Kayleigh's Adventures in Motherhood

Stationery card

2011-06-29T23:50:00.001-04:00

Year Older Aqua Birthday Invitation

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I've been MIA...

2011-05-01T18:50:00.000-04:00

My computer crashed and died a couple weeks ago. So very inconveniently, it was the weekend before finals started. It's running again now because I got a new hard drive thanks to it still being under warranty, but all my files are gone. My pictures and videos of Jude? All freakin' gone because I didn't have a chance to back them up recently enough before it crashed. So that's a pretty big bummer, but luckily, I have the ones that I shared on here and on facebook still.
Easter happened, it was filled with candy, family, and good times.

Jude's basket. His bunny was replaced by a chocolate one by his gran. Underneath the big green playsilk were some watercolor paints and a brush, sidewalk chalk, and shaky eggs.

He was so excited!

He loves his playsilks!

In other news; I bought a banjo, went to a Reverend Horton Heat concert (and hit up the merch table for a couple records), I only have one final left this Tuesday, so far my grades are fairly good (a B- & a B+), and I'm a psychology major.

Oh! And Happy Beltaine!

Have you heard?

2011-04-12T23:50:00.000-04:00

About the newest household member? Kesey Comma Ken? He's been here a few weeks already, but I've been busy.

Toddler fingers get in the way.

This one makes me laugh. We tried to take a serious picture then the puppy stole Jude's cracker and my mum caught all the middle stuff on camera.

Finally, a good one that he posed for!

My UPS man has impeccable timing.

2011-04-09T12:38:00.000-04:00

The delivery man came just in the nick of time when he delivered Jude's brand new rain boots! I was looking for a pair of shoes that I didn't mind him getting muddy in the mud-pit that is my back yard (thanks to the dogs) so we could go out and play.

Check out his rain boots!

Flowers have begun flowering in the backyard!

Giving the gnomie (his new favorite word/thing) kisses, or plotting with him.

Smelling the flowers, which smelled yucky (another new favorite word).

Springtime Egg Painting

2011-04-06T09:43:00.000-04:00

I was walking around Michael's a couple weeks ago thinking to myself "what's a good springtime craft for Jude?" Then I saw a whole bunch of wooden eggs and bought 5 of them. I brought them home, painted them all white and decided to put 4 away for the future and let Jude do just one. It's our new tradition, every year he'll get to paint an egg. He had a blast doing it this year of course because he loves painting and getting messy.

p.s. Happy 100th post to me!

Kind of a Big Deal; A Confession of Sorts

2011-03-31T12:04:00.000-04:00

"It's so great that you're back in school!"
"Good for you for going back to school after having a baby!"
I hear these things a lot. From all sorts of different people and they're usually accompanied by shocked, sympathetic faces. At first, I thought nothing of it and shrugged it off and said, yeah, it's no big deal. I'm starting to realize that it is.
Everyday I go to class I feel guilt ridden for leaving Jude at home. I sit in class and often wonder what Jude's doing instead of paying attention. I make plans in my head for all sorts of fun things I'd like to do with Jude when I have free-time, but then I get upset because I realize that I don't have this mysterious free-time to do all these things with him. It doesn't help that I secretly don't know what I want to accomplish out of going to school or what I want to do when I'm done.
Pre-Jude, I wanted to graduate and join the Peace Corps and change the world. I wanted to travel. I wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic or something epic. I wanted to be epic and do the things that come along with being an epic person. I wanted to be a nomad or gypsy of sorts and explore my world, I didn't want to stay in one place for too long.
Now, I send myself into several different identity crises because I don't know what to do with my life. I know I have to be a mom and I want to be the best mom that I can be. I still want to be epic, but in a slightly different way. Thanks to Jude, I strive to find more stability in my life for him. What would make me the happiest is making him the happiest. I feel like school cripples me in this aspect. It kills my time with him, it stresses me out to the point that when I'm with him I get irritated from trying to balance him and schoolwork, and it holds me back from doing things that I want to do such as making things and taking Jude to explore the world.
Maybe there's just some sort of secret balance that I haven't quite grasped yet, but even if there is it seems like it doesn't exist right now. Everyone encourages me to stay in school and finish, but I'm not entirely sure they know the pressure that I'm under. School just isn't my top priority right now, and who knows if it ever will be, but if I can't make it a priority and care more about it, then what's the point of forcing myself to do it?

Happy (belated) Spring!

2011-03-24T11:53:00.000-04:00

We had a few nice days that we just had to take advantage of. Wish it would've stayed, but the past couple of days have been cold and icky again.

As everyone knows, Spring started on Sunday. I'm pretty bummed that I didn't get to celebrate the Equinox with as much awesome celebrations as I wanted to thanks to work and picking up my parents from the airport. I had originally planned on giving Jude his basket on the Equinox, but I'm still waiting on a package o' playsilks from Etsy, need to craft some eggs, make some play dough, and buy a pair of shaky-eggs to add to his basket. It is going to be a most egg-cellent basket if I do say so myself. I was at the store with some friends and there were some pre-filled Easter baskets for like $10. I was shocked that you could get them that cheap, but then I looked at what was in them and it was just a bunch of crap. Plastic crap that will be broken/lost/forgotten about within a few days.

I was looking at Jude the other day and I noticed that his eye was swollen. I immediately asked everyone who had watched him in the 24 hours prior if he had hit it on something. They all insisted that he didn't, and the more I looked at it, the more I realized it looked rather similar to how he looked a few days after his surgery when his eyes were starting to open, but weren't quite there yet. He's over 9 months post-op but it looked like it was something to do with that.
I called the surgeon's office. The nurse wasn't in so I had to wait until Wednesday to hear back from her. I woke up Wednesday morning and it was even more swollen. I immediately called the office back and they set up an appointment with another doctor in the office to see him that afternoon, so I called off work. He said it just looked like he bumped it and asked me to come back Thursday afternoon. The nurse called after I had left the hospital and told me that there's the possibility that it could be from the plates they used to keep the suture open dissolving, she then reviewed the pictures the doctor took and told me to keep my Thursday appointment with his surgeon. So, we get to go all the way back out to Ann Arbor again this afternoon to try to figure out what this is. I have to miss an exam, but Jude and his health/wellbeing are billions times more important than school and I can make-up the exam. Hopefully it's nothing major. Part of me believes that, the other part of me that puts too much thought into things is panicking that he'll need another surgery.
No matter what, everything will all work out.

Spring is so close!

2011-03-14T21:15:00.000-04:00

Less than a week away to be precise.

The weather is warmer, things are starting to look green instead of grey, the sun is shining brighter and longer.

Jude helped me plant some Daisy & Sunflower seeds to put in his basket and they just started to sprout!

I couldn't resist the Oh, Gnome diaper cover from Gen-Y Diapers, it's adorable and perfect for getting into that happy, sunshiny mood.

As you can tell, we're super excited for Spring to come! I hope everyone else is too!

And, because Spring is so close, I'm on Spring Break this week! I took the one day that's in between my class days off of work so I can go down to Ohio to see Zak. Carly and Kaleb are coming with us as well, and it should be super-fun!

Simplification.

2011-03-10T08:53:00.000-05:00

I've decided that life needs to be simpler. Less toys. Less stuff. More hands-on. More simple.
It's all because I've been looking into Waldorf education and lifestyles. I would like to teach at a Waldorf school I think. There are schools for Waldorf teachers so I'm no longer going to pursue education at Wayne State, instead, I'm taking a faster route by getting a BA in Liberal Arts with a major in Psychology (WSU doesn't have a plain Liberal Arts degree, it's silly) which will take me 4 more semesters, max. Four semesters. Sounds far more appealing than the four year minimum I was looking at with the school of education, plus if I went that route I'd most likely end up teaching in a public school, which is against everything I stand for. I can't stand the standard school system. It's all about teaching children to memorize facts long enough to pass a test. Intelligence and opportunity isn't based off a number, or it shouldn't be at least. I would also like to send Jude to a Waldorf school, or homeschool him with Waldorf methods.
Some people may think I'm crazy, but whatever, I'm going to do what I want to make myself happy and make my life pleasant.
I've been trying to work on simplifying our lives, it seems like it would be easier to do once I move out of this house into my own space. Once I have my own space to do what I want, how I want.
The first step is weeding out all of Jude's unnecessary toys. He has a lot of them. A lot that he doesn't even use. They make me cringe from the sheer abundance of them.
I'm not sure what the next step is, but it will be good and I'll know when it happens.

Catching Up

2011-03-07T18:11:00.000-05:00

Anansi stories

On February 27th, 2011 (yes, last weekend), my dad and I took Jude to the DIA to see an Anansi puppet show.

They were watching intently.

Sometimes, Anansi would suddenly pop out with his legs spread like this and it scared the crap out of Jude. It made me laugh because I'm mean, or something.

After the puppet show and browsing through the museum, we went to Niki's pizza and had Saganaki (flaming cheese, OPA!). It was Jude's first time having it, but he nomed on it like a little fiend. :)

Hello, Weekend Off!

2011-03-06T21:41:00.001-05:00

Well, I worked Friday night and Saturday morning, but I don't have anything to do until Tuesday morning!

Saturday, one of my besties came up from Ohio to see me and Jude before heading home for Spring Break.

We hung out with Jude and he loved playing with her.
We went to the bar and had some jolly good times.

Sunday, she was still here and went with me to get tattoo #4!

"UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better, it's not"
From "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss.

We also went out for some OPA! and gyros.
Played with Jude some more, of course.
I love Kelsey and the best friend time I get to sometimes have with her.

Monday (tomorrow, the future!) I don't have to work so I'm going to hang out with Jude. We're going to go see "Gnomeo & Juliet" and it'll be his first time at the theatre so hopefully he'll behave. We'll go early when hopefully not many people will be there, just in case he is a menace. Who knows, maybe we'll do some shopping too.

Well, he's definitely my child

2011-03-02T21:10:00.000-05:00

The culprit of this story.

Last night, Jude was being his normal, menacing, toddler self and decided to try to play with the doorbell chimes. Well, he chimed one of the bells and pulled it so hard that the top part fell off and decked him in the head with it's corner and sliced him a little. He cried, there was blood (which, admittedly, freaked me out a little), but eventually he returned to himself, he had a small bump and a flesh wound.

Look at that flesh wound!

While we're eating dinner and my parents start debating whether or not he needs stitches and if we should take him in, which freaked me out even more, especially when they started talking about their experiences with holding and strapping me down for me to get forehead stitches multiple times. So they're freaking me out and my mum thought he needed a few stitches and we packed him up and headed to Children's Hospital's ER.
We waited there for 2 hours, never got seen, and I gave up, because the more I looked at it, the more I realized he didn't need stitches. Plus, I was getting really irritated, Jude was getting restless and tired, and I didn't want to catch any germs from the massive throng of sick kids that needed to see their pediatricians instead of being there. We came home, cleaned him up, and put a Band-Aid on it. Luckily I bought a box of Toy Story Band-Aids at Target over the weekend with the reasoning that "He's a toddler boy, he's probably going to cut himself one of these days."

18 Months!

2011-02-12T10:06:00.000-05:00

That's right, Jude is 18 months old as of Wednesday. And 8 months post-op.
dedew2n /n,mhik]8uhbn ,.zm
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(Look, ^ Jude can blog too)
He's smart. Too smart sometimes. He's a full-blown toddler with messes and toys and tantrums and words and running. I wish I knew where he got all the energy from and how I can get the same energy.
Here are some pictures because he's also really cute.

Before the Red Wings game on Wednesday!

He's a handsome boy.

Winter Days.

2011-02-01T00:09:00.000-05:00

I'm not a fan of winter, but Jude had a blast playing in the snow the other day! He walked around the front yard, then started digging in a snow bank. I also showed him how to make a snowball and we had a mini snowball fight. :D He loved when I handed him snowballs and threw them.

He had just thrown a snowball.

Jude's Asleep

2011-01-27T21:00:00.001-05:00

Alone. In his crib. It's so odd, I don't know what to do with myself. That's a lie, I have lists of things I'm doing, will probably do, should do, and want to do.

What I should do:

Study, study, study. I have a test in developmental psychology next week. It covers 6 chapters. I really should study for that. Y'know, make notecards and whatnot.
Read the library books I took out for my children's literature class. We have to read 30ish picture books and make annotations for them.
Clean/organize something somewhere in this craphole house.

What I want to do:

Create something. Anything, really. I haven't had any creative output lately. It's lame.
Read a book for fun. Like maybe one of the billions I've started.

What I'm doing now:

Drinking sangria.
Watching Cyrus.
Blogging.

What I'll probably end up doing:

Drinking sangria.
Watching movies.
Eating pudding.
Thinking about studying.

Something we like to do around here...

2011-01-25T20:31:00.000-05:00

Painting!!

I cannot wait for it to no longer be winter. It seems Jude is even feeling stir-crazy and our in-house activities are fairly limited. I should take him to Jungle Java or something, but I don't want to go alone. Time to find some playdates! I think we're going to go to the library tomorrow before I work so I can read my picture books for class. That will be an adventure.

Working = Money = Shopping

2011-01-20T12:43:00.001-05:00

Now that I'm working and bringing in the dough, I have many, many more shopping opportunities. It's not quite out of control yet, but my shopping has definitely increased. There were the earrings & baby shower gift I got last week. Then there was the couple of extra things from Amazon when I ordered books for school. No big deal, right?
Then I got a new carseat, some new cups, and some painting things for Jude. Things he needs, y'know?
Yesterday after I got off work, my grandma told me she'd keep Jude a while longer and that I should go to the mall and go shopping. I need a new pair of shoes, but I hate shoe shopping, especially when I'm alone. Instead, I just spent $30ish at Lush. I needed soap, got some bath bombs to try, and know that their ocean salt face scrub is magic for your face, so that was a totally necessary purchase, they always give me samples of things to try when I go in there, so an even bigger bonus.
Then, this morning, I went onto Zulily, found out that T.U.K. makes kids shoes, and it was all downhill from there. I managed to only get 2 pairs of shoes, but still spent $50 something after shipping. I mean, come on, what kind of punk rock toddler doesn't need combat boots and leopard print creepers? They're totally justifiable.

Jude will be curb-stomping in these bad boys.

Online shopping is a truly marvelous thing. I can do it in 3 minutes, in class, at home, wherever, whenever.

You know what's fabulous?

2011-01-13T12:32:00.000-05:00

Etsy. I've known about it for years. I didn't order anything until, erm, last year? 2 years ago? Something, who knows, who cares. Etsy is freakin' fantastic and addicting. I just ordered stuff from there for myself for the first time. I have only gotten gifts thus far (Jude's Easter basket and half the gifts in it, a personalized keychain for my mum when she ran her first 5k, etc.) but yesterday I caved whilst shopping for a baby shower gift and decided to get some earrings. I'm so very excited for them to come. I got 3 pairs.

Painting the roses red!

Vintage glass Buddhas.

T-Rex's! Rawr!

I did also get a baby shower gift. I've found that it's super-hard for me to shop for baby things for other people. I know my parenting style and what I like and like Jude to have, but I don't know if others are the same way or if I'd seem like I'm trying to push my opinions and ways onto people. If it were up to me, I'd get everyone cloth diapers and things to aid breastfeeding. Y'know, the things I really wished to get at my shower. Alas, I'm not like everyone else and that's what makes me so fabulous. Dammit.

2011-01-11T22:01:00.000-05:00

School started today.
I work. A lot.
I don't make enough tip-money on a daily basis, but at least I'm making money.
Jude can count. To 2.
We were at Target and they had Yo Gabba Gabba! underpants. He saw the Yo Gabba Gabba characters and started going "Yo! Yo! Yooo!" so I bought them for him. He was very happy and kept going "Yooo!" throughout the store. He's going to need them eventually anyway. :P
He was sick again at the end of last week. :( The flu and whatnot. It was messy, to say the least.
That's all I've got. I think. I'm not all that exciting.

Things that happened in 2010...

2011-01-01T11:18:00.000-05:00

The first half was more or less filled with lots of doctors appointments and anxiety.

Jude became mobile early in the year, then even more so later in the year.

He had surgery in June.

He turned one in August!

I went back to school.

I made some new friends.

We went on vacation to California.

We road-tripped to NY to walk for craniosynostosis.

I got a job.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

2010 was long, and busy. 2011 promises to be good.

Christmas!

2010-12-25T22:56:00.000-05:00

Christmas Eve was spent at my grandma's house, as per usual. Everyone was there. It was a jolly good time, like always. Jude got a bunch of presents from everybody. He also got to run around with all the kids again. There was one minor downer though... my grandma accidentally got Jude a pair of baseball pj's that say "Daddy's All-Star" on them. The "Daddy's" part was quite unnoticeable at first glance, so I let it slide. I think I might make a Detroit patch or something to cover that ~~awful~~ word. I wish I didn't have negative feelings towards it, but alas, Jude doesn't actually have a "Daddy" who cares or is around or anything of that sort. Enough of the bitterness, and on the the pictures!

A goofy picture of my cousins.

The bigger boys were helping Jude open his presents.

Posing with his dump truck.

Christmas morning Jude woke up at his normal time, and everyone else was up shortly after we rolled out of bed. They all commented on how it was the latest we've all woken up on Christmas morning (I used to have a weird tendency to wake everyone up at 5 or 6 for Christmas morning). Jude walked past the living room without paying attention to the tree or presents under it. I redirected his attention, he saw his kitchen and got excited. He's a pro at unwrapping gifts too, but it took him like 3 hours to open all his presents because eventually he got to the point where he just wanted to play with them instead of unwrapping more. My mum's father and wife came over at 10 and my grandma & grandpa came over shortly after and we had our traditional brunch. After a little rest and a nap for Jude we headed over to my Aunt Kathy's for dinner and some Just Dance. I'll bore you with the list of gifts we all received another time. But now, more pictures!

Jude's stocking hung by the chimney with care.

Opening his stocking, he kept trying to put everything back into it.

I found my camera!

2010-12-25T15:25:00.001-05:00

Now I can tell you all about my week leading up to Christmas!

Firstly, there was Sunday. The Annual Glod Family Christmas shindig. It's this big party with my paternal grandma's whole side of the family gets together at the community house across the street from my grandparents old house. We eat, we talk, we have a pinata and a Santa. It's pretty crazy. This year it was a super-small turn out unfortunately, but Jude still had fun running around with all my cousins.

I have a pretty cute family, no?

Santa gave my dad a tricycle and Jude stole it!

He's such a big boy, hitting the pinata!

Then, there was the Solstice, which is a pretty big deal in our house. Sure, the holidays are great for getting together with the whole extended families and all, but on the Solstice it has always been just my parents, my sister, and I (and now Jude, of course!) We light a fire and usually exchange a small, generally handmade, gift. This year we decided to change the tradition a little and gave ornaments, since we always get an ornament from my parents and I try to get or make them one every year too. We also spend the whole night sitting by the fire and playing games. This years culprits were Dirty Minds and Scrabble. I was pushing for ghetto fab scrabble, but no one was having it when I tried to replace 's's with 'z's or adding new spaces around the border of the game. It was pretty hilarious and fun, nonetheless.

He got a copy of the Grinch and a Grinch doll from his gran.

Opening the ornaments. He loved the gift bags most of all, he was carrying them around and putting the ornaments and wrapping paper back in them. So cute.

Happy Solstice!

I got Jude the Sea Lion because of our trip to CA, and my mum got me the Polar Bear because this is mamapolarbear.blogspot.com afterall. I've been thinking of ditching the "Kayleigh's Adventures Through Motherhood" bit and just doing Mama Polar Bear, opinions, yes, no?

Gran got him a Jude Man ornament because of his Halloween costume at the 5k for craniosynostosis. It's actually a dollhouse doll that she got custom made from an Etsy seller and rigged to hang on the tree. She hand-embroidered the Jude Man onto the cape though.

Expect to see more posts from me. Hopefully soon. Mostly a reminder for me: I still need to write about the sweet breakfast recipe from leftovers I "created", the cupcakes I baked for Sunday's party, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

The Grades Are In!

2010-12-22T22:21:00.000-05:00

My semester has been over for a week and I finally got all my grades back.

*drum roll*

B+ in History.

B+ in Chemistry (lab).

C in Macroeconomics (online).

Go me! I'm pretty proud of them. I probably could have done better, but it was a good first semester back. I raised my GPA from a crappy 1.55 to a mediocre 1.90, which is splendid because I need to ultimately get it up to at least 2.50 in at least 2 more semesters. That's doable.

Next semester I have U.S. Government online, Speech, Developmental Psychology, and Literature for Children. It should be pretty easy, I only have classes Tuesday's and Thursday's, and my friend Carly is in my Psych class. It will be a good semester. I'm hoping to get at least one A.

It will be a super-busy semester too because I'll also be working 2 jobs. I'm waiting on Tony Sacco's to open, which should be in the next week hopefully. This week I've had to go in to help clean up and get things together. It's coming together nicely and I can't wait for it to open! Laurel Manor is... Laurel Manor. Banquet hall stuff... Meh.

Look forward to several fun posts about our Christmas excursions... as soon as I find my camera that disappeared off the face of the Earth. >.<

Ferndale Holiday Ice Festival, Winter Fun, and a Christmas Tree!

2010-12-17T22:24:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, my mum and I took Jude to Downtown Ferndale for their Holiday Ice Festival. They had ice sculptures outside of the shops and there were Reindeer, ice carving demonstrations, a craft fair, and Santa was there!

I asked Jude, "Do you want to sit on Santa's lap?" He had such a serious face and replied with "no."

The next day, we had a big snow storm, so naturally, I took Jude outside to play in the snow! We also bought our Christmas tree, but we didn't put it up and decorate it until Tuesday.

He loved riding around the yard in the sled! He kept yelling "more!"

He's such a good helper!

It's missing something...

Sometimes, Motherhood is Disgusting.

2010-12-17T21:53:00.001-05:00

Wednesday night I went out to finish my online finals that night, came home, Jude woke up as soon as I started getting ready for bed, we cuddled, he nursed, and we both fell asleep.
Next thing I know, my bed is covered in puke (complete with half-chewed macaroni noodles) and he's throwing up. I panic and pick him up, take him to the bathroom, strip him naked and give him a bath (at 2 in the morning, mind you) to clean the puke out of his hair. The whole time, the poor guy was shivering, so it was a super quick bath. That's when our pile of "clothes that have been puked on" began. I put some new pajamas on him, stripped my bed, added the sheets to the pile, and then he puked. Again. All over my clean sweater and his clean pajamas. After we changed again I grabbed a pile of clean clothes for the both of us, grabbed his potty and a cup of Pedialyte, and we cuddled on the couch.
We watched Elf. He puked more, I tried my best to dangle him over his potty. He fell asleep at the end of Elf. I turned on Four Christmases and fell asleep for a little. We both woke up, he puked more, cuddles, puke, cuddles, puke.
He wanted to nurse, but when I did let him, he projectile vomited. After the projectile vomiting, he didn't puke anymore.
The weird thing is is that he didn't act sick, he acted normal and when he puked he was so... nonchalant about it. We spent the rest of the day cuddling and luckily we got a nap in and he ate some crackers. His appetite still wasn't back to normal today, and he never ran a fever, so who knows what was wrong, just a stomach bug I reckon.
That night, I was angry about being a single mom. I had no one to help me out or give me a hand, but I did the best I could and took care of him. It's one of those hurdles that was bound to be crossed eventually.
Our pile of laundry ended up filling the washing machine completely and I washed it twice.

Top 2 Tuesday!

2010-12-14T13:22:00.000-05:00

We sometimes play a lot of games in my family, especially when we're all together around the holidays. Card games, board games, video games, word games, you name it. I'm not going to lie, I only know a few card games off hand but we have a plethora of board games in my basement. I should have a holiday party/game-night/awesome times. hmmm... But anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

Top 2 Favorite Games!

1. Euchre. My family always plays euchre when we get together. After dinner you can always find 4 people sitting around the table enjoying dessert, coffee, and dealing out a hand of euchre. I didn't realize it until I went to school in Ohio, but apparently it's mostly a Michigan game. It's fairly simple, once you learn, but that learning process can be difficult and a lot of people I've tried teaching just give up.

2. Rummikub. This is another one of those games that I love to play with my family, and we're almost always playing when we're together. My grandparents, sister, and I (and sometimes some other people like aunts and cousins) stay up late after the little kids go to bed and play when we're up north.

Runners up: Scattegories, Boggle, Scrabble, Life, and Pay Day.

Look What I Made! (Holiday Edition, Part 1)

2010-12-03T23:43:00.001-05:00

I love these winter holidays because it gives me an excuse to craft up a storm. Not that I should really need one, but holiday crafts are lots of fun, especially when you can make some awesome homemade gifts.

Tonight, I made a stocking for Jude out of a wool sweater from the thrift store.

I would have taken a picture of it hung by the chimney with care, but alas, I couldn't find any hooks.

So, maybe you're scratching your head wondering, "how did she do that?!" Or perhaps you've already figured it out. Either way I will tell you how. I wish I would have had some foresight and taken step by step pictures to make a real tutorial, but I got all caught up in the moment and just did it.

Acquire a delightfully patterned 100% lambswool sweater from the thrift store, they usually run between $1-5.
Be a rebel, throw that sucker in your normal laundry load, you know, the one with hot water and toss it in the dryer too. For you wool-lovers screaming at me out there, you want to do this, it felts the material and makes it much easier to work with, plus since you got it from the thrift store chances are it has already been ruined.
Take a stocking, or print off a stocking shape and cut it out, lay it on top of the freshly washed and dried sweater. You can use either the neck or the bottom cuff as the top cuff (I used the neck for this one).
Cut around the stocking (or stocking shaped paper).
Turn fabric so the right sides are facing each other.
Pin and sew. I used a straight stitch.
Make sure to make notches around the curved parts at the heel and toe of the stocking so they properly curve when you turn it inside out.
To make the loopy, take a piece of leftover sweater (I used about 6 inches of bottom cuff fabric), form a loop with it, and sew the loop to the top of the inside seam on the opposite side of the toe. I used a zig-zag stitch and went back and forth about 5 times for extra strength.

There you go, now you can make your very own wool stocking! And your cat will love it.

What is with cats and wool, anyway? When I was working on this, my cat would lay on my pieces, or my pile of sweaters, then when I was done she made it her bed on the table. Weirdo.

I also made a pair of longies from the sleeves, but I couldn't figure out how to do the waist band and think I made them far too large so I gave up on them until I can get help from my mommy.

Post-Thanksgiving weekend

2010-11-29T17:22:00.000-05:00

We had a busy weekend after Thanksgiving!
Friday
No crazy Black Friday fun-times. Just a trip out to Ferndale for lunch at the WAB and some Black Friday deals at No Pins Required. We picked up some bum cream, soap, holiday edition Rockin' Green detergent, and 3 diapers; a purple Fuzzibuns, a black Happy Heiny's and a robot Rump-a-rooz.

This print is so cute, it's the only reason I got the RaR, not going to lie.

The rest of the day was quite lazy and spent with catching up with laundry and fluffing it up since our dryer had been broken all week. Thanks to Ikea and our drying rack/hanging octopus thing! I also worked on my semi-top-secret Christmas crafts.

Octopus!

Saturday
My parents took Jude on errands for most of the day. I went to an open-interview for a new restaurant opening in a month. It went really well. They said they'd call within a week, so imagine my surprise when they called later that day and said they'd love to hire me! Luckily, I'll have time to finish up this semester without that added stress/time-eater. After that interview I napped and then Jude and I chilled, my dad & I went super-grocery shopping at Costco.

Sunday
My mum and I took Jude to get his Christmas portraits taken at JC Penney. He wasn't being very cooperative, until the very end and afterwards so they didn't all turn out as adorable as they normally do.

This was one of the few good ones, so naturally, we ordered a bunch of it!

We then continued on to Ikea for some Christmas presents for Jude and had some tasty meatballs for lunch.

This is his big present this year

Some things you may have learned from this post:
Jude is a punk. I have a real job starting next month. We love Ikea around here. I love cloth diapers.

Thanksgiving!

2010-11-26T22:02:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving yesterday was spent at my Aunt Kathy's house with my dad's side of the family (all my aunt's, uncle's, cousins, and grandparents). Dinner was tasty. Jude was shy at first. My grandma brought back gifts from Disney (a shirt and Toy Story cars for Jude, an antenna topper for me, and a Mickey pepper grinder for everyone). We chatted. We played euchre and Wii games. All the cousins drew names out of a ~~hat~~ bag for Secret Santa gifts, which I organized. It was good, quality family time that really never gets old. I didn't take pictures for some reason, I just got caught in the moment and didn't think about my camera. Hopefully I won't do that when Christmas time rolls around.
When I was younger I never really understood the "being thankful" for something aspect of Thanksgiving. I'm not sure why, maybe because I just wasn't mature enough to grasp the concept or something, who knows. This year I ~~was~~ am very thankful for lots of things:

My super adorable son who gives me a reason to live, work, laugh, love, breathe... I think you get the point.
My family for being so supportive of me by letting me live at home, paying my bills when I am strapped for cash, watching Jude so I can work and go to school, understanding that sometimes I just need to get away, and being awesome. That's right, my family is awesome. Deal with it.
Zak, my best friend. He's willing to talk with my about literally everything, and we do talk about everything. Some things we talk about, I'm fairly certain no one else can understand. He adores Jude almost as much as I do and he likes to talk about the silly, minute details of his life. I adore that when he talks to people about Jude he refers to him as his Godson even though Jude's not(and never will be) baptised. I do wish he lived closer, but despite our distance we still have mad-crazy telepathy with each other and our cycles sync up. I don't know if I'd be able to stay sane without him.
The internet, for it has allowed me to do a good portion of my Christmas shopping in my underwear and without having a panic attack. This year I've vowed to not step foot in a mall for any of my Christmas shopping. So far, so good, and I'm almost done thanks to Ikea, Amazon, and Etsy. I'm also trying to make a bunch of stuff for people.

What are you thankful for?

So it goes...

2010-11-22T23:41:00.000-05:00

Lists, lists are fun, right?
-Jude's walking! Like, all over the place and not just a few steps here and there! He does still crawl a lot.
-I'm putting my blog under construction until I can make it look snazzy.
-I'm oddly excited for the hectic holiday season. I won't be shopping for any Christmas presents at the mall and I'm hoping to make a decent chunk of them, especially Jude's stocking/stuffers. I need to figure out what to stuff his stocking with. I already have most of his other presents. Amazon & Ikea are my favorite for that.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's that whole recent boycott against Amazon because of "pedophile handbooks" but all the books referred to in anything about that are not a how to diddle little boys, so I choose to continue to use their awesome services. That's enough on that topic.
-Still no check. :| Seriously, State of Michigan, you suck.
-I have no school until next Monday! I'm so excited for this little break. Hopefully I'll be able to actually get stuff done. I should write myself a list so I don't forget things, or I'll just wing it.
-I saw some of my favorite people on Sunday. I went to Kelsey's potluck in BG and it was amazing! Everyone made excellent food (I slaved over pumpkin soup all day), and it was just an all around good time. I miss it down there, but then I remember how much I wouldn't have (Jude and my awesome new perspective on life that is credited to Jude) if I were still there.
-I don't have much else to say, really. not that I can think of at least. If I don't come back before Thanksgiving, have fun, be safe, and may the force be with you!

I feel like this blog isn't exciting enough...

2010-11-11T12:41:00.000-05:00

Maybe that means my life isn't all that exciting?

I started working last weekend! I'm working at Laurel Manor, it's a banquet hall. I worked there in high school but had to quit when I left for college in Ohio. In high school I was a busser, now I'm wait staff, woot. It's really not all that more exciting, I get paid more than I used to, and I might get more hours, but it's mostly a weekend/night job, because that's when the majority of people have weddings/parties/excitingfuntimes.

I took Jude to story time at our local library for the first time today. He wasn't a complete punk like I half expected him to be. He was more interested at looking at all the other babies than he was in the stories/songs/dancing. It made me realize that he really does need more exposure to kids or else he's going to end up all socially awkward like me. On that note, I didn't have a huge panic attack like I usually do in most social situations. Hooray!

2 days ago was the 9th, which means 5 months post-op from the CVR!
2 days from now is the 13th, which means 1 year post-op from the skin tag removal!
So much happiness and excitement, and I know I say it like every time some sort of milestone and time passes from those surgeries, but he looks like a completely different baby now. Plus, his eye color changed dramatically, which I didn't really notice until I was making a sweet comparison scrapblog thing and had two pictures side by side. I then went through a lot of my pictures to try to pin point when it changed and the determination was some time around April.

I almost made a whole calendar of things like this. I still might, after I finished this one I made another one, for fun (and my computer desktop) because I have a cool kid who has a skeleton sweater for every year! He already has one for next year too.

Halloween 5k for Craniosynostosis

2010-11-04T02:02:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend my parents, Jude, and I roadtripped from our humble abode in Metro-Detroit to Long Island for a 5k walk/run for craniosynostosis. We took off Friday night (I forgot to take epic roadtripping pictures to commemorate Jude's first roadtrip though :() and stopped in the middle of Pennsylvania the wee hours to get some rest in a motel room. Saturday morning, we wasted no time in getting out of there and back on the road and got to New York in the early afternoon. Before checking into the hotel we made a stop at Coney Island for lunch (coney's, naturally) and to go to the aquarium.

Jude was a shark!

He wanted to eat the penguins, because that's what sharks do.

With his sharky brethren.

On the Coney Island boardwalk.

After we got to the hotel that night, Jude crawled and played around the room until eleven o'clock because he was so restless from being stuck in the car seat for so long, but he was so happy to be free.

Stretching before the race. My mum was a trooper and ran the 5K while the rest of us walked. She ran it in 33 minutes!

At the starting line!

Mile 2! Jude wanted a little break to stretch his legs.

He walked a little bit of it, with help from his Pop-Pop and I of course.

He crossed the finish line and got a medal for being so awesome.

We made a slight detour to have Halloween lunch in Sleepy Hollow... because we're that ~~awesome~~ nerdy.

We all had matching capes that said Jude's Mama, PopPop, and Gran and also shirts that said "Going the distance for Jude Man" buttttt we didn't take pictures. I think we should take pictures sometime soon so we can have some. There were tons of people at the race, it was great to see all the people supporting the cause and we got to talk to a few. Jude played with a few kids afterwards too.

The downfalls to the trip:

- No trick-or-treating for us.

