To be continued...

Blogger has served us well, but we're moving up in the world. We got our own website! From now on, we'll be chronicling our adventures in the world of marriage and parenthood at

www.manualnotincluded.com.

(click the link to be redirected)

WAZAAAP!

Sunday

Being a wife, taking care of Jim-Jim, working full-time, and going to school have been challenging. I've had to learn to do things once and move on, to be very efficient at whatever I do. I work very hard when I'm at work but when I leave the office, I leave it there. I don't think about it again until the following morning. Sundays are my day to do school work. I study very hard on Sundays and when I finish what I need to do, I'm done until the following Sunday. After work and Saturdays are reserved for enjoying my precious family.

Jim's love language is quality time. He's had to make some pretty severe sacrifices so that I can finish my masters. After we get home from church on Sunday morning, I sequester myself in the bedroom with my laptop and my breast pump, and I study the remainder of the day. Jim makes sure the boy is taken care of and that I'm fed. Every so often, Jim feels the need to remind me that he's waiting out there and to hurry up with the schoolwork. Just about every hour he pops in with the boy, and they "help" me study by making sure I haven't fallen asleep in front of the laptop. I look above my laptop screen to find them peering over the edge at me, beckoning me to come play. This is a picture of Jim and Jim-Jim letting me know study time is over and play-time has begun.

I only had one chapter to read, a quiz, and a short paper to write this week, so I was able to go out and enjoy the gorgeous day with Lil' Bit and Bailey.
Thank you Bailey for your contribution to that final shot!

Oh crud, what now?!

Let me preface this post by saying Jim is a stellar husband and father. I couldn't do this parenting thing without him but more importantly, I wouldn't want to! He's my best friend, and he keeps me laughing even when things get tough.

Jim and I are occasional readers of a blog called Looky, Daddy. http://www.lookydaddy.com/ This is an excerpt from Friday's post. The post goes on, but I was in tears, laughing so hard I think I peed a little, when I got this far.

"I'm gonna jump in the shower and then I'm going to bed."

"Can I ask you something first?"

My wife paused before she said yes. It is a natural side effect of our ten years of marrige."

Why was I laughing so hard? I call this pause my "Oh crud, what now?" moment. This is how my true-life version of that post goes.

"Kara."

What happens in my head: "Oh crud, what now?!"

What comes out: "Yes, babe? What do you need?"

Oh, that pause. That moment when you contemplate getting up and running rather than hearing what comes next. When being deaf seems more attractive than having your auditory faculties intact. I am very familiar with the pause. Is it bad that after 1 year of marriage we have a pause? We have experienced getting married, moving in together, finding out that we're pregnant, having a baby, and being forced to move yet again all within a year's time. Aren't the 5 leading stressors getting married, having a kid, moving, a job change, and death? Four out of five since we began dating 2 years ago...we've earned our pause!

Cheap

We get the worst parents of the year award. Jim-Jim had his first school portraits taken, and we chose not to buy them. Cute as they may be, our computer is bulging at the seams with photos of the boy, so we decided to spend our money on something we don't have in excess.
We are the only parents who received 2 sets of proofs. They tried to take the first set of pictures at meal time without feeding him first. Ha! Good luck with that one! Does it look like the kid has missed a meal? There's a reason for that. He is the most even-tempered, laid-back kid...until it's time to eat. We'll blame it on low blood glucose.

Daddy Edit:
I think it was the background that I didn't really like. I mean, a Christmas tree is cool and all, but not as cool as those 80s school pictures we took when we were kids. Don't you miss those?

Time Change

Fall back. Those words make my heart jump with joy! An extra hour of sleep! What could be better? Having Jim-Jim this year has made me aware that some don't honor the tradition of falling back, though.

1. People in AZ: Not pertinent but a fact none-the-less
   
2. The cat: Instead of screaming at us for half an hour at dinner-time, Chloe now screams at us for an hour and a half begging for her dinner.
   
3. My boobs: The female body is amazing! In addition to growing a human being, it has the ability to produce milk on a schedule. I pump at the same times every day so my body knows exactly when to produce breast milk, and this prevents me from walking around engorged all of the time. Unfortunately, due to the time change, my body is raring to go at 4:00am now instead of 5:00am. It sure does make for an uncomfortable last hour of sleep!
   
4. Jim-Jim: How do you tell an infant that he needs to stay awake an hour longer at night and sleep an hour later in the morning than his biological clock is telling him to do. A memo? A shaman? Morse code? We've been so rigid about his bedtime that the stinker is just doing what we've always made him do. If Jim-Jim came with a reset button, I haven't found it yet! And if not, he should! I'm going to ask for that model next time. Ah...who am I kidding? He could wake me up at 4:00am until he is 18 years old, and I'd still want another one just like him. He's such an amazing kid!

