First Birthday as a Mommy

I had a great first birthday as a mommy! It was a little different, though, in that I couldn't be totally selfish with my time and do what I wanted to do all day. There was now a little one to feed, change, and keep happy. Welcome to motherhood where your time is no longer your own!

My day started off with my husband making me breakfast in bed, which was fabulous. These roses are from our yard. We don't spend much time outside, so I figured they would be put to better use inside the house. The rose bushes are not the fruits of our labor...they came with the house. Neither of us have much of a green thumb when it comes to roses, so it's amazing we've gotten them to bloom more than once this summer.

Here I am with my not so happy son. We are headed out for a late lunch since Krzysztof got off work early. We were a little worried about how it would go since he was not in the best mood.
But he was perfect! We ate outside at this awesome tapas restaurant, and Brandon slept the whole time.

This is the great dinner Krzysztof made for me...a 12 oz. filet, sauteed portabellas, and asparagus! And a 2005 Rafanelli Zin we bought at the small family winery in Sonoma a year and a half ago...they would only let each couple buy one bottle of it because it is in such high demand, and it was amazing!

Look closely under the napkin. How do babies always know when it is dinner time? Brandon always seems to wake up and/or become fussy right when our dinner hits this table. I've heard from other parents that many babies do this! Maybe they don't want to be left out of a family dinner. This time he was fussy and hungry. We didn't want our good dinner to get cold, so Krzysztof rigged up a way to keep everyone happy with the bottle propped on his belly. We had a nice quiet dinner!

Krzysztof is enjoying the quiet, happy baby cuddles after he gets to do the feeding...he doesn't often get to see that side of his son. More often than not he sees a dirty diaper and a fussy baby in need of vigorous bouncing. We are getting some pretty strong arm muscles from all the bouncing!

Another snuggle picture....one of my favorite things to do.

Milk Face

Hi Everyone! As you can see by the name of this posting, I have a new nickname! You see, I love to eat (and I eat really fast like my daddy and my Papa)! I frequently have milk all over my face, which is pretty cute my parents think. Maybe you have to be a parent to appreciate a look like this. Speaking of eating, here I am drinking from a bottle for the first time! It was great! It's a much more efficient way to eat actually. You can drink a bottle in like 1/4 of the time it takes to eat regularly, and I like efficiency.

Daddy had fun feeding me! So, I'm sure you all realize that in order to supply a bottle for dad to feed me with, mom has to pump. What a weird process that is! I overheard my mom's reaction to the experience as being amazed and yet horrified that you can get a bottle of milk that way.


I like to snuggle with my daddy!

Here I am looking cute with some crazy hair!

Check this out! My first time sunbathing...well kind of. Mom and dad sat in the sun and I stayed cool under my umbrella (or should I say parasol). Dad had the good idea to anchor the parasol to the ground with tent stakes. Pretty crafty, huh? I'm laying in my travel bed. This cool bed folds up so it can be packed in a suitcase.

I like to snuggle with mommy too!

Kisses everyone!

The Diaper Game and Other Tricks

Hi everyone! Brandon here again. I just wanted to share with you a few of my favorite tricks that I like to play to keep my mom on her toes!

First of all is the diaper game! This is when I try to see how soon after a diaper change I can mess up the diaper again! Sometimes I think it is funny to do my business during a diaper change! 2 diapers in less than 1 minute! Ha ha! A few times I've even managed to cause a little mess all over my clothes and the changing table. What fun!

Another trick is wetting through my diaper and clothes so that I get my Mimi's clothes all wet!

My personal favorite, however, has only been accomplished once. This is when I cough in the middle of spitting up and spray my Mimi's face! How can you not laugh at that?

Part of the reason for all of these tricks is that I miss my daddy. He is the one who usually changed me in my first week, and he held me a lot. he had to leave to go to California for my great grandmother's funeral. I can't wait to see him tomorrow night!

My First Week

Hi Everyone! I'm Brandon. My mommy and daddy are letting me post to their blog sometimes because I can probably tell you what my life is like and what I think of life better than they can.Here we are about to leave the hospital. It was nice there, during the times I had my eyes open, which was for a long time after I was born. After that, I was a little sleepyhead for most of the stay. My daddy kept having to mess with me to keep me awake long enough to even eat! What can I say, getting here was exhausting! The room was nice...mommy and daddy got to sleep together in a queen sized murphy bed, and they brought warm chocolate chip cookies everyday, which made mommy happy. I found it a little hard to breath in the hospital. My nose was pretty stuffy, which caused me to snort every once in a while, and this never ceased to amuse my parents. Unfortunately, it also got me my first nickname of "piglet."

My other nickname is "burrito" because I really like to be swaddled tight!
My first week at home has been really busy. My Mimi came to visit me and help out mommy and daddy. She has been cooking and getting things for mommy, and they occasionally let her hold me.

