My First Momma's Day!

Today was perfect!  AJ slept through the whole night and did not wake up until 6:35 and then laid in his crib playing until I got up to make him a bottle.  After breakfast, I opened my gift from AJ and then my Edible Arrangement was delivered before noon (gift from Hubby).

After his morning nap, we did a little Mommy and Son photo shoot.  





I couldn't have asked for a better day.  I got to spend it with my two favorite guys! :o) And to all the Mom's, the Grandmother's, the Mommy's to Be-Happy Mother's day!

7 the lucky number?

Wow.. this past month just flew by for us.  Little AJ turned 7 months yesterday.  He woke up early and was not in a great mood.  We ate breakfast, got changed and attempted to take some pictures.  He first wanted to take his 7 month old sticker off and then he cried when I put him on the chair to snap a few pictures.  Poor kid!   Then at night he fell asleep just fine, but was back up by 9:30 and hungry.  He fell back to sleep and was back up at 2:30, then 4:30 and wanted to eat once again.  I hope we don't have a repeat of this anytime soon.

AJ was acting normal on Thursday and Friday after is 6 month appointment, so I thought we were in the clear, but boy was I wrong.

Since Saturday, he's been crabby and fussy most of the day.  Could it be the shots? the Rota-virus vaccine? teething? upset tummy? I have no idea.  Sometime I wish he would come with a baby manual, so I could figure out why he is upset.  Sunday wasn't much better or Monday or Tuesday.  I finally saw some improvement today and I'm so glad that whatever it was has passed.  And that he's feeling better. He was just so miserable and he was making momma miserable too.

Now if he would just sleep longer during the night.  From 8 weeks to 16 weeks he was sleeping through the night.  When we first moved him from the bassinet to his crib, he would wake up once during the night.  I took it as a transition and he will get through it.  But we're almost at 7 months now and he continue to wake up once during the night to eat.  Sometime he will wake up several times and I have to go replace his pacifier. 
I know there is no magic remedy to make him sleep through the night or to sleep longer in the mornings, but I'm just exhausted.  I hate to complain, but I haven't had a good night of sleep since I was pregnant.  I love him so much and love spending time with him, but sometimes I just need a break.  I get frustrated with him  when he fusses and I don't know why.  I hate myself for that because he's a baby and he can't tell me what is wrong or what is bothering him.  Ugh.. maybe he'll let me sleep in for Mother's Day! ha ha But it would be a wonderful gift ! ;o)

Getting Big !

Yesterday was AJ's 6 month check up and more shots!  Ugh.. we hate those visits.  Poor little guy doesn't even know what's coming.  He weighted in at 19lbs 10oz and he is 28inches long.  

Right before his appointment

    AJ was good the whole appointment until the shots. I'm so glad they do the combo shots now, but we also did the Flu and H1N1.  He took it a little better than I expected.  He only screamed for about a minute and then calmed down quickly. Much improved since his 4 month appointment.  By the time we got in the car, he was back to his old self.   His naps were a little longer than usual, but other than that he's been acting normal.

"Mama"

AJ just started "talking" more in the last couple of days.  He began to say "Mama" and "Baba", among other babble.  I just wish he knew what he was saying.

I still love the fact that he keeps saying "Mama", "Mama" over and over.

In other baby news, he's been a little fussy and not eating as well as he usually does.  He woke up at 1:00 am and I tried giving him his pacifier, but he would not go back to sleep.  So, at 1:40 I finally gave up and gave him the bottle.  He then did not fall asleep until about 2:40 and was back up at 6:00am and did not want to go back to sleep. We got up at 7:45 to eat breakfast and I figured he must be tired and would fall right to sleep.  But No! He did not fall asleep until 8:50 or so and was back up at 9:30.  I had hubby put him back to sleep an hour later and he napped for an hour.  He didn't eat his lunch or the next meal very well, but napped well.  I hope he goes down good for the night.  

Tomorrow is our 6 month check up.  I'm dreading going to the doctors appointment.  We're seeing a new doctor and he'll be getting more shots, which neither one of us looks forward to. Ugh.. I hope it goes well.

New Bath Tub and the White House

AJ is getting so BIG.. TOO big for his infant tub and I decided to look for a new one.  Since he's pretty comfortable sitting on his own, it was time for the move.  I've done my research on Amazon.com, as always and found this bath tub Safety-1st-Kirby-Inflatable-Tub.  We just received it on Friday and he loves it.  I don't think he even noticed the difference.  It's very comfy, or so it looks and and was easy to blow up.  Not to mention that the price was great and I ordered 2 books, so I got the free shipping.

