Peas are Funny

Halloween

This year for Halloween, we decided to dress up as Ron Burgundy, Veronica Corningstone, and their little gentleman, Baxter. So I made a 4-hour exception to my "Mustache=Divorce" policy and let Alan shave the beard he's been growing for weeks. And Austin was a pretty cute little Baxter. I think the results speak for themselves.

News Team...Assemble!!!

Who wouldn't want to take him to foggy London-town??

Can you believe I let this man hold my precious baby?

You stay classy, San Diego...

Good News, Bad News

Well, the good news is that Alan and I won't be missing or craving Cafe Rio pork salads for a while. The bad news is that the reason we won't be missing them is because we both got sooooo sick Tuesday night after I made them. I don't know what part of the salad it was, but it had both of us puking our guts out all night long and pretty much all day Wednesday. It was miserable. Thankfully, Austin was just fine and happy as ever. And one of our good friends was able to come and take Austin for a few hours in the afternoon so that Alan and I could rest. And we're feeling much better today. But I'll tell you what, being THAT sick with an 8 month old and no spouse (or mommy) to take care of you...sucks. It's amazing how grateful I am today for little things like the fact that I can stand up without throwing up. Wow.

So, if you don't feel like passing out or vomiting every time you stand up today, be thankful!

And don't mention pork salads to me or Alan for a few months...

Trying to be Domestic

I try. I really do.

A part of me wants to be that super mom who cooks magnificent meals for her family without so much as glancing at a recipe. Oh, and loves every minute of it. So I try. I LOVE food, so it should be reasonable for me to like to cook food...right?

Wrong. I just don't enjoy cooking. There, I said it.

Alan and I have really been missing Cafe Rio pork salads lately. So I found a recipe online that claimed to be EASY and taste just like the restaurant version. Well, the pork and dressing did indeed taste incredible - just like the real thing. But WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE who think that was easy? They must have 3 blenders, 8 hands and 0 children. It took me ALL freakin' day to make all 20 parts to these salads. And they did taste incredible, don't get me wrong. But I think next time we'll go down to Chipotle for an average substitute. Or wait till Christmas when we can pay 8 bucks for a salad they throw together in 20 seconds.

Ah, Cafe Rio, how we miss you.

And, since it feels weird publishing a post with no pictures, here's a peek into our cafe-rio-less, but really awesome lives in Iowa.

Picking apples at Wilson's Orchard = Perfect Fall activity.

We are best buds. We hang out pretty much all day. Every day.

This is Herky, Iowa's mascot. He is EVERYWHERE in Iowa City. And yes, he is always standing in that exact pose.

I've been waiting for months to dress Austin in this vest. I wish it came in my size. Well, Alan's size.

New Sounds

So we haven't been the best bloggers in the world lately. But since not everyone is on facebook, where our son is growing up, we thought we'd post our most recent video on here. This is Austin at 5 months doing his best wookie impersonation.

Thank Heaven for Mother-in-laws

I would like to take this moment to thank Alan's mother for her foresight in purchasing a perfect baby jumper for us back in 1984. Yes, 25 years ago Clucky bought "Jumping Jacks" for all of her children to use with their future children. Now, a normal person would have thought she was crazy for buying a baby jumper for her then 3 year old son Alan. But that is why I'm grateful to have a not-so-normal mother-in-law. =-) My son absolutely LOVES that jumper, and I know for a fact, they do NOT sell jumpers like this any more. It has literally saved my sanity. You see, I have a very high-maintenance baby. If he's not sound asleep, he MUST be played with, sung to, and generally entertained. He is not good at playing by himself. Which means, I would only get 30-40 minute chunks throughout the day to get anything done. (He's not a great napper either.)

Well, this jumper will keep him occupied for up to an hour at a time! He jumps and laughs and squeals non-stop. So I can finally eat, work on Symantec projects, follow up on email, clean up my house, cook. It's amazing! I am a whole new woman thanks to this jumper.

So thank you, Clucky, for being awesome and knowing 25 years ago what we would not learn till much later. We owe you one!

Pictures and (maybe) video of the jumping to come...

Our growing boy.

