Finally some pictures

I can touch my toes, can you Daddy? Look, they are right there....

I pray that my daddy comes and gets me before I fall off this couch.....

The Question

So it's official, we've been asked - the question - when's the next one going to be coming along? Actually this happened about a month ago but that was during my blogging hiatus. The question came (partially tongue-in-cheek) from our dear friend Amy. And we've subsequential heard it from a few others since. Geesh people, give us a break...:) Actually I don't mind, we've started to think about it ourselves. But I think we want to space our children out a little farther than this. It's ultimately up to God's leading but I can at least say we're not feeling led at the moment.

Mommy Update

Last Friday I had an appointment with my OB/GYN for my annual exam. Don't worry, you can
keep reading...

The doctor was sort of acting as my PCP - he ordered some blood test to check thyroid and liver functions and asked me about exercise and such. The blood tests came back with great results - my cholesterol is 166 (HDL - 68, LDL 90). Apparently the HDL is even higher than the range they suggest - not sure that's a good thing - like why would there be a range that didn't go all the way up if going beyond the range was even better? The doctor also noted that I was back down within 5 lbs of my pre-pregnancy weight and said "I suppose that is a good weight for you." I don't want it to be a good weight. I want to lose 15-20 lbs but he meant well.

When the doctor asked me how much I exercise in a week, I was honest and said I walk about twice a week for about 3-4 miles each time. And he told me, *me*, that I need to exercise more, like 5-6 times a week. But I'm an exercise freak, I tell myself. I could *I* have to exercise more. I used to get up at 6am to work out before work 5 days week! I used to go to spinning classes! I could this identity crisis have happened?!!? I'm not living up to what I thought I was!

Well, first of all, I think the man's definition of exercise is a little different than mine. He thought walking 3-4 miles was a lot. He said I should exercise 5-6 times a week but that I didn't have to do as much as I was doing each day, but if I had the energy to do 3-4 miles then go for it. Time is the binding constraint for me, not energy. So maybe he would consider the walking that I do on my way to and from work two days a week as exercise for the day. And then I only need to add one more day to get to his, what I would consider, bare minimum requirement.

Nonetheless, twice this week so far I've done this 15 minute Cindy Crawford workout. It's basically, if you only had 15 minutes to work out and you were going to do the most effective total body/post-baby exercies, these are the ones you would do. Squats, lunges, (although, unlike the video's suggestions, I think you need to weight at least 3 months post partum before doing those) abs, push ups, kegals, pelvic tilts, and stretching. The "aerobics" section is, I kid you not, 2 minutes long - I guess the idea is just to get your heart rate up for the the other exercises. But I was actually sore the day after I did it the first time. I'm going to try to do that 3 days a week and then do more walking. I've also considered taking the stairs when I trek up to the 5th floor to the lactation room three times a day at work. That's 4 huge flights to climb. I need more motivation to tackle that one. And I should try to get to the gym at least once a week since I am paying for the membership.

All this does not help my case in the typical do we do chores or go hiking discussion Martin and I have every Saturday. Usually hiking wins because I love being outside, I love doing things with my hubby, and I love to get the exercise. But if we don't move Dylan out of our bedroom soon ( a chore that requires a trip to the storage unit and some organizing that would wipe out a Saturday afternoon) he's going to sleeping in our room until he's 2! With it being a holiday weekend, I think I can put off the hiking until Monday so hopefully this will happen this Saturday. That's the great plan for Memorial Day weekend.

Dylan update

See below for a report on Dylan's 6 month doctor's appointment and on starting solids. Since we've been so busy it's hard to say if Dylan is sleeping better. Although I *think* he may be getting on a good schedule of going to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 and then I wake him up to nurse before I go to bed and then he sleeps until 5:30. Sometimes he wakes up before that but I can just put his pacifier back in and he goes back to sleep. Sometimes he only makes it until 4am. But when I feed him at 4am or 5:30 he goes right back to sleep until 7:30 or 8:30am. This week should be pretty normal so we'll see if it sticks.

Dylan is working on sitting up. I have a video to post of Dylan trying to sit up (and doing it for a short time). That was taken over a month ago - he still hasn't gotten much better at it. He doesn't really like sitting still long enough to sit up by himself and we figure since his head is relatively bigger than the rest of him he just has a hard time balancing...:) I think he's going to crawl before sitting up. He's all over the place. He rolls and schooches around and creeps as they call it - he can wiggle around enough to get to a toy that's slightly out of his reach. And now he has just started getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth.

