1 Year doctor's visit and other stuff

Today we had Donovan's one year well visit at the doctors and what a relief it was! This was our first official office visit with our new doctor, Dr Rezabeck, and we were a little nervous to see if we liked him as much as we hoped we did. And we were not disappointed! Our visit today was a complete 180 from my last well visit, which was at the previous Pediatrician's office. I felt like Dr Rezabeck did a great job of relating to both Donovan and Tom and I, he was very through in his examination and most importantly he answered all of our questions and we didn't feel rushed once! It is such a weight off of our chest to feel like we finally have a pediatrician that is the perfect fit for us. So needless to say, we are very happy with the whole experience. If you ask Donovan though he might have the opposite opinion. He was placed on his back several times for measuring and examining and boy is that rude according to him. I think he is part turtle, as soon as he is on his back he panics and tries to flip over all the while screaming at you to let you know how much of a jerk you are for requesting this back time. He also had to get three shots. I feel bad for the lady that had to give them to him. He screamed bloody murder, had huge tears streaming down his face and did not stop let her out of his sight until she left the room. Soon as she left the room the crying stopped as he saw the "threat" was finally gone. At least he gets the shots in his arms now so we don't have to hold him laying down on the table. Now he can just sit on my lap which is much nicer. Ok, on to the stats... (Did I mention the new place writes down both the stats and the percentages and gives them to you without even asking? Awesome!!!)

Weight: 24lbs 10oz- 75th percentile
Length: 30 1/2 inches- 72nd percentile
Head circumference: 19 inches- 93rd percentile

Fun one year old stats:
Number of teeth- 4 (two on top, two on bottom)
Shoe size-4
Diaper size- 4 (anyone noticing a pattern?)
Clothing size- 12-18 months

So he seems to be slowing down as far as the height and weight go but dang he's got a big head! Guess that's why he's so smart! On to the updates on how he is doing with everything since last month:

Eating: Officially not a baby food eater. We don't even offer it anymore. He is doing much better with the variety of food he eats. A sample menu now is: Breakfast- 6oz yogurt (no chunks of fruit in them please, he spits them out), cheerios and graham crackers or toast and water to drink. Lunch- Deli meat, American cheese slice, pineapple (he loves it!), and green beans (water to drink). Dessert is always little corn puffs that he loves. Dinner- Chef Boyardee pasta and meatballs, cheese slice, carrots and jar of applesauce. Puffs (veggie dip flavor preferably) for desert again. Other things that he does really well with eating are: black beans (loves them and eats them like candy... and eats them whole), Lima beans, peas, asparagus, corn, strawberries, kiwi, beans and weenies and a few more things that I am sure I am forgetting. I really can't complain about his eating, he is doing so well and is very adventurous with what he will try. Maybe it will rub off on his parents. I think what has really helped his appetite is that we cut back on the milk. He now gets a 6 oz bottle when he wakes up around 5 or 6 am. Then we eat breakfast around 9 or 9:30 depending on when he woke up for good. His next bottle is now given in a sippy cup and is only 4 oz. He does really well taking it from a sippy cup when he is thirsty, he won't miss a drop, but when you offer it to him and he is not thirsty then he chews the milk with his mouth open and it becomes a very messy affair. Then he gets an afternoon bottle, again in the sippy cup, somewhere between lunch and dinner, and again that is only 4 oz. Lately we have had some days where he skips the second 4 oz bottle because of his schedule so on days where I foresee that happening, I try to offer him 6 oz in the first sippy cup. And then of course he gets his 8oz in a bottle before bed. So he still gets between 18-22 oz of milk a day but now that he isn't so full of formula all the time, he eats wonderfully!

We told our Pediatrician what we were doing as far as bottles and sippy cups for drinking the milk and he was great with it. He said that as long as he still doesn't have many teeth the bottle will be better for him. He said as long as he is off the bottle by 18 months he will be happy. I was happy to hear that because I have been reading about getting kids totally bottle weaned by 12 months and that has never made sense to me. Technically they should all be breastfeeding until AT LEAST 12 months old so you are telling me that you are just supposed to rip the nipple out of those kids mouths and cut them off cold turkey? Doesn't make sense to me. He also told us we can start switching him to whole milk but that we can start slow. So we did and tonight before bed Dono got a mix of 2 oz whole milk and 6 oz formula. Didn't faze him. Hopefully he sleeps well and doesn't get a tummy ache either.

Mobility: As far as walking goes Donovan is walking 99% of the time. He uses crawling as a back up but as each day goes by he does it less and less. I honestly can't remember seeing him crawl at all today and we were home together all day. It is so fun to see him getting better at it by the day. When Tom went out of town a few weeks ago now he was amazed at how well Donovan was walking when he got back just two days later. Tom said that if someone had asked him on wed when he left how much Donovan was walking, he would have said 50% of the time. But when he came back on Friday he would have said 90% of the time. It is just amazing how fast these little guys learn. His little knees are loving the break they are getting from the crawling. The rug burns that have been a fixture on both knees since about 7 months are fading and will be gone before we know it! Only to be quickly replaced with head bumps and scrapes now but it comes with the territory.

Sleeping/naps: Not much news to report here. Still waking up for a feeding around 5 or 6 and then sleeping until around 9. Dr Rezabeck is ok with that and so are we so no plans to try and change that for now. His naps are getting to be amazing. His first nap is now usually a minimum of 1hr 15 min and a max of 2 hours. Sometimes he will skip his second nap if he takes a 2 hour first nap and it was late but generally he will go back down for a 30 minute nap in the afternoon. During his first nap he will at some point, usually wake up and fuss, but you can tell his heart is not in it and he is just trying to talk himself back to sleep. So I let him. And let me tell you, long naps are amazing. Good for mommy naps, and good for mommy getting things done.

Activities: Since Donovan has now become a walker one of his favorite things to do is play chase. He doesn't really get it fully and will actually walk TO you when you are chasing him but he loves it so much when you "get" him and tickle all of the giggles out of him. We love it too of course. He also loves to take things out of things, and then put them back in. For example, we have a small bumper pool table in our basement and just the other day he looked into one of the two pockets and found a treasure chest of the pool balls. He then spent the next 30 minutes or so taking the balls out and either handing them to Tom, throwing them on the ground, or putting them on the table top and then putting them back in the pocket after he felt that he had taken too many out. Then he would do it all over again. Same thing with his toys and the toy boxes. Oh and sneezing is still hilarious. A sneeze, whether real or fake, can get him giggling in no time.

And I would like to take this opportunity to recant my earlier statements about not ever wanting Donovan to get upper teeth because I loved his gummy smile so much. Now that I have seen how cute two gap teeth on a 1 year old can be I wonder how I ever thought that a gummy smile could have been cuter. Not possible.

Now on to what you all really came here for, pictures of the little man. These were all taken last week when my parents were in town but seeing as though I still have some serious blog catching up to do, I am using them.

Dino and his dad after a bath.

Nakedly taking books off of his shelf, another hobby.

Reading to Auntie Jenna post-bath.


My parents took Donovan to a local playground where he likes to swing. He does look a little shocked to be swinging at first though.

See, I told you he liked it!


Donovan showing everyone how much he loves his Petey dog. It is so cute! You have to hold Petey there but he tolerates the hugging, hitting, slobbering and jumping that goes on once Donovan gets a hold of him. Probably doesn't hurt that he gets a big treat after it afterwards either.


Grandma B supervising the playground time, aka making sure Donovan doesn't eat the rocks (which is his main M.O.)

Yucky

Today in the span of about a minute and a half Donovan grabbed a fresh Petey poop in his hand and then after I had washed his hands and set him down on the ground in the bathroom, as I was wiping down the sink I heard something and I turned to see that Donovan not only had taught himself to open the lid of the toilet, but also splash his hands in the toilet water. Eeeeewww.

And yes, I realize that was a run-on sentence. I happen to like them. It's how I talk.

Birfday party

Sunday the 18th we had Donovan's big birthday party. It was a dinosaur theme and we had some really cute decorations which we unfortunately did not take a single picture of. In case you haven't noticed "Dino" is one of Donovan's nicknames so we thought a dinosaur theme would be perfect for our little dinosaur. All in all we had 45 people come to the party (all though not all 45 were there at the same time). It was absolutely perfect weather so we really lucked out as some people hung out outside so it wasn't so packed inside. We had Psghetti's for lunch and found out that Donovan really loves their pasta and garlic bread. Then we opened presents and all I can say is thank God for Logan and Sophia! They are two young family friends who I roped into helping me and Donovan open up all the presents. They did such a great job helping and probably helped us to cut the present opening time in half at least. Donovan was too little to really open anything so I was just sweating with everyone starting at me trying to open all of the presents with a clingy Dino on my lap. Once I drafted Logan and Sophia though, things went much smoother.

After presents we all gathered to sing Donovan "Happy Birthday" and watch him eat his first cupcake. He had never had a cupcake before and I was nervous that we wouldn't be interested and wouldn't "perform". Well he performed alright, it just wasn't the performance I had in mind. Donovan touched the icing, looked at his finger and then fussed for me to pick him up. When I did not pick him up immediately but instead tried to interest him in the cupcake he threw his arms around and got a lot of icing on his arm. This really made him mad. He just melted down after this so we wiped him off and dried his crocodile tears and his mean old mom finally picked him up. I think he was just a) not hungry, b) overwhelmed with all those people there and c) not interested in trying anything new at that point. Nobody said birthday parties weren't hard. He was pretty clingy all day but it worked to everyone's advantage because he wanted to be held the whole time but really didn't care who was holding him so lots of people got to hold and play with him that day. All in all though I would call it a very successful day! Thanks to all our family and friends who made the trip in and helped us celebrate our special little man's first birthday!

Getting excited for the big day with Auntie Jenna.

Modeling his birthday crown that Tom and I made for him. He tolerated it pretty well and wore it while welcoming everyone to the party but by the time we got to the singing and the cake, we totally forgot to put it back on. Oops. Checking out that handsome man in the mirror.
Present time. I swear Donovan is in that picture somewhere.
Testing out his new wheels from mommy and daddy. He loves taking rides around our basement in it. He loves it even more if someone tries to tickle him as he cruises by (with the help of a mommy or daddy pushing).
More trucks! A boy can never have too many trucks!
Taking a break while Sophia, Logan, mommy and daddy continued with the present opening. Here he is playing with Sophia's baby doll that she named "Donovan". Too cute.
Unsure of what that bright thing is that mommy is holding so close to him.
Tentatively touching the icing. "I don't know about this."
"Ok, I know about this and I HATE this! It's sticky and weird! And why aren't you picking me up already? I want OUT!"
"I really mean it guys, please pick me up!"
All together now, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!"

He cheered up after he got cleaned up and played on the deck for a little while.

Showing his undies and checking out his new bookshelf.

Donovan, always the gentleman, letting his girlfriend Claire take spin around in the Cozy Coupe.

Unwinding after a long day with some reading.

Busy

Man have we been busy lately. Let me recap for everyone just exactly how hectic and busy our life has been these past few weeks. Don't worry I will just give you the cliff notes version but I feel I need to explain why my posts have been lacking lately. Lets begin all the way back to April 14th...

Wed April 14th- Off work but Single parenting-it as Tom leaves for work trip to New York. Had friends over to keep me company that night.
Thurs April 15th- Single parenting again, Tom's mom watched Dono for a few hours while I got my first haircut since Donovan was born.
Fri April 16th- Worked 11a-11:30pm. Tom gets home from New York. My parents came in town for the week of festivities.
Sat April 17th- Crazy cleaning and errands day in preparation for Dono's first birthday party the next day. Dinner with work friends to celebrate some birthdays. Home for more cleaning.
Sun April 18th- More crazy cleaning and errands then Dono's birthday party. A success! Now when do I get to nap?
Mon- Wed April 19-21st- Work 11am-11:30pm everyday. Even on my wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary to us!
Thurs April 22nd- Happy birthday to Donovan! More errands and lots to do in preparation for the weekend. Celebrated Dino's birthday with my parents and Tom's parents. Packing for the weekend.
Fri April 23rd- More packing. Drove to Chicago, got my final dress fitting. Wedding rehearsal for my cousins wedding, then Rehearsal dinner.
Sat April 24th- Hair appointment, wedding pictures. Wedding. More pictures and then wedding reception.
Sun April 25th- Visiting with family and packing up. Driving home to St Louis. Exhausted.

