Q&A Part IV: Water is the New Coffee

How do you get going at the beginning of each day?  

If you've ever been pregnant or breastfed a baby, you know that just about every book out there will tell you that a small amount of caffeine each day will have no effect on your baby.

Apparently they have not met my baby.

Early in his little life, it took me a good week to realize that a series of horrendously pitiful naps had my morning cup of coffee to blame.  When you're sleep deprived it can take awhile for the obvious to reveal itself!  Since then, I have periodically tried to get my caffeine fix from a Diet Coke or cup of joe, hoping that his larger body and neurological maturity will allow him to handle just enough to give me a little jolt of energy.

No such luck.  With just one cup of a caffeinated beverage, my sweet, low-key little angel turns in to an irritable, fidgety, sleepless mess.  Which means no caffeine for mama.  It's just not worth it.

Ironic, no?  At the time in my life when I need caffeine more than ever, I am forced to abstain and endure the sleepless nights of new parenthood unarmed!  Decaffeinated coffee is a fine placebo when you just need something warm to sip in the morning, and a diet strawberry limeade is a nice way to spend Sonic happy hour, but when it is 5:30 a.m. and your baby is up for the day, all decaffeinated beverages are just big fat losers.

Slowly but surely, I realized that the days when I showered and dressed first thing in the morning were the days that I actually felt awake and energized.  Early on, that meant getting ready sometime before noon, but as the months have gone by the need for that early morning jolt has come earlier and earlier in the day.

Nine months later, I wake to the sound of my baby's cries or coos, bring him back to bed with me, nurse him, then put him in his Jumparoo and head straight for the shower.  My morning routine is nothing extensive...usually a quick shower, maybe a little make up, and a quick fix of the hair (thanks to the every-3-days washing that I mentioned yesterday).  But that water has magical powers, people!  It instantly opens my eyes, brightens my mood, and increases my motivation for a productive day.

If for some reason I bypass this process, I tend to get pretty worthless pretty fast!  Those pajamas and bed head might as well be shackles around my ankles, harnessing me to the couch while Matt Lauer lulls me into a stupor that will hold me over until I can catch a snooze during Riggins' first nap time.

What is hilarious to me is that when I was working full-time, I could hardly pull myself out of bed at 7:30 or 8!  I would often just skip a shower and pass with a refreshed hairstyle and new make up.  When I did get fully ready, it would take me an hour!  And then I got to sip caffeinated coffee as I drove to work!  And I thought I was so tired!!!

Now I'm showered, dressed and ready to go by 7:00 on most days, and usually feeling more awake than I ever did before having a baby.  It really makes no sense.  Who knew that a quick shot of hot water, a good squirt of citrusy energizing body wash, and a bit of mascara could do so much?

How do you get going in the morning?

And speaking of sleepy eyes, bed head and blanket face...

Q&A Part III: How To Do the 'Do

And you thought I'd forgotten to answer the rest of your questions!  Have no fear, my friends.  ;)

Several of you have asked me how I do my hair, and I have to say that I am incredibly flattered.  For years I've been looking for my perfect hair cut.  You know those girls who have a hairstyle that is just so perfectly "them"?  I never thought I had that.  But now y'all have got me thinking that long and wavy just might be my thing.  What's funny is that back in high school I would have killed for my hair to curl like it does now.  (It would have looked so much cuter under my Dixie Belle cowboy hat!  Shout out to my Dixie Belle readers out there ;)  If only I had known a few key things back then, I could have been so much cuter!    

For example...

1)  Tweezing your eyebrows is a good thing

2)  If you have ears that kinda stick out (as I do), it is always a good idea to leave a little hair over those ears, rather than slicking it all back into a tight pony tail 

3)  A little teasing at the crown makes everyone look better

And, of course, figuring out how to get my hair to curl and stay curled would have helped too!  Now that I've got it figured out, I'll share with you how I do this.  (FYI: I need you all to know how incredibly lame I feel posting pictures of myself fixing my hair.  I am ONLY doing this because you asked, not because I think I'm hot stuff!)

First of all, the tools.  As you can see below, I use hair spray, a curling iron, and a brush.  Nothing crazy.  I have had this old Revlon curling iron for a good decade at least!  I believe it is about 1-inch diameter.  You could go up to 1 1/2, but I wouldn't recommend going a whole lot bigger than that unless you have really long hair.  The bigger you get, the more you're going to get one big wave rather than a curl.  You should be able to wrap your hair around the iron several times before reaching your scalp.  

