16.5 Months

Wow! Time sure is flying by! Today marks one whole year since we brought Nate home from the hospital. Those 5 months still seem longer than the entire last year. What a difference a year makes!

Eating
Eating has improved a whole lot this month! We decided to keep going with our plan to hold of on the PediaSure and I really think it was the right decision for us. He's now drinking regular whole milk and eating quite a bit. He's still gagging some but it's not nearly as much and it's not followed by throwing up hardly at all anymore. Our efforts now are focused on switching to a sippy cup and getting rid of the bottles. So far, it's not going well... :)

Favorite Foods
The favorites this month are toast with peanut butter, grilled cheese sandwiches, and BBQ chicken. We've come a long way from our months and months of nothing but Cheerios!

Favorite Things
Now that Nate is mobile, he isn't super interested in sitting down to play toys. He is getting into plenty of trouble around the house though. He's discovered all kinds of new and exciting things.

His first favorite is the vacuum. He's loved the vacuum forever. He finds it every day and tries to take it apart and lick it...it's kinda weird :) I've started to get fed up with the vacuum obsession so I thought that if I turned it on with him around, it would scare him enough that we wouldn't like it anymore. Unfortunately, just the opposite happened! He now loves it even more! Crazy kid!

Nate's other favorite this month is eating grass. I actually don't mind if he eats grass but the problem is, he gags on it and throws up. I don't want him throwing up all of our hard work with eating so I've been trying to get him to stop. He's not the best listener... Recently, I tried a different approach. I let him see me put a piece of grass in my mouth and then spit it out and said "yuck!" You can see how well that worked out...

Talking
Nate has finally said his first word! I've been trying so hard to get Nate to say Mommy for months now and now every time I ask him to say it, he closes his eyes and gives me this little giggle like he's teasing me. It's like he knows how to say it but he just won't do it. Little stinker! Of course, his first word was Daddy. The other day, Todd came home from work and Nate ran around the house screaming Da Da Da Da. He now does it every time he sees Todd and he also screams it every time. It's certainly going to make things a little more interesting around here!

Crawling/Walking
We officially have a crawler AND a walker!!!! About 2 weeks ago he finally figured out the whole crawling thing and a week after that, he just took off. Now he's everywhere and it's wonderful! I'd much rather be chasing him around than listening to him cry all the time out of frustration.

Boise
We were able to go to Boise last week for the annual NICU reunion. We had a great time! Every summer, the hospital puts on a huge BBQ at a park and invites every family that has spent time in the NICU. The doctors and nurses and other staff go to see how much their babies have grown. We were able to see some of our favorite nurses and families that we got to know during our stay. Everyone was very excited to see how big and healthy Nate is. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single picture from the picnic :( I did get a picture of Nate's first successful restaurant experience though. We stopped at Olive Garden before we headed out of town and Nate did great! Who doesn't love an Olive Garden breadstick?

Nate got an awesome shirt from the NICU picnic. The smallest size they had was a Youth 6-8 so it is more like a dress than a shirt :) You can't see it in the picture because Nate never holds still, but it has a picture of a caterpillar and says "Cute As A Bug" on it. It's perfect for our little Nate Bug!

Twin Falls
On the way home from Boise, we decided to stop in Twin Falls. We finally got the girls' marker set and we've been so excited to see it. It turned out perfect! We love it!

New Church Clothes
My mom bought Nate a suit for his birthday but it's been too big and too hot to wear it to church. It's still too big and too hot but we couldn't wait to try it on him last Sunday. He looked so handsome!

Swimming
We have been doing a lot of swimming this summer and Nate is loving it! The pool here in Pocatello has a little kid pool with fountains and slide. It's Nate's favorite place to be. He loves splashing and standing under the sprayers. We've had a great time.

Misc
I've been wanting to share this picture for a while now but I keep forgetting. I got the little sign a few months ago and thought it was so great for Nate's room. It fits perfectly with all of his other stuff.

VACATION!!!!!

 We recently had our first family vacation! The family that I nannied for in Connecticut decided to take their summer vacation in Montana this year and were generous enough to invite us to come along. We stayed at the most amazing ranch just outside of Missoula. It certainly was far from any of our camping experiences but it was perfect for Nate and the rest of the kids. 

I haven't seen the kids in a few years and that was, by far, the longest I had gone without seeing them.  They have grown up so much and it made me sad to know I have missed out on so much of their lives. They loved getting to know Nate and Nate loved being doted on for a week. I think he's been bored just having me around since we have been home :)

We were able to do some super fun activities while we were there. Todd was able to do horse riding, rafting,  a cattle drive, paintball, fly fishing, and canoeing. I got to do hiking, horse riding, shooting, rafting, and a hot air balloon ride. Nate's favorite activities were swimming at the lake, riding on the paddle boat, swimming in the hot tub at the house, and (surprise surprise) swimming in the huge bath tub. We had a great time!

Chloe and I took Nate down to see the horses one afternoon while the others were rafting. He loved the horses! The riding trail went right behind the house that we stayed in so Nate and I would sit on the porch and watch the people ride by several times a day.

This is the only horse riding Nate did but he still loved it :)

He liked the swings even more!

One of the nights we went to a dutch oven dinner down by the river. We were taken there in a horse drawn wagon. Of course, Nate loved that part.

Luca (11) at the dutch oven dinner

Todd and Nate playing near the river

Chloe (9) 

Here we are at the lake. Nate didn't love the lifejacket. It was as big as he is!

On the paddle boat. We rode around on this boat for about 20 minutes and Nate loved it.

Playing in the lake (don't mind my farmer's tan!)

This was the best part of the whole vacation! 

My favorite picture of our shadow on the side of the mountain.

A view of the ranch

Me and Luca

Chloe got a little nervous when we went up so high so she spent most of the ride down in the basket.

The view from 8600 feet!

The whole gang + Nate Bug.
Chloe, Me, Nate Bug, Luca, Ewan, and Big Nate. We miss you already!!!!

15.5 Months

Nate is almost 16 months old. The babies' due date was July 19 so he is 1 year adjusted age today!

Doctor Visit
Nate Bug had his 15 month visit last week. Here are some of the things we talked about.

Eating: We were hoping to get the ok from the doctor this time to switch him from formula to whole milk. Unfortunately, we didn't. She still wasn't happy with his size or the amount of real food he is eating so she wanted to start him on PediaSure instead of milk. I wasn't sure that I wanted to go that route just yet so we made a compromise. We have always given Nate a bottle of formula before his food since we knew the formula was more important for his growth. So I wanted to try giving him food first at each meal to give him a chance to learn to eat better before we start on the PediaSure. I just didn't feel good about it yet. It seems really really sweet and it has 30 calories per ounce. Regular baby formula has 20 calories per ounce and his preemie formula has 22. It just didn't make sense to me to feed him something that tastes really yummy and that is super filling and then expect him to increase his food intake. I'm hoping we'll see some improvements so we can stick to learning to eat as normally as possible.

Height and Weight: The bug is growing! He weighed 19 pounds 14 ounces (14%), was 28.5 inches tall (19%), and his head was 17.5 inches (16%). The percentages are for a baby 12 months old so he is on the small side of normal for his adjusted age. For his actual age of almost 16 months...he's still not even close to the chart. Ideally, they catch up to their actual age by 2 so he's got a lot of growing to do in the next 8 months :)

Speech and Communication: The doctor showed some concerns about Nate's lack of verbal communication. At 12 months, he should be saying "mama", "dada", and at least one other word. He is saying "baba" but there doesn't seem to be any real meaning behind it still. She referred us to a speech therapist for some help. There isn't much they can start working on with a baby so young but she wants to get a good evaluation done so we can see if there are any major things we can start working with now. We should start that at the end of this month.

Sleeping
Sleeping was a bit rough the past couple of weeks. Nate decided that bed time was his least favorite thing in the world and he wanted to make sure we knew it. He's always been so good going down to sleep but for the past 3 weeks he has started screaming when we put him down at night. He doesn't do it during the day for naps so we didn't really know what his deal was. The worst part was, he would scream to the point of throwing up...every single night. So every night, we would have to go in 30 seconds later and change his pjs, his blanket, and his sheets. After 2 weeks of that, we finally realized that if we eliminated his bedtime bottle, he wouldn't throw up. He still cries when we put him down but I'm hoping that it's just a phase that will pass. Now he gets a little milk right after dinner and nothing else later. I worried he'd wake up earlier in the morning hungry but apparently he's a big enough boy that it hasn't made a difference.

Favorite Foods
The foods of the month were strawberries, watermelon, cherries, and broccoli. He LOVES them all! Here's a little video of him eating his strawberries. They are a bit too slippery for him to pick up so we feed him with a fork. He gets VERY impatient :)

Favorite Things
We have quite a list this month of Nate's favorite toys and activities. He sure is growing up.

