Firsts and '14

I last wrote to you one month ago – oops! I’ve had lots of ideas brewing since then, but I’m sure it has been a busy month for you too. Gavin turned 3 months then and, yes, you can do the math, he is 4 months today! We have had a lot of “firsts” in this last month alone, and many, many since September. As we turn the page into the new year, I thought I’d pick a few of my favorites to share with you. May your 2014 be full of equally funny memories!

• first birthday as a parent: To me, this was obviously an opportunity to receive another gift. I figured Gavin for sure wanted to celebrate Mommy’s birthday in a big way! So, when I asked the husband what Gavin got me, he replied (dumbfounded): “Oh, that’s a thing?” Yes, that would be a “thing.” Of course the child buys the mom a gift, and of course when he is 3 months old he needs his dad’s help! Fortunately, Gavin busted open his piggy bank and got dear dad to take him to the mall. It took him about a week (I guess he was figuring out what he wanted to get me), but he did deliver a very sweet and thoughtful gift, wrapped and all! I’m sure next year he will do more advanced planning.

• first Christmas as a parent: We were really excited about this one. We wanted to make all these traditions with Gavin – Christmas jammies (favorite baby pajamas for year-round are Hanna Andersson - check out their sale here), a Christmas book, a special “first” gift (click here to see what Santa brought - he shops at Pottery Barn Kids!), handprint ornaments, the works! I know everyone says the first Christmas doesn’t really matter, but it mattered to me, and I was going to make it great. I give myself an A+ for planning all of the above, but the execution was a bit rough. After I threw up my Christmas dinner, I proceeded to throw up a few more times throughout the night. There was no special storytime or sipping yummy wine while watching the Christmas tree twinkle (ok that second one is a mommy and daddy tradition, obviously no wine for baby). The worst part of all is that I am literally the WORST at puking. I do it about once every 5 years on average and so my experience is limited. I keep my eyes closed and I cry. This makes for poor aim and a lot of emotion. I won’t go into any more detail, but not even keeping your eyes closed can protect you from asparagus between your toes. The perk of the whole day was that Gavin – like mother, like son – LOVED opening his presents, well he loved watching me open his presents. I have to admit, getting to open twice the gifts was pretty sweet for me. I can’t help it! I love prezzies. Another perk was that he remembered to get me a Christmas gift – I think he felt bad about forgetting my birthday, so he really made up for it and got me a night at Salish Lodge. What a doll!

• first time baby rolled over: This was another one I was waiting for. All Gavin’s facebook friends have been doing it, so this mama’s competitive gene was brewing tough… (sad but totally true). He flopped over a few times but totally accidentally, so I didn’t really count those. He doesn’t really seem to have any interest in this trick, which shocked me because 1) like stated above, we are a very competitive family (well at least him and I are… husband also doesn’t seem to care about this trick) and 2) he is always twisting and turning to see what’s going on, so I thought he would just do that with his whole body and roll over. Not so much. I realized that he is really twisting and turning so he can see the tv, an ipad, computer or phone. Have screen – he will follow! (I need to figure out how to use that as a training technique!) Then one night, he got really angry in his crib and BOOM! Flipped over like a fish! I couldn’t believe it. I was so shocked, in fact, that my precarious balance of the baby monitor (need one? i recommend this Motorola or this one is its sister and great too) and the soup-bowl sized mug of hot chocolate became… unbalanced. All of the sudden, the monitor was submerged in the cocoa. Gavin was flipped over upstairs, the monitor was taking a bath in the hot chocolate, and I was screaming. Fortunately the husband came to his senses quickly and removed the monitor (we left the flipped fish for a few minutes while we problem solved this pricey piece of technology). To say the least, all 3 of us had a terrible night’s sleep! The monitor had to sleep in rice, so I was a puddle of worries until (smarty pants) husband set up his phone with some (smarty pants) app so I could watch Gavin sleep from my phone. While this sounds cool and high tech, it kept breaking and had no sound capabilities, so my little ears were straining all night. Rough. I don’t even want to know what people did before monitors, iphones and Ziploc bags full of rice to fix all of the above. The worst part is, I don’t even really like hot chocolate! I was drinking it because I didn’t have any wine open and felt like a lush opening a bottle for myself. You know the feeling – everyone gets it (sometimes). So I thought to myself, “Have some hot cocoa. It’s winter and you have a fabulous mug to put it in.” I also had a delicious salted caramel hot chocolate mix – which I do like. Well I did, until we got in that fight. The moral of the story is I never would have balanced my wine with the monitor (not even the cheerleader in me can tackle such a feat), so therefore, back to the vino for the night cap.

• first time baby laughed: he had mastered the squeals, but we kept trying to get a real laugh out of him. The husband (he thinks he’s funnier, so this just added to that silly lie he tells himself) finally got him to do it! Even though he was the first one to make it happen (and clearly my competitive issues were all fired up), it was a very sweet moment. The best part is Gavin’s laugh is a low chuckle and he is very stingy with it… we probably work for at LEAST an hour a day to get just a snippet of his giggle. Hopefully, he will feel more generous soon.

•  first time got pooped on by a bird: this is just in general – this had NEVER happened to me – Praise God – but when Gavin was just a few weeks old, it did! We were on one of our delightful fall walks when we literally got SHOWERED in bird poop. Fortunately, the faithful Bugaboo was there to protect Gavin. Had he not been snuggled in that Cadillac of a stroller with the basinet “hood” up, he would been attacked by bird poop in the face! Gross! Also fortunate was that my favorite color is black and therefore the black stroller came clean and hid any remnants. WHEW. The bird totally aimed for him and missed me, but he did manage to hit my pregnant friend on her coat. I felt that was especially rude, since she is pregnant and the scent of bird feces is just extremely obnoxious, especially in the first trimester. But we all survived.

