Update from Full-Time Mommyland

Well, I’ve officially been a stay-at-home Mom for almost two full weeks now. It’s been fun. And it’s been stressful too. More fun than stress though!

It’s nice being able to go out for walks with Eli, and go to the library and the park together whenever we want. And Elijah has been so much happier (at least during the day, he’s having some sleep issues right now which are unresolved) that I can tell he’s liking the all-mommy-all-the-time thing. The after-daycare-meltdowns are a thing of the past, and Elijah is happy the vast majority of the day!

I knew that staying home was going to be a lot of work, but I underestimated how much! The first few days Jon would come home and I was exhausted! By the end of the first week I was used to being on my feet and on the go all day, but my brain was still tired. Did you know you have to feed these little people (and yourself) three meals a day, plus snacks? I knew that, and doing it two days a week by myself before was pretty easy. But now it’s every day! It feels like I spend half the day either cooking or cleaning up a meal. Trying to make sure Elijah gets all his veggies and fruits and proteins throughout the day has had a positive effect on my eating habits though. Now I’m eating the same things as him mostly (I still won’t touch that tuna stuff, and don’t join Elijah in sucking down the tofu that he loves so much). And the best news is that I’m not eating any junk food or fat food. I can hear my arteries unclogging as we speak.

We’ll see how the adjustment to full-time mommyhood works out, but I think it’s going to be a really positive thing for both myself and Elijah for me to be at home. God has led Jon and I so clearly to this choice, and as I drove away from my office on my last day of work I turned on the Christian radio station, just like I always do, and it was in the middle of a song I had never heard before. I looked up the song afterwards to make sure I heard the words correctly, since it seemed to be written just for me at just that time. Here are the words that I heard:

And I just showed up for my own life
And I'm standing here and taking it in and it sure looks bright

Oh the glory of God is man fully alive
Oh the glory of God is man fully alive

This is from a song from Sara Groves, with the full lyrics here, and it perfectly captures my emotions as I’ve just begun a journey which I don’t know the end of or how the day-to-day practical details will resolve (the bills have a nasty habit of needing to get paid). I’m just trusting God, seeing His hand in our lives every day, and knowing that I did just show up for the life that He has in store for me. And it sure looks bright from where I’m sitting.

One Year Checkup and Stats

Elijah had his one year checkup on May 30th, but things have been a little crazy around here and I’m just now getting to posting the details. I (Missy) took him by myself since the appointment was a little later in the morning than what we usually have, but everything went fine and Elijah was in a pretty good mood (until the shots).

Eli had lost some weight from being sick (the ear infection from his birthday was already cleared up), so the official one year weight of 21 pounds and 9 ounces is lower than he had been, but the doctor was not concerned at all. Eli stayed in the 25th percentile for weight range that he’s been in pretty much since birth (he dropped to between the 5th and 10th when the breastfeeding wasn’t working out, but then rebounded right back after that).

As far as height, he remained in the 90-95th percentile as well, coming in at 31 and ¼ inches. That’s pretty tall for a one year old - and exactly the same height that his daddy was at one year old!

Developmentally the doctor said Eli was right on track, so that was good. And his “big head” from previous checkups remained big, but was not growing at an accelerated pace, so that’s no longer any concern. Eli handled his three shots pretty well, though I might be calling the doctor since one of the injection sites has now, 2 weeks later, developed a raised rash around it. We read that that was normal, but I want to be sure.

All in all Elijah is still growing well, and shaping up to be a long and lean baby like his Dad. :)

Elijah Schneider's First Birthday Spectacular!

Elijah’s first birthday party was a lot of fun! We ended up with a pretty large crowd, about 25 people, so we held the festivities at Grandma Amanda and Grandpa Terry’s condo. Grandma had gone all out decorating the house with tons of balloons, all tied to different frogs that Elijah had acquired in the last year. We all ate the massive amounts of food that Missy and Grandma Koorndyk had prepared (burgers, hot dogs, salads, the works), then opened the rather impressive stack of presents, and then ate the cutest frog cake ever! Unfortunately Elijah was under the weather and not able to enjoy much of the activity. As the party progressed he became progressively sicker. He’s such a sweet boy that he had moments where he enjoyed himself, and perked up a little after having cake, but by the end of the afternoon it was clear that we were headed to the urgent care. What a stinky birthday present! The doctor said it was a raging ear infection (his third) and put him on antibiotics. It came on so fast – I could have taken him to the doctor on Friday but he would perk right up after cold medicine so I didn’t think it was progressing to anything more serious than the continuation of the cold he’d had – but he was just miserable by the end of the party. After being on the antibiotics he received Saturday night he was in a much better mood for the rest of the Memorial Day weekend, which was good at least. I just wish he could have enjoyed his first birthday party a little more. Good thing we’re going to have opportunity to throw these things again. All in all it was still a really great day, with the best part of the whole day just being able to spend time with people who all love and adore our little boy! Here are some picture highlights:

Opening presents - Elijah made a haul! A fire engine, a rocket ship, a wagon, bath toys, books, and lots and lots more toys to keep him busy!

Eating cake - We had a “cake controversy” at first because Jon only wanted Eli to have a little piece to smoosh, while Mom and Grandma said that he needed the whole cake to be able to smoosh if he wanted. Jon was worried that people wouldn’t want cake after sick Eli played with it. Mom and Grandma knew that even if he wrecked ¼ of the cake that there would still be plenty for everyone, and odds were that Eli wouldn’t wreck much anyway. Mom and Grandma won. :)

Stair-stepping and apple-eating

Eli did something cool for the first time on his birthday a couple of weeks ago -- he walked up the stairs! (With help, of course!)

He's been crawling/scrambling up the stairs for a while now. I was walking around the house with him on the morning of his birthday (with me holding his hands to balance him) when he headed for the stairs. I assumed he wanted to climb up as usual, so I tried to let go of his hands, but he wouldn't let go of my fingers.

Instead, he just lifted one leg up onto the first step, and used my hands to pull himself up... and did it again... and again... and soon enough, we were at the top of the stairs!

Eli is pretty good at climbing the stairs now. He'll use either his right or left leg to step up (instead of always sticking with the same leg), which is cool.

Eli doing something else new when I got home today (his second full day at home with stay-at-home Missy). Eli was holding a whole apple in both hands and eating it! He was doing a great job, just taking tiny nibbles (while Missy and I watched him closely to make sure he didn't accidentally take too large of a bite).

Eli also likes to offer Missy and I food now. While he was eating his apple, he held it out towards Missy, and then smiled and laughed when Missy took a bite. He gave me a few bites of the apple, too! It was really cute!

Last day of day care for Eli, last day of work for Missy

Today is the last day in day care for Eli, and it's the last day at work for Missy. Starting on Monday, Missy will be at home with Eli full time!

I'm really glad that Missy will be home with Eli. This morning when I dropped Eli off at day care, he cried when I set him down. I needed to run to an early meeting at work, so I couldn't stay around to play with him for a few minutes; I just had to leave the toddler room and close the door behind me while Eli cried and crawled towards me, trying to catch up to me. "Heartbreaking" is too strong a word to describe how I felt about that -- I'll see him tonight, after all! -- but "sad" is certainly accurate.

So I'm very happy that Eli will get to be with Mommy from now on every day!