recycled words.: May 2011

i was just in for my 6 week postpartum doctor visit - wow! (at which i got a $50 parking ticket because i didn't see the sign that it was a street sweeping day. grrrrr.) i've heard people say "the days are long but the years are short", and six weeks into the first year, i will wholeheartedly agree with that.

mats and i are happily settling into more of a rhythm together at home. for the most part, at least. he's at the tail end of his 6 week growth spurt, so for the past week he wasn't sleeping quite as long at night and was eating more often during the day - monday he ate every two hours all day! it was a long day, especially since scott had to work late; he got home to me preparing dinner and mats crying upstairs (he was supposed to be napping, but hadn't wanted to nap all afternoon) and i just gave him a look that apparently said, "it's your turn now." (i had intended it more to say, "do you see what i've been putting up with all day?" same difference, really.)

the highlight of yesterday was that i got the bathrooms cleaned, dishes and laundry done, and house vacuumed! (vacuum is one of the few words i almost never spell correctly on first attempt - i always want to spell it "vaccum" for some reason.) i've realized that of the many things that change when you have a kid, sense of accomplishment is right up there at the top. it really is amazing, though, how much more you can get done when you have to feed your kid only every 3 hours rather than every 2 hours. (when it takes 30 minutes at a time.)

last night goo and a friend came over to hang out with mats while scott and i went to see "thor" - fun movie!! the theater just down the street from us has 1/2 price tickets on tuesdays, so i foresee a fair number of tuesday date nights in our future. highly recommend "thor" for a fun movie night, and i'm sure i'll be recommending the sequel that the movie totally set itself up for.

just for fun, i decided to keep track of what matson's 1 month birthday looked like for us.

5:10am - wake up to matson crying, go to his room to pick him up, bring him back to bed and feed him. (scott gave him a bottle the previous night at 9:30pm, and this was the first we heard of him all night. we have the greatest baby ever.)
5:40am - hand the little man off to scott for a diaper change and to be put back to bed. i go back to sleep.
6:20am - scott leaves for work. not typical, but his company is doing a big accounting system conversion starting this week which is making his days crazy busy. plus, we have friends bringing us dinner tonight and i had invited them to stay and eat with us before i realized what scott's week would look like, so he wanted to make sure he has enough time at work to get stuff done before coming home for dinner. so that's kind of my fault - sorry, dear! meanwhile, i again go back to sleep.
7:20am - matson's hungry again. i had hoped to sleep in until 8 today, but i guess that wasn't meant to be! i nurse him in bed and browse facebook on my phone while he eats.
7:50am - take mats in to change his diaper, and he pees on me (and his own face) again. for those keeping track at home, i was not peed on for the first three weeks of his life - but this is now the 3rd time being peed on in the last week and a half. two of those times, it ended up on his face as well. (his expression when he realizes that he's peed on himself is pretty priceless!)
8:00am - after changing his diaper, we sit in his glider and play for a few minutes. by play, i mean that i propped him up on my legs, he wiggled his arms and legs and i made faces at him. he stared at the light coming in through the window, then stared at the lamp. i discovered an awesome blog yesterday entitled "chronicles of a babywise mom" which has tons of great real life tips and insights into parenting using the babywise system. anyway, she says that about 45-60 minutes of awake time is the ideal amount for a 4 week old ... lo and behold, at 8:05 on the nose (exactly 45 minutes after he woke up to eat), mats started yawning! if i put him down right after he starts yawning, he usually goes down well - if i wait til he gets to the fussy-tired stage, he'll usually cry for like 10-15 minutes before falling asleep. i swaddled him, rocked him for a minute, his eyes got reeeeally heavy, and i put him down in his crib for a nap. he still sleeps nights in his bouncer seat, but we've been trying to do at least a few naps a day in his crib so that he gets accustomed to it - so far, so good!
8:20am - i go back to bed to finish my bible reading from yesterday (i had opted for a nap instead), get up post-reading to brush my teeth and realize that scott forgot to take out the trash for pickup this morning (understandable since he left the house before 6:30!) so i take it out, have a delightful bowl of frosted mini wheats and am mildly horrified to realize that i've gone through almost a whole box since scott bought it for me on saturday. i read a few blogs, then start this post. we're switching to cloth diapers this week, but i have to wash the dark colored diaper covers 6 times (separated by color) before we can use them - i did the blues 4 times yesterday, so i start the 5th wash. i get a shower in before mats wakes again.
10:30am - little man was still asleep, so i woke him up to eat. his waking up is adorable - i opened the curtains, rubbed his tummy, undid the velcro on his swaddle sack, and talked to him; he slowly opened his eyes, looked around, yawned, and stretched up his arms while curling up his legs. (i watched the end of "legally blonde" on tv while he ate.)
11:00am - upstairs for diaper change - no peeing on me this time! i decided we should do some tummy time for this awake time, so we did that on the floor of his room (burp rag under his head - i've learned that lesson!). he starts out with moving his head from the right to the left, is happily wiggling around for a few minutes, starts to get a little bit frantic ... and rolls over all by himself! he was so surprised! he's rolled over a few times before, but i've always attributed it to some sort of environmental accident - too close to the edge of the towel after bath time, i left his arm too far underneath him when putting him down for tummy time, etc. this time, though, it was all him! (we called daddy right away to brag.) i celebrate his success with using his new snot sucker - he's not a fan.
11:30am - down for another nap! i pump and make my to-do list for the day. then proceeded to ignore my to-do list and watch tv/browse facebook until time for his next eating. :)
1:45pm - i was a little late in waking him up for lunch, but it worked fine since he was just waking up when i got up there. post diaper change, we went out to run our errands - returning a cd to the library and stopping at the grocery. some highlights of the grocery trip were picking up ribeyes to grill for mother's day (yay!), getting a giant box of goldfish crackers, and lemons to make homemade lemonade.
4:10pm - home again. kiddo decided he didn't need a nap this afternoon - he was absolutely mesmerized by the lights at the grocery store! i had him in the moby wrap (which typically puts him right to sleep), and he got many compliments from fellow shoppers on his cuteness. grade school girls seemed to be his biggest fans. i decided to go ahead and feed him early in order to get him down for a nap since he didn't get one at all this afternoon.
4:45pm - i decide to go for the gold and make it a huge day for matson ... and put his first cloth diaper on before his nap! i have the diaper snapped in to the smallest size, so i'm not sure they really would have worked much prior to this. i had read that you're supposed to fold the insert down so that the excess is in front for boys and in back for girls, but it kind of makes him look like he has a giant front butt! i think i'll see how the excess in back goes for the next change. i get to work putting away the groceries and picking up the house.
5:45pm - scott's home! mats was asleep, but scott's first order of business after hugging me is, as usual, to go in and look at our little guy.
6:00pm - a couple from our small group brings us dinner and stays to eat with us (per my invitation) - fun! they're having a baby next month, so we got to talk all about baby stuff with people who are actually interested. matsy is definitely prey to the witching hour (and lack of nap all afternoon) and fusses throughout dinner.
7:10pm - enjoy dessert and feed the kiddo. nick and anna get some snuggle time from matson after he ate (and he very kindly didn't spit up on either of them). we try to get him to show off his new rolling skills, but it's a no go. first cloth diaper was a success, but no poos yet.
8:15pm - down for another nap. he's kind of overtired at this point and gets a few extra snuggles from scott.
9:40pm - last eating of the night. and then bedtime for the whole family - hooray!

six weeks in

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1 month

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