Happy 0.75!

This month, my sweet son turned 9 months old. Wow. I know that each month I say time flies by-but I mean it. If you are pregnant right now, or have a small baby-be warned. You are going to blink and your baby will be a big boy/girl! It is overwhelmingly exciting and wonderful to watch them grow, but slightly heartbreaking at the same time, and each stage has both challenges and wonderful joys!
This month more than any previous month, Ben has become very interactive. He has been smiling a lot and laughing, but now he is playing games with us. He loves to play peekaboo (he has liked this for a while, but now he is "hiding" and "finding" himself) and we just discovered a new game where he shakes his head back and forth ("no") and we tickle his tummy, he giggles, we stop, and he shakes his head again. He is DEFINITELY experimenting with cause and effect. If we do something in response to something he does (and he likes it) he is very likely to try again to see if his performing monkeys parents will do the same trick twice. It is so fun to play with him like this!
He has started demonstrating excitement when he sees a parent, which is so fun. :-) When he comes to see me at lunch, the biggest smile breaks over his face! And the same when he sees his daddy (this boy is head over heels, crazy in love with his daddy-seriously, he thinks his daddy is the best person in the WORLD! It's the sweetest thing...). He also looks for people if he doesn't see them (and I can ask him "where is daddy" and he will look for him in the places he normally is-smarty pants!).
He has started reaching for us and showing anxiety when we walk away. However, we can walk away if we keep talking to him and reassuring him we are coming back (if I put him down to go to the bathroom or something like that).
He is signing a little bit-mostly to nurse. Josh is signing with him, so hopefully soon we will see some other signs.
He can scoot/army crawl a bit, but isn't really crawling on hands and knees yet. He is sitting and will transition from sitting to tummy (though that scares me a bit on our hardwood floor). He isn't really pulling up either. The kid definitely prefers to be held, though we can now put him down to play for a while depending on his mood. I'm okay with this-I figure he will be all over the place before we know it and for now, I don't mind knowing that he will be approximately where I put him down when I come back to get him.
He is eating a wider variety of food-still mostly fruits and veggies, but occasionally he will want to self feed some cheerios or something similar. He definitely prefers foods with flavor (he would way rather eat a cooked carrot out of my soup/stew versus a regular cooked carrot).
Happy 0.75, baby son! We are SO incredibly blessed to take care of you every day!

A Weighty Matter

Okay, so that's a bad pun. Take it back-that's an awful pun! My husband would be ashamed. However, this is my blog, not his, so too bad! Of note-I am happy for anyone who wants to read this blog to go ahead and read it-but if we are just casual acquaintances, you will probably find it boring. You have been warned!

