Thanksgiving leftovers

My sister, Pam, and her family drove up to Greensboro the day after Thanksgiving to spend the weekend with Luke. This was Pam's second time with Luke, but the first for cousins Emily and Olivia and Uncle Dave. Their visit rounded off a family filled Thanksgiving vacation that started with my mom's visit last weekend (a visit that included Saturday night babysitting that allowed David and me to go out for dinner and drinks with friends- thanks Mom!!), then took us up to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with David's side of the family, and ended today with my sister and crew back at home. Oh how I'm going to miss all the extra help!! It was so nice to be around so many helping, loving hands.

My nieces, Emily and Olivia, proved themselves to be excellent future babysitters! I was very impressed with how good they were with Luke. Here's Emily entertaining Luke like a pro:
And Olivia holding him perfectly while he slept:

Here's Luke with his Uncle Dave. Once again, notice Luke's smile. He really does smile more for the men in the family!

And here's my sister Pam, who spoiled Luke rotten. He napped almost exclusively in her arms while she was here. Now we cannot get him to sleep in his swing anymore. Seriously. He's in there now wide-eyed and hasn't had a nap in over 4 hours. Yikes.

Happy Thanksgiving

We survived Luke's first road trip! We spent Thanksgiving with David's sister and crew in Richmond, VA (my old stomping grounds). The 3.5 hour trip there was a breeze; Luke slept the whole way. We discovered that there are no pit stops when you have a sleeping baby in the car! Our bladders and stomachs were not too happy with that discovery! Oh well- welcome to parenthood.

Luke was so excited to meet new family members that he only slept 20 minutes from the time we arrived at Susan's house (at 2pm) until 10pm, and that was only after we finally broke down and put him back in the car and drove around and around until he drifted off. The poor little man just couldn't fall asleep.

Thankfully, he was back to his normal napping self the next day, and even politely slept through Thanksgiving dinner allowing David and me to actually eat the meal together!! Now that's something to be thankful for:)

Here is Luke with his cousin Ryan. Look at how happy he is! He has so many female cousins that we think he was happy to learn of another male.
Here is Luke with cousins Lauren and Kristen and his Aunt Susan. He was loving the attention of all the lovely ladies.

I love this picture of Kirsten and Susan.

And here he is with Barbara, who has the magic touch. (She also makes a fantastic cheese cake!)

Knowing how dependent we are on Luke's swing (love it!), before the trip we purchased a portable swing so we can always have one around. Because he wasn't a huge fan of the portable crib, he slept part of the night at Susan's in the swing.

He spent the other part in bed with us.

All in all, Luke was fantastic on his first road trip. He also slept the entire way home! It was wonderful to spend his first Thanksgiving with family.

In other news (because I haven't blogged in so long!), Luke has outgrown his newborn clothes. It's scary how fast he is growing. We weighed him on on our scale the other day, and he was up to 9.4 pounds. We'll have an official weight on Monday after we take him for his 2 month doctor's appointment. He's getting so big!

Also, he is back to eating every 2 hours at night. It really really sucks. He had been eating every 3-4 hours at night but for the past 5ish days he's been waking up more frequently. I don't think it's a growth spurt but who knows. Hopefully we'll get better sleep tonight!

Heck no, I won't go...

to sleep in my crib! I have been trying to get Luke to nap in his crib during the day, in the hopes that he will eventually sleep in his crib at night (instead of the bassinet). I am not pushing a consistent sleep routine yet- from what I've read it's important to start such a routine between 2 and 4 months of age, and he is only 7 weeks old. Luke sleeps best in his swing, and so he mostly naps there. He is ok with the bassinet at night because we can rock him to sleep in it. The crib, however, is stationary. No rocking or swinging and so no sleeping! Napping in the crib would be oh so nice because I have to monitor Harley when Luke is in the bassinet or swing but she cannot get to him in the crib. (Not that I think she would harm him! But, better safe than sorry.)

Here's Luke in his crib after I tried to put him down for a nap. He started crying about 30 seconds after I snapped these pictures.

In other news, Luke has started smiling:) It's the best feeling in the world to see him smile! He smiles more at David than me. David's already established as the fun parent! Ha ha.

Santa lost one of his reindeers

Christmas came early to the Andrews house today. David bought this cute (and warm) outfit for Luke last week, and because we wanted to take Little Man out for a walk in the cold today, we decided to try it out. It's way too big on him (making him look much bigger than he actually is). We figure by Christmas it will be perfect. Of course, at the rate Luke is growing he may outgrow it by Christmas. I say this because on Friday Luke was weighed again (explanation of the doctor's visit soon to follow), and he was up to 8 pounds and 11 ounces!!

Ok, the doctor's visit. Let me preface this by saying that I completely recognize that I fall into the category of overprotective first time mother because I took Luke to the doctor, but I don't care. When it comes to my own health, I'm the type to obsess over something and spend a lot of energy speculating over what my ailment may be, but to never actually go to the doctor. So, when it came to Luke's health I decided to be different. The issue was that I thought (and still think) that Luke has issues with acid reflux. Last week he started throwing up large quantities, and his wimpering that followed broke my heart enough that I decided a doctor's visit would be worth it. I really underestimated how hard it is to see your child hurt. And this was just over vomit!! Anyway, the doctor told me to give him Mylanta after each feeding for 7-10 days to see if it helps. There are three big difficulties with this seemingly easy order. First, the Mylanta is to be administered 30 minutes after feeding, which really stinks if Luke has already fallen asleep. Who wakes a sleeping baby?! Second we are supposed to keep Luke upright for the 30 minutes after a feeding, which is harder than it sounds. Third and lastly, Luke is not on board with the doctor's orders, refusing to completely swallow the icky Mylanta. So, we do the best we can. So far I do think it has helped... Luke has not thrown up or even spit up in 36 hours, sleeps more soundly, and seems less fussy. Mostly, I don't smell the acidic vomit smell on his breath as much now, which I did after every feeding before the Mylanta. I doubt we'll want to put him on long-term medication. Reflux is such a common problem, and I'm not sure we should medicate him for it. Holding upright for 30 minutes after a feeding is probably most of what he really needs. As the doctor said, reflux is really just a laundry issue unless the baby isn't putting on enough weight, which Luke clearly is!

