When Mom cries it out.

Having a baby is hard. It really is the most difficult thing I have ever done in my entire life. Seriously. Labor was a tea party compared to the first few weeks of sleepless frustrating messy unpredictable days and nights. And while it is slowly getting better, I feel like relief is never going to arrive. 

Don't get me wrong, I am so excited to have a child. I often find myself wondering what his first words will be, who will be his first crush (not until he is 40), what sports or instruments he will play, and where he will go to college. BUT those moments seem like eternity away and way to close all at the same time. 

For now we are still working on getting Mason to fall asleep on his own and let me tell you. Ugh. I never knew one baby had that much of an ability to cry. And that I had the ability to cry this much either. I am seriously surprised we have not flooded the house yet, or at least the nursery. 

Baby-Wise is the system that we are following and so far it has been great to get Mason on a feeding schedule, that way I can tell when he is hungry or if he is crying for another reason. Now we are onto establishing a good sleep routine and teaching the little guy to be able to fall asleep on his own, very important if mommy and daddy ever want to get a good night sleep again. The downside is listening to him cry. And cry. And cry. 

We check on him about every ten minutes to make sure he is not too hot or cold, is still in a clean diaper, and to make sure he is not hungry (he gets hungrier when going through a growth spurt). Basically he calms down when we walk in the room and as soon as we leave he cries like there is no tomorrow. And then I cry like there is no tomorrow. And Jake sits with me until I am no longer in tears. 

This is supposedly only supposed to last a few days until he grasps the habit of falling asleep on his own but a few days?! This mommy is not sure she can handle that. Thank goodness for my husband who reassures me about every 4 minutes that I am not a bad mother and crying just for the sake of crying is not harming our little one. 

I have found that one amazing side affect of this stage of life is that my prayer life has improved immensely. I find myself unable to plan or control 98% of the things going on - which I am fairly used to doing - but now I have to rely on not only my husband more but we together have to rely on God. I probably pray about 20 times a day just asking for the ability to just make it through the day. 

My favorite part is that at the end of the day, the last thing Jake and I do is pray over our son. We crawl into bed, after putting Mason to sleep at 10 (a time which he does not cry, hooray), and we hold hands and pray for our little boy. It has been one of the most encouraging parts of my day and I would not give that up for the world. 

With all of our friends, our family, and God, Jake and I know we have an amazing support system in raising Mason to be a young man of God. But - it is always nice to have a few extra prayers thrown our way so keep us in your thoughts (keep all new parents in your thoughts), we would really appreciate any help we can get - especially the prayer kind! 

Mama Mia out.

The Triple Threat

I am no stranger to changing diapers, working at a daycare in college and babysitting prepared me to be able to change a diaper in about 20 seconds flat. My husband on the other hand is pretty new at this skill but he has stepped up to the plate and has changed just as many diapers as I have. I'm so proud.

 

One thing that he was not expecting though was the triple threat. Mason had recently eaten and needed to be changed so he was passed off to Jake in order to be burped and receive a new diaper. While Jake was mid diaper change Mason started to spit up, then he started to pee, and to top it all off he apparently was not quite done filling his diaper as Jake discovered. 

Jake let out a frantic little "hunny!" and I could not stop laughing. I made my way into Masons room to find my two boys in a bit of a flurry so I grabbed a new diaper, wiped the baby down and tried not to laugh to much. 

Now whenever Jake hears Mason fill his diaper he waits a few minutes to make sure that there will be no surprises mid-nude-baby. We have still both been peed on and being covered in spit up is no rare occasion but I am happy to report that no more poo has made its way out of the diaper and onto either of us. Lets hope it stays that way for a while. Or forever, I'm not picky. 

Mason Daniel

On Thursday, May 16th at 10:22 in the morning Jake and I welcomed our little Mason Daniel into the world.

He weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces, was 20 inches long, and received 9 and 9 on his APGAR scores. We were so proud.
 
Although it has only been a week, the little guy has already stolen our sleep and our sanity - but mostly our hearts. We are so in love with the little Mason and cannot wait to see the plans God has for him in the future, but for now we are just trying to stay sane - especially this brand new mommy.

I was warned about the sleepless nights, the demands of an infant and the crazy hormones, but the combination of all of these is way way more overwhelming than I ever imagined. Thank goodness for my husband and our family. Jake seems to have a better grasp on his sanity, but his hormones are not on a wild roller coaster ride. Either way, I feel so blessed that he can be home for another two weeks so we can adjust to having a new family member and mommy can feel a little bit more like herself before he returns to work. 

As far as our son goes, Mason is a wonderful baby boy! He is healthy and doing what all babies do in the first few weeks. Sleep. Eat. Poop. Fuss when getting a diaper change. Be adorable. And sleep some more. You would think with all that sleeping mommy and daddy would be sleeping too. Not so much. I think that is why God made babies so cute, because realistically if he acted this way and was not so gosh darn smile inducing there may have been a problem. 

We are working our way towards some semblance of a schedule by following 'On Becoming Baby Wise' - well mostly following it. This book was recommended to us by multiple parents and although we have not seen the results in our own little one we have seen how happy, healthy, and well rested the other families and little ones are and I am super pumped to put it into practice in our home.

I was super skeptical about Baby Wise at first. Once I actually took the time to read the book (and not just the anti-baby wise content on google) I realized that it made a lot of sense and would not only help to provide stability for me and Jake but also for our little Mason. Who will hopefully be sleeping through the night by the time he is 8 weeks old. Finger crossed.

I will keep updating and posting on how our journey into parenthood is going! Hopefully I will be better at posting because once a month is not enough. Maybe this will become my distraction to keep me awake during those 1am feedings - at least that is what I am hoping for. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

Mama Mia out.