Pictures

The New Normal

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl.
-James Barrie, Peter Pan

Robbie is officially awesome, in case you hadn't figured that out yet. The past few weeks have been really amazing. The best part of it all is the fact that he has started to "socially smile" and practically giggles. Right now it is the funniest thing in the world to him when I wiggle his pacifier up and down in his mouth. He squeals and smiles and is SO CUTE. I can almost forget the fact that I was up at 2:30AM begging him to go back to sleep when he does this. The sleeping has gotten better. He is sleeping longer through the night and we only have to get up about every 3 to 4 hours now.

Robbie had his first long weekend at Sam's parents house while we went to Brianna's wedding in Chicago. They took him Thursday night and brought him back Sunday afternoon. I did really well and only cried once... well, okay, maybe twice... But I know that he had a good time! I had to go and register him for daycare yesterday. I go back to work Nov. 12th, but am going to start taking him to the daycare for short lengths starting the week before so both of us can ease into in.

Robbie also got to meet my parents who were up visiting from Florida this weekend. It did my heart good to see how excited they were to meet him. Dad is convinced that Robbie knows his papaw's voice, and I'm inclined to agree. My mom also taught me a little "pat the butt" trick which works wonders to keep him alseep in the tricky phase after I just put him down in the crib.

My heart is full of joy. My brain is fuzzy from lack of sleep. Things are hardly back "to normal" in our house, but then again, they probably never will be. I'm dealing with this "New Normal" and loving it. Who says hours of sleep needs to be consecutive or that spouses need to eat dinner simultaneously? Who says that hearing the same baby song play on your child's swing over and over and over again is annoying? Not me! I say, "Bring it on, Itsy-Bitsy Spider! Entertain my little man!" I wouldn't trade this New Normal for the old Normal for the world. The old Normal had no tiny toes to tickle or fuzzy new baby hair. The old Normal had no toothless smiles or sleepy baby sighs. It had no tiny socks or itty-bitty hats. It also had no diapers... but hey, you can't win them all! So three cheers for the New Normal and my heart goes out to those who have no idea what I'm talking about.

Now I must sign off, as "Pop Goes the Weasel" plays in the background. There is dinner to cook and laundry to do and drool to wipe up.... and a baby boy to love.

A Whole Month Old!

The exhaustion files: episode one

Sam and I have discovered that there are greater extents of exhaustion than we ever knew existed. Robbie is one month old today and has developed a schedule of, well, no real predictable schedule. He eats/has a dirty diaper about every 2 to 3 hours. Plus, he's a bit of a night owl. He seems very active and quite cranky about the time Sam and I are ready for bed which makes us, well, very tired and quite cranky. Strangely enough, he's super awake from about 9pm to 11pm (or later) and that is the same time of day he was always doing belly Olympics when I was pregnant. When we finally get him to go to sleep "for good" about 11pm, we anticipate getting up again around 1:30am, 4am, and 6:30am. About 7am he's up, wide awake and ready to be entertained. Sometimes he naps for long stretches throughout the day and sometimes he seems to be awake all day with tiny little infrequent cat naps. The schedule we've developed so far is that I go to bed early around 8:30 or 9:00 and Sam stays up with Robbie until he is sleeping for the night. After that I take care of him all night since Sam has to get up and go to work. I take care of him all day until Sam gets home and then he does most of the diapers and feeding in the evening. This is working, somewhat, so far, but I have no idea what we're going to do when I go back to work in a month. I just hope and pray that four more weeks will cause Robbie to increase the amount of time he sleeps at night so we don't have to get up so often. I told Sam that I might have to take a pillow and blanket to work and sleep after school for an hour or so before I go pick the baby up at daycare!

I haven't posted in quite a while and since then Robbie had his first sleepover at his Nana and Poppy's house (Sam's parents). They took him overnight on a Friday and Sam and I went out on a date. We drove back down to get him on Saturday and then went to Crystal Anderson's wedding. It was wonderful! Robbie is going to stay with them next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night while Sam and I go to Chicago for Brianna's wedding. I will miss him terribly, but I know he'll be ok. I'm also looking forward to getting an entire night's sleep in there somewhere. I feel like most days I'm in survival mode-- just doing what is absolutely necessary to get by. I read somewhere that constant disruption of REM sleep can cause psychosis!

Robbie is one-month old today and has been growing like a weed. Well, maybe less like a weed and more like a pumpkin. He's not getting much longer, but he's definitely rounded out. We had his one-month checkup today. He weighed 11 pounds 3 ounces and was 22.25 inches long. The doctor said that he is looking great and that we are doing a great job with him. Robbie had to get his HepB vaccine today and has been quite put out all afternoon. He did get a snazzy "Taz"/Looney Tunes bandaid which he is sporting like a trooper. We go back next month for his next rounds of vaccines.

Robbie has now officially grown out of all his adorable little newborn-size outfits and is wearing 0-3 month stuff now. We only had a few long sleeve/legged things in this size so we went to Once Upon A Child today and bought several more. The temperature has really dropped here and we had to run the heat last night!

Well, I think it is time to go and get some dinner. If you've emailed me in the last two weeks, you've not received responses because... well... I'd rather sleep than sit at the computer. I hope to write again soon with exciting news... like... tonight the baby slept for 5 hours straight-- dare I dream? Lots of love from our little exhausted family!