Geeeez

And I thought 6 months was bad... it's been over a year!

Basically, it boils down to this - Patrick is healthy. He's normal. His eyesight is great. A little farsighted, the doc says, but great.


Patrick loves football. And baseball. And fishing. He loves steak and grapes and cookies from Mimi.


He had his first haircut just before Jon's step sister Becca's wedding and now he looks like a little boy. He's definitely not my baby anymore. But he is my baby. He's had a summer full of scraped knees and bruised shins. Patrick is such a boy.


For his second birthday, he got a tool set and a four wheeler. He loves them.



He is STUBBORN. And ORNERY. And totally our kid. His favorite word is "NoooooOOoooo!" Especially when I wake him up for "school" in the morning.



I love how normal he is. I can't get over it sometimes. He's amazing. I love this kid to pieces. And he's so smart... and by smart, I mean manipulative. Don't get me wrong, he's intelligent too, but MAN this kid is spoiled. But he listens to us... most of the time.

Patrick loves to dance. If you managed to be at a wedding with Patrick this summer, you know what I'm talking about. That kid can bust a move like nobody's business. I think that comes from the Connealy side of the family.

As far as normal two year olds, he's behind in language. We're not surprised by this. It's frustrating. It's hard to remember sometimes that his real 2nd birthday should be November 24, not September 8th, and he's going to be behind the other kids at daycare. But when the other kids are putting together basic sentences, and we're still getting "Dada","Mama", "Ni-ni", "Bayn-kee"(blankie) and "Jeeewce" (he needs juice every day when he gets home from daycare. Why? I don't know!) Somewhere he picked up the sign language for "more" and we're pretty good at translating him, but it would be nice if we could figure him out.

Things are good! I might try this blogging thing again, since we're getting calmed down around here. It's been a crazy busy year. I feel like we might be able to sit down and breathe again.


And now that I've put that in writing, we'll have to make plans for something big.

Wow.

A year ago, I was still in the hospital. This summer has been so amazingly different! I was able to go OUTSIDE! I experienced WEATHER! We spent so much time in Okoboji, and a weekend in Minnesota. In June, Jon and I were able to take a trip to Puerto Vallarta with my parents and Patrick spent his first nights away at Gramma Vickie's house. Of COURSE he got his first ear infection while we were gone.

Patrick has been doing great. He's crawling everywhere! He pulls himself up and gets into all kinds of things he shouldn't. There was a week where he was sleeping in his Pack N Play because we were worried he'd pull himself out of his crib, which had to be pulled apart to lower the mattress.

In less than a week, it'll be Patrick's first birthday! We're planning a party, and I can't believe it's been an entire year. I can't believe I was in the hospital for that long and didn't (completely) lose my mind!

He'll have his 1 year check up next week. Last month we caught up with his eye doctor, and things look good there. We're expecting him to be far sighted by the way his eyes look, and we don't really have to have another check for him until he goes to school. He might need glasses at that point, definitely later on.

On his big NICU follow up, he was doing well. Pretty much everything we could have expected. His hearing was fine, his motor skills were okay, his language skills were ok, and his size was a little small. I have a hard time believing the small stuff anymore! Right now, we're putting him in 18 month clothes, and some of those are too small!

I think we have a new routine, and Patrick has been doing okay with sleeping through the night. Still working on that.

He can make a clicking noise with his tongue, and that's the new coolest thing ever for him! He has two bottom teeth, and a top one working through.

Debating

Time flies!

Don't they look like they're having so much fun?



It's been a long, long time. Wow.



Patrick is just over 6 months old now! He's falling into the 20th percentile in length, and the 25th for weight. Around 26 inches long, 16 lbs. As far as milestones, Patrick is rolling over now! Only from back to belly, he can't quite get the rest of the way over.

The doctor is really happy with his progress. He's doing a lot of things that you'd expect of a 6 month old. We don't have to support his head anymore when we carry him around, and he really likes to stand as much as possible. He does really well in his bumbo seat.

