April's News

So here is the rest of the news from April to catch the blog up, and from now on I am going to try and post weekly, even if I have to schedule time in my phone. I have found since motherhood, I can't remember anything if it is not in my phone calendar, so much for pregnancy brain subsiding once you're no longer pregnant.


• On April 1st Rylan rolled over from his back to his stomach for the first time while awake (he did it the night before asleep) James was home to see him do it, and texted everyone to let them know. Of course since it was April Fools Day, James' dad, GP, wasn't sure if it was real or if James was playing a joke :-) Rylan now loves to roll on his stomach and play, for a short time. James and I can't wait to he starts to roll from his stomach to his back. -which he did do yesterday, but I don't believe that he meant to do it and he looked a little confused.

• 10 days after Rylan rolled, on April 11th, my son started scooting. James and I were home and Rylan was playing with his toys, and one of them was just out of reach. So after a few moments of contemplating, Rylan laid his head on the ground and pulled himself forward. He didn't go far, but he definitely moved and he got his toy. He now also pulls his knees up underneath him as well, so it's just a matter of time before he'll be mobile

• April 18th he was able to "tripod", stay in a sitting position by putting his hands on the ground in front of him. As of yesterday he was even sitting up by himself without his hands down for a few moments at a time.

• Of course, all this new moving means Rylan does not sleep on his back any more. In fact, I think he is trying to give me a panic attack because he sleeps on his stomach, knees pulled up underneath him, and his face flat down in the mattress. We tried flipping him over, that lead to screaming, we tried just turning his head to the left or right, but that lead to even more screaming. So for now we let him sleep face down as he wants.

• In early April, for GP's birthday the whole family went to the Clay County Fair. We all had a nice time and Rylan loved looking at all the animals, and we even got him a cowboy hat. It's a little big for him still, but it is too cute!

• Rylan and I also drove to Tallahassee for James' cousin Kelly's wedding. He did great during the whole trip, and before we drove back home on Sunday, Rylan and I took our first trip to FSU. It is a very nice looking school and we found the Hall of Fame and trophy room which housed their two National Championship trophies for football. It was very cool

• As of 4/19 Rylan weighted 16 pounds 11 ounces and on 4/20 we graduated from the infant seat to a rear facing convertible car seat. He was getting way to heavy to carry him in his seat all around, and he was getting very close on the length for the infant seat. So far he seems to like the new seat

• In addition to GP's birthday we celebrated Easter which was very nice to celebrate as a new family of three, and Grandma's birthday more recently. We got to see Sam at Grandma's birthday, and I still can't believe he has grown so much; he's already walking!!

• We also got let in on some wonderful news in April, our close friends, Clinton and Sara, are expecting their first little one who should be joining us in early December!

Behind

So I know that it has been about 2 and half months since I posted, and of course lots has happened.  To keep this from being a novel I will give bullet points.

• I went back to work 2/24 and my company was able to work with me on my hours.  Less than a week after returning I interviewed with and joined a new team that has much more consistent hours.  I love the team, the work and of course getting off between 5 and 6
• With me going back to work means Rylan started daycare.  He gave me the saddest face possible the first day, but I made it all the way back to my car before I cried.  He now loves "school" and it sounds like everyone there loves him too!  this makes it much easier to drop him off
• Rylan now has teeth.  The first broke through 3/16, it was the bottom front right, the bottom left came through the next day.  Now his top front right is coming in and broke through 4/26 and the top left isn't far behind.  he is our drool monster :-)
• With these new teeth, he loves to eat, and is SO much better eating off the spoon.  He gets so excited, and so far we haven't found food he doesn't like
• March 27th, Rylan discovered that he can splash in the bath, and he now loves his baths.  Because of this new found love, his Easter basket was filled with bath toys
• We celebrated our first Easter as a family of three and it was wonderful.  Rylan noticed the plastic eggs spread around Church and enjoyed himself.
• March 8th I got TERRIBLY sick with a 24 hour stomach bug, and James had to work, so Rylan spent his first night away from us with Grandma and G.P. Hughes.  I am so thankful they could take him, because there is no way I could have taken care of him as sick as I was.  And of course the grandparents were not upset to take care of Rylan, although they felt bad that I was so sick

I have more points but I believe that catches us up through March.  I will try and post April's tomorrow and maybe add a few pictures

