Target Tuesday #1

I decided to start taking part in a weekly link-up called Target Tuesday which was started by the lovely Ms. Tara over at Fabulous but Evil. Each week bloggers can "link-up" and share some of their favorite finds at Target. Not sure if I'll be able to take part in it weekly, but I'd like to try!

For those who got here via the link-up, welcome to my "baby" blog as it's dubbed, but since baby boy has been born the blog's expanded to be more family/home/life-oriented. I do have also have a "catch all" blog - Point Me to the Sky Above - if you'd like to check out my ramblings on anything and everything over there too!

So... this week at Target I'm sharing some of my recent baby-oriented finds!

Sesame Street "Shake a Leg" Board Book

I LOVE reading this book to Jay on a near daily basis as it's so interactive. Each page has a different motion for you to do, such as shaking your legs, patting your head, rubbing your tummy, swinging your arms, honking your nose, and more. I often take Jay's little hands and do the actions on him so it's him patting his head or rubbing his tummy and not mommy. He seems to like though and the pictures use bright colors and a variety of characters from Sesame Street too so there's plenty for him to look at on the pages. We bought this book with money my grandparents had sent him.

Summer Infant SuperSeat Activity Seat

This booster activity seat by Summer is really neat as you can use it with the activity tray on it for when they're just babies and then when they get to be toddlers you can remove the tray and use it as a booster seat at the table! I like the idea of the activity/exersaucer tables for babies, but most of them are really big and take up a lot of space. This one seems to be a bit smaller which I would prefer! I actually got this at a steal of a price at Target as they had the wrong price for it on the shelf, despite the price it was ringing up at - since the price on the shelf was $13 instead of $40 they went ahead and gave it to me at the lower price! Score! We haven't set it up or used it yet - Jay can't sit up on his own yet - but I plan on putting it together once we get moved into the new house! Hopefully he'll enjoy it.

Cosco "Barnyard Buddies" Sprinter Travel System

We registered for this one and got it and so far it's been great to have! When we were looking at carseats and strollers we decided we liked the idea of a simple travel system rather than having all different pieces. This one is a 3-in-1 set, as it's got the baby carrier that comes with a base that can convert it into a car seat and then, since all the pieces work together via the "latch" system, you can snap the carrier onto the stroller for when they're littler! It works really well, considering as far as travel systems go, price-wise it was the cheapest one they had when we registered. The design is nice too as it's gender neutral brown and tan with red trim and the print is a barnyard animal theme - I didn't want anything too boyish so that we could reuse it again in the future if we end up having a girl at some point down the road. There's a matching high chair that goes with this also. It was pretty easy to assemble too, my only complaint is that the handle bar on the stroller is too wide making it so I can hang the diaper bag from it, although I guess that's more of a complaint with the diaper bag for not having wide enough straps!

Up & Up Target Brand Unscented Baby Wipes

Seems like a silly thing that you can buy anywhere but I choose to buy our baby wipes at Target as they have the best price on them (yes, better than Walmart!). I get the unscented in the 3 refill size for about $4.50 (although I guess the bigger refill size for $13 couldn't hurt) and it lasts a few weeks. These wipes hold up pretty well too.

Just One Year Frog Robe

I noticed these too cute little baby bath robes last time we were there but we weren't shopping for baby and so hubby wouldn't let me get it at the time but I intend on picking it up sometime in the near future as it's just too cute! Now the froggy one is the only one they have online but they had 2 others available in the store as well - one in pink and I want to say the other is either blue or yellow. We have hooded bath towels that we use to dry him off after his baths but I think using the bath robe to get him to and from the tub would be nice idea, as he howls while in transit but is fine when he's in the actual tub - it would keep him a little bit warmer I think! Plus it's just too darn cute!

Bright Starts "Lion in the Park" Activity Gym

This is a simple activity playmat for baby that works great for Tummy Time. It folds easily for storage, is easy to put together and has several fun items attached to it including a rattle, teether, mirror, plastic links, and a ladybug that plays 4 melodies. We didn't think he needed anything elaborate or fancy as far as a playmat is concerned, so if you're looking for a simple playmat that doesn't have a million bells and whistles on it that you can use for Tummy Time I'd recommend this one!

Parental Ponderings

Two thoughts that occurred to me this week:

1) Only do babies and hilarious old folks poop their pants with a huge grin on their face.

2) From the time of conception worrying about your child starts.
The whole time you're pregnant you worry about if everything is okay on the inside there, you worry about doing something wrong that could bring tragic results or harm to your little one in utereo. After they're born you worry about if they're eating enough, growing enough... you worry about the big scary SIDS acronym as it seems the list of things that cause it is growing daily - is your baby going to be a victim of it. Then when they get older you have to worry about the dangers of the world they're innocently being exposed to - them being kidnapped or taken advantage of by a predator... and of course as they grow up and into their teens all the mess of stuff to worry about that it seems like kids these days are getting involved with earlier and earlier in life... once the worrying starts, doesn't seem like it'll ever stop as you'll even worry about them when they're an adult.

It's almost time!

So we're in full swing of pre-moving!

Mound o'boxes

Boxes are taking over my living room!

Thursday while I was out running errands hubby had me pick up a bunch of boxes from U-Haul and we've been busy boxing stuff up since. Right now we've just have left the bathroom, the stuff in the kitchen we use, Jay's stuff, and the stuff in our closet to pack up, as well as a slew of stuff in the storage unit and of course decorative stuff that I need to get newspaper from my parents so we can wrap it up so it doesn't break.

