One Of Those Nights

So last night was one of those nights. Every parent has them. They are the nights that if you tell people the story they ask "Why should we have kids?".

During the evening after Alyce was in bed Mom had just finished feeding Luke and she was settling down for a quiet evening. Luke had other plans. Luke decided that the full belly he had didn't agree with him. He thought it better to give the formula back to Mom rather than keep it all to himself. In the process of being a good sharer he covered himself, mom, and a throw pillow in formula.

After that event we got him cleaned up and all was well with the world, for a while... Later in the evening I was feeding Luke. The milk was going down just fine. Not even a complaint from his side. As I was walking over to change his diaper before going to bed he decided to share dinner with me too.

So here we are putting Luke in outfit #3 for the day. Three isn't where it ended either. Luke didn't like his third outfit during a late night feeding and promptly wetted all over it while Mom was changing his diaper.

For a 24 hour period Luke tore through four outfits, numerous wipes, and Mom's and Dad's patience. Looking back on it a day later it is quite hilarious. Every parent has this story. It is a medal only earned in the trenches of parenting.

Cord Falling Off

Yesterday Luke's cord fell off. It happened before we put him to bed. Mom and I go to change his diaper and behold there isn't this hard black thing staring back at us. His cord falling off makes changing diapers so much easier. While it was on you have to make sure nothing catches on it and that you didn't mistake it for a diaper tab and rip it off. I've read that happens.

His cord falling off carries more meaning than just making our lives easier. It means that he is starting the 18 year path of complete separation from us. First he has to eat for himself, next he will be able to move without us carrying him, and eventually he will be heading off to college where the only thing he will need from us is gas money and a washing machine. It is awe inspiring to see this little person grow before my eyes and to know that I have a hand in who he is now and who he will be in the future.

Luke, you probably won't realize how something so insignificant as your cord falling can be so powerful until you have kids of your own. Even though you aren't attached to your mom anymore it doesn't mean that you aren't connected to your family.

Food Intake On The Rise

Luke's food intake is really starting to increase. Last weekend he jumped from drinking 2 oz. a feeding to 3 oz. Then this weekend he jumped from 3 to 4 oz. He isn't taking in 4 oz. every feeding, but 3.5 oz. is pretty common.

During the day Luke is a pretty good eater. He drinks his bottles fairly quickly and doesn't have any spit up issues. One thing that is kind of interesting is that we don't always get burps out of Luke. I'm not really sure what we can chalk that up to. We use Dr. Brown's bottles and we give Luke infant gas drops. Perhaps one of those two things could be it.

During the night Luke is another story. While he still doesn't spit up or have gas he doesn't eat all that well during the night. He makes these little squeaks with every breath and at times can be really loud about it. I find that if I sit him up he tends to do better.

A Twinkle In Dad's Eye Has A New Home

In case you haven't noticed A Twinkle In Dad's Eye now has a new home: www.lukesworld.me. We are moving to this new address because baby Luke needs a real website name. We wanted to do something like LukesWorld.com but that was taken. Instead we can get www.lukesworld.me. .me is a domain for sites about people rather than .com for commercial entities. So in reality .me is really a better fit for a blog about Luke.

Coming in the future I am going to be doing some redesign to Luke's blog. I figure along with a new address I could put on a new coat of paint.

Luke Is Strong

Luke is working out while taking a nap.

The First Week With Luke

We made it one week with Luke! Things have been easier than the first time around. I give a lot of that to being a second time parent. A lot of the stuff that bothered me with Alyce don't phase me near as much with Luke.

Late night feedings are going well. Luke sleeps three hours at a stretch and it takes around 20 minutes to feed him and get him back to sleep. So if you throw out that lost time we are still getting around 6-7 hours of interrupted sleep a night.

Luke's weight is doing well. He left the hospital 8 lbs 1 oz and after one week he was back up to 8 lbs 4 oz. This weight puts him in the 75th percentile his height of 21 1/4 inches puts him in the 95th percentile with his head size coming in at the 50th percentile.

The only negative thing that has happened is that Luke has picked up a cold from Alyce. We think Alyce picked up this cold while in the hospital visiting Luke. We try our best to keep them apart but even that can fail. Luckily for the Luke the cold doesn't seem to be affecting him very much. He occasionally sounds congested but his appetite is strong and he is sleeping well. If any of those things change we will bring him in to the pediatrician but until that point there isn't much need to be the overreacting parent.

Luke's First Bath

On Wednesday April 15th we gave Luke his first bath. Because his cord was still attached we couldn't place him in water. Since Luke is a fan of being warm and cozy he didn't care much for being stripped naked and wet. After washing his skin we then washed his hair with some warm water. Luke was a big fan of that and was quiet until we got him dry and cozy.

Some Initial Thoughts

Here are some initial thoughts of mine about our new baby boy Luke.

• Luke likes to be held. If he can't be swaddled then he wants to be held close. This is really nice as you can put him on your chest and he will quietly sleep there giving out the occasional squeak or coo. Not so nice when you need to get something done that requires two hands.
  
• Luke likes to sleep. The first night he was home he was up quite a bit from 12:00 - 3:00 a.m. but since then he sleeps for 3 hours straight at night and during the day. I would put his total awake time in a given day at around 1 - 2 hours.
• Luke likes to eat. I wouldn't call his appetite voracious but I would call it hearty. The one thing that will pull him out of slumber is an empty stomach. He gives some early warning signs to let us know that he is wanting food. His face will get red, his brow will furrow, and he will start to thrash about.
• Luke likes pacifiers. If we give Luke a pacifier when he starts working himself up over food we can nip his crying before it gets started. The whole pacifier thing is new to me as Alyce wouldn't have anything to do with them.
• Luke likes to poop. I've never seen so much poop come out of one child. The volume isn't very much but where he gets you is frequency. I would say every other diaper is poopy.

So there you have it my first impressions of baby Luke. I'm sure this will all change soon enough, but in two years it will be interesting to see how he stacks then vs. now.

Bringing Luke Home

We got to bring Luke home from the hospital on Friday. In my opinion it was time to go. For a second time parent the nurses weren't doing a whole lot for us and I wanted to relax on my own couch and sleep in my own bed. The care we received at the hospital was great but if there isn't any problems there isn't much of a need to stick around.

Now that we are at the house things moved into high gear for me. There has been tons of things to do. The house while clean needed to be picked up and we were tearing through bottles like nobody's business. I don't remember using 8 bottles in a single day with Alyce, but if a baby eats every three hours then I guess you make 8 dirty ones in a 24 hour period.

One item that gave Mommy and I a lot of concern was our dog Jake. When we brought Alyce years ago Jake was incredibly interested in her to the point he was becoming aggressive. I think he thought that she was some sort of varmit and not a real person. That time around my parents took Jake for a week and my dad "Grandpa" worked his magic as Jake came back a different (and better) dog. Luckily this time around we didn't need to resort to extreme measures. Jake was inquisitive of Luke but after a few close sniffs while Luke was in his carrier Jake got bored an laid back down. A big sigh of relief from Mom and I followed.

Hospital Day 2

Even though we are now home from the hospital I wanted to write a bit about Luke's second day. The second day was a good transition day where Mom and I got a bit of sleep and Luke was introduced to lots of friends, family, and most importantly his sister.

Just before lunch Grams and Pa Pa brought Alyce to the hospital to meet her brother. I met them all at the front entrance so I could do the introduction. For a full recount of Alyce's first visit check out the post on her blog.


After lunch Grams, Pa Pa, and Alyce left which game us time to take a nap. Luke was at the nurses station and we power napped for two hours.

Once dinner was over we had a steady stream of visitors for the rest of the night. Our friends Matt and Lauren, Josh, Tammy and Gideon, and Liz stopped by. Luke's god parents Trent and Lisa with their daughter Shelby came by. Grams, Pa Pa, Grandma, and Alyce finished up the night. So that makes 10 adults over the course of one evening.

