Two Weeks

James turned two weeks old on the 20th and we took him for his two week appointment.  It was only the second time our pediatrician had seen him (the other times had been with other doctors in the practice) and so we were glad to get to see him.  We were so glad to get James weighed and learn that he not only reached his birth weight but surpassed it by 15 ounces!  He's been eating good but I didn't realize he'd been eating that good!  He also grew by an inch and a half in height.  He's quite the growing boy!  Sadly, he did have to get his heel pricked for another PKU which he hated and I was glad that Jason was there to hold him.  Everything looked good and it was a quick visit.

Just for my records, here are his stats and percentages from his appointment:
Weight: 6 lbs 15 oz, 25%
Height: 19.5 inches, 15%
Head circumference: 13.5 inches, 20%

More Photobooth Fun

Over the past few months Charlotte has fallen in love with PhotoBooth and Facetime.  Here are some of her more "classic" pictures from the last few months.

Snuggles

Charlotte,

I don't ever want to forget this morning.  James had just eaten and gone back to sleep so I was free to spend as much time getting you up as I wanted to.  So when I got upstairs I opened the curtains and then I crawled in bed with you.  Sometimes I do this but I never get under the covers, this morning I even got under the covers and you were beside yourself with happiness.

We spent the next thirty minutes snuggling in your bed.  We sang songs and talked and gave hugs and kisses.  When my tummy started growling I asked if you wanted to go downstairs for breakfast but you kept saying that you wanted more snuggles.  I hope I never forget the way you laid with your head on my shoulder and curled in to me.  The sweet hugs and precious little girl smell.  The way you never wanted to get out of that bed and stop snuggling with your Momma.

I know this transition has been hard for you.  Honestly,  it's been hard for me also.  We have spent so much of the last two years together that it's sort of bittersweet to have to share you with your Daddy and grandparents.  It broke my heart to not be able to pick you up and you just kept asking me.  But the first time you asked I told you I had a boo-boo on my belly and so every time after that you asked if my boo-boo was better.  And then finally this past Sunday you asked and I felt good enough that I bent down and picked you up.  And you know what you said as you hugged my neck so tight? "Your boo-boo on your belly is better Mommy!"  You were just so glad!

In the times that you try my patience and cry and whine over very small things and get frustrated and have accidents, I'm trying to remember that you are only going to be this small for a short period of time.  Soon you'll be in elementary school and we will only get a few hours of day together.  And then the dreaded middle school years will come and you probably won't even want to talk to me much less snuggle.  So I want to remember morning's like this one.  Times when you mold yourself into my body and I get to just drink in the love and time with you.  You are my precious baby girl and I love you so very, very much.

love, Mommy

Family Fun

We had Jason's family over for the afternoon Saturday before last.  KayKay and GrandDavid hadn't seen James in almost a week and Kevin and Stefanie hadn't gotten to meet him yet!  Charlotte loved having all the company and was especially excited when Stefanie wore a purple dress!  We had so much fun seeing everyone and look forward to getting together again soon!

Our life in pictures

The thing about life with a newborn (and in our case, a newborn with a Momma recovering from surgery) is that it's not very eventful.  Your life is mapped out in three hour increments and you go back and forth between feeding the baby, keeping the toddler entertained, trying to catch up on your sleep, and trying to get everyone else to sleep when they're supposed to.  Because of my pain medicine I couldn't really drive and thus couldn't leave the house and Mom and Dad were ferrying Charlotte back and forth to activities so I was pretty homebound.  Despite all of this I've tried to keep up One Tale a Day and done a pretty good job so far.  So I have a lot of pictures but not tons to say about them since they're all pretty much from our house of James sleeping and C playing.  But I want to remember what these days were like so... here are the pictures!

Charlotte and I spent a lot of time playing with the iPad and reading books on our bed while James slept in his swing.

September 13th.  He is so small in his swing!  He usually sleeps swaddled but for some reason this time he isn't.  We also put a small blankie on him because he likes to hold on to something while he sleeps.  

September 14th.  While James spends most of his sleep time in his swing, if he's asleep enough when we put him down he'll sleep in his pack and play like he was in this picture.

