Sunday, December 18, 2011

December 18, 2011

So obviously, I have not updated my blog for over 6 months. I'm lame! Anyway, I am wanting to write down some of the things Will has been up to.
To follow up on the last post, we were able to fix the whole bad behavior thing. It took a good week of Will being super stubborn but Mommy won the battle! He since has loved his bottle and I'm really not looking forward to taking them away! I love our Mommy and Will time, just the two of us. He is SUPER active and that is the only time he is still and snuggly, so I love it.
This summer we made our first attempt to camp with a baby. Neal's family love to go camping every year so we thought we would give it a go. We ended up driving home every night so we could keep Will on his schedule. At that point he was still waking up at 3:00am for a quick feed and back to sleep, we we didn't really want to do all that in a tent! We went to Twin Lakes in Idaho and had a really good time. Will took his naps on the boat and had so much fun with all his cousins.
Will is a total water baby! This summer we went swimming with a new friend from the ward and her son who is a month younger than Will. We went to the Aquatic Center and oh my did Will love it! He just splashed and splashed, his little buddy however, did not love it as much as he!
Neal went out on two wild-land fire deployments this summer so he was home a total of 2 days the month of August. It was a really difficult time for me to be honest. I can totally empathize with single mothers. Neal was in an area that did not receive any cell phone service so I only spoke to him a handful of times. Little William is so wonderful and I am completely in love with him, but day in and day out of being together just the two of you is very trying. I learned so much patience that month because I couldn't just say, "I can't handle this anymore, you take over". But we got through it and Will was so excited to see his daddy, it was a beautiful reunion!
Toward the end of September, Will was starting to get pretty brave and try his hand at walking. He was doing well and taking a step here and there and then got a little nervous and gave it a break for a bit! He was the super crawler and looked kind of like a spider monkey! It was sweet! In October he decided he was ready to walk like the big kids and took off and literally has been running ever since!
October was filled with fun and excitement for Halloween. Will was a dragon and really loved wearing his costume! We got to go trunk or treating in Lewiston with Neal's family and then back to Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner and more candy, then we met up with my family at Stu and Janae's house where my mom put on Neal's mask and scared all their trick or treat-ers!
I do have to mention the bad along with the good, I guess. We were at Stu's house watching their children with my mom and dad. Stu and Janae got home and all the adults were talking and hearing about what Stu and Janae had done while out. I had Will right with me and turned to clean up his things and put his bottle in my bag when I heard this soft thud like sound. I turned and will was barrel rolling down the stairs. I just saw his panicked little face as he flew half way down. I was in pure shock as I raced to catch up to him. I started screaming, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh" until I grabbed him and just clung to my baby. I reached the top of the stairs to find the rest of my family running to meet us and I just broke down sobbing. How could I have been so careless to let my baby just fly down the stairs? Luckily he was not hurt and went right on playing minutes after it all happened. Me, on the other hand, I was a wreck the rest of the night. My dad had to give me a blessing to calm me down and to top it off Neal was at work that night so I had the whole house to myself to worry about my Will. I think I went in his room 10 times to make sure he was okay and breathing. The image of his little face still pops up in my head every now and then, it was horrible. You never want to be so helpless when it comes to your little baby.
November brought joy to us. William Aaron Gibbons turned 1! What a wonderful day it was! We started it off with opening presents. He got a new birthday shirt that went along with the theme of his party which was a car theme (not the movie Cars, just race cars and such). He also got some tractors, cars, and transformers from Mom and Dad. Then the rest of the day was spent with Will and Daddy hanging out and having some manly times while Mommy baked her bum off making probably the best cupcakes anyone could ever eat! I made approximately 110 cupcakes! I know, I'm a bit crazy. So as I mentioned it was like a race car theme, so we had a birthday banner that was on black and white checkered pennant flags, checkered flag plates, a round cake with a gum paste race track with gum paste race cars, and some party favors in the shape of the orange driving cones filled with cars fruit snacks! Oh and we made the sidewalk leading up to our house like a road with a "finish" sign at the foot of our front door so everyone could race to the party.
Will had a blast at his party. All of Neal's family made it over including his Grandma and Grandpa Bullen who hadn't seen our house before so that was nice, and all of my family came as well. Needless to say, Will was super spoiled by all his Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins. He got cars that moved, he got an Elmo guitar, an actual Lighting McQueen that he can sit on and scoot with, clothes, blocks and the list goes on! He ate a bit of his cake but didn't really care too much for it! And with all the excitement and stress of it all, I managed to not take a single picture! Haha, good Mom huh?!
Thanksgiving was an okay one this year. I had a 24 hour stomach flu so I wasn't really engaged in much that day, but I think everyone else had a lovely time. I sure did enjoy the leftovers though!
That brings us to now. Will is the smartest little man! He is just learning so much and I love to watch him figure things out! Right now he can say: Woof, Moo, Neigh (which is very accurate!), Quack, Ritbit, and Meow. When asked, "Will, what does Santa say?" he will reply with a deep low voice, "Ho, ho, ho"! He knows how to say "light" and says it every time a light is turned on. He can say "socks" and "shoes", also "breakfast" and "uh oh"! He is so great at following directions and gets very proud of himself when he does just what you've asked him to do. Right now his favorite thing to do is make mazes out of the kitchen chairs and weave his way through them and pop out on the other side. His favorite foods are yogurt, bread, dried apples, mac and cheese, toast with Marmite, bananas, and pretty much whatever is on Mommy's plate! He eats most things, but will not eat a green bean to save his life!!
I love my sweet little boy and my wonderful husband. Life always has its challenges, but the love for my great little family makes it all seem okay and doable. I can't think of a more wonderful little boy and I am so happy to be able to experience everything with him.































