Croup again

So Meo and I are both still sick, but fortunately is hasn't been too bad. I had a fever one night, but Meo hasn't gotten a fever at all. It's mostly been just coughing and runny noses, and tiredness. Unfortunately Meo does have croup again, so at night his coughs have been pretty bad. He has the classic barking seal cough of his trachea tightening up from the croup virus. The first night I tried bringing him into a steamy bathroom, but that wasn't really helping so we brought him outside to see if the cold air would help. Fortunately, it did, and the last few nights we have been taking him for a couple late night walks when his coughing starts to act up. Autumn is certainly in the air now so it has been nice and cool and Meo's lungs have been grateful. Plus, he has been able to lay bundled in his parents arms while he gets walked around and looks at the stars which really isn't such a bad deal. He is usually in bed before the stars are out.

I did take Meo to the doctor yesterday just to make sure he was going to be okay and there wasn't anything else we needed to be doing. We both had to wear masks because we were sick; Meo did not want to keep his on of course.

At the doctors office

"Get this thing off of me!"

She checked his lungs and they sounded perfect, and his ears looked great; no fluids. She said his throat was a little red and swollen, which makes sense because I think we have the same virus and my throat hurt for the first couple days. It also explains why he hasn't been eating much besides frozen blueberries. She told me to make sure to keep him especially hydrated. This has been difficult. First of all, he was having a nursing strike do to his stuffy nose and his gums hurting from teething. Second of all, he won't drink much more than a few sips of water at a time. The doctor told me to try giving him watered down cold juice or Popsicle. He doesn't appear to like juice though, so that hasn't worked. Then, I made some homemade Popsicle using organic juice and pure coconut water (since all the ones at the store were flavored high fructose corn syrup), and he doesn't seem to like them either. I got him to have a little of a Popsicle this morning, but he still doesn't really care for it; he just likes the sticks.

Homemade mango peach Popsicle

One of the 3 nibbles he managed to take

On the bright side, his nursing strike was short lived! On Sunday (it is now Tuesday), he had been refusing to nurse and it was the worst feeling in the world. I wrote about it in my previous post if you haven't seen that yet (here). I tried taking a bath with him, and although he was very interested, he still wouldn't nurse. He ended up not nursing to sleep, so we tried giving him a bottle since we were worried about him not staying hydrated since he was sick. He drank a little, but mostly he just chewed on the nipple.

But then, after he had been sleeping for a couple hours, he woke up with his croup cough, and he decided to try nursing again. It was the most wonderful thing. I know it was not a long time for him to not nurse, but it was so strange for him not to it; it scared me to death. I was so relieved and happy when he started nursing again, I treasured every second of it just in case he would stop again. But he hasn't stopped, and we are back to our happy nursing selves.

I should mention that Meo has such an amazingly awesome temperament, that he doesn't even really act sick. He has been happy as can be and still walking around playing and chatting like normal. He has even been patient with my wiping boogers off his nose. I love my wonderful baby boy!

Trying on Daddy's sweater

Since I have been sick, it has been difficult keeping up with my happy toddler. My body is telling me to relax and sleep, but Meo wants to go go go, so go go go I go. Yesterday I laid in the grass while he ran around exploring the yard with Pi, then I took him for a wagon ride to park to swing and play with his truck and push his wagon around. Its been nice to get some fresh air and a happy baby, but boy do I wish I could spend a day doing nothing! Robbie has been really helpful though. He has been making me healthy snacks, and tea at night to help with my coughing. Last night at 4 am he made me some tea and I went upstairs to drink it alone in the rocking chair. Just having that five minutes alone to relax in the quite with the hot tea soothing my throat was five minutes of heaven. It made me remember the time before I was a mother when I had all the time I wanted for myself. Now, I pretty much never do. Seriously. I don't think I would have ever been able to understand what becoming a mother really entailed until I went through it myself. I probably said I could always make time. But it doesn't really work like that and I understand that now. But I wouldn't go back and change my life; as far as I am concerned, its perfect. It just makes five moments of meditation that much more spectacular and healing and I am grateful for that.

