Help Us Win Free Stuff

Help us win a free 8x10 of Caleb from the family photo session we did a few weeks ago. I blogged about it here. Simply, leave a comment on our photographer's sneak peek blog post. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the post to leave a comment. If we get comments from 10 different people, we win a free 8x10 of our choice. I've already commented, so now it's up to you to help make it happen! Thanks to everyone who helps us out!

Y3W

Ok, Yes, I know that I'm lame for not having a new picture from this week to post. I'm still trying to get caught up from all the procrastinating that I did last weekend. On top of that, I seem to have developed a sickness of some sort after receiving a flu shot on Monday pretty much guaranteeing that I won't ever be getting another flu shot. Anyway, I'm hoping that this adorable video of Caleb digging into his first birthday cake will help you to forget that I'm not posting something new this week and that I have yet to recap and post the party pictures.

More Icing Please

1 Year Well Visit

Caleb is...

22 lbs, 6 oz - 50-75 percentile
30.5 inches - 90 percentile (I could have sworn he had grown more than 1 inch in 3 months)

Now saying a few more words including "nan" meaning "light" which resulted from a small miscommunication thanks to all the ceiling fan/light combinations in our house. I only know this means "light" because even regular old table lamps are now "nan." He's also added to the previous list using the words "book," "snack," "hi," "kitty cat," and "banana." I feel like I may be missing one or two, but that's the majority of them. I just can't believe he's picking up about a word a day recently. It is so amazing to watch him just soaking everything up like a sponge.

In other well visit news, Caleb had his first eye exam as they shined some sort of light into his eyes sort of like a retinal scan to look for abnormalities. Everything looked great there. The doctor was also impressed with his walking and climbing skills, and said that everything looks great overall. So now it's on to whole milk, introducing previously "forbidden" foods, and *possibly* turning the car seat around in a few months when C's legs start getting a bit cramped in the rear facing position.

The appointment ended with four shots...3 for Caleb and 1 for momma. I'm technically philosphically opposed to the flu shot, but since I'm in the college environment and C is too young for it this is the second year in a row that I've "taken one for the team" so to speak. Caleb did great with his 3 shots (Chicken pox, MMR, and Hep A)...only a little screaming before he settled down nicely.

Next well visit just before Christmas at 15 months!

Y3W

Posted a few days late on purpose. I literally have NO time to talk about the party today or to upload pictures, and I'm just hoping that I'll somehow manage to find the time to do so before next weekend. For now, this will have to do.

Happy Birthday Cale-y Bear (A Letter From Mommy)

Cale-y Bear,

It is morning on the day of your very first birthday. You're still sleeping soundly, and I'm writing this letter to you as I listen to the sound of your precious breathing through the monitor.

I don't even know where to begin. How do you put into words all the emotions that a mother has on her baby's 1st birthday. I certainly don't think it is possible for you to fathom how much love I have for you in my heart, in my head, in my gut, in my arms, in my whole body. The best way that I can describe it to you is like a giant, perfect hug. I want to surround you with love. When you wake I'll give you one of those perfect hugs. I hope that you never stop letting me hug you. You were born into a family of huggers, so you better start getting used to giving and receiving hugs!

As I'm writing, tears are rolling down my cheeks. I close my eyes and I see your sweet smiling face, your big brown eyes. I can hear your contagious laugh. Yet, I can also imagine you as the tiny little 6lb, 7oz, 19.75lb newborn who loved to cuddle on my chest. Now you can't sit still! When I think about how much you've changed over the past year, I am absolutely amazed. I thank God every day for bringing us a healthy baby boy. You made it through your first year of life without ever being sick despite numerous occasions when we thought it was inevitable.

Not only are you healthy, but you are also blessed physically. You've always been a strong little boy from the time you were born. In the hospital, you were already holding your head up so well. Then at 5 weeks and 6 days, you rolled over for the very first time. You quickly learned to sit, crawl, and you have now been walking for 2.5 months. Actually, you mostly run places these days! Mommy and Daddy like to think that you'll be athletic and play lots of sports like Baseball and Soccer. But you also seem to be very interested in music. You love to play music and sing, and you LOVE to listen to music and dance. Know that no matter what activiites become of interest to you, Mommy and Daddy will always support you and be there to see you "do your thing!"

