Big Brother

Since in my previous post about Petey I wasn't very nice I thought I should take the time to write a post about how he has been so good overall since Donovan was born. Many people ask how Petey is with Donovan and the answer is "Fine. He could care less." Which is the truth. When we brought Donovan home, we placed the car seat on the floor. Petey approached it cautiously, sniffed it and then continued on with his life. Until Donovan was about 3 weeks old that was about all the interaction there was between the two. Then at about 3 weeks Petey decided "Hey, I think this thing is staying. Maybe I should pay attention to it". And with that, one morning in bed he spent about 20 seconds liking Donovan on the head as if to say "Ok, you are alright kid". From then on he has licked him about a handful of times, very randomly, on his head, hands and feet. It is pretty cute and we encourage the interaction as we want Donovan and Petey to grow up enjoying each other and not avoiding or hating each other. I have two favorite stories involving the two that show just how clueless Petey is though.

The first one was just one morning that all 4 of us were laying in bed together. Tom and I were on the outsides and Petey and Donovan were in the middle of the family sandwich. As a side note, Petey always keeps me company when I get up in the middle of the night to feed Donovan. That being said, he spends more time sleeping now as he thinks this breastfeeding is hard work and since it keeps him up such late hours. Anyhow, this morning that we were all in bed Donovan was kicking and flailing his arms up a storm. Petey was right next to him and totally sacked out. Now Donovan is shockingly strong and during several of his kicks he managed to kick Petey pretty hard, and during everyone of the kicks, Petey never moved. Same thing with the punches and doggie hair pulls, he was too tired to move. So I took that as a good sign that Petey will be able to tolerate a feisty toddler Donovan in the future (we will not encourage doggie abuse of course but it is nice to know if it happens Petey will not over-react). Since that time Petey and Donovan have spent many a time laying next to each other in bed, which generally is composed of Donovan in the crook of my arms, and Petey laying so close to Donovan on Daddy's pillow, that he is basically sitting on the back of Donovan's head. It's pretty funny because a lot of the time Petey's tail hair lays across Donovan's hair like a toupe. Unfortunately I have yet to get a picture of this as my arm is stuck under Donovan during these times.

My other favorite Petey story is from one morning when my parents were in town. This was before we started sleeping in our bed, so Donovan, Petey and I spent a lot of time sleeping on the couch. Well one morning Petey wanted to snuggle extra close to me, and decided that the perfect place was on the lump in front of me. Well that lump was Donovan's torso. It was so cute. Petey was going up and down with every breath Donovan would take. After my mom snapped a few pictures we moved Petey as I didn't think a newborn should have to work to lift an 8 lb dog every time he wanted to breathe. It obviously did not bother Donovan as he slept through the entire thing. The following is a picture from the event.


This next picture is a little blurry but it is so cute I just had to include it. It is from a random weekday that I was taking pics of Donovan and I just happened to catch Petey sniffing Donovan and Donovan checking Petey out. They are going to be partners in crime, I can tell!

Dad's ink

Before Donovan was born Tom decided that his next tattoo (he already had 3) would be the name of our child. So he spent the 9 months of my pregnancy counting down the time until he was able to get inked again. Needless to say after Donovan was born he did not wait very long until he made the trip to the tattoo parlor. Here is the result. (and yes, he is planning on getting the names of any future children tattooed on him as well, obviously in a different place though)

Far away view.

A close up.

