8 weeks

Here we are...eight weeks (and two days). My big boy is almost two months old. We go for his two month checkup (and shots) on Friday, so we'll have official size stats then.

In the last week...

...we started putting Baby Boy in size 2 diapers overnight. I would switch him during the day, too, if I didn't still have a decent stash of size 1s. Never would've thought I'd have a baby this big when Baby Girl was average-to-small!

...I've noticed Baby Boy tracking objects and really focusing on things. He's always been interested in things around him, but I can tell he's seeing further and following objects and people with his eyes. It is fun to see.

...his sleeping has been better...then worse. Over the weekend Baby Boy slept well. He had a 5.5 hour stretch of sleep Saturday night. Sunday night he slept for 3.5 hours, then when The Hubby got him up, fell asleep on the bed while I was getting my nursing pillow on. I made The Hubby put him back in his bed and we all slept for another 1.5 hours! And then Monday happened. Monday he was awake, screaming, and not consoled by anything but nursing all afternoon. Then he went back to waking every 2-2.5 hours overnight. He repeated this yesterday. I'm blaming a developmental growth spurt (Google The Wonder Weeks--totally fascinating to me!). Today he has actually been better, so I'm hoping that is the explanation. Even if it isn't, it makes me feel less like it might somehow be my own fault.

...we visited the Urology department at a branch of our local children's hospital. At his one month appointment, our pediatrician discovered some penile adhesions (he is probably going to kill me when he's older for blogging about this...). He wasn't able to get one bug area and wanted a urologist to look at it instead, so we were referred. The most exciting part of the appointment was having Baby Boy weighed (with clothes) at 13 pounds. It went downhill from there. The nurse practitioner said that he would need to be seen by the urologist at the main campus of the hospital. She also wanted an ultrasound done because of his hydrocele (which our very very cautious pediatrician said could wait until he's closer to a year old). They scheduled the appointment for us...for August 22nd. Great. What a waste of our time. Our pediatrician actually contacted us personally to see if we were as annoyed as he was. We were. We'll be discussing everything with him on Friday at Baby Boy's two month checkup.

Besides the crankiness of the last two days, Baby Boy continues to be a really laid back, happy kid. He slept through The Hubby and me having a snack at Panera after the urology appointment. He actually slept in his carrier long enough for me to eat lunch with a friend today. He regularly lays on his play mat and has conversations with his rooster and elephant while I get things done or just (gasp!) take some time to myself where I don't have a baby sleeping on me (which is still his favorite place to sleep and where he gets his longest stretches of sleep). He also loves his bouncy seat and will sit in it and kick hard enough that we have to buckle him in while I shower. I don't mnow if he's more laid back or I am, but many things really are easier with him than they were with Baby Girl. I'd guess it is a combination.

Domestic Goddess

Does anyone else out there feel like all they do is clean and care for their house? Boy, between two kids (especially including one who is breast feeding) and the house, I don't get time to relax!

Whenever I start to think about resting, I remember a load of laundry, the kitchen that needs to be cleaned, a bathroom that needs cleaned, or kids clothes to be organized. Once the everyday stuff is done, I get started on a LONG list of things we want to do before we put the house on the market. I've cleaned off the top of the fridge, the top of the kitchen cabinets, and started working on doing some purging to make the house less cluttered. I rearranged the kitchen cabinets to make room for stuff for Baby Boy since we'll start using bottles very soon. I'm also hoping to get together boxes of things to sell, either in a virtual garage sale that I'm a part of with girls from a message board I belong to or on EBay. I also found out that some of my old textbooks that are at least 10 years old are still worth some money. Three of my Engineering textbooks could make me around $200 in Amazon credits if I sell them to Amazon--woohoo!

Anyway, this is just a post to whine about how much the housework piles up and is never ending. If I'm not nursing the baby, I'm cleaning or organizing something. I'm exhausted and have no idea when or how this stuff is going to get done when I go back to work. The Hubby will help more, but since we have to tag team the kids when they're both awake, it'll be hard to be anything done before bedtime.

Anyone else feel like they're constantly treading water when it comes to housework?

