Wesley’s Second Day

The view I get cradling Wesley.

 

Wesley is not happy about getting dressed for the very first time. 

 

Cuddling with Daddy after the trauma of being dressed.  It’s all better now.

 

Phew!  Wesley’s been awake for minutes now, and now needs to rest (read: fully conk out).

 

Things I’ve forgotten about newborns:

• The little noises they make in their sleep.
• They pee as soon as their diaper is off (far more disastrous with a boy).
• They hate being naked.  (How soon that will change!)
• All the people who come in to check on baby after the birth—nurses, NICU, hearing studies, TEDDY info, picture vendors, cleaning, food service, pediatrician, lactation consultants, midwives.
• How small and light they are—and how big they make your last “baby” seem!
• How cute Dwayne is caring for something about 1/30th his size.

He’s Here!

Dwayne had a whole check off list of things to do on Monday before Omega would arrived on Tuesday (a mandate I had declared last week—I didn’t want to be pregnant any longer!). So naturally, my water broke Sunday night  just after 11pm.  I guess it was important to establish early on that Mama and Daddy were NOT in control.

Noteworthy: all three kid’s birthdays are associated with holidays.  Kyla was born on the Friday afternoon of Labor Day weekend (her 2nd birthday was on the actual Labor Day), Piper is a Valentine’s baby, and Wesley as born on the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday.

Wesley just two days before he was born.  He’s the one in the middle.

Not long after he was born, 03:17 Jan. 18, 2010.  The nurse was puzzled at first because he was so blue. His oxygen was a little low on his first measurement but it soon went up to the perfect 100%, but his coloring was still off.  The staff, including a NICU nurse and later the pediatrician, concluded that his bluishness was from the bruising he got coming so fast. 

The required shot of the mom who goes into labor instead of dreamland one night.

Wesley’s first bath.  Yeah, he didn’t like it much.  But you can see he has some hair!  I predict he will lose it quickly and he may be another tow-head to spite his father.

Something men don’t always get is how sexy they look when they take off their shirt…to keep a baby warm!

My parents came up about 1 this morning to stay with the girls and then bring them down to their house for a few days.  They were able to visit us in the hospital and the girls, especially Kyla, were delighted to meet Wesley-who-may-be-called-Sam-sometimes.   Grandpa took all these great pictures, which explains why he isn’t in any of them. 

Wesley Scott Need

Our son was born this morning at 3:20am, after only one hour and 45 minutes of labor. At birth, Wesley weighed 7 lbs, 8oz and was 20 inches long. He is beautiful and healthy, and is currently fast asleep in his mother's arms. We will post pictures later.

The evening was winding down uneventfully. Denise has just stepped out of the shower and was getting ready for bed when her water broke. After a quick call to her mom, and then to a neighbor to babysit until Grandma arrived, we headed to the hospital.

The contractions were pretty mild when we checked in, and they stayed like that for an hour or so. Then they began to increase in intensity, and Denise was able to deliver after only pushing three times.

Denise and I are so happy to welcome Wesley Scott Need into the world. His two older sisters will wake up tomorrow to meet the little brother we have been talking about for so long. Our family is now complete.

Nesting

I have a difficult time deciding when I am birth-nesting as compared to my usual project-driven self, but taking pictures of tiny newborn diapers while rearranging the nursery for probably the second-to-last-time likely counts as nesting.

The bigger diaper is the size 4 that both Kyla and Piper wear—keeping it as simple as possible.  

Cookies!!

I am due to have this baby any day now, and the cold our family has been flirting with came full blow this morning, so it wasn’t the easiest day for me.  But for once, the girls were as tired as I was, so Piper slept 3 hours this afternoon and Kyla and I took a 2 hour nap together.  We were all in much better moods after that!  So we made cookies. 

Usually, this is something Kyla and I do together, but it was time to include Piper.  They were very good about working together to gather the ingredients for me. Piper spooned out sugar into a measuring cup while Kyla measured out the brown sugar and I added the butter.  After that, the girls mostly licked up all the sugar they spilled while I did the rest. 

I’ve always let Kyla choose a color to dye the cookies, so today, Piper picked green and Kyla chose blue.  Kyla’s hands still look as if she had just voted in Iraq.

(Above) Kyla informed me that she was cleaning off the spatulas (we ended up using four!) so they would be clean.  You go, germ girl! Piper just licked off anything she thought might have sugar on it.

(Below)  Not the disaster zone I was expecting.  Of course, I didn’t bother to photograph the floor. 

The Genius Award Goes to….

…the person who created this perfectly ordinary-looking toilet seat.

Here’s the brilliant part: a kids’ potty is embedded into the lid, held with a magnet (I know!!) so it only comes down when you want it to, and kids can get it down. And when you close the lid, the potty seat becomes part of the lid again! Have you seen a more marvelous invention?

Thanks to Elizabeth who bought one because she had seen one at Jen’s who had seen it at another friend’s, and so on. This is the BEMIS Next Step toilet seat, found at Home Depot ($30 for round size, $35 elongated). I couldn’t find it for under $40 on the web.

How to Make Visitors Nervous

This is the front entry way of our split-level home. I don’t think it’s more than a 4 1/2 foot drop to the tile floor, as long as they don’t hit the granite entry table on the way down. Neither has ever fallen from here, so I have no reason to worry yet.