Garage Remodel

Check out what my clever husband has done!!!  These are the before and (almost) after shots of the garage to office remodel.  Dave did this over the last two weekends mostly all by himself!!  Our neighbor contractors came over to give some advice and hints, but pretty much he did this alone! 

There are a lot of hints and things I wish I could tell you about, but I don't really understand them.  He had to move supports and cut holes and do all kinds of things.  I do know that the after picture doesn't have all the siding in it yet, although he finished it up yesterday.  And we need to paint the siding to match the rest of the garage.  The remaining windows go along the back of the garage.  Then we have to put the sheetrock up on the ceiling and walls.

Still, amazing what just a door and window can do, eh??

I wish I knew better how to manipulate pictures on this blog to make this really stand out.  But I don't!  So I hope the pictures will stop over running all the words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8:56:37 PM     Comments? []

Sleep, My Presciousssssssszzzzzzzz

 

Boy, oh boy, have things gone backwards in the sleep department.  After getting used to 10 to 12 hour nights of sleep, we’ve gone back to sleep pattern of a 6 weeks old.  Yes:  9:30, 11:30, 1:30, 3:30, 5:30 and up at 7.  YIKES! 

 

Because he’s had a cold, we figured I was serving as a cough drop.  Now, however, we’re working on the hypothesis that the all-you-can-eat buffet at Mom’s Diner is open 24 hours, and there is a two-for-one drink special at the milk bar.  Pacifier, cough drop, moo cow, that is what my life at night has turned into. 

 

Of course, Conor has been sleeping in the big bed the whole time, perhaps even starting a fire to ensure his place at the front of the line in the buffet.  After consulting Dr. Sears, we decided to put the kibosh on the smorgasbord.  The baby can, apparently, start using the Mom as a pacifier even when he/she does not really want to eat.  We decided, based on Sears’ advice, that Dave would comfort the baby when he woke up and that if things escalated, I would come in with a boob. We also wanted to see if we could get him to sleep in his crib, based on Friday night’s experiment involving a 4 am leaky diaper, a trip back to the crib and restful sleep for all until 8 am. 

 

We’re also noticing some rather amusing fussy protests when we put him down in the crib.  Maybe it’s a statement of how backward I am as a mother, but I do find it amusing when he engages in this one particular accusatory scream at us from the crib.  What makes it amusing?  1) If I could translate it from baby, it would involve some rather adult curse words.  Something along the lines of “Where are you f*cking peope?  I said get here now!  Here! Now!  HERE!!! NOW!!!!” 2) The accusatory screams are not accompanied by crying.  It is most definitely a “HERE!  NOW!  HERE!  NOW!! You STUPID PEOPLE” sort of fuss; as far as we can tell, this is not a cry it out sort of cry.  3)  He usually engages in about 10 or 20 seconds of this before he falls fast asleep.  Completely and utterly asleep.  I can stand at the foot of the crib and watch him twist and turn “HATE YOU!  HATE YOU!  STUPID PEOPLE!  zzzzzzzzzzzzzz”  If it lasts longer than that, I can enact the pee policy and by the time I’m out of the bathroom, he’s asleep.

 

OK.  I have to be honest with you.  That works sometimes.  Other times, well, the hate simply continues and we go in to comfort him.  Like last night at 11:30 pm, for instance.  Dave went first, after a rather strong poke from me to get him started.  There were two premature dismounts of the baby into the crib, which started the HATE YOU/HERE NOW tirade.  After about 45 minutes of Dave and the almost asleep baby, I came in with a boob, and got him to sleep by 12:30.  When I was sure he was asleep, I stuck the landing of the baby into the crib with just a little wobble (“slightly hate you, here kinda now….zzzzzz”) and went back to bed until 4. 

 

When he woke back up at 4, I just went directly in with a boob.  20 minutes later he was back in the crib.  At 5:50, we just said “F*ck it” and brought him in bed with us.  He slept for a while and then started playing with my hair and face which would be adorable if I wasn’t so incredibly tired. 

 

So, as I asked Dave this morning, how was that an improvement over bringing him to bed with us?  Granted, he wasn’t whacking on my boob every hour or hour and a half.  But we didn’t jump back into our great sleep either.  Sears has been stressing that at this point, we should still be having one middle-of-the-night feeding, which I suppose the 4 am was if you count 12 to 6 as “sleeping through the night.”  The weird thing is that many of my other mother friends with July babies are going through the same thing.  We’ve all taken a step back in sleep.  Colds?  Developmental mile stones?  Hell?  We haven’t figured it out yet. 

10:06:36 AM     Comments? []