I sure hope 2014 is treating you well so far. It’s going to be hard to beat last year… having a baby kinda tops my charts for favorite year award. But as this little person grows and grows, it really does just keep getting better, so I predict that we have a lot to look forward to… and I look forward to sharing it with you! Xoxo and happy, happy New Year!

practicing his horseback riding skills

awkward christmas eve pj selfie!

checking out his new toys - see - not interested in rolling

Mommyhood... so far...

Fashionistas! I am thrilled to introduce you to my new mini (male) fashion plate… Gavin Patrick! The punctual little man arrived on his due date (9-11-13) – the very best day the husband and I have ever had - and has been entertaining us ever since. We love everything about him, and of course, I especially love dressing the little peanut. Styling the tiniest of outfits is a daily joy! Just as we do, babies can really dress for occasions. Also, as we do, they may wear multiple outfits in a day.

Actually, I don’t know why people say that babies don’t need that many clothes. I heard over and over “Oh, he’ll never wear that” and “They really don’t need that much when they are little.” This is a lie. Don’t listen! And I’m not just saying that because I love changing his clothes and making new looks; he’s like a real doll! (Selecting the outfits for his newborn photo shoot brought me back to my glory days of personal styling at Nordstrom - this was just for a very tiny customer! Note the teensy white collared shirt below... can't even stand it) I’m telling you the truth, because unless you want to do six loads of laundry per day, your baby needs a lot of clothes. I don’t have time to be the maid and the mommy, so I would rather the babe has a complete wardrobe than spend my very limited free time (drinking champagne) in the laundry room.

Though he is just a month old, we have had several important outings. Most, obviously, are retail destinations. They are warm, dry, flat, lovely places to walk that have great eye candy as well. We have frequented Nordstrom (multiple locations), Target and other favorites. I loved shopping before, but I have to admit, it is a whole new high to shop with a fabulous stroller and a darling baby inside. Plus, there is great storage for your purchases!

However, the stroller situation does add an extra challenge to the regular shopping trip, and even an experienced shopper like me has a steep learning curve with this apparatus. This is no new handbag that one can easily toss your wallet in and move on – it is a whole endeavor with pieces, parts, clicks and manual labor!

My first time out with the Bugaboo (details featured here – it really is a great stroller), I patted myself on the back after I unloaded it from the back of the Prius, assembled the 2 parts together, and loaded in the baby. We rolled into Nordstrom where we enjoyed a luxurious afternoon – I had been away for 2 weeks and it felt oh so good to be back. I should have known the whole thing was too good to be true. Back to the parking lot, and all hell broke loose. As the wind nearly blew me over, I could not get the top part off the stroller base. After a frantic call to the husband where he basically told me to push the button in (genius, I know), the stroller was back in 2 pieces. Success! Again, I spoke to soon. Now, I cannot get the base to fold down. I call the husband again, and this time he says “I don’t really know how to explain it.” NOT the right answer. So, I threw the whole thing standing straight up in the car and raced home, instructing him to meet me in the driveway for a serious tutorial.

Two weeks later, I am capable of locking and loading the stroller. This is still not a smooth process, but at least I can see out my rearview mirror because the thing folds down. Anyways, I asked the husband (see the rare sighting of him above in our first formal family photo - he looks so sweet but wait 'til you see what he does next) to please put the stroller in the car for me one morning. While I appreciated him completing this task, I did not appreciate when he came back inside and sheepishly said, “Um, I can fix it for you later, but I think that maybe when you went on your walk yesterday you might have rolled the stroller through some dog poop” (all while avoiding eye contact). “What!” I shrieked. “You think I’m suppose to go meet my girlfriends at Nordstrom for lunch with dog poop all over the wheel?” Not to worry – he assured me that it was dry. And he would hose it off. Later. As in like the next day. Unacceptable! I let him know I would take care of it myself. And I think I added in one of those sweet phrases like, “since I have to do everything around here.” You know, one of those signature ones that really reflects what a nice person I am. 

As I prepared for this disgusting duty, I remembered that I don’t know how to use the hose. I know this because this summer I drenched my pregnant self while attempting to water the husband’s pepper garden (which never actually yielded a pepper I got to taste, so clearly that was time well spent of mine). So, knowing that I don’t have the time or patience to learn to use the hose properly, I decided to use something I’m more familiar with – bottled water. I took a bottle of water out to the car, opened the trunk and gingerly set the aforementioned poop wheel out the edge of the back. Then, I proceeded to dump a whole bottle of water on it. Realizing I needed a little more “umph,” I grabbed a wad of paper towels and another bottle of water. It was nearly clean, except for some remnants in the grooves. Not wanting to leave the job incomplete, I resourcefully located a twig in the yard and finished the job. And, I still had half of the second water bottle. Not too shabby! Another opportunity for this new mommy to pat herself on the back.

These are the adventures in mommyhood so far… I really do like the stroller (how cute does it look here? this was from our dog-poop-free walk today in the fabulous fall weather), but I do recommend that people practice before going out in public. Luckily, Gavin just enjoys the ride (in his cute outfits), and doesn’t notice the obstacles his mother endures. But, as us fashionistas know, it pains to be beautiful. And in this case, this beast of a stroller can just be a pain. But, this sweet face in this sweet set of wheels is worth it! Happy strolling, fashionistas.