I cannot believe it has already been 2 months since Austin was born. He has changed so much over the past 2 months, and so have our lives. The past 8 weeks have been some of the hardest and happiest of my life. The first 3-4 were mostly hard. I'm still mad at all the mothers I know for now telling me how hard it was going to be. Or maybe they did, I just didn't listen. But now that I've gotten better at this and he's sleeping for longer chunks at a time, life is pretty dang good. Overall, Austin is a very good baby. He smiles a lot, sleeps pretty well for an 8 week old, and is growing like crazy!! Here are some pictures from the past 2 months:

2 weeks. Adorable and exhausting. He's only sleeping for about 1-2 hours at a time.

3 weeks. Starting to be more alert and interested during awake times.

1 month. First day at Church. He's pretty excited.

6 weeks. He attended his first Jazz game and LOVED it. Jazz played the Timberwolves on St. Patrick's Day.

2 months. Already so grown up. Rock Chalk Jayhawk! (First time he smiled for the camera!)

Austin Tyler Bankhead is Here!

I'm officially the worst blogger ever, but I finally have something important to blog about! Our son, Austin Tyler Bankhead, was born on Feb. 1st. He weighed 7 lbs 2 oz and was 20 inches long. He's completely healthy and absolutely perfect. We are enjoying every minute of this. Here is the story of how he came into the world. This is pretty detailed, so sorry if it's TMI. :) For those of you who requested details, here they are.

Austin was supposed to come on February 5th. My maternity leave started on Feb. 1st so I was all excited about having a week off work. I was going to get a pedicure, get my hair done, read some books. Well Austin had other plans. On Monday morning around 6:15 a.m. my water broke on may way to go to the bathroom. It was NOT like the movies, so I wasn't even 100% sure it was my water breaking. We called the hospital and they told us to come in in a couple of hours if I still thought it was my water that had broken. Well, I wasn't having any contractions, so we ate breakfast, I took a shower, it was a very relaxing morning.

We got to the hospital and were admitted around 8:30 a.m. They put me on a mild dose of Pitocin to get my contractions going. The contractions started up around 9:30 a.m. and started out pretty mild. After a few hours they were getting pretty intense. I was only dilated to a 4 at that point, but the anesthesiologist was on the floor giving couple of other girls epidurals, so I decided I may as well get one then instead of wait. The epidural was really scary, but not that painful. The anesthesiologist was REALLY cool and talked me through the whole thing. She was actually about 8 months pregnant herself! So I just held onto Alan and counted while she did her thing. The moment the medicine went in, I was in heaven. Not only did the contraction pain go away, but my hips didn't hurt, NOTHING hurt! I felt better than I'd felt in MONTHS! So I pretty much just laid there and laughed for a while.

For the next few hours, Alan and I watched Arrested Development and played cards. Right in the middle of a game of War, the Dr. came in to check on my progress. When she checked me a couple of hours earlier, I was only a 5, so I wasn't optimistic that I had progressed much. So we were both shocked when she said, "it's time to have a baby!" So they got all their stuff ready and I started pushing around 5:00 p.m. It was just Alan on one leg, the nurse on the other leg, and the Dr. catching. Just like I wanted it, very private. It was very strange, because I couldn't really feel whether I was pushing correctly. It didn't hurt AT ALL thanks to the epidural. But it was still exhausting. During the pushing, his heartrate started dropping a little bit because his umbilical cord was really short so when I was trying to push him out, he was pulling the placenta out with him and not getting far enough. So they used the little vacuum thing for just a couple of pushes and he came out, no problem. He was born at 5:35 p.m.

When they laid him on my chest immediately, I couldn't believe he was real. He wasn't that yucky like I was expecting. His skin already felt soft and his cry was so sweet. I sat there and touched his head and hands and just cried for a few minutes before they took him away to be cleaned up.

We are home from the hospital now and things are going pretty well. Austin is a wonderful sleeper and he gets cuter every day. He has perfect skin and adorable baby features. I think he looks like Alan. He's absolutely beautiful. He's a very calm baby, but he's not a great eater just yet. Breastfeeding has been really challenging for us both. Neither of us knows what we're doing, but we're slowly getting the hang of it. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not going to starve my baby. He has good feedings about half the time and the other half he gets frustrated and fusses a lot and won't latch on. That has made for some long, sleepless nights, but we're getting better.

It has been a pretty crazy, eventful, wonderful week. We are loving being parents and can't believe how much we love this little person who came to live with us. Here are some pictures of our little Bean.