Aurora

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Baby, Baby, Big Fat Lady

So, WAAAAY later...

Here's a rundown of what's happened with this pregnancy so far:
12 week ultrasound put the due date at May 17th. My prediction, based on the length of my cycle and whatnot, is May 24th. We'll see which is more correct.

18 week ultrasound said GIRL!!!!! I am ecstatic! I want to be done after this one, and I'm thrilled to be having one of each. Our family will be complete. My husband, however, isn't so sure he wants to deal with the drama of having a girl.
That ultrasound also found a cyst in the baby's brain. Apparently this is a normal developmental occurrence, but the cyst is supposed to be gone by then. Without the appearance of other physical abnormalities, it was only a "watch it and see what happens" kind of thing. If there had been other problems discovered in the ultrasound, my doctor would have recommended further testing for birth defects and genetic disorders. So I was scheduled for another ultrasound at my next doctor's visit.

22 week ultrasound still said GIRL! And the cyst was gone. My thinking is, if she is indeed a week behind the due date developmentally, she may just not have reached the point where the cyst goes away on its own. Either way, she was fine.

At the end of the first trimester, I decided to go back on antidepressants. I had planned to get back on antidepressants and birth control at my original doctor's visit, until we found out I was pregnant. But I started having nightmares, and just wasn't coping well with J.R. and morning sickness. So my doctor started me out on low dose Zoloft, but that didn't do much, so we increased it to 50 mg, and I'm doing MUCH better. We talked about weaning myself off of it before the baby's born, to decrease the side effects of the baby's system suddenly being without it. But I think the risks are too high to do that. So I'm going to stay on the meds, to decrease my chances of post partum depression as well. I did really well after having J.R., but everyone was happy about him arriving, and I was able to sleep A LOT to get over the initial exhaustion. Plus, I wasn't babysitting at all at that point, so I didn't have to worry about chasing after a two year old.

End of second trimester comes along, I start having physical issues. I'm feeling weak and dizzy, and my heart's going crazy. I also had low blood sugar. So I got a glucometer, and my blood sugar was high when I started feeling like that. I also had low blood pressure (which I always have anyway). So I took my blood pressure when I started feeling bad. It would be higher than normal, which meant it was normal. But my heart rate was crazy high. So I looked up the signs of anemia. The doc already had me on iron supplements. I'm anemic when I'm not pregnant, and pregnancy just makes that worse. Symptoms of anemia completely corresponded to what I was feeling. So my doctor had me go back to the lab, and sure enough, even with taking my iron supplements, my iron levels were still too low. So we increased the amount of iron I'm taking. To compensate for the unpleasant side effects of increased iron intake, I am now eating bran cereal and trying very hard to drink more liquids. So far, so good.

I've gained a lot less weight so far with this pregnancy than I did with J.R., but that's to be expected. I'm a lot more active and I eat a lot less sweets than I did when I was pregnant with him. I'm still carrying the same way, though, all out in front. Bryan's mom has changed her prediction from girl to boy mostly based on the way I'm carrying. I do have considerably less heartburn, which is nice. And this baby doesn't insist on hooking her feet up under my ribs and pushing all the time like her brother. Where I could swear J.R. was going to be a kickboxer, this baby is going to be a boxer. I get poked and punched in the hips all the time.

As of today, according to my due date, I have 31 days left. According to MY estimation, I have 38. Either way, I'm ready to be done. I'm tired of all the physical issues, not being able to sleep or eat, my hips hurting all the time, and having to compensate for the extra six to eight inches sticking out in front of me. I'm ready to have my body back. (Not to mention the cup size I'll gain by breastfeeding!) And I'm just getting really excited to meet this child. We're finally pretty much prepared for her to get here, with clothes and blankets and whatnot. We only have a few more things to get, and they're all pretty small and nonessential... except diapers... we still don't have newborn or size 1 diapers. But if she surprises us by coming earlier than even my due date, the hospital provides diapers while we're there, and that will give Bryan time to go buy some.

Well, that's enough for now, ask me later about my paranoia!

