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...

Happy Halloween!!!

Despite not really having anywhere to go this year, and a kid who's a bit too young to appreciate trick-or-treating, Joey and I dressed Oscar up for the occasion anyways. Meet our little Halloween narwhal. Not sure what a narwhal is? I can assure you that yes, they do exist, and you should check out this Google image search and this informative and educational video. Enjoy and hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday!

the wedding went swimmingly...

As the title suggests, our trip to the north Georgia mountains (the town of Dahlonega, to be exact) went well. While the drive wasn't so fun mainly due to the length--10 hours--once we were there we had a great time. Oscar wowed everyone with his exceptionally sunny disposition, we saw some beautiful mountain landscapes, and our friends Jeremy and Jenny are now husband and wife after a lovely ceremony and reception. My favorite new Oscar nickname following this past weekend? Oscar the Anti-Grouch :) Sadly I don't have any photos to share, mainly because with Joey actually standing up in the wedding my hands were full with our little man most of the evening. You'll just have to take my word about the picturesque backdrop and Oscar's ADORABLE wedding outfit.

I do, however, finally have photos to share from swim class. Oscar's still loving the water, and since Joey came yesterday he was able to get some shots. I'll have to apologize for the quality, though. While Joey takes great pictures, he was a bit far away in the stands and I had to do some cropping in order to ensure that I wasn't posting photos of other people and their babies on the internet. Online photo courtesy...

Enjoy!

thank you, internets

Apparently whining to the internet is much like making a doc's appt: as soon as you do, everything starts to clear up. Joey's feeling much better today, despite the open sores now on his tonsils (gross!). He's healing, the fever's gone, and we're set to head to ATL this weekend. Now that my husband isn't miserable and I'm not worried about him 24/7 things are sooo much better :)

Quickly (since it's almost Oscar's nap time) a few other updates:

- 1st swim class a success! Oscar was absolutely adorable in his way-too-big 12 month clearance swim trunks, enjoyed the water a ton, and we can't wait until the next class. Joey will come next time to take photos so that I can post some.
- I'm super excited for my family to come in the next few weeks: my sister for Halloween weekend, my mom on Nov. 7th, then Joey's brothers come the weekend after that.
- I accepted a job with a small SEM (search engine marketing) firm called EverEffect here in Indy. They don't have an office currently, so I get to work from home meaning that (I hope) I can spend more time with Oscar and get away with just part-time childcare for him.
- We have an appt. with a daycare today, so fingers crossed we like it--if so we'll have everything squared away before leaving town!

there's always a bright side

To balance out the negativity of that last post, here's one of the many beyond-adorable photos of Oscar that I've taken recently. Eat your heart out, Gerber Baby.

the one where i cry a little...

I'll have to apologize ahead of time for all the bitching and whining, but that's kind of where this post is headed. In the past few months, Joey and I have managed to undertake just about all of life's biggest stress-inducing events all at once--Joey got a new job, I left a job, we moved to a new state, and if you go back about 7.5 months we had a baby, too. We managed to survive all of it and end up on the other side intact... Well, now I may have finally discovered the straw that breaks our camel's back: strep throat.

We had a lovely first weekend in Indy, with my parents in town to watch Oscar so that we could go to a football game. It was awesome. But we were also looking forward to our 2nd weekend, just about the only weekend we had in the near future with nothing to do but enjoy our new home together. We had planned some apple picking, maybe a farmer's market or two, and just hanging out. Cue Joey feeling sick early last week. Below is a list detailing what happened next:

- Fever Wed. night
- MinuteClinic visit Thurs: positive rapid strep test and penicillin prescription
- Still not well Friday
- Urgent care visit Saturday: 103.7 degree fever, antibiotic shot, pain/fever killer shot, new antibiotic prescription (Augmentin)
- Still not well Sunday
- Emergency room visit Sunday night when fever was still not manageable: they said to give the antibiotic more time, gave prescription for Tylenol 3 for pain
- Still not well Monday, starting to lose hope :(

So we missed our fun weekend, poor Joey feels totally out of control, and I've been taking care of Oscar, Lucy, and Joey for the past week. I'm exhausted. I'm also worried about my husband, and feeling terribly for him. We've had a hell of a time figuring out how to get to a doctor, because being new here we don't have a PCP yet and everyone seems to be scheduling new patient visits 2-3 months out. I finally got him in to an office (chosen only for the availability of immediate care) this afternoon.

Let's also talk about the fact that Joey's supposed to stand up in one of his best friends' weddings in Atlanta this weekend. That friend has chosen an emergency backup just in case, but we're still crossing our fingers that we can magically make him better in time. Wish us luck.

OK, I'm done bitching now. But seriously...could we all just ask Life to please give it a rest and allow me a breather? I could really use some sleep.

ps: One piece of good news...I just accepted a job :) More on that another time, but I'll get to work from home (and it's not a stupid work-from-home scam, either)

flashback...saturday

Sorry, Joey's crazy case of strep caused me to miss flashback Friday, so here it is a little late. FYI: still no fever or signs of strep in Oscar (thankfully), although he may be constipated and decided not to take more than 1 hr (total) of nap yesterday. Awesome. He seems to be on the same trajectory today, thanks to a 30 min. morning nap and some unusual fussiness. At least Joey's fever isn't hitting 101.9 anymore...wish us luck with the rest of the weekend :P