statistically speaking...

okay, there's a lot i want to get done today - including a milo update - so i'll try to make this short and sweet:

• milo now weighs about 10 pounds (according to my wii fit - i figure it's not perfectly accurate, hence the "about" factor, but tomorrow i'm going to try and take him to the amazing newborn clinic at the hospital so they can weigh him and get his measurements and such.)
• he's up to eating 2.5 - 3 ounces at each feeding; when we started feeding him from bottles, it was only about 1 - 1.5 ounces at a time. sometimes now, he'll even eat 4 or 5 ounces. he's definitely a growing boy! :P
• milo sleeps in his crib (which is in the nursery) at night. i had planned to keep him in the cradle in our room a little longer, but the little fellow grunts like a rhino in his sleep, which kept me up at night. and as stated in the last post, i'm learning the value of sleep. so we keep the video monitor on him and that way i'm able to sleep through the grunts and wake up for the "i'm hungry" noises that he makes when he's awake. which also leads me to the fact that...
• milo sleeps for 5 hours at night! it's so glorious. who knew 5 hours could feel so refreshing? but that straight shot of sleep (instead of waking every 2 or 3 hours) leaves me feeling great in the morning. usually we get him to sleep by 9:30 or 10 o'clock, and after his 5 hour stretch, he takes two more 2 - 3 hour "naps" (and i go back to sleep, too) before it's morning and he's wide awake.
• he's gotten very handsy. i'm not sure if he's aware of what his hands are doing/grabbing/feeling, but they're all over the place. sometimes he likes to grab his bottle (he's definitely not able to really hold it on his own, let alone feed himself, but hey, it's a start!), and sometimes while he's feeding, he'll take in too much air (i think), and starts to freak out a little bit. well if he's holding onto the bottle, he'll push it away when he starts to do this, and his recovery time to "okay let's start eating again" goes much smoother. amazing. and it's from this that i learned to watch for that "oh no, too much!" face he makes and pull the bottle out before he starts to get upset about it. thanks kiddo! :P
• his goopy eyes are still a little goopy (sometimes a lot goopy), but he's also started producing tears now, too, so hopefully the goopies will start to clear up.

that's about all i can remember for now. he isn't colicky, which is a huge relief. and overall, he really doesn't cry much unless he needs something, and it usually doesn't take us too long before we figure out which it is (diaper/food/burp/hold me/put me down).

now that i'm starting to get this sleep thing figured out, and i'm able to stay awake for most of the day, i've started figuring out how to get more things done than just taking care of milo and myself - like laundry, dishes, painting even :)

i'm totally loving this stay-at-home-mom thing. (thanks for making this possible, ben!!!) <3

lessons on self-preservation

i find that while i'm learning how to take care of milo, i'm also re-learning how to take care of myself; the importance of making sure i get enough to eat during the day, or getting enough sleep one way or another, or asking for help so that my brain doesn't explode and make a huge goopey mess for ben to clean up.

we had a late night last night. and milo's sleeping right now. i'm so very tired and i should be sleeping, too. i know i should. and yet i'm wandering aimlessly on the internet?

gahhh! apparently i'm still learning how to take care of myself and make healthy choices...

so that being said, while i really want to write a whole post on everything we've been up to and all that's happening with milo (i'm horribly overdue for a good post), i know it's better for me to take a nap right now.

i'd promise that i'll write more soon, but i've also learned i can no longer make promises that involve a definitive timeline, because with milo, it's very hard to keep those promises.

so i'll just say "good night" (even if it is "good morning").

:)

food and fairy tales

milo has just been guzzling down everything we give him. we're pretty sure he's in the middle of a growth spurt, and ben claims that he can already see the difference in milo's hands and feet, and that they've gotten bigger already. (i can't see it, but i would think that's normal, to not be able to notice much of a difference, when i see him all day every day.)

last night, i decided to tell him familiar fairy tales while he was finishing his third ounce of formula. (a side note on feeding milo: i just wasn't producing enough milk for him, so i hook up to the "utter machine" - as i like to call it - when i can to pump out milk for him. however, we had to go to formula to supplement and make sure he was eating enough, so he gets everything from a bottle now. it was hard at first; i really wanted to be able to nurse him, plus it would have been so much easier for those late night feedings. but for now, i'll keep mooing along, and maybe when his motor skills are a little more developed, and he learns to ease up on that bite of his, nursing just might be a possibility.)

last night, i gave him my own version of the ugly duckling as well as goldilocks and the three bears. i stayed pretty close to the classic versions we all know and love, but in my retelling, there were 7 ducks and the ugly duckling. the 7 ducks were named monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday. tuesday had the softest fluffy yellow fuzz, wednesday was impeccably witty, and friday had the best webbed feet of them all. the ugly duckling was named december, because he was grey and cold and grumpy looking, they said. it ended with the swans saying that december is a perfect name, because of the beautiful white snow, and he was a beautiful white swan. and then december filed a complaint with the hospital where he was hatched, having been convinced he'd been switched at birth.

