Happy Birthday! (still)

We had another good day of napping and awake time. I am starting to see more patterns in William's sleeping/eating routine. This gives me hope that I may be able to predict when the best time to attempt the grocery store is on my own (maybe next week? we'll see) or go to the bathroom by myself. We had a quiet morning listening to the thunderstorm that rolled through and waiting for Mudd to come out from under the couch. This afternoon, we ran a few quick errands and came home for a nice nap!

Tonight we met some of my coworkers at Chilli's for some fabulous fajitas to celebrate my birthday (again, still, whathaveyou). It has been a very long time since I have had the fajitas there - over a month! The night before we had William, we went to Chilli's to fulfill my fajita fix and to try and get things moving along. So, it has been one month I have had to be without my fajitas - they were amazing! We also enjoyed visiting with Laura, Liz and Jeff and catching up with them. William was VERY well behaved. He slept part of the time and was awake and just hanging out the rest of the time - pretty amazing when you figure we were there for almost 2 hours eating and chatting! What a great kid (I realize I might be biased)!


goodnight,

the heidts

P.S. I know it is corny, but I like it cause it rhymes. I may start using it all the time cause I like it so much, even when it isn't night.

Some sunshine this morning!

What a difference a day makes! We are having a great morning! William slept really well last night (I'm not telling how long, I don't want to jinx it!) and now is napping at the SAME time he did yesterday! That is very exciting for me! I actually got to clean 2 bathrooms and sing my favorite bathroom floor song ("how could I forget I had given her an extra key...) while cleaning. This afternoon we might try a trip to Hobby Lobby and maybe stop by the photography studio where I used to work.

Talk to you soon

Kelly

Happy Birthday and Happy 1 Month!

Today is my 28th birthday and William's one month birthday! With most of our celebrating happening this weekend, it was pretty low key today. William had a record setting (for us) day of spitting up and pooping! Happy birthday to me - I guess William was trying to show how much he has grown. Before 3pm, we went through 3 full outfit changes.

Later in the day, we were able to get out for a walk with William and have some adult conversation. For dinner we heated up our leftover fondue to finish celebrating my birthday. After dinner, we gave William his second big boy bath in his tub. I've been noticing it looks like he is loosing some of his really dark hair and tonight it was confirmed when I found a small amount of hair at the bottom of his bathtub. Hopefully, he either grows more in a hurry or looses the rest so he doesn't look like a dope!

These pictures are from tonight and last night - this Little Slugger outfit is one I remember Michael having when he was little. The only thing missing is the blue Little Slugger baseball hat...

goodnight

the heidts

Our Little Slugger

The birthday boy and girl!

...and the walls came tumbling down!

Our Smiley Boy!

We got up this morning to a very proud and smiley boy who slept for over 6 hours for the first time in a week (he ate and went back to bed for another 3 hours)! We all went out for brunch
and then John and Grandpa tackled the next basement task - taking down the walls at the
bottom of the steps in our basement! What a big difference!

The workers with their tools and the sheet rock they took out!

Our new open family room in the basement

goodnight,

the heidts

P.S Happy birthday to William's Uncle Jim!

Happy Birthday!

Today we celebrated my birthday (again) with a great birthday supper at home with Grandma and Grandpa. We made yummy fondue with different kinds of bread and again broccoli. For dessert, Grandma made my favorite chocolate cake with flour frosting - it was perfect. William was a little crabby, but let us eat a nice dinner together until the end. We convinced Grandma to hold William for the last part of dinner - he was much happier sitting with Grandma and seeing the family instead of in his bouncy chair.

Grandpa and William hang out after dinner

John and Grandpa got a lot of work in the basement done today. They think they are close to getting all the wiring complete - that is exciting because then we can have the plumbing and electrical inspected! After that we finally get to put up the drywall!

Mudd helps celebrate my birthday by checking out a box for me!

goodnight,

the heidts

P.S We have pictures that haven't been downloaded from our camera - I'll add pictures tomorrow! --HAH! I thought I had some dinner pictures, turns out it was so good, we just ate it!

4 Weeks Old!

It is hard to believe William is 4 weeks old! It doesn't seem like he has been with us for a whole month. Today, we spent the morning with Grandma and Grandpa McGarry. We enjoyed showing off how much William has grown and learned since the last time they were here. This morning, William had his first bath in his tub - he was really good! He actually didn't cry until we took him OUT of the tub!

This afternoon, we went to Williams 4 week appointment with our pediatrician. William has made some good progress. At his one week appointment, his weight was 8 lbs. 4 oz., 21.75 inches long, and had a head circumference of ? (I need to look it up). Today, William was 10 lbs 12.75 oz., 22.25 inches long and had a head circumference of 39.5 cm. The doctor was very pleased with William's growth and gains. She was really impressed with how alert he was during the appointment. The doctor told us William is in the top 25% for all three areas of height, weight and head size. Based on his size now, she also told us it is likely that William will be over 6 feet tall when he is done growing! That is hard to believe about our little man!

When we came back from our appointment, John and Grandpa Kevin did some more wiring work in the basement while William, Grandma and I went for a walk in the neighborhood. It was almost 60 degrees outside! Woohoo!

Basement progress: we have lights! With switches!

This evening, we all went out to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse to celebrate my birthday! It was GREAT to be out again - this is the first time John and I have been out to eat since William was born. William was very well behaved and slept the whole time in his car seat. We even were able to run to the grocery store and Walmart to pick up a couple of things after dinner.

goodnight,

the heidts

Big Boy Pants

Yesterday was a busy day. We managed to get out for a walk and I got to the dentist. William bottle fed very well again for John while I was gone - Yeah! We also enjoyed a visit from another one of my coworkers who is also on maternity leave this evening. The biggest news of the day is another milestone William has achieved - creating tears for the first time. We don't have any pictures of this event as there was a huge amount of guilt when I discovered real tears coming down my baby's cheeks...:(

Today, the 8th grade floor was celebrating February birthdays with a potluck at lunch time. They made sure to call and invite me for the big celebration. William and I managed to make it on time and both be in good moods! William wore an outfit from the building principals which included a pair of jeans he can finally wear and not look ridiculous in - his big boy pants! I also was able to bottle feed him for the first time while we were out, which made it possible for us to visit with a lot of different people and stop at Target for a few things before heading home. We got home at the same time as John and we went for our first walk as a family! It was great - William snoozed the whole time as John and I had about 45 minutes of time to visit about our day!


We look forward to a visit from the Grandparents McGarry this weekend - they will arrive late Thurs/early Friday morning to see our little boy and do some more work in the basement! We can't wait to see them.

goodnight,

the heidts

Checking myself out in the mirror...

William in his big boy pants

P.S. I have several e mails complimenting my journal about William. Several of you readers out there are questioning my dedication to keeping up the postings. Well, William does not have a baby book of any kind...so far this is the only place I am keeping track the dates and other important "firsts" for our family.

P.P.S I think William's hair is getting lighter...anyone else see it?

What a Day!

We started out a little tired today - William went down to sleep last night at about 11pm. Typically he has been sleeping until between 3 and 4 am. However, last night he woke up crying at 1 am. I got up to feed him (not realizing the time) and as I got things together, William conked back out. So, I put him back in his crib and he slept until 4am. He woke up crying again at 5am and again conked out before I could start feeding him. I put him back in his crib and he slept until about 8am. Let's hope this isn't a pattern!

After a very poopy afternoon (all over me, the bathroom floor, the changing pad, William, William's clothes, etc.) followed by a huge spit up all over the bathroom rug, mom decided it was time for a walk outside. Luckily the weather was cooperating. I took William out for his first stroller ride in our neighborhood. It was great to get out of the house and be moving around - William snoozed the whole time! Here are some pictures of our adventures...

A Night of Firsts

Yesterday, William had his first bottle feed! We also moved his crib into our closet and he slept great in there last night. Tomorrow, John heads back for another week of work... this weekend went by fast!

goodnight,

the heidts

Here we are bottle feeding...

William caught a glimpse of his hands and followed it for a little while...then he got excited and lost it when his hands when flying away....

February 17 - Goodbye Cord, Hello Belly Button!

So this morning, William had a particularly impressive blowout. Upon the hazmat team coming and cleaning him up, we discovered much to our surprise that the umbilical cord stump had also fallen off! He has a full fledged belly button now, but it still looks a bit funky. Guess this means that we can start having bathtime in his tub! However, it won't be happening for a few days because he needed a full on bath this morning - we don't want to dry him out!

Here are some pictures of his new button!




