Week of September 22

I don’t have anything terribly exciting to talk about this week, but I figured I would still update anyway.

Liam started sleeping through the night.  Like 7-8 hours at a time.  The first few nights I didn’t sleep all that well because I’ve been so used to getting up with him.  Thursday night I finally also slept through the night.  It’s not quite an every night ordeal because some nights I wake him up to feed him because I am the one who really needs for him to eat.  Other times he doesn’t quite make it as long and he's the one who wants to eat.  We kind of have a schedule started with him now in the evenings.  I didn’t really try to but it has just kind of happened.  I’m certainly not going to complain because it usually involves him falling asleep right after dinner, feeding before I go to bed, sleeping through the rest of the night until about 7 or 8, feeding, then sleeping for another 3ish hours.  He’s definitely a good sleeper at night!

Sunday Liam was really good during the church services.  It seems like every time we are at church as soon as the service is over or we leave he goes back to his fussy self.  We figured maybe he is already two-faced and puts on a different face while we are at church.  I’m ok with that (for now), better than the other way around.

Monday I had a doctor’s appointment and Starbucks happens to be nearby. I rewarded myself with a pumpkin spice latte (no woman likes those kinds of doctors appointments).  We went to Caleb’s sister’s house for the afternoon/evening.  Liam was a bit fussy, but that’s to be expected these days.  We had dinner with her family and Caleb’s parents who were staying there while Caleb’s dad was at some training meetings.  Getting together with family is always a good time!

Tuesday Liam had a good day.  A GOOD DAY.  Not much fussing and was an overall happy baby.  I wish I could have captured that day in a bottle to remind myself on the days when absolutely nothing makes him happy that good days do happen.  Tuesday night Caleb’s parents came to visit on their way back home and had dinner with us. 

Thursday Caleb went and played some music for the precious people at the nursing home down the road from our house. Caleb said that when he walked in there was an old lady sitting in a wheelchair with a dollar bill in her hand and said to him “I got a dollar, want to help me spend it?”  Apparently the nurses had bribed her to get going and out of her room with a dollar bill.  Lol.  See?  Precious. 

Thursday I had been dealing with Mr. Fussy Pants all day and I decided to make the most of the moment.  I discovered the webcam app on my computer the other day.  I took some pictures of me and fussy gus using the filter that distorts your face.  It gave me a good laugh.  Liam eventually calmed down for a few minutes. I figured he probably thought he might have been missing out on something. 

Thursday night we headed to Columbia to go to a Southern gospel concert.  A family from our church was opening for the main group.  We got there right after it started and Liam stayed quiet for a whole two hours during the concert.  He even had a bottle and didn’t fuss while he drank it.  At the end of the concert the group was up there talking about the products they had available for sale and we left during that time because Liam had reached his limit of quietness.  He screamed half of the way home before he gave up and fell asleep.

Friday we packed up and headed to my parents’ house in St. Louis.  We had planned on going to St Louis on Saturday for a wedding but we weren’t going to get to see my mom because she was working so we went on Friday so we could spend more time with them.  And it’s always a plus when I get to go shopping at Target AND JCPenney.  Mhmm.  I bought my first pair of post-partum jeans.  All of my old jeans can only come up midway up my thighs.  I thought if I bought a pair of non-maternity jeans it would remind me each time I put them on that the goal is to make those jeans get too big for me.  When I just wear maternity pants I forget that those are not my normal pants and I can’t wear maternity clothes for the rest of my life.  (Although those maternity yoga pants I have?  Those are never getting packed away.  Comfiest pants I own and stretchy enough to fit me with no big belly.)   The hardest part about wanting to lose weight is that I know that I need to keep up my calorie intake for the sake of breastfeeding but I could also stand to pass up sweets more often (even though those are the best calories in my opinion). 

Saturday was the wedding.  Our college friend Matt got hitched.  I love going to weddings, especially now that I’ve been there done that.  I like getting to enjoy other people’s weddings without the stress of planning one.  Liam was good, but then again we were in a church and that apparently is the key to keeping him quiet.  We had planned on going to the reception but then decided against it and headed back to Centralia early.  The plan is to go to bed early tonight and take on a new week tomorrow!  Liam and I WILL have a good week.  We will.

