6 Weeks...Almost

As of tomorrow, Cooper will be 6 weeks old. I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with his sleeping! Saturday night he slept from 10:30pm until 5:00am! I guess technically he slept from 8pm to 5am, I did get him up to eat at 10:30, but he barely woke up to do so. Last night, he did the same with a brief intermission at 3:00. I would have fed him when he woke up at 3:00, but I thought it was 1:00, so I just gave him his paci and went back to bed.

My alarm clock is one of those atomic clocks that sets itself and keeps time based on some highly scientific method that, I have no clue how it works, I just know that the time is accurate and I don't have to worry with changing it come Daylight Savings Time. So last night, when I heard Cooper waking up, I checked my clock as I got out of bed. When I saw that it was only 1am, I simply gave him his pacifier and went back to bed. Keith asked me "Is he done eating already?" and I told him it was only 1am, so I was going to have him hold off till 3:00 if he would do so.

He said, "But it IS 3:00."

And I said, "No, it's only 1:00. Your clock is wrong."

Garrett is notorious for playing with Keith's alarm clock and changing the time on it, so we both assumed that was what happened and went back to sleep. When Cooper woke up 2 hours later, I got up and headed to his room to feed him. When I turned on the lamp in his bedroom, I glanced at his clock and, surprise!, it was actually 5:00, not 3:00. Apparently my clock WAS wrong. I felt badly because had I known it was actually 3:00 2 hours prior, I would have fed Cooper. But thankfully he didn't even take the full bottle that I offered him, so he wasn't THAT hungry. When I got up later this morning at 7:00, my clock had fixed itself! I hope it doesn't do that again because now I'm not going to trust it to be correct.

On another note, I know I badmouthed summer television programming, but I can say that I'm thankful for "Wipeout". Garrett LOVES this show. He will readily agree to just about anything in order to watch it. Inevitably, he will have his own obstacle course set up in the living room by the end of the show. He also enjoys giving us a play by play, along with a visual, of what each person has done. Thank goodness for baby equipment because it gives him more items he has to maneuver around.

Tomorrow we're headed to my cousin's house to see her and her new baby along with a visit with my grandparents. This will entail a 1 hour car ride there and back. It will be Cooper's longest car ride yet and our longest amount of time spent outside of the house so far. When Garrett was about this age, we did something similar, except we drove 2 and a half hours one way to meet up with my family in Huntsville for a day. Just me and Garrett. He did really well and slept the majority of the trip. So hopefully the same will apply for tomorrow.

And finally, the prerequisite picture.

About a week ago, I went in to check on him at naptime and found this. The sucking of the thumb.

One Month

Cooper, you are one month old today.

I know. I was surprised to realize it too.

At one month:
~You weigh a little over 10 pounds and are roughly 22 inches long.

~You consistently wake up between 2am and 3am for a bottle. Then you're up again around 6am. I'm pretty good with that. So long as during this next month you start making some adjustments to this schedule. It's hard going to bed at 11pm (because I wait until 10:30ish to give you one last bottle before going to bed myself) and then getting up 3 hours later. But thankfully you go back to sleep after this feeding, most of the time.

~The first two weeks you tricked me because you rarely spit up. I was falsely led to believe that I wasn't going to have to deal with reflux like I did with Garrett. But these past 2 weeks you've shown your true colors. I've taken to wearing ratty t-shirts all day so I don't ruin my good shirts. Daddy hasn't been so lucky.

~You are starting to show signs of having a temper. You have no idea how thrilled I am to discover this. Why do I think so? You have this high pitched shriek that you let loose whenever you're searching for your paci (like a chicken pecking the ground) and you can't find it. I love when this shriek occurs within inches of my ear.

~You despise having your clothes changed, don't love having your diaper changed, and get really irritated when you're hungry or sleepy. So far we've had little bouts of crying that don't have a reason behind them, but you definitely let us know when you're not happy about something.

