once a night.  Kenny is still a loveable rascal and I STILL don’t have time to write!  And we can’t find the camera… so no new pictures at the moment.

Hm… there’s a little baby doing an impressive impersonation of a woodpecker on my shoulder… guess that’s my cue…

Cooper has surfer dude hair.  It is so cool.  I think it’s my favorite feature about him so far.  When he first emerged from the womb, it was curly and sticky and looked like it had frosted tips.  Now it’s downy and some lays softly against his head and the rest sticks up and still has wild sun-bleached highlights.  Maybe I spent too much time in the salon when he was in vitro??

First, pictures…

It has been such a joy getting to know him over these past eight days.  He is a super-sleeper… since we’ve been home, he’s slept nearly every night just waking ONCE!  I am actually not a zombie.  (Ok, at least I’m no longer a zombie since weaning myself from the percocet…)  In the mornings, he is one mellow kid.  He wakes up with a stretch, nurses, dozes, nurses, dozes and generally just hangs out.  In the evenings, though, he does a complete turn-around and wants to nurse non-stop from about 4PM until we go to bed.  No kidding.  He’ll drink for a half hour, fall asleep for a few minutes and then wake up howling and doing the woodpecker, latching on to any bare skin he can find until I nurse him again.  But then he sleeps nearly all night, so who’s to complain?  It’s not like I’m going anywhere, right?

He’s a snuggler, too.  But he’s also the kind of baby you can put down for a while and he’s just content to look around and listen to what’s going on.  I know it’s still the honeymoon, but I’m hooked on this little guy.

Having a new baby in the house, with a post-surgery mamma, means lots of time with Daddy and the grandparents!

Casey and Kenny and Papa spent some time fishing on the dock yesterday…

…and they caught a record FIFTEEN (yes, that’s 15!) fish! 

Kenny is doing very well, considering that his whole world has been rocked!  He’s had a couple moments of whining and obvious jealousy, but has been mostly loving, patient and very curious.  I wonder what he’s thinking about all this.  I can tell that he’s a little wary.  And a little sad that the life he knew has changed for good.  I am too, in a little way.  For nearly three years, he and I have been bosum buddies.  We’ve talked, read, played, napped, cooked, giggled, danced and sung together - just the two of us (except weekends and after Casey gets home from work) - nearly every day of his life.  And that’s not going to be the same anymore.

I am hopelessly in love with Cooper.  I will write the next post all about him, and post lots more pictures.  But I needed to just write about my little guy Kenny for a quiet minute.  He’ll always be my first little boy.

 (Kenny, 6 days old)

So far so good.  Cooper and I came home Wednesday at lunchtime.  He is a great little sleeper (so far!) and a pretty vigorous eater, too.  Kenny is happy to have him home to stay…

… and Casey is already prepping him on rooting for the home team.

I’m having some wicked side effects from the surgery, namely horrid headaches and overall swelling.  In fact, I left for my delivery at the hospital at 131 pounds, and came home 135!  Yuk.  It happened when I had Kenny, too, but right now I wish they’d invent something to just wring the water out of me. 

Ah, but the joy is incomparible.  I can hardly believe we have another son!!  Welcome home, Cooper!