Christmas!!!!

So I've given up even thinking that I'm going to promise to update this thing twice a week, or once a week, or even once every two weeks. I'm just going to update it whenever I feel like writing, and that'll be it. Sorry.

Robert Alan had his first Christmas celebration tonight! David's mom always hosts Christmas for us on Christmas Eve's eve so that everyone can go to their other family's Christmas celebrations on Christmas eve and Christmas day. It was good. Robert Alan got a lot of stuff that he doesn't even understand. Oh well. He was really good and actually did seem to look at some of the toys he got. That's all I can ask for. I love him so much. He gets cuter by the day.

I don't really have much on my mind right now. I'm pretty tired--last-minute Christmas shopping and wrapping can wear a girl out! I don't recommend it, but it's all we could do this year. I'm so excited for Christmas morning. I need to go to the grocery store tomorrow and get something to make for breakfast Christmas morning. It will just be David, Robert Alan, and me Christmas morning and I'm SO EXCITED about that. We'll get to lounge around and do what we want and then we'll go to my sister's for my family's Christmas celebration. That'll be fun, but I'm nervous about her dogs. They're big, and today I started thinking of where I would put Robert Alan for his naps--the dogs go everywhere in the house and jump on the furniture and everything, so really no place is safe because I can't shut the door to any room or else I won't hear him when he wakes up.....we'll figure it out though. :-) I feel so blessed for my family.

Talk to you later!

So GRATEFUL!

I feel like a lot of times, I take for granted the simple things. Health, love, family, friends. I am so blessed to have a loving husband. He is so wonderful to me and to our son. We are all healthy, and I am so grateful for that. I can't believe we have gone 6 weeks and I have complained as much as I have about the seemingly endless crying (it isn't endless), sleepless nights (they aren't that sleepless), and the endless chores that don't get done (the do get done and they aren't endless). I recently found out about a sorority sister of mine who had her second baby boy 3 weeks after Robert Alan was born. He's 3 weeks old now, and he's been in the hospital since the Monday after Thanksgiving with breathing problems. He took a turn for the worst last night, and now they are on their way to Cook's hospital. You can keep up with her updates at http://www.kristyboyd.blogspot.com/. The baby's name is Hayes, mom is Kristy, dad is Lee, and big brother is Price. I can't imagine seeing my little baby boy hooked up to so many monitors, oxygen tents, etc. It has to be so hard. Please keep this family in your prayers.

Letting us know how much he hates taking pictures.

All better now!

It's been too long!

I can't believe it's been almost over a month since I posted last! I feel bad, although I'm not sure who, if anyone, reads this, so I can't think I've let too many people down. :-)

Man! I never knew I'd be so busy taking care of a little baby! I'm trying hard to get used to the new man in my life, and he completely owns me. Partly because I'm nursing him, and partly because he's so cute and sweet....except when he decides he's really mad at me and screams without stopping for several minutes.

Let me think about some things I don't want to forget about the past month....

1. There was a mouse in our hospital room. Did I mention that in the last post? Well, our last day there, I was looking at David on the couch and I saw a mouse run under the couch. I told him, and he said I must be crazy because there wasn't a mouse. I began to wonder myself if I had imagined it, but I kept looking over there, and sure enough, it ran out from under the couch and across the floor. David finally saw it when he lifted up the couch, and we had about 4 nurses in there trying to corner it (sidenote: what would they have done if they had caught it?!) We ended up moving rooms.

2. I can't imagine having twins, much less twin boys. Taking care of a circumcision is NO FUN. It adds a lot to the diapering process, which, I might add, is also NO FUN. Especially with a little boy who seems to have an old faithful geiser, if you know what I mean. I haven't figured out quite how to keep it from getting everywhere yet...he always seems to surprise me.

The first couple days, he was so patient with us and didn't do it. He let us doctor his circumcision and was always completely calm and peaceful on the changing table. It was so nice of him. Then, it was like a switch turned and he decided we had figured out how to do that so he was going to challenge us. That's when he started leaking every time we changed his diaper. It was like he was testing us every time to see if we'd be ready. We never were, and I'm still not. I don't know if I'm a slow learner or if I just have a very sneaky little boy.

