Feeling the Love

Valentines Day has never been a favorite holiday. Couples are pressured to spend money on the commercial aspects and singles have it even worse. I had previously sworn never to brave restaurant crowds on Valentines, but this year I decided to take Grandma up on her offer to babysit David so Derek and I could enjoy a couple hours on our own. Even though we got to the cheesecake factory just after 4 pm the place had a line practically out the door just to get your name on the list and a 4 hr wait for a table! So instead we headed for the take-out line and got a couple slices of cheesecake to go (even that took almost an hour) and wound up eating Wendy's hamburgers at my mom's. I think I'll renew my resolve about eating out on Valentines. The holiday wasn't a total wash though. I had oh-so-subtly hinted that I wanted some scrumptious chocolate covered strawberries rather than flowers this year but Derek surprised me with both the confection and flowers. Hopefully we can plan a somewhat more successful date sometime soon, but between the start of the tax season and David's sleep/feeding schedule it won't be easy.

The pictures of David with the bear are an idea I copied from my sister Michelle where each month a new photo is taken of the baby alongside the bear to track growth and compare. I wasn't on the ball enough to get a picture at 1 month so I will have to start at 2 months. At 2 months he's still a solid little guy measuring at the 97th percentile for both height and weight. He's mastered smiling and cooing and is beginning to reach for the toys on his toybar. Every day he's a little more interactive and we have lots of fun.

Smile!

Whew! I've been meaning to write a new post for awhile but our internet connection is really unreliable these days and every time I get a few free minutes I can't get online. David's been smiling deliberately for a few weeks now, but it's hard to catch him at it on camera. The other day though all the planets aligned so I could manage it. The other picture shows his recent favorite activity which is pulling the little toy on his chair to play music. I have to help him grab onto it still and he hasn't figured out that after he's pulled it he needs to give it some slack for the cord to retract before it can play again, but he sure thinks he's hot stuff when he gets it to work.
Since I last posted Derek's mom came out to visit and meet David. We had arranged to have David blessed in church while she was here, but that fell through last minute so we wound up having him blessed here at home instead. I was a little worried about cramming even the small group of family we'd invited into our living room, but we managed it with only minimal rearranging of the furniture and it all went nicely. Here's a picture of David with Derek and his mom.

To Sleep Perchance To Dream

I guess I would be remiss as a new parent if I didn't mention sleep deprivation. To think that up until recently I was fretting that David slept longer than all the books said that he should. A few times he went 7-8 hrs between feedings even. Contrary to what every veteran mom advised I even woke him up a few times to feed him worrying that he would be malnourished. Now my "malnourished" 6 week old is wearing his 6 month clothing already and is eating so frequently that I rarely can catch more than 2-3 hours of sleep at once. Why did I ever wake him up?

He also has some stomach reflux which means that he CONSTANTLY wants to be held and when I finally can put him down more often than not he winds up spitting up all over everything which of course wakes him right back up. I've tried letting him sleep in his carseat and everything else I can think of but nothing seems to make much of a difference. I try to keep in mind that in a few short months he'll want to be free to roam on his own and I'll wish I could hold him and rock him, but when it's 3:00 in the afternoon and I still haven't had a chance to eat or get dressed it's not always easy to keep perspective.

Bring on 2009

Sorry it's been a little longer between posts than I planned. Even though I've been fairly busy the past couple weeks I haven't been able to accomplish much. David seems to be under the impression that all of my waking hours should be spent with him so everything else (like eating, showering, updating my blog) has been put on hold for now. The good news is that I've found something that will keep him entertained at least long enough to scarf down a quick bowl of cereal. He LOVES the little playmat his Aunt Erica gave him! He's not coordinated enough to play with all the toys, but he'll stare mesmerized at the mirror and the lights and all the colorful shapes. And since my parents are graciously taking care of him for a few minutes I have an opportunity to do a quick post.
Hopefully everyone had a good New Year. We had a pretty low-key celebration at home and I made some resolutions this year. Mostly I make (and break) standard resolutions like losing weight and being more organized, but I actually do have an interesting one this year. I want to buy and sell more used items from sites like craigslist and KSL.com. This not only saves money, it saves our landfills from overflowing and helps out our neighbors by allowing them to make a little extra cash. I've found that baby items especially can be found that are like new for a fraction of the cost and I don't have to worry that most of the money I spend goes overseas or into the wallets of overpaid CEOs. Anyone else have an interesting resolution this year? I'd love to hear about it.

