I miss my baby

I've been on a vacation for a week, and it is the longest I've been away from my Honeybadger since December! I miss him! I can't wait to see what new things he is doing when I get back. 

David is now 16 months and he can...

Say "Peeeaasseee" and sign please.
Say "Moooaaa" and sign more.
Say "Ba Ba" and sign for bottle.
Say "Baaoooo" for book.
Say "reeeeeeeaaa" for ready.
Say "Up."
Say "Hup" for help.
Sign food.
Say "No"
Shake his head no.
Wave his hands "no way."
Hold an iphone to watch youtube videos on it.
He can point to his head.
He can point to his nose.
He can point to his belly.
He can point to his belly button.

 I am obsessed with him.

This morning I took David to see his first movie! The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin lets you bring babies on Tuesday mornings to early morning movies for kids for free! My friend who is nanny was bringing her baby so I decided we would give it a try. I really didn't think we would last longer than 15 minutes. I figured he would want to run around and wouldn't be interested.

BUT he watched the entire movie! We only had to get up once and that was because he took off running...I guess he needed to stretch? We saw How To Train Your Dragon and we ate mac'n'cheese with milkshakes. He was only a little scared in the beginning of the dragons, but by the end he was clapping for the big dragon and laughing.

Good morning. 

I know everyone has been wondering...

Honeybadger puked on me yesterday right as I was putting him in the crib for his nap. He woke up, opened his eye, and spewed all over the arm of the chair and the floor. I just sat there and patted him on the back while he puked all over the wood floor. I was just glad it wasn't on the carpet in his room. 

This is living. 

Honeybadger had a good lunch today! He was actually eating! 

While in Australia, we took a 3 day trip out to Rye, a small beach town outside of Melbourne. We spent three nights at the most beautiful and awesome bed and breakfast. We all (Gma, Gpa, Mom, Dad) took Honeybadger to the beach for his first time. I took David in the water since no one else was willing to get their clothes wet. Of course I'd get my clothes wet if a baby wanted to! He was so happy!

Check out his clothes progression. :-)

I love his face!! 

Look at that face!

So I never had any time to write in this while I was in Australia. Fail, and now I don't really feel like reminiscing. Is that terrible? I'm just tired of talking about it at this point. What you need to know I guess, is that it was Australia, which means it was awesome.

 David was precious, but also a monster. We gave him way too much freedom while we were there at first because we felt bad that he had to be stuck on an airplane for over 17 hours to get to Alice Springs. So when he didn't want to sit at the dinner table we let him leave and play. When we went out to breakfast and he didn't want to sit at the table, we took turns walking him around outside.

 Well, he picked up on that fast. Every time we ate out (which was almost every meal everyday) he would start kicking and screaming at the table until someone took him outside to play. Eating meals became musical chairs because someone was always getting up to take him outside while someone else ate. I began dreading going out to meals because it was such work. David also stopped eating solid foods while in Australia. He would only have formula. What a set back. I don't even know how that happened.

 So now that we are home, I'm going to be working hard to get him table trained and eating food again. I had to go out of town for a week, so I had my first day back with David after 5 days. They told me he wasn't sleeping through the night anymore, hadn't had any solid food in days, and wasn't napping anymore. What???? So I put him back on his old schedule right away today. He ate a little bit of black beans and avocado for breakfast, and then I put him down for his nap at 9:30. He fell asleep right away, but only sleep for 45 minutes (much shorter than it used to be). I fed him lunch (he did eat it), and took him to Gymboree for 2 hours to get him worked out and nice and stimulated. He ate solid food again. Then I brought him home and gave him a second nap. SUPER successful day. I just hope he sleeps through the night!

Playing in the river bed of Alice Springs

Honeybadger don't care that it's wallaby pellets

G'day

Made it to Australia, but never saw Easter.

Sunday never happened for us. Isn't that crazy? We left Los Angeles Saturday night sometime after 10:00pm, and arrived in Sydney, Australia Monday morning.

