All the single babies...

Conor attracts the pretty women babies. See how he plays it cool and pretends he's not interested?

Hulkamania

Tim's first (only?) clothing purchase for Conor:

Life at 9 months

Inspired by Blair at The Heir to Blair, I thought it might be neat to write out what our typical weekday is like. I already have a hard time remembering what life was like just a few months ago before I started back to work.

5:15am The alarm goes off. Tim gets up to shower and feed the dogs and cats.

5:45am I wake up and shower/dress quickly - warp speed for me. I'm ready by 6:15, earlier if I don't wash my hair (ewww).

6:00am Tim wakes Conor up. Conor very rarely wakes up on his own before this. He gets a fresh diaper, clean clothes, zorbits, the works. Conor is usually in a pretty good mood by the time he's fully awake.

6:15am Tim feeds Conor is Zantastic Fruit (bananas or mango mixed with Zantac) while I finish getting ready.

6:20am I (attempt to) nurse. Lately this is short and sweet. Then we play while Tim finishes getting ready.

6:35am I start the car to let it warm up and load up the bags - purse, Gretchen's House tote, grocery bag of pump parts, and a cooler tote with bottles. Thankfully the days of scraping ice and snow seem to be behind us for the season.

6:45am Tim helps me load Conor up and we're off. It's still dark out. Conor doesn't usually sleep on the drive anymore but is very well behaved.

7:15am We arrive at daycare. The sun is just coming up. I get him settled in his classroom and we play together for a few minutes. He's usually the first one there, although sometimes Peyton arrives about the same time. I fill out his daily form, put away his bag and bottles, and say goodbye :( Separation anxiety hasn't hit yet and Conor doesn't seem at all upset when I leave.

7:40am I arrive at work. The beauty of this schedule is that it usually gets me to work right in time to score one of the last spots in the closest parking structure.

10:00am I take my first pump break, which lasts 15-20 minutes. I cut down last week to two pumps during the workday but surprisingly my output is the same or better than with three. Go figure.

11:30am Lunch - usually I'm too lazy and/or tired to bring something so I hit up the cafeteria.

2:00pm I take my second pump break. Between these two breaks, I am working nonstop and definitely do not spend any time doing personal business on the computer. At all.

4:10pm I'm outta there.

4:25pm I arrive at daycare to pick up ConorMan. Sometimes he's napping but usually playing. I gather his discarded clothing and look over his daily notes to see how well he ate and slept, and chat with Erin and Sandra about his day.

5:15pm We arrive home. If Conor falls asleep in the car I sometimes take the scenic route home to let him finish his nap (usually a quickie.) We play with the dogs and dada, offer to nurse or a bottle if he hasn't eaten in a while. With the recent nice weather, we've gone to the park to swing a few times.

6:00pm Tim starts Conor's dinner while I start cooking ours, or I start with Conor while Tim picks up carryout. Conor's dinner is usually more Zantastic Fruit, and some combination of cereal, fruit or vegetable puree, one or two of his finger foods, plus lots of puffs and Cheerios. Conor enjoys sitting at the table so dinner usually lasts 30-45 minutes.

6:45pm We play for a few minutes, and Conor usually motors around the living room.

7:00pm The bedtime routine starts. Every other night I give Conor a bath, which he almost always enjoys. Tim changes his diaper and puts on his jammies. Conor doesn't like getting his jammies on so much. We have to dress him now in his crib because he tries to roll off the changing table.

7:15pm Tim helps Conor turn off the fan light. I give him a bottle of formula. If he's still awake after the bottle, we read 2-3 short books, turn off the lamp, and sing several rounds of "You are My Sunshine". More often than not, I can then lay him down and he will put himself to sleep quietly. He's usually down by 7:30pm.

7:30pm Tim usually unloads and reloads the dishwasher and hand washes the bottle and pump parts while I'm putting Conor down. I finish getting the bottles and parts ready for the next day.

8:00pm Me time. Sewing, internet, TV, laundry/cleaning if needed, shopping if absolutely necessary.

