Our ONE year old

In true form I'm a little late in posting this, but out baby boy is ONE!!! In a lot of ways I can't believe it's been a year, but in other ways I can't imagine what my life was without him so it seems that he's been with us forever.

When I think back to where we were 1 year ago, I truly feel that people are nuts when they say the pain of labor fades and you forget all about that. Well I strongly disagree. i still remember all the pains and endless feelings I had over those 25 hours of my life! But other than that, I remember the joy, panic, and excitement over finally having our little one.

Adam and I had wanted a baby for so long, and due to other circumstances in our lives we had to put those dreams on hold for a few years. But waiting to have kids was a necessary thing but also extremely worth the wait. I've never felt so fullfilled, and had so much joy in my life.

Lincoln truly is a blessing. He is so much fun, he is always happy and I often find myself just watching him. I could watch him for hours. 

Milestones this month

• He got his first haircut on his actual birthday
• He is still only crawling, though he has taken a step or two here and there, he's just not interested in walking and I'm OK with that, keeps him a baby for longer
• He stands a lot on his own. 
• He walks around things, mainly furniture. 
• He examines every toy and object for a few minutes before he plays with them
• I bought him a new carseat for my dad's car, but we still use the pumpkin seat in my car (they are expensive things!)
• He does great playing by himself, I'm often able to just set him down and he plays with his toys for a little while, so that I can get some things done around the house. 
• He is becoming a little bit of a picky eater. He will spit things out more and more but we keep trying
• He LOVES banana's. I'm convinced they are his favorite
• We've introduced him to goldfish and he likes those too, maybe a little too much
• He still nurses twice a day. I really want to wean him but I'm afraid he is dehydrated so until he gets better at the sippy cup, we will continue to nurse
• He went to his first PURDUE football game, it was a bit of a challenge but he had fun
• He still sleeps between 10-14 hours at night
• He will take anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hour naps, depending on how early he gets up. but he needs at least a couple 20 minute naps to get him through the day
• He loves bath time and I swear could spend his whole day in there
• He thinks he helps me fold laundry by taking my already folded clothes and throwing them on the ground ;)

At his doctor appointment:

• He was 31.5 inches long
• He's in the 90th percentile
• He was 23 lbs
• He was in the 50th percentile

so In total of his first year

• He grew 10 inches
• He gained 15 lbs

Here are a few pictures from our last photo session! :)

I love my little boy so much and can't wait to have many more just like him :) :)

Happy FIRST birthday to my beautiful baby BOY!!!

11 months old

the time has come once again to have an update on mr. Lincoln. It's hard to believe he is 11 months old. In fact I've been quite emotional about the whole thing. I think I cry once or twice a week about it and pretty much anytime anyone says how big he is and how much he is growing. I just can't help it, i can't believe he is nearly 1!

I've always wanted to be a mom and I was just waiting for the day that it would happen. I hated being in school because it made me put off being a mom for 3 years. When we finally got pregnant I was thrilled and while pregnancy and the first few weeks/months of Lincoln's life didn't go quite as planned, having him in my life has enriched it is so many ways.

He truly is one amazing little boy and I sometimes find myself just watching him having feelings of being so blessed almost overcome me. He has just brought so much light into my life and made everyone in his life so happy. He truly has such a beautiful soul and is an amazing little boy.

Milestones this month:

• He still isn't walking, but he walks across furniture and he walks when we hold his hands...I need to get him a toy to walk behind maybe that will help, though i'm not in any hurry for it!
• He is such a happy baby. Rarely in a bad mood, always smiling at everyone
• He has started to get a little shy about things, and clinging to me when people try to hold him
• We are working on the word no. I truly think he understands when I'm saying it, but he continues to try me and challenge me. Sometimes he does listen though
• I think he is starting to know his name
• He says mamamamama, and dadadadadad but not necessarily to either one of us. 
• He loves to "sing" and "talk" he is extremely loud! 
• He does a great job of playing on his own and keeping himself entertained. 
• We are still working on the weaning from breast  feeding. He now typically only had 3-4 feedings a day
• He loves to eat table food
• He is a bottomless pit most of the time
• He has 4 teeth with the 5th one working its way through
• He typically sleeps 10-13 hrs a night, and will take anywhere from 2 1-2 hour naps or just 1 3 hour nap
• He is the easiest baby when it comes to naps, he can either take one, or not, so long as he can cat nap (10-20 min) a couple times a day he never really gets too cranky.
• He is in 18-24 month clothing, I feel like he really has grown in the last month

We love our little man so much, and I can't believe in less than a month he will be 1. Our lives have been so enriched by him and we feel so blessed...

