What moms do.

Ah the age-old question. Men ask it without thinking when they come home from a long day of work. Friends ask it when their friend "falls off the face of the earth" after having children. The question: "What do you moms do all day?"

I think this lady says it best.

http://s418.photobucket.com/albums/pp264/BriawnaH/?action=view&current=timekids.jpg

One week

Tatie is one week old today! I can't believe it. This week has gone so fast. It makes me a little sad to think about what we were doing a week ago right now. This whole motherhood thing is so crazy. I find myself so amazed with everything he is doing today and so in awe of the sweet little person he is. And I'm also so excited to see him grow and see his personality start showing through and at the same time I just ache for the week of his life that I have enjoyed thus far and how fast it has flown by and how much I miss those first few days. I wish I could just rewind and live it all over again a few times until I get my fill of all of the tender moments and sweet firsts.

We took Tate to his first doctor's appointment yesterday. Here's our little guy outside the doctor's office with Nanna. His very first outing.

When we left the hospital on Thursday he weighed 8 pounds 7 ounces. Yesterday he weighed 9 pounds 1 ounce. A total weight gain of 10 ounces in 4 days. Yep, he's a healthy boy and a really good eater!

Here are a couple of pictures from this first week of his life. I have so much more to blog about and many more pictures to come but I want to enjoy my mom as much as I can while she is here so I'll make more time to blog after she goes home on Thursday.

Check out the double chin. Oh I just love my little chubbers. He is a great snuggler. I love how relaxed he is right after he eats. He is just totally drunk and limp and will just snuggle into your shoulder. It's so funny.

Tatie has a really cute cry. We haven't heard a really loud piercing scream yet. His cry always sounds a little hoarse and tired. When he gets really sad it gets a little higher in pitch and more hoarse like he's just so worn out he can't even make a big sound. It sounds so pathetic it just makes us all want to snuggle him and make it better.

6 in 10

Mom and Glenn are at church and I am supposed to be napping but I just had to tell this story! I have so very much to say about this past week but it may take a bit to put things together so right now I'll just document our last ten hours.
Last night mom and I got little Tate ready for bed in some cute jammies, fed him, then went to change his diaper before putting him down. As we were changing him he decided to pee all over his outfit. He always seems to aim directly up and it gets all over his clothes and sometimes up to his face. He thinks it's funny. So he got a new onesie and pjs before he went to sleep.
Woke up to eat again around 1:30, ate half his meal and then I felt an explosion so I went to change him and hopefully get him to wake up a bit so he would finish eating. As I was wiping up the poop he peed again...all over his outfit. We're on pj and onesie number 3. Then I fed him the other half of his meal and he needed to be changed again. I was really careful to remove his gauze over his circumcision just at the last moment but he knew my plan and that was when he decided to strike. Again he peed all over his outfit during the diaper change and again I changed his whole outfit before he went to sleep. Pj number 4.
Woke up the next time around 4 and Glenn was changing his full wet diaper when he again peed all over his outfit. We just put him in a onesie while he ate and then I got him dressed in PJ number 5 after everything was finished.
He just woke up as Mom and Glenn were leaving for church. I went to get him up and lo and behold his whole pj gown and onesie were soaked. His diaper was really full but it had somehow leaked out and up his back as well. He was truly completely soaked. I think the whole thing is hilarious, which is great because it could have been really frustrating but every time it happened I just thought, "Are you serious?" and started laughing. He just seems like such a tiny little person to be producing so much urine. We're not talking he just squirted a little and I'm up tight so he needs to be changed. Nope. He seriously soaked his clothes every single time. It was so stinkin' funny!
So there you have it. He is currently on his 6th pj and onesie in the last 10 hours. And I was starting to think I had too many up to three month clothes. Ha. So I'm baffled as to what to do. I guess I should try to just put a wipe over it while I'm cleaning off the rest of him, but even if it prevented the upward projection he'd still soak the wipe and it would still get all over his lower half. I think it would be easier to make sure it's covered well when his circumcision is healed and we don't have to worry about being so sensitive with it. Poor little guy.
Thanks so much for all the congrats on the blog and the calls and offers to help. I really love that you are all so supportive and as excited about this as we are! I have so much to say but I know I need to at least try to get some rest. It's hard when all I want to do is hold and stare at my little Tatie all day long.

OH BABY!!!!!

Tate Willem Makechnie.  Born 02/17/2009 at 5:54 a.m.  8lb, 15oz, 20in.  Mom and baby are home and Nanna Debi is here to help.

Kim felt great the whole time..... especially after her epidural.

Tate is a big boy.  He had meconium in his water, so there were lots of people in the delivery room when he was born to help clean him up and suction him out before he could aspirate his poop.  Of the eight or so hospital staff in the room at the time, at least four of them had said something along the lines of "holy $#!& that's a big kid!" between the time he came out and when they got him across the room to the heat lamp.

After making sure mom was ok, Glenn got to hold Tate's hand and carry him over to see his mommy.

