Christmas Card

Picture Tree Christmas

Personalized Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Family Time!

Saturday morning brought beautiful weather to Charlottesville and the perfect opportunity to introduce Joe to Grey's and my favorite place to walk, the Saunders-Monticello trail. We usually go with my friend, Caryn and her twin daughters, but we dragged Daddy along since our girls are out of town. It was a perfect day and we had a great time. Greyson seems to be enjoying his stroller a lot and when he got tired and hungry, he had some snuggly time in the Ergobaby carrier with Momma.

Daddy and Grey at the top of the trail

Both Grey and Momma love this carrier

The other babies on the trail were
checking out this cool kid!

Happy HALF birthday, Greyson!

First Day of School

So, the dreaded first day of school came and went and here's the truth. It was awful. I didn't want to leave my baby. I didn't want to go to work. I had built this up in my head to be this horrible thing and it weighed on me.

I made it through the first day. I cried on and off, but overall, I knew it was okay. By the time the teacher workweek was over, I was still sad and missing sweet Greyson. Then, the kids returned to classes. I have no time to think about him. I have no time to worry or feel bad for myself. I'm too busy to beat myself up about not being able to spend my days with him. What a blessing!

This is my 6th school year of teaching Level One Spanish and I've finally "hit my stride." My students are awesome and I am so grateful to have them to distract me from my self pity. I was surprised to find I felt really good being back in the classroom. Motherhood is stressful and full of choices and as a newbie momma I find myself obsessing over the best way everything. It's good to have that feeling of competence and confidence in something again.

One of the few firsts I was not looking forward to...

I'm sitting on the couch snuggling with my little space heater who is snoring like Darth Vadar. Poor Greyson has a cold, his first. Despite all of his low grade fever, coughing, sneezing and faucet-like leaking from this nose, he actually was in a pretty decent mood. Seriously, his vaccinations have brought on grumpier moods than this cold has.

It all started Friday when I noticed the poor guy's voice sounded a little scratchy. Saturday it was apparent that he was congested and by mid-day he had a temp around 100. I started asking around about tips and tricks to help keep baby comfortable and by Sunday morning I was frantically calling around to see what do for Grey. We've spent the whole day hanging out next to the humidifier or in the steamed up bathroom. The little boy has only been able to sleep if he had someone holding him. We're expecting he'll need to stay home tomorrow.

I'll leave you with a peak of our little invalid having a little play time with Momma.

Father and Son

Joe and Greyson have been in love with each other since first sight. My little boy can't get enough of looking at his Daddy's face. They play and giggle whenever they can. This week started with a toy tune up. I knew Joe couldn't possibly object when I found the coolest toy on super clearance this week and that it would be installed before dinner. Now father and son can bond over driving lessons. So far, nobody has crashed.

Grey tastes his convertible.

Daddy does a quick tune up.

Grey and Daddy love to read together.

Cuddlebugs.

So handsome. :)

Baptism Weekend

Lots of family surrounding Greyson

Grey with Great-grandpaparazzi and Great-grandma Lee

Nana and Greyson cuddling

Daddy, Mommy, Greyson, Godfather Pat, Godmother Liz
waiting for the big moment with Father Scordo

4 Generations- Great Gaga, Daddy, Greyson and Grandma

Last weekend we had a ton of family here to celebrate the Little Boy's baptism. The whole weekend was awesome with lots of laughs and of course, great food. :) By Sunday night, we were exhausted and stuffed. I just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you to our friends and family (from near and far) who made our weekend special. We are so lucky to have so much love in our lives.

New Toy

This week, Greyson got a new toy. Its supposed to live in the space in our living room that was once occupied by his swing. However, our living room continues to be taken over by the Tiny Tyrant, so its smack dab in the middle of things. Meet The Jumperoo:

At first, he wasn't so sure about this.

But then he figured out it had a ton of toys and was happy.

