Happy Birthday Little Man!

Today is Alan's 1st birthday! I can't believe how big he has gotten over the past year. This time last year was a massive onslaught of emotions. We were frustrated that there wasn't more done to help him keep baking, elated that he was born, devastated that he wasn't healthy and above all, mentally and physically exhausted. But the Lord was with us each step of the way, whether is was a step forward or backwards He was still with us. Now we have a beautiful...well Hansome....young man that never ceases to amaze us each and every day! Here are some pictures from his birthday and a few videos!



















Good Morning Birthday Boy!! He was extra happy this morning when I came in to get him...but his diaper was really gross so I think that is why he was happy ;)

Eating his birthday muffin....9am is a little too early to do cake so we did muffins instead!


Here we are singing Happy Birthday to him along with Matt's explanation as to why we are doing it so early. :)

Checking out his new toy from Mommy and Daddy! It is a little push/ride car. So far he really likes it! I just hope this helps his balance and walking skills! :)

And here is his trying to get around on it. At least he has figured out how to get off of it without falling!!! :) Always a good thing!

Just for entertainment purposes.

So I decided to just post pictures. No updates or anything, just pictures. So I hope you all enjoy!

What a week.

What a doozy of a week this has been already. The week started out on the rough side on Sunday. We didn't end up going to Sunday night service because Alan was having a VERY rough day. He was up at 8am and only slept for a whopping hour and a half until he went to bed for the night around 6pm. Needless to say he was crying, fussing and didn't want to eat or drink anything. It is never a good sign when this is how your week starts.
Monday was pretty calm though. Alan and I just relaxed for the day and he was a much happier baby. Everyone's schedule was back to normal and life was good......until Tuesday came around. I had a doctors appointment on Tuesday to find out how to get my body back on track so we can start trying for baby number 2. No we are not actively trying right now, but we would like to have another one on the way around Christmas time. Well the doctor said the 1) I need to stop nursing Alan very soon. 2) I need to put some weight on because I am unhealthy thin 3) I probably have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and 4) If I am not pregnant in 3 months or my body hasn't figured itself out in 3 months, we are starting fertility treatments. So needless to say, that is A LOT of information to get thrown at you all at once. And honestly some of that is really scary for me. I know that the next 3 months are probably going to be one huge roller coaster of an emotional ride. Fertility treatments was something that they had discussed when we were trying for Alan and it wasn't a settling thought for Matt or myself. We had seen what his sister and brother-in-law went through and we were not sure if we were willing to go down that road. Now the same split in the road is before us again. We are just going to have to start diligently praying for the Lord's guidance and for His hand of healing to fix whatever is wrong. After all of that Alan and I went home and had a lazy afternoon. Matt wasn't sure when he was going to get home so I just got Alan ready for bed around 4:30 so he could eat and then go to sleep for a bit before Matt got home. My son had other plans. While I was trying to get his clothes on, he touched the light bulb on his lamp next to his changing table. He cried and I looked at his finger and it didn't look bad at all. Just a little red so I put some ice on it to make it feel better and then put him in his highchair to eat dinner. I took Tater outside really quick to go potty and when I came back in I checked Alan's finger again. This time it was blistered really badly. So off to urgent care we went. Turns out he had a second degree burn on his left index finger and would have to be seen at the burn unit at the hospital in the morning. :( So we went to the burn unit at the hospital at 8am on Wednesday. They scraped the blister off and then put a bandage/dry dressing on it. All was finished and we were getting ready to head out the door when I felt horrible and blacked out. Luckly I was sitting in a chair when it happened but it was scary none the less. The rest of Wednesday was spent resting. Not very exciting at all. Our pastor's wife came over and stayed with Alan and I for the afternoon to make sure that we were all ok since I was still a little shaky.
Thursday was a little better. I felt better and Alan and I went to the doctor to see if everything was ok with me. They did a CBC panel, a complete thyroid panel and a full metabolic panel to see what my body was doing. We should get some results back soon. Hopefully this will answer a few questions for us.
Friday was calm until Matt called on his way home from work to tell me that he would have to go into work at 0730 on Sunday for training. There had been several incidents with sailors and because of that there was manditory training. :( No fun at all. So our weekend got cut short and I had to try to get everything ready for church on my own on Sunday. We successfully made it to church on time but not without our standard bumps and bruises. :) I hope that next week is better. I will put some pictures up of Alan here shortly but just don't have the energy to do so right now. Hope everyone else is having a good week!

Great excitement!

We have had a pretty good past 2 weeks. Nothing really exciting happened last week but we all had some time to just rest and relax. Matt is finally on reduced hours and flex hours at work so he was able to come home early every day last week which was VERY nice! He is currently almost 10% ahead of the curve at work. The curve changes daily but it is the "you should be here" marker for his work. Right now he is #2 in his class for his boat. I hope the keeps up the good work and stays far ahead of the curve! :)
My doctors appointment went great! The surgery on my eye was successful! :) I will have to deal with my eye "wandering" still but not to the extent that it was before. I am able to control it much easier and it only moves when I am REALLY tired or trying to look at something by turning my eyes and not my head. *note to self...please turn your head when you are trying to focus on something. Thank you* I have some eye exercises to do every day now. They are called "toothbrush push ups." Actually all I have to do is focus on the end of my toothbrush and move it closer to my eyes until my eyes are good and crossed and then hold it for a minute. I have had to do these since I was little so I know how to do them...the other one though is REALLY hard. I have to make 3 cats show up on the paper and one has to have whiskers, ears and a tail. I have only accomplished that one once and it was for about 2 seconds. :) Guess I have to keep working on it. But the doctor told me that it was hard for people without lazy eyes do to it which means it is REALLY hard for those of us with a lazy eye to get it to work. She did say just to keep at it and if I can't get it at first that is fine. I will get it to work eventually.
Other excitement for this week. Alan went to see the doctor yesterday for his reflux medicine. He got weighed and measured and our little boy is getting big! He weighs 18lbs 10oz and that puts him in the 16th percentile for weight. He is 29.75 inches long and is in the 86th percentile for height. Yes he is tall and super skinny. Alan is almost half my size. I am 66 inches so not much longer and he will be catching up to me. YIKES! :) The doctor decided to change the times that he receives his medicines to see if that will help some. So today was the first day and so far so good. :) We also found two little white things in his mouth yesterday. Alan now has two little teeth on the bottom! The two middle ones showed up yesterday at the doctors and we all thought that he would get his left incisor first! Funny how that works. But we are soo excited that he finally has some teeth. Hopefully the rest of them come in quickly so we can be done with the teething for a bit. I am really over that drooling thing now. :) So that is all that has been going on for us lately. I hope everything is going well for everyone else! Have a great day!

I need to get better at this!

