Boo....bs

yes, my boobs get a big "boo" this week. I have mastitis in my right one and it sucks big time. I guess I should be glad that I have had 10 months of trouble-free breastfeeding but that's doing little to make me feel better now. I woke up Sunday morning with a rather painful boob which I chalked up to engorgement since Jason didn't really nurse very well from that one the night before. I figured I would nurse him on that one first thing and all would be better - it wasn't. It remained hard and sore and I thought "ok, I have a clogged duct, we're just going to have to work on that". I also had kind of all over body pain; the muscles in my legs hurt so bad during church I had to rub them and I was all antsy. I decided to ask my beloved message board what they thought and they thought mastitis so that kind of bummed me out but I had to admit they sounded right all except for one thing - I didn't have a fever. As the day progressed I felt worse and worse and despite frequent nursing my boob got more and more "angry" and by the time I went to bed that night I had a pretty bad case of the chills. I didn't take my temp but I took some tylenol and eventually was able to get to sleep. By Monday I was no better and was running a fever all morning. By noonish I realized I would not be able to work in this condition. I hate calling in sick to work, especially on a weekend or holiday because I know it's difficult to find someone to replace me. When I called in I was asked if I was going to get some antibiotics or anything. Oddly enough, the thought hadn't occured to me but it sounded like a good idea so I called my doctor. Of course, since it was Labor Day, they were closed and I only had about an hour to get to the immediate care clinic before they closed. I didn't want Jason to go to the clinic so I left him home with Dan and drove my sick self to the clinic. Since it was about to close, there were very few people there and I was able to get right in, get my antibiotic prescription and a lot of sympathy and be on my way. I spent the rest of the day kind of hanging out with Jason, taking naps and trying to do as little as possible. I am now fever-free but my boob is still very "angry". I really hope the antibiotics, warm compresses and frequent nursing do the trick because if this turns into an absess, "boo" will not be a big enough word.

9 months!

Jason just had his 9 month check and here are his stats:
weight: 20 lbs 6 oz - 43%
Height: 30 in - 91%
Head Circumference: 18.25 in - 77%
He's back to being really tall, but I'm not surprised because he is pretty tall! He got a clean bill of health and did so good when they drew his blood for a hemoglobin. They should have the results back from that tomorrow, but I'm not worried. He eats a well-balanced diet. Speaking of that, I thought it would be fun to put down here a "day in the life"
Usually around 8am: Jason wakes up, I take off the sleepsack, change his diaper and bring him back into bed with me for sleeping, cuddling and nursing.
9:30am: we get up, I have breakfast and he poops pretty much as soon as I put him down on the floor to play
10:30-11am: baby breakfast time - I usually give him either a full tub of stage 2 fruit or a container of yogurt with 1/4 cup of oatmeal
11am: bath and more nursing, usually to sleep for his morning nap
11:30 until hopefully 12:30: Jason's morning nap - otherwise known as "when I finally get to take a shower"
12:30 - Jason wakes up and plays while I fix my lunch. While I eat lunch I generally have him in his exersaucer where he eats a snack of puffs and I'll share my banana with him if I'm having one
1:00-1:30 - we play! throw balls for the dog, knock down block towers, whatever
1:30-2ish - more nursing and sometimes he goes down for another nap
2:30 - I get ready for work and leave him with Dan if I'm working that day
3pm - baby lunch time - usually a jar of second foods meat and veggie combo

After lunch is when I can usually run most of my errands or in this case, update my blog ;-)

5pm - more breastmilk and sometimes a half tub of fruit

7pm - our dinner time followed by jason's dinner time
then we go for a walk and come back to play

9pm - more milk and starting to get sleepy

10pm - get ready for bed and usually fall asleep on our bed and we transfer him to his bed

Lately he's been waking up in the middle of the night (3-4:30 am or so) wanting to be cuddled and nursed and it's wearing me out. I think we're going to have to start sleep training so I'll let you know how that all goes.

He's got about 7 teeth now and is working on the 8th one. I think the top teeth are causing him more pain coming in than the bottom teeth did so I think some of his wakefulness at night might be due to the teething. He's been crawling and cruising like a champ and I bet in a month or so he'll be making progess towards walking.

In order to keep him contained when we need to do stuff, we've been putting him in his play pen. Here he is reading (eating) his favorite book "Books are for reading not eating" - it has teething corners on it, very cute!

Such a little cutie

He loves his kitty

Gotta keep all those new teeth clean!

