MY FIRST LEGITIMATE MOTHER’S DAY:

I’ll never NOT be a mother again! I just woke up from a wonderful nap, surrounded by my big and little man and have had the most wonderful day I wanted to write about it.
We had a fun dinner party last night, where I put on a good tasting if ill looking meal – and left a major mess in the kitchen. This morning, after Nathan woke up from his second bed time (which is what I call his little hour nap after he wakes up at 5:30 or 6:00 and has a little play time for about 45 min. then crashes again) Scott took him out in the living room to see if I could get some more sleep. Scott did all the dishes, and took care of Nathan while I got to sleep in. I finally rolled out of bed and into the shower while Scott continued to take care of Nathan while making a delicious pancake breakfast with peaches in the pancakes topped with brown sugar and syrup – wonderful man.
I’m surrounded by beautiful flowers and let me tell you a story of Chocolate!!! Mother’s Day, whether an invention of the Hallmark Company or Hershey’s is now on my list of favorite holidays!

No Joke:

According to our Italian Mobster Pediatrician, Nathan is now 26in. and 16 lbs. Long and skinny. I asked if I should be worried about his growth, and the pediatrician said no, but I did get the go ahead to feed him some rice cereal if I wanted to. Pretty sure my sister and her behemoth children were strongly deterred from any supplemental food until at least 6 months, so either all children are not created equal or I don’t produce quite as rich a cream as my sister!
Sadly, it took my little tike 4 months and 2 days, on April 17th I finally got a genuine laugh out of him. I remember thinking he was chuckling in his sleep, which he was (I know since I recognize his actual laugh now) but we couldn’t get him to consciously laugh. Scott was assisting one of the 4th year dental students on his board exams all day Saturday and I had to rub it in by informing him that he missed a first. He giggled a lot for me; wish I could figure out what he found so funny because he is a tough audience. Scott tried and tried all Sunday to get another laugh out of him to no avail; and to be honest, I couldn’t get any either, but on Wednesday at his doctor’s appointment, the breast-feeding bashing, no-Tylenol-for-shots-giving Italian Mobster pediatrician got a laugh out of him! Needless to say, we are now the absolute goofiest people I know, trying all we can to get laughs. They are rare, but sure worth the effort. Don’t get me wrong, Nathan is a happy baby – he smiles so big he’s all gums – and he talks up a storm, I just figure we are not funny enough for him . . . yet!
We can actually claim that there is an official favorite toy. Nathan’s great Aunt Sharon gave him a book called Snowy Bear and it is grand. It has the stuffed head of a polar bear on top of a red plastic tube; the front and back page are crinkley and there are rings with ribbons attached to the side of the book. Oh so many fun things to touch and feel and taste. He takes it in his stroller, carseat and his favorite place to play is in his swing where he took a nap with Snowy Bear last week and in one of his wake-up-and-rub-your-eye moments rubbed his crinkley page on his face and STILL went back to sleep.
I love nap times and second bed times. My big boy is learning to put himself to sleep – or at least back to sleep. Instead of requiring rocking, walking, or nursing time, he has now, several times, after waking up, played for a while and talked to himself, rolled back over to his tummy (the obviously most comfortable sleeping position) and GONE BACK TO SLEEP – Bless him!

Rock and roll Baby!

It is terrible that I feel so dependent on the doctor to determine how my little guy is progressing. Luckily, we were visiting my Aunt and Uncle in Ft. Meade during Spring Break when we made a little trip down to the DC Temple and they had a scale. Scott and I took turns climbing on the scale with Nathan and we figured he was about 15lbs. It was terrible news, because it meant that he didn’t fit in his 1-2 diapers anymore. I think the whole thing is silly, we were fine with the diapers until we found out his weight, then he started leaking all the time, thankfully it wasn’t poo, the poor guy can just fill the darn things up and leaks wet everywhere.
April 30th marked the last day of safety and sanity when Nathan figured out how to roll from his back to his front. The first time he did it I thought it was just a fluke, and after he did it a few times, I knew I was in trouble.
Nathan spent his first General Conference at home with Me and Scott. We put a quilt down that covered most of our meager living room so that we could watch him roll over all during conference, I know, we are sick. At least when we ask someone to watch him we can legitimately say, “yes, he does tricks!”

Teething What!!!

