Love, Erika

Deerfield Fair: 2007

Today we ventured out with Drew to the Deerfield Fair. We are getting sooo brave with taking him places, I take him regularly to the grocery store and Target these days, no biggie. Anyway, we took off early-ish this morning at 9:30 to try to beat the crowds and traffic. The weather was gorgeous at 70 degrees, low humidity and lots of sun. Bad for photos, though.

Drew did so great and slept on the way there, and the only time he really got upset was when it was time for him to eat. That was frustrating because there is nowhere for parents of little kids to feed/change/sit down with them at all. It was kind of annoying. I had brought two bottles of breastmilk for him, and tried to feed him standing up because there was nowhere to sit but he did not want to take that bottle. I think he was just waaaay overstimulated and worked up, and kept looking around at everything (the trees are very fascinating apparently) and would not eat. So finally I just had to cop a squat on some tree roots and cover myself with a blanket and feed him the good old fashioned way. Then he was fine (after barfing it all up all over Dave) and rode around a good while longer with no protest, dozing on and off.

Our fair food choices of the day?  For me it was Cream of Broccoli soup in a bread bowl, and a $5 root beer float.  I thought for that price they could have put some rum in it or something, but apparently not. Also I got an iced coffee on the way out but the lady put so much cream in it that I couldn't drink it. Bummer. Dave enjoyed onion rings, a cheeseburger, and funnel cake fried dough.

First Cereal!

I am tickled to report that Drew had his first solid foods yesterday. Single grain rice cereal which smells like poo, so I can't believe he ate it. But he did!!  At first he looked grossed out, but by the third spoonful he was opening his mouth for it and then he got all fussy when I wasn't shoveling it into his piehole fast enough. I couldn't believe it. So funny.

And the weird thing is that even though he puked it all up about 30 minutes later, that kid slept SEVEN HOURS in a row last night (8pm-3am), and then went back to sleep for another 3. I don't know if the cereal was related to the sleeping, but it was absolutely amazing. I even had to go in there to check on him at 1:00am to make sure he was okay. He just hasn't slept more than four hours in a row in his crib ever since we stopped putting him in the swing.

Dave made a video.

Hunting Season: Open season on hunters!

The hunting season woes that I hinted at in my last post have come to a swift and favorable ending!  Basically it goes like this.... as you all know from my yearly gripes, with September's hunting season comes a veritable parking lot of hunters' cars in my cul-de-sac as they go back in the woods behind my house and hunt deer and sometimes turkeys. We have seen some really old Posted signs on various trees, but figured either they were outdated or maybe these hunters know the landowners and have their permission.

In any case, things took a nasty turn when Dave discovered a tree stand installed in a tree NOT TEN FEET away from the edge of our property in the woods. Our property is lined on 2 sides by an old stone wall as is common in New England for marking property, and this tree is just steps away from the wall. This was just too much. I do not exactly live in a rural area. We live in a residential area that just happens to have some nice woods behind it, and LAZY hunters think they can just go back there and do whatever they want near people's houses. So we were really ticked off by this as we do not want bowhunters dangling around in the trees around our house. HELLO?!?!?!?

Dave was nice enough to keep this discovery to himself for a while so he could figure out what to do. He knew I would be furious about it (and I was) but in the meantime he was trying to find the hunters to personally ask them to move it elsewhere, but wasn't able to. He even called the landowners at home but couldn't get anybody to answer their phone.

When he finally did tell me, after I scraped myself off the roof, I emailed the Law Enforcement Division of the NH Fish & Game Department for advice. They basically told me to go fly a kite as I have no rights as a homeowner apparently. WTF??!?!?   

Here is my email:

From: Erika Follansbee

Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2007 1:49 PM
To: lawenforcement
Subject: tree stand at edge of my backyard

Hello,

I have a question regarding my rights as a homeowner and where hunters are able to put up a tree stand......  I live in Goffstown, in an inhabited area. However I am in a cul-de-sac and surrounded by woods on two sides and we discovered that some hunters have put up a tree stand not 10 feet beyond the stone wall at the edge of our property.  I doubt it is more than 300 feet from the back of our house, to the back of our property.

We have not yet been able to find the hunters who put up the tree stand so we can ask them to move elsewhere, nor have we been able to contact the owner of the land (which is posted, by the way). I am scared for the safety of my family with these hunters being so active right in my backyard basically (we have deer and wild turkeys).

Do I have any recourse in asking them to move their tree stand (if we can locate them?)  I am really uncomfortable with them hunting so close to my house as I like to be outside with my son quite a bit. We know they are around ALL the time as there are always hunter's cars parked in front of our house.

Thank you,

Erika Follansbee

And here is their response:

----- Original Message -----

From:

To: erikafc@comcast.net

Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 11:05 AM

Subject: RE: tree stand at edge of my backyard

Erika,

    Unfortunately, if the tree stands are not on your property, you have no authority to force them to leave.  If you find out who the landowner is, you can contact them about the tree stands, but they could be there with permission of the landowner.  Whereas only the archery season for deer is open, I am assuming they are bow hunters.  Please keep in mind that bows have an effective range of only about 30 yards.  Tree stand hunters commonly see multiple deer on a daily basis, but as they are aiming down from the stand, the deer need to be almost directly under them to take a shot.  There would be no threat from a bow hunter to abutters, and we have never had a member of the public injured or placed in harm's way by an archer, as they hunt at such close quarters. Bow hunters play an important role in thinning the deer herd in the more urban areas of the state. If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.
     
Administrative Lieutenant
Law Enforcement Division
NH Fish and Game Department
11 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 271-3127

A few thoughts on this.... this quote ticked us off to no end: Bow hunters play an important role in thinning the deer herd in the more urban areas of the state.  First of all, there aren't that many deer around here. We've been here five years and I only see deer a few times a year, probably less than four. They eat my hostas, yes, but not that often.  Second of all, just because they are doing the ecosystem this huge favor does not mean they need to be hunting over people's backyards!!! There is JUST NO NEED FOR THAT.  It is ridiculous that these hunters have more rights to scamper through the woods than the homeowners who want to enjoy their backyards with their children.

Anyway, to get on with the outcome of the story. Dave finally got a call back from the woman who owns the land and she is SO nice. And clarified for us that the land IS posted, and that NOBODY has permission to hunt back there. So we are all about nailing these guys as soon as they show their faces again. We are now hunting THEM. We're taking license plate numbers, taking photos, whatever it takes to make them go away. Dave bought some new Posted signs last night that are going up today.

Woohoo!!! 

This & That

Time for some bite-sized nuggets of goodness from Erika's brain!  A few things that have been going on around here.

• Forgot to mention a couple of weeks ago that a neighbor down the street had a BOMB placed in his mailbox one Sunday morning. Nice, huh? I think the kids in this town are REALLY bored. Dave wondered why one morning when he went to the get the paper a cop was riding around checking people's mailboxes and asked Dave if his was all right. We had no idea what that was about until we saw the story in the paper a few days later.
• SO jealous of Ali's big pumpkin here!!! :) Hee hee. I wondered how much a 69 lb pumpkin would cost, so I calculated it to be approx. $26 bucks based on the 39 cents a pound that I just paid at the farmer's market for my own pumpkin. I think that's well worth it for your own Great Pumpkin!!!  I would pay it, if I had a way to transport a 69 lb behemoth, heh heh.  Can you imagine the GUTS in carving that thing?
• Drew learned how to shriek today, oh my. How CUTE. It was kind of alarming the first time he did it, like oh my God is he hurt?  But no. Just WAAAAY excited. 
• Also, extrapolating a baby's fascination with black and white toys into my own wardrobe produced a wild effect. I put on this black and white striped shirt today and Drew could not take his eyes off it!!  He was completely enthralled by it.
• He's been really fun this past week, definitely getting more involved in his toys and excited about all kinds of things. Yellin' and hollerin' at everything.  However, still not impressed in the least with Tummy Time.

  

• Hunting season again.... this year has brought with it a whole new level of complications that I can't even go into here.......  I wouldn't know where to begin and I surely wouldn't know when to stop, so I will spare you.
• I've been brushing up on my nursery rhymes and children's songs because Drew loves to be sung to. I think I really underestimated how much children love music. And it's been a loooong time since I sang these songs so I can't really remember them. Mostly we sing to him The Gambler by Kenny Rogers and The Devil Went Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band, and Dave is trying to learn American Pie. My personal favorite is The Fox Went out on a Chilly Night and thank God for iTunes!!  You can find anything you want nowadays!   Does anybody know Froggie Went a' Courtin'?  Trying to find that one too.  I love the old folk songs.

Halloween Yum

This afternoon I drove an hour round-trip to the Black Forest Cafe for some desserts!!  What a great time to go, too, because they have lots of Fall and Halloween things going on. (Xtina, you gotta stop by on your way home sometime!)  Every now and then the desserts at the grocery store just don't cut it and you need a little something better quality. I got half a dozen Halloween shortbread cookies, a Caramel Pudding Tart, and a big plain chocolate chip cookie for Boring ol' Dave who doesn't like anything interesting. :)

Mommy Boot Camp

Starting on Thursday night I had to make Drew learn how to fall asleep by himself and not be rocked every single time. Which involved some crying. I hated to do it, but it had gotten to the point where I could see no other way to make him learn how to fall asleep. He really just didn't know how to go to sleep without being rocked.  It was so hard to put him down and not pick him back up again. I just stayed nearby in his room and patted him and soothed him and eventually he did calm down and fall asleep. It didn't take that long either, so that was a relief. I must give him credit.

