DOC Band

Miles has had his band for a little over two weeks. Right now he still isn't quite sure what to think of it. For the most part he doesn't know it's there, however every now and then he reaches up and starts tugging on if or gets a little cranky. Sleeps hit and miss right now while he's adjusting to sleeping in it. We will go every Monday for his adjustment appointments. Here's a picture of him the day he got his band and then after we got it wrapped :)

From My City to Yours

Whether it is a favorite restaurant, a favorite bench in the park to enjoy a beautiful autumn day, or the history that embodies your city, we all have our own personal favorite things we love about our hometowns. There is so much that we love that it can seem difficult to even narrow it down, but the following are the reasons we, Tiffany and Kendra, love our home cities: Waco and Chicago.

Waco Texas is my home and has been for almost 30 years. It’s the perfect size in my opinion. We have several towns around us that are easy to commute to. We have all your normal amenities, grocery stores and malls…and we are only 2 hours away from the larger cities like Austin or Dallas which have bigger malls and more attractions.

Waco is the birthplace to the Dr. Pepper, we have a Dr. Pepper Museum that is fun for visitors. We have the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, Texas Sports Hall of Fame and  Maybourn Museum (so much fun, especially if you have children) -- We have three colleges, Baylor University (We are huge Baylor Bear fans!), Texas State Technical College, and McLennan Community College. Our zoo is the perfect size and never gets old (however I do like to travel to Dallas for there zoo also, it’s really big!)

We have one of the biggest and best municipal parks in Texas, Cameron Park. It’s extremely beautiful and lines the Brazos and Bosque Rivers. When bands come to town they will often play downtown off of the river, we have one of the most breathtaking bridges I’ve ever seen, ‘The Suspension Bridge’ to which a lot of residence use as a backdrop for pictures.

In spare time my husband and I like to have picnics in Cameron Park, or Woodway Park which oversees Lake Waco. We like to go to the mall, or just take a drive through the country. I work downtown where there are some amazing little boutiques—one of my favorite is ‘Spice’, which is actually a lot of small vendors in one building—The perfect ‘One stop shop’. We have all your chain restaurants but we also have some small ‘mom and pop’ places that I just love. Café Cappuccino is one of our favorite places to go eat breakfast at, they have amazing lunches as well. Toms Burger & Captain Billy Wizzbangs have some of the best burgers in town---and every where you turn you have a small little Mexican food shop.

Texas is a hot hot state, so a lot of the months your finding something to do inside, unless you have an outdoor-water-activity, it’s just too hot to be outside until fall (which sometimes in Texas fall is short lived or intertwined with Winter)....but you can bet it’s never to cold or too hot for a Baylor Bear Football game! We don’t miss many games. 

Overall, I love our little town. My husband comes from a very small town—Brockway, PA—so Waco to him is ‘big’….Waco to me is the perfect town because it has everything you need. :)

The Windy City, Chicago, has been home to me for my entire life. I love life in the big city, and no matter how much I love to travel, I always love coming home.  If you are anything like me, then you love to enjoy live music. In Grant Park and Millennium Park, there are outdoor music venues like the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. There are indoor venues here too, but the Pritzker Pavilion regularly boasts magnificent musical talent. One of my favorite things to do is bring a blanket and some snacks, and enjoy live music while having my own picnic, of sorts, with my family.

The city itself is often overlooked, as we all love to look at what is within it. Call me corny, but I love admiring the beauty of Chicago. I love to see the city at nighttime, as the lights are really beautiful and make for a great aesthetic. One of the coolest parts about Chicago is learning its architectural history. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire ripped and roared its way through Chicago, destroying almost everything in its path. The urban legend goes that a cow tipped over a lantern in a barn, but this was later proven to be just a story. It’s not precisely known how it started, but because most of the city was built of wood, it spread quickly. While it would have been easy to ignore Chicago after it was in ruins, the city quickly rebuilt and this rebuilding lead to it becoming one of the most populated, economically thriving cities in the USA. If you are ever visiting Chicago, you will realize what I mean when I say it is a remarkable place. To find great restaurants and hotels in Chicago, use a site like gogobot to help with your trip. With so much to do here, this will help navigate you in the right direction. Also, with football season here, and basketball and hockey season coming soon, there is no shortage of sporting events in the city! Chicago relentlessly supports them, and they have been rewarding to follow with their recent success (the Blackhawks just won another Stanley Cup!).

