Midwife appointment update

Quick update on the appointment yesterday.  Everything looked good.  The end.

 

Just kidding.  My blood pressure was fine (128/78, Ali), all my lab work from the last appointment came back perfect, and baby’s heartbeat sounded good at 157 beats per minute.  Heather did clarify that she thinks it’s very unlikely that there is more than one baby in there.  We should get to go for an ultrasound to find out the sex in about 4 weeks, and we can clear it up once and for all at that time!  The prenatal appointments are feeling very low key and quick.  Meaning that I’ve done this all before, so I don’t have all those first-timer questions and concerns.  After Heather checks all the stats, she asks if I have any questions or concerns, I say I don’t think so, and we kind of just hang around and chat for a while.  It’s nice!  Meanwhile, Urijah is acting like he owns the place by using the stethoscope, laying on pillows on the floor, and generally walking around being the boss.  We go to the birth center every week for our mom’s group, so he’s logged a lot of hours playing and having fun there.  It’s sort of his home away from home space, and he feels really comfortable.

The big question seems to be, will I be able to keep this baby in for the full 40 weeks this time, or will s/he be another early arrival.  Who knows?  Apparently it can go either way, but I’ll do my best to keep him/her in for the duration!

 

 

Road Trip!

We drove to Houston on Saturday.  We planned ahead to leave at Urijah’s naptime so he would sleep for part of the way and then we had the tablet all set up an arranged on the back of the passenger seat headrest, ready to play the Curious George movie to entertain him for the rest of the ride.  We never even had to turn the tablet on!  He slept pretty much the entire drive out to Nanny and Paw-Paw’s house and back home later that night.  Such a trooper.  Scott’s cousin got married and it was a nice change from our everyday to get dressed up and visit with family.  The wedding was really pretty and we had a great time!   We didn’t end up leaving to drive home till about 9:15 and U hung on till around 9:45, but then he passed out and slept all the way.  Whew.

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So dapper!

So dapper!

Snacks were the key to lasting through the ceremony.

Snacks were the key to lasting through the ceremony.

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I’m pretty sure that Urijah and Nanny went up and down that entire staircase about ten times that night.  You know, we have a staircase at home that he climbs all the time, but this one held a certain excitement, I guess.

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These girls (plus some others) pretty much danced and spun around on that dance floor the entire time we were there.  They had a blast and I bet they slept really well that night!

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All dressed up!

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We didn’t get to eat any of this delicious looking wedding cake.  I’ll never understand why most people don’t do the cake cutting until after half the guests have already left.  Oh well.

 

 

 

 

