One Year Ago

One year ago my husband and I were blessed with the conception of our little Nathaniel.  When we found out we were pregnant we were overjoyed, excited, in shock, and terrified all at once.  We kept telling ourselves that everything was going to be different and that our lives were going to change forever and we did our best to try and prepare ourselves.  After taking several classes, reading books, talking to other parents and future parents and researching to the best of our ability, we reached a point where we could do nothing else but wait.  Nine long months flew by and our Nathaniel arrived.. tiny, alert, and absolutely beautiful.  What a blessing he has been to us.  He is already helping me to see my strengths and at the same time I am discovering I cannot hide my flaws.  He brings out the best and worst of me, and I hope that I have the strength and courage to change the worst to be the best I can be for him.
Nathaniel is now 3 months old already.  He has started to settle into a routine, and I am just starting to understand most of his moods.  He still throws in a few "for-no-apparent-reason" screaming fits every now and then, but for the most part we are starting to get used to each other.  He falls asleep in crowded rooms and starts to frown and whimper when too many people gather around to oogle over him at once.  He likes to be sung to, is cooing up a storm and having awesome conversations with mom and dad using sounds and facial expressions, and smiles often.  He loves having his diaper changed and is as calm as can be on the changing table, but doesn't love having his clothes changed.  He is mostly mellow, but when he is tired he wants to be cuddled and carried and sung to while squirming and flailing and banging his head around trying to get comfortable for sometimes 20 minutes or more all the while screaming because he is just... so......t..i....r...e...d.  He also loves wake-up time in the morning when he gets to snuggle in bed with mom and dad and coo and smile and talk.   He doesn't love or hate his car seat.  It depends on the day.  He also is not sure how he feels about the stroller... ok for a little while maybe, and then " I can't stand this anymore, get me the heck outta here!"  Hopefully when the weather is nice and warm and he has a chance to get used to it, he will like it.  But he does LOVE being in the moby, and long walks in said moby. He also likes his new play mat from our friend Christine, and likes hearing new sounds.  He is as sweet as can be and has been a blessing to us every day.

Here are some pictures of our little guy getting bigger by the day:

We are anxiously waiting to see what his laugh will be like.  Supposedly he will start to laugh out loud toward the end of this month. We'll keep you posted!

Self (-ish)(-less) ness

Ugh.  I think the most challanging thing about being a parent is trying to let go of myself.  In my mind I was prepared for this.  I accepted that I wouldn't have the same freedom to go wherever I want whenever I want.  I knew that I would be giving up precious hours of sleep and that my life would be forever changed.  I was caught off guard, however, by the realization that I am selfish in SO many ways, and that those ways affect the way I interact with others.  For instance : I want to take a shower.  Before Nathaniel arrived, this would not have registered as a selfish act, and maybe in and of itself it's not.  But, when I want to take a shower today, and Nathaniel is fussy, won't sleep, needs to eat, etc. and I can't take my shower, I find that I become agitated and frustrated.  That is selfish.  I realized the other day as I left the house with a screaming baby wrapped in the moby as a last resort effort to put him to sleep, that I was almost angry at the baby.  I was wracked with guilt.  'What kind of a mother is angry at her 2 month old baby??  He can't help it!  He's not doing it on purpose!  Why am I so angry?' and then it dawned on me.  I'm angry because I haven't let go of me yet. I wanted to read, I wanted to do my hair, I wanted to blog, I wanted to check my email, I  wanted to go to the store...I, I, I, I, I!  When I realized this, and let go of my own plans for the day, patience came flooding back.  I changed my plans for the day to revolve around Nathaniel and taking care of his needs and what he wanted and I felt much better.  But, alas.  That was just one day.  I try and try to remind myself to be selfless every time Nathaniel starts to get fussy ...  and it works in the moment.  Then I start to allow my own wants and desires to creep back in and I am back to where I started.  In order to be the best mother and parent I can be, I am really trying hard to let go of myself, but it is a daily struggle.  Every time I think I might be getting a handle on it, a new challenge arises.  I start to make plans around Nathaniel's schedule, but then his schedule changes, my plans fall through, and BAM.  I'm right back to where I started.  Frustrated and annoyed.   I never realized before just how selfish I am.  It's definitely a work in progress, but I am hoping that as time goes by, between Glenn and Nathaniel I will start to turn my selfishness into selflessness.   Thank God for the opportunity to work on myself and for putting the people in my life that help me to be better and want to be better.  After all, I have an amazing little boy and a wonderful husband who deserve the very best of me, and I hope that I can continually become a better mother and wife for them.

Decisions, decisions...

