I Decided to Blog - Just not here yet

July 3, 2007


Christopher Dean Farren was born on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 at 6:56PM. He weighed in at 8lbs, was 20 inches long, and his head was 13.7 inches round. We were told that babies are expected to lose up to 10% of their birth weight during the first 48 hours – Christopher lost only 3.5 %. He was jaundice – 13.8 as of Saturday, June 16th, but by the time we went to his doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, June 19th he was MUCH better. At that appointment he weighed 8lbs 3 oz, was almost 21 inches long, and his head was 14.17 inches. The boy is an eater!

So I decided that I should try to blog Christopher’s first year (at least) of life. Tomorrow will mark 3 weeks since our little bundle of joy came into this world. I am so excited about being a mom. It’s been a fairly interesting couple of weeks. Lots of 1 hour or 2 hour naps – very little sleep over 3 hours! Oh and there was the morning when I woke up at like 5:30AM after putting Christopher to sleep at like 1ish. I was a little excited, and then I looked in the crib and saw that he was cozied up to the side of the crib with his face in the side. SCARED ME TO DEATH ~ okay, not literally as I am still living, but it did scare me. I thought, of course he didn’t wake me up, he smothered himself as I was sleeping. Needless to say, I sent Tim out for a sleeping wedge that day!! I think that was right before he turned 1 week old. Heck it might have been the weekend we came home from the hospital.

GENERAL: Shelley and Anne left yesterday. It really was nice to have them here and helping. Shells cooked for us every night – I’m going to have to get into doing that!! Chris and I’ve been getting back into the swing of things today. Although yesterday afternoon and evening was touch and go he’s doing great today!

CHRISTOPHER:
Chris lost his belly button at about 4AM on Sunday morning (July 30th) so he got to have his first real bath last night (July 2nd)!!! He wasn’t a big fan of the experience, mostly because he got cold I think. I’m not sure how to avoid that.
Today I’ve been working on getting Christopher into a new routine. I know there are a lot of people that say let the baby set the tone, but I’ve just been having a difficult time functioning in that manner. And Christopher seems fussier when we don’t have some sort of routine ~ although he is a little fussy right now (6:45PM). Right now he’s really tired and fighting going to sleep. I really hope this E.A.S.Y. system works – it’s by the “Baby Whisperer” and it makes sense. He eats, has his activity (including diaper changes, baths, etc.) and then he sleeps and I get some time. I do think it will work well once I get him completely adjusted to going to sleep on his own in his crib, as opposed to be rocked or nursed to sleep.
On a health note, I noticed that his belly button had a yellow crustiness around it. I think it is still trying to completely dry out. I can’t tell yet if it will be an innie or an outie. It looks like an innie that pokes out above the belly, but that could be because it’s still healing.

ME: I’m adjusting fairly well. I still have weepy moments, but those are usually when I just want to have some alone time with Tim and I can’t. Keep in mind, it’s been only Tim and I for almost 11 years. I’m not used to sharing my time with anyone but him. I’m sure he feels the same way, then again, maybe he likes the break from me being “up his butt all the time”! I’m hoping to start making evening meals sometime this week. Maybe not tomorrow since it’s the 4th of July. And I’m looking forward to going up to Nebraska in a couple of weeks. Not really excited about the trip with a newborn, but at least we got a direct flight both ways. Christopher and I will leave on July 13th (his one month birthday) and return home two weeks later on July 27th. Matt and Amy will have their wedding blessed in a church ceremony and they plan on having all the kids (nephews and nieces too) up front during the ceremony, including Christopher if he’ll cooperate. Not sure how THAT will go, but we’ll see. I hope he’ll be asleep in his car seat. I’m just so tickled that they asked me to have him up front with them and all his little nieces (and Amy’s brother’s son I’m sure).

TIM: What an awesome daddy! I’ve really enjoyed watching him with Christopher, he’s doing an amazing job. They’ve already played the drums together ~ Chris fell asleep though! And he’s changed quite a few diapers, all I have to do is ask. So far so good. I can’t wait to watch them together. Oh, and apparently Tim’s daddy instincts kicked in pretty quickly. Last Sunday, June 24th, Tim told me he thought I should stay home full time with Christopher. He said he thought it would be better for Chris’ development. So the next day I took my letter of resignation up to D.A. I felt a little bad because I had previously told them I would teach 3 classes every other day. But they were very understanding and told me that when I was ready to return that they’d try to find me a position.

US: we are great! I think Tim and I both appreciate the other even more than before. We aren’t getting as much time together as I’d like, but that’s okay. I’m sure Christopher will be sleeping through the nights soon and I’ll be able to have some Tim time again! That’s definitely been the most difficult part of this whole process. I miss cuddling with my husband. At least he’s here a lot (when he’s not working I of course). And they are still going to have band night here every other week, so I won’t miss out on having him here at those times. I think that might have been his idea, but I’m not sure.


So that’s it for now. It’s a long one, but only because it’s the first and it reflects 3 weeks of life. I’ll try to keep this thing updated fairly frequently, but no guarantees. Okay, I have to go wake up the little dude. It’s feeding time!!!