Weekend Tidbits: Volume 7

Friday during lunch I went for a hair cut, I'll admit it's a shorter than I had anticipated but I think it still looks cute!

Saturday I ddn't take many pictures because little man was not a happy camper for most of the day.  We think he may be allergic to the rice cereal we started him on last week. It may just be a food sensitiviy and not an allergy but he definitely had a reaction to it. His digestive system has not adjusted well so we stopped feeding it to him. Things seem to be getting better. I'm going to call the doctor this week and see if we should just remain off solids or try oatmeal instead.

The onesie is from our friend Crystal, she lives in NYC, she got him a 6 month but when I washed it the length shrank to that of a newborn so it was more like a shirt. I wanted a picture of him in it. So cute.

Saturday was a LONG night, I was almost certain when we woke up on Sunday morning he was going to have a tooth that popped through. But NO!

Sunday morning I got a text from my brother Troy, he was in town for a Bachelor party, they ended up at brunch near our house so we met up with them. There's an executive airport near our house and the restaurant backed up of the runway. It was good to see my brother and Ben stayed in a somewhat good mood through the whole brunch.

Luckily Ben slept through the night last night so hopefully he is back on the mend from the cereal and from teething.

Ben eats cereal for the first time

For several weeks Ben has woken up in the middle of the night to eat, the first few times I attributed it to a growth spurt, then to teething. But after some thinking and asking around I decided he's just hungry. His doctor told us at his 4 month appointment to wait until 6 months to start rice cereal or solids. "Cereal is empty calories" is what he told me. Since I'm a rule follower I just listened to him. But as the nightly waking continued I decided we needed to do something. So I called the doctor talked to the nurse and she said to go ahead and try it.

So for his 5 month birthday, he ate cereal for the first time!

He wasn't impressed with his first few bites.

But, then he got the hang of it...

Click here to view this video

I would call the feeding him cereal a success. But you may be wondering did we get a full nights sleep...

NO!

He woke up at 4:30 talking to himself, I got him out of bed and I smelled it... he had a dirty diaper. So I went to change him and it wasn't just the diaper it was on the pajamas too... After he was all cleaned up he then decided well since we're up why don't you feed me ;)

So night 1 on cereal didn't go quite as planned but I really think it's more because of the dirty diaper than the fact he was hungry. He decided he was hungry since he was already awake.

5 months!

I'm 5 months today!

I was so excited about this I woke daddy at 2:30am and mommy at 5:15am!

Mommy took a few pictures of me this morning while I played...

I had a lot of fun!

Then she tried to take my picture with the Gator to show how much I've grown...

Is it just me or does this Gator seem to get smaller each month?

He won't mind if a chew on him a little, will he?

OK Mom I'll cooperate, are you happy?

Weekend Tidbits: Volume 6

Our weekend started out with me having to leave work a little early to meet up with Craig because Peanut Butter had scratched his eye and it was swollen shut. He is allergic to EVERYTHING environmental... Dust mites, Pines, grass and weeds. We now live in a house that the family room is carpeted and has three very large pine trees in the front yard and in Georgia using pine straw as mulch is pretty much a given. So everything is stacked against him at this time. So we were told we would need to start him on a regimen of Atopica for all his allergies. It's not cheap and we tried to do what we could to help him but cleaning/vacuuming more but it wasn't enough. SOOOOO he went to the vet and he had scratched his cornea so he's got a treatment for that AND he's begun the Atopica which has made him sick several times and if it doesn't get better we may have to try the injection.

He looks like he's smiling but he definitely wasn't. :(

Then came Saturday... we were needing to get rid of Craig car (Infiniti G35), work had given him a car to drive and since we've had Ben we rarely drive it. We have been contemplating just taking it to Carmax to sell, we got a quote and they were pretty much going to pay it off and we would be done. But some things may be happening at Craig's job (good things) and the Boost Mobile (pronounce mobile like a car not the phone, that's what we've nicknamed it) may not always be around so that made us nervous about getting rid of the second car all together. So since my car is paid off we decided to look at a new car for me and see what kind of deal we could get. We looked at used Honda Pilot and Toyota Highlander. Loved the Pilot, wasn't so much in love with the Highlander. So on the way back to the house we stopped by a Mazda dealer to check out the CX-9. They had a very nicely equipped 2008 with very low miles, Certified preowned, and a price within our budget. We asked for the Carfax report, it was clean (one Pilot we had looked at had been in a rollover crash with airbags deployed and everything). We were impressed. They let us drive it home and we did a little more research on it and decided it was going to be our new car if they could make it work. While we were working on the paperwork, at least 5 other people came to look at this car. It was popular! So WE DID IT... we bought a new (to us) car!

