Milestones - Feet and Rolling Over

Jamie hit two major milestones this week.  Early in the week he discovered his feet.  I had him on our bed while I was taking a shower and came out of the bathroom to find him holding on to his toes for the first time.  Later that day I put him on the sofa and took a ton of pictures of him playing.  The last one pretty much summarizes how he feels about himself.

Now he grabs his toes non-stop.  Today he figured out how to use them to grip objects hanging from his playmat.

The other big news from today is that he rolled over from front to back completely unassisted.  He has been close to this for about a week now, but we have been helping him figure out where to put his arms and giving him a little push now and then.  Today I set him on his stomach for some tummy time and he decided that he'd had quite enough of that, thank you very much!

I love watching him master new skills.  It is a wonderful reminder of all the abilities I take for granted and I can't wait to see what comes next.

New Camera!

I think that often when people become parents, they examine their life to see if there's anything they want to do differently now that they are "role models".  Maybe some people don't - we didn't do much of that except that I try (unsuccessfully) not to swear as much.  One thing that struck me in our first weeks as parents was that I was unhappy with the quality of pictures I was taking.  I want every new ability captured for all time in HD quality!!!  Or something like that.  I've never been dissatisfied with the photographs I've taken in the past, but once I had Jamie I found myself wanting to develop some picture-taking skills.

I contacted a family member who was able to give me some very good advice, purchased a camera - a Nikon d90 if you care about such things - two lenses and a flash, and we're off!  I was impatient for the camera to arrive, and in the interim bought "Nikon d90 for Dummies" and read it cover to cover 3 times.

So far I have enjoyed this new hobby in the extreme.  I am a picture taking fool.  I mean, if your baby is throwing a tantrum because he pushed his favorite toy just out of his grasp, why wouldn't you want to capture that in fine detail?

I think one the of things I've come to love about photography, though I am still very much a fledgling,  is the ability to create an interpretation of a moment through the photograph itself and in the way it is edited.  I enjoy taking a photo and manipulating color, etc., to achieve something that I am much more satisfied with than the raw image.  I also like that fact that I can now make it look like I took a good picture to begin with while I am still learning how to use aperture, shutter speed, and iso together to create quality images.

Case in point, I was doing a "Hook Em" series for Jamie's godmother.  I had Jamie in the guest bedroom where we get the best light downstairs, but still struggled to get the picture that I wanted.  Hellllooooo, editing programs.  Here is the original image followed by my edited version.

Aside from my excellent cropping skills, I was able to punch up the color in the orange "H" and "O" so that all the oranges looked to be a similar shade.  I also used  a blur effect on the blanket Jamie was sitting on so that you don't see all the wrinkles etc., and there aren't as many distractions from the main event.

I'm looking forward to continuing to take pictures of my sweet boy and learning more about photography as we go along.  Here are a few of my favorite images so far:

Video Palooza

It occurred to me today that I can post videos in these little blog entries and that I have not yet shared any.  Most of my Jamie videos involve my iPhone since I can't ever remember to have anything better handy, so they are not the best quality, but I think that they give a better picture of this kid's personality than anything I say.  So I will try to integrate them into future updates, but in the interest of playing 'catch-up', here are a bunch all at once.

Here is the first time I heard his heartbeat when I was almost 10 weeks pregnant.  My OB told me not to look for it a day before 10 weeks but I couldn't stand it and tried at 9 weeks, 6 days.  Success!

I may have been slightly obsessive about this for a lot of my pregnancy.  I had ordered the doppler during a previous pregnancy which resulted in a miscarriage.  The doppler arrived the day after my surgery.  It was heartbreaking and I found using the doppler to listen to Jamie's heartbeat quite cathartic.  I was so nervous about having another miscarriage, that I listened to his heart daily until I was well into the second trimester.

Here is one of me trying to get Jamie to smile at 2 weeks.  Notice the smirk:

and again at 5 weeks:

We bought him a little play mat with a kick piano at one end.  He loves kicking his feet and was thrilled to hear a 'product' when he did.  Here he is at 5 weeks:

and on the same mat at 7 weeks:

One day while my Mom was watching Jamie, he spent the afternoon blowing bubbles at her (14 weeks old):

And finally, this is probably the best sound in the world.  I don't get it quite as easily as my husband - I think his beard has something to do with it (4 months old):

Hopefully in the future, I will remember to include videos in my posts.  Of course I also have to remember to post more often, but I'm convinced that having a baby does something to your brain chemistry that induces forgetfulness of all things not related to the immediate satisfaction of said baby.

