We leave for MD tomorrow morning, early.  It’ll be Ian’s second plane trip and I think we’re all ready for a change of scenery and some good food and company.

The other morning as I sat with Ian on my lap while he drank his milk from his sippy, I started to think of how blessed I feel and what I’m thankful for:

• being able to give Ian milk after the many allergy scares we had early on in his infancy (and him loving it!)
• entering month three of being baby bottle free
• a supportive husband who is so helpful that he makes taking care of Ian easy
• being below pre-pregnancy weight (that could change after this week’s eating!)
• friends who keep in touch and make me laugh and who get me
• having a home and the ability to improve it not just so that it looks nice, but so that it is safer and better for Ian
• looking at life through Ian’s eyes–all smiles when he wakes up each morning; contentment while sleeping

Enjoy this time with your family and friends, and take a moment to be thankful for all that you have in your life.  Not everyone is as lucky as you.

Love,

itsy bitsy mama

Maybe it’s just me being an adult (not that this is very new), but I don’t get too excited by much–except when it comes to Ian, when I get to relive so many emotions and memories as a child.

So when Halloween started to show itself as far as the costumes I’d find hanging in Target, or the decorations I’d see in CVS, I knew I had to figure out what Ian would be before the day crept up on me.  Last year, I found Ian’s costume last minute because I wasn’t sure what the day would be like for him–would we go out and carry him around trick or treating (at less than three months old, we opted not to), would he help hand out candy (he did until he fell asleep!), and would we go to Bub’s office to show everyone at work how cute he was? (We sure did!)

This year, I’ve got a little walker, so animated, we can hardly wait for this holiday.  And today is his party at daycare.  We had a dress rehearsal where I put Ian’s costume on him this morning to test out the fit and layering, etc., for the party, and also for the parade and trick or treating activities on Saturday! He made my heart melt, and I just hope the party is really fun for him!

Here’s a sneak peek:

I call this a sneak peek since you can’t see the front of his costume.  He has a white belly.  The arms, tummy, and hood parts are soft, and across the chest it says:

Kiss Me!

Happy Halloween!

Love,

Itsy Bitsy Mama

P.S. And yes, that is a tub toy in Ian’s hand who we call “Piggy”–it’ s a favorite of his!

It’s been so long since I’ve stopped by here that I forgot my username.  Silly.

It’s turned so cold since I last posted and look at that: I’ve left the country and returned and survived trip number one without my number one baby.  It was strange–more strange than miserable, and I’m proud I survived. 

I’ve also started reading again.  I fear for sharing what I’ve been reading here since I’m almost embarrassed by it, but to be thrown back into reading and yearning to read something I’m really into has made me feel great.  It’s a hobby I bury with my work only to rediscover it at 9am again each week day, but it’s different when it’s work and it’s not a hobby.  For a while, it hasn’t been something I looked forward to doing.  The words and stories hadn’t been enough.  But now, I’m thrown back into a story and it feels wonderful.

This has to be short.  More to come sooner than the last post.

Love,

Itsy Bitsy Mama

Maybe it was the nice long weekend we had, or the fact that although I love summer’s intesity and all things associated with it, I do enjoy fall before it turns into the bitter pit of winter, so I’m ready to embrace it all–the vibrant leaves, the apple picking, the annual trek to Frankfurt.

Scratch that last part–I am dreading the trip to Germany sans Ian–to contemplate going many miles away from him is causing me to shudder, so instead I banish the thought from my mind for now. It has plenty of time to creep up later.  I try to focus on the artisan kiosks I like to check out that surround the fair grounds.  Now I’ll contemplate which day I can spend some time looking carefully through them for something for Ian.  That makes me feel a little bit better, I guess. 

I do not view this as a vacation or break from motherhood.  I view the trip, instead, as a grueling extended work week which I was fortunate to cut one day short by flying not non-stop which is cheaper…which is good for those who are paying for me to go, but really, it’s great for me to get home sooner to my little guy.

So, this post was going to be entirely different but it’s turned into the very thing I’m trying to banish from my mind: traveling without Ian and my separation anxiety.

Oh, well.  At least it’s already Tuesday and that means: 3-day work week!

Dear Ian,

It’s your mama, here.  And I must say.  We’ve had quite the year.

Originally, we kept August 22nd in our minds as the day we envisioned you to make your debut, but I was still waiting for you to say hello and meet everyone–and would do so for another week:

The time came, and we hit the hospital in what we consider a dramatic fashion: flying down the streets in the wee hours of a Friday morning while Bub beeped the horn at every intersection at least three times.  We got settled in our labor room for what would be the biggest event of our lives next to saying “I do.”:

You arrived into this big ol’ world at 1:11pm on August 29, 2008, after about 13 hours and 45 minutes of labor.  And you made quite the statement with your presence, even at just a few moments old:

I was shell-shocked for the surge of love, intense emotions of happiness, joy, and fright that would soon follow after you arrived.  I was not even close to knowing what I was in store for.

We packed up after a short 2-day hospital stay with great care.  The weather was perfect for bringing you into the world.  And so we left for home, into the sunshine, and it was there that we helped you understand what it means to be “home”:

You tired me out quickly with your unending appetite and lack of desire to sleep for long periods of time–at night.  I was always thirsty, weepy and emotional, for you are ours and I was enamored. Still am.

We’ve survived baths:

Managed many, many snuggles:

We showed you what Halloween was all about:

You learned who Santa is and helped decorate our first tree:

But most of all, you shared with us your desire to learn, grow, laugh, play, to enjoy life:

You have taught me patience, a love I’ve never known, and to want to be a better person–as a mother, wife, and individual.  Family has always been important to me in some form, but having you has changed my entire outlook and perspective on what it is to be one.

I’m so proud to be your mom.  Thank God for you.  I am so blessed.

Love, mum

It wasn’t until someone pointed out that I’ve been busy that I realized: no, I didn’t know busy until August hit! We’ve had something every weekend for a while, and while those plans were usually fun, they were still tiring! And um, the blog has obviously taken a very backseat to anything else going on!

Ian loves the beach.  He is getting used to the sand much more now that he isn’t so focused on putting everything into his mouth.  Let me rephrase, he puts stuff in his mouth plenty of the time, but at the beach, we keep him so busy that he has less time to slowly pick up, quickly examine and then try to eat whatever is nearby: rocks, seaweed, shells…We had a close call with a seashell, though.  Glad I didn’t have to enlist the help of a lifeguard with that. 

So…Ian turns 12 months on Saturday.  Wooo!!!

His doctor’s office has already referred to him as a toddler.  The kid kills me because when I think I can’t love him any more dearly than I already do, he just gets cuter, smarter, funnier, and aside from basking in all of that, he’s purely entertaining as he tries to walk and clutch on to me when I’m bent over picking up his toys.  I just want to eat him up and squeeze him tight all day.

The people at his daycare must think I’m the slowest lady going since I pick him up and take forever putting him into the car.  I haven’t even opened the car door.  It’s when I have made it to the car from the building and I need to hug and cuddle and coo and laugh and tickle and look at the cars whiz by and point these whizzing cars out to Ian….and by the time I get him into his carseat at least one mom has come and gone to get her kid–no joke.

Anyway.  Now that summer weather has arrived, I’m hoping it will stay for this weekend.  If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter.  Saturday is all about my little mister cutepants.

Please don’t grow up too fast.

Love,

itsybitsymama

Ian will be 10 1/2 months on Wednesday…let’s just sit and think about that for one second…wow!

+++

Today’s GI appointment went much better than I had thought it would be.  The fact that we were told NOT to schedule a follow-up appointment should tell you that there was no blood to be found–seen or hidden–so today we celebrate (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).  And we think about how we have a list of instructions for how to introduce dairy and soy into his diet in a few short months.  Wow.  Has it been this long of restricting and being SO careful to avoid the very items that we may now speak of introducing into his little body and ON PURPOSE?

+++

This weekend we hit the lake for the first time now that it has decided to be nice out–finally! I took a lengthy video of Ian splashing away at the water’s edge while trying to get him to look at the camera.  No, he just couldn’t take those big blues off the liquid for one second–not even for this pic!

Finally, I’m beginning to get organized for Ian’s first birthday.  It hasn’t hit me yet that I have been a parent for almost a year.  

I’ve started reading some blog posts this morning and it’s nice to know that sun has made an appearance elsewhere on the globe, but not here.  Aside from a few hours on Saturday, we’ve been staring at gray, lumpy clouds and continually putting on the rain gear.  It’s so tiring.  And I’ve looked at my calendar several times to make sure that this week is really, seriously, the week of the 4th, as I am convinced we are stuck in April’s shower cycle.

