Easter Celebrations

We just got home from a long Easter weekend in Murray. Roman was officially introduced to the Thomas family. The entire family was there except one person, I believe 47 in all. Roman first met his cousins. Bella was so cute- she would check on Roman while he slept, she "helped" change diapers and his clothes, and the highlight for her was getting to hold and feed him. Cole, in a typical boyish manner, alternated between kissing his new cousin and poking him in the nose. Warren's sister and her fiance were in from California. It was her first time seeing the baby and our first time seeing her fiance, who was nice as can be! Bella was so funny because she was OBSESSED with my breast pump. When we got there Roman was hungry and I said I needed to feed him. She asked if I took my shirt off to feed him. I told her no, and sort of in a four year old way, explained why. She obviously remembers her mom nursing her brother, but was fascinated by this crazy boob machine. She wanted to see how it worked, assemble the pieces for me, and help me "work my boobs". When the milk would come out she would exclaim "It's milk! The milk's coming out!" At the official family get together Roman was passed from aunt to aunt, but mostly hanging out with JoAnn and Peggy. We were talking to Warren's cousin Josh about him and his wife having kids so he decided to have a go round with Roman. I gave him Roman and he was feeding him. He stopped to burp him and Roman spit up all over him. It wasn't that much spit up, but somehow it managed to splatter completely across Josh's shirt. Nice intro to parenthood! I cried when we left yesterday. The stay in Murray was great, the car ride there and back, not so much. The annoyance of crying is greatly multiplied when you are in a confined space! We survived though. I don't know how we are going to fit everything in the car to go on vacation this summer. We were packed front to back just for this trip! I have cute Easter photos that I will share soon.
So the bad thing that happened over the weekend was that I almost completely stopped making milk. Not that I was making much anyways, but still. I talked to Warren's cousin's wife, Jessica, about it and she said she took Reglan. I didn't try it before because I didn't like the side effects, but now I'm desperate. I called my OB and she called it in yesterday. I just took the first pill. So we'll see how it goes.
Speaking of side effects, Rain got me on a tear about vaccines over the weekend. She had a bad reaction to the pertussis vaccine, and never had any follow ups. Warren and Mason never had it due to her reaction. After A LOT of research, I think we are only going to do a few vaccines. Mainly we want to skip MMR, DTaP (the pertussis part), and Hep B. A few others as well. We want to follow the Dr. Sears selective schedule, minus the pertussis. We are still waiting to sort this out with our pediatrician. Fingers crossed!
Zeus is coming home tonight. Ahhhh-I'm nervous!
This Friday I have to go to school for my end of year evaluation. I'm taking Roman and going to see my kids and I am so so excited!!!

Rambling

Roman is settling into a nice little pattern. It's called sleep and lots of it. I am sure that I cannot possibly be lucky enough for this to last forever, but Roman is sleeping through the night every other night or so, getting up and sleeping another four hours. He is awake for about two hours, twice a day and then three to four hours before bed. It is magical. He is also taking up to 7 oz bottles. I feel like I could be overfeeding him, but I googled it and it seems ok. Speaking of google, thank goodness for google. What exactly did people do before it?
I had a fabulous and much needed weekend this past weekend. It was spring break for JCPS so Kerry and Nikki visited Thursday. Nikki even babysat so I could rescue my broken flash drive. Christie hung out all day Friday. Then Saturday we all, plus Ashley, had girls night at Kerrys. It was my first, as Ashley said, "kid party". Highlights of cuteness include Liam meeting Roman and saying, "Oh that's M..." looking at his sister sitting on the floor, looking back at Roman, utterly confused as to who the baby, who was NOT his sister, was. Then Liam's lullaby to Roman, "It's niiiight, and you're sleeeeepy, and the owls, hoo, hoo. And there's cornnn..." What? Even better than all the kids cuteness-all the kids ASLEEP! My darling husband was kind enough to come pick me up from Kerry's, so I could enjoy my sangria, courtesy of Nikki.
In other news, I am thinking about starting Weight Watchers. My mom has recently lost 16 lbs doing it. I have lost 23 lbs since Roman was born. I have 12 to lose from the baby, and yes I regret gaining as much as I did. I would also like to lose another 8 (well really 18, but we'll stick with 8) that I was packing before ever getting pregnant. So my grand total would be 20 lbs. I am a terrible dieter and a worse exerciser. I actually eat really healthy, very little processed foods, all whole grains, etc. I am bad at dieting because I love tortilla chips, cookies (organic and multigrain, but still a cookie), and wine. I don't really want to fork out the money, but if it works... we'll see. I also really want to go to Pure Barre, but considering it is like a million dollars, that is definitely not happening.
Roman is smiling more and more. At everyone but me. Except for when I was singing a Jay Z song the other day when he woke up during my workout. He actually will turn away to smile at someone else, just to not smile at me. I swear, it really makes me miss my other kids, who love me back. Ooooh and I get to be their teacher again next year too, I am going to third grade with them! Back to my grumpy baby, he isn't bad, he doesn't cry much, but he is just a grumpy old man little thing! I hope he gets more cheerful!
Next week Annie is coming to KY for a visit and I am so excited! More girl time!!!! I need some Warren time too. We were supposed to have a date night last week, but he worked late, I had a rough day with the baby, and Zeus got sick which prevented Dad from being able to watch Roman. Soon, hopefully!

