We're Alive. Barely.

Sorry for the long blog silence. We've had a rough start to 2012.

Little man got a tummy bug. Threw up on me in the middle of the night and then proceeded to have projectile diarrhea for the next four days. Lovely.

He was better for like a day, and then baby girl AND little man came home from school with identical wet, hacking, gunky coughs. Which then proceeded to turn into RSV for little man. We spent an afternoon with him in the hospital, and about 8 days total with him not eating or sleeping.

Oh, speaking of his eating, have I mentioned that he's on a complete bottle strike? He absolutely REFUSES to take one. Which meant there were two or three days he ate NOTHING at school. All day. Just waited for me. And then nursed. A lot. All night. I have worked out where I can go during my lunch break at noon to nurse him. It's five hours after feeding him at 7 a.m. for breakfast, but I figure if he can hold out all day, he can last five hours.

So back to healthy issues. What with his tummy bug, bottle strike, and RSV, he lost weight.

My parents came down for the week to help us out because TH had to go to Chicago on a business trip. Where he came down with the dreaded man cold. His voice dropped about three octaves. He spent days in bed. Even when he came back from his trip, he was not really much help because being out of bed for more than 30 minutes or so made him dizzy. He just slept a lot. Which I mildly struggled with because I was NOT sleeping a lot. Thank God my parents were around to help me out and give me some time to rest and recuperate, too.

Anyway, our whole family finally, finally seemed to be feeling better this weekend.

And then baby girl threw up her lunch yesterday.

And then TH woke up this morning with half of his face swollen and one of his lymph nodes swollen out of his neck about the size of a baseball.

EFFFFFFFFFFF.

So we're here. Limping along. I have no time for blogging because I don't pump at work anymore and because every second of my evenings is spent for caring for my sick family or collapsing in bed myself.

I will (WILL) write little man's 8-month letter soon. Illnesses aside, he's had a totally mind-blowing month.

Until then, stay well.

Oh, and so far, 2012 can suck it.

8 months

Dear Little Man,

You are 8 months old. I swear the last month lasted more than 31 days. There's no way that everything that happened in your 7th month, the milestones, the growth, the illnesses, all of it, all fit into 31 measely days. I think it must have been at least 74 days. At least.

Your 7th month was the most amazing, challenging, mind-blowing month yet. I cannot even begin to tell you all the things you suddenly mastered in your seventh month.

Crawling? Check. You went from rocking on all fours at the beginning of the month to being a total speed demon all over the house by the end. The first thing you crawled toward was your sister. My god it makes my heart burst every time I see how smitten with each other you are.

Pulling up? Check. You now stand in your crib. Pull up on our end table. You have even (:::dropping my voice to a whisper:::) started to take tiny little baby steps along the edge of the couch. Pretty much all you want to do is stand, stand, stand. Stand holding onto chairs, onto your activity table, onto our fingers, onto the wall. You love to stand, and the way I see your knee twitching, itching, aching to move forward, I know it's only a matter of time before you take that very literal and very metaphorical first small step.

Teeth? Check, check, and check. That's right. THREE teeth this month! Forget casual teething. Once you decided to get some teeth in, you pretty much decided to do this teething thing like it's your job. You broke your first two on bottom back-to-back, then took a week or two off, and then started to break your next FOUR on top. Only one of those is already through, (top center left), but the next one is close on its heels (top left canine). Not only do I think your two bottom teeth are the sweetest, most adorable thing I've ever seen, you are going to make me positively faint from adorableness when you have your left front teeth in but not your right. I can't wait to see your sweet, lop-sided smile.

Interactive play? CHECK! You know what you learned how to do this month? Wave. Is there anything better than seeing your full-armed wave coupled with your adorable smile? How about hearing your husky little voice babbling "ba-ba" while you wave?? I don't think I'm counting it as your first word yet, because I don't think you know what "bye-bye" means, but you definitely know that "ba-ba" goes along with waving and your favorite thing to do whenever you see anyone is wave and say "ba-ba!" over and over again. I think you like it because the recipient of the wave inevitable turns into a big, smiling, blubbering, waving pile of goo, and I think you like watching people have that reaction to you. And you know what else you can do? Play ball! I don't know how on earth you are old enough to do this already, but you will sit and roll a ball back and forth with us. We'll roll it to you, you'll pick it up and throw-roll it back to us. Rinse-repeat again and again and again. I don't know who laughs more, you or us. And your throw? I'm not kidding when I say that you throw better than your sister. Already. And at school apparently one of your favorite games is to take a toy and play "keep away" from your friends, twisting your body and reaching your hand all around, just out of their reach. I think you probably learned that from your sister. Stinker.

