A return to "normalcy"

Dear Jacob,

These are some of my favorite of your most recent pictures.

15 mo check up: 29.5 in (2%), 24.9 lbs (64%), 80% HC

shopping at Lowe's with Mom & Dad

You are growing and changing so fast, learning so many new things so quickly, and I feel like I have failed at capturing so many of these things lately! So this is my attempt to “catch up” and put down as much as I can about these last few months of Jacob so we’ll always remember these very early months of your childhood.

You are now officially 16 months old (& one week). I used to write to you monthly! And then at about your eleventh month, the *chaos* in our lives began. Luckily, with God’s help and that of our amazing family and friends, we have weathered the storms and I’m so grateful to say, I think we’ve come out a much stronger family for it!

Let me briefly describe. One Sunday last October, our house flooded. In just a matter of a half hour, the washing machine in a utility room outside of our third floor bedroom, leaked and flooded the 3rd floor, and leaked through the 2nd and 1st floor ceilings and walls. After getting the disaster crews in to dry up the water ASAP, packing in a mad dash to go spend the night with your Godmomma Melissa, and yanking you from your slumber around midnight, we came home the next day to check out the damage. I wish I had taken pictures because words can’t really describe the mess, dust, and utter chaos. It was an odd feeling. I knew this was absolutely NOTHING compared to the tragedies of total loss faced by truly displaced people – hurricane and tornado victims who lose EVERYTHING. But at the same time, it was our home. It was the first home your dad and I lived in together after getting married in 2008. It was the home in which I carried you for nine blissfully anticipatory months (well, maybe 3 not-so-blissfully nauseous and 6 much-more-bearable ones). It was the home we brought you to after a 20 mile an hour drive home from the hospital when you were three days old. And just like that, overnight, it was turned upside down. Although we were planning to leave the house (did I mention it was under contract when this happened? Um, yeah), this wasn’t the way in which we had envisioned saying our goodbyes to this place that held a soft spot in both your dad’s and my memories.

Over the next several weeks, we learned what it really means to believe that God works ALL things for the good of those who love him. Needless to say, we eventually lost the contract, but sold the house again very quickly after about a month of repairs! By the middle of January we had moved out, and then in with Baby Reese and the Conners for a few weeks until our new home was ready. What fun it was to live with one of my old college roomies again! It was different this time around. Alicia didn’t have to wake me up in the mornings to the sound of my ever-snoozing alarm. I guess we really do grow up eventually. In some ways at least. ;) You thoroughly enjoyed playing with Reese’s doggie Maggie. Although it took you a few minutes to warm up to her, you eventually got to where you would ask for her by name (“woof woof”) at the front door.

circa January 2013

I wish we had gotten a picture of you and Reese while you were roomies! I think I was too afraid to let you – a newly walking toddler – come too close to her, a barely out of the newborn stage precious little one. But I look forward to the day when you can both play together without that fear of you wanting to use her as a chew toy.

Rewind a bit to Thanksgiving…your Abuelo Nano (which you have now learned to say! Well, just the Nano part) takes an unexpected trip to the ER. The story of these last several months for your Abuelo is a long one, and he was in the hospital for a long, long time, but we are very thankful to report that he is on the road to recovery and doing much better now that he is getting rehabilitated and moving those muscles a little bit again. It was another trying time for him and for our family, but God’s mercy and love have shown through in support from friends, family, and the sheer miracle of your abuelo even making it through those first, most perilous days in the hospital. After an emergency surgery the day after entering the ER, 20 minutes of intense CPR and code-blue, and massive blood loss, the doctors said that he had a less than .1% chance of survival. He is here today. Many of the doctors said themselves it was miraculous. God is good. He again showed us that ALL things are possible for Him. I share all of this with you, because of the amazing blessing I had to witness your abuelo receive the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. This is one of the Sacraments that we don’t truly give much thought to (at least I didn’t) until having witnessed its administration first hand and the intense feeling of peace and gratitude for God’s graces that accompanies it. It’s a beautiful thing that a priest with no prior knowledge of a man will drive 45 minutes to be at his side and pray over him in his hour of need at 3 o’clock in the morning the day after Thanksgiving. That he will take the time to pray with the family, listen to them & console them. We are truly blessed by these humble servants of Christ, our priests.