My flight was really good because Baby Mama, Daddy and baby sat in business class, and I sat in coach. They never brought the baby back to me, so I had the entire flight to myself. It turned out that the flight was really empty, so I got three seats to myself. So as soon as we took off, I put on an eye mask, took three pillows, three blankets, and laid down across my row and went to sleep. I slept from 11:30pm (LA time) - 10:45 am. I woke up, watched Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (terrible) ate breakfast, and then we landed in Sydney.

I got to go into the business class lounge with the family while we waited in Sydney. We got free food and drinks, better bathrooms with showers and all kinds of other fancy stuff. Then we got on a four hour flight to Alice Springs, which is in the middle of nowhere outback Australia. On that flight I sat alone again so I watched Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol.

Now I'm in Alice Springs, in the same house that I was in 10 years ago.

Adios Austin

Did I ever mention on here that they are taking me on a trip? Baby Mama, Honeybadger and I leave tomorrow for Los Angeles (aka Claremont my hometown!). We will stay there until Saturday night before boarding our flight to....

AUSTRALIA.

Yes this is really happening. I just started packing 45 minutes ago. We will be going to Alice Springs (the outback) and then touring around other parts of Australia (I don't know what the exact plans are). Then we will fly back to Los Angeles, and I will say goodbye to them and run off to Georgia for 4 days for my friend's wedding! Woo hoo! This is going to be a crazy month.

I'm sitting at my dinning room table (which is a folding card table) on my dinning room chairs (which are wooden folding lawn chairs) with my roommate discussing how often we need to change a baby's diaper.

This is my life.

Here are some recent pictures of the Honeybadger.

Love him!

re booting

Got my computer back tonight. Now I'm working on putting what I had backed up back onto the computer. It seems I lost every photo since moving to Texas. That is really unfortunate. All the little photo shoots I had with the Honeybadger, his first birthday, Thanksgiving, the Hanson concert...all gone. I do have the few that were uploaded to blogs/facebook. I'll have to see what kind of quality I can get from those though...if they will be any good when printed out for scrapbooking.

Thank goodness for my friend David (not the baby). He has really been helping me fix up this new hard drive. I owe him lots. To make me feel better he sent me The Givers album "In the Light" which I am listening to right now. It rocks. I know I talked about them on here earlier, but ya'll need to go listen to their stuff. I love love love it.

Hard Drive

I haven't been writing as much as I would like to because last week I dropped my laptop. That's right. I dropped it. I don't know what happened. I picked it up, and then it just fell out of my hands. I destroyed my hard drive, which means I lost everything that wasn't backed up. The last time I backed up everything was in Oct or something, so this means I lost all of Honeybadger's first birthday photos, and my trip to the Grand Canyon with my Mom (among other things).

Let this be a lesson to you all. Back up your computers!

SXSW

It was another crazy week. Right after my Mom left town, my friend Joe came in. He stayed Wednesday-Tuesday. I just dropped him off at the airport this morning before work. He had super convenient flights, I was able to pick him and drop him off without missing work!

Austin was super crazy this week. One of the largest music festivals, South by South West was going on. We spent a lot of time downtown this weekend listening to bands and partying it up. St Patricks was a freaking blast. I ran into Taylor Hanson (of the bad Hanson) on the street one night at SXSW while wearing my Hanson tshirt (how freaking sweet) and ran in to Perez Hilton (celebrity blogger) and ran into Atlanta based DJ, La Castlevania in a club. I can't even tell you how much fun I had.

I am listening to this band all day. Joe bought the album last night and we sat on my patio drinking beers, listening to the Givers and enjoying the Texas storm we had last night. We saw this band Saturday afternoon, and they are def my fav to come out of SXSW.



Meanwhile, while I was out partying, Honey Badger was getting sick. He came down with a fever of 102 on Saturday afternoon and threw up all over the house. It is Tuesday afternoon and I am still washing furniture. Now he has this terrible cold again where has green snot running down his face 24/7. I've just been leaving a bib on him so catch it all and using it like one giant tissue. It really is as disgusting as it sounds.

It has been a crazy last two weeks. I haven't had any time to update this because both my mom and sister were in town visiting. The schedule has been completely thrown off with shopping trips, sight seeing and eating out. I just dropped my mom off at the airport, and David is sleeping. I'm getting ready for the house keepers to come later today.

I moved on Saturday from south of downtown Austin, to north. Same distance from where I work though, just a different direction. My new apartment is a huge upgrade. I have my own bathroom and a much bigger bedroom. My mom's friend in Austin gifted me a queen sized bed and box spring, so now I have a grown up bed (I was sleeping on a twin before because my room was so small, and beds so expensive). I'll post pictures of my apartment later this week after I get it more set up tonight.

Oh, and just for the record, David massively vomited in my car last week, while my mom and sister were in the back seat with him. So they got it, he got it, and most importantly, my new car really got it. He is still in a rear facing car seat, so he threw up all over my middle seat, ant then rubbed is feet all over it and smeared it everywhere. We had to pull over at Toys R Us and take everything out. I ended up taking my car to a professional car wash and having the seats shampooed and washed out. Yikes.

Oh and..

Oh and for anyone who reads my blog on the regular and is wondering where this is...

He barfed in my car today. My new car.


Oh, and whenever I say barf, or throw up on this blog. I mean vomit. Not some little baby spit up.

Routine

I've been working on a nap schedule for the Honey Badger since returning from my winter break in January. I've finally nailed it down to a 9am nap, and a 3/3:30pm nap Mon-Fri (the days I work and can control). I feel like maybe I should be pushing him to stay awake until noon, for an after lunch nap like a child in day care would have...but honestly, I like having him asleep twice a day. It gives me time to eat, clean, and watch a little TV while I do it.

When David was a little-little guy we would sit in a rocking chair while feeding him until he fell asleep. It could have taken upwards of 30 minutes! Then we'd try to delicately get him out of our arms and into the crib without waking him. It began taking several attempts to get him into the crib after 8 months. Putting him down for a nap, could take someone an hour if you couldn't get him into the crib. I often ended up falling asleep in the rocking chair and wasting an hour and half of my down time. One of

One of the MAJOR flaws in this earlier plan was the bottle. A baby will sleep longer, if they have a full belly. The problem was, Honey Badger would fall asleep before getting enough milk in his tummy. He'd the wake up after an hour crying for more milk, so you'd have to start the entire routine over again.

Now, I've got a routine that works. I close the shades, dim the lights, turn on his white noise machine, and put a the same song of repeat. This is all to let him know that it is nap time. I then lay the same blanket everyday on the floor and give him the bottle. He lays on the blanket and feeds himself ( I sit quietly in the rocking chair). This way, he doesn't fall asleep before eating as much as he can. When he is full, or exhausted, I'll motion for him to come over to me, and I'll tell him to bring his bottle. He gets up and crawls into my lap, where I usually rock him for 5-10 minutes. If he is asleep, I stick him in the crib. If he is groggy, I stick him in the crib. If he cries, or whines, I let him. He usually falls asleep within minutes.

My favorite part, is that he knows this all know. He gets on the blanket himself when I put it on the floor. AND he comes over to me with his bottle for cuddles and rocking.

I love my job.

Sick Boy

We had a really great Thursday. We had two play dates and ate lunch out. I worked late, so I fed him dinner, bathed him and put him to bed. I went home at 10:00. It was extremely successful.

When I returned Friday morning at 7:30, he had a fever of 101. Apparently it had gone all the way up to 102 after I had left Thursday night. The poor baby. He had a super runny nose, cough and fever all day. It was miserable. He just wanted to be held the ENTIRE day. I spent 90% of Friday sitting in the rocking chair with a burning hot baby boy. It honestly was one of the saddest things I've ever seen.

Nap

Listening to him cry himself to sleep just now for 15 minutes, was painful to say the least.

Failings

Today was a whole bunch of failure.

Ok, so that might be an exaggeration... but it started off with David not eating a good breakfast. Fail. After gymboree I took David to the DMV with me (for the second time since moving here) to try to get a Texas drivers license. After unloading him and all of our stuff from the car, they tell me I need to have my passport. WHAT? No one said that last time. I didn't see that clearly on the website?! They didn't care. I had my CA State ID, my social security card, and everything else they asked for, but it didn't matter. FAIL.