Skin and Bones

To all who have commented on my boy's size, look at him now. He's just skin and bones!

Okay, okay...that was pretty corny. Remember that old adage about the apple not falling far from the tree? Please have mercy on my son when he makes a corny joke. Offer a sympathy laugh or a snicker or something! A smirk, maybe? He didn't get to pick his parents, and he doesn't have much of a chance with our DNA and Jim and me raising him. Nature AND nurture, he's getting it on both fronts! He's destined to be a goober!

More corniness for your amusement:

They finally caught the cat burglar
I've got mad ninja skills

Where'd my pee-pee go?! It was there the last time I looked!

Inner Child

Liar, Liar,

Pants on fire.

Gonna hang your underwear,

From a telephone wire.

Okay, that's probably not how it goes. It's been a while since I've teased anyone, so I'm out of practice. I do know the rhyme involves a liar, pants, fire, and a telephone wire. The stuff in the middle is just fluff.

Jim and I arrived at Jim-Jim's daycare to pick Jim-Jim up (welcome to my life folks, 36% of that sentence was "Jim"). The toddlers were playing in the yard right by the entrance, so Jim and I tossed the ball back and forth across the fence with the 2-year olds. We were walking away when I heard the teacher calling to Naya saying, "Naya, Naya!" to which I channeled by inner 3-year-old and yelled back "pants on fi-ya!". It slipped out of my mouth before I could reel it back in! Nothing like taunting a 2-year-old on a Thursday afternoon to make my day complete.
The picture has nothing to do with the post. We are not delusional. We are aware that people don't come to this site to read about how big, bad Kara taunts little kids. Jim-Jim's the main attraction so enjoy your token picture of the boy:)

Winter is cold?

I was pregnant last winter. For those who have yet to experience this, pretend you're in a room heated to 98 degrees, and you'll know what it feels like. I don't think I wore a jacket the entire winter. Every time I walked out of the house with my bare arms exposed in 40 degree weather, Jim would give me a look of disapproval (he REALLY wanted to tell me to put on a jacket, but he always gave his shoulders a shrug knowing how pointless it would be, and we would leave- he's become quite the pro at biting his tongue).

Winter has hit Dallas, and when I walked outside the morning after our first cold front I realized 40 degrees is cold! Jim-Jim has noticed the change in climate as well. He is really bad about crawling out of his blanket as soon as you lay him down for the night. After the first few days of Jim-Jim waking us up at 2 in the morning, we realized he's getting cold in the middle of the night (yes, it took us a while...we never said we were bright!). All we had to do to get him to go back to sleep was to put his blanket back on him. We've started putting him in footie pajamas, and he's sleeping like an angel once again. AND he's quite adorable if I do say so myself! Spoken like a true, proud mama:)

Date Night

While Jim and I were dating, Friday night was date night. We always came together on Friday night to hang out, most often alone so we could get to know one another better. The rest of the weekend was reserved for including others but our primary focus on Friday night was each other. After we got married, Friday night became like any other night because we spent time together all day every day. Our married without kids Friday nights typically went something like this.

Jim: "What do you want to do tonight?"

Me: "Hmmmm...anything would be fine."

Jim: "Wanna grab dinner and watch a movie?"

Me: "Sounds great!"

We would proceed to grab dinner and watch a movie in our skivvies. Date nights were completely unorchestrated for the most part.

Since Jim-Jim has arrived, date night has been a distant memory except for that rare occassion when a miracle happens. We are lucky in that Jim-Jim consistently goes to sleep at 7:30pm so there's plenty of time for us to hang out after he goes to bed, but leaving the house is a rarity. Last night was supposed to be one of those rare nights. We bought concert tickets including valet parking (when Jim organizes something, he does it right:), and we arranged a babysitter to watch Jim-Jim.

Jim-Jim had alternate plans. This is a snippet of what Jim-Jim was acting like after he woke up from a nap.


Heartbreaking, isn't it? It was a triple threat: growing, teething, and a runny nose. We couldn't in good conscience send him off to a babysitter to handle him when we haven't even had to endure a night like this ourselves! We kept giving ourselves an ultimatum. "If Jim-Jim is better by 5:30pm, we'll go to the concert." That moment passed. "Okay, if Jim-Jim is better by 5:45pm, we'll go." That moment passed as well. We finally called the babysitter who was able to take the tickets off our hands, and we stayed home with our little Mann. We were back to grabbing dinner and watching a movie in our skivvies. An oldie but a goodie!

Why I donate milk...

Jim-Jim has been cut off from the boob. He has bitten me one too many times, in spite of my trying to teach him that it is not okay to bite mommy's nipple. That's not a lesson I still want to be teaching after the boy gets teeth!

(Ha! I just had a flash-forward. I'm picturing Jim-Jim, 13 years old, reading this blog. "My mouth, Mom's nipple?! Ewwww!")

We have now resorted to pumping and bottle-feeding at all feedings. This was from the first pumping of the day. Moooooo! Enough said...

Picnic at the Airport

Not to miss an opportunity to hang out with GrannySan, we loaded up our Jim-Jim supplies and headed to the airport for a picnic. We bought 3 burgers from our favorite hole-in-the-wall burger joint and ate them on the floor of the airport while Jim-Jim played on a blanket on the ground. We had such a great time catching up and letting GrannySan love on Jim-Jim, even if it was only for a 2-hour layover. On-lookers be damned (the people in the pic behind mom stared at us the ENTIRE time!), we're going to have our picnic and enjoy every minute of it!

Jim walked away to throw out our trash, and this is the face Jim-Jim made when he saw Jim walking back. I think the boy loves his daddy!

Half Tricks

Alert Webster and Wikipedia, I'm creating a new term.

half tricks- the middle ground an infant reaches when he's on his way to learning a new skill

Not to be confused with a hat trick for all of you hockey fans. Hat trick=good, half trick=bad! Half tricks are no fun. Half tricks are annoying. Half tricks make mom crazy. The first half trick Jim-Jim learned was to roll over from his belly to his back. This is half-way to being able to turn over in both directions, front to back and back to front. Why is this no fun, annoying, and making mom crazy? He tended to do this half trick at 2 am, and he would wake mommy up because he couldn't figure out how to get himself back onto his belly in order to go back to sleep. Either Jim or I would have to get out of bed to turn him back over onto his belly. We would go into his nursery to find him rolling around on his back like a turtle, all four limbs flailing in the air. Jim-Jim spoiled us by sleeping through the night at 6 weeks, so having him digress at 3 months was torture!

The second half trick Jim-Jim learned was to hold his bottle. I guess I should say to try to hold his bottle. Oh, how he tried to be helpful! He knocked his bottle out of his mouth so many times while trying to hold it! Feedings that took 10 minutes began taking 20 minutes because Jim-Jim really wanted to get this down. The times that we were in a hurry, we had to restrain his arms to prevent him from knocking his bottle out of his mouth repeatedly.

I can gladly say Jim-Jim has turned both of these half tricks into whole tricks! He hasn't woken us up in the last couple of weeks needing to be turned over, and he's able to hold his bottle on his own now. Yay, no more holding the bottle with my chin while I reach for something! I'm sure we will go through many more half tricks before he masters all of the things he's going to be learning in the next few years. It's so exciting to witness the learning process and to watch him develop new abilities! Daddy's waiting impatiently for him to be able to hold a lightsaber!

Daddy Chimes In: Much to learn you have, young Padawan. Keep your hands out of the way you must, if to hold your own bottle you would like. Use the Force you must, if to accomplish your goals you are. Okay, enough Yoda-speak! We're proud of you, Bodie!

Fatigue

It's been a tumultuous 2 weeks! The wreck, taking my exit exam for my masters, taking a mid-term, moving 3 days later all while working full-time and caring for Jim-Jim...I don't know how I made it through. An incredibly supportive husband is the ONLY way I was able to deal with everything! Friday finally arrived signaling that I can finally check out, and checking out is EXACTLY what I did!

Jim and I went to pick up dinner after work on the way to pick up Jim-Jim from daycare. As we were sitting across from each other in the booth waiting for our dinner to arrive, we began messing around. Never leave two nutty people alone in a booth to wait. Crazy things start happening! I yawned, and Jim stuck his finger in my mouth to ruin my yawn. To repay the favor, I stuck my finger in his mouth to ruin one of his yawns. Not to be bested, Jim pretended that he didn't care. I needed to make my "yawn ruin" better than Jim's "yawn ruin", so I told him, "I didn't wipe the last time I peed." Wait, WHAT?! That didn't come out the same way it sounded in my head! What was supposed to come out was, "I didn't wash my hands the last time I peed." Wouldn't that make me sticking my finger in his mouth doubly awful than him sticking his finger in my mouth? I thought so! Telling him I didn't wipe the last time I peed didn't have the intended effect. It just made him not want to sit anywhere I've sat!

My favorite part of the week was taking a walk with Bailey and my boys once we got home from work on Friday. Being with them makes everything right and all of the struggles meaningful!

