Back from Charlotte

It's good to be back in the saddle again, Followers. Even though I left you with a hefty double-dose on Friday, I'm sure you're all anxious to hear about our expedition to the snowy North. Just kidding, we didn't go that far north. True to my family's name, we packed up the front-wheel drive Nissan tighter than a clown car and headed to Charlotte, NC for a baby shower. And what a trip it was..
We arrived in Charlotte on Saturday afternoon around 1pm to find partly cloudy skies and gas prices that were 15-20 cents higher per gallon than down south. The Koehler's (it's pronounced Kay-ler, not Kohler - "They're not the Toilets" as their blog proudly proclaims) were kind enough to let us bring Alli "I'll melt your heart with my blue eyes" and Scarlett "I have just met you, and I LOVE you!" into their new house all while preparing for their own little one to arrive. Since they didn't find out the gender, they're calling him/her Squishy for now until he/she is born. Momma G "Raaabert!", Papa Rob "It drank perdy good, don't it?" and Wallace "Give me your leftovers or the baby gets it" also let us break in their brand new nursery as they count down the last 35 days until their kiddo arrives. We were even able to get a Chipotle fix in for lunch before the evening's festivities began.
We had a blast at the baby shower that evening. We met all of their friends and got to introduce them to Alli. I felt bad that Little Miss Blue Eyes stole some of Momma G's spotlight when we first arrived - because nothing will make a group of women gush more than an infant next to a pregnant woman. Luckily, Alli was tuckered out from the driving and attention, so we put her to sleep in a back bedroom. She slept for over 2 and a half hours - even with people making noise and music right down the hallway. Basically missed the entire shower. I'm not really complaining, it let Mommy B have some wine and let loose a little bit!
We played a few fun baby shower games throughout the evening - one of which I won due to my ingenuity and sense of humor. All the men had to hold a pillow in one arm (to simulate a baby), talk on a cell phone and see how many clothes we could hang on a clothesline in 3 minutes. Pretty challenging, right? Well being the smart-ass that I am, the second they said "Go!" I tossed the pillow into Alli's carrier and began hanging clothes with two free hands. Yeah, this ain't my first rodeo kids - I'm the one that showed up with a 4-month-old, remember? After a few rounds of this game, you could tell very easily who was a parent and who wasn't. It was quite entertaining to say the least.
After opening their gifts, we packed things up and headed back home to let the dogs out and put Alli to bed for the night. Naturally, it wouldn't have been a real family trip unless Scarlett did something crazy. The second we opened the front door, she bolted between our legs like an escaped convict. Down the driveway and down the street she went, at a full sprint. Serves me right for taking her running all those times as a puppy... Thank God she was more interested in sniffing Wallace's butt than paying the entire neighborhood a visit, and she turned around and came running right back in as fast as she had left. I swear, sometimes she's more work than the child.
Alli got to break in the new crib and Sleep Sheep that Momma G and Papa Rob have ready for Squishy. She slept very well (I think we're on a roll!) for being in a "strange" place. We tried to make her feel at home as much as possible - we brought the blanket she usually sleeps on, the blanket she usually gets covered with and turned on the same noise on the Sleep Sheep. I'm not even sure she knew the difference! I think this may have given Momma G and Papa Rob the false impression that Squishy will sleep so well right off the bat - so we had to remind them that Alli is 4 months old and it took us a while to get to this point. But they're a smart couple and will figure it out.
Sunday rolled around and we headed on home to Chucktown. It rained almost the whole drive back, which was fun for me. The rest of the car is asleep (dog included) and I'm white-knuckling the steering wheel. Awesome. Once we hit Columbia things cleared up and I was pretty excited to get back to the ol' homestead.
We made it home safe and sound and are back into the routine. Mommy B even got a nice present this morning - getting called off of work! So she gets to spend the day home with the Ru - and I get to be jealous. All in all, it was a pretty fun weekend and I'm exited to meet Squishy for the first time. I'm sure we'll be heading back that way soon when he/she decides to make their arrival!

the four (well five, including Squishy!) of us

Gena & Alli Ru dancin in the kitchen!

The Ru & I

Zonked out on the drive home!

Sleeping through the night: Part 2

You're in for a double-dose today, Followers. I wanted to get this story in before the weekend arrived because your favorite scribe will be off road-tripping for the duration. Mommy B and I are packing up the Griswold family truckster and heading to the Queen City of the South - Charlotte, NC. Should be an interesting 3 hour drive with two adults, an infant and a excitable dog. We're meeting up with some loyal Followers who are expecting a little bundle of joy of their own in less than a month and a half. If they've been reading my posts all along, they might be having some last-minute second thoughts about this whole parenting thing... but just like everyone else says, "It's sooo worth it."

Tom Tom, please calculate the fastest route away from Bittertown, thanks. I didn't mean for my last post to sound like I'm a bitter person who is envious of parents who have infants that sleep soundly. Because luckily for me (and Mommy B), we're now one of those lucky parents.

Exactly one week ago today, Mommy B and I decided that it was high time that we let Alli really learn how to self-sooth herself at night. She's been waking up less and less at night anyway, which has been nice. But let's face it, interrupted sleep is interrupted sleep - after once or twice it really doesn't matter how many times you're up after that. So, we decided that last weekend was going to be our cut-off. We agreed that if Alli woke herself up at night, we would let her cry it out and put herself back to sleep. All the books said that by 4 months old, your infant doesn't really need to wake up at night for anything... they are just used to it. So by not going in and picking them up, you let them cry it out just long enough to realize that they are OK and they will go back to sleep.

Truth be told, I was a little skeptical of the idea. Not because I thought it was a dumb idea, but because if my daughter is anything like her father, she's hungry all the time. But, we agreed that as difficult as it was probably going to be, we'd stick to our guns. So Mommy B put in her ear plugs and went to sleep and left me to fend for myself. The first night was a little tough... not because Alli woke up a lot, but because your natural instinct as a parent is to run to your child's aid when they cry. So I bit my lip each time I heard a whimper come from the nursery, and reminded myself that it was all for the best.

And call me a monkey's uncle - but it worked! Each night Alli woke up fewer times and cried less each time. By last night, she slept all the way through from 7:30pm until 6:30am this morning. I actually had to wake her up so I could feed her and get her off to daycare. It felt so strange when I got up this morning (at 5am with Mommy B), I think I've actually forgotten what a full night's sleep feels like.

I'm not popping the champagne just yet, I'm going to wait until it happens on a regular basis before I start celebrating. But I think sleeping for 11 hours straight could constitute "sleeping through the night", yeah? Here's hoping that this is just the first of many more sleepful nights to come. That way I can honestly tell people that Alli sleeps through the night.

Sleeping through the night: Part 1

I'm going to try not to rant as much as possible in This Space, but I feel like it's a good time to discuss a certain topic today. The most common theme that is brought up between current parents and soon-to-be or new parents is sleep. For 10 arduous months all I ever heard was how once Alli was born I'd barely get to sleep again. And the sleep that I did get would be in short spurts. And even if I did sneak in a little sleep, I would feel like I've been up all night the next day anyway. And how Mommy B and I would become such "light sleepers" because the instant we'd hear our baby in distress, we'd fly out of bed to tend to her.

Well it got old. Real quick-a-like. I actually got tired of hearing people talk about how tired I was going to be. The fact that they were right is not the reason for my discussion here, it's the fact that everyone talked about it... like losing sleep wasn't an obvious by-product of bringing a new baby into the world. "Gee Mr. Obvious, I didn't realize that a new baby who is hungry every couple of hours would really have that much of an impact on my sleeping pattern. I just thought they came out walking, talking and sleeping 10 hours straight without bothering me." Telling a soon-to-be parent that they better be prepared to lose sleep is like telling a pregnant woman she better be prepared to gain weight. Really? Thanks for the reminder, jack@$$.

Now that we've survived (and I mean that in every sense of the word) the first couple months of irregular sleep patterns, things are really turning the corner. More on that subject in Part 2. Here's my gripe of the week: parents that rave about how well their child slept from Day 1. "Oh I'm sorry to hear you're not getting much sleep... my kid was sleeping through the night by week 3." "My little pooky slept through the night the day we brought him/her home from the hospital." Guess what Followers? They're bold-faced liars. No baby sleeps that well when they are that young.

