Funny Faces

While we were in Minnestoa we looked at some baby pictures of me and then when we got home we did the same for pictures of Adam that his Mom had put in a nice photo album for him. I think William has characteristics of both, hopefully a good blend. We scanned a couple goofy faces of Adam and myself for comparison to the pictures of William with funny faces.

William

Erin

Adam

1st Christmas Pictures

Pictures from Christmas:

Grandpa and Grandma Mc

Brea, Keegan and Will (Brea is practicing for when her 2nd little boy arrives)

Grandma and Grandpa S

We had a wonderful Christmas and it was so nice to be able to travel back to Minnesota to visit and be with family. Thanks to all that visited and came to see William.

Thanks also to the Grandparents for making it a wonderful trip and for helping out with William, we wouldn't be so sane without you guys! Sane is still a relative term as we are still at about 3 night feedings, we are hoping the little guy will start stretching out the feedings pretty soon!

Catching Up

We are back home and I am catching up on my blogs I follow, posting to ours and working on laundry.5 Week old picture in Police Onsie (will attempt a 7 week picture but not sure if it will fit any more)

Picture with Grandpa Suedkamp, William loved being held by him and let out quite a few toots to let Grandpa know it. Must be the Suedkamp internal piping.

Chandra and Nancy (her Mom) lent us their travel swing while we were in Minnesota, and it really came in handy for meal time. Thanks again ladies!

Merry Christmas from Minnesota

We are having fun in Minnesota with lots of snow. We have gotten out to see family and friends and have gone on some child-free outings (Adam to the history center and Erin to the Art Museum). New Pictures of Will with the Grandparents, just need to get one of Grandpa Suedkamp and Will tomorrow!
Visiting at Chandra's parents house with Chandra, Brylee, Nancy, Joyce and Terry.


We have more family visits and visits with friends to look forward to in the next few days. Hope you are all having a Merry Christmas Eve!

First Social Outing

William and I went to book club (first one with babies) today. It was our first social outing with just Mom and baby. It went really well, he slept the 40 min to get there and was a very good baby while I was there, looking around, getting fed and sleeping. The ride home got a little long and he got hungry, but we made it home before the screaming got too bad.

Getting spiffed up during his bath the night before. We got him bathed, dried and I put him in the police onsie I have taken his picture in before as I wanted to get a 5 week picture, and just as I was taking him to the living room for his photo he threw up a whole bunch of cottage cheesy spit up all over, so no picture till we do laundry again, which I am sure will be soon.

Wordless Wednesday

Baby Bjorn

Thanks to all who posted comments, I tried the Pampers size ones last night and no leaks. Go Pampers! We will see if the trend continues tonight.

The other day we tried the Baby Bjorn carrier (thanks Brea) and oh did we hear the hollering. William was not happy and let us know. I think he might have been cranky from some gas and being put in the carrier was not a good idea.

I tried it again today when he was in a good mood and it went much better, he even fell asleep in it. But before he could we snapped some pictures and I danced around with him, telling Adam that I finally found a man to dance around the living room with (hence the goofy picture at the bottom).

Learning curve

Being a parent is sure a learning curve. Last night William wet his clothes and swaddler twice, I think this means that we need to move up in diaper sizes? He still fits into the Newborn sizes, but I think that three to four hours of night time pee can't be contained in this size. The Huggies seem to fill up in the front and then the elastic allows the pee to seep up where the cord cut out is therefore wetting the onsie and outer clothes. We do tuck the little hose down, but he is still getting wet. Any suggestions/advice from the ladies out there with little boys? I plan to experiment with a larger size tonight and see what happens.

Breastfeeding is going pretty well, but William seems to have to burp a lot and then spits up if we don't get all the burps out. I had been holding him in a cross cradle with a boppy underneath, but then he is almost horizontal (I try to hold up his head higher than his feet). Today I started to try to sit him in my lap and feed. Hopefully that way he might swallow less air?

Its a lot of trial and error, but eventually we should find the best way for us.

With all the spit up lately we started using bibs, he was so cute sleeping there and I thought the Grandmothers might appreciate this picture.

One month has gone by

I try to keep up the postings and the pictures as I know the Grandparents look frequently at the blog and with them living far away appreciate the pictures and stories. So far so good.

We have pretty much grown out of the Newborn/Infant clothes and are starting to wear the 0-3 month sizes. Some are a little on the big side, but I am sure he will grow into them soon. Mommy set up a little photo shoot last night, as he was too cute in his little Christmas sleeper that some friends of the family gave us.

Experiment: Pee-pee-tee-pee

My friend Kori from college came for a visit today as she was in WI for a training seminar. She was dying to try the Pee-pee-tee-pees Kori, Lisa and Belinda had gotten us as a gift. Both Kori and I thought that they wouldn't work, but decided at the next diaper change to give them a try.

The diaper came off, the pee-pee-tee-pee went on and not 15 seconds later the pee-pee-tee-pee went flying through the air, pushed by a stream of pee. I can't remember exactly how far it went, but it was soaked when it got there. Nice idea but I think they need to be weighted down to keep them from becoming projectiles.

With some quick work we got the stream contained in a wash cloth, but the damage was done, he peed on his head, Kori's hand, the onsie, his sleeper, and the changing table blanket. Its amazing how much pee can come from one little guy.

Thanks to Kori for being a witness and fellow experimenter. I should have snapped a picture of her while she was here holding William, but it seems to escape me when we have visitors.

Here's some pictures chilling with Dad after the experiment was over. In one I even caught the start of one of William's goofy little smiles.

