my heart is smiling...

Wowee, are we ever busy?!  I don't know why -- I mean, it's not like we're a week away from Christmas and still trying to get last minute gifts (why are men so hard to buy for??).

 

No, that's not me.  At all.

 

No, there's something else...what was that?  Hmmm...

 

Oh.  Right.

 

We're just trying to get ready for a 9-day trip to IL!  Almost all of Jeff's family lives there and we're all going to be together this year at the request of his Grandma Wenzel.  It's gonna be lots of fun but man, the planning and packing!

 

We're flying up on Christmas Eve and back on New Year's day and y'all, I can't even describe to you how excited I am to get on a plane with my toddler!  Kidding.

 

Totally kidding about that.

 

It probably is going to go much smoother than how I'm picturing it going in my head, especially since we don't have super-long flights or layovers, but I'd rather be prepared for the worst.  Everyone believes my son is an angel, and I would say 85% of the time, he is.  He totally is.  But that other 15%...ooo, lawd.  Thank goodness he's cute.  Sometimes that's the only thing that saves my 2 year old toddler.  :)

 

Aaaaaanyways, I said all.of.that. to say that I wanted to share a sweet little instance that happened at the grocery store last week, in the midst of all the busy-ness.

 

Deacon and I went to the grocery store with a pretty lengthy list of things to get.  Deacon usually does pretty well at the store (especially  if he gets a cookie before or after the trip -- God bless Harris Teeter for those free cookies).

 

I believe I've mentioned that my son is a chatter box.  Yes, I'm sure that's come up here once or twice.

 

And he likes to sing.  Have I mentioned that?  I'm sure I have.  We sing a lot, so he sings a lot.  :)  The song of choice currently is Jingle Bells (pronounced Jinga-Bowel, true story.).

 

Those may seem like random facts to mention right here in the middle of my story, but trust me, friends.  They are not.  They are relative to what is turning into a really long-winded story, wow.

 

Focus, Linds.

 

Okay, right.  So we're in the store and I'm heading down each aisle, chucking stuff in the buggy and crossing things off my list.  And Deacon, well, from the time I sat him in the buggy, he has not.stopped.talking.  Or singing, as the case may be.

 

Seriously.

 

I found myself on about aisle 5 or 6 going, "Buuuuuddy!  Aren't you tired of hearing yourself??"

 

Nope.

 

And the chatter and concert continues.

 

Now don't misunderstand -- I love this about my boy.  I really do.  It's just that once we enter the public realm...I tend to be a little more conscious of just how MUCH he chatters on.  Wow.

 

(I promise there's a point.  And I'm getting to it.)

 

So I finally get all my stuff and make my way up to the checkout line.  I put my list in my purse and look up to find a woman looking our way from another checkout line.  She says, "He is precious!  Oh, my heart is just smiling right now..."

 

Yeah?

 

Well, mine has just swelled to overflowing with love and pride, as it so often does when someone mentions the preciousness and joy of my sweet boy...

[Thanksgiving 2012, 2 years old] 

4 months...

Truly, I don't intend to let a month get by before I post -- it just seems to take so much of my time to raise a child.  :)  So here we are at 4 months.  Whew.  We've had some exciting things happening the last month...

The biggest news was that Deacon's cousin, Bear Andersen McAfee, was born on February 2.  My brother & sister-in-law's 2nd child.  Cora Beth is now a big sister and a great one at that.  :)  Bear was born an entire month early (Brandi's due date was actually Mar 2) at 6 lbs 2 oz but he's done wonderfully with the exception of a recent case of RSV.  But he's on the upswing.  We got to meet little Bear a few weeks after he was born.  What a cutie!

[Deacon, 16.5 weeks, Bear, 3.5 weeks]

At the beginning of February, Deacon got his 2nd cold and this one was nastier than the first one he had at a month old.  He had some chest congestion and coughing with this one and oh, how I hated to hear my sweet boy coughing!  It took a good 3 weeks or so to get rid of that thing but not before me and Jeff caught it.  :(  We are all well now, though, praise the Lord! 

[14 weeks]

Also, at the beginning of February was the Super Bowl, of course.  Deacon's first Super Bowl.  He slept through the first half and was oblivious during the 2nd.  :)  He was pulling for the Steelers:

[14.5 weeks]

Deacon went to his first birthday party on February 12 (when we got the invitation in the mail, addressed to Deacon, I thought it was precious!) -- one of the sons of the lady who keeps Deacon, Brayden, was turning 3.  Deacon lasted for about an hour before I think all the commotion and noise got to him.  It was a fun time.