Kitty is quite confused, although she enjoys jumping up on top of the boxes and even in some of them!

I was also productive today and got a lot done as far as moving preparations.

I secured a quote for homeowner's insurance through Farmer's (they had the best rate), got electric (ComEd) setup in my name and starting on the 6th, got our gas (Nicor) set up and just waiting for confirmation, and reserved a U-Haul truck for the day we're moving all the big stuff over to the house (the 9th). I also setup a new Comcast account over there and got their awesome online special for new accounts (basically what we have now, plus the HD channels and HBO for 6 months so we can watch True Blood and Entourage this summer!) and setup an appointment for them to come out and "install" it. I also learned that our water and trash are on the same bill and were started on the 16th - apparently the realty company that was selling our house had them put the water/trash bill in our name then as we were going to need to have the water on for the home inspection.

So aside from finishing up packing we just have to write up and leave our 30 day move-out notice and purchase our fridge and washer/dryer which we're planning on doing tomorrow (Tuesday) as well as purchasing some stuff we're going to need around the house - yay shopping!

In other news, Jay has been downing 5.5oz bottles - at least 2 a day! And he definitely feels a bit heavier too.

Baby smiles!!

His next check-up is his 2-month one next week (can't believe he's already 2 months old on Friday!) and I'm pretty sure the doctor is going to have us reduce his calories per oz from the 24 down to the normal 20 and if not I'm going to ask, as he's averaging a little over 20oz of food per day which I'm sure is a lot more calories than he needs!

On the 14th we're going up to the children's hospital in Madison for further kidney testing, including a more advanced ultrasound (which his urologist said in some cases they can tell what's causing the blockage from this ultrasound) and some test I read about that involves a catheter and they give him some liquid and watch how it empties from his system or something... I forget the specifics! Not going to be fun for him and it's likely to be a long day too - we have to be there at 9am and it's a little over an hour drive so we need to leave a little after 7am... the said the ultrasound could take up to an hour while the catheter test is obviously going to take awhile.

Jay's been a little farting machine too lately! It's actually quite amusing!

Oh! And his birth announcements arrived today too - we'll probably send them out next week or the week after we move and get somewhat settled.

He peed the bed - or should I say our bed - the other night. I was laying down to relax and was snuggling with him when I sat my arm in something wet underneath him... mommy fail! Apparently I didn't fasten the one side of his diaper tight enough and he leaked a nice size puddle on our bedsheet! Doh!

He also seems to enjoy watching/listening to daddy play Call of Duty as he was sitting perfectly fine in his bouncy seat while daddy was playing but the second he was done he got fussy! LOL... He also LOVES looking at himself in the front-facing cameras on daddy's phone (an HTC Thunderbolt) and tablet (the Samsung Galaxy Tab) - it's pretty funny! Take that mirrors! lol...

Passed out on mommy

He's been sleeping a good 3-4 hours a night in the bassinet most nights before he ends up sleeping on me for the rest of the night. It's progress. I'm hoping maybe his crib will be more comfortable for him once we get it setup after the move.

I've also resorted to letting him sleep on his tummy in there too. He seems more comfortable than on his back and he sleeps a lot longer too - on his back he doesn't last long before he's awake and howling. Plus, if he sleeps with his binky in his mouth, it doesn't fall out as easily. While they ingrain the SIDS guidelines and warnings, I'm not too worried about him on his tummy as he's got lifting and turning his head down pat and when he is on his tummy he's automatically got his head turned to one side or the other. I do check on him throughout the night though just to make sure he's okay and before I drift off to sleep I often look over and make sure he's not faceplanted everytime I hear him move around in there. They also say co-sleeping is a no-no too, but we've broken that "rule" plenty and we're doing just fine with it - sometimes you have to do what you have to do so everybody wins and is able to get a decent amount of sleep! We'll try his back again when he's sleeping in his crib in the upcoming weeks - a friend suggested it could just be the Pack n Play mattress isn't comfy (her kids hated it) and that he might sleep better on an actual crib mattress, so we'll see.

House stuff and more!

So we had the home inspection this past Monday and it went well - no major surprises, just a few smaller things that we can do ourselves or have my dad and uncle help out with.

The only issue on the main floor is that the thermostat cover or whatever needs to be replaced - you can adjust the temperature and it works but the numbers on the panel don't work - they said you can replace that for about $20-50. On the deck, we need to put support posts or something under the ends of this section that juts out (it seems to be an add on for a grill) as there's only the support beam in the middle and not on the sides, making the edges not safe. Downstairs is our main issue - there's a section along the baseboard in the lower level bedroom where it looks like there was mold or water damage. They said it's an easy fix though as we just have to pull up that section of the drywall, patch it up underneath and then replace the drywall. And they said on the outside we can just take a hoe and level out the slope on the yard above so that it's not sloping towards the house there. The only other thing is an issue with the electrical box - hubby got the details on that and they said it'd be something real simple that my uncle could take care of no problem (he's an electrician).

This in a light tan/mocha color

We went out and bought our living room furniture too, or well, at least put a deposit on it. Slumberland has their Mega Sale - 55% off stuff - going on through this week and they had some really nice 5 piece living room sets (a sofa, loveseat, 2 end tables and a coffee table) for under $1000 so naturally we jumped at the chance as it really is a good deal and we need furniture for our front room upstairs since the majority of our furniture is going in the rec room downstairs. We're planning on putting it on our credit card but have to wait til after we close so it doesn't screw up hubby's credit any, but that works out as they have to order it from the manufacturer warehouse and won't be in til around our closing date anyway.

We're also shopping around for a fridge and washer/dryer too and I plan on painting Jay's room all Super Mario Bros-esque - I'll be sure to post pics!

We're planning on closing the first week of April - around the 4th or 5th I believe. Can't believe how soon it's happening! We already started packing and I'm getting us more boxes tomorrow too as we ran out of bigger ones.

As far as Jay goes...

I need to call back the children's hospital in Madison tomorrow and set up a time next week for his appointment up there.

He also decided the bath tub needed to be turned into a fountain the other night as we just finished bathing him. Right before we had a chance to pick him up out of the tub he made a bit of fountain... and then he did it again 2 seconds later! Hubby and I were cracking up, as the surprised "whoa" face he made while doing it was the icing on the cake!

Jay also had a big day on Monday - my mom meets with a group of ladies most Monday mornings for coffee and they were throwing her a Grandma Baby Shower and had invited Jay and I to come. He got passed around from lady to lady... needless to say, he slept pretty good the rest of the day!

He's also increased his feeding too, eating usually 3.5oz, although there's been a few times he's done 4, 4.5oz and earlier today he finished off an entire 5.5oz bottle!

Late night updating

So I should be sleeping since Jay's asleep and we have to be up early but I'm not really all that tired right now...

Friday was my post-partum check-up at the OBGYN and it went very well!

They weighed me and with shoes on I'm down to 172 from my max pregnancy weight of 193 (with boots on). My pre-pregnancy weight was 162 or 164 (I'm not entirely sure which), so I'm not too far away from getting back there! At least 20lbs in 6 weeks though... wow! I already need new jeans too - my size 12s are too loose on me and the only pair of 11s I have run small so I can't quite fit in em.

The nurse practitioner I met with said my tear healed beautifully - she said to be honest she couldn't even tell I had had a tear, that's how well it healed! She gave me the "okay" for everything though and wrote me a note so I can get back on the schedule at The Children's Place and she filled my prescription for my birth control pills. They want me to come back in 6 months for an annual pap as well as a blood test to check for the gestational diabetes stuff rather than have to sit around and do the drink again.

Without going into too much detail, since we got the go ahead, hubby and I had a go at things right away. Everyone had warned me it was going to hurt A LOT, and I'll admit, it did hurt a little bit however we eased into it and it wasn't too bad... honestly, doing it after my LEEP surgery hurt a lot worse!

This weekend we started packing up our apartment in anticipation for our upcoming move in a few weeks - we made a pretty nice dent in things!

We bought a basic 1 gallon humidifier too at Walmart - it seems to be helping, Jay hasn't woken up with a stuffy nose since we started using it!

We also gave Jay his weekend bath last night... and at the end of it, Little Man decided the tub needed to be turned into a fountain! It was the funniest thing ever and his facial expression (his surprised "whoa" face where he gets all big and wide-eyed and his mouth makes an O shape) made it even funnier! And he didn't just shoot pee up once, but twice! Hubby and I both about died laughing! Seriously, considering he only has 1 working kidney at the moment, he pees A LOT and seems to get a good range on it too!

This morning I'm taking Jay to Grammie's Grandma Shower that her ladies she meets with on Mondays for coffee are throwing her - they were going to throw it at the beginning of February but Jay was born around the time they had originally planned and then we had the hospital mess too when they rescheduled it... since he's here now though they've invited me to come and bring him too so we're doing that early this morning. Then later today in the afternoon we have our home inspection - hopefully everything goes well with it!

The past week

Where did I leave off...

Let's see...

Last weekend hubby and I went into Schaumburg for Jeny & Tim's engagement bash at Gameworks. It was pretty fun and they had quite the turnout of friends show up throughout the night too, many of which I had met before. We had dinner with them in the attached restaurant and by the time we were done eating they had kicked out all the under 21 people and had the bar going. It was my first time out drinking since last spring. I started out with a long island which got me a little drink by the end of dinner, then we did a shot (I chose Jager, having forgotten that it tastes like cough syrup) and then I got an Ameretto stone sour but it was kinda weak so I finished it rather fast. I went back and got another long island although I didn't drink it fast enough and the ice melted and the last 1/3 of it was really watery. We played a bunch of games though - I played some DDR (and did pretty decent considering I was technically drunk) and made to level 3 of Capcom vs Marvel a la button mashing (I gave up paying attention to the buttons and just mashed em all at once, which proved successful!). Around midnight we decided to start playing the games that give out tickets in hopes of getting Jay a stuffed animal. It ended up being a fun night!

On Sunday we took Jay to his first birthday party - my friend's daughter turned 1 and they had a bunch of family and friends there, including a handful of us with babies. Jay was the youngest of the babies and the only boy too. He kept sleeping on and off throughout the whole time although he did sit in my lap and watch her open her presents for a bit, which was cute! He also got a goodie bag which included 2 Garanimals finger puppets, a fishy water squirter and a teether. I'd say it went pretty well!

1st stroller ride on the nearby walking/bike path

It's been nice out this week too, in the upper 50s/low 60s the past few days. On Wednesday Jay and I went for a walk via the stroller out on the nearby walking/bike path. Gotta admit, I'm going to miss having that around the block once we move! Jay seemed to enjoy it - he stayed awake the whole time, just looking around and taking everything in...

Monday was his follow-up doctor's appointment. He weighed 8lbs even - woot! The doctor officially reduced the amount of calories we're giving him (24 down from 27, even though I've been giving him 24) and we don't have to go back in until his regular 2 month check-up at the beginning of April. He also got his Hep-B booster, which poor guy... he didn't know it was coming! He was all sucky calmly and happily on his binky when she gave him the shot and wow... he shrieked and it took a good minute or so of mama hugging him and rubbing his back to get him to calm down.

I also asked about him waking up all congested with a stuffy nose lately - doctor said it's probably just humidity, as that tends to affect babies when the weather gets warmer out. He suggested we get a humidifier or child saline drops to stuck in his nose and suck the stuff out. I think we're going to look into the humidifier. 

Yesterday we had his follow-up urology appointment where they did an ultrasound there. The doctor said the kidney blockage looks slightly moderate so they're going to have us go up to the children's hospital in Madison for 2 tests, one of which is a renal scan that might be able to tell us why it's blocked and the other involves a catheter which isn't going to be fun =/ This should take place in about 2 weeks.

We also went to the bank and signed the loan paperwork - assuming our home inspection on Monday goes well, we should be closing either at the very end of the month or the first week of April, yay! Jay needs his own room... it's hard putting him down at night and keeping him in his own bed as I wake up to the slightest noise he makes.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Jay celebrated his first St. Patrick's Day too - I had gotten him a green onesie at Target that says "Irish (I wish) you would KISS ME" as on my side of the family we're both Irish and Scots-Irish.

Today I have my post-partum check-up at the OBGYN. Going to see about them getting me back on the pill (although now I have to wait til next month to start taking it) and get a note saying I can go back to work as The Children's Place requires it for me to come back and be put on the schedule. Hopefully that goes well!

Some Baby Must-Haves

So as far as being a new parent, a lot of things are trial and error.

As far as bottles/nipples go, I've come to really like the orthodontic Nuk brand by Gerber. The first bottles we tried were the Breastflow ones by The 1st Years but Jay didn't seem to like that particular nipple. Knowing he liked sucking on his binky, which was by Nuk, we decided to give their bottles a try which seem to work great for us!

Some of the highlights of the Nuk bottles:

• Airflow nipples to help reduce colic
• Orthodontic nipples promote healthy teeth formation
• The nipples are clear silicone (no worrying about a possible latex allergy)
• They simulate and support breastfeeding so you don't have to stress too much about nipple confusion if you're also breastfeeding

They also come in various colors and designs and in a 5oz bottle and 10oz bottle which you can buy individually for around $5 or in a 3 pack for $12.97 (at Walmart).

The pacifiers comes in different colors and designs as well - Jay has the standard Nuk "boy" set which includes 1 blue one with sailboats and 1 green one with butterflies, as well as one of the sports sets which has one with a football design and another with a baseball design.

The benefits of the Nuk pacifiers:

• Conforms to baby’s mouth just like mother’s breast during feeding
• Orthodontic design gently exercises tongue, palate and jaw 
• Promotes proper teeth alignment
• NUK Air System allows nipple to self-adjust for proper fit
• Grooves in the pacifier shield allow air to circulate helping to prevent skin irritation

Another baby must-have I've found is the Baby ESP app for Android.

This handy app makes it easy for you to keep track of when your baby ate and how much, when their last poop or pee was, when they slept and for how long, among other daily baby things one would keep track of. It's really come in handy, especially with Jay's growth/eating issues as I can keep track of how much he's eating daily to see if he's eating enough as well as if he's "stooling" enough so when the doctor asks I can easily give him an answer. It also creates a profile for your baby, showing you exactly how old your kiddo is!

Rather than spend money on other trackers, if you have a smartphone, it's worth the $3.99 for the full version of this app if you have a baby and need to keep an eye on that sort of stuff.

You can find it in the Android Market or get it from their official site - Baby ESP.

End of week wrap-up

So Jay is 5 weeks old this morning.

Mommy's Little Monkey

The visiting nurse came Tuesday evening and weighed him at 7lbs, 11oz (despite the doctor's office scale the day before clocking him at 7lbs, 6oz) and then she came for the last time this morning and he weighed 7lbs, 13oz! Either way, he's growing!

Once he hits 8lbs we can start fitting him into some of the 0-3month sized clothes he has plenty of, as those are good for 8-12lbs - I'm guessing after next week he'll be into them (which is good cuz the St. Patrick's Day onesie I bought him is newborn size!)

Last night he slept a good 3 hours in the bassinet (from about 430am-730am) before waking up to eat. He's also been eating 2.5-3oz per feeding on average and sometimes he'll down as much as 4oz! I'm thrilled!

Today was a nice day - we woke up by 1030am as the visiting nurse was supposed to be by a little after 11... well she didn't get there til almost noon, but whatever. Then we took a nice nap together on the couch til about 230pm and then got ready to go out to the mall for a bit to do some mall walking with mommy's friend and her 2 young kids (one's 4, the other is turning 1 this weekend). Jay fell asleep as soon as we got to the mall and didn't wake up til almost 2 hours later when we left. Then my inlaws came over for a bit to spend some time with Jay and now we're just hanging out the 2 of us like we usually do late at night.

