Myrtle Beach Vacation, Part 3

Nathan and I had a great time on the rest of our Myrtle Beach vacation.  On Wednesday, Gran watched Nathan while I took two shopping trips to the outlet mall about 10 minutes from where we were staying.  I got some great deals on clothes for Nathan for next winter, and also spent some of my birthday and Christmas gift money on some new clothes for me.  For the rest of the day, we just hung out in the condo.  That night we had steamed shrimp for dinner (yummy!!) and I taught Gran how to play Speed Scrabble.  Another enjoyable and relaxing day!

Thursday was our last full day at the beach and had the nicest weather of the whole time.  The high got up near 60 degrees, although with the wind it felt a little cooler then that.  During Nathan's morning nap, I went over to the excersize room and walked/ran for 30 minutes and realized that I am VERY out of shape!!  I had hoped to excercise more during the week, but vacations are for being lazy, so that's what I did instead.  After he woke up, Nathan, Gran and I went to check out the other indoor pool at the complex.  This one was bigger, deeper, less crowded and warmer then the one we had gone to on Tuesday, and Nathan was a lot more active in the pool this time around!  Here are two videos of Nathan "swimming" in the pool.

Nathan got some water in his mouth, and he's not sure he likes how it tastes!

Nathan loves the pool!

Early that afternoon, we went for a walk on the beach, excited because of the warmer weather.  Gran started out carrying Nathan, commenting on how much heavier he felt today then earlier in the week.  She passed him over to me and I agreed, but then we realized that he had fallen sound asleep in my arms!!  I guess all the morning's activities really tired him out!  So we cut our walk short to take Nathan back inside to finish his nap.  That night, we had leftovers for dinner (more yummy shrimp for me!!), and after Nathan went to bed, we played two games of Sequence and a couple rounds of Speed Scrabble. 

Nathan and I both had a wonderful time on our vacation, and it was great to spend time with my Mom and Dad and for them to see Nathan again.  He is growing up so quickly right now!!  But we were also glad to go back home and see Daddy again!

Nathan's First Swim

Today Nathan experienced a swimming pool for the first time! Gran, Nathan and I went went out to buy swim diapers after breakfast, then we all changed into our swimsuits (and bundled up for the walk) and headed to the indoor swimming pool.  Nathan had a non-reaction to getting in the water (I guess to him its not much different then his bath), but after we stayed in for a while, he started kicking his legs some.  We spent about 30 minutes in the pool before decided to head on back to the room and get ready to go out to lunch.

The "Nathan's First Swim" video had to be cut short because I realized that I still had my watch on in the pool! 

For lunch, we went to Greg Norman's Austrailian Grill. The calamari appetizer we ordered was fantastic, but we were underwhelmed with our entrees. Oh well. And Nathan took a great nap all through lunch, since he only had about a 15 minute nap in the morning AND went swimming.

This afternoon, we hung around the condo, playing with Nathan and being lazy.  Nathan only took a quick 5-10 minute nap in Gran's arms, but was still good natured the whole day. Nathan is really enjoying his jumper and is very content to sit in it for a long time.  He will bounce around some, then spin and look all around, or play with the toys we put in the tray for him.

Right at dusk, we decided to go out for a quick walk on the beach.  We bundled Nathan up again, in a new hat that Gran bought him this morning as well as his mittens and off we went!

All in all, another great day!

Our Myrtle Beach Vacation, Part 1

Nathan and I are spending this week with my parents at Myrtle Beach.  This was the first time that I've traveled with Nathan by myself, and once again he did a great job in the car.  After we left Winston, Nathan amused himself by playing with his hands and looking around the car for a while before he fell asleep.  I stopped once to feed him and then he fussed just a little bit before falling alseep for the last part of the drive. 

After we got to the condo and unpacked, Papaw, Gran, Nathan and I all went for a walk on the beach.  I used my Moby wrap and it worked great to carry Nathan!  Gran was able to shrink her hat to fit on Nathan's head to protect him from the wind and sun.  It was very bright and VERY windy!  Here we are on our walk.

 

 After dinner, Gran gave Nathan a bath in the kitchen sink.  Look at all those rolls on our big boy!

Now Nathan has gone to bed and hopefully we will both sleep well despite the whistling wind outside our window.  And tomorrow our adventure will continue!

Nathan is 12 Weeks Old (+1 day)

The many faces of Nathan at 12 weeks and 1 day old!

