very Bad day

I ate something that really did not agree with Brennan's stomach and he cried for a large portion of the day today and had a nasty rash on his bum. I've ruled it down to mango or coconut milk. I'm going to assume it's the coconut.

I guess that's totally out for now. So far I'm not eating any type of other nuts or chocolate as it seems to bother him to varying degrees, also anything spicy.

Everyone went to bed early tonight, at 4:30 p.m. , even Sara. I guess the crying wore everyone out. I hope I'm not up at 2 a.m. with all of them but I probably will be.

Time to get to bed.

Even Paula can't get him to smile

Today Mr. Moose was smiling and cooing at me and it was soooo cute!! I tried to get it on camera but as soon as he sees the camera he gets a scared look on his face. I think he really does not like the camera very much. We took some pics anyway.

this picture cracks me up, Paula Dean is laughing and so is Sara, Brennan is not amused.


Daddy and Brennan were sitting happily together tonight after our walk around the neighborhood. Brennan was very content and then he pooped on Dan's shirt.

I'm too big for my clothes!

Brennan skipped wearing his newborn clothes and I will have to make sure he wears all the clothes I've bought him really fast before he outgrows them. Tonight I put him in a turtle jumper that looked huge on the hanger, it was size 3 months and it fit him just right. It was almost too tight around his middle. He's pretty solid, but aren't we all.

Sara loves holding him and posing for pictures with him. He wasn't too thrilled. He's so big she has to have a pillow to help her hold him but she kept telling me, I've got him Mom.

Library Day

Today we took Sara to the splash pad to play. Brennan sat in his stroller while she played. We have a window in the morning where he takes an hour nap before he's ready to get up. We were hoping to capitalize on that window.

It worked good until we go to to the library. He started to wake up but I was just hoping he could hang on for 10 minutes while we grabbed Sara some new books. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. Brennan dropped a huge bomb in his diaper on the way in, then he cried while we were picking out books. I tried to get Sara to help me with his pacifier while I picked out books but she was way too interested in finding Thomas books.

Somehow he managed to gag on his pacifier and threw up. I'm sure the library was glad to see us go, it was quite a fiasco. Then when I changed his diaper at the car, for the first time he reached his hand down and got poop on it. I knew it was coming sometime. I was pouring sweat by the time we were done with this outing.

He had some problems nursing today and I hope it's better tomorrow. As soon as the milk would start to come out he would cry and scream and pull away. It might have been some spicy food I ate the night before and I ate shrimp today. I hope that's all it is and it's not a new habit he's developing, we were all covered in milk because of it and I had to feed him formula tonight. I've also sprouted some Fenugreek seeds to produce more milk and I ate some today but I don't think that that would bother him though.

Thankful

Today I kept thinking how thankful I am for Brennan, he is so sweet and I love getting up and seeing him, even at 2 a.m. So far he is a much easier baby than Sara was. Even though I'm still not getting a ton of sleep. I hope he stays like he is and doesn't change too much because he is very easy to take care of and I don't feel stressed at all.

Dan really likes Brennan too. He stares at him and gives him kisses, you can tell he is really fond of him.

Brennan really likes to ride in the car. He hardly cries at all when we get into the car. Today we took a short ride just to calm him down. Sara gives me status updates on him from the back seat. She tells me if he's awake or asleep and what he's doing. She likes to inform me if he poops or has hiccups.

Tonight he seemed the most interactive yet. If you say something to him he looks at you. He loves to stare at my face for long periods of time. I swear that when I tell him to burp after eating, he knows what it means and he burps. He really holds up his head very well now and he kicks with his legs a lot, he is very strong.

I'm pretty sure he's gotten a lot longer and somewhat bigger. He's looking less chunky and a lot longer to me, I'll have to try to measure him soon. Today the scale said 11.5.

Moose's first bath

Brennan took his first real bath today since his umbilical chord fell off about 10 days ago. He was either terrified or really liked it because he sat perfectly still the whole time. It was nice with all the pooping that he does to be able to give him a soak and feel like he got clean. I have been giving him washcloth baths with no soap, just warm water, but that only goes so far.




He had two major blowout poops today, one got all over my shirt and my pillow. I've started to try to keep him wrapped in a blanket when he's on my lap to prevent the massive blowouts. They happen suddenly, loudly, and without any kind of warning causing everyone to jump, even Brennan.

I've been really thankful that he and Sara take their naps at the same time. Today I got three hours sleep along with them. I really needed it too because I only got a few hours the night before. Tonight we "woke" him up at 8 p.m. (he goes to be at 7) to go to the park with us. He didn't even really wake up, we just put him in his car seat and clipped him into the stroller and then upon arriving back home, he went soundly back into his bed. When he got up at midnight he ate and went right back to sleep, he seemed extra tired. I hope he sleeps until 4 a.m. or later now.

It's hard to believe that Brennan is a month old today! Wow, the time really flew by. I really need to try to enjoy every moment. He'll be big like Sara before we know it.

home from the hospital

This is a video we took as we were packing up leaving the hospital with Brennan after a 5 day stay.

Tag-a-long

Brennan came to Sara's music class today. Somehow he slept through the sticks banging, singing, and tambourines. I hope I'm able to keep him quiet for 45 minutes every week, if not, we'll be in the hallway a lot. I might need to get him a babysitter eventually but I'm not sure who that would be so I'll just have to manage.

As usual, he ate tons today. I fed him two bottles of formula last night and that's usually all of the formula he gets, the rest of the day he drinks breast milk.

Today his butt was a little red so I gave him little mini-butt wipe downs with a rag and water and used a hair dryer on him for the first time. He was scared of it for a second but then when he felt it was warm he seemed to like it.

