April 11, 2007 - A snow storm, an adventure and a growing boy!

Well, I made my plans for today and headed into town after picking Nicholas up from preschool. Little did I know I was driving into a major snowstorm. Anyway, I needed to stick to my plans because I needed to get a copy of the kids' birth certificates so that we can enroll Nicholas in Kindergarten next year. I drove through the slippery roads and arrived at mom's house, where she watched the kids while I drove back downtown to get the birth certificates and then back to mom's - what a harrowing experience.

Anyway, it is very rare that I am in town without a variety of errands to run, etc. However, after the birth certificate run I didn't have anything specific that I needed to do. I remembered a while back that Catherine told me about a breastfeeding "store" right near mom's house and that you can take your baby there to be weighed. Given the fact that Sam has not been weighed since his 6 week checkup I have been quite curious, so after a quick call we decided to bring him over there and check him out...this is where the adventure comes in. With all of the snow, and having never been there before what appeared to big a row of parking spaces in front of the building turned out to be a grassy area in which my van decided to get stuck.....very stuck. After several tries of rocking the vehicle and mom trying to push me out, we were quickly realizing we were going to be unsuccessful. Then, a new mom came out of the building to go home and said that she had some traction type chains in her car which we were welcome to try. So, we gladly accepted - wedged the chains as much under the tires as possible and tried again. SUCCESS! Thank you - angel in disguise, the Lord put you in the right place at the right time.

After finally making it into the store, I am pleased to announce that Sam is now 11 pounds, 6 ounces. Now, this is still behind where our other kids were at this age, however when you consider the fact that it took him 6 weeks to reach 9 pounds 3 ounces we are thrilled. I asked one of the lactation consultants and she said that they like to see between 4-8 ounces of weight gain a week at this age. It's been around 4 weeks since his last appointment so that averages out to 8.75 ounces per week, EXCELLENT. Allison was 11 pounds 9 ounces at 2 months, so he is actually only behind her by about 2 weeks now. Even though she was always a little squirt, if he keeps this up he'll soon pass her.

We eventually made it home safe and sound even with the snow and slippery roads. That's one day I would have planned differently if I had known what was ahead of me.