These are a few of my favorite things!

All of the updates lately have been medically related, and I haven't updated on John Michael's milestones. Michael and I were talking about this last night, because it seems like all of the milestones have appeared all in a matter of a couple of days- and we think it's because he's making up for lost time from being in the hospital, and having to spend a lot of time in his bed/swing/makeshift hospital bed.

So, I wanted to take some time to talk about the things that he has started to do.  Now, at 14 weeks old, he very easily rolls over from stomach to back- when we first saw this a long time ago, we thought we were making it up, but he's definitely doing it. He's working on rolling over from back to stomach- which I'll be honest- kind of scares me. I go in to get him in the mornings, and he is all over that crib! I haven't found him on his stomach yet, but I did find him on his side this morning- and he was turned sideways.

JM really enjoys playtime now too. He's able to grab things, and is already starting to put some things in his mouth. His hands are the main mouth inhabitants right now. He also likes to experiment with his voice- loudly. It can quickly turn to a cry though, so we have to be on our toes. He has also taken an interest in the tv. And this is one of those things that I used to say I would not do. But I'll be honest- I ate those words quickly. With all of the colic, reflux, and post operative care... I'm doing alot of things that I said I wouldn't before.

He loves bath time! He's starting to splash around with his feet, and we play games with the washcloth.

He loves his Bubba! Max still runs his "suicides" as I call them. JM will watch him run back and forth, back and forth. Max kisses his head, and sometimes I catch JM looking at Max and smiling.

He loves visits. We had a great visit with Sherri and Jessica today- and he looks forward to getting to hang with Aunt Jessi more in the future.

He loves hangin with Dad. I took a much needed nap this afternoon, and woke up to JM and Dad in their "recliners."

And what's my favorite thing right now?  These little things!!!

Eeeeeeeeeee!  Are these not the cutest little things you've ever seen?!! Oh, I could just kiss his little feet all day.  And when you get a response like this, how could you refuse?

13 Weeks and Catching Up!

It has been awhile since my last blog post, but I think after reading this, you'll know why.
When John Michael was born, he had a mass on his behind- literally almost blocking his rectum. The doctors all seemed baffled, so they called Children's Hospital to get a surgeon over to look at him. That surgeon was Dr. Beierle, who has become one of the greatest people Michael and I know. She said that she thought it was a hemangioma, and that we would keep an eye on it to see what it did- thinking that it would go away on its own. After many visits to Children's Hospital, we started noticing that it was getting bigger. Dr. Beierle said that there was a treatment for hemangiomas- basically treating JM with beta blockers- which would reduce it and make it go away. So, we had to have a biopsy done in order to make 100% sure that's what it was, and then we would continue with the treatment. At that time, the biopsy was going to be the hardest part, because it would involve anesthesia, surgery, and alot of post-op care because of where the mass was.
After the biopsy, we went home and JM slept the majority of those first two days. But when he woke up, the screaming began. I think Michael and I took him to the doctor twice that week because we just couldn't console him. But nobody had an answer for what was wrong with him- everyone pointed to everyone else.
A week went by and we had not heard the biopsy results, so we called. They told us that the pathologist wanted to send it off to another lab for more stains, and that the results would be another week. Cue worry, stage left.
After the second week went by, Dr. Beierle called to give us the results. It wasn't a hemangioma after all. It was a rhabdomyoma- or benign tumor. However, there are only two cases in the English speaking world of this showing up where it did. So unfortunately, medicine wasn't going to make it go away. We would have to schedule him for surgery.
By this point, I was getting closer and closer to the time that I had to go back to work. We scheduled his surgery for the Thursday before I was to return to work (my first day back would be a Wednesday). We arrived at Children's Hospital at 6am, and sometime mid-morning, they took him back. He had only been allowed pedialyte from midnight until 4am, and we were trying to prepare ourselves for the days to come as he wouldn't be allowed anything for at least 48 hours after the surgery (as to reduce bowel movements). We stayed at Children's until Sunday when we were allowed to go home. The first three days were hard but blessed, because we had the BEST nurse on the planet, Nina. Our last day was pretty bad. He threw up everywhere, and our nurse that day was less than helpful. Michael and I were nervous about taking him home, but we bit the bullet and decided that we had to. I mean, really, we had to- what else were we going to do?
Monday and Tuesday were usual post-op days. Michael and I spent our time figuring out all of the new meds that JM was going to have to take. I tried to write out as much as I could because we would have family coming to keep JM starting Wednesday (when I started back at work). Wednesday was fine. I didn't know how I would be my first day back at work, but I did surprisingly well. Thursday was when it all started again. My mom was keeping JM and she and I had noticed blood in his diaper that morning. After calling back and forth with the surgeon, we took him in. Turns out his stitches had busted loose, but there really was no way to stitch him back up again. So we were given instructions to keep the area as clean as humanly possible- which would now include at least two baths a day. I worked from home so that I could be here to help, instead of just handing him off to family members.
And that brings us to tonight. He is currently in and out of sleep in his crib- I think the time change messed him up. We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning to see if he's healed up at all. The plan right now is to probably keep him out of daycare for another week and let family keep him at home. But, we'll see what the doctor says in the morning.
This post has probably jumped all around, and if so, I apologize. At this point, keeping a thought straight is like being in a one-legged kick starting contest. Here are some pictures of our journey through the hospital.

