Thanksgiving 2011

This Thanksgiving we visited the Blood family--two grandparents, ten kids, five in-laws, one fiancee, and eight grandkids.
Rebekah had a lot of fun playing with her little cousins and all the barbie dolls, as well as riding around in the wagon.

Family Pictures

Balancing Act

Andrew showing off some of his tricks!

Love brings kisses

When we put Rebekah to bed, one of the rituals we practice is singing to her. Many times she'll request a certain song to be sung. Two songs that she always requests from Daddy are "Families can be together forever" and "Love one another". A few night ago, while Scott was singing Rebekah "Love one another", Rebekah decided to grab Daddy by the cheeks and give him a kiss on the lips every time Daddy sung the word "love". It was a sweet moment. She loves her Daddy, for sure.

Here is a video of Rebekah reading from a few months back. Also, a video of Andrew smiling. He smiles and laughs a lot, especially when watching Rebekah, but whenever the camera is on, he turns the laughing off...tricky little boy.

Andrew hiding in the closet

Actually, Andrew isn't hiding in the closet...he's sleeping in the closet!! About 2 weeks ago, Scott was at his wits end. He had been bouncing Andrew all day and was in a lot of pain. At about 7:30pm, he decided to just put Andrew down in his crib because he couldn't bounce him anymore. An amazing thing happened...he slept for 5 hours! Since that night, Andrew has made tremendous progress with his sleeping. We've been able to put him down between 7-8:30 and he has only been getting up once at night! Two nights ago, Andrew decided that getting up with Daddy once a night was less valuable than his sleep, so he's decided to sleep through the night until 6:30am! We understand it's just 2 nights in a row, but we're extremely excited and take what we can get for sure! This Sunday morning, Scott decided to push the envelope and put him down for what we guessed was his "morning nap time". He cried for 8 min then feel asleep! He is making fantastic strides in his sleeping habits and we're so appreciative of all the prayers that have come our way. We feel very blessed and fortunate right now! Thank you!

Mother's Day

Here's another funny story about Rebekah. As you know, the only way we can get Andrew calmed down when he is fussy (and the only way to get him to sleep) is to bounce him up and down. Well, Rebekah has a habit of throwing out all her bears from her crib before she wakes up and always puts them back in before she goes down. The other day, when she was putting her bears back in her crib, she "bounced" each of them for a little while to get them to sleep before putting them back in. She also did this with her blankets...so she will forevor think that babies, animals, etc. go to sleep when you bounce them.
Meanwhile, Andrew had been more or less the same this past week (and even had a night where he was up every hour on the hour) and then Saturday night, after having a remarkably non-fussy day, he slept from 10 until 2:00 and then from 2:30 until 7:00. One caveat is that since he is still only sleeping while holding him, he did wake me up three or four times during that last stretch but since I was able to get him back to sleep without nursing him, I count that as a continuous stint. I could not have asked for a better Mother's Day gift. Needless to say, I was overjoyed and, given that Rebekah had turned around very quickly around 11 weeks old, I started hoping we were at a breakthrough with Andrew (I distinctly remember we were having some rough nights and then, all of the sudden, she just decided she wanted to sleep through the night, waking up only once around 3:00, and she never looked back after that). So last night Scott took him for the first part of the night and he tossed and turned with Scott until 2:00 and was up about every hour and a half from then on out. Part of me feels like a jilted lover and part of me is just grateful that he gave me that one night of rest. Meanwhile, I am wondering how on earth I will be able to get back to work in two weeks given that post-colic babies are not ready for sleep-training until around 4 months. We may cheat and start early if we get desperate enough....we'll keep you posted. Happy Mothers Day all!

Boucing with ease

Oh how we love our new fitness ball! Although out workout isn't exactly orthodox, it does the job! Our arms have received a much needed rest now that we just have to hold him and bounce away...and while doing so, strengthening our abs, quads, and lower back...thanks for the new workout, Andrew!

"no cool car"

Back in March we posted about Rebekah's infatuation with "cool" cars. This past week, Rebekah and daddy were walking back from the park as numerous cars drove by. Rebekah did her usual identification of the various cars, saying, "it's a car....it's a car...it's a cool car...it's a car". By now, daddy has phased out the identity markers knowing that a "cool" car will be an expensive one, and a "car" will just be a "normal" one. To daddy's surprise, Rebekah gave a certain car a unique identification. Daddy heard the words "no cool car". As daddy looked up to see which car Rebekah was talking about, lo and behold, it was a PT cruiser (sorry Steph). Proof that Rebekah really DOES know what she's talking about.

