Neglect

Walk to the grocery store with Calvin and pick up dinner...check!
Put dinner in oven...Check!
Run outside to say hi to the neighbor...check!
Put the rest of the groceries away....check!
Take care of baby......





Didn't do so great.

Calvin's first snowey day

It snowed Thursday. Although this depresses me more than I can express, I just had to take Calvin out on his first snowey day!

Meet Calvin

Calvin is 15 weeks and 3 days old. As of a few weeks ago he weighed 12 pounds 10 ounces

He prefers to be standing while he is held.

He is teething. No teeth are breaking through but his gums are hurting him for sure!

He LOVES to chew on things..but chewing on things makes him angry. Not sure if its because it reminds him that his teeth hurt or if it just doesn't go as he plans.

Sometimes when he cries he lets out a deep man cry.

He wakes up happy in the morning if he gets a good nights sleep. I will wake up to him happily talking to himself.

As a newborn, kisses used to calm him down when he was just plain fussy. About a month 1/2 later singing calmed him down. Now he loves walks outside.

Without fail he will smile at himself when put in front of a mirror.

He is starting to drool a lot.

He is getting pretty coordinated when trying to grab things.

He can hold his head up like a champ!

Every once in a while he will surprise me and sit in my lap unsupported.

He is not a fan of tummy time-but we are working on it.

He prefers to look to the left.

He will just stare at his dad.

He will let me read a couple of books to him at a time.

He is starting to smile and laugh when we tickle him or play with him.

He has found his voice! He loves to jabber or yell.

He will have nice long conversations with you if you imitate him.

He smiles whenever Nana talks to him over the phone.

He already knows Dad is the obnoxious parent. Taron poked him the other day while I was holding Calvin and Calvin turned around looking for his Dad.

Still isn't sleeping consistently through the night...ugh.

He loves it when new people smile and talk to him.

Sometimes he just likes to lay by himself.

He LOVES LOVES LOVES to be naked. He is always happy and kicking around when we change his diaper. Even when he is in a fussy mood. Ad lately he is starting to protest when we put his diaper back on. I'm worried we are going to have a streaker on our hands.

He likes baths.

He doesn't like firsts. First diaper change, first bath...etc. After the first time he is OK with it.

He doesn't like any new flavors. Sometimes I will give him a random lick of something like a grape and he will always make a yucky face.

He has a really bad bald ring on the back of his head.

He has more hair on the left side of his head then the right. Comb over style!

His fingernails grow faster than weeds!

He smiles a lot. He has the sweetest smile!

He's starting to throw little fits when you do something he doesn't want done.

Evenings are his fussy time.

He fights sleep!

He tries to eat your face when you kiss his cheeks.

He is getting so big!

AND we love him very much! =)

Socks and Surgery

One of my biggest pet peeves is when Taron leaves his socks on the floor in the living room. This is a constant fight. He kicks them off in the evenings while relaxing and then LEAVES them there to stew in sock grossness and if I don't do something about it there they will stay staring at me.

Ironically I LOVE Calvin's little socks and nothing makes me happier then to find them in a load of laundry.

I came home from church one day, walked in the door and what is the first thing I see. Taron AND Calvin's socks lying on the living room floor!

Like father like son I guess.


I also LOVE to wear socks! They make my feet feel all snugly and happy. I have to force myself to let my feet out in the summer so I wont get a bad sock tan. Without socks I feel exposed and weird. The past few summers I have let my feet out more and more so I am starting to get over this exposed phobia of mine.

Recently my socks have comforted me. They comforted me during labor (don't worry they got thrown out afterwards.) And even more recent they comforted me during surgery. The Hospital offered me these long purple socks with bear paws on them but I chose to keep my own on.

For those of you who do not know, the doctors found a dermoid (sp?) tumor on my left ovary. No worries it is benign and as far as we know is not cancerous. They sent sent it to get tested and we haven't heard back so no news is good news. Unfortunately it still had to come out. I have never had surgery before so I dreaded getting it taken out! They did not knock me out for this procedure and knowing this before hand just added to my anxiety. I was afraid I would have another Dentist nightmare.

When I got my wisdom teeth taken out they gave me some drugs telling me they wouldn't knock me out but make me so groggy I wouldn't know what was going on. It worked at first, I felt all giggly and happy but as soon as the dentist hovered over me with his torture tools I woke right up! I was screaming in my mind "I'm wide awake! I know whats going on! Please don't do this to me." Horrified I watched the whole thing in the reflection of my dentist's glasses.

