Sunday, March 18, 2012

Who's the Boss?

It is becoming more and more clear everyday that Roman is trying to be the boss. He is now trying to train Dan and me so he can get what he wants and when he wants it.Recently we have noticed that if he wants something and cannot reach it or we will not let him have it he begins to cry. Loud, angry cries with or without tears. I have to admit I am not always sure how to handle each situation. Sometimes I know that he is just crying because what he wants he cannot have and it makes him mad. He cries for cell phones, remotes, movies, pretty much anything he is not allowed to play with he cries until someone will give in and let him have what he wants. Even little things like the top to his baby food containers. Mama Mia!
Yesterday he wanted to play with the DVDs that were on the bottom shelf of the console table. I would not let him play with the movies and instead was trying to get him to notice his toys in the other direction and distract him from his goal. The goal being our DVDs and how to get them, put them in his mouth and slam them on the ground. I am not a fan of this goal and begin to play man to man coverage wtih Roman to get him away. Of Course he cries and cries like I have just pinched him. I know, mean mommy.
Later in the afternoon I needed to run two quick errands so Dan had to watch the little man. I was gone about an hour and when I get home and ask how everything went while I was away. Dan infoms me that Roman kept going after the movies and wanted to play with them. I say, "Ya, I know. He was doing it earlier and he was not happy when I wouldn't let him play with the DVDs." I get a different story from daddy. He tells me that he let Roman have the movies and that he was playing will them all and was slamming them on the ground and having a good time. Ummm, ya...so I guess our roles have been defined already. I am going to be the bad cop, Dan will be good cop and Roman is the Boss.

Roman is the Boss, or he would like to believe that he is...for now.

Monday, March 12, 2012

9 Months Old Today

Today Roman is 9 months old. We went to the pediatrician for his 9-month wellness check up and our little peanut is getting so big! He was 18.8 pounds and 28 inches long. Roman is a long and lean baby machine. Our doctor said that he looks great and we are doing an amazing job as parents. Yay for us!

The last nine months have gone by so quickly. It seems like only yesterday we were bringing our little bundle of joy home from the hospital. Fast forward to the present day and today at our doctor's appointment we were talking about baby proofing the house because Roman is getting ready to be fully on the move! I can't beleive that we are having the baby proofing conversation, so exciting! Roman is scooting backwards and turing in circles. He is also trying to pull himself up! I thought that babies were suppose to crawl before they walked. I guess Roman is going to crawl and walk all at the same time. Although, I do think he will be crawling in the next week or two. He is so super close to crawling that we definitly thought it was going to happen tonight. But, he decided to save that milestone for another day.



The other exciting thing we learned at Roman's doctor check up today was that we get to start trying more foods! I am really excited to go grocery shopping this weekend. I am going to buy all the fun new foods that Roman can safely eat! He is going to love all the foods of the Rainbow. Hopefully he will be adventerous like his mama.


Saturday, March 10, 2012

Does the dog have ringworm?!?

This is a funny story that I just have to tell everyone. New mom's, mom's of older children and everyone else will get a huge laugh when you read how this experience went down.

Roman was 3 weeks old and we were still adjusting to being new parents. After dinner I had placed Roman in this vibrating chair and he was taking his after dinner cat nap. I am not sure what I was doing at the time, but I remember looking over and seeing a red spot on the dog's inner thigh leg area. I thought to myself that is weird. I asked my husband to go over and look at what he thought it was. Maybe it is just a bug bite and I am over reacting. Dan lays the dog down on his side and takes a look and he tell me that he thinks that it is Ringworm. WHAT?!?!? How did the dog get ringworm!

This is where I begin to be a crazy new mommy.

In my head I start to think where the dog has been all day and what he could have possibly touched or licked. I begin to freak out and put him in his room so I can keep him contained. I call the pediatrician's office to try and reach the doctor on call. When I get the answering service it informs me that I will be talking with a nurse and not the doctor and that I might be charged $25 for the call if my insurance does not cover it. I think no nurse and I am going to get charged for this call. No way and I hang up the phone. At the same time Dan is on the phone with his mom telling her what we think is going on and she hangs up to call the vet. She gets in touch with the vet and he tells her to inform us to keep the dog away from the baby and that we need to bring him in on Monday for a check up. She had some anti-fungal medicine from one of the other dogs and let us know that we could use it on Nico. Dan goes up stairs to get dressed and head on over to his parents house. Thank goodness we are only 15 minutes away.

After Dan leaves I call my mother-in-law and for some advice on what to do. At this point I am still in crazy mom mode. She says that I can wipe down all the areas that I think that Nico came in contact with for peace of mind. Well, of course I took it to the extreme.

Roman continues to sleep in his chair so I let the dog out of his crate and I disinfect the inside with bleach.  I then proceed to put him back in his room and I deem him banished from the rest of the house while I begin to sterilize. I get a bucket and fill it with diluted bleach and begin to wipe down everything in sight. I am wiping down the pack n' play, the swing, furniture and gathering up all of the swaddling blankets, clothes every stitch of fabric that could have possibly touched the dog and touched Roman.

