Lincoln's Second Month

This is Lincoln about 7 weeks old. It's fun to finally dress him in clothes other than PJ's. He looks so handsome. He's finally started sleeping a lot better at night. This past week he slept for 6 hours straight on night and 5 hours straight the next night. He is also definitely awake during the day and knows that night is for sleeping... generally! He's better at going right back to sleep after he wakes up to eat as well. I'm getting used to having less sleep, so I'm happier as well! :)

He's checkin out the pictures on the wall behind them. He loves to let us know when we haven't positioned him in a way where he can see everything in the room.

This past week we went up to Temple Square for my cousin Cody's wedding. It was a really nice day, so we took some pics outside with little Link.

Sean whipped out the Bumbo for Lincoln this week. He seems to think it's fun to sit in! We think he looks adorable in it! This morning was a big day--we got a few smiles out of him! Real smiles, not accidental smiles. I'm so excited to keep making him smile and laugh over the next few months. It makes my day!

bAbY'S 1ST HaLlOwEeN

I know we're lame, but all we did on Halloween was answer the door twice to hand out candy and then we dressed Linky in his costume and took some pics! haha... and then I probably went to bed. I can't quite remember right now! :)

I LOVED being pregnant!

The longer I'm not pregnant, the more I realized that I really enjoyed it! My reasoning might be a little influenced by other circumstances that I'll explain later, but first I just wanna say that it was just a really great time. I  miss feeling little Lincoln kick around in my belly--even when he kicked me in the bladder. That was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced, and I look forward to it again someday. I miss seeing my huge belly in the mirror. And I sort of miss the weird cravings and the fact that I had to go to the bathroom every second all because I had this little human in me. It was fun to talk about. Fun to be excited for the arrival of the baby. It was the ultimate time of daydreaming! A teacher in high school used to say "Anticipation is greater than the event itself." In this case, I think the waiting isn't greater, but its just as exciting and new. That's what makes it fun. My other reason is completely different. Since I was little I have had Juvenielle Arthritis. For the past 15 years or so I took a medication for it called Methotrexate. It worked super well, and I was virtually arthritis free. But, the drawback to the medication was that it obviously couldn't be taken during pregnancy, but I also had to be completely free of it for at least 3 months before being able to get pregnant.  So, before I got pregnant I hadn't taken my medicine for about 5 months. My joints were really swollen, and it sucked! But almost as soon as I got pregnant I was symptom free. Awesome fact of the day: pregancy makes your arthritis go away!!
When I was like 16 I found out that this medicine I took would not be able to be long term considering I couldn't take it at all before or during pregnancy, and while breastfeeding. So, I hoped that somehow I would be able to find an alternative to keeping my arthritis symptoms minimal. I hoped that not eating gluten would be some kind of magic cure that would allow me to not take meds, but it's not working as well as I hoped.
So now, 6 weeks after pregnancy, my joints are super swollen and the only safe and stronger-than-ibuprofen anti-inflammatory is prednezone. And it makes you gain weight!! Dang it! I still got 20 pounds to lose, so the last thing I wanna do is put myself in a situation where I could gain more weight. Today however, I got a prescription for Aleve . . . and I'm realy hoping that works!! This is beside my point. What I've decided is that pregnancy is the best drug to cure arthritis! ;) I wish pregnancy could last like 2 1/2 years so that I could just be constantly pregnant and my kids would still be enough apart that I wouldn't lose my mind. I remember when I was pregnant and my arthritis went away I told Sean how awesome it was, and joked "Maybe I should just be pregnant all the time!" He didn't think it was very funny. All I know is that for as long as I'm in my 'baby-makin' years I will greatly look forward to those very precious 9 months when I am symptom free! I guess it's God's gift to women with arthritis! If they are going to be uncomfortable while they are pregnant, He might as well relieve some joint pain! :)

Lincoln's Blessing Day

One Month Old

Today Lincoln is one month old! Today was also the first time we made it to church with him! Yay! We just went to Sacrament Meeting, but it was still an accomplishment--our church is at 9. :) He did pretty well. He slept most of the time, and then when he woke up he was showing hunger signs so I got to make my first trip to the mothers louge. Not as bad as I thought it would me. I think I might go in there with him just to take naps! :) haha. Anyways, above his him on our bed before church: so cute and cuddly. Then I got him dressed in this little outfit that's a handmedown from my cousin Jonathan--Allyson's son. Such a cute little outfit! Too bad baby clothes only ever get worn for a few months and then they're too small. He looks like such a handsome lil' fella!

