Oatmeal, Snow, My Birthday, and Other Things, Part Two

WARNING: THE LAST PARAGRAPH OF THIS POST IS ALL ABOUT BABY POOP. IF YOU WISH TO SKIP IT, GO AHEAD. YOU WILL NOT BE QUIZZED ON IT LATER, AND IT WON’T AFFECT YOUR GRADE IN THIS CLASS. YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE NOTES, AND IF YOU WISH TO PUT YOUR HEAD DOWN ON YOUR DESK WHEN THAT PART COMES, YOU MAY DO SO. HOWEVER, THE NO TEXTING RULE STILL APPLIES.

I know part two is later than I promised, and I know that you are all just sitting on the edge for your seats waiting for it! Maybe not because of the boring update part, but certainly because of the Pookie pics!

Let’s start with the snow. Mom, Samantha, and Nick came to visit us from March 25th to the 30th. Of course, here in Utah, spring doesn’t necessarily mean warm weather (I guess that’s true everywhere, though) but it rained/snowed/sleeted for more than half of their visit. The 29th was the first really decent day weather-wise, but the day before they departed, that didn’t mean much!

Then, they left, and within two days spring arrived! On Friday we were in the 60s. On Saturday, they predicted highs in the 60s, but they were wrong. Highs were in the 70s! As I drove around running errands on Saturday, the thermometer in my car, which measures the outside temperature, registered 79 degrees! Did you read that? Seventy-freaking-nine degrees! I nearly took a picture of the sunny scene and sent it to Sam and Mom along with a solid scolding for not scheduling their visit a week later.

Now, this is my third spring living in Utah, so I knew that the warm temperatures meant nothing as far as whether winter was really over. Last year our last snow was on May 24th. Ugh. But even with the back and forth weather this time of year brings, I figured it would take at least a week to go from 79 degrees to temperatures cold enough to bring snow. But no. Do you know how long it took? About TEN HOURS. Yep. At 3:00 PM Saturday it was 79 degrees. At 1:00 AM Sunday it was snowing. I wouldn’t have known that the snow started that early, except that I was awoken by a whimpering Emrick, making noise in his new room. When I went to check on him, I heard the window in his room getting pelted. I opened the blinds to see if it was raining, and instead it was snowing, with high winds blowing it all everywhere. A few hours later, when I was up again for the day… a veritable Winter Wonderland! Don’t these pics make you want to run downstairs and see if anyone bought you an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle?

Look how the snow got air blasted to the side of our neighbor's house.

Mom and Sam's smoking station looks even more inviting than usual.

THE NEXT THING to update you on is the fact that Emrick has started on solids. Rice cereal, green beans, and oatmeal so far. He does pretty well with all of it, but oatmeal is far and away his favorite. He opens wide and lunges his mouth forward when he sees that sticky spoon coming his way. But it’s messy:

I know Emrick looks displeased about something. I’m not sure what, but it’s not the oatmeal!

These pics are from his very first oatmeal feeding (last week). Since then, I’ve been making it thicker, not as soupy as in these pictures. But it is just as messy. Somehow it gets all over both of us. I’m sure I’ll figure out a good technique soon.

The mess I can handle, though. The poops on the other hand… Oh, the poops! Just a short while ago I changed his smelliest diaper to date. It wasn’t even a very big poop, but in odor, it rivaled an adult’s. They have also increased in frequency. When Emrick was brand new, he pooped after almost every feeding, then it slowed down to about 3 a day, which was nice, especially since the OVERNIGHT poop was the first to go. I loved that changing a poopy diaper was not the first thing I had to do in the morning. Then he slowed to one poop a day, and then he slowed to 2-3 poops a week. Well…. now that he is on solids, all this has changed. First he returned to one poop a day, then he went to two poops a day, and now, as of THIS MORNING, the overnight poop has made a triumphant return. I’m not sure when the last time I awoke with an Emrick poop ready and waiting for me first thing in the morning was, but I know it was before Christmas. Maybe even before Thanksgiving. And all of this happened really fast. He went from 2-3 poops a week to multiple daily poops in about the last 10 days! I don’t have any Poopy pics, though, only Pookie pics. I hope you’re not too disappointed. The End.