Teething?!

Seems too early to me! Of course, our little man has never done anything by the book! I'm not 100% sure that's what this is that we're currently experiencing, but it would explain the fussiness/irritability/trouble napping (but has been sleeping pretty well during the night still) & sucking on hands. Jack's been so cute, sucking on those little hands of his. He's very tired, but having trouble napping. His nighttime sleeping has been pretty normal, waking early a few times for a bottle, but always goes back to bed fairly quickly. His cries are sometimes the same cries that he had after he got his 2mo shots, leading me to believe something is causing him some discomfort. He stops crying when you give him a finger to chew on, or his vibrating teething ring. Today I gave him a little orajel & that stopped the crying immediately (who knows if it's because he stopped feeling the pain, or if it's because he was tripped out about not being able to feel his mouth?! haha). I'm poking around in his mouth as often as I can, but don't feel anything yet. Of course, I've heard symptoms can last for awhile before you actually SEE a tooth. Great! Just when I thought we were growing out of the "fussy/colic" stage. Oh well, I'm making sure to give him some extra cuddles the past few days. Yesterday he napped on me for almost 3 hours, today we took a morning snoozer together. I do love that part! But, I'm not able to get much done around the house. I did get his laundry folded though, yay!
Last week was a busy one, like we thought. The trip home was great, it's always nice to see my family. I don't mind Matt traveling as much as long as I can go back and spend some time at my parents. The time seems to fly by! The wedding was a lot of fun, got to catch up with Carrie who's been a great friend of mine since forever. Got to see the Starks, which was nice since they live in Ohio & we don't see them more than once or twice a year these days. The rest of the time my mom & I hung out, went and saw a friend of hers who has kids (Jack slept the whole time, of course), and Matt and I got to visit with his grandparents before heading back up to Matt's parents to have dinner and pick up Oscar. This past Saturday we headed to Chris and Christines to hang out and have dinner, her family is in town from Bermuda and NC, and Matt's cousins and aunt & uncle were there for a short visit as well. Jack was pretty fussy that day, but it was nice to see everyone.Since today's Halloween, but Jack's too young to trick or treat, we plan to get him dressed up in his costume and take a few pics. Maybe we'll get to go for a walk, but I'm not too sure, it's already almost dark at 530. Ugh, guess that means winter's looming around the corner :-(   This weekend we're making another trip to West Lafayette for a bonfire with friends and family on Saturday night, and to hopefully see my grandma Martin who's feeling under the weather on Sunday. Next weekend we're going to the Bears/Lions game, and then the weekend after that we'll be back in Indiana for Thanksgiving, and in Lake Zurich for my mother in laws birthday party that weekend. Then, it's already December. Wow! I know everyone says it all the time, but seriously, where does the time go?! My baby's already 3 and a half months old & possibly teething, and we've somehow blown through my favorite part of the year, and we're just around the corner from my least favorite.
Check back soon for pictures of Jack in his costume. And, hopefully soon, pictures of his first tooth! Yikes! In the mean time, here's a few from the past few days...Carrie, Emily, me. Emily's wedding. 10.22.11
Jack holding his own bottle

Jack blowing bubbles 10.30.11 

The Luckiest

Last night Matt & I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. The day started off nicely. I got up early (voluntarily!), made breakfast, and we got to enjoy a nice semi-quiet breakfast together before Matt headed to work. The dog was there, begging for bacon of course. But, we never get to have time like that to ourselves anymore, so it was a nice change of pace. Although, we found ourselves talking about Jack, and checking the monitor every other minute. But that's alright! The traditional third year gift is glass, so I got some very nice long stemmed white wine glasses. Our big gift to eachother this year (and for the 2 years prior) is going to a Bears game. This year we'll be going on Nov 14th to the Bears/Lions game. Hopefully it'll be better than the game against them a few weeks ago! Immediately after we finished eating breakfast, Jack was beginning to stir, so I got him up and started our day. He's always in a good mood first thing in the morning, which is nice considering he hasn't eaten for about 10hrs. He's doing so well sleeping through the night now! He gets tired around 9, we do bath and bottle, get some cuddles in, and he's down by 10, waking again between 7-730 now. Sometimes he'll stir in the middle of the night, but always puts himself back to sleep without mommy having to go in there to soothe him :-)  When Matt got home from work, we all went out to dinner at The White Chocolate Grill in Naperville. It was really good. We splurged and I really enjoyed the southwest-ish chicken egg roll appetizer, crab cakes entre, and dessert which was a white chocolate brownie with icecream. I also enjoyed a white chocolate martini, or two ;-)

 
Best part of it, Jack was an angel the whole night! We knew we were taking a gamble taking him to a nice restaurant, but it was loud enough, and he was sleepy enough, that he looked around for awhile, then fell asleep just in time for dinner, waking right before we had to leave.


In other news, I didn't make it to dinner on Monday night like I had planned. I got a call from my friend saying her son was sick, so we will have to reschedule. This weekend promises to be a busy one: taking the dog to the Miner's tomorrow night so they can watch him for us for the weekend, driving to Lafayette Friday morning, Matt & I will be going to a wedding in Indy Saturday while my parents watch Jack, Matt's flying to Cali on Sunday morning for business, returning Tuesday night, at which time we'll drive home. So, I get a couple of extra days with my family, which is always nice. And, I hope to see Adam and Emily on Sunday since we have to miss their baby shower on Saturday.


Tonight, I think I get to get outta the house for awhile by myself! I want to stop by Once Upon a Child to check out their stuff. I've never been there, but I'm wanting to find some not-so-expensive toys/clothes for Jack. We desperately want to move in the upcomming year or so, and with me not working anymore, I'm trying to save $$ wherever possible! Hope to find at least a few things for him there. Luckily, we got so much stuff for him as gifts, we really haven't had to purchase much for him besides diapers, wipes, & formula, & a few other neccessities here & there. I also want to get my hair cut. I've been back and forth on whether or not to get a cute mom cut, but it's long now & I think I'll stick with it...for the time being!


Yesterday was a great day full of love & reminders of how blessed and lucky I am to have such a wonderful family! I really am the luckiest :-)

Here's Jack and his brother Oscar playing. 10.18.11

And Jack watching the Bears game with daddy. 10.16.11

Now I'm off to do a little reading and relaxing while baby naps!

Giving this a try.

Okay, so I'm going to try and write a blog again. I tried this once before, in college, and I found it fun (although most of my entries were super lame haha), I'm hoping family and friends will read this to keep up to date on the happenings of the Miner family, now one member bigger than a year ago! Christine started one while she was preggo, and has inspired me to start one. Hopefully I can post at least once and while, giving everyone updates on what's going on in our crazy and busy lives (you'd think that with a baby, you'd be less busy and enjoy quiet time at home...totally not the case!). Here we go...

