to the zoo

this morning we went to the zoo.
we have a small zoo.
but it is nice and a great place to spend the morning.
i am sure we will spend some quality time there this summer.

the animals were just waking up
and some of them were still in their houses.
it was a cool morning and they were slow moving.
so there was not a ton of animal action.

the animals always seem so sad.
there is this secret part of me that
wants to return them to the wild.
i wonder what they think and feel.

anyway,
chace reacted just like i thought he would.
he took it all in.
stoic, thoughtful, contemplative.
i wonder if the animals seemed sad to him too?

he seemed to like the sea lions best.
no surprise there.
since his mama wanted to be a marine biologist.
but he got more excited about the trees and the birds
that were not a part of any exhibit.


i definitely know where that came from!

i am not sure

what i love more:
the curls
the chubby hands
the skull shirt
the jeans
or his tiny butt.

much ado about nothing

is what chace's doctor told me
on this phone this afternoon.
the bump on this mouth
is how his palette formed.
it is his normal.
no need to worry.
the CT scan was
perfectly normal.

whew!

relief

this morning was hard.
really hard.
but chace did great
and made it through
with flying colors.

we wont know
the results of the test
or what the next step will be
until we have our follow up
appointment next week.

i did not sleep much last night.
i woke up every hour.
i realized that today was the 17th
the same date as cooper's surgery.

the drive in to the hospital was long.
when the nice woman in radiology
handed me the green id tag for chace
i thought i was going to come unglued.

but i kept it together.

the nurses and doctors were great.
they understood that the last time
i gave my baby to an anesthesiologist
he did not come home with me.

so they let ph and i stay with chace
in the CT suite until
he was asleep.
and then we waited.

when chace woke up
he started talking.
they came to get us
and chace reached for us.

that was the best sight ever.
he was a brave little guy
and it was much harder
on his mama and daddy.

thank you for all your
thoughts, prayers, and good thoughts.
it helped us make it
through the morning.

too familiar

chace has to have a CT scan.
he has this bump
on the roof of his mouth.
we have seen several doctors
and no one can decide what it is.

they all say it is nothing to worry about
that the probability of it being something bad
is very small ( which means absolutely nothing to me)
and that they have never seen this in someone so young.

all of these things make the hair
on the back of my neck stand up.
the oral surgeon feels that the CT scan
will clear up the confusion.

the kicker is
that in order to get a CT scan
of a 13 month old
you have to sedate them.

this makes me very nervous.
and needless to say brings back
cooper's surgery flooding to the surface.
hell, we could even have the
same anesthesiologist.

i keep telling myself that it
will be fine.
but i am still nervous.
and i am sure that
i will cry the entire time.

so if you dont mind,
good you send some
positive thoughts our way today.

birthday party

1st birthday party

tomorrow chace turns 1
but yesterday was his party.

sheep in the jeep was the theme
complete with cotton ball garland
sheep food ( animal crackers and goldfish)
party favors
cupcakes
smash cake
favorite books
2 professional photographers
red balloons
sheep cutout cookies
party favors ( sheep in the jeep shirts and handmade sheep)
family
friends
and
a little boy who soaked it all in.

more to come......

shaking......

last night we had dinner with alicia, aaron and riley.

riley is 14 months old

and is chace's buddy.

they had a grand time 

playing together.

and chace took the opportunity

to show off his

dancing skills.

a moment

dear chace

dear chace.

today we took you the strong museum of play to celebrate your 11th month of life. you had a great time. i think you will like it more when you are little older. you were particularly fond of the salt water aquariums that were there. i think that you could have watched the fish for hours. your dad and i loved watching you, watch the fish, trying so hard to figure out how you could touch them.

in this past month you have grown so much. literally, your pants are floods and your long sleeve shirts are more like 3/4 sleeve shirts. you have perfected your crawl at warp speed. you are very efficient at cruising, and are working on your balance. you can say "mama and dada" and understand the word "no". when we tell you "no" you just shake your head and smile. you want to walk and talk, and you are frustrated because you are not quite there yet.

you are an excellent traveller and handled your first ear infection with flying colors. everyone who met you over christmas, was well, smitten with you. your love for all things technologically related has not waned. if you see my iphone, you want it and you think the computer is yours, and yours alone. you are not interested in tv so much. perhaps that is because the only think we let you watch is sports and the news.

you still love to read and are beginning to pick out which books you would like read to you. you almost have 6 teeth. this is helping you out in the food department. you are beginning to eat more "adult" food, however, puffs remain your favorite food and mandarin oranges are a close second.

chace, you are the sweetest baby i know. you love to gives hugs and kisses. i hope you stay this way forever ( although i know you won't).

happy 11 month sweet boy!