8 months

Well, I guess it's official...this is a once a month blog. I'm not too surprised since I both have little to talk about and little time to write. The biggest thing around here is Jason started crawling. He did his first meaningful creep forward for Dan on Father's Day which I thought was a great gift. He can take off pretty good now and sometimes gets up to his knees but is still having trouble going forward from that position. Now that he's on the move we really have to step up our babyproofing efforts. We always had a baby gate at the top of the stairs but now we have to start installing latches on cabinets and such. We keep a good eye on him for the most part but I'm sure he's going to start getting too fast for us and we can't keep an eye on him all the time so we have to save him from himself. I decided it was wise to get the carpet cleaned too since his onsies were a bit too telling of how dirty our carpet was :P He loves playing in the dog's water bowls. At least he doesn't get as wet with this one.

I put him in here, be he seemed pretty happy!

He just looks too cute with all these flowers, huh?

He loves to crawl in the grass but he keeps putting it in his mouth even though he doesn't like the taste
I don't know if you can see all the water on him...he loves his pool and splashes up a storm when he's not eating his ducky

We also started him on puffs and cheerios in addition to his full complement of purees. The puffs melt pretty quick so they don't bother him (or me) as much as the cheerios. It's all a learning, and gagging, experience. He's getting about 4 "meals" of breastmilk and 3 meals of "solids". I've just been following the Gerber feeding schedules they have online and Jason's hunger and fullness cues. He's still growing like a weed and seems healthy so I think we're doing alright.

In other news, I've tried to upload videos on here without much luck so I don't know if the files are too big or what. When I figure it out I'll get some videos up.

Exciting start to June

As you can see I have given my blog a makeover. No, that doesn't mean I'll update more often (haha) but at least it looks a bit different. I guess Blogger has a new design template so after trying out a lot of backgrounds that reminded me of elementry school pictures (remember the lazer lights?), I have settled on this one.

Jason turned 7 months old on 6/2 and he celebrated this milestone by growing not one but two bottom teeth. He tends to "chew" on my knuckles and I felt a little something and noticed that he had a little tooth in there. The next day I noticed it was a bit wider than I would expect and sure enough there were two teeth in there. He was a real champ with them too. If not for the increased drool (and he drools a lot anyway so it's hard to tell when it's increased) and the whole knuckle chewing thing you'd never know he was getting teeth. I hope they all come in this uneventfully.

We have been planning a trip to Florida for the first weekend in June since February. My grandpa turned 80 this year and as a gift to him we wanted to get as much of the family together as possible. It was decided that my aunt and uncle's beach house on Pensacola Beach would be the ideal location. They got us reservations in a nice resort and we would spend most of the time at their house. Of course as soon as things were planned things went wrong: First a lot of the other family couldn't make it so that was a bummer, but my parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin (obviously) were going to be there for us to see. Plus this would be Jason's first trip to a beach so we were looking forward to it. Then, as you are all aware, there was that whole oil spill catastrophe. It had been staying off of Pensacola but was scheduled to arrive - you guessed it - when we were. But the worst thing was about 4 days before we were scheduled to leave, Dan got really sick. He was having high fevers and general not feeling well and after spending all Wednesday in bed and going to the doctor on Thursday we realized he was not going to be able to make the trip to Florida first thing on Friday morning. I have never been more stressed in my life. I was totally torn between being a good wife and staying home with Dan (which quite frankly was difficult for me take good care of him while trying to keep Jason away so he didn't get sick) or being a good daughter/granddaughter/neice/cousin (plus the whole really wanting to see everyone thing). I didn't want to leave Dan when he was feeling so sick so I called his sister, Abby, who lives in Kansas City to see if she could come down to take care of him. Being the angel that she is, she moved some things around and even missed a performance on Saturday to come down and take care of her brother. I just love her, she's too awesome.

After getting Dan taken care of I had to tackle the next thing - traveling alone with Jason. At least we've been on a plane with him before - Abby's wedding - so we knew he traveled well. Since I had a room to myself at the resort, I had 2 queen beds so instead of bringing Jason's portable crib I decided to make a "pillow crib" out of the other bed. I still had to bring Jason's carseat though so that meant I had 2 checked bags - the carseat and hook-on chair for his highchair in one and all of our stuff in the other. I brought Jason in the Baby Bjorn, filled his diaper bag with all our carry-on stuff and hooked that to the smaller bag and dragged that stuff behind us as we walked into the airport. We must have been quite a sight! Jason did really well on the flight to Atlanta and we were able to find our connecting flight gate dispite my complete lack of direction (I guess when I have to I can figure out where I'm going). When we got to Pensacola it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't told my aunt and uncle that Dan wasn't going to be with us. So my uncle was a bit surprised to see me alone with my caravan. Jason's carseat fit well in their SUV and it was only a mild pain in the ass to install it. Once I arrived at the beach house I was so glad I came. It was so nice to see everyone. I hadn't seen my grandparents or my aunt, uncle, and cousin since my wedding and I really missed them. It was also great for them all to meet Jason and he had a lot of fun with them too. We mostly just hung out and visited on Friday but my mom, Jason and I went down to the beach for a few minutes to check out the water (check for tarballs). The water seemed pretty clear so I put Jason down by the end of the tide so the water could come up on his feet...well, a bigger wave than that came up and got him to just above the knees and he was NOT HAPPY. After fussing for a couple minutes he fell fast asleep on my shoulder so I think it was more than the water scaring him - he was tired.

