Back to the old way

So, last night was the second night in a row I went without much sleep. After our eventful evening Friday night we continued to leave Nolan unswaddled. Saturday and Sunday night he slept wonderfully. I thought, boy this was easy! Oh, how I was mistaken... Monday night he woke up 4 times from 1:30am-4am. At 4am I had the last straw, Jeremy got up and swaddled him and sure enough he was back to sleep and slept silently till 6am. I thought for sure he would do better Tuesday night since he didn't sleep that much Monday night. Again, I was wrong (seems to be the theme of the week). At 2am the whining started, at the advise of my mother-in-law, I would just let him cry a little in hopes he would calm himself back to sleep. By 2:15 the whining began a slight sob, by 2:30 the sobs turned into a crying that made him more and more upset. There was no way he was going back to sleep on his own. I decided for my own sanity it would be best to lose the idea of sleeping free and go back to swaddling. It worked like a charm. He slept till after 6 and I didn't hear one peep out of him from 2:30 on. With two weeks vacation coming up we might just try again, until then we're going back to the old way and wrapping him nice and tight!

Just our luck

So it was advised to us that we try weening Nolan off his swaddler at night. For those of you that don't know what a swaddler is, it looks like a blanket with a pocket at the bottom for his feet. Once his feet are in the pocket you wrap the blanket across him to hold him tight. This was a miracle blanket for us. Nolan had really bad startle reflexes and this was the only way he could sleep. We decided last night was the night. Boy we picked a great night to try this, here's a breakdown of my night...

3am - up fussing, binky solves that

3:30am - still fussing, change diaper and binky

4:00am - moving around grunting and making all other kinds of noises that keep mommy up

5am - loud shriek, in to check and sound asleep, must have been a bad dream

5:15am - Dad up to check on Nolan after the loud shriek and to our surprise a diarrhea accident from Shelby

5:17am - Mom cleaning up the accident... not fun at 5am

6am - up to feed Nolan, back to bed

8:30am - laughing and giggle and cooing, time to get Nolan

9am - downstairs to feed Shelby, time and get up, another accident on the rug in front of the sliding glass door.

9:30am - wash rugs, call vet

It's been a long time since he's woke up in the middle of the night, I'm hoping tonight goes a little better. We called the vet, he suggested Imodium for the dog and no food for 24 hours. Hopefully this will solve cleaning up messes at 5 in the morning. Needless to say we apparently picked the wrong night to lose the swaddler. I'm thinking tonight will be the same, less the accidents.

My lungs are working

Nolan was abnormally loud last night, screaming and squealing. It was so cute - as soon as he would squeal, I would squeal louder and then he'd come right back and scream and then I would scream louder. Jeremy loved it!! After about 20 minutes of that both Nolan and Jeremy got tired of listening to it! He's definitely developing a pair of lungs on him that are for more than just crying. He's SUPER cute at this age, makes me want to have another one right away!!

Today was Shelby's grooming day, I love when she comes home from the vet, smells great and looks so cute and festive!!

Leave me alone Mom... what the heck! You're pissing me off!

I thought this day would never come!

Need I say more, I've whined and complained about the fireplace for months now! The day has finally arrived, we now have heat! I LOVE IT! It's almost too warm, I've had to turn it down a couple times. Now we wait in anticipation for the gas bill.

Big Boy

Yesterday was Nolan's 4 month appt at the doctor's. He passed with flying colors! He weighs 12lbs 11.5oz and is 24 inches long. He's ranking in the 25th percentile for heighth and weight, but his head is measuring in the 50th percentile. He has an extra large head for his body! We're trying to beef him up a little so his body matches the size of his head. The doctor suggested we start introducing rice cereal and foods. Well last night was our first attempt at rice cereal. I'm not sure if it was how I made it or what, but he wasn't too impressed. I think I put too much formula in the mix, so today we'll make another attempt with less formula. Hopefully in a month he'll get his tongue working right and we can introduce foods - that'll be interesting!!!!

Tis' the season

Tis' the season for decorating! With Christmas fast approaching decorating in the Hoeppner house is moving right along. Last Wednesday we got our tree trimmed and decorated. Every year we get the finest tree from our local Home Depot, bring it home on top of the car and Jeremy trims it with his finest skills from when he worked on a tree farm in high school. Every year he strings the lights and I decorate with bulbs.

After pulling down all 5 tubs from the attic to my surprise I find each year I buy more and more decorations and have no place to put them. This year we have a new addition to the christmas decorations, well kind of, it's the fireplace, a place to actually put all the decorations. Years past we always hung the stockings from the tv entertainment center with care, BUT this year we have a chimeny/mantel to hang the stockings with care. I don't have them hung yet, I still have to purchase those hanger things and an additional stocking for Nolan! In those 5 tubs I also found 10 boxes of cards. Ten boxes of cards you ask, why so many? I asked myself the same question, actually it was more like "what the hell was I thinking". Our normal mother daugter tradition is to get up early the day after Christmas and stock up on more decorations for Christmas. Apparently these cards were too cute to pass up! I remember I was 5 weeks pregnant last year at Christmas and probably wasn't thinking along the lines of actually sending out Christmas picture cards of Nolan instead of actual paper Christmas cards this year. Looks like these will go back in the attic and wait for another Christmas to be used! It looks like this year I should probably clean out some of those tubs, donate some of the Christmas goodies and make room for MORE!

Excuse the paint on the fireplace, we haven't finished trimming it out.

Nolan's First Thanksgiving

Although he didn't each much turkey, he enjoyed the day with his cousin Abby!