Done!

This was Monday's post and I just didn't get it up. It's been a hard week! I tend not to want to write about the not so fun times, but I actually like reading other people's blogs about the harder times because then I know it's not just me going through them! So, for my comfort and yours, here's Monday's post.

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Today has been a hard day and I have to say that I have just had it! I'm done. Finished. Finito. Giving my two week Mommy resignation. Except I won't last that long. It's gonna have to be a two hour resignation. Scratch that. James actually got a twenty minute resignation notice today. He called on his way home from work and I told him I was headed to bed and he would find Ian in the Pack N Play watching Veggie Tales. Wait - I didn't even tell him the latter. I just told him I was headed to bed and said bye and then let him find Ian safe and sound and watching Veggie Tales when he got home. That's how done I was. Fortunately, my sweetheart of a hubby came home and took care of the baby without so much as a word about me leaving him in the Pack N Play and let me catch a good hour nap before work.

You want to know what I am done with? Just for the record of course...

I am so done with...

* a certain child, who shall remain nameless, who is only taking two thirty minute naps a day and will not go back to sleep no matter what tactic Momma tries.

* a year of not having more than three hours of continuous sleep. My body doesn't even know which way is up right now. I have tried twice to go to bed early this week (7pm!!) and I ended up waking up at 9:30. Couldn't go back to sleep until 3 or 4. Ian got up at 6:30. Umm...yeah. That's not a good way to catch up on sleep!

* the kicking and squirming that comes from a very active little boy who wants to nurse, but doesn't want to stop playing while he nurses. He loves to tap kick his foot on Mommy's arm and feel her hair and touch her mouth and bang his hand on her shoulder or hold her hand and bang it around. You get the idea.

* nursing. I am actually done with nursing (figuratively, not literally). For all of the above reasons. I feel like a punching bag every time Ian nurses, except in the middle of the night. Then he is very sweet. That's one major reason we haven't totally sleep trained at night yet. I either have to pump or nurse and I'd much rather nurse my sweet, sleepy little boy instead of having to wash pump attachments. Both nursing and pumping take about the same time - I'll take nursing. But only in the middle of the night.

* teething. Ian was doing sooooo good not biting me. Enter new tooth trying to poke up. Ugg! It is really painful - he has sharp teeth. I have bruises on my shoulder again. I've gotten pretty good about catching him before he bites when nursing, so that hasn't been as big of a problem. But I'm tired of my shoulder being a chew toy.

* food flinging. Ian can be very methodical in his playing and eating. Often, if he feels like there is too much food on his high chair (i.e. 10 Cheerios), he will fling all but 1 of them off his tray. Then he will eat that one and ask for more. Do you know how long it takes to feed a toddler snack one Cheerio at a time???? Ayiyi! And of course, all food that is healthy for you (veggies, fruits, etc) make a mess when flung. Makes this Momma not want to feed the child anything but Cheerios and Rice Chex some days!

* feeding in general. Ian used to love being able to pick up food off his tray and feed himself. Avocado, peaches, whatever. He would pick them up and eat 'em! He has recently decided to boycott picking up anything that has a wet or slippery texture. Ummm - that's just about everything healthy for him! I was actually starting to get worried about his nutritional intake until I started spoon feeding him everything again. Fortunately, he will take most of it off of a spoon. However, spoon feeding the child (who likes to take each piece of fruit or whatever back out of his mouth after you have put it in with a spoon and look at it - I guess the no wet texture thing doesn't apply if it comes out of his own mouth!) takes FOREVER! And I am back to not getting to eat meals at the same time as everyone else. Done, done, done!

* changing unnamed child, who has recently decided laying still on the changing table (or floor or wherever) is against the toddler code of conduct. Sigh. Massive struggles ensue. Mommy always wins, but not without tears, bribes, and as many crazy, silly songs as she can think of. I've had to spank him a few times (lightly on the thigh) while changing dirty diapers so he wouldn't make a mess by rolling over onto the diaper. Neither of us like it, but he can't be rolling over in poop every time he has a dirty diaper!

* my house constantly reverting to tornado status. I clean and clean and it never looks clean. I find Ian's "sorting" absolutely adorable and it definitely keeps him entertained, but I get tired of having to pick it all up all the time. That and managing the inflow/outflow of a household. We only have a 900 sq ft apartment, and open space can fill up quickly with groceries, mail, and projects. I can't wait until we have an extra room to stuff it all in (not the groceries, of course!).

* laundry. Washing it isn't the problem (usually). It's getting it folded/hung and put away afterwards. I have laundry on my couch that has been sitting there for a week. Again, in a small space, it makes it look pretty messy in here!

Well, there you have it. The major reasons for my Mommy resignation, which lasted all of one hour while I took a nap. Then I got up, got my boys dinner, and went to work. Such is life. Thank goodness for that hour off though! And no matter how many temporary resignations I take, I could never permanently retire from this.

Bluebonnets!

It took me a week, but I finally got our bluebonnet pictures set to a really cute song! I had lots of problems with it initially and couldn't figure out what was wrong. It only took my very tech savvy hubby two seconds to figure out the problem and another five to fix it. Sigh. Wish I could do that!

Chione, a friend of mine with a beautiful five week old baby girl, had taken recent bluebonnet pictures and was able to tell us a great place to go that is close by. So last Thursday, we got into our bluebonnet outfits (yes, I coordinated bluebonnet outfits for us...my hubby was thrilled too...let me tell ya!) and jumped in the car on a whim. We found the bluebonnet coated embankment without too much trouble and proceeded to wade through the knee high grasses and bluebonnets to get to the middle of it. I had no idea they grew so tall!

We took our pictures and headed back to the car. I had been very careful to look for snakes since I had heard they could nest among the weeds, but I didn't consider another possible hazard - allergies. That's right - good ole weed allergies. I had been kneeling in the grasses in a skirt and my lower legs broke out in major hives as we hiked back to the car. I was sneezing, my eyes were watering, and I was feeling short of breath. And, of course, I didn't have any allergy medicine with me so we had to make an emergency stop at Target on the way home. So lesson learned - if you have weed/grass allergies, wear long pants for bluebonnet pictures!

We still had a lot of fun though. I am so glad we live in a part of Texas that has such beautiful bluebonnets!

Fridge Fun and a Surprise!

This afternoon, I was in the living room working on putting together Ian's new carseat. Ian was puttering around back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. I had just heard the pots and pans clanging, so I had assuming he was crawling back my way. I glanced towards the kitchen to see if he was coming and noticed the fridge door was open. Thinking I must not have shut it tightly, I got up to go close it. Lo and behold, my little munchkin had somehow opened the door and wedged himself between the door and the rest of the fridge where I couldn't see him from the living room! I don't think he was trying to hide - he just hadn't pushed the door open all the way.

He was happily playing with the inner contents of the fridge, something he had only had quick glimpses and feels of whenever Daddy or I happened to open the fridge door to get something. It was a whole new world for him! After I noticed him, he pushed the door open wider and started pulling contents off the shelves. The milk was one of the first things to come out (it was closest to him).

And then the chocolate syrup - time for chocolate milk, I guess! (Funny story - James said the other day when he opened the fridge, Ian stood looking at the bottom door shelf for a little while and then very carefully selected the chocolate syrup. He then, also very carefully, put it on the bottom main shelf of the fridge. James said it was funny to watch how seriously he took his task of moving the chocolate syrup bottle!)

Grabbing the bottle. (It really is funny since he has never had chocolate milk and we don't give him chocolate syrup hardly ever...he must just like the bottle).

Flinging it to the ground.

Wheee! There it goes.

Hmmm...that was fun! What next? At least, that was the look in his eyes as he started grabbing for more. At that point, Momma decided it was time to be done playing in the fridge!