Jay's latest thing this week, aside from being alert and looking at everything, is faking sleep. When he wants you stop trying to burp him he'll pretend to fall asleep. When he doesn't want his binky anymore, he'll pretend to fall asleep. His honorary aunt Jeny who's in town this week to do some wedding planning came by and soon after she started holding him he pretended to fall asleep as he didn't know who she was. How do we know he's faking? He over exaggerates his breathing, will creep open one eye to peak out and see if you notice him "sleeping" and he'll give this big silly grin if you catch him with his eye open, lol... it's pretty funny!

So tomorrow Jay gets to spend the evening with Grammie and Grandpap as mommy and daddy are going into the suburbs and then Sunday Jay has his first birthday party to attend (my friend's daughter who's turning 1). Next week I have 3 doctor appointments to go to - Jay's follow-up at the doctor's office on Monday, his follow-up urology appointment on Thursday, and then on Friday I have my 6 week post-partum appointment - hopefully I'll get my birth control prescription filled and a note saying I'm good to go back to work as I need to make some monies so I can spoil Jay some more and get us furniture and decorative stuff for our new home.

Hospital follow-up

Today we had our follow-up doctor's appointment since being discharged from the hospital a week ago.

They weighed Jay as being 7lbs, 6oz, which seems to be consistent with the scale the visiting nurse has been using and continuing to show that it seems Jay is putting on an ounce a day! At the rate he's going, we should be out of newborn sized clothing and finally into the 0-3 month sized ones within 2 weeks or so! How exciting as we have a bunch of 0-3 month sized stuff as that's mainly what we were buying as we thought he was going to be a bit bigger, like at least 8lbs!

Doc was looking over all the lab test results that came back too - he was going to double check with the doctors we had at the hospital, but he said from what he could tell everything looked fine.

He said that Jay looks a lot better than he did last time he saw him and that he said he finally feels a lot better about him too now that he's put on some weight and is finally growing like he should. He wants us to come back in a week just to see how he's doing, if he's continuing to progress. Then hopefully we'll be back on the regular doctor's visit schedule.

Tomorrow we're signing the final contract to the offer on the house and then we just have to wait for the loan to go through and then we can close on it. Our lender said it shouldn't take more than 3 weeks, but you never know. Hopefully we'll be closing by the end of the month if we're lucky and moving in right away too!

A day to celebrate

Today we had a number of things to be happy about!

First, we had Jay's first appointment at the urologist. Since the hospital did an ultrasound on his kidney last week while we were there, today was more just a meet and greet with the doctor as he said there was no need for another ultrasound on it so soon. He did say though, when I asked, that it doesn't look to be severe at all - more mild in fact - and so we don't need to talk or think about surgery at this point yet. So yay for that! He has coming back in 2 weeks for another ultrasound on it though and it looks like we're just going to be monitoring it that way for awhile in hopes that as Jay continues to grow it'll just naturally unblock itself.

Then, throughout the day I had several interactions with our realtor. He called me back this morning while I was feeding Jay, apologizing for not getting back to us yesterday as he somehow missed the message that we had called when his meeting ran long and he just got it this morning. We told him the counter-counter offer of $70k was fine, but he did said he was going to push for the later closing date just because he wanted to make sure we had enough time for the loan to go through. At lunch I got an email from him with an attached amendum from the bank/seller saying for us to look through it and call him to set up a time to sign it. Then he called me a little while later going over a few things in it (I hadn't had time to read through it yet) and also said that he was able to get them to accept our previous offer of $68k! How neat! Also, hubby dropped off the rest of the paperwork the bank lady needed and she emailed me to confirm that we were good to go!

So it looks like we'll be moving by mid-April at the very latest! How exciting!

Also this afternoon we had our next visit with the visiting nurse to check Jay's weight - he's up 3 more ounces (now 7lbs, 3oz)! Yay! I hope the doctor is pleased with his weight gain when we go back in for his post-hospital follow-up on Monday.

Photo Phriday

Since not everyone that follows this blog is my friend on Facebook, I thought I'd share some more photos of Jay, as some of you were asking on Twitter =)

Babies - now with built-in Droid X's

Little Snowbunny in his newborn snowsuit

Baby facepalm

He's getting good at holding his head up on his own!

Sucking on his binky

Mr. Grunty-pants is an angry elf!

Just a sleepy little Who from Whoville

4 weeks come and gone!

Tomorrow morning Jay is going to be 4 weeks old already! I guess losing a week, stuck in the hospital really made it fly by!

So they say by the end of the first month he should start holding his head up... well, he's been working on that since he was 3 days old and he's gotten quite good at it, being able to hold it straight up on his own for several seconds.

He's also sort of getting into a routine - we go to bed around 330/4am when daddy gets home from work (Jay is usually finishing a bottle or just recently finished one by this point). Jay wakes up (usually) around 6am wanting to eat more and then again around 9am when daddy is leaving for work. Then we go back to sleep til about 11 or 12 and he eats "lunch" before taking a short nap, eating again around 3pm and then he passes out til 6 or 7pm before eating again. He usually eats again between 9 and 10pm, falls asleep and then eats again around midnight or 1am before sleeping a bit more until it's time to eat again.

The last 2 nights though he skipped the 6am feeding and just slept right through for a good 5/6 hours straight! He sleeps in the bassinet for a few hours (which is better than none like before!), but usually ends up on my chest, snuggling with me.