  He enjoys lounging in the tub and "reading" his book!



Yay! We finally got our "Welcome to the world" greeting from President Obama.  I almost forgot about sending out for it, until it came in the mail yesterday.  I'm a nerd, but I was excited and we'll be framing it in soon.

Weight be gone!

Ugh.. Instead of losing the baby weight, I have gained more in the last 6 months.   I don't have a scale at home as of right now, but I feel, No Wait I can SEE that I'm a fatty. ha ha  I'm pretty sure I weight more than I did when I was pregnant, except that now I don't have an excuse.   The only person that I have to blame is myself.   I'm a stay at home mom and when I get bored, I eat.  The hubby and I have also been buying a lot of  candy since Valentines day and the weight just kept creeping up on me.  He's lucky since he has a fast metabolism and can stuff his face with whatever he wants and not gain any weight.  Me? I can look at a cookie and gain 5 pounds.

So, the questions is .. "What are you going to do about it? "

I've done Weight Watchers and hated the counting of the points and I've done slim fast and although I've lost some weight on it, but I hate having to buy those shakes.  I've also tried the phentermine pills and yes they worked, but you can only use them for 3 months and I didn't like the side effects. 

So, my next "idea" was to find a new diet that would work. And so I went on Amazon.com and looked at the different diet books and their reviews and finally decided on The 4 day diet by Ian K. Smith,MD. So, it's not what you think, you diet for 4 days and poof the weight is off.  It's a process, starting with a detox/cleansing.  It also has recipes at the back of the book and motivational words at the beginning. I only received the book today and hope to get started soon. I'd also like to start working out again, but I'm not sure if I can fit the time in with AJ being so demanding at all time. I'll just have to stick to walks with him for now, until I can figure something out.    I will keep you all updated on the progress. Hopefully, I can stick to it and lose these extra pounds.  
If anyone else has any suggestions or ideas, please share.

What's the matter?

AJ has been extra fussy this past week.  He's also been drooling a lot and chewing on everything. So, I'm assuming he's teething.  I've tried baby orajel and hylands gel, but neither one seemed to help him much. I finally saw a post on the message boards about the Hylands teething pills and decided to give those a try. We walked over to CVS the other day and picked some up.  They seem to be helping a lot more then the other two products.


Now if I could just  figure out how to keep him entertained at all times.  He just doesn't seem content sitting in the high chair or walker for more than 2 minutes, sometimes even less.  It's not like I want him to sit there all day or even longer than 30 minutes, but he won't last for long at all.
I can't figure out why and no matter how many toys he has, he'll drop them all on the floor and then fuss the whole time until he's picked up and carried around.

I love my little guy, but I just don't know what else I can do for him.   I'll "make" him sit there for a few minutes, thinking he'll finally learn to be a little independent.  But no Mr. AJ has him momma wrapped around his little finger and knows she'll pick him up after a few minutes of fussing. 

I can not wait until he grows out of this stage and is done with teething because it's a nightmare.  Although, I know I have more "FUN" times to look forward to in the next couple of months and years.

Where has the time gone?

AJ has been very fussy the last couple of days and I just can't seem to get caught up with anything.  The only time I have on the computer is when he goes to bad and honestly, half the time I'd rather just go to sleep. But I decided that today I just had to write this post or I'll be behind again! And it's so hard to catch up.  So, it's 10:50pm right now and I'm writing instead of sleeping.  ha ha I'll be kicking myself in the ass later when he wakes me in a few hours to eat or to replace his pacifier.  On to the reason for this post..........

My little Man turned 6 months on April 6th.  I can't believe how much he's grown over the last few months.  I recently put away his "baby" clothes and couldn't believe how tiny he used to be.  He is now pretty much sitting unsupported, which makes me very proud of him.  He is still a little wobbly on soft surfaces, but he's getting better.  I never thought we'd reach this milestone. ;o)  I can not wait until he starts crawling, if he would just enjoy tummy time. 

I love this little guy so much and can not imagine my life without him.

Happy Easter!

We celebrated AJ's first Easter today.   He's too young to understand anything, but we still made the best of it and got some great pictures.



