The Good Life...

Deep Thoughts - 3 - first baby one liners

2011-11-30T20:30:00.002-05:00

So we told Rece he was going to be a Big Brother in FL about 2 minutes before we told our parents. He talks constantly so we knew he would spill the beans if he knew sooner. So we had him color some pictures for the Grandma's and inside of the envelopes was a picture of my 9 week ultrasound.

We told him about the baby and he basically said "No that's not a good idea" - Great start... lol.

But once we gave him some work to do - ie telling all the Grandparents he was going to be a Big Brother, he got into it and played the role well. And then over the Thanksgiving weekend came the first of the one liners from him about the baby:

"Mom, how'd that baby get in your belly - you eat it?"

"When that baby pops out!" While he flings his hands in the air.

"When the baby comes I can't wear diapers anymore" - I love this idea and he was not prompted...

Pregnancy - Ver. 2

2011-11-13T18:49:00.005-05:00

If you are reading this post it is after Thanksgiving when we have told our families that we are expecting little Relli #2!

I have been wanting to keep kind of a running log of my second pregnancy to post after we announce it, but I have been so icky feeling and at the same time been so busy with travel from work that I have had no ambition. So anyway, it is November 13th and I am finally starting to feel at least a little better and so I will now try to recall what has happened the last couple of months.

We planned on trying for a summer baby this time as the first time around Rece was born at the beginning of baseball season and it made for a struggle throughout my maternity leave. I would really like to have a different experience this time around, with Jeremy being off all summer, I am hoping we get just that. My due date is June 15th, which is Jeremy's b-day! Although I don't put too much weight on that considering Rece came 3 weeks ahead of his due date.

So here I am - going on 10 weeks pregnant, here is what it has been like thus far:

Not the best.

That's right, I said it - I haven't enjoyed the first part of this pregnancy. I know that I will, and I feel bad saying it even, I loved my 2nd and 3rd trimesters with Rece, however this first trimester has been challenging for me.

I took my home pregnancy test on Wed October 5th, about 4 days ahead of when I should have been taking it. Although I knew I was pregnant the day before I took it, as I drank a frappe at lunch and about hurled it all over my desk. I also knew...this means trouble.... to be nauseous so early.

So as expected my test came back positive. Since I was taking it a few days earlier than planned (apparently they do work "5 days sooner") when I showed it to Jeremy before work that Wed morning he just said "Huh". Later I discovered that he didn't really believe me...or more clearly, he believed me but thought it might not be true because it was so early. So I took a couple more tests closer to the weekend - and I think it sunk in for both of us.

From the very beginning I was nauseous. It started where I was just nauseated during the day usually the worst between 10am - 3pm. Then week 5 came and I was nauseous 24/7. I woke up in the night nauseous. Riding in the car to work in the morning was absolutely miserable. I wasn't physically getting sick, I just felt like I was going to all day every day. This went on pretty constantly from weeks 5-9. I feel like it has gotten a little more manageable, I still have plenty of times where I feel like butt, but I also have times where I feel "okay" I wouldn't say I feel normal by any means. For one thing, I have to eat - all the time- or else I feel so sick I want to lie on the floor in the fetal position. It's like as soon as I get hungry the nausea intensifies so much that I can't possibly think about eating...which makes the sickness worse. So I have spent the weeks trying to stay ahead of this, and also not gain 20 pounds. I am so sick of eating. It's like I have to force myself to eat so I am not so sick. And of course, do all of the healthy foods I should be eating sound good??.... NO of course they don't. I also have a ton of food aversions this time around. I can't even fathom eating certain things right now. But again, I feel like that is starting to ease up just a bit.

Weird things I have experienced this pregnancy:

I have to eat an apple cinnamon nutri grain bar before getting out of bed.

I want to hurl if I try to drink anything other than water. Which is annoying since the best Starbucks holiday drinks are out.

I love bananas

I love bread and all things with bread on them

I want to hurl if I chew gum

I am forgetting everything, like my wallet on my desk after I have ordered food at the drive thru.

Laying on my sides at night makes me way more sick than laying on my back

Where am I now? Well my pants are getting tight already. Big shock since all I do is eat. We had our dating ultrasound on Friday the 11th and I measured only a couple of days ahead of my LMP due date. Interestingly this ultrasound was almost 2 weeks later than Rece's dating ultrasound and we could see little nub arms and legs this time around which was cute.

I am looking forward to feeling better and of course to having another baby in our family!

Rece - 30 months and then some

2011-10-23T11:27:00.004-04:00

Can't believe that we will have a 3 year old in about 4 months....

Rece had a great summer, he turned two and a half and we celebrated with a big cup of fro-yo for his "half birthday" - he kept saying "but it's not my real birthday". True enough, mommy wanted fro-yo.

Things he loves right now:

- Baseball

- Football

-Michigan Marching Band - he plays a pretend tuba and marches around the living room to the tune of the Michigan fight song playing on the fridge magnet we have.

-Reading books, loves the Llama Llama books

-School - riding the tricycle, playing football with his pal Nick and being the boss of the toddler room since he is now the oldest one left. He will move to the pre-school room at 3.

-Shrek & Nemo

-Tractors

-Hot Wheels and all things with wheels

He is still a constant chatterbox and I love that we can have a conversation on the way home from school. He is getting into pretend a lot more now and has quite the imagination.

We are blessed that Rece is pretty even tempered. He does of course have his times of whining and has a mini-fit every once and a while but thus far we have avoided a lot of drama. He is very well behaved when we go out to eat or shopping, I think this is because since he was born I hauled him in and out of stores every weekend while we killed time while daddy was studying at home. So he is used to, and likes going to Target and Wegmans and the mall. Score.

Deep Thoughts - 2

2011-10-02T16:35:00.002-04:00

Rece from the back seat of the car talking to us in the front : "Daddy do you remember when we saw that crash and the sirens"

I reply "Yes, I remember that"

Rece - giving me the 'You have to be kidding me mom" look - "I was asking Daddy"

_________________________________________________________________

While watching a DVD on the computer so daddy can watch the Tigers on TV:

Jeremy - "Rece get back from the TV, Rece - get back..."
Rece - "Daddy, this is the laptop." He walks around the corner and points "THAT is the TV"

Gotta love the toddler who thinks he is smarter than his parents at 2 and a half.

Deep Thoughts with Rece

2011-09-28T18:48:00.003-04:00

New recurring blog segment: Deep Thoughts with Rece. Capturing all of his toddler quotes and general goofiness.

A couple of recent ones:

Rece " I like spicy Chickens"
Me: "When did you eat spicy chicken?"
Rece " I don't know - I just like it"

Rece, picks up fake toddler phone while I am putting his shoes on and we are getting to leave the house and says:
"Hi Santa, I am not being very nice right now. Okay. Going to Wegmans now. Bye"

Rece:
"We love Michigan" "We don't like the Green Team" - This was actually referring to Notre Dame.

I'm Blig-Blogity Back!

2011-09-25T09:02:00.005-04:00

I cannot believe how much of a giant slacker I have been on the blog. I need and want to get back into the grove....starting....now.

Well lets see, the last time I posted was in the spring, so I missed an entire season of the year in blogging. I think if I try and commit to actually writing posts on all of the things that we did this summer - it won't really happen and I will be defeated before I start - so instead here are some of the biggest things that come to mind - bullet style. Perhaps I will even write a post or two on a couple of them at some point.

Summer 2011 - In no particular order...
-Jeremy took two Masters classes during his summer break, both were demanding and drained a lot of our fun time this summer :-(

-BUT we did manage to take a vacation to Michigan around the end of June and 4th of July, where we got to see a few of our fave Michigan Buds that we miss so much!

-We went to HAWAII. Maui to be exact. My little brother got married to this totally awesome chick named Taylor ;-) It was the most beautiful wedding I have ever been to. Even with this really weird emotional lady who did a reading at the ceremony and barely held it together.

-Rece spend the week we were in Maui with Gma and Gpa Rellinger. He had the time of his life! He fished, swam, boated, played in the yard, skipped rocks etc etc.

-Rece turned 2 1/2! (promise separate post on this)

-I got a new camera

-We booked tickets to Disney World for Thanksgiving of this year!

-We painted our bedroom and a accent wall in our living room.

-Jeremy turned 34

-We got a water softener and a new dishwasher and it is amazing to see what clean dishes can really look like.

- Rece completely fell off the potty training wagon...boys will be boys

-We had new windows installed and they make the house look so different.

-We went to Michigan again a couple of weeks ago to celebrate Clint and Taylor again at their "back home" reception - Rece got the stomach flu while we were there, but Thanks to Gma and Gpa R we were still able to go and have a great time.

New Pictures for spring!

2011-04-27T21:08:00.003-04:00

Rece had his pictures taken about a week ago - and as always Heidi did an AWESOME job. I can't belive how big he is getting.

Click HERE to see the preview...

Rece at 26 months

2011-04-17T21:28:00.005-04:00

O...M...G
This kid is something else. Every day he surprises me with something new. Something he says, something he knows, something he does. He is smart. Really stinking smart. Scary smart. Like smarter than us soon, smart.

Some of my fave Rece facts at 26 months:
- He knows his ABC's, his colors, his shapes, can count to 20 in English (although he never says 15, I guess he isn't a fan of that number), to 10 in Spanish. He knows a few days of the week and in the correct order.

- He can sing twinkle twinkle, row your boat, rock a bye baby, baa baa black sheep and probably more.

- He has some of his favorite books memorized, as in he can recite 4, 5, 6 lines of text nearly word for word on the pages.

-He knows his first and last name and our first and last names as well -Speaking of names, his teacher said that Rece learns and remembers the names of every kid he comes in contact with at day-care. We knew that he could name all of his own class mates....and their parents.... but I about fell over in the hall way when he named all the kids by picture in the other toddler room, and the majority in the pre-school room....even 3 or 4 from the infant room. I wish I could remember names that well!

-He is Obsessed with baseball. The high school baseball field buts up to the daycare parking lot and he will stand in his classroom and watch the baseball players out the window any chance he gets. He and daddy play baseball in the living room all the time and he can whack the heck out of the ball off the tee.

-He likes to tell me which way to go in our neighborhood and then he will yell out "there is our house - I found it!"

- He is starting to "test" the limits. When we say "no climbing on the table" he puts his leg a little further up and then just looks at you to see what you will do next. I have a hard time not calling him a butthead and cracking up.

-He is aware of the concept of being "safe". I am hoping not too much, I don't want him scared all the time. But we have emphasized a number of things that are not safe and how to be safe. So for instance when we buckle him in he says "so I safe? so don't worry..." Or around getting his fingers pinched in the door he has said "I pinch my fingers? Is berry dangerous" There are many things he will tell us are "berry dangerous".

-His sweet tooth has arrived. For a kid who ate literally only yogurt bites as a treat until he was 2, he has acquired a taste for the finer things in life - Chocolate Chip Cookies....ice cream and glup....chocolate candy. He has had all of them in very small quantities. He would still take fruit over any of them, any day of the week. Otherwise, he has been eating and growing like a horse lately.

- He is full of crap. He makes up stories....or maybe it is more remembering things that happened once a while ago and then adding some things that make sense. But he likes to tell stories. Jeremy said the other day "He is so you" and I can't help but agree, he is the next instigator in the making.... ;-)

E-mealz

2011-03-27T13:06:00.002-04:00

Hi, my name is Chassidy and I am addicted to e-mealz. I found this through my friend Teri on Facebook. It is a dinner/menu planner. It gives you 5 meals to make for dinner each week and the shopping list to go with it. The shopping list is even divided by section in the grocery store!! The meals are really good, I would say we have enjoyed 90% of them and would make them again. There are several plans to choose from - we do low-fat for 2, which always leaves left overs for lunch the next day. I print the menu out on Sunday, get the groceries and we have dinner planned for the week! And it got us out of the rut of eating the same ol same ol each and every week. I love e-mealz! www.e-mealz.com

The great payoff...

2011-03-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

I just find it interesting that these are times when it is the "in thing" to pay off debt and free yourself from bills. I have noted over the last year or two how many more people publicize when they pay off a credit card or a loan. I couldn't have been happier to get a bonus this year and use it to pay things off. Jeremy's truck will be paid off in two more payments, and we may have a "no truck payment party". That payment is a beast, and I can't even imagine not having it, so before we get that money each month and have a chance to miss it, we will be diverting the exact amount toward the student loan payoff and savings. We have been living without that money each month for 48 months and we can continue to if it helps get rid of another payment! It IS something to be proud of, to live within your means and to strive toward being without debt. It's not easy, and it will be some time yet before we are just down to our mortgage, but we are working on it. And we could get there faster, I am spoiled. I drink Starbucks on the weekend and I do a little bit of shopping at Target and LOFT now and again and we are able to treat ourselves to dinner and vacations now and again.... But I put those things in the "work hard, play hard and the life is short" buckets, knowing if we needed to we could give them up. But for now - we will enjoy some of that while working towards the great payoff....

Are you kidding me?

2011-03-10T08:21:00.004-05:00

Yep, you MUST be kidding me. I just called my doctor's office and told them I needed to come in because my tonsils were swollen again. I told the cliff notes version of how I went to urgent care a couple weeks ago for the same thing and that they gave me antibiotics which helped but now it is back. The scheduler said that because of the "screw-ups" they are seeing due to urgent care they are telling patients "if you started there - you have to finish there". Excuse me???? So I replied back - "if I had just called for an appointment and not mentioned urgent care - I would be fine? That doesn't seem fair to me" and "you are telling me they are so incompetent, and now you are going to send me back there?" She also told me "not to mention it to my doctor" when I come in. Really? Really? So I am not supposed to tell my Doctor what I was treated for/with? B.S.! Watch me.

2

2011-02-27T17:21:00.006-05:00

Rece is 2! On his actual Birthday....he got slammed with some cough/cold/flu crap. Poor guy! He had something mild over the weekend, but then on Valentines Day, Monday he got hit by the truck of a virus. So bad so quick they did a chest x-ray again because I swear when this kid gets sick he always sounds like he has the pneu. Chest x-ray was negative but he was so sick they gave him a 5 day course of steroids...it helped some....but then he either got a new cold or the old one wasn't done because it came back. And yada yada yada....I THINK we are finally over it now - no less than 2 weeks later.

Anyway, we didn't celebrate too much that day which made me sad, but we did give him a few gifts from us so that he could play with them when he was home from school over the next couple of days. He liked the opening and of course the playing with the presents.

The following weekend we planned a celebration with all of the grandparents who came in from Michigan. He was feeling much better (compared to Monday at least) and we did it up with Balloons, Cupcakes and a cookie cake made and decorated by my Mom. As you can see by the pictures below it was a combo of Thomas the Train and the "Cars" movie. We decorated and got things set up while he was napping and then when he came downstairs it was all a surprise for him. He could see the balloons and gifts from the top of the stairs and he said "Oh Wow!" then he basically directly to the biggest box and started tearing paper. He is such a lucky boy to have such a great family that loves him so much and spoils him with such neat toys and books and clothes!

