whew

today has not been the greatest day. it started out with me giving the monkey a boo boo while taking him out of the stroller and ended with a lot of frustration and a pounding headache. being a mom is wonderful, but some days it's so hard. it doesn't help that along with trying to take care of the monkey, i am about to move cross-country and have ten million things to do before we go. i am so excited but even though everything seems to be in place at last (we do definitely have a place to live, thank goodness), i think it's impossible to move without getting stressed out. hopefully tonight i will get some rest and tomorrow i will feel like myself again. wish me luck.

month 2!

monk-a-monk,

i love you so much my sweet monkey. there are so many things that i wanted to write about this month, and i told myself i should write them down and never did. i will have to rectify that in the future.

you are smiling now, and cooing, and you even giggled once. your favorite time is right after you wake up for your morning feeding and right before your morning nap. you are so smiley and sweet that i just want to eat you up. i give your belly kisses and talk to you and you just light up. i'm not gonna lie, it makes my heart melt a little.

days with you have become more predictable, thank goodness. no more growth spurts that make me question my milk supply, or whether breastfeeding is going to work. it's working splendidly and i am even considering doing it for the first year instead of only the first six months. who'd have thought? we will see how you feel about that when the time comes.

there was a week or so when you decided your bedtime was going to get progressively later and i had to put an end to that. i didn't let you nap after 4pm, except for maybe 30 minutes, and finally got you to bed before 11. now you seem to do so by yourself and that's nice. things have been kind of crazy this past week because we had our wedding reception last weekend, but you've still gone to sleep at a reasonable hour even with all of the commotion.

mommy's whole family came to the reception and you were a big hit. you met your great aunties, your great grandma, and a few cousins. when you were 5 weeks old we took you to north dakota and you met your other grandma and grandpa's, some cousins, your uncle, and great aunties as well. i started writing a post about our trip but i never got around to finishing it.

the trip to north dakota was great...you slept the whole flight and 4 hour drive there. the week was a little rough at some points, but you were a trooper for the most part. at one point we thought that your daddy wouldn't be able to work there after all, but thankfully he will be, and we leave in 4 and a half weeks. you also slept the whole 4 hour drive and flight back. go monkey!

you took so many road trips while we were in north dakota that you now hate the car. you scream like someone is torturing your poor monkey butt, and the only thing that calms you even slightly is to rock the car seat side to side. i'm hoping this ends soon for obvious reasons.

you are still a great eater, and at your 2 month check up you had doubled your weight since birth. you have the most delicious thighs. and cheeks. and toes and fingers and hands and feet and ears and elbows and knees. =)

you are such a good baby and i love having you in my life. keep up the good work, son. ;)

lots of love,
mama

not okay!

tori spelling also calls her son monkey.

month 1!

monkey monk,

you are 1 month old today and mommy can hardly believe it! today is also daddy's birthday so we had your 1 month checkup at the doc and then we went and had lunch. you weigh 10 lbs 14 oz, monk, that is 3 lbs more than you weighed at birth..you are such a good eater! you are 21 inches long now and you got your 2nd hepatitis b shot. you cried for a few seconds, but that was it. i think the bugs bunny band-aid made it all better. :)

i think daddy and i lucked out in the baby department. you are such a good boy and have only had 1 or 2 days where you were extremely fussy for any given period of time. last night was the worst and i didn't know what to do for you. we tried everything, and you just wouldn't relax. after a little while i gave you the boob again and all was well. go figure, the first time i don't try to stop your crying with the boob, is the one time you want the boob. silly mama!

you don't like your toys, and you don't like tummy time. but you sure do like to be carried around and have your back rubbed. and car rides, of course. we bought you a vibrating seat the other day, and i think you will like it. so far it has gotten the best response of all, but you still prefer lovin' from the mama and papa and that is okay by me!

i realized the other day that i hardly remember the last month. we've done so much, and so much has happened, but it's a big blur. this month i am going to try to savor every moment with you because i know you are only going to be little for so long. you are already so strong...you hold your head up and everyone comments what great neck strength you have. the lactation consultant calls you "the baby with a mind of his own" and i know that sooner than i think you will be all grown up and i will want these months back.

you are taking your first airplane trip on friday to go visit your grandma and auntie in north dakota. daddy is going to interview for a job and we are going to check out the town that we will hopefully be moving to in a few months. i'm a little nervous about taking you on an airplane, but i'm sure everything will be fine.