Before he went back for surgery

After surgery- very swollen

With Nina, the best nurse and friend!

The day we got home from the hospital

His makeshift hospital bed at home

A Time for a Baptism

John Michael was baptized on Sunday, February 20. And... he slept through the night for the first time the night before his baptism!!!  He makes lots of noises through the night as he sleeps, so I didn't freak out when I woke up at 6am after putting him to bed at 9pm the night before. But, here's what the week was like before this wonderful marked occasion.

Michael and I didn't really do anything for Valentine's Day on Monday. We're not big celebrators of the day to begin with- but add a colicky, one week out from minor surgery infant to the mix- you forget that it's anything other than "survive through this day so that we can sleep" day. Plus, Michael came home from work saying that he didn't really feel that well. He was achy, and although he forced down some chicken pot pie that I made, I knew he wasn't hungry.

Tuesday morning... stomach virus elite arrived. I say it that way because Michael wasn't the only one who was sick. No, no, no... our little bug was spared. But Max on the other hand had left several presents on the rug in the living room. Our rug is light blue with ivory and brown looking "branches" on it. Needless to say, these presents blended in with the brown branches on the rug. So... while Michael thought that he had cleaned up all of the presents, I found several more as the day went on.

I quarantined Michael and Max in the guest bedroom together, and that's where they stayed all week long. Michael had a balanced diet of Saltines and Gatorade... and Max was fine after Tuesday, but he pretended to be sick just so that he could stay with dad all week.

John Michael on the other hand, decided that this was the week to cry the hardest he's ever cried! After taking him to the pediatrician for the 8,547th time, and being told something different for the 8,547th time, I was a basket case. Plus, with the crying being the worst it had been, and having Michael quarantined and not able to help at all... I thought I was going to die.  But, we made it through the week, and we were all still alive by Saturday, so we packed up and headed to Selma.

Michael took off with John Michael, and my parents and I headed to Orrville to visit a sweet, dear family who just suffered the loss of a family member. Once we all got back, Paw Paw and Nana played with John Michael- and he was doing so well.  In fact, it was the least amount of crying I had ever seen from him (Paw Paw insists that this is because of him). JM got a bath and went down to sleep in a crib that my mom has in the back bedroom of their house. And, he slept all night!

We got up at 6am Sunday morning, had breakfast, and all got ready for the baptism. John Michael wore the Christening gown that my brother and I both wore, as well as my nephew Bradford.  You can see my earlier post of embroidering that gown here. He did so well, and only cried a little bit. Here are some pictures from the day.

John Michael with mom and dad

with Bishop Chuck Jones

And with Father Craig Stull

JM slept through the night last night once we got back to Birmingham too!  And since last weekend, it's been all smiles and playtime. Here's our sweet baby boy at 10 weeks old.

Trying our hand at the Bumbo seat- not quite ready yet

On the changing table, my favorite place to be!

Mom's so funny!

Playing on my activity mat- I love these hanging things!

We're doing much better, to say the least. We have a week of outings planned so that we can take full advantage of this amazing weather before I have to go back to work. I hope that this all means that one day soon I can say, "The colic came quickly into our lives, and it left as quick as it came."

