I really want to share my birthday cake video with you. Last Saturday everyone came to celebrate my birthday at my house. Mommy made me a monkey cake!! It was yummy….and lots of fun to play with!

I have expanded his free roam area to include both the dining room and the living room. He has just started to find the buttons on the TV so we’ll have to find a way to gate that off soon. He also loves empty diaper boxes. They are a perfect height for him to pull up on. Yesterday he climbed on top of one of the boxes and proceeded to get onto the chair next to it…all before I even noticed. He’s a quick little guy.

Josh likes to spend time with the little guy in the evenings and on weekends creating new games. Here are a few of the newest:

Taylor is also making excellent progress with his helmet. We are going to the orthodist today to get his measurments checked again but he was making great progress at his 6 week appt. His PT is also going well. We are now trying to correct the things he taught himself when his neck was still tight. When he rolls over he uses his legs instead of his torso and neck and he tends to sit shifted into his right hip.

In almost no time we’ll be celebrating his birthday! I can’t believe it’s been almost a year already. Time goes way too fast!

Taylor’s play mat converts into a tunnel. He has been trying to climb under everything lately and keeps getting stuck and frustrated. So I decided to put this together for him and he love’s it. Especially when there is something fun on the other side!

Taylor is also vocalizing for and more each day. Yesterday he let out a DaDa rant. No sign of MaMa yet but we’ll get there in time. I’m still trying to catch one of his vocal rants on video. He tends to stop when I pull out the camera. Oh well… I may have to be sly about it.

Taylor is also getting more efficient with his crawling. He’s not fully up on hands and knees yet but we saw a short glimpse of him do it yesterday. But today he is on a mission to go places.

And of course Taylor enjoys laughing, especially when his parents are making fools out of themselves.

I’ve also found that this stage of life is much easier to capture on video than in photos. He just moves too much and that makes getting good pictures a challenge!

Here are a couple of videos from the past week.

Taylor is working very hard on figuring out the crawling thing. He is now getting up on his hands and knees and rocking…even if it’s only for a few seconds.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ4Q8Scu2sE

Here is Taylor’s first encounter with pots and pans. He really loves anything that makes noise.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Oix5ctIwg

Taylor found a binky in his box of toys and figured out what to do on his own.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSaFvvEwBbI

Taylor and Daddy have also found a great way to play when Josh gets home from work.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9xHyytqbqs

Enjoy! He’s growing so fast!

We also introduced him to his first solid food today. He seemed to enjoy it.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkJHl1Stcq4

The ER Dr got the drugs flowing and I don’t remember the night really clearly but I can give you and idea. As soon as they got me calmed down they wheeled me off to get a CAT scan to see if they could find the source of the pain. Luckily my MIL had called my father-in-law (FIL) and told him to get to the hospital ASAP to be with Josh even though Josh said not to send him. My time sense is all warped but in the middle of the night the ER Dr. told me he didn’t believe my CAT scan because a woman of almost 30 shouldn’t have this condition but that he had called the surgeon and that he was on his way in. At that point it hadn’t set in for me what was going on. Not until the surgeon came in and told me that they were starting to push IV antibiotics and that I would be going in for emergency surgery in less than an hour…. SCARY!!!!! It finally hit for both me and Josh. This was really, really serious. I was glad my FIL was going to be there with Josh while I was in surgery.

It turned out that my colon was dead and gangrene had set it. They had to operate immediately to prevent me from getting much, much sicker. I came out of the OR and post-op around 9am (less than 12 hours after being admitted) and they set me up for a stay in the ICU. Josh had called to tell my parents right before I went into surgery and I was surprised and grateful to see them standing there with him when I came out of the recovery room. So nice to be alive and surrounded by love!

I spent 1.5 days in the ICU before getting sent to a regular room on the 5th floor. I was released from the hospital yesterday with a 12″ vertical incision, stapled closed, on my belly and one foot less of my large intestine.

I’m getting better each day but the hardest part of all of this ordeal was being away from my family…especially Taylor. I’m sure every mother can attest to the ache in your heart when you are separated from your child. This unplanned separation was the worst kind because I didn’t know if they were going to let him see me in the hospital. The days were OK because I had friends and family who came to visit to pass the time (Thank you for everyone who came to visit!) but the nights….let’s just say the were bad, really bad. I just had to focus on getting healthy so I could get home to Taylor. Taylor did come visit me for two short periods while I was in the hospital but I was unable to hold him for long because of the incision and the pain it caused, which was difficult but much better than not seeing him at all. I am thankful to the nursing staff on the 5th floor of Phoenixville Hospital for making that happen!

I was exclusively breastfeeding Taylor before the incident and I started pumping in the hospital post-op to keep my milk supply up so that we can eventually return to breastfeeding. (NOTE: Hospital pumps are awesome!) I will be on antibiotics for another 11 days and will have to continue pumping and dumping until I am done with them. In the end I will not have breastfed Taylor in more than two weeks but am going to push trough any of the challenges we may face in continuing our breastfeeding journey.

I was concerned that Taylor would grow to like formula too much and not want to go back to breastfeeding so I reached out for help through a breast-feeding support group that I belong to, through The Birth Center in Bryn Mawr. My friend Candace, who also belongs to the group, set a request to all of the members to see if anyone had frozen breast milk that they were not using or would be willing to supply any freshly pumped. There are angels out there because one of the members and a large supply of frozen milk that Candace picked up and had delivered to the house so that Taylore could continue getting the benefits of breast milk even though I could not supply them it. I was overjoyed and could now focus my efforts on healing and getting back to being Mommy again.

Thank you for all of the shared stories, prayers, visits, and more that have come from so many directions. We are so lucky to have such a supportive network of friends, family, and aquentences. We love you all so much!

Taylor has been sleeping 8 – 10 hours at night. Which has been wonderful for me. Josh doesn’t even know when he gets up at night during the week so he has been getting a full nights sleep for a while. My body has yet to adjust to Taylor’s long periods of sleep and I still get up in the middle of the night to pump otherwise I’ll have a mess on my hands.  I won’t get too graphic for the guys out there who read this blog.

I’m sure that these long periods of sleep with change once his teeth start cutting through so I’m taking it while it lasts.

Storytime

Taylor has also become much more attentive during storytime. He likes the books with the big bright colors like “Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “Clumsy Crab”. His Daddy is also very animated when reading which makes Taylor smile and sometimes laugh.

3 days old

3 months old

Now jump ahead 3 months and this is what you get. At the rate he’s going he’ll be six feet tall by January! Well, not really but it seems that way.

I love mobiles! Look and my chunky thighs!

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One of Taylor’s newest feats is holding his head up during tummy time. He always has a very focused look when he’s on his tummy and he can’t multi-task (aka sucking on his binky or smiling) when he’s holding his head up.