In honor of football season here are his 11 month pictures :)

Trying to get better...

I hate forgetting things. I always want to remember everything. Every little detail. One of the reasons I started this blog so many years ago as a way to remember. I wanted a way to remember everything I was going through when I started nursing school. I didn't want to forget what I went through, all the different experiences I had or people I met etc.

I was even more compelled to write everything down when i became pregnant. I wanted to remember every detail of my pregnancy and every experience. This is why I wrote a post for every week because every week something changed and I wanted to remember each and every thing. 

When Lincoln was born I wanted to keep that up and write every little detail he went through, every experience he had I wanted to write about it so I could remember. I obviously fell really short of this and I think this has to do with the fact that I am unfortunately a working mama. 

I started my job that I worked so hard for back in December. I finally was a Registered Nurse. I was extremely happy about this, I had put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights, and exhaustion into accomplishing this. I chose to become a nurse because my ultimate goal was to be a mom, and be a mom who was present and didn't work all the time who was able to spend a majority of my time at home with my children. 

I work nights, which at first I thought was perfect, because I would work when my baby would sleep. I even planned my schedule so I wouldn't work more than 2 nights in a row so I only slept 1 full day so I really didn't feel like I was missing out on a whole lot. The only real down fall to this schedule is that when  you work nights, you really loose a day because we have to sleep sometime. And it doesn't matter if I get 8 hours of sleep during the day, I still don't feel as rested as I would if I got 3 hours at night. So consequently I'm constantly tired. Pretty big downfall. 

Lincoln is just now getting to the age where he actually naps a couple of times a day. He is a pretty good sleeper at night, usually around 11-14 hours, depending on how he napped during the day, which is great for everyone who watches him at night, but until recently he wasn't real good at napping. he may nap for 30 minutes a couple times a day and then there were days he wouldn't nap at all. Which made for one tired mama. 

Now that he is napping a little better (roughly 2-3 hours at time a couple times a day), I can nap when he naps or actually get my house cleaned during that time. Which makes for one less tired mama. 

I am hoping that with all of this I will get better at writing down the things that we are going through. As we approach Lincoln's first birthday I sit back and realize how much he has truly changed over the last year, how much he has accomplished and how much he has enriched our lives. I want to remember these feelings and the things that he is going through so that one day I can share these with him when he blesses me with grandchildren. :)

In trying to keep with this, I've already started writing his 11 month post, so maybe this time it won't be a month late ;)

10 months

Ok I realize I've really been bad at keeping up a monthly post about our little man's accomplishments and things he does each month. In my defense Summer has just been entirely too busy. I know that I only work 3 days a week but the way that I have to work my 3 days makes it hard not to be incredibly sleepy and exhausted all the time and what little time I do have I want to spend it with my boy.

But that being said I figured I should try to get a 10 month post in before he turns 11 months this upcoming weekend.

I know I say this every month but he is just a little gem. He is perfect in every way, he is so much fun and I just can't imagine my life without him. Considering how difficult he was in the beginning with his colic and all that, he is an absolute breeze now. I actually enjoy his little cries and meltdowns.

I hope one day he realizes how much I truly do love and how some days just looking at him and realizing he is my beautiful baby boy that I've wanted since I was so young brings tears to my eyes.

Nothing prepared me for what motherhood would be like and nothing prepared me for the amount of love that you would have for your child. I know that in previous posts I wrote about how that love wasn't exactly love at first sight and it didn't come entirely easy to me, but now I really can't imagine what my life would be like without this little man.

His 10 month accomplishments:

• He crawls EVERYWHERE!
• He pulls up on EVERYTHING!
• My mother has taught him to climb the stairs...although we are still working on coming down them
• His smile and giggle are heartwarming and beautiful
• He has 3 teeth, 2 on bottom and 1 on top, he looks like a goober with only 3 teeth, but hes working on his second top tooth, hopefully it will come in soon!
• He loves music, he bounces and almost dances to music
• My mom has always sung him the song "bushel and a peck" since he was an infant and surprisingly it always calmed him down. Well I finally downloaded it and there is a veggietales version and he LOVES it. It's my go to when he is fussy and inconsolable. he immediately smiles and his attitude changes and is a happy kid once again...thanks mom. 
• he loves food, all food, any food, all the time, he is like a bottomless pit and every time you're eating, he thinks he should be eating, even if you just fed him. 
• I am still breast feeding him. He still gets fed by me about every 3-4 hours, but I'm trying to wean him down a little bit, so he only had 3-4 feedings a day
• He now eats table food twice a day...we need to work up to 3 meals a day
• He really loves all veggies, and since he has never eaten out of a jar, I'm not really sure what I should be giving him, so instead some of his favorites are sweet potato fries, peas and carrots. 
• He is eating more and more on his own. I tend to let him feed himself but Adam doesn't like to because it takes longer and he makes a mess...this is true but how will he learn? I'm working on it...
• He is eating more and more meats, although those are harder for him to "chew" so he tends to hoard those on the roof of his mouth unless you sort of puree it. Beef is actually really easy for him to eat especially in the form of a hamburger because it can so easily be ground up and easy for him to swallow. 
• He actually really likes fish. I usually make tilapia for him once a week and he loves it. 
• He is becoming quite the talker, and while he still says mama, he now says dada too, but of course he doesn't know what he is saying and its not necessarily directed to either of us. 
• he loves to play peak-a-boo
• He is becoming more and more interactive with his toys. 
• He loves bath time and being in the water. He gets mad when we take him out.
• He HATES to have his diaper changed...i don't understand this. I just keep telling him I would be a bad mom if I let him sit in his own poop or pee...he doesn't quite understand that... 
• He HATEs to put clothes on or take them off. he literally will almost buck himself off the changing table. 
• We are working on NO, and discipline. Obviously he is still a bit little to understand all of it, but I try to tell him and no and redirect him when he is doing something he shouldn't, like trying to pull at and take out my night lights that are in the hallways. it doesn't always work but sometimes I think he sort of understands it. 

He really is such a joy and such a happy, giggly, smiley baby that its hard not to love or want to be around him. He is more and more fun each and everyday.

Here are his 10 month pictures. These were really hard to do since he doesn't want to sit still anymore and tries to get up all the time...

We love you little boy!

9 months

Our sweet baby boy is 9 month old. How is that possible? where did the time go? I swear it feels like just yesterday that we were going to the hospital.

Even though I'm struggling to wrap my head around how I have a 9 month old, it's even harder to understand where the last month went. We have been so busy I honestly don't know where or what we've done over the last month. I do know that Lincoln seems to grow daily. He is discovering new things everyday and at the same time developing some sort of schedule.

This month:

• he is crawling EVERYWHERE. He no longer sits still at all. the minute you put him down he's gone!
• He pulls up on EVERYTHING. His favorite is mommy, I'm his personal jungle gym. 
• When he pulls up on things he takes a few step...he will be walking before I know it. 
• He sleeps anywhere from 11-14 hours a night. He goes down around 8 and then when I am home he sleeps until around 7 and then I feed him and he goes back to sleep until around 9 or 10. But when I work he for some reason wakes up around 6:30 and then I feed him when I get home around 8 and then he will only sometimes sleep for a few more hours. 
• He will typically nap twice a day for anywhere from 1-3 hours. 
• He only eats solid foods 1 time a day but the doctor told me I need to be working upto 3 solid meals a day...this makes me sad because I like to breast feed him so much!
• I'm going to take this slowly and start out with only 2 meals a day. 
• he is always laughing and giggling all the time!
• He loves to shake his head no...hilaarious!
• I swear his first word was mamamamamama :) not that he knows what it means. 
• everything goes in his mouth! 
• He enjoys his jumperoo still but not for as long
• He loves it outside
• He loves the pool
• He loves bath time and taking showers with mama. When I have to shower, I just put him in the tub with me and he LOVES it. His favorite time of day is bath time! 
• He got 2 teeth!!!! 
• he's bit me a few times and when I say ouch, i think it hurts his feeling because he cries uncontrollably. 
• He loves all food. there is rarely something he doesn't love 
• He is also so big that we jumped from 9 month clothing to 18 month clothing. the few 12 month outfits I had were still tight on him so I went all out and got 18 month stuff!

At his doctor appointment.

• He was 29 1/2 inches long 
• He's in the 77th percentile in height
• He was 20 lbs 9 oz. 
• He was in the 55th percentile in weight

The doctor still says he is on track to be between 6'2" and 6'6". WOW. The doctor also said that while he isn't in the 90th or above that doesn't mean that he will be small. He will more than likely at some point just grow a bunch. 

He truly is an amazing little boy and brings so much joy to everyone around him. We are so blessed to have him in our lives. 

Now the photoshoot was a HUGE challenge. He wants to play all the time and he thought sitting in one spot was a game and would try to climb all over me and so I would "push" him down and he would immediately try to get back up. I had to have my mom and Nikki (who was visiting) help me out...

mommy and daddy love you little man!!!