You have shown us this month how fearless you are. Your dad had you and your sister in the swing-set clubhouse one afternoon, enjoying the unseasonably warm winter we've had. This was probably right around the very day you became mobile, so we weren't really used to you being able to move around yet. Anyway, your dad turned his back for a second, and BAM! Down the slide you went, head first. You weren't happy about eating all the grass when you landed face-first at the bottom, and I wasn't happy to realize that little boys really do give their mommas heart attacks way more than little girls do. And now that I see you on the brink of walking, running, throwing, wrestling, and everything else, I know that there are a million heart attacks just waiting in the wings. Take it easy on me, you brave boy.


This month was also a month full of illnesses. You caught a random tummy bug early in the month and lost your appetite. You were better for about a day and then came down with a nasty, gunky, wet cough which developed into RSV. Your sleep disintegrated into nothingness. Your eating diminished into basically nothingness. You struggled to breath and all you wanted was to be held, something I was more than happy to do as much as I could. That one night last month when you had croup? That was child's play compared to the ten-ish nights we battled it out with RSV. One Sunday afternoon, after your dad got back from driving you around for two hours in the car so that you'd sleep, we decided to take you to the hospital. You and I both cried the entire drive there. They admitted you and monitored your oxygen levels. I held you in a hospital gown and sang you to sleep on my chest. I never want to dress you in a hospital gown that small again. (I never want to dress you in a hospital gown of ANY size again.) Unfortunately, RSV is a virus, and though you were breathing twice as fast as normal, your oxygen levels were fine and we were sent home with a sympathetic "there's nothing to do but wait it out" pat on our backs. The next Friday, we took you back to the pediatrician for a follow-up, and she was amazed to see a rash on your torso. She said you likely had a secondary viral infection at the same time. She said she was amazed that with the RSV and the secondary infection, you had never needed breathing treatments or any other serious care. She said you must be a very strong boy. She has no idea. You are the strongest boy I've ever met, and I will hold you every second of every illness, every moment you are too sick or weak to be strong on your own.

With a return to health came a rebound of your appetite! Whereas before you had zero interest in letting us feed you purees, now you will let us feed you and will eat with gusto. Thank god! You lost weight from being ill for so many weeks, so we have to feed you for about a week with your new, healthy appetite and take you in for a weight check to make sure you are back on track. At the beginning of the month, you loved sweet potato bites! You'd pop them into your mouth about as fast as we could get them on your tray. You haven't really reacquired your taste for them since your three-week solids hiatus, but your new love is apples. Real, sliced, raw apples. You use your new teeth to scrape off shavings and seem to be just as delighted with the sound and feel of the motion as you are with the resulting apple bits in your mouth.

Like I said. No way all of those things happened to you, to us, in only 31 days.

You are 8 months old now, and in a corner of my heart, I'm in denial. In that corner of my heart, you'll always be my snuggly newborn, my smiley 4-month old, my happy 6-month old. In that corner of my heart, I don't understand how you can be closing in on walking and talking already.

This morning I put you on the ground in the hallway and went to wake up your sister to get ready for school. You crawled right in after me, babbling what I swear for all the world sounds like "ah-na-na." You sister rubbed her eyes in her sleepy, slow waking, saw you, and her face broke into a smile. She squirmed to get down, went over to you on the floor, said, "Awwww, Sammy!" and gave you gentle, all-encompassing hug.

You bring such light to our lives. Such love. Happy 8 months to everyone's favorite sweet little boy.

Love,
Mom

I took a pregnancy test this morning

It was negative.

Just like it was supposed to be.

To be clear, we're 99.9999% sure we are d.o.n.e. If it were only up to me, I'd probably have the guts to go for three eventually, but the transition to two has done such a number on my husband that there's really no way we're going to choose to go through this again. We're not making a final decision for a while yet--we figured there's no point in making our decision while we're still sleep deprived and waking at night and probably only operating at like, 80% capacity. And I'm not going back on hormonal birth control. I'd like to say "ever," but at least until I'm all the way done breastfeeding. So we're using condoms and being very careful about things. In my husband's words, "I'm probably more afraid of getting you accidentally pregnant right now than I was in high school."

I'm not charting. I'm not doing anything to keep track of my cycles. I notice my fertility signs throughout the month, but that's based more on habit than anything else. And my cycles are normally long. 32-35 days each. And breastfeeding can make things wonky as well.

All that to say is that I can't remember how long it's been since my last period. So this morning, I took one of the dollar-store tests we have stashed under my sink for this very reason: my peace of mind.

It was negative. Of course it was. And I wasn't sad. I was relieved.

But when I picked it up, when there was that moment of actually checking to see if there was a second line, I was taken back in time to two other times I did the same thing. I remembered, for a moment, the thrill, the elation, the stopping of my heart, the feeling of screaming and crying and going hot and cold at the same time, of hearing my blood rushing in my ears. I remembered what it was like to see a second line there. Remembered what it was like to be totally overwhelmed with emotion, awash with joy and elation and excitement and fear.

