Rebirth

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Colleen

Man, I have been a huge slacker again. Truth is, I’m in a blogging funk. I have no shortage of things to write about and have had a lot of moments in the shower where I’ve gone, “Oh, I should do a blog post about this…” But then, real life stuff always wins out. Darn you, Zachary! haha, just kidding. But in all seriousness, I have probably written ten blog posts in my head over the past two months and then failed to make them actually happen.

Anyway, I’ve decided to try to post at least 2-3 times a week in the month of March. I feel better when I’m updating this website on a more frequent basis. I’m actually in an all-around life funk. I’d explain now, but then what would I post about for the rest of the week…?

As far as content goes, I’m going to try to make it a combination of lifestyle, arts & crafts, reviews, “recipes,” etc. This blog has seen many iterations in the 8.5 years that I’ve been maintaining it. I used to write a lot of personal stuff, then moved towards sharing things I was doing, like pictures from birthday parties or trips. I stayed on the topic of what was going on in my life for a long time. It served as a great vehicle for me to be creative when I showed off my Photo-a-Day pictures every month for the year and did the 642 Things to Write About Challenge. Gradually, I started focusing more on reviewing different things and then moved on Pinterest-type posts over the last year or so. And of course, after Zachary was born, I did a lot of the one-picture “Adventures of Zach and Zoe” posts. I’m going to try to do a hybrid of all of these things this month. It hit me while watching Jay and Zachary play last week that I have no imagination anymore. I have no creativity anymore. I’m a zombie who doesn’t eat well anymore, barely sleeps (Zach is back to only one wake up per night, so I really should be sleeping more), doesn’t exercise as much, and is a mushy brained shell.

Anyways, here’s to the rebirth of Collwrites. I’m holding myself accountable for updating it 3-4 days a week with good content and I hope anyone reading this will help me stay accountable, too. 🙂

Posted in Ramble/Ponder/Rant | 1 Comment

The Adventures of Zach and Zoe: Part 12

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Colleen

They watch their daddy shovel snow together…

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[Picture taken on February 17, 2015, when Zachary was 8-months-old.]

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The Adventures of Zach and Zoe: Part 11

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Colleen

They have Saturday morning playtime together…

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[Picture taken January 24, 2015, when Zachary was 7-months-old.]

 

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Photo-a-Day: Jan. 2015, Week 2

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Colleen

Here’s this week’s Photo-a-day list from FatMumSlim. Have fun.

 

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Photo-a-Day is (Fake) Changing in 2015

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Colleen

In a super obvious bid to get more page clicks, FatMumSlim has changed the monthly Photo-a-Day prompts from monthly to weekly. Now, instead of checking into her blog to get the Photo-a-Day topics once a month, you have to visit her website every week. But, I guess if I am going to re-post them weekly, I win too, so thanks, Chantelle!!

That was unnecessarily snide and I apologize. If I had something that could keep people interested and coming back for page hits and make a shitload of money from it, I’d do the exact same thing and I’m not afraid to admit it. I just think it’s funny that she kept hyping this “big shake up” in the list and essentially, it’s the same thing except by week instead of month. That’s not really a shake up, lol.

Anyway, here is the list. I sound like a hater but I’m not, I swear. See you back on Monday, then.

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Farewell, ’14

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Colleen

Holy crap, 2014 just started yesterday. How could it be over already?! After a rough 2012 and 2013, this past year has felt like a sunny day after a bad storm. Yes, cheesy, but accurate. It’s been a blessing.

The addition of Zachary Louis to our family has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love my little boy so much and every day he amazes me with the new things he does. A few nights ago, he woke up every hour or so until 1:45 a.m. when we both fell asleep with me holding him. I woke up at 4 a.m. sitting upright in bed with him snuggling in and hugging me as he slept. Jay had already left New York to come back to North Carolina and since it was just me and him, I decided to just lay him down next to me in bed. I dozed on and off from 4 until 8 a.m. when I felt little fingers tracing my face. I opened my eyes and when Zach saw that I was awake, his eyes lit up, he smiled so big, reached his arms out and kissed my face. It was such an awesome moment and it made every sleepless minute from the night before worth it.

I don’t have as much to say this year as I have in years past because I don’t have the luxury of all of the blogging time that I’ve had in the past! [Here are past years if you’re really, really, reeaallly bored: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013.] I may not have the time to blog or exercise or watch TV or listen to many podcasts right now. I may not get a lot of sleep. I may be a slave to my breast pump. I may not see many movies or go out to dinner anymore, but that doesn’t really matter. I don’t really notice any of that right now, to be honest. I’ll do all of those things again someday and miss these times. My life isn’t the same; it’s enhanced. It’s all worth it when I walk into my living room and see my son and my husband playing on the floor.

Anyway, I’ll stop now because I think you get the point. I feel very fortunate to have been blessed with Zachary. He outshines everything else that happened this year. I can’t remember life without him. I don’t even remember what it was like to get a full night’s sleep,so really, how can I miss it?!. 😉

Happy New Year! Goodbye, 2014. Bring it on, 2015. Please be kind to us all.

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Posted in New Years | 29 Comments

Ugly Sweater Party ’14

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Colleen

Since we were going to celebrate Christmas with my family on Long Island this year, on Sunday, Dec. 21, Jay and I had his family over for an early Christmas celebration. We decided that the theme was going to be Ugly Christmas Sweaters. I love theme parties.

