2010: Year in Review

January ~

Ryder was 9 months old when 2010 began, and he brought in the New Year sick (any one else see the pattern forming?). We had our first meeting with Early Intervention about Ryder’s delay in his motor skills, specifically his left arm, and this was the first time the possibility of a brain injury was mentioned to us.  This began his weekly therapy appointments.  He perfected the army crawl, and his vocabulary consisted of Mama, Dada, Nana, & Ba-ba.  Mommy celebrated her 26th Birthday and we ended the month with a huge snow storm!

February ~

We got more snow and spent the first part of February snowed in!  We celebrated our first Valentine’s Day as a family.  Ryder developed a great appetite and really enjoyed trying new people foods.  He had his first appointment with a Neurologist this month and we were told we were going to have to take him for an MRI of his brain. 

March ~

March was a HUGE month for us.  Let’s see…Mommy & Daddy celebrated their 2 year wedding anniversary, Ryder turned 1 whole year old!  We were asked to be the Honorary Family for the Kidney Foundation.  Ryder had to be put to sleep for an MRI, that showed that he suffered a stroke, and therapy continued.  He got his top two teeth, a great report from his Kidney Doctor, and had THREE birthday parties!!

April ~

We celebrated Ryder’s 2nd Easter in April, and he made lots of developmental progress this month.  His vocabulary exploded and he began to say lots of words, he said bye-bye to the ba-ba, and started pulling himself up to stand!  The weather started to warm up, we started a swim class at the YMCA and this is the month that Ryder’s obsession for the golf cart started AND he became a serious Daddy’s boy!

May ~

I got to celebrate my 2nd Mother’s Day this month!  Me, Ryder, Nicki, & Mikayla went on a road trip to NC to visit friends!  Ryder finally pushed up onto all fours and started crawling!  He had a therapy evaluation at Children’s Hospital and started weekly Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy through them.

June ~

Happy Father’s Day to Daddy!  Ryder tried ketchup for the first time this month and fell in love!  He also got a smaller version of his blankie sent to him in the mail, which was extra special!  I don’t know what he’d do without “little blank” today!

July ~

This month, Ryder got to enjoy fireworks during the 4th of July!  He loved them and talked about them for weeks afterward.  He learned how to climb in therapy and worked hard on walking…even taking his very first accidental steps by the end of the month!  Mommy & Daddy went on our annual camping trip and drove right through the Shenandoah River in Daddy’s BIG truck!

August ~

In August Ryder turned 17 months old and finally started WALKING!!!  This meant that he had to start wearing shoes for the first time in his life and that he was ready to be fitted for his very first Orthotics.  We enjoyed a visit from Uncle Tim who is stationed in Hawaii, and Ryder had a sleepover with Nicki & Mikayla while Mommy & Daddy were out of town.  One really fun thing we did this month was attend a Richmond Flying Squirrels baseball game where Ryder got to go out on the field and throw the first pitch to represent the National Kidney Foundation!

September~

This month Ryder got to go on his very first vacation…we went to Nagshead and had a BLAST!!  Ryder really enjoyed the beach, and loved our vacation home.  He also got to attend his first county fair and thought seeing the animals was so cool.  We had a meeting with his Neurologist and got to see what his stroke looked like, and we were SO blessed to find out that Ryder got approved for Medicaid and was going to be able to continue with therapy!

October ~

At the beginning of October, Daddy celebrated his birthday in a BIG way by buying a new Harley!  We participated in all the Halloween festivities…going to the pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins, dressing up as a shark, and going trick-or-treating!  Ryder’s favorite treat was definitely the lollipops!  Daddy was pretty surprised one day to come home to Ryder wearing a shirt that said “Big Brother”!  As soon as he walked in the door and saw Ryder he said “no wayyyyy, you’re pregnant??!!”  And I was!  So this month we started to imagine our life going from a family of 3 to a family of 4 (or 6…depending how you look at it!)