5 Months Old

 

Tomorrow you will be 5 months old!!!  It seems like just yesterday I found out I was pregnant with you. My how you have changed our lives and have brightened our world. We love you more than you could possibly imagine.

Your personality sure has sprouted even more throughout this past month. You love to laugh, and it’s the cutest little thing!

You say ‘oohhh’ and ‘mmmmm’ and your face is darling with you say them. You can sit up for a few seconds now!

Your still a very nosey baby, love to look around. You still aren’t a fan of tummy time, but you are doing much better and can push yourself up on your hands for a few minutes. You rolled over for the first time, but have not interest in doing it again.

You LOVE Mickey Mouse…your face lights up when he is on the TV or when you see your stuffed animal Mickey Mouse :) You still love your lovies also when it’s time for bed. You are a ‘binky baby’ but only when your tired.

Your hair is finally starting to grow back, it’s hard to tell the color of it because in different lights it looks different shades. Sometimes it looks very blonde, sometimes we see some red in it and sometimes it looks light brown…only time will tell! The same goes for your eyes. They are outlined in blue. But you have ‘starburst’ eyes like your daddy (my best description)…they are beautiful. In the center they sometimes look hazel and sometimes look green…then the have this starburst effect until they reach the blue. You get compliments all the time on your eyes, everyone loves to guess what color they are. :)

You love your food, you still drink 6oz of formula every 3-4 hours except when you eat your solids you only drink 4oz. You get cereal twice a day and you get a whole container of veggies or fruit with your cereal at dinner. You have had: squash, peas, green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes, pears, peaches and prunes. You love every one of them. We still have apples to try and then I will believe you will have ate a little of all your stage one foods. You eat with a spoon exceptionally well and often will hold my hand while I feed you (trying to do it yourself). You know your bottle and your binky go in your mouth you just haven’t quite figured out how to get them in there properly.

You have had a few colds this month, mommy feels like a pro at this booger suction thing…mommy used to have a weak stomach when it came to this stuff, but it seems so natural when it’s your baby. Not gross at all.

You had a scary situation this month also, you had an episode in which your pediatrician thought looked like a seizure, we took you to a pediatric neurologist, you had an EEG done (you did amazing with all those wires attached to your head)…and your results came back perfect. No seizures at all. Praise the Lord.

 

This past month we took you to a place called ‘Cranial Technologies’ because your little noggin’ in a little misshaped. Your going to have to wear a little baby helmet for 6-12 weeks. You get your helmet next Tuesday. Mommy has to drive you to Austin once a week while you have this helmet on. We have a local company who is going to wrap your helmet for FREE, such a blessing. I can’t wait to see it all wrapped up!

Overall this past month has been so interesting and we love watching you grow and do new things. You are OUR WORLD. Happy 5 months old sweet heart!!!!

Seizure Update

Miles had his EEG today. He did wonderful. He slept the first 30 minutes then woke up ready to play-trying to keep an 'almost' 5 month old extremely still is hard work. He thought it was funny--love love love him!

We talked to the neurologist and he said his report came back perfect-no seizures and everything's perfect with his little brain. He said the only explanation as to what happened was 'sometimes baby's just do strange stuff'...he feels very confident that nothing is wrong with him. 

So thankful!! 

Update & Prayers

If anyone knows about speed bumps in this crazy journey we call 'life' it's us. We have one appointment under our belt-Miles will be getting a helmet in a couple weeks due to having Brachycephaly. (This is fixable,  and for that we are thankful). However,  last week Miles had an episode that 'COULD' have been a seizure. We have been referred to a neurologist and next Monday he will have an EEG done in the morning to measure his brain waves. I'm asking for prayers for my baby boy-prayers that he did not have a seizure and IF he did prayers that it wasn't serious. This is just a bump in our path and we will get through it just like we've done before. 

