Mama Back At Work

i have been meaning to post something sooner, but my wireless mac mouse was dead. for like the past week. when it died, i thought to myself..this thing runs on batteries? thinking i had to go to the apple store and buy some fancy battery microchip thingy that was really expensive. to my surprise, while observing the mouse closely today and by pressing this little button on the bottom, i realized it only took AA's. stupid me. of course there were no AA's to be found. i searched long and hard. nothing. only D's for the baby swing and smoke alarm batteries. i looked around thinking, what can i steel batteries from? the remote controls! but what if i want to watch TV later.the wii remotes!! perfect. so now i have a live mouse with used wii remote batteries in them to continue on. thank you wii, you are a life saver! 

this weekend i worked. i have been for the past 3 weekends. it's been nice to get away and use my brain a little and socialize with people over the age of 14 weeks. not wear leisure clothes all day. well, scrubs. which hardly is an exception. jon brings B in to my work for lunch time. -lunch time now consists of me being the food instead of me eating. this is the best diet ever.-
 when B see's me, he gives me the biggest grin ever. i know he's just thinking boobies/food-no bottle. YAY! we go into the back office and feed. yesterday he fell asleep while feeding. that is when i wished we were home in the nursing chair so i could put him straight into the crib. instead i had to wake him up, which startled him. then he seemed confused on where he was. all these fluorescent bright lights, i can't blame him. 

weekends are good because they are only 8 hour days. i'm not away for too many feedings, and they are usually mellower. next week i go back full time. that is going to be hard. but i will figure it out and get a routine down for that too. 

jon says that b is the worst bottle drinker ever. he usually just keeps whacking it out of his hands the whole time, while crying. now B holds on to papa's thumb and pinky with each hand so there can be no whacking of the bottle. which helps a lot. he usually spills at least a half ounce of milk, either by not swallowing ever and letting it drip out the corners of his mouth, or by chocking and spitting it all over the place. either in jon's eye's, or his own eye, which i hear made him scream! so dramatic! towards the end of the feeding, B usually settles down and drinks. he even fell asleep for the first time with bottle in mouth. and when jon went to pull the bottle out, he would start sucking furiously again. we play this game on my boob too. this is probably where a pacifier would come in handy. which i refuse to give B. the less things to wean him off later, the better. 

right now the boy sleeps. jon left for SF at 4am this morning to work. it's just me and B. it is rainy and dark out today. i was hoping we could just cuddle up and watch movies all day. for some reason, i don't think it will be that mellow of a day. one day he will be at the age of cuddling. for now, it's squirm squirm squirm all day long. grunt grunt grunt. babbling babbling babbling. crying crying crying. maybe we will still go for our walk in the rain. a walk is the one place where B is completely still and quiet. it is so peaceful. he loves his carrier.

out like trout.  

Orange!

this little guy has been happy as can be lately. he is JUST starting to stay awake for longer stretches during the day, which means he goes to bed at like 7pm rather than 11pm. and sleeps at least 8 hours. or 10. or 12, like last night. unless he's going through a growth spurt. which already happened last week. which sucked. it brought me back to the days when i was sleep deprived. again. which i'm sure will keep happening throughout his life, so i should just get used to it now. 

b thinks he looks amazing in orange. i can't agree more. he say's it will most likely be his favorite color when he can make his own decisions, but for now, it is. 

lots of progress this past 2 weeks. bronson now holds things in his hands (on purpose) and what a grip it is. he can bring toys to his mouth, and i actually saw him transferring a toy from one hand to another. on accident? most likely, but i like to think every thing is on purpose and that he's just a genius. 

he LOVES his hands. still. he holds them together and just stares at them while shoving them into his mouth. i've been trying to get him to clap, but it's not working so well. 

everyday he smiles more and more. and stares at me with more love in his eyes. i'm starting to think that he actually loves me for ME and not just for my milk. even when he feeds, he is staring straight into my eyes. if i stare back at him, he produces a huge grin with nipple still in mouth. i usually have to look away (which is the hardest thing ever) so he keeps feeding. 

reading books to him is starting to become fun. he sits on my lap still as can be, hands to his side, while looking at the pages while i read. every so often when he see's a page he likes he squeals in delight. his favorite book i read to him is 'in the wild'. every time i get to the elephant page and read:

Big, yet moves with grace.
Powerful, yet delicate as lace.
As to color, plain---
an ordinary gray.
But once we start to look, we cannot look away.
When peaceful, silent;
When angry, loud.
Who would have guessed the ELEPHANT
is so much like a cloud?

he starts laughing out loud. and then i laugh. and i kiss him on the head. and tell him "i love you". i continue reading. with every page flip there is a kiss. with every squeal there is a kiss. even with every cry there is a kiss. this boy is loved. so dearly. by me. 