Just another day

So today I am awoken by the little man requesting some breakfast, just like every other day, except this day as I go out to the couch to get settled Petey decides that oops, "I have to potty and it is an emergency". Before I can even get to the front door to let him out, poop on the floor. Dang it. So that is the beginning of my day. The rest of the morning goes pretty well. Donovan plays on his playmat and keeps himself entertained while I eat a leisurely breakfast and get myself cleaned up for about 30 minutes. A minute after I begin pumping Donovan starts screaming, so I get to listen to that for 10 minutes but as soon as I am done and I change him and hold him, he quiets right down. Today is a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky and upper 70's low 80's so I decide we should take a walk. I wasn't going to take Petey with us because he is a crazy walker; all over the place, has no idea what "heel" means and generally needs more attention during a walk then someone pushing a stroller can give him, however, when I was getting Donovan in his car seat and then stroller Petey was so excited that I could not leave him home by himself. The street we live on has two cul-de-sacs on either side, one is quite a bit shorter distance to our house so I usually go to that side first then to the longer side and back home. So to try and make this walk work with all three of us I used petey's retractable leash but fixed it so it would only let him get about 7 ft or so away at any time. It was working pretty well and I was patting myself on the back, thinking of what I was going to tell Tom about how our walk went when we were about 4 or 5 houses away from being back at our house. At that point petey must have stopped to sniff something on the ground and I wasn't looking down at him so I think I must have run into him with the stroller. That spooks him and he takes off. Of course I am not expecting this so he rips the leash out of my hand which then is being drug around by a terrified idiot dog. The handle part of the retractable leash is plastic so it makes noise as it is being drug. Petey interprets this as something bad that is chasing him. So he is running back and forth across the street trying to get away from this leash which he is dragging behind him all the while I am screaming his name to try and get him to run back to me so I can pick up the leash thus taking away the scary thing chasing my idiot dog. But of course he only looks back in fear as he continues his zig-zag pattern in the street. He keeps running farther away and I am thinking "What the hell am I going to do? I can't leave Donovan and chase after him and running with this stroller is out of the question." Then a car comes and I think "Well, at least if they hit him I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore" which I don't really mean but man is this dog annoying. Finally Petey crosses the street and gets on the sidewalk on our side and runs up to our house to the front door. If there is one thing this dumb dog knows it is where his house is so thank the Lord he is safe. Donovan and I catch up and let petey inside and then continue on our walk, sans doggie, which I must say, turns into a pretty nice and uneventful walk. Just goes to show I should never give petey any credit or think that a walk with him is going well until it is over. Meanwhile Donovan is sleeping like a perfect little gentleman. At least one of my children is a good one. All this before noon, too! Oh the excitement around here.
My good little man after the walk.

Slowly waking up.

The village idiot.

5 week check up

5 week stats:
weight: 11 lbs 3oz- 70th percentile (birthweight 8lbs 1oz)
height: 23 inches long-90th percentile (@ birth 20 inches)
head circumfrence: 15.75- I forget percentile (@ birth 14 inches)

We had our 1 month plus (he will be 5 weeks tomorrow) doctor's appointment today. As you can see from above he is growing wonderfully! The doctor was impressed with his growth and also his head and neck control. We discussed his fussiness and disdain for sleeping alone but I didn't really get any great answers. She thinks his fussiness/fighting sleep is due to being over stimulated which sometimes I agree with but not always so we will see how decreasing his stimuli goes. What little she did say about him sleeping with us was that he is still little and has time to change and right now it is ok to do, or at least that was the message I took home from it. Due to his fighting sleep she thinks that he will be a "...nosey baby. He is going to be crawling and pulling himself up early and getting into everything." I am fine with that as long as he is happy and entertaining himself. Of course I say that now, we will see what I think when he is actually doing it. That was basically all she had for me. We will go back in one month for our next appointment and lots of shots :( Donovan got his second in the series of 3 hepatitis B vaccines today, and he did pretty well. He screamed but only for a half a minute or so and then he continued with his fussing.

Today was the first time that I took Donovan somewhere by myself and I must say it went pretty well. I even was able to put his binky in his mouth and hold it in for a minute while I was driving. I am pretty sure doing that is a requirement to pass your mother boards so that you can earn your M.O.M. degree so I have that under my belt, which is nice. Donovan must have known that I was complaining about him being fussy to the doctor today because he has been a very good boy tonight. Tom gave him a bath all by himself (I played supervisor/paparazzi) and Donovan did not fuss even once. They were so cute together, I think Donovan even enjoyed it! I sense a new primary bath giver. Donovan did not even act like he was annoyed when I put lotion on him after the bath, which he usually does not like at all. Of course we couldn't get through the whole experience without Tom getting peed on. Well, he would have gotten peed on but he caught it when he was getting ready to dry him off and did his trusty hand over the pee stream trick to keep everything from getting soaked. The last bath we gave Donovan was the same thing. He peed when we were getting ready to dry him only that time Tom didn't realize Donovan was peeing until he was almost done. By that time Tom had pee down his shirt from about nipple line to shorts, his shorts were soaked and when he went to change clothes he realized that the pee had soaked all the way through to his boxers! He had to change his entire outfit. We are convinced Donovan pees like a adult man. (Why is it that pee makes it into almost all of my posts? Oh well, its my blog and it makes me laugh). Here are some pictures from the dad bath tonight.

