Yesterday, Rangely posted this handy-dandy list of baby tips. Very helpful... even found a few on there I didn't know about! I would add two things to her list:

1) Wireless internet - for the spare half a second or two here or there that you might get to check your email or blog...

2) Tivo - Tom and I didn't ask for this but his parents got it for us for our birthdays. We had no idea what a godsend it would be when the baby came. Guarantees there's always something interesting on tap when you're trapped on the couch for hours on end feeding the baby, rocking the baby, holding the baby... etc... especially at 3a.m. when tv is the only thing that can keep you awake.

I had something to post but now that I'm here, I can't remember what it was. I'm so tired... so... very... tired...

I'm starting to think that some funky post-partum something-or-other is kicking in and I need vitamins or something. My hair hasn't started falling out yet, which is good I guess. I hear that starts to happen around three months or so after you give birth. I'm not looking forward to it. Although the bald spots will really compliment the dark circles under my eyes, I'm sure.

::yawn::

This kid has more pictures taken of him than some celebrities! ;)

Since I stumbled across that webpage last night, I've done some more reading about attachment parenting. Apparently, it's pretty simple -- basically common sense parenting. You learn to read your baby's cues (tired, hungry, upset, etc) and respond to them accordingly. It doesn't advocate letting the baby "cry it out." (which hasn't worked in this house anyway). According to the research that has been done, responding to your baby this way builds trust and ultimately leads to kids who are caring, compassionate and empathetic. They emphasize that it will NOT, as so many suggest, spoil your child.

There's a whole lot more to it and if you're interested, here's the site I've been reading. I've kind of taken bits and pieces that applicable to us... for instance, one of the biggest parts of attachment parenting is breastfeeding, which I don't do... but I do feed Ben myself most of the time and I ALWAYS hold him, look into his eyes and talk to him while I feed him. (as opposed to putting him into a seat and propping the bottle up... who DOES that?!)

Anyway... just something that has peaked my interest lately... as with everything, I'll take it with a grain of salt and do what I think feels right.

Apparently, I practice something called "Attachment Parenting" and didn't even know it. Now I'm rethinking this potential trip in November. Seems like a lot of my natural instincts about taking care of the baby fall in line with this school of thought!
Read this!

He's not really jumpy yet... he just sort of dangles there. But he seems to enjoy it!

Another day with good intentions to get lots of things done. Gotta put the house back together from the weekend... when the three of us are all home, it has a way of slowly turning into a disaster area. I'm not pointing any fingers but let's just say when Ben and I are home alone, it stays clean.

After that, I thought we'd head out to find Ben some more summer clothes. He's finally growing out of some of his 0-3 month things and he doesn't have any shorts...he's also running low on sleepers that fit. That should be fun. I LOVE shopping for baby clothes. ;) The only thing more fun is shopping for baby clothes with other people. Any takers? Jen? Mandy? Meghan? Anyone? Ah well, looks like another trip by ourselves.

On another topic, I've been keeping up with Benjamin's scrapbook pretty well and I was really proud of it... that is, until I came across THIS. These are pages that one of the mommies on my March 2004 Message Board created. Evidently, there is a WHOLE other level of this scrapbooking thing that is WAY out of my reach.

Sorry if this post is boring... I don't really have anything monumentally exciting, new or amusing to post yet today. We'll see how the day goes... maybe I'll at least throw my readers a bone with a nice picture or something. ;)

We have nowhere to go today, no one to see and nothing to do. Today couldn't be better!
This is especially good because the little poop machine didn't sleep very well last night for some unexplained reason. Starting at midnight, he was up every 20 minutes playing the "I spit my pacifier halfway across the crib and now it's your problem" game.

:: sigh ::

Even when we brought him to bed with us around 3:00, things didn't really improve all that much. I think someone slipped some Mountain Dew into his bottle last night or something.

On these kinds of days, I always come up with some crazy, ambitious plan, like painting a bathroom or taking a fun day trip... but inevitably, we'll end up just hanging around the house and doing nothing. And that's just fine with me. :)

Oh, and I almost forgot! I got on the scale this morning and I'm officially back to my pre-pregnancy weight. It took 13 weeks and 3 days. Wahoo!

Should I be annoyed that someone did a Yahoo search for "baby genetic freak" and found my site? IN THE TOP 10 no less!