Valentine's Day

It's amazing to me how much life changes in just a moment and certainly in a year. James and I had a really special Valentine's Day last year, he went all out for the dinner he made me and it was incredible, but because of all his cooking and planning, I was banned from the kitchen all day. He suggested I take a bath to relax some before dinner, and I remember sitting in that bath thinking, I might be pregnant right now.... no don't think that way, don't get your hopes up; almost no one gets pregnant their first try and certainly not me since I had already been told by dr's to try for 6 months and then come see them...but something feels different, maybe I am.....no stop thinking that way...BUT.... This thinking went on for awhile, in fact even while eating the amazing dinner that James prepared I was mindful to only have one glass of wine, just in case. That was a Saturday, Monday the nausea set in and Wednesday, just 4 short days after that bath we got our positive pregnancy test, I was pregnant with Rylan. That's what I thought about this year on Wednesday, we celebrated Valentine’s Day early on James' day off, as I sat in another bath relaxing before another great dinner. Funny how something stay the same when everything else is SO different. This year James made dinner amongst bottle parts, and again I was mindful of how much wine I had but this year it was because I knew that Rylan would still need me that evening. And Rylan joined us at the table, although he fell asleep before we made it to dessert.  I love my life and even though I don't typically like change, all the change that we have been through recently is more than worth it. So happy valentine's day everyone and I wonder where we'll be this time next year.

life as a mom

This is a tearful and conflicted post as this right now is my life as a mom. I only have about 3 weeks before I have to go back to work, and although I enjoy the work that I do and am VERY thankful for my job and the opportunities that I have where I work, it will be hard to not be with my wonderful son all day. I am looking forward to getting back to being around adults again, because Rylan's "talking" is great but not very stimulating, and as I said I do enjoy the job I do. BUT and it is a very big but, the hours I work are not consistent and from talking to those not on leave, the hours right now are long, like 10 to 12 hours a day, every day. Rylan just laughed for the first time about a week ago, and I was there, in fact I was the one holding him; we just started to give him solid foods; more on this in a moment, and I got to be there helping feed him and take pictures of him covered in oatmeal. I don't want to miss these moments and if the hours remain that long, the reality is that for the 5 days I work, I'll get two sleepy feedings with Rylan and just thinking about that makes me cry. But I am not a stay at home mom, I suck at house work, and I need to get out, I never wanted to be a stay at home mom and as I said I am thankful that I even have a job when so many others don't, I just want both or at least a balance and my fear right now is that there won't be a balance. Hopefully this fear is unfounded, I got this job after a lot of praying and felt and still feel like I am where I am suppose to be, but even knowing that isn't helping the fear to subside. I know this is not new and I am not feeling anything different than almost every working parent, I guess I just needed to write it down and stop pretending with myself by trying to think that I am not worried and feeling some sense of loss at what I will be missing. I am glad that we have found a day care we love and James will get to spend some quality time with Rylan on his days off. Although that brings up other senses of loss, there will no longer be much time for all of us as a family once I go back either, and that also makes me sad as I love James very much and love watching him with Rylan. I guess that point is I want it all and thus am left at least for now with compromises that make me sad, such is life.


On to happier things, lots has been going on with Rylan, much of which I will post about later once I have our pictures uploaded. We have been on a great vacation with Nana, but Rylan had been acting as though he was famished almost every hour during the day. I tried uping the number of ounces he was eating but he wouldn't finish them. James suggested it might be time to add cereal back into his diet; we had tried it as a fix to the reflux before the zantac. I was convinced that we shouldn't start solids till 4 months old, but after almost a week of this erratic and frantic feeding schedule I agreed with James and off we went to get bowls, rubber coated spoons and of course the oatmeal. He had his first spoonful the evening of 1/27. it was messy, Rylan didn't seem to get that this new thing was also food but we all survived and needed almost a full bath afterwards. Rylan seemed full and slept longer that night than ever before. The same was true for last night and although some feedings go better than others, we started by doing just oatmeal at breakfast and dinner and added in lunch after a few days since he was starting to do his frantic crying in the afternoon, we seem to be getting the hang of this new thing together. And as if right on queue Rylan is up and needs mommy's attention.

2 months and more

Believe it or not, Rylan is already 2 months old on 1/4/10. He continues to amaze me everyday. I forgot to mention in my last post that he started sleeping in his crib on 12/8 and has been doing great in there. The first night was a little hard from me, but it was the first time since becoming pregnant that we slept in different rooms. Since then he has slept most nights in the crib with the exception of the last week since the weather in Florida was decidedly un-sunshine state, with freezing temps since the new year. James and I have both been sick so New Year's Eve was an early night with no celebration, although I did give Rylan a New Year's kiss at 1:30 when we got up for a feeding. His smiling face was the best way to start the new year. On New Year's day Rylan spent the day with grandpa while I went to see FSU play in the Gator bowl here in Jax. Apparently Grandpa Rick and Rylan had a wonderful day together, and James met them over there once he got up and after the game we all had black eyed peas for dinner.