Today is Ian’s 10-month birthday! Lately, I’ve been a bit annoyed with myself because I’m not snapping as many photos of the little cutepants as I’d like.  I did, however, take a couple on Saturday at a bbq we were at, but every time I went to take Ian’s photo, he’d look/crawl/turn away.  So, I have two not so great photos.  I wish I got off my ass and went over to take pictures when Bub brought Ian over to meet a dog and he licked his face (and then licked Bub’s, too!).

In other Ian news, we still haven’t seen blood.  I have one more occult blood test card to do at home and another GI appointment in a few weeks.  I’d love for all the tests we did to come out negative.  Otherwise, it’s more testing…and discomfort for Ian to endure.  But for now, we pray and hope and forget as we enjoy little Ian. 

While still avoiding soy and dairy, we have managed to expand his repertoire of eating to include lime popsicles, spaghetti (complete with tomato sauce), crackers, and blueberries.  Also, this kid eats more fruit than I think I have in my lifetime.  On a nutritionist’s recommendation, we found freeze-dried apple and pear chips that are great for mixing with Cheerios or on their own.   

We are so looking forward to some beach time at the end of the week if the weather cooperates.  We have my parents’ place to visit, the lake in our town (and the season beach pass I was so happy I purchased which has gone unused…again, because of the rain), and the new baby pool.

Someday…we will get out there and see sun!

***Update*** So I can count on my friend Melissa, the one who had the bbq over the weekend, to supply me with pictures of Mr. Cutepants.  Thank goodness for a fancy camera to catch the quick-moving Ian! Thank you, Melissa!

We are still battling with the blood in the stool issue (finding a little bit of blood in Ian’s poop that is likely attributed to/a sign of a milk and/or soy allergy) that I wrote about earlier and will not link to because it’s so frigging annoying that we can’t say with certainty what it’s from.  But we’re getting there.

I am not someone who is usually positive, unfortunately, and I’ve become very superstitious.  So, if I say something and it’s a good thing in which I should feel good about, this doesn’t mean that I feel the warm and fuzzy something that is usually attributed to all things good.  Does that even make sense?

For over a month now I haven’t seen blood which is a welcome change and is the longest time frame we’ve had this result since we first started seeing the red stuff, since Ian was two months old.  And for about seven months, we’ve been told this is an allergy, and for me to cut out the world from my diet as I nurse, and to keep nursing.  Next I was told to pump out my brains (milk) five times a day times four weeks while Ian consumes a wet French fry stinking drink that will cause him to lose weight because he fucking hates it.  And then I was told to go back to nursing and see if you can do so with the same intensity (nope) as before.  Next we’re told to try the cake batter smelling vanilla drink that costs eleven billion dollars of which insurance is telling us it’s not medically necessary for Ian to be on… But oh my God, Ian likes the stuff.  And finally, no blood sightings as of late.

But then we go see the GI doctor last week (where I came across as cheerful with the report of no blood sightings) and Ian had to endure yet another rectal exam for which he now gives venomous stares to the doctor as if to say how would you enjoy someone putting a finger up your behind to get poop samples? Just checking.

And yes, so there is blood we cannot see in such a sample.  And so yes, we were solid in our affirmation of doing something further, doing another test.  If Ian has what this test is looking for then surgery will have to correct it. 

How does one stay calm during this? Well, one stays calm because we have sat by for MONTHS as the doctor says he’s 95% sure it’s an allergy.  And I’m all for being positive (but see above to understand how that worked out for me), but if we have Ian on such a controlled diet and for many of those months he was only consuming the very expensive vanilla liquid, then how is it an allergic reaction?

So, my friends, today we found out that the test result is normal.  Ian doesn’t have this structural thing they tested for.  I am ECSTATIC! But we continue to do some head-banging (against the wall, not while rocking out) as to what is causing this red stuff to appear when Ian is happy, gaining weight, and looking like a toddler, not a baby whose bum is a little grouchy. 

Love always,

itsy bitsy mama

You go through your pregnancy with the 40-week milestone wavering around in your mind as you anticipate what the birth will bring and who it is that you’ll be taking care of for the rest of your life.

Similarly, I’ve found the 40-week old mark for Ian to be notable since instead of growing in my tummy, he’s growing in the world and environment Bub and I have created for him.

We were in NY this past weekend and it was our longest trip away and our longest car ride to date.  Since I had to work I was exhausted times two, but the thoughts I had of Bub spending time with Ian walking around and having fun made the smiles appear as I paraded around to booths of a convention center.

I love you, Mr. Cutepants–

Love,

itsy bitsy mama