almost six months (already)!… by Jessica

About once an hour I say to myself, “How is it possible that Levi is already almost six months old?” Or, “How can it have already been six months since I was in the hospital having a baby.” Or some other variation of disbelief. They say time flies and they are right, whoever they are.

We haven’t had Levi’s six-month appointment yet, so I don’t know how much he weighs yet, and I don’t feel like measuring him to see how tall his, but I imagine he weighs around 17 or 18 pounds now and he is getting so chunky. I look at his adorable chunky thighs and my heart swells with pride: those sweet chunky thighs are completely my doing. This boy has consumed nothing but milk from my body and he is plumping up like crazy! I have been tempted a couple of times to go ahead and start giving him rice cereal, as the pediatrician said I could if I wanted to when we were at his four-month appointment. But she also said she usually prefers for moms to wait until six months of age if possible as long as the baby is gaining weight and sleeping well at night. Since the little guy gives me an arm workout every day and sleeps through the night I have not felt super compelled to start solids. I was going to this past weekend, but I guess I chickened out. I know once we start we can’t go back, and once we start I can no longer take 100% credit for that delicious chunky-ness. So… I continue to wait. His six-month appointment is on August 9, so I imagine that the pediatrician will recommend starting solid food then.

I am so thankful that God has allowed me to stay at home with this little guy, and I’m thankful that He gave me a husband who desires for our children to be brought up at home by me. Cutting our yearly household income in half is a huge sacrifice, though, and I’m starting to feel a little weird about not getting a paycheck of my own every two weeks. I don’t feel bad about it… just weird. I guess it’s just an adjustment that I am going through. It’s the first time in my life since I was 14 that I haven’t had a [paying] job! And Levi is such an easy baby, and he is in a phase where he plays well during the day and naps for around 4 hours total during the day, so frankly I have quite a bit of leisure time, and I sometimes feel a little guilty about that. I think that what I need to do is enjoy it! Once we decide to bring another baby into the family that time will be gone forever. Well, at least until all of our children are out of the house!

I think Levi enjoys having me at home too. 🙂 He spends his days smiling, kicking, playing on the floor, rolling from back to belly, getting stuck on his belly, getting mad about being on his belly (which eventually results in me rolling him back over), getting sleepy, taking naps (which he puts himself to sleep for), nursing, swinging, blabbering, and basically just being the baby of my dreams.

first family roadtrip!… by Jessica

Jon & I have reached another milestone in parenting: roadtrippin’ with a baby.  And it was great!!  We left our driveway around 3:30 on Monday afternoon (June 20) to start the 1200 mile drive to Denton, TX for a family reunion on Jon’s dad’s side as well as a family wedding on his mom’s side.  We drove all night and arrive there around 12:30 the next day, approximately 22 hours after we left.  Going through the night was definitely a good call, because Levi slept most of the trip and didn’t seem to be phased at all once we got there.  There was definitely some screaming, particularly the last hour, but if it was socially acceptable for me to scream after 20 hours in the car, I would have as well.  We were able to stay at the home of my cousins Dave and Amy, even though they were on a family vacation in Hawaii.  Thank you Dave & Amy!  We had a great time swimming in your pool, soaking in your hot tub, and playing your piano! 

The rest of Tuesday we spent relaxing, and we relaxed all day Wednesday and then Wednesday evening we got to hang out with my sweet cousin Ann, who loved meeting Levi for the first time!

Levi got to go swimming for the first time… he LOVED it!

On Thursday we met up with the Thommarsons and Poseys at their hotel in Decatur before heading to the family reunion at “The Cabin”.  Levi got to meet all kinds of family – great aunts and uncles, his great grandparents, second cousins, etc, etc.  He loved being passed around and was quite a hit with everyone!

Levi with his Dad and Great-Grandmother (Jon's Grandmother Thommarson)

Levi with Jon's Aunt Nelda

Levi with Jon's cousin Adam

The family reunion was a great success.  I think everyone had a great time catching up and reconnecting.  I had met very few of the attendees, so it was really nice for me to get very immersed in my new family members.

