Colic behind the scenes

While there is much cause for celebration in Joshua's growth and weight gain, his coos and his smiles, there are things that club me over the head sometimes, too.  Increasingly, he's becoming more colic-y and, man, that is a trial and a half.  Yesterday I was exhausted and didn't have the energy to walk him and bounce him for hours like he wanted me to do.  (This was after a particularly trying weekend.  After the wonderful Visitation baby shower,  Saturday was hard and Joshua had obviously given all his good-natured energy there and there was none left for home.)  It seemed like nothing I did worked to calm him down.  I thought about putting him in his car seat and driving around, since that is a sure-fire way to konk him out, but I would have to leave the house to do so, and I was still unshowered, in my pajamas, my hair a bushy, frizzy mess, and I didn't have the energy to deal with putting myself together while Joshua cried at me.  So I hunkered down and waited for Paul to come home.  Bless his amazing heart!  Teaching, while there are wonderful highs, is a high-stress job.  He came home from a rough day and was so kind.  He swept Joshua up in his arms and let me decompress.  I am so thankful for his generous heart. 

Today I had energy and motivation, so I showered, did my hair, and ran some errands.  Luckily, Joshua was amenable and even took a little catnap in his swing while I diffused my hair before we left.  The day went more smoothly, but it's because I had enough energy to change things up with different toys, to walk and bounce him around the house when he needed calming, to take Joshua and Pip on a long walk around the neighborhood despite the rain, and to overall just deal with the stress better.  When Paul got home, Joshua seemed calmer and fell asleep in his mamaroo bouncer.  I took this as my exit cue and slipped up to take a nap before taking over for the night.  When I woke up at 8:30 ish a couple hours later, it was to come downstairs to a crying baby and one tired just-barely-hanging-in-there husband.  I was fresh and was able to slip in and let him take a step back and chill a bit before he headed up to bed. 

Holy cow parenting is INTENSE! Before Joshua came along, when I saw friends' posts about their new babies- especially those who had experienced infertility like we had- I got irritated.  Yes, it was out of jealousy, but also because it seemed that they couldn't talk or share anything that didn't revolve around their child.  I thought to myself that there were other aspects about them that I used to be able to share and relate to and that now they were ignoring those things and were choosing to focus on their baby to the exclusion of all else.  In this new journey, I am eating humble pie like it's going out of style.  I'm finding that, for me, caring for Joshua DOES sometimes consume my life to the exclusion of all else.  I would love to have a balance of my interests, and time with Paul, and time for self care, but the scales have tipped irreversibly.  Sometimes Joshua does take every single ounce of energy and strength I can give.  I am willing, but experience days of lethargy, tears, and frustration.  I'm so thankful for my Mom and Dad who are a phone call away that I can turn to for counsel, advice and, most of all love and reassurance that I'm doing a good job.

It's silent in the house right now.  There are dirty bottles in the sink that I have no intention of washing before I finish this post and go up to bed.  The family room desperately needs to be vacuumed, and that, too, can wait.  Lights are off with the exception of the baby monitor I have by my elbow as I type this, the Roku screensaver on the tv, and the white Christmas lights that are still up around the mantle because Joshua loves to look at them.  The four mylar balloons from the Visitation baby shower are tied various places- to his mobile above his pack and play, to a paper bag that we slide by his changing table so he can see the balloon while he we change his diaper, and another one is on the ceiling.  Baby paraphernalia is everywhere- convenient, close, but resting right now.  Paul is asleep.  Joshua is asleep.  Pippin is curled up on the love seat waiting for me to finish so we can go up to bed together.  Mali is cuddled up in one of Pippin's old puppy beds that he never used.  It's outside the guest room door in the hallway where she beds down for the night.  Deep, calm breaths, Elison family.  We can do this.

Weight update and Visitation celebration

My first fancy church outfit.  Vest and sweatpants.  Best of both worlds.

Today we got the good news at the pediatrician's that Joshua has more than doubled his body weight! He's gone from 4lb 4oz to 8lb 10oz. Huzzah!! She'd like to see him growing faster,  but he just won't eat the 20 oz. a day that she wants him to, so we're upping the amount of formula to water ratio to give him more of a caloric bang for our buck.

Those eyelashes!

Sleepy time in church.

