Matt & Andrea Thieman

First of all, I have to say ‘thank you’ to all of  you who helped me realize I need to calm down about Carter’s progress and understand that every child really IS different.  It’s still hard for me to watch other 10 month old babies walking around with ease and signing to their parents frequently, but now I can think to myself that it’s okay.  Because Carter will get there eventually.  And while he may not excel at walking or signing just yet, I’m confident that he will in his own time.  So, I’ve been focusing on just enjoying him again and not worrying so much about how quickly he’s progressing.

This week kind of crept by since Carter was sick for the first couple of days, and then on Thursday I started to get sick.  I ended up staying home on Friday, getting some rest in the morning and then working from home for the afternoon.  By the time Matt got home from work on Friday, he said he was feeling pretty crummy as well.  So, we have had a fairly laid back weekend which turned out to be one of those where I looked at Matt this evening and said, “this has been a great weekend”.  I had the time and energy to make all fresh meals – normally we end up with leftovers or eating out for at least one meal.  Chicken stroganoff, steak diane, baked salmon, and country fried deer tenderloin all made my weekend menu and now we have plenty of leftovers for our week’s lunches.  Yay!  I also got the house cleaned up on Saturday and even took about an hour out of my Sunday morning to get our computer room organized…which is a pretty big accomplishment since it’s been a mess for about 6 months.  I can finally stop thinking about how it needs to be done.  In between cleaning and making meals, I still found plenty of time to hang out on the floor with Carter since I didn’t feel like doing much more.  He was so pleasant this weekend.  I’m very happy I took the time to play and cuddle with our little guy.

Speaking of Carter, a few things changed in his world this week.  Aside from getting his first ear infection, I finally decided that it was time to take the bumper out of his crib.  I probably should have taken it out a couple of months ago, but what can I say?  I’m lazy.  Matt and I also decided that it was finally time to see how Carter would do without a morning nap.  On Saturday, Carter and I went shopping, so he only got about a 10 minute nap on our way home at 11am and then he only slept for about an hour and a half that afternoon.  So, today we decided that we’d skip the morning nap and see how it went.  To our surprise, it was totally succesful – yay!!  Carter was in a fabulous mood this morning through 12:30pm, went down at 12:45pm for his nap, and woke up in another fabulous mood at 3:00pm.  That great mood lasted until bedtime tonight at 7:30.  To say the least, I hope this trend continues. 

The last and least important change is that Carter got new shoes this weekend.  Up until now, I’ve felt that our little man didn’t really need shoes because “experts” say it’s best to let children learn to walk without shoes.  However, Carter’s little snow suit which is the only truly warm coat he has for Winter is much too snug because I have his feet tucked in.  So, the new shoes will allow me to untuck his feet which will help his suit fit longer (hopefully until Winter is over) and hopefully he’ll be more comfortable (no squashed toes).  In the process of getting him new shoes, I learned a little lesson…shoe shopping with a 10 month old is a miserable task.  Trying to get shoe after shoe onto a wiggly foot of a little boy only to find out that they look ridiculous or they are too small or too big, is just exhausting.  I think I went through about 8 different pairs which doesn’t sound like much, but it felt like 20 pairs.  All the while, Carter is ooing and ahing over the shiny red shoes from the girls selection that happen to be just within his reach.  Honestly, I couldn’t blame him.  They were adorable!!  We ended up settling on a pair of squeaky sneakers that Carter fit the best and even enjoyed wearing.  Once he figured out that he was making them squeak, he was doing his best to squeak as many times as he could before I got them off of him.  It was cute, but the squeaker is removable, so I think we might have to take advantage of that little feature when we don’t “need” it.  I’m very happy that the shoe shopping experience is over though and now I have a size to go off of for future shopping without him.  I’d rather return something that doesn’t fit than have to go shopping with him again.  I-yi-yi!!

Carter got another tooth in this week, one of his top front ones.  And it looks like there is at least one more coming in next to it.  He’s taken to teething rings in the last few days where he normally didn’t want too much to do with them.  He hasn’t really been fussy that we’ve noticed, so the new teeth must not bother him much…which is good for us!  Our little munchkin has been standing up on his own several times this weekend, and will stand alone for about a minute and a half if he feels like it.  He’s even attempting to take a step or two here and there and each time he does it Matt and I give each other that “did you see that” look.  The poor guy just doesn’t have the best balance (must take after his dad, according to our Wii Fit balance test), so he falls down every time.  But we’re very happy to see him trying. 

