The First of the Egg Hunts

Our first Easter egg hunt of the year was with Kyle's family since his mom won't be in town over Easter. Kyle and I had so much fun watching Jason collect his eggs. Jason had even more fun collecting them.

Seven Weeks Old

 

Noah is seven weeks old -- I can't believe we've actually made it to this far. I'll be honest and say the newborn phase is not my favorite. The weeks drag by when I'm not sleeping well and the baby doesn't sleep well. But I still love my baby.

Jason has done remarkably well accepting his little brother. He is a little too full of love at times. I feel like a broken record saying "Not so hard" or "SOFT" or "Don't touch his eyes" as I try to remind Jason to be gentle as he pats or snuggles his brother. Jason got the great idea that it would be a fun game to jump over Noah-- we've tried to put an end to that. Luckily no harm has come yet. I love how Jason tries to comfort Noah when he is crying by giving him cars and saying "It's OK Noah," just like I always say when Noah is crying. Jason is also very good at giving Noah his pacifier, sometimes a little too good (like when Noah is sound asleep and not needing one). So far Jason's attempts at comforting are in vain, but I know in the future Noah will be happy receiving such attentions from his big brother.

Our biggest struggle during the first few week has been having TWO crying babies in the middle of the night. Jason would wake up whenever Noah cried the first two nights having Noah home. We solved that problem by buying a box fan that we leave on all night in Jason's room; it drowns out all sounds. Unfortunately, Jason still started waking up in the middle of the night on his own, and he would be wide awake for two hours before falling back asleep (see previous post). This totally wreaked havoc on us as parents. Sleep deprivation is not fun. Thankfully, Jason is back to sleeping through the night, so we are feeling a little more rested, but not a lot.

I feel like it is still too early for me to make judgements on Noah's personality because he is still only four weeks past his due date. The first three weeks he slept all the time, but when we hit his due date, he started waking up. Now he seems a lot like Jason in that he wants to be held both when he is a awake and when he is asleep. When he is awake, he does not stay happy very long if he is not being held, but he is quite sweet when he is being held. Our biggest challenge with Noah, which was the same challenge with Jason, is that he does not transfer well to the crib for naps. He wakes up two minutes after we've laid him down and cries until we pick him up again. I am still struggling with how to handle this, but I might get a nice wrap and just wear him a lot during the day... we'll see.

I am happy to report that breastfeeding has been totally awesome with Noah. No worries there.

Santa Lives in Richfield

Jason's latest fascination is with Disney's "Cars 2." He loves playing with his "Cars 2" cars, and he is always wanting to collect more. Unfortunately, we were a little late getting on the Cars 2 bandwagon, so Kyle and I have become the parents who are endlessly searching for more cars to buy since a lot of the cars are not being sold in the stores anymore.

Years ago, when Toy Story came out and Buzz Light-year and Woody toys were impossible to find for Christmas, my dad found two Buzz Light-years and a Woody at Christensen's department store down in Richfield after doing some surgeries there. He called up my Aunt Wendy (who had been searching for a Buzz to give to her son for Christmas) and asked her "Do you believe in Santa?"
Aunt Wendy said "Yes."
"Good," said my dad, "because he lives in Richfield."

In addition to the Toy Story toys my dad also found a Pocahontas doll. My sister Heather wanted a Pocahontas doll for Christmas, but the problem was the Disney movie "Pocahontas" had come out four years earlier, so the doll was not currently being manufactured or sold in stores. Except for Christensen's! They still had one left!!!!!

My dad bought the Pocahontas and Woody dolls, and he figured he should buy both Buzz Light-years since they were such a popular item.  He gave one to Aunt Wendy and one to my youngest sister, Karren. Karren couldn't figure out why Santa brought her a Buzz, but years later, Jason became the newest happy owner of that Buzz.

I remembered this story as I was searching through many stores for more Cars 2 characters, so I asked my dad if he would see if Santa still lives in Richfield. My dad said he would check, and guess what, Santa still lives in Richfield! My dad found 3 cars there that we didn't have.

Back to Jason. Jason asks all the time for new cars. As soon as he gets a new one, he calls it his favorite, plays all day with the new car, and then asks to get another new car. Kyle and I did not want to produce a spoiled child by giving him a new car every time he asked, but I did need the entertainment they provided while we are stuck at home with a newborn. We decided the solution was to create a star chart in which Jason could earn more cars. Jason had to earn more cars by cooperating at nap time and bedtime rather than putting up a big fight. For the first three weeks, we were really pleased with how the reward system was working, and our car collection was growing handsomely.