I always begin by flipping my head over and spraying my entire head with hairspray.  Then, tease the crown.  Not to be confused with big hair that a Texan would be proud of, a little teasing goes a long way.  It adds that lift that keeps your hair from looking flat.  And if you tease first, you avoid messing up the curls later.  I didn't take pictures of teasing, but basically you want to lift sections of your hair from the crown (for me, it's the section of hair just past my part that starts going backwards rather than down the sides of my face...if that makes sense), spray the base, and run your brush down the section of hair in short, quick strokes.  I always end with one long downward stroke to secure what I've just teased.  Then keep moving backward to about halfway down the back of your head, repeating this on each section.  I sometimes do a bit on the sides too.  Then, flip your hair back and use your brush to gently smooth the top of your hair until you can't see the rat's nest underneath :)  

Now it's time to curl!  My hair is cut in somewhat chunky layers, so that is a bit part of the final look I get.  Grab pieces of hair in one-inch sections according to your layers (i.e. try to get each section to be from the same "layer," or length of hair).  Slide the curling iron down the length of hair, stopping with about an inch or so hanging out (be careful to hold the curling iron in a way that isn't bending the hair in a funky way or you will end up with a big crimp mark!).  This little piece at the end is what will give you more of a wavy look and not so much a Shirly Temple ringlet look in the end.  

Holding the curling iron vertically, wrap the hair around the iron until you reach the scalp.  This is important: you want the curl to be directed away from your face (you should be twisting the iron backwards on each side of your face).  Hold for several seconds.  See?  Holding...

(Please take note of the frizziness of my just-blow-dried, not straightened or curled hair.  Not cute.  This is why I always curl or straighten!)

Now, here's the important part.  When it is time to release the curl, gently release your hold on the iron and pull straight down.  This is what gives you a nice, neat curl.  Don't touch it!  Just leave it alone.

Keep working your way around the head, continuously curling away from your face until you reach the back of your head; when you switch to the other side, you'll keep curling away again.  I hope that makes sense!  Be sure that you're aware of your layers.  I have some shorter layers on top, so I try to curl those separately, as you can see here...

If you have bangs, you may or may not want to curl them.  As you can see below, I just got some shorter bangs on my last haircut.  I forgot about them and curled them like the rest of my hair, but after brushing it out they were WAY too curled for how short they are.  So now I just leave them straight, and barely run the curling iron over them just so they aren't frizzy.  When that layer is longer, I just curl it like the rest.  

Spray your entire head with hairspray.  One last important step: don't touch anything until the absolute last minute!  Don't brush it, comb it, rake your fingers through it.  Just leave it alone!  The more time your hair has to cool and set, the longer those curls are going to last.

So here I am, looking all Curly Sue.  You might be able to see that I am still wearing Jonathan's shirt.  I'll leave my hair like this while I get dressed and get ready to leave the house, and at the last minute I'll use my fingers to fluff my bangs, and arrange the curls a bit so they don't look quite so "fixed."  I often will grab some of those curls in the front and wrap them around other curls so that I don't have a mess of little ringlets but more of a wavy look.

I forgot to take a "finished product" shot, but I'm sure you've seen enough of those on the blog already!  (Enough for you to ask how I do it, right? :)  Let me know if any of this was confusing!  And a couple of  final thoughts: when I'm pressed for time, I use hot rollers.  I use only the big rollers, and I leave them in as long as possible (preferably until they are cool again).  This gives me more of a news caster / pageant girl look, but it gives me body and smoothness in a hurry.

Also, you need to know that I do not do this every day!  I have mentioned before that I only wash my hair about every 3 days.  So I will do this on the day I wash my hair, then the next day it looks more wavy than curly (I just tease the crown a bit to remove any bed head!), then the next day I rock a pony tail or bun.  I'd say it takes me about 10 minutes to do the full-on curly 'do, but considering I only do that about twice a week I'm ok with that!

Gosh, I'm feeling kind of shallow now.  Who knew I could write so much about my hair?  Perhaps tomorrow I shall write about Chickering's Seven Vectors of College Student Development, Fowler's Stages of Faith, genocide in the Sudan, and the downward spiral of America's moral fabric.

Snow Day

It's all fun and games...

(He is smiling in the following photo...I promise!)

Until somebody gets hit in the face with a snowball...

