Joe amazes me once again with his photography. He was able to get a lot more pictures than I did over Thanksgiving. If you view it as a slideshow, you get some funny little action shots- like Xander going from smiling to spitting up to laughing about it and Rosemary breaking a Christmas ornament and then lamenting over it.
I wasn't able to get a lot of pictures, but here are a few from our thanksgiving celebration. I think my favorite tradition is going to the beach while the turkey is cooking! It was xanders first trip to the beach. He mostly sat under the shaded umbrella with me and nursed while rosemary played in the sand with her grandparents. I didn't get any pictures, but when we got back to my parents house my dad and joe took rosemary out in the kayak and fishing in their backyard. Joe took some pictures and when he gets them uploaded I will add them because it was too cute! She was wearing her swimsuit with a tutu while fishing! Later in the day we sat down and feasted on our 24 pound turkey and dozen or so sides.
We avoided most of the black friday madness by sticking to shops at the beaches and ended up finding incredible deals on all the things I have been wanting to update our dining room! I can't wait to get home to get everything put up!
We are in the car on our way home now to put up our christmas decorations! I have been wanting to put our tree up since xander was born so I can't wait!
We packed a lot into today! This morning we packed the family into my parents minivan and we headed out to the first showing of Tangled. Rosemary has been asking to see it for weeks and it finally started playing today so she was really excited! As is typical for her, she was scared through all of the cutesy parts and laughed when the action picked up and the movie got a little scary. She has her fears backwards. Xander did amazing during his first trip to the movie theater. He slept the whole time!
Joes parents arrived today, bearing gifts for the little ones. As you can see in the picture, Rosemary had a good time opening her bag! Of course, her giant loot-filled bag wasnt enough, she wanted the shirt daddys parents got him instead!
And finally, I finished Rosemarys Thanksgiving dress tonight. I have made her one every year and I was so worried I would nt find the time to get it done this year. We made a special trip to Joann fabrics and let Rosemary pick out the material. It took me a couple weeks and all I had finished until we got to my parents house was washing and ironing the fabric. Tonight I put the finishing touches on the dress. It's reversible. On the one side is her handprint turkey and on other is nothing else but ballerina princesses for the self-proclaimed "princess of the princesses."
I think my dad might be the coolest grandpa on the planet. Rosemary wanted to sleep on the porch so he set up the tent and they're sleeping out there tonight!
I think the kiddos like grandma and grandpas house. Xander had been amazing. Hes only had one crying fit, and that was in the car. He hasn't even spit up much! Rosemary has been precious. Grandma and mommy went on a few errands earlier while rosemary played at the playground with grandpa and daddy. I wish I had pictures of that. I guess she made friends with a 7 and 9 year old! I can't get over how well behaved our kids are! I guess it helps having all that attention!
Today was Xanders two month doctors appointment. He jumped from the 25th to 77th percentile in weight! My boy is getting big! The pediatrician said the prilosec should start taking effect more this week so hopefully we will start to see less spit up and less fussiness soon! We are also going to try to supplement with a different formula to see if it helps. That will be nice and give me a break every once in a while. He also got his vaccines today which was not so fun. Now we are on our way to grandma and grandpas house!
edit: I updated this from my phone and didn't realize the pictures were going to post like this. They should be in the text. But I'm sure you can figure it out! The second picture is from the It's a Small World Ride- Xander's first ever theme park ride!
Thanksgiving is almost here which means it's my favorite time of year- Joes vacation!!! To celebrate, we decided to take the kids to Disney World! Earlier this year joe and I participated in the give a day, get a day program. We volunteered making blankets for sick children through the Linus blanket program and received two free disney world tickets. The tickets were about to expire so we decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and take Rosemary and Xander to the most magical place on earth. It also happens that Joe had some hotel points so we decided to make a whole weekend getaway out of it. I was so nervous about taking Xander at such a young age, but luckily my fears turned out to be completely unnecessary as all four of us had a magical time!
We made a little game out of it by not telling Rosemary where we were going. We simply told her to pack a suitcase and a swimsuit and that we had a surprise for her. We kept asking her where she thought we were going. She pointed to every building we passed and asked if that's where we were going. We finally told her that it was some where fun and she guessed a playground. We kept her guessing until we pulled up to the hotel. Now, one thing you have to know about Rosemary is that she loves hotels. She would have been perfectly happy if we stayed there all weekend and protested a bit when we told her we had an even better surprise for her. Luckily the hotel had pictures of Mickey Mouse which eventually led us to telling her where we were going. She got pretty excited when we told her she was going to see some princesses and Mickey himself. It was already 2:00 by the time we got to Magic Kingdom which worked out perfectly because right as we entered Main Street, Cinderella appeared, followed by Belle and the rest of the princesses in a street parade! Rosemarys reaction was priceless. She got really shy, completely starstruck seeing all her princesses at once! After the parade cleared we had our first look at Main Street all decorated for the holidays. We took a minute to get a picture of me and my kiddos by some of them.
