It's Been Awhile...

Last week I was reading through my old blog posts and I realized I missed this space.  It’s a great place for me to document the happenings going on with us.  It’s also like my baby / child book for the kids!  So here I am with an update of the last almost 2 years…

 Caitlyn turned 5 last September.  She is a great big sister!  She loves Cole and is great with him.  Most times when he’s in a mood or tantrum throwing, she’s the one that gets through to him and calms him down.  She’s in her third year of preschool / pre-k and is so ready for Kindergarten this August.  She is way more ready than Jared or I are for this big transition.  She’ll ask me periodically if it’s time for Kindergarten yet.  Mostly I think it’s because she hates nap time at daycare.  Thankfully after pre-k graduation in May they will transition her in with the school age kids and nap time will be a thing of the past!  She hasn’t napped since I brought Cole home from the hospital (she had just turned 3).  This girl is a cuddle bug and I love it!  And I think because she requests cuddle time Cole usually follows and loves it too.  His time is just much shorter at the moment.  She is finally dressing herself in the mornings and definitely has a style of her own!  She’s great at matching colors but hasn’t learned to match patterns as well.  I love her spirit, kindness and understanding.  She's turning into such a sweet loving girl! 

 

 

 Cole turned 2 last September.  He’s in the toddler room at daycare and has been doing great.  The transition from Beth’s to daycare was a little rough last summer but he’s doing great now!  We’re starting to get into potty training mode.  He’ll need to be fully potty trained to move to the preschool room and will be able to move once he turns 3.  So we have this summer to get in gear!   He is my strong willed child.  I’m told this will be good in his adult life but right now he tries me on a daily basis.   He loves his big sister and is constantly following her around and wanting to do what she does.  He loves all things trains…especially Thomas the train.  We got him a train table for Christmas…it was the best money spent.  He has his cuddle moments but they are usually short.  He also has little patience for tv so far….unless Thomas is on.  For some reason he can sit and watch that all afternoon.  I don’t get it. 

 

Baby number three will arrive in September.  Yes, all 3 of my babies are going to be September babies.  It’s insane.  This one was a little bit of a surprise but we are excited and getting ready.  We’ll find out the gender in 2 weeks, which I’m super excited about!  Caitlyn is super excited and hoping for a sister because she already has a brother and doesn’t need another one.  Cole has just started coming around to the fact that mommy has a baby in her belly.  He was insistent that there wasn’t up until about a month ago.  It’s going to be a huge transition for him but I know he’ll come around and be a great big brother too! 

Zeus is still battling his allergies.  He’s also going to be having a fatty tumor removed in the next couple of weeks.  He’s starting to show his age a little bit.  He turns 13 this month.  Still as loud and obnoxious as ever though! 

 

 

We finished the kitchen remodel.  I’ll post before/during/after photo’s at some point.   

We are still active at church.  We’ve joined a young marrieds group that meets once a month and really enjoy that!  Plus it really helps us grow in our relationship as well. 

 We took a couple of trips.  Last summer we went to Ponca State Park with Grandma Kendy and Papa Rich.  In September we went to Branson with Grandma Barb and Papa Fred.  Then in February of this year Jared and I went to St Lucia for Tony and Darci’s wedding!  It was amazing…even though I was sick as a dog with morning (all day) sickness. 

This has gotten really long!  Looking forward to keeping this updated! 

Poor Puppy

Two weeks ago Zeus hurt his back leg.  We let it go for a couple of days but it didn't seem to get any better like it usually does when he hurts himself.  So we  made an appt to take him to the vet.  Our vet was out of the office so I made an appt with another vet in his office.  I will never do this again.  I will be telling Dr. J that he's not allowed days off anymore.  Jared ended up taking him in because he was off early that day so I wouldn't have to take time off.  They thought maybe he had torn an ACL after taking an xray and gave him some morphine for the pain and an anti-inflammatory for the knee. 

He got better for a couple of days and then his leg started bothering him again.  And he started throwing up all over the house.  And he started having troubles pooping.  It was diarrhea like mixed with blood.  All. Over. Our. Carpet.  I was pissed because I thought he had ate something he shouldn't have and that was making him sick.    After 2 nights of no sleep because he kept getting up getting sick and wanting to go out I took him back to the vet.  What are the odds that my vet is out again and I have to see the same vet that Jared saw last week?  Pretty good apparently!  So he thinks maybe Zeus is having a liver reaction which can be a side effect of the anti-inflammatory he prescribes.  He was getting ready to take him for a blood panel and I'm not sure why but I asked to make sure that he knew that Zeus was taking Prednisone for his allergies.  He stopped in his tracks and I swear he went white.  He starts thumbing through the file.  He didn't know.  He didn't read the file prior to prescribing new meds.  It was on the first page after his notes from our previous visit.  Are you kidding me?  What Dr doesn't ready the file?  At least glance at it!  So he takes Zeus back and gives him a shot of prevacid and pumps him full of fluids.  He gives us 3 different meds to heal his tummy.  The anti-inflammatory mixed with the Prednisone gives blood stomach ulcers.  Great.  Needless to say I didn't pay for that visit or any of the stomach meds.  I also asked for a refund for the anti inflammatory he prescribed that shouldn't have been. 