Procrastination, Hyperventilation, Redecoration, and Other Thoughts

• Remember those Christmas decorations I was going to take down by the end of the week?  Yep...still up.  
• I had a mini internal panic attack yesterday when within about five minutes Riggins crawled over to the coffee table, pulled up, and began grabbing and pulling every. single. decorative item down.  Twice.  
• My coffee table now has those dorky little bumper thingies on the corners.  My husband (aka, Mr Safety, Smoky the Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog) insisted that they were necessary.  I reluctantly agreed.  I'm hoping that I can peel them off when company comes over so that we can keep up this charade of being totally cool parents who haven't let their child completely turn their house upside down. 
• Coffee table bumpers aside, I am really going to try to leave our home as normal as possible and avoid completely redecorating just because I have a kid.  I really want to train him that not every thing in his line of vision is his to touch.  Not only in our home, but also when we visit others.  
• All you veteran moms who are laughing out loud and saying, "Just you wait!"  I can hear you, you know!  And I might be completely naive and clueless and, well, screwed.  But I'm going to give it a fair fight, gosh darn it!  
• I adore poached eggs.  It is a neglected art form in the world of egg cooking.  
• My dear hubby takes the first round (of three rounds) of board exams in exactly 9 1/2 weeks.  He studies like it is his job.  And, really, it is his job right now.  Can you imagine taking two-day exam for 8 hours each day?  It makes me lightheaded just thinking about it.  Better him than me...my contribution to the effort is dinners, study snacks, and hot coffee.  
• Our new semester of MOPS begins today and I am SO excited.  This group has been such a blessing to me, and if you are a mother of young children you just have to find a chapter in your area!  

Happy Thursday!

8 Months!

December 29, 2010

Dear Riggins,

You are eight months old!  As I write, you are pulled up on the ottoman of my chair, checking in with the "mothership" after crawling around your new play mat and picking your toys up out of a basket.  It feels as though you gained all of these skills overnight, but it is truly amazing to watch how every little bit of progress builds upon itself to form a new ability that gives you even more independence.  And in spite of that independence, this month brought a bit of the famed stranger danger that all the books predict around this time.  You are constantly aware of my location these days, and you prefer to be as close as possible!  I know that some day I will beg to have you climb into my lap or cling to my legs, so I am savoring this stage of your life.  

At eight months, you weigh 20 pounds and are wearing size 6-9 month clothes and size 4 diapers.  You eat three solid meals a day and nurse five times a day.  The new addition this month has been finger foods, and you are crazy for Mum Mums, puffs, crunchies, Cheerios, and wagon wheels!  We have also let you start having little bites of things that we are eating; you even scarfed a sizable chunk of my dinner roll while we were on vacation in Franklin, TN!  You have become incredibly squirmy and distracted while nursing, which is a challenge.  In the sleep department, you take a one-hour morning nap, a two-hour afternoon nap, and you go to bed around 7:00.  Lately you have decided that you like to wake up before 6 a.m., which we are not crazy about!

You have so many new abilities!  At exactly 8 months you officially began to crawl.  You had been inch-worming on your belly all month, and you finally figured out how to get up on all fours and coordinate your legs and hands.  Halfway through the month, you began to pull up on anything and everything, so your crib is now lowered to the lowest setting.  After every nap or in the morning, there you are, standing straight up in your crib with a huge grin!  Unfortunately, you haven't quite figured out how to lay back down from that position!  On our Christmas vacation, you learned to clap your hands, and you now love to spontaneously break out into applause.  Other new skills include pounding on your drum and tambourine, saying syllables like "dada," "mama," and "baba" (not in reference to anyone yet!), picking toys up out of a basket, and tipping the basket over to get what you want!

The all-encompassing "first" this month was Christmas, of course!  It was such a thrill to share the holidays with you.  We took you to buy your first Christmas tree, to visit Santa Claus, and to a few Christmas parties.  After Daddy's finals week, we took a family trip to Nashville where we saw the lights at Opryland, strolled around downtown Franklin, and bought your very first Christmas present, a Mister Rogers trolley.  We capped it all off with a trip to Arkansas and Oklahoma to celebrate Christmas and New Years with your grandparents.  Unfortunately, your other big first was that you were sick on Christmas!  You had your first fever and were so pitiful, but after a few days you were back to your sweet little self.

Riggins, you are sweet, cheerful, friendly, noisy, strong, funny, and persistent.  You love Weber, the outdoors, bath time, your toy firetruck and cell phone, your new music table, giving me kisses (but not Daddy, 'cause he's scratchy!), Baby Noah, hollering, riding in the grocery cart, fake coughing, sitting in your high chair, and being sung to, tickled, and flipped upside down.  You don't like lying still to have your diaper changed, avocados, having your face washed or nose wiped, or having an entire room of people laugh at you (but really, who does like that?).

Every night your Daddy and I sneak into your room to peek at you sleeping.  Then we get into our bed and talk about how cute you are and how sweet you are and how awesome you are and how big you are and...well...you get the hint.  We love you to pieces.

Love,
Momma

Our Halls are Still Decked...

So I might as well show them to you, right?  I love decorating for Christmas, but I really procrastinate when it comes to un-decorating!  A few years ago we had a live tree sitting in our living room until mid-January.  Let's just say that my vacuum got a workout once that sad thing finally made its way out to the trash can!  My goal is to get everything packed up by the end of the week.  Until then, it's never too late for some photos of the holiday decor, right?  (Actually, I take that back.  It would be kind of weird for me to post them in May or something.)

