Dog barking=ok Mommy coughing=not ok!

Alexander has been so great about the dogs barking. From the day we brought him home he has never been bothered by their barking. It drives Joe and I crazy, but Alex doesn't seem to mind. He never cries, or even wakes up to their barking.
On the other hand. I have had this dumb cough for over a week now, and every time I cough Alex wakes up. Not just wakes up, but is startled awake, and cries! It seems so silly that it's my cough that wakes him up, and not two dogs with high pitched barks going crazy!
We had a pretty bad night, a few days ago. Alex was having a really hard time falling asleep. I think he was overly tired. Joe finally got him to sleep and as he put him into his bassinet I wake up in a coughing fit. I could not stop, and every time I would start to fall back asleep, I would start coughing again. It was bad. Alex woke right up and started fussing again.
Just now, I am at work. All the kids are napping and Alex is sleeping in front of me in the bounce seat. I coughed and he jumped, threw his hands up, and let out a cry! Silly baby. He is back asleep now, but it just cracks me up that my cough bothers him so much!
Oh, he hates sneezes too! lol Twice now Alex has cried because my husband and I sneezed! Both times he jumped, stuck out his bottom lip, and let out a cry! Love our crazy baby! :)

6 weeks old!

Alexander is 6 weeks old today!

Here is what he is up too:
Sleep: I am working on getting him on a good bedtime routine. There are a few things standing in the way of that. 1. My husband doesn't get home until 9:30 some nights, so he doesn't like me to put Alex to bed until after he gets home. We have a solution for this! My husbands last day at his current job is Friday! He is moving on, to a new job, doing the same thing. He will not be working late nights, or weekends anymore. He has had to work weekends all 7 years that we have been together so I am thrilled to have him home on weekends for the first time. Now we will both be working 8 to 5:30, Mon-Fri. This will be a great change for our family! 2. Alex still sleeps in his bassinet in our bedroom. I plan to move him to his room this weekend. He has slept in his crib for some naps, and has slept in there for the first half of the night a couple different times. 3. Our week schedule is not the same during the weekends. This is another thing I will need to work on, but at this point I still like to sleep in on the weekends, so Alex gets to sleep in too!

Our bed time routine goes something like this: On bath nights, I like to give him a bath, feed him his bottle, read to him, and put him to bed in his crib. On nights that he does not get a bath, we start out getting lotion on, then bottle, books, and bed. This is around 8-10 depending on the day. My husband gets him for the midnight feeding, which falls between 11-1. At that time he puts him in our room. The one thing that is good about Alex sleeping in the bassinet, and crib is that he sleeps well no matter where we put him. At work he sleeps in a pack and play, so we should not have to worry about him not sleeping when we travel.
Over all Alex is a good sleeper. He takes lots of naps through out the day, and he will go 4-5 hours, twice at night. One night, last week, he slept from 1:30 to 7am! My husband feeds him before he goes to bed, and I feed him when I wake up for work. It works well, and neither of us feels too sleep deprived!

Eating: Alex still eats a ton! During the week I wake him every three hours to feed him. I try to keep him eating every 3 hours, so that he will sleep well during the night. This seems to be working well. He eats 4 ounces every 3 hours. The last feeding of the day (around midnight) he gets 5 ounces. There are still times that he will not make it the 3 hours, and I will need to feed him a half hour early. On the weekends it gets thrown off a little. I am not as good about waking him every 3 hours. Sometimes it's because I am busy, or because I am sleeping also. I have to change it to work around whatever we are doing too. Like yesterday he was due to eat right in the middle of church, so I gave him 2 ounces to get him through church. It worked to get him through church, but he seemed a little off for the rest of the night. I plan to work harder at keep his weekends the same as his week.
Play: Alex is not a big fan of tummy time. He loved it when he was really little, but now he fights to roll over on to his back. He has not rolled over, but he has come pretty close. We thought he was going to do it the other night. He was rocking back and forth on his tummy and almost made it over. We still make him do 5 minutes, here and there, of tummy time everyday. Alex loves his bounce seat at my work, but is not a big fan of the one he has at home. The one at work is much nicer. I get why he likes it better! At home I put his seat by the window so he can look outside and have new things to look at. He has two activity mats, and prefers the one at work. Just another thing that is cooler then what we have at home. I put the play mat he has at home, in front of his closet doors ( which are mirrors) so he can look at himself while he plays.

The big change over the last week has been his smile! Alex started smiling at us a little over a week ago, and we LOVE it! This morning he was giving me some huge smiles! It is sooo cute.

Clothes: He is out growing most of his newborn clothes. It is so sad to put things away! This weekend I started his newborn Rubbermaid tub. I had to put the onesies in there, that I put on him for his 1, 2, 3, and 4 week pictures. That was sad! He still wears some of his newborn outfits even though they are a little snug, because the 0-3 months are still too big. I would rather have him in a shirt that is snug, then a shirt that he is swimming in.

Chuncky Monkey: Because we have not had to go to the doctor since he was 2 weeks old, I am not 100% sure what he weights, but on the scale at work it says he is between 12 and 12.5 pounds. He is a big boy!

