Sleep, No Sleep, Sleep?!

"Junior" has been here now for a little more than a few weeks and is growing, growing, growing. We have gotten over the - I don't fit anything and therefore, I pee everywhere phase. His sleep patterns have been fairly the same if we can keep him up during the day then he has been waking up only twice at night to eat - this I could handle. Now, with the next Grandma in town everything has changed. How fast little one's learn - Grandma was hear for a day and half and of course she wants to hold her new little grandson, so I don't think anything of it and she holds him and holds him and holds. Well, that night was a NIGHTMARE! When I went to put him down, he fussed until I picked him up and then he'd crash, put him down and he fussed - AHHH. Poor guy - I was getting really irritated and told Dan, I'm going downstairs for the night, I have to break him of this now. So, downstairs we went and into his pack n play and I let him scream it out for awhile and I finally did get a little bit of sleep that night, but he woke up every couple of hours to eat and fuss when I put him down. The next day there were new rules in the Davids household - no holding the baby after he falls asleep, into bed he goes. Last night was a much better night, he went to bed around 9:30pm and woke up at 1am to eat and then a diaper change at 3am and to eat at 5am and then at 8am.
He was been a really happy little guy - we have only had one major problem - Diaper Rash and it ain't pretty. He is on his second round of really horrible diaper rash where his poor little bum is completely raw and we have to let him lay around naked to really dry it out. It must be something with his digestive system because he is one runny mess. I have been breastfeeding only, but today with the diaper rash thing and runs happening again deciding it's time to start transition to both breast milk and formula and see what happens. I was going to start the next week anyways so that it's a month long process before I head back to work. I have been feeding and pumping and have a little supply in the freezer and today he got 2 oz of formula as well, I am hoping over the next couple of days that this will somehow help the butt rash and such and we can move on from this ordeal.
"Junior" has his one month check-up on Monday and I'll show some stats after the appt.

Grandma Davids Visits

Dan's mom was here for 2 weeks to help out with everything, she cooked, she cleaned, she helped with the kids and attempted to keep her son in line. I now know what it would feel like to have a live in nanny that is at your beck and call - wow, no wonder the rich have them on staff 24/7, it sure makes raising kids easy and you get to spend some time alone here and there with your spouse even when your kids are awake. She was a great help and we really enjoyed having her here, although all good things must come to an end and I was happy to get my house back to myself for a few days as well and do some of my own laundry and cooking, surprisingly I missed cleaning my own house a little bit.

Dan and his mom

Katelynn and Grandma making a hot dish.

My New Ride

I finally have got the car that I want and not something that Dan has picked out and paid for. After waiting for over 2 months for the price on this car to continue to drop, it is finally mine. I love, I love it, I love it. I even thin that Dan likes this car, although he still didn't want me to spend the money, oh well. Katelynn is loving the car as well because it has a built in DVD player, even though I am completely against using them to keep kiddos quiet or entertained on short rides, I do like it for a long road trip, like when we drive to Minnesota. I am loving the navigation system as well and the car drives so nice. I'm sure I will also be loving the AWD at our next snowfall.

Here are some pictures of my 2006 Subaru Tribeca, 7 Passenger Limited Car !

Breastfeeding 101

Little Junior has been home with us now for 2 weeks and a day and surprisingly the breastfeeding is going well and I will probably keep with it until I get closer to going back to work. A couple of things things that Dan and I have learned:

1 - When you bring home a new baby and have a 3 year old they assume you will feed the baby with a bottle and are amazed when you start feeding them with your boobs. They will ask you a ton of questions. They will then go to daycare and let all the other little girls know that this is how you "really" feed a baby and then all the little girls will practice this breastfeeding technique with the babies. My 3 year old also decided that if I can't feed the baby from the bottle and I want to feed the baby then I should just go ahead and grab mommies boob and pull it towards the baby. (Sorry Katelynn, but it doesn't work that way either sweety!)

2 - When waking up in the middle of the night and you are breastfeeding the husband should not reach across your chest for anything, especially when you are burping the baby and baby is not attached to the boob - you are bound to get some milk on your arm. (Dan only had to experience this once and freaked out!)

3 - It is not a myth that when a baby cries you will leak if you are full and not only out of the boob you want to feed out of, but both - be more prepared, they make those bra inserts for a reason!

These are some of things that the Davids' family has learned in the last 2 weeks with the new baby being home. Can't wait to see what else is in store for us.

DoubleShot

Dan and I had brought our new little bundle of joy home and our family was now complete. Katelynn took on the role as a great big sister in stride!
Night 2 in the Davids household was something else. Who knew there was such a difference between a boy baby and a girl baby and the changing of the diapers. It was around 10pm and Dan and was at the foot of the bed and I was at the head of the bed and Junior was laying in between us. We were getting ready to attempt to go to bed and Dan was doing a diaper change. Little Juniors system was still working out the kinks out being on the outside and had some pretty runny stools and hadn't really been peeing all that much, so diaper clean up was not so fun. Dan took off Juniors diaper and started to wipe his little bottom off and Junior must have had a little bit of gas and a little bit of poo left over and all of the sudden it Shot Out of his little butt hitting Dan right in the stomach. I think that I got out one little chuckle at Dan's expense and then realized that I was in return getting peed on by the little guy. One diaper change and 2 parents get hit, I can tell you for certain that Katelynn was not able to do this.
Chalk one up for the little man. Zero for the parents.