 We planned on going to church today at 11:00 am, but Mr. AJ had other plans.  He normally goes down to sleep between 7:30 and 8:00 pm and then wakes up around 4:00-4:30am to eat. Then we're back up around 7:00 and eat breakfast at 8:00.  He eats every 4 hours, so the next feeding would be at 12:00.  Well... He proceeded to go to sleep at his usual time, but then woke up at 1:30am to eat.  Then he woke up at 7:15, so I fed him breakfast. Next meal would be at 11:30 which would be the time we would be at church.  I could feed him after 3 hrs, but that would be 10:30 and he's a slow eater so we would never make it for 11:00 o'clock mass.  Plus he went down for a nap around 9:30 and woke up at 10:45. I suppose he didn't want to go to church?  For some reason, every time we have plans to go somewhere, he will take extra long naps and we can never leave on time. Oh well, He's the boss ! ;o)

 The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.   We were going to visit hubby's family for an hour or so, just so they could see the baby in the early afternoon. But we ended up not going.  They wanted us to come at 5pm and that is when we were eating dinner with my family and it would just be too late for little AJ. I hate messing with his nap times because then he gets so cranky and out of his routine.  Oh well.. their loss ! 

We enjoyed duck and beef rolls that my dad prepared for dinner.  So, yummy! I can't wait until next year when he's older and will be able to enjoy the day more.

Birth to 5 months

Birth -5 months in photos!

AJ's Big Sister

Born 10.06.09

Before leaving the hospital. Everything was too big! 

 

Finally Home! ;o)

First Walk!

First Halloween

                                                   First Christmas

 

First Valentines Day!

5 MONTHS!

That was boring....

Okay.. so my birth story was pretty boring.  When I was in 3rd trimester, I would read some of them on thebump.com, but only because I wanted to see how easy or hard it was going to be.  My birth story is not something that I want to relive and it was pretty uneventful, but I just wanted to add it on the blog. I didn't go into all the details since it's been  almost 6 months and I'm not in the mood to be writing about it now.

The next couple of posts will be mostly pictures of little AJ, until we hit Easter which is tomorrow and then his 6 month mark which will be Tuesday.  Then I'll be somewhat caught up and can finally write posts on a regular basis with events that happen now.

My Water Broke or Did it?

I went on Maternity leave on September 30th. I wanted some time to myself to just relax and prepare for  AJ who was due on October 8th, but he had other plans.

The morning of October 6th, I woke up to go to the bathroom and when I came back up "something" was still trickling down my leg.  I assumed it was water leaking and went to tell hubby who was getting ready for work. While I was standing at the bathroom door telling him this, it just came coming.
  It was around 6am and I called the Doctors office to have one of them paged. Dr. G was the one that called me back, I described what was happening.  He said to head over to the hospital and he would see me there in a little bit. 

We arrived at the hospital around 9am and were set up in the room.  Dr. G came by a few minutes later and checked on me. The water was leaking and we started the Pitocin to get things moving.  The contractions started a few hours later and when they became unbearable, I asked for an epidural.  After the epidural, I felt great other than having to be moved from one side to the other and not being able to get out of bed.  


 After hours of waiting, I was finally dilated enough to start pushing.  The nurse came in to do "practice" pushing and then told me to stop and we had to wait for the doctor.  It was the most horrible feeling of having this pressure and the little one wanting to come out and I could not push.
It felt like forever until he came in. 


 Dr. G finally arrived and we began to push.  After a few more pushes, AJ was born at exactly 9:00pm, weighing in at 7lbs 2oz and 19inches long. 

 We were so excited to meet our little guy.  He was beautiful!  They put him in my arms right away and then he was taken to be cleaned, while I had to get my 2nd degree tear fixed up.  Not fun, but I felt great at the moment.  I began calling and texting friends and family and didn't feel much pain. Once I was a little relaxed I began to be in severe pain and asked for pain medication.  The nurse also said that I was bleeding a little too much and it took longer for us to be moved to the  mommy and baby room.  That night was horrible. The nurse told me that the first 2 times that I needed to go the bathroom I would have to call the nurse.  I couldn't sleep because of the pain and called the nurse to help me go to the bathroom.  I got up and went to wash my hands and began passing out.  That was the most horrible feeling I've ever had in my life. By morning I was feeling slightly better, but still pretty weak and uncomfortable.  I didn't even have the strength to get out of bed. I don't know how all these women feel great after giving birth, because I was feeling horrible.  Don't get me wrong, I love my little guy and he was worth the pain, but not something that I wanted to reflect on.


The nurse brought little AJ in to see us and he spent the day and night with us.  We were so in love with him.  The following morning he was circumcised and a few hours later we were released from the hospital.
I'm so glad that hubby was able to stay with me for a few days and help out, because I felt horrible when I came home.  It was a pain just to walk down the stairs to get a bottle ready and sitting down was unbelievable.  I had no appetite, I didn't sleep well. I wanted to breast feed him, but I just couldn't get him to latch on. I began to pump, but was not getting enough, so I had to supplement with formula.  After two weeks, I began to feel a little better.

