Words with Friends.
I’m not lucky enough to have an iPhone yet (I’m not due for my Verizon upgrade until November), but my husband kindly lets me borrow his on nights and weekends so I can keep up with the six or seven Words with Friends games I have going on at any given time.
I’ve played against friends and coworkers. Internet pals and random strangers.
I’ve kicked ass. And, well, I’ve had my ass kicked. (I’m looking at you, Michelle. Twice. Can you say “rematch”?)
It’s fun, and I love the challenge of it. It’s probably a good thing that I don’t have access to the phone during the day, because that way I can’t get distracted with playing during work hours!
For those of you who are unfamiliar, Words with Friends is a smartphone version of Scrabble. As far as I know, the app is only available to iPhone and Droid users. (I’m a lowly BlackBerry owner, booooo.)
I love how it so gently says, “YOU LOSE!” at the top. Nice.
Until my upgrade, I will live vicariously through Michael, and enjoy my shared custody on nights and weekends. Hopefully, by the time I get an iPhone of my very own, I’ll be a Words with Friends MACHINE.
Watch out, world.
Nine years ago at this exact moment, I was getting to know the man that would become my husband.
We were sophomores in college, and we were both out at one of the local college-town bars as part of a large group of friends. It was a Friday night. I was there with my roommates. He was there with his. A few of my roommates knew a few of his roommates. One thing led to another, we all got to talking and drinking. You know how that goes, especially in college.
I was familiar with most of the guys in his group–we all lived in the same dorm building. The guys lived right downstairs from us girls, Michael included. I had seen him around (we were actually in a public speaking class together that semester), but we had never really talked.
After a while at the bar, my roommates were bailing on me. One by one, two by two, they all began packing up to head home for the night, but I was having fun and wasn’t ready to go back. It was always our “rule” not to leave a girlfriend out alone, so we were discussing whether I should stay out or go back with them. The guys all reassured my friends that they would watch out for me, so I stayed behind to hang out with them. Soon, however, they were ready to go to a bar that I couldn’t get into (so funny to think back on those days, isn’t it?), and I was unsure of what I was going to do. But then, this guy that I had just met, Michael, chimed in–“I’ll stay with her.” We all agreed that Michael and I would stay behind at the bar-that-didn’t-I.D.-me while the other guys went ahead, and we would meet up at the bar-that-let-minors-in-all-the-time in an hour or so.
And so I found myself face to face with this Michael guy. Just the two of us. We got to talking and found out we had a lot in common. Although college was a few hours away from home, we soon determined that we were actually from the exact same town (he just happened to go to the neighboring school district instead of the same one as me). I actually didn’t believe him. I made him show me his license so I could see his zip code. :) We found out that the houses we were planning to rent for junior year with our roommates were on the same street. We both worked for the same company (different locations) back home.
Soon, it was time to meet up with the rest of the guys again, so we set out to walk to the next bar together. It was on the walk that he told me he had just celebrated his 21st birthday. Again, I didn’t believe him. (Man, I was a skeptic!) Again, I made him show me his license. HA!
Despite my carding him twice on our first “date,” we obviously hit it off. We unofficially dated each other for a few months before making our relationship official (meaning we were EXCLUSIVE, y’all) on April 28.
We’ve been together ever since.
It’s amazing to look back at where we started, knowing that we had no idea then that we’d end up where we are now, married with the most beautiful baby girl we could ever dream of having.
Nine years! We’re not much for celebrating little anniversaries like this, but there will never be a February 22 that goes by that I don’t remember 2.22.02.
I recently posted about how Nora had discovered Tessa.
Now, she is not only aware of Tessa; she thinks Tessa is HYSTERICAL. This is the hardest I have ever heard Nora laugh. It went on for several minutes, as she just could not get enough of her.
I have watched this video probably 50 times today. And I can’t help but smile each and every time.
When Nora was born, my intention was to exclusively breastfeed her until she is six months old, as that is the current recommendation from the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), etc. I knew that realistically, we might not make it all the way to six months, but I figured it was a good goal to have.
Then, when we were at Nora’s four-month pediatrician appointment in January, our doctor told us that she was very happy that Nora was doing so well with the breastfeeding. She asked how long I intended to nurse her, and I told her six months, which she was very pleased with. However, she recommended starting some solid foods before I originally planned. Her reasoning is that apparently, the “very few” babies who do make it all of the way to six months without starting solids tend to have problems accepting solids. So, our doctor encouraged us to start rice or oatmeal cereal once a day between five and six months old, just to get her used to the idea of eating solids prior to six months of age.
Alrighty, simple enough.
Despite her recommendations, we weren’t in a huge hurry to start solids. For one, breastfeeding has been really EASY, and to add another activity (like preparing and feeding Nora solids) into our daily routine is OK, but not something I was dying to do. Secondly, THE POOP. I was not looking forward to changes in Nora’s poop–especially since we cloth diaper. Breastfed baby poo is no big deal, easy to handle, easy to clean… *sigh* Change is hard, y’all.
Anyway, on Thursday, when Nora was about 5 months and 1 week old, we figured we better bite the bullet and start working on solids with Nora. And frankly, we had reason to suspect she was ready. For weeks, she has been OBSESSED with watching us eat, trying to grab our food, putting anything and everything into her mouth, etc.
When we got home from work and daycare, she seemed to be in a good mood, so I mixed up some baby oatmeal cereal with some breast milk. (We are skipping rice cereal… at least the white rice variety. Interested in knowing why? We are following the philosophy of the “WhiteOut” campaign.) As I approached her with it, she seemed pretty interested, and even opened her mouth as I moved the spoon toward her lips.
As you can see, she had a perplexed look on her face, but she didn’t react negatively. She swallowed most of it, so I repeated with another spoonful. Then another.
And then she even smiled! I thought… SUCCESS.
As we got further into the feeding, she was spitting out more and more of it, until ultimately she was refusing it altogether. But she had consumed several spoonfuls (tiny spoonfuls, but still), so we were happy. We figured that for her first time, she had done fantastically! We were feeling pretty good about the situation.
Then came Friday night. I mixed up the oatmeal exactly as I had on Thursday, except she WOULD.NOT.EAT.IT. I placed the first spoonful in her mouth, she spit it out, made a face, and cried. Then refused to take anymore. We figured maybe she was not feeling it that night, but I was surprised because it just seemed like she suddenly HATED it.
After asking for some advice on Facebook, several friends told us that maybe she just doesn’t care for the taste of the oatmeal. “Have you tried it? It tastes like cardboard,” one of my friends said. A few people suggested mixing some fruit (banana or applesauce) in with the oatmeal to see if she would take it that way. So, tonight, we tried a little banana in with the oatmeal.
FAIL. Complete fail.
Nora started crying as soon as the spoon came toward her lips, and refused to even really taste it. She pursed her little lips together and would not even let me get the spoon in there! I’m not really sure where to go from here…
We’re toying around with trying some other “beginner” foods, like sweet potato or pears.
I picked up some whole grain rice cereal; maybe she’ll prefer that over oatmeal.
Maybe she’s just not ready.
Whatever the case, this is certainly not as easy as I thought it would be!
We had to get up around 6:00 this morning to get ourselves ready and to the airport for our flight, which was around 10:00. We actually made really good time, and we were off to the airport earlier than we originally expected. We snapped one last photo of Nora in South Carolina (in the parking garage, how exciting!) and hit the road.
I am happy to say that once again, Nora.was.PERFECT. She slept for the majority of the first flight (Charleston to D.C.), then literally slept from take-off to touch-down on the second flight (from D.C. to Buffalo). SUCH A GOOD GIRL!!
Michael snapped this cute pic of Nora and me on the plane:
It’s in pics like these that I realize how small she still is. Gah, I love her.
On three of our four flights on this trip, no one had any problems with me flying with Nora in the Ergo carrier. It was only on one flight (where the flight attendant was seriously “by the book”) when I was told that I had to be holding her. It wasn’t a problem, really, but having my hands free (especially since she was sleeping) was certainly nice. As you can see above, I was actually able to READ! Amazing.
Things we learned about traveling with a baby:
- Having both a stroller AND a carrier was really convenient, both at the airport and while out and about in Charleston. We just made sure to stash the carrier in the basket under the stroller so we had it at all times.
- No need for a diaper bag. For the air travel, we just stuffed diapers, extra outfits, and other things of Nora’s in our carry-ons or my pump bag. When we were out during the days during our trip, we simply put a few diapers and our travel wipes case in the basket under the stroller.
- It’s worth bringing your own car seat. We bought this car seat bag by J.L. Childress, and brought Nora’s car seat with us (sans base). All of the airlines let you check a car seat for free. And guess what? The bag is so big, we were able to fit a ton of other stuff in there, too. We packed most of Nora’s stuff–sleep stuff, clothing, diapers, wipes–plus a few things of ours (extra clothing, toiletries, etc.) in there as well, and it was all FREE to check because it was in the car seat bag. SWEET.
- A pacifier clippy thing is a necessity. This is a must-have for us in all public places, but when traveling, it was especially helpful. We didn’t have to worry about Nora spitting out or dropping her pacifier on dirty, nasty floors or airplane seats.
- This probably goes without saying, but make sure you have extra clothing for the baby in your carry-on. Nora had a blow-out diaper (thank you, disposables!) just as we were supposed to be boarding our connecting flight in D.C. If I hadn’t had an extra outfit in our bag, we would’ve been screwed.
- Speaking of disposables… if you’re cloth diapering, consider using disposables for travel. We couldn’t imagine trying to deal with our cloth dipes on a trip like this (maybe if we were staying in a house or condo with access to a washer, but in a hotel? No.), so we made it easy on ourselves and picked up a pack of disposables instead. Aside from the blow-out in the airport, they worked out just fine.
Those are the tips that immediately come to mind!
All in all, an amazingly successful first trip with Nora. Now, we have our sights set on our trip out west this spring. It will involve longer flights AND a longer period away from home, so we’re still a little nervous. But at the very least, this trip gave us a little bit of experience to have under our belts!
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
