I can't believe October is almost over. Crazy! It's been a busy month but November is going to be even busier.

We have figured out our Tuesday babysitter situation ...at least for the short term...hopefully it'll work out! :) My mom is going to watch Austin Tuesday mornings (in addition to Mondays) and Andy will take a half day every Tuesday and make up the hours throughout the work week. So some weeks he will have 2 half days since he already has a half day on my Wednesday class days. Ahh...dont even want to think about next semester. (dont worry...we actually are somewhat)

Our former Tuesday sitter is still not happy with her current in home daycare so she asked me if I would like to babysit (for pay) for her baby on Thursdays & Fridays (to lessen the amount of days that he is there) until mid-December when he gets a spot in a new daycare center. I said yes....it will make my weeks so much busier but the extra money will be nice. I start this coming week....I already know him since I was watching him for free on most Thursdays this semester already since she was watching Austin on Tuesdays. Sorry for all that rambling...I could have just said..I got a very part time job. Haha!

Austin is doing great!! :) He is dancing, clapping and waving now! The clapping is hit or miss....he tries but isn't always successful. My mom took a long lunch on Thursday to take us the Wild Zoo Halloween. Austin was a cute little bumblebee! Had several options of costumes to borrow but I liked the bumblebee the most. :)

I am working very hard on teaching him not to bite me while he's nursing...it's a challenge. Prayers on that please. :)

Looking forward to the end of the semester ...the driving to Riley is very hard on me still. I just can't seem to get enough sleep on Sunday & Monday nights. I tried making my coffee more concentrated but I'm still having trouble staying awake while driving and if I am sitting still for very long during the clinical day. My preceptors are happy with how I'm doing. :) My midterm evaluation went well...better than I expected.

Starting to plan Austin's birthday party....most of the places we've looked into to rent are more than we want/can spend. Our house is too small and it'll be way to cold to try to have it outside! We are tenatively thinking of these date options: December 3rd, 4th, or 18th. My cousin Amy is having her twins first bday party on Dec 10th so that rules out that day and the 11th since my side of the family won't want to travel 2 days in a row. Then Dec 17th is Andy's cousins wedding. Most of his family all lives in town so traveling has never been a issue they've had to deal with! I personally like December 18th because it's closer to his bday and the semester will be over.

Austin still has his cold. :( Took him to the doctor this morning and he doesn't have a ear infection so we just have to wait out this cold which can take up to 2 weeks from the first day of his symptoms. Just very thankful that he didn't develop croup (he was exposed to it last week).

He stood alone for the first time on Tuesday night! He was taking a toy off the couch and let go of the couch for a few seconds so he could hold the toy with both hands. Then he just sat down like it was no big deal! I haven't seen him do it since but I'm sure he will do it again soon.

Still working out the details for November and the first week of December for who's going to take our Tuesday babysitters place. I am going to talk to Kelly and see if she can do any more half days or even full days (shes very busy) because Austin seems to really enjoy her. :) Thankful for that. I honestly wasn't sure how it would work out since we usually only see Andy's family twice a month or so.

Happy 10 months to Austin Jacob!! :)

Poor baby has been sick since late Thursday night. He has a cold with a fever off and on. Hoping he is better very soon!

As far as monthly updates...

-tooth # 1(bottom) is most of the way through...tooth # 2 (top) is about halfway through and tooth #3 (bottom) just broke the surface this weekend. :) Crazy!

-he is super fast at crawling now!

-pulls up on everything and now cruises along the furniture, dog crates, etc

-started waving recently! He doesn't do it very consistently yet but I think he knows what he means. :)

-still loves to dump stuff out of his pails/containers and knock over stacks of blocks

-will usually sit still and listen to someone reading to him...especially if its a touch and feel book or a book that has a button or two that he can push. :)

-loves to be outside still and go on walks :)

-transitioned to his "big boy" seat last weekend! He is rear facing still but was really outgrowing his infant seat as far as comfort and weight go (his went to 22lbs and he is probably 21lbs or so).

-likes to eat puffs, yogurt melts, & shredded cheese as well as his jar food...I think he will be ready for more table food soon.

-still working on the sippy cup...slow process...but thats ok

Found out today that our Tuesday babysitter is quitting at the end of the month! She's been working part time with/for my Mom (which is how we've been able to use her one day a week) but she has found a different job and starts Oct 31st. Sooo...now we have 5 Tuesdays to find coverage for! This also means that I'll be done babysitting her lil guy on Thursdays at the end of October.

Just pray that we can get something reasonable figured out! Andy is going to potentially start working every Saturday so he can get a half day every week to help out on some of the Tuesdays...he already watches him a half day on my Wednesday class days.

Can I just quit now?!? I don't really trust many people to watch him. I'm just so picky! What the heck am I going to do when I graduate and start working??

Starting to get caught up on my reading for school...I was able to get some done during naptime on Friday and then again during Sundays naptimes. :) Still behind and very glad class doesn't meet this Wednesday and make for even more reading! I need to function on less sleep so I can stay up later after Austin goes to bed.

Clinicals at Riley are finally starting to go a bit better. Still HATE the drive and HATE leaving before Austin wakes up. ...leaving at 4:30am is so overrated! My professor is pretty confident that I'll be able to go to Ball Memorial for Spring semester so that will be nicer (I hope). It will be a hour and fifteenish minute drive and there is only one NNP. I'm thinking it will be better suited for my shy personality.

Every time I make this long boring drive while half asleep my dislike for Donna gets stronger. If I still had my job, I could do clinicals here. If she even knew half of the crap we've been through since she fired me, she might feel bad! Probably not though...I haven't heard anything good about her. As you can see I am still not over my termination!

Time to shower, go to bed, and wake up at 3:30am again.

So many emotions this week already. Grr. Not going to type right now because it will just be one looooong rambling vent about clinicals, lack of study time, sleep issues for me, anxiety, missing my boy, etc, etc. Just be praying for me if you have the time!

Happy (belated) October readers! Meant to post last night but didnt get to it. :)

Had a great day yesterday visiting cousins!! :) Love spending time with my cousin Stephanie and her lil man Matthew. :)

This is another 3 day Indy week...then next week is only 2 days. Finally...it'll start alternating like its supposed to.

Need to start planning Austin's birthday party soon!! Can't believe how fast he is growing up. He is very, very active now. Constantly on the move!

My busiest week for September is over!!!

Wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be thankfully. It started with cohosting Emily's bridal shower Sunday the 18th. Then clinicals at Riley on Monday & Tuesday, PICC insertion class in Indy on Wednesday, babysitting all day Thursday, and NRP recertification in Indy on Friday. Whew! Over 1,000 miles on the Equinox this week...and lots of coffee! The next two weeks are still kinda busy but then I'll get a little bit of a break after that. :)

I think Austin is happy to have his mommy to himself this weekend! :) He is such a sweet baby. Very fast on crawling now. He likes to go after the dogs, dog toys, my laptop cord, my school papers, etc.... theres always something more interesting than his toys. haha! His first tooth is showing a lot more now and is sharp!

Just over a month now til my bestie, Emily, gets married!!

Happy (belated) 9 months to Austin Jacob! :) He had a great appointment yesterday morning! Stats are on the right side of the column but I'll list them again with the percentiles... weight 20lbs 11oz (50th%), length 26inches (5th%) and head 18inches (55th%). Everything has stayed in roughly the same percentile which is a good thing...shows he gaining and growing along his growth curve. He still is a shorty...wonder if he'll have a length growth spurt?!

We had a chat about his development and she is very happy with it all. I told her about my comparisons between his 3 cousins of similar ages and she showed my the Denver Developmental chart and how he is within the normal range on everything. That helped to ease my anxiety. Wish there weren't so many questions/exclamations from people though!!! .."He doesnt have any teeth?!!" or "Hes not crawling yet?!!" or "He doesnt devour puffs/cheerios,etc?!" Gah people! Leave us alone. He is doing it all on time!! Your baby/friends baby/relative was probably the exception and not the rule!

Austin did start crawling this past week on Wednesday night. :) Very exciting!! He also has the beginning signs of his first tooth on the bottom left! We can see the white part so it should come through completely within the next week. :)

He is still sleeping 9pm to 7am. Although on the days where Andy has to take him to my Moms or Maya's he has to wake him up around 6:30am. Very nice that it works out for Andy to do drop off and pick up because I would have to drop him off at 4:15am (on 2 of the days) if he couldn't! We do still have some days where he wakes up at 4 or 5 am (about once or twice a week), eats and then goes back to sleep. I don't mind it AT ALL because I miss him terribly when I am in Indy so I enjoy the extra nursing/cuddling session even if it does make me more sleepy. He is still in our room. The video monitor has arrived (thanks mom & dad) so we just need to hook it up and try it out. Sad that he will be in his own room soon! :(

He is also starting to pull up on the couch ...crazy! He doesn't go all the way to standing but he pulls up on his knees. Loves to read and be read to! Enjoys being outside and going on walks with us and the dogs. :)

He is growing so incredibly fast and I can't believe he is that much closer to being a year old!

Compliance officer finally called me back with her decision today (first call about this started Aug 9th). They have decided that I will not be able to do my spring semester clinicals at Lutheran Hospital due to my previous termination. I said "discrimination against a student". They don't care...they have a statement in their contracts saying they can deny whoever, whenever. Just fab. So I'll be driving for clinicals both semesters. Guess it could be worse...I could not be in school and still not have a job. Hopefully I will have employment opportunities (that arent a bazillion miles away) when I graduate in May.

The next step is Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie. They have an NNP who has expressed interest in the past about the possibility of being a preceptor. Hopefully she still has interest and hopefully since they are now part of IU Health there will be no red tape and contracts to figure out.

So...in short..Lutheran Health Network sucks ass! Sorry for my language but I've tried (nicely) to try to get into both Dupont and Lutheran. Management should WANT students to come and LEARN! The compliance officer did say "I commend you for advancing your education."....ummmm ok ...so why deny me a chance to come learn in your facility? Alll I said was "Thank you."

Remind me why I'm in school again?! My stress level is insanely high right now since I am having a huge nervous anxiety attack about the start of clinicals on Monday. After that I hope things will simmer down. I know clinicals will be challenging...its the nature of nurse/nurse practitioner school. JUST SO FREAKING NERVOUS! I feel inadequate compared to my other 3 classmates that have more NICU experience than I do. Just have to type all these feelings out. I know that most reading this are prolly like "get over yourself wacko." ...you try having the responsibility of small babies looming over your head!!

We had a great labor day weekend! :) We took a family trip to the zoo which was fun! :) Andy used vaction time to make the long weekend even longer so that was very nice. :)

Then on Sunday Austin & I joined my parents and some other family members on a trip to my brother & sister in laws house! Austin got to meet a baby pig and get his hair cut for the first time by his Aunt Cassie!! :)

Back to Indy for class tomorrow. Then clinicals start on Monday at Riley Hospital. Getting nervous about being in that NICU!

Happy September blog readers! Soooo ready for fall...this summer has been crazy hot!

Just over a month and Starbucks will have their Pumpkin Spice lattes available! :) Hope I can get one at some point in October...they are yummy. Yes...I look forward to silly things!

My first lecture class of the semester went well. :) We got out early too...can't get used to that though..she said that'll likely be the only time we get out early. Oh well..at least we don't have to go every Wednesday. Being there from 9am-4pm will be an adjustment though...it's hard to sit that long! But we get an hour lunch so thats nice and its not just our professor jabbering away all day...there is a different speaker most weeks on different topics related to neonates! I have a feeling the 4 of us (yes, only 4 NNP students in this last graduating class for IUPUI) will become quite close.

Also found out that clinicals will likely be 10 hour days (7a-5p) instead of 8 hour days. Not totally sure if that'll be the case but the NNP's usually do 10 hour days (4 days a week) at Riley so I don't know what they do with students since we won't take their full case load. If that's the case I will be sad. :( That would be 2 extra hours away from Austin and would put me arriving home after 7 and he goes to bed at 8:30ishpm. Just gotta tell myself its 2 days a week of craziness. One of my classmates thinks its crazy that I am not spending every Monday night in Indy once clinicals start since the drive is kinda long and we have to be there so early. Oh well...we'll see how I do.

Enjoying every minute with Austin! He is soo sweet and so very active now! Not crawling quite yet but he is able to move backwards and roll everywhere. He also gets up on all fours...but doesn't crawl forward yet. :)

September is going to be very, very busy for us so I might not blog as much. Just a warning. :) Theres 2 extra Indy days in Sept for things our professor needs up to go to in addition to class & clinicals...and we have a cookout, a bridal shower, and a baby shower thrown into the mix!

Two bummer things for ya today:

1) Andy did not get the loan officer position. :( They went with someone with loan experience who lives in Huntington.

2) We did not meet the approval requirements to refinance the house. Actually found out about this Thursday/Friday.

...and we are no closer to getting the sitter arrangements figured out. It was kind of put on hold while we were waiting to see about Andys job. (His half day every other week would have went away). We are thinking of seeing if Kelly has any interest in taking some of the Wednesdays so that Mom can take most of the Mondays and the rest of the Wednesdays. It'll all work out in the end. Not sure how you full time working mommies do it! I am not looking forward to working full time after I graduate. Never thought I would have this much anxiety with others (besides Andy & Mom) watching him!

Still unsure about what we are going to do about this whole babysitting thing now that Kelly had to back out of watching Austin every Monday! :(  Quitting school is not an option...as much as I want to sometimes to make things easier! Easier isn't always better though. I'm such a planner and had this all planned out and now just before school starts we have a issue! Wish my Mom could work part time!!!

Austin seems to be feeling better after his upper respiratory infection that he had last week. yay for that! He was 20lbs with clothes and diaper on at the pedi for his sick child appt last week. Gaining fast! He did not sleep well at all during the night all last week...and he is still not sleeping through the night yet after this all started. :( I know I should feel lucky that he slept through the night so early on (4.5mts) to begin with! He has been waking up between 4:30-5:30 give or take the last couple of nights which is an improvement over early on last week.

Class officially starts today but I dont go down to Indy again til the 31st. We just lost our Monday sitter today. :( Kelly was going to be watching Austin every Monday while I was at clinical starting in Sept but she texted today to say that she will have to be on campus every monday ..she didn't know her online class had all the quizzes & tests scheduled for Mondays on campus. Oh well, not her fault. Just not sure what we are going to do now ...so I'm back to stressing out!

Andy has a interview tomorrow at 1pm for the loan officer position that he applied for within his credit union but at the Huntington branch. Wish him luck!!! :) He is very excited about it and we really hope he gets the position!

We are also in the process of seeing if we can get approved to refinance our house to lower our house payment since the rates are lower than when we first got our mortgage. We will know soon...probably later this week.

Happy 8 months to Austin Jacob!!

Time is flying by like always. Crazy!! Austin is a happy little boy who is learning and growing all the time.

He now:
~is usually able to catch himself if he starts to fall backwards while sitting up
~rolls both ways easily
~spins around on his belly to get what he wants
~scoots backwards on his belly
~gets on his hands and knees a few times a day (just started this a few days ago)
~tries to climb you if you're on the floor next to him
~eats breakfast and dinner like a champ :)
~sleeps 8:30pm-7am (with the exception of the past 4 or so nights where he's been getting up at least once a night:( )
~says dada!! :)  (since July 31st)
~gives kisses (he's been doing this for awhile..not sure if I mentioned it in the 7 month post)
~tried puffs on Sunday & then again last night (we break them up into about 4 pieces...so very, very tiny and he likes them so far)

Loves to play...especially on a blanket on the floor where he can sit up and be surrounded by his toys! Likes to be outside, go on walks with the doggies, go to the zoo and to the grocery store (he's a ham for the other shoppers!).

No teeth yet, which is fine by me and his doc. He bites everything though!! Likes to shake/rub his gums back and forth on his teethers ...silly boy!

Wearing 6-9 months clothes and we are moving into 9 month sleepers this week. Some 6 month stuff still fits...just depends on what it is. :)

I am still breastfeeding Austin...this is an accomplishment! Only 43% of breastfeeding mothers make it to 6 mts and then only 22% make it to one year! One year is my goal. :) It certainly takes dedication, patience, and trust in your body to provide.

Tired of being so stressed out. Why does no one want to take a chance and hire a previously terminated employee?!!? I've tried several places that aren't even remotely related to nursing positions and nothing is happening!!!

Had a quick doctors appt today since I felt that Austin hasn't been acting his normal self...the fill in doc claimed he was ok. Austin's pedi is on vaca. Anyways... he weighed in at 19lbs 4oz! Holy moly! What has this baby been eating?! Haha...what have I been eating is the better question. The nurse didn't tell me the percentile but I bet he's still in the same 50% range. Might have to look it up. Just thought I would share! We measured him at home with a tape measure and he was 25.5in this past weekend. :) Growing boy. :)

Happy (belated) August readers!

Didn't feel like blogging yesterday since it was a Indy class day...and class went an hour longer than expected which put me leaving at the start of Indy rush hour (4pm). Guess I better get used to that since class will be 9a-4p in the fall on the Wednesdays I have it. Sorry for that rant...

Anyways...

Andy applied for a loan officer position at the branch of his credit union that is in Huntington. This would be a good opportunity & pay raise. He is starting to get bored being the head teller in New Haven. Prayers that he gets it! :)

Not to much else to say....well, I take that back, I have A LOT of complaining, worrying, stressing, etc that I could vent about right now but I'll take a rain check!

Getting closer to getting the babysitting days & people worked out. A little less nervous now thankfully. Also thankful that clinicals don't start til Sept 12th. Class starts Aug 31st.

Austin is regressing a bit in the sleep department lately. We've been trying to get him to not nap on me. Its a work in progress. Also having to do a formula bottle the last 2 (or maybe 3?) nights. Makes me sad. :( I hope its just a growth spurt...I don't want to give up breastfeeding. He is still a very happy boy most of the time. :)

Andy may be applying for a new position within the credit union.. he's still a bit undecided. It would be more money but its at a further branch.

Prayers for peace and wisdom would be much appreciated.

So, of course after I blog about Austin sleeping til closer to 8am he starts waking up between 6:45-7am consistently since then. grr! Oh well. He wakes up happy so that's all that matters!! :) This is the one thing that is consistent with babies...as soon as you think you know their schedule ...it changes! Gotta just roll with it.

I was able to get all my assessments done at Methodist yesterday (the NNP had to change my day from Tues to Wed)!! Yay for them having 34 babies to choose from!! I was there from 8am-2pm so it wasn't bad at all...and my lunch was free (not to tasty pizza but that's ok). That hospital itself is ginormous...used to be the 10th largest hospital in the US believe it or not but its not as big as it used to be due to some construction improvements and the fact that most adult rooms are single only (versus double). The NNP that I was with has been there for 38 years....talk about some experience with the neonate population!! :) They have 3 NNP's and I spoke with one of the neos that was there yesterday and he said he'd like to hire more and would like to start going through the possibility of having night coverage (more sleep for the neos..but more job opps for NNP's). So maybe that'll be a potential job location after I graduate...we'll see.

Sorry so long! Still VERY anxious and nervous about how the whole clinical and class issue is going to be resolved as far as who will be watching Austin and on what days, etc. I tear up every time I think about how much I'm going to be away from him for Fall and Spring semesters. Just going to have to have a countdown as soon as each semester starts. :( Just have to tell myself that 1)It'll be worth it in the end and 2) in the fall semester I will be with him more days then I'm away from him.