The Little Family: The first 3 weeks and those awful 3 days

Written on November 14

These past three weeks have been great! Amelia Jayne is an amazing baby. So far she's extremely easy-going and content. She cries when she's hungry and when she's sleepy, but that's about it! She's been sleeping great at night - I wake her up every three hours to eat and then she pretty much goes right back to sleep. Awesome! There's really only been one night that she's cried and we David stayed up with her. We realized it was gas, got some gas relief drops and she did fine after that.

I have been feeling so good. I cannot tell you how much better I feel this time around then I did when I had Xander. Going through 20 hours of labor and then having a c-section is no bueno. Scheduling this c-section and having an idea of what I was going to go through was much better for me. I have recovered quickly, haven't needed nearly as much help, and have already been out and about multiple times! It took three weeks before I had my first outing with Xander. We had our first outing with Amelia Jayne when she was about 5 days old. I'm not quite back to my old self and I still have some pains (mostly from muscles that I haven't used in awhile from being pregnant) but overall I'm doing very well.

Xander is having a lot of fun with his little sister. I didn't really know what to expect from him. I thought he might either get really jealous and act out or completely ignore her. He really hasn't done either. He has his moments when he wants more attention, but typically I (or whoever's around) takes that time to spend with him. He's already said the sweetest things. He stayed with his Mimi and Grandma for a couple of days last week and when we got to Grandma's house to pick him up he went over to AJ's carrier and said, "I missed you Melia Jayne!" - completely unprompted. He has to give her a kiss every night and tell her he loves her before he goes to bed. He's concerned about her when she cries and usually asks me, "What's wrong with Melia Jayne?" His answer is typically that mommy needs to feed her. :) He likes to look at her and point out her "little tiny toes" as he says.

David's doing well. He was able to take the week off after I came back from the hospital. I missed not having him with me each day at the hospital and he missed not having that time with me and Amelia Jayne, but I am so thankful that we chose to do it that way. Having him home with me, Xander and AJ for that whole week was really great. I know it was good for Xander to have special attention from his daddy.

That leads us to these last three days. They've been interesting to say the least. It started on Saturday. We were over at Grandma and Grandpa's house when I noticed Xander looked very flushed and he was warm. Since Grandpa is a doctor we had him look at him - turns out he had an ear infection and strep throat. I also had strep throat. We left that night and went by a 24-hour pharmacy to pick up the medication. When we got home Xander had fallen asleep so we had to wake him up to give him the meds. It was awful. We had to hold him down to give it to him and he immediately threw it all back up. This was the first experience Xander has had with throwing up. It was my first experience with having a child who threw up. Not fun. He and I ended up in the shower, which was not something Xander wanted to do at 10pm. Then we still had to figure out how to get the meds down him. We mixed it with different liquids, but the one medication just kept coming back up. Ick. He ended up going through 3 pairs of pajamas that night. After going to bed at midnight, though, he stayed asleep and woke up fine the next morning. We layed low that day, although it was supposed to be our first Sunday back at church. I was really bummed, but knew I didn't want to expose the kids in Xander's class to strep throat, so we just stayed home.

That leads us to Monday - my first day home alone with both children. All was going well. The morning went by without incident. Then after lunch I asked Xander if he wanted to go for a walk. He did, so we started getting ready to go outside. He ran through the kitchen and was coming into the living room when he tripped and fell into a cabinet. And split his head open. It was bad, but I couldn't tell if it needed stitches. It wasn't bleeding badly, but the wound looked kind of open. Anyway, I called David and we he ended up taking him to the hospital where his dad was working to have him check it out. Grandpa to the rescue again! He glued the wound back together and put some steri-strips on it to keep it from scarring as badly and to help it heal quickly. Xander was a trooper.

Some pics from the first few weeks.