Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy

Those are the words of a song Bodie learned at daycare that he is always walking around singing and fits Barrett's doctor appointment today. At Barrett's 3 week doctor visit today he has grown 2 inches (now 22 inches, 75th percentile). He weighs 8 lb 15.5 oz (naked - we paid attention this time). The pediatrician wanted him to be 9 ounces above birth weight and Barrett was 11.5, which is great!. His weight is only in the 45th percentile. It is definitely a change from Bodie who was always in the 90s for height and weight during his first year. His head is also only in the 40th percentile. I knew his head was little but I didn't think it was that small. Hopefully he won't look like he has a disproportionately small head as he gets bigger. So I think I'm done worrying about weight gain. Obviously we are doing somethings right in that area. Our next adventure will be to introduce a bottle, hopefully this weekend. I just need to find some time to pump but Barrett is so erratic in his eating I am afraid if I pump he will want to eat again soon after that. He usually sleeps well in the morning so I guess I need to stop being lazy and pump first thing. It is just hard to get out of bed to get that done :)

Oh Bodie

I don't know if it is because Barrett is such a little guy, but all of a sudden Bodie just seems so much older and grown up to me. He is talking so much and wanting to do so much on his own. He can now open our patio door. I tried putting a stop to it by locking the door but the little smarty pants simply unlocks and opens it himself. It is nice because he will stand there and let the dogs in and out, but I am afraid he is going to open and walk out there with out us knowing. This wouldn't be such a big deal but our deck is fairly high up (we have a walk out lot) and I am still afraid of him going up and down the deck stairs on his own.

Since Curt has been taking him to school the past 2 weeks, Bodie has gotten very excited about being in his new room. When I was taking him, I'd have to carry him in there and hand him off to his teacher. Now Curt tells me Bodie just goes running down the hall and the teacher has to ask Bodie to say good-bye. I'm afraid when Barrett and I start taking him next week he will regress back to his old ways.

Bodie has also become obsessed with ice cream. We had some root beer float bars from the Schwan's man in our garage deep freezer and every time we stepped into the garage, Bodie would open the freezer door and exclaim "i scheam, i scheam". Once those bars were gone we tried giving him some sugar free popsicles instead, which seems to have put the kibosh on his ice cream cries. Last night I was craving some real ice cream though so I told Bodie to be good and he'd get a special treat, which he immediately knew would be "i scheam".

Some random funny things:

When watching the Olympic swimming events, Bodie exclaims "oh oh" and "fish fish" (oh = water and fish = swimmers, who I guess do somewhat resemble fish).

He'll say "bite mama oh" when he wants a drink of my water. I get the bite for drink part but not why he insists on calling water "oh" (and he calls milk "no").

The other morning he found a pacifier in the corner of Barrett's crib. He grabbed it and immediately put it in his mouth. The kid hasn't had a pacifier since he was 6 months old! I explained to him it was for babies only and he didn't need it since he was a big boy. Thankfully he hasn't tried that since.

On Saturday my family was over to have dinner with us. My mom and sister in law took my niece to the bathroom so of course Bodie had to join them. He stood in front of the toilet and "grabbed himself" trying to use the toilet like daddy would (fully clothed, of course). He has such an interest in using the toilet, he just hasn't actually gone yet. His teacher told me this happens a lot and all of a sudden one time he'll just surprise himself and go. Until that happens we are not going to push potty training at home, even though he insists on "no more di di" each morning when he is getting dressed.

Weight Update

We went back to Milkworks this afternoon and Barrett is up to 8lb 5oz. Since Curt and I don't (over) analyze things at all we've come to the following conclusions...

• He is above his birth weight
• He has gained 12 oz since we left the hospital (12 days ago)
• He has gained 3 oz in 4 days since he was last weighed, which Curt says is average of what "they" say (1/2 to 1 oz per day)
• We really believe the weight at the doctor's office was crap
• His color is looking really good, still peeing and pooping plenty, and eating every 2-3 hours

We go to the doctor on Thursday for his well baby visit. Hopefully we won't have to defend his weight gain (if they measure based on the 7lb 15oz mark) but I feel prepared if we do. Our pediatrician is fairly relaxed about things so hopefully he won't try to say there is an issue.

We celebrated the good news with lunch at Lazlo's...Mmmm... We had planned to go there as my "last meal" before Barrett was born but wasn't able to make it with the birth getting moved up like it was. Definitely a nice way to spend the afternoon with Curt before he goes back to work on Monday.

Independent Baby

Bodie has become very independent lately. We can no longer completely peel his bananas, just get it started for him. He has to scoop the cottage cheese into a bowl all on his own. And yesterday our fear of fears came through...he figured out he can get out of bed without mom or dad there with him. I was awaken from a dream at 7:30 to hear a banging at Bodie's door. Sure enough he was standing at the door trying to get it open (thankfully our door knobs are a bit high and he can't quite get them turned yet). I hope this isn't a new habit for him, but something tells me it probably is.

Bodie is still getting along great with Barrett. We do need to keep an eye on him though because sometimes his hugs borderline on tackles.

Scale Obsession

When Barrett was discharged from the hospital he weighed 7lb 9.6oz, down from his 8lb 4oz birth weight. Since he was a little jaundiced we had a follow up appointment at our pediatricians office the following day, where Barrett weighed in at a hefty 7lb 15.5oz. Curt and I were so surprised and excited, thinking how great breastfeeding was going. Although we did think that was a pretty steep gain in around 33 hours. Today we decided to stop by MilkWorks to check on Barrett's weight. Much to my disappointment he only weighed 8lb 2oz, not even back to his birth weight. We came home and checked the reading materials the hospital gave us, which indicated the baby should be back to his birth weight by 2 weeks of age, which for Barrett won't be until Thursday. And I also read the breastfed baby gains about 6oz a week, and Barrett has gained around 9oz in 8 days (going from the discharge weight), which seems good. He is also wet and/or dirty every time we change him. Curt also pointed out he thinks the doctor office may have weighed him with his diaper on, which could affect the weight by a few ounces (he'd gone with the nurse to weigh Barrett at the doctor office but couldn't remember for sure if the diaper was on or off), and today we weighed him in the nude. Plus different scales can weigh a little different. I'm trying not to worry too much (pretty much trying to forget the doctor's office weight). I think we are going to go back and weigh Barrett again on Friday and if I'm still worried I can put in a call to one of the lactation consultants at our doctor's office. We're keeping our fingers crossed that he is doing fine though - he certainly seems bigger to me than he was just a week and a half ago.

Medical Drama

Sunday morning my mom called me at the hospital to let me know that during the night one of our dogs had gotten sick. Since the dogs had been at Grandma's I figured they'd probably just had too much to eat or helped themselves to something they shouldn't have. I told Curt about it but really didn't worry too much. Monday morning Curt woke up to find a big mess in our house. It was pretty apparent that both dogs were sick, Deuce with vomiting and Tahj appeared to be a bit backed up and was possible having some related bleeding. So I called the vet and Curt took them in. The vet ended up keeping Deuce all day for tests and observation, as well as giving him IV fluids. In the end the only thing they found on Deuce was an elevated white blood count. We took in a stool sample of Tahj's where an elevated bacteria count was found. Both dogs are on antibiotics and seemingly cured. Curt has joked that was the beginning of Tahj's weight loss regimen (he weighed 45lbs at our vet visit last Wednesday!).

Our other drama happened on Wednesday (I think - all my days are running together). Curt and I were going to run to Super Target so he had to bring in Deuce's dog kennel so he could be crated while we were gone. As he was walking across the living room he stepped on Bodie's John Deere loader and sliced the side of his toe open. I had a look at it and it was pretty deep so he put a call in to his doctor's office and got an appointment a few hours later. He ended up needing 3 stitches in it, but thankfully it doesn't hurt him and he really can't tell anything is wrong with it.

Our new arrival

Wednesday afternoon I went to my last scheduled prenatal appointment before my Monday, August 4th c-section. I commented to the doctor that I'd been having contractions that day and some of them had been a little painful. She examined me and I was still only dilated 1 cm, but I was 90% effaced, losing my mucus plug, and definitely "had some things happening". She didn't think I would make it to Monday so she thought it would be best to do the surgery at 7:45 Thursday morning - yikes! Thankfully we'd spent Wednesday tying up some loose ends (getting new tags for my car, getting the dogs to the vet for their vaccinations) so we were pretty much ready. We got Bodie's things packed up that evening, and delivered him and our dogs to my parents, who graciously took them all in during our hospital stay. Curt and I finished packing our bag and tried to get some sleep before the big day. I woke up around midnight having some pretty intense and frequent contractions. Since I never experienced contractions with Bodie, I really didn't know at what point I needed to think about going to the hospital. I waited about an hour and a half and at 1:30 asked Curt if we could just go in early (which of course he said it was up to me since he had no idea either). I figured that at least if we went in they could give me my epidural early and let me sleep until our scheduled time. We got to the hospital, checked in, and I was completely thinned and 2.5 cm dilated. Thankfully my doctor was on call that night and she decided to just come in and do my c-section then. It was actually kind of funny when she came in my room and commented that she was afraid this might happen. At any rate, we welcomed Barrett Joseph at 3:30am on July 31st. He was 8 lb 4 oz and 20 in long (just a little guy compared to Bodie who was 9 lb 15.5 oz and 21.5 inches long). He did get a bit jaundiced in the hospital, but never enough to require any therapy (just a little sunbathing when we got home). All in all things are going very well. We feel very blessed to have our new addition here with us.

So far Bodie is getting along very well with Barrett. He loves giving him hug, kisses, and tickles. The other morning Bodie came into my room while I was still in bed. He climbed in the bed and started looking under the pillows for "baby". I found it a bit humorous and then explained that the baby was in his crib. Bodie gets very excited every time he sees Barrett, but I'm sure that novelty will wear off soon enough.