Photo Monday

 Justace in his new walker toy Shay gave us to use. Not sure if he likes it or not yet since he's been screaming so much. Should know once this screaming phase ends.

 Chocolate covered oreo truffles I made. They are delicious!!! And so incredibly easy to make.

Mealtime. Oh waht a giant mess you've made!

Drama!

After having a complete mental breakdown and headache that felt it might kill me from the inside due to Justace's constant screaming fits and shear exhaustion I have decided that is enough! I can't control my child. He's going to scream if he wants to scream and there is nothing I can do about it. But I can do something about my own response to it and my personal feelings and the exhaustion factor. I can either listen to him scream on little sleep and stressed out or I can listen to him scream while I'm in a better mood and better able to cope with it. So until we can see a doctor and until he grows out of this screaming phase I am focusing on myself. I am going to start paying friends to watch him during the day so I can sleep when I haven't gotten to sleep in 3 days. I am going to focus on keeping myself calm even if it means sticking in his crib to scream and going to take a hot bath while my music blares to drown him out. We are going to the doctor this week and I hope to God he can give us some advice or some medicine or something to help. Also, he's so close to crawling and I'm hoping once he starts to crawl and once his teeth finally come in maybe that will also lessen the screaming fits. In the meantime, I have to do what I can to keep myself sane. I can't funtion or be a good mother if I'm physically and mentally exhausted.

23 Weeks

Justace talks a ton, as in he makes noises like squeeking noises and razzing, but I'm a tiny bit worried because he doesn't use actual words still. Like no vowels or consonants put together or anything. Shouldn't he be able to do that by now? I talk to him and read to him and sing to him constantly. Maybe he's just a noisemaker and not much a talker?

He still isn't crawling but he's so close to it. He can def move all over the place through a combination of rolling and scooting. So we have to buy a playpen and baby proofing kit like yesterday at this point.

Also he's still waking constantly at night. Some nights he only wakes once which is nice. Other's he wakes every 2 or 3 hours and if I give him a bottle he goes back to sleep. And others it seems like he just doesn't sleep at all. It's been over a month this has been going on. I already took him to the doc once and he checked out perfectly healthy. I've tried every sleep method in every book I've read and articles online. Nothing works and I have no idea what to do. Will this ever stop? I understand he's going to have bad nights now and then but every single night? I'm at a loss and I'm exhausted and I need sleep so badly.

Photo Monday 1 day late

 Bright Eyes curled up and sleeping on one of Justace's blankets.

 What I read to Justace before bed.

 Sleeping angel.

 Justace and his little bee rattle.

 Justace during library story time.

 We voted this morning. Justace voted no zuchini.

 Buddies?

He may be crawling very soon at this rate.

Prepping and Books

A friend of ours has recently gotten very into prepping, preparing for a natural disaster or the end of the world. A lot of people recently have begun to prep for the end of the world due to the whole Mayan calendar and I pretty much thought this was crazy. First of all, nobody knows when or how the world will end. It cannot be predicted as history has shown time and time again. It could end tomorrow or in another million years. Second, if the world was to end what would be the point of all that food you had stored and the bomb shelter you had built. However, natural disasters and perhaps one day even a nuke or something major, could and do happen as we've just seen with Hurricane Sandy. Plus if anything ever does happen all those people who were laughing at the preppers are going to wish they were friends with them then. Kind of like Noah's Ark. They all made fun of the crazy old man until the flood hit and they all died. Anyways so our friend, Jody, has been sending us prepackaged type meals and foods along with books on prepping and how to survive and items for use when there is no power or anything at all to use. She wants to start a blog reviewing items like this and also giving tips and advice on how to prep for whatever. Josh and I will be helping her with this and as soon as she gets the blog all set up and ready to go I will be linking this blog to that one so anyone interested can read it.

I just finished three books I've been working on for a while. I'm reading James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series and just finished the 5th book in the series. I find these books really delight the mind as it tries to unravel the mystery and the twist of events that is sure to occur by the end of each novel. I find I can hardly put them down because I so want to know what is going on and who the bad guy is and why. This one particularly gave me the heebyjeebies about trusting my life to nurses and doctors in hospitals who you never even consider are human just like me and you and yet have the power of life and death over you. You just trust they won't make mistakes and they won't abuse that power.

