Then and Now

Oohhh, two posts in a day! Sweet Pea is still napping in his swing, and Bones is on. J is running errands, and it’s raining. Perfect Labor Day! Almost feels like I’m on leave again LOL.

Anyway, when Daniel was not quite two weeks old, my friend Leigh Ann Hines came to photograph him to use in marketing materials for her newborn photography. She posted a few of the pics from the shoot last night, and they are stunning! Daniel is gorgeous, and the pictures are amazing. It was shocking to us to look back and realize how tiny he was.

You can see the pictures here and compare those pictures to the one below! I can’t believe how much bigger he is!

Quite the morning person!

Onesies: A Love Affair

In my last post, I mentioned how ecstatic I was that the stinky stump had finally fallen off (don’t worry–we found it easily and disposed of it immediately. I hope it isn’t considered a bio hazard. Oh well) because now I could dress Daniel in the plethora of cute outfits he has.

And oh, I have! He has been spending a lot of time in onesies primarily because I think they are cute. Is there a cuter word than “onesie”? It just screams “adorable” and “baby.” Secondly, Daniel is still pretty small, and all the 0-3 clothes he has are too big, so onesies are the only things we have in newborn size. So see, there is a method to my madness!

I do fear that I love dressing him up a tad too much. I keep reminding myself that he isn’t a doll! But hey, the baby has to wear something, right? We knew he looked good in yellow based on the t-shirts he’s been wearing, but we’ve also discovered that he looks good in green and blue as well 🙂 The jury is still out on red.

So now I present to you Daniel in a onesie fashion show!

His very first onesie. Couldn't resist that one!

Beautiful in blue!

Gorgeous in green!

Sleepy in red

Daniel Wakes Up and Stinky Belly Buttons

The smile that eluded me most of the week!

Daniel woke up this week. Now, K, you might say. That’s ridiculous. He wakes up every day. Well, yes, of course he does (thank God!). What I mean is that the easy newborn sleep-all-the-time period has worn off. We had a pretty easy first two weeks. He ate, slept and pooped and peed. He was easy! Sometimes we had to wake him to eat and often, he fell asleep while eating. I knew in the back of my mind, though, that harder times were approaching. And the pediatrician kept warning us that once babies hit two weeks, they become fussier.

Let’s just say that Daniel continues to be on track developmentally 🙂 It’s been a bit of a rough week because first of all, J returned to work on Wednesday. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been alone with Daniel before, but there was always the knowledge that he would be back in a few hours. I had really enjoyed the last two weeks with J as well. It was a really special time, and it sort of felt like we were outside of reality, just cocooned in our house with the kitties and Daniel. But it had to end since we, alas, are not independently wealthy (lottery drawings are Wednesday and Saturday FYI). I hoped that J returning to work would also help us continue to develop a routine since someone would have a schedule to which to adhere.

A rare quiet moment

[So, Wednesday, not only did J return to work but also Daniel chose that day–after being perfectly angelic the previous two days–to let me know that he was changing and had needs. Cue the incessant crying! He would nap in the morning in the Pack N Play but no longer in the afternoon until about 5pm when he would crash. I thought–hoped–it was just an one-time occurrence on Wednesday because of overstimulation but the pattern continued on Thursday and Friday with the meltdowns coming earlier in the day. Oy. After some frantic Googling (what would I do without my iPhone since I can type with one hand while the other holds a baby!), I realized that he was being normal and discovered that what he really wanted was to be held by his momma. That’s fine, and I’m happy to do that, carrying him from the bedroom to the living room as we watch one episode of Snapped or my fave, Law & Order, over and over. The problem is that I can’t put him down! If I put him down, he shrieks. He wants to be with me. That would be great if I had 3 or 4 arms so I could get some stuff down while holding him, but it’s hard when you have only one free arm.

Today I had to get out of the house, so I conquered my fear of the car seat and put him in the car. Today I introduced him to the public library and also to WalGreens. He slept in the car seat the entire time and was so quiet that I actually almost pulled over a few times to check on him. It was so great to get out of the house and to feel a little bit in control! As soon as it cools down a bit, I’m going to take him for walks in his stroller. I think we both will enjoy that. Right now he is enjoying his bouncy seat–thank goodness! He’s been eating more frequently the past few days, and I think he’s going through a growth spurt. It hurts me so much to hear him shriek, though, because I just want to make it better 😦

I love a hooded towel!

