Father's Day, off to a tiring start

I got about four hours of sleep last night. It's really not worth typing out all the details. I will say that E woke up at 4:00 soaking wet, and then was wide awake after that, babbling in his crib forever and then falling asleep only for a short while. I got up with him at 6:30 and let TJ sleep in because it was Father's Day. Finally at 8:00 I went in and kissed him and said "Happy Father's Day" and asked if he would mind trading off for a half hour so I could get a little nap in. He said yes, but then promptly fell back asleep, and I didn't feel like waking him up again. It was my own choice, but I got pissed off anyway--I guess because he's a heavy sleeper and I'm a light one, which means if I need his help, I have to wake him up (and more often than not, I don't). It gets old. But mainly, I was just tired. I put E down for a nap at 8:30--he ended up babbling and playing in his crib--and I crawled into bed. With TJ snoring away and E babbling over the monitor, I found my mood descending lower and lower. I ended up waking TJ up and asking him to get E and take him downstairs for a while. It was too late for me to sleep at this point, and I was unreasonably emotional and pissy about it. I decided to take a shower, and while in there I talked to myself about how I'm in control of my mood, and how I owe it to TJ, the wonderful father of my beautiful baby, not to be sullen and bitchy on Father's Day. Amazingly, it worked. (I think the shower and the break helped too.) I'm still tired, but the moodiness is gone. Whew.

I can't wait to give TJ the gifts I made him. I think we're going to head over to the Moonshine Grill later this afternoon for an early dinner. This morning we're becoming members of that church I think I've mentioned before. I never thought we'd find a church that was right for us, but this one has everything that's important to us: kid-friendly, people of all ages, *super* liberal and vocal about gay rights and women's rights, accepting of other beliefs, critical of the larger church's agenda, etc. I can't say enough about the pastor. We're even going to have E baptized, which we had decided not to do, but then we saw a baptism there, and it was very, very sweet. More of a blessing and welcoming of a new little person into the community, a commitment to teach the child about love, and a celebration of the beginning of life's spiritual journey.

I better go. We need to eat breakfast . . .

And then, and then, and then (sheesh)

We've had a nice weekend. The niceness started Friday morning, when TJ took E at 7:00 and I went back to bed until 8:00. TJ put E down for his nap at 8:15 (it was early for his nap, but he was exhausted for some reason), and he proceeded to sleep for an hour and a half. It's been awhile since he napped for longer than half an hour. I ate a leisurely breakfast and read more of Super Baby Food, which I desperately needed to do. I really have to get on the ball with his food. We've sort of stalled out on sweet potatoes, bananas, avocado, carrots, cereal, pears, apples, and prunes. And recently, peas and green beans, both of which he likes. (That list of food is longer than I realized.) I'm excited to introduce tofu to him soon. I think my criteria for making his food is that if all I have to do is mash/boil/steam/bake the food and then puree it and make food cubes, I'll do it. I don't think I'll be grinding rice and shelling peas and that kind of thing. I know myself well enough to know I wouldn't stay on top of it and would feel stressed out all the time. But it feels good to make a good portion of his food, and it's cheaper that way too. I'm also looking forward to making baby food with multiple ingredients. I've gotten some great recipes from the 2007 mamas that I can't wait to try. In addition to tofu, we're also going to introduce whole milk yogurt, squash, asparagus, and diluted juice this month (and maybe a few other things).

On Saturday we ate lunch at Guero's. I can't remember the last time we went there. We sat outside and ate and people-watched. Afterwards we headed over to the new Town Lake Park. It's fantastic! Overlooks the Austin skyline and has a bunch of fountains for kids to run through. There was an event called Park Day organized by Carrie Contey (www.earlyparenting.com), so that was what prompted us to check it out, but we didn't know anyone associated with the event, nor could we tell who was with that group, so we hung out on our own until we ran into our friends Kay and Joel and Jonas (who's six weeks older than E) and they introduced us to Carrie, who we'd never met. After that we walked over to the City Wide Garage Sale. E napped in his stroller while we looked at all the stuff. I picked up a few mismatched napkins. From there we headed home, stopping for coffee on the way at this new (I think?) place on S. Lamar called Emerald City Press. For dinner TJ grilled steaks and peppers and onions and made guacamole and pico from scratch. I looove it when he does that. I swear the stuff he makes is better than any I've ever had in a restaurant.

We woke up this morning to pouring rain. It felt good. It hasn't rained like this in months and months. We ended up going to church, and we met some super nice folks there. It was our fourth Sunday in a row going to this church, and we're liking it a lot. It's VERY progressive and inclusive and has a wonderful children's program. We think this might be the place for us. We felt like the UU church was missing something. It's important to us (especially me) for Eamon to grow up going to church, but I was starting to doubt we'd find one that we could stomach. I'm relieved that the UU church wasn't our only option.

Okay, I better get going. Eamon is having a tough time. I think we've entered the world of teething. We ended up giving him Tylenol last night. He woke up around 11:30 and was inconsolable, crying in pain. It seemed obvious to both of us that his gums hurt. We tried putting him back down several times, but he woke up screaming, so we finally resorted to Tylenol. I'm a little worried because I feel like this is only the beginning, and we can't be giving him medicine every night. Poor little guy.

Well, I feel like I've just listed off every single thing we did this weekend, which is not what I want this blog to be. It's easy for me to fall into that pattern. It's just such a relief to be having good weekends now that TJ's in a new job.

Here's a picture from this weekend of the sweetest boy in the world.