1 Year Appointment

I apologize for not posting lately. Noah had his 12 month well baby visit over a week ago and I'm just now posting about it. You can blame sickness and busy season for that.

So his stats are this:
Height: 28.25 inches (2.84% based on age)
Weight: 18lb, 9 oz (8.24% based on age)

Here's some visuals:




Those 2 charts show you the percentages I mentioned above, but this chart shows weight based on length and while I don't know the specific number, it looks to be around 40%.


That tells me that Noah is short. No surprise there considering I'm 5'3" and David is maybe 5'8". Noah will never be tall. But when you compare his weight based on the fact that he is short, he's ok. I'm not sure the doctor looked at it that way, but he definitely wasn't concerned. The doctor said that he is eating well and output is good as well as his grip and strength look strong, so no worries. At this age, he is just a calorie burner and everything that comes in gets expended quickly, which I can attest to seeing as he is always on the move.

Speaking of "on the move", Noah is sooooo close to walking. He will now stand on his own for a good while and can even take several unassisted steps between toys or to a person. If he gets too excited, he will try and run and then fall. Soon enough he will get the hang of it and walk everywhere.

I'll post his 1 year pictures from the professional photographer soon. In the meantime, will you click on the "Top Baby Blogs" link and vote for my blog (it has been reset recently). One final item: You should click on the link for the "Change 3 Things" campaign. It's for Cotton Babies and if you change 3 of your baby's diapers in cloth per day, you could save a lot of money ($260 a year) and slowly change the landfill waste problem. I'm, of course, a huge fan of cloth diapers, so feel free to ask me any questions.

Noah's Birthday Party

Noah had a great birthday party with only a small amount of drama and freaking out. I tried to get as much done before Saturday, but apparently not enough. Friday night, the weather forecaster said we might get a dusting or 1 inch by morning. No big deal, right?

Woke up Saturday morning to 6 inches of snow!!! That's not a dusting! I got up and started getting things together. Then I got the phone call. The cleaning people canceled. This was supposed to be the make up cleaning from Tuesday when we had the Blizzard of 2011. Not that I can't clean my own house, but I certainly wasn't prepared to do it right before the party. So I did what I could and I think it looked ok in the end, but of course, now I'm behind on everything else I was supposed to be doing to get ready. Then I started freaking out thinking the cake and food wouldn't be delivered, so I called and checked. Both were fine. Now why can't the cleaning people be professional and not cancel? I mean they are a business and it honestly wasn't THAT bad.

So I did have a little bit of freaking out making sure everything was together before everyone got there. In the end, everything was fine and the party went great except my aunt wasn't able to come. Here's some pictures for you to enjoy:

Top Baby Blogs

I'd like to get listed on this website, so if you would do me a HUGE favor and please use the link on the banner to the right to vote for my blog. THANKS!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH!

Today Noah turns 1. I can't believe a whole year has gone by. I never imagined how much my life would change since Noah has come into this world. Not just in the normal "now I have a baby" kind of way, but he has completely changed my whole way of thinking. I always knew I wanted children, but I always imagined myself feeding him or her a bottle, changing their disposable diaper, feeding them jars of baby food, etc.

When I found out that I was expecting, I did lots and lots of research. I decided that I hated pain medicines (I generally don't like any kinds of medications). So because of that, I decided to do a natural birth. That's when I chose the Bradley Method. I was very insistent that I wasn't into any of that crunchy all natural stuff though, although I did want to breastfeed, if I could. Through the Bradley classes, I learned more about breastfeeding and realized that anyone can breastfeed and so at that point, I was determined.

My birth went completely as planned and breastfeeding got off to a rocky start, but going ok. I started going to monthly La Leche League meetings and weekly nursing groups at Kangaroo Kids. Through those meetings, I realized how many other mamas use cloth diapers and started exploring that territory and now I love using the cloth. We also decided to make our own baby food and babywear. While co-sleeping never really worked for us, everything else was all attachment parenting.

I was so adamently against attachment parenting, even at day 1 of being a mom. But the more I was a mom, the more the true "mama" came out. The one that is all about attachment parenting. Ok, enough reminising, time for pictures.


Noah in his birthday outfit.



This was taken the morning after his birth. Look how peaceful he looks.

He's grown a lot in just a year and I can't wait to see what this second year has in store.

Snow Days!

I think most people who read my blog are in the St. Louis area so they know that there is significant winter weather predicted for Mon, Tue, and Wed. They are saying that this will be the worst winter weather since the Blizzard of 1982. In 1982, I wasn't even born, or even a thought, yet. Well maybe a thought, but definitely not in existence yet. David, however, was still in his Mommy's belly, cooking away. Maybe in another 30 years, when we get another bad storm, we can look back and say "Noah, you were about to turn 1 last time we had bad winter weather". I'm working today for as long as I safely can. I will probably be leaving around 3 or 4pm so I can drive before it's dark. For tomorrow, I might be working from home depending on what it looks like in the morning. David is basically setting up camp at home for the next 3 days. I'm glad he can work from home so easily. My new job is very flexible about working from home, but sometimes it's not super easy to bring things home to work on.

Noah was sick on Saturday, but after he had some meds, his fever went down and he looked better, so we decided to chance it and take him to the auto show with us. It went great and we saw lots of good cars. Two to note were the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid and the Toyota Prius. We'll wait until the Sonata Hybrid comes out and go test drive them both and hopefully make a decision and get a new car!!!

On Sunday, he broke his fever (finally). We decided to not go to church so that we didn't have to put him in the nursery after being sick so recently. We did go to Victoria's birthday party. I sadly only took a few quick shots with my phone so nothing worthy to post. While I don't necessarily have a desire to become a photography genius, I would like to get better about taking more pictures.

Updated Blog

As you can see, I have revamped the blog design. I hope you like it. Look for more changes in the future. Also, I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog to something more clever and something that better describes my posts better. Right now, I still post mostly on Noah, but in the future I will be posting on TTC and adding #2 to our family. So please give me your suggestions on creative blog titles. THANKS!!!!

Still Sick

Yup, Noah's still down and out. The doctor did an RSV test and it came back negative (big relief). He did notice some fluid buildup in his ear, so he's thinking an ear infection. So David stayed home with him on Wednesday and worked from home, which he said wasn't too bad since Noah either slept or played happily by himself. However, Wednesday night his fever was up to 102. He did sleep well that night though. Thursday, my dad came and helped take care of him while David worked at home. This fever that morning was 103 so it was definitely getting worse. He also didn't really seem himself, very tired and not too playful. Luckily he was still taking little bits of food and milk and keeping it down, so I wasn't concerned about dehydration. As of now, he's still getting 103 fevers and we are alternating between tylenol and ibuprofen every 3 hours with an antibiotic for the infection once a day. He didn't sleep so well last night so David had to get up with him, but he did take 4 oz of formula (more about that in a minute). When I left, Noah (and Daddy) were fast asleep. David is taking today off to help take care of him 100% and hopefully get him well for this weekend.

This weekend we are suppose to go to the auto show on Saturday to help us find a new car. Sunday, we have an appt in the morning to get his pictures taken, then a birthday party in the afternoon. I really don't want him to be sick for all of this because that would kind of ruin the plans not to mention, it's no fun being sick for that many days in a row.

I also want to point out an interesting generation gap. Me and David's opinion on treatment of illnesses are to treat the child, not the sickness. Which means that if Noah has a 102 fever but is eating well and shows no symptoms of feeling bad, there is no reason to chalk him full of meds. We give him medicine when he doesn't feel well. In fact, according to Dr. Sear's, a low grade fever can actually help him feel better on his own without meds. I believe this. However, our parents are not of the same beliefs. It seems like people in my parent's generation think that you just give meds until you reach the max dosage regardless of how they feel or their symptoms. More of a preventative measure, I suppose?

Now the formula I spoke of....we got free samples for this Toddler based formula in the mail. So we figured there was probably more vitamins and good stuff in that than in cow's milk, so we thought we would try it. Apparently he likes it. Should we keep buying it for a little while? Jury is still out. What's your opinion????