My First BooBoo, by Nathan

I had a mostly good day today.  After I got up this morning, my Mommy and I played on the floor a little bit and then I sat in my chair while Mommy ate her breakfast.  Then I had my second breakfast and decided to take a little nap.  After I woke up from my nap, Mommy and I decided to go to the store.  There were so many cool things in the store, I had to keep looking all around so that I wouldn't miss anything.  I fell asleep in the carseat on the way home, but just for a little bit.  When I woke up, Mommy fed me lunch and then we went over to visit our neighbors, Tom and Juanita.  They thought I was pretty cute, so I smiled really big for them!  But then I started getting tired again, so Mommy brought me home and put me to bed.  After I woke up, that's when it happened!  Mommy picked me up out of my crib and then bumped my head on the door on the way out of my room.  OUCH!!  It hurt!!  I started crying really loud, even louder and longer then I did when I got my shots at the doctors office!!  Mommy tried to comfort me, but it really hurt and I couldn't stop crying!  Then Mommy put something cold on top of my booboo, and that just made me MAD and I cried even harder!  So finally Mommy decided to feed me (one of my favorite things to do - eat!), and I settled down a little bit.  But my head still hurt, so I had to stop eating a couple of times to cry a some more.  Then Mommy gave me some Tylenol (it tasted pretty good) and I think that helped my head hurt not as much.  Here is a picture of my booboo.  I know it doesn't look like much in the picture, but it really, REALLY hurt me alot!  And there's a bump growing on my head too!

After all that excitement, Mommy and I played on the floor and then she read me some books.  I was getting tired again, probably because of all the crying I had done earlier.  So Mommy put me down for another nap, and when I woke up, Daddy was home!  He and I had some guy time together before Mommy fed me a late dinner.  Now I'm going to spend some time on the floor trying to figure out how to roll over, and then I'll go to bed in a little bit.  I hope that tomorrow isn't quite as exciting as today was! 

Rocking and Rolling (kind of)

It seems that almost every day brings something new with Nathan, and within the past few days, he has started squirming around a lot more. Last night he almost worked his way out of his little seat, scooting down until he was almost hanging off the edge, so today I started buckling him into the seat and into the swing.

This evening, I realized that some of the "squirming" on his back is him trying to roll over. I got some of his early efforts on video. Later on, I was helping him roll the rest of the way over.  But before he can make it on his own, he is going to have to get his bottom arm out of the way and swing that top leg over.

Little Talker and Big Sitter

Nathan continues to become more and more vocal. Here is what he sounds like now. I took this video in the middle of a long conversation with him (maybe 15 minutes?), with Nathan doing most of the talking!

Friday night we went to the Mastroianni's house for dinner and Nathan discovered the Bumpo chair. He sat in it for quite a long time, loving the fact that he was sitting up like an adult! It's a great alternative to the rocking infant seat that we usually put him in, and would be useful as we start solids in a few months. I guess I'll start looking for a second-hand bumpo this week.

Pregnancy Flashback

Since part of my reasons for starting this blog was to record memories from my pregnancy, I'm going to try and hit the highlights for posterity's sake.  No Nathan photos in this blog post (except ultrasounds), so if that's your main reason for reading this blog, you can just skip this post :).

We started trying to get pregnant in late 2008, so that if we had to move for residency, we would be settled in before we would have the baby.  Well, we thought that we were pregnant in mid-January, but had multiple negative at-home pregnancy tests.  So we went to the doctor and had a negative serum pregnancy test in early February.  In mid-February, Brian and I went to Bowie, MD to visit my Grammy, Aunt Karen, Uncle Joe and Kevin.  My parents were also in town for that weekend.  The whole weekend, I felt kind of weird, so Monday night after we got home, we took another test and it was positive!! 

The next weekend Brian and I helped chaperone the Winterfest trip with our youth group.  I got sick on Saturday, and it was definitely due to the food we had eaten, but everyone else was sure that I was sick because I was pregnant.  But it was WAY too soon for me and Brian to feel comfortable announcing, so we tried to convince everyone (unsuccessfully) that it really was the food that made me sick.

The next week (late February) I was already having trouble buttoning my pants.  I was only 6 weeks along, but we didn't know that yet. 

We had our first ultrasound on March 11th and found out that we were 8 weeks along, with a due date of October 18th.  Brian and my plan was to wait until 12 weeks to announce our pregnancy, so 4 weeks to go at that point! But sometime between between weeks 8 and 10, I was showing enough that people suspected that we were pregnant, so we ended up announcing before the 12 week mark.

