Jessica Kelso

Thursday night we had our “Rite Of Passage Into Parenthood Ceremony”, AKA a foster baby shower! Although I’m pretty sure the first night of no sleep was our real ceremony, it was still a good time! We got to celebrate the beginning of this whole new chapter in our lives and it was absolutely the most perfect thing ever. It was held at Chuck-E-Cheese and we survived so apparently we are official parents now! We got an overwhelming amount of gift cards to help us purchase rest of the things we need. We also realized how awesome our friends are. We’re so thankful for every single one of them!

Thrasher was really good and enjoyed being around all the people. He seems to be happiest surrounded by a lot of people which is good and bad at the same time. I love taking him out and about, but he gets bored and fussy at home when it’s just me and him. We’ve also been having some issues with him getting up every 3-4 hours at night crying, and we haven’t been able to figure out why. He’s fed, clean diaper, not sick anymore. . . I think he just wants us to hold him. We have basically tended to his every call for the past 2 weeks but we are starting to think we may need to let him cry a little. Last night he woke up 1 hour after we put him to bed, and I knew he was fine so we decided to let him cry it out and see if he would fall back asleep. It was gut-wrenching but after about 40 minutes, he was sound asleep and he actually slept through the night. That’s only happened 2 or 3 times before and it is absolutely glorious. We feel so refreshed and awake when we’re actually able to get a decent stretch of sleep. I hosted a baby shower at our house today, so I definitely needed the energy and I think he might have known it! He is such a sweet little guy so it makes it very difficult to not hold him all of the time!

Last night after dinner with some friends, we headed downtown to First Friday and had such a nice time walking around. The weather was perfect. There was a concert being held at Lake Mirror, so we sat across the lake and listened from a distance. We ran into a couple of friends, talked for a little while, and called it a night. That’s what I’ve come to love about Lakeland.  It feels like home to me in every possible way. Our friends, our community, our family. . . I just absolutely love it. I know there are places that have better restaurants, better weather, better downtowns, but those places just don’t have the same feel to me that Lakeland has. It is our home and I’m completely content here. It feels nice.