~You love taking baths, seem to enjoy riding in the car, and tolerate the swing, activity mat, and bouncy seat for limited amounts of time. Unfortunately, due to the spitting up, I'm not able to use any of those very often because I have to keep you upright for atleast 30 minutes after eating. Seeing that you are usually ready for a nap only an hour after waking up, we've not been able to enjoy the baby equipment much, yet. But we'll get there. I can't wait for you to be holding your head up really well because then I can put you in the Bumbo seat during this time.

This picture is a little deceiving. It looks like you could sit in the Bumbo for a little while. But in reality, this
is really what happens when you're in that seat for any longer than 15 seconds. But we'll get there eventually.

I thought I would try to begin taking your picture sitting in your crib and I'll do this every month to see how you're growing.

This was the best I could get.

And lastly, here's a picture of Garrett when he was a month old. For comparison.

My Favorite: The List Format

• After a year or more of searching, we have finally bought a wooden swing set for our backyard. I had no clue when we first started looking for one that it would be a long, drawn out process. These swing sets are not cheap, which meant that we really wanted to find a used one in Craigslist. However, they are super popular in our area (maybe everywhere?) so as soon as a decent one was posted and also didn't cost a fortune, they were snatched up before I could even contact the seller. We got to where we actually walked up to a house in our friends' neighborhood and asked them if they were interested in selling the swingset in their backyard. (Our friends told us this house didn't have kids and had recently moved in, so we were in hopes they would want to sell it. They took our number down and never contacted us. They've since moved out and that swing set still sits there.) Finally, I had enough of the searching process. Garrett really needs something to play on right now when I don't want to haul Cooper to the park or somewhere else for Garrett to run off some energy. So I posted on our local Craigslist that we were looking for a wooden swing set. A couple of days later, a lady emailed me a picture of one she had for sale. We looked at it on Monday night, liked it, and paid her for it. Keith will be going to pick it up first thing on Saturday morning. I know Garrett is going to have so much fun playing on it once it's all set up.
• I am officially addicted to cheddar Chex Mix. Why didn't I discover this while I was pregnant?! My dad brought a bag with him when he came to visit and I probably ate half of it by myself. It is so good! Yesterday, Keith, Garrett, and I all polished off an entire bag. And I will confess that I did the majority of the polishing. Of course, that was my lunch because I never had the chance to sit down and eat anything. But still, I need to step away from it before this turns ugly.
• I took my first official trip out of the house with both boys by myself. I don't count trips to the doctor's office. This was the big one. Walmart. How crazy was I to dread taking just Garrett to Walmart in the past? Now I've got a baby in addition to Garrett and I'll just confess that taking a baby out in public is more stressful than a preschooler. Yes, Garrett could throw a fit (though he seems to have outgrown this for the most part). But with a fit-throwing child, you can take them to the bathroom and spank them and get on with your shopping. When a baby has a melt down, there's really nothing to do unless you just pick them up and walk out of the store. I know this is what the "experts" recommend that you do. But I'll be darned if I get halfway through my grocery shopping only to leave a cart full of things and go home. Of course if Cooper is having an epic meltdown, then I don't have a choice. Thankfully yesterday's trip went pretty smoothly. I had my carrier with me in case he got tired of sitting in his carseat, I could put him in the carrer on my chest and keep shopping, but it never came to that. Towards the end of the trip, I could tell he was "working" on something and by the time I was paying for the groceries, he was done and ready for his diaper to be changed. He cries loudest when he's hungry, dirty, or in the process of being changed (namely his clothes, but he's not a fan of the diaper change either.) Surprisingly, the cashier didn't even notice I had a baby with me until he started crying. I'm not sure what she thought was in the carseat sitting in the cart or who the cans of formula were for... So I changed yet another dirty diaper in the car. This is my second or third in the past week. Apparently he needs a change of scenery to get things moving.
• Garrett started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks old (just a few days before I had to go back to work, God bless that boy!) So we are halfway to that point with Cooper. For the most part, I'm doing things the same way this time, so I hope the end result will be another baby sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. I'm also ready for him to be awake more during the day. It seems like we only get 20-30 minutes at a time where he's awake and relatively happy. I'm finally starting to see his sweet smile and want to see it more often. But if being awake means more crying, then we can hold off on that for now.

