A Messy House, A Chunky Baby, A Tired Husband

I thought when I got home last night that I'd have an energy burst and whip this place into order.

It didn't happen.

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I used an old-school cheat method yesterday and weighed my baby---in the produce section of Price Cutter. He's 12.5 pounds!  that's a chunky, rock-solid  five-and-a-half-week-old boy. From 8 pounds 11 ounces at his one week appointment, that's almost a consistent pound-a-week gain.

But he really isn't that fat. He's got a few little rolls, but for the most part he's just solid.

Right now he's sitting in his baby rocker with a blanket on his lap that he keeps kicking off. Every time I lay it back over his lap he grins and starts kicking again. I think he's loving the fact that he has the power to make mommy look at him. 

He so loves to talk. Last night we tried to convince him into going to bed at 10, but ended up laying him between us with the light on having a three way conversation for a half hour. He loved it. He cooed and gurgled and stared at us and we just talked at and around him. He finally got tired enough that when I fed him at 10:30 he drifted off.

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Quinn had a three night string of 3-5 hours of sleep and two days of 10 hour work shifts, so last night he was pretty shot. We were both dead, actually, 'cause I'd been up and out the door at 8:15 after being out 'til 11 the night before, and had spent the entire day at orchestra, teaching and helping and hanging out with my family, and didn't get home until 5:30.  We thought about going out, since we hadn't seen each other for two days, but ended up snuggling up on the couch and watching "Prince of Persia."

It was a cute movie. Typica Disney; some crazy action, cheesy sword fights, decent effects and lame humor.

Oh, and an ugly hero.

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15 days 'til my dear friend, the Ashlily, is wed to her Danny-boy. I wish I had a scanner so I could show off the adorable invitations we received this week. I so love that girl.

We'll be having a crazy 4 days surrounding that event. Driving two hours to pick up a rental car so we can take it t TX (next state rule. It sucks) then driving down to Dallas for the night, then caravanning to OK for the next night, then back to AR after the ceremony on Sunday, then home on Monday night. Not sure how well little-big-man is going to do, but since he's pretty much always good, it'd surprise me if he was anything else.


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Missing my man today. Work is a necessity, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't rather have him home with me and our boy.

Oh, and the new quartet pictures:

Phone Pics

Quinn showed me how to pull the pics off of the phone and save them to the computer, so here are some of our mobile photos:

The Great Race

Quinn has become a blogaholic. I don't know how it happened, but I'm not keeping up with him. I suppose it would be easier if my posts weren't complete tomes, but hey, what's the use of talking if you're not gonna talk a lot? His blog is seriously fun though. It's a nerd/Christian/cyclist gumbo, and you never know what odd links and facts are gonna pop up on his page.

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Last night was insane. Quinn proved his ability to father with a 4 hour babysitting experience, while I practiced and took part in a photo shoot with the Amore String Quartet. Our organizer, Heidi, has purchased a web domain for us and her brother is creating a site, so we needed a 20 second clip of us playing and some new photos since we switched out first violins. 

Our last photo shoot was a totally impromptu event, following a wedding ceremony that we were part of. I was seven months pregnant, so we worked hard to keep the angles from showing my baby belly.

Here are a couple pics from that:

Liz, the one on the far left in both pictures, was our first violin, but we now have Nate playing with us. I can't wait to see the new pictures and the website. We did some pretty funky stuff for the photographer- I hope they turn out! I'm not sure which is worse though, doing a photo shoot at 7 months pregnant, or one 3 weeks post-partum with baby flab still hanging out 'round my mid section. lol. Oh well. One can't dictate the lives of 3 other people according to self-image issues. Darnitall.

Anyway, practice last night was fun. We were in an office that's in an old building downtown so we had the high ceilings and brick walls and the accoustics were fantastic. Quinn managed to keep Gavin happy for 2.5 hours while we practiced, then another 2 hours while we took pictures, which is worthy of a medal of honor in my opinion. The child thinks he's going to shrivel up and die if he hits an hour and 40 minutes (as opposed to his normal hour and 30 minutes between meals)  while I'm holding him. They were too sweet last night, and I can't believe I didn't get a picture. Quinn had Gavin in the infant carrier and a diaper bag over his shoulder and spent such a long time walking and bouncing him to sleep, and keeping the misquitos off of him.

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So, I better get off and get to work. I've got piles of unsorted laundry to fold and hang up and a messy kitchen to deal with, then I need to pack clothes, the air matress, bedding, the play pen, chargers, phones, cameras, etc, for two nights at Gramma's house in AR with the other 20-some members of my family, Then I need to run to Braum's and the library and get a shower, and it all needs to be done in 10 hours and 8 minutes, all punctuated by seven different 20 minute feeding sessions, which means that I actually have closer to 8.5 hours...

It can be done.

The Miracle You Are-

These little hands are miracle of grace.

Your shining eyes and your sweet and smiling face.

All that you are, and all you'll grow to be

Is evidence that God is ever merciful to me!

Oh, I see mercy in the miracle you are,

A gift to me sent straight from Heav'n above.

God the Father has made me a mother,

What a miracle of mercy and of love.

 
Looking at you, I'm amazed at what I see.

A bright, living miracle looking back at me.

Perfect according to God's divine design.

Oh, I know that I'm unworthy, but I call this treasure mine.
 
 

  For some odd reason my SD port won't read my memory stick, so these pics are all from last week, but he's still just as sweet and beautiful, so I think they're relevant. He does have a bad case of baby acne that makes me want to cry for him, but since it doesn't seem to bother him, and there's really nothing that can be done about it, we're just pretending that it isn't actually there.
 
   He's such a good baby. He's only actually cried hard enough and long enough to produce genuine tears on two or three occasions. He's quiet and content and sleeps and eats beautifully. Our first couple weeks working as a team have been just about as smooth and happy as my pregnancy was; he's gaining weight (he's a compact baby. Thick and snuggly and strong.) eating quickly and with no hassle, putting up with outings with almost no complaints, etc. Quinn is fantastic with him. They talk and walk and snuggle and have a grand time in general. I'm so madly in love with my boys that I often find myself so overwhelmed with feeling that I don't have to think. It's a lovely thing.
 
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  We've got a road trip coming up. We're heading to Dallas in October, then caravanning back N to OK with one of my bff's wedding party for a wedding at a bed and breakfast, then coming back home. This bride is a genius. She having all of us girls buy white dresses that fit our own personal styles, and she bought a dye in the color she's chosen so she can dye all of our different styles the same shade of eggplant.
 
  Of course, finding a white sundress at this time of year is proving to be difficult. I had no idea how much weight I was gonna gain during my pregnancy, so I kept putting it off. The entire time we were mall walking last month I was keeping an eye out, but nobody seemed to have any. Right now I'm scouring the internet, trying to find something that will be easy to alter if it doesn't fit just right. I need to get it shipped in, altered, and mailed to her before end of the month at the very latest. Eeek. Talk about crunching things.
 
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  I just missed three phone calls and two texts from Quinn on his break.  Poor guy.  I hate doing that. The phone was on vibrate in the bottom of the diaper bag... I took a break from blogging and shopping to feed the little man and when I came back to the computer I noticed the time. I hope he's not too worried...
 
  Baby's grumping in his sleep and I'm thinking I'm a little hungry, so I'm gonna run for now. Thanks for reading.