Running around like a mad man

So Anderson is full on walking now, sometimes speeding up to a slow run. It is amazing how much ground he can cover in a short amount of time. Who knew those little legs could move so fast.

His favorite way to pass the time away is to walk around the entire yard, walk in the dirt under the house, and walk up and down our driveway. We learned that you never try to pick him up when he is playing downstairs because he will throw a fit. For some reason he always needs to be carrying something in one of his hands while walking. He will pick anything up to use, a piece of grass or a pointy stick (his favorite thing to find). The only bad thing about playing in the dirt is that there are a lot of rocks for him to chew on. He thinks it is pretty funny to put a rock in his mouth and chomp down while running away from us as we try to get it out of his mouth. He is really sneaky too about eating rocks, sometimes you don't realize it until it has been in there a while, which is kind of scary.

He knows how to climb upstairs and knows how to get off of our bed (which is on the ground) and out the door safely, but he has not mastered going down more than one step.

His personality is really coming through now. He is such an active little boy and doesn't like things like dogs or us standing in his way. He barely takes the time to eat or sleep during the day since all he wants to do is play. He laughs a lot, which I love, and will look at me when he knows he is about to do something wrong and then smile. The best sound in the world is him laughing when Craig tickles his side with his beard. Anderson also likes to get his way. He has already started a short tantrum and new noise expression when I take something away from him that he cannot have or pull him away from the dog water bowls he loves splashing in. I have a feeling the terrible 2's are going to be really bad!

Even though he is quite a hand full, we are loving every minute of it. It is so much fun to interact with him, make him laugh, and cuddle with him in the morning. We are so blessed to have such a great little guy! Hopefully I can still say that when he becomes a teenager.

Chasing the little one

Welcome to the next step in parenting, chasing after a crawling baby. Sometimes he is ninja like, one minute he is right next to me, the next he has made it completely across the room to the dog bowls. He enjoys trying to get the dogs, which they do not enjoy as much. But, Sorrel, the youngest dog, also Grenadian, has started to play with him some. It may actually be she is just trying to get away from him, but Anderson loves it either way. Within a week of him learning how to crawl, he also started pulling himself up on whatever he can. So not only do we have to watch where he goes, now we have to watch and make sure he doesn't do a face plant into the tile from higher up. Luckily he has sort of mastered simply falling on his butt from standing, but we still have the occasional fall followed by a loud thunk and then crying. Hopefully he doesn't get too battered and bruised.

We have not totally baby proofed the house, but we are working on it. Craig installed all the cabinet door locks in the kitchen, placed plug covers, and tried to hide our computer wires. And somehow he still finds ways to get into trouble. I am a little worried that he is going to be just like me. Anytime we take him away from a trouble spot, which he thoroughly enjoys, he makes a fuss or growls. Craig believes that those reactions are exactly like me. My parents always said I was a stubborn little shit, and now karma is a bitch.

In some ways I wish he would just stay in one spot when we put him down, but I do love seeing him smile while crawling up to his toys, after the dogs, or up to one of us.

6 months

I am 2 weeks late on posting this, but I cannot believe I already have a 6 month old. Since the last post Anderson had his first plane ride, first trip to Texas, visiting friends and family, sitting on his own, eating solid foods, and attempting to crawl. So we have definitely been busy.

Anderson and I headed back to Texas at the first of June to meet the grandparents, great grandma and his cousins. The flight to Miami went well, but once we arrived it kind of all went downhill. The gate we were flying out of kept having a fire alarm go off and there were fire fighters in full gear there checking it out, so that was not comforting. We were also delayed due to heavy storms involving lightening. Then our gate ended up changing, but they were not able to announce it due to the fire alarm. Luckily I kept noticing people leaving so I went to ask myself. I ended up walking to the other gate with the flight crew and one of the pilots. Once we got to the next gate we found out we were delayed some more. Then, once we finally boarded the plane, while Anderson was crying his little head off since it was bedtime, we find out all flights out had been canceled due to weather. So we had to head on over to the hotel in the airport and get a room for the night. We were not able to get our luggage so I could not use any air conditioning while sleeping since I did not have any pajamas for Anderson. The next morning I had to go check in and poor little man was freezing while were waiting in line to check in. Luckily a couple let me go ahead of them so we could get done faster. We finally made it to Texas after losing a day of vacation.

Visiting all the friends and family was great but overwhelming. So many strangers at once did not go so well. And he was totally thrown off his routine and was not taking his normal nap times. Luckily he was still able to sleep through the night.

Heading back to Grenada was an even worse time then coming to Texas. I gate checked the stroller in Dallas and placed it under the big blue sign that says LEAVE STROLLERS HERE. But once I got to Miami, there was no stroller on the plane. How do you not load the stroller on the plane? I was SOOOOO mad. I had to lug him around the airport and he is not a tiny baby! They were hoping that it might make it on the next flight, but of course it did not and I did not end up getting it in Grenada until 5 days later. Also, when I arrived in Grenada, one of my bags was lost and of course it was the bag with all my clothes in it. I received that bag 4 days later.

Anderson was a pretty good traveler, he was able to sleep some and the passengers next to me liked to keep him entertained. But I do not ever want to travel with him by myself until he gets much older!

Anderson is now eating solid foods for one meal a day, and seems to love everything I give him, except peas. He has eaten mangoes, papaya, bananas, apples, pears, carrots, peas, and sweet potatoes. I hope he keeps eating like this and does not become a picky eater.

Before this post gets way too long I am going to stop writing and hopefully post again soon.

Jumping Around

Anderson absolutely loves his jolly jumper. We can just put him in it and he at least stays in it for 30 minutes or longer, what a great invention.



We go in tomorrow for his 4 month check up and vaccinations. I am anxious to see how big he is. He seems like is growing so much. I know he is getting bigger since it is putting a huge strain on my back. Picking him up and carrying him around is absolutely killing my back. The aches and pain started in my lower back, now it has moved up my entire back. So far no pain relievers have helped. We used biofreeze last night, which is amazing, and it felt good while I was sleeping, but once I was on my feet again and lugging him around, the pain returned. I received a massage as a gift, I really need to cash in on that. I also need to check out the chiropractor by our house.

I think I was able to get him to laugh yesterday. It wasn't a full giggle or continuous laugh like we may do, but it sounded a lot different than his usual squeals of delight. Randomly he just started to laugh after I changed his diaper and I was playing with him on the changing table. I had my head down kissing his belly and he laughed. I was able to keep him going for a little bit and trying yelling for Craig to come hear, but he stopped soon after. I was no longer amusing to him. Even though he smiles a lot, for some reason we are just not that funny!

He has started to grab at absolutely everything, especially my hair. Even when I have my hair up, he finds the back of my head where the hair does not fit into the ponytail and has fun pulling it. This is not a good thing since my hair is falling out big time from postpartum hair loss. Hopefully that ends soon because hair is everywhere! He also has started putting everything into his mouth. He is really fond of this little stuffed cow. He likes to chew on the tail and butt and it gets soaked quickly. I may need to look into washing it at some point.

Growing up too fast

I am sure I have already said this a thousand times, but Anderson gets more and more fun to be around everyday. They just grow up so fast, and if you blink you miss it.

He is "talking" a lot more now, especially after his morning nap. We can have an entire conversation about who knows what. I pretend I know what he is saying, but obviously I have no clue. I really wish I knew what was going on inside that pretty little head. We are on a pretty good schedule right now. He has been sleeping from 8pm - 6am, and only occasionally wakes up either at midnight or 3am every so often to eat. He then takes a morning nap at around 8 and his afternoon nap around noon. Sometimes he can stay up until his bedtime, or he will take another nap at around 5pm.

We have several play stations to try to keep him entertained, a play mat, a walker, and a bouncy chair. Soon we will be getting a jolly jumper, which I hope he will enjoy as well. He loves when we take a walk outside, either just around the yard or on our daily walks. He also LOVES watching the dogs. He will just stare at them laying on the floor or follow them with his eyes wherever they go. It will be interesting when he starts crawling to see how he interacts with them. Right now Clyde is still indifferent to him. He doesn't ever want to get that close. But we can tell that he wants to protect him. Sometimes at night I have caught Clyde sleeping in Anderson's room. And one night when our neighbor was shooting his pistol to kill an iguana, Clyde went to lay by Anderson's crib. I think he knows he is part of the family, but he still wants to keep his distance for now.