Cooper Gage

Seeing that Cooper will be 4 weeks old tomorrow, I figured now was as good a time as any to finally write down how everything went on his birth day.

Because I was scheduled to be induced early on Wednesday morning, June 17th, Keith's mom came up to our house on Tuesday afternoon in order to spend the night and watch Garrett while we were at the hospital. Since she was sleeping in Garrett's room, we put him on the floor in our room. I had a hard time falling asleep that night, but around 12:30 am I woke up. I'm not sure why exactly. I leaned over the bed to adjust the blanket over Garrett and then laid back down. A couple of minutes later, I had a strange sensation and then I felt water trickling as if I was peeing in my pants. But I was pretty sure that I wasn't peeing in my pants. Of course, when you're 9 months pregnant, you can't be totally positive, but I felt pretty positive.

After going to the bathroom to try and confirm that it was in fact my water breaking, I went back to bed with a towel. I lay there and tried to figure out what to do next. It should have been obvious, but I was tired and my first thought was that we were scheduled for an induction the following morning, would it really matter if I went back to sleep for a bit before going in? Plus I wanted Keith to be able to get some sleep in too. But when he rolled over and seemed to act like he was awake, I told him that I thought my water had broke. We both got up and ready to head to the hospital. I called my doctor's office just to confirm what I was supposed to do (yes, go to the hospital.), we left a note for Keith's mom, and we headed to the hospital.


I started having a few contractions on the way, but nothing intense or worthy of speeding, so Keith drove calmly to the hospital. That doesn't mean we avoided some crazies on the road though. About 15 miles from our house, a truck came across the median of the highway, got tangled up in the wire median divider and ended up facing the wrong way in the left hand lane on our side of the road. Thankfully we saw a policeman headed in that direction so we didn't feel as if we needed to stop to see if they were ok.


When we were about 10-15 miles away from the hospital, we came thisclose to getting sideswiped by some insane person driving a silver SUV. Thankfully Keith was paying attention and swerved into the lane next to us or else we would have been hit. The SUV kept going across all lanes of traffic (and there were about 4 on this particular part of the highway) and came thisclose to driving off the side of an overpass! Apparently the driver came to their senses and swerved back on the road. We saw them again a few minutes later driving about 10 mph in the right hand lane with their turn signal on. Who knows what was going on with them. Thankfully we made it to the hospital in one piece and found a close parking spot in the parking garage. We could have parked in the spaces provided for women in labor, but those have a time limit and I didn't want Keith to have to leave to move the car and I felt ok to walk that distance.


By this point, it was 2 am. We were taken to the room and I got changed and had monitors strapped to me. The nurse checked and confirmed that my water had definitely broken and the monitor was showing that I was having some contractions. So we decided to let things progress on their own. We watched some TV and read magazines for a while. My contractions got intense at times, but nothing terrible. The nurse had said I could have my epidural whenever I wanted one, but I told her we would hold off on that for the time being. At 4 am, I had only progressed to 4 cm (I was at 3 cm when she first checked me). The resident doctor on call wanted to go ahead and start pitocin, so we did, but a very small amount. Keith has a brain for numbers (of course, he's an accountant) and he could remember that my initial pitocin level with Garrett was a 7, whereas this time with Cooper, the nurse started me at a 2. I was able to labor for 2 more hours before I was ready for the epidural. At that point I was only at 5 cm, so I was afraid that we were in for a long labor. With Garrett, it took 6 hours from the time of the epidural to delivery and I was at 6 cm when I got it. Based on that, Keith and I were estimating that Cooper would be born around noon.

(Pre-epidural, between contractions.

Keith took a picture while I was having a contraction, but that one is not getting posted.)