We had a really good weekend. (I will spare you the story of the urgent care visit over the weekend and the follow up peds visit on the Monday following for another post)
And it was a crazy feeling to celebrate the little man turning 2. I think I enjoy him more every day. He is so smart, funny, and beautiful and I am proud that I am his mommy.

Before he was 2

2011-01-14T22:04:00.003-05:00

In just a few weeks my little guy will be 2! I wanted to take a few minutes to capture all of the things that he is doing and enjoying now before we reach the milestone.

- He loves to talk and can now remember what he did at school and tell us about his day - including sometimes confessing to things like pushing or pinching someone.

-He has long since been speaking in complete sentences, and uses words and phrases like "I don't have any milk either?" "Mommy, Emma is silly" "That is awesome" "Oh! (as if surprised by something) Thank you Mommy!" "What's wrong? Oh, you happy now" "I have to tinkle in the potty".

-Speaking of potty, randomly he will tell us that he has to go and he has a few times, other times we have been slow to get the seat set up and he will go in his diaper. Most days he doesn't give it a second thought.

-He loves trains, loves loves loves! And he has several of the Wooden Thomas Railway collection. He is also a big "Cars" fan and right now his obsession is a metal John Deere tractor.

- He has gotten very into coloring pictures, we have his little tikes picnic table inside and we keep it in the upstairs living room and usually when we are working in the kitchen he is busy working on a piece of art.

-He still loves books. We just added Llama, llama, red pjama to the bed time routine.

-He has started calling this baby doll we have "baby seeester" I did not tell him to say this....but I think it is super cute.

-His fave foods right now are - Chicken, cheese, grapes, any kind of berry, whole apples so he can take bites like a big boy, pickles and eggs with cheese and sausage. When we take him out to dinner we give him 2 or 3 choices and he chooses for himself and eats it! Including a plate of broccoli just a couple of weeks ago.

-He likes to sing and do Yoga. I can take very little (no) credit for the lader. They do Yoga at his preschool and the posses he can hold are quite amazing and too funny. As for songs, he will bust out the ABC's, Bob the Builder, Twinkle Twinkle, etc at the most random times.

- Once and a while he busts out with a "Love you". The other day when we were driving home from school I asked him "Rece, do you love daddy?" He smiled and said "Yeah" then I said "Rece do you love Emma?" He smiled again and said "Yeah" . Then I asked "Rece do you love Mommy" and He said - "I want to go to the car wash"

The kid cracks.me.up. And I love that. Love you little monkey man.

Christmas and New Years 2010

2011-01-14T22:02:00.007-05:00

Wow - super duper behind on blogging....I am sure the 2 readers that I have, have long sense stopped checking for updates. But I will update none the less.

Our Holidays were great! I was so excited for Rece's 2nd Christmas - I think I had visions of him opening each and every gift and oohhhhhing and ahhhhhing and giving everyone big hugs and kisses of Thanks. So it didn't happen exactly like that....but he really did enjoy the whole opening of gifts thing this year and with each and every box that he unwrapped he would say "open it" so that toy had to be opened right then so he could check out what was inside.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day in Jackson at my parents and then headed to Mt. Pleasant the day after Christmas for Christmas with Jeremy's parents. We also had the opportunity to see some friends as well, which was great. On Christmas Eve we went to the 5pm Children's Mass. Rece started off mass with "Wow and ohhhhhh" when they started singing the opening hymn. But by 5 minutes into the actual mass he said (loudly) - "I go home now?" . Overall he was pretty good, Jeremy took him out into the family/welcome area about 2/3rds through the mass because he was too fidgety to stay in the pew.

Christmas Day we got up and opened gifts and then celebrated with the whole Dawson family at my parents house. Although it is crazy, because there were like 40 people there, it is such a cool way to spend Christmas Day, with family - near and far. Rece liked playing with all of his little second cousins. So many babies now, it is so much fun.

When we got up to the lake the weather wasn't quite as cold so Rece got to build a snowman with Gma, Gpa and Josh. He loved that. We also got to see all of his Great Grandma's on the trip. We had been showing him pictures so he would know their names and he did, he did great. He really has never had "stranger danger" shyness, maybe a good thing, maybe not...who knows.

One funny story: on our way from Jackson to Mt. Pleasant we stopped at the Lake Lansing Road Mejier. In the middle of a busy isle Rece folds his hands in the shopping cart and yells out "Thank you Jesus!!" - he was praying. We had to pick ourselves up off the floor of the beer and wine isle....(cough) I mean the cereal isle from laughing so hard. No idea why he busted out the lunch prayer in the middle of meijer, but I am pretty sure people thought he was an angel child.

Anyway, we stayed in Michigan through the new year this year which was also nice - I actually saw mid-night this year. First time in three years I think. Some pictures below of our great 2010 Christmas:

Yoga Master...

2011 Bucket List

2011-01-01T12:54:00.007-05:00

I am stealing this term from my future SIL Taylor. I was thinking about my 2011 goals and she mentioned she too had a "2011 Bucket List", and well lets face it - it sounds more fun than "Goals". :-)

So here it is, in no particular order and I reserve the right to add at any time, oh and the one that is * out is confidential ;-)

1. Workout and improve my fitness and energy level! And feel good about wearing a swimsuit by the time Clint and Taylor's Maui Wedding comes around in August!

2. Fund raise and walk in an Avon 2 Day Breast Cancer Walk (debating between Chicago and DC walks)

3. Read 12 books

4. Go on at least 12 dates with my husband

5. ***********

A mass of updates...

2010-12-19T21:54:00.001-05:00

So far behind on blogging, sorry for the random order, but happy reading...

Almost forgot these!

2010-12-19T21:48:00.002-05:00

I forgot to post some pics from Halloween....great timing, less than a week before Christmas! Oh well....

Countdown to Christmas

2010-12-19T21:26:00.004-05:00

It's probably obvious by my lack of posting that our December has flown by. I have been looking forward to Christmas since Halloween because I knew Rece would love it this year.

We kicked off the season with tree decorating on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. He did really good with this,and after the initial "WOW" of the whole tree and ornaments thing he has been very respectful of the tree.

We also bought Rece the "Classics" on DVD for Rece, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph and the Grinch too. He is obsessed. He is actually singing most of the words to Frosty and Rudolph at this point and it is hysterical. And he will say "The Grinch Mad!" Bhahahahaha. He also lights up when he talks about Santa bringing him a "choo-choo!".

The week after Thanksgiving Grandma and Grandpa Barton came and Rece got to decorate Christmas cookies with Grandma!

So as it goes, we have been busy bees getting ready for Rece's second Christmas. He is getting Thomas the Train stuff from Santa, and clothes and some Elmo arts and crafts stuff and a Elmo puzzle from mommy and daddy. There was so much I wanted to get him, but I know there are certain Grandparents out there (you all know who you are) who have been shopping up a storm and his 2nd birthday is only 6 weeks after Christmas, so I wanted to save a few ideas for then as well.

Thanksgiving

2010-12-19T20:50:00.007-05:00

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. At some what of the last minute I decided to take some extra days off around the Holiday. Work had been so stressful and I had the never ending cold, that had started at the end of October and the week before Thanksgiving became walking pneumonia. So I took the Wednesday before and a half a day Monday after off for a nice long break. Carly came in from New Jersey on Tuesday night. We did all of the grocery shopping on Wed for our big meal, which we cooked on Friday since Jeremy's mom and dad were coming in mid-day Thursday. Carly made awesome Chilli on Wednesday for us to eat on Thursday and then Lynn, Carly and I cooked quite a meal on Friday. The menu was:

-Sage, Sausage, and Apple Stuffing
-Bacon Wrapped Turkey Breast
-Apple and Challot Gravy
-Butternut Squash Rissoto
-Fresh Green Bean and Mushroom Casserole
-And "from Scratch" Apple Pie for Dessert
And yes it was as awesome as it sounds...

Carly and I did a some shopping and Rece went to see Santa. He did pretty good, didn't cry at all but didn't smile either, just kind of looked at us like "Why would you put me on this random dude's lap?" The best part was we walked right up to Santa - no line! It was Saturday morning, on a Penn State Home Game and I think just to early in the season for people to want to bring their kids. A perfect time to go!

We had a fantastic weekend, playing and playing and playing. All in all I was quite lazy which I enjoyed and really needed. Rece had a fantabulous time with Grandma and Grandpa and Carly. It was such nice break.

On the Monday after, I went to work in the morning to do an interview. But left at noon and went and did some shopping. I got pretty much 75% of my shopping done that day. By Tuesday, I felt ready to go back to work and much more refreshed.

A couple more pics from the Turkey Weekend:

Fall Photos in the Park

2010-11-14T19:55:00.002-05:00

We had some family photos taken Halloween weekend by Heidi Lynne Photography in State College. Heidi also did Rece's 3 month pictures. Here is the link to the preview:
http://www.heidilynnephotography.com/rellinger/

The dose.

2010-11-10T20:40:00.003-05:00

It's a bit like a title for an episode of Sienfeld. And that is a good fit for this story.

So.....

On Monday I decided to take Rece to the doctor, he had a nasty virus that they classified as Pharyngitis and it appeared as if it was gone...but then the cough and snot came back! And it was going on weeks so I wanted to make sure his lungs were clear. The doc said his lungs sounded great, (relief) but he thought the cough/cold was lasting a bit too long - his theory was: it could be a new cold on top of the old cold or it could be a sinus infection. Due to the length of the symptoms he suggested we try a 10 day course of Augmentin. I was both reluctant and okay with this - obviously you don't want to do antibiotics for no reason but Rece hasn't been on them since May, and then before that it was Jan. so a pretty good stretch. Anyway, he sends the script in.
I go to pick it up after work.
The pharmacist is one never seen before. She immediately starts on a high pitched tangent about how she doesn't agree with the dose. It is too high and she tells me she called the doctor and demanded to talk to him.
I ask "well did you talk to him"
She says yes and the doctor confirms that he is treating a sinus infection and also confirms Rece's weight. She continues to talk about the dose and what to do if he has a reaction. She does not listen to me when I tell her he has been on this before. During this whole conversation she starts to mix the suspension.
Next she tells me that there is 14 days in the mix and that I will throw the rest away after the 10 day course.
I get home and I am all frazzled about the drama around the dose. Even though the doctor confirmed it, I still worry. Then I look at the bottle. It looks only about 2/3 full. Weird.
My anal self grabs a clean glass and the teaspoon syringe and I start to measure how many teaspoons are in there. There are 20 - 21 max - there will be nothing to throw away.
I call the Pharmacist back and re-state to her what I understand about how much should be left. She says "where does the liquid come up to on the label"
When I tell her she says...
"Add some tap water"
WTH.
I am totally freaked out now, and I do not give him the meds before he goes to bed. He sleeps through the whole night no coughing. The next morning it seems better, and the next night and morning and night are the same. Tonight he barely coughs and the snot was minimal.

I guess sometimes things really do have a way of working themselves out.

National Blog Posting Month

2010-11-10T19:46:00.004-05:00

Cue the blog guilt. I neglect it already and then I remember, and see that many people are following National Blog Posting Month - posting one post each day. I read their posts, I enjoy them and I have more blog guilt. lol. I just haven't done a good job of posting lately. I found this link on another blog and it has some interesting prompts for posts, I may use a few.

http://www.nablopomo.com/page/prompts-1

Rece update

2010-11-10T18:49:00.009-05:00

I have several posts drafted in my mind, just haven't taken the time to write them, so I am going to try and start knocking a few out. First as always is Rece. Or simply "man" as Jeremy and I call him. As in "how did Man do at school today?"

He will be 21 months old this weekend. I am not sure what is crazier that we are in the second to last month of 2010 already or that my son is going to be 2 years old in three months! Here's the thing, he looks and talks like he is going on 3, so I have long sense gotten over him not being a "baby" anymore but it's still amazing to think he has been in our lives for almost 2 years now. Here is what he has been up to:

He is somewhere around 34 inches tall and just weighed in at about 29 pounds. Which I was relieved by since I feel like he hasn't eaten anything in 4 weeks. (This is obviously an exaggeration, but sometimes that is how it feels)

He is finally off the preavicid and not having any issues with reflux!

He says some funny stuff, here are a couple of his latest:
- He will grab a cup and pretend to be drinking - when you ask him what he is drinking he says "having a coffee".

- "I boogers in my nose" when you wipe them out he says "I see them?"

- He often talks about people coming to see him, since our family is always coming to visit. He will say "Grandma coming to see you?" (you meaning "me"?) or "Bubba Coming?" (Bubba is my dad) The latest is : "Santa! - he coming!"

-One morning I woke him up from a dead sleep and he says "What's daddy doing?" which he says every morning. But then he followed with " Daddy Poopin?, Me see." Boys.

-When getting my flu shot, he sees that I am going to get a poke and yells "No Mommy, Get Up!" He was so sweet I thought he was going to cry when he saw I was going to get a shot.

He is obsessed with Thomas the Train.

He is also very interested in the "going potty" he mostly just wants to sit on the toilet and pull paper off the roll. But now he has added making a "psssssssssssssss" noise when he sits there. And he talks a lot about getting the pee-pee out - but we haven't see any in the toilet as of yet. He will have a down right fit if we don't put him on the potty when he asks.

He had a pretty nasty cold a couple of weeks ago, but it never went to his chest (hooray for flow vent!) It may have stuck in his sinuses, still TBD.

It has been a good fall so far and I can't wait to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with my "man".

Crock-Pot Gourmet? Please share!

2010-10-19T20:23:00.005-04:00

Now that fall and winter (eeek!) are here we have basically stopped grilling which is where 90%+ of our dinners came from this summer. It also helps that Jeremy does almost all of the cooking in the summer. NOW we are back to our normal rush around after we get home from work feeding Rece and trying to figure out what we are going to have for dinner. That type of "meal planning"....or lack there of doesn't always lead to the best food choices. So I am making a conscious effort to better plan for and shop for our dinners - taking that a step further I want to start using a crock-pot to cook a couple of dinners per week. So I researched and waited until this little bad boy went on sale:

I got it for $35 with my Kohls cash! The best part, it can be set to cook on low/high etc for x# of hours and then it will switch to "warm" . This is key as I have dried out many a chicken dish trying to get the timing just right between the crock-pot and my commute. And it also has a temperature probe function if you are cooking a roast it will heat the meat to the proper internal temp - and then again, magically switch to "warm". Anyway, I am super excited to try it out.

That is where I need YOUR help! I have Crock-pot book that is really uninspiring, and there are of course a zillion recipes online but what is better than tried and true recipes that you know and love. Please share your fave recipe, link or book that makes you a Crock-Pot Gourmet!

Thanks in advance!

Fall Festival

2010-10-07T20:38:00.001-04:00

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Rece in NYC

2010-09-26T14:42:00.001-04:00

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3-0

2010-09-26T13:19:00.003-04:00

I turn 30 tomorrow.

How did this happen?

I am not consumed with thoughts of "getting old", having said that I can't believe 30 years have come and gone. Where does time go? So many milestones have come and gone. Here are some thoughts I have pondered.

