Rollin' with my Homies

We're in milestone land. On Wednesday, August 13th, Wyatt rolled over for the first time from his tummy to his back. He was chillin' on a blanket on the floor with his buddy Alex, who's 2 weeks younger. He saw Alex rollin' like a pro and decided to give it a try. (Jealous, much?) To our delight, he pulled it off on the first try! (He hasn't done it again since, ha ha, but it still counts!)

And while we're talking milestones, we can add Mr. Wyatt to the solid food club. Yep, my boy now eats from a spoon. Rock on, little muncher. He seemed a little weirded out by the texture of something not-milk-like, but being the hearty eater that he is, he got over it in no time. Watch out world, Wi-Fi is learning to chow.

In other eating news, not Wyatt-related, I'm learning to cook. And by "learning" I mean "teaching myself with random recipes and expensive grocery bills". I find that the basics are boring, so I've jumped right into gourmet-land. Okay, that's an exaggeration, considering I don't even really know what all the tools do, or the difference between "chopping" and "mincing". But if I don't know, I just improvise. So far, most things have turned out pretty good. I've had a couple flops, but I guess that's the whole "learn from your mistakes" angle. Tonight, I'm cooking for the first time for Ryan's family. (I made jerk chicken for my parents a couple weeks ago, but knowing me, they have such low expectations in the kitchen, ha ha, it wasn't much pressure.) What's funny is that it's not like the Kuhns are a high-maintenance group. We could order pizza and they'd be perfectly happy. But I know Ryan wants to show off his wife's culinary progress, ha ha, and so I'm stepping up to the plate with a repeat performance of my Garlic Sesame Pork Tenderloin, Artichokes with Creamy Dill Dipping Sauce, and some Garlic Bread. Garlic is the thru-line for this meal, so my apologies to anyone in the family who was planning on having minty fresh breath tonight...

I feel like with as long as it's been since I blogged, I should probably have more to say. I should, for instance, be telling you about Wyatt and my perfectly fun day in LA last week. I should be writing about Ryan and my sans-baby trip up to the Napa area for the Bottling Party at the Housley's winery. I should, but I'm tired of typing. I'll get back to you on those. It'll be a teaser - setting you up for the sequel. Try not to be too impatient. :) And speaking of impatient, I'll leave you with a picture of the little dude, who was too impatient to take his nap to let his mommy know he was tired...

Our Little Dude is Bulking Up for Fall

Tomorrow, Wyatt will be 4 months old. He'll start eating cereal with a spoon. I had to stop by Target today to buy spoons and plastic bowls, because somehow that age just seemed so far away... I didn't even prep for it. And yet, here we are. And of course, he isn't just getting older; he's getting bigger. At his 4 month appointment today, he weighed in at 17lb 7oz and measured 27" tall. That's still 90th percentile for weight and a whopping 95th percentile for height.

Here's my theory: Wyatt's obsessed with football, because he could hear his momma watching both NCAA and NFL games through a good chunk of her pregnancy. It soaked into his very DNA. And he will, of course, be justified in his goal come the end of this month. Football season is almost here again!!! Yea! Pure heaven for me and my little linebacker. I do, after all, watch more football than my husband, even though he used to play.

Here's Wyatt working out for fall:

Post Traumatic Vacation Disorder

We're home! Mammoth was fun and exhausting and adventurous and funny. And as with so many vacation experiences, it's the old "I need a vacation to recover from my vacation" scenario. I don't really know where to start, so I'll just sort of jump right in.

First, I have to fess up. We didn't make it a week in the trailer. :) We stayed in it for 3 nights. Then, on Wednesday, after a fun, long day at the ghost town Bodie (a baby name we actually like a lot, by the way) and to the sound of the wails of a teething (more on that in a second) cranky baby, Ryan suggested that perhaps we should finish out our vacation at the Westin. Now you're talkin'. We did, after all, want to get a little relaxation into our vacation, and Ryan and I tend to find luxury very relaxing. :) Granted, we still had an infant with us, so it wasn't quite as relaxing as it would have been with a sitter, ha ha, but it definitely took the edge off! I know what you're thinking. How spoiled are you? You can't handle a week in a perfectly good trailer? Plenty of people go tent camping all the time, and they don't complain! They like it! It's fun! And hey, people even do it with babies and have a good time. Well... yeah... I don't know what to tell you. I do have a better understanding of why people enjoy camping now, but I still kind of like a soft, king size bed and daily maid service better. I'm a nut like that. Normally, one of my favorite things would be the pool and two hot tubs. I'm still, however, widdling away at the 64 pounds I gained with my pregnancy (I know, gasp!). So I just couldn't bring myself to pack a swimsuit. I'm happy to report that I didn't gain any weight on vacation, at least. So there's that.