First, a funny story about Rebekah, then we'll get to Andrew...Scott and Rebekah were at the playground the other day (I was at home holding Andrew, naturally) and, according to Scott, a little two year old boy who was there came up to Rebekah with his arms out. Scott assumed he was going to give her a hug, but instead he got really close and planted a kiss on her lips. Rebekah was stunned. She walked over to Scott and sat on his lap for a little while and then looked up at him and said in a bewildered tone: "Kissed a boy?"

Andrew is still sleeping in 2 hour increments at night and needing to be held all the time to sleep. There are times when he is awake where we can put him down for 10 minutes or so but not while sleeping. His naps are very irregular and short and he often wakes up every 10 minutes during the nap and needs more soothing to get back to sleep. At the peak, around 6-8 weeks he was crying/fussing about 4 hours a day (usually about an hour and a half during the day, plus another 2.5 hours at night.) The only thing that soothes him during this time is vigorous bouncing. And he will not accept mechanical subtitutes--we HAVE to be holding him or he screams. If we stop bouncing, his crying escalates, and usually, even if we sit down (but still bouncing), the crying still escalates. During the day, he will not go to sleep without getting some fussiness in and without lots of bouncing. (We recently purchased an exercise ball that I bounce on while holding him, which has given my biceps a break, although it is quite the workout for your abs. I have no idea why I didn't think of it earlier.) We also cannot get him to sleep during the day unless we bounce him like this (and his fussy spell usually ends with him faling asleep; although sometimes he sleeps for 10 minues and is up again, fussing). He settles down at night between midnight and 1:00 but still only sleeps in 2 hour increments. Scott suggested he might have colic, especially given that since he would be crying a lot more if there weren't two of us at home and we had to put him down more and/or if I didn't have the resources to spend all day holding him, bouncing him back to sleep when he wake up every ten minutes, etc.

Colic is unexplained crying, which most babies have, but at an extreme level, at least 3 hours a day for 3 nights a week for at least 3 weeks in a row. I originaly did not think Andrew had colic since my understanding of colic was a baby that screams for 6 hours straight at the same time every night, and Andrew's longest spell at night is "only" about 2 or 2.5 hours. I wasn't counting all the daytime fussy spells; however, I started doing more reading on the subject (I got the book Your Fussy Baby by the Healthy Sleeping Habits Happy Child author, who has done a lot of research on infant colic) The author says there that you should add up all the time they spend crying for no reason and if it is more than 3 hours, they are colicky. There are also a lot of other features of colicky babies that describe Andrew well--they tend to have short, irregular naps, are easily startled, are difficult to get to sleep, and they usually have very unsettled sleep when they do sleep. (Apparently, only sleeping in someone's arms is not unusual for colicky babies). They also do not start sleeping for 3 to 4 hour stretches at a time until much later than normal babies and the fussiness ends a lot later than in normal babies. About 15-20% of babies have colic. It is harmless and he should outgrow it in 3 to 4 months. They also take longer to learn to self-soothe, so the author doesn't recommend letting them cry as part of sleep training until they are at least 4 months old. No one knows what causes colic but most of the scientists/researchers agree it is not a stomach or digestive issue, which is what a lot of people believe. And, as an update to the last post, we have definitely ruled out any food intolerances since I got the stomach flu again and was on a jello/gatorade diet for long enough to know for sure this time that his fussiness is not related to my diet. (There should be a limit, by the way, as to how many times you can get the stomach flu during the newborn stage...)

We went to the doctor twice this week for Andrew (and saw two different doctors, although the first one was technically a nurse practitioner). The first one was for his two month checkup--he's very healthy, gaining weight, he's moved up to 35th percentile. When I told the nurse practitioner about his sleeping patterns and fussiness, she could not get over the fact that I slept while holding him and lectured me on how unsafe that is. She then asked if we had ever tried putting him to sleep in a car seat, instead of a crib. That was the point at which I realized we were not on the same page. I went home and we renewed our efforts at putting him down, but all this did was create frustration and more bouncing and less sleep.

We went back in to the doctor a few days later for something unrelated and this time saw our regular pediatrician, who was asking about his sleep. She agreed that he is colicky and said that he would start to settle down sometime between 3 and 4 months, so really we just had to wait it out. She was a big fan of the Weissbluth book Healthy Sleeping Habits Happy Child and agrees that with colicky babies, you really should not let them cry for too long as part of sleep training until they are about 4 months old, since, although no one knows what causes colickiness, they seem to be "neurologically unsettled" until the fussy period is over and really are not able to learn self-soothing skills before then. When I asked her about how he would only sleep in our arms, she said that she had seen that before and that usually it starts to resolve itself when their fussiness goes away and they start sleeping a little more soundly. I told her about my schemes for trying to teach him to sleep on his own (as well as the things we had tried already) and she said that for right now, we should just do whatever gets us the most sleep and worry about teaching him to sleep on his own when the fussiness goes away, around 3-4 months. Around the time the fussiness drops off, he should start sleeping better and more soundly and we should start then to again try to put him down to sleep on his own.

So needless to say, this visit was much more helpful. I am also happy to report that Andrew has had two nights in a row where he slept for more than 2 hours, although the latest twist is that I cannot seem to get to sleep when he is sleeping or get back to sleep after he wakes up, so now I am actually more tired than ever...I think my brain is just really confused as to what its supposed to do after being so sleep deprived for so long that it will take time for it to get better. I am also surprised at how many other mothers say they had this problem too--and they agree that the only thing worse than not being able to sleep because you have a crying baby is not being able to sleep when you have a sleeping baby.

But we are starting to see Andrew's little personality and his big, handsome smiles. He is a sweet boy when not fussy. Above is a recent picture.

Andrew at 5 and half weeks

Here is our handsome little Andrew at around 4 or 5 weeks (can't remember when we took those pictures). He is much cuter in real life.

As an update from our last post--after getting better at sleeping on his own at night, he has regressed to not only not sleeping on his own at night to not sleeping on his own at all. He might give us a 45 minute stretch at night and a stretch of a half hour during the day where he sleeps on his own, but that is about it. So I have a couple of different positions figured out where I can fall asleep holding him and not worry about smothering him, which I rotate through since one kills my back, one kills my neck and shoulders and one kills my hips. During the day I carry him around until my wrists hurt and then strap him into a sling until my back hurts. I also usually hand him off to Scott so I can go run while Rebekah takes a nap and also for the last night stretch (from 5:30ish to 7ish) so I can sleep in my bed. He still sleeps in 1.5 to 2 hour increments, but that is the least of our worries right now.

BUT, I feel very fortunate because Scott is here so he can take care of Rebekah while I take care of Andrew, but I can't imagine what I would do by myself.

Another good piece of news is that when we went into the pediatrician for his one month checkup and the pediatrician listened to him breathe and asked us some questions, she was able to diagnose him with laryngopharyngeal reflux and prescribe him with some medication. This explains why he would fuss at all different times of the day (not just "fussy time" at night, although he would cry the most during that time). It also explains why he would work himself up into painful screams in which he would arch his back, screech and scratch his face because he was so angry. He would do this almost any time of day after I fed him--this was totally different than Rebekah; she only got like this a few times (usually it was more of a cry than a scream) and she was pretty calm during the day. It also explains why he would pull away while nursing and nurse on and off, crying in between.

He has been a different baby since we started giving him his medication. He still fusses at night (from about 10 until 12:30 or 1:00) but doesn't really get worked up into full-blown screams anymore. He also is much calmer during the day and still fusses sometimes but it is usually only for a few minutes right before he falls asleep.

I also noticed when I got the stomach flu and changed my diet to crackers and jello for a while that he seemed much better within 24 hours of my changed diet. I mentioned this to our pediatrician, who told me to try cutting out citrus/acidic foods and dairy to see if that helped, since food allergies/intolerances is also associated with reflux sometimes. I cut the dairy first and it did not seem to make much of a difference; after that, I cut tomatoes/oranges/choclate and other foods that show up on "do not eat if you have heartburn" lists and it did seem to help, although it is always hard to tell with babies since they change so much from day to day. I never though I would be one of those moms that is always associating what they eat with their babies' behavior, but I figure that it doesn't hurt to cut a few things out of my diet for a while and then try to re-introduce them in a few weeks.