- I have been a mommy for almost 2 years
- I have lived in PA over 3 years
- I have been a wife for 5 years and we have been together nearly 10!
- I have been a homeowner for almost 6 years
- I have been working in my career for 6 years after Graduate School
- I have been able to drink (legally) for 9 years
- I have been able to vote for 12 years
- I have been out of High School for over 12 years
- I have been driving for 14 years

That is where time goes...and I can't wait to see what the next 30 holds.

Rece News

2010-09-26T12:59:00.008-04:00

The little monkey is going to be two before we know it, here are some updates:

- He is so much steadier on his feet than even a couple of months ago and wants to run everywhere.

-His hair has lightened over the summer and has a tint of red to it

-We struggle with his pinching and hitting when he gets frustrated. We have taught him that it is not nice and to say "Sorry" and give a hug if he is not nice. But that seems to have backfired since he is so good at the "Sorry" and hug part, he seems to think he can just check that box and move on...

-He is remembering things, everything. And then he talks about it over and over and over again when he recalls something. The things he remembers are amazing to me.

-He is repeating phrases a lot more now - every day we tell each other "Bye-Bye & See you later" and we also will get the "Had a dood day!!" (ie. Have a good day)

-He will tell you who he played with at day care and what they did. It is most often, Piper, or Liam or Eli and their favorite pastime is "running"

-He went through a few week phase where he was a BEAR at bedtime, luckily that has passed and he is back to his normal bed loving self. We did add two stuffed animals to the routine during that time, and now he has to have both "Bunny and Bear" when he goes to sleep.

-He is perfecting the tantrum. I think his strategy is "practice makes perfect" - not cool.

-He has discovered his fingers fit in his nose, and there are "burgers" up there. Since Jeremy and I did not dedicate teaching time to this skill, I would like to think his booger picking buddy from day-care, whomever that might be. Again - not cool.

-He is on a Flovent Inhaler for the fall and winter to protect his airways from inflammation and hopefully keep every cold from needing a chest x-ray to determine bronchitis or pneumonia He had a cold earlier this month and it was a normal kid cold. I couldn't believe that is what it could be like!! No trips to the ER- WHAT!?! ;-)

-We are also in the process of weaning him from prevacid. We went to a 1/2 pill each day for a few weeks and now we just took him off completely. His reflux has been good, we are crossing our fingers it will stay that way.

-He has started to say "I love you" - I.heart.him.

What we did this summer!

2010-09-26T12:19:00.005-04:00

Ahhhhhh, the days of fall, I LOVE fall. Summer is okay and all, but quite frankly there are days when I loathe the heat. To me, the best part of summer is that Jeremy is off of school and our mornings are not as rushed, and because Jeremy is home most of the week, he has time to do enough things around the house that it frees up our weekends to spend as a family.

We had an absolutely wonderful summer. Here is a snapshot of our fun times:

- We spent lots of time at Spring Creek Park playing on all of the slides etc. and even spent some time in the very cold creek.
- We took advantage of our new deck and new grill spending lots of time using both.
- We took a long and FUN trip back home to Michigan where we:
-Went to a Michigan Wine Fest
-Rece spent a whole week + with both sets of Grandparents
-Jeremy & I went to Myrtle Beach
- We all spent some good time at Lake Isabella with Family

- We went to State College Arts Fest and the People's Choice Arts Show in Boalsburg
- We went to NYC: Central Park Zoo, Times Square, Rockefeller Center and spent the weekend with Carly in NJ.
-We watched daddy play baseball at State College Spikes Stadium
- We went to a Penn State Tailgate as a family
-We went home to Michigan for Labor Day weekend which included another week with the Grandparents for Rece and a stop in Cleveland at the Children's museum on the way home.
- Rece grew, and grew and grew. and did not have 1, not 1, cold all summer! It was great!!!

Here is to a fall as wonderful!

18 months!

2010-08-15T17:33:00.005-04:00

Wowza. My little man is a year and a half. Rece hit the 18th month milestone on Saturday, we celebrated with a trip to a new park where he terrorized a flock of ducks. He chased them from one end of the park to the other screaming "DUCK"!! Thankfully, his "D" is well pronounced. :-)

He changes and grows and develops so much everyday that it is hard to keep track of all of the milestones he is surpassing. Here are a few highlights:

-He is a running fool. He loves to "RUN" around the house, around the yard, and pretty much always in the opposite direction that you want him to.

-He is a complete chatter box. No idea how many words he has now - a 100, more, hard to say. But he can answer questions with a definite yes or no and is still perfecting the yes head shake, currently his whole body moves up and down when he answers yes. :-)

-He loves Blues Clues - They say "handy dandy..." and he yells "notebook"

-His favorite book is now "LET'S GO BLUE!" and he is perfecting his "Go Blue" yell and his "hail" fist for football season.

-Speaking of football, he is obsessed with football and baseball things. His toys, when it is on tv, or an ad in Target marketing the fall clothes, he gets down right giddy about football and baseball. He has two bats which he runs around swinging yelling "BOOM".

-He has his big boy look now. He doesn't look like a baby anymore :-( He has to have grown an inch or two at least this summer and is now wearing 2T shirts and 18mos - 2T shorts depending on the brand.

-He has become quite the eater this summer and he loves flavorful foods so much so he is not a good eater of things we leave bland. He will eat a chicken brat that has quite a zip to it or a spicy marinara sauce on spaghetti. He loves veggie burgers and yogurt as well. and FRUIT oh man does he love fruit. Veggies....not so much, we got him to eat some broccoli the other day because we told him it was cheese, besides Fruit, Cheese is the number 1. Recently, we went to our favorite breakfast place and the people in the booth next to us sat and watched in awe as he ate 1/2 banana, 2+ silver dollar pancakes, 1 link of sausage, 1 slice of bacon and kept asking for more. The lady watching said "Wow, he is a good eater"

- He is a smooching machine, he loves to give kisses, and we love that.

Face-cation

2010-08-15T17:20:00.003-04:00

I have decided to take the rest of the summer off....of facebook. I don't think that I spend an inordinate amount of time on it or anything but I do know that it gives me an excuse to just sit and "play" on the computer in the evenings after Rece has gone to bed. Whether I'm bored or just want to do nothing that requires any thought - I do find myself perusing it almost every evening. This is time I could be using to weed flower beds, read, exercise (vacation and it's aftermath has not been kind to my waistline), or just hang out with my husband on the deck. Whom, by the way despises facebook and does not think I can give it up. Which motivates me even more. ;-)

4th of July Vacation 2010

2010-07-25T12:53:00.001-04:00

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So Small

2010-07-11T22:04:00.004-04:00

So I had a REALLY craptastic week at work last week after I got back from vacation. I don't blog about work details but just know that I needed a serious break from thinking about it over the weekend to keep my sanity. So here we are, Sunday night. I went for a walk with the Ipod and I was shuffling through trying to find a album or songs that would get my blood flowing and get me pumped for the week ahead. I was looking for something that would make me think of kicking a little "butt". What I oddly landed on was "So Small", by one of my faves Carrie Underwood. Ironically, this was just what I needed and really says it all. I won't paste the whole thing, but I really love this part:

It's so easy to get lost inside
A problem that seems so big at the time
It's like a river that's so wide
It swallows you whole
While you're sitting around thinking 'bout what you can't change
And worrying about all the wrong things
Time's flying by, moving so fast
You better make it count 'cause you can't get it back
Sometimes that mountain you've been climbing
Is just a grain of sand
And what you've been out there searching for forever
Is in your hands
Oh, and when you figure out
Love is all that matters after all
It sure makes everything else
Seem so small!

Hoping for a better week and going to keep in mind that work is just that work. Not my life.

America!

2010-07-11T21:41:00.003-04:00

We had a great 4th of July vacation! We finished out our Myrtle Beach portion of the trip and headed to Lake Isabella where both sides of our family were waiting, and of course we were dying to see our little man. He was almost stunned to see us, he gave us big hugs but looked so surprised that we were there. After that the next few days flew by! We got to see lots and lots of family, ate entirely too much and had plenty of tasty beverages! I will post some pictures as soon as I have them as well as some more "stories" from our Myrtle Beach excursion. But the real meaning of this post was really to say a Happy Belated Birthday to America! Jeremy makes fun of me because I like various Country Music Artists, (not all Country, some of it plain annoys me) but what I really like is how Country Music tells a story. Call me a sap but I often find myself impacted by a song. So the this post and the next will have this link. The song below, always makes me smile and reminds me of how proud I am to live in the U.S. of A! Hope everyone had a great 4th!

It's America Lyrics - Rodney Atkins

Drivin' down the street today
Saw the sign for lemonade
They were the cutest kidsI've seen in this front yard
As they handed me my glass
Smiled and thinkin' to myself
Man what a picture perfect postcard this would make
Of america

It's a high school prom
It's a springstein song
It's a ride in a cheverlet
It's a man on the moon
And fireflies in June
Kids sellin lemonade
It's cities and farms
And open arms
One nation under god
It's america

Later on when I got homeI flipped the t.v on
I saw a little town that some big Twister tore apart
People came from miles around
Just to help their neighbors out
And I was thinkin' to my self
I'm so glad that I live in america
It's a high school prom
It's a springstein song
It's a ride in a cheverlet
It's a man on the moon
And fireflies in June
Kids sellin lemonade
It's cities and farms
And open arms
One nation under god
It's america

Now we might not always get it right
But there's nowhere else I rather build my life
Cause it's a kid with a chance
It's a rock n roll band
It's a farmer cuttin' hay
It's a flag blowin' in the summer wind
Over some fallen hero's grave.
It's a high school prom
It's a springstein song
It's a welcome home parade
It's a man on the moon
And fireflies in June
Kids sellin lemonade
It's cities and farms
And open arms
One nation under god
It's america

Vacation Ulceration

2010-06-27T18:48:00.003-04:00

Day 1 of our vacation in Myrtle Beach...in a word...sucked. Let me run you through it:
Starts off ok with bloody mary's at the airport bar in NYC
THEN we get to Myrtle Beach...

We are at the rental counter for almost an hour. Why? Because they were trying to charge us $512 for 4 days of rental instead of the $164 I have reserved it for. So we FINALLY get that figured out and get on the road. I won't even go into what time we have to return the car ahead of our flight on Thurs, it is going to be ridiculous.

We get to the Hilton - we are starving and need some food badly, but our room is ready - YEA! So we check in - they tell us they know nothing about our "bed and breakfast" rate, which we booked through Orbitz that is supposed to include breakfast at one of the Hilton Restaurants each day. They tell us Orbitz isn't allowed to give out that rate - well that's funny because that is what we booked! And we had printed confirmation - they still don't honor it! And tell us to take it up with Orbitz.

So by this time I am pretty sure if I don't eat I am going to get very unreasonable with this woman behind the desk. So we head to the hotel grill and we decide to get something simple to share since we are both starving. We decide on Grilled Chicken Nachos - YUMMMMMMM!.......They take 45 minutes to get to us and they weren't busy. I am about to lose it, but the nacho's have homemade chips and were awesome. So I regain perspective and we go back to the room to call Orbitz.

Orbitz tells us we are right, we should get breakfast each day, they call the Hilton Front Desk for us, this takes about an hour. Orbitz comes back to us and says that Hilton is providing incorrect information to their 3rd party vendors and they are going to "work on it" and get back to us. Meanwhile, even though Orbitz is telling Hilton this is indeed what we booked and Hilton is saying that this has never happened before, they STILL do not honor the rate. We are talking satisfying the customer with breakfast - read...CHEAP FIX. Just do the right thing people. NOPE, they continue to point back at Orbitz and leave the customer in the middle. Well done, oh king of the hospitality industry...

As this is all going on at the front desk, this woman is really smug about the fact that it is not her problem and Orbitz has the issue. I know my limits so I was already letting Jeremy do the talking, but it is so bad, I can't even stand there any more. So I proceed to tell her I can't stand here and listen to this anymore, I don't have time for it and I am supposed to be on vacation and I walk out of the hotel. It was the last straw. I felt like I was at work, putting out fires all day and banging my head into a wall.

The bright spot, I am here with my hubby and we will eventually get to relax and just spend time together. Day 2 has to be better.

Oh and did I mention it is POURING rain?

Breathing easier

2010-06-11T21:15:00.002-04:00

Rece had his specialist appt today with the allergist/asthma doctor. The doctor is new to our pediatrics practice and she was so great. She was so understanding, and told me that Rece's "reaction" to colds was not normal/acceptable and that we can make it better. First they tested him for 20 indoor and outdoor allergies, there was zero reaction. This is VERY good news. Allergies at this point in life would be a signal/sign that he might indeed have true asthma later in life. She said what she is sure he does have is "reactive" airways. When he gets the common cold, his airways inflame and we get the horrible cough, wheezing, and the secondary infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia etc. So what she suggested was that we start him on an anti-inflamatory steroid (which we have done during colds in the past and has worked ok) on a preemptive strike type basis, from September - May rergardless if he has a cold. To cover ALL of cold and flu season. She said normally he might have to do this one or two more seasons and then he and his airways will grow and this problem will fade into history...and we will only have the story to tell about how rough he had it the first year or so. So we go back to her in August to get our meds and equipment to help us through cold and flu season, unless he gets another episode sooner and then we start and just continue it until further notice so to speak.

I feel like we have a resource now that is focusing on his specific symptoms and can truely help. I really like Rece's primary care doctor but he is really there for acute care, treat, make better for the time being and release. Maybe we will actually get to a time when if my son rolls over and coughs at night I don't loose two hours sleep laying awake with anxiety about how we are going to take time off work and how long and how bad the next cold will be.

Man Talk

2010-05-31T21:01:00.012-04:00

I have wanted to make a note of all of the words that Rece uses consistently already at 15.5 months old. I love his talkative nature and his vocabulary and that fact that I can already have a semi-real conversation with the kid. I want to be able to remember all of the cute things he was already babbling at this age, and I also realize that this might be the one and only time his word list fits into a blog, so here is the list of the ones I can think of that he uses clearly, in no particular order:
1. Mama
2. Dada
3. Emma
4. Elmo
5. Big Bird
6. Gabba
7. Milk
8. Truck
9. Bus
10. Where they (or daddy or mama) go?
11. Uh-oh
12. Ank eww (Thank You)
13. Eyes
14. Nose
15. Mouth
16. Teeth
17. Blues Clues
18. Bat
19. Ball
20. EiEi-O
21. Walrus
22. Door
23. Cat & Meow
24. Dog & Woof
25. Sheep & Baaaaaa
26. Pa-cock - (Peacock)
27. Elmigo (Flamingo)
28. Hi & Heewo (hello)
29. Bowl
30. Nana (Bananna)
31. Cheese
32. Uffs (Puffs)
33. Outside
34. Mess (he likes to clean up after himself)
35. Apples
36. Wawa (water)
37. No
38. Pee-Pee
39. Clock
40. Box
41. Nih Night
42. Baf (Bath)
43. Duck
44. Bwrd (Bird)
45. Unny (Bunny)
46. Book
47. Spoon
48. Down
49. Bye-bye
50. Wha's that?
51. Piper (his best buddy at daycare)
52. Cast :-(
53. Shoes
54. Socks
55. Mouse
56. Balloon
57. Walk
58. Light
59. Ming Ming
60. Tuck
61. Linny (the above 3 are the wonder pets)
62. Yuck!
63. Baby
64. On
65. Off
66. Bubbles
67. Owwwww (as he pinches you he will say this)
68. Inside
69. Mail
70. Keys
71. Moose
72. Mine
73. Rece

Super Quick Update

2010-05-16T20:59:00.004-04:00

Haven't posted in two weeks so here is a fly by update:

-Rece is doing well with the cast, he wears his walking boot all the time and always wants to be standing walking etc in it. He needs a hand when walking b/c the cast throws off his balance. It comes off in less than two weeks. May 28. Whoot Whoot!

-He is getting his two bottom "eye" teeth and not doing so well there. Not that I should be even a little surprised since every time he cuts a set he gets a nasty cold at the EXACT same time. This time he is a major mucus head with cough and a very high fever. Up to 103.9 - not cool. I feel so bad for him he is in rough shape and to complicate matters I fly to Pasadena on Tuesday...of course I do....

-Rece is a certified Jr. Webster. He is a walking toddler dictionary. I think he can say and identify meaning to like 35-40 words, maybe more, I don't know any more. Frankly I am scared of his vocabulary! lol. And have begun to spell things I don't want repeated or that I don't want him to get excited about before they are ready like "m-i-l-k". The other night I was reading the Polar Bear, Polar Bear book and he opened it to a back page and said "That's Walrus" as clear as I just typed it.

-We have been really busy, baseball (all 37 leagues that Jeremy is involved in, okay 2) are in full swing and my work is packed to the brim with action action action. I am involved in some really cool stuff, but there aren't enough hours in the day.

-We booked our vacation to North Myrtle Beach - I got a great deal at the Myrtle Beach Hilton and flights - 5 days, 4 nights for under a grand. I really struggled to select a locale and then a hotel. But ultimately I made it simple. The criteria came down to: On the beach, nice pool(s) and pool bar was a must. Check, Check, Check. Oh and it has a Starbucks in the lobby. Bonus. Cannot wait.

On The Bright Side

2010-04-28T21:41:00.004-04:00

Ok - Fresh perspective. Deep Breath.

Trying to find the positives in our current situation:

The Top Five Reasons to be positive after Rece's broken leg:
5. I can easily clip his toenails on the left foot without him moving his toes everywhere
4. We can use his cast as the latest art project for the toddler room
3. We are back to him not being able to beat me to objects he is not supposed to have
2. The cast adds weight which tones the arms
1. I finally have a use for all the one off baby socks!

Par for the Course

2010-04-28T21:00:00.008-04:00

Warning to all readers: The following is going to be a complete and utter gripe fest complete with "whoa as me" and more whine than is in my winerator...

Let me start by saying WTH? Why is our "normal", as parents with Rece a complete freakng muddle of ridiculousness and struggles?

In case you are a reader who hasn't heard, Rece broke his leg at daycare this week. YEP. BROKE IT. And I am pissed off. Not at the daycare, actually I have ZERO complaints about this place and I think the teachers are great they absolutley love him and are just as devestated as we are. They should know that for us this is just another stupid crazy thing to add to the list. And it was just that, Crazy. He was climbing on a activity center thing, similar to one we have at home, he slipped, like he does all the time because he is still learning to walk steadily and he fell on his butt. BUT, his foot got caught as he was falling and it twisted and it broke. So he has a cast and he will wear it for 4 weeks. I am ticked that this happened. This freak thing. It sucks. This kid can't catch a break.

To reinforce this point, lets go back in time....one week. Last Tuesday night we were getting ready to give Rece a bath and we take off his shirt and his Left Nipple is all red and puffy and when I touch it a pus head comes to the surface. WTH!?!?!? So me being the freaked out first time mom that I am take him in the next morning, and the doctor (whom is one of the Peds Dr.s we have never seen before) becomes very serious and tells me he has a Mastitis and "it could become very serious" if it is not treated properly. Oh wait, yes, I said Mastitis - a breast tissue infection. The doctor tells is it is "rare" but they do see it and it can occur in both boys and girls of any age. He also tells me that the "bacteria" just gets in through a pore, in this case it was a pore on his nipple. OH, and the "bacteria" are often like a staph or a MERSA. Anyway, we get antibotics, which we haven't had since Dec. (Thank You Ear Tubes) for this infection and they work like a charm, Rece wasn't even phased. When I took him back three days later to make sure the infection was gone, the Dr. kept Thanking me for brining him in. Ummmm, that is a first. Then he proceedes to tell me - he once saw a little boy with this infection and he lost half of his chest wall to the infection. Glad he didn't tell me that the first day I saw him.

Since Rece was born here is what he and we have dealt with:

-GERD
-A nasal tip hemangioma
-Cold after Cold after Flu after Cold
-250 ear infections - ok not that many but a bunch
-A mastitis
-A broken Leg

That equals out to something happening every 2.3 months. If you divide out all the terrbile colds and Flu's this winter, that drives the average down to what like every two weeks?

I actually asked Jeremy last night after we got home from the hospital - "Do you think this is God's way of telling us to only have one kid?" We laughed - but seriously. What are we doing wrong here? Rece is a GREAT kid, the perfect kid for all of this to happen to actually because he is a tropper but he deserves a break - and I do not mean another limb. And the problem is I don't know how to get him that break. I am feeling so helpless as a mom, like I can't protect my kid. This is stupid but I seriously picture his medical file at the pediatrics office, I cannot even imagine what a new doctor would think scrolling through his history. All I can imagine them saying is "what are these people doing?????"....what are we doing? Sigh.

I think I am done feeling sorry for us. Myself. Rece is still smiling.

1 Kid and 100 Posts and Counting

2010-04-25T11:14:00.004-04:00

This is my 100th Blog Post. I started the blog on August 31, 2008. When I went back and found that date - I couldn't believe it. 2008. Seems like forever ago. I was only 2 months pregnant for instance...and now I find it funny that I measure time, as in when an event happened, in three time buckets: before I was pregnant, when I was pregnant and after Rece was born. Since that time, I have found I enjoy blogging quite a bit, when I actually get to it, and I wish I could post more - not so every mundane detail of life could be read about by others (I have FB for that, should I so choose ;-) but for me to be able to look back and remember more about the stage that is "After Rece was Born". Time seems to have accelerated to warp speed since we started this stage of life and it sad to think there will be a time where all of the little daily memories we are making now are hard to recollect. Hopefully we will enjoy looking back and remembering our crazy life - one post at a time ;-)

Big Boy

2010-04-19T20:51:00.002-04:00

Spoiled

2010-04-18T15:41:00.005-04:00

Our "spring" weather has been so incredible that we have been incredibly spoiled. Easter weekend was 80+ and Sunny everyday for goodness sakes...And even since then we have had very few days that weren't 65+ and sunny. So today, being that it is the middle of April I can't help but be bummed that the weather is so cold and windy and well....seasonal. This is the kind of weather we are "supposed" to be having. Yuck.

Anyway, since I am a baseball widow today and Rece is quietly watching Yo Gabba Gabba and having a snack of milk and goldfish crackers, I thought, no better time to draft up a blog post.

So what has been going on you ask? Well lots I suppose.

Big Rece news: He started taking independent steps! He has been walking behind push toys and using a mommy or daddy finger as support for a while, but now he is doing it all by himself a few steps at a time.

He is also starting to use mini sentences - no joke here, I am no Dr. Sears or anything (and I could be a wee bit biased) but I think his vocabulary and speaking ability is pretty stellar. Jeremy and I counted about 25 "words" that he has now, and I am sure we are forgetting some. He is also putting things together: Thank You, What's That?, Where they go? He loves books and sits patiently (most mornings) waiting for mommy and daddy to get ready and reads to himself, just flipping through one board book after another. He is so social, we go to Target and he says Hi to everyone we see throughout the store and then after we have checked out he switches to Bye to everyone on the way out. This weekend the guy at Lowes said "Hey buddy, you can probably do my job" - he was the guy who hangs out at the door greets you and directs you to the department you are looking for. He also likes to tell you what is his, example the other day he took the lady at day-care's flip flop off and kept telling her "shoe, mine!". For 14 months old, I think he is a genius. But like I said I could be a little bit biased. ;-)
Other than that, we think (Rece's pediatrician and I) that Rece may have seasonal allergies, so we are trying some children's claritan to see if his symptoms improve.

Other than Rece's happenings, work has been good, busy as ever before but I like it really, I like the intensity and I feel like I get more done when the pressure is on. Jeremy is in a word "baseball". He is coaching the High School JV team and they are playing 3-4 games a week and then he is playing in two leagues which have started to "practice" - good lord ;-)

Lastly, a couple of products/things I have discovered and love lately:
Steamfresh single serve veggies - peas in particular - Rece LOVES peas. Go figure.
Green Giant "Just for One" veggies - especially Cauliflower with cheese sauce ;-)
Shutterfly Share sites - great way to share pictures without having to email them.
Kids consignment sales - I got Rece's entire summer wardrobe for next to nothing.
My new virtual wallet account at PNC - IT ROCKS!
Zyrtec and Flonase - Need them both to surrvive my allergies this time of year.

A list of random updates from a blog slacker

2010-03-21T10:33:00.006-04:00

That's me. I am a slackerpotamus. The last post I had was for Rece's first birthday and things have just been so hectic since then. I traveled for work during 3 separate weeks and Rece was sick once - our first "cold" that did not result in antibiotics for an ear or chest infection. WHOHOO! Rece transitioned into the toddler room which means sippy cups and big boy food (which I have also been a slacker with) and work has been so crazy that by the time I get home and try to figure out what to feed a toddler (now that I can just grab a jar or two of something)I don't have much ambition left to do anything - including blogging ;-)

So anyway, enough excuses and on to updates:

Rece is on a teething rampage - and they are flipping huge molars. How is it that the molars of such a little person, in such a little mouth can be sooooooooo big? He finally cut his other set of bottom incisors and has one bottom molar about 50% through, with the other bottom one all swollen and ginormous. He won't let me anywhere near his gums most of the time so I have no idea what is going on up top, but Jeremy swore he saw a swollen mess up there as well. When he got his vaccines last week in combination with the teeth I thought colic had returned to my house. He moved to the "Toddler Room" on March 15th, he has done really well, they do all milk, sippy cups and table food over there so that has been a fun adjustment. He has picked it up well and faster than I thought he would since his table food choices are limited at home and although he could handle the sippy, the bottle was still his primary beverage delivery system. Rece is about as adaptable as it gets though and has not missed a beat. Most amazing to me is that the kids nap on cots in the toddler room and all I could picture is Rece crawling around during nap time poking other kids in the eye but he has been a great napper on the cots. His vocabulary is amazing I have lost count of his words at this point, as there are many. Yesterday he picked up "bwrd" for bird because we saw so many on our outdoor adventures.

Ahhhh, the outdoors, I have missed you. Thank god it is spring. It is so energizing to be able to go outside and take the little man to the store or to the park without spending 20 minutes layering him with winter gear. Rece is not accustomed to the outside and thus far is not a fan of being on the ground by himself but we will work on that. Jeremy has started baseball and it seems to be going well so far they have had great weather which always helps. On my end, my most exciting news is - I am getting a cleaning lady! Rece's daycare rate dropped a bit and in May I will be getting a raise and well.....I don't have to justify it, I want a clean house and with my work schedule and Jeremy in baseball, I can't keep up and it drives me nuts. She is going to do a "spring clean" over the next two Tuesdays and then will come every other week to do our "maintenance" cleaning. I am at the point that I would give up coffee or wine or whatever it took to get this into the budget. (ok maybe not quite THAT extreme but you get my drift)

Randomness:
* We are changing banks, I hate ours because the Internet banking is awful and I rely on Internet banking heavily so I did research and found that the PNC Virtual Wallet is perfect for us. It has a high yield savings that you don't have to have millions of dollars saved to earn the rate and the e-banking is second to none it even has financial tools like what I used to use on Wesabe built right in! Time saver! If you have PNC by you - check it out.

*I cannot make a decision on our June vacation - first it was Mexico, then Seattle, and now?????? All I have decided is that I want to stay and spend our money in the US.

*Our next big house project is going to be replacing our Front Door and Storm Door. For any readers who have done this...put it in ourselves? Or pay Lowes to do it? We are cheap, but it IS our front door so we want it to be done right...the debate rages on...lol. ;-)

*I am trying to build a new wardrobe for myself. Being pregnant last year, I didn't really do any shopping and I also have hung on to a lot of clothes from college that either will never fit the same, or are a little to "young" for what I would feel comfortable wearing now. So I am purging a lot of stuff (goodwill) and trying to buy some quality pieces that mix and match well and that will last a while. With a budget this won't happen overnight, and I need to get out of my typical pattern of "but it's only 7 dollars" when it doesn't really fit or look good.

*Since I slack on this blog, I REALLY slack on the other blog I started, so I am going to delete it. I am on this kick around simplifing life and that means getting rid of things you don't use or need. One last update: I only have 5 lbs or so to go to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight and I wore a pair of my size 8 jeans to work last Friday and they were no longer tight around the waist. I am not normally a number sharer, but seriously, YEA for me!

My Blue Eyed Boy

2010-02-22T15:33:00.011-05:00

On Sunday February 14th - our beautiful baby boy turned one! What was truly amazing, other than the fact that an entire year has gone by, was that over the last 2 weeks I have felt like I have seen Rece make the transition from baby to toddler - he has started talking A LOT and getting so close to walking, and even the way he looks, he is losing some of his little rolls and has the newly emerging frame of a little boy and less and less of a chubby baby. What stays the same, amazingly enough, are his beautiful dark blue eyes. I never in a million years pictured Jeremy and my child with big blue eyes, and when Rece was born with hair as dark as mine I figured his eyes would follow and turn my dark brown or at the very least a hazel like his daddy. His hair has lightened considerably, but not those eyes, they have not changed, they have stayed that gorgeous sparkling blue.
Quick Stats @ 12 Months
* 24 lbs - 68th percentile
* 31 inches long - 86 percentile

I truly cannot believe the first year has come and gone. Some months have moved faster than others....but now it seems like the days go by at warp speed. I can't tell if it is getting easier - like everyone kept saying at would as he got older, or if we are just getting better at being parents. Nothing like on the job training I guess. For me, I feel like I spent the first few months of Rece's life, "managing" motherhood, just getting through it, wanting it to pass. Over the last several months though, I feel like I am finally enjoying being a mom. I have even had a micro thought, about a thought, about thinking about, having another one someday.... (don't get to excited Grandparents...it is going to be a while yet)

Anyway, I digress....for his big day we went home to Michigan and he and daddy flew! So he actually had his first airplane ride before he was a year old. We had two birthday parties, one at my mom and dad's on Saturday and one at Jeremy's parents on Valentines Day - his actual Birthday. Both were a lot of fun. He isn't much into soft or fluffy foods so he more or less smashed the cake and licked the frosting off his fingers.