On Thursday, July 14th, Jack Martin Miner was born at 4:50pm, weighing in at 7lbs 2oz and 18.5inches long. He was 3 and a half weeks early, but a perfect and healthy little guy. I went to the doctor for a follow up appointment from 2 days prior, when my fluid was measuring slightly low after doing an ultrasound to measure everything. Baby was moving and looked good, so the doctor ordered a follow up for 2 days later, to check again, and to monitor my bloodpressure which had been up for the previous 6ish weeks. Thursday, the doctor checked me (OUCH!), said I was 2cm dialated and that my fluid had looked like it had dropped more. That, combined with my high BP, concerned him and he instructed me to go to the hospital for further testing. I, without hospital bags packed yet, figured that was was going to be "THE day". So, I left the doctor, went home and packed everything, and somehow found myself in an oddly calm frame of mind. I was alone (I had been off of work for 2 weeks, dr ordered & light bed rest was suggested), Matt was at work, and I was calm, and ready to do this. Had Matt been there, I'm sure he would've been a crazy person, so I'm kind of glad I had those last few moments to myself haha. I got in the car, put on my Adele playlist, and headed to the hospital. Upon arriving, they hooked me up and I waited for the ultrasound tech to come do her thing. At that point, I was fairly certain I was having contractions every 4-5mins, lasting about a minute each time. I asked the nurse if this was normal (I had no idea!), she said some people start early and that the doctor would probably want to hold off on delivering for awhile yet, since I wasn't 37 weeks along just yet. She was wrong! The U.S. tech couldn't find what she was looking for, baby wasn't moving as much as they like to see (he scored a 6/8 on this "test"), so a few mintues after my very long ultrasound (I got to see him for a half hour while she was poking around! Although, it definitely hurt since I was having contractions), the doctor came in and said since he wasn't moving, nothing seemed wrong though, if it was ok, they'd go head and schedule an "emergency" c-section (we had been scheduled for one on Aug 2nd). I said YEP! I'm ready (just waiting on Matt at that point), let's do this! Matt got there just as they were prepping me. It was all so surreal, people running in and out of the room, craziness all over, and within 20 minutes of the doctor telling me we were going to do this, I was in the surgery room getting my spinal block. Matt got there around 3:15, I got into the surgery room at 3:28 where I got my spinal block and all hooked up and prepped, and by 4:50, Jack was safe in daddys arms. He was the most beautiful baby. It was rough not being able to hold him, but Matt sat right next to me with him while they got me all put back together. Our families were excitedly waiting out in the waiting room at this point, but it wasn't until 7:45ish when they finally got to meet him. They could only stay until about 830 (though visiting hours were over at 8), at which time Matt & I tried to get a little bit of rest. The rest of the hospital stay was nice, with family and friends visiting often. We checked out of there around 1pm on Sunday July 17th and it was really weird going home with our little man!

In the weeks following, we saw lots of our families and got to know our baby boy. Jack will probably be up from his nap soon, so I won't go into detail about everything that happened, but to sum it up: we left him with Gma and Gpa Martin for the first time so Matt and I could attend my 10yr highschool reunion, we went to my brother and Lindsey's wedding (he was awesome during the whole thing!), and we've had a few get togethers with the extended Miner clan and Jack's cousin Rylie, who's 5 weeks older than he is. His first few months were difficult due to his fussiness. We tried a few different formulas (altough the dr said it's probably just something he'll outgrow), which didn't work, and smelled horrible! He's just over 3 months old now, and is growing out of it. He's smiling a lot now, copying coos and smiles, and even laughed a small little giggle at daddy last night. He's been rolling over from tummy to back since he was about 2 days old, he's a strong little guy. And, he's sleeping through the night now, usually 10pm until 7/730am. I  miss those middle of the night feedings, but it's nice to finally not feel like a zombie anymore! Even though I know it'll hopefully be a year and a half before we try for another, I do have thoughts creep into my head about being pregnant and having another baby. I miss being pregnant. It was by no means an easy pregnancy, but luckily there were never any complications with him, and every day I'm thankful for our precious miracle.

Now that he's getting easier to keep from screaming, I don't feel so bad about leaving him with Matt for a few hours while I have a mom's night out. Thanks to Christine (Matt's cousins wife, and Rylie's mommy), I've joined a mommy group, met some really nice moms, and have been to 2 fun moms night out events, and one play date (although Jack was just 5 weeks old and not really "playing" haha). It's nice to talk with other moms about what's going on, and know they have the same fears/concerns/experiences, and can offer advice or suggestions. It's also nice to vent sometimes, since I'm no longer working, I don't have the girls at work to do that with anymore!


Now I'm off to wash bottles and clean up a bit before he wakes up. I'm having dinner with a friend from work tonight, she's bringing her little guy who's 10mo's old. Fingers crossed Jack's a good boy!

 3mo's old