Not sure what prompted me to do it, maybe I just wanted something shiny and new... Either way, this blog has scooted over to a new URL and platform: ShotwellWallace.Wordpress.com
I'm not quite tech savvy enough at this point to create any automatic redirects (anyone want to tell me how to do that?), so please bookmark, follow, add to your Google Reader, or at the very least take note of the new site.
Thanks!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Uncles!
Oscar got a visit from two of his uncles this weekend--Joey's older brothers Jeremy and Jason. Consequently he also had his first trip to Mongolian BBQ, enjoyed lots of uncle snuggles, and got to be the subject of some healthy debate about whether his eyes are from the Wallace or Shotwell side :) Oh, and we finally put him in his (still a little too large, but totally adorable) Colts jersey. Behold, the Wallace brothers (Jeremy in gray, Jason in stripes) and the two best looking Manning fans I know:
8 month photo 1 week late
Getting these shots is much easier with my fabulous photo assistant (aka my husband) by my side to elicit the best smiles. Also a big thanks to my mom for knitting the cutest little sweater ever! (Not pictured: the adorable matching blue hat she also knit for him, but trust me, it's adorable)
Friday, November 12, 2010
Flash(waaaay)back Friday
And for today's flashback we're heading to March of this year. It doesn't seem so far back when you think about it in terms of real time, but when I look at these photos of me almost 39 weeks pregnant it seems like a lifetime ago. Our little guy was born soon after these were taken, at exactly 39 weeks.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Mother Madness
Don't mean to get all 'intellectual article' today (made even more irritating, I'm sure, by a lack of Oscar photo), but I discovered a really interesting read that I wanted to share. It's basically about mothering, today's expectations, attachment parenting, and presents a strong opinion about it all by Erica Jong.
A couple of my own quick thoughts, then the link:
1. While I have personally chosen to nurse, use cloth diapers, and make most of our own baby food, I also relish the fact that I had the choice to do so. These were mainly monetary choices, as we found them cheaper options than the alternative in the long run. We're not all or nothing, though, and feel totally fine using disposables at night sometimes or while traveling. We also feel fine about store-bought baby food, esp. when it's more convenient.
2. I love the idea of attachment parenting, and understand the philosophy behind it, but also agree with Ms. Jong about much of the inconveniences associated with it and the expectations of the modern woman. Yes, I love wearing my baby, no, I do not wear him all the time (and do love our bouncy seats and jumparoo!). I've enjoyed co-sleeping, but this will change soon due to my son's own sleep habits, and he does have a schedule during the day. I think it's sort of a 'take what you want from each parenting philosophy and make it your own' type of arrangement, and it works for us.
Go ahead, have a read and see what you think: Mother Madness
A couple of my own quick thoughts, then the link:
1. While I have personally chosen to nurse, use cloth diapers, and make most of our own baby food, I also relish the fact that I had the choice to do so. These were mainly monetary choices, as we found them cheaper options than the alternative in the long run. We're not all or nothing, though, and feel totally fine using disposables at night sometimes or while traveling. We also feel fine about store-bought baby food, esp. when it's more convenient.
2. I love the idea of attachment parenting, and understand the philosophy behind it, but also agree with Ms. Jong about much of the inconveniences associated with it and the expectations of the modern woman. Yes, I love wearing my baby, no, I do not wear him all the time (and do love our bouncy seats and jumparoo!). I've enjoyed co-sleeping, but this will change soon due to my son's own sleep habits, and he does have a schedule during the day. I think it's sort of a 'take what you want from each parenting philosophy and make it your own' type of arrangement, and it works for us.
Go ahead, have a read and see what you think: Mother Madness
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Update + 8 Months Old!!!
Firstly: Happy (1 day belated) 8 months to my little man!!! (Haven't taken the 8 mo. photo yet...that will follow as soon as I can get my sh** together)
Secondly: Happy birthday to Emily, a new friend I've recetly met in Indy, and who I'm looking forward to getting to know better!
