So over a week has past since we returned from our VERY FIRST VISIT TO GRANDMA & GRANDPA’S (and Old, Wise Auntie) for Liam’s VERY FIRST CANADIAN THANKSGIVING!!
This trip also marked my first time being the driver while Daddy hung out in the back with Liam – we just find it easier on the road trips to have one of us in the back with him to make sure he’s ok & to better monitor what is going on with him since you cant see him at all cause he’s rear facing and that just kind of drives me crazy. Thankfully we didn’t hit any traffic as we have a little Red Light Racer & it is not pleasant to hear him wail while sitting at a red light or in traffic. If I can remember correctly, we only had to stop twice for the Pimp Juice & twice for diaper changes – I think the normally 4 ½ hour trip was extended to 5 hours but overall that’s not too bad. At some points though the weather was just horrible & it is now getting dark early so for Mommy the drive wasn’t all that grand but we made it to Cary just a little after his bedtime & we got him situated in his pack and play (Grandma bought her own to encourage visits – just kidding! It makes it a lot easier for us not to have to pack it in the car along with everything else we need to bring along with him!) and hung out a little with the family before heading to bed ourselves.
That night we discovered that Liam didn’t really dig the pack and play – the “bed” is almost suspended and any movement causes it to swing like a suspension bridge which woke him up and made him do the “frozen snowangel” (or more technically known as the “startle response”) and cry. I caved (yeah, twist my arm) and brought him to bed with us where he spent the rest of the weekend. I’m a sucker for having our little guy in bed with us especially when I can use the “he can’t sleep” excuse.
Sunday, we went to Macy*s since Liam had received a gift card from Matias’ co-workers at his contract site at his SURPRISE baby shower earlier that week and we SHOPPED! They had some great sales & we got some really cute stuff – another hoodie, a rugby shirt, some adorable pants, and some really cute shirts. We needed to stock up on some Fall clothes – crapper of the whole thing is that he is in between sizes AND seasons! He’s just a little too small for the next size up right now but the weather is changing so he’s wearing his clothes a little big right now & just might be doing that until next month (which is sneaking up on us quickly!) – it’s kind of a pain in the ass to get some massive shopping done though cause he’s going to be six months in January but he doesn’t need TWO sets of winter clothes – I know, horrible thing to stress over, right?! Don’t worry, I’ve got it all covered – literally. Liam will be the Layer King. Awww, Liam the Layer King – kidding. But it does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
[edited to note: this is not the “catch up nap time” I was alluding to earlier this is “Mets vs. Cards Game is on” catch up time. I’m a talented multi-tasker. Liam has been down for the night for two hours now]
Sunday NIGHT we had a fantastic Canadian Thanksgiving – complete with all my favorite trimmings & a GLASS OF WINE! Liam received a bib that was altered to read My First CANADIAN Thanksgiving and proudly wore it while in his car seat on the dining room table. Yes, the dining room table – Grandma even admitted that she would never do with her own kids (yeah, hello!) but with Grandkids it’s OK. whatEVER. I think it took him a few times of us going upstairs to finally get him down for good but I do believe he enjoyed his first thanksgiving at Grandma & Grandpa’s!
Monday morning my mom left for a beach trip – can you believe she left before Liam had even woken up?!!? I still cannot believe that she missed out on all that time she could have been spending with him just to go to the beach and quilt. Oh well. I suppose it was her decision to leave her grandson.
[god, I love guilt trips]
Liam had his first trip to Best Buy to go computer parts shopping – what a proud moment! Matias needed to fix my sister’s computer (fried video card – I called that!) so we trekked out with Grandpa to go pick up the replacement & then went to lunch.
Liam is definitely getting more comfortable & better at spending time in his car seat – he was never BAD about it (of course not!), it just seems that now he’s grown a little more accustomed to hanging out in there without bitching about “are we there yet?” He still is the Red Light Racer though – I was joking with someone on the train yesterday (when he started getting fussy while the train was stopped waiting for “track work”) that I now totally encourage all drivers to run the yellow lights – much less painless than sitting at a red light!
I wanted to make it home before his bedtime & we nearly made it – it would have been a little more helpful if the person in charge of “knowing what Liam needed” was a little more in tune with things – like say, possibly changing his diapers and suggesting a feeding AT THE SAME STOP so that we wouldn’t have to stop DOUBLE the amount of times. It really isn’t ALL that easy to find a “nice” spot to whip out your boob in the back seat of the car to feed your baby, contrary to what you might have envisioned. Plus it would have been nice to make it home before dark but everything worked out ok with only TWO stops within 15 miles of home. Yeah, please don’t ask cause I have a headache from rolling my eyes about it simply thinking about it.
