On our first month together.

I can't believe our little baby boy is already a month old. Time really does go by fast once you have a child. Oh heck, time has gone by really fast ever since I graduated from high school. Was that really 12 years ago? Yikes. Anyways, I digress.

Elijah has been the sweetest baby, and I am so glad that he is ours. It seems like he has always been a part of this family, even though he's only been with us for a month. What can I say? We are pretty much in love with our little guy!

Notable first month things about Eli: (this is a long list that I'm sure only we and grandparents will like, but I want all of this written down so I won't be offended if you don't make it all the way through!)

• He smiles a lot, and I love when he does it while looking directly at me or Jon.
• He is one of the noisiest babies I have ever known. He grunts, makes laughing sounds, moans, sighs, hiccups, sneezes and makes other random sounds that just make me laugh. He often does this when he is sleeping a foot away from me in his pack and play. Of course, that makes for restless nights for his parents! 
• Speaking of restless nights...Eli has not been sleeping well during the night. He will often wake up every hour to 2 hours to eat and seems to have his days and nights confused. However, I bought a miracle blanket to swaddle him since he houdinied out of all his other swaddles and last night he slept in 3-hour increments for the first time! I hope that this is a new trend and not just a fluke. This mama likes her sleep!  
• He now really enjoys bath time and basically slept through his bath the other night. I think it definitely has a calming effect on him! 
• He loves looking at lights and will crane his neck in whatever direction it's coming from. He has taken to looking at the TV and I know he can't see what's on it, but it makes me laugh to think that he is actually sitting there watching Jon play video games or watching TV with us.
• He follow objects with his eyes, especially if they light up! 
• He loves to grasp things, and will even pull my hair or pull on my shirt when I'm holding him. I better get used to lots of ponytails. 
• He is SO good at tummy time. He will lift his head and hold it up for a few seconds while on his stomach, and will often lift his head if he is laying on our chests as well. He is gaining excellent neck control! 
• Eli is awake a lot more often during the day so I take that time to sing and read to him and will hold up different objects for him to look at. His favorites are a plastic set of keys and a little stuffed soccer ball. In fact, sometimes he will hold onto the loop on the soccer ball. Or he is perfectly content just staring at me and I'm totally fine with that!
• The kid farts...a lot. Sometimes he will fart and then make a little laughing sound and it cracks me up. I think it's the only time I have used the word "cute" in conjunction with a fart.
• He has really long fingernails and has scratched his face a few times. He always makes me sad to see new scratches so we are going to work on keeping his fingernails trimmed. 
• He likes to go on walks and we have gone to the local park a few times. It's nice to get out and get some fresh air throughout the week.
• He also likes to Skype with all of his grandparents (and uncle Jonathan!), which we have done a few times. He entertains them pretty well so I don't have to do too much talking. :)
• He spits up and pees...often on me. It's a good thing he's so darn cute! 
• He makes the cutest faces, which we always try to capture on camera. One of the ones we like the best looks like the kids at the end of the Charlie Brown Christmas episode when they are singing. Eli already has a large collection of photos of himself! 
• He doesn't really use a pacifier (he just spits it out), but has found his thumb a few times already.
• His favorite way to sleep is curled up on our chests. I will be so sad when he is too big to be able to do this!

These are all of the things that I can think of for right now and will be sure to add more if I think of some!

Elijah Andrew's Birth Story (Stef's side of things)

Our little guy is here! Elijah (Eli) was born Wednesday, February 22nd at 6:03am weighing 7 pounds and measuring 20 inches. Following is his birth story. Warning - if you don't like to hear words like dilated and contractions, then you should probably skip over this post. :) I promise there is nothing gross involved though!