With Abuelo Nano out of the ICU in December, we were able to take our trip to Bolivia for Christmas. This would not be your first time to travel on an airplane (your first was to South Padre Island with Nana, Papa, Aunt Lisa, cousins Caitlyn & Elizabeth in June – I still have pictures to upload from this trip believe it or not, and a post to write about it and all the fun you had at the beach, including that fist full of sand in your mouth – yummy!), but it would be the longest trip of your 13 months. It was extra special for me because it was your dad’s first time to meet my Abidu (my mom’s mom, your great-grandmother!). And his first time to get a glimpse of this place from which my family comes. It was a fantastic trip! We had a great time with family, including Uncle Mo, Abuelita Niny, Abidu, Tia Poly and the whole clan – lots of aunts, uncles and cousins, including new baby cousin Lucas who was two weeks old! Mom and Dad even got to get away for a night with cousins Vanessa and Marco to go to the rainforest, including a rafting excursion down the Holy Spirit River that was incredible!

chatting it up with Abidu

after the hike in Carrasco National Park

um yes, we crossed that river in a manually-pulled cable car

We came home exhausted but extremely happy to have had the opportunity to visit family and introduce you to part of your heritage. Within days of being home, while we were frantically beginning to pack so we could move out of the house in ten days, you came down with what is known as “papular urticaria” (an allergic reaction of the skin to bug bites that is apparently very common in toddlers), but what I initially was convinced was either chicken pox or ringworm (eeek!!!). It was basically giant red spots all over your arms, legs, and booty. I’ll include a pic for the not-so-faint-of-heart.

Luckily after a visit with an amazing pediatric dermatologist, that beautifully, smooth and rash-free baby skin of yours returned. Whew!

After surviving the crazy rash episode, we completed the move out, moved in with the Conners, and three weeks later, closed on our new home! The home in which we hope to build many more wonderful family memories together. The home in which we hope to fondly remember as the one in which you become a big brother! Hopefully a few times, but we’ll see what God has in store. ;)

Whew! Now that I’ve painted a picture of the *chaos” I mentioned in the first few paragraphs…onto more fun topics – you!!

I am a proud mama these days. You’ve learned so much over the last few months and changed so much. You’ve morphed from the baby of early 2012, into the twaddler of late 2012, into a full blown toddler, complete with picky eating (your strike on vegetables began around 15 months and only sometimes do my attempts to masquerade them in other food work), temper tantrums, biting (ohmygosh i thought you would never stop! Luckily you've been bite-free for a few week now), running away from me in public spaces (I’ve never reconsidered my thoughts on child leashes more than I have lately), and non-stop babble. You’re learning to communicate with signs and words to get what you want. Yesterday you received the following "happy gram" from your teacher at school. It made me so proud!

So I thought, I really need to capture all that you’ve learned and what you’re all about these days before more time zooms by me and it all becomes a blur. Here’s a snapshot of your accomplishments, joys, and quirks over the last few months and now.

Signs

• eat (a favorite)
• all done (this is a favorite of yours when you have finished the good stuff on your plate and only have veggies left)
• hat (you especially love the winter ones, which you love to wear even if it’s 80 degrees outside)
• banana (a staple in your diet)
• baby (this was a favorite about a month ago – you LOVED pointing out all the babies in the grocery store)
• milk
• more
• bird
• dog

English words

• ball
• buuh“book” (you use this one A LOT)
• teeh “teeth” (brushing your teeth was your absolute favorite activity from about 13 – 15 months)
• dow “down” (usually said when pushing vigorously against the tray to get down from your high chair)
• iiii “hi” (also
• ba-bye (use all too frequently to indicate that you are done with whatever it is that you were holding)
• bee-bee (“baby”, always with a sweet smile on your face…let’s see if you still have that smile when you say baby in few more months at home…)
• uh oh! (anytime ANYTHING falls, even if you've dropped it on purpose)
• booo (as in peek-a-boo, followed by many proud of yourself giggles for being so sneaky and "hiding" from us)
• upa, upa (“up”, as in pick me up now Mom! Or I want to go up stairs now Mom!)
• burrrr (as in, “brrr”, it’s cold out here)
• nana (banana)
• Nana (as in Nana, daddy’s mom)
• Papa (as in Papa, daddy’s dad)
• mama
• dada