The sad part of 2 months, is it is shot time. He is gaining weight great and is up to 12.5 pounds and the doctor confirmed what we already knew, he is an early teether. He cried like I have never heard before when he got the shots, but we had a bottle all ready and were able to calm him very quickly and he was fine after that.

He is smiling and cooing more and more and it is wonderful to see and hear. He definitely got his parents lungs because he can get pretty loud even when he is just "talking".

We both love him so much and look forward to all the things that this new year holds for all of us!

way too long

so things here have been busy which is why I haven't posted lately for the two people who actually read this, but it also means this post will be long.

Rylan was just a month old as of the last post and now he is just days away from being 2 months. We have had our challenges, he has a little bit of reflux and a milk allergy, so the last few weeks have been spent trying to figure that out, we still aren't completely there, but much closer. He is still amazing and I love watching him grow. He continues to smile, and greeted me with a huge one on Christmas morning, best present ever! He also is starting to talk more and more. For Christmas James and I got him one of the play mats that have all the hooks and toys, and he loves laying on it and talking to the toys. Christmas was wonderful, my mom was able to come up that week and spend a few days with us. Rylan had changed so much since she had seen him last. They had a great time together and she sure did spoil him, and not just with the gifts she brought :). James and I did our Christmas Eve and it was great to have Rylan here with us, even if he won't remember it, we will. The next morning we went to James' parents and had a very nice time. John and Amanda were there with Sam who is now almost 7 months old. He is so adorable.

We have also learned that Rylan loves to stare at Christmas lights so we took him to a flower shop here that has large front windows and ever year they do different Christmas decorations in each window. Rylan was just mesmerized, it was really great to watch. I don't know what we are going to do when we take down our tree.

The day after Christmas, Rylan gave his grandpa a run for his money by fussing the whole morning, but grandpa kept up well. We also discovered that my EIGHT week old is teething, yes I said teething and trust me we didn't believe it either, but sure enough one of his canine teeth is coming up. After we took care of that, we spent time with the extended family. We have been blessed in the baby department this year, James' cousin Mary had her first, Dylan, on 2/28 and then Sam on 6/1. This was the first time all three boys had been together so it was a lot of fun. It was also fun to think about how next year is going to be with them.

2009 has been such a blessed year, with of course Rylan being the icing on the cake. He truly is the best gift ever, and although I have never been so tired in my life, every moment of it is worth it. Can't wait for it to continue into 2010. Happy New Year everyone!

The laundry can wait

Some times it is nice to just be needed. This morning Rylan was fussy; I had fed him, changed him, played with him on the floor, and read him a story, and none of it helped he was overly tired but was fighting sleep. I did manage to lay him down for a nap in his crib by playing a cd that I use to play for him when I was pregnant, but that lasted less than 15 minutes and then he was up screaming again. So I picked him up and held him close and sat in a chair and was able to rock him to sleep. He didn't need anything but me, and even though there was laundry to be folded, dishes and bottles that needed to be washed, and countless other things, I just sat there and rocked my baby, and we were both happy. My son won't wait, and as a poem I recently found says, he won't keep. Rylan won't be this small for long, and there will come a day when he will tell me he doesn't want me to hug him outside school any more, so this morning I ignored the things around the house that will keep another 5 minutes or even another day, and just held my sweet wonderful son. Here is part of the poem: "But children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow. So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep. I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep."~Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

And as amazing as it seems, Rylan is a month old today. Sometimes it feels like we just found out we were pregnant, but most the time I can't remember what life was like before him. He slowly starting to smile when you smile at him, and he smiles in his sleep. Talking about sleep, he has always been a good sleeper at night, he typically eats between 9 and 10 and then we put him in his bassinet and he usually wakes up between 3 and 4 and then again between 5 and 6, but two nights ago he slept from 10 till 5! Of course I still woke up every hour from 1am on to check on him and make sure he was ok :-) I have been bitten by the mommy bug, that is for sure.

We put up our tree this week and had a great time showing it to Rylan. He seemed to enjoy looking at the lights and contrasting colors. I am really looking forward to this holiday season, we have a lot to celebrate, and even though Rylan is still very young and won't remember this year, we will and I can't wait to start making new holiday memories. Here are some pictures of the best Christmas present under our tree.