A mis-match of notes

So the Deaner is 4 months old now. Man how time flies! I look back at the pictures of him on the day he blessed my life and I am in awe of the changes he has made. Everyday I thank the Lord for blessing me with this beautiful baby. I now know what my purpose in life is, to be a mom. It is the best job in the world. If only it paid more....
On another note,
I have been working like a dog recently. The bills from being off work for 3 months are piling up and IOU's aren't worth a dern anymore. People want their money and I can't blame them, but you can't get blood from a turnip, and the baby needs diapers.
On another note,
Every day I am amazed by my son. As adults, we forget about the "simple" things in life and the amusement they can provide. My son has discovered the ceiling fan. Its a wonderful contraption that hangs from the ceiling and spins! Oh my goodness! How neat it is to just lay underneath it and stare at the rotating blades! This provides a short period of entertainment for the Deaner. I love watching his eyes get big and light up when he sees one spinning. Its the simple thing in life.
One more note,
I have some super cute pics to post. Hopefully I will get them up soon!

Flying Time

Wow! It has been a long time since I have written anything. Time sure has flown by very fast, not to mention that I have been super busy. Nothing exciting has happened since I last blogged. We have just been getting more into a routine. Dean is getting bigger every day, almost 14lbs now! He smiles a lot and is getting better at holding his head up. I love just holding him and watching him sleep or looking into his eyes when he eats.
Oh, I did forget to mention that he had his first sleep over last Sunday. Every Sunday, Dean goes and spends the evenings with his BB and Bobo while Rod plays ball and I work. Well last Sunday Rods games ran late and instead of going over and getting him all packed up just to take him home to his own bed, we decided that it wouldn't hurt if he just spent the night. Of course he slept all thru the night and was a perfect little angel for hsi grandparents. Rod, however, missed spending the evening with him. He's pretty attached to his little man.
So as of today, things are going good on the home front. Hope all is well on yours!

I have successfully completed my required 3 days of employement for this week, and boy has it been a hard one.
This has been my first week back and I can say that it has gone by quickly but not without many tears being shed. Every evening as I got ready for work I could feel that knot form in my throat and my eyes welling up with warm tears. I would pick up my precious baby boy and just hold him tight against my body. Tears streamed down my face as I knew that I would be forced to leave him behind for 12 whole hours. I did not and still do not want to leave him behind. But I am lucky. I have a loving husband who watches over him at night, making sure he gets a bath and a full tummy before Deans off to the land of Nod. Then Rodneys up early to get him to his moms house, who watches him while I sleep. He's such a fabulous daddy!
I only work 3 days. I have 5 glorious days off with my little man and I plan to fill them endless cartoons, silly songs and cardboard books.

So today is September 11. An infamous day in American history. On Facebook today, I posted that 9 years ago today I was getting ready for my biomechanics class at Missouri Southern State College when I found out about the attacks. I posed this question to everyone: "Where what were you doing when the towers fell?" So many people of my generation know exactly where they were and what they were doing. Funny thing is, is that almost every generation has had some sort of national tragedy that they can recount where they were and exactly what they were doing when the event happened. I can remember my mother telling me what she was doing when Kennedy was assassinated.

It's sad that we have those memories, that an event of that magnitude will leave a concrete mark on us. It's inevitable that it will happen again. I hope I am wrong.

So I have to go back to work in 4 days. I AM NOT looking forward to it. Even though Deaner has been sleeping thru the night for several weeks and Rodney will be home with him, I can't help but have a feeling of abandonment. I've become very acustomed to being at home, watching cartoons, singing silly songs, reading books about talking cars and tractors. I know I will EVENTUALLY enjoy being back at work, just not ready to go back yet. Maybe I can hold out till he's 13. By then he will know EVERYTHING and I will know nothing. Until then, I will hold this little guy super tight.

So this past weekend, in honor of labor day, we didn't labor. We instead, packed up the Tahoe and loaded the dogs and started our way up highway 44 towards St. Louis. Dean did really well on his first road trip. He slept most of the way until we got onto hwy 270. Thats when he started getting fussy and crying. I suppose his rump was getting sore after sitting in his car seat for so long. I introduced him to Veggie Tales on YouTube via my iPhone and he was mezmerized by it. Granny and Pops were super excited to see Dean. I don't think they even noticed Rod or myself.