- Jude became addicted to the tube because we had car DVD players and it was the only way to keep him calm. I didn't think that I would need more than 4 full movie and 1 Baby Einstein DVD's so we ended up watching "Alice In Wonderland" 4 times. I knew I should have followed my gut and grabbed more.

Top 2 Tuesday!

2010-11-01T22:26:00.001-04:00

I'm getting an early start on this. Tomorrow (or somewhere else in the near future) you'll get goodies about our weekend.

Top 2 gifts I have received. (Aside from Jude, of course)
1) My tea press. I love tea. Especially loose leaf tea. My parents got me this for Christmas a few years ago and it's the greatest thing in the world. It makes two cups of tea, which is great for the times when I want lots of tea, which is usually all the time. The only downfall is that loose leaf tea isn't as easy to find in stores, but I did discover Teavana recently because one of my friends works there, I just haven't had the money to go and spend on tea. :(

Image from Google.

2) The surprise trip to NYC my parents took my sister and I on for Christmas a couple years ago. We were opening our presents and we got to the last box. It had socks in it and underneath them were tickets to plays and airplane tickets to NYC. We were still half-asleep and it took us awhile to catch on, but we pretty much packed our bags and got on a plane Christmas day and went to NYC for 3 days to see "Evil Dead The Musical" and "The Producers" on Broadway. It was great!

Pumpkin Painting

2010-10-26T11:29:00.001-04:00

Jude finger-painted for the first time on Sunday. Onto a pumpkin! I made up some flour paint and let him go to town. He had a blast, and of course made a mess. It looked like Jackson Pollock had visited our house because Jude threw the paint around a lot.

Zoo Boo!

2010-10-26T11:08:00.001-04:00

This past Friday night we went the Zoo Boo at the Detroit Zoo with my mum, her coworkers, and their daughters. It was a trick-or-treat through the zoo at night. They had lots of cool pumpkin displays, the reptile house was open, and there was a Zoo Boo Revue. We even saw the vultures sleeping on a log and a camel. Jude was a trooper and stayed awake through the whole thing, and of course loved the music and dancing in the Revue. He even had some candy and loved to play with the wrapped candy in his treat basket. On to the pictures!

I just had to include the polar bear pumpkins, for obvious reasons.

Ch-ch-changes

2010-10-03T20:38:00.000-04:00

This is one of those posts that I've been thinking about making for, like, a week. No joke.
I've been busy making some changes to better myself and the world.
Change 1: I've stopped using shampoo and my hair looks/feels fabulous. If not better than before. I use baking soda & water. Plus a few drops of tea tree oil for a little extra cleansing boost. I haven't added the recommended vinegar "conditioner" because a) I haven't really needed it and b) I couldn't find the apple cider vinegar in our cupboards.
Change 2: Teaching Jude how to walk. He's getting better at it everyday, he'll take a step or two on his own here and there. I think the most he has taken on his own so far is around 4 or 5. He's getting there slowly, but surely. Soon he'll be running and driving me even more crazy.
Change 3: I made my own soap. It smells of patchouli and is shaped like a T-Rex.
Change 4: Since I'm running in the 5k for Craniosynostosis on Halloween, I decided the other day that maybe I should start actually training. I tried training before, but I always felt like crap (I'm out of shape and my legs weren't cooperating by either my knees or ankles failing on me) after running, so I gave up after a week. I was doing the Couch to 5k plan before, but this time I decided to just go for a barefoot run. Well, I wore my fancy Paper-Feet. I jogged .91 miles (which I know thanks to http://www.mapmyrun.com/) without stopping. The only reason I stopped and chose to do a 2 block cool-down walk as opposed to 1 is because I was thirsty and forgot to bring a water bottle with me. But, after running barefoot, my legs felt great and I didn't twist my ankle once(which I'm normally very prone to doing), no shin splints, no awkward cramps. I did forget to stretch, but I still felt great. I need to keep that up and work up to 3 miles for the run.
Speaking of the run. I'm trying to collect money. A $500 donation, going towards The Jorge Posada Foundation & CAPPS (the hosts of the race), also gets a spot on the t-shirt and in the official race journal for Jude's name. So far I have collected $155, mostly through Paypal. If you're interested in making a donation to sponsor Jude in the race, please let me know and I can send you the Paypal link.

Changes I still need to make include but aren't limited to: cloth pads and/or cup, sewing more, knitting more, crafting things to sell, rearranging my bedroom, and finding an attention span.

I'm Listening to ABBA...

2010-09-26T10:30:00.000-04:00

This entry is going to be random, much like the title. Just a warning, but I'm sure you're used to it by now.

I caught a picture of him standing!

In other news... Jude took his first step yesterday! And it was to me! Hooray!

Skills I forgot to list last time: Jude can play peek-a-boo. It's adorable. He can also identify some of his body parts (belly, head, eyes, mouth, teeth, tongue, nose, and of course, his penis).

My best friend, Zak, should be here any minute. He's from the Cleveland area and I haven't seen him since New Years. I have no clue what we're going to do today other than just chill.

I've been slacking again...

2010-09-21T23:40:00.000-04:00

... on blogging that is. I'll blame school and stuff. I thought about blogging all day. I was going to sit down and do this like 12 hours ago, but then I got distracted. That happens to me a lot, I can't focus on one thing so I end up trying to do like 20 things at one time.
But anyway. Life:

School is good.
My money leftover from my financial aid is even better, but it will probably run out all too quickly.
I had a job interview last week with Sears Portrait Studios. I should hear back from by next week, I hope I get the job.
I have a butt-ton of inspiration and motivation from going to the DIY Street Fair in Ferndale last week (I went 3 times in 2 days and bought $26 worth of stuff). It was seriously the best art fair I've been to. All the people there were cool, there was lots of good beer and food, and all the bands were pretty top notch (one of the times I went was to see the Electric Six play).
I get to see my best friend on Sunday!

Then there's Jude (and the end of Summer/beginning of Fall)...

I bought him a couple new diapers over the weekend after my mum discovered a new cloth diaper store in Ferndale. She got him his new covers, which I was planning on getting anyway, and I ended up buying 2 pocket diapers (which I fell in love with instantly after using both today), new detergent, and a fleece cover from the art fair.
He stood on his own today for long periods of time! I think the longest was like 30 seconds. It's the first time he's lasted more than like, 2 seconds. I was so excited!
He gives real kisses now. Mostly to his auntie Sydney, and only to me when he wants to. He also likes to kiss inanimate objects, like his reflection in the mirror, my phone, and my knitting needles.
His vocabulary is off the hook. New words include: crack-ah(cracker), car(which goes brrrrrrrrrm), and na-na(banana). There's more than that, I'm sure, but I can't think of them now. He can say at least 10 words and knows many more than that.
He's starting to get the hang of silverware... kind of. He'd still rather use his fingers. He has also taken to grabbing a whole piece of fruit from me and eating it instead of me cutting chunks for him.
He's intelligent. It's hard to believe that I created him and he came out of me.

Oh, and Happy Autumnal Equinox, everyone! I plan on making a delicious harvesty feast tomorrow or Thursday.

Top 2 Tuesday!

2010-09-06T23:17:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I've done one of these, but this Top 2 Tuesday is exciting because I love Fall!
So here it goes, my top 2 favorite things about fall.

1) Pumpkins!

I love pumpkins. I love to cook with them; pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin lasagna being my 3 favorite recipes to date, maybe I'll add another awesome pumpkin deliciousness recipe to my repertoire this year. I love carving jack-o-lanterns. I love digging the guts and seeds out with my bare hands to carve them and I love roasting and eating the seeds. I just love pumpkins, end of story.

2) The way everything feels real. It may or may not make sense to people who aren't me or who don't understand everything that comes out of my mind, but something about the crisp fall air makes everything seem more realistic and better than during the other seasons. Part of it is going back to school, being on campus around people. Life is just in full gear and it's amazing.

Runners up, because fall is that great:
- The different colors of the leaves. Green is cool and all, but the diverse shades of orange, yellow, brown, red, and green are truly stunning.
- The crunch of leaves beneath my feet.
- Jumping into leaf piles.
- School.
- Cider mills.
- Hayrides.
- Halloween, of course.

So, dear readers, what are your two favorite things about Fall?

While I've got a minute...

2010-09-01T13:18:00.000-04:00

I'm back at school! It's so exciting, except for the frustrating half hour commute with d-bag drivers, I-94 always being backed up, spending $440 on books for 3 classes, and the parking lot becoming full just as I'm about to pull into it. It's all good though, I shook my fist at the d-bags, parked on the street (kind of on the curb) and am carrying about my day. I'm retaking chem lab, I have US history up until 1877 which is starting soon, and macroeconomics online. It's only 12 credits because I didn't want to overload myself my first semester back. I can probably handle more, but we'll see.

We just got back from vacation in California on Monday morning. It was amazing! I want to move out there. I decided that doing a Shutterfly share site is probably an easier way of sharing my pictures so here's the link: http://mamapolarbear.shutterfly.com/. The password is: captainplanet. I haven't even gotten around to putting these on Facebook yet, so enjoy and leave some love!

The Child Support Court Bologna is OVER... for now.

2010-08-23T14:10:00.000-04:00

I had court for Child Support with Christopher on the 13th.
It was ordered that Christopher has to pay $295 a month, plus $20 to the state for the medicaid that we don't use and can't get rid of, plus $25 up to $2736 for the birth costs. He is also responsible for 68% of health costs that insurance doesn't cover. They also ordered joint legal custody even though he hasn't been around or shown signs of giving a crap. They gave him "reasonable parenting time to which both parents agree" which means we have to work out a schedule.
We got lunch after to discuss all of that, and that went... smoothly, I guess. He saw Jude once last week and that was awkward. Not only that, but the plans were made last minute, then cancelled last minute, then remade last minute again. Notice a trend? That's not going to fly with me. We have more to work out and discuss, but who knows, the ball is still in his court, always has been and always will be.
I'm not even going to worry about it now because I leave for vacay in California in just over 24 hours. Hopefully it won't eat at me while I'm away.

Jude's Birthday Celebrations! (and one year stats)

2010-08-23T14:04:00.002-04:00

To kick off Jude's Birthday celebrations, my mum and I gave him some gifts from us in the morning on his Birthday.

After his nap, we gave him a Ding Dong for a Birthday cake, complete with a candle.

We spent the day playing, and went to the fish store to buy snails. We had a late dinner with our family friend, Lisa because she was in town from Texas at the Timberwolf Tavern (Jude loves to flirt with the waitresses there). When we got home my mum gave him his big present, his drum! As soon as he had the mallets in his hand he held them properly and started playing the drum.

We had his birthday Party on Sunday, the 15th. I made the invitations, cake, cupcakes, and decorations myself. I also put out a scrapbook that I was working on all year that has a picture of Jude each week for the past year.

Most of my family was there as well as my friend Amanda and my friend Kelsey (who I kidnapped for the weekend from BG and kept me sane).

We had a taco bar, and everyone seemed to have a good time!

For my favor buckets I ended up putting a stuffed clown fish, some fish stickers, bubbles, a punch ball, a small water toy, a packet of Goldfish, and a bag of gummy fish candy.

I filled the kiddy pool at the beginning of the day for Jude to splash in and we tossed him in it after he made a mess of his cake (which he didn't slam into as hard as most kids, he was very timid about it. I think he ate too much fruit beforehand) to clean him off.

One year stats:
-Weighs about 20 pounds.
-Eats normal people food.
-Nurses at night and first thing in the morning only.
-Drinks whole milk during the day.
-Sometimes sleeps through the night.
-Takes one 2 hour nap during the day.
-Loves to play drums, catch, and sit in his toy boxes.
-Says: Bubba, kitty, mmm for food, and mimics things like yeaah, hiii, and hmmm-mmm. (maybe more)
-Signs: more, food, all done.
-Climbs onto the couch.
-Loves to climb up and down steps when he's around them.
-Starting to throw toddler tantrums.
-Favorite song: "Single Ladies" by Beyonce.

Happy Birthday Jude!!!

2010-08-09T18:37:00.002-04:00

Today is Jude's Birthday!! He's o-fish-ally one!!
Here's the hard part, what do I write about? I can't think of the right words for this quite yet (even though I've been thinking about it for days) so I'll use this as a recap of the year in pictures, because like I said before, he looks completely different.

First born, he looked like a Mandrake when he cried, which he did a lot.

2 months.

First Halloween(2.5 months).

Right after his skin tag surgery (11/23) (3 months).

First Christmas (4 months).

6 months.

First Easter (8 months).

9 months.

First tooth(9 months).

Day he came home from surgery (10 months).

And last, but not least, his First Birthday.

There will be more postage on all of this later, including his "stats", milestones, and celebrations, plus tons more pictures from the day! For now, I have to get my camera back before he smashes it to pieces.

8 weeks post-op!

2010-08-06T01:45:00.000-04:00

Jude was 8 weeks post-op as of Wednesday!
One of the hardest things I've been through in my life happened 8 weeks ago. It sometimes seems longer ago than that, probably because we jumped right back into normal life almost immediately. I'm so relieved it's all behind us. He looks like an entirely different person than he did 8-9 weeks ago. Hell, he looks completely different than he did when he was born, but we'll save that progression for his Birthday on Monday.

Top-view, pre-op.

8 weeks ago, the morning of his surgery.

Fresh out of surgery.

Top-view, 2 days post-op.

1 week post-op.

2 weeks post-op.

Top view, 2 weeks.

3 weeks.

4 weeks.

6 weeks.

8 weeks!

Top-view, 8 weeks.

It has been a long, tough journey, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the hardest thing in my life thus far. I'd also be lying if I told you I didn't cry while gathering the pictures and writing this post. Sometimes I miss his little pointy noggin, butbI'm glad it's over with. I'm glad everything has returned to mostly normal. His scar is so normal to me that I almost forget it's there when we're out in public until someone (usually a small child) looks at him odd, and sometimes people ask. I like when people ask because then I can inform them of craniosynostosis. More times than one would expect with it being so rare and unheard of until diagnosis I run into someone who says "Oh, yeah, so and so's child had that." It's good to know we're not alone.
There's a 5k run/walk for craniosynostosis on Halloween this year. It's in New York, but my mum and I are going to make the road trip to run. We're also going to do some fundraising. It's benefiting two of the larger craniosynostosis foundations; the Jorge Posada Foundation and CAPPS. We'll work something awesome out for fundraising. I think our goal will be $500, that's the minimum for t-shirt sponsorship to get Jude's name on the shirts and that we're running for him.
I feared that his personality would change after the surgery from the stress of it all and all the strangers in the hospital, but it hasn't. He's one of the friendliest, most out-going babies I have ever seen. Whenever we go out anywhere he sits there and waves at anyone he sees. He starts conversations with them. He flirts with the ladies. Strangers think he's a complete doll. I'm thankful for that.
Now that that journey is over with, I'm excited to see what other journeys come our way. I hope they aren't nearly as challenging and stressful as this one has been though.

Countdown!

2010-08-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

6 days: Jude will be one! I got his 1 year portraits done on Friday, they're pretty cute, and the first portraits he's had done post-op.

10 days: Court hearing with Christopher about child support. This time I'm pretty sure there's no loopholes he can use to get out of it or postpone it any longer, I've also been brushing up on my knowledge of the custody, visitation, and child support laws to ease my anxiety.

12 days: Jude's first birthday party! It's going to be fun. I've been working on planning and getting everything ready, it would be much easier if I had a job and the money to fund it instead of relying on my parents because they like to put everything off to the last minute. Here's a preview of some of the stuff (table cloths, napkins, favor buckets stuffed fish favors, banner, and cupcake liners)

14 days: My Birthday. And a stupid WIC appointment.

21 days: Family vacay to California for 6 days for my mum's Birthday.

29 days: School starts. I can't express my excitement for this.

Jude's Almost ONE!

2010-07-21T09:45:00.000-04:00

That's right, in 2 and a half(ish) weeks Jude will be one! It's amazing how much personality he has and how much he has learned and grown over the past nearly a year.
He's still not walking or standing on his own, but that's groovy with me.
He's eating real people food. Often at meals he won't eat unless I feed him what I'm eating, which is really no big deal.

He has 7 teefers right now.
He stopped calling everything "Bubba" and now he calls everything "kitttty" except the t sound isn't fully there so it's more like "kiiii-ey." I think. I'll try to catch it on video and post it.

I have been working on things for his party. I started making a banner, I just need to go buy ribbon. My whale invitations turned out awesome. The whole family was invited and a handful of my friends. I think we're going to have a taco bar. Or pizza. I'm leaning towards taco bar. The cupcakes I'm going to make are going to look super cute. So is Jude's cake, I decided to do a regular shaped cake instead of a whale shaped cake, it takes less thought. I still need to figure out what to do for favors. My mum picked up some fish stuffed animals for them. I'll get some fish-like snacks and bubbles and who knows, I'm sure I'll find something. I'll probably put everything in buckets. Paint some names on said buckets. Or decoupage, just because decoupaging is fun.

And then there's the rest of my life... I put my cat down a few weeks ago. That was obviously sad, but it was for the best. I'm still unemployed and looking for a job. I want to leave this place and find something bigger and better for Jude and I because that's what we deserve. Chris still refuses to talk to me. I still haven't heard from the child support offices about a hearing.

