Around, Around, Around We Go....

Our insanely busy week has finally come to a close. It was fun (and exhausting) while it lasted though! Aiden is becoming quite the well-traveled little boy and he's definitely like me in that he prefers to be constantly on the go versus lazing around the house.

Some of the highlights included:


Checking out our states capital building - from the outside - with Jen (you can't see Aiden but I promise he was excited)




Playing with the drums at the Children's Museum (although that's pretty much all he could play with and we didn't stay very long because of it)


Going to Gymboree Play & Learn was probably Aiden's favorite activity. He got to kick a ball, play airplane on mommy, catch bubbles, sing, dance, clap, and practice crawling/walking up ramps. He laughed the entire time and seemed to be the life of the party. We've signed up for unlimited classes for a month, and I'm planning on dragging him to Mommy and Baby fitness on Tuesdays. We both had a BLAST though.

Aiden went to his Grandma Williams' house on Thursday so Tom and I could spend some time together. We went and checked out the brand new apartments that are being built on TT/Meadowbrook and fell madly in love with them. We're talking 9ft cielings, brand new appliances, secured entrance, TWO bathrooms, a breakfast bar, the ability to paint colors on the wall, a fitness center, giant windows, underground parking, and a washer and dryer in the unit! There was nothing we didn't like. So, hopefully we will be heading over yonder when our lease ends on this shithole. Anyway, despite the fact that we never wanted to leave that place, we decided to go paint pottery at A Touch of Glaze. Some stupid salt & pepper shakers took us like 3 hours to finish.



I'll let you take one guess as to who painted what



Then finally, today, we hiked it back over to Milwaukee to visit Mel and her new son Brendan at the hospital. I couldn't believe how TINY he was (Aiden was that small?? When??). Holding him increased my desire to have another one and I have noooooo idea how I'm going to wait the 2 years that I've already promised Tom. Aiden couldn't really figure out what was going on or why all the attention wasn't on him for once.
After the baby snuggles, we went to a flea market in Mukwonago with Tom's mom. It was perfect outside and Aiden was an angel the entire time.

Aiden has been passing out around 7pm every night due to all the fun and excitement. This week should be a bit more mellow, but I don't think that's such a good thing. We both get crabby when we're stuck in the house for too long.

I'm off to go relax and take a breather.

Cage 'em

Aiden and I are in for a big week!

Our fun-filled week includes:

• A ride to Madison tomorrow to enjoy a day with my dear friend Jen at the free Zoo, and possibly a shopping trip along State St. if Aiden (and time) cooperates
  
  
• A ride in the opposite direction to Milwaukee on Thursday night to hit up the Betty Brinn Children's Museum during a free night
  
  
• Testing out a Gymboree Play & Music class (for free) on Friday to see if we'd like to become members and go every week (which unfortunately is not-so-free, hence testing it out first)

Exciting, huh? Even more exciting - it's all free!! Minus the gas to get to these places, but I'm not going to complain about that. After the boring day that we endured today, I'm happy that we have activities to keep us entertained for the rest of the week, and I'm happy that my bank account doesn't have to suffer as a result.

In other news, Aiden is officially T-R-O-U-B-L-E. He can't technically crawl yet, but his inchworm and army-crawl get him pretty much wherever he wants to go. He seems to think the word 'No' is funny, which isn't real good when he's chewing on the power cord to the fan that's on. When I move him away from something he shouldn't be anywhere near, he inches his way back. And when I'm trying to change his diaper, he does everything in his power to make it as difficult as possible.
The icing on the cake, though, is naps and bedtime. He thinks it's pretty cool that he can get up on all fours and move around in his crib. So several times I walk in there (when he's supposed to be going to sleep) and see this:

(you can't really see, but he's up on his hands and knees)

and then his adorable fricken smile when he sees me which makes it impossible to be mad:


So I'm sure you can see the problem here.

I've decided he can hold off on the crawling for awhile, because he is way more than enough for me to handle right now. I might have to invest in one of these pretty soon:



Also of note,
I BOUGHT SCHOOL SUPPLIES!!! YIPPEE!!!!!
And two of my notebooks are made from 100% recycled materials. How's that for going green? I got my pencils and my folders, so I'm all set. I give it 2 weeks before the school thing is wayyyyyyy old and I'm ready for Winter Break. That's pretty much how it always works. In fact, I don't know why I'm excited in the first place. I hate school. Ah well.



P.S. Apparently, the comment thinger was broken before, however it's been fixed, so comment away!

You Are Now Entering: Domesticated Mommy World

I bid the bank farewell yesterday, which ended up being harder than I had anticipated due to my extreme lack of being able to deal with a) anything ending and b) changes. I don't think it's really sunk in that I don't have to go back - ever!