I didn't need to worry, what the doctors failed to tell me was that even though they were not going to put me under for my surgery, they were going to give me a drug to forget. The last thing I remember is kissing Taron good bye and feeling a little dizzy as they rolled me out into the hallway. The next thing I know I'm looking at the doctors talking to me. Not really understanding what they were saying to me I cut them off. "What? Is it over?" It was over. I guess I was awake and talking through the whole thing. I even answered questions coherently. Lol they even asked if they could remove the mole on my stomach as well and apparently I said yes because I woke up with a cut from the surgery and mole-less.

While the drugs were wearing off I had trouble concentrating on and remembering conversations with the doctors and Taron. I had to keep asking Taron what were we were talking about and kept repeating myself. I also asked him to take a picture of me twice. I still have no recollection of asking him the first time. He also tried to explain something to me about big foot or bears that made no sense!

The since the tumor was in the area of my body where babies are made, it was made up of cells that can copy other cells. So these kinds of tumors can have things like teeth, hair, skin and sweat growing in them. Turns out that inside mine was 7 cm of a hairball and the white stuff found in acne! DISGUSTING! I can't believe that was in my body!

In conclusion, socks are wonderful. Socks worn all day then left on my floor are not.

Patience

Its not very surprising that having a new born with the sleepless nights and fussy days, can sometimes be very testing on my patience. I have tried praying for patience because I don't like when I act frustrated with Calvin. In result I have been blessed with longer nights and fussier days. I guess you have to go through the trials before you can change right?

Well today Taron, Calvin and I were walking through Porter Park when we came to a long strip of the pathway blocked by the spray from sprinklers. We stopped, hesitated, then Taron turned to me. "You know you want to." Without further hesitation I charged through them pushing the stroller as fast as I could. It was so fun we even did another lap around the park so I could do it again. The second time through I was laughing..Calvin was crying. I peeked under the cover of the stroller at Calvin and he was all wet! Apparently there was a hole where the two covers for the stroller come together.

Ooops!

Maybe I should start praying that Calvin will have the patience to put up with us as his parents.

A little bit sleepy?

Taron and I recently decided that we were poor so I went and applied for food stamps. During my interview, Calvin was being fussy and it was taking a long time because there was a lot of information the guy needed to put into the computer. So there I was rocking Calvin in his car seat, not paying attention to the guy at all when I looked up and had to do a double take...stare at him for a good minute just to be sure, and yup, sure enough he was asleep!!! Sitting straight up, one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the mouse. Well this is awkward. I sat there for a minute or two more trying not to wake him up by my stifled chuckles...then a minute or two more... what do I do? Taron replied to a text I send him was, "are you sure he is still breathing?" I'm pretty sure he is breathing... so I turned the noise up on my phone hoping the text message sound would wake him up and texted Taron a few more times all the while planning my escape for help if he wasn't breathing. Didn't even stir, well sometimes its handy to have a baby. I messed with Calvin until he let out a cry and the man jumped awake and muttered an apology. Something about a long night. Lol poor guy! I tried so hard to hide my smile but there was no way he didn't notice the big grin on my face while I told him not to worry about it.

I kick my self every day for not taking a picture of him sleeping.

Special Delivery! Just in Time for Fathers Day!

Calvin Dennis Ratliff was born June 17th 2011 at 5:51am, 7 lbs 7 oz 19 inches long. It all started late Thursday night; around midnight Sam woke up shaking really bad and feeling contractions. I being the attentive husband that I am slept soundly. Around 1:15 AM Sam went to get another blanket and almost didnt make it due to the shaking. Her getting into bed woke me up. She then said to me "I don't think this shaking is normal."

After looking in that all knowing book "what to expect..." we found nothing about shaking or shivering. So I rudely texted Amy and she said she was shaking after they broke her water. Sam in the meantime was talking to the doctor and he said that shaking was a sign that she was in labor and recommended that we wait till she couldn't talk through the contractions anymore. So Sam laid down as I packed a few things for the hospital.

While laying there at about 2:30 AM Sam looked at me and said "Either I just wet the bed or my water broke. Its only a little trickle so I don't know." She then sat up and water came gushing out. As she ran to the bathroom she was amazed at how much water there was. After she got out of the bathroom she said "We're going to the hospital now!" So we left.

We were at the hospital at 2:45-3:00 AM. They examined Sam and called the doctor because Sam had a temperature and the baby's heart rate was really high. The doctor got there and checked things and Sam was all ready for the epidural. The doctor was concerned about the baby and there was talk of doing a c-section if Sam's temperature and the baby's heart rate didn't go down. But with an IV and some tylenol things calmed down a bit.

