Week 18: The Rat Race Begins

WARNING - For some reason, what started off as a normal weekly posting turned into a MEGA POSTING with a million pictures, waaaay too many videos and nauseatingly-detailed descriptions of what are essentially (to anyone but us) non-events from the week. Please know that we don't expect anyone (other than possibly Colin's grandparents) to actually be interested in all of this information about our life. And to the grandparents - if you intend to get through this entire thing in one sitting, you better grab a sandwich...you're gonna be here a while. In case you need some motivation to go for the blog gold, here's a funny video to kick things off - I promise we'll try to make the rest of this posting as entertaining as this Colin "speech": On to week 18. Boy have we been spoiled! Now that we're both back at work and Colin needs to go to daycare everyday, we have quickly realized how lucky we've been over the past four months when one of us could be home. This week opened our eyes to the rat race that real life will be from now until, well, 18 or so years from now. It's exhausting, but really fun too! Just to give you an idea, here's a breakdown of a typical day this week: The alarm goes off about 5:15...and we're off! One person races to the gym and the other person quickly jumps in the shower before Colin wakes up. Shit, he's crying and I'm still in the shower...okay, hop out, dry off enough to not drip everywhere, and change and feed the beast. The gym rat gets home and does the most important thing of the day - STARTS THE COFFEE MAKER- and then hops in the shower. Colin and company make their way to the kitchen where Colin sits in his chair and watches while coffee is slammed, breakfast food is flying around the kitchen and Colin's 4 bottles are poured and labeled (along with a lot of other labeling) for the daycare teachers. One unlucky parent gives Colin his nasty vitamin supplement (that will stink up his clothes all day...good thing we won't be there to smell it), and then we spend the rest of our time at home switching off between hanging out with little C and finishing getting ready. Once we seem to have everything under control, we grab our 18 bags, travel coffee mugs, and the baby and jump in the car to head to the daycare. We inevitably forget something in the house at least once, so we finally get driving about 10 minutes after we walked out of the door the first time. Some pics of the morning chaos/fun... And a video of Gabe having fun with Colin while he's making breakfast... We drop off Colin at daycare, which takes a few minutes because we talk to the teachers, put his clothes and diapers in his little cubby hole, put his bottles in the fridge and give him a kiss goodbye. Then we both race off to work, hoping to arrive around 8:30 or 9:00 because we have to somehow squeeze in at least a little work before we need to leave at 5:00pm to pick up the baby. And if you're the mom, that work has to fit in between at least 3 visits to the mother's room per day and hopefully at least one trip to the bathroom as you pretend to know what it means to be an energy lawyer and try not to be late to every single meeting. Some pics of Colin at daycare... How is it possible that it's 4:55 already?? That's the moment of panic when you realize how little you've gotten done and that you'll probably be picking up at home later. With the exception of a couple nights when Karen hit the gym after work, we all went home together every night. Gabe swings by to pick Karen up, and then we both head over to grab the munchkin. The daycare teachers tell us about how cool Colin's day was (he visited several monuments in our nation's capital this week!), and then we all head home. Karen sits in the back and plays with Colin during the long commute. Actually, the commute this week was longer than it will (hopefully) be in the future because Colin was at a temporary daycare center in D.C., so we had to fight all the other zillions of people also heading over the bridge to VA at 5:30 or 6:00. Ideally when we start our full-time care in Alexandria this week, we'll spend less time in the car since we'll have to be in VA by 6:00 at the latest instead of leaving D.C. at that time. Regardless, we had fun singing songs and laughing in the backseat! Once we arrive home, we immediately break off into teams - team baby and team cleaner up-er/bottle washer/dinner maker/start packing for the next day-er. Team baby plays with Colin until he gets cranky, strips him down to his birthday suit, throws him in the bath, gives him a little baby massage, tickles him and makes him giggle on the changing table, warms up and feeds him a bottle and puts him to bed. Team clean up empties Colin's diaper bag (dirty clothes, dirty bottles), re-packs it with clean clothes, bibs and burp clothes, cleans up the breakfast dishes and the Colin bathtub and gear so that dinner can be started, starts a load of laundry, washes the dirty bottles, collects and takes out the dirty diaper and other trash (gross that we do that almost every night), and finishes dinner in time for team baby to come out of the nursery and chow down. Some pics of playtime and bathtime... And a video of giggling on the changing table... After dinner we veg out in front of the TV for a show, drag ourselves up off the couch to clean up dinner, pump for the millionth and last time for the day, pack lunches, do a little work if necessary...brush teeth...wash face...and pass out on the way to the pillow!! Oh my god, the 5:15 alarm is already ringing... In other news, Colin had his 4 month doctor visit this week. Colin's pediatrician has the ability to make everyone feel like they are the best parents of the best baby in the world, so we all left the office really happy! And, of course, they confirmed that Colin is a very large baby. No, seriously, he's pretty big for his age. To be specific, he weighs 19 pounds (still off the chart) and is 26.25 inches long (90th percentile). I guess that explains why the 12 month clothes are starting to fit... This weekend we took advantage of the warm and finally dry weather and spent a lot of time outside. Colin took his first walk facing forward (instead of in his infant car seat), which he loved! He stared at everything, especially Reggie and Jack walking ahead of him.

Colin discovered two really cool things this week - his feet!

Colin is still working hard on his rolling over skills. We've found him on his tummy in his crib several times this week. Once he even started crying in the middle of the night because he couldn't figure out how to flip back over. Nice daddy Gabe dragged himself out of bed three times to flip Colin to his back. Once he flipped over and started crying the fourth time, we realized how this ridiculous game could easily go on all night and decided to just leave him on his stomach to cry. Of course, he passed out within minutes. What can we say, we're first time parents!! Here's a video of Colin waking up from a nap on his stomach...

And finally, Colin tried baby rice cereal for the first time this weekend! We are too lazy and tired to squeeze this in as part of our daily routine yet, but we thought it would be fun(ny) to see him try to eat from a spoon. Here's a video of the big first moment:

As you can see from this series of pictures (which are only 4 of about 500) taken after the camera was turned off, he loved every moment of this new eating experience. That is, he loved it until the food was gone. As soon as Gabe put the bowl and spoon down, Colin had a class 3 melt down. I guess it's safe to say that Colin hearts food.