big boy

After many weeks of trying and trying, Dexter finally pulled himself up today. Oh it makes this Momma so proud! He is a hefty boy at 25 lbs so gaining the arm strength to do that was tough stuff! I'll bet even still he'll have a few problems with it but he did finally do it all by himself. I was in the bathroom getting his bath ready and he doesn't enjoy it when he's not in my arms so he was fussing and trying to get at me. I tried to get him up once and he did it with my help so I put him back on the floor and then he pulled himself up all on his own :) Now walking is just a hop, skip and a stride away... my how time flies.

early morning kisses

Dex has taken to waking up at 6 am. Not my cup of tea. He was on a beautiful schedule of 8pm bedtime to 7-730am wake up time but now he's starting to transition down to one nap. Now it's bedtime of 7-8pm and I guess wake up time of 6am. That is tough.

So this morning I tried to get him to play with some toys in his crib for a bit but that didn't work so I brought him into bed with us even though I knew he wouldn't let me sleep. Usually he likes to poke you in the face and grab and your cheeks as he is very fascinated with the face and all its features. This morning though he just wanted to get a kiss or give Momma a kiss every 15-30 seconds He'd offer his lips if he wanted to give me a kiss otherwise he'd offer his cheek, or forehead or ear or chin if he wanted a kiss. I guess if I have to stay awake kisses are a nice prize right? My sweet, sweet boy.

Dexter- One year

My baby boy is a year old now. I had a very sentimental week thus far and I don't want to dwell on it as I am not usually such a tear up type of gal. It seems post baby my tear glands work much better than before. Not a post baby quality I enjoy.

Dex had his 1 year check up today. He was 24 lbs 8 oz which I guess is the 90th percentile. I was surprised he didn't weigh more. Seriously. A lot of you (most of you) have lifted the child and he does not FEEL like he weighs only 24.5 lbs. Especially if you consider how much the child eats which is comparable to a small adult. He was 3o inches long (75 percentile) and his head circumference was also in the 75 percentile. Over all a very healthy baby boy :) He took his shots like a champ, only crying while they were happening. Happy again when I picked him up. Very upset when I set him down again but who's counting.

As we were walking into our appointment and as we were leaving I was remembering that a year ago today we left the hospital and had our first day at home with Dexter. I was really terrified. And now look what I have. The most amazing thing I have ever created. One year ago.

Whew, finally an update!

So I have quite obviously been MIA for a while now. It seems like summertime slows down everyone’s blogs. It’s a busy time! Especially for my little famdam this year. I’ll do what my sister looooves to do and use bullet points.
*My close, close friends Josh and Lynsie (aka Sushi and Loincloth) got married in August. How lucky am I to have two such good friends find love together and get married. The wedding was beautiful and Max and I even got all spiffed up to stand up with them at the front. The reception was a lot of fun. Alcoholic beverages were drunk by all (except Max who does not drink) and I had enough for the both of us, enough to sing in front of 150ish people. Awesome. We all danced the night away (especially Rachel, haha) and had a great time celebrating these two people we love so much!

Here we are all dressed up.

*Their wedding was also my first night away from Dexter. I was quite sad not to come home and look in on him sleeping in his crib.
*I’ve been really trying to get my photography going. I want to be able to stay home with Dexter and baby #2 when s/he comes along someday (no, not pregnant now) and I will need to supplement my income somehow so I plan on doing the photography and having a daycare. So my “spare” time has been trying to get my name out there and working on the business end of things. Who knew there was so much to do and so much social networking to communicate with! It usually takes a couple years to really establish yourself so I’m hoping all this hard work this year will pay off next year with much more business. ***Shout out! I’m on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jess-Arco-Photography/129784967115002 Come “Like” me! ***
*We got a kitty. Max hates cats and is allergic but we live in a farmhouse and with a farmhouse comes mice. Yuck. Previous years kills have come from mouse traps but with Mr. Dexter crawling all over the place, I don’t want mouse traps out. Max only agreed to an outside cat but I was hoping to just squeeze her in as an inside cat but unfortunately it appears that I am also allergic to cats. Who knew?! I have never had one before. Both our allergies should subside once we get her outside. Her name is Ivey. We have had her upstairs for the last week and a half and last night I moved her down the basement to adjust to the cooler weather. She’ll stay down there for another week or so and then we’ll move her outside. Hopefully my hands and feet can survive this rash that she gives me. It’s too bad. She’s such a good kitten and is very loveable. She is so good with Dexter. He really reams on her and pulls her legs/tail but she just puts up with it. I almost feel like we should give her to someone that wants an inside cat and get a kitten that hates people. That would work great for us.
*My other bestie JW is getting married on Friday. I am very excited for her and I’m happy that she loves me so much to make me maid of honor. I hope that my speech is up to her expectations ;) We have been preparing for so long to make her big day special and I know she’s stressed but the wedding will turn out beautiful. All the details she has though of are so very cute. After this wedding all my Monday friends will be married and then baby making time will begin!
*Max got a new job up at the hospital that he started at the beginning of August. You have NO IDEA how nice it is for him to have a job that is sort of in his field and he is NOT ALLERGIC TO! The rash on his hands is just about all gone (he was allergic to the oil in the concrete which is hard to get away from when you work at a concrete factory) and he is feeling much better. He doesn’t have to shower when he gets home from work and I don’t get nasty concrete dust all over everything. We both are so happy that he got this job. Thanks Rachel for telling him about it! He also works the same hours that I do so we are able to carpool every day and that saves a lot of money!
*Max and I carpool to work every day. The positive listed above. The negative being the car rides were my only “me” time for the whole day. It’s been really hard trying to find that time to myself. I always used to switch off between calling my mom or my sister or just sitting in the car in silence. Now rarely get to do any of the above. I’m definitely not complaining because it really saves us a lot of money to be able to drive together and previously we never got to spend together so now we are spending ALL our time together but you know how important that “me” time is. Plus I think my sister and my mom are feeling the effects of it as well since they don’t get to talk to me as much anymore.
*My son is almost ONE! How the devil did one year go by so fast? I’ve been busy trying to make preparations for his party. I know it seems a bit early but if I don’t do it now I will procrastinate and I really want this to be a good party for him. Even though technically he won’t even remember it. Either way, it is a celebration for everyone that we have had sweet, sweet Dexter in our lives for a year. Max’s family is so large that I had to find an alternate place to host the party since everyone wouldn’t fit in our house (and FYI we don’t have a small house). We were able to reserve a building at a park for free and there are enough picnic tables for all! Now we just have to hope for good weather and I’m sure everything else will fall together just fine.
I think that is enough updating for one day. If this blog gets any longer I will lose the few people I have as readers!

Disposable vs. Cloth

Max and I decided to make the switch from disposable diapers to cloth. Why do you ask? Well, for one, we are super cheap. We had that diaper poker party before Dexter was born and those diapers (plus maybe a box or two of newborns) lasted us until he was 6 months old. Impressive, I know! But then we started having to buy them and after 3 months, we had it. While Max doesn’t think they are expensive, I sure do!
Our daycare gal, Holly uses cloth diapers and at first I wanted nothing to do with it but then after some research and cost analysis I decided to go for it. She loves them so why wouldn't I? Our preferences for cost efficiency have mirrored each other with the exclusive breastfeeding and the homemade baby food so I'm sure this would be the same. It’s also handy that she does cloth diaper because a lot of day cares don’t accept them.
There really are a lot of different types and a lot of information to go off of but I decided to get a 12 pk of Bum Genius 4.0 pocket diapers and a 6 pk of Charlie Banana pocket diapers. I decided to get the pocket diapers because I wanted to have more control over the absorbency of Dex’s diapers. Also, this way, if he has a little pee, we only have to change an insert as the cover was not affected.
We also purchased a large and medium wet/dry bag to store the dirty ones in and some extra booster inserts. In its entirety cloth diapers are no cheap purchase. I think our bill all together for what we got was around $390 but if you take into consideration how much you spend in disposables, we will more then make it up in the time that Dexter is in diapers and they will last for #2 as well.
I started using them on Saturday so we are still pretty fresh but I think I like them! As well as you can like diapers but I definitely don’t dislike them. The pee diaps are a piece of cake. The poo diaps, well, we still need to figure out a system to get the poo from diaper to toilet but we’ll figure it out. Dex is super cute in them and I love the idea of not having to buy another diaper! We’ll have to get some more inserts it appears but I think 18 diapers “covers” is plenty. You do laundry every other day. All you do is a rinse in cold water to get the junk off and then wash in hot water and another hot rinse and dry in the sun. Easy peasy. A lot come in fun colors and prints now too. I can see how some mom’s get really into buying them. I have noticed that we will have to get some more regular inserts. We have 12 for the Bum Genius and lots of boosters but I'm thinking that's not going to cut it.
And now for photo examples:

You line dry them. The sun bleaches out any stains. You can use the dryer for the inserts but might as well line dry them while it's nice and sunny out!

Some of our stash. The Bum Genius are on the left, Charlie Banana on the right. Bum Genius it the most popular brand it seems. I've heard the Charlie Banana are better for newborns since there is an extra snap for sizing. The Charlie Banana are also very soft on the inside. Feels quite nice :)

The outside of a Bum Genius. I'm not sure why blogger wouldn't let the picture be the correct way but oh well. You still get the picture. All the snaps are so you can size them from newborn to potty training time. The one diaper should fit the entire way.

The inside sans an insert. We bought pocket diapers so you can tuck the insert inside the diaper by the flap on top but we like to just lay the insert along the top so we can use the cover again if possible.

All of the inserts.

The wet/dry bag where the dirty ones go. Holds in the smell just as well as a Diaper Genie. You can just stick them in the wash right with the diapers. This is our medium as our large one was on the line with the diapers!

And here is my happy, chunky monkey modeling his diapers. It doesn't seem like he's noticed a thing. I guess as long as he can get out what needs out he doesn't care! I have noticed though that some brands of clothing won't accommodate the extra padding so you'd have to go up a size. Carter's for example. Dex was just about out of the 12 month clothes and now with the cloth there's no way they'd fit.

best cousins forever :)

Dexter is blessed to have such a large family and so many cousins to play with. It makes me so happy to see him playing with them and makes my heart swell so much. You know the feeling if you have kids, I know you do. And if you don't have kids, you will know exactly what I'm talking about once you do.

Seeing my sister's son and my son play together all day today was just heartwarming. I hope they realize how lucky they are to have each other and I hope they grow to be best buds :)

Here they are in the dinky fort that I made for them. Someday they will be making awesome forts and no mom's will be allowed.

And bath time. Need I say more about how cute these boys are together!?

plummer alert

I swear, babies can pull off anything. Even a plummers crack. AND they make it soooo cute!

redheads?

I think we Jewell's have a surprise redhead gene in the family pool... don't ya think?!

early bird special

I was hoping that since this was the weekend and our alarms wouldn't wake Dexter up that I would be able to sleep in today. 630 maybe even 7!

5 am. Waaahaaaahahahaha.... dadadadadadad....Waaaaahahahahaha.
505am throw some toys in the crib
520am waaahahahahahahaha....dadadadada....mmmmmhmmmmdadaddwahhhhhhhh
530am bring Dexter into bed with us. give him the remote and the fan controller. lay back down.
531am hahahaha...dadadadada, mmmmhmmmmm (as he is yanking my hair)
535am we get out of bed.

I change his diap, give him his vitamins and we head downstairs and I put him on the boob.

602am fast asleep attached to the boob.

He must have wanted the early bird special. I would have preferred brunch.

drying up... literally

My sweet chunky little stinkbutt won't drink. He'll drink enough to get by, the morning being the best time but seriously, he won't drink. It's as if he is saying that he doesn't have enough time for the boob or for bottles. It's actually making me a little worried but his 9 month appt is just around the corner so I'll ask for some suggestions there.
The thing is, it's making me dry up. Yesterday I fed him in the morning right when he woke up and then pumped at 530. THAT'S IT! And I'm ok with the idea of not breastfeeding anymore. Technically my BF experience has been 20% BF and 80% pumping with working full time so that close bonding business only happens in the morning... AND I have about 2 months worth of milk in the freezer (I'm not kidding either) but (and this is going to sound strange) I just don't know how to be a mother without breastfeeding. I know it sounds ridiculous because Dex needs me for so much more then milk but my whole last 8 months have revolved around my boobs and nursing and pumping and yada yada yada. I'm not sure how to work this motherhood thing without it. I almost feel like I'm not as needed anymore. It makes me kind of sad.
My baby is growing up and I have to grow up with him. Do I wish that he would continue nursing more fully until he was a year? Yes. Did I plan on nursing for a year? Yes. Do I enjoy the fact that my kid doesn't like to drink because it's a waste of his time? No. Will I just have to deal with it? Yes. *Sigh... this mothering thing is an emotional roller coaster.

takeover

I knew that having a baby meant having a lot of baby stuff around and I was prepared for it. All the toys, the furniture, the laundry, etc. I was not prepared to give up our freezer to the little fella. Max and I have the right 1/4 of the fridge, Dexter has the rest :) Greedy little bugger, good thing he's not a bed hog.

Can't wait

I’m about 90% sure we get to move back home on Saturday. The construction part of the remodel was finished on Monday and they are mudding and taping as we speak and should be finished by this weekend.

I am so ready to go home. It was been wonderful staying with my mommasita, the best place we could have gone for this transition but 2 weeks is a long time and I miss my things. I miss having all our food and all my clothes and I have so much to do for Dexter. I miss my Clydeypants! He has been staying with our friends Josh and Lynsie this whole time and we are so grateful. That was one thing mom said was absolutely no Clyde. He has been having a good time over there with their dog Sasha who matches him for size, finally a friend that will actually tucker him out rather than all these small dogs.

I my house to be clean and I can’t wait to arrange my furniture in their new spots. I can’t wait to move into our new room which is about twice the size of our old room. I can’t wait to have a shorter drive to work. I can’t wait for Dexter to be comfortable at night again and hopefully improve on his sleeping through the night.

Yes, oh yes, I’m ready to go home.

daycare blues

I dropped off my beloved son at daycare this morning. I knew it would be hard but man oh man was it really hard. I’m not a crier and I barely made it out to the car before tears came out. For some reason I felt really weird crying in front of the other daycare kids so I had to hold it in. Don’t want those little kiddos thinking I’m a big baby or anything.

I called her at 930 to see how things were going and I just text her now to check on him. Things are going well. That’s all I can ask for. I can’t wait to be done for the day and go pick up my munchkin and see how he did in detail.

Today just solidified my want to stay at home and have a daycare. Ideally I would just stay home with my children but I don’t think financially that will ever fly so I’d be happy to watch other kiddos so I can have the opportunity to spend the day with my babies.

Curious behavior

As my boy is getting older and still being exclusively breastfed, I'm noting some funny behavior from him. I always have him in the bouncer when I shower so it's a little weird when my son stares at my chest when I get in the shower. Obviously he's staring for different reasons then say, his father does but still. Men and boobs. Starts early.
Also, he gets super impatient waiting for me to attach him so he's starting to pull at my bra before I can even get it down for him to eat. Impatient little bugger.
He's only 5 months old, come 6 months he's going to be lifting up my shirt and asking for more!

that's exactly what I meant

Even though we weren't looking the greatest, I wanted to take some pictures together.

J: Can you try to NOT look like a serial killer Max?
M: Ok, I'm just really tired.

J: Yep, that fixed it.

Daycare blues

I just had a very hard lunch. I started making calls for daycare availability. If the thought of having my Dexter in daycare made me want to vomit before, I am just crushed by the thought of it now. I so so so wish that I could just stay home and be with him. It is just not a possibility at this point.
I didn't realize that finding a spot for an infant would be more difficult than any other child but I did manage to find one lady with an opening near our house. I really hope we like her and that it works out. I got her number from a gal that used to work with me. She had her kids there for 4 years I think before she had to move them.
Luckily for us, Angel is willing to watch Dexter one day a week and I'm hoping I can figure something out for one more day so that he will only have to be there for 3 days a week. That definitely helps us out financially but also then I'll know Dex is with family.
I love my son so much, I just really want to find a comfortable fit for us all. I knew this would be really hard but I had no idea how hard. Poo.

FYI

I may look cute as pie and have the most kissable cheeks around but I'm warning you... this is the look I'm going to give you before I have an official meltdown. Consider yourself warned.

Dear Dexter

I was thinking about it and I decided that I really wanted to have something specific for Dexter. To record my thoughts and to document his growing all in one spot made for him. Well, for him and for any future babies so I started a blog that will be purely Dexter. So if you don't want to read about me rambling on about my love for my boy, this is not for you. But, if you want to read it, the URL is www.dearmybabya.blogspot.com. They are letters to Dexter. I am not much of a writer so doing it this way is easier for me. Hopefully I will print off the pages and keep them in an album for him. We will see.