There's no rhyme or reason to how I'm writing this blog, so hey, let's start a new paragraph, shall we? (She's a writer?) We had a few obstacles on our vacation, as I hinted at earlier. I'll start with the teething baby. My son isn't even 4 months old yet, but he's already starting to get a tooth. You can just make out a tiny white spot, but it's there. What an overachiever. I guess he figures if he's as big as an 8 month-old, he might as well prep himself to eat steak and potatoes like a man. With that discomfort, plus a ravenous appetite from what we assume is another growth spurt, (because our child clearly wants to catch up with Shaq's kids), we had some moments of pure delight in the trailer. One night, Wyatt screamed for about 2 hours straight. It was insane, and let's just say I did my share of crying that night, too. And it didn't help, obviously, that I'd just found out that day that my grandpa had passed away. I was a little, shall we say, fragile. I'm sure that contributed to Ryan's decision to treat us to the Westin.

Wow, that got somber. But we also had a lot of fun on this trip. Mammoth is a very cool place, and we enjoyed spending time with Ryan's family. Wyatt was in hold-the-baby heaven. He also really gets a kick out of his cousins. Babies seem to really enjoy other little people. :)

Okay, I'm going to change the subject. Wyatt is almost 4 months old. He has his 4 month appt. on Thursday, so we'll find out just how big our little dude has gotten. Despite some little frustrations like teething and growth spurts, he's actually amazingly fun right now. He smiles and laughs all the time. He's also obsessed with his hands, tongue and feet (in that order). If he could spend hours chewing on one hand, using the other one to pull a foot in front of his face, and experimenting with new ways to stick his tongue out and make new sounds, he'd be in heaven. (And let's face it, that's basically exactly what he gets to do for good chunks of the day, which may explain why he's always smiling and laughing.) He also thinks he can already walk. If you hold him steady and stand him up, he'll lift each foot and try to take a stroll. Again, this is a child who wants to grow up too fast! I figure he ought to roll over, sit on his own and crawl before he walks, but what do I know?

Here's more about our little dude. Let's talk binks. (Those are pacifiers, by the way.) Wyatt pretty much only uses a bink when he's sleeping or in the car (when his parents want him to be sleeping). There's a pretty strong sleep association there, so we're big fans of the bink. Well, Mr. Curious has now figured out how to pull the bink out with his hand and look at it as he's drifting off to sleep. This would be awesome if he were skilled at putting it back in his mouth. But the boy is notorious now for going down for his nap with a bink in his mouth, pulling it out to investigate it as he drifts off, but not fully falling asleep because he can't figure out how to get it back into his mouth. He's also good at spitting it out accidentally because he wants to play with his aforementioned tongue. We don't plan on letting him have the bink past a year old, but we weren't expecting it to have complications by 3 1/2 months! Oh well. It'll just be a race to see if he learns how to sleep without it, or how to put it back in his mouth first. Honestly, I'm okay either way at this stage.

More pics from Mammoth (in the trailer) of the boy:

Vacation, Kuhns Style

Those of you who know me, know that I'm not a camper. I love the mountains, but prefer to experience them in a cozy cabin with all of the amenities of home and plenty of room to stretch out. Especially a cabin with a cleaning service. When we were kids, our family had a nice cabin up at Huntington Lake. Vacation was laying out on the deck getting a tan while reading about 5 new novels and watching sailboats. There were a couple hikes, maybe a day on the lake in a houseboat, and possibly a couple hours of light fishing. Most of these were just alternate ways to work on my tan. We'd make s'mores in the pot bellied stove in the cabin, or down at the country store fire pit. To me, that's a vacation in the mountains. I like the smell of the woods and nice views of a lake. But I've never understood the point of purposely roughing it. Let's pretend we're homeless! Not you style...? Okay, well step it up. Let's pretend we live in a trailer park! I guess I've just never quite understood the appeal.



