Our new little boy :)

So we had the ultrasound this week to see if there were girl parts or boy parts. We had no true preference as there are pros and cons of each.

The pros and cons:

Girl pros: Would be fun to braid hair, buy dollies and cute little dresses and have one of each gender.
Girl cons: Would need whole new set of clothes, would eventually have to have her own room and we would have to figure out a sleeping arrangement where one kid wasn't on the same floor as us.

Boy pros: Been there, done that, have all the clothes and would not have to figure out an alternative sleeping arrangement.
Boy cons: We are done at two kiddos and so we wouldn't know what it was like to parent a girl and how much fun that could be.

Only one person who would venture a guess had actually guessed boy but many had hedged and said they didn't know or wouldn't guess.



This is our new little boy nugget. He looks so much like his brother did - but I guess the ultrasound pictures aren't very high resolution are they :)



(PROFILE)

Thankfully little nugget is growing as he should, is moving around and doing all of his normal things. They could see almost all the parts they needed to and it all looks normal. We will have one more ultrasound in a couple of weeks so they make sure they can see ALL the parts they need to. Then we may not have another ultrasound at all ;)

Oliver will have an awesome time playing with him and having a buddy to share his love of trains, animals, drums and Pet Sounds (the album by the Beach Boys - he asks for it by name and has favorite songs - "no not that one!")

They can share the same room until they are teenagers now which will be nice. They can also share clothes and toys and cribs and car seats, etc.

This little nugget is already kicking and reminds me to slow down or lean backward and take it easy. Could he possibly be more active than his brother?? I'm glad he will have a big brother to play with if that is the case!



(FOOT)


I will be woefully outnumbered by men in my house :) It is fun parenting this little boy so I am looking forward to the next one! Only 19 more weeks to go.....

Low Risk

Sorry for the delay in posting the next update. We had a round of blood and ultrasound testing the end of July to see if this little nugget has any increased risk of having Trisomy 18 or 21 (Down Syndrome). We met with the very lovely genetic counselor ahead of time who went through our family history.



What is reassuring is that there are so MANY health family members. To a genetic counselor that is great news. Things that run in families or tendencies towards problems tend to show up in large families.



My mom is the youngest of 7. My dad is the 2nd of 4. Tom's dad is somewhere in the middle of a large Catholic herd of 13 or 14. Only his mom is the only child. We have cousins upon cousins upon cousins and they have kids and so and so forth and there is no major issue that anyone has found.




My risk of having a baby with three copies of one of the above genes based only on my age is about 1:200.

After the blood testing, it is estimated at about 1:10,000!



This little nugget is certainly behaving him/herself. Thank goodness since mama is too busy to worry right now.

Today is week 15. Only 25 more weeks left to get the house, job and finances in order. A challenge?? Bring it on :)




The pictures above are nugget sticking tongue out, nugget's hand with 5 finger - he/she showed us both hands and feet and all fingers and toes, nugget's leg - very athletic looking :), nugget profile and a close up of his/her foot

Here come the crazy dreams......

So I normally have some pretty bizarro dreams, but when I am pregnant they really elevate to a new level.

The other night I had a dream that when nugget was born, they gave me a choice of whether I wanted it to have a regular mouth or a duckbill. Of course what mother in their right mind would want a regular old mouth when they could have a super cool duckbill on their newborn so I opted for that.

Breastfeeding a duckbilled child proved a little bit more of a challenge...... the dream then started to get super weird as I was back in Grants Pass and teachers from high school kept wafting through the dream, but I nevertheless wished I could have that regular-mouthed little newborn back :)

We have our meeting the perinatologists on Friday and will be doing some blood and ultrasound testing to see what our statistical risk of having a baby with some sort of birth defect is. Duck bills aside, this is a little bit more concerning as I am now maternally elderly.



We have no family history of any significant issues on either side but have had some very sweet friends who have had a baby with some problems that were not detected prior to being born prematurely. Their struggles to help their little sweetie be without pain and even to find a clear diagnosis has raised my appreciation for the one very happy healthy little boy that we have.

It has also made me wonder if I would be able to endure the mental and emotional toll of having a baby with special needs. Logically I know of course we would deal with that we needed to deal with, but I'm still putting all my positive thoughts that nugget is without significant issue - and certainly without duckbill! We're not those Duck Fans - Sheesh!

Nesting already???