Also, for those of you searching for "pictures of baby coming out of woman" and "pictures of pregnant women" and "pictures of a baby coming of a vegyna" (I didn't bother to correct the spelling on that one)... you will NOT find those pictures here. So just run along and go find one of your little pimply teenage friends who has a Playboy magazine they can lend you.

Ew.

Sometimes the internet is just plain scary.

When I worked at Michaels, it used to annoy me to no end when people would come into our store with another store's carts. I used to think really mean things about them like, "What a dumbass." Or (here's the one I'm paying for) "She's just too lazy to pick up that infant seat and put it into a new cart."

I was out shopping yesterday. I had to stop at Target and the grocery store and they are right next door to each other... I went to Target first and plopped Benjamin in his infant seat right into the front of one of Target's nice roomy, bright red carts. It always fits just perfectly and latches onto the back of the cart just like it's supposed too. He sits at the right angle and the seat can't accidentally slide off the cart and onto the floor. I love Target. For more reasons than just this... but this is a nice little touch.

I finished at Target and moved onto the grocery store. Not wanting to be one of those "dumbasses" I used to make fun of and drag the huge monster of a Target cart into the grocery store, I decide to transfer Ben to the grocery store cart. The seat doesn't even come close to fitting, I realize it doesn't latch onto the back if I just sort of prop it up and could easily slide off. This is the FIRST time I've noticed the latching issue and wonder how I've made it through the grocery store the last few times without a disaster happening. I fiddle with it a few more times and then I decide I just don't care anymore and pop the seat back into the Target cart. Off we go. In fact, I decide that if we go anywhere else, the Target cart is coming with us. I briefly think about asking the Target people if I can just take one home.

The grocery stores should really rethink this a little... who is usually doing the grocery shopping? How often do those people have an infant with them? Yah...
And newsflash:

NO MOTHER I KNOW WILL USE THOSE DISGUSTING INFANT SEATS ATTACHED TO THE CARTS WITHOUT SIX APPLICATIONS OF LYSOL FIRST.

So anyway, my little adventure made me realize something else. I used to go out with Ben and worry that I was doing something wrong ... should I take the stroller into the the store or not? Should I use the infant seat? Should I put the infant seat into the cart? Should I go out using the Snuggli instead? Should I just carry the baby? I felt like I was going to get stopped by the baby transportation police if I did it the wrong way.

But yesterday it hit me.

Mothers just do whatever works. And unless you do something glaringly unsafe, like carry the baby through the store by one arm, there IS no right or wrong way to do things. And mothers also don't give a flying fig newton what anyone thinks because they just want to get into the store, get what they need and get the heck out without having to deal with a screaming infant. I get it now. Another valuable lesson learned.

But I still think the grocery stores should wise up.

I've been celebrating Benjamin's monthiversaries every four weeks. Then I added this new birthday ticker to my blog and realized I've been cheating. I did this when I was pregnant too. I'm a big cheater. Anyway, since yesterday was technically Benjamin's three-month birthday, I took his monthly chair picture today. (forgot yesterday) Here's our little pictorial timeline so far!

Don't you hate when you get addicted to reading someone's blog and they don't update for days, sometimes WEEKS at a time? I have several of these blogs on my favorites. (not necessarily links on my blog, but my favorites list in Explorer) I've gotten sucked in during their initial manic blogging period and then really let down when they stop posting.

It's not like it's their problem or anything. They probably don't have time to post or don't feel like they have anything they feel like saying... or maybe they've just gotten bored with blogging. But it drives obsessive compulsive blogreaders like myself INSANE!! ;)

Tom and I are planning a trip to celebrate our anniversary. Some of you may be saying, "But wait... isn't your anniversary in March?" To which I reply, "Yes, but we were real busy in March this year." ;)

March 31st, our third anniversary, came and went. I think we may have gotten each other cards. All I really remember was that I had a 102 fever, a crying 7-day old baby and I was swollen in places I didn't even know you COULD be swollen.

So, long story longer, we're celebrating our anniversary in November. Benjamin will be almost 8 months old and I think we'll be ready for the break. Tom's first trip suggestion was that we NOT go to Disneyworld. We went three times last year, twice the year before and the year before THAT we went for our honeymoon. So yeah, this was an reasonable request. We were thinking maybe Disney's resort in Vero Beach, Florida, or the Disney Cruise. (okay, so we're not the most adventerous travelers...)

I checked out both options and they're doable and available in November... but then somehow we ended up deciding that Disneyworld instead would be a good idea again.

