Still gobbling it up

Joel started stage 3 food today, which is basically baby food with some chunks in it. Appetizing! I also bought him some toddler yogurt that was really good. The first bite wasn't so tasty because I didn't realize there was fruit and cereal at the bottom that needed to be stirred up. But we got the hang of it soon enough.
Joel has always been such a good eater. From his 2 week to 8 week appointment, he gained 6 pounds. That's when Benny and I were feeding him every time he cried. We way over fed him at that point. He was drinking eight 6 oz bottles a day! That's way more than he eats even now. Now he drinks an 8 oz bottle in the morning, then has four 4 oz bottles the rest of the day.
I can't believe he's already getting close to eating real table food. I love picking out baby food for him. It all looks so yummy (yes I think baby food looks good). I might have to up my game in the kitchen pretty soon to keep up with all the meals he's been getting lately.
He will be 10 months next Saturday. He is cruising around everywhere, but still hasn't taken his first steps. He can give high five now. We cheer for him when he does it and his face just lights up with this big smile.  He's so stinkin' cute. We are on spring break, and since we have to pay for daycare anyway, we took him this morning to Ms. Pat's house. We needed to work on the house so it's just easier. But I just miss him so much when he's not here. I couldn't wait to go pick him up after his nap time. I get it now when mom's cry on their baby's first day of school or when they go off to college. I just pray these next 18 years are the longest of my life!

remembering to be thankful

Today was a crap day. Work is weird/stressful/annoying. The house is a mess and I can't seem to find the time or energy to clean it this week. Joel's babysitter said he fussed all day and just wanted to be held. If he wasn't being held he was trying to climb up her legs, etc. Well he did the same thing when I got home. I was trying to cook dinner and he was in the kitchen with me. I distracted him with a pot and wooden spoon for about 5 minutes, but then he was back to my legs again.
Afterwards, we went upstairs and I tried to sit and play with him on the floor but he just wanted to climb up me- not be held- just use me as a step ladder :).
Benny had to work late and didn't get home until about 7:00 so at that time I was pretty done. I gave Joel a bath and finally sat down on the couch while he climbed on Benny.
I opened up my laptop and checked this blog that a girl I went to high school with writes. I have been checking it everyday since I came across it two weeks ago. It's the saddest thing. Her 4 month old daughter passed away two and a half weeks ago from what they think was SIDS. I don't check it to cry (although it did make me cry A LOT when I first started reading it). I really just want to see how she's doing. I can't fathom that kind of pain. I have had loss in my life, but nothing could compare to the loss of a child. Your  child. So as I'm reading how she is struggling to go to the grocery store because everyone has a baby, I am reminded to stop and be thankful. Was today stressful? yes. But at least I had today. I had today with my son and my husband. I had today with my friends at work and my students that rely on me. I bounced Joel on my knee and made him crack up laughing, and I took some pretty cute pictures of him playing "sous chef" in the kitchen.

I am so blessed to have had today. I need to remember that more often.

Let's go for a walk

Tonight Joel, Benny and I went out for our weekly Friday night family dinner. It was Freebirds tonight (trying to save some cash). Before Joel came along, Benny and I would always go out to dinner and a movie on Friday nights. Always.
I get annoyed with people that bring babies to movies. Not so much because the kid makes noise, I'm used to noise, but I just think it's wrong to make a baby sit in a loud, dark theater for almost 2 hours. So anyway, we don't go to the movies much anymore- which isn't a bad thing. Netflix is our new friend. But we still try to go out to dinner on Friday nights. It's just now it has turned into "family dinner night" instead of "date night".
Joel is such a good baby. He has yet to throw a fit in a restaurant or scream/cry. And yes I am probably jinxing myself and I'm sure it's coming one day, but as of today he's good. He is very content to spend his time trying to grab our food (he is VERY fast) or ever-so-carefully trying to put his cereal puffs in his mouth. He has also developed a habit of being interested in waitresses, not waiters, or any other teenage-ish girl in the restaurant. He will follow them around with his eyes, turning his head to see where they went. When he really likes the waitress he will smile and move his eyebrows up and down. It's too funny.
So tonight, like many other nights, we had a nice dinner and then came home. It was about 6:30 and the sun was starting to set so we decided to go for a walk. We strapped Joely into his stroller, leashed up the dogs, and we were off. Joely sat up in his seat looking this way and that the whole time, very interested in what was going on around him. I remember when he was a little baby and I would take him for a walk around the block to try to get him to stop fussing. He would always fall asleep. Then when he was a little older we would go for walks and  he would mostly just stare up at the sky. Now he sits upright, looks around, and my favorite- turns his head around to smile at me while I push him along.
Benny and I talked a lot, the whole time actually. It was nice to get away from the tv, the noise, everything and just go for a walk together as a family. Joel didn't make a sound. It was like he was just listening to mommy and daddy talk about what's going on with this and that.
I think I would have liked to have gone on family walks with my parents when I was young, but I don't remember doing it. That's not to say it didn't happen, because unfortunately I have a pretty horrible memory from when I was little. But that's a memory I wish I had.
So I think another one of my mommy goals is to make sure Joel has a lot of those kind of memories with his dad and I. Simple little things like taking a walk and talking to each other. I know realistically I won't be able to give my son everything he wants in life, but I should always be able to give him my time. And what better way to spend our  time than getting outside and taking a walk together? It's as simple as that. :)

Party time! Well, in 3 months...

So today I got excited because I realized I get to plan my first birthday party for Joel soon. For a split second I thought, eh- maybe we shouldn't have a "party" since he probably won't remember. But then I realized this isn't about Joel remembering. It's about us celebrating his birth. I will be inviting all those that were there at his birth, or shortly thereafter ;).
So Benny had the idea that we should do a monkey theme since we call him Joely Bananas. Well, I usually call him Joely B., but the B could be for Benjamin or Bananas, whatever :).
I was looking online and they do have some cute monkey stuff, but they also have some other themes. Pirates, owls (Who's turning 1? Ha!), ocean, and my personal favorite-magic. I think I will hold off on the magic party until Joel is older and could enjoy it. A friend of mine had a pirate party for her son once and it was so cute.
I love being a mom in this day and age. You don't have to be creative, you just have to Google and there's all the ideas you could ever need. So I think we'll go with monkeys this year. I want Joel to have a birthday party every year until he tells me to stop. One of my goals for myself as a mom is to make sure my son knows how much I love him as he grows up. I think making a point to celebrate the day he came into my life is a good way to show him that.
Now I'm off to Google monkey party ideas!

Joel's first sick day turned into a hospital stay :(

Like my other post, this is a late one but a significant one that shouldn't be skipped.
January 14th Benny had to pick up Joel from the daycare because he was running a temp. and had thrown up. So Benny took him to see Dr. Arnold and she checked for the flu and rsv. Negative on both and she tells us he just has crud in his chest and is congested.
So that night we give him tylenol to keep the fever down and he sounds very hoarse and congested. The next day we still notice congestion in his chest so we try steam showers, nasal spray, bulb syringe, humidifier, you name it we tried it. That afternoon he started sounding weasy and I notice when he would breathe in his chest was retracting. I kept asking Benny, "What did the Dr. say? Did she say he had croup?" This irritated Benny b/c he had already told me what she said, but I just couldn't believe that he was "just cruddy with congestion."
So eventually we called Carol to get her opinion on whether or not we should take him to the ER. She said he was probably fine, but it would make us feel better to just check. So me being the smart one that I am suggested we go to the urgent care clinic instead of the ER. There's usually not much of a wait there and I figured they would just tell us he had the croup and there wouldn't be much we could do about it (from what I had seen online).
Well we went, and he did have croup but instead of them reassuring me that we had done all we could and it would get better on its own, they told us to transfer him to the ER right then. What? Why does he need to go to the hospital?- This is what I'm thinking. Turns out it was a lot more serious than I thought, or at least it was at the point where it could have easily gotten very serious very fast. We stayed in the ER until around midnight before they told us they wanted to admit him over night to keep an eye on him. We had been giving him breathing treatments every couple of hours but he was still weazing and his chest was still retracting. At that point the doctor didn't seem to concerned, more just taking precautions so we didn't get stuck in the middle of the night with a sick baby, so I only shed a couple of tears. I stayed the night with Joel and let me tell you. Seeing your baby in a hospital bed crib is not a sight I ever want to see again. It was so pitiful. I wanted to crawl in there with him and hold him all night but I couldn't. He was so exhausted he was able to sleep pretty well.
So the next morning another doc came in to talk to us and ending up saying Joel needed to stay for another 24 hours for observation. That's when it hit me. My baby is really sick. I couldn't help but put my face in my hands and let it all out. It was mostly guilt for letting him go as long as I did before taking him to the doctor. It just falsely reassured me that he was okay since not 24 hours before we took him to the urgent care clinic, Dr. Arnold had told Benny he was fine and just "cruddy". She didn't even prescribe any meds. But the thing about croup is it's on-set is fast. Kids can go from being fine to an hour later barking like a seal. Joel's was so severe that he couldn't cough. He couldn't get enough air in his lungs to cough and here I was trying to sit him in a steaming bathroom. I felt for the first time like I had failed him. I felt guilty before for things like not breast feeding him when he was first born, but this was different and worse. I felt like I had put him in danger. I think at times I can be too relaxed about things and I need to stop and realize it's ok to be a little dramatic and over-protective/cautious when it's my baby. I guess I didn't want to be "that mom" that rushes her kid to the ER with every little fever or cough, but hey- I bet that mom's kids are healthy and that's all that matters.
So during our 2 day hospital stay Joel was his usual angel self. He was exhausted from all the breathing treatments and strangers coming in at all hours to check his vitals, but he never once was fussy. He would just sit in his crib and play or we would go for a walk around the halls and he would "talk" to the nurses. I was better knowing he wasn't hurting at least.
We got through those two days, Saturday and Sunday and went home Monday afternoon. We were off from work that Monday for MLK day, but I still stayed home with him Tuesday and Wednesday. I was pretty drained from being in the hospital all weekend and I just wanted to be with him. It would have drove me nuts to be away from Joel the day after he was discharged from the hospital. Plus he still needing breathing treatments from a nebulizer the next few days after, so I wanted to be the one to help him.
So here we are, over a month later and my little man is all better. The flu went around his daycare a couple weeks ago but he managed to avoid it and he has remained pretty healthy with the exception of a little cold he had in early February. I really appreciate all the doctors and nurses at NC Baptist though. They were so good to us when I delivered Joel there nine months ago and they were go to us when we checked in for the weekend. However, I hope I never see them again! :)