I also just finished Madame Bovary, a novel about a woman, Emma, who gives in to all the pleasures in life including of the flesh and ends up having several affairs and commiting suicide. I really loved how the author wrote this novel. His words are so beautiful and his descriptions of even minor details so exquisite it feels like you are right there experiencing it all firsthand and evokes emotions in even the tiniest of details in a room. However, I really disliked the main character, Emma. She was such a huge drama queen about everything. And so incredibly selfish and greedy. And she never changed. I kept waiting for her character to change and it never did. And she was brought down by it which I think is probably the point of the story but I dislike stories where you never grow to love the characters in the book or identify with them.

The third book I just finished is Utopia by Thomas More. My only reference I ever had to this book is Danielle quotes from it in the movie Ever After. It's not really a story so much as a detailed description of a "perfect" fictional society that exists in the New World. Its ideas are very communist in nature. Much of it sounds like a very peaceful and very good idea in theory. However, in actuality, I think this kind of society is impossible to achieve. And I think that is what More was trying to get at since the very title means No Man's Land.

Cat Problems

Our new kitten, Bright Eyes, is adorable and playful but I have so many problems with her I never had with Bella and I don't know what to do to get her to stop. First, she still suckles. She's much too old for that so I'm pretty sure she must have left her mommy before she was very old but how do I get her to stop suckling my shirts and blankets all the time. Second, she's aggressive. Not aggressive mean but aggressive playful. She's too rough and uses her claws and teeth when she plays which is pretty much all the time. Third, we don't have furniture. We have cardboard boxes I keep all our stuff in and she chews them to pieces. It drives me nuts. Can a cat teethe? Or if not, what the heck is going on here? And how can I get her to stop it? If anyone has any advice please let me know.

22 Weeks

His personality is showing more and more each week. He loves eating and taking walks outside in his stroller and seeing new people and new places. He loves being held and talked to and sung to and just generally being the center of attention at all times. He loves anything soft and cuddly like stuffed animals or blankets. He hates being ignored and although he's getting better at playing on the floor for longer periods of time he still only will be content down there for about 15 minutes before he gets cranky and starts crying. He's definitely a very active baby with tons of energy. He's very outspoken and will let you know if he doesn't like something or if he's even the slightest bit unhappy. He's outgoing and loves meeting new people and getting lots of attention. He hasn't started crawling just yet but he rolls all over the floor and scoots himself back and forward to move. He's definitely probably going to be crawling very soon because he's trying really hard. We are going to buy him a playpen soon so I can corral him in a safe spot while I'm doing dishes or housework and don't have to worry about him getting into unsafe things.

He doesn't sleep through the night and hasn't for about a month now. He wakes up usually twice each night. Wondering just how much longer this phase will last and when I can look forward to him sleeping all night again. I'll admit I'm back to feeling exhausted again all the time. I sleep when he does or try to and drink so much coffee the rest of the time to avoid konking out.

Living out in the country we are too far from Idaho Falls to go to any infant activities or classes for him but I hate having him all alone and cooped up in the house and he hates it too. So we've started going to library story time every Tuesday where we listen to stories with lots of other babies and young children and watch them do crafts and play. We've also started going to church again. The church has a wonderful nursery with cribs and blankets and toys and high chairs and jumpers and so much good stuff for him. I can even sit in there with him and rock him because there is a big window to the sermon and a microphone that goes into the nursery so I can sit in there and listen to the sermon and watch it from the nursery. Last Sunday the children's church leader actually took him to church with her and watched him for me while I sat and watched the sermon which was oh so nice and then I put him down for a nap in the nursery while I ate lunch and chatted with some other moms after the service. After Christmas every Friday they will have baby gym at the library which I plan on taking him to.

His 6 month check up is scheduled for Dec 3 so another month and we will see his new weight and height. He's starting to like games more like peek a boo. And I've just begun doing baby sign language with him. I'm hoping this will help later on with him communicating his needs and wants to me before he's able to talk.