New Parents' Guide to Babies

Tip Two: Don't travel with baby until right after
you've fed and changed him.

We took Grayson down to southern Utah over the weekend to meet the rest of my family and enjoy slightly warmer weather. We left SLC Sunday night (February 23) and pretty much drove in a blizzard until after we passed Fillmore. It was awful. Combine that with our first ever long-distance drive with a newborn, and you had a very worried and frazzled Paige in the back seat. I kept worrying that he needed to be changed and fed, even making Josh pull over on a snow-covered freeway so I could check his diaper. We didn't leave until after church got out, so it was dark outside and I went crazy not being able to see him without the interior light on. And need I describe the frustration at trying to pump in the dark? The trip down turned into one of the longest and worst drives I've ever had, and I wasn't even the driver. I'm so grateful to Josh for being so patient with me.

Here is a very boring clip of Grayson peacefully sleeping on our drive back. I fed and changed him right before we left, and he slept the entire 4 hours home. And since it was daylight out, I pumped easily and even got some homework done in the car. I guess it's really not that hard to travel with babies this age, is it?

All in the Family

This is the reason we couldn't name this kid. Every time I look at him, all I can think of is my father.

Grandpa Doug and his Mini-me

It's funny because we look at Grayson and say to ourselves, "He's my father, through and through!" but before my father's name carried these genes, they belonged to his mother's line. My father told me that his mother just looked at him one day and started to cry, because he looked just like her father. What's even wilder to think about is where these genes came from before they reached her family line. And Grayson's body shape actually comes from my mom's mom, and yet I always attribute it to being my current family's trait because that's what I am. And one day, when Grayson has kids, his traits will hang on Josh's last name and mine will join my grandmothers' as inconsequential maiden names that carry no meaning.

No wonder people do genealogy. I'm absolutely fascinated, just looking at this baby, and wondering how many traits of people I've never met he carries with him.

I'm such a shallow mother. I have purposefully avoided posting pictures of the kid on more than one occasion because he wasn't wearing cute clothes. See, I have one million and one super-cute outfits that are far too large for him - the 0-3 months clothes make him look like a drowned rat - so we've been cycling through the same four preemie/newborn size gowns since we came home from the hospital. Very blah.

So God must have felt sorry for the kid, because he sent my dear friend, Rachael, to the rescue. She brought us a slew of darling little outfits to borrow for a few weeks while Grayson puts on some weight and grows into his own clothes (cross your fingers that they'll fit before winter is over). Check out Rach's blog post on February 11 for a little trip down memory lane she recently took of her son Caleb, who was born several weeks early.

Grayson and Rach

Listening intently to Rachael's wisdom

Not buying it, though

Here's Grayson in one of Caleb's outfits. And since he's wearing pants, I put the shoes Pam gave us on as well. Too darling!

Dad's in charge!

Josh got the pleasure of staying home with the kid while I went to school today. I took last Saturday off from class, but couldn't afford to miss another because I have a test next week. I got up super early to shower and let my milk come in so I could feed the kid before I had to go. I leave for class around 7:15am and don't return until after 11am, so I left four ounces of milk for Josh to feed him while I was gone. Seriously, I couldn't have made it any easier on my husband.

Anyway, I was secretly excited that Josh was going to be 'stuck' caring for and entertaining the kid while I was gone - even if was for just a few short hours - just so he could finally understand how difficult it is to get anything requiring multiple hands or more than a five-minute attention span accomplished, but my plan was thwarted by none other than Grandma. My own mother ruined me! My folks came up for another visit since Monday is a holiday. So I get home about 11:30am, and there's Grandma on the couch with Grayson, and Josh is in the computer room, hacking away at some blasted spreadsheet. My one partial day off in two weeks, and Josh managed to pawn the kid off on a sitter. Go figure.

In other great news, yesterday was Grayson's 2-week checkup. He is doing so well! He's in the 10th percentile for weight, but the 75th percentile for length, so yes, he's definitely mine. He actually measured 20 3/4 inches long (a 2-inch increase in only two weeks?), so the nurse measured him again, same length, and we have concluded the hospital staff didn't stretch him out all the way at birth. He also bounced back from his lowest weight of 5lb.13oz. to a rockin' 6lb.10oz., surpassing his birth weight by 5 ounces. That weight gain plus the incredible number of diapers he poops led the pediatrician to tell me, 'Whatever you're feeding him must be perfect.' That was really nice to hear, as middle-of-the-night feedings were starting to really wear on me. It was just the boost I needed to reaffirm that I'm giving him all the best things right now. We make a good team. Way to go, Us!