3. He has an awesome "fish face." He pouts his lips and looks like a fish, but sometimes he does his fish face coupled with some crossed eyes, and he looks like a little monkey. My little guy has perfect timing, too, because just when I think I'm going to lose it and start crying because I'm so frustrated with myself or the situation, he does his face and all I can do is laugh. It's too precious, and I hope he doesn't stop doing it anytime soon.

FISH FACE!

4. I can't believe I used to wake him up every two hours to eat. My mom kept telling me that it was okay to let him sleep, but I listened to all the lactation consultants and woke him every two hours to nurse. What was I thinking?!

5. My favorite thing to do with him is rock him to sleep. I love when he falls asleep on me and we can rest together. He is so sweet. He loves for me to sing a lullaby that I made up called "Go to Sleep." When I swaddle him and sing that to him, he is usually asleep in 10 minutes.

6. He's going to have the cutest smile! He's been smiling some, but I think it may be gas, but his smile is AWESOME! I can't wait to see more of it and know he's smiling at me because he loves me.

That's all I can think of right now as far as what I've wanted to note for the past month. I know there's more, but with baby brain I have a hard time remembering much past the last feeding. My mother-in-law is supposed to start coming over for a few hours every Tuesday and Thursday so that I can get out and run errands or get things done around the house (this Tuesday, I'm really looking forward to putting up Christmas decorations). I'm thankful that she is here and willing to help so much. She loves being around Robert Alan.

Oh yeah! Thanksgiving!!!! I can't believe I forgot to write about Thanksgiving. I'm so thankful for my husband and my healthy baby boy. I'm thankful for my job, and I'm thankful for my sweet parents who are going to be wonderful grandparents to my son and I'm thankful for my in-laws who love us all so much.

This Thanksgiving, though, was probably the hardest Thanksgiving I've ever had. I've always LOVED Thanksgiving, maybe more than Christmas, but not this time. We went to Fort Worth to spend the day with David's dad's side of the family. It was little man's first road trip, and it was so hard. He was PERFECT in the car. We timed it so that he would sleep during the 1.5 hour trip, but once we got to Dave's uncle's house, it was a rough time from then on. I guess it was the unfamiliar surroundings and perhaps the fact that there were about 40 people there and it wasn't exactly the calmest surroundings that made him cry the ENTIRE day. In fact, I hardly got out of the room we were staying in because I couldn't get him to stop crying and didn't want to ruin everyone else's day. I was so tired by the end of the day. So was he. He slept for 6 hours straight that night, an answer to one prayer that he wouldn't keep everyone up all night.

We came home Friday morning after stopping by Robert Alan's great grandpa and nana's house, and then my parents came in to see us and spend the weekend with us. We also went to David's mom's house for a late lunch on Saturday. All the excitement really wore on all of us. We are all now super tired and it's been kind of hard on David and me. We don't like for Robert Alan to be stressed out. That stresses us out, and then we take it out on each other, and now David is sick. I think we've decided that we're going to start saying "No" more often to each side of the family. It's too hard to try to see everyone, and then no one ends up feeling like we spent enough time with them and then we feel guilty. Hopefully, from now on, each holiday will entail us going to only one family event. If anyone else wants to see us, they can come to our house and visit. It'll be a shock to each of our families, though, because every year we've known each other, we've done a "Texas Tour" each holiday to try to get around and see everyone. Now, though, with a little one, it is way too hard to do that.

Starting tomorrow, I'm starting us on a routine (I started it on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but you can imagine what happened to it during the traveling, etc.). I've read Babywise, and I'm going to incorporate some of the priciples (not the crying it out part, though. I think he's too young for that still). I'm excited about it. I'll let you know how it goes. I also want to tell you about our portraits session we did. I'm going to set a goal of posting every Tuesday and Thursday, or at least once a week. I think that way I'll be able to remember what I want to write about and won't have to put too much in each post.

Until next time, here are some pics of my little chunky monkey...

