We got a makeover!

If you are reading this, you have noticed my blog got a makeover! With the help of Rich, we actually made it pretty. I added the background...which has a very pretty bow. This is not a surprising selection for me. As anyone knows who was involved with my wedding planning, everything had to have a bow. Our invitations, the programs, the dinner menus for the table, the flower arrangements, the chair covers, the favors...EVERYTHING had to have a bow. At the end of planning, we would walk into a store to select something and Rich would be like "Can you just show us the options with bows, please?". I sort of re-visited my bow obsession with all my baby purchases as well. Did anyone notice the very pretty bow on the birth announcements? Be on the look out for our Christmas cards this year - they have an excellent bow!

Rich crafted the photo collage at the top of the page. These are some of our favorite photos of our happy little boy. Doesn't everything look better in sepia or black and white too? Rich also added the play list at the bottom. I selected the songs, but he did all the work to actually get it on the page. The songs we selected all have a reason for its inclusion on our blog.

Beautiful Boy by John Lennon - I think this is self explanatory, especially if you listen to the lyrics.

Lullaby by Billy Joel - I LOVE this song. I remember hearing it for the first time in college and thinking I would rock my baby to it someday. Now that day is finally here!

Home by Michael Buble - I LOVE Michael Buble and I LOVE this song even more. Its definitely one of my top 5 favorite songs, ever! I love the lyrics "I feel like I am living someone else's life. Its like I just stepped outside when everything was going right." I remember hearing those lyrics at a wedding in the Summer of 2006 and thinking it pretty much summed up how I was feeling. I had a great husband with a great career, a beautiful house and we were about to start trying to start our family. Well, little did I know we were about to embark on the most difficult two years of our lives. Between my having a severe reaction (anxiety attacks and depression) coming off birth control, the difficulty we had getting pregnant and then our miscarriage, it was not an easy few years. We finally feel like we are back on track and everything is going right again!

Remember When by Allen Jackson - I like this song because I like to imagine Rich and I being 60 years old, looking back on our life and feeling the exact way that Allen Jackson describes.

At Last by Etta James - The song that started it all! This was our first dance song at our wedding. I still make Rich dance with me to it every year on our anniversary. Our CD has made it to San Diego, St. Lucia, DC and the North Carolina mountains (all the places we have travelled for our anniversaries). This year, Joseph was only 5 weeks old on our anniversary so we stayed home and danced to it in our living room. We are corny!

We hope everyone enjoys our newly designed blog...and the pretty bow!

Our worst idea EVER

We are currently in Louisville visiting Rich's family for a week. His cousin is getting married on Friday and we took the opportunity to spend time with Rich's family and let Joseph get to know his extended family better. We'd been planning the trip for awhile and debated the best way to travel up here several times. Given the price of flights and the amount of stuff we seem to travel with these days, we opted for driving. Joseph likes sitting in the car for extended periods of time about as much as he likes his vaccinations. As the trip is 6 1/2 - 7 hours, Rich and I came up with this brilliant plan to drive at night. We figured if we headed out around 6 pm, we'd stop around 7:30 pm (Joseph's normal bedtime), go through the whole "goodnight" process in the back of the car, plop him back in his car seat and he'd be off to dreamland for the next 6 hours. We'd arrive around 1 am, which isn't ideal, but better than the thought of driving with a fussing 6 month old in the middle of the day.

So the plan went into action last night. At 7:30 pm we stopped, gave him a bottle, changed him into PJs and rocked him until he was sleepy. He fell asleep pretty quickly in the car seat and we settled in for the long, tedious drive (the fact that we had the radio on so slow we could barely hear it and had to talk in whispers made it even more fun than usual). Everything was going as planned until about 45 minutes later when Joseph wakes up and is fussing. He can't really seem to settle himself into sleep and we decide all the headlights and lights on the highway are the culprit. So I throw a blanket over the seat to darken everything up, which seems to help matters....until Rich decides to say "Do you think its hot under there? What if he suffocates?". Now, if you know me, you know that is all that had to said for me to go into panic mode. So now I am lifting up the blanket every 30 seconds to see if he is still breathing. Even with the blanket, Joseph just can't seem to sleep. He'll drift off for 15-20 minutes, only to wake up and fuss for 20 minutes. We play this little game until about 10:30 pm, when we start to worry that he is just not going to sleep. And if Joseph doesn't sleep....watch out!

