9 months

Colt man is growing like a weed! He is really starting to become such a little boy. Sigh... how can that be? He's only 9 months old! But with the passing time, we get into more and more fun stages. He takes in everything his big brother does, and just laughs from deep down in the gut while bouncing up and down on his knees. (Then, he usually gets a huge tackling hug, and starts to cry. Such is life!) He is such a sweet kid, always smiling and giggling, and he gives the best hugs and kisses. He will fling his arms around my neck and just squeeze himself in to me and-awesome sound effects included-kiss away. Oh man, how I love those kisses!

He's been up to a lot this past month:
-He went from 0 to 5 teeth in a little over a week. (Meanwhile, we slept about none that week!)
-Current words are bye bye, dada, and mama, but he's more likely to just babble and laugh than to actually say a word.
-He loves to clap, though he has been clapping for a while. It is fun to watch him watch his hands as he claps!
-Crawling is really just too boring for this guy. He prefers to cruise, and, if you're watching, you may catch him letting go for a second to reach for another object. Of course, if he sees something he wants and needs to get it quickly, crawling is the way to go!
-Sleep is still hit or miss. If we have a great nap day, the night is usually rough. If the naps aren't so great, everyone usually gets a full night of sleep. And sometimes, there is just a perfect storm of sleep during the day and sleep during the night. Those are nice days!
-He gets in to everything. Everything. We thought the house was baby-proofed for Hampton. It was not!
-Weaning has gone no where quickly, as this little guy *needs* his mommy. Jordan has started offering a bottle at night (that he doesn't take) and rocking him to sleep (while he screams bloody murder for about 10-15 minutes). It's hard to hear, but he has to be able to go to sleep without me sometimes.


Stats:
Height (29 inches), Weight (21 pounds), and Head circumference (no measurement given) were all in the 70-75%. Complete shocker that he is smaller than Hampton was at 9 months!!

9 months old!

Oh, hello Mr. Bear

Brothers!

Rough start

This week got off to a rough start. Colton woke up close to midnight Monday morning, and I brought him to bed to feed him (where I naturally fell asleep). He stirred around 3:30, and I was feeling uncomfortable, so I took him to his room. I got back in bed, tossed and turned, and pleaded with my body not to get sick. Yeah, that doesn't work. A little after 4, the sickness began. I'll leave out the gory details and just say it wasn't pretty. Then I felt fine! Oh, wait, too soon. This pattern continued into the morning when I told Jordan,"I need you to call in this morning. It's probably almost out of my system, so maybe you can go in around noon." HA! Nothing stayed down all morning. Not even the smallest sip of ginger ale. It was awful. Jordan had taken the boys to get breakfast and play at the park (b/c he's awesome) and came home for lunch. By this time, I was having some intense pains in my lower back. Related to the sickness? I don't know. I had been having dull pains for about 2 weeks. Painful as all get out? Yes. We decided to head to the doctor, and we chose to go straight to the ER since we didn't want to pay two copays. Getting there seemed to take forever, waiting in line to check in was even longer, and then waiting to get my vitals/get registered had me on the verge of tears. When the girl called me back to check my vitals, I was greeted by a male nurse. He recognized my name (his wife cuts my mil's hair, and I know her as well, and I think he knows my sister) and was going to go ahead and take me back to a room. Praise the lord!! She did some sort of test where she took my blood pressure sitting down and then again standing up. I don't know the name, but the way I responded (heart rate went up, blood pressure went way down), it showed I was dehydrated. They started me on a bag of fluids, and went to get meds for the nausea. She brought in zofran, and I was happy with that since I've taken it during both pregnancies. Well, it burned while going in, and my entire arm turned red. Shortly after, welts started to form. I was completely surprised by this reaction, and the nurse gave me some Benedryl to help and told me to add that to my allergy list. (insert sad face here as I thought, "HOW will I make it through any future pregnancies?!?") The Benedryl made me tired almost instantly, and she added phenergan to the mix--I don't recall most of my afternoon!! At some point, Jordan's mom came and got the boys to take home for the night. A little further into the evening, after mentioning to Jordan that no one seemed the least bit concerned about the pain in my back, the doctor came in and said there was blood in my urine and he wanted an ultrasound of my kidneys. My kidneys looked good, my gallbladder looked good, but my bladder, along with being very full, had something in it that shouldn't be there. The doctor said it was a bladder stone or possibly a blood clot. They gave me some pain meds and said to get rechecked in a week. And, finally, around 9:45, when my third bag of fluids was empty, they discharged us. I was feeling pretty weak yesterday and only slightly uneasy today, so I appear to be on the mend. I do need to get an appointment with a urologist to figure out what the heck is going on in my bladder. This week started out rough.