An hour after getting the epidural, my doctor arrived. He told Keith "Talk about a day being destined to be." He checked me and said I was at 6 cm and he told the nurse to start my catheter. Before the nurse started it, she checked to be sure my epidural had completely taken. In her words, "there's no point in having an epidural if you can feel the catheter". Unfortunately, I was going to be able to feel the catheter for some reason and in fact, I was feeling some of the contractions on my right side. They were dull enough that I didn't feel like I was in excruciating pain, but I could definitely feel them. So she called the anesthesiologist in to "top me off". I should have said no and sucked up the bit of pain. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Once my epidural was topped off, I started feeling like I would pass out. Then I felt like I couldn't breathe. The epidural was almost too strong. I couldn't feel my legs at all. (I wanted a "walking epidural" which is what I had with Garrett, but this was a total epidural.) I was numb up to my chest which made me feel like I couldn't breathe. I had moments of my hands feeling tingly as if they were going numb too. On top of all this, they insisted I had to lay flat on my back which is about the most uncomfortable position you can be in when pregnant. At one point they even had the bed tilted to where my feet were elevated above my head. I know that was supposed to help my "feeling faint" but it was making me feel even more like I couldn't breathe. I don't think I even need to point out that Keith was a little freaked out by all of this. Though he did great and was right there for me, bringing me drinks of water and fanning me with a magazine when I felt hot. They ended up giving me a medicine to bring up my blood pressure because it was dropping so low and that didn't set well for me either. Thankfully throughout all of this, Cooper's heartrate stayed perfectly normal and everything for him was fine. I was surprised that they never did an internal heart monitor on him, but apparently the external one was picking him up just fine.

At 9 am, the nurse came back to finally do the catheter after all the craziness of the epidural issues. Before she started it, she checked me to see how I was progressing and, surprisingly, I was now at 8 cm. She said once she got the catheter started and my bladder was empty, she figured I would be fully dilated because Cooper would have room to move further down. 15 minutes later, my doctor came back to check on me, he said "it's time to push". 15 minutes to dilate 2 additional centimeters! It didn't go near that fast with Garrett. The nurse started getting the room ready for labor and my doctor helped me get into position to push. I could not feel my legs even a little bit, so they had to lift them for me into the stirrups. I swear those could have been someone else's legs, that's how little I could feel them. It was crazy! I pushed through 3 contractions and Cooper was born at 9:30am! Only 15 minutes after my doctor said it was time to push. With Garrett, the delivery room was full of people, several nurses for the baby, a nurse for me, my doctor, and a resident who was assisting my doctor. For Cooper's delivery, it was just my doctor and my nurse. Cooper was almost completely born when a baby nurse showed up to take over with him. The doctor put Cooper on my stomach and the first thing I noticed was his really long fingers and toes. They told me that he had the umbilical cord hitched over his shoulder as if he wasn't going to leave without it. Much preferred to it being around his neck like it was with Garrett.

(Right after he was born and they handed him to me.)

Our hospital stay was short. I abhor being in the hospital. It is depressing for me and I didn't want to be there a minute longer than I had to be. When our night nurse came to introduce herself at the beginning of her shift, I asked her how soon we could be discharged and she said that some patients request to leave 24 hours after delivery, while others stay the full 2 days. I told her that I wanted to leave as soon as they would let me, so she said she would be sure and complete all tests that would need to be done on Cooper, that night. So all we would need is both of our doctors to sign the discharge papers the next day. I think I might have slept for 2 hours that night, so that, combined with maybe 2 hours the night before, I was so tired by Thursday morning. I knew there was no way I would be able to tolerate the hospital for another night. Thankfully my doctor showed up and joked with me about my desire to run away from him, but he signed my discharge papers and did Cooper's circumcision. At first, the hospital pediatrician didn't want to discharge Cooper because he was borderline with his jaundice levels, but since she knows our pediatrician and I had already called and had us scheduled for an appointment the next day, she agreed to let us go home.

(Daddy and Cooper once we were moved to the recovery room.)