Here's the awesome beach house:

With Grandma Mounts

With Great-Grandma Shoot

With Great-Grandpa Shoot:

The resort we were staying in had a "dolphin cruise" as part of the cost of the room so my mom, Jason and I boarded the boat at 9:30am for the 2 hour cruise. The water was nice and calm (good news to me since I'm prone to seasickness) but the sad thing was there were no dolphins. I don't know if they were running away from the oil or what. I guess it wasn't a total bust though, it was a nice boat ride and Jason even got to "drive" the boat. My uncle took a walk on the beach that morning and said there were little tarballs on his feet which was really heartbreaking, I wanted to spend more time in the water and let Jason experience it when he didn't need a nap. By the time we ate lunch however, any beach plans we would have had would have been interrupted by the MONSOON that occured next. There was a huge storm and lightening even hit my cousin's balcony and messed up some of the cool electronics in the house. Lightening also hit a nearby power pole as well, knocking out the power to the house. Fortunately they had a generator so we still had airconditioning and use of the DVD player so we just chit-chated, played with the baby and watched a movie.

I think the storm knocked the oil back a bit because on Sunday it wasn't too bad at all. After we checked out of the resort, we swam in the pool - first big pool experience for Jason. He didn't know quite what to think at first but soon he was splashing and having a good time and eventually zonked out on his great-grandma. We got back to the beach house and after dinner headed down to the beach again. I gave Jason another chance with the water, this time being more careful about the size of the waves but he didn't seem a big fan of it so he settled down on the beach with grandma and played with some sand (making sure he didn't eat any due to the oil situation). There were a few nickle-sized tarballs here and there but it wasn't enough to detour us. I got about waist-deep in the water since the waves were still pretty intense and I didn't want to get too wet or slightly oil-covered accidently. I gave Jason a good bath afterwards and took a shower myself just in case there was oil we didn't see. The oil spill just makes me sick, it really does. I'm glad it didn't spoil our vacation though. Next, my mom gets a call from Orbitz that our flight out of Pensacola that night (we were both flying thorough Chicago) was going to be delayed for 2 hours - basically meaning we would both miss our connecting flights. I had to work Vacation Bible School on Monday morning plus I was scheduled to work that night so this was very bad news. After scrambling around, I got the last seat on a flight through Houston that night so it actually worked out pretty well since this would mean shorter flights. My mom was stuck until Monday but it allowed her to spend some more time with her family so it wasn't a horrible situation. Our flights back home went well too (although the Houston airport is a real hole) and we got back safely. Dan's fevers let up by Saturday and he was in pretty good spirits by the time we got home. I think he really missed us - I know we missed him. I sure was relieved he was well taken care of; I don't think I would have been able to leave otherwise.

On Monday we started VBS. My friend who was going to work pee-wee rec with me backed out the last minute without telling me, which kind of annoyed me but they had a great teenager to help me (for 2 of the days anyway due to her migranes) so it wasn't a total loss. Jason had a good time in the nursery with a teenager of his own to play with. Pee-wee rec is pretty easy - I basically have one group of 2-3 year olds and two groups of 4-5 year olds and since they're too young to do organized sports I basically keep an eye on them as they play on the playground for 20 minutes. I also got a good hour break right at Jason's snack/nap time so I could nurse him to sleep and cuddle a bit. When it rained on Wednesday and I couldn't take the kids to the playground I had to get creative on what to do inside but I survived. I haven't decided if I'll do VBS again next year or not. I'll just see how I feel at the time. I'm sure they'd understand if I didn't want to do it due to all the trouble I had with co-teachers and whatnot. The kids seemed happy enough so that was good. Here's Jason sitting next to one of the rocket props.

Sorry that got so long but like the post said - there's a lot to talk about!

