Me and My Boys

We found a park nearby that has ducks, so we have become quite good friends with these 6 ducks this past week!

I love reading about other's pregnancy and birth experiences, so fill out the tag if you're interested!

1- Where were you when you first found out you were pregnant? At our apartment
2- Who was with you? My hubby
3- How did you find out that you were pregnant? pregnancy test
4- What was your first reaction to finding out you were pregnant? It's a toss up between relief and excitement
5- Who was the first person you told? Matt
6-Did you plan to get pregnant? Yes
7- Did you tell everyone else right away? We waited 9 weeks before we told anyone in case I lost the baby for any reason.
8-Was everybody happy for you? Yes
9- Did you go out and celebrate? Not that I remember
10- Did you want to find out the sex? Yes, I like to plan ahead
11- What was the sex? Boy (although I found out at my next dr.’s appointment that the ultrasound technician wrote down that they weren’t positive it was a boy—so I made my doctor do an ultrasound too!)
12-Did anyone throw you a baby shower? yes
13- If yes, who? My sister and sister-in-law (my mom did a lot too!)
14- Did you get any outfits at the baby shower that you just knew you weren't going to put on your baby? No, we used it all.
15- How much weight did you gain? 30 pounds exactly
16- Did you lose all of the weight that you gained? Yes within the next 4 weeks simply due to nursing (an additional 10 came off within the next 12 weeks as well!)
17- Did you get a lot of stretch marks? A few on my tummy right at the end. They’re not there now, but I’m sure they’ll reappear for subsequent babies.
18- What did you crave the most? Sweets, but that’s no different from what I crave now!
19- Did you crave anything crazy? no
20- Who or what got on your nerves the most? Not being able to sleep on my stomach at night. That’s how I fall asleep every night, so after around 4 months, I couldn’t do it anymore; it made falling asleep more difficult.
21- Were you married at the time you got pregnant? Yes
22- Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? I had a weird rash on my stomach. It happened right at the start of my 3rd trimester and after doing some research found that it was called a PUPPS rash which usually happens only in the first pregnancy and lasts the final 3 months of the pregnancy. Once I’d suffered a day of endless itching without scratching (while teaching all day), I just came home from work and cried. I told my family I was like Job from the bible. I would toss and turn all night without getting any sleep; I took baking soda baths and used all kinds of anti-itching cream. Nothing worked! Luckily it only lasted 4 days instead of the rest of my pregnancy. I think I would have died! Obviously looking back it was a small price to pay and the rest of my pregnancy was so easy that I really have no room to complain!
23- Where were you when you went into labor? Trying to go to sleep. After an hour of really bad cramps that started coming 5 minutes apart towards the end, Matt said we were going to the hospital.
24- Did your water break? No and it didn’t break for another 6 hours or so after I’d already been drugged up.
25- Who drove you to the hospital? Matt
26- Did you go early or late? I was 3 days past my due date
27- Who was in the room with you when you gave birth? Doctor, nurses, and Matt
28- How long were you in labor for? From the time I got to the hospital and the time Caleb was born, it was 12 hours, but the actual pushing/labor part was less than an hour.
29- Did you have any drugs for the pain? Yes, after feeling those contractions, I think any woman is INSANE not to get drugs! Why would you suffer through the pain if you don’t have to? What is there to prove?
30-Did you go Natural or have a c-section? Natural
31- What was your first reaction after giving birth? There was about to be some serious bawling--I was just so overcome with emotion and that this little boy was mine and I was going to be a mom and I was so scared!--but Matt cracked some sort of joke that made me laugh instead.
32- How big was the baby(s)? 7lbs 11ozs and 20.5 inches long
33- Did your Husband cry? Nope, he was cracking jokes. I’ve seen Matt cry maybe once in our entire dating/marriage.
34- What did you name the baby(s)? Caleb Michael Call
35- Does his name have any significant meaning? Nope
36- Did you have any visitors? Yes. My family (including my brother who had just got back from his mission—he wasn’t even released yet!), Matt’s family including aunts and uncles, my friend Stacie (who brought me a razzleberry pie—my favorite!), Jan Chappell, and my next-door-neighbor Jacque who worked at the hospital. It was so nice of everyone to come!
37- Did the baby(s) have any complications? Nope, which I was very grateful for! He was so alert for the first 4 hours of his life…eyes wide open, hands grabbing at everything.
38- How old is your baby today? 17 months
39- When is the next one(s) coming? Hopefully sometime this year
40- If you could, would you do it all over again? Of course!

So Matt and I have been counting down the weeks before Caleb can attend the church nursery (he has to be 18 months old). We're tired of taking him to every class and trying to keep him entertained, quiet, and still...three very tough feats. Imagine our excitement when Caleb got invited to attend nursery for the first time last week, which would be 6 weeks early! He did pretty well, despite the fact that he tried to eat the play dough, refused to sit on his carpet square for the lesson, and dumped water all over himself during the snack (he's pretty good about drinking from a cup until he's all done and decides to dump the rest out...I've learned to only give him very small amounts of water in a cup). What did Caleb do well? He was fabulous at playing with the toys!

Our nurseries in our ward are organized heterogeneously, meaning all the age groups are mixed together and there are 3 classes of nursery. So there are some experienced nursery-goers in Caleb's class. The reasoning behind this decision was so that the older students could set an example for the new nursery comers and help them know what to do. At first I thought it was a great idea until I started thinking back to all my elementary ed classes and my teaching career. I am a huge supporter of homogenous grouping. I don't feel that the 'smarter' students are stretched as well if we're always 'dumbing down' the lessons. Last week in nursery, there was one student who knew all the words to 'I Am a Child of God' and all the answers to the questions in the lesson. It was all too easy for him; he needed to be stretched and asked harder questions and maybe learn the second verse to the song. Because there were other children who were completely clueless and had less of an attention span, we moved on. Maybe I'll be able to share my own opinions on the matter in time to come.

So why is Caleb able to attend nursery 6 weeks early, officially on the rolls and everything? If you haven't guessed it already, I was given a calling to work as a nursery leader. When I got a call to come meet with a member of the bishopric, I knew of two callings available (unless they were going to reorganize something): RS teacher and nursery. It has always been my secret longing to be a RS teacher. I would love it! Maybe not always, but being a teacher forces you to know the material really well and study it in depth. I do prepare myself for the lessons each week, but obviously not as well as if I were presenting the lesson. Plus I love to teach, and I miss teaching so much! I am excited to be in the nursery though and still have an opportunity to teach, although at a very basic level. It will be fun to be in there with Caleb too. He wasn't clingy at all last week like I thought he might be. I don't know if they will have him move classes in the near future so he's not with me, but I love seeing him interact with other children. It helps me to better know the things I need to work with him on (like sharing), and seeing the material in the nursery manual will help me know what we need to be teaching Caleb for Family Home Evening lessons.

It's been awhile since I've posted an update on Caleb as far as his growth etc. He is 16 months old now (only two more months until nursery!!!!) and making a lot of progress. At his last doctor's appointment (15 months), he weighed 23 lbs. 3.2 oz which is in the 28th percentile, and was 31 inches tall (40th %). He has definitely slowed down on weight gain, but he still loves to eat and is super active.

Within the last few weeks, he learned to point to all his facial features. (This is something we've been working on for several months!) Nose came first, but he can also point to ears, eyes, and mouth. He has been able to point to his belly button for the last couple of months, which is his favorite. He hates when I have him in a onesie under his clothes because then he can't point to his belly button.

Caleb has really gotten into pointing at everything in a book and having me tell him what it is. He loves animals. Ducks used to be his favorite, but in the last two weeks he now loves dogs the best. He used to point to every animal in a book and say 'duck'. Now he just loves to point out dogs. Seeing a dog for real is the most exciting thing for Caleb. He will just point at the dog, and he is getting really close to saying 'doggy', although it sounds very similar to 'daddy'. We went to the park on Friday and saw real ducks, which Caleb was very excited about.

So words and phrases that Caleb can say now in the order that he started saying them: at, wow, 'mo' for no, hot, duck, and "what's that?". Notice that I don't have mama/mommy or dada/daddy listed there. He can definitely make those sounds, but he does not call Matt or I those names. When he's hurt or crying, he will say ma ma ma ma ma ma, but it's not in reference to me. And when he is playing sometimes, he will say 'dad-dy' over and over again, whether or not Matt is there.

Caleb doesn't say 'bye-bye', but he'll wave bye-bye. (He's actually regressed a little on this...he did it a lot better a few months ago.) Recently Caleb has started giving hugs though, and that's so fun. He is a pro at high fives since he's been able to do that since 12 months. We're working on blowing kisses.

Another fun thing that Caleb just figured out is that there are actually real people on the other line of the phone. I was talking to Matt on the phone and held the phone up to Caleb's ear while Matt was talking. Caleb got such a kick out of hearing his daddy's voice! For the next 20 minutes or so he just walked around the house with the phone up to his ear listening to Matt make all kinds of funny noises and Caleb just laughed and laughed! It was so adorable.

It's so fun to watch him learn and grow up!

I'm a little late on this post, but Christmas was simple and wonderful this year. Christmas Eve is always a big celebration at my parent's house where we invite the missionaries or other families to join in on the festivities. This year we had all the little children act out the nativity scene, which was really special and more meaningful for the kids.

Matt and I tried to be better this year about getting in the true spirit of Christmas as far as serving and helping others through plates of cookies to our neighbors, doing the 12 days of Christmas for a family, etc. It made this Christmas more memorable than the past few we've shared together.

As far as presents to each other, we kept it simple because our big present was a new TV this year! It's so nice not to have to wiggle the cable cord now in order to get a clear picture. I got Matt some shears for the yard and a new sweater. He got me some lotion, a hair cut kit so I can start cutting his hair, and he cashed in our discover points and got me a few gift cards for Kohls. That was perhaps the best gift because I don't ever shop for new clothes for myself--I hate spending money. So it was so nice to go shopping yesterday with a carefree attitude while I picked out some new clothes.

As far as gifts for Caleb, well, he got jipped this year. He doesn't care though, and he doesn't need anything new. We only got him a new church outfit and some new shirts because we knew he would get some new toys from his grandparents. Besides these pictures, Caleb also got a new puzzle from his cousin, Drew.