Already 2 weeks old!

Milestone

We left the house today. First time either me or the kid have gone outside since we saw the pediatrician EIGHT days ago. And we wouldn't have gone out except I desperately needed to mail a package to my friend, Theresa. I guess I'm just paranoid enough about RSV and the weird flu-like disease floating around SLC right now that I'm taking the pediatrician's advice of not leaving the house until at least the end of March. I'm mostly surprised that with all that time at home, it's still hard to keep up on the dusting and dishes.

With deepest apologies...

Sorry to make all y'all wait so long for pics and an update. I currently have three blog entries saved as drafts because I just haven't had time to finish a post before there's something else I want to blog about. Unfortunately for you, I spend my limited spare time doing homework and cleaning the house instead of blogging. :-)

Basic info: Born Saturday, February 2, 2008 at 8:36pm. 18.5 inches long. 6 pounds, 5 ounces. Here are a couple of pics to tide you over until I can finish my drafts. And Katie, stop tapping that foot - you'll wake the baby!

Love,
Paige, Josh & Grayson

"Grumpy Face"
(looks just like my dad with that scowl)

I look like hell, but his darling little nose is just too cute in profile!

Getting born made him very sleepy

He got my bird legs

Grandma Patsi & Grayson

Fuzzy head, warm heart

The Name Game

We stayed up far too late last night in a last-ditch effort to name our kid. Allison from the hospital is going to call me at some point in time today to get the name from us, and we promised we'd have one ready. So guess which one we settled on? Grayson! Yeah, go figure. And guess which one of us finally settled on it? Josh did!

I couldn't believe it. We had about 30 names on our list and made the rule that we couldn't add any more - we had to choose from those already listed. Another rule was that either of us could nix any name we wanted to, regardless of how much the other person liked it. The final rule was that we couldn't keep a name on the list if we didn't like it just because we knew the other person liked it. So with our list and the rules in hand, we started going through name after name and crossing off the losers. I was the one that originally suggested Grayson and was pretty set on it before we even knew we were having a boy. Well, Josh didn't like that he wasn't part of the naming process, so he had protested pretty heavily against it. I accepted that the fate of 'Grayson' was improbable, and had moved on to other names, particularly Trevin and Lincoln.

Anyway, throughout the elimination process, Josh kept Grayson on the list, even after I asked him to cross it off. He knew that I liked it, and he said he liked it better than some others on the list, so I let him do what he wanted with it (even though he was breaking the third rule). We finally cut the list down to our top five - Trevin, Lincoln, Grayson, Dylan, and Mason. Josh nixed Trevin and Lincoln, and I cut Dylan. We were down to Grayson and Mason, and he looks more like a Mason than a Grayson to me, so I said, "K, let's name him Mason" but Josh was more hesitant. We both liked the alliteration of Grayson with our last name, but we thought Mason sounded more masculine. We were stuck, and I was getting very tired.

We decided to draw his name out of a bowl - the best of five draws - and Mason ended up winning. So why is his name Grayson instead? Josh made an executive decision to go with the name that sounded best, and I was finally exhausted enough that I said he could name him whatever he wanted. He could have named him Thor for all I cared by that time.

And that is how our poor baby finally got his name. I guess he really doesn't need a name, anyway, though, because we mostly call him 'Baby', 'Bud', and 'The Kid' and that seems to be working out quite nicely.

New Parents' Guide to Babies

Tip One: A diaper bag is a 'Must-Have'

Take a diaper bag with baby stuff to your first pediatrician's visit. I hope that other new parents totally spaced their 'baby needs' when they first went out with their newborns, because if they didn't, we must be morons. We showed up at the pediatrician's office today to get the kid's bilirubin levels checked again and while we're waiting for the doc to come into the room, we hear the all-too familiar sound of our dear son filling his diaper. We started getting him ready to change him when we both realized we couldn't. We barely remembered a blanket and hat, let alone the basics.

Josh sheepishly asked a nurse if he had time to drive home to get our missing baby gear. She kindly offered to let us have one of their diapers, so we took it. She didn't say anything about it, but I'm hoping that smile on her face was saying she'd seen it all before.