[Deacon w/Brayden & Bryceon, 15.5 weeks]

Deacon has really been changing and doing new things this past month.  It hurts this mommy's heart to know that he's growing up (so fast) but that is how it should be and it does excite me to see new things from him.  He's really been chewing on EVERYTHING.  If he can get it to his mouth, it's going in there.  And it's coming out with TONS of drool on it.  :)  We can't feel any tooth buds (and I'm praying it stays that way for a little longer) so we're not sure if he's teething or not.  Just chewing on everything.

[14.5 weeks]

And talking.  My LORD, this child has A LOT to say!  And it is so.stinkin.cute when he does!  I love to hear him making all kinds of noises.  Most of the time he's really happy when he's talking so he smiles a lot and kinda giggles a little bit.  He just recently started this high-pitched thing which I hope will not last too long.  It is cute and it's okay around the house, but it can get kinda loud.  I don't want to have a child that everyone is kinda like, "Oh, that's cute...okay, not so much anymore."  :)

[15 weeks]

Right around the 4 month mark, I took Deacon for his 4 month well-check at the pediatrician.  He got a couple more vaccines (one oral and one needle) and took them like a champ, just like in the past.  Such a brave little guy.  :)  He now weighs 13 lbs 13 oz and has grown almost 2 inches in the past 2 months.

Also around 4 months, we went for a walk as a family and put Deacon in the stroller without the carseat.  In the regular seat.  He sat like a big boy with no trouble.  I think he enjoyed looking around at everything. 

We also tried putting him in the "johnny jump-up" for the first time.  He's still kind of little for it, we have to prop him up in the front so he doesn't lean forward so much.  And he doesn't really know what to do in it yet, but it buys us a little bit of time, if you know what I mean.  :)

[4 mos]

I gotta tell you, Daddy is the one that put him in the jump-up and in the stroller like that.  Mommy would've put him in the carseat to take him on a walk in the stroller.  Jeff is so good about trying new things with him.  I think I just want to keep him little for as long as possible -- he's reaching new milestones entirely too fast for me.

[4 mos]

11 weeks old...

Hey, here's an interesting fact -- Deacon is 11 weeks old today, on 1/11/11.  That's pretty cool, right?  Anyways, it's so hard to believe that this much time has passed...he's growing so much and really entertaining us.  :)

He smiles on demand now -- he will almost always smile at me or Jeff when we play with him or talk to him.  He really likes it when folks talk to him and will seemingly try to talk back.  His gurgling and cooing is SO.cute.

[7 weeks]

[8 weeks]

[9 weeks]

We get to see a lot of that laughing and "talking" in the morning -- he seems the happiest then.  Typically, I try to get him up by 7am to eat, if he's not already awake.  Then he spends some time with Daddy in our bed while I get a shower, have my coffee, start laundry, etc.  He generally eats every 3 hours after that with good awake time and naps in between. 

[happy guy in his crib, 9 weeks]

He LOVES the swing that we borrowed from our good friends, the Olds'.  That is our "go-to" -- if he's fussy, we can usually put him in that and he's good to go.  :)  He falls asleep in it most of the time and will sleep really good.

We also have a bouncy seat that he'll sit in for a little while -- after some time passes, he gets tired of that.  I do try to put him on his tummy for a little bit but he usually gets tired of that real quick.  If he's gonna be on his tummy, it has to be right after he's eaten.  If we wait too long, he's starting to fade into sleepiness and then he has NO patience for being on his tummy.

[9.5 weeks]

His 2 month check up at the pediatrician's office was Dec 30.  He weighed in at 11 lbs, 13 oz!  That's in the 63rd percentile for weight so he's pretty average.  His length measured at 22 1/4 inches which puts him in the 54th percentile.  Again, average.  I'm just fine with that.  :)

He had to have a couple of vaccines at this appt. *frowny face*  He got one stick and one oral vaccine and did fine with both.  He only cried for a couple of seconds after the stick in his leg and then was just fine.  Mommy had a harder time with it than Deacon did.  :)  Yeah, he didn't have any kind of side effects or anything for the rest of the day, either.  He's my tough little guy.

