Family Photos

The News is out

OK, Time for everyone to know the news... :)

Gunnar will be getting a baby brother or sister. Now before you ask when it's due, don't bother. I won't know until after the new year. To make a long story short, I began suspecting about 2 weeks ago. Finally this last week, I took a home pg test. Looked kind of funny with the results, but it looked positive to me. So I called the Dr. Since I was hesitant to confirm the test, the nurse sent me to get a blood test. On Wednesday, she called to confirm that I was most definatly pregnant. My appt. with the Dr is not until Jan 6, so I won't know much else until then. This news was a blessing, but also told us a lot of what was going on with me lately. I have not been able to get rid of my own runny nose/congestion, I was extremely tired all the time, and dang it, I couldn't lose weight anymore - and a couple of those lbs I had successfully lost, krept right back on, and I couldn't seem to shake them. Now we also know why I was eating a TON of food lately.. lol.

Tonight at Dan's dinner celebration, we told my mom and sister - I told them that I had finally gotten to the Dr to find out about my nose, and I handed each a present. Amy guessed it before even opening the present of a pink/blue m &M filled bottle. Mom just watched Amy for a while, I think she was in shock.

Everyone just hope and pray that this time around, that I have an easy pregnancy, and I don't end up in the hospital for a couple months again. :)

Dan's Birthday is tomorrow, so he will get the whole day to himself.. :) Just like he wants. :)

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

And now he doesn't have to wait. Gunnar now has 2 teeth. They came is almost simultaniously. No wonder he was uncomfortable. He has also come down with his first cold. It's hard to hear him coughing at night. There has been a couple of nights where he's woken himself up from his coughing. Other than nose drops - there isn't much we can do but let it run it's course. Of course it doesn't help that the entire family came down with this cold as well.

His developmental nurse came by today as well. She is always just astounded at his developement. Some of the things that she's testing.. If he passes objects from one hand to another, if he reaches for objects, both in reach and out of reach. If he looks for an object once it's moved out of eye sight. If he is doing any babbling. How he's eating. How close he is to the next developemental level. She says that he is advanced for his corrected age. He is almost ready to crawl, in fact was guessing that prob. by late Dec. he would probably be crawling and pulling himself up on furniture.

He is now 17 lbs 6 oz. 27 inches long, and his head is 17 inches. This basically equates to his actual age, being only within 10-25%. As far as his corrected age, he is then in the 50-75%. Either way is good. He is firmly on the charts. :) He is eating baby food like you wouldn't believe. He loves food. Sometimes we can't feed him fast enough before he gets upset that his mouth is empty. He has also figured out splashing in water. Creates quite the mess in the kitchen when it's bath time. Looks like we need to start moving towards the tub for these times soon.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I will probably have some good picutres of him. Happy thanksgiving to all of you!

so I copied this... :)

from Gunnar's babysitter's website. Glad that I check it once every so often.. :) As you can tell, those are his hands that make up the feathers and I believe that the body of the turkey is his foot imprint. :) His first art project..

AND, see where the paper is?? Well, there is definately something under it now. It just has to break through those couple more layers of skin.

1st Halloween

This is how we started the morning. His outfit just says Baby's 1st Halloween, however, it's supposed to glow in the dark. I never ended up testing to see if it did or not.. lol

The whold crazy gang (-1) from the babysitters club.. :)

Watch out... DINO on the loose!! He's hungry and has found the candy.

He ended the day with Amy feeding him, (you should have seen his face.. lol) and giving him his bath. I forgot to take a pic of the bath. Was amusing to say the least. :)

Time to add more information :)

So the first day of the State Fair, Mom and Amy want to check out their entries. Mom won 1st place in her catagory of Crossstitch, and Amy I think was in her own catagory, who also won 1st place. While we were there, we decided to find the petting zoo. Although we didn't give the animals any food, some of them tried to find some from us. Here is a goat trying to see if Gunnar had any food. I don't think that this boy is afraid of anything> :)

Next we have our weekly baseball games. Gunnar willingly gets passed from my arms, to either Grandma's, Scott's, or Amy's arms while we watch his soon to be cousins make their plays. He's the hit of the crowd with his glasses on.


Now that he's found his toes, he frequently tries to eat them WHILE he's eating dinner. Makes for a very messy baby. Here is one of the faces he was making at dinner time one night. He's a ham when he wants to be.

