Random piece of pizza found in the middle of the street.


I just can’t be a slacker anymore. Yoga, Pilates, Circuit Training, whatever. Bring it on.

These precious feet have been the source of much amusement to both Finn and myself.

A delicious smorgasbord from Mazzaro’s!

It looks like he has some crib slat markings on his face. I really need to get those bumpers ASAP.

Just one of hundreds upon hundreds of “days” I will experience, I am sure. This particular day, it was very clear that Finn was “going through something”, as we like to put it around here. My instinctual guess is that he is beginning to teethe, though he is only 3 months (almost.) Last week, I noticed he had discovered that his hands were an excellent and tasty source of amusement. Since he cannot yet grasp objects for more than 2 seconds on his own, he has nothing else to chow down on but his fists. This is a normal developmental milestone for a baby so, no biggie I figured. He has also been much more vocal lately. Instead of out right crying, he’s learned that he can make these long and verrry loud sighing noises, along with the usual oooh’s and aaah’s. He will now interact with us (and his mobile toys) using these new vocal exercises. He has learned that if he kicks his legs back in forth while he’s in his bouncer, it will make the toys swing back and forth. He loves it and will smile and kick all the more. It is adorable to watch! In general, he seems much more aware of his surroundings and is becoming easily distracted while nursing. We sit on the couch in the living room where there are 6 large photographs of places we have traveled to. Grand Canyon, Arches Nation Park, Colorado, etc. I noticed him gazing at these photos when he was barely a few weeks old. He continues to study them very intently and is now starting to turn his head to look up at them and up and me and wherever else he fancies. I started to get the feeling that something wasn’t quite normal this past Friday when he had a particularly fussy day. Nursing sessions were a long and drawn out ordeal because he would not settle down and stay latched. (Eventually he would buckle down and finish his meal). This pattern of fussiness continued over the weekend and all day today. A few times today I thought he just flat out wasn’t going to get anything to eat at that particular feeding. Over the course of an hour’s time, I doubt he ate for more than 10-15 minutes. This happened for several of his feedings today. All of the usual tricks didn’t seem to work. Milk flow too fast, too slow, needs to burp, needs to toot, needs to poop, nada, nothing. When he would cry/moan/wail he would stretch his bottom lip out in an unusual way, almost the way we would stretch our mouths if we were trying to reveal our bottom teeth. The real kicker was when he stopped in the middle of nursing to suck on his hands. Hello?!?! Combine all this with an obvious increase of drool in the past week AND more frequent coughing and you’ve got what sounds like teething to me. I gave him some ice in a baby sock to chow down on and massaged his gums for as long as he would let me. I couldn’t tell if that really helped him out or not and I can’t tell if I see anything that look like tiny teeth budding. I guess I will find out eventually.

On an unrelated note, we are trying very hard to get Finn on a schedule for naps and bedtime. He sleeps fine at night except his bedtime has been ANYthing but consistent in the past 3 weeks with the holidays and Dave being off work. In order for him to be put to bed at 8pm, he has to start his last feeding of the night at 7:30 which means his 2nd to last feeding of the day should probably be around 6:00 and the feeding before that should be around 4. (The closer he gets to bedtime, the closer together his feedings should be spaced. This is just what I’ve found works for him.) Whenever he falls asleep, he will sleep 7-8 hours, be up for a quick feeding, and then down for another 3 hours or so. His official wake time works out to be sometime between 7am and 8am, Depending on how quickly he falls asleep at night. This week, I am experimenting with a pretty strict regimen, just to see how things shape up. His 6pm and 7:30pm feedings went horribly tonight so it wouldn’t surprise me if he sleeps less than 7 hours. And then my whole plan will be shot. Haha. On the brighter side, Finn has been napping more consistently lately. Not at consistent times, but consistently 2-3 naps each day. Scooooore! As soon as he yawns and exhibits other sleepy signs, I start winding him down for a nap. I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and his body is starting to adapt to the necessity of day time sleep periods. The next step is giving him specific nap times. Nothing to report on that yet but I have a whole week of experimenting to do.

I’m not sure why I’m choosing to unwind by rehashing the day’s events. Glutton for punishment? At least I made a pretty delicious dinner of spicy mushroom and sausage ragu over cheesy polenta. I even painted my nails this evening for the first time in 3 months. Awww yieah. It’s the little things.

It’s coming. I’ve been sticking my head out the door all day long in hopes that the air would be just a bit cooler. Not yet. It’s still just as humid and dank as ever. But the rain has picked up again and I’m pretty sure it is going to flush all that nastiness away. Were I to have the good fortune of going anywhere this weekend (and I just may), I would have a bit of a dilemma on my hands.

