We are hitting the road tomorrow to take Oliver on his first road trip, as we head down to Springfield, Mo., to visit my parents. We’re taking our crazy dog, too. Should be fun.
I hope Oliver sleeps well down there. He’s been going better lately. Two nights ago, he slept from 9:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. — a new record! Last night, he went to bed around 9:45 p.m. and got up around 4 a.m. Of course, when he woke up, it was with a vengeance. I’m tired as heck today. But oh well. We attribute this new success to the Miracle Blanket, which arrived the day our success started. It’s basically a “baby straight-jacket.” It keeps his arms from moving around, which is great because he tends to get frustrated when his hands get near his mouth.
I like having a “9-to-5” baby. Now if we can just get him to sleep two more hours …
Oh yeah, and in regards to work. We had a retreat today and I made it my goal to join in the conversation as much as possible. It was invigorating. Of course, there was one point where our guest speaker took us off topic and got into some really confusing business-speak crud, and I spaced out. I leaned over to mention something to a co-worker and the speaker asked me if I had something to share.
It felt somewhat like high school. Only this time I was too tired to make something up, so I said, “To be honest, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. You started using a bunch of business language that I didn’t find interesting and I stopped paying attention about 10 minutes ago.” A few people laughed and the speaker went off on another tangent (something about how she usually doesn’t talk to “young” employees but instead CEO types — whatever!). Anyway, my boss came over later and thanked me for making the comment. About a half-dozen co-workers said the same thing. Funny how just being honest all the time pays off so frequently.
Category Archives: oliver
The Mother’s Day we never saw coming
Today was the Mother’s Day we never saw coming. A year ago, this day was not great. Instead of being excited about what the next year would bring, Sarah and I were despondent. We were desperately wanting to have a baby, and we were near the breaking point.
May 2007 turned out to be a busy month. We had a trip planned for Memorial Day weekend for my sister’s wedding in Minnesota. We went, we partied hard (OK, I did — or at least I was told that I did), and we came back refreshed. More importantly, we came back relaxed. And magically, within two months, we had achieved our goal: Sarah was pregnant.
So this year, instead of being jealous and angry watching 17-year-old girls dragging their fatherless babies and their babies’ 34-year-old grandmothers around Target, we are celebrating.
We are celebrating life. We are celebrating Oliver. And we are celebrating Sarah’s motherhood.
Sarah is the sweetest mother one could ask for. If Oliver could talk, I’m sure he would have spent the day telling her how much he loves his momma. Below are a couple pictures taken today of Sarah and her chubby bundle of miraculous life. Enjoy:
Oliver busts a move
I haven’t posted much lately. And this blog has been sorely lacking in the “fun” department of late. To mix it up, I put together a brief but goofy video of my son “busting a move” this past weekend. I’m a huge dork and it’s terrible editing, but hopefully a few of you all will like it. Enjoy (or not):
Six magical hours
On Saturday, Oliver slept for four-and-a-half hours. Unfortunately, it was during the late afternoon. He had a rough night, sleeping-wise.
So we thought, “There’s potential now for longer periods of sleep,” but we didn’t get our hopes up. So last night we put the boy down at 11:30 p.m. Amazingly, he slept until 5:30 a.m. I’m in total shock right now. That’s six hours of sleep. And when he woke up, it wasn’t by choice. Sarah woke him up to feed.
What a great night. Hope it’s a sign of things to come.
So that Grant’s Farm trip on Sunday …
Now that Oliver and Sarah are both sleeping at the same time, I am sneaking some Internet time on the laptop. Thought I’d write a little more about Sunday’s trip to Grant’s Farm. It was for my work picnic. We bundled Oliver up in a little onesy that has a tie sewn on it, and we topped his outfit off with his first pair of blue jeans. It was pretty cute.
So anyway, we were running late as usual. I actually thought I had made up for lost time with my driving, but had forgotten about the LONG tram ride. We had to take it all the way to the back area of the park where our picnic was being held. Needless to say, we missed the special tour our company had arranged. Instead, we indulged in some brats and hamburgers. Then we walked around and did all the regular “Grant’s Farm stuff” that you do there. You know, feeding animals, reading about animals and looking at animals, as well as smelling poo, looking out for poo and trying not to step in a pile of poo.