The best things

Greyson loves to to explore his world with his mouth. If he likes something, chances are it will end up in his mouth. The poor kiddo doesn't have any concept of what will actually fit in his mouth so when his entire book can't fit in there, it results in frustration. Here are Grey's favorite things to chew on:

Fingers

toys


Sophie


toes

Well, hello there!

Did I get your attention?

So, I've been MIA. Sorry about that! I promise that I will try to keep up with this blog better.

Greyson is going on 5 months old now and he's still the sweetest baby ever. We've had so many awesome visits from friends and family since Grey was born. We even took 2 roadtrips, but little man does not enjoy the car, so hopefully we won't need to do that again for a while, as it was slightly traumatic for the whole family. He's a smiley boy, but is not afraid to let you know when he's not happy. Grey tends to take in the situation around him and is often content to watch carefully. When he feels comfortable, he'll join in by talking, kicking with joy, or chewing in response. He loves to play with Daddy and Joe's face is his favorite to study. He likes to cuddle with Mommy and we chat all day.

So handsome!

He hates tummy time after about 5-10 minutes. Naked tummy time is slightly better. :) He can roll from belly to side and back to side, but has no interest in making the whole revolution. Grey is way more interested in standing. He leans against anything to prop himself up. We're trying to teach him how to hold on to the furniture to keep himself stable. I wonder if there has ever been a baby who could walk before he rolled?

Standing up!

We are very much looking forward to Greyson's christening in August. Many friends and family are going to be coming to Charlottesville (some for the first time!) to witness this exciting event. In the meantime, I want to enjoy my last few weeks home with my sweet baby boy. School starts back August 17th for teachers and I know already that this will be even harder than labor.

Keeping in Touch

I'm desperately trying to re-surface and re-join society... I'm adjusting to life without the use of one or both of my hands most of the time, a lot less sleep, and the need to constantly give kisses and cuddles to the sweetest baby. So, I'm a bit behind on correspondence... sorry if I haven't returned your call, email or letter yet. Trust me, I'm working on that.

Daddy has gone back to work, so to keep him in the loop, we send him a new picture from the cell phone every day to make him smile. Here are this week's cell pix!

My Boys

The hormones in our house were in balance until I brought the little man home from the hospital. Up until that day, we had me (Capitan for Team Girl,) the hubby (Commander of the Man Team,) and one cat for each side. Now Team Girl is outnumbered 3 to 2. Snickers and I are already plotting about how the next one will have to be a baby girl so that power structure can be restored. ;) However, the other night I was reminded that although Daddy is looking forward to playing cars, super heros and monster trucks with Greyson, the male species has its tender moments.

I love these boys.

A few pics of Greyson

Greyson deep in thought

Snickers meets baby Grey

Sleepy angel

Grey goes on his first ride in the carriage

He's here! World's longest birth story...

“Oh no!” I cried. Around 2:20AM on Tuesday, I suddenly woke up, feeling like I was peeing on myself. I realized pretty quickly that my water had just broken and my bladder had nothing to do with it. I shakily called the doctor and reported the news. She said to labor at home until 7-8am or until the contractions were 45-60 seconds long and coming 5-7 minutes apart. About an hour later, I started to feel contractions. Soon enough, they were coming in a pattern. We used an online contraction timer since we were too anxious and tired to keep up with timing them with a watch. Around 5am, they were about 30-40 seconds long and coming every 3-4 minutes. We decided to go to the hospital, but I think I was scared and started stalling. I decided I should have a little snack- a banana and an orange. I decided to watch TV to see if it was going to snow. I was still trying to procrastinate when I talked to my mom around 7am when we realized that I had 3 longer contractions during our 11 minute conversation.

The ride to the hospital was totally surreal; we were going to have our baby. I just couldn’t believe that he was coming 15 days before his due date. I just *knew* he would be late and here I was, completely surprised by labor. When we got to the hospital, Joe had to go down and register me since the hospital had not processed the preregistration paperwork that we had mailed the week before. In the meantime, I got changed into a gown and had my vitals checked. Everything looked great and baby was keeping up a healthy heart rate. At 8am, the doctor checked me and I was 2.5 cm dilated, 50% effaced and at station -2. At my 36 week appointment, I had the same check done, but asked to not know the numbers. Joe did find them out and they were 1cm, 50%, -2.