So fatigue has plagued me for the last 4 weeks but now the last two days I have a slight spring in my step. I started last night by going through all the maternity clothes that I had left over and inherited from various sources. Cleaned out winter clothing. Cleared out several drawers. Set aside stuff for Goodwill. Cleaned up the closet. It was a very productive hour or two. Tom wisely stood back and watched. Oliver decided if I was piling clothes - nicely and folded on the futon that he should pile all of his things in one place and then put my nicely folded clothes on top. It was still fun and one thing crossed of my to do before February list already :)

Today after seeing patients this AM, Tom and I attacked our yard. He set about reclaiming our driveway and the road in front of our house from the ivy and I weeded. Now it looks much better and he is finishing mowing as I type! I am very happy to be more energetic and hope it holds out. Lots of hard work in the house, at my office and on our finances before this little nugget comes into the world!!

By the way, nothing more sexy than having your husband be happy about the cleanliness of your home - or helping you do the work to make it that way!

9 weeks have slipped by and only 31 until due date. Head down and go go go!

Surprise!

For those of you who are unaware, I started my own clinic in November 2010. I have been working 6-7 days per week fairly consistently since then at either my place or one of several other places to fill in the difference in income and keep up my mortgage. About April when stress levels were high, my husband and I decided to go to the coast for a weekend. I also decided that it would be a good time to finish with birth control pills. I had not had a real issue with them prior to my Oliver pregnancy but have found since then that I am more moody, stress affects me more and I have a decreased libido. NOT FUN!!!

We weighed the pros and cons. I actually fear having to do IVF again. Our embryos do not like petrie dishes. We do not need multiples and those eggs are getting older and older with each passing day making the chance of genetic defect higher and higher. It's a lot of time and money and stress over many many months! But a good try at natural conception is free and fun so what the hay!



End of April done with pills - I cannot even remember the exact date. I figured that it would take a few months to get back into the swing of things. Oliver was almost 2 so worst case scenario is that we got pregnant right away but even that was not a horrible thought. About two weeks after I stopped the pills, however, I had some buyer's remorse. The business is going well but I am still having to work a lot and I wasn't sure that this would be a good time to get pregnant. Again, I reminded myself how long it took to get pregnant with Oliver and figured that we had a long road ahead of us anyway.


I have been running since January and my running partner talked me into doing the Run Like a Mother 5K for Mother's Day. I have to admit I felt the best I have in a long time at the beginning of May. I had lost about 10 pounds from January, had energy and set a personal records at the run! Apart from my silly foot which would not let me train too many days a week, I felt really good.



We went to Grants Pass for my nephews' birthdays in mid May. My brother-in-law's sister who graduated high school with me told me about a dream she had where I was pregnant again. How did she even know we were trying? I actually had taken a pregnancy test a couple of days prior due to tender boobs but it was negative.

Hubby was enjoying his new off-hormones-and-now-much-more-frisky wife. "Stress relief" sessions hit an all time high. Life continued to be good. There was a day or two I remember having signs of ovulation. I even asked Tom to take measures to maybe avoid pregnancy but lost in the heat of the moment, we neglected to do anything. And I honestly didn't think much about it.

End of May now and training for a sprint triathalon with my sister. I had been increasing my swimming but right around Memorial Day had a bad swimming session. Felt like I was sucking in chlorine air. I called my sis and she was swimming much faster and easier. I figured I would continue and get better. Starting to tire more easily with running as well but I have a patient running partner.




Then June 2, 2011. Did a routine physical on a woman who had an IUD. Could not see her IUD strings. We were both worried about where they were. She had a negative pregnancy test but we sent her for ultrasound to make sure it was still there and the strings were just out of sight. I thought about the tender boobs, lack of energy when exercising and the latest sharp pains in the right lower abdomen when I stood up too fast (I had that with Oliver's pregnancy as well) and said well maybe it is time to check.

Sneaking into the bathroom at my office with a pregnancy test stuffed in my bra was pretty silly and I figured that it would be negative like all the other times I thought there may be a chance and it was negative. But um this time two little pink lines appeared on the test. Really? Really? At this high stress, not really trying, no hormones, literally 1st month off birth control pills, my previously infertile self was pregnant. I felt like calling up Blue Cross and telling them their denial of coverage for insurance due to infertility could now safely be put to rest.

Completely distracted for the rest of the afternoon - sorry patients! - I tried to focus on the tasks at hand until I could get home. I sneaked another test an hour or so later. Still positive - well DUH!

