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

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!!!

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.

Countdown!

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. 

Birthday Party brain vomit

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

7 months!

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.

Jude is here! And this is how...

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: