Ian Free - 4 months

I know this is super late.  I already have his 5 month, most of his 6 month, and surgery journey posts ready to go.  Nonetheless, here we go!

I can't remember how many pounds and inches Ian was the other day at the Doctor Yu's office, but I do remember the percentiles.  He is 64th percentile for weight and 60th for height.  He doesn't go until the beginning of August for his regular 4 month checkup.

Waketimes:
We recently decided to try extending his waketimes by quite a bit.  Almost all of his naps were 45 minutes there for awhile, and that can often mean that baby needs to be awake longer.  So he went from about 60 minutes for each of his waketimes to 80 minutes before the first nap, 85 before the second nap, and 90 before the third nap. 

Sleep:
With extending waketimes, he dropped the 4th nap.  Although there have been a few days when he still needs a 4th nap if all of the other naps have been horrible for some reason.  But on a typical day, he doesn't need it.  Nighttime sleep is still the same as last month at about 9-11 hours.  He sleeps from 7:30 at night to around 6 or 6:30 in the morning, when I feed him 2 or 3 oz and put him right back to bed.  Then I'll wake him around 8ish to start our day.  I have a feeling that early morning feeding is going to be gone soon because it is starting to keep him from wanting his first "breakfast" feed of the day.

Playing with Caeden during our vacation in the mountains around Lake Keowee

Eating:
As of July 15th, he has been completely on formula!  We ended up switching types of formula because he just couldn't tolerate more than 2.5 oz of Gerber formula.  We have been using Enfamil Gentlease for him, and he's done great.  I've already weaned myself from pumping too.  So that adds a whole extra 2 hours back into my day!!!  I'm so happy!!!!  He eats around 8, 11:30, 2:30, 5:30, and 7:30.  This combo 3/3.5 hour routine is kind of weird, but it's working for now.

Swaddle:
Just yesterday, a day before he turned 4 months old, I decided to start weaning him from the swaddle.  He does not need it anymore for arm control's sake, and his arms are getting a bit too long for it, as well as I want him to be good and used to sleeping without it before he has to sleep in the hospital for his surgery.  I left one arm out for all of his naps yesterday and today, and he's done great.  I still swaddle both arms in at night.  We'll leave an arm out at nighttime maybe next week once he gets used to having an arm out during the day.  After doing that, we'll tackle the other arm.  He seems to have a love-hate relationship with the swaddle.  He really loves it to get to sleep, but then it drives him bananas if he wakes early and is still in it.  That was one of the big reasons to let it go. 

Even though you can't tell from his "camera face", he loves being outside.  Super loves.

Rolling:
He rolled back to belly for the first time on July 12.  He did it when I had left the room to get a diaper.  Then the next day he rolled belly to back for the first time.  I was able to witness that, and he was so slow and controlled about it that it looked like he did it in slow motion.  He hasn't done either one again since, although when he plays on his back he gets dangerously close as he likes to roll up onto his side.  He just doesn't have much interest in continuing all the way over. 

Other notes:
We're going to have another blonde haired boy in our family!  It was so dark and there was so much of it when he was born that I just assumed it would not turn blonde.  But the newborn hair that he does have left is so light now, and all of the new hair growing in is most definitely blonde. 

He is wearing size 3 or 3-6 month clothes, but both of those are getting tight on him, and size 2 diapers. 

He is drooly, drooly, drooly!  Our drooliest baby by far.  I actually don't remember the other two boys drooling much.  In my mind I remember them just always being good at swallowing it.  Maybe not, but that's just how I remember it.  We are constantly wiping Ian's chin....and fingers since they are always in his mouth!

I am not planning to start any solids this month as some people do at this age.  We are going to do a "baby led weaning" approach like we did with Caeden where he doesn't get any pureed or mashed foods at all unless it is a normally pureed or mashed food, like mashed potatoes or a soup.  We really enjoyed feeding Caeden that way, and Caeden really enjoyed it as well, so I am looking forward to starting with Ian.  He won't be 6 months until after his surgery, so I will wait until he is fully recovered just so that I don't have to deal with food and the hole.  I just don't want to go there. 

