zoo and a party!

Today was my nephew's 2nd birthday party. Too much fun! In the morning we met up with a group and went to the zoo. This was Dexter's first trip to the zoo! He did pretty well. This was also his first time in his stroller without his infant seat. He seems to get hot in the infant seat, so we decided to give it a whirl in just the stroller. Okay, so I know my kid is huge. His dad is over 6ft. tall, and my kid is pretty tall, but I wasn't sure. It ended up being great because he had more room and could see better!

We walked through the zoo and caught up with the others. Despite a few little maintenence cries, as we call them, he was great the whole trip! We ended up skipping the kids petting zoo part and the reptile house because it looked like rain. Actually, we were going to skip it anyway because Dex was getting ready for eating time and it was easier to go to the car. Well, as we are all walking towards the elevator (strollers!) it started to POUR. I'm talking huge raindrops. We went down and rushed to a little enclosed area where the escalators are located and waited. Dex stayed dry. Mommy and Daddy? Yeah, we were soaked. When it finally stopped raining we loaded up and went back to my brother and sister in laws house for the rest of the party.

The party was so much fun! There were many kids and they had a great time! We ended up leaving right after cake only because Dexter was getting tired and needed to nap. My son is a very nebby child and there was just too much fun going on for him to sleep so we headed out. He slept most of the way home in the car and was passed out when we got home. We got the cutest video of him when it was time to wake up and eat again and a super great picture (as you see above) of him when he woke up. Unfortunately, my cell phone was closer than my camera so it isn't the best quality, but that's okay. He is now on the floor with his baby gym going NUTS. He's playing like he hasn't played in a year. Well it's been most of the day he was away from his toys, which in Dexter land probably feels like a yer.

All in all, it was a great day, wet hair and all!

my kid is cute

sleepy boy.......





....and he's out!

short little snippit for now because I'm exhausted after laundry day but seriously, Dexter is adorable! I could melt into a Mommy puddle from his cuteness. :)

Marion Hossa chose poorly

Last year, the Pittsburgh Penguins lost the Stanley Cup to detroit. It was rough. I don't think the team was ready for that battle. Marion Hossa screwed around forever, pretending he was going to stay in the burgh, but in fact, was double dealing with detroit. I don't care that he left. It was how he went about it that was really shitty.

Let me back up to say that Rob and I looooooove the Penguins. We are full plan season ticket holders. We go to almost every home game during the season. We have been looking forward to this match up all season.

Anyway, last night, we put the baby to bed, and settled down to watch the game of all games. I think we knew early on that the Pens were going to win. We just felt it. I won't go into all the details of the game. People who really want to know saw it. One of the best parts was the look on Hossa's face when the realization of what happened settled in. It was like, holy crap, I made a big stink about choosing detroit because I could get the cup there and not only did I not win the cup, but I lost it to the team I hinted sucked to badly to win it. That was gold.

I am now looking forward to the Hossa interview. I know he won't say anything stupid. He won't even interview until he has the perfect "statement" for the inevitable question. But nothing can stop the look in his eyes when the question is asked 109348394 times. Last night, the first thing I said to my husband was "he chose poorly" from Indiana Jones of course.

It was truly a great night. :)

DON'T BUY GRACO

Dex was in his swing today. I don't put him in there too often, but 10 minutes here and there. He likes it okay. Well now I'm sure he'll never want to go in one again, nor will I put him in one.

He's swinging right beside where I'm sitting and sort of dozing off a little. It's playing music, swinging on a low setting. I'm working on some correspondence. All of a sudden I hear this noise and look over. The left side of the part that HOLDS THE CHILD has broken! Dexter, still sleeping (?!?!) is hanging from the safety restraints. I freaked of course and am on the floor trying to get him out. Ever try and get a hanging infant out of a safety restraint without hurting him??? It took me forever. I finally get him out without hurting him (he's still sleeping?!?!?!). Then the tears start. Mine not his. I'm checking every inch of his body. He's fine, thank God!

After I get him out and make sure he's okay, I look for Graco's 800 number online. I find it and call. I am keeping surprisingly calm. I start to explain to the woman I'm talking to what had just happened. Would you like to know what her response is? "Okay we need some information so we can get replacement parts out to you." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? No, is your child okay? No, let's see if there's been a recall. No, let me get someone who handles these types of claims. Nothing. I called her on that. Ignoring me, she asks for my address so she can send me replacement parts. I finally gave her that info so she'd shut up about the replacement parts. Again, I call her on the fact that she is completely unconcerned with my child's safety and well-begin. Nothing. I was FLOORED. I get off the phone with the useless woman and go back to the website to send an email. They don't have an email address listed. They have a "contact us" spot. I've been trying all day to send what I wrote on that page. OOPS. Our contact us doesn't work.

What did I discover today? Graco has crap products and they REFUSE to accept complaints. Their website doesn't let you complain via email. The representatives you call refuse to acknowledge problems. Don't buy Graco. Save your child.

i love squeegee beckenheim

Random title, I know. I love Gilmore Girls. I never really watched it when it was in it's prime on tv. I can remember, before Dexter, coming home from work. I'd finish grading papers or whatever I had to do, but then I'd still have awhile before Rob came home from work. Nice days, I'd go for a walk. One day, the weather was awful so I was flipping around and a Gilmore Girls rerun happened to be on. Until that day, I had never realized what a truly brilliant show it was. So then I had to buy all the past seasons so I could catch up. At any rate, I have all 5 seasons now, I cried when the last show aired, and I watch them anytime I have nothing better to do.