6 months

6 month stats:

Weight: 16 lbs 14 oz - 32%

Height: 26.5" - 46%

Head Circumference: 17.25'' - 47%

For fun here's a comparison of me, Jason, and Dan at 6 months:

(remember Dan was 2 months premature so he might look a big younger than the other two) Jason does look cute in his red overalls though

He's growing just right. The 46% on height makes more sense than the 78% at the 4 month check-up. Jason's eating a fair amount of baby food now. He's getting half a container of fruit with 2 T of either oatmeal or barley cereal for lunch and half a container of veggies and 2 T of rice cereal for dinner. Eventually I'm going to have to give him more food. I've been producing less milk when I pump at work which is making me think that he's been eating less at night. It's hard to say for sure since Jason is so much better than the pump at getting the milk. I've probably only got about another month or two of freezer stash left so he might have to get a bottle of formula when I'm at work since I'm only pumping 2 bottles and he's getting 3 - or maybe he'll take one less bottle....this stuff is hard, I'm not really sure what to do. I wish my breasts had a meter on them so I would know how much milk he takes in, it's the only downside to breastfeeding that I can see. I love doing it and totally plan on continuing for the whole year, maybe more. By that point it would mostly be comfort nursing so we'll just see how things are when we get there.

Jason is sitting really well now. I can be pretty confident that he won't fall over so I can sit in front of him and play with him more instead of behind him in case he falls back. We've been working on crawling but he hasn't quite figured out how to move his knees under himself. He can kind of creep in a circle or maybe a bit backwards or forwards but not really going anywhere yet. He loves jumping still and the Johnny Jump-up has proven to be a good investment. We (well, Grandma) also got him a pool this past weekend and he loves to splash in it. I fear bathtime will never be the same again. It's getting to be a pretty wet business for me!

Grandma Bender came for a visit this past weekend and they had fun hanging out while Dan and I went to see Daughtry and Lifehouse at the Arena. It was a great show and having Jason with his grandma took the stress of leaving him with someone else away.

Jason is such a happy baby. He smiles and laughs quite a lot and is just such a joy.

Lions and tigers and bears....

OH MY!....I did not just do that ::hangs head in shame::

anywho, We took Jason to his first trip to the zoo on April 30th. My work had their annual family outing and for once I didn't have to work so I could enjoy. We got free rein of the zoo but since I work at a really big hosptial so there were still tons of people there but no more than the usual zoo crowd. We also got a free dinner out of the deal, which was nice. I've never been to the zoo in the evening before. I usually go in the summer during the hottest part of the day and basically watch animals sleeping in the shade. It was a beautiful day when we were there, probably upper 60s and the animals were awake and interractive! It was really cool. We got some good pictures and really had a nice time. I hope the hospital does this every year so Jason can eventually remember the experience.

Just being a mommy-lion

It's good parenting to let a tiger hold your baby, right?

How cool is this peacock?!

Riding the lizard...in a non-euphamism sense...

Fun weekends in April

No posts then two in a row - Crazy!

We had some fun weekends here in April so I thought I would recap in pictures:

On April 11th we went over to our friends Krissy and Nicole's house. Krissy has a son named Matthew who is a year and a half so Jason had a lot of fun playing with his toys

nananananananana.....BATMAN!

here's a super-cute rocking horse Jason did pretty well with playing on

He loved this water toy and got us both soaked
Here's Matthew and Jason on his first wagon ride

Then on April 16th we embarked on our first big trip. We flew up to Chicago and drove down to Valparaiso, IN for Abby's wedding. Jason did really well on the plane. I nursed him on take off and landing so hopefully his ears wouldn't bother him. He slept most of the way up to Chicago. We rented a car with a carseat from Hertz. The carseat was pretty cheap and Jason didn't like it very much. Plus I had a hard time getting the angle right and when he would fall asleep his head would fall forward. We made due though. The wedding was at a beautiful bed and breakfast and our family and the groom's family pretty much took the place over. It made for a real family feeling. The wedding was lovely and although a bit on the cool side, the weather was nice. Jason was very good during it, although with it being outside it was a little more forgiving. They had a great photographer and I'm still going through all the pictures. She got some really cute shots of Jason (oh yeah, and the bride and groom...) We got to visit with everyone and Jason got to meet his Great-Grandpas. My parents even drove up to visit us on Sunday and it was nice to see them. Jason did well on the trip back too. He got a bit bored on the plane ride back so we had to entertain him with cups and whatnot so he wouldn't be too fussy. Life sure is more complicated with a baby, but it's totally worth it!