An update on Carter’s eating is long overdue around here.  I think the last time I wrote about it was when he was just starting his occupational therapy.  He is still seeing that therapist once a week, as well as a nutritionist twice a month.

I am happy to report that things have improved so much!  It was assumed early on that Carter had an issue with some textures.  That is something that the therapist has consistently worked on with him and it’s really made a difference!  Carter went from screaming when we sat him in the grass, to walking in it barefoot.  He’s gone from hating sand to loving it!

As far as eating, he’s taken huge strides in that department as well.  He is now only taking 8 oz per day from a bottle.  We have taken some huge steps in decreasing that and continue to do so.  Just a couple weeks ago the nutritionist calculated his average daily calorie intake and told me he’s actually getting MORE calories now than he was when he was getting ONLY bottles!  We have a few tricks up our sleeves to sneak extra calories into his meals, and they seem to be working!  For example, he gets butter in/on anything possible and his pancakes are made with Nutren Jr. (Nestle’s version of Pediasure) instead of water.

This battle is still not even close to being over.  But, as much as common sense told me so, I never used to think we’d be where we are now.  To watch my child pick up a green bean and eat it, use his hands to eat an entire pancake covered in butter and syrup and take continuous drinks from a straw cup is the best thing ever!

He still has days where he has little interest in any meals except for breakfast.  But what toddler doesn’t, right?  He’s still very low in his weight percentiles, but he continues to get taller and taller so we know he’s getting the nutrition he needs to grow.  He seems to just have a small appetite, but as we’re able to figure out more and more foods that he likes we’re hoping that he’ll start to eat more.

I’m such a proud mama these days.  I think back to the months where the only way to get Carter to eat was to feed him his bottles while he slept.  During those times I could only dream of things that are now a reality.  Keep up the good work little man, you’re doing such a great job!

Because Carter was a preemie he was evaluated for therapy services soon after he came home from the hospital.  So for the last year he’s been receiving developmental therapy to monitor his milestones and development.  When he had his annual evaluation earlier this year I had talked about his feeding issues and it was decided that we’d start occupational therapy once a week. 

Last week was our first appointment and, I have to admit, I was not happy afterward.  Carter is a very shy child and always takes a little while to act like himself around others.  So for most of the hour long appointment he basically just sat there and stared at the therapist.  He didn’t cry, so that’s a plus.  He did end up playing a little toward the end of the appointment, but definitely not like he normally plays.

So, the therapist gave me some things to work on over the next week and expressed her concern that Carter may have some sensory issues.  Maybe it’s just my personality, but this immediately made me defensive because no one, including myself, has ever thought he’s had sensory issues in the past.  And I still don’t.  It frustrates me SO MUCH when someone can come into my home for an hour and think they know my son.  Sorry, that’s just not going to happen!

She gave me a battery-operated tooth brush to let him play with, telling me to turn it on once he’s gotten comfortable with it and then put it in his mouth, specifically on his tongue and in his cheeks to help desensitize them.  I knew this would be an easy task because he loves my battery-operated toothbrush and has no issue with the vibration.  Sure enough, just a couple hours later he was playing with it and I turned it on.  No problem, and he put it straight into his mouth :)

She also gave us a little bear honey container with a straw in it to use for drinking.  Amazingly, Carter was sucking out of that straw by the end of the day!  I was so shocked!  He usually only takes one little drink at a time, and sometimes spits the water out.  But he’s definitely making progress because he’s learned how to use a straw and is swallowing most of the water :)  We’ve tried straws several times with him but I think the key was that this straw is made of the same material as his bottle nipples.  So maybe the fact that it’s a little softer helped to make him more comfortable. 

This week’s appointment went much better.  Carter opened up more at the beginning of the appointment so she was able to work with him a lot.  She brought rice for him to play in, which he seemed ok with until it got on his feet.  He played in it with his hands but had a not-so-happy face while he was.  So the therapist seems to think that maybe he has an issue with light touch, but not deep touch.  Tickling vs. vibrations, etc.  Which could be the case since he doesn’t seem to like grass either.  But it still could be that these are things he’s just not had much experience with.  We’ll keep working to find out.

She also had me fill out a sensory profile about Carter for this week’s appointment and I wonder if she even believes my answers, haha!  I told her I filled it out based on how Carter acts when he’s home with Jake and I, not how he acts around others.  She even said that if she had filled it out it would be completely different. 