We moved Sam to the delivery room and we were waiting for the lady that was coming to do the epidural. The Doctor came in and said she was here and we got Sam sitting up and ready for it. Doctor Harling left then came back in and said that the fever was because of an infection and they were concerned that they might spread it to her nervous system if they giver her an epidural so she'd have to do it naturally.

Sam was not too happy with this idea and got kinda whiny but she powered through it and at 5:51 AM Calvin joined us. They had all sorts of people there just in case the infection had effected Calvin. So after they rested him on Sam's chest for like 2 seconds they whisked him off to the NICU. They ran all sorts o tests and checked all his vitals and once things were stable they brought me in. They had him attached to lots of things like oxygen, a heart monitor, a respiration monitor and a blood oxygen level monitor. I stayed with him for a while and made him cry with my cold hands.
I went back to Sam and waited with her till she could get up and see our son. They brought her breakfast and a wheelchair and got her recovery room ready. As we were getting ready to leave they told us we couldn't go see Calvin because there was a c-section going on and we weren't allowed in there. Sam had to wait till about 10 AM before she got to see him and really hold him. She was getting real grumpy, but she finally got to see him.
Calvin had to be in the NICU for 48 hours for the antibiotics so we kept going back and forth from Sam's room to the NICU. They did take him off the oxygen finally and let us try to feed him. We did some burping too. I liked his face. But as we were burping, he kept sneezing, so I took a picture.

Today they let Calvin out of the NICU and into Sam's room. He's no longer attached to anything and as long as we can get him to eat good then he'll be coming home with us tomorrow. These are some pictures in the room with Calvin. This was my happy first Father's Day!! A tie and a son, very exciting presents.

Pre Baby Party in Vegas!

After seizing up my belly and asking how far along I am, the next question everyone is starting to ask me now is the oh so daunting "so are you ready for a baby?" Although I am so excited I just can't stand it, I'm also not quite used to the idea of how tied down I'll be once the baby decides to show his cute little self (And yes, his cuteness will put other babies to shame.) My good friend/co-worker Jennifer came up with a solution of my pre-mom restfulness. Weekend party in Vegas!

On the Plane to Vegas.


Friday night we went straight from our flight to the Strip and walked through the butterfly gardens and watched the fountain show outside the Bellagio


Saturday morning we went to the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef Aquarium.



Then walked through the forum shops in Caesars Palace.


And went through a session at the Vegas Temple. After we had already planned our trip to Vegas Jennifer found out that a friend she introduced to the church just happened to be receiving her endowments the very same weekend we were going to be there. It was just too perfect.


And my favorite part of the weekend....we were amazed by Phantom of the Opera! We got our tickets online before our trip and we bought a couple seats up in the back balcony. They were not bad seats, they were in the back but they were a few rows from the front of the balcony and near the isle so we were almost center. Well when we were seated the usher sat us THREE ROWS FROM THE STAGE! I guess ticket master online had messed up somehow but we were not complaining! They were perfect seats! The show was amazing and the theater blew me away. The theater for Phantom is made JUST for Phantom so each new set transformed so well into a whole new scene you wouldn't believe you were looking at the same stage. I was really impressed and thourally entertained.

Excited before the show.


Worth every cent.

Funny story; We were posing for this picture when a couple guys came stumbling into us. They were so drunk they didn't even realize we were there until they were basically on top of us. While passing, one of them turns, looks at me, and yells "BOOBIES!" Hahaha oh my! Out of all the women in their sexy cocktail dresses in Vegas, this guy decides to yell that out at a fully clothed pregnant woman. What boobies? They are hidden behind my belly. What an idiot. lol.

Also while fighting our way out of the parking garage, this girl crosses the street in front of the car wearing this dress so tight and so small she was lucky she could move at all. Not only was she wearing this ridiculous dress three sizes too small she was also trying to walk in stilettos. While watching her I commented to Jennifer, "If this girl tries to do anything more but walk tonight she will be popping out all over the place." And no sooner then I finished my sentence "WHAM!" Down this girl went, right in front of our car and everyone else! This was no little stumble, it was a full on fall. It was all my fault! I just know I jinxed her! Impressively enough, she did not spill her drink.

We had a lazy Sunday morning, went to church and after wards we hiked around Red Rock Canyon. 31 weeks along? Wont stop me!



It was a perfect get-a-way trip before the baby comes! Thanks Jennifer I had a blast! =)

The End.

Sledding!

Saturday was a whopping 33 degrees! Our friends Amy and Tim invited us to go sledding and we just couldn't let this nice warm day go to waste!