18 months

Did I just write that??  My baby is 18 months old!!  My toddler is here!  Testing, trying to talk, and "I can do it myself" have kicked in full force!  Even though some days are way harder, I am loving this stage!  Here's some quick updates on how Jadon is doing:

• We are all done with his hip brace!  About a month ago it was getting too tight, so we stopped using it.  Last week he had another xray and appt and it was decided he was done with the brace, yeah!!!  His hips are not symmetrical, but they are at least both in normal range.
• "uppie uppie uppie" has been the word for the past few months.  It means, pick me up, more milk, get that book, everything.....lol.  His newest is "happy happy happy" when eating chocolate!! 
• Jadon loves to dance, listen to music, and read.  Books are his favorite "toy" and I bring many along in my very heavy purse when going on an outing or appt.
• He weighs 28lbs and is 34 inches tall.
• He's getting the concept of potty.  We wave to his potty when we flush the toilet.  He says "bub by, see ya ater!" Too cute!
• Forks and spoons are a must when he eats, unless its a really big piece and he gets to take bites, which he learned this last week. 
• Teething still stinks!  The past couple days a fever has come with it with some crabby moments...yuck.
• He has become a very picky eater :( He is willing to try a bite of anything, but normally spits it out.  Oranges are his favorite and normally consist of 1 or 2 for dinner...
• He waves goodbye to daddy before bed, and normally only lets me put him to bed where he gives me a kiss before laying him down...melt my heart!  He sometimes will go give Dave a hug and kiss before bed too, tooooo cute!
• We got a B.ob stroller and are LOVING it!  We have used it unfortunately in all weather in the last month...probably in more snow than rain, but it sure helps to get us outside! I got a weather shield for it so if it's too windy or raining and I need to get out, we still can.

I sometimes have been struggling with the question others are asking....when is #2 coming?  I struggle cause I don't feel I've been waiting/wanting that right now.  I'm content.  This week I really was thinking about this and I feel I had an "aha" moment.  A couple years ago when the last FET didn't work, and we were moving towards adoption, I felt God helped remove a thorn that had been in my side for a long time....the pain of infertility, of desiring a biological child.  I believe I blogged about that, but anyway...In it's place contentment was set in.  I wondered if that would still be there after experiencing pregnancy.  Would I want that again?  Would one child fill that void??  My answer right now, is that I'm content...content to not worry, to not stress, but to be thankful for what God has blessed me with.  This week I was also struggling with J maybe being an only child.  But then I was reminded that Jadon may be an only child here on this earth, but in heaven we have many children waiting for us!  I am so thankful that God has reminded me of these amazing things to help me answer some questions inside.

So, with that I leave you with only a post...no pics.  I don't have much time to upload pics to the computer, so it will have to wait.  My priority is my toddler, cause soon he will no longer be my baby...I mean toddler :)

I don't get it...

The past few weeks I have been unable to blog or leave comments.  Something kept popping up that their was confusion between my email and my logins and I had to do something to fix it.  What it wanted me to do, I had NO idea...it was it serious techy lingo.  I was like I DON"T HAVE TIME for this!  I want to comment on blogs to let people know I'm praying, excited, or love their post, but nope.  I finally figured out a couple words in the lingo and figured out I had to have a new email address for a login.  Why, I don't know...so I made one up.  So, if you see any posts from jjeast1023, that's me, not some new scary stocker!! 

Life around here has been fun.  Jadon is at such a fun stage.  He loves to talk.  His new words are "hihihi", dirty, clean, boom, and "Nanner"  (Zander) not to be confused with "nanna" which is a banana!  He really got into driving his cars this week.  We had some longgg coldddd weeks here so I made up some new games to play and it's been fun challenging him.  He is quite the perfectionest, so a lot of throwing happens around here when things aren't going how he planned!  Just before nap time mr. fisher price helicopter pilot got thrown cause he didn't want to keep his packer helmet on and change professions!  HA!  Nap time to the rescue!

Here's some pics I promised in the last post!

Cutest but saddest thing to see a little person in a hospital gown!

The hospital gave Jadon a gift...a bear and a book, he was so excited for both!

Bad Blogger...

So it's been almost 2 months since I posted last...yikes!  Jadon has gone down to 1 nap a day for only an hour and a half normally, so I have little time to work with! I don't have any pics uploaded from my camera yet from the holidays...but I figured I better update even without!