Miles gets Baptized

In 2006 our infertility journey started…and in July of 2009 Zach gave me my very first fertility shot…I remember holding my breath with tears streaming down my face asking God ‘why us?’….why was this journey picked for us.

After 4 years of shots I can honestly say it did get better, but the pain was always there—It was just numbed with my trusty icepack. I remember looking at my bruises wondering if these shots would ever work…would we ever get pregnant?

Today my tears were so different—they were tears of joy as we baptized our baby boy. The child we wondered if we would ever be blessed with.

God is so great and today was such a special day for our family. Seeing our son get baptized was so emotional.

Sorry for the picture overload below—too many wonderful pictures to just pick a couple :)

Plagiocephaly

Sharing all of your personal life for someone to read is sometimes hard. I’ve always been open about our infertility journey. I knew at times that people wouldn’t agree to what we were doing, or even how I viewed things. Although most of our feedback was positive thoughts, prayers & support, we did receive somenegative comments along the way. For the most part, I was always able to look past the negative. However those comments were about ME…it’s easy to look beyond and ignore harsh statements when they are about you. But what if they are about your baby?

That’s where I am now. I’ve gone back and forth about sharing this information,should I or should I not? What if people talk about him or make rude comments…I can handle someone talking about me, but I don’t think I will be able to if someone talks about my child. (honestly I don’t think anyone will, but I do know from experience there are very opinionated people out there, and when you put your information out there for the world to read you have to accept that not everyone will agree with your choices…again, we’ve always received so much love from everyone with very little negative feedback-but we know it ‘could’ happen…and that’s where I, as any parent, just want to protect my child from any harm.)

So with that said—

Miles has Plagiocephaly. There are three types of Plagiocephaly-Miles’s has the brachycephaly type, where the back of his head is flat and he’ll most likely have to wear a ‘band’ (which is a baby helmet). Miles had a small flat spot when he was born due to how he was sitting in the womb, which gradually got worse while he slept through the night (he wouldn’t sleep on his side or with his head turned-he loves sleeping with his face straight up and hands behind his head)….we didn’t notice just how bad the flatness was until he started losing his hair.

A baby’s skull is so soft and malleable until the sutures fuse around two years of age. For this reason, any external forces, whether during the pregnancy or in the infant’s daily life, can contribute to the head shape. The good news is that the shape can be redirected into a normal head shape using a Band. If untreated he could have a flatter head than normal, he could be at a great risk for ear infections and this could affect his vision later on down the road.

When I heard that he will most likely have to wear a band I cried…a lot!! It took me a couple days to realize MY BABY IS FINE. This does NOT affect his brain by any means. When someone tells you something about your child it’s devastating…and of course the first thing I could think of was his brain and his life. I wasn’t very educated on Plagiocephaly and what all it entailed. I knew the importance of tummy time and rotating your baby, but never knew the details or even thought about the possibility of having Plagiocephaly. This was never mentioned to us, and honestly in the baby books (all the baby books) I’ve read there wasn’t a big topic on it. I’ve carried a lot of guilt; I’ve always put Miles on his stomach supervised for tummy time even though he hates every minute of it, but did I do it enough? Should I have rotated him more than I did? Was this something I could have prevented or fixed? It took a lot of convincing from his doctor and a lot of researching for me to realize I could nothave prevented this—and even though I know in my heart this is NOT ‘our fault’ I am still for some reason carrying guilt. This is just the shape his skull wanted to grow—would it be as bad as it is if SIDS didn’t recommend back sleeping, probably not, but when you look at the bigger picture I CAN fix his head, I can’t bring him back to life. Would I change anything…NO!

One of the hardest parts of all of this was accepting that we as parents didn’t do anything wrong, that he IS ok, and that unfortunately there are going to be opinionated judgmental people out there who will stare and will make comments(although he is just a baby and I don’t understand how anyone could—we are aware this could happen). This band willnot hurt him, yes there is a small percentage of babies with bands that have reactions or get a rash from it, but it’s nothing serious-- most babies don’t even know they have it on…and there is a chance he might NOT have to have it at all—however we are fairly certain he will.