The first day on my new job of full-time mommy went pretty well. I accomplished (mostly) everything I needed to accomplish and kept the house clean at the same time. I even had lunch ready the second Tom walked in the door and had him gone within his 30 allotted minutes. I might actually be bordering on too domestic for my liking.

Tom, Aiden and I are heading over to his parents house for his sisters birthday dinner. I happened to find the PERFECT card that I geniusly decided to give to her from Aiden (there's a baby on the front saying "Wishing you the PERFECT BIRTHDAY!" and then the inside says "A bottle of your FAVORITE DRINK, a GOOD POO, then a TWO HOUR NAP!"), and then picked out one that would be from Tom and I. I put both of the cards on the kitchen counter and told Tom that he needed to sign our card. When I go to sign Aiden's card, I see that he has written all over the card I had perfectly planned out instead of writing in the card he was supposed to write in.
I hate it when my genius ideas are thrown to hell because of other people. I get so excited about how genius it is...and then it's ruined.
So I'm busy being mad at him right now.

But enough of that, here's the pictures from our lovely time at the Brewer game:
















Dinner @ TGI Fridays - loved the view!






















We got to watch Gallardo warm up while we were eating






















Enjoying a tasty beverage and showing off a little boob




And, because I can't resist:















Monkey butt!!

This is What I Get for Not Breastfeeding

Well, we made yet another trip to the ER with Aiden at like...8:00 pm last night.

Lets rewind a bit, though. On Sunday we got Aiden from my parents fresh from a 2 1/2 hour nap. All during our lunch he crabbed and cried and wanted to be held. So...fine...we brought him home and he took another 2 hour nap. He acted like his tummy hurt or something, but no big deal.
Yesterday he went to daycare, came home and passed out (because he never sleeps at daycare) and when I got home he was finally eating dinner. I looked at the sheet that daycare fills out and saw that he had FOUR poopy diapers while he was there. When I said something to Tom he replied "Yeah and I changed another one when we got home." WHAT?? Five poopy diapers in one day? That's a bit weird for me. To top it off, he wasn't very interested in his dinner and was again extremely crabby, so we warmed up a bottle and prepared him to go to bed.
I change his diaper and inside of it there's blood.

Blood. In my baby's diaper.

::insert image of me freaking the fuck out here::

I called the emergency paging system for the doctor, talked to the nurse, nurse said: Go to the ER. Go straight to the ER. Do not pass go, Do not collect $200. (Well, you know...)
So we went straight to the ER.
We waited around for awhile. The doctor came in, asked me questions, talked over me when I tried to answer, and told us he didn't think anything was wrong and we should go home. Seriously, he spent maybe two minutes in there with us. I spent the rest of the night FUMING. How can you not give a fuck about my baby?

Then today. When he wasn't sleeping, he was crying. And screaming. And crying more. He refused lunch - he only wanted a bottle, and even then he didn't want very much. Finally at 1:45 I was at my wits end and called the pediatrician. We were in the office by 2. His doctor is fearful that something is wrong (a bowel obstruction was mentioned), however she didn't feel like it was time to put him through testing yet. She wants us to wait it out a bit and see if things get better or worse. I'm not a huge fan of this idea but I guess I have nothing else to do.

I have the same feeling that I had when he had Whooping Cough and nobody was giving me any answers about anything: Something is wrong. I hate that he has to continue to suffer while the doctors waste time not listening to me.

Despite the rough day we had, and after much debate, Tom and I decided to go to the Brewers game that my parents got us tickets to. We ended up skipping the tailgating and just eating at TGI Fridays on the field (because I couldn't get out of the house long enough to get the food today). We ended up having a really good time. I almost got pelted with a baseball, but nonetheless, we had fun. We watched Gallardo practice while we ate, and we made it to our seats just in time for the first pitch. Seats were good - game kinda sucked. But oh well. It was fun just to get out and do something just as a couple. All of Aiden's reports from Grandma and Grandma came back good, too.

So the Aiden sickness saga continues. Hopefully not for much longer, though, because I don't know how much more either of us can take.

My last day of work starts in about 9 hours. A bittersweet symphony, indeed.

Party Pooper

It's true, being a mom has officially changed my perspective on just about everything - including 4th of July fireworks. Last year at this time I was with a co-worker, driving to downtown Milwaukee, and running (literally!) towards the lakefront in desperate hopes of catching the fireworks. The gorgeous, magical fireworks.

This year? Well....bah humbug.
This year, the fireworks are a complete nuisance. Instead of wishing I was out enjoying the festivities, I find myself wondering why there isn't a curfew for these sorts of things. I mean, Aiden's bedtime is 8 o'clock...can't we be done making loud obnoxious noises by then? Is it necessary to blast off stupid little firecrackers at 10 pm? Don't these people know that my baby is trying to sleep?