Roman is now starting to wake up so I take him upstairs with me and continue may manic cleaning. I am now wiping down the bassinet and trying to figure out how I take it apart so I can wash all the fabric pieces and the tiny sheet. I gather up the rest of the blankets, burp cloths, clothes, swaddling blankets and shove them all into the washer. At this point I am feeling good about the house, but think what about Roman? He needs a bath. I have to wash him off just in case.

Needless to say Roman's first bath time experience was not as pleasant as I would have liked it to be. His first, bath was a frantic mess. I put him in the bath tub and begin to bathe him. He is screaming and crying and letting me know that he is not happy about what I am doing and that I need to stop. I finishing bathing   him and get him ready for bed. At this point Roman is tired and stressed out from my manic bathing and cleaning so I nurse him and put him to bed.

It is now 11:45pm and Dan is getting home with medicine and he is ready to disinfect and clean the "ringworm". He medicates and cleans the affected area. At 12:30 in the morning we crawl into bed and hope to get a little sleep before Roman wakes up for his next feeding.

Monday afternoon Dan takes Nico to the vet to get his spot checked and to hopefully get some medication. After a rapid test it comes back inconclusive and a sample is sent away to the lab to find out what he really has so the vet gives us some anti-fungal medicine to use while we wait. Two days later and $200 vet bill it comes back that it was most likely a bug bite and I of course completely over reacted to the situation. But in all honesty what new mom would not have acted the way! I mean come on, we thought the dog had ringworm!

All in all, lesson learned and if we didn't react the dog probably would have had contracted SARS and we all would have been infected with a deadly disease.

Tough Morning

Yesterday was the first morning Roman cried when I dropped him off at the sitter. It was the worst! In the 6 months that I have been taking him he has never cried in the morning. I have definitely cried.  I was a blubbery mess the first week, probably first 2 weeks that I took him. But yesterday it was his turn.

I was getting ready to head out the door and it was time for Roman to eat breakfast. The sitter came over to put a bib on him and he burst into tears. Ahhhh! So then we decided to but one of the bibs that I had brought from home instead of one of her bibs. Nope, still more tears and crying. She tried to feed him a little while I was holding him and the food was sliding out of his mouth while he continued to cry. Ok, so he is not hungry. What does he want? This is totally out of character for my little man. He is truly the happiest baby.

Roman starts to calm down a little so the sitter takes him over to the mat so he can play with a toy. As soon as she sets him down he starts to cry again. Oh my goodness! She picks him up and hands him back to me. Now she goes over to the closet and brings out some new toys. A little elephant, giraffe, a monkey and some other fun colorful toys. I take off my shoes to walk him back over to the mat to let him play with the new toys. I notice that he is starting to rub his eyes. So now I think, is he still tired? I take him over to the pack n' play that he sleeps in and lay him down. We cover him up with his blanket and BINGO he falls asleep.

After all of the guessing and tears we found out that all he wanted was to go back to sleep. Whew! It is such a guessing game to find out what he wants sometimes. I was happy when I finally knew what he wanted and I could leave for work without worrying.

Fast forward to the end of the day when my husband picks up Roman for the day and gets an update. She told my husband that Roman slept for and hour and a half. She had to wake up him otherwise he would have kept sleeping longer and would have never gone down for a second nap. He played, read, had a couple diaper changes and he was starting to feel better.  After he woke up from his long afternoon nap he was back to his normal happy self. I don't know if he is going through a growth spurt or he just had a very sleepy morning. I guess I will never know for sure :)

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Stubborn Streak

Apparently Roman has a stubbon streak. I have been thinking that this is a trait that totally comes from his dad. However, I find out from a new source, my mom, that I was a stubborn little baby too. This is just something that I cannot believe! Me, stubborn? If you know me well I will let you form your own opinion and keep it to yourself if you agree with my mom, hahaha!

This is something that I have been hearing from our sitter since he starting going to her. She is very adament about putting all of the kiddos on a schedule. Which I have to agree I would do the same thing if I had more than one child. Schedules are even amazing when you have one kid. I love the Roman is on a "schedule".

So this stubborn streak...it has been a fun trait for our wonderul sitter to work with on our boy. In the first couple months she used to battle with him and try to get him on a workable schedule that he could follow everday.Well Roman had other plans and he did not want to conform to any schedule. He would do good for a week or two and then he would decided to change it up on her. I have to say that he would change it up on me every couple weeks too and still does to this day. One weekend he sleeps in to 7:00am or 7:30am and then next he is ready to go at 6:30am! Those Saturday morning are the worst and best.

Now that Roman has started to eat solid foods he cn sit at the little table and eat like a big boy with his little buddy. But against our sitter's wishes he will only eat his breakfast and lunch sitting in his car seat. It has been like this for a couple weeks now and it makes me laugh. How can such a litle guy have such a stong opinion on where he eats and when he sleeps. He definitely has a strong personality already. She now has told my husband and I that when he comes in the morning he eats his breakfast and then plays, naps, read stories in what ever order he choses and then eats lunch and down for the big nap. At least he goes down at noon like his friend. Our sitter hs come to appreciate his little stubborn streak. But in all honesty who could fight a cute baby like Roman :)