Apples, almond butter, raisins and tea from Robbie

I am also grateful that I have a wonderful spouse that helps me to have a little more time. This morning when I woke up, I brought Meo upstairs and right away he started signing "more" indicating that he is hungry and wants to eat immediately. He hasn't been patient in the mornings lately because he wants to eat right away (I am like that too when I am hungry), so I was looking for something quick. I was beginning to dread the thought of having to make coffee: clean out the dirty french press, fill up the water heater, scoop out the beans, wait for it to brew; its not hard, but by the time I am done Meo is usually ready to move on and I don't even get to enjoy a sip. But when I went over to the coffee pot, to my amazement, it was clean and full of fresh ground beans. AND the water heater was full, and there was a spoon there ready for me to stir it with. All I had to do is add the water. Robbie left me a little note too; I was beyond grateful! Then I went over to get a cup and realized I had to try to empty the dishwasher. But when I opened it up, it was already empty with another note from Robbie! Ecstasy! Robbie seriously made my morning about a hundred times easier. Not because making the coffee and emptying the dishwasher are particularly hard, but because I have such a tight schedule to keep in the morning, I don't even get to enjoy breakfast! Today I did. Thank you Robbie, I love you!

Love notes

Valentine's Day

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

By E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Robbie and I head the most wonderful Valentine's Day.  My mom and step dad babysat little Meo for us so that we could have a nice evening alone. I dropped Meo around 4:00 before I went to pick up Robbie from work. This time it was harder to leave him for some reason. I knew he would be fine though and that it is good for him to have some time with his grandparents without mommy and daddy there to distract him. 

Robbie and I went to eat at our favorite restaurant, the Green Elephant. This is a vegetarian restaurant in downtown Portland, and the food is simply amazing.

Seriously, I have never such delicious food. I had the Chinese broccoli with crispy breaded soy filet which is stir-fried broccoli, Chinese broccoli, carrots, and Thai bird chili in a brown sauce served with brown rice. The soy filet was crispy and delicious and melted in my mouth. The sauce was light but flavorful and made each bite tantalizing. It may seem like I am exaggerating, but I am not; I really do think it's that good. Robbie had the peanut curry which was soy meat, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, onions, and carrots slow cooked in coconut milk served with mashed butternut squash and brown rice. He loved it.

Our valentine's day meal at the Green Elephant

We both had some delicious local made Honey Maker Mead to drink. I had the blueberry mead which was one of their seasonal wines, and it was delicious. I am not very fond of wine, but I really like their mead. It went straight to my head though since I really haven't had a drink for a year an a half. It made for a more lively dinner conversation though haha! Robbie had the dry mead, which was also spectacular.

Honey Maker Mead

For dessert, we shared their valentine's day special: rich dark chocolate mousse topped with raspberry sorbet, paired with a chocolate cupcake topped with peanut butter frosting. Wow. I do not have a sweet tooth and I thought this was delicious. I don't even like cupcakes, but this frosting wasn't sweet, it tasted more like fluffy, yummy peanut butter. The raspberry sorbet and mousse complimented each other really well. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Me and dessert :)

Closer view of desert taken from the Green Elephant facebook page

After dinner, Robbie and I went to the Nickelodeon to go see a movie. We saw The Artist, which was fantastic; certainly one of the best movies I've seen in a while.

It is a silent, black and white film about an actor who stars in silent films and how his life changes as "talkie" films begin to replace silent films. Meanwhile, a beautiful budding actress gains fame and stardom as she helps popularize talkies. The film beautifully depicts their stories as their lives often zig-zag through each others stories, and in the end...well I don't want to give anything away. The film does an excellent job depicting advancements in technology by making subtle changes in the quality of the film itself...such as as the the years progress, Robbie cleverly noted how the color of the film went from brownish black and whites to much sharper black and whites. And just as in the old style of silent films, this film is full of symbolism and takes advantage of the lack of sound to emphasize important visual moments. Also, there is an amazing dog actor; he is adorable and I want to kiss him.