We're so pathetic and sad.

In our defense though, we're going to do something a little different this time. Since we're only planning on staying three nights, we're going to stay at one of the deluxe Disney resorts -- someplace really cool like the Animal Kingdom Lodge or the Contemporary.

We went last November because I lost my mind and thought going to Disneyworld 5 months pregnant would be a good idea. I was horribly wrong. It was hot and I was fat, tired and miserable. Plus, with all the humidity, I retained about 10 pounds of water and could barely walk or bend my fingers by the end of the trip. So I'm excited to go back and actually enjoy myself this time.

We are pathetic and sad though, aren't we? ;)

Am I the only new mommy out there whose baby needs me to hold him until he falls asleep? The kid has fallen asleep on his own in his crib once, MAYBE twice. Even for his naps, I put him on my chest and lay with him for the ten minutes or so it takes him to go to sleep, and then I put him down and sleeps like an angel (in his crib or on the living room chair) for hours.

I got all in a panic about this last night, telling Tom that I'm really worried we've messed him up or something. I mean, eventually he will HAVE to fall asleep on his own... I can't be rocking him to sleep when he's in college.

Also, even though he sleeps through the night, he DOES wake up around 4:00 and won't go back to sleep for more than 15 minutes unless we bring him into bed with us. Then we all get to sleep until he eats around 5:30 and then sometimes even longer after that.

My philosophy so far has been to do whatever gets us all the most sleep and we'll work it out when he can talk. But I really worry it's going to result in a long bout of bedtime ugliness in the future.

What do the rest of you new mommies do? Anyone have any thoughts?

Benjamin starred in a little homemade movie tonight. ;) Give it a minute or two to load... :)

Specs:
5MB/Windows Media format/1:55

Only 12 weeks old and already a control freak... we don't even TRY to be in charge of the bottle during feeding time anymore.

Benjamin has made it quite clear that he is a morning person. It must be genetic because Tom and I are both morning people too. We have no problem getting up at 6a.m. on a Saturday morning... it's staying up late we have issues with. Basically, we act like old people. Anyway, it seems we've passed this trait down to our son because he gets up now at 5:30 and wants to play play PLAY! At first, I'm always a little groggy but it's hard to stay that way because he's in such a good mood and it's too adorable to resist. Sometime after I feed him and while I'm changing his diaper, he wakes up and smiles this big, HUGE ear-to-ear grin at me. Then he starts in with the cooing and squealing. Who can go back to bed after that?! So getting up at 5:30 with him is one of my absolute favorite things these days... happy babies are the best. ;)

Wahoo!!! At approximately 6:19p.m. this evening, Benjamin rolled over. He was on his tummy, admiring himself in his mirror. Something caught his attention in the other direction... he gave a little push and over he went. He looked even more surprised than I did. Of course, in keeping with Baby Murphy's Law, he waited until his daddy left the room do perform his latest trick and then wouldn't do it again. Ah well... there's another one for the baby book!

I forgot, there is a third reason Benjamin cries... and that's when he shoots formula or snot out of his nose. The first time this happened, it was in the middle of the night. The piercing scream woke Tom and I out of a sound sleep in a combination of panic and stupor. I was just reminded of this a minute ago as he was happily playing on the floor and suddenly let a blood curdling scream. Sure enough, I turned around and there was the offending booger hanging off of his cheek. Ick.

Anyway, this cry doesn't really count because it doesn't last very long. On the intensity scale though, it's WAY up there.

It's not really surprising that if you spend almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with someone that you get to know them pretty well. What IS surprising is that other people underestimate just HOW well I've gotten to know this little creature we call Benjamin.

He doesn't need to be able to talk to tell me what he wants... and it's amazing how, as I have gradually learned to read his signals and react to them early, much of the crying has stopped... that is, when I have him at home.

Now that he's past the initial "fresh out of the womb" culture shock, where everything is cold, new, or causes gas, Benjamin really only cries for two reasons.

1) Tired
2) Hungry

The tired cue is probably the most useful one I learned to recognize. This is probably because the price I and everyone around me pays for NOT catching it early is very, very costly ... for both nerves and eardrums.