9:30pm One more pump before bed. I gather clothes for the next day for myself and Conor. Then it's jammies, teeth brushing, and in bed between 10-10:30pm.

3:00am On a good night, Conor only wakes up once to nurse, usually sometime between 2 and 4, then goes right back to sleep. On a bad night he's up several times and it's difficult to get him to go back down and stay down. We seem to be on a roll of more good nights than bad lately.

5:15am Starts all over again...

It might be neat to do this every so often. I wonder what our life will be like in another 9 months???

Then and Now

November 2004

April 2010

Photo Editing

I downloaded the Lightroom 3 Beta recently and started tinkering with it. Here is yesterday's 365 picture, SOOC (straight out of camera):

Yikes! I almost always keep my camera in manual mode to force myself to learn about exposure - aperture, shutter speed, ISO and whatnot. Last night's photo was taken quickly in our bedroom before Conor went to bed. Poor lighting, hastiness, and inexperience made for a not so great picture - white balance and exposure are off, and it's noisy due to the high ISO. I'm sure photography types would cringe.

But it's a cute snapshot of Conorman, so I opened it up in Lightroom to see what I could do to improve it. I have no experience with this program and am learning on the fly. I adjusted the white balance to Auto (somehow it was set to Custom and I forgot to change it back.) That helped a lot. Then I went to town. I'm sure I overedited it, but it was fun playing with all the sliders. Hopefully by the end of the 365 Project I will have learned much more and improved a lot so can look back and laugh at this. Here's my workflow from Lightroom:

Exposure (-0.33)

Clarity (+15)

Vibrance (+15)

Fill Light (+10)

Black Clipping (+2)

Contrast (+5)

Temperature (-45)

Sharpening (+8)

Edge Masking (+23)

Saturation (+7)

Fill Light (+12)

The final product:

Not perfect, but much improved and I'm happy with it!

Easter Trip to Texas in Pictures

Conor traveled to Texas for Easter! He had a great visit; here are some highlights:

He enjoyed motoring around Mimi and Grampy's house. He played a lot with Cousin Madeline.
He made a new doggie friend, too. Cooper was equally enamored with Conor.
He did a lot of practicing getting up on his knees, trying to crawl.
He also met his sweet new cousin Clara (exactly 1 month old here).
It's too bad Madeline is so shy (1 picture of 13 million jumping off the stool.)
Madeline gave us a concert (that's her setlist by Uncle Jason.)
Monday we went to the Dallas Arboretum for Dallas Blooms. Conor was not so happy about this at first ("I don't like pink flowers!!!")
But wait! There's grass!!!
Madeline reassured Conor everything was okay.
He really liked the grass.
Conor and mama. ("Let me down, more grass!!")

The only bad part of the trip was that it was much too short :( We can't wait to see Mimi and Grampy at Conorman's first birthday party!!!

Cloth Diaper Update

We're going on two weeks of cloth diapering at night and it's going great! We've had some minor leak issues to work out, but it seems like triple stuffing (adding an extra hemp liner) works pretty well. We've only had one overnight poop, which actually wasn't that bad to deal with. The extra laundry is manageable thus far, and I'd like to gradually build our "stash" of diapers to use for nights and weekends. We can also bring him to school in a cloth diaper and they will put him in one to come home - awesome!

One drawback is expense - they're $15-$20 a pop, and to do it full time we'd need a couple dozen diapers, plus extra liners - ouch! We have eight right now, I'd like to get a few more and I think we'd be set for a while. We're using both Bum Genius One Size and Thirsties Duo Diapers - two different kinds of "one size pocket" diapers. Basically the outer cover has an adjustable rise to grow with him, so we theoretically won't have to buy any more diapers until he's potty trained! There's a pocket inside the cover where you stuff 2-3 absorbent liners, made from hemp, cotton, fleece, or microfiber for example. The whole shebang goes on just like a regular diaper and fastens with velcro or snaps.

There's a giveaway going on over at Hormonal Imbalances - a chance to win 5 more Thirsties Duo diapers! How sweet would that be???