Happy New Year

I can't believe my little boy is one year old!! Actually in a few days, he will be 13 months. Holy Moly.

At one year, Peter is constantly adding words to his vocabulary including ball, teeth, and please (though only sometimes). He also imitates things that ding, beep, ring etc. He gets very upset if we don't imediately drop everything to investigate the noise, like the microwave or the doorbell. He is still a sweet, loving boy. He is getting much better about walking along furniture and balancing but has yet to decide that walking is the cool thing to do. He is eating any and everything we put in front of him including meat now. We appear to have lucked out so far in that he is not a picky eater at all. He enjoyed his birthday because he got to rip wrapping papar and have a taste of milkshake but I don't think he really understood what was happening.

Rick is finished with classes for the semester and enjoying his vacation. He starts the next semester in a few weeks. I am enjoying Rick's vacation also. It's nice to see him once and a while.

Hopefully I'll post more this year, but don't hold your breath....

Peter is 10 months old!

Today Peter is ten months old. I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. Here's an update on my little boy:

-Peter can give 'High fives'

- He has 2 teeth on the top now and several more teeth about to cut through

-He can crawl like a speed demon. He's always on the move and I'm always surprised at how fast he can go.

-He is pulling himself to standing all over the place, the couch, in his crib, on my legs etc

-He can walk along the furniture although he prefers to drop down and crawl because it's faster

-He is starting to balance on his own some while standing

-He hates having his diaper changed and will try valiantly to escape

-He's almost 22 pounds and 30 inches tall

-He can say mom, dad, boo, puppy, up, woof, Bingo (his stuffed dog) uh-oh, yum, hi, Granny, and ow

-He has figured out chewing and now gobbles anything we'll give him including a variety of fruits and vegetables, hard boiled egg, waffles, and pasta. Next challenge: meat.

-He loves to be outside although he's a little wary of sitting in the grass by himself.

-The swings are his favorite thing at the park

-He loves dogs and he will woof back at them

-He is still such a bubbly, giggly baby. He laughs all the time and usually gives himself the hiccups

Rick and Mandy news in a post to follow.

It hasn't been months *gasp*

And here's what's been going on with Rick since January.

Rick has had a lot of trouble with his ears in the last 7-8 months. He went deaf in his right ear in the middle of January. This spontaneous reduction in volume was diagnosed as, creatively, Sudden Hearing Loss. He had a surgery which did not fix the problem. However, his hearing is returning slowly, just as unexplainably as it went away. Three weeks ago he experienced slight hearing loss in his LEFT ear, which was fixed with steroid profusions (a shot in his ear, yuck!) Now we're looking for the reason why both his ears would be having similar problems so we can prevent further loss.

Not all the current happenings are so dire though. Rick is starting classes again this fall. He'll be taking Biology and Organic Chemistry. He's excited to keep moving on the path toward Medical School. I am happy for him but not looking forward to rarely seeing him.

New things have happened with Peter in the last week too. He can now crawl on hands and knees and his radius has increased to 5 or 6 feet. After 5 months of teething he finally cut a tooth (on the bottom). My final story about him isn't a milestone, it's just cute. Last night Peter fell asleep sitting up. His head bobbed for awhile and then flopped onto his chest and he sat there, asleep, for a bit and then he fell over. Luckily he was on the bed so it was soft, and I was watching his closely, while laughing quietly, so I caught him. Unfortunately he woke up a few
minutes later and didn't go back to sleep for an hour.

Peter is eight months old!

I've been waiting until I figured out how to post pictures on my blog from my phone but since that isn't happening, I will just post text for now as opposed to nothing.

Some Peter updates:

-Peter is eight months old now.

-He can sit all by himself and recently figured out how to get into a sitting position by himself.

- He is semi-crawling. He has about a three foot radius of scooting, dragging, rolling and inch-worming but he isn't really cruising yet. I'm sure any day now, he'll take off.

-His favorite toys are rubber duckies and squeaky blocks.

- He can drink out of a straw and his favorite foods are bananas and crackers. He's still figuring out the whole gumming food into smaller pieces process but he is very enthusiastic.