I woke up Tuesday morning feeling like something was different and thought it could possibly be the day I go into labor. I was still 10 days away from my due date, but babies are born early all the time, even though I knew it was more uncommon for first time moms. I decided to go ahead and substitute teach anyway and the students made jokes all day that they hoped I would go into labor then. I, however, did not agree that going into labor at the school would be the most ideal situation! I did feel a little pain throughout the day, but nothing too intense. In fact, I called my mom after school and asked her if it was possible to have contractions without knowing it. She said that I would most definitely know and not to worry about missing them. After a few hours I felt small contractions that lasted every 15-20 minutes, but they were definitely bearable. Around 10pm that night my contractions became closer together and a little more intense, and after an hour they were 5 minutes apart and definitely starting to hurt! I'm really glad we don't have any downstairs neighbors right now because I'm pretty sure my groaning would have been loud and clear to them. I called my doctor and she told me that if they lasted for an hour at 5 minutes apart then I needed to go to the hospital. I told Jon that we would most likely need to head to the hospital that night and started packing my hospital bag while he finished up a game of Call of Duty. By the time we left for the hospital around 11:45 the contractions were 2 minutes apart and I prayed that they would not send us home once we arrived.

We arrived at the hospital and they told me that I was 3 cm. dilated, but they would like to see more dilation before admitting me officially. They made me walk around the corridor of the floor for an hour, which was probably one of the most painful things I have ever done. I had to stop every 30 feet or so to wait through a contraction and may have shed a few tears in the process. What can I say? I'm a bit of a wuss. After an hour I was finally 4 or 5 cm. dilated and they checked me into a birthing suite. I got my epidural (there was no way I was going through the pain of labor once I knew what contractions felt like!) and then they broke my water. At that point I was then 6 cm. dilated, which was roughly half an hour or so after they admitted me. We waited another hour before they checked me again and I was surprisingly another 2 cm. dilated so things were definitely progressing more quickly than anticipated. Another 45 minutes later I was dilated to 10 cm. and ready to start pushing. It was at this point that my parents arrived at the hospital so I got to say a quick hello for about 5 minutes and then had to kick them out. My doctor had been at the hospital a few hours earlier for a delivery, but went home not expecting me to progress so quickly. They called her back and had me wait to really push so she could be there to deliver. (sidenote: I was really fortunate to have my own doctor on call that evening!) Once my doctor arrived back at the hospital I pushed for about 20 minutes and Elijah was here!

More posts to follow on all the details after his arrival.

- S

A Clarification on Cravings

As a pregnant woman, I get asked a lot of questions. The three that pop up the most are:

1) Is it a boy or a girl? - Boy
2) Do you have a name picked out? - No, but we aren't revealing the name until he is born anyway.
3) What has been your biggest craving?

Let's talk about this last question for a little bit. Before I was pregnant, I got cravings all the time. I would go on kicks where I would eat the same food every single day just because that's what sounded good to me. Those foods have included, but are not limited to, pretzels dipped into chocolate icing, guacamole and tortilla chips, clementines, big salads with tons of chopped veggies, egg & cheese sandwiches on english muffins, and I could go on and on. Like I said, I would get on these kicks for a week or two, then be done with them. I would also make different types of baked goods just because I felt like it. Or I would see an ad for some new blizzard at Dairy Queen and immediately want one.

Then, I got pregnant. I honestly don't think things have changed very much in the eating category, but people's perceptions of my eating habits have. A lot of times when I post about a food I want or just randomly had the urge to make, many people usually respond along the lines of, "Ohhh, a pregnancy craving!" That's not how I look at it. It's just how I've always been. I just happen to be pregnant now.

But, I guess if you need to know what I have "craved" during my pregnancy then there are a couple of things that I've eaten that I normally wouldn't, or at least not as much. In my first trimester, I ate a lot of chips. I've never been a huge chip person, but for some reason I really craved a salty snack for a few weeks. Secondly, I made a few quick runs through the McDonald's drive-thru for a McDouble. Again, I typically don't eat McDonalds's, but those sounded good to me for about a week or so. Lastly, right now all I really want to eat is sugar and carbs. NOT healthy by any means, but they are my comfort foods. I can't say that it's because of pregnancy though. I usually really like sugar and carbs (especially in the winter), although I find that I don't cut myself off from it as much right now than I would have if I wasn't busy growing a baby.

So, there you have it. A complete post on why I believe I don't really have pregnancy cravings and just believe it is an extension of who I have always been when it comes to food. Now, excuse while I go find some pickles and ice cream... :)

- S

2012 is starting with a lot of transition.