Rambunctious

The Boy turned 4 months old on the 12th of October, and already seems to be a nut! He's starting to become more curious about the world around him, and it's amazing to see the ways in which he chooses to interact with it!

Exhibit A
Kara and I were getting ready for work one morning this week. Jim-Jim was supposed to be asleep in his crib after his first feeding of the day. While in our bedroom, we hear a large THUD, THUD, THUD. Concerned, we rushed into his room to find this:

The stinker had rolled onto his back, placed his feet through the slats in the crib, and was banging his heels against the wall. WHAT IN THE WORLD?!? Where did this come from?

Exhibit B
We have a pretty unique changing table. K and I shopped for quite a while looking for one that we really liked. We finally came across a corner changing table; this table allows Jim-Jim's feet to face us, helping changes go much more smoothly. Anyway, hung over the changing table are a couple of fabric shoe racks, the type that can be hung from the back of a closet door to provide extra storage. These allow for quick access to things like Tylenol, thermometers, and stuffed animals.

Jimbo has begun to take notice of these hanging racks, and has started reaching for them and playing with them while being changed. It's like he just has to check them out. This week, he grabbed one with his hand, and then raised his feet to it, as if to push it out a bit for further inspection.


This boy is going to be into everything very quickly. I think we may need to babyproof sooner rather than later. Our prayer is that we will be able to channel this natural energy and dexterity into something constructive!!

Bluetooth

Yes, folks. The title of this post is "Bluetooth", not "Blues Clues". As I am writing this post, the melody of "Rock A By, Baby" is reverberating in my head, and I know the day is impending when I will be talking about a cartoon animal. For today, it's Bluetooth.

We were running errands in our rental car, and I caught a glimpse of the stereo system and noticed we have Bluetooth. Incidentally, we've been driving the car since our wreck 2 weeks ago, and I am just now noticing the Bluetooth buttons.

Me: "Wow, Jim! We have Bluetooth!"

Jim: "Go ahead. Push one."

What Jim intended for me to push...

What I pushed...

His point in asking me to push one of the Bluetooth buttons was to show me that the buttons aren't linked to anything. Not surprisingly, nothing happened when I pressed "1", either. After we finished staring at each other like the other person was crazy, we cracked up laughing! We've been married a little over a year, and we still have a little work to do on the whole communication thing!

Like Father, Like Son

I have a feeling there will be many posts with that title! Big Jim and little Jim both love to ride in the car. Windows down, breeze blowing, radio blaring, engine revving...nothing else makes them happier!

Vertical Stripes, Please!

Chunky, soooo big, like a six-month-old, hasn't missed a meal, thunder thighs. Those are just a few of the words I've heard that are used to describe me. If the joy of eating is hereditary, then it was definitely inherited! I think people's judgments aren't fair, though. How is a little boy supposed to look his long, lean self if little boy onesies are only made with horizontal stripes. Haven't they heard that vertical stripes are more flattering?! The clothes make the mann, so I'll take some vertical stripes, please!

Jim-Jim

MY POOR BABY!

You may not know this, but my Jeep is one of my prized possessions. My truck and I have been through a lot together, and it's pretty high on my "love scale". Even so, yesterday's wreck was an amazing display of God's protection over us. The fact that a) Jim-Jim wasn't with us, b) nobody was hurt, and c) we were able to keep from hitting anyone else proves to me that God was watching over us!

Poor Justine. She did a wonderful job protecting us yesterday. I hope and pray that she comes out of this OK. She's been so good to me!


Update: Justine wasn't totalled! She's in the shop now, and we should get her back in about ten days or so. In the meantime, I've been given a behemoth Jeep Commander. I can't wait to get my girl home!

Rush Hour

I'm not talking about the movie, I'm talking about our lives. Jim and I were driving home from work during rush hour when a delivery truck to the left of us didn't see the cars in front of him slam on their brakes. The driver finally realized what was going on, and his course of action was to swerve into our lane. Unfortunately, we both didn't fit in the lane at the same time. He hit us on the driver's side and nearly spun us around.

Thanks to Jim's quick thinking and manuvering, he was able to pull us out of it. Let me tell you, there were about 5 moments after the truck hit us that I thought we were certainly going to flip over or end up in another lane that was full of cars! If any decision was made differently, this story would NOT have the same ending. If Jim had turned the wheel left instead of right, we undoubtedly would have flipped and taken a bunch of cars down with us. God had his angels watching over us and the other drivers on the road! Jim and I were talking about it after the adrenaline had finally simmered down, and we decided that the truck hitting us was probably the best thing that could have happened. At 60 mph, if the truck had slammed into the cars in front of him that had stopped, it would have caused a multiple car pile-up and many more serious injuries. Minus a little soreness, we're fine. When thinking about it that way, we don't mind taking one for the team!