Today, Dylan cut his first tooth. We figured it has been in the making for a while. He's been drolling a lot and gnawing on things. The tooth hasn't bothered him much though. He hardly cried all day. I gave him a cold teething ring before he went to bed and he loved it. That's it for now....more soon.

Where have I been?

Wow, sorry for not updating for so long. I'll try to explain what we've been up to and why I haven't updated this blog lately by listing things in bullets - a style I'm borrowing from Nancy. I'll be posting pictures of most all these things soon.

• With the weather getting warmer we've been going for more walks in the evenings and on Saturdays.
• Dylan and I are taking a music class with Kathryn. This Wednesday is our last of 6 classes..:(
• My parents and sister and nephew were here visiting for a few days.
• Dylan starting eating cereal! He's had rice cereal, oatmeal, and barley so far and he's doing great with it. We're up to twice a day. Looking forward to starting yellow veggies next week.
• Dylan had his 6 month check up and shots two weeks ago. He weighed in at 13 lbs 11oz (5 percentile), was 24.5 inches long (10 percentile) and his head circumference was in the 50th percentile. The doctor continued to comment on how strong and alert Dylan is. He wasn't concerned about the weighted. He said Dylan is just burning a ton of calories because he is so active. Bushra and the folks in the nursery at church keep commenting on how active he is.
• I couldn't believe that Dylan didn't even weigh 14 lbs yet so I also took him to the support group that day. He weighed the same there and I weighed him before and after feeding him and figured out that he got 4 oz. I was starting to feed him less often since I thought he was getting more each time but since then I'm trying to get back to an every three hour nursing schedule. That's in addition to the cereal. I was going to use water to mix the cereal because I was burning through my stockpile of milk, but I decided to continue to mix the cereal with breastmilk to give Dylan more calories. I bought a handpump to just pump a little at a time for the cereal.
• We've had three busy weekends in a row. One Saturday we went to the White House on a PALS trip with the STEPdc kids. Then from there we went to a party at the home of one of Martin's co-workers. And then the next day we went to visit Nancy and Duncan. The following weekend we traveled to Nashville for the wedding of one of Martin's college roommates. We stayed with John and Kelly who used to live in DC and got to tour Nashville some before the wedding, including seeing the Country Music Hall of Fame. From there, we went to Black Mountain, NC to see Martin's brother, sister-in-law Kelly, and our nephews Savva and Jeremiah (check out their stained glass business). We stayed with our friend Kelli who used to work at our church and now works for the Leavening Agency. We also saw our friends the Fooses. Yes, we know 8 people who live in Black Mountain, NC and yes, we saw 3 Kelly/i's last weekend. This weekend, we spent all day Saturday at the wedding of a friend of mine from W&J. She got married in her hometown of Newville, PA which was only about a two hour drive from our place. Dylan did great traveling and being on the go with his active parents.
• I've been spending some time preparing for my friend Patricia's baby shower which is this coming Saturday. She is the fourth gal in our Bible Study to have a baby boy within the last year. She is due at the end of June.
• Snapfish was having a free shipping deal so I spent a lot of time uploading all the pictures that I hadn't printed out yet and ordered them. I got over 300 pictures.
• We've finally been able to do some shopping and do some errands that were piling up. We used our Walmart gift cards from the shower, starting looking at sofa beds, got the oil changed in both cars, shopped for wedding presents, both Martin and I went to the eye doctor, and we got our rings inspected and cleaned. We made this trips fun by also going out to eat those nights.

E.T. pictures

So remember the scene in ET where ET is hiding in the stuffed animals.....see if you can find Dylan in the pictures below...:)

Meeting more friends

A couple weeks ago Dylan and I visited with our friends Linda and Lea and Erik. Unfortunately, the only time we could meet was during the day so Tor and Martin missed out. I met Tor and Linda in grad school and have known Lea and Erik since they were born. Lea was the flower girl in our wedding and I used to baby sit her. It was so fun to see her with Dylan. She was taking care of him while we were there.

