5 1/2 months and ENT appointment

It's so crazy how quickly time goes by!  Tate is almost 5 1/2 months old!  He's changed a lot in the past few weeks.  He's starting to talk a lot - and he's figured out how to squeal!  He makes lots of "g" sounds, snorts and squeals.  And the boy is ticklish!  Really ticklish!  I love hearing him laugh, so the poor guy gets tickled a lot.  Even his feet are ticklish.  He loves to sit up and watch what's going on around him and is starting to smile more.  He's starting to interact with Hudson a little as well.  He keeps his eye on Hudson at all times. 

Hudson has been a handful the last few days. Very physical - pinching, poking and even biting.  We thought he needed some one on one time so Jamie took him out for ice cream and a shopping trip to the new Menards.  The next morning Hudson bit Tate on the nose!  All I can say is it was a good thing we were getting ready to leave the house and spend the afternoon at Gigi's or I might have had a breakdown, then and there.  Thankfully the afternoon at Gigi's and some loving from Gigi, Papa, Lesie and Christin seemed to do the trick cause he was back to his normal self today.

We are starting to get out of the house more.  Yesterday, for the first time ever, I took both of the boys somewhere by myself!  Hard to believe, huh? 5 months and I hadn't taken them anywhere.  We went shopping (of course).  The trip went fine, although it was a lot more work than I'm used to getting the stroller out and getting them in it and in to the store.  We were only there 5 minutes before my mom got there so it wasn't too stressful! :)   Tonight we went out to dinner with some friends.  That is the first time we've been out to dinner as a family.  And the first time Jamie and I have ate out together (at a restaurant) since before Tate came home.  (If you know us, you know we eat out quite a bit, so that's crazy!) 

I took Tate to his ENT appointment last week.  The doctor looked in his ears and said he didn't have any fluid in them and wouldn't need tubes.  He thinks the reason he is failing his hearing screening is because he ears are very small.  He said when they do the test they blow air in the ear and that air is probably making his ear canal collapse since it is so small and that's why he's failing the test.  He did clean some wax out of one ear and Tate did NOT like that.  We'll follow up with the ENT in 3 months and if he thinks he's ready, he'll do another hearing screening and see if he passes it.  So at this point, nothing further to do. 

Tate loves baths.  He's figured out that kicking his feet makes the water splash so it's usually a big mess by the time we're through.  I took this picture the other night cause I was shocked at all his rolls!

Getting some Vitamin D!  And yes, he loves to chew on his hands and suck on his thumb when he can get it in there!

Hudson dancing in the rain! In his underwear.  He hardly ever gets dressed these days! 

Easter Egg Hunt

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Happy Easter!!

Months ago when Tate came home from the hospital, I set Easter as his "Hello World" date.  Meaning his first big introduction to the family and the world outside our house.  And we made it.  In January, April 24th seemed like soooo far away...and in some ways it was, but the last month has gone by really fast.  Must be the warmer weather!  Until last week, Tate had only been to my mom's house once and to church once to help set up for my Dad's birthday party.  Last week he went to March for Babies and then got to go to a Bunco Baby shower with me.  A few days later, of course, he starts running a fever.  He ran a fever for about 2 days and is congested still.  So going to Easter at my Gammy's was again up in the air...but we went.  And all had a good time.  Tate just took everything in.  He had a lot of people to meet! 

Here are some pics from our day:
 

Hudson's golf Easter basket.

My grass centerpiece.  Hudson and I started growing this grass (from seed) over a month ago.  All so I could put some Easter eggs on it as a table centerpiece.  Well, Hudson wouldn't share his plastic Easter eggs with me...and I was only allowed to use his real Easter eggs for about 30 seconds to take this picture (while he carefully supervised).  So my centerpiece never happened, but we did have fun planting the seed, watering it with our spray bottle and giving it a "haircut" a couple of times.  Trying to decide what to do with it now...

Our Resurrection Rolls....Hudson helped me make these Sunday morning...they are empty, just  like Jesus' tomb!  Not sure Hudson really understood the correlation, but he had a great time helping me put the marshmallows inside before we baked them.

My boys and I!  Don't they look handsome in their matching ties?  Hudson was pretty excited about wearing his just like Daddy!

The whole family...minus Chase, he was on call and had to leave during the middle of picture taking...and right before we ate and he missed the Easter egg hunt :(

Some of the entertainment for the afternoon....Hudson fell off the back and got drug a little ways before he finally let go (or Garret stopped, not sure which it was), so Jamie made hime a seat belt.

Needs a little tune up...

Hudson on his first date.  (This is my sister's niece, so my sister's husband's brother's daughter - got that?) Her name's Clara. Hudson might have given her a little whiplash with his driving but she didn't seem to mind.

Ashley the Easter Bunny.

Jamie's Easter Egg.  Chase hid the eggs this year and he put Jamie's in the rain barrel. 