One of our favorite scenes from The Artist

So, as you can see, Robbie and I had a fantastic night together. It was really nice having some alone time together. We still have fun and tease each other just like all times, and his kisses still give me delightful shivers.

One last Valentine's Day related bit I wanted to share with your are the cute Valentine's day cards that little Meo "made".

Valentine's Day card for my Mom and Step Dad

These cards were inspired by something I stumbled across on Pinterest. Meo helped Robbie and I to make these cards by attempting to eat some paper and laughing at flapping paper scraps.

Meo "helping"

Meo and I being crafty

Here is how we really made the cards. Step one, wrap some yummy chocolate in paper for the robot body.

Step two, attach the robot body to a card (we used pink and purple cardstock to make our cards), and glue on a square head.

Step three, attach googly eyes. We thought it was more endearing to use two different sized eyes.

 Step four, draw on some silly robot mouths.

Step five, make arms and legs by folding strips of card stock accordion style. Step six, make hands and feet (use blocky, simple shapes) to attach to the arms and legs. Step seven, draw on some antennas (Robbie cut out little hearts to put on our antennas).

Final step, come up with some cheesy saying that a Robot might say about love to put inside. I credit ours to Robbie.

I hope that you all had a fantastic valentine's day, be it with your loved ones or enjoying something you love like chocolate and a good novel.

New Years 2012

Jasmin and I don't get out much. I mean, we use to go out and explore the world and bask in it's riches. Since we've created our own tiny human however we mostly stay home and monitor the periodic bodily functions of, preform routine maintenance on, and make cooing noises at a tiny us. Surprisingly that last sentence sums up the most fulfilling experience in my life, but I digress. New Years eve offered Jasmin and I a unique and socially acceptable opportunity to cut loose. This posed some challenges we hadn't overcome before, but we were ready to face.

Ready to PARTY

The big challenge was whether to bring him or not. Our hosts for the evening graciously lent us a room in their apartment so we could stay the night and not have to worry about traveling after midnight, or even the possibility of not getting him to sleep. Right now Meo is so dependent on his mom to nurse him to sleep that we're pretty sure we couldn't leave him with someone. We were between leaving very early from the party or staying all night. If we stayed all night we might be lucky and get him to sleep in his swing after a meal, or run the risk of Jasmin having to try to get him to sleep in the room next to a noisy party. If we left early we would be guaranteed to get him to have a good night sleep, but we would miss out of being with friends. After much debate we decided to stay, which turned out really well. Meo enjoyed seeing people and being held and we got to enjoy games, good food and friends. Meo didn't want to sleep in his swing, but Jasmin and I danced with him like old times until he went to sleep with his Mom at around 11:30. As the ball dropped I slipped into their quiet room to wish them a happy new year and give each of them a kiss.

Meo looks like a wine drinker.

5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The next challenge was traveling with everything we would need for 2 days and a night. We've never really spent a night away from home with him before. Since we didn't think we were being challenged enough we decided to make the next day "Date Day." Jasmin's mom offered to watch Meo on New Years Day so we could go get lunch togerther and watch a movie by ourselves, which is another thing we haven't done since he was born. So as we left the house on New Years Eve my mom joked that we should have rented a UHaul for all the stuff we were bringing, our tiny car was pretty stuffed. We ended up bringing everything we needed, and then some, but it was a hurdle crossed with much effort.

So exciting!

