Guess who’s free to start drinking more, and only partially by choice?  Yep, this marks the end of nursing.  I knew that it was coming, but I wasn’t sure that I was ready to give up the time that I get with my baby yet.  So, my body went ahead and made the choice for me and stopped making enough food to feed my ever hungry child and gave me the middle finger in the process.  Lucas was less happy for a few days and expressed himself in a less pleasant and more vocal way when it finally dawned on me that my little man is probably hungry and maybe I’m not making enough anymore.  So I went upstairs to pump a bottle and 20 minutes later I had nothing.  So I pulled a bottle out of the freezer and went ahead and shed a few tears along side Lucas.  I’m now down to nursing three times a day (morning, night, and once in the middle of the day) and I plan on cutting out that middle of the day feeding soon.  If my goal for nursing was only 6 months and I’m 2 weeks past that, why am I so sad to be forced to slow down the dairy service?

Unfortunately for Lucas, I’ve finally discovered the “silence” button on the baby monitor.  That took a grand total of 2 seconds to start treating it like a snooze button in the middle of the night when he wakes me up.  I probably hit it a few times before I actually wake up.  Maybe frustration is at the root of his awesome sleep now that I’ve figured out the food situation.  Last night I put him to bed at 8:30 and he didn’t wake me up until 7.  And yesterday he only took 2 naps, but they were solid, 2 hour naps.  Even with my movement monitor I kept going in to check on him because I couldn’t believe that he was still sleeping.  And let me add, with a 2 hour break from baby duty I finally have free time!!  You know, to do laundry, cook, and run Angel’s errands.  All of the important things (insert eye roll).

Speaking of sleeping, we’ve now entered the stage of crashing in the middle of activities.  The man can’t help it if he’s suddenly tired!

Fell asleep crawling across the room

Fell asleep mid jump

Today I learned that Lucas is scared of the blender.  I don’t know how to explain it, but it was almost like he was more scared for what it was going to do to me than what it was going to do to him.  He was crawling on the floor in the kitchen while I got dinner together and when I turned on the blender he started screaming, whining, shaking, and holding out his arms for me to come pick him up while he looked at me with these eyes that were about to explode into a pool of waterworks.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  The blender is Lucas’ kryptonite.

Mommy Speed Bump

Not only am I his favorite toy to play with (or crawl on), he’s started pulling himself up totally on his own!  What the heck is going on here?  I was laying on the couch half asleep (see: poor sleep for days until I figured out he wasn’t eating enough), and all of a sudden the Leapfrog table started making noise.  Thinking that the table was haunted, as I recently learned it was, I was about to turn it off and instead saw this:

Which is him playing with his car under the table, pulling himself up to play with the table, and then going back to playing with his car.  Ugh!  Another sign that he’s growing up entirely too quickly.

Continuing the trend of growing up too quickly, on Tuesday afternoon I actually got the opportunity to do all of my grocery shopping at once.  Why?  You may ask.  Well that’s because this munchkin’s car seat doesn’t fit in the top of the grocery cart in the store that I shop in, so I have to put it in the cart which only leaves me with 2 square inches of space for my groceries.  Now that Lucas is getting better at sitting on his own, I took a chance and sat him in the cart like a big, little man.  And he did great!  He loved looking around….

And GRABBING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT!  Things off of the shelves, things in my hands, things in the cart, eating the side of the cart, screaming, crying, throwing his pacifier, and then melting down roughly 5 minutes before I was done shopping because he was tired and couldn’t just fall asleep in his car seat anymore.  Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the start of the end.  Grocery shopping just became infinitely more difficult and I now understand what moms complain about.

(may be an add at the beginning of the clip)

It’s like Lucas’ body fluids have gone on strike and thus decided to stage a walk-out.  I’m out of bleach and carpet cleaner, and even Molly is hiding.  Meanwhile in my backyard, the neighborhood rabbits are having an orgy in the grass.  Yep, it’s a day for the books.

Yesterday, prior to the Liquid Strike of 2013, I dropped Lucas’ crib to the lowest position and took a few 6 month photos.

Which is getting harder to do now that all Lucas wants to do is crawl all over the place.  You have no idea how many photos like this I now have on my phone:

In the middle of our Liquid Meltdown, the last of our new family room was delivered.  Here’s where I spend most of my time now:

Naturally, it’s not ever this clean so I had to take the photo during nap time and cut out the second half of the room that’s COVERED in baby toys, play mats, burp cloths, changing table, and I think you get the idea.

Lucas got a new toy yesterday.  And you know the saying that kids are more interested in the box then the toy?  Yeah, what’s up with that?  Little Dude, we got you a new toy.  Screw the box that it came in and play with the actual toy before I throw you in your crib and take away all of your toys until you understand how awesome your parents are for giving you this new toy!!

And lastly on this super quick post because I don’t have a ton of time between laundry, cleaning stains out of the carpet, more laundry, and more laundry, here are more naked photos of my baby today because everything I’ve put on him today has ended up being soaked in bleach and I’m out of bleach so he’s out of clothes:

pause between diaper blow out and puking

Nap time with Momma.  The only break in cleaning that I’ve gotten all day.

Once again, I’ve gotten extremely behind in filling everyone in about my week.  I’m getting better about it now that Lucas is starting to get better naps in during the day.  Leave it to my trusty iPhone to remind me what I’ve been up to….

4th of July wreath for the front door (made of yarn)

Lucas’ favorite game is to chase after Molly. she usually hides in her bed but now he’s started kicking her out of her bed and using it for himself. It appears that we over paid for our crib if a dog bed would have done the trick

If I sit on the floor, this little carpet dweller has learned how to crawl into my lap. Think he wants to be held?

Lucas started pulling himself up. He’s done it on my diaper bag, the couch, and now he’s starting to learn how to on his toy. He’s going to skip walking and just go straight into running I think…

And then a few fun videos to get you through the day of my adorable son.

I had no appropriate bath photos but this video seems alright.  Lucas started playing in the bath tub and is starting to appreciate bath time:

Another giggle fest between my son and my husband.  Sometimes I wonder how i got so lucky with these two:

Lucas started crawling over to the TV, sitting down, and watching what’s on for a solid 5-10 minutes before moving.  Naturally, I took a few photos, got a good laugh in, and then started to video when he decided that he was done watching.  But how cute is this?

There you have it.  A week of baby photos.

Last night we were winding down our day a little bit late.  I was ready for bed before Lucas was but he insisted that we keep playing so I laid on the floor with him to play and quickly fell asleep.  Angel was watching from the couch and took a few photos of what happened next….

First, Lucas came over and tried to wake me up

When that didn’t work, he decided that he would just take a nap with me.  (The tiny, wet hand on my face is what actually woke me up)

We get the baby off to bed and he’s sound asleep (Finally!!  Getting back on schedule with a teething baby from a trip has been brutal) so Angel goes to the basement to watch TV, and I head upstairs to put this tired Momma to bed as well.  I’m thhhhhhhhhhhis close to falling asleep to the sound of the thunderstorm when the tornado siren starts going off.  Um, what?

5 seconds of panic trying to decide if I’m asleep and dreaming this or if it’s real before I jump out of bed, yell at the dog to get up, run to the nursery to grab the baby and start heading down the hall for the stairs all while yelling at Angel.  Which in retrospect, it’s not like there’s anything that he could do and he should probably just stay put in the basement anyway.  But whatever, he was on his way upstairs to go to bed when the siren went off.

An hour later, Lucas was wide awake, I was totally freaked out, the dog was confused, and Angel was a little annoyed at the three of us.  Needless to say, poor little man just can’t catch a break…. And thus, neither can this extremely tired Momma.

Holiday weekends are meant to be spent exactly like we’re spending them in the Rivas Household: in pajamas, in the rain (okay, maybe not that part was meant to be), watching old movies on ShowTime and snacking instead of making a real meal because Mommy doesn’t feel like cooking.  First, we watched Back to the Future 3, then we went out to get baby food and stuff for lunch, and now we’re watching Jurasic Park while Lucas naps.

Seriously, who doesn’t enjoy an old movie marathon bundled up on the couch?  The giant mess we’re making in the house can wait.  It will still be there tomorrow.

To anyone with DirecTV- this weekend is free movie channels!

I apologize for the lapse in my blog.  I’ve spent the entire month screwing up my son’s schedule, which in turn screws up mine.

First, I spent two weeks with my mother-in-law in town.  Then, a few hours after I took her to the airport Angel drove me to Chicago to spend the night with Laura and Kyle and their munchkin before hitching a ride with them to Midway and flying down to Phoenix- where I then stayed for 8 days.  I got home early this morning (2:30am), so with all of that going on my blog has been lost in the shuffle.

I had my first Mother’s Day:

Which involved a lot of baby snuggles and turning the heater back on in the house- ugh.  Will winter never end?  For Mother’s Day, Lucas’ gift to my was taking my iPad off of my hands:

I miss Arizona.  My supportive husband encouraged me to make a trip down to visit my friends, so I RSVP’d to a wedding, crashed at my brother and sister’s house, and then made plans for every lunch, dinner, and happy hour between touch down and take off.

I spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Chicago before heading to the airport.  Lucas had quite the time playing with all of Hailey’s toys and it appears that Angel and I need to get Lucas a slinky.

I have the world’s best traveling baby.  Seriously.  Our flight from Chicago took off at 7, which is 8pm in Michigan and only 30 minutes before bed time.  but my awesome baby just curled up against me and was sound asleep before take off.  Since the flight wasn’t full and the seat next to me was open I laid him down on it and cashed in some drink coupons when the flight attendant came by.  My traveling companions had the same luck with Hailey and the three of us enjoyed some adult beverages for 3 hours.  Meanwhile, it seemed like all of the other parents were having troubles with their little ones and probably cursing the three of us and our perfect children and beers.  But I proudly (and lovingly) stared at my little munchkin and high-fived myself for not being that mom.

On Friday night I went to a wedding reception for a friend from the MBA program with a few of my other MBA friends.  It was great to hand Lucas off to his God Parents who were so excited to spend the evening with him!  Until probably 7:30 when my adorable baby turned into a cranky east-coast-time-zone baby and screamed for a solid hour before they could finally calm him down enough to sleep.  I adore them for putting up with him and REALLY appreciate my evening off of mom duty.  I get those so rarely.  And by “so rarely” I mean this was the third babysitter in 6 months, rare.

On Saturday I went to a pool party and put my water baby in the water for the first time.  Little Dude LOVED it!!  He was splashing and loving life and I was appreciating the fact that everyone pretended not to notice my stretch marks in my bathing suit

Then I went back to Paul and Michelle’s house, where my mom was also staying for a few days to spend time with us:

On Sunday we put Lucas back in the pool, grilled, and I missed the Arizona lifestyle a little bit more.

My brother asked me the first night if it felt weird to be back in Arizona and not go “home” and I said no.  Because at the time, it wasn’t.  But then on Monday I went over to Katie and Jeff’s house, who happen to be my old neighbors.  They threw a block party and at the end of the evening it felt weird to get in a car and drive by my house, see the lights on, and keep driving.  My neighbor’s told me that my tenant’s son is in town from college for the summer and when I drove by and saw the light on in what Angel and I made Lucas’ nursery, I cried.  For the first time I had a pang of that being my house, my neighbors, my son’s room and it just wasn’t okay that it wasn’t my home.  So I guess you really can’t go home again.

On Monday our tenants gave notice that they were moving out on July 19th in our other house.  So I spent the week hiring a Realtor, picking paint colors (since it appears that we now desperately need to paint that house), and officially making this trip an IRS write-off for checking on our rental properties.  In good news, the Realtor that I hired already has a tenant in mind who saw the house this weekend and loves it so she’s not eve listing it in MLS.  Check that off the list.

The rest of the week was a parade of meeting with friends, family, old coworkers, more friends, more family, and even more friends.  I miss them all.  And by the end of the week the trip became bitter sweet because I loved seeing everyone but felt like I was running around saying goodbye to everyone again.

Yesterday, sweet little Lucas decided that it was the perfect time to start teething.  I mean, I thought he was before, but then he started having some interesting diapers, screaming for seemingly no reason, and completely inconsolable.  Sounds like a perfect day to travel!  You remember those high-fives for not being that mom on the plane?  Well, karma is a bitch.  It started out like this:

But quickly went downhill once we took off.  Never again will I travel without baby Tylenol.  Actually, never again will I leave the HOUSE without baby Tylenol.  Maybe I’ll just tape a secret stash of the gold to my hip in case of baby teething emergency.

In the good news, the drunk folks sitting a few rows up had surrounding travelers pissed off and commenting that the baby behaved better (plus a few choice colorful words) so at least their anger at a bad 3 hour flight was directed to people who didn’t choose that day to start teething.  Thank you, drunk travelers.  I’m jealous, and I would also like to buy you another round.

Today, to celebrate getting the baby home without bursting into tears myself, I spent all day in my pajamas playing with Lucas on the floor and feeding him Tylenol and boob every few hours.  If only babies could be born with a full set of teeth to spare their parents what I imagine are a few hard nights ahead of me….

Anyway, my trip home was awesome but reminded me of a few verses from the song The House That Built Me:

…Of clothes!  I’m below my pre-pregnancy weight (I would like to thank breast feeding for always believing in me through those tough nights.  God, of course.  I would like to thank God…. And I know I’m forgetting someone.  Oh! My Mom.  Duh.  Thanks to my mom for the genes to shed this baby weight without lifting a weight.  I love you, mom!), I’m finally making it through my clothes and throwing in the low rise jeans on clothes that no longer fit.  I made it through the pants- which was a blow to the ego when I threw about half into the “give away” box.  After that, I started going through shirts and that went a little bit better.  Shirts that I remember being a little snug now seem to fit but there were a few favorites that just doesn’t fit this new body that my adorable son gave me.  I had to stop myself a few times going through my tank tops because I just kept thinking “I can get rid of this because I don’t even remember when I last wore it” because last summer I didn’t get to wear any of them unless they came from a maternity store.  Every woman has their limit, and it turns out that half of my closet is mine.  Half of my closet escaped the cut, the rest is hanging with a little bit more room now.  Maybe I’ll get around to the rest one day when I’m feeling up for it.  This has been my least favorite part of having a baby, and that includes Lucas literally being cut out of me.

