March: What You Missed

  
I'm back! Ok, so I did occasionally google-search what to do with a 3 month old who's TEETHING, but mostly was offline for the month of March. In the previous post I explained why I decided to do this and listed some goals for my time. While this time has been fruitful, I sadly didn't accomplish as much as I would have liked. Mostly because of my extremely fussy, teething baby, mentioned above. So here's a crazy mega-post to cram in everything I have wanted to blog about during March. I'll break this post up into mini headings you can treat as mini blogs if this gets too long...

A Year's Worth of Change
One year ago last March, We were pretty discouraged as it had been 6 months and we still weren't pregnant. I know 6 months isn't that long in the scheme of things and that many people try much longer than this unable to ever conceive, so I hope this doesn't sound insensitive. That said, when you are hoping to start a family, I think most of us just assume it will happen as planned in our heads, and since we're so concerned we will get pregnant before we want to, we figure it will happen as soon as we do want it to. So, for us, for me especially, it was a very long 6 months wondering if we would ever be able to get pregnant. One year ago the first week of March, I remember getting more people involved in praying, for us to conceive, for our emotions/hearts, and for us to be content with whatever the Lord had for us. We attended a Parenting Conference by Russell Moore at church the first weekend in March, hoping and praying we would someday be parents. Early in the morning- 4am to be exact- on March 17 (St. Patrick's Day), I woke up and couldn't sleep. I was almost positive I wasn't pregnant, but couldn't wait any longer to find out. So, I sneaked off to the bathroom half asleep and took a pregnancy test. When I saw the two lines, my mouth actually hung open as wide as was possible, I got really lightheaded and shaky, and couldn't stop saying, "Oh my goodness...oh my goodness...oh my goodness..." I ran back into our bedroom where Dan was obliviously sleeping and shook him until he woke up. "Dan?? Are you awake?" "Yeah..." he said groggily. "Are you sure?" Dan took out his earplugs. "Yeah." "I'm pregnant!!!!" "Are you serious???" And we celebrated laughing, talking and hugging, taking pictures of us with the test...goofy things like that. By the way, those pictures will not be posted as it was 4am, as I said. Anyway, we were amazed to look back and see that in my darkest hours emotionally when I was ready to give up, even while we were praying with others, I was already pregnant. At the parenting conference, we were pregnant. Now a year later I look back and think, if only I had known what the Lord had been planning in his perfect timing. I can't believe it's been a whole year. Praise be to God! Below is a fun little video of when we told my parents we were expecting. They were visiting from Chicago, so we cut out letters and taped them to the wall in their guest room/future nursery that said, "Baby Schmidt's Room" and then led them on a tour of the house to show them all the updates since the last time they visited, ending up in their room/Charlie's future room.

March 2011 Online Break
Like I said, I didn't get as much as I wanted to accomplished, but I am glad I took a break, and now can't imagine how I had time to be online as much as I was! I was able to catch up in my Bible reading plan and keep up a daily quiet time, which has always been difficult for me. I really have enjoyed these times with the Lord and I love seeing how the Old Testament and New Testament confirm one another so amazingly. Our small group is going through Francis Chan's book Crazy Love, and I highly recommend it. It has really challenged me to take a good hard look at myself and make sure I'm not just an American church-goer, but am really in love with the Lord and committed to him above all else. It's so easy in our culture to think we are Christians because we simply attend church, have morals, and outwardly appear to be Christians to others. But that's just religion. Where is your heart? Where are your affections? Do you have a living breathing relationship with Christ? Would you sacrifice your life for Him? Do you count everything in your life worthless compared to Christ? Just some questions I asked myself that I think are good to ask yourself occasionally. I think this online break has also helped me prioritize a bit, and I'm hoping to be online a bit less in general.

Charlie is 4 Months Old Tomorrow!
Which means, he turned 3 months last month while I was offline. Here are a couple of his 3 month portraits from Penney's...

And here are some new milestones!
Charlie began getting pretty fussy around 2 1/2 months. This continued until...well, he's still really fussy. But we finally figured out WHY about 2 weeks ago. A tiny little white speck on the side of Charlie's gums...yep, a tooth at 3 1/2 months old! Weird thing is, it looks like it is his canine tooth on the bottom. That same day I spied another tooth on the other side on the bottom- possibly the other canine? Then again, before the day was over, one of his front middle teeth on the bottom starting coming through! That's right. 3 teeth in one day at 3 months old. No wonder he's been impossible to soothe for a month! I'm pretty sure his other front middle tooth will be coming in soon, as it is red and puffy looking, as well. Poor guy! Weird thing is, I had a dream the night before I saw these teeth, that Charlie got all his teeth in at once! Oh dear.

A few weeks ago I plopped Charlie down in the sitting position on the changing pad (on the floor) and let go. Amazingly he didn't fall over! He sat up for a good long time until we picked him up again! He doesn't sit up super straight, but he can support himself enough leaning forward to not fall over! He also grabs our fingers and pulls himself into a sitting position from laying on his back.

While Charlie's been mostly unhappy and fussy this past month, he's laughed a bunch of hearty laughs in between cries. It's so much fun to make him laugh! As soon as I can catch this on video, I'll post one...he is pretty camera shy, though.

Charlie has discovered his feet and they have developed a beautiful relationship this past month... he now grabs his feet while he's being changed and screams his head off when I try to put his clothes on (because he can't grab them anymore). I even caught him sucking on his foot the other day...gross!

Charlie started sleeping through the night on a regular basis at 3 months old, which we were very grateful for. However, since he has been teething, many nights are sad and painful for him now and he's not quite sleeping as well as he had been. We finally moved Charlie into his own room in his crib this past week, too, and he's mostly adjusting to the idea, with the exception of his teething issues waking him up frequently. Hooray!

As of today, Charlie weighs 16 pounds, 5 ounces, and is  26 1/2 inches long. Didn't gain as much this past month, so perhaps the crazy growth spurts are over for awhile! 

Well, I think that's everything new for now... Happy 4 Months Charlie!