baby

It's so hard for me to believe that my little boy is a year old today. Last year at this time I was in the hospital waiting for his birth, and wondering what it all was going to bring. It's been a challenging year, but a fantastic one as well. I love my little guy more than anything and can't imagine life without him.

I'm taking Meg's idea, and doing a photo collage.

Birth	Month 1
Month 2	Month 3
Month 4	Month 5
Month 6	Month 7
Month 8	Month 9
Month 10	Month 11
Month 12	1 Year!

For a few months now, Peter has been working on eating table food. It started with Cheerios, and has progressed to other things. Now that he's 10 months old, I figured finally we need to work to try and get him slightly onto our dinner schedule so we can have dinner as a family. There's a few problems with that though. 1) Ever since he's been 3 months old, he's eaten a large bottle right before bedtime, and 2) He likes eating table food, and is great at picking it up, but since he got his 2 front teeth in a few weeks ago he tries to chew everything in front and most of it ends up on his bib/the floor.

In any case, Leif and I are pretty tired of eating dinner after he goes to sleep (sometimes we eat as late as 8pm), which gives us less evening free time, so tonight we decided to change that up and eat around 6:30 and have Peter at the table with us. It worked out much better than I thought it would. Well, Peter ate what I put on his highchair tray, but yeah, most of it which made it to his mouth, ended up making it out of his mouth pretty quickly. But he seemed to like it, so we'll just have to keep working on it, and hope he figures this out soon.

I felt like a real family though tonight, remembering eating dinner with my parents and my brother. I'm guessing all too soon I'll be asking Peter how school was and he'll say "fine".

I was watching Peter play yesterday, and it just struck me how he doesn't look like a baby anymore, he looks like a little boy. I'm not sure when the change took place exactly, but he's 10 months old today, and growing up. He's crawling like a maniac all over the place, pulls himself to standing on anything he possibly can, will walk when you hold his hands (in that jerky, unbalanced, large step way), loves to feed himself (although he can't hold a spoon yet), his top 2 teeth both broke the surface, and is very happy. We're both excited about what's to come in the future, and there are aspects of him being a baby we'll miss (like when we could put him down and have him stay there!), but we can't wait to interact even more with him.

Yahoo recently started a blog called Yodeling Mamas, which features blog entries from mothers who work at Yahoo. Anyways, I wrote my first entry recently called To Daycare, or Not to Daycare? Check it out!

Peter figured out the other day he can make funny spitting noises with his mouth. At first he'd just do it once in awhile, but yesterday he started doing it in large sequences. Fortunately because of that, I was able to get decent video of him.

Leif mentioned to me last night how long it's been since I blogged anything, and when I looked, it's definitely been awhile. I honestly have to look at my calendar every morning to remember the date, let alone the day. It's ok though, I'm enjoying myself. :) Peter is starting little by little to get a bit more interactive, but he still doesn't do that much. He likes when we sing (Five For Fighting, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and oh yeah, kid's songs like "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Five Little Monkeys" to name a couple). He's playing more in his Baby Einstein activity gym. He enjoys looking at himself in the mirror, and he definitely enjoys his swing. The funniest part for us is when we're carrying him, and he tilts his whole head and neck backward so he can look at something on the ceiling. I'm guessing he's just looking at light/shadows, since there's nothing else up there that's interesting!

The last few nights he's been sleeping real well too - last night was 10:30-4:45!! If we can reach at least 6am, then that'll make us even happier. :)

We went over to Kiddie Kandids today for his 10 week photos (I can't believe he's 10 weeks already). I would've done it sooner, but he's so floppy in the beginning it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Leif and I were laughing pretty hard at how they managed to get him in the different poses, but they came out pretty well I think. They have really good packages deals, especially with all the extra stuff they throw in. Here's a few of my favorites.

Feeding a baby, even from a bottle, gets immensely boring and repetitive over time, especially at night when you're tired.  To help pass the time, we've been watching a lot of late night TV. There's usually *something* on that we can find, even though once you start getting in the 2-5am hours it's mostly crappy infomercials.  I've been DVR'ing stuff to watch, however my brain isn't highly functioning late at night, so I tend to save that for the daytime feedings.

Depending on when Peter is being fed, here's what I've/we've been watching.  Remember btw, we're on Mountain Time, so all the talk shows are on an hour earlier, hence the weird times. Note also I'm skipping certain times since we've rarely fed him at those particular times.

10:30pm - The Tonight Show
11:00pm - The Daily Show
11:30pm - Conan or The Colbert Report, depending on if I remember if it's on or not.
12:30pm - Last Call with Carson Daly
1-2am - Punk'd
3-4am - Fresh Prince reruns or Dawson's Creek
4-6am - Angel if it's a good episode, otherwise I'll flip until I find something.

Note that if Leif is doing the 3-6am feeding time, he'll pick either "Seconds from Disaster" or "Destroyed in Seconds", or whatever happens to be on the Military Channel, History Channel, Science Channel, or NGC, if it's not an infomercial.  Discovery has nothing but infomercials at this time. The reason I don't like this stuff is although the historical stuff can be interesting, at 3am hearing some guy's droning voice doesn't help me stay up.

6am - 9 News at 6am
7am - Today
9:30-10:30am - Little People Big World (I've gotten strangely addicted to this show, and that was well before I discovered someone I went to summer camp with is the brother of Amy (I discovered this because he was on one of the episodes and I recognized him)).

Then we start getting into the daytime where my brain tends to function better, so I'll either watch something I've recorded, or watch an episode of Stargate SG-1 on DVD.

Today Peter is 1 month old, and it's definitely been an interesting month.  I mean, technically my "real" due date was yesterday, but I'm not horribly upset he came a month early.  The timing just worked out really well.  My parents were always due to come out to visit for Thanksgiving, and having the baby the week before that meant that not only could they see him, but we had some sort of schedule established (slightly), and were a little better organized.

In any case, my maternal instinct has fully kicked in, and I love the little guy, even when he's all fussy. My favorite thing honestly is when he's being fussy, and I pick him up and he quiets down. It's like some sort of power to get him to do that. :)  Leif has been extremely helpful, like there's no possible way I'd be able to do this without him.  The fact that he takes over some of the feedings and diaper changes means I get to keep my sanity a little bit more.

Like all new parents, we've taken about a billion pictures, and when Stacy's Library of Memories class starts in February, I'll be all set for it (for about the 4th time, but each time I get further along!).  One thing I've discovered is that it's really hard to type anything on the computer with 1 hand holding the baby, but it is very possible to keyword tag photos, which is something that I've been trying to get better at.

Peter is starting to smile a bit, but just seems to be random, or gas related. It's really cute when he does it, so I can't wait until he's doing it in response to something.  He does stare at you when you're feeding or holding him, which is also another cool thing to see.  I am enjoying being a parent so far, even if right now all he does it eat, sleep, and poop.  I mean, there's this little baby that's completely dependant on us for everything - it's just weird to think about that.

My new favorite picture.  My parents will not appreciate this at all, but I don't think they even read my blog, so not a big deal:

This is a cute one too. He's gotten so much chubbier than he was, probably because he's eating like a horse! 

Finally, here's one of Loki that we took the other day when it snowed a bunch.  My snow puppies loved being in the snow!

Thursday, November 20, 2008 started out like any other normal day.  I was really uncomfortable trying to sleep, had to wake up often to pee, and counting the days until the pregnancy part would be over (still another 4 weeks).  Leif had just come back inside with the dogs from their morning feeding, and we both were just lying in bed listening to them play.  At around 7:45am, I felt a jolt inside (almost like a kick), and then felt a bunch of water running down my legs.  I knew immediately what had happened, but kind of didn't believe it, since I wasn't due yet for another month.  While I called the doctor and confirmed that I should indeed come to the hospital at that moment (the contractions didn't start for another 15 minutes), Leif called Camp Bow Wow to secure places for the dogs. Fortunately it was the week before Thanksgiving, so they had ample space to take them at the last minute.

A very very quick hospital bag was packed (would you believe that was actually on my todo list for that day?), and then we were off to the hospital!  We quickly dropped the dogs off, then headed for a day chock full of fun.  I was busy timing my contractions (which had barely started), and decided that they totally sucked, but I still managed about 4 hours before I decided to get the epidural. They were still kind of tolerable, but I was tired of dealing with them.  I have to say, that the person who invented the epidural should have won some sort of award or something because once it was administered, the pain completely went away.  Of course, I had to stay in bed, and everything from the waist down felt like it was asleep, but instead of having pain, I just felt pressure during each contraction.   Once I wasn't gripping the side of the hospital bed in pain, all that was left to do was wait.  When I got to the hospital at about 8:45am, I was dilated to a 3.  At noon I was dilated to about a 3.5, so they started pumping Pitocin into my IV to get the contractions stronger and more regular.  Thankfully the epidural took care of any pain that I might feel.  With the absence of pain, that just left a lot of waiting to happen.  For pretty much the rest of the day, I had my iPhone out and was texting, emailing, and updating my Facebook status.  A lot of people couldn't believe I was doing that, but honestly there really wasn't anything else for me to do.  Leif was sitting in the big, comfy chair next to my bed on his laptop the whole day. Kudos to Swedish Medical Center for having free WiFi so we had no problems getting on the network.

Even though I was scared to death of the whole labor and delivery part, I think I got off pretty easy in most respects.  My water broke at 7:45am. By 5pm I was dilated to 8cm, and by 8pm I was dilated to a full 10cm.  I only spent 20 minutes pushing.  So by all accounts, I was only in labor for 12 1/2 hours.  For a first kid, that's pretty good honestly, and I'm glad I didn't go through any more issues or problems.

In any case, at 8:27pm on November 20, 2008, Peter Robert Hedstrom was born at 5 pounds, 10 ounces, and 18 inches long.  Even though he was 4 weeks early, they deemed him ok enough to go to the regular nursery instead of the NICU.  I was wheeled off to the recovery room (private room, with 2 beds so Leif could stay over), and brought the best turkey sandwich I'd ever eaten (I hadn't eaten since 7pm the night before).

Leif and I were ecstatic, and we stayed up talking until 2am since we were so completely wired.  After a couple days in the hospital learning how to take care of a newborn (since neither of us had a clue), they let us take him home on Saturday night.

Tired baby after birth

Going Home From the Hospital

Mommy and Peter a few days after being home

I have a confession to make.  From the moment I was a little kid, I was a tomboy.  Not only was I (and still am) a sports fanatic, but I'm one of those who just always got along better with the boys than I did with the girls.  I hate shopping, I hate makeup, I don't feel like spending hours getting ready for something, I'd much rather talk about who's going to win the Stanley Cup than Paris Hilton's lack of talent.  In any case, my best friend (besides Leif) is a guy, and that's ok.  I definitely have female friends, but I've never felt like I "fit in" properly with any of them, but again, that's ok.  I still consider some of them good friends, but I'm definitely not going to be the first one on anyone's call list for stuff.

I say all this just to put things in perspective, and also to say that my becoming pregnant has given me more in common with my female friends than I ever had before. Even though I still refuse to go on pedicure runs with them, they've all (and I'll add that "they all" includes all my neighbors including those I am not necessarily very close with) made themselves available should I have any questions on babies or pregnancy, they've given me very much solicited advice, and have generally made me feel like I fit in somewhat. :)

2 things have happened recently to make me realize more than ever that it's the quality of the people you know, and definitely not the quantity.  First, today was a random, ordinary day - nothing exciting was going on, and I was counting the days (2 months) until the baby would arrive.  Suddenly, the doorbell rings, and it's the postman with a package from Big Picture Scrapbooking.  As I do the tech support for them, sometimes I'll get random things in the mail, but I definitely wasn't expecting anything.  Imagine my very pleasant surprise when I opened the box, and found a load of baby stuff in it!  Washcloths, onesides, burp cloths, an outfit, hats, socks, hooded towels, and a really soft blanket.  Paula, Kayce, and Stacy, you guys are the best, and it was so cool of you to send this to us!

The second thing hasn't technically happened yet, but I still feel very grateful.  A few months ago, I was talking to one of my neighbors, Mariela, who informed me that I absolutely had to have a baby shower.  I really didn't give it a whole lot of thought, until later on she informed me that not only did I have to have a baby shower, but that she was going to put it together for me.  Honestly I didn't know what to say.  Not only did she handmake all the invitations (with stamps, scrapbooking, and ribbon!), but apparently she's going overboard in decorating her house (which she won't let me see until Sunday), and several other neighbors (we invited the whole cul-de-sac) have volunteered to bring various food dishes (all homemade), and help decorate.  For these people to do this for me, the local tomboy who's never really had any close female friends, is just fantastic, and words just can't describe how much I appreciate having these people in my life who will go above and beyond for me.  

These aren't the only people who've helped out a lot during this pregnancy. As an example, Brien and Beth Wankel sent us a whole box of baby clothes that their kid grew out of. Granted a lot of them are for the summer, but there's definitely a bunch I can use as well!

So yeah, I'm probably doing a "hormonal rambling" on this post, but it's ok, I'm allowed to, I'm pregnant, dammit. :)