Carter's First Easter

All dressed up and posing with his Easter goodies!

Wednesday my mom called to ask what our plans were for this weekend.  Ty had a race he was already registered for, so we were planning on staying in town.  She suddenly had a strong desire to be with Carter for his first Easter, so my parents decided to visit us.  Thomas also came.

We had a great day.  When Carter got up I took him into his room and we played just the two of us while Ty boiled eggs to dye later.  I always love Carter/mommy time!  My dad woke up and came in to play with us and the fun for the day began.

The Easter Bunny brought Carter lots of goodies!  His Easter basket was filled with some items he needed, a couple of books, and a stuffed animal.  He now has 6-9 month long-sleeved white onesies, a travel wipe container for his diaper bag, two more pairs of cloth diapers, and a couple new pacifiers.  From his Hurford Grandparents he got two books and a rabbit stuffed animal.  

Last weekend he received goodies from his Cox Grandparents.  Thanks to them he is stocked up on summer clothes!  I look at the clothes and can’t believe how soon he will fit into them.  Time sure flies!  He also got an adorable singing stuffed animal toy from his Cox Great Grandparents. 

  

After all of the Easter basket fun he and I prepared for a run and my dad decided to go with us.  It was a perfect, sunny, 70 degrees.  We enjoyed an easy run at conversational pace.  When we returned, we ate a delicious Easter lunch prepared by Ty, my mom, and Thomas.  Afterward Carter and I created another holiday craft this time using his feet.  We made Easter bunnies.  They turned out pretty darn cute!

Dying Easter eggs came next.  Carter was in the middle of the table on a blanket as we all sat around him and dyed our eggs.  Well Ty only dyed half of an egg and then decided to crack it open and eat it.  Carter smiled, and cooed while kicking his legs and looking around.

Last year on Easter we had The Car Ride That Changed Our Lives.  That day, April 7^th, as we drove home from visiting Ty’s family we had the conversation that ultimately led to Carter.  It seems like that was forever ago, but at the same time I can’t believe it has been a whole year.  How blessed we have been in the short time since that day!

Carter’s first Easter was a great one!  What did you do for Easter?

Carter's Birth Story from Ty's Perspective

Each time I heard Ty tell someone Carter's birth story I enjoyed hearing how his perspective was a little bit different from mine and how he would include details I didn't.  I really wanted him to write his version down like I did.  It took a while to convince him to do it, but without further ado, here it is!

Thursday December, 13^th 2012, Liz and I are sitting on the love seat side by side, watching Archer (my current favorite show that I hope Carter finds just as funny as me someday). And by watching, I mean I was surfing the net on my phone for funny pictures and Liz was surfing the net on the computer, probably reading mommy blogs.  At one point, I find a hilarious photo about Dave’s mid-wife service with a creepy guy hovering over a pregnant belly. I immediately text it to Liz’s parents as well as Liz herself (even though she was sitting right next to me). 

 

As I anticipated, she opened the text and immediately started laughing so hard that she jumped off the couch and ran to the bathroom. For those of you who are dads out there, you know pregnant women take no chances when it comes to hard laughter and being 8 months pregnant.

After all was back to normal, I asked Liz if labor could be started by hard laughter. She said that she didn’t think so but that she would be pretty mad if I sent her into labor early by making her laugh too hard!

Jumping to the next morning, my day starts like normal getting up at 6:45 and hopping in the shower. About half way through my shower Liz comes into the bathroom and floors me by uttering the phrase “I think my water broke”. I slowly pull back the shower curtain, look her up and down and agree with her that yes, her water has broken. Then she back tracks saying, no maybe it didn’t break. I look her up and down again, and agree, no your water did not break. After an awkward silence, I think that she realized that I have no clue what I am talking about and that I am only agreeing with whatever she says…

At that point it should have been obvious that Carter was on his way but it just hadn’t really sunk in yet. We spent the next hour calling the doctor (the message service they used wrote the call back number down wrong so it took a while), packed our hospital bags, and took some last minute pregnancy photos.

All said and done, we got to the hospital a little before 9am, checked in and were assigned to a room. Liz changed in to the awesome hospital robes (sarcasm) and climbed in bed where they attached a couple of heart monitors for mom and baby, and performed a swab test to make sure her water really had broken (it had).

After that it was a waiting game, first for her parents to get to the hospital and then for Carter to come! At some point I thought the contraction monitor was actually recording EARTHQUAKES!!!! I immediately took a picture and texted it to several people, none of whom found it as funny as I did.

As the afternoon progressed, the contractions got stronger and Liz found it helpful to be up and walking around. Since she was a low risk pregnancy (I guess there is no such thing as a no risk pregnancy so I guess we will take low risk…) they let her walk 20 or 30 minutes and then hook back up to the monitor to check on baby.

After what turned out to be her last walk, she went to the bathroom in her room when another contraction hit. The nurse was there watching her closely when Liz said she has to push. The nurse immediately snapped to attention and urged her not to push. Getting her back into bed, several more nurses started arriving with everything needed for the birth. Everything except for the DOCTOR.  I am no doctor (or seismologist), but I’m pretty sure doctor is at the top of the supplies list recommended for delivering a baby.

About the time that the absence of a doctor had become noticeable, Liz has her strongest contraction yet, along with the urge to stand up. Normally this would be a reasonable request, but moments earlier, the nurses transformed the uncomfortable hospital bed into an uncomfortable baby delivery bed making getting in and out difficult.

Liz being the always considerate person that she is, asks permission to stand up from the nurse… while actually standing up. I will never forget the look on the nurse’s face when she turned around to see her 36 week pregnant patient who was a few short minutes from birth standing in her hospital bed. Her only response was to be careful (if that paragraph didn’t drive home the point of how awesome our nurse was, I can tell you she was awesome).

After the standing in the bed contraction as over and we got Liz back into the proper birthing position, I noticed that we could check doctor off of the supplies list for having a baby twice because now we had two doctors. Apparently the doctor who was supposed to deliver Carter was stuck in traffic right outside the hospital (there was a lot of construction around the hospital and it was rush hour on a Friday) and the nurse called for any available doctor on the delivery wing.

About two minutes before she started pushing, the doctor who was supposed to be there walked in, suited up, and immediately proclaimed “I love delivering runners babies”. I couldn’t help but smile at that comment!

A minute later, Liz has a contraction and is told to push. And much to my surprise, I see Carter's head! After only one contraction and 3 or 4 pushes, Carter’s head was out and I could see his shoulders. A short minute later with another contraction, she pushes again and at an amazing speed, Carter pops out! 

They quickly suction his mouth and nose and place him on Liz’s chest. I could feel the immediate connection that was created between Liz and Carter. It was a beautiful thing. I lean over and wrap my arm around the two of them and immediately feel a similar connection. Shortly after that, the doc asks if I want to cut the cord and I say yes. I’m not going to try and describe the cutting of the cord because there is no way to describe it… it is a very different experience.

The next hour is a blur of me following Carter around as they check over every part of him and record all of his different stats. Then finally, we get to reunite with Liz and introduce Carter to his family (my parents and Liz’s brother showed up minutes after Carter was born).

And now three months and two weeks later, we have a happy, smiley baby boy who has completely changed his mom and dad’s lives forever, for the better.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Will There Be Enough Food?

Warning: This post may be TMI for some of you.  I'm hoping someone worried about feeding their baby at daycare may find this helpful.  I wish I had seen something like this when I was trying to figure out how much milk to send with Carter to daycare!

Before Carter was even born I worried about supplying him with enough milk when I returned to work.  When he was a few days old I began pumping once a day, every day.  I bagged the milk and saved it in the freezer for when I returned to work.  

 

Carter's Milk Stash

My first day of work rolled around and I had no idea how much milk to send with Carter.  I was so worried he wouldn’t have enough food and would go hungry.  I hadn’t given him a bottle in 2 weeks and had no idea how much he ate at feedings.  I searched online for information about how much a 3 month old eats during feedings.  

Every source was different.  I decided to go off one that said to find out how many ounces your baby should eat per feeding, take your baby’s weight and divide it by 2. Okay, so Carter weighed 13 pounds, meaning he should be eating 6-7 ounces per feeding.  

Now I was really worried!  I looked at the records I’d been keeping of when he eats.  He should eat 3-5 times while at daycare.  That meant he could eat up to 35 ounces at daycare!  I looked at the milk stash and felt stressed out.  Was this going to be enough?  Could I feed my baby?!!?

The first day of daycare I went bonkers, just totally overboard.  I packed him a whopping 50 ounces of milk (you know 15 extra ounces just in case).  In retrospect I wonder what in the world I was thinking!  I’m sure the teacher and director were thinking I was completely nutty.  When I picked Carter up, I checked the record sheet for the day.  He had eaten 8 ounces.  Hmm, guess 50 ounces was a bit much!  Now I know he normally eats 2.5 ounces per feeding and I pump more in a day than he eats at daycare. 

 In the morning before Carter wakes up I pump 10-13 ounces.  I am able to make all of his bottles for the day and have some leftover to freeze.  I pump again at my plan time for a total of 16-19 ounces pumped per day.  Carter normally eats about 7.5-8 ounces of milk a day at daycare.  So I’m pumping an excess of 8-11 ounces per day.  Now I giggle at all the anxiety I felt about him not having enough food at daycare!  Know anybody needing some liquid gold?  I’ve got it in excess!

Carter's Paci Stache

Yesterday and Today in Pictures

Yesterday at lunch Carter was asleep when I got there.  I took a picture of him sleeping, stood there for about 2 minutes, and then he woke up.  It was like he sensed I was there, so he got up to eat.

Our noontime snuggles make being a working mom so much easier!

I love checking Daily Literacy Notebooks because of the random things students write at Work on Writing.  This brought the biggest smile to my face!

Bought this onesie at a garage sale and I love it... and his chubby thighs!

The new facility Carter's daycare moved into is fabulous.  They also got updated toys and furniture.  It's so precious because they no longer use high chairs, they have a short table with bitty chairs.  They must feel so grown up!  Today when I arrived to feed him at lunchtime he was hanging out in this toy.  Most of the triangles on the outside have mirrors.

Milk coma!

Today it was 70 degrees so Carter and I went out for some playtime when we got home.  He still isn't so sure about how bright the sun is, but he loves to look at the world around him.

As I was making my smoothie I listened to Ty in the other room laughing at Archer.  The sound of his laughter does my heart good.  I can only imagine how it will feel to hear Carter giggle for the first time.  I know it will be soon, he is getting close!

I'll leave you with a picture of my loves!