He's Off the Charts!!

Literally - Noah is off the charts in height and in the 97th percentile for weight! At his 4 month appointment last week he weighed in at 18 lbs and was a very long 27.5 inches! He recently graduated to 12 month clothes and size 4 diapers! I haven't updated the blog in quite a while - and boy does time fly!  Our newborn baby has become such an active and entertaining part of our lives!  He began rolling from his belly to his back at 3 months, and he has rolled from his back to belly a couple of times (but I think it's really just a fluke)!  He is always smiling and laughing, and now that he is finally letting us all sleep through the night, Mom and Dad are smiling right back at him ;) 

At 8 weeks old, he stopped eating at night, but he usually needed a "pacifier fix" at least once or twice at night.  Just before Christmas he got his first cold, and it seemed like he totally regressed and was up ALL THE TIME at night!  Now that he is feeling better, Ben and I made the decision to turn off the monitor at night and let him fuss! I wouldn't say we are letting him "cry it out," but instead we are only going in his room at night when he actually gets worked up enough that we can hear him (and his room is right next to ours - no worries)!  It has been WONDERFUL!! I wish I would have taken my sister's advice and turned the darn thing off a long time ago! The amazing part is, he is an even happier baby now that he is self-soothing more, and he is taking much better naps during the day as well! Crazy how things start to fall into place :) :)

I headed back to work just before Thanksgiving, and it was definitely bittersweet.  I love my job and the people I work with, but it was very hard to leave Noah for 14 hours!!  I had a nice transition period, though, because my manager allowed me to work a Saturday, Sunday, Monday schedule for almost 2 months so that my parents and my sister could watch him while I worked.  His pulmonologist had suggested that it would be best for him not to be in daycare until he was at least 4 months old, so this was a perfect solution for both of us! Last week, Noah spent his first two days with his babysitter, Beth!  Momma is still struggling with the transition, but Noah is taking it just fine!  I could not have asked for a more loving environment for him to be in when he can't be with me, so I am incredibly thankful that my family led us to Beth!  Noah's cousins, Bryce (2 yrs) and Lydia (8 months), go to the same babysitter - which Bryce is very excited about, however Lydia is a little disappointed that a younger baby has joined the household and she has been "dethroned!"  But I know that Beth has enough love to pass around to all of her little ones!!

Here are a few pictures from the last few months:



First meeting with Santa! I swear the overalls fit him when we left home that morning...Must be the way he's sitting ;)




Super Chunky



I think I'll read a book while I'm just sitting here...



Partying with some cute chicks :) Katelyn, Emmy, and Abby are all a little older than Noah, but he seems to like older women :)



Uncle Dave was home for the holidays!!




Getting some love from Grandpa and Grandma Havens




Colts game with good friends!




Aunt Erica is so fun!! Are Erica and Paul practicing with the babies?!?! Hmmm...




Noah is checking out his favorite soldier! We love Donk :) :)




We took our nephews to a Pacer game, so Noah had to sport some Pacer gear while he stayed with Aunt Jacki!



NYE! We went to a wedding while Noah stayed home with Aunt Mary babysitting!



Such a cute chunky butt!



I swear he is such a happy baby - but if you whip out that camera the smiles will disappear and he becomes very serious!




Trying out rice cereal...



Not really digging it...

That's so gross, Mommy. Why would you do this to me?!

I'll just spit it out then...

Go Colts!!

Lovin' some QT with Nana :)

LOVES the exersaucer!

There's my happy boy!

Woah! I think I'm all done exersaucing (as daddy would say)!



Not a great picture, but playing with his feet and pulling off his socks is his favorite game!

 We found out on New Year's day last year that we were pregnant, and we have been so incredibly blessed! We cannot wait to see what is in store for us in 2011!! Happy New Year everyone!

Hoo Hoo Hoo...HOOSIERS!

At 6 weeks old, Noah attended his first IU football game (and I'm sure he will attend many more in the years to come)! We had an absolute blast taking our little guy to Bloomington and seeing our old stomping grounds! It was definitely a different way to experience campus with a Baby Bjorn carrier strapped to my chest!  We enjoyed the whole game - and Noah slept through almost the entire game, with the exception of halftime, when we went outside so he could eat!  We even ventured down to Kirkwood after the game and had dinner with some friends and bought a few sweatshirts for ourselves :) 

Here are a few pics from our little adventure!



Obviously we couldn't go in Kilroy's (they didn't believe Noah's fake ID), but for those old folks out there like us - umm when did Kilroy's get a 2nd story?!?!?!




Proud daddy with his future Phi Gam :)




Rockin' their Hoosier gear




Fiji House!

Kind of blurry on here, but this is the room Ben lived in when we met! It was the big party room - we'll wait to tell Noah those stories until he's a bit older!

Noah was ready to go home after a long day!