Do you remember the post on how Ian likes to use his mouth as a third hand to carry stuff, especially his rubby ducky? Well, he recently found a pacifier in his toy box and has started crawling around the house with it in his mouth. It is kind of funny because he doesn't use it as a pacifier...in fact, I don't know if he even remembers the couple of months where he did use one to go to sleep.

He went to go help wake up Daddy with it in his mouth too. I know, I know - it's probably just one of those things I find cute 'cause I'm his Momma! Sometimes, instead of putting it in his mouth, he will roll the pacifier around the house as he crawls along behind it. It's so much fun to watch him.

Alrighty! I bet you are wondering what the surprise is! Well, this afternoon we got a phone call from Aunt Julie's home phone. I was in the middle of making lunch and had to call right back. Much to my surprise, I learned that Grandaddy was in town helping Aunt Julie with a ton of handyman projects. Those two knocked out an incredible amount of upgrades/renovations on Aunt Julie's house - right down to the kitchen sink! On top of all that hard work, they were willing to drive out to see us (because of James' schedule he wouldn't have had time today to go out there). We were so happy to see them!!

Grandaddy is a pretty fun guy!

Ian had to study him for a few minutes, but warmed right up and had a blast hanging out with Grandaddy and Grant (great + aunt = grant) Julie!

Ian cuddled right up with Grandaddy for his bottle. And Grandaddy did a great job making sure Ian had the right end in his mouth (he kept trying to turn it to chew on the bottom!).

Grandaddy read Ian story after story and sang him songs. We had such a good time!

Thank you so much for coming to visit us, Grandaddy and Grant Julie! It was the highlight of our day! We love you both so much!

Laura's Song

As one of Laura's birthday gifts, I (James) am writing the blog tonight to share another birthday gift (per her request) - a song I wrote for her.

I wrote the song last summer. The melody had been floating around in my head for several years. I can't recall if I heard it somewhere or if I created it on my own. (I'm always making up melodies; some stick with me and others fade away as soon as I've finished singing them.) So if I have semi-plagiarized in any way, my apologies to the original composer. I hope you will appreciate the fact that your melody has inspired a husband's love song to his wife.

Anyway, I sang the song for her when I first wrote it. For Valentine's Day this year, I wrote up the string & piano accompaniment (played on the computer), and I sang along with it. I had wanted to record myself singing to it, but I was sick for weeks on end, and my voice sounded so raspy I could never get a good recording. Well, for her birthday, I finally got my voice recorded and mixed with the accompaniment. As you will hear, I'm definitely not Perry Como or Nat King Cole, but Laura still likes it, and that's all that matters.

The picture on the audio clip was taken by our wonderful photographer, Kay McIntire, at the Dallas Arboreteum. It is one of our favorite photos and is on a canvas print hanging above our sofa at home. Here is the song... Enjoy!



Happy Birthday, Laura! I love you!

--James

Daddy's Little Monster

James has long had a love of classical horror films. He gets super energized when he recounts scenes between Godzilla and the smog monster or tell tales of Frankenstein, Dracula, and the werewolf. He has a huge collection of old B horror films (which are not particularly scary) and enjoys learning about all the behind the scenes makings of current horror films.

So, it doesn't surprise me at all that he is passing his love of the horror classics onto Ian. What does surprise me is how much Ian loves it, especially at such a young age! Daddy can make some super funky faces, and Ian loves them! I can see why though - they are pretty entertaining.

One of Ian and my favorite faces is Daddy's werewolf. The very first time Daddy showed Ian, I thought he was going to freak out. It was my first time seeing the face too, and it was actually kind of scary. But, no - Daddy's little monster just bust out laughing at the werewolf face and couldn't stop! Unfortunately, I didn't catch that on camera. On April 1, I convinced Daddy to do his face for the camera. It was right before bedtime, so Ian is kind of tired and isn't laughing as hard as he normally does, but you'll get the gist of it.