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Aunt Britt caught him at his chubbiest! (4 weeks old)

My favorite pic of RA. Daddy took it and it's awesome! (3 weeks old)

After his first bath...he LOVES the water! (2 weeks old)

Halloween night. He's having a blast, can't you tell? (1 week old)

Oh BABY!

Well, we did it! Remember my last post when I wasn't feeling well and my back was hurting? Those were contractions! Turns out I had contractions all day long--they were just in my back instead of in my stomach, so instead of feeling like cramps, they felt like kidney stones--I know because I've experienced both. Yuck. Anyways, I have a baby now!!! Here's the story....

I kept having those pains I was feeling all day long and a friend called to see if I wanted to bring my dog to the park with she and her dog. "Sure," I say, "anything to get my mind off this pain." So we all went to the park around 3:00 and stayed until about 5:00 I think just hanging out on a blanket while the dogs played (I should say her dog played. Mine doesn't realize she's a dog, so she sat with the people and hung out.) Afterwards, I came home and David got home around 7:30 or 8:00. We both had separate dinner plans, mine with college roommates because it was Baylor's Homecoming weekend, and him with some other friends of ours. I just didn't feel like going, though, because the pains were getting worse and more consistent. I told him I really thought we may be going to the hospital later that night, so we should stay home. We picked up dinner and once I ate, the pains started coming every 3 or 4 minutes with an 8-minute lapse here and there. We called the doc and he said every time there's a lapse of more than 5 or 6 minutes, we have to start our hour of timing over. Ugh. By this time, I am miserable. They hurt SO BAD and I can't find a comfortable position. Not to mention the fact that I can feel it coming on because it starts out small and then grows worse and worse and then dies down. Every time I feel one coming, I tell David, "Here comes another one." And every time I tell him that, he says, "Are you sure? Really? You're sure you're really having another one?" After about 5-8 times of him questioning whether or not I could tell if I was really feeling excruciating pain, I told him that if he questioned me one more time, he wouldn't like the result and that his job was simply to look at the clock and write down the time as soon as I said another one was coming. After we had a clear understanding of what was expected by all, it went a lot smoother.

So, around 11:45 p.m. my contractions had been about 5 minutes apart for an hour (with one 8-minute gap), and we decided it was time for the hospital. When we arrived, they sent me back to the triage room and I was a 4 (I had been a 2 on Thursday). They watched my contractions for an hour and when they came back to check me, I was a 6. They couldn't believe I had progressed so quickly, so another nurse checked me, and, sure enough, it was time to go to labor and delivery. I got my epidural pretty quickly and I'd just like to take a little time to talk about epidurals. In my case, I LOVED my epidural. I think it is a miracle drug and I would do it time after time. I can't imagine experiencing contractions all the way through after having that epidural. I laughed through my delivery because of it. No one could believe I was having a baby because there was so much laughter coming from my room. I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed my delivery and that's because of my epidural.

Anyways, that aside, an hour later I was an 8 and then about an hour after that, it was time to start pushing. I pushed 7 times for a total of about 40 minutes. In fact, they had to make me stop pushing because he was coming so quickly and they didn't have the bed ready and the doctor wasn't in place. At 4:55 a.m. on Saturday, October 24th, 2009, Robert Alan arrived. He was 8 pounds exactly and 20.5 inches long. He had all his fingers and toes and came out crying so we know his lungs work. My doctor said I was an OB's dream, and so I will pass that along because it made me pretty proud of myself. :-)

We stayed in the hospital until Sunday afternoon. I lost it when he got taken from the room to go to his circumcision. It knocked me over when I realized how attached I already was to the little guy. I didn't realize I loved him so much already! Talk about love at first sight....

We've been home all week now, and it's crazy to think that this time last week, I was blogging about some possible contractions. Everything is going great. His daddy is so good with him--he's a natural! We are very happy and just pray every day that we will continue to experience God's blessings and that He will wrap His arms around our precious little gift and protect him.

Here are a few pics of the little man...

Daddy is a natural! He is so good with me and I love him.

Recovering from the harrowing trip down the birth canal.

The Simons Family heading home from the hospital.

Night time. Honey (my mom's mom) is about to rock me to sleep.

This is what I do best.