I know its only been a few days since I last talked about Rowans eating situation, but I know at least some of you follow our family pretty closely, and if I’m fired up about something, sometimes you guys are too. So here’s the latest on Ro.

I could not be happier with the way Rowan’s medication is improving just his general quality of life, it seems. At our worst, he was up every two-ish hours every night, not napping in the day, always unsettled, and of course, HATED drinking his milk. Since he’s been on his medication (basically just the liquid form of a generic Zantac) SO many things have changed!!! He’s up twice in the night still, but that is a large step up from where we were, so I’m certainly not complaining! He naps so much better in the day, too, which I didn’t necessarily expect to come from this. Two nice long naps for sure, sometimes three shorties, depending on the day. He likes rolling around on the floor considerably more than he did literally just last week, when he was only happy in the jumper, in a standing position. Best of all, when he is good and hungry, he cries for his bottle. And better than best of all, he takes it!

The one struggle that remains is that he still really isn’t a fan of taking a bottle. He doesn’t get half as upset, because it doesn’t hurt him anymore. (Disclaimer: This is obviously just as far as we can tell. We don’t know anything for sure!) But I think its sort of built into him that he hates drinking his bottle because he always has. So he’s pretty unimpressed every time we set him up for a feeding, unless he’s reeeaaally wanting it badly, but once we get him latched onto the bottle, he’s good to go. He’s adapting well to his new bottles, I’d say. Its taking a little while, but he’s catching on.

All things considered, we’re hopeful! We thought we’d need quite a bit more outside help, and we were fine with asking for it! But he’s really doing an amazing job of working his stuff out on his own 🙂 He’s eating more in the day, and we’re learning more about his preferences. We don’t have to be afraid of him having opinions now, because we know he’s not in pain or discomfort anymore. At least we sure hope he’s not.

So thats the skinny on Rowan. Thanks, everyone, for being so patient with the blog switching over and having some glitches. I think things like some people seeing pictures sideways and different borders and such will just work itself out over time, as its totally out of my control what your browsers see. Hopefully everyone will be seeing the same thing soon 🙂 Thanks again, guys!

This was the crazy busiest Sunday we’ve had in SO LONG! It was awesome, but sooo full! To a lot of you, it probably doesn’t seem too full, but we’ve been feeling stretched a little thin for one reason or another for quite some time, and being out all day takes a lot out of all of us. Our bodies are physically aching, but it feels like that good ache that comes with accomplishing something, and just being worn out from all of the fun activity. Its been a great day.

We actually made it to church!!! Brady had been asked to drum this week at church, and also next week, so we knew we needed to go, even though the kids were wiped out from Halloween the night before. It was good to go, though, and the kids were all anticipating it. Dekker was in a bit of a bad mood most of the morning, unfortunately, but we tried to keep it upbeat. I actually convinced him to try out childrens church for the first time, and he went with me! I snuck out after a few minutes, and one of the lovely women supervising told me she’d bring him up if he got upset. It was only a few minutes before he came up. He was completely fine, but she has a fabulous radar for him and decided not to stress him out, which is EXACTLY what he needs. So he came back up for the service, but said he had fun down with the kids while he was there. We’ll try again next week.

After church, we lurked for a bit, but then went to the city for lunch. My parents had lunch plans with friends, and we had afternoon plans anyway, so we just grabbed some lunch quickly before making the drive to our friends sons birthday party! He recently turned one, and his party was this afternoon. It was a pretty good drive from where we were, and we sooo hoped the kids would sleep, but none of them did :/

Thankfully, the party was full of loving people and was set in a school gym, so there was lots of space to run, and even some games set up! The kids got right into it, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was even better when we took their socks off and they stopped falling on their heads. Always learning, lol! Anyway, they had a great time, and I got in lots of visiting with the other guests. I knew almost everyone from one place or another, so it was nice to catch up and see where they all are now. We had pizza and cake after some good play time. Blue cake, to be exact.

When it was time to start packing up, Laela followed around one of the guests as she swept the whole gym floor. It was so cute to watch her do laps ride alongside 🙂 But when it wrapped up, both kids were given a big coloring book and some crayons. They whined about not being allowed to color in their car seats, but once we were driving, they were asleep within minutes. Now, I’m sure a lot of you can attest to the fact that kids napping at 6:00pm isn’t ideal, but thanks to the busyness of the day, the kids slept the whole way home and are now all tucked in. They’re quietly talking, but no one is anxious to be getting up, or energetic, or hungry, or anything. Everyone is ready for bed, including Brady and I.

First a bath. Then a sleep. I’m so excited, haha!

