Nate is 6 Months Old

Nate turned 6 months on Sunday. A half of a year has gone by since he was born and I cannot believe in that same amount of time he will be turning one. But I won't think about that just yet. :) He had his six month check up on Tuesday. It went well. His eye is much better and actually had his last round of medicine tonight. Thank goodness! He hates it and it gives him the poopies-bad. He's 20lbs 14oz, up only about a pound since his 4 month check up, and is 29" long. So he's still off the charts for his height but is now at the 95th percentile for his weight.

We have started him on foods! He's not much of a fan so far, but he usually finishes it. I've given him rice cereal and peas so far. He always seems to make faces when eating it but doesn't spit it back out and so he must not hate it too much. I think it's so much fun now that he's eating at the table with us for meals. I also haven't been producing as much milk, probably because I haven't had time or been making time to pump. So we've started supplementing with formula. I was afraid he wouldn't take it, but he drinks it right up! I usually give him a few ounces at the end of the night. Let's see if this helps him start sleeping through the night!

He's getting up on his knees and rocking now too. He may be doing this for awhile before he starts to crawl, but it's neat to watch the progression of skills. It's crazy how babies teach themselves how to do all these things.

That's about all that's new. He's just enjoying Daddy being home and all the attention!

Nate's First Solids

We fed Nate rice cereal last night. He didn't seem to care for it too much and was more interested in chewing on the spoon than anything else (go figure). But it wasn't a complete disaster either. My goal was to feed him cereal for breakfast each morning and that already hasn't happened! I just hate to force more things he hates into his mouth--have I said how much he hates his medicine and giving it to him is the worst, I hate it and feel awful that I have to put him through that 3 times a day! And I don't know the rules on mixing the cereal with juice yet--I know there's the feed the same food 3 days straight to see if there is a reaction--so I'm not sure if I have to give him plain cereal for 3 days first. And, I also want to start him on vegetables...so I'm not sure if I can do that yet AND I don't want to put juice in his cereal and have him like the sweetness so much that he won't like the vegetables. Any suggestions?

Michael's Home

Michael finally arrived home from demobilization at Camp Atterbury on Thursday afternoon. It's still so new, like he's not really home, or he is, but just for a couple weeks on leave. It might take awhile to register that he's really home for good.

We've been enjoying spending time together as a little family, shopping or just playing at home. And of course, life doesn't stop and things still need to be done, so the focus today has been getting things back in order (like the jungle that is our backyard).

It's going to take a little while to get used to having him home (and having the extra help!) and it will probably take awhile for him to get used to being home, let alone being a dad and learning ALL about babies. But we are definitely enjoying having him home and all being together again.

Sammy and the Vet (again)

Seems to me I already have a post with this title! Sammy has been constantly licking her wound and acting strangely (lying behind the couch all day, needy, etc.) so I decided to bring her in the vet to have her checked out. Sure enough, the wound is bad, but not too bad. He said he didn't want to have to put her under for sutures, and thinks that a couple staples would do the trick. So that's what she got, along with a fancy e-collar. He said she was lucky, that if the bite was maybe an inch over it would have gotten her colon and been a lot more serious. So now she has to wear the collar, is on antibiotics (my counter top is now filled with medicine bottles as 3 of us in the house are now taking medicine), and has to go back in 10 days for a check up. It's funny to watch her try and manuever through the house with the collar on. She keeps running into things and getting stuck. It's pitiful.

Wild Weekend!

What a weekend! I still can’t believe all the events of this past weekend. It’s now Monday afternoon, but I’ve been exhausted and had limited typing appendages (we’ll get into that later) so I’ve had to take my time getting all this out on paper, er, screen (and it might take you just as long to read it!). I’m going to divide this weekend up into three different entries, the three big parts, otherwise all the stories will become jumbled and scattered—hmm, not much different than my thoughts are normally. J I just want to say a big thank you to Jaime and Jeremy for all that you did for us this weekend. I couldn’t have made it through the last few days without you guys and all your support. Love you!

