Little of This... Little of That

First, let me begin by saying that Noah is doing great in his big boy bed. That first week was a bit of a challenge during naptime but he adjusted and is doing fine. The past few weeks, we've been busy with my sister's wedding festivities and finalizing all the last minute things. Last weekend was her Lingerie Shower hosted by her high school friends and that Sunday was her Bridal Tea at our church. She racked up with TONS of stuff so she and Derrick should be set! Now we are just counting down the HOURS until we are Savannah bound! I've spent the day doing laundry, packing and cleaning the house so that we can come home to cleanliness!

Me & Lindsay at her Lingerie Shower (me at 24 weeks)


No, we still haven't done a thing to Collier's nursery even though I had hoped to begin prior to leaving for Savannah. His furniture came in a week or so ago and I did pick out the paint color and put a little sample of it on the wall. We've arranged for the painters to come paint while we're out of town (Jamie's dad is a builder so his paint crew is painting the room for us) and Jamie has promised me that it will be completely finished by the end of August, which I'm happy with. I also ordered several things from Etsy.com for his room so I'm excited to get them in.

This time around, we've decided to keep Collier's cord blood. We considered it with Noah however, opted not to. Duke University is doing trials where they do cord blood transfusions for kids with Cerebral Palsy and developmental delays and have had really great results in healing these kids of their delays. If we would have kept Noah's cord blood then he would have been a candidate for a transfusion. (oh the things I would change if I could!) I was really hopeful that Noah would be able to get a transfusion from his brother's cord blood but after speaking with someone at Duke they told me that currently, they are not performing transfusions from sibling's cord blood. However, they HOPE to be able to do so in the near future. Regardless, we've decided to keep Collier's in case a.)Collier needs it and b.)Noah can get a transfusion of it.

Noah is doing great with his walking. His strength and balance are getting noticeably better as he is now able to walk pretty good with us holding just one of his hands. And he jabbers like crazy! I know he wants to talk so bad. He's also developed a bit of a temper! When he gets upset about something or I tell him "no!" he smacks his hand down in protest. It's a good thing that he's protesting now rather than just being passive... it tells me that he knows what he wants and he gets mad when he doesn't get it, rather than not caring. It also lets me know that he understands even though he isn't expressing it through words. We've began disciplining him and he knows exactly what we're saying. We count to 3 and most of the time he stops whatever it is that he's not supposed to be doing. He's still the most loving little boy! I'm always telling him about the baby in mommy's belly and he's begun laying his head on my belly... so sweet. He loves to hug on us and cuddle... he really is such a sweet kid. Jamie and I were talking the other night and Jamie jokingly said, "I'm kind of worried about what kind of personality Collier's going to have because Noah is so sweet and it seems impossible for us to have two boys with sweet personalities!" We were both joking around saying that Noah got the good qualities from each of us so there's no telling how Collier would be! He may give us a run for our money!

I'm hoping that Noah will be walking or very close to it come October 28 (our probable C-section date) but it won't be the end of the world if he isn't. I realize that regardless if he's walking or not, I doubt I will be getting out of the house by myself with a newborn and a 3 1/2 year old that often anyway! I'm just leaving it up to God... I don't mean this to sound like I don't care (cause that's about as far from the truth as possible) but I'm TIRED of the worrying and stressing over what Noah will and won't do and when he'll do it. It is what it is. The worrying doesn't change a thing. God has taken care of us thus far and He'll continue to do so, regardless if I worry about it or not. So I'm choosing not to. Being pregnant with Collier has made me realize that. I've been so consumed with Noah and his needs for the past 3 years... I used to research everything I could possibly think of on the Internet, pray until I was in tears each night, and think about Noah's disabilities constantly. I've even thought that possibly I wasn't a "good enough Christian" and that was the reason Noah was still delayed. How crazy is that?! God doesn't work that way and I KNOW that but at weak moments, Satan can convince you of anything. The past year or so has been a lot better for me as far as realizing it's not in my hands and then I got pregnant with Collier which helped me to majorly refocus! I just hate that I went almost 3 years wasting so much time worrying about the "when's" and "what ifs" and I wished I could have had this "epiphany" from the beginning... but at least I'm realizing now instead of later on down the road! I'm not saying that I won't continue to strive to do everything I can for Noah and obviously, I will still pray for him each and every night but I'm choosing to no longer worry about his (our) future. It's all in His hands and we're going to be just fine as a family of four... and I honestly can't wait!

