The Driving Range

Today we decided to go to the driving range since it has been a while since I've been able to golf (since I was pregnant with Mallory). It was really nice to get out and do something and since I wasn't that good before, I didn't feel like I was any worse. Mallory had a blast. We really hope her obsession with golf continues! This was her first time with a real club. Uncle Ryan helping her out.

The heat was pretty bad, but as I noted in my earlier post - works like a charm.

Here is a video of Mallory hitting the ball. She was so proud of herself when she would hit it.

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1 month and 29 months!

This month has flown by and my guess is because of all the visitors and traveling - I feel like time is going by way too fast! Jared was very kind to us our first month but he still holds the name "squawky." Although he has had a few rough nights and days (which I think is due to milk protein intake and oversupply problems), overall he is a happy baby. If he is awake at night, it's from 3-5am which seems to only be on a bad night and maybe 1-2 nights a week.


1 month stats:


Weight: between 13-13.5lbs (our scale doesn't have ounces)
Length: 23.5 inches


These are both above the 95th percentiles according to the CDC, so he is a fast healthy growing boy! Hopefully he doesn't continue at that rate because 5lbs a month is a lot of extra weight to be hauling around when all he wants to do is walk. Just as a comparison, Mallory was 11lbs and 23 inches at two months! Who needs zumba when you have a big baby to pace around the house up and down stairs with?

Anytime you talk to a new parent, there is always something they have to say on how to calm a screaming baby. Well I can be the first to tell you, every baby is different, and not once have I ever heard advice for what works for Jared. For some reason Jared likes it really hot and humid. He will be inconsolable and the moment I step foot into the 100 degree humid weather, it's instant. So I have spent many days sweating sitting on the porch swing. Who needs a sauna when you have a 14lb heater box in 100 degree weather? I bet I'm the best cleansed new mom right now. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when winter comes around.

His baby acne has started to get pretty bad, and I'm not surprised because it caused by hormones from the mom just before birth, and we all know mine were really really high because that was what was causing me to be so sick. It should go away by no later than sixth months, but we are hoping for sooner because he is just too cute to have all those bumps on his skin!

Now onto Mallory. I'm sure it's all 2 year olds, but how her little mind works makes us laugh every day. For example, when we were in NC, we went out to eat and she had stuck her crayon into her straw, the other day she decided her drink wasn't enough so she had to put both her straw and my straw in her mouth to drink at the same time, and she is constantly coming up with new ways to negotiate (for example, a chocolate ball for putting her hair in a pony tail in the morning).

Mallory is doing so much better with Baby Jared. She is sneaky though and has an obsession with bopping him on the head with whatever she is holding, so we can't leave them next to each other without an adult sitting right with her. She loves giving him kisses, especially when his is sleeping (which I don't like because it wakes him up!). I guess she is getting him back for the few times he has woken her up screaming in the middle of the night. She has finally come to terms with the fact that she has to share her parents, well, she has come to terms with sharing Mom. Anytime Jared is crying, she will say "No, let Mommy get him." She gets so excited when his eyes are open and starts saying "He's awake mommy. I want to hold him." She is so loving (except the bopping) and mimics everything I do with her baby doll. Any time he is crying she will pat his back and say "It's ok baby Jared." She is such a great big sister.



Her new favorite sayings are "I don't think so", "Where am I supposed to sit?" or "What am I supposed to do then?" and anytime she does something wrong, spills something, etc. she says "It's ok mommy, it will be ok." I can't believe how much her talking has progressed over the past month. She has started speaking in full sentences a lot of the time and only mixes up me/my, him/her, etc. every once in a while. She has mastered all her basic colors and shapes and we are moving on to more complex ones. She just moved up to the next class at her school for 2.5-3 year olds and she loves it.

Mallory's 29 month Stats:


Height: 37.5 inches (90-97th percentile)
Weight: 37lbs (above the 95th percentile)


As you can see, neither one of our kids is hurting in the food category, but the dog on the other hand...poor thing got neglected a few times in the chaos of the new family dynamics and not having a schedule (hopefully Mallory dropped enough food to hold him over).

Here are few one month pics of Jared.

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Dan, Lisa, Natalie, and YaYa

On our way back from NC, we stopped at Dan and Lisa's house to break up the trip a little bit more, to pick up Roscoe, and so Mallory could see her favorite cousin ever, NaNa. Jared had an awful night for some reason and we ended up getting to visit during the early morning hours. While we were there we got some good pictures of the kids.

Natalie and Mallory

Natalie, Mallory, and Jared.

We made a stop to see Eric's grandparents on the way home. We attempted to get some pictures but Mallory only took a 15 minute nap and Jared was still screaming non stop, so here is the best of what we could get. Hopefully next time they will be a little less cranky.

The only way I could get Jared to stop screaming was to put him in the sling, so this was our attempt for a picture.

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The Conlan Reunion

For what was supposed to be 45 minutes left in the trip, ended up being 32 miles of stopped traffic. It took 4 hours to go the last "45 minutes" because apparently Saturday night at 5pm is the worst time to get in. There wasn't any way to pull off and Mallory kept saying she got poop on her seat belt. We thought maybe it just felt that way, but nope, 100 degree weather and a massive diaper change was just what we needed half way through the traffic, and she was right, it was everywhere. It was really nice to show up and surprise everyone. The weather ended up being great and Jared got to meet many relatives for the first time. Unfortunately I did not take very many pictures and the ones I did I didn't realize were all foggy because the lens fogged from the humidity. Once I get more from everyone else I'll post them, but here is what I have for now.

This is the bridge that crosses to OBX. This picture was taken on the way home and you can tell because on the way there it would have been red brake lights and tons of cars.

Jared being held by Uncle Chance and Bryce, and cousin Haleigh.

Attempting to get a picture with Caitlin.

She does weird things when she gets shy and this is one of them.

Haleigh, Shanna, Bryce, Mallory, and Caitlin.

The view from the beach house.

Jared and Grandpa Foster.

Lots of Phase 10 during the week.

Mallory sniping some chips (and snipe is her new favorite word).

Digging a hole.

She was actually putting sand in the hole they were digging out.

Jared was a trooper through the whole trip. However he doesn't give any warning when he is ready to eat. He'll go from completely content to letting out a big squawk, so the whole week he obtained the nickname "squawky." Hopefully that doesn't stick with him forever!

Mallory going under the obstacle course.

Every year there are teams and we do an "Amazing Race." This is one of the events where they had to fill up the buckets with a squirt gun. It was a lot harder than it looked.

Mallory playing with the jelly fish she found.

Eric and Mallory

The blue and red team getting ready to start their relay.

Mallory playing with the squirt gun.

Eric running back on his turn.Mallory's first trip down to the beach.

This was another part of the race where they had to run through the sand dunes to find bags with puzzle pieces that had to then be put together. After this they had to go to the Wright Brother's Museum and then had to eat 12 raw oysters.

Mallory playing with the race cars (which was the last leg of the race). As much as she loved them, we had to take them away because she kept chewing the tires off.

She was so exhausted at the end of each day.

I wish I had more pictures, but since I don't, as soon as I get some from everyone else I'll post them. I'm hoping there are some of the kayaking and more of Jared and Mallory with the rest of the family. Mallory had a blast and already misses everyone, the beach, and the pool. She especially misses Grandpa because he gave her a nutty bar. Now every time she wants a snack she says she needs Grandpa. Our SUV was completely packed for this trip so we are starting to worry about how we are going to pack everything when we go to Colorado for Christmas! We can't wait to see everyone then!

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Lunch with Lauren

We decided to make the trip to Corolla, NC for the Conlan family reunion so everyone could meet Jared. We drove through Richmond on the way, which is about an hour from my cousin Lauren, so her and Brandon came down to meet us for lunch. It was a very short visit but it was nice to meet them and give the kids a little break from driving.

We attempted to get a picture but these are the best we could get.

Mallory was being shy again and wouldn't stay still for the picture.
We all said our goodbyes, so I thought, and got back in the car to finish the trip. For the next hour all we heard was "I want to say goodbye." She was so upset to leave after only an hour. Hopefully we can get a longer visit soon.

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2 weeks!

Our two week appointment also happened to be our follow up from the hospital visit. He was so used to be poked and checked out that he pretty much slept right through the visit. He weighed in at 10lbs 6oz which is really good since by two weeks they are just looking to make sure their back up to birth weight. Not only did he surpass it by almost 2lbs, he was even sick for a few of them! He was 22 inches and I can't remember his head circumference. All of his stats were in the 90 some percentiles. Apparently he is going to be a big boy (which I can't say I'm surprised)! He has outgrown newborn clothes and the 0-3 month clothes are already fitting really tight.

This one makes me laugh because he kind of looks like the frog on his shirt. I had to put it up though because I finally got a picture of his dimples.

