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