Big Heads and Big Surprises

J.R. had his 15 month doctor's appointment on September 22nd. He weighed a whole 26 pounds, which we knew, because one of J.R.'s favorite things to do is join me when I use the bathroom and pull out the bathroom scale and stand on it. So we'd been able to track his weight pretty well. He is a very tall child still, in the 95th percentile for his age, I think he was about 30-31 inches or so... I don't remember exactly. His weight is catching up, finally. But his doctor was worried about his head circumference. She said that it was still over the curve, in around the 105th to 110th percentile for his age. She said that if his body hadn't caught up to his head by the time he came in for his 18 month visit, she was going to refer us to a pediatric neurologist. It actually kinda threw me for a loop, because other than his lack of teeth and talking, he's pretty much right on track developmentally. But we'll see. I think he may be catching up, considering how fast he's growing now, into a third pair of shoes since his first birthday, and his 18 month clothes are fitting him well, some already too small. Hopefully, we won't have to put the poor kid through more tests.



I had a test done that day myself. I was late by over a week on my period, and I'd been super stressed. I figured that it was because of all the family stuff going on that was incredibly stressful. I thought that's also why I missed my period. But I figured I should at least have the test, so I would know for sure. So while I was already at the doctor's office with J.R., I asked if his doc would order me a blood test. I had an appointment with another doctor, but it wasn't for almost another month. She agreed to order it for me, and I went to the lab after we were done with J.R.'s checkup and shots. The lab tech told me that it would take about 24 hours for the results to come in. So I called the next afternoon. It was positive... I was PREGNANT!!! I'd had my suspicions already, so I'd mentally prepared myself. I'd mentioned the possibility to Bryan, so he at least had a heads up, and I wouldn't just come out of the blue with the news. He wouldn't have liked that. He still wasn't happy when I told him the news, but at least it wasn't a total shock.

It took us both some time to get used to the idea that we had another baby on the way. I was wavering between excited and terrified. I had a hard enough time handling J.R., how in the world was I going to handle him in the throes of terrible twos with a newborn baby to tend to as well? Bryan was worried about being able to afford another child, but I reminded him that newborns don't cost a whole lot, the biggest cost is diapers when I breastfeed. If it's a boy, we won't even need to buy clothes, since all of J.R.'s will be season appropriate when this baby grows into them. So once I assuaged that worry of his, he began to wonder if I could handle two kids, knowing how frustrated I get with J.R.. I couldn't do much about that one, except to tell him the same things I'd been telling myself: If God brings you to it, He'll bring you through it; I'll do it because I have to, and learn to cope. That didn't help much, at least not for him.

So we definitely got quite the surprise in the form of a positive pregnancy test. Here we go again!

Six Months of Updates... Whew!

Well, it's been six months since I've updated here... and my goodness has so much happened. J.R. turned one, of course, and that was wonderful. Both my parents came to the party, all four of Bryan's parents and step-parents were there, as well as his brother and stepsiblings. Bryan's grandparents were also there. It was a pretty big turnout, but J.R. could have cared less. He was very interested in Bryan's neice Esther, who is two months older than he is. They swapped sippy cups and pacifiers. J.R. wasn't using a pacifier at this point, he quit taking one at about ten months old, but he would take Essie's and pop it in his mouth. Other than that, he didn't care what was going on. He didn't even really care about any of his gifts. He sure liked his cupcake, though! We served cupcakes instead of cake, because it was easier to leave frosting off a few of them than to not frost portions of a cake. My mom is diabetic, and frosting has tons more sugar than cake. It was also easier to clean up the babies if they didn't have frosting on their cupcakes. Bryan took video of the whole party, while the grandparents (my mom and Bryan's mom and stepmom) took pictures. I have yet to see those pictures, but oh well. I haven't even looked at the video. I should see if I can get it uploaded to Google, so I can post it here.

Some of J.R.'s first steps!

A week before his birthday (on MY birthday), we discovered that his first tooth had pushed through. I hadn't even realized he was teething. The only thing he'd been doing differently was not sleeping very well. His second tooth took three more months to come in, and his third came in right after the second. He now has four teeth. I can't tell if he's teething any more or not. He's had bouts of not sleeping off and on for a while, so there's no way to know unless and until I see more teeth in there.

<--- Such a handsome boy!

As far as his other accomplishments, he's not just walking anymore, he's running, and he's FAST. He signs "please" and "thank you," though his favorite signs are food related, "drink," "eat," and "more." He says a few words, but most of them start with "D." Daddy, dog, duck, diaper, and even baby and bye-bye are said with "D" sounds. He will say Mama, milk, mess, and mouse. His other words are animals, horsey, lion, and he identifies most animals by the sound they make. He gobbles like a turkey, meows like a cat, says "hop hop" for bunny, and so forth. He can point to pretty much every facial feature, though he gets eye and ear mixed up a lot. If you ask him to point to his nose, he will, and then he will go to squeeze his parent's nose, whichever parent is closest. He's gotten very good at reaching our eyes underneath our glasses.

J.R. is now completely weaned from breastfeeding. After his doctor's appointment after his birthday, we started substituting warmed whole cow's milk for a nursing. I started by reducing the number of times he nursed to half. For instance, I was nursing him about every two hours. So I went to nursing him every four hours for two weeks. Then I moved to nursing him every eight hours for two weeks. That translated to nursing him at naptime and at bedtime. That got to be a very bad habit for both of us. He would nurse himself to sleep, which was nice and comforting for him, and so incredibly easy for me. I was finally able to get him to give up nursing at naptime, but he DID NOT want to give up the bedtime nursing. Then came our anniversary. We wanted to go out to a movie, so we left J.R. with Bryan's mom. She said that he took his warm cup of milk with no issues and had no trouble falling asleep when she rocked him, and he slept just fine that night. I just used that opportunity to quit nursing him altogether. The next week was a bit difficult, because he would ask to nurse, and I would tell him no, and he'd cry. But I was still rocking him and singing to him, so that was enough after a while. But I was incredibly proud of myself for breastfeeding him for 14 whole months!

Of course, with age comes independence. He refuses to be spoonfed, no matter how tempting the food on the spoon. He likes to "help" empty the dishwasher, at which he's gotten pretty good. He even empties out the dirty dishes... We have to fill the dishwasher when he's napping or in bed for the night. He has very strong ideas about how he likes things, and lately, when he doesn't get his way, he makes this high-pitched scream that rattles my eardrums and sets my nerves on edge. Bryan absolutely hates it when he does that, and I don't blame him. I have learned I have to tune him out a lot, but Bryan hasn't learned that art quite yet. We've resorted to the time-out in the playpen for screaming, and for other infractions. I've learned that the threat of time-out is enough to get him to do (or stop doing) what I've told him to, at least most of the time. As long as he's "helping" me, he will pick up his toys and things he drops on the floor. If I have him by the hand and he doesn't want to go where I'm taking him, or just doesn't want to hold my hand anymore, he will just plop himself on the floor. Of course, that doesn't make me let go, and it's not so bad to handle, because he doesn't start screaming and thrashing around on the floor. He just sits there. After a few seconds, he realizes I'm not letting go of him, and I'll help him back to his feet. Sometimes, he'll repeat the process three steps later, but, sigh, eventually, he'll figure it out.

<---- Ahhh, peace...

I've had it pretty rough with him the past few months, with this temper of his and the independent streak rearing its head. We have very few things in this house that are off-limits to him, but there for a while, I felt like all I was doing all day long was telling him no and pulling him away from stuff that he wasn't supposed to touch. He would just look at me and keep doing what he was doing while I told him no, stop, don't touch, not for you... etc. I had to actually get up and walk toward him to get him to stop. However, when Bryan was home, all Bryan had to do was look at J.R. and he'd stop what he was doing. It got really annoying. I even resorted to swatting on the butt and/or smacking his hand to try to get him to stop messing with off-limits items. It got to a point where I even had to call Bryan one day to come home from work, because I couldn't take it anymore. He had ripped pages out of one of my books, had seemingly broken our Xbox console, and wouldn't leave the buttons on the TV alone. Bryan was able to talk me down, let me vent, and I felt better, but it was still rough. I ended up in tears a lot the past few months, from frustration and a sense of helplessness. I knew that eventually he would get the idea to leave that stuff alone, eventually he'd get over his curiosity about those things, but for me, eventually was a very elusive thing, too far away for me to think that I'd still have my sanity when it arrived. I was on the phone to Bryan a lot those weeks, just venting. I also got active on BabyCenter again, just looking for help, and to know that I'm not alone in dealing with a difficult child. It helped a lot to read posts from other moms going through the same thing, to hear their stories that paralleled my own. Bryan and I had a lot of stressful things going on in August and September, family crises and medical issues, and it was easier for me to go to BabyCenter and vent than to add to the stress that Bryan was already under. But even with that, the stress got to be too much for me. I was getting way too frustrated with J.R., and I could not find a strategy that worked for the whole family on how to handle him. I finally told Bryan that I thought it was me, that I thought my depression had finally kicked into high gear, and that's why I was so stressed out. I made an appointment with a doctor to talk about going back on anti-depressants and getting back on birth control. More about that in the next post. Time for PICTURES!!!