After a few hours, Oliver was getting fussy so we headed home. He was a hit at the party, but I’m pretty sure he’ll enjoy his next trip to the park — when he’s older and all that. Anyway, I’m trying out a new photo service tonight. If it works, there should be a few pictures below. Enjoy!
Oliver all dressed up:
Sarah feeding her new friend:
Me feeding my new friend:
By this time, even the kangaroos were getting tired:
And so Oliver and Sarah posed for the obligatory “You-can-tell-I’m-at-Grant’s-Farm-because-of-the-sign-behind-us” photo shortly before leaving the park:
Where has Justin been lately?
I haven’t written a blog post in several days. And I don’t even feel like doing this now. However, I’m caving to the pressure of loyal readers such as Jennifer Hatton’s mom (just kidding; I’m really happy to have you here!).
So where have I been? I’ve been super busy of late. I’ve had about four or five blog ideas in the past week, and I’ve had pictures as well. I just haven’t had time to write anything.
A few days ago, for example, we had Oliver’s great-grandpa Gil’s 90th birthday party. We had a blast, just talking and hanging out. We even played Wii together. Gil loves to play bowling, and he’s pretty good at it.
Then on Saturday we went on a massive, and long overdue, shopping trip. On Sunday, we took Oliver to Grant’s Farm for my work picnic. It was a little chilly and made for a long day, though we had fun. When I got home, I needed to grade papers for the courses I’m teaching in my spare (“spare”? How funny is that?) time. However, our thermostat wasn’t kicking on and it was getting cold in the house. As Sarah prepared for the thought of taking Oliver to spend the night at her mom’s house, I went downstairs and worked on the unit. Thankfully, I know how to read the HVAC Morse code-like blinking light. Turned out it was just a burnt fuse that needed to be replaced, so I took the thing apart, found the culprit and head to Home Depot. Of course, HD didn’t have the damn thing, so I had to head across town to AutoZone. Got the part, came home and the unit worked fine. I then graded papers until bed time.
Yesterday was a complete blur. To give you a better understanding of how my day went, I thought I’d break it down by time. Here you go:
6:30 a.m. – Wake up for work
7:20 a.m. – Leave for the office
8 a.m. – Arrive at the office (BTW, this long commute that I’ve been doing over the past three years is ABSOLUTELY KILLING ME – it’s taken years off my life and I wish we could afford to live in certain areas of St. Louis County that are, quite frankly, out of our price range at this point in life)
Noon – Eat lunch
12:30 p.m. – Back to work
5 p.m. – Leave work
5:45 p.m. – Arrive home (again, the long commute was a blast)
5:50 p.m. – Help calm Oliver, help with dinner, clean up the kitchen
6:45 p.m. – Eat dinner and clean up afterward
7:15 p.m. – Head upstairs to grade papers
10 p.m. – After finishing grading, head downstairs and am given Oliver and told by the wife, “I’m going to bed. I’ve had him all day and I’m tired.” I’m like, “I have also had a long day.” The wife shrugs it off.
11:30 p.m. – Awake from awkward and light sleep, startled and ready for bed. Let the dog out and head upstairs, where Oliver wakes up and starts feeding. Of course, the lights are on the entire time, and he’s grunting and snorting. This is causing our dog, Molly, to bark from her crate downstairs.
12:30 a.m. – Oliver finally goes to sleep. I’m wide awake due to the commotion that took place over the past hour. Plus, the darn lights. I don’t know how I could have physically gone back to sleep. Google the words “sleep,” “light” and “melatonin” and see what that cocktail of items does to your sleep cycle. Do it now. This page isn’t going anywhere. We can wait for you to come back.
1:30 a.m. – Oliver is awake again, snorting and ready to eat (again! just an hour later!!!)
2 a.m. – Fed up with laying there and thinking about my alarm going off in a few hours, I head to the guest room. I lay there for an hour, listening to Oliver cry and snort, and getting angry at our dog, who is now barking rhythmically every 1 minute or so
2:45 a.m. – Finally fall asleep for good.
6:20 a.m. – Wake up for work.
7 a.m. – Start this blog post
7:20 a.m. – Head out to my car to start the whole cycle over again.