I labored in many positions, in and out of bed. My mom came and we walked up and down the hall of L&D and let my husband rest. (He had worked 40 hours in the last 48.) Around noon, the doctor checked me again and I was only 3cm, 70%, +2. Because my water had broken close to 10 hours prior, the doctor was concerned about how slow my labor was progressing. So, it was decided we would start a low dose of pitocin, one of the only things I feared about labor… This is about where all sense of time ceases to exist and the exact numbers start to become blurry. I was checked several times over the next few hours and each time there was little to no change and the pitocin drip was upped. On average, I was only dialating half a centimeter every 90 minutes. (Successful progress on pitocin is 1 cm an hour.) The contractions were strong and came very close together. I was limited to laboring on the bed and directly next to the bed since I had to have a fetal monitor on in addition to the pitocin drip. Finally, after 3 long contractions on top of each other without a break, I asked for pain relief. We decided to try an iv drug as I wasn’t ready for an epidural. It made me feel very relaxed (like being drunk) between contractions, but did not help with the actual pain.

Each time the doctor came in to check progress, it was a disappointment. Around 7pm, the doctor started talking about the possibility of a caesarean birth. I was upset because it seemed that everything that could go wrong, was going wrong. He agreed to let me keep trying to get past 5cm, which he said was the threshold. At the next check, progress had been made and I was finally at 5.5 cm. At this point, it was time for an epidural. I was exhausted and the nurse had explained that first time mothers often push for 2-3 hours. I knew that I didn’t have the strength to do this at this point if I was going to labor at this level of pitocin. Also, I was not out of the clear yet for the c-section because the baby was not dropping. If he did not move down, he would be surgically removed.

The epidural was put in and I started to feel relief. But about an hour in, I realized that it only seemed to be working on the right side. The anesthesiologist said he would have to put it back in. The second epidural produced the same results except this time I was feeling more on the right side. Bummer. The good news was that the distraction of the epidural and the contractions, made time go quickly at this point, and suddenly it was time to push as baby had finally moved down around 10:30pm. Let me be clear on this one point… I felt like this whole day of labor was rough, but it was all in the ‘I can handle it’ category. Pushing, on the other hand, was torture. My mom and Joe were holding my legs to help me, but each push was exhaustive and painful. My epidural never reached the left side and had worn off in my lower back and the baby was bearing down on the right side of my pelvis and I could feel it.

Greyson Oliver came into the world after 2 ½ hours of pushing at 12:49 am 3/3/10. Mommy, Daddy and Nana all cried and hugged and kissed. He was perfect in every way. The doctor delivered the placenta, which because of the pitocin, I did not have to actively push out. I had a second degree tear that required stitches. After about an hour, he nursed for the first time. He measured 21 inches and weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces.

2:30am... am I peeing on myself?

Nope. That was my water breaking. After a mad dash to the bathroom and several big gushes of clear liquid, we have started the labor process. Doctor has been called, mom is en route, and I am distracting myself with facebook (thanks to my college student cousin, Chris, for being awake and available to chat.)

Joe, of course, is coming off working the last 40 hours of the past 48. We're excited. We're not sleeping. We should be...

Busy Bee!

So this whole last week was superbusy. We went to school all week long after almost 2 weeks off. Needless to say, the kids were pretty crazy, but we all hung in there and did the best week could, myself included. I was just as pooped as they seemed to be by the end of each day. I had my non-tenured teacher evaluation (after an unannounced classroom observation) and my year end review, and according to the administration, I am doing very well and they recommend to continue my contract. So, the good news is I'm a good teacher and they want me to stay. The bad news is there is still that whole 15 million dollar budget deficit, so who knows if they'll get to keep me.