Zeus didn't eat for 5 days.  He didn't take his Prednisone for about 4 days and because of that I'm pretty sure he got another staph infection.  He's feeling better now though.  He's not eating full meals like before but he is eating and he's not throwing up or having diarrhea issues any longer.  He's definitely back to his annoying self! 

He's also Cole's sidekick...much more than he ever was with Caitlyn.  He's in about 50% of the pictures I take of Cole at home! 

A Little Bit More....

I fall in love a little more everyday with our little girl! She's now grabbing my face with both hands and giving huge open mouth kisses. And she laughs while doing it. I LOVE IT! She's also hugging me and holding on and it just melts my heart!

Daddy is trying to take on some of her solids feedings when we get home at night so that I can work out. The first time he tried to feed her she just wanted to play...so she kept blowing raspberries and spitting it all out all over herself and daddy! She's getting better about it though. I tried to give her some Gerber puffs (they dissolve in her mouth) yesterday. I don't think she's quite ready for these yet. She can pick them up pretty good - but has no clue what to do from there. We tried putting them in her mouth for her and she pushes it out with her tongue and it gets stuck on her lips. It's fun to watch! We'll keep trying.

Last week we went out to dinner with Uncle Tony, Matt & Lisa. I was eating a pickle spear and Caitlyn was grabbing for it. I decided to let her taste it. Bad idea. I didn't think she would like it. Instead she LOVED it! She started chomping on it and I got scared. I was afraid she'd choke on the seeds - so I pulled it away. She threw her first fit out in public. She was not happy with mama!

Our little girl has her 1st two teeth! I went to pick her up from daycare a week ago and the teachers asked me when she got teeth? I was like "she has teeth"? I was totally surprised because earlier that week the pediatrician had said it didn't look like she was close to teething yet. Then a few days later she's got her two bottom ones. They didn't seem to bother her too much when they broke through. We have a little mesh feeder for her and I put an ice cube in there and she loves chewing on it. Regular teethers didn't do much for her - so I'm so happy that this works.

She's back to sleeping through the night for us. Knock on wood! She does wake between 6:30 and 7:00 even on the weekends now - but on the weekends if we give her a bottle she'll go back down for a couple of hours.

She's able to sit on her own for a few minutes at a time now - but still not consistently. She's rolling around to get places like crazy! Her favorite place to roll is towards the TV so that she can play with the door and buttons on the vcr!

She loves Zeus! She is mesmerized and he's so good about coming over and sitting nicely so that she can pet and pull on him! He does still love to give her kisses and she opens her mouth wide for this. It drives me crazy!

Time just goes by way too quickly. I can't believe it's the middle of March and our baby girl is 6 months old already.

30 Week Update

Today is the first day that I've noticed my feet swelling. My fingers have been swelling because of the heat for awhile now. Had to take my ring off about a month ago and haven't put it back on since. I was too afraid of it getting stuck and having to have it cut off. I thought maybe I'd get lucky and my feet wouldn't swell....but they've started. I'm trying really hard to drink more water...but I'm so tired of drinking all water! It makes it hard! I still have ankles - so that's the positive in all this!

Zeus (our miniature dachshund) is acting pretty funny. He is usually glued to my side and a cuddle monster with me whenever I'm home. But lately he doesn't want much to do with me and is much more attached to Jared. I know dogs can sense when things are changing or are going to change. Most pregnant women I've talked to with dogs say theirs got more protective of them when they started to sense something was up - as in being pregnant. Not my dog. He's mad at me. Doesn't he know I'm hormonal and this makes me sad? Of course he still sleeps on me at night. It doesn't matter how many times I move him off of me...he moves back. I'm already so hot...I can't stand him laying on me. Ugh.

Speaking of hormones....everything makes me cry lately. TV shows, Movies, small stupid fights with Jared, the dog, songs on the radio...I could go on and on. It's been worse than it has the entire pregnancy. I hope it goes away soon!

We're keeping pretty busy on the weekends...this makes the time go fast! Only 10 weeks to go...can you believe it???