Birthday Letter

To My Darling Birthday Boy,
Today you are 1 year old! Your father and I cannot believe how lucky we are to have you in our lives. You have brought indescribable joy and happiness into our home with your sweet and curious spirit. We have enjoyed watching you grow and learn about the world around you, and look forward to what the next year will bring. You are our darling, beautiful boy and we love you so much. Here are some of our favorite things about you!
- Every time you take a bite of food, you say "yum!" It's gotten to the point that if we say "yum", you open your mouth and look for food!
- If I get down on all fours, you realize I'm coming to tickle you and you crawl and hide under the table for me to find you. You love being chased!
- You are just like your daddy in that you adore electronics! The only time I've ever seen you sit quietly is when you have a phone or remote in your hands.
- Our absolutely FAVORITE thing is your huffy face! You scrunch up your nose, pucker your lips, squint your eyes, and breathe heavily through your nose. It's hysterical and you know it's funny! You always have a glint in your eye because you know it makes us laugh!
- You love cereal, bananas, yogurt, and sweet potatoes. You're not the biggest fan of green beans and eggs though. You always give me the huffy face when I put some in your mouth!
- You wave hello and goodbye all the time, but your hand is turned inward so you're actually waving to yourself. :)
- You know how to roll a ball back and forth between you and Mommy.
- Sometimes we'll catch you laying down on your tummy, sucking on the carpet! Yuck!
- When you get really excited about something, you'll do the "happy crawl" with your arms flinging all over the place. When you know you're going somewhere you're not supposed to, you always look back to make sure we're watching!
- You love to read books and make sounds as if you're actually reading it. When we read the book together you always look up at me to make sure I'm making all the appropriate sounds!
- With all your 5 teeth, you get a kick out of biting Mom and Dad, and we have the scars to prove it!
- You are a FABULOUS night sleeper, and have been since a baby! Thank you!!
- When you are really hungry and see the food coming, you start sucking your lips and drinking air in anticipation!
- You say "Mama" and finally say "Dada"!
- We are worried about the time to remove your helmet, because you think you're invincible! You bang your head on everything and don't feel a thing. We are going to have to be so careful when your helmet comes off in 4 months!
- If we could, we'd make your laugh our ringtones! We could listen to it forever!
- You are more interested in the boxes and packaging than the toy itself. Good to know we just need to get you boxes for Christmas! :)

Today we have had a fabulous birthday day. We bought your big boy car seat, celebrated with a birthday cake, and opened presents! You received some bath toys, cars, and books. You got your first taste of whole milk, which you love! You even got to wear a "Birthday Boy" pin all day! You are such a lucky boy! Happy birthday son! We love you!

Holiday Happenings

Besides the week we were all sick, which I shall dub "The Week from Hell" (see previous post), life has been great! Chris is enjoying his job and is really good at it, and James has been learning new things by the day. We had some family in town for a week, and it was great for James to have some company! He even showed off for them by walking a few steps. It must not have clicked though because he hasn't done it since. I cannot believe that my little baby is turning 1 on Saturday! I will hold off on sharing his new conquests until his birthday post later. :)

One new adjustment has been his helmet. It's much bigger than his last one, and looks so huge on him! Fortunately, he can pull off the football player look. :) Here's a pic of the new plastic headpiece.



As of now, we are gearing up for Christmas! Thanksgiving was low-key, yet still delicious. We were still a little sick, so it was just Chris, James and I. I cooked my first turkey! Okay, so it was only half a turkey. Baby steps! It was so yummy, and we had stuffing, yams, potatoes, and rolls to go with it. Pumpkin pie and homemade whipped cream for desert of course! It was a wonderful day, and we watched Harry Potter 3 afterwards.

Saturday marked our 6 year anniversary! I cannot believe how fast time has flown by, and that we are even closer now than when we were married. It is fun to think back to those early days and think about how different and more mature we are now. One thing that I love about getting married young is that we get to see each other mature and grow into the person we need each other to be. Through the good and the bad, we know how to be there for one another, and I am so fortunate to be married to my best friend! We had plans to go out and see the Harry Potter movie to celebrate, but we canceled our babysitter and postponed it until next Saturday because James was still a little sick and didn't want to leave a sick baby with a babysitter for the first time. So, instead we had a Harry Potter movie marathon, and are all ready to go for the 7th movie next week! We can't wait! Is it absolutely terrible that Chris and I are leaving James on his birthday to go see the movie? We're waiting until he's asleep, I promise!

Well, the Christmas decorations are up (and still intact despite James's best efforts), Christmas music is playing non-stop, eggnog is in the fridge, and my favorite candy cane candle is burning. What could be better than Christmas?

Week from Hell

We are all still alive, and after the week we just had, that is saying something! On November 20, Saturday, towards the end of the day I started feeling a little nauseous. It started getting progressively worse, to the point where I told Chris I couldn't possibly make dinner without puking. I just kept thinking that I had to make it until James went to bed, then I could rest and probably feel better. After the quickest bath of James's life, he went to bed and I collapsed on my bed. Within an hour, I found myself curled up on my bathroom floor throwing up everything in my stomach. It got progressively worse and more violent, and I was just begging for mercy. After talking to my Dad on the phone and realizing I couldn't possibly keep any medicine in my body, he suggested we go to the urgent care. With my trusted bucket by my side (which was being filled every few minutes), we woke James up and Chris drove us to the nearest urgent care site. By this point I was dry heaving every few minutes. After getting settled in, the doctor finally gave me a shot, which made me sleepy but wasn't helping my nausea. I still couldn't drink anything, and my heart rate was high because I was so dehydrated. Since they were closing soon, they suggested to go to the ER to get an IV to rehydrate my body. So, after hours of torture and still no relief, we trekked over to the ER, where I finally found relief with an IV and more anti-nausea medicine (thank you Zofran!). While there, they kept needing me to do different tests that required me to stand. I told them I wasn't feeling stable enough, and proved my point by passing out a few times throughout the night every time I tried remaining vertical. Finally, by 2 in the morning I was hydrated and my nausea had gone. The doc had determined that it was probably food poisoning. Chris dropped James and I off and then went to the only 24 hour pharmacy down in Provo to get my prescriptions filled in case I got nauseous again. Poor thing didn't get to bed until 4 in the morning! He was so great at taking care of us.
Sunday I was starting to feel a little better, but then of course James and Chris got sick! Poor James was throwing up and going through diapers by the minute, and it was all Chris and I could do to take care of him. The only thing James lived on Sunday and Monday was Pedialyte. Monday was even worse! Thank goodness for anti-nausea medicine, or I never would have made it out alive. Chris had to work that day (fortunately he was able to do it from home though), and so I had to take care of a very sick little baby, even though I could hardly even stand. It took me about 2-3 days before I could even eat anything besides liquids, and I was so weak. I remember just sitting there crying, with James crying in my arms. Both of us feeling miserable. How pathetic! Finally by Tuesday I started to get my strength back, and James had quit throwing up. By this point, we were all pretty much normal except for a little weakness. The only person who was not 100% was James. I was probably changing over 20 disgusting diapers a day, and his poor little bottom was so red! He got a severe diaper rash that kept bleeding despite my best efforts. We finally found that Neosporin, Butt Paste, and Desitin helped. Friday, James suddenly got better and now we are all healthy. My house was looking and smelling like death for a while there, and yesterday I finally did a ton of washing and cleaning and am happy to be out of the war zone.
All in all, one of the worst weeks of my life. Nothing is worse than being violently ill, and not only having no one to take care of you, but having everyone around you sick as well! It was absolutely miserable and I would have rather gone through labor and delivery again than go through that night. Ugh - here's to hoping that was a "once in a lifetime" experience! If it ever happens again, I'm just going to wave my little white flag of surrender and beg for mercy.

Shakes and Waves

James has been learning how to wave. I think he's pretty cute.

Halloween!

We started off our Halloween week with about 3 inches of snow!! We were so excited and of course I had to dress James up in his new winter clothes and go for a walk!

Halloween - the one time a year I have an excuse to wear my favorite color! (Orange does NOT look good on me!) It's a time for costumes, candy, our traditional Beanie Weenies, and of course, Hocus Pocus. There's only one thing that can put a damper on this great holiday: a teething baby! Our poor little dragon is growing more teeth, and therefore his eating and sleep habits have been discarded. It all started on Friday, when I went to Snow Springs to show off my fire-breathing dragon. We were able to last through the 3rd grade costume parade, and then we had to head home. On the way home, James instantly fell asleep - which he NEVER does!! At home, I noticed that he was really warm, so I took his temperature and discovered he had a fever. After some Tylenol and another nap, we realized that he was probably teething (he also had a teething rash and red gums!) Since then, his sleep has been very unpredictable and he wakes up crying and more fussy then when he went to sleep. On Saturday, we dressed him back up and went to our church to go Trick or Treating, which was super fun but very crowded. We lasted only about twenty minutes! James was thoroughly unimpressed with the whole place, and since he hadn't been feeling good, we went home. Case in point: the picture below illustrates his mood the entire night.

Sunday was a beautiful day in which we went to church, watched scary movies (which was a major mistake! They keep coming back to haunt me when I'm trying to sleep!) and ate Beanie Weenies, a traditional DeBeikes Halloween dinner. Despite these pesky teeth, Halloween was not a total bust!


On other news, we got a second opinion on James's helmet. I have intentionally waited a while to post because I didn't want to come off so harshly. I needed time to cool off and put things into perspective. It has been 4 months with his helmet, which we were told would be enough time to reshape his head. It is still far from fixed, and this other doctor basically told us that he would have treated James very differently with a different type of helmet and supplemental stretches. Right away he came off as professional and very knowledgeable in this area. He explained things to us that our other doctor never even mentioned. Basically, we left feeling like the doctor we had chosen was obviously not proficient in his practice and wasn't aware of these other factors influencing James's head shape. If he had been, he would have done a different treatment plan and we would probably have different results right now. We felt completely taken advantage of because we had a small window of opportunity for growth, and we put our trust in a complete goof. We decided to call this old doctor and set up an appointment to meet with him and the owner, and we left that meeting feeling a little better. The owner and lead doctor of this practice said that a second helmet (James has grown out of his current one) with some modifications for an additional 4 months might still help reshape his head, even though at this age his growth is so slow. The best news is that they aren't charging us for this second helmet because they knew we were so displeased with their performance. Even though this isn't exactly the outcome we intended, this feels like our best and only option. It's either that or take away the helmet and hope his head reshapes on its own. Even with the helmet, we might not see lots of growth, but I know we'd regret not at least taking the chance.

Well, despite the depressing tone of this post, things are going really well! James has learned how to wave and he is starting to copy my movements a lot more. I can't believe he's just about 11 months! That means only one more month until his birthday!! That just seems crazy. Everyday I'm realizing that my baby is being slowly replaced with a toddler.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving! I'm cooking it myself this year! Yikes!