 The first 6 weeks were hard on both of us, but we finally got a routine going and little AJ began to sleep better through the night and gave his mommy some much needed rest. 

Breech?

A week before his due date, I went in for my weekly visit.  Dr. M did an internal and says " He's still head down".  Then she starts to measure my belly and feels a hard bump on the left side of my stomach.  She says, "What's this? His head?" , "He might be breech and we'll have to schedule a C-section"
That is one thing that I did not want, unless necessary.


We did a quick ultrasound to confirm what this body part was and turned out it was his foot.  He was still head down.

I was relieved that he didn't flip around the week before he was due and we didn't need a c-section.

20 weeks and on ..

So, I can't complain about my pregnancy.  I was blessed to have it go so well.  I only had nausea for the first 8 weeks or so and then it got better.  Sure, the sleeping got worse and I was up 50 times to use the bathroom at night, lol but no other issues. 

We went in for our 20 weeks ultrasound to make sure the baby was doing well and to find out the sex. That was such an exciting day and I couldn't wait to see my little one again! 
Dr. G started the ultrasound and had a hard time finding out the sex of the baby.  AJ kept closing his legs every time he would want to look.  Finally, he was able to get a peek and said he was about 80% sure it was a BOY!  I was secretly hoping for a girl, but was over joyed that we were having a little boy and that he was healthy.

As soon as we left the office we started to tell all our family and friends.  We were all so happy.

The rest of my pregnancy flew by quickly and we began to prepare for his birth.
We took a baby birth class, put the nursery together and had a baby shower at the end of August.

 

8 weeks

Ultrasound at 8 weeks? Did I hear the receptionist correctly?  WooHoo.. After being part of thebump.com, many wrote their offices would not do ultrasounds that early and/or had to wait until 20 weeks.  I was so excited and couldn't wait until my visit.



Test confirmed pregnancy and after questions were answered, we were taken to the ultrasound room.  My office did a trans-vaginal ultrasound since I was so early in the pregnancy.  Was it uncomfortable? Yes Did I care ? No Once I saw that tiny little baby on the screen and heard it's heartbeat, nothing else mattered.  It was quite overwhelming and I was speechless.

,

I loved my doctor and everyone at the practice.  I was looking for a doctor a few months before I was pregnant.  And once again I turned to thebump.com , my local board to get a recommendation.  I'm so glad that I found these doctors.  http://dupagemedicalgroup.com/   There were 3 doctors in the group, 2 females, 1 male and they were all great.  I felt very comfortable with all three of them and I was very happy that they wanted you to meet all doctors.

The next ultrasound would be at 20 weeks and we would find out the sex of our little one.

 

02.01.09

02.01.09--- To some this date may be significant because it was Superbowl Sunday to me it's significant because it was the day I found out that I was pregnant with AJ.


We decided to get pregnant sometime around December, so I was quite surprised that it happened so fast.
I kind of knew before I even took the test, because my period was never late. Sometimes early, but never late. I bought the $1 test at the dollar tree a few days before.

I woke up that morning and walked down to the bathroom with said test in hand.  So I follow the directions and wait.. and wait.. and one line appears ( the test line) and then the second line appeared.  "OMG I"M PREGNANT"  So many emotions ran through me at that point.  I was shaking with excitement and fear.  Yes, this baby was planned, yes I was happy, but was I really prepared to be a mom to another human being?

I walked back upstairs in to the bedroom and woke my husband to tell him that I was pregnant.  It was still early that morning, but I just couldn't keep this to myself.  Sure, I could have done something "cute" to surprise him and tell him that way, but I just couldn't wait.  M was excited and had the biggest smile on his face that morning.

Of course I was still in such a daze and couldn't believe it, so before work on Monday I stopped at Target and got the digital pregnancy test.  I just wanted to be sure that it was true.  The box contained 3 tests and I took one test each day ha ha and each test came back "PREGNANT" .

So, now what? Do we start sharing the news with everyone or wait.  I knew my parents would be ecstatic, yet I was scared to tell them.  M's parents were another story and I knew that we would wait a while before we told them.  We decided we would either wait until after the first appointment or the end of my first trimester.

A few days later, I called the OB-GYN and made my first appointment.  I would be 8 weeks pregnant at that visit and we would get to see our little one for the first time.

5 1/2 months later.........

  AJ was born in October and here I am just starting this blog.  I don't know how other mom's do it, but I just didn't have the strength nor the time to do anything. I'm going to have to start digging through my memory bank about all the happenings in the last couple of months and start from the beginning.