We went to the cottage last weekend. I love it there. It's so peaceful. The weather was really nice, except for Sunday, but it was still a good, lazy day in the cottage. Jude LOVEDLOVEDLOVED the lake, even though it was pretty cold.
I have been reading a lot lately. I stormed through The Tao of Pooh in under 24 hours last week and plan to do the same with The Te of Piglet soon. I've also read a few other things, but those are the most exciting and noteworthy. Plus I highly recommend them. They explain Taoism through Winnie the Pooh (and vice versa). I read The Tao of Pooh as a kid when I was home schooled and learning about different religions and I understood it for the most part. Re-reading it now, it made even more sense and I was able to understand it better on a deeper level.

The past few weeks.

2010-07-10T00:02:00.000-04:00

I reckon I can stop avoiding it now.
Sunday. June 27th.
Went to the Livonia Spree with Jon. Had a great time except for seeing Chris's whole family (minus Chris), I panicked to Jon and we ducked into a hot dog tent. Watched pig racing, they were adorable! And of course, the Spree fireworks which Nicole met up with us for.
Monday. June 28th.
Started working with PIRGIM. Canvassing. It was terrible. My macbook committed suicide.
Thursday. June 30th.
PIRGIM people called and told me they were letting me go because I didn't raise enough money, no big sweat because I was planning on quitting anyway. Those three days were miserable.
Jude saw Dr. Rozelle, the first plastic surgeon. She said everything looked great.
Sunday. July 4th.
Nicole, Jon, Dan, and Amanda came over. We kept it classy with margaritas and PBR. Serious stuff was talked about and/or avoided.
Thursday. July 8th.
Put my cat down. She was 19 and had a giant tumor on her lip. It was time to say goodbye, but it was still really sad.

This whole week has been spent cleaning and getting ready for my sister's graduation party tomorrow. It's going to be insane. So. Many. People. So. Much. Food.
I have an interview at the pharmacy at Wayne State next Friday. I'm excited and hope I get the job. If not, Nicole will talk to her managers at Target about hiring me there.
I got a new laptop today. It's named Howard Phineas. I didn't want to wait for my student loan money in the fall so I asked my dad for a loan for it.

Jude is eleven months old today! I think that needs it's own special entry though, complete with pictures. That will happen tomorrow or Sunday methinks.

Happy List

2010-07-08T01:40:00.000-04:00

Here I go again, avoiding what has really been going on. Instead today, I'm going to make a happy list. Add to it the things that make you happy. This is just a small selection of things to think about when you're down to cheer you up:
Fireflies.
Sparklers.
Beer.
Cuddling.
Kittens.
99 Red Balloons.
Making new memories.
Bonfires.
Waves crashing against the shore.
Daisies.
The color yellow.
Good friends.
Bubbles.
Jude's laughter.
Walks in the park.
Forests.
Hair dye.
The smell of fresh air.
Clear night skies filled with millions of stars.
The thought that tomorrow will be better.

I'll be a better blogger soon. I'll fill you in on all the happenings of our lives. But for now, I'm in a rut.

Getting to know me.

2010-07-04T08:07:00.001-04:00

I'm too tired to do a real update now, but you'll get one soon. For now, get to know me!

1. What do you look forward to the most on the 4th of July?
Bonfires, fireworks, friends, sparklers, and hopefully margarita's for tonight! Basically I get really excited that it's just one big excuse to be a drunken pyromaniac.

2. Are you a hugger?
Yes. Very much so, and a kisser, and a cuddler. What can I say, I'm a lover, not a fighter, baby.

3. What is your favorite BBQ'd food?
Ribs. I also like to make food on the fire, like s'mores, hot dogs, potatoes, cinnamon apples, omnomnomnom.

4. Do you like to watch parades?
The ones around here aren't very exciting, it's always the same thing.

5. Who has stinkier farts..boys or girls?
All farts are stinky, there's no gender bias.

6. Vampires or Werewolves?
I hate that they've gotten HUGE all of a sudden because of Twilight and I'm pretty sure that's why this question is here. And now that I'm done with that anger tangent I choose... Werewolves. It hasn't always been like that, but right now I'm hankering for a for werewolf movie marathon.

7. Do you read your horoscope?
Yes.

8. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Cake batter!

So excited.

2010-06-25T11:12:00.000-04:00

This week started off really, really rocky. Sunday night was great, then Monday - Wednesday were just... not good.
Thursday was great! Jude had his post-op appointment with the plastic surgeon. He's pleased with how everything looks and is healing. He'll have a hulking brow for the next year and for the next 2 months his head will still be kind of soft so we have to be extra careful about him bonking it which is hard because he has been cruising along furniture lately, luckily he hasn't gotten too ballsy and tried standing on his own yet.
He climbed up steps for the first time in the waiting room yesterday! And when we went to the Coney Island for lunch he drank water from a straw!
After that and dinner, Jon came over, he helped me sort through my records and put them away then we picked up Nicole, got slushies, and returned bottles and came back here and had a raging bonfire! We sat around and chilled and talked and it was a good night.
I have been really over being a stay at home mom for a while so I have been applying practically everywhere and scouring craigslist several times a day every day and replying to the ad's I qualify for. This morning I sent one e-mail and one application. I have already heard back from both! I have an interview tomorrow morning at a bar in Dearborn and an interview with a campaign company working for cleaner waters and safer school food in Ann Arbor today at 4. I'm so freakin' excited about it. I also have a doctors appointment at 1:30 which isn't as exciting, but still, life is good right now.
Here's a picture of Jude from today, a little over 2 weeks post-op and making a ridiculous face.

Summer!

2010-06-20T16:45:00.000-04:00

So it's Father's Day. I thought it was last week so I already gave my dad his gift. It was a magnet picture frame with a picture of Jude in it and I painted a speech bubble that says "I love my Poppers!" onto the frame with the hand dandy paint pen I bought at Christmas time to make my mum's family tree ornament. I should change my name to Martha or Suzy, seriously. My Martha Stewart/Suzy-homemaker skillz have been insane lately. It especially shows when I host get-togethers with my friends. They keep telling me to relax and let them get their own beer refills, but I can't and I almost always beat them to it. My dad got me a Father's Day gift. He got me Zane Lamprey's Three Sheets book, so I can gain more useless alcohol knowledge I reckon haha. If you've never had the pleasure of watching this show, I highly suggest you do. They usually play re-runs on FLN all the time. A blurb about it on the website: "Embark on this international drinking tour with comedian Zane Lamprey who takes you around the world to master the local drinking customs." It helps that Zane is a total cutie, but that's aside from the point. Tonight after Jude goes to bed I'm going out to the bar to sing karaoke with Dan, Nicole, Jon, and a few other people apparently. I'm excited. I promise I'm not an alcoholic.

Tomorrow's the Summer Solstice. i wish I could have a bonfire to celebrate, but alas, my parents work and don't want people over late when they work. I tried to have one Friday, but it stormed literally when I was about to go outside to get it started. It was still a good night, we played Twister and just the trivia disc part Scene It! I was awful at Twister, but Jon kept getting in my way and knocking me over. At least I kicked ass in Scene It!, they accused me of cheating because it's my game, but I didn't, I just have that much useless movie knowledge. I love Summer. I feel so much happier. I can blog on the back patio in boxers and a tank-top with a face mask on while swell, upbeat tunes eminate from the speakers imitating rocks, right now it's my Summer playlist that's always being adjusted to suit my ear's tastes. I can paint my toe nails and drink iced coffee, I'm on my 2nd one, I make the best, better than Sturbucks. It's the time for wheat beers, served chilled with an orange slice, so delicious. And picnics and garage sales! There's nothing bad about summer, except for my tendency to fry in the sun. I also feel more confident in the summer. Jude is chilling out here with my sister and I, in plaid shorts and nothing else.

He's healing really well, almost all the swelling has gone down and he looks less caveman-like everyday. I haven't uploaded pictures in days and my webcam doesn't want to work so you'll have to see later. He's also getting really good at sleeping on his own. He'll go down around 9:30 after nursing, cry a little bit (like 3 minutes tops), then just fall asleep. He wakes up once, at a quarter to 3 usually, to nurse and then goes back down the same way and wakes up at 7.

I promise I'll resume regular blogging soon...

2010-06-16T13:55:00.000-04:00

... but until then you're stuck with another weekly recap, sorry. :( It has been a very long, trying week to say the least.

Wednesday, June 9th
- Jude's surgery.
- 6:30 am, arrived at the hospital to check-in.
- 7:30 am, they took him back.

- 9:15 am, they told us they started surgery.
- 11 am, they told us that the neurosurgeon finished their part and plastics were starting.
- 3:15 pm, they told us the surgery was over, went great, and they were waiting to get him into a recovery room.
- 4 pm, spoke to the surgeons, they told me everything went fantastic.
- 5 pm, finally got to see Jude and they took him to the PICU.
- Throughout all of that, I kept myself distracted by using the internet, reading, knitting, napping, and listening to music. My parents obviously went with me. My grandma came to wait with us, she bought me chocolate covered bacon because she loves me. My grandfather also came unexpectedly.

Thursday, June 10th
- Jude spent most of the day in the PICU, and they slowly removed all of his wires.

- They moved him to a room on the floor at around 5 pm.
- All the nurses and doctors said he looked a lot better than most cases they've seen.

Friday & Saturday, June 11th - 12th
- Hospital stay, nothing too exciting.

- They removed his bandages Friday morning.

- Jude slowly returned to his normal self and started playing more even though his eyes were swelled shut.
- The whole time in the hospital my mum and I took turns staying with him so we could get some sleep.

Sunday, June 13th

- We came home! Even though his eyes were still shut, they were pleased with his progress and sent us home in the morning. The doctors came in in the morning while I was sleeping and my mum didn't tell me until I eventually stumbled back to the room, showered and with breakfast for the two of us.

Since then we've been home. Jude's eyes started opening later Sunday afternoon and now they're almost all the way there. He's resumed being mischievous like before and we have to keep a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't bonk his head.

We also have started trying to get him to stop co-sleeping and sleep on his own. He has to sleep upright for the next few months so that's part of the reason why. He has to sleep in the carseat in his crib, he's not too thrilled about that at night, but my mom is insistent that he'll get used to it eventually and stop waking up every 2 hours.

I got the results from the paternity test today. There's a 99.99% chance Christopher's the father, shocker.

Busy week

2010-06-08T00:01:00.001-04:00

Where did I leave off last time? Ah, yes, a very incoherent rambling about nothing in particular. Let's do a real life update.

Wednesday, June 2:
- The dreaded paternity test... dun dun dunnnnnnnn. I tried not to be awkward arond Chris, I thought I did pretty well, but he was still awkward, but I reckon that's to be expected. He still won't have an adult convo with me, but whatevz. I'm sure he'll change his mind about that once he gets my lovely pre-recorded Maury "you ARE the father" message. The actual test itself was kind of gross. We go back into this dinky room in an office building and there are two "nurses." They asked the 3 of us to stand against the wall and snap a polaroid, in my head I was making jokes about it because I'm fairly certain it's the only "family" picture of the 3 of us that exists. Then, as the nurse was preparing to swab my mouth I asked if she would wash her hands before doing Jude's because of fear of him getting sick, surgery in a week, yaddayaddayadda. They both looked at me funny and said "We switch gloves between people." As she was saying this, the nurse that did me totally sniffled and wiped her hands on her pants after taking off her gloves. They then proceeded to tell me that the closest bathroom was on the other side of the building. I was like, "I don't care, please wash your hands." She did, it took her forever to go there and come back, the whole time I bit my tongue from complaining to the other nurse that was doing Chris about how they sit in this dinky room all day, swabbing mouths and all they do between people is switch gloves. There wasn't even hand sanitizer in the room. I thought about calling human services or whoever and complaining, but then I got sidetracked by something shiny.

Friday, June 4:
- Went out to the bar with Nicole, Jon (whom I met a few random times, years ago but this was the first time we actually hung out), and Mike that night because I was feeling cooped up and needed to surround myself with friends. Mission accomplished.

Saturday, June 5:
- Got lunch with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. My grandma got Jude a Saint Jude necklace for surgery. All my little cousins kissed Jude's foot (so they wouldn't spread germs to him) and wished him luck on his surgery as we left.

Sunday, June 6:
- Went to see my sister march in the local parade with the fam.
- Hosted the most badass last minute BBQ-on-a-mostly-rainy-day ever. Jon, Nicole, Dan, and his girlfriend Amanda came over. I really overdid myself, I grilled wings (hot and bbq), butternut squash, and supremely delicious hamburgers. I also sliced a watermelon, Nicole brought chips, Jon brought beer, I had my dad pick up baked beans, soda, and potato salad. Good times were had, we played Scattegories, I almost won but got distracted by a screaming baby and a father who failed at diaper changing and lost in the last round. Everyone but Jon left and he helped me clean up and we hung out for a while. It was an excellent night.

Monday, June 7, today:
- Stressed over packing, it's still not done because Jude keeps getting in the way or whining. My mum's mom came over for a visit. Went on a hospital tour with my mum. I keep freaking out so bad that I almost puke. One full day left before surgery. The lady leading the tour thought I was the one having surgery because I left Jude with my dad and I look like I'm 16.
- Jude said "kitty" to the cat while I was gone.

So the theme of the weekend was pretty much "surrounding myself with family and friends to distract myself from freaking out." It worked, but now that that stall technique is out of the way, I got nothing. I'll get through this, somehow, I know I will.

Tomorrow, my dad's taking Jude to the zoo while my mum, sister, and I get massages and lunch. RELAXATION... It will only last like 10 minutes though before I'm going crazy again.

Rain, rain go away

2010-06-04T21:22:00.000-04:00

The birthday party planning is coming along swimmingly (tehe). Hopefully I'll have the invitations finished before Wednesday, that would be convenient and ideal. I lost my basket o stamps once again though. I don't know how this thing always goes missing but it does. I wanted to see if I have an invitation stamp or if I have to do it all by hand, which I have no problem with, I just thought a stamp would look nice. I actually made progress on the invitations today... by printing a fail whale stencil, making modifications to it, cutting it out, and tracing it onto 15 pieces of cardstock. It's a step. I made a mock-up a few days ago that's super cute, but in all the wrong colors.

I have a silent movie on in the background and each time I look up it gets stranger and stranger. "The Mysterious Island." There are strange creatures with a battering ram undersea. I have no idea what's going on, I didn't even start it from the beginning.

It's storming, I hate storms, luckily the power didn't go out and it has mostly let up.

Jude is actually sleeping on his own right now! In his crib! Wooo! And when my parents get home from a graduation party I'm going to the bar to grab a drink with some friends! A girl needs a break... Jude has been restless today. He didn't sleep until midnight last night, woke up around 7-8, and then napped for only about 20 minutes total. Maybe this means that he'll sleep through the night and on his own? I doubt it, but it's nice to dream. So when I mentioned he was cutting a second tooth on the bottom... It's more like 3. He has the one on the top, and 3 on the bottom are working their way out and I think maybe another one or two on top. Just a few weeks ago he had none, now he's getting tons. That means as soon as we're back to semi-normal after his surgery I'll start him on meats (I refuse to give him the pureed meats, they gross me out) and more table foods! Yay!

My grandma's coming over tomorrow to give Jude a gift for his surgery. I love my grandma. My mum bought him a Rex (the T-Rex from "Toy Story") stuffy at Kohl's today. He's super cute. Jude was loving on the Lorax earlier too. He's so funny. OH! He pushed his walker-push toy... standing up! He only got one or two little steps, but it's still exciting even though I'm not ready for him to start walking anytime soon, he could hold off like 3 more months and that would be great.

I'm not sure this post had any real substance or point to it. Sometimes my brain just overflows and my fingers pour it out. I have to wash diapers. (Typing it out helps remind me so I don't forget :P)

Craniosynostosis Awareness

2010-05-31T22:25:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I haven't done this sooner, but I guess with Jude's surgery around the corner (one week and one day away), now's as a good a time as any.
I set up a page at carepages.com for Jude. I'll probably keep it more updated than this throughout the surgery and hospital stay. You do have to join carepages in order to view the page.

For awareness and more info on craniosynostosis, you can visit the following sites.
http://www.cappskids.org/ - The Craniosynostosis and Positional Plagiocephaly Support Inc. strives to spread awareness, educate and offer support and guidance to families affected by craniosynostosis and/or positional plagiocephaly.

http://craniokids.org/ - provides awareness and support forums, founded by a mother and father after researching craniosynostosis and being disappointed in the lack of personal support and connections they found.

http://www.jorgeposadafoundation.org/ - founded by Jorge Posada after his son was diagnosed with craniosynostosis, the Jorge Posada foundation is a non-profit organization that creates awareness of craniosynostosis and provide support of families going through this journey.

Thank you all for the support!

Get to know me!

2010-05-30T09:31:00.001-04:00

The wonderful Kacie at And Baby Makes Two indirectly pointed me towards Mannland5 and the "Getting to Know You" on Sunday's so I thought I'd give it a whirl, it looks like fun.

1. Have you ever snooped around someone else's house?

I've snooped around ex-boyfriends rooms... That's what happens when you leave me alone with nothing to do for 45 minutes to shower.

2. Can guys and girls be friends? ( thanks Jen!)

Totally, but sometimes feelings happen and interfere with the friendship. I'm friends with more guys than girls. I've learned to not feel bad for shooting them down and I tune out their flirting, which they do jokingly 90% of the time. It's a real downfall really, because I go out to the bar with guy friends and am invisible to any cute dudes that might be there. It's like having a boyfriend without having a boyfriend. I should start hanging out with more girls...

3. Can you curl your tongue?

Oui.