The Doctor

Thursday night Nate was pretty fussy and running a low grade fever, typical of when he’s teething, so I assumed that’s all it was when I put him to bed. He was up a couple of times through the night but I let him cry himself back to sleep, thinking it was his normal get up a couple times through the night routine. However when he woke up at 4am and I went in there he was on fire. I took his temperature and it was 100.something, but he wouldn’t really eat much and wouldn’t stop crying. I thought something is different. He finally fell back asleep and woke again around 7am. Again, he was inconsolable and wouldn’t really eat. I knew something was wrong. So I immediately packed up and took him in to the doctor. The doctor and I both had thought it might be an ear infection, but after checking him over, he couldn’t find anything wrong. At this point, Nate was hysterical and the doctor was practically shouting over him to talk to me. He wanted to run some blood tests, thinking it might be sepsis or meningitis. I almost lost it when I heard that. So we packed up and went to the hospital for the blood work. I called Jaime to let her know what was going on and she immediately came up and met me at the hospital. The first blood work to come back was the cell count, which was okay, so we headed back to the doctor’s office to get a shot of antibiotics. The blood culture wouldn’t come back for 24 hours, so the doctor decided to start with the antibiotics, standard procedure. Well, during the time we were at the hospital waiting for the results, Nate’s right eye was beginning to get red and puffy. It was slightly red when we first got to the doctor’s office, but I thought it was from all the crying. After Nate got his shot, the doctor came in and saw his eye. He said if it would have looked like that a few hours ago, he would have diagnosed the eye infection right away. Sorry. That’s what he said, sorry. Okay, it was a scary few hours of not knowing what was going on, but it was better to be safe than sorry (although watching Nate get his blood drawn was so sad).
We needed to go back Saturday morning for a follow up visit. Friday night went okay. Nate slept okay but his appetite was still really low. His eye looked even worse Saturday morning, almost completely swollen shut at this point. The minute the doctor saw him she told me she wanted to admit him into the hospital for 24-48 hours. This time I did lose it. She said it would be best since he wasn’t responding to the antibiotics given yesterday. She wanted to run some more blood work and this time set up an IV to administer the antibiotics. So I took him up to the hospital and got him admitted in. He was in a big baby crib and even had to wear a little baby hospital gown. So sad. The nurses brought him in a room to have his blood work done and then tried to give him an IV. After two failed attempts, they decided to call the nurses from the birthing center to try it. So about an hour later they came up and tried, three times, with as much success. They tried his hands and feet but he’s so chubby that they couldn’t find the pathways or a good vein. So they called the doctor in. This time they wouldn’t let me in the room (at this point I probably had had as much as I could take watching them poke at him and holding him down while he’s screaming). The doctor tried a couple more times and even tried once in his head, all times failing. It was horrible sitting in his room and hearing his screams down the hall. Probably one of the worst experiences I have had. They decided to just administer the antibiotics in shots (which over the period of the next couple of days resulted in many more times being poked by needles) and orally. Jaime and Jeremy came up to help me with things around the house and to keep me company in the hospital while we were there. On Sunday, Nate’s eye was looking much better and since they couldn’t start the IV anyway, the doctor released him and sent us home with the oral medication and a prescription for eye drops. She wanted him to come back in this morning for his next round of shots. But this morning his eye was looking a ton better and when the doctor saw it she decided that he didn’t need more shots and that the oral meds and eye drops should be enough from here on out. Thank goodness! I don’t think I could take much more of that, let alone Nate’s poor little thighs have got to be so sore. So now we just need to keep an eye on it and finish up the medicine (about 7-10 days). This has been so difficult and like nothing I have ever experienced. Being a parent is so difficult when you see your baby in pain and you can’t take it away and they don’t understand what is going on. I’m sure there will be many more times like this, but this definitely has been a difficult weekend for me as a parent.

Michael's Homecoming

Yes, this is also the same weekend that Michael was scheduled to come home! Originally it was supposed to be Wednesday, and then it was moved to Friday afternoon. It was then changed again to Saturday evening at 6pm. Through everything that was happening with Nate, I wasn’t calling the hotline, checking on the flight arrival information, like I normally was a million times a day. Jaime called and found out that it had changed yet again, still Saturday night, but at almost midnight! Since that would be too late to take Landon out, Jaime took him back to the house to spend the night there, and Jeremy took my up to Stout Field in Indianapolis for the welcome home ceremony. I don’t think it really hit me that he was coming home until shortly before they arrived. Then I got really excited and as soon as they were dismissed I threw down my poster, jumped a chair and ran to him. It was so good to see him and hug him and have him hug me again. Normally all troops were to receive an hour with their families before heading to Camp Atterbury to out process for five days. Since Nate was in the hospital, Jaime and Jeremy contacted Red Cross and got a message sent up to Michael’s company. Poor Michael got the message as he got on the bus at the airport and didn’t know what was going on. So instead of staying up there for an hour, he was released to come back down here to go to the hospital. It was 2am and he didn’t want to wake up Nate, so he just looked him over through the crib bars and rubbed his little head. I can’t imagine what he was thinking looking at him, since the last time he saw him in person Nate was just a little newborn. He stayed until 4:30am and then had to head back up to Camp Atterbury. I’m so glad he’s safe and sound back in the states, but I am looking forward to Thursday, when he can home for good. It’s hard to sit here and know he’s so close and not be able to see him. Hopefully there will be a couple of evenings we will be able to go up there to visit.

