End of March

We waited SO LONG for it to be March and for him to get here, and now March is 30 hours from being over. I can't believe it. My mom said that she remembers this time when we were babies as "the days being so long, but the years being so short." I guess that's how it is going to be, because almost every night when I'm up every couple hours feeding and feeling sick from exhaustion and frustrated when he won't sleep, I want to cry and quit. But the fact that it feels like yesterday that he got here blows my mind too.

People talk about how hard it is, but it's indescribable until you're living through it. And I had more help than most people have. I married a guy who is willing to be totally hands on and have a mom that was willing to come and give up sleep for a month to do our cooking, laundry, and dishes and rock the baby to sleep after a 2am feeding so that I could get an extra 20 minutes of sleep before the next feeding. I don't know how people do it on their own.

Mike went back to work last week, so I try to be respectful and help him get as much sleep as possible since I don't have to drive to work and be human all day. Those 4 work nights were hard, and my mom stayed to bridge the transition. Now that she's gone, I will be on my own. Thankfully, the nights have gotten a little easier with a 4 hour stretch of sleep. (He'd sleep forever if I let him, but he wasn't gaining weight at the right speed at one point, so we make sure he wakes up to eat now.)

Without attempting to create them, I am starting to notice small patterns in our day. We pretty much get up in the 7 to 8 range and after he eats, he's pretty perky. He loves tummy time and back time in his rainforest gym in the square of family room sun. Then he eats again around 10 either at the breastfeeding group at the hospital that we visit on Tues/Thurs or during Kelly & Michael on the other days. (This is my new favorite daytime show because they're not annoying like everyone else. It's the only one I can stand!) Then he chills (sometimes awake, sometimes asleep) until the lunchtime feeding and I shower. (This is going to be a new logistic to figure out, because my mom or Mike hung out with him while I showered and he has an uncanny knack for crying when I go to shower. I will have to bring a chair upstairs or something.) After his lunchtime feeding, I eat and he usually sleeps more solidly. Then he eats again around GH time. After that though it's anybody's guess. Sometimes in the afternoon/evening he wants to eat ALL THE TIME. Sometimes he doesn't. That means a lot of dinner times he's in someone's lap. At some point he goes to sleep upstairs (in the crib! Yay!) and sleeps til the middle of the night when he gets up to eat again, then sleeps til 6 or 7 when we eat again and start all over.

10 Days Old

Today he is 10 days old and we've been home from the hospital for 8 days. Some things to remember later in life:

Likes:
Snuggling
His swing
His bouncy seat
Farting
Eating
Tummy Time
Getting dressed after getting changed or bathed
Sleeping in any place, any time, during daylight hours

Dislikes:
Pack 'n' Play/Crib
Being changed (#1 cause of screaming around here)
Bath time, even though it's only a sponge bath at this point
Sleeping without being held if it's night time
Having hands/arms inside a swaddle

Tidbits of Life:
Currently the inside front of his diaper has lots of vasoline to help with healing. We are hoping to get the ok to discontinue this practice at his doc appointment on Friday because vasoline keeps diapers from absorbing all the pee! We have all been peed on at this point. We tried a size up, but he's too tiny for them still so that didn't solve the problem.

He really thinks he has great head control. This leads to funny moments during tummy time and when he's ready to eat.

Knock on wood, but he isn't terribly fussy most of the time. He won't sleep all the time at night, but he will just lay in your arms and look around peacefully.

Walmart Brand "Faded Glory" size newborn clothing is smaller than the other newborn clothes we have. He is very very close to not fitting in his few outfits from there. That's sad, because the jungle outfit and blue argyle zipper-to-the-toe outfits are some of my favorites!

He has good hearing because he'll jump to sudden noises like pops. However you can talk in normal voices & have the TV on and it doesn't phase him if he's asleep.

Since he's 10 days old, I'm 10 days into my healing process. That has been the hardest part, because I'm not real mobile. I am ready to feel better in that department, for sure! Sleep deprivation is hard, pain is hard, but both combined is very hard. I'm the only one that can take care of food, but luckily Mike is taking care of pretty much everything else baby related and my mom is taking care of pretty much everything else life related so it's ok that I can't move much and take lots of medicine!

Baby Is Here!

To finish out the other blog, which was really about the journey to get here, I wrote a 3 part post about baby Derek's journey into the world. Now it's time to experience parenthood!

Part 1: http://jlsh935.blogspot.com/2013/03/baby-is-here-part-1.html
Part 2: http://jlsh935.blogspot.com/2013/03/baby-is-here-part-2.html
Part 3: http://jlsh935.blogspot.com/2013/03/baby-is-here-part-3.html

Photos: http://derekthomas.shutterfly.com/