On Friday night we got started on the wedding festivities.  Katy (the bride) is Jon’s cousin on his mom’s side, and she got married to Gene.  We were honored to attend the rehearsal dinner which was a wonderful time for the parents of the bride and groom to give some really sweet words of wisdom and encouragement to the bride and groom.  Saturday at noon the two love birds were joined in marriage in a sweet ceremony that really passed by way too quickly.  Sadly I didn’t get any pictures of the wedding or of Levi in his adorable dress shirt.  The whole event passed by so quickly!  After the wedding we spent the rest of the day with Jon’s Aunt Ann & Uncle Alan (parents of the bride), and then we got to spend all day Sunday with them as well.  I have spent a decent amount of time with them since we got married, and it was wonderful to deepen my relationships with them.  How blessed am I to really enjoy spending time with my in-laws and their extended family?!

We tried to get a good shot of Grammy and Do-Daddy (Jon’s parents) with all FIVE of their grandkids after the wedding, but we never managed to get one with them all sitting still.  This is the best one we got.

Five wiggly grand-kids!

On Monday we packed up the car and left for home.  We were tired and the trip took a bit longer on the way home, but it was uneventful and we made it home safe and sound on Tuesday afternoon.  We had a wonderful time together!

Four Generations of Thommarson Men

And they are handsome!

the library sale… by jessica

a couple months ago the durham county public library had a big sale.  on the last day of the sale you could buy a grocery bag (paper, not plastic) and fill it to the brim for only $7.00.  we definitely had to take advantage of that!  we really racked up… and now we need a new bookshelf!  here are the titles we came home with.

the cider house rules… john irving

the dive from clausen’s pier… ann packer

snow flower and the secret fan… lisa see

the memory keeper’s daughter… kim edwards

we were the mulvaneys… joyce carol oates

bringing up boys… dr. james dobson

reading lolita in tehran… azar nafisi

running with scissors… augusten burroughs

taltos… anne rice

blood and thunder, an epic of the american west… hampton sides

snow falling on cedars… david guterson

the shipping news… e. annie proulx

the book of ruth… jane hamilton

middlesex… jeffrey eugenides

bel canto… ann patchett

on becoming baby wise book two… gary ezzo

marley & me… john grogan

vegetable gardening

in addition to all of these, we also got another book about gardening (which is currently on loan to jon’s dad) and some records for corey.  i’m pretty sure it will take me 10 years to read all of these books, but $7.00 for 19 books was just too irresistible for me to pass up.

the best 4 years ever… by Jessica

four years ago today, my sweet, funny, handsome friend Jon became my sweet, funny, handsome boyfriend.  life has been more wonderful and more precious since that day.

today i am stopping to reflect on what a blessing Jon has been to me.  i am thankful for the six months we spent getting to know each other as friends before we started dating.  i am thankful that jon took his time to make sure that pursuing me was the right step for both of us.  wednesday, may 16, 2007 was probably one of the longest days of my life.  i think he had asked me to “meet up and talk” the monday before that so i had two long days to wait for our “meet up”, which we had schedule for like 9:15 on wednesday after choir practice.  and of course Chris Gaynor had choir practice go long that night.  from that moment on we were nearly inseparable.

in that moment i think it was pretty easy for Jon to love me.  i looked cute, because i had put extra thought into my outfit and spent extra time on my hair and make up.  i was funny, because i had rehearsed what i would or would not say.  i was basically the best version of myself that i could possibly be.  when i realize that, i am extra amazed that he still loves me.  i am not always cute.  sometimes i have morning breath.  sometimes i burn dinner.  sometimes i am too lazy to make dinner.  i have thrown up, peed and pooped in front of him (that is what pregnancy and kidney stones will do to you!).  my body is completely different.  sometimes i yell at him for no reason.  one time i threw my shoes at him.  and yet somehow, he still loves me!  i am so thankful for him.  he is a tangible example of God’s love for me.  he is an awesome boyfriend, husband and father, and i am so happy that he asked me to go out to Starbucks with him four years ago.

Crazy couponers?… by Jessica

I don’t enjoy couponing and I’m not good at it.  I’ve read the websites and talked to people about it and I just don’t enjoy it.

