I can't believe it's already been a whole month. I've been somebody's actual mother for a month! What an amazing adventure it's been. I have no idea what we did with all our time before we had a baby but every minute spent with him is an absolute joy. Yes, even the times when he's crying (which, so far, is thankfully not all that often). I've posted some more pictures in the Peanut Gallery so you can continue to see that he is indeed the cutest baby ever.
Our little Peanut is growing so fast - already over 8 lbs, which is great because he lost quite a bit of weight right after he was born and got down to 6 pounds something in the hospital. We are breastfeeding and have been on a schedule of about every three hours, but recently he's been wanting to eat as often as every 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The non-scary books say this is probably a growth spurt.
Breastfeeding is an adventure of its own. It took some doing to get started - as part of the larger birth story that I will someday relate, let me just say that I got very dehydrated in the hospital and that caused my milk to be sluggish which in turn caused the baby to lose a lot of weight and enormous frustration for both of us - but we seem to have gotten the hang of it. My Boppy pillow is fabulous and Mr. Fantastic and I seem to have learned Fletcher's hungry cues. This is useful because if we wait too long, our happy little baby will go from precious snuffling and lip smacking to wailing Defcon 5 BOOB BOOB MUST HAVE BOOB NOW in the blink of an eye.
There is nothing like hearing your baby cry from hunger to make you feel like a giant flaming failure as a parent. A week or two ago, I was driving him home from my mother-in-law's close to feeding time and he made the transition to Defcon 5 on the way. It was the most horrible, awful feeling, driving with Fletch wailing in the back seat, knowing that I'd be home in 15 minutes and would be able to feed him then but that he was hungry NOW and I couldn't do anything about it. He started crying and then I started crying and trying to reach into the back seat to comfort him...ugh, it was awful. And I felt so horrible, like he was going to hold it against me or think I was starving him on purpose. Of course I know that he won't even remember, let alone think the world is a terrible place where his mother abandoned him to STARVE TO DEATH, but it's hard not to feel that way in the face of your baby's pitiful cries.
He cried himself out and fell asleep after less than ten minutes, but it was the longest ten minutes of my life. And when I got him out of the back seat, I discovered that he'd cried so hard his hat fell off and I felt horrible all over again. Thankfully, we are mostly on top of keeping him fed, so we don't have a lot of Defcon 5 moments. I do still pretty much cry every time he cries and we can't fix it despite the fact that I know sometimes babies just cry and it's no reflection on us.
So the breastfeeding is going well, although I have started getting upper back aches from hauling around these enormous boobs. Seriously, I thought that at size 34 H, I was big before. Ha. Those boobs were a walk in the park compared to my boobs now. My boobs now are like giant porn star clown boobs. And yes, they are WAY bigger than Peanut's whole head. I don't know how he isn't scared of them, but instead, they are his most favorite place in the world. When he's eating and it's time to take him off the boob, he does this adorable little nom-nom-nom turtle mouth thing chasing after it and trying to get back on. I would video it for you but the video would also have to include a whole lot of my clown boob, which I am just not willing to share.
Mr. Fantastic is an awesome dad. He loves this kid so much I can't even tell you. Not that I expected any different, but I can't even explain how much it fills my heart to see them together. My heart goes all *meep-clench-eee* whenever Mr. F shows me our baby he's holding and says, "Isn't he the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" I never knew I could love two people so much. My little family. ♥
Aside from being an awesome dad, Mr. F has also been an awesome hubby and unbelievable help to me. Breastfeeding really takes a lot out of you (or me, anyway - I am so tired and constantly eating, trying to keep up my energy and milk supply) so Mr. F basically does everything else. Makes me sandwiches, gets me drinks, helps clean up, does all the laundry, and so many other things, but especially, he is the Diaper King. Changes Peanut halfway through each feeding (which is like 8-10 times a day) and has become such an expert already that I call him Quick Draw. We both keep telling each other that we feel like the other is doing all the work. So far, I think we make a pretty good team.
We had bath time recently, which was a tag-team event and went extremely well - Peanut didn't cry once, despite some obvious dubiousness at the start.
