Hotel Foltice - Open for Business

It certainly has been an interesting summer since the arrival of Dylan Scott. Our sleep deprivation comes in waves, with some days feeling great and other days feeling completely worthless.

Dana normally doesn’t know what day it is, she only knows time (1, 4, 7, and 10 o’clock.) She only knows it is Saturday/Sunday because Oprah and Ellen are not on TV. Those days, she makes me do an Ellen ‘dance party’ so she can get her fill. This is really sad for three reasons:

1. 
   Dana enjoys watching me do it.
2. 
   I know what a ‘dance party’ is after watching Ellen every day on vacation/paternity leave.
   
3. I am actually pretty good at it, even down to the drop into the chair fake out back to the dance. Dana goes wild (with laughter) when I straddle our coffee table and dance across it. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, good for you. That means you are probably doing something more productive at 5pm.)

We have been able to go out and about with Dylan. This means running to a restaurant while he is sleeping in between feedings and going to church on Sunday morning. This actually works pretty well and gets us out of the house.

We have also done trivia night the last two Wednesday’s. A first place finish last week made it even better to be back. You might be competitive when winning trivia makes you happy for the next two days.

We won even after blowing the first question: Which 20th century president was known as ‘Dutch’ and the “Great Communicator?” My brother Pip, who was in town with his girlfriend Laura, immediately answered FDR very confidently. So confidently, that we reluctantly went along with it. When the answer was Ronald Reagan, Pip suddenly lost a ride home and was dead to us until he redeemed himself. He did, bringing him back into the family and gaining transportation for the night.

By the way, there is a running joke about walking home if you blow too many questions. I have a feeling this will happen and will make for a great blog post.

Hotel Foltice has suddenly entered into peak season. We had the aforementioned Pip and Laura were here for a week last week, Dana’s Mom is back in town for a few more days, Dana’s sister, Robyn, is coming in Mid August. We have some other unconfirmed reservations as well. We say, bring it on.

The way that I am able to sell Dylan feedings and Oscar walks makes me think that maybe I should be in sales. Somehow, I try to make our guests believe that I am doing them a favor by letting them feed Dylan at 10pm or walk Oscar at 7am. By the way, Pip, if you are reading this, you owe me big time for letting you and Laura take care of Dylan while Dana and I went on a date.

I hope everyone is having a great summer.

Here are Laura, Dana and Pip with our trivia answer sheet and $30 gift card! Go Trivia Newton John!

Laura with Dylan.

Unky Pip with a sleeping Dylan.

Bryan's Thoughts about Night Feedings

A nightly topic of discussion for Dana and I is about what shift to take for the nighttime feedings. I have tried to weigh out the pros and cons of either taking the 1am or 4am feeding.

The 1 am Feeding - Jimmy Fallon is on TV for the 1am feeding. His monologue and interviews are so awkward that I am actually kind of rooting for him to improve and come into his own. “So (fill in the blank with an old SNL cast member name)..hehe, I hear you, hehe, are in a new movie, hehe.” Just typing that makes me tempted to grab some of Dana’s meds. If Dylan is not tired after Jimmy Fallon, we run into Last Call with Carson Daly. Carson Daly makes Jimmy Fallon look like Bob Hope. It is appropriately named, though. The only people who are watching have come home from the bar and are blackout drunk. On a rare occasion, you luck out and something good is on. Last week, ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ was on the Bravo Channel. This can have negative consequences the next day if you convince yourself to stay up. I choose to sleep. My face is too pretty not to get sufficient beauty sleep.

The 4 am Feeding - This one is not too bad for me. During the week, I get Asia stock market coverage from CNBC or SportsCenter. Dana is not so lucky. She doesn’t even turn the TV during this shift. She may now after I have found the Cosby Show on FOX from 4-5am.
Based off of solely the TV, I would say the 4am feeding takes the cake. However, Dylan is another factor in this decision. He is wide awake during the 4am feeding. He is usually quicker to fall asleep for the 1am, making it a quicker shift and shorter time to be awake. The 4am shift can go a couple of hours if he doesn’t settle down.

Hopefully, this discussion can end in the next weeks as Dylan will be sleeping through the night.

Here are some recent photos of Dylan. Dana has been playing with photo editing software.

