Ruby Recap: Month 3

I am so behind on these. 

Let's just acknowledge that taking care of a baby full-time doesn't leave a lot of free time. I'm lucky to brush my teeth (almost) every day. 

I'm also a perfectionist, and spending 5+ hours to write the first draft of a blog post isn't something I have the luxury for. 

So here's my attempt to catch up, and also my attempt to relax a little over what I write. 

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Well it's official. Ruby is no longer a newborn. *sniff*

Look how much our infant has grown! 

An unofficial bathroom scale weigh-in puts her around 13 lbs. 6 oz...up almost 3 whole pounds since her month 2 checkup! 

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Here's a recap of Ruby's 3rd month: 

Shane had to go out of town overnight for work, so Ruby and I got to have some girl time. And we survived! 

I was really nervous to be on our own. Sure, I take care of her during work hours, and it's not like Shane can wake up and breastfeed her during the night, but it's really awesome to have him help out after he gets done working. I love taking care of her, but sometimes you just need a break to walk laps around the house or go to the bathroom without constantly worrying about a tiny human. 

Surprisingly, we did pretty well. Ruby seemed to be on her best behavior and even let me take a shower without having Shane watch her. 

Here we are, dressed all snuggly in our pajamas and ready for story time! 

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Ruby started to figure out TOYS this month :) She's figured out that she can put things in her mouth and chew. As if everything in our house wasn't already covered in dog slobber, I guess now it'll be covered in Ruby slobber too. 

It's so amazing to watch her learn and interact with the world around her. She doesn't just lay on her playmat anymore, she looks at and reaches for her toys. She even played herself to sleep one day!

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Ruby still loves bathtime! Shane's usually in charge, because I'm always afraid I'll drop her when she's wet and soapy and slippery. But that just leaves me free to take pictures! 

Look at her duck fuzz! Sometimes it looks red, sometimes it looks blonde. We're anxious to see what her hair looks like, but it might take a while. Neither Shane or I had much hair at all until we were a year old or more. 

Too cute!

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Speaking of ducks, check out Ruby in her first snowstorm! As you would expect, we spent more time bundling ourselves up than out in the snow. Ruby is pretty smart, but she's not quite advanced to snowman-building level yet. 

If you're wondering where you can get a stylish duck snowsuit like hers, you'll just have to travel back in time to the late 1980s. Almost exactly 28 years ago, my parents dressed baby ME in that snowsuit to bring me home from the hospital in a snowstorm.  

Ruby enjoyed the snow so much that she pitched a fit when we came back inside. 

*Sidenote: why did Carter's put an elephant on an outfit with bear ears on the hood? I mean it's cute, I picked it out. It's not like they could put giant elephant ears on there, but it seems odd to mix animals. Or is that just me? 

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Aunt Hannah has been collecting these cute things called tsum tsums since before Ruby was born. Each month the Disney store comes out with a set of characters from a different movie. We also may or may not have bought an Alice in Wonderland costume (in several sizes) back at Halloween. This photo opportunity has been in the works for a while. 

However, if you've ever had a baby, you'll know that time goes by fast and you don't always have time for baby fashion shows. If you look closely, you'll see that in the third picture, Ruby's onesie buttons weren't even snapped. Guess who was just a smidge too long for her dress? She posed for a while, but she really lets you know when she's just OVER IT.   

P.S. Let this serve as a warning to those parents out there who are looking at buying Halloween costumes from the Disney store. If you're looking at baby sizes, SIZE UP. Ruby has a couple that we bought on clearance, and they have consistently run small. 

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This month we did something scary. We drove for three-and-a-half hours in a VW Golf with two rambunctious dogs and a two-month-old baby. 

That's right! It was time for Ruby's first trip to Knoxville! Ruby got to meet a LOT of new family members. And we somehow managed to not pack our whole house! I still don't know how I, the queen of overpacking, took a trip with a baby without having to rent a U-Haul. 

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Ruby loves to go for rides with mom and dad! Shane and I have enjoyed learning all about babywearing, and if you can't tell, I have a serious addiction to buying different baby carriers. 

