Pumpkin Fun!!

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch today. Although it was a little cold, the weather was actually pretty nice. We didn't get to venture into the actual pumpkin patch itself, but we got to pick out pumpkins from various areas and had lots of photo opportunities. I'm so glad that Jacob is walking now because it was fun to let him walk around. There were a few animals that caught Jacob's attention and he even got close to the resident turkey, although I wasn't quick enough to get a picture.

Memory

(Hopefully) all you mothers out there can relate to this! When I was pregnant with Jacob, I found that my once great memory wasn't so great anymore. Now, I have never been one to retain history facts from school or do well in trivia games, but I have always had pride in remembering things about life events and keeping track of our daily lives. I found myself not remembering the simple things like what we needed from the grocery store or whose family's turn it was to celebrate a holiday with. Everything that I read about pregnancy reinforced to me that losing memory was normal and it would come back. Well.... it didn't! After Jacob was born it turned into "new mommy syndrome" where I felt like not only did I have memory loss but like I was losing my mind. Seriously, there have been times when I feel like my head is going to explode! I think that it got better after the initial chaos of the first few months, but now that I'm pregnant it has gotten lots worse. I'm forgetting things to do at work, I almost missed a class for Jacob the other night, I am forgetting to send birthday wishes to family and friends, and I'm now starting to lose things in the house which I have always prided in myself of never doing.

One of my friends told me awhile ago that the more kids you have the worse your memory gets. It is a big change to go from only taking care of things for Dan, myself, and Rascal to now managing a little person completely dependent on my care. I find myself writing notes everywhere just so I can keep better track of things. I like to watch 'Jon and Kate Plus Eight' and '17 Kids and Counting' on TLC and those shows always bring me back down because if those mothers can manage all of those kids with success, then just one doesn't seem so bad!

Well, I guess the point of this post is really for me to vent and make any apologies to those of you who I may have forgotten to wish happy birthday to or forgotten to do something that I had promised!

11 Months

Wow, in one month we'll be celebrating Jacob's first birthday. I still can't wrap my head around it! Over this past month, he has really started to change from a baby to a little boy. He is still such a sweet boy, but he is also developing his personality. Here are this month's highlights:

*Cruises around everywhere and loves to chase Rascal

*Can't sit still and is constantly exploring his environment

*Is learning how to get off the couch on his own

*Seems to be trying to talk to us although we have no idea what he is saying. We swear that we've heard him say "okay" at the appropriate times and "here" when he hands us things.

*Loves to test his voice - he usually has a sound of the week that is constant from him before he moves onto the next one

*Is starting to exhibit some stubborn behavior. Example - taking something away from him and him pouting and crying.

*Has been fully on real-people food for a few weeks now and eats like a champ

*Loves to bring us things on command and by his own free will (especially shoes and socks)

*Has developed a love for the tub faucet and puts his head underneath it to get a soaking along with trying to drink water from it

Lil' Man Walking (and Screaming)

My sister calls Jacob "lil' man" and I thought that this title is appropriate for his debut video post of him walking because it is so funny to see such a little person walking! We bought Jacob shoes a week ago and he finally has the hang of it all I think. The first night he wore his shoes, he fell repeatedly and hurt himself numerous times. I was caught in the "let him work it out and learn for himself" and the "mommy protective mode" mentalities, but the latter won and the shoes came off. His poor body was a rainbow of bruises :( We later decided that he was just off-balance due to his ear infection and put the shoes to rest for a few days. I tried him in his shoes again last weekend and he did so well!! I even took him outside to walk in the yard and he did better than I expected. I know he has a ways to go, but I'm still proud of him for figuring it out so quickly.

One funny thing about him wearing shoes is that he laughs hysterically when you put them on. His feet are ticklish, but must be very sensitive!!! At least he isn't a crier :)

Jacob has also developed an interest in screaming. I'm sure this is part of normal development, but it is only cute for so long! I shot a video of it today.



Here is a video of him walking along with some snapshots of him in the yard.

Announcing #2!!

We're expecting again!! The baby is due April 10th and I'm to the 13-week mark. As you can imagine, we were pleasantly surprised at the news. After the struggles in getting pregnant with Jacob, we expected the same with the next. We feel so blessed to have been given this gift. We're a little nervous about how we'll manage two little ones under 17 months in age, but at the same time it will be so much fun to watch the two of them grow up together so close in age.

So far, my pregnancy has gone well. I had some nausea and lots of fatigue, but nothing really to complain about. I've been showing for a few weeks now, so it's great to have the news out so I can begin to wear some maternity tops. I'm defintely less obsessed about this pregnancy now that I have a little one to look after. Also since I've already been through it once, I don't freak out about every little twinge of pain or problem.

We have already begun preparations for the new baby. Jacob will move to the guest room, which I have been clearing out for the last couple of months and we'll have to get a new set of furniture for him. Hopefully he can graduate to the toddler bed by then, otherwise the new baby can sleep in the pack-n-play for awhile. One nice thing about having two so close together is that we will still be in "baby mode" and don't have to pack a lot of Jacob's baby things away. I have been stashing Jacob's old things in one closet so it won't take long to find them when the new baby arrives.

Wish us luck!!!

Hoping for a Healthy Week

My goal for the week is for Jacob to make it to daycare each day. We kept him home from daycare Monday through Thursday last week until he was past the contagious stage of the Hand, Foot, Mouth virus. He was so lucky that he only got a mild case of it with just a few blisters and no fever or discomfort. He basically acted like his normal self all week. It was a real treat to be able to spend "bonus" time with him at home! It turns out that the virus was just contained between Jacob and his "girlfriend" at daycare. We've been told that he and this other girl spend a lot of time playing together and have been titled the couple in the room. So cute.

Just when we thought Jacob was healthy again, he spiked a 103 degree fever Friday night that lasted until Saturday afternoon. Jacob has been through lots of illnesses, but this is the first one that really brought him down. The poor kid couldn't stay awake and even fell asleep standing up while leaning against the couch waiting for his milk :( It turns out that he has an ear infection which is what we suspected since he started a new cold last week. His immune system was probably shot from fighting the other virus. Anyways as of last night, he was back to his old self and even fought us going to bed last night.

We had to cancel family visits this weekend, so it has turned into a very quiet weekend. We kept him home from church because we're following the "fever-free for 24 hours" rule before exposing him to other people. We're taking him to get a Halloween costume this afternoon and probably a trip to the shoe store to get his first pair of shoes. I am so excited to see how he does in them and maybe even take him outside to play for the first time!! (That is if we can tolerate those little black bugs that bite. All of our neighbors were complaining about them yesterday.)

Hopefully the next post will be a video of Jacob walking in his new shoes!!

Backlog of Posts

Well, I have several things to post about and instead of doing one long post, I decided to break them up into several ones - all below.

I have some extra time on my hands right now because Jacob is home from daycare for at least a couple of days due to having the Hand, Mouth, and Foot virus. We just discovered it yesterday, but he has probably had it for a few days now. This is a new one to me and all I could think of when he was diagnosed with it was Hoof and Mouth disease that animals get. He has been fortunate so far and really hasn't been affected by it too much. He never got a fever and he only has a few blisters on one of his hands, one on his foot, and a few in his mouth. Luckily he isn't bothered by them and eats and drinks fine.