We will go to see a specialist at Cranial Technologies soon to get him scanned and to access the severity of his skull—they will let us know if he has to even have a band or if this will fix on it’s on with time—if he does which type of band will he have and how long will he have to wear it for. 

We are beyond grateful nothing is ‘seriously’ wrong with our son, this is fixable. But any kind of bump in the path is hard—especially when you are uneducated-the unknown can be scary! But just like anything else we have gone through-we will get through this. We have a perfectly healthy baby boy who willpossibly be rockin’ an adorable little band soon. :)

Worry

 

I remember when I was trying to conceive, I worried about every little thing. Would the shots hurt? Would the meds work? What if this doesn’t work? Will I always be the ‘infertile friend’? Will my husband be disappointed in me if I can never conceive? How much money is all of this going to cost? The worrying never stopped….I told myself if and when I would get pregnant I wouldn’t be one of ‘those pregnant woman’ who worried the whole time. WRONG! There’s no way to stop it, and esp. after you’ve had a miscarriage.

Once I was pregnant I worried about spotting, I worried and prayed every time I used the restroom (yes I was that girl sitting on the toilet in pure fear…), Would I make it past the point when we had our 1st miscarriage? Would I make it past the first trimester? second and third….? Is he healthy? He kicked me funny? Is he ok? He hasn’t kicked me enough today? Will my blood pressure spike to high? What if he’s born to early? Am I being still enough on bed rest? The worrying doesn’t end…

Surely when you have the child it ends right?!

NOPE!! Not at all…in fact I think it gets worse! I think the whole first week of his life I just stared at him all night, yes a lot of it was in awe that after 7 years HE WAS HERE, but I was so scared that if I turned my head or blinked he would spit up, what if he stopped breathing, what if he coo’ed wrong, was that a cough I heard? He’s had the hiccups too long, was that a sneeze I heard? Is he eating enough? Is he eating to much? Am I being the best mom I can be? Does his poop look ok (yes again I’m that woman who always wants to know what her sons poop looks like…don’t judge!).

I could go on and on…the worrying doesn’t end. It’s a blessed feeling to be able to worry about the things I DO get to worry about NOW. But let me just say I understand why women age faster then men. I understand how children can make you have more gray hairs than you had before. I’ve just accepted the fact that I will worry about my family till the day the good Lord calls me home. That’s what mommy’s do right?  :)

Good Morning

What keeps your going when your baby pulls an all nighter? What do you start your day off with? 

Me...an advocare spark (and coffee comes later...yes I do both-don't judge me). :)

What about you? 

hobby

Welcome to my new hobby :)

Zach got me my cannon camera last December, and I love taking pictures and editing them. I would love one day to be good enough to possibly start a little side job. I ‘m no where near that yet-but it’s nice to have goals—and I hobby that’s this fun. 

Sorry for the picture overload, I couldn’t just pick one to post…I had too many favorites this time :)

4 months old

Yesterday marked 4 months that we have been so blessed to be able to be this little boys mommy & daddy! It seems to be going by too quickly. I love watching how he changes daily though. His little personality is really starting to bloom. His laugh is so contagious, and his smile melts our hearts.  Here is a couple of his 4 month stats…

He weighs: 18lb (yes he’s a big boy!!)

His length: 24.5inches long

He eats: 6oz every 3-4 hours, and we will be adding cereal to the mix soon.

He loves: to smile, laugh, bath time, he adores Mickey Mouse, sitting up, being outside, he loves to talk and he loves to stand up!

He isn’t a fan of: tummy time-but is improving since being at daycare.

Whats been happening this month: He’s been eating his hands like crazy, loves his hands period! :) , he started actually laughing and he’s doing this more and more, he’s interacting with our pets, he can hold his teether by himself and place it in his mouth, his hair is falling out like crazy and it looks like he will be a bald baby-esp. on the top of his head before long, he can pull his binky out of his mouth but hasn’t figured out how to get it back in, he is almost to the point where he can hold his own bottle. We pulled out his Johnny Jumper and he loves it!

 

HAPPY 4 MONTHS LITTLE LOVE BUG! We love you more than you will ever know!