The picture on the left is Ruby and me at Opry Mills mall, where we met up with a bunch of other babywearing mamas to walk laps. The middle picture is at our very first Babywearing International meeting, which was so fun! And the picture on the right is me and Ruby at the grocery store. Babywearing is awesome because it lets Ruby get all snuggled up (and she usually takes a nap) while we get chores done :) 

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It's amazing to see how much this little lady grows and changes every day, and we're so thankful to be her parents. 

Until next time, enjoy this classy lady in her diaper and socks :) 

Ruby Recap: Month 1

In case you missed Ruby's birth story, you can read it here. 


"Move it, peas! You're in my shot!" 

  

Yes, she did actually whack the peas out of her way. 

It's hard to believe that our little girl is one month old already! It's not been an easy month, but it's been the best month of our lives. Here are some of our favorite moments from the past month. 

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Ruby's first... Thanksgiving! Her due date was supposed to be three days after Turkey Day, so our plans changed a bit from what we'd expected. Instead of me sitting around hugely pregnant and uncomfortable, I got to enjoy the holiday with a sweet little baby! Shane's parents, my parents, and my sister Hannah all came to celebrate with us. Shane is so awesome, he did ALL the cooking without any help from me! It was really nice to be able to relax instead of stress. Thanks Shane!

Everyone made it into these photos except Ruby...she's in her rocking chair on the floor next to me. 

We learned the importance of having a backup holiday outfit. Ruby started out the day wearing an outfit with cute little turkeys printed on it..and then she peed on it...twice. Good thing we'd bought this onesie as a backup just in case! 

As it turns out, adult size turkey hats make really good baby turkey costumes! Look at my silly little turkeys :) 

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Ruby's first... visit to see Santa! Like crazy people, we took her to the mall at 2 weeks old to get her first Santa picture made. I figured it would be better to take her early before it got too cold outside and the lines got too long. We still had to wait over an hour! 

This picture is adorable and hilarious. Just check out Ruby up close. I got worried about Ruby getting big kid germs from sitting on Santa's lap after so many other kids, so I decided to hold her. I should've looked at us in a mirror before they snapped the picture. I promise she's not slumped over, it's just her outfit was a little large and bunched up right around her head. It does make her look like her shoulders are about to her ears though!   

Ruby and I also had our first public breastfeeding experience that day. Of all places, I wouldn't have imagined trying it at a Bass Pro Shop in a busy outlet mall, but when a baby's gotta eat, she's gotta eat! I was able to keep myself covered without having to cover Ruby. I felt a lot more comfortable with it than I would've thought. And thankfully I didn't even get any weird looks from others! I honestly don't know how many people really even noticed I was feeding her. 

Breastfeeding is NOT an easy thing to learn how to do, and looking at this photo makes me really proud of myself. At this point, I was still having a lot of trouble getting her to latch on. I had just gone to a breastfeeding support group two days before, and thanks to the techniques I learned there, this was also one of the first times I was able to get her to latch properly. 

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Ruby loves... planking! You know, like the social media trend from a few years ago? Our little goofball loves to relax by sticking her arms and legs out stiff as a board. 

Ruby loves... her play gym! She isn't really big enough to play with toys and she can only see about 12 inches in front of her face, but she DID seem pretty interested in the hanging rattle after her hand accidentally whacked it. 

Ruby loves... her big brothers! Charlie and Sheldon alternate between ignoring Ruby and being completely entranced by her. They get really concerned when she starts to cry. If we don't get to her quick enough they'll start barking as if to say, "the baby's broken, fix her!" 

The first few days we had her home, Sheldon (on the right) would NOT let Charlie near Ruby at all! If Charlie got close, Sheldon would growl and snap at him like some sort of vicious wild animal. I had to catch and hold Sheldon so Charlie could get some Ruby snuggle time. 

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 You had to be there... 

Ruby was wearing a 0-3 month size gown and it was way too big on her and at one point the neck hole was halfway down her chest. Shane took a look at her and said, "Ruby, I can see your cleavage! You need a cami secret!"

