Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Ugh. Again?

Seth came home from work the other day and this is how the conversation went:

He walks in the door and the dogs get OMG so excited, like they haven't seen him in years. Patrick whines out of excitement, Woody jumps up and gets yelled at because he's big and shouldn't be jumping but can't help it because he loves Seth so much.

Seth: Damn, you would think they haven't seen me in years. It's only been since this morning!

Me: Yeah, wait till you deploy and you come home and they see you after not seeing you for so long!!!.
Seth: Speaking of deploying...

There's still a small possibility he won't deploy. But the odds are very very very small. We will hopefully find out this week whether he is or isn't.

Ugh. I don't like this. Not one bit. 

Monday, August 13, 2012

Updates

Max is already a month old! Well, over a month old now. I realized I never put his birth stats on my last post. Whoops! He was 7 lbs and 4 oz and 19.25 inches long. :)

He's gaining weight like a champ; last Thursday, he weighed in at 9.47 lbs and was about 22 inches. I go to a breast feeding class on post each week and he gets weighed. I go mostly to hang out with other moms (we all whip out our boobs and breast feed our kids and chat). There's a lactation consultant and pediatrician there to talk to if we need/want to also. It's at the hospital where he was born and then we go buy a coffee and visit Seth at work for a little bit. It's something for me to look forward to each week (him getting weighed and see how much he's growing) and it gets us out of the house.

Feeding and sleeping has been going well for the most part. Here's a look at our typical day:

Wake up between 7-9, eat off and on until about noon with about a 30 minute nap once or twice in the morning.
Lunch between 12-1 and then he takes about a 4 hour nap. Sometimes I nap with him if I'm tired.
He wakes up around 5-6, eats again and then dozes off and on.
Around 8 or so, we start the "bed time" routine, because he eats off and on from about 8-10. I'm not going to lie: It's sort of frustrating that he eats off and on for so long because feeding him takes forever. I feel bad for saying that, but it's the honest truth. When he's not eating, we just cuddle, so I can't complain too much. Thankfully, the middle of the night feedings aren't nearly as long!

Max is a really good sleeper the majority of the time. He usually sleeps for 3-4 hours at a time (he has since we brought him home). Last night was awesome. He went to bed at 10:30 and slept till 2:56. I fed him and changed him (a routine we have down to 30-45 minutes in the middle of the night) and then he slept till about 6:45. He ate again (another 30 minutes) and we fell back to sleep until 9:26! I got up and showered and by the time I got out, he was waking up. He ate off and on until about 11:30 and he's been asleep since about noon.

Breast feeding has been easy for the most part. I got chapped nipples a few days after we got home from the hospital, but I went to the breast feeding class and got some good advice from the lactation consultant and it's been smooth sailing ever since. She also gave us a manual breast pump and I just recently got up the nerve to use it. OMG. I'm in love with it. It is so easy to use, and it takes less than 10 minutes to produce a 4 oz bottle. Since Max is a cluster feeder, a bottle will be very handy to have on hand when we have to get out the door in a hurry. I still nurse him 95% of the time; it's just the last few days, he's had one bottle per day. And it's usually Seth who feeds him the bottle; I'm glad that they're getting that experience too. The first bottle Seth gave Max, Max kept starting at him, giving him a look like, "who are you? You're not the normal face I see when I eat!" But he didn't care too much because he chugged that bottle. It was really cute.

Over the weekend, we went to test drive a new/used car (that's a whole different post). Max was getting hungry but I had my breast pump, so as we were driving around this quaint little town, I started pumping milk (while silently saying a prayer we didn't get stopped at a light next to some young guy in a huge lifted truck who could look into our windows). We pulled into a Bank of America parking lot and Seth proceeded to 'milk' me, as we call it. A few minutes later, we were in a little cafe, sharing a banana split and feeding Max. (That cute little cafe also didn't have a baby friendly changing table, so I changed him in the booth we were sitting in. A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do!) 

Seth's parents and grandma came to visit us last week and we had a few day trips. We went to the ocean and went to Pikes Place. While we were at the ocean, we stopped for lunch at a sit down restaurant and Max was hungry so I fed him. I got my cover out, attempted to feed him and he was thrashing his head all around, screaming his head off and it was not going well. (Might I add that he always latches on fairly quickly and never throws his head around or wails while he nurses!) So I decided to take him out to the car and feed him there, thinking he didn't like the cover. Honest to God, he gave me a smirk as we were sitting down in the car (like a 'ha ha mom, I rule you now' kind of smirk) and latched on in no time, didn't cry and ate till his little heart was content. The following day at Pikes Place, I fed him at another restaurant and he was good to go under the little cover. Go figure. But at times like the first restaurant, it would have been so handy to be able to pump a bottle real quick and feed it to him.

Overall things are going very well. I have my post partum appointment next week and will get cleared to go back to work. My employer won't allow me to start working until I get a doctor's note. (Because we all know it's so strenuous to walk down the stairs and sit at a computer and answer emails and I clearly need a doctor's note for this). I am nervous how it's going to go with Max and how I'll get work done, but we'll figure it out. We got a baby carrier (courtesy of Seth's grandma!) and I think I'll be using that a lot. Max is a snuggler and I think I'll be able to put him in that after he eats and he can nap and I can work and we both get our cuddle time.

We had professional newborn pictures taken a few weeks ago and here are a few of my favorites: