Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful my this little love





Also thankful that my sweet hubby gets home tonight. It's gonna be a fun weekend just being a fam!

Panty Hose

I'm sure you are thinking...what kind of title is that? But panty hose it is. Last week I had to take James to get his dsi photo done so that they can make his cranial band. Some of the sweet girls in my bible study prepared me a bit for what to expect, but other than that I had no clue what this appointment would be like. My friend Shannon warned me that they put panty hose over his head before taking the photos. I figured they put it over the top but certainly not over his entire head. I was wrong.



As you can see they pulled the panty hose right over his face. I thought he would freak out, but not a peep. He stayed calm the whole time. I on the other hand had tears streaming down my face while he was sitting there getting the pictures done. It took all of five minutes, but it just made me sad looking at my sweet baby. He could open his eyes underneath the stocking and he was just looking at me like "what is going on".

It was pretty neat though how they do this. They sat him on that seat and there were cameras all around him that took pictures at the same time. From that they make a mold of James' head and create his band. So it will be a perfect fit for his head. We go next Thursday to get the band and for them to teach me all that I need to know. And then my little buggy will be in his band for about 8 weeks. I'm anxious to start this journey. God has already begun opening my eyes to so many things and teaching me so much through this little boy. I'm so thankful for that!

The dreaded post baby weight

When I was pregnant I think my philosophy was like so many first time preggers...INDULGE! And indulge I did. I mean nothing overboard. It was mainly in my first trimester that I ate a lot of junk. French Fries to be exact. By the time I got to the second trimester I decided to get healthy again. Regardless my pregnancy brought on a whopping 42lbs! Can we say FAT?!?!

I figured you have the baby and BAM they go away. Well not right away, but I sure did think they left soon after baby got here. Boy was I wrong. Those little lbs like to hang out a whole lot longer than I wanted. I can remember going to my 6 week post baby appointment and being nervous for 2 reasons....first a reason I will let you figure out and second I knew that I would have to get on the scale and see just how much weight I would have to lose. I almost didn't want to look. But I did and what I saw made me want to cry....it told me that in order to get back to my pre-baby weight I would have 25lbs to lose. Can we say discouraging? Just a bit. I can't tell you how many people said this line "It took 9 months to put it on, it'll take 9 months to get it off". Worst line ever. It's not at all what you want to hear when you are trying to get the baby weight off.

Needless to say, here we are, my baby is 5 months old now. Slowly but surely my body is morphing into what it used to be, or what it's new normal is. But man oh man is it hard work. I considered myself a very fit person pre-baby. I worked out all the time and loved running. After 9 months of not really doing much I am finding it very hard to get my body moving the way that it once did.

How I'm doing it? Well we go walking/running everyday that the weather permits. (which lately in Charlotte has been everyday!) I have also done the Jillian Michaels-30 day shred DVD. Not gonna lie it is pretty good. It's worth getting. The biggest change for me has been the food that I eat. The Rodrigues household is moving away from so much processed foods and eating things that will be better for our body. This has been very hard. I never realized how much processed food I ate until I started trying to figure out what I should be eating. I am still trying to map this out and figure out all the things that will be taking out of our diet and all the things we are adding in. I'll do a post in the near future with more details.

As hard as this whole "weight" thing has been, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. This weight gain brought me the sweetest little gift. I would go through it all again to have him as the end result. He and Manny are what keep me going. Not sure how much more I have to lose (we have no scale) Judging by my old pants I'm not too far!

My Cutie Pie

Just had to post these adorable pics from Valentines Day. Our sweet friend Ashley made this onesie for James. He was a hit at playgroup that day! :)




Wasn't my Valentine adorable?

5 Months

Happy 5 Month Birthday Buggy! (well technically it was last Wednesday!)

Through the photos you will see how it's getting more interesting trying to take pictures of him with the little card! Ha!

This month has brought along more and more fun!

- You are rolling over (when you want to)
- You have gotten so long
- You are still so talkative
- At 4 1/2 months you weighed 16lbs 11oz 26 1/4in (needless to say Dr. Williams was very happy)
- You constantly have your hands in your mouth
- You are now eating baby food. You eat oatmeal for breakfast and sweet potatoes for lunch. We are getting ready to start another new veggie....I'm thinking peas....mmmm
- You are such a happy baby. You only cry when you are hungry. Other than that you smile constantly
- You are the most tickleish baby. I can barely touch your side and you start laughing.
- You have started sitting up with assistance. I am thinking any day now you'll be doing it on your own!

I swear every month gets more and more fun! We love you Buggy!

Busy Busy Busy

So for my lack of posts. Life has been a bit crazy here on our end. Since January we have had lots of things happen. One of which is that we found out that our little guy has to get a Cranial Band. Most of you know what those are. And most of you would refer to them as helmets. Sweet baby James just never loved tummy time and seems to have a softer head in the back. Thus enters in the band. In November our doctor told us to keep an eye on his head and to keep him off the back of his head. So we did that, but it was a little too late. So when we went for his 4 months check up in January they told us it was time to get the band. I waited to post on it till now because it was a bit of an emotional journey for me to go on. As a mom you have a view on what things will look like and this was not apart of what I thought life would look like for James. You think a million things, but mainly struggled with the way people will look at my little guy. After lots of time with the Lord and some really sweet friends encouraging me I am ready to conquer the helmet! :) This is just a part of James' story, it does not define who he is!

We went a week ago for our first consultation at Cranial Technologies and they were wonderful. James did great too. He talked the whole time and just smiled. Helped make it all much easier. The doctor said that he is the perfect candidate for the band. She thinks that he will only need to wear the helmet for 2 months. Which is really not bad at all. We go back this week for the dsi picture of his head. This will help them create a mold of buggy's head to make the band. It takes two weeks to make the band. And then he'll have to wear the band for 2 months. He has to wear the band for 23 hours every day. He can have it off for an hour for bath time.

My plan is to blog about our journey. It's one that I don't want to forget and would love if me writing about this helped any other mom's going through the same thing with their child!

On another note here are some new pictures of my love bug: