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two months old

So, I definitely fell down on the job. Sorry about that! Isaac went back to work and I sort of forgot about keeping up on blog posts. I'll try to be better about that in the future.

It's been a month since we last updated and boy, have things changed. Isaac went back to work in mid-October. Aaron and I were very sad to see him go. We really enjoyed six weeks of family time and we recognize that we were very blessed to have had all that time together.

Here's what we've been up to since the last blog entry...

A week or so before Isaac went back to work, our good friend Meghan came over to take some professional pictures of Aaron. We think she did a tremendous job. Here are a few of her photos from that session:

Everyone says they leave the newborn stage so quickly, so we are very grateful that we got some great shots to treasure. We are looking forward to the next shoot.

Thanks Meg!

A couple of days after Isaac went back to work, we had a busy weekend of visitors. Isaac's mom, Diane, and my aunt, Shelley, came in for the weekend to meet Aaron and spend time with the family. It was so fun to introduce Aaron to his family members. We are really looking forward to the holidays when he will meet the rest of Isaac's family.

Anyone who knows Aunt Shelley might be wondering if poor Aaron survived the shopping...he did! He did brilliantly. What a trooper - he shopped (read: slept) all through the Limerick outlets. What can I say, I have a great baby!

Here are some photos from the weekend:

This is Aaron's DeeDee (Isaac's mom).

Not to be confused with TuTu (my mom). Poor kid, we aren't making it easy for him.

And here's Aaron with Aunt Shelley.

Judging from the look on his face, maybe he didn't escape the shopping as unscathed as we thought.

We didn't get many pictures from the weekend - which just means that we'll have to see both of you again soon!

The following weekend, my college roommates were in town for Villanova's homecoming weekend. It was great to catch up with the Kates (all 3!) and for them to meet Aaron.

Here's Kate (helpful, I know) with Aaron.

Again, we didn't do so great with the photo taking, so you guys will have to come back to see Aaron again soon! Or else we'll see you in fall 2010 ;)

Aaron celebrated Halloween this year as...

a turkey!!!

I fell in love with this costume before Aaron was even born and I knew he had to have it. Little did I know my son would be a butterball - making this a perfect choice. My vision is that he will also wear this outfit on Thanksgiving, which I think is entirely appropriate. His father thinks there is something odd about dressing your child up as the food you will eat. Especially when his Aunt Trice makes references to him being cute enough to eat on a regular basis. Let's hope Aaron also sees the humor in this when the photos inevitably surface when he's sixteen...

As you can see from the photos, Aaron really got the hang of the trick or treating thing. He was holding onto that pumpkin bucket for dear life. Too bad it only held two pieces of candy at a time...it really cramped his style. Better luck next year buddy! (and maybe next year, you can actually EAT the candy...maybe...)

A word to the wise, stay tuned to future blog posts for more turkey suit photos ;)

Other than these adventures, Aaron and I are slowly finding a routine and rhythm to our daily schedule. I am so grateful that I get to spend everyday with him - I can spend hours just staring at him sleep or watching him make funny faces. He sleeps well and eats well, which you can probably tell from his photos! We have our next doctor's appointment this week, so we'll find out how much weight our little butterball has gained.

He has also started to smile a lot more now and even laugh sometimes. I've only been able to catch the smile on my cell phone camera - he's a sly little bugger and he wipes the smile right off his face when he sees the camera come out. I'll keep trying to capture it so I can post it for everyone to see. It brings us so much joy to watch him. The pictures really don't do him justice.

Aaron also loves the fish on his crib bedding and in his mobile. Sometimes I go into his room and find him just cracking up with the fishies. Apparently, his fish are hilarious. Isaac is hoping his love of fish is a good sign for his fly fishing future. Personally, I'm a little worried that he currently has a better relationship with those fish than he does with his parents. We practically stand on our heads trying to get a laugh out of him and those fish get one every time!

Until the next post, I'll leave you with a few more gratuitous baby pics. Hopefully you'll be reading more from us sooner rather than later.

This is a classic Aaron face (sorry it's so blurry)

Daddy and Aaron

My personal favorite - I entitled this one:

What's wrong with this picture?