 I don't have a bunch of pictures to share this week like normal.  But I do have this video of my little guy.

 

Week of September 15

One month old!

Either crying or telling a dramatic story. You pick.

Oh the crossed eyes.

I took about 50 pictures of me and the little guy trying to get a good one.  Here are the top 3:

Likes:
- Pooping.  Definitely number one...err...number two?
- Swinging
- Laying on Daddy
- Looking at bright lights even if they make him sneeze.
- Riding in the car.
- Grandparents and aunts
- Fussing
- play mat


Dislikes:
- Waiting for me to get ready to let him eat
- When the air conditioner runs right next to the glider in the nursery while he's nursing
- Air bubbles in his belly
- When he lets loose while we are changing him and he gets his face all wet. 
- Getting his face wiped off when he gets it all wet.
- People touching his feet.
- Getting in his car seat.
- Getting out of his car seat

He has still been fussier than normal this week.  It's always at random times.  I can't seem to find a method to the madness.  Whenever he gets that way the swaddle and swing really seem to quiet him down for awhile.  Hopefully it's just a phase and I'll have my all around happy baby back again soon. 

Liam has also lost a lot of hair on the top of his head.  My poor child has a receding hair line already.  What hair he has kept is starting to get long.  I hope his hair grows in soon.  I would like to keep him from looking like an old man.

Liam had his first trip to Target on Thursday!  He did pretty good.  I had a friend go with me and I don't think I could have done it without her.  She was such a huge help!  Liam is going to have to get used to trips to Target.  :-)

On Friday we headed to Caleb's parents' house.  The route we took led us right through Hannibal, so we stopped to say hi to a few people from the college.  I really wanted to go see my favorite professor, Mrs. Snider, and she was tickled to get to meet Liam.

Liam had his first "college visit".  :-) He seemed to like the place.

 

We went and visited the library at HLG.  They built a new one about a year or so ago and we had yet to get to see it.  It is super nice!  I feel like any time I leave a school they make huge improvements to it.  Caleb worked at the library for four years when he was a student so he knows all of the cute little ladies that work there.  Liam had been quiet the whole time we had been on campus and then once we got in the library he started fussing.  -_- One of the ladies told me that they have private study rooms if I wanted to go feed Liam.  I had a bottle ready for him because I didn't know where we would be when he was ready to eat.  Since he was being so loud though we went ahead and went to one of the study rooms.  The bottle that I gave him was one that he hasn't used before.  I have newborn and 1 month nipples for it.  I figured since he was 5 weeks old that he could handle the 1 month nipples.  Turns out I was wrong.  The bib I happened to grab that morning turned out to be perfect for him.

 

 

 

Also he really needed to be changed after he ate.  I figured I wouldn't be able to find a baby changing station anywhere so while we were in the study room I laid out the changing mat on the desk and changed him.  Even though he never got off of the mat, after I got done I wiped down everything with a Clorox wipe.  We were about to head out of the library when Caleb noticed that the library director had gotten back from lunch and he wanted to go say hi.  We were in her office and she told me (unsolicited) that there were baby changing stations in both the mens and womens restrooms.  She said that in the old library there was a student who had his baby with him and changed the baby right on the table in the reference room so in the new library she made sure to have changing stations in the bathrooms.  I thanked her and told her that was a great idea.  I wasn't about to tell her where I had just changed Liam.  But at least where I changed him it wasn't right out in the open, right? 

 

One other exciting thing from this week...Liam has smiled at both of us this week!  He usually only smiles in his sleep but he was definitely awake and making eye contact these times.  :-)

Here are some more pictures from this week:

Cattywhompus binky.

 This is how much he loves his dad. Good luck pulling that baby off.

 This is how he was when I woke up on Tuesday morning.  I'm thinking the swaddle might be getting a little bit too small.  I just can't get it quite tight enough anymore.

 One second he's like this....

 ...the next he's on his back.

 Scootin around during tummy time (with his adorable forehead wrinkles)

 This pretty much sums up his attitude the past week.

And even though he's been a grump, moments like this are wonderful.  :-)

This guy looooves his play mat!   This week it has kept his more satisfied than the swing and bouncy seat while he's awake.

