Post Holiday Bliss

We throughly enjoyed Christmas, but one of the best parts of this week is the downtime between family visits. Dave has been able to log some quality time on his XBox, and I have been able to catch up on a few other projects. I even had time to watch "Pride and Prejudice" and we joined Blockbuster Online.

Today was my post pregnancy doctor appointment, at which the doctor referred to me as the "fast delivery" and the nurse proclaimed I looked "awesome". I feel like I should hang a sign around my neck that says "Results Not Typical".

Wesley is doing great, sleeping for some 5 hour stretches (except for last night). He weighs 11 pounds. I've cut as much dairy as I can stand out of my diet and it seems to make a difference in his fussiness and gas. Daniel is having a blast going between all of his new toys. He hasn't actually even opened everything yet, I put a few things back for later this week.

The rest of Dave's family is coming this weekend (except his parents who came for Christmas), so we will have Christmas again. And Daniel will get to see all of his girl cousins and see all of their new American girl stuff (oh, that's me looking forward to that part).

Smiling Wesley at Three Weeks

Daniel and Wesley- Christmas 2006

Proud big brother looking at his"Baby Wessie".

My favorite Daniel moments this month are when the baby is crying, and Daniel comes up to me and in the sweetest voice says "A baby crying" (as if I don't know and he is giving me very important information).

One Month and Counting

Tomorrow Wesley will be one month old! Today to celebrate, we took him to church for the first time. It was the first time we had tried to get all of us somewhere at the same time. We actually made it to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at 9am (a little odd, but still really good). Afterwards, we went to Publix to pick up our Christmas dinner and show off Wesley to a few of our favorite employees there.

Daniel is very much in the Christmas spirit. Yesterday we had Christmas with the Burdens and he enjoyed all of the present opening and handing out gifts. His favorite gift so far is his "Cars" themed Doodle Pro from Aunt Julie. He also likes his new train cars - Ben, Harvey, Annie and Clarabel (all from "Thomas"). Tomorrow is going to be a lot of fun!

Wesley slept a 5 hour stretch last night, so we feel halfway normal today (hence the early morning church attendance). Hopefully this behavior will keep up. He is getting closer to 11 pounds, and I consider 8 weeks and 12 pounds to be the "sleep through the night" threshold.

Merry Christmas to all! I'm going to post a few of our favorite pictures from our holiday photo session last weekend...

Wesley at one week. As I did with Daniel, I will take a picture with "the bear" every month for the first year to track his growth. This is picture # 1 for Wesley! 

Downtime

Sorry, the blog has been down for a few days, so I'm just now posting some pictures. It took me a few hours to figure out the problem, since I am so NOT a techie. I should not be messing with this stuff anyway given my current state of mind.

Hopefully, I will get some more pictures up soon IF I start getting some sleep. The last few nights have been about 4 hours each. My mom was here early in the week so I got a nap, but today I'm flying solo and the baby is not cooperating with my nap opportunities. And so it will go for at least another 6 weeks or so.... until then I will continue to act in an irrational manner, like breaking down into tears at Sam's today for having to switch lines three times. Why can't people just buy things without having all of these other issues that hold up the lines?? All I wanted was a box of diapers and I had CASH. Stayed tuned for many more "sleep deprived moments"....

Daniel wanted the lawnmower in the Christmas card picture instead of his brother.... 

This is one of my favorite Wesley pictures! 

Hanging in there...

I’ve had many people ask, how is it going so far? So, here is another tidbit that will later go into the scrapbook:

So far I think we are settling into a routine. Wesley is going to be another Babywise baby, and so far he is doing great. He has even set his own nighttime routine, getting up around 2am and 5am for the past week. He does like to be held when he is sleeping, but this week we will probably introduce the swing, which should free up our hands a little bit.

My recovery has been 99% better than the first birth. I now understand why women want to have natural childbirth, now that I’ve experienced it both ways. I don’t think it’s always feasible, but I could tolerate it again. The best benefit is how great you feel afterwards. So many things I struggled with after Daniel’s birth were not even an issue this time around. Even the sleep deprivation is not as bad because I feel more like myself.

Dave has been great with running errands and getting Daniel out of the way. My mom has done a million loads of laundry and has spent quite a bit of time babysitting so I could run errands and leave Wesley in his warm home. Daniel has needed some extra attention and is a little extra whiney, but “Time Out” seems to work wonders. We are busy getting ready for Christmas. Yesterday I wrapped all of the gifts and today we are attempting to take a picture for our Christmas cards. Don’t expect to receive a little handmade masterpiece like last year- this year will be a Walgreens photo card and no letter! You have this blog, so you are well informed on our lives!