my sweet boy, you have peed on me, pooped on me, and spit up on me countless times now (well, really just the spitting up), and it doesn't even phase me. you light up our life, and it's amazing to me just how much love i have for you. it fills up my heart so much, that sometimes i think it might explode. i love you so, so much and i can't wait to continue to watch and you learn and grow. thank you for making our family complete. we love you.

love,
mama

boob juice

so no one told me that breastfeeding was not as easy as it sounds. or if they did, i did not hear them! although it's gotten easier since we brought the monkey home, it is most definitely one of the most difficult things i've ever done. i haven't threatened to give up, because i am bound and determined to make it work, but i have invested a lot of time and money in the past 16 days in order to do so. the good news is that the monk is latching properly now and after a 3 day hiatus due to a torn nipple (OUCH!!!), we're back at it and luckily he doesn't seem to have a preference. however, i think my pump and i have formed a closer bond than the monkey and my boob have!!! now i just need to figure out how to gauge whether he's done with one and ready for the other or done altogether. i think it would be easier if he wasn't such an oinker, but this little boy eats 5 oz at every feeding!!! what a piggy. =) wish us luck as we continue this wonderful adventure!!!

monkey, monkey, monkey!

oooooooookay...so this has taken me nearly 2 weeks...but better late than never, right? RIGHT! my darling husband allowed me to sleep from 9pm-9am (except for pumping breaks) last night so i'm feeling great and due to a torn nipple that started gushing blood last night, i am pumping for the weekend. which means that monkey is sleeping soundly right now because whereas he eats from the boob every hour it seems, the bottle knocks his cute little butt out!

on with the story! saturday, may 17th, phil and i woke up and spent the day together shopping for groceries so that we wouldn't have to go to the store after monkey got here. we went to build a bear and built him a monkey (chunky monkey!), and walked around the mall, costco, and the grocery store. i did as much walking as my poor ankles could handle and then we came home and napped. good thing...because at 3am i woke up, felt a gush from down below, and sat up straight in bed thinking to myself, "that was my water breaking, right?" well, no need to wonder, because soon after i felt another gush, and then another, and by that time i woke phil up telling him my water had broken. miraculously, all of that gushing somehow stayed off of my sheets, and did not drip on the way to the bathroom! WOOT WOOT! :)

i waited for a little while to see if my contractions would start and an hour later when i still hadn't had any, i called the hospital to see what i should do. they suggested i come in, so i packed my bag (i proscrastinate, what can i say?), phil did the dishes, and off we went. i drove, by the way. (sorry, babe!) we got to the hospital around 4:30 and after one of the most unpleasant exams i've ever received, i was told that i was still at 1. 1!!!!!!! STILL!!!!!!! so they sent me to the cafeteria to get some breakfast, since it was going to be the last time i ate, and started getting a room set up for me. at 7am we were taken to my room and although i had started having contractions, they were few and far between. at 9:30am they started pumping me full of pitocin and came by every 20 minutes to up the dosage. by 1:30pm, i decided it was about damn time for the epidural and they stuck me. immediately afterwards my surrogate grandparents stopped by and gave jacob his first birthday gift. napping commenced.

i woke up at 4:30pm and the nurse checked me. surprise! i was at 10. i may or may not have had a slight internal panic attack because boy howdy i was not expecting to be at 10. and yes, i did just say boy howdy. the nurse had me do a practice push and immediately told me STOP! it appeared little monkey was in a big hurry to join us all of a sudden. needless to say, 26 minutes and maybe 10 pushes later, i had a little monkey.

although i should've gotten an episiotomy, the doctor didn't cut fast enough, and i ended up tearing. monkey had some bruising on his face from the tight squeeze, and then his shoulders got stuck. so instead of holding my darling boy against my naked chest right away i had to wait for a few minutes for them to do their thing and make sure he was okay.

daddy took pictures, and mama cried a little, and then all of a sudden i had my little boy in my arms and it was the best moment of my life. he is the most handsome little monkey and already has a mind of his own. i can't believe he is already going to be 2 weeks old...it seems like he has been with us forever already and i can't imagine my life without him.

fyi...

shaving your legs with a gigantic belly is so much easier than shaving your legs with gigantic tata's. seriously.