12 Weeks

What’s new with the baby?
By now, your baby weighs a full half-ounce and is about the size of a large plum. Most of his systems are in place, though there’s still plenty of maturing to do. For one thing, his fetal digestive system is beginning to practice contraction movements necessary for eating, and his bone marrow is busy making white blood cells — weapons against germs once he’s out of your safe haven. The pituitary gland (at the base of the brain) has started producing the hormones that’ll enable him (or her) to make babies of his (or her) own in a couple of decades or so.   Now that she’s got pretty much all her parts, her main job is to keep on growing. While she’s doing that, she’s also developing her reflexes — if you poke your belly, she’ll likely move, and she’s opening and closing her fingers and curling her toes.
Food comparison this week is…
How am I feeling?
OK.  Still on and off with the nausea, but I’m hoping that any day now that will all start to taper off and the wonderfulness of the second trimester will kick in.  I’ve started sleeping with a pillow between my knees or slightly under my back and it seems to have made a big difference in my nighttime comfort.  I have decided to cut out caffeine this week, though.  I mean, I decided it this week, for the duration of the pregnancy – at least.  I get such a killer headache when I go longer than about 24 hours without any soda that it is just miserable, so I’ve decided it isn’t worth it, and I can be happy with non-caffeinated sodas or tea from here on out and save myself the hassle.  (The caffeine from tea doesn’t seem to affect me at all the way Coke does.)  This is a big deal for me, since I love, love, love a good fizzy Coke.  But, root beer or Sprite will also suffice, I guess.
Weight gain?
I haven’t checked.  I think I’d like to wait a bit longer.
What do I miss?  
Right now?  Cooler weather.  I know that has nothing to do with pregnancy, but that’s what I miss.
Cravings/Aversions?
Nothing specific this week, but last night when Scott and I were figuring out what to have for dinner (it was a “let’s eat leftovers so choose whatever you want dinner” night) and after we had both decided I jumped up and said “I win!” because I liked my dinner choice better than his.  That felt like a very pregnant thing to say.  I forgot how much food controls your brain during pregnancy.  Mine, anyway.   Oh, and at some point this week I am going to find a way to get a Potbelly chicken salad sandwich.  So, yeah!  There’s a craving!
Preparedness?
I’m not really going to do any shopping or anything until we find out of we’re having a boy or girl.  Boy?  We don’t have to do too much at all.  Girl?  I’ll, of course, go buy a few girl things, but I also know what Lisa has a whole bunch of leftover girl stuff she is ready to offload and another friend from my moms group is about to move to Korea and she said she’s like to get rid of some girl clothes, too.  So that would be fantastic!  Plus, my favorite twice-a-year consignment sale is coming up in October, so I’m holding out till then as well.  Good deals and tons of stuff!  But in the meantime, we are going to decide on a  color to paint Urijah’s new room, and when he and I are in Florida in a couple of weeks, Scott is going to tackle the painting.  So that will be fun to look forward to.  I don’t need to decorate a nursery this time, but a big boy room, instead!
Highlights of the week?
We went to a wedding in Houston on Saturday, and had a great time.  It was a lot of driving, but still fun to get dressed up and do something different.  I’ll write another post this week about that and post some pictures.  I’ve got another midwife appt scheduled on Thursday of this week, so I’ll post a bit about that later on, too.
Belly Pic:
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11 Weeks

(My due date is February 17th, 2014, just FYI.)
What’s new with the baby?
Your fetus is about 1.6 inches long, and she’s got about a 1:1 head-to-body ratio. She now weighs in at about .25 ounces. By week 11, her tooth buds, hair follicles and nail beds are forming. Her skin is see-through, but she’s on her way to looking more like a baby. Her fingers and toes aren’t webbed anymore, and she’s moving fluidly and gracefully in there, even though you can’t feel it.
Food comparison this week is…
How am I feeling?
Pretty good….I’ve been fighting with mild on and off nausea sort of from the get go, but it’s definitely starting to decrease now.  I was really able to pinpoint it to when I had no food in my stomach, so for the last month I felt like I was constantly standing in the kitchen eating random stuff all day long.  Also, it would hit if I got too hot, which pretty much happened every single day, either out on a walk or out at the park, or out in the backyard.  Summer in Texas!  Also, the crazy overwhelming fatigue has gone away, but I still feel more rundown than usual.  Which I suppose is to be expected, what with growing a human being while entertaining a toddler all day.  It was definitely easier last time when I sat in a nice, quiet air-conditioned office all day.  But, being able to go to the pool whenever we want is pretty nice, too.  Let’s see, what else?  My back is already starting to hurt, so I think I need to do some stretches to see if I can work it out.  I didn’t really do any exercise consistently after U was born, so I know my stomach muscles just have stayed weak and unused, so I’m expecting some back pain since I don’t have those strong abdominal muscles helping out!
Weight gain?
So far, I think about 5 lbs?  See above, eating ALL DAY LONG.
What do I miss?  
It’s a little hard to be pregnant in the summer, when margaritas and beer seem to abound, but I also love a good fizzy Coke, so that mostly makes up for it.
Cravings/Aversions?
I have have flitting cravings this time.  I keep smelling food (that isn’t anywhere around me, so I know my brain is making it up) and then I instantly want it.  But then just as soon, I think of something else.  So….kind of not unlike how I am about food when I’m not pregnant.  Moving on.
Preparedness?
We actually are on good footing.  I saved every single thing of Urijah’s, and plan to use as much of it as we can.  We are going to move U into the guest room a few months before the new baby comes so that he can get used to it.  He’ll keep his crib since it will eventually convert into a toddler bed and then into a full size bed.  That way we can leave the nursery just as it is, and no redecorating is necessary since it’s totally gender neutral.  We’ll, of course, have to get a few things, but mostly, we’re covered.  I’ve started cleaning out under the guest room bed, and will have to tackle the closet in there next.  So, we just need to figure out how we are going to decorate U’s new room, so we can get to painting it, and getting it ready.
Highlights of the week?
I got to hear the heartbeat today (Tuesday)!  I stopped into the birth center on the way to the playground with U to see if Heather had a minute to check for it (since at my first prenatal appt it was too early to hear it).  She did, and it sounded great.  She did feel my uterus and was surprised at how high up it already was, and threw out a joking “maybe you have more than one in there?”  We only heard one heartbeat, but as I was leaving she said she was sort of only half joking about that, and that she would be interested to see how my belly grows this time.  My next regular appt is next week, and if she seriously thinks it is worth double checking, I’ll have an ultrasound, but I think the odds of more than one baby in there are pretty small.  Right?
This is an informal belly picture I took just spur of the moment.  We’ll commence with the ‘real’ ones next week.
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And…..we’re back!

