One Month

Baby Elijah is one month old today! Already he is lifting his head and having longer 'alert' times during the day. He displays wonderful dimples when he smiles in his sleep and he is a terrific eater, as evident by his incredible weight gain. He sleeps pretty well at night giving me 3-4 hours at a time but during the day he is only content when he is being held! Even so, we think he is a pretty amazing little guy.

Just pictures...

Pemberton Park

In case we weren't struggling enough trying to adjust to life as a family of four, Steve came down with the flu Friday night! (a nurse friend told us that he has had the swine flu because the regular flu is not "out" yet?!?--just great!!) I had looked forward all week to Steve being home for the weekend to help keep everyone 'in play'...but instead I had to banish him to the guest room and told him not to come out until he was fever-free. Of course we shifted into huge efforts for clean hands (with a toddler--an impossible task) and I tried not to be nervous about my two week old baby contracting the flu... Somehow we managed to scrape through the weekend with me only occasionally knocking on the quarantined room asking if he was "better yet?". (I should also mention that a healthy Steve emerged from the sick room yesterday and went to work today!)

Zach has been "asking" for more attention lately, which is hardly surprising since mommy's arms are always full of Elijah. (His "asking" usually involves him unrolling the toilet paper, dumping all of his toys out, emptying baskets of laundry, or smearing yogurt all over the table.) So yesterday I decided to drag myself, Elijah and Zach to the park for a walk, thankfully my sister was also able to come and help me juggle everyone. At one point, unprompted, Zach looked up at me and said, "We're having fun!" It broke my heart and I resolved to try and give him more positive, undivided attention...we'll see how long my good intentions last.

Zach-isms

Everyone always tells me that I must record the little sayings and words that our children use otherwise, as cute as they may be right now, we will in fact forget them. Today, Zach said a "new" one and I thought I would try to record not only the new one but some of the old ones too.

This morning while Zach was getting dressed he told me that he, "Wants to keep his ja-mama shirt on!" (that would be pajama)

The brown delivery truck that might come to your house once in a while is a U-Piss truck! (UPS)

Some mornings Zach does not awaken until after Steve has left work. On these days when I go into the room he will ask for Daddy and I reply that he is at work. Zach's response every morning is, " Bis not!" (We think this is, It's not!)

Tomatoes used to be called tray-moes.

And chicken with bones still in was "chicken on the bum".

Also whenever Zach was playing with an excavator or dump truck he would use a scooping motion with his arm and say, "A dump-it-da-thru-it!" We have no idea what this meant but it had something to do with scooping and dumping associated with construction trucks!

Bad Dreams

(Warning: This blog entry should not be read if you are still considering having children!) Last night Steve, Elijah and I crashed into bed at 10pm utterly exhausted from two previous nights of not getting enough sleep. At 2am I awakened to nurse Elijah and actually had the passing thought that, 'this night isn't as bad as last night'. Eli was waking up, nursing and going right back to sleep -- perfect! This morning, looking back I can't quite fit all the pieces in chronological order but I will try and hope that those of you who have had this 'night' before can laugh with (or at) me!

2am. Eli wakes up and I changed his diaper. (This little sentence requires some explanation to appreciate so... a diaper change at this point requires a great deal of "stuff" and almost perfect timing, precision and reflexes. First you must get a warm washcloth... this is necessary because Eli is healing from his circumcision and the chemicals in the wipes would hurt him. Now warm water in our house at 2am is not a quick thing so I turn on the bathroom faucet and go prepare the rest of my ammunition. Gauze and A&D ointment are next. I spread the ointment on the gauze and then open up a newborn diaper, because once you unleash the old diaper you only have seconds to get everything in place before you have to start over again adding a change of everything into the mix, if you catch my drift. By this point the water is hot and I can get the final diaper changing piece, a warm washcloth. I then proceed with a lightning quick diaper change.)

Afterwards, we settle down to nurse. As Elijah begins to drift off I have that passing thought of this isn't so bad...when suddenly he wets through everything! So I change his diaper. (please see above side trail and add change of onesie and sleeper) By this point Eli is awake again so I nurse him to lull him back into that desired sleep mode....no luck. After many attempts I decide that it is time to awaken Steve to give me a reprieve.

3am. I awaken Steve and as he is getting up to hold Elijah I make the suggestion that since we are already awake maybe we should move Zach (who is a very sound sleeper) to his bed.

Zach wakes up.

Steve begins to hold and rock Elijah while Zach and I snuggle in bed with the hopes that we both fall back asleep quickly.

4am. Zach is crawling all over the bed wanting to hold and snuggle with Elijah, meanwhile, Eli, who is just falling asleep, wets through everything again. Steve changes his diaper. (add another change of onesie and sleeper to first mentioned diaper change story)

4:45am. Zach is asking for bread, Eli is still awake and mommy is crying for having ever entertained the idea of moving Zach to his bed. Eli is close to falling asleep and Steve offers to get up with Zach but I'm too frustrated at this point so I get up with Zach and move to the living room. Less than 5 minutes later, Steve comes out of the bedroom and says, "The nightmare continues. He just pooped through everything and needs 'the works' again." (Thankfully at this point my wonderful husband begins to laugh and is able to bring me around to see how the whole absurd night/morning is actually pretty funny.)

5:30am. Everyone back in bed and asleep at last!

I'm including pictures taken this morning of my two cherubs as proof that they are in fact both still alive and unharmed.