Baths: He still loves baths, and I am giving him a bath twice a week now. I wouldn't mind giving him one everyday, and I know he would love it, but I am sure that would dry him right out. He seems to sleep so good on the nights that he has had a bath. Last night I took him out of his bath seat and I put one hand under his head, and one under his butt, and I let his float around in the water on his back. His head was in the water, but only to his ears, and chest down was under the water. He loved "swimming" around. he was kicking his legs, and moving his arms. It was so cute. I think we might have a water baby on our hands! I guess I better learn how to swim! :)

That is all that I can think of for now. I am at work so I don't have any pictures to add, but I will put those up tonight (if I have time). :)

Everything is okay!

I just wanted to let my blog friends know that everything is ok! I have been very busy with work and baby. I am working on some post for you, and will get them posted soon! -Jenn

4 weeks old!

Bad Blogger! <-----That's me! Since bring Alex home I have had little or no time to write on my own blog. I find just enough time to catch up on the blogs that I read. I am working on Alexander's birth story, and a post about the adoption, but I don't want to post those until they are done, and I am ready to share them.

Alexander is four weeks old, and he will be 1 month old on Friday! It's so stupid that the weeks, and months don't line up! lol I am not sure which to go by. I think you go by weeks for a month or two, then switch to months. So, I will fill you in on our first month of having a baby in the home.

When we first brought him home it felt shocking! We didn't get to go through the discharge at the hospital, so it felt like we were bringing a 3 day old baby, home with no idea of what to do. I know how to change diapers, but did I need to change a newborns different? What about the cord? What about his circumcision? I had no idea how much he should be eating, or what was too much. He came home doing this "snorting" thing that made it sound like he could not breathe, was this normal? I hate using the "booger eater", and felt like I was hurting him. There were so many little questions that I wished I could have asked before we left. When we left we were told that we needed to take him to the pediatrician on Saturday. We had two offices that we were looking into and one does not have Saturday hours, and the other has Saturday hours for sick kids only. So we took him in the day after we brought him home. It was a Friday, and after 4pm they only take sick kids, but they were willing to see him that afternoon because of the "snorting". There I got to ask all those questions I had. They said that he looked wonderful. He was breathing just fine, but needs a little help getting the fluid out of his nose, that is still in there from the womb. Joe is pretty good with the "booger eater" so I let him do that when he is around. (Joe named it that).

He is a super eater!

First week: 3 ounces every 3 hours

Second week: 3.5 ounces every 3 hours

Third and Forth weeks: 4 ounces every 3 hours

His sleep goes up and down:

First week: He slept all day, would hang out around 1-2am (the time he was born), and he would go 4-5 hours between feeding at night.

Second week: He sleeps all day, and loves to hang out with his Daddy around 1am-4am. Once a night he will go 4-5 hours.

Third and Forth week: He is still trying to stay up in the middle of the night, but we are working on getting him in bed by midnight. He gets up every 3 hours all night now. No more 4-5 hour stretches at night! :( We are working on getting those back!

I make sure he gets dressed everyday, even if we are just staying home.
The first week he wore gowns at night, and got dressed during the day,

but newborn size was way too big.

The second week I switched him to sleep n plays at night. I don't like how long the sleeves are on the gowns, so I am over those! During the day he wears a lot of the clothes that we got from my nephew, who is now two. I think his newborn clothes were worn and washed a lot, so they have shrunk to a size that fits Alex.

The third week he is still wearing sleep and plays at night, and my nephews old clothes during the day.

The forth week he is still wearing sleep and plays at night, unless Joe dresses him. Joe puts him in the gowns, and has cut the sleeves short on a few of the gowns! During the day he is able to wear a few of the newborn outfits we have gotten for him. I love seeing him in different outfits, so I am thrilled that he is fitting into more.

He is such a good baby that he even likes baths! Wait......I wouldn't say "likes" but he doesn't mind them.......or he tolerates them! The first few baths were done at the sink and he did good. After his cord fell off I switched him to the bathtub, and he likes that. He sits and kicks his foot around in the water. It's cute.

The dogs were our biggest concern when we got our match. Well, Hero, our two year old, has been wonderful. he doesn't care too much about Alex. His barking is more annoying now. He doesn't bark more, it's just not what I feel like hearing when I am tired!

Baxter, our 1 year old, on the other hand is in love with Alex. We watches him all the time, and always has to know where he is. When Alex is in his crib, Baxter gets up in the glider and tries to see into the crib. When Alex is in the bassinet, Baxter sits and looks in on him. It looks like Lady, from Lady and the Tramp! He not only loves Alex, but he also loves Alex's stuff! Baxter has eaten 6 paci's and 2 bottle nipples! If you leave either of those two on the table, and walk away, for even a second, Baxter will take them!

Over all I would say the dogs are doing well consider they are not the babies anymore!

I think that covers it. -Pictures to be added later-

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

We are so excited to see what 2010 will bring.

I know this is a day late, but I guess when you have a newborn in the house everything tends to run behind!