Day Care Drop Off Hell

Cole has a relatively new day care situation this month. Grandma Chris has several trips to FL planned so we had to find some backup care. Cole will be going to Susan's every Wednesday and, when my Mom is in FL, he will go full weeks. Kristin and Cole went for a few test runs, to meet Susan and the kids and he really seemed to like it. However, now that the plan is in place and he goes without Kristin, his feelings are changing...Grandma Chris left for FL last Monday and returns Super Bowl Sunday, so Cole has quite the long run going.

Day 1: I dropped Cole off at day care for the first time. It actually went pretty well. He was a little hesitant, but he ended up just clinging to Susan, the babysitter. By the time I left he was even starting to play with the other kids. When Kristin called to check in, all was fine. At pick up Cole was busy playing with another kid and hardly gave Kristin a second glance.

Day 2: Second time not so good. He clung to me for dear life. At first he was just whining. Then Susan held him for a little bit and he seemed fine and only whined a little. She then put him down by some toys and he instantly started to cry and crawl towards me. She plopped him back up and I waved goodbye. He started to cry much harder and reached out to me. I felt horrible but realized I just needed to leave and not drag it out for him. Hopefully he will quickly forget that I ditched him. I told Kristin that he was crying and I was going to turn around and go back to rescue him. She was surprisingly gullible and called me right away to tell me to go to work. It was hard leaving a crying Cole with the babysitter. I didn’t think I would really care…I know he’ll be fine.

Update #1: Cole is not doing fine. After being at the babysitter's for about 3 hours he is still sad. He won't eat or let Susan put him down. He also apparently cries when he looks at the other kids. Yep, I feel even worse.

Update #2 (about 2:30 p.m.): Cole still not happy, but Susan's husband came home and was able to calm him down and even got him to start playing with the other kids. So, it sounds like Cole already found a new dad...little shithead! Does he think I can't go grab another baby? He must have forgotten we are brewing up a a new one right now.

At pick-up Cole cried and cried when he saw Kristin.
I can't wait to do this again tomorrow. I hope Grandma Chris is enjoying Florida. It may be her last trip.

Day 3: See bad camera phone picture below? Yep, enough said.

Update: Much better report than yesterday, Cole stopped crying shortly after I left. Still pretty clingy and whimpered on and off, but did play with some of the kids and is did a little talking. Whew.

At pickup Cole saw Kristin and started sobbing. Screamed bloody murder the entire 30 minute ride home.

Day 4: Pretty much no change. This sucks!

Day 5: Same story again...Kristin and I in a stand-off; neither of us wants to call for an update and hear the sad news!

Chop-Chop

Remember this post about Cole's first haircut? Well less than a month later Cole found himself with a baby mullet and we decided it was time to call in the professionals. Conveniently I had a haircut scheduled so Cole came along and we squeezed him in while my highlights were setting. He was not a huge fan and put up a pretty good fight until Shelly (my "stylist") brought out a GIANT bin of toys. Cole was in heaven from there on out, pulling out each toy, chucking it on the floor and exclaiming, with genuine dismay, "Uh-Oh!"

Steering wheel chair turned out to not be cool enough to keep the tears away

Distracted by the cape and the mirror

A moment of calm

Finally the toy basket that saved the day

A few days later; such a little boy!

Nursery Part Two

It seems we JUST planned Cole's nursery and slaved away getting the room ready for his arrival. Analyzing the perfect shade of grey for his walls, endless Internet searches for bedding, reading safety reviews of cribs, and decisions about mobiles and decorations. It seems unreal we are about to do that ALL over again! We find out the sex of Baby #2 in a few weeks and once we know pink or blue,the planning begins again. Nick and I both generally like this sort of thing so we are pretty excited to get started. The kicker is since Cole will not yet be two before the baby arrives, it is recommended he stay in his crib. So yes, we will be purchasing another set of nursery furniture. Shoot us both. Although, we figure since Cole is older and stronger, we can get him the cheapest, most dangerous crib on the market, and he will still be safe. So that's our plan!

Mobile

Yesterday Cole took a couple steps on his own. Technically, he took his first step awhile ago, but at best he would take one or two steps and then revert to the good old crawl. Kristin and I aren’t really sure that even counts as “walking” and it certainly didn’t seem like anything to write about. This weekend he clearly took two big steps before going to the ground to crawl, but I still wasn’t sure if that should really count. I am happy to report that Grandma Chris witnessed Cole taking a good five steps solo - no furniture assist! We had not mentioned anything about his pseudo walking, so Grandma was quite surprised. It really is about time. It has seemed like Cole has had the ability to walk for months and has just chosen to use the more "efficient" crawl. Lazy little boy.

Of course when we got home from work last night we were anxious to have Cole show off his new trick. Sorry about my commentary and camera work - he got a little too close to the camera at the end.

He is also talking much more and trying out new words. A few weekends ago he put 2 words together and said, "bye mama."  I am hoping that he steps up his conversation skills soon as I am looking forward to having a nice long chat about his persistent waking up and crying EVERY night from about 3:30am until 4:30am.

First Blood

I admit that at times I may be a little inattentive while watching Cole and he has inadvertently taken a spill or two (e.g. once bumping his head on the tub - no blood though). I actually figured I would be responsible for Cole getting hurt before I would have an injury, but no such luck. Cole drew first blood this weekend.

Cole and I were sitting in a chair together and he was playing with Grandma Debbie's cell phone. I must not have been paying enough attention to him. Suddenly, Cole, who apparently got tired of the cell phone, shouted “No!” and launched the cell phone at my forehead at close range. The impact was surprisingly loud. Kristin found this hilarious and got a case of the giggles, I was finally able to get her to stop laughing when I pointed out I was bleeding. Kristin is lucky I didn't launch my Blackberry at her forehead. I was not pleased and owe a lot of money to the swear jar. After my recovery, I realized I should just be happy because it seems that Cole has quite the arm and it's looking like he did NOT receive his athletic genes from Kristin. Thank God! This was a BIG worry of mine...I did not want Cole to follow in her footsteps and be recommended for special ed Gym class.

In other news, we are now taking our resolution to read up on baby discipline a little more seriously.

Resolutions

When Nick and I first starting discussing the idea of "new year resolutions" neither of us felt like committing to much. But now, a few weeks in we have some clear ideas of how our lives need to change in 2011. Hopefully by publishing them we will be more likely to stick to them!

1. Stop swearing
This is #1 on our list and seriously needs to happen ASAP. Cole is becoming quite the chatterbox lately and we see him trying his best to mimic what we say. If we don't reel this in, it is only a matter of time until he starts parroting "fuck," "shit," and "fucking shit." We have also been discussing the appropriateness of other words that are not necessarily swears...like is it still okay to say "fart" or do we need to transition to using the more family-friendly "toot?" We are thinking of starting a "swear jar" and depositing a quarter every time we drop an F-bomb or something similar. Seemed like a good idea until the 2 most recent Packer games, we might need to reduce the fee to a nickel or else the "swear jar" will need to start accepting credit cards.

2. Brush Cole's teeth daily
As we have mentioned here before, we slack on this. We are starting to notice that Cole has some stinky baby breath. Gross and totally not his fault.

3. Plan our weekly meals and LIMIT eating out
Neither Nick or I are good cooks, in fact, it is 100% fair to say we are both bad cooks and don't really enjoy the act of preparing a meal. So we typically eat out pretty frequently. Bad for us and bad for our bank account. We do have a few meals we can make that are edible...so we have our fingers crossed that we can expand on that and eat at home 5 days/week.

4. Baby Discipline 
Read parenting books so when THIS happens (which it does daily) we are better prepared.

We will keep you posted, there is a large possibility that the swear jar will overflow and we can treat all of our 6 readers to a free dinner. Stay tuned!

Hello Twenty-Eleven

As I’m sure you all are, we are sad to see the holiday season go. Here are some of our highlights. Well, I should say Cole’s highlights because who really cares about Kristin and I. Don’t worry, we know, we get the message loud and clear.

We were very fortunate that this Christmas Santa came to town. He was quite a bit smaller than I expected, but I guess that’s easier on our chimney.

If Santa puts his head down when he crawls, he goes much faster.

Cole didn’t seem to mind the Santa suit and even though he is a notoriously bad napper, he did a good job throughout the long days/celebrations. It probably helped that he received about a zillion toys, which is odd because I didn’t think he was all that good this year. Santa must be getting soft.

Christmas night/day after Christmas, Kristin and I were hit with a case of the flu. Thanks Hanlon Family (just kidding)!  It was horrible. I woke up at night and found myself debating which way to turn at the toilet. Kristin spent much of the night and next day hunched over the bedroom garbage.  Even Cole was puking! Parenting a sick baby, while also sick, turned out to be too much for us. Luckily Grandma Debbie came over to take care of Cole so Kristin and I could be miserable without worrying about him. Thankfully we all made pretty speedy recoveries.

New Years was pretty low-key. Grandma Debbie babysat while Kristin and I went to a movie. We managed to get Cole in a New Years outfit and take some pictures, although as you can see, he was less than thrilled. He was MUCH easier to photograph last year.

And for full disclosure, I admit it – I ditched Kristin after the movie and went out to the bars. In my defense, maybe she should stop being pregnant all the time.

Here's to an awesome Twenty-Eleven. Hope everyone enjoys it!