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So we’ve been in Chicago since Monday to visit family so that they too can welcome Jayden into the world, and now we’re at the tail end of our mini vacation. Before we made our way to Chicago, we talked about spending every day taking Jayden to millions of places and showing him the exciting city of Chicago. Wanna know what we’ve done so far since we’ve been up here?

Monday - slept
Tuesday - slept
Wednesday - slept
Thursday - slept
Friday - took Jayden downtown to Lake Shore Drive
Today - slept

(somewhere in between all of those “slept”’s, we ate, used the bathroom a few times, and slept some more)

I’m sorry, but when you factor in a week off of work with tons of family wanting to spend time with Jayden (aka babysit him), you better believe we’re going to catch up on those countless hours of sleep we haven’t been getting! Over the past couple of weeks, Jayden’s sleeping patterns have been backwards. He’ll wake up around 2AM in the morning wanting to play, and won’t go back to sleep until about 7AM. So basically, around the time that Mommy and I are going to sleep, Jayden is waking up. So we’re currently working on turning that around!

In other news, our little one has broken out in what seems to be baby acne. He started getting red bumps on his right cheek during our first couple of days in Chicago, and they spread to his forehead and parts of his left cheek shortly thereafter. We’re thinking the detergent my mother used on the sheets in the bed we’re sleeping in could be the culprit (yes, we co-sleep, and please, no unsolicited baby advice!), or maybe something or someone he has come into contact with since he’s in a new environment. We’re not totally sure, so we’re going to see if they start to clear up once we get back home. Anyone have any experience with baby acne, feel free to chime in! Edit: We wash all of our laundry in Dreft detergent, wipe Jayden’s face with just water, and bathe him in Aveeno baby products! Forgot to mention that!

Thanks to everyone who congratulated us on the engagement! Just to clear up any confusion: I know I’ve commented on some of you guys’ blogs claiming Mommy as my finacee’ way before our engagement on Sunday. We had considered ourselves engaged for about a year prior to Sunday, but never really considered it “official” until a ring was on her finger. The boyfriend/girlfriend title just didn’t fit us anymore, as we felt we were way past that, but I just wasn’t in a financial position to purchase a ring back then. Now I am (sort of), so now it’s “official”!

So tomorrow we plan on heading back downtown and getting more pictures of Jayden in the Windy City. Hopefully it won’t be too cool. Anyone who’s from Chicago knows that Chicago weather is unpredictable. What the weatherman says means nada. We plan on getting the pictures we’ve taken over the past week and the ones we take tomorrow uploaded and posted tomorrow… that is, if we don’t sleep the day away again. So see you guys here tomorrow! Hopefully.

By the way, can anyone recommend any good video editing software/programs? I’ve finally put my new camcorder to use and shot a few videos of Jayden. Now it’s time for the editing and uploading part.

By the way again, this is actually our 100th post. Eh, we planned on making a big deal out of it, but those plans kind of subsided since we just realized that this was our 100th post 10 minutes ago. I was thinking of doing something along the lines of what BusyDad did, but I’m not that creative (plus I couldn’t think of 100 things about me, I got stuck at 12). So, I guess I’ll just say, Happy 100th Post!

So we finally have time to send out thank you cards along with Jayden’s birth announcements, but we have a problem…

At the baby shower Daddy’s great aunt kept a tab on gifts by writing them down on paper. Thing is, she wasn’t descriptive with outfits. What do you do when almost everyone bought a pack of onesies and blue layette sets, lol? What do you write in a thank you card to someone who you can’t remember what they bought?

How do you say Thank you for sharing such a special day with us! We forgot what the heck you bought us, but we appreciate it! without sounding canned?

Hi guys, Mommy here! I just wanted to let you all know that our baby shower was Saturday, we are so pooped. It was a great turnout! I won’t get into details, save that for another post. We are still at our folks’ houses (5hrs away from where we live) and we’re having some car trouble. We have a lot lined up for Mommy Daddy Blog, but we just can’t get to it at the moment, sorry! Hoping we can get caught up this week, commenters and 5 Minutes For Mom partiers we haven’t forgotten about you! We’ll get back into the groove of things as soon as things settle down. So stay tuned!

If you’re a frequenter of Sophistishe.Org (Mommy’s personal blog), heard of our store Hounie’s Haven (currently on hiatus), or know us in real life, you’ve probably seen/heard us use the word “Hounie” quite a few times. So, what the heck is “Hounie”? Since Mommy and I frequently use the word “Hounie”, it will most likely pop up here on Mommy Daddy Blog a few times. So I thought I’d create a post explaining what “Hounie” is so I won’t have to explain it every time I say it in the future (like I did in this post). So, without further ado…

So, what the heck is “Hounie”?

“Hounie” dates back to the days when Mommy was in college and I was in high school. I would visit Mommy whenever I had the chance. I didn’t have a car back then and we hated walking, so we’d typically spend the days together in Mommy’s dorm room. I also didn’t have a laptop, but Mommy did. So we’d share Mommy’s laptop between the two of us. At that time, I had a little stint going in internet marketing, so I constantly wanted to check to see if I had made any money (I never did). And since it was Mommy’s laptop, and she had papers and other college stuff to work on, she had priority over it. But occasionally, I’d a get a little impatient, and I’d start nagging her to let me on the laptop. Now some time a few months before, I had started calling her “Honey”, which stemmed from me calling her “Honey Buns” (I won’t explain why I called her that, I’d like to keep this blog G rated!). So whenever I started to get impatient, I’d say, “Hoooooooneeeeeeey! Let me on the laaaaaaptoooooooop!” Yes, it was as annoying as it sounds! I’ll admit! And I didn’t pronounce the word “honey” how it’s usually pronounced. I threw in some different sounds to add to the annoying factor (I’m such a cool guy!), and thus spawned the word “Hounie”! For odd some reason, somewhere down the line, we took that word I used to annoy the hell out of Mommy with, and we turned it into the complete opposite. We now use the word as a gesture for love for each other. Just as other couples use “sweetie”, “dear”, and of course, “honey”, we use “Hounie”!

So, how the heck is “Hounie” pronounced?

It is very difficult to explain how “Hounie” is pronounced and you’ll probably still be in the same boat even after I try my best to explain it. The difficulty falls within the first syllable, “Hou”. The best way that I can explain how “Hou” is pronounced is by comparing it to the name, “Noah”. The “Hou” in “Hounie” sounds a little like the “oah” in “Noah”. But where “oah” would be pronounced as two syllables (oh-uh), they are blended into one syllable (ouh) in “Hou”. Just try saying Ho-uh or Hoah really, really fast. That’s how “Hou” is pronounced. Get my drift? Yep, like I said, still in the same boat as before. As for the “nie” in “Hounie”, it’s not as difficult to pronounce. It’s pronounced “nee”, exactly like the word “knee”. That part was pretty simple, right?

So, why the heck can’t we just use “honey”?

We’re unique. We’re special. We’re different. I don’t know! Someone call Robert Stack, we’re an unsolved mystery! I do know one thing though, I’ve discovered that whenever I’ve done something wrong, Mommy calls me by my name instead of “Hounie”. Remember when you were a kid and your mom would call you by your full name whenever you were in trouble? “Christopher Cornelius Harrison the third! Get your butt here now!” That’s how it is with Mommy and I. Whenever I hear “Greg!”, I know that I’ve either left the toilet seat up, or I accidentally fed those nasty green beans she made for dinner to our dog. I swear they fell off my plate!

So, what the heck do you use?

I know Mommy and I aren’t the only weird ones that use made-up words to call each other. So how about you? Do you and your spouse/fiance/boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever have any special made-up names for each other?