Caught in the act.

Weenie shot! Note the hot pink bandaid that was covering his owie from today's shot. Real men wear pink!

Beer, umm I mean milk belly.

"I see your hiney, all nice and shiney..."

This is my new favorite thing to do after a bath, I hold him like this and look in the mirror at his adorable little dimply butt. (PS. Check out the head control!)

Close up of the cheeks. Gotta love those booty dimples!

1 month old

So this is a few days late (4 to be exact) but our little man is officially 1 month old now! My Aunt Sandy and Uncle Ed had a neat tradition for their son when he was young to document his growth in pictures and we thought it was a great idea so we are stealing it. They would (and we will) take a picture on every month birthday for the first year (and then yearly on his birthday) on the same quilt so that you could see how much their son changed over the month/year. So here is our first month's picture from his actual month birthdate.



At one month old, Donovan is doing a better job of stretching out his feedings, especially at night. He usually eats every 2-4 hours: during the day he usually goes 2-3 hours apart and at night he goes 3-4 so that is nice that he is giving me more time to sleep at night. He also is pretty good at knowing his night from day and just eating and going right back to sleep at night, instead of staying awake like he does sometimes in the morning. His alert/happy time is usually in the morning anywhere from 9-12pm, which is of course my favorite Donovan time. This is the time that he spends looking around, usually at lights or windows/skylights and is also when he doesn't mind (aka does not scream) if I put him down on the play mat so I can take a shower or brush my teeth or shovel some food in. He is adorable when he is just looking all around, talking to himself and making silly faces (as seen in one of my previous posts). When he talks he sometimes does this noise that sounds like a belt is slipping on a car, thus he has earned himself the nickname "squeaker".

He is also doing excellent with his neck control. As of today he can pretty much hold his head up on his own. He has also graduated out of the newborn diapers today, which in truth should have probably happened several days ago but we were trying to use them up. He made that easy for us as he peed/pood out of at least 2 diapers a day lately just to drive home the fact that they were too little for him. How they grow so fast!

Right now he hates his swing and bouncer and no longer stays asleep in the carseat when we get home from trips out. He is still very needy as far as being held. He wants to be held pretty much all the time, which makes it hard for me to do ANYTHING during the day when I am home alone with him. It is fun to cuddle with him though so I shouldn't complain too much. He is doing a little better at sleeping in his bassinet or pack n' play. He does have to be dead asleep though before we put him down so he generally sleeps half the night in his bassinet and half in bed with me and Tom. So we are making slow progress.

All in all we have been so blessed with Donovan and this first month in some ways felt like it flew by but in other ways it feels like he has been with us forever. It seems like delivery was years ago but then again this lack of sleep has pretty much ruined my short-term memory so I really don't have any concept of when things happen. One thing I do know is that we are completely in love with him and we can't wait to see what this next month brings us! I love you Dono!

Rocker dude

Thats right, little man is wearing a muscle onsie complete with skulls, lightning, cassette tapes, stars and musical notes. It was a gift from some friends of ours and although it is still a little big, it is just too cute not to put it on him. I mean manly. Very manly on him. It shows the biceps off very nicely.





He looks like such a little man in this picture (I think so at least).

Caught him mid sneeze!

Fish Face

And slightly blurrier but also cute fish face.

