Big Boy Jacob

Jacob seems so grown up all of a sudden now that Bailey is here. He has officially moved into his new room! The past couple of weekends we have tested him out in his new bed during naps and he did great. He started out on just the mattress, then we added the box springs last weekend. It will be awhile before we add the bed frame because he needs to be able to climb in and out on his own and the frame would make the bed too tall for him to do so. We've added padding around the bed in case of a rollout and have the bed rails to add still. The problem with the bed rails is that we're afraid that if he gets out he won't be able to get back in his bed. Also that's further for him to fall if he decides to climb over them.

We haven't declared him sleeping in his bed a complete success yet because he seems to prefer the floor over the bed about 50 percent of the time. He'll go down in his bed, but when we check on him later, he is asleep on the floor in random places. Who knew that the floor would be more comfortable than a mattress?!! Hopefully he figures it all out and learns that the bed is the place for sleep!

I still have to paint the walls in his room (maybe next week) and then find things to decorate his walls with. I plan on having this done before I go back to work. It's been fun setting up his room and making the nursery all Bailey's. My dad gave me my doll bed and rocking chair from when I was a little girl and I plan on adding those to the nursery to make it more girl-friendly for her. I also bought a pink tub to put all the infant toys in for her. It seems like I just put those away after Jacob was done with them.... actually I did!!

Jacob got his first professional haircut this week. His hair has gotten a lot longer and beyond the scope of our ability to trim up. His hair looks SOOO much better!! I took him to Cookie Cutters and he sat for the girl like a champ. She put in an Elmo movie for him, but he was much more interested in the DVD cover. He threw a temper tantrum on the way out because he didn't want to give it back. This is his new thing. When this happens he refuses to walk and throws himself on the floor kicking and screaming. I had him in one arm and Bailey in the other. It's so exhausting at times with the two of them together. I'm trying not to avoid going places with the two of them, but it's definitely a challenge at times!!

Jacob's language is really developing. Communicating with him is getting easier and easier. It seems that he picks up a new word every day. He has mastered the "k" sound and now says words like "milk", "walk" and "thank you" so much better. We've been going for walks when the weather is nice and it is so neat to see him point to things and tell me what they are. He gets so excited when he sees birds or dogs. We can also ask him his likes and dislikes now and he responds with a "yes" (more like a nod yes and an "uh") or "no". We hear "no" A LOT!! We work with him a lot here at home, but I also give daycare a lot of credit for teaching him things.

Updates

I don't have anything major to talk about this week, so I thought I would post updates on how we're all doing.

Bailey is still doing great. I thought Jacob was an easy baby, but Bailey is even better! She is very passive and sleeps most days. She is often alert during the evening hours and the only time she fusses is when we're ready to put her to bed for the night. It usually requires an extra feeding and some rocking, but once she goes to sleep, our night is pretty simple. She does get up once or twice to eat, but that is usually a quick process. Last night she slept for 6 1/2 straight hours!! At her check-up this week she weighed in at 7 lbs 4 oz, almost a pound weight gain in one week! She is doing great, so I'm not going to worry if she has a long stretch of sleep at night without eating. Her umbilical cord stump came off the other night, so I plan on doing her first real bath here soon. I think that she'll actually like it.... Jacob HATED baths for the first couple of months.

Jacob is Jacob. He came home Thursday night with a fever and kept us up most of the night trying to hydrate him. His fever broke around 10:00, but then his temperature got all the way down to 94 degrees!! I talked to the 24-hour nurse several times that night trying to figure out what to do. His temperature was probably low because he was pretty dehydrated. He was literally about an hour away from an ER visit, but Dan used a syringe to get fluids down his throat since he was refusing to drink all night. Talk about tough love!! He ended up with a wet diaper, thank goodness, but we spent all day Friday trying to get his hydration level back to normal. At least he acted fine. Who knows what was wrong with him.

I'm doing okay. A bacterial infection developed in my incision earlier this week. I've been to the doctor a couple of times now due to this and the second visit resulted in more medication for me to take since the first set isn't doing the trick. The infection has set my recovery back a bit, which is frustrating. I guess only a small percentage of people get these, so I'm one of the lucky few! There are worse things, but I am just ready to feel good again. I long for the days of running around with Jacob and being able to do more active things. Patience, patience!!!

Dan is coaching our church softball team again this year and had his first practice this past week. The first game is on Tuesday and I'll have both kids home by myself for the first time! Dan's cousin, Rachel, and her fiancee helped me out with Jacob while Dan was at his practice last week. I'm still sore and lifting Jacob is challenging. I've been lifting him a little more today trying to test what I can do. I swear the kid gained a lot of weight in the last few weeks!! Dan has class on Saturday, so I'll get the kids to myself that day as well! I've been lucky so far not having to juggle the two of them much beyond an hour or so in the evenings while Dan works out. I think that once I'm healed, it won't seem that daunting of a task :)

Well, hope everyone has a good week!!

Happy Easter!!

We have had a great Easter this year!! We missed church today (for obvious reasons) which I think is the first time ever, so it was a little strange. Dan's mom and step-dad came to visit and brought us Easter lunch. We got to keep leftovers so we'll have a couple of meals taken care of this week - yay!! Jacob had a great time playing with his grandma and it was great for them to meet Miss Bailey.

Due to being on bed rest prior to Bailey being born and being restricted from driving for two weeks post c-section, the kids didn't get Easter baskets from us. Oh well, they are too young to understand anyways. We did have one Christmas gift for Jacob that we held off giving him, so he got a new basketball hoop for Easter. It will grow with him, so he'll be able to enjoy it for years to come. It's currently in his new room until we can find a spot for it.

I have lots of plastic Easter eggs, so we hid some for Jacob in the backyard. I didn't put anything in them, but he doesn't know the difference! We weren't sure if he would understand what to do, but once he got started he was on a mission. He had a great time!! He then continued his hunt indoors and this should occupy him the rest of the night :)

I took lots of pictures today and both kids suffered through them for my benefit :)

Bailey in her Easter basket

Jacob with some bunnies

Bailey with the bunnies (see how enthused she is?!!)

First shots of the kids together (not an easy task!)





Jacob trying to entertain Bailey

Jacob in his bunny ears

Grandma and Bailey

Grandma reading to Jacob

Easter egg hunt

Bailey Grace

This post is fairly long, but I wanted to update everyone on how everything is going!!

Bailey was born April 1st at 8:43 a.m. at 6 lbs 8 oz and 18 inches long. She is such a tiny little thing! She is doing so well. She lost a few ounces in the hospital and is already back to birth weight, which the nurse said was fantastic at Bailey's follow-up appointment yesterday. She was slightly jaundice in the hospital, but her level dropped already so she is out of the woods. She does look a little tan, but Jacob's skin was darkened too for the first few weeks and then went back to normal.

The coolest thing is that she was born on her Aunt Sharla's birthday (my sister)! This is a running theme in our family. I share a birthday with my grandmother, Dan shares one with his grandfather, my grandfather shares one with one of my cousins, an aunt and cousin on my mom's side share a birthday, as do two cousins on my dad's side. What are the odds?!!

She is so far a great and calm baby. She has had a couple of challenging nights where she wants to eat a lot and stay awake, but I'm hopeful this will straighten out soon. The nurse recommended that she sleep in her car seat for a little while because she has some nasal congestion and spits up some after eating. She was sleeping great in her moses basket, but she needs to be elevated for awhile. She is a great little nurser. I am so lucky with both of my children because they both latched on immediately and just knew what to do. I'm also lucky that my body responds well to nursing, maybe a little too well!! I am already freezing milk because she can't keep up with my production, which is great because I really want to stockpile the freezer in case of emergencies.

Jacob is handling being a big brother pretty well. He visited us twice in the hospital, but only lasted about 10 minutes because he was into everything and really didn't understand what was going on. He set off an alarm in my room because he hit something on the wall! When we brought her home Saturday morning, he pointed to her and said "baby" and then preceded to prod and pat her face and head. He thought that her car seat was a toy and almost rocked her out of it!! Other than that, he has no interest in her. Dan is doing a great job taking care of him while I heal and take care of Bailey. I really miss my Jacob-time and can't wait to pick him up again (it's been weeks!). He is pretty attached to Dan right now and I hope that he welcomes me back when things get back to normal!

I'm healing pretty good. The first couple of days in the hospital were rough and made me reconsider a third baby! The c-section was pretty quick, but a lot more painful than the first. I was so numb with Jacob that I didn't feel a thing. This time when they took her out, the pressure against my ribs and lungs was agonizing! I honestly felt that my ribs were broken, but the pain went away after a few hours. I purposely took the minimal amount of painkillers so that my body would not become dependent on them, which made the beginning hard, but I'm glad because I didn't have the drowsiness that I experienced with Jacob and actually remember every second after she was born. My main complaint is back pain, but it's manageable with some high-strength Ibprofen. The best part is that my sciatic pain disappeared after she was born!!! Although my abdominal area is fairly sore, it's so much easier to move now that my sciatica is gone.

Dan and I are working on reaching our new balance of having two children. It's definitely challenging with a newborn and 16-month old, but we're figuring it out. Thankfully Jacob is continuing to go to daycare during the day, freeing me to focus on Bailey. He really needs to keep his routine going and absolutely loves it there! Dan is taking the afternoons off this week to get things done that he can't do in the evenings because of Jacob. Jacob's room is coming together, his bed is in and we'll get his dresser this week. Now we need to just paint and decorate sometime in the next few weeks.

Here is a slideshow of Bailey's first few days. Enjoy!!

Bailey's Arrival

Spike

Jacob requires a lot of attention while eating these days. When he gets picky with his food, he tends to toss it on the floor for Rascal. The more we try and stop it, the more he does it. Rascal doesn't mind!! On Sunday he decided to run his sticky fingers through his hair at both lunch and dinner. I know this behavior needs to be corrected, but I couldn't help it and laughed hysterically both times!! He just looked so cute! Since a bath wasn't an option he got the kitchen sprayer as a rinser, which lent for fun styling his hair into a spike.

Before pictures



After-dinner spike