I almost forgot to mention - shhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Daddy doesn't know I posted this video of him (he thinks his werewolf face is ridiculous and might want me to take it down if he knew). So, for Ian and my sake, don't tell Daddy! That way we can come back and watch our favorite werewolf over and over again. :-)

Mommy's Little Bookworm

For a while, I was a little concerned that we would have to force Ian to read books as he got older. He just wasn't that interested in them. I would see pictures of other babies his age happily looking at books and wonder if Ian was going to go the way of the video game instead. But, at about seven months, he suddenly started being interested in books. Now, he LOVES to read and to be read to (just like his Mommy and Daddy).

I'm a bit behind in posting these particular pictures of my little bookworm. These were taken when he was nine months old. I caught him happily laying on the floor reading books one morning.

He loves to look at more than one book at a time.

Sometimes it is just so hard to choose which one to read first!

So he usually does a taste test to help him pick.

Yup - that's a good solid book!

What a cutie!! I love this!

I had to sneak in this picture of his "Property of Mom" outfit too, so you can see that he is indeed his momma's baby!

The rest of these pictures were taken when he was ten months old. Here he is reading by the back door. Haha - I think he was waiting on Mommy to take out the little Christmas tree and santa hats and put them in the outside storage closet.

Reading Pat the Bunny before bedtime. This is one of my favorite kiddo books.

Mommy left her Bible on the floor one day, so of course Ian had to go investigate this new book.

Looking at the maps. He's looking up at me about to "ask" what all that stuff is...haha.

Auntie Liz called, so he multitasked for a little bit by talking on the phone and reading!

He also loves to read in his Pack N Play. He will sit back against the large stuffed elephant Uncle Mike gave to Mommy for her birthday one year and read his books.

At first, Ian could hardly get the pages of his books open. Now he will sit there and turn the pages one by one. Often he "reads" them aloud to himself. On the books that have different textures, he knows where to touch on the pages to feel them. It's so fun watching his little motor skills develop! We're looking forward to all the books we will be able to share with him over the years.

Recap: Weeks 1-20

I didn't keep a journal while I was pregnant because I didn't feel like I had anything to write down. I mean, who wants to write "vomited 5 times today" or "couldn't even keep water down" every day for fifteen weeks? Now though, I kind of wish I had so I could see exactly how the HG progressed at different stages. I decided to go ahead and write it all down while I still remember most of it. So here goes the recap of how it all came down (or up in my case!).

Week 5: Found out we were pregnant...yay!

Week 6: Queasiness hit on Day 1 and lasted all week. Up until then, hadn't experienced it at all. Thought...hmmm, maybe this is what morning sickness is like (read: 1st degree nausea).

Week 7: Day 1 brought 7 episodes of vomiting starting around 6am. Lucky me was in a car all day from St. Louis to Texas returning from a family reunion. I have such a sweet family! They put up with my vomiting the whole way. Day 2-7 brought even more vomiting, although I don't think I hit 7 times in one day again.

Week 8: Called the doctor's office to let them know I couldn't keep anything down. They called in Phenegran for me. It reduced the number of times I vomited slightly, but it also made my stomach hurt really badly.

Week 9 & 10: Missed quite a bit of work. In fact, work said I had to have the doctor write a note saying I could go back to work. Decided to change my schedule to just one day a week until I knew I could reliably show up for my shifts to prevent the company from having to take any sort of disciplinary action. (Fortunately, I had wonderful, supportive bosses, but they were still required to maintain a certain attendance percentage for their employees.)

Week 10: Day 7 (Saturday) I just couldn't deal with not being able to keep anything down any more, so we called the dr's office. The answering service paged the doctor and he called the hospital for a pre-admit and had me stay overnight for IV hydration.