November ~

Yummm, November means Thanksgiving and lots of yummy food!  But it also means a time to reflect on the things we’re thankful for.  One HUGE thing we have to be thankful for is all of our friends and family who gather together to make up Team Ryder!  We raised almost $3,000 for the Kidney Foundation this year and enjoyed our 2nd annual Kidney Walk with Team Ryder!  We also saw an Ophthalmologist and learned about an eye condition Ryder has called VI Cranial Nerve Palsy that we’ll have to follow up with.

December ~

And finally December.  The month that ends out the year, but starts and ends before you even realize it’s here!  We took a trip to OC with some other Moms & Kids and had so much fun shopping and going to the Festival of Lights.  Ryder had the BEST Christmas yet!  He was so much fun this year and loved celebrating Christmas!

Now here we are, on New Year’s Eve, reflecting back on this action packed year that just passed by right before our eyes.  It feels like it went by so fast, but then looking back month by month I realize how much has happened, how far we’ve come, and how things have progressed.  I wouldn’t take back one second of this year…even with all of its ups and downs.  It got us to where we are today, and I like this place. 

Here’s to 2011 – I’m starting to realize that no matter how much I want to stop time or atleast slow it down…the future has so much to offer and I need to embrace it and enjoy it as it comes…because it doesn’t stick around long!

14 Weeks!!

Here is what Alpha Mom says about this week:

Your Baby:

• Is about the size of your fist, unless you have giant man-hands or something, so maybe I should just compare it to a peach instead.
• Has a strong, whoosh-whooshy heartbeat that can usually be found pretty easily now with a doppler. It’s much faster than yours (between 120 – 160 bpm), and sounds vaguely like a washing machine.
• Has probably started sucking its thumb.

You:

• Should be noticing a definite decrease in some of the more crap symptoms from the first trimester, although fatigue and nausea do tend to stick around a little longer for some women.
• Probably aren’t as bothered by breast tenderness anymore, although your boobs will continue to grow in size in the weeks and months ahead. Reassess your bra size periodically and make sure you aren’t mashing the girls into something you’ve outgrown.
• If this is your first pregnancy, you may FINALLY feel like you’re starting to “show” with a little belly pooch.
• If this is your second (or third or fourth or etc.) pregnancy, you’ve probably been in maternity clothes or been rubber-banding your pants for a few weeks already, so pffft.

This week has been such a blur to me, with me being sick and then Christmas and then Ryder getting sick, so I haven’t had much time to focus on the pregnancy.  One MAJOR thing that happened is I felt the baby flutter for sure on Christmas morning!  I’ve been feeling a few flutters sitting at my desk, but wasn’t convinced that it was the real deal…but when I felt it Christmas morning as I was sitting on the couch eating candy out of my stocking, I was SURE!  I don’t think much else has changed…I really don’t have an appetite these days, which I think is stemming from being sick.  I just can’t get back to feeling normal.  Hopefully it will happen soon, because I love food, and I miss actually liking what I’m eating.  Other than that, nothing new really.  It’s funny because this whole pregnancy I have felt like my stomach is HUGE already…but I looked at some pictures of myself pregnant with Ryder and the comparison at week 14 isn’t too far off.

Pregnant with Ryder @ 14 weeks:

And with Baby Marsh v2 @ 14 weeks:

14 Down, 26 to go :)

Yaya Makes Everything Better

Every time I get sick, the first thing I think to do is call my Mom.  I don’t know what it is…I guess just hearing the compassion in her voice and knowing that she cares, or maybe it brings me back to the time when Mommy could make everything all better.  But I’ve passed the gene on to Ryder, because all day yesterday and all day today he will be sitting in my lap and ask me to “call Yaya Lolly”.  So I do, and of course she talks to him and tells him how sorry she is that he’s sick and how much she hopes he feels better.  He looks so pitiful, like he’s soaking up all the sympathy and the only things he will say back are “not peelin’ good Lolly” and “can’t talk”. 