On Friday, Grandma Peggy (Joe's mom) came to town. She and I went to see the Celtic Woman concert. I can't say it was my favorite, but Cappy was squiggling around during the songs with lots of drumming. Grandma says its because baby boy was getting in touch with his Irish roots, but I think he's more of a Dave Matthews Band fan. ;) On Saturday, we shopped until we dropped. I mean this literally, as I had to sit down at our last stop because I was so exhausted from our 10 hour expedition! It was great to have a shopping partner who was so willing to obsess with me for at least 20 minutes over which mobile was best for the nursery, as most do not have the patience for this sort of thing. We hit just about every store in Charlottesville and got so many things. If deliveries are made on time, by the end of next week the nursery will be completely finished and our living room redecorated. Oh and did I mention that crazy Grandma funded this entire shopping spree? We are one lucky family! Thanks, Grandma!

Finally, Sunday brought us beautiful weather and a great party. Our friend, Elizabeth along with her other half, Casey, threw us a very cool baby party. (Not to be confused with a shower, since there were manly men and beer present!) The food was yummy and almost all of it completely homemade and the company was fantastic. It was great to see so many of our different friends in Charlottesville all in one place, hanging out together. We, of course, were spoiled again with the kindness and generosity of our friends, and Cappy got some great presents. We even had a fun brainstorming session about what to name him. We were limited to the letters in Joe's and my name and last name. My favorites were Jimbo, Zeus, and Romeo.

9 months!

Really? 9 months pregnant? It's so amazing to me that I am here... already! So today is 36 weeks which means that baby is about 6 pounds and well over 20 inches long according to my book. He's really starting to pack on that sweet baby pudge and will continue to gain about an ounce a day from now until his birthday.

We had the first of our weekly doctor's check ups yesterday and the doctor has confirmed that Cappy's head is down, meaning as of now he is in an ideal birth position. This is great news! My belly also measured perfectly at 35 to 36 centimeters, which is on target for 36 weeks. His heartrate was accelerated for a few minutes, but he calmed down and went back to his normal 155 beats per minute.

I am starting to get some serious hip pain and have been trying to take it more easy at work. As a middle school teacher, it can be really hard to find time to sit during the day, but I am focusing on staying as comfortable as possible while keeping up with my students. I'm beginning to wonder how in the world I'll be able to keep teaching in the upcoming weeks, but I'm sure I'll find a way! I love my baby boy, but I do love my students, too. I hope to stay with them as long as possible.

In not baby related news, our school district is facing a serious budget shortfall. I, like many non-tenured teachers, am worried about keeping my job. Please continue to send your positive thoughts and prayers this way as I really hope to keep my position for next year. Thank you!!

35/35

Today starts week 35 of the pregnancy and also means that we only have 35 days left until our due date. At this point, I think its fair to start putting in your guesses for this baby's birthday. I've already been informed that there are some dates that Cappy should not be born on and others have offered up some days that will work just fine for them. I have a feeling that he will be born whenever the heck he pleases. He is, afterall, my child, so I fear the "I do what I want" attitude will be passed on. With that said, I have a feeling that Cappy will come late and I've got two guesses for days that sound good. They are 3/20 (the first day of spring) and 3/26 (because 3 times 2 is 6 and I'm a dork.)

We had an extra visit to the doctor this week and Cappy is doing just fine. Silly Mommy got caught up in the painting fun and forgot to eat. This made me have low blood sugar and feel sick and shaky. By the time I got the food into me it took a couple of hours to start feeling better. Add that to waking up with swelling and it was enough to make me call the nurse and see if we were doing okay. Blood pressure checked out great and there was no protein in my urine, meaning that I am not experiencing pre eclampsia- woohoo! Just means that I need to be sure to eat when I start to feel hungry. The swelling is already better than it was on Monday, which is great. The doctor said it can come and go, but 90-99% of pregnant women deal with this in their last month or so of pregnancy. In other words, deal with it! hehheh.

