First Christmas in Chicago Married with a Baby

So the gas people were still here all day.  Oliver and Daddy and I went to 11a.m. mass at St. Mary of the Angels after Oliver awoke very groggily at 10:30.  I nursed him in the church lobby and then he was very good all through mass.  We sat behind a family of 7.  They were well-behaved and there was a 2-year-old from their family romping in the aisles adorably.  After mass we came home and I made ornaments for Nolan, Sophia, Isabella, & Anthony.  Then we left for the Delises' house.  

Oli's First Christmas Eve

It is now Christmas Day at 3:38a.m.  I'll explain why I'm up now, later.  

Phil had to work today, so Oliver and I were upstairs all morning by ourselves.  Ma and Pa had their hands full downstairs getting everything ready so I couldn't send him down, even though I was up to my ears in work myself.  The kitchen smells foul with every dish and pot known to man in the sink, dirty from 2 days before or maybe more...  and Phil's present was still not finished and that was my top priority.

Oh and I forgot to mention, I have clogged ducts again-- this time in the other breast.  I just got over mastitis, in fact I finished my meds like 2 days ago, and now breast number 2 is clogged-- but I don't have a fever yet so maybe I can avoid it?  So all day I was tired and in pain and trying to clean and work on the present and occupy Oliver myself.  My only hope was that Bradley would come in and take Oli from me and occupy him...  but his flight was delayed until mid afternoon.

So Oliver was really clingy today and only wanted to sleep with me.  Oh no comp running out of battery.  More later.

Dec. 25th 1:29 p.m.

Now where was I...  ok so yesterday I had tons to do and oliver was clingy and just wanted to nap with me so I couldn't get anything done, but he wanted to nurse while he napped and that was actually inconvenient but good for my mastitis so I spent like half the day nursing him.  The rest of the day I spent making Oliver's gift.

continuing, dec. 27th 12:05 a.m.

Ok so here we try again to finish the post...  welcome to life with a baby, right?  never get anything done.  Ok moving on then.  So Oli and I nursed half of xmas eve and didn't get much of anything done.  But after some scrambling I did finish what I needed to of Phillip's gift-- a warhammer game board-- and Phil came home and helped me bake broccoli squares for Carol's birthday "cake."  Of course I did it wrong; totally forgot about the cheese until the end, so I had to melt the cheese on top and it ruined the whole texture of it.  But all's well that ends well and it turned out tasting ok anyway.

Christmas eve morning, phil's parents smelled gas so they called the gas company.  2 fire engines arrived and didn't find anything and Oliver was nursing so I couldn't go down and take pictures.  Then the gas people arrived and they were still there when I was posting this at 3:38a.m.  And they were there all day Christmas as well!

Early Teething and Sleep Habits

Oliver will be 3 months next week and it is sooo hard to believe.  According to Happiest Baby on the Block he is about to complete the "missing 4th trimester" and will be officially "ready to be born!"  I can't believe it-- already!  I'm going back to work in only a few short weeks-- part time-- and it seems much too soon.  Perhaps I should've put it off till after I've stopped nursing?  Oh well; it's like having a baby, getting married, buying a house-- as in all major decisions in life, there's never really a "right" time.

Anyway so at his 2m checkup he weighed 14lbs9oz and he's easily 15lbs now.  So I suppose it makes sense that as the rest of his body is maturing beyond his age (getting to be such a big boy) so are his teeth!  I swear a few weeks ago he was gnawing on stuff and I said to Phil, "Man he looks like he's teething...  but they don't teethe this early, at just over 2m, do they?"  Then one night-- Dec. 11th-- Oliver nursed for SIX hours straight.  That's one heck of a growth spurt, right?  So I called the pediatrician and the lactation specialist, Gloria, told me he was probably teething.  Wow was she right!  So I broke Sophie the Giraffe, the Land of Nod high class teething toy, out of the packaging and gave it to Oliver.  He started teething away on it straight away.

Teething to Sleep

So at about the same time that Oli started teething he also started sleeping through the night until 5ish in the morning to eat and then asleep again till 8 or 9.  Wonderful!  Only bad thing is, the teething makes it hard for him to FALL asleep.  Poor little guy!  First we gave him tylenol, on the recommendation of the pediatrician.  But we couldn't very well  drug him every night.  So the next night I tried rubbing peach shnapps on his gums to numb them.  But he LOVED the shnapps so he lapped it right up before it could do its numbing job.  Next we tried Motrin, on the recommendation of Kelly, the pediatric nurse who lives on the block, but everyone told us that it's really not to be used under 6months and our OWN pediatrician didn't tell us to use it...  so even though the motrin worked like a dream, we decided not to use it again.  I tried rubbing cognac on his gums next.  Oliver didn't like that at ALL so it got to numb the gums a little bit.  But it only worked for a minute or few.  

Now I have to go pay attention to my Oliver and finish this post another time!