A tiny violin

This is Attison dreaming of playing a tiny violin. 

Grandma Linda's house

Since I'm too socially awkward to be the recipient of a baby shower, we didn't have one.  It was a challenge to convince all of the associated relatives and friends that this celebration was not only unnecessary, but mostly not wanted.  Thankfully, they all obliged and no shower was had.
I was told though, multiple times, that the shower really isn't about me, it is about getting the new baby a present.  I imagine it is for this reason that we have been receiving gifts in the mail since news of Attison's arrival hit the streets.

Since the boy still lacks fine motor skills to open boxes and gift wrap, I'm doing it for him.  For anyone who has sent a gift - we sincerely appreciate everything we've received!  It is such a wonderful feeling to see that UPS guy pull up in front of my house and make me the queen of the neighborhood!  I'm slowly trying to document them all here on the blog and also try to remember to send thank you notes. 

Meanwhile, back on the home front - Grandma Linda keeps accumulating things left and right.  She is afraid to give them to me, so she's keeping them at "grandma's house" for when Attison comes to visit. (And, of course, all of the subsequent grandchildren that we are pressuring Sarah to have, regardless of the fact that she just recently was accepted to nursing school starting this January.  Congrats Aunt Srh!)

Here is the swing that grandma stole from trash outside of a Goodwill.

You might notice how I said "accumulating" not "buying."  Grandma Linda was kind enough to text both Tim and I multiple times last evening to tell us she had something very important to show us and we needed to Google Chat with her immediately.  Thankfully, Naked Baby was available to demonstrate all of the functions of this lovely gem.    I'm not sure what we were laughing about in the picture above, but this whole conversation was pretty hilarious.  Hilarious enough that Tim had to rest his face on my shoulder to laugh.

So the good news is, we don't have to pack up the swing when we travel this week.  Also that when Linda cleans, Linda CLEANS so we can be sure that if this swing did have hepatitis on it, it has been washed away.

Jenny the dog

Since the arrival of Attison, Jenny the dog, the princess of this castle, has lost her reign as the center of attention. Thankfully, Jenny seems to be extremely interested in the baby, although we monitor her baby interactions pretty closely, since she is totally unaware that she is the strongest dog in the universe (don't tell her, she might take advantage of us).

Jenny's main job is this:

protecting the homestead from the evil squirrels.    She spends most of her time here:

One of Jenny's favorite things to do is go for walks, but as you can imagine, we haven't had the energy to do much of that lately. She has a little bit of extra energy, so sometimes we hear her running circles around the living room. 

Another favorite Jenny past time is taking the caps off of plastic bottles and chewing them flat.  Not only is it satisfying, but it is loud - and she LOVES toys that are loud.  (Side note - if you have ever been given a stuffed Aflack duck, pass them on over here.  We only have one left.)  Since I've been spending a lot of time in bed, we have had quite a few plastic bottles that Jenny crushes for us before we recycle them.  Breastfeeding makes you thirsty, in case you didn't know.  I drink like 30 oz. of water every night.

While you read this blog, remember that although we post lots of pictures like this:

 What really is happening is this:

This blanket was made for us by a friend, Joanne, from MCConnellsburg.  It is so soft and awesome, the perfect size for a little baby blanket.  Joanne's husband Brent is the vet in McCbg, so Jenny has met them over not so pleasant circumstances in the past.  She didn't seem to make the connection though, because after I picked up Attison, she continued to have some tummy time on the blanket alone.

This Wednesday, we're heading to McConnellsburg for Thanksgiving, so Jenny the dog will have an entire wilderness to run through.  We've already started working on getting her an orange vest so she doesn't accidentally get confused for a deer this hunting season.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Not Tiffany's at all, but the Dor-stop!  The Dorstop is an awesome little breakfast/lunch joint in Dormont, just outside of the city limits.  Once featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, this place has the BEST pancakes around.  Hands down.
http://dorstoprestaurant.com/

Grandma Beulah came to visit us this week and stayed for a few days.  She helped around the house, did laundry, but most importantly of all, held baby Attison while I napped.  It was glorious to have my gram around for a few days.  She was a champ - it must have been hard for her not to paint the kitchen after she scrubbed the floor.  I know she wanted to :)  Today is her 83rd birthday.  83!  There aren't too many 83 year old great-grandmothers out there who travel 2 1/2 hours to see you and spend their time cleaning your house.  She even carried the vacuum cleaner upstairs to vacuum my bedroom, if you'll believe it.  

My gram loves her pancakes, so Attison and I took her to the Dor-stop for breakfast on Thursday.  Gram got the apple cinnamon and I got banana oatmeal.  Oatmeal in pancakes you might say?  Heck yes! 

Since baby is still on a strict diet of breast milk, he had to forgo the pancakes this time around.  In protest, he decided to sleep through the whole meal - which, let's be honest, was the best thing he could have done ever.  I took the opportunity of a sleeping baby to a photo of him with my delicious, amazing, earth-shattering breakfast.

Someone remind me next time to skip the bacon and focus on the prize - those fluffy, warm, flavored pancakes.  Yummmmmm......

Bath time again, this time with dad

Since a picture says 1,000 words, I'll let you fill in your own 5,000 here. 

This picture might be worth 5,000 words in and of itself. 

We're feeling pretty awesome that this little man doesn't cry during these baths, but instead has some amazing facial expressions that make it a very special time for a new mom and dad.

Peeing your pants makes you a rockstar

As it turns out, our diaper washing fiasco turned out to be beneficial.  We got some great diapering advise from a few friends and relatives who also use cloth diapers. Not only that, we also peed through all of our clothes, which helped Steph remember she had a box of newborn clothes that we didn't put in the dresser.  Tim's cousin Jess has been passing us hand me downs, but since the midwives thought that little Attison was going to be a big, giant, baby, we suspected we might not need to many, if any newborn clothes.  Newborn clothes are where we are at though, so we broke out our new stash last night.

Perhaps it is because Jess' husband JP is in a band or maybe they are just more stylish than the other hand-me-downers we have encountered, but these clothes are totally rad.  Today we are sporting the rockstar look, guitar pattern and a pocket.  What sort of nick-knacks a 2 week old baby needs has yet to be determined, but today we're looking cool. 

Secret confession, this little boy rockstar is sporting a pink diaper again :)

Look at me flexing my muscles!

And the sun flows down like honey

11pm, Tim this time. We have found that Steph is generally zonked out by 8 or 9pm, but Attison is still ready to rock and roll, so I have been taking him downstairs, so we can have dude time, while Steph gets some sleep until 11 or 12, or *gasp* maybe even 1am. 

Dude time is not a term I had used until about 30 seconds ago, and maybe is a misleading term. "Dude time" seems to suggest smoking, drinking, farting, and watching football. Based on the sounds coming intermittently from his diaper area, it looks like we're only batting .500 by that definition. Stereotypical or not, tonight's dude time consisted of watching SNL with our housemate Kristin, watching the Steelers on MNF for a spell, talking to my Aunt Kathy and Grandmom on the phone, and now listening to Leonard Cohen's greatest hits. 

***

"Why Leonard Cohen?" asked my mom when she found me rocking Attison in my arms last week and attempting to croon him to sleep with a few verses of "Suzanne". 

Excellent question. I don't have a good answer. It just seemed like a good song to sing while lulling a baby. 

Without competing too much with his mother's sleep pattern's I have been trying to play some music for the boy, like Denison Witmer, Leonard Cohen, Parts and Labor, Liam and Me, Jason Isbell, Dire Straits, Neil Young, and Cary Ann Hearst. 

He seems thus far unimpressed. 

*** 

Tonight Attison is wearing my favorite outfit: 

While most baby clothes stick to a pretty simple, straightforward theme, this one really speaks to the diversities of the boy's potential interests: Dogs, alligators, surfboards, and a VW bus. It's like a discovery channel special that never was. I love it. 

Good thing Steph has been posting all the good stuff, because if it were all up to me, this would be one lame blog.