Last day of November.....

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Wonderful food, a weekend full of family and friends and no stress of buying gifts. Perfect! We had Thanksgiving at my aunts house this year and the day after Joe, Liam and I went to Edgewood for our 'Fakesgiving' on Saturday with his family. It was our first weekend away with Liam and it went great. I was nervous, it's hard being in someone elses house with a baby crying at night, but he hardly even cried. And slept more at night than he ever has before. I really think he was growing through a growth spurt over the weekend. All he did was eat and sleep. I know that's pretty much all babies do at this age but it was definitely more sleep than usual. And he looks way bigger than he even did just last week. :/ He grew out of newborn diapers and clothes literally overnight. Everything is going too fast!

Alright, Liam is calling. I may not blog much anymore but I hope that eventually I'll have more time. And energy. :) Don't give up on me just yet!

Babies galore

Yesterday I had lunch with friends and their babies, Aiden and Shailia. Shailia was born two days after Liam and Aiden is three months old. It was so fun to see them all together and see how big Aiden looks compared to Liam and Shailia! Aiden is so fun. Smiling like crazy, making cute sounds...I can't wait until Liam starts doing stuff like that!

It's so nice having other moms to talk to who have gone through everything so recently. It's weird, but even people with 12 months old seem to not remember these first weeks, days and months. Must be natures way. If they remembered all of the sleepless nights and other not-so-fun stuff vividly we'd probably have a very small population! No one can tell you what it will really be like. You hear, "It's the most amazing thing in the world...you're going to love it!" a lot, but at 3 in the morning when you haven't slept more than 2 hours it's hard to think that. And then you feel guilty for not feeling like it's the most amazing thing! Last night was amazing though. I fed Liam at 7:30 and not again until 12:17 am. I woke up feeling refreshed, happy to change him, feed him, snuggle and rock him back to sleep. I know my feelings of being not so happy all happen when I don't get enough sleep and have to wake up 5 times a night! After the 12:17am feeding I didn't have to feed him again until 4. So nice. I switched our routine up a little last night. I gave him a bath using the "gauranteed to make baby sleep better" soap (right!). The evening is always his fussy time and I think the bath really helped relax him. I'll let ya know tomorrow. Tonight will probably be like Wednesday night again. But just knowing that every once in awhile I will get a few hours of sleep makes me feel better! Whoever said "nap when they nap during the day" must not have had any other responsibilities. I can't do it! And I'm never tired enough. My sister says 12 weeks is the big turnaround. I shouldn't complain, Liam is a great baby...but having those stretches of sleep last night make me excited for it to continue on a (somewhat) consistent basis!

Sweet baby is sleeping now. Better go chug my cup of coffee before he wakes up and wants to eat! Happy Friday, happy weekend!

Just wondering....

Will I really ever sleep again? For more than an hour at a time at night?

One month!

Our sweet baby Liam is one month old already! In some ways it seems like he's been with us a lot longer, in other ways it seems like he should still be just days old. It's been an amazing 4 weeks. I feel like every morning when we wake up he's changed. It's all happening so fast!

Happy 1 month, Liam. We love you soooo much!

Ahhhh....sleep

Sleep, a thing I thought I would never get for more than an hour at a time! Breastfeeding makes it hard to get help with middle-of-the-night feedings and was leaving me feeling totally exhausted. We wanted to try to introduce Liam to a bottle but were worried that he would prefer the bottle over me and I wouldn't be able to continue breastfeeding. Our lactation lady said not to even try until 6 weeks yet our pediatrician said we had better try now before losing the "window of opportunity." So confusing when we get conflicting theories like that! My mother-in-law invited me to go to "A Christmas Story" in Seattle the Sunday after Thanksgiving so that's when I knew we better try a bottle. Otherwise there'd be no way I could be gone longer than 2 1/2, 3 hours! We decided to go for it and try it on Monday and he took it like a champ. I pumped, left a bottle for Joe and went to bed to hide. Apparently a lot of babies wont take it even if mommy is in the same room! I went to bed at 9 and woke up at 2 because he was hungry. That's right, for the first time since October 19, I got 5 whole hours of sleep. It was glorious! And addicting. I've been pumping every night now so Joe can do the 9ish o'clock feeding and I can go get a good stretch of sleep. It's amazing how much better I feel when he wakes me up at 2. And 4. And in the morning! I'm wide awake and feel like I'm ready to take on the day. Yay for bottles and a baby who was willing to take it. Now I'll just hope I didn't jinx myself by writing about this!

My in-laws came and spent the day with us yesterday. It was a fun day! I'm glad they came down and we're excited to go on our first overnight trip with Liam when we go up for our "Un-Thanksgiving" weekend. We always celebrate Thanksgiving with my family on actual Thanksgiving and then go up and spend the weekend at their house and have a mini Thanksgiving on Saturday. Looking forward to it!


And now, a picture of Sophie and Liam. Sophie can't say Liam so she calls him "Lemme" or "Baby Chole." Chloe is one of my sisters friends newborn, born about 4 weeks before Liam. Sophie has play dates with Chloe's older sister a lot so Chloe is the first baby she's been around. So now Liam, or probably all babies, are Baby Chloe. :)

More Liam

Our sweet baby boy was three weeks old yesterday! I have to share more pictures taken by Joanna. So lucky to have all of these great shots! Joanna, I stole these from your gallery because I left the CD at my parents showing them off. :)

Joe's ER trip

Go figure, the first hospital bill we get is for Joe's 20 minute trip to the ER. It just doesn't seem right that they can charge us when he was so adamant about not going (they made him) and then receiving no treatment once he got there. The bill: $268. Nice. Bet they love it when dad's pass out and they can make some quick money! Grrrr. Makes me scared to get the bills for Liam and I. How do people that don't have insurance do it? Or is that why it's so expensive for those of us that do have insurance? They can't afford to pay so ours is more expensive. Makes you wonder...

We had a busy but great weekend! Our friends Nick and Kara came Saturday evening to meet Liam. It was great seeing them! And we always love it when people get to meet Mr. Liam. :) I was feeling brave Saturday and told Joe I wanted to go visit his parents and see his grandma and grandpa (they still hadn't met Liam) on Sunday. I was a little worried about the drive but we went for it and Liam did great, didn't make a peep the way up or on the way back. And he got to meet SO many people! It was a great day, totally unplanned but worked out great. We also got a 4 generation picture. Joe's grandpa, dad, Liam, Joe, Matt (Joe's brother) and Weston. Weston was born in August but is already so big and has changed so much since the last time we saw him. I can't believe our little baby will be changing so much and so fast....

We left our house at 7:30 yesterday morning (thanks, daylight savings!) and got home around 8. It was a long day but I think it wore Liam out because he only woke up twice last night. Good baby! Speaking of Liam, he is doing so good. I fall more and more in love with him everyday. He is such a blessing and the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. I couldn't imagine what life would be like with him and now I can't imagine it any other way. I love him!

Lunch today with the girls at the place of my water breakage. Hahaha. I'll never be able to go to the Cow Deli again without reminiscing about that night!

In case I don't get a chance to blog again for awhile, have a great week!

Liam, 2 weeks old. My friends Alyssa and Joanna came out to our house and took pictures of him. He was awake the entire time (they wanted him to sleep) but I love, love seeing his precious eyes! I'm so thankful they captured so many great pictures!

As promised....

How Daddy stole the show! That's right, my husband, Mr. Not Afraid of Anything---loves anything gross and medical related, passed out after Liam was born. Everything was going great, Joe was down by the doctor watching everything, even telling me that he was almost out and was saying, "just a few more pushes, you're doing great!" Liam was born and in Dr. Saraf's hands and I look up at Joe in amazement and the next thing I know he's falling back like a domino. It happened so fast. At this point I thought there was something wrong with the baby. He made it through everything and then as soon as the baby is born he passes out? I was scared...thinking for sure something was terribly wrong with Liam and my husband was dying! I remember Dr. Saraf yelling, "What the....!!" as he went down. He took down a nurse with him and broke some stuff in the room. He woke right up though and was totally alert but the nurses refused to let him get up, almost sitting on him to keep him down. He kept saying he was fine and just wanted to see his baby but they had to follow "husband passes out during delivery" hospital protocol.

When a baby is born at St. John's a lullaby is played all throughout the hospital. Not for Liam! Instead it was, "Medics needed in 512, medics needed in 512!!" Everyone in the waiting room was freaking out not knowing what was going on. They made Joe go to the ER and told him it could take 2 hours! We hadn't even named Liam at this point and Joe hadn't even held him, let alone see him cleaned up. Before they took him away on the stretcher the nurses made sure to get some pictures saying, "this will be something you never forget!"

We were the talk of the hospital, everyone who saw Joe mentioned it and those not working were disappointed they missed out on the excitement. Luckily Joe took it with stride and wasn't embarrassed....he jokes about it too. Apparently he just saw too much after the baby was born. Needless to say, it will be a day never forgotten---can't wait to tell Mr. Liam about it someday! And so thankful the nurses stopped to take pictures!