as for goldilocks and the three bears, goldie had muddy shoes that she left on baby bear's chair, she spilled the oatmeal and grits (no porridge in this story) all over the floor, and she wet the bed. when the bears found her, they assumed she was a runaway and tried to report her, but then realized she was an orphan, so they adopted her. she was henceforth teased by her bear-cousins at all the holiday gatherings for not being bear-like enough.

only 2 days left with my parents, then i'm on my own while ben's at work. i think i might be getting the hang of it, though. today's gone pretty well, so far...

last thing: i'm on the last three owls of the mobile (i've finished the front stitching for 1, and half of another, then i just have to stitch the fronts and backs and stuff 'em all). once they're complete, i can attach them to my painted white branches, and then we can hang it above milo's crib! (he only sleeps there during the day, since we have him in the cradle next to our bed at night, but still, it'll be the last finishing touch to his nursery, and then i can take/post pictures - yay!)

is there a problem, officer?

i'm not sure how street legal post-partum-brain is... not that my driving is dangerous, but my brain feels so dysfunctional lately, that i'll forget where i'm going, or i'll get in the left-turn lane when i want to go straight, or i won't even notice when i'm going in the complete opposite direction from what i should be driving.

and i've currently got the help of my parents so i can take extended naps during the day to make up for all of milo's wakings during the night.

i don't know how the single moms (and dads) out there do it, but my hat goes off to all of you. i know that if i had to do it all on my own, i'm pretty sure i could survive. still, it sure is nice to have them around for the time being.

see ya, stumpy!

milo's stump (the dried up leftover piece from where they clamped his umbilical cord) finally fell off today. there's still some leftover residual stuff, but it's fun to finally see his cute little bellybutton without that black stumpy bit in the way.

it's also very clear that milo's absolute least favorite activity is still getting his diaper and/or his clothing changed.

but otherwise, the little peanut is thriving. he gained 8 ounces at his last checkup (which is a vast improvement from his first and followup checkup, where he had lost a pound, and hadn't been gaining anything back yet).

i'm totally in love with the little guy.

he even peed on the wall the other day. ben was proud. i wiped it off, and i'm still in love with him. (milo, that is. and ben too, of course. although if ben peed on the wall, i don't think it'd be nearly as comical.)

one week today! one week ago...

i can't believe it's been a whole entire week already!

i can't believe that at this time last week, milo was inside me, and now he's not. one week ago, we had no clue if we were having a boy or a girl, and now we have a milo.

it's pretty mind boggling, really.

it's also milo's "supposed to be" birth-day today. but instead he was born exactly one week early, and i'm so glad he was!

so, in honor of his one week old-ness, this one's for him:

dear sweet little milo,

one week ago today you were born. the night before, your daddy and i had made a dish that was supposed to help women go into labor, because we were so excited to meet you, and we just didn't want to wait anymore. it was delicious, but when i woke up that next morning, i didn't really feel any different. i figured it probably wasn't going to work, and we went about our day like any other.

it was a perfectly gorgeous day out. brightly sunny, blue skies and even a little warm for this second weekend in october. we had decided we wanted to check out the farmer's market that's at the town square (isn't it so fun that we live in a town that has a town square?) every saturday till the end of this month.

so we got up a little bit early (for a saturday morning, anyhow), and got dressed, and headed out. there were so many fun vendors - a lady who sells mittens made from old wool sweaters, bird-house crafters, pastry bakers, honey-bee keepers, and of course, the farmers with their produce. we bought some kolodgekies (i have no idea how that pastry is spelled) for breakfast and ate them as we walked along checking everything out. there was also a muffin lady from whom we bought a pumpkin muffin that was quite delicious.

i got asked many times "when are you due?" with a clear indication that they were worried i might pop right then and there, and while i was certainly hoping it would be that day, i reassured them all that i still had a week to go.

we bought some homemade jams (a wild plum and a black raspberry), and some honey, since we were running out, and i love getting local honey. also a butternut squash which i had planned to bake that day and make filling to freeze for future butternut squash ravioli. next we went to the bagel place in town where they make their own bagels. except we only got a chai latte for me, and coffee for your dad, since we had already eaten plenty.

while we enjoyed our beverages and watched the people coming and going, we also planned out our day and the days ahead. we discussed which church we wanted to try out on sunday, since this was our first sunday we would have the chance to do so. we talked about what else needed to get done around the house, and decided that we would check out the walmart/target/fleet farm/etc to see if we could find a hanging pot rack and possibly a dvd rack (we didn't). as you can see, we weren't entirely convinced that the eggplant parmesan we'd eaten the night before would ensure your arrival.