The Dogs' Altercation

Of course, the drama of the weekend wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t involve the dogs. Before we headed up to the hospital on Saturday, I decided to run home and pack a bag and let the dogs out. I was upstairs getting things ready when I heard shouting. I ran downstairs to find Sammy and the neighbor dog fighting the driveway. Before you say anything, I already know I should not get in between fighting dogs, and I’ve already been lectured on this point, but at the time, I don’t think-I just react. And that’s exactly what I did. I ran out and tried to separate the two (the other dog is probably 50-60lbs). It’s all a blur, so I’m not even sure exactly how I got them separated. All I know is I was screaming at the top of my lungs for the kids to go get help, I’m sure the entire neighborhood could hear me. I think he was frozen in fear because he just stood there. I tried separating them several different times, picking each of them up at different times, yanking the dog by the collar so hard that it came off, prying them apart, etc. I finally got Sammy in my arms and the other dog grabbed her leg and pulled her back down. Neither one of them was giving up, and I was afraid it was going to result in Sammy’s death. So I finally got Sammy in my arms, got the other dog off of her, and ran in the house. Benny, of course, was on the sidelines watching all the action happen but staying out of it. There was blood, but I wasn’t sure how bad it was. I did a quick check over and put her in the bathroom. All I could think is that I can’t deal with this. I need to take Nate to the hospital, this can’t really be happening right now, and not again. I finished packing the bags and went back down to check on Sammy. I figured if she had any really bad wounds there would be blood everywhere. There were a couple spots of blood on the floor, and checking her over again, I didn’t see anything serious. So I kept her in the bathroom and called Jaime back again. Jeremy said he would come up to help out. All the dogs are okay, and none needed to be taken to the vet. Sammy has a small wound on her back near her tail, but nothing too bad. Not like last time. The other dog is probably about the same, the owner said a couple small wounds but nothing too serious.
I, however, probably came out the worst. Heading out the door I realized my hand was bleeding. I didn’t have time to deal with it, so I just wrapped a towel around my hand and left. After I got Nate admitted in, I had the nurses look at it. They didn’t think I needed stitches and so they gave me some stuff to clean it up and bandage it. By Sunday morning it was hurting so bad. The bite is on my pointer finger, near my knuckle. It was really red and swollen and I can barely bend it. To put any pressure on it is excruciating. The nurses looked at it again and said that I need to have someone look at it. I waited until Nate was sleeping and decided since I was already at the hospital (and it was a Sunday so the only place open was the urgent care clinic and I didn’t want to leave Nate) I headed down to the ER. They weren’t busy so I checked in. It’s infected and so now I’m on antibiotics. I need to watch it for the next few days because the infection can spread into the tendons and then I would need surgery. Wonderful. It’s starting to feel slightly better, but I am still limited with how much I can do with it. I also am scraped up pretty bad on my knee and foot, probably from hitting the concrete getting down on the ground with the dogs. Lesson learned? Well, hopefully this will be the last dog fight Sammy will get in so we won’t need to find out how I react the next time.

Longest Week

Okay, this has been the longest week ever! What? It's only Tuesday? Michael is finally coming home at the end of the week and the days are dragging. While I can't believe we will be seeing him again in just a few days, it feels like a few hundred. The last few weeks have been busy, getting things ready before he comes home. But now all of that is done, and it's just the day to day stuff, which isn't enough to keep the days from feeling like forever. I went grocery shopping yesterday to get a few of his favorite things. Not sure if that was a good idea because I'm pretty sure those oreos aren't going to make it that long.

I am learning to nap. Maybe now with less to do, or maybe because it helps pass time, or most likely out of sheer exhaustion. Nate is still not sleeping through the night, and the usual 3-4 wake-ups are killing me. A friend suggested I just let him cry it out for 15 minutes, if he's still crying, go in and let him see me but don't touch or talk to him. I tried it for a few days. The first night worked pretty well and he went back to sleep before I had to even go in there most of the time. But the times that I would have to go in there, he would see me and then just get more upset that I was in there but not picking him up or giving him his soothies (he loves what we call "soothies"--rubbing his head and face softly, something my Grandma did to us kids as we were growing up). He ended up crying so hard that he gave himself a belly ache, which of course in pain, ended up crying even harder. So I went back to the going in every time he wakes up and putting the pacifier back in.