Baby King v. 2.0 is on the way and I’ve been requested to do weekly updates again. I wasn’t planning on blogging about the pregnancy this time, just because I didn’t think I would be very good at keeping up with it, but the people (well, person, really) has asked, and you must give the person what they want! So, I’m dusting off the old blog, making some updates and changes and we’ll get to the updates ASAP. You can see that I’ve added a new “belly pics” page and that the pregnancy ticker on the side is already up and running with the new and current info. Yesterday was 11 weeks, so I’ll be working on that update, hopefully to post tomorrow, and then we’ll get down to regularly scheduled business after that!

Hiatus

Well, it’s been just over 2 months since I deigned to show my face around these parts.  I thought it was high time to let you all know that I am still alive and that we are doing well over here.  Thriving, in fact!  We had a great, low-key Christmas, a successful New Year and are now forging headlong into spring.  Where, oh where to begin?  I’ll start with where we left off, I suppose.  Our Christmas was very nice.  We stayed home and took it easy.  Grandma and Grandpa Jim came to see us, which was so nice, and Urijah slept through most of the festivities, which was also so nice, since he really couldn’t actively participate anyhow.  I was a little bummed this year since I could only manage to squeeze out the barest of Christmas decorations, but I’m really hoping that next year, with a 14 month old!!, that I’ll be able to get back to my normal level of Christmas oomph.  That being said, we only put the Christmas tree back up in the attic 2 weeks ago!  And my fake poinsettias are still on the front porch. What?  They’re winter decorations…not just for Christmas.  Pfffftttt.

Scott and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary with dinner and a movie.  The grandparents came to babysit and we caught an early showing of ‘Hugo’ in 3D, which was excellent – highly recommended, and then came back home and got all dressed up for family Christmas pictures and then we headed out for our fancy dinner downtown at Trio at the Four Seasons.  Oh, it was so good.  We talked and drank and laughed a bunch, and definitely ate too much, but oh man, was it worth it.  It was just what we needed.  Happy Anniversary to my husband of one year and my partner for the last ten!

We were determined to so something for New Years and not be those people with a new baby that just hole up at home.  We….sort of….accomplished it.  We have some friends that always have a New years shindig, and it’s kid friendly, so we loaded ourselves up and went.  We stayed for about…2 hours?  Someone was particularly fussy and required walking and bouncing the whole time in order to stay calm, and pretty much didn’t want anyone other than Mom or Dad to speak to him, so it was sort of a flop in that regard.  But, it was still good to get out of the house and do something that we would have done pre-baby.  We made it home in time to crack open the celebratory bottle of wine that Scott found online (the same vintage that we had at our wedding that was fantastic!), and we watched the ball drop in our living room, with Urijah on Scott”s lap and me standing close enough to give kisses to both of my boys.  So, the New Year celebration was a success after all.