This week, we're heading off for a vacation, Kuhns style. We're going to Mammoth. We're staying in our trailer (more on that in a second) and will be spending the week doing activities with various members of Ryan's immediate an extended family. And, we'll have Wyatt with us on this adventure, of course. I really want this to be fun. I especially want it, because I know Ryan is totally excited about the trip. I like it when Ryan's happy. And there are certainly aspects of the trip that I'm looking forward to. It'll be cool to see the whole family. I like Ryan's family. They're an entertaining bunch. I also know there will be more hands than usual to hold Wyatt, which is always a plus to a new mom. He'll get to meet his new second cousin (who is only like a two weeks younger than him) Elliott, too. Ryan will hopefully not be working (on job work, project work, or any other work -- crossing fingers), so he shouldn't be overly stressed out or tired. At least I hope that's the case, because I think that's the whole point of being on vacation, right? The air will be clean. The weather should be nice. I've also heard that Mammoth is a pretty cool town. So good stuff, right? Yeah, mostly...



I do have some concerns, however. One, of course, is staying in the trailer. I know, I know. What a princess I am. But as a long-time insomniac, new mom, and general relaxer during vacations, I foresee a few discomforts and inconveniences that in the past, I have never associated with vacation. First is the trailer itself. It's nice enough for what we paid for it, but you know, it's no Ritz-Carlton. The premise for our purchase of said-trailer was for "if sh!t hits the fan". My husband was doing the very responsible thing of protecting his family in case of natural disaster, societal breakdown, or great depression. It's good to have a "just in case" trailer. I could have sworn that was why I was okay with getting a trailer, when for other reasons...like I don't know...vacationing... hadn't convinced me prior to that. So I'm mildly bummed to be vacationing in our "if sh!t hits the fan" trailer after all. Maybe that makes me a spoiled brat, but there it is. I'm also not stoked about the general lack of room when we have so much needed baby gear. And of course, to be perfectly honest, I have protested the very idea of camper/trailer/RV vacations from the moment I met Ryan, because as my grandmother always said "If mom has to take her chores with her on vacation, it's not a vacation for mom". And so... yeah... a few concerns. To Ryan's credit, though, the positives should outweigh the negatives. So there's that.



The truth is, I think we'll have fun, for the most part. That's what I'm hoping. My goal is to be positive and embrace the new vacation standard. I mean, otherwise it's a losing battle. After all, my last name is Kuhns now. It's just one of the many changes I've encountered now that I'm married. I'll let you know if I succeed with my goal to enjoy myself... :)

Ghetto Fabulous, Sorta...

This has been a seriously amusing week. I'll start with an update on Sleep Watch '08. Wyatt is now definitely a child who sleeps through the night. He now sleeps anywhere from 8-10 hours in a block. (The pic is actually of Wyatt after he fell aseep while playing, but it fit the sleep theme, so go with it, okay?) My husband has been telling people about how he suddenly has his wife back. It's true. I didn't even realize just how much my energy and mood was still being affected by the daily broken sleep until I started getting normal, full nights again. All of a sudden, things that have felt overwhelming and difficult since Wyatt was born (like cooking meals that actually require recipes and running more than one errand at a time with the baby in tow) seem totally doable. Sleep. Dude, it's a powerful thing.

While we're on the subject of my adorable little monster, I'll switch to a topic that's less about celebration and more about imperfection. The term is "original sin" when a baby starts to show his flawed humanity - when flashes of rebellion, manipulation and general pissed-off-ness start to replace basic survival reasons to cry. Wyatt turned 3 months old on Tuesday, and he definitely turned that corner. He gets impatient, even when he knows he's about to be fed, and screams to get his way faster. It's no longer "I'm hungry; feed me mama." It's "Speed it up, woman! The prince does not wait for his meal!" My son has learned how to be a brat. Tsk tsk. To his credit, he's also learned other social behaviors like smiling and laughing. And there's a lot more of that than the bratty fits, so I'm not suggesting I have an evil child. I'm just saying, you know, he's learning way too early that there's a system to be worked...