The cleft:
I just got a call today to schedule the surgery and it's going to be on September 3rd.  We went to see Dr. Yu two days ago and he explained exactly how the surgery will be performed and he answered all of my questions.  We're praying for complete healing without a need for surgery though.  I think that would be awesome for Dr. Yu to open his mouth to repair it and end up not needing to! 

Wonder Week 19:
In my experience wonder week 19 is one of the more disruptive of them all.  This week, Ian's 18th week of life, has been probably his fussiest week ever.  He wakes up early from his naps, is not eating very well, is not content to play for as long as he used to, and overall just wants to be held more when he's awake.  Also last night he woke up at 2:30 which he hasn't done in months.  However, that being said, it's not as bad as it sounds.  His fussy is not nearly as fussy as some; I can just tell that he's not totally himself.   I attribute it all to this wonder week stuff.  The good thing about wonder weeks is you know it's just a phase and your baby will go back to normal. 

Ian Free - 3 months

 

Here we go.  3 months is such a wonderful age.  Baby grows out of the newborn ways and becomes much more interactive, smiley, and stable. 

 



 

 

The Stats:

At 3 months Ian is 14 pounds and 24 inches long.

 

 

 

Eating:

He eats around 8:30 in the morning, 11:30, 2:30, 5:00, and 7:45 then straight to bed right after.  From there he will sleep all the way until the 6 o'clock hour when I'll feed him just a little bit and put him right back to bed until I wake him up to start the day around 8:30.  Ultimately, it will work better for our family for him to be a on a 7:00-7:00 routine, so until he extends his nights that one last little hour, we'll start and end at 8:30.

 



Eczema:
He has some mild eczema.  Here is what is working for him right now.  He gets a bath everyday.  At the beginning of the bath I coat him with coconut oil.  Talk about a slippery baby!  I wash his hair with Aveeno.  He has a dry scalp and the Aveeno creamy wash is the only thing that has helped it.  We've tried some other things that didn't make it any worse, but they also didn't help.  The Aveeno/coconut oil combo has helped a ton!  Every other day I bathe the rest of him.  Right now we're using Babyganics Bye Bye Dry.  It seems to work fine.  I've also used the Aveeno on his skin as well as the California Baby that we use on the big boys.  I can't really tell that any of them do any better than another.  After bath and again in the morning he gets hydrocortisone on the flare ups and Cetaphil or Curel Itch Defense all over.  Once or twice throughout the day I'll lotion him with just lotion as well.  He continues to have to wear socks on his hands for a good part of the day because he still scratches the tar out of his face.

Swaddle:
He is still fully swaddled.  I tried dropping it cold turkey one day in the midst of several days of poor/short naps.  I figured he wasn't sleeping well anyway, it couldn't hurt to try.  And to  my surprise he actually slept great for that whole day without being swaddled.  However the next morning when I put him down for his first morning nap, he just fussed and fussed and flailed all over.  I went in to him after about 10 minutes and decided to swaddle him up.  He smiled at me, and went right to sleep.  I think the fact that he slept so well the one day without it means that he'll be ready to drop it soon.  Just not quite yet.

The cleft palate:
We go next week to schedule the surgery.  I'm eager to see what Dr. Yu has to say about it all.  The cleft is still pretty much inconsequential to him right now.  Except when I have to give him gas drops and it sometimes gets into the hole as he swallows and makes him sneeze.  Or he burps and milk comes out of his nose.  That happens to the poor guy a lot!  He is a champ about it though.

These pictures were actually taken a little late during month 4....and he's found his toes!  This is his playtime position: left hand on left foot and right hand in mouth!