There wasn't too much planned for the weekend, go see a couple of close friends, maybe hit one of the malls. One such close friend we went to visit was Aunt Mary. She's not really my aunt, but at one time she could've been my great aunt. Long story short, Aunt Mary is:

1. My high school boyfriends great aunt
2. A lady that bowls in the same league as my parents
3. My moms housekeeper
4. A fantastic woman

Aunt Mary is a spitfire of a woman, and at the young age of 75, she still is as active as ever. We went to her and her husband Franks house so they could meet Dean.

We sat and visited with her and Frank. Mary just went goo goo over Dean, and well, who could blame her. He's so stinkin cute! I think she's in love! Dean now has an Aunt Mary. Everyone should have an Aunt Mary.
Sunday we took Dean to his very first St. Louis Cardinals baseball game. Pops bought party box tickets for the very special occasion. Dean got dressed up in his Fredbird/Pujols outfit and Rodney got a new Matt Holliday jersey, courtesy of his favorite mom-n-law. Dean enjoyed the game very much and got excited when Holliday hit a 3 run homer to give us the lead.

This is the best spot for taking pictures, section 140. You can see the Arch in the background.

Earnests' at Busch Stadium

Dean watching Pops make funny faces at him

Dean with Granny and Pops

Daddy and Dean

Dean also got a certificate certifying him as an offical St. Louis Cardinals fan at his first game. I think we will do this again next year, and every year after that until Dean actually plays for the Cardinals. Then we will sit with all the other players families. I have high hopes for Dean already.

I love my Tricia! She is always so fun and makes me laugh all the time. She is a nurse in the newborn nursery and if it weren't for here guided hand and patience, I prolly would have self imploded weeks ago. She has been there for me since we brought Dean home which I can't thank her enough for. The very first night Dean was home we were unsure on how to "put" him to bed. I sent him to the nursery every night we were in the hosiptal so I could try to get some sleep (I was unfortunatly still on my night schedule so sleep evaded me). What they did with him in the nursery I will never know. So that first night we dressed him in a cute sleeper and laid him in his crib.... and then stood there..... staring at him. He looked so tiny in his crib. We were both scared to just leave him there...all by himself.....alone. All these thoughts went thru our heads. What if he's confused? Does he know where he's at? What if he wakes up scared? What if he gets cold? What if he gets too hot? Do we swaddle him or cover him with a blanket? We both started crying a little, unsure about what to do with our little man. So I took this picture:

and sent it to Trish with the question "Is this how you put them to sleep?" I know it is a stupid question but at that time we were clueless. I didn't want to leave him but at the same time I knew that I more than him needed to get use to him sleeping in his own bed.

I can only imagine what was going thru Tricias mind when she got that message. "OMG, they are so dumb!" Yes, yes we are. But she was kind enough to suppress her laughter and just responded with "You can put him down like that or swaddle him, either way is ok." So we kissed him goodnight, laid him in his crib and left the nightlight on just incase he were to wake up and not know where he was. We both went to bed. Rod was out like a light in just a matter of minutes. The last 5 days had been rough on him. I laid in bed, sobbing and clinging to the video baby monitor for dear life.

There were many other nights when Dean would cry and I just couldn't get him to bed. Trish was there on the other end of the phone texting me answers and telling me everything was going to be alright. One evening as I was changing Dean into his pj's, I noticed one of his nipples was red and hard. I thought he had an abscess in his little nip. I gave it a gentle squeeze and a white liquid came out. Lo and behold my male child was lactating! Now I had read before that both male and female newborns can lactate due to the increase levels of female hormones the mother passes to the babies while still in the womb. I just had to have some reassurance from Trish that this was ok. And I needed to share it with her cause it was kinda funny and I knew Rod would flip out. She of course laughed and said it was fine and would go away over time, and she wished she could see Rods face when I told him. When I did tell Rod, his eyes got wide and his jaw dropped. He called Trish too. Then he Googled it.

Needless to say, I really would have imploded if it weren't for Tricia. Your like the sister I never had and I love ya dearly. Thank you so much for being on the other end of the line night after night answering my stupid questions. Thank you for resting my fears, I trust your advice more than most others. And thank you for being a true friend and not laughing directly to my face! Mmmmwah!

