2006 year in review-Another crazy year!
January started the year out with the birth of our first baby boy. Logan's birth was & will always be the most amazing moment in my life. There aren't words to explain how I felt. They just don't do it justice.
The following weeks are a total blur. Faded memories clouded by fatigue, sleep deprivation & hormones. If it weren't for blogging, I wouldn't remember what happened for the rest of the year. There was a lot of laundry & I didn't take a shower on a regular basis. However, time flew by. It seemed as though every time Logan woke up from a nap, he grew up. It was a strange feeling realizing how fast life really does go by.
February was full of discovery. For us & for Logan. Bill & I were learning our new roles as parents while Logan was learning about the world around him. There were first stroller rides, a first trip to the store, doctors appointments & nick-names: Mr. Fussy Fuss. We were learning about Logan as a person while learning more about ourselves in the process. Mothering came easy for me. It was automatic. Breastfeeding, changing diapers, comforting my crying son. What was everyone complaining about? Parenting a newborn is difficult? It was hard work, but it was easy. Because I loved it.
There were difficulties in that first month though. It was the beginning of our issues with Grandma L. It was also the end of a life in our family. Our Beagle, Beck, passed from a seizure.

March brought more experience for all of us. The realities of parenthood became clear. It was more difficult than those first adrenalin fueled weeks where everything seemed easy. It was the beginning of lessons on patience & dealing with frustration. We survived growth spurts. Logan went to the chiropractor for the first time. We celebrated when Logan's umbilical stump finally fell off. We were in awe at how much Logan was like Bill. Our hearts melted when he started to coo. I was inspired to make up a very special lullaby just for our baby. It was a whirlwind of a new life.
I was so thankful that we were willing to do whatever possible so I could stay home with Logan. We made many sacrifices. Bill worked hard for our family & I wished we could have it all. I wished he could spend more time with us at home. Then it happened. The pay raise with more time off. It was too good to be true.

Bill & I also celebrated birthdays that month. My 26 th & his 28 th. Nothing like a birthday & being a new parent to make you feel old.

April came in like a lion & went out like a lamb. Logan started to sleep in his own room & did so wonderfully. He went in for his second month check up & received all of his scheduled vaccinations. He had a reaction that lasted a week. That was pure hell. The week after, he was feeling better & we went on our first family hike. It felt so good to get out & feel the fresh air again. Logan was a peach, sleeping for the majority of the time. When he was awake, he would look around at the trees & sky. This was also the month that we discovered Logan's sensitivity to dairy & soy. What great times we had scooping samples of baby poop out of a diaper to send to the lab for analysis.
As almost every new mom does, I chopped my hair relatively short. I donated my pony tail to Locks of Love. We also had a great day going to the zoo for the first time at the very end of that month.

Logan grew stronger everyday. His baby workout routine was fun & enabled him to crunch out of his swaddle. I wished that I was a strong as Logan when Bill & I talked about selling our brand new house. It was hard to think about, but easy to follow through knowing that this was just another sacrifice we had to make for the quality of our family life.

May was fun with the ever growing boy. He loved to play with his toys, smile & discover his hands & feet. Taking pictures of him was a part of our daily routine & it was so easy. He just sat there looking cute. There were more growth spurts, our first trip to the aquarium, more hiking & my first Mother's Day.

The middle of the month was very stressful. We had dealt with Paypal fraud where someone stole a good chunk of change from our checking account. Bill's job security was a little shaky & the possibility of me having to go back to work loomed above my head. We eventually got our money back & my worries were pushed back when Logan learned how to roll. We spent the end of the month swimming for the first time, taking care of rashes from the pool & reflecting on the anniversary of the positive pregnancy test.
June was the beginning of summer. It started out perfectly. Logan felt grass for the first time & laughed out loud when I sang "Head, Shoulder, Knees & Toes". He went to his fourth month check-up & we agreed that his rash was eczema. Lucky for him that it runs in the family. We talked about his vaccination reaction & made the decision to go with delayed single dose shots. He did great with that plan.

Bill & I celebrated our 7 th anniversary. It was a good time to look back on all of the highs & lows that we had been through. If there's one thing that changes a marriage, for better or for worse, it's the addition of a baby. Remembering all that we survived, it made the adjustment of our new life easier & helped us become stronger.

