9 Months and Mommy Guilt

Yes, I AM still alive and attempting to blog. Seriously, life has just been nonstop crazy lately. So many things going on that need their very own post...but this one, this one is about my boy :)

Believe it or not, Riley is 9 months old already. And turning into more and more of an individual everyday. He is now "officially" crawling, and boy is he getting fast at it already! Especially if there's something he wants...say, electrical cords (what is so fascinating about cords?) or the dog. We still have just the one tooth, but he is working hard on a couple more on the top. Which has resulted in all sorts of strange side effects-fever, random spitting up, runny diapers...you know, fun stuff like that. Strangely enough, even with all that, he's still fairly happy (most of the time). And I can see one tooth breaking through, so there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Its also poking through enough that he can grind it with the bottom tooth. Nice...hoping he stops that little habit soon! I think he just does it b/c its hurting him and he's still sort of getting used to having another tooth in his mouth? Other things he's up to: pulling up on everything, then holding on with only one hand, so he can stand there and wave the other hand around like he's a little bullrider. Still not a whole lot of babbling, except when I tell the doctor he's not babbling much, then he proceeds to babble up a storm for the next two days. If there's one thing I've learned about being a parent, its that my kid will almost always prove me wrong. Anytime I say that he either is or isn't doing something...it will change. The doctor was very impressed with his motor skills, the standing and pulling up and general moving all over the place.

What wasn't as great though was his weight. :( I knew this was going to be an issue sooner or later. He's been small from the beginning. Sure, he was "big" for a preemie at 5 lbs 14 oz, but always smaller than other kids his age. Always at the bottom of the charts for his age but he at least was staying on his own little growth curve. Well, now he's dropped off that little curve. He's at 15 lbs 10 oz and not even on the charts for his age (he was previously in the 5th percentile). He's 27 inches tall, so he's doing great on height-I think she even said he's gained some on the height..but he's only gained about a pound in the last 2 months or so. He's eating, I'm feeding him, I swear it! He's just not very good with the solids. Getting better, but its a slow process with him. We've added in yogurt for some good fat and calories and he seems to like it thankfully, so that is probably helping. We're up to 3 meals a day now, technically...though ever since we added lunch in, he's had little to no interest in breakfast. Usually eats dinner like a champ, and is starting to do a lot better at lunch too, according to the sitter. The whole teeth thing the last couple of weeks hasn't helped anything though. There has been at least a couple of days where he refuses almost all solids, and I'm sure its because his teeth are bothering him. One day he didn't even take all his bottles at the sitter. I've been trying to nurse him as often as possible, to make sure he's getting as many calories as he can-but you can't force a kid to eat when he doesn't want to. I still do a "dreamfeed" with him before I go to bed at night, and I think/hope that helps him get some extra nutrition. I just feel like a big FAIL on the parenting thing right now...when the doctor tells you he's fallen off the growth curve, you need to feed him more, come back in 6 wks for a weight check, and then writes you a script to get bloodwork-with the big "failure to thrive" on the paper....well, you're bound to feel like a bit of a "mom failure". Especially when I know I am responsible for all his nutrition...not only just with the nursing, but with the fact that I make all the decisions about solids for him too. Makes you start to think, well, maybe we should have started them sooner-oh wait, we tried, he couldn't eat them, he gagged on anything we gave him until almost 7 months old...well, maybe we should have gotten him to 3 meals a day sooner, oh wait, we tried, he wouldn't eat 3 meals a day. Then I start to doubt myself on nursing...maybe I should have given him formula...maybe he's not getting enough from me...though he never has seemed hungry after a feeding and up until recently he's been gaining like a champ. And thankfully, the doctor didn't even imply that there was anything wrong with continuing to breastfeed, which was one of my fears, because its something I truly love and I'm just not ready to quit and I don't think he is either. She did say that the slowdown on weight gain could be simply related to him being mobile-he's burning more calories than he was before. Makes sense to me. And all his cousins (except for the two littlest ones-one of which has already passed him up and the other is gaining on him quickly) are small too so it makes sense genetically that he would be too. We go back Jan 21st for a weight check...in the meantime I'm trying really hard to improve his eating habits and introduce some higher-fat foods into his diet. I'm hoping the teeth pop through soon so that he starts eating better again. I'm a little nervous about what happens if they don't feel like he's gained enough at that weight check...but I guess we'll cross that bridge when/if we come to it. Any suggestions are more than welcome! Oh, and we can't do finger foods yet because he still gags on anything that is not a puree so the doctor said to hold off a couple more weeks before trying those again. A challenging eater for sure...

I will try to post again before Christmas....so many more things going on...but just in case I don't get back here...Merry Christmas everyone!!

Beautiful days

I don't know if its been as beautiful where you are as it has here...but boy, it sure hasn't felt like November for most of the month. So we've been trying to get outside and enjoy it while we can.

So we do things like play in the leaves.

Some of us like to run across the top of the round bales. Mostly just Henry though. Riley and I can't really jump that high.

So we just walk across the hay fields instead.

Its a work out...so we have to stop and take a break to just soak up some sun now and then.

Then we go back inside and chew on some plastic farm animals. Because the real farm animals get kinda mad when you chew on them :)

In the spirit of the season

Sometimes I have to stop and take a step back for a minute to look at my life and remind myself, hey, I've got it pretty darn good! Its so easy to get caught up in the details and the rush of everyday, and to let the little stressors of life bring you down. But, being that tomorrow is Thanksgiving (what?! how is it Thanksgiving already?!), what a perfect time to acknowledge the many blessings in my life. I have an amazing husband of almost six years (again, how has it been 6 years already?) who is still my best friend. I love that I can be completely myself with him, there's no censoring of myself, no feeling like I need to act, look, talk, a certain way, no facade to keep up-I can just be me. And he loves me anyway! Sometimes, I wonder why and how he puts up with me...but I'll take it! We have not only a home of our own, which we moved into 4 years ago on Thanksgiving, but an entire farm of our own. We are living our dream and while its not always easy, its our life and our dream and we are making it work and loving it. We've come SO far in the last 6 years, starting this farm from scratch and while we're not "there" yet (and really, I'm sure there will always be some bigger goal we're shooting for) we have grown our farm by leaps and bounds especially in the last 2 years or so, and we are getting bigger and better are what we do every year. Our house might not be anything fancy, but its solid, safe and cozy and its home. We're making slow but steady progress on updates and making it even more of our own. Between the two of us, we have both sets of parents, 4 siblings, 4 sibling-in-laws, 7 nephews and a niece-all healthy, happy and within driving distance so that we can see them on a regular basis and be a part of each others' lives, which is such a huge blessing. I love that we can be close to our families even though the majority of the family members are anywhere from 2-6 hours away. We have amazing friends who are more like family-again, most are spread out as they're friends from college and are scattered all over the state, but the bonds we formed with them in those 4 years are strong and we couldn't ask for better friends. And of course, we have our precious little boy. Our little guy who was so excited to meet his mommy and daddy that he burst onto the scene 5 weeks before he was expected, and we are AMAZINGLY blessed that with his early arrival, all was well. I think all of the time about how lucky we are that he is as healthy as he is, when so many other babies born at the same gestational age have a much tougher time. And at 8 1/2 months old, he is healthy, happy, growing and learning. He is on the move more and more, but still my cuddle bug. He has a smile that melts my heart every time and I cannot look at him without realizing how much I love that little boy. When Kelly and I got married, our first dance was to the song "I Could Not Ask For More" by Sara Evans. At the time, I absolutely felt that way. Nearly six years later, I continue to be blessed everyday even more and that words of that song still ring true for me.