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Children's Hospital

Saturday night we noticed Jared felt really hot and he was up all night and wasn't really nursing and would just scream out in pain. His stomach was distended and it got to the point where he could barely eat and what he did eat he was throwing up. Mallory had just had a virus and they told us some kind of stomach bug was going around school, so we weren't overly concerned, but thought we should get him checked out just in case since he wasn't really eating. We called the after hours at his doctors and they told us to go to the ER immediately. Apparently fevers in babies under 30 days can be extremely dangerous in a short period of time. We took him to the ER right by our house. Lesson learned #1, just go straight to children's hospital. They immediately found the one nurse who used to work at Children's and hooked him up to an IV just in case. They then had to call the ambulance and take him over to children's. They put them in their car seats and then strap them to the bed they put in the ambulance. I cried the whole way there because they were hooking him up to everything and he was screaming for about 10 minutes of the trip. This was all I could see and it just broke my heart to hear him like that.
Once we got there they did the routine tests for blood work, x-rays to make sure his intestines weren't twisted, and a catheter to get a urine sample. He of course screamed through all of it and I felt awful. The last thing they wanted to do was a spinal tap to check for meningitis. Since the blood work came back normal and we knew there was a good chance it was viral, we opted to not do it, and they said they would let us know when it was really not optional anymore.

We had to admit him to stay for 48 hours while the bacteria and viral cultures grew so they could rule out any major diseases. The immediately started him on antibiotics just in case it did come back bacterial. So every 6 hours they gave him 2 doses of antibiotics through his IV. They monitored his temperature and vitals about every 2 hours.

The first night he did not really improve, but on day 2 he was back to himself again with a few temperatures here and there.

His little IV.

This is the playroom that Mallory had a blast in.

Her favorite was the microwave that she could push buttons on and it would spin around. All I could think about was what infectious disease we were going to bring home from all the germs on the toys. They also came around with movie and video game carts. They really do know how to make the stay as good as possible for the kids. I was very impressed. I even got food since I was a nursing mom.

In his bed that he was in maybe a total of an hour. I pretty much held him for 2 days straight since I couldn't sleep anyway because of all the monitoring.

I figured since I didn't get a picture of him going home from the hospital in his car seat when he was born that I would get it going home from the hospital this time.

Hopefully this is our last trip to the hospital. Mallory is starting to get a little too comfortable with them. Every time her belly hurts now she thinks she has to go to the hospital. I really feel for the parents who have to spend many days doing this. Two days was extremely stressful and I even got to hold him most of it. By the time we left he was still a little jaundiced (a 16) and had a mild fever, but since he was gaining weight, eating well, and the cultures came back positive for viral, we were able to go home. Unfortunately, I got it the next day and was taking care of him while I had a fever, but we are all better now and we hope to stay that way!

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The Greene and Visit from Mom

My mom and Grammy came to visit on July 16th. My mom's trip didn't start off or end the way we had planned. On the way out here she missed her flight because they had to leave early because of the air traffic control in Dayton due to the Dayton Air Show. We picked up Grammy on time and hung out and had root beer floats (a first for Mallory and she is like me and doesn't like the stinging on her throat from the carbonation- and I can't say I'm disappointed that my daughter doesn't like pop.) Mallory had a great time hanging out with Grammy and she learned how to do Eskimo kisses. It's really cute to hear her say Eskimo.

The next day we went to the Greene to take Mallory to the fountain. It took her a while to get in but she finally did and had a blast. Afterwards we went to get books from the bookstore and she didn't want to read them at first, but now she loves them, especially "Go dogs, Go!" Thanks Grammy! After we got books, we finished the day off with some Cheesecake Factory and came home and watched the movie "Son-In-Law" since Eric had never seen it before.

Hanging out while Mallory played.

Hanging out with Grandma Lisa.

The only picture of my mom and Jared I got and I didn't get any with Grammy. I had planned to get pictures the last day but everything ended up crazy since Jared ended up in the hospital (see the next post).

Mallory missed her nap since we were playing at the mall and she fell asleep in the middle of doing stickers with my mom.

The trip ended with a visit to the hospital for Jared. Luckily we had the help so we didn't have to take Mallory with us. Although it was a short visit and didn't really go as planned, it was nice to get to see both of them and for them to see Mallory and Jared. Hopefully we'll get some better pictures over Christmas.

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Expectnet Results

I forgot to post this back when he was born, but if you made a guess, you can see where you rank. I did get first by guessing the right date and gender, and no I did not hold him in just to win.



www.expectnet.com/games/BabyHolway2

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