What the What?!

So ironically after I posted Landon's 7 month photo on Facebook to an incoming slew of wonderful comments about how adorable our little guy is, the next day something was brewing. And it wasn't adorable. Or cute. Or even okay. It was straight up a little something I like to call "What the what?!"

"Gimme' a break; I can't be super cute all the time." *

Healthcare professionals officially call it Hand Foot Mouth Disease. Now I've never heard of this before, but I guess it is really common. That, however, does not ease the heartbreak of seeing my baby boy so uncomfortable and covered in crusty sores. It kind of look likes chicken pox.

This was the first time I ever felt Landon with a fever. Picking him up from his crib and realizing he was super warm was the first moment of panic. His head turning in disgust and crying at my attempts to feed him his favorite foods was the second moment of panic. The lethargy - another notch. By late afternoon - boiling blisters on his bum. The next day - more blisters popping up on his (you guessed it!) hand, feet and mouth. What an aptly named virus.

A couple of deep breaths, a lot of soothing (only a mom would snuggle a crustball this much) and the ever prominent mantra of "This, too, shall pass" will bring us through the next few days as this fades out on its own.

* Not a great photo, but I am sparing the viewing audience the ones I have that were close up and with flash. [enter: involuntary shiver]

The Great Escape

I'm starting to liken Landon to Stewie from Family Guy as he seems to become more scheming week by week. But more like the cute cerebral side of Stewie; not the side that is always trying to kill Lois.

This past week's excitement came in the form of watching Landon sit up on his own (good job, buddy!), pull himself up on his own (great job, buddy!) and then try to swan dive out of the crib on his own (no no no, buddy!) all within a 5 minute time span. There is no real end to the video, since I abandoned watching his goofiness and ran to the nursery once I realized what he was about to do. Joy.



Update: The video is not working on some mobile devices for some reason. The link for the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYgf838ln5E if you want to watch it from a YouTube app on your phone.

A Real Parenting Site

I think there needs to be more stories told such as the ones found at www.longestshortesttime.com. I'm not trying to be a jerk and scare moms-to-be, but for all the times that someone says "Well better sleep now, 'cause you won't have time later! Mwah-hahaha!" when they find out your pregnant, I think you become numb to the fact that you should probably really be stockpiling zzz's as per the unsolicited recommendation.

The site is dedicated to stories about the trials and emotions that new parents experience during childbirth and during the first few months. No one is trying to sugarcoat anything and no one will tell you that all the pain and frustration disappears when your baby farts for the first time. Hallelujah to a forum for real experiences of the emotional spectrum.

Phone = Crawling

You know how people tell you that kids rather play with other objects other than their toys? Like the box a toy came in? Or that a 6 month old can differentiate between a play phone you give him versus the real one? Yeah, all of that is true.

Pears = Squinting

This I Can Do: Baby Food

I have inflated my mothering confidence this week as I stuck to my plan of making baby food for Landon. Contrary to popular belief, you can't just nibble on some Snickers and then regurgitate it onto a high chair tray for him to pick at, avian-style. That would be too easy. However, it turns out that pureeing your own baby food isn't that hard, either. And it is a lot cheaper... like 80% off, bargain bin prices... but organic!!!

Turns out that one butternut squash makes a sh*#-ton of baby food.

First off - baby food itself isn't that expensive. Fifty to sixty cents a jar for organic stuff down in these parts. A couple bucks for a box of rice cereal. A buck for a jug of nursery water. But these things add up when you have a baby who is growing a mile a minute. At our 6 month appointment, we learned that Landon was a little low on the weight scale for his age (like, 15th percentile low) so I'm not sure if I've been generating low fat milk somehow - which surely is impossible given my love of fast food - or if Landon's energy bursts are just continuing to burn calories. In any event, he scarfs down a couple jars a day in addition to a couple full servings of rice or oat cereal. Books say "just start with a tablespoon" - Landon decided to start with a cup. He gained half a pound the week after his 6 month appointment. Onwards and upwards.

