Magic Carpet Ride

We had our first Sunday at church together yesterday. Baby Boy was well received by everyone. As a new mommy, I have learned an interesting thing about compliments. Even though I think my baby is extremely attractive, he is probably really only as attractive as all other babies. They are all, for the most part, squirmy, squishy, pink reminders of the greatness and gentleness of God. However, it feels incredibly good when people compliment him. I don't value him for his physical appearance, but it feels good when people say nice things. So, I now understand a little of the communication of mom-hood. So, if I didn't tell you how beautiful your child was when he or she was born, I'm telling you now. And, later on, if you have a child, let me go ahead and tell you that he or she will be beautiful.

Rosy and I made an important discovery today. The stroller puts Baby Boy to sleep. We are working on ways to cut down on his marathon feeding sessions. After church today, I fed him before she and I had lunch. We were tired of waiting on him to finish his cuddling session after his belly was full, so we put him in the stroller and took him for a walk. In less than 1/2 a block, he was sound asleep. Hubby and I used this same trick when Baby Boy woke from his afternoon nap. About 10 minutes riding in the stroller and he's out for several hours.

Church went pretty well this morning. We made it all the way through the first service. Hubby was not preaching today, so he actually got to hold our baby for part of the service! We tried to go to Sunday School, but a dirty diaper cut that short. Baby Boy managed to tee-tee his outfit between early service and Sunday School, so many people missed seeing his cute outfit. He only has one formal outfit that fits right now, so I will probably let him wear it again next week. Hubby wants us to go to the second service next week so that crowd can meet him. It is a neat thing to have so many people interested in meeting and loving my baby.

To Poop or Not To Poop? That is the question

Many of you know that poop is my last favorite substance in the universe. If I walk into a bathroom that smells bad, I often say, "It smells like death in here." Conversations about poop can make me gag and almost throw up. Other people changing baby diapers near me can make me sick, and I often did gag when I had to wipe Rosy's heiney. I've never even understood the charm of birthday cards that referenced poop. Well, here I am now measuring my entire success as a mother by what's happening in the diaper.

For a breast feeding mommy, diaper contents are critical. You need a certain amount of poopies each day and they should look a certain way (which looks more like cooked squash than any poop I had ever seen before). We were doing really well until yesterday. We took Baby Boy to our home town Friday and he managed to talk my mom into feeding him tons of formula. He is usually limited to one bottle of formula (3 oz.) at his 4 AM feeding. He is such a slow breast feeder (he can take up to 2 1/2 hours) that we decided to take formula for him to eat during the visit and I would pump milk. This would let other family members give him bottles and would only take about 30 minutes for each feeding. This seemed to work very well! He loved it and would cry for more formula after each bottle. We thought he was on a growth spurt, so we let him have it. I am blaming my mom because you know that grandmother's always let the kids do whatever they want.

Baby Boy woke up around 3 AM Saturday morning and was miserable. We gave him some Mylecon and tried to go back to sleep. No such luck! Baby Boy was constipated! By Saturday afternoon, he had cried and cried. We had rubbed his tummy, rubbed his back, "bicycled" his legs, and any other remedy we could find online. Finally we called the pediatricain and they gave us some hints. Neither of their ideas were pleasant for any of us, but around 7:30PM (22 hours after the last poopie diaper) we had our first poopie diaper. And another at 7:40. And another at 7:50. And that went on for a little while.

Thank heavens for a wise pediatrician and a wise friend who recommended that we use that particular doctor group. We are also thankful that we survived our first medical crisis with no real trauma!

Next post: Our first Sunday at church

2 Weeks Old

Today is Baby Boy's two week birthday! We had a busy day. He had an early doctor's appt. and then we ran one or two errands. The doctor's appt. went well. She said that he is "developmentally advanced" for his age and size. She was also pleased that he is gained back up to and exceeded his birth weight. As a breast feeding mommy, I take that as a personal accomplishment. On the down side, he did manage to pee on his doctor.

We spent the afternoon taking naps and hiding from bad weather. Hubby had a funeral that he needed to attend, but our area was put under tornado watch just as he got ready to leave for the funeral. He decided that I was not really in any shape to be at home alone with the baby in tornado prone weather, so he stayed home with us. Thankfully the weather subsided, but it was nice to have that feeling of protection.

I also packed up the maternity clothes this afternoon because my friend Cinda has announced that she is expecting again. Now these last 8 pounds have to come on off so that I can wear regular clothes again! We will be taking our first trip to St. Stephens with Baby Boy next week because my regular clothes are in storage at my parent's house.

John and I spent some time taking pics of Baby Boy today. The photo at the top is one that I think I will be using on his birth announcement. It really looks good in black and white. We have discovered that Baby Boy, like the rest of this family, is not particularly photogenic. Or, maybe I am just a bad photographer. The blanket in the photo background is a hand knit blanket from Jana, a wonderful lady at our church.

2 AM has gotten worse & world's worst diaper change ever!

For the last few nights, Baby Boy has refused to sleep. He sleeps all day and then wakes up around 1 or 2 AM for a feeding and refuses to go back to sleep until about 4 or 5 AM. Gram Sam came and stayed with us over the weekend to help our with his sleep schedule. We have all agreed that he is too little to just let cry because his cry, at this point, just indicates that he feels insecure. So, we have to pick him up and comfort him when he gets upset. We have tried all different kinds of stimulating activities during the day and soothing activities during the night, but so far nothing is doing the trick. Last night, Hubby and I finally hit on the magic number - 90 minutes. If we rotate in 90 minute shifts, we each get enough sleep to function and we are able to hold Baby Boy without falling asleep.

We have started taking Baby Boy out for daily walks in his stroller (Thanks again to the world's greatest Aunt and Uncle!). Rosy and I get very excited about the excursion, and we love getting him ready for his foray into the world. Baby Boy, however, gets very tired from the preparation and quickly falls to sleep before we've gone 100 feet. He wakes up when we bring him in the house and he always looks confused as to how he got in the car seat and why he's dressed in different clothes. He may never understand some of the things that his sister and I do!

Today I changed a really hideous diaper and managed to let him pee on the floor and on one of his diaper bags! I never knew that baby poop could be so sticky! I thought we were going to have get an SOS pad to clean his butt. And, while I had his feet up in the air and was working on brillo-ing his butt with a baby wipe, he peed everywhere. "Everywhere" includes his own head and face!!! Of course, this required me to stop work on the sticky poop butt and to hurriedly clean the pee off of his face, head, and chest. I eventually wrapped him in a lap pad and hurried to the kitchen to wet a washcloth to further clean the pee. Upon my return to the nursery, I realized that the changing table pad was flooded with pee and some flecks of sticky poop. The only way I knew of to get the rest of the poop off of him was to hold him upright in a semi-standing position and to clean as best as I could. This worked well until he peed again - this time from the standing position and managed to get the floor and the diaper bag. Thankfully, none of that pee actually got on him and I was able to get him to the glider on a lap pad and get a diaper on him! Of course, then I had to get him dressed, collect up all the items that had pee and poop on them, and clean the floor and diaper bag. Let me tell you that life was a lot more simple 2 weeks ago! But, it wasn't nearly as much fun.

Online Nursery

The online nursery link for Baby Boy is our365.com.

Our customer number is 5806-10292. This is also used as the password. In some places you enter it with the dash in place and in other places it is entered without the dash, so try it both ways.

It will also ask for the first 4 letters of my last name.

First Bath

John Stephens had his first bath Tuesday. It was not his favorite experience, but at least he didn't pee on us.

In Just One Week

Time has really flown. This time last week, John Stephens was still in utero and I was in agony. The details of the labor (28 hours with most of it with no epidural or with the epidural at 25% strength) are horrible, but are beginning to fade from memory. I have lost 29 lbs. since delivery. This is also very tiring, but is a good thing. I still have a ways to go with the fluid and weight. I had only gained 13 lbs. through the first of March and then gained about 30 lbs. in the last 6 weeks of the pregnancy.

John Stephens is a good eater and has firmly established that his favorite place in the world is Mommy's chest. We refer to this as "Booby World" and a visit is always his treat after something upsetting like a bath or a diaper change. He doesn't necessarily want to nurse, he just wants to lay down on Mommy. He will give a token effort to nurse if he thinks you are going to move him away. He prefers to eat from his bottles and that works for us. We can keep him on a better schedule and know more about what he is ingesting when we bottle feed.

He is now sleeping about 3 or 4 hours after each good feeding. This is really helping us get through the nights. The first few nights we were home, he cried everytime he was put down, so we had to work in shifts to get any rest.

Yesterday was a landmark day for me. I changed my first ever diaper and then I got to change about 5 more. Also, John went to Wal-mart last night and I kept John Stephens by myself for 3 hours. That was a huge step for us!

My surgery is healing nicely. I hardly ever feel it anymore.

The photo at the top was taken today on his one week birthday.

He's here

I will post more later when we have rested. John Stephens arrived Thursday night, May 1st at 10:31PM. He weighed 6lbs. 1 oz. and was 20 inches long. Thanks for your prayers.

We are at home, but feeding is difficult so we aren't sleeping very much at all.