Spring has Sprung

Spring has officially hit and the flowers are everywhere!  I love it.  We finally managed to get our yard looking close to normal, though there is still a lot of work to be done.  I did exactly 0 minutes of yard work during the first 6 weeks we had Jamie home, and I sure paid for it!  Charlie and I have been hard at work getting things back on track.  The roses opened this week and I love all the color I now see when I look out the back window.  Here are a few beauties from the backyard:

Katy Rose

Stephen F. Austin

Grandmother's Rose (Yellow Rose of Texas)

Archduke Charles

Irish Gold

The bluebonnets are out in full force too and we had a wonderful time doing Jamie's 3 month photoshoot.  I don't have all the professional pictures yet, so I'll save that for another time, but Charlie and I did stay behind and take a few pictures ourselves. Here are my favorites:

Watching the clouds with a baby from my childhood.  I made the blanket while I was pregnant.  Kiddy sent him the outfit, which he wore for his first Easter.

Mommy love

Showing off his new skill: blowing bubbles

Daddy love

We are currently getting ready for Jamie's baptism this coming weekend so I've been spring cleaning the house for the past two weeks.  Every day I've picked one room and cleaned it from top to bottom, including going through any drawers or closets and sending things off for donation.  It's been a great system because I haven't felt overwhelmed with the cleaning and I have been tackling things one small task at a time whenever Jamie falls asleep.  I'm lucky he's such a good sleeper and will take 2-3 hour naps between feedings.  Now if he could only stay this way forever, right?

6 weeks!

Today Jamie is 6 weeks old.  The past month and a half have felt like a complete blur, at least for me, as Charlie and I have tried to figure out how our sweet son fits into dictates our lives.  I have come to realize that I am no longer Master of my universe.  Not even a little bit.  Not even over when I can go to the bathroom.

Biggest Challenges:

The Schedule:  Or rather, the almost complete lack of one.  This child is totally unpredictable.  He almost never sleeps for the same amount of time at night and gets hungry and different times from day to day.  Some nights we'll get 3 hours of sleep in between, some nights 5, and some nights barely 1.  I find myself being jarred from sleep when I least expect it or waking up and looking over to find him soundly asleep.  It makes it hard to schedule things like pumping, especially when I have to stop halfway through a session to feed him a bottle.  We've definitely had to stay very organized.  Charlie has developed his own brand of OCD and has come up with an organizational system for the bottle drying rack.  Blew my mind.

Breastfeeding:  I'd like to give breastfeeding a big F U.  Not in general, just for me personally.  I never in a million years thought that this would be something that I'd have trouble with.  I'm currently only producing half of what Jamie needs per day.  It was taking him over an hour of nursing to get an ounce.  We met with lactation consultants, did weighed feedings, and everything else we could think of to boost my supply.  I settled for pumping what I could and mixing a little breastmilk in with each bottle.  I can't keep up this schedule for long because I basically don't have enough time to leave the house and do anything between pumping sessions.  I've even pumped in the car several times while Charlie drives.  My goal with this is four months, but we'll see if I can last that long.  It is brutal.

The Most Helpful:

The Swing: Jamie practically lives in that thing right now.  He also likes it when we turn the music setting on.  It drives me nuts because one of the songs is Pachelbel's Canon and I can hardly listen to that anymore after playing it at so many weddings.  Totally worth it, though.

Help Cleaning:  My mother-in-law gave us the gift of a maid for a couple months.  She has been great and I have been able to unclench a little and not stress over the state of the house.  I might cry when our time with her is done.

The NoseFrida:  I hate to say it, but that thing freaking works.  I threw up the first time I read about how it works, but I have been able to use it without gagging and it's cleared my poor congested baby out like nothing else.

The Kick&Play:  A play mat that has a piano at the end of it.  Jamie can't really grasp things on purpose yet, but he can kick.  He will play with that thing for 2 hours straight.

The Most Surprising:

Smiles:  Nothing gets me quite like his little smiles.  I love figuring out ways to get one.  Currently he will respond to tickling his cheek or rubbing his belly.  The best though is when he smiles just because he sees me.

Laughing:  Right now he only laughs in his sleep but it is adorable.  I can't wait to get him to laugh while he is awake!

Cloth Diapers:  Not as hard as I thought.  We are using prefolds and covers for the newborn stage.  We have spray hoses on one toilet downstairs and one upstairs to spray off poop.  We bought a Lofti to hang anything on that needs to be line-dried.  It is on a pulley and we can hoist it up to the ceiling in the laundry room so it's not in the way.  We've got this system down.

Shots:  James got his first shots in front of me at his one month check up.  I didn't think anything of it before they did it.  Never anticipated my reaction.  He cried so hard he went red in the face and didn't make any noise for a few minutes.  Silent screaming.  Broke my heart and I burst into tears.  I'm a wimp.



I'm sure as we get better at this whole parenting thing we won't feel quite so overwhelmed.  It has taken a while to get our "systems" down for how we do things, but each week gets better and better and all those baby snuggles make up for any lack of sleep.  My goal is to appreciate each stage of his infancy for what it is, difficulties and all, because it already seems like it's going by too fast!

Welcome James Vaden! (Birth story)

At 11 pm on a Friday night 5 days past my due date, I had a really sharp menstrual-like cramp.  I mentioned this to Charlie.  He grunted, rolled over, and went back to sleep.   I proceeded to have continually bad "cramps" and finally woke him up at 3 in the morning saying, "These cramps are really, really bad!"  He asked me if I thought I was in labor and I said "No.  I'm pretty sure I would know if this was a contraction.  It's a cramp."  We then proceeded to have an argument about what a contraction felt like until I googled "contractions", read the definition, and told him that clearly these were CRAMPS.  He said that they should go away then if I took a shower so to stop bugging him and try.  I took a shower and they didn't go away.  He took a shower just in case we were going to end up in the hospital.  For the next two hours he pestered me to call our doula and I told him I wasn't bothering her over bad cramps and didn't want to look like an idiot.  Finally, I texted her and described what was happening.  She texted back: "That is a contraction.  You are in Labor."

I hate it when Charlie is right.

So my contractions became timeable and the doula arrive around 8:00 am.  I spent a few hours laboring in my bed and in the garden tub in the bathroom.  Around 11:30 am we decided to head to the hospital.  Our doula had been telling me to visualize the baby's head dropping lower and lower with each contraction and I guess Charlie decided to take that over in the car because he kept telling me "Okay, I want you to visualize the baby dropping lower and just falling out of your vagina".  Helpful, Charlie, helpful.

We got to the hospital and they sent me to triage to see if I was really in labor.  Hahahaha.  The midwife met us there and confirmed that I was at 7 centimeters, so yeah, obviously ready to go to labor and delivery thankyouverymuch.  I spent the rest of that phase in the shower while the doula ran warm water on my back.

I'll spare most of the details of the 1.5 hour pushing circus except for the following:

1.  My OCD reared its ugly head and I kept demanding to know "HOW MANY MORE PUSHES?!?!  JUST GIVE ME A FREAKING NUMBER!!!"

2. I told my husband somewhere in the middle that this was the only child he was going to get because there was no way in hell I was going through this pain again. 

3. Once Jamie was crowning, Charlie and the midwife were playing with his hair each time his head poked through.  Yes, they were giving him faux hawks while I was demanding to know how many more pushes and yelling that this was the only kid Charlie was going to get.  Charlie is pretty lucky I did not know this was happening at the time.  I probably would have kicked him in the face.

4.  I must have said "This really hurts!" 4 billion times.

5.  My water broke around 9 cm and soaked the poor midwife who was even holding up a towel as a shield.  She had no hope.

6.  I pretty much did every gross thing you can do while on that table.  Charlie bravely held my leg and watched in fascination.  I also ended up with a 2nd degree tear.  As soon as it was over he leaned over, kissed me, and said he was still attracted to me but for god's sake don't look down there until everything is healed.

Next time, I might get the epi.

I had lost a ton of blood and was one point away from needing a transfusion, so I was a little out of it for the next few hours.  Because I was so far along when I arrived at the hospital, we hadn't even been admitted.  I signed all the paperwork about 45 minutes after I delivered.  I could have been signing away all my worldly possessions and I wouldn't have known the difference.  Charlie had left with Jamie to do all the official cleaning up and an administrator came in the room asking for my credit card for our copay.  I gestured to my purse and told her to "Take it ALL!" Really?  You couldn't give me some recovery time after delivery before coming to pester me for money?  Maybe that's their strategy.

Other than that, we had a pretty good stay in the hospital while I recovered and Jamie played tug-of-war with jaundice.  We came home after 5 long days and have been enjoying our life as a family very much.  My baby looooooves to snuggle!

Little glow worm!

Spending time with Daddy

Waiting to be discharged from the hospital (aka Mom put on real clothes)

Ready to go home!

The Nursery

Putting together the nursery for Jamie was one of my favorite projects while I was pregnant.  I love the way this room turned out!

First, I painted the walls; three blue and one yellow.  I went online and found free coloring book pages of owls.  I printed them out and used them to create stencils with quilters plastic.  I drew (erased, and drew again) all of the trees and branches on pieces of paper I had taped together, cut them out, taped them to the wall, traced, and painted.  I can't freehand to save my life, but I can trace!  Here are some of the details:

I bought some wooden letters and decoupaged them with scrapbook paper that matches the fabric for one of the quilts I made (OCD much?) and hung them over the crib:

I bought some pom-poms off of Etsy and hung them over the changing table.  I then used my Etsy-purchasing skills to have a growth chart made with his name on it:

One of my favorite purchase for the nursery (also from Etsy) were the Twinkle curtains for the window.  They are black-out curtains, but the woman who makes them cuts star-shaped holes in them to create different constellations.  I am a Pisces and Charlie is a Scorpio so I bought one panel of each.  Here they are with the lights out:

Then I added a few shelves for pictures, lovies, and whatnots, stocked the changing table and closet, added a recliner and a rug, and voila!  Cutest.  Nursery.  Ever.  Here is the finished product:

39 Weeks and Impatiently Waiting

39 weeks and 4 days pregnant today and I've decided to start a blog.  Well, I decided to start one a while ago, but I am finally getting around to actually doing it.  Hopefully this will be a good way to update family and friends on our adventures in parenting without spamming people on Facebook with a million pictures, videos, and status updates once baby James finally decides to make his appearance.  Honestly, that will happen anyway, but at least here everything will be collected in one place and will be somewhat organized for our loved ones to navigate as they please.

I thought I would kick off this first post with a few "highlights" from the past 9 months:

In May Charlie and I were officially confirmed into the Episcopal Church.  I was in the fun puffy stage of early pregnancy and felt nauseated for the entire first 12 weeks.  Good times.

We also flew out to San Diego in May to hang out with Charlie's parents.  Charlie, his brother, and his father went sailing and we all took a trip to the Wild Animal Park.

In June, my grandmother and I took a trip with my church to do some work in Navajoland.

In July we officially announced our pregnancy and I took my first tiny baby bump bathroom selfie

A few days later, Charlie and I flew to Germany for three weeks to visit his cousins and to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.  We visited Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Salzburg to name a few.

I then flew out by myself to Thailand and spent another three weeks traveling with my brother through Thailand and Vietnam.

When I got back to the states, we found out we were having a BOY!!  and then I went crazy decorating the nursery and sewing everything in sight - but I will give that insanity its very own post.  In October I had a baby shower in Texas where I made everybody decorate onesies because I'm nice like that.

In November, I went and had a 3D/4D ultrasound done and had a baby shower in Georgia where nobody was subjected to crafts.

December rolled around and I worked in the yard, took some more pregnant selfies, and...oh yeah...broke my right foot.  Merry Christmas!

So now it's FINALLY January and I cannot wait for James Vaden Saunders to be born!  I am impatient and uncomfortable and so ready to enter the next phase of my life with Charlie and our baby.  I have a feeling he will be more stubborn than both of his parents put together and will come in his own good time.  In the meantime, I took another bathroom selfie.