 

Speaking of eating we have begun the transition to formula.  We are taking it veeeeery slowly.  Like replacing only a half ounce of breastmilk with formula every 5 days or so kind of slowly.  1) because there's really no reason to rush besides the fact that I don't want to pump anymore 2) because he revolts against the taste of it and 3) because too much of it upsets his tummy.  We want to give his body time to get used to digesting it.  I thought I would have a few weeks' worth of breastmilk in the freezer to give him, but he won't drink it!  It smells a little soapy.  I haven't been brave enough to taste it yet, but my friend Google told me that a soapy smell to frozen breastmilk is likely a result of extra lipase in the milk.  It's not common for a Mama to have that.  And it's not harmful.  It just tastes different after being frozen.  And he's picky.  So I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with all of that milk yet.

 

 

 

Ian & Mama time :)

 

Until the next month!



I had to include this picture of Micaiah.  This ottoman has been his nap location of choice recently.

And I had to include this picture with Caeden in it because he's a cutie too.

Ian Free - 2 months

I have always liked reading about what other babies are doing at certain ages.  Even though Ian is my third baby, and I know that all babies are different, I still have been reading where I know other bloggers have posted similar things.  Chronicles of a Babywise Mom has posts for each week during the first year of two of her girls’ lives, and it has been so helpful for me in giving me some sort of a framework for what we could be aiming for.   So, I do this partly to be a resource for others and partly for myself to be able to remember these things about my boys.  Now on to the notes:

Ian is about 12 pounds by my highly technical personal weighing system.  We’ll go for his 2 month appointment in a few weeks to see for real.

He is wearing 3 month clothes and size 1 diapers, although those are getting to be a bit of a squeeze.

The new bottles we’ve been using for him have helped his gas troubles exponentially.  Yay!  I mostly just give him the gas drops at nighttime now and any other time I can hear him swallowing lots of air.  

I get him up for the day and he eats around 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning.  Then he eats again around 10:30, 1:30, 4:30 and 7:00 or 7:30 right before bed.  From there he usually wakes up once in the night around 4:30 or 5:30.  These times are not exact, but very flexible, and it most assuredly varies a bit from day to day, but this is the basic gist.

Speaking of nighttime sleep, I did a dreamfeed for him up until 9.5 weeks.  (That’s where I feed him around 10 before I go to bed, and I feed him in his sleep with the idea being that he’ll sleep during more of MY night without needing to eat)  But it interfered with his sleep more than helped.  He would consistently only sleep 5 hours if I did dreamfeed him, but he will sleep 9 or 10 if I don’t.  He is my second out of three kids to have this happen.  Micaiah was the same way.  With Caeden, I stopped dreamfeeding him at 9 weeks as well simply because I could NOT get him to wake up enough to nurse.  Then it ended up that he slept longer without it as well.   They must be like their mama….we don’t like broken sleep...but then again, who does?

He is taking 4 naps each day usually 2 hours each.  He has trouble waking at the 45 minute transition, but if he doesn’t put himself back to sleep within a few minutes, we move him to the swing and he will fall back to sleep there to finish his nap.  Then I’ll almost always have to wake him up for the next feeding to make sure he continues to get enough calories in during the day so that he doesn’t need to eat as much at night.

Another Babywise milestone that he hit just recently is waking happy.  I still have to wake him from 98% of his naps, but the few that he wakes from on his own he has begun to talk to himself and laugh for a few minutes.  If I take too long getting to him, he’ll start to fuss; he is only 9 weeks afterall, but I sure do LOVE hearing that happy sound coming from his room!  J

He is still swaddled, and although he is generally pretty warm natured, I find that he likes to be toasty warm while sleeping.

Like our other two boys, the fourth nap of the day is his least favorite and if I put him in his crib he will just cry and cry.   So, he either takes the entire nap in the swing or we use the time to go out as a family.  He is usually content if we are out…just so long as he’s not in the crib. 

His surgery—We go see Dr. Yu July 23^rd and we’ll schedule his surgery for 1-2 months out from that day.  I am ready to get it over with.  I don’t exactly dread it, but I’m not looking forward to it either.  Actually, I am dreading part of it.  I am kind of dreading the recovery.  He is able to suck so well from a bottle right now, I don’t know how I’ll be able to stand watching him be in pain trying to suck afterwards until it’s all healed up.  I lived through it myself and I lived to tell the tale, so I know he’ll be fine, but no one wants to see their baby in pain.  Also, the doctors at the hospital before we took him home convinced us to wait until his cleft surgery to have his circumcision done.  It made sense at the time because they said then he would only have to endure one stressful surgery event instead of two.  When I later talked with his pediatrician about it, she seemed surprised and said, “Really?  Oh poor guy, he’ll be hurting from both ends.”  And ever since she said that I have regretted not having the circ done when he was a sleepy, more or less oblivious, newborn.  Sorry about that bud.

If you have a baby and don’t know about Wonder Weeks yet, you must read about them!  I have been totally fascinated that with all 3 of my boys, their behavior has matched up to a tee.  Each time we seem to hit a rough patch with sleeping and/or eating and/or general fussiness, and as they get older, clinginess, I check the chart and sure enough it’s usually right at a Wonder Week/Developmental leap time.  Ian has been no different…except I forgot about wonder weeks at first.  There is one at 8 weeks, and right around 7.5 weeks he suddenly had less of an appetite.  He was only eating 2-3 oz instead of his usually 4-5.  He also began having more trouble settling in for a nap.  Then the other day at 8.5 weeks it’s like he literally just snapped out of it.  It’s weird and fascinating all at the same time.  This link may work to the chart.

He looks like he's mad at the world here.  I probably had the flash on.

At Publix the other day I had all 3 boys with me and my cashier asked if Micaiah and Caeden were twins.  I thought to myself that if they were it would maybe make me look a little less crazy if they both came in one shot instead of having a 3 year old, 2 year old, and 2 month old.  But then I felt like the Lord told me, “Ashley, just put it on Me.  I’m the One who gave you each of those boys.  Don’t feel apologetic for how close they are.”  That helped my perspective.

His hair has lightened up a lot this month as well as mostly fallen out except for the mohawk section.

Notes on Ian, life, and labor

Here are some random notes and updates about our life now with 3 kidlets:

-Ian is our most smiley baby yet.  He began smiling at us, what I really and truly believe was intentionally, at 3 weeks.  Now at 7 weeks he smiles and "laughs" all the time.  He is like Micaiah as a newborn in that he is almost interactive and engaging with others with his eyes and sounds.

-He had the feeding tube at home for less than a week.  I love how super supportive and "you're the parent, you do what you feel is best" our pediatrician is.  The special cleft palate bottles the hospital gave us needed to have the nipples replaced every 3 weeks.  It took me 6 weeks to read the directions and learn this.  I had just noticed that it was taking him longer and longer to eat.  Upwards of 45 minutes to take 3 oz where that used to take him 15 min.  His ped gave me the freedom to try a different bottle (I had left the hospital with the impression that the Pigeon bottle was the only one I could ever use with him without dire consequences).  So after spending a very small fortune, we have settled on a Playtex bottle which he takes very well in a normal amount of time and we should be able to use them until he weans.

-Speaking of feeding, I have tried multiple times to get him to latch on and nurse, but he just can't quite get the suction since breast tissue is considerably softer than a bottle.  So I continue to pump and feed him breastmilk in the bottle.  My initial goal was 6 weeks.  His ped encouraged me to at least go to 13 weeks since "they" say that that's by when baby gets most of the antibodies.  I used to dread it, but it has just become a part of my life now, so I continue on.  When I do think of stopping, the only thing I can think of is "Is he worth it?" and of course the answer is yes.

-It took him 4 weeks to gain back his birthweight plus a little more.  Since then he has been gaining steadily, and he is over 10 pounds as of last week.

-Having 3 kids has been a bit of a struggle for me.  I pretty much have only managed the basics of kids who are clean, fed, and (mostly) happy and a house that is only macro cleaned so far.  I was telling Scott last night how unproductive I feel in life and I'm tired of feeling so behind.  He, wonderful man that he is, reminded me that I'm not behind on the 4 most important "tasks" of mine, so I'm doing all right since that's all that really matters anyway.  I'll get back to dusting my home again one day.