So, some of you know this, some don't, but shortly before Josh and I got married, I made the worst medical mistake of my adult life-I took hormonal birth control. I thought that was just what you do-we are about to get married, not ready for kiddos yet, so this is the responsible adult thing to do. Well, to say it wreaked havoc on my body is to put it VERY mildly. The first one I was on made my hormones swing like crazy. Ask Josh-I literally spent an ENTIRE WEEKEND sobbing on the couch in his apartment-for no identifiable reason. I didn't even know it was possible for an adult to cry that long (or any human for that matter!) and I had no answer to the question of "what's wrong???" After that, we both agreed that I was changing pills. That was NOT an experience we wanted to repeat!
The next one I took was better from the hormone standpoint (at least the ones that make you crazy and emotional) so we thought we were good. We got married, came back to Texas, and I started clinical rotations. Then all of a sudden, I started gaining weight. Fast. And a lot of it. In fact, in the first 3 months we were married, I put on 50 lbs. Now, sometimes we are most blind when it comes to our own lives and bodies. I had heard and read of people "letting themselves go" after marriage, and figured maybe that was the problem. Never mind the fact that we were eating exactly the same and I had become MORE active (I went from sitting in a chair 8+ hours/day to standing, walking, running, and lifting that same amount of time), not less. Eventually, I realized that couldn't be it. Well, maybe I was stressed? I was in the clinical rotation from hell, after all. Nope...the gain did not end when the rotation did. So I started seeing doctors. The first one I tried was positive I had an eating disorder I was trying to hide (because people who are trying to hide conditions seek medical care). The second told me in words that are seared into my soul to this day, "I know you are just wanting to sit on the couch and eat chocolate all day, and I am not going to give you a medical excuse to do that." No one mentioned birth control as a possibility.
My sister in law got off of her birth control around that time and mentioned how much better she (eventually) felt. She had been having some of the same fatigue symptoms that I had been having, so I wondered if that would help me. So I got off of mine. It took about 5 months, but finally, FINALLY my weight gain stabilized and I stopped gaining (almost 80 lbs more than I had been at the beginning of all of this). However, no matter what I did, it would not come off.
You know how you watch those extreme weight loss shows and see a contestant who hasn't lost the right amount of weight...and then the trainer gets in their face and says, "Math doesn't lie! If you were doing xyz and only eating this many calories, you would have lost this much weight!" Well, I can't tell you for sure how it is for those people, but for me, the math lied. There were points in time where I was doing 2-3 2 hour workouts per day and eating 1400 calories or sometimes slightly more-and my weight did not budge. It didn't even really redistribute very much. I won't elaborate on the emotional struggles involved with this, but any of you who are women or who have spent any time talking to women, will know what I mean.
Finally, one of my parents' friends (a family practice physician) got involved. And I FINALLY, after over a year at this point, had answers. Apparently this is a fairly common side effect of birth control (about 5% of women who start birth control, especially at a point multiple years past puberty have this "side effect"-which I think is a high enough number to warrant a warning and/or recognition by the medical community!). It essentially can "turn off" your body's ability to process food-and instead it starts storing EVERYTHING you eat...the net impact is that even though you are gaining weight, your nutrition levels are similar to someone who is starving to death, because everything is being stored rather than used. Oh, and it doesn't really matter what you eat, healthiness, calories burned, etc.-it isn't going to come off and you will keep gaining.
So I got on medication-several medications, actually, which were intended to turn my metabolism back on and make my body start processing food correctly again. There were some side effects of those, but I was SLOWLY starting to lose weight. I was eating healthy, taking the meds, and doing P90X-and at the end of the 90 days, I had dropped about 10 pounds. Not much...just a drop in the bucket, really...but it was the first time I had been able to lose weight in almost 3 years.
Then I got pregnant. I was soooo happy, and weight was the last thing on my mind. In fact, I loved my body while I was pregnant. For the first time, I didn't feel like I had to constantly berate myself for my weight and I didn't feel like people were judging me (for the record, both of those are my issues, not due to anyone else!). However, when I got pregnant I almost immediately dropped 20 lbs despite the fact that I stopped exercising. I was quite ill and unable to eat much. I was okay with that, but really not worried about my body-I figured I'd start the whirlwind and craziness again once the baby came.
I gained a total of 12 pounds during my pregnancy (over my prepregnancy weight). In fact, I walked out of the hospital weighing only 3 lbs more than I did before I got pregnant. People had mentioned the possibility of pregnancy hormones "resetting" my metabolism, which made sense since I had gained the weight hormonally, but I didn't hope for it. However, the weight continued to slowly come off, even though I wasn't trying (there was a lot going on postpartum). 2 months ago, I was FINALLY cleared to exercise, and then the weight started coming off more quickly. It was like magic!
The math is finally working. It's crazy.
I am so thankful-it is so freeing to actually have things work the way they are supposed to! As of today, I weigh 21 pounds less than I did before I got pregnant, and in the last month I've been dropping an average of 2 pounds per week. I definitely feel a lot better, and I can fit in clothes that didn't even fit before I was pregnant! I'm not sure if it will continue doing this (part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop) but I am so thankful to the Lord for giving me this gift.