Hopefully, since the therapist is coming weekly, Carter will be comfortable enough to act like his normal self around her so that she can see what he’s really capable of and how he normally acts.  It’s so frustrating to have people evaluate your child’s behavior when they won’t show them what they’re truly capable of!  Of course they take what I tell them into account, but they need to see it as well. 

On another note, it’s almost the weekend!  Jake has the entire weekend off, which NEVER happens!  So we have a couple things planned but will probably add more at the last minute because that’s what we do, haha.  I hope it’s great for all of you!  Do you have any plans?

And a super cute picture just because I don’t get very many of him smiling or laughing!

Today has been one of the most frustrating days I’ve had in a while. 

First, we had an appointment for Carter for what we thought was a feeding evaluation.  Turned out that it was just a general evaluation to determine eligibility for services.  The feeding evaluation isn’t even scheduled and I’ve been trying to get it set up since before Christmas.  And not only that, but the two therapists that did the evaluation had none of his history, which I was told they would have.  So they had to ask me a ton of questions.  I don’t mind telling them about Carter but when we have limited time and Carter’s shy there’s no way they will see and be told everything he’s able to do.  So I have a hard time believing that the evaluation is accurate.

Then, Jake had an interview today about 45 minutes away.  He called me soon after he left and said he forgot that there was a time zone difference so he had actually left an hour earlier than he needed to.  So he was gone from 12:30 to 6 because the interview was 2 hours long.  Ugh.

Then I called the GI doctor to get a refill of Carter’s Prevacid sent to our insurance.  They called me back and said since we don’t have another appointment scheduled with him that I need to call his pediatrician and have them send a prescription.  Goodness, it just seemed like one thing after another today!

Then, Carter swoops in and saves the day!  Not only did he already have 18.5 ounces in by this evening (with his bedtime feeding still left), but he ate more solids in one sitting than he ever has!  Almost a whole container!  And Jake was the one that fed him, for the first time :)  He’s doing such a good job learning to put his lips around the spoon to get the food off.  I sure am one proud mama!

We gave Carter his second haircut the other night.  Jake started off by wanting to use the smaller, battery powered clippers because he thought they would scare Carter less.  I convinced him otherwise so we opted for the larger clippers.  Jake chose the #2 attachment because we wanted his hair to be relatively short, shorter than the last haircut at least.  I did the buzzing and Jake distracted Carter so he wouldn’t cry too much.  As soon as I cut the first strip I knew it was too short.  And about halfway through I had to take a break because I was crying.  He almost looks bald!  I know it’s just hair and it’ll grow back so it’s not that big of a deal but it took some getting used to.  Jake loves it, and loves the fact that he looks more like him now that they have almost the same haircut. 

This is one of his new tricks!  He’ll climb up into his chair and then bounce in it.  He loves it!

In other news, he’s exploring everything these days and finding every single thing he’s able to reach to pull up on.  He loves it, and it’s so fun to watch!  He also has his third tooth, the top right.  Hopefully that’s what’s been causing the feeding problems we’ve had lately.  Well, in addition to his usual feeding problems.  We are starting to do a little better with solids so that gives me hope!

Whew, this has been quite a busy couple of weeks for us.  I haven’t had a chance to get on here and write a real post lately so this may get kind of long with everything we’ve had going on.