And after the holidays, we’ve been taking it day by day.  On February 13th, Urijah celebrated his 4 month birthday with a trip to the Dr’s office and some shots.  Yay!  The weekend prior to that, he had his first “sickness”.  An unexplained fever that lasted about 36 hours, and never got higher than 101.9.  I still don’t know exactly what caused it, but he weathered it well, and we’ll jut assume is was some viral infection he successfully fought off.  The stats from his 4 month appt are as follows, for anyone who is interested.  Weight – 15.8 lbs, length – 25 1/4 inches, head circumference was about 17 inches if I remember correctly.  For weight and length he was in the 50th percentile but his noggin was up into the 75th percentile.  He got an all around A+ and will go back in 2 more months.  He is generally getting more and more awesome.  He is smiling all the time and sometimes will do a few chuckles if you hit just the right spot with your silliness.  He loves it when you hold him under the arms and swing his body back and forth like a pendulum, and will give you huge open mouth smiles if you lift him up over your head and bring him back down over and over again.  He has recently decided that he hates his once much loved baths, so that’s a mystery since nothing has changed about them.  I’m going to try getting him a little tub that will let him sit reclined rather than laying flat, and we’ll see if maybe that is the problem.  He still also strongly dislikes having clothes pulled over his head, but usually recovers pretty quickly from that trauma unless he is already overtired.  But hands down my favorite new development is that when he wakes up in the morning, or from a nice solid nap, as soon as he sees me coming to get him, he gives me a huge smile and starts his whole body wiggling around in his swaddle.  It seriously makes me swoon, no matter how tired I am.

(Side note because I really need to wrap this up:  he did fantastic on his first flight.  He and I went to Portland to see Lisa, Josh and Ada in January, and he was an absolute perfect baby the whole time.  The flights were a breeze and he slept a ton in Portland!  The trip was too short, but he and I are making another venture in the beginning of March- this time to Jacksonville to see Gram and Grandpa.  Fingers crossed that those flights go as well as the first ones.  Hopefully the flights being half as long will help.)

 

 

 

In bullet form….

Urijah:

-weighed 10 lbs 10 oz at his 2 month Dr appt!!  When the nurse weighed him and said ,” ok, 10 / 10″.  I paused and stared at her and said, “do you means 10 POUNDS and 10 OUNCES?”  I’m not sure what else I thought she might have meant.  To say the least, we’re pleased with this development.

-is 22″ long (and inch and a half longer than at birth) and his head is 15″.  The Dr. placed him solidly in the 25% to 30% range for all three measurements.  Which doesn’t really matter, so long as he’s proportionate with himself, and he is!

-got 3 shots and an oral vaccine at his appt and handled them fantastically.  Had his first doses of infant Tylenol to combat the fever that he got afterwards.

-really hates having clothes pulled on over his head.

-likes bath time, except for the getting out part.  I think he gets that from his Gram.

-is absolutely enamored with the bug mobile over his changing pad…and when Dad had the brilliant idea to spin it around so all the bugs look like they are flying? Well, you might as well have given him the moon and stars.  I think I spun that mobile about 30 times last night after his diaper change.  He was thrilled every time.

-is smiling more and more, and is just starting to make cooing noises.  I think they still mostly take him by surprise when he does it, but I’m sure in the next few weeks, he’ll find his voice.

-has started sucking on his fist with some purpose and determination.

-think it’s really funny when his Dad imitates video game songs and noises.  It practically guarantees a smile.

-wants to be bounced to sleep….vigorously.  No gentle motions for this kid…he wants his head bobbing all around when he drifts off.

-is sleeping from about 11-12 at night to about 5 or 6 am, and then taking 3 or so regular naps during the day.  Last night he (and by extension, I) slept from 11pm till 6am and got up to eat, and just crashed out again at 8am for a morning nap.  I felt so rested from the good 7 hours of sleep that it’s the first time I decided to just stay up and start the day, rather than face-planting back into my own bed at the same time he went back to sleep.  So far it’s a good routine for us.  If I can avoid regularly being awake in those wee morning hours, I’ll take it.  Those are the worst!

-is a champ at running errands.  I’m not sure why I don’t take him out of the house every single day.  He seems to like the car seat just fine once he is buckled in and settled.  He either crashes out immediately, or serenely gazes out the window while we drive. I think he gets bored of the house and wants new stuff to look at.  Mom, too!

-had his first picture with Santa this week:

His shirt has cookies and milk on it and says "For Santa, not Daddy."