I have felt 100% better this time than I did with Garrett. Sure, there are some hormonal issues as most post partum women have, but nothing at all like what I experienced with Garrett. I feel like that can be attributed to 1.the shorter hospital stay, 2.the fact that this was my second baby and I felt more prepared mentally for what was to come, 3.possibly just a difference in hormones this time, for whatever reason and 4.having my mom (and subsequently, dad) here to help for 2 weeks. I have also physically healed much faster than I did with Garrett. I only needed one or two small stitches this time in comparison to a little more work with Garrett (though he had a huge head which probably is why Cooper ultimately was born pretty quickly and with minimal damage. His brother paved the way for him.)

The downside to this recovery period has been a horrible allergic reaction that I had to the medical tape that was used to hold down my epidural line. I had a slight reaction after having Garrett, but it was cleared up with the use of Benedryl and hydrocortisone cream. Since I knew I had a problem the last time, I made sure that I took a shower as soon after delivery as I could and I had Keith wash my back really well. I figured that in doing so I would eliminate or further minimize any reaction.

That assumption was totally false and it may have even made it worse, I'm not sure. From midway down my back, to the backs of my thighs, and from one side to the other, I was a solid hive. It was beet red, raised and swollen, as well as itched like nothing I've experienced. I went through tubes of hydrocortisone cream and Benedryl and it was not helping one bit. A week later I finally went and saw my regular doctor to see if she could help me out. The nurse and the doctor both literally gasped when they saw the condition of my back. They could not believe how bad it looked. They gave me a cortisone shot and some steriod cream to rub on it and after several days it finally started working. You can still see where it was almost 4 weeks later. It looks like a bad sunburn and my skin is really dry. But thankfully it doesn't itch and I'm assuming that it's healing, albeit slowly. Now I know to tell anyone and everyone that I'm allergic to medical tape, please don't touch me with it!

So that was my experience with having baby #2, the last of the Mohicans. Keith still quizzes me to see if I'm really done having babies and I can answer that with an emphatic "Yes! Yes, I am!" As soon as my ob can schedule it, I will be having a procedure done in order to insure that no more babies will be brought forth from my loins. And that day will be a good day.

Critics Corner

My routine for Cooper currently includes putting him to bed at 8:00 (ish) and then getting him up at 10:30 or 11:00 for one last feeding before I go to bed. Since we're currently suffering through the ridiculous thing that the networks like to call summer programming, most evenings there is nothing worthwhile on TV to watch during that time frame. And let's face it, if I'm not watching something that will hold my attention, then I'll probably fall asleep. (Side note: some friends of ours were telling us that a couple of Sundays ago at their church (we go to different churches) a couple was sitting across the aisle from them and they had a newborn with them. At one point during the service, my friend said that the parents were both sound asleep! Turns out the baby was only a week old. She found this out when they brought the baby to the nursery after the church service and she checked them in. They took their 1 week old baby to the nursery! That's another discussion entirely.)

Back to the point of this, in order to pass this child-free time in the evenings, we've been catching up on our movie rentals. In the past 4 weeks we've seen: "He's Just Not that Into You", "Bride Wars", "Knowing", "Transporter 3", and "Body of Lies". We've also watched "Legally Blonde", "Legally Blonde 2", "Black Hawk Down" and "Bourne Supremecy" on TV.

Of all these movies, my favorite was "He's Just Not that Into You". Ladies, you probably don't want to hear this, but they totally nailed how most single girls are when they're actively pursuing a relationship with someone (anyone!). Yes, I know that there are exceptions to this and there are many women out there who didn't obsess about whether or not the guy is going to call or come up with ways to "accidentally" run into him. But I would say that there's an equal number of girls who did these exact things. I will confess to having done some of them myself. Of course you need to see the movie in order to fully understand what I'm talking about. And I loved Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck's story line in this movie. So sweet! I couldn't help but wonder if some of these scenes were hard for her to film because, in some ways, they seemed to mirror her relationship situation in real life.

"Bride Wars" was ok. I'm not a big Kate Hudson fan, but I loved that "Van" from "Reba" was in this movie. I loved him in that show. Of course this character is different from "Van", but it was still nice to see him again. "Bright" from "Everwood" was also in this movie. If you never watched "Everwood" then shame on you! That was a great show that was cut way too short by the stupid CW network.