The Proud Grannies

These two ladies pictured below are the two proudest Grannies ever. They love their baby Dean!
This is my mom, Cathy. She will be known as Gramma, Granny, Grandma, whatever Dean decides to call her. She came down to stay with Rodney and me a week and a half before Dean was born. Thank the little baby Jesus for that, cause as many know, the last month of my pregnancy was very painful. I was as big a red barn! Mom cooked for us and cleaned the house, did some sewing and rubbed my poor swollen right foot. They day that my water broke she had a smile from ear to ear and glowed! Mom stayed with us for another week and a half after Dean was born. She says it was to take care of the house while Rod and I bonded with Dean, but I think she really didn't want to leave her Dre.

This is Rods mom, Betty. She has a been running a day care out of her house for 30 years! Every single kiddo she has had has called her BB. Braden, our nephew calls her BB. So this is Deans BB. On the day that my water broke, Rod called her to tell her that Dean was coming early. An hour or so later, when she still hadn't arrived at the hospital, Rod called her again to tell her they were taking me to the OR and to see where she was. She only lives HALF A MILE from the hospital! What could possibly be taking so long? She said she was putting on her jacket and would be up in just a few. A jacket?! Its the end of June and 100 degrees outside! Why would one wear a jacket?! Well because she's BB and she must always look her best, especially when she will be meeting a very important young man for the first time.

Dean and Miss Lindsi

This a one of my favorite GF's, Lindsi Danise Snodgrass-Hancock. (Just for future reference, none of my GF's have hyphenated names. We just like to call each other by ALL their names, given or not) Her and her husband Alan have good friends and coworkers of mine for many years. Lindsi was able to grace us with her presence at the hospital 2 days after Dean was born. She and all of my other friends had just gotten back from Float Trip Extravaganza 2010. Thats why she has a "glow" about her face. One day her and Alan will teach Dean the finer points of karioking.

So Very Blessed

This past Friday Dean turned 2 months old. I have officially been a mom for 2 whole months and thru all the tears and emotional rollercoasters (I hate rollercoasters by the way) I am loving every minute of it. Everyday I am reminded that I am so blessed to have had a pretty decent pregnancy, a super easy delivery and fabulous family and friends to share Dean with.
I have learned lots of things in these last 2 months. I shall list a few of them in bulleted form cause I like to read bullets.

• I can go 2 days without showering or leaving the house
• Sleep is for sissies
• I have an awesome husband (ok so I didn't just learn this but I just wanted re-enforce what was already the obvious)
• The smell of a clean baby is way better than puppy breath
• I didn't know that a child could poop so much!
• There is no such thing as running a "quick" errand
• Spit up is my new fragrance
• I didn't know I could love as much as I love my men

On another note, I currently have 2 friends that are dealing with some "womanly" issues. They are both wonderful girls who will be excellent mommies someday. Both of these young ladies have positive attitudes about their situations but I know that somewhere, either in the past or the future, there will be lots of tears and doubts about having children. I love both these girls very much and I pray that God grants them children of their own. I have felt guilty at times bringing my son to events. They say its ok but I can't help but kinda hurt for them. I just have to believe that Gods plan for them will play out in time. I can say so far, that the outlook for both of my friends looks good.

Family Photo

I guess you could call this our first family photo.

Shout Out!

Just want to acknowledge the great pictures that you will see on here were taken by two of my greatest friends, Tricia Hopkins and Rachel Nolen. They both are truely talented novice photographers and fabulous friends.

Oh, I should probably thank Grandpa Monte for letting all us crazy kids invade his ranch at least once a month. You're a brave man Monte Box!

Welcome

So I recently decided, after reading a friends blog, that I should start one of my own. But hmmm... what should I blog about? I have, by no means, an interesting life, nor do I believe I have anything inspirational to say. I guess I could just talk about the important things in my life. The most important thing is my son, Dean Richard, who graced us with his presence on June 25, 2010 at 1637 (4:30 p.m.)

I know he doesn't look so cute here, but this was taken just moments after he was so gently removed from my womb. I had probably the easiest delivery ever imaginable. I didn't have the best pregnancy, especially towards the end, but I was so lucky to have no labor, only 3 contractions and the most caring and compassionate OB ever.

I am so excited about being a mommy and watching Rodney being a daddy. I hope we are able to raise Dean as well as our parents raised us. I guess in 20 some odd years we will find out how well our parenting skills really were.