His very favorite game this month is chase. It is so cute! If we growl at him or say "I'm going to get you" he'll take off screaming and running in the opposite direction. Since he still needs some help walking, we need two people to play so it's his favorite game when dad gets home. It also means that there is never anyone extra to take a video :(

 He LOVES playing in the water! We got this little slip and slide out the other day and filled up the end of it like a little pool. It was the perfect size for Nate. Even filed with cold hose water, he splashed in it for about 15 minutes before I finally made him get out. 

His favorite toys this month are his little toy car and this string of beads. Random, I know, but he loves them both. 

Nate also has a favorite word this month. It's funny because it seems like he'll find a certain word hilarious for a few days. Every time we say it he cracks up. It will last a few days and then another word will be funny. The past week or so the word has been banana. Crazy kid!

New Tricks
Nate has made some great improvements in his physical skills this month! He is an official walker, almost an official crawler, and he has finally mastered getting into a sitting position from laying down!

Here's his first official walking video. I look like an overprotective mother in it but the only way he would keep going was if he could see my hands out in front of him. I promise we don't hover over him like that all the time :)

Here is the best video we have at crawling attempts. He is so so close!!! As you can see, he is getting extremely frustrated with his lack of mobility. Mentally, he is ready to get around but physically, he just isn't quite ready.

Painting

Nate's physical therapist suggested that we start coloring and painting with Nate. I was very hesitant because Nate puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. I had tried crayons and colored pencils but he is still just too little to understand what to do with them. I found this idea for edible paint on Pinterest and had to try it out. I bought plain yogurt and added the little flavor packets that they make for frosting. I think we had orange, cotton candy, and mint chocolate. He's actually never been a fan of yogurt but he ate quite a bit that day :) He got very very messy but loved every second of it!

Twin Falls

A couple of weeks ago, Todd was out of town for scout camp so Nate and I decided to take a little trip to Twin Falls. We had a fantastic time! The awesome office I worked for there has been dying to do a baby shower for me. They always throw great parties for people that are having babies but, because of our obvious circumstances, we weren't able to do one before I had the babies and then we moved shortly after Nate Bug came home from the hospital. They are so wonderful and had still been trying to set up a date to do one even though Nate is already a year old :) We finally made it work and had a great time. Nate got totally spoiled!! He got a ton of new "big boy" toys and loads of cute new clothes. I don't have any pictures (yet) but when I get them, I'll be sure and post some. We got some super cute ones!

After the shower, we went to uncle Brian and Aunt Katherine's house for Nate's first sleepover. I wish I could say Nate slept well (he actually screamed for an hour before he fell asleep and then was up at 5:30am!) but he had a fun time anyway.

Nate with Anna, Abby, Tyler, and Alyssa

This is Tyler's pedal go-cart with the trailer that he made for it. He was dying to take Nate for a ride in it! 

 

The day we went was 100 degrees so the kids wanted to take Nate through the "kid wash".  

Nate doesn't mind getting wet so I knew he'd love it but poor Abby got soaked taking him through it. He would get startled as soon as the cold water touched him and stop in the middle. Sweet Abby blocked the water for him so he wouldn't get too wet.

14.5 Months

I decided to do a quick post half way through the month because it seems like Nate is learning so many new things lately! We've been having such a fun summer so far and it hasn't even "officially" started yet!

Eating

We've had a rough few weeks with eating. It started with him not wanting to take his milk so much anymore. He goes through these stages every once in a while so we gave it some time to see if his appetite would perk up again. It didn't. He was eating almost half of what he normally does so we knew something was up with him. 

What really tipped us off was the return of daily throwing up. He started gagging on just about everything he ate, even stuff that he's done really well with for a while. A couple of Sundays ago, he was eating his little puffs during Sacrament meeting and started to gag. He ended up throwing up EVERYWHERE! Nate's clothes, my clothes, the bench, and the floor were covered. I just took him home but after a 5 minute walk in 90 degree weather, we both needed a bath when we got home. 

The next day, I took him into the doctor. This has happened before when he needs the dose of his reflux medication increased. We were hoping that Nate would be one of the many kids who can be weaned off his medication by the time he was a year old but it doesn't seem like he's quite ready :) Good news is, it worked and he went back to drinking all of his milk the very next day after the increase. 