The Teasers

Ahhhh...quiet.

I just got the boy off to sleep. I am working this week on tracking his sleep, so I can try to start getting him on a schedule. I even made a spreadsheet on google docs that I must say makes me feel a little psycho. There are colors for eat, sleep, and awake. The schedule is really for me; he seems to do just fine. I just really need to start getting out of the house more and would like to be able to kind of plan when to do it. Plus I cannot begin to explain how the time blurs together and Warren and I can't remember when he slept, when he ate, when he needs to eat again, etc. Speaking of eating, that is about the only time my grumpy butt baby is ever happy. He doesn't cry much, but he is a fussy little thing. He fusses awake, he fusses asleep, and he even fusses towards the end of his bottle. He fusses in his swing, he fusses on his playmat. He fusses when he farts, which is alarmingly often (like I'm not quite sure it's normal!). He fusses changing clothes, he fusses changing diapers. Joy says it's the Thomas in him making him so grumpy. He won't really openly smile at you either, the best you get is a little smirk. EXCEPT he will grin it up at Warren everyday when he gets home. Me...never. We had family photos taken this past Sunday by the wonderful Jessie Kriech-Higdon (more about that later!) and she posted some teasers yesterday. There is a photo where you look and think, "Oh how cute, look at Roman smile." But I know the truth. That is no smile. A yawn, a noise, or something made him open his mouth up, but it wasn't a smile. Anyways, the photos are precious. My little man looks as handsome as can be. I will post her teasers later. So Kentucky had a good run. They were undefeated since Roman's birth, making it all the way to the Final Four, but on Saturday Roman's good luck ran out. I was just happy they made it as far as they did because I got some good use out of his newborn UK outfits :) He has now offically outgrown anything newborn size and I have a whole bag full of clothes he outgrew. It is so crazy. I am so afraid it will all go by so fast I won't be able to remember. He went to the doctor for his one month checkup last week. He was 9 lbs 6 oz. I think he seems abnormally strong still. He can roll from side to side and if he's on his belly he can scoot a little. He also is pulling at my hair. Hard. With a death grip. It's funny too when he lays on his playmat he hits the dangling animals until he gets really frustrated and starts fussing. I think he is ready for some mobility to kick it. I hate to break it to him, but he still has awhile. I am getting really excited for Easter. It will be Roman's first big holiday. (I do not count St. Patricks Day as a big holiday until you are of drinking age.) While Joy was here she and I went and I got Easter baskets for the whole family from World Market and lots of stuffers. We are going to Murray and I am so excited to see everyone and especially for Roman to meet his cousins! Not that he'll know, so I guess it would be better to say for his cousins to meet him :) Eventually I hope to have more to say than the play by play of Roman's every move, but right now we've been stuck inside due to weather and age :) So that's all I've got.

Month One in Photos

Lil' Wildcat

Pow!

First visit to Warren's work.

Posing with his "gifts" from Bella and Cole.

First time in the playmat.

First walk.

Warren's first time in the playmat. Weirdo.

First St. Patty's Day, what did we put in that milk?!?!

Random.

Go Roman, It's Your Birthday

Yesterday was Roman's 1 month birthday. So he needed a photo, especially a photo with a loud, celebratory color scheme. It is unbelievable that a month has passed already!