I:

-am feeling physically good.  Recovery from the birth was pretty easy, and I feel like the crazy hormones are leveling out now.  Now if my skin and hair would get the memo, I’d be glad for them to go back to normal, too.

-am back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  Some days a little less, some days a little more.  Good starting point for when I start to work out again!

-wish I could get my act together better more on days when we leave the house.  I usually just have my hair pulled back in a ponytail and absolutely no makeup and some random hodgepodge clothes.  I’m feeling pretty schlumpy most of the time, but I think it will get easier as he gets bigger.  I certainly need a haircut, and I totally get why new moms always get the ‘new mom haircut’; a.k.a. ‘the bob’.  Just not sure I want to join those ranks.  Maybe something midway between that and what I’ve got now, which is just long and out of control.

-have now nursed Urijah in the backseat of my car in a parking lot (surprisingly quiet and nice…wouldn’t mind having to do that again) and in the fitting room of Macy’s lingerie department.  Also not bad, but it killed my back sitting on that hard little seat the whole time.  When he was really small, I was complaining to Lisa that I absolutely could not nurse him without the Boppy pillow that I use at home (seriously the best thing EVER.  Thanks to Lisa for sending me hers when she was done with it.  We use it for every single feeding when we are at home!)  – he was just too floppy and his head was too hard to control, etc. I couldn’t make the logistics work of holding his head and his body and also positioning my boob for his mouth.  I needed more hands.   She said it would get easier as he got stronger and she was right!  All of a sudden, I can support his head in the crook of my arm and his little bottom and legs rests against my stomach/lap area and it all works out fine.  Whew.  That certainly makes being out and about easier.  (It also helps that he has gotten more aggressive about latching on and does so without nearly as much intervention from me.)

-am dreading starting to work again.  Still no official ‘start date’ but probably soon after the New Year.  I’m not sure how it will work out, but we’ll give it a go.

-am about to celebrate my 1 year wedding anniversary with Scott on the 20th.  Grandma and Pop-Pop ( these are the unofficial grandparent names for Scott’s folks that I am using – there has been no official agreement as to what their names will be yet.) are graciously coming to town  so that Scott and I can go out for the evening.  It will be our first outing alone together since my mom was here back in week 2.  We are in week 9.  It’s time.

-love this kid more and more every day:

 

Turkey Day recap

Whew.  Hello!  how have you been?  Wait, hold that thought.  I’ve got to {feed} {pick up} {burp} {change} {snuggle} the baby.  OK.  Now how are you again?

That’s how things go these days!  It’s non-stop baby and I make the ABSOLUTE most out of every naptime.  Aren’t you so lucky that today I am choosing to blog during these last few minutes of sleep.  I can hear intermittent noises over the baby monitor, but nothing requiring intervention yet.

So.  Thanksgiving.  We had it.  It was great.  It would have been perfect if Lisa and Josh and Ada had been able to be here, too, but the holidays are the busiest time of the year for Lisa’s bakery, so no traveling allowed!  Good thing we saw each other several times this summer to make up for it.

Scott and I had decided ahead of time that we weren’t going to attempt to travel for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year, and so our families came to us!  It was wonderful.  I loved having every one here and Urijah didn’t suffer from any of the attention he got, either.  Who says the turkey is the star of Thanksgiving?!  Uncle Shane and Grandpa both got in some snuggle time.

We divvied up the food responsibilities and Karen brought the turkeys and the green beans, and Mom and I handled the rest.  Ali covered the appetizers and snacks, which actually came in handy, since we ended up pushing out the meal until dinner time and ended up skipping any official lunch.  I’ve still been eating off of the leftover crackers and cheese ball almost 2 weeks later.  Ha!

The food was wonderful and it covered every single inch of my kitchen counters.  (I think Scott and I had had leftover Thanksgiving for about 5 or 6 meals, FYI.)  There was A LOT of food.  All the standard fare, and Scott and I were able to enjoy it with our families while our perfect baby peacefully slept through the whole thing.  I can’t believe we got off that lucky!

L to R: Karen, Jim, Grace, Shane, Dad (mom behind the camera)

The Kid's Bar: Lane, Scott, Me, Ali

And no Thanksgiving would be complete, (in my eyes) without the obligatory Black Friday shopping. I love it out there!  I love all the craziness, the deals, the usually chilly morning weather, and always finding more stuff for myself than anyone else.  Seriously, why is it that I do the best shopping for myself on Black Friday?  It happens every year and I don’t even feel guilty about it anymore..I just go into it knowing that I’m going to stock up! I hit the jackpot on some jeans (alright, fine, they’re jeggings and I don’t care who knows it since Mom already blew my cover when she told Scott that my new pants pull on.) and some tank tops and new undies and some pajama tops that are nursing-friendly.  The jeggings are just what my post-baby body needed.  They are actually skinny-leg jeggings, which was so surprising to me since I didn’t think that cut of pants looked good on my body shape, but they look great (if I do say so myself – plus mom and Ali told me so).  You would never know the zipper is fake! They are now on my top ten list of things I am thankful for this year.

Our family had another reason to be thankful this year – my folks are celebrating 40 years of marriage, and we had a small cake to commemorate.  I wish I could have done more to acknowledge the accomplishment, but my last couple of months have been….busy.

Congratulations Art and Sherry! We love you!

Also, it is of note to say that this was mine and Scott’s first Thanksgiving as a married couple!  He is definitely at the top of my list of things to be thankful for – he makes my life better and I can’t imagine my life without him.  I don’t want to. We’ll be celebrating our 40 years in…well, 40 years.

And this year, he’s not alone at the very top of my list.

Hmmm.  Maybe the turkey was the star of Thanksgiving after all.

This post took me a week and a half to write, so it’s sort of all over the place.

As of last Thursday, Urijah hit the one month old mark! (As of today, he’s 5.5 weeks.) It seems a lot shorter to me to say 4 weeks, but when I start thinking in terms of ‘months’, I can hardly believe it.  We’re only 2 weeks away from reaching the end of the famed “the first 6 weeks are the hardest” saying.  And really, I must say, in a lot of ways it has been true, but it has also been better, dare I say, easier than I expected.

The hardest part of the last 4 weeks has been the feeding issues that we were facing early on.  We seem to have settled into a new normal of breastfeeding and supplementing (with both formula and Lisa’s milk) and while it isn’t ideal (I desperately wish I could exclusively breastfeed this baby, but I’m coming to terms with the fact that I can’t provide enough, and I need to make sure his belly is full, first and foremost, so supplementing it is!), it is what we have to do and he is thriving and putting on weight, and that’s what matters.  We just switched to Dr. Brown’s bottles two days ago…we were using Green to Grow bottles from the start but he was spitting up quite a bit, so we’re trying different bottles to see if that helps.  So far so good, he still spits up a bit, but it is definitely less than it was.

I hesitate to put it in writing in case I am jinxing myself, but the sleep has been pretty good so far.  AND I AM HUGELY GRATEFUL FOR THAT, powers that be.  Do you hear me?   I’m not taking it for granted!  Urijah regularly sleeps for stretches of 4-6 hours at a time at night, and so far, goes back to sleep pretty easily after eating. I’m starting to see a pattern emerging of nap times and awake times during the day, so that helps, too.  If I know he will go to sleep for a couple of hours and I can eat something, wash bottles and clean up the kitchen, it can make the whole day feel like a win.  Like I know what I’m doing.

It was a rough first 2 weeks of self doubt, though…I was frustrated and disappointed, and the emotional roller-coaster was a bit unpredictable.  It feels like it is leveling out somewhat now, but I still reserve the right to have a cry if I need to.  Just FYI.

So…now here are some first month ‘stats’.  The lactation consultant left her fancy scale here for almost 2 weeks, so I was able to keep tabs on Urijah’s weight…he hit the 7 lb mark and even exceeded it a bit!  His face and belly are noticeably fuller, and he is starting to get that chubby baby look to him.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s still tiny and a bit scrawny, but compared to how tiny he was at the beginning, it’s a big change!

He has more and more awake time during the day (and yeah, at night, too) and his little eyes are so bright and alert.  He is making eye contact and I feel like he might be on the cusp of smiling soon.  I keep trying to talk him into it, but he’s not cooperating yet.  He can hold his head up really well when you hold him up on your shoulder…he loves to look all around, especially at lights or the TV or at your face.  But watch out – he tends to overdo it sometimes and I’ve already had several hard collisions with his forehead and my lip.  We’re working on tummy time – he can move his head from side to side, but not very much consistent head holding up in that position yet.

And I would like to officially extend an apology to every mother that I ever (silently) judged for saying that they didn’t have time to do something.  I get it now.  I’m sorry I ever doubted you.  This kid takes ALOT of time.

 

 

Bigger and better

We have weight gain!  As of Urijah’s 2 week check-up he was back to his birth weight.  I felt like we had been cramming for a test for days leading up to that appointment – as soon as the scale registered those numbers, I burst into tears.  It was such a relief to know that all of our effort was paying off.  Heather, the midwife, gave me a good long hug, and let me cry for a minute, and told me I was doing a great job, and I was doing everything right.  It was just what I needed to hear!  I had had so many days  of worry and stress, and disappointment in my body that it wasn’t fulfilling its obligation to this little boy, that to get the news that between my body, Lisa’s body and the Enfamil corporation, we were making it happen.  Go team!

Urijah commemorated the moment by promptly peeing all over the sling they use for weighing.  An appropriate indication that he is getting enough food, I suppose.

The lactation consultant brought her fancy scale back over on Sunday and we did a couple of pre and post feeding weighs over the next 2 days, and we’re up to getting around an ounce or ounce and a half from a nursing session, which is a HUGE improvement.  Still not enough to sustain him, but it’s progress!  The last weight I took of him today was right around 6.5 lbs, so he’s starting to chunk up.  His cheeks are definitely starting to look fuller, even if his legs are still scrawny.

Look! I'm starting to get wrist rolls!

In other news, there’s been a bunch of grandma love going on around here.  My mom came to town and stayed for 5 days, and the day after she left Scott’s parents came to town to help me out, since sadly, Scott had to go back to work. My mom was Urijah’s first ever babysitter!  We took advantage of her capable hands and we went to dinner with some friends while she and the babe stayed home and bonded.  I actually put on makeup and wore my hair down for the first time in weeks – it felt great!  And, if I may pat myself on the back for something that I had absolutely no control over?  I was able to wear pre-pregnancy jeans.  There was sort of a muffin-top situation, but whatever.  They zipped!  The were pretty comfortable!  They looked great while I was standing up! All in all, it was a success.

My mom also gave Urijah his first bath while she was here.  We thought it would be nice to actually bathe the poor kid before we took him to his 2 week check up.  Honestly, he just wasn’t really dirty!  It was just a water wipe down, but he handled it pretty well.  He did pee during it, which we fully expected, but right as he started, he sort of rolled to the side and crossed his leg over in a very gentlemanly fashion, so she was saved from the spray.

Mom cooked up a storm while she was here, and Scott and I ate it up.  It was such a nice treat to have someone make food for us that we haven’t eaten, like, 20 times before.  We have been in a food rut, so Mom showing up with new recipes in hand was just what we needed.  She made tons, so we’ve got a stuffed fridge to keep working through.  Such a luxury to have prepared food that just needs to be heated up!

Scott’s mom took up the torch and she’s been cooking as well.  As I type, she’s working in the kitchen and it smells great!  It really is so nice to have an extra pair of hands (or two!) around the house to hand the baby off to, or to pour up a bottle or to make dinner.  I was even able to make a solo run to Target yesterday while Karen stayed home with Urijah.  Between Ali, Mom and Jim and Karen, we are so, so lucky to have had such amazing and supportive people around us to help out.  Everyone is just smitten with Urijah, and we couldn’t be more pleased to see how happy he makes them.

Next week will be my first real week ‘on my own’ while Scott is at work, and while I’m a bit nervous, I’m also excited to see how we do.  Hopefully we can settle into some sort of normalcy (notice I didn’t say routine – I’m not that naive) and both get through the days fed and somewhat rested.  If I can manage to accomplish both of those tasks for us, it will be a roaring success!

But can everyone please keep your cell phones handy in case of a meltdown?

Thanks.

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