It's been 4 weeks already

I cannot believe Jackson has been in our lives for 4 weeks already. I still feel like my entire pregnancy went by in a blur, and now the little boy we created is almost 1 month old!

Things in our house are starting to fall into place. Of course Scott leaving for the week on business didn't help, but we're managing. Jackson was even nice on me last night and only woke once at 3:30am. It was heaven!!!

Jackson finally had his first bath last week and he's had a couple more since then, so far he doesn't seem to mind them. Thank goodness for that! He has a nasty case of baby acne, so we're anxiously awaiting that to go away. Colin still seems to like his little brother - he helps out so much. A few days ago I was fixing Jackson a bottle, and Jackson was crying, so while I put the formula back in the cupboard, Colin took the bottle and started feeding Jackson. It was so cute! Of course I grabbed the camera:

On a sad note, my inlaws are moving to Louisiana today - my father-in-law's job was transferred down there. We said our VERY emotional goodbyes last night :-( My mother-in-law has been a huge support for me since having Jackson and I'm going to miss her more than I can say. They have been a huge part of Colin's life, seeing him about 4-5 days a week, so it's going to be hard on them to not see him regularly. They said goodbye to him last night, but then called this morning and asked if they could have him over for 2-3hrs before they left. And of course I let them. I wish they didn't have to go, but this is life.

Anyways, here's some recent pics of me and the kiddos - sorry the pic of me and Colin is so blurry:

Another week has past

I'll be honest, we're learning that having 2 little ones is pretty tough (and exhausting!) work. Two nights ago Jackson woke up around 3:45am to eat, no big deal. As I'm feeding him, I can hear Colin coughing. He continues to cough until he throws up. I should probably mention that Jackson does not go back to sleep easily when he wakes during the night. We have to be extremely careful not to jostle him too much putting him back in the bassinet, otherwise he wakes up, cries, and we repeat the nursing process again. Anyways, Scott gets up to take care of Colin - changing both him and his bedding, while I continue to nurse Jackson. When I think he was done, I put him in the bassinet and went to help Scott. Of course Colin was wide awake and ready to play, so it took some convincing to get him back to bed. And he wanted Mommy to put him to bed, not Daddy. So I finally get him back to bed, go into our bedroom and Jackson is awake and starts crying to eat some more. I continue to nurse him and he falls back asleep and then I was able to put him back in the bassinet and go back to sleep myself. This may not sound too bad to anyone else, but this whole "process" took 1.5hrs. And of course that wasn't the only time I had to get up to nurse Jackson that night, so I didn't get much sleep.

Then we have the whole nursing issue. I'm really enjoying the time when I'm nursing Jackson, but I don't produce much and he usually still requires a bottle of formula aftewards and that's frustrating. Plus, Colin doesn't seem to like me nursing him. I think because Jackson is a slow nurser, Colin gets jealous. I try to pump, but I only get a total of 1oz each time, which yet again is incredibly frustrating. So I'm torn on this whole issue. There's a huge part of me that wants to make it work and do what I need to do, but then the small part of me keeps saying it's a losing battle. Basically I tried, it didn't work out, and need to move on. And I'll be honest, I think the small part of me is winning. Mostly because I nurse Jackson and he is still starving afterwards and cries until we give him a bottle. When I give him a bottle of formula, he is unbelievably content and happy. I actually have time to enjoy my little boy when I give him a bottle. But I so badly want to be the one nourishing him. So as you can see, I'm torn.... Sure I can pump and bottle feed that way, but it takes a whole day of pumping just to make up one bottle for him. UGH! I was prepared for this to be difficult, but I thought it would be hard because of Colin. I hadn't anticipated having such a low supply of milk :(

Anyways, despite our struggles with having Jackson here, I can say with certainty that I would not change it for the world. I cannot believe how much he has completed our family. I always said I wanted 4 kids, Scott only wanted 2, but now that I have my 2 boys, I am so happy and feel so fortunate for what I have. I cannot imagine changing or adding to our family in any way. To me my 2 little boys are the world to me!

Here's a picture of Colin on Mother's Day. He was being a goofball on our drive home and liked wearing his sunglasses upside down.

And here's Jackson from this past Wednesday, when he was 2wks old:

And last, a picture of the boys together. It's not a very good one because Colin doesn't sit still very long LOL But he loves giving Jackson hugs & kisses so I had to attempt to get a picture of it :)

So far so good...

Things in our house haven't changed too much. Jackson sleeps literally non-stop, with a couple awake moments to eat. He's even slept through the night the past 2 nights (6hrs straight Wednesday night and 7.5hrs straight last night). He's only 9 days old, so that makes me a little paranoid, but he eats really good throughout the day.

Colin's doing great as a big brother and loves to "help" us with Jackson. So far he's only hit him once and it was an accident (and not very hard either). It's been a relief that he's been so good with him.

The recovery from my c-section has been pretty good. Picking up Colin is still pretty rough, but I'm getting better. No paid meds for me so far today, which is a first!

Here's some new pics of my guys:

Here's a video of Colin "helping" out:

And here's a funny video of Scott having fun with Colin outside. You can't tell who's having more fun out there, Scott or Colin. Oh and Colin made sure to yell at him when he didn't drive the toy the right way LOL

Jackson Thomas is here!

Here is the newest addition to our family as of Wednesday:

He arrived by c-section on Wednesday, May 2nd. He weighed in at 11lb 2oz and was 21.3 inches long. So far it's been smooth sailing with him and Colin seems to be really fascinated by him. We'll see how long that lasts! LOL

I'll post more pics when I get a chance. Right now I need to rest up!

Tomorrow, tomorrow....

It's only a day away!

We will be meeting our son just after 8am tomorrow. We have to be at the hospital at 6am for monitoring and the pre-surgery bloodwork, etc. I'll be honest, I'm a ball of nerves right now and an emotional mess.

I go from being excited to meet our little man and seeing how much he looks like Colin, to feeling incredibly guilty for messing up Colin's own little world. As Scott pointed out, he's losing 50% of everything he's ever known, and that makes me sad :-( I keep trying to tell myself that he's gaining a brother, and that makes up for anything he's "losing".

But I gotta tell you, saying goodbye to my little man tonight was one of the hardest things I've done (he's spending the night at Grandma & Grandpa's house since we have to leave for the hospital at 5:30am). He has no clue how his life is about to change.

I spent all day today soaking up every little moment with Colin. He gots TONS of extra hugs & kisses from me and I think we both loved every second of it! I will admit though that it'll be nice to have him sit on my lap without this ginormous belly LOL I wonder if he even remembers me without it? ;-)

Anyways, I know I never posted about Colin's 2nd birthday, but there just doesn't seem to be much time anymore. And I'm sure things are going to be even crazier with Jackson here. Hopefully we'll all fall into a routine that works for all of us and doesn't leave me too sleep deprived LOL

I'll make sure to post pics as soon as I get a chance!