When I got home I told hubby. He was pretty surprised and happy but said the nicest thing about this was there was no pressure on a successful pregnancy. We had a beautiful little boy so if this was ectopic or ended in a misscarriage or had three eyes it would be horrible and sad but NOT like it was before when we were trying for the first.

I called my OB friend Laura and she scheduled for me to come in the next day and start having hormone levels checked. She figured it was early and so the first level would be close to the lowest needed to show positive on a pregnancy test (around 35). It came back at 463! Due to my history of ectopics, we checked again in 96 hours - it should have been roughly 4 times that - or 1882 but was instead around 2600. Checking again in 48 hours should have doubled to 5200 and it was 6300. "I wonder what the possible reasons for that could be?" she laughed as she told me.

So apart from twins and just normal variation between singleton pregnancies, the other possible causes are ovarian ectopic and hormone producing cancer. Too much knowledge is not a good thing in this case and I spent the next week googling all of those plus how to fit three carseats in a Ford Escape Hybrid.

Only a few people knew at this point, need to know basis only! I have learned that telling lots of people early although fun is not always a good idea. I would wait until there was a heartbeat and we knew that the pregnancy was in the uterus first. No point getting a whole bunch of people excited about something that wasn't going to work out. Mostly it was people who tried to feed me alcohol for my birthday who found out as they wondered why I wouldn't be having my favorite cocktail on my special day.

Ultrasound on Tom's birthday - June 14th. One beautiful gestational sac with yolk sac and small little embryo aged 5 weeks 5 days so just before the heart movement is visible on ultrasound. No twins. No horrible cancer. Just one little nugget. Wow! But still no heartbeat and that is a big deal to me. So we scheduled our next ultrasound and waited. And spent the next two weeks completely surrounded by our family and unable to tell them :)

June 28th, still one beautiful gestational sac, smaller yolk sac and bigger nugget with a heart beat of 158! Due date February 10, 2012 (Math wise it is a great due date! 2 + 10 = 12 - yes I am a nerd!)



Crazy! Now I get to eliminate my prejudice against "those people" who accidentally get pregnant or get pregnant the first month they try. It will be a good lesson and a good way to experience all sides of this strange experience called mommyhood.

Now the planning really begins. I have had a great pregnancy so far. Fatigue is my nemesis and I have to eat like a cow - small constant - to avoid nausea. I will have to work harder longer than I had hoped to make sure we can take a maternity leave. Thank goodness I got the short term disability in place and have an awesome PA who can see patients in my stead!

So here begins the second pregnancy!
I will update every so often as developments occur.

Tom is already training Oliver to say "Help daddy with baby!" and Oliver says he wants a "brosister" so hopefully we don't have a hermaphrodite ;)

Life is a constant challenge to keep up with that is for sure!

Wow how time flies - especially when you're busy making plans!

What a year this has been! Oliver will be one year old in a few short days! He has been such a joy to watch as he changed from a smiling little dude to an active toddler who waves and almost walks and plays peek a boo.



How can I summarize a year of experiences? I am SO HAPPY to have such a great husband who really has taken this job of being a daddy to a new level. It would make me jealous or sad that Oliver sometimes wants to go to dad when he gets upset if it weren't so darn cute to see how Tom loves his role as awesome daddy! How did I luck out to have two awesome guys in my life?



It has not been easy to spend so much time away from him and I think the lack of posts in the last few months is in no small part due to the next major development in our lives - I'm planning to open my own business in the fall about 4/10 of a mile from our house! Things are getting close to finalized and this will be by no means a reduction in my work. For the next few years, I will be working more hours and my patients will be taking a much bigger part of my life. However, in the grand plan, this will give me a chance to build something that allows me to have flexibility and passive not just active income. I may have the option to purchase the building I plan to lease which will even further increase the chance that I can become a smarter worker not just a hard worker ;)




And all of this is because of this little dude who smiles with a big toothy grin as soon as I walk in the door. He waves and smiles at strangers and friends alike. I love his late night and early morning snuggles when he buries his head in my chest (even if it means I get snots on my shirts). I am so excited for each new day that I get to spend with him. I am hopeful that changing some things in my life will allow me to be there for all of his important milestones. How can you look at this face and want to do anything but spend as much time and energy with him as possible?

Head bonking

So here is where I come clean about any IQ points my son may have lost over the last few weeks. He is a head bonker. He loves to explore and pull himself up to stand and sometimes, lately, that has meant his little precious head smacks with quite great force onto a hard surface if we are not within arm's length. He thinks his freedom is great. We hope his head is strong enough to make it and that mild concussions are not occurring daily. We are pretty convinced at this rate he will not be able to play football because the total damage his head has sustained by the time he is old enough may be too great.