The car was "drivable", and we made it home in time to get our other car and go pick up Jim-Jim from daycare. We are so thankful Jim-Jim wasn't with us when it happened as the truck hit his side of the vehicle. You no longer need to read the blog to keep up with the Manns, just watch the 5 o'clock news!

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm...."

The mind of an infant is pretty simple. Feed him, change him, love him...it's not complicated. Satisfy their basic needs, and they're content. The older Jim-Jim gets, the more complicated he has become, though. As he's grown, he's become more complex and is expressing a wider array of emotions. He's recognizing when we're not in the room, and he lets us in on his displeasure. He's also expressing excitement about things that are about to happen. I take Jim-Jim in the bathroom while Jim prepares the bath water, and the boy gets so excited I can barely contain him! He has recognized that running bath water means he gets to kick, kick, kick.

Jim-Jim is also developing better motor control, and this is leading to actions I just don't comprehend. We set Jim-Jim in his bouncy seat, and he constantly lifts his right leg in the air. Never his left, always his right! Is he working out his abs, needing to ask a question but didn't get the memo that you raise your HAND, requesting a pair of socks, or lifting his butt cheek so he can fart inconspicuously? Your guess is as good as mine! Maybe babies aren't that simple after all!

The sight of him...

Jim-Jim and I watched our first A&M game together on Saturday. I got a little overzealous and dressed my 3 month old son in a 12 month A&M outfit. I think Jim-Jim looks great in maroon, but his daddy has a differing opinion!

Jim: "It's just not right when the sight of my son makes me want to puke!"

There's a little history behind those words. He grew up in a world where LSU and A&M were rivals, so it goes against every fiber of his being to see his son with an A&M emblem on his chest. I think he looks great as an Aggie! You be the judge...
Jim-Jim didn't quite make it until the end of the game to see the Aggies win.

Nine

Our little motor boat loves nothing more than to kick, kick, kick! Bath time is one of our favorite times. It's something Jim-Jim and daddy do together that they both thoroughly enjoy. Jim-Jim is such a nut about playing in the water! He vacillates between being uber serious (as he is in the video) and cracking himself up while he's kicking. Watch out Michael Phelps!

Thank you Jim for your amazing editing skills! Jim-Jim thanks you as well for not displaying his man-parts for the world to see! You are absolutely brilliant, and I am extremely lucky to be married to a tech geek....I mean nerd...I mean geek:)

Kara

Oh, no he didn't!

Anthropomorphism is attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate objects. Jim-Jim isn't an animal nor is he inanimate, but he's not very adept at verbalizing his feelings and I sometimes find myself imagining what he's thinking. When I saw this scenario playing out, I heard Jim-Jim's voice (or what I imagine his voice would sound like:) saying, "Oh, no he didn't!"
And Lydia with the save...

Wishful Thinking

Despite our most sincere and heart-felt hoping/praying/wishing on a star, Jim-Jim woke up at his usual time on Saturday morning...6:00am. I have vague recollections of the days when I would sleep in until noon on Saturday mornings. It's impossible to lament my past when I'm able to hide behind the lens and capture the fun Jim and Jim-Jim have catching up from a week of being apart. It's so much fun watching them bond, knowing they're going to be such good buddies!

He looks like ________.

Question: What does Kara hear when the statement begins, "He looks like _____".
A. Jim
B. His daddy
C. Your husband

Answer: All of the above!

Fall weather has arrived, so I can finally take Jim-Jim out on a walk in his baby Bjorn without wondering when I get back who sweated more, him or me. We went for a walk this evening and ran into three people that we know in our apartment complex who all stopped me so they could see Jim-Jim. Fill in the blank with A, B, and C and those were the remarks I heard! I promise I did carry him for 9 months, and 50% of his DNA came from me! He's getting so big (see the picture below) and changing all the time, and I keep hoping something will show up that even slightly resembles me. So far I've come up with his fingernails and his eye color, which we all know can change until the baby is 9 months old so that's not even a shoe-in. I once had his ears, but those popped right on out there just like his daddy's. I may not have much physically, but at least I can say the boy has my personality!
It's really hard to tell from the picture how much he's grown because I have the water a little higher than usual. He's become such a water nut, and he loves to kick, kick, kick! (video coming soon) Jim-Jim loves baths because he loves the water, and I love baths because they wear him out before he goes to bed:) He's now 3 months old and 18 pounds, and we're having an amazing time getting to know him!

Kara