Barb & Alex

I could not neglect to post a pic of Alex and his grandma.

Happy Birthday, Jesse!

Alex had a blast as you can see from this picture. Great cake, Barb.

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon...

Steve Buscemi in "The Big Lebowski" with John Goodman, John Goodman in "O Brother, Where art thou?" with George Clooney, George Clooney in "Ocean's Eleven" with Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt in "Sleepers" with Kevin Bacon...And so began our 3-hour car ride to Blue Grass, Iowa. It was a weekend of new experiences for Alex, Keith and I. Keith and I got to ride in Barb's brand new ATV all over the subdivision (it's much cooler than it sounds). Alex got to eat cereal for the first time on July 4th!!! Very exciting stuff, man, at least to us parents. And was Alex ever ready for it. I think he would have eaten a steak had I fed it to him. Barb also noticed that Alex's 2 bottom teeth started to come in, at 5 months! It was a very fun weekend and a blessing to get to spend it with Barb and Jesse and their family (Stormy, Jack & Ernie).

The biggest cutie pie ever!

Here's Alex at 4 months or so at a Church picnic.

I just could not resist posting this! Check out the little Beethoven. When I sat him down at the piano, he really just couldn't resist. Of course, as his mommy, that makes me quite happy indeed.

Hubby's birthday!

Today was Keith's birthday! Ha! Now you can join the rest of us fogies, hubby! j/k :)
From my perspective, it was a great day and a good year for him. I think the 46' LCD he's always dreamt of would have been enough to make him happy, but he also got some other nice gifts. And of course the icing on the cake (no pun intended), was the Culver's Concrete Turtle Cake and getting to go see Hancock!!! ...which by the way is at least the 3rd Will Smith blockbuster we've seen on Keith's actual birthdate. All in all, I would say it was a very fine day indeed.

Can it be?

So a little under 2 weeks ago, we started "sleep-training" Alex. Before becoming a parent, one has all these ideas about what one will and won't do. :)
Of course, baby sleeping in bed with mommy and daddy was a big no-no. And then, reality hits...You realize everything goes out the window (at least it did for me) where precious sleep is concerned. Alex would not sleep in his crib or bassinet at all from day one. After some half-heartened attempts to get him to sleep in his bassinet, we resigned to letting him sleep with us. It was very convenient for me too as I am breastfeeding him. Well, 4 1/2 months and 21 lbs later, we decided it was time for him to learn the fine art of falling asleep on his own. Then, all hell broke loose.

For those of you who aren't parents, there are very specific sleep-training methodologies in the how-to parenting manual. Just a side note, DO NOT tell anybody which one you are adopting if you don't want someone to go into a 10-minute discourse on why their method is best and what a bad parent you are if you don't adopt their method.

So, Keith and I settled on the cold-turkey "cry-it-out" method. The first 4 nights were miserable!!! One night, Alex cried for 1 hour and 20 minutes and still hadn't fallen asleep (yes, I caved in and picked him up at that point). But we continued trying, and I'm happy to say that last night was the 11th night of trying, and he fussed for all of 10 minutes and fell asleep! Now he goes to bed at about 7:30 and doesn't wake up for his first feeding until 11:30-12:30. I am so proud of him! He's my sweet little angel. For those of you out there who may be trying this method or will, it sucks, but it's worth it.