Life at Day 9

After I peed out my diaper on myself and Mommy, I got my first bath at home.

Noah cries when we put him in his car seat, but falls asleep almost every time we drive in the car.  (Hallelujah.)

I love his squishy face.

Noah's favorite place to sleep is curled up in a tiny ball on my chest.  I regularly have a big drool spot right in the middle of my shirt.  This is how I like to spend my days (and nights) too.

I am still completely head over heels for this boy.  I'm in love.  He is not an easy baby, though.  Noah has been struggling with breastfeeding (I guess that's just how my kids roll), but we're getting through it.  He has a pretty weak latch and suck, making it difficult for him to eat with any kind of efficiency.  He is gaining weight just fine, though, so I know that we're doing something right.  It just takes him at least an hour (1 1/2 hours) to empty both sides.  I anticipate this improving, I just wish it would happen sooner.  At this point, it's very hard to leave the house for any amount of time because he eats for an hour every 2 hours.  That means that I spend at least 10-12 hours a day breastfeeding.  That doesn't leave much time for anything else (Nate and Abbie, swimming lessons, sleep, grocery shopping, dishes, meals, cleaning, etc.).  I wish I could say that Alan has had days off for helping out, but he hasn't.  He's been working a lot.  I guess that it's forced me to figure out this single parent of three thing a lot faster.  That's good, right?

Noah is a snuggler.  He refuses to sleep for any real amount of time unless he's snuggled on top of someone.  Sometimes during the day, I can get a half an hour out of him if I swaddle him really tight and put him in the swing, but at night, all bets are off.  This boy will cry the entire night long unless he's nursing or sleeping on somebody's chest.  I am sure I'm going to hear lots of advice about how this a bad habit to get into, I should definitely make him sleep in his bassinet, etc. But I can't bring myself to hear him cry like that, knowing that all he wants is for me to hold him.  So we're tired and my back hurts--At least I get to spend a good part of the day and night with a tiny baby snuggled against me.  There are worse things than that.

Enough complaining, though.  The good thing about your third is that you know this won't last forever.  Nate and Abbie both started out has horrible breastfeeders, but they both figured it out.  The lack of sleep may continue for a while, but I know that at some point, he'll have to sleep more than an hour or two at a time.  Alan is off next week (hopefully he'll actually stay out of the office), so I will finally have some backup at home.  More importantly, though, I have a healthy growing baby.  Despite being a little challenging, he is incredibly sweet.  Every time that Noah first latches on to eat, he looks up at me with this determined little face that says, "Don't you dare try to stop me.  This is mine."  I love it.  He has a ridiculously active rooting reflex that leaves him shaking his head, trying to eat his own shoulder and shirt, and bobbing his head all over the place.  It's endearing to watch.  Noah has tons of hair in the back, less on the sides and not much on the top.  I love to stroke his hair while he eats.  He also has a little dimple on his left ear that I have to write about so that I don't forget it was there.  His tiny chicken legs are very strong--He periodically hold them up himself while I'm changing his diaper.  The best part of all of this is the little bond that we've already formed.  Noah calms when I hold him, he looks for me when he hears my voice.  It's amazing how much I love him, even at only a week old.  Although I guess that I was getting to know him for quite a while before that...