"Lying here with you
Listening to the rain
Smiling just to see the smile upon your face
These are the moments I thank God that I'm alive
And these are the moments I'll remember all my life
I've found all I've waited for
And I could not ask for more


Looking in your eyes
Seeing all I need
Everything you are is everything to me
These are the moments
I know heaven must exist
And these are the moments
I know all I need is this
I've found all I've waited for,yeah
And I could not ask for more


I could not ask for more than this time together
I could not ask for more than this time with you
And every prayer has been answered
Every dream I've had's come true
Yeah, right here in this moment
Is right where I'm meant to be
Here with you here with me
Yeah


These are the moments I thank God that I'm alive
And these are the moments I'll remember all my life
I've found all I've waited for, yeah
And I could not ask for more


I could not ask for more than this time together
I could not ask for more than this time with you
And every prayer has been answered
Every dream I've had's come true
Yeah, right here in this moment
Is right where I'm meant to be
Oh, here with you here with me
No, I could not ask for more
Than this love you gave me
Cause it's all I've waited for
And I could not ask for more
No, yeah
No, I could not ask for more"

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

8 Months

How do they grow so fast? My baby boy is eight months old already and seriously changing all the time. He scoots around on his belly both forward and backwards, and around in circles, gets up on his hands and knees and rocks-he's not crawling yet but I think he's so close!

He sits completely by himself now without tipping over, and if there's something that he can grab onto, he's not content to just sit-oh no, he wants to stand! He can actually pull himself up to standing if he has the right angle to start. Once he's up, he can stand holding onto something or someone all by himself. I'm a little nervous about when he starts to crawl, because for one it means baby-proofing (oh, where to start?!) and for two, I'm afraid he'll just crawl to anything he can and try pulling up on it! We're going to have to keep a lot closer eye on him, that's for sure.

He's doing great at eating solids, he finally figured out to open his mouth for the spoon and most of the time will keep his hands to himself so I can actually get the spoon to and from his mouth without a fight :) He's had squash, sweet potatoes, pears, peaches, apples, bananas, peas and grean beans, and of course rice cereal and oatmeal. He liked all of them except the green beans so far. But, he will only eat homemade peas-not storebought, and I haven't tried making the green beans myself yet so that might be the difference. Yep, apparently I have a pureed foods snob on my hands :) Haha! Actually, I can't blame him, those Gerber peas were pretty yuck and the homemade (which are just frozen peas cooked, pureed and strained) are actually pretty good. Yes, I taste my baby's food. I said that to my sister in law the other day and she looked at me like I was crazy. But you know how when you warm something up, you stick your finger in it to see if its warm enough or not too hot? Then what do you do? You usually lick your finger because its your own food (or maybe that's just me). Well that's a hard habit to break, so I usually end up doing it with Riley's food now and then too. Which isn't bad when its something I've made myself but those storebought purees, not so tasty.

He is still such a smiley baby, and is laughing more often too, which I love! He smiles anytime he sees either me or his daddy, or sometimes the dog, or when the cuckoo clock goes off, or when the voice on the answering machine says "you have 1 unheard message"...haha. Like I said, he's a smiley baby :) And he's ticklish on his legs, and his belly. And he loves to play tug of war. The other night he stole the clean diaper I was getting ready to put on him and didn't want to give it back, so we played tug of war with it. He was cracking up!

He's getting really good at putting himself to sleep at night too! He's usually asleep within 5 minutes. Naps take a little longer and still only last for about 30-40 minutes but its a vast improvement. Last night and tonight, he just about fell asleep nursing before bed, so I was really afraid he'd scream when I put him in his crib. Not so! He just barely woke up, turned onto his belly, got himself comfy and that was it! Amazing! I stood there just watching him sleep for a few minutes, in awe of how much my little boy is growing up.

I'm so proud of my little guy for SO many reasons. Everyday I look at him and am just so overcome with love and pride. I tell him a million times a day how much I love him. :) I am so very blessed.

Quick Picture Post!

Random pictures! In no particular order! Yay!

The view from our back steps. Look in the top right-hand corner. See the silver thing just under the tree branch? That's our new grain bin!! See the tire swing to the right? That is where I'm willing to bet Riley will spend a LOT of time when he gets big enough. Right now, any kid who comes to our house gravitates towards that swing and will.not.leave.it unless they're forced to. There's just something about a tire swing I guess!

View of our house, backyard and my favorite tree from the barnyard. Sideways because I'm so smart that I can't figure out how to make it right-side up. A little help? Anyone???

Our grain bin from the back! Not quite done-hence the braces and general mess around it. Like I said, they still need to put the floor in but the guys that were doing it were laid off from their regular jobs when they were building our bin and got called back for a couple of weeks. So its sort of on pause right now. Hopefully it'll be done before we need it! Right now all the grain is going to the elevator to fill contracts so we're okay, at least until the contracts are filled.

And of course, save the best for last. The great pumpkin! Sideways because, well...see above explanation of my intelligence. The cutest pumpkin I've ever seen though! He was such a happy punkin...I think he liked his costume!!

That's it!

Oh, the CIO...going pretty well still. Night 3 took about 10-15 min to fall asleep with very few wakeups during the night. Night 4 was 5 minutes until sleep and numerous loooong wake ups. That was not so much fun. He did sleep in longer this morning though, so that is a plus! I think he is getting the hang of it though.

Enjoy your weekend!

Oh, one more thing...waiting on our new nephew...should be here tonight or tomorrow!! :)

Happy Friday!

This and that with varying excuses for the lack of pictures

Wow, I didn't realize it had been THAT long since I posted. Somehow time has gotten away from me. I can't believe its November already. And by the way, today is my big sister's birthday! She is 39 today, which makes me feel old. Even though I'm ten years younger, I realize in ten short years (which always go by faster than you expect) I will be where she's at. Which, really, isn't such a bad place when I think about it. Stay at home mom with three amazing boys? I would be okay with that. But happy birthday to my big sis! Not that she reads this :) Anyway.....we'll do the quick update.

Grain bin: UP! Floor still needs to be put in, but the bin itself is at its full height and makes our farm look a bit more impressive, if I do say so myself. Pictures...to come. Because I don't have them on this computer.

Barns: Walls for one barn are up. Other one in progress. Haven't been out there to take new pictures because we got too much rain on Saturday and the "road" to the barns was way too muddy for the girl who didn't think to put her muck boots on when leaving the house.

Harvest: In progress, but SLOW going (see above mention of the rain) Have about 180 acres of beans left and 200 acres of corn left.

Tooth: IN! And so cute! And once again I have an excuse for a lack of picture...he doesn't like to show anybody his tooth. I only see it by chance now and then when he's either screaming or I get lucky enough to peer in his mouth for 0.7 seconds. No sign of another one coming (yet).

Halloween: Riley was a pumpkin. And the cutest pumpkin I've ever seen, for sure. We didn't go trick or treating. Because, really, how lame would I be, walking house to house with my almost 8 month old baby, who pretty obviously can't have candy..."Hi, trick or treat" "No, he can't have candy, but don't worry, I'll eat it for him". Um...yeah...we'll go next year. Though I cannot wait to go next year!! I saw all these little kids running around on trick or treat night and I got so excited to do that with Riley when he's big enough :) Pictures on the other computer, so yeah...you have to wait on those too. But they're on facebook for those of you who are "friends" with me there!