Week 11: Day 1 - left the hospital after one night. Thought about begging to stay a second night because the IV hydration had helped so much. Day 2 & 3 were some of the best I had had in a looong time. Felt so much better. Day 4 it all started going downhill again (...up in my case I guess - sorry, couldn't resist saying that again). I did get to have a sonogram that week, which was nice. Our little bean measured all of one inch then. He was waving his little arms during the sonogram - either signing or drumming...or both! It was so cute to see.


Week 12-14: Ugg, ugg, ugg. I was in bed by 9pm and couldn't hardly get out until after noon the next day. 6-10pm was my peak time, when I could pretend I just had 1st degree nausea and function a bit more normally.

Week 13: Days 1- 6 I only left the house for my one four hour shift - could not do any of the other pre-Thanksgiving errands I had on my list. Because it was the end of the first trimester, I had thought I would be feeling better (as everyone had promised me), so I had bid for hours on both Saturday (Day 7) and Sunday (Week 14, Day 1). Big mistake! I barely made it through the weekend.

Week 14: I knew something was wrong - this wasn't regular morning sickness - so I did a bit of research before my ob appointment. I had vaguely remembered the ob saying something about hyperemesis when I was at the hospital at 10 weeks and decided to google hyperemesis. I came across the wonderful site hyperemesis.org (also known as helpher.org) and found an amazing checklist of things you might be concerned about if you have hyperemesis. Of about twenty items, I checked "yes" to almost all of them. This was a huge turning point for me. I wasn't going crazy after all. My concerns were founded on something other than first time mother worry. And I had something solid regarding treatment to discuss with the ob.

Week 15: Had another ob's appointment. He told me to come back in a month and I would have gained ten pounds. This time, that didn't fly. As a result of my research from the previous week, I was able to ask for more aggressive treatment and get hooked up with a portable IV pump through Matria (home health care) on Day 3.

Week 16: Got to speak with a WONDERFUL nutritionist on staff at Matria. She was the first person to understand that I couldn't keep saltines and ginger ale down. In fact, she was even able to explain that the saliva production required to digest the saltines was probably triggering the hyperemetic episodes. She suggested little peach and pear fruit cups as they are fairly easy to digest. This was a huge turning point for me! I think I had fifteen of those the first twenty-four hours - I felt like I had been starving and finally given food.

Week 17 & 18: Struggled with the Reglan that was being used instead of Zofran. I wasn't puking as much, but still had incredibly strong, debilitating nausea. I had also read that Reglan wasn't intended for long term use and could cause serious depression. I wasn't too worried about it at the time since I felt fine mentally. We also found out the baby was a boy and I made James pick a name for him that same day. I desperately needed something to hold onto - a way to bond with this baby that was making me so sick.

It's a boy!!! He's sticking his tongue out in this picture.


Week 19: The depressive effects of the Reglan started to kick in. Since the Reglan wasn't really helping anyways, Matria decided to go ahead and use Zofran. Of course, insurance wasn't happy since Zofran is so much more expensive. But the Zofran did work better, even though I was still pretty nauseous.

Week 20: Had to have a root canal done on a back molar. I had gone to the dentist about two weeks before I found out I was pregnant and discovered the cavity then. However, the dentist couldn't do anything about it during the first trimester and by the time I felt like I could go in and not throw up all over the guy, it had gotten to the root canal stage. Sigh. However, as I was laying back in the dentist's chair trying hard to think positive thoughts about not puking on him, I had a memorable bonding moment with Ian. In my mind, I was telling him that we would make it through this appointment and get to go home and rest. Up until then, even though I would never have said so, I had kind of felt like he was part of the problem. From that point on though, it was him and me against the HG monster. We were fighting it together and were going to make it through together.

One Little Bug

One little bug is still all it takes to get me thinking about hyperemesis again. Unfortunately, I picked up a stomach bug somewhere about three weeks ago and had about four hours of misery before it tapered off into queasiness that lasted a couple of days. The bug before this one wasn't quite as bad. Four hours and I started feeling much better. No lingering nausea. Maybe that was the difference this time. That and the blood vessels under my eyes that burst from the force of vomiting. Both of those are strong reminders of what hyperemesis really was like for me. (Although this time, having just recently seen Avatar, I thought the dots of broken blood vessels under my eyes would have been kind of cute if they had glowed.)