Oh and did I mention that he loves Cheerios? Loves them! Can't get enough of them. And this allows us to eat dinner in peace. Until he choked on one the other day. He looked at me while we were eating our respective dinners and his mouth agape, I could almost see the stuck Cheerio. I asked him (as if he could answer me even if he weren't choking) "can you breathe?" He looked at me mouth agape as if to say, "um not really". In one calm sift move, he was out of his high chair and had several firm blows between the shoulder blade and not 5 seconds later that suspect Cheerio was lying partially soggy on his high chair tray. He made one little scream as if to say - that was a little bit scary and then smiled. I looked at Tom who had his cell phone in hand, staring at it and trying to figure out if 911 needed calling. Oliver immediately demanded more Cheerios and I obliged. The lesson I learned is that Oliver is not to eat Cheerios without supervision. The lesson Tom learned was that Oliver is not to eat Cheerios unless mom is home ;) Cheerios are henceforth to be known in these parts as Chokios.



And yet I worry about the most unlikely of fates for my child. I do not fear that he will chew through an electrical cord (he loves them by the way), choke on a Cheerio while we are not looking or bonk his head into oblivion. What I really worry about is what would happen if he fell down the stairs while I was carrying him and broke his neck or contracted some rare cancer or got caught in a fiery inferno car accident while I struggled to get to him. I do not worry about him falling out of the tub seat onto his head and knocking himself out (he did fall head first into the empty tub this AM, cried and then smiled). I can keep him from chewing on cords and the many gates and baby proofing devices we are erecting should help slow his pursuit to bang up and bruise his beautiful little face. I can certainly provide Heimlich and other choking cures. No what really worries me are the things over which I have no control, the really scary things that I cannot see and cannot prevent. So I try to find ways in my imagination to prevent, control and plan for them the best I can. And I remind myself that it is not up to me and I do not have control over what he does all of the time. I will try to let it go. After all, he seems to really be a happy, healthy and well adjusted kid. I wouldn't want to mess him up ;)

Learning to crawl!

Oliver is now 6 months old! Hard to believe how much he has learned to do in the last 6 months. On a basic level, he has learned to eat and sleep and breath and poop and pee and communicate without being able to talk. He has learned to smile at us when we look at him. He has learned to turn away from a stranger with a coy smile if mommy or daddy holds him. He has learned to sing both in expression of joy and to help keep himself from falling asleep if he doesn't want to. He can eat from a spoon and almost drink from a cup. He can hold out his hand to you and grab at things. He can roll over. He can almost sit up on his own. He laughs big belly laughs that make me laugh too!



What fun it is to watch the determination of my handsome little guy as he attempts to cross the floor after some toy. He just learned to roll over from back to front the first part of November and within a couple of weeks has learned to army crawl and propel himself and barrel roll! He makes very cute little grunting noises as he moves. So now each day includes a large dose of "free range time". Basically, he just entertains himself by exploring our house on the ground. I think it is wonderful - even though it includes dirty faces, cat hair from head to toe and to my sheer disgust a small cat "butt nugget" on the ground with fresh baby drool!




What an exciting time! Oliver is so happy to be mobile and to control his own body better. I think it is great that he is so interested in moving and learning. It certainly helps to tire him out and leaves mommy and daddy more open to do things other than hold and entertain him at times throughout the day.



It is amazing to watch this cute little boy develop with his red cheeks and CONSTANT smile!

As we get into December and I start the buying frenzy that is Christmas, I am trying to remember that the best gifts we have we cannot buy and that everything is much merrier with a little dose of unadulterated baby love in your life!

THANKSGIVING

I am going to try to write more on this blog, but you understand if I may take long breaks. I am working full time and when I get home after doing work on the train home, I realy just want to snuggle in with my little dude for the rest of the night.

I am reminded as of late how thankful I am that Oliver came into our lives. What a joy he is. If you know Tom, you will appreciate that Oliver is so joyful that he makes Tom smile at 7 AM!!! This is a big step.

We have been blessed with a child who for at least 5 out of his almost 6 months of life sleeps well and for at least 3 has allowed us to sleep through the night.

We have a child who spends most of his day smiling and looking at things with great thought and interest. I know that he will be super curious and I am thankful.



I am thankful that we got pregnant even though the fertility clinic had to help and even though those little embryos didn't want to be outside of mommy long enough to make it back in except this one beautiful embryo who became our wonderfully awesome son!

