4 Weeks

Frazier is four weeks old today!

It's hard to believe, but then again it also seems like we've known him forever. I think this week has been the best so far. We're all used to each other, I guess. He seems more familiar to me and he also seems sturdier (not that he ever seemed terribly fragile, being pretty dense from the beginning, but the difference now may be that he's holding his head up remarkably well!) The infection in his eyes cleared up so we're no longer putting ointment in them and wiping them out multiple times a day, and his belly button finally has no traces of cord stump left so no more messing with that. I feel I have the hang of things, like bathing him and dressing him and feeding him. We're finally nursing sans breast shield now! Paula would be proud! :) I truly feared we might be saddled with that thing forever. My friend, Merissa said she used one for ten months! So that made me feel a little better about taking four weeks!

Best of all, every night this week he's slept at least six hours in a row. Monday night, I woke up after four hours fully prepared to feed him, but he was sound asleep. So I waited and finally went back to sleep--for two more hours! When he went six hours again last night for the third time in a row I began to worry. Cut to me up at 4:30 a.m. googling "my four week old sleeps six hours at night...is this ok?" :) The general consensus online was that as long as he was gaining weight steadily I should count my blessings and enjoy my sleep. Since my bathroom scale put him at about 11.5 pounds today I'm doing just that! Though I will confess that after 6 hours and 45 minutes last night I woke him up and fed him and changed his diaper. I just couldn't let him go any longer...I felt guilty. And, crazy as this sounds...I kind of missed him.

Before he was born, I joked that my child would be the most photographed child that ever lived...and it's eerie how true that might actually be. I took some more pics today...afterall, it's been--what?--a week and a half since the last photo shoot. He might've changed since then. ;)

So what else went on during week four?

We went on our first walk this week. And, naturally, we took pictures of the stroller's maiden voyage. Frazier really seemed to like it...he was asleep before we got to our second lap around the neighborhood! He isn't used to the outdoors, so he was pretty squinty for awhile at first, even though we waited until the sun was setting before we went out. We only made it two miles before, much to my chagrin, I had some pain and had to quit. 4th degree tears take more than 25 days to heal sufficiently enough to briskly walk more than two miles while pushing a stroller. Lesson learned. :( I refuse to be deterred, however. I plan to go out again this evening when it cools off. I just don't plan to go more than two miles...yet.

I also actually did some cooking this week which made me happy; two meals last weekend and then some goodies yesterday for my friend, Rebecca, whose baby, Myles, was born last Thursday. (I went over there yesterday evening and everyone was doing pretty well, but Myles has jaundice, too! He's still home for now, and we're praying his bilirubin levels stay low enough for him to remain there.) Frazier has been an excellent little sous chef. :) He chills in his swing and we put music on and sing while we cook! So, I'm afraid that's all the minutae about our lives I can bore you with today...and believe it or not that's pretty much all the new pictures I've got. :) Thanks for visiting.

Happy Thursday!

You'll Never Know, Dear, How Much I Love You

I finally have some Mommy and Frazier pics! Thought I'd share.

*The song on this slideshow is Little Sack of Sugar by Elizabeth Mitchell. It's a favorite. :)

"I'd rather be a mother than anyone on earth

Bringing up a child or two of unpretentious birth...

I'd rather wash a smudgy face with round,

bright baby eyes--than paint the pageantry of fame,

or walk among the wise."

-Meredith Gray

Craisinets and Other Random Stuff

Did you know these existed?They do, they're excellent, and you should get some.

Now, on to some Frazier pictures. :) We've been pretty busy this week. We had company Thursday, Friday and Saturday (and I got to go to Wal-Mart and Sonic thanks to the collaborative efforts of Mom and Ross on Thursday!) Then, Mom was back today for a thorough kitchen cleaning (YAY!) and Mae Mae and Pop are coming tomorrow!

Picture #1: Frazier and his newest Wild Thing. I thought it was sweet he actually looked like he was holding it. Mostly he just liked looking at it. Our friend, Corey, who visited Friday has begun Frazier a collection of stuffed characters from Where The Wild Things Are. I love them! So far we have Max and two Wild Things...I think we only lack one more Wild Thing. I adore that book...and these toys! Big thanks to Corey! :)

Pictures #2 and #3: I took these this morning because he got all excited after I dressed him and started flailing his arms and legs. I thought it looked like he was dancing and it almost seemed like he was trying to sing or tell me something. I should have filmed it...but stills are all I got.Happy hands all in the air...Since it appears Frazier did not get the "early to bed, early to rise" gene from me...but rather the "nightowl" gene from Josh...bedtime is something of a small battle every night. We've found, however, that if we lay him in the middle of our bed, and Josh gets out his guitar and our hymnal, we get through maybe two songs before he's out. Also, in an effort to fill our awake time with something worthwhile, I got out these flashcards Frazier's Uncle Ross bought for him. (I think they came from Anthropologie, but I'm sure you can order them from somewhere else, too.) He LOVES looking at them and will do so for an amazingly long time. It's a beautiful thing.
My last picture is one of Frazier and me...because I told Josh all we had were a bunch of pictures of Frazier alone and Frazier with him because I'm the only one who takes them. So this is what I got. At least there's some documentation I was here in the first few weeks of his life. :) I do actually like this picture just because he does this all the time...holds on to my shirt collar. Even when he's sleeping. And I find that amusing.

I intend to keep working on getting some Mom and Frazier pics. I'll keep you apprised. Thanks for visiting...Happy Monday!

So This Is It

It occurred to me today that this is it. This is the way my life will be. Today was the day...that it all sank in. We had company nearly every day the first week, and spent two of those days in the pediatric wing of the hospital, even the second week wasn't typical. Josh went back to work, but my Mom was here a couple of days, we had our first doctor's appointment, and my grandparents visited, too. And for the entire first two weeks, until last Friday night, church friends brought us dinner EVERY NIGHT. So we were guaranteed company (and a meal) every evening even if nothing else was going on. It was such a blessing- we're truly grateful!! But now we are on our own for meals. Mom came yesterday again and helped me clean house (which feels fabulous!), but today it was just me and Frazier and Gatsby. And today seemed like a precedent- for many more days to come. We ate and and slept and I changed a bunch of diapers and did a load of laundry and washed some dishes and fit in lunch and a bath while he was sleeping. And now Josh is home, but napping. And Frazier is fussy. And tomorrow we'll get up and do it all over again.
Frazier was awake yesterday afternoon/evening for, like, seven hours in a row (and insisted on eating every two hours during that time) and I have to admit...I was about out of ideas. Fortunately, he wasn't fussy the whole time- I just wasn't sure what to do with him. I sang, I read, I put him in his swing, we got out every toy labeled 0+ months...and finally ended up on the wiggle-worm activity mat (for the first time) and it was a big hit. I also used some bright links to rig up a new mobile as the one attached to his pack-and-play (which we use as a bassinet and in which he spends a lot of time) is too high for him to see...and just had three boring tan dogs on it. I'd been disappointed in the mobile from the get go, and Mom suggested I hang something else from it that he could actually see and interact with. So now there are three toys (including a mirror and a frog that ribbits) dangling within his focusing range.I took a close up because this is one of my favorite sleepers. Because it's the Very Hungry Caterpillar...and because it says "but he was still hungry"...and that's so perfect for my little bottomless pit. :)Not sure what this face is...with the puckered lips...but we get it all the time.

I fear the being awake for hours in the evening may be a trend, because as aforementioned he's up and fussy right now- wiggle worm playmat, here we come...but I suppose for now it's okay. He sleeps between feedings and diaper changes pretty much all day. He eats every three to four hours daily and every four to five hours at night. Pretty darn easy, really. I have no complaints.

Off to feed my fussbudget-

r.

Photo Shoot On His 17th Day

I fear poor Frazier will never know life without a camera in his face. But at least his life will be well documented, right? You'd think there was a possibility that at any moment he might vaporize and disappear the way we all take pictures of him...and I'm the worst one for sure. Yet I am unashamed. I've been waiting my entire photographic "career" to have a kid of my own to photograph. Despite all the pictures I've taken thus far, I still felt I wasn't taking full advantage of this new photographic subject that is my son. So I set him up in the window, hauled out all my (real) photo equipment and snapped away. Then I sat here and actually spent a little time editing them. You may have grown weary of Frazier pictures already...but he'll only be 17 days old once afterall...and I don't want to forget how he looked yesterday. :) In case you were wondering what he looked like Sunday, here are some of the resulting pics. Yes, there are lots of them and some may be very close to others. I almost put them in a slideshow...which would have probably taken less time to post, but then I thought that this way, you could scroll through them as quickly or slowly as you want. I also haven't had a lot of success with getting slideshows to upload without having to make them very small. So this way you get to see the pictures a bit bigger. Anyway, enjoy!:

Third Saturday

***I just set him down on the Boppy pillow (yet another favorite thing) for a minute so I could regroup after nursing, but he got so comfy and looked so cute I let him stay long enough to grab my camera and get this shot! :)

So this is Frazier's third Saturday and our first Saturday just the three of us...or four if you count Gatsby who is currently sleeping amid the throw pillows on the sofa. It's been a slow, boring day, really. It poured down rain here just a bit ago and we spent awhile without electricity. It was so dark it seemed like evening at 1 o'clock in the afternoon! Josh has gone to buy shoes...and a new hair dryer because mine died a couple of days ago. It was the perfect hair dryer, too. I'm hoping he finds one just like it. Frazier is asleep in his swing...I'm just waiting for him to wake up to eat. Until then I've little to do. I did get out yesterday, which was nice. Josh gets home by noon every Friday so after lunch I ran a few errands and felt part of the world again. Though with all the trips we've made to the doctor's office and hospital the past two weeks, I don't feel that I've been that cooped up. I had a third of a cherry Dr. Pepper (the first caffeine I've had since November) and I bought myself a copy of Food Network magazine because it had nothing to with pregnancy, babies or parenting. I thoroughly enjoyed it...perhaps I'll subscribe. I wanted to spend just about half an hour on my elliptical today, but Josh's curl bar is in front of it so I couldn't move it out. And when asked to move it for me, Josh narrowed his eyes. "But what about your stitches and stuff?" He looks appalled that I'm considering such a thing. "It's only been, what? 15 and a half days? I don't think that's a good idea." So he refuses to move the curl bar. Exercise plans foiled by an over-protective husband. I'm starting my pilates back on Monday, though, because I have to do something. Sitting around here just isn't doing it for me. Plus, I'm doing this stress management program through our insurance (it's an incentive thing that gets you a break of sorts). Every couple of weeks I have a phone appointment with my personal health team counselor, Justin, to evaluate my stress level and overall well-being and to discuss strategies for making my life less stressful, etc. I had to set a goal this week and pilates was it. I said my plan was to shoot for three times a week...Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. True to my word, I'm going to try. I like having positive results to report back even if Justin can't really prove I'm telling the truth. I forgot to mention in my last post that Frazier's two week check up Thursday went well. He weighed 9 lbs 12 oz (so he was up 3 oz from his birthweight) and he was 22 inches long. Dr. Hunter was (and I quote) "tickled pink" about his progress. She also had to remove his umbilical stump since it never fell off on its own. Other than that it was uneventful...which is the way I prefer doctor's appointments to be. We're very grateful to my Mom for going with us, as Josh was otherwise (workwise) detained and I don't know how we'd have gotten there alone. I do realize there will come a day I have to go somewhere with Frazier and only Frazier...but that day was not Thursday. And speaking of Frazier- I'm being summoned to feed the bottomless pit that is my child.

Have a happy Saturday,

r.