What's Been Happening

I have not been good about blogging. What used to take me 2 hours to do, now takes me 2 days. I am slowly adjusting to that. We are all on Caleb's schedule and that has taken some getting used to. Here is a glimpse of what life at our house is like these days. 

These kids hold their baby brother any and every chance they get. They love him so much!

 Tessa has become quite the little mother. She is always talking or singing to Caleb. In the bottom picture she was talking to him and I heard her say, "So, what's  your favorite color?"

 Finally a picture with Daddy. 

 My kids have always had the best sleeping poses. Caleb fits right in with the other 3!

 These 2 big sisters were thrilled to get some early morning smiles from Caleb before school. 

 Gwen gave Caleb his first injury when she tried to comb his hair. 

We are slowly getting back to a normal bedtime routine. Very slowly. I love reading to my munchkins! And I love Gwen's face. It must have been an exciting book. 

 Mornings with Gwen are entertaining. I love watching her little imagination go crazy. Chest snuggles from my little man are my other favorite thing these days. 

 We love it when he smiles. And yes, his shirt really says that. It was our special gift from Uncle David.

 With our crazy routine of pumping and feedings every 1-2 hours, Mommy was getting very little to no sleep. A week ago I pulled a few all nighters and that eventually caught up with me. I felt like I was shutting down physically, mentally and emotionally and ended up at the doctors with a raging UTI. Thankfully, Eric was able to take a day off of work to take care of the kids so I could attempt to rest and recover. After that I knew something had to give. We have cut back on pumping and started adding more formula feedings. I am still pumping about 5 times a day, but that is manageable compared to what I was doing. Caleb is about 10 lbs now and things have definitely started to calm down for us. Thank goodness!!

Daddy made dinner a fun pizza night outside when Mommy was so sick.

 All ready for game day!

 I love to just look at him and am so thankful that he is mine!

 A wonderful, calm morning before school. These tend to be rare as we have to leave so early to get the kids to school now. We have to start loading up the car at 7:35am to make it to school on time. We say more morning prayers in the car than I would like to admit, so I am grateful for the couple of calm mornings we have had the last couple of weeks. 

 Gwen simply adores her baby brother. She is constantly kissing him. And I do mean constantly!!
She found a thermometer the other day and spent several minutes taking Caleb's  temperature on his forehead. Luckily, he is a cooperative patient.

Queen of Cursive

At the kids new school, they start teaching cursive in Kindergarten. Since Adam and Tessa are new students, they have a bit of catching up to do. They have both been working hard on their cursive and have a goal to be writing in cursive by Christmas. 

Tessa's class has Cursive Royalty and last week, Tessa was the Queen of Cursive for her excellent U's. She was beyond thrilled!! She said a boy in her class even bowed to her and that totally made her day!

1 Month Old

Our sweet little boy is already one month old! I always forget how fast it goes by. 

He never caught on to nursing, so he is being bottle fed. He weighs 9 lbs 2 oz. He is starting to smile more, but Mommy still gets most of his grins. He is the burpiest baby I have ever seen. He always needs to burp and most of the time they are loud and big burps. He gets violent hiccups several times a day. He hates Tummy Time. He sleeps great-especially through all of our noise. He loves to snuggle. 

We are having so much fun with him and the kids seriously cannot get enough of him!

Go Cougars!!

Football season is in full swing and the boys in our house couldn't be happier!! We have had fun watching our Cougars win their first 2 games of the season. Adam loves to play football in the backyard during halftime and he is lucky enough to have a sister and lots of wonderful Uncle's who will play along with him! 

We love football and we love our Cougars! Hopefully we have an awesome season!

3 Weeks Old

Our Little Man was 3 weeks old on Monday. Since I failed to get any pictures of him at 2 weeks, I tried to take some at 3 weeks instead. He is starting to show some personality and we are loving it. He is starting to smile and we discovered this week that he has very ticklish feet. Other than the whole not nursing issue, he is seriously the most perfect baby. He sleeps great and is so pleasant when he is awake-even with 5 other people constantly shoving their faces in his. He is the best little snuggler and loves to snuggle on my chest, which I LOVE!! He is so adored by his big siblings and we just can't get enough of him!

A Rough Week

The first few days at home with your newborn are supposed to be almost fairytale-ish. 2 of my kids were that way and 2 of them now have not been. My little Caleb has been having a rough time, which has resulted in many extra prayers and lots of tears from his mama. The Wednesday after he was born, I was starting to notice that he wasn't nursing very well and that he was becoming a bit more lethargic. We weighed him and discovered that his weight had gone back down to 6 lbs 15 oz. After living through Tessa's first few months of life and watching her virtually starve to death, I kind of went into panic mode. I went to a lactation specialist who noticed that he looked a bit tongue tied and also went and saw my sister-in-law, Angel, who thought he had tongue thrust. I stopped nursing him exclusively and started pumping to get my milk supply back up and feeding him anyway I could get milk in him. We were getting very concerned about his weight because he just didn't seem to be gaining as quickly as he should have. 

So, my days quickly went from enjoying my new baby, to stressing out over every feeding and how much milk I could get in him. I have been pumping every 2 hours for days now and we are feeding him every 1-2 hours. We are also weighing him a couple of times a day to make sure he is gaining and not losing. It is Tessa all over again....

 Other than having a rough time figuring out how to suck, he is a wonderful baby! We love all of his silly faces. He reminds us so much of Adam. 

 Here he is at 2 weeks. I was too drained to even take a bunch of pictures of him. 

We met with a pediatric dentist, Dr. Richter, last Wednesday for a consultation on Caleb's possible tied tongue. His upper lip (frenulum) was really tight and they said his tongue was tied, but more posterior.  His membranes were super tight like a guitar string. They went ahead and lasered the membranes. I was already a wreck and left the room. I cried in the waiting room with they did the procedure and thankfully, Eric was able to stay with him. I think Caleb hated being strapped down more than anything, but due to little sleep and being so emotionally drained, I couldn't take hearing him cry. 

 He got to wear some cool shades for the procedure. 

 His mouth seems to be healing well. We go back on Wednesday for a follow up with Dr. Richter. Caleb still isn't nursing well and I have mainly stuck to pumping and giving him a bottle. I know that there is nothing wrong with that, but I have felt like such a failure as a mother that I couldn't even feed my baby. I felt like any decision I made was going to be the wrong one for him and I was just feeling so torn between options. After having his mouth done, I had what I am calling my "Come to Jesus" moment. I finally got to feeling like no matter what I do to feed him, as long as he is gaining weight and is healthy and I can be the mom and wife I want and need to be, that is the right decision for us. I am still sad that we are not able to nurse exclusively, but for the times that I get sad over that, I have chocolate and Karen Carpenter to pull me through:)

Most of all, I realize what a blessing this little boy is. There are so many others who could care less whether they bottle or breastfeed, as long as they just get that baby they are longing for. I have felt that longing feeling for my babies and I know how truly blessed we are to have these 4 amazing kids. I don't want to look back on the this time with Caleb and have panic attacks like I still do when thinking about Tessa as a newborn. Having him this small only lasts for a moment and I want to enjoy every second I can of this precious time with him! He finally hit 8 lbs over the weekend, so things are starting to look up and hopefully we are going to have an end to the craziness soon.