It was a lot of fun.  We got Jay’s Ninja Turtle sweater from Groupon, my Harry Potter sweater from TeeFury, Zachary’s Home Alone onesie from Etsy and Zoe’s sweater from Target. Jay and I made 2lbs of baked ziti together that morning while Zach played. It was really awesome to do something together like that as a little family. I’m not a great cook but I had a great time cooking with my Smoopsys, who is a good cook. 🙂

Everyone dressed up in fantastic ugly sweaters. I can’t wait to have another one in the future.

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 Our little family of four.

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Posted in Christmas, Family, Good times | Tagged | 32 Comments

Tubes!

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Colleen

Last Tuesday, December 18, Zachary had tubes put into his ears. We’re hoping they will help him against ear infections. Since his first ear infection at four months, he had been on four different antibiotics and only had one well check-up where he was given the all clear. The antibiotics weren’t working and they were starting to mess with his sleeping, so we decided to be proactive and have him evaluated for tubes.

For those who may not know, babies and young children who have trouble draining fluid from their ear canals and get a lot of ear infections as a result are candidates for tubes. Teeny little tubes are put by their ear drum to help with fluid drainage and hopefully to avoid infections. The tubes fall out after 6-12 months as the child grows. Zach’s are supposed to last 9-12 months. Hopefully, his ear canals will be bigger by that time and we won’t be back a year from now for tubes, round two.

The entire thing went great. We were worried that Zachary would have a crying fit because he couldn’t eat after midnight and wouldn’t be able to nurse on demand when we woke him up at 5:30 a.m. that morning. We were also worried he’d freak out when they did the pre-op stuff with him (blood pressure, measuring oxygen levels, etc.). Luckily, our worries were unfounded. He did wonderfully. To help avoid some of the 5:30 a.m. hangry, I nursed him at 11:45 p.m., which was the last possible time he could eat. There were so many things to look at and new people to “meet” at the surgery center that he never get fussy once, not even when the nurse couldn’t get the little finger clip thingy (technical term) to stay on his little finger or when she took him from us to carry him back to the surgery room. He just stared at us as she walked him away then went right on looking around. He even flirted with all of the nurses. It was cute.

We didn’t get to be in the room with him while they gave him the anesthesia and that was the only thing that bummed me out. However, it was only 20 minutes from the time they took him back to his room and the time we saw him in recovery. I hadn’t even finished my cup of coffee in the waiting room by the time the doctor came out to tell his that everything went well. The only “thing” was he had another double ear infection, so we had to go through yet another seven days of antibiotics. This time, they were ear drops twice a day for seven days. The goal is to start off 2015 antibiotic free! Woo.

My mom flew down for the procedure, so she and Jay’s parents were there with us. We all thought that there would be recovery period for Zachary and he would be cranky for at least a day or so afterwards. Nope. We were home by 8:30 a.m. and by 8:45, Zach was busy playing with his toys on the living room floor, haha. Ah, to be a child…

Trying to take a mother/son selfie to kill sometime in the waiting room…

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You give a kid a hospital bracelet and he’ll forget about everything else…

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Rocking that “Morning after a daycare toga party” look in the recovery room.

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Playing and reading books right after we got home. What procedure?

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Obligatory 12-13-14 Post

Posted on December 13, 2014 by Colleen

I almost missed it, but I made it! Zachary turned six months today and my goodness, I can’t believe it’s been six months since he was born. On one hand, it’s crazy that he’s six-months-old already but on a much stronger hand, it feels like he’s been with us forever and it’s hard to fathom that he’s only been with us for half of a year.  Having Zachary feels like it did when I first met Jay – like he’s a part of my soul who fits into my life so completely that I can’t remember what life was like without him. Man, I love my son.

I spent the day today working on making some headway with Christmas presents. I decided to try to make a bunch of them this year, so hopefully they turn out okay. I’ve been feeling down because I haven’t been able to exercise in almost a month and don’t see when in the next two months I’ll be able to do so again. That’s really difficult for me because for so long, my life has had such a focus on doing some form of physical activity. It keeps me sane and sleeping well at night. So, I decided to appeal to my creative side. I went on Pinterest to get some ideas and how I hope that it pays off. We’ll see.

Back to my six-month-old. He ran some errands with me today and he’s sitting in the shopping cart all by himself! I have a cover, so next time, I’ll be using it. Yes, I disinfected the cart and washed his hands when we got home.

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He has also been hard at work learning how to take the rings off of his toy. He can take the top one off now and has figured out creative ways to get the other ones off. Once they’re all off, he fusses to have someone put them all back on for him so he can repeat the process. Well, I guess he has half of it figured out.

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Zach has also been doing really well in school lately.

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When Zach Met Santa

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Colleen

Every year, Santa visits my office. The director of another company in our building will dress up as Santa and all employees are invited to bring their children, grandchildren, etc. to visit with him. We were originally supposed to take Zachary to see Santa when Santa visited his school last week, but those plans were scrapped because Jay had the flu and we had no idea if Zachary or I were going to be spreading flu germs, so we felt it was best to not potentially expose 100 little children who sat on Santa’s lap after Zach to the flu.

Luckily, we were able to catch up with Santa on Monday, December 8. Zach did great. He was curious at first, then he smiled when we coaxed him to, and of course, he let us know when he had had enough. When we went to take a family picture, Jay and I stood behind Santa. Well, once we got behind Santa, Zach couldn’t see us anymore and that’s when he got upset. We never got the family picture, but we did get a lot of really adorable ones of just the two of them. I know next year will be a challenge once he has enough sense to be frightened of Santa, but hey, at least we got some good pictures for his first year meeting Santa.

Here are a few, even though you probably already saw them on my Facebook:

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Posted in Christmas, Zachary | 3 Comments