So at this point Rich and I are clearly thinking the same thought because suddenly Rich says "What should we do?" and I respond "I am thinking its time for a hotel room". Of course by this time we are in nowhere land Tennessee and our hotel options are few and far between. Finally, around 11:30 pm, we find an exit that has several less than stellar options. Most of them are motels, which freak me out. We finally find a little local hotel that looks bright and clean. Rich checks in and starts pulling out the necessary items from the car (all of which were conveniently located at the very back of the trunk). By some stroke of luck we had decided to bring the Pack N Play at the last minute (even though my mother-in-law has a whole nursery with crib and everything set up at her house) and I am suddenly thankful for my horrible habit of over packing.

Preparing Joseph's night time set up is no easy task. We come packing about 3 monitors and the motion/breathing monitor is no small job to set up. It has to be set up just so and I require Rich to test it a minimum of about 5 times before I am confident it will actually go off if Joseph stops breathing. So Rich goes up to the room to start in on this process while I give Joseph a bottle and try to get him sleeping in my arms. Did I mention its about midnight at this point? Luckily, Joseph falls asleep in my arms and once Rich is done, we bring him in (blanket over his head) and he goes right to sleep in the Pack N Play. As we are putting him down Rich looks at me and says "In the eight years we have been together, this may be the worst idea we have ever had."

Of course, there are like 10,000 things we have to do before we can sleep. I am still breastfeeding (but pumping and bottle feeding Joseph) and its been about 7 hours since I last pumped, so I am feeling it. I get out my pump and I am hovering with the tiniest little light we can manage to get set up to pump. We are in the bathroom trying to put all his milk on ice without making too much noise to wake him up. I could go on and on...but needless to say its straight out of a sitcom. Around 1 am, we finally fall into bed in the clothes we were wearing all day and no brushed teeth or anything. This is highly unusual for me...I have about a 30 minute bedtime routine that I undertake every night and if I don't do every last thing, I usually have a hard time going to sleep. But last night I was way too tired to even worry about it. I guess I am lucky because Rich admitted this morning that if at 1 am, I had started running a bath, he probably would have killed me...or taken the car and left me in rural Tennessee alone...not sure which would have been worse. I should also note that at around 10 pm, Rich had downed the largest can of liquid NoDoz I had ever seen. As I am drifting to sleep he says "I am so hopped up, I can't sleep"...to which I respond "Good, if he wakes up you can deal with him and let me sleep."

Surprisingly, Joseph slept well the rest of the night and tolerated the remaining 3 hours of the trip well today. Rich and I on the other hand, are pretty darned exhausted today. So the moral of the story is...do not travel at night with a 6 month old...it will not end well. We are still trying to figure out our options for the return home, but I can guarantee we will be searching for flights for Christmas.

We're sorta a big deal...

Yeah, that's right...Joseph and I are kinda a big deal these days. We are soon to be local celebrities. Our neighbor, Kay, works at a very posh toy store here in Charlotte. Every month they advertise in the Junior League of Charlotte magazine. The advertisement includes a picture of a League member and their child at the toy store. Next month, yours truly and her son will be gracing the pages of this magazine.

We had our photo shoot today. As this is a posh store (like every Mom in there is dressed to the nines and of course has the smartest child ever to grace the store with their presence) and it is going in a Junior League publication, I dressed Joseph in his preppiest outfit (a cashmere one piece outfit with an argyle print on top) and actually got myself dolled up for the occasion.