This morning I said goodbye to my mom, who arrived on Sunday--the day Joey left for his conference--to visit with Oscar and help a bit while I'm on my own. I wasn't prepared for how hard that would be. Who would have guessed that saying goodbye to one's mom would actually get harder the older you get? We had a great visit, Oscar and Lucy both thoroughly enjoyed her company, and thanks to her my home is cleaner, laundry is done, and I actually have some food to eat this week. Sadly, I also woke up feeling kind of awful today...here's hoping it's just exhaustion and will go away with a little bit of rest. Not good, though, when paired with saying goodbye and facing another 3 days before Joey comes home.
The sleep experiment continued...sort of. I slept on the couch the last couple of nights until Oscar woke up. He didn't sleep as long as that first night, but his nights have been a bit better than previously, so that's good. He's also been making sure I'm on my toes by puking in my bed two mornings ago, then puking during breakfast this morning. He seemed totally fine right afterwards and was happy all day, so I don't think it's an actual illness (fingers crossed), but it wasn't fun. We've also had some blowout poos and fussiness, all of which I'm hoping magically go away for the remainder of this week (HA!).
Because I've had too many posts without pictures recently, I'm tacking a few on here. Not that they have anything to do with anything specific, but enjoy :)
Secondly: Happy birthday to Emily, a new friend I've recetly met in Indy, and who I'm looking forward to getting to know better!
This morning I said goodbye to my mom, who arrived on Sunday--the day Joey left for his conference--to visit with Oscar and help a bit while I'm on my own. I wasn't prepared for how hard that would be. Who would have guessed that saying goodbye to one's mom would actually get harder the older you get? We had a great visit, Oscar and Lucy both thoroughly enjoyed her company, and thanks to her my home is cleaner, laundry is done, and I actually have some food to eat this week. Sadly, I also woke up feeling kind of awful today...here's hoping it's just exhaustion and will go away with a little bit of rest. Not good, though, when paired with saying goodbye and facing another 3 days before Joey comes home.
The sleep experiment continued...sort of. I slept on the couch the last couple of nights until Oscar woke up. He didn't sleep as long as that first night, but his nights have been a bit better than previously, so that's good. He's also been making sure I'm on my toes by puking in my bed two mornings ago, then puking during breakfast this morning. He seemed totally fine right afterwards and was happy all day, so I don't think it's an actual illness (fingers crossed), but it wasn't fun. We've also had some blowout poos and fussiness, all of which I'm hoping magically go away for the remainder of this week (HA!).
Because I've had too many posts without pictures recently, I'm tacking a few on here. Not that they have anything to do with anything specific, but enjoy :)
Sunday, November 7, 2010
this is what desperation looks like...
2 full grown adults having a slumber party on the hard living room floor--complete with pillows borrowed from the bedroom and blankets underneath and on top--with a deliciously comfy king-sized bed sitting empty in the room next door. let's not forget the video monitor glowing brightly and the baby resting in the cosleeper next to aforementioned king bed.
This was my crazy experiment, thought of at the last minute while watching TV before bed last night. Having tried just about everything else, I figured that it might be worthwhile to see how long Oscar could sleep if we just never entered the room. The result? Our little dude lasted until about 3am or so (regular time, before we set the clocks back). Then woke up to eat, slept more, and woke up to eat again once before waking up at about 5 or 5:30 (gotta love daylight saving time).
Success! Sort of... With this evidence in hand I'm going to continue the experiment with Joey out of town--he left for a conference today and will be back Friday--and try sleeping on the couch tonight until our man wakes up. If he continues to sleep well without anyone in the room we get to begin the process of officially transitioning him to his crib. Which will be infinitely more difficult for his co-sleeping-loving mom than for him. Stay tuned for more from our sleep adventures :)
This was my crazy experiment, thought of at the last minute while watching TV before bed last night. Having tried just about everything else, I figured that it might be worthwhile to see how long Oscar could sleep if we just never entered the room. The result? Our little dude lasted until about 3am or so (regular time, before we set the clocks back). Then woke up to eat, slept more, and woke up to eat again once before waking up at about 5 or 5:30 (gotta love daylight saving time).
Success! Sort of... With this evidence in hand I'm going to continue the experiment with Joey out of town--he left for a conference today and will be back Friday--and try sleeping on the couch tonight until our man wakes up. If he continues to sleep well without anyone in the room we get to begin the process of officially transitioning him to his crib. Which will be infinitely more difficult for his co-sleeping-loving mom than for him. Stay tuned for more from our sleep adventures :)
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
sleep? what's that??
A lot has been going on around here, and it's a busy week already. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, Oscar has chosen this very busy week to not sleep AT ALL. Yup, fun stuff. A bit about what we're up to:
1. I started work this week. (I mentioned a bit about my new position in this post.) I'm a little stressed out since this involves a whole new skill set within the online marketing world, and it's been a while since I've felt like a fish out of water. It's additionally stressful figuring out how to effectively and efficiently work from home without a dedicated workspace, and with an infant around 2 days/wk.
2. Oscar started daycare this week. Even though we've done the daycare thing before, starting up again after being home together for a month is a little difficult...
3. Joey got to go on a fancy dinner date on Mon. with a visitor/speaker at IUPUI (who happens to be a dude, so I wasn't too jealous)
4. We're doing our first round of house visits tonight--I'm super psyched since looking at houses may be one of my most favorite things ever. I'll have to update about how the house search is going later.
5. Lots of Lucy appts: daycamp, vet, grooming
6. There's also the matter of Oscar's twice-weekly swim classes, which we've decided to skip this week in order to give everyone a break due to what I can only refer to as...
SLEEPOCALYPSE. As in, the end of sleep as we know it. Now, many folks already know that our little man has never been the best of sleepers. We've chosen to cosleep with him in our room, and with all of the transitions that happened in his early months we also chose not to move forward with sleep training, cry it out, and didn't even really attempt to do much night-weaning. So I tried my best to refrain from bitching about sleep since I figured that once we put some effort into changing his habits we could get things squared away. HA.
We bought the 'No Cry Sleep Solution' book and started in on some of the suggested solutions. We couldn't even stick with it as long as it said you should, because before we got to the 2nd set of sleep logs Oscar started waking up more and more frequently until a couple of nights ago when he woke up when we came to bed, and then didn't to go sleep until, oh, about 5am. We abandoned the various sleep techniques in favor of 'whatever works' so that we can semi-function during the day until we can have a chat with his pediatrician to rule out medical issues (such as food allergies, reflux, etc.). This type of non-sleep has continued the past two nights. Our ped appt. is Friday afternoon. Wish us luck...
1. I started work this week. (I mentioned a bit about my new position in this post.) I'm a little stressed out since this involves a whole new skill set within the online marketing world, and it's been a while since I've felt like a fish out of water. It's additionally stressful figuring out how to effectively and efficiently work from home without a dedicated workspace, and with an infant around 2 days/wk.
2. Oscar started daycare this week. Even though we've done the daycare thing before, starting up again after being home together for a month is a little difficult...
3. Joey got to go on a fancy dinner date on Mon. with a visitor/speaker at IUPUI (who happens to be a dude, so I wasn't too jealous)
4. We're doing our first round of house visits tonight--I'm super psyched since looking at houses may be one of my most favorite things ever. I'll have to update about how the house search is going later.
5. Lots of Lucy appts: daycamp, vet, grooming
6. There's also the matter of Oscar's twice-weekly swim classes, which we've decided to skip this week in order to give everyone a break due to what I can only refer to as...
SLEEPOCALYPSE. As in, the end of sleep as we know it. Now, many folks already know that our little man has never been the best of sleepers. We've chosen to cosleep with him in our room, and with all of the transitions that happened in his early months we also chose not to move forward with sleep training, cry it out, and didn't even really attempt to do much night-weaning. So I tried my best to refrain from bitching about sleep since I figured that once we put some effort into changing his habits we could get things squared away. HA.
We bought the 'No Cry Sleep Solution' book and started in on some of the suggested solutions. We couldn't even stick with it as long as it said you should, because before we got to the 2nd set of sleep logs Oscar started waking up more and more frequently until a couple of nights ago when he woke up when we came to bed, and then didn't to go sleep until, oh, about 5am. We abandoned the various sleep techniques in favor of 'whatever works' so that we can semi-function during the day until we can have a chat with his pediatrician to rule out medical issues (such as food allergies, reflux, etc.). This type of non-sleep has continued the past two nights. Our ped appt. is Friday afternoon. Wish us luck...
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