Happy Halloween!

From Dan Stark, Liz Lemon, and the thief.

Five Months Old

Happy October Birthday, Jack!

 You are one curious baby!

 He still hates his tummy time.

 Face plant!

 These smiles are deceiving. 

 Everything goes in his mouth. 

 We're teaching him to sit.  Sometimes he gets it just right . . .

 But only for a few seconds!

 He doesn't mind falling down.

 By this point he's thinking "Mom, I'm done with the pictures.  Please put me to nap and go away."  But I wanted to capture what I see: a devious boy who is going to be way into roller coaster rides, swords, and his Dad.  Also, I love that ridge between his eyebrows.  It's quite prominent and so cute!

This last one's not in focus, but captures his play so well I had to include it.

I put the rest from our photo shoot on flickr. 

Perusing the telly, looping the yarn

(What did I say about feast or famine? I only got 7 hours of work today.  But I'm on call all day and night so I might pick up a few more)

Boy do I love TV.  I never thought there would be so many shows that I enjoy watching.  If you are looking for a new show,  here's my list- in order of enjoyment.

Can't wait for a new one each week:
1. The Good Guys
2. (tie) 30 Rock, Community
3. How I Met Your Mother

Look forward to, but knit while watching:
4. Bones
5. Glee
6. Castle
7. American Dad

Pure knitting background noise:
8. The Big Bang Theory
9. The Office
10. Better With You
11. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
12. Modern Family
13. Family Guy
14. Running Wilde

Can't wait for the season to start up again:
-Burn Notice
-Doctor Who

After my aviator hat Martha asked what else I was knitting.  What else?!  With my little dude to keep bundled warm as an excuse, I'm going a little crazy lately.  Here's a shot of my ravelry page for you non-members:

(Yes Amanda, those German rolls I have tabbed are for Friday night - if I don't get called in to work.)

There are four more rows of completed/hibernating projects below these two rows, and I have four projects queued and two more in my head.  Here are some more photos of Jack in the new tri-peak hat.  First it was too small, then it was too big.  I'm leaving it large.   Maybe in another couple months it will fit.

Ben thinks he looks like a stoner in this hat.  He provided subtitles.  For the above: Dude, is that a Jack-in-the-Box taco?

For this one: Oh duuuuuuude, I'm so wasteeeeeeeed.

PS Speaking of munchies . . . Amanda, we went to Edward's Meats and got some promising German sausages.  Ben drooled over the elk meat cooler.  They had AMAZING stuff.  Dad, if we have time you should check it out on your next visit.  And bring a chest to take home.

Busy Busy Rest Busy

It's feast or famine at my job.  Saturday was a half day, but Monday I worked 15 hours.  It was a stressful morning - they had me alone at one of our hospitals with a full day of work, including a blood transfusion in the morning and I haven't given blood at this hospital before, so it was a whole new set of documentation and procedure to figure out.  During the first 45 minutes of my day I found out we had two additional patients, and I hadn't even had a chance to do water checks yet!  I called my coordinator who lovingly swooped in and helped me.  Then the day changed and it looked like I would go home around 1, and just be on call.  But THEN I had to switch hospitals for another treatment.  My patient took, literally, hours to be arrive.  Once we started I had problem after problem.  I finally got permission to end the treatment for the night, and it was 9:30 pm.  On the drive home there were strong winds.  The cars on C-470 were swerving around, trying not to blow into each other.  Bed was heaven. 

On my day off today I stayed in pajamas until lunch.  Ben spent a good chunk of the morning on math homework.  I played with Jack and did my usual day off fare - laundry, grocery shopping, knitting, TV shows (there are so many good ones this fall!).  I made meatloaf and potatoes with broccoli and cauliflower for dinner.  Brian came over to share some Halloween cupcakes.  It sounds like Halloween trivia last night was a blast, I'm sorry I had to miss it.  We had more wind today, so I kept Jack cozy in lots of layers.  He's been rubbing his eyes all day.  I can't tell if he's super sleepy or if he's having a mild allergic reaction.  If it's allergies, then to what? Wool hat? Knit romper? Sweet potatoes? Cat hair? These are all new things that he got into today.  Oh well.  He didn't seem distressed about it.

This weekend I'm looking forward to Amanda's Home Speech Meet.  Brian and I get to be judges.  We're all doing a sleepover at the condo Friday night.  Jem and Natasha, plus baby and three adults!  It should be lots of fun. 

I kind of hope to get home in time to attend the ward "fall festival" aka Halloween party Saturday night.  We have costumes but no place to show them off.  Sunday we might go walking around the Highlands neighborhood.  Brian might have people over at night. Who knows, maybe we'll just answer the door in costume. 

Uh, happy weekend again?

Whoops, was that a week ago that I last posted?  Time flies!  This week was my sister's birthday, my brother's birthday, and Miranda's birthday, who came to visit Denver with her family.  I took off yesterday and today so we could hit all our favorite places.  I got some fabric from Fancy Tiger today to make another tunic.  It took great willpower not to walk out with another skein of Twinkle bulky yarn.  I love them so. 