And one night I was complaining that I was the one that always thought of using either the video camera, or the still cam. Now I have about 20 pictures of him and I together - however, they were all one night. lol. He is getting better about grabbing the video cam though.

Big Boy Growing Up

OK, so we are feeding him cereal 2 times a day now, and just last night, I started feeding him baby food. Started with Squash - good thing he seemed to like it, cuz other than Thanksgiving, he prob. won't ever get it otherwise (and maybe not even thanksgiving.. lol) He's eating a ton now - loves to be put in his high chair, cuz then he knows what's coming next.

Right after his evening feeding, he gets his nightly back - which he is now sitting up for - although as Dan got it on tape - there have been some falls in the tub. I'm sure I will never hear the end of it from him on that one. I have a couple toys that we put in there with him - but he is MUCH happier trying to get the faucet into his mouth. He managed once before I realized what he was doing, and he got his first full mouthful of water. :)

He's getting SOOO big. He's at least 16 lbs now. It just amazes me that it's been almost 8 months now since he was born. We go for nightly walks, and most of the time, he loves them. I figure I'm trying to teach him that exercise is a good thing.

I will post some more pics in his halloween outfit.

Does the Video work?

Sorry the video seems so dark - I promise it wasn't when we took it. Dan is tickling him with a blue bunny (Kate - it's the bunny that Tal picked out) He is laughing every time it touches him. :) Makes me smile every time. Now that I know I can get videos to work, I might try something that came from the actual video camera (this one came from my phone)

6 Month Check in

Here are my men. I think that they were watching TV. Gunnar really likes siting with daddy this way. (Kate notice the outfit?) I really don't know why - but Daddy gave Gunnar his belt to play with. Everything goes in his mouth now, so that's where the leather went also.

Gunnar is going to be one cool kid. He has his shades ready to go the beach (notice the shirt - Millie, Jen and Katie?), and he loves his new toy - a leap frog educational toy that makes LOTS of noise... The microphone that he's playing with chimes "Singing Baby". He's quicking learning how to make everything make noise on it, so we hear lots of music now.

He also had his developemental nurse come and say that he is doing wonderful for his age - both corrected and actual. His Pediatrician is pleased with his progress as well. He ranks at the 67% with his height for his actual age, so that is AWESOME. He would rank in the 90's for his corrected age, so he is definatley going to be a tall one. :) He does only go to the 6% for his weight, but look at his father.. lol

Some of his new developements are... He is starting to roll now. He can roll from his belly to his back, and can ALMOST go the other way, but can't figureo out what to do with that arm that gets stuck. He is trying to stand, like he's doing in his toy. EVERYTHING goes in his mouth, and the DR confirmed that he is probably teething, since his gums look swollen. We are trying to feed him some cereal - and he loves to have the spoon put in his mouth, just he doesn't know what to do with thte food yet.

Hmm.. Think that is it for now.

Time gets away

Some more updates on our family. :)

A week after the Baptism, Gunnar came down with Croup. That was not a fun night. I woke to hime coughing and having a hard time breathing. I held him for a while before I made the decision to take him to urgent care. There is an urgent care right down the street, however, as I found out that night, it doesn't mean that it's open all night. So instead of heading back home, I called mom (thinking that she might still be up) and a nurse friend to find out where the nearest pediatric urgent care was. Turns out it's right down the street from my school. We get there, and they take him in immediately. They give him some sort of shot, and decide that he needs to go to the hosp. (I think that was because the nurse put an oxymeter on him wrong so it looked like he wasn't getting enough O2 in his body.) Another nurse came in and adjusted it, but they still wanted him monitored. Needless to say, we got to go in an ambulance to Thunderbird Hosp and spend the next 5 hours waiting. UGH. We weren't even in a room with a TV. We finally got out of the ER around 9 in the morning. I had to figure out what to do now, as I had ridden in the Ambulance and my car was stuck at the urgent care. Do to some creative finaggling - I made it to work, Gunnar was being watched carefully, and all is well.

I've started school with the kids, and currently I have 24 students in my class. They range from monolingual (can't speak English) to almost proficient. It definatly changes how I teach things, that's for sure. We are moving at a much slower pace than my other sections of 5th grade. I really like my class though, they are for the most part, very quiet, and most of them are very hard workers.