We try and keep James up for 15-30 minutes after he finishes eating before he goes back to sleep. Sometimes it works better than others but this afternoon it worked perfectly and Charlotte was my big helper keeping him awake.  She even let me take some pictures!

September 14th.  After James' cord fell off he got his first bath!  So far he seems to like them like his sister, although he doesn't look too happy in this picture!

More playing on the bed.

September 16th.  Our first outing as a family of four.  We went to a store closing sale at Books a Million and then to lunch at Taziki's.  It was almost like orchestrating the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to get everything together and everyone out the door and then back in it safely but we managed.  So far I'm loving our City Mini stroller!

Charlotte has used this time to explore all of the apps that I've downloaded for her over the past two years on the iPad. This is the WeeGenius app that reads books to the child.  It's pretty cool and made it very easy for Daddy to "read" to Charlotte.

Charlotte and Daddy are having some big bonding time since I'm often occupied with feeding James or taking care of him.  Jason's taking the 50 Rules for Dad's of Daughter's to heart and has started dancing around the house with her often.  I love it and so does Charlotte!

This is James' favorite position to fall asleep on my chest.  As you can see, he can get into a very deep sleep like this!

September 19th.  After another bath we took some pictures of James' hair.  While he does have a lot and it is dark, he has much less than Charlotte did and his hair is much lighter than her's was.  It cracks us up that it spikes up naturally! We love it!

More time on the bed but this time with all of us snuggling!

Weekly Update

Here's another weekly update....

Sleeping

James has had a rougher sleeping time this week but overall it's still pretty good.  We started trying to stretch to 3.5 hours at night and by last night he was doing it pretty well.  However, one day and night this week he must have been having a growth spurt and woke up starving every 2.5 hours.  While we want him to grow this was difficult to take at night!  He's been a little resistant to getting himself to sleep which we've started trying (putting him down awake).  He might still be a little young for that so we're taking it slow.

Eating

He's still eating pretty good.  He's pretty consistent with his eating times.  He has had a few major spit up episodes this week and a little bit of a tummy ache a few times.  We think we might have isolated it to after I've eaten a lot of cheese or drank a large quantity of milk so for right now I'm trying to limit those things to see if it helps.  So far it seems to be but he's still spitting up small amounts maybe once every other feeding.  Our pediatrician told us that this was very normal though.

Schedule

I kind of feel like I cover all of these topics in the sleeping category.  :)  Since we're Babywise parents we've decided that our first feeding of the day is going to be around 6:30 or 7.  We're still trying to figure out the ideal way that this works out with the longer night cycles but so far it's working ok.  The thing is that we're putting him straight back to sleep after that feeding so his first feeding with wake time isn't until 9:30 which isn't perfect and as he gets older and more awake that's going to have to change since we'll have to be up and out to take Charlotte to school during that time.  When that happens we'll probably move that first feeding of the day to 7 so that I can feed him and keep him awake and still get Charlotte up and feed her.

Charlotte

Charlotte is still doing great.  It is hard balancing two and she is still a little touchy when she feels like she's not getting enough attention but overall she's doing great.  So far she hasn't regressed with potty training or sleeping or anything which we are very thankful for.  It's interesting to me though that while she loves him and wants to know where he is at all times, say goodbye and night to him, etc she refuses to hold him and rarely touches him.  But that's perfectly fine and honestly is one less worry that we have since she's not wanting to love on him too much!  It has impressed me that she doesn't mind when anyone holds him and isn't acting jealous of anyone paying him attention at all.  I'm guessing that might end eventually but for right now she is handling the transition very well.

Help
I said that this week was going to be our first "real" week but it really didn't turn out like that.  I took Charlotte to gymnastics on Monday but Kay kept James so that we could go just the two of us.  And I did pick Charlotte up with James on Tuesday but that's the only time I got or took her to school.  It's a little more difficult to do things like that by myself since I still am not supposed to pick up James in his car seat but I am feeling much better and would expect in another week to be basically back to normal.  I'm planning on trying more by myself this week so hopefully that will go well!

First days home

We spent the first few days after getting home adjusting to life as a family of four.  Thankfully, Jason didn't have to go back to work until Tuesday so we had some down time to figure out what our new normal was going to be.

