Dear Santa

Dear Santa! I've been a very good boy this year!

We're slowly getting ready for Christmas. Since this is Val's first, it's been really fun. Of course, he's not really interested in much other than sticking things into his mouth. We've bought him a few gifts. Patrick has something sitting here in a box. I have yet to see it. I wonder what it could be?!?

Val's interest in books is growing. We've been "reading" books for awhile now. When you pull out a board book his little fit start going and he wants to hold it. We love the Sandra Boynton books. We got a few for baby shower gifts, and I started reading them to him to keep him entertained while waiting for things such as boiling water for dinner, or waiting for a laundry load to complete, or mom taking a bathroom break. We've got " What's Wrong Little Pookie" " Let's Dance Little Pookie" and "Pajama Time" Of course these are just a few of them. While I like the little pookie books, there are better Sandra Boynton books out there. Val doesn't seem to mind currently however.

I'm really enjoying watching him grow. Though I'm sad it's happening so quickly. He's already hit the 16 pound mark. He's into 6 to 9 month clothes mostly. A few of his 3-6 month stuff still fits, though most of his sleepers that are that size are too small...mainly in the feet. What can I say? My boy has big feet!

It's so hard to believe that time has gone so quickly already! We've almost hit the half year mark since his birth, and it seems like only yesterday in some ways.

Well it's late, and I've been staying up far too late these past few weeks. Most of the time I stay up for his first late night feeding. He's already done that for tonight. He's been quite restless and I'm not sure I know why. Most of the time I have an idea of what's keeping him from settling down to a nice night of sleep. I'm beginning to wonder if he's hitting another growth spurt. It's a bit early I think....but who knows.

My goal for 2011 is to try blog daily about Val's daily exploits. What kind of milestones we're hitting, what fun mother or baby issues we're going through...that sort of thing. Even if it's just quick short posts, I'd love it if I can show him this blog in a few years and share the experience his dad and I are going through and our feelings and fears.

For now, mom is signing out!

The adventure is well under way!

So I had all these great intentions of blogging about being a mom. I planned to record cute little things he did, milestones, things I find useful, things I find annoying, things I wish I would have known to steer clear of..... I guess this will be the start finally. Val's slowly getting onto a sleep schedule. I can pretty much set my sleep schedule to his feeding times. No, he's not sleeping through the night just yet. That's the first question I get from anyone these days.

We're now in the hunt for a walker to keep him busy. From about the second month, he's wanted to stand. He wanted to pull himself up, and would be curled into a ball trying to stand up on his own. He's been really sturdy, holding his head really steady since about two months, maybe even younger. That made Patrick very happy. Patrick had never held a baby before. He avoided holding all our nephews and nieces until they were around three years of age. He was just afraid of breaking them. When we found out we were expecting, I told him he had no choice but to hold a newborn now. He wasn't going to get away with not holding Val no matter how small he was in the beginning. Not that he would have wanted to avoid holding him. I think this picture says it all:

Our Adventure into Parenthood begins....

Our amazing little miracle has arrived. He was born on July 19th. We've been married for 15 years in October and were beginning to think this part of life would never happen for us. We'd both come to the point over the last few years where we had finally decided that it was most likely not going to happen. We never really talked about doing any kind of fertility treatments and bandied about a few discussions on adoption though never enough to follow through with research and the like. We were satisfied being Aunt and Uncle and while wishing a child of our own would come into the picture were growing less and less broken hearted that it hadn't happened yet. We had settled into a life of free schedules and picking up at the spur of a moment to do anything we wanted.

I spent about 12 hours in labor. Then after all that work and no progress we ended up a c-section. Things were going well with me and the baby, both dealing with the labor process really well with no signs of stress. After the Dr. gave us a few "let's give it another hour and see where you are at the end of that." I figured it was time to throw in the towel and quit hoping that nature would take it's course and make my body do what it needed to do. Why risk a possibility of the baby or myself going into some kind of distress or something happening when we were still both doing so well.

Val was born at 8:38 pm on July 19th. He was 7 pounds 10 ounces. To say that we were beyond happy is an understatement. We listened while he screamed and cried from the minute he was taken from the womb. He wasn't happy being removed from his nice cozy resting place into the harsh world outside. The dr. announced his arrival with Val crying right before. The Dr said " He's here! BOY does he have BIG feet!" Of course in my drugged up state all I could visualize was a baby with giant clown feet. So we sat and waited for our chance to meet our little guy, we could hear the nurses going through the checks, Val voicing his displeasure all the while. They swaddled him and brought him around the curtain still fussing and placed him into Patrick's arms. Both of us in tears, Patrick greeted Val with a "Hey buddy" and Val went silent and just blinked back in wonder at his dad. He was so amazingly cute and wide eyed.

The most disappointing thing about c-section is the fact that they strap you into a crucifix position on the table. Both arms stretched out and tied down. So while I could stare in wonder at the little guy I couldn't reach out to touch him or hold him. Thankfully the hospital has a rule that the only people who can hold the baby while mom recovers is dad.

Off Patrick goes, holding our little man and taking him down to the nursery. I was left being stitched up and sorted, then taken off to recovery for an hour. The worst was the horrible bout of shaking. It started after they started getting me ready for the c-section and continued for almost an hour after the surgery. I have to say, with all my fears of the c-section, it wasn't as bad as I had imagined. Yes, it's major surgery, but it was a lot milder than my ovarian surgery. The bad thing was that I had picked up a cold from Patrick the week of my induction. Poor Patrick was sick all the week that Val and I were in the hospital. Coughing and an abdominal incision do not mix.