We just took our first family pictures and I cannot wait to see all of them. You can check out a sneak peek of them at www.shaefferphotography.blogspot.com. It was a lot of fun and Anderson did pretty well. Can't wait until he gets a little bit older and will do what you say for the pics (I hope). But Lexi did such a great job trying to keep Anderson entertained and she was able to get him to smile some and actually look at the camera.

I am back at work now and not really enjoying it. I like staying at home with Anderson, but luckily school is almost out for the summer, so I don't have to be here too much longer. Craig is doing great as a stay at home dad. I have definitely noticed that Anderson really loves his daddy. I find this both great and sad. Only sad because I am jealous of the time I am losing with him during the day. Sometimes when I come home I feel like Anderson doesn't remember me or did not miss me at all while I was gone. I am sure he has no idea what is going on and still loves me no matter what.

This is such an adventure, and we are loving every minute of it!

3 months old

It is amazing how much Anderson changes week to week. We see him developing and learning new skills every day (of course we think he is so advanced). He smiles a lot, which I cannot get enough of. He has been batting at and grabbing toys, sort of walking in his walker, and rolling on to both sides. He has gotten better at tummy time, lifting his head up for a long time and actually staying on his tummy for a while. At first he would get upset and cry when he was on his stomach. But as I am typing this, he just fell asleep during tummy time. I have started baby signing with him. He won't be able to sign back anytime soon, but hopefully knows what is going on and he can soon tell us what he wants before he speaks. I am really excited about it. Every morning I do the ABC's and he just stares at my hand while I am signing, so hopefully that is a good sign.

He is growing so big. Some mornings when I pick him up I swear he is bigger than the night before, like I can feel he is heavier and longer. He has grown out of a lot of clothes, and some of the clothes we got he never even got to wear. I am so glad we received used clothing from friends so we don't feel bad about him growing out of them.

Last night he slept in his crib and own room for the first time. I of course did not get much sleep worrying about hearing him and just worrying in general. The monitor we have works great, but I still got up everytime I heard him, which I know now I just need to let him sleep. A couple times in the night when I went to check he was wide awake, I gave him his pacifier and he went right back to sleep. I am going to work on just letting him figure it out on his own, because I know he can. Also, Craig built a UT longhorn mobile to hang in the crib which Anderson loves looking at.

We are having so much fun with him and each day only gets better. We have been trying to go on walks everyday to get me back in some sort of shape and keep the dogs in shape. Anderson seems to love our walks. He just looks around everywhere at the trees and sky. He has fallen asleep a few times, but mostly he is so content with taking in what is all around him.

We are going in on Thursday to apply for his US passport. The US requires so much information it is ridiculous. I am surprised they don't make me sign it in blood and hand over my first born son to get it. I have to give locations and dates of everywhere I have ever lived, all our marriage info, when Craig and I first met, and Craig's divorce info. I am really not sure why a divorce decree is needed since that has nothing to do with our child. Like I said they need a lot of information. We are going to look into getting the Grenada passport as well, which surprisingly is really easy to get, I just need to get the paperwork.

2 months old

I am sorry it has been so long since I have updated this, haven't really had much time to sit down and write. I cannot believe we already have a 2 month old (he is actually 9 weeks old today). Time really flies and he has already changed so much since he was born. When looking back at his first pictures he looks like a completely different baby, it is so strange. He got his first set of vaccinations the other day and that was sad. The doctor had me try to breastfeed to kind of trick him to think we weren't doing anything bad, well that didn't work. He still cried and was not fooled when I switched him to the other side to get the other leg. But he made it through just fine and both Craig and I were able to comfort him and settle him down.



He has started to smile a lot, knows when we walk by him and enter the room, focuses his eyes on our face and everything around him. It is so neat to see a little bit of personality forming, cannot wait to see who he takes after more, for our sake I hope its Craig! My parents have told me many stories of how stubborn I was (still am) and I hope he doesn't get it from me, but it runs in the Tiller line so I am not sure how much of a chance he has of not getting it.



