4 month wakefulness and more

Carter has started to go through the dreaded 4 month wakeful period. Basically he'll wake up in the middle of night and want to play. I guess it's suppose to be a good thing since it means he's developing cognitively and is attached to us enough to want to be around us 24/7. Most of the methods of sleep training he's still way too young for. So I've been trying to let him talk in bed and only go check on him if he's crying. He usually wants to eat then. I'm also trying to slowly cut down how many ounces of formula he gets in the middle of the night.
Our other major Carter news is that he talks all the time! It definitely sounds like he's saying "hi" now. I don't think it really counts as a first word though yet because he will say it whenever. I think all the positive reinforcement we've been giving him whenever he says anything that sounds like "hi" guarantee that he will continue to say it.
Since it's been a while since I've updated I'll just go through the highlights of the rest of last week.
Thursday I put Carter in the nursery at MOPS. The old ladies loved him. He only cried when he got hungry, otherwise he was perfectly behaved. I was a brave mommy and didn't cry. (But I did check on him i the window every half hour or so)
Friday my dad watched Carter so that I could get some of my volunteer hours in for class. Carter and Grandpa had a good time together. Carter saved his poopy diaper for me as soon as we got home (changing a poopy diaper was my dad's biggest fear of watching Carter).
Saturday we worked on cleaning and organizing the house. Tim is determined to move in the near future, but we have a whole lot of work that needs to be done first.
Sunday we went to Pine Tree to get some more apples. Then we hung out at my parents.
Monday we did a quick to MOA trip with my grandparents. That was an interesting experience!

Make your own baby food

So I decided to venture into the world of making your own baby food since Carter started eating it two weeks ago. It was something I've wanted to do since I was pregnant. So far it's been great! I started with a sweet potato. All I had to do was steam it and then put it in the blender and add a tiny pit of water to get it to the consistency of baby food. And then we've been pouring it into ice cube trays and freezing it. Our web resource we've been using is www.wholesomebabyfoods.com. Check it out!
Now I know no everyone will agree on giving a 4 month old baby food. We decided it would be much better to be able to pull Carter off his acid reflex meds and have him start food. So far this has been a success.

Baby Stuff

Now that I know more and more friends having babies for the first time I have been trying to think of my baby gear shopping advice.
First of all the book Baby Bargains by Denise and Alan Fields was super helpful. It reviews most commen baby products. All the the products that we bought based on the reviews, we love. And there's some advice that they gave that we didn't follow that I'd have to agree with now.
My recommendations:
1. Get a sturdy crib. We bought a Munire and love it. We probably could have found a less expensive one, but I hated how most of the cribs had screws showing in the front.
2. Get a good mattress. We got ours at BRU. We played with almost all of them there before deciding on one.
3. The ultimate crib sheet is a life saver. We have two and only have to change the regular sheet every couple weeks.
4. Bedding set, while adorable, are pretty much useless. We use the bumper and crib skirt. We hated the sheets that came with our set and ended up replacing them with softer carter's sheets.
5. The best gift we got was our rocker/glider and ottoman. It definately makes the 3am feedings much more comfrotable.
6. Have atleast two changing pad covers. Especially if you have a boy. In the early days we'd sometimes use both in one day.
7. The baby papasan chairs are cute, but they're not very exciting after about the first month. We ended up being one of the crazy music and lights FP ones after trying it at a friend's house.
8. Check out ECFE and Moms of Multiples sales. We got some great deals on some used toys and gear. Even if used stuff some what creeps you out, most of it can be washed. We got our FP aquarim swing for $25. The fabric part pulls out to be washed and the rest was like new with a lysol wipe.

Freaking out

My unemployment runs out in the end of December. I'm not sure what we're going to do then. We have been pretty much been needing that to get by since I was laid off back in May. Today it just seemed to hit me that I really don't know what we're going to do then and I've been panicking and can't sleep. There really haven't been a lot of jobs posted in the last two months. I've been applying for anything thing that I'm even remotely qualified for. It does make things much more difficult having to take into consideration the location and pay because of daycare costs.
I saw on the news tonight that the unemployment rate for the country is 6.5%. In some areas it's closer to 9%. And that doesn't even include people who have been unemployed too long to collect, like soon to be me. And it's only suppose to get worse.
Sorry for all the doom and gloom. I'm having a bad night.

Update

We had Carter's 4 month appointment yesterday. He's 16 lbs 8oz (90%) and 26 inches (90%). He also got all of his 4 month shots. We were worried that we would have a bad night, but he actually slept 8pm to almost 8am. It was great! Today he's been a little bit crappy and not feeling the best.
I can't believe it's only 3 weeks until Thanksgiving. Our plans are to spend Thanksgiving day with my family, me going shopping with Liz and Meaghan for the overnight and early morning deals, and then driving down Friday afternoon to visit Tim's family and celebrate Lauren's baptism. Tim and I are going to be Lauren's godparents. We're very excited!
No new news on the job front. I had an interview this week for a para job at Chippewa, that I didn't get the position for. It would have been a great position, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be. Hopefully there will be some new positions posted soon.

Voting, ect.

Carter and I went to vote this morning. We went at 8:30 because I figured the early morning beforw work people would be done. The voting people were saying that 260 people were there when it opened. It's exciting that the first election of Carter's life time is a big one.

Our other exciting news is that Carter got a playhouse for free. My parents' neighbor's had it in their basement and their kids barely ever played with it. It's in mint condition.

Halloween

We had a great first Halloween. Carter was the cutest little penguin. We did have a minor wardrobe malfunction with his costume when I first put it on him. I bought it on sale last year after Halloween, not knowing I was pregnant yet, so I guessed on the size and ending up getting a 3 month sizing figuring it be big enough for a baby that was born in the late summer early fall. Carter is a big boy and is wearing 3-6month clothes right now. As soon as I zipped it up, the zipper split. I tried to fix it, but it just wasn't happening. But I was determined to still have him be a penguin. I decided to sew Velcro on. It didn't look quite as cute, but it definately work. And Carter was much more comfortable.
Our sweer neighbor lady, Pam, got Carter some Halloween "treats"; a cute baby toy and some rice cereal. This is definately Carter new favorite toy.
Today we scored some excellent deals on toys at the kids garage sale at the Shoreview Community Center. I hadn't been to it since I was a kid, but I had remembered it having some good deals. We got probably a couple hundred dollars worth of Duplos, a toy lawn mower, and a dump truck for around $50. I can't wait until Carter is big enough to play with it all.
We also went over to my grandparents to help them get their lawn ready for winter. They love having Carter over.