This included our first drive down to Mom and Dad's to drop Charlotte off before taking James to his first doctor's appointment.  We were excited to hear that he had gained back 7 of the 8 ounces that he had lost while we were in the hospital by this visit to bring his weight back to 5 lbs 15 ounces.  And we were especially thankful that his Billie Ruben number was fine so that we didn't have to worry about jaundice.  It was very nice to take him in for his first visit on a Saturday -- no one was in the office so no need to worry about other kids passing things around and we were in and out about as quick as we could be!

We spent the afternoon watching football, especially the Alabama vs Penn State game.  Memma came over and brought dinner and helped us out in the afternoon which helped us so much since I was not feeling good on Saturday.

By Sunday we were starting to get the feel for what life was going to be like and were starting to try and get James into a eat/wake/sleep routine.  We found that Charlotte is good at trying to keep him awake and especially loves shaking his blue dog in front of him and tickling his toes.  Sadly, he still wasn't really up to staying awake but we did manage to get a few minutes of awake time out of him!

Charlotte adjusted to life with a sibling better than I expected her to.  She loves James and tolerates him being in one of our arms very well.  She hasn't gotten jealous when I feed him at all which surprises me.  She has asked some questions about it but seemed satisfied when I told her he was drinking milk.  :)  There have been some occasions where she will come and sit in the chair with me and James while he's eat and I'll rub her back or neck while we're sitting there.  I think she likes sharing that time but she doesn't push for it.

We found that she started using the potty for attention.  She would start needing to go to the bathroom almost as soon as I started feeding James but after a day or two of that she quit doing it.  She doesn't really understand using an inside voice when he's sleeping but I guess that's why I've always heard that second babies are sound sleepers who can sleep anywhere!  She has to tell him good night or good bye if she's leaving and she's asleep and sometimes likes to go in while he's sleeping and stand in front of his swing and sing to him.

After about four days the newness did wear off on her and she began to get a short temper with Jason and I (although she never expressed it at James).  She would get upset very easily about little things and it would be hard to calm her down.  However, this didn't last more than a few days at a really heightened state so that's good.  I know that this transition will have ups and down but so far it's been only nominally stressful so that's been very nice.

As for James, he's adjusted well to life at home.  He's sleeping at night from feeding to feeding which is fantastic and allowing us to get decent bits of sleep which helps tremendously during the days.  We have only had a few rough nights since he's been home which has been such a blessing.  I had forgotten how many dirty diapers babies go through though and we had a very limited stock of newborn diapers anyway since we thought he was going to be really big so we have had to make a few diaper runs.  We also had very limited clothes options and Mom went out and bought a few preemie outfits which even now are still fitting him.  He's basically living in gowns that are pretty long with the sleeves rolled up and the preemie outfits.  We've also already established the differences in changing a boys diaper and are learning how to manage those changes so that we don't get wet.  :)

Overall, it's been a pretty good transition although the first week or so at home were pretty rough with me feeling much worse than I remember feeling with Charlotte.  But we're also getting more sleep than I remember with Charlotte which is a huge blessing.  It has been very fun having two little ones in the house and seeing how Charlotte interacts with James.  It's going to be a busy next few years but they're definitely going to be fun!

The rest of the story

The rest of our hospital stay was fairly uneventful.  Since we had James on a Tuesday our days weren't filled with visitors like last time which gave us a lot of time to spend ourselves with James and with each other.  Honestly, other than the constant barrage of nurses and the not feeling great because I just had surgery and being in a hospital, it was almost like we were on vacation since James just slept most of the time!  Overall it was as laid back of an experience as being in the hospital after birth can be!

Aunt Cathy came by to meet James

And Memma and Papa brought Charlotte up to hang out and eat with us

Mrs Leigh come by to meet James also!

We got so many compliments on James' painting on our door!

And then it was time to go home!  We got James all dressed up in his sweet outfit, hat ,and booties and took some pictures on his blanket before putting him in the car seat and heading to the car!

We got home to an empty house (Charlotte was at school and then napping at Mom and Dad's).  But Charlotte came home that afternoon and was pretty intrigued to find her little brother in her house.  She didn't seem to phased by it though and spent the evening entertaining us with dancing and singing to welcome James home!