As I am sure anyone who has ever had to make an important decision knows, decisions are hard! Weighing the pluses and minuses, agonizing over what might happen if you make the wrong choice, teetering back and forth, sometimes between desire and what may be truly satisfying... everything about decisions is difficult...and that's just when I am making them for myself.  It is WAY harder making them for someone else, especially when you love them and want what's best for them.  The way I see it, if I make a bad decision for myself, I will suffer the consequences.  That's one thing.  Making them for a small, helpless baby who cannot yet communicate and allowing him to possibly suffer the consequences of my bad decision for him...nearly impossible.   

If  you read my last post, you may have noticed that I mentioned little Nathaniel has been crying a lot more.  I have noticed it for the past 3 weeks.  I am OK with crying for the most part, but some of his crying seems to be coming from severe discomfort or pain.  That is not so fine with me.  When I took him in for his two month doctor visit, she listed to my concern and suggested that he may have some reflux going on and prescribed Zantac for him to be taken twice a day.  At first I was relieved, thinking that he would maybe get some relief from his discomfort and I immediately went to fill the prescription.  Before giving him his first dose however, I read all of the possible side effects.  The list included things like headache, dizziness, constipation and diarrhea.  The more serious "notify your doctor immediately if..." symptoms included blurred vision, mood changes, (confusion, depression, hallucinations, severe stomach ache, fast or irregular heart beat, and severe tiredness.  When I read these side effects I thought "how would I know if any of those things were happening?"  I did some research online finding both mom's who felt the same way I did as well as research indicating that Zantac is commonly prescribed and considered safe for babies and has been for years.   Then I noticed on the bottle it says do not stop taking this without doctor supervision, which did not sit so well with me.   SOOO, I have decided to temporarily hold off on the Zantac, but I am not sure I am doing the right thing.  I am keeping a VERY detailed log including what I eat, when and how long he eats, when he cries and for how long, when he spits up and how much, how may diapers I change and what's in them etc.  I am also trying to cut out acidic things from my diet such as tomatoes, carbonated beverages and spicy foods to see if that helps.  So far, Tuesday was a fantastic day and he was a perfect little angel with hardly any crying episode, and Wednesday was the complete opposite.  From the moment he woke up he was fussy and couldn't get comfortable and cried off and on for hours.  Then today, so far he has been a perfect angel again.  When we have days like yesterday, it takes everything in me to not give him the Zantac, just wanting to give him relief somehow.  But having 2 great days makes me wonder if it's something he needs or if he just has bad days from time to time.  It's so hard to tell!  I don't want to make the wrong decision for him.  I don't want him to suffer unnecessarily, but I don't want to medicate if I am not certain that he has the condition for which he is being treated.  <sigh>

As I was thinking today about how it difficult it is to make a decision for somebody else ,I questioned: how much more difficult is it going to be watching him make the wrong decision when I know the right decision? 

Motherhood is already hard.  Cheers to you mothers out there who have been there done that and survived.  I hope to join your ranks!  In the meantime if you have any sage advice, I'm all ears.

Two Months and a Few Days

The last time I wrote, my little guy had just turned one month old, and now he is two months old and a completely different child than a month ago.  Sure, he is still as cute as a button, the love of our lives and absolutely amazing, but my, how he has grown and changed.   He is much heavier for starters.  At the 1 month weigh-in he was 7lbs 11oz.  If our bathroom scale is correct, he now weighs at least 8lbs 15 oz. His face has filled out a bit and he is starting to get those ever so adorable little fat rolls on his thighs.  He is also smiling! He is seeing much better, becoming more interactive, and crying...a lot (well maybe not a lot compared to some, but for him, it's a lot!)  He is VERY particular when he is trying to get comfortable.  A fraction of an inch makes all the difference between blood curdling screaming to complete on-the-verge of sleeping relaxation within seconds. Just when I think I know the kid, he throws me a curve ball.  For example, he has ALWAYS been very good in the car seat once he is settled.  It's a sure fire way to make him relax and fall asleep...until this week.  This week, it has been non-stop crying in the car seat.  Also, he has a favorite walking around position.  I hold him upright and bounce him as we walk around the house. It has ALWAYS worked to calm him down within minutes.  Not this week.  This week he wants to be on his tummy across my knees, or on his tummy on the couch. Unless you ask me today, and today that's not good enough. He must still be settling into himself.  I imagine that as a baby, you just get comfortable with everything and you grow, or see more, or put on weight... those things are difficult adjustments even as adults and in the little baby it happens so very fast.  No wonder I'm having trouble getting used to what he wants.  The poor kid is changing drastically from one day to the next. 

 

                                           

 

 

 

 

It's wonderful being this cuties' mom!