-He loves baths and the swimming pool. He can doggy-paddle (with support obviously) and loves to splash. He's newest trick is to lean over and lap up the water out of the tub like a dog.

-He has the sweetest smile and giggle. It lights up the world.

-He makes friends everywhere he goes. He will wave some of the time and he wiggles and laughs when he meets new people and they smile at him.

Some Rick and Mandy updates: coming soon.... Promise :)

My sweet boy

As it is now almost May, I thought people might like proof that my baby is still around and as cute as a button.

Peter is approaching five months old. He is teething, which mnakes him very drooly and grumpy. At his four month check up he was almost seventeen pounds and close to twenty-eight inches long. Holy Moly- tall boy! He said Mama the other day and if Rick leaves the room he will holler "Aaaaaad!" until Rick comes back. This doesn't work out so well when Dad goes to work because Mama spends alot of time wandering from room to room proving to Peter that Daddy really is gone, not just hiding. Peter loves it when Rick comes home and wiggles and smiles. He would be happiest if Rick and I could merge into one person so he wouldn't have to pick who gets to hold him.

Peter is already showing that he is a sweet and caring boy. When his gums hurt, I rub them with one finger to help them feel better and he figured out how to rub his own gums shortly after. He's so cute with his one little finger in his mouth. One day he was rubbing them and crying to I took over and rubbed his gums. He coo'd at me and stuck his finger in my mouth and rubbed my teeth- he wanted me to "feel better" too! He will also try to stick his cork (pacifer) in my mouth when I'm sad. He pets my and Rick's faces too, because we stroke his to get him to go to sleep. He is adorable and loves to share what makes him happy.

For your viewing pleasure:

Peter "reading" Rick's chemistry book




















Peter with the slingshot Auntie Sam gave him





















My smiley Boy

Peter's noises

This should come as no surprise to those of you who know me (or my mom) really well but Peter is quite the little talker. He coos and babbles all day long. Everything, it seems, is worthy of talking too; the heartbeat bear Grandma Schoonie gave him, his pacifier, even when he's nursing he's talking away. He makes these little sighs while he's eating that translate to, as far as I can tell, "Mmmm, food, yum, I missed you, yummy!" He will also mimic sounds back at us. I say "hi" in a really sugary baby voice, and he makes the sound, though not the word, back at me. He is adorable and I can't wait to hear what he will say when he can actually speak. Here is a video we got of him cooing and smiling. Be prepared to fawn over his cuteness.

Birth Story

I've sat down to write my birth story a dozen times in the past few days. Unfortunately, when you have a new baby who doesn't like sitting at the computer it's hard to stay at the keyboard long enough to finish typing. Here we go, try number dozen and one.

First off, about two weeks before I actually delivered, I had a bout of false labor. I'm not sure how long most false labor lasts but mine lasted 24 hours. No dilation or effacement, only 24 hours of strong contractions. That should have given me a clue as to how the real thing would go...

On December 1st, my due date, I went into labor in the evening. I slept, badly mind you, and my contractions kept up the next morning. By the evening of the 2nd (24 hours in) the midwife and her assistants decided to show up. I was only 1 cm dilated. Boo! I labored through-out the night, waking up for every contraction and basically passing out between each one. It was around here that I started to lose track of time.

By the morning of the 3rd I was starting to get horrible back labor. We called our chiropractor, Dr. Helland, and he came to the house and adjusted my back in an effort to get the baby to turn and help relieve my pain. Baby wasn't breech or posterior but he was slightly off kilter and it was enough to really hurt.

Sometime after that I started throwing up, a lot. One of the assistants convinced me it would be a good idea to take a pill and a half of the anti-nausea medicine I was prescribed for morning sickness. Keep in mind, I had only been taking a quarter of a pill to control my constant throwing up the last nine months and a full pill will knock me out cold for at least 12 hours. So, I was pretty out of it. I couldn't wake up enough to talk really well and although you would think that I would be comatose through the contractions, I wasn't. I could still feel them, I just couldn't move. And I was still throwing up.