Onward to other things: I got new 20" Denali wheels and a new Denali grill for my Yukon! Needless to say, I don't actually have the Denali model. But the Yukon I have is the fully loaded, nicest non-Denali you can buy. Pretty much, the only differences are the wheels and the grill. Do you see where I'm going here? I basically just upgraded my vehicle for a fraction of the cost of buying it that way, without getting all flashy and ghetto. (No offense to the ghetto-fabulous owners of spinners and super-bling rhinestone grills, but that wasn't quite the look I was going for in the mommy-mobile.) It looks pretty stinkin' good, I think. I haven't gotten a picture of the new grill yet, so I'll have to get back to ya on that, but you can see the new wheels, which are pretty awesome. I also realize that a good percentage of the people I know read this blog could care less about the diameter of wheels, the shine of rims, or the line of a grill on a car. But I've always been a car nut, so I have to be true to my motor-trend reading heritage... :)

I also got paid on one of my latest freelance jobs. There's nothing like a check in your mailbox to brighten up your week. So basically, all of this is just to say that it's been a good week. Whaaat, whaaat.

Sleep Watch '08

We're currently in the midst of Sleep Watch '08. The star of our saga? Mr. Wyatt William Kuhns. Yep, we have ourselves a little experiment going here in the Kuhns household. We're testing out a baby sleep remedy recommended by countless aunts, grandmothers and friends, but not recommended by BabyCenter.com and other official baby care resources. Oh, the controversy... Two nights ago, we tried giving Wyatt a bottle at bedtime with a little rice cereal in the mix. I misread the measuring spoon and only gave him a teaspoon of the good stuff instead of a tablespoon. Wyatt gave us an 8 hour block. Success! Last night, I rectified the measuring spoon fiasco and used a tablespoon instead. (Drum roll please...) Wyatt gave us a 9 hour stretch! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, our son went from 10pm to 7am between feedings. Ah, sweet slumber! So, that's 2 nights in a row that the controversial rice cereal has worked its secret magic. Take that, oh baby elite... My little dude likes it old school.

This past weekend, the munchkin went on a couple road trips. Saturday, we spent some quality time in Visalia. It was 108 degrees. Whoop whoop, Summertime. Thank you, Jesus, for air conditioning. We got to see lots of family and friends, which was a treat. Wyatt also met (in his sleep) my Papa, his great-grandpa who's in the hospital. We love you, Papa. Then, on Sunday, we went down to LA. Ryan was showing our sailboat to potential buyers (please buy that sucker, oh maritime enthusiasts of Marina del Rey) and I got to hang out with T and Riley. We also went down to Torrance to visit the Ludwig clan, which was a welcome surprise! Wyatt was the most excited about Riley, I think. He did, after all, get his first kiss from a girl.

Here, as usual, are a few more pics of my handsome kid. He'll be 3 months old on July 1st, but he's about the size of Riley who is more than twice his age! (7 months old.) Yeah, my husband and I both come from some hardy stock...

Ditching the Little Dude

Sooooo.... I haven't really done that much blogging lately. I've been stumped. I'm sure you all found my diatribe on Wyatt's napping schedule fascinating and everything, but... :)

I took my first trip away from the little dude this past weekend. It was a girls' weekend in Palm Springs. I got a little teary-eyed when I left because Wyatt was asleep so I couldn't give him a bunch of obsessive mommy-kisses on my way out the door. Once we got to the hotel, though (which was actually a resort in Rancho Mirage) I was perfectly content to get some quality time away from the squirt. I got to experience pre-baby things like 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep for two days in row (although I woke up in the morning with boobs about to burst...) and having three bloody maries by the pool without having to worry about the dangers of buzzed-mommying. T and I also got to bond with our pumping parties in the hotel room. It was one of the benefits of not being the only nursing mother in attendance. :) The down side was actually wearing a bathing suit in public only 2 months post-baby and the still-itching sunburn I got on my back even with "waterproof" 45 SPF sunscreen. But hey, those were minor negatives to an over-all much appreciated positive experience. And boy did I appreciate my son (who I swear grew visibly over the 2 days I was gone) when I returned, not to mention his angel of a father for taking care of him solo while I was gone.