Hudson counting up the loot he found in his Easter egg.

The Easter Story

As told by Hudson (as he's painting a picture of Jesus rising from the dead).
Happy Easter!

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March for Babies

Our family walked in March for Babies last Saturday.  The walk is to raise money for March of Dimes, whose mission is to prevent premature births and find cures for birth defects.  Obviously, this is an important cause for our family, in light of Tate's recent premature birth.  I was excited to do something that will help other families like ours.

I designed t-shirts for our team to wear for the walk.  The front says "Fearfully and wonderfully made - Psalm 139" and the back says "For Tate's Sake - March for Babies 2011".  They turned out really cute!  Even Tate got one, although I ordered his a litte too big!  But he can wear it all summer now.

The day started out a little cold and windy so we all had layers of clothes on and blankets on the babies. But halfway through the sun was shining and we started shedding our layers. The picture at the top was at the starting line.  In the bottom picture you can see the FINISH sign in the background.  You can see that we all have less layers on by this point! 

The babies that "marched" with us.  The baby on the left is Grayson - our friends' son.  He is 2 weeks older than Tate.  He rode in his carrier the whole time and never fussed. Tate is on the upper right and Ashley, my niece, is on the bottom right.  Papa carried her at least halfway.  Tate made it in the stroller a little longer, and then switched to a carrier. 

When I signed up to walk they asked me for pictures of Tate for a sign that would be posted at the walk.  I was disappointed during the walk cause I thought they were going to be set up along the path.  But afterwards we found them all lined up along this fence.  They got Tate's name wrong - it says "Christian" (his middle name) instead of Tate.  Then it says "born 9 weeks too soon. 2 pounds 13 ounces."  There were about  50 posters for other premature babies.  About half of them were "in memory of" and the others were "in honor of". The whole day was full of reminders of how blessed we are that Tate is such a healthy baby.  Thinking back about everything that could have happened, but didn't, is just amazing.  We are very blessed to have Tate in our lives.

Tater Tot

Dad's 60th Birthday BEATLES Bash

My OLD man turned 60 last week.  My sisters and I threw him a Beatles themed birthday party.  Everything was based on Beatles' song titles...the invites, desserts, and decorations.  And for entertainment we had the Beatles RockBand for the Wii.  A good time was had by all...as you can tell!

The Invites:

The desserts:  "Yellow submarines"...and George, John, Ringo and Paul....(our first attempt at cake balls.  They were good, but the people were a little hard to make!)

The smiley face ones were much easier!  We also had "strawberry fields forever" strawberry shortcake, "For the Benefit of Mr. Sprite, Sgt Dr. Pepper and Beatle Juice" (okay, that one's not from a song but I couldn't resist!) And the chocolate cake design is based off of the Sgt Pepper album cover.

"Words of Love" - guests wrote birthday messages. 

"I've Got  A Feeling"   "I Should Have Known Better"  -tag on the card/gift bowl (which I made by melting an old record) And the "I Love Paul" (my dad's real name) and "I {heart} Barry" buttons (forgot to get a picture) that we wore...

For the table centerpieces we used old records and I made new album stickers for them that were the Beatles Greatest Hits.  I even put the Beatles autographs on them.  I also rented books about the Beatles from the library.  We had "Lucy in the Sky with Diamond [rings]" and "I want to hold your hand" stretchy hands on the tables too.

Photo Booths have been pretty popular lately and I couldn't pass up the chance to do one Beatles style.  I made the mustaches from felt and dowel rods and bought the John Lennon glasses at Party City.  Then I made signs with the names of girls from some of the Beatles songs...Eleanor Rigby, Lucy, Dizzy Miss Lizzy)  I wasn't sure if people would do it or not, but everyone did!  I was really surprised.  I think only a few people balked at the idea, but almost everyone had their picture taken.  (We had about 60 guests).

The entertainment for the evening was Beatles Rock Band on the Wii.  Everyone got into it - especially Dad - he knew ALL the songs!   Hudson got into it as well!

Hudson loved wearing the glasses and playing with the mustaches.  He also loved the beads, the diamond rings, the stretchy hands, the cake, and the cake pops (both of them!)  He had a wonderful time at the party.  The whole way home he kept saying "I'm so lucky I got to bring ____ home" and listed off the rings, the glasses, the mustaches, the balloons, etc....  He's still playing with them all!

Miss Ashley was "Baby's in Black" (and Carver just wants us to stop taking so many pictures!)

and Tate didn't get to go the party but he didn't want to miss out on the fun:

Playing the Wii

And you have to watch the video to see Miss Callista doing her thing!  The girl loves music and dancing!

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Why I'm Walking...

Our entire family is walking this year in March for Babies (this Saturday, April 16th) to raise money for more research on what causes premature births, how to prevent them and to help premature babies. This is, obviously, a cause that is near and dear to our hearts after Tate's premature birth and hospital stay. 