We go home, and he eats a great lunch. Awesome.
At 3pm, I put him down for his nap, only he won't go to sleep. He plays for 30 minutes in the crib, and then starts crying. I let him cry for 15 minutes, then finally go in to give him back his blanket that he had tossed. He starts super crying. His mom was home working, and I didn't want to distract her, so I go in and pick him up and try to rock him to sleep.

Guess what. He barfs all over me, the rocking chair, the floor, and the bookshelf. I stand up, and he does it again, all over the rug.

And honestly guys, it was THE most disgusting barf ever. It smelled like cheese. I'm sorry but it is true. I almost threw up on him. I rushed him to the bathtub, where I got us both in our undies. I put on a pair of Mommy's pants and borrowed a shirt from Daddy. I left David naked. Then, I scrubbed the floor, chair, rug....so smelly.

I come home at 9pm, and have no cat food. Lana is hungry. Fail.

Nap Time

I love when he wakes up from his naps. He is so precious!

23 years old

I am feeling old. How did I get to be 23 years old?

I drove to Houston Saturday morning to spend the weekend with my friend from college and her son. We had dinner at a little Jamaican place and then I drove home Sunday afternoon, stopping at the Outlet Mall to browse.

Monday was the actual Birthday. I took the Honeybadger to his Chinese lesson and then to the Austin Children's Museum to meet our friends. I spend Monday mornings at the museum with another nanny and the two boys she takes care of. I was so surprised to see that Nanny Amy had gotten me a present! Luke gave it to me and he kept saying "Happy Birthday 'Cole, Amy!" It was so cute.


Baby Mama and Baby Daddy took me out for a sushi dinner and we had Grandma babysit David. It was sooo delicious and we drank cold sake that I am now in love with.

I got some really nice gifts from them too! It was so exciting! I got a 6 piece margarita glass set with a pitcher, margarita mix, margarita salt, and Patron tequila. I am excited to try it out tonight!




I am watching the Honeybadger wake up from his nap right now on the baby monitor. He is talking to himself. It is so cute!

Happy Birthday to Me

I've had a really nice birthday. Lots of fun surprises. But for now, I just want everyone else to have this stuck in their head. I am using this to teach David to dance (don't tell his parents because I'm not supposed to let him watch TV!)

More Birthday

Because, you know I don't take enough photos of him.

Last night..

We were having a lovely dinner at the table. We took the tray off the high chair and scooted David up the table so he would feel like he was a part of dinner. He was happily eating a mixture of his own baby food, and food off of Mommy and Daddy's plates when he lost interest after a while. He began spitting out the salmon they would offer him. Mommy and Dad stopped feeding him and continued with their own dinner.

Grandma was not convinced however. She pulled him out of the high chair and sat him on her lap to feed him more. She gave him one spoonful of rice before he started coughing and gagging. I knew what was coming.

Barf. Yup. He threw up all over her plate. I was done eating after that.

Honeybadger's First Birthday Party

Yesterday was David's first birthday party. His birthday is not officially until tomorrow though.
I showed up at their house at 7:30 so that we could keep David on a normal schedule. We wanted him to be awake and happy for this party. Grandma, Grandpa, Mommy,Daddy and Uncle Jack were already setting up for the party, so I took David over to his other Grandma's house so that we would be out of the way, and he could take a nap some place where there would not be a lot of noise. David and I arrived for the party around 11:40, and guests were already arriving.

I would estimate that we had around 45-50 people show up. Everything ran really smoothly (no appliances leaked or exploded, no babies barfed).

Mommy baked and decorated the birthday cake and cupcakes (all organic of course)! The
decorations were all very cute and sweet. It was a circus theme so lots of red, white and blue. Everything came together really nicely. I was super impressed. I had originally worried that it was going to be over the top, but it really wasn't. The details made for really good for photos!)

Almost One

It is almost David's first birthday. Tomorrow (Saturday) is his birthday party. They are having around fifty people over. It is going to be insane. There was so much to still be done when I left the house tonight around at 8:30.

Tonight, we had 4 guests over, and were about to sit down to dinner when, David thew up all over me. I should have expected that honestly. We have had terrible luck this week. He had a HUGE dinner around 5:30 with me, the most I've ever seen him eat. He had an entire packet of food and half a jar of another food. He was drinking a bottle on my lap and laughing with me when he just projectile vomited all over me and the chair. Mommy came over to help. and then he barfed all over and the floor.