And to top it all off I was supposed to work today but they called to see if I wanted to stay home as they were slow. So in a moment of weakness I said yes and got the day off. And those were just the cliff notes people! There is a lot I left out, you will just have to trust me we have been busy. I have lots more time now so let the blogging re-commence!

April 22nd

I am sitting here thinking about where we were a year ago today and it is all I can do not to cry as I am writing this. I feel so blessed. Scratch that. I am so blessed. This time last year I was probably doing the same thing I am right now. Playing on the computer and winding down after a long 12 hour shift at work. It seems like forever ago. Was there even life before Donovan came along? I know it must be true but I can't seem to remember that life very well. I remember that I never wrote on how Donovan's birthday came to be so while I have a few minutes (who needs sleep?), let me reminisce.

Donovan (baby Q as we affectionately called him at the time) was due April 23rd. Weeks prior to this date my Dr had said that there was no way I was going to be pregnant still by the time my due date rolled around, but incase I was they would start doing weekly testing on the baby and my fluid to make sure everything was ok. Well April 22nd rolled around and I was still pregnant. That was the day that I was scheduled for my 40 week appointment. I think it was a 10:30 appt if memory serves and my Dr's office called a little bit before to tell me my Dr was busy at the hospital and to see if I wanted to see the other Dr, the Nurse Practitioner or to reschedule. The other Dr, Dr Smith, is great so I chose her because I know her well from her time as a resident at St Johns and I thought I could tell her how miserable and painful it was for me to work the previous day and I could get her to talk my Dr into inducing me by 41 weeks. She started off the appointment by listening to the baby's heart rate, which had been in the 140s always and that day it was in the 1 teens to 120s. I noted that and told her I was a little concerned since it had always been higher. She said that if I had time we could do the testing that my Dr had talked about doing right there in the office right then which I quickly agreed to so I could reassure myself everything was alright.

The first test she did was called an NST. Basically they put baby on the monitor and monitor my contractions and the baby's heart rate. I happen to do these tests all the time on patients at work so I know what a happy baby looks like. My baby did not look happy. It didn't look bad either, it just didn't look great. I was also sitting in a position I knew could be the cause of the bad strip of monitoring so I decided that if the second part of the testing was fine, I was going to have the Dr repeat the monitoring with me in a better position for baby. Then when she did the second test, which was an ultrasound to measure the fluid level around baby, that was low (5cm of fluid). Normal is between 8-20. So Dr Smith called Dr Shelton and they both agreed that today needed to be the day we met Baby Q. They let me go home, pack up my stuff, eat something and wait for Tom to get home but then we were straight to the hospital for all the fun to begin. I remember that Tom was at Jimmy John's eating lunch with some co-workers when I called and said "You need to come home, we are going to have a baby today." Of course knowing what I know as a labor and delivery nurse, I knew that since this was my first baby and I was only dilated to 2 cm that the birthday very well was going to be the next day, April 23rd and our original due date. I remember driving to the hospital with Tom and I was amazed how calm we both were. Tom was asking me what time I thought we would deliver and I was predicting and hoping it was at least by 2 or 3 am.

So we got to the hospital and checked in to the room I had had my eye on for the past few months. Nice, big and brand new. I remember my IV hurting so bad but I told myself that soon enough I wouldn't even notice the pain because of the contractions. One of the residents came in to say hi before they put me on the Pitocin and she was impressed with how much I was contracting already, she had thought they had already started the medicine. They started the pitocin sometime around 1:30 or 2pm I think. I think I closed my eyes for a few minutes before I started to feel the pain. They didn't have to give me much medicine to get labor in full swing, I only got to 7 on the Pitocin (normally people can go up to 20). I remember I really started to feel uncomfortable around 4pm. All of my labor was back labor and that was so painful. I spent most of the time alternating between standing and sitting on the birthing ball. Tom was such a good labor support guy. I would tell him when a contraction was starting and he was rub and/or push on my lower back as hard as he could. I definitely could not have done it without him. Then around 5 or 5:30 my nurse asked if I was ready to be checked. I told her I would wait another 30 min just to call her right back in and change my mind as soon as she had left the room. I was hoping I was at least 3 cm dilated so that I had made some change and could get my epidural and to my suprise I was 4cm and 90% effaced.

The doctor that did my epidural was amazing. She was so fast, I didn't even feel a thing and next thing I know she was having me lay down so she could test it and give me my medicine. At first it did not seem like it was working so she gave me a little more medicine before mentioning we might have to replace it which I was terrified of doing. Luckily the extra medicine was exactlty what I needed. I had a little panic episode a little bit after the epidural was placed and it turned out my blood pressure had just dropped due to the epidural medicine so that was fixed pretty fast. At some point after that Donovan's heart rate was doing some big dips so the nurse said we might have to break my water and place internal monitors. Again, I don't know how I stayed so calm but I knew what his heart tones were and I knew that they would be ok so I said I wanted to see if we could do without either of those things because I have seen too many things go wrong the more interventions you do. So around 6 or 6:30 I was resting, trying to get a last minute nap when I felt a pop and a big gush and my water had broken on it's own. At that point I was dilated to a 6 so I was impressed by how fast everything seemed to be going.

My night nurse Leah, came in a little after 7 and checked me and I was a 7 at that point. She told me to let her know if and when I started feeling pressure in my bottom, which is what we tell our patients because that is usually what they report it feels like when they are 10cm dilated. Sure enough not too long after we had that conversation I started feeling it. It didn't hurt and I didn't tell her because I already knew that I was complete and ready to push but I wanted to use my contractions to get the baby as low as I could before I had to start pushing, and my doctor was around and I didn't want her to know I was complete yet. So at 8:43 Dr Shelton came in to round on me and checked me. I remember her saying, "What do you think you are?" and I said "Complete plus 2" which means the baby is way down and you are ready to push. She said that was exactly what I was and that we were to start pushing. So Leah, Tom and I started pushing a little before 9pm. My contractions were coming every 2 minutes which meant I had about 60 seconds to catch my breath between contractions. I thought that was too short of a break time so I asked Leah if we could push everyother contraction, which is what we did. At one point the resident that was going to be in my delivery came in and I used that as a distraction so that I would get to skip pushing with everyother contraction and get more of a break which she promptly busted me for.

The pushing was very strange. I felt no pain but I could feel him actually moving down. I knew exactly when I was pushing well, and when I wasn't. At some point we were ready and all we were waiting for was Dr Shelton to finish her salad at the nurses station. I remember thinking that it must have been the largest salad in the history of salads. Once she finally came in we pushed with a few more contractions and out popped a boy!!!!!! At 9:43 pm Donovan Charles was born. Tom got to announce that it was a boy and he even cut the cord. Tom was a little nervous about what he was going to see before the whole event started but once we started pushing he got over that and did everything a daddy should do. My friend Lizzie was my baby nurse, or Donovan's first nurse as we can officially call it. She put him on my chest and let him stay there for a long time. I kept telling her "It's ok Lizzie, you can take him to the warmer" but she just left him on me. It was a good thing too because after contracting for the past 12 weeks and then delivering a baby, my uterus decided it was tired so I was bleeding a lot and the doctors were doing some not so nice things to me to keep the bleeding down so Donovan was a good distraction. It was only after Donovan was born that we even called my parents to tell them we had been in the hospital. My mom is a worrier and being that they were in Denver she knew all she would do is worry when she knew I was in the hospital so she specifically asked me to not tell her I was in the hospital until it was all over. I had even called her on my way home from the doctor's earlier that day and told her that I had no news so they were caught off guard in a good way when we called later to tell them that was a lie. Then we called my sister, and Tom's parents and brother who all came up to the hospital to meet Donovan.

From minute one we were all in love. There is no sight more beautiful than seeing your perfectly healthy new best friend that you have been patient and not-so-patiently waiting for. It is indescribable. I have tears running down my face as I think about it now. It is funny though because the whole time from right after Donovan was born until the time we left the hospital, Donovan never really cried. He would grunt and talk but not really wind up and wail or even just cry. We were telling everybody that we got the best baby and "Look how great he is, he doesn't even cry!". HA. HA. Joke was on us. Donovan is the loudest kid I know and has been so ever since we brought him home. We haven't even used a baby monitor since he was about 5 months of age.

So that is the long and short of Donovan's birth and how his birthday came to be. My labor was pretty quick for a first time mom so I count myself to be very lucky. For that reason and many others that is. Here are some pictures from the birthday.

The end of an era

We are drawing to a close of the end of an era... that era being the era of the toothless grins. As of last wed, Donovan's two upper teeth popped through. Tom and I had been watching them for the week prior and we could see they were so close but they just held off on popping all the way through until wed. Pretty much the entire width of the teeth have popped through now and it looks like Dino is going to have a sizable little gap between them so we have that cuteness to look forward too.

Take a good look folks, this smile is around for a limited time only.


These two pictures have noting to do with smiling but I wanted to post them because I love when he sits like this.



Donovan has also had a couple of firsts lately. Two Sundays ago now he started clapping and now does it all the time.

And this past Friday Donovan got to enjoy his first bar-b-que and deck dining. Our siblings came over and so did our friends Kris and Lynn. Lynn is busy growing Penelope, one of the Dino's future girlfriends so we are very excited for them. Penelope should be making her arrival in June and we can't wait!

The whole crew minus me. Apparently Kris and Lynn don't know how to look at cameras. Way to go guys, even Donovan knows how to look at a camera and he just a bay-bay.

Enjoying strawberries. He likes them! He also enjoyed the hamburger his daddy grilled for him.

Winding down the night by roping Lynn into reading to him. This kid loves to read and we love to read to him.

Easter weekend

Yesterday we kicked off the beautiful weekend with a get together at our very good family friends house. They had our family and their extended family over for lunch, an Easter egg hunt and a bonfire. We had a blast! Donovan got 5 eggs during the hunt and made out like a bandit with 45 cents and two pieces of candy. What a lucky dude! Here are some pictures from the day.

Dono and his grandparents and his Easter bags. He wasn't interested in opening them but he sure did like what was in them once his Grammie did all the work for him!

His new truck. He loved it!

Sliding down the slide with Grammie. She's the best!

Then today we headed over to Tom's parents for Easter lunch/dinner. Donovan got more presents there. He was just as aloof about opening them as he was yesterday so grammie and I had to help him again. His favorite (just like yesterday) was shaking the eggs with money (change) in them and hearing the sound. Chewing on them wasn't so bad either.




Daddy got some goodies too, including this solid piece of chocolate. Shaped like a baseball glove and ball for the start of the season tomorrow. Go Cards!

Walking Proof

He's walking!

So tonight Tom and I can officially say that Donovan is walking! Since Sunday he has been getting braver and braver and taking more and more steps but today, and more specifically this evening he turned a corner. Tonight he was walking more than he was crawling and even though he looks like a drunk man when he walks, it still gets him from here to there. We didn't get any video as we were too busy clapping and cheering him on tonight so I will hand that task to Tom to try to get on film and post tomorrow (I have to work, sad face).

Also I forgot to mention that on Sunday he learned to clap and does it all the time now! Especially when he is doing something naughty and you tell him no, he claps and laughs and thinks it's so funny.

And on another funny note, tonight when Tom left to get us dinner Donovan and I headed outside to enjoy the nice weather. It was the first time I let him crawl on the driveway with shorts on and he did not like the feeling of the concrete on his knees. So he decided that he would crawl on his hands and feet, kind of like the kid in the Jungle Book movie when he is trying to crawl like a bear. It is adorable and we will try to get some video of that too.