On the Monkey Gym - his favorite spot.

Playing on the floor, practicing rolling over. He's asking for a pinky promise.

This is as close as Oscar will get to Dylan. He ran away immediately after this photo was taken.

Making faces in the Monkey Gym mirror. So cute!

Bryan's Vacation/Paternity Leave Comes to an End

As they say, all good thing must come to an end. Bryan went back to work yesterday after 2.5 weeks of combo paternity leave / vacation. I can't express how helpful it was to have him home and sharing the duties of caring for little Dylan. I think I've said numerous times since he's been born "How do single parents do it?!"

Dylan is now 6 weeks old and getting huge! At least, we think he's huge. You may ask, "how huge is he?" Well, we don't own a scale, so we're not quite sure. His next Dr's appointment is in 2 weeks, so we'll find out his weight and length then. Here is what we do know:

• He doesn't fit into most of the 0-3 month onesies that we have and is wearing some 3-6 month onesies already. Did I mention he is only 6 weeks old?
• When I carry him in his car seat, I have to use both of my arms because it is so heavy.
• He drinks 4 full ounces at every feeding, sometimes insisting on a 5th or 6th ounce to top it off. I think "normal" is 2-3 ounces per feeding, but he knows if we try to short-change him and will freak out.

Speaking of eating, for those of you who have had the pleasure of seeing either me or Bryan when we're starving (aka: cranky and short-tempered), Dylan has inherited this endearing character trait. When we finally get the bottle ready and put it up to his (wide open, screaming) mouth, he quite literally attacks it. Although I am not breast feeding anymore (thank goodness!), sometimes watching him voraciously suck at the bottle makes my breasts (or, as Bryan likes to call them, "the not-so-fun bags") ache in pain just from the memory of his barracuda-like nursing style.

Everyone asks us "So is he sleeping through the night?" Unfortunately, no, not yet. He is on a feeding schedule of every 3.5 hours, so we are still up twice a night to feed him. We're very hopeful that by 10 weeks he'll at least be sleeping 6 hours in a row and we'll only need to get up once a night to feed him.

Here are some recent photos:

Big baby in a little t-shirt! Our little muffin-top.

Bryan didn't wear a shirt for his entire vacation. I love this photo of them looking at each other.

Getting him started early with basketball. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Foltice for the hoop!

Dylan is 1 month old!

We can't believe a whole month has gone by already since Dylan was born. How time flies! He has changed and grown so much in just 4 short weeks. Here are some photos we took today to commemorate his 1 month birthday.

Please nominate Dana for What Not to Wear on TLC!

I can't believe that Dylan will be 1 month old this Sunday! This month has gone by so fast and he has grown so much. Every morning I swear he has gotten bigger or changed in some way ... or it could just be the lack of sleep is messing with my eyes. Here are a few things that I've learned:

• 8 hours of sleep broken into 2 hour increments is NOT the same as 8 hours of consecutive sleep


• Don't block the dog's path with the bouncy seat - he will hurdle over it instead of going the long way around if someone comes to the door


• Oscar likes to steal pacifiers. These are now kept out of his reach.


• We HOPE that the 432 diapers we bought will last us 2 months


• Nothing is on TV between 4 and 6 a.m.

Also, you may have noticed that I'm not in many of the pictures that we've posted. That's because I still have the "new Mom" disheveled look, which means nothing is brushed, combed, made up, ironed or in photo-taking condition. Plus, I don't fit into anything but gym clothes or maternity clothes. I was watching an episode of What Not to Wear on TLC today and their target was a new mom who had a 4 month old baby. Prior to having the baby she wore nice, stylish clothes and just 4 short months later she was exclusively wearing sweats and slippers. It sounded like a familiar scene. I'm torn between eagerly walking down this path in hopes that I will get nominated to appear on this show - a $5,000 shopping spree and trip to NYC sounds pretty good - or putting on my running shoes and getting in pre-pregnancy shape ASAP so I can fit into my old clothes and actually have some decent family photos of Dylan's early months.

Here are some new photos.

Oscar is getting used to his baby brother. They will become "best buds" as Dylan gets older.

Dylan's umbilical cord stub finally fell off, so this is before the first "real bath."

After the bath ... very relaxed.

Dylan loves to sleep like this - so cuddly!