Forgive me for being a blogging slacker.  Check out some new Henry pictures!

Recently, Henry has found his toes.  I find this discovery hysterical because he now spends much of his day kicking his feet up in the air, grabbing at and/or cooing and singing to his toes.  Adorable.  I'll try and get a video of it soon.

Speaking of which, my doofus self broke the fancier of our two cameras, that's right, the one with the video feature, by putting the wrong battery in it.  Unfortunately the wrong battery is stuck and won't come out.  Fuck!  Still not quite sure how I did that.  Regardless, it's currently in the shop where a nice camera tech will remove the battery and hopefully no other repairs will be necessary.

John, Henry, and I spent a portion of John's paternity leave driving around Ballard, Fremont, and Wallingford neighborhoods looking for Henry murals.  They are murals all signed Henry created by a guy named Ryan Henry Ward.  I really love the spirit of them, and John and I are hoping to make a little art project with the photos we've been taking.  In the meantime, here is a teaser:



Another portion of John's paternity was spent going home to Chicago.  We introduced Henry to lots of friends and family, and he held up pretty well.  He was such a good baby on the airplane, too.  We gave him a bottle at take off and his pacifier at landing and in between he either wiggled on our laps or slept.  Awesome!  Here he is at a wiggling moment:


This entry must come to an abrupt end because baby boy is awake from his nap and is ready for a bottle.
Love, Trina

In the last week, Henry seems to be on fatty prevention control.  The reason I say this is because whenever John and I are thinking about getting a food stuff that is not very good for us (but delicious!), Henry starts screaming his head off, so we choose to go home rather than go for what ever fatty food item.  This has happened with trips we were thinking about making for ice cream, chili nachos, Cherry Coke, Pop Tarts, and Wendy's.  In contrast, when we've gone to make trips for pizza or to the farmer's market, kiddo is happy as a clam.  He is also sleeps so peacefully on my chest when we go for walks and often fusses when we veg on the couch.  I'm sure it's all a coincidence, but it's funny to think about nevertheless.

Robin and Ryan's wedding is coming up soon, and John, Henry, and I will be going home to Chicago next week so we can go to the wedding.  I'm super excited about the wedding.  Inspired by thoughts of what the wedding would look like, I tried on all the dresses in my closet to figure out what to wear.  My boobs don't fit in any of them.  Argh.  Then I was thinking perhaps I would make a dress lickety split, but it since it took me six hours to sew a simple nursing cover because I had to take so many breaks to watch the baby, I realize that making a dress just isn't going to happen.  I think I may have to go shopping, perhaps this weekend.

Love, Trina

Today, Sept. 10, John and I have been married for 4 years. 

I took Henry for a walk in his stroller to go pick up our vegetable box that comes from a nearby farmer co-op.  The box pick-up location was nearby the light rail station, so we met John, who was coming home from the company meeting, and walked home together.

We decided to celebrate by going out for pizza, through which kiddo slept rather peacefully after staring at the ceiling fan for 10 minutes or so.  After pizza we were going to go for ice cream, but Henry had quite the teeny baby meltdown about his slightly wet diaper, and I was (argh!) out of diapers in the diaper bag, so we had to head home.  Once we got home, John changed the baby and then "took a nap" while I fed the kid, watched Project Runway, let the dogs out, and pumped for 20 minutes.  He's still napping; I'll be heading to bed soon as well.

I like to think this is a typical new parent wedding anniversary.  We'll have a romantic one next year. 

Feel free to peruse the wedding slide shows to see us all gussied up for the big day.

Henry simply has no tolerance for a wet diaper.  It's really quite silly.  Tonight he was squirming happy as a clam, and then all of a sudden he start shrieking.  The strip on his diaper was 1/4" blue.  John declared that he was not going to change that diaper.

Turns out John's stand worked to his advantage.  A few minutes of crying later, the strip on the diaper was much, much longer and the diaper felt much, much fuller.  John picked up Henry and face to face told him that's a diaper worth changing.  One diaper change later, happy baby is back.

So what's this strip on the diaper you ask?  It seems Coors has shared its cool-can technology with Pampers (or vice versa?) because on some of the packages of diapers we have bought have a yellow strip that turns blue when the diaper is wet.  I like the strip, though it's probably not completely necessary. 

I added some photos taken 2 weeks ago of Henry shortly after I changed him into his clothes for the day.

John continues to make fun of me because I perpetually take pictures with my iPhone instead of either one of our SLRs.  What can I say, sometimes the iPhone is handier.

Uh oh, someone is waking up from his nap.

Love, Trina

We have restarted our routine of walking the dogs up to our neighborhood coffee shop, and the other day I made the barista laugh to the point of spilling my coffee a bit because I mentioned that the baby likes the world best when it is jiggly.

Recently Henry's favorite getting to sleep position has changed from a side-lying with swaying to an upright against my chest or shoulder and bouncing. I often carry him in the Moby to save my back, which means more jiggling than swaying, so perhaps that's the reason.

Last night I showed my friend Halie about a bazillion pictures of Henry captured in my phone.  She commented about how expressive he is.  Watching his expressions is my new favorite thing about caring for him during the day.  Even his super sad frown that precedes and outburst of tears is cute.

I also love watching him wake up.  First he stretches his arms.  Then he stretches his legs.  Then he stretches his whole body.  Then I can see the recognition in his face of taking in his surroundings surface as his sleepy eyes fade.  It's so amazing to see.

Speaking of waking up, I see him squirming and hear him squeaking, so time to go.
Trina

On his blog, John has a link to the place where he has been/will be posting Henry videos.

http://johnsspace1.spaces.live.com/

xo, Trina

Recently Henry was a fluid-ejecting champ.

In a matter of a few hours, he peed on:

• me at changing table during a diaper change
• the nurse at the doctor's office after she took his diaper off to weigh him
• the doctor after he took his diaper off to check things out
• John at the changing table during a diaper change

Also that day, he spit up on:

• the lactation nurse while she was weighing him
• me in such a tremendous fashion it went right down my back to soak the top of my underwear

The rest of the week has been a little better in terms of fluid retention. 
Trina

Henry is one month old today.  Look what my mom sent:


Still waiting to hear if those are swiss cake rolls or Derek's pancreas-friendly poundcake. 

Love, Trina

The stories behind the typing...

Since my iPhone has a Facebook app, I have been much better about updating Facebook than this blog.  Looking over my status updates, I am reminded of some of the hijinks of the last month.

7/29:  Today's tough mommy call: swaddle the baby even though it feels like an oven outside and inside the house or let him be free to smack himself in the face while he's sleeping?  This was an extremely hot day.  Ultimately decided to swaddle, though he was a little pink throughout the day.  Seemed to be working out better than him hitting himself.  :)

7/29: with some rubberbands, internet research, and ingenuity, John made my double breast pump hands-free. I love him.  Breastfeeding has not being going great, so I've had to pump quite a bit.  To make matters worse I had to hold the pumping things.  After a bit of whining and outrage that one had to hold everything in place, John hooked me up with some rubberbands.  The rubberbands make life much more comfortable.

8/3: pediatrician says John and I are doing a good job.  I really like our pediatrician.  He cracks jokes and tells us what a beautiful baby Henry is.  At the end of our last appointment, he said we were doing a good job.  Phew!

8/10: overdue for a shower and clean clothes, wishes she smelled more like Downy and less like sour milk.  Complimenting my myriad breastfeeding problems is the fact that I leak milk all the time and regularly find my whole chest is slightly moist from it.  Then the milk dries and I smell like sour milk.  It's rather gross.

8/16: now that all our guests have gone, John and I will have to be parents all by ourselves.  My parents and John's parents have come and gone.  We're on our own.

(From John) 8/17: thinks it smells like doody and I am not pointing fingers but I am sharing a room with two dogs, a one month old, and a wife that was doodied on early. You make the call...  Henry had a blowout that end up on him, me, the Moby, and perhaps the couch.  After cleaning all these items, the area still smells a little poopy, and I haven't yet figured out the source.  Hmm...

There is a lot about breastfeeding that has not been going right, but on the rare occasions when it has worked the way it is supposed to, John says Henry and I are like a clown fish and sea anemone: each dependent on the other for comfort.

After all my fretting, the dogs get along great with the baby.  The first day we brought Henry home, they would "alert bark" when the baby cried, but other than that, they were simply curious about smelling the baby.  Teagan hasn't at all afraid, and Ronan has been very restrained in his desire to smother it with love.  They've been quite adorable, actually.

At this point, Teagan and Ronan now know that right now they are only allowed to sniff Henry's feet or sniff from a distance.  When I feed the baby, Ronan likes to lay at my feet and Teagan likes to lay in the doorway.  Ronan will also lay next to the baby's blanket when we're having tummy time, although I still have to be very careful that Ronan doesn't inadvertently step on Henry.  If I'm sitting on the couch with the baby, Teagan will curl up in my lap next to him.

When the baby cries, Ronan leads the way to Henry, presumable so he can help.    The other day I saw a very confused look in his eye when he heard the baby cry and on the monitor but couldn't figure out where the baby was.  Silly dog.

Henry James Wright born on Friday, 7/17, at 6:35 p.m.  He weighed 8 pounds, 10 ounces.  Body length was 21.5 inches, head measurement was 14 inches.

The doctors and nurses kept marvelling at how blonde his hair was and what a big baby he was.  No one really guessed, including me, that I had been walking around carrying nearly 9 pounds of baby.  :)

You can see pictures of him here.

Love, Trina

I started having contractions early on 7/16.  They were coming frequently enough and painfully enough by breakfast that I thought 7/16 was going to be the day; however, by noon-ish they peetered out.  After a nap, the contractions started up again, this time even harder and more consistent, but by bedtime, I still hadn't reached the golden 5-1-1 we learned about in class.  I laid down, but never did sleep because every 7 minutes or so, I'd have to breath through a contraction.

