Point Park and the weekend

When I was a little baby my parents took me up on Signal Mountain to Point Park and took some pictures of me. When Katie was a baby we decided to do the same with her. Of course then I wanted to do it with Ally and last week we took Blake up there and took some of him as well.
We had fun walking down the little path with my parents and then looking over to see the beautiful river, river banks, mountains, trees, open sky and more from where we were. Katie and Ally thought it was great to be so high and get to see so much.
After that we went to coolidge park and the kids and I rode the caresoul and played in the fountains. Then took a LONG walk around the paths in the park. Finally we ate dinner at Mud Pie for an end to a nice afternoon and a start to a great weekend.
Saturday Joe and I took the kids to the pool. Spent a few good hours there, brought a picnic lunch and then ran errands while 2 of the kids napped in the car. Finally grabbed a bite to eat with some free dinner passes we had and let the kids play at the mall.
Sunday we went to some friends apartment for a cookout. They have 4 cats and 2 dogs in their tiny 1 bedroom apartment. I believe Blake had a same allergic reaction cause he woke that night with a stuffy nose, that went into a green snotty nose and a low grade fever the next day. I took him to the doc Tuesday morning to learn he had a double ear infection. Poor little man. Although I want to blame it on the animals, I think it must have been a cold that went into his ears(although he did not show any signs till sunday night) cause Ally went to bed last night with the sniffles and now has a runny nose and is sneezing. I hate it when my babies get sick. And it runs through all three of them and takes forever for everyone to get well again. And it is so hard to take care of three kids when you aren't feeling well.

Park Days

The kids love to go to the park, although this summer has been so hot we have not been much at all. This morning I got us all up ealy and out of the house for a doc appt. Which, when we got there was next week. Not my fault, the nurses. She gave me the wrong date which I had immediatly wrote in my planner. Oh well, we went to the park instead.
As babies, Katie's and Ally's favorite thing to do was swing, now it is Blake's turn. It is hard to find a park with a baby swing though, and then when you do they are normally in use by someone else searching for one....but this morning was quiet and has one baby swing, unoccupied when we got there. So Blake got to laugh and giggle and have a good time while the girls played.
Then we went to Partville where we had a scheduled playgroups outing. Blake slept in my baby backpack while Katie ran around having a good time and ALly clung to my leg crying! lol Ally did eventually warm up to the place and ran around with the other kids, she never got on the inflatables but she did have fun!

Blake is Eating!

Blake has been eating baby food for two months or more now. We started off giving him breakfast, rice or oatmeal baby cereal. Started to add fruit. Then a month later introduced veggies for dinner. Gradually moved him to the meat and veggie dinners, then recently started to add a fruit in adition to that. A couple days ago he started getting a fruit or a veggie at lunch. A few weeks ago we introduced juice, his fav being banana strawberry. =]
Sometimes at dinner I do not have time to hand feed him both jars of baby food so sometimes after his meat and veggie dinner I have started cutting up banana or apples and putting them in this netting feeder thing I have. He LOVES it! Then yesterday i just cut up the banana very finely and he ate it off the tray. I also have given him the gerber puffs, strawberry/apple or sweet potatoe. Now anytime I feed the girls something or get out something small(ie: raisins) he thinks he has to have some too and starts fussing for his share. Pretty cute....and annoying when it is not for him and you have nothing for him!
Well, tonight while I was making dinner he was fussing to eat so I gave him his first biter biscuit. Joe has wanted to give him one for some time and I 1)was worried he could not handle it 2) didnt want to clean up the mess. But he did quite well and I threw him in the tub when he was done with that, 1/4 of a banana, greber puffs and 1 jar of baby food! =]
My little man sure does like to eat!

First day of Pre-K

Katie's First day of Pre-K was today. Last night she excitedly helped me pack her lunch. This morning I had to wake her up bright and early to get dressed and out the door in time. We actually had a few minutes to spare before we had to leave after we all got ready and she talked about what she hoped she would do today....make new friends, play, read, ect.
When I dropped her off I thought I would be emotional....I wasn't but I have two reasons I feel that helped with that 1) Ally was upset we were leaving Katie and I had to carry both her and Blake out of the classroom 2) Katie has been going to PDO since she was 18 months so it was just like dropping her off there. Maybe Kindergarten of 1st grade will be harder for me to grasp?!
Well, Ally, Blake and I went tennis shoe shopping for me and the whole time ally whined, said she missed her sis and didnt even want to play in the mall play area. Then when we picked Katie up from school they bickered the rest of the day! shew....I hope this transition does not take long. I do not think I can cope with it for too long!
Katie said she went to the school library, painted, took a walk, had nap time, ate lunch, played, made 2 new best friends, talked to Sam(one of joe's friends that works there--one of Blake's God fathers) She said she had a lot of fun and can not wait to go back next week.
Today was her first phase in day. Next tuesday is her next one and the following week she will begin full time. 8am-2:45 Monday-Friday. She is so excited. =]

