Visit with Granna

The day after Oma left, Granna arrived - my child is going to be sooooo spoiled. I've already mentioned our trip to Mt. Rushmore so you know Granna was on cork duty - and did a great job with it, I must say.

Once we got back from Mt. Rushmore, we spent the remainder of the week just hanging out around the house. Millie got a new "baby" from Granna and we sent shopping at Babies R Us where Granna just couldn't resist getting Camden some new clothes.

We had a great week traveling and just hanging out. After a week here and also hearing about all of the time Granna has spent with her other new grandson, Jay, I have a feeling that retirement can't some soon enough for her. I also have a feeling that traveling is part of her retirement plan...she's going to wear a path between Raleigh and Dallas for sure!!!

First Road Trip

So, what do you normally do with a three week old? Feed them, change their diapers, rock them to sleep? Sure, all those things are great. But for us, we decided that packing up the car and driving nine hours to Mt. Rushmore would be a fantastic idea!

Actually, it was much less eventful than we had anticipated. We scheduled time into our travel for feedings and the fact that we were in the car most of the time meant getting Camden to sleep would be a piece of cake. His Granna Jane sat in the backseat so she was on "cork patrol" so any time he lost the pacifier, she was on duty.

We saw the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD and then stopped at Wall Drug because you just can't pass that by. We drove through the Badlands and then spent two nights in Rapid City where we saw Mt. Rushmore, drove the Needles Highway and saw buffalo, deer and wild turkey as we drove the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park.

Now we're feeling really brave and we're planning our May 2nd departure for Seattle. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Camden flies on a plane as well as he rides in a car.

Visit from Oma

My Oma came to visit last week so I just thought I would post a couple of pictures from her trip to Omaha.

We had a great time. We slept every day until noon and then we usually just hung out here at the house or went out to eat...well, mom and Oma went to eat...I just watched and waited for my turn.

One afternoon we went grocery shopping. My mom seems to want pictures of every time I do something for the first time...and since pretty much everything I do is for the first time, there have been lots of pictures taken of me. Here's one of us at the grocery store. Oma decided I should have my picture taken with some vegetarian soup...she said she's starting early on me. =)

















We also went for walks around the neighborhood with Millie on the days it was nice outside. A couple of days it rained and was cold, so we just stayed in the house and spent some quality time together.

I am glad that we spent a lot of quality time in my first house, since we'll be moving out of it soon. Mom and Dad put the house on the market a couple of weeks ago and had an offer on it only 8 days later! Now that all of the details of the sale have been worked out and there are only a couple of loose ends to tie up, it looks like they are going to close on the sale on June 6th and we'll head to Dallas.

Lots of things will be changing and going on for the Foster Family over the next 6 weeks or so, so check back again soon for more updates!!!

Rolling Right Along

So this past Sunday, we actually got up and ready in time to make it to the 10:30 worship service at our church. Okay, so we were about 5 minutes late...but we're usually that late anyway so we were really on time by our standards.

We started getting ready as though we were going to the 9 a.m. service figuring that would get us to the 10:30 service on time. I made sure to work in feedings so that I'd feed him right before we left and then wouldn't have to do it again until we got home...things were going great. I even remembered to wait and dress him in his first outfit for church (see photo above) after we'd done all the feeding and diapering...I really am getting the hang of this!

We packed everything we thought we could possibly need for the 1 1/2 hour excursion in the diaper bag (extra diapers, clothes, wipes, etc.), loaded up the car seat and headed down the road. Halfway there, Ryan (who's driving) realizes that he doesn't have his wallet or his watch...which he never leaves home without. We decide it's not worth going back for, since we're already running that 5 minutes late, and that I will just drive home. We get to church, find a great parking spot, and head into the worship center. This is when I realize that neither one of us have our Bibles with us. Of course, Camden slept through the entire service and I spent the entire service struggling not to join him (not that the service wasn't engaging...I just haven't slept a lot lately and it was nice and quiet in the worship center...).

Our 1 1/2 hour excursion ran longer than expected since everyone we knew wanted to see Camden and ask how delivery/coming home/learning to be parents was going. By the time we got home, he was hungry and in desperate need of a diaper change, but all in all, we survived.

On the heels of this success and feeling brave and adventurous, I have since been out to the mall on my own. It was almost weird to push a stroller through the aisles of Dillards...and I never realized how narrow they were until I tried to do so. I have also braved the aisles of Target and have been out to lunch with a friend. Ryan and I even went out for dinner with some friends Friday night.

Camden is such a great baby. He rarely fusses and when he does, it's only because he needs something (a diaper change, to be fed, a little lovin' from one of us) but other than that, he just hangs out with us, content as can be. During the day he naps a little but mostly just lays next to us and looks around at the world. And since he does such a good job at staying awake during the day, he's sleeping great at night - once he even slept almost seven hours straight - but that was only because his mommy slept through the alarm she set so she'd wake up and feed him (oops). While I felt guilty about him missing a feeding, I was really well rested the next day and that was probably good for him in the long run too.

My mom, his Oma, is coming to visit tomorrow, his Granna Jane is coming the following week, and then Oma is coming back again with Papa so I am sure there'll be lots to write about while they're here and lots of pictures to post. Until then...

The Learning Curve

Ryan and I are learning lots of new things about being parents. We thought we'd share a couple of those things with you...

First, much to our dismay, we learned that a baby isn't supposed to sleep almost every minute of his life that he isn't eating. This was a real bummer for us. We kinda thought he should cry a little more and be awake just a little more, but we were enjoying the peace and quiet we just thought we were blessed with. Sleeping is a big part of their routine, but being lethargic 90% of the time...not so much.

The next thing we learned, again, to our dismay, is that babies should be going through dirty diapers at an amazing rate. Our little munchkin wasn't having anywhere close to the 6-8 wet diapers in 24 hours like he should, but we were just counting that as another blessing...not realizing that it meant he might be having some issues...

The last thing we've learned is that aren't supposed to look like they have one of those bad fake spray on tans. Since we've never been parents and haven't really been around little babies, we really have no point of reference in which to compare and contrast our baby with...but we were pretty sure his skin color wasn't supposed to match the "mango tango" Crayola crayon.

All of that led us to the Internet (what people ever did before it is beyond me...) to look up these symptoms and that's when we learned what jaundice is and how it decreases the number of dirty diapers, and how it can make babies really tired and make their skin turn colors. I had been calling him "sweet cakes" but I guess a more appropriate name would have been "carrot cake". =)

So, like all first time parents, we immediately loaded up the car and headed straight for the doctor's office. After a few tests, we found out that he did have jaundice and that is was already "severe" enough to admit him to the hospital for a short stay of light treatment and observation. We also learned during this time that it's actually not an uncommon thing for babies, especially ones that are breastfed, and that as long as it's caught and treated, it's an easy thing to manage and recover from.

So after a 48 hour stay in the hospital and some bright light therapy, we've come down 8 points on the scale - we're eating like a champ, pooping and peeing like a rockstar and getting rid of that fake tan. We still have a little ways to go with it, but we're headed in the right direction and that was good enough for the doctors to let us come home.

The other thing that I have learned in this is that Ryan didn't find the lullaby I chose to sing to him as I was feeding him nearly as funny as I did...I just thought the lyrics "they call him mellow-yellow" seemed very appropriate at the time. =)