Solids: Hey, we might actually be making some progress in this area. He's actually (gasp) opening his mouth for the spoon! Its great, on a good day we can actually get through a meal in about 10 minutes instead of the half hour it took previously, consisting of me trying to convince him to open his mouth, him mostly sucking the puree off the spoon, then holding the spoon tightly with his ridiculously-strong-for-a-baby-grip until I can wrestle it away from him, at which point he cries because mommy took away his "toy", until it comes back with more food on it, half of which runs down his chin, underneath his bib and onto his shirt, and he grabs a hold of the spoon again and round and round we go. But now?! Fill spoon, open mouth, food in, close mouth, refill spoon and so on. Its GREAT! :)

Have I mentioned how Riley doesn't sleep? Over the last couple of months, his sleeping habits have been getting progressively worse. So much that we had gotten to the point of, if he was put in his crib, he would be up literally every hour and would take a great deal of convincing to go back to sleep and then stay asleep once moved from our arms to the crib. So most nights he ended up in our bed. And yes, it may not be ideal and I had and have no intention of him sleeping with us long term but you know, when you're getting practically zero sleep and that is the only way the child will sleep-you just gotta do what you gotta do! Anyone who is already a parent is probably reading this going "oh no, you can't let him do that!" And yes, I've heard it (which is why we just stopped telling people about his sleeping issues and pretended all was well, so we didn't get the "oh you have to let him cry, I can't believe you haven't done it yet" speech). So, we finally came to the conclusion on our own that yes, we had to do something about this sleeping situation. And after talking to a number of my friends, who it turns out, all seem to have hit the same sleeping issues we did at about the same age, we determined we would do the scary 'cry it out' thing. So far, its going fairly well. But we've only done it 2 nights. We'll see what happens tonight, but I think in the long run it will work. Night one took 45 min to fall asleep (we checked on him periodically), night 2 was 5 minutes. That's encouraging to me. He still seems to wake up multiple times a night and last night was taking longer to fall back to sleep, but I do think we are making progress. Hopefully this will help the nap situation too. He won't let anybody rock him to sleep anymore. Our daycare provider tries to and he cries the whole time. This is part of why we decided we needed to just go with the cry it out thing because he was basically doing it anyway. So far though...I am liking the idea of gaining almost 2 hrs in the evening to actually accomplish things and/or to just relax, and also the idea of SLEEP, precious SLEEP! :) I'll keep you posted on how it works out!

In a nutshell (ok, a rather large nutshell I guess) that's what's going on with us! I'll try not to disappear on everyone for quite so long next time :)

Cows!

Where have I been? Well, Riley got better, then I got sick and was sick from Thursday night through Monday. Achey, exhausted, fever, just all around yuck. For now, we appear to all be healthy, but we'll see how long that lasts since it seems that everyone and their brother is sick, just getting over being sick or just getting sick right now. Its going to be a long winter at the rate we're going.

Exciting news though: Riley's getting a TOOTH!! First one!! I first felt it on Saturday and I can feel it a little more everyday, but I still can't see it. But he also is not a big fan of letting me peek into his mouth, so even if it was visible, I wouldn't necessarily be able to catch a glimpse of it. My big boy!!

I got a question on my last post, of what kind of cattle we raise and realized it really justified its own post entirely, as its not exactly a one-word answer. In a nutshell, we raise replacement heifers for a local dairy farm. So we get them when they're about 5 or 6 months old and have them until they're ready to freshen (calve) at 2 yrs old. Then they go to the dairy farm to calve and be milked and come back to us every winter for about 60 days as dry cows. The reason they come back every winter is because this particular dairy is a seasonal, grazing dairy. Ready for your dairy lesson? Typically a dairy heifer will be bred so that she has her first calf somewhere around age 2. Once she has her calf, she goes into the milking herd, is milked, watched to see when she comes back into heat and then bred again. She'll continue to be milked until she is about 60 days out from freshening (calving). At this point, for a number of reasons including allowing for better growth for the calf she is carrying, and the fact that her milk production will decrease anyway, she will be "dried off" and allowed to basically just relax until her calf is born. On a typical dairy farm, this is happening throughout the year and each cow is pretty much on her own schedule-freshening and being bred back whenever. Calves are born year round and there are more cows being milked than not all year long. They can do this because they are housed in barns and fed a mixture of hay,usually corn silage, and likely some other grains, so the seasons don't really affect them. Now, the particular farm that we raise heifers for is a grazing dairy. So there are no barns (other than the one the milking equipment is housed in) and the cows are on grass as their main feed. Well, obviously there's not a lot of grass in the winter (or you know, no grass at all) so what they do is synchronize all the cows so that they all come into heat and are bred within about a one month window, therefore all getting dried off at the same time (December) and freshening generally within a one to two month window (March/April). When the cows are all dry, the owners of this particular dairy go on vacation to exotic places like Belize and Thailand (seriously, I'm not kidding) and the cows come to our farm for their own vacation, from the week before Christmas until about mid-February, and enjoy hay, corn silage (which they only get at our house and they LOVE it!) and just generally hang out, chew their cud...you know, do cow stuff. Usually they hang out on the feed pads out in the open but this year they'll get to hang out in our brand new barns. And just going by MY personal preferences...I'm thinking they'll be a lot happier in the new barns instead of out in the cold! :) So in a nutshell...that's our cattle. Right now we have about 96 heifers out on pasture, they're on pasture from spring until fall. When the grass is pretty much done and it starts getting muddy, (oh and when the barns are done of course), they'll come to our home farm and spend the winter in the new barns with the dry cows. Then in February they'll all go to the dairy, have their calves and be happy little dairy cows. Moo.

Home sick

We're hanging out at home today. Riley woke up grumpy this morning, and after nursing, proceeded to projectile vomit all over Kelly...then I took him while Kelly was getting cleaned up and he threw up all over the couch (and Kelly again b/c he happened to sit down next to us. oops.) Then after I'd changed our clothes, he threw up again all over me and the bathroom-clothing change #3. Poor guy. Its been a couple hours since he threw up last, and he even nursed since then so I'm hoping this feeding stays down a little better. He's been sleeping in my arms most of the morning. I figure cuddling is probably about the best thing I can do for him right now. I'm hoping he feels better by tomorrow.

So hey, perfect time to update the blog, right?! Lots of stuff going on...

First things first. Riley is 7 months old!! So, of course, our attempts at 7 month pictures. These get harder to do every month!

"Mom, do we have to do this?"

(the sign says he is 7 months old...you just can't see it very well.

"Give me this sign, I want to eat it!!"

"I'm outta here. Hey, what's over there??"

"Hey mom, what's up?"

I cannot believe that my little baby boy is 7 months old already. I have no idea where the last 7 months went. I'm so proud of him in so many ways. He's such a fun baby and while I still don't feel like I've quite got the juggling of mom/wife/farm/work down yet...I think we're making progress and I wouldn't trade being a mom for anything!

As for the rest of our lives...its fall! Yep, that means harvest! So much for seeing my husband much! Hopefully he'll start running beans today-though, as is typical of our life, something's broken on the combine (hydraulic line?) so there has to be some mechanical work done first. Hopefully it will be a fairly quick fix so that they can get some beans run before the rain that is forecasted for tomorrow!!! Its been such a weird fall around here...we skipped right over October weather and went straight to the cold of November. Which is a bummer because I love fall and I feel like we sort of missed it! The leaves are changing now, which is gorgeous of course. That's one thing our area is known for, the beauty of the fall leaves amongst the hills. And I have to say that it is pretty beautiful. Sometimes I have to step back and remind myself not to just take it all for granted. Sort of like life I guess...its easy to take the blessings you have for granted and sometimes you need to step back and take a good look at your life to realize how good you have it.