Second Attempt...

A little over a year ago, when we moved into the new house, we converted Noah's crib to a full bed. It lasted for a couple of months, but then he started crawling and didn't know how to get off the bed (other than crawling off of it and hurting himself) so we left the bed up, but also put the crib back together in his room. He now knows how to get off the couch with ease and I've seen him get off the bed by himself so I know he knows how to do it. Plus we could use the extra space in his room to put some of his toys, rather than taking them all downstairs into the "new" playroom, so we broke the crib down again and are trying to get him used to sleeping in the big boy bed once more. My only concern is that he leans over the toddler rails and I'm afraid he'll fall over them onto the floor.

Last night went fine, he went to sleep fairly easily and slept his usual 12 hours. I checked on him before I went to bed and again in the middle of the night and both times he was asleep but with his head facing the end of his bed so each time I moved him back up to his pillow. When he woke up this morning, he cried out and waited on me to come get him. Nap time today didn't go as easily.... he fussed some but finally fell asleep, however, only for close to an hour, then was back up. I laid him back down but a few minutes later heard a loud thump and crying... he had leaned over the bed rails and fallen off the bed... exactly what I was afraid was going to happen! I picked him up and laid down with him, however that only lasted 30 minutes and he was ready for nap time to be over. He normally takes one 2 - 3 hour nap so naptime today gets a C-. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll get used to being in the bed and nap time won't be such a big deal. I'm also hoping that he quickly gets used to getting off the bed the correct way rather than leaning over the rails and flipping over them... hopefully he learns his lesson quickly!

Noah was overseeing the project








Lots of extra space now that there's only one bed in his room!


All tucked in and ready for bed


And he's out like a light!

Baby Updates

To be honest, there's not a whole lot of update about, however, I want to have a record to refer back to of how this pregnancy is treating me so here goes! I'll be 24 weeks tomorrow and I'm feeling pretty good! My back began hurting a while back (which was WAAAY earlier than during my pregnancy with Noah) however, after a few weeks, it quit so I'm not complaining there! Every once in a while, if I've been on my feet or carried Noah quite a bit, then it'll bother me, but for the most part it's fine. I have scoliosis and wore a back brace for 2 years during my middle school years so I've always had a lot of back trouble. When I was pregnant with Noah, I began having some major back pain around 6 months that resulted in my doctor reducing my work hours from 50 to 30 hrs. per week. So I'm expecting it to begin bothering me the further along I get (especially since this time around, I'm caring for another little person too).

I'm still sleeping just fine, other than getting up to use the bathroom every once in a while. Around 20 weeks, it got uncomfortable sleeping on my belly and on my back, so I tried side sleeping... which I'm really not a fan of. I don't know what happened, maybe I just got used to my belly or something, but I'm no longer uncomfortable sleeping on my back, so that's how I've continued to sleep. One thing that's been different, is I have been majorly congested since I was 9 weeks pregnant! I have always had bad sinus and allergy problems. The ONLY way I can breathe and sleep at all is with nose spray. Thankfully, Dr. Keith ok'ed the nose spray and assured me it wouldn't harm the baby. So I have to keep a bottle on me at all times!

We've begun cleaning out the baby's room but that's about it as far as getting the room ready. I'm really ready to get started however, Jamie's been SUPER busy at work lately and completely exhausted when he gets home so I haven't pushed it. Plus he assures me that it will only take a couple of days to get the painters in here to paint the room. His dad is a builder so we're just going to have his painting crew come in and do the painting for us (thank goodness!) The furniture should be in any day now so I imagine we'll get started with the painting after my sister's wedding in Savannah, GA, which is the first week of August.