An hour and a half of pushing really did a number on his head.  This picture was taken today, two full days in the hospital after his birth.  He has had some time to get back his geometry.  I think he has my nose.  Other than that we are still trying to place his features.

We are both exhausted, and deeply in love with our baby boy.

Nanna Debi is here to help out for a few days.  We are so thankful to have someone to take him for a while so we can get some rest!  He obviously loves his nanna!

He just loves the outfit we brought him home in!  After he was done crying, we didn't hear a peep from him for four hours until we woke him up to eat his first home-cooked meal in our new glider chair.

I'm sure there will be many more pictures and videos of Tate posted on this blog in the days to come.  We are both so in love with our little man.  Thank you to everyone who has been encouraging to Kim and I during her pregnancy.  We are in awe of our little miracle.

Happy Due Date to ME!

Yep, that's right folks. My due date is here...and my little boy is not. Frowny face.

Are we there yet?

Tick.  Tock.  Tick.  Tock.  Tick.  Tock.

Unemployed.

Yesterday was my last day at Janie and Jack. This feels so wierd. I've had a job since I started teaching piano lessons when I was 12. It's wierd not to be making any money. I have lists of things to get done in the next couple of days to keep me busy until little man decides to show up. Did you see the ticker today? 2 days. Yep, my due date is on Sunday! I have a feeling he'll be a little later than sooner. Hopefully not too much later though. Mommy isn't working anymore and would like someone to play with!
I had more fun pregnant comments at the store yesterday. I'm making some treats the next couple of days to bring to my friends at my work and neighbors and such. It's basically just to give me something to do. The cashier was ringing up my ingredients for sugar cookies and score bar cake and she said, "Wow, I guess you're craving sugar and chocolate huh?" I said, "Well, I'm making valentines cookies to take to some friends." She just kept on going, "Well when I was pregnant all I wanted to eat was cookies and cake and ice cream and candy all day long so I totally feel ya honey." Thank you large black lady, I appreciate that you understand my apparently obvious problem. Then she asked when I was due and when I told her that I was due this coming Sunday she just stopped and looked at me with these huge eyes and said, "My goodness, I better start moving faster huh? I better get you out of here so you don't go into labor right here in the store." I love feeling like a ticking time bomb. Good times.

Date Night!

Glenn has decided that we need to go out more before little man gets here. A couple of weeks ago he picked me up from work and he had a surprise for me. He made me a date night paper fortune teller. He made one for places to eat dinner, most of which were new places we hadn't tried but he had researched, and he made one for movies as well. Each of the four main parts had a different "mood" I might be in. For example, some of the food ones were "You are feeling like something familiar. No surprises today!" Or, "You are feeling like going out on a limb. A little adventure is good once in a while!" And then after I picked one of those it had different categories of food like Indian, Italian, Sit-down, Take home, etc. Then I picked one of those and we had our restaurant underneath. We've used it a couple of times to great success. The first time we went to the Clay Pit, a fabulous little Indian place downtown. Mmmm yummy. We have many more choices to explore on our date night fortune teller. Who knows where it will take us next!

I took this from Glenn's drawer so I could take pictures of it and post about how much fun my sweetie is. I didn't peek honey, I promise!

Pregnancy Ponderments...

Today is the February 5th. That means ten days until my due date. I thought to myself today, "Self, you have not recorded much about how pregnancy has been for you." So I thought I'd just write some things down because I'll never be pregnant with my little boy again and I'll want to remember what it was like. Sorry for all of you who would rather not read about pregnancy stuff, but since I'm sort of using this blog as a my blognal or blogary...you get my random thoughts and feelings as a bonus! Deal with it, or just skip this post:)

1st trimester in one word: flu. It felt like I had a permanent flu bug. I felt like throwing up pretty much every day, pretty much all day long. There were times it was worse (certain smells or certain foods) and times when it was better, but overall, I just felt like there was some parasite making me sick all of the time. The worst was that it was completely unpredictable. One second I'd be fine and the next I'd catch a wiff of doggy breath and go sprinting to the toilet. Oh the memories. We went to our first movie here in Austin, Hancock, and I had to leave to throw up 3 times. The best were Glenn's comments...I think he was trying to help. I'd moan that I feel like I'm going to throw up and pretty much every time his response was, "Well, just go throw up and you'll feel better." Thanks honey, but that's unfortunately not the way this particular bug works. Another time he was trying to lighten the mood as he was hovering over me and I was letting loose into the toilet and he started "cheering me on". "That's right honey, get it all out." Oh babe. I was excited to get out of this phase and start feeling like I was actually pregnant. It was not real that I was going to have a baby during this phase.