He was definitely tugging at her heartstrings, so as only a Yaya would do…she showed up with a care package.  Chinese food for Mommy & Daddy, soup for Ryder…which he didn’t want, so she hand picked the peas and carrots out of the fried rice because it was the only thing he wanted to eat!

And, she brought Ryder a pillow pet!!!  He loves it so much and I seriously think it made him feel better!

So, as you can see, we’re still trying to get Ryder better.  He doesn’t have any cold symptoms, it’s just a really high fever that has him feeling so bad.  After his bath today, it came down to the 99 range, so that was good.  Hopefully it’s going to stay down throughout the night and tomorrow he’ll be on the up and up!  We’ll keep you posted!

So Sick :(

Just when I thought that we had made it without Ryder catching any of the germs he has been around…he woke up crying at 3am.  I can tell from the sound of his very first middle of the night cry when he is sick.  I went in to check on him, and sure enough he was burning up with a fever.  I gave him medicine and had to go back in to console him a few more times throughout the night.  I took him to the Doctor first thing this morning because I knew he had been exposed to so many different sicknesses over the Christmas break.  I figured he had something but I was definitely shocked when they told me that he tested positive for both Strep Throat AND the Flu! 

They gave him a shot of Penicillin, and we left with prescriptions for Amantadine and Tamiflu.  I’ve been trying to keep fluids in him all day and we’ve been getting plenty of rest.  He’s so funny because he will get a little burst of energy and then come over to me and say “not peelin’ good…need-a take-a nap in Mommy’s bed” and off we go to lay down.  He’s never been much of a cuddler, so me & Daddy definitely take advantage of the sick days when his favorite medicine is our lovin’.

This Little Mouth…

The things that come out of this mouth are just unreal sometimes.  He gets his tone and enthusiasm from his Mommy, so you can only imagine how exciting his words are as they come out! 

He has some expressions that he uses on a daily basis.  Like “What’s goin’ on maaannnnn”, “what we gonna do now?”, “What time is it??”, “OH GOODNESS!”, “Dere we goooo” and “Ryda, Ryda, Ryda” when he has nothing else to say, he just mumbles his name.

He’s pretty independent these days and is able to tell us anything he wants or needs…or tell other people what they need to be doing.  “Get outta my face Beeezaaweee!”, “bump-a-head…kiss it…all betta”, “its naptime!”, “turn da dvd playass onnn!”…this one needs its own paragraph…

The DVD players in the car give me anxiety.  He shouts orders from the backseat, and sometimes there’s just nothing I can do to help him.  It all starts when he wants it on, he tells me “plug da dvd playa in!” then follows up with “its onnnn” then “don’t press play mommy!” Okay Ryder, tell me when you’re ready, “okay, press play”…”Put it on pawwse”, “press play”, “wanna watch elmo ride da bike again”, “wanna watch elmo play da guitaaa”.  I really need to find the remote these things came with, watch the movie and memorize it, so that I know where all the parts are. *end vent*.

He never misses anything, there is no privacy or hiding anything from him.  And since he announces everything he sees, you’re sure to hear about it.  “Mommy goin’ potty…proud of you!!!”, “Daddy kissin’ mommy!”, “Mommy get off da computaaa!”

Everything ends in Y right now ever since Mama & Dada became Mommy & Daddy.  Yaya, pronounced LaLa by Ryder is now Lolly!  Nana is Nanny.  So Banana is Bananny.  And no way Jose is “no way Joseyyyy”.

