Christmas with the Aardemas

Because of everyone's schedules this year, we had to do Christmas with Brian's family over the weekend.  It was a lot of fun!  McCoy was still a little young to appreciate the gift opening process.  All he wanted to do was wrestle with his poor cousins who just wanted to open their gifts.  I ended up taking him out for a little so that they could enjoy their presents.

He was thoroughly spoiled!  He loves playing with all of his new toys.

Brian and I were pretty spoiled too ;)  I have lots of new clothes and jewelry to wear and lots of new movies to watch.  I even got a new bookshelf to put in my new house so that I can start my dream of having a library!  I also got some books to help start off my  library.

Ward Christmas Party

McCoy is a very social boy!  He loves to be around people and talk to them.  So when we walked into a room with a lot of people and a lot of room to run around, he was in heaven!  A lot of great women in the ward have watched McCoy for me and so he knows all of their kids and they know him.  It is really fun to see them interact with each other.

We sat and had breakfast and then Santa was almost there.  They lined the kids up against the wall to sing songs until Santa arrived.  We took McCoy and put him in the line with the other kids.  As soon as the singing started, he came out in front and started waving his hands to conduct and started dancing.  It was pretty dang funny and cute!

And you can see that he was not the biggest fan of Santa!  Part of it was that we had been waiting in line FOREVER!  My sister held our spot in line so that I could take him to run around while we waited.  Some kids in my ward told her that they thought it was cool that she was the only adult who was in line to see Santa ;)

"Fun" experience

So I thought I would share this "fun" thing that happened to me last night.  My neighbor usually watches McCoy, but her poor daughter got strep so I texted my back up babysitter on Tuesday and she said sure!  At 3am this morning, she texted me to let me know that her 3 year old was up throwing up and do I still want McCoy around that?  Well, with our upcoming trip I thought absolutely not!  I woke up Brian and asked if I should get a sub or what I should do.  He said I don't know and rolled back over and went to sleep. I frantically texted another lady in my ward at 3:30am afraid to wake anybody up, but needing to know how to proceed.

I then got up and went downstairs and made sub plans and put my absence in the system.  Any of my teacher friends know that you do not just simply make sub plans.  There is a lot that goes into it.  Lucky for me today is a short day so it only took me about 30 minutes to make my sub plans.  I then got back into bed, but could not sleep because my mind was up and reeling.

At 7am I get a text from the sweet sister in my ward saying she could watch McCoy!  So I quickly log on and cancel my absence.  Oh and I had also texted my principal at 4am to tell her I wouldn't be in today so I hurry and texted her back and told her just kidding.

I get McCoy all dropped off and situated and he loves this sister's 3 kids already!  They are playing cars with him and reading books to him.

Here is the great part...when I get to work I have a text from Brian that says, "I might be coming home. They scheduled me on accident."

I had to laugh because if I didn't I was going to scream.  So now I am sleep deprived for nothing.  Such is the life of a working mom I guess.

So blessed!

As I was walking through our house last night trying to get McCoy ready for bed, I stopped and looked at the HUGE pile of clean unfolded laundry.  I almost let myself complain and get impatient with myself and my husband who have not stopped to fold the laundry.  Then I started to feel something completely opposite, gratitude.

I am so grateful that we have clothes to wear.

I am grateful that I get to try to find the matching socks to little tiny feet.

I am grateful for our house that keeps us warm and makes me so happy.

I am grateful that my kitchen sink was full of dishes from a dinner that EVERYONE ate!

I am grateful that I have to clean toys out of my shower, bed, and drawers before I can go to bed every night.

I am grateful to be loved by two of the best boys I know!

Maybe it is just this time of year, but I am just bursting with gratitude for all that my Heavenly Father has given me.  Don't think that life is perfect, because it is NOT.  McCoy is really testing my patience lately and laughing and smacking me when I say no.  Brian and I have not seen each other all week because of all of the things going on right now.  But, even those things make me more grateful!

Angel Babies

Yesterday Brian and I found out, for the second time in my life, that the baby growing inside of me had no heartbeat.  It was devastating.  It got me thinking about a lot of things.  I am not sure what I believe or feel about miscarriages and if they are my babies, but I would like to believe that they were.  I would like to believe that I have two angel babies waiting for me and watching over me.

I had to go into the ultrasound alone this time while Brian sat out in the waiting room with McCoy.  I never have signs of a miscarriage.  I just go in and there is no heartbeat.  So I have already had 10 weeks to fall in love with this baby and convince myself that I am 1/4 of the way done with pregnancy!  I was laying awake at night planning the room and where we would put things for the baby and how McCoy would do as a big brother.  I was often giddy with excitement.  The ultrasound tech I had this time was less than sympathetic.  She just said, "well, it looks like there is nothing there.  Let me get the nurse."  I was then sent back out into the waiting room full of pregnant women to shake my head no to Brian and start bawling in front of everyone.