He got lots of cool toys and clothes and a bunch of people also went together on a HUGE outdoor toy for this summer. Can't wait!

A few more pics of the milestone!
Happy Birthday Rece! We love you bunches!!!

My winerator is bare - help me fill it...

2010-01-20T19:47:00.004-05:00

I need to restock the winerator. I love wine but I want to branch out, so please suggest your fave whites and reds for my tasting pleasure. I am ready to try some new ones!!!

Mr. Rece's Neighborhood

2010-01-19T21:20:00.005-05:00

Jeremy's mom and dad got us an AWESOME flip share camera for Christmas. (I think they may want to see video of Rece ;-) We love it. I am hoping this link will work to "Mr. Rece's Neighborhood" which is our Flip Share Channel. I will post it from time to time when we add to it. If you want to pee your pants watch the one where he is in the walker. All are good, but that is my fave.

*****For some reason it is now requiring a login id and password- I have my hubby working on this hopefully he will fix it soon****************************

2009 - The Year Of The Rolaid

2010-01-16T15:27:00.009-05:00

I figured that I should probably aim to get my "new years" post done before the end of the first month of 2010. So here I am.

What a year. It was a good year for our little family, as we added our beautiful son and had many, many wonderful moments and laughs watching him grow and develop. I will hit all the highlights of Rece three weeks from now when he turns 1. Unbelievable!

It was also an a stressful and anxiety filled year for me personally. And with all seriousness, came with a good deal of heartburn and hence....Rolaids....Let me re-cap by month,it's a long one so if you aren't up for it that is ok - it is just as much for my therapy as it is for your reading pleasure:

January - Pregnant. Getting things ready at work and at home. Preparing for baby. The economy sucks and we announce a wage freeze at work. We take childbirth classes and hospital tours and infant CPR. Oh and I get the stomach flu at 35 weeks preggo. Rolaids.

February- Nerves start to kick in about Rece's impending arrival - his due date is March 5th. Heartburn is in full effect due to giant baby pressing on all acid pumps. Rolaids. On Friday the 13th I went to the OB to have them check some fluid I was noticing. I was sure it was fine....but....just in case. After an hour at the office of testing and re-testing the OB gives me a piece of paper and points his finger through the lobby - I say "I get to go home" - he says "Nope - over to the hospital" he tells me I am going to be induced. ROLAIDS.

I was supposed to go directly over to the hospital. But I call Jeremy and decide I will go home first. I need to finish "getting ready" and I need to eat. I remember in child birth class that they don't let you eat once you are induced. I go home and I eat a granola bar and two pieces of toast as fast as I can. I am induced at 4pm - 3 weeks early. I spend the first two hours sending work email and finishing up things I thought I would have another two weeks to get done. Pop pop go the Rolaids.

I get an Epidural at 5 am on Valentines Day. It only numbs one side fully. This proves to be an issue during transitional labor. For this - Rolaids did not suffice. At 3:30 Rece was born. Our lives were blessed and bettered forever. You know that old wives tale about heartburn during pregnancy and the amount of hair babies have? Rece had a TON of hair. Thank you Rolaids.

We get home and I have major baby blues. For the first week I cry because I am no longer pregnant and I miss feeling the baby move. Then nursing sucks and does not work for us and Rece is colicky and begins to reflux. Rolaids.

March - Nursing goes from bad to worse. It is all screwed up for us. Rece's reflux gets worse and he barely sleeps. When he does sleep, I cannot and lay awake with anxiety and worry. I stop eating any dairy and soy, tomatoes, coffee, onions, garlic and the list goes on and on. I do however eat Rolaids..... ;-) The days are long and blurry. The nights are short. I pretty much cry on and off all day and often think "what was I thinking"? Jeremy is coaching baseball and has long days away.

April - See March.

We switch to formula. I go on bender of eating cheese and pizza and wine and coffee. I gain back any weight I have lost when I couldn't eat anything. Rolaids sweet Rolaids. Things slowly start to improve.

May - Rece starts daycare and I go back to work. We all get the stomach flu the second week he is in daycare. But miraculously he begins to sleep at night waking only once each night at around 4am for a bottle. We get into a pretty good little routine. I am pretty sure I have died and gone to heaven.

June- Routine continues. Baseball seems to be never ending. Rece gets his first ear infection after being "stuffy" since literally the end of March. Even though Rece is sleeping now and I am sleeping too, I am so so so tired all the time. I am slapping myself in the car on the way to and from work to try and stay awake. I have no energy and I am unable to lose any baby weight. I am stuck. Pass the rolaids please...

July - We road trip home for vacation. Rece gets a second ear infection on the 4th of July when we are in Traverse City. We survive the road trip of mammoth proportions traveling with a 5 month old.

August - Rece turns 6 months old and I am still WAY over my pregnancy weight. Ugh. But the summer closes nice and the munchkin stays pretty healthy all month. Yea! My car dies randomly on the way to work and my engine is completely shot. The infamous "bolt" is not under warranty. For this I consider Tums...but settle for Extra Strength Rolaids.

September - We start a new daycare that we had been on a waiting list for. The month is enjoyable and pretty much uneventful - I am sure we had an ear infection or cold or two but can't remember the details now. I finally begin to feel a little bit like my old self.

October - The swine or not the swine - that is the question. Rece gets sick and I mean SICK. He is out of daycare for a week and is in miserable shape. The nebulizer finds a new home at the Rellingers. And begins Rece's very own "steroid era". Work is crazy when I can get there consistently which is hard when your child is sick ALL OF THE TIME!!! Plus we begin to have issues with the daycare...small at first.... and then they get worse. You know what is coming. I'll take three, Rolaids that is.

November - We continue to chalk up the ear infections, one after another. I find an egregious violation of basic care at the daycare and have a complete melt down. I have to find a new place. Jeremy is super sick and they even consider that he may have Whooping Cough. Thank goodness he doesn't but he misses an entire week of school. In addition, Angel wakes up one day and her back legs do not work anymore. She is put to sleep one week later. Rolaids do not suffice. Much wine is consumed.

December - Tubes go in after 7 ear infections in 6 months. It goes well and we have a marvelous Christmas and New Year and I consider and hope that 2010 will be a calmer less acid inducing year than the one prior. I resolve to try and not sweat the small stuff (above)...and it's all small stuff.

Happy 2010. May it bring more laughter and require less rolaids....

First Christmas!!

2010-01-05T20:38:00.011-05:00

We traveled home to Michigan for Rece's First Christmas! He had his ear tubes put in on December 21st so I was a little worried about the travel in the event that something could get infected etc. But he did really good, in fact he was a pretty happy and healthy boy the whole time. We left late afternoon on December 23rd hoping Rece would be able to hang out for a few hours and then have dinner and head off to sleepy land for the last 4 or so hours of our drive. It pretty much worked, and we had great driving weather. We got to Jackson at midnight and put him to bed in a crib that my parents are borrowing from my Aunt Luann - he went right out again - until 5 am when he woke up wondering where in the world he was. I have to admit it was the first time since he was born that I have brought him into bed with us - I was sooooo tired, since we had gotten unloaded and to bed after 1am. He laid on my chest and slept another hour. Funny thing is - he moves so much - I didn't get any more sleep!

On Christmas Eve we went to Christmas Eve Children's Mass and he was fantastic - I was worried but he did really good. He was totally interested in the reading and singing and flirted with the girls next to him. He ate some puffs and had himself a great time. We came home and Rece went to bed and we all had some wine/beer & Pizza from Little Cesar's (Barton Tradition on Christmas Eve ;-)

Then came Christmas Day - Rece woke up at his normal early time and we opened presents, he did some paper tearing and some looking at the gifts....and....that was about it. He did however have a ball playing with the toys all week and since we have gotten home. Santa, Mommy and Daddy, Uncle Clint and Auntie Taylor, and Grandparents R & B, and so many others as well, were all very good to Mr. Rece. He got to many awesome toys to list and a whole new 18 month wardrobe for this winter. It was so much fun to see him play.

We had a great rest of the week at home, visiting with friends and family. Rece played and played and even went out in the sled. And Jeremy even got a chance to get away for a date night. All in All we ate to much, drank just the right amount, and had way to much fun throughout the whole week!!

We got back on Wednesday the 30th - and Jeremy's mom and dad came back to State College with us. The weather for the trip back was great and thankfully, Steve and Lynn caught a traffic alert on the radio that warned us of a horrible chemical spill and highway closure approaching on I-80. We stopped and got a map and made up a detour. After we got home we found out that the chemicals were horrible to breathe and people were evacuated and were not allowed out of cars or to roll their windows down and the highway was closed for HOURS!!! That would have been fun with a 10 month old.

On new years eve we went to the State College First Night Ice Sculptures - we got Rece all bundled up - but I don't think he cared for it so much - he was all trapped in the stroller with all of those bulky layers. Stink. As for ringing in the new year - of course a separate post to come on that. But we were in bed by 11 - and that my friends is staying up late!

OH MY - And I almost forgot - the last "event" of our winter break was...the first haircut.
His bangs were so long he couldn't see....I really didn't want to.

Here are pictures from our great, great week.

First Sled Ride

Playin with Grandpa R

Having the fave snack - Ritz and Cheese!

Playing with our Stack and Surprise Silly Town - Thanks Grandma & Grandpa R!!

Riding Grandpa' B's Deer

Playing Basketball with Uncle Clint - Thanks for the hoop Aunt Becky and Uncle Ron!

Opening our Sit n' Scoop Tonka Truck! Thanks Grandpa & Grandma B!!

As Grandpa B would say - Cruisin for a bruisen....

The new hair cut.

New design and set up!

2009-12-19T11:13:00.002-05:00

I am so proud of myself I figured out how to do something a bit more interesting with my blog design. Also - I also opened it up for anyone to leave comments even if they do not have a blogger account! So comment away - we are always curious to see who is reading!

The weather outside is frightful...

2009-12-13T12:15:00.004-05:00

We were supposed to be out running errands and seeing Santa today - but instead we are bored at home waiting for all of the ice to melt! So in the meantime I figured I would post some December photos. I was saving some of these because we used a few on our Holiday Card - but oh well, the next 10 days look pretty busy before we leave for Michigan so I will post them now.

While I am at it - Rece is 10 months tomorrow! A couple of quick updates:
He can pretty much stand on his own with out support
He pulls to standing on everything but is getting better and sitting himself back down
He is finally interested in picking up food and putting in in his mouth rather than picking it up and then flinging it on the floor
He has had his 5th ear infection in 6 months and we are scheduled to have ear tubes put in on Dec 21st.
So far during his first holiday season he is mesmerized by our Christmas Tree and cracks up when we tell him that Santa says HO HO HO!!
He has 5 teeth and is working on 6 now.

Some Thanksgiving Photos

2009-12-12T19:47:00.002-05:00

A few pics from Rece's first Turkey Day! (For those of you anxiously awaiting a new post - you know who you are Sue ;-)

3/4 of a year..

2009-11-22T20:23:00.005-05:00

Rece is 9 months old! As we speak he is thrashing around in his crib, struggling to get to get settled in to sleep, I believe because he has another tooth coming in. On that note, lets get right to the stats:

-He pulls himself to standing on anything and everything, including things that do not support him and tip, along that line, he had his first fat lip this past weekend. Went from sitting to face plant onto a toy. Ugh, as I know it is the first of many boo-boo's.
-He also tries to turn and get to the next item of support but can't quite coordinate the thought with the feet yet.
-He just started clapping his hands by himself. I think this is the cutest thing he does, it is so adorable.
-He crawls like a madman
-He has 4 full teeth and one that is just poking through. His two top front teeth are pretty far apart and we joke that he looks like Michael Strahan ;-)
-His hair is so long in front it is in his eyes and I can't bring myself to cut it
-He is close to dropping his late afternoon nap, and he goes to bed around 7:15 pm and sleeps until 6/6:30am (if we let him babble on the weekends, he will drift back off until 7 ;-)
-He clearly says Baba and Dada but not in the direction of those things. He also says GaGa and my favorite the AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, he stretches it out like when you take a drink after you have been really thirsty. He and I do this back and forth and he loves it, all smiles. He more or less combines all of his "words" into his own baby babble fest.
-He loves Emma, he squeals with delight whenever he sees her and tries to chase her, she runs away as fast as she can.
-He was almost 22 lbs, 28 3/4 inches long and his noggin grew from the 35 percentile to the 68th percentile.

All Dogs Go To Heaven...Especially Angel.

2009-11-14T21:52:00.007-05:00

Even two weeks later, this is going to be a hard post to write for me. I have intentionally put it off. Probably doesn't help that it is 10 pm on Saturday night and I am sipping on my 3rd glass of Vino. (Don't judge)

Two weeks ago Jeremy and I had to put our 12 year old Rottweiler to sleep. As my brother put it "She had a lot of miles on her" - and she did, she had a great and long life. She just got old, and I am not going to focus on her ending - besides it is too hard to talk about.

I say "our" but she was always and will always be, Jeremy's "girl". Just over 12 years ago, one of Jeremy's college roommates had a litter of Rottie pups that were born in the house they were renting together. There was a runt. She was too small to nurse so she needed to be bottle fed, and that is when Jeremy and Angel met. (At least that is what I think the story is) Ever since that time, they have been pretty much inseparable. I entered the picture somewhere around 8 years ago and hence had also become quite attached to the ol' girl.

I could write pages about the "life and times" of Angel Rellinger. But what you really need to know is that Angel was a very very special dog. It is hard to describe really, and people reading this might think "Yeah, ok, it is a dog, I get it". No - You Don't Get It. (Sip of Wine)

This was not any other dog. Angel was the sweetest, most personable, most obedient, most loyal dog.....ever. She was known for her "drive by" licks - she loved to give kisses to everyone she could reach! She was loving and gentle and she was nearly human really...and she was a part of our family. She was Jeremy's....and my companion for the last decade and she will be missed.

That is MR. Yoda to you... ;-)

2009-11-01T20:51:00.006-05:00

Some snapshots of Rece's first Halloween!

Yoda, deep in thought....

Concentrating...

Havin fun

Assault and Battery....at Target

2009-10-29T20:12:00.003-04:00

On Wednesday I had Flint Town Flashbacks.... I was in Target, picking up some "polysporin" because you can't use good ole neosporin on stitches (I had a mole removed, yuck I know). Anyway, I get my POLYsporin and I am on my way out. And I hear this weird yelp type scream. I can't see anything but I begin to hear raised voices. I hear:"How do you like that?!?!" and then "Watch where your going from now on" and then "You can't have me arrested"- all of these by the same lady's voice. Then I see her fly by me, she is about 5'4" and has a mullet and is wearing what I can only call "mom pants" whose waistline is up somewhere close to her bra. I am of course staring...and she shoots me a look like "what the H are you looking at" to which I quickly precede to looking back at the coffee makers that I was standing by. (Mullets and Mom pants scare me) Come to find out she and another lady accidentally bumped into each other coming around the corner and the mullet/mom pants took offense and slapped the other lady across the face. WTH?!? It isn't even Black Friday yet!

