Another Week

Ok, I’m not just posting once a week on purpose, but Sunday evenings have been the only times that I’ve been able to do so – the rest of the time I’m too busy sleeping between feedings or adoring my son. I’ll try to be better but make no guarantees.

We had a good week, pretty laid back. Last Sunday we had some friends from the academy over for dinner, which was a really good time. One of my favorite guys from academy, Figueroa, had unfortunately double failed a test and so has to start all the way over, poor guy! So we invited him and Tufunga & his wife Chrissy over for dinner. I was going to make something in the crock pot but after 4 1/2 hours of cooking it I lifted the lid and inhaled the heavenly aroma of…bad meat! Ah! Good thing I checked it in time to whip up some enchiladas instead, that could have been wicked embarrassing!! We had a great time chatting about childhood memories of curfews and wooden spoon spankings, hehe, Paul couldn’t join in of course because he never had such disciplinary actions as a child.

Paul had night watch most of the week, so he went in from 1-9:30pm instead of the usual 6am-2:30pm. I loved it, because when Sam was fussy in the middle of the night I didn’t have to feel guilty about it waking Paul up; heck, I even made him handle it half the time. It was wonderful. We felt the full extent of Sam’s nighttime fussiness this week without Grandma Janet here, which resulted in a lot of scenes that looked like this:

For some reason Sam has developed an affinity for sleeping on his side; perhaps because because pregnant mommy had no other option? Seriously I’ve been so tired this week, I consider it a success if I have clothes on by 2:00pm.

Monday & Tuesday we just stayed home and did chores, etc while dad was at work. We’ve been working on birth announcements but don’t have the pictures that I want yet so haven’t mailed anything. (and yes, Merica, I did have really adorable girly announcements all made up and had to start all over, but the boy ones are wicked cute too so it’s ok ) There’s a guy in academy that used to be a photographer before starting with the PD who said that he’d be happy to take pics of Sam for us, but he’s been too busy since we asked him and I don’t want Sam to get too grown up before we take them, so I’m sensing photographer shopping in my future.

Wednesday’s highlight was a pretty heinous trip back to my OBGYN for him to check out a stitch that had come out at some point before everything was healed. I won’t go into detail, but this did involve replacing the stitch sans any sort of numbing agent. YIKES. And yes, I did swear pretty profusely through this in front of my infant son. You can look at me when his first word is something that involves symbols in it. But really, can you blame me? He put one stitch in, then decided that it needed another one. At my horrified look he decided that it’d be a good idea to bring on the lidocaine before the second one, which in and of itself is not a fun experience but significantly better than a stitch. Yeesh.

Thursday morning was Sam’s 2-week checkup with Dr. Arora. Everything is looking really good, minus his weight. He still hasn’t gotten back to his birth weight – he’s 6 ounces short – so she told me to make sure that I’m waking him up to eat every 3 hours and bring him back in for a weight check next week. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been weighing the benefit of gaining 6 ounces and the benefit of sleeping for 4 or 5 solid hours in my head, and I’m not too convinced that the 6 ounces are winning. This is the only picture we managed to take of this appointment – Same trying to eat the nurse’s hand while we try to measure him.

He’s average height, though (makes us hopeful, hehe), and average head circumference, so he’s doing just fine.

Thursday night we headed to Sarah’s house for a waxing party. That’s right, you heard me, a waxing party. This is an event in which Marci, an asthetician who lives in our stake, brings over her waxing table and supplies and makes us all various shades of hair-free in the other room while the rest of us gorge ourselves on potluck snacks and girl talk. It was such a good time, but I forgot my camera. Probably just as well, since almost everyone had scarlet stripes above and below their newly perfectly-shaped eyebrows by the end of the night…that’ll make for some scary pictures. Unfortunately I didn’t find out about the party until it was too late to grow anything out, so I didn’t have anything waxed, but it was still a good time. There are a lot of fun women in my stake that I’ve been getting to know.

Sam is apparently getting into a growth spurt, because in the 4 1/2 hours we were over at Sarah’s house I fed him 4 times, and then on our way to a midnight Wendy’s run he had his first full-blown yelling fit in the car and I had to feed him again in the parking lot. That night he wanted to eat about every hour for about 20-30 minutes each time, and didn’t go to sleep until 4:30am. Nice. I felt so bad for him, though, crying so hard. He has this really pitiful frown that only shows when he’s super upset that I haven’t gotten on camera yet, but it really is sad. I think that when I finally get a picture of it Hallmark will pick it up for a “get well soon” card.

Friday night we finally got to have our postponed date with our new friend Charity and her new baby, Grace. Sam and I headed over and had dinner, dessert and chatting with a little Opening Ceremonies action mixed in (those were way cool, by the way). The babies slept most of the time but they did wake up a little bit at one point and we got some cute pictures.

Grace is 8 days older than Sam and just as cute as can be – look at all her hair! They both sport mohawks most of the time, though they were just showing bedhead in these pictures. Charity’s husband is a cop, too, and it’s great to be able to talk to someone who’s been through everything we’re going through already and can tell me that it’s worth it and all that. We had so much fun with them, thanks for the date, girls!!

Saturday night my sister called & asked if we were headed to Stake Conference. We hadn’t been planning on it – ok, we’d completely forgotten about it – but then Sarah and I had this conversation about how when you don’t go to Stake Conference you always feel like you’re going to miss THE big announcement. Like “ok, everyone, Jesus is coming on this date, and only those of you righteous enough to be in attendance tonight get to know in advance so that you can really prepare” or “ok, the saints are all headed back to Missouri, and those of you here, here are your plane tickets and hotel vouchers. Those who chose not to come tonight will be getting a handcart and a summertime hike across the western United States”. So we went to stake conference. It was a really great meeting and I was glad we went. When anyone felt like dozing off Sam was quick to wake them up with a nice, big fart – he kept everyone within an 8-foot radius of us giggling through most of the meeting.

Today we gave Sam a bath in his little tubbie, though his umbilical cord is still stubbornly clinging by its last little bit so we can’t fully submerge him yet. He was pretty ticked off for a minute when we put him in, but then realized that hey, this warm water stuff is actually pretty awesome, and communicated his approval by a glorious golden fountain from his nether-regions. Luckily it arched clear out of his little tubbie into the big tubbie and down the drain, so we didn’t have to totally start over. Please excuse my son’s genitalia in these pictures, I’m trying to practice the embarrassing nudie pictures for future girlfriends.

And here are the pictures that I just think should be in here because they’re cute:

*Note the ADORABLE little shoes that my son is wearing – mommy’s favorite article of clothing

Rockstar!

Trying harder and harder to focus every day

Sleeping soundly, man he’s just so cute!!

Love, mary

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