4. Have you ever stolen anything?

Yes.

5. Would you rather talk on the phone or text?

Text. I'm so scatterbrained that if I'm talking on the phone I'll go off on several random tangents before finishing a sentence. Plus, when there are other people (my family) around they tend to ignore the fact that I'm on the phone and try to start a convo with me. With texting, it's too much work to go off on the tangent my brain wants to ha.

6. Memorial Day plans?

Nothing. Perhaps making my parents watch Jude while they're home so I can get stuff done. We need to get things from Ikea and Babies R Us so hopefully I can convince them of that. Maybe I'll go to one of Sydney's parades.

7. What do you do to relax?

Read. Or go out for a drink. Or pour myself a glass of wine and soak in the hot tub. I could use that last one right about now...

8. Do you do anything to honor those that have died fighting for our freedom?

My sister is in the Plymouth Fife and Drump Corp so I'll go to some of her parades... Other than that, no.

Birthday Party brain vomit

2010-05-29T11:59:00.000-04:00

Jude's turning one in 2 and a half months. I've been trying to figure out what to do for his birthday party. I've been googling themes and I keep finding great stuff. Like really awesome things and now I want his party to be perfect, I don't even believe in perfection, but his party has to be it. Just a warning, this post may or may not be coherent from a spectator's point of view, it's mostly to get my thoughts out of my brain so they don't get swallowed and lost in that vortex.
I definitely narrowed down the theme from several contenders to under the sea. I'm thinking for colors I want teals and blues and orange.
Maybe some greens for shiggles. Orange doesn't really belong below the sea perse but it looks really rad with teal. I figured it out! It's the fail whale's fault.

I'm debating between doing a tons-o-fish feel or narrowing it down to one main sea creature; either a whale or an octopus. The fail whale is mighty cute, but that might be sending the wrong message... Maybe I could use my master-genius to turn him into a not so fail whale just for Jude's party.
I definitely want to make most of the decorations and whatnot by hand.
- Banner. I have so much extra cardstock and scrapbook paper lying around.
- Cupcakes, because slicing cake at a party with my family is always a huge hassle. But, my grandma has been on an ice cream cake kick for everyone's birthday's this past year... and ice cream cake IS mighty tasty... NO. Cupcakes, and since my grandma loves me she'll probably bring an ice cream cake to the party for my birthday (a convenient 8 days after Jude's). Cupcake cake or individually decorated cupcakes? Cupcake toppers? Cake stand? I feel like I'm getting a little crazy, I never plan things this far in advance, I'm a very last minute, spontaneous person.
- Jude's cake needs to be adorable, and sea creature shaped.
- Invitations; do I make them on the computer and print them or do I work some paper magic like I did for my baby shower (which reminds me, Sydney's graduation announcements need finishing, good thing my parents aren't ready to mail them yet).
- Favors, to do or not to do? I'm leaning towards yes because everyone loves favors, and I have 10 freakin' little cousins for crying out loud, plus Jude's baby friends that come. That said, it really is going to be a small affair, just close family and friends but I have a lot of those.
- I'll leave the nom sitch up to someone else.
- Table decorations. Fishbowl ceneterpieces complete with real live fish that double as a party favor, anyone?
- Activities aren't really needed, he's only one and everyone can just enjoy everyone elses company, dammit.
-Oh, and of course, this will be as eco-friendly as possible. RRR, ftw.

In other, completely unrelated news:
- We went to the beach with Nicole, Carly & Kaleb on Thursday. My back is sunburnt and Jude wasn't digging the water but loved trying to eat the sand. I didn't take any pictures though.
- I'm pretty sure I have an ear infection, my ear has been hurting for days, and there was a pimple in there and it popped and it still hurts and my mastoid is swollen and PAIN OW OHMIGAWD. I'm pretty sure I'm going to urgent care after those hosers get home from the parade and I eat some lunch.
- Jude's cutting another tooth, this time on the bottom. Teething isn't as bad as I expected, he's just extra cranky and extra clingy. And he has a boogery nose.
- He plays the soooo big! game now. I tried to capture some video of my intelligent baby earlier but alas, my stupid video camera is dead even though it has hardly been used.
- I sneezed and Jude's toy cheered for me. I legit had something more important to put here but I can't remember, and yes, they do say I have A D somethi- can we have class outside?
- I like lists and I love lamp.

That is all. Have a wonderful long weekend! We're bbqing some ribs & chicken wings for dinner. omnomnomnom

Jude's "vocabulary" revised.

2010-05-26T17:53:00.001-04:00

Jude still can't say "real" words quite yet, and he babbles... a lot. He does have a few short words for some things.
-Uh-oh whenever he drops something. He enjoys dropping things off his changing table onto my foot and saying it and giggling when I wince in pain.
-Mama for me or mamamamamama when he's feeling particularly whiny. He'll sit at my feet, pull on my pants or knees to stand up and go mamamamamamamamama until I look at him or pick him up.
-Ca for cat. He'll chase the cats around whispering ca, ca, ca or he'll try to pet them and when I say "be nice to the cat" he'll try to repeat cat and it comes out as ca.
-Bubba. The dog. That I hate. It's probably because he's always getting yelled at so Jude hears it a lot.
-He tries to imitate hi/hello/bye. It results in an odd h or b sound.

My mum thinks he's all sorts of intelligent because he'll put toys in his mouth while he crawls. What a dorky kid I have... :D

First tooth!

2010-05-23T23:06:00.000-04:00

Jude cut his first tooth over the weekend! I didn't even notice it until it was already cut through.

Uh-oh.

2010-05-19T17:05:00.000-04:00

I made that video camera work! Here's the video I was talking about earlier with Jude showing off his skills. :) In a little bit we're heading out to his auntie Sydney's last high school band concert!

Details

2010-05-19T09:15:00.001-04:00

I got so excited about Jude's new pointing skill that I completely overlooked his other new favorite activity... Dropping things and saying uh-oh! He actually has been doing it for a while, but that was all mimickery before, now he ~~totally~~ ~~sort of~~ pretends to understands gravity and has labelled it "uh-oh." It's quite adorable, really, he'll get this super serious face after watching something fall and just go "uh-oh." I have a video from breakfast yesterday with both phenomena on my illusive, awesome video camera; the one I got for Christmas when I asked for a simple Flip and an iPod classic, the one that isn't very compatible with my computer and I can't upload from or save the videos to my computer from. It's a good camera, if I had a better computer it would be a great camera. It's one of the many reasons why I'm planning to buy a new laptop this fall with my extra student loan money.

And while I'm going off on this electronics tangent, you, my dear audience, are probably wondering how Jude's battery of doctors appointments on Monday went, or maybe you aren't, I like to pretend you are and I'm going to inform you either way.
First thing at 10 in the morning was some good old fashioned neuropsychological testing. It sounds like a terrible, painful thing but I promise it wasn't. The tests performed on Jude were to measure the Bayley scales. Essentially, Jude played the entire time. He was given "problems" to solve hidden in the form of toys, play, fun, and laughter. The doctor loved him, she was cracking up at him and she said that even though all babies are adorable and all parents are told that that Jude was extra cute. He's also extra smart, according to all the tests, he was showing skills and behaviors of an 11-12 month old. His language skills are right on track. He so cute and so smart that she just wanted to keep him. I really wasn't too concerned that he'd be behind, but they had to test to get a baseline and make sure the fused metopic suture wasn't causing serious damage especially since language is one of the things that is commonly delayed.
After that, we got some Chipotle for lunch, I bought since I made $60 from selling my carseat and some baby clothes on craigslist. Jude kept trying to make friends with all the people who went to the pop machine. He's so silly.
Next up at 1 we met with Carolyn, the craniofacial clinic's nurse practitioner. She went over the surgery with us again, addressed our concerns, reassured us that it was going to not be that bad, and had me sign a waiver. Then we had to go to the pre-op center where I had to fill out more forms and answer the same questions as always for the surgery.
Then we went down to ophthalmology for yet another eye exam even though we all know he can see (again, another thing to double check that the fused suture isn't messing anything up and get a baseline). We get down there and the door is locked so there's a moment of panic and Jude falls asleep while we're looking around for someone to figure out wtf is going on. A receptionist from that department eventually comes down and tells us that the doctor was out of town and that they rescheduled all of that day's appointments, but never called to tell me this...? She pages the resident that's there and she comes in and does Jude's exam, we had to wake him up for it, which was nigh impossible due to his obvious exhaustion. They put drops in his eyes to dilate his pupils so he looked like he had been licking toads all night.
After that fiasco, he had to get blood drawn, which was awful. You know the screaming sounds from The Exorcist? He made noises similar to that, and his eyes were all dilated, it was miserable. Honestly, it was kind of hard not to laugh at the noises. They had to take blood from both his tiny arms, and he kept squeezing my hand. Poor baby. We got to go home after that... At like 4 in the afternoon.

He's a trooper; a red-eyed, "wrist-band" wearin', extra cute, extra smart trooper.

Quick update.

2010-05-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

I'm short on time right now so I can't post an in depth update, but I probably will later today or tomorrow. Pictures included, I have tons to upload anyway.
-Jude started pointing the other day, Thursday I believe. He was asked where his mama was and he pointed at me. Aww. It was adorable. He also recognizes our dog, Bubba.
-Welcome to my new followers from the BG blog thread! I promise I'm a better blog-updater than this usually.
-My blog is slightly under construction, I changed the background and need to make a new header, I'm just struggling with it though and I might change my mind again.
-I'm in the process of getting Jude and I ready for his 4 pre-operation appointments at UM. Starting at 10 ending... I don't even know when it will end, we'll be at the hospital all day basically.
-But first, I sold my carseat on craigslist! I have to meet the woman to do that before the first appointment so I should really be more pro-active about getting ready.
-We went to a bonfire Friday night at a family friends house. It was a going away party for our good friend Lisa. She moved to Texas over the weekend with her husband who's a border patrol person. They'll be missed, but it's a pretty exciting adventure for them.
-Sunday we went to one of Sydney's parades, she's in the Plymouth Fife & Drum Corp. Jude loved it.
-Jude's cute and gets into trouble a lot.

I think that's all. More details later. Wish me luck, I'll need it to get through the day in one piece.

I'm a dope

2010-05-11T16:20:00.000-04:00

I put in the title of my last entry that I was going to write about the court notice I got but totally forgot to. *doh!*
Anyway, it just said the date and time for the genetic testing and where to go and what to do. It's June 2nd, bright at 8:45. :| And Jude & I can't eat 30 minutes before it. So I not only have to wake Jude up earlier than normal, but I can't feed him before we leave. :| Then drive downtown and deal with the thing and possibly Chris. Yup, it's going to be fun.
Jude had a doctors appointment today. He weighs 17 lbs 9 oz. and is 27 3/4 in long. His development is on track, and everything else looks groovy.

9 months, Mother's Day, another court notice, and a flooded basement.

2010-05-10T23:36:00.000-04:00

Jude turned 9 months on Sunday! That was also Mother's Day, but before I can talk about all that, there's all the other weekend excitement that happened...
Friday morning my parents woke me up early because our basement flooded. Apparently, the suction-cuppy bath mat that was stuck to the wall to dry fell off in the middle of the night, hit the faucet handle, blocked the drain, and overflowed the tub. All the water seeped through the cracks in the floor and our basement had like 3 inches of water. No big deal, it's just a basement, right? Wrong. We have a nice freakin' finished basement with a bar, a pool table, an old piano that came with the house, air hockey table, an entertainment system with surround sound, and a foosball table. Not to mention, about 75% of my stuff is down there. Here's the other kicker, my mum pulled everything out of our furnace room two weeks ago so she could put up some shelves and organize everything. All that got wet/ruined. The piano is ruined, which not too big of a deal because it was here when we moved in and no one plays piano. The wood paneling and baseboards on the walls are ruined, the bar top is ruined, a ton of books are ruined. We've done like 20 loads of laundry to clean the towels and clothes that were in storage that got wet. Luggage sets are ruined. Now, another thing that makes this not-so-bad is that we were getting ready to sell a lot of this stuff in a garage sale, but now that half of it's ruined and we've spent a whole weekend cleaning and organizing, we don't have time. Now I just have to try to sell the baby stuff to resale shops or on craigslist. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be gotten rid of. The rest of the stuff we might just toss. I think the insurance is going to cover a lot of the stuff that was ruined, and the costs to replace the panelling and whatnot.
At least our basement is almost organized now... And they're building me a craft counter/nook in the furnace room, while not the most appealing place in the house, it will still be a nice little place to store all my crafty stuff and work on projects. Another good thing that came out of it is that I had to go through all my old clothes and tried them all on again and some of them fit! That means I'm shrinking back down, probably from that cardio kickboxing class.
On Mother's Day, after busting butt cleaning all day, my mum's mother came over for dinner. That was pretty nice, except for the tension between all of us while cleaning all day so dinner and company was the right change of pace to lift spirits. My dad bought me a gerbera daisy plant "from Jude" and my mum said she's taking me to get a massage the day before Jude's surgery, I cannot wait. I really need it.

Jude's 9 months now, he's growing too fast. :( He's crawling all over, chasing me, he's pulling himself to stand, dancing to music, and starting to realize that toys & books have purposes aside from being nommed on. He loves eating finger foods, and is starting to master the pincer grasp. He's a great mimicker and he's extremely curious about everything, which usually leads him to trouble. <3

Green Street Fair

2010-05-02T20:44:00.002-04:00

His shirt says "Be green save our planet" in sequins on organic cotton, I thought it was fitting.

This weekend was the Green Street Fair in Downtown Plymouth. It sounded fun and interesting so Jude & I checked it out on Saturday. There was live music, tons of booths selling eco-friendly/crafty wares, vegan foods, recycling info, organic clothing, activities for children, and organic elephant ears. I wanted to try the organic elephant ears, but didn't get the chance to.
I strapped him to me and we walked around looking at all the booths. People tried to sell me home cleaning products, soap, cloth diapers, and cloth pads & menstrual cups. Surprisingly, a lot of the local green stores/companies I knew of before and shop from weren't there (like Green Baby Bargains and the Little Seedling). Another surprising thing was that there was only one tent of green menstrual care products and two cloth diapering tents. I expected more baby products, and more crafty tents I think. I got a lot of comments and questions about my baby wrap, which was cool. I saw a lot of baby's in Ergo carriers.
My neighbors run a green dryer company, I don't know exactly what it is that they do, but it has to do with dryer vents so I ran into them there at their booth and chatted with them a while. I also ran into 2 friends from high school.
Jude fell asleep the latter half of us being there and once I exhausted all the booth possibilities we sat in the park in front of the music stage and listened to some music. Jude woke up right before the band American Mars came on so I let him sit in the grass while we waited for my dad to pick me up. We listened, and Jude danced. Everyone who walked past thought he was absolutely adorable.

I couldn't resist, I went back today after getting cash from my dad to get my mum a mother's day gift. I also ended up getting myself a bar of body/face soap & a bar of shampoo from the Mirror Lake Organics booth because they had some bars that were half off from getting rained on (the soap's fine, just the labels are a little messed up) plus it smells delicious and the guy selling it was kinda cute, not going to lie. ;D But, really, who can say no to a delicious smelling bar of homemade, organic soap for $3?

Detroit Zoo Pictures

2010-05-01T11:09:00.004-04:00

This one's not from the zoo, but it shows off the cute leg warmers I made for Jude out of a pair of knee-high socks and about 10 minutes of hand-sewing & his Wilco onesie. :D

These are a little old, almost 2 weeks, but I just found my camera yesterday morning. The couch ate it. I had to shove my arm all the way into the depths of the couch, but I'm glad I have it back, I went on a small picture taking spree yesterday, I'll upload those later though, first, these zoo pictures!

Prairie dogs!

Jude & I in front of the fountain.

I just HAD to pose him with at least one statue.

Crocodiles cuddling.

For Those Who Haven't Seen It On FB or LJ...

2010-04-30T00:27:00.003-04:00

... I present to you via copy and pasting, what the next few months looks like for me!

The near future: I need to finish and mail out Sydney's graduation announcements, and possibly make Jude's birthday party invitations just to keep myself occupied and get it done before everything else kicks up.
Within the "next 30 days": DNA testing, not to mention whatever court crap is going to follow that.
May 17th: Jude has 4 pre-op appointments at Mott. (Neuro-psych testing, opthamologist, surgery team appointment, anesthesia pre-op).
June 9th: Jude's surgery. We'll be in the hospital for approximately 5-7 days, at least one of those days will be spent in the PICU.
June 10th: My baby sister graduates from high school, and I won't be there. :(
July 10th: Sydney's graduation party.
July 17thish: I should be ready to start working again, if I can get a job.
August 9th: Jude's 1st Birthday.
Weekend after that: Jude's birthday party.
August 17th: My Birthday.
August 25th: My mum's Birthday, hopefully being spent in California, that would be a nice getaway at the end of this shit storm.
September 2nd: Classes start.

Not to mention, a few more things that may or may not happen within the next few months involving my pets....

I forgot to mention (take a shot for every time I said "mention" in this post) that I'm taking a cardio kickboxing class with my 2 aunts and cousin. It's 6 weeks long, Monday and Wednesday so it'll end right before Jude's surgery. It's going to kick my ass, I can tell. It's like 40 minutes of cardio work and then 20 minutes of toning and when I woke up today, my abs were killing me. That's a good sign though, right? I walked in the March of Dimes walk last Sunday and I'm walking in the Race for the Cure May 22nd. Go me! At this rate, I'll be less flabby by the time I start school which will be good because then I can resume strutting around campus with an air of confidence.