Month One Memories

There are a few moments from the past month I might try to forget (hormonal crying, sleep deprivation, etc.) but for the most part I feel like there are precious minutes that I fear will slip away from my memory if I don't write about them. For starters, Roman is exceptionally strong. (Doctor's opinion, not biased mom's.) And he is a fighter, kicking and squirming and throwing his head (which he can control already) around, prompting Joy to buy him a bunch of swaddlers and proclaim dealing with Roman is like wrestling monkeys. So for now it is sticking. I don't know if I have called him Roman enough times to count on one hand, it's just Monkey. My crazy little Monkey <3 Oh and about how strong the Monkey is, he is also rolling from side to side. I know NOTHING about babies, but this seems to impress those who do! Roman has already outgrown several newborn outfits, but only lengthwise. So most of the time he has on enormous outfits that fit just right down to his big feet. The boy's socks are all too short, but loose. He also enjoys clawing his own face with his massive hands, which do not look like baby hands at all. It is just like he has four year old hands or something. Looks wise, he definitely favors Warren, but as he picks up weight in his cheeks he looks more like me. I don't know how I feel about that fact, kinda feels like I am insulting myself! He has Warren's mouth and I often see Warren in the faces that he makes. That is my favorite Roman activity. Watching the faces he makes, usually right after he eats. I need to videotape it-not because anyone else would care to see it, but just for me! When he was about a week old we just woke up one morning and his eyes looked different. They had magically developed that under eye puffy thing that people with deep set eyes have. That is also Warren, I don't have deep set eyes. I guess I never wrote much about the first two weeks. First of all, the hospital. Ick. If we have any more children I am pretty sure I want to have a home birth. It really wasn't that bad, and as a first time mom it was nice having the nurses checking on you and getting everything for you. The on staff pediatrician at Clark was awful. She acted as if we were irresponsible idiots for declining some of the newborn care procedures that are completely unnecessary. As if I did not thoroughly research every decision before I made it. She is also the one who made us stay the second night. Ugh. Once we were home, I could not have made it without Joy. She was here for a week feeding us, running errands, cleaning, and doing everything for us so we could take care of Roman. There was a lot of crying that first week. Mostly because of breastfeeding, which was an epic fail. I tried different positions, products, met with a lactation consultant, everything. There just seemed to be too many cards stacked against me. The pain was unbearable and made me not even want to hold Roman for fear he would want to nurse. Then on top of that, the poor boy wasn't getting enough milk. Which I learned makes newborns lethargic, not crying. So he was too tired to eat, making him be more tired. Finally, he was so out of it we couldn't get him to wake up at all, even after undressing him, clapping, singing, and tickling his feet. That's when we popped open the formula. I am still pumping, but chalking it up to an epic fail was my turnaround point of tears stopping and me being a happy mama. After Joy left, my first week by myself started off well. By day two I had things pretty down pat. I complained to Ashley of being bored in the afternoon! Then that night I got a fever. After it reached 102.5, I went to the doctor the next morning (causing Warren to miss yet another day of work) and I had mastitis. By the next day everything was fine though and it's been going pretty smoothly ever since. Minus a few disastrous bodily function episodes! But I think that just comes with the territory.
This week was an adventurous week. My goal for the week was to get him to sleep, especially for naps when I am here by myself, without being held. That was successful. Kristen 1, Roman 0. He is also now spending an hour or so on his playmat listening to Children's Folk Music on Pandora. We also made our first trip out together. The day he was three weeks old we went to Target. Woo-hoo! The cute thing was that when we were there a lady was looking at Roman and asked me how old he was. "Three weeks today," I replied. She asked if it was our first trip out and I told her that indeed it was. She said, "Let me tell you something. 27 years ago, on the day my baby was three weeks old we made our first trip out and it was to Target." Today I think Warren and I might try to take him to the grocery for the first time. Sounds terrible. Roman celebrated his first St. Patrick's Day on Thursday. We went to Christie and Ian's (Roman's first trip to someone's house!) and had a delicious dinner. Also, being that it is March Maddness we have had many UK outfit photo ops.
As far as being at home, I don't really like it right now. I guess it will get better when he is older, but right now I get REALLY bored. The weather is getting nicer, and he is getting older, so hopefully we can start getting out more. I am really bad at talking to him when we are here all day too. I try, because I know it is good for him, but it is a struggle for me to try to talk to someone who neither understands, nor can respond. The flip side of this, is that me and that boy are bonded. When his belly hurts, I am the only person he will calm down for. I know weird little tricks to take care of him. It makes me sad for Warren, because I know he hates leaving everyday, but at the same time I would be lying if I said I didn't like Roman needing his mama.
Warren's mom is coming back today for work/a visit. While she is here I want to try to get some family photos of us. Amazingly, a lot has changed in the two weeks since she left. No more tears, Roman is fattening up and more lively, we are capable of feeding ourselves, all sorts of accomplishments. Yeah, be impressed :)