Swinging

It's funny how life is so drastically different than it was only one month ago... today, the things I think about usually center around naps, poopy diapers, spit up and burping, boogers, bottles that need cleaning, and "wake time".  Everything else is kind of white noise! 

While we've mostly been working on getting some consistency to our schedule (Benjamin and I), I find myself laughing at things I never imagined I'd spend my day doing.  For instance, all the cute outfits that I thought I'd have fun dressing Benjamin in now only come out for "big occasions".  Frankly, whatever fits and is easiest to change is probably what he'll be wearing next!  And those poopy diapers?  I don't even bat an eyelash when a bunch of it somehow ends up on my arm (don't ask).  And naps?  I'll take whatever I can get from him.  If that means he cried himself to sleep in the three minutes that it took me to strap him into the car seat and get Lincoln (and myself) ready to go for a walk... well, then no walk for us.  Let the boy sleep!  (Sorry Lincoln...)  Spit up?  Sure, let's just wipe it with my shirt! 

And "wake time"?  Well, I'm trying to find the balance of keeping BW busy but not overstimulated... which is difficult since I'm not a baby and don't know what exactly that "overstimulated" point is.  Our latest activity that he seems to love is sitting in the swing we got as a hand-me-down from a friend of a friend.  She swore her son loved it, and now I can see why!  Here's video proof that he's totally digging the swing... I think he even made friends with the octopus to his left (you'll notice his "oh, hey there" look around :09):

And as previously mentioned, I make do with what I can... so when Benjamin couldn't decide if he wanted a nap or not, I put him in this trusty swing.  But since I desperately needed a shower... I brought he and the swing into the bathroom with me.  Yes.  That's right.  Benjamin swung - then napped in the swing - in the bathroom.  I'm not proud of myself for it.

This is my new life as a temporary stay-at-home-mom.  I have so much to learn, but I'm not sure how people find time to read parenting books with so much to do!  All I know is that I am in crazy love with our little guy.  He is so perfect to me, and I can't seem to get enough of his chubby cheeks and sweet little toes.  Every day he seems to be exploring more and more, and it's so fun to be here to see it all happen!

Celebrations

our little monkey

This weekend was a great time soaking in the fabulous news about Benjamin's bill of health.  It was an extra special treat to be able to spend it with our dear friend Bryan, who flew all the way in from DC to meet the little man.  Bryan has been an important part of my life, and after meeting Matt, became an important part of both of our lives.  We have cherished our friendship with him, and knowing what an amazing person he is, asked him to be Benjamin's godfather.  We are thankful for his extremely big and generous heart, his strong and unyielding faith, his compassion for others, his love of knowledge (and sports), and his all around appreciation for living life to the fullest.  Our hope is that as a strong role model in BW's life, Benjamin will also embody such wonderful traits as these.  We are grateful for his willingness to play this role in BW's life!

It was an excellent weekend all around with dinner at Euclid Hall, drinks back at the Westin Hotel, brunch at Wild Eggs, strolling around our neighborhood, meeting up with friends at Rackhouse Pub, and enjoying a lazy Sunday in Boulder with family and friends.  Matt is back to work today, which means from about 7:15am to about 6pm I am on my own!  It hasn't been too bad so far, but I've been working on getting Benjamin to take better naps, which means I've also had to endure a lot of crying today.  This is a tough game to play!  How much do I let him cry (because that just hurts my heart!!!)?  At what point do I need to intervene?  Will he ever stop??  I've been reading a few books and have the "experts" opinions, so I'm trying it all out at this point... we'll see how it goes and who wins!!  And no, the house is not clean, the laundry is not done, and I have not showered.  I'll learn how to work these things in slowly... :)

Pictures from the weekend:

Brunch:

Visiting Buffalo Exchange:

Hanging out at the house:

BW loves playing with his daddy!

I love this picture - Matt napping with BW on his chest while Lincoln naps on his throne...

Enjoying time with friends at Rackhouse Pub:
 

Matt requested this pic be taken...

Toasting to BW's health with some champagne that Joe brought over to celebrate the good news!  I love these guys:

Taking a trip to Boulder on Sunday:

Brunch with fam at the Buff

Enjoying some time with Grampa!

Ahh... my first marg in about a year!  And at the Rio no less...

BW's first visit to Pearl Street!

