Supporting our friends!

A good friend of ours has a web site for his flooring business and I wanted to share: www.floorsandmoreremodeling.com

Jason is the husband of Kristin and daddy of Annabelle (all of whom have been in several pictures on my blog at one point or another). He's a great guy, very trustworthy, professional and he also happens to be great at what he does. He has a degree in building construction as well. If you live anywhere near the Orlando/Gainesville area (basically North Central Florida) and you need help with a project or know of anyone that does, please consider Jason!

Full disclosure - we really want them to stay in Gainesville so we're doing whatever we can to drum up business in the area!!

Here is a photo of Annabelle, isn't she the cutest!

Shake Your Shamrocks

I wanted to share a few photos and give a quick update on Colton. He celebrated his very first St. Patrick’s Day last week. He’s got quite a bit of Irish blood running through him so it was only appropriate that he get decked out in Green and bring green cupcakes to his teachers. He also wore a sticker that said “Shake your Shamrocks.” Unfortunately he didn’t arrive home in the same out which is par for the course. He manages to “blow out” a diaper on a daily basis. He even decided to share with his teacher one day, thus the cupcakes. They were really a peace offering!

He’s 17 lbs now and 15 weeks old! Next Sunday we celebrate the 16 week mark which is another big milestone. He’ll probably have another little growth spurt here in the next few days which means we’ll have a hungry boy on our hands. It’s hard to believe he could get hungrier, he eats about 35-40 ounces a day which is quite a bit for his size/age. At his four month check-up we’ll discuss rice cereal and when to start it. I have a feeling we’ll be doing it sooner rather than later. I had planned to wait until 6 months but it appears he may need it sooner. Side note, before Colton arrived I had a lot of preconceived notions about how this was all going to work. I was going to breastfeed for a year, keep him on a schedule so my life would be easier, wait six months to introduce solids, etc etc etc. Then life happens and I woke up and realized that every baby is different and none of the books were written about Colton Highlander, nor has anyone else raised my baby before me. While I have appreciated all the advice and have certainly been thankful for the reference the books have provided, we now know firsthand that what is best for other babies may not be best for Colton (and vice versa). I will never again think badly about how parents choose to do things with their baby (unless of course it’s abuse or blatantly wrong). And Josh would have you know that he knew this all along, he was just waiting on me to figure it out!

Daycare is going very well and so is my return to full-time work. I’m so thankful to have a job I love and work with people that I enjoy spending my day with, that makes such a huge difference. It was incredibly hard to leave him that first day but we know he is in good hands. He does so many exciting things at daycare – they read, do finger-painting, motor skills activities and lots of other fun stuff like animal sounds. He loves watching the other babies, especially the older kids that are just starting to walk. He sits in a bumbo chair during circle time so he’s always part of the group. He’s the youngest but only by a month. Since he’s been at daycare he’s started picking up toys and will move them from one hand to the other. He “talks” to us A LOT. He’ll have conversations with you and then sometimes he just talks to himself or to his toys. He smiles and giggles and is generally a very happy baby. He is so aware of his surroundings now. He watches as we get his bottle ready and he loves to watch Darby, he’s just fascinated by him. Darby in return thinks Colton is rather tasty and loves to lick him.

Okay, enough updating. We have a fun next few weeks with Colton’s first Easter, my good friend Karla’s wedding, a trip to South Florida to meet my family and finally Caitlin’s wedding.

Hope this finds everyone doing well!

Love,

Jenny

PS – I updated the look of our blog so if you’re reading this in a reader or email make sure you click through and check it out.

Videos Not Working

Apparently Blogger is having issues with videos playing so you'll see an error when you try and watch them. From what I understand they are working on it, I won't be posting anymore videos until they get it fixed, hopefully soon. Sorry you have to miss Colton's giggles, they sure are cute!

Giggles and Grins

Since my last post was a more serious one I decided we needed to add something more fun. Here is a video clip of Colton and his new giggle. I can usually get him to do it when he's laying on his changing pad. He was hysterical laughing at the ceiling fan the other day with Josh, wish I had been there for that! It's the most amazing sound in the world. We make fools of ourselves trying to get him to do it again and again...

Bless His Little Heart

When Colton was born one of the first things we did was look at every little inch of his body. We counted fingers and toes, looked for birthmarks and inquired about the bump on his head (a hematoma formed by the way he was laying in my belly) and then thanked God for our perfect healthy boy. When you’re pregnant you’re constantly bombarded with all the things that can go wrong and you’re on guard making sure not to eat or drink the wrong thing for fear it might harm your baby. So when they arrive and they are healthy you definitely give thanks. A few days after Colton was born we were driving him to his first pediatricians visit. I’ll never forget the day, for many reasons. On the way there we talked about how blessed we were to have such a perfect little baby. He had already regained his birth weight (a whopping 8 lbs 14 oz) and he had managed to avoid jaundice and lots of the other little baby issues that often arise. Now we had our fair share of difficulties but those were more of our own and not really Colton (he could care less about how much and when he was sleeping!).

Fast forward to the doctors visit. His pediatrician is wonderful and we were so lucky to get her. She hasn’t been accepting new patients for quite a while but a friend of mine has taken his kids to her for 15 years so he went in personally and requested that she accept us and she agreed. After our initial meeting and “my you have a big baby!” she started to listen to his heart. I remember thinking she seems to really be concentrating so when she stopped and took off her stethoscope and turned to face us I knew something was wrong. She very directly looked at us and said “I hear a murmur, it sounds like it could be a small defect or hole in his heart.” Ugh, what? All of the pride in our little perfect baby immediately turned to fear. The tears started welling and she quickly told us that this was common, it probably was nothing to worry about, but she was sending us immediately to the Pediatric Congenital Heart Disease Center at Shands. That drive was the longest and hardest drive ever. Our only experience with anything like this was when friends of ours had a baby that shortly after birth had heart complications and ended up needing emergency care and open heart surgery. Now Evan is a happy and healthy little boy but I remember all that his parents went through and how scary and touch and go it was for a while.

We arrived at Shands and let me tell you, it got even scarier! The waiting room was full of kids that were very sick and many were wheelchair bound. It was also the waiting room for the pediatric cancer center. What in the world are we doing here with our 4 day old healthy little boy!?!? Long story short, they did an EKG and an ultrasound of his heart and then we met with the doctor. The whole process took several hours during which we had no idea what was going on! Finally the doctor came in and met with us and explained that Colton had a ventricular septal defect or VSD. About 1 percent of babies are born with this and it has varying degrees of complexity. Colton’s was so small that he felt confident in telling us that it would probably close on its own and even if it never did it would NOT (not now or ever) impact his life. What an enormous sigh of relief.

Since that day we have continued to check in with his pediatrician for his normal visits and each time she tells us it sounds like it’s getting smaller and smaller. Today was a 3 month follow-up with the cardiologist and the report was even better. It’s still there but it’s so small that they could barely even find it. They absolutely believe it will be gone before he is one.

I decided to post about this for a few reasons. First of all, we hadn’t told any of our family or friends because we didn’t want anyone to worry. Secondly, because I’m using this blog to document the first years of Colton’s life and I want him to know about this one day. I want him to know what he put his mommy and daddy through even at just a few days old :-) and I want him to know how much we love him and how every single day that we get to share with him means the world to us.

I’m including a few photos from today’s visit. That last photo just cracks me up. That's typical Colton, he MUST be standing (which he does nearly on his own) and he loves to smile and jump up and down.

Love always,

Jenny