A Time to Organize- Part 2

And here's the more OCD-ness particular-ness (is that a word?) of my "day of organization" documentation.  This is actually something I've been doing for awhile, but I just decided to document it during my organizational scamper.

For any of you out there who don't know this, Dr. Brown's bottles are the BEST for babies who have stomach/gas issues.  There are a lot of parts to these bottles though.  I've found that in the middle of the night, when JM is waking up hungry and the crying is getting more intense... making a bottle in record time is a MUST!  So, here's my lineup.

The kitchen island serves as a bottle making/medicine dispensing station.  Over to the right, we have nursery water and rice cereal.  In the middle is a pre-made bottle with the proper amount of water in it.  Then over to the left is the formula powder, medicine, measuring spoons, and my handy dandy little dispenser.

We have to use Gentlease for JM's tummy, plus he gets reflux medicine twice a day.

 Since we have to add rice cereal to all of JM's bottles, it is impossible to make a bottle in a timely fashion, and more than that, I can't add the cereal without spilling it everywhere (the tablespoon is bigger than the top of the bottle, so it ALWAYS spills). So, I pre-mix the formula and rice cereal in this little dispenser, so that when it's time to make the bottle, all I do is pour.  Shout out to Mary Ann for this little purchase!

When my bottles are all dry from hand washing...

I pre-fill them with the proper amount of water and then set them out just so.

 Then I attach the other parts and set them up on the drying rack so that I can grab them quickly WHILE I'm shaking the bottle to mix the water and formula together.

 And there you have it.  I admit that I have a problem.  But, it sure does make things easier... especially at 3am when my eyes are barely open to put everything together AND get to JM in a timely fashion.  Try it- seriously- try it and see if it doesn't shave some time off of your bottle making.  Or maybe there's something else that you do that is slightly OCD... but maybe you're too embarrassed to admit it.  Don't be embarrassed!  Embrace your extreme organization!  And that, my friends, is me making myself feel better. :)

A Time to Organize- Part 1

OCD Kay is baaaaaaack!  There are some slight OCD "particular" tendencies that never left, but I just finally felt the need to organize the kitchen.  Maybe it's all the time I have at home.  Maybe it's the fact that JM took a day off from crying to allow me to do something else.  Maybe it's the fact that I felt like if I didn't do something soon, that I'd end up on an episode of Hoarders.  Whatever the reason, it's done.  And now, I'm taking bets on how long you think it'll last. :)

First thing that HAD to be done before I could do anything else was cleaning, purging, and organizing the end of our kitchen counter.  Here are some before pictures.

I've decided as the first course of action that I'm going to put "Return to Sender" on all credit card applications that come to me from now on.  I may even do that with all junk mail from now on.  I'm sick of it!  Half the reason we have so much stuff on the end of the counter is because of all the junk mail that I feel the need to shred because I don't like throwing away anything with my name and address on it.  And the decision to return all junk mail feels quite liberating to me.  So, there you have it.

Second course of action was to come up with something to put all of my coupons together in one place.  I want to save money, especially on things like formula and baby items, so I needed to find something- luckily I had an old check box in the office, so I made that into my coupon box.  I know, I'm super fancy.

I threw a BUNCH of stuff away, shredded a ton of mail, and moved some things around (like putting the recipe books and box up on the upper counter, and scooting the canisters down).  After all was said and done, this was the new end of the kitchen counter!

Look at that open countertop!  It actually has one less item on it now, as I ended up using that side canister in the pantry.  Oh, and speaking of the pantry, I organized that too.  Exceeeeeeept, I forgot to take before pictures.  So, just imagine the most unorganized and messy looking pantry.  And then here are the after shots.

I may even add labels if I ever get around to it.  Ahhhhhhhh... I'm tired now.  Stay tuned for Part 2, which is a tad more OCD and a little less organizational.

