Tomorrow I will be bigger...

(wearing his sailor suit in honor of the Jimmy Buffet concert that the rest of the family attended)

I've discovered that motherhood is different than I thought it would be! In some respects, it comes easily (how can you not love on this sweet boy!)...and in others the job of being a mommy (sterilizing bottles, doing laundry) is much more time consuming and demanding than I anticipated. Nor did I anticipate the internal struggle that comes along with always striving to do what is best for your baby (should I let him cry it out for a bit or does he need to be held?)...these kind of decisions seem easy until you are faced with actually making and implementing them.

Being the type A person that I am, we decided to implement the "BABYWISE" system at our house. For those unfamiliar, Babywise is based around the premise that baby eats, plays, sleeps on a routine basis in order to get their bodyclock and metabolism on a schedule, this in theory promotes healthy eating and sleeping habits and helps them sleep thru the night. I am a fan of the routine this system provides and John was on board with anything that helped baby (and thus us) sleep thru the night!

So far we have been pleased with how well Lincoln has acclimated to his daily routine. He is always ready to eat right on schedule and we have seen glimpses of how wonderful a full nights sleep is going to be with the little one sleeping 8 hours at a stretch a couple of nights this week. His weight gain is back on track and he is working hard to grow into his big hands and big feet...already at a whopping 10 pounds! In the last week we have packed up all of his newborn clothes and transitioned to a bigger diaper! (I may or may not have shed a tear over packing these things away...isn't it funny how you can want your children to grow and be healthy and yet at the same time be a little nostalgic about how fast they are growing?)

(Lincoln loves his rainforest mat...but isn't a huge fan of tummy time)

Our downfall in this whole eat/play/sleep routine is the nap! Lincoln has decided that napping is excellent cuddle time (and he is right!), but when mommy uses nap time to take care of everything else (laundry, dishes, work...or maybe even (gasp!) a shower, his preference for being held while napping becomes a bit of a challenge...and the internal debate over how to properly handle this begins!

(Napping with his daddy in mommy's favorite pirate sleeper!)

Most of the time I am a stickler for following our house napping rules: baby naps IN his crib when MOMMY decides that it is nap time. But as with all rules, there are exceptions! So, on days like today, when every bottle in our house is dirty, there are loads and loads of laundry to be done, I haven't made it out of my pj's by noon, and Lincoln decides that the ONLY way he will nap is if he is being held...I remind myself that our sweet little boy will only be this small today. Tomorrow he will get bigger and learn or discover something new, so I let myself off the hook on the laundry, on the dishes, on the napping rules, and on worrying whether or not I am spoiling him by giving in...and just enjoy the cuddle time.

Wow...where did a month go?

So, I had every intention of blogging about Lincoln's birthday, but between feeding the little one every 2 hours for a week straight and generally just trying to keep our heads above water, I didn't get around to it, so here is a quick recap for those of you who haven't heard the story yet.

John and I went into the doctor for our regularly scheduled appointment on Friday morning, 4/16. I was pretty sure I was in labor and that we were coming home with a baby...John was trying to keep me from getting my hopes up and was generally playing the voice or reason - as he often does! Regardless, our bags were packed when we left for the doctor's office. :) As it turns out, I was having contractions and the doctor determined that we should head to maternity observation for a little while. We hadn't been there very long when Lincoln's heart rate dropped, setting off the alarms and causing the nurses and doctors to rush into our cubicle. It was INCREDIBLY scary! I was given a shot to stop my contractions and his heart rate returned to normal. As a result of that little scare, I was hooked up to monitors for the remainder of our time in labor and delivery which wasn't quite what we had envisioned. Lincoln was born at 9:15 that evening...exactly 12 hours after our scheduled doctor's appointment. Afterwards, we found out that his umbilical cord was too short, thus causing the dropped heartrate. Luckily, our little guy was just fine once he met the outside world!

(Brand new and getting his first diaper)

We brought Lincoln home the following Sunday evening, even though he was a little jaundice.

(Daddy getting Lincoln all dressed to go home from the hospital)

We really wish we had stayed in the hospital one more night, because he needed a bilibed and biliblanket for his jaundice after we got home...which frightened mommy and wore mommy, daddy and grandma out!

(It's amazing what a little light therapy can do!)

And then after that...little guy just wasn't gaining enough weight, so for a whole week he ate EVERY 2 hours...this also left us all exhausted! Luckily for all of us, Lincoln is a very good sleeper. Check out that sweet little hand under his chin...such a thinking man's pose!

By week three, we were finally starting to get into the swing of things. Lincoln started gaining weight (finally made it back to his birthweight) and had a visit from his Grandma Cheryl.

(Loving his present from Grandma Cheryl)

Week 4, we celebrated Mother's Day with my mom and John's mom and then on Monday, daddy went back to work full time, all of the grandmas went home and mommy and Lincoln tried to get into a daily routine...

(Mother's Day 2010)

And a 9:19 this evening, I snuck into the nursery and took a picture of our sweet baby boy...as he was exactly one month and 4 minutes old (so I completely meant to take the picture at 9:15...refer to what I said earlier about time flying when you have a baby around the house!)

My favorite storybook to read to Lincoln is called "On The Day You Were Born"...the last few lines read,

"On the day you were born...you slipped out of the dark quiet where suddenly you could hear a cirlce of people singing with voices familiar and clear. Welcome to the spinning world, the people sang as they washed your new, tiny hands. Welcome to the green Earth, the people sang as they wrapped your wet, slippery body. And as they held you close, they whispered into your open curving ear, we are so glad you've come!"

We are so glad he has come to be a part of our lives!