Can't get enough of the sleeping pictures!!!!!!

-

Ok, I can't get enough of the sleeping pictures. Babies are precious enough but when sleeping they seem to exude a preciousness that I seem to need to take bazillion pictures of. Some of my favorites are below:

Oh, yes....There will be more to follow in the near future....

Out with the Ducks

-

First Smile

How wonderful it is when your baby turns to you for the first time and smiles this big watermelon smile!

Padon smiled first to Walter in response to him laughing and we both melted. With exuberant high pitched coos of "Padon, well look at you!" he just kept on smiling. I was melting with awe and jealousy and found myself tearing up at my love for them both. It was a big mile stone for me because I feel that Padon's smile and how often he smiles speaks volumes for his character and I wonder if he will be a child who laughs and smiles often even on the cloudiest of days.

I love how his smile comes when least expected and about the cutest things. For example I laid him in his bouncy seat and the little red dog with black and white feet and tummy, attached to the toy bar over the seat, was swinging back and forth with its own big watermelon smile and Padon looked at it and smiled so big as if the little red dog had just whispered a joke only a baby could understand. I loved it!

Fourth of July

The fourth of July came so fast! It was great to see the family again but at the same time it was a reminder to me of how close I was to having to go back to work. I was given 6 weeks off through our short term disabiliy at work and was obligated to be back to work by the 16th of July. It was such a depressing thought that I would have to go back to getting up at 4am and my two hour commute (one way), not to mention business dress attire, no nose piercing, and a job that I had been feeling very unsatisfied in for over a year. *Sigh*

-

The 4th of July party at my Mom's house, though, is always a good time and involves all the neighbors around the lake, that my Mom's house sits on, setting off a ton of fireworks for a spectacular and free show for us. It was so much fun to dress Padon for the 4th and I wish I had gotten a better picture. He arrived to the party in a 4th of July onesie that his Aunt Sarah had bought for him, navy blue pants, red and white stripped socks, and a red and white stripped hat. He looked so awesome.

He also brought a bit of Colic with him, however, and so in an attempt to get one good picture before his face cumbled into grimaces of painful gassy rumbles I changed him quickly into his swimming shorts (hey we were at a lake) and the hat and booties his Great (can you believe it?) Aunt Mildred gave him. I really wanted to be able to show her how cute he looked since her office gave her flak about the hat. I think it is too cute.

I laugh at this picture every time I look at it. Those little froggy legs are too funny.

It was amazing again to see the difference in Padon and Gregory. Sarah and I hung out and swapped our baby stories while everyone hung out in the back yard, kayaking, canoeing, paddle boating, munching on the good eats, and just having a good time.

We eventually laid the babes down together in the pack-n-play and it made for such a cute picture.

I have to say that babies and fireworks are amazing! Last year I ended up spending a good portion of time in the house because the dog decided that she had had enough of the explosions. It really was a surprise because she had been attending SCA events since she was 6 months old and had become accustomed to the loud sounds created by shields crashing together which can be really loud. I fully intended to have to hang out in the house again with the baby and dog but as the neighbors discharged their cannon for the 4th time (yes canon and the concusion from the blast was incredible) I started to wonder if maybe the doctor had been wrong and my wee bean was deaf. He didn't jump or flinch a single time. I did however! OMG! At one point I was holding Padon and one of the Cannons went off. I jumped and squeezed him to me in a protective bear hug. Startled I realized I had reacted in such a way that if continued in the future I would teach him to be afraid of big noises. So I looked into his face and with the biggest smile and happy voice I could muster said "Wow! Wasn't that Fun?!" I could have killed the neighbors but at the same time they didn't ask me to bring my baby and there has been a cannon every year.

Father's Day

Father's Day was the first time since Padon was born that we really had a chance to get together with the family and it kind of felt like we were presenting him all over again. We put him in the most adorable red outfit with my favorite bright green socks and his tiny white shoes and he wore it just long enough for everyone to see it, say how how cute and small he looked and then he spit up all over it and a outfit change was needed.It was amazing to see the difference between Gregory and Padon and what a difference two months makes when you are a small baby. I find it amazing to look back at the pictures and see how small he was because each transition is so subtle when you are there all the time.

It also seemed to be an extra special day seeing as it was Walter's first Father's Day. To prepare him for it Padon and I slept on the couch the whole night so that Walter could have completely uninterrupted sleep (A total luxary for us now). He woke up very surprised, pleased, and grateful. It was really great and what a life transition to be in my parents house with not just my father but two other new Dad's and it felt really good to see how our family had grown.

My Mom to celebrate the two new Dad's gave Both Walter and Wayne a ceramic sculpture of a Dad squatted down with a little boy climbing on his back. It was such a nice thought and it looks so cute in our house.

First Family Outting

It took me four weeks to feel myself again. It was the strangest feeling. I just woke up one morning and finally felt rested and full of energy. I felt like I had been cooped up in the house for too long even though we had run lots of errands with Padon. It was a beautiful weekend and it seemed a perfect opportunity to go to the Pike Place Market in Seattle. We packed up the diaper bag and tried out our new "Ultimate Baby Sling" and made our way to the Everett Transit Center.

-

In order to get good parking in the city on a weekend without paying a fortune you have to leave bright and early and we haven't been able to master that yet with Padon so taking the bus into the city seemed the right thing to do. I printed out a schedule and off we went. It was great and a piece of cake. The day was so sunny and we wandered through the vendors dreaming about the purchases we would like to make and the purchases we would have made when we were teenagers. We had to take a picture by the bronze pig and it made me excited to make it a tradition to have Padon's picture taken by the pig every year.

Walter really wanted to stop by the Irish Pub we had eatten at before called Kells and so we made a bee-line for some good Irish grub for dinner. It was the first time I had had a real beer since I had gotten pregnant and it was awesome! Padon was hungry and between the two of us it made for a great photo opportunity.

Walter and I are proud WSU Cougars and often make jokes about the drinking stereotype associated with our beloved school. We would love for Padon to be a Coug too so we had to prepare him for his future.

We ended our meal singing Padon an Irish tune we learned through the SCA called The Barley Mow.We ended our afternoon down on the water front to take some pictures and then made our way back to where we thought our bus would be.
The screwy part was when we got out of the car in Everett I put the bus schedule in the "Ultimate Baby Sling" bag and attached it to the diaper bag and then it became an out of site out of mind thing. When we went back to catch our bus it was a one way street going in the wrong direction and there was no north bound bus stop to be found. I looked through the diaper bag and couldn't find the schedule that would have the address and started to panic. Walter thought he remembered me leaving it in the car and we quickly realized we would have to find a kiosk of some sort that would tell us what buses were running and where. In Seattle, however, the major bus system is the Metro and while we could take a Metro bus it would take us twice as long to get home because they don't go as far north as we live and what we really needed was a Sound Transit bus. Sound Transit brouchures were no where to be found. We must have wandered around for two hours before we opted on a Metro bus that I knew would take us to a Sound Transit station. Minutes later, Walter the wonderful man that he is, found our Sound Transit bus stop and we parked our butts for the next hour and waited, having missed it by seconds.

-

The sad thing was we had been down town for hours. So long that what was left of Padon's milk after our dinner had gone sour and he was getting hungry. We had never gotten down nursing from the breast and impromptu nursing never went over well. I did my best but we tried and failed, tried and failed (mind you with a crying and frantic baby) and Walter ended up making a mad dash to a local pharmacy to hopefully buy a nipple shield (the only way I could nurse Padon with any success). He came back however with a nipple to a bottle that had the biggest bottom to it he could find because they didn't have the nipple shield. It was no easy task to get it to stay and get Padon fixed on it but it worked. I wouldn't recommend it and we did still end up on the bus with a crying baby for half the way and the other bus riders weren't very pleased with us. It was definitely a lesson for us new parents. Even if you want to feed your baby exclusively breast milk, always carry formula for the emergencies.
-
You can imagine how stupid I felt when we walked in our house and started putting stuff away. The minute I touched the sling's bag I remembered and could have just died. It was a great trip, though, and we really look forward to doing it again.

Padon's First SCA Event

-
Walter and I are part of a group called the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). This is world wide club that practices and studies what it would be like to live between the 10th century and the late 15th century (well with the addition of the women's movement because we are in the 21sst century). We get together (during the summer) every other weekend (almost) and camp out in local camp grounds dressed in clothing as "period" as we can and camping in canvas pavillions. There are many activities such as fighting in wars (sword, archery, etc) , arts and sciences, siege cooking, bardic and many other competitions. People come and practice their crafts and over all it is a really good time.
-
When we go out camping with the SCA we camp with a household called Medlested ("Welcome" in Gaelic). Medlested prides it self on being a bardic group that fights in almost every war through out the summer season. Every night they get together and sing bardic tunes and people come from all over the camp ground (roughly 500-2000 people camp at single SCA event) to sing along and share food and drink that they have made. It is with this group that we planned an archery and throwing weapons event and BBQ in our backyard for the first weekend of June.



We have two acres, one of which is nicely landscaped. It is in the first landscaped portion that Walter and his friend Jason built and constructed an archery range, throwing weapons targets, and a mock castle wall for a mini battle. It was really really amazing and I don't think our yard has looked that good since we bought our house.
-
It was great to present Padon to the group who was very eager to meet him, but much to their dissappointment they were only a loud to look and not touch since he was only 5 days old and so new. I was so impressed with the work that Walter had done and he even took time out to watch Padon while the gals in the group threw me a baby shower!

It was a cold and rainy day (go figure in Seattle) but it didn't keep us from having a good time inside and outside and we just made sure Padon was nice and snug.

To top off the night we were welcomed as official members of Medlested instead of just company of Medlested. It was a great time, roughly 30 people came, and they look forward to coming back again.

A Man Amoung Men

-
I have a new respect and admiration for single parents, parents of multiple births, and teen mothers and parents. I don't know how you do it.

My first week home with my new baby bean was the most mind numbing week of my life. Right away because of Padon's jaundice they wanted us back at the hospital for further testing. We live 48 miles from the hospital, however, so it was a no easy task to pack us up and get us to the appointment on time. Walter immediately fell into a schedule of clean, fold laundry, meet with the neighbor about taking care of our mini farm, make sure there was a meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with snacks offered inbetween, remind me to take my pain medication, change diapers as needed, make doctor's appointments and keep track of the ton of paper work given to us by the hospital. I watched him in awe as he totally stepped up to take care of us.

-

First off we had to see the lactitions who I wasn't looking forward to seeing and had heard were very pushy. Trying to keep an open mind they set us up with a feeding schedule and tried to give us helpful tips on how to keep a lethargic and jaundiced baby alert enough to keep nursing. This first check up was also to make sure Padon was doing well and in an attempt to not alarm us they alarmed us even more when they said Padon was just in the high risk level of jaundice and they wanted us to walk next door to the hospital and the lab to have his bilirubin checked again adding that if it didn't come back ok that they were going to admit him. They pricked his already very pricked heal, took a blood sample, and the lab results came back ok.

-

This whole process took us the better part of the afternoon as we were passed from one lactition to another due to scheduling conflicts and were pressured by a third lactition to rent and purchase an electronic pump. I already had an electric pump but because it was a hand-me-down they pretty much made us rent a pump which we did for one week to appease them. I wanted to get a nursing bra to make my very engorged breasts more comfortable and to make nursing and pumping easier. Because they said my breasts hadn't finished getting as big as they would they wouldn't sell me one, which made me very irritated. I was already crammed in my bra and very uncomfortable and they didn't care. I was exhausted and Padon was hungry. We had one lactition saying I should go back and learn how to use the pump, another saying that we should feed Padon because he wasn't getting enough to eat, and a third lactition trying to get us to fill out paper work for the pump and its parts. They weren't listening to each other and were all talking to us at the same time. Unable to deal with the bombardment of information and the fact that they were implying my baby was starving, I finally broke down and cried in the waiting room with my face buried in Padon's spit-up rag. That made them stop and listen and better explain what they wanted us to do. It all came down to the fact that they had kept us there past closing time and they all wanted to go home and so were rushing us.

-

Walter was appropriately gruff. He took care of all the paper work, made them write out what they wanted us to do and went in the gift shop to purchase a bottle and timer so we could feed Padon and keep track of future feedings and diaper changes. He then packed us back in the car and we made our way home. I sat there so tired thinking about how glad I was that he was keeping track of all the paperwork and and was surprised at how much he had stepped up to take care of us. In the hospital he had given me the most beautiful sapphire necklace, had brought a huge bouquet of flowers, and had bought a large balloon that said "It's a Boy!"and I was thinking how wonderful he was and how I never wanted to take the necklace off and then it dawned on me that if anyone deserved a gift it was him and I hadn't given him anything to celebrate him being a new Dad. This sent me into a crying jag that went between sobbing and sniffles as I clutched his arm and he patted my leg. He was shocked I would feel that way and that I had given him a wonderful gift and that was our son sitting in the back seat. He then patted me some more telling me it was ok to cry and I cried most of the way home telling him how much I loved him inbetween sniffles.

