Dinner Date!

Last night Paul and I went out to dinner. It was our second dinner date over the past 8+ months. The last one was in February for Valentine's Day. At first I was planning on going to Olive Garden as it's one of my most favorite restaurants and I had a $4 coupon (from Paul's parents' newspaper), but I was looking online to see if any of the restaurants were having specials, and TGIF caught my attention. They have quite a few options of 3 course meals that are $12.99 (or $16.99 if you're getting something like steak or shrimp). My chicken dish was so large that I  brought half of the chicken home as well as all of the angel hair pasta that came with it. I was pleasantly surprised when the waitress brought us two breadsticks prior to our appetizer. That's one of the reasons I love Olive Garden so I was happy that I still got to eat one breadstick with my dinner. My favorite part was the peanut butter pie. They just gave a small portion, but it was the perfect size and was extremely delicious!!!! After dinner we went to Lowe's to exchange what we thought were two ceiling light fixtures for Ian and Nadia's bedrooms that were actually light kits to attach to ceiling fans. OOPS! Thankfully they didn't give us any problem with making the return even though we bought them almost 8 months ago. Our last stop was at Walmart where we bought a flotation device for Nadia to use in Florida, a casserole dish for me, sand toys for Nadia, and a bicycle pump for Paul (our wheelbarrow tire is flat). Aside from the time when Paul called his mom on the phone, it was great to have almost 3 hours of conversation with my hubby.

I was thinking we need to do this more often until I found out Ian only drank 2 ounces while we were gone, and he cried most of the time. He was happy and smiling when we got home. I nursed him a little and gave him one more ounce by bottle, but by that time he was very tired. I put him down at 8:25 and unfortunately he woke up at 11pm, 2:45am, and 5:25am. The longest stretch was only 3 hours. It was the worst night in a long time. I also don't think they fed Nadia anything last night after we left and she had only had a slice of cheese before we left. She made up for it this morning. Between 7:30-10:00am she ate 2 packets of oatmeal, 90% of a yogurt, many raisins, an entire banana, and a packet of fruit gushers. That's WAY more than she usually eats for breakfast. My girl was hungry! I hope they are able to get Ian to consume more milk today. I'm doing two peer observations (12pm and 1pm) and have a faculty meeting at 2pm. Including driving time I'll be gone about 4.5 hours. I really hope tonight is a better night as I am pooped. My fever is worse today than it was yesterday. I am hoping I feel better by Monday as that's when I rescheduled the play date with Evie and her daugher Desi.

The good news is that Ian is doing a great job with being weaned off the shield. No tears! He actually seems to prefer nursing without the shield. Yay! Also I weighed him this morning and with nothing but a dry diaper on he weighed 9lb 10.5oz. Yahoo!!! At the doctor's office he had a wet diaper on. I weighed the wet diaper that I took off right before I weighed him with a dry diaper, and it weighed 3 ounces. So my guess is that he weighed about 9lb 6oz on Tuesday if he had been weighed with a dry (vs. wet) diaper since he weighed 9lb 8oz at the doctor's office with a wet diaper. So I think he gained 4.5 ounces the past 3 days! He has been spitting up a LOT as he spits up more when he's congested (which he is) and when he gets more by bottle, but even with all this spitting up he's gaining weight at a faster pace. I am praying he'll hit 10 lbs by May 1. I think the length measurement was wrong. The outfit he's wearing today used to come to his ankles and now it only comes to his knees. Tomorrow I am going to put a 3-6 month outfit on him to see how that fits. Also his 0-3 month pants no longer fall off of him. Most of his 0-3 month clothing still fits, but maybe he's at least outgrowing a few of them. We looked for swim trunks for Ian at Walmart yesterday, but the smallest size they had was 12month which would never work! One last bit of good news regarding Ian is that he rolled over yesterday (belly to back). YAHOO! I also have been giving him toys to hold, and he does hold them. My answers to the questions the nurse asked would be different if his appointment was today. I have been doing really short periods of tummy time a few times a day the last few days. He also laughed during his bath on Wednesday. What a change! His naps weren't very long yesterday, but he did take 3 short naps in his crib. His first nap this morning was about one hour long. Much better.