I know when he starts to make little fussy noises seemingly "out of nowhere" after he's been happy for an hour or so that he wants his pacifier and a warm shoulder (preferably mommy's, but in a pinch, anyone will do) so he can fall asleep. And without fail, when I act on this, he'll fall asleep within 5 minutes. Then I can put him down and he'll stay asleep for a nice little nap. Took a LONG time to learn this one, but since I've figured it out, our days are so pleasant and he's so happy!

When we're not at home though, it's really a new ballgame. And the more people (read: women) we're with, the more complicated it gets. It has nothing to do with Benjamin acting or communicating any differently... it's more because everyone who has been a mother seems to want to try their own method of calming him down when he starts to fuss.

It's hard to just sit there and let this happen, because it almost always results in a VERY unhappy screaming baby. But, I know in the long run, it's good that they do their own trial and error experiments with him, because eventually they'll reach the same conclusions I have and get to know what he wants. It is REALLY hard though not to always take the baby away from whoever is rocking him, bouncing him, or trying to push a bottle into his wide open, screaming, not hungry, mouth in a futile effort to make him stop crying.

His wants are simple: A shoulder and a pacifier... occasionally a blankie it it's chilly.

Sometimes makes leaving the house seem not worth the effort it will take to "fix" my baby once we get home. ;)

Happy first father's day to the best new daddy in the world! :) I love you!

Here's a picture of Tom when he was a baby...


And one of my favorite pictures of Tom and Benjamin...


Today Tom is going golfing with his father and brothers and I'm going out to lunch with my dad and brother... after that, we're dropping Benjamin off to see his Pap so we can going out to dinner and celebrate Tom's first Father's Day. :)

I came across a tape in Tom's office of a Father's Day commercial he did with his dad for their clothing store when he was about three. It's so cute. ;)

Ben was up early this morning. Really early. Like 5:30 early. He didn't want food, he just wanted to talk.

He does this for a few seconds at a time now... (starting today, actually). His record is 20 seconds. ;)


My friend Jen and Benjamin's friend Ryan came for a visit today! :)
We documented it, of course.

Just when you think you have a good grasp on it it slips out of your hands again...
We had gotten to the point where I was actually saying Benjamin was "easy." That lasted exactly 6 days. While he is still sleeping through night (which I am eternally grateful for), he has taken to having these total meltdowns around 7p.m. Actually, EXACTLY at 7p.m. It's like a little alarm goes off in his head or something. Anyway, he'll scream bloody murder, sometimes for as long as an hour and a half, fighting sleep the WHOLE time. Eventually, the poor thing just conks out whereever he happens to land. Usually it's in the arms of one of his bewildered parents.

We've gone down the checklist: Fed? Yep. Clean diaper? Yep. Burped? Yep. Gas medicine just in case? Yep. Swaddled? Yep. Rocked... walked... patted... sung to... dark room... the list goes on. Nothing works.

Some mommies on the March 2004 Baby Message Board have had similar experiences and tell me it means we need to start getting him ready for bed a little earlier. In other words, I should get him in his jammies, wrapped up and in the crib by like 6:30 to avoid baby freak-out mode. This sounds like it's worth a try. The sad thing is that it means Tom will hardly get to spend any awake time with him at all!

C'est la vie I guess. If more sleep is what will turn my little Hyde back into a Jekyl (Hyde was the evil one, right?) ... then more sleep it will be!

Okay, so up until yesterday, all Benjamin would do when I put him on his tummy was get annoyed and lay face down in a pile of his own spit until I gave up and turned him over. I had to pretend like I hadn't memorized the first four chapters of "What to Expect the First Year" and that I didn't know he should be able "hold head up to at least 45 degrees when placed on tummy." Um..... yeah.

Anyway, imagine my surprise this morning when I put him on his stomach and THIS is what he did!


Yay Benjamin! Way to go!

Also, an update on my slideshows... I've added a menu on the side where I'm going to store them all. They're in Windows Media format and they stream, which means they download a little at a time as you watch them.... so supposedly they won't be so bad for the people on dialup. Let me know, I'm curious!

Here a link to a slideshow I just made of Benjamin smiling (mostly). hee hee... I wouldn't recommend downloading it if you're not on a high speed connection. It's almost 8MB and 2 minutes long. But feel free to try... it takes about 10 seconds to load on my cable connection.

