Successful surgery

First of all...for those of you who knew it was happening,  my surgery was successful!  And for those of you who didn't know...my surgery was successful!  I had an right arm ulnar nerve decompression and transposition on April 2.  The reason was because I had been having quite a bit of pain in my elbow, lower arm, and hand for the last few years.  Imagine feeling like you smacked your funny bone several times a day without ever even moving your arm.  Lately, it became quite unbearable and constant.  Along with the pain, my pinky and ring finger were almost constantly numb and it was driving me nuts!  Basically the Drs moved my ulnar nerve (funny bone nerve) from the back to the front of my elbow.  My younger brother, Andrew, had a similar surgery several years ago and my older brother, Josh, recently had the surgery, too.  I guess it runs in our family.  When Josh got his surgery it gave me the nerve (no pun intended) to finally take care of things.  So I had the surgery on April 2 at the U of U Orthopaedic center and other than a bit of recovery pain, things have been great.   It was difficult not picking up Jacob for a couple of weeks, but Tony was a great help and took care of him while I was recovering.  The best part is I can now feel my pinky and the pain is mostly gone!  

 Here are a couple of pictures of my newly acquired scar.  It is in a really good spot because no one can see it unless I awkwardly hold my arm over my head. My arm is still a little swollen and blotchy, but nothing too disgusting.

The Dr. said that if I hadn't had this surgery done, I would have eventually lost muscle function in my hand and would have had permanent damage.  Hooray for modern medicine!

Outside....Finally!

A few weeks ago, we were able to take Jacob outside to play in the park.  As you can see from the pictures, he loved it!  He was in heaven playing on the swings and slides.  He also just loved running around and not being confined to a small space.  We look forward to many more adventures outside with him this summer.  I know that I am a little biased, but I think he is adorable.

Swinging

    

Watch me slide! 

It was really great to see him enjoy himself so much.

Sleep update #1

So after consulting the ever informative internet and reading a little more of "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby" we tried something new last night.  We put Jacob to bed when he first acted tired (6:00pm).  I made sure that I did not hold him until he was asleep, but put him down drowsy, but awake.  He fussed for about 15 minutes and then went to sleep.  We checked him before we went to bed and then did not go in his room again until he woke up this morning.  Around 12:30am I heard him crying and saying 'mama', but I was strong and did not go in to pick him up.  He cried about 10 minutes (maybe more, but I fell back to sleep) and then slept until 5:30 this morning.  I can handle 5:30 because that's when we get up anyway.  Also, because I didn't give him a bottle or drink during the night he woke up and actually wanted to eat breakfast.

Hopefully we can stick with this plan of getting him to bed a little earlier and then letting him soothe himself.  I just hope I can tell when he really needs me during the night.

Suggestions for getting the boy to sleep

Ok, I thought that when Jacob was sleeping through the night by 3 months that we had it made.  But now our little man has decided that he should wake up at 3-4 am and won't go back to sleep for 1-2 hours.  We have tried giving him milk, water, and letting him cry (not so good at the last one after 20 min or so of him screaming).  Nothing has worked.  I think that part of it might be that he is getting 4-6 more teeth, but there is only so much Motrin he can have.  

Here is his schedule

6:30-7:00 pm - in bed usually w/o a fight

12am-1am - wakes up and screams until someone comforts him

3am-4am - wakes up and won't go back to sleep

6:30am - grumpy and wants to sleep.

So, all of you experienced moms out there send me your suggestions.  I don't mind waking up and helping him if he has serious needs (like when he puked all over in bed), but for Tony's sanity as well as mine this has to stop.

Constantly Amazed

I just have to say that I am constantly amazed over how quickly Jacob picks up new words and learns to identify new objects.  Kids are just little sponges and I love watching him learn to recognize new animals and other things.  He keeps us completely amazed.

Ashes

So Jacob learned to play "Ring around the Rosies"  at the babysitter's house.  Over the last few days he has been walking around the house saying "ashes".  The only problem is that "ashes" doesn't really sound like "ashes" and more like....well, you can figure out what it sounds like he is saying.  He also has a habit of saying something that sounds like "hole" immediately after "ashes".  I really don't know what he is trying to say, but every time he says it reminds me of that movie, 'Meet the Fockers', where the little boy picks up swear words and just keeps repeating it.  Now, this is not a phrase that is used here in the Peterson household so I am sure that Jacob is just trying to get me to play Ring around the Rosies.  I know that we shouldn't laugh, but it caught both Tony and I off guard and we have laughed quite a bit about the whole thing.

On another note, Jacob has learned to fold his arms and be mostly reverent during the prayer!  I nearly started crying when he folded his arms in church on Sunday.  

January pictures

I finally went to a portrait studio to try to get some nice pictures of our little guy.  I thought that I was doing well because he was dressed in a cute outfit and was in a good mood.  I was wrong.  I put my happy little guy on the ground for the photographer and he proceeded to run like mad.  The pictures you see are the result of nearly 45 minutes of taking shots.  Most of the pictures were fuzzy flashes of something somewhat resembling Jacob.  I had the pictures taken at Target and was pretty happy with the result as well as the patience of the photographer.  My only suggestion would be for them to close the studio door so that my son can't escape and terrorize the candy at the nearby check-outs.