6 month pics & MIL update

It doesn't seem right to put these things in the same post but unfortantly this is all new in the past 4 days. My MIL passed away Wed night after another 2 heart attacks Wed. They attempted to move her from ICU to radiology in order to perform a procedure but she almost coded not once but twice and had at least another heart attack if not two since my last update. The damage to her heart was not determined secondary to not being able to move her. Its sad because she was suppose to come off the vent that very day and by the afternoon was relying 100% on the vent. So all in all 3 of her 7 (I believe) systems were shut down. I'll spare you all the details of what we went through but in the end we decided her quality of life would not be remotely close to how she was living. She would have ended up losing fingers and toes and spending the rest of her life in a nursing home. About an hour after removing the vent Barbara E. Treichler passed away with family by her side.

I was fortunate to have all my grandparents growing up, until 2005 when I lost my grandfather. I still have my other 3 grandparents and for me the worst part is Landon will never remember his Nan-Nan, nor will our other children know her. Unlike DH, I take comfort in knowing that she is up there meeting and holding my angel babies that we never met. On a side note but kinda related: Today I was thinking how my grandfather (who was Catholic) a long long time ago told me that aborted babies go straight to heaven unlike us because they are so pure and know no wrong. Years later I never thought I would take comfort in knowing that babies I lost are in heaven with him and now my MIL.

Its so hard seeing Mike in so much pain. Yesterday he told me how much he just wanted to pick up the phone and call his mom. It killed me.

As I said earlier it doesn't seem right to be posting these in the same post as the news I just told you but here are Landon's 6 month old pictures.














BTW, Landon got his first tooth yesterday. My baby is growing up!!!

And in memory of my MIL, Barb, Mom, & Nan-Nan.



I just realized that today, 2 years ago I lost my 1st angel baby. Man! And my 2nd angel baby's EDD is coming up 12/31. :::sigh:::

Can't believe my baby is going to be 6 months!!

Seriously? Where has time gone? He was just a little 8lb 2oz babe when he was born. Now he's 17lbs. Good gosh! Since its been awhile I'll go through a quick update.

Landon is sitting like a pro most of the time. He started sitting Nov 8th unsupport for any length of time. He entertains himself sitting and playing with his toys for 30-40 minutes at time. He's such an easy baby when it comes to that and we are so blessed.



We started rice cereal and more recently sweet potatoes and squash (for Thanksgiving, ya know).



As I mentioned he's a happy baby who loves to smile and loves music.

We've had some issues with STTN and have degressed. Where did my 3 month old that STTN go? I've been reading "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby" and since then it seems things have gotten worse. It can be very frustrating at times and Mike and I become very uneasy with each other.

Since my last update my grandmother started experiencing some lower extremity weakness and confusion. We've gotten the run around from many Drs as to what is causing it. She's currently in a rehab hospital and seems to be doing better.

My MIL is also currently in the ICU. She was diagnosed with lupus about 2 years ago and about 5 months ago her kidneys were shutting down at a rapid pace they put her on dyalisis. Her port which she recieves dyalisis through became infected last Sunday and she was admitted to the ER and shortly after to the ICU. That night we recieved a scary phone call that she was crashing and to come say our good byes. Fortnantly she made it through this after having a heart attack due to pushing fluids through very quickly. She is still in ICU, and is having good and bad days. Its going to be a long, long road with many ups and downs. Please keep her in your throughts and prayers.

My birthday was the day before my MIL was admitted to the hospital and a few of my girlfriends and I celebrated by going to see New Moon....oh me oh my! ;-) LOVE IT! Afterwards my husband made surf and turf for dinner and we shared a bottle of wine while watching a chick flick..."the ugly truth". It was a great way to spend my 26th birthday!

Since then all hell has broken loose and Mike and I are both sick. I have bronchitis and most likely he does too. Probably from all the stress we are under with job situations, family, a 6 month old that doesn't yet STTN but....we are trying to manage. At this point all I want for Christmas is less drama!!!!!! OR....

Anyway...don't mind my Twilight humor...here are some update pics of Landon.

Mastitis

Never a dull moment around here, I swear! Seriously I feel like I can't catch a break. We've fought with thrush twice and now I am just re-coping from
mastitis. Remember how I thought I had the flu. Rrriiight! After 2 days of laying around we finally decided on Sunday to go to the zoo which we had a great time. See Landon's video below...he'll tell ya all about it. Anyway, Monday I felt fine and I woke up in the middle of the night with the exact same symptoms I had Thursday night. Fever, body ache, chills, nausea and right boob pain. Thursday when I had these symptoms my boobs ached but my whole body ached so I just assumed it was pretty normal since I had the "flu". Thursday night I popped ibuprofen like crazy and pumped a lot because I just felt very full and had a funny sensation. It was odd since I had cut down to pumping 3 times a day. Getting back to Monday night/Tuesday morning it finally dawned on me when my boob was throbbing...I was like OMIGOD I have mastitis. I can't tell you how bad I felt all over.

After having 2 days off I called off work which I felt horrible about because we are short handed. I called my mom and told her at 4:30 in the morning, I was a mess. LOL. Then I slept until 9:30 when I called the Dr. She saw me that morning and was very concerned. She's like you and I quote "Need to take some days off work. You can't go to work in this much pain". I agreed but was hesitant until she scared the crap outta me. See I can only take 3 antibiotics, the rest I'm allergic to. She said the that she would have to put me on 2 antibiotics but that wouldn't guarantee that it would kill the type of bacteria Landon was passing to me. She started throwing around the word mersa and hospital. She warned me that I may have to be hospitalized, hospitalized people! I was like WHAT!?! She would have to hospitalize me for IV antibiotics. So I agreed that my ass was staying home from work for a long as she wanted. She also told me I was to breastfeed, breastfeed, breastfeed.

I've been off all week. My boss has been understanding but I know my co-workers are probably a little or maybe A LOT upset because like I said we are short handed and its hard enough handling our own schedule let alone dividing another one up among everyone else. As all of this is going on, somewhere a long the line I was like ok its time to quit BFing completely for many reasons...1) my health 2) The one antibiotic is passed through BM 3) decrease in supply and I dunno what other reasons we're put into my head but....it last all of 2 days, pumping when engorged. I've cried on and off and have been wondering if this was a good enough excuse for me and just a little bit ago I decided its not time yet. Even if my good supply doesn't come back I want to wean on my own terms not just because of some stupid illness. Funny how I thought it would be ok to just quit pretty much cold turkey and funny how I thought I wanted to completely give it up.

The past 2 days Landon has had a lot more formula and has been extremely gassy. Burping and tooting all day along. At night he was waking up just because he needed burped or because he needed to toot. Very, very unusual. In fact he's never done that and it took me a night to figure out what was going on.

So thats the exciting life of the T residence. Hopefully, God is done with making life so exciting at the moment because I can't take too much more.

I'll let Landon tell you.....

This is after a fun day at the Philly Zoo.

Almost 4 months

Motherhood is more and more exciting every day. I wouldn't trade it for the world. With the excitement always comes the challenges and lessons learned.

At this rate I'm only getting one post a month. Seriously I think about updating my blog weekly if not more. I hate not being able to update because I would love to keep better track of all the things that happen with us and I don't just mean milestones. Did I mention I hate being so busy?? My day normally consists of getting up around 5:40 AM, getting to work at 7 (Ok, more like 7:05), coming home at lunch (12-1) to tidy up and grab some lunch, go back to work until 4, go get Landon and by the time I get home some days its 5:30 unless I have dance (then earlier), 2 nights a week I have dance but either way the only time by butt sits down is at dinner, Landon goes to bed between 7-8 after his bath and a bed time story, and usually my butt doesn't sit back down until 9-10 PM. Its ridiculous. Did I mention I was pumping about 5-6 times a day. Keyword: WAS!!!

I decided that I'm ok giving Landon some formula. I was hoping it would help him sleep through the night, since I can't remember the last time that was. He was doing so well and I shouldn't complain because he only gets up once a night to eat and go right back to sleep. Anyway...I've about had enough of this pumping and very lil nursing. So I've cut back to pumping about every 8 hours and when I can I nurse in the middle of the night and on the weekends.

On September 10th, my mom's b-day, Landon rolled from his belly to his back. I had him in his crib for some belly time while I was packing and getting ready to go away for our first vacation to WVU and next thing I knew he was on his back. It took me a few seconds to realize what happened. I was like "wait, I didn't put you on your back!!" So I flipped him back to his belly and he did it again. Mike wasn't nearly as excited as I was but thats ok.

On the 23rd, I went to pick him up from my mom's and heard him LOL for the first time. It was great! After we left Gran's I brought him home and before Mike got home I had him on his back on the couch and realized he was playing with his feet, trying to get them to his mouth. So cute! I have a video of this so check it out at the end.