Oh, hey there. I've been absent from the blog, but now that we are only 8 weeks away (!) from my estimated due date I figure I should probably start posting more often.

I've been extremely fortunate to have an easy pregnancy thus far, so I was waiting for something to creep up that would make things a little more difficult. Enter the dreaded back pain. It started around Christmas and has yet to ease up so I think it will be here until baby boy makes his appearance. I find that if I sit up extremely straight and put a heating pad on my back then the pain seems to dissipate some, but even that is just a temporary fix. This should make the transition of moving really fun!

Speaking of... let's move onto one of our transitions this month - moving from our current house into a decent-sized apartment. We knew that this day would come since we have been living in a house that's been for sale for the past year and a half. We also knew that we would have to move even if it didn't sell because it takes a lot of work to keep it clean and orderly all the time (not to mention having to leave anytime there is a showing). However, we did not expect it to take this long for us to find a place to live. We will be moving next week when I have just 6 short weeks until my due date left (we wanted to be moved by October...so we're only 3 months behind!). I feel slightly crazy and overwhelmed. In preparation, I have been purging, organizing and packing and still have a long way to go. I have a tendency to want to "just do things myself," but I have to remember that I can't lift very much and need to take it easy. That whole back pain thing? Yeah, it definitely flares up when I have been busy doing stuff. I just pray that everything goes smoothly and we get the help we need to make our move happen! I hate that I have to push a lot of this on Jon and others.

Another transition this month has been the fact that my long-term subbing job ended. Today was the first day back to "regular subbing" and I couldn't find a job. I have a feeling this is going to happen a lot in the next 2 months unless I get requested to fill in for a teacher. Additionally, it's super weird to go from being at the same school with the same kids and teachers every day to...not. I really do miss that community. I hope that I will be able to find a decent amount of work in the next couple of months since I won't be working for awhile once the baby is born.

Alright, I'm off to go relax this tired back of mine, but wanted to keep you updated on our lives currently!

- S

P.S. I will post a picture soon for those of you who like to see the "bump" grow!

Restarting My Life

Seriously? It's been over a month since we (Stef) have updated? My deepest apologies. I know you all hang on our (my) every word.

Thanksgiving was fantastic. Unfortunately, we were unable to see Stef's family for Thanksgiving. It was just too difficult to try to see two families on one day, a problem that will be compounded by introducing a new life to our family, no doubt. Like Thanksgiving, Christmas was also awesome. I was able to get some extra time off from work around Christmas, so it was great to be able to be able to see our friends and both of our families and spend time with those that we love. Also, we had an great baby shower thrown by our closest friends. It was good to experience that, even though we're heading into new territory in our life as a family, we have many people to lean on and learn from. Thank you to everyone who allowed us to experience your friendship and love through conversation, laughs, food, and gifts.

The past few months have been a growing time for me as I continue to think about what my life will look like with another addition to our family. There are many things that I spend time thinking about: how our finances will be affected, what kind of social changes this addition will bring, how my role in our family will shift from being a husband to being a husband and a father. However, I think the thing I've been thinking on the most has been how the birth of our child will bring about a completely new start at life. Obviously, giving birth to our son will bring new life to him, but also bringing him into the world will bring a new life for Stef and I.

Part of that transformation into a new life is how having a child will affect the things that Stef and I already engage in, with friends, family, or by ourselves. But the other part, and the more exciting part, is how having a child will open doors to new things. Sure, it will bring things that we never did before like changing diapers or rocking a baby to sleep. But it will also bring about new ways of thinking about the world, about our parents, about our family, about our friends, about the world and about each other.

I could be totally wrong, but I think having a child is a "fly by the seat of your pants" type of thing. You roll with the punches. But it's great to think about things that I want to do with my son, or things that I want to introduce him to, or how I want to teach him to be tolerant of other people and points of view or how to love others unconditionally. Having a child is becoming more of a reality to me and not so much as a concept of thought anymore. Being born brings a new life to our son, yes, but it also brings new life to Stef and I. For this, I am simultaneously excited and completely humbled.

That's it. Short and sweet.

- J

On starting the registry.