We discovered today that Joseph is pretty much in love with the camera. He smiled and cooed and was thoroughly interested in why so many people were sitting around watching him. We posed in front of a rack of books and I pretended to read to Joseph, although I was really just trying to keep him from eating the book the entire time. At the end, the photographer asked if Joseph had ever done any child modeling before....I guess he is a natural!

So when I say we will be local celebrities, I may sort of be exaggerating. The monthly magazine goes out to about 5,000 league members in Charlotte. Honestly, I spend about 5 minutes flipping through it before it goes in the recycling bin. In the last year I have been receiving it, I have never once noticed there was an ad for this toy store. So I am guessing like 10 people will actually notice me and my kid.

I will try and scan the actual ad when it comes out, but the photographer did e-mail me some of the untouched photos this afternoon, so I have included those.

Update to Prayers Needed

A few days ago I asked everyone for prayers for a Nest friend and her husband who were preparing to meet their son who would likely not survive after birth. Their sweet son, Isaac Timothy, was born yesterday and lived 16 minutes before becoming an angel. Details are on her blog (link below in the post from October 6th). She has posted a picture and I think he is beautiful beyond words. I am so happy that they had those sixteen minutes with him.

I do not know this family well, but I have cried many tears for them over the last two days. Every time I think of them, I run to Joseph and smother him with kisses. More than once as I have been holding him or rocking him yesterday and today, tears have fallen down my face and I have held him a little closer (sometimes a lot closer - so much that he squirms to get away from me). I am so grateful for my beautiful and perfectly healthy son. I could never ask for anything more.

Please continue to pray for this family in the days ahead. And if you should think of them and their story weeks or months from now, please remember to say a prayer then too.

Happy Baby!

When Joseph is well rested, he is one of the happiest babies I have ever seen. He smiles, laughs and giggles at just about anything. He finds me brushing my teeth quite entertaining, especially when I give him a big toothpaste foam filled grin. If a stranger even looks his way in the grocery store, they are rewarded with a smile that lights up his entire face. Strangers are constantly telling me he has the most beautiful smile they have ever seen on a baby.

But what really gets Joseph going is his Daddy. He is sort of obsessed with him lately. He walks in the door at night and he just gets so happy. His eyes follow his every movement. He loves me and I get some good giggles out of him everyday, but there is something about the way Rich interacts with him that is just different. Maybe its part of the father/son bond...or maybe Rich is just really goofy. Lately, Rich just says some silly phrase like "boogers and snot" or "What you talking about?" in a silly voice or just makes some strange sounds loudly and Joseph loves it. If he combines these noises with some large movement or getting right in Joseph's face, it's all out laughter. We had one of those moments tonight. Richard came home early and while playing with Joseph, got him really laughing hard. I grabbed the camera and caught video of it just in time.



We have noticed in the last week or so that Joseph's laugh has become more like a shriek or squeal at times. Sometimes we wonder if he's actually getting angry because its such a loud shriek, but we are pretty sure he is happy in this video as this laughter was not shortly followed by a meltdown.

Prayers Needed

I have a request for thoughts and prayers for someone I know on The Nest. Her and her husband found out at their 13 week ultrasound that their son had a chromosomal condition that would most likely make his survival outside the womb impossible. Despite urgings by doctors to terminate the pregnancy, they decided to carry to full term in the hope that a miracle might happen. Since that time, the possibility of their son, Isaac, surviving after birth has become increasingly unlikely. She is now full term and they are having a c-section tomorrow. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as they prepare to meet their son tomorrow. They are hopeful that a miracle could still happen but are preparing for a different outcome. Please pray that a miracle may happen but that if it doesn't, their family will have the strength to get through these next days, which will surely be the most difficult of their lives. If you would like to put a face to your prayers, below is link to her blog.

http://sgirl79.blogspot.com/

We cried it out...

