Pull to stand

This last weekend, Babriel pulled himself up to a standing position at the couch. I was amazed because I wasn't really focusing and then all of the sudden, BAM, he was up. It's weird because he generally hasn't liked to stand holding onto something besides me or Chris' hands (aka I've tried to get him to stand up while holding onto the chest, etc but he has none of that). Wow. He's getting so big. I feel old...

Oops! I SHOULD feel guilty...I think...

So Baby has been waking up a LOT more lately. We're talking the last two weeks, not the last two days...and we're talking he's been waking up every two hours...It's been, um, difficult to say the least. I think it was the worst when yesterday I found myself falling over while standing doing nothing because I was so tired... That's problematic.
Point being: I go to bed at 11:00 last night (waited up for Hubby to get home and then took my shower, talked to him for a few minutes and crashed). I woke up right before 5:00 freaking out. Baby had been asleep since 10:00 (went down right after 7:00, but woke up about 9:00 and went back to sleep at about 10:00)...That's the longest stretch I ever remember (I remember being gladly terrified when 5-6 hour stretches started happening rarely)...so I start freaking out and wake Hubby thinking Baby is dead...And what does Hubby do? He reaches over and shows me that the monitor ISN'T EVEN PLUGGED IN!!! Granted, I wake up at the slightest noise LO makes (although I can apparently sleep right through the tornado sirens...), but he could've been screaming for 2 hours whilst I was drifting through cloudless dreams!
I wonder honestly if that happened, though, because the monitor has been turned off once before and I still heard LO through the walls...but it just seems so odd that he'd randomly choose tonight to sleep that long after going through a stretch of sleeping so little stretches at night, right? I'll admit that I'm somewhat upset that the monitor was off. It shouldn't be off ever. I want to make sure LO knows I'll be there if/when he needs me... But then again, I'm somewhat uber-grateful to get that many hours of sleep at once. Should I feel guilty? I do a little, but in the back of my mind, I'm wondering if I can "try" that again tonight.

I've been bitten!

It happened. The two teeth are visible now. It's almost like the beginning of winter where you KNOW you're going to slip on the ice and it builds up into this HORRIBLE thing into your head b/c you KNOW it's going to happen and you just have to wait and wait until it finally occurs. So Gabriel finally bit me yesterday. I didn't react logically. A noise came out, but it wasn't really loud...and it wasn't a word. It was all I could do to not yell huge amounts of swears. And there wasn't enough willpower to keep the bad words in to tell him "no biting" like I was able to do when he'd gum me. However, our feeding was definitely over. I sat for a few seconds to control myself, handed Chris the baby and then walked to the bathroom trying not to cry. I snotted a lot, but no tears actually escaped. Hopefully, there won't be another time, but if there is, I hope now that I know more of what to expect, I'll be able to react more logically. We shall see what the future holds. At least I'm hoping I won't have anymore nightmares about it, right?

Names I like

Female
Annabelle
Isabel
Rini
Ulani
Hannah
Naomi
Tamah
Renea
Rabia
Lana
Ruth (middle)
Veronica
Marie
Rachana
Rhys
Megara
Brady
Kaylee
Brianna
Danielle
Inara
Joy (middle)
Faith (middle)
Hope (middle)
Nakia
Samira
Kelsey
Katrina
Abigail
Almira
Acelynn
Aeron
Eve
Brooke
Desiree
Amira
Lakia
Mabyn
Femi
Gwyneth
Adelle
Saran
Lyneth
Macaria
Penelope
Shanti

Male
Adam
Alexander
Brady
Demitri
Dominic
Ethan
Huxley
Ian
Ivan
Jeremiah
Lucas
Marcus
Quinn
Raimi
Samuru
Solomon
Thodore
Viktor
Xavier
Zachariah

Skinny Bitch in the Kitch excerpt

p181
"After Dinner Mint
Food is the fuel that keeps us going. It supplies our bodies with energy and sustenance and literally makes life possible. But it's also so much more than that. It's the gateway to paradise. A gift from the heavens. Life's greatest pleasure. Every time we eat, we have the capacity to experience unparalleled ecstasy. Multiple times a day. So why do people forget to eat? Or eat standing up? Or grab something quick? Hell, it beats the shit out of us. we never do that stuff-we friggin' love eating more than anything else in the world. And we bask in the glory of every bite we take.
Eating is like a religious experience. And every meal is like an offering to your temple. So like you would for any place of worship, have reverence for your body. You shouldn't put garbage in your mouth any sooner than you'd go to church wearing crotchless panties. Now granted, sometimes you wear less than your Sunday best to church, and that's fine-God loves you anyway. And sometimes you eat less than your best, and that's okay too. But you wouldn't make a habit of dressing like crap for church and you shoulnd't make a habit of eating crap either.
We each get one body to last us an entire lifetime. And more than any other factor, food affects how well and for how long this body will serve us. So if you didn't care before, start caring now. Take the time to learn which foods are healthy and which aren't. And take the time to start enjoying everything you eat. Doing "it" standing up and "quickies" are for sex, not eating. So slow down, pick out a recipe, and sit down to a nice meal tonight. After dinner, you can have a quickie."

TMI (seriously, though, it is)

1) Hubby told me the other day how much he likes the ONE part of my body that has stretch marks (yes, there is only one place that has stretch marks, but they're hard-core stretch marks). He didn't state it like that, but he did state how much he liked said body part and I appreciated that as I'm somewhat disgusted by the whole stretch mark business, as there are so many and they're the dominant feature, in my mind.
2) It was so adorable. So this morning I go in to feed Gabe and he's mostly asleep, but wants to dream-feed so that's cool by me. So 13 minutes later, he's slowed down and all of the sudden he stops and just smiles the biggest smile, while still making sure he's not letting go of the food source. It was SO cute! So of course I (in my idiocy) laugh out loud b/c it was so cute...to which, of course, he wakes up totally startled and just stares at me with his big, round eyes. So much for the cute asleep-feeding-smiles. Now he's wide awake and deciding whether he's going to burst into tears. Then I felt guilty...but it was so adorable I'd probably burst out laughing again, even knowing the consequences.

Yea for good sleep

Not mine, but Gabriels... So last night, Chris and I were totally pooped by the time we got home, so we pretty much vegged out in front of the tv. Gabriel was getting tired, so we put him down at about 7:18 (yes, I said about, but I'm pretty sure it was 7:18...but what if I was wrong, huh). I waited for about ten minutes to make sure he'd actually fall asleep (which he did and stayed asleep for the most part) and then got started on the new garden project. See, here's the thing: the guy before us put up a retaining wall for the garden area surrounding the base of our house...but instead of gardening it, he filled it with rocks (like 1/4-1/3 lava rocks and the rest just plain old white-ish rocks). I'm so confused about so many things this guy did... Anyway, so Chris and I had always said that if we were going to stay in our house long-term that we wanted to make it into an actual garden, but originally planned on fixing it up to potentially sell about 3 years after moving in. The problem is: the longer we stay there, the more projects we start and the more we (more him than me) don't want to leave said house. Anyway, so we bought blueberry bushes and Chris started taking the rocks out and got the larger half of the front area totally done. So last night I started moving the retaining wall in (b/c I don't want a garden that big in the front of my house) and we put the compost (that we got for free from the city...how did I not know about this last year when we spent over a hundred dollars starting up my garden and bought large, large amounts of compost???) in and there's ALMOST enough of it for that right side, but we'll have to wait until next Wednesday to get more compost; the three blueberry bushes that will be located on the right side are in place. I think one more load of compost will be enough for that right, front area...and then we'll get started on the left side. I'm excited to have my veggie garden in the back yard and then have my berry bushes, rhubarb, etc in the garden area around the base of our house. Personally, I'd like to have a garden that you can eat anything out of. Here's hoping... (The point of this is to say how happy I am that I feel we're actually getting somewhere with some of our projects and that, although I was nervous I'd regret it when we started the project, I'm actually very happy it's happening!)

On another note: Gabe loved his cereal again and was angry when there was no more, so I let him play with the spoon instead, which I thought was a nice compromise. Honestly, though, I started out feeding him by my lonesome and I'm wondering How Do Single Parents Do It? I mean, I'm totally not being rude, but am seriously wondering. It felt like it took super powers to get halfway through the bowl (of which only about a fourth got into his mouth and the rest ended up on his bib...on his cheeks...on his eyebrow?...and, okay, a little on his ear). But when Chris AND I tag-teamed it, it was much more efficient. Just like baths. A one person job ends up he doesn't really get cleaned and it takes forever to clean up afterwards. A two person job still takes forever to clean up afterwards (read: I have to change my clothes b/c it looks like I've showered with them on), but at least Gabriel gets clean...and it's funner that way. I love the fact that I tried to feed him all by myself (like a big girl) but am very grateful for The Hubster who's willing to do things right along with me (and me alongside him).