He's becoming more aware of things too - he likes to look around and take things in (in the hospital one night, I was sitting on the chair at an angle where he could look out the window in the door and out into the hallway - he was very intrigued by people walking past!) and when I read to him now he looks at the pictures on the pages too! He's aware of daddy - there were several times last night where no matter what I did he wouldn't stop crying and fussing... I passed him off to daddy and within a minute or so he was calmed down - he just wanted daddy and not mommy! Doh!

Tomorrow is his first appointment with the urologist... I'm hoping his enlarged kidney is only mild or moderate and they just want to monitor it instead of it being severe and him needing surgery to get rid of the blockage!

We've had several counter-offers already on the house - they came back to our $65k offer with $71.3k... we countered with $68k and today they came back with $70k which is what we were wanting them to drop it to! I didn't get to speak to our realtor today though to confirm the offer, as he sent us the email and said he was going to be in a meeting all afternoon and to call him between a certain timeframe as he had a house to show later in the day too... I called but the receptionist said he was still in his meeting so I left a voicemail and sent him an email saying to call us when he could... so we're waiting. Which sucks. But unless something major falls through, we should be closing on the house near the end of the month and moving in ASAP!

We also got some fun stuff coming up within the next week - I'm excited!

My college roommate is coming up from Dallas to visit for a week or so and get some wedding stuff done as they're having it up here. She's got an appointment for us bridesmaids setup at David's Bridal this Sunday so we're meeting for lunch beforehand and then trying on dresses! Then on Wednesday her and her fiance are coming to us to visit and meet Jay - she said she plans on buying him Converse shoes as he grows up. Fine with me - they're cute! Friday they're having an engagement party with their friends up here at Gamewerks in Schaumburg so hubby and I are planning on going. The following Sunday is my good friend's daughter's 1st birthday party that we're invited to, so that should be fun! Our kids (her son just turned 4, her daughter is turning 1) are likely going to know each other pretty well as we're planning on going for regular walks this summer and doing other stuff together once the kids are a little bigger (like play days at the children's museum, etc).

Just like daddy

My mom pointed out the other day that there's a photo my mother-in-law posted awhile back on Facebook of hubby when he was just a baby that she said if you didn't know it at first you would swear it was Jay in the photo!

What do you think?

 

They definitely look a like in this photo, that's for sure - same profile, hairline, big ears, etc!

Jay update!

Today we had our first visit from the visiting nurse as they said one would be coming twice a week for 2 weeks to check Jay's weight and make sure he was still making progress, growth-wise.

Well, as of this evening, he's up to 7lbs even! Woot!!

The visit went alright it seemed - he screamed bloody murder when I had to strip him down so she could weigh him and he ate 2.5oz while she asked me a bunch of questions about him and my pregnancy and delivery, etc.

She'll be back Friday for another weight check up.

I ran into our landlord today for the first time in months. He saw me carrying in Jay in his carrier and helped get the door for me, asking if he was our baby or someone's we were watching. I said he was ours and the response was "Really?! I didn't even know you were pregnant!" I told him Jay was almost 4 weeks old and he was surprised too! Guess our landlord's been out of the loop! lol...

I also realized that the house we put an offer in on today is in the city and not the county so that means we can finally get library cards!! I'm so excited - I haven't had a library card since I was a kid when my dad would take me a few Saturdays a month. See, here if you live in the city, your library card is covered by your city taxes, but if you live in the random county patches well, it's $100 annually that you have to pay upfront so obviously you can see why I haven't had one in years. I'm really excited though and I look forward to taking Jay to get a library card in a few years too!

And on a sidenote...

Jay is NEVER going to have clean sleeves again. This weekend at the hospital he figured out that he can wipe his mouth off on his sleeve and he was regularly beating me to wiping the milkies off his face! We started him back on his medicine tonight and while we had a bib on him, he attempted to wipe his mouth off with his "good" shirt sleeve... this is bad because the medicine is pink and stains! We kept having to grab his arm to stop him from doing it! lol...

Some Awesome Deals!

Today was a busy day, but in a good way.

Jay got to spend the afternoon at Grammie's while mommy ran some errands.

I had to stop at the bank, the DMV to get hubby's car sticker renewed (it expired yesterday - oops!), and drop off our signed/initialed copy of our offer on the house to our realtor.

I also saw that Toys R Us had the new Bambi DVD and were giving away free mini Bambi plushies with the purchase, however by the time I got there they were out as they didn't get that many. I was a bit bummed as I really wanted to get the Bambi plushie for Jay. I had to go to Target anyway to return a nursing bra I never wore and decided to just buy the movie there since it'd probably be cheaper anyway.

I got quite a few good deals there too!

My grandparents had sent Jay $5 for Valentine's Day and then a nice check as well just for him being born. I ended up getting the Bambi movie for $12.99 as Target had it for $22.99 and then I had a coupon I found online for $10 off it! I also got the Sesame Street "Follow That Bird" movie from the 80s that I loved to watch when I was little for only $5. I also used Jay's $5 to buy another board book for him - Sesame Street's "Shake a Leg." I read it to him tonight - he's able to look around and focus on things a bit better now so he was looking at the pages as I read it and told him who all the characters were too and since the book is about moving around different parts of your body I would pat his head when it said to, shake his leg, etc - he had this look like "mommy, what are you doing?" but it was fun!

