Owen is One Month Old!!

I can NOT believe our little man is one month old! Where does the time go? I still remember every single second of the day I went into labor as if it was yesterday and to think a month has gone by is incredible!! Owen is growing like a weed and changing every day before our eyes. We haven't quite figured out a good schedule for him, but I hope to get him on one very soon. At one month, Owen stays awake for 2-3 hours at time now - only during daylight hours too! He is still a very calm baby, but definitely REALLY lets it be known if he is hungry, wet or tired. He wakes up consistently at 1am, 4am and 7am for his feedings and gives me nice little sighs to tell me he is thankful for his food. :) I'm grateful that he is not a night owl and he keeps his eyes closed through all his nighttime feedings. He'll feed for about 15-20 minutes and go straight back into his bassinet and fall asleep. This may sound crazy, but these nighttime feedings with Owen are my favorite because it's just me and him. I feel like it is such a nice bonding experience between us and I love every moment of it, despite the lack of consecutive hours of sleep. Owen LOVES his lovies. He has to have one touching his face and wrapped around his neck to fall asleep. He hated being swaddled - or maybe I was just doing it wrong - so I had to find something that would comfort him. The lovies do the trick! I'm still not convinced he doesn't want to be swaddled, so I'll be trying it again and hope it is our saving grace to him sleeping longer hours! He is starting to really react to our voices and smile at us now too. I absolutely love his little smiles and him talking to us. He has officially outgrown ALL of his newborn clothes and it has made me so sad to put away those few outfits that he wore for the last few weeks. We've taken advantage of his easy demeanor and taken him out a few times now. We even took him out for a shopping trip on Black Friday! He is getting chubbier by the day and I am LOVING it. I always imagined we would have a baby that was a chunky monkey and I'm pretty sure we'll get my wish! :) We are loving parenthood and can't wait to watch him grow over the next few months!! Here is his one month photoshoot with his Longhorn we bought him before he was born.

The Many Face of Owen

Owen is totally showing his personality these days and it is so funny. He is starting to respond to my voice and look around and make cute little smiles and cooing noises. Here are the many faces he makes for me these days. He's all boy and makes the cutest sneaky smiles. :)

Noisy Sleeping Baby

Owen is the NOISIEST sleeping baby EVER. If he's not grunting or stretching or making little squeaking or squawking noises, then he isn't truly asleep. He's been doing this since we brought him home from the hospital and at first I jumped at every noise he made. Now it's like a white noise machine next to our bed. Except the excessive grunting can sometimes wake me up for good in the middle of the night. :) Has anyone else experienced a noisy sleeping baby?? I've also tried to swaddle Owen and he absolutely HATES it. I've been reading bits and pieces of this book called "Happiest Baby on the Block" and they teach you the 5 S's to help soothe a baby, one of them being swaddling. Well, Owen hates being swaddled. When I do swaddle him - he grunts the ENTIRE time and tries to get free. We got one of those Halo Sacks as a gift and I thought either that or the Miracle Blanket would help him sleep longer periods of time. Nope! He hates them with a passion and practically growls when his arms are bound up. I guess that's one less habit I have to break

Can you really be upset about being woken up when you see a sweet sleeping baby though. Examples below. Side note: Owen LOVES these little lovey blankets I discovered. He loves having them by his cheeks when he sleeps. He sleeps SO much better with one next to his cheek. I slept with them one night to put my smell on them and they miraculously help him fall asleep now!!

Owen's Third Week

Owen's third week has been filled with hours of being awake!! For two and a half weeks, Owen rarely ever opened his eyes for more than 5-10 minutes. But this week, Owen has suddenly decided he is interested in his surroundings. He will stay awake for a few hours at a time just looking around. It's so cute to watch him just observe his surroundings and take in everything. He is starting to respond to my voice and I can't wait to be at a stage where he smiles and laughs at what I say!!

He is STILL a really good baby. I'm worried we are jinxing ourselves by saying it and that he'll wake up one day and turn into a screaming baby, but we have been so lucky so far. He only ever fusses if he is hungry or wet. He still despises his diaper being changed. He's VERY vocal about it and even manages to squeeze out a few tears when he's really upset. He feeds consistently every 3 hours. He sleeps well at night besides waking up for his feedings. He actually doesn't ever open his eyes at night. He'll keep them closed, but root around signaling he is hungry. I'll feed him, put a clean diaper on him and he falls asleep again - all without ever opening his eyes. Now if only he could go longer than 3 hours at night!! Our lack of sleep isn't so bad for now. I let Tommy sleep through the night because he is back at work and I'm on maternity leave and there is not a lot he can do since I'm breastfeeding. I don't mind having to wake up every 3 hours for feedings since I'm able to nap during the day and pretty much fall asleep the second Owen is done feeding at night (I'm really lucky to be a good sleeper). The only adjustment we're having to deal with is the lack of structure. I think I love working so much because I can go to work every day and pretty much know what to expect. It makes me feel so disoriented having a newborn and not having a real schedule to your day. I know I'll miss these days when I'm back at work, but I'm definitely ready for our little man to have some type of sleep schedule!

Owen is definitely not a baby that wants to be held all the time - which I wanted to make sure we didn't get into a habit of doing. I've babysat and heard enough stories to know that holding your baby too much can lead to some hard times down the line. So we consciously try to put him in his swing, chair or just in his pack and play. Of course every once in awhile, Grandma, Dad or myself totally get a snuggle in, but he never wakes up if we put him down to sleep. He also LOVES listening to music. My Mom found this Baby Einstein channel on Pandora that I leave on and he will just stare into space and listen to the music for the longest time.

We can't believe it's been 3 weeks already since we've brought Owen home! I couldn't believe my due date was this week and that I could still be pregnant. Tommy weighed Owen on our home scale and he's weighing more than 8.5 pounds at this point. I don't know if a baby grows slower in utero, but I can not IMAGINE delivering a baby this size. He's already almost outgrowing all of his newborn clothes (which makes me want to cry) and into 0-3 month clothes or 3 month clothes, depending on the brand. I'm pretty sure I went into labor early because my body couldn't handle delivering such a large baby!!

All in all, we are loving parenthood and feel like time is flying by WAY too quickly. Here are pictures of Owen WIDE awake!!

Aunt Anna and Grandpa John Visit

On Friday, November 18th, Owen's Aunt Anna came from New York City to visit him. It was so nice to have my sister in town for the weekend. She could not WAIT to meet Owen and flew down for a quick weekend so she could meet her handsome nephew. Just this week, Owen started to become a lot more alert and keep his eyes open, so I loved that she got to see him like that rather than a baby that sleeps all day long! He was opening his eyes for her and making all kinds of fun baby noises.

On Saturday, November 19th, my Dad also came into town to meet Owen and also to stay for the week to spend time with us. He'll be here to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with us. We spent the weekend hanging around the house. The girls managed to go to the mall for a little (Aunt Anna spoiled Owen with really cute outfits from Nordstroms - I swear he is the BEST dressed baby in North Carolina) while the boys watched some football. We also went and got sushi for dinner two nights in a row. I've missed having sushi for over 8 months, so I didn't mind going to the SAME restaurant two nights in a row! :)

Owen behaved himself and was a huge hit. My sister couldn't believe how big he was. It is really hard to imagine that I could be pregnant still. It's not unusual for your first baby to go beyond your due date, so when November 16th passed, I made a mental note to thank the pregnancy Gods for bringing Owen to me early. He is getting so big so quickly and I can't imagine how much more uncomfortable I could have become if he came on his actual due date!!

Here are pictures from my sister and Dad's visit!

Hurley the Protector

Hurley has decided Owen can officially stay in the Gebhard house. I had a few friends over to the house earlier this week and while they were here, Hurley seemed oddly at edge. We were all sitting at the kitchen table and he normally BEGS for food if we are sitting there. Oddly, he had his back towards us and was staring at Owen's swing, where Owen was sound asleep. I thought it was funny, but didn't think much of it. Then one of my friends got up to go into the living room and Hurley decided to bark like an insane dog at her. That's when I picked up on the fact that Hurley was trying to guard and protect Owen. So we tested the theory out and had another friend try to approach Owen and sure enough, Hurley did the same thing. He'd look at Owen and look at my friend and was really trying to hard to decide if she was OK to be near his little brother. It's so incredibly cute! Hurley is no longer scared of Owen's cries. In fact at night, if Owen is waking up to feed, he looks at me like I'm crazy if I don't pick Owen up immediately. He sits at the edge of the bed to watch me feed him and once Owen quiets down, he then decides it is OK for him to sleep. I love that our little pup is so protective! I never would have thought he had it in him!! I can't wait to watch them grow to be great friends!!

Uncle Victor, Aunt Carolyn & Cousin Annaliese

On Friday, November 11, Victor, Carolyn (Tommy's older sister) and their adorable baby girl, Annaliese came to meet Owen. They live in Dallas, so it was extra special to have them travel all this way to meet our little man. It was so fun to have them here and to also have the cousins meet each other! It is so surreal to see Annaliese walking, talking and have such a personality when I felt like I was holding a teeny newborn just yesterday. It is hard to believe Owen will be that big one day! Our weekend was very relaxing and just spending time with family. We even went out for the first time since Owen was born to have lunch! Owen of course slept the whole time, so he was no problem. I wonder how long that will last! ;) We also got some amazing pictures of all of us for our Christmas cards this year! You'll have to wait to see those. :) Here are some pictures from the weekend!

Uncle Victor & Aunt Carolyn

Getting sweet kisses from Cousin Annaliese

Uncle Danny, Aunt Carolyn and Cousin Annaliese

Uncle Danny, Annaliese and Mom

LOVE this child!!

Cousin LOVE!!

Grandma Gin Gin

The girls and kids!

The Gebhard children

Lunch out!

The Johnsons

My serious face

Making Progress with Hurley

Hurley is becoming more and more tolerant of Owen these days. He actually will cuddle up next to me while I'm feeding Owen. It's really sweet to have them both snuggled up with me. The funniest thing is Hurley is TERRIFIED of farts. Owen can produce a MEAN fart post milk coma. When he does that, Hurley runs like the wind and will jump off the bed and sit in the farthest corner of the room. It makes me laugh so hard. Beyond that, Hurley seems to be adjusting just fine. I feel bad for him sometimes because I will be talking to Owen and Hurley will think I'm talking to him. He'll jump up to be near me and I'll have to shoo him away from the baby. He looks SO INCREDIBLY hurt when I do that, so I have to remember to give him some love when I'm done with whatever I'm doing with the baby. Hurley is also still obsessed with the Brest Friend. What can I say, our little French Bulldog is a special dog. :)

Owen's Second Week

Owen's first week home was really easy on me. I honestly couldn't believe how simple everything was. I literally wondered why we hadn't tried to have a baby sooner if it was going to be THIS easy. He barely cried and slept so well. Looking back, it was totally an adrenaline rush and I just didn't realize how exhausted I was. I also had Tommy's help (he had a week of paternity leave) on top of my Mom's help the first week, so all that combined made my first week home with Owen such a BREEZE!!

Week two came along and suddenly Owen found his vocal chords. He became extremely attached to me and started to SCREAM bloody murder if he didn't get what he wanted the very instant he wanted it. Luckily, I can easily figure out what he wants pretty quickly. He still only cries if he's wet or hungry, so we consider ourselves lucky to have a baby with a relatively calm disposition. He just wants things INSTANTLY. He totally gets that from his Mom. :) What can I say - I want things when I want things. Haha. He still HATES having his diaper changed. No matter how warm the wipes are - he still hates that diaper off his poor little butt. We'll have to figure out how we are going to get through an evening of diaper changes during our cold winters here in NC. He also has become a lot more alert. He'll go through 20-30 minute periods during the day where his eyes are wide open. Every once in awhile he'll give me a little smile, but his favorite face is his "Zoolander" face and stares straight into my eyes. It totally melts my heart and makes me want to give him everything he wants. :)

I've become a really bad Mom and have been letting him sleep next to me during my desperate nights where I just want to sleep for an hour without interruptions. My second week post c-section was really hard in terms of recovery. I ran out of my pain meds and was reeling in pain and could barely stand straight. I realized I was doing WAY too much too soon and had to slow it down. I was numb the first week from the pain medication and was walking and standing quite a bit and I think that was what made my second week so painful. I had to wait for my doctor to prescribe me more medication and those 2-3 days were the worst. So instead of trying to make Owen sleep in his bassinet and have me cry out in pain every time I had to sit up in the middle of the night to get him, I made a little pallet for him next to me and he slept amazingly well. In fact, one night, he slept from midnight to 5am! It made me want to put him in our bed every night if I could get that kind of sleep! Unfortunately that has only happened a handful of times, but his want to sleep near me is definitely still very strong. I will have to break the habit soon, but I love having him snuggled near me and enjoying his sweet baby smells during the night. How long can a Mom actually enjoy that time before it passes? I'm working on making him sleep in his bassinet. He's not necessarily opposed to it - he just wakes up more frequently when he is in there. We'll see how week three goes with that. :)

Owen still LOVES his pacifiers. He is very particular about what pacifiers he wants though. He will literally gag and spit out any other ones that I test out. He will only take the soothie pacifiers or his Wubba Nub pacifiers (the ones with cute stuffed animals on the ends). After having gotten 2 Wubba Nub pacifiers as gifts, I went and got 2 more seeing as how much he enjoys them. I know some Moms are totally against pacifiers, but our pediatrician told us if he was nursing longer than 15-20 minutes, it meant he was using ME as a pacifier. You can only imagine the pain I was in, so I decided it was time to bust them out. They have become life savers! He doesn't need them beyond him falling asleep, so I don't think they'll be too big of a problem down the line.

One of my favorite things is watching Owen dream. He makes the cutest little noises and facial expressions while he is sleeping. Don't you wonder what their little minds are dreaming about? Probably about milk and Mommies. :)

Here are some pictures from his second week!

Dad saying hi to Owen after a long work day!

Owen's Zoolander face!!

Getting ready for bed!

Sweet sleeping baby.

Snuggling with his lovey that has Mom's scent!

Tommy took this picture after a particularly rough night with him. Clearly I was so tired, I forgot to turn off my light or take off my glasses.

Smiling and alert!

My favorite Wubba Nub pacifiers!

Chubby cheeks

Dreaming baby

Funny dreams!