I'm ready to label this holiday the most annoying holiday of all. I'm also ready for it to be over, which it's really not even close. If we're speaking in technical terms, it has even started yet.

I'm going to attempt to put my disdain for the holiday aside tomorrow morning and take Aiden to a parade. We're just gonna check out the lame old Delafield festivities considering he won't really care all that much anyway. Maybe next year we'll put some real effort into finding a bad-ass parade somewhere. I'm also going to try to enjoy some of these horrendous fireworks with Tom tomorrow evening, however I may just take out a giant firehose and spoil everybodys fun.






















(What? That doesn't look like me with a giant firehose?)

Fun Weekend

Saturday's Events:
The billionth annual Olson Family Reunion took place at Little Green Lake for, well...the billionth time. Tom, Aiden and I stayed over at my parents Friday night so we could hitch a ride with them in the morning. We left bright and early in order to make it to the flea market in Princeton, WI. Aiden got to enjoy a little Yo Gabba Gabba on the way after I very reluctantly switched his car seat around and allowed him to face forward so he could he see the TV screen. As soon as he saw his favorite show in the car (!!!!!) he entered a trance-like state and stayed that way until he fell asleep.

Don't bother me, I'm watching my shows!

After eating a ton of delicious flea market-y foods (homemade mini-donuts anyone?), and buying some adorable jewelry, we headed off to the reunion to eat some more and mingle with our not-so-long-lost relatives. Aiden got to chill out on a nice picnic blanket and play with his toys, and I chatted up some folks that were there from Norway.
Luckily we were only there for a few hours, and everyone napped on the way home.


Sunday's Events:
So today probably couldn't be described as exciting, but it was definitely a nice day. Tom went to work for a bit, we cleaned the house (and made the vacuum cleaner smoke - oops!), and then we ventured out to run to Babies R Us. I've decided to "go green" and stop using the Playtex Drop-Ins, so we picked up a pack of Dr. Brown's wide neck bottles. And then, Aiden's favorite part of the trip - baby biscuits!!! All organic, easily dissolving, and indivually wrapped, Mum-Mum's are our new favorite thing. Despite the fact that he made a complete mess with them, I love that he thinks he's a pretty cool dude eating them. We decided to try out a new restaurant tonight, and once I saw that Bravo! had outdoor seating on what was an insanely gorgeous night, there was no turning back. Thanks to Aiden's new Mum-Mum's keeping him occupied, we had a pretty relaxing dinner and some extremely delicious food. (I'm just now realizing that my entire weekend consisted of food...lovely.)

I'm off to work tomorrow and am not looking forward to it in the slightest. I think the only thing keeping afloat there is the fact that I no longer have to be there every single day. Still, the days are pretty miserable. I already am wishing for the day to be over.

Oh well, it's Tom and Lauren snuggle time!

Life Changes

As of July 8th, I will officially be a "Stay at Home Mom" (which means more time for blogging! Maybe?). There's been a pretty huge combination of situations and fiasco's that have led me to this decision. The most important being that the older Aiden gets, the more I realize how much time I'm missing out on with him - time that I will NEVER get back. He's learning and growing by the minute and I'm tired of not being there to see it happen. So, with that on the back of my mind, the bank started to be complete douchebags to me about pretty much everything and even went as far as demoting me back to just a teller. That, in combination with the serious attitude problems of my co-workers, in combination with wanting to be with Aiden, led me to quitting. Actually, I should be honest here. After the demotion, I requested to go down to part-time. I figured I would be able to handle 22 hrs a week with the assholes and still be able to have some sort of income to help out. It took about two days into my part-time status before I got pushed over the edge, wrote out my two weeks notice, and slammed in on my bosses desk.
It felt good.

Really, all of this is possible because I'm finally going back to school full-time starting in late August for the much dreamed about but never attempted Nursing degree. We can't survive on Tom's income alone for more than the month and a half that we're doing. Being a "single mom" qualifies me for quite a bit in grant money, and I may take out a small amount in loans as well, which will hopefully provide us with enough money to cover tuition and part of the bills.
The closer it all gets, the more freaked out I get about the entire situation, but I'm trying not to over-think it.

In other news, my seven month old son has already started throwing temper tantrums. SEVEN months and he's kicking and screaming in his high chair because he doesn't want to eat first he want's a goddam bottle first. 99% of the time I have a complete angel for a child. Don't give him something he wants, or don't give something he wants fast enough - forget it. He screams, cries, kicks and flails around. Let him go long enough and he stops breathing because he's so upset. How is this happening already? I can't say it happens all that often (yet), but I really wasn't expecting such a dramatic tantrum until he hit two years old. Considering it's kind of hard to teach a baby the word 'No' and try to rationalize with him, I don't really know how I can go about reversing the behavior.
He's definitely my kid, though.

I'm off to go indulge in some strawberry shortcake.