2 Months

David seems to have had a bit of a growth spurt recently. At least, that's how we're explaining the increase of sleep during the day. He was so easy to put to sleep for about a week. I'd feed him, and often times, as I was feeding him he'd fall asleep. From there I could hold him or put him in the swing and he'd be fine. Well, it seems that has ended.

Yesterday we were back to the old schedule of David hardly sleeping at all during the day. I think collectively he slept for maybe 3 hours all day, but at 1 hour increments at best. He'd have none of the swing. He could be pretty much sleeping before putting him in the swing and then his eyes would be wide open after sticking him there followed by some crying until I got him out. The good thing about all of this is that it means we're back to him sleeping for 4 hour blocks of time at night. There have been a few times that I've felt that David needs to take a nap during the day for my sanity, but who needs sanity when you can sleep for large chunks of time at night?

David had his 2 month appointment last week and he's definitely grown. He's 11 lbs 9 1/4 oz and 21 3/4 inches. He is getting to be a fairly social little guy. He has the biggest smile I've ever seen and he loves to talk at us. This past Sunday, he was smiling for all the ladies during church. He is growing so much, but not fast enough for his liking I'm sure. He already wants to be crawling everywhere and has for a while. When we put him on his stomach, he gets his legs going trying to push himself forward. He has just started to get his arms involved. So much for learning to roll over. He also loves to sit and stand. The doctor was impressed by David's strength since David has gotten good at helping us pull him up into a standing position.

I love all the development that David has made so far and I'm excited for him to learn new stuff, but at the same time, I wish he'd stay little forever.

Crazy Busy

It's amazing how one little guy can make your life so busy, but he sure does have a knack for it. David has been battling a cold for almost a week, but thankfully it's not too bad. He has a little bit of a stuffy nose and some coughing. It's been getting better though and I appreciate that. It's so sad to hear him cough although he does have this one cough that sounds more like a yell and that's kind of funny.

I'm still trying to get him to sleep during the day. Some days are better than others and I still have to wrap him up to get him to sleep at all. I'd rather not have to wrap him and there was one day that he took two naps without needing to be swaddled. I haven't been able to duplicate that success.

Since David prefers to sleep on me during the day, and because I don't have a sling yet that totally fits, I have had to find things to do that allow me to sit on the couch and hold him. Not all of them are productive, like watching episodes of Castle, but I have managed to find some things that are fun and educational. My favorites has been a podcast on the History of Rome and a book called Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich. I got the book in audio form so I can listen while doing most anything and not worry about holding a book. I love this book. It's about a German pastor who tried to warn the church and others about Hitler and the Third Reich. It's nonfiction, but it's not dull like some nonfiction I've read.

Here's the part I know you've all been waiting for: pictures! I can't believe how big he is getting. At my 6 week appointment, David weighed 9 lbs 10 oz. He hasn't chubbed out really, he's mostly just gotten longer.

Around Here

I've been meaning to blog for a while now, and I've even started a couple of posts, but never got around to finishing them or posting them. It's safe to say that David keeps me pretty busy. He sleeps pretty well at night, but I'm lucky to get him down for a nap once during the day. I don't mind him being awake and happy, it's when he's crying and there seems to be nothing that makes him happy that is hard. Nothing that is except eating, but even that doesn't always work or sometimes he'll start eating and then whimper. Thankfully, if I get really desperate, I know that I can always stick him in the car and go for a drive. That has yet to fail as a method of getting him to fall asleep. Too bad gas prices are so high.

We blessed David on the 13th of this month and we are so grateful to everyone that could come. It was a great day.

Anyways, I know that everyone just wants to see pictures of the cute little boy so here you go.

David in his cute jacket that has ears on the hood.

In his bouncy seat just chilling

We put this on him for a BYU basketball game. Too bad we lost.

No matter how well we wrap him, he always manages to get out.

It's moments like these that make everything worth it.

Baby Pictures

So I've been meaning to write for a while and post some pictures of our cute boy, but I've been a bit busy. For the most part, David is a calm little guy, but he's not fond of sleeping or being anywhere else but in someone's arms. Once in a while I can get him to sleep or at least be calm in his swing or his newly acquired bouncy seat, but that doesn't happen too often. When it does, I prioritize what I need to get done. I don't mind any of this. I'm perfectly content to sit around and hold my baby. It does get a little tricky when I'm hungry though.

David when born was 6 lbs and 6.5 oz, and 19.5 in long. Definitely smaller than we thought he'd be, but I'm not complaining. He's now 7 lbs and it seems like he's always starving. He has blue eyes and we're waiting to see if that changes.

Here are some pictures of the little guy:

He's Here!

Well, he's here! Our little baby has arrived. I think most people who read this have heard the stats and all that, but if you haven't, let me know and I can give you all that information. The birth didn't go quite as planned, which I know that during labor and birth, a lot of things don't go quite as anyone planned, but one major thing changed in my plan: I gave birth in the hospital.