I am thankful that he was a singleton (one baby not twins or triplets) so that we can get used to parenting just one baby at a time!

I am thankful that my pregnancy was for the most part completely uneventful!




I am thankful that I have a kind caring and supportive husband who sat with me through the entire labor and pregnancy and went to pretty much all my doctor visits!



I am thankful that I can produce enough "mommy milk" to feed my son every day and that if he needed to he could live on just that although sometimes due to pumping limitations and his voracious appetite while I am gone, he has to drink formula!



I am thankful that I have a job where I an support my family so my husband can afford to stay home and devote his entire attention to our son only and even finds time to clean the house and have dinner ready most nights when I get home! WOW!!!

I am thankful for good friends who have provided support throughout the whole process!

I am thankful for a wonderful family who even when they haven't know how to helped have helped just by thinking about me and hoping I was okay and more so when they did find ways to help

I am thankful that when I had Oliver there was no swine flu to limit the number of people who could be at the hospital so that my family could all come and see little Oliver fresh into the world!

I am thankful that I have mostly good patients who are kind and thoughtful and not wanting more than I have to give them!

I will have too much to be thankful for to sum up in one sentence at Thanksgiving and may not be able to say the things that I need to as the tears well up in my eyes Grandma Judd style, but I look at my amazing child and my amazing husband and my amazing family and friends and my amazing job and house and I think - wow, even if this doesn't last long, it is pretty awesome now - THANK YOU!

Oliver 3 months (46 photos), by Kirsten Carr

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

Totally worth it!

Tonight I am sitting on my new bed in my new house with my new baby. A little over a year ago, I was at the beginning of this journey and hoping to be exactly here. It was an easy pregnancy, an easy delivery and so far Oliver is a pretty easy baby.

We are at the end of almost three months without income, will have a new mortgage to pay for come Sept 1, I not longer qualify for individual insurance because my history of fertility makes any future pregnancies more likely be to high risk, things are more dramatic at work than I would like for silly reasons and I just realized about two weeks ago that my true purpose in life is to be the best mom and wife I can just in time to go back to work and be farther from my son and husband than ever.

A person could become frustrated or overwhelmed or both in the midst of all of the chaos and new challenges.

And then I look at my baby lying on the bed next to me sleeping. I smell his head - clean and baby lotion-y. I see him smile and laugh. I see how happy my husband and I are when he is close by.

And I know.....

I can handle any hour commute to provide for my family for as long as I need to. I can afford to pay extra to get the insurance coverage I need while Tom and Oliver stay on the lower premium insurance. I can make it through tough financial times thanks to the good job and years of hard work I have already put in. I can rise above the drama at work and let cooler heads prevail. I can truly enjoy the new house and the new bed and be thankful. This is how I will be the best mom and wife I can be!

THIS WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Oliver newborn pics (31 photos), by Kirsten Carr

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
http://www2.snapfish.com/fbshareredirect/p=282311249082851340/l=3333351007/g=27753373/redirectURL=share/otsi=SALBBL/AlbumID=1613857007/a=27753373_27753373/usercomments=I_xqd%20like%20to%20share%20my%20Snapfish%20photos%20with%20you.%20Once%20you%20have%20checked%20out%20my%20photos%20you%20can%20order%20prints%20and%20upload%20your%20own%20photos%20to%20share./counttext=31%20photos/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

A curse to the toots

Oliver is not a super gassy baby, but when he does get some toots, they hurt and we have to hold and rock him to make it all better. Yesterday was a particularly bad day with holding every 15 minutes and not much rest unless packed around the house in the carrier. Therefore, mommy has devised a curse to the toots. Oliver and she recite and it seems to help - if only to make us feel that we are doing something and expressing ourselves and our opinion about the toots.




"Oh toots from the nether regions of my colon, be gone!
We do not like your painful ways nor your ruin of an otherwise happy moment!
You awaken us from slumber, you interrupt our smiles.
We try to eliminate you with our powerful leg kicking and face scrunching only to be met with resistance.
Be gone, foul toots and do not return for you are not welcome here.
Return happy tummy without pain and allow us to have a pleasant day."

Have baby, will travel

I won't be able to fully update all of the events of the last 6 weeks. Suffice to say that having a baby has done little to slow us down. In fact, this summer has been quite eventful and I am not sure how we would have fit any formal work time in if we tried ;-)

My mom and dad were able to stay for a few days after Oliver was born. It was nice to have them here as all of the cleaning and cooking and some of the baby rocking in the middle of the night was done by them. It was also nice to just spend some time with my boys. The days go quickly with all focus on the little one. He is a real joy and when he happens to smile in his sleep, I know that I am a very lucky mommy indeed.