I was going to wait until 4 months to do it, but I could only see the situation getting worse and him just becoming more and more ingrained in our current habits which would make it harder in the long run. Plus I figured if he was still very young it wouldn't take as long. Also, my back cannot take it anymore. He's only getting heavier and heavier so it needed to end! I don't mind rocking him the first time around (I do love my little baby!), but when it got to the point where I had to pick him up and re-rock him to sleep every single time I put him down in the crib because he would immediately wake up and cry (one time it was something like 12 times in a row......) it was just too exhausting and frustrating.

Believe me, we tried all those other no-cry methods first but Drew would have none of it. The Pick Up/Put Down thing as outlined in the Baby Whisperer and the No-Cry Sleep Solution was impossible and it doesn't work with him because he would NOT GIVE UP (see previous paragraph).  And also in the long run I believe does nothing but teach him that he will be rocked to sleep every single time, and will always be picked up at the slightest peep.  That can't be happening.

In the grand scheme of things it's a greater gift to teach him how to sleep independently. Better for him, and better for us. Everybody wins!

I have to say that the past two nights have been nothing short of miraculous..... Dave says I did some kind of voodoo on him. I put him down, and he's out like a light. No more whining, crying, waking up, etc. It's really creepy how well it worked. I rock him at first after nursing him, and I lay him down and he goes to sleep. It's textbook!

Daytime naps are still not as easy, but I'm not going all hardcore on that just yet. I read that naps don't fall into place until 4 months or afterward so I won't force the issue. Nighttime sleeping is good enough for right now!

Secondly, now that we have bedtime under control, I have started on a Tummy Time regiment. Every 2 hours. Poor Drew with his big Follansbee pumpkin head is quite a bit behind schedule with being able to lift his head. He's supposed to be able to do that by now, and he's not even close. Dave says if he can't do it by his 4 month appointment I'm going to have to go by myself out of shame. LOL!  The doctor said that larger babies with big heads sometimes take longer to be able to do it, but he's really lagging behind already. So we're going to work on it a bit more intensely than we have in the past (which I'll admit was not much).

He's starting to grab onto things now which is so cute. He spends a lot of time studying his hands and the way he can hold one hand with the other, stretched up above his body. Now he's holding things that I put into his hands, and sometimes grabs onto his toys dangling above his head.

Cooking Challenge: Week #2

I didn't get to take a picture of Dave's Chicken Marsala or Garlic Mashed potatoes but they were awesome!!  I thought it was great, but he is the Marsala connoisseur and not me.  I don't really know what it's supposed to taste like, but it was good to me! I thought it was yummy. He says he will make it again with some modifications. I'll get a picture next time.

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I took Drew to the grocery store Monday to gather ingredients for Tuesday's meal. As it turned out, he was perfectly fine at the store. ;) Not a peep.

Week Two. I chose Giada's Chicken Tetrazinni. And if you read all the comments on the recipe you will see that it's very time consuming and labor intensive. But I have to say, if I could do it with a baby napping, then anybody could do it. It also helped that my MIL was here for most of the day to help me out and I got a good deal of veggie chopping done during that time. It's a lot of prep, and a lot of steps. It's fabulous. Pasta with creamy sauce and chicken? YES PLEASE.  Lots of leftovers too.  No picture of the finished product, it's not that photogenic. Just a noodle-chicken-mushroom casserole. However the pile of ingredients on my counter was impressive.

In other news, the past two nights with Drew have been the absolute worst in his entire lifetime up to this point. Seriously. I don't know what happened, but judging from other moms of 3 month-olds on the baby message boards, we are not alone. Something about this age & stage.  I say that here because anytime I mention his sleep issues on my blog, the complete opposite happens, so hopefully he will make a liar out of me and have a good night tonight.  Cross your fingers for us!

I took him to BJ's today and he was also very good. They have Christmas trees out already (???) and I tried to get him to look at them--the pretty lights!--but he didn't really notice them. Maybe by the time Xmas rolls around and he's 6 months old he will take more notice.