First of all, my blog is down! I’m sure you’ve noticed, as I’ve had basically no hits today. We’ve been fussing with it for a very literal ten hours today and I think we finally have been tipped off about how to fix it. Unfortunately, you guys are the problem! Lol! I’m totally kidding. For the most part. We spoke to Bluehost IT and they said people’s browser caches aren’t caught up yet. The dude had the nerve to tell me to just ask all of my readers to clear their caches. I feel like I can’t really expect everyone to try to figure this out, and he said people’s browsers would eventually figure it out. I asked for a ballpark on what “eventually” looked like, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. Apparently “annoyed Hailey” isn’t the most likeable person 😉 He didn’t seem to like talking to me. I can’t blame him. I wasn’t his biggest fan either. But all of this considered, none of you can even read this! So why am I telling you how to fix the problem on here??? Le sigh.

That aside, today is Halloween! Our first trip out with three, and it was a lot of fun! It is hilarious to see the kids change so much from year to year. Last year, Dekker blew us out of the water by being surprisingly brave and upbeat, and this year he just took to it immediately!! Laela, on the other hand, was nervous and wanted to be carried almost the entire time. Dekker would call to her “I’ll knock, Laela, I’m not scared!” Rowan was hilarious and adorable and was basically just along to be stared at and ooed and awed over. Success all around.

We hit maybe 10-15 houses before Laela was toast, and it was time to head home. On the drive home, we changed into the fast lane to pass some vehicles on the shoulder and successfully drove over an already-dead deer. That was special fun, but thankfully, there was not a scratch or dent left behind!

The kids struggled pretty hard when it was all over, as they tend to do with most fun outings. So bedtime routine was quashed and they went to be pretty much right away. But it was necessary. They need sleep. Bad.

Rowan drank a full 8 oz bottle (yay!) and is now cooing in his playpen beside our bed while a bath runs and we continue to fight with ridiculous WordPress and bluehost and whatever else is going on.

Be patient with us, please! And clear your caches, if you feel so inclined!!

First off, I am SO pleased to say that we had a really good night last night!! By “good,” I mean that Rowan woke up only twice, which is better than our usual these days. He woke up at midnight and then again at 5:30. Usually, he thinks its time to get up during his second wakeup, but thankfully, he went right back down afterwards! So we all slept until just shortly before 8:00. We felt refreshed for sure!

So Ro had his first dose of his medication last night, and again this morning. I know its supposed to take a while to build up in his system before anything works in a huge way, but he doesn’t fight it too hard. Tho I can smell it and it doesn’t smell particularly pleasant. But I’m ok with that, and he is too.

As I said, Rowan woke up to eat around 5:30 this morning. Once we were up for the day, we began the transition onto new bottles. And it is for that reason that we are the end of the day and have managed to sneak a mere eight ounces into this boy He is unimpressed. But the nipples on the new bottles are SO different, and he has to open his mouth quite a bit wider to accommodate for them. He’s slowly figuring it out. Slowly. But if you think of us, pray for our night! He’s hardly eaten and he is not a fan of the change of bottle just yet. I know we could always switch back to the familiar bottles for night, just for now, but then he’s REALLY not going to eat in the day. So we’re persisting.

Ro has had his nightly dose of meds and is very slowly drinking some milk. Here’s hoping!!

I really had a lovely day, but in a very strange way. I’m thrilled to share with you guys that there are FABULOUS health care providers in this city, and I felt SO cared for today!

Lots of you don’t know, but we’ve had this constant battle with Rowan to get him to eat. I know. If you’ve ever seen the kid, he’s a tank. A TANK. So I haven’t talked too much about this to a lot of people, because it sounds like I’m making it up. But we struggle very hard getting him to eat in the daytime. He will eat very small amounts before getting very upset and almost seems to panic when we try to get him to eat more. Yet, at night, when he’s all dozy and unaware, he eats HUGE feedings. We’ve come to the tipping point now, as he’s getting older, where he’s getting up more and more in the night, because he’s so hungry, but we CANNOT get him to eat in the day. He cries and cries and cries after maybe 2-3 ounces, where he’ll eat 8 at night. We’re finally past thinking its just an attitude thing, and I called my doctor yesterday.

Unfortunately, she was out yesterday afternoon, so she didn’t get my message. I know her new clinic offers a few same day appointment slots, so I called the clinic literally seven minutes after it opened, and they were gone already. I was pretty discouraged. But my message was still in to her, and she would arrive for her day at noon.

Lo and behold, at 12:30, I received a call saying she wanted to see us if we could make it in by 4:00. Brady had today off, so we were already actually on our way in for some grocery shopping and such when we got the call!

When it was 4:00, Brady hung out with the kids and got them a really early supper, and I took Rowan in. We usually all go in together, but I knew Dr. Guselle had just squeezed us in at the end of her day, so if she was running behind at all, we would have to wait.