Ways Being a Working Mom Has Blessed Our Family

I am standing here at work with no patients (it's one of those days where EVERYONE wanted to come in at the same time, so it's literally feast or famine in terms of busy-ness today) and got to thinking that I need to do a post about how it has been good for our family that I have been a working mom for the last 8 months. I think it is way too easy for me to focus on the bad/negative things (and as with anything else in life, there are both positives and negatives to this situation!) like how much of my son's life I am missing, how exhausting it is to stay up all night and then drag myself out of bed at 6:30 AM, etc. etc. But I think that the key to not falling into "sorry for myself" land is a thankful heart and recognizing the blessings where they come, so I am going to make a list.
1. When I am home with my son and husband, I am able to spend quality time with them and focus on our relationships. Because Josh takes care of the house and really spoils me in the domestic "arena" I am able to really be present when I am at home. I think this is an area where I might struggle if I stayed home-always feeling I should be "doing" more (in the house, etc.) but that is not a struggle I have right now.
2. I have no idea how we would have been able to handle all of the many surgeries and hospitalizations if I had been a SAHM and Josh had been working! Especially since my restrictions after the gallbladder surgery and the pelvic floor reconstruction included not lifting >5 lbs for several weeks (and Ben weighs a sight more than 5 pounds!). Because Josh was the stay at home parent, he was able to care for us both during those times.
3. The obvious-we have a roof over our heads and food on our table.
4. I love coming home every day and seeing Ben's face light up when he sees me!
5. I treasure the times when I am able to come home a little early, or take a personal day. All of a sudden, mundane things like housework and playing with Ben are cherished moments! I'm afraid with my personality, I might lose those little joys in the repetition of every day life if I was a stay at home mom.
I don't know if a time will come when I'm not working full time. If it does, I hope I am able to use the lessons I have learned to really make the most of that opportunity. If it doesn't, I am so thankful for a job that is family friendly, a husband who is super supportive, and the simple joys of a baby's laugh/smile. :-)

Elimination Communication-Our Experience

So I realized I promised before Ben was born to do a post about our experience with EC if we ended up doing it (that was one of those things that we thought we wanted to do, but weren't positive we actually would end up following through). Here we are, 8 months later, and we did do it, but I didn't fulfill my promise about the post. Oops! :-) So here you go.
We are not experts by any means! We first learned about it from my sister in law who did it with her kiddos. I thought it was an awesome idea but was skeptical as to whether it would work for us. I knew that, as a working mama, I would not be able to be nearly as consistent as she is with it-and both her her littles are girls, whereas mine is a boy! So I wasn't sure how those factors might change our success with it.
I set my goals fairly low at the beginning. My ideal world was that by the time Ben was eating solid foods, he would be doing all or most of his poop in the potty. Breastmilk poop is not a big deal or hard to clean. Solid food poop-a whole other (stinky) ball of wax!
I don't remember exactly when we started taking Ben to the potty. It was while I was still on maternity leave, so he must have been less than 3 months old. We noticed around this time that he almost always pooped within 30 minutes of waking up, so we would wait on the bed with him until he started to get "that look" and make some straining noises, and then rip off his diaper and rush to the potty. He wasn't old enough to sit up yet, so we sort of had him on his back (supported in our arms) with his butt over the potty. The first few times were a little messy (sometimes we didn't start rushing in time, other times we misread when he was done), but eventually, we started to notice a pattern: he woke up (often with a dry diaper) and waited for us to take him potty before he went.
We started trying to pay attention at other times when we thought he might need to go. He makes a certain face and has a specific grunting noise when he is getting ready to poop (sorry that's kinda vague-but I've heard that different babies have different signals) so we started being able to catch it in the potty. Hooray! At first, I was "cuing" him by hissing (you're supposed to cue them so they know it's time to go) but then I went back to work and his Dad started taking him-Josh thought it would be fun/funny to grunt at him when he wanted him to go, so that became his signal. However, Ben thinks it's hilarious when I grunt at him (it probably is, to be fair) so now he doesn't really have an audible signal, at least from me (unless you count me telling him, "Okay, I'm ready!" once we are situated over the potty)...but I still think he knows what to do, as he ALWAYS does some kind of potty when we get him into position.
We went through a bad run (haha) of diarrhea for about a week-he was pooping every 30 minutes, so we didn't even try to get him to the potty for most of those. I was a little worried that he would forget, but no-once he started moving his bowels more normally, we resumed pooping in the potty without a problem.
 I am not trying to get him to pee in the potty (though he almost always does when he poops and sometimes he just pees if I have misread his need/desire to poop)-I think this would be stressful for us and him, and I don't mind washing wet diapers in the slightest. I also don't worry about it if we have an accident and he ends up pooping in his diaper-in all, we are very chill about it. At first, I wondered if I was really saving us time, because the whole "potty" experience definitely took way longer than changing a diaper! However, now he has gotten pretty fast, and it's maybe 1-3 minutes at most! We have honestly used our diaper sprayer to hose down his little tushy after he goes way more often than we have used it to spray diapers (he doesn't seem to mind and it gets his butt clean way better than toilet paper!).
As for him being a boy-the biggest issue with this is that it's hard to aim him, and if I shift him while he is peeing, he stops. So we have perfected the art of using the back of the potty seat as a backboard of sorts (we squat in front of the potty, so he faces the back while he pees)-I know that sounds gross, but we do clean it afterwards! 
The other place I got information was www.diaperfreebaby.com-be warned, they sometimes make it sound like you are committing child abuse if you aren't fully EC-ing...but there is a lot of good how to information on there, and having now done it myself and watched a few people do it, I am convinced that you can be as full or part time with it as you want-babies are smarter than you think!
Oh, and I LOVE the fact that we have only washed one poopy diaper in the last month or more!