A Time for Creativity

Oh, the creative juices are flowing!  I can't help it, I'm just so stinking creative.  Okay, just kidding.  I don't know if losing brain cells during pregnancy and childbirth also goes for losing your creativity too, but lately, I've been struggling to even get a shower everyday... much less be creative!  Buuuuuuuuuut, I do know some people who are EXTREMELY creative.  Okay, that's a lie too.  I don't actually know them.  I follow their blog, so I guess you could say I stalk them?  Well, maybe it's not that severe.  A LOT of people follow this blog, and I can totally see why.  Um, it's because they're AMAZING!  Yes, I'm using a lot of CAPS in this post.
Anyway, shout out to John and Sherry Petersik, the authors of Young House Love- my favorite blog.  They are serious DIY'ers and just reading their blog makes me feel somewhat empowered to tackle any job around my house- and to jump in feet first and make something myself.  So, with that being said... what do these items all have in common?

They're the ingredients to the new mobile I put up in John Michael's nursery.  I never bought a mobile because the ones I thought were reasonable in price just weren't my style.  My style is more along the lines of the ones that have a hefty price tag.
But that's when I saw the mobile that John and Sherry made to go in their daughter Clara's room.  They also posted instructions on how to make your own version.  So, with a little 1, 2, 3... I made two to go up in JM's nursery.  And, I decided to hang them from the air vent in his room in hopes that our air/heater might stir up a little action for them.  Well, probably not.  I think it's more the fact that I have some unreasonable fear of putting holes in the wall/ceiling/cabinet.  I'm getting better about it, but in the meantime, I'm just going to tie them to the air vent.  They do have a nice twirling action going on though.  Here's my final product!

And here's my trusty assistant, Maxwell vonSeeberg Schnauzer Sanford, posing with the finished product.  He held the ladder while I hung them.  You should comment on how nice you think his new haircut looks- seriously- he got his feelings hurt because he thought nobody liked his new do.  Nana had to Skype him last night just to make him feel better.

Mine don't look as cool as the Petersik's, and I could only get two done- which I know goes against all decorating rules (hang/organize things in odd numbers).  Who cares- I'm a decorating REBEL!  Or I have a baby with colic... whichever one you want to go with.
But I think it'd be cool to chill in my crib and look up at this view.

Stay tuned as I share in my next post about getting organized... and my OCD tendencies.  But, let's not call it OCD.  Let's just call it... particular.

A Time for Friends!

John Michael is 8 weeks old today, and he's really starting to come out of his shell.  He loves playing on his activity mat with his daddy.  They just play and JM smiles and gets praised every time he touches the rattle.  He's rolling over which is insane to me- but I put him down on his stomach the other day, and walked over to the other side of the room to get a rattle- and when I turned around he was on his back!  Maybe Max has been helping him with that. :) It has happened several times though. But he's holding his head up alot, and we're able to get him to stay on his tummy for longer periods of time.

Last weekend, we were so blessed to get to spend some time with our friends Woody and Kristen.  They brought their adorable son Foster along, who is a couple of months older than John Michael.  I think JM was a little jealous of how much hair Foster had.

Foster is such a cutie!  I got tickled at one point because JM had been in a cranky mood, so he was swinging in his little swing (which is usually the only thing we can do to calm him down).  We were playing with Foster, and I looked over at JM, who looked like he was in time-out over in the swing.  It was really funny.  After daddy fed him though, he was a little more sociable.

Somehow I caught Foster making some really funny expressions- he looks a little nervous in the one above.  And then this one cracked me up so much, I just had to share...

It was so nice to be with friends and get to hang out a little, share stories, and just catch up.  We had not had a chance to meet Foster yet because I was SOOOOO pregnant when he was born, and then he was still so new when JM was born.  So needless to say, this was a welcomed visit for us all.

One other thing that has been happening this past week has been the mysterious "changing of the sounds" from JM's sleep sheep.  He loves his sleep sheep, so much so that we have two of them... one for the crib and one for traveling.  But we usually set the sheep on "rain" and it goes off by itself within a certain period of time.  Michael and I laugh at the "heartbeat" and "whale" settings, but we don't ever use those unless we're playing a joke on each other.  However, the other day, JM was swinging with his sleep sheep set on "rain" as usual.  All of a sudden the rain stopped, and I heard whales speaking and singing in our den.  After I busted out laughing, I changed it back to rain.  But, it has happened several times now, so either JM really likes the whales and is changing the sounds himself, or we need to sprinkle some holy water on ol' sleep sheep #2.  Regardless, I found JM petting sleep sheep yesterday, and it was so cute!

Next week's post will hopefully include a little nursery project I've been thinking about.  Stay tuned...