39 weeks 4 days old

Well it is official, Blaiden has been out in the world longer then he was in my belly!  I can't believe how fast the time has gone, I remember the day I found out I was pregnant.
I am keeping this Blog more as a journal and turning it into a book at the end of the year so when Blaiden asks questions about when he did things or what he was like as a baby I can just pull out this book and tell him all about it.  I thought this would be a good time to tell the story of Blaiden's birth since I didn't really do that when he was born.
 I had a doctor's appointment on Monday January 23.  Fred came along like always and we brought along my hospital bag because we were hoping that I could be induced that day.  Fred had the week off so we thought it would be perfect timing.  I was also so ready to not be pregnant.  I was so big and so uncomfortable.  Well things did not go as well as we wanted and the doctor said I could be induced but the chances of it ending in a C-section were pretty good, so we decided to wait.  That day Fred called the doctor he was supposed to work with the following week and planned to go to work the rest of the week and take the following week off. 
 Looking back at that night I remember feeling a few pains before bed but it wasn’t bad so I didn’t even mention it to Fred.  We went to bed around 9 that night.  At 12:45AM I woke up to a very wet bed and woke Fred up and said “I think my water just broke or I peed the bed.”  We got everything together and went to the hospital.  We called our families on the way there because it was before 11PM in Colorado.  My mom found a flight and said she would be there by 5PM.
I didn’t start to have contractions until around 2AM.  At this point I was not sure if I was going to get the epidural or not.  Once I started, however; things went fast and the contractions were rough.  I will spare you all the gory details, but around 5AM I was having very long contractions and Blaiden was starting to get stressed.  After a contraction lasted over 2 minutes they were starting to get worried and were going to give me something to stop it.  I don’t know if it was Blaiden or me who was afraid of the shot but the contraction finally ended.  I had to be placed on oxygen for the rest of the labor.  At around 7AM I decided that I wanted the epidural.  At this point I was dilated to 8cm and they didn’t even want to set up a drip, but I’m sure glad they did.  The doctor was there and she was thinking I would have him within an hour.  That did not happen, after the epidural my labor stopped.  After 15 minutes without a contraction they started me on Pitocin to try and get me started again.  From this point I dosed off and on until about 1PM when they said it is time to start pushing.  I had to work hard for over an hour before the most amazing little person arrived at 2:11PM on January 24^th 2012.
After he was born time just seemed to stop.  There are really no words on how to explain how I felt when I held my son for the first time.  There is nothing like it in the world.  The love I felt for him was so strong I could not hold back the tears (I even saw a few tears from Fred).  My life changed from that moment, I was a Mom!  It is truly the best title I could have ever wished for and I would not change anything about it.  I’m a MOM!

9 Months Old

Nine Months Old

 My Appearance:  I went to the doctor yesterday for my 9 month check up.  I am a growing boy now at 20 pounds 8 ounces, in the 50% and 29.5 inches tall, in the 95%.  My hair now is looking very blonde and I am looking very grown up without all that crazy long hair.  I am looking more and more lean these days.  I am working off my baby fat by moving around and building my muscles.  My eyes are still very blue and beautiful, and everyone complements me on them.  I have 4 teeth now and bite down hard on anything that I can put in my mouth.  My legs are big and round but there are not really any rolls left on them.  I am fitting into my 12 month clothes pretty good now.  I have a very long torso and so my shirts fit better than my pants. 

Milestones:  This month I did a ton of new things.  It started out when I started standing.  One morning Mommy and I were playing and I somehow ended up on my feet.  Now I can get up on anything and have recently started just letting go and standing on my own for a few seconds before I realize it and lose my balance.  It took me a few weeks before I could get back down on my own; I really had to think of ways to get back to the floor without hurting myself.  Once I figured out how to pull up on stuff I learned to walk around while holding onto things.  I am also very good at that now.  I got my first hair cut this month!  Mommy was so sad to see my curls go but Daddy and I got to do it together so I loved it.  Mommy says I look like a little boy now and not a baby anymore.  Mommy and Daddy are trying to teach me sign language and this month I learned how to sign “light.”  That is all that I have caught on to so far but I am sure that I will learn more soon.  I can also wave bye-bye now.  I don’t do it very often but Daddy waves to me everyday.  It took me a long time but I can now sit up all by myself.  With all of the crawling and moving that I do I don’t sit for long so I don’t practice it very often.

Daily Routine:  My days are filled with playing, eating, and sleeping.  I am now eating 3 meals a day and snack on whatever Mommy and Daddy are eating.  I will eat almost anything now.  During my play time I love to move and explore the entire house.  I love to climb up the stairs and look out the window.  When Mommy takes me upstairs while she is getting ready I love to play with all the fun stuff in her room, like the mirror and dresser.  Kiara and I are becoming good friends. I love to play with her whenever she lets me.  Mostly I play with her paws and every time I touch them she moves them away so I keep grabbing them while she keeps pulling them away. I love to stand up and so I will crawl over to some furniture and stand up and walk around while holding on the things.  I also find it very funny when I pull down all of the DVD’s on the shelf.  I also love to give Mommy kisses and she must love them too because she kisses me back every chance she gets.

