Category: Home Movies

Dude was a little over three months here. We had reached a point where milk only just wasn’t cutting it anymore (he was always hungry) and his pediatrician gave me the green light to try cereal.

(The cereal was VERY soupy, otherwise I wouldn’t have given to him lying down like that).

He was a much happier baby after I introduced cereal because he was fuller for longer period of times.

I laugh at how chunky he was – just a little butterball.

I also like to watch his facial expressions as he’s sampling the cereal. “This is weird. But tasty. I think I like it.”

Yes. I’m using a bottle. It’s because breast wasn’t best – for me. (Stay tuned, I talk about that experience soon).

I know, I let this play out way too long (ZzZz) but it’s like I can’t take my off eyes off the kid.

I call this phase of Dude’s life the “little old man” stage because come on, look at this baby – he looks like a chunky old man with his thinning hair and his double chins. HA!

Also, note the date: Valentine’s Day 1993. Dude is exactly ONE MONTH older than this video. He’s so tiny in that last video, but he’s HUGE in this video! This was the month that Dude had a major growth spurt and pretty much catapulted himself into a normal percentage.

I have no idea why I was torturing the boy – I was probably trying to keep him from getting too upset while we waited for his bottle to warm up.

Yes. I bottle fed both of my children.

Yes. There’s a post about that coming soon.

Yes. It will likely make some people angry. I can’t help that.

This video is really for my mom – I thought she would get a kick out of it.

My parents lived out of town for several years when the boys were babies. My dad taught electronics at vocational schools in St. Louis and Kansas City, so it was a real treat whenever my folks could come down and visit. I don’t remember taking the boys up to visit them very often – Actually, I don’t remember going very many places outside the home at all when the boys were babies because we all know what a pain it is to take babies very far from home.

Near the end of the video, you will hear me babble about something (seriously – my folks always teased me about talking fast and though I knew they were right, I didn’t realize HOW right they were until I heard myself on these tapes. Sheesh). I’m saying something about how I couldn’t believe I was a mom. The whole experience just felt surreal to me – and I think that was partly due to the fact that Dude came so fast and so early I never really had a moment to “process” it all.

Actually, it’s STILL hard for me to accept the fact that I’m the mother of two boys – and they’re well into their teens.

Dude is nearly two months old in this video. He’s still pretty small – but he grows pretty fast from this point on and it’s not long before he’s in the normal growth percentile.

I mentioned that I read a lot of baby books when my boys were babies … and I did. Some of those books recommended hanging a black and white mobile up in their crib to help stimulate the babies’ brains.

Thinking this made sense (on some weird level known only to me), I researched mobiles and bought this do-hickie.

Dude loved it. As you can see in the video below. Jazz … I seem to recall Jazz not being that interested in it, but Dude spent hours looking at it.

Which was awesome because it meant:

A. He wasn’t crying.
B. It gave me time to get some stuff done, like shower.
C. He wasn’t whining.
D. It was hopefully stimulating his brain.
E. He wasn’t crying.

I apologize for the sheer … nothingness behind this video. I wanted to show ya’ll how much interest Dude took in this mobile, but it’s also one of the few video snippets I have of Dude being content. The rest of the footage, he’s always fussy, or spitting up, or whining.

Also? I told you. HOURS of my kids doing nothing. I was just content to watch their facial expressions. It’s amazing how you can just SEE them absorbing information, isn’t it?

And I don’t know what is up with the squeaky toy. I think I was curious to see how he would respond to it. I’m surprised the boy didn’t start wailing because, UGH, that sound is annoying, isn’t it? But Dude seemed too preoccupied with the mobile to notice.

Now that I watch this again, I hope that thing didn’t give him nightmares. It’s sort of “Twilight Zone-ish” isn’t it.

In fact, he looks sort of freaked out in the screen capture still, doesn’t he.

Poor baby. Mama’s sorry she tortured you like that.

P.S. The cute binky bobbing as he’s sucking on it makes my heart squeeze.

P.S.S. Also? That binky is nearly as big as his face.

And here we go with the baby videos.

I’ve been putting a ton of them on my YouTube channel so I’ll warn you now … I was fascinated with my children. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that Kevin and I produced these little PEOPLE out of nothing. Well, not nothing, but you know what I mean. And I spent HOURS taping them doing NOTHING.

But don’t worry, I won’t subject you to HOURS of mindless viewing … it’ll only feel that way. HA!

If you don’t know, Dude was eight weeks premature. He was in the NICU for six weeks while we waited for his lungs to fully develop, but his nervous system was still a little premature and as a result of that, he had to wear a heart monitor for the first four months of his life (I have a video of that belt to show you later), so handling him was a little nerve wracking. I mean, it was bad enough handling a newborn to begin with, especially when I hadn’t even held a baby prior to giving birth to my children, so I really didn’t know what I was doing. But I learned to adapt and after a while, I developed routines that worked for me – for US.

I can tell you what I did and worked for me, and if some of the tips help you, then awesome sauce. If not, well, thanks for watching anyway.

We had a hard time keeping Dude awake. We would spend HOURS trying to stimulate him enough to eat – it was a real chore to get him to eat 4 ounces at the beginning and even then, it would take so long to get him to eat that much that by the time he finished, it was nearly time to feed him again.

I also worked hard to make sure both boys stayed awake as long as possible during daylight hours so we could try and get on some sort of sleep schedule at night. And when I went in to feed him in the wee hours, I wouldn’t talk to him or stimulate him in any way (well, I cuddled with him and gave him soft kisses, but I didn’t have a conversation with him). I had read (and I read A LOT of baby books before my kids were born) that that was a good way to help the baby distinguish day from night. It wasn’t terribly hard, I was too brain dead to do much more than feed him anyway, but after I fed him, I would put him back in the crib and step out of the room. If he refused to go back to sleep, I’d go back in, tuck him back in, give him his binky and walk back out again. I usually had to do this several times before he would go back to sleep. It took some patience, but it paid off in the long run. Both my kids learned to sleep through the night fairly quickly.

After the sponge bath, I started giving the boys a bath in their baby bathtub. I put the baby bathtub on their changing table, put a heater in their rooms and made sure the temperature was nice and toasty before we got started. I also tried to keep my hand on their stomach at all times because I had read that it helped “ground” them and they were less likely to get fussy if they had that human contact. I talked to them constantly. I kept my voice soft and I just said nonsense things, just so they could hear my voice. That also helped.

I’m using cotton balls to wash his eyes, nose and ears. I can’t remember if I read that, or if my pediatrician told me that, but I was also to use fresh cotton balls for each eye, nose and ear so I wouldn’t inadvertently spread bacteria from orifice to orifice. I didn’t put any soap in the water at this stage, it was just warm water.

Also, I washed their bodies, dressed them and then washed their hair last. Just having clothes on seemed to calm and relax them enough that washing their hair was never really a big deal.

I didn’t push my boys into the whole bath tub thing for quite a while. I didn’t want to freak them out too soon. I think this gradual introduction helped because neither one of my boys really fussed too much when it came to baths.

It’s still really hard for me to believe that Dude (now 18!) was EVER that little.

This is one of those stories that Kevin and I joke about all the time. He’s convinced he DIDN’T surprise me that Christmas and I’m here to tell you, HE DID.

I had been collecting Precious Moments for quite a few years prior to this Christmas and I never had any place to display them. They stayed mostly in their boxes. So Kevin thought he would be clever and buy me a curio case to put them in.

I know! I married a very smart man. 😀

Only, how do you give your wife something that big? You can’t exactly wrap it and put in next to the tree. She would likely drive you crazy trying to guess what it was until Christmas Day. And can you really hide something that big? I mean, wouldn’t she likely SEE it and wonder, “what the HECK is that huge box doing there??”

Actually. Yes. That’s exactly what Kevin did. He bought it, and stored it in our extra bedroom. And the pathetic thing is? I never saw it!! Honest to God. I’m not just saying that because I know he’ll likely read this – I honestly never knew the thing was in our bedroom. And I think Kevin said it was in the room for several days.

So when I look surprised in this video? I was genuinely surprised because I had no idea it was even in the room.

(And sorry for the squeaky voice. I can’t believe I sounded like that. Someone needed to slap a “CALM DOWN WOMAN” sticker on my forehead).

(And yes. I used to wear Christmas sweatshirts. Hush).

Here’s a picture of the case, in “case” (haha) you’re curio (curious – okay, I’ll stop now).

I love this case. It suits me perfectly. It’s not too fancy, but looks classy. It’s functional without being overstated. It’s modern, without being bizarre.

I stored my Precious Moments figurines in it for 20 years. It’s only been recently (like in the past year), that I’ve taken them out, put them back into their boxes and stored them. It’s weird, but I sort of feel like I’ve outgrown my Precious Moments. I’m thinking about selling them at some point (a few of them are probably worth some money), but I haven’t been able to let them go quite yet.

In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out what to put in my curio case, so that’s why it’s a little bare at the moment. Since I don’t do a lot of shopping, I haven’t really seen anything I liked. Though Kevin and I were shopping at Kohl’s the other day and we both saw this cool bicycle that we had to have. It’s currently our favorite piece in the house.

(Though I don’t know, that flowerpot on the bottom shelf ranks right up there. Jazz made that for me in preschool and I just treasure it. The teachers asked Jazz what he liked about having a mommy like me, so his answers are printed on the petals. It’s really too cute).

Even though I loved having someplace to put my Precious Moments figurines, that’s not the biggest reason why I loved the gift. I loved it even more because Kevin paid attention to what I liked, what I needed, and took the time to find that perfect gift.

This gift was thoughtful and wrapped in love.

Those are the best gifts of all.

(Well, aside from children, but you know what I mean).

I used to spend two hours, every day, hot rolling my hair. That, of course, was back in the days BEFORE children because we all know that spending two hours on your hair AFTER children is simply not going to happen.