She sleeps in a cradle in our room. One night I had a hard time getting her to go to sleep; anytime I'd put her down, she'd start crying again. I finally got her down and she seemed okay, so I crept back to my bed as quietly as possible. I laid down, pulled up the covers...and farted. Really loudly. Ruby immediately woke up and started crying. 

You'll never believe it, but the other day, Ruby and Shane sneezed at the EXACT SAME TIME. Seriously. It was the weirdest thing. And today, Ruby sneezed a second after I did. I think she's got some sort of psychic / sympathetic sneeze thing going on. 

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Happy one month, Ruby! 

P.S. How cute is she in that fleece vest and those jeggings? She doesn't wear "outfits" very much, we typically have her in gowns or pajamas, but when she does...she's way more stylish than I am! 

Day 19: Happy Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day! I'm watching the clock because it's 3/14/15, and at 9:26:53 p.m., the date and time will represent the first 10 digits of pi. 

In case you haven't taken a math class recently and/or don't know what I'm talking about, π (pi) represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. It cannot be written out completely as the decimals never end and never repeat in a pattern. Computer calculations have it going into the trillions of decimal places and are still working. (Read more about it here if you're interested). Thanks to Precalculus 2, I've been doing a lot of geometry and trigonometry, so I've been well acquainted with π. 

It's also Albert Einstein's birthday! 

Shane and I found it fitting to celebrate with our favorite kind of π...pizza pie! We got some Screamin Sicilian frozen pizzas at Publix and they were surprisingly delicious. Like it's fair to say it's the best frozen pizza I've ever had, and better than a lot of regular fresh pizza. It also didn't hurt that it came with a coupon for buy two, get a free Ben & Jerry's coupon. Yum! 

The pizza boxes even had these fun cardboard punch-out moustaches, which were kinda weird because they attached to your face by sticking cardboard up your nose. Perfect for a quick pic I guess :) 

How are you celebrating #NationalPiDay ??

Day 17: Blind Bags Anonymous

My sister Hannah has gotten hooked on blind bags, you know, where you get a sealed box or foil bag with a surprise toy inside. Just search "blind bags" on YouTube and you'll know where the obsession came from, and it's easy to see why! The mystery of which toy you're going to get is exciting and fun. Who doesn't like toy surprises? That's pretty much the whole basis for the Happy Meal after all. 

She started stocking up a few weeks ago and amassed a giant collection so Shane and I could come over and we'd have a Blind Bag Palooza. Here is our before pile. The picture does not do the sheer amount of blind bags justice. She got a wide variety of fun things to open. Our contribution can be seen in the brown paper bags with magic marker drawings on them. They're $2 grab bags from Crystal Visions at East Town Knoxville Center Mall, the one that sells pagan/wiccan supplies, those trolls with the glowing red eyes, and an assortment of "tobacco" pipes and samurai swords. We were curious. 

Where to start first? 

Needless to say, it took a while to open all those little packages, and I think even longer for me to set up this picture. Check out what we got! 

See those tumbled stones and glass earrings in bottom right corner? That's what was in our grab bags. I'm sure they have some sort of mystical powers. 

There are a lot of popular blind bags right now, one of the most sought out being Shopkins. As you can see from the picture below, they're adorable anthropomorphized versions of things you would buy at the grocery store, and they come two at a time in a little shopping basket. They also include a little checklist that looks like a grocery store receipt. Hannah has been known to drive all over town to find them. 

There's around 145 different Shopkins in season (series) 2 alone, so that's a lot of little shopping baskets laying around the house if you're a collector. 

Here's a few more of the Shopkins...

Shopkins weren't the only thing we got! As you'll see from the picture below, we've got a few Lego minifigures (two Explorers and a King), a surprise Doctor from Doctor Who (we got the first Doctor), some Hello Kitty figurines, etc. See those things with the giant heads? They're called Fash'ems, and they're a little weird to me. They're squishy and filled with water, and the outsides are almost sticky. Seems like they'd get real dirty and fuzzy real quick.

We also got some Minecraft blind boxes, an assortment of My Little Ponies, more Hello Kitties, and those cute figurines in the back, which are Tokidoki Unicornos. 

If you have never been to a Five Below, you need to check it out. That's where Hannah got these fake Kinder Surprise eggs. The real Kinder eggs, in case you've never heard of them, are chocolate eggs with toys inside, kind of like the Wonderball chocolates we had in the 90s. You can get them in pretty much every country besides the United States (they're banned here because of an FDA regulation, and people get fined at the Canadian border for trying to bring them across). 

These ChocoTreasure eggs are still technically illegal per the FDA regulations, so it's just a matter of time until they're forced to stop production. Sadly, the eggs contained some of the lamest prizes of the bunch. One did have a cute tiny Hello Kitty figurine, and a couple had stickers, but most had little cardboard people like the ones below. I ate several of the chocolate egg shells and quickly regretted that decision. 

We had a lot of fun opening and sorting our prizes. I know what you're thinking, what are we going to do with all of these? Well, Hannah is collecting some, Shane and I are keeping some of the others (our china cabinet, which used to hold liquor, is slowly being converted to a toy showcase), and anything we don't want or have duplicates of will be given to friends' kids.

You never know, maybe this is just practice for when Hannah is a YouTube star and gets paid to do this! 

Day 12: Hopping right into spring!

Spring is here! Not just because it's March and not just because it was actually nice today. Don't worry, it's going to snow tomorrow...

We have baby bunnies! Sheldon was the one to discover the nest in our back yard flower bed. Shane noticed he was really transfixed by this one patch of grass, and upon further investigation, realized there is a whole nest of bunnies in there! We're now careful to watch the dogs when they go out. Shane also moved the nest covering back so they'd stay nice and cozy in there. 

It's kinda hard to see what's going on in the picture, so I've gone ahead and pointed out the cute parts for you :)

It may seem crazy, but now I can't stop worrying about those little baby bunnies. I'm hoping we didn't disturb the nest too much. I did read somewhere that you could put baking powder around the nest at night and look for prints in the morning to see if the mom has come to check on them. I may have to do that just to be on the safe side. 

I keep envisioning scenarios where I get to take them in, make them a nest in a cardboard box, feed them from a bottle while holding them wrapped in a blanket, that sort of thing. I really don't wish for that though, I'm sure their mommy checks on them often! Who wouldn't want to check on babies that cute? Hopefully in a couple of weeks, we'll even get to see mom and a pile of fluffballs hopping across the yard :)

In the meantime, I'll just have to keep googling pictures of wild baby bunnies...

Day 11: Full of beans

I've spent all day studying for my biology test (been working on it since Thursday) and am taking a special procrastination break just to write this post. Seriously, why is studying taking so long? Maybe I should start actually studying between classes like I'm supposed to and not just leading up to the test. 

Shane and I did take a break this morning / afternoon to grab some breakfast. He woke up craving Cracker Barrel biscuits and gravy, and who was I to say no? 

Check out this delicious spread. He got biscuits and gravy with a side of bacon and hashbrown casserole. I picked the Wholesome Fixin's breakfast, which came with two scrambled egg beaters, turkey bacon or sausage, cheese grits, sliced tomatoes, and a side of fruit. And under 500 calories? Yum! 

While Cracker Barrel's food is pretty tasty, the real draw is the general store. Where else can you play checkers while you wait on your table, smell 100+ different candles, buy a birdhouse shaped like a cowboy hat, and stock up on enough candy to rot out all your teeth in one sitting? 

Really though, they have quite the selection of candy. I used to be a big fan of the giant Tootsie Rolls, you know the ones that are the size of a normal candy bar and are so tough that they nearly break out your teeth. And what about those candy sticks? The ones that cost like 15 cents each? I always always wanted to try the horehound flavor because my grandmother said she used to eat them when she was little. Turns out horehound is like root beer flavor but so much worse. Would not recommend. 

Speaking of weird candy, check out these Jelly Belly flavors. I'd love to get a job in their flavor invention department, because they'll just take anybody's idea and run with it. 

This "Peas & Carrots" pack is a little misleading, as they're really orange sherbet and green apple flavors. I guess it's for the best, because I can't imagine legitimately flavored peas and carrots jelly beans. 

Since those peas and carrots threw us for a loop, it's somewhat reassuring to see that the pancakes and syrup beans are really pancake and syrup flavored. 

I still can't imagine this being a good buy though. I'm not a big fan of maple syrup, but even if I was, I think the novelty of the taste would wear off after the first couple of beans. 

Seeing these got me interested so I had to do some web research. There were some other questionable choices, including Tabasco Sauce and egg nog, but none more so than the alcoholic beverage flavors (alcohol free, of course). 

Flavors like strawberry daiquiri and margarita, I can get that. Those are fruity drinks that just so happen to have alcohol. But beer flavored? Unless you're drinking some sort of fancy craft beer, most don't drink it for the taste. 

You can also get champagne flavored if draft beer isn't classy enough for your jelly bean eating tastes. 

I guess these are good for church weddings where you're not allowed to serve alcohol but still want a champagne toast? I really don't know. Just take a look at the actual description from their website: 

Toast any occasion with Champagne jelly beans. They have all the flavor of a glass of bubbly in a petite-package and with none of the alcohol. Their iridescent finish will help to bring that extra sparkle to weddings, showers, parties and adult snacking. 

No alcohol content.

"Adult snacking." Now if there was a way to actually get some alcohol content in there, that term might apply. 

In case your mouth is watering right now, here's a link to their site where you can buy a 10lb bulk case for $85. According to the description, they come in a food-grade cardboard box, so you can just pop the top, sit it out on the table, and instant party!  

Keep in mind, this is all brought to you by the people who make enticing flavors like earthworm, dirt, earwax, and boogers (thanks to J.K. Rowling), so I guess they can only go up from there. 

Day 10: Charlie and Sheldon

One of those famous writers once said, "when your blog is due and you're not sure what to write about, just put up pictures of your dogs." I think it was Shakespeare. I hear he had a similar process while writing King Lear. 

Anyways, I'm following his advice. Here's some photo evidence of just how adorable my dogs have been lately. 

I took this picture to send to Shane while he was away on a business trip. Of course Shane and I both love Charlie and Sheldon equally, but Charlie is definitely a daddy's boy and Sheldon is mine. Charlie cuddles on the couch with Shane all the time, and when Shane's been gone for a couple of days, Charlie gets lonely enough to snuggle with me instead. 

Sheldon is a precious couch snuggler too. In this picture, he was jealous that I was paying attention to Charlie instead of him, so he gave me the sad puppy face. He's good at that one. 

Sheldon's a frantic nest builder. It takes him around 5 minutes of scratching to get the couch blankie fluffed to his liking. 

Charlie and Sheldon don't snuggle often, but when they do, it's the most adorable thing you've ever seen. Here's a picture of them accidentally sleeping so close they touched. 

Sheldon also magically knows right when you're about to take a picture of him, so he opens his eyes, or closes them, licks his lips, moves his head, something. 

You know how I dyed my hair pink? Of course Sheldon had to match! I wanted to do his whole curly tail, but figured an ear would be good enough to start out with. I did it at the worst possible time too...Shane was on a business phone call, and here I am, hands in gloves covered with pink dye and a dog with a wet pink ear, which he would not let me rinse out in the sink. He was sitting on the bed and I couldn't figure out how to pick him up without getting pink everywhere. Somehow I managed to wrangle him to the tub. I'm so thankful for detachable shower heads. 

Isn't he so cute? Next up we've got a picture of a typical Netflix/Hulu night at our house. Our dogs have several different nap spots picked out on the couch. On top of that one cushion is a popular one. 

This is as close to snuggling as they normally get. Remember how I was telling you how Charlie snuggles with Shane all the time? Here's how they normally cuddle. It's so cute it breaks my heart. 

I'm thankful for these little guys! They're so entertaining and they definitely make our lives more worthwhile.