First meal

This morning K had his first cereal. It went remarkably well. I'm not sure how much he actually ate, but he was opening his mouth to take the spoon. I can't wait to be able to start dropping some of his breastfeedings!

New sounds and other fun

K is making lots of interesting noises these days. He is also getting much better at holding on to his toys, rolling over, and all of that fun stuff.

I'm waiting for the ethics board to approve my thesis. I should hear back any day now. Hopefully it passes and I can finally get started on sending out questionnaires and collecting my data.

And in other news... we're buying another house to renovate. No, I'm not kidding. And yes, we are crazy. The plan is to have others do a bit more work this time around instead of doing it all ourselves. And by 'ourselves' I mean mostly E doing the work.

Cute little stinker!

Have I mentioned the impressive amounts of laundry that a little creature such as this can generate? Yesterday... 3 shirts and 1 pair of pants (of mine), and 2 onesies, 1 sleeper, 3 spit rags, and 1 blanket all got impressively spit up on. I think E got through the day unscathed.

Today... more of the same!

And to add to the fun, K decided to fill his diaper (not pee) during the 45 minute window of time that my Doctor's appointment occurred in. Which meant having to cart home his very stinky diaper in a plastic bag.

Being a parent is seriously dirty business!

Back to the Thesis

This week I started back in on my thesis. I am starting to realize what a challenging journey it is going to be to get it finished. Two of the biggest challenges to overcome are time and motivation. 

My mom will be coming in once a week to help with entertaining baby K. That is a HUGE help, since babies (oddly enough) demand a lot of attention. Otherwise, I can plug away during naptimes and in the evenings. Of course, there are countless other things I also try to cram into naptimes, such as eating, showering, my naps, laundry, tidying up the apartment, exercising, and so on. And there are also other things to do in the evenings like hanging out with my husband, the odd night out with friends or family, going for walks, dinner, and any of the above items that weren't done during naptimes.

Then there is the motivation challenge. Other than the fact that I just want to get my degree over and done with, I'm not really all that excited to be working on school stuff again. But, I have gotten this far so there is no way I'm not going to finish it.

Sigh... 

Rolling Over

It's not consistant yet, but K can roll over. Most of the time, when we put him on his tummy he just whines. But this day he rolled over nearly 10 times in a row.

Conversation with K

Cloth Diapers

Did you know that a huge percentage of landfill is made up of disposable diapers? Tonnes of these tightly wrapped, poo and pee filled conveniences sit for decades, not really decomposing. Crazy stuff huh! That's one reason why we decided to primarily use cloth diapers.

Another reason to use cloth diapers is that in the end it is less expensive to use them. It's a bigger expense up front, but we purchased one size fits all diapers so we won't have to buy any more when K get's bigger. They're not really as much extra work as some people seem to think they are. Plus, our cloth diapers are pretty cute. We're using Bum Genius, I'd recommend them to anyone.

Disposable diapers are a relatively recent 'evil.' My generation's parents all seem to have used cloth diapers because there was no such thing as disposable. Everyone of them I've talked to seemed singularily unimpressed that we made the decision to go with cloth diapers (apparenlty this is normal for them). My mom used these squares of cloth folded up with a plastic diaper cover on my brothers and me when we were babies.

Of course, if we lived in an apartment building where we didn't have in suite laundry, I would probably make the decision to use disposable in spite of all the reasons not to. I am doing laundry constantly (maybe not constantly but it sure feels like it.) I wouldn't want to have to be toting an infant up and down a few floors of apartment stairs into a dingy laundry room, competing with 20 other people for the same 2 washers and dryers. Or hauling everything off to the nearest laundramat.

Swimming

K seems to like the wading pool here at our apartment. We have now been swimming with him twice. He wears these nifty swimmers diapers (which are a bit big - so fingers crossed that he doesn't poo and it doesn't leak out into the pool).

Home Alone

Well, today is my first day home alone with baby K. E headed off to work this morning around 8am. It's been fine so far, very quiet though...

K & I slept until about 11 when he wanted to eat again. After that K didn't stay awake very long before he went back to sleep again and I got up, got dressed, made lunch and ate it. By 1 he was awake and wanting to eat again. I had been thinking about going for a walk at that point except for that big pile of laundry - which now only needs a little more folding, the kitchen is clean, and the apartment is tidied up. And K slept some more. Look at me all domestic like!

Now he's starting to wake up and I'm typing this with one hand while holding him in my other arm. I'm hoping he wakes up soon to eat, and then we really will take a short walk.

Smiles, Coos, and Laughter

It's way too cute! The smiles, the cute little cooing noises, and the other morning a real laugh.

My Two Children

You may think that I only have one child, but in truth, right now I have two of them. I call them Morning K and Evening K. Or, I could call them Happy K and Cranky K. Two distinct personalities all in one tiny little body.

Morning K might let out the occasional cry when he's hungry or his diaper is dirty. Evening K doesn't need a reason to wail. Morning K coos and makes sweet little noises when he's happy. Evening K grunts or wimpers at a lower volume at his happiest.

Thank goodness Evening K only visits us for a relatively short period of time. Yesterday, Evening K was around from about 7:30pm until midnight-ish.

It's amazing how different my two little babies are from one another. I don't really enjoy Evening K all that much. He's not as cute as Morning K is.

5 Weeks

I wasn't planning to write only about K, but as our lives are revolving around the little guy at the moment, it's hard to find other items of relevance...

K is 5 weeks old as of yesterday. He now makes noises other than wimpering and crying. He grunts (a lot lately) and makes cute little sighing sounds, and a few others that I'm not sure how to describe.