How's that for a belly?!!?

Nursery Sneak Preview

So another one of Cappy's handy and talented Grandpas came to help with the nursery. This time Grandpa Fischer came to paint. Unfortunately, the snow from Minnesota followed him all the way here, so it was hard to get all of our supplies. I did my best to pick up what I thought we needed, but we got off to bit of a rocky start and we were limited on time. In the end, the nursery got painted. Even Aunt Sarah, who has an aversion to painting after one memorable summer working for Fischer Decorating, pitched in!

Without further ado, here's your sneak preview of Cappy's room:

The sweet little lamb bench is your clue for the crib bedding! :)

34 weeks!

Cappy weighs almost 5 pounds now! I had a doctor's appointment today and his heartbeat was a perfect 155 beats per minute. When the doctor was checking the fundal height, he could not actually find the top of my uterus since it is so far behind my ribs now. There is no more room left! As baby gets stronger, his kicks are noticable through my clothes and sometimes are a bit uncomfortable.

In other news, Cappy and I have been snowed in this week- after getting 8 inches of snow on Saturday, we got a bunch of wintery mix on Tuesday evening causing school to be called off 3 days in a row. The craziest part is we are expecting at least another foot starting on Friday. So, it could be that I only end up at work 1 day this week. I have to admit, I'd probably appreciate the snow days a bit more if Cappy was here.

Dad and Sarah are supposed to be arriving sometime early Friday. I'm so excited to see them! I saw my sister at Christmas, but with both of us living away from "home" we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. Dad lives in Minnesota, but this year we have been able to get together once in the summer, once in the fall and now this weekend! Dad even thinks he will get here when baby comes, which is fantastic. I just hope that the weather is decent for their long drive! Our plans are to hang out, play wii, and paint the nursery.

Snowy Saturday and Sunday's Random Thoughts...

We saw about 8 inches of snow fall in one day!

Joe and I spent Saturday puttering around the house since the roads were unsafe. As with any weekend we get to spend time together, we had fun. It was the perfect way to spend Saturday since this week was so hectic and I've been getting over a little cold. Sometimes extreme weather is God's way of reminding us to slow down.

Speaking of slowing down, I feel like we must be getting into that part in the pregnancy. I find that so many things are much more difficult these days. I knew this would come, but somehow I am still surprised when I realize that I may have to change the way I normally do things. For example, this morning in the shower, I decided it may be the easiest way to shave my legs if I sat. But then I got stuck on the bottom of the tub and didn't have enough room to actually stretch out my leg and shave. Doing a lot of bending down and picking up leaves me feeling like I just jogged down a football field. As a teacher, I do a ton of that all day. I try to be active in my classroom by constantly rotating around the room and I teach middle school and 13 year olds are not well known for remembering to tidy things up before they leave a room. So, by the end of the day, I'm pretty tired. Even getting out of bed is different! I figured out that instead of sitting straight up, its better to roll to the side and then swing my legs over and sit. Funny how an extra twenty odd pounds all in front will change how you do things!

33 weeks

Oh how I am growing. I would say I now fall into the category of "superpregnant." The 8th month is going pretty well, although I have a tough time at night still. Baby boy has snuggled his cute little butt into my ribs and refuses to move, so when I lay on my side the impact of where he is really hits me. I have a feather pillow under me, a body pillow between my knees and under the belly as well and I keep my fist pushed into the bottom of my rib so that I can breathe. This works until my hips/back hurt enough for me to flip to my other side or its time for yet another trip to the bathroom.

Cappy loves to kick and move around. Daddy and I just can't get enough of the early morning and late night performances of the Cappy ballet that make my belly look like firecrackers are going off inside of it. According to my book, he is over 4 pounds now and about 18.5 inches. Its hard to believe that in the next 7 weeks, he'll continue to add more weight and inches! My update also informed me that he doesn't look so 'alienlike' now and this is good to know because sometimes all that squirming in my belly does remind me of the very famous scene in Alien.

