Happy New Year!

Here is a brief check-in since Christmas. We went to my folks' for Christmas dinner and had a great time with Tess and Robert, Dave and Gale, Matt and Marilu. There was great food, lots of gifts and good laughs. Dad's light up Rudolph nose was pretty sweet, too! We got a chance to catch up with Tess and Robert again before they left on Friday. Bright seemed to take a real shine to them! I am glad we live on the same coast again. It will be great to see more of them. Then we didn't make it to Aunt Joan's for the big Family Christmas celebration on Saturday- Bright cried and cried and cried for most of the day and I couldn't see bringing him there and having everyone be as miserable as he was so we stayed home. Darn teeth! Good choice in the long run, but we missed some tasty treats! New Year's Eve was a semi-bust but we never do much at all for it. Last year I was uncomfortably pregnant and this year, well, Bright's bedtime is 8:00 and we don't have a sitter yet so not much happened here. we did go downstairs to one of our neighbor's apts. and had a nice snack before putting him down for the night. Andy and I are weeding out some of excess here and are taking things to the second hand shop. Still not able to part with the baby clothes though.

Here are some pictures:This is my Pop with Aunt Tess.

Here's Grampy showing Bright his flashing Rudolph nose.

Tess with Bright at the very end of the night- he's wearing his semi-smile/semi-frantic face here.

Bright with our teeny-tiny table top Christmas trees after all the packages had been opened. Next year- big tree comes back!

A familiar shot- Bright going for the camera strap.

Bright with the sweet plane that cousin Shay got for him. Thanks Shay!

Yes, Bright is in the the cupboard. Andy made him his own cabinet filled with tupperware and juice jugs in the kitchen so he would stay busy playing while we were working and one night he crawled in after cleaning it out.

Merry Christmas- Pass the Nog!

Hoodie from Uncle Justin and Aunt Sara! Thanks guys! He is wearing while practicing his Shakespeare in his picture.

Great gears toy from Grandma and Grandpa Robak in New Mexico. Easy on the ears and lots of fun!

Jacket from Grandma and Grandpa Robak in New Mexico. Comic characters from Andy. Nice pants Andrew!

This is our first Christmas with Bright! What a sweetie! Looking forward to so many more to come.

He must have some sort of sixth sense for knowing when his parents want to take him out and do something special. For times like those, he refuses to go down easy for a nap. Last night he sleep soooo terribly, which means that we all slept bad. Even the cat was having a more classic freakout than normal during the night. So we decided to call it quits to trying to get the little rascal to sleep at 6:30 this morning and went to open presents! Bright was clearly more enthralled with the boxes and paper than many of the things he found inside but we did have some real winners this year- all selected by the Robak men. Uncle Justin and Aunt Sara sent a sweet hoodie from Brooklyn. Thanks a bunch- he is the only infant Brooklyn hipster here in town! Then Grandpa and Grandma Robak sent him a great jacket, shirt and jean combo that fits great- always a challenge these days. And they sent a motorized, musical gears toy that is the first of such noise making toys that actually has very pleasant sounds to it! For that we cannot say Thank You enough!! Then Andy, in true Andy fashion, had picked out some wooden comic book figures of Wolverine, Spiderman, Captain America and the Hulk. They are MegaBlocks sized and great for chomping on. Another fave this year. Soon we will go to Grammy and Grampy's up the road and see Tess and Robert and their two dogs, Dave and Gale, and Matt and Marilu and his dog Margo. Should be fun! Here are some pictures from today. Merry Christmas to you all.

A few more days to go

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks. With all the cookie baking/eating, bread baking/eating, cinnamon bun baking/eating... Lord help us..., I haven't been uploading anything lately, except FAT !!!

There are some things in life that make you smile. This picture of Bright is one of them.

Grammy and Grampy bought this vest for Bright in Oregon when they were visiting Kyle, Pam and Shay. I took several pictures of him in it, but none of them had him smiling...

This Hungry Hippo scooter is a new fave of Bright's. It eats up toys as you roll over them. Why not buy toys that clean up after themselves?

We got some snow last week. It is starting to melt though. There is no joy in trying to cram a 20 lb. babe into a snug snow suit, so for this outing we bundled him in sweaters and wrapped him in a blanket. Sweet hat, huh?

Yes, I do have wet hair. Not smart.

The Bag

Here is a clip of Bright doing what he loves...
This gives me time to get a few things done around the house.

The Scoop

So for the past four nights our little boy has been sleeping soooo much better I can hardly believe it. Starting on Sunday night we were able to put him down in his crib when he was so very tired and he put himself to sleep- without crying. He had been putting me through the ringer that night. I had him in the sling, listening to music, pacing around- our normal routine (a tiring one at that) and he just wasn't having any of it. He was grabbing my hair, my glasses, etc and was really miserable. This went on until way past his normal bedtime. So, having had enough of that I put him in his crib- on his belly (gasp, I know..). He immediately popped up, like always and I put him back down. We did that, he and I, for about 10 minutes until I had had enough. I walked out, shut the door and sat on the couch. Both Andy I listened, expecting him to cry. But he didn't. Not for 10 minutes, not for 15. Andy went to check on him and he was totally knocked out. He slept for 5 hours straight then I fed him and he slept until 8:30am. Wow!

what have we been doing differently? Feeding him has changed. I give him a whole jar of baby food around 4:30. Then a bowl of cereal at 6:00 and nurse him around 7:00. Then he has quieter play time and we put him down at 8:30 instead of trying at 7:30. The only downside is that this makes my day with him even longer. But he is also napping longer too. Today his morning nap was 2 and a half hours long.

We are all breathing a little lighter this week and hoping that this is a trend that will continue. I can't see any teeth coming on the horizon. The 6 that he has now will have to do for a bit. He has his 9 month appointment on Monday. I am expecting that he will be well over 21 pounds. we'll see.

Yesterday, after Bright hurt his hand a bit after sticking it into the VCR, I went to the lumber store and bought some plexiglass and heavy magnets, thinking I had a great plan to keep Bright out of the entertainment center. Andy cut the plexi down to size and glued the magnets to it and the corners of the stand (this is a Target stand, not something great by any means). Bright went over to it and immediately pulled it off. He's a strong guy. Plan #1 failed. Plan #2 was me going to the hardware store and buying super velcro and velcroing a strip all the way across the top of the plexiglass and along the edge of the entertainment center and on the bottom corners. This so far has worked. Lil' Brighty bear is not quite strong enough to rip the velcro since it is so long. All he does now is bang against it like little kids do on the glass of the monkey exhibit at a zoo. So stereo, etc are safe for another day.

In light of all of his recent developments and skills, we have decided to go easy on the Christmas decorations and just put up a table top tree and some other decorations well out of reach. We set up our Playmobile Nativity Scene the other day. We have several Playmobile scenes- they are really great and quite detailed. When we moved we put them all together in one box and now we have the nativity pieces, the haz-mat team and the butcher shop pieces all mixed with each other. As Andy was pulling them out to set up the nativity scene, he said to me- "Is this the Jesus basket, or the meat basket?" Ugh- the religious education for Bright will have to come from me and my mom because as I recall there was no basket in the nativity scene.

Well, that's a long post- time for dinner!

Update

Things have shown an improvement here. I don't want to describe it for fear of jinxing things though. Let's just say we are all getting more sleep. Hooray!

writer's strike

well, it's 1:03am and bright is awake again. i have decided to go on hiatus with this blog until his sleep issues are under control and to take a break from the other blogs i read until after the holidays at least. folks that want to know how he is or we are can get in touch the old fashioned way-by phone.