Tomorrow will mark 1 week since the baby was born. It's been wonderful. There is still so much excitement in the air. Cohen is adapting well to his new life and family. He's so content, alert and such a happy baby. We went to the doctor to check on his weight and make sure that all the frequent feedings were paying off. Indeed it did. Cohen is back up to his birth weight. During the day he feeds every hour and a half to two hours and at night it's every hour on the hour. I've been trying to adjust to the lack of sleep. Thank goodness Justin is around and on holidays. He is totally my saving grace. He is arranging activities during the day to keep the kids busy so I can nap and at night he fetches me my water, pain meds and changes diapers during the night so I don't have to get up and move too much and then I do the feedings. I am anxious to be 100% recovered from the surgery so I can get back to running around and playing with all the kids. The picture on the left is Cohen's first stroller ride. Justin let Carter and Emily take turns pushing their brother in the stroller to the mailbox. They were so proud. It was cute. The kids already want Cohen to be big so he can play with them. It's hard for them to understand why they have to be so careful around the baby. Ahh before we all know it Cohen will be bigger than a bean and walking and talking. I wish we could just preserve the babyness in a little bottle.
Here is a picture of Cohen and Daddy. Justin wanted a picture to visualize just how tiny the baby really is and from Justin's elbow to his middle finger tip is exactly the size of our littlest one. Cohen also loves his little bed. He's started noticing the hanging animals. Carter and Emily like helping at diaper change time. They think baby poop is the funniest thing in the world. Cohen likes to cuddle with a blanket my mom knit for him. He looks so precious in this picture.
When I look at these photo's I go back in time when Emily and Carter were both Cohen's size and I can't believe how time just zip's right by. Emily starts Grade 3 next Tuesday. Her highlight of the week is her shopping trip with her dad. Justin let her by a big girl back pack which in Emily's eye's is the coolest thing ever. She's grown out of the tinkerbell and barbie backpacks and clothes. Thank goodness she still likes to play barbies and make believe. She has been helping out so much around the house. She loves to clean so she's been cleaning and organizing baby things. She was having so much fun helping her dad do yardwork today that when he took a break she surprised him and raked 9 mounds of dead grass. So to take a bit of a fun break her and her dad played a little one on one baseball. But she passed on her rake to her little brother.
Carter's highlight of the week is during the shopping trip with daddy he got some office supplies. If you don't already know Carter's favorite playtime is pretend office. He is darn serious about it too. At first we were concerned that he was going to turn into some workaholic but then realized Emily hasn't become a barbie a holic and they both play equal pretend time. We have decided to also enroll Carter in preschool. Justin is going to try and set that up this week. I think that will help Carter feel more comfortable being a big brother. He will have something to call his own.
A few exciting things happening this coming week. Tonight my sister in law is coming. She is driving out from Seattle. We haven't seen her since our wedding and the kids are looking forward to playing toys with her. Also the cul-de-sac we live on shuts the street down and has a big block BBQ. It will be nice to meet some more of our new neighbours. Speaking of which. Our neighbours have been great. Right beside us is a la leche instructor and she's been giving me breast feeding tips I had no clue of and another neighbour brought us fresh out of the oven banana bread and while I was in the hospital she brought over a box of peaches. Everyone is so nice and friendly and we feel so lucky to live on a street like this. It's a nice distraction also because I'm really missing my family. My parents left on Saturday and it's been hard on all of us to not have them around. Carter misses playing business with Grandpa and Emily loved knitting with my mom. I wish my nephew could meet his new cousin and man don't get me started on my sister. She has been through absolutely everything with me and for her to be so far away is just killer. And my grams oh boy...I guess we're going to have to plan a trip home soon and boy will that be so special.
Well I better get some sleep so I can visit with Shannon when she arrives. Keep checkin in because I'm sure I'll have tons more photos' to post throughout the week.
