Short Naps are the Devil

Because when a baby takes a short nap they need another one in short order and the time between them is too short to leave the house (without risking an even shorter car nap) and the actual sleeping time is so short Mommy can't do anything.

And then baby wants to go to bed at 6:30p which while sounding awesome after a day of this crazy napping, causes great concern for the hour of the morning said baby will wake.

So in short: short naps are the devil.

Our Little Turkey

Cade's first Thanksgiving! He was...diverse? Mercurial? All over the place because his mommy is enforcing nap training which affects his eating schedule and neither he nor mommy have totally figured it out yet all while having a stuffy nose that is interfering with his breathing?

Yeah, the last one. Definitely that last one.

However, despite his mood swings, we did have one HUGE victory. My baby loves pumpkin bread! I don't need a DNA test to prove he's my baby (or the 40 weeks of pregnancy or 24 hours of labor). At 8 months old he is a pumpkin bread connoisseur and that is all the proof I need that he is my offspring. Victory!

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of him eating the famed family pumpkin bread because naturally I was too busy stuffing it in both of our mouths. But I do have other pictures...pictures of his many...expressions. Enjoy!

Happy to see Aunt Meg arrive

Sad 5 minutes later for no reason

Exploring

Tentative bites of mashed potatoes

Cheeks stuffed with potatoes and not too happy about it

Finally a good picture! Winner winner turkey dinner!

125 Years of Delta Sparkle

Little known fact: Despite being a member of Alpha Chapter, I have never taken part in a TriDelta Founder's Day event.*

Arrived yesterday; the only pic on the front of our fridge

So it isn't often that I get misty eyed about Founder's Day. I missed that Delta gene I suppose. But today the darling Deltas are 125 years old and seeing one of my sisters' post on Facebook about the wonderful women TriDelta brought into her life reminded me to be so very thankful.

The ladies of three D have more sparkle than any others I know. They are my very bestest friends, my roommates, my bridesmaids, my most favorite vacation-ers, my labor & delivery cheerleading team and one is even my baby godmama.

On the 125th anniversary of Sarah Ida Shaw & Co founding our most wonderful fraternity at the Park Street Church, I say thank you. Thank you for the most wonderful, unbelievably fun, incredibly brilliant, very bestest, super sparkley girls a girl could ever have the honor and joy of calling her sisters.

*Freshman year not yet initiated; sophomore year home for Turkey Day; junior year I'm not really sure but let's go with weather; senior year in Australia

Holiday By Sheer Force of Will

Yesterday I asked Ross to get the Christmas boxes out of the attic because I wanted to start decorating today. He refused. "It's not even Thanksgiving yet! I'll get them down for you that night."

While I would agree with him most years on this basic Thanksgiving before Christmas principal, this year is different. Because there is less than a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And we have a kiddo who needs to start experiencing Christmas. And because it is bloody cold outside.

Alas, he stuck to his guns. But then, so did I.

And I have Christmas candles lit and music blaring from Pandora on the surround sound.

I will have my Christmas season for a full month. Starting today.

Best Use of Babysitter Ever

Cade spent yesterday afternoon and night with his Nana. I went Christmas shopping, saw Hunger Games and had dinner with my hubs and then slept/relaxed in bed for ELEVEN HOURS.

God it felt good.

At the Office

Just a normal day at the office when you co-worker is 8 months old.

Mom Says: Two Naps

Yes, that's it. Crawl. Wear yourself out. Good boy.

Cade of the crazy naps and early wake-ups: Game Over.

This morning's 6a wake-up was the last straw. We have officially begun Operation Better Sleep.

While he's a pretty good sleeper in general, the past 2 weeks of ALWAYS being up before 7a and usually before 6:30a is wildly unpopular. And the 3 naps per day, while sounding pretty cool, is also lame. Because they are 3 naps of 45ish minutes each. As a parent you can actually do nothing at all in 45 minutes.

So today I said, no more. Game over. The times they are a-changin' son.

We're knocking these naps down a peg to two. That's right, you get 2 naps kiddo. Take them wisely. Take them long and indulgently. Take them for 1-2 hours each please.

And while you're at it, quit waking up before 6:30a you crazy baby. I keep telling you, Mama is a pumpkin until GMA comes on. At 7. Central Time.

Big Baby Day: Baptism

Today was a BIG Baby Day! Cade was baptized!

During the 9a service at Westlake United Methodist Church, Cade was baptized. All of his grandparents, his godparents, Aunt Meg, Uncle Stacy, Jon and Margeaux were all in attendance with us. The ceremony included a promise to raise him with God, holy water poured on him from a seashell and then a song about him while the minister took him on a "Cade parade" through the church. It was wonderful! And he was a super well behaved baby, giving a few baby talks during the event and otherwise playing and listening quietly. Best baby ever.

Afterward we hosted a celebration at our house. It was a total baby-fest. So many little ones! And it made us realize how long it had been since we'd seen some of our friends. When you realize their two year old was a newborn last time you saw them...yeah, it's been a while. It was a great crowd and we feel so lucky and happy to have had so many friends celebrate with us. It was especially special to have Val down from Washington (even if it was just for 30 hours total) to celebrate.

All in all a lovely day. I am EXHAUSTED from it all so am heading to bed very soon. Big thanks to Erin for sharing her photography skills to help capture the day! Enjoy the pics!

The Amazing Failure of Women's Career Advice

This article in Forbes is great. Almost two years old and still wildly relevant. Here are my favorite snippets.

