davejenbarnes

failed miserably to get a decent picture of the boy… we’ll try again next week

Please excuse the wierd posts appearing and disappearing from our site.  Something is screwy and I haven’t investigated yet.

Here are some posts that have gone missing:

Three Lost Posts…
Jennifer
Today, 09:18 AM
The server our site is hosted on went down yesterday for a short time and when it came back, we were missing 3 posts on the blog. I’m assuming they restored it to the latest backup or something like that. Anyhoo… Here they are (thanks to the cache on safari):

One Fussy Month Old
Jennifer
Thursday, 10:14 PM
Lowell is a month old today. Just for kicks, I’ll write up a short blog about our my observations so far.

First off, Lowell needs to be in constant motion, and not just baby swing motion, from the hours of 8 p.m. to midnight and 6 to 7 a.m. and today from about 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. which DROVE. ME. NUTS. I think sleep deprivation is finally taking its toll though we are cosleeping with him for sanity’s sake. If I didn’t have him right there next to me, able to nurse laying down, I don’t know how we’d’ve survived the first month at all. He cries, but only when you’re holding him and sitting still — or when he’s in the swing — or whenever James is having a good time. He hates, hates, hates to be swaddled up unless he is in that baby swing I mentioned earlier and I have only successfully gotten him to take a binky (pacifier) once. Yet, despite all this, I would still say he is a very easy baby to have.

His neck is incredibly strong and getting stronger every day. He’s finally filling up his skin enough to give the impression of plumping up, though he is by no means chubby or fat yet. Gimme another four weeks of nursing him before we decide if he’s chubby. I think he’ll be taller and thinner than James as an adult. We’ll have to wait and see on that one though.

It’s hard not to compare the boys. I guess in a way it’s okay to compare them. James didn’t mind being still, not moving. Then again, I spent the last trimester of his pregnancy laying on the couch watching movies and golf enjoying the summer break from teaching… and with Lowell, I was chasing around James every single minute (even through most of labor) so it makes sense. James took to swaddling like a duck to water and Lowell… he likes his hands. I don’t remember James having much of a fussy time of day but Lowell certainly does.

The adjustment this time is hard because of the juggling act. It’s amazing how much attention a 20 month old craves and how few pictures you can get of a baby with that 20 month old around. And now that the time has changed, it doesn’t even get light enough in the mornings to take natural light pictures until that 20 month old is up. Don’t expect a lot of pictures of Lowell. It just won’t happen, no matter how much we intend it to.

I’d type more but I’m exhausted. I need sleep and this is the first night in three nights that David has actually been home to take over for some time, so I’m going to take advantage of this little sliver of time and relax. Nite.

Short sentences
Jennifer
Wednesday, 02:20 PM
Yesterday I turned 30. Not a big deal, really. I’m glad that’s over with.

James is breaking in his first of the last molars. Tooth J is halfway poked through. Three left to go before he’s done teething.

Lowell is growing. He’s a month old tomorrow. He needs a lot of baths because he’s kinda a sweaty little man. Sweaty means stinky. Gotta love that baby smell though.

Dave is busy. Contest season is here. I can’t wait until it’s done.

I think I should write more haikus.

David has church rehearsal tonight which means he’s in Cedar Park with his trombone and the worship team and I’m holding down the fort alone here tonight. It hasn’t been nearly as bad as I was dreading.

I ran James’ bath water (BLUE! WATER!) at 6:30 instead of our old time of 7:30 and let him play in it for nearly 40 minutes. When he spied the glitter-night-light and wanted that, I was able to get him out of the tub without complaining and onto the changing table for his nightly Boudreaux’s and pajama (SLEEP! CLOTHES!) routine. We then spent 30 more minutes playing with his newest obsession, his Lego Quatros (COLORS! BLOCKS!) and then 15 minutes saying night night to all the blocks. Somewhere in there, I nursed Lowell (the end of bathtime, I was sitting on the commode lid and then again during blocks time) and managed to try out the Tibetian carry with Lowell and the wrap which was how I was able to lift James into the crib and say night-night to all those toys without a screaming baby. The only thing I don’t get is keeping my hair out of Lowell’s face when he’s wrapped up on my back… hmm… gotta figure something out for that one.

James went to bed precisely at 8 pm at which point Lowell had had enough of the Tibetian carry, so I moved him over to a front carry and he’s perfectly content with his head tucked in and staying warm. I haven’t attempted nursing in the wrap yet, but for everything else, it’s been a godsend. I’ve got a load of diapers in the wash, two sleepy boys, and Dave still isn’t home. I’m hoping to be able to get one more load of laundry done after the diapers run their second wash through before we take off for G’ma and G’pa’s house tomorrow morning. James is so excited.

Lowell will be 3 weeks old tomorrow evening! I can’t believe it! His announcements are all in the mail and we owe a great big shout-out to Grandma and Grandpa K for the help in ordering such amazing cards and personalized picture stamps. It maybe isn’t the best picture we’ll ever get of Lowell, but it sure does show off his curious personality, as you’ll see if you get one. If not, well, at least you can see the stamps. They’re awesome stamps.

I went with zazzle.com for the stamps because they had the largest picture area available of the stamp-making services I’d found online for the best price. Dave and I think it would be great to budget for more stamps like these when we do our Christmas cards as well.

Oh! One more thing… go preview our latest portraits… if you want to…

https://www.searsphotos.com/?shareid=S205199805l623X7R378M

I have been re-reading a lot of the stuff I blogged during the first weeks of James’ being here.  I don’t remember and can’t find anything about him getting progressively more upset at the two week mark.  Lowell is definitely not as quiet a baby as he was those first two weeks — this third week of life must be hard because he is sure complaining about it, and especially at night.  I’m still nursing him in bed but the laying down is not going as smoothly as before.  Once he complains about something (not really crying but more whining) he has a very hard time latching back on and I end up sitting up again, so I figure it’s just easier to sit up the whole time which means I get much less sleep than when he was first born.  I think a lot of the difficulty of this week is due to his not going right to sleep after eating in the middle of the night.  Hopefully he’ll start to figure out his days and nights before too long because after this week, David will be back in school full time and I’ll have long days with a very very energetic (and quite selfish) 20 month old and a not very happy 3 week old.

for the curious — it’s an Ella Roo Wrap (bought here) in the Claudia colorway, size M, which is 4.6 meters long — and Lowell is 17 days old.