Celebrating 2 Months

As of Thursday Swen is officially two months old! The first couple weeks that Swen was home went by pretty slowly. Matt and I decided that it was because we never had regular "night time." Being up every hour or two for days on end makes the days seem twice as long. Also, our pediatrician strongly encouraged us not to leave the house with him for a month, and of course we followed her advice, so that also made time go by slower. Swen is still not the best sleeper, but I guess I've gotten used to it because the last month in a half seem to have disappeared. Look how sweet he is. His hair is starting to fall out. Sad :(

I used to wonder what moms would do at home all day with one little baby. They must be bored, lazy, or just really bad at managing their time. I think my rude judging may be the reason Swen is such a "high needs baby." I read in one of my favorite books not to call a baby fussy, but rather high needs. So that's what I do. He still loves to be held all the time, and usually he makes us stand up while holding him. He LOVES to be put way up over my shoulder while I walk around the house, so he can see everything around him. Somehow he notices when I sit down. He must be a genius. When he is sleepy, he likes to rock until he is asleep. Once he is asleep, he doesn't like to be disturbed at all. Even just going from my arms to someone else, he screams for a second, then falls back asleep. The only time he will sleep by himself for any length of time is at night (which I am grateful for). Like I said earlier, he is a genius, so he knows that when it is day time, he can be held while he's asleep, and that's what he wants. He also hates his car seat. I hear of people going for a drive to put their babies to sleep. Swen cries the second he gets in it. I don't blame him one bit. I would hate to have my chest strapped down for any period of time. Writing this paragraph reminds me one of my pet peeves. I apologize ahead of time if this is a question you have asked me. Every where I go both people I know and strangers ask me the question, "Is he a good baby?" My initial reaction is to yell right back and say, "YES! Of course he is a good baby. He has only been on earth for two months, and he came straight from heaven." It is a silly question because there is no such thing as a bad baby. I know people aren't meaning anything negative by this question, but I guess I get mad because some people might think Swen is not a "good" baby. He is more than good; he is perfect. And he is very high needs. :) Here is Matt doing work while tending to Swen's high needs. He is such a great dad and husband. I love him so much.

For the most part I really love how needy Swen is. I love to snuggle with him, talk to him, walk with him, and rock him. It's hard sometimes, but I really try to cherish my time with him because I can already see that time goes by so fast, and soon he may not want to snuggle. The one time I don't love it so much  is when there is housework to do. While I was teaching the last four years, I hated doing housework. I was so exhausted when I got home, and I usually had school for the next day on my mind, so housework was not a priority. I would put it off until it was awful, and then finally cave and do it. Then I would get grumpy while I was cleaning. Matt would always go clean in a totally different room from me because I would be so grumpy. Now that I am home full time, I really enjoy cleaning. I love that I can be in a clean house every second of the day, always having  a made bed, and always being caught up on laundry so it never gets too overwhelming. The last two months have mostly consisted of snuggling my perfect little boy or doing housework, and somehow those two things have made the last two months fly by. Here we are snuggling in the middle of the night. He looks so tired yet doesn't want to sleep.

However, this last weekend consisted of a lot of exciting things besides snuggling Swen (which is also very exciting). First was his two month appointment. I've been so excited to go and see how much he weighs. When he was born, he was 5 pounds 6 ounces. When his pediatrician told me that this was in the second percentile, I cried. It just made me so worried that he was so small. I knew he was little, but hearing the percentile made him sound even smaller, and I wasn't prepared for a premature baby. I then had to continue going in for weigh-ins weekly to ensure he was still gaining weight and that breastfeeding was working for him. In the hospital they told me that preemies don't breastfeed well and chances are he would need to be tube fed through his nose, and then eventually bottle fed. This didn't stop me from trying, and I am so lucky to have a baby who LOVES to nurse. It did take some effort and time, but it was so worth it. So when we went in the next week he was still gaining weight, and he had moved up to the 4th percentile! His doctor was so proud of him moving up that much, and she said we didn't need to come in anymore for weigh-ins until his two month check up. Are you ready for this? He weighed 11 pounds 2 ounces and is now in the 35th percentile! Best news ever. He also went up from the 5th to the 17th percentile in height and head circumference. Here he is at the doctor. 

The other great part about his two-month appointment is that I was reassured of his health and development. I worry all the time. I really mean all the time. In the beginning my fears were rational. Is his breathing strong enough (he was being watched because of how early he was)? Is he gaining weight? Is he going to the bathroom enough so I know he is well fed? It then went a little crazy, but probably normal for some moms, like the fear of SIDS. Then the worry went into full blown crazy. I would google things on my phone in the middle of the night and decide he had things such as Down's Syndrome or cancer. Yeah, it was bad. I think that part of the reason I worry is that my life thus far has been easy. Though not perfect by any means, I know of so many people who have such hard struggles in life, and I never have. Life has always gone the way I've wanted. It never came easy, and I had to work for things, but I have never had anything "bad" happen. Sometimes I don't feel deserving of my infinite blessings, so I worry something will happen to Swen because he means everything to me now. I know my fears aren't rational, but in the middle of the night, they sure seem real. At the doctor I was assured that he was perfectly healthy in every way. The only negative part of the appointment were his shots. He was not a happy camper the rest of the day or night. This is how he was the entire day.


Luckily the next morning he felt much better because it was Neil Diamond Day! My mom got us tickets to go see him when I was just a few months pregnant. He is one of our favorite singers. Swen would only have been a month old at the time of the concert, had he been born near his due date, so he would have been able to sleep at home with Matt during the concert. Many things were wrong with this assumption. First, he came 4-1/2 early. Second, he doesn't have any sort of sleep pattern yet, and when he gets mad and wants food, there is nothing that calms him down except to nurse. Lastly, Matt had to work that night. I wasn't going to miss this concert, so my mom called the stadium, and they said infants are more than welcome. Hooray! When we got in line at the stadium, people were looking at us with mean glares. I'm sure they thought, "Why would she bring her baby here?" I kept praying to myself that we would be sitting by nice people who like babies. Sure enough, the couple that came and sat by us were also die hard Neil fans, but they also loved Swen. The first thing they said to me was, "Nice job exposing him to good music early in life!" Throughout the whole concert, Swen slept and danced in our arms. Once it was over, everyone walking by stopped to tell me how cute he was, and how fun it was that I brought him. Neil is that great; he made baby haters into baby lovers! Here is my mom, Swen and I before we left.

It was a great weekend to celebrate our two months with baby Swen, and these next few weeks might be even better! My mom planned to throw a shower for me with some friends on June 2nd. The cute invites had gone out and everything. Then Swen came, so of course we had to cancel it. Now it is going to be this Saturday, and I'm so excited. Swen is also getting blessed in our church on Sunday, which is something I've been waiting for since he was born.  It will be surreal watching Matt bless our son! Oh, and my Grandma from Oregon is coming for the weekend, so she will finally get to meet Swen. Our next goal is getting up to Washington to meet my other grandma and up to Wyoming to meet Matt's grandma. Swen will also be taking his first airplane ride to California in a couple weeks. Disneyland here we come!

This blog is really long, but I have one last short story. Last week Matt said something like, "Poor little ear Swen." I had no idea what he was talking about, and then I looked, and Swen's right earlobe definitely sticks out! Just his ear lobe. Weird right? Then I asked my mom if she notcied his ear, and she said, "Yes, honey of course I noticed his ear." I look at him all day, and didn't realize his little earlobe sticks out on one side. How funny. You can see it pretty well in this picture.

Here are just two more of my favorite pictures. One is a boring day in church, so we use Swen to entertain us.