Little J's birthday

We recently celebrated Little J's birthday. All told it was a good birthday. He has a couple presents that we are saving since he is too young for them. Another we are saving until it gets warm again. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

This card is awesome!!

Cousin is trying to keep Little J from defrosting the cake.

Little J's Surgery

 A week ago today at this time my baby was in open heart surgery, chest and sternum cut open, blood going through a machine, not breathing for himself, and unconscious.

Praise be to the Lord today he is doing great. He is at home in his bed napping. He spent the morning eating, reading books, playing, crawling, standing, climbing, falling, and snuggling. He is not wanting to get back into a routine, atuggles to nap, and wakes up several times a night, but other than that, he is his normal self.

Thank you for your prayers for him, his medical team, and his family. I thought I'd attach some pictures for you.

Little J can't settle down. We changed his meds soon after this. He's off the ventilator but still has 11  IV meds. You can see his incision. Below that are drainage tubes, to get the extra fluid and blood out of his body, and pacemaker wires, just in case. These came out Friday. You an see he is still on oxygen here. He has stickers on his chest to monitor his heart rhythms and electrical movements (basically an EKG ) its called telemetry. The thing on his head to to measure how much oxygen his brain is getting. He had one over his kidney too. Below he has is resting. He has a binder around his chest to keep everything still and to keep him form picking at it. You can see the central IV line in his right groin. He also has a line in his left groin and a catheter. in the left of the picture you can kind of see his trainage tubes/ ballons. His arms were restrained part of the time to keep him from picking at things or moving too much. That's what you see around his wrist.

 

Chilling with Dad watching TV. You can see his drainage balloons under his shirt here. He still has an IV, a hep lock, and the telemetry patches. The Blood pressure cuff is on so that he gets used to it so that it's easy to check his blood pressure. That way they get a more accurate reading.

Ready to go home.

One week after surgery.
He climbed up on this box 3 or 4 times.
(It's about 6" high.)

The first time he crawled off.
However, he did fall of twice.

 

A thought from today while playing. "He's got the tiny little baby in His hands... He's got the whole world in His hands."

Little J in March

Gifts for Little J

Gift Ideas of Little J

Wooden hammer bench   or this one or similar

Books
   - Dr. Sueus
   - flap books with sturdy flaps
   - Usborne
   -  Others- See book list

Latches board

Chunky magnets like these or these or these or others

Chunky/ jumbo knob puzzles like these or these so such 

Vehicles we have Tractors

Bath boat and other bath toys- we don't have any!

Push/ Pull toys like these or these or such

wooden tools (we have plastic ones)

Band in a Box

hand Puppets

outdoor toys like bucket, shovel, rake, balls

Good places to get things on-line

- Melissa and Doug
- Fat Brain Toys
- Back to Basics Toys
- Gummylump

Speedy Gonzolas

I didn't know little ones could progress from slightly mobile and beginning to creep (or swim in Little J's case) to being speedy Gonzolas. I have to post pictures and videos, but in the last two weeks my Little J has decided to take off. Considering that he was sick enough for a week that all he did was cling to me, that is quite a lot of progress!

He has decided that he if he puts his mind to it, he can do anything.
- Dashing all around the house
- Splashing in the dog's bowl ( and playing in his food if Mama isn't careful)
- Checking out the dog and kennel
- Unwind the toilet paper from the roll.
- Scoot along the couch
- Open the TV cabinet
- Do laundry
- Open drawers and cabinets
- empty the tupperware
- Stand and "jump" in his crib
- and other things too.

Since the weather has been nice (40s to 60s) we have been getting out and walking a lot too.

Six Months Old!

Little J

Busy Busy

Tasty bread. Don't they look beautiful!

Shredded zucchini- only one. I have about 10-15 cups left that I need to freeze.

Dehydrated bananas since they were on sale. 29c/lb. Making chips for snacks.

Baked a spaghetti squash. 

Made this lasagna with it using our normal but replacing lasagna noodles with squash.

Home made hasbrowns. Grated rinsed and boiled these nest time I'll try bake and grate.

 These were tasty! We have baked taters in the fridge waiting to make more hashbrowns.

Dehydrated cherry tomatoes. They worked well in my tomato soup to absorb extra liquid.

Learned that crumbling cheese is less labor intensive than shredding.

I also learned that you use a bit more this way and it is LOUD.

Dried tomatoes ready to store.

Basket of snacks- zucchini bread and granola- ready to freeze.

Frozen banana read to thaw for banana bread. Got too ripe before I could dry it.

Banana pancakes. Great with peanut butter!

Breakfast pockets for on the go Hubby.

 I'll try to update with recipes tomorrow.

Hat for my little J to keep his ears warm. Going to try one with ear flaps.

Diaper stink

For a few weeks now my DH has been commenting on the stinkiness of our diaper pail and our diapers when they are soaked. Sometimes this has been a bit unavoidable, for instance- smelly poops. Most of the time the issue is urea. It has been growing stronger and stronger. Our prefolds would smell but our pockets would reak! I've been reading and reading about what the issue may be.

Part of the problem is that I'm never near the washing machine to check to see if all the detergent has rinsed out by the final rinse. IF it isn't we have detergent buildup and that is a horrid problem.
I thought that bleaching them might help, but bleach can be very damaging to diapers- especially to the synthetic fabrics. Since I highly value my PUL I don't want to damage it. Also, since I have one new diaper, two new covers, and several borrowed items, I don't want to take the risk. 

Enter oxygen bleach. I'm sure that you've heard the wonders of Oxy Clean. That was not going to work for us because of the additives. So, Sun Oxygen Cleaner was the one to try. I found it at Walmart.

Combined with an extra rinse, I was anxious to discover if Sun would do the trick. (The sun does prerform miricles on cotton diapers but I had bigger problems this time.) I took the diapers out of the dryer, and ... they still smelled like nothing, which is a good sign.

The test took place last night through this morning. (I forgot to wash the pail liners so we continued to have a smelly diaper pail.) I brought the baby to bed with me at 6:30 am. (I feel entitled to sleep in on mornings when he as wakened both  himself and me more than 2 times between the time that I go to bed and my DH starts his day. Last night we were up 4 times during that time span.) No urea smell yet. Hope begins to rise. Usually after all night in a pocket I can already smell the urea. After playing in bed from 7:30 till 8 we jumped out of bed and sauntered over to the dresser, almost no smell! Hardly a whiff! Hurray! What a way to start the day!

Sun Oxygen Cleaner

Exercise during pregnancy

There are several reasons to exercise while pregnant. This may be one of my favorites. This is 4 weeks before Little J was born.

In addition to riding my bike, I walked, swam, participated in my 3/4 PE class (playing capture the flag at 8+ months pregnant is not very comfortable), stretched, and did yoga.

Cooing

I've had buckets of fun watching little J grow. He is changing a lot. He is now starting to nap more regularly and is more rested. Our happy baby is even less fussy than before.  This video is a bit old. and a bit short as my batteries died while i was recording.  He coos more now and seems to be trying to hit some of his toys. Hopeful we'll post another video soon- maybe on facebook.

Self-Centered Wills

"Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. " Psalm 51:5
"Mama said there'd be days like this." The Shirelles

We've had a strange week- just about every day we've gone somewhere or someone has visited. Usually that is wonderful. However THIS week we (I) are trying to get little J down for naps more consistently so that he gets the sleep he needs, I get time to work on things undisturbed, and so that he'll nap while I'm at school.

Today, little J does not want to sleep on his own. Usually he goes down for a nap quite happily. Not today he wants to sleep on me and only on me. Granted, I can't blame him, we've been starting a routine and schedule in the last week or so but this week has been awful for that. Given the opportunity and a bit of assistance (finding and replacing his pacifier after he has dropped it or flung it across his crib unintentionally)he little guy will sleep for 2-3 hours but this week we have had to leave several times about half an hour after starting a nap  or not been home to nap.

The poor baby is being difficult- he's upset - for which I can't blame him, and being obstenant- sinful yet who isn;t when cranky, failing to communicate, and not getting what is desired.

I often say that little J is nearly a perfect baby, he's one of the happiest and most easy going babies I've met, but God has not failed to show me that he is still a son of Adam and still has a sinful nature- total depravity in it's "innocent" form.  

* Most of this post was written 8/21.

More Pictures

Here are a few more pictures:

Grandma and our  Dear Son J-.

Mommy and J after naked time. 

Then we have our first cloth diaper and our second or third, we went through the first three really quickly- the jelly roll works best so far for us.

Our first tub bath and the after bath towel. J was a bit upset when I accidentally dipped his face in the water. He was fine after we dried off but I was worried all that evening and into the next day.  Hormones grr.

That is all for now. I didn't get pictures of our first walk in the Moby or in the ring sling, I'll have some later. J and  I are headed off to Des Moines to go furniture shopping with some  of my friends. Our first adventure! Hopefully he sleeps in the car!

Picture Update

First walk in the stroller.

















First time we had naked time.

More to come later.