Thursday, October 28, 2010

on the move

The other night I got Cason in his pj's a bit early and as he was walking and playing around I noticed how adorable he looks in his new pj's. They're a bit more slimming than his others and you can really see his little belly stick out. It reminded me how fast he is growing. Well I tried so hard that night to try to get a picture of his little belly and his new pj's but I had no such luck. All I got was fuzz pictures like these-All because this boy will not slow down! This was the best picture I got and his face is all blurry because he couldn't just stop and stand for a moment, he stopped to shake his head back and forth as he yelled out an 'aaahhhhh'. It was still pretty funny though.Sunday we were actually ready ten minutes early so I tried to get a shot of how adorable he looked in his sunday best. *sight* Once again, all fuzz-This was the best shot I got. No smile but also no fuzz-
I'm definitely getting my exercise every day!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

the more you know

When talking with a friend the other week we mentioned how hush-hush the topic of breast feeding is. Just before you have your baby you decide if you're going to nurse or not and then when talking about it with others all you ever hear are nightmare stories that freak you out and make you want to change your mind. Since I'm a pretty open person I have decided to share my knowledge and my experience on nursing. So for those of you who don't want to hear about it I suggested you stop reading....now.
Keep in mind that everything I say is all from my own exerience. Everyone's experience is different because I think our success at nursing is mostly up to your body, not us. For me though nursing was a very positive experience. Cason had no trouble learning to latch on. The first couple of days it went smooth and there were no problems or pain. Then I woke up one day and my breasts were huge! That's when my milk came and when latching on began to hurt. I used a cream after every time I fed Cason which helped from them drying out, cracking, and bleeding (I did this for a couple of months). So I highly recommend using that. The pain of Cason latching on faded and then nursing was just like any other thing and not a big deal. When he was a new born though he took f o r e v e r to eat! It was a good half hour, mostly because he fell sleep a lot! But as he got older he got faster and could stay awake.
At the beginning I woke up every three hours to feed Cason. But when he started sleeping through the night I was really engorged every morning. So I would pump to help out and would save the milk for a babysitter or his rice cereal (which you usually mix with breast milk). You can freeze breast milk for six months. When you're engorged though, it hurts. Your breasts are huge and hard. I couldn't sleep on my stomach when they were like that because the pressure hurt too much. If I was engorged in the evenings I would pump so it wouldn't be so bad when I woke up in the mornings. Some times my breasts would be different sizes too. It was kinda weird. Some times he would eat really good on one but not on the other so they'd be different. I'm pretty sure I was the only one that could tell, thank heavens.
I would get plugged milk ducts a lot. Where milk would gather in just one spot on my breast and I could feel it and some times even see it poking out. It was like a little hard spot. When this would happen I would put heat on it for a good ten minutes or so and then nurse or pump to help get the milk out from that one area. It usually worked pretty good. Travis reminded me to put heat on it numerous times because that's how you can get an infection and it made him nervous.
When Cason was a newborn I fed him every three hours, on the dot. And can you believe I never needed a clock to tell me when it was a feeding time. Why? Because my nipples would start to tingle. So weird. But my body was on a clock schedule just as much as Cason was and every three hours, my body was ready. Leaking! Oh how I leaked. Mostly just in the beginning though. I used breast pads every day, every day. I could tell when I was leaking, I could just feel it. When he was a newborn I would leak when I heard another baby cry. In church, at the store, etc. It was the weirdest thing. But when you're wearing a breast pad you're covered and don't need to worry. I only leaked for the first couple of months. When my breast pads were dry for the whole day for about a week I think that's when I stopped wearing them and never needed them again. Then I would good when I heard other babies cry. I think it's just like that in the beginning because it's something your body has to get used to.
I was lucky and my milk never dried up. I decided to wean Cason off nursing at twelve months. Do I miss it? Kinda. I mostly miss just holding and snuggling with him but that's pretty much it (it is so much fun feeding them table foods) Now I try to get that fix of snuggle time with reading him books on my lap or something. So now Cason drinks from a sippy cup. I completely skipped the bottle stage. Because he did so good nursing he really never took a bottle very well so I took him straight to the sippy cup and I'm glad I did. If he's old enough to feed himself then he doesn't need to be a bottle. In the beginning I would mix Cason's milk, half whole milk and half breast milk. I did this until he actually started drinking all of his milk. Then I would just lessen the breast milk and add more whole milk until he was fine with just whole milk. This took about a week.
He now does really good with the sippy cup. At first it was a transition, especially the whole milk part. I did it slow, for me just as much for him. By twelve months he was getting four feedings a day. So on day one I cut his lunch feeding and gave him the sippy cup and would just pump. I did that for about three days. Then I cut out the afternoon feeding and would pump in between lunch and afternoon and I did that for about three days. Then I cut out the night feeding and would pump right before bed, did that for about three days. His morning feeding is the one he usually ate the most at so I cut that one last, which was the hardest. But I stuck to my guns and always gave him his sippy cup when he was whinny or fussy. At this point I would just pump whenever I felt engorged, about twice a day. A couple days later there was never any milk coming out so I stopped. Drying up hurt for awhile. I got a lot of plugged milk ducts that I would continue to put heat on every day. Every morning though they got a little better and a little softer.
Cason figured out the sippy. I would always leave his sippy cup with milk out too. He would get his breakfast milk, we'll call it, from when he got up till his morning nap which is about two hours. By then he usually drank it all. I would do that through out the day with his lunch and dinner milk as well. Now he does great. Some times he eats it all and some times he doesn't. Did he lose weight? Oh yeah. Does he look skinny? Oh yeah. But that's all apart of growing up, especially once they start walking.

Like I said earlier, this was my experience and it was very positive. Will I nurse again? Yes. Will it be the same? Probably not. Every time is different and it really all depends on our bodies. I got lucky this time around. Hopefully I get lucky when number two comes around.

Now you know a little bit more about breast feeding.

Monday, October 18, 2010

party-hardy

Cason's birthday was over a week ago but oh well. I promised awesome cake pictures and I totally have them so I'm bloggin' about it anyway. The party was a lot of fun. Gorgeous and delicious cupcakes :)

It was all about the cake and Cason though. After we sung 'happy birthday' to the little guy I helped him blow out his candle.
Then everyone continued to stand there and watch him eat his cake. Because his little cake was decorated with little dots of frosting it took him awhile to get through the cake. With his thumb and pointer finger he picked up every dot and very carefully put the chunk of frosting in his mouth. He did this with just about every dot on top of the cake and then tried to dig his way through the chocolate frosting. You could tell that he was searching for whatever it was that was underneath. So I couldn't help but help him get to that yellow cake. Once we got there, he was one happy birthday boy.He destroyed his cake! Had it up his arm pits and up his nose. He had chocolate boogers the rest of the night.We cleaned him up best we could and gave him some ice cream, I couldn't believe he had room for it. But it was a big hit as well.Loved it so much he thought he'd try to share. Love my boy!

Big thanks to everyone that was came, gave a gift, and/or helped me with taking pictures. It was a very successful first birthday! On we go to number two!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

He's ONE!

Can you believe all of this happened a year ago? Me niether! I can't believe he's a year old! He's so big and such a wonderful blessing. Travis and I feel truly grateful to have him apart of our family!

This afternoon after picked up the balloons for Cason's party he just couldn't stay away from them. So we gave him one and he was just loving it! He played with it the rest of the afternoon until alas, he had to take a nap. We can't wait to give him cake and ice cream and see him open and play with all his gifts!
More fun birthday pictures to come!Happy Birthday Cason! PS, this is what he would look like if he had a balloon for a head- :)

Thursday, October 7, 2010

one more goodbye

Since we made the big decision about Maestro I've been carrying the camera in my back pocket and taking pictures of Maestro whenever possible. Well now that he's gone and I'm looking at all the pictures, I have to do one more post for him. He is deeply missed and the apartment feels so empty without him. Love and miss you Maestro!
I miss looking down the hallway and seeing you sitting in front of the window checking everything out-I miss playing fetch-Walks are never going to be the same-I miss you bringing your toys to me so we can play me-

I Miss you watching out for us-I miss you following us so closely that when we go down the slide you're just not sure what to do-Playing with Cason...or putting up with Cason I should probably say.

Thank you so much for being such an loyal dog, so fun, energetic, kinda hearted, and the best first dog anyone could ever ask for you!

Miss you bud!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

my sad story

For those of you that don't know about Maestro's history, he has had three surgeries in the past year (which have all been on the same right back leg). Lucky for us I found a really cheap vet which has made these surgeries very affordable. However, with a surgery also comes a recovery and every time I underestimate how trying this would be on Maestro and myself-every time. Maestro seemed like he was very well recovered from his most recent surgery. However last week I noticed he was limping every now and again on his good leg. This had me worried. Then last Thursday he hurt it pretty badly running. He was crying and whining like crazy! I felt like I could barely touch him without making things worse. He later got everything figured out on his own and was walking normal. Not wanting to put off getting him looked at I took him to the vet to learn that he has hip dysplasia. Which means that the bones in his hip can separate at any time. He told me this only happens in about 6% of puppies. Why Maestro has to be in that percentage just kills me but that's where we're at right now. There is no surgery that can help fix this problem. So when he's in pain we can give him medication which he will most likely be needed every day, eventually. He will also develop a limp and then not be able to walk on his leg which will be there for the rest of his life, which is heart breaking. Travis and I got a dog to run and play with our kids. To take him to the park and play fetch, take hiking and camping with us, etc. Maestro can no longer do these things. When taking him for a regular walk the other day I had to correct his leg twice and we had only been out for ten minutes. It breaks my heart but with lots of thinking and tears Travis and I have decided to give Maestro up. I said 'give up' because I feel like I've completely failed with Maestro. I hate that I feel like I can no longer take care of him because he can't play with the kids that we don't even have yet. But this is how it is. The more I have thought about this decision the better I have come to feel about it. We have found Maestro a good family and I feel much better taking him there than putting him down. I will truly miss Maestro. I hate thinking that he is no longer going to be around keeping me company throughout the day and helping me watch over Cason. I am going to miss him so much but like I said, I'm comforted knowing that he's going to a good family that can take care of him.We are taking Maestro to his new home on Tuesday evening so if there is anyone that lives by us that would like to come say goodbye you are more than welcome to. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this to the kids that live around us and that associate me with him. I know they love him so very much so maybe you parents can let them know before they see me with no Maestro.
Love you Maestro!