He gets so mad when I put him down sometimes. It's just not possible for me to carry him all day long when I have Sara and myself to take care of too, so he has to spend some time in his jungle gym or in the bouncer. I hope he is able to learn to entertain himself more as he gets older, I'm sure he will. Today I hoked up a big octopus to his jungle gym with the elephants and that seemed to entertain him for a while. I was able to give Sara a bath while he batted at it.

I like the schedule he is on and hope it stays that way. He takes a nap with Sara and he goes to bed at 7 p.m. and wakes back up at midnight, which isn't too late for me. Then I feed him a bunch at midnight and he can sleep until 4 a.m. It's way better than getting up at 2 a.m. which sometimes still happens but if he's feeling well he'll just sleep. Usually at 4 a.m. I can put him back down and he'll sleep until 6 a.m. when Dan is ready to get up.

Swatting the Elephants

Brennan really has gotten good at bonking his elephant toy. It's a jingling elephant toy that swings above his head when he lays in his jungle gym. He swatted at it for a good 10 minutes this morning.

For some reason, he was up every hour last night. Luckily he slept this afternoon so I could get some sleep. I wonder if he gets any caffeine that I might eat in his milk. There didn't appear to be anything wrong with him last night, he just kept waking up.

He's been consistently weighing 11 lbs and a few oz's this week so I think he has gained a little weight.

Brennan is also getting more and more interactive. He will focus on me and watch me intensively. He does the best when I put him down to play, if I hold him he will relentlessly beg for food. He makes a loud "barking" cry if he's really ready to be picked up. If he's cold, sometimes that happens after his bath, he frowns really big and says "weh" when he cries. It's really cute, I need to get it on tape. He really will only cry if he's hungry or if he's tired so it's pretty easy to figure out what he needs. I feel like I understand him really well and he's really simple and I feel successful taking care of him. Sara was really hard to figure out and Dan did most of her comforting and care. He seemed to always understand her needs better.

We swaddle him to help him go to sleep. The tighter he is swaddled the better he will sleep. Dan is the way better swaddler, he does the wrap so tight that Brennan grunts every time he puts the wrap around him. He can usually escape out of mine and then he will end up sucking on his fist and he won't sleep well. When I get really desperate for him to sleep though, I can usually get it right.

Blowout

Brennan slept most of the day today. Tonight we went up to Salt Lake for his cousin Benny's third birthday party. I was unsure whether we should try to make the trip but decided to just go for it. The drive up was uneventful but upon arrival we discovered that Brennan had done a massive poop that soaked halfway up the back of his onsie and onto his car seat pad behind him. He can really make a mess! Luckily I had brought him a change of clothes and we got him cleaned up without even having to cut his onsie off.

We were happy that he got to see his grandparents and Ben and Wendy but we didn't stay long. We booked it for home. It's hard to travel and be on the road with a baby, even for short trips.

I'm hoping everyone gets some sleep tonight. Dan has been so great to let me sleep in late in the mornings and he has been getting up to do the 5 a.m. feeding. Today I also got flowers because as Dan said, "I'm a good Mom".

It's hard to believe Brennan will be 4 weeks old on Monday. Next week Sara's music class starts back. I'm a little nervous about handling two kids during the class, I hope it goes well.

A sick day

Brennan seemed to feel sick today. He threw up a lot more than normal. I hope it's just a fluke and not a pattern starting up or a sign that he's really sick. He hardly ever throws up so it's out of the ordinary. By the end of the day today we were all covered in baby puke and poop. I give Brennan a wipe down bath every day but he really needed it today.


Also, last night he had a massive poop diaper. It exploded out the back of his diaper and up his back. It was so bad that I ended up cutting his onesie off of him and throwing it away. He's a real pooper, we had poop on the floor the other day and we're not even sure how it got out of his diaper as it wasn't on us or his clothes. Also he has massive farts that scare everyone. With Sara she would scream so you knew something was coming but with him they just boom out without warning.


In other news, his umbilical chord stump has finally fallen off so he can have a normal bath soon. He doesn't seem to like water all that much yet so I'm not sure he'll really enjoy it.

I only got three hours sleep last night staying up with him. I hope we all get more sleep tonight.

25 Days

Brennan is 25 Days old and it seems like he's already been here forever with us.  Above is his first photo.  I think Dan took it on his iphone and then he brought the phone over to me as I was laying on the operating table so I could see Brennan better.

He seems really strong and will hold his head up a lot of the time. He is getting tummy time already and holds his head up and looks around. He was also able to roll himself over onto his back from his tummy this week. I would have thought it was just a fluke except he did it three times. I told Dan that seems rather early, usually babies are about three months old before they can roll themselves over.

Brennan's favorite things are to eat and sleep. He's great at both. He also has enjoyed looking at us more, he makes eye contact a lot.

He really lets you know when he's hungry or tired, he throws a big fit and really wrinkles up his face but once you give him what he wants he settles down very quickly and is mellow.

We are watching his weight and making sure he is gaining. I am pumping extra, giving formula, and breast feeding him. The scale says he's up a few ounces. We can already tell that the diapers we just bought him are fitting tighter, he feels solid, especially around his middle.

I'm trying to increase my milk to keep up with him. He can drink a 3oz bottle in about 10 seconds. I'm able to pump about 6 oz twice a day and then sometimes 2 or 3 oz here or there while he sleeps. I've been drinking a beer every other day, it's supposed to help milk production and it seems to really be helping a lot. I just wish I liked beer more, it takes me a whole day to drink one.