Sick baby boy

Poor Chase has been fighting some sort of stomach bug all week.  It started with him throwing up while Betty Ann was keeping him Tuesday morning.  Then Leslie said he was still a little "off" yesterday.  Both days he's slept about 4 hours between his 2 naps (this is of course in addition to the full 12 hours of sleep each night that he still got).  So this morning Matt and I got up and dressed for work then I went in to feed Chase his bottle.  He took half his bottle then approximately 5 minutes later threw it up all over himself and me.  Poor little guy.  So I changed from my vomit-ey work clothes into comfy clothes and called into work to say I'd be hanging out with my sick baby for the day.  He really was pitiful, just wanting me to hold him and cuddle on the couch. 

This is the sad, sleepy look that he had on his face most of the day.  Luckily he didn't throw up any more today but he wouldn't eat anything except for a handful of puffs and about 5 bites of a graham cracker.  I just kept trying to keep fluids in him so he doesn't get dehydrated.  At one point there were about 8 different kinds of bottles, cups and glasses in my attempt to get him to drink any and everything.  (To further explain, he always wants to drink whatever you're drinking.  So when I was drinking coffee this morning I had to put some juice in a coffee mug for him to make it more enticing than his sippy cup).  At any rate, let's just hope that he gets better by his birthday on Saturday!!!

On the go

Chase is gaining more and more confidence with standing and balancing without holding onto anything. It really seems like only a matter of time before he's walking on his own. In the meantime, though, he's also loving his wagon push toy. Check out this video to see Chase on the move.

(Oh and the reason that he's not wearing any pants is because I'd just changed his diaper and he was about to get a bath. Matt and I thought this video is even funnier because you can see that the onesie is a little bit too big and hanging down between his legs. He's gonna kill us when he gets older. :) )

One year ago

So here we were last year on this day.  Still a couple of days away from the scheduled induction, but hoping that Chase would come naturally and I wouldn't have to be induced.  That apparently wasn't in the plan, however.  Chase wasn't going to come out until he was good and ready...  Or until he was forced out of his warm, cozy little home inside my belly.

People keep asking "So when are you going to have baby #2??"  It's amazing how many people immediately wonder that...Especially now that he's almost a year.  Not that I blame you.  I wonder the same thing about other people.  Well.  To answer your question, I'm not quite ready to look the way that I did in the picture above.  I'm not quite ready to feel the way that I did in the picture above.

However.  I'm not gonna lie.  When I see pictures like these below, it really makes me miss those early days.

Don't worry, Matt.  Calm down.  That doesn't mean I'm ready yet.  :)

Happy (belated) birthday, Noah!

Noah was Chase's first friend. They met when he was 3 months old and first started going to Dianne's (his first babysitter). Noah was born exactly one week earlier than Chase and it was evident even at that young age that they had similar personalities. They were two very happy, easy-going babies. Here are a couple of pictures of the two babies when they were 4 months old. (sniff, sniff)

It's so funny to me seeing how bald Chase was in these pictures. :)

Now, here are the two boys at Noah's birthday party from this past Saturday. I can't believe how quickly time has passed. I also can't believe that we'll be celebrating Chase's first birthday in less than a week!

Check out Noah's mom Jenn's blog to see all the precious favors and decorations from his party: http://koehlerfamily4.blogspot.com/.

Chase loves the ladies.

A couple of months ago, our friends Doug and Lynette came over with their little girl, Ada. We video-taped Chase pushing Ada in his little wagon. It was really funny to watch the two of them interact and especially funny to watch him push her in the wagon considering that he couldn't/can't walk yet. But he can move pretty well when pushing the wagon. It was really funny to us because he'd never pushed it before with something in it. So seeing sweet little Ada riding in it was quite entertaining for us 4 adults.

It's just as cute to watch Chase interact with his little friend Samantha. Samantha is Leslie's little girl and Chase goes to play with them three days a week. So, today, he apparently was a little gentleman and pushed Samantha (Leslie's 10-month-old) around in an empty box. Check out the video on her blog to see Chase in action. http://hetzelfamilynews.blogspot.com/2010/03/having-fun-with-my-friend.html What a little stud muffin.

Charming

We found a cute St. Patricks Day onesie for Chase and I wanted to get a picture of it. (By the way, that is mine and Matt's TEN year dating anniversary. Crazy.) Anyway. In playing around with the camera I got these funny pictures of Chase. He was holding my phone (backwards, mind you) up to his ear, "talking" into it. It sounds kind of like "UH?"
And then here, below, he is looking more serious.

Yes, Chase. Mommy definitely thinks you're charming. :)

Lunch with the girls

This past Saturday, Chase and I went to Greensboro to do a little shopping and have lunch with several of the women in my family. Here's a picture of my Mama and her sister, my Aunt Sherry.
Here's a picture of my mom feeding Chase...or staring at him in a "look- at- my- cute- grandson" kind of way. It's also kind of funny that Chase seems to be looking down the long table at all the women thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?". It's like he realized he was the only guy there. :)

I don't know why she wanted to get a picture of all 11 of us at once. It's hard to take a good picture of so many people sitting at a table. Oh well. Here are my aunts, cousins, and Shannon. Thanks for being brave enough to come with me, Shannon! :)

And here's my sweet boy. (Notice his scraped nose. He got 'into it' with a drawer last week and the drawer won so it's his battle wound. It's unfortunately one of many war wounds to come, I'm sure).

Museum trip

We got a really cool gift for Christmas from Matt's aunt Kate. We got a year's membership to the Durham Museum of Life and Science. I'm ashamed to say that we just took Chase for the first time this past weekend, but I promise that we will be better and use it more often. Here's some pictures of from our trip.
This picture makes me laugh. We took Chase out of his stroller because he was dying to get out to touch, climb, and "experience" all the stuff there was to see. The room was really dimly-lit, so it wasn't until I looked at the picture I'd just taken that I noticed that Chase had peed through his diaper and pants. Nice. You can see outfit #2 in all the pictures that follow this one. These are the display cases that show the nasty snakes. But it was good because Chase could practice his standing and seemed to enjoy being able to 'cruise' from one nasty snake to the other. Yuck.

Like father, like son.

Again. Like father, like son.

Even though it seems like Chase is too young to really "get" much out of the exhibits at the museum, he really did enjoy looking and touching everything. Thank you, Kate, for the gift that keeps on giving!!!

8 more days

So last year this time Matt and I were so excited because it was March 4th and we were only EIGHT DAYS until Chase's due date!! (Uh, notice I said 'due date'. Not his actual birthday. More on that later). This is what I looked like last year at this point. I wouldn't say that I was the most comfortable that I've ever been (would YOU be comfortable if your belly looked like this???) but I didn't feel like I was ready to "pop". I could still sleep through the night ok-other than having to get up 3 times to pee. I could still fit my rings on my fingers and my shoes still fit on my feet. So I felt like I was doing ok. At this point last year I still had eight days until I was 'done' with work and beginning my maternity leave. That alone made me pretty excited but of course Matt and I were both so ready to meet our little that we'd felt kicking in my belly for months.
It's crazy to think about what life was like almost exactly one year ago today. Life was a little bit simpler but it's definitely a lot better now. :)

Well climb right up!

Chase has been getting more and more mobile by the day. After dinner tonight, while Matt and I were cleaning up I glanced down at the dishwasher. Chase had both hands on the door of the open dishwasher with one leg raise up like he was about to climb in. Yes, my initial reaction was to scream, "NO! Stop!!". However. My second thought was how funny it might be to see what happened if I let him continue his journey. (Please note that this 'journey' lasted approximately 15 seconds...)
Look at him squatting below like he means business. I mean, really? Chase: You're in a DISHWASHER.

'Oh, wow. This thing comes out!'

This expression shows that he's realizing he might be in trouble.