I wasn't sad the test was negative. I was sad that that moment of seeing a positive test, that moment of the most intense emotion washing over your body, that moment when your entire life changes . . . sad that THAT moment--those moments--are forever in my past.

January 1, 2009 and September 8, 2010 . . . those were good days.

And the me that was there those mornings? The me that saw those second lines? She was a lucky gal.

2nd Child in Full Effect

The 2nd-Child Syndrome is in full effect at our house.

With baby girl, I made all her food her first year. I'd spend hours steaming, blending, and freezing perfect little serving-sized portions of only the freshest organic foods.

Last night, I handed little man a chunk of bean burrito from Taco Bell to gum on while I cooked dinner.

*sigh*

Go ahead and judge. I did, too.

It's been a big week

In the last 8 days, my baby boy has learned how to sit up on his own from lying down, crawl, and has gotten his first two teeth.

If he weren't still waking up every night for nursing and snuggles, I'd seriously be wondering where my baby went.

7 months

Dear baby boy,

Today is a day to celebrate! Today you turn 7 months old . . . and it's also Christmas! I honestly cannot believe you are already 7 months old. I know I say that the time is passing so quickly, but SEVEN MONTHS OLD? That sounds so old. You aren't even in the first half of your first year any more. Seven months is the land of real food and mobility, and how can it be that you are here already?

You woke up this morning (after sleeping allllll night! More on that later . . . ) and we cuddled together for longer than usual after nursing. One of my most favorite things about you is how cuddly you still are. After you eat, you lean into me sideways and rest your head on my chest, fiddling with my shirt straps or my fingers and cooing. I love these quiet moments we have together, and I like to think in those moments that you are just as blissed out as I am, that your heart is just as full as mine. We then headed into the living room, where you got a big play box as your present! Your eyes grew large and you immediately wanted to start moving the animals and beads on top of it along their wires and opening and closing the doors and tabs on the sides. You even grabbed on when we stood you up and stood along side it, playing for several minutes! You also got a new book that you appear to love to chew on.

Your sixth month was filled with busy. We came home from Thanksgiving in Dallas and you promptly developed croup. You sported a terrible barking cough that struck me to my very core. You had one really, really bad night where you just couldn't sleep, so your dad and I took turns holding you, rocking you, shushing you, taking you into the steam-filled bathroom with the hot shower running and then right out into the cold winter air to calm your lungs. True to form, my tough little man, you were over it in about 48 hours and back to squealing with delight and belly laughing and babbling. Every day you amaze me with your strength and your happy disposition.

After that we were right into December, and you did the most amazing thing. You slept ELEVEN hours straight. And not just once. You did it for almost three solid weeks! The first night I woke up at 5 a.m. and panicked, but there you were in the monitor, sleeping peacefully. Yay! We are heading to Dallas again to celebrate Christmas tonight, so I have my fingers crossed that three nights sleeping in the pack-and-play won't throw you totally off your new-found sleep awesomeness.

You are still little hit-or-miss with solid foods. We have figured out the main problem is that you want to feed yourself. You want nothing to do with the spoonfuls of food coming at you, but if left to your own devices, you are quite content to pick food up off the tray and put it in your own mouth. This makes it somewhat hard on us as far as food options go--though your first tooth is alllmmmmosssttt in, you can really chew up much of anything right now. Thank goodness you're still nursing like a champ and I'm not too worried about your solids intake just yet.

You continue to surprise and delight us with your physical strength and skills. You are starting to be able to mimic motions that we show you. When we wave at you, you wave back, wagging your arms all around (since you're not too good at refined movements just yet) and smiling. When I clap, you try to bring both hands together like mommy. You try so hard to pick up freckles off my skin or printed flowers and designs off the carpet. You can turn the wheels and dials on your toys when we show you how. And for the most exciting development, as of today, you can sit up on your own! I love watching how quickly you catch on to things, and I'm so excited to watch you grow and continue to delight and surprise us for years and years to come.

As brave as you are, as adventurous, as curious, as fearless, still, still, baby boy, still your favorite spot is in my arms. And you know what? It's my favorite spot for you, too.

Happy 7 months, big boy.

Love,
Mom

Merry Christmas!

I got all crafty today and made salt-dough ornaments. If you, too, feel the need to get crafty, please allow me to make the following suggestion: plan ahead and starting hitting the gym about a month or two before making these. Forget cardio--focus on weight lifting. You really need to bulk up in order to pin your six-month-old down, hand extended, fingers splayed, and pushed firmly into the dough. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Six-month-olds are freakishly strong. Oh, and just ignore the screaming. You're not hurting anything other than their pride.

Your welcome in advance.

Happy holidays from our family to yours.