It’s not really a milestone, but Carter has developed quite the personality these days and is enjoying interaction a lot more (rather than preferring to just play with his toys).  We were told a couple of weeks ago that Carter was really interacting with the other kids at daycare, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I really noticed it.  Both yesterday and today he was so chatty, smiley, and giggly with us and even though he still played with his toys, it seemed that he enjoyed hanging out with us more than normal.  And we enjoyed it too.  He’d start giggling, I’d start giggling, Matt would laugh, and we’d all just laugh together – over nothing.  Connecting with our little man is fun and I think both Matt and I are looking forward to a lot more of it in the months and years ahead.

Only one week of January left…hopefully that means only one week of possible super cold weather as well.  I can only hope.

Over the weekend, I fell off the weight loss wagon I was riding for a couple of short days.  I had planned to workout for a good couple of hours on Friday night followed by a walk around the neighborhood with Carter on Saturday afternoon (it was 40 degrees here on Saturday afternoon), and a rest day on Sunday.  Well, I ended up deep cleaning the bathroom and kitchen on Friday evening (since Matt was out of the house reffing a game) and it was downhill from there.  Saturday morning I took Carter to the mall to get him out of the house for a while, took a nap in the afternoon and then convinced Matt that it would be better to go to HuHot for dinner instead of me making hamburger helper (as you can guess, it didn’t take much convincing).  After two plates of HuHot, we were headed home and I got a craving for ice cream.  So, after Carter went to bed, I went to IGA to get some ice cream and Matt helped me to eat half of the carton.  On Sunday, I made some homemade macaroni and cheese which turned out to contain 650 calories per serving…didn’t notice the calorie count until I was finished making it.  Thank goodness it didn’t taste very good, so I didn’t eat much of it.  It was kind of a bummer since I put so much effort into it.  Next time I’m just going to make the Velveeta recipe.  Anyway, after slaving over the not-so-grand mac & cheese, I took another nap and then started in on lasagna for dinner…yeah, another not-so-low calorie choice.  I paired it with a salad to help myself feel better, but then once Carter was in bed Matt and I polished off the ice cream we bought on Saturday.  So, to say the least, it was a not so good weekend for me and I really need to get back on the wagon.  I weighed in this morning for our first official weigh in at work and was almost back to my starting weight, so I still have 18 pounds to lose.  I have to think that when the days get longer and the weather warms up a bit, I might have more drive to get on the wagon to stay.  But right now I’m relying on Matt to force me off the couch for a 17 minute workout…which is what he had to do for me tonight.

After his nap on Sunday afternoon, Carter’s eyes started oozing green gunk (the best I can describe it), and he was awful crabby – which is very abnormal for him.  I had purchased some new clothes for him on Saturday and had them on him on Sunday without washing them, so I figured that might be the cause of the problem - leaning toward an allergic reaction possibility.  After changing his clothes, he seemed to be in a better mood, so I did my best to clean his eyes after his bath and hoped that his eyes would look better this morning.  The good news is that his eyes weren’t sealed shut this morning.  The bad news is that they were still really red and puffy.  Despite the bad looking eyes, I got him dressed and headed off to daycare.  Once I got there, I discussed his situation with Amanda and we decided it was probaby pink eye because three children had it last week.  So, I put his bunting back on and loaded him back into the car to take him back home to Matt, who was lucky enough to have the day off for Martin Luther King Jr. day…and not so lucky to have to watch Carter on his day off.

Since Carter already had an appointment scheduled for this morning to get his second round of the H1N1 flu shot, I called and rescheduled his appointment so he could see the PA to check out the eyes.  So, we all went to the doctor’s office together this time (normally only Matt goes with Carter).  We found out that he’s gained a pound since his last at appointment, weighing in at 22 pounds, and then the prodding began.  The doctor checked his eyes and then checked his ears.  He really didn’t like the ear check and it turns out that on top of the eye irritation, he also has an ear infection.  The poor guy is on eye drops now, four times a day, and antibiotics for his ear infection.  I should say that poor us have to put drops in his eyes because he totally hates the drops! 

I just hope that he starts feeling better soon.  I hate seeing our little man in pain.

For every single year before this one, January and February were “down months” where I would spend my weekends catching up on things I fell behind on during the holidays. Cleaning, paper filing, home improvement, and other important random tasks would get accomplished during this time frame. This year is completely different. Maintaining a 10-month-old boy’s schedule, keeping him entertained while being stuck indoors for days on end, and keeping up with my day-to-day responsibilities at work and home is just about all I can get done these days.