This is my life.

Early Birthday

My Birthday isn't until the 20th, but the family I nanny for decided to have a dinner in honor of my Birthday since they all won't be here.

I used to live with the baby's Grandparents when I was an exchange student in Australia. We are all still very close (it is how I got this job) and they wanted to celebrate my birthday with me. When I turned 13 with them, "Grandpa" made me a cherry pie for my birthday and "Grandma" cooked steak and potatoes. Now that I am turned 23, they decided to recreate this feast.

Everything was ready. We all sat down to have this awesome dinner. We had just finished dinner and were getting to cut the pie when the sink started making a weird sound, and then there was terrible smell. Baby Mama starts screaming and we all rush thinking the baby is dead or something. But no, its the washing machine (the one of the clothes) and it is leaking food from the garbage disposal out the bottom. That's right, the sink and the washing machine lines connect eventually when they drain, and had gotten blocked up, forcing everything that had gone down the sink to come out through the pipe in the back of the clothes washer. So we had dirty water with lettuce and well....who knows draining. It was DISGUSTING.

Needless to say, night was pretty much ruined. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the disgusting water out, and how to fix the problem.

Even better, was that we couldn't do any of the many dishes we had created, and the cleaning ladies were coming the next day. AND the baby's birthday party is Saturday. Disaster.

Night Time

Came home from work today and started watching Law and Order SVU Season 12. I. Can't. Stop. Watching.

Felt like a B.A when I recognized Lori Singer in episode 22. Boom roasted.

Some multi media

This video is from last Wednesday. Doesn't he look so grown up in those little overalls? And look at how well he is walking now! He is also really good at telling me what he wants now, just look in this video.


Aaaaaaand here is HB, with my new shoes! We match!

Texas Living

I am almost officially a Texas resident. I finally got the license plates and registration for my new car. I now have a Texas license plate! Who would have ever thought?

Now I really need to go get a Texas drivers license. When will I find the time? Mostly, when will I find the time to have nice hair, clothes and makeup for the photo? I'll have to bring the baby with me, and its hard to look good after hauling him and all his stuff in and out of the car. I always manage to break a sweat, even if it is cold outside. Moving baby stuff around is hard work!

Oh, guess what?! Honeybadger is going to be one so soon! His birthday party is next Saturday, and it is going to be circus themed. I'll be posting lots of photos of that I'm sure.

Not Feelin' It

I'm not feeling like posting right now, but I do want to say that David is the cutest baby ever.

Boom. Roasted.

Play Date

Have you ever wondered what a table at Chick Fil A would look like after a playdate with 3 boys under the age of 5?
Well here it is.

Today we tried something new. We've had this gate since Christmas but haven't used it all. We thought we were going to need it to protect the Christmas tree, but Honeybadger didn't give a shiz. He didn't care a bit about a giant lit up furry tree materializing in his living room. How could we have ever worried about that Honeybadger?

So we have this unused giant thing. Grandma suggested we try it out as a playpen today. David needs to learn this play by himself (he is starting to get very needy with me), and I need to be able to do things while he is awake without looking over my shoulder ever ten seconds.

So we set it up. Baby Mama came home in the afternoon and was very dissatisfied at the sight of her baby in a "cage." David wasn't too happy either. He played for about 10 minutes then wanted his freedom back. Needless to say but the playpen will not be making a second appearance tomorrow.

Just for fun...

I think he is going to be a super star of some kind...involving a ball...or multiple balls?




January 23, 2012

It always rains...

On Tuesdays. Seriously. I should never make plans to leave the house on Tuesdays in Austin, because that is the day it always rains.

Tuesday is the day that the cleaning ladies come to the house. I hate being in the house when they are there. I feel awkward, like we are all watching each other. I worry they think I'm home to supervise them, or rat them out for doing a bad job (I'm not a mind reader, just paranoid). I also feel like they are watching me, and judging my baby sitting skills. I'm always dragging the baby from room to room to stay out of their way, while making sure we don't mess up what they just cleaned.

