Jaron is Two Months Old

Today is Jaron's two month birthday. Unfortunately we celebrated by taken him to the doctor for his two month check up and he got three shots. He did really well though. He only let out one really loud cry, turned red, stopped breathing, let out another little wimper and was done. Then I fed him and he was perfectly fine. When he woke up from his nap he was all smiles.

Jaron weighs 11 lbs 3 oz is 24 inches long and his head is 15 3/4 inches. You are probably wondering how Jaron compares to Josiah at this age. Josiah weighed 12 lbs 8 oz, was 23 inches long and his head was 16 1/4 inches.

Jaron is a very laid back baby. He smiles and coos a lot and he hardly ever fusses unless he is tired or hungry. Sometimes he has a rough evening, but don't we all. He is okay with just hanging out in his bouncy chair or on the floor as long and he can hear people's voices nearby. This is quite different from Josiah who had to be doing everything I was. Josiah didn't learn how to play by himself until he was two and he still isn't very good at it. He still wants to be doing whatever I am doing.

Here are some of the latest pictures.

I could leave him in his bouncy chair and he would stare at the animals all day and be perfectly content.

Here he is doing tummy time. Sometimes during tummy time he will just lay there and suck on his fist. At other times he is very active. When he is active he does "supermans" where he will hold his head and his feet up at the same time. That is what he is doing in this picture.

Here he is just hanging out.

I Finally have Pictures

Jason was taking the camera to work everyday so I could never take any pictures of the boys. I finally stole it from him so now I finally have pictures to share with you.

Josiah helping make waffle dough.

Jaron hanging out with Daddy.

"You're funny daddy!"

"What is that noise? Oh yeah, its my big brother."

Josiah walking in Daddy's shoes

What I have Learned About Jaron and Josiah

Had some extra time so I thought I would post an update. Sorry no pictures because Jason has the camera. :(

Our family has been really busy. Jason has been working 50-60 hours a week on top of school. Despite his business he still is making time to play with Josiah at night before bed and trying to cuddle with Jaron for a few minutes each day. He has very short nights and I am surprised that he still functioning.

I have been busy supporting my sleep deprived husband and holding to my promise of getting to know my boys better. Josiah and I have been having fun putting puzzles together lately. He has a 3x4 foot Noah's Ark puzzle he loves. He is getting really good at reasoning through where the pieces go. I almost don't have to help him anymore. We have been going on walks almost everyday. This has been good for both Josiah and I. We have fun looking at the birds flying around and picking up rocks to through into the creek. Josiah also getting to age where he can help more. He enjoys helping load the dishwasher and washing dishes. He is also a big help getting me things when I have my hands full with Jaron. I went grocery shopping by myself with the two boys for the first time this past week. Josiah did a great job of following a long side the cart and putting the groceries in the cart. I couldn't have asked for a better toddler.

Jaron is a much happier baby (and I am a much happier mom). I finally have Jaron on some resemblence of a schedule. I have done a lot of reading on infant sleep needs and done a lot of experimenting and I think I finally figured out what he needs to have a good day. He hardly ever cries now. In my two weeks of experimenting I learned that he can't fall asleep if his room is too bright, he needs to be swaddled, and he starts getting tired after 45-50 minutes of being awake so I have to watch and make sure he goes to bed around that time or it takes forever to get him settled enough to sleep. Today my hard work was rewarded when I went into his room to get him after a nap. I popped my head over the side of his crib to unswaddle him and I was greeted with a big smile. I know now all my hard work of trying to get him good sleep is paying off. He is a happy baby. My next challenge is getting him to drink from a bottle. I have been trying the past couple of days to give him milk from a bottle. I want him to know how to do it in case I can't be around or I lose my milk supply. So far he won't do it even if he is hungry. He chews on the nipple for a while then once he tries to suck on it he gags and spits the nipple bak out. I am going to go buy some different nipples to see if that helps.

I think that is it for an update. Since Jaron is starting to smile I am hoping to be able to capture it on camera. As soon as I do I will post the pictures.