3 week photo shoot

I mentioned in an earlier post that this past friday Tom, Donovan and I all had a photo shoot for Donovan's newborn photos/family photos. Well we got the pictures back today and I am so happy with them. Our photographer did a great job. Here is the link so that you can go see them. WARNING: Due to massive cuteness please look at the pictures at your own risk. You will probably fall deeply in love with this little man. Plus his parents ain't bad lookin either ;)

http://www.kshdesignsonline.com/

Go to slideshows

Click on donovan

password: dq

New hat

Funny face

I was trying to capture a smile today. I got this instead. Makes me giggle.

1st day by ourselves

Tom went back to work today so today was Donovan and my first day together, just us two. Overall it went really well! We took lots of naps together, and he was awake and happy for two hours straight today, the longest to date! During that 2 hours, I was able to lay him on his activity mat in the bathroom while I took a shower, and that was all before noon! I also gave him a bath this evening right before Aunt Jenna came over to keep me company as Tom went straight from work to the baseball game tonight. She watched Donovan while I ran to get some dinner for myself. I was suprised when I came home to see him sleeping as it was time for him to eat and he has been very hungry lately and Jenna said "Notice anything different?" I looked at her and him and realized they were both in different outfits and Jenna informed me that little man had a major poop blowout that resulted in a new onsie for him and a new shirt for her. I guess that was what he needed though because after she changed him he went right to sleep.

Donovan has been getting very good at holding his head up more. He will only lay his head on my shoulder now when he is sleeping, otherwise he is pushing off my shoulder and holding his head up, looking all around. He loves to look at light- whether it be windows or our sky lights, he just cannot get enough. So far he has already been on two dates and both of those were with 7 month old girls so he likes the older ladies (they liked him too I think.)

We had a photo shoot on friday. He screamed at the beginning when we were taking pictures of all three of us, was good for only daddy and Donovan pics, Donovan only pics and then mommy and Donovan pics but screamed again when we were all together at the end so apparently he didn't want to do family shots yet. Hopefully the pictures turn out nice and we get some really good ones.

I have some recent pictures from this past week, just random ones but I have yet to download them onto the computer so as soon as I do I will post some. Until then here are some from May 9th.


Buddha belly


Looking a little concerned.


The most beautiful baby in the whole world!

Reading with Grandma B

These pictures are so precious. My dad took about twice as many as I posted here, and they are all so good I had a hard time narrowing it down. It just doesn't get much cuter than this.

Donovan's nicknames

When we told people what we were naming our son Donovan, many of them asked us if we were going to call him something for short. We told people that for now he would just be Donovan and eventually if a good nickname evolved we would consider it but we knew for sure we didn't want to call him Don or Donnie. My labor nurse has a nephew named Donovan and they call him Dono, which we thought was kinda fun so we were open to that. Well since Donovan's birth we have come up with many a nickname. Here are some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head that we have been using.

-Donobin
-Binny (from Donobin)
-Dono
-Big D
-Little D
-The Disel
-Van
-Chewy (short for Chewbacca as he makes the Chewbacca noise when he cries sometimes)
-Boo Boo nugget (for funsies)
-DQ$ (pronounced D Q money- his daddy is TQ$, a nickname from who knows what)
-Crabby pants
-Little Man
-Petey (that one is just an accident)

I am sure I left some out but those are the ones I can think of right now. Donovan has been fussing/crying for over an hour straight right now so his daddy said he is about to get some new nicknames, but we won't type those here.

