1 Year is Forever

1 year ago today is when we found out that we were going to have a little Buddha. I forgot all about it but Claire reminded me in the way that wives do. “Do you know what tomorrow is?”. My heart started racing. My mind started going a mile a minute trying to figure out if I had forgottena date that I should be able to produce before she finishes her sentence. I was drawing blanks and getting real nervous. She just smiled and reminded me. I don’t know how I could forget the date that took the World as I knew it and turned it upside down.
After a certain age, years and birthdays fly by. At least for me, they sort of blend into one another. This past year flew by but definitelydid not blend in with the others. I still can’t believe all the memories I take from this past year. I’m sure this next year will bring many more.

We’ve discovered that B is very vain. He loves to look at himself in the mirror. He would probably do it most of the day if he could stand on his own. It’s cute to see him react to his own facial expressions. You can also tell he gets confused a little to hear Mommy or Daddy’s voice come from behind him yet he sees us right in front of him. From what we read, most babies/toddlers love other babies. Ever notice how little children will almost always look in other strollers? I wonder if those coos and gagas we hear is a universal language that they understand. Probably not as complex as in the movie Look Who’s Talking… :-). More evidence are these pictures that were taken a few weeks ago when Nicole came over with Ava (about one year older than B). You can click the picture to see a larger version. It was amazing to see how she looked and interacted with B. Any who, I guess we’ll keep putting B in front of the mirror because he seems to like it. I guess everyone will blame us he falls in love with himself.
New photos are also posted here in the 4th month gallery.

Everyone has one. An emergency stash of something that is hidden somewhere. For some people it’s junk food in the back of the cabinet, others hide a roll of hundos in an old sock in the sock drawer. And no… if you come to our place looking to rob us, we don’t keep our cash in the sock drawer. B is no exception. He keeps a stash of breast milk in the freezer. He’s worried that when Mommy is at school, he might go hungry. Well, last weekend I found his stash when cleaning out the freezer. It was hard to miss considering it takes up 3/4 of the space.
Seriously, we figured it was time to organize the stores after a frozen bag of breast milk hit me on the foot 3 times in a row when opening the freezer door. I had to put one of Claire’s shoes in the picture to give it some point of reference. I knew we had a lot of milk in the freezer but didn’t realize how much until there was a mound of it sitting in the middle of our kitchen. Unbelievable. It’s only a matter of time before we have nothing in the freezer except breast milk. When I first went to the store to buy storage bags, I thought a box of 25 bags would last at least a few weeks. Now, it seems like I’m going to Target every week to buy storage bags. Just another cost associated with raising a baby but well worth it.

New pictures have been posted here. I’ve been getting a lot of requests for updates to the site more often. I know… I know… I need to do a better job. I’m going to shoot for at least 2-3 times a week going forward to keep the public happy.Bye for now.

This picture was taken yesterday at our Bradley Reunion. Bradley was the birthing method that Claire chose to take to help her deliver Brendan naturally with no pain meds. We can not say enough good things about this method and how it helped us tremendously. I would recommend it to anyone (even if they are not planning on a med free child birth). The education you get about the whole birthing process better prepares you for what might or probably would happen during birth. They also talk about things like pregnancy nutrition and post pregnancy things.

Claire and I had a blast seeing all the little babies that were close in age to Brendan. The youngest was around 1 month old to the oldest who was around 6 months old. It’s always nice to know we are not the only parents dealing with all the challenges and joys of raising your first child.

Well as most of you know, Brendan was hospitalized two weekends ago. This week we went in for his 2 month checkup and shots. They gave us the results of all the tests they took and basically don’t know what happened. As of late, he has been a little more fussy than normal and constantly wants to be held. At first, we thought this was because of all the trauma he has been through with the hospital visits, getting shots, and blood being drawn. With no real answers, we turned to the internet. Even with the vast knowledge of the internet, it was hard to narrow it down to something. Earlier this week, Claire was talking to her Mom who had explained our situation to one of her friends (Lisa) who has kids of her own. Lisa had said the same thing happend with her kids and knew exactly what it was. She is not a doctor but diagnosed him with HoldMyAssitis. She said it was nothing serious but could develop into something very serious and contagious… PainInOurAssitis. Claire and I are happy to know what is wrong with Brendan and glad that it should go away on it’s own with no medical treatment. Thanks Lisa for helping us diagnose Brendan.

Claire finally was able to sleep through the entire night last night with out having to wake up to feed B at 3:30. We put he down to bed around 10:30 and he didn’t wake up until 5:00 am. This was quite the news in our house this morning. I hope this is the start of many more sleep filled nights. Brendan did get his 2 month shots yesterday and was a fussy all afternoon. I hope he didn’t sleep through the night because he didn’t get much quality sleep yesterday afternoon. After sleeping all night, I was also afraid he was going to be up all day today. Not the case. He took a good long nap this afternoon to Daddy’s delight. I guess we’ll have to wait to see if he sleeps through the entire night tonight again. Cross your fingers for us.

Little B update… He got released from the Hospital late Sunday afternoon about 2 hours before Daddy had to catch his flight to Boulder, CO. The doctors still don’t know what caused his fever but guess that it was something viral. Thank goodness Grandma Toon was coming into town to help watch him while I was away. He’s back to his old self (active, alert, and smiling) which makes us very happy. B was a little more fussy than usual but that might be expected after what he went through over the weekend. Thank you to everyone who called or sent us emails about Brendan. Claire and I were sure to pass on a kiss or zerbert to B from you.

Well… Claire and I have been baptized into the world of parenthood. No, I’m not talking about being sprayed with Brendan’s fire hose during a change. This happened long ago. Up until last night we had not had to pull an all nighter because Little B had been fussing. All night turned into a very long day. We noticed that he was a little warm around 10:30 pm and was running a small fever (99 degrees). We were not concerned too much after doing research on the internet and discovered not unusual for babies to run slight fevers. Then at 6:00 am we took is temp again. This time it was 102.. Now, it was time to call the clinic. After talking to the doctor that called us back, it was decided we would bring him into the clinic. Before leaving for the hospital it had jumped to 103.7. NOT GOOD. Log story short, B was admitted to the hospital for at least overnight to run some tests, get IV fluids, and some antibiotics.

It’s never fun to watch your child suffer or get poked with needles. Shortly after Brendan was admitted and in his hospital room, we overheard a doctor in the hallway. The doctor was introducing himself to someone and said “Hi, I’m from the organ transplant team”. This sort of put things in perspective for us. It could be a lot worse. Hopefully, he’ll be able to come home tomorrow.