Eve of the Weekend

I just put this chicken in the oven, grabbed a Diet Coke - the drink of champions - and sat down to catch up on this here blog thing. Side note on the chicken: cooking a whole chicken used to intimidate me (well, the part where you pull the nasty bag of chicken organs out still makes my stomach churn), but when I saw this recipe and tried it last Fall, it was a total success. The only skills it requires are knowing how to measure a few spices and quarter an onion. I can handle that. It has to cook for ~5 hours, and the first time I made it, Jon and I decided it would be very efficient of us to stick it in the oven while we went to a baby shower... an hour and a half away. My poor mother-in-law thought we'd gone batty. Our apartment was thankfully still standing when we returned and we had some tasty chicken to eat!

We have been looking forward to this weekend for awhile. Jon had to work last weekend, so he hasn't had any time off in 12 days (but who's counting??). We are excited to rest and relax! This Sunday is also our 1 year anniversary! We are so blessed to have fantastic friends who have offered to keep Jonathan for us, and we actually get to go out Saturday AND Sunday nights! Some of our sweet friends from church are keeping him while we go to dinner tomorrow night. They have four wonderful kids and I couldn't feel better about leaving him with them. And our dear, dear friends Maryanna and David (the newlyweds!) are watching him Sunday while we go see the long-awaited Bourne Legacy. I feel kind of spoiled that we get to go out twice, but Jon and I will really enjoy getting to be together.

Jonathan seems to be learning new things every day! He has started smiling more often and he's learning how to coo and grunt very well. :) He seems to be finding his hands more consistently now and likes to suck on them. We've been using a pacifier (I personally like the MAM brand - they don't have the little ring on the front that he can use to pull it out of his mouth!) but I would rather him learn to suck his thumb or his fingers. You don't have to remember to take those with you and they don't fall out of his mouth!

One of our new favorite playtime activities is "swing dancing." I put on the Big Band/Swing music channel on the TV and we dance around the living room. It calms him down so quickly and even puts him to sleep sometimes. Reminds me of countless dances with my Daddy to "It's My Turn Now," by Steven Curtis Chapman.

A huge answer to prayer happened for us this week. A friend from church found out we were looking for somewhere for Jonathan to stay until he gets into the hospital daycare (which I will say more about in a minute), and she mentioned that her neighbor might be interested. I didn't hear anything about it for awhile but it was in the back of my mind. I have to go back to rotations in less than a month, and I was starting to worry a little more about where he would go. I visited another daycare in the area and it wasn't terrible, but it just made me sad to think about having to leave him there because it seemed like their only objective was for the kids to survive the day. When I visited, they weren't playing with them, and there were so many kids and only two ladies in the room! So this place would have worked temporarily if we needed it to, but I really wanted an alternative. Out of the blue, my friend from church called (I didn't even know she had my number!) and said her neighbor mentioned it to her again and asked if we still needed help! I was so humbled that the Lord would hear our prayers and choose to give us exactly what we asked for, when He could have given us much less and it would have been fine! She has three kids of her own who are all in school, so she is well-experienced and seems absolutely precious on the phone. Nothing is finalized yet, but we are meeting her next week and I'm so excited! The Lord is so good and faithful. Thank you to those of you who were praying about this situation!

I also visited the Phoebe Putney employee daycare, The Family Tree, last week. We've heard such good things about it, so we got Jonathan on the waiting list as soon as Jon started working at the hospital full time. It finally occurred to me that I'd never even seen the place and should probably check it out even though it has a good reputation. The moment we walked in the door I felt at home. Kim, the receptionist, was so warm and welcoming and knew all the kids by name. She showed me around and we got to go in one of the three infant rooms. One of the ladies who works in there came over immediately and introduced herself and started telling me about what they do in there. She said, "We only have 18 months to develop those synapses so we do our best!" She couldn't have said anything better to impress the nerd inside of me. They have a curriculum for the infants that stimulates them and helps them learn all the little baby things they have to learn. The staff actually gets down on the floor and plays with them, and all the rooms have screened-in porches for the kids to play on so they can get fresh air! The other great thing is that I will have two rotations at the hospital, so there's a good possibility I'll be able to go see him and even breastfeed on my lunch break. I've been dreading having to leave him, but I felt so much better about it after I visited The Family Tree! The lady told me it would probably be a couple of months before he gets in, but it'll be worth the wait!

Fuzzibunz Hanging Diaper Pail (we have a yellow one)

We are still really enjoying cloth diapering. I ordered some more BumGenius OS 4.0 today to round out our supply. I've been reading about some of the finer points of CD'ing, such as removing odors that don't come out of the diapers and keeping the stink at bay until you wash them. I've been using the hanging diaper pail from Fuzzibunz which I love because it's waterproof and has a zipper at the bottom so you don't have to touch the diapers when you dump them into the washer. The only small problem is that the top is open, so it's hard to keep the smell down in his nursery. I've read that a lot of moms use a couple drops of essential oil in the pail to minimize that. Has anyone had any luck with this? I'm taking suggestions!