The early bird gets the worm...apparently those who wait get nada....

2009-10-22T21:02:00.005-04:00

Update from my Flu post....This is kind of an ironic story actually.

I was on the fence about getting Rece the flu shot(s) and then we had the scare with the bronchitis and having the doctor think it was pneumonia I was decided I would get the shots and help our odds. With day-care exposure, the fact that we live so close to PSU, and Rece's tendency to not just get a cold but OWN the cold until it turns into something else, I knew I wanted to do the vaccine. But as I am sure you can predict I now cannot find the vaccine....Anywhere.....neither the H1N1 or the seasonal shot. Lots of places offer clinics from time to time but none of them will vaccinate a child because, for one reason, children (especially those who have not gotten the shot before) have to have two doses 30 days a part. So I am on a waiting list at my pediatricians office. And I have spent every lunch hour this week calling health departments etc. trying to find vaccine. The response "We don't currently have any, we hope to get some soon, call back next week" - Ugh.

Then to today, I take Rece in for his ear check after the illness of yore has come and gone. All is declared well, lungs sound good, ears look good. And then the Dr. drops this bomb on me: "Well..." she says "If I were to bet, I would bet that what he had was the Flu...and...if it was the Flu it was probably H1N1 because that is what we are seeing." Huh? She goes on to tell me that the rapid onset of Rece's wheezing and horrible cough and then fever are all leading her to believe that is what it was. Then I ask "But he had the flu swab at the Hospital" to which she replies "In kids there is a 40% false negative rate" - DOUBLE HUH?!? - That horrible pipe cleaner that was shoved up his nose to the back of his throat, not once, but twice and made his little nose bleed- has just a little over a 50/50 shot of being accurate!?!?!?!? Before I can process much of this she concludes by saying something along the lines of "but we'll never know - so get him the shots". Full Circle. I am back to needing to find the shots.

Final irony, I get home tonight from work and there is an news articles on my phone browser from the CDC indicating that 1 in 5 kids probably had some level of the H1N1 during October so far. Do I have the 1 in 5? I will never know. I do know that either way - I am happy he is over whatever that junk was and back to being himself for a while. I know that every time I read an article about the Swine Flu and how it greatly it impacts kids of all ages I feel a little sick. And, I know - I have to find the shots....

Pics as promised

2009-10-21T21:40:00.006-04:00

Here are a few as we closed out summer and have begun our first Autumn as a family.

Mommy is letting me sit in the grass!

" I think I want a my pumpkin a little bigger. Yeah, like this big..."

I like to chew my sippy - a lot

I stuck some pumpkins in my cheeks to take home ;-)

Deep Breath

2009-10-18T20:53:00.006-04:00

Wow. It's been a while since I have posted. It has been a very busy couple of months. Rece has seen the 7th and now the 8th month milestone come and go. Jeremy and I have celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary. I have traveled for work a couple of times, we are announcing major benefits changes at work along with all of the other craziness that comes with the end of the year at work (READ - LONG DAYS FOR HR LADY). I had a sinus infection while traveling. Jeremy is taking a class which takes up a lot of his time. It snowed 5 inches on October 16th here - the first year I am driving a car in my life - and winter starts 2 months early. Rece has had a sinus infection, an ear infection, bronchitis (for which we made our first ER visit for a chest x-ray and flu swabs-and flu swabs are AWFUL!!)his two front teeth are coming through and now the diaper rash from Hell has set in. Deep Breath....

I don't want to sound like I have ONLY complaints. But seriously it has been a long few weeks. I am tired.

Deep Breath...

Now for the positives. Rece is crawling like a pro and loves his walker he flies around our living room and babbles as he zips around for added entertainment. The one top tooth that has come through the gums is so cute, can't wait to see them both sticking out. He has been such a trooper through this whole mess trying so hard to be a happy camper. He is still growing like a weed. He is wearing 12 months size in pretty much everything, 18 months in a few things. I would guess he weighs about 21-22 pounds and is now long enough to have long since graduated out of his infant carrier into the big boy car seat. One of these days I might actually find the time to post some pictures from end of the summer and our, rather eventful, start to fall. There are probably some other positives, but my mind is starting to fuzz. Like I said, it's been a long few weeks.

Deep Breath...

Rece is Crawling!

2009-10-08T20:25:00.003-04:00

Flu Shot?

2009-09-30T21:04:00.002-04:00

Are you getting a flu shot for your kid? What about the H1N1 shot? I am conflicted on what to do. This year because of the two different shots - and because they give two shots (I am assuming half doses) for each that is 4 flu shots for babies over 6 months old. I can't imagine Rece getting 4 flu shots! That seems unreal.
I just read a really good, unbaised article here. I really don't know what to do. Those with little ones - what are you doing? I won't judge, I don't have an opinion either way as of yet.

Blog Number 2

2009-09-12T09:43:00.003-04:00

Hello Readers! I have started another blog here is the address/link.

6 month pictures at Sears

2009-09-10T20:36:00.003-04:00

We took Rece to Sears last week for his 6 month photo's, since he will be seven months on Monday, I was a bit behind but oh well. He decided taking a good nap before the pictures would be silly and since he only slept about 30 minutes that morning, I was worried that they wouldn't go well. But this guy is a HAM!!

First Swim

2009-09-10T20:32:00.002-04:00

I got this baby "splash pool" for Rece at Wal-Mart for a buck over the weekend. He likes it. We also got a new Rubber Ducky bath tub (thanks Julie for the tip!) since he grew out of his infant tub.

The Tooth Fairy might be cool...but the Teething Fairy Sucks.

2009-09-07T14:54:00.003-04:00

Alas we have come to the "unofficial" end of summer. The Labor Day weather has been cool and cloudy out here which is okay, because it is a good transition into having to go back to work tomorrow. The rest of the weekend was awesome! The weather was great, the company was great (Jeremy's mom and dad were here), the football was great and the happy hours (plural) were fantastic. It was nice to have such a long, laid back family weekend. Rece was a champ Thurs - Saturday and since then the Teething Fairy has made a visit. The amount of chewing and drooling and crabbing and not napping have been tremendous. He has his bottom two choppers in and I have a strong suspicion that the top two are just about ready to make an appearance. Or he could have a virus - hard to tell since he has only recently added "Ga" to the vocab, when you put that in a sentence with "Oh" and "GRRRRR" and "Eh"- it doesn't really add up to a definitive diagnosis.

Posts to follow from the weekend:
First "swim"
6 month "Glamor Shots" at Sears
Grandma & Grandpa's Labor Day visit

Update

2009-09-02T21:02:00.002-04:00

Implemented a new schedule on Monday - so far it has worked great. Rece is going to bed between 7:30 and 8 with no real issues so far and is also napping better during the day. He also started a new day care on Monday so hard to say if it is that or the new schedule or a better sleeping environment but either way so far so good. (knocking on wood right now)

Suggest a schedule?

2009-08-29T22:17:00.002-04:00

Calling all mommies - I am looking for advice on how to adjust Rece's schedule to move his bedtime up. You would think I could figure this out....But I am having trouble determining how to keep building in the solids and begin to move up the bedtime. Any suggestions and sample schedules you used would be appreciated! Here is his current schedule/pattern that we have been on for a couple of months. We aren't anal about it, but these are the general times. He has 5 feedings a day and takes 4 naps, usually 2 are an hour or more and the other two are about 45 mins each, sometimes less.

6:30am - Wakes up - We dress him, get him ready for Daycare
7am - Day Care Drop off
7:15am - Breakfast (6-7 oz + cereal)
8:30 - Morning Nap
9:30 - Wakes up - Playtime
10:30 - Bottle #2 (6 oz) - fruit
11:30 - Mid-Day Nap
1:pm - Wakes up playtime
2pm - Bottle #3 (6-7 oz)
3:30 - Nap
4:15 - Wakes up plays
5pm - Bottle #4 (5 oz) Cereal + Veggie
6pm - Eve nap
7pm - Wakes up (sometimes we have to wake him up here sometimes he only sleeps 30 mins)
8pm - Last bottle (6-7 oz)
In bed and sleeping at 9.

I would like to get him in bed and sleeping around 8 and eliminate the last catnap. He just seems like he is really tired by bedtime and needs to go to bed earlier. Not sure if I should move some of the feedings to do this or what. Dr. said not to reduce the amt of formula (he takes about 32 oz a day) but I also don't want to flood him if he goes to bed earlier by shrinking the times between feedings. Not sure what to expect either as he gets older and starts wanting more solids - will he eventually drop a bottle feeding? Just wondering what other mom's have seen/done.

Rece's first baseball game!

2009-08-24T21:42:00.003-04:00

Last week we took Rece to a State College Spikes game, the local Class A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Some of Jeremy's baseball buddies from his county league team had tickets so we met them there. They share their stadium with Penn State Baseball and it is just across from the Football Stadium. As you can see he started off and ended the night the same way....sleepy...

6 months and counting

2009-08-23T13:17:00.006-04:00

Rece was 6 months old just over a week ago, and since then we have had our check up at the Dr. and the dreaded shots. He was 28 inches long (90th percentile) and 18lbs (50th percentile). We have started solids and he is a pro at eating like a big boy. From about the second bite off the spoon it was old hat. He has had rice, sweet potatoes and carrots thus far and squash and then green beans are next on the docket. I am going to wait a good while longer before I do fruits because if he is anything like his momma his sweet tooth will kick in and that is ALL he will want. Here are some other stats bullet style:

-Rolls over both ways

-Sits up pretty well, still a little wobbly

-Lots of babble and some "yelling" when he wants your complete attention

-Has just started getting on hands and knees and rocking back and forth, this is creating some sleeping issues, as he rolls onto his belly he then gets up on all fours and just starts rocking. Apparently the best time to do this is before naps and at 5:30 in the morning. Half the time we find him doing this half asleep. Or he gets going before a nap and won't stop and go to sleep.

-Grabs onto toys with both hands and reaches and rakes them in.

-Scoots backward on his tummy notsomuch forward.

-Has two bottom teeth!

Overall he is a REALLY happy baby. He gets cranky when he is tired but that is about it. He loves stroller rides and hanging out in his jumperoo/exerciser! He is constantly giggling and showing off those choppers! His little personality is constantly developing and he definitely knows how to woo mommy and daddy. A few pics of the 6 month milestone!

Up and Up

2009-08-18T22:09:00.003-04:00

Not sure why I am all about the customer reviews lately but I feel the need to share in case anyone out there is thinking about trying a new brand etc. that I happen to be trying. So in my quest to find the best diaper at the cheapest price I am trying store brands. I shared about Wegmans "supreme" and they were good. But now I am onto Target's new Brand "Up and Up". Results Thus Far: Better than Wegmans. Roomier/more flexible and do not leave red marks from the elastic, better tabs/fasteners and softer and more like pampers. Plus - I got 96 diapers for the same price as 80 some Wegmans diapers and they are like 10+ bucks cheaper a box than the pampers sale price! Will continue to "test" them I am sure as we continue to embark on our solid food journey, but so far so good.

6 month update coming soon!

New Car....blah, blah, blah

2009-08-12T19:26:00.005-04:00

So I ended up getting a new car. I thought I would be driving my Sorento, which I loved and never had a problem with until last week, for a few more years. And then I would not have a payment for a couple of years and then I would get a Volvo XC 90 or something really cool! ;-) Notsomuch....Rather I go pick up a new car tomorrow and instead of feeling excited, I am glad a bad situation is finally ending. Jeremy and I spent the entire day car shopping, we looked at Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, GM's, Kia's, Nissans, etc. etc. etc. In my mind because of all the arguing I had to do all week to no avail, I did not want a Kia, but in reality the Sorento was good to me, for the amt of miles I had on it, I put A LOT less money into it (other than preventative maint) than I did on the two Chevy's prior. So even though I am bitter I can't forget that.

Because I have owned my car for just about 4 years and I financed for 60 months - I still owed on the Sorento. Because of that, I was in a situation where I had to get a good car, with the longest bumper to bumper warranty at a good price and with some darn good financing and incentives to help me with my payoff. After all the searching, I am blah to say its a Kia again. I really didn't have a choice. I got an Optima, it gets 38-40 mpg and has a 5 year 60k warranty - bumper to bumper, which I did not have any issues with last time. It is a nice car and all, it will take me a while to get used to a car vs. an SUV, but the fact is, we only need one 4x4 vehicle.

Kia had the best financing and the best incentives as well. So because I am in a corner I didn't get to hold my grudge for long. I really wanted a Ford, but the price was higher (even with my Avery discount), the mpg was lower, the warranty was only 3yr and 36k and the incentives were half. Booooo. Oh well, it is a purchase of necessity. It will get me too and from work and Wegmans ;-) And at the end of the day, instead of sinking money into a car with 98,000+ miles, I will have a new car that will get me a long way, and I don't drive half as much as I used to. We go pick it up tomorrow. Sigh.....

BTW- No cash for clunkers, I met all criteria BUT one, you have to have the title in hand, and to do that it has to be paid off. Since cash for clunkers isn't expected to last much longer, that wasn't going to happen in time. I did get money for trade, but not much as you can imagine.Your car doesn't trade for much when half of the engine dropped out on I-80.

Ugh

2009-08-11T21:35:00.003-04:00

This has been quite a week, my car died on the way to work last Monday and I had to wait for a tow. I mean it really died, it shook and my power steering went out and every light that could light up did. It sucked. Since then I have been without a car (I have a rental now) and last Friday Kia informed me that not only do I need a new engine, the work won't be under warranty. I do drive this car A LOT and when I lived in Michigan there were two years when I drove it 120 miles a day for work on most days. So I have 98k on it, the warranty is supposed to cover up to 100k on the engine and powertrain. NOPE - a bolt failed that was on the "exterior engine components" - it is the interior engine components and the transmission that are covered. So the story goes on and on from here and includes me spending which at this point feels like days with Kia corporate and the dealership on the phone arguing my main points (I have a list, which I won't bore you with here) but if I told you - you wouldn't want to buy a Kia. I need a whole new engine which costs more than is logical to spend. So at this point all options exhausted besides getting an attorney and going for who knows how long without a car, I am going to cut my losses and look at getting a new car. If the dealer can make it "drivable" I can qualify for 4500 for cash for clunkers and there are some good incentives. I am looking at a Ford to start.

On a positive customer service note: I am a Wegman's customer for life. Already LOVE that store, (I can only imagine it must be like the grocery stores in Heaven, since they have an espresso bar and great sushi ;-) now they have really wowed me. I was in there two weeks ago, standing in the diaper isle, contemplating the best diaper deal with the coupons I had and also debating if I wanted to try anything other than pampers which I love. Wegmans has recently come out with "Wegmans Supreme" diapers and I have thought about trying them, but you only really save when you buy the big box and that is a lot of diapers to buy if they can't hold water - so to speak. A manager happened to wander through when I was there and I just made the suggestion to him that since the diapers are new, I would love to be able to actually see what they look like etc. So he asks me what size and walks over to the self grabs a 40 pack and says "I will leave them at the customer service desk for you, if you like them you can get a box next time" - so sure enough after I paid for my groceries I picked up a free pack of diapers waiting for me at the desk. And I really like the diapers, so I indeed go back and get a box, and I made sure to find a manager and tell them that I did indeed by a box. (BTW- I am still using Pampers Baby Dry for nights)
Oh, and one other shopping/product type thing since I am on this - those Debbie whoever "Green Bags" you might have seen on TV or in the store that are supposed to keep your produce good longer - yeah, they work awesome. They get my two thumbs up as well.

Wish me luck with the car drama...

Other updates and more pics

2009-07-22T19:16:00.008-04:00

Hi again, so I am far enough behind that it requires a post on back to back days, in addition I am traveling one night on business and I have some free time.

Let's see, what else has been going on....? Well Jeremy was playing baseball...link attached to one of his plays, he is robbing a home run, that made the paper. Even though the ball looks far away he does end up catching it ;-) Also as you will see from the link you can order this image on a wall sized poster, a t-shirt, a coffee mug or a button! ;-) Anyway, he WAS playing baseball, but on Sunday he tore his groin muscle (ouch). So he is on the DL for the foreseeable future.

Other than that, things have been going well, I went to Pittsburgh for training and survived being away from Rece and Jeremy for 4 days! While we were on vacation we went wine tasting in Traverse City and I brought home a case of wonderful Michigan wine that I now can't bring myself to drink because then it will be gone, and I don't know how I will get more!!! And being a mom is more and more fun everyday, Rece is getting such a personality and I miss him so much when am at work. I need to start playing the lotto so I can get rid of that job thing...

A couple more pics...

Until next post...

5 months already!

2009-07-21T21:31:00.005-04:00

Wow - I just realized that my last blog post was when Rece turned 4 months, here we are a full week into month 5. Talk about slacking on the blog. What can I say there just aren't enough hours in the day anymore. Case in point: tonight while Jeremy is giving Rece his last bottle, I am making perogies at 9pm and at the same time watering the plants in the front of the house....and yes dinner did burn.

Since the last post we went on vacation, so the 5th month pictures are also the vacation pictures. We went to Michigan and made the state tour, visiting all the fam. The highlight of the trip was Rece's Christening on Grand Traverse Bay in Northern Michigan it was beautiful. Overall our vacation was great. A lot of driving, a lot of family and friends and one cold and one ear infection for the little man....oh well.

5 month updates:
Rolls over back to tummy now
Sleeps unswaddled! Finally!
Talks all the time
Sits up well supported and likes to sit in Bumbo and just slap the tray, no toys needed
Loves to grab your face, especially daddy's whiskers
Laughs at the dogs when they give him kisses
Is getting bigger and bigger and bigger everyday!

I have a couple of other update posts to catch up on - but for now here are some new pictures.

numero quatro

2009-06-18T22:09:00.006-04:00

Mr. Rece had a heck of a 4 month birthday...we celebrated with a cold/cough and an ear infection!!! Not so much fun. Followed by partial recovery and then vaccinations which gave us the cranks and a fever, really not fun. Now a week into month four we are finally feeling better. Here are his stats:

14 lbs 15 oz - Almost 26 inches long

*Turns over tummy to back and is starting to twist towards back to tummy, but honestly doesn't seem to concerned with doing that anytime soon
*Grabs everything....puts everything in mouth, drools everywhere (its the cool thing at school ;-)
*Is sleeping so good, its like it is his job - although now with the rolling and all the swaddler probably needs to go bye bye so we are starting to transition to a sleep sack.
*Is starting to hear/find his voice
*Loves to be on his changing table where he has your full attention, lots of giggles and crazy arm and leg moves
*Is starting to hold his head up with more and more stability - can't wait to get him in the jumperoo
*Has been having fun with daddy at home for a few days - daddy is done teaching for the summer so he is in daycare part time only. Both have survived ;-)

There is probably more, but I am so tired after a long week I can't think of what else, so here are some pictures of my big boy. I love the first one, he is so clearly trying to get his point across.

He-man-gi-----wha?

2009-05-31T20:25:00.006-04:00

Hemangioma.

A word I barely knew two weeks ago but now can recite all the types, growth patterns, and treatments.
Here is what I have learned:
*They are a type of birthmark that is not usually present at birth
*They occur in 10% of infants
and up to 25% of preemies.
*They are usually not present at birth but appear a few weeks after
*The most common type are the red raised type or "strawberry patches"
*There are also "deep" and "cavernous" hemangiomas
*Typically they grow rapidly for the first 3+ months and then shrink at a much slower rate, and usually disappear by age 3 or 4.
*When they are on the nose they are even more of a problem because they are not friendly to cartilage.

WHY do I know all this? The little "bruise" on Rece's nose that appeared at 6 weeks is still there and after looking back at some pictures over the last 8 weeks, it has also gotten a little bigger and also a little darker. A lot of people don't notice it but we do since we see it everyday. The last time we were at the Peds they said to keep an eye on it and to let them know if it didn't go away. So we watched it and it didn't go anywhere, and since it is a "deep" hemangioma (one below the skin) and they don't see as many of this type and because of its location, they referred us to a pediatric dermatologist 2 hours away at a larger specialized hospital. We went today.

The Dr. was great he said it always breaks his heart when he sees "Nasal Tip Hemangioma" as the cause of the visit, but he said he was happy to see that Rece has a "good one" - relatively speaking of course. He said his is super small and that it is basically done growing. He thought we may see a tiny bit of further growth but then it would begin shrinking and would shrink the most between year 1 and year 2 leaving no visible signs by the time he is preschool age. He also said that he is very aggressive in treatment when they are on the nose because when they grow large they leave a floppy sack of skin when they are gone which then would require plastic surgery. However, he didn't' recommend any treatment for Rece's as it was a "good" one. So that made me feel a lot better. I also left feeling so very very thankful, after he told us that he sees them 50 to 60 times bigger than what Rece has and has to prescribe "unfriendly" treatments like steroids and laser treatments. Thank God it looks like we won't have to go through that. I can't imagine seeing him go through that....crossing my fingers that the specialist is right and we won't have to.

Supa fast!

2009-05-23T22:13:00.003-04:00

I had to also add this one Carly took. I am not exaggerating when I say Rece is in constant motion. Carly captured a "Supa Fast" moment.

Kicking off the long weekend

2009-05-23T20:48:00.004-04:00

I am sure we will be taking lots and lots of pictures this weekend as are planning all sorts of fun. Here are some from our Friday and Saturday...Obviously he likes to look at the camera when he is on his tummy :-)

3 Months Old

2009-05-17T12:40:00.003-04:00

When Rece was 6 weeks old this nurse practitioner at the Peds office told me that I would just have to deal with the colic,told me puttting him on formula wouldn't help anything and wrote me a perscription for a new reflux med that she told me she didn't think would work any better, but gave it to me anyway, probably because I was having a break down in her office. She also said that if we could just get to 3 months he would be a differnent baby. Thanks a lot lady... That was 7 weeks ago but it seems like it was 7 months. So much has changed in that time! I followed my instincts and started formula, didn't fill that perscription and I do indeed have a happier baby, I saw a difference within days of giving up the breastfeeding. I have also felt 100% better, once I stopped b-feeding my hormones returned to normal within a couple of weeks and I have felt like a normal person again.

Mr. Rece at 3 months:
~12lbs 14oz
~Rolls over from his tummy to back more and more all the time
~Has slept through the night for 5 nights in a row- Knock on wood! When he isn't sleeping all the way through the night he wakes up for one bottle in the early am.
~He will hold on to toys/rattles but he doesn't recognize that he is the one making the noise so sometimes he freaks himself out.
~He can hold his head up well when he is on his tummy but not yet when propped up.
~He watches cartoons on Noggin in the morning when we are getting ready for work :-)
~He smiles and laughs a lot, especially at his daddy. He laughs the most when he is getting his diaper changed randomly...
~He is in constant motion, his arms and legs are always going
~The gas monster only comes to visit every once and a while, for some reason we are avereraging one random day a week for gas and crankiness.

First Mother's Day...

2009-05-10T15:39:00.009-04:00

We had a great weekend! We are all feeling better and Rece had a great weekend overall. First and foremost he slept through the night two nights in row and was really good and not crabapottomus all weekend. Secondly, he started to laugh this weekend. Jeremy got him going a few times on Saturday, and I got a couple of chuckles today as well. He has the cutest little giggle :-) Here are a couple of pictures from the weekend. The ones of him in his bouncy chair are of him watching cartoons and baby Einstein videos, he loves them!

For Mother's day Jeremy and Rece did a lot of great research and gave me the most beautiful necklace. It is a custom made setting with a color change sapphire. It is a genuine stone that is rare but naturally occurring. My birthstone is Sapphire and Rece's is Amethyst (purple), this stone changes color from blue to purple in different lights, it is amazing and beautiful. Pic attached below.

For the new Grandma's in our life, I purchased necklaces from Jane's Etsy Shop. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6907767 Each Grandma got their own "I love you necklace" with an I love you charm as well as one charm for each of their children and a charm for Rece. The charms have first and middle names on the front and birth dates on the back. They were a big hit. Some pics of these below as well. Thanks to Jane for getting them done for us with so many other orders to do as well! And for any readers out there who need a beautiful and creative Christmas or Birthday gift for a friend or relative check out her site!

On tap for this week a full week of work...it had to happen sometime...
And Mr. Rece's first picture session with a great photographer in State College. I can't wait, hopefully he is semi-cooperative!

On the mend

2009-05-07T21:35:00.002-04:00

I am happy to report we are all on the mend. Rece (knock on wood) hasn't lost a bottle since Monday and Jeremy and I are almost 100% back to normal - if that is possible ;-)
First week back to work has gone alright- at least the few days I have actually been there. Rece continues to adjust at daycare, Wed he slept about 45 mins total all day. Today was better, he got in a couple of hours. The poor kid almost slept through a bath on Wed night. He will be 12 weeks old on Saturday. I guess after that I stop counting weeks and start counting months, eh?

Sick mommy now too...

2009-05-05T12:11:00.004-04:00

I got it too.. this really sucks. Especially since I was supposed to be returned to work this week, that hasn't worked out too well, I worked from home yesterday to manage Rece and Jeremy and then I am home sick today. Oh well, not much I could do. Thankfully Jeremy took today off too so he was able to take care of Rece last night and take him to daycare today etc. I was in no shape to do so. He has done a really good job especially with me barking things from bed - "don't forget his swaddler, don't forget the gas drops in the bottles"...

As far as Rece goes he doesn't seem quite himself still, no fever though an he is keeping most of his formula in, still having some more/major spit ups than he has in a long long time. Because he can't communicate I am at a loss as to whether he had/has a touch of this bug, his reflux is flaring up (apparently it can peak at 3-4 months) or if the formula switch is still impacting him. It seems like I hit the perfect storm when trying a new formula either way, and I may never know if that was what made an impact. Oh well...for now we are back to the Similac Sensitive and managing the constipation with prune and Caro- so far so good.

I am just so ready for us to figure it out, to have him on A formula and A medicine and just be...rather than always having something to "deal with" I am so done with it...

Sick baby? Sicker Hubby...

2009-05-03T13:31:00.002-04:00

Well it turns out the formula could be out the equation entirely. Rece spit up his entire bottle again at 5 am this morning (that is 3 bottles since early Friday morning) and then Jeremy woke up with a bad stomach flu. Neither are running a temperature, thank goodness. I called the on call pediatrician and he said to just keep an eye on the temp and offer pedialite a couple of times today. I will see how he is doing tomorrow and take him in if necessary. But the Dr thought it was a much better chance that it was a virus rather than the formula. Poor Jeremy has it rough... I am hoping that I don't get it or that if I do Jeremy is better so one of us is capable of taking care of the little man.

When are things going to calm down?????

A Good Start? Not So Much

2009-05-01T20:40:00.002-04:00

Ok - so is there anything else in this world that makes you question yourself as much as being a mom? I am a fairly confident person, I have a career where I have to advise people, help them make decisions and sometimes make decisions for them so things get done for gods sake! But when it comes to being a mom I am constantly contemplating and obsessing over every decision I make! And of course the baby cannot give you feedback on whether you are making the right decision or not, he can't tell you if his tummy hurts or if his ears hurt so you have to more or less guess and then live with the uncertainty until it goes away....and you move on to worrying about the next thing.

If you read my last post you know I decided to try Good Start formula to see if it would be easier for Rece to digest and hence lessen the constipation and gas. Well, 2.5 days later - we have literally vomited 2 bottles, one in our sleep and one at day care, and we are pooping yellow, curdled slimy poo, about 4 times a day. If it isn't coming out one end it starts coming out both ends apparently. The main difference in the formula is that the Similac is Lactose Free and the Good Start is made from 100 Whey and is partially broken down. All I can assume from the very bad reaction he had to it is that he has a lactose intolerance. Because looking back he wasn't doing THAT bad on that formula comparatively speaking, and I would rather give him some prune juice then have him have an entire bottle coming back up. I am just going to put him back on the sensitive and go with it, if he gets more constipated, I will try the soy.....I have heard from several friends that Good Start works great for them, for us not so much. Of course this is literally all I thought about at work on my first day back.

Ahhhhhhhhhh,motherhood.....

Finding the right formula/starting daycare/sleeping like a champ...and my RTW

2009-04-30T08:17:00.004-04:00

Lots going on this week. Mr. Rece went to daycare this week, it has gone ok, he is having some difficulty napping there, as there is a lot going on there and all of the babies obviously don't nap at the same time. The first day he napped only 20 minutes - total. The second day he took a series of 30 min cat naps, and yesterday he slept for an hour once and an hour and a half once with another 30 min cat nap in there as well, so it is getting better. I am sure he will adjust. On the VERY bright side, last night he got enough sleep at daycare to be awake for us in the evening, although a bit cranky, he took his bottle at 9 and then he slept through the night until 6am when we gave him a bottle and he went to daycare again this morning. We couldn't believe it! Realizing it probably won't happen every night, it gives us hope ;-)

We are also working on finding the right formula. It is amazing to me that it is the only food the baby eats and his Dr. is so nonchelante about what we put him on. I was telling him that he has been on the Similac Sensitive for almost 3 weeks now and he can't seem to get in a good pattern where he is not constipated and hence gassy. I am constantly giving him prune or pear juice and sometimes Caro in his bottle so he will be able to go. So the dr. said I could try Soy, more or less he said oh yeah just give it too him see what happens and then if that doesn't work he said to go back to the Alimentium (ie the Cadillac). SO I of course did my own research both online and through friends and found that Good Start has broken down proteins that are easier to digest, it also has a slightly higher water content and so it can make it easier for him to go. Plus it is still milk based and is an easier transition at this point, and not as expensive (not even close) to the pricey hypoallergenic formulas. So we started on that last night, I plan to give it a couple of weeks, and if it doesn't help his tummy we will try the good start soy. Thanks to all who sent me the Similac Coupons - I used each and everyone! We will see if the goodstart works a little better for us.

Finally - I RTW tomorrow. I am excited in a lot of ways, as there are a lot of new and exciting things going on at work, and I miss a lot of the people I work with, I am thankful to be part of a great team. Having said that this week has been tough to spend entire days away from my guy. I am sure we will get into a good pattern. On the bright side, Jeremy's JV season ends next week, so he will slowly start to have more time (he will still help the Varsity for a couple of more weeks) and then he will be out of school in just over a month. So he and Mr. Rece will have their bonding time this summer. I am jealous though as Jeremy will really get to see all of the day to day developmental milestones happen this summer. Compared to the first 10 weeks of eat,sleep,poop and eat again ;-)

New pics - 10 weeks

2009-04-27T21:47:00.008-04:00

Here are some updated shots, including one of Mr. Rece after his first day of daycare where he only slept 20 minutes....the pic is the one in his onesie after we have unswaddled him and we are trying to rouse him for a before bedtime baba... Also included are some pics of our roadtrip home to MI, Mr. Rece Snoozin in the car and trusty Mr. Star who got us through some of the tough times, he and Mr. Rece are BFF's ;-)

2 months

2009-04-17T18:33:00.002-04:00

We took Rece to the Dr. this week for his 8 week visit.
When he was born he was 6 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches
he was 6lbs 7 oz when we brought him home from the hospital.

Here are his two month stats:

*11 lbs 3 oz
*23.5 inches long

-He smiles and coos, especially for his mama who has perfected the high pitched baby talk tone he likes the most.

- On Wed. of this week I put him on his tummy and he rolled himself over to his left onto his back - I just sat there with my mouth open. He hasn't done it again since.

-He holds his chest and head up for a long time each time when on his tummy

-He LOVES the musical star/smiley face on his baby Einstein activity mat - he will literally lie there and stare at it, doing bicycles with his legs for like an hour.

-He is finally beginning to sleep at night more, and at least for the last two weeks has developed a "pattern" - he goes to bed between 9-10 and wakes up for a bottle around 3-4 am. He goes back out, not as soundly, until 7-8am. (knock on wood!)

-He really only takes one long nap during the day about 3 hours - just after his early afternoon bottle. Sometimes he will drift off for 45 mins or so in the morning but that nap never lasts long.

-His reflux is still there but has turned from spitting up mucus stuff to swallowing the spit up. Which causes him to taste the food and drool like you wouldn't believe, so so so much slobber! Enough to make him wake himself up sometimes coughing and chocking on it. So he is on an acid reducer to hopefully reduce this for him, he was coughing enough he sounded horse when he cried :-(

-He has started to "fight" naps and going to bed, he is a challenge to relax but when he does he is usually out. I am not sure if we are waiting to long and he is overtired when we try or what? I put him down for naps during the day and daddy has had the touch getting him to sleep at night. We trade the middle of the night feeds so far.

-He seems to be adjusting well to being on the bottle, and overall just acts like he feels a lot better, luckily we can move him to the "sensitive" formula rather than the pricey hypoallergenic stuff!

-He starts daycare Monday the 27th for some partial days where I stay with him and begin to leave him for short periods, I return to work May 1. It will be sad and hard I am sure to leave him, but in many ways I am excited to get back to work. I really enjoy the social part of my job - talking to adults :-) I say that now but I will probably be a basket case when I have to leave him. We shall see.

A few quick pics

2009-04-12T10:15:00.005-04:00

Here are a few from my mom's stay

Making the switch

2009-04-11T16:20:00.004-04:00

After 8 weeks of trying it all, and then trying it all again, and after a lot of tears for both Mr. Rece and I, and after the advice of BOTH the pediatrician and the lactation consultant (believe it or not, I even stumped her...) we have moved on to a hypoallergenic (pricey, like the Cadillac of formula) formula. Oh and to bump me further in this direction, I woke up yesterday with the beginnings of Mastitis (from the block feeding I was doing to reduce my supply) and I have to go on antibiotics again! So no more! Even with all this and knowing that the formula could make him feel like a million bucks, and the fact that I really don't enjoy B-feeding that much, AND that I can't eat or drink anything I want...I still almost lost it in the grocery store when I had to purchase it. I can't explain it, its like "I have spent 8 weeks of my life obsessing over this, working so hard to make it work and now I am quitting!" - So I came home ate some onions and garlic on a still cheese-less pizza, and had a glass of wine, followed by a cup of coffee this morning and well...things are looking better :-) I am still pumping, A. because I have to, if I didn't I would be in serious pain (plus the infection) and B. just in case for some reason the liquid gold I am feeding my kid doesn't work and he reacts adversely, I can always go back. So in a few days if all is going well, I will start to wean my supply down and say goodbye to the B-feeding. I have his two month appt on Tues and I am also going to ask about trying to move him to just the "sensitive" and lactose free formula after sometime, when his belly has calmed down and he gets a few weeks older.

So - now for a plea to all my fellow blog readers out there, if you know any pediatricians who might give you a sample can or two of Similac Alimentium (my doc promised me some as well) please let me know, I will pay for you to ship it to me. (I mean this stuff is expensive, like a car payment every month - I am desperate ;-) OR if you won't be using Similac coupons anytime soon to buy formula, please go to www.similac.com and register, I believe they will send you four $5 off coupons for this formula, then if you are willing you can mail them to me! Click on "community" and then on the right hand side you can register. You only need your name, address and a babies name and date of birth, something within the last few months or upcoming within a few months, should trigger coupon sending. The coupons will be in your name, but I shouldn't have any trouble using them. HOPEFULLY, we will be able to move from the Alimentum to something more basic in a few weeks, but either way I will stick within the similac family at this point I am sure. I realize I am kind of working the system here but, I figure Similac wants to sell formula and the grocery store wants to let me buy it so a few extra coupons to make it more affordable shouldn't hurt! Anyway, if anyone wants to try, let me know and I will get you my addy. Thanks in adavance!!!

The gas monster is back...

2009-04-09T14:35:00.003-04:00

I will never ever question my sweet sleepy baby again. On Friday afternoon last week and all since then the gas monster has returned and poor Mr. Rece is having himself a rough time. I haven't changed anything in my diet and overall b-feeding is going much better so I am not sure what it is other than his immature digestive system. Last night he was so gassy he literally screamed and tooted for 2+ hours straight and then we gave him a bath, got him read for bed, and miraculously he slept from his 9:45 feeding until 4:30! Which of course was great and much needed since he had had some rough nights prior. Its so sad, his little gas pains wake him up, and generally he looks so tense and uncomfortable when he is like this, I feel so bad for him. Luckily last night he must have got it all out prior to then so he actually slept. Thankfully, we have had a lot of great help over the last two weeks, Jeremy's parents were here two weekends ago and then my mom came and stayed with us from last Saturday on, she just left today. Jeremy has tomorrow off of school so we will have the long weekend all together. Hopefully by Monday the gas monster will have subsided again and I will have a better week flying solo with him next week. Pics from the last couple of weeks soon, I can't believe he will be 8 weeks on Saturday...

My sack of potatoes...

2009-04-02T14:59:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned I had a sleepy head the last few days...great photo ops though...

6 week pics

2009-04-02T14:56:00.002-04:00

Here are some from my mom and dad's last visit.

Growth Spurt?

2009-04-01T18:04:00.003-04:00

Oh boy...well just when b-feeding seems to be getting in control and the gas seems to be improving a little. Now I have a new child...Rece wants to sleep - all the time all of the sudden. He is like a sack of potatoes for most of the day the last two days. It all started this weekend when out of the blue, he sacked out after a feeding a around 6pm. Usually he is not only awake at this time but cranky as all get out. I couldn't believe it but I chalked it up to him starting to feel better. Now the last two days he has been just so tired. He is nursing well and all is ok there, I am trying to engage him as much as possible during the daylight hours (especially after we had a rough night of sleep last night with several wakings for feedings, and some cranky time). I have been diligent since his birth to clearly differentiate day and night, and out of all of our difficulties I thought that was the one thing we had right, if he did go longer between feedings and sleep a little better it was at night... And now this. I don't know what to think. I can't imagine he just got his days and nights mixed up out of the blue, we haven't changed anything. I half thought about calling the pediatrician today and asking about it, it is that weird, but I feel like an idiot - "Hi Doc, my baby is sleeping to much.... oh and by the way the last time I was in I was complaining about how much his gas keeps him from sleeping..." Ugh! Anyway today I went out of my way to keep the house lit up and keep his room bright while he napped and we will see what happens. Has this happened with anyone else out there?!?!

The best laid plans...

2009-03-27T07:25:00.003-04:00

So my plan below hasn't quite worked, he definatley needs the sheilds...SO I am going to try and get my supply adjusted (with the help of Karen the LC) so the pumping goes bye bye. Also I am going to truly give up dairy and soy for two weeks, I had already given up milk, cheese, ice cream, yogurt etc. but I wasn't thinking about reading lables for things like crackers. So I am going to give that a whirl. I say that now with some confidence, but that might be because I just slept the most in one night in 6 weeks. I don't know what happened but I fed Rece at 9:45 last night and not again until 3:30 this morning and then I put him back down and he is still sleeping at 7:30, why I am I not sleeping you might ask? Because I had to get up to pump because I am in pain. See why I want the pumping to go away! Jeremy's mom and dad arrive today for the weekend (until Tuesday) I plan on taking lots and lots and lots of naps...

Update- B-feeding

2009-03-23T18:06:00.003-04:00

I have decided that the only way I can survive this and continue to make breastfeeding work is to eliminate at least some of the "steps" that are now involved AND involve Jeremy more. I have let this control me and not being in control is not one of my strong suits, SO the plan is - since I already have to pump to get rid of the watery milk I am just going to pump a little more so that the flow is reduced enough to toss the shields that I was having to use. They suck and they are incredibly frustrating and are not a natural part of the process. I also found out that I can give Rece the probiotics in two doses of 1/2 tsp rather than splitting it up before several feedings, again trying to remove all the garbage from this supposedly "simple" process. Finally, I am going to let Jeremy take the 2 am (or 3 or 4, whenever it ends up being) feeding with bottle a few nights a week so that I can get more sleep. I tried to do this by myself because obviously I am the only one that can actually feed him, but it is too much for me at this point.

Thanks to all the mommies out there for their comments and encouragement on the blog and facebook. I keep telling myself, it must get better, or we would all be only children....

On some positive notes, my parents visited this past weekend and that was a huge help and I will post pics soon. And I have an appt on Wed afternoon with a baby massuse, recomended by my lactation consultant, who comes to my house and will show me how to massage Mr. Rece. Hopefully that will be worth while, I am looking forward to it.

When is it supposed to get easier???

2009-03-21T20:01:00.005-04:00

We have had a rough week at the Rellinger household in State College. Rece and I are having major issues with breastfeeding and to make matters worse we are now tracing back some of the issues all the way to my labor/delivery. Rece has been in a lot of pain with gas, his bowel movements are horrible and he started refluxing this week leading to a prescription to relive the pain in his esophagus. We are also finding we have multiple causes/issues to address. Because I was leaking fluid and was induced I was on Antibiotics for 24 hours during my labor, then a week after I came home I was on antibiotics for a week due to a clogged duct. All of this apparently severely impacted the good bacteria in Rece's system. SO now that is contributing to his horrible digestion. So now I have to give him infant probotics 3 times a day to help build his natural bacteria back up. Also contributing to his gassiness is that I am apparently Hyper Lactating - the lactation consultant said that I am producing enough for twins - lucky me. This of course means that he is getting only the watery fore milk at his feedings which is probably the #1 cause of his horrible gassiness etc. because of the quick way it forces itself through his digestive tract. It also leads him to want to nurse all the time because he isn't getting satisfied, when he isn't satisfied he doesn't sleep, when he doesn't sleep I don't sleep, when I don't sleep I want to scream....good times. The hyperlactation also means that the milk basically floods him which makes him gag and choke and now he is starting to refuse to nurse because between that and the gas he has all the time, he is in pain when he feeds. With all of this I am now managing about 5 different solutions to all of these issues that will "start to help" in anywhere between 3-10 days depending on the "solution" and the issue we are trying to solve. OH! And in the meantime I am not eating dairy so that I don't make the gassiness worse. Not eating dairy really sucks. The timeline on my breastfeeding days may be numbered if we can't get things figured out for him soon...I don't feel that either of us are benefiting at this point...

1 Month Old & St Patty's Day

2009-03-17T18:02:00.002-04:00

Well after a four or five days of a lot of nursing and not a lot of sleep, last night miraculously he went 4+ hours at a crack, thank goodness. Here are a couple of 1 month pics and St. Patty's day.

Update - Bob is gone

2009-03-12T11:50:00.005-04:00

So Bob finally fell off, thank god. All looks well underneath. And low and behold the last remaining diaper rash spot isn't diaper rash at all but rather a diaper burn...Super. So we moved into a bigger diaper,the super sensitive pampers swaddlers to be exact, and we have to make sure the spot is constantly lubed so it will heal. Problem is because the skin is healing its texture makes it slick and nothing will stick, I think I have bought every diaper ointment in the store, and today the doctor said - "try regular old Vaseline" - so I bought some, a whopping $1.99, if this works I will have a good laugh since I now own enough diaper ointment and cream to create a butt store of sorts. When at the dr. for the diaper rash check today we weighed Mr. Rece and he is up to 8lbs 6oz, so that means he has gained about a pound and a half in two weeks. Yea!
As promised here are a couple of my favorite pics that cousin Carly took this past weekend. Not included are the ones I put in the birth announcements, to be arriving in a mail box near you very soon.

First Ride in the Stroller

2009-03-09T17:54:00.004-04:00

We had great weather this past weekend and so we took the opportunity to take Rece out in the stroller. He slept, so I guess he liked it. His Diaper rash is getting better I guess, there is still one stubborn area that is shrinking more slowly. "Bob" his umbilical cord stump is STILL hanging on by a thread and it grosses me out thoroughly. I was fine with it until it started to move and flop in and out of its home, not nice...
Cousin Carly came to see us from NJ this weekend and took lots of pictures of Mr. Rece for his birth announcements. I will post some of those soon. She also got to go with us on our inaugural stroller ride.
Little man is doing pretty well, I have gotten him to sleep in 4 hour stints at night for about the last week and we also moved him into his crib from the bassinet with no issue. He has developed some infant acne, I feel so bad since it is probably my hormones in utero that caused it, hopefully it will clear up soon. Here are a few pics of our weekend milestones.

While I have a minute

2009-03-03T22:32:00.005-05:00

Pics from Grandma & Grandpa Rellinger's visit!

Also Rece's well baby visit went great the Dr. said that he is off to a great start. He was 7 lbs 1 oz. Of course today, he developed a red bottom, I am not sure if it is from his constant poopy diapers (he has one at every diaper change) or it might be yeast. I am going to see how it looks tomorrow after the suggested at home treatment from the pediatrician and then if it's not looking better we might be off for another visit sooner rather than later.