 



Getting sleepy on the ride to see grandparents



 Hanging out with Great-Grandma Connie

 

That's all for now.  I have a cute baby fussing at me I must tend to.  :-)  Being a mom rocks!  (Even when he's fussy)

Week of September 8

Another week that has flown by and I feel like I got nothing accomplished.  I saw a blog posted on Facebook this week about how new moms don't get anything done and that's ok.  At least I'm not the only one. 

Sunday
Caleb was ordained at church on Sunday!  It was such a special day and it was great to have a lot of family there as well.  My parents and sister were there along with Caleb's siblings, parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunt.  Liam had lots of people to love on him!  Caleb's grandpa gave a charge to the church and his dad gave a charge to Caleb.  It was neat that both of them were able to take part in it.  I know that it meant a lot to Caleb.  I'm thinking about getting Caleb some gold bracelets to make him look official.  (Napoleon Dynamite joke in case you didn't catch that.)

His grandpa praying over him.

 

My dad praying over him

 

And Caleb's dad praying over him

 

Words from Caleb's Grandpa

 

 

Words from Caleb's dad

 

Our parents

 

Doesn't this face melt your heart?  (Look at those fuzzy fly aways!)

Monday
My sister spent the night on Sunday and hung out with us on Monday.  She does dishes.  I can't complain.  I used to not like other people doing my dishes because it made me feel lazy, but I'm to the point now where I appreciate it. 

Tuesday
So you tell me...what would you do if it were 3 am and you were nursing your tot and all of a sudden a massive (maybe a slight exaggeration) cricket goes crawling across the floor of the nursery?  I couldn't yell for Caleb because he was asleep...so I slowly got up in hopes of not disrupting Liam and tried to whack it with a box of diapers and I missed.  I lost the cricket.  Gross.  This is the part I dread about the weather getting colder.  Varmints are not welcomed here.

Thursday
Caleb grilled hamburgers for lunch and also grilled zucchini and corn.  Our next door neighbor gave us four ears of corn and some tomatoes that he had gotten from the Amish.  I started to take the husk off and thought that it looked like something had been munching on the corn.  I turned it slightly and sure enough there was some sort of worm/caterpillar looking thing all barbequed on the corn.  Good thing I'm not pregnant...I might have yammied right there.  I didn't eat any corn and neither did Caleb.  I don't like critters.  I've been told though that that's just what happens with corn and you break those parts off and move on.  This city girl doesn't deal well with that.  In the city when your corn has a worm in it you take it back to the store and get a refund.

Friday
We took Liam on his first family walk.  He has been in his stroller before just walking to church or the pharmacy but this was his first time out for a long stroll.  At first he wasn't so sure about it.  At least I think that's what this face means.

Then he finally closed his eyes and fell asleep but he still didn't look too sure of it.

We went to the rose garden and looked at a bunch of really pretty flowers!

Caleb and Liam behind a hedge of protection

Saturday
Our friends Ethan and Lydia came to visit!  It was good to get to spend the afternoon with them!  In just a few weeks they will have a playmate for Liam! 

We also started doing tummy time with Liam on Saturday.  We're probably behind on starting that, but even when we are holding him he is already holding his head up really well.  I posted this picture on facebook, but how funny is this.  I promise that he wasn't super angry in this picture.  He was starting to get hungry and would let out a fuss every once in awhile and this is what he would do when he fussed.

Saturday night  the gates of fussiness opened up.  I'm not totally for sure what was up with the little guy but he didn't want to eat and after awhile Caleb finally got him to calm down in his swing.  He was fine until his pacifier would fall out and the crying would start all over again.  This is how good of a dad Caleb is...

He laid on the floor so he could pop the pacifier back in Liam's mouth whenever he fussed about losing it.

It's now Sunday night and it's deja vu all over again.  Liam is just as fussy as can be.  He did fall asleep for a few minutes and I got a picture of the preciousness of that moment. 

And a video because his baby snores are so cute.

And more tummy time tonight.  :-)

And a few more pictures from this past week (most were taken on my phone which takes awful pictures):

Sometimes I wonder if he skypes with his Uncle Seth while we sleep.  I feel like this is something Seth would teach him.

Hey dad!

Napping on the front porch during the cooler temps

 My wrinkly foreheaded boys are precious.