A time for firsts

I am not even going to mention how long it has been since my last post. What I am going to do is tell you guys about some "firsts" for Luke. He is adorable by the way. I just wanted to throw that in.


First sickness - Luke and I went to my parents house in Idaho for a few days. It was so much fun. Except for the fact that Luke got sick the day after we got there and I got sick two days after we got there. We had to extend our stay because I was still feeling so yucky. Without giving too many details, I will mention that I passed out while I was sick and didn't feel in a healthy enough state to drive 3 hours by myself at 9 o'clock at night. But eventually I did and we made it home safely. My mom also got sick but tested negatively for the swine flu. So I am pretty sure that we just had a normal version of the flu. Yuck. We are happy to say that we are officially better. Mostly.


First tooth - Yay! Did I mention that while he was sick and fussy and not sleeping and had an earache that he was also teething? Yep. Oh I hope his next tooth isn't as bad as this first one. But it was so exciting to feel that little tooth poke up through his gums. It makes me feel like progress is being made.


First "pulling himself up to the coffee table from a sitting position" - No, he's not crawling yet but this kid can get to where he wants to be. Dave was sitting on the couch one day and all of a sudden Luke's face popped up on one side of the coffee table. He had pulled himself up all by himself. And now he is not content just sitting. He will grab onto anything he can if it will help him stand up. He can walk around the coffee table using one hand to balance himself. Needless to say there have been an added amount of bumps and bruises since the discovery but he is sure proud of himself when he stands up. He smiles really big and makes a big proud yell to anyone in the room so that we can see what he is doing. I hope he starts crawling soon but it appears that
walking may come first.


First sleeping through the night - Just kidding! He's not even close to this yet. Yes, he is 8 1/2 months old now and he still wakes up at least 4 times a night. And those are the good nights. It's when he wakes up 8 or 10 times that I question every action that I take as a mother. And that's not fun to do at 3 o'clock in the morning. And then again at 4, and 5 and 6....you get the idea. Plus, maybe by putting this on his list of firsts the angels might help me a little bit and help this little guy sleep through the night. Which in turn would help his mother greatly. (Please?)


First rash all over face - Poor boy has a red face right now. So I mentioned earlier that the doctor told me to stay away from dairy because it has a negative effect on Luke. Well, I have gone practically 8 months without too much dairy and I thought that I should test him to see if it still bothered him. Well, he's not spitting up every 20 minutes and he's not crying in pain from his tummy hurting anymore. Nope. But he does have a rash all over his face. It started small but when 4 days went by and it only got worse I decided to call the nurse and see what she said. She told me to stay off milk because that is probably the source of the rash, and to put hydrocortisone cream on his face. And then call her next week to let her know how he is doing. No change yet, but we hope for the best. Poor boy.


Well, that's it for me now. Whenever I post now I think of my friend Tyler who once told me that my posts were way too long and therefore hard to read. So I try my best to keep things to a minimum. Sorry Tyler. I think this one is still pretty long.


Truth is, I haven't posted in a while because we are waiting to hear back about something. No, I am not pregnant, and no it isn't anything that we are dreading. It's actually happy news if all goes through. So hopefully I will have some happy news to post in the next few weeks.


Until then, here's hoping for a good night sleep!

19 pounds and 6 months old!

Yep that is right. Baby Luke is 19 pounds. Well, we unofficially weighed him at Dave's parents house but we will have a more accurate weight when we go the pediatrician next week. Baby Luke is 6 months old. Wow. I can't believe he has survived this long. I guess that I am okay at the whole mother thing. I sure love him.


He has really grown leaps and bounds in the last few weeks. He is now rolling over to one side and he is getting pretty darn good at sitting up on his own. He has also discovered the fact that he can scream and he practices and practices. The first time he screamed was in the middle of the night and I have never seen Dave run so fast in my life. He jumped out of bed, ran over to my side of the bed and picked him up. He was patting his back and saying, "It's okay baby, it's okay." It was pretty shocking. But, surprise, surprise, baby Luke was asleep within seconds. Nothing was wrong. But he has come to learn that when he screams, he gets more attention than usual and he uses this to his benefit quite often. But what can I say, I love the kid.


We have experimented with rice cereal and he seems to like it. He loves pineapple, apples, cantaloupe, rootbeer freeze, pickles, bananas, squash, carrots, celery, and mommy. Okay, I had to throw that last one in. Most of these foods he just chews on a big piece of it and doesn't actually eat it. But I still count that as him liking it.


He giggles when I hold him upside down and at his cousins when they act goofy around him. Oh, the sweet sound of a baby giggle. So cute. His naps during the day are still out of wack but he seems to be sleeping well at night. In bed around 9 or 10, up at 1 to nurse, up at 6 to nurse, and once again at 8, and then he is up for the day. But, this has been his schedule for the past 3 days. Before that he was getting up between 5 and 8 times a night to nurse. Huge change. One that I can say I am definitely enjoying.


Dave is working hard at work at doesn't even know what day school officially starts. You can tell that he is looking forward to it. His leg wound is healing nicely and all he has is a nice Frankenstein looking scar left over from the gaping wound. He seems to be having injuries every 6 months or so. I wonder what the next one will be. I sure love him though.


I have been able to go exercising and I love it. By "being able" I mean that I have taken the time and made the effort to do so. Luke usually sleeps through the whole thing as I do my running and walking alternations pushing him in his jogging stroller. I love it. A good chunk of time to think and ponder and get out of the house. I have also tried to a better job and making good home cooked meals. Some nights I definitely do not feel like taking the time to create something special but I am putting a little bit more effort into our dinners. I think Dave is enjoying it. I hope he is anyway.


Well summer is coming to a close and more adventures are coming our way. I am looking forward to the cool nights in the Fall. Taking walks is especially wonderful during those nights.


I am off to another nights sleep. Hopefully Luke will continue this new schedule of sleeping. Cross your fingers.

Our cute little chunk

So we had baby Luke's 4 month appointment yesterday. Dave and I had guessed that he was around 14 or 15 pounds. We were wrong and found that he weighs 16 pounds and 4 oz! Wow. And yet my biceps don't seem any bigger than before. Darn. He is 26.5 inches tall and is growing everyday. He is in the 89th percentile for height, meaning he is taller than 89% of other babies his age, the 81st percentile for head size and the 64th percentile for weight. We sure love our "big" little boy. He has learned to blow bubbles and gave the pediatrician quite a laugh while doing it during his appointment. Here are some pictures of our munchkin boy.




This is when luke pulled my earring out. I looked around for it forever and this is where we found it.