Dan is liking his job - and they really seem to like him there as well. He's been bounced around a little, but is showing off his skills he's learned on the computer and making everyone take notice of him. He has also started school again. He's now busy Wed and Thurs night, so it makes for a long week for him.

For Labor day, we plan on just relaxing. Yesterday, we drove up to Prescott to enjoy the cooler weather, and walk around an art fair that was going on up there. We hit some rain while there, but as it was lunch time anyway, we found a resteraunt to have some lunch, and by the time we were done, so was the rain.

Time Flies

When you are having fun.

Let's see. School has started for me. Teacher week was last week and I'm in the middle of the first week of students. I think I liked staying home a little too much, as it was VERY hard to go back. If there was any way that I could be a stay at home mother, I certainly would choose it.

But, Gunnar has been doing very well with the Babysitter. She is a very nice lady who lives right down the street from school. At least I know that I can pop in whenever I want or need to, to check on him.

My class is all Spanish speakers. It's called an SEI classroom. The goal is to get them proficient in English while still teaching them their core subjects. This is going to be a challenging year, as I have everything from non-English speakers, to almost proficient.


We also had Gunnar's Baptism this last weekend. His Grandma Bonnie came down to see him for this special weekend. She loved holding him and cuddling with him, and watching him smile back at her.

There were several people there to witness his Baptism. Wish now I had gotten a group shot.. lol..

Here he is in his outfit - isn't he cute?

Need to hook the camera up

But I'm too lazy right now. All good news as far as updates. He is officially 4 months old. WOW. AND he made the charts.. lol. for being 4 months old, he is at the 5% on both his weight and height. However, if we look at his adjusted age - he ranks at the 75%. My growing boy.

The developemental nurse also said that physically he is doing everything his corrected age (2 months) should be doing - smiling, waving erratically with hands and feet, squeeling and cooing, and lifting his head and following an object. She did say that socially he is more advanced - he actually is interacting with the person that he's looking at, not just doing the erratic smiling. He does "talk" to the person a lot of the time as well. Wonder who in the world he gets this social interaction from > :)

He is 11 lb 6 oz. WOW. Big Boy. We have his 4 month shots tomorrow. That should be fun as well. Oh yeah, I guess I do have a couple of pics from our Target adventure that I could put on here...

No more tubes, wires, or probes

Yeah!!. We got the official word yesterday that all the equiptment can be returned. It's very nice to see him without anything attached. :)

Next on the agenda - His Baptism. Have to find an outfit for him. It's scheduled for Aug. 3. Anyone want to join us? Feel free. Lunch afterwards will be at a buffet place if you want to join us there as well. Email me if you want directions to either.

More Updates

Wow - it's been a while since I've written. I've been trying to catch up on sleeping, but not been really successful there - just feel that I have way too much to do.

Let's see what's been going on since the birthday party....

See anything missing???????

We did another sleep study to see if he could be off O2. I'm starting to see a trend. Remember when he pulled out his own feeding tube, and decided to take the bottle all of a sudden? Well, he seemed to do that the day after his sleep study. He ended up ripping the tubing off of his face, causing some serious welt looking marks on his face. I called the doctor to ask if we could rush the results to make sure he could be off the O2. We left him off of it that day and night, and got the official word the next morning, that he was free of the O2.

I had to do some trainings at school for this upcoming school year, so I had to leave him during the day. It was hard, but Mom (Grandma) and Penny made it soooo much easier.

I guess next would be father's day. Here is how Dan survived it...

The animals have done really well with Gunnar.

They are remarkably gentle around him, but they definatly keep their eyes on him if I am paying attention to Gunnar and not them.

Gunnar has met some more people lately... Here is Jenn and Kate with him. He's already starting the Harem I think... lol He definately has them wrapped around his finger..

Not much going on

So Gunnar's future cousin was having a birthday party, so we had to go and check out the action. Can you tell how big he is getting?





Here is Auntie Amy proudly displaying her nephew. :)

And here is the birthday boy himself. :)

The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful

OK, well, I promised more pictures, and I have some more updates.
(THE BAD)
The Pulmonologists' office called. Seems that Gunnar did not pass the sleep study the night we did it. I had a feeling that he wasn't going to, but I was hoping. He was very restless that night, so his O2 levels kept dropping. If he had slept through the night, I think that he would have been ok. So we have another appointment on June 2, so we will decide on when another sleep study will be done then.
(THE GOOD)
We had another eye appointment with that Dr this week as well. Every thing is perfect in that regards and she doesn't need to see him back until after he turns 1. Wow, that's a long ways away to think of that right now. :)
(THE BEAUTIFUL)
Daddy watching the race with Gunnar.

Grandma Babysitting for the first time.
Daddy laying on the floor with Gunnar. Can you see the love?
The three "boys" of the house. :)
Meeting Claudia from Sylvan (I had to pry him away from her when I needed to leave)
Meeting Kristin and Heather from work.

Updates

He is now 7lb 12 Oz. and is 20.5 inches long. Looking at the growth scales if we look at his chronological age - he is at 0.4% (really small and skinny.. lol) But if we take into consideration his corrected age (which would be - BORN TODAY!!! :) he is in the 80%. Doing great is what the Dr. said.

He is actually too long now for preemie clothes. However, the Newborn clothes are a little bit big on him.

Hopefully on Friday - we have our last Eye Dr. Exam for a while. It's very hard to watch them do the exam on him, because he screams because he is scared.

Sometime this week we will do a sleep study. Basically that means we will monitor his actual Oxygen levels for the night when he is the least stimulated. If he can hold them up to appropriate levels - which I believe is either 85% or 90%, then we get rid of the O2 bottles - we are keeping our fingers crossed for that one. If that is successful, we will be able to get rid of the monitor a couple weeks after that. They want to keep him on it for a couple of weeks, to make sure he doesn't have any problems without the O2. To tell you the truth, I've come to rely on that a little as a crutch - so I will need to ween myself from relying on it as well.

He has met a lot of new people... :) Here are a couple of his soon to be new cousins...

Dr. Appointments

So last Wednesday, Gunnar had his first Pediatrician appointment. He was up to 6lb 1oz. Wow. He is just gaining fast now that he's figured out how to eat. Everything else looked good. She referred him to a pulmonologist to get him off the O2. She thinks that he might be off of it soon - and not as long as the neonatologist suggested - which was like 2 or 4 months.

We've survived a whole week having him home. It really is amazing how much your life DOES revolve around feeding, changing and trying to sleep. I was able to catch up a little with sleep this weekend with Dan home, so that was nice.

Today we had a second checkup. Now he's at 6lbs 7oz. The Dr. is VERY impressed with his weight gain - especially since usually when babies go home, they lose weight initially. We've already made our appointment for next week. Next week will be very busy, as we have a couple different dr. appointments, and the school shower to go to. Will be fun.

He's Home

OK, I have to shout it out!! He's Home Now!!!!!

We had hoped that he would be home before this weekend, but the Dr. told us that it would be monday because they wanted to take him off 1 more medicine before they sent him home. So they took him off the medicine for the fluid in the lungs and watched him over the weekend. He gained weight and actually seemed to do a lot better sleeping with his respitory sensor.

I spent Friday up at the hospital "nesting". Most of the nurses didn't really understand why, when I have been up there most of the time anyway. It gave me something to do, and made me finish my "Thank You" cards. :)

This weekend we spent finding those last minute things that we didn't get in a shower that we felt we "HAD" to have to be ready for him.

Monday morning, I had a Dr. Appt myself. My Dr. still wants me on Blood pressure meds - as they were still a little high - but no where near what they had been. Then I went to the hospital to wait on the discharge papers for Gunnar.

Since the nurses all know me by now, when the Dr was making his rounds - she commented that I was just waiting for the OK for him to be released. They asked me a few more questions, like when I have my Ped. appointment and followup care that they want for his eyes, but then they started signing the papers.

Here he is in his new car seat. This is in the car.

And all that excitement had him worn out. He is snuggled into his bed and already asleep.

A Wonderful surprise

Well, with today being my birthday, I really didn't expect too much. Our lives have obviously just been consumed with the process of getting Gunnar home. So I'm going to start with yesterday...

