The Paparazzi is Back! ;)

You may have thought that I had taken a break from the camera, but oh, no. I've been just as active as ever, and have saved up quite a few pics of Baby J. from the last several days. I'm sure that Johnathan feels quite the celebrity baby, seeing as pretty much everything that he does warrants a "photo shoot." Whether I have him pose for the shots or catch some candid glimpses into his little baby life, he has to wonder why all the flashing lights?! Smile baby, you're on camera...again! I hope that y'all enjoy these most recent pictures of our precious boy.

Mommy to the rescue...or not ;(

Aah, what a feeling. I had just gotten out of a nice warm shower...a shower where I actually got to shave my legs. Most days Johnathan cries long before I get to that, so I end up walking around the house feeling like a prickly pear. Not pleasant, but it sure beats having to let Baby J. bawl his eyes out while I'm in the shower. I had just gotten dressed, and was feeling on top of the world. A lovely sunny day in C.C., baby was happy, I was clean, yep I felt good. I noticed that Johnathan was getting sleepy, so I wheeled him in his little baby walker into his room, and that's when the chaos started.

We entered his room, and I turned on the light & fan. Right away I heard a sort of scratching noise. At first I just thought it was one of the tags from his bouncy chair being blown by the fan. I kept hearing it though, and then, in the corner of Baby J's room, I thought I saw something jumping around. "Oh, great" I thought, a grass hopper is in the corner (it was jumping quite high, but was behind the bouncy chair, so I couldn't quite see it yet). Rather nonchalantly I pulled the bouncy chair back to get the "grass hopper" and that's when I saw it...the biggest spider that isn't a tarantula, and it was in my house!!! Now, I don't like bugs. I really don't like spiders, and I REALLY REALLY don't like when they're in my little boy's room.

Being the brave mommy that I am, I ran like mad to get the Raid because squishing him with the end of a broom or something was way too hands on for me. "Don't worry, Johnathan, Mommy will save you." I was only too glad that my boy was too little to see what a wuss I really was. Running back into the room and hoping that the spider was still in the corner, I stood my ground and got ready to face the spider. Our encounter went something like this:

Spray, spray, spray. Spider running toward me amazingly fast. "AAAAAHHHHH." Me screeching at the top of my lungs. Spray, spray, spray. Spider still running at me. "AAAIIIIEEEEEEE." Me still screeching at the top of my lungs. "WWWWWAAAAAAAAAA." Johnathan crying in stark terror at his mommy acting like a lunatic. Spray, spray, spray. Spider still running, this time under the changing table. "UUHHHG." Me trying to curb my desire to scream bloody murder. "WWWAAAAA", "Woof, woof, woof." Johnathan still crying and Bo trying to do his best to protect us from the unseen attacker.

After realizing how much I was scaring Johnathan by screaming so loud, I tried to calm down a bit before looking for the spider behind the changing table. I put Johnathan on top of the guest bed, and like a good mommy, I joined him. I slowly started to pull out the changing table, ready for the appearance of the big bad spidey. Out it came, and once again I doused it with about half a gallon of Raid. Finally, it curled up and began to die. About time. I was officially filled with the jitters, but I had a crying baby and barking dog to think about. I took Johnathan out of the baby walker, and snuggled him to sleep. Bo calmed down when he saw that we weren't dying. Once again, my day was returning to normal.

After laying Baby J. down to sleep, I went in (gloves on) to pick up the spider and to clean the puddles of Raid off of the floor in his room. I gingerly scooped up the spider with the end of the dust pan, and disposed of it in a trash bag. After checking several times that it was still dead, I tied up the bag, and after making sure that I could see it (still dead) inside of the bag, I threw it away.

What a day. Another reminder that I have a long ways to go before I will be excited to see what "treasures" Johnathan will bring me some day out of his little pockets. The good thing is that he's still a baby, and as the years go by hopefully we'll be able to enjoy "nature" together. Just not today, and please, not in my house!