Then we were off to Fantasy land and the Small world ride, one of my favorites. Rosemary was so adorable. She kept clapping and singing along with the attraction. After small world, we checked out Mickeys Philharmagic, Rosemarys first 3d movie experience. She is still talking about donald coming out of a bucket asking about his hat. She remembers the tiniest details about everything and talks about them nonstop. After some more exploring, Xander and I made ourselves comfortable on a park bench so I could feed him while Joe and Rosemary went on some of the other rides. Then it was time for some dinner for the rest of us. Rosemary only wanted to eat my food and started pouting when I wouldn't give her my pbj. But she was much happier when I "shared" her grapes with her.
After dinner we made our way to Mickeys Toontown where we met the princesses ! I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Rosemary tried showing Cinderella who the real princess was!
After meeting her idols, we took a train ride through the park before going to Mickeys house for the mickey and minnie meet and greet. If you don't know about our last time doing this, let me just say we were very nervous and made it a point not to in any way touch that litigious rodent Minnie! We did get a photo of the kids and me with the mice, if you can make out Xanders head behind mickeys ear!
It was already getting dark by this point, and I was exhausted- Disney was fun with two kids, but a half day is enough with an 8 week old! We hopped the ferry back and settled into our hotel for the night. We had the whole family cuddled in one bed that night and it was so nice! Xander did amazing- way better than his big sister ever did at a hotel as an infant! He even slept 5 hours that night, only waking up to eat and then going straight back to sleep. The two of us ended up staying in bed until almost 10:00 am! Joe and Rosemary brought me breakfast and went swimming while X and I cuddled in bed all morning. We got a late checkout so we took it easy that morning then headed up to see our good friends Ryan and Carrie, who Rosemary loves! We had a special treat because Ryans parents were visiting. His mom is a baby whisperer and made me feel infinitely better about Xanders fussiness. She had 8 kids and said all of them were like that and it's completely normal. She understood every thing I was going through and all my fears about having something wrong with my milk our questioning if it's something I did when pregnant or something I'm eating, etc that is making him colicky. I felt 500 times better after talking to her. And Xander loved her! He slept almost the whole time cuddled up to her and was perfectly content when I put him in the car and stayed happy just about all the way home from Orlando! Carrie is so lucky to have her! Her experiences as a mom are going to come in handy in April when they welcome their own little one into the world! Rosemary is in love with Uncle Ryan and Aunt Carrie and protested fiercely when it was time to go, but we will see them again soon!
So this is just the start to our thanksgiving holiday. Next stop: grandmas and grandpas house!
The first couple weeks home were like a honeymoon period. My parents stayed for a week and a half taking care of Rosemary, Joe, and I while we took care of Xander. Joe went back to work after 2 weeks and things went surprisingly smooth when I was on my own. And then week 3 started. Hello again, colic, my old friend. We went through it with Rosemary and I was decided not to go through it again. This time it came accompanied by lots and lots of spit up and a nasty case of baby acne covering his face, arms, back, and starting to creep onto his stomach. I went ahead and made a doctor's appointment because it seemed to be getting worse. The doctor suspected reflux and a dairy intolerance (which aggrevates the reflux as well as the baby acne). She gave us some tips on how to deal with the reflux (keep him propped up, gripe water, Mylicon) and suggested I remove dairy from my diet. I started seeing a little improvement in both his skin and fussiness after removing dairy, but not significant improvement so I went ahead and also took out soy and wheat, the other 2 big allergens that can cause intolerance in babies. After 2 weeks of no improvement with the reflux we were prescribed Zantac (the acne comes and goes). After another 3 weeks of that and not much improvement, we were prescribed Prilosec. It's been about a week and a half now and I am seeing some improvement. I've also started tracking his behavior (nursing, fussy times, and sleep). One of the biggest problems with the reflux is the lack of sleep it causes. At his age, babies should get about 16 hours of sleep a day. He was getting less than 10, and most of that was at night. He'd scream all day. I've been tracking his behavior for 3 days now. The first day he slept a total of 11 hours in a 24 hour period. The next day I saw where he was really fighting sleep and I found ways to soothe him and he slept a total of 15 hours in the 24 hour period. I think by the end of tonight, the total will be 14 hours for this 24 hours period. So, not exactly as much sleep as we want him to get, but a significant improvement from pre-Prilosec days. It's a lot of work for me, and poor Rosemary is just not getting the attention she needs, but I'm hoping it will all pay off and he will soon be able to sleep better and faster on his own.
We go back next Monday for a follow-up, and for his 2 month wellness visit (ack! Vaccines! This is NOT going to be fun!). Hopefully by then we'll see even more improvement.
So that's what's going on health-wise with our little guy.
Reflux aside, he is the cutest little boy I have ever laid eyes on. In his happy moments (and there are increasingly many) he loves to indulge us in these huge, toothless smiles that light up the room- and my heart! I was privy to his first smile, but it was so quick that I almost didn't believe it happened. And the next smile episode lasted a long time- but only with Joe! And then he smiled at a friend's grandmother before smiling at me again and I was starting to feel a little left out. But the past 2 days have been all about smiling for mommy! I love his little smiles. They make it all worth it! I'm pretty sure when he outgrows the reflux (and I'm confident this WILL NOT last forever!) he is going to be a happy little boy!