OH, he's FINALLY in clothes correct for his age! He was still wearing a lot of 6-9 month clothes when he turned one, and he got quite a few 12 month clothes at his birthday. He's now outgrown those clothes, at 16 months old, and is too big for some of his 18 month stuff! also in his third pair of shoes since his birthday as well, though they aren't quite as big as his Daddy's shoes, which he's wearing in the above right picture, hee hee.

Anyway, on to the next post, J.R.'s last doctor's appointment.

A Few Small Steps for a Baby...

Well, it's official: J.R. took his first steps. He had taken one a while back, but I think that was out of bravery, and not knowing his limits, because he didn't really complete that step before he fell. But this time, he actually took two or three steps at a time. For the last couple of days, Bryan had been working with him on taking steps, but he would always crouch down and crawl. He wasn't ready.

But then last night, I was walking him down the hall to say goodnight to Bryan before he went to bed, and I let him go a foot or so away from Bryan, and he walked to him! Bryan turned him around and he took about three steps to come back to me! It was so cool! It is times like that when I am glad that J.R. doesn't go to a sitter every day. Think of the firsts that we would have missed! I saw so many of Julie's firsts, and you can't catch every single one on video or in a photo, so her parents missed a lot. I always felt bad, just like I did the day that my little brother Alexander pulled out his first loose tooth when he was visiting me one weekend. My mom had already missed out on so much with him, and she missed out on that too, I felt horrible. I was honored that I got to be there for it, of course, but sad that she wasn't.

But anyway, I realize I didn't update when he started crawling... Literally the weekend after the previous post, he started moving forward instead of backward all the time. At first he would just use one foot on the floor to move his back end along, more scooting than crawling. A couple days after that, he would try to crawl for real. But while we were visiting my mom in Arizona, he really got the crawling thing nailed. His poor little knees were so red from the carpet, but he didn't seem to care. Once we got home, he was into EVERYTHING! He zoomed from one place to another. And boy did he learn how to go fast! All that contentment about playing by himself faded in that week. He was into everything he could get his hands on, and most of it was off limits... So then came some serious babyproofing. The coffee table was cleaned off except for Bryan's laptop, which became off limits. Furniture corner cushions were put on the sharp corners of our end table. Phone books were removed from sight, and I started doing some serious vacuuming to remove animal hair from the floor. He still managed to find every little clump of hair and small rock that I missed, though. Babyproofing is still a work in progress. Just yesterday I moved his stroller into his bedroom, because he pulled it down on top of himself and left a cut on his head. A few days before we were due to leave for my mom's, he fell off our bed and hit the side of his head on the side table we had in there. It left a pretty good bruise. It had pretty much faded by the trip date, though, which was good.

Now, the Arizona trip. I was really concerned about flying with J.R. Now that he was mobile on his own, I was worried that he would balk at sitting still for an hour to three hours at a time. I was also apprehensive about what the pressure changes would be like for him. From what my mom tells me, I had a hard time with pressure changes the first time I flew, so I wasn't sure if J.R. would have inherited that. But he did wonderfully. I nursed him during takeoff, and then he wanted to play, so we played games in our seat and the lady that sat next to us on the first leg of the trip played grandma. She held him and played with him on her lap, she was really nice. She even got a toy out that she kept in her purse for her grandkids and let J.R. play with it. And then he slept for the first half of the plane ride going from Chicago to Tucson. The only time he got fussy was toward the end of each plane ride, when he was tired of sitting still. But all in all, he did really well. It was much the same on the trip back. I was thrilled, because that eased a great deal of stress for me.

The Arizona trip went pretty well. My mom had managed to get four days off work to spend with us. We mostly hung around at the house, but we made a few short grocery runs to break the monotony of the house. J.R. had plenty of room to practice his newfound mobility, and he did as much of that as he could. They didn't have much that he was not allowed to get into, only the trash can and the laptop cords were temptations we had to keep him from. It was a nice, relaxing trip. It was made better by the fact that it was forty degrees and raining when I left, and I arrived into 75-85 degree temperatures and lots of sunshine. It was beautiful, and such a nice break from the icky weather I had just left.

Well, I think that's about it for this entry. Let me see if I have a good photo... oh yeah, I took some today, here it is!

Another Diagnostic Test for J.R.

Hello, all, J.R. had his nine month checkup and his catch-up shots on March 17th. He weighed 16 pounds, I don't remember how many ounces, and was 27 inches long. His head circumference was something like 43 centimeters. Apparently that is somewhere in the 90-95th percentile for his age, weight, or height, I'm not sure which. But either way, the rest of him is still in the 5-10th percentile range, so the doctor wanted to rule out any issues that would be making his head grow faster than the rest of his body. So she had us schedule an ultrasound for his head. But everything else was normal. The doctor has accepted that he is small for his age, and he continues to stay in the same ranges as he has been. But she said that everything else looked perfectly fine. His next visit is somewhere around his first birthday, unless his doctor wants to schedule a followup to talk about the results of this test.

So we were scheduled to fly to Arizona to visit my mom between March 18th, the day after his doctor visit (and his shots), and march 25th. So we scheduled his ultrasound for the day after we got back. However, that trip never happened, because Dallas/Fort Worth had some really severe weather and closed their airport. By the time I talked to a person at the reservation desk, the earliest they could get me there was two days later. I told them to cancel the trip, and I would rebook later. So it has now been rescheduled for April 12th through the 19th. So we'll see. I hope it happens, I haven't seen my mom and brother since J.R. was due to be born. But everyone knows that if it doesn't happen again for whatever reason, I'll take the hint that God is telling me that I just shouldn't go for some reason. But hopefully, the worst weather season will be past, and it will go off without a hitch. I'm kinda worried about flying with J.R., just not sure how he's going to take sitting for two hours in my lap at a time during each leg of the flight. I couldn't get nonstops, unfortunately.

Anyway, on to his ultrasound. We go in, the nurse calls us back, she is really nice. I sit J.R. down on the bed, and he gets nervous and wants to be picked up. I can't pick him up, and he starts to get really upset. He won't keep relatively still, so I have to lay him down so the nurse can get decent pictures. She kept the wand right on his soft spot. I figured she'd have to move it around, but she didn't. It only took five to ten minutes for her to get the pictures she wanted. She cleaned off his head, I gave him a bottle that I'd thought to bring with me, and the tech went to get the pediatric radiologist. The radiologist came in, with a thick Russian-type accent. She was nice, though, and told me that everything looked normal. She asked why the doctor had sent us in for one, and I explained that J.R.'s head just seemed to be growing faster than the rest of him. So it was good news. Bryan was not surprised, no one really thought there was anything wrong with him, he doesn't show any signs of mental or neurological problems. Bryan's biggest issue was that we are going to have to pay a lot of money for another diagnostic test that only proved nothing. Oh well. It's what happens, we have to make sure he's healthy. Better to rule out problems than to ignore something until it IS a problem.

In other news, this boy is trying his hardest to crawl. I put him on his rump, and he is immediately on his belly. He's going backwards everywhere right now, hasn't figured out how to move forward yet. But he gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth all the time. Because he's found this new freedom, he is much more content to sit in the floor and entertain himself these days. Bryan and I have started examining our living room, trying to decide what all needs to be done for babyproofing. The bottom two shelves of our bookshelf have to be emptied. The cords to the electronics have to be hidden. Bryan's laptop will either become off-limits or put out of reach until it's used, we haven't decided yet. Our coffee table will have to be cleaned off, and my Painted Ponies, which are ceramic, have to be moved. Lots to do... as well as covering outlets and making sure to vacuum every day to keep clumps of cat hair and dog hair out of the floor and subsequently out of J.R.'s mouth.