"Transporter 3" was simply rented for Keith's sake. I can't remember much from that movie, but I can probably safely say it was a guy movie and if you're a guy that likes car chases and gun fights, then you'd probably like any of the Transporter movies. I do like car chases and gun fights, but this movie didn't hold my attention. "Body of Lies" was hard to follow, so I can't really give a good critique of it. This may be solely due to my sleep deprivation, but I finished that movie feeling very confused and also had a hard time understanding how the FBI/CIA (see, I can't even remember which agency Leo DiCaprio worked for!) thought that Leonardo would be a good choice to blend in with Middle Easterners. He couldn't be more of a white boy. They had him with dark hair, but he still wouldn't have passed as a Middle Easterner in the real world. They would have totally suspected him as a spy.

The initial premise to the movie "Knowing" was really good. I remember seeing the previews for this when it was in the theaters and I knew I wanted to see it when I got the chance. 3/4 of the movie was really good and definitely held my attention, but the last 1/4 of the movie was absolutely absurd. They could have gone in a completely different direction and made it a really great movie. Instead, it was a passable movie. Though I would recommend it if you're a Nicolas Cage fan, or just curious about the movie. But be prepared for a ridiculous (in my opinion) ending.

I'm sure I'll have many more movies to critique between now and the night when Cooper starts sleeping all night and doesn't require a late feeding.

(Not so) Brief Update

Our pediatrician's new office called us yesterday to say that the opening date has been pushed back yet again. Initially they were supposed to open July 6 and we were scheduled for Cooper's 2 week check up that morning. Then the doctor personally called the Friday before and said construction wasn't going to be finished by then and we rescheduled for the 16th, which would have been more like a 1 month check up than a 2 week check up. He asked me a few questions over the phone to see how things were going and felt comfortable with waiting a bit longer for Cooper to be seen. It's not like he hadn't already been seen a couple of times after the hospital because of the jaundice, so we knew he had put on some weight and everything else was looking ok. Then the office called again (and called me Mrs. Cooper and referred to Cooper as "Dungan". Yes, I know Cooper is a last name, but who in their right mind would name their kid Dungan?! That's a crazy last name, let alone to give a child that name as their first name.) They told me that the opening was now being pushed back to the 20th AND they may not have all their paperwork for Blue Cross until August 1st, and guess what? We have Blue Cross insurance. So, the doctor said he wanted Cooper to go ahead and see one of the other pediatricians at the old office, just for this check up. I went ahead and schedule Cooper's 2 month check up while I was on the phone with them (and Garrett's 4 year check up will be at the same time. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around having a 4 year old...) Let's hope everything is all straightened out at the new office by the end of August. I hope our pediatrician is going to be extra nice to us after dealing with this hassle.

On top of all this, I called the old office and scheduled an appointment with another pediatrician who I was familiar with. A few hours later, the receptionist called and said that doctor wouldn't see us since Cooper wasn't sick and isn't her patient! I explained to the receptionist that our pediatrician (who had been at this practice for 5 years or more) was the one who told me to call and schedule this appointment. So the receptionist, of course, has to call me back. 45 minutes later she calls and says that one of the other doctors would see Cooper. Does there have to be this much involved in making a freakin' doctor appointment?!

This morning we finally had Cooper's 2 week check up only 10 days late. He weighs 10 pounds (!) and is 22 inches long. Both put him in the 80-something percentile and his head is in the 99 percentile. I really liked the nurse, but the doctor was a little odd. I'm glad we're sticking with our old doctor. When he checked Cooper's hips to make sure they felt good and nothing was dislocated, he was really rough! Our doctor checked them when we were there for a jaundice check and he didn't do it anything like that. Cooper never cried once during that exam, but he cried several times with this doctor today. Then the doctor kept asking me if he was easily consolable. I was like "Yes, except when he's being tortured. Who consoles easily after that?" He didn't even cry that much when they had to prick his heel again for the PKU screening.