[my little guy's bandaid, 9 weeks]

I went back to work last week. *extreme frowny face*  My heart's desire since I was a little girl has been to stay home with my kids, just like my mom did for us.  I desperately wanted that to work out but it just isn't our reality right now.  However, God did the next best thing for me -- He worked it out so that 1) I'm able to work from home Thursdays & Fridays and 2) a good friend, who is a wonderful mommy to her 2 young boys, is able to keep Deacon for us in her home Mon-Wed while I'm in the office.

The transition back to work went SO much better than I could've ever hoped for!  I actually have not cried once since going back to work (though, I've gotten slightly emotional just once) and Deacon has done fantastically at Krystal's house.  I was so busy while at the office last week that I didn't have time to be sad (though I thought about Deacon a lot :) and then being home with him Thursday & Friday was great.  AND I was able to get everything done for work.  Best of both worlds!

We really couldn't ask for more from Krystal -- she used to teach before she made the decision to stay home with her boys so she's wonderful with kids, no matter their age.  And she says she's already grown to love Deacon just like one of her own.  :)  She gives us a "report card" each day when I pick up Deacon so we can see what he's been up to throughout the day.  What a sweet momento if I have to be away from him!

It's really just the perfect scenario -- I know that my God worked all that out.  It helps this Mommy's heart.

[10 weeks]

[10.5 weeks]

[11 weeks]

7 weeks already!

Deacon is now 7 weeks old.  He's growing so fast and changing so much, though I can still see my little newborn munchkin when I look at him.  :)

We are enjoying him so much. We take random photos of him ALL the time, we love and kiss on him ALL the time, we talk to him and try to make him smile (we've both been able to do that a time or two by now and it just thrills us to no end -- I wish you could've seen Jeff's face the first time he was able to make him smile. :).

He's growing so much, gaining weight as he should and feeling heavier each time we pick him up.  We think he's probably up to 11 lbs by now.  He's filling out his clothes and has actually grown out of his short-sleeve newborn size onesies (at 5 weeks ). He's also in size 1 diapers now. Not that the newborn diapers don't fit anymore, but more so that they don't hold what he fills them with. If you know what I mean. *eyebrows raised* Yeah.

Ahem -- but going back to the smiling thing...he really started smiling "on demand", if you will, around 5 weeks old.  The smiles were sparse but we saw them when we'd talk to him, etc.  Then the next week, at about 6 weeks, he really started smiling and sort of laughing/gurgling at me when I would put him on the changing table to change his diaper.  He seems to be his happiest in the mornings after he's eaten and it just melts my ever-lovin' heart to see him smile and laugh at me.  He's cute anyway, but when he breaks into those grins -- YA'LL.  He.is.DANG.cute.  :)

We had a parent/child dedication on Sunday, Dec 12, at our church and we participated as a family in that special ceremony.  They called us up on stage with about 10 other families (5 of which were friends of ours :) and gave us a sweet dedication certificate and a little New Testament Bible for Deacon.  Then our children's pastor gave a charge to the parents and read from Deuteronomy --

You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land... 11:18-21 (ESV)

Amen.

He prayed for all the parents, that God would give them wisdom and knowledge to raise their children in all His ways and that their chidlren would never remember a day that they didn't love the Lord.

Amen, I said.

Deacon did wonderfully through the ceremony, sleeping mostly through the whole thing.  That was just fine with us.  :)  And he looked adorable in his little vest and corduroy pants with his little shoes & socks!  Our sweet friend, Stephanie took photos for us so we'd have them to remember this special day in the life of our little family.  Thanks so much, Steph!

We got our first family Christmas card mailed out just a few days ago.  We had a friend in our neighborhood come up and take some family photos for us.  I was going to try to set the self-timer on our camera just like I usually do for our Christmas card photo, but with an infant, you kinda just need to snap away in hopes that one of them will look okay.  My brilliant husband pointed that out to me.  Duh.

Anyways, Alissa did a great job getting some good shots for us.  She is due with her first child, a girl, in April, so she enjoyed holding Deacon after the "photoshoot".  Thanks, Alissa!

Here's what we ended up with:

As I stated above, we take random photos of Deacon ALL the time so here are some sweet shots for you to enjoy:

[5.5 weeks]

[Daddy already has safety glasses for his boy]

[we caught another smile!]

[6 weeks]

[love his facial expressions...]

[this is the photo we used at the parent/child dedication]

[Daddy is so good at giving him a bath]

[6.5 weeks]

[7 weeks]