Four Weeks Old

William is now four weeks old and doing well. He is a pretty good baby and cries when he is hungry, wet, tired or gassy, the trick is just figuring out which one it is. The hungry is pretty easy as he makes all kinds of mouth movements to eat his hand, or anything that gets in the way of his mouth. The diaper is pretty easy to figure out, just look for the handy blue/green line on the diaper. The harder ones to figure out are the gas and the tiredness, they kind of look the same: cranky baby.

Poor William's face is broken out with baby acne and has little scratches from his nails. I have only recently regained the courage to clip his nails. The first time I tried it a couple weeks ago I clipped of some skin and got a big howl out of the little guy. Needless to say I felt horrible, and so I tried a nail file for a while and even resorted to chewing the little nails off. But in the last week I have tried again and had more success. Even clipped though, they are still sharp little things and with all his hand movements to his face, he ends up with scratches.

We have opened up our floor play gym and William seems to like the lights and the rattles hanging from the cross tubes. It will be much more fun when he can focus on it more and responds to the toys, but it is good to get a start now.

Head lifting is going good. He is still not a fan of tummy time, but can lift his head for a good 5 seconds or so. He tends to bob his head around when we are burping him, which can make for some juggling between patting his back and controlling his head.

Here are some pictures from today...

Hop on Pop!

A relaxing afternoon at our house with all little creatures on Dad.

Yesterday Adam had training so it was just William, Murphy and I and it went pretty well. I missed my morning nap that I get with Adam around, but all in all we did good. I have to work on remembering to let Murphy out before I start feeding William, because once I do its a good 30 minutes where I can't really move around much. And the first couple of times Murphy decided he really needed to go out while I was busy.

I tried to take a nap when William did, but the phone rang then the mail man rang the door bell to drop of a watch package for Adam (he swapped a watch, didn't buy another one, thank goodness). Eventually I gave up and just focused on getting stuff done while he was sleeping.

We got quite a bit of snow last night and luckily the snow blower worked pretty well for Adam this morning, when it doesn't you can hear the curses inside the house! I think it does okay on moderate snow falls, but this heavy deep stuff it struggles with a bit. The snow is pretty to look at and I am glad not to have to drive to work this month and next!

You name it, it happened last night!

Last night was tough: all went well (feedings every 3 hours) 'til about 3 a.m. and then it all went down hill from there. William spit up all over the bed and the wonderful Kiddopotumus swaddler we got from our friend Laura (highly recommend them). I got those cleaned up and him settled back down again, then we let out a big loud poop just as I was about to leave the room to get some sleep.

So off came all the night clothes and the diaper got changed, in the process we were too fast for Mom and the wall got peed on. Then we got the new diaper on and we decided to pee again. Then the new onsie went on because, of course, we got some pee on the previous one. Then we spit up all over the new onsie. I can't remember all the details, but he managed to pee up onto his head at one point in time, so then there was a quick washcloth bath. This went on and on and on.

I called in reinforcements (Adam) around 5:50am and went and stuck a pillow on my head and slept for an hour. Now William is a sweet sleeping baby in the front window, only making a peep every once in a while. Go figure.

Adam and I both have to chuckle at William's belly shape, I think he looks like a little frog. He has these narrow shoulders, this wide belly, and then very narrow hips.

It's a good thing they make babies so cute, after last night's escapades you just want to throw in the towel, but one look at their sweet little face does you in again, and you're hooked. You know they don't do it on purpose, but boy does it make for a long night and sleepy parents.

Three Weeks and One Day

I meant to post yesterday but the time got away from me. William is now three weeks old and growing. He is starting to get a little double chin and chipmunk cheeks. Adam took these pictures this morning, he is just so cute when he is sleeping that we can't help but take pictures.

We had a nice visit yesterday from Suzy and Miss J, they stopped by between her naps. I think that is going to be our lives from now on, coordinating adventures between feedings and naps.

We got out to Target again today with William, he does well in the car and cart as long as they are moving and lulling him to sleep.

I took a comparative picture today in the police onsie. The first picture was taken at one week old the second at three weeks old. So you can see we are getting bigger, but have a ways to go before we have chubby legs and thighs.

On our own

We are now on our own; that is to say no Grandparents around. Adam's parents left this morning so it is just Adam and I to take care of Will. I really can't imagine how I would have done this alone. It was great having another set of arms and eyes around the first couple of weeks, and I am blessed to have Adam home till January. For all of you who did this on their own after a week, you are stronger than I am.

Sleeping is getting a little better. The last couple of nights there have been a couple of times that William has gone 3 hours between feedings (this gives me roughly 2 hours of sleep in between). Once he even went 4 hours. This isn't the norm, so I try not to get my hopes up for it to happen every time, but it is progress. That coupled with Adam taking the early morning wakefulness allows me a little more sleep.

Murphy is doing well with William, he sniffs him occasionally and has been a busy puppa following everyone around. He has enjoyed the extra lovings from the Grandparents, but I think will also enjoy a quieter house and a few more doggie naps during the day. Here's a picture of the boys hanging out in the sun in the window.
Trying out the boppy during tummy time; but we were more interested in sucking on our hand than lifting our head. I can tell his head/neck is getting stronger though, because during burpings he is now moving it all around, makes it a bit challenging to hold him, pat him on the back and watch where he is launching his head.
Chilling in the Moses basket by the window this morning.
In our swing, we thought he really didn't like it much, but then tried switching it from a side to side movement to a front to back movement and he likes that better. Put the cricket noise on and he is content.