Hi ho, hi ho...it's off to Grandma's we go

It's crazy town around here. What else is new? I hate to do it, but this is going to have to be yet another bullet point post. Maybe I'll make a New Year's resolution to quit posting with bullet points!

• Will had his 4-month doc appointment yesterday. Everything went well, but we need to increase his bottle size a little. He weighed in at 13lbs. 8oz. (25th percentile) and 25" long (again, 25th percentile). We think the nurse shorted his length by at least a half inch, but oh well. Right now he takes about 28oz of formula a day, but we're going to increase that about 30oz and start him on solids at 5 months. He still spits up. All. The. Time. That makes it hard to give him larger bottles, but I want his spitting up to be a little more under control before we start the solids.

• He's still sleeping through the night (8:30pm-8am), but Hubby and I are waiting for the sleep regression. We expect it when he starts to cut his first tooth. Speaking of which, this kid drools like you wouldn't believe. His shirts are constantly wet and everything he can get his chubby little hands on goes in his mouth (yes, even though he doesn't weight a lot he has the cutest chubby hands ever). I can feel a hard spot on his lower left side, but don't see anything yet. We haven't noticed that he's in pain so I'm not too worried about it.

• Last week I started putting him down for naps unswaddled. That was a challenge. He would go down fine, but would wake after about a half hour and not be able to put himself back to sleep. There was a lot of calming, reassuring and crying last week during nap times, but we seem to be a little better this week. I'm sure things will get all off track again while we're at Grandma's, but such is life with a baby.

• Speaking of Grandma's, we're leaving tomorrow to drive to Hubby's parents in Ohio. With feeding stops, we expect it to be about a 9 hour drive. Will has never been in a car longer than 2 hours so we'll how this goes. Fortunately, he doesn't mind his car seat and he's at the age where he can look at/grab toys hanging in front of him. I'm hoping that will occupy him while he's awake.

• We have a lot planned for the week we'll be in Ohio, but I think I'm most excited to take Will to see Santa. Obviously he won't care, but it was always a tradition I loved as a child and I want to make it a tradition for Will as well.

• In non-Will related news, I quit my job last week. Officially I resigned as a full time employee, but I am still working for them as a freelance/contract employee. I'm hoping this will allow me a more flexible schedule. We'll still have the nanny full time so I can be available for work whenever they need me. The crazy thing is, an hour after I resigned they were calling me with a project, so I've been working a little bit over the past week. It's actually kind of nice to get my brain into work mode. It was starting to get a little mushy from "mommy-brain".

• That's it from Fairytale land. I hope everyone has a very happy holiday season and I'll see you in 2012 (unless I have a free minute or two while in Ohio to put up a quick post).

Will has become such a smiley baby...I love it!

Airplanes, nannies and turkeys...oh my!

Whew, I need to stop and take a breath. Life in the Fairytale household has been on overdrive lately. So, let me back up a little...

We survived the trip to Ohio, but it wasn't the easiest adventure ever. Will decided not to nap the morning we were set to leave for the airport. Of course, he finally fell asleep as we were standing in the security line and I had to wake him up to go through security. Fortunately, everyone was very helpful and tolerant of my fumbling with a baby, stroller, luggage, etc.

I was warned that most babies have trouble with take off and landing because of the pressure in their ears. Will ate just before we boarded the plane (the boy has his schedule down to the minute and there is no holding him off when he's hungry!), so feeding him during takeoff wasn't an option. I had a paci ready though. He fell asleep as soon as we started to taxi and woke up after we were in the air. I thought I was in the clear, but no. An overtired baby who isn't used to sleeping in his mommy's arms makes for a VERY LONG 45 minute flight. Again my son defied the odds and finally fell asleep as we were landing. Figures.

Remember what I said about not being able to hold him off when he's hungry. Yeah, that came to bite me in the ass once we landed. As we were taxing to the gate it was time for him to eat again. I had planned to get us off the plane, get our luggage and then feed him before we left the airport. He didn't get that memo and proceeded to let everyone in the terminal know this by screaming from the time we got off the plane until I could get our luggage and I could put a bottle in his mouth. Yes. I was that mom in the airport. You know the one. With the screaming child that people either pity or can't get away from fast enough. I just kept my head down and refused to make eye contact with anyone, the whole time cursing Hubby for not being with me.

Despite our misadventures getting to Ohio we had a great time and Will charmed everyone he met. He's very much looking forward to his return trip at Christmas. The flight back was a little bit easier, but only because Hubby was with me. Will still wasn't the happiest of travelers, but at least there wasn't any screaming.

So, I'm planning to go back to work at the beginning of January (trying to work out a flex arrangement with my company but that's a saga for another post). Hubby and I decided to get a nanny as opposed to using daycare. There really aren't a lot of daycare options on the upper east side of NY because so many people opt for nannies, so we didn't have much of a choice. It wasn't easy trying to choose the person to spend more awake hours with your child than you will, but in the end we're both very happy with our choice. She's actually starting tomorrow and going to spend the week with us to get acquainted with Will, his schedule and how I like to do things. Then she's going on vacation for a few weeks and she'll be back with us full-time in early January.

Because we were in Ohio the weekend before Thanksgiving, Hubby and I decided to spend our first Thanksgiving as a family in NYC. It was such a wonderful weekend. We walked over to the west side and watched some of the big parade until Will decided he had enough. I spent most of the afternoon cooking my first turkey and we had a couple friends over for dinner. It was definitely a day to be thankful for!

The craziness that my life has become is going to continue for the next couple of weeks so I will apologize now for a lack of postings and comments on all your blogs. Rest assured, I am reading your posts and always want to comment, but rarely have the time. I guess this is when I'm pulling my "it's the thought that counts" card!

Mommy's little turkey :)

Enjoying a gorgeous Thanksgiving morning watching the parade in NYC!