Author: admin

“Sleep when the baby sleeps.”

Ah yes, the advice I have tried to take every time Ben closes his eyes for a nap, especially the afternoon nap. Prioritize, they say. And so I have. Eat/feed, shower/change, sleep. When the laundry is bulging out, I do laundry. When the dishes are over flowing, I do dishes. When the food in the house is down to condiments, I go grocery shopping. And we have managed to fit in a few things for ourselves for our own sanity and healthy relationship. Everything else can wait, and most everyone understands that.

So why then is there always someone who gets all upset and pissed off that I have not sent them a thank you card? Believe me, every single thing we have been given, I am very grateful for. The first round of thank you cards was sent out BEFORE we packed the house, went through a fiasco at the last minute and were almost homeless, moved to our new house (whew), unpacked as fast as possible, and then had Ben and began our lives as new parents, sleeping when the baby sleeps. But the second round of thank you cards, the ones for things that arrived after our shower and during all the hecticness of the summer and early fall, (for everyone that falls under that category, thank you for the things you gave to us- I really do appreciate it all.) have yet to be written.

Why? Because I AM SLEEPING WHEN THE BABY IS! If you have a problem with that, come do my laundry, do the dishes, unpack the rest of the house, and for goodness sake, would someone please evict all the spiders and remnant junk from the last owner! so I can write thank you cards.

Or perhaps I will sleep, with gratefulness in my heart for all those people who gave us things that have made this transition so much easier.

We got the pictures back from our photographer at mmbphotography from Ben’s 3 Week Photo Session. Go to our Gallery page to see the pictures. I have also put more pictures in his “Benjamin” folder.

Enjoy!

Ben is 6 weeks old “today” Sunday, even though I write this past midnight on Monday morning.

We celebrated by sleeping in (through the alarm), going to two churches, seeing some friends, driving up and over Loveland Pass on the way to Breckenridge for dinner with my parents and Granny for her birthday, going back through the Eisenhower (Johnson) Tunnel, seeing a gorgeous rainbow over Mile High, watching an action flick on tv with ice cream, and ended it with Ben choking and turning blue and a few minutes later, puking all the milk he choked down all over his bassinet, blanket, last clean set of pj’s and his sleep positioner.

I am now in my second set of pj’s for the night, and Ben has managed to get all his dirty, so he is in layered shirts, onsies and pants, with baby socks on his arms and legs for extra warmth. Doug sopped up his bassinet while I cleaned up poor Ben, who pukes and rallies and is now hungry again.

They say “back is best”, but I have just witnessed first hand why babies like Ben might need to sleep on their sides instead. Is it any wonder I sleep very lightly, listening for the sound of a choking puking choking baby? We must be parents…

Hey family- I am making a wall of pictures of both sides of Ben’s family and I need your pictures! A recent 5×7 of you and yours, either paper or digital would be great. If you get Christmas pictures taken every year, can I have a copy? Email me with the picture or if you need our new address as of July.

I finally have had the chance to upload more pictures of Ben into the gallery. I also want to thank everyone who has visited in the past several weeks, bringing food and smiles to our house- Joan, Lee, Becky, Russ, Granny Flo, Ron, Michelle, Josh, Ann, Jake, Jamie, Sienna, Sara, David, Evan, Aimee, Bryan, Gavyn, Monica, Gary, Aurora, Nate, Shawn, Clara, Luke, Lynn, Debbie, and Cary. Thank you for coming to visit us and oggling over Ben.

“Some babies do that.” said the nurse last week.

Ben puked (way different than spit-up) at least once a day each day last week, and this evening, he puked again. This time, instead of just himself, blanket, or on us, he got it on the table (Doug was holding him while setting the table for dinner), the chair, and the carpet below. This is terrible, just terrible, because the 1/4 teaspoon of puke on the carpet… well, it just means we will have to take out both rooms of “gorgeous” gold-colored trampled dirty oily flattened-pad carpet. Oh darn…

Ben is now a day over three weeks old, and we are getting into the swing of things with him. The first few weeks were rough, as none of us knew what we were doing. I must say that breast-feeding is a heck of a lot harder (and more painful) than it sounds or looks. I also want to know how the bleep am I supposed to fight postpartum depression if I can’t go running yet?

Doug’s first week back to work last week was supper busy for him after being gone for two weeks. Ben and I are starting to understand the routine for the nighttime feedings and changings. Those who say “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” weren’t kidding. Too bad he doesn’t sleep when I sleep- that would be nice.

My parents, never having been grandparents before, have picked out matching names- Oma and Opa, both German, one of the countries of origin that they share in common. Doug’s parents with two other grandkids already had names- Muddie and Pepaw. (gosh I hope I spelled those right…) All of them are excited about Ben. My Granny Flo lights up when she gets to hold him.

We got a weight check Saturday and he was 8 pounds and 12 ounces, so he recovered from the usual post-birth drop and is now above is birth weight. We also had our first photo session with him on Saturday with www.mmbphotography.com but we won’t get the photos back for several weeks.

We have several photos we are going to put up after we sort through them, resize them, and upload them. We are proud (obsessed) parents, so many of the photos might seem like the same baby time and time again, but we find each moment special of course, and have photographed many firsts, like the first walk or the first trip to Home Depot. Perhaps at the next nighttime awake session, I can get them up.

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Thanks to the many people who have brought us food and helped out at our house. R&M kicked us out of our house Sunday and babysat so we could just get out for a few hours. That was wonderful of them.

Ok, bed time. Perhaps I should say “night time nap time”…

It is with great pride that we announce the birth of our first child, Benjamin Thomas.

Born Sunday 8-9-09 at 6:05 pm. 8 pounds 5 ounces, 20 1/4 inches long.

While we wait, I have taken some pictures of the “before” look of our new house, and have ventured on a hike as well. The pictures can be found in our gallery… Enjoy!