Special Events:  There was not too much that happened that was out of the ordinary this month.  One thing that we did do that was so fun was go to a pumpkin patch.  This was really fun and we got to see a ton of cool things like a corn maze, tons of pumpkins, and a few tractors.  We also took a ton of pictures.  

Time for a hair cut

I have scheduled our family pictures for the end of this month and so I knew it was time to cut Blaiden's hair.  Fred has been saying this for a few months now but I was just afraid that after we cut off his little curls they would not grow back.  The hairs around his ears were so curly but that is the only spot that his baby hair did not fall out.  all of his new hair that came in does not have the cute curls, although the top of his hair was wavy.

Well I didn't want our pictures to look like he just got a hair cut so I figured that I needed to get it done.  Blaiden did great, he sat on my lap during the hair cut and Fred was there to take the pictures.  Blaiden did want to eat his hair and the only thing that was more interesting then that was the car keys (gross I know but it worked at the time).  Now we have a cute little boy with hair that looks a lot blonder then it did before.

This was taken the night before but it really shows how crazy his hair was

This is the morning before when I went it and combed it just to try and see if he really needed a hair cut.  He did.

He looks excited!

Yummy keys!

Fred got a hair cut too.  My men look so handsome!

These teeth

Blaiden's schedule has been messed up since we left for Colorado (over a month ago) but he seemed to adjust really well while we were there.  That is until Thursday night where he would wake up crying every time his binky would fall out.  The next day I noticed that he had one of his top teeth coming in.  Friday night only got worse and on Saturday while we were flying home I could tell they were really bothering him.  We got delayed in Chicago and when we finally got on the plane Blaiden cried (very loudly) until 15 minutes before we landed.  We didn't get home until midnight and so he was so exhausted that he did sleep pretty well that night. 

My niece Hadley was also sick when we were home and I am not sure if Blaiden got that or not, I know I did and it was not fun dealing with a cranky baby and a head cold at the same time.  Each night has gotten a little bit better and hopefully we will be back to him sleeping all night soon.

As of right now he has 2 teeth that have come in and one more that I can see that will be coming soon.  They usually come-in in pairs so I am sure the another one will be coming in shortly.  Last night Blaiden only woke up once at about 2 AM so that was a nice treat for me.  Almost 4 hours of undisturbed sleep and then another 5 before he woke up for the day!  His naps are normal so it is only the night waking that has changed.  I am sure that we will get back on track but then we will be off again for another 6 weeks so who knows how his sleeping will work out then.

Just wanted to leave this will a few recent pictures of our little man.

Check it Off

It's over!  I Finished!

On September 29th I ran my first ever half marathon.  Two days before the race I was so nervous I could hardly sleep.  I had several dreams about getting lost on the course and actually running a whole marathon, to missing the race entirely.  The night before I got everything ready I was so nervous about Blaiden because I knew it would be cold and I would miss a feeding or two but, Fred was there to take care of him.  We left the house just after 5 AM and we ended up waiting around for about an hour before the race started.  This was the worst part because it was cold and the anticipation just made me more nervous.  About 10 minutes before the start Fred and Blaiden left to go get a view of the start line and I got in line with about 10,000 other people.

The start was pretty cool, there were fireworks, music, and a lot of people cheering but it took me about 6 minutes just to cross the start line.  There was so many people that it was hard to get into a good rhythm, but by about the 2nd mile it was a little better.  The first time I would get to see Fred and Blaiden was about mile 3.5 and so I started looking for them.  We almost missed each other but I got to say hi as I ran by.  After this I was felling pretty good and started running a little faster.  There were people in different areas cheering everyone on and a few bands were out playing music.  This made the run a little more interesting.  The next time I would see Fred and Blaiden was in between mile 9 and 10.  Fred was ready this time and got a picture of me running by him.  I also was able to ask if Blaiden was sleeping, which Fred thought was funny, but you can't ever turn off this mother thing.  When I hit mile 11 I was getting tired but my goal was not to walk, so I kept on going.  At mile 13 I thought to myself okay lets push it for this last mile and that lasted about 3 minutes and then I was back to my regular pace.  This mile seemed very long but then I saw the finish line and although I didn't sprint the last bit I crossed it with a time of 2:09:04!  I beat my goal by 21 minutes! I placed 2078 out of 3989 overall, 797 out of 2084 for the women, and 148 out of 341 in my age group.

I have to say I was pretty proud of myself for what I had just done.  However, as good at I felt emotionally, I was exhausted physically.  If you would have asked me if I would do it again that day or even the day after I would have said NO WAY; but, now after my body has recovered and I look back I don't think I can rule out another race. Crazy I know.

 Here is one picture of Blaiden sleeping during the race.  I just love his little monster hat!