We've started our classes at the hospital and so far they are okay. In some ways, its a great thing to be in the class because Joe and I hearing the same information and its sparking some good conversation. Last night, we giggled like children during our breathing exercise because instead of the chant, "I can" or the traditional, heeheeheehoooo, Joe coached me to say Game! Cocks! I have a feeling that my alma mater will not be on my mind during labor... Kicking my husband, however, might be... ;)

Grandpa Dennis' gift to Cappy

Joe's stepfather, Dennis and his friend Jack arrived at our house last Thursday. They quickly surveyed our loft and immediately started speaking constructionese. Later we sat down and they gave us some ideas and opinions and we made a plan. Over the next few days, our house was turned upside down and inside out. Poor Dennis got a cold, but kept on working long days. The end result was that our loft office became a nursery. Unfortunately, our desktop was unhooked and moved so I can't show you the before pictures, but here is what the room is looking like now. They did an amazing job! Thanks, Grandpa Dennis!

New door and new closet

New wall, with electrical outlet from the inside.

New wall from the outside.

32 weeks

On Wednesday we hit the 8 month mark. I had a doctor's appointment the following day and this was the first doctor in the practice that I really didn't care for. First, he ran over 90 minutes late for the appointment. Then when I finally got to meet him, I told him that I had some questions. I only got him to actually answer one of them and I wasn't all that satisfied with the answer. He also told me that my hospital has a 30% c-section rate. Holy cow! It should be only about half of that... Anyways, let's hope he's not the one on call when we need our OB. Anyways, the important things that came out of the appointment- Cappy's heartrate is perfect and Mommy's blood pressure and weight are still in the ideal range.

Since our camera is still a battery juice guzzling monster, I have taken the liberty of capturing my belly self portrait via cell phone. I also seem to be blinking while giving some weird, cheesy grin, so just ignore that! ;)

And in case you've been wondering, what happened to the fruit/ veggie of the week describing the baby's size, the answer is it became a little freaky. ;)

75% baked

On Wednesday, I hit the 30 week mark! Woohoo! That means Cappy is getting really close to me meeting him. :)

As of the 30 week mark, he should weigh about 3 pounds and it working on his eyesight. Right now things are rather blurry in his eyes since he's seeing almost as bad as Mommy at 20-400 vision. I've been feeling every little movement and the big movements make my belly shake like crazy. Lately, we've had no trouble identifying "Hey! That's a body part!" But we really aren't sure what we are feeling. I think its his butt that pokes out so much. :)

Sorry for the lack of belly pictures, but our camera is perpetually not working since it is always out of juice. We tried reusables, we tried special electronics, we have tried every stupid brand name of battery, but none seem to last very long. Our camera is a battery eating monster! ;) I'll work on getting one for 31 weeks.

Catching up!

Our holidays were great. This year, we were able to spend a good amount of time with our family and friends at several different events. It was truly a wonderful time! Here are a few highlights:

Christmas

For the past few years, Joe and I have been doing a grand tour of New Jersey every Christmas Day. This was our last year visiting 3 different houses (all at least an hour apart each) in one day. We ate well, had great conversation and were completely spoiled by our families with very generous gifts.

Whoa! A gift!

Baby Shower

First off, my mom rocks. She picked out a wonderful Italian restaurant and ordered all my favorite foods for the shower. She and my bestie, Jen, threw a wonderful party. Everything was perfect! It was overwhelming to have so many women that I love in one room welcoming me to the next stage of life- motherhood and presenting me with gifts. Everyone was so incredibly generous and we are feeling like we have a lot of what we need for Cappy. It was also so great to feel so supported- we have so many people we can ask for advice and help!

Feeling like the worst blogger EVER!

I've been away for awhile. I left on Friday, Dec. 19th and did not return to my home until Saturday night. With all kinds of holiday craziness and trying to fit in as much friend and family time as possible, I did not blog at all! I have so much to catch you all up on.