Changes

Joel is at it again. Growing up without my approval. So we are now in the process of having his two top teeth cut through. He's handling it well. A tad fussy and major droolly, but hey- that's got to be tough. He is  also sprouting some new curls on his head! The curls are crazy when he first gets out of the bath tub. He looks so darn cute. He loves to take baths and acts like a little fish in the tub. I think he's going to like swimming. The other day he was sitting in the tub and all the sudden he just dunked his face under the water. I was sitting in the tub with him of course. He can right back up and took in a deep breath but didn't get scared or cry. He just kept on playing with his ducks and trying to grab the jets on the side of the tub.
He also mastered crawling a few weeks ago and is now cruising the couch on a regular basis. This is how most of his evening is spent. He will play with his toys for a while, but then he will come to the couch and go up and down each side. He stops to chat with me or Benny every now and then, but then goes on to the end tables and inevitably tried to grab something that we have to move out of reach. He is also learning what "No" means. I try to only say it when it is serious, like chewing on cords or going towards anything dangerous. He stops and looks at me. He used to smile and go back to the task at hand, but now he will usually move on to something else.
Just this last week Joel has started waving "bye-bye". For some reason he will not do it for Benny much, to Benny's dislike, but he does it to Pat when we leave her house every day. When we come home, we usually play in his room for a while before going upstairs. His new thing is to crawl out into the hallway and wave to me as he goes further out. He's so funny. He also crawled up the two stairs leading up to the kitchen the other day!
In less than 3 months I am going to have a one year old. Wow. But like I said before, I love watching him grow more than I wish he would stop. So far it has only gotten better, so I anticipate the next several, several years of my life to be what it's all about. I can't wait :)

My new Valentine

So this post is late. Valentine's already passed, but it was Joel's first so I need to write about it. He actually spent the day with his Grandma! Mommy and Daddy had to work and Mrs. Pat was home sick with the flu. Once Joel went back to school he was able to exchange Valentine's with the other kids. He gave out Scooby Doo Valentine's this year. We made the "Be Mine" and "Let's share Scooby snacks" ones out to the girls, Ally, Savannah and Lyla. Cole and Andrew just got the "You're a good little buddy" type cards. I think when Joel is in elementary he is going to hand make his cards for his class. Those store bought ones are so boring, but that will probably be what he wants. He wore a cool Beatles shirt that read, "All you need is love". If that's not the truth I don't know what is. My little family of 3 might not have a lot of stuff, and we may not be able to afford to go on a big vacation this year but that's okay. We have the best time just being with each other. Girls from work go to happy hour after a hard week at work. The only thing I want to do after being at work all day is go pick up Joel as quickly as possible. Benny and I are home-bodies and I love it. We have free entertainment 7 days a week. Joel makes me laugh (hard) on a daily basis. So we may live on a budget, but I'm right where I want to be in all aspects of my life.
All in all, it was a great Valentine's Day. We stayed at home and cooked dinner, and I had the two loves of my life right by my side where they belong. <3