It's really fun to watch him play with his toys now. He reaches and grabs for colorful things -- last night when I was changing him, he twisted, grabbed a stuffed lion and pulled it onto his chest and started gnawing on it.

Oh. Don't insult Patrick by offering him a pacifier. He absolutely does not want it. He would rather have his fingers, or possibly a blanket.

Patrick gets really chatty sometimes. He'll just talk and talk... some very serious conversations happen. I think he likes to tell me what he did that day. Today he told me all about shopping with Katie.

In May, Katie's heading back to the Hamptons, so we're going to have to start sending Patrick to daycare. He's had a great time with Gramma Vickie on Fridays and sometimes Mondays, but it's time. We're not so worried about colds anymore though. He had a really good winter. Only a little stuffy sometimes!


He's been sort of crabby lately - we're not sure, but he might be getting teeth soon. It's fun to give him orajel, and he liked chewing on my string cheese the other day, and my banana. No solid foods though, he doesn't know what to do once it's actually in his mouth!

Other than that, it's been sort of a crazy month for us. I guess the biggest, dumbest thing that happened is that a ton of Jon's tools were stolen. Thankfully our homeowner's insurance is going to help out, but it's just awful.

I might try to get something up here sooner next time, I can't believe how long it took!

Sorry it's been so long!

Patrick turned 5 months old yesterday! He had another shot this morning for the RSV vaccine, and they said he weighed 14lbs 2oz! He is getting so big, I can't believe it. It's hard to remember how small he started out. We're starting to run out of clothes that fit him -- I never thought that would happen!

The kid is hilarious. He has the greatest smile, and it's a good thing because we see it all the time. He hasn't been giggling, but he grins like crazy. Gramma Vickie introduced Patrick to patty cake (appropriate) and it's his favorite game! Jon's cousin Brooke and her husband Aaron (the ones who saved Thanksgiving by finding a bottle with a nipple to feed Patrick) have come to our rescue again with a big swing. LOVES IT. I think it was Jon's cousin Ericka that gave Patrick a security blanket with a dog rattle on top... also one of Patrick's favorites. We call it his "Woof" and he gives Woof kisses kisses kisses!

He's been getting really good at supporting his head, we don't have to hold it for him as often when we have him sit with us. Patrick also spends a lot of time chewing on his hands. It's great when he gets both thumbs in, then pulls them in opposite directions. He stretches his mouth out and has no idea what to do next! We have conversations with Patrick sometimes. I swear, he's said "Hi" to me more than once! He gets so excited sometimes when we're talking, he starts bouncing and flailing his arms.



On the 30th, we took Patrick and some flowers up to the NICU for the nurses who took care of Will. It was a rough day, but we were able to keep pretty busy. It's hard when we get those reminders that we should have a 2 year old around here too. I still feel awful because I confused nurse Kindra with nurse Laura. I'm terrible with names.



Last year was our first year participating in the March for Babies, and we're going to do it again this year. The walk is on April 26th, and it's a Sunday morning at Mahoney State Park. We'd like to get a group together, possibly get some shirts done for all of us. If you would like to support us, here's our team website.

http://www.marchforbabies.org/585968

If you want to donate and walk with us, I would suggest that when you sign up, you make your fundraising goal the amount you would like to donate so you won't have to worry about making a goal. As long as you are on our team, the donation on your page counts for the entire goal we have.

I did end up making a new team for us this year because it isn't just in memory of Will now.


I would put up some pictures now, but it's taking forever to load the video and I need to go to bed. So here's a link to all the pictures on Facebook. I'm warning you -- Patrick is HUGE.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099873&l=4ae87&id=63201664

(Ok, it's 11:50, I'm going to publish this in the morning)

4 months!

Patrick is 4 months old today. He had his 4 month check up today. Right now, Patrick is weighing in at 11 lbs, 11 oz! He's huge. I can't believe how tiny he used to be sometimes. The doctor is happy with his progress. He's in the 20th percentile for weight for 4 month olds, and he doesn't get on the chart for length. Too short!