The midwife finally told me I was dilated fully around 8pm on the 3rd. I say told me I was because it became evident in hindsight that I probably was only close and she just wanted to get the baby out of me. My water broke when I started pushing, inefficiently, at around 8pm on the 3rd. After four hours of pushing I was throwing up so much that I couldn't push anymore. It was like my body was in reverse; every contraction pushed upwards instead of down. We decided to go to the hospital.

Once there, I was given stronger anti-nausea meds and painkillers until they could get my blood work back so I could get and epidural. I was so exhausted that I needed to rest before trying again and I couldn't do that while I was feeling the contractions. I was so dehydrated that they had to wait a couple of hours while they put four bags of fluid into me. Luckily, the painkiller made it bearable. Rick was watching the contraction monitor when they set it up and was telling me that my smallest contractions were stronger than what the doctor said most women's strongest ones are. No wonder, I was in so much pain. I got my epidural and went to sleep, real sleep until morning. I don't really remember it well, but Rick said the nurse told me that I needed pitocin because my contractions were slowing down. With that, they sped right back up, and I already had an epidural so I couldn't tell if they were stronger or not.

When the doctor checked me at admittance, he said I was only 8 cm dilated and the baby was really high. I'm sure he was thinking I was going to have a C-section, but wanted to let me get some sleep. By the next morning, I was fully dilated (for real) and the baby was at +2 station, which is really low. He said that neither of us were in distress so I could wait until I really felt like pushing. I called him back a little while later and the baby was out in about ten minutes. I tore pretty badly, though Dr. Baer said I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't been so swollen from so much ineffective pushing the night before.

I got to hold Peter first thing for a little while and then they cleaned him up, right in the room. Rick got to give him his first ever bath and then I nursed him within the first half hour or so of his life.

A few people seemed to think that I should be sad that I didn't get my home delivery but honestly, I was really frustrated with my experience. There was a lot of in-fighting between the midwife and her assistants and I felt like no one was paying attention to me because they were too busy arguing. I should have gone to the hospital a lot earlier because I wasn't progressing fast enough for how hard my contractions were but everyone basically kept saying that I was a wimp and needed to just deal with the contractions. They were amazed when they all saw the monitor and realized that I was in as much pain as I had been saying I was for the past two days. Whenever I asked someone to get Rick, the midwife would tell me that I didn't need to worry about him, to just focus on me, that he needed to sleep and I would feel more comfortable without a man in the room. For two days nobody would let me see him and nobody even told him I was asking for him. He kept asking to come in and the midwife wouldn't let him and so he thought I was mad at him or something. When we got to the hospital, the midwife kept telling the nurses that I just needed something to make me stop throwing up and then I would be just fine and kept trying to send them away while I was asking for drugs and an epidural. Since Rick was finally in the room with me, he could tell that it wasn't working for me and he kicked everyone out. The hospital was the best thing that happened in my entire labor and I loved it. I loved being able to feel the pressure of what was going on when the baby was coming out but not the pain. I loved sleeping through my contractions. I loved that I didn't have to worry about the mess afterwards and that I got to eat food I didn't have to worry about making. The hospital actually had really good food. I still crave the pasta I had there.

Long story short, although I would like to try to go as naturally as possible next time, it will definitely be in the hospital and probably with the doctor who delivered Peter. I recognize the value of having an intervention-free birth if everything goes well, but my definition of 'going well' has been expanded to include a labor that is over within a day. I got to do two and a half days of drug-free intense labor, I think I earned my painless delivery and will gladly take the kind of treatment I got at the hospital (people respected my wishes and let my husband in the room with me) over what I got at home.

And for your viewing pleasure, some pictures. I will have more once I get the off my phone.

38 weeks pregnant



















and from the side



















For the first time: Mommy and Peter















Peter after his first bath, with his hair parted :)















Our first family picture













Peter holding dad's hand



















Peter inside his actual Christmas stocking



















First bath in a tub at home



















Mommy and Peter taking a nap