So here we go again. More of musings on hyperemesis. If you are tired of the subject, please don't feel the need to read. I had several different trains of thoughts this time through the stomach bug and I think it will help me to list them.

1. As I was tossing veggies (instead of cookies...haha), I started thinking that the word "nausea" is pretty inadequate in describing the range of stomach upset, especially in pregnancy. I started to think that maybe it should be sub-divided into two categories: inconveninet nausea and debilitating nausea. I mentioned this to James and he agreed. In fact, he said perhaps it should be divided into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees depending on how debilitating it is. I thought that was a great idea. That would make things so much easier to communicate and perhaps help standardize the level of treatment needed.

I think that was one of the hardest things I had to deal with during the pregnancy was trying to communicate how nauseous I was. For me, the nausea was debilitating. I couldn't get out of bed or I would vomit. There were times I couldn't talk or I would vomit (James and I had several of our daily conversations using instant messaging so I didn't have to talk). I couldn't run errands, I couldn't work but four hours a week (because I had to talk at work), and I couldn't communicate how bad I felt (that too required talking). When I would mention I was nauseous, I had several well-intentioned people who offered all sorts of remedies because they thought they understood what I was saying. And how could they not? I appreciated their sympathies, but it became clear we weren't talking about the same kind of nausea. Almost all pregnancies include some level of nausea - and that nausea is often an indicator of a healthy pregnancy. But if I were able to say that I was experiencing 3rd degree nausea, those who had only had 1st degree nausea would (hopefully) instantly know it wasn't the same thing and that Saltines and ginger ale would most definitely not help reduce the nausea.

2. I also realized another important differentiation during this last little bug. While I was pregnant, it was hard to explain how I could be so sick, yet still able to function on some level. Honestly, it even confused me. How could I be that sick if I could function on any level at all? Did I even have the right to say I was really sick if I could make it to the store occasionally? I wondered this about other HGers that I read about too - many of them noticed some relief around twenty weeks. It finally clicked though. Severe HG is actually incapacitating, while moderate HG is debilitating. I wasn't stuck in bed for nine months hooked up to an IV (thank goodness!), but I had some serious limitations on my capacity to be out and about. I think in some ways, having a debilitating condition instead of an incapacitating is hard on family and friends because they see you can function to some degree and might not know or understand your limitations.

3. Along these lines, I realized that the confusion of capacity probably continued to happen in my case when my level of debilitation lessened after I got the pump at 15 weeks and started being able to function on a slightly higher level. I still rarely got out of bed before noon, but I could run a few errands and spend more quality time doing things when I wasn't in bed. I still couldn't work much more since my main job required more talking than I could handle. I know this stage must have been frustrating to some people. It was to me. It looked like I could do more, so it seemed like I should be working more. But in reality, errands were extremely flexible. If I had a bad day, James either ran the errand for me, or whatever it was waited. It was also holiday season, so the extra traveling and holiday activities (even though we really cut down how much we did) still was pretty taxing. It just is frustrating for me to know that there are probably still a few people who think I could have done more (and sometimes I find myself being one of those people). I am pretty strong-willed in some ways, and I also tend to be a people pleaser. Those two traits aren't always the best combination because it means I can usually find some way to please most people, even if it means totally taxing all reserves I have. With most of those reserves completely diminished, I didn't have the ability to meet certain expectations or to even communicate about those expectations. Frustrating! It was especially hard for me since we were trying to navigate a career path for James and I wasn't up to some of the communication that would have smoothed things over better with family as they rode out that journey with us.