When you have to do inoculations, make sure Daddy can come, it is far too traumatizing for Mommy to deal with alone. At Nathan’s 2 month visit he weighed 13 lbs and was 24 ½ in long. He got two shots and his poor little chubby legs were not happy, he didn’t really cry until it was all over, he did YELL at the nurse! He’s figured out how to turn over from his tummy to his back, but the actual first time he did it is hard to tell since he doesn’t look like it was done terribly intentionally when he props himself up on his little arms and flops over. He still seems pretty impressed with himself and we are sure proud.
The doctor told me that all the drool and the fist chewing were signs of teething. Apparently their teeth bother them, at least to the tune of super drool, as soon as they start forming in the gums. It could still be as long as 4 months before we actually see a tooth, but the preliminaries are sure wet!

And Then. . .

No Scott, the Baby isn’t Zero, he’s a month old:
From January to February, Nathan had some more visitors. Grandma Peterson and Aunt Jamie came to visit and for an interview that we now know will bring Aunt Jamie to live in Philly for a couple of years to be closer to us . . . or to go to PA school, I’m not sure the priority of the decision in her mind. Nathan weighed in at 10 lbs 4oz at his one month appointment and grew a whole inch and a quarter in a month and is now 21 ½ in. While Grandma and Aunt Jamie were visiting Mommy actually ventured out of the apartment and went to a couple of restaurants and all the way to Amish country in Lancaster County. It was the longest car ride Nathan has been on and he behaved famously. He mostly sleeps in the car and doesn’t mind the cramped confines of being nursed in the back seat.
After polling my friends, most people say that first babies are colic-y and the consensus is that first time parents just don’t know that babies are fussy. Well, Nathan is fussy (and colic-y - I swear).

Getting Accustomed to Parenthood

Birth to One Month:
Life phases are fun and maybe someday Nathan will thank me for tracking his. I am starting archiving his life a couple of days before he turns 4 months old so the memories will have to suffice at first. We got to bring Nathan home from the hospital on Thursday the 17th and both of us admitted to feeling like the doctors were insane letting us walk out of there with this fragile little boy and surely some security guard was going to run up to us, as we strapped our little guy in his car seat and drove away, and say “just kidding, you don’t know what you are doing, we aren’t going to let you take him home.” I tore north and south when he was born so after Scott picked his mother up from the airport I sent him to the pharmacy for my prescriptions and . . . a donut. He had no idea what I was asking for, and I had no idea why the hospital didn’t issue me one, don’t they usually come standard after giving birth? So I was left alone, at home, with my son. OK, so he slept most of the time, but he had finally come, and I was taking care of him all by myself. I was so glad that he came early and Scott was able to spend time getting to know him and helping me out. Scott’s mom was with us for 6 days and made us breakfast in bed every morning when she came and relieved us of baby duty for a while. Nathan gave us a few potentially non-gas motivated smiles, and seemed to chuckle in his sleep and dream often of nursing, his most favorite thing in life. He was slightly jaundiced when he was born so we let him get a little sun, through the window, in the morning to get rid of his cute orange tan.
We had a few weeks by ourselves, to figure out family life before Scott went back to school. On Christmas morning one of his dental school friends needed a ride to the airport at 5am. Nathan and I slept in while Scott drove them to the airport; we wanted to open presents while using Skype with our families so with the time difference between Philly and . . . everywhere else we went back to bed. Scott and I tried and failed to take family pictures with our first family Christmas stockings and our wonderful little boy. I made breakfast burritos which we ate after opening our stockings and started a family tradition of attempting to drag out the Christmas morning wonder by breaking up present opening with food in the middle. It also gave us time for our families to wake and ready themselves for the exciting joy of watching us open our presents. We called Scott’s family and they watched us open all the presents they sent us, and some of the presents we gave each other. I got to see the hats and scarves that I made during my “lying in,” (kidding) and then we called my parents and watched them open up all the Peterson family stuff. Nathan slept through most of it, except when I was feeding him which is fun to do on camera, especially when you are new to it and don’t usually use a nursing cover, quite an adventure for both Nathan and myself.
Scott went back to school on January 4th and I was left alone to my mothering devices. Mostly we ate and slept. I remembered the good old days when I was pregnant and able to get up every morning with Scott and eat breakfast with him and send him off to school with a lunch packed in his bag, and then Nathan came and sleep time was precious and he always seemed to be either eating, or just having fallen asleep after eating when Scott was getting up, so no more morning routine.
Nathan’s first trip to church was exciting. He slept most of Sacrament Meeting and Scott and I were horrified the whole time that he was going to . . . start working on filling his pampers. I’ve never seen someone put soo much effort into it and for such a little guy, he packs a walloping loud toot. Luckily he saved us the embarrassment of denying blame for a sound that others couldn’t possibly believe came from our angelic little one, and actually took a pacifier and slept. He then proceeded to eat almost the whole remaining 2 hours and I got to spend a horrifyingly long time in the extremely smelly mother’s lounge that doesn’t need to be connected to the bathroom, really!
Aside from the almost clockwork regular diaper change/getting peed on every time, routine I can’t remember too many other moments of note other than the all famous “Scott, I warned you about putting your face down there while changing the baby” one. Let’s just say, Nathan can get distance with number ones AND number twos and Scott has since sanitized his glasses!

The Big Day

Planned or Prepared, never both
While it is believed that an early delivery is nice, as long as the baby is healthy and full term, I would recommend being prepared for one, if you are strange like me and have your first baby 3 weeks early, one day after he is pronounced full term. He was born healthy and happy weighing in at 6 lbs 14 oz and 20 ¼ in. long. He was planned and we thought we were prepared but whooo boy, pack a bag or something woman.
We have some amazing friends here and the church is awesome. We knew that everyone would be willing to help us when Nathan got here, especially by providing a few dinners, but my wheat allergy is so difficult for people to prepare food for me so I decided that I would be prepared so that Scott and I would not starve when our little guy came. I went on a 4 hour shopping trip to get everything I wanted to make and freeze a bunch of good casseroles that I could eat and that Scott would enjoy as well as get all our remaining Christmas needs/wants. Scott and I were really excited for our first Christmas together and as adults filling stockings for each other. I went to the dollar store to get big disposable baking ware and some things to make goodies for my visiting teaching girls, hit Target on my way to the discount grocery store where I bagged my own groceries, after that on to Walmart to get stocking stuffers and a few remaining gifts for Scott, and finished up at a regular grocery store to get my lactose free milk, needless to say, I have faith in shopping to motivate labor.
I then spent the next morning, while Scott was at his final, sitting cross-legged on the floor all morning wrapping his presents and those for our families so that I could get them in the mail. I was worried because I didn’t have Trisha’s quite finished and I wanted to get the packages in the mail in time for Christmas. I ran to the post office to get boxes and then packaged the presents all up and went back to the post office making it just in time before they closed at 4:30. One of the postal workers was locking the doors while I was waiting for another to shove as much of my stuff in a flat rate box as would fit so that I could save $5 postage, what wonderful people. One mentioned that I had cute nail polish and I said that they would probably make me remove it at the hospital when I went in to have Nathan, and she said, “Oh, are you pregnant, when are you due?” I told her I was already dilated to a 3 as of Monday. She told the other worker who was locking up to make sure to let me out so that they didn’t have any babies born at the post office. I was happy with the mail service that day, especially since Nathan’s car seat had arrived earlier that day and Scott had gone out to the car and installed the base and made sure it was on all the right settings.
When I got home, Scott had been studying all day for his Histology final and was worried because there was so much information and he didn’t know where the teacher was going to focus. He told me he wouldn’t mind if I had the baby tonight so he could take a break from studying. I was, once again, sitting cross-legged on the floor, opening little candy-canes to smash up for a Christmas cookie I was going to make and after I finished, I got up and heard (and felt) a popping and ran to the restroom where I discovered that I was really pregnant, when your water breaks, it brings it all home for you. I yelled for Scott, who for half a second thought I was joking and then came running. I noted the time, 7pm. I called my Mom and got a little scared when she said, well, the baby is coming; you better head to the hospital. After I got off the phone I weepingly told Scott that I wasn’t ready, I never did get to read those books on child birth and I didn’t know how to do it, “you just breathe and push, right?”
I called my little sister, the current birthing expert in my eyes, and asked her if I had time to take a shower, I hadn’t had the chance yet with all the running around I’d done and felt yucky, and by the way, how do you have a baby? She said to go ahead as long as Scott stood next to me in case I started having contractions, I didn’t want to fall down, and don’t worry, the nurse will tell you what to do. Instead, I took a quick shower while Scott put together the end-all hospital bag for me. We found a list in the week-by-week pregnancy book I’d been reading and followed it down to the last detail and ended up bringing WAY too much stuff, but we got prepared FAST! My first contraction happened in the shower, and wasn’t any worse than the Braxton Hicks contractions I’d been having the past month. I got dressed and wrapped a towel around me, in diaper fashion and we headed out. My contractions got to about every two minutes on our drive to the hospital. I was soaking my clothes and the towel and we were a funny sight running up the stairs, that night, I didn’t know how else to get into the building where I was to deliver except by the stair route and so up the stairs we went and the ladies at the check in desk sent me straight to triage; a wet towel is a good indication that it’s not false labor, apparently.