Sadly, the weekend is about to come to an end. Parenting is so much easier when 2 parents are home! When I was working, I used to look forward to the weekends and thought that weekends would mean less while on maternity leave. Turns out, they mean even more!! Thank goodness Thanksgiving is coming up soon. David has the whole week off and we will be with family for almost all of the week. Extra help! Yippee!!

Big Boy!

Luke now weighs 8 pounds and 5 ounces!!!!! Just 5 weeks ago he was only 4 pounds and 14 ounces. What a difference 5 weeks makes. Wow. My baby is getting so big! I don't want to brag, but this growth is higher than average:) So you can see how big he is, I decided to take some semi-nude pictures of him. (I let him leave his socks on so he could maintain some of his dignity.)
Woohoo, 8 pounds!

This is the look that I use to flirt with the ladies.
Ok, I'm ready to eat some more!
In other news, I hit Luke's head on the hutch of the changing table last night. It was horrible. We had just given him a bath. David and I were putting a diaper on him and drying him off. In a rush to pick him up (he was screaming) and get him warm, I picked him up too quickly and BAM! His head hit the hutch. I felt horrible. HORRIBLE. I don't know who it scared more- David or Luke. Fortunately, it didn't leave a mark,and Luke eventually calmed down. I know there will be more of these accidents in our future, but this was the first and it left a mark on me.

It's been a long, long day

Wow. Today was rough. Really rough. The day started at 12:15am, when Luke awoke for his first feeding (after going to bed/bassinet at 10:30pm). He went back to sleep easily around 1:15am. However, he awoke again at 3:15, 5:15, and 6:30am. Then, he basically didn't sleep from 6:30am until 7:00pm. He got a few zzzzzzz here and there, but never anything substantial, and he stayed awake for longer periods of time than he has ever before. He also cried and fussed more today than any other day. A big problem was that he wouldn't eat a lot at one time, and after he ate he was clearly uncomfortable if not in pain. I'm not sure what's going on with him. Last night I was convinced that it was reflux. I still think that's part of the issue though this afternoon I think it was mostly that he was overly tired. Finally, he fell asleep at the grocery store around 7pm. (Side note, the grocery store was our big Saturday night out! Times sure have changed. It was a triple coupon event at Harris Teeter so we were pretty excited.)

My parents tell me that I had colic as a baby. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to them! I got a glimpse today of what they must have gone through with me. Yikes. I'm very sorry Mom and Dad.

The only silver lining here is that a bad night is usually followed by a good night. So, here's hoping for a good night tonight!!!!!!!!! Sleep would be good. I don't think I even got 4 hours last night.

We obviously did not have time or energy or any desire to take a picture of Luke today! So, here's one from another, better day:

How to Post Comments

Dearest Family,

This blog would be so much more fun for me if you would post comments! (Much thanks to Anna for being the sole comment leaver!!!) Thus, I have decided to write you an instruction manual on how to post comments. Here ya go:

1. click on the 'comments' link under the post
2. scroll down and click the 'sign up here' link where it says 'No Google Account?'
3. follow the instructions to set up an account... this is easy and quick and you won't get junk emails!!
4. now add your comment in the 'Leave your comment' box
5. type in the word for the 'word verification' check
6. click 'publish your comment'

In the future, you won't have to do steps 2 and 3. Instead, you will simply login using your existing username and password.

Now you have no excuse not to leave comments. Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, on to what you came to this blog for... a new picture of Luke. Recently Luke has been upset after a feeding. My guess is that he's dealing with reflux. (Tonight's projectile vomit after a feeding is evidence of my hypothesis.) One thing that calms him is being put in a belly to belly position. David was doing just that tonight when Luke decided to lean back and get a good look at his Dad. Check out Luke looking intensely at his daddy. It really was super cute to see the two looking at each other.

Ok, now comment away!

Luke is 1 month old!

Yesterday was Luke's one month "birthday"! How is that even possible?! Time is flying by. Here's a picture of him next to Bear. You can compare it to his previous Bear picture (see the "Aunt Pam visits" post) to see his growth. I didn't think he had grown that much until I compared the two pictures!!! Yikes. This is starting to go too fast.

Because he is such a big boy now, he has decided to grow out of his premie clothes! He is now in newborn sized clothing. While I am so very happy to see him grow and develop, I do admit that it was bittersweet to put those newborn clothes away (which is why they still sit in a pile on top of his dresser).

In other developments, Luke now has better head control, is making (brief) eye contact, and is so close to smiling for real... he may have had a real smile today but it's hard to tell.

Finally, today he met two more relatives, my Aunt Linda and Uncle Jim, who came to visit him from Chapel Hill. Here they are with Little Man: