The Four of Us

On December 2nd we became a family of four.  This time we welcomed a little boy.  He came much earlier than I had really anticipated at 38 weeks and 5 days.  Vivian was late, so I was expecting to get at least one more week of prep time before my doctor wanted to induce me.  Thankfully, my mother-in-law arrived here early to watch Vivian, just in case.  She was only here a day when my water broke, and Ivan Wesley was born a mere four and a half hours later.  I don't really know what we would have done with Vivian had Michelle not arrived when she did.  I guess Justin would have stayed home and I would have gone in myself, and prayed that someone from Orem could make it up here to take over for him?  I don't know, and I'm just glad that was a bridge we didn't end up having to cross.

I've heard that boy babies are so much harder than baby girls.  Harder in that they don't sleep.  I told myself that if we had a boy I needed to prepare myself for being tired and crabby all the time.  So here we are a week into life with my tiny baby boy and, knock on wood, but we're all getting plenty of sleep.  This kid is such a good baby that he makes me rethink my earlier claims that Vivian was easy.  He eats well, he sleeps well, and he smiles.  I rarely hear him cry.  Okay, actually he cries each and every time I change his diaper.  Generally speaking though, in his waking hours he just lays there watching us, and making occasional soft little grunts and cooing noises.  He sleeps so well that I have panicked at the doctor about it and received instructions to wake him every four hours at night to feed him.  The doctor has concluded that my milk must be very rich, hence the long sleep hours, and that Ivan's gaining weight at an exceptional rate, and doing great.  We're just hoping that this pattern continues.  So far the hardest part about having a baby boy is that this kid pees out everything.  Everything.  I sometimes wonder why we're even bothering with a diaper at all, the containment appears to be extremely limited, limited as in non-existent. 

Now as for the rest of us, we've hit a few bumps in the road.  Justin is finishing up the semester.  We had hoped that school would be done by the time the baby arrived, but Ivan had his own plan.  So Monday morning Justin was gone by 5:40am, and thankfully Andrew's wife Kate volunteered to come up from Draper and spend the day helping me out with Vivian.  Tuesday we were on our own, and it went okay, but for the fact that I have this weird issue where my pelvis gets twisted.  It happened after I had Vivian but it's worse this time.  Sometimes it's very hard to walk and I find myself staggering about the house like a 90 year old woman.  I had to call Kate and ask her to come back to help out on Wednesday again while Justin was gone all that day too.  In the midst of all of this is poor Vivian.  Her world has been turned upside down.  She's trapped at home, inside all day,  sharing attention with a tiny baby, from a mother that moves like pond water.  However, Justin's classes are done, he's got one final this week, and we're already starting to plot out our escape options from the onset of a case of cabin fever.