Dan Jr.

Labor and Delivery

As Saturday rolled around and the month of January came and went I was still pregnant. You could say I was beginning to lose my mind ever so slowly, what had my Dr. told me - you will be having a January baby, I don't think you will make it to your next appt. - none of these things which came to be true. As the last weekend rolled around I was starting to lose hope that this baby was ever going to come out. I had tried walking, rocking, drinking the red rasberry tea, eating spicy food, everything I could think of or had heard of to get labor into action with no luck. Sunday I actually felt that nothing was happening with my body, no contractions, nothing - even little junior didn't seem to be as strong in his movements, which I can imagine he didn't have much room left. I was actually feeling like I had when I was 7 months pregnant instead of 8 1/2 months. I decided on Sunday night that I would call my dr. on Monday morning and try to get into an appt. by saying the baby wasn't moving as much and just something seemed very off (which in reality was the truth, I was just make it seem a little more extreme than it was). Monday morning rolled around and I got up and ready for work, dropped Katelynn off and phoned the dr.'s office, their answering service picked up and stated they didn't start taking phone calls until 8:30am so it was off to work for me. All I could think of was not wanting to listen to people say "You are still pregnant", "You are still at work?" - Yes, I am still here. I called back a little before 9am and talked to one of the nurses at the clinic and she let me know that all the dr.'s schedule their surgeries on Monday mornings and no one was available, she made some suggestions for me and I was a little demanding that I see someone so she decided to send me to Labor and Delivery at the hospital to be hooked up to the machines to monitor little guy and his movements to make sure everything was as it should be. Oops, I didn't mean to push it to that extreme and waste people's time and money, but it was too late at the point so off I went to the hospital and up to Labor and Delivery and of course I hadn't had much breakfast to eat yet at that point and didn't have time to stop and grab something quick. I got to the hospital and was hooked up to the machines in triage and was answering questions from the intake nurse and then she said "You just had a contraction, did you feel that?" - Nope, I felt nothing, then she said I had another one, still I didn't feel anything. As we were talking and she was completing paperwork she heard my Dr. outside the door and went and grabbed her to see me quick. In came my dr. and she said something about me being in there and we chatted and of course I made something comment about still being pregnant even though she didn't think I would be, I can't remember exactly what I said, but I know that she gave me a look! She asked me then if I wanted her to check me and I said "yes" and the nurse let her know that I was having some contractions. She checked me and I was at 5 cm already and she said that I was definitely in the early signs of labor and to go ahead and admit me and we'd be having a baby today. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I was not completely prepared for that response. Dan had went to work, all my bags were at home and I wasn't going to be able to go and get them and pack the bathroom supplies that I wanted and I hadn't eaten enough for breakfast (and knowing from having Katelynn, they were not going to let me eat now). Phone calls were made and I told Dan to high tale it home and get my bag and get back to the hospital because it was 10am and at around noon the dr. was going to come in and break my water and the nurse was thinking it wasn't going to take long for little junior to make his appearance into the world. Our neighbors were on-call for Katelynn so that was all taken care of and went pretty smoothly. Dan got to the hospital at about 11:50am and the Dr. came in right at noon and said I was already at 6cm and went ahead and broke my water and advised me that if I was going to get the epidural then I probably needed to do it now because things were going to progress so quickly. So the lady was called in and we let her know that last time I had this done I had a panic attack and was hoping for different results this time around. Everything did go pretty smoothly, one side was more numb than the other, but all was working well. I did have a couple small problems with my blood pressure dropping to low and not feeling so well and having to be shifted around and needed extra oxygen, but it all worked itself out. (I always wonder afterwards what it was like to be Dan in that room watching me turn white and kind of going in and out of it and having people work on me, he hasn't really ever said too much about it, but I'm sure he had some thoughts running through his mind). At a little after 3pm the pressure was really starting to get intense and I just figured that the epidural wasn't working so well on the one side and I was just feeling the contractions, but when the nurse came back in and saw that I was clutching the bedside and checked me, I was at 10cm and it was definitely time to start pushing. She told me "Do not Push" I need to call the Dr. and get her over here. Thank goodness my Dr.'s office is attached to the hospital and here she came running down the hallway after they called her and then everything went really quickly. Once it was time to push, I had 3 contractions and pushed for a total of 6 minutes and out he came. This was definitely a different experience than Katelynn, there was no "Ring of Fire" with him and I really never even felt that I was pushing (probably the epidural), but I do remember the immense relief that my body felt after he came out. So there he was and everything was good and I can't believe that I went to work that morning and had a baby later that day and now it has only been a week and it feels that he has been here for months.

Welcome Home Daniel Douglas Davids Jr.

Daniel Douglas Davids Jr.

Born: 2/2/09 (Groundhog's Day and also his Grandma Davids B-day)

Time: 3:31pm

Weight: 7.2 lbs

Length: 21 Inches

Welcome to our family "Junior".