Jake had to go out of town for work last week, to Grand Rapids, MI to prepare a store for a corporate visit.  He left with his boss on Sunday.  They rode together because his boss was going to have another vehicle when they got there so if Jake needed a car he could use his.  Everything was fine until Tuesday night.  I talked to Jake and he told me about the meeting they had that day in another town an hour away.  He was having to get rides everywhere because the vehicle plan wasn’t working out.  He had gotten a ride to the meeting, and back to the store in Grand Rapids that he was working in.  But he didn’t know how he was going to get back to his hotel that night, or back to the store in the morning.  There were a couple girls working that said they’d take him back to the hotel but they were working overnight until 9:00 am and he wasn’t going to stay that long since he had to be back the next morning.  It was already 10:00 pm so I told him I could be there early in the morning if he needed me to bring the car so he could get to the store.  He said he didn’t think he’d need me to but that he was trying to get a hold of his boss and then he’d let me know.  He called me back around 11:00 and told me that he needed me to come up that night.  What?!?  It’s 11:00 at night and it’s a two hour drive!  So I had to pack up enough stuff for Carter and I to be able to stay for a couple days since Jake was going to be working up there until Thursday.  Then I had to load it all up, get Carter out of bed and in his car seat, and go.  We got there a little after 1:00 am and by the time we had everything settled it was 2:00.  Of course, Carter was wide awake so it took me a little while to get him back to sleep.  Luckily Jake’s mom was able to come down and get Trigger the next morning.  If she hadn’t I don’t know what we would’ve done.  We stayed until Thursday evening.  Carter was up early both days since he’d wake up when Jake got up to get ready.  I didn’t leave that hotel room the entire time we were there!  I could’ve dropped Jake off at the store and had the car but having to pick him back up at a certain time I run the risk of it interfering with Carter’s eating and/or sleeping and it’s not worth it.  I’m not really able to do a lot of things on my own schedule, it has to be right after Carter eats or wakes up so appointments are especially difficult.  But it really wasn’t any different than being at home because a lot of days I don’t leave here either.

Last Saturday we went over to some friends’ house for dinner and had a really good time.  It was definitely a nice break and felt good to socialize for a while.  Carter ended up falling asleep and going to bed in their daughter’s crib so we stayed longer than we had originally planned.  We had dinner, talked, and watched some football games.  Their daughter is about three months old and we met her for the first time. 

And then there was this week.  Jake works in retail, need I say more?  I feel like he’s hardly even been around, this week or last.  And his schedule won’t really be back to normal until after Christmas.  He’s taken the computer to work a few times so between that, last week’s trip, and being gone for Thanksgiving I haven’t had a chance to really sit and write a post.  We had Thanksgiving with his family yesterday.  Let me say, I have the best mother in law a girl could ask for.  Every year she makes me my own special gravy because she knows I don’t like the turkey “guts” in my gravy and that’s what they make it with.  Eewww!  So that was yummy.  We left soon after eating, had to get some groceries, and then Jake headed in to work at 7:00 last night.  His store opened at midnight and he worked until 7:00 am.  Then he came home for a few hours to sleep and went back in from 2:00 to 7:00.  In the few hours that he was here sleeping, Carter and I went to the mall for about 45 minutes to check out Crazy 8.  I got Carter some clothes in his next size on sale and had a 20% off coupon so it was a pretty good deal.  Just being there stressed me out though, so I got home pretty quickly.  I don’t do well in crowds because I get frustrated very easily with people around me, so this is about the worst day for me to go anywhere.   

Carter’s eating seems to be getting a little better, although not consistently.  I’ve been working on solids more and he still doesn’t want them.  He’ll eat them if I can get them into his mouth but he tries hard to keep me from being able to.  A couple days ago I had him eat most of his bottles for the day while he was awake just to see how he’d do.  He ended up eating 12 out of his 19.5 ounces that day while he was awake!  That’s definitely an improvement.  And the two bottles that he did eat sleeping he had started while he was awake and ended up falling asleep while eating.  However, the things that I have to do sometimes to get him to eat awake are exhausting.  I hold him, put him in his bouncy seat, distract him with my bracelet, toys, voice.  It’s endless!  But we’re working on it and it seems like there may be some light at the end of this long tunnel.

So I’m sure I missed several things that I wanted to write about but that’s what happens when I wait too long I guess.  I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and found a lot of good deals today if you went out, or shopped online :)  Now the countdown to Christmas begins…

Yesterday was my 26th birthday.  Thank you to everyone who commented and wished me a happy birthday!

My hubby has always spoiled me.  Sometimes a little too much!  He took me to pick out my birthday present on Sunday, a Pandora charm bracelet and some charms.  It was one of the things that I said I wanted but he didn’t know what size to get.  I love it so much and can already tell that I’m going to be addicted to the charms.  There are so many and they’re all so pretty!  I decided to start out with Jake’s birthstone charm, Carter’s birthstone charm, a charm with red hearts, and a blue charm with vines on it.  Here’s a picture:

Then yesterday Jake went to get me McDonald’s breakfast, my favorite :)  He also surprised me with a super sweet card.  I’m so lucky to have a man who gives me sappy cards :)  Then his mom came to watch Carter for a bit so we could go to the movies.  We went to see Life As We Know It.  I love Katherine Heigl and thought this movie looked really cute.  It was cute, but I never thought about how sad it would make me looking at that cute little baby’s face after her parents died.  One thing that stuck out to me was the personality of the CPS worker.  As you may know, that was my job before I became a stay at home mom.  I don’t know if a movie or TV show exists where a CPS worker is portrayed accurately.  I loved how they scrambled around to clean their house when the CPS lady showed up unexpectedly – your house doesn’t have to be spotless, just safe!  Then she walked up to a plate of brownies and asked if she could have one.  That’s professional!  It also cracked me up that she seemed to try to control their relationship with each other, and told them not to sleep together because it would complicate things with the baby.  Yeah, that conversation doesn’t happen!  By the end of the movie both of us couldn’t wait to get home to see Carter.

We came home after the movie and the plan was to feed Carter and then go out to dinner at Red Lobster.  Carter had a different plan.  He hadn’t slept all day, so he was so exhausted.  It took me a while to get him to fall asleep, but when he did he ate and was out.  Ready for bedtime.  I took him to his room to change his diaper and he woke up enough to scream for a minute and as soon as I put him in his crib he was pretty much asleep again.  So he fell asleep around 6:00, ate at 6:30, and was in bed at 7:00.  It was so weird having that much time to ourselves.  Jake went and got KFC and that was my birthday dinner.  We’ll go to Red Lobster another time, just not sure when.

In feeding news, I’ve been trying more baby food with Carter.  He stares at me when I eat and it just breaks my heart.  I can tell he wants it but he’s just afraid.  We’ve tried strawberries with bananas and applesauce.  He’s done ok, but still puts up quite a fight.  I’m just trying to be somewhat consistent with feeding him and hope that he’ll get used to it eventually.  Otherwise, I dont’ know what I’m going to do with this child once he’s old enough to transition from bottles.  What is he going to transition to?  Yeah, we need to work hard on this.

Here are some more pictures of my absolutely adorable little man.  I sure do love him :)

Well, thanks again for all of the birthday wishes, I really appreciate it.  And don’t forget to enter my two current giveaways – a $20 gift card to wherever you’d like and a $15 EcoMom gift card!  The links are at the top of my page.  I plan to have a third up by the end of the week.  Thanks so much!

I feel like writing my vacation posts took up a lot of time so I haven’t really been able to update on new things we’ve had going on.  Here’s a little bit of an update :)

Shortly before we went on our trip I discovered that Carter can sit up on his own!  He was still pretty wobbly and would eventually fall, but I sat him on the floor like I usually do to practice and, voila!  He sat there by himself!  Just the way he starts doing everything else, seems like it’s so sudden.  Now he’s getting to be a pro!  I still make sure to sit close to him and be prepared to catch him, but he’s getting so much better.  Oh yeah, he loves to stick his tongue out too :)

Last week we went to a pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins.  I don’t remember ever being to a pumpkin patch so if I did I was a pretty young child.  We usually just get our pumpkins at the grocery store.  Well…never again!  We’re picky pumpkin pickers (haha) but theirs were beautiful!  I forgot to take a camera with me, so sad.  I did take pictures with my iPhone but they aren’t the best so I’m not going to post them :(  I’m definitely excited to start doing this every year as a family.  And next year Carter will be able to pick out his own pumpkin.

I also made my first batch of chili ever last week!  It turned out really well.  I used the recipe on the back of the seasoning packet so it was pretty simple. 

1 packet of chili seasoning
1 lb hamburger (I used 2lb and it worked well because it wasn’t as juicy)
1/4 onion (added this into the recipe)
1 can of kidney beans, undrained
2 cans (8 oz each) of tomato sauce

Brown the hamburger and then drain.  Add the onions, seasoning, beans, and tomato sauce.  Simmer for about ten minutes, and done!  It made enough for Jake and I to both have a bowl and then we used the leftovers the next day for chili cheese dogs and fries.  Yummy :)

Yesterday we went hiking again.  We did a different trail this time, a rugged one.  It wasn’t really too bad, up a couple hills but that’s all.  It was a lot longer than the last one we did and it ended up getting pretty chilly because it got cloudy when we were about halfway through.  It was so pretty with all the changing leaves and all the leaves on the ground.  Here are some pictures for you :)

When joining the mommy blog sites that I have, they always ask you to describe your blog or tell what it’s about.  I always include the words “everyday life” or something like that.  So here it is, my first post about all the little things that have happened to us over the past few days.  Gotta stay true to my word!