Originally, I was planning a home birth and was thrilled about my decision. No travel involved, familiar with my environment, and no strangers coming in and out. So when you spend 9 months planning and gearing up for a home birth, it's a little shocking to discover that it's not the way that you are going to give birth. The past few weeks, I've had high blood pressure. I was working on trying to get it down and succeeded for like a week. This past Wednesday, however, there was an added surprise in my prenatal appointment: I had protein in my urine. Combined with the high blood pressure, it's a sign of pre-eclampsia. So because of that, I had to go to the hospital to be induced.

I wasn't very happy with the need to go to the hospital, but I knew that it was necessary. Hospitals are there for just such occasions. I won't go into the details of the birth, I wouldn't be able to give a very good hour by hour account anyways since my sense of time was obscured by the fact that I was in labor and it being late at night. The whole labor took about 9 hours though. Besides having to be induced, I was able to have a natural labor, which was the most important thing to me besides having a healthy baby.

Although I don't like hospitals in the slightest, and I would have preferred to have given birth at home, I'm happy with how it worked out. Yes, I would have been even happier without having to fight the nurses about what procedures would or would not be done, and it would have been nice to be able to go home when I wanted to. I have to say though that it was kind of fun to hear the OB resident beg me to stay for the 24 hours that they wanted me to. On the whole though, I can't complain. I have a beautiful baby who is healthy and happy. What more could I want?

Strange Strange Weekend

This weekend has been a bit strange in regards to the weather. Saturday started off good with sunshine and temperatures warm enough to melt the little bit of snow we had. We decided it was a good day for Ashton to play mechanic on his car, the accelerator was sticking in the freezing cold temperatures that we had early in the week (by freezing cold I really do mean freezing cold -20 degrees). While he was doing that, I was going to run some errands.

Well, I left Ashton trying to figure out where the part was located in his car that he needed to clean and headed out. It was slightly colder than it was earlier, but not by much. It was still warm enough to melt snow so I wasn't too concerned about the fact that I wasn't wearing a coat. Not that any coat actually fits me anymore. Sure, I can get my arms in, but there's no closing any coat that I own and I am too frugal to go out and buy a winter coat for a couple months. I actually haven't been able to close my coats, besides maybe a button or two, for months now. In any case, I felt that wearing Ashton's sweatshirt was good enough for running to a couple stores and then coming back home again. No big deal.

So, I went to Target and suddenly remembered that the Superbowl was the next day. The parking lot was packed, but it didn't take too long to find a parking spot and thankfully, I didn't have to park out in the outskirts. By the time I came out of Target though, it had started to snow. Not blizzard conditions, but enough to make it chilly. Still, it wasn't bad enough for me to head home. I still had to run to the grocery store.

So I head over to the grocery store and do my "quick" shopping. Let's face it, nothing gets done quickly when you're 38 weeks pregnant. It was still snowing when I got out, and in fact, it was snowing even harder. Hard enough that snow had accumulated on my car. I had managed to get front row parking, which was nice, but of course that meant hiking to put the shopping cart away. I got a call from Ashton as I got in the car asking if he had to come and dig me out of a snowbank somewhere. Apparently, I was taking longer than expected on my errands and he was worried. So sweet. I assured him that I was fine and just had to brush the snow off the back windshield, I wish I had a back windshield wiper, and then I'd be heading home. I've been lucky so far this winter that by the time I have to go anywhere, the snow has melted off my car, or if my car has to be scraped off, Ashton has done it for me. So, I actually haven't scraped off my car all winter, until Saturday. Thankfully, it was just a little bit of wet snow and I only had to do the back windshield. I made it home safe and we spent the rest of the day hanging out at home. It started snowing before Ashton could actually fix his car.

So, it snowed off and on the rest of Saturday, and into Sunday. There was actually quite a bit accumulated by Sunday morning, but we decided to head to church anyways. We kept watch of our phones just in case we got a call that church was canceled, but there was nothing. After brushing off the car twice and having to drive around to the other side of the building where maintenance had actually done some shoveling of the sidewalks so I wouldn't have to wade through the snow, we were off. The roads weren't really slippery, but they sure didn't look freshly plowed. In their defense, it seems that the snow was coming down to heavy to really keep up with it.

In any case, we made it to church safely. As we were walking from the car to the church building, however, we were met by a member of our bishopric who asked us if we wanted the good news or the bad news. Yup, we trekked all the way to church to be told that church had been canceled and that the bishopric had just gotten the call 10 minutes earlier from the Stake that the bishopric could decide to cancel church but that the Stake wanted everything canceled. So it was back in the car for us and we headed home. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, but it did continue to snow off and on the rest of the day. All told, we probably got a good 6-8 inches.

The one funny thing we have discovered through all this snow is that our dog likes to eat snow. I don't mean that she'll just start chomping on the snow while she's outside. I mean that when we come inside and the snow that was on shoes, pants, etc comes off in pieces and fall to the ground, she'll spend time going around and eat each chunk. Yup. That's my dog.

Good Timbers

During Sunday School about a year ago, the teacher passed out copies of this poem to everyone in attendance. I loved the poem and decided to glue it to the front of my journal. There it stays and I read it often. I've been meaning to share it, but have gotten distracted by other things. So, here it is:

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil to live,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow at ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees.
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, in rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
Where thickest lies the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold council with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

~Unknown Poet