Staycation!

Staycation? That is a new word for me. Maybe someone can tell me where the term came from. I see a lot of my friends using it on their Facebook statuses. It's self-explanatory I suppose.....vacation from work, but you stay at home. Well, that has been my life the last 4 days and it has been WONDERFUL!!! Brandon had to take a class at his seminary in NC and since I had a few days I could take off from work I was able to spend Wed-Fri at home with Alyas. My Mom watched him Mon-Tues (thanks Mom!) even though she was recovering from surgery. That was great b/c then I didn't have to drive clear out to west home Omaha and pay big bucks to have him at the sitters for 9+ hours (although I love her and she does such a great job!). Anyways, I have had great times with Alyas and have been wonderfully productive. It's probably better Brandon isn't hear b/c when he is I want to do things together and he doesn't take joy in the little tasks and "getting things done" like I do. I feel I have been well balanced the last few days and have even hung out with some girl friends and took a few naps. I am going to have to do this staycation again in the future!

First off one of my "tasks" was to switch out all of Alyas' milk. I "proclaimed" my own special "emancipation" (from breast feeding) the end of December. I believe I have enough milk left over for 4 months....7 bottles a day X 4 feedings = 28oz/day X 30days = 840 oz/month X 4 months = 3,360 oz. Yes...I really think I have that much. I have a whole mini deep freeze, plus two selves in a regular freezer here at the PAC house and about equal that same amount in a friends freezer elsewhere (I ran out of room). I had to switch the old milk for the more recent b/c it's only good for 6 months. Big, heavy task but now we are set. Good bye old pump - hello relaxed lunches at work! Sorry if all this is TMI for some of you, but you have to admit that amount of milk is impressive...wonder what the calorie count is???


Alyas is on now to finger foods and feeding himself, and these last few days we have tried a whole host of new foods. He wasn't taking to the Gerber 3rd foods but I noticed soon as I gave him real food all mashed up he ate more, and more, and more! He's tried black beans, rice, sour cream, chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, avocado, baked apples, a variety of cheeses, real oatmeal, and cheerios...and loves them all. So fun and a lot less expensive! I've decided to call cheerios "cho cho's" b/c Brandon's Grandma told me that is what MarySue called them when she was a toddler. So cute!

Alyas spent a lot of time pulling up on things and crawling over me. We've played several games of hide behind the foot stool and crawl around it trying to catch each other.


Here is a shelf I put up in his bed room. Now that he's into everything he was starting to pull out books and eat them. Although we are all about teaching what's ok to touch and not ok I just didn't want the constant temptation and whole bunch of chewed up pages in the times when I'm not watching his every move. The shelf I found in some closet here in the house and I just needed to buy the braces.

Another big item I checked off my list was purchasing Alyas a new crib. The story of the old one is a little long but essentially I broke it and he needed a new one. I really wanted a solid wood, sturdy crib with NO MOVING PARTS that would break. The old drop down sides are being phased out anyways for safety reasons. Dad helped me pick it up and I put it all together by myself in about 45min! It is very pretty and Alyas seemed to like it...I think he thought it was more of a play pen at first though.




Here's a few pics of my little man doing his "So Big" and standing next to the couch.


He is starting to imitate things as well and the video is of the one sound he can mimic "Ahh"...wonder what he thinks it means. Sorry it's sideways; I'm not sure how to rotate the image.




Lastly, a video of Alyas feeding himself!