Here's my real issue: why lie to me about something like that? Do parents who brag and boast about how well their kid slept as a baby think they are making friends by doing that? NOPE. In fact, they're making me want to call them 3-4 times a night for 2 months straight and see if they change their tune. I'm betting they will... jus-a-lil-bit. And just because you ignore your baby (or can't hear them) and don't pick them up each time they make a noise during the night does not qualify as sleeping through the night.

Furthermore, what really constitutes "sleeping through the night" anyway? How long is "the night"? Some people go to bed at 10 and wake up at 6, some people got to bed at 1 and get up at 5, some people go to bed at 8 and wake up at 8. How long does a baby have to sleep for it to be considered "through the night"? Is it 6 hours or 10 hours? Is it 5 hours or 12 hours?

My advice to any soon-to-be parents or new parents out there - any time you hear another parent yammer on about how their baby "sleeps through the night", ask them for some clarification. I'd bet you'd be surprised by their answer. Plus that way you have some ammunition if you ever hear them complain about being tired.

OK, off my soap box for now. I'll be back on it soon I'm sure. On a lighter note, Alli has been sleeping like a champ lately. Come to think of it, she's been sleeping through the night for a while now... tee hee hee. Part 2 coming soon.

What goes in must come out

Brace yourselves Followers, this could get messy... literally. It's been a long time since Alli had her last real diaper blowout. However, last night she let one loose that will stain my memory (and probably clothes, too) forever.

We just started Alli on rice cereal this week to compliment her already-steady diet of Mommy B's milk, and she's been taking to it like a champ. After her 4-month checkup on Monday, we made our first attempt to spoon feed her some rice cereal mixed in with her usual breastmilk. She definitely recognized the spoon as we brought it towards her, and she looked like a baby bird as we put it in her mouth. Obviously the only "feeding" experience she's had over the last 4 months has been straight from the "tap" or from a bottle, which uses much different muscles than eating from a spoon.

Naturally she kept sticking her tongue out as if she was flicking the bottle, which resulted in plenty of cereal landing on her Denison University bib. But by the end of the "meal" she was definitely getting the hang of things and must have gotten plenty of it down. She slept very well that night - hopefully thanks to her full belly.

Fast forward a couple days and she's been taking loads of rice with her bottle in the morning and at night. I'm not really sure if she even notices it's in there since she eats it so fast, but at least she's getting lots of vitamins with each chug.

Of course, all the extra intake has to go somewhere... and yesterday that happened to be a brand new 3-6 month onesie. Right after I fed her a hefty 4oz bottle, she got her burp in right away and decided that moment was a good time to let 'er rip. To say she filled her diaper is an immense understatement. She overflowed her diaper. Have you ever squeezed a soft banana in your hand? That's kind of what this diaper looked like. The greenish soupy liquid was everywhere. Some down her legs, some up her front, even some halfway up her back. Keep in mind that all of this happened while I was holding her in my arms. Luckily for me she was also wearing a full body zip-up sleeper and it contained the explosion like a fart in a wetsuit. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen/felt/smelled in my life. Needless to say, it was time for an early bath for Miss Alli Ru.

So up to the bathtub we went. We stripped Alli of her onesie as delicately as possible, and I knew that I'd have to bite the bullet and get a little dirty. OK, a lot dirty. Under that diaper she was so coated in the mess that it was beyond wet-wipe repair. And I couldn't put her directly into the tub or we'd be washing her in her own grossness. That's when I decided to hold her by the armpits and drape her under the running water to rinse her off like an apple that was about to be eaten.

I was able to get 98% of it off the munchkin before we proceeded with her typical bath, but I'll never forget watching all that crap go down the drain. I'm not sure if it was solely due to the rice cereal or if she had just been storing it up for a while. I'm just hoping she got some nutrients out of it before it ended up in the Charleston harbor. Either way, it brought me screaming back to reality that life as I knew it will never be the same.

Time for a change...

Many of you know I have worked on the same pediatric unit at MUSC Children's Hospital ever since I graduated from nursing school and moved down here in December of 2006. I've been through the ups and downs, seen the floor go through many changes, even moving to a new unit, and seen many co-workers come and go. It's a 25 bed general med-surg floor, where we take care of just about anything and everything that could happen to 6-18 year olds... from asthma attacks to cystic fibrosis to progeria to broken bones to spinal fusions to pectus repairs to ostomies to trachs to muscular dystrophy... I feel like I've seen so much. However, after four and a half years, I was ready for a change.

