Week 8: August 30-September 6

Thursday was Kian's 7 week birthday. I can't believe it's been 7 whole weeks. Wow. He was actually happy this day, smiling a ton and generally being low maintenance and easy. I actually looked at him at one point and said... "Hey, you got cute again. Imagine that!" Not that he really wasn't cute, but lack of sleep and abundance of fussing can sure skew your perspective. I took the opportunity to run some errands that evening and Brian did really well with him.

Since it was Labor Day my mom offered to come and see us for the four day weekend. Of course she always misses Kian, but in this case it was more for me. I had a really rough couple of weeks, and she is always willing to drop everything and come help out. Thank God for my mother, my angel! This weekend Brian really wanted some just us time though, so my parents ended up going to their motorcycle rally instead. All in all that was good, and I'm glad they got to have their fun on the bike instead. Still, we missed them something awful!

Friday we hit yet another milestone. Brian was home from work and we went to Olive Garden for dinner with Kian in tow! It was really nice to get out and I crave Olive Garden really bad every once in a while. I did feel a bit like I had a ticking timebomb in the seat next to me, and I ate pretty quickly with one hand jiggling him off and on, but it was still good. He did not have a meltdown and the service was fantastic, so it went really well! We'll have to do it more often now. Choosing a family friendly restaurant and going at 4 were definitely key.

On Saturday Brian took Kian when he woke up, leaving me in blissful silence. He even gave him a bottle, so I got to sleep all the way until 11:00! It was 4 straight hours of sleep (almost) and more importantly, I woke up because I felt like it. It is the first time since Kian was born that I woke up on my own, and not because he needed to eat. Heaven.

We had a nice relaxing day together, which was also very nice. The one bump in the road came at the beginning of our bedtime routine. A minute after I lowered Kian into his nice warm bath water, it filled with a cloud of mustardy yellow. Oh no! He totally pooped in his bath! Now, every once in a while I notice a few little yellow bits at the end of the bath, but this was like, a whole poop all at once and the bath tub was FULL. I must have a dose of my mother's sense of humor because rather than getting frustrated I just cracked up. I dragged him out, slapped a diaper on him, and went to refill the baby tub. Brian came in to make sure everything was OK because there was all the clanking of the tub being emptied and refilled, plus Kian was really mad and screaming. I thought about just taking him to bed, but of course he was all covered in floating poo by then, so I HAD to bathe him. Bathing a screaming baby is never fun, but it all worked out. I guess that counts as yet another milestone. Or something.

Sunday, instead of sleeping in his swing, we tried putting Kian in his Pack N Play again. He actually slept really well, and slept 4 hours straight! In the road to recovery. Of course, now that it's 2 weeks later I know that he still isn't 100%. So.

Monday was Labor Day, and it was nice to have all 4 days off together as a family. Brian ended up drinking coffee late on two different nights and staying up late 'being irresponsible', and he also played XBox for quite a while, so on this day he took Kian quite a bit so I could get things done. I managed to clean about half the house and do some laundry, so it was a productive day. Happily for all concerned, Kian went down easy and slept decently well too.

Tuesday my big job was to line up a landscaper to do some work in our backyard, and he ended up coming that very afternoon to give us an estimate. Since I didn't hear back from anyone else and he's the guy who came out before Kian was born, I hired him. Wednesday he and his guys came and started work. Though I'm glad to have the stuff done, it's annoying because the dogs can't go out while they're here, AND they bark incessantly. Luckily it should only take a few days. Wednesday night we put Kian to bed with no swaddle and he seems to like it better. Sometime this week he started reliably finding his own hands and sucking on them, and the added restraint seems to really upset him. I guess the time for swaddling might be done. It's a good thing too, because his swaddle things are too small and they don't carry the next size up at our Babies R Us. :)