7 Weeks

My big man just keeps growing and growing! We had him out a few times this weekend and whenever anyone asked how old he is they were surprised and thought he was older. People also tell us how adorable he is. I think so, of course, but it is great to hear from other people!

This week Baby Boy got his first cold. I think he got it from me, but we've all been a bit snotty recently. So far (yes, it's still going on) he is only stuffy overnight, so that's good. I've been getting the bathroom steamy before taking my shower and I think it is helping both of us.

I also noticed this week that we've reached the point where he will stand up on my nursing pillow while I try to put him to sleep or burp him. I don't think Baby Girl was doing that until much later.

Baby Boy seems to be sensitive to temperature, which makes me wonder if that's why he isn't sleeping for longer than 3 hours at a time. He sweats when we sit in the sun too long and gets cranky if we stay out too long. He also sweats when he gets angry, which compounds the problem!

Overall, he is a very happy little man who will give a smile to everyone he meets. The only times he gets cranky are when he's tired, when he's awake and expecting to eat, or when he's gassy, which is really rare these days. He babbles like crazy when he's awake and happy--I love hearing everything he has to say!

Paging osuraj!

There's no email address in your profile and it doesn't look like you're active on the message board anymore so I don't know how to contact you about my OB. Leave me an email address here (I moderate all comments and just won't publish it) and I'm happy to talk to you about my doctor.

6 Weeks Old

Although he does seriously change every single day, it is really hard to define exactly how. My little man is smiling and chuckling and flirting with everyone. I think he's the cutest little boy in the world, but I may be a little biased :)

Right at 6 weeks, Baby Boy's acne really started to clear up. It had gotten so bad that his cheeks were bumpy and he even had acne on his scalp. I still thought he was beautiful, of course.

Our daily routine looks approximately like this...sometimes (as he wakes up in the middle of what should be his long nap...):

8 a.m.: Up for the day (I wake with Baby Boy next to me in bed), eat, then play
9 a.m.: Down for nap
10 a.m.: Eat, then playtime
11 a.m.: Down for nap
Noon: Eat, then play
1 p.m.: Down for nap
4 p.m.: Eat, then play
5 p.m.: Start trying to get him down for nap
5:20 p.m.: Baby Girl and The Hubby get home and thwart napping efforts
6:00 p.m.: Rarely a quick nap
7:30 p.m.: nurse and try to get baby to go to sleep
8:00 p.m.: If no nap around 6, baby falls asleep. If nap, then awake time until 9:00
Sleeps approximately 3 hours, then wakes to eat and goes back to sleep. We try to go to bed around the beginning of this sleep period.
Overnight: Wakes every 2-3 hours, eats, then sleeps. Around 5 a.m. I feed him in side-lying position and everyone falls asleep until morning.

One thing to note about sleeping is that we aren't fighting to get him to fall asleep as much. I think the reasons are: 1) we're learning his preferences 2) we aren't letting him get overtired, except in the evenings when it is happening naturally and 3) he is getting older and maybe doesn't need as much walking and everything.

Currently 80-90% of naps are happening on my chest. Should that change? Of course. I also now will only be home full time with him for 3 more weeks and love that snuggle time. So it is a work in progress. He sleeps in his Rock n Play from 8/9 p.m. until 5 a.m., at which time we do some co-sleeping, which makes me slightly uncomfortable, but is working well for our family for now. I imagine when I go back to work everything will change.

How he got here

I started having painful contractions at 4 pm Saturday, April 28 (my due date) and they were immediately 5 or less minutes apart. My in laws were in town so my father-in-law could give an estimate for some work, so we started trying to contact them so they could come watch Baby Girl. They got to the house around 7:30, at which point The Hubby and I started walking the neighborhood. I had to stop every 4-5 minutes during contractions. We had to go inside when it started to rain. Around 10:30 we headed to the hospital after talking with the on-call OB.

