jack daniels antidepressants & balls on the walls.

okay no i haven't completely gone off the reservation, but i do have a handful of random stories as of late. oliver's teething has hit new heights with him up again the other night screaming uncontrollably for about three hours. poor guy is just struggling bad, i wonder, do kids really have teething pains this bad, i just hope it's not anything else. anyway, we finally surrendered to the old wive's tale of whiskey on the gums. michael went to the liquor store the other evening, coming home with oliver's first tiny airplane shot of jack daniels. he told me he explained to the liquor store clerk that it was for his 9 month old son. i thought it was hilarious that the clerk found this completely kosher, yet the guy cards me everytime i go in there =) haha. well, turns out the old tennessee whiskey worked!

oliver checking out the unopened bottle of magic!

next, in my quest to win over my depression, i have begun taking perscription antidepressants. i am trying to ignore the stigma that society places on taking such pills & i'm raising my hand to say 'yes, my degree of depression requires some sort of drug therapy'. so there, i said it. and it is a bit early in the process to really tell, but i am starting to notice a change, so this is good.

onto my next story. oliver has officially crossed over into boyhood. yeah already! he landed his first goose egg on his forehead yesterday! the little wild man & i were swimming at our place & as he is eager to stand up on everything, he grabbed the side of the inflatable pool & stood up, only to drop down on his knees with his heavy head facing too far forward & crash. he tumbled out onto the cement. he recovered shortly after a few tears, a lot of tlc from mama & continues on as our fearless little wanderer. i felt horrible & michael reminded me that it is going to be one of many. oh the life as a mother of a son. a schweitzberger at that ;)

with the little man on the move, constantly. we have made a makeshift corral in our living room by sliding the ottoman in place of the walkway to the kitchen. which gives him ample room to explore, but it just doesn't work keeping him gated in all day. i mean, our house is not a mansion (i know that comes as quite a shocker) so i try to let him find new places in the house to explore while i can keep a closer eye on him.  the other day we discovered our spare bathroom. he just sits in there & giggles...at i don't know what exactly but he thinks it's the bee's knees. he usually checks out the crate & barrel magazine & unrolls the toilet paper roll. which i actually find less annoying than when mike pulls out a new roll without replacing the old one.

and lastly, i apologize if you find it inappropriate, but we have been laughing about this for weeks now. so, the blinds above our sink get filthy if the windows are open & the mountain dust flies into the house. which is usually a daily thing, so they are never clean. about a month ago, i had had enough & took out all the wooden slats to clean them. well, the tenants prior to us apparently had the pulling system all messed up & i couldn't get them back in even. so i pulled up the strings & said forget it. the strings just dangle there in quite a hilarious formation. and this is what reflects on our wall for about 2 hours everyday =) 

funk soul baby.

so the last four days we have been surrounded by music, art, great food & very hot colorado heat! thursday we headed back to the snowmass slope, fanny hill, to hear 'pure prairie league'. oliver did a lot better this time, as we settled further up the slope instead of down closer to the noise, speakers & a lot of people lined up for cheap wine & beer. okay, so we were in "kiddie-land", but such is life these days, right?! oliver loved sitting quietly on the blanky watching all the rambunxious children chase each other & squeal with glee! he bounces up & down on his lil butt & laughs at them!  music was great & the weather was gorgeous...except for the looming storms we spotted all around us. we thought we were going to dodge the wet zone but of course, it started dumping rain, lightning & thundering. being surrounded by ski lifts protruding high into the air, we quickly threw our stuff together & bee-lined it to the car. by the time we were settled in our seats, the rain stopped. so, the night was cut a bit short, despite the great time it was. i am becoming a habitual memory card forgetter lately too...no shots from pure prairie league.

the rest of the weekend was mountain fair over in carbondale, a quick drive north for us. we literally spent the whole weekend there. friday evening we headed over for some great tunes & to check out what the fair had to offer. all sorts of vendors including awesome artists, photographers & of course the little tents set up of random stuff such as the most exsquisite belt buckles you've ever seen. saturday, we spent more time checking out local art & photography booths & witnessed my first women's logsplitting contest. michael was the mc...

hahaha just kidding! later that night we settled in front of the stage for more music, food & oliver boogying to the tunes. he had such a great time...but the poor kid would not dare nap, even though his eyes were half shut & he had lost most of his pep. he just didn't want to miss a thing! we finally packed up & left to give the poor guy a rest...& he slept good! sunday we concluded our mountain fair experience watching our friend paul in the horseshoe competition. the weather was blazing & we were tired from constantly going going going, that we headed back to basalt for some r&r. and now today...we have continued in that same fashion. lazy day recovering. overall, it was a great experience & can't wait until next year!

everytime oliver plays in the grass he has a small obsession with eating it...

and it's not a hippie mountain town fest without tie-dye =)

i have no words for this one!

skeletor bike! took these for my parents...

my favorite metal artist...this guy does amazing work!

oliver climbed into the knocked over kelty pack & made his own little space to hang =)

rainbows on our way home saturday!

still learning the camping ropes.

we decided on friday to take a little trip away from basalt & camp again. we decided to just head to the same destination we had previously been to, about an hour away. and keeping it close was a great idea. the boys headed up earlier to get things set up & i arrived a couple of hours later. i was actually surprised to see that the tent & hammock were set up when i got there. i wasn't sure if oliver was going to let dad do anything, but he did! they even went on a hike around the campground before i got there also. the weather was hot hot hot! one thing we don't deal with here, like we did back in the flatlands of iowa, humidity! other than the fact that you feel like the sun is 5 feet away, there's no moisture in the air. so we finished setting everything up, grilled some sweet corn & watched daddy fish for a while. we put oliver down around 9ish & although he fought it a bit...he fell asleep. mike & i sat around the fire for a while & then retired about midnight. and then came the fireworks show. almost immediately after we layed down our heads, o woke up screaming & crying. nightmares? no. hungry? i fed him, he ate, was happy for a couple of minutes, then again, screaming & crying. the poor guy was miserable. with all other options ruled out, we concluded his bothersome eager teeth were at it again. sore gums & everything we could possibly give him w/out od'ing our son...he was just plain miserable! but mind you, we were in the great outdoors, surrounded by other sleepy campers...at midnight...we couldn't have our little bearcat waking up the tri-state area. we took him to the car to hopefully drown out his cries. took him on a drive. as a parent, this is honestly a point where you feel totally helpless...& it sucks! the only thing he could do was cry out in pain. and he was sooooo sleepy. at about 1 o'clock, as he was finally starting to settle a bit, i gave the ultimatum...either i was taking him back down the mountain home or i was going back to the tent to sleep. mike waved me on to sleep, so i did. and he stayed with oliver in the car...& to my surprise, they slept there the rest of the night. oh wait...no they didn't sleep! mike ended up having to take him on another drive up the mountain & by the time he finally put his aching sleepy baby body to rest...it was 4 aM. i woke up sometime before the sun came up, thinking oliver was going to be needing a bottle. i was honestly surprised that they did sleep in the car because i was going to attempt that with him, but ruled it was going to be the most uncomfortable thing since my first ob exam. there they were...mike in the passenger seat, oliver on his belly & a blankey covering them both head to toe. a very sweet sight. until mike woke up & explained to me their both very painful evening. poor little man. so we started our day, apologizing to the other families surrounding us for our maniac teething baby boy. fortunately, no one hear him & us in the middle of the night. and i think everyone mike talked to, suggested to us to put whiskey on his gums. ha! i guess it is a tried & true tale. anyway, we haven't tried it, but we haven't ruled it out! so after our nightmare of a first night camping, i had had enough (you know me & camping...i struggle to enjoy it in the first place). i made the executive decision to take oliver home for the night so he could possibly find some peace. mike stayed to have a peaceful night in his great outdoors alone...he's so in his element & i think a night a part was good ;) i was bored out of my mind back home though, but i made it through, oliver had a better night & we camped out ourselves in the living room. just like we used to at my grandma & grandpa's.
so when is our next camping trip you ask...well...it's something i'm not going to suggest for a while ha! i know it won't always be a repetetive experience because oliver loves the outdoors...but maybe we just need to cool it until he has this teething thing out of the way =( oh & ps...i forgot my camera this trip so i have no photographic memories to share with you..maybe that was a good thing.
i do however have a fun bunch that i took when we were living room camping...& i apologize to oliver for all of his photos in his owl onesie...haha...i always make him wear it because i love it so much & i nicknamed him 'owlie olly' that weekend =) hoot hoot.

splish splash i was taking a swim.

just taking a morning swim.

he loves to put his face in the water.

and splash =)

journeys.

recently, we took a short journey to the park together as a family.

best oliver & daddy photo...ever!!!

and then yesterday...we went on a 30 mile journey on the bicycles...no big deal...haha!  yeah right!  i am in so much pain! the whole time, i thought, i would be a horrible ragbrai-er. those of you not from iowa & not familiar with ragbrai...it's the Register's (newspaper) Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.  it takes place every summer, stretching across the state, with various stopping points, from the missouri to the mississippi rivers. i have never participated in it, always thought that i would one day, but now that i journeyed only the equivelant to one day's stretch (it takes place over the span of a week...i'm not so sure i could hack it ;) we rode from basalt to woody creek. we stopped for lunch in woody creek before turning back around. here's oliver just lounging around checking out the scene.

and this is an old train car someone has turned into their home...a unique mobile home if you will. michael's pretty obsessed with it...if you can imagine that!

and the final journey is my own. as you may or may have not noticed, i have remodeled the michaeleyna blog. i have also created a new blog, dedicated to my journey to heal. i did not want to turn this blog, dedicated to my family, into an emotional smog, so therefore i have created a different space to do so =) click on the 'another day in luckyville' link above to find out what i'm talking about, & i invite you to follow as well =)