Sorry for the extended absence from the blog. For those of you that don't know, I have been teaching in a long-term position since the middle of October so I have been super busy with lesson planning, grading and all that other fun stuff teachers do. It has also made me very tired most days of the week!

I had another ultrasound done this month to verify that we are indeed having a boy. We are now up to 100% boy status! With that, we were able to officially start our registry. I had been told that completing a baby registry is very overwhelming and I wholeheartedly agree! Jon and I had gone to Babies R Us previously just to check out items and to see what they had, but it seemed like there were 10 times more items there when we went back to begin our registry. We worked on it for an hour and a half and only put about 20 items on the list before we had to call it quits for the night. In fact, I almost broke down crying in the baby bath aisle due to feeling so overwhelmed. Gotta love those pregnancy hormones! Baby registries are serious business, people.

We were able to at least get much of the "big" stuff added, but we still have a lot more to add before the baby showers begin! So, we should probably get on that soon. Any tips for making the process less overwhelming?

- S

On Matchbox Cars and My First Interaction With My Child

Tuesday, October 11th was a big day for our family. On that date, Stefanie and I found out that we are having a boy - at least that's what the doctor told us. Consistent with the type of tomfoolery I can only imagine that my child is plotting against his mother and I, our child proceeded to stubbornly sit Indian-Style during the appointment where we were to find out whether it was a he or a she. Is that politically correct? Our child sat cross-legged.

With my armpits starting to get damp and my brow starting to glisten with perspiration, I sat next to Stefanie, who was laying on the table with a magic doppler wand on her stomach. As our doctor made measurements of the size of our child's head, counted limbs and digits, and looked at its spine and heart, our child sat giggling to itself, I'm sure. While our doctor tried to get a shot of the "goods" and I waited impatiently to hear if I should start looking under "boy" or "girl" in the baby names book, our child was thinking to himself, "Just wait, Pops, this is just the beginning of a long series of events that I will orchestrate to frustrate the heck out of you." I'm sure I deserve it. It's the universe's way of paying me back for all the times I used to hide from my mother in the clothing racks at JC Penny's while she called my name and I laughed to myself. Soak it up now, mom.

It didn't matter to me whether we were having a boy or a girl, as long as it is healthy. What is it about certain people who have kids of their own that makes them tell a person who is expecting their first child all the things that could go wrong with a newborn? I wasn't really nervous about the health of our child, but now I am. Thank you. Mission accomplished.

To be honest, now that it's somewhat likely we're having a boy, I'm kind of relieved. Matchbox cars are so much more fun than Barbies. But because our child was playing a joke on Stef and I, our doctor said she's only 80% sure we're having a boy. She'll check again at Stef's next appointment. So, for right now, I'm still trying to refer to our child with gender-neutral terms.

So far, this has been the extent of my interaction with my child. I hear Stef talking about how our kid is kicking her in the gut. I see Stef growing to support the new life in her. I even get to see my child once a month on a tiny TV in an exam room that has a life-sized plastic model of the female reproductive system. Stef has made me watch her stomach when she feels our child tap dancing on her bladder. As soon as I start watching, our kid gets gun shy and stops.

Last night, I climbed into our bed for the evening after Stef had been asleep for just about an hour. For some reason, I decided to lay next to Stefanie, who was sleeping on her back, and gently put my hand just below her belly button. At first, there was nothing. 30 seconds...60 seconds...then, BAM! Right in the palm of my hand. And then again, right in the same spot! As our child kept kicking or hitting me in the palm of my hand, I tried to stifle my laughs as I pictured the Alien scene in the movie Spaceballs. Despite my best efforts, Stefanie woke up and indicated that what I was feeling may in fact have been *ahem* stomach problems. But, no sooner as those words came out of her mouth, my child kicked my hand again twice more for good measure.

I know it's pretty small, but up until this point, I had felt a little like a Doubting Thomas. Sure, I believed that my wife was pregnant - seeing our child on a TV monitor is pretty fail-safe. But, up until this point, I had been experiencing this whole child thing from the sidelines. It was good to get in the game for a little while.

*Note: Sorry for the length of the post. When I don't contribute to this site for a month, these are the types of posts you can expect.