Lucky for us, we were taken back to weigh him within just a few minutes. The nurse who took us back asked “So he’s not eating well?” Then said she’d like to weigh him first. I laughed and said “You’re going to think I’m crazy when you weigh him because he’s so big.” And she responded with a very straight forward “No, I won’t. A mother knows better than anyone if something is up.” I loved that.

We were put in a room right away, and saw a first year intern first. He asked lots of questions, and didn’t make me feel like an idiot. When we just had Dekker, I was knocked down very easily by anyone would would suggest I was doing a bad job with my kids, or that I was being over the top. I’ve become much less concerned with that, but I didn’t even have to brush anything off. He took in everything I said, wrote a lot of stuff down, and even played with him a bit to help Ro get comfortable. He makes strange right now, but never with this doctor. That always makes things easier.

As it works in the clinic now, with the teaching and such, he came in and out with a few other questions before Dr. Guselle joined us. I love how she teaches and informs. She walked all of us through the possibilities and how we could rule certain things out. Lots of the bigger possibilities would have him be much much sicker, and not thriving. We all agreed that he was obviously thriving, but that there was an issue that was more than him just wanting to be up all night. I’d also like to say, for the record, that this isn’t about Brady and I wanting a full nights sleep. Sure, it would be great, but the issue is bigger. We’ll do what we have to do to keep our boy healthy and fed, but as he is getting older, he is hungrier, and he is waking up WAY more each night. But we can’t in good conscience let him just get himself back to sleep, because we know its because he’s hungry. I know crying it out in controversial, but we reasonably let our kids cry themselves to sleep. Rowan, however, wakes up and wails for milk. He’s struggling. And we need to figure it out.

What we all settled on was that he likely has a form of reflux that is bigger than what the average baby has. Rowan feeds better in certain positions, so thats part of the suspicion. Yet, after a night feeding, we lay him flat on his back, and if he had some awful severe reflux, that would hurt him so badly, which is doesn’t. While some of you are probably thinking that barfing comes with reflux, it often does, but there is a condition called silent reflux that feels exactly the same to babies s full blown reflux, but it doesn’t show itself in ways like that. Its just that. Silent. However, we can’t really know! Its all based on symptoms, and while this is the closest we can get to a diagnosis, there are holes it in.

I left feeling TOTALLY validated, to be honest. My doctor is exceptional. I also left with a prescription for liquid zantac and a few new ideas to try out in the next few weeks. I’m so pleased to have a direction now, at least. When the intern asked me what I hoped to gain from the appointment, firstly, I laughed, and then I told him totally honestly. I said I wanted to basically bounce ideas off of a professional rather than google or my friends who hadn’t experienced something like this before. I wasn’t coming in for a concrete answer, because I know there isn’t one, but I needed to toss ideas around with someone who knows way more than me, which Dr. Guselle definitely does. And I got exactly what I wanted. While we talked, Rowan clapped and shook his head, and screeched like a maniac. He’s such a ham. A loud ham.

So. We have some medicine for Ro, new bottles that should kiiinda work more like sippy cups, or better in a sitting position at least, and honestly, renewed motivation that we can figure this whole thing out.

Wish us luck, though! These rough nights are taking a bit of a toll. We’re trying to stay positive, but if you see us, and we look like garbage, be kind. We’re trying!

Look at that mug <3

It was SO nice to spend some quality time with Jerilee again today. She leads one of the busiest lives I’ve seen, and I always feel special when she makes time to come spend a few hours with us.

After some good visiting with her, a few shows, and a delicious supper of perogies and bacon, she headed home. I hate this part of the year when it gets so dark and people have to leave early 🙁 I TOTALLY understand it, a thousand percent. No one wants to hit deer on the highway. But its sad to lose our company early. But I’m VERY thankful she came out and stayed as long as she did. All of us, the kids very much included, really love having her around.

I haven’t talked too much about it, but we’re sort of going through a rocky time with Rowan these days, and as a result of that, we are getting WAY less sleep than usual, leaving us both pretty exhausted and sick feeling. For that reason, the last week or two, I’ve been asleep before this time pretty much every day. So. Tired. So I am off to bed! Sleep well, all!

It was SUCH a lovely day, spending time with my mom. I feel like our visits in the last few months have been fewer, and shorter than we’d like, so it was really nice to see her from the late morning well into the afternoon. We shared a really yummy lunch, and the kids were super happy to have their grandma sharing her food with them, playing toys on the floor with them, laughing at their funny faces, and listening to their many stories. Lots to do, but with a bit of a longer visit, it didn’t feel as much like I was competing with them for time with her. We actually got some visiting in, which was the biggest treat for me. I miss her.