 And some other, non-related pictures:

This is what happens when I feed or read to BW in the nursery - Lincoln always has to take part

This is what happens when I nap with BW - Stinker always has to join in...

our little sleeping beauty (or whatever is more manly than "beauty")

talking with his Aunt Amber

Stinker trying to get in the Boppy after he saw BW enjoying it so much

That's all for now!  Benjamin is, wait, is that... sleeping???  Time to wash some bottles!

Tears of Joy!

After a long and eventful night (which included BW peeing on me and our bed, and later having an "explosion" that resulted in Matt needing to fetch the carpet cleaner in the middle of the night...), I was spending a little morning time with the little man in bed.  He was happy to have just been fed and thankful that I was starting to change his very dirty diaper (for this boy, food comes first!  he must get that trait from the Monroes).  As he lay naked on the bed (a precarious position as you can imagine), my phone rang.  And having JUST recently emptied my full voicemail inbox, I decided I should probably start answering a few calls here and there.  Plus, it was an unknown number, so I was hoping it would be our doctor's office with some news.

And sure enough, after almost 3 weeks, we finally got the news!  Benjamin's newborn screen came back with the all clear!!  No cystic fibrosis for our little guy! 

This was Ben's reaction to the news:

Meanwhile, Matt and I hugged... and cried.... and couldn't believe we were finally hearing the answer to our prayers. 

God is good.

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.  His love endures forever." Psalm 118:29

After many months of worrying, it is sort of unbelievable to finally have some peace about this issue.  We are so thankful to have this beautiful HEALTHY baby boy in our lives, and I wouldn't trade any of the heartache we've faced.  The difficult questions about what we do as two parents who are cystic fibrosis gene carriers as we think about expanding our family in the future will be put aside for the time being so we can fully enjoy our new life with, thankfully, a little less to worry about.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but we are so unbelievably grateful for our family and friends who have offered endless support, encouragement, prayers, and shoulders to cry on during this last 9 months.  We have been blessed with amazing people around us, and I don't know how I would have made it without them.  God certainly knows what he's doing taking care of us, that's for sure. 

I have been reminded in recent months of how fragile life is and how it can be taken from us in an instant.  I have wept for friends that have lost loved ones or even spouses who were barely 30 years old.  And no, I will never understand God's ways.  Yet, I see (or try to see) him at work in great ways through it all. Our trials have been miniscule compared to those of others, but I am thankful for the reminder (which I know I always need) that God is in control, and he is faithful.  Even if our journey were down a different path, I know he'd still be taking care of us.  We're just grateful for the path we see today.

And now, Ben is back to his regular daily activities. 

Busy

Yes, that is a purple nightgown. Blame mom!

Well, still NO NEWS.  I keep hoping that our next blog post will include the update on Ben's cystic fibrosis screening, but after calling the pediatrician's office again today, they informed us that the results are still pending.  Whatever that means.

But in other Larsonland news, we've been keeping "busy" (a newly defined term around here) as Matt eased his way back into work this week.  His awesome company let him work from home this week, so I've been trying to keep my distance while he sits at our dining room table all day on the computer.  Gotta ease my way into this new life too!  Life this week for me: lots of bottle washing, lots of diaper changes, lots of crying (with more and more full blown meltdowns), thinking about doing chores, attempts at reading, and recently, some dancing around the house to VH1 Divas.  Not too shabby!  (As a sidenote, I really think dads should be given paternity leave options similar to that of women... their role as supporters and parents should never be underappreciated!)

Other recent happenings:

• Tried the Moby out... for those of you not in the baby-hood mode, the Moby is a wrap/sling that you can wear to carry a baby around and leave yourself "hands-free".  I'm not a pro at it yet, but I am wearing it currently as BW naps so I can type with two hands for once.  We'll see how this goes.
• Switch to formula is complete...this difficult chapter is now closed and I am moving forward with a positive attitude.  If Yale turns him down, I give him the right to blame me and my bum boobs.  We've survived well so far, other than the sticker shock of how much $$ formula is!  Just add it to the growing list...
• Showering... I am happy to say that I have averaged at least one every other day.  This has mostly been out of necessity and they are only squeezed in very quickly between feedings, but no matter the reason, I have at least stayed semi-clean.  (Winning!)
• C-sections suck... I'm still feeling sore in my abdomen region but thankfully getting stronger every day.  A nagging pain on the right side of my incision forced me to finally re-visit the doctor to find out that it is re-opened a bit towards the end, but thankfully not infected.  The bi-daily cleansing of the "wound' is just one more reason to hate the whole c-section thing. Like I didn't enough already.
• Disciplining Lincoln...well, things are generally going well on this front in so far as we haven't had any "mishaps" such as "attacks" or "bites" just yet.  We are worried, however, that Benjamin will begin to believe his name is "Lincoln!" or "Stinker!" due to the incredibly numerous times we shout that every day trying to get Lincoln down or off something while he tries to aggressively sniff or lick BW. 
• Meals... we have not had to cook in 3 weeks now thanks to amazing friends and their gigantic dinners that we stretch out for future breakfasts/lunches/dinners.  This has been perhaps the best gift of all!  Have I mentioned enough how blessed we are to have such amazing people in our lives?  God is GOOD.
• Sleep... I feel like I've already adjusted to living on very little to no sleep, but thankfully, we are in a bit more of a routine so that I could potentially be getting a few hours here and there.  Unfortunately, my body and brain aren't quite ready to shut down enough for me to fall asleep very easily just yet, but at least Matt is taking advantage of this a bit!  Maybe someday I'll learn how to sleep again.

Here is a picture dump from my phone... I haven't found much time to take "real" pictures lately.   Ben is staying awake a lot longer, which means he's fussing a lot more than he did the first week or two... which also means that I don't get much time away from him.  I hope this phase doesn't last forever!  I keep envisioning BW as a 13 year old crying and fussing all day long.  That would be the end of me.

"Watching" some football at Aunt Amber's house... or napping.

The "hmm... do I have gas, am I trying to cry, am I hungry?" face lately...

Maybe my favorite pic of him lately just because his face is SO darn cute!

BW joined me to Bible Study on Thursday - here he is with Kristyn!

Another fun face lately...

"Mom, I'm sleeeeepy"

"My new favorite thing to do when I'm not crying"

"'I love sleeping.  I just don't let my parents do it."

2 Week Check-In

Happy 2 week birthday to our little guy!

The last few days have been great as we've eased into a bit more of a routine and gotten to know our little booger even better.  He's still trying to figure out what life is all about here on the "outside", but it's fun watching him explore in the little ways he can!

Our 2 week checkup with our (amazing) pediatrician was yesterday, and here are the most recent stats:

• Weight: 7lbs 0oz  (11th percentile)
• Length: 20 1/4" (36th percentile)
• Head Circumference: 13 7/8" (17th percentile)

yes, he sleeps a lot...

So, though he's not officially back up to birth weight just yet, the doctor was pleased with his weight gain since he lost so much during the first week.  We have almost officially (and of course with tears shed) made the switch to formula feeding after the unfortunate realization that I probably had too many milk ducts damaged during my surgery 10 years ago to produce much of anything.  Long, painful (both emotionally and physically) days and nights of trying to make it work sadly just did not pan out the way I had hoped.  But I have high hopes for this formula-fed little guy (Teen Jeopardy in 13 years??)!  :-)  And getting help in the middle of the night from Matt for feedings is not too shabby.  I think we, and more importantly Benjamin, will survive this.

Other than watching his weight, the doctor said he is looking excellent.  Still (!!!) no news on the cystic fibrosis results which we now hope will come in early next week.  As soon as we know, we'll let you all know!  And again, we sincerely thank you for all the inquiries and kind words of encouragement as we wait. 

After our doctor's appointment we decided to take BW out for a nice breakfast (well, he just slept through it while we ate of course).  Mom and dad got to enjoy a nice brunch at a new place near us and had a great time (I mean, we couldn't let our showered selves go to waste!).  And to make his social life even more exciting (again, I was showered after all), I took him out with me to meet up with the girls for a few drinks later that night!  He, unsurprisingly even in a bar, slept through most of it, but he loved the attention from all the pretty ladies!  And I, of course, loved my time with the girls (and the wine).

We're now just enjoying our last hours of Matt not working... and by enjoying, I mostly mean just relaxing with the little guy (when he's not crying), watching movies, and taking naps.  Normally I'd feel bad about such laziness, but I don't feel one ounce of guilt today!  I know these days won't come often, and I'm so thankful to have the downtime with our newly expanded family.

And of course, here are some more cute pics of the little booger:

(this is how he often ends up when napping in the bouncer...)

(my favorite time - nap time with mom)

what a little angel, huh??