A few days ago I took Lucas’ 5 month photos:

I love the personality that he’s getting!  He smiles and giggles constantly, he rolls around on purpose, he reaches for toys.  He’s just such a ball of fun!  He’s still very interested in his toes

And he becomes a little concerned when we put shoes on him.  For about a week he was constantly trying to put his toes in his mouth and that trend has continued into this week.  But he’s started to graduate on to everything that he can get his hands on.  Toys, the dog, burp cloths, anything those sticky little fingers wrap themselves around.

Today, while the dog was busy unloading her toy chest in my family room:

I put Lucas in chew toy heaven so that I could make coffee and check that the house wasn’t flooding because I woke up to LOUD thunder and pouring rain that made the house look like it was midnight, not 8am.

Lucky for us, it warmed up enough that I could open the house back up again today and enjoy the sunshine while we went to run a few errands and walk around.  While I was out, I came across this swim shirt that I couldn’t pass up, seeing as how that’s what Angel and i call him:

In other news, tonight is the third night of Lucas’ new 8:30 bedtime.  Last night went only okay, but yesterday was a nightmare when it came to nap times.  What happened to my awesome sleeper?!  The only logical explanation is that he’s learned how to piss off his mother.  The only way that I could calm him down is to crawl on the floor with him, so that’s exactly what I did!

I put him in his swing for a while and was laughing at him fighting nap time until he, alas, gave up.

There is no excuse for the number of poopy diapers and blows outs that I had to change and clean up before lunch.  I mean, I hadn’t even finished my coffee before the first one.  It’s completely unacceptable but more importantly what has his mom been feeding him?

I have to fill out some paperwork for my resignation so my manager emailed it to me.  None of it has been filled out, so I wrote back asking what’s supposed to go in the blanks on the form and I’m told to think back to my roles and responsibilities and fill it out.  Um….  That may work if I went to work last week and I’m quitting this week.  But hello the last time that I was working was HALLOWEEN.  Since then I’ve had a baby, moved across the country, and changed just about everything in my life.  Roles and responsibilities?  Feed a 12 pound human, make sure he gets the appropriate number of naps, feed my husband, and generally make sure the house doesn’t fall into the Earth.  Unless I’m told otherwise that’s what I’m filling in the blanks with because I genuinely don’t remember what I spent 6 years of my life doing.

In other news, I’ve finally gotten around to taking pictures of the house, but only the upstairs so you’re going to have to stay tuned for the rest.  In the mean time, here’s my upstairs:

Craft room

Master

Nursery

Guest room (this is where you would all be staying)

Lucas’ bathroom (aka guest bath)

I’ll get around to taking the rest eventually.  Maybe I’ll get inspired as soon as we get our family room furniture delivered.  Ugh!  It’s taking FOREVER.  Seriously.  I’m over sitting on the floor and now that it’s pretending like it’s going to be nice weather I would love to sit on the sofa, watch Lucas play with his toys and enjoy a nice breeze.  Looks like it’s going to be another few weeks before I get to live that dream.

And not because of the weather.  For once, it’s 70 outside and sunny.  I opened up the windows and enjoyed airing out the house

Molly was a little bit confused about the fresh air.  I don’t blame her though because I was too.

My adorable Lucas woke me up at 7am and then decided that he wasn’t interested in going back to sleep.  He was doing that this weekend but I was hoping it was just a phase.  It’s looking like it’s actually not.  So that’s….. great.  Who doesn’t enjoy being woken up at 7 am EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. by a human alarm clock with a broken snooze button?  So I started my day at 7 but doing laundry, picking up, washing laundry, all of the good stuff while my adorable child played with his toes, blew out his diapers, and then fell asleep for an early nap.  Kid, you’re lucky that you’re cute because I would like to return you to the store by lunch time.

I crafted a wreath for the front door.  I’ve been meaning to since we moved in but haven’t gotten around to it.  So last week I went and got the materials for it and while talking about crafting to my sister, she sent me a photo of the wreath that I was planning on making but hers had different flowers that I totally liked better.  So this weekend I went and exchanged my flowers and made my wreath while Lucas was busy crawling backwards:

The “R” is gold glitter

So there you have it.  What a busy day. (5k Nike Fuel Points and it’s only 5)