And that boy is a talker! He gabs all the time, and is now starting to show frustration about stuff, he'll certainly make his displeasure known! His fine motor skills have improved dramatically, he has become a pro at picking things up with his thumb and forefinger, and has recently learned how to turn things over in his hand and pass them back and forth in different directions. He seems to be mostly right-handed, but I know better than to label him this early. I can hope, though. Both of his blood-related uncles are left-handed, and were very hard to teach to write.

Here are a couple pictures from his first Easter. Since we never forget the reason we celebrate Easter, I bought J.R. his very first Bible, and we read the story of Jesus' Last Supper, betrayal, death, and resurrection before breakfast Sunday morning. I wanted to take him to church, but I knew we wouldn't make Sonrise service, and I didn't know what time my church had their service for later morning.

Anyway, we're off!

Wow, Two Months Have Gone By?

Again, I have Lindsay to thank for reminding me to keep people updated on what is going on with us. Thanks so much for keeping me on my toes with this, Lindsay!

J.R. will be eight months old soon! It's so hard to believe! He's done a lot of stuff in the past couple months. I'll go backwards. His newest thing is blowing spit bubbles. That just happened this past week... It's kinda funny and cute, until he tries doing it with his mushy food. The week before that, he learned how to use his finger and thumb to pick up small pieces of food to eat. He is now feeding himself the Gerber Puffs at each meal. Soon we're going to start him on well-cooked veggies to feed himself. Oh, and he's started giving slobbery baby kisses. I let him kiss my cheeks. It gets really bad when he tries to lick me at the same time... eewww!

He's babbling like crazy. He uses the 'b', 'm' and 'd' sound a lot. He uses the 'm' sound when he gets upset, so it sounds like he's calling for me. It's really cute. He uses the babababa when he's really serious and looks like he's trying really hard to get something across. Some of the faces he makes when he talks to us are absolutely priceless.

He's sitting up on his own like a champ now. He started doing it just before Christmas, and is really good at it now. Once in a while, he'll reach for a toy, and faceplant in his playpen. He's not too thrilled with that, but he's getting better about pushing himself up on his hands. He won't use his knees, and he's not crawling yet, but he's slowly working on it. However, he LOVES to be on his feet. His favorite thing to do is have someone hold his hands and "walk" him around. He uses those little legs of his very well in that regard.

J.R. got sick for the first time a few weeks ago. Luckily it was on a weekend, so Bryan was there to help. Saturday, he started with some really bad diarrhea, and Sunday, ran a fever and was subdued. Monday he felt much better and his fever had broken, but he didn't sleep well at all Monday night. Bryan and I ended up being up with him from 3:00am to 4:30am, and Bryan stayed home from work Tuesday to trade baby duties back and forth with me, since none of us was in a very good mood that day. Other than that, he's been really healthy.

He is still on the small side, though. He weighed 14 pounds, 6 ounces at his last visit in January. He weighs about 15 pounds now. I went to a bridal shower yesterday with my friend Auvery, whose son is 3.5 months old, and weighs the same as J.R. They are four months apart, and weigh the same... Definitely a sight to see. Auvery said that Trenton, her little boy is in the 95th percentile for weight at his age range, while J.R. is in the 5th. It's quite humorous. Especially when you see how much this child loves to eat. He still nurses every two hours, and gets three solid food meals a day, as well as the puffy things as a snack during and after every solid meal. I can't figure out how he doesn't put on the weight. It must just be that he is so incredibly active. Only God knows...

As far as the rest of my life goes, I AM FINALLY BACK TO MY PRE-PREGNANCY WEIGHT!!! And my pre-pregnancy pants size, too, I might add! It was SO nice to see that on the scale the other day. It's kept my mood up pretty well for the past week or so. I just hope the bridesmaid's dress that my friend Christy bought for me will still fit okay. She bought it a size bigger than I would have worn before getting pregnant. Hopefully it will look okay. Her wedding is at the end of February, she's getting married on Leap Day. I will have to be gone for a week to be able to be there for fittings and rehearsals and such, since Bryan will need the truck to get back and forth to work. Poor Bryan. I'm going to be gone that whole week, and then I'm going to Arizona during my brother's spring break from school to visit my mom and brother, and his dad. I'll be gone for a week at that time as well. So we've got to stock up on the bachelor food for him, because I know he's not going to cook for himself. At least he's good at cleaning up after himself, so I don't have to worry about coming home to a disastrous house.

