One Month Already??

Holy crap! It's already been a month since Olivia was born! It feels more like a week or two at the most. Absolutely amazing!

We're doing pretty well...once again, Amanda is the one who's got the raw end of the deal. We now own a Medela electric breast pump and it has helped out a little so far. The problem is for Amanda to get more sleep, she'll need to stockpile milk. At this point, she pumping just enough for me to take one of the overnight feedings and that's it. What she'll probably have to do is feed Olivia the "old fashioned way" for a few days and pump in between so the bottled reserve is built up to the point that it could last more than just a feeding or two.

We're also going to try moving Olivia to her crib tonight for the first time. Until now, she's been sleeping in the bassinet next to our bed. We have come to find out Olivia is a rather noisy sleeper. She grunts, squeaks, and yelps as she sleeps. We refer to this as Olivia having "doggie dreams". For all you dog owners, you know exactly what we're talking about. Amanda is quite sensitive to whatever sound Olivia makes and is constantly waking up because of that. We've got a good baby monitor, so we're going to have a go at Olivia sleeping in her own room tonight. I don't expect to sleep much tonight, but we've got to start this transition some night and tonight's as good a night as any. Wish us luck.

Here are a few pictures of Olivia as she reaches her first milestone...one month with us. This first one was taken after her bath yesterday. Amanda decided to use the blow drier to assist the drying process...and you can see what it did to Olivia's hair!




***This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but I had problems uploading the pictures.

Rough Week

This past week has been rather rough...especially on Amanda. Sleep depravation, frequent baby feedings, and Olivia dealing with quite a bit of congestion (another cold) has left Amanda exhausted and frustrated. Until now, there's been little I could do to help her out...but a hopeful solution will be delivered later on today in the form of an electric breast pump. That will allow Amanda to pump ahead of time which will give me the opportunity to do the overnight feedings and let Amanda get more than two hours of sleep at a time. Amanda's made it through four weeks of pure breast feeding and now it's time to give her a break. Here's hoping everything with the pump goes well!

With the exception of the congestion issue, Olivia is doing very well. We're still in the "eat/sleep/pee & poop" phase of her life...she really isn't doing much else right now. We give her "belly time" and work with her to help build her leg and arm strength. The rest of the time I spend doing stuff around the house like dishes, laundry, cooking, and other miscellaneous tasks I have on my "to do" list. Next week, I go back to work on a "regular schedule". I've enjoyed the time off spending it with Amanda and Olivia. It will be tough going back to work, but there are bills to pay. :-)

Here are a couple recent pictures of Olivia:

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter. Saturday night, Amanda and I were confirmed in the Catholic church (so was my sister...congrats, Jen!) and we took Olivia along...well, we kind of took Olivia along. We had my mom stay with Olivia in the cry room and it's a good thing we did. Olivia had a healthy fit while she was in there and it took an emergency feeding from Amanda for her to calm down. On top of that, we accidentally left the diaper bag at the house. Oops. Yes, we are still learning and that was a big blunder on our part. Thankfully, we made it through the rest of the two-hour service without any additional incidents. Now that Amanda and I are confirmed, the next step will be to have Olivia baptized. That will probably take place in a month or two. We don't dare do it anytime soon because this time of year, severe weather episodes are notorious for ruining family events.

For Easter, Grandpa Warren Smith sent down a pair of bunny ears for Olivia to wear. Based on the collection of pictures I got of Olivia wearing the ears, she really didn't think too highly of them. Have a look:

Oh well, you can't win them all I guess. Nice try, Grandpa Warren. I do want to say a big "Thank you" to Grandma Pauline Smith (my mom) for being here this past week and getting a lot of things done that would not have been done around here for a long time. Thanks mom!

Olivia's been doing really well...with the exception getting Olivia to understand that nighttime is the time to sleep, not throw a baby party. Somehow, I think we'll be battling this issue for quite some time. Amanda is doing very well too...except for the severe lack of sleep. See above for the reason why.

