Wow, two years. It feels like so much has changed but yet everything still seems the same. We are still living in the same place and I still have the same job however my husband switched jobs and he is absolutely loving what he does. Declan is doing incredible. Motherhood has been the most challenging, frustrating, stressful, wonderful, amazing thing I've ever experienced. It is so true when people say "the days are long, but the years are short". My baby is going to be THREE in just a few short months. I'll try to recap as best I can on what has been going on....
Summer/Fall 2017 was kind of rough for Declan in terms of health. We dealt with numerous colds, roseola, pneumonia and croup. The roseola and pneumonia were both ER visits and very scary. We were told that because of Declan's conditions at birth, he would be more prone to respiratory illnesses the first two years of this life - they weren't lying.
In July 2017 Declan was put into our local Birth to 3 program for troubles eating. This is something I touched on lightly in a previous blog post - mentioning that he struggled with the texture of any solid food; at that time he was only 7 months old so it wasn't a huge concern but after a few more months we thought it best to be proactive. He had an initial evaluation at our home with 3 therapists (2 occupational, 1 speech) and they observed him eating and assigned him to a therapist that would come to our home bi-weekly. He never got an official "diagnosis" but he would gag and throw up with any texture more than a stage 1 puree. Therapy continued for exactly one year and was a godsend and he has been doing fantastic with food ever since he graduated from the program.
First Birthday 9/27/17 - We had a huge party at my parent's house. It was a lot of fun. It was puppy themed which was (and continues to be) his favorite animal. We had almost 30 people show up, ordered pizzas, had a ball pit for the kids and Declan was very spoiled with a TON of gifts.
In November 2017 (at 13 months old) Declan officially started walking
and he quickly went from walking to running in about two weeks!
- Then things slowed down a little bit, which was very welcomed after the crazy Summer -
Summer/Fall 2018 we had a ton of fun, we took our first longer road trip/vacation with Declan and went about 3 hours north for a long weekend by the lake. Declan went on his first boat ride and seemed to enjoy it. Because winters are so long here, we really try to maximize our time when the weather is nice; so we made it to just about every zoo in the state. We also had a children's museum membership so we visited there often. We also had many visits to the splash pad.
In July 2018 I quit pumping after 22 months.
Second Birthday 9/27/18 - Instead of a party this year, we decided to have an entire week of fun. My husband and I both took a week off work and we went to Wisconsin Dells for a few days and invited Declan's godfather and his girlfriend along. It was an awesome time. However, the day we came back we ended up going to urgent care where Declan was diagnosed with Croup for the second year in a row. We caught it early and started steroids so fortunately he was only under the weather for two days. After the sickness passed, we spent our remaining days at a huge children's museum out of town and the last day was spent at a local pumpkin patch. It was the most quality time we had a as family since Declan's birth. We decided that until Declan can decide, we will do a party every other year and give him "experiences" the years in between.
This past winter was again, pretty uneventful (fortunately). In regards to health, Declan just had one REALLY bad cold that lasted about 3 weeks and kicked all of our butts simultaneously. The only other big news is that I decided to go back to school. When I was 18 (many moons ago), I signed up for the Surgical Technology program at my local college. One of the prerequisites was Chemistry and despite my best efforts, I got a C. To the average person this wouldn't be a big deal. However, I have spent my life putting these insanely high expectations on myself. I strive for PERFECTION in everything I do. Trust me, I'm trying to work on it. Anyways, getting that C crushed me and I dropped out of the program and went a "safer" route with Medical Billing. I never pursued work in that field though because it's not where my passion lies. My years of infertility, two D&Cs and my cesarean ignited a fire within me again to pursue my dream again. So, in April 2018 I signed up for the same Surgical Technology program at the same college I was enrolled in 12 years prior. I'm going part-time because I'm still working and mom life but I'm so proud to say I've finished my first year on the Dean's list, was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and was just awarded a scholarship for next year. It is A LOT to juggle but I'm also so excited.
Other than that, this Summer is going well so far - crazy amounts of fun..as it should be! I will try to be better about posting. Aside from others reading my journey, it's enjoyable for me to look back on too.
Until next time!
xoxo