I may be biased as your mother, but I also think that you are pretty smart. Just within a few weeks you've really started communicating with us. You can emphatically wave hello and bye-bye. You point to things when you get excited. You learned the baby sign for “more” in a matter of hours. You can say LOTS of words, and you know what they mean:

Water
Milk
Bottle
Mommy
Daddy
Dog
Cat
Bird
Duck
Ball
OJ (our cat)

You make a “woof” sound when you see a dog, or when you hear a dog, when you see a picture of a dog, or when you are asked what noise a dog makes, or when you are asked what noise a frog makes. I think the words “frog” and “dog” must sound the same to you right now, but since frogs seem to be your favorite animal, I’m guessing it won’t be long before you’re saying “ribbit, ribbit.”

You also understand what we are saying. You know that you are supposed to pet OJ even though you’d rather squeeze him and suck on his fur. You know exactly which window to go to at GranB and Pop Pop’s house when someone talks about the ducks. You climb onto the couch to watch the birds when we mention birds. And sometimes when you’re not too busy playing, you can bring toys to mommy and daddy when we ask. It is so wonderful being able to communicate with you, and I can’t wait for the day when we can have whole conversations as a family while eating dinner.

Caleb, you have made mommy a better person. You have made me see the joy in the little things that happen in everyday life. You have helped me to live in the moment, to cherish today rather than living for tomorrow. You have showed me that I could love more than I ever thought possible. You have taught me patience even though I still have a long way to go. I cannot imagine my life without you in it, and I feel blessed to call you my son.

One year ago, I couldn’t have imagined all the things you have learned since you were born and all the ways that you have changed. Now I know that time moves quickly, and little boys grow up fast. I hope that you don’t grow up too fast, but I am excited to see what the future holds for you. I am so proud of the little boy that you are, and look forward to growing with you through the years to come! I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect boy to call my son. Happy 1st Birthday, Little Man! I LOVE YOU!

Love,
Mommy


P.S. Did you suddenly realize that you are a little boy? These pictures are pretty much all the evidence I need to show that you are no longer a baby!

4:25 PM - Happy Birthday Caleb!!

Caleb Marley entered the world...all 6 lbs, 7 oz, 19.75 inches of him! The doctor turned him around and said, "What is it mom?" I said, "It's a boy!" Andrew already knew having seen as Caleb was delivered. The doctor placed him on my chest, and it was love at first sight.






Happy 1st Birthday, Cale-y Bear!

3:45 PM

I told the nurse I felt like I needed to use the bathroom and she told me I could go, but not to push too hard. So yeah, I changed my mind! Just then my doctor arrived to check my progress. I was hoping I'd be at least 6 or 7cm. She looked at me and said, "You're going to push on the next contraction." I looked right back at her and said, "I'm having the baby now?" She told me I was 9.5cm, and yes we were having this baby now! I felt so unprepared, like I had no idea what I was doing. I acted like a drunk person asking the same question over and over again, "How am I doing?" They kept telling me I was doing great, I didn't believe them because I figured it's their job to say that.

3:40 PM

FINALLY, after an hour of waiting in triage our delivery room was ready. I walked down the hall down to the delivery room. I was in so much pain, I'm pretty sure (Andrew will vouch for this) that I would have walked down the hall naked if they had let me. I had one contraction in the hallway on the way there. Then three really strong contracions right on top of each other between the time I walked in the door of the delivery room to the time I got to the bed. This was when they decided that I needed to sign all the paperwork...in case of an epidural, baby's picture on the website/in the paper. Let's just say the first paper I signed looked somewhat like my signature. The rest wasn't more than a scribble.

2:30 PM

I was right, my water broke while I was laying in the hospital bed. I told Andrew for about the 5th time that day, "My water broke." And he responded, "Are you sure you didn't pee yourself." And I said, "No, this time I'm sure it was my water." I rang my nursing station call button and after verifying that my water had indeed broken, they said I'd be admitted to the hospital and would be leaving with a baby that day (or the next day). At that point I was still in the triage area with everyone else able to hear me labor through my contractions. Nurse after nurse was coming to take more blood from me despite the fact that my BP was really no longer an issue since the baby was on his/her way. My contractions were right on top of each other, and I got some nice bruises from tensing up while the nurses were taking blood.

2:00 PM

The 1 hour of monitoring for my second dose of the gel had ended. We walked a bit, but it was hard having incredibly strong contractions in the hallway, and I was afraid that my water would break in the hallway so again I went back to bed.

1:00 PM

The second round of the gel was administered. At that point I was 4.5cm, 80% effaced. Almost as soon as I was given the dose, I started experiencing pretty strong contractions that were somewhat irregular. They were coming at least every three to five minutes, but at times they'd be right on top of one another. Andrew kept reminding me to breathe slowly, but I was definitely in quite a bit of pain. I kept telling him I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it without the epidural, but he really reassured me and reminded me why I didn't want it. I still wasn't convinced, but was willing to try to wait it out for as long as possible.

12:30 PM

Andrew arrived at the hospital!

11:00 AM

My 1 hour of monitoring was finishing up, and I started getting freaked out that my labor would progress quickly and that Andrew would miss the birth of our baby. So I texted him and asked him to leave work to come be with me just in case. He said he was finishing up a few things, and would stop home for lunch before heading to the hospital. I told him that sounded fine.

In the mean time, my 1 hour of monitoring finished. I was still feeling fine. The contractions were pretty irregular and still not painful. I got up to walk around, but felt like an unwed pregnant lady walking the halls of labor and delivery alone so I just went back to lay in bed and eat the lunch that they had ordered for me.

10:00 AM

I was finally given the first dose of the gel. In administring the gel it was determined that I was 2cm dialated. I started feeling regular contractions, but nothing painful.

8:00 AM

I arrived at the hospital with Andrew's parents for my schedule blood pressure check. When we arrived, there weren't any nurses at the triage station. After about 15 minutes, I was finally taken back to the triage area where I had several more high bp readings. There was a new doctor from my OB practice on call that day, and she decided it was best to start me on the prostaglandin gels in case induction became necessary. I called Andrew to tell him what was going on, but told him to stay at work as it didn't sound like anything was really going to happen today.

4:00 AM

So, after the events of the previous night, both Andrew I woke up around 4:00am on this day last year. Ordinarily we have just stayed in bed tried to fall back asleep, but something was different on this day. We must have both known that something big was about to happen. We decided to both get out of bed and get ready for the day ahead. Andrew headed to work early, and I waited around the house until it was time for my appointment at the hospital.

The Night Before

As Andrew was leaving for work on the morning of Tuesday, September 16th exactly 1 week before my due date, he said, "Don't call me today unless you're in labor."

Later that day I started feeling a little bit of pain while walking around after having lunch. Of course, I called my mom for advice, and she insisted that I call the doctor. They sent me to the hospital just to be safe. So I called Andrew and the first words out of my mouth were, "I'm not in labor." I told him to take his time, but that I needed to go to the hospital. About an hour later after he arrived home we headed to the hospital and ended up spending 3 hours there as they monitored my blood pressure, baby's heartrate, and my contractions. I was shocked to find that I had developed high blood pressure. As they monitored me, the readings were all over the place. After a round of bloodwork, the doctor on call thought that it showed some signs of pre-eclamsia. They also determined that I was 1cm dialated. Since I had no other signs of PE, they sent me home and told me to come back the next morning for further monitoring and testing.

That night, we went home thinking that it would still be at least a week before we'd be meeting our baby...

Assistance Needed!

Birthday pictures are in, and I need help deciding. Oh how I wish we could afford to purchase them all, but for now we're just going to have to settle for purchasing a special few. Please check out our photographer's website. Enter the site by clicking on the middle image. Then click on the link at the top of the page for "Client Lounge." Below the image that pops up, you'll see a box to input a password. Ours is "sweetcaleb" in all lowercase letters. Then you have to promise to come back to this site and post a comment with your favorites.

Finally, I apologize for the lack of posts lately. I'm super busy with work, planning Caleb's party, and finalizing the design for my sister's wedding invitations. I promise that I will make up for the posts in the next few days. Be on the look out for tomorrow's post extravaganza where I will recount September 17th from one year ago.

If You Thought That Was Funny...

...then you've got to see these. This morning Andrew took some more cell phone videos of Caleb dancing. The first one he's dancing to the same "Bunny Hop" song as in the previous video. The second video below is hilarious! We decided to turn on the "Toddler Tunes" channel on our TV just to see what would happen, and the result is just...well, you'll see.

Dancing

I'm so sick of this song. He discovered this book about an Easter bunny 6 months after Easter, and now all he wants to do is dance to this annoying song. I keep pressing the button because it is so darn cute!

Y3W

Y3W

Fingers Crossed

Putting in the order for Caleb's 1st Birthday cake and hoping I don't end up with a Cake Wreck of my own...