The last few days have been a mix of emotions regarding Joseph's sleep problems and the best way to deal with them. His sleep has been a roller coaster of ups and downs (mostly downs) since very early on but I had just accepted the fact that he was a bad sleeper. Until a few weeks ago, we could count on him going to asleep easily in our arms around 7:30 pm and sleeping decently until 3 am or 4 am. After that, all bets were off but we could live with that. But then, a few weeks ago he decided he wanted to wake up at 10:00pm, 12:00am, 2:00am, 4:00am and 6:00am to be rocked for 15 or 20 minutes every time. Sometimes even rocking him in his nursery wouldn't cut it and I would sleep with him in my arms in bed or on the couch.

I was exhausted, Rich was exhausted and most importantly Joseph was exhausted. The poor child couldn't last more than 45 minutes after getting up before getting cranky, yawning and rubbing his eyes and needing to go back for a nap. Our days together consisted of me constantly rocking him to sleep, followed by 20 minutes of sleep for him, and an hour of me trying to figure out ways to keep him from screaming his head off. The process was exhausting. Combine that with the lack of sleep and I was on the edge of sanity.

It all came to a head on Friday. I was tired beyond belief and Joseph was cranky beyond belief. In the afternoon we headed to Target to get out of the house and kill sometime between naps. I got all the way to Target and was walking in when Joseph lost it...a complete, full on, screaming his head off meltdown. I REALLY needed what I came for, so I attempted to take him back to the car and rock him until he could calm down. After 10 minutes of screaming and no signs of slowing down, I lost it right along with him. I am sitting in the backseat of my car with a screaming infant and crying hysterically. I am looking at my son, who I love more than anything in the world, and saying over and over "I love you so much but sometimes you are just so difficult." Finally, he stopped crying, looked at me crying and literally started giggling. We went in to Target, where everyone commented on how precious he was (would they have said that if they had seen him 10 minutes earlier...hmmm?) and got what we came for. I got him in the car and we hadn't left the parking lot when he promptly began to scream again. Luckily when I got home, Rich was waiting and whisked him away for a walk so I could nap and unwind.

We decided we had to address his sleep issues and someone on the Nest suggested he book "Sleep Easy Solution". It's a modified version of "cry it out" or the Ferber method. You go and check-in with them every 10 minutes while they are crying to let them know you are there, you haven't abandoned them and you love them. I had always been resistant to this method as I couldn't imagine how letting a child cry could ever be the right thing to do. But alas, we had run out of options and after reading the book (which is written by two child psychologists and pediatric sleep experts) I decided this was actually the best thing I could do for Joseph. I also know many friends who are amazing parents and had let their children cry it out. I won't act like I was 100% behind it, I still had major reservations, but Richard really convinced me we needed to do this.

We started Saturday night and it was horrible. He cried for 50 minutes before going to sleep. We gave him his night feed (which we are in the process of weaning him off of) at 2:00 am and he promptly put himself back to sleep. At 5:00 he woke up screaming. I was not surprised as this is the time of night where he is used to me taking him into bed. He cried for almost an hour until he fell asleep again and slept until 8:30 am. His naps that day were iffy...he'd usually cry for 10-15 minutes and then only sleep for 25 or 30 minutes. I was hopeful that night #2 (last night) would be better. We put him down at 8:00 pm and he fussed and moved around for about 20 minutes. He never cried and suddenly we realized he was asleep. At 2:00 am we had to wake him for his night feeding and he put himself back to sleep within 5 minutes afterwards. We never heard another peep until 7:30 am this morning. It was amazing. I woke up with a renewed sense of hope that Joseph in fact can sleep well and I am not destined to years of sleep deprivation and fussiness.

I know there are many people who are VERY against crying it out and I can understand their reluctance at using it. I wish that we never had to do it but in the end it's going to be a good thing for us and Joseph. There were days before when I woke up at 4:30 am to Joseph crying and just dreaded the day that was ahead of us. I spent many days watching the clock and just wishing for Rich to get home and take Joseph from me. And every time I had these thoughts, I questioned whether I just wasn't cut out to be a good mom. I logically knew this was just the exhaustion talking but thoughts like that will eat away at you. I am finally optimistic again and am really excited about a lot of fun days with Joseph in the future.