Sad boy

My parents left on Sunday and we miss them already. Donovan missed them a lot and showed his displeasure of their absence by spending the majority of the day crying and fighting sleep. It was a pleasure. He has since calmed down but that day was very taxing. Apparently Donovan did not know that it was mother's day and he should be nice to us so I could have some relaxing/sleeping time. Oh well, there is always next year.
During my parents visit we had some exciting things happen. Donovan lost his umbilical cord, he was "babysat" for the first time so mommy and daddy could go on a date, and he took his very first bottle (with no problem I am told by my mom). During their visit he also peed during his diaper change for the first time, discovered that he loved peeing with no diaper on, and continued on with his second thru 30th or so pee while uncovered. This has led us to many an outfit change. Even with covering him up with a towel or a peepee teepee he somehow manages to knock them off so that he is soon squirting all over the place. Tom and I have both had to just hold our hand over the stream to prevent it from going all over during the act. I never thought I would be so ok with someone peeing into my hand before but surprisingly I giggle the whole time it is happening. On occasion when we are too slow Donovan manages to pee on his own face, which is pretty hilarious and sad at the same time. I actually have just finished giving him his first official bath as a result of one of these incidents. A mommy can only wipe her son's pee off his face with a wipe for so long before she just throws him in the tub. On a side note, he did not hate the real bath as much as he hates the sponge bath. It also helps that it took much less time, even though I had to do it by myself as daddy had to go into work for a little bit.
In other news, Donovan is starting to spread out his feedings which is nice for his mommy. Generally he goes 2 and a half hours or more between feedings now, but never longer than 4 hours. I'll take it though. He also is not sleeping (basically at all) in a crib/bassinet/play pen by himself. He will fall asleep in our arms no problem but it seems like as soon as we put him down he wakes up crying. It seems like no matter how long we wait to set him down he wakes up. I think that we just need to read his cues a little better and lay him down when he is in the deepest part of sleep, however when you are half asleep in the middle of the night, this is easier said than done. So for now we are letting him sleep with us. Last night was our first time letting him in our bed and it seemed to go really well. Before that I was sleeping with him on the couch but after doing a lot of research on co-sleeping, I decided that we should give it a try. Hopefully this is all temporary and as he gets older we can get him more accustomed to sleeping by himself. His reluctance to be out of my arms is the reason for the delay in postings. As I type this he is propped on the boppy in front of me, sleeping away. He is such an angel when he sleeps!


Tom and I getting ready to go on our first post-baby date.


Donovan's favorite facial expression. He loves to make a little "O" with his lips. So cute!


All the grandparents and Donovan. Grandma and Grandpa B on the left, Grandma and Grandpa Q on the right.


Three generations: My parents, Tom and I, and Donovan.

Second Doctors visit

Today we had our two week doctor's appointment. We brought the paparazzi (aka my parents) along for the visit so we got some pictures to document the event. They were interested in seeing our pediatrician as she was the ped. for both my sister and I. This visit was equally as good as last time. This time I was really excited to see what his weight was as the baby books I read say that by 10-14 days old the baby should be back to his birth weight and I was wondering if Donovan was on track. Much to my surprise he not only met his birth weight of 8lbs 1oz he surpassed it and is 8lbs 10oz! The doctor entered our room saying "I love the weight gain" so we got major accolades for how well we have been doing with breastfeeding. That was the highlight of the trip, but everything else was good as well. So our next appointment will be in two weeks when he will be getting his second Hepatitis B shot. I think it might be worse for mommy than it will be for Donovan. Its funny though, ever since I found out he is 8lbs 10oz now, I feel like he looks so much bigger to me. It's silly but true.

Donovan showing his displeasure with being stripped down to his diaper and prodded.


Donovan showing his "devil horn" while Grampa B tries the binky to calm him.


You can't tell but Donovan is holding Grampa B's hand which is holding the binky.


Getting examined by the doctor. It's a spectator sport.

Sweet baby

First walk

Ever since we went to the doctor's last week we have been trying to stretch out Donovan's feeding times to at least 2 hours. Overall we have been doing really well but on occasion he decides that he needs to eat sooner than that and is inconsolable. So yesterday we just needed to buy 15 minutes before his next feeding and he was just not settling down. So my mom suggested that we take Donovan for a walk. Well he loved it! As soon as we put him in the car seat and then the stroller he calmed down and was awake and alert, just looking around, enjoying the scenery. We have not taken him on a walk since that one so hopefully it was not just a fluke and will be something that we can do together often, since we all enjoyed it. Here is the little man after the walk.

The New Grandparents

The big event of this week has been the arrival of my parents in from Denver CO to meet Donovan. They arrived thursday night and will be here to visit/help me until this coming weekend. So far they have been a great help and we have been having a great time visiting. They are just as enamored with Donovan as we are, but we didn't expect anything less. Here are some pictures of their visit with us thus far.