Wow! Today, Nicholas is 8 and a half months old. I can hardly believe it! Last year, at this time, I was about 22-24w pg with him. I was about as big with Nicholas at that time as I was with the girls when we lost them.
Let's see...I need to do some major updating...
Nicholas weighs about 20lbs, 13oz right now. That's using our home scale to figure it out, so hopefully when we go to his well-baby visit on June 25, he'll be about 21lbs or more on their scale. Then we'll know that it's not so far off. I'm not sure how long he is but he seems really tall.
For those of you that are wondering, yes...I'm still nursing him. My goal is to go until his first birthday, or a little beyond if he still wants to. I'm not taking the pump to work anymore after his first birthday, though. No way, Jose. I'll be glad to rid myself of that in a short 3.5 months. For those of you that have pumped, you know why. For those of you that haven't - imagine hooking up to a machine with suction, 2x a day or MORE for the last 150+ days, and having to find a place to park and pump when I'm in my car for work. NOT FUN.
This past weekend, I got together with some girls from LAMBs that live in MI. LAMBs (Loss of All in Multiple Birth) is a group that I found through CLIMB (Center for Loss in Multiple Birth - www.climb-support.org) and it's a Yahoo! Group. I've met some really wonderful women through that group. In fact, I'm going to be seeing another of my LAMBs friends tomorrow. Anyway...the four of us got together and we were surprised how long we stayed and chatted. I'm sure that the folks at the Olive Garden in Brighton were NOT amused that we occupied a large booth for FIVE hours! We finally got going when we noticed that the dinner rush was starting to occupy the lobby. So, Saturday was a good day for me as I was able to enjoy my morning with Nicholas, and then be able to talk about the girls with others that really understand what we've gone through.
Sunday we took Nicholas down to Gracie-See's Pizzeria in Dearborn to meet his cousins, who were visiting from Georgia. He got to meet Aunt Elaine for the first time, as well as her daughters, Cynthia & Nancy, and their families. I'll upload pics from our visit soon - it will be in the Summer album to the left.
Lots of people have asked me lots of questions about Nicholas, so I'll try to answer some now.
Is he crawling, yet? No, but he's getting really close. In fact, check back later this week for a video to show how close he's getting!
Is he sleeping through the night? Technically, yes. He usually goes down to bed around 8pm and he'll sleep until 4:30ish. Sometimes he sleeps longer (really surprising me when he does) but normally he'll wake up once, nurse and then go back to bed.
Whose baby pictures does he look like? Well, he's definitely got my hair and I *think* he's got my chin (with a cleft in it) so he looks like me a bit but he really does look like my dad (Grandpa D). I've GOT to get a pic of him from when he was a baby. From the nose up he looks JUST like Nick's baby pics. Another reminder to self - scan a pic of Nick from when he was a baby.
What is Nicholas eating? He's not to table food yet. He likes to eat things like graham crackers, hunks of bread, biter biscuits, puffs, cheerios and pizza crust, but...he's not to the point where he will eat 'table food' just yet. He LOVES avocado, and I *think* it might be helping him sleep better at night.
What's Nicholas doing now-a-days? Let's see - what's new in the last month or so? He's rolling back to front now, and I've found him on his tummy many nights, so that's good b/c I think he sleeps better on his tummy (both mommy and daddy are tummy sleepers). He's also trying to crawl, he loves to stand on our laps or with our help, and he's laughing a lot more. He's got such a cute sense of humor. Today, I was trying to tell him no, and I said, "ah-ah" and he just started laughing! And he LOVES to play with the dogs...and he tries SO VERY HARD to get the dog toys.
Does he ever cry/is he that happy all the time? Yes, most of the time he is VERY happy. Unfortunately, he's inherited a temper from both mommy & daddy, so he can get mad VERY quickly, especially when it's time for the boogie monster (aka, nose sucker) to come out. He usually only cries if he's hungry or tired. He won't even let you know if he's made 'stinkies' in his pants.
When are you going to cut his hair? When he or other babies start pulling it - no really, I don't know. We've trimmed his bangs - doesn't that count?
Is he talking? No. He's not. He definitely likes to screech and hear the sound of his voice, but other than "Hi" he's not talking. Surprising, I know, since he did come out of me, right?
Other updates? Nick and I (well, now it's just me since Nicholas goes to bed earlier) are still attending the Mosaic meetings at St. Pat's. We've learned that 5pm Mass is the best time for us to attend church due to Nicholas' nap schedule, so...we usually try to go on Saturday if possible, and if we don't get there, then we try to go on Sunday.
My nephew, Dan is graduating from High School on Wednesday night. I can hardly believe it. I know it must be hard for my sis and BIL to think about that. It seems like just yesterday that I was a middle schooler (eighth grade) and he was in the NICU at Hurley. He's overcome so many obstacles - we're so proud of him!
This month is a VERY busy month for us! We've got the St. Pat's Festival this weekend (Las Vegas night for Mommy & Daddy on Friday - our first date in over 3 months!), Aaron & Amelia's Birthday Party on Sunday, Mosaic next Wednesday, Dan & Kristina Moore's Open Houses on the 14th, Father's Day on the 15th, the LAPOM Picnic on the 21st, Balloonfest the last weekend in June, and then our trip to Hawai'i the week after that. I can hardly believe that we'll be leaving for Maui in just one month from Wednesday!
Speaking of Maui...it just occurred to me on Saturday that we've finally gotten a decent sleep schedule out of Nicholas...just in time to whisk him off to Maui, six hours different from here. What in the HECK was I thinking?
My friend, Kristi Adams (the one that attended the photography workshop with me) has taken the plunge and started her own photography business, Remember When Photography . She's going to take some pictures of Nicholas on the 16th - his 9 month birthday. She's got a studio in her home, and then we'll go outside and take some 'natural light' pictures.
Someone asked me recently, how long has it been since we lost the girls? As if I don't know EXACTLY how long? Well, as of today, it has been 21 months, and 2 weeks since my water broke.
I've been thinking about them a lot lately. Maybe it's because I wonder if they come to 'visit' Nicholas. Or whether or not they might come to 'visit' me. I'd love to 'see' them in my dreams...someone told me if I stop thinking about it - it may happen. So I'll try NOT to think about that so much.
Our life is so bittersweet. Nick and I were just talking about this on Sunday, on our way to Dearborn. If we'd not lost the girls, we'd be parents of living twin girls. But, we likely wouldn't have Nicholas and can't imagine NOT having him. We also couldn't imagine not knowing Doug & Kathy Beilharz, whom we met through Mosaic. We also couldn't imagine NOT knowing Kim & Mike. We talked about...did we EVER think that our life would be our life and both of us said that NEVER in a MILLION years would we have dreamt that THIS would be our life.
We've gone through SO much in the last few years. We're definitely different people than we were on our wedding day. And yet...I don't think either of us would change anything, as difficult as it's been.
More pictures of Nicholas as well as video will be shared soon.
ETA: this video of Nicholas shows him rolling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF6ZjKdNUvI