Okay. Time to feed our little giant. Here's a couple pics of Double Dub from today:

Adventures in Napping

The napping phenomenon is an interesting part of the routine in this newly established Kuhns Family. My son is not a good sleeper. He comes by it honestly. I've dealt with bouts of insomnia and the curse of being a very light sleeper my whole life. I was hoping not to pass that on, what with those dominant Ryan genes and all, but it seems my son is about as skilled at sleeping as I am. I also hate naps. For starters, falling asleep in the middle of the day is a challenge for me, no matter how exhausted I am. And then, if I happen to overcome that hurdle, I tend to wake up grumpy and groggy - basically ruined for the rest of the day - which pretty much ruins the point of taking a nap in the first place. I'm afraid Wyatt may have a similar reaction to naps.

This morning's nap is chalk full of great examples of Wyatt at his finest. It begins, inevitably, with the slow transition from happy baby to fussy baby. This signals Mommy that he's tired, and needs a nap. And so it begins. I take him into his room, make sure he has a clean diaper, and cuddle him for just a bit to get him calm before placing him sweetly in his crib. He fusses, whines, and generally expresses his disapproval. He hates naps, after all. He grumbles and cries as his eyes get smaller and smaller. He sucks violently on his bink to make himself feel better about his terrible bad luck about being in his crib. His eyes are slits. He stares through his slits at Mommy until his lids are so heavy, he has no more strength to hold them open. And then, even in sleep, he whimpers for about 5 minutes, still annoyed at the evil nap. 30 minutes go by as he sleeps quietly, and then, out of his room, the crying begins again. Mommy is back in his room to soothe him, knowing that if the light crying gets worked up into wailing, he will not fall asleep again. He has spit out his bink and rolled his head to the side, on top of it. He's uncomfortable sleeping on a bink, naturally, and he's ticked. I put the bink back into his mouth, which he attacks like a piece of meat. He wimpers, staring at me with wide eyes, daring me to make him keep napping. I hold the bink in his mouth with one finger while I stroke his cheek lightly and stare him down. We hold a staring contest for about 5 minutes as his eyes get smaller. His "blink" is sleep, and he's out again to complete the second 30 minutes of his evil nap. (This dramatization was edited to keep it intertesting. In all honesty, there were actually about 4 trips back and forth to calm him before he napped, but that would have been overkill...) The beast wakes up hungry. He is MAD that he isn't being fed immediately upon waking. He hollers until he is given sustenance. After he eats, he smiles and gurgles and talks to mommy. He plays and he grins. Happy as can be. No beast in sight...until it's time for his next nap, of course...

Here's our 10 week-old Wyatt, post-nap and post-meal of course, testing out his new big-boy toy. He's trying to decide what he thinks about this shocking new thing. :) He's still too little to touch the ground and jump on his own, so we've added a phone book under his feet to help, which is working out nicely.

The Green in My Grass

When I was pregnant, I mused from time to time about what I missed. Sushi. Alcohol. Sleeping on my stomach. Sitting in booths without bruising my stomach... You get the idea. Today, I can have sushi whenever I want. Ryan and I have taken advantage of that gift wholeheartedly. I've sampled from my various cravings of martinis, mojitos and margaritas... (evidently, I have a thing for the M drinks?) I sit in booths quite easily. Sadly, I still can't sleep on my stomach, thanks to the boob-food supply, but I can sleep on my back without my arms going numb, so that's a gift in and of itself.

Now for my 'grass is always greener' moment. I miss a few things about life pre-baby. Pedicures. Leisurely shopping experiences and other uncomplicated errands. Uninterrupted sleep.

Now, you'd think I could get a pedicure with a baby in tow, right? But think about the logistics. You're in a massage chair thingy with your feet in water or being man-handled by the pedi lady. Your child is sitting in his car seat/carrier (which he hates) and he decides to start crying to let you know it. Do you A) Stop everything, regain the use of your feet, and go to pick him up, B) let him scream and disturb the relaxing pedis of the rest of the women there, or C) request that one of the technicians pick up your child for you and hand him to you, and also his bink, and also his burp cloth, and pray that's enough to get him quiet again? Needless to say, you do NOT want to see my toes right now.

