Clovers for Collins

When I first found out I was pregnant, I went to babycenter.com daily to check the status of what was going on with my pregnancy, as well as finding out what was normal and not normal, since I had no clue.  I found the community section on the website, and joined the board for the moms of May 2011 babies.  This was a great place to go and talk to other people going exactly through what I was going through, and it provided a group of people to talk to outside of work and home, since we had decided not to spill the beans until I was out of my first trimester.  


There were thousands of people and so many posts everyday that it was hard to keep up.  One day I saw a post for the start of a spinoff group of moms that were sarcastic.  I of course signed up immediately.  We became a close knit group of ladies, and eventually the group moved to Facebook.  We went from talking about our pregnancies to one by one, to welcoming our babies into the world.  


Of the 27 women in the group, one of the ladies was not able to bring her son home with her.  He had a disease called ACD, which a rare lung disease that strikes newborns.  It has no cure and is always fatal.  There was no way of knowing that he had this disease, and the night we all found out, we hugged our babies tight and prayed for strength and comfort for this fellow May mama.  


One of the services that was provided to family in their loss was a photo session of her dear son by a group called "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" (NILMDTS).  This group brings in a photographer to hospitals to do a photo session for families to have a keepsake of of their babies that have gone to be with the Lord.  She has told us many times how she treasures these photos and how great it is to have something so beautiful to remember him by.


With all that being said, our group decided, that in celebration of his life, we would do a fundraiser in which for a $5 donation, people could purchase a 4 leaf clover (her symbol for Collins) of their choice that was handcrafted by a member of our group.  The fundraiser is called Clovers for Collins and all proceeds will be donated to NILMDTS in Collins' name.  We have started a Facebook page, which you can access by clicking the button on the right hand side of my blog.  Please take a look and consider donating to this great organization.  I know that they have done a great service for my friends' family, and hopefully they can continue their work in the future for more families.

Nine Months Old!

What a crazy month this has been, while Aubrey was just starting to get mobile last month, she has now become very good at it, a little too good actually because we are constantly chasing her down and getting her out of things (including the dust bunny collection behind the couch).  Our house is now in the best shape that it has ever been.  Yes, we have to sweep and steam the floors every week, but it’s worth it.  We have also installed baby gates at the top of the stairs, and will be installing them at the bottom of that stairs this weekend, thanks to daddy’s “lessons” on how to climb the stairs last week. 

Between the crawling and the standing up everywhere, Baby Girl can get pretty much everywhere that she needs to go and absolutely everywhere that she shouldn’t be going.  It is unreal how fast she has picked up crawling, and it’s a great feeling knowing that sometimes she’s barreling toward me.  Now I just have to remember to wear sweatpants with drawstrings, so I don’t get pantsed when she pulls up on me.

This month has been very busy also with the onslaught of tax season, which came with an additional 10 hour a week requirement at work.  I am working out the kinks of the new schedule, and I think we are finally getting adjusted.  While I am enjoying the adult time at work, I sure do miss getting to hang out with my sweet girl as much.  It has also been a challenge to work out a new schedule in regards to working out and getting the house in order, hopefully that will come with this next month.  This month has also been bittersweet, as I made the decision to stop breastfeeding.  It was becoming too stressful to meet all my requirements at work as well as Aubrey’s nutritional requirements, so we switched to formula.  It hasn’t been terrible, but I must admit I miss it.  Hopefully one of these days when Aubrey has a brother or sister, I can make it the full year.  I am very proud of my 8 months though!

We had Aubrey’s well check today, and she’s still a little peanut, weighing in at 16 pounds even and 28.5 inches long.  She definitely has the Barbeauld genes in that regard, because the kid can put it away!  I honestly have no idea where all the food goes.  Our doctor says she’s doing great and wants us to work on getting Aubrey to sleep 8 hours at night.  While the prospect sounds nice, I’m not going to push it until Aubrey is a year.  Yes we have gotten a couple of full nights of sleep, but they are always followed by a week of bad sleep, so I have just decided not to get too comfortable with any type of sleep routine.  I have found just taking it one day at a time works the best for all of us.