Happy Holidays!

One Year Later: Adam's Perspective

One thing I will always give Adam credit for is how well he handled everything surrounding my surgery a year ago. From the minute he found out about it, he was supportive. He said it was even a little bit of a relief to know it's all over with. No more worries about abnormal cell growth, bleeding, and hormones. He was completely fine with the surgery closing any chance he ever had at having a biological child. He was already excited to be a father through adoption.

I had no idea until months later how scared he was during that time.

I started getting clues from a few things he said in the summer. He would say things like just thinking of  Christmas time made him feel sick. That he pictured me in the hospital everytime he thought about Christmas.

Then at Halloween, I took something out of our Halloween box and it had a post-it note on it. You may remember that before my surgery last year I wrote post-it notes on things in case I died (I know, morbid.) or I was too sick to tell people about their presents. I often get Adam Halloween things for Christmas because he loves Halloween so much. It went right into our Halloween box and it still had the post-it note. Finding it was hilarious to me. When I showed it to Adam, I was laughing, but he looked so serious. He said it wasn't funny.

Even getting Christmas decorations out a few weeks ago reminded him of everything we went through last year.

I will admit last Christmas is a complete haze to me. I found presents months later that I had no memory of opening. When I saw the ornament box this year I was confused about where some things were and why I would have put it away like that. Then I realized that for the first time ever I wasn't the one who put everything away.

Now that we have all the decoration up and have started to make new Christmas memories, I think it has helped Adam take his mind off of last year. Now it seems to be all about Jayden's first Christmas.

Sometimes I forget Adam is more sensitive than he seems. From the outside he is a 6'6" football player. On the inside he is someone who went through a lot last year and had to remain strong for me.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Exactly a year ago at this time I was in the hospital after my hysterectomy.

I had planned on writing a whole post about how much can change in one year. I have been thinking about it all day. It's overwhelming to think about. I wish I could go back to exactly a year ago and tell myself it will all be okay.

But, between having a sick baby and getting ready for Christmas, I am exhausted and have no time to write the post I had planned. I hope to come back to this at some point.

(Jayden is okay. He has bronchiolitis, which is basically just a cold for most people. But with babies under 6 months it can be more serious. He went to the doctor Friday night and then they had us come back to be checked on Saturday. In that time his lungs sounded worse so they did a breathing treatment and it helped. They sent us home with the machine to do it here every 4 hours. He is getting better a little at a time.)

I do want to say that blogging has been an essential tool in my recovery. It really helped me explore my feelings and come to terms with my surgery. Thank you all so much for being a part of that. I can honestly say your support made a difference.

3 months

Birth:

One Month:

Two Months:

Three Months:

On December 11, Jayden turned 3 months old.

We weighed him at my Aunt's house that day and he was somewhere between 11 1/2-12 lbs with clothes and a cloth diaper on.

It's safe to say we have colic behind us and he is a very happy baby. Lots of smiles and baby babble.

For the most part, he is sleeping through the night from around 10 or 11 PM  to 5 or 6 AM.

He notices the things around him more than he used to. He loves the Christmas tree. If he notices something is different, he thinks it is funny. Like if I have a towel on my head after a shower, that is very funny to him. I have bright colored pajamas that make him laugh too.

He loves to put his hands in his mouth!

He loves his playmat!

He rolled over on 11/28! We thought it was just a fluke, but then he did it 3 more times the same night. My Mom came over a week later and said she wanted to see him do it. I said he hadn't done it since the first day so he probably would not do it. But, she put him down, and he rolled over right away!

He loves his Bumbo seat.

We are really looking forward to Christmas. Adam and I both took some time off, which we have never done before. Adam took the whole week after Christmas off and I am only working Wednesday and Thursday. The best thing of all is that my sister, brother in law, brother, and sister in law are all coming home from Christmas Eve until New Years. We are going to have the best time.

Our First Couple Weeks of Cloth Diapering

Thank you for all the advice on my last cloth diaper post! You were all a huge help!!

The rest of our supplies arrived and we began cloth diapering about two and a half weeks ago.

It's going very well. Suprisingly well.

Last night Adam and I were talking about how it's really not as bad as we thought it would be. He was making me laugh as he was doing impressions of different people's reactions to us saying we were planning on doing cloth diapering. It was like we had told them we planned on swimming with sharks.

My mom always supported us in it and kept reassuring me it was not a big deal and she did it for me and my sister and brother when we were babies. And back then they didn't have all the cool stuff we have now like diaper sprayers and all in one diapers. I am so glad we listened to her and did it. 