When I got the hospital at 11 yesterday, the nurse told me that Gunnar had taken the last 3 bottles all in a row. He's never even taken 2 in a row before so we were excited. Then for the next 3 bottles that I fed him he also took. He definately knows how to build excitement. On that 6th one, it was a different nurse, and as we got in to get him changed, we noticed that Gunnar had pulled out his feeding tube. I guess he was telling us he was ready to move out. So, since 2 am yesterday, Gunnar has been "nippling" the bottles.

Now today when I went in, the nurse is indicating all these different proceedures that need to be done before he's discharged. I have to attend a CPR class, the home monitor has to be ordered (he will come home on O2.), we have to have a car seat check, and if we want to try "nesting" there at the hospital - to make sure that everything will go smoothly, and we won't have questions trying to take care of him, as well as any of the equiptment. I couldn't believe my ears. As long as all goes according to plan, he should be coming home this weekend. WOW - it's amazing to think that we will actually get him home. And then for the scary part, lol, we have to be the parents now, and take wonderful care of him.

He will get home care, since he is coming home on the O2 monitor - as well as being followed by an AZ program to make sure there are not developmental delays due to being so early. We are just so excited about this now.

OK, so now for other news.

Dan got a new job. His title is Project Engineer. This is a step in the direction of why he has been attending school. He starts tomorrow. OK, now for those of you that know Dan - picture him in an office setting, wearing polo shirts and working the computers. :) About as opposite as you can get from what he has been doing. He's excited to start this new adventure. I'm excited for him. Not only is it a move up, it's a better company, but I don't have to worry about him cutting a finger off with his snips. :)

Nothing really new on my part. Here is the "Douty" chair that everyone helped get for us for the baby room. Thank you to all that helped with this - and I promise, one of my goals is to get out all the Thank You notes from the shower. I had quite the workout putting all the clothes in the dresser from the baby shower. It's been quite exciting getting ready for Gunnar, that's for sure.

Anyone recognize the outfit?

Here is Dan holding Gunnar right after his bath.

Another update

So I'm officially able to now drive. Dan is very excited. Although he says he didn't mind taking me back and forth to the hospital, and having to go grocery shopping with me... I know it was wearing on his nerves. I no longer even have a bandage on my incision. The Home Care Nurses are surprised at how fast I have healed. I'm glad. I didn't want to carry anything around anymore, and it's not fun not being able to take a shower anytime I wanted.

I just got back from the hospital, and Gunnar was as of last night 5lb 1 oz. WOW a little porker. :) Although he does have some fluid in his lungs from being on O2 so long, so he's taking some medicine to get rid of that, the nurses indicated that they do want to see him lose a little of the weight so they know he's getting that fluid out. He is doing great otherwise. He knows WHAT to do when we try to breast feed, although doesn't suck long enough to get much. He is doing well on the bottle though. He finished a little over 1/2 of his meal this morning by bottle.

He loves to sleep on his tummy - which might be hard to break him of that habit once we get him home, as that's how I sleep.

A little closer to coming home

So Gunnar's eye infection is cleared up. That is very good. Although because he tested positive for MSRA (the staph infection), he will be kept in the isolation room until he is discharged. He is probably happy about that, his own private room. The bad part about it, is that we will have to continue to glove/gown to visit him. The grey area in that is I can start to breast feed him. I was very apprehensive about the whole thing, but it seemed to go ok.

The nurse was there almost the whole time, and it's very weird having someone you really don't know watch you. AND when I wasn't holding him correctly, or "pushing" him onto my nipple, she showed me... (she did ask if she could touch me first... what am I going to say to that one????? )

I finally got him "latched" on, and she said not to expect much other than him just holding on and trying out the feeling. However, Gunnar went for it - and tried sucking almost immediately. I know at one point, he got a mouthful, and I was surprised, because I didn't think that he was sucking hard enough to get anything yet.

He did get very tired, so we finished the feeding through the gavage, and called it a night. it will be fun to try again.

Some new pictures

So I thought I would post a couple new pics, as I havn't done it in a while. Here is a pic of me holding Gunnar.

I looked further down the blog, and now some of you can see at least in my face, how much weight I have lost. :)

And Here is Grandma changing Gunnar's clothes the other day after he decided to pee all over the place when I was changing his diaper.

And Finally, here is Amy, getting to see Gunnar in his open crib. I forgot to have the camera ready when she changed his diaper.