-Ian has major gas issues.  Dr Yu, the plastic surgeon who will perform his cleft repair, warned us that Ian would probably take in more air than an average baby, and that has proven to be true. We have to burp him about 2 times per ounce during a feeding, and give him gas drops after every feed.  Even still he will burp a lot afterwards and still has some gas.  Poor baby.  At least it doesn't cramp his style unless it wakes him up from sleep.

-From about 5 weeks on, Ian decided he wanted nothing to do with a paci and gets very offended should anyone try to give him one.  :)

-He has been swaddled for every nap and nighttime since he was born (save for times he's asleep in the carseat or moby or whatnot).  His little arms and legs flail so much I can't imagine him staying asleep not swaddled.  I love how Tracy Hogg, The Baby Whisperer, puts it.  She says that as far as a newborn is concerned, their arms and legs are part of their environment.  The flailing has a tendancy to stimulate them, which when you have a baby sensitive to stimulation like we do, wrecks havoc on a good nap! We use the miracle blanket. 

-We have a lovely vine growing on the fence by our driveway, and until recently I had no idea what it was.  Warmer weather brought out the honeysuckle blossoms!  I was pleasantly surprised!

-Scott is still working at the Y.  He's been there over 2 years now, and although we sound like a broken record to anyone who asks, it still feels temporary.  We pray daily about where the Lord would have us go from here.  Enough said.

-I'm looking forward to our vacations this summer.  I can't wait to get out of Augusta and see someone else's 4 walls for a bit.

-Micaiah and Caeden are all work machines all the time lately.  They turn other toys into work machines, and they create their own work machines.  I wouldn't mind having a few more around here because we have quite a bit of scuffles over who gets what machine when.

-A little bit (okay, a lot a bit!) about Ian's labor, for anyone who cares and hasn't yet heard.  The other two boys came before their due dates, so I foolishly expected that this time.  Foolish.  Never will I expect that again.  My midwife left to go out of town after my 38 week appointment, so I knew she would not be able to be at the birth.  I had come to terms with that.  I was increasingly frustrated every morning I woke up that 40th week still pregnant.  I had a whole lot of false labor too.

The doctor I saw for my 40 week appointment required me to set up an induction for the day I was 41 weeks (actually she didn't even trust me to do it, she set it up for me!)  I didn't show up for it.  The next day (41 weeks and 1 day) I needed to get in to the office for an appointment for the week.  They had told me if I didn't show for the induction (at least the realized they couldn't force me to go!) then I needed to be seen on Monday, the day after.  It took me all morning to try to get something for that day.  No one there seemed to feel my same sense of urgency.  After texting back and forth with my midwife, who was still out of town, she pulled some strings for me and I went in that afternoon. 

I had had my membranes stripped with Caeden and went into labor the next day, so I let the doctor I saw do that this time.  I'd rather that over a pitocin induction (which I had with Micaiah) any day of the week.  I went home, went on a walk, and then helped my mom fix eggplant parmesan for dinner.  I had heard the old wives tale about that sending women into labor, but I hadn't heard of Scalini's before a friend told me about it that morning. We decided to fix this recipe.  It certainly couldn't hurt.  We ate dinner late around 7 that night.  It was storming that night and Micaiah was having a hard time sleeping with the thunder, so I laid in bed with him chatting and telling stories until it passed. Sometime during the 30 min I was in his room contractions began.  I don't know if it was the stripping, the walk, the egglant, or a wicked combination of all 3. 

By the time I came out I knew I wounldn't end the night without a baby.  All 3 of my labors have started with contractions already 2-5 minutes apart.  I woke up Scott (who had been up since 3:30 that morning for work, and had only been asleep for the night for about 10 minutes at this point), he took a quick shower, called his parents, and loaded up the car.  He was trying to push me out the door since it was already getting kind of intense.  Since my labor with Caeden was on the quicker side of things and we knew with your 3rd baby it can possibly go even quicker, he didn't want me hanging around home too long and end up delievering in the car.  However I was terrified of going to the hospital too early and wanted to wait, in the words of my midwife, until I felt pushy.  I told Scott I didn't want to leave until 10:30. 

