One Week

A week in photos (not nearly as many as there should be--we need Grandma Cathy here to document everything!): 

Home from the hospital!  Seth is so excited for baby Catherine to play cars with him.

Catherine with the car Seth deigned to share with her (this is a big deal--he shares cars with NO ONE).

Lest you think he's being an angel--this tantrum was photographed just minutes after the car sharing.

We've seen lots of these lately.

An exciting day to come home--there were five or six firetrucks in our cul-de-sac putting out a fire in the woods behind our house.  Seth was thrilled.  We're assuming it was started by some downed powerlines--there was some crazy wind that night that knocked our power out a few times.  Thank heaven it always came back on--I was having visions of trying to nurse a newborn by flashlight...

Holding 'Baby Crafrin' as he calls her--he LOVES to hold her, but only for about 20 seconds.

I'm almost positive that she'll be just as pasty white as he is in a few months...

And now the one-week-old photo shoot:

Still not sure if those eyes are going to be blue or something else...

A happy girl

Chewing on her blanket.  Or hands.  Basically anything that touches her face.

It's been a week already.  It's gone by quickly, but that may be because I know Jon is going back to work on Monday (curse the Army for offering compensation for unused sick leave at retirement--otherwise he would have taken the full two weeks like he did with Seth).

Things are going pretty well.  Better than I expected (I tend to expect the worse so that I'll be pleasantly surprised).  Catherine is a very good natured baby--the only times I've heard her cry are when she wakes up super hungry--which is rare, I'm still waking her up half the time--and when she has tummy trouble.  But those are more like little squawks.  The only time we REALLY hear her cry is when she's getting her diaper changed.  Cold hands+cold wet wipes = one mad baby girl.

She nurses every three hours and can go longer at night.  This is a total dream compared to Seth's two hour schedule.  Of course, I realize this could change quickly once she gets more alert, but for now we're good.

And speaking of alert, apparently our kids are just going to be extra alert.  None of this newborn 'sleep all the time' stuff--she loves to just look around.  Sounds great, but she's easily overstimulated.  Any light, noise, movement while she's trying to settle down and she's bright-eyed again (ask poor Krystal who tried to take newborn pictures yesterday--in three hours Catherine fell into a deep sleep...never).  At night it's sometimes 90 minutes before I can get her settled down.  And, of course, she has to nurse or pacifier her way to sleep.  Alert suckers--those are our kids.

Seth has done pretty well.  He's more whiny than usual (I've heard "Mommy" about 25 times in the past 5 minutes).  I think it will be hard when Jon goes back to work since I'm still not up for taking him to run around.  But luckily any resentment seems to be toward his parents--he LOVES Catherine, loves snuggling with her, loves holding her, loves picking out her outfits and watching her get her diaper changed.  Hopefully this will last.

As for me...I'm tired, I still have to sit on my Boppy (and I'm on constant pain medication--just Tylenol and ibuprofen, they didn't give me any drugs this time), and I've gone through an entire box of nursing pads since Sunday.  That about covers it.  I'm hoping by next week that the last two issues will be mostly resolved.  I'm expecting the tiredness to last for quite awhile.  ;)

The days are long but the weeks are fast...