Today, I made plans. I had planned to meet with a guy about subletting his apartment. I planned it all perfectly. I scheduled the meet for 11, after David's nap so he would be a good little Honeybadger. While he was napping, I made bottles, packed the diaper bag, got the baby carrier and loaded it all into the car so that when he woke up, I would literally put pants on him and leave. I wake him up at 10:40 and start getting him ready, when I hear thunder, which I choose to ignore.

I yell out to Grandma (who is staying in the house for at least week) that we are running an errand and will be back. She comes out and asks me about the weather. I open the front door, and its pouring. POURING. I make a dash for the car with the baby. Jump in the back seat with him and close the door to start strapping him in. I get in the front seat, and start driving. I get 2 blocks away when Grandpa calls and says "I heard you are driving. I don't think you should in this weather. You should turn around and go back." Well I can't argue with that. So back we go.

So we stayed home, and we were stuck in the house (because of the rain) while the cleaning ladies cleaned. Argh.


The biggest bummer wasn't even that I had to cancel the apartment meet, it was that I woke David up from his nap to run this errand that was ruined by the rain. He could have slept for another 45 minutes probably if I had let him!

Walking!

Look who started some major walking this weekend!
January 22, 2012!

Video!

This was our Friday after we got back from Gymboree. My advice to all caregivers: step on the babies.

Gymboree Success

Gymboree was awesome this week. I took David to a class on Friday afternoon and we had a new teacher. She was filling in for someone else, and I loved her. I love the other teacher too, but this one had a different style. She was quieter and calmer. The music she played was calmer, and I think David responded well to that. The last few times we have gone to Gymboree, he has sat on my lap and refused to interact with others. On Friday, he was touching other babies, smiling, babbling, and he even moved around a bit.

There is one activity they do every class where they put a parachute on the ground and put toys in the middle. David usually sits on my lap and refuses to go play. On Friday though, he crawled into the middle and played! I was so happy, I ran and got my camera :-)

Nine Dogs on a Moonlit Night...

Today we officially signed up for unlimited usage of Gymboree Play and Learn classes. We went in to Gymboree for a free class last week , mostly because I wanted to get out of the house with the Honeybadger. He was completely overwhelmed because he had never been around that many babies before! He sat in my lap most of the time watching all the other babies crawl and tumble around the room, while he held tightly onto a ball. After I told his Mom this, we all agreed that being around other babies is something he needs so we enrolled! So at LEAST once a week we will be going in for an age appropriate class, but knowing me, I am probably going to go tons. I mean, it is a room filled with mats to ease all the tumbles and falls the baby will have and filled with toys, I don't have to put away!

I stayed late tonight at the house to have dinner. After dinner I was playing with David and he was crawling away and heading for another room. I was to lazy to get up and go chase him, so I picked up a book and started reading it out loud. He stopped dead in his tracks, turned around and came rushing back. He LOVES books. I pulled him up onto the couch with me and snuggled in next to me. I was reading "Doggies" by Susan Boyton (her books are a God-send) to him and when I got to "Nine Dogs on a moonlit night...AoooOoOoaAOooo" David started howling too. It was amazing! He breaks my heart with how precious he is. Baby Mama made video, so I am just waiting for her to email it to me. It is precious precious precious.

Day Off

So what do I do when I'm not with my little Honeybadger?
Well this picture sums it up. This has been my entire day. I haven't gotten dressed or showered yet and its 5:40pm.

October 2011










So precious

Friends are always asking me what I do everyday in Texas, and I am always talking about baby David, so I figured, why not start a blog about it?

I am 22 (going on 23 in February) and I adore kids. I am the kind of person who makes faces at babies in public and talks to little kids. So it is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am nannying right now. Right guys?

David is 11 months old. He is a tiny little guy, currently weighing around 16 1/2 pounds. He has two teeth right smack in the center of his mouth on the bottom, and one on top trying to pop through. He is cruising up a storm, and starting to take his first steps. So far he can take up to five steps at a time before eating it! He has mastered the art of standing on his own, and now likes to play with his toys while standing up. He loves to say "OH WOW" when he picks up a toy for the first time (which makes my heart melt).

I take pictures of David obsessively, so get ready to be assaulted by tons of photos of a beautiful baby boy.