Spanish words

• ma, ma (“mas”, sometimes I think you’re saying Mama, but really you just want more of something. Clever.)
• papats (“zapatos”, shoes were your absolutely favorite toy for a while, around 12 to 14 months)
• mono (specifically in reference to the aqua sock monkey that Godmomma Melissa gave you at Christmas)
• cheche ("leche")
• wa-wa (“aqua”)
• Nanooo (as in your Abuelo Nano, mommy’s dad)

*Abuelita Niny, we’re working on it, I promise! Yours is harder!

Animal & other sounds

• mmmoooo (this is your favorite, and at first everyone said mooo, including the cow, the donkey, the horse, the chicken)
• ruff ruff
• kack-kack (“quack”)
• oooh-oooh (as in oooh-oooh ahhh-ahhh, the monkey sound. Duh.)
• op-op (“hop hop”, i.e. what the bunny does. This is a favorite right now – you love for me to make the Easter bunny on the kitchen table “op-op”)
• woo-woo (as in the sound a car makes driving by. You like to make this sound when you were your fire truck bib at dinner and when we say “good morning” to the woo-woos on the street from your bedroom window)

Part of the body you can point to

• cabeza (and “head”)
• ojos (and “eyes”)
• boca (and “mouth”)
• nariz (and “nose”)
• ombliguito (and “belly button”)
• toes (working on this in Spanish!)

We’re still working on orejas (ears)!

Favorite activities & toys

• READING!!! I love the way you bring us your “buuh” and hold it out in front of you asking us to read it to you. And the way you turn around and back up into our laps to sit with us as we read. Some books keep your attention more than others, and to those you say “ba-bye” and abruptly shut them and throw them on the floor.
• crayons
• coloring, sometimes, mostly you just like walking around with crayons and putting them in and out of cups and drawers
• bath time!
• Shoes – “papats” were your absolute favorites for a long, long time a few months ago. You often wanted to wear multiple pairs at the same time.
• Climbing stairs – this has been a favorite ever since your Abuela Niny (thanks, Mom) showed you how to find them at our old house, so from about 11 mos until present day. ;)
• Legos – I mean, what boy doesn’t love legos? Your friend Emmy and your Nana & Papa have both given you awesome sets that you just adore!
• Your motorcycle that plays rock ‘n roll – Aunt Lisa and team gave you this one for your birthday – ever since you’ve been able to get on and off yourself, you can’t get enough of asking Dad to push you around in it. It’s more fun than pushing yourself backwards in it.
• Balls! With the newfound joy of having a backyard, and the spring weather that is upon us, you absolutely love playing with the bouncy balls in the backyard with Dad – this usually makes for non-stop giggles!
• Running full speed ahead! Again, especially in public spaces away from me! You started walking at 14 ½ months and it has been non-stop ever since. You started out with what some call the Frankenstein walk (both hands high up in the air, propelled forward by that yummy belly of yours). Dad referred to it as “the Clyde”, from the move Every Which Way but Loose with Clint Eastwood. Nice comparison to an orangutan by your father there.
• besos, you love giving & blowing kisses! You are French apparently though because when you give mommy besos you insist on kissing both my left and right cheeks! You also love blowing kisses to grandparents on FaceTime. 

your FAVORITE activity

Oh and your teeth!! So you got your first between 7 & 8 months, and had three by the end of 8 months. Then I lose track but I think there were 7 (four on top, 3 on bottom) until about 14 months when your first molar cut. Yikes was that fun. And now you've got three molars almost all grown in! Maybe that explains all the biting at school in February?

As always, you light up our lives, my little man. You definitely keep things more fun, more challenging, less quiet, and less smooth than our lives ever were before. We may not love every second of it (i.e. tantrums), but we are thankful for all of it, and we truly do love all of you.

As we continue to get the house unpacked and settle in, enjoy our precious days with you, prepare for baby sister, and visit Abuelo Nano as he continues his physical therapy, our return to “normalcy” (whatever that means) feels very close…

Love,
Mama