Jan came to visit and meet her new grandson on Saturday, the 13th. She was with us for Mother's Day and enjoyed being with Caleb every possible minute! While she was here, she was very sweet to cook and freeze some meals for us, help us keep the house cleaned up and let me get some much-needed sleep. She left on Wednesday, the 17th. We'll see her again the weekend of Father's Day, when we go to Arkansas to visit family.
On Thursday, the 18th, I took Caleb to McAlister's for lunch to meet some of my friends from work. Michael, Colleen, Jenny, Monica, Tanya and Tanya's baby, John were all there. Caleb was passed from one person to another and everyone just loved on him! As always, he was a sweet baby and we had no problems at all! After lunch, we ran a couple of errands and then came home...exhausted! Jenny came over Thursday night for dinner and the final episode of Will and Grace.
On Friday, Becca and Jimmy Spencer came to visit from Indiana. Becca is my cousin and is expecting a baby boy in September. They were so excited about meeting Caleb. We had a great time! They brought us a fun basket of goodies for Caleb and a special treat for Rudy and I too. It was so sweet of them!
Friday was BELLY BUTTON DAY at our house! Caleb's umbilical cord stump fell off on Friday night. He's officially an innie, not an outie!
On Saturday, we went to Babies R Us to help Becca decided what she wanted to register for. We were worn out by that whole experience! Caleb slept the whole time - big surprise!
Becca and Jimmy left this morning and we have had a relaxing day at home. Rudy has been grading his last group of playing tapes for the year, I've read the paper and watched the Cardinals game and Caleb has done his usual routine of sleeping, eating and getting his diaper changed. What a life!
Everything is going very well for us as a new family. We are settling into our routine - as much of a routine as we have when I'm not working. Caleb has been an absolute joy to this point. Even the nighttime feedings aren't that bad. I enjoy the peacefulness of them. We've decided to help him (and ourselves) by trying to make the nighttime feedings as quick and unstimulating as possible. We keep the lights low and we don't interact with him much, other than to feed and change him, calm him with a low voice and help him get back to sleep. So far, it has worked pretty well. He has set himself on a 3 hour schedule, so we know when to expect the next feeding to be needed. He eats 3-4 ounces of formula at every feeding. He's been staying awake during the day for longer periods of time the past couple of days. That's been fun, because he's really looking around a lot and staring at us. Bless his heart - maybe he's figured out that he has to stay with us! That has to be a little scary!!! :)
We keep bottles filled with room temperature water and we keep formula dispensers measured out and ready to be used. That makes feedings much quicker and helps Caleb to not get as fussy when he's hungry.
We are taking advantage of the "expert advice" that we've read in several places telling us that you can't spoil a newborn. Everything we read says that when they are this small (up to 6 months), there's no reason not to hold and comfort them as much as they (and we) want to. That's a good thing, because he is so sweet and we love to hold him, kiss on him and could literally spend hours a day just staring at him. We try to get as much of that in as possible while he's awake so that we can spend his sleeping time during the day accomplishing the tasks of the day, but there is nothing sweeter than holding a sleeping baby.
Tomorrow is our 7th Anniversary. We really don't have any plans other than to stay at home and enjoy our new family status. We have both said that we are glad that we waited this long to have a baby and that we have enjoyed the experiences that we were able to have in the past 7 years. Now, it's just time to enjoy our new stage in life and the new stage of our relationship. We are as in love with each other as always and now we are in love with our little boy. Blessings abound!
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