New Years Day offered our last major challenge: things not going to plan. We watched the brilliant Tintin movie in 3D. Well, I watched it. Jasmin saw most of it but every 5 minutes she was checking her phone to see if everything was alright with Meo. He took a nap but right around the finale Meo had gotten really upset and wouldn't take his bottle. As the credits rolled we walked out at a brisk pace, happy that we could do this much alone together. We made it back and Meo was happy to have his mom and a warm meal. After a short time eating he went to sleep. Since we were there anyway we decided to get Chinese take out for our lunch together and we spent our date night in the warm comfort of family instead.

Rest after a long few days.

End of summer, but the beginnings of a wonderful new chapter in life (lots of photos!)

In the future, I will try not to make my posts so long (I take too many pictures!)

Our little creature is 4 weeks old now, almost a whole month! Where has the time gone? Actually, where has the summer gone? Between pregnancy, childbirth and the beginnings of motherhood, autumn has just snuck up on me. The other day while Robbie, Meo and I were walking along a trail, we noticed the leaves have already started to change and the cool breeze promising the inevitability of winter was evident. I love autumn, but I'll miss summer.

Spending everyday with Mattimeo makes me feel both relaxed and busy simultaneously. Relaxed because most of what we do is sit around and eat and sleep and read, busy because the days go by so quickly and I almost constantly holding my baby boy. Now that Robbie is at work, I've gotten more into the swing of motherhood. Not that we have a routine per say, but there are certainly things we do everyday, and I have started to know his alert/sleep/eat patterns better. This post is going to be dedicated to giving you a taste of what a day with a newborn is like (with an absurd amount of pictures, because apparently I can't stop taking them).

Mattimeo is a good little sleeper. We usually sleep in until 8:30-9:30, which is nice because I actually feel awake and refreshed in the morning.The first thing we do is nurse, he is always very hungry first thing in the morning because he only wakes up to eat two or three times a night now. Then I change his diaper, give him a sponge bath and some clean clothes. We usually do a few baby yoga poses in the morning too. Then I put him in his swing for a few minutes so I can grab something to eat for breakfast and potentially take a shower depending on if he falls asleep or not.

During the day we spend a lot of time nursing. He eats usually about every 1-2 hours. While he's eating, I spend a lot of time watching him because he's so darn cute. The rest of the time I take advantage of the opportunity to read. I go back and forth between nursing/infant care/parenting books and novels. I am reading a really great book series now, so it's been hard for me to put it down and read anything else! Sometimes while he is nursing, we both fall asleep, which is nice too.

The other major activity of the day is diaper changing. I usually change his diaper every couple of hours, unless I hear him poop, then I change it right away.We are using cloth diapers, so I also have to rinse the poop off the diapers after I change him and put them in the wet bag to be washed every couple of days.

Now nursing and diaper changing doesn't seem like a lot of work, but it turns out it is very time consuming. And by the time I am done nursing, burping him, and changing his diaper, sometimes he is almost already to eat again and we start the cycle all over. So the days have just been flying by! I try to fit in some other activities throughout the day too though. Everyday we read at least two stories to him. Sometimes I even read my novels out loud to him while he's nursing. Everyday we do a little bit of yoga. We have a little bit of tummy time everyday, and his neck has already gotten really strong! It's pretty amazing how well he can hold his head up now. Sometimes I feel like he is growing too fast and I want him to stay my little baby forever. Everyday I sing to him a little and talk to him about different random things. Also everyday we make sure to spend some time outside, usually going for a nice walk. On the weekends when Robbie is home we have been actually going places to take walks and expose him to new sites and sounds which is fun for all of us.

When Robbie comes home he has been really awesome and makes dinner for us while I nurse him. That will keep Meo happy long enough that he can hang out in his swing while Robbie and I sit at the table and have dinner together. Then we hang out, sometimes watching a movie or playing games. We take turns holding Meo while the other person gets some chores done, such as washing dishes or taking care of the cats. Robbie is great about changing diapers while he is home. He also changes the diapers once or twice in the night (we have special nighttime cloth diapers that don't need to be changed any more than that), so that I can have some rest since I don't really sleep deeply in the night. Like I said before, Mattimeo is really good at sleeping in the night, but I am always very alert so I can tell right away if he is hungry and so that I don't accidentally squish him since he is usually sleeping snuggled up against me. I feel rested when I wake up, but I certainly don't sleep like I used to.