Delivery Recap

So yesterday afternoon Mommy started having contractions again. At our doctors direction we started to get ready to go to the hospital. We showed up around 2:30 p.m. and spent a while in the Woman's Evaluation Unit until they could find a free bed in the Labor & Delivery wing. Once we were moved to that wing they broke Mommy's water and at that point we weren't going home. Around 7:00 Mom needed an epidural as contractions started in earnest. Between 7 and 8 Mom dilated from 5cm to 10cm in what must have been some killer contractions as some pain crept in under the epidural.

Around 9:00 is when things started to accelerate. The room was transitioned into delivery mode and we started pushing. In sharp contrast to Mom's last delivery the pushing phase was extremely short. Mom only had to push for 5 contractions and out popped our son. It happened so fast we hardly had time to take pictures.

Post birth Grams and I stayed with Mom and Grandma kept watch over Lucas. Once Lucas was stabilized and we took pictures he was transferred up to the nursery for more routine evaluation and to get cleaned up. At around midnight Mom and I were moved up to the Mom and Baby floors with the first feeding around 1:00. When the feeding and nurse's introductions were finished it was around 2:00 in the morning and time to go to bed.

At 4:00 a.m. they rolled Lucas back in for another feeding. Lucky for me I didn't have to get up and slept through most of that episode.

Welcome To The World Lucas Carver

Mom and I would like to announce the birth of our son Lucas Carver. Born at 9:26 p.m., weighing 8 lbs. 9 oz., and at a length of 21 1/4". Mom is doing fine and Luke is mostly fine. He is having a minor transitional breathing issue where he makes lots of little grunting noises rather than normal silent breathing. It can't be too serious an issue since they left him with us for nearly 2 hours once we reached the new mother rooms. I will keep everyone updated of any changes.

Now for pictures!






More to come once I get some sleep.

It's a boy

At The Hospital

So here we are at the hospital. Mom has been moved into a delivery room but we still have a ways to go. Mom isn't in too much pain but we are thinking that is about to change.

Tonight Or Tomorrow

Mommy just had another weekly visit with the doctor and the news is good. The doc thinks that Mom could go into labor any minute. She is almost three centimeters dilated and 100% effaced.

We received special instructions that if any contractions show up to just go to the hospital. Ready or not here he comes.

Names

The polls are still open on baby names if you haven't voted yet I recommend doing so. Mom and I have decided to wait until we see the new baby to give him a name. Hopefully soon after delivery we will have a name for the face. The best way to find out what we chose is to come back here once Twinkle is born.

Sunday And Still No Baby

So here we are on Sunday and no baby. Mommy's contractions from Thursday and Friday have subsided and we are back to waiting for something to happen. The break in the action is giving me some time to get some things done around the house. None of which is related to the baby coming, but it is one less thing I have to do after the baby shows up.

Contractions: Part 2

Mommy's contractions are back tonight and with a vengence. They are meeting the requirements for going to the hospital (5 min apart, lasting 1 min). However, the mind numbing intensity doesn't seem to be there. We called the doc's office and their opinion was to come in when mom feels uncomfortable. Knowing our luck we should be at the hospital now and will deliver on the highway.

Labor Scare.

Last night Mommy thought she was going into labor. I thought she was too. Mom has been having contractions for weeks now but they have been pretty low on the pain scale. The ones last night were stopping Mom dead in her tracks. There was no rhythm to them but they were coming quickly for a few hours. Around bedtime they cooled off and things went back to normal.

A positive note from this was that the impending birth pushed me to get some baby stuff done around the house. I got the baby seat out of storage and resized it for a new born, setup the pack n play, and packed my bag for the hospital.

We are more ready for a baby, now we just need the baby.

Another Week To Go

Today Mommy went to her doctor for another checkup. The good news is that the signs of preeclampsia have disappeared. The bad news is that the doctor thinks Mommy has at least another week of being pregnant. I don't think this is exactly the news she wanted to hear.

The contractions continue to come and go. The seem to be causing Mommy some serious pain. However, until they are rhythmic for over an hour it is considered false labor and no delivery is eminent. Mommy's energy is coming in spurts. She goes into sprees where she starts cleaning things around the house.