At 12:39 on 7/17, my water broke.  When went on over to the hospital, the doctor and triage nurse recommended we walk around the hospital for 1-2 hours in order to get my contractions closer together.  Walking around for that long brought them to 2-3 minutes apart, but as soon as I sat down, they'd spread back out again.  My inconsistent contractions would be a theme for the entire labor.

After 2 hours of walking around, and going on 24 hours with only 1 hour of sleep, I was quite tired, and they finally checked me into the delivery room.  The nurse, John, and I discussed the birth plan, which I must admit I wrote thinking I would have a lot more energy than I actually had.  By 5:30, all I wanted to do was sleep, which was impossible with the contractions, and laying down with them was plain uncomfortable.  At that point, I cried uncle, and asked for an epidural.  Then I slept.  That was nice.

At some point, the doctor ended up administering pitocin to hurry my contractions up.  For whatever reason, getting my contractions even was really hard.  I spent hours dilated at 1 measly centimeter.  When the nurse who had been with us for most of the labor went on lunch break, she was very explicit with the relief nurse not to touch anything because she had spent the whole morning trying to find the pitocin sweet spot.

Since there wasn't much to do, John and I slept a lot.  Waited around.  Listened to music.  Visited with my parents who were in an out.

Eventually it was time to push.  After about an hour of pushing, the doctor came in for delivery and baby boy was born.  Hooray!

Today we saw the ringer of the ringer in terms of doctors at the OB office since the doctor I have been seeing, who is covering for the doctor who went on maternity leave, is on vacation this week.  I joked that the more of the doctors I see, the fewer of them will be strangers on baby day--whenever that may be.  She discussed with John and me the pros and cons of induction and the pros and cons of the timing of it.  Then we made a plan: I will be admitted to the hospital on 7/22 to receive prostaglandin and then start the induction on 7/23.

After we made our plan, the doctor declared that figuring out when the baby will come is a bunch of hocus pocus, and I may just happen to deliver this weekend.  We'll see.

Speaking of hocus pocus, my massage therapist focused on special labor-inducing pressure points yesterday.  I doubt that did anything since there is still a baby inside me today, but the massage did feel nice.

Yesterday and today my parents and I ran some errands, returned some duplicate baby gifts and purchased some needed items that I deemed too boring to register for, like baby wipes and baby tylenol.  We also went to JoAnn Fabrics for swaddle blanket material, which my mom and I sewed up today.  They're super cute and cuddly.  Can't wait to wrap Little Baby in them.

Cross your fingers he comes soon.  We're all getting antsy.
Love, Trina

My parents arrived Thursday afternoon, and we've been spending time visiting, walking, and organizing baby things.  It's tricky to sitesee since we're waiting for baby to make his move into the world, and thus ideally would prefer not to be too far from the hospital.

At my last appointment, my doctor said that at my next appointment, which is Tuesday, we will discuss the hows and whys of induction and then schedule an induction for her on-call day the week of the 20th, which I think will be 7/22.  So the current plan is, if the baby doesn't come in the meantime, he will be born the week after next.  Until then, we wait.  And walk.  John says I need to have a sterner discussion with the baby about how he needs to get his butt in gear. 

It's rather warm today in Seattle.  Nevertheless, John, my parents, the dogs, and I went walking around Seward Park this morning.  We may escape the heat for a little while by seeing a movie.  John and my dad set up the window air conditioner, so I have been able to seek refuge in the bedroom if I get too uncomfortable, which is nice.

Love, Trina

Trina on Fourth of July in the only red shirt that fits:
     

Since John and I both have larger than average heads, we have concurred that Little Baby having a big head is inevitable.  The question, though, is will he have John's koomunga melon head OR will he have my alien baby head?  We shall see....

Love, Trina

No, alas, my absence from the blog does not mean the baby was born.  He's still chillin'.  My doctor joked at my last appointment that I must have made a cozy home for him since he doesn't seem to want to leave. 

In the meantime, I have read through Penny Simkin's the Birth Partner, which John is now reading.  Of course, now that John has been reading it, he's been quizzing me on birthing things and declared the other day that he was going to birth partner the shit out of this labor.

We've been carrying on with getting things ready for my parents and baby to arrive.  This weekend we picked up the changing table and put that together.  Woo!  Let's see, what else....  I've been TiVoing movies in anticipation of being up in the middle of the night and not wanting to watch infomercials.  I've been working on super belated thank you cards.  John mowed the lawn.  We've both been cleaning.  Ooh!  Finally got the coffeetable moved back into the living room.  I missed it immensely.

Fourth of July was pretty relaxed.  We had Ian over for burgers, hung out.  Some neighbors one block over had quite the fireworks show going on, which didn't make the dogs super happy.  But we all fell asleep nevertheless.

It's been incredibly hot the last few days.  Much hotter than Seattle normally is, and hot enough that I've been a little grumpy and a lot tired.  Looks like it's going to cool off tomorrow, which would be wonderful.

Last Thursday was my last day at the office.  This week I'll be puttering around the house waiting for baby to make his move.
Love, Trina