I totally bought into the big hair style. It was fun to roll it, fluff it out and then use a whole can of hair spray (okay, not whole, but half) on my hair to make it stay. It was doubly frustrating for me because my hair would look AWESOME for about thirty minutes, and then it would start to droop, fall and soon I would just look like I crawled out of bed and was too lazy to comb my hair.

But I’ve reformed. I’ve evolved from those big-hair days and now have I virtually no hair.

I’m nothing if not extreme.

Okay fine, I have hair, but it’s the shortest it’s been … ever. Some days I LOVE it. Some days I HATE it. But I’m learning to live with it, I think. It’s certainly a lot easier to take care of and it literally takes me two minutes to blow dry it in the morning.

Now THAT I can live with.

I just bought some hair wax the other day, but I haven’t played around with it yet. I’m not real sure what to do with it. I mean, I KNOW it goes into my hair, duh, but … then what? Do I scrunch it? Do I toss it? Do I spike it? I suppose I can do whatever I want with it, that’s what this wax product claims anyway.

I bought the cheap stuff. A lot of the wax were $15.00 and over. *blink* I was about to toss the whole wax idea when I stumbled across a can for $5 bucks. Knowing that you often get what you pay for, my expectations are suitably low at this point. We’ll see how it performs. But I would sort of like to make my hair look like Annette Bening’s, only with bangs, if possible.

I went and got my hair colored a few days ago. I wanted to wash the remaining red out of my hair. Red is okay, but I really want to go back to my natural color, which is more of a chocolate brown. (Okay, so it’s more of a mousy brown, but saying it’s a chocolate brown sounds way more sexy). When the gal rinsed me out and we sat in front of her mirror, I could tell, right away, I was going to HATE it. I could tell, even when wet, it was that clown-orange color – AGAIN. AARGH! My stylist could see I was not thrilled and suggested we put in an ash blonde color to tone it down. At that point? I was willing to try anything because I really don’t want carrot-colored hair.

It doesn’t go with my eyes, you see.

So, my poor stylist spent another 30 minutes on me putting in an ash color. But when she rinsed it out, I’m happy to say it did indeed take the remaining red out and it’s now that sexy chocolate brown.

I should rename this blog “The Hair Saga.”

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I’ve been busy digitizing our old home movies and capturing snippets to share with you all. Kevin and I were visiting my folks in this snippet and we were getting ready to do some sight seeing in Kansas City. Everyone was ready to go, but everyone was waiting for me to finish my damn hair. I’m not exaggerating when I said it took me two hours to get ready. After shower and makeup, I would hot roll my hair, and then have to sit around for about 30 minutes to wait for it to cool down. Then I would take out the curlers, fluff it, pick it, make it as big as I possibly could because I knew it would lose a lot of it’s body before the end of the day and then spray the ever-loving heck out of it.

Even though Kevin loved the big hair, I think he prefers not having to wait around all day for me to make that happen.

I also used to be pretty anal about not going into public without makeup on. I wanted Kevin to always think I was attractive and to be proud of me. (Which he will tell me, after reading this, that he always thinks I’m attractive, no matter what I look like – but come on, there’s sweet and then there’s REALITY). I was also feeling pressure to always look my best because Kevin’s mom is like that – the woman NEVER looks bad. I think in the 23 years I’ve known her, I’ve seen her without makeup twice and that was because she had eye surgery and wasn’t allowed to wear any. My MIL is also the sort of person who goes out into public wearing sequins, silver shoes and bright pinks and somehow, it looks RIGHT on her. So I was sort of trying to meet Kevin’s expectations, I think. Even though he would tell you that it really didn’t matter to him what I look like (then or now), I know that deep down he sort of compared me to his momma and I didn’t want to disappoint him.

Then the boys came along and *PFFT* – that perfect hair and makeup mentality sort of went out of the window because I didn’t have the energy to care. I routinely dropped the boys off at school in my PJ’s and oily, makeup-free face and didn’t give a hoot. I figured, you no like? You no look.

Now that the boys are teenagers, I’ve learned to compromise. I still make an effort to look nice every day, but I no longer freak out if I have to run to the store on “makeup free” days. (Which, granted, don’t happen that often, but they do happen).

And before any of you go all feminist on me and say, “HEY! Don’t feel like you have to dress up for ANY MAN,” let me just say, I try and look nice FOR ME, too. It makes me feel good about myself and if I feel good about myself, then I’m more confident and if I’m more confident, then I’m mentally equipped to handle whatever life throws at me.

I also want to look nice for Kevin out of respect for him. Just put the shoe on the other foot for a minute. I’d have a real problem with Kevin if he had a huge beer gut (a little pooch is cute, I think), never shaved, rarely showered and never bothered to put on wrinkle-free clothes whenever we got together with family. I can at least return the favor.

Just because you have a marriage license doesn’t mean you have a license to stop caring about your appearance.

But there’s a happy medium in there somewhere – it just takes a while to find it sometimes.