The grunting, although cute during the day, is annoying at night. It is the sound of constipation. It can go on for more than an hour. This morning at around 2:30am I noticed the grunting noise coming through the moniter. As K usually wakes around this time (give or take) to eat, I remained mostly awake, waiting for the wimpering to start - signalling that it was time to go get him up to eat. The grunting continued until about 4am when I decided to just go wake him up anyways. He finally sleeps extra long at night but still manages to keep me awake!

A Baby Story

Welcome Kian Erick Dirks Pay, born on June 21 at 11:45pm, 8pounds 5 ounces, 22 inches long.

At 5:00pm on Saturday the 21st, we finally recived the call from the hospital saying that we could come in at 6:30 to be induced. This was supposed to be a 1 hour appointment and then we would return home and wait for labour to get going.

Instead, we got to the hospital to find out that I was already in labour and that my water had already broken (which I hadn't noticed at all). I got all hooked up to some moniters and an IV and they began to moniter my contractions and Kian's heartbeat.

After about an hour of being monitered, our nurses and my docter were concerned that Kian's heartbeat would go down after every contraction. No cause for alarm yet, but in 4 or more hours this could become a real problem. Especially since my labour wasn't really progressing, at least not quickly enough.

Our doctors wanted to make sure Kian was doing okay, and to do so needed to take some blood samples from Kian's head. Which meant I needed to get an epidural. And since I was planning to get one at some point anyways, plus on the off chance they needed to do a C-Section, I figured why not.

So, after they did the blood tests, both of the attending doctors recommended that I go in for a C-Section. They gave E& I a few minutes to talk it over, but we both agreed that we didn't want to risk anything happening to Kian by waiting for a natural delivery.

By 11pm I was wheeled into the operating room for prep. The actual surgery took less than half an hour, and Kian joined us at 11:45pm. Apparently the umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck, and there was some concern about his oxygen levels and blood sugar levels. So all I got was a quick peek before he was whisked off to the neonatal ICU for monitering.

I was wheeled over to the recovery room for a few hours and then moved to a regular room. I didn't get to hold my Kian until the next morning when I got a wheelchair ride down to ICU to try and feed him.

But all is well, and after a few days in the hospital we were able to take him home.

So far, the hardest part is the few hours of 'cluster feeding' (crankiness and lots of wanting to eat, without the usual sleeps in between) that happens sometime between midnight and 3am every night. The rest of the time I mostly sleep when baby sleeps, which means I'm taking 2 hour naps every couple of hours, all day & all night.

But I love the little guy like crazy, he is sooo beautiful, and I'm getting to know what his different facial expressions mean, and can sort of predict when he'll wake up next for another feeding.

I'm sure I'll have lots more to write about K as we figure out this parenting thing.

1 week and counting

It's June 17th today and still no baby. This waiting around is starting to drive us a little crazy! If the baby doesn't make an appearance by the weekend I will be getting induced on Saturday. I hope we don't have to wait that long.

Still no baby...

It's Thursday June 12 and I'm now 2 days overdue. I'm pretty sure I'm not in labour right now either. I hope we don't have to wait too much longer.

Any day now...

I decided to take my mat leave starting a week early - so I've had this week off. I needed it. I have started clearing space in our office for the baby's half of the room. I've washed all of the baby clothes and made a short list of the few other things we need to pick up, I'm napping in the afternoons, and I'm slowly cleaning the apartment (it's gotten pretty messy in the past few busy weeks).

Today my list includes: dropping my work keys off at the university (the new staffer will need them); going to baby stores to find cloth diapers, a nursing pillow, and whatever else seems important; calling more daycares and getting us on a few more waiting lists; and cleaning at least one bathroom. We'll see if I get it all done!

Last week my thesis proposal was approved by my committee (with a few changes). So I've made those changes and completed my ethics approval application forms. Hopefully I don't need to make too many changes to my ethics application. I won't hear back about that one until I likely have my baby in my arms and I'm not sure how motivated I'll be to work on it at that point!

Well, that's all for now. No baby yet... I'm betting on June 13 but I'm starting to feel like it may be more imminent than that!

Less than 1 month

It's May long weekend at last! I love my long weekends even more than I love regular weekends! E is over at the house working away on our renovations. I'm here at our apartmetn pacing myself for a day of cleaning, laundry, baking, and putting my thesis proposal presentation together.

I have finally completed my thesis proposal, my committee is meeting to hopefully approve it on May 27th when I have to do a 20-25 minute presentation on it. My fingers are crossed & I'm knocking on wood because if they don't approve it, I am unlikely to be able to get anything more done until sometime after the baby comes (August most likely). I'd prefer to have my project ready to start as soon as I feel ready to start it.

I had been planning to work right up until June 6th but am now pretty sure that I'd like to start my maternity leave on May 30th instead. I'm just too tired by the time I get home from work to really do anything in the evenings and I don't want to be completely exhausted before the baby even comes.

Plus we aren't quite ready for our little tyke yet. We haven't made baby space in the office, we don't have bed yet, no diapers, no sheets, none of the clothes are washed and ready, I don't have my 'hostpital bag' packed. If this baby comes early we'll really be scrambling!

Countdown

110 days to go until my due date...

Heartbeat

Yesterday E & I heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time. It was very cool!

Oh, if you didn't already know... I'm pregnant! The due date is June 10, but even I know that baby's don't work according to our preferred schedules.

I finally informed my work colleagues this week. So now it's public knowledge.

Sigh, plus my pants don't fit, some of my shirts don't fit, but I'm not quite big enough for mat clothing. And I have to go to the bathroom, again!