But today at Food Lion I was blessed by one of those crazy couponers.  We usually grocery shop at Wal-Mart, but went to Food Lion today because I had a $5.00 my entire purchase coupon and I knew I could save some money.  However, I also needed new shampoo and the shampoo I like is $1.50 cheaper at Wal-Mart.  However, when I got to my shampoo at Food Lion I saw that someone had left a $1.00 off coupon with it.  And you could tell that it had been clipped from a newspaper insert with scissors and that someone had just put it there for someone else to use.  Who does that?!  I don’t know, but I was blessed.

So, thank you, Mystery Couponer!  I appreciate you!

Mother’s Day 2011… by Jessica

Levi has been sleeping through the night for about the last week and a half.  It’s been so awesome to get a full night’s rest!  So, I was surprised when he woke at 4:00 on Sunday morning wanting to eat!  I actually like our middle-of-the-night feedings.  He started waking up just once at 5 weeks old and only eats for about 30 minutes then goes right back to sleep so I’ve definitely had it super easy.  After feeding him I stopped by the bathroom and went back to bed.  Sadly I was pretty wide awake, and at about 5:00 I realized my hip was hurting.  My left hip has hurt a bit off and on since Levi was born, but it’s really only if I bend the wrong way, so I thought maybe I strained it.  By 5:45 I realized it wasn’t my hip, but it was inside my hip.  My first thought was kidney stones.  Not because I’ve experienced them, but because I always think every little pain in my abdominal area is kidney stones.  And I’m usually wrong!

At 6:00 I woke Jon to tell him I had a problem.  By this time the pain was very intense and I was in tears.  A few minutes later I was vomiting.  I got in the bath to try and soothe the pain, but by 6:30 we knew it was time to get ready to go to the ER.  It was as painful as labor!  Jon called his parents to let them know what was going on and called Amy to see if she could come with us to help us with Levi.  This was very scary for me, because Levi has been refusing a bottle (even with the freshest possible breast milk) for the last month, yet I knew that I would not be able to nurse him.

So at about 7:00 we loaded up the baby and my sister and rushed to Duke.  I was in so much pain by that time I couldn’t walk myself into the ER and I could barely sit up in the wheelchair.  I remember telling the admissions nurses that I have a baby and that he needed to nurse.  I was quickly brought in to triage and was in a room by around 7:45 (super fast in my opinion)!  While they took my vitals and got me ready for the docs I vomited again and was shaking from pain.  Finally a doctor stopped by to see me (he was an interesting character… he was trying to make jokes and I told him straight up that he was NOT funny and to get me some pain medicine and after he left I told Amy that I was going to kill him) and then they pumped me full of pain meds in my IV.  Oh glorious relief!  Within minutes I felt amazing.

After testing my urine they saw that there was a lot of blood in it, so they sent me out for a renal CT scan which proved that low and behold I have kidney stones!!  Several in fact that have moved down and are responsible for the pain and unfortunately several in each of my kidneys.  Bad news bears!  So I rested for a few hours while they pushed IV fluids and then got discharged around 2:00.

Thankfully, Levi was a champ through the whole thing.  Amy and Jon took turns taking care of him and Jon’s parents came by for awhile and brought formula which he actually drank!  I was so relieved.  I am just so thankful that we have family here to help in emergencies.  I was thankful that it turned out to be kidney stones!  Initially the doctors all thought it was an ovary cyst or something similar and I’m glad I don’t have that to worry about!  And I am really thankful that Levi decided to wake up at 4:00 to eat otherwise I would have been in some serious pain at 8:00 from having not fed him in 10 hours.  All in all it is NOT how I wanted to spend my first Mother’s Day, but God worked it all out!

my 28th birthday… by Jessica

today is my 28th birthday.  it also apparently the limit of my brain capacity.  when baby levi woke up from his nap at 11:00 this morning i thought to myself “ah, perfect.  it’s time for him to eat.”  i went to get him from his crib.  i changed his diaper.  i brought him to the living room to hang out.  then i decided we need to water the garden.  then he started fussing.  a lot.  i couldn’t figure out why he was fussy!  i checked his diaper.  i checked his clothes to make sure nothing was pinching him.  i bounced him and rocked him and for 30 minutes he cried!  so i put him in his swing to see if that would calm him and i took the trash out.  when i came back in i took one look at him and realized i had forgotten to feed him at 11:00!!!  poor little boy was crying for almost 40 minutes and i never once thought “hmm, maybe he’s hungry.”  it was very weird and definitely the first time that has ever happened.  so i fed him and he was perfectly happy.  and i don’t feel too bad, because i know that he probably wasn’t starving.  i just feel a little ditzy!

