I Really Want A Camera

There's a lot going on in the land of Doyle.  And I could be doing a more fantastic job of capturing it if I had a better camera.  Here's the latest via iPhone and my PowerShot.

Cabinets are installed! The furniture base toe kick was not... lé sigh.  And so we wait.

Notice the top door of linen cabinet is MIA

Love me some recessed doors

Rain shower - Check | Shower diverter trim kit - oops (forgot to order that!)

Can't wait to have Palmer give the whirlpool a spin

Palmer is getting back in the swing of life without illness.  

The great outdoors.

We learned to clap

We prefer to push our car rather than be pushed

We still haven't mastered the no eating of grass. What grass, mom?

We really want to stand on our own two feet

The Bay Hill Member Guest was this Wednesday through Saturday.  It was a week filled with ladies golf clinics, too many parties and way too much dancing!  My mom stayed the whole time to help take care of Palmer which made the event much more enjoyable.  It's a lot easier to rip it until midnight (yes, that's late for me) when you know you have back up in the morning.  Thanks, Mum!

Watching the shoot out.  Obviously that's a bad sign Pete is watching with me.

Awards night - The amount of dancing is incomprehensible - Max perspiration
***I had a lot of love on the dress.  It's from an online site called SheInside***

Forget About Nap Schedules...We've Got A Window

Now that is progress!  The window which is a mere 36" x 36" took approximately 6 weeks to arrive.  And it is roughly "in".  Now if I could just teleport the cabinetry...

The never ending reno...

...moves forward

Can you believe that use to be this just a few weeks ago?!

Magical

And now I want to be an interior designer.  I have developed a knack for man-handling contractors.  Projects anyone?

And That's What You Get For Claiming Progress

104. That was Palmer's temperature at 11 a.m. on Friday.  Panic is what I experienced.  His fever had started Thursday night at 9 p.m.  I calmly called the pediatrician's office and informed the triage nurse of his condition and that we had an appointment to be seen at 2 p.m. that afternoon.  I felt this was urgent.  102 - 103 was nerve wracking enough.  104 brought my anxiety to a whole new level.  She instructed me to put him in a warm bath wrapped in a warm towel to slowly and safely bring down his fever. Then follow up his Motrin dose in 3 hours with Tylenol.  Maybe she'd misunderstood.  We have an 11 month old baby with a 104 degree fever.  In what universe does he show interest in sitting in a bath with a wet towel wrapped around him?  At 98.6 degrees he is not going to willing allow me to drape a wet towel around his body.  Five minutes later I was fully clothed soaking wet sitting in a tub with him screaming bloody murder.  It went swimmingly.  His fever went down into the 102's within an hour and stayed there the rest of the afternoon.  The pediatrician said what I knew was coming.  Virus.  Virus = Wait it Out.  The standard apologetic head shake from the physician and an encouraging "hypothetical" pat on the butt on your way out the door.  In case you were wondering, the doctors urge you not to panic until 105.  My naive first time mom brain thinks 104 is awfully close to 105.  Silly me.  So after 3 straight days of 2+ hour naps and our new schedule seemingly on lock down, we spent the next couple nights up like we had a newborn.  The poor little guy has spent so much time sick the past month.  His fever finally broke yesterday and his spirits have been slowly climbing.  We are thankful to all the prayers from friends and family.  Keep them coming!

We took him out for some fresh air on the course last night.  A cart ride will always bring a smile to his face.  Monday starts a new week and a fresh attempt on getting him back to his routine.  This will be the last time I EVER tempt fate and declare success, or any shade of it, regarding Palmer's sleep.

Always chasing a ball with his clubs

They Call This Progress

No.  Not the bathroom.  That is in a constant state of limbo as we wait for all the redo's to be redone.  I am talking about sleep training!  I venture to say we have found the number.  The lucky number is 12 noon.  Two days in a row we have 2.5 hr naps at 12 noon.  If we score a third day I will dare declare success.  It has been such a roller coaster trying to figure out this one nap.  I hope we've done it.  For poor baby Palmer's sake and my sanity.  I hope we battled through this transition and have a new routine to slip into on the horizon.  And as if to encourage me along our journey, Palmer crawled into his room while I was making his lunch, grabbed Mr. Giraffe and laid on the floor.  When I walked in his room to find him he was pointing at his crib repeatedly.  By George, I think he's got it!

In Halloween news... Palmer was the sherriff of "Boo-Hill" this week.

In all his cotton-pickin' glory

 Bay Hill has an annual pumpkin patch where all the kiddos can go pick a pumpkin to carve and eat off a buffet filled with corn dogs, pretzels and other fried fare fit for all the goblins and monsters.  This picture was taken about 4:30.  We had yet "nailed" the noon nap so this was a fortuitous break in crankiness to allow me to capture his first Halloween.  We were at the patch for all of about 5 minutes.  He was in bed about 10 minutes after we left with an instant pass out.  

Sorry Palmer

Mr. Palmer also has figured out how to do this.  I put him down to grab his jammies after his bath and he instantly took off.  I go off to find him and first find the diaper.  Then the naked bunnos staring me right in the face.  It's cute the first time.  When there's poop in there I assure you there won't be a giggle escaping my lips.  

In home news, I've hung 12x12 matted frames around the perimeter of Palmer's play room.  One has an embroidered tea towel with the city of Chicago's attractions.  Another has a map of the lakes of Wisconsin were the Doyle's fish, vacation and lolly-gag.  I have about 6 others to fill.  As Palmer has yet to master holding a crayon, I commissioned these following prints from my friend Susan's daughter.  That's a giraffe (obvious choice) and Nibbles (some furry creature her daughter has as a "pet").   I think these beat any print I could ever buy.  We have a zebra, lion and elephant in the works from my friend Erin's children.  Who needs Monet when you can have a LaTorre?

Local artist Brylin LaTorre (age 7) of Bay Hill

6 new throw pillows for the sectional of all sectionals.  This picture screams buy a real camera!

And because I can't do anything else on the bathroom I've moved onto the fireplace. 

 

Dark Grey por favor

12 Hour Perspective

I stumbled upon this sweet little blog Pink Pistachio.  It's one of those mom/lifestyle blogs you find from a random Pinterest click and the next thing you know you it's been 3 hours and you are her 3 year old son are really connecting.  She's an all American mother of two boys, makes them carrot smoothies, bear pancakes, homemade baby food, and takes beautiful photos of her daily life including those ridiculously adorable children.  She has a repeating theme called 12 Hours.  Basically she does a picture an hour to capture her day.  Here's a link to the one I recently read that had me feeling inspired.  Now you may be thinking I'm prepping for sentiment here.  Do not be dismayed.  Sentiment is not on the forecast for you (okay, maybe a drizzle to button this up) but sarcasm is your friend here.  I couldn't help but think, while gazing at her perfectly cropped photo of her 7am cup of loose leaf tea, of what might lie behind that little perfect square.  Like is there a whole mess of dishes piled in a kitchen sink with last night's wine glass littered with soot?  I thought I would do a more realistic "12 Hour" take.  And it's so realistic, that I didn't even get a picture every 12 hours.  Because I have a baby under 1 who requires more than 50 minutes of attention every hour.  

5:30 am

Oh you think you're getting up now.  Think again.  See you at 6am sucker.

 6:30am

Only a mother would suck snot from her son's nose with her mouth.  All day.

 7:30

Wonder how many times I'll reheat that same cup of coffee before I finally give up and pour a new one.
Just to drink it cold a couple hours later.

8:30 am

Mom, for the last time, I can't swallow.  I have too much congestion.
Just throw this all out already and let's get on with Baby Einstein. 

8:45am - 1pm

Let's be real honest.  Mom left Dad to do the hand-off to the babysitter and went to get a massage and lunch with the girls on her one day a week of freedom.

Great mom-ing means taking time for you!

2 pm

Panic sets in when you find the bite mark out of the rubber ball.
Convinced you will be waiting to see this reappear in his diaper over the next few days.

 3 pm

Sweet relief when you stumble upon this while playing peek-a-boo for an entire hour - which left you with raw knees.

4:55pm

Sweet, sweet relief.  See you at 6am little buddy.

 9 pm

After escaping for dinner with a girlfriend I still find you waiting for me.

Okay that is more than 12 hours, but it's the best I could do.  And for all you judgers, Palmer is on a 5pm bedtime while we transition to one nap.  That is how you stave off sleep deprivation my friend.  Just ask the baby whisperer.  We also managed to play in the pool where Palmer decided to be brave enough to jump off the edge into my arms.  That's just on the impossible side to capture unless I am a lunatic and set up a tripod on a timer which is totally plausible.  The whole idea came because the original 12 Hour blog post really had me thinking of perspective.  You can focus on all the negative or fixate on those beautiful moments within our 12 hours.  Or 18 to 20...however many you pound through a day.

Would you miss this morning bottle in bed for anything in the world?

I did wipe his nose (and suck it again) so he could eat.

It's a beautiful life if we would pay attention to the beauty.

10 Months Has Come & Gone

Not in the outfit of choice, but between retraining naps, me being sick again, and the never ending construction, we took what we could get! I was going to flake on it altogether and then had visions of me putting together a 1st year book for him and the 10 month page being blank.  Or a poor photoshopped basketball stuck on a picture I'd taken at another time.  So here it is.  I can rest easy.  For a couple more weeks!

Finally...

There were several that didn't make the cut. This Dr. Evil pose being one.

On the docket as of late has been planning Palmer's baptism, his 1st birthday party, and family photo shoot.  In preparation for the events I went ahead a finally logged on to Zara.com and checked out their little boy clothes.  Boy is Pete gonna hate this new introduction am I happy I did that!  Leggings with patches, jeans with suspenders, raglan shirts...need I say more?  Pete is in Atlanta for a member-guest tournament at Golf Club of Georgia so Palmer and I are on our own until Saturday night.  Think we are going to hit Sea World again and get reacquainted with the dolphins.  This is when I wish I had a real camera.  One of those ones with a real lens - the ones I have no idea how to use and probably would never learn how to use but would like to buy so I could at least attempt so higher quality pictures.  Anyone looking to get rid of one?  I think a used one befits this situation so I can find out if it has staying power in my daily life.  For now...I shall continue with my iPhone and the occasional Canon PowerShot.

Breakfast with the boys

Like father like son

Maybe that wasn't the ripest nectarine in the bunch.  Sorry Palmer!

 Naked swimming