Dylan in his rocker

My thoughts on working part time

I haven't posted about work yet because I haven't had the time but I've been collecting my thoughts on this for some time. Let me start off my saying that going back to work has worked out really well. Dylan is doing great at daycare and we've got the routine down now. There was a little adjustment at first - Dylan eating enough at daycare from the bottle, me figuring out my system with pumping and storing milk and cleaning all the stuff that goes along with that, and all of us learning how to get out the door on time. But we have it figured out now and it's going well.

I'm really enjoying working part time. I like my job a lot better and I'm more productive per hour than I was before which makes me feel better about my salary. And there hasn't been a time yet where I feel like I had to say no to work. I was particularly concerned about this on the days that I telework (MWF). But it hasn't been a problem. Last week I was asked to help out with an immediate need and I was able to and I just clocked two extra hours. Martin got home about the time when I had to do this so he was able to watch Dylan while I worked. I missed my class at the gym but that's all. And there have been lots of times where my boss has emailed me and I have happened to be online at that time and was able to give him an immediate answer. I'm sure there will come a time (esp now that the weather is nice and I'll be out more) that I won't be home when I get that call from work but at least now I'm established a foundation of being available.

I feel good about taking Dylan to day care. Of course the first day I balled but since then it's been fine. I'm comforted by the fact that since it's only two days a week I don't feel like someone else is raising my child and I really think it's good for Dylan to be exposed to other people and to know that other people care for him besides mommy and daddy. We'll see if it pays off when the "attachment issues" arise around 7 mos as I hear they do.

The woman who watches Dylan is from Pakistan. Dylan comes home smelling like curry on Tuesdays and Thursdays (hence those are two of his bath nights). We don't mind, we think it's fun.

I've been thinking a lot about my new "normal" and my new identity. The "mom" title didn't really hit me until I was away from Dylan but was identified as a mom. Like when I went to the gym - most of the women there are not moms (at least as I perceive them) and so it kinda hit me that I was different then. It also hit me at work - thinking of myself or referring to myself as a "working mom." I definitely feel more like working mom than a stay at home mom. Mostly because I'm still working every day. And some days when I'm teleworking it takes the whole day for me to get my 2 hours in so I'm thinking about work most of the week. But have I gotten to do some stay at home mom things like stroller walks around the mall on a weekday with my friends who are also moms, walks around the neighborhood (you meet so many people that way!), and having time to read to and play with Dylan. And usually I'm able to log off from work around 2 or 3 and so I have the rest of the afternoon free of work.

I had someone a few weeks ago say to me "oh, so you're only working part-time, you must get a lot done at home." Most of you know the obsurdity of this statement and in fact I do not get much more done in a week's time than I did when working full time without a child. But I do get to be outside more and I do get a little project here and there done that I didn't when I was working full time. Although I get less done on the computer, which is probably a good thing, since if I had something to do on the computer, I did it at work but I don't have time to do that at work anymore.

Oh, and for those of you who know about my OCB re: my clothes list. It's gone! I am no longer keeping a record of what I wear each week! I figured that if I'm only working 2 days per week it shouldn't be that hard not to wear the same thing more than once in a three week period so I don't need to keep track anymore. I also decided that I'm going to dress up more for work. No more khakis or too-casual skirts for me.

Gymini

Dylan and his new toy that (Great) Aunt Kathy bought him and gave to him at the sip and see.

Heard at the sip and see....

"He looks like Martin, but with your chin."
"He looks like you when you were a baby."
"Is his hair a little red?"

I heard these multiple times this weekend. I love how people say he looks like both of us. And yes, in certain light Dylan's hair does look a little red. I had red hair as a baby for a while and my grandfather had red hair so maybe that's where he gets it from.

Dylan meets mommy's friends

Got to see Jen L and Melissa S and their daughters (Brenna L and Caelen and Maia S) last weekend when I was home. (Yes, I know people with girls. Actually most of my commenters have girls. It's just everyone else that's having boys.) Dylan was pretty sleepy when they were visiting so he's not in many of the pics. It was great seeing you ladies! (And Rich and Skip too!)

Dylan meets his great grandfather

My grandfather was in the hospital last time that we were home so last weekend was the first time that he got to meet Dylan. Since Grandpap had a stroke a few years ago, his talking isn't much different than Dylan's so they got along great. Grandpap really perked up when he was watching Dylan. It was great to see.

Sip and See

Here are some pictures from my sip and see last weekend. That's Dylan with his great-grandmothers and with my cousins Carol and Lorraine and with me.