Zoo

Today we went to the Warner Park Zoo, our little zoo here in Chattanooga. It is quite small and quaint but the girls love it. We have a membership so this spring we were going regularly and now that the weather has cooled off for a bit we will start going more again.
It was a beautiful breezy day, high in the low 80's. We ate our lunch at the picnic area and took our time walking around and seeing every animal. We rode the carousel and got a Popsicle before we left. We took MomMom with us. The girls had a blast. Before we went her had to make a stop at the $ store. Ally went potty 2 times yesterday and Daddy promised her a treat for doing so well. She went again today when we got home, while we were at the zoo and her pull up was dry all day till she took her nap. She is watching Arthur and eating a Dora popsicle for going potty today. I try and be creative and get or do different things as a treat for her going potty. As long as I make a big deal and show her how proud I am of her when she goes she is happy =] Seems like we are well on our way to being potty trained.

Breast Feeding

Breast Feeding...what a wonderful way to give your baby the best that you can. God given ability to feed your child and bond at the same time. I have nursed all three of my children and am still nursing Blake. My plan is to nurse him for a year like I did my girls. When Katie was born my milk had not come in yet. So from day one I started pumping to help my milk. When Katie was taken to the nursery after she was born the nurses gave her a bottle, despite the fact I had asked them not to since I planned to nurse. When she was 2 days old she was admitted to the NICU and they continued to feed her from a bottle. I still pumped and still attempted to get her to latch, she still refused to latch and my milk was slow to come in. It was heartbreaking to see her attached to all those wires and monitors and to not be able to breastfeed her like I had wanted added insult to injury. She came home 5 days later, I was still pumping 2-5 times a day in attempts to get my milk to come in. The day after she came home my milk finally cooperated! Although my nipples hurt so bad from trying to nurse her and pumping I could not bear to breastfeed. So we tried cup feeding, tube feeding, finger feeding...anything we could that would help with her nipple confusion and let my nipples take a break from the poor latch she had at first. I went to a lactation consultant, breast feeding support group and read anything online and in book and pamphlets I could on the subject. Finally we got her latch corrected, my nipples we not as tender(but it still hurt!) and we were good to go =] It was just a few weeks later that I started back to work. Thankfully my office was close to my parents house and my mom was watching her for me. I was able to go there once a day to nurse her and pumped her a bottle the other feeding I missed. I weaned her with ease at 13 months(I figured I owed her an extra month for all the trouble we went through in the beginning.) Ally did not latch well in the beginning either. My milk did not come in until she was 5-6 days old, similar to when I had Katie. Although this time there was no pumping, no NICU, she was able to get the Colostrum...the liquid gold....I had felt so badly about Katie not getting. Although due to my milk not coming in for several days she ended up getting a fairly bad case of Jaundice. We had to take her to TC Thompson’s once a day for a few days to get her heel pricked so they could test her billirubin(sp?) levels. We took her out in the sun for a few minutes a day here and there, supplemented formula with a tube(finger fed her) and nursed her more often. Thankfully she got better in a matter of days. I weaned her at 12 months. I had eye surgery when she was 11 months and planned to wean her then, but could not bear to do it yet. I felt I owed her one more month at least! So after her 1st birthday she was nursing only in the mornings and one morning I just forgot to nurse her after breakfast...she didn’t care, so she was weaned at that point on =] Blake latched from the moment he was born. No trouble there. No jaundice, no supplementing, my milk came in in just a couple days and we have been good to go since! He was gone a 1 or 2 very short nursing strikes(or at least that’s what i call them) and some days he will go hours without nursing now but the next day nurse normally and when we are out in public he gets distracted and is hard to nurse so I pump him bottles sometimes now....but other then that....he has been a wonderful nurser! =] I never pumped a bottle and let Katie feed Ally...I pumped so much with Katie I did not want to have to pump unless i HAD to with Ally. But with Blake like I said above, I pump him bottles now and have a nice stock pile in the freezer....so the other night Joe let Katie feed Blake =] Ally did not care too much about it. I may try and see if they would like to feed him again sometime just so I can get a picture.