J is already 14 months old!  I'm loving this age so much.  He is learning new words and understands so much.  His latest thing is saying on and off when looking at lights or fans.  Smart little guy!  He has an AMAZING appetite!  Last week he ate dinner for an hour and ten minutes!  I keep going back to the fridge as he finishes and signs "more"! 

Christmas was great.  We took him light looking around town and it was so fun to see it through his eyes.  All he kept saying was "Ohhh Wowwwww!" Fifteen minutes in he was out like a light.  We learned to hit the big displays first next year!
He did great with the tree, not touching it.  He feel into it once and started crying cause we think he thought he was in trouble!  He loves it when we pick him up and point out the orniments to him. 

We had a busy Christmas driving here and there, but got to see a lot of family which was a blessing!  He wasn't into opening gifts too much, but that's ok!  Sure beat last yr when he was asleep through it all!

Then this last weekend we had a big scare.  First Jadon woke up on Sunday from a nap with a fever (his first).  Then Dave mentioned to me that the last couple days he's noticed a bulge in J's groin.  We googled it (of coarse!) and found it could be a hernia.  With the fever and this, my momma instinct kicked in and I said we need to go to urgent care...yes, it was the 4th quarter of the packers/vikings game and it was close...but I got Dave out the door.  We went to urgent care where we were told it was serious and was referred to the ER.  At the ER we were told it was serious and they didn't have a peds surgeon to fix it, so they had to contact the other hospital in town to see if anyone was comfortable doing it or we had to be lifeflighted down to another hospital.  It's dumb, i know, but all I could think of was, I'm afraid of heights! but I knew I wanted a surgeon who was VERY comfortable operating on my baby, so I made that known.  Thankfully a local surgeon was found and we were transfered to their ER....seriously.  Atleast a room was held for us there, but moving my burning up baby (103.6 fever) from site to site was rough!  There an amazing surgeon met with us and told us she recommended surgery now and didnt' thing the blood supply was being cut off yet.  If it was, they have 6 hours before tissue and other things start dying off. 

So, at 10:30pm i was wheeled up to surgery with my baby in my lap where the anestesiaologists had to take him from me into surgery...you could say I completley lost it!  Even the trasport lady got teared up!  Dave and I went into the waiting room in a daze...what is happening??  My parents came with some food at 11pm (didnt' have time for dinner) and sat with us which was so nice.  The staff was so nice to keep updating us on how he was doing and the surgeon came in and said it went great and the hernia was repaired and they didn't find any other "issues" that had to be fixed, praise God!  Dave and I went up to his room and waited till he got out of recovery, which was hard cause we could hear him at the end of the hall...about an hour later he came in and was a little upset you could say, but my mom picked up his bear from home and that gave him some quick comfort right away.  That night was rough...he wouldn't let me go (understandable) I held him all night (minus whenever Dave would take over for a potty break) while nurses came in every half hour then hour to check vitals...he was burning up too and they wern't sure why...The next day they ran more tests and found it wasn't bacterial and was probably viral, so he could be coming down with something.  That morning was rough...dave got 30 minutes of sleep all night and I got about 10 minutes...and Jadon was not happy.  I will say though that I tried to take in all the cuddle time.  He just slept on my chest allll night and the next day and wrapped his little arms around me tight.  Poor guy, so tramitized.  He really didn't like any of the nurses for fear they might take him away. 
Then after a short nap, he just popped back to normal self!  He was up running around the room and playing.  We were soooooo thankful to see this!  He started grabbing his jacket like, lets go mom, I'm ready!  We were released around 3:30pm and Dave and I were like zombies!  We ordered pizza and were anticipating a rough night ahead of us.  We all went to bed early (J's fever was up again) and we all slept in till 9:30am!!!  I got up to check on him once in the early morning to see how his fever was, but thankfully that didnt' wake him! 
So, a couple days later his fever breaks and a rash comes on.  We think we know what it is, rosieola, but have to go in cause it could be related to his surgery.  I was worried he would freak out at the doctors, but he did good.  It was rosieola and that explained blood work at the hospital.  SOOO thankful it wasn't the flu!  Our doctor was like, I don't put anything past Jadon anymore.  He had both the roseiola and hernia at the same time, I could do a case study on him (and all the "issues" we've had since birth that are not very common)!  We laughed.  Yep...the surgeon said only a .5-2.5% chance of another hernia, so that's less than the normal person....ha, you don't know my son...he tends to run in the low percentile of things happening....but that's also what makes him a miracle! 