Breastfeeding went well. We took walks to Target. We had visits from Jake Welch with some wonderful enchiladas, the Watermans on the verge of the birth of their little one and the Hyltons with yummy twice baked potatoes. We started to get bored sitting at home even with the visits ;-) We then visited the Watermans at their place when they had Ilse only 6 days after Oliver was born!




Oliver came with us to go house hunting when he was only about 10 days old. It was during this house hunting trip that we found the house we will be moving into in two days. It is larger and in the neighborhood we are wanting to live in. We are very excited. We will be renting our current place - if anyone wants a nice townhouse in Beaverton near lots of stuff for about $1000 per month let me know!!



We went to Eugene for my birthday just for the day and met my sister, brother-in-law, nephews, mom and dad and had lunch and walked around the park a bit before heading back.



Oliver travels well. He is getting used to meeting lots of new people! He has already been to my work and Tom's work to meet the ladies in the office at both locations!




We went to the zoo with my sister's family, my brother's family and my other brother and his partner. It was good time to walk around and see all of the animals and spend some time with all of my siblings and their kids.




When Oliver was about a three weeks old, Tom's mom came to visit. We were able to leave Oliver with her and go out to a couple of movies and dinner. How nice that was and she sure enjoyed taking care of him. He is now fairly convinced that a baby is supposed to beheld all of the time.



Not too long after that, we took Oliver to his first baseball game. PGE park, Portland's AAA park has a baby suite with lots of cool amenities. We enjoyed taking advantage of that. Oliver mostly slept. He also rode the max for the first time that day. I am getting sort of used to having perfect strangers come up and dote on him ;-)



Oliver is also very lucky to have met my great-aunt Rosa. She is my grandma Judd's only remaining sibling and a very sweet lady (although she tries to pretend she is onry). I had the pleasure of taking care of her as a patient but now mostly get to enjoy her as a nice friend! Oliver slept well in her arms - it was only many minutes later when she admitted her arm had gone numb and asked for me to help her return him to me ;-)



At the end of June, we traveled to Grants Pass with Oliver. The plan was to see Tom's favorite band, Wilco, play at the Britt festival. Both grandmas were ecstatic. We enjoyed being back in Grants Pass for a nice visit and got to see Terry and Alison Hopkins and their little boy Brenten as well as get a quick trip in to the Applegate River to put Oliver's feet in it for a minute. The music was amazing!



From Grants Pass to home for a day to Seattle for a family reunion. Now he has met all of my mom's siblings - Dan was the only one missing but we met with him in Portland before he left for Europe on a trip. He has also met many of my cousins. He has lots of catching up to do on the Winn side and I imagine that will come later in the summer when we go to the farm to meet great-grandpa/ma Winn! We stayed in Seattle a few days after that and Oliver went on his first ferry ride to Bainbridge!




Oliver is truly the most amazing little person I have met! Of course, as his mommy, I think he is the most beautiful and sweet child in the world. His daddy is amazed at his head strength and ability to bear weight on his legs. He is quite convinced that he will be standing soon - I just hope he learns to roll over and starts smiling more ;-) It is not hard to believe that I love him. He is easy to love. My eyes well up with happiness at the thought of all the fun things he will get to do in his life.






I love getting him out of his crib when he is crying and knowing that I am the only one that can fix his problem. I know he will get older and be able to fix his own issues.




I love watching him look around and wonder at the world. I sing to him and talk to him and although I am very much living with him in this moment, I still think he will be more fun when he can tell me what he is thinking! I will love to hear his thoughts!




I love taking showers with him in the morning and then getting him dressed. He loves to snuggle and like his mom and dad, he loves taking showers!



I have many more things about Oliver that I could write - how he is very tolerant of our antics for example. I also have many more instances of outings and trips that he has taken - like the two knitting groups he has been with me too. I have a million people to thank for helping us and loving us and supporting us! This is my catch up and I hope to keep up a little. I keep forgetting that not everyone is able to see my more frequent updates on Facebook so I will try to be better about posting on both. But if you find yourself joining Facebook, look me up and see the more complete Oliver album!

Here is a pic of blueberry face - Tom thought it would be cute to balance a blueberry on his nose.....you kinda had to be there.