Day Off

Joe took yesterday off to go help register Katie for school. It was nice having him with us the whole day. Sometimes during the week the kids and I get to see him just an hour or two a day. So to have an extra day of time with him was wonderful. We went to a birthday party at the zoo after registration. Had lunch at McDonalds. Went to Katie's doc appt for her ears(she needs to see a specialist cause she still has fluid in her ears and she just started a 3rd round of antibiotics). We went out to Hamilton Place and the kids played in the play area awhile. Picked up Bear from the Vet where he had his vaccines and a bath. Ate dinner, made applesauce bread and then it was bath and bedtime. Joe cut the grass afterwards which was WAY over due. The grass at the bottom of our yard was almost to Katie's stomach! I tried to cut the grass a few weeks ago and could not get the darn mower to start; besides it is so hard to get all the kids occupied or napping for me to go out and do it. I have been begging him to hire someone to do it for cheap. At least he got it done....on his off day too...but it didnt take him long at all to do it.

School Registration

Like most, I have plenty that I could be doing right now instead of 'blogging' but figured I had not posted an a few days so I should. Yesterday was school registration. Joe took off from work to go with us so he could see Katie's new school, meet the teacher and what not. He went bright and early to drop Bear off at the vet and then we all went on to Rivermont Elem. We met her teacher(which I can not remember her name for the life of me) filled out MORE paperwork and peeked inside her classroom. I had many questions answered(IE: school dress code, book bags, supply list drop off/pick up times ect) Katie is very excited about school starting, as am I. Only down fall is not having her here all day with me. Something I will have to get use to but I plan to take advantage of all at the same time. She starts next Wednesday, August 13th. Her dress code is khaki or navy pants, Capri’s, skirts, shorts or jumpers. Any color polo shirt(except red and black). Dress code for Pre-K is not enforced but recommended. She gets to take her LL Bean Book bag to school with her instead of the clear ones and she got a matching lunch box too =] She will be going from 8:15am-2:45pm. What a long day for a little one....at least they get an hour of quiet time in there. Once she starts I will write more.

10 Year Reunion

I graduated from Notre Dame High School in 1998. I can not believe it has been 10 years! Last night was our 10 year reunion. It was at the MudPie on Frazier Ave in North Chattanooga. It was more fun then I had thought it would be and I chatted with people I have not seen in 10 years and some I have never talked to in my whole life. When I got home I looked at my senior yearbook and realized there were only a small handful of people that attended the reunion. I am not surprised, I think that is the case with most reunions. But it was a good time and many friends took pics so I will try and post some soon.
Joe's is coming up end of the summer. Will write about that one sometime also....

Library Party

Saturday we woke nice and early to go to the Library's summer reading program party. You had to sign up a the beginning of the summer, read x amount of books and turn in your log before July 26th. So, we did all of that and figured we needed to go to the party to get all our free stuff! =] All 3 kids got a free book, TONS of coupons for attractions and restaurants around town, Popsicle, drinks, candy, crafts and more! It was crowded and hot so we did not stay long, just long enough for hte girls to have a little fun. While there I heard this startling screech, turned around to find a frantic mother in tears who had thought she lost her child. She was with 3-4 security guys and when she screeched she ran over to her hubby who had both of her children. I am not sure what happened or if the kid was really lost, but regardless of how long the kid was lost or if it was lost....that is scary. Made me hold tighter to the hands of my little girls...that’s for sure! I can not even fathom the feelings I would have if that happened to me! One time at Target Joe and Katie ran in to get something while I stayed in the car with the other two. He called me and said he lost Katie. I was in disbelief. I thought he was just mad at her and she had ran off in front of him. I went to the front of the store in the car to make sure she didn’t get out. Then he called me and said that an employee and a customer had found her. She went down the next aisle and by the time Joe got there she was down another and so on....she had got scared and found the employee and customer(an older lady) and said she lost her daddy and needed help. He was 2 aisles over looking for her with another employee. He called me back VERY upset and said she was found and he was heading back to the car. She was playing with him and didnt mean to 'get lost'. But it upset Joe and scared him I think too. That has never personally happened to me and I am sure I would have been frantic if I had been in the moment with him.