Saturday, May 21, 2011

May 21, 2011

I am horrible at keeping a journal and blogging reminds me of that! I do want to just write down some things about William so that I have them written and can look back on them!
When Will was 7 weeks old he rolled over from belly to back, at 3 months he was able to sit in the corner of the couch and look out (he loved that), at 4 months he was able to roll from back to belly but then forgot how to get onto his back again! In January of 2011 Will got hit with RSV, what a sad thing. He was super congested and we had to keep putting saline up his nose to try to break up the mucus on his lungs. He of course hated that!
We blessed our sweet little William Aaron Gibbons on February 6, 2011. It was such a wonderful day! Neal did a terrific job of the blessing, I was so proud of him. We had Neal's parents, Jason, Whitney & kids, Robert, Shara & kids and his grandparents there to support us and also my parents, Stu, Janae & kids, Russ, and all my dad's family from Salt Lake. It was such a great day, we went up to my parents for soup and desserts with great family and friends!
Will is now 6 1/2 months old and just is learning like crazy! He can roll from back to belly at lightening speeds and then roll back from belly to back. He does a little backwards scoot, but doesn't get very far with that! He as a little bouncy chair thing with toys on it and just loves to play in it. He gets so excited that he will squeal and scream and whack the toys while I watch or try to accomplish cleaning the dishes!! He has the most expressive face, especially his eyebrows! He has been that way since he was born and I love it! It's a different face for each second you look at him! He is a chatty little fellow and loves to listen to other people in a conversation! This worries me a little because I know that when he is old enough he will share any and all of Neal and my secrets!!
Just recently Will got bronchitis and an ear infection. It was awful. He had this terrible cough and was just not himself. He recovered from that about 3 weeks ago and since then he was having trouble drinking his whole bottle. He would arch his back and then throw his head around and just wouldn't take it. It was literally a battle every 3 hours! So I figured that he wasn't feeling well and maybe the ear infection had come back or something else was bothering him. I took him to the doctor this past Tuesday and Dr. Bruce checked him out and the said that he was a healthy baby! He then told me that my sweet, gorgeous, innocent little boy had developed a bad behavior!!!!! Seriously. A 6 month old baby, MY 6 month old baby has behavioral issues!!! It would just happen to Neal and me!!!
To fix this problem I have to now feed him on his regular schedule of every 3 hours and once he starts to do his freak out thing I have to stop and take the bottle away, no matter how much he eats. So on Wednesday he ate 7 oz., on Thursday he ate 9 oz.,and yesterday he ate 11 oz. So I guess you could say we are progressing by 2 oz. each day, but I'm telling you it has been the longest 3 days ever!!! He is just fussy a lot of the time and not acting like his sweet happy self! He is still sweet and happy at times but not nearly as much as he used to be! Hopefully we can get this under control and go back to being our happy go-lucky selves!
I am so lucky to have such a wonderful little boy! He is my complete world and I can't believe it sometimes that he's mine and that we will all get to be together for ever. Since having William I have come to know love in a totally new way. Everyone tells you before you have kids that you don't know what love is. I, being the stubborn person I am, thought I know what love is. I love Neal, I love my family I definitely know what love is. Then on November 4th my comprehension of love grew insurmountably. Not only did I discover the what the love of a mother was but I discovered how much love I was capable of. My love for Neal overwhelmed me. I didn't think I could love him any more than I did before Will and as soon as we met our sweet boy my love for Neal grew more then I can explain. The love for my parents and brothers has grown so much as well. They help me out so much and I get so excited to see them with Will and I get so excited to think about Will's future and how much fun he will have with his Nanny, Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles and cousins!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Oh my word what a wonderful blessing this little man is! Everyone, this is William Aaron Gibbons. He was born on Novemeber 4, 2010 weighing 7 pounds 5 ounces and 19 1/2 inches long. I'm sure a lot of it is my crazy hormones, but I'm overwhelmed at what a perfect little boy he is. I can't even imagine life without him and he's only 5 days old! Neal has been such a great Dad so far and I'm sure will only get better. He is such a great help to me as I am healing, I can't thank him enough. It's funny, you think you love someone so much that it can't grow deeper, but my love for my wonderful husband has done just that. I'm so happy to have my little family and can't wait until I can enjoy it more pain free and maybe sleeping a little more!!!