In other news, we all went out to Lowe's last night to scope out the ceramic tile possibilities for our bathroom in the basement and look at some ceiling options as well. William was pretty well behaved, but not enough so we felt like we could grab dinner out anywhere. By the end of our quick trip, he was starting to get fussy and we opted to go home and eat rather than push it in a restaurant...

Happy 3 Weeks William!

Today William is 3 weeks old! Yeah! This means we are officially able to use the pacifier and begin bottle feeding without fear that La Leche League will track us down and yell at us. I think we might give the bottle feeding a try this weekend just to see how it goes. I am hoping it will go well enough so next weekend John can take a night time feeding and let me sleep ALL NIGHT LONG! Woohoo!

In other news, we are going to try and move William into our walk in closet this weekend off of our bedroom. His room is on the opposite side of the house, so he has been sleeping in his pack n play in our bedroom to make the night time getting up a little easier. Plus we are having some difficulty in heating up William's bedroom to above 56 degrees... We figure the next step is the closet to have him a little further away to work up to actually putting him in his bedroom.

The other big question of this week is: How do you put a sweatshirt on a baby? It has been pretty cold here this week with temperatures in the low teens and twenties (okay ND & MN people, quit laughing - it is COLD for St Louis). We are penny pinching people who don't like to pay for heat, and we always just put on a sweatshirt. Today, I think we have the sweatshirt alternative for William - a fleece sleeper. It is big on him and has a stinky football player on it, but it was on clearance. Most important, it is warm!

Here are some pictures of him hanging out with his frog friend and his sweatshirt!

February 15 - Big Day Out!

Today was the talent show at West Middle School where Kelly works and her fellow teachers have spent the last few months putting together a performance for the show. The talent show started at 2 pm....Kelly really wanted to go both to visit and see the song/dance routine they had put together. However, this required she take William out on her own on a chilly day (12 degrees) to a crowded, noisy place. William having an unpredictable schedule in the afternoon and evening - it was risky.

At 1:45pm, she realized that William was done being fed for the next hour (at least) and both mom and baby were in clean clothes. She decided to chance it! Although the two arrived late for the talent show, they got to see the teacher performance and show William off a little bit before she came back home. It was great to get out and see everyone! William had a great time - he feel asleep in the car and slept through the talent show as well as being passed around to several coworkers. He woke up just in time to eat when we got home!

In other big news, we ate our leftover fondue for dinner with BROCCOLI. It was good as far as broccoli goes...

February 14 - Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! John made our traditional fondue for dinner and our little guy snoozed through dinner (what a great gift!). We are very thankful for our little Valentine today! We hope everyone had a great day!

Lots of love!!

John, Kelly and William

P.S. I think we are finally caught up with entries...the dates should match from now on!

Snuggling with Daddy on Valentine's Day!


What Willam should have been wearing on Valentine's Day- no uncle Mike, they don't make onesies in your size!

February 12- Daddy is back at work & we're smiling

Today was John's first day back at work. It was a long day, but all three of us survived.

In other news we think William is starting to smile at us purposefully. Our books tell us it is to early for this by a few weeks, but after the last several days, we are convinced. If it doesn't look like a smile to you, don't tell us because we are enjoying this very much (could be our sleep deprivation). He is at his best early in the morning. He is hard to catch at it with a camera still because the smile comes and goes quickly. Also, when I get the camera up to take his picture, he becomes very focused on the camera and becomes confused looking instead of cutely smiling.

Here are the pictures we have our smiley boy!

February 10 - Heads Up!

We are noticing William is getting a lot stronger and better at holding up his head when he is laying down on his tummy. Unfortunately, William does his best work with his head up when he is unhappy and crying. He really REALLY likes being on his tummy so, most of the hours he spends on his tummy every day doesn't add up to true tummy time of work. Our theory is that it is easier for William to get his hands in his mouth because they can't fly away as easily when he is on his tummy. Here are some pictures of his progress.

February 8- Dinner and GREAT news!

Tonight, Kelly's coworkers brought over dinner from Applebee's for us. This is the second meal in two weeks they have brought us - we are going to get spoiled! We enjoyed the quick visit, good food and opportunity to show off William.

Later in the evening, we checked our e mail and found out William is going to be getting TWO new cousins on the Heidt side of the family in August!! We are SO excited!! We are excited for the new parents AND because William is going to have two cousins almost the same age to get into trouble with when we come home and visit family!