Baby food: this I can do!

Introducting Carrots: A Step by Step Guide

Our experience with introducing carrots, Landon's first vegetable, at 6 months.

Step 1: Open jar.


Step 2: Wince with great displeasure at vegetable flavor.


Step 3: "Are you serious? We are really moving forward with this?"


Step 4: Try to grab bowl and throw on floor in defiance.


Step 5: Ponder resignation. *Sigh*


Step 6: Acceptance.

Landon Learns to Swim

After a few comments I've received, I'm belatedly editing this post to point out that Landon is indeed laughing with pure joy in this video. He is not crying - it's kind of my personal philosophy to not post videos of my son being tortured.

This was Landon's first swim at the pool at our resort in the Dominican Republic during my brother-in-law Christian's wedding weekend. Our friend Carey used to be an infant and toddler swim instructor, so we definitely lucked out on learning some pointers so Landon didn't have a meltdown.

Snoozefest 2011

Woohoo! He sleeps through the night! Goes to bed at 8:30p and wakes up around 7:00a. I thought it may have been a fluke, but it's officially four nights in a row now. Hallelujah. Now I've just got to get back in the mode of continuous sleep - my body still wakes up around 4:00a instinctively. I'm pretty sure I can kick that habit this week. I'm also hoping my body will get on board with adjusting my milk supply this week, too (ouchie!).

Halvorson San Antonio Weekend

I'm a little behind on my postings, but as Facebook photos have advertised, we did have the Halvorson family down here to visit a couple weekends ago. Grandma, The Dude and Aunt Schming flew in for a 3 day weekend. They forgot to tell Uncle Bobo until it was too late - woops. Sorry, Uncle Bobo - you were missed!

Anyhoodles, our journey began in San Antonio which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Kingsville. Of course the majority of the weekend was spent meandering around the River Walk, reviewing menus and slumping into chairs, ordering crisp beers to battle exhaustion. It was a great time and after a chilly morning, the sun came out and graced us with its presence. It worked out well there was the Texas Independence celebration (in the form of reenactments at The Alamo) and also Mardi Grad weekend (in the form of beads pelting us on the river bank).

Staying classy with Bud Light tall boys.

Staying classy with copious amounts of Mardi Gras beads

The grandparents promptly bought Landon some San Antonio accessories while we were out visiting all the little shops along the way. The only thing missing was a mini gun holster.

"Why am I the only one in this get-up, Mom?"

All in all, Landon did a great job keeping up with the shenanigans. It doesn't hurt when you are super portable and can be carried everywhere.


The last day was spent relaxing back in good ol' Kingsville. We visited the King Ranch museum (beautiful black and white photos of ranch life - me likey and want to go back!) and ate some simple soup to allow our tummies to adjust back to normalcy.

The house felt really empty after everyone left... more visitors please!!!!

Yumm-o

Landon tried out putting some solid food down the hatch this weekend. Ironically, we did not try the whole "here comes the airplane!" approach with the spoon - we just kept things simple.



I was a bit hesitant to start him on solids despite the fact that it's pretty common to give it a go around the four month mark. I'm not quite sure what my hesitance was (maybe I'm lamenting another milestone which continues to propel him out of babyhood?), but I could no longer deny the fact that Landon intensely stares at us while we are eating. He even started to make some uncoordinated hand swipes at our plates recently.

So it has been marked on the calendar: Landon James Halvorson ate rice cereal mixed with booby milk. The high chair has been assembled and the backup pack of bibs has been opened for this new daily activity.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Wow, so we achieved a random milestone this afternoon: Landon rolled over from his back to his tummy. It's rather random given that he hasn't really rolled over from front to back yet, which would be the "normal" first step in the progression of things. I love this kid; he's setting his own path... an individual already.



PS: His male pattern baldness is very evident in this video. It doesn't look quite so horrible in person and if you can believe it, it's actually starting to grow back in. [I dearly love how he has maintained the mini "rat tail" since birth, though.]

PPS: Although he oddly seems to have quite a muscular upper body (re: splashing video), the hand weights in the background are not his. I work out "the guns" (*cough* with 3 pound weights *cough*) while he works on tummy time.

PPPS: I'm so scared he can roll over now. I will be watching the video monitor like a hawk during naptime and bedtime. And so it begins...

Splashing and Laughing

We finally caught Landon's giggles on camera! He thought splashing around was hilarious. I'm glad his dad taught him this life-changing skill.

Note: Yes, I had some trouble with focusing the camera and yes, the memory card was full so the video cuts off abruptly. Spielberg I am not.

The World's Next Genius?

I'm pretty sure Einstein started out chewing incessantly on his hands, too... right?

Wiggle Time

Landon loves to wiggle! I'm just merely holding him in this cuteness escapade - the wiggles and waves are all his.



In actuality, though, we all know that his body is really just trying to balance his huge balding noggin. But! It is the cutest, most endearing balding huge noggin I've ever seen.

Birth Story: Landon James Halvorson

Around 3:00a on Tuesday morning, November 2nd, 2010, I woke up with some cramping pains. Having not had any contractions nor any other signs of labor in previous weeks, I just kind of brushed off the pain as the Braxton Hicks ("practice") contractions and tried walking around the house to ease up the crampiness. Erik woke up but I told him to go back to sleep and I assured him it was nothing.

In the meantime, the pains were coming more regularly every few minutes and I started to finally have my suspicions that something (THE thing) was going on. Then I went into crazy nesting mode, putting things away in the nursery, cleaning up the kitchen, etc - stopping every couple minutes to breathe through a contraction. By 5:30a, I told Erik it was time to call the doctor. They told us to come in to the hospital to be checked - yay! And yet: I hesitated some more. I told Erik I wanted to take a shower and repack my bag - I was pretty sure once we left, we weren't coming back. I think I was hanging out to absorb the last few quiet moments, as well. There was excitement in the air as Erik and I were anticipating what lay ahead and it was just a very special moment. We arrived at the hospital around 6:30a, Erik with coffee in his hands and me with a pillow stuffed in mine as I worked through the contractions.

Sure enough when we were evaluated at the hospital, we found we were in active labor. But when the nurses were checking me, they looked slightly quizzical and a debate started whether they were feeling the baby's head or the baby's butt. Sure enough, it was butt. Poor guy was getting his buns poked at. The doctor came in with the ultrasound machine and confirmed that the little booger was indeed breech. This means somewhere between his Thursday appointment and Tuesday morning, he had a disco party and flipped around. Erik and I thought his movements were odd throughout the weekend, but we did our "kick counts" and everything seemed fine movement-wise. Now we know that - after months of being in the correct position for his grand exit - he was poised for a different entry into the world.

I sat in labor for another hour or two - they tried to slow things down with medicine, but everything was moving along a little too quickly to nip the pain in the butt. I have a whole new respect for women who naturally progress through labor without relief - those several hours of contractions were admittedly very painful and all attempts at breathing/focusing were half-assed in effort as my eyes begun to cross.

By 9am, we were headed to the OR to prep for our c-section and Landon James Halvorson was born at 9:43am. It took a few seconds to hear his cry, but when the sound hit our ears, Erik and I started crying immediately. The doctor's first words were "Wow, what a nice round head you have!" And then it became known to us that the kid had a full head of hair. To our surprise: It was a full head of brown hair. Erik and I both kept commenting that we thought he would be blond. Erik was able to walk over to the clean up area to meet Landon right away and follow him to the nursery. I was able to greet him with a kiss while the nurse nuzzled him against my face and it was of course a ridiculously special moment that was far too brief. I hung out for another 20 minutes or so while they finished up the business on my tummy. I was then reunited with my new little family about an hour later in the recovery room.

So overall things did not go as envisioned originally, but what really does in this life, anyways? He is here and he is healthy... and I believe he is happy. It will be our mission to keep that going for the rest of his life.

All our love...