I got a new camera for Christmas, so I have about a million pictures of Patrick.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2097862&l=9f251&id=63201664

You can see most of them there...

We had a good first Christmas with Patrick. Lots of places to go, even more people to hold him. I really think for the first couple days after Christmas he was just bored because we didn't have to leave the house. Nothing too exciting for Patrick, but we're looking forward to next year.

He's taking about 5 oz every time he eats, and every once in awhile we have issues with reflux, but not nearly as much. We can't put him in preemie clothes at all any more, so he's in newborn and 0-3 month sizes! I think he had 3 or 4 special Christmas outfits with a couple of funny hats.

Look at how big he is!!

I think Jon and I are getting more sleep now. Either that, or we're getting used to the lack of sleep. Sometimes Patrick will go 5 hours without waking up and he goes back to sleep a lot faster than he was. The other day I sat Patrick in his bumbo chair, and he's doing a pretty good job of keeping his head up. He gets tired after a while, but it's something new for him. He's still not a big fan of being on his tummy, but he pushed his foot into the floor and took care of that a couple nights ago! Pretty sure that it counts as rolling over on his own.

I don't know, we haven't had any big news for a while! It's kind of nice. Right now we're waiting to hear if Jon's cousin Josie has had her baby yet. We know she's on maternity leave right now!

I know it's late, but Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sorry it's been so long since I've written anything! We're still in the lack of sleep-exhausted part of bringing home a baby. He hasn't done anything too exciting, so we're taking that as good news.



He's still having some issues with this sort of reflux-y spit uppy stuff. It's awful. He'll be laying down and all of a sudden he'll just go stiff and get bright red, until he finally takes a breath and just starts SCREAMING. He doesn't always spit anything up, though. It's really weird. I haven't gone up any on his feedings for a while because I'm afraid he'll really start choking.



Patrick only fits into one preemie outfit anymore - everything is newborn now! He had another RSV shot on Monday, and he weighed 9 pounds! He gained 3 pounds in a month. I'm wondering if he really needs to be on the special preemie formula, or if that's normal. We're looking at getting a pediatrician for Patrick - I didn't think about it when the hospital was asking me if he had a pediatrician... I just said my family practice doctor. Hopefully we can find someone who deals with preemies.



Jon just got over being really, horribly sick. He actually went to the doctor early on, and he already had two ear infections, strep throat and the start of something respiratory. It was just bad, but after a couple days of antibiotics and a bunch of other cold medicine, he was fine. And fortunately, Patrick didn't get any of it! Jon had to be really good about handwashing, and tried to be away from Patrick as much as possible, which was really hard for him.

I pulled out a new toy for Patrick to see how he would like it. It's just a floor mat with some dangly things over it - he LOVED it. He was hitting the animals and looking in the mirror, and he'd scream, but it wasn't an "oh-my-gosh-i'm-so-angry scream", it was a "holy-crap-this-is-awesome" scream! I have pictures, but they're on our camera with the missing cord.

Patrick went to see Santa last weekend, and he might go again tonight. Chile and Jack also went to see Santa. They've been pretty good dogs this year - not nearly as many holes in the backyard! We put up our first Christmas tree this year, and it's even a real tree! The cat thinks the tree skirt is her new bed. At least she's not climbing it. We even have a fireplace this year too!

Last night we had dinner with Jon's Connealy cousins, and it was a lot of fun. His cousin Josie is going to have a baby in a month, and we're really excited for Josie and Matt! Maybe someday I'll know what it's like to have a baby that big inside! I hope. Last year we did a big sit down turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, stuffing, the works. Since we had Patrick around this year, and Ryan wasn't here to help Jon cook all day, we just did chicken chowder, and Shelly brought chili. Cinnamon rolls and ice cream cake too... I think Patrick was jealous.


Even though it's mid December, I am so not ready for winter. The weather today... not my favorite. Can't wait until it's spring and warm enough to take the baby out in the stroller.