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone has had a Merry Christmas and is enjoying the holiday season. Derek and I celebrated Christmas as parents for the first time ever and found we have some room for improvement. Originally we had planned to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at our house before heading down to Grandma's but changed our plans last-minute to avoid driving during a blizzard. As it was David's first overnight excursion we frantically were packing everything we thought we might need and managed to forget David's presents from us and Santa. Luckily we did manage to remember his Christmas stocking with some small gifts in it and he still got plenty from grandparents and other family. David was very understanding about the whole thing and he gave Mommy her favorite present of all- he slept for 7 hours straight that night!

Yesterday the fun continued when my friends Christy and Elizabeth came over for dinner. Both live out of state so it was really nice that we all managed to be at the same place at once. Elizabeth brought her yummy chicken enchiladas and Christy made our friend Amy's famous chocolate chip cookies. Mmmm, I almost felt like we were back in college again. It was especially enjoyable for me because I've been feeling pretty stir-crazy and isolated lately. David's still too young to take out in public, especially this time of year and I'm starting to feel a little like I'm under house arrest.

He really is a little sweetheart though and we love him more all the time. He passed his 2 week checkup with flying colors and has regained all of his birthweight. I put away all of his newborn sized clothes as it has gotten to hard to squeeze him into them anymore. I tried out the new camera lens Derek got me for Christmas and thought I'd post a couple of the results. Happy Holidays everyone!

I'm Cured!

Whew! For the first couple of days after David was born I was doing pretty well considering that I'd just undergone major surgery. The nurses were all remarking how quickly I was recovering and I told everyone that having a C-section wasn't nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. I spoke too soon. The night before I was discharged I developed a TERRIBLE headache. The doctor and nurses all thought it was likely a reaction to the pain pills I was taking so I stopped taking them and went home Friday as planned.

The weekend was pretty awful. Just having the headache would have been bad enough, but the headache plus having to take care of a newborn was torture. Just to give you an idea, the whole time I was in labor, having the C-section, and recovering I never rated my pain as higher than 5/10. This headache was 10/10. I know I could have and probably should have called my doctor much earlier to let her know the headache hadn't improved off of the pain pills, but it was the weekend and I hate to bother people on their time off. Plus I kept coming up with alternate explanations (stress, sleep deprivation, hormones). Finally by Monday afternoon nothing had worked and even though the presentation wasn't exactly classic for a spinal headache after an epidural my doctor had me go to the ER just in case. Talk about a miracle cure! They did a procedure called a blood patch to reverse the effects of leaking spinal fluid and I immediately felt like myself again. It's amazing what a difference it makes to be pain-free. I can actually enjoy spending time with my baby!

And for those of you who are wondering how little David is doing, he is just fine. He's gained 6 oz over the weekend (in the hospital he didn't want to nurse and the pediatrician was keeping a pretty close eye on his weights) and he seems to be very healthy! I've posted some pictures of his first bath at home.

The Baby Who Cried Wolf

It seems to be a common fear that I am going to give birth and forget to tell anyone about it based on the number of phone calls I now receive each day asking for baby updates. Still I suppose it's better that they call me because whenever I call anyone now they race to answer the phone with baited breath and then are invariably disappointed to discover that I'm just calling to chat. This is especially true ever since the false alarm we had the other day.

On Wednesday I started to have some pretty painful contractions I didn't know what to make of. My pregnancy books clearly outline how to differentiate between false labor, pre-labor, and true labor but my symptoms were nothing like anything they outlined. The pain never let up between the contractions so I couldn't really time how close together they were or how long they lasted. Then after several painful minutes they would let up entirely for a few minutes to an hour or more. For 4 hrs I tried warm baths, drinking fluids, laying down, moving around and everything else I could think of and they only got more frequent and intense so I finally broke down and went to the hospital.

The nurse who hooked me up to the monitor declared that I was definitely in labor but that she couldn't really tell far into it I was because every time I had a contraction it set off a whole series of contractions. It was already 11:00 so I figured I better call my boss before it got any later and left her a message that I was in labor and not to expect me at work in the morning. We also put my family on the alert. They gave me some morphine to settle things down and it unfortunately worked a little too well. I started having fairly regular contractions about 3-4 minutes apart, but they weren't strong enough to have any effect. After 4 hrs the nurse still maintained I was in labor, but the kind that can last several hours to days before progressing to the next phase. The next morning we had the fun task of calling everyone back to tell them the baby changed his mind.