Here we are on Match Day, week 9.  Hooray!, we found out that we were staying in Winston for residency!!  I definitely got asked that day by one of the ladies at work if I was pregnant. 

Here I am about 14 weeks pregnant with the CYP crowd at Chipotle.

Here's a picture of me at the 16 week mark, at my work's Engineering Conference in San Diego, CA.  I felt so pregnant then, but looking back I certainly don't look very pregnant in this pic.  With me are Caroline, Vihar, Rick, Ashley and Michelle.

Week 18 was Brian's graduation from medical school.  Hooray for Dr. Brian!!  Brian's parents, his brother and sister-in-law and my parents all came into town to celebrate with us!

The next weekend was Byron and Sarah's wedding.  I was 19 weeks along.

Finally, with Week 20 came our anatomy scan and the halfway mark (supposedly) for the pregnancy.  All along I had thought we were having a boy, but Brian thought it might be a girl.  Mommy was right this time!!

Front view of our little boy!

Profile shots of our little boy

Our little boy's cute feet

That summer, I worked as a coordinator for the "Marketplace" at VBS.  Here I am in my Roman costume, at 24 weeks.  I had to add the belt so it wouldn't look like I was wearing a bag!

Now a big jump to 32 weeks.  Jennie took some WONDERFUL maternity pictures for us.  Thanks so much for keep bugging, I mean encouraging, me to do those.  I am so glad that we have them now!  Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

That weekend, at 33 weeks, was my Baby Shower at South Fork.  Here I am with the hostesses.  That black dress fit great a few weeks ago, but at this point it was pretty tight!

My last day of work was October 2nd, which gave me 2 weeks at home before my due date.  It was so wonderful to have those weeks!  I ran errands, cooked LOTS of meals to freeze, and walked almost every day in the hopes of helping the baby along.  However, my due date came and went, and no baby!  Here I am on my due date and I was ready to pop!!

That next Friday was my next doctors appointment (+5 days).  They checked me to see if it looked like I was going to go into labor soon, and no such luck.  The walking 2-3 miles per day wasn't helping move the baby along.  Armed with this information, Brian and I made the decision to go to the CYP retreat that weekend at 41 weeks pregnant!  The retreat was outside of Asheville, 2.5 hours away from Winston.  However, we figured that  since this was the first baby, we would have plenty of time to get back if I went into labor.  But, just in case, I mapped directions to hospitals in Asheville, Hickory and Statesville and Brian packed a knife and shoelace (per Brian, to cut the cord and tie it off) just in case he had to deliver our baby on the side of the interstate.  Here we are at the retreat, a week overdue!

I went back to the doctor on Monday (+8 days) for another check, ultrasound and non-stress test.  Everything looked good, the baby was healthy.  We decided that we would go ahead and schedule an induction for Wednesday, October 28th in case I hadn't gone into labor by then.  Well, that morning came and I got up at 4:30 to shower and get ready to be at the hospital at 5:30 for the induction.  We got a call at 5:00 from the hospital telling us that they didn't have any beds ready for us.  GRRRRR!  They couldn't tell us when they might have one available.  So I went back to bed and FINALLY went back to sleep.  I basically moped around all day and got more and more frustrated.  I was ready to have the baby!!!  That night we skipped church; I couldn't bear to have everyone saying "you're still pregnant!!" and "WHEN are you going to have that baby?".  However, it turned out to be a good thing because right before 8:00, we got the call that they had a bed available!  We had just finished dinner, so we cleaned up the dishes, finished packing and headed off to the hospital.  On the way, we decided we needed to pick a name before we got to the hospital.  For months, we were trying to decide between Carter and Nathan as first names, so we finally settled on Nathan Patrick. 

Well, that's all for this post. At some point, I'll blog about the delivery and early days of Nathan. 

Sleeping Through the Night - Oh, Wait...

So, I started this post yesterday (Thursday) and I was all excited to share with the world that Nathan was sleeping through the night (8-9 hour stretch). Not that I'm usually superstitous, but I was waiting until he had multiple nights (4) with this sleeping pattern before I made this exciting delaration. Nathan has slept almost this long a couple of nights over the past month, but then the next night he goes back to waking up in the middle of the night to eat. So, until he slept through the night for multiple nights, I wasn't going to celebrate. As I finish this post today (Friday) I have to report that we didn't make it last night :(. Oh well, maybe tonight? I could take him sleeping through the night 4 out of 5 nights. I guess what I've learned and relearned that nothing's certain except uncertainty when it comes to little ones.