We also had a busy day yesterday at Riley Hospital.  Mostly it just required Noah to sleep, though!  He had his bronchoscopy (a small camera went through his nose and down towards his lungs so they could take pictures and see what was wrong) and Nap study, so we were there from about 9:30 until 3:00.  Noah did great - he didn't have any trouble with the bronchoscopy and it showed that he does, in fact, have laryngomalacia as Dr. Weist had suspected when we met a few weeks ago.  Most likely, he will just have to grow out of this, but we will have more clear answers when we get the results from the Nap study by next week.



This is Noah during his Nap study - I can't believe he was able to sleep for 3 whole hours with all this stuff attached to him!

 More big news...Noah was baptized on 10-10-10! We had a very special ceremony that included his cousins Reese & Elle.  The girls were baptized in the hospital when they were born prematurely, but the rest of the family hadn't celebrated with them yet - so we had one big ceremony for all the babies! Papaw took lots of pictures :)



Renee with Elle, Time with Reese, and Jared & Kim (Reese's godparents)





We had to move back and forth a lot - Ben and I are Elle's godparents, and Renee & Tim are Noah's godparents (so we made things quite confusing for Fr. Richard)!





Ty & Kate found a way to stay entertained - Looking at Papaw through the baptismal font!




So chunky that we had to buy a new outfit for him two days before (instead of wearing the one that our nephew, Ty, wore for his baptism)

And then of course we have lots of pictures of him just being cute!

Play time with Nana!



Say "Cheeseburger!!"



Aunt Renee & Kate know how to get him laughing!





I don't know why this is vertical and I can't figure out how to turn it, but it's still cute!



Snuggling with Mamaw Great - she was the best babysitter this morning!




The best reward for coming home to him today - lots of great big smiles and lots of cooing!










No One Said It Would Be Easy...

They just said it would be worth it, and it is!! Now I know that sleepless nights and a fussy baby are tough (believe me, I do!), but that's not what I'm talking about.  As most parents probably agree, there is nothing in this world that is scarier or more heartbreaking than having something wrong with your child or having to see them hurting.  From what I'm told, this never changes - no matter how old they get! :) 

As I mentioned before, Noah has been breathing very rapidly since birth, and because he is still breathing fast his pediatrician decided at his one month appointment yesterday that he should be seen by a pulmonologist at Riley (a lung doctor) just to make sure we weren't missing anything.  So today Noah and I spent our morning at Riley meeting Dr. Weist and getting some chest x-rays.  Dr. Weist believes that Noah has "laryngomalacia," which is actually very common in infants.  Basically he has a "floppy" airway, which can become occluded, or blocked, when he inhales.  In order to prevent this from happening, he is taking very quick and shallow breaths.  This diagnosis can only be confirmed by actually looking in his airway, so on October 19th Noah will have a bronchoscopy as well as a special type of sleep study.  The bronchoscopy is just a camera that they will put down his nose or throat and it will only take a few minutes (although I'm sure it will feel like an eternity as I sit in the waiting room).  The sleep study will take several hours of literally watching him sleep on special monitors that will help the doctors to see if Noah is occluding his airway when he sleeps, so they will know the severity of the problem and whether or not he needs any medical intervention. 

To most people this all sounds pretty scary, and as a mother I'm definitely nervous, but as a nurse I can tell you that this truly isn't all that frightening.  The most likely scenario is that it will just take time for him to grow out of it!  I was reminded by a good friend today that God doesn't give us anything we can't handle, so it makes perfect sense for me, as a nurse, to have a child that needs a little extra TLC!

Ok so enough of all that - here's the fun stuff! Noah was 12 lbs 12 oz and 23.75 inches at his one month appointment! That puts him in the 97th percentile for both height and weight!  He is having much more awake time now and we are starting to find a nice rhythm.  The last several nights he has slept one 5 hour stretch between feedings, so things are looking up! Ben has been incredibly busy with school, especially this last week since he has had 4 major exams in a row! Tomorrow is his last exam before fall break, so I know he is looking forward to getting in some serious Daddy Time with the little man this weekend!

Enjoy some photos from the last few weeks!


Great Papa came from Florida to meet his 5th great-grandchild!





Showing off our Colts gear! He has already outgrown this outfit :(



The boys are checking out their fantasy football teams!

Ty loves his baby cousin

We had a very nice dinner at the Stratford, where Mamaw Great lives!

Bath time is Mommy and Noah's favorite time of night!

More interested in me than the toys on his bouncy seat :)

I caught Ben sleeping - so I can prove that he does sneak in a nap every once in a while!

Supporting our Hoosiers against Michigan - surprisingly a good game!

Ty and Kate were all over Papaw while he held Noah - this is them saying "Cheeseburger!" but unfortunately they missed the part where they are supposed to look at the camera while they say it!!