Twins

An Apology Letter

oh my sweet sweet boy Bronson,

mama and Papa are ever so sorry for cutting the tip of your pinky off while trying to trim your nails. well honestly it's your papa who cut you, but i'm am the one who made him cut your nails in the pitch dark. i'm actually amazed he was able to cut one of your nails with success in the dark. you took it like a champ. 

papa says you are tough like him. agree to disagree, because we all know you get your toughness from me. i have eye witnesses, that when i got hurt or fell i would start laughing. seriously. i coped with my pain by laughing up a storm. i'm sure you will do that too.

luckily while losing the tip of your pinky, you were breastfeeding. which i hear is a natural pain reliever. so that helped. you jerked a bit when it happened, but then continued sucking furiously, with me pushing your face into me a little harder just to make sure you kept feeding and wouldn't notice the pain. 

you were gushing blood (ok we're talking like a micro unit here) but who's measuring? i put pressure and glared at your papa the whole time. don't worry, i got him back pretty good by my mean facial expressions. he felt terrible and laid his head on you and sulked. i explained to him that it happens to every parent, mean while on google searching -what to do if you accidentally cut the tip of your baby's finger off- and sure enough, everyone's done it. you just think that your going to be that one set of parents who doesn't ever do it. wrong. 

i slept terribly last night thinking about your poor finger. i dreamt bout inventing perfect infant fingertip bandaids. and how i'm so glad it was your pinky and not your thumb, since you stick your thumb in your mouth all day. and that would be germy! i lay there wondering if you were going to wake up and then feel the pain of your finger. 

fortunately B, you are alright. you survived the night. and so did we. barely. if it makes you feel better, i got bit by a spider last night and woke up with 8 itchy swollen welts all over me. pay back from your eight legged friend the spider.

today when you wake, i a going to give you a million kisses all over your face and watch you laugh and squeal. i am going to give you the best meal of your life (breast milk) in hopes that you will forgive me and your papa. 

love US.

Afternoon Walk

B and I try to take a walk everyday. as we walk I describe to him every sound that he hears (cars, dogs, birds etc)every breeze that he feels and every scent that he smells. people probably think I'm crazy waking around and talking to myself. we take pictures of every pretty autumn tree. we stop to smell every rose. we avoid all the construction noise. we visit the girls that work at mint for some good cheek squeezes. we go into the local baby store and book store. i intentionally leave my debit card at home so I can't buy anything. 

today he fell asleep on the walk home from downtown. flopped over the baby bjorn with his hat over his whole face and hands still gripped so tightly around each of my fingers. when we got to my house i decided to walk past and keep going. as soon as we got home i gently undid the baby carrier and tried to pull him out as gracefully as possible (which is impossible) and put him down in the crib. he didn't move. success. turned on his sound sheep and tiptoed out of the room. what do you know, half an hour later..head lifted at a 90 degree angle looking around with big wide open eyes. we have been playing this game all day today. seriously. it's so hard to put a happy baby down when he's overly tired. even though he's rubbing his eyes and yawning. he's been doing this thing where he just stares at you and smiles when you're thinking about putting him down. i think he's realized that he gets to stay up longer if he does this move. it works. smart boy. 

i am counting the seconds until jon gets home to relieve me. i am still in what i slept in last night. i haven't washed my hair for 3 days. haven't been grocery shopping in a week. eating take out the last 3 days. winning at life, we are. 

Dressed for Success

i must say, this little dude did phenomenal at our friends wedding saturday afternoon. even though we were so late that we missed the entire ceremony, but whatevs. i carried B around in my baby bjorn the whole time while he stared grumply at everybody who looked at him. not one smile the whole time. but not one cry either, so that to me is success. 

of course the minute we got there he pooped himself big time. we decided to take him out to the car and change him. unfortunately the 4-runners seats are not made for baby changing. weird. they slant towards the back, so when you lay your baby down, they roll over sideways. so we had the brilliant idea of changing B in the back where it was flat. the downside of that was there was Zoe hair ALL over the place. as jon puts B down for the diaper change and opens up the front of the diaper jon says to me "ohhh shit, this is gunna be a two person job. i'll hold the legs up and you wipe"  while in the midst of cleaning up shit off my baby's ass, the cops roll in behind us. sound complaint. fireworks. you know, the usual. fire hazard. such a good idea. coincidently out pops  jon's sister jessi who is placer county sheriff. she is beyond weirded out to see us, as were we. she tells us that she just ran into pam (the step-mom), mandy (the step-sister) leslie (the mom), and now us (the siblings and nephew) all while on duty that day randomly. i say "what a CO-INK-I-DINK". 

jon and B left for home early while i stayed and continued to socialize. this is the joy of pumping. FREEDOM. except you still can't really drink. well you can a little, but i'm so paranoid i won't. i came home around eight and relieved jon, of nothing really because B was sleeping, but let him go out to dinner/bar with his friends. i sat at home, ate gelato (which gives me diarrhea every time  but it tastes so good it's worth it) and watched, ummm i've literally been paused at the keyboard for 5 minutes trying to remember what i was watching, but i can't seem to remember anything these days. anyways, i kept waiting for B to wake up so i could feed him, which didn't happen until twelve hours later..seriously. twelve hours. i guess he had a little too much stimulation at the wedding. too many pretty, tattooed, perfumed, crazy girls squeezing his cheeks, while you could literally hear their uterus' fertilizing, secretly wanting and wishing they had a cute little dude like this. and probably a baby's dada like this too. since he is the best. <3