Here I am getting my first manicure! My fingernails were really long when I was born, and mommy didn't want me to scratch myself, so she filed my nails. I didn't really mind.

This is one of daddy's favorite things to do with me! My weighing! In the hospital, I lost some of my birth weight, and the doctors and mommy and daddy wanted to make sure that I gained it all back fast enough. Daddy has a scale that measures in grams and ounces, so they put me in this bowl to weigh me. I kind of like it in the bowl! I never complain about being in the bowl. And guess what? I got a big appetite when I got home and gained back all of my birth weight by my 1 week birthday! Daddy is so proud. He wants me to get big and chunky like he was as a baby. He even made an excel spreadsheet and graph to show my weight loss percentage and gain.

I like to do impersonations, and this is my pirate face. Daddy loves it.

I liked my first bath at home. Here are some of the hair styles I can sport. Which is your favorite?

My wet head started to not feel so good. It's cold when you are wet!

Last hair picture, I promise! I'm just too cute.

I loved my first walk in the neighborhood so much that I slept through the whole thing!



Here are some other cute faces I can make!


This pictures is for my Aunt Kiki (Valerie's sister Christie). She gave me this shirt and hat because she wants me to be a Georgia fan! I made that peace sign all by myself! Pretty cool, huh?
Bye everyone!

The belly comes out

OK, so I decided I'd show the belly in one picture. Yesterday we went to get some pictures made of us with the belly...kind of cheesy I know, but I think we'll be glad to have them in the long run since most of the pictures we have from this pregnancy are just of me. The belly looked the biggest, and truest to size, in this picture.

We are feeling more ready, I think, which is a good thing since the due date is Friday, and he really could come any day now. I can definitely feel that things are happening in there to prepare for labor, but none of it really helps you narrow down the ETA.

We had a productive weekend setting up the Pack n' Play in the living room, going to Babies R Us to get some last minute stuff, and stocking up on some food and supplies at Costco.

Everyone knows that babies are expensive and there are a lot of extra costs that go along with pregnancy and a newborn, but here is one that most people probably don't consider - toilet paper! We moved at the beginning of May, and I bought a Costco-sized package of toilet paper in Mid May. I already had to buy another one yesterday! The bathroom trips are now even more out of control. Since his little head is so far down at this point, it is compressing my bladder into a pancake. That gives me about 1 hour of time between bathroom trips, maybe a little longer.

I had my pre-registration appointment at the hospital today, which I am so glad I did! It will save me 45 minutes of paperwork that I otherwise would have had to do in between contractions.

Maybe the next post will be with baby pictures! Or maybe I have 2.5 more weeks of waiting! Only God knows...

little sausages

Not the best picture, but here I am at 38 weeks. I have some bare belly pictures too, but I just don't know if the blog can handle that much skin. As of today, only 1.5 weeks until the official due date. Things are definitely getting a little more difficult. I really have very few complaints from this pregnancy, but now I am slowing down. I am not a napper and not usually tired during the day, but lately I am just exhausted almost all of the time! I can no longer clean the house all in one day, and grocery shopping is a serious workout! I spend a lot of time on the couch with my feet propped as high as I can get them on a small totem pole of pillows. I have noticed more swelling now too. After standing or walking for a little while it feels like little tiny bubbles in my feet - very strange. The other day I was reclining in my usual position, and I asked Krzysztof if it looked like my feet were swollen. He examined my toes and replied, "Look at the little sausages!" Thanks, honey! At least I get a foot massage out of him every once in a while. :-)

Nursery

Here are some pictures of Brandon's nursery. I should have taken some pictures of the closet. I'm not sure why I didn't as I think that is what I spent the most time on and what I like best about the room (those of you who know my organizing personality understand...). I have the clothes organized by size and type. I wonder how long that will last...

The rocker in this picture was my dad's mom's rocker. It has little Snoopy's on it. We decided to see if this will suffice before investing in a glider rocker. Since this is a regular rocker, you have to actually use a little effort to get it to rock unlike the gliders that just kind of glide on their own with minimal effort. Whenever I sit in one of the really nice gliders in a store, I never want to get out...maybe that's a good thing, or maybe it isn't...we'll see how everything goes in the first couple of weeks after Brandon's arrival.

I love Pottery Barn baby bedding. Unfortunately, you can spend a mortgage payment buying it. I ended up finding a woman in our neighborhood who was selling her gently-used-for-only-one-child Pottery Barn bedding for $30 for all of it. You can't really beat that. It is exactly the colors I was looking for.

For those of you in the know about current baby safety recommendations and who might be concerned about our child, I will not be leaving those stuffed animals or the bumper in the crib at first. Actually Brandon probably won't even sleep in here for a while. We'll have him sleep in our room in the pack n' play as long as that works out for all of us.

I love this little animal display over the crib made possible in funding by Brandon's Mimi and stylistically by his daddy. I would have put the animals in a straight line. I'm so glad I have a husband who keeps me from thinking so linearly .