My dad and I seem to be on pretty good terms lately. He's been to the house to visit three times since December, and has now moved to Jefferson City to be closer to us. I have mixed feelings about it, because I feel like he's going to be missing out on a lot of Brandon's life for being further away from him. Brandon is my adopted brother, the same age as Alexander.

Well, I think that's about it for my update. It's so amazing to see the new developments that J.R. goes through seemingly every week. He's full of smiles and laughter these days, makes my days thoroughly joyful. I love being a mom!

I'm Now a Woman Again, Not Just a Mother

Disclaimer: Any men that are reading that don't want to hear about women's issues, don't read past the first two paragraphs.

Yeah, I know, funny name for a post. I couldn't think of a better, tactful one. So here's the deal: Today's Monday, right? Yeah, so a week ago today I drove down to Lebanon to stay with Bryan's mom. Bryan left shortly before noon the Sunday before to catch a plane to Detroit, Michigan for a business trip. He wouldn't be returning until late Friday morning. I didn't want to be home by myself that long, even though I was going to have a vehicle. I am comfortable enough with Bryan's mom and stepdad to spend nights there, so J.R. and I were going to pass the time without Bryan with them. But I didn't realize how hard it is to not have the comforts of home. I had to bring so much stuff for J.R. just so I could make sure he was comfortable, but I forgot about me. I brought his swing, his feeding chair, his baby food, his bedtime book, his swaddling blanket, his toys, his stroller, his playmat, and his pacifiers, but I forgot to bring stuff to keep myself occupied. They have satellite TV, so I watched that some, and they've got tons of books, so I could have read some of those. But it's still really stressful not having a real place that feels like mine to escape to and de-stress. My stress level got way too high. It got so high that even Nancy got to see me get frustrated with J.R., and normally, that doesn't happen when we're away from home and I don't have as many responsibilities. I ended up having to stave off two or three panic attacks over this past weekend, and one more tonight when we got home.

I drove back up to Columbia on Friday to see Bryan. He had to drop off the company car that he took to the airport, so I had to pick him up from work. He came home to drop his stuff off at the house, and I met him there. We drove to his work, where he was given the rest of the day off. We had lunch and came back home to relax for the night before we drove back down to Lebanon the next for Bryan to see his parents. It was then that I discovered:

I had started my period. I was pretty shocked at first. I haven't had a period since September of last year. I was enjoying not having to deal with it. Luckily I had decided to prepare my bathroom for it a couple months ago, so I didn't have to send Bryan to the store or anything. But I wasn't prepared for what my period would be like without being on birth control. I had been pretty emotional that day, and now I knew why. But the next morning, I woke up with cramps, worse than I usually get, and I was so tired. To boot, Bryan had a pretty bad headache, so that made for a very bad day. We debated on not going to Lebanon, but Bryan's dad was expecting us. So we both agreed to try to put on a nice, brave face and go. I almost took Midol, but the directions say to ask a doctor before taking it while breastfeeding, so I didn't. It had an ingredient in it I'd never heard of, so I resisted the urge to take it anyway. I took two extra-strength Tylenol instead. They didn't help my cramps or Bryan's headache after he took some himself. Not fun. Usually, pre-baby, my cramps, if I had any, only lasted the first day. Not this time. I had to deal with them the next morning, too. And my back hurt on top of that. The stress was affecting my digestive tract. I hate stress. I blame stress for making me start my period again.

That is why I titled the post like I did. Starting my monthly again makes me a woman again. But it was still nice not having to deal with it for over a year. I went for 15 months without menstruating. It was awesome. I think I'm going to try to get back on birth control, to help regulate my period and lessen the symptoms that go with it. I had gone off because my prescription ran out through the military, and I hadn't seen a doc here, because I had no reason to. We were being careful enough not to worry about it. I just don't want to wait to find out how long it will take my body to get into a rhythm again.

Anyway, I've decided I don't want to be away from home for that long again and not have a space of my own to escape to. It's been rough on me, on my body, and consequently, on J.R. too. And that's not fair to him.

I'm working on getting a compilation DVD made of J.R. I have some new video of him, but it took me nearly a week to figure out how to get it on here the last time. Once I have that DVD made, it will be easier. So look for that in the next post or two.

TTFN!!!