After celebrating Christmas with my Souder side of the family on December 27th, and traveling to Petersburg to ring in the New Year, we’ve spent the last couple of weeks at home which has felt great. The Christmas decorations have been stored neatly back into our garage attic space, storage ready baby items that had been stacking up in our computer room have been packed away into large totes ready to go to our offsite storage, and my treadmill has finally made it’s way out of the corner it had been occupying for at least a year. Okay, so maybe my last couple weeks haven’t been completely unproductive, but they definitely haven’t been as productive as I remember the first weeks of the year to be in the past.

Carter has passed a couple of milestones while I’ve been avoiding the blog. On January 2nd he welcomed his first tooth!! We had been anticipating its arrival since before Christmas and were happy to finally see it break the surface. The tooth right next to it has come in now too, and so he’s working on getting both of them to their full height. He’s pretty protective of them, only showing them to us when he laughs (which he doesn’t do when there’s a camera around), but I’ll try to get some photos of them sometime soon. He continues to pull himself to a standing position and walk around while holding onto things, but hasn’t stood up on his own in front of Mom & Dad yet. Both Amanda and Theresa from daycare said that he stood up on his own three different times in one day, so we hope he’ll break out his new skill for us at home this weekend. He has been standing alone for short periods of time while clapping his hands or shaking toys. It usually only lasts between 3 and 5 seconds though.

We went to our last baby signs class on Wednesday evening where there are a few children who are the same age as Carter – one was born just three days before him. I was all excited to see how Carter was stacking up against them after having 3 weeks “off” – due to holidays and weather, but after I saw the other children his age standing up with no problem and cruising around on their feet instead of their hands and knees, I started to feel as though we’re not doing something right with Carter. Are these children home all day with their mothers? Or does their daycare do something differently than ours does? Are there special toys we should have but don’t have? The thoughts started rolling, and I began to imagine loading Carter up on the short bus (generally known for transporting special education children) for his first day of school. The teacher then had everyone tell her how their child was doing and which signs they’ve picked up, which only made me feel worse. Almost all of the children have learned a minimum of three signs and are proficient with using their hands by pointing things out. Our Mr. Carter really only knows one sign (the sign for light), and definitely doesn’t point to things yet…something they say he should have been doing regularly when he was 8 or 9 months old.

So, last night as I thought about finding a pre-school for Carter to attend once he turns two, I asked Matt, “What exactly are we doing wrong?” Of course, he told me that all children hit their milestones at different times, and that Carter isn’t developmentally challenged. This response used to work for me when I’d be reading things on babycenter.com that basically told me Carter was behind schedule and I was able to convince myself that a stupid website isn’t something I should use to gauge my son’s growth. But now that I’ve seen other babies that are much farther along on the development path – not to mention Matt’s cousin Heather’s baby Landree hit her milestones much faster than Carter has (she’s 2 months older than Carter) – I have a harder time believing Matt when he says we’re not doing anything wrong. The problem is that I don’t know where we’re going wrong…so I’m not even sure what needs to be fixed. And maybe nothing needs to be fixed…maybe Carter is just going to be a little behind all of the other children. Or maybe boys develop slower than girls. Or maybe he’s not as far behind as I think he is. One thing’s for sure though. I’m officially concerned about the way I am parenting and I wonder if there’s something that needs a little modification.

Aside from wondering how I can be a better mother, I have been busy trying to figure out how I’m going to lose the 18 pounds I want to lose for my weight loss challenge at work. The week before the New Year, Matt and I decided to use our new Wii Active game (the one he got me for Christmas) to exercise together for a few evenings and test out the potential for a true workout using the Wii Active game. When I went into the game’s pre-set workout menu, I was looking through a medium exercise routine to see what it included and then decided to go with an easy one to start out on. You know, we just wanted to test out the basics. So, I think we started out walking, then followed the on-screen trainers to do some arm exercises using the included resistance bands, and then the routine started in on the lunges and jump lunges and squats. Before long, Matt was asking me if I really picked the easy routine as we were huffing, puffing, and complaining about how our legs were shaking. The problem is that the game forces you to do the moves correctly and to hold still while squatting or lunging. If you don’t, it makes you re-do it. So, after a couple of nights of painful Wii Active workouts and a few days of achy legs (at least for me), we decided that the Wii Active can be included in the list of “decent workout options”. So, this week I finally got the treadmill out and have used it twice so far. As of this morning, I’ve lost 3 pounds. If I can keep those three pounds off through the next couple of weeks and maybe lose another pound, I’ll be happy.

I hope everyone’s New Year is off to a great start!!