as we went about, i was finding that i had to pee just about every 5 seconds. entering a store? "ooh, ben, i gotta pee!" leaving a store? "ooh, ben, i gotta pee!" on our way to the next store? "ooh, ben, i gotta pee!" we figured you had probably finally dropped, though i still couldn't tell from looking in a mirror.

by our last store, i was also feeling ravenously hungry for chocolate. we were at wal-mart, and we had bought something else too, but in looking for a check out line, i searched for the one with the crunch bars.

as i wolfed down the crunch bar (ben said it was scary, i opened it, and three bites later it was gone... i told him i was hungry), i started to notice that my stomach was getting hard, and all over hard, too. could these possibly be the fabled braxton hicks? i was also a fiery inferno of heat. it was a hot day to begin with, but every store we went into felt like a sauna... "ben, is it hot in here?" "no dear, it's just you." he said he could even see the sweat on my face and feel the heat in my hands. i was sure i was going to spontaneously combust at any second. after wal-mart, i told him to take me straight home so i could take a cold shower.

after showering, i had your dad feel my stomach during what i thought was a contraction; he felt it, too, and we both noticed that afterwards, my tummy felt squishy. so false or true, these were definitely contractions... they didn't seem all that regular or frequent though, so we decided i would drink some water, lie down and we watched a movie while we waited to see if they went away. they didn't.

i wanted it so badly to be true contractions, but i was also afraid to get too hopeful. i didn't want to get all excited to meet you and have it turn out that i still needed to wait another week. i decided that first, the dishes needed to be done and my hospital bag repacked incase this was true labor.

while running about, trying to get all these things done, feeling nervous, anxious, and completely absent minded about what i should be doing, i called christina who said to call the hospital and see what they had to say. (your dad said the same thing... i really need to get better about taking his suggestions.) so i did, and they said to start timing the contractions. doy! so i did. they were consistently 3-5 minutes apart, each lasting 30 seconds to 1 minute, and this went on for an hour (and continued). i called the hospital again, because they still were completely painless; it just felt too easy. (while i was timing, i got your dad to finish the dishes and install your carseat. i was in total nesting mode, and it was all i could do to force myself to just lay there and count.)

i was told that there was no guarantee that i was in labor, but that i should come in anyway. so your dad packed the car and i got myself in; i made him put the waterproof mattress liner on the passenger car seat in case my water broke on the way there (i did not want to have to deal with that mess).

i tried to stay calm as we made the 45 minute trip to the hospital, but the closer we got, the stronger the contractions got. i was sure this had to be it, and yet still so afraid to believe it and have my hopes dashed. the anxiety and tension of "is this or isn't this?" was entirely worse than the contractions (which, while still not quite painful, had started to become rather uncomfortable).

when we got there, they said i was 6 cm dilated and that they were keeping me!

which leads me to your birth, but i think that's a story for another day.

so there you have it, my sweet milo, that was how your dad and i spent our last day before you were born.

more on milo!

he is just so fascinating! even when he's been crying for what seems like hours, i still can't help but adore him.

here are just a few of my observations so far:

• his skin is the softest thing i've ever felt, and his hair is silkier than silk itself. i will never get tired of those two feelings.
• he's too strong for his own good and has amazing motor skills (i think?) i have no idea what the learning curve is on this one, but i'm gonna go with him ranking at amazing on the charts. :P anyhow, he's already able to hold his head up and/or push himself up a little bit against our chests when we're holding him for tummy time, and occasionally he rolls to his side when we lay him down, even when he's swaddled. he's also a biter, and a really strong one at that (which is the one and only thing i don't love about him).
• i had no idea a creature so tiny could create such an overly-audible noise... and i'm not talking about his wailing. i'm talking about his back end. (but with my middle-school humor, i still find it hilarious every time he toots.)
• sometimes when he gets into a really hard cry, he starts to squeak on the inhale. it breaks my heart to hear him cry, as i want nothing for him but love and happiness, but i'd be lying if i said that squeak didn't bring a little smile to my mouth every time.
• after feeding, he tends to go into what ben and i like to refer to as a food coma. tonight i was nursing him while watching "30 Rock"and he was feeding really well, so i wasn't fully paying attention... until i noticed he'd stopped eating; i looked down, he's still attached, but conked out... and snoring. it was awesome.
• then, while ben was burping him, he managed to - at least three times - fart (possibly even poop) and sneeze at the same time.

i totally love my kid. (working on posting pictures on facebook soon.... however, i won't be posting a link for them here.... not a huge fan of anybody and everybody who's on the world wide web having access to my sweet little pumpkin's face. so if you don't have facebook, let me know, and i'll email you the link.)