Thank God for Swaddlers

One of the biggest challenges of taking care of newborn is making sure that they get plenty to eat and plenty of sleep. It seems in the first few weeks getting them to sleep is easy. Sometimes they will forgo eating so they can sleep. But around week 3 or 4 sleeping becomes more of a problem. This was the case with Jaron. He slept great for me the first couple of weeks. He took good naps and slept well at night. Then he began to not nap well and the amount he slept at night went down. After a couple of days of this both Jaron and I were exhausted. It was so sad to see him looking up at me with his droopy eyes. I knew he was exhausted. He would fall asleep for a few minutes in my arms only to startle and wake back up. Only after being awake for hours would he be so exhausted that he would finally go to sleep. After a couple of weeks of this and trying everything I knew to do, rock him, nurse him to sleep, bounce him around in my arms, etc. I decided I needed some more ideas because things couldn't go on this way.

I found a blogspot where this lady is kind enough to share with the rest of the world her secrets to helping her kids sleep. She has read several books on getting your baby to sleep and has combined them to get her 3 kids to sleep well. One of the things she mentioned was swaddling your kids. I know swaddling isn't anything new, but I didn't swaddle Jaron because he didn't seem to like it. I put a swaddle around his torso and legs to keep him warm but I never put his arms in the swaddle because he liked to have them up near his face. She said you should swaddle your baby whether they like it or not because it prevents his arms from moving around and waking him up. After watching Jaron try to fall asleep I realized this was his problem. He moves so much in his sleep he would wake himself up.

So Thursday evening (evening is the toughest time of day to get him to fall asleep) we stuck him in a swaddle. He fussed and wiggled around for a minute and then he was out. He took a good nap. That night he went 5 hours before eating and slept 12 hours. Yesterday he went down easily for all his naps and last night slept 10 1/2 hours waking every 4 hours to eat. We both woke up rested and happy. I am so grateful swaddling Jaron was all it took to help him sleep.

Auntie Pam, thank you for the swaddlers. They are amazing.

Jaron is one month old!

I can hardly believe it has been a month since Jaron was born. It seems like it only happened a week ago. Time goes by really fast when you have two kids. Jaron is doing great despite all the breathing problems he had at the beginning. He still has times where is appears to be panting, but that is only when he has been overstimulated. It appears he is easily overstimulated at this point in his life. I am learning how much awake time is too much awake time. If I keep Jaron up a few minutes too much, it is a rough next four hours trying to get him settled into a good nap. But, if I get him to bed on time, we have a great day. Josiah was the same way and it was a balance I had to learn with him as well. We are learning. But even though he can't take naps very well, he is sleeping good at night, so I can't complain too much. He is up to sleeping 3.5 hours between feedings, so I feel pretty rested when I get up in the morning. Josiah and Jaron also take a nap at the same time, so I can get a nap in if I need one. While having two kids isn't the easiest thing to balance, it has so far been a lot easier than I had anticipated. Josiah has been a wonderful helper and big brother. I couldn't have asked for a better toddler. The church has also been a big help by bring food. We got food all last week and than again this week. Next week I am going to learn how to cook dinner while having two kids. Wish me luck.

Here are pictures taking of Jaron on his on month birthday. He is getting so big.

Josiah gets excited when I put Jaron on the floor so he can play with him.
He has a had a newborn rash for two weeks now. It is starting to look better today.

I think he looks a lot like his daddy especially when he raises that eyebrow

Getting to Know My Boys

It is Sunday afternoon and I am enjoying a few quiet moments while the boys are sleeping. We all went to church today for the first time since Jaron was born to listen to Jason preach. While Jason did a great job (you can visit www.2020circle.com to listen to his sermon) we were all exhausted from the energy it took. Josiah, while eating his lunch, started making up a song about how he was tired and it was time to take a nap. Once he went down, Jaron woke up to eat and play and I have been spending the past 2 hours trying to get him to go to sleep. Too much stimulation from church has made it difficult for him to sleep. So while I have been trying to calm my newborn I have been thinking about the my life since Jaron was born. For the past couple of weeks I feel I have been living in survival mode, just surviving from one feeding to the next, while trying to spend time with Josiah and attend to household chores. But the past couple of nights Jaron has been sleeping a lot better and I have awaken from my walking zombie state. Now that I am awake I realize that Josiah has changed a lot over the past month, and despite the fact that I spend most of my time with Jaron I haven't deliberately tried to get to know him. Now I want to take a more proactive approach to parenting. For the next couple of weeks I am going to limit the amount of activities I am going to and I am taking the time to get to know my children better and how I can best love and appreciate them. I am going to start a journal and write about the different things I notice about them. I plan to use it as a reference to help me plan how to better care for them.