Fortunately, most of the above took place before family came to visit for the baby blessing, so he was pretty calm while they were here. (It was also nice to have some other people to pass Andrew off to while he slept so that I could feel like a normal person).

This Wednesday he will be 6 weeks old and this Saturday will be 6 weeks from his due date. According to Dr. Weissbluth (Health Sleeping Habits, Happy Child), things stop getting worse (in terms of sleeping/fussiness) and start getting better at 6 weeks, or 6 weeks from the due date if the baby was early (which is why you never want an early baby).

It seems that all I talk about when people ask how he is doing are his problems (e.g., see above), but after going to church yesterday and talking to other moms about all his newborn issues, it made me realize that it could be much worse and that while Andrew isn't the best sleeper, there are a lot of things he does well:

• Nursing: other than the pulling away and fussing before we treated him for reflux, he really has been a good little nurser. While talking to another mom at church (whose newborn is having serious nursing issues), I remembered the issues I had with Rebekah. We've been lucky in that we've not had to deal with any major nursing issues this time around.


• When he gets up at night, he's not up for too long--usually only for about 45 minutes to an hour, which really isn't that bad.


• He stops fussing around 12:30 and is usually asleep for his first stretch of the night by 1:00 This is much better than Rebekah, who fussed until 1:30 or 2:00 and then went to sleep around 2:30. (Of course then she would sleep for 6 hours by herself after that... some nights I wouldn't mind making that trade).


• He deals with tummy time pretty well and started rolling over on his 4 week birthday. He's rolled over quite a few times since then.


• I have another adult (Scott) here to help. This really makes all the difference in the world.

As for Rebekah, she is doing so many funny things that its hard to keep track. I wish I could spend more time with her than I do because she is such a character right now. One thing she has figured out how to do (without any coaching from us) is to identify expensive cars. She always points out cars when we go to our complex's garage or go for a walk, but when she sees a Jaguar or a BMW or another type of pricey car, she will point it out and call it a "cool car". We have no idea how she can tell the difference already.

She's also very cooperative and quite the peacemaker when she plays with other children. Going to nursery every week is the highlight of her life, and her nursery teachers always talk about how happy and helpful she is. Sometimes I look at her and Andrew and can't believe how blessed we are. I love being a mom!