4. I've always had something of a strong, independent nature when it comes to dealing with hardships. I tend to put my head to the wind and trudge through on my own as much as possible. I don't like having to bring others into hard situations and have a hard time asking for help. These character traits were vital for making it through the pregnancy, but horrible for communicating what was really happening. When I felt well enough to talk, I didn't want to talk about how bad I felt. I found out after the pregnancy that some family members would get off the phone with me and have no idea how horrible I was feeling. This wasn't intentional on my part - I guess I just internalized a lot of it and didn't think about explaining the rest of it. Part of it was that I didn't know what to explain...I didn't even really understand what was going on. I also just assumed what was happening was obvious (as far as not feeling well) that I didn't really need to explain. People who knew me really well knew something major was wrong, but a lot of people were unintentionally left in the dark. So, for next time, I plan on having more educational materials at hand for all of us.

Here's a few random pictures...I went looking to see if I could find any that showed me sick. But, I guess I didn't really taken any (wonder why...haha!). So here's a pictures from Thanksgiving showing off my pump.

And one from Christmas. To me, I look pale in both of these pictures, but then I always look pale in pix!

There you have it - musings from a bug. As always when I reflect on these things, I have to say the experience was totally worth it to get this little munchkin!

Good Night, Sleep Tight

We were so thrilled when Ian started sleeping through the night at eight weeks on his own. We really didn't feel like we had done anything special to make that wonderful 12 hours of sleep happen, so we were excited that he got the hang of it so quickly. We had been forewarned about sleep patterns changing around four months and were not altogether too surprised when he started waking up in the middle of the night again at four months (to the day!).

What we didn't expect was how hard it would be to get him to sleep through the night again. Most of the books said that sleep training could begin at four months and suggested that if you follow their methods, baby would indeed sleep through the night. Ha! Ian apparently didn't read the same books Mommy and Daddy were reading. (We did love those books for other reasons - like how Baby Whisperer explained different baby personalities or the basic eat, play, sleep concept suggested in Baby Wise.)

We read a number of different books, but it wasn't until Ian was nine months old (and NOT sleeping through the night) that we came across Marc Weissbluth's book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I was extremely impressed by the amount of sleep study research this pediatrician had done and how accurately it depicted Ian's sleep schedules. This was the first book that I had read that even suggested a baby might wake up to nurse twice in the middle of the night until he was nine months old. Dr. Weissbluth even gave approximate times that those babies tended to wake up. Lo and behold, Ian really was on a schedule! I just didn't know it. That book has been really helpful for us...I wish we had read it before he was born and been able to follow it as his sleep schedules changed according to his age. I also liked the recommendations in this book for sleep training - they matched Ian's personality better than some other methods we had encountered.

All that to say our little boy is finally starting to sleep through the night on his own again! In the last week, he has slept through the night (roughly 7:30-8pm until 5:30 or 6am) about four times. It's very exciting (except having to pump since he isn't nursing in the middle of the night...boo to that). We wish we had a video monitor because I am sure we would capture some adorable scenes from inside the crib. In the meantime, we have found Ian in some pretty cute poses when we have gone in to check on him.

He always starts laying down on his back with his head at the end with the large puppy and his covers on. This was one of the positions I found him in a couple of weeks ago. He had turned to snuggle with his puppy and had one foot up on the headboard bumper (click to make picture larger if you like).

Ian absolutely loves to sleep with his head up against something. That's the main reason we haven't taken his bumper off yet. He likes to snuggle with it. Again, he started in the standard sleeping position and turned this way.

Not that unusual until you notice his blankets. He started out with the car blanket and then the green blanket directly on top of that. Somehow, he managed to move out from underneath the car blanket, but keep the top green blanket on him the right way. How he did that still has us puzzled!

This one has to be one of my favorites. I went to check on him last night at about 2:30am (he slept til 6 - yay!) and found him with his head pressed in the corner of the crib cuddling his bumper. He didn't make a peep all night, so we don't know if he moved over in his sleep (he had nursed himself to sleep last night) or if he woke up and moved over.

