Big Week!

Two years ago today I married Jonathan in Grand Rapids. We sure packed in a lot of big events in those short years

*I finished my 3rd year of teaching in NYC
*Jon left the Trump Hotel and began his new job at the Photography lab
*We move back to Grand Rapids (Jon first, me 5 months later)
*I get hired then not at West Ottawa
*Baby Randall is discovered!
*Crazy pregnancy that really tests us
*Baby Harrison is born :)

Whew. Congrats to us.

We had an amazing week and weekend here. Kellie got to meet and spend some serious time baby time with Harrison. They only got in a tiff once :) Kellie even bought her wedding dress in Holland. It is gorgeous and I will not post it :) You'll have to check in October 2011 :) I know it's far away but I'm way excited to be in my FIRST wedding that isn't my own.

Congrats Kellie and Dikran.

Harrison met a bunch of people Saturday at our backyard BBQ! By the end of the night he was insisting on quiet space!

Harrison is quickly approaching the 6 week mark, wow. We are beginning to understand each other more. He's been a lot more eye bally lately and his range of noises has certainly broadened. My favorite growth is his smile, it's coming! We've caught a few lovely AWAKE smiles, the rest of his grins happen when he's passed out.

Aunt Kellie Visits!

Finally Harrison has met his Aunt Kellie and his soon-to-be Uncle Dikran. They came bearing gifts for him and he was won over instantly.

I wish I could have maneuvered him to show off his shirt, it's an ACDC shirt complete with tie. What a cutie :)

Harrison wanted a cuddle fest and of course Kellie complied. This is after we did our midday stroll to McDonalds for some coffee.

Also, Harrison did a POWER sleep last night much to my amazement. Only waking to eat twice, he wasn't interested in being changed even. It was nice to cuddle the boy last night as well because there were CRAZY storms, so much lightening and thunder I almost headed to the basement. But I do love storms.

In other news....ta da!

It made me think for a few hours....why not go back to teach in NY? Hmmm. :)

TIme Out

Baby is wayyyyyy fussy this morning. There are hardly any quiet wakeful moments today. Why is Baby so angry!?

There is a point when holding, feeding, burping, bathing, and changing just doesn't work. I reached that today and Harrison still wasn't ready to pass out. My ears couldn't handle it any longer so I calmly told Baby I needed a time out for 5 minutes and set him in his crib. He proceeded to wail and make his sad noises :( But I honestly needed my 5 minutes and so I excused myself from the room.

This was harder than I thought it would be. I feel really bad. He clearly is unhappy with the situation. But honestly, what can you do when Baby is truly unconsolable and you're the only caregiver?

Much to my amazement Harrison has drifted to sleep. No one can say for how long, so I too will put myself down for a naptime.

Sunny Saturday

What a lovely weekend so far! And it's only mid Saturday. The weekend looks as follows:

1) Jon, Laura and Harrison decide to take a late nap at 9 last night, we all wake up at 12:15, yeesh
2) Jon plays awesome dad/husband and takes a fussy Harrison for a early morning car ride to his favorite  childhood locals
3) Jon is awesome and brings me donuts and an iced coffee from DDonuts, sweet!
4) We drive downtown to Hopscotch and bought more cloth prefolds
5) We strolled to Cherry Deli and had a yummy lunch of mega sandwiches
6) Drove to John Ball Zoo, didn't go in, rather stopped for the purpose of a quick change in the trunk and a Harrison lunch
7) Come home and watch the World Cup after snuggling in the hammock

p.s. our boy is now 1 month old! 

Cloth Daips!

My boy is rocking his cloth diapers :) Woohoo! Okay, well only during the day at this point ;) Just in case.

Check out his cow t-shirt, way cute :) He's modeling the Flip diapers here along with a Bummis prefold that hides underneath. You can sort of see the prefold peeking out of his thigh....he's just a bit little to fit it all perfectly right now. But they work AND they are not too icky to clean. I guess I'm over the shock of the messiness. Line drying really takes away the stains.

Success!

plans

Harrison and I have been spending a lot of one on one time together. He is currently Moby'd onto my chest right now, passed out after a stretch of 2.5 hours of wakeful time. It was mostly happy wakeful time too which is a plus. He even allowed me a shower, which I desperately needed (he spit up on my chest and hair last night before spraying me down during a midnight change). Now I am fresh- for a little while anyway.