You see, as hot blooded as I am naturally, pregnant, post-partum, or not, a girl’s still gotta keep warm in 50 degree weather. By that logic, I ought not be ashamed that in the past 9 months I have purchased no fewer than 5 jackets. Five. Jackets. In Florida. Okay, I suppose that IS shameful. Why would I need to add 5 more jackets to the overstuffed collection of jackets I already own? I don’t know. It’s sick. A sickness, in fact. It is especially unfortunate that during all this jacket-buying frenzy I did not have the foresight to purchase at least one that would actually fit me now. No no no! Instead, I thought to myself “What?!?! I’ll only be pregnant for 9 (or 10) months, meaning that I, of course, should purchase the XS”. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. I didn’t know very much back then, did I?

So anyways (it’s my blog and I can say “So anyways….”), now we are facing the first legitimately cold weekend of the season and despite the fact that, realistically, I will probably be cozied up at home with the baby, I am still thinking “I have nothing to wear!”. (Not true, so very not true.) Wait a minute! Hark! What’s that I hear? My Groupon to the Gap is calling my name. I’m afraid I will have to be supervised on that shopping trip. My explicit instructions: No more from Baby Gap and absolutely NO. MORE. JACKETS.

I guess having a baby has made me no less interested in fashion just more aware of how low it ranks on the importance totem pole. In any case, how cute is this daily-wear-able from Orchid Grey???

I tried on a pair of fun shorts like these from my closet yesterday. The shorts? They mocked me and I couldn’t protest.

I’d love to sit down and write about my “birth story” OR tell you about how utterly inept I STILL am at changing diapers and am thus straight up terrified of Dave going back to work OR let you in on the secret that Target’s diapers are in fact far more effective than the “other brands”…. Sadly, I just don’t have all the time in the world like I used to. (ha!) Not to mention that I haven’t been very comprehensible or even capable of stringing two meaningful sentences together. But boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! I have a son! A real live little baby who is my (our) very own! All the time I’d spend doing, well, let’s face it, whatever the heck I want/need, is NOW spent gazing into his little face, telling him how much I love him and marveling at how incredible it is to be his mom. Of course the usual cuddling, nursing, diapering, repeat-sequence-ing is taking up a fair amount of my time as well. “Ovvvbiously”.

I hope to find time soon to write a little bit about the craziness that was Finn’s birth day. I’m sad that 11 days have passed since then and I really haven’t been able to jot down a thought or two about it. Even still, the intensity of that day is something I will cherish FOR-EV-ERRRR.

*Aaaand, end blog post awkwardly here.*

The thought has recently occurred to me that if I had only started blogging (and consistently so) since the start of our marriage 4 years ago, we’d probably have a fully monetized blog right now. Not to mention how nice it would have been to have a record of all of our shenanigans over the years. Who knew that if you blogged about home improvement projects and design inspiration that you could actually earn money? Yes, there are more than a few things that the 2010-me would like to go back and tell the 2006-me.

But something tells me we’re better off without?

How great is this 2011 Moleskine Color-a-Month Daily Planner Set???? I think I might have to order it. Or put it on my Amazon wishlist. Moleskin journals always make me think of my brother and I aspire to one day write in my notebooks as neatly as he writes in his.

…is such a sweet little boy. He comes home every night around 9pm for love and cuddles. Then he’s ready to go back out for a full night and day of adventures until we see him at 9pm the next night. He has quite a busy schedule and very rarely graces us with his presence during the day. I don’t know how I was even able to take these photos of him since he is always mysteriously absent during daylight hours. Actually, I remember now. It was during the Great Cold Winter of 2010 when he was spending most of his nights indoors. I noticed that on Thursdays and ONLY Thursdays, he didn’t seem to have any early morning plans. He “overslept” and I was able to catch him after 9am, hardly interested in moving from his cozy spot on the rug. (At this point, he was usually leaving the house by 6:30am, NO later.) I knew those lazy Thursday mornings of his were going to be a short lived miracle so I grabbed my camera for a few shots. He wasn’t one for looking at me or even holding still for .2 seconds. I think I had to take 50+ shots just to get these few.

Camera Specs: Canon 5D Mark II, 50mm f1.4

Chick-Fil-A. 3 years of free CFA and still goin’ strong. Love it. Never gets old. Sadly, Dave doesn’t like their breakfast there. Seriously, I mention breakfast at CFA and he actually FROWNS. Grimaces even. I couldn’t imagine why until he told me: “It’s a better value to use our cards for dinner.” Oh Dave. Love him.

Camera Specs: Canon 5D Mark II, Sigma 24mm f1.8 Macro

Disastrous. And I wonder why I run out of creativity.

Camera Specs: Panasonic Lumix LX3