There was some excitement when we took our first road trip to visit Aunt Ju-Ju & Uncle J. Logan was quite mobile, rolling everywhere & began to sleep without being swaddled. He learned how to turn the music on for his crib toy & took a bath in the "big tub" for the first time. Bill celebrated his first Father's Day. Not too much later we went on our first family vacation to see Bill's family in North Dakota.
It was back to business for Logan in July. The vacation was over & he was ready to work on more milestones. He worked on trying to crawl. He played the keyboard for the first time. This was also the time I underestimated his mobility & he rolled down a flight of stairs. He was fine. I was not. My heart was bruised for days to come.
We found a gorgeous high chair & Logan started rice cereal. He also ate graham cracker on his first Independence Day. Logan wowed us by demonstrating that he learned how to call Kitty & Buddha over. He taught himself some sign language. We were amazed & quite proud of our little Einstein.

The end of the month was a challenge with trying to find a place to live & planning an out of town move. I began speaking with my dad again, mending a relationship that had been strained for 16 years.

August was the big move. Another change for our little family. It was one of the most stressful times in our lives. While I hated the house, I loved the town. After we got settled in, Logan began sleeping through the night. That was AWESOME. We had fun family times going to festivals, ice cream shops & checking out our new city. It was also another growing point for our marriage.
Logan decided that he was ready to crawl & pull himself up. He loved jumping in his jumperoo & exploring the outdoors. He's such an active little guy!

In September we had a visit with my dad & his girlfriend. They had a lot of fun meeting Logan for the first time. We did more family hiking & enjoyed our days at the park. Logan had some allergies from the change of seasons. He started watching morning cartoons & we went to another festival. There was a first cold & then our first time visiting the farm. We had so much fun in the petting zoo & getting lost in the corn maze.
October brought fall in with beautiful colors. We played in the leaves & dealt with the beginnings of stranger anxiety. We also welcomed the birth of Logan's cousin, Baby B. He was a few weeks early being born by c-section due to his breeched position.

After dealing with family drama, it was easy to delight in Logan's new tricks. He learned how to stand up & shake his head "no". We joined MOMS Club & met new friends to hang out with. There was the first snowfall where Logan was evidently over dressed. We had a blast at our first playgroup date. Logan got his second cold & started eating finger foods. There was more hoo-ha with the in-laws, but Logan's first Halloween faded those anxieties. Even though it was too cold to go trick-or-treating, we still had fun dressing him up in his adorable lion costume.
November got off to a rocky start. Bill lost his job, but we weren't too stressed about it. Logan made it easy by doing cute things like waving "bye-bye" & pushing all of his toys around like cars. We welcomed another cousin to the family, Baby M. She was born by emergency c-section. We were thankful that Aunt R & Baby M were OK.

Logan went in for his ninth month check-up & was the perfect little patient. He got a shot & did OK. We had our first embarrassing kiddo moment when Logan threw up at the MOMS Club meeting. Fortunately it was a one time thing.

Logan got his first tooth & tooth brush & went on another vacation to meet his Aunts & cousin Baby M for Thanksgiving. We had a really nice time with them. Our days were filled with fun with Logan learning how to talk & reading books to himself. The little smarty pants.
Logan learned how to clap in the beginning of December. He took his first steps. We went to our first music playgroup & had entirely too much fun. We saw that second tooth come in & celebrated the holidays with a party with the MOMS Clubbers. Then it hit us. The first flu. It got to Logan first. Even though he was terribly sick, he was still easy to live with. When it hit me, that was a different story. I think I whine too much when I'm sick. Then Bill got sick & we had an entire house full of sickies.

While being sick, we experienced Logan's first blizzard. It was a good time to be snowed in. These two events combined put a damper on our first Christmas. We were too sick to get a tree & very late in getting our cards & presents out. There was holiday drama with Bill's family, but we still had a good time celebrating Christmas Eve & Christmas Day as a little family. Logan loved all of his presents & they've kept him entertained for hours.


This year has been bitter sweet. It's been absolutely amazing melding together as a new family. We've learned so much about ourselves & about each other. It's been fulfilling. More than I ever expected. Our joys were accompanied by challenges. The loss of our new house, a move to a new town, a job loss & trouble with family dynamics.

I know 2007 will have some sweet surprises in store for us. I also know that we'll be thrown for some loops. I think the past year has helped us stick together so we can enjoy those good time & hang in there for the bad.