So what else is going on with us? Well, we're building! In fact as I sit here, I can hear all sorts of machinery running and work going on outside. We're building two barns to house dry cows in the winter and heifers in the spring and fall (maybe ocassionally in the summer, but they're usually on pasture then). 2 or 3 years ago we built 2 feed pads so that we could have a better, "non-muddy" area to keep the dry cows in the winter. Well, like all grand plans, it didn't work out quite as well as we'd envisioned. Since it was still exposed to the elements, while it was definitely better than just having them out on grass (which results in hip-high mud, torn up pasture, torn up feeders and deep tractor tire ruts from hauling feed to them everyday), it still got fairly muddy and was still pretty labor intensive. So we are now building a barn on each feed pad. The sides will be open (or at least 3 sides, I can't remember exactly) so there will be plenty of airflow, but they'll have concrete floors and a roof over top of each-keeping out the elements and therefore keeping things cleaner, keeping the cattle cleaner and warmer, and keeping the feed dry. Altogether a good thing! Oh, and all of this SHOULD, hopefully, make things a little less labor-intensive and result in more family time for us this winter!! That is one of the things I'm the most excited about. So here's a sort of "before" picture:

This was the first winter we had the feed pads-when they were all nice and pretty :) This was a drive thru between the two feed pads, where we could dump the feed out the side of the TMR for each group of cows. See the cows eating? Yummy stuff!

This was just a few weeks ago. The feed pads after the fence has all been taken down.

Today they are just moving dirt, it'll probably be a while before there's any real exciting progress. But I'll try to take pictures as we go!!

Oh, I almost forgot about the grain bin! Grain bin is going up as we speak too! I have a picture of that, but its still on my camera. Should be up completely within a couple weeks and then we'll have grain storage on our own farm, yay! It is also going to completely dwarf the original barns we have back there. Wait till you see the pictures :)

So, like I said, lots of exciting stuff going on!

Ok, time to eat some lunch. The boy is sleeping again...and hasn't thrown up in a few hours, so YAY! :) Hope everyone's having a great week!!

Loving this

I am loving this age. I've been saying that since Riley was about 4 months old. And everytime I say it, I mean it even more. A few weeks ago I was talking to a woman in her 50s with grown kids. I was telling her, of course, how much I love the age Riley's at and how he's always doing something new and fun. I loved her response...she said that she's always felt that way with her kids, every age and stage they've gone through has been something new and each age she thinks, "oh wow, THIS is the best". She said that even now that they're all grown up she is loving it and thinking that having grown kids is the best now! I think that's a good thing to think about when you're going through the "oh, he's not a newborn anymore" "he's not a baby anymore" "he's growing up too fast!" etc. to remember that no matter what age they are, there are still so many fun and wonderful things to it. I think that just watching your kid grow up and become their own person is amazing.

So what fun things is Riley up to nowadays....well he's moving! No crawling or anything yet, but he can scoot himself all around. I'll put him down on a blanket and go in the other room for a minute, I come back and he's facing a completely different direction or he's off of the blanket entirely...and I'm not sure how he got there! :) He's rolling over a lot more, and I think it won't be long until he starts rolling to get places as he's discovered he can roll multiple times in a row and he constantly wants to roll on to his side when I'm changing him or getting him dressed. He's also started rolling over in his crib, which I thought would be a good thing because he'd roll onto his belly and maybe sleep better. But in fact, I think he rolls onto his belly accidentally when he's trying to get onto his side. He's always fallen asleep better if he can get up on his side (though I can never get him to stay on his side if I put him that way), well now he ends up on his belly and boy oh boy does that make him mad! Which I find odd, since he loves being on his belly normally. Oh and something that melts my heart daily, he smiles at me when I pick him up from the sitter! I love it!! He smiles at me when I drop him off too. Ok, really he just smiles at me and at his daddy pretty much anytime he sees us :) And he has started reaching for us too, and when I pick him up, he puts his arms around my neck like he's hugging me...its wonderful-he's still such a cuddlebug. He wants to eat ANYTHING he can get his hands on including my hair, my shirt, his feet, the tv remote, magazines, yeah anything. His toes are still the best thing going in his mind and they are in his mouth as much as possible. He's fascinated with the dog and the cats...will just stare at them no matter what they're doing. He's getting really good at sitting up and can stay up on his own for longer all the time.

Solids are going great now! Still doesn't open his mouth that much for them, but sucks them off the spoon faster and will occasionally open for it. Likes bananas, cereal and loves acorn squash. Can take or leave sweet potatoes. Not a fan of green beans though (and I can't blame him, ick!) I got him some pears at the farmers market this weekend, so that's up next! I'm making most of his food and its so easy! And cheap!

We got his 6 month pictures taken a couple of weeks ago. Kelly's cousin-in-law recently started her own photography business and did them for us. She does an amazing job, I'm so happy with the way they turned out! Here's a link to just a few of the photos. This isn't anywhere near all of them...she took over 200!!! These are just some of my favorites :) Now the tough decisions...which ones to print?!

Sunday Drive

Some people take Sunday drives. We take Sunday crop-scouting/equipment moving trips. Yesterday we took an especially long drive down to see our crops on the Ohio River, with a very out of the way detour at one of our farms in the hopes that Kelly's missing wallet was in the tractor he'd been driving all day Friday. Thankfully, it was there! Also thankfully, Riley was totally up for a long drive and even took a 1 1/2 hr nap during it. Yay!

First stop...the tractor...to retrieve the missing wallet.

This tractor was the first tractor Kelly ever bought, so it sort of holds a special place in our hearts. And for that reason we are both oddly sentimental about it and we will probably own this tractor forever. :) Its a Ford TW-20. And before you get all impressed with my equipment knowledge...let me continue. The thing on the back is a chisel plow. I'm pretty sure. But I could be wrong. The piece of equipment next to it is um, some sort of tillage tool. Lets call it red tillage tool. I was going to take a picture of the field that had been plowed but I was afraid the little man in the truck would wake up if we were stopped too long :)

Next stop...fields on the Ohio River. Sorry, no river photos...they're close but not THAT close to the river. I should have taken a pic while we were driving along it...its quite impressive. At least to this northern Ohio native it is!

And here we are at our soybean field. Isn't it pretty?! And big?! Maybe not for some areas of the country...but for southern Ohio, this is a nice sized field.

Kelly and Henry scouting the beans. By the way, these are double crop beans. Hence the fact that they're still green this time of year! Most soybeans are dropping their leaves and drying out at this time of year so that they can be harvested soon. But these beans were planted in oh, say July or so. This field was home to a crop of sweet corn for the first part of the growing season. Yum!! Not our sweet corn though. A friend of ours from college is a vegetable farmer (talk about a stressful occupation!) and we sublease his fields from him after he harvests the sweet corn. And bonus, we get all the sweet corn we can pick for free before we till it up! Yes, our freezer is full of frozen sweet corn :)



Henry loves to run through fields. This is the picture of a happy dog. Also, a fast-moving dog...get out of his way!


This was somebody's barn once. Who knows whose it was...who knows what it was used for. We had our..um..whatever piece of equipment we came to get (yes, I forgot already-there is a reason I'm not the actual farmer in this operation...come to think of it, maybe THAT was the chisel plow and the thing in the first picture was something else. Hey, just because you have a degree in agriculture doesn't mean you have to know anything about equipment)...anyway...we had our "implement" parked next to this barn. If I was brave (or stupid maybe?) and if I didn't have a baby with me...I would have wandered around a bit more and explored. Am I the only one fascinated by old abandoned barns and houses? I wish I could go back in time sometimes and see who used it, who lived there...what it was like in its prime. This was probably a huge barn at the time it was used. Did they milk cows here? Probably..it seems most old barns were dairies at one time. Did kids run in and out of that doorway there? What kind of family owned it? Where was the house that went with this barn? What happened that made them just abandon it? That barn was probably somebody's pride and joy at one time...how would they feel about its overgrown and ignored state now? Seems sad to me. Sort of fit with the overcast rainy day.

Then my camera battery started to die and the "implement" was hooked up to the truck and it was time to head home. We made it home with minimal complaints from the little man in the backseat and had a nice relaxing family Sunday. Oh....with successful eating of both cereal and bananas (by the baby. Me, I'm not so into rice cereal and pureed bananas, believe it or not.) :)

Cereal Success!!!!