Andrew one week

Birth Story and Andrew at 17 days

Scott will post some pictures later but here is the story of Andrew's birth and his status at 17 days.
The labor was pretty similar to Rebekah's: long labor, easy delivery. On Tuesday (Feb 15) I went into work and started feeling crampy, but that had been going on and off for a few days, so I ignored it for a while and surfed the internet since things had been slow at work. Around 3:00 that afternoon I started to notice the cramps were more closely resembling contractions so I quickly started to go through my emails and loose ends to make sure I had delegated everything in case this was my last day at work. I left around 5:00, went home; it was a nice day, so we went for a walk, and I watched Rebekah swing on the swings. The contractions were every 5 or 7 mins apart or so at this point. We went home, had dinner, put Rebekah down and then watched a Discovery Channel documentary.
The contractions kept up at about that speed all night (which was fine with me since I was hoping not to have to wake Rebekah or our babysitter up) and it was not until the next morning that they were picking up to be 3 or 4 mins apart. We dropped Rebekah off at around 9:00 and then went to the hospital. I was a 3 when I checked in, so we walked around the neighborhood for about an hour and a half, came back and I was a 4 and a half. I was debating whether or not to get an epidural, and eventually decided to get one around 2:00 that afternoon, and by the time I got it, I was about a 7. The epidural slowed things down (just like Rebekah) so they gave me some pitocin and broke my water and things progressed pretty quickly after that. I was ready to deliver a few hours later and at 4:45, I was crowning.However, we ended up having to wait about 25 minutes for the respiratory therapist to come to our room. There was some meconium when they broke the water so they did not want to deliver without the respiratory therapist. So I am glad that I got the epidural after all--I would not have been able to wait without the epidural. So we spent about 25 minutes chatting with my doctor (he told us the story of how he met his pediatrician wife). There were also about 10 other people in the room, about 5 or 6 of them were nursing students who were observing their first live birth.
Once the respiratory therapist came, the doctor told me to start pushing. I pushed for about 10 minutes or so and Andrew came out at 5:25. The first thing I noticed was how much he looked like Scott. After he came out, my doctor said "You could have 4 or 5 more of these if you want." He was 6 pounds 9 ounces and 20 inches long. We were glad we waited for the respiratory therapist because he had some stuff in his lungs; otherwise he was perfectly healthy. He picked up on nursing right away and his pediatrician was amazed at how little weight he lost in the hospital. When we went in for a doctor appointment a few days later and he was already over 7 pounds.
I was fortunate in having a pretty easy labor/delivery.Yesterday I was talking with a friend of mine who had a baby a few months ago and we were discussing how difficult those first couple months are. She said she would rather go through labor (which she actually did all natural) once a week for 8 weeks than go through the rough parts of the first 8 weeks over again. I completely agree. Its amazing how much you "forget" about those first 8 or 10 weeks. So many of those long nights with Rebekah are coming back to my memory now. Rebekah had settled into a pattern around 2 weeks or so where she would fuss/cry from about 10 until 2 then sleep from 2:30 until about 8:00 or 8:30, until she got to be 7 weeks (at which point she started staying up until 6:00 in the morning every night, only sleeping for 10 or 20 minute increments all night--which lasted a week or so before we started to jump into sleep training a little ahead of schedule). For some reason, all I remembered was this pattern she had gotten into (which was manageable) but forgotten those first two weeks (which were miserable) and how many nights she had exceptions to her pattern where she would be up until 4 or later or would not sleep on her own. Or the long evenings where she would start fussing around 6:00 pm and I was stuck to my nursing chair for almost 8 hours.
So far, Andrew is different--its hard to say who was more difficult at this point. Andrew doesn't have a set time he fusses; its sometimes at 3:00 in the morning, sometimes its at 9:00 in the evening. He's a much better nurser, but he eats so fast that he gives himself tummy aches and so I spend more time burping him than nursing him, since it takes forevor to get the burps out, but if they don't come out, he is pretty unhappy. Rebekah nursed for over an hour but was easy to burp. She spit up a lot; Andrew has spit up about 3 times since he's been born. She wouldn't let me sleep until about 2:30 but then would sleep in long chunks pretty early on (apparently I was similar as a baby). Andrew, on the other hand, only sleeps for about 2 hours at a time (sometimes an hour and a half) but you can usually fit in a 2 hour chunk sometime between 11 and 3:00, which is when you can get better quality sleep (something I read about after I had Rebekah). I have noticed that however long the baby sleeps, you have to subtract about a half hour and that is how long you get, since it takes a little time to make sure the baby is in a deep enough sleep to put down and then some time you get yourself to sleep. So I don't think I have slept more than 2 hours at a time since Andrew was born.
I'm very lucky that Scott is here to watch Rebekah and I can take a nap in the morning while Andrew sleeps. Generally, I'm ready to shoot myself in the middle of the night but by the afternoon, I feel like a human being again. Given that by 7:00 in the morning, when Rebekah wakes up, I usually have only had 3 or 4 hours of sleep at the most, I wonder how I would deal with a newborn and a toddler without Scott at home too. I know that a lot of people have family come help (which we don't), but still....
One of the biggest challenges I've had is that when I first got back from the hosptial, I had a pretty bad case of insomnia and could not sleep even when I had an opportunity. There is nothing worse than needing to sleep and knowing you have an opportunity and not being able to. I had gotten so overtired that I could not fall asleep. I eventually got over that (an answer to a lot of prayers). Our next challenge was that Andrew would not sleep by himself, but would only sleep on our chest (which doesn't work well since neither of us can really sleep like that). Sometimes he does this all night, including two nights ago (I had him until 4:00, at which point I woke up Scott and he took him for a few hours), but most nights its just for the last little stretch between about 5 and 7 where Scott will have to hold him for him to sleep.
Despite all of this, it is just amazing how much you love your little person. Being a mother is such a gift. Sometimes I look at my little family and cannot believe how fortunate I am. It was the sweetest thing watching Rebekah see Andrew for the first time and how gentle she was with him. She loves to "help" when I feed him or burp him.
We love our little Andrew!!!