Another Year Older

Another year has passed since my last b-day, and I'm now a very happy 27 years old! It's hard to believe that in just 3 short years I'll be 30!!! Wow! I'd better not dwell on that too much just now though, so I'll just settle into 27 nice and easy.

This past weekend/week has been filled with lots of fun. Gail surprised me with a visit over the weekend...quite a shock, in a good way! Grant has also been here, and is now stranded here because of hurricane Dolly. Yesterday we made a visit to the Texas State Aquarium, and Grant shot some pretty good pictures of the wildlife, and of Johnathan and me.

As far as the hurricane goes, we're weathering the storm right now as I'm writing this. Dolly isn't hitting us directly, but we're getting a lot, A LOT, of rain. The winds aren't too bad, and it mostly just feels like a pretty heavy thunderstorm right now, so it's all good. (For those of you in AK who might read this, we'll keep you posted here on any changes)

Here are some pics of the last couple of days. Love y'all!

Give that baby a rawhide, he needs something to chew!

Okay, so we haven't resorted to rawhides yet. Not that we don't have any laying around, but BoBo might get a little jealous, and isn't quite ready to share his treats with Johnathan. He already has to share his humans with the baby, and the rawhides just might be the last straw! Lately though, Johnathan has become quite a chewer. He'll chomp down on his fists and fingers, he still loves his chupón ( pacifier), but he has discovered how to take it out of his mouth, and he can't quite figure out how to put it back in. I'm not quite sure if he's teething, although I'm sure it's right around the corner. I bought Baby J. a teething toy, and he loves it...but once he drops it, he can't for the life of him figure out how to put it back in his mouth. So, he keeps on playing, and if the teether just happens to be laying on his face, well, that's just part of the game. It was funny watching him play and kick around with it on his face, so before I helped him put in back where it belonged, I took a couple of pictures of my baby playing happily despite his new facial anomaly.

Johnny goes to Space!!!

Yesterday on our big date, Baby Cakes and I looked all over for a special treat for him...since he was being such a good baby and all! J/K I really don't want to be one of those parents who bribe their kids with a treat if they'll behave. I had planned on buying him this toy whether he behaved or not! And, at this point, he's too little to have to behave anyways! So, after looking far and wide, we found this cute "space ship" at a local resale shop here in C.C. As soon as we walked in the door of the store I saw about 25 brand new baby walkers! Yay! It was just what I was looking for! As soon as we got back home Johnny set off for his first space adventure, and as you can tell from the pictures, he seemed to like it! Luckily, his favorite planet to visit was Earth, so he didn't have to go too far, and he was home in time for dinner! :)

Baby Blues

Yesterday Johnathan and I had our first big outing together. Target, HEB, Post Office...watch out, here we come! In honor of this blessed occasion, I dressed up Baby J. in his Baby Blues! I caught some pretty cute pics of him in his little outfit. I also got some wonderful comments from several folks we saw during our "date" together saying what a cute baby he was. Well, thank you! Hehe! All in all we had a great time together, and Baby Cakes even got a new toy...to be shown in the next post!

Hospital Property

I was folding laundry yesterday, and, since Aaron's back at work, I came across several pairs of scrubs. As I was folding them, I took a better look at the printed stamp on them and I read: "PROPERTY OF CHRISTUS SPOHN HEALTH SYSTEM UNLAWFUL REMOVAL OF THIS PROPERTY FROM SPOHN HOSPITALS IS AN ACT PUNISHABLE BY LAW." Wow, that pretty much summed up what I'd been feeling about Aaron's first week of residency. It seems as if the above statement applies more to the wearer of the garment, than to the item of clothing itself. As of Friday, Aaron had already put in 70 hours of work at the hospital...not including the work he has to do when he's at home. Plus, he has to work weekends too. Hospital property indeed! So, in just one week he'll put in an average of almost 100 hours of work! Crazy, crazy, CRAZY! Supposedly there is an 80 hour per week cap, but when I asked Aaron about it, he said that it's 80 hours per week averaged over a months time...a loophole to get around the system and work those poor residents nearly to death.

