Sleepy time

How do you get a baby to fall asleep? This may be a little unorthodox but we figure, if it works, what could be the harm?

Getting Ready for St. Patrick's Day

Ah, one of the joys of having a child is being able to dress them in silly clothes and hats. We bought this at Target for a buck, so it wasn't too big of an investment. Well, St. Patrick's day is a week away and Louisa is ready to celebrate it with her old man. I'm not sure if I'll let her take Irish Dancing lessons, only because it is so much more expensive for girls. She is too young to do any dancing anyways, but she'll be able to listen to Irish drinking songs and rebellion songs.

A second smile!

Well, I never actually blogged about the first smile but Kayleen caught Louisa's second smile today. (These are smiles while she is awake. She has smiled in her sleep many times.) Sunday was the first time Louisa smiled and it was while Kayleen was holding her. Well today it was my turn. We gave Lou another bath and after her bath we dried her off in a nice warm towel this was the expression she gave me...
Kayleen took this picture. I felt ad about stealing it from her until I saw she used the picture I took of her and Lou and put it on her blog.

Well, to catch up I wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes. Kayleen and I are so happy and grateful to God for giving us such a beautiful child.

I guess I should talk about the things that have been going on since Lou has arrived. Kayleen has been a great new mother. In the first week I think she was very high on the new mother euphoria because she had so much energy and all she wanted to do was to hold a look at Lou. Usually Kayleen would want to be in bed by 7:30 (Well, this might be an exaggeration on my part but still pretty early.) and I was more used to staying up till 3 or 4 in the morning. So I was pretty surprised that Kayleen was staying up late and able to handle the middle of the night feedings. When the lack of sleep started catching up to Kay, (Not me as much because Kayleen let me get my sleep. Thank you honey.) we started making sure to take advantage of Louisa's downtime.

One thing that is pretty amazing is how much newborns poop and pee. Louisa is a very healthy baby and so she has many dirty diapers. Kayleen's grandparents are providing us with a diaper service so we are using clothe diapers and so I now know how to use clothe diapers. This is a skill set that I am trying to use as little as possible.

Here is Lou in her snazzy pink jogging suit which she has not used for jogging.

Here you can see her currently blue eyes. Grandma is hoping that they stay blue.

Here I am with Lou. This is right before she gave me a smile.

Kayleen bought me a book called "The Expectant Father", which is a pretty good book and one that I would recommend for any first time dads. Well, in the book the author tries to describe the feeling he had when he would hold his newborn child and he said it was very difficult to actually put into words. The only way he could describe it was that he wanted to roll his daughter up into a ball and eat her. Well, I can't say I feel exactly like that but I am so happy and feel so blessed to have such a beautiful family. I thank God everyday!

Ever had that temptation?

Have you ever seen something done in a cartoon that you were tempted to do? Just wondering. Here is a random cartoon.

(I have been told that I need to clarify that I am posting this without the permission on my wife.)

Belated Birthday Wishes Ryan

Sorry I didn't put this up on Sunday, but Happy Birthday Ryan! I hope you had a great birthday.
From Mike, Kayleen and your newest niece, Louisa

Sorry I didn't put this up on Sunday, but Happy Birthday Ryan!

Happy Birthday Oompa

Hey dad, Happy Birthday from Louisa!

She took a break from her busy day to tell you this. She wanted me to let you know how important you are to her that she made time for you today.

Also, happy birthday dad, from Mike and Kayleen

We had a baby!

Well Louisa ended up being a Sunday child just like her mommy. Lou was born Sunday afternoon, as pretty much everyone already knows now, and she weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz. It was so amazing to see the birth. The whole experience was just awesome.

(Sorry, but this post is kind of random. I'm tired and just have a lot to say and so I wonder a lot in explaining how things went and some of the feelings that day)
When Kayleen was 7 cm dilated both of our mothers decided to go get some coffee and let us relax. Our doctor figured that Kayleen would probably take about 2 hours or more to get fully dilated but an hour after being 7 cm Kayleen asked the nurse to have the doctor come back to see where she was at because Kayleen was feeling a lot of pressure. The doctor came in and said that she was fully dilated and that she needed to get ready to start pushing! This really surprised me. The whole day we were told "Ok, labor for first time mothers on average is 12 hours." so we figured Lou would be born around 9-10 PM. Then when Kayleen was at 7 cm the nurse told us that is typically takes a woman an hour to dilate one cm. Well an hour later Kayleen had dilated 3 cm. When the doctor did say that Kayleen was going to start pushing soon my hands started to shake with excitement.

When Kayleen started pushing they didn't have any straps for her to put her legs into (I don't know if hospitals still use them but it didn't look like any of the rooms had the stirrups thingies.), so I got to hold onto Kayleen's leg through the birth process. It was really amazing to see it happen, and also it went by so fast. Kayleen pushed for all of 32 minutes with no screaming. (On a selfish note, I was happy she didn't scream because I was there holding her leg and she would have been screaming in my ear. And believe me, with three other women in the room, none of them would have cared if a man was uncomfortable or in pain.) Kayleen was very focused during the whole birth process and didn't make a lot of noise.

Well, I was planning on writing more, but it's late and I need to get some sleep while I can. I started this post and have been adding on to it throughout the night and now it is 12:30AM and I need to go to sleep. Enjoy these pictures. The first two were taken the day Lou was born.

Here is little Louisa

Mommy getting acquainted with the little lady who has been in her womb for 9 months.

This was taken last night. Louisa was so alert and was looking all around.

Babies tire you out. It's a fact. But I think they get tired too tiring out their parents.