The Best Memorial Day I've Ever Had

It really was!

I loved Jeff not going to work in the morning,

I loved putting the American flag we got from Bruce and Carolyn Cameron for our wedding to good use and letting it say hello to all passersby,

I loved going to Target by myself while Jeff put Jude down,

I loved getting a beach umbrella and "healthy" snacks,

I loved getting a Diet Coke with Vanilla and Cream (and a Cherry Limeade for Jeff) at Sonic right after Target,

I loved packing up my car with all the accouterments to keep my baby and his satin skin happy and protected,

I loved scooting over to Laguna with my boys and getting a good parking spot,

I loved giving Jude his first taste of the sand (loved it) and sea water (unimpressed),

I loved relaxing under the umbrella and unknowingly crisping my shins and tops of my feet,

I loved spending time with great friends at the beach,

I loved getting lunch with these great friends at La Sirena afterwards,

I loved changing Jude's biggest ever blow-out diaper in my car in the parking lot at La Sirena Grill and the mess that ensued (if I'm ever worried Jude's not "regular" I just need to leave the house),

I loved getting home in one piece and putting Jude down for a nap,

I loved getting treats and watching a movie on Apple TV with Jeff,

I loved it all.

I'll remember it as the best Memorial Day of all time.

Sorry your handsome face got half cut out, honey.

Some things about the author of this blog:

- I might have to start running again.

- My sister Sarah told me motherhood has made me "softer". Hmmm.

- That wonderful near-year of the "Your Girth and Emotions are Great with Pregnancy and Postpartums, but Thou Shalt Not Lose a Hair From Thy Head" is over. Dumb hair falling out left and right.

- Aforementioned hair grew many inches during aforementioned hair retention period. I have only trimmed my hair since I started really dating Jeff, because I knew he liked it long. But now it's getting Wicked Witch of the Ladera Ranch long, and I'm hankering to have a skilled professional take some sharp scissors to it. What will I do? I haven't a clue. Part of me wants to go Halle Barry. Part of me wants bangs again. Part of me wants to only trim it; my mom had long hair with a middle part when she was a young mother, and it makes me feel good to parallel hairstyles with phases of life with such a lady.

We'll see. My bangs are in that awful in-between period. Blech.

- I sliced my middle and pointer fingers while chopping an onion on Friday. 20 minutes later I slammed those same fingers in the side door. ??? Jeff examined them both times and after the second injury he said something in French. It was something along the lines of "Be careful and slow down, my dear."

- Goin to the beach tomorrow! Woot wooooooooot!

With Mimi and Gpa

Sorry, a lot of blurry. He's a mover and a shaker.

Asterisk Points

* We watched Megamind a couple of weeks ago; I was laughing the whole time. Elizabeth told me it was funny but I underestimated it.

* I've been something of a law widow lately.

* I lost my writing mojo.

* Do they really have to wait until the new year to give us the second season of Downton Abbey???

* I have been reading baby books because my other book is Mockingjay and I am just not getting into it. Maybe it's because I already know how it ends. I read about it on Wikipedia. Eek! I do this from time to time because I become scared I'll invest time and emotion into reading something and hate the ending and have to mourn it for a few days, so I read epilogues or find out the ending halfway through.

* We keep buying carseat toys for Jude in hopes of converting the act of leaving the house from a terrorizing experience into a blissful (or just tolerable?!) one. They are ugly but they're all that are available. They don't work. Maybe it's because they're ugly.

* My mom came over on Friday afternoon to start teaching me how to sew. It was a blast. She also had an epiphany about our mantle and now it looks like this:

I'm digging it. The clock in the middle was a gift from Jeff ("and Jude") for Mother's Day. Love it.

* I'm typing up this blog post on my 2005 Mac iBook G4. What a crazy miracle. This thing is so slow, so haggard, so weighed down with memory overload and gunk. It sometimes decides not to work. The battery will last for oh, 2/3 of a minute if it's not plugged in. I need to clean it up and move the pictures and my music over to the good computer before this thing bites the dust for good.

* I kiss my baby approximately 2,384 times a day. His cheeks are heaven.

* Achoo!

* And a non-iPhone picture in parting:

FAMILYAMILYAMILY

We had lots of fresh and friendly family so generously visit for Jude's blessing. It was such a thrill to have everyone together. Allow me to pinch pictures from others' bits of internet:

We met Uncle Cameron and Aunt Sarah at South Coast Plaza (Uncle Harry was writing some legal gobbledee gook paper at home), and love instantly abounded.

Almost nothing bad can happen at 3333 Bristol Ave.