[My sweet boy has become stinky. And I don’t mean behaviorally! Literally stinky thanks to his belly button. His umbilical stump is–rotting?–nicely and giving off a very pungent odor. We noticed it on Monday or Tuesday and called the nurse after I Googled it and couldn’t decide if some odor was ok or a bad thing. The nurse said it was ok as long as he doesn’t have other signs of infection, which he doesn’t. But shooo-weeeee! He is stinky! We are religiously applying alcohol to the stump and it seems to separate more and more each day, but we are soooo ready for it to fall off. I can’t believe that Daniel is 17 days off and STILL has his stinky stump! We have family and friends coming over this weekend, and I feel like I need to make apologies for my baby boy’s smell. Hopefully by Monday it will be gone. I think the odor has invaded my nostrils because I seem to smell it everywhere. Ew!

Other than that, things are going well! I managed to start and finish a book this week, which was blissful. J and I ARE developing a routine, and I’m getting about 4 good consecutive hours of sleep until it is my shift, and then I sleep off and on for a few hours between feedings until about 9 or 10. That is nice. I’m pretty worn out today, though, as is J, who has been SO great making sure that I get a decent bit of sleep. I worry about whether he is getting enough sleep, but I figure that lack of sleep is just part of it right now.

Daniel meets Alley Cat, a precious item from my childhood!

I’m enjoying being at home. I made home-cooked meals twice this week, which was the first time in months due to the construction and school chaos. It was nice to cook again! J and I watch Mad Men, and I amused him by greeting him at the door yesterday with an Old Fashioned. Too bad I didn’t have an apron and dress with a crinoline LOL. It’s probably the lack of sleep and general feeling of delirium, but I even had thoughts of finally making pies this summer. A homemade berry pie with a hand-made crust. Pastry making isn’t necessarily my forte, but I haven’t really made a pie, so I’m sure that practice can only improve it.

And Daniel continues to change every day! His eyes are wide open and hopefully will stay blue like J’s. He continues to chub up, and we have congratulated ourselves that we have begun to decipher some of his cries. Oops, there he goes…Off to feed him!

Delirious

Outside on the porch, enjoying the sunshine

Daniel is …wait for it, I have to pause for a while to do the simple math necessary to come up with the correct number because I am so tired…10 days old today. He is growing and filling out and letting us know this by deciding not to go to sleep in the middle of the night after his early morning feeding. Oy. This morning was particularly rough. I have the second shift (roughly 3am – 9am), so I was asleep around 11. I awoke to Daniel’s distinctive cry around 2:45 as J was changing his diaper. I dozed back off. Daniel was still crying. J went to bed, but neither of us could sleep because Daniel was sort of wheezing. It sounded like he had a belt loose. We got up and decided to use the bulb syringe to extract what mucus we could find. Well, Daniel was not amused and screamed. After that he was awake. We fed him. Still awake. I rocked him. Still awake. I put him to bed. Five minutes later, crying. Rinse and repeat until around 7am. I fed him one last time and THEN he decides he’s tired enough to go to sleep. He proceeds to sleep like an angel while I give up and decide to get up because we are expecting a guest at 10am, and I will need all the time I can have to wake up. Cue the copious amounts of caffeine.

Despite last night or this morning rather, Daniel is still such a sweet boy. He changes every day. He seems to have a more pronounced or developed double chin. His knees seem a little chubbier. His face is filling out. I can tell his lungs are getting stronger based on his cries. He keeps his eyes open for longer periods, and he focuses on us when we are feeding him. Speaking of feeding, he is up to 2 ounces at every feeding–sometimes more–but consistently around 2 ounces. At last Friday’s appointment, he had lost an expected 6 ounces from his birthweight but as of Tuesday, he has gained all of that back and then some: he now weighs 6 pounds, 8 ounces!

We moved the Pack N Play into our bedroom on Tuesday so we could begin to develop a routine. I’m not sure how well the routine-setting is going, but it does help us to feel able to nap when he sleeps. There’s something about having him in the living room that makes us feel like we’re up when we’re here.