So maybe all I needed to do was decide I wasn't going to stress about it. Because we took a couple days off from the cereal attempts...and when we tried again last night? Success! As in, he ate the entire bowl of it with minimal gagging! Ok, so I have no idea how much was in the bowl...a tablespoon? Two? Who knows...I just randomly threw some in and didn't pay that much attention b/c I figured he wouldn't eat it anyway. Little did I know. We tried bananas too (I made a little bowl of them thinking if he didn't eat the cereal, we'd try something with more taste)...and while he didn't gag on them too badly (they were a little thicker than the rice cereal but still super thin for bananas) he was not a big fan of the taste. I have a bunch of very ripe bananas so we'll keep trying for a couple of days and see if the taste grows on him. Hopefully we have a successful rice cereal experience again tonight!! Fingers crossed!

In other, sad, news....our little black barn kitty was hit on the road sometime last night. I happened to look towards the road this morning as I was coming out the door and saw her in the road :( I'm so sad about this. Sure, she was "just" a barn cat, and we hadn't even had her all that long-only about 3 months, but she was so friendly and sweet. Here's a picture of her from Riley's baptism. She loved to sit in the gutters along the edge of our porch. :) She fit perfectly and she could "hide" from Henry that way. The poor girl had broken her leg a few weeks ago, who knows how-I think she was a bit of a daredevil, I've found her pretty high up in our backyard tree before and she liked to climb the screens on the windows too- but she had recovered quite quickly and just yesterday was running around the backyard and coming out to play with Riley and me. I hope her little grey sister sticks around....I'm afraid she'll be lonely but I hope she'll be okay by herself in the barn. I hate living on a busy state route :( This is why we didn't have barn cats for so long....poor little black kitty (yes, that was her name, I'm not creative). She will be missed.

Adventures in Solids

Solids. Well.....Day 1 of cereal went great!

Getting ready. No, Riley, you need to keep your hands away from your mouth. Ok fine, I'll just hold them. Hey look Daddy's "helping" too...you know...by watching. Yep. Daddies are always good at that kind of helping, aren't they? :) I guess its moral support? Right.




Um, Mom? What is this stuff?



Hey, that was fun!
And that right there was the most successful cereal adventure we've had to date. By the way, that one was 2 weeks ago. And he ate the entire bowl (which granted, was like half a tablespoon or something, but still). Every attempt since then has resulted in gagging and if we're lucky, swallowing a couple spoonfuls. Only after gagging first of course. When I described the issue to the pediatrician at his 6 mo appointment, she said it sounds like he just has a strong gag reflex. No way...you think? :) But she did suggest to get a finger gum brusher thing and brush his gums, particularly in the back, to try to desensitize his gag reflex. So I'm going to try that, but really I'm sort of thinking he's just not ready for solids yet. I think he still has a bit of that tongue thrust reflex going on, where anything that gets in his mouth gets pushed back out. He's growing just fine still, so we're giving the solids a rest for a bit and we'll try again say, every few days or so. In the meantime, I'm doing my best not to listen to all the "well-meaning" people who say "what?! he's not on solids yet?! But he's so small! He needs more food! You have to get that boy to eat solids!!" Whatever. He's growing fine and guess what people...for the amount of solids he'd take in right now, he's going to get a lot more calories and nutrition from nursing than from a couple tablespoons of oatmeal and a fruit puree (ha, like I could get him to eat all that at once! I wish!) anyway so keep your advice to yourself thanks. Unless you actually have useful advice on how to get him to learn to eat...I don't want to hear it. And "put it in his bottle" is not useful. That's not going to achieve anything...he's not going to learn to eat that way.

Stats! 6 month appt was last week. 14 lbs, 7 oz and 25 1/2 inches long! Still my little guy but he's growing!! Still right on track and meeting all his developmental milestones, so YAY! Speaking of....check out my big sitting up guy!

Still needs a boppy or pillows around him to lean on, but he's doing so great! And he LOVES to sit. So much, that he refuses to lay down to be rocked to sleep anymore. Yep, he will only fall asleep sitting up in your lap now. Which is hilarious by the way, because if he doesn't lean his head against you, he starts doing the head-bob thing when he is falling asleep and you have to put his little head against you so he doesn't keep doing it. Poor guy!

Also...welcome fall!! My favorite season is here! Next week is Farm Science Review....basically a huge outdoor farm trade show. Takes an entire day to see it all, but its like a sort of unofficial college reunion, as we always see plenty of people we went to school with and are stopping every 50 yards or so to talk to someone. Hmm...maybe that's why it actually takes so long? Either way, this will be Riley's first FSR. I think he'll love it, as so far he's a big fan of any "busy events"-fairs, weddings, parties, etc. And, we get to have the stroller storage advantage. Am I the only one that is happy to take a stroller to places because it means I have somewhere to stash more stuff? Hmm...might be chilly, better take a jacket but I don't want to carry it-put it in the stroller! I'm thirsty...lets grab a drink...hey, cupholders in the stroller! One of the hidden benefits to being a parent. :)

Time for another milestone

Solids. The next step. Yep, its time! Starting cereal TONIGHT! I kept putting it off and putting it off...but he's almost 6 mos and I know its time to just go for it. I know a lot of people start at 4 mos, but being my little early baby, our pediatrician recommended starting somewhere between 5-6 mos instead.
As an aside, I always hesitate to call him an actual "preemie" b/c though he was technically "pre-term" (late pre-term I believe is the exact term for him), I always feel like to call my boy a preemie would seem like I was somehow minimizing what people with actual preemies who spend time in the NICU and everything go through. You know? Does that even make sense? And my mom told me once that she thought technically they had to be under 5 lbs to be classified a preemie anyway. Anyone know? B/c a lot of times I feel like just saying he was "early" or "little" doesn't really explain things, but I don't want to over-dramatize by calling him a "preemie" if he technically isn't. I mean, he was born at 35 wks, 3 days...they did send us up to Columbus b/c it was so early, they had a NICU team on hand for him, and I wasn't allowed to hold him until they evaluated him and got his body temp regulated-he just didn't actually need to go to the NICU. And he was only 5 lbs 14 oz...which I know isn't super tiny...but small enough that he was swimming even in newborn clothes. And the doctors and nurses in the hospital did always take extra care to point out the differences between him and a full-term baby, and you definitely could see a difference in behavior between him and full-term babies. I'm sure that our nursing "challenges" were due to him being so early, and he's still on par size wise with his "adjusted age" rather than his actual age. I'm constantly telling people who comment that he's "so little", that he was early. And people are always guessing that he's about a month younger than he actually is. But at the same time, developmentally he's pretty close to on track. I mean, the kid rolled over at 7 wks, and now he will lay on his belly and kick his legs and move his arms like he just wants to move forward so badly! I always say he's just been in a hurry from the beginning :) The kid's going to keep us on our toes, I know that much for sure. And really, even though he was 5 wks early, beyond being smaller than most babies his age, we really haven't had any complications (well, jaundice, but it wasn't that bad really) and he was with us the whole time in the hospital and got to go home when we did. So who knows what he really should be considered. In the long run, it really doesn't matter, just something I think about from time to time-usually when someone asks me about his size.

Anyway, that little thought aside...I'm excited to see Riley's reaction to the cereal tonight. He'll probably just spit it out right away, but who knows. I'm going to try to make a lot of his food (not the cereal though). I found a website that goes over the basics of it and my sister in law made a lot of her boys' baby foods and it seems SO easy! Just bake/steam and puree! But, before we can get to all the fun stuff-veggies, fruits, etc. we have to do that first step of cereal. So we'll see how it all goes tonight! Pictures will be taken for sure!! Heck, last night we just put the high chair together and had him sit in it and play with toys while we ate dinner (which, by the way, he LOVED) and I had to take a picture of that :) Yep, first time parent...right here, in case you couldn't tell. I'm pretty sure the pictures of Riley will soon be taking over the house. You should see my office at work...10 pictures of him. Yep. Hmm...that even sounds a bit ridiculous to me when I type it "out loud". Eh. Oh well-they're only young once, right?! :)

Quick (or not so quick) Updates

Last you all heard from us, we were headed on another roadtrip! Well, that weekend actually went really well! The trip up to our friends was great. It took probably 3 hrs or so and Riley was an angel! We spent two nights with Kelly's college buddies and their families and had a great time! I love that 7 years after graduation we can all still take the time to get together every year and it feels like no time has passed at all when we are together. Its great that all of the wives of the guys just sort of click right together too, even though some of the girls are "new" (new as in they didn't go to school with us) and all our kids are around the same age and have a great time playing. In a few more weeks we'll get to meet up with everyone again as one of the last few single guys in the group is getting married! Which of course means another roadtrip up to NW Ohio (just a little north of you I think Jess?? We'll be in Defiance). After the "reunion", the drive up to my parents was great, went to my youngest nephew's baptism, played pass the baby around, then drove home and actually the drive home, while not easy, wasn't half bad. Is that because its now been 3 wks and I've forgotten most of it? Probably :) haha! Actually I will say this much, having 2 adults in the car makes all the difference in the world. Riley was pretty tired of the carseat (can't blame him) but having someone in the back to play baby entertainer helps a lot.

In other news...farming is going. Crops don't look half bad (oh geez, I hope I didn't just jinx us!), hay is another story b/c it just.keeps.raining. The cooler weather was great but its good that it warmed up to normal summer temps b/c we were afraid it might negatively effect the crops if it stayed so cool. I mean, it was getting down to the 50s at night! 50s! In August! What?!

Kelly is fighting an infection on his hand...thanks to Henry. Henry, being a typical farmdog, loves to find nasty things to roll in. Lovely. Well, a couple weeks ago he found something particularly stinky to roll around in, and being that he is also a house dog, we couldn't exactly just let him be. So Kelly gave him a bath in the backyard. Background: Henry hates baths. Despises them. As in, flips out when you try to bring him near the water spicket. (spicket? pump? faucet? what do you call the water thing, comes out of the ground, has a handle...anyone?? good description on my part, huh?) Anyway, as he was flipping out, he scratched Kelly's hand pretty badly. Well, of course Kelly just washes the dog anyway (the dog who has rolled in God only knows what nastiness remember) before going inside and washing his hand well. And, surprise, a couple of days later, his hand swells up and he can barely move it, and his entire body is achey. Hmm...not a good thing. So, the smart person would do what? Anyone? Yes, go to the doctor! Not my tough guy husband. Nope. Doctors are the enemy you know. Instead he goes to his dad (his defense? "Dad is a doctor." Um, he's an animal doctor honey, its different.) and gets oh yeah, livestock antibiotics. Nice. Which actually did help. However he apparently didn't take them long enough and now the infection is back, he finally did go to a "people doctor", is on new antibiotics (which are not working quite as quickly but are helping) and hopefully this will clear things up. He had a follow up this morning, so we'll see. Oh yeah, its always something fun, right?

Riley is spending the week with grandma, and next week my mom will be down to stay with him, as our daycare provider had her baby boy on Friday. Today was supposed to be spent with Aunt Courtney while Grandma went up to pick up our 10 month old niece who is spending the weekend at their house. But Courtney, who is about 27 wks pg, went to the hospital last night with high blood pressure and while she is now home and her BP is down, she's supposed to "take it easy and not do anything stressful", which obviously rules out babysitting a 5 1/2 month old who doesn't like to nap :) So he's hanging out with grandpa today and we're saying extra prayers that Courtney's BP stays down and her little guy can keep cooking!!! Very scary stuff.

This weekend we're off to another college friends get together. This one is for my college roommates, and is a lot closer to home (1 1/2 hrs or so away). Should be a fun time!!

First Mommy and Baby roadtrip=FAIL

I've always made a lot of roadtrips by myself. Being that my parents are 4 hrs away, my sister 6 hrs and most of my college friends 1 hr or more away...and with a husband that farms (aka: can't leave home often)...if I didn't go places without him, I'd never see my family or friends. So when Riley was born, I figured I'd just pack the baby up and take him with me. It took me a while to get up the nerve to try it but two weekends ago I had what I thought was the perfect opportunity. And remember a month or so ago, he and I made a trip 1 hr each way that went great, so I was feeling good about things. I had a baby shower to go to, about 3 hrs away...figured we'd drive to that, then of course have a few hours out of the car at the shower, hop back in and make the 45 min drive the rest of the way to the parents. We did it, and it went REALLY well! I was so proud of my boy...especially since he'd been rather grumpy before we left so I was a bit nervous. But he slept the majority of the way, we stopped once for him to eat and all was good. So I figured...no problem for the way home b/c it would be similar. I was driving about an hour south to my friend Julie's new house first, we'd be out of the car for a couple hours there, then hop back in for the 3 hrs home. Well, first...we got lost going to her house. While lost, Riley woke up screaming...he was hungry b/c he hadn't eaten enough at my parents (too busy looking around at everything to focus on nursing-he is a nosy little boy!). A static-y radio station calmed him down long enough to make our way to Julie's house. Fed him, toured the new house, chit-chatted, fed him once more and we were on the road again. Sound asleep for the first half of the trip....yay! Woke up to eat just in time to stop at an exit I knew and was comfortable with (a nice little town that one of my college roommates is from). Nursed, played a bit and back in the carseat to head home. Asleep. YES, this is going GREAT! Until about 45 min later. Screaming again. Um. Why? Can't possibly be hungry, he JUST ate! Static-y radio station...not doing the trick this time. Sing to him...nope. Talk to him...nope. Ok, we'll stop and let him have a break from the carseat. Crap, only gas station at this exit a bit scary...oh and next to a bar too. Nice. Ok...hopping in the backseat, leaving the car running and locking the doors from the inside. Baby calming down...whew. Crap, accidentally parked in front of the only diesel pump and that truck needs it. Awesome. Baby back in the carseat...seems calm...ok, on the road again. And we're pulling onto the highway...and... screaming again. Crap...double crap b/c the next exit has nothing but an "adult" store..um...NOT stopping at that one. Sorry buddy, you're gonna have to wait until the following exit which I know is a nice one. Ok, we made it to a good exit! Hey, lets go into the Pilot....ooooh, look at all the shiny bags of chips and all the pop! He loved looking at it all! :) Talk to the nice cashier lady....get Mommy a snack. Are we calm now? Ok...lets try going home now. Back on the road...and screaming. Seriously buddy? We are never making this trip by ourselves AGAIN. Call Daddy...hey, hear your son? Yep, we're having a fabulous time, really! Ok...I think I should have just fed him at the last stop...Kelly suggests we get off at the first Marietta exit, there's a nice gas station there, safe, and well-lit (oh yeah, its pitch dark by now). Get off, calm the hysterical child, do a mini-bedtime routine in the backseat of the car (nurse, diaper, jammies, binkie) back in the carseat and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. YES! Awesome, its dark now so he'll for sure sleep the rest of the way, and off we go, only an hour from home now! Hmm..what's with the detour signs? Hope it doesn't affect us...oh crap. It does. Can't very well go across the bridge that's not there....no prob, we'll follow the detour signs. What the??? Where on earth are they sending us...this d--n road is closed too and now I don't even know where I am!! GRRRR. Screw this, I'm turning around and getting back on the highway. So I get back on...drive down into WV so we can go through Parkersburg and back into OH...but hey, it works. No closed roads, no screaming...and only added an extra, what 40 minutes? What's 40 minutes on top of a 4 hr drive, right? Anyway...we finally made it home-about 5 hrs after we had left Julie's. My little boy was conked out, went right from the carseat into his crib and slept like normal. What a good boy :) Me? Also exhausted. Also...never making that drive alone again. Not until..um...whatever age he can tell me what he needs with words instead of screaming :)

So what are we doing this weekend, you ask? Haha..funny you ask. Looking for a challenge apparently. B/c smart parents that we are...we're driving to our college friend's house for a get-together of all Kelly's college roommates (about 9-10 guys plus families) which is 3 hrs from our house. Then Sunday we're driving to my parents from there (another 1 1/2 hrs) for my nephew's baptism...and back home again that afternoon (4 hrs). You'd think I'd have learned something from the last roadtrip, right? But this time at least we're all three going, so one person can entertain the baby while the other drives (I just hope it works!!!). I'll report back next week!!! Think good traveling thoughts for us!!!

Baptism

Baptism was a success. Everybody got there in time, despite some crazy schedules (nephews' baseball games, swim meets, etc.) and Riley was so good! He was even awake for a good portion of the mass, and didn't even cry when the priest poured that cold water on his head. Such a tough little guy! I think pretty much the whole church was impressed with that :)

This picture is awful...not sure who ended up with my camera, but all my pics are fuzzy. Hoping to get some good ones from our family, though I always say that and nobody ever sends me their pictures!


Afterwards, we had everyone over to our house for food, drinks and cake of course!



And we had to get a family picture. Don't worry, Kelly didn't actually wear jeans to the ceremony...he just changed before I could grab him for a picture. I also didn't actually wear flipflops...I just didn't want to wear my heels anymore once we got home :) And yes, that's our house behind us. Don't mind the half-finished front porch. I promise its a vast improvement on what was there a year ago...its just not quite done yet.




I had intended to talk about other things in this post too. But considering its taken me like a week to get this much written...and the baby that I thought was about to fall asleep appears now to be wide awake....I better get this up as is or it'll be another week. haha! :)

If I get to it, I need to tell you all about Riley and my first trip to the grandparents. It was not what I would call a success, I'll say that much!!

Cancer sucks.

What's with the big black cloud of cancer over everyone I know lately? Ugh. I hate, hate, hate that stupid thing. Seems its always the nicest people that get hit by it.

Today, both a co-worker of mine and a close family friend are undergoing surgery for cancer related things. The co-worker had breast cancer about 4 years ago, went through chemo and all that and it was in remission. Well, they discovered last week that its back and today they are removing her left breast. :( I just hope that gets it all.
The family friend is really more like actual family...she's been a close friend of my family since before I was even born and is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. This spring she was diagnosed with cancer, has undergone 3 chemo treatments, is having surgery today and will have more chemo following this. The surgery today will determine how severe it all really is. I'm nervous for that reason...I mean, of course any surgery is scary...but I am so afraid they will discover that its worse than they think. :( She's a retired nurse herself, and she is at a great hospital with great doctors (same one I delivered Riley at actually, and the same one she worked at for years) so I know she's in good hands, but you know. The worry is still there.

Then..oh no, I'm not done. There's more. My other co-worker's granddaughter (who is only 14) was diagnosed with a very rare and very difficult to treat type of leukemia just a few weeks ago. She's up at Childrens' and has been going through some serious chemo. She does 10 days of chemo, EVERY day...then gets a break of like 2 weeks...then 10 days of chemo again and this is all supposed to go on for SIX months. Remember, she's 14. She's just a kid!! The chemo has been hard on her...she is throwing up all the time, sores in her mouth, all the chemo-related side effects...doesn't want to eat but needs to, she of course is completely bummed out b/c she's stuck in a hospital room, in the middle of the city, in the summer-time, 2 hrs away from all her friends, her home, her family, etc. It would be hard on anyone. She's had to have multiple blood transfusions, her parents were just tested to see if they are bone marrow matches, and today they found out she has fluid on her lungs which they are trying to pump out now. :( Bad, bad, bad.

Lastly...yesterday my brother in law calls me to tell me his wife's grandma (who is young by my grandma standards-only 60 something) was just diagnosed with inoperable cancer. She's going to go through chemo and all that but it basically doesn't look good. If you remember, these are the two that got married last September at the courthouse, were planning on having a "big" wedding this September but then found out she's pregnant (due in Nov) so they cancelled the big wedding. Well, that's back on because they figure if they want her grandma there for it...they need to do it ASAP. :(

So its all just bad and sad and yuck. If you could pray for all 4 of them, it would be much appreciated. :(

Its me again already, can you even believe it?!

Yep, you're not seeing things. That's right, TWO posts from me less than 2 weeks apart. Shocker, I know. :)

So the shopping trip went well. Riley was a little angel-baby for me the whole time. Yay! Slept all the way there (1 hr, 15 min drive), slept the majority of the time we were shopping, and I actually had to wake him up to feed him(at which point he realized, oh yeah, you're right mom, I'm super hungry!)-which I did in the dressing room and that worked out fantastically! Went to lunch with my friend Jana and her little boy, who is 19 months and fascinated with babies. When we were shopping I was not allowed to get out of his sight with Riley or he would start yelling "Bay-bee! Bay-bee!!" until he could see him again. At lunch, he was making faces and noises at Riley and it was cracking my boy up, so fun! After we parted ways with Jana and son, we headed over to Target and picked up a box of diapers using one of the many gift cards we still have from baby showers. I've decided everytime I go past a Target (this one that is over an hr away is the closest one to me, yes, I live in the middle of nowhere) I am going to stop and use a giftcard to buy diapers :). Then we did the nursing in the car in the parking lot thing...headed home and the boy was asleep after about 10 minutes and up until we were about 15 min from home...when he decided the world was ending. But hey, an entire day of angel-baby behavior...I can take 15 minutes of upset for that (it was actually less than that b/c I stopped and found his binkie for him about halfway through, which made all right with the world until he spit it out again). Of course the main goal of the trip was to find clothes for both of us for the baptism and did we do that? Nope! Couldn't find any cute dresses or skirts for me, and what is up with the lack of baby boy dress clothes? Dresses for baby girls, five million at least...button down shirts for baby boys, zero. Boo. I have a long sleeve shirt he can wear but right now the forecast for the day of the baptism is like 87 degrees. Um...a bit warm for long sleeves. I've even looked online (looked at both Old Navy and Gap per Jess's suggestion) and nothin'. :( Oh, but I did find some new work clothes for me, that FIT and look cute. Do not underestimate the value of clothes that fit...I feel like a whole new woman in my new clothes! Or at least a little less like a pudgy sloppy mess of a new mom. :)

The baptism itself, I think we finally got sorted out. It wasn't easy...but we have an official date and time. Turned out we can't even do it on Sunday..we had to move it to the Saturday evening mass in order to accomodate both the godparents and the priest. Not ideal, but its set and this boy is getting baptized for sure! :) Then afterwards we'll do cake (if I hurry up and order one!), some snackie type foods and drinks back at the house (hoping for outside if the weather's nice).