So it was a quick but wonderful trip to Grandma & Grandpa’s (and Old, Wise Auntie) House for Canadian Thanksgiving but that was ok cause I was getting ready to turn around on Thursday and take our First Train Ride back to NC for our First Wedding & Mommy’s First Weekend Alone [without Daddy]!
Maybe I’ll find the time to post about that before the kid turns six months! Now I’m off to pump so that Daddy has something to feed the little Bundle while I’m at the church bazaar on Saturday – HIS First Day Alone [without Mommy]!
I’m hoping to get some pictures from my family covering the past two weekends – HINT HINT – so I’ll post them here, of course, when I get them!!
Liam's Baptism
First off, I HAVE TO say that Liam was an angel during his Baptism. Even the priest (who is no longer Father Charles – he moved up to Rhode Island) commented no less than 4 times that he is “such a good boy”, “is he always like this”, and how “lucky we are” – yes thank you very much we know! We had him dressed in a cute little white seersucker overall suit with a white blouse underneath that his Great Aunt (on his mother’s side) had made for him with a Peter Pan collar that had blue stitching, and white shoes that came attached to one of his gifts just as a little ‘decoration’ to the wrapping (I’m sure they aren’t intended to be used as shoes but they look a hell of a lot cuter than his white GAP socks would have!) and a pin that Isabel had given me when I was pregnant. The pin had a blue fabric rosette, a lemon (not sure about that), a silver fist (think it has something to do with Rio since she lives in
It was quite the trek into DC with three cars in our caravan of Merry Baptizers but we made in time for Communion so everything was still on track! Liam got a little fussy during Mass so I took him out to his Grandma’s car to give him a quick lunch & I thought I had enough time to feed and change him since we were the second in line to get Baptized but I got a call from Matias just as I finished up & just as he filled his pants (quite loudly, I might add) that “we were up” so I brought him back in poopy diaper and all and just ‘prayed’ (as much as I can pray) that he didn’t get too upset about sitting in poop.
Needless to say, he didn’t react to his poop at all. He was seriously a little angel. He was all attentive & I would dare say it even appeared as if he was participating in his own Baptism! He was watching the priest when he spoke, looking at us & his Godparents when we were being spoken to, and watching the candle when we were all holding it & he SMILED when the priest baptized him!! The other little one being baptized (who was about 6-8 months old) was NOT happy about her situation – her gown was a traditional HUGE Baptismal gown that had been passed down & it was warm out – so she wasn’t very ecstatic to be there. Liam on the other hand – took it all in & behaved so, so well. He didn’t make one little peep, just laid there in all of our arms and chilled. Mommy was so very pleased.
What Mommy wasn’t so very pleased about was how Daddy’s brothers & sisters RUSHED the Baptismal Pool and crowded around to take pictures. Thanks for ruining the sanctity of our fricking event. I was even PUSHED out of the way, ELBOWED to move but no worries, I know when a well placed elbow of my own needs to be landed and WHERE. I’m still really upset over it all because I just really think it was rude to rush in and try to get in between us all for the sake of a fricking picture – LET US HAVE OUR MOMENT WITH OUR SON AND BACK THE FUCK UP PEOPLE! Looking back on it, which I’ve done numerous times in my head, I wish I had actually taken the Pain in the Ass by the shoulders and told her to get the fuck out of my way, that this is MY SON and your goddamn 12 y.o. ass does NOT need to be in between the PRIEST AND MYSELF! But instead all I did was land an elbow to the face. It was like a goddamn three ring circus up in there & I’m not pleased about it at all. Let us have a moment while we are performing this ritual, would you please?
After that it was time for pictures at the altar with everyone – I haven’t seen very many of them since we didn’t use our camera for it but I hope to see some at my parents this weekend! I have a few of my parents & Leanne with him & they just look adorable so here’s to hoping we have a decent one of ourselves!
And don’t get me started on when I was trying to ‘decorate’ Liam’s cake and the Pain in the Ass, ok?
And then it was over. I really LOVE our church. It’s intimate & gorgeous & just the right place for our family. The Priest was wonderful – again coming up to us afterwards to comment on Liam’s behavior & “bless” us one last time. I’m so GLAD (and relieved) that we were able to have Liam Baptized in the church his Mommy & Daddy were married in AND Matias couldn’t tell enough people that – everyone who talked to him he told that we were married there, so it turns out it mattered to him too. Wish he had a little foresight with that though – we could have saved ourselves an argument or two [dozen].