What a day, and what a frickin’ week. Hopefully things will slow down soon, though I have 25 more papers to edit this week, plus there are about 80 more due this coming Saturday. Sorry to rant so much in this post, but it makes me feel better. Plus, I know that there are a lot of new moms who read this blog, so maybe (just maybe) a lucky husband out there might catch a break by someone who finds some sympathy for me.
Oliver finally showing his “fun” side
Oliver is finally showing his “fun” side. He’s smiling a little bit, and he kicks his legs when he’s really happy. I shot a short video of him kicking his legs while sitting in his bouncer earlier tonight. Enjoy:
Oliver and his first lady-friend
Oliver met his first lady-friend yesterday. You may recall that my good friend Mike and his wife had a daughter about two and half weeks before we had our son. Mary Kate and Oliver are now about the same size, though Mary acts much more mature, plus she smiles a lot (Oliver is just starting to smile, though I haven’t been able to capture one on film).
It was cool seeing the two of them together, but they’re babies, so they didn’t really interact. It will be even cooler to see how their friendship evolves over the years. Oliver should be a certified ladies man by the time he’s a teenager — all of my friends who are pregnant are having girls, and all the ones who had babies during the past year had girls (except Jen and her son Drew). Here’s a picture of cute little Mary Kate, followed by the babies with their moms and another that looks like the two are singing in unison (in that picture, Mary Kate was crying and Oliver was yawning). Enjoy:
Symphony in Motion almost maims our “Tiny Love”
I received a panicky voice mail from my wife today. I had just gotten out of a meeting and was ready to head to lunch when I checked my phone. Sarah’s voice was trembling and all she said was, “Justin. It’s Sarah. Please call me. Bye.” Needless to say, I was nervous.
Turns out my instinct was correct. You see, Sarah was trying to calm Oliver this morning in his crib. She had his mobile going. It’s the Symphony in Motion model by the company Tiny Love. This model wasn’t our first choice, but we didn’t have many options due to the sleigh-style crib we purchased (with the help of our mothers, I might add). The attachments on most of the popular mobile models wouldn’t fit over the wood slats on our crib. So we checked around, read reviews and settled on the Symphony in Motion model.
So back to today … Sarah had Oliver in the crib and was going about her business. She heard a cry coming from the baby room, so she went to check on Oliver. He was fine and the mobile was still going strong. Then, she heard a loud “CRACK,” and the mobile came crashing down right on top of Oliver. It smashed into his face, and he let out a shriek like she had never heard before. She also said that Oliver’s face turned a bright red.
Yes, the strap on our well-reviewed Symphony in Motion mobile snapped and the darn thing came crashing down. Unbelievable. Luckily, the part that hit his face was fairly soft and not one of the hard plastic parts. It could have seriously damaged his developing brain or wounded his poor, defenseless face. Needless to say DO NOT buy this product. It is not safe.
What should I do about it? I feel like we deserve some sort of justice for this near-tragic incident. It sickens me that something like this could happen to a baby, especially ours. Let me know what you think. And for evidence, below are a few pictures that I took when I got home from work.
Here’s the mobile in the position I found it in:
Here’s a close-up picture of the broken strap:
And here’s a picture taken after I took the thing down; it’s of the broken strap and the parts that were supposed to be holding this together:
Oliver rocks out (cold) to 87.5 FM
For those of you who know me well or have been reading this blog regularly, you are quite aware that Oliver has been pretty fussy of late. We’ve tried everything (you name it, we’ve tried it). About a week ago, we watched a video called “The Happiest Baby on the Block.” While not all of the techniques work all of the time, one of the best is using white noise to calm him down.
I’ve now found that the best way to keep Oliver quiet is to lay him on the ground in front of our TV. I then place a speaker next to him and tune the radio in to 87.5 FM. For those of you not in the St. Louis area, that station does not exist. It’s all static — and Oliver LOVES it!
He doesn’t always sleep when the radio is tuned to his new favorite station, but he stays pretty quiet, just looking around and cooing every once in a while. We’re having a good time now. I’m watching the Cardinals game without sounds (Pujols just hit a three-run HR … hold on … OK, I’m back) and he’s being a good little boy.
Below is a picture of Oliver rocking out (cold) to 87.5 FM. Notice the “rock fist” he’s making? Maybe I’ll have a little buddy to go to some concerts with me in a few years. That’d be cool. Enjoy:
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