We had to stop a few times so I could work through contractions on the way up to L&D. We chatted with the check-in lady, then got a room in triage. I got hooked up to monitors and was checked by the nurse. I was still at 1 cm, so we walked the halls of triage and labor and delivery, stopping periodically when the contractions came so I could grip the wall railings or The Hubby. We called my parents and they came up and walked with us in the outer halls. By 2:30 we were told that we would be sent home because I hadn't dilated any further, so I sadly sent my parents back home (an hour away). The nurse was pretty sure I was in labor, but that it was just really early. I was very frustrated since I met all of the requirements to go to the hospital (and the on-call OB agreed that I should go in). I wasn't looking forward to laboring at home with my 2.5 year old in the next bedroom, either. I asked the nurse how I would know if I couldn't use the frequency or duration of the contractions to judge when to go back and she told me that they would get more intense and that I would "just know". I was exhausted, frustrated, and still having contractions every 5 minutes. I couldn't believe that when we checked in we'd thought we would have a baby very soon.

We stopped at Taco Bell for a snack and got home to find my mother-in-law sleeping on the couch. She thought we would be my parents coming to the house to sleep, so she was pretty confused, so The Hubby stopped to explain things to her while I headed upstairs. I kept contracting every 3-4 minutes overnight. I have never had such a miserable night in my life, sleeping for 2 minutes, then waking for a contraction. The contractions then spaced out to every 10-15 minutes for about an hour late Sunday morning, making me think that I was headed for my C-section that was still scheduled for just 5 days later. During the late morning (I think--it was sort of a blur of exhaustion and trying to hide the pain from my daughter at that point), my parents came and the in-laws went home (The Hubby tells me that his parents left around noon and mine came around 4 and that we took one walk while his parents were still here). I remember feeling nauseous and uninterested in food and I think we did some walking. The contractions started picking up in intensity and around 6:30 we were thinking about heading back to the hospital. I was in enough pain that I went to our bedroom to labor so I didn't have to try to hide it anymore. I had been on my hands and knees on the bed when The Hubby came upstairs. I twisted to sit on my bottom and got a gush of fluid. I couldn't imagine I'd peed myself, but didn't know for sure. I sat on the toilet and got no more fluid, making me even more unsure about it being my water breaking. After consulting with The Hubby, we decided to try the hospital again.

The frequency and intensity of contractions increased more as we headed to the hospital. The ride in was really painful and we had to stop a few times on our walk up to L&D. I was checked at 8:00 and was 3 cm but the nurse didn't think my water had broken. She took a sample and they confirmed my water had broken, so I was admitted. I got settled, chatted with Angie, my awesome nurse, and got my epidural almost immediately because I'd been contracting for 30 hours at that point. I was absolutely exhausted. Angie assured me that typically epidurals don't actually stall out labor (my fear) and that was all I needed to hear. I had one contraction while I lay on my side, but it wasn't horrible. My nurse thought I'd be laboring all night and wasn't confident that she'd meet him by the time she left at 7 a.m. At 10:30 I was 5 cm and able to take a nap around 11:30 (the baby's heart rate didn't like contractions, so I had to roll onto my right side when some alarms started going off--so grateful that my nurse was very low-key about that because it helped keep me calm). Around 12:30 I woke up feeling pressure and after consulting with Angie woke up The Hubby, who had passed out on the little bed/couch. They called the on-call OB (I was nervous about where she lived because the pressure to push was really intense--not painful, just pressure). When she arrived she checked me and I was at 9 cm with only a couple of lips, but baby was still at -1 station. By 1:00 he was at 0 station and the OB agreed to let me try to push, but told me it would be a few hours still. I did a few practice pushes starting at 1:24 with my awesome nurse and she had to call in the OB because we were actually making progress. It took me a little bit to get the hang of how pushing should feel, but with the help of the poles on either side of my bed (holding my own legs wasn't getting it done), I caught on fairly quickly. I was pushing two or three times per contraction, guided by what my body was doing. I was surprised how perfectly placed my epidural was--no one-sidedness, I felt no pain, but still felt the pressure and could feel enough to push.

Nicholas Steven was born at 2:02, weighing 8 lbs 10.5 oz and 20.5 inches long. The Hubby got to wach his arrival, which I think he really appreciated. We had no complications whatsoever besides my 3rd degree tear. From water breaking to delivery was only 7 hours. Wow! It felt even faster than that, honestly.

