I have a skinny baby!

This might seem like a funny blog title for those of you who tell me every time you see Gabe "Oh my gosh he's getting so big!" He is getting big, at least for him! I've always known he was small for his age though (born 6 lbs 13 oz). He had his 6 month appointment today and he is now weighing in at 15 lbs 5 oz, which puts him in the 10% for his age group. His height however (27") is in the 75%, so according to his peditrition he is just 'tall and skinny'. I was a little worried (first time mom worries kicking in) but she assured me he's just fine - he's got nice chunky legs, he's happy and he's meeting all his milestones on time. He's just not a big eater, and he never has been. I can't make him eat more, but she assured me that he will eat whatever he needs and to not worry about it.

He had his shots today, and I think we would have gotten away tear free if he'd only had to have one. He didn't even notice the first one and was having a good time with mommy distracting him. The 2nd one must have been more painful, and we had a lot of tears and crying after that. He's now home and was super sleepy so I set him under his playgym and he's sleeping away there while mom has some nice alone time on the computer. :-)

A new baby

I've been wanting to write this blog for awhile, but I wanted it wait and make sure that everything was going well first. Now that I know it is, I'm so happy to announce this.

Nathan and I found out in August that we are expecting our second child. It was a big surprise, but a happy one. I had my first OB appointment yesterday and everything looks good, though the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat and that worried me. We had an ultrasound later in the day and everything looks good. Baby is measuring 11 weeks 2 days and had a strong heartbeat of 154. I admit that I cried seeing the baby wiggling around on the screen.

Tentitive due date is April 25, 2010. So not quite Irish twins, but close!

Here is a picture of the little baby bean. It's kind of blurry since the baby wouldn't stay still.

Grandparents

Growing up, I really never knew my grandparents. Two of them passed away by the time I was 2 years old, and of course I have no memories of them. The other two were there, but not really around. They weren't really the 'grandparent' type. Even though we lived with one of them for quite awhile, I don't actually have very many memories of him because he was hardly ever there. This isn't meant to be a pity party for Leah, because it doesn't really make me sad. I think it bothered my parents (my mother especially) a whole lot more than it ever bothered me. In the end, it's not really a big deal. I just didn't know them. They are both passed away now and so technically I'm grandparent-less. I never wanted for grandparent affection though, I had sort of 'adopted' grandparents. My cousin's grandparents always treated me like one of their own, which made me feel very special, and my dad had a secretary who worked for him for years, right about the time his mother passed away, who became a sort of surrogate mother to him and a grandparent to myself. To this day she is my 'grandma' Marlene, and Gabe will know her as his great-grandma. When I told her, that she teared up and it was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen.

What is the point of this ramble about grandparents? I got to thinking about it when we went to visit my parents this weekend. Watching my parents dote on Gabe just fills my heart with Joy. They absolutely adore him, love to hold him and play with him, comfort him when he is sad...it makes me so happy to watch how much they care for him. It's the same with my inlaws. Every time my father-in-law sees him, he says what a beautiful baby Gabriel is, how SMART he will be, how ADVANCED he is for his age (I love my son, but he's just right on time for all his milestones. If you asked my father-in-law he'd say that Gabe is just the smartest little baby he's ever seen). Both sets of grandparents spend way too much money on him and just love to spend as much time as possible with him. Sometimes my inlaws call asking if Nathan and I want to get out of the house - just so they can watch Gabe.

It's pretty obvious that Gabriel's grandparents are going to spoil him rotten, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

My little mover

Today CG came home early (yay!) and decided to bbq hamburgers. Well he'd only been outside a minute when he came running back in yelling something about the bbq blowing up in his face. i ran after him to see if he was ok, leaving GT on the boppy on the couch. I always do this. He likes sitting on his boppy and I've never had a problem before. CG is thankfully fine, just some singed hair lol. I came back to the living room to find this.



Guess I won't be leaving him unattended on his boppy anymore...

Another successful night

Gabriel has, for the last few weeks, been only sleeping through the night about every other night. And even when he does, he's up between 2 - 3 am fussing and needing his pacificer back. Often at that point he'll fuss on and off until he finally wakes up at 5 - 6 to eat. Well we are now on 2 nights in a row of not hearing a peep out of him between 10 - 5. Today he made it until 6:30. I love sleep. It makes me such a happy person. :-)

Introspective

Do you ever have those days where you spend a large majority of the time looking into yourself and just thinking about life? How it used to be...how it is now...and compared to how you thought it would be when you were little. Today is one of those days for me.

Gabriel is currently napping (after an AWESOME night of sleep btw, not a peep out of him from 10 - 5) and I'm looking around at my house, the life that I've built with my husband, and I am just so thankful. It's nothing like I thought it would be when I was in high school. I was such a different person then, I had different goals. At the time, I wasn't even sure I wanted to ever get married, and I definitely didn't want children. I was certain that I would go to college after high school and then after college I would be a psychologist or something along those lines, and spend a lot of time in community theatre. I never pictured a family and the life I have now. And I definitely never thought that I would someday come to know and love Jesus. I was one of those people who tended to think Christians were a little off their rocker for believing in someone who, in my opinion, could never have existed.

How thankful I am that my life did not turn out the way I planned. That God led it in a totally different direction. God is so good. My life has been very blessed and today is one of those days that I just couldn't be happier.

Caffeine

I have promised to blog more, and therefore I'm posting this entirely pointless blog. I honestly wasn't sure what to blog about. But the coffee cup to my right served as my inspiration.

I love caffeine. Without it, I think I would be a very grumpy morning person. I was able to kick the habit during my pregnancy (thus the title of my blog) but it wasn't long before I went back to it. So now I'm thinking the title of my blog really need to be changed, but I'm not quite sure how to do so.

That being said, I'm off to refill my cup and enjoy a few more quiet minutes before Gabriel wakes up from his nap.