If you would like to sponsor our walk, please go to March for Babies and you can donate online.  So far, Tate's team has raised over $1300.  My initial goal was $1000 and we've already surpassed that!  Let's see how high we can go.  Thanks for your support.

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March Madness

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20 weeks

Almost 5 months old! Can’t believe how fast the time has gone since Tate’s been home. It’s almost like none of it ever even happened (his time in the NICU), it seems like it was so long ago. Tate is growing and getting cuter every day! There have been several big changes in the last few weeks.


The biggest change for me these past few weeks has been that Tate is now exclusively nursing! Yeah! After his 4 month check up when the pediatrician said it was fine to quit bottles if we wanted, I started nursing him more during the day. After a week we had gotten to the point that he was only taking bottles at night. This worked well for me because I knew he was taking full bottles at night so I knew he was getting a set amount, plus I could make Jamie feed him some. :) We could tell it was causing some nipple confusion though because first, he started refusing his pacifier. Not a huge deal since he didn’t use it all that much and Hudson never took one either. Just means one less bad habit we have to break when he’s older! But he was also having a hard time switching back and forth from breast to bottle. But it was backwards from what I thought nipple confusion would be. Instead of having a hard time latching he started having a hard time taking the bottle. Worked for me, we just started nursing more. But I might have created a monster because last week, he totally refused the bottle Jamie was trying to feed him. We haven’t tried again since then. I’m sure we could eventually get him to take it but I am enjoying the breastfeeding right now (and Jamie is enjoying NOT having to feed Tate a bottle!).

The other big change that comes with the exclusive breastfeeding is less pumping! It’s wonderful. I am ready to pack the thing up and never look at it again but I am still having to pump about twice a day, since Tate doesn’t eat as much as I am producing. So in order to sleep at night, I usually pump before bed and then again in the morning after I feed him. Or sometimes at 5 am if I’m that uncomfortable! However, it is totally freaking me out that the fridge isn’t filled with milk anymore. I just have to keep reminding myself he is getting it direct from me and that’s why, but it’s weird to not have to do it anymore.

And another huge change is that for the last 3 nights Tate has been sleeping a 8-9 hour stretch! That has been nice, but worrisome. The doctor didn’t say anything at his 4 month checkup as to how long we could let him go in between eating. So the last time we had talked about it he said to not let him go more than 5-6 hours. Until this week he never did, so we weren’t sure this week if we should be waking him up or to just let him sleep. So that, combined with the fact that we started the exclusive breastfeeding we were worried about how much he’s actually eating, so today I took him in for a weight check. He’s up to 13 pounds 2 ounces. That’s a gain of 1 pound and 2 ounces in a little less than 3 weeks. The doctor said he was impressed with the weight gain and that the 8-9 hour sleeping stretch was fine – enjoy it! So we will.

I’m still a little concerned about his eating. He’s having plenty of wet diapers, and now I know he’s gaining weight but he doesn’t nurse for very long. Sometimes he only will nurse on one side and be done, sometimes it’s only for 7-8 minutes and then he’s done. I am assuming this means he is just a very efficient nurser. Hudson nursed forever, but I also think part of that was the fact I didn’t have another kid to take care of, so I had the luxury of sitting and reading for an hour while he nursed away. So I’m still worrying about it, but the weight gain did relieve some of the worry, plus he isn’t acting hungry in between nursing (he goes 2-3 hours between eating). So all should be fine. I’m just a worrier.

Tate is starting to talk and laugh more every day. He can hold his head up all on his own now and likes to be sitting up so he can see what’s going on. I think he’s getting close to being ready for the bumbo chair. He tries to pull himself up to a sitting position when he’s reclining. He loves watching Hudson and tracks him all around the room. He also smiles at him a lot. Hudson has a hard time not getting right up in his face and scaring him, but we’re working on that! One other thing I realized a few weeks ago is that his right ear now lays totally flat against his head like the left one! His eyes are still a light blue/grey color. I’m still waiting for them to change to brown but so far they haven’t. His eyelashes are starting to grow in and get long like Hudson’s. His hernia is looking even smaller now than it did a few weeks ago at his doctor’s appointment so I am still hoping it is gone for good.

Since it’s now April we are going to slowly start getting out of the house some. RSV season should be winding down, the weather’s warming up, hopefully the colds and coughs are going away – it is time to introduce our little man to the world!

Bathtime!

This is only the second time Hudson has helped with bathtime.  The first time was Tate's first bath after we brought him home, and all the other times, Hudson has either been taking his own bath, or just not interested in helping.  A few nights ago though Dadddy was gone so he got to be my "helper". 

Tate's first trip to the playground

Tate had a great time on his first trip to the playground.

 A great nap anyway!

Hudson, on the other hand,

had a BLAST

just hanging out!