Patrick had a good Thanksgiving! I think I got to hold him for about 20 minutes the entire day. Lots of Aunties wanting their time with the baby, and cousins too! We almost had a problem in Missouri Valley when I realized I forgot a nipple for the bottle, but Jon's cousin Brooke's husband was able to track one down with a family member who had just had a baby and lived nearby. Aaron saved the day!

Patrick came in at 7 lbs 12 oz this morning! Kid is getting huge! He's starting to fit into newborn clothes, and today he hated tummy time so much that he rolled over! Exciting day around here.

I've got something like 3 weeks worth of pictures, so here they are!

Loves Dad!!

I fit in dad's shoe!

I LOVE ELECTIONS!!

Aunt Sara

Grandpa Max

We are on the verge of a crisis. The rainforest sounds and lights crib toy is running low on power! I think Patrick already notices the slower music and the sluggish movement of the monkey and the frog. All I know is, we had better to go the store tonight and get some batteries!

Patrick had his follow up eye appointment on Monday, and the doctor was happy with how his eyes looked. We dodged the bullet on the ROP, so now we'll just have to see (ha!) if he needs glasses eventually (which I'm sure he will, given his parents history of vision) or if he has a lazy eye or gets cross eyed. His next appointment isn't until February!

We also went to see his regular doc on Monday, and he's progressing well. Not doing everything that they check on 3 month old babies for, but then he's still a few weeks shy of 3 months. He was 7lbs!! I weighed him just a few minutes ago, and our scale says 7lbs 4 oz. We've stopped fortifying his milk, but we are mixing breastmilk with formula because the stock is running low. Also working on that.

I don't know if nights have gotten worse, or if we're just getting used to it. He seems pretty content with being crammed in my arms between my body and the couch. Jon was up with him for 3 hours last night, and Patrick just would not go to sleep. For some reason I can put him to sleep in minutes. Is that a mom thing?

Depending on which doctor you talked to, my due date for Patrick was either Monday or Tuesday! I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have had him just a few days ago. His weight is right on track with what the ultrasound tech predicted for him, though. It would be so amazing to be on maternity leave right now, instead of starting back at work full time again on Monday. It's been nice to have the half days, but that had to come to an end...

Other than that, not too much going on in Patrick's life. He's been out travelling some, met some new people, makes some new faces. Had the most disgusting diaper I have ever seen just a few minutes ago. Pretty typical baby stuff. Katie is headed home to Hastings for Thanksgiving, so it's going to be just us here for a little bit. Jon's going turkey hunting tomorrow morning before Thanksgiving at the farm... so there may be a fresh turkey? Ew. I'm sorry, but just ew.

Happy Turkey Day!

Patrick does not like to be alone at night. It seems like he's pretty set as that being his awake time. I'm losing track of the time, but I know that Jon spent a couple hours up with him this morning, then handed him off to me because he couldn't stay awake anymore. I was sleeping with him on the couch for a couple hours until Jon got up for work at about 5:30. I know I'm not supposed to do that, but it was the only way he would calm down. I try to wedge myself in the couch so neither of us will move. So far it's been okay.

He just had an explosive poop. Wow. Kid is loud sometimes!

But really, he's been sort of a crabby kid the last couple days. His temp is normal, even though he feels warm to me, and he's eating and pooping, so I'm not worried about him being sick. He has been spitting up like crazy again, though.

Last night he was 6lbs 11 1/2 oz! We went to Jon's dad's house for dinner, and we've pretty much decided we really don't need to bring the Pack 'n Play in the houses anymore, because whenever we're at the grandparents' houses, he's being held all the time anyway!

We're still adjusting around here... couple of exhausted people in this house.

Patrick has learned how to scream. Am I a terrible mom for thinking it's hilarious? I feel bad for the kid, but I can't help but laugh when he's screaming his little head off. Every once in a while, he spits up, but it goes out his nose. When I use the sucker bulb to clean out his nose, he just explodes. And it's funny, because he can't make any sound for a second while the bulb is pulling everything out. Poor little guy. I still laugh though...