It's my first new car in 6.5 years, I am quite excited though I will really miss driving the CR-V everyday, but lucky for me it will still be around.

Sunday we went to church and Ben did ok this time (for most of it).

Now after church is another story, he is still teething something fierce and was fussy for much of the afternoon.

I had to take this picture, to record the pure discontent of these teeth coming in. Sophie (the giraffe) does seem to be a comfort to him, he will gnaw on her but once he's hit the full on I'm too upset to care what you give me there's not much we can do.

Save the Huntley Hills Beaver!!

I love our neighborhood and a couple of weeks ago I signed up for our yahoo email group so we could be in touch with everything going on. In the last few weeks there have been announcements from the newly formed neighborhood watch leader, recommendations for landscapers and contractors, and sharing of events. But yesterday's email chain took the cake.

We have a creek that runs through our neighborhood and last year about this same time a beaver chewed down A LOT of trees. Someone was hired to relocate it but was never successful. Then all of the sudden activity stopped, it started up again a month or two ago and apparently the beaver has finally met his match. He chewed down the wrong tree! I have copied and pasted the emails in the order they were received ... it makes for a funny read. Craig and I are thinking of buying savethehuntleyhillsbeaver.com URL but have no expertise in web design. All we really want it to have is a picture of a beaver and our neighborhood sign.

So I created a blog for the Beaver:
http://huntleyhillsbeaver.blogspot.com/

Weekend Tidbits: Volume 5

This is a couple of days delayed because I've been sick since we got back from Tennessee.

This past weekend began on Friday for us. We drove up to Townsend, TN Thursday night to visit with Aunt Bonnie, Uncle Mark, and cousins Emily, Tim, and Grandpa and Grandma. It was the first time Ben was meeting his aunt, uncle, and cousins from Albany, NY.


We rented a cabin with Bonnie and family since the cabin Grandma and Grandpa are building isn't complete (but it's getting closer every week)...





On Friday morning Ben spent some time playing with Tim and Emily just waiting for them to wake up!!





Then Ben got ready for the day and hung out with Uncle Mark while I got ready.



Aunt Bonnie had her cuddle time too.



Grandpa playing with Ben.



I didn't get a ton of pictures because we spent a lot of time just hanging out and kept forgetting to take pictures.

Rich, Craig, Bonnie, the kids and I went tubing down Little River on Friday. It was nice and relaxing (except for the snake I saw in the water).

Saturday the guys played golf and the gals and Ben went to the outlet mall in Sevierville, Emily had money burning a hole in her pocket but ironically I think I ended up with more because of all the cute stuff everyone kept bringing me for Ben. But I picked up some cute clothes for him all the way up to size 18 months.

Sunday we went to church in Maryville at Praise Lutheran and Ben fussed his way through the service and lunch following so we headed home. He is still teething, he hasn't cut any teeth yet but with his fussiness I'm hoping it is very soon.

Oops I crapped my pants...

I don't watch a ton of Saturday Night Live but if Justin Timberlake or Jon Hamm are hosting or the best commercial episodes I can't miss it! (If you haven't seen either Justin or Jon hosting SNL you've miss some good stuff!)

One commerical is "Oops I crapped my pants"


That is what I have been feeling like with Ben lately.

On Tuesday Craig picked Ben up from school, this was the first time he's picked him up. Now that his school is closer to the house (less than 2 miles away) he is going to be a big help with dropping off or picking up Ben. So I walk in the door at home after work and I see my boys, Peanut Butter greets me with a wagging tail, Craig with a kiss and Ben beaming up at me with the cutest grin... but something is weird. Ben had on an outfit that I had never seen before. I asked Craig and he said they gave him a couple of bags of dirty clothes, apparently he had pooped on all the ones I had supplied them and they gave him a back-up outfit.



Don't get me wrong the outfit is cute but the one sock that was one his foot cracked me up (the other he had kicked off)

Doesn't he look pretty proud of himself?

So the next morning I drop him off and talk to them about putting the diapers on tighter and start to head out the door. As I pass the reception desk the phone rings and she says Ben's mom, I turn and say yes. Oh his teacher wants to see you again. I walk back into his room, he was on the changing table with a grin and I imagined him saying "Oops I crapped my pants". Apparently from the teething it is so runny the diapers aren't holding it. I sighed and said thanks and left for work. Luckily yesterday that was the only outfit he messed up.

BUT... this morning he woke up at 6:30 (pretty normal for him) I changed his diaper and got him dressed for school, then fed him. While I fed him he did it again, so by 7:30 he was already on his second outfit of the day. Hopefully he will cut his tooth or teeth soon and we can get back to normal. He is going thru a lot of clothes right now.

Teething Ben- 5, his clothes-0

Weekend Tidbits: Volume 4

I'm going to begin this weekend's update with a picture from Friday, Ben had his last day of school at his first one ever on Friday.

He really enjoyed his teachers at Sunshine House. He will miss them but he began a new school today that is closer to the house and all our neighbors swear is the best place before kids go to real school.

Last weekend Jason and Katherine (Ben's Godparents) asked if they could come this weekend to Atlanta to see the little man and go to a Braves game.

Immediately upon their arrival Ben got comfortable and took a nap with Katherine.


Then he hung out with Jason, showing off his Buddha belly.


Later that night we saw the Braves beat the Giants. So far Ben is doing pretty good on wins for the Braves when he goes to a game. 2-0!!


On the way out of the game Jason had to pose for the camera.


I worked on the quilt again! It's taking shape, this week I need to stitch everything together and it will be done! I don't know why I put it off for so long it really hasn't been too hard. I may even finish it one night this week.

I think I may add a football to his hands, but it's looking good!!

GO GATORS!

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Breastfeeding Awareness Week...

I know you're probably thinking, why would I write a post about this since I'm not breastfeeding... Well just because I couldn't breastfeed Benjamin doesn't mean I have thought about everything that goes with breastfeeding.

A little over 2 years ago I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. I will most likely be on medication for it for the rest of my life. The 2 medications I am currently taking are Pentasa and Enotocort both were fine to continue taking while pregnant but not safe for the baby while breastfeeding. So my hopes of breastfeeding were denied.

Since we knew that I couldn't breastfeed while I was pregnant it was one of our considering factors to cloth diaper. The cost of formula isn't cheap, so to save ourselves some money we decided to cloth diaper. So it may be more "convenient" (anyone/anywhere can feed him) but it definitely isn't cheap. In the last few weeks the convenience could be argued since we have had to make special trips to the store for formula and the other day we both realized we were out at 11:30pm and Craig had to run to the store so that we would have food for him in the morning.

But the real reason I'm writing this post is lately I have really thought about breastfeeding and part of it is the fact it is Breastfeeding Awareness Week. But the other part of it is sometimes I feel guilty that because I have Crohn's I wasn't able to give Ben nutrition/antibodies from breast milk.

I had thought about talking with my doctor about stopping the medication so I could breastfeed then I realized that if I stopped the meds my digestive system would go completely out of whack and I probably wouldn't absorb the nutrients from the food I'm eating and wouldn't pass them to Ben therefore I would probably not have the best breast milk for my little man.

I guess the biggest thing for me about being a new mom and not breastfeeding is having to explain why I'm not. Whenever someone has asked if he eats formula or breast milk and I say formula, I then sometimes get a look, and I feel like I have to justify my reason for having to formula feed. I think a lot of the reasoning behind it is the idea of "Breast is Best" and if you aren't breastfeeding you are giving your child less beneficial food.

I am happy to report that as a formula fed baby, Ben has yet to be sick *knock on wood*, even while being in daycare. He has gained 9 pounds, he went from the 5th percentile in weight when he was born to 50th in 3 months. He is a very happy HEALTHY baby boy, even while being exclusively formula fed! So for those moms out there who are able to breastfeed- Congratulations! I am excited for you but breastfeeding isn't for everyone (sometimes for very good reasons) and it also isn't your place to place a judgement look on that mom when she tells you she is using formula.

Ben's First Baseball Game

Last night we went to the Atlanta Braves game for Lutheran Night at the Braves! It was Ben's first Baseball game.

Here's Ben watching the game.


Ben and I at the game.


Our happy Braves family, Ben was flirting with the girls sitting in front of us.


2 homeruns (Chipper and McCann) wore this little man out. He missed the 3rd homerun of the game since it was in the 8th inning but the 2 back to back homeruns in the 3rd inning were plenty of excitement for him.

Ben did pretty well. He didn't have any meltdowns. It was still incredibly hot for a 7pm game. I'm glad that on Saturday we will be in the club level and will be able to get some AC during the game.

Weekend Tidbits Volume 3

I'm actually getting this done on Monday this week!!

On Saturday morning Ben and I met up with Emily and her fiance Mark for brunch.


Emily and I went to UF together and had many great times. It was great hanging out with her again!

Sunday we ran errands and while out I decided to stop by the Carter's store and look what I found...


I won't lie I got as excited about it as I do when I find clothes with gators on them!!

Then while I was waiting for Craig to get home from Phoenix (he's been gone since Wednesday) I finally started on Ben's Gator quilt.


My mom drew the pattern when I was in college and made one for a little girl I babysat. I am making it a boy gator and making one for Ben. Ben's baptismal gift from Rich and Carol was the fabric to make it. I can't wait to finish it!!