Tomorrow is my Saturday at work.  Fingers crossed that it will be a short day!  Jack had a grumpy mood all of today and his sleep schedule is pretty messed up.  I'd like to spend some happy time with him, and see my friends and sister a little more.  

This photo is from the same day as the last one.  Another adorable expression to start your weekend.

Happy Weekend!

In Denver!!

FTG videos

I added a bunch of videos to my vimeo account.  They are all FTG quality (For The Grands), meaning that some of my audience might not want to endure all of them.  Here's a sampling embedded for ya.



Grammar talk from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.


First cereal meal from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

Rainy Morning!

I LOVE it when it rains in the morning.  We made cookies!  Jack started at the very beginning of learning to help - holding a spatula.

Major life changes? I guess?

I got called in to work 7 hours yesterday.   Not bad for a Sunday.  I didn't get called out again in the evening - woohoo!  More good news is that on our new schedule I don't have any weekend call, only a couple regular shifts on Saturday. 

Today is my day off and I'm spending it making Jack happy.  We played lots of games, read books, and later are going to take a walk with Jem.  We went down to Littleton to have lunch with Ben for the last time.  I don't think I've explained on the blog about his work changes yet.  Basically, he's been getting very tired of his job and feeling stuck there.  During his days with Jack he realized how easily he could do school online during naps.  He found a great program at Regis to get his Computer Science degree through online classes.  I'm so excited for him to go back to school and get his degree.  Regis was really good to me and I know he'll have great classes there.  For now, he is taking three pre-reqs through Red Rocks online.  He got accepted at Regis and will start classes through them starting in January.  At first we thought he would continue to work until then, but we decided that life would be happier if he quit sooner.  Tomorrow is his last day.  I think we'll do fine on just my salary.  It will really pay off when he can launch himself into a new part of his career in a year or two (he's still figuring out how long it will take).  In the mean time, I think he's going to have a blast taking classes in a field he loves. 

And for no reason, here's a video of me and Jack!


Near and Far from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

Jack likes to see himself on the computer screen. This is another boring baby video. I'm whispering "near" and "far" to Jack, so no, there's nothing wrong with your sound. You can't hear anything but Ben's computer fan buzzing.

Hypnotized

"Sesame Street is black magic." - Ben.

Fight the Frump

What is it about post-partum and feeling like a frumpy house-frau?  I have to wear blue and black, bleach and blood stained baggy clothes to work.  When I'm home I either wear baggy comfortable clothes, or a mish-mash of things bought over the past 15 years that don't fit very well, are out of style, or are plain unflattering but purchased because they were such a steal.  This needs to stop.  In the words of Twist, "Stop feeling like a fat, ugly failure."

After two weeks of tenuous consideration I marched into Old Navy today and tried on 9 pairs of skinny jeans.  I hated this trend three years ago.  But seeing that it is still around, and all my bootcut pants hide my legs (my one good body feature I have left), and reading online that bootcuts are becoming the new "mom jeans" I took the plunge.  For $16 each it isn't a big risk.  I bought two pairs and I'm wearing them around the house today with tags on to see if they will really work.

High on my triumph, I went to Ulta to find new foundation.  For years I've used a drugstore powder.  It's time to upgrade.  I was in the store for only 90 seconds, but accosted by 4 glowing, beautifully made-up women offering me help.  I started sweating and felt like hiding my unmade face and tangled hair, quickly becoming overwhelmed by the many expensive foundation options.  I retreated to the car, vowing to return with my sister for moral support, and a nicer outfit and base face. If skinny jeans took me 2 weeks and 9 pairs, I better do my research before returning to Ulta.  One step at a time.

Let's not even talk about my hair problems.

Instead, here's a cute picture of my baby!  Distraction!  I'm going to knit and watch 30 Rock!

Starting (semi) solids

We got the go ahead to start feeding Jack solid foods at his last check-up.  (BTW, he's 80% for weight at 16 pounds, 11 ounces.  He's off the charts for height at 28 1/4 inches.  That matches the 99% for a SIX month old.)

Despite our spoon being too big, he seemed to enjoy it.  Unsure at first of what to do with this sludgy, tasteless stuff we were putting in his mouth, he looked very confused.  But soon he figured out it was fun to play with in his mouth and having me repeatedly put a spoon to his mouth was SUPER fun.  He started grabbing my hand and pulling it in.  I think he ate just 2 teaspoons of rice cereal.  Oh well, that's not the point.  We'll get a smaller spoon and keep practicing for fun. 

I now present the Emotions of Eating, by Jack D. Mason.

Curious:

Hesitant:

Determined:

Surprise:

Confusion:

Epiphany:

Approval:

And there's a few more posted on flickr.  To congratulate him on this momentous step forward, Ben handed his shiny new TI-83 to Jack.  Ben had to get one for his math class and Jack has been lusting after its buttons.

Smug:

Sniff, my little boy is growing up too fast!  First rice cereal and now graphing linear equations!