Our little Peanut is growing so fast - already over 8 lbs, which is great because he lost quite a bit of weight right after he was born and got down to 6 pounds something in the hospital. We are breastfeeding and have been on a schedule of about every three hours, but recently he's been wanting to eat as often as every 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The non-scary books say this is probably a growth spurt.
Breastfeeding is an adventure of its own. It took some doing to get started - as part of the larger birth story that I will someday relate, let me just say that I got very dehydrated in the hospital and that caused my milk to be sluggish which in turn caused the baby to lose a lot of weight and enormous frustration for both of us - but we seem to have gotten the hang of it. My Boppy pillow is fabulous and Mr. Fantastic and I seem to have learned Fletcher's hungry cues. This is useful because if we wait too long, our happy little baby will go from precious snuffling and lip smacking to wailing Defcon 5 BOOB BOOB MUST HAVE BOOB NOW in the blink of an eye.
There is nothing like hearing your baby cry from hunger to make you feel like a giant flaming failure as a parent. A week or two ago, I was driving him home from my mother-in-law's close to feeding time and he made the transition to Defcon 5 on the way. It was the most horrible, awful feeling, driving with Fletch wailing in the back seat, knowing that I'd be home in 15 minutes and would be able to feed him then but that he was hungry NOW and I couldn't do anything about it. He started crying and then I started crying and trying to reach into the back seat to comfort him...ugh, it was awful. And I felt so horrible, like he was going to hold it against me or think I was starving him on purpose. Of course I know that he won't even remember, let alone think the world is a terrible place where his mother abandoned him to STARVE TO DEATH, but it's hard not to feel that way in the face of your baby's pitiful cries.
He cried himself out and fell asleep after less than ten minutes, but it was the longest ten minutes of my life. And when I got him out of the back seat, I discovered that he'd cried so hard his hat fell off and I felt horrible all over again. Thankfully, we are mostly on top of keeping him fed, so we don't have a lot of Defcon 5 moments. I do still pretty much cry every time he cries and we can't fix it despite the fact that I know sometimes babies just cry and it's no reflection on us.
So the breastfeeding is going well, although I have started getting upper back aches from hauling around these enormous boobs. Seriously, I thought that at size 34 H, I was big before. Ha. Those boobs were a walk in the park compared to my boobs now. My boobs now are like giant porn star clown boobs. And yes, they are WAY bigger than Peanut's whole head. I don't know how he isn't scared of them, but instead, they are his most favorite place in the world. When he's eating and it's time to take him off the boob, he does this adorable little nom-nom-nom turtle mouth thing chasing after it and trying to get back on. I would video it for you but the video would also have to include a whole lot of my clown boob, which I am just not willing to share.
Mr. Fantastic is an awesome dad. He loves this kid so much I can't even tell you. Not that I expected any different, but I can't even explain how much it fills my heart to see them together. My heart goes all *meep-clench-eee* whenever Mr. F shows me our baby he's holding and says, "Isn't he the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" I never knew I could love two people so much. My little family. ♥
Aside from being an awesome dad, Mr. F has also been an awesome hubby and unbelievable help to me. Breastfeeding really takes a lot out of you (or me, anyway - I am so tired and constantly eating, trying to keep up my energy and milk supply) so Mr. F basically does everything else. Makes me sandwiches, gets me drinks, helps clean up, does all the laundry, and so many other things, but especially, he is the Diaper King. Changes Peanut halfway through each feeding (which is like 8-10 times a day) and has become such an expert already that I call him Quick Draw. We both keep telling each other that we feel like the other is doing all the work. So far, I think we make a pretty good team.
We had bath time recently, which was a tag-team event and went extremely well - Peanut didn't cry once, despite some obvious dubiousness at the start.
Peanut has achieved several of the milestones the book says he should or may be able to do by now, including gaining some head/neck control, focusing on a face, following an object, making noises other than crying, smiling and bringing his hands together in front of him. Unfortunately, we can't seem to get a picture of him smiling - the camera seems to promote Grumpy Face.
We did, however, get a photo of him with his hands together and discovered that this makes him look uncannily like Mr. Burns.
Mostly though, he's just about the cutest thing you ever saw.
♥♥♥
♥♥♥ 