I know it is almost a month after I updated last. But life has a tendency to get in the way, if you know what I mean. :) So I had my eye surgery on April 13th and everything, as of right now, looks good! I go back to see the doctor on May 12th and we will know for sure how well it worked. I am hoping that the surgery fixed everything but I have a sinking feeling that it didn't. My right eye still wonders off from time to time. I am hoping that it will just get better as my muscles get stronger. Just have to keep praying that it will get fixed.
Our little man is growing so quickly! He is 18lbs 2oz right now and about 28.5in. He is a crawling and almost walking crazy man! I can't keep him still for 2 seconds and he "talks" all the time!! Alan can say mama, dada, ru-ru (for Tater since Tater says ruff ruff), baba and some other random sounds. I can't believe that in a few months he is going to be a (gasp) walker!!! And in a month, my little boy will be one!!! :( I am very sad about that. I don't know where the past year has gone. I still remember, like it was yesterday, when he was born and going to the hospital every day to see him. Can you believe that almost a year ago my little boy looked like this??? Now he is a big boy that is VERY independent! He doesn't like Mommy helping him get his toys out. He wants to be able to feed himself, although I won't let him do that yet. What happened to my little preemie sized baby boy? I know that in a few years I will be saying the same thing again. It truly is amazing how quickly time flies and it makes me cherish each and every moment more. On that note, Matt started back to work a week ago. Adjusting to the 12+ hour work day has been a little trying for Alan and me. Alan wakes up at 5:00am so he can see Matt before he goes to work. I personally don't enjoy having to get up that early but I know that Matt and Alan enjoy having a little time to spend together.
Alan will go back to sleep after he gets some food and he sleeps until 9:30 -10:00am. Then we do lunch and back down for a nap until 2:00pm. Then up for dinner/snack and back down again for another nap until about 7:00pm. Yes I know my kid spends most of his day sleeping now but it is what he has to do to be able to stay up until Matt gets home. Alan has his real dinner around 7:00-7:30pm and then has play time with Matt until he gets tired which is usually around 9:00pm. I hate that he goes to bed so late because then I am up until all hours of the night finishing up things for the next day. But with Matt coming home after 7:30pm it is kind of hard to get Alan to go to bed for the night at an earlier time. We are hoping in a few weeks, that Matt can get on reduced hours so he can come home a little earlier. That would make my life soooo much easier! :) Alan really does love his Daddy so much! That might be the reason that he said Dada first. I know that Dada is easier to say than Mama but I still think he just likes his Daddy more. ;)
We also just bought a new vehicle. :) We had come to the realization a little bit ago that Matt would not be able to ride his motorcycle in the snow in Groton, CT. That just doesn't work too well. So we were looking into getting a used Honda Civic like the one we had before. We really loved the new body style and we really enjoyed the Civic a lot! But while we were looking, we noticed that the USED Civics cost almost as much as a brand NEW Insight. The Insight gets better gas mileage and we can put Tater in the "trunk." The Insight is a hatchback so Tater can roam around back there and we don't have to worry about him getting all worried....or having Tater fur all over the place!! So we bought an Insight on Saturday! It will be ready for us today to pick up. It is the same color as our Accord too. :) We have his and hers vehicles now! Matt doesn't care too much about that but I really like the color of the cars. The only other one I would have gotten is the pretty burgundy Insight...but it was an LX and we wanted an EX and the only EX was the Polished Metal Metallic that we have on both cars. Once we get it home, I will try to take some pictures of it and post them. I am so excited about it and you can't beat 50+MPG! So that is the excitement of this past month. Oh and I am seriously thinking about making our blog private. I have it set up so I can see who comes to view the blog and there have been some people reading from places I know I don't know anyone from. I am going to do some research on how it works for those of you without a Gmail/Google account and I will get back to you.

We're Done!!! We're Done!!!

Well at least for almost 3 weeks!! Matt took his comprehensive final today and passed wonderfully! I am so very proud of him and glad that we now have the next few weeks to spend some time together. He grads on Friday morning and then done for 2 full weeks. :) YAY!

What a week!

Sorry I haven't updated from Alan's surgery but Thursday was crazy and today was better but I was exhausted until now.

Alan did WONDERFUL!!! He was such a good boy while they were getting him ready for surgery and the doctors came in to talk to me about everything that would happen. He was the first of many little kids waiting to get tubes put in Wednesday morning. Meaning he was already in getting his put in before 7am. It was a VERY early morning and Alan didn't sleep well the night before. But he had a lot of fluid in his middle ear area and also had some puss so Dr. Scarlett got it all cleaned out and tubes went in easily. Alan was really fussy after he woke up from the laughing gas but after some food he felt a little better, still not happy but better. We got home and he had some cereal and took a long nap and then was happy! We noticed right away that he could hear better and his balance was much better! He does not look like he is drunk anymore when he crawls!

My pre-op appointment went really well. We had some craziness trying to get down to the doctors but once we were there things went better. The doctor is planning on just doing surgery on my right eye now which is a huge blessing. She also said that since I am going to just have one eye done, she doesn't have to put me out for the operation. They will just knock me out long enough to do a local on my eye muscle and then just hang out in la-la land while they work. The big perk to that is that it doesn't take as long for me to come back to reality and I won't feel as sick as I would when I wake up from general anestesia. Considering that I really am not too excited about general anestesia anyway, this seems like a much better option.

Matt finished his last final on Thursday with a 3.4, I believe. All that is left is his comprehensive exam and then graduation! We are very excited because Matt's dad is coming down for graduation and his sister Leslie and her family are coming up too! I know Alan is excited to see his cousins again! I have a feeling that our living room might just be all toys by the end of the weekend! :) But I am totally ok with that.