However last night the pacifier wasn't cutting it. He woke up at 2:30am, I put it in, and gave him his soothies until he started to drift back to sleep. But the minute I stopped, he'd look up and see me leaving and start crying all over again. I was SO tired that I thought, I'll just let him cry for a little bit and I'll lie back down in bed just for a minute. Next thing I know it's 3am and he's not crying anymore. Hmm...

So, yes I know the answer to my problem is to let him cry it out and eventually he will learn to soothe himself. But to be honest, it's hard. And knowing I still am the only one to take care of him the next day, and the day after, and so on, I do what is easiest and quickest so that I can get back to sleep too. When Daddy comes home we definitely will be working on this problem. Until then, we are counting those few days that we have left...

My First Mother's Day

Is it crazy that Nate is almost 6 months old and I still can't believe I'm a mother? I guess it's just so surreal, so amazing to me that I actually have a child of my own. While I didn't get much pampering, it was still a wonderful 1st Mommy's Day! Although I had requested breakfast in bed, Nate wouldn't get up and make it, so I did have to make my own pancakes and bacon. But he woke up with smiles, and I'll take that. After church (which I wish Michael was home to hear--all about how to treat your wife and what she really needs with a lot of humor infused!) we headed down to Jaime's. It was nice to hang out with them and of course, play with Lucas. He informed me that I was his best friend in the whole world. That kid can melt my heart. I was surprised with a mother's day gift from Michael (he had it sent down there, so sneaky). We went over and visited Jeremy's mom for a little bit. A house is being built down the road that is the same floor plan as the one Jaime and Jeremy are building so we did a little trespassing and checked it out. I am so excited for them to build their house and see the end result. For dinner, Jeremy grilled some steaks and we had ice cream for dessert. It was a good mother's day, spent with family and my little boy.

Michael was able to catch us on the web cam before we headed out. At least I was able to see him on Mother's Day! It might have even been one of the last times we'll get to talk on that thing (thank goodness, 1)I don't know how much longer I can handle the connection and 2)it means he's that much closer to coming home!). I think this week will drag on, but that little light that has been at the end of the tunnel is getting much, much bigger.

Sleep & Sitting

So, enough is enough of this not sleeping through the night business! For the last few nights we have been working on getting Nate to sleep through the night. I think it's been about four nights, and of all of those nights, one has been a success. I'll take it. Even though I don't sleep through the night no matter what (will I ever stop worrying and just get some rest already!?!). The other nights he's up 2-3 times. Sometimes he wakes up, cries for a minute and is then back to sleep. Other times he cries and cries and my heart just breaks, because now, instead of going in and rocking him back to sleep or giving him his pacifier, I am letting him cry it out. If he cries for 15 minutes, then I go in there and let him see me, so he doesn't feel abandoned, but I don't touch him or talk to him (which it is very difficult not to console your crying baby) and then I walk out. If it's before 5am, I won't get up to feed him. So far, it really hasn't improved. Sometimes he'll cry for a minute or two, sometimes 15, and sometimes longer. Although I don't know that I'm going to let it get longer than 30 minutes. Last night he woke up at 4am. I went in there at 4:15am because he was still crying. He saw me, which mad him more upset that I wasn't picking him up, so he cried even harder. He would start to calm down and then just start screaming again. This went on for another 15 minutes, until I went in there and picked him up and fed him. It was close enough to 5am, right? So I probably have reversed all the work we have done over the last few days, but this is hard. So we will see how tonight goes. I'm hoping that each night he will wake less often and go back to sleep sooner.

This past Friday I went down to watch Jaime's boys because their sitter needed the day off. Jeremy was taking off work early, so I wouldn't be home with them until evening and I thought I should be able to handle it. It was actually easier than I thought it would be. Of course Lucas is easy. I couldn't get the babies to nap at the same time, but at least they always had a bed to sleep in! I like spending time with the boys and I haven't gotten to spend as much quality time with Landon as I would like (or as much as I did with Lucas when he was a baby) and so it was good to get to know him better too. When Jeremy got home from work, Nate was still sleeping and so Lucas and I went in their room to watch cartoons and I think a fell asleep for a few minutes. I've been exhausted lately--I think it's all finally catching up with me--I even took a nap yesterday when Nate did! When Jaime got home from work Jeremy cooked some burgers out on the grill. I wish we lived closer so we could have dinners and get togethers more often, but I'll definitely take the hour drive over the 12 hour drive! And even though we may not live in the same city, we are close enough to be able to see each other and watch our kids grow up together. And I am grateful for that.