After making sure we were all checked in, the nurses made me give them a urine sample, seriously?!?! I am having contractions and gushing all over the place, but ok, you need urine, whatever. So then they let me put on my bum flap dress and hospital socks (I’d put on the nice fluffy ones from home and they had gotten a little wet/bloody when I changed) and then sat in triage having contractions and feeling ignored. Finally a doctor came in and asked if we’d been helped, like we were at a restaurant or something, so she hooked me up to some monitors and checked me out down south. She asked me if I wanted an epidural and I said no, but can I have one later if I change my mind? She then told them to take me straight to labor and delivery; it was 8:30 and I was fully effaced and dilated to a 5. My contractions were coming really fast, I couldn’t tell you how close they were as the dad-blamed clock in my delivery room was broken, a fact that I brought to their attention several times. I realized afterwards that my subtlety was wasted on people who are used to being yelled at and cussed out by the women they help. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but I was WAY too polite of a woman in labor, I’ll try not to make that same mistake again.
So my labor is fast and hard and I am starting to worry that I won’t be able to handle it too long, especially if I progressed as slowly as the admitting doctor told me it would go. The nurse working with me asked if I wanted any pain meds in my IV which she had trouble putting in and so it ended up in the bend of my elbow, I finally gave in and so SHE LEFT! Scott was with me the whole time and helped me remember to relax and breath through the contractions, when the nurse finally got back with the medicine, she didn’t want to give it to me during a contraction because I was kind of writhing around in pain. So we waited out a contraction, and she found something to do, and then we waited out another contraction, and she was doing something else, when she finally got the medicine into me, the next contraction hit and I pushed! I didn’t push, my body did! I had no idea it was like that, I told them I was pushing and what should I do. They got a doctor in to check me and I had dilated to 10 in 45 min and was ready to go. Thanks for nothing pain meds, you’ve got nothing on pushing, and it is much more of a pain controller than relaxing and breathing. I want to put a big ol’ thank you out there to the labor and delivery nurses of the world, you rock, my soft spoken doctor did little to help me through the delivery process other than catch the cute little guy that came running right out, while the nurses booming voice and gruff instructions got me through it all. Nathan was born at 10:21pm there you go. Scott was such a proud dad, he took a picture with his phone and sent it to all of our family and his Mom called. I love Scott, but when he tried to hand me the phone to talk to my mother-in-law, while the wonderful (evil) doctors essentially preformed a D&C on me trying to remove the reluctant placenta, I’ll admit to finally losing patience with my wonderful husband. So after the doctor ripped me apart, she sewed me back up and gave me my baby to try to nurse, which is a lot harder than it looks. He latched on a couple of times, and then fell asleep and didn’t get much. They took me up to my (shared) room and got me all settled in and got Nathan all official with bracelets and prints and then left me to (try) to sleep. My wonderful roomie had control of the heat next to her bed and kept us at a balmy blaze and apparently couldn’t LIVE without her television on. She was asleep when we got there so Scott turned her TV off, after he left, she . . . woke up and turned it back on and then went back to sleep, WHAT!?!?! My wonderful mother-in-law, whom I did finally talk to after the horrific D&C avoidance, found a flight and came to help us become parents.
Scott missed his final but finished up finals week very well; his professor excused him, as in, didn’t make him take the final or anything, he gave him the grade he earned with his quizzes and he got an A in that class, bless the Philly professor with heart. Mom got here to help us the day we came home from the hospital and was here for several days. We worried that she would be stuck here and miss Christmas with the Oklahoma crew after we got smashed by a snow storm that shut down the air ports. Luckily it cleared up enough for her to get home, with the presents I had time to finish while she was here saving the day, and we enjoyed our first Christmas together, with our wonderful little boy.