It is crazy how much you can love some little thing that only eats, pees, poops, cries, and sleeps. We cannot get over how beautiful he is and how much we love everything he does. Even when he cries, he has the cutest cry ever, you can't help but to say aww and even laugh. At first it only seemed like he wanted me. I guess since I was supplying all the food he could not be bothered with anyone else. But now he has turned more into wanting to be with daddy, which I love, but secretly wish he was still a momma's boy. It is great seeing him love Craig so much though, I am so glad they have a great bond going. I know he still loves me though, since I still am getting up at night to feed him. We also dance together which always calms him down.



For the most part he is a great baby. He really doesn't cry all that much and we are getting better at knowing what he wants. He has started sleeping 6-7 hours at night and the night feeding is usually only 2 oz. So I am hoping he is starting to get where he won't need to wake up to eat, I can dream I guess! I can't wait to move him into his own room and crib. Right now he is still in the bassinet/pack n play in our bedroom and I still hear him every time he moves around and makes noises even when he is asleep.

Every day seems to get better and better, this is such a fun time!

The Arrival of Anderson West

Beware, this is going to be a long one. I am a little late posting this blog, but that can be expected, dealing with a newborn is tough work. I was induced on Dec 30, 2009 first with a pill that dissolved on my cervix at 9 am and then pitocin at 3 pm. Anderson finally arrived at 6:27pm weighing 7lbs 12oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. The doctor broke my water at around 3 pm, came back at 6 to check on me, and within 30 minutes Anderson was out. It took a total of 3 pushes to clear his head and then one more got him completely out. The delivery part really wasn't all that bad since it went by really quick. The contractions part is what really sucked. They do not have epidurals here, so I did it naturally with no drugs. Not sure if drugs would have helped the contractions, but I wish I would have had something to help me out. The pitocin made my contractions right on top of the other, I rarely had a break. Also, his shoulders were pushing against my abdomen constantly and it was really hard to tell if a contraction was over since the pressure was painful.

Of course it was all worth it when he came out and we saw his beautiful face and heard him cry. I received plenty of stitches since I went so fast, the midwife never had time to help stretch me out. I told Craig on one of the head pushes that I knew I ripped!

I had packed a bag to take to the hospital based on several lists I read about what to bring. I guess I need to make a new list on what to bring to a Grenadian hospital, we were so unprepared. I didn't bring any diapers since the US list said the hospital would have plenty, well they didn't, only one. Craig had to run to a little store to get some for the overnight stay. Also, I did not bring a blanket to wrap him up in, luckily someone had left one and we borrowed it. I did not bring a bath towel either, so the midwife had to find me a towel to use after my shower. And one last thing, I was not able to find maternity pads for the heavy flow after wards and the only heavy flow ones did not really do the job. I kept bleeding through and onto my clothes and onto the bed with white sheets. I also did not bring enough change of clothes. So now I know for next time to come way over prepared.

In the overnight hospital room they have an air conditioner, which stayed off most of the time since the nurse thought it was too cold in there for Anderson. Meanwhile, I am drenched in sweat trying to sleep dying of heat stroke. Anderson had on a onesie, footie pj's, a blanket, and a hat, yet they thought he was too cold. He was probably getting heat stroke too!



Since we have been home with him for over 2 weeks now, it has both been tough and wonderful at the same time. Luckily my mom got here to help when he was 2 days old, and just left yesterday. I am so glad she was able to visit us and really appreciated not having to do any dishes and laundry.

He wants to eat constantly and has now started not wanting to sleep during the day, he always is fighting off sleep. Since I am nursing, it has been tough keeping up with his constant demand of wanting to eat. I would really like to pump more so that Craig could help with feeding, but Anderson rarely gives me a break and he really doesn't leave any milk for me to pump in between feedings. Hopefully he will soon get tired enough to sleep long enough so I can get some more sleep. Craig is getting plenty of sleep, lucky daddy. He never wakes up at night when he cries or makes any noise. I wish I could sleep through all those noises that are not cries!

Hopefully we will both figure all this out soon enough. We both love him so much, even when he cries, he is the most precious and beautiful boy ever!