room by room : laundry

It has been a really long time since I did a Room by Room post!  And this update is long overdue... we completed it before Myles was born!

When we moved in, we were glad to finally have an actual laundry room!  Our last two apartments only had laundry "closets".  Not only did this house have a laundry ROOM, but it is big.  Like almost the size of Myles' room, big.  Well, maybe not quite that big, but its about 8x11 I think!

Unfortunately I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of it...

Like... this is it.  The only picture from our first walkthrough.  The same beige paint in the entire house, a window to the carport, some crappy cabinets and an awkwardly placed water hookup.  The other side of the room was the same beige, blank walls.

Fast forward several months, and my dad's handiwork...

The outlet for the dryer was inside the cabinet... and dad decided to lower that water hookup.

And he installed some new cabinets that he had built.  And rebuilt the wall that they were attached to.  He also built a folding table for the blank wall that I still haven't shown.

A couple of months later, Kyle's parents painted the room for us during one of their visits... using a paint color my brother picked out for me.

The finished result being this:

I love how this room turned out.  So much less depressing.  Eventually we will have to get a new washer and drier but for now these which are older than us work just fine.  We have had a couple of floods in this room but that is the fault of the pipes, and not of our ancient machines.  Nothing $200 a call to the plumber couldn't fix.

Thanks to everyone that helped make this room a bit more cheery for me :).

If you are here from Medical Mondays, welcome!  Hope you stop by more often... I know I want to start blogging a bit more frequently now that I am getting used to this whole being a mom thing!

If you want to see some more of the house, here's the links:

kitchen
dining
living
spares
masters
nursery

I hope to get a few more room updates up this month, we have been busy!

myles oliver : monthbymonth 3

Today, Myles, you are 3 months old.  Somehow it seems like you have always been with us.  I guess it has just stopped being so "strange" to have you in our family now.  This month has been so much fun!  You are so much more vocal and interactive!

I love sitting with you and mimicking your noises.  It is just so funny.  You really strike up big conversations and laugh when I do this with you.  But you don't have to have someone talk back to you... you like to "talk" to your toys and talk to the TV.  Yesterday you were commentating the women's Curling game.  

You haven't started rolling over... that is probably our fault... we aren't the greatest with your tummy time anymore.  You don't let it stop you though.  You have become a champ at planting your feet and scooting the direction you want to face in your crib and on the floor.  One minute you will be under your toys on the play mat, and the next you are rotated 90 degrees and almost on the rug!  You currently love for daddy and I to hold you up so you can "jump".  

This month you have really been working on your hand-eye coordination.  You are grabbing onto everything.  We are glad we went and bought a big pack of colorful linking rings for you to play with.  We hang them on everything and you have a lot of fun!  You are also holding hands with yourself.  Between this and sucking on your hands all the time, you are quite good at self soothing!

We also battled a major rash this month.  We thought it was heat rash since you are such a sweaty thing, but it never went away.  After weeks of just hoping it would stop, and a visit from our pediatric resident friend, Dr. Jenn, I finally took you to the doctor. Contact dermatitis.  Probably from your detergents (we were using Dreft).  So we have washed EVERYTHING in the Nellie's Laundry Soda that we use on your cloth diapers.  And liberally applied a steroid oil.  And stopped using baby shampoo/soaps and switched to Dove white bar soap.  It may have been all of the added fragrances irritating you.  It seems to be under control now!

Sleep has just gotten better and better.  We did have a rough spot for about a week, but finally determined that it was because your nightlight broke and you hated not being able to see your surroundings.  A few weeks ago you started sleeping through the night... Like bed at 10ish pm and waking up around 8-10am.  With the even better self soothing techniques, you have lately been waking up at 8am and just chilling out in your crib while I grab a shower and eat breakfast... super happy to see me at about 9am :).  Such a patient little boy.  

Currently you are somewhere between 12 and 13 lbs and still 24 inches long.  When you do have on a disposable diaper it is still size1.  You still fit pretty well in most of your 3 month clothes but the sleep and play outfits are starting to get a little tight.  Some of your 6 month outfits are starting to fit you.

This was the big deal this week.  Snowpocalypse2014 was a bit of a bust with how much they had forecast... but 4 inches of the white stuff isn't anything to scoff at around here.  This city is shut down.  Daddy tried his hardest to get to work last night but got stuck on our hill.  You didn't seem to mind the cold at all though.  You just grinned the whole time that we were out there (all of about 2 minutes).  I can't wait until you are big enough to play in it with me (if we ever get snow again...).

It has been an awesome 3 months little man.  You are such a great kid!

If you missed out on the other 2 monthly updates:  1month, 2months

the hardest and the best

Last week some good friends announced that they had been matched with a birth mom and will be adopting a baby girl in June.  The husband asked me at church, "so what is the hardest thing about parenthood?"

I was sort of on the spot and I said something about discerning why he is crying...

When I got home I knew that was the wrong answer and thought something about finding time to spend with Kyle; not being just a wife anymore.

But I think after thinking about it for a week, I have my answer.

For me, the hardest part about being a parent is how a simple comment from someone(s) can make me feel like the worst mother in the world.  I tell myself its no big deal what they just said, I'm doing the best job I can, but it is hard to get small things people say out of your head when you are going through a rough time.  Something that might have just been a "rough moment" for you turns into a cataclysmic event because someone's opinion or advice is playing over and over telling you that you are doing everything wrong.  Even if that isn't what they said or meant at all.

It also doesn't help that the rough moments are at night when you are left alone with the child during Night Float month.

And then I go into my son's room after 9 hours of sleep (him not me...) and I pick him up.  And he smiles.

When I've spent the night telling myself I am the worst parent in the world, a smile from my son squashes that lie to a pulp.  Because to him, I am absolutely the best person to walk the earth.

So while I have been thinking about what is the hardest part; I am immediately reminded that this is the best part.

If you are visiting from Medical Monday, Welcome!  This blog throws together some experiences with our life in medicine (my husband is a Surgery intern), as well as DIY, home decorating, recipes, and now Parenthood.  Thanks for stopping by!