so other than that, my birthday has been delightful.  it is 1:00 in the afternoon and we are both still in our pj’s.  we don’t do this often.  even though i stay at home with the baby i still am intentional about getting a shower and getting dressed every day (unless i know i’m going to be doing a lot of cleaning that day).  i got a lot of shopping money, which is awesome because i very much need some new clothes to go with my new bod.  the baby weight is gone, but everything is in a new place!  jon did a great job with my birthday presents.  i got a rain jacket, kit kats, and a flip camcorder!  i’m so excited!  i wanted to get one before the baby was born, but i was slack about it and then we kind of ran out of time.  oh, and he also got me the new Harry Potter movie,  which i have not seen yet because i was hugely pregnant when it was in theaters and i couldn’t comfortably sit through a whole movie at one time.  i can’t wait to watch it!

A few random thoughts… by Jessica

Last week Jon reminded me that I pretty much have it made from April 29 through May 24 in that April 29 is my birthday, somewhere in the middle is Mother’s Day, and May 24 is our anniversary.  Score!

Speaking of Mother’s Day, I am SO excited about my first Mother’s Day.  Like I need another excuse to take my baby out and show off how adorable he is.

Speaking of how adorable Levi is, yesterday Jon was holding him and saying “ahhh!” to him repeatedly.  Levi surprised us by mimicking Jon’s “ahhh!”‘s  almost perfectly over and over again.  We were so proud and amused one (or both) of us may (or may not) have teared up a little (or a lot).

Speaking of being proud and amused, check out this video of Levi’s new trick!

http://youtu.be/Ymv6o6xpqhM

I’m out of segues, so I guess that’s it for the random thoughts!

Easter… by Jon

We went down to Waxhaw to celebrate Easter this year.  We went down on Friday with Aunt Amy along for the ride.  Levi slept the whole time down I am pretty sure.  We arrived in time for some of the best enchiladas of my life.  Seriously.  Andrea was down for the weekend as well.  It’s always good to see her.  After dinner we watched Prince Caspian.  Not sure who all made it through all of the movie but we finally finished it up.  Jessica and Grandpa Bruce headed to bed after while the rest of us stayed up and talked.  I am pretty sure we were getting delirious and laughing at just about anything that we said.

Saturday morning started with coffee and cinnamon rolls.  They are always delicious when Nana makes them.  She is such a wonderful cook!  After breakfast Bruce and I headed out to cut down a few trees for a family friend.  Bruce let me do the honors.  I love making chainsaw music with a saw with a new chain.  After we took down the first tree (the larger one) we limbed it and cut it into sections so we could drag it up out of the woods with the Bronco so it would be easier to cut up into firewood.  Only one injury was sustained on the second to last log we dragged out as my thumb got smashed in between a metal bar and a tree.  Did not feel so great (It’s much better now).  We headed home for a bite to eat then we came back to take down the other tree.  That one went down without incident.  Finally the work got to us and we were dragging on so we decided to head home.  During our time cutting down trees, the girls did some shopping and visit with friends.  All in all it was a good Saturday afternoon.

Saturday evening was Easter Dinner.  This made Sunday much less stressful for Nana.  Again Nana made a wonderful meal that we all probably ate too much of.  Ham, hash brown casserole, corn casserole, and plenty of other delicious food.   After cleanup we put in another movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and again some of us did not make it all the way through.  We all went to bed after this one because we were worn out.

Sunday morning was church.  It was a good message.  Not one I was used to hearing, but it was good.  I was also distracted by the little bundle of cuteness that we had with us.  After church we headed home for leftovers from the meal the night before.  We all crashed at one point.  6 adults and one baby all napping at the same time.  It must have been a miracle.  We headed home around 4PM and took the scennic/less traffic route back home.  I was happy that we went that way because we had hardly any traffic.  Levi slept the entire way home again.  This kid tends to enjoy his car rides.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend celebrating the Death and Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ.  I am glad that we were able to be with family that we love!