Mattimeo has a great temperament, thank goodness! He does cry on occasion, but there is always a reason for it and it is easy enough to make him happy again. His fussiest time of day is between around 8-11 at night. During this time of day, Robbie and I are both pretty exhausted and just want to relax. However, Mattimeo is usually wide awake and wants to be kept busy. So he will cry if we don't entertain him enough. There have been many nights where Robbie and I have dance parties in the living room late at night, both totally exhausted, with a very happy baby being bopped around to the beat. He loves music, and he loves being danced around.

Here are a bunch of pictures from various adventures we've had with Meo these past few weeks:

This is Mattimeo and I reading in the nursery one day. I think it's so cool when he looks at the pictures; he just started doing that.

Reading Dr. Suess

Reading Dr. Suess

Reading Dr. Suess

Other pictures of my time with Meo during the day.

Meo and I in the Old Port

View of Meo from my perspective when he falls asleep on me after nursing

Looking at Mommy

Daddy and Meo hanging out at night.

Hanging out with Meo in his jammies

Robbie and I took Mattimeo blueberry picking for the first time. I had been really excited about blueberry picking all summer, and we actually had plans to go with Robbie's family the day I was in labor. We ended up not going though obviously, because I was in labor. So we went two weeks after he was born. Unfortunately it was really hot outside, and he seemed uncomfortable. Plus, there weren't very many blueberries and it was going to take us a couple hours to fill up a box. We ended up leaving with less than we wanted because we were worried about Meo getting over heated.

Picking blueberries

Picking blueberries

Cooling off in the shade

Picking blueberries

Picking blueberries

We have gone to visit all of Mattimeo's grandparents which has been fun. They all have yards which is nice because we can spend a lot of time outside with him while we are there.

Visiting Memere and Pepere

Visiting Memere and Pepere

Visiting Memere and Pepere

With Auntie Sam

A little bewildered

Visiting Memere and Pepere

Mattimeo sees his Mommy!

Visiting Memere and Pepere

Here are photos from visiting his Grandma and Grandpa.

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Swinging because he's a little cranky

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

Pictures visiting Grammy, Grandpa and GG.

Visiting Grammy and GG

Visiting Grammy and GG

Socks was jealous of Meo getting all the attention

These are photos from Meo's first First Friday Art Walk around Portland.

Robbie, Meo, and I

Robbie, Meo and Gib in front of one of Gib's pieces

Art walk with friends

Nursing in the park

Hanging out in the park after nursing

He likes to be changed outside

Pictures Robbie took of Meo and I doing yoga together.

Yoga time with Mommy

Yoga time with Mommy

This weekend Robbie and I took Mattimeo to the beach for the first time to have a picnic.

First time at the beach

First time at the beach

First time at the beach

First time at the beach

First time at the beach

First time at the beach

First time at the beach

First time at the beach

Not very happy

Now he's forgotten why he was crying

First time at the beach

Yesterday, Robbie and I took Meo and Pi (one of our cats) to the Falmouth Nature Reserve for a walk. I felt like Pi was sad that he doesn't get as much attention any more and that a walk would cheer him up.

Walking with baby and cat

Walking with baby and cat

Walking with baby and cat

We have had friends come to visit too.

Meo watching Robbie and Andrew play Go

Andrew and Lauren

Finally, one other fun thing Robbie and I did with Meo was go to the drive in. This was great because we could nurse and change his diapers right in the car. We say "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and "Rise of the Planet of Apes". I enjoyed both movies and we had such a fun date with our little creature.

Meo and I enjoying the drive in