February 6 - Good bye Grandpa!

Today we were sad to see Grandpa Heidt leave to go back to Minnesota. The next few days we are are going to work on helping Kelly get ready to take on William on her own when John goes back to work on Monday the twelfth. It is a big job!

February 4 - A Bath and Another Grandpa

Today Grandpa Heidt is coming from Minnesota to see William for the first time. We thought this was a great occasion for William's first bath in the light of day. He has had two baths already in the middle of the night or early morning when they were VERY necessary (read: we are still learning about the best diapering technique for William...). William was NOT very happy about being without clothes and wet at the same time and made sure to let us know.


We got him all dressed cute in the outfit Mike and Tien sent to us. Within half an hour William had a major spit up all over the outfit. We got him cleaned up and changed into his next cutest clean outfit to show him off to Grandpa. An hour later, William hosed himself down while we were changing his diaper. We were getting low on the outfits and mom and dad started to worry (okay, just mom). William managed to get dirty one more change of clothes before Grandpa arrived and then one more just after Grandpa pulled in to our house. Guess that means we will be doing some laundry!

February 2 - Pediatrician Visit

Today was our one week check up with our pediatrician. We were a little stressed about the whole thing because we haven't been anywhere with William and weren't sure about the feedings and timing of getting there. It all worked out fine.

We found out William had gained back all the weight he lost in the first few days. When we left the hospital, William had gone down to 8 pounds. Five days later, William is back up to 8 pounds 8 ounces. The doctor was very happy about this - she told us they like to see babies gain back to their birth weight by the end of the second week. William is already past his birth weight at the end of one week!

The doctor let us know because William is gaining weight so well, we don't have to wake him up for feedings every three hours and we can use the pacifier without worrying about him missing a feeding. YEAH! Everything else was looking good and we were asked to come back at 4 weeks. Our next appointment is February 23.

In other news today, the Grandparents McGarry left this afternoon. This makes us sad and a little nervous to be just the three of us without any backup from Grandpa and Grandma. It was nice to have them here. John and Grandpa got almost all the plumbing in the basement completely done. The plumbed the shower, sink for the bathroom and put in another laundry tub in the workshop in just two days. WOW!

January 31 - Grandpa arrives and a Birth Announcement

Today is the day Grandpa Kevin got to meet William for the first time! The new grandpa got here about 8 pm in time for calzone dinner and to hold William for the first time. Grandpa will be staying until Friday afternoon when he and Grandma will be going back to Minnesota.. boo.





The other thing we did today is finalized William's birth announcement, got it printed and mailed to 50 lucky people. For some reason before he was born, we thought 50 announcements would be plenty. Now it seems like we missed a lot (LOT) of people we would have loved to send one to. I am going to try and get an online version of it going here to show off some more...

January 28 - Lots of tests and we go home!

Today was a big day for all of us! William decided he was HUNGRY during the night and had a cluster of feedings that were no more than 2 hours apart. This made for a very long night - and a very tired day on Sunday. Between feeding and people coming in to do checks, we got probably less than 3 hours of sleep that night. We knew we were supposed to go home in the afternoon sometime and William had a few things we needed to clear up.

The pediatrician came to discharge William first and again declared him perfect (first exam was yesterday) and ready to go home. The photographer came and took his picture for the hospital website (links are at the bottom of the page) and the OB came back to circumcise him all in a row. He also had a hearing screening (passed, no problems) and a blood test for some metabolic disorders. Then, the nurse came in and asked us what time we were leaving. Silly us! We thought the hospital would tell us when we were ready - turns out we were supposed to know what time we were leaving. We thought about staying to take a nap before leaving and then decided to head home during the daylight hours in the hopes it would be warmer (it was in the teens during the day) for the baby.

We packed up and left the hospital about 4pm to go home with our baby!

Here are some pictures of us leaving the hospital and arriving home!

The links to the hospital website:
http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage.asp?URLID=0O6X8B0B7Z
http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage.asp?URLID=6C6T9S5D1T

January 27- William August

After our baby was born, John was able to make most of our phone calls to the family and friends who had been anxiously waiting. After hearing our baby was born, the biggest question was "What is his name?" We didn't have an answer. Honestly.

