On the Edge of a Cliff and Ready to Fly

Josh is 19 pounds 5 oz. He is getting TOO BIG to carry in his car seat; I’ve started unbuckling him and leaving the seat in the car and carrying him around. Otherwise, he’s so heavy!

The past week he’s been standing on his own – pulling himself up on the couch, the playpen, the crib. He’s crawling around trying to get into everything – his newest fascinations are the remote, the computer, and my bags of embossing thread! My latest project is Joshua’s birth cross stitch I’ve done maybe 2 rows. I find it funny how quickly I got my nephew Jaxon’s cross stitch completed – I would come home from work & stitch for at least an hour.

Today I had to go to the dr. again – the Dr. thought I had pneumonia so I had a chest x-ray. Josh couldn’t be in there so the nurses held him – they were ooing and aaaing over how cute he is and how he patted them on the back while he was being held. He is a riot! He seems to be back to his cheerful self – his antibiotics seem to be kicking in.

He was cracking me up because he was putting his mouth on the side of his little tub and blowing raspberries. What a cutie!

Oh, and HE got 3rd place at work’s costume contest – his poor dad was chopped liver!!

On the food front: Josh has had carrots & some mashed grapes. I did some research online, and since he’s got a tooth he can have plain cheerios. Fun!

Joshua has been gassy and spitting up the past week. However, last night he spit up so much I had to change him and his bassinett 3 times – one of those times was PROJECTILE spit up – it woke me up!

Our social worker mentioned African American babies have a greater tendency to be lactose intolerant. So, I have some lactose free formula. I just fed him 2.5 ounces of it, and he didn’t seem to mind it. I will have to see if this decreases the spit up, gassiness, and overall unhappiness. I have got to remember to talk to the doctor on Friday.

Joshua was with Donald’s Aunt Delaina all day yesterday! They said that he was good and they had fun babysitting him. Aunt Delaina offered to take him the WHOLE next weekend (even overnight on Saturday) so we can pack and get ready for our move on May 21st! What a BIG blessing! Also, Donald’s friend Becky offered to still take Josh on Thursday even though Donald doesn’t have class, so that should help as well. I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I wanted…except, I took a HUGE nap. I packed probably half of the nursery stuff that we aren’t really using (big clothes, the crib stuff, and decorations). I am not sure why we set up the crib since he’d be little enough to use the bassinett until we moved. I guess we set it up so we could feel like it was really happening.

Oh, yea! It’s mother’s day! Donald got me 2 charms for my italian charm bracelet, one says “Joshua”, the other says “Arden”. Mother’s day the past few years has been so hard for me.

Now that I’m a mom, it just feels like a normal day. I have been praying off and on for everyone going through infertility today; it’s a rough day to go through. Looking back, infertility is such a dark and cavernous pain. What makes it worse is that people don’t understand how bad it is, people seem to try and talk you out of how bad you’re feeling. They say things like “Just relax” or “Other people have too many kids that they can’t afford” or “You’re lucky you haven’t had a bunch of miscarriages” or “Well, you just have a lot more money without kids.” I guess people that have cancer or difficult life circumstances go through the same barrage of ignorant comments, it just seems more poignant when you’re in the middle of the infertility roller coaster.

I think the best thing to say is, “I’m so sorry, is there anything I can do?” That will keep you out of trouble in a lot of hurtful life cases.

On the adoption front, our social worker came over on Wednesday. We have 1 more meeting with her on May 23rd in our new house. She said that one other couple that she works with is having their finalization on May 28th as well, a little bi-racial African American girl named Emre. I think that is a cool name! It will be fun to have another couple there. Our social worker mentioned that the other family is in the middle of moving as well; they’re even putting off their move by a couple weeks until the adoption is finalized. Everybody has been paid, the “advertisements” for the biodad are in the paper, the only thing to do is show up on May 28th and get it finalized.

Keep checking Joshua’s Flickr page (there is a link on the upper right hand corner) We will put all the pictures there. It’s in order of most recent to oldest.

Our normally perfect baby has been cranky the past couple of days, just hasn’t wanted to nap. He’s been very gassy, so Mylicon has helped some. Stuff has come out of this baby’s diapers that I didn’t think was possible….

Came home tonight from work and Donald looked EXHAUSTED. I guess Joshua has been fussy all day and hasn’t wanted to really lay down…I’m in the kitchen with Joshua in the bassinet so Donald can have the bedroom to himself and have a break.

This weekend we went to Cade and Becky’s wedding, it was a TON of fun! Everyone kept commenting on how cute Joshua is (which, he is!!!) It was rough driving with a baby and feeding him and having to stop all the time for changing, but it was worth it. It was a wonderful ceremony and it was neat to see them finally tie the knot!

I am working from home tomorrow and Wednesday…my boss has been cool about me working from home. It’s nice! It slows me down some, but it’s nice to feed Joshua and hold him while I’m working on things. I do like being in the office and seeing my co-workers cause they’re a fun bunch of people, but it’s still nice hanging with this little guy!

Man, if you don’t want to read about babies or kid stuff, you may not want to read my blog anymore! That is all that’s on my brain. I dream about Joshua, I see him when I close my eyes, I can even smell him sometimes! This is a trip!

Well, in the world of too much information, Josh had a HUGE poop in his diaper early this morning. Yellow, rotten, cottage cheese type stuff. It was awesome! He also peed all over the wall! (Dad missed that, but he was very proud!) We have a little boy in our house!

We tried the powdered formula again but with a different nipple (a longer and skinnier one) and he’s done alright with the powdered stuff. Donald did get me signed up on Enfamil to get coupons and stuff since he seems to like it the best.

I like this parent stuff. It’s fun! Tiring, but a lot of fun.

Joshua was not happy last night, he is a SCREAMER. Tried switching to the cheaper powder Parent’s Choice Formula for the first time yesterday night. He was gassy and just upset. So, I went and bought cans of Enfamil, (which is EXPENSIVE) and he seems a lot happier with that. (Enfamil at room temperature is what we used in the hospital.) So, I guess that’s how they get you to buy the stuff…they give you free samples at the hospital, the baby gets used to it, and then you have to buy it! He was up at 10:00pm, 11:00pm, 2:00am, 3:00am,  (then we switched to Enfamil) – he was up at 5:30am, slept until 8:00am, which was a NICE nap for mom! My mother in law was up with him some of those times, so that was nice.

Can you mix different types of formula, or is that unsafe to do? Like, if I put some enfamil in a bottle, then put some prepared Parent’s choice in a bottle, would that slowly aclimate him to it? Or should I just go all out and switch it in a few weeks? The Enfamil is super convenient, but MAN, $8.00 for 4 cans (I think the cans are 8 oz, they might be 12 oz.) The powdered Parent’s Choice is $10 for a can of powder that makes 60 ounces or so.

Any ideas?