We had a very simple meal for supper – breakfast. Rowan ate SO much, which kind of blew me away. He’s not eating too much solid food yet. He’s only eight months yet, so I’m not in the least bit worried, but he’s still pretty gaggy. But he ate lots of eggs, and even did pretty great on toast! I SO much prefer this method of feeding solid foods over purees. But to each their own! No judgement here!

The kids are now tucked away, and Laela didn’t nap this afternoon so I’m thinking the big kids will be silent in just a few minutes. Rowan, on the other hand, has been giving us a run for our money these days. I’m not sure if the full moon was last night or tonight, but I really see a change in my kids sleep when it comes around, and last night SUCKED. Rowan was up more than usual, and Brady and I tossed and turned all night. Anyone else? Not great. But hopefully tonight will be better??

The highlight of my day today was supper. I was SO hungry, and as soon as I knew Brady was maybe a half hour away from leaving work, it suddenly came to me. Subway. Subway would be SO good today! So I texted Brady and he agreed that would be a delicious supper. Thankfully, a meal from Subway is about the same price for us as a meal from Wendys. Brady and I both get the subs we want, and then we get a full sized ham and cheese sub with honey mustard, and Dekker and Laela share it. And they love it!

We always eat supper upstairs with the kids. ALWAYS. But today, we laid out a blanket in the basement, picnic style, and gave them their sandwiches and water bottles on the floor. And weirdly enough, they were thrilled! They sat on the blanket and watched some tv while they ate, and didn’t once get up or try to get toys or really do anything that required correction. They loved the low key meal, as did I, and as did Brady. Even Rowan say quietly in his bumbo chair and observed everyone around him.

I love my family, and how easy everyone is to please. At least today, lol! We are so far from perfect, but I sure like them A LOT.

Laela’s party has come and gone, and while it was so sweet and low key and exactly what i wanted it to be, we’re all still pretty tired. Its nice to know we’ll have a quieter week with less to gear up for. That being said, I know Halloween is this coming weekend, and as per usual, we’ll be taking the kids trick or treating.

We’ve had the holiday in the back of our minds for a while now, so we have planned out the kids costumes pretty much down to the detail. Dekker’s is already totally assembled, Rowans is all put together out of stuff he already has, and Laelas is just missing one or two little details. I might quickly try and crochet Rowan a toque that matches, but we’ll see. There is very little left to do to have the kids totally ready for trick or treating Saturday!! Although, I suppose I’ll spend some time this week trying to teach Laela to say “trick or treat,” which I had put zero thought into until this very second. Hmmm. So thats a thing we need to do.

But otherwise, its a nice low key week, which is much needed. We’ve spent today catching up on laundry and doing a bit of final tidying around what was Laela’s party, so there won’t be much to do around here work wise this week. I’m looking forward to having less demands and more time to hang with the kiddos, all of whom I am quite fond of. I feel like my mood is rubbing off on them, and its time to come out of my glass case of emotion and be more available and happy again. It can be done. I don’t want my kids to think they have to take care of me, though its lovely that they try. They’re kids. I’m their mom. Proudly. I’m on top of it <3

I don’t have as many pictures from today as I had hoped to take, but it was a lovely, full, bustling day of celebration of our beautiful little lady, Laela Hazel.

We worked like crazy the night before…

And got up early this morning to make a plan and carry out the rest of what needed doing. I was SO looking forward to making pretzel bites, and they flopped last night. We had left the option open about whether or not to try and make them again this morning, but I just made the decision that it would be too much. Looking back, we had so much to do, it really would have been MUCH too much, and I’m ok with the fact that we didn’t make them. Next time, maybe 🙂

We had a fabulous turnout of 16 people in total. Laela loved being the centre of attention in her little black dress and string of pearls. The kids were rowdy and ran circles around the house. They played hard! Finally, people moseyed over to the food, and while I had been so worried we wouldn’t have enough, we had a great variety and didn’t run out of anything. We had pink popcorn, as well as the plain boom chicka pop from Costco. We had pink jello, little cupcakes, brownies, turnovers, carrot muffins, chocolate dipped strawberries, cheese rolls, and crackers with cream cheese and cucumbers. For drinks, we served Shirley Temples, which I thought was really cute, if I can be honest. Very sweet and girly, like Laela.

As per our usual kid birthday party, it was a lovely free for all where the kids played and the adults visited and had a lovely time doing it. I love seeing all of my friends get along so very well after really not knowing each other at all. Some have crossed paths, but only ever through Brady and I. My parents know everyone to some capacity, and the rest are from all different places! We don’t know any two of our friends from the same place. Its fun to see everyone come together.

While I’m always pretty wiped out at the end of things like this, I feel like I’m up for throwing more parties in my future. Since it appears that we’ll be living here longer than expected, maybe my big butt kicking Christmas party will just have to be here 🙂 I think we can handle that. If we have to, lol!

My pride and joy <3