Other than that, he's just growing out of his clothes! Still pretty cuddly and doesn't like to be left alone. He makes the funniest noises when he's got his binkie in his mouth, I'll see if I can record it sometime!

I started back at work again this week, and it's been rough. There have been a couple of nights where Patrick thought it would be fun to be awake at 3am. Katie and Patrick have a good time while I'm at work, though. I think he mostly sleeps the entire time. It's nice to finally get to the weekend.

I finally went and printed pictures yesterday! That was probably the most exciting thing that's happened this week!

Hi!
We have a 6 lb baby! Weighed him last night!

On Friday we went and got the first Synergis (I think that's how it's spelled) shot for Patrick. He haaaaaaated it. Poor kid. They love him over at the doctor's office. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get him back from them! I was a little worried though, because they have to base the amount of the shot on his weight, and when we weighed him, he had his diaper on. I haven't seen any strange behavior from him, so I think it's okay.

We're still working on this sleeping stuff. Some nights he does really well, most nights he's up at the worst times. Last night I put batteries in a swing that someone brought us, and he seemed to like that. Didn't fall asleep, but calmed down quite a bit.

It's getting less scary to take him out in public. We went out to dinner for Grandpa and Uncle Trevor's birthdays, and he slept the whole time. We also took Patrick on his first trip to Scheel's, and I think Jon has plans to take him to Cabela's today. Start him early, I suppose!

I go back to work part time tomorrow, so that will be interesting. I think Katie's been around him enough to have a handle on what to do with him. I'll only be working 4 hour shifts, so I don't think it'll be as hard on any of us.

I need to figure out places to put all his baby stuff... we have things that he'll use when he gets bigger that need to be put away. I probably should have left some of it in the boxes that it came in, but it's all so cute! I just want him to play with it!

I can't find our camera right now. It's probably buried under baby stuff. When I do find it, we'll get more pictures. It really does look like he has red hair, though! I thought it was so strange (and had more than one person mention a milk man), but then I remembered that his Aunt Katie had reddish hair when she was born. So I think he belongs to both of us.

Okay, kid is making noise, so I'm going to go see what all of that is about! Pictures soon. I promise.

We thought that getting him home would make things easier. Okay, we were a little bit wrong about that. Patrick did so well one night with the waking up and eating, but every other night has just been awful.

For Patrick, night time is play time. He doesn't want to be alone at all. You can count on being awake from about 3am to 8am with him. I started looking into things we can do to get him set into a routine, and maybe that will help.

Our friends Ben and Shari had a baby scale from Shari's sister, and they're letting us borrow it. Last night he weighed in at 5lbs 13oz! For as bad as his eating habits have been, at least he's getting bigger!

Patrick went on his first Home Depot trip to pick out some shades with Gramma Vickie. The first of many trips, I'm sure!
Here's some pictures of Patrick not being a huge stinker -

Cousin Colin helping out with the bottle. He kept asking "Where's my baby?" when he came over.

Not a fan of tummy time.

Happy Halloween!

Some pictures from the last few days -- here's Patrick just before we went home!

In the car seat for real this time!

We're going home!

Chile and Jack heard Patrick making noises and decided to check it out.
In the bassinet!

Cake from the shower.. blue champagne. Sooo goood.Patrick hung out in his papasan today... he was really interested in the hanging toy.

Tried to grab it...

And just plain cute...

He finally had a huge poop tonight, so I'm feeling a lot better (I'm sure he's feeling a lot better too). Hopefully he'll do more sleeping through tonight with how awake he was all day. Had the first appointment with the pediatrician, and he weighed in at 5lbs 8oz, so he has been eating just fine. Everything else, he's small. That's the only thing. He doesn't even fall on the charts yet with average sizes of month old babies. The doctor is pretty sure he'll catch up soon enough.