It's about a 15 minute drive to the hospital of which I spent in the backseat on my hands and knees.  By the time we got there, walked from the parking deck to the ER (about a 15 minute ordeal in itself since I had to stop walking to stand still during contractions), checked in, took the agonizingly long wheelchair ride to the L&D floor, and got the the triage room, I was already 8.5 cm.  It began to be somewhat of a blur from there.  I remember not being able to pee in a cup like they wanted me to and having a hard time answering their questions.  I remember one nurse saying "yeah, she's not going to be in here very long." 

They moved me to a L&D room where people started flooding in getting things ready.  I already was feeling pushy, but they wouldn't let me do anything yet.  I thought "they can't stop me", and just let my body do what it wanted to.  While they were trying to get my IV lock in, Scott passed out and hit his head.  I was so in the zone that I didn't realize what had happened right away.  Thankfully I didn't have back labor this time like I did with Caeden, so I wasn't needing Scott to massage.  I just wanted to stand still or sway.  He quickly came to, but they wheeled him out of the room to the ER since he hit his head and Ian was born 12 minutes later.  I hate that he missed it, but out of all 3 labors, this was the best one for him to miss since it was so fast and I didn't "need" him quite as I had in the others. 

Since my labor with Caeden was unmedicated I knew what to expect, and though it was a wonderful experience and I willingly wanted to repeat it, it caused me to have a good bit of fear about this labor.  I prayed and worked through it though feeling mostly confident in God's ability to sustain me.  And sustain He did; it was another wonderful experience. 

A few pictures...


This is my shining face at 40 weeks pregnant. I had meant to take a picture at 41 weeks just to document the misery (that's how I felt at the time, anyway. In retrospect it wasn't all *that* bad. My attitude then was significantly less than stellar though.)

Ian Free
8.5 lbs and 20 in
11:50 pm

Caeden's 2nd birthday party

Scott's 33rd birthday

About 6 weeks old, I think.

They are beyond obsessed with work machines.  This pile of dirt is a "playground" they made with their own machines.

A completely unprompted moment.

Scott took Micaiah on a father/son campout last weekend

This has been Ian's bed setup for the last few weeks.  It goes against modern infant bed saftey, but he likes being cozy so we do it anyway.

"7 weeks old and Mama finally said I'm old enough to play with my play gym!"

One month old.  Not the best picture, I know, but it's the best one of the ones I took the time to take.
 

We're MOVING!!!!

And we couldn't be more excited about it!  Come October 27th we'll be the happy residents in a new home.  At least it's new to us.  We're only renting, but we're great with that.  We surely don't want two mortgages.  And also quite frankly when you've been living in small apartments or sharing a home with someone else for over 2 years, having a nice, spacious house sure feels like our own home, even if it's only a rental. 

After literally months of looking at rentals, then thinking we might buy a house so looking at homes for sale, then going back to rentals, not receiving calls back from agents and homeowners, and finding nothing that really suits our family, we finally found it.  Scott had actually called about this house about a month prior but wasn't given any information on it and was just told to call back closer to when it would be ready.  He called back, then was told he would get a call back but never did.  So we decided I would call, and low and behold someone answered the phone, gave me information, and we signed the lease the next day!  I could go on and on about why this is such a great house for us.  Just to name a few.....

*It's right in the area of town we wanted, in a neighborhood we really like

*It has a YARD!  With grass and a fence and room to run around in (says the girl with only a small patch of grass in front of our apartment for the boys to play on now)

*It's got a flat driveway for tricycles, wagons, little cars and chalk!

*There's enough space for the boys to still share a room (which we want no matter how many rooms our house has) and a guest room, and a nursery for our new baby.