Then there's shopping. I'm in that in-between stage where I'm still too fat to fit into my pre-baby clothes, but my maternity clothes are too big and fit weird now that I don't have a rock-hard spherical belly. I need a couple cheap get-me-through-this-lame-stage outfits and a one-piece swimsuit, because 2 months out, my mid-section is FAR from ready for prime time. But there's a very small window of time when my son is neither fussy nor hungry. And sadly, that small window is not even remotely long enough to engage in true shopping. It's just enough time to make a mad dash to Target to pick up emergency diapers. And even that is a far from enjoyable experience these days. The up-side is that the only money I spend is on stuff I need for Wyatt. No leisurely oops-I-accidently-spent-$200-at-Target moments. Those are by far a thing of the past.

And lastly, sleep. I have to laugh that I ever complained about lack of sleep when I was pregnant. I thought getting up every few hours to pee and doing a lot of tossing and turning throughout the night, was "lack of sleep". No, lack of sleep is having a baby who doesn't sleep through the night yet. Getting up to pee is nothing compared to getting up to feed (20-30 min), change (5 min), and soothe (alternating intervals of 5 - 15 min after he's supposedly gone back to bed) a baby. That half hour to hour break in your sleep cycle, a couple times a night... that's lack of sleep.

Would I change it? Would I give him back and say "no thanks, life was 10 time easier before we had a baby"? No, of course not. It was 10 times easier, but I know and love Wyatt intensely now. He's a real person, a member of our family, and I wouldn't trade him for all the sleep and free time in the world. But that doesn't mean I don't miss the simplicity of life before. I miss it like crazy. I wish I would have soaked it up a little more - appreciated the gift of simplicity, of self. I wish I could express to people who aren't to this stage yet, how important it is to enjoy that! People told me, of course, but I guess I didn't really let it sink in.

As always, here are some pics of our now 90th percentile (in both height and weight), 2 month-old boy. (Yes, he'll be playing football for my USC Trojans. Obviously.)

These blue eyes will someday get me both in and out of trouble.

The elusive smile. I do it all the time, but mom and dad have a hard time catching it with the camera! This is sort of a half smile. It's a start.

No one told me I'd be getting close to outgrowing my swing at a mere 2 months old. I guess that's what being in the 90th percentile does to ya.

We'll call this "napping". Um, yeah...

Might As Well Face It; I'm Addicted to Love.

I have a new addiction. I'm addicted to seeing my kid smile. Every day, he gets a little more free with his happy faces, and for every time I see that toothless grin, I need even more. I know it's cheesy, but it's true. It's a weird feeling. Sometimes I'll resort to just about anything to see his lips curl up, even for just a second. High pitched baby talk? Singing silly songs? Making funny faces? Taking a little longer to change his diaper because sometimes all he needs for a grin is to be naked? Yep, I've done them all and more. :)

Conversely, I have an intense allergy to his crying. The big lipped pout prior to the wail is actually pretty stinking cute, but the actual crying, when he gets really riled up, makes me feel ill. It's not the annoyance of general baby crying that I always had pre-child (although I still have that reaction sometimes). It's like an ache in the pit of my stomach... a sad heart. And sadly, sometimes it's unavoidable. My boy, for instance, hates his crib. He has to be on the verge of passing out in order to go to his crib to sleep without a fight. But given its obvious role in his future, I can't have that. He isn't going to magically start liking the crib if I don't teach him to work through his frustration. And so, I've been hearing a lot of crying lately. It sucks, because we finally got him over his massive fussiness, and now we're having to do battle with the crib, invoking crying once again. It's tough being a mommy. :) I guess as long as I get my regular fix of goofy grins, I can handle the other stuff!

Okay, now you can laugh at me. I just attempted to talk tough. Then, I went on a walk with the boy before publishing this post. He fell asleep on the walk with his thumb in his mouth. Instead of pulling him out and putting him in his crib when I got home, I wheeled his stroller right into his room next to his crib and left him in it to sleep. Why? That pesky cry allergy, of course. Here's a couple pictures of him waking up (that's the hungry cry) from his stroller nap:

Wyatt is 8 1/2 weeks old today. I guess we move away from weeks and start talking months now, right? Well, he'll be 2 months old on Sunday. We've all come a long way... :)