love you forever and ever
mama

sleepless nights

we have returned to sleepless nights here on newberry lane and it is painful. it started while we were away over the holidays. ph and i were sharing a room with chace, so i do not know if it was being in the same room, in a strange bed or having an ear infection that started the cycle. perhaps it was all three, but in an attempt to allow some of the house sleep we did whatever we could to get him back asleep. my thinking was that it would sort itself out when we got home. we rocked, we slept holding him, we fed him, whatever it took to encourage sleep.

well, we are home and i am here to tell you it has not sorted itself out. it is better, but we are still up at least once a night. doing what? eating of course. i know that "they" say not to feed once your child can sleep through the night. BUT my kid doesn't eat if he is not hungry, and he is scarfing down his bottle. so he must be hungry. i don't have the heart to let him cry it out at 2 am. how can i leave the room when he is sitting in bed, reaching for me through tears and snot, saying "mama, mama, mama" over and over. if i feed him he eats, goes back to bed and sleeps until 7:30 or 8.

it will work itself out, in time and i am sure that he will return to sleeping through the night, only to have that cycle disrupted by a new tooth. i know that this too will pass, but it sure is rough on the parents.

happy halloween

dress rehearsal

chace is going to be a monkey
for halloween.
today we had a
dress rehearsal
at story time

a foul tale

motherhood is not something that you can really prepare for.... sure you buy all the gear and clothes, read the books, take the classes, but nothing prepares you like being in the trenches. and even being in the trenches for the last 8 months does not mean that i have gotten used to changing poop diapers. ( oh yes i am going there). in fact, the more i change them, the more repulsed i am.


you all know that chace has a hard time pooping. i have lamented that fact many times on this blog of mine.   unfortunately, he inherited his mother's bowels. sorry kid. since he started eating food, this has become more of a problem for him. believe me we have tried all the tricks, to no avail. so upon consultation with the dr, he gets 1 teaspoon of miralax in his morning bottle. most days this does the trick, but there are some days that his little system needs more help. so, he gets another teaspoon in the afternoon. we have had to resort to 2x a day twice. yesterday was one of those days. i am keeping my fingers crossed we never have to go there again.


yesterday evening ph had to work late, which meant that i had bath and bed duty. no problem. after dinner, i thought i would use the time to call my bff and catch up while chace was playing. ( i have recently discovered speaker phone and love using it. i apologize if you hate it, but it makes conversing easier when i have two hands free). we were about 15 minutes into the phone conversation when i saw chace leaning forward and then there was the smell. my child is the smelliest baby ever. seriously. ever. no big deal. i am on speaker phone. we will just carry on while i am changing the diaper. i got this i think to myself.

i put chace on the changing table and  pull off his pants. i realize that this was more than a straight forward diaper change. there is poop coming out the side of the diaper. i squirm and mutter to myself. i then inform ash of the task at hand.  at that moment it becomes perfectly clear that i am in over my head. there is poop everywhere. all over his bottom end, up his back, which then gets smeared all over the changing pad, all over his clothes. there are  no amount of wipes that can get this kid clean. i frantically tell ash that he has to go straight to the bath. i will call her later.

i pick up my naked, poopy baby and whisk him upstairs all the while hoping that he doesn't pee on me, adding insult to injury. i put him in the tub before there is water in it because i do not want poop on the bath mat or floor. he thought it was fun to watch the water go in the tub. i am thankful that i have a water  baby.  the task of making my baby clean and sweet smelling is underway when a wave of horror washes over me. i left the diaper, wipes and clothes on the table next to the pack and play. (normally not a big deal, but bailey ate poop diapers over the weekend. so not only i have been cleaning it off my child, i have cleaning it off my dog. ) i can not leave chace in the bath alone. so i just hope against hope that the diaper is where i left it when i go back down.

once chace is cleaned and dressed i go down stairs to assess the damage. good bailey, you left the diaper alone. there is a god. but i still have the changing table to tackle. i grab cleaner, and the towel i just used on chace and went to work. i then promptly put diaper, wipes, towel and onesie in a bag and left it outside the door for ph to dispose of. i wanted to him to see the what he missed out on. he seems to miss out on all the fun.

motherhood does not make own immune to poop or the ick factor that comes with it. i do not know how much more poop i can take. i will be so glad when he is potty trained. but at least i know my right from my left, at least for today.

he can dance

milestone

bean crawled today.
and as you can see
he is plum tuckered out.

teething....

is hard....

photo professional

i have a nikon.

i try to take pictures.

athena also has a nikon.

it is fancier than mine.

she takes much better pictures than i do.

because she is a "professional."

i let her document the weekend.

these are my favorites.

college game day

hard work, hard business