Teeth

Nate has popped in a couple more new teeth so he now has 6 totally in and 2 more very close to breaking through. Luckily, these little side teeth haven't bothered him too much.

Favorite Foods

Nate has been all about fruit lately! Remember, he was the kid who hated fruit baby food. Apparently he is just picky about quality of the fruit he'll eat because now that it is in season, he can't get enough! His favorites are cantaloupe, watermelon, and strawberries. He's also really liking bread lately too. That makes outings much easier since bread is super portable and not very messy.

Favorite Toys

I don't know if he really has a new favorite toy right now. He's actually getting bored with his toy selection again. I realized that I still have a lot of little baby toys out for him to play with and he's thinking he's too big for them. I'm hoping just a couple of new little toys will keep him occupied again.

Crawling

No major improvements here. He's getting better at tolerating the crawling position when we force him into it. He still can't get there on his own. But he's figured out how to sit from the crawling position now so it's getting harder to work with him on it. 

Walking

Nate took some steps on his own today!!!!!!!! We have been waiting for this day for 10 weeks! That's right, for 10 weeks we have been hunched over holding Nate's hands to help him walk. My back is seriously dead so I'm hoping he'll really get it in the next couple of weeks or I'm going to have to hire the neighbor girls to come and walk my child :)

Talking

We've finally got some babbling going on now too! He's making the general "ba ba ba" sound but he can only do it if his tongue is sticking out so depending on how far he's got it out, we get some "da da da" and "pa pa pa" sounds too. That is a relief for us because it was getting pretty late and there were starting to be some concerns about the lack of forming consonant-vowel combination sounds. 

Memorial Day

Todd's family was all in town for Memorial Day this year so we took advantage of this rare occasion and took a trip up to the mountains for some 3-wheeler riding and campfire cooking. We had a great time. Nate loved watching all of the kids ride around and really like having so much space for walking. Hopefully it won't be another 2 years before the Jensens are all in town again.

Swim Class
Our local rec center offers a swim class for babies 6-18 months. It's just 4 classes and it was super cheap so I though it would be a fun activity for Nate and I to do together. We've been twice now and he absolutely loves it! He splashes from the time he touches the water until we get out a half hour later. He's not making very many new friends since he is the only baby in there that doesn't mind having his face splashed but he's having a great time :)

Doesn't he look so cute in his swimsuit? 

Misc

Here are a couple other random picture from the past couple of weeks. We sure have a wild boy on our hands!

Nate's especially crazy hair after his bath one night. You have to look VERY closely to see those 10 hairs sticking up :)

Having some water time in the backyard. He really liked splashing in the bucket and blowing bubbles.

WE LOVE SUMMER!!!!!!!!

Thoughts About the NICU

I don't usually express many personal experiences or feeling here on the blog (or ever really), but I had an experience today that I feel like I want to share. Maybe it can help my friends and family understand me a little better. Or maybe it can help another NICU family realize like someone else understands how they feel.

A friend of mine, who was at the NICU with her own 24 weeker born just a couple of days after Macie, Ellie, and Nate, posted a picture today of their recent visit to the NICU. It was a wonderful picture of a beautiful little girl and smiling doctors and nurses. The feelings that immediately came over me when I saw it really surprised me. I was jealous. Jealous that they live in Boise and get to go for visits any time they want. And jealous that we are 3 hours away and have only been able to visit once. I was so jealous that I became quite emotional. I kept thinking that it was so stupid. I was getting emotional that I couldn't go back to a place that I spent 140 days wanting nothing more than to escape? You've got to be kidding me! Why would I want to go back there so badly? Then, I suddenly realized why I was feeling that way. The NICU is our family. Not a single other person knows just how hard those 140 days were. Those doctors and nurses were there with us every minute of every day. They were there when the babies were born, when Ellie died, when no one thought Nate would make it either, when he did...twice, when I got to see them for the first time, when we got to hold Nate for the first time, when I called in the middle of every night for updates on Nate, when I had several emotional meltdowns, when Nate finally started to grow,  and when he finally got to come home. They were there during every setback and every step of progress. No one can understand what those days were like but the people who were there and helped us through it. No wonder I have such a connection to the NICU. The NICU feels like home to me. It is where some of the hardest and most emotional things I have ever experienced happened. And no one else experienced those moments with me more than my NICU family. I hope I always feel this connection to them and I hope, one day, Nate will grow to love them too.