I have a low tolerance for gross stuff. I am the kind of person who gags when cleaning up cat throw up. I really worried that I didn't have the stomach for this, but it's really not bothering me at all.

The diaper sprayer is a must have. I read a few reviews that made me nervous, but it was very easy to install and we have had no problems with it. And it makes the poopy diapers so easy to clean. We love it.

We're using mostly BumGenius diapers. We also have a few FuzziBunz. I highly recommend both of them. They're great. So easy to use and no problems with leaking.

We're using Rocking Green detergent and it seems to be working well. We also bought thirsties pre-wash. We haven't used it yet, but I figured we would use it on really dirty loads.

I stuff the inserts in the diapers all at once after bringing them up from the wash. That way they are ready to go when I need them. I put all the stuffed diapers in a diaper stacker next to the changing table. We use a diaper pail and liner from Cotton Babies and that is next to the changing table too.

We decided to use a wipe warmer for the cloth wipes. It takes a long time for water coming from our faucet to warm up, especially in the winter, so we thought it would be too much of a hassle to do it that way. It's much easier to have the wipes ready to go. I make a batch of the wipes solution, dunk the wipes in it, then roll each wipe and stack them in the wipe warmer. It's lasts a few days. I wash the wipes right with his diapers. He has had no issues with diaper rash since we stopped using disposable wipes. He used to scream when he got his diaper change, now he smiles when we use the warm wipes on him. He loves it.

If anyone out there has been considering switching to cloth, I encourage you to try it. I am so happy we did.

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful...

The snow adds more work to the morning routine around here. It's no easy task to get a group of kids ready for school in the morning. But, we've been doing it a couple years and we have a good routine.

All hats, gloves, scarves, etc go into the sleeves of their coats so they don't get lost or mixed up. When it's time to get ready for buses, everyone puts on their coats, hats, scarves, and book bags in the living room. I go around and tie scarves for kids who need it. Or I match them up with scarf buddies. Next they get their boots from the shoe mat and put them on by the side door. Gloves go on last. When they are done with everything, they head out to the driveway and get in line. I'm always the last one out the door and then we head to the bus stop. (Which is also no easy thing since sidewalks are almost never plowed.)

You have to leave extra time in the morning on snowy days, but our system works. Routines and structure are the only way to have smooth mornings. (Our breakfast routine is a thing of beauty.)

This year everything changed. A baby was added into the mix. Now not only do I need to get all the kids ready, and myself, I also have to bundle Jayden up. I put him in a couple layers of clothes, then add a jacket. He wears socks plus warm booties. Then gloves and a hat. Then a snowsuit over all of that. All that work for about ten minutes total of being outside.

As you can see from the picture, he is not bothered by it all. He slept through the entire trip to the bus stop this morning.

Now the only thing I need to figure out is how to keep up with shoveling the driveway. I used to always shovel it before the kids came back in the afternoon but now I obviously can't do that since I have to be in the house with Jayden. At night Adam shovels it by himself, which I feel bad about. We used to go out together and it would be so much faster. The two things we can't seem to keep up with around here are laundry and snow.

Giant Leap into 2010

Up until about a week ago, this was our television. Seriously.

It was a hand me down that we got when we lived in our apartment 9 years ago. (The TV itself is obviously from the 80's.) We told ourselves it was free so we would just use it a couple years and then get a new one. Well, as time went by we kept saying that we could not justify spending the money when we had a working television. We decided to just use it until it died. It survived three moves and many years. It kept going strong. One time a cable guy came and laughed out loud when he saw it.

As Black Friday approached this year it was all over the news that some of the biggest sales would be on televisions. We knew it's only a matter of time until our TV would just finally give up so we thought this might be a good time to make the switch.

In the left of the picture, in front of the fireplace, you can see the new TV stand we bought and put together last weekend. I don't have a final picture because today we are in the process of moving everything around to make room for the Christmas tree.

But, we have officially made a giant leap into 2010 and have a new TV.

Who knew it would be so complicated? Apparently our old TiVo didn't work with it because our TV was HD and our TiVo was not. Then a cable guy had to come put a cable card in. Then they mailed us a tuner we had to hook up. We also needed a TV stand because we obviously never had one before. It ended up being a way bigger deal than I thought. But, wow. It looks amazing.

Adam refuses to get a cell phone and still uses pay phones if he's out and needs to use a phone, but one step at a time.