I just found this picture in Joe's flickr. I guess he's been smiling even longer than I thought! This picture was taken on October 9, so he was about 3 weeks old.
Hehehe. I just found this in Joe's flickr, too. This is what I usually hear (when I'm not getting those cute smiles) during the 9 to 13 waking hours he has each day
I guess it's time I step back a couple months and fill everyone in on the addition of Mr. X to our family. It wasn't exactly what we expected.
My original due date was October 1, but according to ultrasounds I was measuring a little further along, so I expected to go a little early so I wasn't that surprised when around 11 at night on September 22 I started feeling the familiar pangs of contractions that I remembered from the first time around. By midnight, Joe and I were at the hospital ready for the show to begin. I got my epidural and got a few hours of sleep before the doctor came in to break my water. Just like with Rosemary, the water was stained green, signaling meconium. Since we experienced that before, we were not the least bit nervous, but spent the rest of the time waiting to push joking about how our kids like to poop. It wasn't until he popped out and the nurse told us she was going to clean him up and let us hold him for a couple minutes, but that I couldn't feed him because his breathing seemed a little labored, that we got our first hint that something might be wrong. After Joe and I got to see him and give him kisses, the nurse took him back to observe him. Sure that his breathing was not quite right, she called the NICU nurses back (they were in during the delivery to pump him clean from the meconium, but left soon after), who agreed that something was wrong and they needed to take him down to the NICU for observation. We didn't really know what to do. I had just had a baby and now he was gone? It definitely wasn't what we expected. The worst part was when I was wheeled out of the delivery room to the mom and baby room and they play a little song. It didn't seem right since I didn't have him in my arms like I did with Rosemary. We asked them to take us right to the nursery where we found him hooked up to a bunch of monitors and getting prepped for an iv to get some fluids in him. After a period of observation they formally admitted him into the NICU, hooked him up to oxygen to help him breath, and took an x-ray to confirm what the problem might be. The x-ray showed that his lungs were covered in something- confirmation that he aspirated the meconium. They immediately started a round of heavy-duty antibiotics to prevent infection and ran a bunch of blood tests to make sure there was no bacteria or other cause of infection already detected. The next 24 hours were the scariest of my life. Joe and I kept vigil by our baby, mostly staring at the machines that were recording his vitals, watching his breathing struggling to get to where it needs to be. After starting the oxygen, his breathing was finally regulated and he was no longer struggling. He had so many tubes hooked up to him that I can't even remember what they were all for. He wasn't having any wet diapers so they upped his iv to a higher nutritive cocktail. He still wasn't having any wet diapers so they pumped his stomach (again) and a bunch of mucousy fluid came out. They kept a reverse feeding tube (not sure if that's really a medical term, but that's how it was being used), first in his mouth, but he kept pulling it out, and then finally in his nose where it wasn't causing him to gag as badly. It was about another 24 hours before they finished pumping him and nothing came out and we could attempt to feed him (I went back to our room every 2 hours to pump to stimulate my milk glands). We gave him formula to see if his body was going to digest it or what would happen. Luckily, he took it just fine and his body knew what to do and we started seeing wet diapers. I don't even remember when they removed the oxygen, but I know it must have been before we fed him. Things started looking up once he was breathing on his own and he was able to eat. After what felt like an eternity, we received the results from his final blood work and the news was great- no inflammation, no sign of infection, and he could go as soon as he finished this round of antibiotics!!! It ended up only being one extra day in the hospital and they were kind enough to let us keep our room so we didn't have to leave without him.
Our parents came, bringing Rosemary with them, so she was able to see her baby brother for the first time. She wasn't allowed in the NICU, but there was a window where she was able to see him and blow him kisses.
Finally on September 26 at 4:00, we left the hospital and brought him home.
Here are a few pictures from our stay in the hospital.
Here he is when he first got to the NICU for observation
Here he is a few hours later with oxygen, but before the feeding tube
Here he is the next day, no oxygen, but still has the feeding tube (we didn't get a picture of all of them together, it was just a bit much for us to look at and we weren't exactly thinking of taking pictures for posterity)
Here he is ready to eat! (please excuse my lack of makeup or hair style. It had been a long couple days)
And finally all packed up and ready to head home!
And finally, quite possibly the cutest video in existence. Rosemary meets her baby brother.
OK, maybe this is the cutest video in existence. Rosemary singing "Rockabye Xander"
Joe gave me this wrap as a gift when we found out I was pregnant with rosemary. It ended up being one of my most beloved baby gear items. She used it up until almost age 2 and I can see xander is going to follow in her footsteps. I love my baby bjorn for parks and shopping and most things out of the house or times when I need my hands, but seeing their little faces all smooshed up and having their warm little bodies all cozied up to mine while in my maya sling is priceless. Especially after a full morning of fussiness and trying everything else to get them to sleep. Sure, I cant scrub the toilet (ew, germs), or cook dinner (wouldn't want to cook the baby) but I can enjoy reading and coloring with my precious Rosemary while Xander rests peacefully in my arms. And when he sleeps, we are all much happier.