Also, on a side note, I'm amused because there is a woman on Dr. Phil right now who won't get pregnant because she's petrified of childbirth. It's pretty funny... this is the reason I wanted to get pregnant somewhat by accident. Once you're there, there's no turning back! Just get it over with, woman! ;)

I never made it out of the house yesterday. Benjamin just wasn't very cooperative with napping and eating. When he finally went down for his nap it was noon and he didn't wake up until 4:00. By that time I had already decided I'd just suck it up and do the laundry and straighten the downstairs... then I rewarded myself with Oprah. ;)

Today is looking a little more promising. He has been napping since about 7:45... so when he wakes up, I'll feed him, take a shower and then blow this popsicle stand! We're headed to Best Buy, Michaels, Target, the post office and the bank. I realize I'll probably only get to probably two out of five, but at least I will have gotten out of the house. I would have liked to have had lunch with my friend Amy and maybe some other old co-workers, but she HASN'T EMAILED ME BACK!!! (*Hint* *hint* Amy if you're reading).

In other news, we have a new neighbor... she just moved in four doors down...looks to be about my age. Don't know about children or marital status... figured I'd wander down there later with Benjamin and see what the story is. It'd be nice if she had a baby... but I'm not holding out too much hope. The neighbor three doors down has an almost three-year-old. I talk to her now and then when I see her outside... she's really sweet and she's home during the day too, which is nice. I just wish I wasn't so darn introverted! Argh...

We dragged out the exersaucer today. I borrowed it from one of my old co-workers. Since Benjamin likes to stand up all the time (with my help), I thought he might be ready for it. Hrm... maybe not.

I finished Benjamin's pregnancy scrapbook. It's something like 75 pages long. Granted, it's not as fancy as some of those scrapbooks you see people do. I didn't buy all those little cut-outs, headings and stuff... instead, I used the blog entries from July 2003 through March 2004 as the main focus and complemented each page with "artifacts" I had collected from those nine months. I have doctor's appointment cards, lab referral forms, fetal heart monitor readouts, belly pictures and various other things I saved... I used a lot of pictures and headings from this fetal development magazine I got from the doctor when I went for my first appointment. Actually, my pack rat mentality seems to have finally served a purpose. Now that the book is finished, I like to sit down and look at it over and over again. It's really cool to see the whole nine (ten) months wrapped up in a neat little package like that.

I'm going to start his regular scrapbook soon. I have to, actually, because like I said, I'm a pack rat. I have saved everything -- cards we've gotten from people, all of the hospital bracelets (even the ones Tom and I had to wear)... I have a DRAWER full of stuff. I figure if I keep up with it and do a month at a time, it won't be such a monumental task and I won't have to buy three Rubbermaid containers to store it all!

Tom says he feels sorry for our subsequent children. (he's assuming I won't feel like doing, or won't have the time to do all these elaborate things for them)... I guess he speaks from experience. His youngest brother's baby book has about two pages filled in.

I have good intentions to do the same for our other children... we'll see if I eat those words in the future.

The rest of the pictures from my camera are here. Still waiting on the ones from my mom's camera.

Enjoy!

Today is our last day at the beach. :( We're having so much fun and Benjamin is making life so easy these days! Ah well... all good things must come to an end. Back home tonight and back to our normal routine tomorrow. Here's another picture from yesterday...

I'm on a dial-up connection here at the beach... so it takes about 5 years to upload a picture. This is the only one I got up before the connection timed out. Gr... More when I get home.

We're having a great time at the beach... mostly because we don't have to do ANYthing and we're not necessarily the sole caretakers of the baby all the time. Benjamin is doing so well! I was a little worried about taking him out of his element when we had such a good routine established at home. But, somehow, the routine has gotten even better since we've been here. He's been sleeping through the night here since Day 1! Weird, very.
And SO nice.

Pictures coming soon. I didn't bring my laptop this trip (too many other silly things to bring) so I'm not checking email etc. as obsessively as I normally do on vacation.

We're off to the beach today! :) Hooray! My faithful blog readers may remember that the beach is where this all started. I know, ew. And it was almost exactly a year ago too. Here's a picture of us happily playing on the beach pre-Ben. ;)

This summer, we're packing for three. And let me tell you, one of us (and all his stuff) takes up WAY too much room in the car. But, where Benjamin goes, so must the kick and play, and the bottles, and the diapers, and the wipes, and the playmat with the blinking musical star ... and so on and so on. ;)

They're 0-3 months and they're STILL too long!

I don't really have any fun and exciting baby news to share today, so instead I'll rant about something that I have observed since Ben has been born.

What's with people expressing their baby-care/child-raising opinions to me through Benjamin? For example:

"Hi baby! Aren't you just a little cutey wootey! You look warm! Tell your mommy you don't need all those clothes on a hot day like this!"

or...

"Tell your mommy you don't need that silly pacifier!"

For pete's sake, even the pediatrician does this!

It doesn't bother me all that much. I'm confident that I know what my kid wants and needs better than anyone. It's mostly just an obsveration I've made. Seems to come naturally to most people. But WHY?!

Yes, baby Benjamin no longer just a little gassy lump. He's doing all sorts of fun things...smiling, standing and sitting up (with help), cooing and squealing... oh and let's not the forget the most monumental milestone, sleeping more like a regular person.
Last night, Benjamin slept straight through from 11 - 4:45!! Then went back to sleep at 6 and is STILL asleep (it's almost 8:30)! Wahoo!!

I spent about an hour in his room yesterday afternoon straightening and organizing. For the first time I had to put away some of his clothes that don't fit anymore. Tom laughed at me because when he wandered in and asked what I was doing, I told him and then exclaimed, "Isn't it sad? He's not a little baby anymore." Tom then pointed to Ben wiggling around in his Kick and Play and said, "Um. That's a baby." I said, "No no... he's not a TEENY baby anymore. He's getting so big!"

Then, for dramatic effect, I added, in my best sentimental mommy voice, "Ohhh, I want another one."

hee hee...

Tom said, "Um... yeah, we're nowhere close to having another one right now, got it?"

Yeah yeah... truth be told, I don't really want another one right now. But I have to get myself psyched up early. I was saying I wanted the first one years before we ever tried. Was I ready to be pregnant when I was first talking about it? Heck no. But say something enough times and eventually you start to believe yourself. ;)In fact, as I recall, I was still trying to talk myself into wanting to be pregnant right before we found out Benjamin was coming. ;)

Well, I took the advice of some of the mommies on my baby message board yesterday. They told me not to wake Ben up to top him off and to swaddle him really tightly so he couldn't wake himself up with his flailing little legs. Something worked. Not sure which thing. He slept from 10pm - 4am last night. Then he woke up at 4, ate 5 ounces and went back to sleep until 7:30. (insert sound effect of angels singing here.) Oh, and I forgot to add, ALL of this was accomplished without the use of the stinking pacifier. (which I have started to hate since he spits it out every 15 minutes and cries)

Tom and I actually don't look like zombies this morning. It's kind of nice.
Let's hope our new tactics work again tonight! :D

Tom and I have ANOTHER wedding to go to today. (it's pouring down rain too). So Ben is going to spend the day with Nan and Pap. He had to get a bath for the occasion because, well, I won't mince words, he smelled like pee this morning.

What's the deal with the kids who win the national Spelling Bee every year?

Seriously.

Why do they all seem like they've never had any social interaction in their lives and look like they've never seen sunlight?

I want Benjamin to be smart, but not THAT kind of smart.

Okay, aside from the obvious items like bottles, diapers, butt cream and spit rags... here are some things we can't live without.

*Kick and Play Bouncy Seat - Ben LOVES this thing and has loved it since I first put him in it when he was two weeks old. He's a sucker for flashing lights and this has plenty of them. It also vibrates. Ben looks so comfortable in it that sometimes I wish I had an adult-sized one. I put it in the bathroom in the morning and that's how I get to take a shower. The one drawback is that you'll be singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and other nursery top 10 hits in your sleep.

* Pack and Play - Ben slept in this in our bedroom for the first six weeks. It has a bassinet that sits up high so you can get to him easily. It packs up to a pretty small package that will be great for taking on trips. No need to spring for the one I got with all the bells and whistles though. We have yet to use them or even hook them up.

*Little Remedies New Parents Survival Kit - I think Ben was only home about two days before we broke this out. It has gas drops, nose drops, fever reducer and lots of other goodies that you might not realize you need until you're in the midst of one of those screaming baby moments.

*Animal Symphony Mobile by Tiny Love - It's a little pricey, but it's got all the fancy-shmancy right colors and shapes that your baby is supposed to really respond to. Ben LOVES it. The music (all classical) isn't as annoying as other mobiles I've seen. Plus, the company will replace it if it stops working for some reason. (which mine did). I had a new motor for it within a week.

No link for this one but..WIRELESS INTERNET. Holy freaking cow. Lugging a baby up and down the stairs is a pain. So the less I have to do it the better. It's great to be able to have my laptop whereever I am on the main floor (where we spend most of our time) and get on the internet while Ben is playing. It's also great to be able to jump onto Tom's computer in the middle of the night when I'm waiting to see if Ben will stay asleep.

Girlfriend's Guide to the First Year - If you actually can find time to read it with a newborn around, this book will have you laughing through the sleepless nights. And if you're reading this post and you're pregnant, you might also want to pick up Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy. Never before has a book hit home quite the way this one did. ;)

*Some kind of floor gym. (I posted about the Baby Einstein one before). But I think anyone with a mirror that hangs down so the baby can see himself on his back will do. Ben has been totally preoccupied with his reflection since he was about three weeks old.

*I can't find a link to this, but someone gave us a little mirror that sticks on the back windshield of the car so you can see the baby while you're driving. I didn't realize just how valuable this was until I was driving around one day and Ben started screaming like crazy in the backseat. Yikes. Not that I could console him while I was driving, but I could at least see that he wasn't hanging out of the carseat by one limb or something.

*A subscription to American Baby - It's free for a year. It's nice to get things in the mail other than bills. Oh, and it usually has some pretty timely advice for things like getting a baby to sleep through the night.

*Baby Gowns - my husband calls these moo-moos... and they are sort of silly looking... but even he will admit the easy diaper access is great, especially in the middle of the night. We don't use them much anymore, but Ben lived in them for the first three weeks or so.

*A pacifier for every room - I started out with three and went out and bought more. They're scattered all over the house, in the car and in the diaper bag so we're never without one of Ben's little friends. (as Tom calls them)

*The black diaper bag courtesy of Enfamil and the hospital. It's a great medium sized diaper bag. Perfect for a few hours out. Holds a little more than my mini-bag, not as bulky as my big diaper bag that matches my travel system. Gotta love free stuff!


Not So Must Haves

*Bottle Warmer - researched it, registered for it, got it... used it once. We're bottlefeeding, so it's easier and faster to just use warm tap water.

*Swing - Okay, so my friend Jen swears by the swing. (The Fisher Price Aquarium one). But for us, it's a total bust. Ben has about ZERO interest in it. It's a great product, and i've heard it's wonderful for fussy or colicky babies. Just not mine. Plus it takes up a lot of space in my living room right now.

Ugh... more later. Baby screaming.

1:52 a.m.: Back.

Strangely enough, I can't seem to think of any other baby items we got that I don't really use ...

I'll keep coming back to this post and adding as I think of things though, so I'll eventually permalink it on the side menu. :) Do I have too much time on my hands or what? It unfortunate that all the extra time is in the wee hours of the morning.

We got Benjamin a new toy. It's the Baby Einstein Discover & Play™ Activity Gym and, if you ignore the fact that it makes my living room look like someone threw up a box of Crayola crayons in it, it's the most wonderful baby toy I've found so far.



The best part is the little star that hangs from the top. It lights up and plays music. I put it on the motion activated setting and Benjamin will talk to it, make faces at it and throw his arms and legs all over the place for almost an hour. This hour is worth WAY more than the $60 I paid for the toy. The light-up star almost gets more interaction from Benjamin than *I* do.

Anyway, if you're pregnant, definitely put THIS one on the registry...

My friend and fellow stay-at-home mommy, Jen, started a blog yesterday! :) Hooray!
Here's a picture of her cutie-patootie, Ryan.


In baby news, I've gotten so frustrated with the current nighttime sleep situation that I've decided to take a more scientific approach. Today I started logging what Ben does every hour of the day... when he sleeps, how long he sleeps, when he eats and how much and how long he's awake. I'm hoping a pattern will eventually emerge and I can solve the sleep puzzle. I hope I hope. For the sake of all mankind... well, at least the ones who live in this house.

I have never seen anyone fight sleep, and I do mean literally FIGHT sleep, the way Benjamin does. He will kick his little legs and flail his arms until the cows come home in an effort to stay awake. He really likes to do this around 2a.m. (hence this post). I thought we were making some progress in the sleep department. But sometime in the last three days, things have taken about a hundred steps backwards and here I am, awake at 2:29 a.m. with no hope of sleep in sight. I'm simply trying to find the energy to make it till 4, when I can go pass the problem on to Tom.

WHY WON'T MY CHILD SLEEP?!?!?!??!?