I remember them putting him on my chest, holding him, singing to him, and staring at all of him. Because of some meconium in the fluid, they had the pediatrics team in the room, but they weren't needed because he was breathing fine. He did seem a little phlegmy, so they suctioned him quite a bit. They took him to the warmer after awhile and got his stats, then returned him to my arms where I was able to breast feed for the first time.

The tear repair was the most painful part of the process. The OB used all of the numbing injections that she had available. I was holding my little man and twitching from the pain. I was just glad that I had him as a distraction part of the time.

Once I was stitched, I'd nursed the baby, and the room was cleaned up (that was gross...there was a lot of blood), I was loaded into a wheelchair and taken to my room. I got settled in and we contacted friends and family.

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Next I'll write about my recovery and the differences between this and my scheduled C-section. If you have any specific questions you'd like to have me answer, please ask in the comments!

5 weeks

Going to do this post in a list format because that's all my brain can handle right now :)

Went to the doctor for his one month appointment:
Weight: 11 lbs 5 oz (90th percentile--Baby Girl was 9 lbs 0 oz)
Length: 22 inches (60th percentile--Baby Girl was 21 inches)
Head circumference: 39 cm (75th percentile--Baby Girl was 38 cm)

Got the second in the Hepatitis B series and we didn't notice any reaction.

- Soothed by shushing, spending time outside, swaying, walking, and patting
- Gets very angry and doesn't sleep well when overtired. Many times needs to be nursed to sleep
- Doesn't sleep more than 30 minutes in the swing, if at all
- Eating every two hours from the middle of the night (2 or 2:30) until early evening (8:00ish). We typically get a three hour stretch from 8 to 11 and then 11 to 2. Some days I get a long nap during the afternoon.
- Gassiness seems to be quite a bit better, but we've been noticing some really angry cries over the last day or so and aren't sure if something else has upset his tummy or if it's just normal baby fussiness
- Doesn't like the bouncy seat
- Has quite a bit of baby acne on his face and upper chest
- Wearing 0-3 mo size clothes and may need to move to 3-6 mo in Gerber brand onesies, which are known for being small.
- Doesn't seem to be losing too much hair yet
- Prefers to sleep on his side and will only sleep on tummy if already sleeping
- Grunts for a couple hours at a time until he poops or passes gas toward the end of the night
- Still has the startle and falling reflexes, but I can tell they're starting to go away
- Can purposefully put his hands into his mouth and slurps on them to soothe himself
- Definitely smiling in response to our faces and voices. He smiles with his entire body and makes a crappy day way better
- When he sneezes, he emits a little sigh that makes him sound satisfied and makes me smile every time

Hawaiian Turkey Burgers

...or an alternate title could be "What I Threw Together for Dinner".

The benefit to going to the grocery in the middle of the week has been getting meat on Manager's Special. When I go on Sundays there usually isn't anything in the case, but I've gotten boneless pork loin chops and ground turkey (93/7) for great prices recently. To further change things up, I went to the store without a list or meal plan for the first time in years. That was dumb! I need to go back to get ingredients to finish out some meals now, which is frustrating.

Anyway, I remembered the ground turkey that I put in the freezer last week and thought I'd do some turkey burgers, so I picked up buns. When I was working on dinner in my head, I thought of ways to jazz it up a bit. Below is the "recipe" I created.

Hawaiian Turkey Burgers

1 pound ground turkey
Teriyaki sauce, to taste
Garlic powder, to taste
1 Vidalia onion
1 T butter
1 T honey
1 medium fresh pineapple
BBQ sauce, to taste
Hamburger buns

Combine first three ingredients in a medium bowl and form into four patties. Heat large skillet over medium heat and spray with cooking spray. Preheat oven to low broil setting. Place patties in large preheated skillet. Melt butter and honey in small skillet and slice onion while you wait. Place onions in honey butter mixture and stir to coat. While onions and burgers are cooking, slice fresh pineapple. Stir onions frequently. When burgers are halfway done, flip them and cook on the other side. Once onions are carmelized, place in a bowl in the microwave to keep warm. Use small skillet to cook pineapple a bit. While pineapple is cooking, place buns (cut side up) on a cookie sheet in the oven. Remove once they start to toast. Assemble burgers and top with BBQ sauce. I served with corn on the cob.

(please excuse the instructions--this is my first time writing a recipe!)