Shelby's Life and Whatnot

2 month visit

The mouse had his 2-month pediatrician appointment. He's doing very well! He now weighs a hefty 12 pounds, 14 ounces, and his height is in the 95th percentile. Gonna be tall like his daddy! He also got some shots, which was sad. I had heard that it was a good idea to give them a dose of Tylenol before the shot to make it less painful. Of course I can't say what it would have been like without the Tylenol, but overall the shot experience was not so bad. He cried but calmed down in Kevin's arms right afterward (then cried on the way to the car, then cried in the car, but that's not uncommon). About 4 and a half hours later, he woke up from a nap and I went to change his diaper and holy moley, did this kid scream! Like probably among the worst screaming we've ever heard. Kevin tried to give him a bottle, which always stops the crying, but he was having none of it and the screaming continued. Kevin said, "Wow, this was worse than the shots!" and it occurred to me that the nurse had told us that he could have more Tylenol every 4 hours if he had a fever or "seemed really uncomfortable." So we dosed him up again, and about 15 minutes later was as happy as a clam. Based on that, I'd say that the pre-shot dose of Tylenol was a resounding success, considering he could have screamed like that right after the shots and he definitely didn't. So there ya go!

Oh, fellow Gen Xers of mine

Not much to report these days, hence the blog silence. I'm slowly recovering from my pregnancy aches and pains only to learn I have bursitis in my hip. Which makes me feel about 80 years old. What am I going to complain about next? Gout? Anyway, an anti-inflammatory was prescribed and seems to be slowly making a difference, so that's a relief. It's been very hard to walk so I'll be glad when that's gone.

Theo was baptized on Sunday in a beautiful ceremony in front of our beloved church and many family and friends. We had an open house/reception afterwards here at home and that was a lot of fun as well. Luckily the weather held out, since we invited more people than our house could really hold. In keeping with our eternal fear of not having enough to eat and having people leave our party hungry, we kind of overdid it on the food. Anyone want half a ham? Seriously.

The mouse continues to grow. He's got his 2 month visit--that's right, he's 2 months old!--early next week. Sadly he gets his first round of shots, which I'm sure will be much harder on Mommy than it is on the baby. However, following that, we're heading up to the cabin where there's lots of beautiful snow! If we get lucky it will snow while we're actually there. This will be Theo's first snow, and if it does snow some more while we're there, it will be Digory's first experience with cold white stuff as it comes from the sky.

Goodness!

Guess who's doing a poor job of updating her blog? That's right--me! So since there's not much to talk about, I'll just babble.

I successfully took two solo trips out into the world with Theo. I'm a rockstar! We went to Babies R Us because apparently I have not purchased everything in the store. Which is, quite frankly, very hard to believe. I struggle with Theo's infant seat--it's one of those car seats with the carrier that snaps into the base and is really convenient if you're strong and your kid doesn't weigh very much. Unfortunately, for me, neither are true. I need to really bulk up on my muscle tone there. For our Babies R Us trip, I wore Theo in the Moby Wrap. Once he got settled in and got the binky in his mouth, he was happy as a clam and fell right to sleep. The second outing tonight was to meet up with a friend at Downtown Disney. We also have a stroller frame that the infant car seat locks into, so that one was easy too. All in all, they were very successful trips.

I also have, for the first time in the last decade, become a viewer of a reality tv show. Yes, off all the choices available I chose American Idol. Perhaps it's because I was such a big fan of Star Search way back when. It's been very interesting, even though I have no idea how this whole things works. At least I'm not the person at the party who nods and laughs nervously when the topic comes up.

Works For Me Wednesday--Keeping an infant outfit together on a hanger

Welcome to Shelby's first installment of Works For Me Wednesday!! What is WFMW, you ask? It's a blog roundup of tips people post--something that works for them that they want to share with the blogosphere. I discovered WFMW through my blogger friend Suzanne (whose blogging prowess I greatly admire). I used to be a big fan of Parent Hacks--a blog devoted to tips and trick submitted by parents, but the author got heavily involved in Momversation--a site that hosts videos of "mom-bloggers" talking about a given subject, and I'm just not that interested in watching videos of women debating a topic--and many of the Parent Hacks entries are now links to Momversation. So enter WFMW! Clicking on the logo below takes you to the roundup page with dozens and dozens of links to other bloggers and their WFMW entries. I've found the tips there to be hit-and-miss, but have picked up quite a few good ideas.

Anyway, now that I'm a Mom and a blogger, I thought I'd take the leap to participating in Works For Me Wednesday. My first WFMW is below--How to keep an infant outfit together on a hanger.

After washing all of Theo's adorable little outfits, I was faced with a problem. For me, clothing is an out of sight, out of mind sort of thing, so clothes in a drawer will likely rarely be worn because I forget I have them. Since babies grow out of clothes so quickly, I think it's pretty easy to miss the window of opportunity for even wearing the outfit once. So I put away all of the bigger outfits (9 months +) and hung the rest in the closet.

The problem THERE was outfits that had both a top and a bottom. I tried folding the bottoms over the hanger with the shirt on top, but baby clothes get much bulkier on the baby hanger than adult clothes. Then I tried hanging the tops and stacking the pants, until I realized that I was going to start forgetting which pants go with which top. I pondered the problem for a while, and then the solution finally occurred to me--hang the pants by their tag!

So here's our outfit:

Cute, hunh? Bulky pants. So I grab the tag and stick my finger through the loop:

Cold wash only? Whatever. I then slide the hanger hook through the tag:

Slide it all the way down and there ya go! Pants and top on one hanger without a ton of bulk!:

From the back:

Did I mention how cute this outfit is? Can't wait until it fits! Now not all pants hang so easily, but it still results in a flatter product than anything else I tried.

I also found that Carters clothes had two separate tags--not a loop. To fix that, I attached a safety pin at the bottom of the tags to create a loop, then hung it on the hanger like normal:

WORKS FOR ME!!

(if you follow the link to WFMW, I'm #288!)

Theo goes to Disneyland!

Check out Theo's first (very brief) trip to Disneyland! (click on photo for a gallery)

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