This past week on Friday was such a special event.  Visitation Catholic (where Paul works) threw Joshua a baby shower.  Towards the end of the school day,  parents decorated their cafeteria space, set out cake and drinks for everyone,  and then one by one the teachers brought their classes through so they could meet Joshua and bring a present for him if they wanted to. Everyone was so sweet.  The kids were darling in their reactions and the adults were so excited and happy for us. I love the school families Paul and I are a part of.   When Samuel passed away,  Father Michael focused the school's Friday mass on him and on our family.  It was the closest thing we had to a funeral for him.  It's wonderful to have a community that you can both mourn and rejoice with. 

Celebrate good times!

Ok, folks, we have officially reached the halfway mark.  The state of Utah, where Joshua was born, requires a six month waiting period until adoptions are finalized.  Today Joshua is three months old, so he's halfway to ours legally!  He has given us a FANTASTIC three month present.  For the past three nights, he has slept all the way through the night- one sleep was 8 hrs. 42 min., the next was 9 hrs. 9 min., and last night was 9 hrs. 13 min.  It's amazing how functional we both become when we've had enough sleep.  One month ago, I noted in his baby book that he was just moving toward 3 hours of sleep at a time during the night.  Way to go, little one.  Mommy and Daddy thank you profusely.

According to my yard stick and my home scale, (the scale is a bit hit or miss with his little body), Joshua is now 20 inches long and weighs about 8 lb. 2 oz.  He's really close to having doubled his weight.  Huzzah!!

Here's our running total:
1 month= 5 lb. 10.7 oz
2 months= 6 lb. 15 oz.
3 months= (I think we're at) 8 lb 2 oz.

And with that, I have to run.  Little boy is fighting me on sleeping during the day and is now awake again... after a whopping 10 minutes. sigh.  ooop- just kidding.  False alarm.  He's settled back down.  Phew.  Love to all of you!

That's his "I'm looking at my toy Eeyore that Mommy is holding" smile.

So tiny!

He has only one or two more wearings of these cute jammies before he's too big for them.

Christmas of bliss and exhaustion

Fun facts about Joshua as of today:

• He's 12.5 weeks old and will be three months old on Friday.
• At his last pediatrician's appointment, he weighed 7 lb. 7.9 oz. (I think he's close to 8 lb. now)
• The only toy he is taken with so far is his little stuffed Eeyore

Like most people, Paul and I love Christmas.  We were married at Christmastime and love the decorations, the songs, the sacred and the secular.  I didn't think anything could top it- until we experienced it with Joshua.  Suddenly, we were examining the traditions we had as children and were deciding how to blend them and what things to add to make our own family's traditions.  Though still too little to understand, Joshua was enthralled with the lights and his two favorite things to stare at are the Christmas stockings hanging from the mantle piece and the felt advent calendar from Paul's childhood that hangs up behind my rocking chair downstairs.  We've seriously considered leaving these things up year round.

To make things even more memorable, my parents were able to fly in Christmas morning and spend the next four days with us.  I've spoken of the healing that is taking place in my heart and in Paul's, but it extends beyond us.  My sweet parents have comforted and supported a brokenhearted daughter who has had this open wound of childlessness and infertility throughout her adult life.  What a special experience to see my Dad cuddling with Joshua in the rocking chair and to hear my Mom sing the same songs to Joshua that she sang to me and my siblings.  We're trying to get Joshua to eat more, and one evening I was so stressed because he wouldn't eat well that I broke down crying.  I'm the mom.  I'm supposed to get him to eat when no one else can, right?  My Mom just slipped over to me and said, "Let me take him."  She's been doing that my whole life- when something is too hard for me to bear, she's at my side helping me carry it.

So Christmas was wonderful and there was a lot of tag-team napping going on. I'm finding out (and I have a sneaking suspicion that this state of being does not go away) that a lot of being a parent is being exhausted a good amount of the time.  It doesn't sound hard to take care of someone who spends the day eating, getting his diaper changed, and sleeping, but, dang it,  IT IS sometimes.  Though mostly good-natured and easy to soothe, Joshua has his days when he's fussy and fretful.  I know I'm going to say the most obvious thing here, but those are TOUGH.  I've tried to find reasons- like gas pains or growth spurts, but I wonder if sometimes there isn't a reason and he's just out of sorts. Knowing that these days "too shall pass" help get me through (though those moments of calm normally come after a good cry).

Something that I'm trying to find the balance of is advice on how to raise Joshua.  Trying to do this "right," I've done reading and research and have been given some great advice by friends and family.  However, I'm finding that some of it contradicts the other stuff and that by trying to follow all of it, I get stressed out.  I've come to the conclusion that I need to listen to and seek good information and advice and then see what fits for our family.  It's not going to look the same as other families because Paul, Joshua, and I are different people & that's ok.  There's a lot of freedom and relief in that conclusion.