Apparently Daddy was sleeping on the job. Good thing someone was awake.

Normal Life?

So, week 4 is just about over, and we are starting to wonder if life will ever be "normal" again. I'm sure it doesn't help that neither of us have had anywhere to be or anything to do for the last 4 weeks, but at the same time, I shudder to think what we would have done if we did!

I know people's lives go on after they have kids, but at this point, this whole parenting thing still seems pretty all-consuming. It is wonderfully all-consuming. I wouldn't want anyone to think that we aren't happy. But between the erratic feeding schedule, non-stop diaper changing, and trying to sleep, it starts to feel like you will never be able to do anything requiring you to be away from home for more than 2 hours again. Nevertheless, we are doing our best to regain some sense of normalcy.

We've been trying to take short trips around town just to get out of the house, and reconnect with the outside world. One of our first family outings was a trip to Linvilla Orchards. Fall means pumpkins at Linvilla, and Aaron certainly got his fair share of pumpkins.

I can't say that he was a big fan, but really anything that interrupts his sleep is not received with much enthusiasm. He takes after his old man in that respect.

Our next big trip was to Mrs. Marty's Deli with Tutu, uncle Josh and aunt Trice. This was a little more ambitious, as it required being in a confined public space for an extended period of time.

Surprisingly, Aaron stayed awake for most of the time, and was very well behaved. I saw him eyeing up my hash browns a couple of the times, but all in all he played it pretty cool.

Our final outing in these last few weeks was to Ridley Creek State Park. We've been enjoying some beautiful early fall weather, so we decided to take advantage of it and go for an extended walk.

As with most everything we do, Aaron enjoyed it by sleeping.

We did our best to wake him up so he could enjoy the scenery, but he seemed to prefer the back of his eyelids.

So little by little, we do what we can to reclaim our lives and try to figure out what normal life looks like with this crazy little man.

Back at home, Aaron is starting to explore the vast array of colorful, musical, and all around overwhelming toys that he has received over the last few months. Here are a couple of shots of his first encounter with his jungle floor gym.

He responded how you would expect anyone to respond if you were plopped down in the middle of a fluorescent, polyester jungle, filled with exotic animal noises and a stuffed monkey bigger than your head. Not to mention the fact that you don't have control of your body parts, and you can't move. I would say that he pooped himself, but that wouldn't really be anything out of the ordinary.

He does seems to be enjoying it more and more every day, and pretty soon I'm sure he'll be showing that monkey who's boss.

Aside from a few minutes of jungle exploration each day, the main way we spend our time is sleeping. Aaron's favorite place to sleep is on Mommy's chest (Mommy doesn't seem to mind it much either).

So that's about it for now. Hopefully my next post will find us feeling a little more settled in, but with only two weeks of paternity leave left, real life is coming whether we are ready or not.

I leave you with this last picture. It's one of Sarah's favorites. What kind of parents would we be if we didn't take advantage of our child's goofy faces for our own amusement and entertainment?

A Rocky Start

Well, we are home, but the first few days were hardly smooth sailing...

We came home with a portable UV vest called a Wallaby, which was meant to continue treating Aaron's jaundice.

He didn't seem to mind it too much, but his parents were not so excited. We were concerned that it was making him too hot, so we spent the first night taking shifts staying up with him. We were still on adrenaline overload at that point, so it wasn't too bad.

The second day we were home, Sarah started feeling funny. I know, you're probably thinking, "She just pushed out a 9lb 2oz, melon headed munchkin. How did you expect her to be feeling?" But this was more of a dizziness, shortness of breath, all the worst warning signs on the medicine bottle, kind of freaking out that you are about to die feeling. So, barely 24 hours after we left the hospital, Sarah went back; this time to the ER.

Sarah's mom came over to take her so that I could stay with Aaron. And there we were, our first boys night in. So we did what anyone does on a boys night - we drank.

Well, Aaron drank. They had started him on formula in the hospital to help with the jaundice, so I took over feeding duty when Sarah left for the hospital. Meanwhile, I just tried to maintain my composure after experiencing the emotional zenith of my first child's birth, followed by the devastating uncertainty of my wife going to the ER, all on almost no sleep for more than three days. Needless to say, I wasn't in my best form.

Thankfully, Sarah was able to come home after four or five hours in the hospital. They determined that she had some sort of infection, so they pumped her full of antibiotics, and sent her home with prescriptions for more. After a lot of rest, and a few days of antibiotics, she started to perk right up.

We even got out for a few minutes to enjoy some beautiful pre-fall weather.

Aaron enjoyed our walk in the same way that he enjoys just about everything - by sleeping.

So finally, it seems that we are starting to settle in to our life as a family. Not that there aren't plenty of challenges, but hopefully we'll stay out of the hospital for a while!

This post was a little light on cute baby pictures, so here are a few to keep you coming back. That's really why you are here isn't it?

Getting Settled

Well, it's been a tough couple of days, but we are finally home and getting settled in. I apologize that it has taken so long to get pictures out, but here is a summary of the last few days.



Let's start at the beginning. Aaron was born at 1:26pm on Tuesday, September 2nd (almost a week early). After about 14 hours of labor, he came out a little blue. But after a few seconds of oxygen he pinked right up.

When Sarah started pushing, the doctor told us that, "this was not going to be a small baby," but we never expected 9lb 2oz!

The doctor actually thought that Sarah was going to have to have a c-section, because the baby was not fitting under her pelvic bone. She knew that we really didn't want to go down that route, so she stuck with us longer than most probably would have.

We were very thankful that he was able to make it without the c-section, and also to have a doctor that was so willing to work with us.

Right away we knew he had many of Sarah's features, including a full head of dark hair. So far the only features of mine that I see are a large head, excessive birth weight, and an indomitable desire for sleep.

It's impossible to describe the emotions that we were feeling when we saw Aaron for the first time. Relief, exhilaration and exhaustion are just a few.

Eventually, we got moved up to our room in the maternity section. Sarah's Mom, Marianne (a.k.a. Tutu), was with us through the whole labor. She has been incredibly helpful both during and after the delivery. I don't think we could have done this without her.

Around the second day in the hospital, the pediatrician stopped in to check Aaron out. He said that he was a little concerned about his bilirubin levels (pronounced like Billy Ruben, but one word). Now, at the time I didn't really know what bilirubin was, but it sounded kind of funny for a medical term. So I started pondering as to what other types of "rubins" there were floating around in his body. Maybe a matthewrubin, or a charleyrubin, or maybe a cornedbeefrubinwithsauerkrautontoastedrye? These are the delusional thoughts of a sleep deprived man.

Well, it turns out that bilirubin is actually a byproduct of red blood cells breaking down. This is a normal process in all of our bodies, and the resulting bilirubin is ultimately eliminated by the liver. These levels are naturally higher in newborns because they are eliminating the blood cells they used in the womb, but their livers are not yet fully functional, and they sometimes can't keep up. This results in what most people know as jaundice.

Anyway, that night they put Aaron on this thing called a bili bed, which lights up with UV lights. This helps draw out the biliruben through the skin while the liver is catching up. It was a little disturbing at first having our baby strapped into this glowing blue bed, but he actually loved it! I'm kind of hoping that it will give him super powers.

Well, our final day at the hospital arrived, and we had mixed emotions, to say the least. We were excited to be going home, but also terrified about actually taking this baby back into our world. There is a certain level of comfort that comes from being surrounded by knowledgeable, friendly people who can answer all your questions, and who are constantly monitoring you and the baby to be sure everything is ok. But our time had come, and we suited up Aaron in his Sunday best.

The trip home was mostly uneventful. Of course I drove slower than I've ever driven in my life, and there were more than a few unnecessary gasps from the back seat. But we made it.

So here we are. Now the fun really begins...

But that is for another post. For now I will say that we are all doing well, and getting more rest with each passing day. Aaron is awesome, and we love him to bits. I can't imagine a better baby. Who knows what the future holds, but for now, by the grace of God, we are taking it day by day.

Thanks to everyone who has called or emailed or stopped in to visit. We love you, and we have truly felt loved by you.

Stay tuned for more terrifying, exhilarating and exhausting updates from life with the Greenslades!