I'll be honest, I've been kind of lazy and haven't felt like cleaning the house, I keep it straightened, but not regularly mopped, vacuumed, etc. Well the cleaning bug finally hit me and I've tackled most of the house last night and today. I guess I got carried away and decided I wanted to try to rearrange some furniture, and moved our VERY heavy and very big armoire in the bedroom... MISTAKE. I'm hurting and I think I've pulled a muscle in my inner thigh. UGH. Guess I learned my lesson, huh?

I feel Collier move ALL the time! The weekly pregnancy updates say that he's supposed to be sleeping 18 hours a day... but I don't see HOW because he moves constantly! I've been able to feel him from outside my belly since 21 weeks and Jamie felt him for the first time at the first of July (at 22 weeks). I had an appointment with Dr. Keith last week and told him I was a bit nervous about choosing my C-section date, simply because Noah had immature lungs when he was born at 38 weeks. Being the planner that I am, I've already been thinking alot about what date to schedule my C-section. His "rule" is to wait until 39 weeks however, my concern is what if my due date is off by a few days and we THINK we're at 39 weeks, but really still in my 38th week? I just don't want Collier to go through what Noah did and I definitely don't want my baby being sent to Huntsville NICU again. He told me we didn't have to choose the date to be exactly 39 weeks to the day, that we could wait until the last part of my 39th week or even wait until my due date (or even go past my due date by a few days, if I wanted). That made me feel alot better. I'm kind of hoping to just go into labor and let it be God's timing, however, I really really want Dr. Keith to be the one who does my surgery, especially since my C-section went so badly last time. I'm just trusting God that Dr. Keith (along with me and Jamie) will make the best decision for Collier!

I'm not big on posting belly pics, but I guess I'll put a couple on here that I took on July 1, at 22 weeks.

July 4, 2010

We had a pretty relaxing Fourth of July this year. Saturday morning, Jamie did his usual of playing golf at Cypress Lakes and Lindsay, Noah and I went up to the pool. For some reason, Noah wasn't in a "pool" mood, so we only got about an hour of pool time. We took Noah back to my parents house for a nap and once Jamie got in from the golf course, I headed back to the pool for a little ME time. Very much appreciated and very very much enjoyed!

On Sunday, Jamie's parents had invited all of us (all three boys, their wives and the kids) to their neighborhood pool. The pool was scheduled to open to its members at 1:00 for their annual Fourth of July party, however, Jamie's mom had arranged for us to have a "private" pool party from 11 - 1 so we played hookie from church and spent time with his family. Noah had so much fun playing in the water with his daddy and uncles. Since the neighborhood pool backs up to Jamie's parent's house and is practically in their back yard, Jamie spent ALOT of time at that pool when he was a kid. He learned how to do a lot 'tricks' off the diving board. He thought it would be funny to see if he could still do all of those things he once could do. He was flipping off the board and doing all kinds of stuff and Noah thought was HILARIOUS. Around 2, Jamie and Noah went home for a nap however, I stayed up there so I could lay out and enjoy the day. Well.... I did alright! I didn't go home until 5:30... yes, 6 hours solid in the sun! But it was nice relaxing and chatting with my mother-in-law and one of her friends. Plus, I was able to lay out on my belly (thanks to their comfy lounge chairs) which is something I haven't gotten to do much of thanks to my growing belly. However, after a couple of hours, I realized the backs of my legs and my back were getting a little pink. Other than that, I was okay, no burns just tan... so I thought! Later that evening I realized that I had burned my scalp where I part my hair... OUCH!

That evening, we went up to an area overlooking the Tennesee River to watch the city's annual fireworks show. I was curious what Noah would think, since he's never seen fireworks before. I was a little afraid that the sound would scare him but he loved it! We were far enough from McFarland Park so that the sound wasn't too loud so he did just fine. He kept saying, "Ooo..." and squealing with excitement. It was obvious that he was having a great time, despite the fact it was 2 hours past his bedtime!