6 Months Old

My baby is half of a year old. Where did the time go? I guess it's true that time flies and before you know it your child is all grown.

Brody has had quite an eventful week and has also change a lot this week. He started daycare and is loving it. The days are long because he refuses to nap in fear of missing anything. He has made several new friends and loves his teachers. Each morning when we walk in he is super excited and begins to "talk" to his buddies.

This is what Brody is doing at 6 months:
-scooting on his belly to reach toys
-eating fruits, vegtables, and cereal very well
-sits up in his high chair and grocery carts, but still needs some assistance on the ground
-fake coughs and laughs at himself
-makes an indian noise when we pat his mouth
-he's in 6-9 month old clothing, is about to grow out of size 2 diapers
-he's still nursing every 2 hours
-he goes to bed around 9pm and wakes up (not by his choice) at 7am
-he loves to stands, especially when he is tired and doesn't want to sleep
-he loves everything tigger
-he loves when his dad plays with him, he always laughs with his daddy

The first 6 months have been amazing, he is such a happy, joyful baby and we can't wait to see what the next 6 months has to hold.

Lea

Daycare

Summer is offically over and Brody starts daycare tomorrow :( I cannot tell you how many times I've shed tears over this. It's definitely going to be the hardest day for myself. We met his teacher last Wednesday and dropped some stuff off today. He loves his teachers Ms. Rachel and Ms. Terri and he has 6 boys and 1 girl in his class. He already knows one little boy named Mason. His momma use to work at my school but now works at the high school. Mason is only 2 weeks younger than Brody so I know they will be great buddies.

It has helped me a great deal that Brody was so happy go lucky with his teacher last week.

BUT...Brody is cutting his first tooth right now and OMG he is miserable. Nothing pleases him and he just cries out in pain. He is trying to chew on anything and everything, drooling a ton and running a low grade fever...between 99-99.3...we can see the white of the tooth right under the gum but it hasn't poked through yet. It breaks my heart seeing him so miserable. Last night he didn't go to bed until midnight because he was in so much pain.

This is definitely going to be a rough week!

LeAnn

Baby Food

I've started to make Brody's baby food and I must say that I'm really enjoying it. I'm not one that spends hours in the kitchen, I actually hardly cook or bake. But after finding that Brody wasn't liking too much of the jarred vegetables and trying to go organic with his food but finding it hard to believe that they don't put perservatives in those jars of food I decided to give it a try not expecting it would last very long.

We found that Central Market has the biggest selection of organic fruits/vegetables and Target having the 2nd most variety. So far I've made sweet potatoes, avacodos, bananas, baked apples, baked pears all of which he loves and gobbles up. I have peas and green beans but I'm a little nervous because I've read they are harder to puree. I would have to say that his favorites are bananas and pears, he just cannot seem to get enough of them. I need to add some more vegetables to his lineup but I'm not sure what...any suggestions?

Its fairly easy to make baby food and far cheaper just a little time consuming but well worth it for little mr. amazing :)

Thyroid Issues

Well my thyroid is all out of wack again and they want to run some test. When they do a blood test to check your thyroid they check the T4, T3 and TSH which is your functioning thyroid and TSH is the thyroid horomone. If you remember I was hypothyroid during my pregnancy which I had a high TSH level and soon after I gave birth it went back into the normal range. But then I began to have symptoms again so I got my levels checked. My T3 and T4 are in range but my TSH was 117, normal range is 2-4 but my functioning thyroid was in normal range meaning I wasn't hypo or hyper. This through off my doctor because usually if you have a high TSH your functioning thyroid is off as well. Mine wasn't.

So I went to an internal medicine doctor and they believe I have Graves disease, an autoimmune disease where your body attacks your own thyroid gland causing it to go haywire.

My thyroid is extremely enlarged and I have a goiter. You can feel it in my neck and I can even see the enlargement. I'm also extremely fatigued even after 12 hours of sleep, I have muscle aches and weakness and I'm losing my hair.

So they ordered a thyroid uptake scan to look for a blockage or growth that could be causing my TSH levels to be so high. This requires me to take radioactive dye and I cannot nurse Brody for 5 days! I'm extremely upset by this and I'm frankly trying to pump as much as I can to get 5 days worth so that I don't have to supplement with formula. Not only do I have to not nurse for 5 days but I also have to pump and dump during those 5 days. Nothing erks me more than wasted milk! It's so hard to get that milk in the first place and pumping is such a task and then to have it wasted!

So I've done a little research and I'm going to call the doctor back this week because I've read that there are other blood test I can have to diagnose the problem instead of the uptake scan. I can have an antibody blood test and if my body is producing a certain type of antibody then we know that it's Graves disease. I also think they got it backwards and it's not Graves disease but Hashimoto disease(the same thing except Graves is for hyperthyroid and Hashimoto is for hypothyroid) but both attack the thyroid gland.

With all that said please say a prayer that I can avoid the uptake scan. If I have to have the thyroid scan that my symptoms don't worsen as I cannot take my thyroid medicine until the scan is finished and that Brody and I get through those 5 days ok without having to supplement or throw his schedule completely off. And that they don't find any kind of tumors/growths that would require me to have surgery. Cutting open my neck while having a blood clotting disease doesn't sound like too much fun to me!

Love,
L

Where oh where did the time go?

Um...I only have 4 days until I have to return to work!!!!!!!! Where did this summer go??

Depressed, excited and anxious all at the same time = hard time falling asleep at night!

Only 80ish more days til Thanksgiving break! Let the count down begin :)

A little behind

I've got lots to blog about but with the summer coming quickly to an end I'm soaking up as much Brody time as I can and trying to help Big B get ready for his first year of teaching/coaching. His summer has already come to an end and lil B and I miss him everyday!

Things I need to blog about (just to help remind myself:)
- My thyroid issues and scan I have to have..um that's going to require I take radioactive dye and not be able to nurse Brody for 5 DAYS! Yes, I'm freakin' about that
-Anxiety about putting B in daycare...I'm having dreams about leaving him in public places...wth??
-Brandon's Vegas trip
-Brandon's classroom
-Brody update

I'll update my blog soon!