Some of the most interesting things that come out of this little mouth are things that he learns from Uncle G.  Today as he was giving himself a tattoo with a black pen he said to himself “gotta keep da needle wet!”  really??!!  Whenever Uncle G leaves, he tells Ryder he’s going back to tent city…just trying to be funny saying that he’s homeless.  So when Uncle G is not around, Ryder will seriously ask “go see Uncle G at tent city!”  When he sees Uncle G’s truck, he says “Uncle G truck a beater…kick da tire!”  And everyone’s favorite…when Uncle G lets Ryder play with his phone he tells him “dont be calling China”, so whenever Ryder has anyone’s phone if you ask who he’s calling he will usually tell you “China’s house”.  Those two are so silly together, but definitely have a bond that only the two of them could have!

“Aint” is the newest word in his vocabulary…yes, the word that isn’t a word, that people cringe at hearing come out of a child’s mouth.  That’s my country bumpkin kid.  “ain’t goin bye-bye’s”, “ain’t pickin up da toys”, “ain’t puttin’ a hat on”.  My answer to that…OH YES YOU IS!

He knows his very first song and can be heard walking around the house, or in the car, singing “da eensy weensy spida, up da spout, down came da rain, washa spida out!”  I could listen to his little singing voice all day.  Seriously.

His favorite story in the Bible is still the one when the Devil takes Jesus to the desert and tempts him.  As we read he says “Go away devilll, we dont YIKE YOU!” and then he says “awwww kiss Jesus” and gives Jesus kisses as he swats the devil away.

Oh this little mouth is so sweet.  When I tell him it’s time to go night-night he turns into the sweetest baby alive.  First he finds his Daddy and says “goo-night Daddy” then asks for a bear hug, then an eskimo kiss, then a butterfly kiss, then “da other side”, then a secret…and thennnn Mommy can take him and lay him down.  And he finally says “loves you Mommy, loves you Daddy”. 

This mouth has a lot of “no’s” and “don’t wanna’s” come out of it…but at the end of the day, it always ends with words that will melt your heart and make you so thankful for every breath this child takes. 

Merry Christmas!!

We had such a wonderful Christmas, I really don’t think it could have gone any better at all!  Ryder is at the perfect age this year and made Christmas that much more special for us and everyone around him.  He had the best expressions when he opened his presents, some of my favorites were “Thank you GUYS!!!”, “Wooo-Hoooo”, and “I LOVES IT!”  He definitely understood the meaning of the celebration of the whole day, so any time anyone would ask him whose Birthday it was, he would say “JESUS!!!” 

I woke up around 6am and just paced around, trying to make sure everything was perfect, and anxiously waiting for Ryder to wake up.  Finally around 7:15 he made his first little moan, so Me & Daddy rushed in his room to tell him MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  When we brought him out to the living room, the first thing he saw was his new car!  He ran sooooo fast over to it and wanted to play right away!

 

 

He would have been perfectly happy if this were the only present he got!  But of course, there were more and so we had to convince him to get out of his car and start opening presents!  He was sure glad he did because his next present was a vaccuum!!!  To say that he’s excited about having his very own vaccuum is an understatement!

 

He loved these 2 presents so much that he wanted to combine them, so he needed his vacuum in his car so he could drive it around!

He opened the rest of his presents and helped Daddy put everything together and we played for a while before heading over to Poppy & Nana’s for breakfast and more presents!

 

We couldn’t pull him away from his new toys…SO…the vaccuum had to come WITH US!  He even told us “put it in the middle seat!” and then when Daddy put it in the car, he said “There you go, nice & warm!” 

 

We had a delicious breakfast at Poppy & Nana’s and then Ryder got to open another AWESOME present…he got a GRILL so he can BBQ just like Poppy!

 

We all got spoiled at Poppy & Nana’s house and had a blast opening up all our goodies :)

After that it was nap time (for our whole family!) and then time to get back in the car and head to Me-Mew’s house.  I didn’t take any pictures there, but I did in the car because Ryder’s face was making me laugh.

After that…no our day was not over yet…Yaya came over so Ryder could show her all of his toys!  Of course, he got right to showing off his vacuum “It’s Red like Yaya’s!!”