Today, I interviewed for, was offered, and accepted the position of a Meduflex RN for MUSC. Basically, I will be a "floating nurse", and will get to work on all the general pediatric floors within the Children's Hospital. So, the infant/toddler unit (which I'll admit, I was never a fan of before I had Alli... but now I LOVE the babies!), the hematology/oncology (cancer) floor, and the cardiac unit. I'm excited for the new experiences, new people, and flexibility this will offer me. The manager of the Meduflex team, who actually happened to be a prior co-worker on 7East, told me I may be able to do newborn nursery, mother/baby, and some other types of units to expand my knowledge and skills as well. I'm so, so excited about this change!!

Cartoon of the Week

This definitely made me laugh... and made me proud of how far we've come. It seems like a distant (but not so distant!) memory of the up-all-night's, the wondering when we'd ever sleep more than 3-4 hrs at a time, the long, tiring days after even longer, exhausting nights... but we've made it! Alli has been on a great streak now for the past few nights of waking up briefly around 3-4 AM, crying just a little, then right back to sleep. She's doing a good 10 hrs a night, then two 2 hr naps and usually an hr nap later in the afternoon as well. We feel like a well-rested baby makes a much happier baby... and MUCH happier parents!

Grilling in February

Top 'o the afternoon to ya, my fellow Followers. I'll have to come up with a catchy nickname for y'all that read this blog... in due time. For now, I'll just refer to the collective group as "Followers" since that's the only option it gives you on the main blog page. Too bad there isn't an option for "life-long, die-hard obsessor of everything Meibers", because I know there are some of you out there. OK, enough narcissism for the day, yeah? Get to the real bloggin', funny man. OK, OK...

During the couple hours between when Alli goes to sleep and when us parentals go to bed is typically when Mommy B does most of her blog writing (and sometimes posting). She asked me last night if I wanted a turn on the ol' keyboard to post something. I pondered the offer for a minute and told her that I didn't really have a funny "Alli update" to talk about. Besides, I don't want to steal all of Mommy B's thunder by writing about the same thing she does.

That's when she presented me with the Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory - she told me that I didn't have to blog about Alli, technically I could write about whatever I wanted. Whatever I wanted?! I guess I never really thought about it like that... but I guess it's true. Who said anything about blogs having rules? I mean come on, who really wants to come here and read about Alli's eat, sleep, poop routine every single day anyway? OK I'm joking again... but let's take the training wheels off this thing and see where it takes us.


As many of you northern Followers are well-aware, yesterday was the last day of February. That means only 6-8 more weeks of cold, gray weather if you live in Ohio. Well, yesterday felt more like May down here. I believe Chucktown reached the low-mid 80's in the afternoon. Poor folks back north are home from work because the snow is now flooding the streets...

Being that I couldn't possibly pass up weather like that, I ducked out of work a little early to cruise around in the Bimmer with the top down. I actually went to get my ears lowered, but you better believe I was rolling topless. God invented convertibles for days like that.

I also couldn't pass up the opportunity to roll out the grill from its "hibernation spot" (a.k.a. the side of the porch) and fire it up. She lit up like a champ and did me proud. So I put a little seasoning on some burgers and tossed them on the flames. Like any football-loving, red-blooded American should do, I had to have a beer while I was grilling. So, I cracked a Diesel to accompany my burgers. That's a Budweiser, to the lame person... (anyone catch my Dumb and Dumber reference?)

There I stood... on my back porch on the last day of February, 80 degrees outside, burgers on the grill, beer in hand, dog digging up moles in my back yard. It was quite a feeling. And yes, Scarlett caught her hundredth mole yesterday. Dug the sucker right up out of the ground and flung it around like a new chew toy.

So to all you Yankees who haven't "figured it out" yet, this Bud's for you. When was the last time you were able to grill outside in February without having to plow the snow off your deck? Or if there wasn't snow, did you only run outside long enough to flip the burgers over and duck back in for fear of frostbite? Come on down and join me next February and I'll show you what I'm talking about... if I'm not out golfing instead.