Jake’s mom came down Wednesday to watch Carter for a little while.  Originally it was to give me a break but Jake ended up taking the day off as well because he worked so much extra time last week.  We spent some of the time cleaning up around the house since we rarely even have time to do that it seems like.  Then we went out to run a couple errands and ate lunch at Chili’s.  We haven’t been there since Carter was in the hospital, or maybe before.  It was yummy :)

Carter had his second feeding therapy session yesterday.  It’s a three hour drive to get to the appointment.  We were almost there, probably about five minutes away, when Jake told me that he really really had to go to the bathroom.  He was getting really frustrated because we were turning left on a busy road and the stop light had a very short left green arrow.  There was also a long line of cars so it was taking forever for us to get very far.  I offered to drive so he could go across the street to a restaurant bathroom.  So that’s what we did.  He jumped over the little cement wall dividing the road, then lost his shoe in the middle of the other lane.  So he had to run back out and get it, luckily there weren’t many cars coming right then.  When I finally made it through the light I went and picked him up. 

Carter’s appointment went well.  We fed him the juice from spaghetti o’s with a dropper and he seemed to like it at least a little bit.  The goal is to get about ten squirts into his mouth and do that two or three times a day.  We can also try a whole list of foods to see what he likes, and I’m talking food food.  As long as it’s pureed we can pretty much feed him anything.  She even said we can feed him pancakes with butter and syrup!  This seems insane to me.  Obviously we have to make sure that he’s not allergic to anything so we have to keep a close eye when we try new things.  But I think meat is the only thing she specifically said to stay away from, only because it doesn’t puree well.

We didn’t stick around town after the appointment, just headed home.  We were probably about halfway when Jake stopped at a stop light and I heard tires squeal.  I looked over and there was the front of a car next to us on the shoulder/grass median.  Yep, they almost rear-ended us.  Apparently Jake saw some of it happen because he said the lady was pretty close to hitting us.  It was scary knowing that she would’ve hit us pretty hard because the front end of her car was up past our back seat, she didn’t just come close to tapping us.  After that she stayed pretty far behind us the rest of the time she was there. 

When we got home the kitchen smelled a little funny so I assumed the trash needed to be taken out.  Since we’ve started recycling it takes longer for our trash to fill up, sometimes too long.  Well, we were all exhausted – I was more tired than I remember being in a while, so not much got done last night.  When I got up this morning the entire downstairs smelled.  Jake was up at the same time as me and figured out that it was actually the bag of recycling that smelled.  I just figured that something hadn’t gotten rinsed out well enough.  So he sat it outside the front door to take out when he left for work.  He went back into the kitchen to finish what he was doing and a few minutes later said that it was the washer that smelled.  I told him I’d run some water through it with nothing in it to see if that would help, but I didn’t know why it would smell.  Sure enough, there was a load of towels in the washer from two days ago!  Wow, I’m losing it.  I had completely forgotten about them.  I remember putting them in the washer but I guess I thought I had put them in the dryer too.  Nope!  So I washed them twice in hot water to make sure they’re clean :)

One thing that did get done last night was Jake getting out our Halloween decorations.  Seriously?!?  I know it’s getting to be that time but every year I go through a period of denial.  I hate cold weather :(  Although this year I really won’t have to go out in it all that much, so maybe it won’t be so bad.  I sure am excited for Carter to start wearing some of his new winter clothes because they’re just so darn cute.  So that’s a positive at least.  We have a super cute bear costume for him to wear for Halloween.  Not sure what we’re going to do yet, but I know he’ll be wearing that!  And then there’s Christmas.  I am excited for that to come since it will be Carter’s first and we’ve gotten so many fun toys for him!  This is the first year that we’ll be able to have our Christmas tree in front of a front window.  I’m weird about that, but I’ve always loved driving by houses and seeing Christmas trees in the front window.  We’ve never had a place where that worked out, until now!  Of course I’m also excited about how much Carter will grow and learn from now until then.  He’s already rolling all over the floor.  He’ll start out at the coffee table and end up all the way across the room!  And he’s trying so hard to crawl.  I have hope that it’ll be soon :)