Work/Life Balance (Derek)

My manager was nice enough to allow me to work from home for a few days after I completed my 5 days off. Below is a picture of how my working style has changed for these few days.

Being a new parent is a tiring & entertaining experience (Derek)

It is pretty common to hear new parents say that they are tired. I now know what they are talking about. Lacie and I have a system at night; she takes care of feeding and I am responsible for taking care of the random crying between feedings which typically involves me stuffing a binky in his mouth over and over. Although we have a system, we are both somewhat tired. We have even turned over some of the babysitting duties to Peyton:
Yes, I know that I look a bit rough but I just woke up.

Entertaining experience of the day:
Lacie was changing Braedon's diaper a bit too slowly today and Braedon decided to relieve a bit of bladder pressure before a new diaper was on. He sent a nice jet of urine right for the face...his face. Luckily he is the only one to get that kind of action so far.

Daily Update (Derek)

I don't know if we have blogged much about Peyton and her interest in Braedon (I could look but decided not to) so I will cover this now. Peyton has been very curious about Braedon and she has spent a significant amount of time checking him out which includes some licks. She appears to even have some maternal instincts because when he cries, she rushes over to him and starts licking him. It is extremely cute. In addition to the curiousness and motherly instincts, Peyton also seems to be a bit jealous that Braedon can be on the couch and she can't. Below is a picture of Peyton pushing the limits of what is allowed. We decided that since she has been so good with Braedon, we will now allow her on the couch. Yes, our dog is spoiled.


Here is a shot of Peyton having to be in the middle of attention. I know, the pajama bottoms are hot!

Lacie was pretty upset to find out that she can't work out for 6 weeks but the good news is that she has already lost 15 of the 25 pounds that she gained during this pregnancy. She is looking pretty good if I do say so myself. Here is a shot of her in a pre-maternity top and jeans.

Here is a shot of Braedon that was taken today. He just keeps getting cuter and cuter.

The reason for my blogging a fair bit is that I am on paternity leave and since I am used to writing 100+ emails per day I guess that I have to have some form of written outlet.

Lacie vs. Derek (Derek)

It's a pretty fun game to look at a kid and decide which attributes he gets from which parent. Here is what we have observed:

1. Feeding: Braedon loves to eat. Takes after both of us!
2. Ears: Braedon's earlobes are not attached. Gets this from his mother.
3. Lips: Braedon is going to go through a lot of capstick when he gets older. Definitely takes after Derek.
4. Hands & Feet: Braedon has larger hands and feet with minimal webbing. The larger hands could have been Lacie or Derek but the lack of extra webbing throws this trait to Derek.
5. Hair: Braedon was born with dirty blonde hair. Lacie was born with white hair and Derek was born with dark brown hair so this one is a tie.
6. Nose: Braedon has a cute little nose. You can't tell who's nose a baby has!

So far we think that he got most of my visual traits and Lacie even made the comment that if he hadn't come out of her, she would have asked who the mother was. All I can say is that hopefully Braedon has Lacie's athletic ability because she is a natural athlete and I am an athlete purely by dedication.

Things that I have learned (Derek)

I have been around kids my whole life so I like to think of myself as good with kids but by no means an expert. After going through child birth as an active participant and having experienced the first few days of life, I now consider myself much more wise in the way of babies. I am still not an expert, but I did pick up a few things along this journey that has only begun.

1. People say that there is no such thing as an ugly baby. I am here to tell you that there is no such thing as a beautiful newborn because when you see them come out you are mildly freaked out by the limp, blue, cone shaped object that is supposedly a baby. Thankfully the baby gets much cuter very quickly.
2. There are all kinds of things that happen to a woman's body due to pregnancy that people should never have to go through and I am thankful that men just have to observe the changes.
3. Mothers and babies are not naturals at breastfeeding despite what I always thought. And dang...that must hurt! Was the delivery not painful enough?
4. The first night at home is an interesting one and I am glad that I was wise enough to take Braedon into the other room so that Lacie could get some much needed sleep which allowed her to be much more capable of handling the next day's activities. When I took Braedon into the other room I ended up laying on the couch with Braedon on my chest and we both passed out for 3 1/2 hours. I know that it is not recommended to sleep with your baby, but it was one of the most rewarding naps that I have ever taken.
5. I have a heck of a lot left to learn.

Here are a few more pictures because what is a post without pictures?

More Braedon Pictures

Braedon has ARRIVED! (Derek)

Monday Lacie and I were sitting on the couch enjoying a nice bit of TV and I decided that her belly would make a wonderful drawing board so I went to town. It was a lot of fun. At about 8pm Lacie started to feel contractions for the first time (she had been experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions for about a week but this was the first real one) and we thought that it would be funny if the writing didn't wash off and she went into labor with words all over her belly.

At 1am Lacie woke up because of the contractions but she was nice enough to not wake me up. At about 2am Peyton noticed that something was going on and she put her front paws on the bed and was just staring at Lacie (she never does anything like that which makes this all the more interesting). After checking out Lacie, Peyton came over to me and licked my face which woke me up. At that point I found out that Lacie was having some strong contractions and all of a sudden our joke about Lacie going into labor became a little more real. After a little while Lacie gave up on sleep and went out to watch television. Shortly after that, I gave up on sleeping as well and decided that it would be a good thing to get work caught up before I had to go into the hospital. At about 5am we both decided that it was time to sleep for a while and thankfully I was able to fall asleep...I don't know if Lacie was able to but this blog is about me...or is it actually about Braedon? Lacie's contractions continued to get stronger throughout the morning which provided me time to get some more work done while we waited for the magical hour that said "this baby is really coming so get to the hospital". The hour arrived at about noon so we got the car loaded and went to Quizno's (yes, we had our priorities straight). We arrived at the hospital at 1.30pm on Tuesday and the nurse confirmed that Lacie really was in labor and was 3.5-4 centimeters dilated so we had to walk the halls for a bit.

Lacie was in absolute heaven. She seemed to really enjoy the walk because every 3-5 minutes she stopped moving and got really quiet; this is a sure sign that she was enjoying the ambiance or maybe the company. At about 3:20pm we were officially admitted and were assigned our delivery suite (which I like to think of as a hotel suite with only one person's comfort in mind). Lacie was a real trooper and continued to work through the pain of the contractions in silence. She kept walking the halls for quite a while before deciding to jump, or maybe crawl, into a warm bathtub. Once Lacie got too pruney and was in too much pain, she decided that it was time for an epidural (I was impressed that she made it that long). Once the drugs took effect she seemed quite happy.

Things slowed down a bit after the epidural but she kept progressing. It took her about 6.5 hours to dilate the final 5cm (she hit 10cm at 1.30am). The doctor decided to have Lacie labor down for a while which turned into 3 hours and Braedon didn't budge from 0 station! The doctor then decided that it was time for Lacie to just start pushing which she continued to do for the next 3.5 hours until Braedon made his appearance. Poor guy had a bit of a cone head from the "tight squeeze".

Okay, so this picture is from the next day but it is so cute that I decided to act like he didn't come out looking like a the by-product of a conehead and smurf getting together. It was so great to see Braedon (I actually almost cried when I saw him for the first time) and get to hold him. Since he made his appearance he has been the sweetest boy. Oh, and mom (it is crazy to think that we are parents now) was very excited to get to eat again as you can see.

Now if only Braedon were to pee so that we could go home as he was born 33 hours ago and we were ready to leave (aside from his first pee) 6 hours ago.

Vitals

Name: Braedon Jon Peterson

DOB: 5/6/2009 at 0807

Weight: 6 lbs 13.8 oz

Height (not length): 20 inches