Here he is modeling one of his [many] Halloween outfits.... in fact this was the very first thing I bought for him, waaaaay back last early November on clearance at Old Navy for $1.97. I was 7 weeks pregnant at the time and of course didn't know what I was having. But of course the first thing I bought my unborn child was a Halloween onesie. :) Por supuesto. I really didn't think it was going to fit him but it's actually perfect right now. Hopefully will still fit by late October!  There is another picture on my Photo Of the Day album.... what? You don't check my Photo of The Day??  You better!!  I make a big effort to keep that mostly updated and current! :)

The swing is dead to me.

So last night we just decided to end the dependency on having Drew sleep in his swing for the first half of the night. Just end it right then and there. No more swing. Because I can't see that it's teaching him any kind of healthy sleep habit, and sooner rather than later he will outgrow it anyway. So we're done with that.  Every time we put him to sleep in that swing it is keeping us from getting where we need to be.  I put him to bed in his crib at 7:30 SO NERVOUS that the entire night was going to be a nightmare.

But as my wise sister-in-law Dawn says, it is never how you think it's going to be. Usually the total opposite, which it was. He did wake up after 2 hours and there was a bit of a struggle getting him back to sleep, but once he went to sleep at 10:30 he didn't wake up until 4:30. Then I fed him, and he konked out again until 7:30. I can't believe it!!  So the first night was a success. 

So once this is established then we will start working on the whole rocking to sleep thing which also needs to end. I can't believe how fast the cradling went!! I didn't know it would be over so soon!!  He's getting to the point where he always wants to be carried upright over the shoulder so he can see everything that's going on. No longer wants to be held so much like a baby. Geez. Lots of things change at 3 months.

I think my favorite thing about 3 months is all the "talking" that he does. He will carry on full blown conversations, back and forth cooing. Even by himself, just lay there and jibber jabber to himself. SO cute. I believe my dad would call this "ratchet jaw."

SO jealous.

My mom sent me this picture of a CHIPOTLE just built at home in Greensboro NC, just down the road from her office!  I am dying here. The closest one to us here is way down in Boston so I can't get to one! The only one I've ever been to is in Vegas and it was to die for. Been dreaming about it ever since. 

Sometimes magic happens and you suddenly lose five pounds!  I'm finally getting off the plateau I've been at for about 6-7 weeks now (I lost track and stopped counting). The first 30 lbs came off in the first 6 weeks, if I remember correctly, and now I'm just hacking away at the remaining 15 (down to 10 now!). Finally all those daily hour-long walks with Drew are paying off, and a few trips to the gym, and mostly giving up the nightly dessert habit I'd gotten into with the pregnancy. Dang sweet tooth! I never had one until I was pregnant, and then it's taken some time to wean myself off it.

Dave and I have started a cooking challenge.  A challenge to ourselves to try some new recipes because we suck at eating decently, and I promised I would get on the ball with meal planning and whatnot since I am now a SAHM but it hasn't happened yet. I'm terrible at it. I can go to the store and spend $80 on groceries and not really have any MEALS there. So our challenge to ourselves is to try one new recipe per week, and we alternate weeks. This week is Dave's and he has chosen Chicken Marsala and Garlic Mashed Potatoes. I think he has set the bar pretty high so I need to perform well for next week!

could I get some cheese with that whine?

Forgive me for yesterday's dramatic woe-is-me post.... Sometimes I just get frazzled and have to vent. And then mornings like today where he slept great and even put himself to sleep and proceeded to stay asleep for 4 hours just make me feel so hopeful. He let us sleep in till 8 o'clock and now he's in there watching his mobile and hollerin' and laughing and shrieking. It's so cute.

Drew says, "Who me?"

And yes, we are starting the rice cereal at 4 months according to his pediatrician. We already talked about that at his 2 month appointment. :) THANK GOD. Can't wait to feed him something that will take a little longer to digest.

You know it's funny how much of your childhood is embedded in your brain, way down underneath all the recent stuff. (Mom, you will like this)  The other day I was changing Drew's outfit, and as I pulled it over his head out of my mouth popped "Skin the cat!" Just like total auto-pilot, I didn't even know it was coming. That was what my parents always said when they changed my clothes, something to the effect of more than one way to skin a rabbit, or skinning the cat. LOL.  It's pretty gross nowadays but when you're little you don't know what it means at all, just that it means your shirt is being pulled over your head. Ha!

Been watching the whole series of Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run show and very much enjoying it (breastfeeding affords me a lot of time to sit around and watch tv).  As part of their road crew they took along a guy whose whole job is to take photos, and I can't seem to find anywhere that these photos are used except in a brief collage at the end of each segment before a commercial.  They are so good and I really want to look at them more closely but can't find them online.