Christmas came early!

Well for J and Bryan, not me. I'm still waiting for Santa to pay up on my list. But we ordered J's new car seat already which was going to be a Christmas gift but since he's growing like a mutha' we had to put our request in early. I'm actually glad to be done with the infant seat, that thing is a bitch to carry and because that's it's purpose I feel obligated to take it in and out instead of leaving it in the car like any other car seat. I don't even use the damn thing in a stroller anymore since he hates it so much.

Bryan finally got to order a flat panel HDTV after 4 years of begging. I gave in. He saved up his allowance and the rest is an early dating-anniversary/Christmas gift from his lovely wife. I'm excited to have a TV hanging on our wall because when your house is only 10 feet wide, every inch counts. I'm curious to see how Bryan handles all the dangly cords because he's notorious for making them into a big ol' clusterfuck. We'll have one of our PC's hooked up to it too so there will be a ton of cordage, but good news we won't have to fight over the PC anymore. This could save our marriage!

I snatched up a few of a friend's cloth diapers despite Bryan's "that's worse than buying someone's used underwear" wishes. I figured it's best to try them out, see if/what I like before investing a bunch of moulah. I have some all-in-ones, fitted and pre-folds. So far I only tried the Lukes Drawers all-in-one and at first glance that style is my favorite but it leaked pee like a mother fucker. The poop stayed in though. It doesn't seem like I could have it on wrong as there is only one way to do it, and he didn't have it on for hours and hours. I was pretty disappointed, maybe it was too big because I had it on as tight as it would go. I guess I might give it another chance, it did feel all nice and cuddly on his bummy-bum-bum while it was clean. Oh and I also got a couple of her used Robeez which are in great condition and the exact styles I wanted. Can't beat that, eh?

Remember how Bryan's gas was stolen. Well the access to the gas tank is on the inside of the car so they had to pry open the little flap thing and now it doesn't close perfectly. So everyday now I see more and more cars on the road that looked like they had theirs pried open too. Lame. Mine opens from the outside, wonder why they didn't go for something easy like that? Well gas prices are back down, shouldn't be an issue anymore. Hopefully.

J has a GI appointment Friday, curious to know how it will go. I'm not expecting anything I don't already know. But maybe it'll shut my mom up who keeps telling me "breastfeeding is obviously not good for J and you can't live like this! If you are trying to be a perfect mom it will never happen." Thanks for your support. If she's that upset about it, maybe she'll dish out the $300 week to feed him the specialized formula and she can come over and "dropper feed" it to him since he's still not taking a bottle!

Speaking of which, does anyone have advice on how to get him who used to take a bottle but no longer will, take a bottle again? I followed all the tips on the breastfeeding sites, tried before, during and after feedings, I've tried, Bryan's tried, we've tried different nipples and bottles. I'm certain we've tried everything. I'm not willing to starve him into it or force it on him. Don't want to make the kid fear eating. So if someone else has to feed him other than me, we have to use a dropper. Yeah that's efficient. I think he likes the comfort he gets from nursing too which the tiny plastic stick just ain't doin' for him. Only a boobie will do. Hopefully he'll be an early sippy-cup user. Not that I'm trying to get away from him, there just might be a time I'll want to be gone for more than 2 hours. And when I do leave him, I rush and feel stressed wondering if he's starving at home throwing a fit.

I've been putting him to bed earlier now too. It was Bryan's suggestion and we noticed he started getting fussy around 7 pm every night recently. It finally dawned on me that he's up so much more during the day now he may not feel like staying up until 10pm. So we watch for his signs. It's hard for me to time it right still because it's like as soon as we're done eating I need to get him to bed. I'm getting better at actually having him in bed before he turns into Dr. Jeckyl-sleepy-pants. It's been working great, he was asleep by 7:15 tonight, and has been asleep for the last 45 minutes. He will probably wake up in a few minutes though. He's like clockwork, wakes up about 45 minutes after he goes to sleep. I guess it's the transition from REM to deep sleep or the fact he usually fell onto his back which he hates. So we just go in, straighten him out and caress him for a minute and he's back out. I don't even need to nurse him like I was. Then he'll sleep for a couple of hours. We're still waking up about every 2 hours, sometimes 3. I am pretty sure it's his belly because I don't nurse him everytime. If it seems like it's his belly, I pull him onto mine and it seems to help or soothe him and we'll fall asleep like that sometimes for a couple hours. If he is really hungry then he let's me know that wasn't what he wanted. I can usually tell the difference in his whines and squirms.

So anyway, enough rambling? I think so.