We went in with three different boy names. I'm not telling you them anymore because I don't want to hear that you like the other ones more than the one we picked. Kelly was counting on seeing the baby and knowing what he needed to be named or a mad rush of hormones to determine the name of the baby. Saturday the 27th, John took Grandma Kim back to our house to get a good nights rest after Fridays excitement. When John got back to the hospital, it was time to name our baby. Both of Kelly's plans fell through - we didn't have a clear choice on the name.

In the end, we went with the first name we agreed upon when we found out we were pregnant. William August Heidt. Every name we talked about after that had to be measured up against this one. William is a name we both liked and also has some family connections. William is John's middle name. August is Kelly's great grandpa's middle name and John's great grandpa's first name.

So, for those of you who thought we had a name and didn't want to tell people - we honestly didn't! Here is a picture of our William August Heidt!

January 26 - Happy Birthday Baby!

The best place to start is the beginning! Here is the short version of what happened: Our baby was born on Friday, January 26, 2007 at 8:46 pm at St. Luke's Hospital in Chesterfield, Missouri. The baby was 8 pounds 4.4 ounces and 21 inches long.

Here is the long version of what happened (warning:some parts are a little descriptive!):

We were scheduled to be induced at 8 pm on Friday after long weeks of waiting for our baby to come. The previous weekend, labor had started and stopped on Friday and Saturday. Kelly was getting more and more uncomfortable and with our doctor we decided to schedule an induction for the 26th.

Throughout the week, Kelly suspected that she might be leaking fluid. On Tuesday, we went back to the doctor to be checked. The doctor couldn't tell if fluid was leaking or not. One test came back positive and the other negative for amniotic fluid. Kelly was dilated to 4cm (up from 3 cm the previous Friday) and totally effaced and station -1. At this point, the doctor commented to us for the third time since the middle of January: "I'm not sure why we don't have a baby yet! You are dilated, effaced and ready to go - all that is missing is contractions!"

Friday the 26th, the fluid leaking was increased, so we went back to the doctor's office. Again, one test was positive and the other was negative. But, the doctor advised us to go ahead and go to the hospital early to be monitored and have them break Kelly's water to get things going. If needed, we could continue with the induction in the evening if labor hadn't progressed.

We arrived at the hospital at about 2:30 pm and got checked into a room. Kelly was hooked up to monitors and found she was having contractions (no pain) regularly. The baby's heart rate was good and by 4pm the house doctor came in for an exam and broke Kelly's water. The doctor also let us know Kelly was dilated to almost 5 cm. Kelly's water was broken at about4:15pm and almost immediately hard labor began.



The contractions were very intense and had almost no break between them. Kelly tried walking and different positions/breathing to help with the pain. After about a half hour, Kelly requested an epidural to help with the pain. She was given the epidural at about 5:20pm. During that hour, the nurse informed us Kelly had progressed quickly from 5 cm to 7 cm. The epidural made a HUGE difference. We were all able to relax and Kelly even took a short nap while we waited for our baby to come.

At around 8pm, the baby's heart rate dropped for a few seconds and the nurses came in and told us that Kelly had had 4 intense contractions in a row which meant she was probably "complete" and our doctor had been called. Our doctor arrived and had us start pushing around 8:15pm. During the pushing, the baby's heart rate again was dropping to low levels during contractions and the doctor warned us if we didn't deliver the baby soon, she was going to have to help him out. Kelly took this to mean a C-section as she couldn't see the vacuum being set up. Kelly did NOT want to have a C section if she could help it and really put everything she had into the next 2 pushes. Our baby boy was born at 8:46pm after about 30 minutes of pushing. He had his cord wrapped around his neck and looped once around his body which we were told was causing his heart rate to drop.




Present at our baby's birth was John, Grandma Kim and probably Grandma Heidt. He needed a lot of suction to clear fluid from his lungs, but was given an APGAR score of 6 after one minute and a 9 after five minutes. Kelly was able to feed him after about an hour of being born. Although it went a lot quicker than we thought it would, we were happy to have our baby boy after four and a half hours of labor!

Purpose of our Site

After looking over the websites for several other new families and trying to keep up with our family and friends near and far, we are going to try this out! We will try to update this at least once a week with new developments and changes that are happening at our house. We are already behind with some people, so I am going to go back and try and hit some of the major changes at our house over the last two and a half weeks!