Then the night-wakings started.

We could not figure out why Jason was waking up so often in the middle of the night. And not only was he waking up, but he was staying up for two or more hours. After checking to make sure he was OK, we would leave him in his crib and listen to him talk or cry for the two or more hours until he fell asleep or we decided it was an appropriate time to get up and ready for the day.

We were exhausted parents. We had TWO babies waking up in the middle of the night, and the newborn was the easy one.

Part of the problem was certainly Jason's cough, which has lingered since November, because it would wake him up. Two nights he complained about his ears. Two nights he had a strange rash that kept him awake with itching. But the other nights were mysteries...One night after Jason had been awake for a while and Kyle went in to get him in the morning, Jason asked "Is it wake time?", after Kyle responded "Yes," Jason immediately asked "Is my new car here?" No-- it wasn't. He had not earned enough stars to get another one. But his comment clued us in to a possible cause of the wakings. Jason was waking up waiting to receive his reward, because we had been giving him his rewards after him waking up in the morning or right after his nap. After this revelation, we immediately ended the star-chart system. We told Jason we weren't getting any new cars for a long time.

I am pleased to report that for the past 4 nights, Jason has slept through the night. Ending the reward chart seems to have helped. Now if we can keep him healthy, I'm hoping the night-wakings will stop for good. We'll probably use reward charts again in the future, but now I know not to give him the reward when he first wakes up.

Family Date Night

On Friday night I told Jason that mommy and daddy were going on a date and Grandma Linda was going to babysit him. When we got back from our date, Jason told both me and Kyle separately, "I want to go on a date with you." We told him that tomorrow night (Saturday) we could go on a date with him.

Jason melted my heart with how excited he was for his date. Whenever we got in the car to run errands Jason would ask, "Is this our date?" For our family date night we went to A&W and ate root beer floats. When the floats were consumed, Jason didn't want to go home because he wanted to prolong the date. It wasn't until I told him we could play a game at home before going to bed that he consented to leave. I can tell we're going to have a lot of fun in the future doing mommy or daddy dates with him.

Big Food

Last night Jason asked me, "Mom, do you have a baby in your tummy?"
"No, not anymore," I responded.
Jason replied, "Just big food?"
"Yes, Jason," I said, "just big food."

I couldn't stop laughing over his comment for a day. Women in the ward comment all the time about how good I look, how they can't believe I just had a baby. They are all very nice to say things like that to make me feel good, but Jason and I know the truth: I still have good sized pooch. It will probably stick around for 10 months if I'm lucky, more if I'm not. It took me 10 months to get back to my normal size after Jason, but my mom says it gets harder with each baby.

Noah Meets His Great Grandparents

When Noah was two weeks old he met his great grandparents on Kyle's side of the family.

Noah and Great Grandparents Robbins

 

Noah and Great Grandpa Brailsford

We're also very grateful that Grandma Linda was willing to come help us out on her birthday. We tried to make her day special with cupcakes.

Noah's Newborn Photos

 

I'm finally getting around to posting Noah's newborn pictures at 5:00 in the morning with the help of my bright-eyed baby. Kyle's sister Melissa came to our house when Noah was one week old to take these pictures. She did an awesome job. You can check out more of her work at wynstroplephotography.blogspot.com.

Back in January...

A few fun pictures from January:

Going to the zoo on a free day with Grandma Linda and Austin. 

Making cookies with Megan, Brynn, Natalie, and Jason:

 

Playing the piano with Karren, Heidi, Brynn, and Jason:

New Year's Resolution

We had one New Year's Resolution for our family: get rid of Jason's pacifier. Jason had stopped taking naps on his own, so we decided the "paci" was no longer serving a useful purpose. I waited two months to write about it because I wanted to see if we were successful or not (we tried to do it a year ago, but ended up going back to the pacifier).

We opted to go cold-turkey by cutting off the tip of the pacifier and telling Jason it was "broken." It was quite a heart-wrenching experience for the whole family when Jason found out about his broken paci. He was crying so hard that Kyle and I nearly started crying, but we both tried hard to put on brave faces for Jason and tell him it was OK. One of the hardest parts was helping Jason understand that there was no fixing the pacifier. In Jason's mind, Daddy can fix anything, so he kept asking when the pacifier was going to be fixed. It took at least two weeks for him to get over losing his pacifier, if not more.

I was nervous that when baby Noah came home with a pacifier, Jason would regress, but I can happily report that has not been the case.