8 month update

I actually have thoughts percolating for non-directly-baby-update related blog posts but haven't had a chance to sit down and sort them out into something semi-coherent!
My sweet son is 8 months old today! Truly, nothing has cemented into my brain how fast time flies like having a child. I don't know if it is because he changes so quickly and grows so much, or what...but the time seems like it has slipped away at an ever-increasing rate. I look at his baby pictures and barely recognize that tiny newborn. Of course, I think he has only gotten more adorable with time, but it sure is a bittersweet thing!
New things he is doing:
He sits up very well by himself now. He definitely still can lose his balance and go toppling over, but I "trust" him a little bit more. He can also play with toys while sitting up-so fun!
He DEFINITELY has "being left" anxiety-which is kind of funny given that we don't really ever leave him! If he sees us walking away, the world ends. (sometimes even if Daddy walks away WHILE he is being held by Mommy or vice versa!!) The "nice" side of that is that he definitely knows who we are and will reach for us or try to move over to us, which is really sweet. :-)
He laughs and smiles and babbles a lot more. In general, he is just a lot more interactive, which is so fun! I especially love it when he lets loose with giggling and belly laughing. I keep trying to get a video, but he usually stops by the time I get the camera out! But him being happy and laughing just fills our hearts to overflowing!
He rolls as a means of locomotion now-and he can also kind of "squirm" and army crawl to get to things. I think real crawling is on the horizon...oh boy, we are about to find out how not childproof our house is!
He likes to eat paper. I don't know why.
If we are drinking water, we HAVE to share it with him. I'm not sure why water is so awesome, but the world ENDS if we don't give him some!
He has discovered crying/throwing mini fits as a means of expressing displeasure. I'm not super thrilled about this, but I guess at least he is letting us know!
He hugs and kisses now-which is SO precious and melts my heart every time.
I'm trying to teach him some signs-I'm not sure if he has the motor control yet, but we'll see if he picks up on them!
He has a new habit of waking up to pee at about 4 AM. Not my favorite thing ever either, but that's okay-everything is a stage, and I am so aware of how fast the time is flying and how I will miss his current stage's joys when the struggles are over!
I think he is growing again. It seems to me that he is getting heavier (I would guess he weighs in the 25-27 lb range now). Even the Ergo isn't super comfortable for me anymore!
He has 2 teeth that are now quite well defined. They are VERY cute but sometimes painful!
He goes to bed on his own quite well-usually around 7 PM and he typically stays down until I wake him up right before I go to bed to eat (that way I get at least some sleep before his first night waking!).
He eats solids pretty well-mostly fruits and veggies, though he does get some legumes in there sometimes. He's gotten really good at gumming/chewing things and then swallowing them.
He can ALMOST get the cheerios into his own mouth. ;-)
I think those are the major changes...we continue to enjoy him more and more. Parenthood is definitely not a walk in the park in the sense of being easy (or even fun all the time) but it is absolutely one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened to me!

Life Update

Wow, that sounds weighty, doesn't it? Sorry! It's been rainy all day today-maybe that puts me in a weighty mood? Anyway, it's not anything intense or weird (and I'm not pregnant, so don't anybody get their panties in a bunch)...I just wanted to write a little update since we've had some shifts in our daily lives lately.
The biggest reason for the shift is that Josh started back to school full time. He is majoring in English, and according to his advisor, he should be able to complete his degree in a year if he goes full time for all semesters (including the summer). It will be great to have his degree completed so quickly (relatively-we weren't sure how many of his classes they would transfer over and were pleasantly surprised that all he is really required to take are some English classes and some language courses! We don't know what (if anything) this may mean in terms of the future, but it is a good first step. The paperwork had to be re-filed for him to get his GI bill-we are really hoping they process that in a timely manner. We paid his tuition for the spring out of pocket-and there went the rest of our savings account!! So we'll have to see-I am somewhat dubious as I have not had good experiences with the VA doing anything in a timely manner, but maybe this will be the first time?
Thankfully, our schedules worked out about as well as I could imagine. Josh does have class every day, but he only has 2 classes that require him to be on campus-the other 2 are online (which helps with baby care!). My mom watches Ben during his classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and I am home during his class times on Tuesdays (I work until 7-7:30 PM on Tuesday, so I don't go in until 11 and his class is at 8) and Fridays (his class is in the afternoon and I am off most Friday afternoons). So Ben does get shuttled around quite a bit more than he used to, but he is cared for by family at all times, which is such a huge blessing (both financially and for my peace of mind). He is still able to come for lunch every day, which is super helpful emotionally and because he has officially shunned drinking milk out of anything that resembles a cup or bottle. (Though he will drink water...????)
My schedule has shifted, partly to cover the evening shift at work (we are open 2 late days per week-I take one, my new therapist takes the other) and my half day switched to Friday afternoon instead of Wednesday morning. While it was nice to have a break halfway through the week, it is also nice to have a longer weekend. I continue to slowly heal, though I am still in a fair amount of discomfort by the end of the work week! I am able to sleep without pain medication, which is very nice.
Ben continues to grow and be just a delight. He has started to show affection, which is super sweet and awesome. The other side of that coin is that he is developing a phobia about being "left" (why? We never leave him!!). If he sees me walking away, even just to go to the bathroom, the world ends. I haven't even attempted the church nursery (although he has also decided that worship music is terrifying...so I end up standing out in the hall with him the whole time. That's actually okay with me-while I am healing, I am not healed enough to sit on the hard pews yet, so holding the baby in the hallway seemse better to me than just randomly standing out there...lol!
Anyway, that's rather rambly, but I had some time (it's raining and apparently my patients don't want to come in the rain?) and thought I'd update! Hope you all are well-we miss those of you who are far away!

A Very Merry Un-Birthday...

Ben is 7 months old today. Whew! I can hardly believe it! I know, I know-I say that every month, but this kid astonishes me with his super power-he makes time speed up to super mach/warp speed!
New things he is doing:
He recognizes us now. I am halfway convinced he MIGHT know who "Daddy" is (he usually looks at Josh if I say "Daddy") and Josh thinks he might also know his name (Ben).
He thinks it is hilarious if I say "Ben-aye-UHHHHHHH!!!" in a growly voice. :-)
He laughs pretty easily now, although it's so funny...something can be HILARIOUS and then we get to some magical turning point and he gives a faint little laugh (like "okay, I'm humoring you now, Mom") and then the next time you do it he gives you this look that says, "Okay, that was SO 2 seconds ago."
He can sit up by himself. He doesn't always have the best balance yet, but he can do it.
He rolls both ways at will. He can also scoot himself around in a circle, but I'm not sure he can purposely get anywhere in particular yet.
He's a fan of most fruits and veggies that we have tried so far. Current favorites seem to be sweet potatoes, carrots (though he liked the spicy ones we fished out of a soup more than just regular cooked carrots), and  bananas.
He goes to bed by himself now. Most evenings he wakes up and cries a little bit (10-15 minutes) and then goes back to sleep, but last night he just stayed asleep until we came to bed! I like that better-I hate listening to him cry!!!
He has his two bottom teeth. Good heavens, I had no idea how SHARP baby teeth are when they first break through (it makes sense that they would need to be in order to get through the gums). I am no longer so gung-ho about letting him use my fingers (or anything else) as a chew toy.
He likes music still, but me singing freaks him out. Literally, he looks scared and cries.
He likes to grab our faces, bring us close to him, and then suck my chin or Josh's nose. Not sure why I get the chin and Josh gets the nose (I think I get the better end of that bargain!).
He gives Eskimo kisses by coming in close and then shaking his head back and forth. SO cute.
He still would way prefer being held than anything else. He'll tolerate some tummy time and such, but he's happiest in arms.

First up, some size comparisons...I think he was a couple of weeks old in the first picture, the second was taken today.

Oh, yeah, I forgot...the other new thing is he LOOOVVVESSS to stick his tongue out at people. LOL.

Sitting with my bunny

Whoa, there goes the balance....will he catch himself?

Nope! Oh well...we'll keep working on that skill. ;-)

Below, the sloth hold is not as simple as it once was!! Daddy's getting some massive guns! ;-)