We came home & started on the Asado! Matias grilled chorizo and made ChoriPan (chorizo and bread) while I made broccoli slaw and finished the cake decorating and my mom made grilled zucchinis and potatoes – everything was just delicious, if not a bit frantic in the house trying to get everything prepped with about 34 dozen people milling and HOVERING over everything you do without ONCE actually attempting to help you do anything. BREATHING. BREATHING. STILL BREATHING.
Thankfully, Liam woke up after I had my mini-attack up there so now I’m in a much better state of mind! HA!
We were very lucky to receive some fabulous gifts for Liam’s Baptism – my parents gifted him his silver mug engraved with his name & birth date! My mom got it in Montreal while she was there visiting her mother – she got it at my favorite store – Birk’s [think Tiffany’s of Canada] – and it just means the world to me! I plan on taking a picture soon to post here! Matias’ family gave us a card & some cash that I’m going to put towards his crib sheets (I just like saying that cause it’s a funny double entendre), my Grandmother, Liam’s GG (as we call her) gave him a commemorative Canadian Coin Set from his Year of Birth (TOO COOL!) and (ok follow me here) Micaela’s Mother in Law gave him a Savings Bond. [And I do have to rant here – AT NO POINT IS IT OK TO ASK ME HOW MUCH THE SAVINGS BOND IS ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE TWELVE YEARS OLD]
My mom & sister had to leave after we served the cake (and good lord I can bitch about people being retards while I’m trying to cut the cake BUT I WILL REFRAIN) since Leanne had to work on Monday & Sunday was turning out to be a LONG ASS DAY. I was dropping my dad at Dulles for his return flight to
It took him about two days to fully recover from everyone being here and all the excitement – but he got back on Schedule pretty easily until we took him to get his shots on Thursday!
He did REALLY well in the hotel but I think by the end of his 3 night stay he was a little bored with being in one room, with no fresh air, sleeping in his pack n play & not having his gym to work out in. He did get out during the day to walk around town and visit the downtown Mall so it’s not like he was cooped up for 3 days straight but I do think he missed “home” just like we all do after a time.
Grandpa babysat for Mommy & Daddy while we went to two DMB shows & did a little partying with our friends. I had been pumping every once in a while over about a months’ time in order to get enough milk for his pre-bedtime meals (dinner and nighttime snack) & one more bottle for his during-the-night meal so that Mommy could afford to have some fun herself. Thankfully, he had no problem taking the bottle (he rarely gets one, maybe once or twice a month as Mommy is the main source of the Pimp Juice [trademark Rach&Jen]) and showed no indication that he even “knew” it had been frozen. THANKFULLY. I would have dreaded getting that phone call saying he was refusing to eat but I had tested him on a bottle before we left & he was ok with it so it was just a matter of someone else feeding him with previously frozen milk…
Grandpa said that Night 1 he cried frantically for about an hour, I think, but that he chalked it up to missing us (which nearly broke my heart in a million pieces) but that otherwise he was a Good Liam Fellow for him. Since I am the main source of Pimp Juice, it’s RARE that I am away from him for more than 2 hours at the most, so this was really hard on me & of course I was the typically Mommy and couldn’t stop talking about him and thinking about him.
Night2 went a little better once Grandpa discovered the Liam likes to watch the news during his Fussy Hour (currently running from 5:30-6:30 every night) – it’s hilarious to watch him watch the news! I don’t think anything out of the ordinary happened that night but we did restrain ourselves from rushing to him and picking him up as soon as we got back, we just wished that he would wake for food SOON! We weren’t disappointed! He slept really well, again, for the rest of the night & we got somewhat of an earlier start on Sunday. Although we didn’t make it out to do anything beyond have Brunch at the Virginian & wait twenty jillion hours to get anything from our servers. But I’m not complaining – YET. We realized that it was going to take us more time than normal to pack up our stuff & check out considering we had quite a bit more stuff & one extra little person who doesn’t really pick up after himself – YET. We had to drop the Babysitter off at Dulles that evening so he could catch his return flight to Ottawa – Liam was really well behaved in the car WHEN IT WAS MOVING. GOD FORBID WE HIT A RED LIGHT – oh the horror!
He recovered pretty well from his big weekend & was pretty much back on schedule by Tuesday. Mommy & Daddy needed a few more days though!