Jon and I received great news yesterday- our apartment downtown has finally rented out! Excellent. Now we can begin saving again. I love saving :) Have been doing it since my first job at Tumbleweed. I was a hostess and was paid like 5.45 I think. I remember what I bought first with my savings- new running shoes :) I was so proud!

My (our) greatest savings ever was for our wedding (almost 2 years ago!). I really put away the $ for that. There was something really gratifying about purchasing your own wedding. Even though it wasn't as perfect as I wanted it, I am still happy how it turned out (aside from the DJ and photographer!), hehe. But nothing can be perfect!

So now what is the savings goal?- I really like setting goals... A vacation? A savings for Baby? Some sweet new thing (bike, furniture, something?)? A (gulp)house? Eh, no, the house sounds frightening still...

Visitors from the Big Apple

What a great weekend! We got to show off little Harrison Paul to my NYC girls and they got to experience West Michigan in all its glory :)

We travelled to some of my favorite spots, the Winchester downtown for drinks and then to San Chez on Saturday morning. Yummmmmmmmmmmmm.

I was so excited to get to the beach for the first time this season, perhaps a little too early though, the water temp was reading at a brisk 61 degrees! A few brave souls were playing in the waves, us not so much.

Despite the breeze we had to meet the Captain for some ice cream :)

Kerry sampled some Fountain of youth water.

We went downtown Holland and watched the end of the world cup match, USA v. England before heading for home. Of course none of this could have happened without our two great babysitters :)

There's the Abuelo.

These girls are the best :) 

Interactions with the Familia

Sometimes grandparents can be a little odd...

Baby Harrison doesn't know what to make of these two noisy people bookending him :)

Harrison seems to have inherited the crazy morning hair gene from his grandfather. He is actively trying to escape being burped, but without much luck.

He tries his best to avoid being awake for photo shoots. But since when did that stop us?

Even the fat cat Seamus insists upon being near the baby. He has been known to head butt and side cuddle Harrison. So far Baby doesn't pay him much attention.

Oh the trials of being a baby...sleep on little Harrison.

A Moment of Downtime

Hmmmmm, here we are again. Little Harrison is swinging, I am contemplating making some cinnamon rolls and maybe reading. I picked up one of my favs, the Grapes of Wrath, and started it yesterday. That book really makes me feel like I've got it easy!

In fact this is not that easy. Babies are hard work. Harrison is a good baby but even those make you work. Right now he likes to stare at things and make funny expressions. I find myself getting jealous of his dreams because that's the only time that he smiles. He has this huge grin that comes across his face during dreamland, also an Elvis-like snarl smile. I can't wait til he actually uses those sweet smiles on me. I'll do my best to capture those fleeting smiles with my camera.

For now I can be happy with the contented starring.

My boy the Squeaker

Sometimes Harrison makes the weirdest noises.

He squeaks like a chipmunk. He clears his throat like an old man. He burps like an obese man! He neighs like a horse. I am ridiculous, but I can't not laugh when he passes gas- so LOUD, oh dear. He screams like I'm murdering him. He chatters like a squirrel. He growls like a bear. He chirps like a bird.

Of all these noises my favorite is his silence :) But of course when that happens I need to make sure he is in fact still alive, so I'll touch his arm or stare at him hard to see his tummy move up and down.

My boy's a funny little guy.

A Baby Story

Well, here goes. The baby story of how Harrison Paul chose to enter the world :) He's currently swinging contentedly so I think I've got a bit of time to write, cross my fingers.

On Wednesday May 19th I had a doctor's appointment. My doc and I had commiserated over the failed induction and were planning a Plan B.
Option 1: Wait for me to go into labor naturally (which wasn't looking like it was coming anytime soon)
Option 2: Set a date for induction #2

Obviously I chose option 2. On top of that I was feeling the squeeze from an impending goodbye to my little sister who was leaving for summer work in Yellowstone on the following Monday. This baby had to get a move on if he wanted to meet her before October! And so it was decided to go for it, and we checked into Butterworth that evening. Jonathan and Katie both accompanied me. This time I didn't beg them to take me home (which happened at the first induction) I was as ready as I was going to be.

We settled into our room, which was nice and spacious. They got things going with an induction "pill" (I'm choosing to be a little vague, you don't really want to know everything anyway!). Jon set up camp on the couch and Katie put her "nest" together on the floor! She said it was more comfortable than the chair. I was on the uncomfortable bed.

May 20th came and at 6am they IV'd me with pitocin. No penicillin at that time thank goodness (that stuff burns your veins like no ones business- ouch!). No breakfast for me, but I didn't care as much that time around. The hours ticked on, Katie and Jon watched my contraction mountains on the monitor and we listened to Baby's heartbeat which usually stayed around 140.

1pm came and my doctor showed up to check my progress. What an invasive procedure, I was getting really annoyed with it! And surprise surprise I was 1cm dilated, some progress right? Doctor made the call to break my water herself to get things moving into gear. What a weird sensation let me tell you! Not painful at all, but it felt like I was constantly wetting myself- yeesh. I was so intrigued and a little weirded out by all that fluid that I made Katie google how much amniotic fluid was normal. She came up with a crazy range of a few cups to a gallon or two. Really?

3pm- OUCH. Contractions are really kicking in at this point. I came into this induction without deciding upon pain control. I honestly wanted to know how painful was this birthing pain. PAINFUL is the answer. Okay, so I had some back labor issues with made things worse but it really did take me by surprise. I am no wimp, I promise! When my doc checked again and I was holding at 1-2cm I called for the epidural. I had had enough of this painful and complicated pregnancy and gave myself the okay to get the big guns of pain meds.

Here come the anesthesiologists; sat up, curled into a C shape, gave them the go ahead to attack my back. Jon sat in front of me giving me some eyeball courage. Kate had excused herself at this point. Docs numbed my back, not too painful. They needled my back (why was I hearing popping sounds?), yes I felt "pressure" as they always say. A tad uncomfortable. Whoops, docs back out of the spot. Not a good one I guess. Ugh. Numb my back again, then came needle #2 (there's that pop again...), catheter in,  test meds go in, meds pool and don't go where they need to. Ugh. Docs numb my back AGAIN, needle #3, (POP), test meds go in, they succeed! Finally. Oh and those pops were apparently due to my tight back, ligaments moving.....gross. Little did I know then but they had gone too far into my spinal column and hit into my spinal fluid...which gave me a wicked spinal headache lasting about a week afterwards.

Whew.....that was annoying. But, now I watched those mountains on the monitors and was amazed at not feeling them. Couldn't feel my legs at all, they were so floppy!

8pm, Mom and Dad pop in to say hi. I'm checked again and at 6cm, yay! Dad cycles home, Mom stays with us.

10pm, I tell my nurse I am feeling some pressure. She checks and I'm at 10cm! Whoa! Call my doctor! Goodbye Katie and Mom, they settle nervously in the waiting room. I'm set up for delivery, Jon and I silently begin to freak out. Nurses start me pushing with the contraction mountains which I feel the pressure but no pain. Doctor gets there at 10:30. Let's get Baby delivered!

I push push push...it's been 3 hours now and we arn't seeing baby move much.... Doctor gives us the next option, vacuum. Uhhhhhhh, weird. And a bit scary. Mostly weird.

1am, after two contractions and the use of the weird vacuum Baby arrived! 1:01am Baby boy was placed on my chest and the first words I can muster are "he's so heavy!" Jon manages a sweeter "hello" to baby. I'm a mess of tears at this point, baby is crying a little but calms quickly. We cuddle as Jon and the nurses take pics of us. I got to hold him almost a half hour before they took him for his first bath and tests and such.

Mom and Katie are going stir crazy, they finally are fetched by Jon around 1:40am. They are all smiles and hugs. We are all exhausted! But we finally have our little Harrison Paul and we love him :)

Week 2

What shall I write about?

Harrison has been an increasingly interesting character to observe and interact with. He's had longer periods of wakefulness sans crying. We do a lot of eye gazing throughout the day. He has the prettiest deep blue eyes :) We both expect them to turn brown but for now they are baby blues :)

Our days consist of a lot of Harrison time, but we have managed to sneak in some friend time as well which really has meant so so much to us. It's a mental overload this shift to parenting and talking to friends, with and without kids, have given us an outlet to balance out a bit. 

Harrison and I are both bummed that Jon will be leaving our daytime lives tomorrow. He's headed back to work and we are all anxious to see just how this plays out. I'm nervous that he'll be exhausted and unable to have downtime with us, working 13 hour days doesn't leave much room for relaxing. Plus there's the issue of sleep. Harrison has been really cooperative with sleeping fairly well during the night (it could be worse!) but even with that he doesn't get to bed until midnight and that might be a little trying. 

In other news, we successfully Moby'd Harrison. Jon was skeptical about this huge piece of fabric working well as a baby carrier but we have been very impressed by how easy it is to put baby in the pockets. It's very secure too, Baby is not going anywhere! 

We love Baby :)