*We'll have a room to be a playroom so that we don't have to have toys stuffed in corners and baskets all over the place.  And most exciting................

*It's ONE level!  No more running up and down the stairs taking someone to the potty.  We can finally give Micaiah more independence in using the restroom on his own and I can actually let the boys have free reign to their bedrooms.

Sometimes I feel a little spoiled since these things excite me to the level that they do.  I know there are tons of people all over the world without even a tiny apartment or someone else's house to share or chalk to play with or a toy to put in a playroom.  We totally realize this is a blessing from God...seriously ALL from Him...and we want to use this home for His glory.  It's going to be great!  Can't wait!!!

Another very long overdue update

Hi family!  Sorry it's been so very long since I've updated.  I stink at being a blogger.  I always thought I would keep up with it, but I just don't!  My time reading other blogs I love has even dwindled lately, and some days pass without even checking my email (the horror!) 

Sweet, sweet hugs with C signing "I love you"

 

We have had a great summer around here, but we (or more accurately, I) am so very ready for fall.  The mornings have been pleasant enough this past week that I can open our windows and get some nice cross breezes through our apartment for a few hours each day.  Something else I look forward to every fall is a fall scented candle (or two!), which has been burning in full force lately.

Micaiah will be 3 in two weeks.  He has been growing and changing a lot in the last few months.  He has developed a fear of skunks and owls coming into his room while asleep.  He asks us each night and before nap to please pray for him that none would come in his room.  It has really given us an opportunity to emphasize God's protection over us.  He has grown in his pronunciation of certain words.  He has always had trouble with words that begin with an 's' and have a double consonant at the beginning, like 'smell', 'squeak' and 'spooky'.  He's getting to where he can say a lot of words like those correctly now.  Here are a few funny things he has said lately:
*(While playing outside and needing to potty) "I peed on the monkey grass.  Will the monkeys be mad about that?"

*Micaiah-Who will take the baby out?
  Mama- Someone called a midwife will help take him/her out when its ready to be born
                                                          Micaiah- I think I will get her a pillow or a blanket to fall out on

*(In the car when Caeden was crying from extreme tiredness) "I know you are hungry Caeden and you want a brownie, but we just left Grandma and Grandpa's house.

*"My nose is runny.  We can call Mimi and Papa (on Skype) and I will show them"

Caeden has also been changing a lot.  He's 17.5 months now and trying to say a lot more words.  Granted, Scott and I are probably the only ones who can understand him at this point.  One of my favorites is how he says please, "bees".  He is his brother's shadow.  Everything Micaiah does, Caeden is not more than two steps or seconds behind him.  Even down to wanting more butter or jelly on bread, Caeden will ask right after Micaiah does.  It's hard to believe that Caeden is at the age that Micaiah was when Caeden was born.  Caeden still seems like a baby instead of a toddler in my eyes.

One of the boys' most favorite things to do is to "make a town" as they call it.  They can be found doing it almost every single morning for the past two months or so.  It consists of taking all of the toys out of our living room ottoman and then playing in and around the pile.  Not sure where they got the idea from.  I cringed for the first few weeks that they did it, but it has become one of those things that I just suck and up try to be a "yes mom" about.  Make no mistake about it though, they are surely required to clean it back up!

This was just a funny picture to us because C has one leg straight down inside the ottoman and one leg straight up.  He wasn't very comfortable.  :)

 

 

Probably any of you who actually check on our blog already know that I am pregnant again.  We are expecting our third baby on March 10.  We are SO excited!  Honestly I didn't start out so excited.  I roller coasted a whole lot between feelings of joy and feelings of inadequacy.  But throughout time, and especially as my hormones have evened out some and I've been feeling better, God has brought me to a place of pure joy over this new little life growing inside!  Something I learned after we miscarried our first baby on that terrible day in October of 2008, was that with any subsequent pregnancy, there's no way I could do it halfway.  I don't want to.  I have to be all in.  100%.  I can't hold back my love, or my joy, for fear of anything happening.   Likewise, this time around, the Lord had to gently remind me of what I had learned before that I can't hold back my love and excitement about this child just because I don't feel ready yet to add another one to our family.  God planned this baby, He knew we were ready for the next one, so we have to confidently say as Jacob said when he saw Esau after a long time of being away, "This is a child that the Lord saw fit to bless us with."  And ready or not, we're all in. 

We had music on during dinner one night very early on in this pregnancy, and this song (below) came on. I ended up eating my dinner in a puddle of tears because of it, and it has kind of became a theme song for me. Love it.

http://youtu.be/mMVvqI1-tM4


As for some regular preggo stuff:
-I'm 14 weeks along now and feeling so much better
-The same as with both boys, I felt sick from about 5-10 weeks.  I never actually throw up very much (just a few times), THANKFULLY! 
-My food aversions and cravings were c-r-a-z-y this time around.  So many random things turned me off from hummus, to furniture dusting spray, to small pasta shells (that was a weird one, I didn't mind any other shape of pasta--just the thought of the small shells though was enough to make me ill!)  I (gasp!) had to buy storebought bread for a few weeks because I couldn't stand the smell of freshly ground wheat or the olive oil I use to make bread.  The day I decided I could tolerate it again was a happy day for this girl with a house full of wheat!
-I have been through a bagels with cream cheese phase, a frozen fruit cup phase, an ice cream phase, an english muffin with peanut butter phase, and everything in between. 
-I have craved Spagetti-o's at least once during each pregnancy.  Strange!
-Micaiah always refers to the baby as a girl, although this morning he did actually use "he or she" in a sentence regarding the baby.  He has had all sorts of questions from "Is she wearing clothes?" to "Will she like the beach?" to "Will she like to play with my trains?" 
-I've been able to keep up my exercise so far, which I am soooo thankful for.  I didn't exercise much at all while pregnant with Caeden and it showed, in more ways than one.  I feel much better in that regard this time.
-We find out October 23 what the gender is.  We're the type that don't reveal any name choice until we know the gender, so y'all will all have to wait until then to find out the name too!  All I can say is that our baby better not take after her cousin, Presley, and require multiple ultrasounds before the gender is able to be found.  Talk about frustrating when that's a day you look forward to with such eager anticipation!!

In other news, we are still trying to find a house to rent.  This apartment was fine for a temporary home, but that temporary time has long since passed.  We are very ready to move on.  We're not very good apartment dwellers.  And we REALLY want a yard.  And a bathroom on the main floor.  Caeden understands how to make himself pee when he sits on the potty, but I refuse to move him to underware full time in an effort to get him fully trained until we live somewhere with a bathroom on the main floor so that I'm not having to run up and down the stairs all the time in those early days of training.  Whew!  Makes me tired just thinking about it.  Not to mention we're sick of the smell of this apartment and there's no good place to put another child.  Nonetheless, we are so thankful that God has provided this apartment for us for *almost* the past year.  It has served us well.  But we're ready to move on.

Caeden *loves* blocks

Scott has finished his book!  That has been a huge thing this summer!  We are so excited that it is printed and available to get the words God gave him out to others.  He has ideas for some other books, including an idea for a book for me to write.  Eek!  I wouldn't mind, but we both agree that it's not my time to write right now.  If you haven't orderd one, go do that right now!!

Until next time!

The boys love looking out our back window, likely longing to go out and play!  Right before this picture was taken, I had been showing them some of their new clothes for fall/winter and they both wanted to try some on.  Hence the long sleeves in the heat of August in Augusta!

Running through my head

I just really want to share this song.  I've been facing some discouragement about some things in life lately, and this song has really been resonating with me.  In leaving our home church when we moved away from Gwinnett, we moved away from arguably one of the best worship leaders in the country.  Aaron doesn't just lead songs.  He's the farthest thing from a performer.  He actually leads the church in worship.  I love that a lot of his songs are straight from Scripture.  I mean, what better words to put to music?  This is Aaron Keyes singing Sovereign Over Us from his newest cd.

Be blessed, friends!