-

Over the course of the first week we saw the lactitions twice, Padon's pediatrician once, my doctor twice, and prepared for a huge BBQ that had been scheduled a month in advance. All of this Walter took in stride. Between helping with feedings and diaper changes, and making meals for me, he worked with his good friend Jason and relandscaped the back yard as well as built an archery range for the BBQ. It really was amazing and all I could think was that he was truly a man amoung men

No nurses to help me with the crying baby?

Leaving the hospital was a monstrous task. We dragged our feet trying to absorb as much information as we could from the hospital staff. I had thought we would be ushered into a new parents class where they would show us how to bath a baby and all that jazz. Finally I asked about it and was informed there was a video tape we could watch in our closet. Dissappointed we pulled it out and watched it. It was informative but I think the hands on approach would have stuck with me better.

When we tried to leave, however, it seemed as thought the staff that had been dropping hints about us leaving suddenly didn't want us to leave. It seemed to take forever for a nurse to come in and ok our infant car seat and give us one last leason in breast feeding a baby with jaundice. We finally were given the ok to go and we went to get our hospital pictures which weren't taken by a professional photographer but by a kiosk near the nurses station. The cool thing about it was you laid your baby in the bassinet and centered him in the middle of the camera, which you could see on the computer screen, and then you could take as many pictures as you wanted (15 at a time). You then chose your four favorites, put in the baby's information, your email address, and it printed out this certificate looking picture with all four pictures on it. You then had the option of purchasing a package which we didn't. It was time consuming however and threatened to finally break Walter and my good spirits. We were running on fumes and having to collaborate on which four pictures we thought were the best was threatening to make us have an argument. We weren't willing to leave the hospital however without trying to get the very best pictures. Soon we were in the car and my four hours of daily commuting by car and bus seemed to pay off and Padon was fast asleep.
-

We got home in time to unpack, set the timer for 1 1/2 hours ( time mandated to us by the hospital staff on how often to feed our jaundiced bean), and climbed in bed. It seemed just a couple minutes before Padon was crying and my brain for a second paused for the now non-existent hospital door to open and for a nurse to swing in saying "now let me tell you how to handle this situation." A split second later I realized I was on my own and I my chest muscles tightened panicking at my perceived inability to take care of this precious being. Minutes later, however, a warm bottle was in his mouth, and he was happily snacking away and I was lovingly taking in every crease, wrinkle and fuzzy hair, and melting into those slate gray eyes. We were going to be just fine and we were going to learn a lot together.

So Many Visitors

We were so lucky to have so many people come and visit us right away while we were in the hospital. Our whole family came as well as a couple friends and cramed themselves in what had felt like a large room.

My Mom Christine, and nephew Gregory

My sister Sarah and her husband Wayne

Best friends Erin and Eliot ( Evan and Ivor were off watching from the side)

My Dad, Jim

and no pictures to represent them but: my sister Jane, her boyfriend Jason, my brother Patrick, his girlfriend Katherine, our great friend Nick, and Walter's Dad Leo all also came.

-

Dad's get a raw deal in the hospital. To some degree all questions and discussions are aimed at the Mom as if the Dad would have no answer and isn't there and when it comes to care he is on his own for food and toiletries. The nurse that drove us crazy on the 1st hospital go round embarrassed Walter by making him feel stupid when she offered me (making it sound like she was offering us) breakfast and then scolded him by sayig "Not You!" when he jumped at the chance for a hot meal. On the 2nd go round at the hospital our nursing staff was cool and showed him where the kitchen was on the floor and where he could get sandwiches and juice while the fridge was still stocked. Their sandwiches only wet Walter's appetite however so when Erin and Evan called and offered to pick him up something from Red Robin I couldn't say the A1 Angus Burger fast enough and Walter couldn't have been any more grateful.

Yummy Tired Face

It was so awesome to be able to share our new little buddy with everyone and I was so glad they were all able to make it to the hospital to visit us. The nursing staff was amazed at how many people came to visit.