Dylan "sitting up"

April fools!

Five Months Old

Today is Dylan's five month "birthday." Dylan is doing so well. He's really a good and happy kid these days. Although I did take him for his first "sick child" doctors visit last week. He had a running nose and seem to be batting at his ears so I took him in to make sure it wasn't an ear infection. He just had a cold but the doctor said it was good to bring him in since he could have had the same symptons and it could have been a double ear infection and RSV. But he was fine. And his cold cleared up in time for our trip to PA last weekend. My mom had a little post-baby baby shower for me. Apparently these things are called "sip and sees" in the south and I had heard of that from our friend Christine a few months ago so we went with it. It was a lot of fun. Dylan was so good an interactive with all the guests. Then as soon as they left he fell asleep on me while I was holding him. That's rare so he must have been exhausted.

I've been trying to get Dylan to sleep longer at night for about a week now. It's going okay. Some nights we put the pacifier back in around 2 or 3 when he wakes up and then he'll sleep another hour or two but I usually feed him then around 4 or 5. So he's going from 11pm to 4 or 5am. But he has seemed really hungry the last two days so when he woke up at 2 last night I fed him. So we're still trying (by feeding him more during the day and if he doesn't seem hungry to get him to go back to sleep when he wakes in the middle of the night) but I think its going to take longer than I thought.

My plan is to wait 4 more weeks (right before Dylan is 6 mos old) until starting solids. I might move that up by one week. My mom and sister will be in town then and if feeding Dylan more milk doesn't seem to help his recent hunger it would be good to start a little early.

The last of the winter pictures

Dylan in the bumbo with his blue block (not cube as Daddy calls it - I gotta make sure my child isn't as dorky as his dad...:) [We've had this block/cube discussion a few times. Usually goes something like this....here's your cube Dylan/it's a block/yes, but it's a cube/yes, but do you call balls spheres?/no, but maybe we should, that's the correct term/uggggg!] Thanks to JenK for the super cool BLOCKS! And Melissa S for the clothes Dylan is wearing here. Except the "two left socks." Those are hand-me-downs from cousin Steven. The "L"s are for his last name not "left."

Holding the floor down is really hard work.

Tummy Time!

Weeeeee!!!!

Gettysburg Get Together

Here's a picture from a Gettysburg get together we hosted 2 weeks ago. This was the first time a lot of folks got to meet Dylan and Ty (Albert and Angie's baby who is two months older than Dylan). This was also a 30th birthday celebration for Martin and Albert whose birthdays are on April 5th and March 9th, respectively. Albert was in our wedding and was Martin's roommate senior year.

Catching up...

I need to catch up on my picture posting. My idea was to spread them out so that I've have postings with pictures once every few days but alas seems like Fridays are the only day I have time to post so you're getting them all at once. Here's pictures from when Martin and I took Dylan hiking around Accotink Lake three weeks ago.