Here's another angle...for some reason, I find this absolutely adorable! I used to sleep with my face smushed up in the mesh of the playpen as a baby, so Ian must get it from me.

Sleep tight, little angel! Like Daddy's lullaby for you says - may all your dreams be sweet!

11 Months

I'm not going to lie - as much as I love seeing my baby master new skills, I am really sad that we only have one more month before he turns one! There is no turning back the clock, no prolonging babyhood. Our little baby boy is turning into a toddler right before our eyes!

This last month has brought many new developements and discoveries for Ian. He is having a blast with his newfound mobility (and I can't say I blame him!). At eleven months Ian:

* Really likes to feel his tongue - he is constantly sticking it out and grabbing it.

* Has remembered how to say "Mom" and a variety of other sounds. He has surprised us by perfectly mimicking sounds. Among the words that he has said very clearly this month are Africa (mimicking a toy gorilla he has), thank you (he repeated this very clearly after hearing it over the loudspeaker at Kroger), and "Achoo!" (Momma sneezed and a few seconds later Ian said "Achoo!"). Momma sneezes a lot during this allergy season and sometimes Ian will say "achoo", other times it is just "choo". For the first time the other day, when we were looking at a picture of a dog in his book, he responded with "doof, doof" when I said "woof woof". He also occasionally says "dug" for "duck" and "gag" for "quack".

* Is still wearing a size four diaper and 12 month clothing, but has moved into some 18 month clothing (like this outfit).

* Has tried his great-grandmother's chicken and dumplings, his Nana's banana cream pudding, watermelon, and pineapple pico de gallo this past month - he liked them all. He also mastered using a straw in Capri Suns the very first time we gave him one! (Although he sometimes still thinks he needs to tip the Capri Sun up to get the last bit like in his sippy cups.)

* Likes to take the spoon in his own hand every time we use one for a meal. That means Momma has to dip the spoon in apple sauce (or whatever), hand it to Ian, who takes it from Momma and puts it in his own mouth. Then he hands it back to Momma or drops it on his tray and we start all over again. Of course, this takes forever, but we like to encourage his independence!

He is so cute - he loves to tip his head back and suck off every last drop of apple sauce!

* Chases balls and blocks all over the place. He will push/throw them in front of him and crawl after them. Sometimes he is very focused, other times he gets distracted by toys along the way.



* Has a blast pulling up on the bathtub and knocking toys on the edge back into tub. When he is taking a bath, he will throw toys over the side, which Daddy will often throw right back in. It's a fun game for now since he doesn't cause much of a mess and doesn't have enough strength to really hurl the toys that far (sometimes they don't even make it over the side!).



* Finds putting dishes in the dishwasher fascinating.

* Will stand in his Pack N Play to watch an entire episode of Veggie Tales - those little legs are getting stronger!!

* Hands Mommy and Daddy his toys, clothes, etc. Often he wants the item right back.

He is especially cute when he gets into something he shouldn't and immediately hands us the item (if we are watching - like with these Pledge wipes; otherwise he keeps playing with the contraband item).

* Is still doing good putting his arms through his shirt sleeves. He will also help pull his arms out occasionally when it is time to get undressed and can almost always get his pants off if he is laying down on the changing table. I looked in the Pack N Play the other day and saw that he had managed to pull his pants off while watching Veggie Tales.

* Loves to play with Mommy's purse...especially the keys!

* Still occasionally likes to spend time in his jumperoo.

* Thinks the recycle bin is his own personal treasure chest and will often find plastic bottles in there to roll all over the kitchen.

* Sees window blinds as God's greatest gift to little boys. He will crawl as fast as he can to get to them and shake them a few times before we can pull them up out of his reach. Of course, now that he can pull himself up, he keeps being able to reach a little higher and grab them.

There's a big wide world waiting for you out there, little buddy. We pray that we know how to raise you right and give you all the opportunity you need to explore and grow. We love you so much and are so happy that you are our son!