So, what's a wife to do when out of the 168 hours per week, her hubby works a whopping 100 of them, sleeps for a measly 42 of them, takes approx 10 of them to get ready and to commute back and forth, and uses at least 7 of them to work at home? What does that leave? 9 hours, that's what. 9 hours a week. 1.28 hours per day to find out how his day went, to let him know what happened here at home, to eat dinner and to get ready for bed. No one said that residency was easy, in fact quite the contrary, but I guess I never knew just how hard it was going to be until now. Granted, this is just his first week, and hopefully as time goes by things will improve as he gets more efficient. Still, it's looking like it's gonna be a long 3 years.

The hardest part of all of this is seeing how hard Aaron has to work, and how stressed out he is, and the fact that I can't really do anything to help him. I mean, I do what I can. I have a clean house for him to come home to, I have dinner ready (or almost ready) when he gets back, I pray for him throughout the day, I try to make sure that Johnathan is awake when he gets home so that he can play with him for a few minutes, I pray (PRAY, PRAY, PRAY) some more and so on. It doesn't seem like enough, but it's really all I can do.

So, although I don't feel like a "Resident's Widow" (yet) I am feeling the pain of separation. I knew it would be hard, but I didn't know just how hard until this past week. Somehow I know that these years to come are going to be some great growing years. Yet that word "growing" looms ominous above me. However, hopefully I will grow in greater dependence on the Lord, in patience and understanding, and in other ways that I can't foresee at the moment. Aaron hopefully will grow in knowledge and understanding of the Lord and of the medical profession. Johnathan, well, he'll just grow! He's already getting so big! (sniff, sniff)

To all who have read this, thanks. I guess this sort of turned into a vent of sorts. It feels good to get my thoughts out, and, as usual, I feel much better now. Well, I gotta get going to make things "homey" here at the house. I love you all!

Johnathan has a "Leelee"

Some of you may know what a "Leelee" is, but for those of you in the dark I'll explain. The history of the Leelee is as follows. It is a piece of fabric, usually in the form of a blanket, but it can really be any fabric with a satiny sort of feeling to all or part of it. A Leelee is used to bring comfort, and you may see children holding on to it while sucking their thumb, falling asleep, or just holding it in general as a sort of security blanket.

Yesterday, Johnathan was getting sleepy (he does this cute little thing now where he'll rub his eyes with his hands when he gets really tired, so precious!) and he kept trying to hold on to the fabric on his shirt. So, I thought to myself, this is the perfect moment to introduce his Leelee to him. I gave him his little blankie with a satin edge on it, and he grabbed it and fell asleep pretty quick. It was sooooo cute! Now, if he's like some other Leelee lovers I know (you know who you are!), then he'll carry around this little blankie until it's a pile of tattered fabric, but he'll still love it just the same, and that's how it should be!

Momma, I'm Hungry

Earlier today Baby J. had a blowout (they are pretty frequent these days!). And, since his tank was empty, I guess he was hungry. We've been trying to get him more on a regular feeding schedule, so I put him on his belly for a little tummy time, but all he would do was suck on his fist. He kept looking at me like, "Momma, I'm hungry" so after dressing him (again) I filled his little tank (again) and my little man was happy. Here is a video I took of his pitiful little cries as he tried to tell me that he wanted another meal!

As God Intended

Every baby has got to have them...the naked baby pics! I tried to be discreet with Johnathan's, and I think that they turned out pretty cute.

Froggie Baby

I will never cease to be amazed at the extreme flexibility of babies. Yesterday, I had the rare opportunity to get out for a bit while Aaron stayed home with Johnathan. When I came home, I saw that Baby J. had snuggled himself into what looked to me like an uncomfortable position, but he looked completely at rest. He reminded me of a little frog resting on his lily pad, and he looked so cute all curled up. Here is what I saw. I'm sure you'll love it too!