Advice from the Doctor

Some random photos of Matthew watching his sign language video

OK...so I had my annual exam today. Sidenote: You know how there are "touchless car washes?" Well, I have the "touchless gynocologist." Seriously, he is the greatest and, if you didn't walk out of the office with a receipt, you wouldn't even know you had just had an exam. If you are in my area, I highly recommend him. Anyway, on to the real topic! The Dr. asked how our sleep is with a new baby in the house. HAHA! He obviously hasn't been reading my blog. I explained a little bit of Matthew's crazy sleeping patterns, and he told me to TURN OFF THE MONITOR! He said that if we can hear him from our room when he cries, we don't need to be awaken by his stirrings and night play. This was good news to me since I often lay awake listening to see how long Matthew stays awake. BTW, the good Dr. also has a baby Matthew's age and, of course, he sleeps through the night 12 hours straight!

I want to pass on to all you moms, college students, nightowls, etc. that he also reminded me that sleep deprivation is a huge factor in stress, anxiety, and depression. He recommends getting up and going to bed at approximately the same times every day (at least within an hour)...including weekends. This schedule is true for eating, too. He said to eat at regular times every day even if you aren't hungry.

And the best part of the visit was that he told me to eat more ice cream! Isn't that great?!

TSA and In Control

I'm not saying that TSA is in control...just that I'm sticking two topics in one post.

My recent conversation with a TSA employee:
TSA: That you baby?
ME: Yes, he is.
TSA: You give birth to him?
ME: No, he was born in Taiwan.
TSA: Oh, so you are like his foster mom or you adopted him?
ME: Yes, he was adopted.
TSA: You got a....a...significant other?
ME: Yes, I am married.
TSA: You want any kids of your own?
ME: Well, we consider him our own...but if you mean biological children, whatever God has planned is fine.
TSA: Well, God bless you!!!
He already has!


IN CONTROL...not...
Ok, I'm guessing that most people have some sort of "thing" they do when they are in the midst of a not-so-fun situation in which they have no control.

For some it may be organizing closets. For others it may be retail therapy.

For me...it's cutting my hair.

Or maybe I should say "chopping"...yes, chopping-maiming-annihilating is a much more accurate description. I guess that when I am in crisis mode, hair chopping is my signature "thing." Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing IF I went to a professional...or had some kind of scissor-wielding certificate of achievement myself.

But, alas, I now have a messy, uneven, *coughcough* inches shorter hairdo that I will complain about until it grows out to my standard shoulder length. BTW, I tend to fall on the sassy side when I have short hair...so no telling the direction my posts will take for awhile!

OTHER STUFF
Matthew is pretty much as cute as can be. We are working on one nap/day...which seems to be going OK. Would be better if he could sleep for longer than an 50 mins-1 hour for his one nap, but that may take time. He loves dancing and has added the side-to-side sway to his list of groovin' moves. He's become pretty picky with eating and will shudder and cry at the thought of putting something in his mouth (even if he loved it the day before)...but if I say "5 more bites" then he quickly just shoves them in his mouth, no problem. He is still growing like a weed. Pants that fit him in May are high-waters now.

I recently had a biopsy at my gynocologist's. It was an endo-someotherletters-opsy. I wasn't too worried going into the appointment. Afterall, my gyno is Dr. Touchless. I think the first rule of thumb for any procedure ending in "opsy" should be "keep all 20 inch clawed metal instruments out of patient's view." Seems reasonable. The procedure wasn't horrible (yes, yes, it really was), but for some reason in gyno-related situations I suddenly morph into Jerry Seinfield's sister and run comic relief commentary the entire time. I actually think the whole thing could have been over in mere moments if the doctor had not been laughing so hard. What was I thinking??? BTW, the results were fine.

Funny...not sure if I already posted this...but I told Scott I was craving steak one night. So what did we do? Steak tacos from Taco Bell. Classy, huh? Should have paired them with a nice box o' wine. And the really funny thing is we searched the Taco Bell website so we could make sure they even had such a thing before we ran for the border. Gimme an L, gimme an O, gimme an S.......

Photo courtesy of my precious friend, Kari:

edited2add: ok, of course right after i post about M doing fairly well with the new sleep schedule, it falls apart. he has been sleeping til almost 8:30 every morning which is how we've been able to make it until noonish for his one nap. he sleeps for about 50 mins, then he's up til bed at 7:00p. he had a restless night last night and was up before 7:00a this morning...making it highly unlikely that he'll be able to make it until his noon nap without a huge throw down. so....do you keep on the same schedule OR put him down earlier thus having to either put him down again for a 2nd nap or to move up his bedtime tonight? i really want to get him on one nap a day if possible.