2nd trimester was so much better. I started to feel less barfy at about 20-21 weeks. It was like magic. One week I was throwing up a lot and the next week I wasn't. I had tons of energy and felt like I could do anything. I started walking and jogging in the mornings and I actually enjoyed it. It was crazy. I slept really well too. I slept a LOT and I slept really well. It was the best. We found out we were having little man at 17 weeks and started planning his nursery. I started to feel my little man move at about 21 weeks and by the next week or two I was sure I felt it. I would just stop and hold really still and smile to myself when I'd feel a little bubble or flutter. It felt so good to finally feel something in there. I didn't feel or look pregnant really until 25ish weeks. He finally started to poke out a little bit and people started to notice what I had noticed for a long time...I was definitely prego. I thought I would have cravings. I was excited to have cravings because I've always had a hard time deciding what I wanted to eat and I thought it would be fun to really feel like something. I never really had any. I felt like donuts and I've never really been a huge fan of donuts, but other than that it's more foods that I don't feel like. I don't feel like meat...pretty much any kind. I can handle chicken but I don't usually make it for myself. I just started eating really simple things like cereal, bananas, toast, yogurt, boring things.

We probably decided on little man's name for sure at the beginningish of this trimester. Pretty soon after we found out he was a boy we decided on his name. His middle name came just a couple of weeks later. We also decided to keep his name a secret because we both liked it so much and didn't want to have it messed up by someone's opinion. Plus, it's the only name we really loved and there have never really been any backups. It's just his name.

3rd trimester, so many changes happened so very fast. I got lots bigger, little dude got lots bigger too, and little dude started kicking harder. He's a tough little boy. Every week I look down and think, he can't possibly get much bigger. There's just no more room. And then he does. The wierdest sensation of pregnancy that I have found is feeling chlostrophobic in my own body. It's worse at night when I've been on my feet all day and then I sit or lay down when I get home and I just feel so full of baby that I'm sure something's going to burst. It's like there's not enough room for me in here. It's harder to breathe because little dude squishes into my lungs when I sit down. Sleeping...not so much any more. That's been a big surprise too. I went from sleeping like a rock, except when I have to get up to go to the bathroom and then I fall right back to sleep, to sleeping really lightly and tossing and turning a lot because different joints get sore if I'm in one position too long. I feel like an old lady. Then in the last couple of weeks I've started to have random completely awake times at night. I'll just wake up by myself at 2 or 3 and be absolutely wide awake. I try to lay there and go back to sleep but I'm just awake. I get up and clean something or catch up our finances or read a book because I'm just not tired. It's crazy. Oh yes and then there's the poop. It's awesome when it happens but I probably only poop once a week, if then. Yep, it's not the most fun.

Things I've started to hear that I don't really love. (probably worse because I work in a baby store) I've put my mental responses in italics.:

"Oh, you're due that soon? That's so great that you're still up and walking around. Good for you honey." Lady, I'm pregnant, I'm not crippled.

"Wow, you must be getting close! You look like you're about to pop!" Do I look like a pimple or an overinflated balloon to you? Why do you think it's okay to tell a person that they look like their body is about to spontaneously explode?

"You're still here? I hoped you would have had the baby by now." Well, considering I still have a couple of weeks left and you're in the store every two days and spend far too much money on far too few items of clothing every time...yep, I'm still here!"

"Oh is this your first baby? You're in for a real shock to the system. Just keep telling yourself, 'this isn't going to kill me. It will end.'" Well, thanks for the pep talk ya big dummy. I'm glad you're not my psychiatrist!

"You're having a boy? Oh, you must just look at the girl things in this store and wish you were having a girl." Um...nope. I have a niece for that!

I also don't love that strangers think I want and need their advice and their war stories because we're somehow bonded because I'm a round person. I don't want to hear about your private parts and what they looked like, I don't want to hear about all of the blood and blisters and carnage of this process and how miserable you were or still are. I certainly don't want to hear about how your relations with your husband changed and all those personal details. I don't know you people. I'll get advice from my doctor, my family, and my buddies...you are none of the above. Stop talking to me!

Things I do like to hear:

"Wow, you're due in a week? That's great. I would have guessed you still had a couple of months left." Lady, you're my best friend.

"You're having a little boy? Oh you're going to love having a little boy. Boy's love their mammas." Good, because I love him back.

Sounds like a lot of complaining in a really long blog. But you know what, this pregnancy has been pretty easy. I've been positive even though I've had brief moments of discouragement or frustration. I've felt really good at work all day. I have the normal aches and pains and I get tired easier but overall, I'm still pretty comfortable. I love my little boy and I love to feel him move. I love to feel him get the hiccups and wiggle around. I love feeling his little feet and other parts poking out when he stretches. I love to sing in the car on the way to and from work and think that he can hear me singing to him. I love looking at his sonogram pictures and imagining what he looks like now. And I love getting his little things ready. Washing and folding his clothes, sitting in my rocking chair, standing over his crib. Those things make him seem more real, like he's actually going to get here and I'll actually be able to see him soon. I can't wait to touch his little toes and look into his face and find little pieces of my sweetheart in him.

Anyway, just some ponderments on my experience. Here are some pictures of me last Sunday at 38 weeks. Yep, I just keep getting more pregnant. Only 10 days to go now! Although I get the feeling that he may take his time. It may be a little longer. We'll see.