Suffering from hiccups. Do I detect an obscene gesture?

We had several visitors today, including the mobile vet for the kitties. That’s always fun 😉 Tomorrow Daniel will meet another set of grandparents (he has 4 sets), which will be fun! Daniel has big feet and long toes and fingers, and I wonder if he’s going to be tall like my side of the family. We shall see!

Today I left the house by myself for the first time since June 1. I didn’t do anything exciting. I ran to get some lunch for me and J and to Walgreens to pick up some baby essentials. It felt really weird to be out of the house and without Daniel, though. I think I need to get out more. J needs to install the carseat base into my car before he returns to work next week, and then Daniel and I will need to be brave and explore. Honestly, driving with him doesn’t freak me out; mastering the many parts of the car seat does!

Pardon my rambling. I am fairly delirious with no sleep. I’m hoping to nap soon and majorly envy my little boy for being able to sleep as much as he does (though I wish more of it would happen between midnight and 6am!)

The First Week

After Daddy manicured his talons, I mean nails.

We have a Pack N Play in our living room. Vaseline and baby q-tips on the mantle. The dishwasher runs constantly so we always have a supply of clean bottles. I think the temperature in our house is permanently elevated due to the dryer going because we do several loads of baby clothes every day.

And I love it. I LOVE it!

Daniel will be a week old on 6:48 am Tuesday, and it’s been a great week. The first night home was a little rough. He was very fussy once the medicine for his circumcision wore off and he was starving. We tried feeding him, but he wouldn’t eat. My mother and J sent me to bed around 10 since I had been up over 40 hours at that point. It was hard to sleep because I could hear Daniel wailing, and it broke my heart. I was freaking out a bit because he was supposed to have peed by around 9pm, but we didn’t think he had, and he wasn’t eating, and I was so close to suggesting that J and my mother call the pediatrician and make sure everything was ok. J began to wonder if the problem was with the formula and ran to the grocery store to buy some of everything they had, and he also bought some bottles with very small nipples. Those bottles and nipples saved the day. Daniel finally started eating. I got up around 1am because he was still crying, and J and I stayed up with him all night. He fell asleep around 6am, and we’ve been using those bottles ever since.

SW says hello to Daniel

He’s a very good baby. He sleeps a lot and whimpers only when he need his diaper changed or is hungry. And his cries and whimpers are the most adorable things in the world. He melts us. I could just kiss him and hold him all day long. He’s up to eating between 1.5-2 ounces at each feeding. We had our first pediatrician appointment last Thursday, and she declared him perfect 🙂 Of course he is!

It has been so fascinating to note the changes that seem to occur each day. He is getting more hair, and his eyelashes are coming in. He’s keeping his eyes open longer and focusing a bit more. I think he has gained a bit of weight (he lost only 6 ounces after birth); his little knees don’t seem as bony as they were. We gave him a sponge bath last night, and he hated it LOL.

I haven’t been able to dress him in any of his plethora of cute outfits yet because we’ve been keeping him in t-shirts to let his stump heal. It’s healing nicely and hasn’t been completely awful to clean. We’re getting the hang of diaper changes too. We’ve been “christened” twice, and the funniest part was the look on Daniel’s face LOL. And he loves being swaddled! A couple of friends gave us several pre-shaped swaddling blankets at a shower, and we bought a few more. Well, Daniel loves being swaddled so much that we bought 3 or 4 more so we always have a clean one (or two) on hand!

Daniel and Momma

The cats are adjusting well too. Lucy watches from afar, but is very loving towards us. The other two are more curious about him. We’ve let them sniff him and his clothes, and so far, so good.

We’ve had a fair amount of visitors. My mother came over on Wednesday and stayed with us until Sunday. She cooked great food for us, insisting we eat, and cleaned and washed clothes like a machine. She dotes on her baby boy! J’s mother and grandparents came over last Friday, and it was sweet seeing how happy they were to meet our sweet boy. J’s mom came over today and kept an eye on Daniel while J did some paperwork, and I took a nap. We’ve been getting some sleep, but I feel like we are still playing catch-up a bit. Hopefully starting tomorrow, we can begin trying to find a real routine.

He’s just wonderful, and we are so happy to have him home with us.