Our little blogger

Sleeping through the night

I've decided to start some "sleep training" to get Dylan to sleep through the night. First, I want to tell you that I'm not one of those people who expect babies to sleep through the night at a young age and then think there's something that needs to be fixed if they're not. I also am not one of those people who think not sleeping through the night is such a hardship on me. I just figured it goes with the territory. If my baby is hungry in the middle of the night, I need to fee him. And until recently my thinking was that Dylan was still getting hungry in the middle of the night, mostly because he seemed so desparate to eat when I would go to feed him. But now I've been convinced that he's not sleeping throug the night because simply because he's used to eating between 2:30 and 4:30am. He thinks that's a meal time. So if I just get him to go back to sleep instead of feeding him then feed him more later, we will all get longer stretches of sleep which will be good for everyone. Dylan doesn't need to eat at that time. So last night we tried it. I fed him at 10:30 and then went to sleep. At 3am when he woke up (and was wide awake!) I just put the pacifier back in and shhhhed and patted him until he was asleep. An hour an 15 min. later we did the same thing. (This was also part of my rationale for feeding him at 3am in the past - if I feed him then he'll stay asleep longer. Well, if we just get through these first couple days of this, he won't wake up at 3am at all hopefully.) Then 45 minutes later he was up again. It was 5am at this time and I decided that was good enough training for that night and so I fed him then. He went 6.5 hours without eating...and lived to tell about it...:) My goal is 7-8 hours - 10:30/11pm to 5:30/6:30/7am. So I'll keep you updated. Please keep praying....I was thinking about the theological implications of this last night....was me doing the "training" not relying on God to answer the prayer or thinking that he didn't? By no means!!! I really felt like God "laid it on my heart" to do this training through seemingly chance conversations with my sister and friends and through some reading I happened upon on the Internet. I truly believe this is a way that God works to answer prayers. But, so as I shouldn't think it has anything to do with me, I still need God to help the training actually work. So prayers are still warrented. And why am I asking prayer for something seemingly insignificant when there are bigger problems out there for me to pray about and for God to deal with? (A question I have asked myself.) Well, duh, this is God we're talking about, he can handle everything at the same time, not like us humans. God is infinite. But I still should be consistent in my prayers for those "bigger" issues, those outside myself. That was something I was convicted of at our church's recent missions conference. My prayer life had become very self-centered so I'm trying now to pray for more people. So, I think I must be violating blogger etiquette from going so off topic from my title that I'm going to stop there. Bringing this back to topic, here are some pictures of Dylan's crib that we finally put together 3 weeks ago (although not without cracking the wood and needing to use gorilla glue - but it's fine - functional and all) and that I finally took a picture of this morning. The crib is still in our room. My plan is after Dylan starts sleeping through the night somewhat consistently to move the crib into his room and then move the spare bed into a storage unit. Then we're going to get a new sleeper sofa and put the old couch in the storage unit. We've pretty much decide that we won't be moving this year. Too much hassle, not enough need. Maybe we'll be able to save up enough money for a SFH instead of having to buy a townhouse first. We'll see.

Pictures!!

Answered prayer!

Thanks to my Bible Study for praying again - Dylan slept through the night last night! And boy did I need it. I was sooo exhausted yesterday. He slept 9 hours straight and I slept for 7 hours straight - my longest stretch in 4.5 months! Keep praying ladies! I'd like to get him sleeping through the night consistently before we move him into his own room and I'd like to do that soon before he notices.

Dylan with his two best friends...:)

Another milestone!

Dylan starting rolling over from back to tummy this week. We're very excited and I think so is Dylan...he didn't want to sleep the day he did it for the first time. He's going to be crawling before we know it....

You know it's time to take the Christmas wreath off the front door when....

birds start making nests in your wreath! No kidding.

Photos

Dylan rolling over

No four month "birthday"

Since February only has 28 days and Dylan was born on the 30th, he didn't have a four-month "birthday." :) (Another reason that I'm glad Dylan wasn't born on the 31st - this would happen more often.) I guess we are kinda celebrating today. Today Dylan went to the doctors for his four-month check up and shots and today mommy and daddy are having pizza and ice cream for dinner. :)

Dylan got a great report from the doctor. The doctor said he's really "strong" and "alert" and can focus well and has really good head control. The doctor sounded impressed. He is doing all the developmental things that they check for at this age and the doctor even said he's probably going to be ahead of the game developmentally - mommy was really excited about this except when she realized that we're going to have to baby proof the house sooner. On the size stuff, he's a left-tailer (imagine a bell curve...). For height (24.25 inches) and head circumference (16cm) he's in the 25th percentile. For weight (12lbs), he's in the 5th percentile. He's pretty lean for his age. The doctor said it could be that since he's so active already that he's burning a lot of calories and that's why his weight is relatively low. I was a little concerned about his weight since the scale at the hospital last week had him weighing more but 1) I really don't trust the doctor's office scale and 2) the doctor didn't seem to think anything of it. I told him that I went back to work and he wasn't taking the bottles that well and that he even seemed less interested in eating for me. But like I said, he didn't think there was a problem. [Dylan did great on Thursday though - he finished all three of the bottles I left for him. It must have been since we had our whole Bible Study group praying for him!]

Dylan also got his shots. He did a lot better this time than last time. He was even smiling before we left the doctors' office. [Again, thanks to our home fellowship group for praying!]

I got Dylan to roll over for the camera (we have 30 sec video on our digital camera). Now I just need to figure out how to upload it. Dylan also rolled from his back to his side today. So soon he'll be rolling from back to tummy and should also be sitting up soon.

I think we're actually going to get around to putting Dylan's crib together this weekend so I'll post some pics when we're done.