P.S. I'd gone to Costco before South Coast and realized I'd forgotten my phone and had no way of coordinating the meeting place with my mom and siblings (even though I knew it would probably be by See's). HOW did we ever get along without cell phones??? I was so close to Jeff's office I just booked it over there with screaming, dirty diapered baby and hauled him up there and in my sweaty, frazzled, chubby Mom glory I walked into his office, shut the door, my 20 lb. diaper bag slid off my shoulder and thunked on the floor, Jeff goes, "Hey, I've been texting you." "Yeah, I need to borrow your phone."

And we did decide to meet at See's.

The whole fam-damily -- THANK YOU ALL for coming.

Someone to carry on this branch of Hayes.

Aaaaand let's not forget to play with the iPad. I love how nephew M is drooling for his turn.

It was a great weekend, and Jude feels the love.

3 Months: A Different Babe

Something weird happened on Monday when Jude hit 12 weeks. I swear, he turned into a different wee babe. He seems to want to take naps, in his CRIB of all places, will independently sit watching Baby Einstein or the dangling toys for longer than 5 minutes, will chill in his car seat if it's right after he's eaten, or if it's in the stroller (which I thought we'd wasted our money on since he'd only brook the Bjorn), and is basically much more predictable. SCORE.



Jude is our Numba One because he:

* gives us huge smiles,
* coos non-stop like he's really determined to contribute to the conversation,
* arranges his hands in the sweetest little configurations when he's sleeping,
* is always trying to sit up when we put him on his back (he crunches his tummy muscles like he's doing a pansy sit-up and lifts his legs which is hilarious),
* the top of his head smells so delicious,
* loves crew necks and stripes as much as his mom and wears them practically all the time,
* has chub,
* has grown out of size 1 diapers so now we can get them at Costco and save some bucks,
* loves his bath,
* has this hilarious "the jury's still out" look he gets on his face, like he's reeeeeeeally considering his opinion on whatever topics babies have opinions (see below),


* and we're obviously so unabashedly obsessed with him. This is the quintessential baby blog now, no going back.

Mother

Somehow, I kept forgetting that I got myself a Mother's Day this year. Jeff reminded me over and over with many acts of spoiling and love. Jude was a doll at church and after I fed him in the Mother's Lounge during Sacrament Meeting, he slept through Sunday School and Relief Society. Cha-Ching!

Then, on this day that celebrates those who expend blood, sweat, and tears for their small ones, I got to take part in some of the sweat and tears with NAP TRAINING, PART II. At 6 weeks I was thrilled to borrow this book from my friend Katie that told me not to sleep train colicky babies. DONE. Now that his colic seems to be pretty much gone, I know I've got to get to work. Lucky duck me, Jude sleeps through the night, maybe waking once every other night (which is fine with me since I'd grown to love our groggy midnight snacks together). However, daytime is a completely different story. He won't nap unless I'm holding him, and even when he's riding the REM cycle, when I put him down in his crib, he'll wake up 5 to 10 minutes later. What a snuggle junkie. And I, the weakling, can't stand to hear him cry, and I oblige him with a nap in my arms 4 or 5 times a day.

What does this mean for me?

The couch. Frustration. Maybe this seems trivial to some, and believe me, I am over the moon that I have a sweet, smiley, healthy baby that has brought so many unparalleled wonderfuls into our home, but this is a horrible MO born of his colic. The reason it's still going on is because I know that while colic broke my heart, getting him to be able to nap like a normal baby would also be heartbreaking. But, I have been a bump on a log the last 3 months, unable to do a thing but hold him. At some point, normal life must resume.

We started yesterday afternoon and he screamed and screamed. My mother and mother-in-law have given me buckets of encouragement and reminded me that it will be harder on me than him. Jeff went in to comfort him after a while and ran his finger from his brow to the tip of his nose (his favorite) until he started to drift off. It was a start. I went in to check on him later and he was still calming himself down. So sad.

So today we continue on. I know it's not like he's addicted to heroine or has decided that Reba McIntyre is his life hero, but even the promise of someday soon being able to do something crazy like refinish the dressers that have been sitting in our garage for 7 months does not make this easy on my Merzy Mom heart.

IN BRIGHTER MOTHER'S DAY NEWS:

Jeff and I are blessed with Mary Poppins Mothers who know everything, can do anything, and that includes always saying the right thing at the right time, and knowing how to spin sunshine on gloomy situations and magnify the cheerful days. Jude hit the jackpot with 2 grandmothers and a great-grandmother of love and vigor and vim.

I'm grateful for them, and I'm grateful to be a a mother to the the Jude of the world. This new phase of life has made me even more grateful for my Jeff, who makes everything, and I do mean everything, better.

Fashion Police

A Blessing outfit for a boy who never stops kicking his chubby legs.

Blessing Day

Jude was blessed by his dad today. It was wonderful.

The End.