Teething and DUDE!!! I'm so sick of carseats

As you have read in the past 2 posts, we are having car seat issues. I now decided to return the Evenflo Symphony 65 car seats and go with the Britax Marathon car seats. (Which we should have just done from day 1)

I'm sure the Graco and Evenflo seat would have both been fine, but I didn't feel comfortable with them. The Graco moved too much and the Evenflo was at the wrong angle. Their solution, use a rolled up towel or a pool noodle. I'm sure it's safe to use those things, but we just spent $200 for this car seat. It should work without a towel or a noodle. Am I right? Also, I really didn't trust that new slide harness on the Evenflo. I had a knot in my stomach knowing Ben was in that car seat for a day. I can't wait to get it out of my car.

I can't wait to pick up the Britax seats tomorrow, install them and be done with car seats. I must have spent 4 hours working on car seats in the last two days. The only way I got threw it was with this: SERENITY NOW!!! Throwing my hat to the ground and kicking it across the garage helped a lot too.

So I mentioned teething earlier, let me get back to that. Ben is definitely teething, but here's the strange thing, his top teeth are coming in first. The doctor said most kids bottom teeth come in first. He's already cute, I can't imagine how much cuter he's gonna be if he only has his 2 front teeth. I'll post pictures when they come in. Until then, it's drool city.

Teething?

This is my first post of 2010 and my 100th post overall. If this was a sitcom Duff or Buddy would have made me a fancy cake. As it stands now, my celebration will consist of microwave popcorn and Cran-Grape juice.

The past few days during nap time and bed time Ben has been very fussy. I think he's teething. They say it's normal for children to start teething at around 6 months, but I have friends who say their kids started teething at 4 months. Benjamin is 10 days away from 4 months. On a side note, HOLY COW did that go by quick!

Anyway, I see what looks like bumps in his top and bottom gums. Where they were once very round, they are starting to take shape. I feel bad for the little guy. He's so happy all day, but now when it's nap time or bed time he screams bloody murder. We've given him Baby Orajel. That hasn't done much for him. Tonight we are trying one of those teething rings that you put in the freezer. I don't want to give him Children's Tylenol, but if it comes down to it, we will. It sucks to have him screaming and not being able to do anything for him.

So is this a vain or not? For a second there I thought he was not sleeping because he was having too much fun with his dad. I have been home with him on Christmas and New Year's break. I'm very entertaining. I thought maybe I had over-stimulated him or maybe he was just having that good of a time that he didn't want to stop. Or maybe he sensed something was different and he didn't feel comfortable falling asleep. I'm 95% sure it's teething. That 5% is just to stroke my ego. I know deep down that it's 100% teething.

Lastly, Allison made quite the discovery this afternoon. She turned on the Brighthouse Toddler Tunes channel and heard Neil Sedaka singing 'Lunch Will Keep Us Together.' He has a whole CD of his songs converted into Kids songs. After dinner she found a clip of the song and played it for me.

I closed the blinds and Benjamin, Allison and I had a dance party in the dining room. I closed the blinds because I can get a little crazy during our dance parties. Mark and Kristen (the neighbors behind us) are family now. They've earned the titles Uncle and Aunt, but there are some things you can't unsee. They can see right into our dining room and I don't know if they are ready for my killer dance moves.

Check out Lunch Will Keep us Together. Song starts 1:55.


Ben loved the dance party. He laughed and smiled the whole 3:35 of the song. I'm going to buy this CD tonight once I get close to my wallet. A few of the other songs we enjoyed are Dinosaur Pet (Calendar Girl), Where the Toys are (Where the boys are) and Happy Birthday Number 3 (Happy birthday Sweet 16)

Click to sample Neil Sedaka - Waking Up is Hard to Do

Christmas Eve

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I'm very excited about Ben's first Christmas. I know he won't know what's going on, but I'm just excited to spend 3 days home with him and Allison. And to take tons of Christmas pix. He's starting to show symptoms of teething. I may be looking forward to going back to work on Monday, but I doubt it. He's awesome.

December really went quickly. I wanted to do a few more posts about my favorite Christmas things, but I'll have to cut it short. Tonight will be the last installment. Tonight's list, my favorite Christmas movies.

You have to live under a rock to not know this movie. A Christmas Story. I think this will be the 13th year of 24 Hours of a Christmas Story. I usually watch it 2 or 3 times. There are so many funny things in this movie. I'm not sure if it's as funny for women as it is for men, but I love this movie.
Here are some of my favorite scenes:

1. The "Oh Fudge" Scene
2. Ralphie's Fight Scene - I used to get into a lot of fights as a kid...it reminds me of my youth as a bruiser. Also immediately after the fight "Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie"
3. The I triple dog dare ya! scene
4. Whoooopie a Zeppelin
   
5. Aunt Clara thinks Ralphie is 4 yrs old and also a girl. "He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny. He looks like a pink nightmare"
6. Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra Chinese Christmas Dinner
7. The Santa Scene - Ralphie fights his way back up the slide tells santa about the Red Rider BB Gun and makes that crazy smile...then gets kicked down the slide.
8. He gets his BB gun...and proceeds to shoot his eye out.
9. "Only one thing in the world could've dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.."
10. "Show mommy how the piggies eat"
    

Next up are two movies people sometimes forget about or forget that they are Christmas movies. Die Hard and Jingle All the Way. Die Hard is just an awesome movie. Tons of action and a tag line I should not have been repeating in the 8th grade.

Jingle All the Way had Arnold and Sinbad in it. It was an OK movie but what really made me get into the movie was the bit Conan O'Brien did when he was the host of Late Night. He did this bit for about 10 years. I think it's funny.


Elf and Christmas Vacation are two more of my favorite movies. I watch these 2 movies as often as I can. The DVDs have been in the player since the night after Thanksgiving and they will stay there for 3 more days. Tomorrow night we'll probably watch them both again.
Some Elf scenes:

1. A guy is hailing a cab, Buddy goes into the street and waves to him and keeps saying "Hi"
   
2. There's no singing at the North Pole
3. Worlds Best cup of Coffee. Funny story. I was in Victoria's Secret a while back and they had a sign that said World's most comfortable bra. So I said to the sales lady "Congratulations, you did it! World's most comfortable bra! Great job!" She gave me a funny look and backed away.
4. Does syrup have sugar in it? Then YES!
5. I like to whisper too.
   

Christmas Vacation:

1. "Can't see the line can you Russ?"
   
2. "Lot of sap. Looks great! Little full, lot of sap"
3. "Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass. Happy Hanukkah"

I could go on all night, but I have to stop. Big day tomorrow and It'll get tricky to watch both of those movies, plus we also have to have time for Home Alone, A Christmas Story and my all-time favorite movie...It's a Wonderful Life.
I hope I don't ruin the end for you...but this is one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.


"Hello Bedford Falls! Merry Christmas Movie House!" Sorry this post is all over the place tonight...I guess I'm a little more excited about Christmas than I thought. I won't be posting again until after Christmas, so I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas. Come back in a few days for pix of Ben's first Christmas and my list of goals for 2010.