Christmas Fun

Hi everyone --


This past week has been pretty busy with time spent celebrating Christmas with family and visits with friends. We spent Christmas with Dan's family on Saturday, which was fun with four kids under the age of four! It was nice to have everyone in one place as well. We took a picture of the four grandkids together, which is attached. The other baby is Dan's older sister's - she was born in early December. It was amazing to us how much Jacob has grown since he was born after seeing him next to her. She is the size that he was when he was born!!


We celebrated with my family at our house on Sunday. I have also attached a photo of our family picture, which has been a tradition as far as I can remember. We took Jacob to the Christmas Eve service at our church on Monday and he did so well!! I was so nervous about him crying or belting out these elongated grunts that he has now started doing when he needs to go to the bathroom, but he kept quiet. It was great to be back in church and be there as a family - we hope to start taking him to church each Sunday now that he is a little older. Since we saw both of our families prior to Christmas, we were able to have a quiet and relaxing day on Christmas day. My dad came up again and we watched movies and learned how to make my dad's famous mostaciolli. Overall, it was a great Christmas!


Jacob gave us a great Christmas gift and slept in his crib the entire night on Monday (with only two feedings). Just when we thought that was great, he slept ALL night without waking up on Wednesday night. Dan and I woke up around 5:00 am in a state of shock that he was still asleep. I went in to make sure that he was still breathing and then we went back to sleep. He made it all the way to Dan's alarm at 7:00, which was eight hours straight. It was probably just a fluke, but we'll take it!!

Jacob smiled at me for the first time yesterday, which was so exciting!! He has smiled in his sleep since he was born, but this was the first time he did it when we were "talking" to each other. He is exploring his voice more and more and it is fun to try and get him to talk to us. Since he has gotten bigger, he no longer fits into his newborn clothes so I have put those away and gotten out his next stage of clothes. It's fun putting new clothes on him, but sad at the same time to say goodbye to his newborn clothes. I'm just about done decorating his nursery and will post pictures of it once it is done.

I have two weeks before I go back to work and I have a whole list of things to get done. Mainly though, I want to soak up my one-on-one time with Jacob. I'm looking forward to going back to work but will miss spending so much time with him. I know every working mother faces this dilemna, but I hope that it is an easy transition for both of us. I'm tearing up just thinking about it :( I'll just have to load up my desk with lots of pictures of him!!!

Blog at you all later!!

Angela

Movin' On Out

Hi everyone --

Well, as the title of this post mentions, Jacob has been moved out of our bedroom and into his nursery. No, he isn't sleeping in his crib yet, but we have put his bouncy seat on the floor of his nursery so that he can get used to the sounds in there and hopefully transition him to his crib soon. He still takes short naps in his crib during the day, but night is a different story. Right now he sleeps about three hours at a time, four if we're lucky.

Nothing else is really new with him except that he is growing like a weed! We weighed him the other night and he came in at whopping 10 pounds!! He has outgrown his first outfit which is just crazy to us. It's amazing how quickly they grow :)

I must have jinxed Rascal in our Christmas card letter because he suffered another setback over the weekend. He herniated his last spinal disk next to his tail and is in a good deal of pain right now. Thankfully, his nerves that affect his rear legs are not affected so paralysis is not an issue. However, his back legs must be sore because getting up from a lying position seems to really hurt him and he won't let anyone touch him in that area of his body. It is so devastating to watch him go through this but we are optimistic that he will recover quickly. Dan added up his vet bills for the last couple of years and the figure is pretty high when you total it all together. I know that some people think that we are crazy for putting so much money into him, but I can't imagine putting a dog to sleep when he has the ability to recover and not be in pain for a long period of time. The first couple of days are always the worst and then he feels back to normal and doesn't understand why he is stuck in his crate. At some point, you would think that he would run out of disks to herniate! Here is a picture of Rascal for those of you who have never seen him.


We had a beautiful snowstorm over the weekend and got several inches of snow - my guess is about eight inches. It is really pretty outside right now and we were wishing that Jacob was older so we could take him outside and play in it. That will be a reality next year, so we just need to be patient :)

I ran for the first time on the treadmill yesterday and although I am really sore today, it felt pretty good! I only ran one mile to start out but I was impressed that I could go that far since I haven't worked out since last March. Hopefully my body will continue to allow me to run so I can squeeze into my jeans again soon! I'm horrible at dieting and have yet to give up the sweets, so exercise is my only hope at this point.

Not sure if I will post again before Christmas, so I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and safe travels!!!

Angela

Several Firsts

Jacob has accomplished several things for the first time recently. I suppose that when you have a newborn, everything is a first, but we are still excited about them nonetheless! The first picture is of "rapper" Jacob as Dan has titled this picture. Thought I would share this since I thought it was both cute and funny.

Onto the firsts.... We submitted to using a pacifier for the first time a week ago and he took to it immediately. I have no idea why we waited so long to try it, but it is the greatest thing! Now if Jacob won't settle down with simple things like rocking or swinging, in goes the pacifier. We use it all the time now :)

The same night we started using the pacifier, we gave him his first bottle. Our pediatrician recommended introducing this now so I can begin gaining some freedom back. Dan now gives him one a day and he gulps it down like he's a starving child. I love having one less feeding to do a day and now feel like I can leave the house and not feel pressured to be back in two hours. The other picture I attached to this blog is of Dan feeding Jacob last night and Jacob is actually holding the bottle himself. This is probably just a coincidence to where he put his hands, but it was exciting to us anyways!!


Another great first is that Jacob is starting to sleep in his crib for short naps. I have been trying to lay him down in it off and on during the day to practice for nighttime. We tried putting him in his crib last night, but it only lasted maybe 15 minutes. We're anxious for him to become comfortable in his crib at night, but we may have a long ways to go :( We are still not good at letting him cry. He may get five minutes tops before one of us picks him up to soothe him. Hopefully this won't make him spoiled!

One other first relates to me. I got permission to start working out again and I walked two miles on the treadmill the other day and did great! It felt so good to work up a sweat and use my muscles. It has been a long nine months of lethargy and my muscles are so flabby. I would love to be able to run again soon. I'm desparate to fit into my regular pants again and to put away the elastic pants!! I have about 12 pounds to go, but I also have several pounds of muscle to regain. My goal is to get back into my regular clothes by the time I return to work in five weeks.

Jacob's umbilical stump has been working itself off the past couple of days and I think that it will be completely off by tomorrow. The exciting part of this is that once it is off he can have a real bath. We can't wait to see how he does in a tub of water!

Well, I know that there are a lot of firsts yet to come, but these are still exciting to us right now :)

Angela

Only a Diaper Change a Mother (or Father) Can Love

Hello --

I'm just going to start out this post with a warning - for those of you who are faint-hearted or are eating, you might want to skip this!

Up until now I have painted a picture that Jacob is this sweet and rosy baby that is the light of our lives. Well, that was until yesterday! I have mentioned that Jacob is a great eater, which is great, but that also means that his volume of poop is in excess. Here I am thinking that everything is going well yesterday and I am changing him before feeding him with the hope of having some time to myself afterwards. He had a very loaded diaper and is wiped clean. I lift him up slightly to readjust his clean diaper before I fasten it to him and in that split second, he decides to surprise me with a poop explosion that has the force to launch the space shuttle! I'm not kidding, his poop sprayed six feet. It landed on everything in its path - me, changing table, bouncy seat, carpeting.

It took me a half hour to clean it all up and I called Dan at work to tell him. Self-proclaimed diaper extraordinaire's response is that I lifted him up too high and need to be careful next time. Fine, maybe he is right. Well.... Dan changed him at 2:30 this morning before I nursed him and tells me when he brings him to me that he needs to go back and clean up the wall in the nursery. Apparently Jacob is an equal-opportunity poop exploder and unleashed on Dan. It got all over the wall, blinds, carpeting, and Dan. Bless Dan's heart, he cleaned it all up and then was so awake that he couldn't get back to sleep and went into work at 4:00 a.m. I didn't get much more sleep either, but at least I don't have to work all day :(

Is this normal for a baby to do this? Maybe we just don't have it down yet on knowing when he is pooping and need to be more patient before changing him. I'm wondering if this is a normal thing for a baby to do. If anyone has advice for us, please let us know!! I almost want to call the nurse to see if there is something wrong with him.

We love him to death, but we didn't think that we signed up for this when we decided to have a baby!! Maybe we need to start changing him in the bath tub :)

Angela

Growing Boy

Hi everyone --

It is so hard to believe that Jacob is already two weeks old! Today was his due date and it is crazy to think that he may not even be born yet. We had his two-week check-up with Jacob's pediatrician on Friday and Jacob is packing on the pounds! The goal was for him to be back up to his birth weight of 7 lbs, but he weighed in at a healthy 7 lbs 14 oz. I was concerned that since he doesn't nurse as long as recommended that he wouldn't show improvement in weight, but it turns out that he is just an efficient eater and gets his milk within the first five or ten minutes of nursing. What a relief! I'm so glad of this because this makes my life easier in not having to nurse as long, although he sometimes nurses once an hour during certain parts of the day.

Jacob continues to do well at night. He sleeps for about three hours at a time and is going back to sleep right away after nursing. I've become immune to his crying at night and I am so thankful that Dan is getting him up for a diaper change and then brings him to me to nurse. We're hoping that he continues to make our nights smooth because we're all about getting lots of sleep!!

We've had a pretty low key weekend, which has been nice because the weather here was pretty sketchy all weekend. We had a small ice storm yesterday and it has rained all day today. I spent a good part of my free time this weekend sorting through the hundreds of pictures stored on our digital camera. I finally figured out our picture software program and have created and e-mailed everyone a link to a set of pictures of Jacob during the last couple of weeks. Please let me know if you didn't get an e-mail and I will send it to you again.

Well, I need to start getting ready for bed and spend some time with Jacob before going to sleep. Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Angela