I never imagined the day where I would feel even the slightest bit of sympathy for Lily, but she has cut a pretty morose figure around the condo for the past couple of weeks. Yes, it’s the classic case of the firstborn getting knocked off the pedestal by something newer, cuter, and less of a butt hole. Fortunately she hasn’t attacked Luke yet.
Well pop open a refrigerated bottle of breast milk, because Liz and I have managed to keep Luke alive and kicking for two weeks now. There is a little bit of leftover Easter candy in the Fusion that I might celebrate with. Other than that it’ll be a pretty low key evening.
Three boxes showed up from Amazon today. They contained a bunch of plain white onesies (with hand covers, so he doesn’t scratch his face), extra pumping supplies and nipple shields, and a handy little drying tower. I am disappointed in myself for being so excited about all of this stuff.
My parents and came over this afternoon and were able to hold Luke for the first time. Tons of cell phone photographs were taken. Luke was pretty relaxed about it. Lauren came over a little later but he was already feeding by then so she couldn’t hold him. Hopefully next time. She did stay and chat with Liz for a while though.
This morning we took Luke to the dentist. I can’t believe how fast his teeth came in! Just kidding, he actually went because he had a little tongue tie. It was a very quick laser procedure and Liz actually cried more than he did. This will help a lot with breast feeding and with his speech later. Hopefully it will keep him from getting any sort of Michigan accent! The biggest issue is going to be doing his mouth stretches every three hours for the next 21 days. Those get him pretty agitated and it is difficult to see him suffer. But short term pain equals long term gain.
We were actually on time, despite some traffic issues. All the folks at the office were super friendly and helpful.We return in two weeks for a follow up. The lactation consultant is coming Thursday and next Monday to check up on everything. I’m optimistic that this procedure will really help improve the quality of his feedings.
Since the last piece of his umbilical cord and the circumcised end of his penis both fell off a couple of days ago, we decided that last night was a good time for his first bath. We stripped him naked and learned a valuable lesson…keep the fire hose covered at all times! No pictures of the spray down or his sponge bath, as the former shocked me so much that I forgot to document the latter. But he soaked half the kitchen and it took me a long time to wash and sterilize everything afterwards. At least it was really funny to watch.
He started crying about 1:30 this morning and didn’t stop until we were getting ready to leave for the dentist’s at around 7:15. I took over from Liz at about 4:30 and held him and walked with him and did everything I could think of to get him to sleep, to no avail. The closest he came was a fifteen minute stretch of silence after I gave him a pacifier for pretty much the first time ever. He spit it out though, and went back to fussing. I took a little nap after we returned to the condo, but am still pretty tired.
Not much is planned for the rest of the week other than the lactation consultant. The weather is supposed to be spring like again starting tomorrow and I will start spending lot of time working on the farm. Block is supposed to be delivered tomorrow and the masons start work on Wednesday. Soon it will start looking like a house.
Actually he is pretty low key. I don’t have much frame of reference in regards to the amount of noise produced by various babies. Yesterday’s two week check up went well. He is gaining weight and growing. Eight weeks until the next appointment. He is now taking a bottle (with breast milk) after every nursing on the breast. We are trying to transition him to longer stretches of sleep during the night. He has a lot of facial expressions. Not much of a smile though. The closest he comes is a face he makes just before crying.
Got an early start this morning and arrived down in Columbia just after sunrise. I drove by the farm without stopping and continued down one of my favorite back roads in the area. It was a glorious morning and I snapped a few pictures with my phone.
After going down a few new roads I arrived at the farm and received a surprise. The concrete had been poured already! Yesterday morning the foundation guys told me that it would be poured this morning – hence my early arrival. I was pleased that it was done and it looked good, but extremely frustrated at the amount used – 50 yards. They dug the trenches in a fairly sloppy manner and hit some soft spots so the volume was much higher than expected. My dad came down to get his lawnmower and we talked for a bit. He told me that in five months when we were moved in and enjoying the farm life I wouldn’t care at all about the cost of the extra concrete. I hope he’s right.
I ran a number of errands around town after he left. Downtown Columbia really is a cool place. I hope to spend some time walking around with my camera before too long. I spent the afternoon piddling around the farm – tidying up materials and preparing for the storm that’s supposed to be rolling in tonight. As evening approached the back field looked lovely in the soft light.
I took the slow, scenic route back to the condo. I again stopped a couple of times to take some pictures with my phone. I forgot how nice it is to take long drives on country roads. It will be nice to really explore Maury County. I look forward to biking a lot as well.