I also got a REALLY good deal on this 3-in-1 activity booster seat too! I saw it at Toys/Babies R Us when I stopped over there and they had it on sale for $39.99. I debated picking it up with the money my grandparents had sent, as I did want to get him a little activity thing like that (my friend's kid has this big exersaucer activity thing that her daughter loved and it seemed like a neat baby toy!) but I figured I'd see what Target had first since they're cheaper. Well, looking around the baby department, I came across the same one on a bottom shelf and the only tag for that brand said $12.98 so of course I grabbed it as there were only 2 left! Shocked, I stopped by a price check machine but it said it was $44.98. I figured I'd take it up front and see if they could tell me which was the actual price. The return price came up as $12.48 but it said the actual price was $44.98. Confused by the tag on the rack though, I mentioned it and they had someone go check and sure enough, the only tag for that brand of item said $12.98 so they gave it to me for that price!! The neat thing about this one is that it works alone as a seat, or it can be an activity seat and it can be a booster seat! Jay can't quite use it yet, as he can't sit up on his own yet, but soon!

I also found a St. Patrick's Day onesie for him too - it's green and says "Irish (I wish) you would KISS ME!"

Jay still has quite a bit of money to spend on himself from his great grandparents but I figured I'd hang onto it for now until we found something worthwhile to spend it on.

A house to call home

So I mentioned last week we had been doing some house hunting lately.

Well, the house we were planning on making an offer on... our realtor called us this past week to inform us of the situation with that one... apparently there's been several offers on it, all over $70k, however the bank that owns it has been taking so long - up to at least 3 months - to get back to anyone on it so people keep backing out. He said there is currently 1 offer on the house, however it's possible they too will back out after waiting more than a month or 2 on the bank so if we put an offer in now we'd be the back-up, however who knows how long it would take for the bank to get back to us and we're trying to find something within 90 days of when we got pre-approved so we don't have to re-run the credit again so we risk cutting it close. He said he doesn't want to tell us what to do, but he did say it could take months for our offer to get accepted due to how slow the bank that owns it is being.

The other house I mentioned, that we first saw at an open house, well, like I mentioned they went ahead and bumped the price up almost $10k more and started finishing the basement off. While we like the house and the features, we were hoping to get something closer to $70k to keep our payments down and we really doubt we could talk them back down to $75k with the finished basement, as $75k was the original price without the basement finished. Even $80k would be pushing it we think...

Quite possibly our new home come April/May

So we thought about it, and honestly, the first house we saw that we really liked, the only major thing I wasn't fond of was that the main floor only has 2 bedrooms, with the 3rd being in the basement. But right now, anything is better and bigger than our 1 bedroom apartment and we really need to find something and move soon as things are just too cramped here - with all Jay's baby stuff, we're running out of room and he really needs a room of his own too. Thinking about it, it's nice for our first home - a 1 car attached garage with an additional parking spot in the driveway, a fenced backyard with a deck and a decent sized yard with a firepit, a kitchen with a stove, microwave and dishwasher, a pantry and nice counterspace, 2 full bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a finished basement with a bar... move-in ready with us only needing to purchase a fridge, washer and dryer and eventually more furniture - not bad at all actually! And our realtor informed us the other day that the price dropped too.

We had him draft up an offer - we're starting with $65k, thinking we'd be able to get it for close to $70k if they counter-offer. He wrote in a closing date of April 15 and said this company that owns the property is usually very good about getting back to people within a few days too. We just have a few things to turn in to the bank lady this week for our loan and I need to get the offer contract back to our realtor as he dropped it off for us to sign and it looks like we're good to go!

Wish us luck!

Additional thoughts from our "vacation" at the hospital

Friday evening (right before I was about to take a shower too) they had to bump us out of our single room into a shared room as the pediatric unit was filling up and they needed our room for an isolation case. I was kinda sad too as hubby was finally able to stay overnight on the weekend and we lost the pull-out couch bed that was in the single and got stuck with a small pull-out chair bed. We made it work - one of us always had to be laying on our side and it was an excuse to get some much needed snuggle time in too!

When we moved rooms, there was another younger couple, close in age to us, with a baby - maybe a year and a half old, as he could watch Mickey DVDs and grasp what was going on. They had brought him in earlier in the week for a fever, but the doctor's couldn't figure out what was causing it. Saturday they did an MRI on him and turns out he had a huge abscess on his hip that was bigger than his bladder and they needed to do surgery to get it drained! Poor guy! He was crying in pain a lot too and scared of any of the hospital staff in uniform! They had them move to a different room for recovery while he was in surgery though. I saw the mom a few times in the hall the rest of the weekend - she looked like she was doing okay so I'm assuming the surgery went well.

Our next "roommates" for the remainder of our stay... well, I feel bad for their little guy! Apparently the baby - about 4 months old I gathered - is a twin who was born 10 weeks early, but has had one health issue after another and was on oxygen when they brought him in Saturday evening. Also, since he was born he's been in the hospital the majority of the time - the longest stretch at home was just 2 days! This morning one of the doctors that's been working with them came in and was telling the nurse how annoyed he was that they brought him back in again as there seemed to be nothing wrong with him this time, other than the mom freaked out over something that was nothing. Like I said, I felt really bad for the little guy as his parents just kinda left him there! They were there til about 11pm or so Saturday night before leaving to check-in to a hotel nearby (guess they didn't want to try the pull-out chair like we did!) and they came back a little bit briefly Sunday afternoon but left by 6pm - soon after they left, their little guy woke up, crying, like he was lonely. I was holding Jay as hubby went to go get us dinner, and I just felt so bad for the guy I called for the nurses, letting them know his parents had left recently and he was just crying so much - one of them came in to hold him for a bit til he fell asleep again. They had doctors in and out throughout the night checking in on him... we left today just before noon and his parents still weren't back!