I'm such a geek mum. I got my Kushies AIO diapers in the mail today and I was so excited. Unfortunately, they're the next size up so they won't fit Jude for a while... Unless I put him in them anyway lol.

Really?!

2010-04-27T09:18:00.002-04:00

The court hearing about child support was yesterday. It wasn't very hearing-like. I went downtown to the friend of court office. Waited about an hour before they called Chris back. He didn't say anything or even look at me in the waiting room and I didn't sit near him or say anything to him because, honestly, I felt like I would say something bitchy and I'm trying to tone that down. Luckily, they were playing Star Wars in the waiting room, so that kept me entertained. There were no clocks, it was frustrating and disconcerting. Anyway, they called him back, he went back, eventually he came out, walked right past me to the elevator and left. A few minutes later the woman called me back and said, before I even sat down,
"He has the right to genetic testing and he chose to do that. All I need from you is to answer a few questions."
"OK..."
In my mind I wanted to ask her what he had said and why, but I knew better and that she wouldn't tell me.
"What's your phone number, date of birth, and social security number?"
I give it to her.
"Where do you work?"
"I'm unemployed right now because my baby is having surgery in June."
She didn't write down the surgery bit, just unemployed.
"Where and when was your last place of employment?"
"McDonalds. April '09."
"Give me your ID and sign here."
She takes my ID to the scanner to make a copy and I sign the paper.
"The test will take place within the next 30 days. You'll get a letter in the mail with the appointment date and time. If you don't come you'll lose the Medicaid."
Then she gave me this awkward look as if I was supposed to stand up and leave 3 minutes ago.
All in all. She was a bitch, but maybe it's just the context and/or situation.
It has to happen in the next 30 days, or else I cannot go. Jude's surgery is on the 9th of June, which is in 7 weeks and one day. If they schedule it anytime after that, there's no way I'm doing it. I'm not putting him through that stress after his surgery. As if the stress from the impending surgery wasn't enough, now there's this.
Typical guys, only thinking of themselves, which this makes no sense because it's only going to fuck him over more in the end. He's going to have to pay for the test and it's not cheap at all. I really wish he'd talk to me, this is such a craptastic situation. If I had known then what I know now, I would have never dated him, to be honest. I hate admitting it, but it's true. I don't understand how someone can be so selfish and uncaring for such an amazing person like Jude. Chris has already missed out on so much. I worry he's going to try to get custody after the paternity test comes back. I don't think it's a good idea because Jude doesn't know him at all. They haven't bonded and Chris would be completely clueless as to how to take care of him.
When we left the friend of court, I punched my hand in the elevator instead of the wall then my dad & I walked down to Ben & Jerry's for some ice cream.

On the brighterish side of things, Jude & I went to the zoo with my friend Nicole last week, I wish I could share the pictures but I lost my camera sometime after I got home. It's been MIA for the past week and it's so frustrating. I've looked everywhere 400 times.

Major News Alert!

2010-04-15T21:43:00.005-04:00

My little bugger is no longer a tiny pollywog. He's mobile!
That's right, he started crawling. Last week, it was slight forward motion, and everyone told me I still had a while. Over the weekend he took a few tiny one crawls forward. The beginning of this week, BAM!, he's moving all over the place. With his newfound mobility comes lots and lots of trouble. He keeps doing things that he knows he shouldn't. He's a typical boy, wants what he can't have. :P
I will admit, his curiosity is kind of cute, but it's kind of worrisome. He keeps going after my old cat. She's 19, mangy, and only likes being pet a certain way only by me 8/10 times, so I think we can all see why this is a problem... He's starting to pull up on things to stand... Like the end table to get my cell phone, or iPod, or laptop. Once those were off, he crawled around the coffee table to where I hid them and tried to crawl over my lap to get to them, clever bugger. OH! And somehow he finds ways to get to electrical cords that I've tucked away or hidden...

Video proof of this new talent to come soon, now a) I'm not on my computer, b) it's night-terrors o'clock, and c) I'm working on making my sister's graduation announcements. I offered to do it because I do nothing but sit with Jude all day, and I like doing this kind of stuff. I want to go to a scrapbooking workshop to learn how to make sweet pages.

I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but I heard back from the state about the whole paternity/child support bull malarky. We're scheduled for a hearing with the friend of court on April 26th. I'm trying to not let my nerves get the best of me.

8 months, Easter, and such.

2010-04-07T21:53:00.004-04:00

Jude is 8 months (2/3 of a year!) Friday and since we're going up north tomorrow morning I figured I'd do this tonight. It's so weird thinking it has already been this long, bittersweet if you will.

Milestones:

+ His solid food intake has decreased. A lot. Meaning I just restarted offering them on a regular basis. He had a cold a few weeks ago and lost all interest in them so I stopped offering them altogether. Not too big of a deal, really.

+ He can clap! He finally figured it out yesterday.

+ He likes to scooch around sitting up.

+ He's closer & closer to crawling everyday. There have been a few moments of positive forward motion.

+ He was teething, and there was a tooth that looked like it was going to pop through, then it disappeared. Weird... I meant to google that.

+ He still doesn't like to be put down to sleep & I still have to nurse him to sleep. Sleeping through the night is not something I've seen since about July and don't foresee seeing anytime soon.

+ Says mama.

+ Knows a few objects/people by name and will look at them when asked where they are.

+ Starting to grab onto things and stand.

+ Waves hello when you call his name or someone walks into the room & bye-bye when you say bye-bye.

+ The pincer grasp is starting.

+ He's beginning to realize books are for reading, not eating.

+ Grabs at my shirt to indicate he wants to nurse.

+ He looks for hidden things, it's really cute when I hid something behind something else because he'll try to crane his neck to look around the thing.

We're going up north for a long weekend. I decided to use disposables for the weekend so I don't have to drag a big, stinky bag of diapers home or try to wash them in the machine up there & figure out how to wash them in hard water. Jude's butt is so tiny in sposies, it's odd.

Easter was good. Jude & I woke up like normal then he discovered his basket and investigated it and took everything out and chewed on it. In the afternoon we went to my aunt's house for dinner with the family. My sister, Jude, & I wore sweet sweater vests.

Jude & I were home alone for 4 days while my sister & parents were in NYC because Sydney's high school band played at Carnegie Hall on Friday, Easter was when they came home.

Top 2 Tuesday... Random Things About You

2010-03-30T10:26:00.004-04:00

I found this blog, The Undomestic Momma and decided to participate in this top 2 Tuesday thing in hopes of getting myself to blog more. So here we go...

2 random things about me...

1) I can grab my uvula (the little speed-bag at the back of your mouth) without gagging. I can also bend my tongue back to lick it.

2) Even though I fell off the vegetarian bandwagon (very, very hard I might add) 2 years ago, I still fall-back and order vegetarian options when I'm out to eat at restaurants. I do it mostly because a) it's delicious and b) it's what I'm familiar with because it's what I was ordering for 5 years and I sometimes don't like to go out on a limb in a place of familiarity. I hate thinking about my food and where it comes from when I'm eating meat. I've thought about being a vegetarian again, then I get a delicious whiff of bacon. If it does happen, it will be when I start living on my own.

Short post.

2010-03-27T19:02:00.002-04:00

Jude can sit up from lying down now, and sometimes go from sitting to his belly without face planting (not always, poor guy).

The weather has been cold again, it makes me sad.

I was going to post more (I think), but pizza's here! Until next time.

I'm marching for babies!

2010-03-22T15:10:00.004-04:00

This year, I've decided to go on a walking/running kick to get into shape, and I figured, why not walk for a cause?

This is the first walk I'll be participating in this year, and I'm excited. It is April 25th, and is 6 miles long!

Every day, thousands of babies are born too soon, too small and often very sick. I'm walking in March for Babies because I want to do something about this. And I need your help.

Please support my walk. Making a secure donation is easy: just click the 'donate now' button on this page. Thank you for helping me give all babies a healthy start!

The mission of March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.

7 months!

2010-03-12T08:11:00.008-05:00

Jude is 7 months now. It's hard to believe it's been that long since he's been born. I think it's actually just now fully sinking in what it all means - a lifetime of smiles, tears, and probably tons of mischief. He's a little trouble maker sometimes.

Quick stats:

- Still mostly breastfed.

- He's working on perfecting his sippy cup skillz.

- He loveloveloves smooshed veggies & fruits. This kid is going to be a foody, he hasn't spit out a single food I've fed him.

- He's getting ready to crawl. He can sort of get on his hands and knees, and he just kind of rocks when he does.

- He wiggles around the floor. Backwards and in circles. He usually scooches backwards until he gets stuck under something.

- He added "m" to his babbling so he sits there and goes "mamamam." I'm not sure he quite grasps the meaning and concept of it yet though.

- He has more than doubled his birth weight, he's almost 17 pounds!

- He's still a shorty, but he's always going to be a shorty.

- Everything still goes in his mouth.

- He still doesn't sleep through the night.

- He has started the ever exciting "I'm going to drop this" phase.

- He has also started the stranger and separation anxiety phases. He gets all shy and snuggly when we're around other people that he doesn't see on at least a weekly basis. He also cries when I leave the room.

Yesterday I took him to the zoo for the first time! We went and visited one of my best friends, Kelsey in Bowling Green and the 3 of us and our friend Adrian went to the Toledo zoo for a few hours. He had fun, strollering along and fell asleep eventually. A lot of the animals were out, lazing about. One of the hippo's was walking outside to his water hole and the giraffes were inside but the baby was licking the window right in front of us. It was a lot of fun, and of course really awesome to be able to spend time with my friends, even if Jude did cry most of the hour and a half drive home.

6 months!

2010-02-09T23:31:00.005-05:00

Jude is 6 months today!

It's almost hard to believe it has been this long since he was born. He's so big now, and has tons of skillz.

Milestones this month:

- He's rolling like crazy.

- He prefers to be in his bouncy activity fun center of doom and excitement. He'll sit in that thing and bounce, play, laugh, and talk for hours.

- He isn't so cranky about being on his belly now that he can roll over.

- He sleeps better on his side/back.

- EVERYTHING he gets his hands on goes in his mouth and everything is targeted for him to get his hands on.

- He looks at me when I say his name.

- He gets excited and grabs my hands when I clap. He has even started kind of clapping the wrong way (I need to video-tape it, it's cute).

- He has tried 6 foods (rice cereal, bananas, apples, sweet potatoes, carrots, and green beans)

and has loved them all.

- He takes the spoon from me

and feeds himself, but he can't get food onto the spoon himself quite yet.

- He scooches on the floor a little.

- He loves the cat (not really a milestone, but his excitement and cat petting are adorable).

- He babbles on and on, usually in a "blahblahblah" manner, sometimes "dadadada" or "ooooh, aaah, gagaga" (another thing that needs to be video-taped).

- He can sit up without me holding him up, but he's still topples over from time to time.

- He's still extra clingy.

- He's starting to smack his lips.

- He makes pfffft noises a lot.

- He won't sleep on his own unless I'm babysitting at Lisa's house.

- He has no more stuffed animals he's super attached to because the jerk dog demolished them. :(

I'm supposed to try to find a job. I've looked and there's nothing around here, plus it doesn't help that I'm going to need weeks of time off within months of starting. I have humored my parents and applied to a few places, but I still don't see a point. :/

2 weeks ago we took him to a Detroit Red Wings game. It was tons of fun, and he

looked adorable in his jersey and skate booties he got for Christmas. Unfortunately, we lost

literally in the last minute of the game. He had fun and got excited when everyone cheered, after his initial shock from the loud noise of course.

It's so strange. Up until a few weeks ago, his surgery was going to be today. I didn't really think about it much until my mum talked about it yesterday and today and then it really hit me again. I think I've just been repressing the thought so I don't freak out about it. If I dwelled and freaked about it all the time, I'd get even less done, and that wouldn't be very good, now would it?

5 months!

2010-01-11T01:35:00.004-05:00

Jude turned 5 months on Saturday!
This past month he has:
- rolled over tons.
- started schooching around the floor a little.
- continued to laugh and smile like crazy.
- has become much more vocal and seems to have the basic grasp of the rhythm of conversation.
- started showing basic communication signs by putting his arms out to be picked up, grabbing towards things he wants (which seems to be everything), and grabbing my shirt when he's hungry.
- sat up unsupported for brief periods of time.
-started to tolerate being on his stomach.
- been extra clingy and snuggly.
- shown signs of being ready to start eating solids by tracking food, trying to grab it, and putting silverware in his mouth properly.

Friday night he had rice cereal for the first time. He did super well with it, he actually swallowed most of it and ate about half a tablespoon of it. He kept opening his mouth for the spoon and closing it on it once it was in too.

I've started giving him bottles and sippy cups with a little bit of water in them to see if he knew how to drink from them because his not taking a bottle is getting a little ridiculous and I'd like a break from the house sometime without having to worry about coming home after 2 hours to feed him.

We finally met with the 2nd opinion doctors at UM hospitals last Monday. After much thought, research, and debating with myself I've decided to go with them for his surgery. I would have liked to go out of state but it isn't very feasible. UM does the procedure more on par to the top centers in the country. They won't do it until 9-13 months so I'll have to play this waiting game even longer. They don't use a helmet post-op. All-in-all I feel more confident going there.

I want to know who my audience is...

2010-01-09T11:46:00.002-05:00

So comment if you're reading this and become a follower instead of a stalker. :D

Christmas talk

2009-12-28T00:45:00.000-05:00

I'm 98% certain Jude has night terrors. :( He's been almost consistently screaming but not entirely waking up at about the same time almost every night for a few weeks. It doesn't matter if I'm holding him, sleeping with him, or he's in his crib while he sleeps, he still does it. He doesn't even wake up, he just screams and it takes a while to calm him down and usually the only thing that helps is nursing him. It's kind of scary and makes me worried. I just scoured through my parenting books and there's nothing on the topic so I hit the Google machine, and this is the most cohesive thing I found. I'm going to mention it to his doctor when he goes again, which won't be until after his surgery, if it's still happening but it doesn't seem like there's much that can be done about it aside from comforting him back to sleep.

Christmas was good. We got a Wii from my grandma, which means my family has officially joined the 21st century, at last. Up until last year we still had dial-up internet and never had cable. My parents also got a flat screen TV for the whole family to share. They got me a TomTom GPS because of the time I ended up in Lansing on my way up north >.< and a video camera. I can't use the software that came with my camera though apparently. It won't work on the family desktop for some reason and I can't get it to work on my laptop. I was at least able to save the files and upload them to YouTube. Here's a video of Jude on my mum's lap. I can swivel the screen 180º so I pointed it at Jude while I was filming and he was laughing at "the other baby" on the screen.

Jude got tons of toys for Christmas of course. I'm still in the process of cleaning and finding homes for everything, it's going to take weeks most likely. He's rather clingy and it seems like I can only put him down for 10 minutes at a time, if that.

I have tons of pictures from Christmas to upload of course, I just haven't gotten around to it. I will eventually, have no fear.

Christmas time is here!

2009-12-23T23:59:00.002-05:00

I'll make sure to post all about all the festivities when they're over.
Merry Christmas everyone!

Surgery, Thanksgiving, 4 months, etc.

2009-12-10T11:17:00.006-05:00

First and foremost, Jude is 4 months as of yesterday. He hasn't really reached any new milestones, but his skills are definitely improving. He knows that he's grabbing things and how to do it. He investigates things more with his hands, and his mouth. He babbles and laughs almost all the time. I haven't really put him on a schedule, but he has seemed to form one, or something like one on his own. He can sit up, but not quite on his own yet, he's a little wobbly still. He loves to stand when I hold him up. He also loves to look at himself in the mirror, I have a little narcissist on my hands. He has rolled over on his own, but he doesn't do it often for whatever reason. All in due time I reckon.

His surgery went well. He was confused afterwards and cranky unless I was holding and rocking him. He was really upset when I put him down to get him dressed to go home. I distracted myself by making my parents & Chris play hangman with me while he was in surgery. His bandages finally all fell off last week and there's some scars, but the doctors gave me a silicone gel to make them better. He was drugged up, cranky, and groggy for a day or two after. The day after he fell asleep on the floor while playing, twice. The morning of he was surprisingly happy considering he wasn't allowed to eat. He also didn't wake up in the middle of the night to eat like he normally does so it worked out pretty well.

Playing at 5 am before we left for the hospital.

Post-op.

Home from the hospital.

The day after.

Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving. We spent it at my grandma's house. I cooked some things that everyone loved. I've been so domestic lately, it's odd. And now Christmas is approaching rapidly. Eeeks.

'Twas the night before Jude's surgery....

2009-11-22T21:07:00.003-05:00

...And these are some of my thoughts.

I'm freaking out, I have been for weeks but I haven't showed it much. I actually have been trying to suppress all emotions around people, it's crazy weird. I know everything will most likely go great,

and that it's for the better but part of me is freaked out by the fact that my baby has to have surgery, especially since I've never had surgery, aside from the c-section. It's also weird that he'll look completely different after tomorrow. I know he won't be a different person,

but he'll look different and that makes me kind of sad. Getting his skin tags removed makes me feel hypocritical too. I'll miss his adorable little cheeky nipples.

