Caleb's Story: First Mother's Day!

Last Friday was a typical day. Caleb was with Grammy in the morning and with Uncle Rad and Auntie Jen in the afternoon. My dad had an event at a senior center and Caleb and my mom made an appearance, which I think thrilled a lot of people. Here is a picture from Grammy on Friday. I love his eyes!

Friday night we had supper at our house with my parents, Rad & Jen and David & Yully. It was nice to visit with everyone. Sabbath morning Caleb woke up at 3:30 because he had gotten one of his arms completely out of the swaddle. I think he could have gone back to sleep on his own, but I thought if I fed him maybe he would sleep for several more hours and then I could go back to sleep as well. Well, that only partially worked. I put him back down at 4:15 or so and he only slept until 7:30, which was not that great. However, we put him down for a nap around 9:45 and thought he would sleep for about 45 minutes or so and then we could go to church. Well, he slept 1 1/2 hours without waking up at all, so needless to say, we were very late to church!

We are having an evangelistic series at our church right now, so the speaker did the sermon. He was very good and he told a story about my grandfather and what was cool was he didn't even know it. Many years ago a pastor was trying to start up a ministry and had just about given up because of lack of funds when out of the blue he got a check for $1,000 in the mail from a man he had never met (my grandfather Latimer). This money helped him get his ministry off the ground and what was so meaningful to our guest speaker was the fact that this ministry helped his parents learn about Jesus. Anyway, he was telling the story and when he mentioned my grandfather's name, someone yelled out that his daughter was in the audience and the speaker started saying "Are you kidding me?" over and over again and he got very emotional. It was a very touching scene and neat to be a witness to. We have heard that story before and so when he started telling it, I thought he knew the connection, so it was really awesome to see him make the connection and get so emotional. Here are a couple of pictures in the mother's room during church.

Sabbath afternoon we drove up to Stoneham with Rad & Jen and David & Yully (all 7 of us in the van) to see our friends Neil and Tina. Tina has cancer and we wanted to visit her because she received some bad news from the doctor last week. It was nice to see them and we had a pretty good trip.

What didn't go well was trying to feed Caleb before bed that night. I was feeding him about 45 minutes later than usual, so I don't know if that was enough to throw him off, but he was not a happy camper while he was eating, which is very unusual. Needless to say, I was very happy to put him to bed and since it was after 9:00, I went to bed myself!

Even though it was Mother's Day on Sunday, I still had to get up and work, so I got up around 5:30. Caleb woke up around 6:15 and I fed him and put him back to bed, so I didn't actually start working until around 7:00. Steve went out on a secret Mother's Day mission while Caleb was sleeping and then was busy in the kitchen when he came back. Turns out he was making me a big batch of chocolate-covered strawberries (milk and white), because those are one of my favorite things! It was quite a process, but it was worth it because they were so good! He also got me a card from Caleb, which was cute. Here are a couple of pictures of the work in process and the end result!

We were taking my mom out to lunch around noon and I had been dying to get my hair cut, so I only worked until about 10:30 and then went to get my hair cut (by myself) before lunch. We were going to go to Chinese food, because that's what mom wanted, but they weren't opening until 1:00, so we went to Thai food instead. I gave my mom a photo book from Shutterfly of pictures of Mimi, and of course she cried! It was fun to make the book and I think it turned out well!

Caleb had fallen asleep right before Steve got to the restaurant, but of course he woke up right after we got there, so he really needed a nap when we got home after lunch.

He ended up sleeping about 2 hours, which was good, because I needed to get more work done. We also went for a walk with Steve and the dogs and that pretty sums up my Mother's Day! It was a good day and I am so happy to be a mother to Caleb! He is such a joy and the best baby ever!!

Monday was a good day. Caleb slept until about 7:15, which was great! I didn't put him back to bed after I fed him, because he had slept so long, so I was hoping he would take 2 good naps instead of 1. It worked out pretty well. I put him back down for a nap around 10:15 and he slept for almost 2 hours. At some point in the day, we took a walk in the stroller and when we got back, Caleb was only wearing one sock. I was hoping we would find it when we went out with Steve and the dogs later that night, but we didn't. Caleb took another pretty good nap in the afternoon - I think an hour and 15 minutes. So, it was a very successful day (except for losing the sock)!

Tuesday was another good day. Caleb slept until 6:30 but this time I put him back to bed around 7:30. He slept for another hour or so, which was good. We went for a late morning walk before his nap and we retraced our steps from Monday and we located the missing sock! It wasn't crucial that we find it, but I was happy that we did! Caleb took a nice long nap around noon and then another short nap later in the day. I have been practicing with Caleb to try to get him to roll over from back to front. I am showing him how to do it and hoping that he will do it himself, but he usually only makes it halfway. He'll get there soon, I think, though! We took a walk with Steve and the dogs in the evening. We attempted to take the jogging stroller, but the straps were way too loose on Caleb and couldn't be tightened any more, so we aborted that.

Tuesday night around 12:45, the dogs started barking and barking for no apparent reason and that woke Caleb up and he started crying quite a bit. I put the pacifier back in and he calmed down, but then he was awake! I wanted him to go back to sleep quicker, so I fed him, which I never have to do in the middle of the night anymore. So, he didn't get as much sleep as usual and therefore, when we dropped him off at my mom's and put him back to bed (which we normally do anyway), he slept until about 9:30, which was great for her! He had a good day with Grammy. She took several cute pictures of him and even reported that he sat up by himself for several seconds, although she took a picture of it and deleted it by accident.

We didn't take a walk last night because it was cold and kinda rainy, so Caleb just played in his jumper for awhile instead. I think that is still his favorite thing to do, although he loves his play mat and is starting to enjoy his exersaucer as well.

I have joined several groups on Facebook that are selling baby/kids items, so I have already gotten some good deals on clothes and some other things. This morning I met one mom who sold me a Little People train set and another mom who sold me some Disney books. I have also gotten some clothes and Steve is meeting a mom today to pick up a walker to bring to Rad and Jen's house. It is a great way to get good deals and I am really enjoying it! This morning we also went to Babies R Us to use a coupon for $10 off diapers and to get some bowls because we will be starting to feed Caleb solid food in a week or two. Today is a beautiful day, so I think when Steve gets home, instead of going for a walk, we are going to take Caleb to the playground and try him in a baby swing for the first time. Stay tuned next week to see if we do it and to hear how it goes. Here are some pictures from our outing this morning. Caleb fell asleep in the car in between Old Navy and Babies R Us and slept for about 20 minutes.