I couldn't imagine leaving Jay alone in the hospital like that! Yes, he's not even a month old yet and he won't remember any of this when he's older, but still... I couldn't bare the thought of my baby waking up, crying, in a strange foreign scary place like the hospital without a familiar face there to comfort him and hold him! I'd feel like such a horrible parent!

Also, the nurse we had our last night there... yeah, not a fan. All the other nurses were great and really helpful, this one was just really young and seemed a bit inexperienced - it showed. She also got on my nerves a little bit later in the night, as she had offered to feed Jay for his 3am feeding so I wouldn't have to wake up and could catch some extra sleep since hubby wasn't there to help me. Well I put him down around 130am but he woke back up by 2. She walked past in the hallway and saw us and came in to check up on us. She thought he was hungry despite his feeding not being for almost an hour and she offered to feed him early so I could climb back in bed. I hesitated at first but ended up agreeing due to my tiredness and her insistence. I was half awake, half asleep but I had a bad feeling he'd spit up while she fed him because she wouldn't make him slow down (Jay starts out acting like he's starving and downs the first .5-1oz like it's no one's business and by the end of Sunday he was wolfing down 2oz bottles in 10minutes or less!). And I was right... she gave him 1oz and burped him, but I could hear him gulping like crazy, not stopping to actually swallow, and he "threw up." I was kinda pissed but too tired to get up or say anything. She stopped the feeding, cleaned him off, and put him down without offering him anymore to fill himself up (I noticed that if he spits up a little, after a few minutes for his tummy to settle he'll eat a little more to make up for what he spit up)... he started fussing again 20min later and I got up with him. We gave him more to eat at 4am and I insisted on feeding him myself this time - he ate all 2oz, no problem for me. The nurse was shocked. Clearly, mommy knows how to feed her baby. He ended up sleeping on my chest that night - I think the doctors and nurses coming in every hour or so to check on oxygen baby was waking him up when he was sleeping alone in the crib. I woke up at 8am, shocked that 1) the nurse didn't wake us up for his 7am as she was so anal the night before about us waking him up at the 3hr mark so he wouldn't get off schedule, and 2) she didn't tell us at the 730 shift change that she was leaving and inform us who our daytime nurse would be as they did every morning! Yeah... the rest of the nurses were great... but her, she kinda got on my nerves as the night/morning went on.

Home from the hospital

We were finally discharged from the hospital late this morning (Monday).

Since my last post on Wednesday, Jay's made quite a bit of improvement!

Jay's first wagon ride!
When they discharge the kids from the pediatric unit, they wheel them out
and down to the entrance in these wagons! How cute!

Thursday they started upping the amount of formula he was continuously being fed every few hours, trying to get him back up to 20mL as they had bumped him down to 10 after the first night of the continuous feeding as he was spitting up still. We got to about 15mL on Friday evening when the stomach doctor that started seeing us decided to go ahead and have us start feeding him by bottle again (50mL of 24 calorie formula) every 3 hours as he felt that the continuous feed wouldn't help get us out of there any quicker as with Jay constantly having food in his tummy, he wasn't getting that sensation of being hungry and wanting to eat. They had us do that for the rest of the night and all of Saturday before Sunday just letting him eat as much as he could/wanted every few hours - 50mL is just under 2oz, and when they let us, he was averaging 2oz per feeding on Sunday and he was keeping it down for the most part too!

Since he was eating fine on his own and keeping it down pretty well and gaining weight they let us go today - much to my pleasure as I was sick and tired of sleeping on the hospital pull-out furniture and just being there in general.

They have us feeding him Enfamil's Lipil formula, mixing it a special way so it's more concentrated giving him 27 calories per oz. He weighed 6lbs, 12.1oz this morning when we left - a huge improvement from the 6lbs, 1oz he came in at!

Because he has to be on the higher calorie formula, obviously I'm not breastfeeding. There's no telling how long he'll need to be on the higher calorie formula and my supply already seems to have depleted. I'm fine with it though so don't think I'm beating myself up over the fact I can't breastfeed him - I'm not and like I mentioned in a previous post, I kinda welcome the fact that we have to give him formula as with all the post-partum crap (I was dealing with the depression and emotional stuff of it to a lesser degree), the stress of breastfeeding wasn't helping it any.

He's been doing good since we got home though - he ate 2.5oz for his afternoon bottle before taking a 2.5hr nap IN THE BASSINET!!! It was a shocker to me too, as he fell asleep after eating and I put him down in there so I could at least do some stuff before he woke up... and Little Man was passed out! He's napping in there right now too - I expect him to wake up around the time daddy gets home from work for some more food before we try putting him down for the rest of the night/morning. He did spit up a little tonight though - he drank 1oz that was left from before and then I made another 3oz bottle... there was a lot of foam but from what I can tell he drank nearly 2oz before spitting up probably 1 (all over himself and me - fortunately none got on the couch!); I cleaned him off though and he ate maybe another half ounce before tiring out. I'm not too worried though - he had already met his ounces for the day (for his size, he needs about 15oz of the normal formula and about 12oz of the higher calorie stuff).