Friday marked two week of having our little Christian join our family. He is still so new to us and to the world, but we are so happy to have him here. We went to his two week appointment yesterday and he is now 7 pounds 5 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long. He's definitely growing like a weed.
So a bit about the first two weeks....Christian decided that he wanted to go home on phototherapy due to his high bilirubin levels, so he spent his first week of life plugged into a wall basking in UV light to get rid of his tan (or rather his jaundiced skin). We attempted to use the bili light table, but learned quickly that Christian more than hated the idea of sitting naked on a hard surface without even a blanket to comfort him, so we gave up on that idea after the first night. Thankfully, our pediatrician is a realist and agreed that the table is really quite a joke at home in most instances, so I was glad to not be disobeying doctor's orders. We were just dilligent with and stuck to the "bili blanket."His bili was up at 15 the Monday after we left the hospital. Wednesday it was the same. By Friday, it had dropped to 10 and it only had to go down to 13 to stop the phototherapy, so we were pretty happy with the big jump.
We were hoping that with the absence of the bili blanket complicating a comfortable sleep, Christian would become a perfect sleeper. He actually did very good the first night phototherapy free, a great birthday present for Brad, but now he is frequently fussy less than three hours from his previous feeding, so his sleeping pattern is far from ideal. Oh, and I didn't mention the struggle we have putting him back to sleep in the middle of the night after feedings either.
It has been interesting to watch Ellie's reaction to her baby brother. For the first week, she hadn't done more than touch his hair and tickle his toes. She has warmed up to him a bit, and will now give him kisses, but She doesn't think holding him sounds fun at all. She doesn't really even want to be near him in most instances. Despite the fact that she won't really touch him, she loves to talk about him. She loves to look at him and say in a high pitched voice "he's so cute" or call him a cutie pie. She gets very excited in the morning when she hears him wake up. She is always sure to tell me that he's probably hungry. She also like to tell me to put him down to play with her, or tell me that he's hungry or angry when he's crying.
At Christian's one week mark, Aubrey and I met up together to introduce the two new cousins to each other. Her baby boy was born on the 3rd, so he and Christian are only three days apart. Brad's sister Kristi also had a baby girl about a week after Christian's birth. So Christian will have lots of cousins to play with his same age on both sides of the family with twins on my side of the family born 4 months ago.
In the midst of adjusting to life as a family of four, we also tried to celebrate Brad's birthday. My parents were kind enough to offer to watch Ellie and Christian on the night of Brad's birthday so we could go and have dinner together. I had gotten Brad some gifts, but unfortunately in my tired fog, they sat under the bed not wrapped and pretty much forgotten until 3 days after his birthday when he casually reminded me about them. I felt pretty bad about that. And he totally deserves to be spoiled because he has been so great these past two weeks. Not only is he is great to take rocking shifts in the middle of the night when I've reached my limit, he has also been great helping Ellie adjust to Christian. He had to take a test at 7:30 the day after we got home from the hospital followed by another exam the next morning, and he felt ok about both of them!. He has had to miss quite a bit of school and is still pulling out some very decent grades this semester. What a catch I got. I'm so grateful that he is such a great dad, husband, and student.
I'm going to try and post pictures, but it may be a while before I figure out the best way to do it. Sorry about that.
She had so much fun with her nativity sets at home too, she loved "Baby Jesus" and the "twinkle little star" the most. Even now, when we sing a song before bedtime she always says that she wants to sing a "Baby Jesus" song. Stories about "ho ho ho" were fun to read too. She also had fun with anything related to a jingle bell or with anything that remotely even sounded like a jingle bell. Christmas morning she slept in. Ooo, that was difficult for two parents full of anticipation for Christmas morning. We waited a whole hour after waking up before we went in a got Ellie up. She had fun opening presents, but didn't exactly tear into them like we were kind of hoping. She did well though, and enjoyed all of her gifts. Her surprise favorite was her potty. We bought her the potty because we were out and about doing shopping, and decided we should just get one, and since it was all boxed up, we wrapped it. Well, after opening up that potty, she would not open another present unless she was sitting on her thrown. Then she carried the thing around the house wherever she went. We let her drag it around on Christmas, but the next day I established it's place in the bathroom after many tears and screams on Ellie's part. Besides the potty (which really hasn't been used yet for it's rightful purpose, sadly) some of Ellie's favorite presents were her "rocky giraffe" from PaGa Winter, her "dishes toys," and she loves to say "hi" to Grandma on the cool cell phone she got.