Here are some things I have already noticed:

1. Jaron is sensitive to too much stimulation. I am going to have limit what I can take him to until he matures more.

2. When Jaron is awake he likes it when you whisper to him and have your face close enough to where he can see you.

3. Josiah is in the "why" stage and is curious about everything, especially animals and cars. I need to start coming up with creative ways to channel his curiosity such as trips to the library to get books on these topics.

4. Today I realized that Josiah is a born leader even at the age of 2. He has a great ability to get people involved in whatever he is doing and make people feel great for being involved in the activity. For instance, today at church Josiah, Jaron and I sat "training room." It is a room in the back behind a glass window that has a speaker so you can take your noisy kids back there and train them how to not be noisy while still being able to hear what is going on in the auditorium. I decided to sit back there to decrease the amount of germs and stimulation Jaron would be exposed to. There is also a bathroom in the training room. Right before Jason started to speak, he lead the congregation in singing a "Firm Foundation", one of Josiah's favorite songs. A 7 year old boy named Brennen came walking in to use the bathroom. The bathroom was already occupied so he sat next to Josiah to wait. Josiah turned to him, "You have to sing." The boy smiled at Josiah but didn't sing. "No, you have to sing," Josiah insisted. The boy started singing softly, mostly to appease Josiah. However, the excitement Josiah had in singing his favorite song carried over to the boy and he started singing louder, smiling, and started swaying to the beat.

I look forward to understanding and getting to know my boys more over the next few weeks. I pray that God will give me wisdom and insight into raising them to be the men God desires them to be.

The Incredible Journey of my Amazing Doctor

In previous posts I have bragged about how amazing my OB doctor was. Dr. Piepmeier always answered my questions and had great advice to relieve some of the aches and pains of pregnancy. I always thought highly of him, but when he walked 4.2 miles in an ice storm to deliver my baby, he only confirmed what I had already thought. He was a doctor that really cares about his patients and is willing to go the extra mile (or 4) for them.

The hospital got word of Dr. Piepmeier's amazing journey to Jaron's delivery and contacted the local newspaper. They decided it would make a great story. As a result Dr. Piepmeier came over to the house yesterday and we shared with the newspaper what happened the night of Jaron's birth. I had never heard Piepmeier's story, but it was pretty amazing and thought I would share with everyone else his trek that night.

At 11:30 Dr. Piepmeier decided he should start heading into the hospital. He lives on top of a hill. He started to drive his car but before he even got to the incline his car slid to the side of the road. He decided at that point it was too dangerous to drive down his hill. So he went back to his house, put on his warm clothes and grabbed some cardboard. He decided it was safer to slide down the hill on the cardboard instead of trying to walk. So imagine and 47 year old, 6'7" bald guy sledding down the hill at midnight during an ice storm. Is the picture kind of humorous? The college students out walking around that night (it was the last day of finals and they were celebrating) found it funny as well and he got some fun comment from them.

After he safely made it down the hill he began walking main drags to the hospital. During his walk he walked through our church's parking lot and he said he began to wonder if he was going to make it on time to deliver the baby. But his long legs covered ground fairly quickly despite the ice. However, before he would reach the hill where the hospital is located, he end up falling 3 times. Once he reached the hill he said he literally had to crawl up it because it was too icy to walk normal. At 1:00 he made it to the hospital. He was really sweaty and needed to take a shower. I finally saw him at 1:30am. He walked into the room and apologized for running late, but he had to walk to get there. I of course forgave him and told him thank you for walking on that way. Jaron was born an hour and half later.

Dr. Piepmeier left the hospital at 7:30am. He got a ride from a nurse who dropped him off at the bottom of the hill he lives on. He said he had to crawl up it to get home. Later that day (after he had taken a good long nap) he was out walking his dogs. The neighbors came out and asked, "Were you the guy who was crawling up the hill early this morning?"
"Yes, " he answer. "I just got back from delivering a baby."

It was really enjoyable having him over and listening to everything he went through for us. He held Jaron for awhile. When the reporter asked Dr. Piepmeier if there were any other exciting weather related births he had done, his reply was, "Nope. This one takes the cake." It is going to be fun to share with Jaron how his doctor braved the ice to be there for his birth.