Title explained. It has nothing to do with what I'm going to post, but that was the brilliance of the show.

Rob and I have been looking to buy a house for awhile. We've seen a ton of houses. Some good, some not so good. I've noticed a trend. Why is it that a homeowner lists changes they have made as "paint" and then expect their house to appreciate $50,000 in 3 years? That's some expensive paint! We found this house that we love. Absolutely love. The house has been on the market for a number of months. The asking price has dropped 3 times. Why? Well, the housing development it's in is very nice. Unfortunately, these people have only owned the house for a couple of years and made changes that do not equal the money they have "put in." Not only that, but when they bought the house, they (admittedly) paid more money than the house was worth. Now they are trying to sell it for way more money than it's worth. If a buyer bought the house for it's current price (dropped 3 times) there is little possibility of ever selling it for the same price anytime in this decade even if the recession ceases. Literally, the value of the entire neighborhood would have to increase considerably. I think our realtor said it well, it's better to be a small fish in a big pond than a big fish in a small pond. We've seen where we currently live. There's an area with all these gorgeous, massively expensive houses and one little podunk house. The podunk house has a much higher value than it should because of the value of the neighborhood. Well, that's what's happening in reverse. Our realtor thinks we need to be aggressive with our offer to see what their motivation for selling is. We shall see. We're going to give it a try and see what happens. We love the house, we feel bad if the couple is having some financial woes, but not enough to overpay for a house. There are tons of homes out there and we can always find another house we love.

:)

playing on the floor

I'm sitting here watching my husband play on the floor with our son. Dex is going all kinds of crazy! He loves playing! As I watch them, I think, wow, we have really outgrown our townhouse. We've lived here for 3 years now, which seems impossible. I like where we live. It's been a great home, but we just don't fit here anymore now that we're a 3 person family.

Yesterday, we continued our search for a new house. We've been looking since before Dexter was born. We kind of hit a snag when he showed up 3 weeks early. That's a whole other story. Anyway, we went out again yesterday with our realtor. We've been looking at a lot of different types of houses. We're going out again on Tuesday and really looking at some really nice places.

We are so ready to move out of here. The worst part about our townhouse is that we share walls. Our neighbor on one side is okay. He has a few oddities, but is generally a nice guy. The other side? First we had this crazy guy. He would randomly have any of his multiple children there of whom he had with multiple women. He and his son would randomly start fighting at 3am or so, swearing, hitting each other. The police would come. It was crazy. Thankfully, he moved out. After 2+ years, he moved. The place was empty for months and it was great! Then we learned a new couple was moving in with their 2 year old son. We figured it would be nice to have neighbors our age. That was a joke. These people are ridiculous. They fight, yell, their child screams and runs around throwing things against the wall. They like to vacuum in the middle of the night and hit the wall that they share with our son's room. It's insane. Needless to say, we're ready to leave.

New house---we're there!

what to do, what to do

If you read my last post, you know that we have stopped the soy formula. Lord, almighty, give us strength. My poor child has been through way too many eating changes in his soon to be short 7 weeks (tomorrow!) First we started with breastfeeding. After being demeaned by the 70 year old lactation consultant, my real doctor and I (easily learned) that I simply wasn't producing milk. It was a sad, sad day. We moved to formula. Had some questions about some things and one of our pediatricians changed him to soy. The soy has been horrid, so we went back to regular formula. If you've never changed your infant's food, I can tell you, it's hard! He's had a bellyache most of today, and didn't poop until 6pm. What does that mean? Crying. Endless crying. I want to make it all better, but I just don't know how to do that. What does that mean? I cry. I haven't been sharing much, but I'm working through some post-partum depression. It's not as horrible as some women have. So far, I'm doing well without medicine, but I know my doctor is a little concerned. I definitely am a mom who wears her heart on her sleeve. All I want to do is comfort my baby boy, but I just don't know what to do.

We called our peds tonight and spoke to the same UPMC nurse, Stephanie, who is obviously reading off a cue card. I know she's just CHA, but still I need more than, "it sounds like belly pain." No shit. I've already said that! It seems that unless my baby has a temperature, no one wants to help us. Needless to say, if it's still going on tomorrow, I'm demanding to talk to the main doctor in the practice, and if need be going into the office and waiting until someone sees us. I refuse to have my baby be in pain if there's something we can do. This isn't just about a formula switch. We've been dealing with him having belly pain at least one day a week since the soy switch. When we first switched, he had belly pain for 3 solid days and he had a low grade fever. I was on the phone with the office daily. Their answer? It takes some time for a formula switch. All I can say is, from my experience, don't use soy unless you REALLY need to. My cousin's baby, same thing. They wanted her to switch her daughter to soy and the soy was 10 times worse.

Okay enough about the formula. I know I've gone on about it for 2 posts now, but I can't help it. Dexter is my darling son and I love him too much to sit around and wait and see. No book you read or friend can tell you just how hard it is to watch your child be in pain. I would gladly be in the worst pain of my life to take Dex's pain away. Hopefully, tomorrow, we'll see some improvement.