I have definitely noticed changes in Olivia's appearance from the time we brought her home to now. I also have a new "favorite picture"...it's one I took of Olivia while she was sleeping on our bed. A couple other pictures follow.

The above picture is for my mom who has a strange fascination with Olivia's feet.

Two Weeks Old

Hard to believe Olivia is two weeks old already! It's astounding how fast time has gone by. I'm sure it won't slow down any time soon either. Tuesday, we were concerned that Olivia may have come down with some sort of cold or illness. She was congested and was having difficulty feeding without coughing. So, we called the pediatrician and we went in to have her checked out. Turns out, we were just being over-protective first-time parents. Gee, there's a shocking revelation. So, while we were there, Dr. Scott did her two week check up. She's in the 25th percentile in both weight and length. That means 75% of girls her age are heavier and longer than Olivia, but the fact that she's equally proportionate is a good thing. The amusing part is her head size is in the 50th percentile...so she's already getting a big head! Otherwise, she's in very good health and feeding very well. She currently weights 7 pounds, 9.6 ounces and is 20 inches long.

Now here's something interesting...Jennifer, my sister, sent me my pictures as a baby and the comparison is absolutely incredible! On the left is a picture of me one day old. On the right is a picture of Olivia 9 days old. Amazing, isn't it?

There's no denying Olivia is my daughter...right down to the ears! Her face is a little more round and she has Amanda's nose, but the eyes, mouth, and ears look a lot like mine as a baby.

Here are a few more pictures...the first is Olivia with our friends' baby Jett Longanecker. With any luck Jett and Olivia will be able to play together as they grow. Jett's parents Amy and Jameson (both have their own blogs) are simply awesome people! Hopefully, we can do many things together!!

Grandma Pauline (my mom) arrived here yesterday and she's really enjoying her time with Olivia. She'll be here for a week spending as much time as she can with her new granddaughter.

Here are a couple more miscellaneous pictures of Olivia from the past few days. Enjoy!

Learnin' the Ropes

The learning curve is intense, but it's worth it! Amanda and Olivia have gotten into a good groove when it comes to feeding. I'm handling the burping and diaper changing like a champ. We even got daring and gave Olivia a bath yesterday. That really went off without a hitch as well. Here's a picture of Olivia's first bath!

I'm doing my best to take plenty of pictures now while Olivia is still young...everyone keeps telling me she'll grow up so fast. Here are a few more candid shots of our little sweetpea.

We're Home

We are finally home. We got back to the house around noon on Saturday. Saturday was kind of a rough day. Amanda and I were both exhausted, but Amanda still needed to feed Olivia and I wanted to get stuff unpacked from the hospital stay and clean up around the house a little bit. On top of that, Olivia was having a gastrointestinal problem. In other words, she had gas built up in her digestive tract and it made her fussy and uncomfortable. All that made for a very long afternoon, evening and night. Amanda told me to get some sleep, which I did. She had Olivia sleep on her chest in the recliner. Amanda tried a few things to aleviate the gas problem and by this morning, it was no longer an issue. We think it had something to do with the time in between feedings. Amanda was feeding her roughly every two to three hours. Last night, Amanda threw in a couple additional feedings and that seemed to do the trick. Amanda is doing such a magnificent job as a mom...diagnosing problems, brainstorming solutions with me, and being willing to try different things if the original plan of attack didn't work. She's been such a trooper...but now she needs some rest and that's what she's doing. Amanda took a shower, I massaged her achy back, she fed Olivia, and now is taking a well-deserved nap. We're working on establishing a routine, but it's going to take some time to figure out when things need to happen. We're definitely still in exploratory mode. Here are a few pictures from the past couple of days. The first is the official "we're home" picture of Olivia in her bassinet at the house. The second is me burping my little angel.


Plenty more pictures to come soon. Lastly, thanks to all of you who kept us in your thoughts and prayers over the past 10 months. It means so much to us to know we have friends and family who love and care for us. You've been there for us in the past and we know you'll be there for us in the future. So, thank you for all you've done and all you will do.