Time to Lose the Mullet

Fenn got his first haircut yesterday (Saturday, Nov. 22nd). We took him to Rusty, the barber Dan uses. His hair wasn't terribly long, but it was definitely looking a little scraggly on top and a little like a mullet in the back. Plus, he had some long pieces in front that would stick together and form a point, kind of like Eddie Munster. We tried to wait until after his 1st birthday, but decided to go ahead and do it so he would look nice for Thanksgiving and his birthday party. When we walked into the barber shop, there was a little boy, probably about 2 or 3 years old, sitting in the chair. He was crying so much, you'd think he was being tortured. We immediately started worrying about how Fenn was going to react. I won't say much more... just take a look at the photos and decide for yourself.

This was cute because Fenn was leaning over to try and see his dad in the mirror.

Kissing Bandit... and lots of other stuff about Fenn

First of all, I wanted to share our good news. We got the results of the first trimester screening on Wednesday. Everything looks good. Our chances of having a baby with Down's Syndrome are 1 in 1,000 something and of having a baby with Trisomy-18 are 1 in 2,000 something (can't remember the exact numbers they gave us). As a reference point, it would be bad news if it were 1 in 350 (or less). And the average for someone my age is actually around 1 in 90 to have a Down's Syndrome baby. So this really was great news for us. These results were very similar to what we got with Fenn. And because of these results, we will opt not to have any further testing such as amniocentesis.

Speaking of our doctor's visit, our next visit is on Wednesday, December 17th. And then we go back two weeks later on Wednesday, December 31st for an ultrasound and to {hopefully} find out if this bean is a boy or a girl.

OK, now to the fun stuff about Fenn. Have I mentioned before that he loves to kiss??? The child will kiss pretty much anyone and anything at any time. They're great big open-mouthed, wet, juicy kisses. Oh, and occasionally he'll get in a little nibble on your lip.

One of Fenn's favorite things to do is watch Petey eat. We don't know why, but he is fascinated with Petey's food bowl. Thankfully, he doesn't try to eat Petey's food any longer. But whenever he crawls by Petey's food dish, he stops to take a look inside, as if wondering where the food is and why Petey is not there eating. If Petey is there eating, he insists on sitting nearby to watch, and even occasionally goes over to pet Petey. We're having to be careful about this, though. Even though Petey has never shown any kind of food aggression toward us, you never know with a dog.Fenn is so, so close to walking. He has gotten much better at walking while only holding one of your fingers. He'll stand for several seconds without holding onto anything, and will even take a few steps to get to another location nearby. We wonder if he'll be walking by the time he turns one on December 10th.I don't think I have mentioned this. He loves blackberries and strawberries. If he sees them, he'll ignore anything else you're trying to feed to him and start grabbing for them.We took him out for his first Mexican restaurant food last night. Yes, he's been to the mexican restaurant several times, but has never actually eaten the food. We got him a cheese quesadilla, rice, and refried beans. He loved it all, of course. He's definitely our child!

Last Saturday, Fenn started riding in his new car seat. He is now facing forward. We're a little early in switching him over, but he weighs enough now and his feet were kind of jammed up against the back seat. Plus, we have a long car trip coming up over the Thanksgiving holiday and wanted him to be comfortable. So far, he seems to like it. On that first ride, he was completely quiet and just looked around the whole time in amazement.

I have a beef with my husband regarding the Auburn vs. Georgia game. We started off the game with Fenn wearing his AU t-shirt, with plans to change him into his UGa t-shirt at half-time. Fair, right? Well, after the 1st quarter... when Auburn seemed to be playing well, I might add... Fenn needed a diaper change and Dan volunteered. I should have been suspicious about that! While changing his diaper, Fenn just happened to pee all over himself, meanwhile soaking his AU t-shirt. So we had to go ahead and change him into his UGa t-shirt a little early. And after that, the game seemed to go downhill from there... at least for my Auburn Tigers. So I am convinced that Dan somehow encouraged Fenn to pee all over his t-shirt.

I found out something interesting about Fenn when I picked him up at daycare one day. I noticed one of the other kids was turning up a bottle or sippy cup and drinking from it. I made a comment about Fenn not doing that yet, and they said he holds his own bottle everyday and has been doing so since he moved over to the Creepers class at the end of September. They said he lies on his mat and drinks his bottle. Then when he's done, he tosses the bottle to the side, rolls over to his tummy, and goes to sleep. I'm like... "Well he never even tries to hold his bottle at home!" Yes, he'll put his hands on the bottle at night, but he doesn't try to take it from me when I'm feeding him. Maybe he just likes for mommy to do it at night.

Another Ultrasound Photo of Piperbean # 2

Here are a couple of the ultrasound photos from yesterday. We're 13 weeks now, so just about out of the first trimester. Hard to believe. He/she is about 3 inches long, and the heartbeat was 154 bpm. Something tells us this pregnancy is going to fly by because Fenn is keeping us so busy. One thing to note... this baby has a completely different profile than Fenn had at this point in the pregnancy. If you want to see Fenn's ultrasound photos, look over in the right-hand margin of the blog, under the heading "More Photos of Fenn". There's a link to Fenn's Ultrasound Photos there. The ones from June 12, 2007 were made at 13 weeks also, so they're a good comparison. I also have another heading in the right-hand margin titled "More Photos of Piperbean # 2". There I have a link to all the ultrasound photos so far.

Fenn at Eleven Months Old

This is Fenn at Eleven Months. This is the eleventh installment in the "12-month onesie" series. I'm having a really hard time believing he is 11 months old. Only one more of these posts to do, and we're done with the little white onesie. It is stretched about as tight as it can go... and has been for a while. Good thing this project is almost done, because it is getting increasingly hard to get a picture of him. I used to be able to lie him down, climb up on my stool, and snap away until I thought I had some good ones. But now I'm barely able to get one picture before he crawls away. He apparently thinks it's a game because he laughs hysterically. I actually had to have Dan help me take this picture. I suppose I'll do this same thing with the next baby. But this time, I'll buy the Carter's brand of onesie instead of the Gerber brand. The Gerber one just happens to be what I found first, before I knew any better. But it runs smaller than the Carter's brand. I think we would be able to see more differences from month to month with the Carter's onesie.

Once again, it has been a busy month for Fenn and for us. Fenn has been trying all sorts of different foods here lately. He devours zwieback toast. He's been eating this for a while, but really loves his Yo-Baby Yogurt and Earth's Best brand cereal bars (both organic). I decided to get domestic on Halloween and baked some homemade (from scratch... where I even had to sift the flour) Pumpkin Bread. Fenn absolutely loved it! It was the funniest thing watching him shove the pieces into his mouth. That day, I also made some Halloween sugar cookies (not from scratch ~ just the pre-made dough in the tube). We let him try them and he really liked those, too. The next morning, we got up and went to Waffle House for breakfast. No surprise here... he loves waffles. I can't think of the rest, but he has tried a few more new foods over the last month. He seems to like most anything and is a really good eater. Two more things I forgot about that he LOVES: Cheese, Broccoli, & Turkey Whole Wheat Quesadillas and Blackberries.
He seemed to take all the new experiences in stride. He loved going to the pumpkin patch, the hayride, and trick-or-treating for the first time. And he had a great time at his very first birthday party. It was for his friend, Ella Kate, from daycare. But we had one new experience we were not counting on until he was at least two years old. We had to take him to the dentist! On Tuesday night of last week (Nov. 4th), I discovered that his left upper central incisor was broken off at an angle and had a pretty sharp point on it. Of course, our first reaction was "When in the world did this happen?" You would think he would have cried when he hit whatever it was that caused his tooth to break. But we could not remember anything from the last day or so, and daycare had not reported any major accidents. I was only able to narrow it down to having to happen either Monday or Tuesday. I may have missed it one night, but I would not have missed it for more than that. Or, I suppose another option would be that it happened a while back, but only weakened the tooth, and then the tooth broke off sometime that day. Anyway, we found a pediatric dentist and got an appointment for the next day. I took him by myself because Dan had an appointment with a client he couldn't change. The appointment went surprisingly well. I sat in the dentist's chair and held Fenn in my lap while the dentist examined his tooth. He fussed a little about having someone look in his mouth, but not much. Then they decided they wanted to get an x-ray. Since I'm pregnant, one of the dental assistants had to hold Fenn. Once again, he did great and was fine having a complete stranger hold him. He protested a little more because they had to hold his mouth open and try to keep him still for several seconds. Not an easy task with an 11-month old. What are you going to do... tell them to "Be still."??? The dentist decided to wait about 10 days before filing the sharp edge off of the tooth. He was afraid of causing any more trauma to the tooth and nerves than had already occurred, thus possibly causing Fenn to lose that tooth. So in the meantime, Fenn is living with a sharp tooth. We go back next Monday to get it filed down. After that, all we can do is hope it is not damaged enough to cause him to lose the tooth. We can get it fixed at some point (i.e., a cap or veneer), but that's a decision we'll make at a later date when he's a little older. It would be an outpatient procedure, but they would have to put him under... which mommy and daddy aren't sure they want to do. Otherwise, he'll have to live with the crooked tooth until he gets his permanent tooth. They took a picture of him at the dentist (something they do for all first timers). They're supposed to send me a copy, but I haven't gotten it yet. I was hoping to have it by now so I could post it. He was all smiles, though!

Remaining on the topic of teeth, Fenn's left lower first molar broke through on Sunday, November 9th. The kid is only 11 months old and has 9 teeth! He is still not walking on his own, but does occasionally stand for a second or two without holding onto anything. So I think he's still a little ways from taking that first step. He has started moving and grooving to music. So cute! He'll bounce up and down to the beat of the music... well, sort of. He definitely likes music, though. And right now, his favorite toys are books, books, books, and balls. Did I mention that he really loves books? Sometimes he'll sit down on the floor with a book and just flip the pages for a while. And one more occasion went by that was really hard for mommy. November 2nd marked one year since we lost Cole. I still cry about him and miss him so much. Oh how he would have loved Fenn!

Introducing Piperbean # 2

As promised, here are some ultrasound photos of our second little bean.
The first photo is from our 7-week ultrasound on October 1st. Can't really see much here because he/she is so small... only about 1 centimeter. But if you'll look closely, you'll see that the head is to the right.The second photo is from our 10-week ultrasound on October 23rd. The head is to the right. You can see two hands on the side of each cheek. And then you can see the body. On the video, we can see the baby moving around and kicking his/her legs. He/she has grown quite a bit in 3 weeks time... at this point is a little over an inch long.We go in for ultrasound #3 next Tuesday to do the first trimester screening. This is a prenatal test (also called the NT or nuchal fold scan) which helps assess your baby's risk of having Down Syndrome and some other chromosomal abnormalities, as well as major congenital heart problems. In addition to some blood work, it uses ultrasound to measure the clear (translucent) space in the tissue at the back of the baby's neck. Babies with abnormalities tend to accumulate more fluid at the back of their neck during the first trimester, causing this clear space to be larger than average. It is not a definite diagnosis, but it can help you decide whether to do some more invasive testing (such as chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis) later on. We did this same test with Fenn, and thank goodness we got good results from it. So we ended up deciding not to do amnio.

Trick or Treating in the 'Hood

Fenn's first Halloween was lots of fun. First of all, they had a party at daycare and took photos in their costumes. Fenn's individual photo turned out great. They said he's the only one who smiled for it. Then they were brave enough to attempt a group photo... inside, NOT outside like they did for the individuals. Fenn is in there, but he kept looking down and his mane covered part of his face. Left to right, the teachers are Ashley, Emily, and Jennifer. And the kids are Sydney, Noah #1, Annabelle, Charlotte, Ariyanna, Mary Frances, Fenn, Ella Kate, and Noah #2. If you'll notice, both Noahs were Pooh!When I arrived at daycare a little early to pick him up so we could get home, get changed, and head next door, Fenn was still sound asleep. I always hate to wake him from a nap, so I sat tight for a little while and talked to his teachers. Meanwhile, Fenn continued to sleep through Ella Kate patting him on the back and head, Annabelle bumping into his mat with a walking toy, and even mommy rubbing his back and head. I finally had to wake him up because we were going to be late. Our neighbors, Wayne and Nicole, were so sweet and had invited several people over with their kids to play for a little while and then head out to trick-or-treat together. When we first got there, Fenn was mesmerized by watching the bigger kids play. He had the funniest look on his face and just sat there for a while looking around.Within a few minutes, he snapped out of it and started playing with Audrey's toys and crawling all over the room. I just kind of like the next photo because it seems to show exactly what he was thinking when he first got there. And then the next photo was taken after he snapped out of his trance. ROARRRR!!!!!Once everyone arrived, we loaded up the wagons and took some photos before heading out. From left to right we have: Suzanne the Princess, Cade the Fireman, Miles the Leopard, Morgan the Monkey, Audrey the Cow, Hayes the Lion, and Fenn the Lion. Trying to get a good group shot of 7 kids in Halloween costumes proved to be quite difficult!I got some cute ones of the "little tikes" wagon. Fenn is only 4 days older than Hayes and only about 3 months older than Audrey. Hayes and his big brother, Cade, just moved in down the street a month or so ago. So now we have about 9 or 10 kids within a block or two that are between 4 months and 14 months old. Six of those kids are on our street! And we also have several more that are in the 3 to 4 year old range. Kids, kids everywhere!I think these next two pictures are funny because it looks like they're carrying on a conversation and laughing about something.

We all headed out to trick-or-treat on our street. We kept Fenn out until close to 7:00 and then had to get him home and feed him. Because we were running late, we didn't get a chance to feed him before heading out, and he usually eats dinner between 5:30 and 6:00. But he never complained. He really was having a great time going up to the doors with the big kids and smiling at everyone who answered their door. Here are a couple more photos from the night. They were taken on the front porch of Ty and Holly's house, who live down the street. Holly grew all the pumpkins on her dad's farm.We had such an awesome time. Thanks to Wayne and Nicole for organizing the group. It was so much more fun to trick-or-treat with other people. We have a great street because so many young families and fun people keep moving in. Oh, and the first photo up at the top was taken while out trick-or-treating. That was his expression the whole night!