Feeling a Little Better

I started feeling better on Sunday - I'm not sure if it's because I'm 13 weeks or that I'm taking the B6/half a unisom mix each night, or maybe a combo of both factors. The real indication that things are on the up... I have made dinner three times this week! We had homemade enchiladas, chicken soup, and Cafe Rio pork tacos (though I keep dreaming about the REAL Cafe Rio pork barbacoa burrito... Rachel R - will you bring some home to me when you fly back from UT?? :)

Here are some pictures from the last week or so:

23 days until we move... 23 days til no more dog barking and the stomper upstairs waking up my child. I can't wait! (Though I'm not ready yet either - packing is still low priority for me at the moment)

Haircuts are NOT Easy...

Ben gave Eli a much-needed trim tonight (he looked like he had a comb-over in some parts - his hair was that long). We turned a fun DVD on and Eli was still freaking out everytime Ben came near him with the clippers. Poor little guy.

Every night I check on Eli before I go to bed. I love watching him sleep, but never have the nerve to take a picture since he is such a light sleeper. Tonight I was feeling brave though and snapped a quick one. He sort of flinched from the flash but didn't wake up.

We're having a very hot and muggy week here, so hopefully he's staying cool in this onesie because we don't have the window a/c going tonight (it makes his room freezing and doesn't cool off the rest of the place very well, so we're making do with the ceiling fans).

I love you Eli! Sweet dreams.

5:30 a.m. and Cute Dresses at Target

Up and at 'em at 5:30 a.m. Maybe he'll make it to 6 a.m. over the weekend?
I'm not even going to mention our neighbor in this post. I realize that's getting old (I'm sick of it, that's for sure). But I do want to mention - yesterday I found two cute dresses at Target. I think they were $24.99 each.

Why, you may ask, are you buying two dresses as you complain about needing more time to save for a house?

I'm blaming it on sleep deprivation. I love Target!

I Really Need to Go To Bed Earlier...

Today Eli was up crying at 5 a.m. (it was the dog this time)

We didn't go in for 30 minutes, hoping he would fall back asleep. No luck!



So it's another day of up and down emotions for this little guy. He changes moods in seconds.


But hey, 5 a.m. it better than 4:30 a.m... :)

Another Early Morning - and I'm a Winner!!

My day has been really up and down. It started at 4:30 a.m., when the dog lady upstairs got up for the day. She of course woke up Eli, who started screaming in his crib. He and I were up for about an hour, and then I attempted to put him down to sleep - amazingly, he actually fell back asleep. I on the other hand, was ANGRY. Who on earth wakes up at 4:30 a.m.?? And why were we so lucky to have a neighbor above us who does this??

I was not in a good way this morning, and almost marched up there again, but knew I wouldn't say anything nice so I tried to go back asleep instead, thinking about poor, teething, not-sleeping-well Eli.

(The picture above is from last week. Don't worry, that snot sucker was never used for its actual purpose - he uses it as one of his toys instead.)

Anyway, I did finally fall asleep, and Eli was back up at 7:30 a.m. I took him to playgroup and then we came home and played for a little bit before his next nap. You know what really turned the day around?

I won a blog contest!!

I have entered so many blog contests and never won a thing until today. The blog, Seven Dogs and A Baby, has tons of contests for baby/kids products and it's easy to enter (you just check out the product's web site and leave a comment back on her blog stating your favorite). I won the Picara Mei Tai baby carrier, as shown above - worth $80!. You can hold your baby in the mei tai in the front, back or side. We'll see how it works with Eli! I think it's so funny because I never got around to getting a Beco or Pikkolo baby carrier, that is similar, but not a Mei Tai style. I don't love that you tie the knots yourself, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

On to other happier things - my parents and Gram stopped by yesterday on their way to a great gardening store in Chicago. Here they are playing with Eli:

And below are some pictures of Eli playing this morning. Motrin does amazing things... he was in a much better mood today than he was yesterday. I think his teeth are still hurting him though.

Notice he is chewing on this frog rattle in most of these pictures...

He makes me smile. I'm still debating what I can do about my neighbor situation.
What would you do?? My friend Katie suggested I ask the dog lady if we can have a "conversation" about the early morning hours issue. That way the dog lady could help come up with a solution, especially if I express how hard it is when Eli is waking at these horrible hours. She isn't as unreasonable as the garbage disposal neighbor below us (who I saw outside yesterday morning as I was taking Eli to the doctor - I said hi and she turned her back to me. She is CRAZY).

At 4:45 a.m. I was thinking, we are putting our condo on the market TODAY. Now I'm trying to be more rational :) Next winter isn't that far away, right?

The Earthquake Shook Me Into Action :)

I woke up a few times last night, one of which was during our 5.2 Illinois earthquake! I didn't feel major movement, but the windows were rattling and it woke me up. The epicenter was in the southern part of the state, but people felt the quake across the Midwest - from St. Louis to Cincinnati.

But that isn't the main reason why I'm blogging this morning. Look at this tired face:

Okay, these are sort of out of order. Look at this tired face below:
Here we are, playing once again at a very early hour.
In my sleep-deprived, earthquake-shaken state, I mustered up some courage and grabbed my cute baby. We walked upstairs...
...I knocked on the door of the dog lady and nicely asked her if it would be possible to not walk over his room when she's up really early! The dog barked at us, but his owner was kind and said she would try to remember to not walk that way (we have a very circular layout - the room Eli sleeps in has two doors, one of which connects to the kitchen, so it's convenient to walk through that room to get to the kitchen).

Thanks earthquake! I'm curious to see if Eli sleeps later now that she hopefully won't be walking above him at 5:30 a.m...

Eli the Light Sleeper, Part 2

I am still frustrated with Eli's random sleeping patterns. He is still waking up around 5:45 a.m. every morning. Last night I met some friends for dinner in a suburb north of here, so it took a while to get out there, have dinner, and come back home. I put Eli to bed at 8:30 p.m. (he's normally in bed by 7:30 at the latest) and really hoped he would sleep at least until 6:30 a.m.! But no. He was up at 5:45, crying and fussing, wanting to get out of his crib and eat.

And to backtrack - yesterday morning, he was up early, then took more than a 3-hour morning nap, and then wouldn't take an afternoon nap. He fell asleep on our long drive to the restaurant, but he didn't get the same amount of sleep that he normally would in one day.

This morning, he was down for his morning nap, so I had the regular phones turned off and my cell was on vibrate, sitting next to the t.v. My mom called to ask for directions, and my vibrating cell phone woke Eli up. Even with the sound machine going in his room! He is the LIGHTEST sleeper!

Here we are at 6 a.m. this morning - I had to use my flash because it was still DARK outside.
On a totally different note... I am having Nikon withdrawal! These pictures were taken w/ my compact dig. camera because I am getting my camera cleaned - it still had tiny sand particles in there from our Florida trip...

I'm sad b/c the guy at Ritz initially told me it would only take 2 weeks (they send it out to a lab for cleaning), but then the manager just told me it could be up to 6 weeks!! This is all covered in my warranty, but that's a long time to be without the camera.

*I promise my next post won't be such a downer :)