This past Monday night Landon had his first sleepover at Gran's. I slept like a rock all night! It was weird not having him home. So the reason he stayed at my mom's was because my week started off great! At midnight Monday morning Jake and Bailey were sprayed by a skunk. OMIGOD! I never smelled anything so freakin bad in my life. If you haven't experienced it and I don't mean just driving by a dead one on the road, you have NO IDEA how horrible that stench is. Its still lingering but I made up a solution (4 cups peroxide, 1/4 cup baking soda, & 1 teaspoon of liquid soap) which we bathed the dogs in. The next day my dad came over and sprayed the house with Nature's Miracle Skunk Remover. Or something like that which helped A LOT!

So after that, all week I've been looking forward to having a 4 day weekend. We made plans just to do a day trip or 2. And son-of-a-bitch I came home sick as a dog Thursday night. So sick my parents took Landon for the night because Mike was in WVU for another game. Seriously?? I can't catch a break and I'm getting a little pissed. Thankfully I felt better in about 24 hours. But now I feel achy and tired. I just cried Thursday night when my parents came and than took Landon home with them and I cried when Mike brought him home Friday!!! Now I think I have a sick baby for he has done nothing but slept and his temperature is slowly creeping up. :-( I will never forgive myself if he gets sick. Ok I probably will but I will feel awful!!!

So now that I've gotten that all out here are some pictures from this month and a video.
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Tailgating at his 2nd mountaineer game!

Mommy & Landon

The 3 of us!

Opa & Gran with Landon at Cooper's Rock. I love his face!

In the bumbo...


The day he discovered his feet.

Funny face.

This picture was taken today.

As well as this one...

3 months old

Can you believe it? Yesterday my little guy turned 3 months old??

Some of you may have been wondering what's new with Landon...well the little guy's new thing is trying to sit up. He lounges in his bouncer or swing and all of a sudden he does an ab crunch and throws his head forward. Its funny cuz it looks like he holds his breath and his eyes get wide...like "oh look what I can do". He is also exploring more and more with his mouth, chewing on his hands, drooling, and grabbing things and trying to put them in his mouth. He's also watching his feet more and more which can be comical.

Landon was at the pediatrician this past Thursday and had his first injection. Yes, I did say first. We are not following the typical vaccine schedule nor Dr. Sear's schedule. But that's a subject for another day. He received the HIB vaccine and according to Daddy was very fussy all day and running a low grade temp that night. My poor baby but he was so brave! I held him and the initial stick didn't phase him but all of a sudden his bottom lip came out and then the he left out a huge scream. I calmed him down and it only lasted 5-10 secs max. I was impressed!


He now weighs...drum roll please......13 pounds 15 ounces and is about 25 inches long. Yes, he's our chunky monkey.


Here are some more photos of Landon...

Since Landon has been trying to sit up I decided to buy Landon a Bumbo. I got it off of craigs list for $10. What a steal!! I paid more for the tray at BRU...$10.99

We've also tried out the jumperoo last week.

Trying out his new travel swing for WVU trips. "Eh," he says. "Not as good as my fisher price Little Lamb swing."

Changing table fun!

At our first WVU game. Honestly he didn't do bad at all!! Fussed for a few minutes during the first quarter and then fell asleep for 2 quarters.

Chillin' with Dad. Trying to get my fist in my mouth.

Here is a link if you want to see more photos of Landon. And if you're a facebook friend some of these are not on there (such as Gran's photos). :-) Baby T

PS I'll post this link on the side of my blog as well.

just DANCE!

So just a little update. Some of you may know that last summer I started my own dance company. It only consisted of a few students but I was renting from a local ballroom studio and teaching classes there. Well this summer two of my teachers from when I was younger were left go from the studio I grew up in for no reason. They were mailed a two sentence letter after one had been there for 30+ years. Can you believe it?? So good news is instead of totally giving up my dream, I've joined up with them. We are teaching at 2 locations. So far we have about 10 students signed up. But I'm positive more will sign up before the start of class tomorrow. Classes start tomorrow and I still have stuff to do but here I am updating my blog. HA HA! Oh well, I haven't in 3 weeks so its about time. Just another thing to add to my busy schedule. The past 2 months have been spent getting a website ready, advertising material, LLC agreements, bank account and so much more. So I've given up spending time writing here and posting/reading posts on PAL and reading my friends blogs. :-( I still really wish I was a SAHM....or if I could I would pause time because there really isn't enough hours in the day to get everything I want to get done completed.