MELTDOWN

Last weekend I had my 5 year Meredith College reunion!  (More about that in another post.)  It was so very good to see some friends who no longer live here and came for the reunion.  Johanna, my best friend and college roommate,  flew in from Texas.  Joshua and I went to pick her up from the airport on Friday afternoon.  I had it all pictured in my head about how awesome it was going to be.  I even took the camera to take a picture of Joshua and her meeting up at the baggage claim.  Well things don't always turn out like we plan, and I found that out for sure that day.  Johanna's plane got delayed to start with, so I had to reconfigure Joshua's schedule for the day.  I decided to just leave for the airport a little earlier so that Joshua could take his afternoon nap in the car.  He almost always sleeps in the car if it is around nap time and we are on the highway.  He did in fact fall asleep about 5 minutes after we left the house.  I was excited thinking that things were working as I had hoped.  About 15 minutes later he was awake and screaming in the backseat.  I had planned to just ride around with him in the car so he could sleep until closer to when Johanna's plane was suppose to finally arrive, but with him screaming I went on to the airport.  I thought that if I just got him out of the car seat and strolled him around the airport he would calm down and maybe even snooze a little bit more.  He did calm down for maybe about 5 minutes, but then he lost it again and proceeded to have the biggest meltdown I have ever seen.  Carrying him didn't work, the stroller didn't work, driving around didn't work....nothing.  He had just eaten, so I knew he wasn't hungry.  He had just reached his max for not napping and wanted me to know it.  I decided that since he was screaming, and it was getting a little embarrassing in the airport and the airport parking lot, that I would stick him back in his car seat and just do laps around the airport until Johanna's flight finally arrived.  I couldn't leave to go home because she could be there any time and my house is not close to the airport.  An hour after the screaming began her plane finally got there.  I jumped out of the car and got in the back seat as soon as she came out to the curb.  I informed her that she would be driving us home.  I don't even think I said hello, and I definitely didn't even hug her neck...gasp.  About 5 minutes before we got home I decided to go ahead and take his shoes off so that hopefully he would go down for a MUCH needed nap as soon as we walked in the door, and shortly after the shoes came off he was asleep.  I think we got about 3 minutes of silence in the car.  So, an hour and 45 minutes after the screaming began he finally went to sleep.  I got home with a huge headache and shot nerves.  Johanna and I went off to the reunion later that night and had a great time, so the day wasn't a total bust.

This meltdown was definitely a first for me.  It was NOT fun, but I'm sure there are worse meltdowns and tantrums to come...ha!  

10 Months Old

Joshua is now 10 months old.  He's been that old since May 12th.  It's been busy around here, so I haven't had time to sit down and organize my thoughts.  He has changed so much in just a months time.  Here is a list of some things he's doing at 10 months.

-walks all over the place with his push toys (When he does this he laughs and gets the goofiest grin on his face like he's so proud of himself...and we are proud, too!)

-says mama, dada, ba (ball), bye bye

-waves bye bye

-claps

-high fives

-sometimes will put his arms over his head when we say "how big is Joshua?"

-pulls up on EVERYTHING and can transfer from one thing to another

-makes the funniest faces and will repeat them if they make us laugh

-enjoys throwing himself on our pillows piled in the floor

-laughs all the time...soo cute!

-is eating a lot more table food (we are finally getting a handle on that gag reflex!) and eats just about everything we offer him

-favorite foods are yogurt and sweet potatoes, and feeding himself bananas

-seems to be learning the word "eat" and the sign for it because when I say that to him with the sign he goes over to his high chair

-enjoys beating two objects together (like today he had 2 star rings from his star stacker and seriously beat them together for 5 minutes until his arms finally tired out)

-can shoot baskets with his little basketball goal (he actually likes to put balls or really anything into boxes or baskets, etc)

-loves going for walks in the stroller

-loves to swing (when I take him on walks and we pass our neighborhood park he fusses if I don't  stop to let him swing for a little bit)

-still takes 2 naps a day for about 1.5-2 hours each

-is such a happy and well behaved baby and we are so thankful!!!