Then we went back over to Poppy & Nana’s for a late night snack and so Ryder could “see da grillll” one more time before bed.  Then, back home and ready to be tucked in…but not before he insisted on the vacuum laying on a pillow right beside his bed. 

And that was our fun-filled Christmas day.  It was so very special, and I love this family that I get the joy of sharing life with!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too :)

Christmas Eve…

Let the Christmas Festivities begin :)

On Christmas Eve we always get together with my family and have a yummy meal then exchange gifts.  This year was a little crazy because almost all of us are either getting over being sick, or are just now getting sick, and I’m praying for the few lucky ones that they don’t wake up feeling bad today!  But, of course, we made the best of it and had a blast just being together!  It’s such a whirlwind at times like Christmas that it’s hard to get the camera out for any good picture taking…but here are a few I managed to snap during all the craziness:

  

 

Ryder is having so much fun opening presents this year!  It would be MUCH easier for him if he would use lefty…but he’s making do without.  Now that he knows how much fun it is to open a present and it be such a cool toy, I keep finding him at random presents trying to open them, even though they are not for him!  He has gotten so much cool stuff though, like a laptop, Chuck the dumptruck, a house that you can color the WHOLE thing, a Thomas the Train set, and some awesome new clothes from his Aunt/Stylist Megan :)

He was WORE OUT by the time we left there and is now sound asleep in bed, preparing to do it all over again tomorrow. 

Merry Christmas Eve!

13 Weeks!!

(One Day Early)…

Hellooooo 2nd Trimester!!!  OH how happy I am to see you!  Even though I’ve felt extremely bad this week from fighting a head/chest cold…I know that once I kick this sickness I’m going to start feeling much better in this pregnancy.  Here is what Alpha Mom says about this week:

Your Baby:

• Is about three inches long, the size of a jumbo shrimp, or a very small ramekin of tartar sauce.
• Has his or her own unique fingerprints already.
• Has intestines on the INSIDE of his or her body. (They start developing outside the body, in the umbilical cord, and then sort of…migrate up to their proper home around 13 weeks. I know. Biology is WEIRD, dude.)
• Will look less and less like a Big Giant Head and more and more proportionate as the next weeks tick by.

You:

• Are probably not puking anymore? But don’t freak out if you still are? I generally feel iffy until around week 16, although right now I’m only suffering from the occasional dry heave (on Tuesdays. Every darn Tuesday.) and have actual full days where I want to eat everything in sight because it’s all so gooooood.
• Are probably not as tired anymore? Unless you are me? I still can’t seem to get enough sleep or make it through the day without a catnap. Although maybe I am just very lazy.
• May start glowing soon, like everybody always talks about. The “glow” is actually just hormonal changes in your skin’s oil production, but it seems most people find it dewy and lovely instead of…ew, gross, oil.
• Your hair and nails might be changing as well — a lot of women stop shedding hair during their pregnancies, leading to very thick heads of hair that may also grow faster. Fingernails tend to get stronger and longer as well, which I can personally attest to BEING AWESOME.

I had a Dr. Appt on Wednesday…and it was SO refreshing!  First of all, there are 7 Doctors in the practice I go to.  With Ryder, I saw a few different ones but then as soon as I became high risk, I saw the lead Doctor in the practice for the remainder of the pregnancy.  So this time around, I called to make an appointment with him, but when I showed up they had switched me to another doctor.  I stuck with the new guy thus far, but something was telling me to just get back to my comfort zone with my old doctor!  I really trusted him, he was a voice of reason for me when I was going through such a scary time with Ryder, so I knew that I wanted his opinion and advice on how to handle this pregnancy.