Since we have to be there at 6 & his surgery's at 7:30 he's not allowed to eat after midnight but he can have pedialyte or water until 4:30. Which means when he wakes up looking to eat at 3 I have to try to give him that. That's going to be a challenge since he won't take a bottle at all. I thought about trying to just cuddle him back to sleep, but I think it will be better to try to get something into his stomach.

I'm also upset about Chris, he's all talk and no walk and it's annoying, but that really has nothing to do with anything and I know if I talk or think about it more I'll just think of more things and it will be catastrophic.

3 months!

2009-11-09T22:47:00.006-05:00

It seems so surreal that I have a 3 month old baby. It's odd to say and think about really. I think it's because recently I've been missing my old care-free ways a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I love Jude, and my life with him in it but I think about a year ago and everything was completely different. It's strange how much can change in so short a time.

Like just in this past month a ton has changed. Jude babbles a lot. He has also started chewing on everything he can find. He'll pick up toys and nom on them. He blows spit bubbles like it's his job. He's a chunker too, he has the arm equivalent to cankles, it's adorable.

There was also his first Halloween. We didn't do anything exciting. He wore his

skeleton pajamas all day and watched me make pumpkin lasagna and watched Sydney get zombified for the night. We passed out candy too, but we only got like 20-30 kids, if that. Our neighborhood is lame at Halloween time, it makes me sad because I love Halloween. I took a bunch of Halloween/October pictures of him to make a first Halloween scrapbook with such obligatory shots as him sleeping at the cider mill, him with Sydney getting her costume ready, us being awesome and matching, him watching everyone carve pumpkins, and him with the Jude sized pumpkin I carved for him. Yup, I'm sweet.

Also in October he saw an eye doctor, because of the fused suture they wanted to get a baseline there and make sure his eyesight wasn't being affected by it. It's not, he can see. Have you ever seen someone try to do an eye test on a 2.5 month old though? It's ridiculous especially since there are so many more fascinating, shiny things for a baby to look at in the office than the doctor and the toys he's supposed to look at.

I finally got a call from the plastic surgeon's office with a date for his cvr! February 9th. When he's 6 months exactly.

His skin tag removal is in 2 weeks, and I'm honestly kind of more nervous about this one than the other for some reason. I can't explain it, I just am. Maybe it's because I think his skin tags are adorable and don't want him to change drastically.

The friendship Chris and I were working on? Progressed into a talk about slowly maybe getting back together which then progressed into going out on a date. It was a real date too, a first for me actually... I'm on the fence about the whole thing though. I have my doubts and I have my dreams about the whole thing. Who knows what will happen though.

2 months!

2009-10-10T15:55:00.006-04:00

That's right, Jude is 2 months old!!!

Milestones:

-Coos, grunts, squeals.

-Smiles & laughs.

-Holds his head up more frequently.

-Blows spit bubbles.

-Lots of wiggly movements.

-Can grab things when they're placed in his hand.

-Follows moving objects with his eyes.

Those are the only ones I can think of right now, there may be more.

Thursday after his kidney ultrasound I took him to JC Penney to get his portraits taken. He didn't want to wake up for the photographer so there are lots of sleepy ones and some grumpy face ones, it was funny. These are the ones I ordered prints of:

Another big thing, Chris & I are working on a friendship. We texted a bit earlier in the week and made dinner plans for Thursday (which half blew up in my face, but that's a different story for a different place). I ended up not babysitting Wednesday night so I decided to go out to Starbucks with him so just the 2 of us could talk. We ironed some things out & it looks like things are looking up in that department. He came over for a few hours Thursday evening to spend time with Jude & have dinner with my family. It was a pretty good time. :)

Hopefully the betterness sticks.

Jude's first trip to the cottage.

2009-09-30T23:06:00.005-04:00

As you know from my last update, I took Jude up north to my grandparents cottage on Lake Huron, just north of Oscoda. The drive there would've went smoother if a) I had fed him right before getting on the road (I had to stop fairly soon after getting on the highway) and b) I hadn't missed the exit for US-23 and didn't realize it until I was almost in Lansing. I had to stop 4 times because of those. Twice to feed Jude, once for more gas, and once to figure out how to get to where I needed to be once I was lost (which was fruitless aside from the Coke & cookies I bought from the McD's I stopped at to pee and get directions). I should've arrived at 12 and instead arrived at 1, which isn't too bad considering we didn't leave until about 8:30.

My grandparents, aunt Kathy, uncle Jim & little cousins Nuala, Lena, and Eamon were also up there, and Jude loved the attention from the kids, they would play with him and he would laugh at their funny faces. He was a good, happy baby all weekend, and surprisingly not too clingy on me and he slept really well, I wish he would have kept sleeping that well when we got home, but oh well, I still love him.

Here are some of the pictures from the weekend.

1) Grandma, Jude, Lena, & Eamon. 2) Jude laughing at Lena. 3) I put Jude in his port-a-crib, came back and found Sydney and Jude chilling in bed like this. 4) He's a pirate, fear him. 5) My aunt Julie made a quilt for my grandpa with everyone's hand prints so we added Jude's footprint to it and since there wasn't an extra empty square, we put him onto mine. 6) Eamon holding Jude. 7) Jude's 1st beach picture. It was about a quarter to seven and he didn't go back to sleep like normal so we took a walk down to the beach before sunrise, he was wrapped cozy and tight in 2 blankets and fell asleep, I got cold so we didn't stay to watch the sun rise. 8) He enjoyed Sydney's homework less than she did. 9) Us on the beach. 10) The kids.

Also, like my new layout. I made it purrty and made the banner myself. :D

Tomorrow night I start watching Haley for Lisa, a pretty awesome family friend. Since I can't get a job because of Jude's upcoming surgeries and her husband is in New Mexico for border patrol training we're helping each other out basically.

2 weeks of stuff

2009-09-25T09:31:00.000-04:00

Time to backtrack since I have 2 weeks worth of updating.

Jude had a weight check-up with the pediatrician on the 10th, he gained over a pound & weighed 9 lbs, 10 oz. He's growing so fast and getting chunky.

Jude had his hearing test & CT Scan the 11th. His hearing test was scheduled for 10:15, the CT for 11:45, the radiologists had requested that I didn't feed him after 9:30. That would have worked fine to get the hearing test that required him to be quiet and still if they didn't have us waiting in the waiting area for so long. He woke up and was pissed as soon as we got back into the room so the lady doing it suggested we go do the CT and come back to do the hearing test while he was sleeping after that. The reason they asked for him to not eat presumably was in case they had to administer anesthesia in order to put him to sleep to stay still for the scan. We ended up back in there and they really didn't want to anesthetize him because it is such a short scan and at this point, he's screaming bloody murder so they ask if he'll take a pacifier, which he normally doesn't. So they started to prepare a pacifier dipped in sugar water to see if he'd take that and relax or sleep. They had me lay him down on the scanner table while they were doing that and he fell asleep as soon as I lay him down. We were all baffled by it. They did the scan and since my mum's a CT scanner at a different DMC hospital she had some sweet connections and we got to see his 3D facial reconstruction and everyone talked about how cute he is. We also got the images on a CD for when we go get a second opinion. We went back upstairs for the hearing test while he was sleeping and since he could eat and he was pretty good through it, he woke up during the first part, but we were able to give him a bottle through it to keep him cooperative. He can hear, which we didn't doubt, the surgeon ordered it just to be sure.

Later that night we took him out on the town to the salon for my mum & I to get our hair cut, then a brewery for dinner, and then an old family friend's art gallery opening. He totally dug it all, he loves to look around at things and is so amazed by new things so none of that was too stressful for him, but he did sleep all weekend after, processing all the new things.

A week passed by and then we met with the plastic surgeon again on the 18th and the information she gave us was a bit overwhelming, but it would have been more overwhelming if we hadn't done our research on craniosynostosis. She told us that the suture is definitely fused and showed us his scan, then she proceeded to tell us how treatment was going to go. It came quickly, my mum almost cried. Basically she said that he won't have surgery until he's 6 months old and she outlined the basics of the procedure. She also gave me scripts to see a neurosurgeon, ophthalmologist, and to have an abdominal ultrasound to check his kidneys because the skin tags can also sometimes be indicative of not fully formed kidneys. He's still getting the tags removed in November though, just to get it out of the way and because it's a relatively minor surgery.

I decided that he looks a bit like a Klingon because of his pointy forehead and the wrinkles. When I say it I mean it in a nice, cute way, not a mean making fun of way but my dad likes to make fun of him.

I tried to get ahold of Chris because of all this so we can get together (his family and mine) and talk about this, child support, him being on the birth certificate, involvement, etc. He kept blowing off my calls/texts and when he did reply about getting together a certain day he ended up changing plans at the last minute with one excuse or another. It's bullshit. I'm pissed that he gave me so much shit about wanting to be involved and around a lot but is now doing this. Before I contacted him last weekend, I hadn't heard from him for over a month. The last time I heard from him was right after my birthday. It wouldn't be that big of a deal if he hadn't given me all the shit about wanting to be around and saying he'd be around no matter what and telling everyone else he was going to. He got defensive, and some of my friends got defensive about him with me and I really didn't appreciate it because no one seemed to understand the situation and what he was really doing. What makes it even worse is that him and his parents came to the hospital the night Jude was born because it really did ruin a lot of moments and happy times for me, again, I wouldn't be so upset about it if he actually was around.

Other than all that nonsense, we're doing great. He's all sorts of adorable still and has started smiling and cooing all the time, he even laughs sometimes. It's really funny because he laughs at my sister a lot, probably because we make fun of her and he's catching on. I was going to take him to JC Penney to get some portraits done this weekend, but I decided to reschedule it for October 8th because he will be 2 months and he'll probably smile more easily at cues, either way, these pictures will be super cute, dammit.

This weekend I'm taking him up north to my grandparents cottage on Lake Huron. It will be an adventure, making that 4 hour drive with him and my sister and just being up there with my aunt and cousins and grandparents. Even though I'm not leaving for another 10 hours or so I should probably start packing, I need to disassemble the pack&play, pack clothes for both of us, figure out how to make diapering work up there (I'm thinking I'll pack all of our cloth diapers, the dirty diaper bag without the dirty diapers from today (I'll put those in a plastic bag in the diaper bin for now), and take some disposables for just in case I go through all of the cloth ones, which I shouldn't, but better safe than sorry, or I can pack the Gerber ones, which I'd rather not especially since that's what he'll be in for the drive back and those won't cut it), all while taking care of him, doing housework, and not forgetting to eat, which reminds me, I need more breakfast than just that yogurt I had when I woke up 2 hours ago. I have a feeling I'm going to need at least 2 duffle bags just for this short trip...

I ordered this yesterday and I can't wait to get it! Both the slings I had gotten were too small for me. :/

Well, that's the past 2 weeks for you, I'll try to update more frequently so I'm not just dumping tons of stuff on here. Here's a happy, smiley baby to make up for it.

I lost the words.

2009-09-23T00:40:00.005-04:00

I know what I need to update about, I just lost the words as soon as I went to do it. I'm pooped, Jude didn't sleep today, he screamed for hours when it came to be bed time, and just went down not too long ago.

Soon I will really update about:

-CT scans.

-Surgeon meetings.

-Piece of shit "fathers".

-My emotions, maybe.

-Everything else.

Since this isn't a real update and you wasted your time with this preview of an update, here's a picture of my Jujuby from today.

I'm going to sleep. Hopefully it will last at least 3 hours. Good night interwebz world.

As if things weren't already hard enough as it is...

2009-09-10T08:26:00.004-04:00

Let me start with the good, Jude turned one month yesterday! Exciting, right? I tried to take pictures of him, but he kept being cranky and uncooperative, plus I haven't uploaded the ones I did get onto my computer yet. Here's one I snapped with photo booth on my laptop though, he had just pooped when I took it. The milestones he has already reached are pretty amazing.

-He's very alert.

-He can hold his up very well & for longer periods of time everyday.

-He looks around at everything & I think he actually has favorite things to look at, like the toys on his baby gym, the fish tank, a green kitty rattle, and me of course.

-He sometimes smiles, but he won't do it for the camera, or I'm too slow to catch them because they come and go quickly.

-He can sometimes roll from his tummy to his back.

-I don't think he knows he has feet yet.

-He makes happy little squeaky noises instead of just cranky ones.

I picked up new diapers last weekend! I got the chinese prefolds, I just started using them yesterday because it took me that long to pre-wash them in between all the other laundry loads and Judey cries. So far, so good with these, now I just need to get my order of crunchy clean in the mail.

Now the stressful...

We saw the plastic surgeon last week (I know, I'm late on updating things). She told us that the skin tags by his ear were extra cartilage & were sometimes indicative of the inner ear not forming completely & ordered a formal hearing test to check. She said we would tentatively schedule the tag removal surgery for November. She was also concerned about the wedgedness of his noggin & ordered a CT scan to see if the metopic sutures are fused. After my mum researched it, we determined that he more than likely has craniosynostosis and that's what they're scanning for. It's extremely rare, about one in 2500-3500 children get it. After looking at pictures of kids with it & then looking at Jude's head, there's no doubt in my mind that he has it. He doesn't show most of the common symptoms of it, which is a good sign that we caught it early I guess because it does inhibit brain growth. It would need to be corrected with a surgery that reforms the skull. We go in for his hearing test & CT scan tomorrow morning at children's hospital. We haven't gotten the official word on if he does or does not have this condition quite yet, but I'm bracing myself for he does just given the pointyness of his head. All of this is probably going to delay my getting a job unfortunately. I wouldn't be able to work & cope with a serious baby surgery at the same time. It would mean that his tag removal would be postponed, because there's no way he's going through multiple surgeries before he turns one.

"Don't forget, you were going to love him if he was the one in two-hundred that had Down's Syndrome. This just makes him even more special."- My mum.

A real update now. :)

2009-09-02T21:24:00.003-04:00

At Jude's pediatrician appointment last Thursday he had gained over a pound. He's going to be a little chunker butt haha.

Tomorrow we have an appointment with the plastic surgeon at children's hospital to look at his skin tags & I guess make a course of surgical action as to what to do. I'm scared about this whole surgery business. I also kind of love his little cheek nipples & don't want them to remove them, but I know if they don't he'll get super made fun of in school because children are brutally ruthless when it comes to people who are different. Poor Judey-Tuesday. :(

My grandma yelled at me for signing the waiver for the hep b vaccine at the hospital and not planning on getting it at his 2 month appointment. I just see no point in it this early. I finally ordered a copy of Dr. Sears' Vaccine Book to read & research all of the vaccines. I also threw a copy of his Baby Book into my shopping cart.

I found a pair of non-maternity pants that fit me! I should go through the rest of my clothing to see what fits. I already know most of my tops don't fit yet, and I'll kind of be upset if I end up not shrinking down a lot more to fit them because then I'll lose all of my sweet t-shirts. Oh well, I'm over it, if it happens I'll just add them to my sewing bucket and t-shirt quilt.

I started laying Jude on the floor to "play" last week. He loves looking around at everything so I lay him on a blanket on the floor with the activity gym from Ikea to look at the things on it. I'll also set toys near him to look at. He also gets some tummy time and he's getting pretty good with lifting his head, he has really strong neck muscles and fairly good head control already. It's not perfect yet, but it's good. Sometimes, not always, when he's on his tummy he can roll over to his back. No one believes it because he's so young, but I've seen it happen. I've also seen him roll in his sleep. Like one night I woke up and looked at him in his crib and he rolled onto his side, farted loudly like 5 times, then rolled back onto his back. It was one of the funniest things I've seen. Last night he was sleeping in bed with me, I know he fell asleep on his side while nursing, and I pushed him over onto his back, and when I woke up this morning he was on his tummy, with his arms folded under his head all cute and happy looking. I didn't take a picture, but I should have and am upset I didn't, it was adorable. I actually moved him to his crib from there and he was upset about it.

I think I need different cloth diapers. I love them, and I don't think prefolds & covers are a bad system at all, it's just my prefolds are crappy. It's because we got the Gerber ones and I know it. I'm also thinking it's my washing routine so I ordered some Crunchy Clean diaper detergent. Hopefully once I change the washing routine I'll be happier with them. They just don't feel soft enough and make me sad. Trial & error I guess.

I would have never thought I'd be the person I am today. Like my friend Carly asked a few months ago, "what would you have done if I told you in high school that the 2 of us would both be mothers by the time we were 21?" "I would have laughed in your face and told you you were crazy."

A week of Kayleigh & Jude. Part 1.

2009-09-02T17:27:00.003-04:00

I decided to start taking pictures of Jude & I everyday for a year with the built-in camera on my laptop. I have no life haha. But instead of posting them here everyday, I decided weekly is a better idea. They're backwards, but oh well.

7/365. 6/365. 5/365. 4/365. 3/365. 2/365. 1/365.

I've been slacking with the updates, but I'm beat so this will be short

2009-08-24T22:18:00.005-04:00

Jude had his first real bath on Sunday.

Saturday night he stayed home with my sister while I went out for my friend's bachelorette party.

He's been cranky and clingy lately, but he's still sleeping well at night. He only gets up once.

He's a goofy little thing when he's not grumpy. He likes to look around at everything. He's always trying to look behind him or above him and twists his head all funny. He also makes the most ridiculous noises. He squeaks and makes noises that sound like animals. Sometimes when he nurses he'll do silly things like lap up the milk after it flows out instead of latching on.