Mother's Day Weekend

I had a wonderful first Mother's Day!  We dedicated Joshua at church in a special ceremony.  My mom and Granny came up to spend the night with us Saturday night so that they could get plenty of time in with Joshua.  Derek's parents and my sisters came up Sunday morning.  We really enjoyed having all of them at church with us!  I think they all enjoyed it, too.  We all came back to our house for lunch before everyone left for home.  Thanks for coming guys!  We had a great day!

I have to say, though, that Derek's mom had me laughing.  Our church has a band and puts the words to the songs we sing up on screens.  Donna made a comment after church about how the last time she went to our church we all sang songs.  We informed her that we did indeed sing songs that morning as well.  How could she have missed that?  Ha!  Apparently, she wasn't wearing her glasses and couldn't see the words on the screens, so she just assumed that the band members were singing for us.  Haha....Donna, you know I love you!

Mom, I know this is late, but I love you very much and couldn't ask for a better mother!

Unfortunately we didn't take pictures at church of the dedication with our camera, so I'll have to get one from someone else to post on here.  (Just imagine a super adorable baby boy with blond hair and blue eyes and you'll probably be picturing what Joshua looked like that day!)

Babies

Last weekend we spent our Saturday morning walking in the March of Dimes Walk for Babies.  The Credit Union has a big group that walks every year, and they raise a lot of money for the March of Dimes.  Derek's department had a State/Carolina dime war this year.  His department is split - the girls went to Carolina and the boys went to State.  They got donations from co-workers all around the operations center.  The team who raised the most money won.  The losers had to wear and support the winning team the whole week after the walk.  Well, the Wolfpack represented and State won!!  So the boys harassed the girls all week.  They took in every single piece of Wolfpack paraphernalia they own and decorated the girls' offices.  Derek even took our huge framed picture off the wall at our house and hung it up on his boss' wall in place of her Carolina framed picture.  I think the boys enjoyed their victory.

Back to the walk, though.  We got to see lots of friendly faces we hadn't seen in a while since Derek left his branch last year for the operations center.  Many of his old co-workers were expecting babies around the same time Joshua was born, so we got to see some of those babies.  My how all of our children have grown!

Walking this year seemed to take on a whole new meaning since we now have a baby.  I am so very thankful that Joshua is healthy and happy.  Thank you Lord for that!

Standing Tall

Did a ever mention that Joshua started pulling up to his feet on April 18th?!?  He finally made it past his knees!!  He and I were hanging out while Derek was away helping our friend Jeff Knapp with his proposal to April.  (Check out our Flickr page for cute pictures of the engagement.  The boys seemed to have a lot of fun being sneaky and getting things all ready for Jeff and April!)  While we were playing I looked away for just a minute and when I looked down at Joshua again he was standing up pulling everything out of his toy box.  I was so proud of him that I didn't even mind the fact that now all of his toys were on the floor.  Of course, pulling up has opened up a whole new world to him.  Climbing the stairs is now his favorite activity.  He starts crawling over to them, stops and turns to look to see if we're watching, and then bolts to the stairs and up he goes.  I have to say he's gotten pretty good at it, and has made it all the way up several times.  Don't worry, we stand behind him when we let him climb.  He's hilarious when he does it, though.  He laughs out loud at himself and has the biggest grin on his face!  We can tell he is just so proud of himself.

Oh the Stomach Bug

Where has the time gone?  We have been super busy since Joshua and I played hooky in my last post.  To start with updates, we'll visit the awful stomach bug that wouldn't go away.

The week after we thought Joshua's stomach bug had peaked we realized we were very wrong.  Have you ever seen a fountain of sorts spew from your child's mouth, and stand there in shock because you've never seen so much vomit, while your husband rushes in to pick up your child to keep him from gagging on the vomit?  Have you ever cleaned up brown vomit that stretched from one end of your child's bed to the other and down onto the carpet?

Well I have.  It's not fun.  It's actually rather unpleasant.  But you do it because you love your child more than anything, and you will do anything for them, especially when they are sick.  Now, we aren't entirely sure this was all the same illness.  There was almost a week separating the two.  I am happy to say that my energetic and happy little guy is back, and we are back into the full swing of climbing stairs and standing up on our own.