Well thank GOD I called and rescheduled this appointment to a time when he was available!  He was so happy to see me, and gave me the biggest hug when he came in.  He got an update on Ryder and his kidney’s, and I filled him in about Ryder suffering the stroke in-utero.  He’s also a Christian, so it’s nice to hear someone say that we have to leave this all in God’s hands.  There is no way that he can tell me that nothing is going to go wrong this time around, but he did reassure me that the 2 events that happened to Ryder were random, fluke things, and that they carried no risk over to this baby because neither one is genetic.  I will be seeing him the rest of the time, he will be performing my C-Section, and until then he just wants to follow us closely.  The other Doctor had scheduled me to see a high-risk Perinatologist at 24 weeks, which he felt was too far away, so he moved that up to January 18th (hopefully we can get a peek at the gender at that appointment since I’ll be 16 weeks!).

And to top off the wonderful appointment, I got awesome test results!  I PASSED MY DIABETES TEST!!!!!  I was SHOCKED when he said that, I made him show me my blood sugar levels on the report!!  He’s pretty sure that it’s going to come back as the pregnancy progresses though, so he’s testing me again at 20 weeks and 24 weeks.  He’s only sending me for the 1 hour though and if I fail, then we’re going to treat it as diabetes. 

I’m just excited to be able to eat whatever I want for the holiday’s…and to put off having to prick my finger 4 times a day!  I made it through the whole 1st trimester without gaining a pound…don’t ask me how, I guess the extra stuff I’m already carrying is just shifting around.  Fine with me!

I also got to hear the heartbeat again…it was 158bpm :)

Sorry, no pic this week…I have been so sick and I don’t even want to know what I look like, much less show you!

My Baby Can Read!

Did anyone else go out and buy the “Your Baby Can Read” series??  Let me tell you, I am a sucker for infomercials, so when me & my Mom saw this, she bought it and had it shipped to me before Ryder was even born!  I was a really early reader, so I wasn’t surprised that she was on top of getting him the tools to get started either. 

I started showing Ryder the videos when he was about 6 months old.  It’s neat because it shows you the word, and then the object, so the kids learn to associate what the actual word looks like with the object or action that the word means.  I really believe that this helped Ryder to develop a big vocabulary at such a young age.  He walked around for months with a one word name for everything he saw.

Now is the time that he is really soaking up information and is at a prime age to learn these things…but now he won’t sit in front of the TV and watch a video!  So we’ve kind of trailed off and haven’t been working with him much.  But the series also comes with books and flash cards, so whenever we have the chance we’ll go over some of them with him, and its amazing to me how he remembers the word!  I definitely wouldn’t call it “reading”, this system (in my opinion) is way more about memorization.  I can’t get him to stick around for long, but here’s a little sample of him “reading” his words:

When it’s time to actually start learning how to read, I’ll be sticking to a system like Phonics that teaches you how to sound the word out from beginning to end, not just look at it and recognize the word as a whole.  But, this works for now :)

My Little Caretaker

Apparently, having Baby Nick around has taught Ryder a lot about how to care for a baby!  The other day he brought me Chick and told me “Chick need a get dressed!” so I proceeded to put a t-shirt on Chick.  The next night I heard him and Daddy in the kitchen having this convo:

“Daddy, Elmo needs a bottle!”

“Elmo needs a what??”

“A BOTTTTTTLE”

“ummm, okayyyy”

And the next thing I know Ryder is carrying Elmo, and a bottle filled with water to me.  I set them both on the bed and let Ryder feed his baby!

And then he told me “Elmo need to burp!” and sure enough…he put elmo over his shoulder and burped him!

Of course, his curiosity got the best of him and he wanted to see what this bottle thing was all about:

The next morning when I dropped Ryder off, I told Nana the story about Ryder taking care of his baby Elmo.  She was shocked because she didn’t even realize that he was paying attention to the things she did for Baby Nick during the day.  Next thing you know, Ryder is walking up to Nana with a bear and says “Bear needs a pacifier!!”  Guess he has been paying LOTS of attention to how this baby thing works. 

What a sweet boy, I hope he still has this mentality when his new brother/sister gets here!