Thankfully we're done with that and won't go back to the doctor for 6 more weeks. It should be fun taking both boys for check ups and having both of them get shots. I'm definitely making Keith come with me to that appointment. Today, I did it on my own and it went ok. There's just so much stuff that you have to cart around when 2 kids are involved, rather than 1. Especially when one is a newborn. I can't imagine having my boys any closer together in age than they are. Garrett does so well with helping me and staying with me when I can't hold his hand. I don't know how some of you other moms did it with a newborn and a toddler!

I will try not to post without including a picture, even if it has nothing to do with today's blog. It's mostly for my mom's benefit. :)

3 Weeks

I have to admit that I am not a newborn baby-type person (if I haven't already confessed to that). This stage is just one to get through by grinning and bearing it, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, it's nice to hold a cuddly newborn baby fresh from a bath, but, for me, that's one of the few perks of the newborn stage. You also have to deal with lots of fussiness (and all out crying/screaming times) and little sleep on top of the fact that babies really can't be entertained at this point.

I'm still figuring him out, but we're beginning to get a schedule going and I'm in hopes that a few more weeks of it will have him sleeping a good chunk during the night. Right now, the longest he goes is 4 and a half hours at a stretch and then he'll go another 3 and a half hours and then it's every 3 hours throughout the day. Technically he's getting up once a night, but in my reality and our household's sleeping times, he gets up twice a night. Which isn't bad and I'm thankful because I know it could be worse.

It has been interesting to deal with Garrett and Cooper on my own. So far it hasn't been too bad. Garrett is old enough to entertain himself and somewhat take care of himself. He takes himself to the bathroom, can get himself dressed, get and open a snack, and can open the fridge to get out a drink if he needs one. Not to mention that he is great at bringing me things like diapers and pacifiers. And he gives me moments of sanity because he's someone I can actually talk to during the day who can respond and make sense (most of the time). Of course there are those moments where it can be really insane because he's being extra loud when I'm trying my hardest to get Cooper to take a nap (he fights sleep with every fiber in his being right now). Those are the fun times. haha But then it's all worth it when I see Cooper smile at Garrett (and Daddy) for the first time. Not sure why I'm not worth the first smile since I do change the bulk of his diapers and get up with him in the night, but I'm not bitter. :)

We were supposed to have had Cooper's 2 week check up this past Monday, but last week, our pediatrician personally called me (which is rare!) and said that the construction was a little behind in his new office so we rescheduled the 2 week check up for next week when he'll technically be a month old. I am interested to see how much he weighs. He's been a pretty good eater so far.

I've been working on my labor and delivery post in my spare time (ha!). So maybe that will be finished by his first birthday.

I had to include a couple more pictures. This one was taken on Sunday when he went to church for the first time. Garrett picked out those shoes for him while I was still pregnant and he was very proud to see Cooper wearing them for the first time. Cooper even got a special introduction by our pastor on Sunday. Thankfully we were in the auditorium when the pastor mentioned him. I had to take him out during the service because he was being noisy and seemed to be on the verge of crying.

Garrett fell asleep watching "Incredibles" and Cooper was also asleep, so I had to document the moment. I'm sure it was a rare one!

2 Weeks

I cannot believe it has already been 2 weeks since Cooper was born. Time flies when dealing with a newborn. It also feels as if it's dragging since you see random hours between midnight and sunrise. Today was actually the toughest day with Cooper so far. I'm in hopes that it was just an "off" day and not how things are going to be from here on out. I'm too tired to write more, but hopefully my days will begin to develop some semblance of a routine and I'll have a moment to sit down and actually write a blog. Monday is his 2 week check-up so I will post an update then. Our pediatrician is moving offices which is why we weren't able to get the appointment this week. I'm curious to see how much Cooper weighs. He's starting to take 4 ounces, or close to it, at each feeding and I can tell that he's filling out.

Here's hoping that the irritability from today does not carry over into tonight. I can handle some fussiness when I've had a bit of sleep. I'm not sure how I would deal with it on no sleep.