Here are a few videos from the last couple of days...

Nathan loves sucking on his hand, and is becoming much better about getting it in his mouth.


Nathan is also becoming more of a talker.

And here's another tummy time with Nathan talking to me.

Here's a picture that I love of Nathan. As he plays with his hands, he always look like he's plotting something (like taking over the world, for instance). James and Elizabeth Parnell spent last weekend with us as James was in town for residency interviews. Brian and I selfishly hope that they end up here with us! Elizabeth and I hung out Monday while James went for his interview and ate at Sweet Potatoes for lunch. It was wonderful, but silly me, I forgot to put money in the parking meter, so ended up with a parking ticket! Luckally it was only $5, but still...
Here's Nathan during tummy time. I have taken dozens of pictures during tummy time lately, but can never get a good one of him looking at the camera. Oh well. I love the footed pajamas that Uncle David and Aunt Laura gave Nathan for Christmas. Look at those cute feet! And it goes perfectly with our "Chunky Monkey" nickname for him!
Quite a few nights lately, Nathan gets a little fussy before he'll go down for bed. I love this one!

Christmas Reflections

I want to share some of the pictures and memories that we made during Nathan's first Christmas holiday. Brian had to work the week of Christmas (we love residency!), so my parents drove up, arriving on Christmas Eve afternoon, to keep me and Nathan company. That night for dinner we had our (the McDonald family) traditional steak fondue - yummy!

The next day, since Brian was working, we got up and had a leisurely morning. Papaw and Nathan had a lot of fun during tummy time!

Brian got home early on Christmas, around three, so he was able to enjoy the afternoon off to celebrate with the family. When it came time to open presents, Nathan had about twice as many presents as the rest of us combined (mostly thanks to his Great Aunt Karen)! Karen also came through with his only "First Christmas" ornament!

Nathan and Papaw in their coordinating plaid shirts!

That night, we had a wonderful Christmas dinner. Just earlier that week, I had found a FABULOUS new chicken recipe that found on Allrecipes.com called Anniversary Chicken. So we had that again for Christmas dinner, along with twice baked potatoes, Brian's favorite cranberry salad, broccoli salad, crescent rolls and sparkling grape juices. It was SO good!

The day after Christmas, my parents, Nathan and I all loaded up on the 4Runner and drove up to Bowie, MD for my Grammy's funeral. Grammy had Alzheimers and had died the week before Christmas. Nathan was a champ during the drive, sleeping through most of it. However, during the short time he was awake, he really enjoyed looking at the Pooh toy hanging from his carseat.

Unfortunantly, I didn't take any pictures of Nathan and the family while we were up in Bowie, but he got to meet Aunt Karen, Uncle Joe and cousin Kevin, his Uncle Mike, Aunt Susan and cousin Chandler, as well as my great aunts Margie, Georgeanne, Diane, and Ellen. It was wonderful to see all my relatives, though we wished that it was a happier occasion that brought us together. However, we knew that it was a blessing that Grammy had passed away.

After the funeral on Monday, my mom, Nathan and I piled back in the 4Runner and made the LONG drive to Knoxville, where Brian would meet us. We made it to my grandparent's house at 10:30pm and were greeted by Grandmother, Uncle Jim, Aunt Cathy and their dog Puddin. That night, since we didn't have a pack n' play or crib, Nathan slept in a drawer lined with a comforter! My parents have always told the story about how I slept in a drawer when I was a baby and they were traveling in Europe, and now I'm continuing the tradition with Nathan. Unfortunantly, I didn't get a picture of that either.

Tuesday morning, Brian came over to my grandparents house bright and early for a visit over breakfast and to pick up Nathan and me. We had country ham, scrambled eggs with chives and cheese, homemade bread toast, homemade strawberry jam, coffee and juice.

That night, we had Christmas with the Kornrumpf family.

Granddad opening one of Nathan's new toys (adult-proof packaging!)

Uncle David and Aunt Laura

Nana and Nathan

On Wednesday, Granddad, Nana, Brian, Nathan and I drove down to Mississippi to see Memaw, Nathan's great-grandmother. She was so thrilled to see her first great-grandchild!! We spent most of Thursday visiting with Memaw, and then stopped by again on our way out of town on Friday.

Memaw and Nathan Memaw, Nana, Brian, Nathan and me

So Friday was a long travel day back to Knoxville, and then Saturday we made it the rest of the way back home. We had a wonderful time visiting all our family, but I was SO GLAD to be back in our own house and not living out of suitcases anymore!!