Here is the Master Suite.  Which is actually not a suite at all.  Just another bedroom!  But isn't it more glamorous to call something a suite?  I think so.  

I must say that the fireplace in our bedroom is my favorite thing about our home.

I scored these Pottery Barn bay leaf wreaths and garlands for a steal at our local PB outlet last year.

Here's the little tree in the nursery.  Riggins' ornaments are little boy toys: cars, wagons, robots, teddy bears, and a rocking horse.  

The living room mantle.  I learned a really great trick a few years ago: instead of just a dinky garland, twist several garlands together to make one full, lush garland.  Then tuck in ornaments, pinecones, and other doodads for interest.  This garland went from a few wimpy Big Lots garlands to a beautiful Pottery Barn-esque statement.  Can you tell I love hanging wreaths over mirrors? 

This new addition came from Goodwill for $1.50!  Gotta love Mr. Crosby!

Even the door to the potty deserves to have a little fun at Christmas!

I found this small child for under the tree at Garden Ridge for $11.95.  I think he adds a touch of whimsy to the overall look.  

I kid, I kid.  He actually cost way more than that, but I try to avoid talking money on the ole' blog.  

Oh look!  Here's the little critter again, topping the tree!

Our favorite German Shorthaired Pointer enjoying the tree.  Except she calls it a tannenbaum.  

Because she's German like that.  

It is impossible to take photos of a Christmas tree.  Ours is bedecked in brown, bronze, gold, and green with a sort of woodland birds and pinecones theme (using the word theme makes me cringe, but what else can I call it?).

Jonathan says the birds are old lady and calls me Mildred throughout the Christmas season.  I say they are vintage and Anthro-ish.  Weber says it is stupid to make a tree of birds in a house with a bird dog.  Riggs says he doesn't know any different but he loves his momma so whatever she likes is awesome (Gosh, once he actually learns to talk for himself I am totally up a creek!)

And, yes, the tree has a slight lean to it.  By the time we noticed it was already decorated and we were too afraid to attempt repositioning a tree covered in breakable ornaments!

Fresh pine, holly, and pinecones atop the armoire.  

So there you have it!  And the first one of you to show up on my doorstep to take it all down for me gets a prize!  (A hint: it may or may not be all of the Christmas candy that followed us home from Oklahoma and Arkansas)

Does Infant Tylenol Come in Sugar Plum Flavor?

A sampling of some of our holiday moments...

Riggs getting ready to dig in for Fondue Night, our own little family tradition before setting off on our Christmas travels.  It was a bit more thrown-together this year, and Jonathan and I were a bit more covered in spit up and a bit less presentable, but it was a sweet little evening at home nonetheless.  

This shot speaks for itself.  Coal for us this year!

On our way to Christmas Eve church service.  Note to self: if your typically happy, smiley baby is anything but and feeling hot, he might be coming down with a fever.  Hindsight is 20/20.  But it's hard to know that when you've been traveling and everything normal has been shot to smithereens.  Ah, first-time parenthood...it's all a crapshoot, isn't it?  :)  

Sweet moments on Christmas morning.  

A pretty pointer all dolled up for Santa Paws.  She was a good girl and got a fresh new collar, a tire toy, and bones.  

Riggins with a special toy from his daddy.  Jonathan was obsessed with Mister Rogers as a child.  A few weeks ago we went to downtown Franklin, Tennessee and visited an adorable toy shop.  We spotted this handmade wooden replica of the Mister Rogers Neighborhood Trolley on a 50% off table (originally $60!), and Jonathan was a goner.  It was just meant to be!  (My husband may or may not have taken it out of the box before Christmas to play with it before we wrapped it up for Riggs!) 

So, yeah...that fever I mentioned?  By the time we took his temp on Christmas night it was at 101 degrees.  Jonathan and I ran out to Walgreens for medicine (Shout out to the kind folks who work at pharmacies on holidays!  The pharmacist was so helpful, and since this was our first time to deal with any kind of illness he really made us feel confident and capable...such a blessing!).  We returned to find Riggs snuggled up with his Uncle Todd, looking absolutely pitiful.  What really broke my heart was that he wasn't asleep, just laying there with his eyes open looking miserable.  

And thus ended the Christmas fun!  The fever fluctuated over the next 48 hours--with absolutely no other symptoms.  So weird.  And, no, still no teeth!

We spent a lot of time  snuggling, rotating infant Tylenol and Motrin every two hours, thanking modern medicine for dye-free liquid medications, and learning that taking your baby's temperature rectally isn't as terrifying as you would think. 

After a few days, our little man was back to his cheery self and we were so thankful that our Oklahoma friends and family were finally able to experience the happy baby that we see every day.