Many women are keeping miscarriages a secret like it is something to be ashamed of, but I am writing this down so that I remember how I felt.  I am heart broken and it is easy to feel like my body failed.  The ultrasound tech kept calling McCoy my term pregnancy.  I wanted to scream at her and say, "Call him by his name!  He has a name and a birth date and big blue eyes and a laugh that makes you so happy.  He is my accomplishment in my life.  He is my baby and my son!"

The first time I had a miscarriage was before McCoy and I felt like I would never be able to be a mom.  McCoy has been so tender watching me cry.  He knows something is wrong and he tries to make it better.  I am so grateful that I get to be his mommy and I never take that for granted.

I am also so grateful for my amazing family and Brian's amazing family.  We get so excited when we find out we are pregnant that we always tell them and I am grateful for that because it means we have support during the hard times.  I also have an incredible husband who is holding me while I cry and dealing with my many mood swings during this process.  I have never lost a baby at full term, but it still hurts at 10 weeks.  It hurts and as my mom said, "It sucks!"

9 months!

Today my sweet boy is 9 months old.  It is crazy to me how SLOW the 9 months of pregnancy went and how quickly his 9 months of life has gone.  This is such a fun age, except for the teething part.  I could do without that.  Here are some facts about my little man:

LIKES:
-Any kind of baby food except greenbeans
-Can't get enough of his puffs in any flavor
-His walker because he feels like a big boy
-Anything to do with his daddy.  Sometimes Brian wishes McCoy would want to come to me ;)
 -A cartoon called "Dinosaur Train" the only tv that he will actually sit through
-Climbing on EVERYTHING
-He also loves his pacifier except right now because he is sick and can't breath and he gets frustrated that he can't suck on it

-He is sleeping through the night (except since he has been teething, he wakes up crying because he hurts)
-He has to go to bed with a blanket or else it will not happen.  He also like to carry his blanket around during the day and snuggle with it
-He laughs at just about anything Brian does.  Brian just has to look at him and he will laugh.  It is adorable


I just love my little man and am so grateful to have him in my life.  Now if only the 4 teeth that have decided to come in at the same time would just hurry and poke through already, we would all be a little less grumpy!

Change of heart

On one of my particularly hard days last week, I told Brian that I was not enjoying being a mom like I thought I would.  We all have these romanticized notions in our head of how something is going to turn out and it is disappointing when it is not that way.

Well, McCoy must have heard me or known that I was feeling this way because he has upped his cuteness by 100%!  I am not saying that it is perfect now, but it is so much more fun!  He responds when I call his name and he reacts to more things. 

*I love reading books with him because he sits so still in my lap and "listens" as I make different voices and looks at the pictures.

*I make his stuffed animals talk to him in different accents and voices and he laughs like crazy!

*He has started imitating my facial expressions.  When he laughs, he squints his eyes, which Brian says that I do.  It is the CUTEST thing ever!

*He holds up his arms to be held when I come close to him.

*He laughs at me while he eats his food.

*He rubs my face when I feed him his bottles in the middle of the night.

*He snuggles close to me when he is done eating his bottle and goes right back to sleep.

I am not the perfect mother by any stretch of the imagination, but I am loving the journey and the woman that it is making me!

Photos courtesy of...

racheljonesphotos.com  I absolutely love having a photographer in the family!  She happens to love taking pictures and now I have a cute boy for her to take pictures of.  It is adorable because she gets so happy doing it and he loves all the attention.  They really are the perfect match :) 

My brother and sister-in-law Rachel came to visit over Martin Luther King weekend and here are some of the lovely spoils from their visit.  GO visit her website and give her a call!  You won't regret it!

Why?

Today I have been asking myself a lot of why questions.

"Why can't I be more patient with that student that pushes my buttons?"

"Why can't I come home from work and have a desire to make dinner for my husband?"

"Why can't I learn to think before I speak?"

But the biggest question today has been, "why did McCoy choose me as his mother?" Everyone told me that I would have some sort of mother's intuition when I had kids and that I would know if something was wrong with my baby. Well, something is wrong with my baby, but I have no idea what it is! He wakes up crying at night and won't take a bottle. He is skinny and we can't get him to eat more than 4 ounces every 3 hours. He arches his back and cries in pain when he eats sometimes. He has started refusing to eat solids and he has stopped napping in his crib. He is already on the reflux medication so it must be something else.

Another why..."why did Heavenly Father give me this difficult baby knowing that it kills me to not be able to fix something." I sit here shedding a few tears as I write this because my sweet baby is hurting and I can't fix it.

But isn't that the great thing about life. We are given all these why's and we figure out the answers along our journey. I have never been good with babies so maybe this is my chance to become more comfortable with babies and with myself.  Who knows.

All I know is that I love my little guy and I am SO glad he picked me to be his mommy!

Short sleeves and flip flops

 Our trip to see grandma and grandpa was such a success!  McCoy was loved on and spoiled and I was able to nap everyday and just love the beautiful weather.  We went on walks in the stroller and McCoy was such a champ on both flights!  I was so grateful for that since I was by myself.

McCoy is also entering the fun stage of learning new things everyday so I thought I would highlight a couple of things he has learned.

-He has discovered his tongue and he turns it ways that I don't know how to.

-He is now eating sweet potatoes, carrots, corn, and squash.  He loves eating!

-He rolls completely over and loves to do it.  The video will show his other skill that he learned this last week. :)

-He has also discovered his hands and that they can bend.  I love watching him study his hands.  He is even starting to wave and he waved at tons of people at the airport.  He could wave a thousand times and I would still melt every time.

So in love with this boy and so grateful for my parents for letting us come visit.

Big 'ol Head

I decided that one of the ways to help me have a better attitude is to write down the things that I love about my McCoy Brian.  The nights are hard and we are not the best of friends, but he is so cute during the day that he makes up for it. 

I love his big 'ol head.  We get comments about it all the time.  It is part of the reason that he came by c-section.  His head just wouldn't fit.  He is learning how to sit up and he is constantly toppling head first into the blanket that he is sitting on because his head is so big!  With a big head comes a big face.  This boy smiles with his entire body and his smile lights up a room.  He is quite the schmoozer in church and we always have ladies coming up and talking to him because he just loves his fan club.

Another thing that I love about this boy is that he is very observant.  He will sit in his high chair for a long time and just watch what Brian and I are doing in the kitchen.  He also stares at people when they are talking.  He just loves to know what is going on and hates being left out of whatever is going on.

I love this boy so fiercely!  More than I ever thought I would and I fall more in love every day!

Happiness

Since we have been kind of down lately, I thought I would post some happiness.  Here is a cute picture of McCoy after getting his hair blow dried by daddy after a bath.  He loves to be blow dried and primped.  I have a feeling I am going to be fighting for time in front of the mirror for the rest of my life ;)

Here is also a video of McCoy talking and squealing.  He does this all the time!  We love our little happy boy and we hope he gets feeling better soon so that we can have him back!

Helpless

So last night, McCoy started crying at about 10:30, which is weird, so I got up and tried to comfort him and then fed him a small bottle.  When the bottle was done, he started screaming.  I tried walking him around the room, rocking, burping, EVERYTHING!  After about 30 minutes of this, Brian came into the room to find McCoy screaming in the swing and me, sprawled on the floor sobbing.  All I could say was, "I don't know what to do." 

Again, my husband is amazing.  He calmed me down and then calmed down McCoy and put him back to bed.  How did I get so lucky?

I think my body was just telling me, I have had enough!  I sat in bed crying and thinking through every worst case scenario as to why he was screaming like that.  I had not heard a baby scream like that since my niece before they knew she had cystic fibrosis.  Then I started asking the Lord why he thought I could handle this because it says He will not give us anything that we can't handle. 

I am exhausted and discouraged, but I am more concerned for my sweet baby.  I hate to see him hurt and wish that I could just take it away.  Here is to hoping that things get better soon!

Sleep deprivation

So it used to really bother me when I would read blogs where women just complained about being a mom because I wanted t be a mom so bad. Now I am humbled and less judgmental! Let's get one thing clear, I LOVE BEING A MOM AND I AM MADLY IN LOVE WITH MCCOY.

Now that that is out of the way, I will vent a little. If you don't care then just look at he pictures:)  When I was pregnant everyone told me that I would never sleep again. I laughed because I had no idea how true that statement would be.

People would tell me how their baby slept a full night at 6 weeks and I told myself to just make it until then. That time came and went and I was still waking up every 2 to 3 hours. Then people told me 8 weeks or 6 months or when he starts eating solids. We have now passed all of those milestones and I am still getting up every 3 hours. Let me tell you, I am crashing and burning. I try all of the things my friends tell me and McCoy just doesn't respond.

Side note here, I have the best husband ever! He has been so patient through all of this. I cry a lot and I am impatient and it has just been hard on my body. He helps so much when he is home and makes dinner and is just wonderful.

People keep telling me that he will sleep eventually, but I don't want to spend my time wishing his life away. He is just about to crawl and he says dada now. I want to enjoy the things I love about him now. That single toothed grin melts my heart every time. That is what gets me through the day and sleep will return eventually and then I will probably have another baby and start the cycle all over again :)