Weight Update: 8lbs 2 oz

He's grown!

Lincoln has definitely grown! He's 3 and a half weeks old. When he was born he was just so small he seemed to be weightless or something. The last day or two I feel like I'm actually carrying a real baby. I can tell that the next few months will be a lot of fun as we watch him turn into his own little person.

As he gets bigger, Sean and I are just getting progressively more exhausted. The first two weeks Lincoln slept like 3 or 4 hours at a time, so it seemed like we were in baby heaven. Over time he has slowly moved into his current pattern where he sleeps 2 hour straight. So he'll wake up, I'll feed him which might last 45 min or so, then he may be awake for another hour depending on the time of day, and then he'll go back to sleep. This makes for sleep depriving nights because unless I get to sleep like 2 second after him I will barely get 2 hours straight--and that's no way to stay rested! Needless to say I'm getting a little nervous about starting work next week under these conditions. Luckily I'll only be working on Wednesday, so that gives us one more week to hope that Lincoln will sleep longer at night! haha... seems like a long shot, but I'll take anything I can get!

Taking Care of Babies

Lincoln will be 3 weeks old tomorrow! He finally peed on me while I was changing his diaper this morning! I say finally because everytime I've changed his diaper I've braced myself for him to just let loose at any moment. Then in a moment I wasn't looking all of a sudden I see this stream of water out of the corner of my eye. I was all over the sheets on our bed, all over my lap, and then all over his back--which he wasn't too happy about the second it made him feel cold. It was pretty funny. It's only what's to be expected from a baby boy, and I knew this day would eventually come. :)

These past 10 days or so Lincoln and I have also gotten a lot better at nursing. This might be a bit TMI--or just into the nitty gritty-- but after quite a miserable few days of having extremely painful nursing sessions and even a nipple that bled, I decided I needed to go see the lactation consultants to get some serious help. And to sum it up--we're doing a lot better! But let me tell you: breastfeeding is a serious committment! Holy cow! I don't think I realized the implications of what it really meant to have to feed a baby every 3 hours or so. It takes about an hour to fill his tummy, which means I have a lot of time to just sit and think or watch something on Hulu. It's also not exactly glamorous to smell like sour milk all the time because it ended up being just a little too long between feedings. But, it is all very worth it knowing that this is the best nourishment he could recieve and it's also true that it provides a bond between mother and baby that I think nature sort of intended. I know that for some women breastfeeding doesn't work out for many reasons. I am very grateful that for me it has worked, especially after having a rough start.

Taking care of this brand new baby has also been interesting because it's sort of made me think about where I learned how to do all of this. How to burp, how to change a diaper with legs kicking all over, how to know if he's hungry, how to bathe him, and dress him, and suck the boogers out of his nose etc... It's all because of watching my mom. Since I was the oldest child I watched her take care of 3 little babies. Granted, I was very young when Melissa and Nate were born, but when McKayla was born I was 11 and during these last 3 weeks I have had tons of flashbacks to watching my mom with McKayla as a tiny baby. (I do have a few memories with Nate too--including one where he peed on himself on the changing table). It seems like everything I do is second nature, but as soon as I do it my mind's eye comes up with this memory of watching my mom. My brain has sort of tapped into this vault of memories that I haven't really thought too much about for 13 years. I don't have specific memories of her showing me, but I've realized that she taught me by example how to take care of babies--the one thing she didn't teach me was how to nurse (for obvious reasons), which sort of explains why I needed extra help. In a way, it makes me feel closer to her even though she is gone.  And for that, I am grateful. Writing it all down makes it feel even more special.

And now, moving on to some photos we've taken over the last few days...

He seems to like water so far.

This poor little guy just got woken up...