Today, we were laying on the couch and I was playing with him, and he latched onto my nose lol.

It's only been a few days and we've already reached milestones!

2009-08-15T19:11:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was Jude's first appointment with the pediatrician. He slept the whole time, except for when she was man-handling him, weighing him, and drawing his blood to test for jaundice. He also slept the whole night before, which was nice even though I instinctively woke up every 3 hours to check on him. He also slept while we were at the secretary of state before his appointment to renew my license, in a few short weeks I'll have my grown ups license!
Today, his cord stumpy fell off! I picked him up out of his bouncy chair to lay him down because he fell asleep and when I laid him down it just went pop right off into my hands. Since it fell off I started him on the cloth diapers (it was easier to avoid the cord with newborn 'sposies, plus we were in the hospital for so long and I had tons of free ones). He met his daddy for the first time today too. He was either cranky or sleeping the whole time and I ended up retreating to my room to nurse him the last 45 minutes he was here. I kind of felt bad, but at the same time was glad to get away because it was awkward. I hope for Jude's sake the awkwardness between us will disappear. I know it won't happen anytime soon, but hopefully it will fizzle out.
I was having troubles nursing yesterday, but I solved them today. He wasn't latching on the left side, but I figured out that it was because it was flowing faster than the right. I woke up today and my left boob was 3 times bigger than the right one and hurt and was rock hard so I decided to try pumping to fix the flow and relieve all that pain. My mum told me not to get discouraged if I pumped for 20 minutes and only got half an ounce. I came out 5 minutes later with 2 ounces. I tried to nurse him on that side again and he still wouldn't take so after I finished nursing I pumped it again and got another 2 ounces, but it took longer and was flowing slower than before. Next time I nursed him he latched onto it perfectly (yay!).. Boob: 0, Kayleigh: 1.
Yesterday was a stressful day because I got dumped (via myspace), the boob issue, and I got frustrated with Chris because he's been saying for the past few days that he was going to come visit but then at the last minute decided against it for whatever reason. My mum watched Jude last night through his fussiness so I could get some sleep, that was much needed and appreciated.
I'll upload some more pictures later, my camera cord is MIA and I need a nap.

Jude is here! And this is how...

2009-08-13T15:33:00.002-04:00

I started having contractions Friday night at 1 and they were about every 5-10 minutes apart but didn't think too much of them because I went to the doctors that afternoon and he told me my cervix was still closed and that I wasn't going into labor that weekend. I tried to sleep through them and was semi-successful, I fell asleep at 3 and they woke me up at 5:30 but I fell back asleep again until 1 pm. When I woke up I still had them and they were about every 5 minutes, but not anymore painful than the night before so I went about my day and ran some errands. I came home and napped for about 2 hours and got up and ran some more errands and was still having them. I took it easy the rest of the night with the heat pad on my back to control the pain and at about 2:30 Saturday night they got more painful and were consistently every 5 minutes. I tried to sleep through them again with no luck whatsoever but I let my mum sleep and dealt with the pain by myself by switching positions, pacing around the house and I took a shower. At 7:30 Sunday morning I lost my mucous plug and woke my mum up and told her we had to go to the hospital. We got to the hospital at 9, they checked me at 9:30 and I was completely dilated and my bag of waters was bulging but his head was a little high when they check with an ultrasound. All the nurses rushed in to get my IV's running and took me back to my delivery room. I was in a room by 10. My water started dripping on the ride back to the delivery room. All the nurses were impressed because I was still able to laugh and make jokes through all of this and they kept calling me a champ and a rock star.
The on call doctor checked me again when I got settled in the room and my water broke completely while she was checking me. My cervix retracted to a 7 and he was too high up to deliver. Since he was so high up they were concerned about the umbilical cord and put a monitor on his head and his heart rate dropped, they called the anesthesiologist in because they were secretly plotting to take me into an emergency c section right then because they thought the cord collapsed but then his heart rate went back to normal. Not only was he too high up, but also over to the right. They wouldn't let me move from the bed though because they were concerned about the cord falling out before he did so they had me labor in different positions that might have moved him in the bed. They also put a binder around my stomach to try to push him and gave me pitocin to increase my contractions to try to get those to move him. They checked a few times and he still hadn't moved.
At 2 I decided to get an epidural even though I wanted to go completely natural, I got it because I wasn't allowed to move to control my pain, because the pitocin was making the contractions come super fast, and ultimately because I hadn't slept at all and was exhausted and knew I needed some rest before it came time to push. They got that in at 2:30. While they were putting it in my heart rate sky rocketed and they were baffled because the baby wasn't effected by it, I had a high heart rate problem the last 3 weeks of my pregnancy too that was solved a week and a half prior to labor. Not too much later my blood pressure dropped and they were baffled again because the baby still wasn't effected by it and I wasn't showing symptoms of either.
I got checked again at 4pm and he still hadn't moved so the doctor decided at 4:30 that I needed a c section because I had been laboring so long, was completely dilated and still wasn't making any progress. She thought that the baby was possibly too big and stuck to deliver vaginally. They got me into the OR at 5. It was freaky because I was numb and couldn't move anything, it's the only time during the whole labor process that I freaked out, but my mum was by my side the whole time holding my hand and keeping me calm. They pulled him out at 5:31pm and his first cry sounded like a cat. I cried when I heard his first because I was so happy and relieved, I also laughed and told my mum he sounded like a cat and asked if he was cute. The time it took for them to run their tests on him and show him to me felt like it took much longer than the 40 hours of labor. As soon as my mum put him next to my head and I saw him he started looking for the nipple and making sucking motions. She also said the whole time they were doing their stuff he was looking around for me. They put him on me and let me hold him on the ride back to the recovery room and helped me breast feed him as soon as we got into the recovery room and he latched on immediately. I love him more than I ever thought I could or would. He weighed 7 lbs, 13 oz, and was 21.5 inches long. He has a few skin tags by each ear and one on each cheek.

Pictures!
Pre-op:

Post-op:

Random cuteness:

Baby shower pictures, finally.

2009-08-01T03:03:00.004-04:00

I finally have a bunch of baby shower pictures from 3 different sources.
I decided to give shutterfly a try and made a photo sharing website.
You can find them all there, plus I'll keep it updated with Jude's pictures when he comes and grows. I'll also occasionally post photo's here, but I figured, why not try this shutterfly thing out, haha.
For your blogger viewing pleasure, here's the last ultrasound pictures from the other week:

They're not very exciting because he's all cramped in there.

Week 38 doctors appointment.

2009-08-01T01:04:00.004-04:00

Still no dilation but the cervix is getting softer.
I need to get off my butt and walk. I also bought some raspberry leaf tea last time I was at the grocery store. I'm ready to get this ball rolling and really don't want to go overdue.
Kelsey & my doctor gave me restrictions as to when I can't go into labor. Kelsey said not until Sunday or later because she's moving back to BG tomorrow and will hopefully be able to make it up here. My doctor said not Thursday-Sunday because he has a long weekend vacation.
I finally do feel ready for this to happen. I feel like I've got it all under control and I'm prepared for him stuff-wise and mentally(mostly). I've been trying to remain kind of cocky and nonchalant about the whole thing, especially when people constantly tell me it's going to suck. I just reply with "nah, it won't be that bad, I can handle it" or I think it just to stay positive. I need to get out of my pessimistic thinking, it's no good and it gets me nowhere. Hearing everyone tell me I don't know what's in store and that I can't handle it gets rather dull and annoying, why can't they just help me stay optimistic? jeez.
My bumkins covers came in the mail today! I finally have all my cloth diapering supplies for the first few months. I just need to wash the new covers and extra prefolds that I bought the other night and I'm golden. I feel the need to list everything I have for him just to be sure that I am truly as prepared as I think I am, or find a checklist online and check everything off. Maybe Jude is the best thing that has happened to me and I will get my life in order. I've already made so many changes and sacrifices for the better, why not keep going? Wooo, optimism!
I talked to Chris today for the first time in like 2 months. He said he stopped talking to me because he felt I was unreasonable and impossible to discuss Jude's life and custody issues with merely because I pointed out the laws on the matter to him. Hopefully this time around we can work something out and be civil and cooperate. That was something I told him tonight, that I had plans and everything set and ready to go and that my plans for raising him cannot be changed and that he'd have to mega-cooperate with me if he wanted to be involved. We didn't get into any details, but it will come in due time. I also told him that there will be no joint custody to start off because it's something I feel needs to be worked towards. If we can't cooperate and he can't accomodate to the raising/lifestyle plans I have with a visitation type dealio than I'm not going to feel comfortable or be willing to do joint custody. I was trying my hardest not to be bitchy while I was talking to him. I was with Mike and read him everything that was said and that I replied with to ensure that it wasn't bitchy too.
I want a video camera for when Jude's here so I can make embarassing home videos and record all (or at least most) of his milestones.

Cardiologist appt & ER fun.

2009-07-30T22:13:00.001-04:00

I was in the ER until midnight last night.
I saw a cardiologist yesterday afternoon because my heart rate has been rapid for the past few weeks and he sent me to the ER to get an IV of medication to slow my heart rate down. I was alone & didn't want to go to the ER alone so I called my mum and went to my grandma's house to wait for her. I was hungry and my grandma wouldn't let me eat because of fear of what the medication would do to me on a full stomach and my mum was all "they're going to say "let's have a baby"" and freaking me out more than necessary.
As soon as I set foot in the ER everyone swarmed around me and badgered me with questions even though I told them my cardiologist called down there and sent me. "How far are you? Any abdominal or back pain?" I was like "Um, no. My cardiologist called you guys and sent me here and I've had back pain since before I was pregnant." Then they shipped me up to L&D for no real reason where they performed a non-stress test to check on the baby and took me back down to the ER. Then they took an EKG and hooked me up to the monitors and took blood (which I don't know why the cardiologist didn't do in the first place) and did a vasovagal massage. After waiting around in a hospital bed for an hour plus they came back and said my heart was misfiring because my electrolytes, potassium, & magnesium levels were low. So then they gave me 3 huge potassium pills & hooked me up to an IV of magnesium and electrolytes. The magnesium bag was supposed to take an hour but after 55 minutes they realized that they had the other, larger bag dripping into me instead so I had to sit there an extra hour. They sent me home around 11pm with a prescription for magnesium & potassium supplements.
I was angry though because seriously, I could've fixed the problem myself in much less time by giving myself a neck rub & drinking some Gatorade.

Another doctor update and other things.

2009-07-26T22:15:00.003-04:00

Everything's measuring perfect still. Jude's still locked & loaded, but still no dilation. I had a final ultrasound to determine his size, he's 6 pounds & 10 ounces already. I may or may not post the pictures, they're kind of boring because he's so big and in the proper position. I just have some of his spine, top of the head, and his giant scrotum, seriously, it's huge, I may scan and post the pictures just because of that, lol. My OB is having me go to a cardiologist because of the rapid heart rate. I hope it's nothing too serious to the point where they have to induce me, that would suck.

I can't believe I'm term! I'm kind of ready to kick him out, but not ready for him to come all at the same time. I think it's just my nerves/anxiety. I just have to constantly remind myself and make others remind me that I can do this and that I'll be excellent at it. Cockiness has kept me positive through this, not going to lie.

I think I have everything ready for him, I just need to finish organizing it and everything. I have all my cloth diapers, newborn diaper covers, snappi's, butt cream, baby bath stuff, clothes, small diaper covers coming in the week, doublers, wipes, disposable diapers for the 1st few days (because of the icky first poops, and because they were given to me by several people), organic laundry detergent, organic fragrance free laundry detergent for the diapers, organic dish soap, all his laundry is done, the bottles & pacifiers (which I may or may not use) are washed, my hospital bag is packed, my diaper bag is packed, the crib is made, and the carseat is in the car.
All that's left that needs to be done is a laundry basket of laundry needs to be put away, all the pictures & decorations need to be hung, and a few more things need to be organized. The die has been cast and my decisions made: no epidural (I hate the thought of a needle in my spinal cord), and no circumcision (it's an unneccesary psychologically & physically harming procedure, plus it's not my penis to make that kind of decision about).

Part of me is wishing Chris would call or message, but part of me is glad he's gone and hopes it stays that way. The part of me that wants to hear from him is brought upon by hearing gossip from Mike about how Tom thinks Chris isn't in the wrong and how Tom yelled at Mike about something regarding the matter. Which I think is stupid of Tom, if he's going to talk to or yell at anyone about that, it should be me, not Mike. Fucking drama. Fucking assholes. I miss my friends until I realize that they are all giant tools.

My last doctor's appointment.

2009-07-22T00:44:00.002-04:00

It was last week. I've been failing at updating, sorry, I've been busy trying not to stress out and get everything done before Jude gets here. I've been nesting like a crazy woman for the past week or two, and no matter what I always find more that needs to be done, it feels never ending.
Anyway, on to the point. Last weeks doctor appointment. I'm going to Tarantino this a bit, just a warning. Will went with me. I wasn't dilated yet, but Jude is head down and pretty much locked & loaded ready to go. Everything's measuring peachy like always. I did get my results from the group b strep test though. I'm one of the 20% that has it and get to be hooked up to an IV of antibiotics when I'm in labor. woohoo. :|
I mentioned that he had been moving a bit less/slower the day or two before that which I had associated to me being more active from shopping and cleaning like crazy and/or him running out of room. My doctor seemed concerned and had me go to the hospital for a non-stress test. So my anxiety kicked in a little on the way to the hospital, which is out near my grandma's house about 30-45 minutes away from home (quite a drive), and I was glad to have Will with me to keep me from having a full-blown panic attack about it.
We get to the hospital. They check me in and hook me up to the monitors immediately and then they take my vitals. My pulse was outrageously high and they kept checking and re-checking it. It was up in the 140-150's on average. They were puzzled by it. I was trying to stay calm. They said I could be dehydrated, and I told them that's impossible because I drank like 3-4 bottles of water before I went there and I drink like 10 a day. So they got me a giant cup of ice water & kept checking my pulse intermittenly. One nurse said she got a normal reading, another said she got a high reading. I was eventually let go. They told me to bring it to my doctor's attention at my next appointment, which is tomorrow. I've been randomly checking my pulse for the past week just to see if it's still high or not, and it's been up in the 130-140 area sometimes. It's strange, I've never had any problems like this, and my blood pressure is always textbook perfect. I'm hoping it's not too big of a deal and that it won't cause any harm to Jude or cause me to be induced super-early. His heartbeat is good and was good when I was being monitored at the hosptial.
I also had a few small contractions when I was hooked up to the monitor at the hospital, no major ones though, but you could see them on the monitor.

Then I came home. . .
I had called my dad to tell him I was going when I left my doctor's and he asked if he should call my mum or grandma or meet me at the hospital or anything and I told him not to bother because it was just a little test, nothing serious and that Will was with me. He got all pissy at me on the phone about how he shouldn't have been with me and crap and that made my anxiety about the whole thing a bit worse. I called my mum when I left the hospital, and she was overly concerned and "why didn't you call me, I would've left work to take care of you" and I told her it wasn't a big deal and that I didn't need taking care of. Then I was driving home and got a text from my dad after I got off the phone with my mum asking "what's going on?" and I got all snappy and then realized he had sent it 2 hours prior. Then, as he usually does, he sent me a text when I was literally 2 miles away from home asking if I was coming home and I got snappy again because I had just told my mother I was on my way home when I talked to her and it's not like it's a short drive from the hospital.
I get home. I tell my mum what had happened at my appointment and the hospital and my dad only half-listened so I had to re-cap it all for him right after explaining all of it. The worst part that made me angry at first was when I told them about the GBS stuff because they both asked "Who'd you get that from?" I had to explain twice in the span of 5 minutes that it's not an STD and that it was just a bacterial infection a certain amount of people have. After I re-explained it to my father he asked again who I got it from and I got angry.
Then he started badgering me about my relationship with Will because he doesn't approve and he was being an ass about it even though I had just had a stressful day and was worried already about everything else. I got angry and slammed my laptop shut and threw it down and tried to leave, but my mum wouldn't let me. Then she verbally bitch slapped him for being out of line while I cried in my room. Her and I went to Target after that because I had a gift card from my shower and needed a few random baby things. We got home and my dad was still sulky and asshole-like so I grabbed my computer and sat at the table instead of the couch because that's where he was and my mum sat out in the backyard. He went out there and started throwing a tantrum to my mum about Will & I and she told him straight up that he was behaving innapropriately and throwing a temper tantrum and he claimed he wasn't. Then he came inside and started asking me the same questions he had asked me 50 times before and that I had answered already and I told him I didn't feel the need to answer because I had answered 50 times before and because he was throwing a tantrum.
He continued acting like a child and continued being pissy and started making sarcastic asshole comments. I was getting frustrated with him and I was getting angry and he called me out on it after I called him out on his tantrum throwing but I explained to him why I was angry and he was still being pissy and in my face about it. Then him and my mum left to get my sister, which gave me some time to cool down, but not really.

What bothers me the most is the fact that he did that after I had a shitty day and knew it and knew I was already stressed out. I was talking to Zak about it on Thursday or Friday and we both came to the conclusion that it's amazing that I haven't miscarried because of all the stress I've been under during this pregnancy.
Only 23 more days until my due date. It's mind-boggling that I've made it this far.
I get another ultrasound tomorrow. I'll try not to fail at updating with that. I'm already upset about tomorrow, but I'll post about it after tomorrow, I've been rambling/ranting too long already.