Speaking of weather. The rain. It can stop now. Please? Actually, we have gone about 4 days now with only about 1/10 of an inch...which is exciting. Since prior to that we had rain more or less every.single.day. Which makes it extremely challenging to you know, get crops planted! And of course I tell my friends in other parts of the state that yep, we're still planting and they go, "Really? We finished up here WEEKS ago..but we sure could use some rain!" Well, apparently we've been getting the entire state's rain. Um, hey mother nature, lets spread the wealth a bit, huh?? Give those northern and central Ohio people some of this rain and let us have some sun! Good news is the corn is done. Soybeans, we still have about 100 acres left to go, but progress is being made. Then we're on to hay...which we should have already had first cutting done by now but once again...the lack of more than 2 dry days in a row sort of throws a wrench in that. You can't cut hay if there's not enough time for it to dry. Ahhh...its always something with this farming stuff!! :)

Can't have a post without a picture, right??He loves his Brutus Buckeye!! Don't you worry, we will be teaching him "Go Bucks" and "O-H-I-O".

How difficult can one baptism be?

My sister is going to drive me crazy. I scheduled Riley's baptism for June 28. After she and her husband, who are supposed to be his godparents told us that date would work. So I got it all set up with the church, let our parents and siblings know so they could be there....and then this past weekend (3 weeks after I did all this) she tells me that my twin nephews (who will be 7 in July) won tickets to this minor league baseball game where they get to meet the players, get autographs, go on the field, etc. through some deal that their baseball team won some fundraiser..and its June 27 in the evening and so could we change the baptism? For a minor league baseball game. Um. Well, I kind of had it all SCHEDULED already. And she's all, we're free the rest of the summer...and I'm all, well I don't want to WAIT until later in the summer, we had it set up, you had said that weekend would work, why can't we just DO it? Its a minor league baseball team, they are 6, they'll get over it and they'll probably get another chance to do something like this at some point..b/c once again, they are 6. Ugh. So frustrating. SO...we go round and round and I tell her that well, I'd really rather not change it. Its on people's calendars and you know how quickly summer calendars fill up, ours included. We have one available weekend in July...and a couple in August but I'd really rather not put it off that long. So she e-mails me back yesterday saying, ok just go with what you had planned, we'll go to the game, drive halfway here that night and get a hotel, and drive the rest of the way in the morning. She's not thrilled about it, but she'll do it. Ok, fine. Then, I get an e-mail this morning. Oh, so it turns out that the game is Sunday night, not Saturday night! Ha! So now we have to bump it up to an earlier time on Sunday so they can leave our house by noon (they live about 6 hrs away from me)...but they will come on Saturday like they originally planned. Seriously. How on earth can one baptism be so difficult? I'm just glad we got it sorted out (I think!)....after just a few days of unnecessary stress. I am sure it will still be chaos on the day of it...with them scrambling to get out of here on time, but its more or less set at least. Ahh.

Now if only I can find myself and the little guy something to wear to this baptism. I'm off to do some shopping with a friend of mine this weekend, so I'm hoping I can find us both something then. Challenge #1: Finding a nice outfit for a 3 month old. Seems like everything I see for baby boys is "play clothes". Challenge #2: Finding something that fits, looks halfway decent on this post-baby, pudgy around the middle, body of mine and works for church and our after church backyard cookout, and is easy enough to nurse in. Could be a tall order! Challenge #3: It will be my first "long" drive with just me and Riley. Its only a little over an hour, but it makes me a little nervous anyway. I'm sure he'll be fine. Heck, I ran a part down to Kelly on a farm 30 minutes away the other day and we were fine going both there and back without ever getting out of his carseat so this shouldn't be any different. Challenge #4: I will have to either nurse in public or in my car on this trip probably twice, if not 3 times. I can do in the car, I've done it before...just park far enough away from most other cars and general traffic, hop in the back and no problem. If I have to do it somewhere public...little more nervous about that. But we'll see. Hopefully I can sneak into a dressing room at the store or something if need be.

So in good news. I don't think I've mentioned that hey, I have a new nephew! Ok...so he's like 7 weeks old at this point. I'm a little slow on the updating as you know. Haven't met him yet, he's my brother's newest little one and they live almost 4 hrs away. But they are planning on coming to the baptism so I'm looking forward to Riley meeting his "baby cousin"! So that is nephew #6 for me...and believe it or not nephew #7 is coming in November. This one is on Kelly's side. Remember last fall I mentioned that my brother in law suddenly got married at the courthouse? Well, they're having a baby now too. It was a surprise for sure. Not in the plans...after all, they just got married and were actually planning a "big wedding" for this fall, also they're YOUNG. Well, he's not all that young (24) but she's only 20, which I know a lot of people start families that young. I just can't imagine myself being a mom at that age, but that's me. So it was certainly a shock. But, even though it was a surprise, its exciting because she has been told that she would never be able to have children. She has severe endometriosis and some other health issues (part of why they got married last year-she couldn't get health insurance on her own and needed it) so its pretty exciting that she was able to get pregnant. Suprisingly to me, they told the whole world at like 5 weeks pregnant...something I will never be able to understand is how people can do that. After my own miscarriage, having numerous friends that have miscarried, I can't ever feel confident in a pregnancy until well into the 2nd trimester. I am amazed by the people that can tell the world immediately and assume that everything will be fine no matter what. Thankfully though, even with some severe cramping and spotting, everything appears to be fine. And they found out recently they're having a baby boy! I'm thrilled that Riley will have a cousin his age right down the road. I'm sure they'll get in lots of trouble together!! Between the two of them, plus our good friends (also Riley's babysitter) are having a little boy in August...watch out!!


If you've read this far...you deserve a reward. So here it is:
3 months old already!! I can't even believe it! My boy is growng up so fast :)

Settling In

Two and a half weeks down...I think this will work out. :) Riley seems to do well at Kim's, she says he is getting used to all the chaos (5-6 other kids) and the best thing is that you can tell she really cares about him and is taking good care of him. He is always the last one dropped off in the morning and the last one picked up in the afternoon. Even with all the other kids there in the morning, she takes the time to talk to me about how he was the night before for me, when he ate, any extra details and she seems genuinely happy to see him. When I pick him up, there is sometimes one other kid still there, but either way, she is always holding him and he is almost always asleep in her arms. The other kids seem to like him, this morning when I walked in with him, a couple of the other kids' eyes just lit up when they saw Riley. And yesterday morning, Riley was asleep when we got there, so the one other little boy went up to Kim while she was talking to me and put his finger to his lips..'shhhhh'. Because she taught them that they have to be quiet when the baby is sleeping. She said they go around "shhhing" each other during the day even when he's awake. She said she holds him and lets him watch the other kids play and he seems to like it. I believe that b/c he just loves to watch things. He likes it when I just carry him around the house and he just looks around at everything :)
This week he has a cold, poor guy. Its mostly just a really nasty cough...that sometimes he'll cough so hard he throws up, which of course just breaks a momma's heart. But we've got him sleeping in his carseat (how fun of a habit will THAT be to break when he starts feeling better, haha!), doing saline nose drops (which he hates!) and running a humidifier in his room at night and I think its all helping. Also, he's up to 10 lbs! Yay for my growing boy!

Smiles!!


This being cute is exhausting!

So what else is going on in my life? Well, its spring! Ok, so its practically summer, but with all the rain we had this spring...it took practically forever to be dry enough to plant and we're in the middle of "spring planting" now. I shouldn't even say that it seems to be going well...because as soon as I say that, something will break or it will rain so much the river floods or something equally fun. So...I'm not saying it. ;) But have I shown you our new tractor and planter???
The planter is in "go down the road mode" in this picture. Ok, so that's probably not the technical term, but its the way you set it up to pull it down the road, otherwise its too wide to fit. You'd be running into cars, mailboxes...you probably wouldn't be the community's favorite person. So you basically turn it sideways to pull it down the road. And that is our BRAND NEW tractor. Yep, we are the very first owners of it. This is the first brand new tractor we've ever bought, so its pretty exciting. Its supposedly "Riley's tractor". But of course Daddy is going to be using it until Riley's big enough. haha

Hope everyone's having a fabulous May...almost June already...where is the time going?!?!