“We’re putting a lot on younger women,” said Sallie Krawcheck, former president of global wealth & investing for Merrill Lynch at a recentForbesWoman panel discussion. “[Telling them that] In order to be successful you need to ask for more money in this way, you need to raise your hand in that way, you need to do things that you weren’t brought up to do or are not comfortable doing. By the way, you need to join this woman’s network and go into that mentoring program… And what’s happened is [that] we’re not necessarily bringing women forward as much as we’re just making them busier.”

 ...

So are we asking women to do too much? Considering the fact that even “doing it all” doesn’t seem to be helping, that just might be the case. “By the way,” Krawcheck added. “You’re already doing three times the childcare and two times the housework so you’re already busier [than your husband]. And then you’ve got to go to the mentoring programs?”

Seriously though: what gives?

 ...

It’s all based on viewing women against the masculine paradigm, which has long been considered the “right way” to live and work. When women do things differently, well, Duffy says it’s viewed as deficient, or the “wrong way.”

Just as good: the comments. Some faves:

With both men AND woman focused on creating balance, it will become more socially acceptable for men to take on traditional female caregiving responsibilities freeing up more time for women to focus on career. In a utopian world, both men and women would spend equal amounts of time at work and at “life” (for lack of a better term).

and

This is a complicated problem. As a manager, one of the things I have noticed is the amount of time women spend highlighting their private lives in a work environment. A woman who has to be late to a meeting, leave early, or take a day off will tend to provide a reason (I have to take my daughter to the doctor, I am meeting a friend for lunch, I’ve got to pick up a prescription before they close, etc.). The men simply say, I’ll be out tomorrow, I’ll be 5 minutes late to our 2pm, I’m leaving at 4, etc., and leave it at that.

In other words, I hear women take the focus off their work selves and onto their private selves more frequently. This, accompanied with the excuses/explanations can change the perception people have of them as professionals. In my experience men do this less, which leaves only the “work personae” for people to consider.

Right or wrong, our communication styles might be part puzzle.

The Big 08 Months!

That's right! The Best Baby in Texas is 8 months old now! Naturally we had us a little photoshoot.

As an 8 month old, Cade is

• crawling!
• making consonant sounds, mostly Bs and Ds
• Had his first word...or so claims his Dad. "Dada" is the alleged first word. I suppose I'll give it to him.
• 17.5-ish pounds of baby awesome. 
• sleeping without a swaddle. Just footie jammies and a light blanket.
• just a few days away from being baptized and not having to worry about baby limbo. Whew.
• a bit more demanding. Food, warm, sleep, hold-me no longer covers his needs. Now he has specific things he wants to play with or places he wants to go. Goodness.
• about to out-grow his ducky bath tub. Boo.
• able to sleep in the stroller, even when we go from outside to inside. He's taken 2 naps in the stroller in our entry way in the past week!
• super duper cute. Duh.

Baby's 1st Consonants

That's right! Another baby first! Today he just started babbling outta the blue. He's had vowel sounds for a while. A lot of "ahhhh" but now he's added consonants into the mix. I can't get enough of it! Which is good because apparently he's a chatter box like his mama.



And here's even more of it (+ crawling) from his afternoon with Erin.

Crawling Cade

Proof of crawling!

Unrelated but also fun, a pic from this morning's stroller walk

Also it is worth noting how super awesome my kid is. We had some friends over to watch football, play board games, eat and drink this afternoon. Cade went to bed at 7:15p and totally slept through the rowdy noises on the other side of his wall. The party broke up a few minutes after 8p and as of right now (8:30p) he is still snoozin. Clearly he is Super Baby.

Baby's 1st Haircut

And before we went to his Christmas photoshoot, this happened.



(Video not showing for you? See it on YouTube.)

Baby's 1st Photoshoot

Yesterday I cashed in on a sweet coupon picked out of Parents magazine in the doctor's office waiting room. $6 for 3 sheets of photo prints from JCPenney. Plus the $9 sitting fee and tax...we got Cade's Christmas pictures done for a cool $16.

Hijacked from the online album slideshow and ordering form, here's the winning shot!

Suburban Sunrise

Per the post Daylight Savings Time usual, my son woke with or before the sun today. Which meant I did too. And while this is usually quite unpopular, today it meant I saw this lovely sunrise. So lovely that though I put him back to bed, I stayed up to look at it myself.

#nofilter

Baby Problems

It is so hard being a baby.

First your mom dresses you in these ridic pants and silly puppy hat

Then your Lexi is so confused by the puppy hat she tries to eat you

Then you are dragged out into the cold and when your hat goes crooked,
you are made to look like a one-eyed pirate

What's worse: you fall asleep mid-walk and miss half the scenery!

#TransformationTuesday

Today my online mommy group decided it was #TransformationTuesday. The baby evolution is fun I'm sharing here.

Here's Cade on the day he was born and then again this evening.

PS In 5 years will we see this and so many other hashtags and think "that was a really dumb trend"?

He moves!

Cade has a busy social calendar.
This evening we dropped by Kassy's 6th birthday party. 

Cade crawled today! He crawled toward Ross while they were upstairs playing. It hasn't happened again since (granted this was less than 2 hours ago). We don't have video yet but I'm sure there is much action packed crawling video to come. Stay tuned!

Shit Happens

I know Cade is going to be mortified one day that I posted this on my blog. But maybe that will make him think twice about pooping his bed and then playing in it.