If you finished reading alllll this post, I'm sorry for the rambleing, I just needed to document some things for us. Thankful that through all the storms of life,  God is always there and never leaves! 

First animal sound

Jadon is now starting to recognize animal sounds and say them when I ask "what does a ___ say?" I'm sure most kids first animal noise they make may be a dog, cat, cow, etc.  Nope, my babies first animal noise is a penguin!  HA!  Adorable!!  His books for some reason have lots of penguins in them and about 6 months ago Dave and I watched Mr. Poppers Penguins where I learned what a penguin sounds like...I think his name is Loudy?  I could be wrong, but still it is sooo adorable when Jadon walks around making penguin noises or when he opens his book to a penguin he has to make the noise.  LOVE IT!  His second animal sound he learned was a sheep...I better start working on some more common animal noises...

Highs and Lows

Life right now is so crazy.  I really liked the phrase "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."  I think I could really relate to that...but I've realized that phrase can't always be true. Their are storms that there is no dancing in...we are in one of those.  I have family members going through a divorce with kids getting confused and people thinking they are following Christ, but their thoughts/actions are definately not Biblical or of God.  They are destroying relationships in our family and causing a lot of hurt...Yuck.  Then add the other side of the family who are both having chest pain and possible heart problems...Then add a husband who is wayyyy busy with work and out of town a lot and is overworked and tired.  Lastly my high maintance dog has a bad staph infection on his skin (chronic condition) so I give him 10 pills a day (only 4 are antibiotics), make sure he doesn't get an ear infection by cleaning ears a lot, make sure he doesn't lick open feet sores, give him weekly baths, and clean up puke piles...Nice!

But then...God gives me the amazing blessing of being able to see my son's first steps.  To be home with him and experiencing the joy of motherhood.  Watching Jadon walk around and around in circles in our house babbling away...oh what joy it brings be.  I sit back and thank God that in all the storms going on, my dancing in the rain is my son.  And in those moments, you can go back into the world of a child and be so innocent...so calm and peaceful.  Thank you God!  Thank you that your timing is perfect for bringing Jadon into our lives to give us a little more reason to dance in the rain! 

Happy 1st Birthday Jadon!!!

My baby is one today!!  I was telling Dave tonight that it flew by...but it didn't...does that make sense?? 
We had a party for him on Sunday and today we took him to the local aquarium...and introduced him to daddy's favorite junk food...Mcdonalds french fries!  He only ate about 2 and about 1 chicken nugget.  I then filled him with mixed veggies and fruit cause I felt so guilty!!!  Then Dave gave him some mint ice cream...oy!

This and that...

I can't believe one week from today I will have a 1 yr old!!!  He is so much fun right now!  I keep telling Dave, he sure is cute isn't he?!  Last night I then added, I wonder if in a yr or 2 I will instead be saying, he sure is lucky he's cute!  I hope not, but we'll see!

Where did the yr go, I ask myself!  Sometimes I look back and felt I missed out on some things with him being in a brace at 3wks old.  I didn't get to cuddle as much as others get to.  Between hip appts, physical therapy, and helmet appts I felt I didn't get to go out much with him other places because I was already throwing him way off schedule too many times a week.  But, I can now be thankful that his appts have slowed down, he is healthy, and I am trying extra hard to take advantage of getting him out to do "extra" things (like playdates, the park, etc.).  I am having so much fun right now, it helps me not look back so much.  It helps me stay in the moment trying to take in every detail now, cause we soon will be planning his second birthday before we know it!

Jadon has started to take steps...not slow either.  I think that's what's "slowing" him down from walking is that he doesn't want to walk...he wants to RUN! 

It's amazing to see him do things that actually take skill, like stacking things, or putting shapes into their proper holes.  It makes me nervous that I am not always teaching him the skills that he should be doing...but I guess I'm doing my best and he's obviously catching on to things. 

He loves to eat "big people" food.  The bottle not so much anymore, which is ok, but I just need to make sure he's getting enough liquid.  He's almost banned baby food.  Too funny.  It sure helps me to make better choices for meals when it has to go into his mouth now too! 

We had football on Sunday night while eating dinner...lets just say I was a little lonely!  Two guys zoned out on football...

 

 

Last weekend, my oldest niece was baptised.  We are so proud of her!  I teared up immediately when I saw her getting ready...sooo thankful God allowed us to be apart of leading her to Christ a couple years ago...God is so Good!