3 Weeks Old

Daniel celebrated Aunt Maggie's birthday by wearing the cute outfit she gave him. I hope everyone has a good week!

A Few Status Updates

I'll be on leave until August 18, and then I'm going back Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

We are taking Daniel to Nova Scotia for three weeks in July and August.

My sister Kelly will be living with us this summer, attending summer school at UW, and working at First Weber (Dan's company). We are looking forward to having her here. From a house of two to a house of four in just six weeks. It should be fun.

On the work front, I'll be starting my speaking tour in May :). I submitted three abstracts this year, and all three were accepted. I am doing talks for our region's WEF association (CSWEA) annual conference in May, the state operator association conference in October, and for WEFTEC - a national wastewater conference - in October. Thankfully Kelly will be here to go to CSWEA with me in Minneapolis. I don't think I could do it alone with a 6-week-old.

On the baby front -

- Target diapers remind me of cardboard when compared to Huggies or Pampers.
- I've never done so much laundry in my life. How can a 9 pound baby generate so much laundry?
- It's amazing how the day can go by and I've spent most of it just holding and nursing Daniel. And after so much time with him, I forget that I can actually leave the room when he sleeps in the Pack'N'Play.

Daniel's ND Brainwashing Begins

Last night we had our UND night featuring Reverand John Jenkins as the speaker. Matt was doing a reading for the mass beforehand and wanted us to stop by. So I got dressed in a somewhat professional outfit and got Daniel all ready to go out. He was incredibly good yesterday, so I was willing to chance that he would be good for the mass. He was sleeping when we got there because the car puts him right to sleep everytime. I'm sure that will come in handy someday. We had to miss the Liturgy of the Eucharist because he was hungry, but other than that he was perfect. So good that I decided to stay for the dinner. He woke up right as Fr. Jenkins was getting introduced at 9 pm. At that point, I knew he would be starving, so I didn't press my luck and headed home. We were gone from 4:30 pm until 9:30 pm, and he was really good the whole time. I enjoyed getting to talk to adults for a change. Daniel is wonderful, but he's not much for conversation these days.

Since he was so good all day yesterday, I knew for sure that we were going to be up all night. He was up for a couple hours when we got home in my favorite quiet alert state and then he was a sleeping champ again. He slept from 11 pm until 4 am and then again until 6:30 am. Here are a couple pictures. Daniel loves the bouncer while Mom eats breakfast, and just so that we aren't too bad about the brainwashing, we dressed him in UW gear today.

More Daniel Pictures

Here are a few more shots of the little guy. These are mostly from this weekend. We had a bunch of outings this weekend. On Friday, we went to the doctor. Saturday evening we went to church, and on Sunday we went to the Lee's for dinner. The weather was wonderful. It was great to get outside.

Two Weeks Old

It seems like we are starting to settle into a routine here at the homestead. It mostly involves nursing, sleeping, diapers, and laundry. Daniel has been an excellent sleeper through the night. We usually only have one middle of the night feeding, so Matt and I are lucky enough to get a couple nice long stretches of sleep during the night. On the flipside, he likes to nurse every 1.5 to 2 hours during the day. As I begin to return to my former self, I'm going to have to come up with lots of activities that take about 45 minutes, which is the downtime I get between feedings. That is if I can bear to put him down after he falls asleep. Sometimes we just nap together on the couch for hours on end. The newborn time warp is quite wonderful. I just hope that I remember that there is life outside of our little world and I still have to pay bills.

We have had lots of visitors. Aunt Kelly came last weekend and Aunt Maggie was here this weekend. Grammy (my Mom) was here from the day he was born until last Tuesday, and my Dad was here the weekend he was born. Erin also made it up for the day last Saturday, and the Milwaukee Mahoney's brought us dinner on Sunday night. Here are a few pictures of the little guy. I'll post more later. These are all about a week old.

It's a Boy!

Well, I wasn't kidding on Friday. Daniel Thomas Lee was born on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 6:41 am. He was 8 lbs. 5 oz. and 21.5 inches long.



The labor was long as you probably figured from my Friday post which it turns out I wrote while in labor. We went in at 5:30 pm on Friday and only had to spend about three minutes in traige before they admitted us. Once the epidural was in, I was back to my normal self after being fairly miserable for the previous day. I must have seemed a little too comfortable because Matt was extremely relaxed during labor. I know most of you don't believe that this is what he was like, but seriously, he spent a couple hours reading the paper.

Around 2:30 am, I started pushing. At 6 am they decided we had to do something else, so we were suited up for the operating room.

I was totally overwhelmed at this point, but it was all worth it. Here are a couple pictures in the operating room just after he was born.

We are home now and starting to adjust to having a little one in the house. It is wonderful having him here, but I can tell already that life is going to be so different. We already have so much we want to share. I'll have to wait until later for that.

Triage and Early Labor

Well, we really should have a baby any day now. I went into the hospital yesterday morning because the doctor was suspicious that I was leaking amniotic fluid. That was not the case, but I was having pretty regular contractions. So around 2 pm, we made it home and just chilled out for the afternoon. I just got to hang out in triage that whole time. Matt made it over in time to see me back in my clothes and ready to head home. We both decided that triage sounds like a much scarier place than it is. The big drawback is that the rooms are pretty small.

Things calmed down for a while, but picked back up again after dinner. I was having contractions all evening long even though I was resting. I gave up on sleeping at 11 pm, and finally woke Matt up at 2 am. After getting our stuff together, we headed to the hospital again. Well, after five hours at the hospital, they decided to send us home again. Me with a prescription for Ambien in tow so that I could get some sleep. Things are progressing, and I am having regular, painful contractions, but we are still not there yet. The doctor did say that she thought there was no way that I would make it to 40 weeks. So only two days of contractions to get through. We are waiting for them to consistently be between 60 and 90 seconds each.

Matt has been wonderful through everything today and yesterday. I couldn't imagine doing this without him. Also, my Mom is scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning. Who knew that she would have so many hours to prepare for her departure.

The next time I go in, we are having this baby. I'm not going in three times in a matter of days and not having the baby. Interventions or not. Wish us luck! We'll keep you posted. At this point, everyone is healthy and strong.