Meeting More Family!

March 21, 2015 nk3302 Comments

Good grief, I’ve been working on this post for nearly a month! Gerrit has kept me very occupied during that time, but I really wanted to get it published finally.

While we were in Wisconsin, we mostly saw Andrew’s family. His parents flew in from Reno, and the majority of his extended family live in the state, so it was fairly easy to see everyone. My family, on the other hand, is a little more spread out! Almost all of my extended family is in Michigan, although in the winter, I also have grandparents that head down to Florida to wait out the cold. I have one sister still in Wisconsin, but the other two and my parents live down in Tennessee now. Like I said: spread out!

We spent the most time with my sister Amanda and her family. You wouldn’t have guessed it though, because I took pretty much NO photos at their house. I blame stress and lack of sleep for this. 🙂 I finally got a photo of Amanda, Gerrit, and myself at the baby shower she threw for us:

My mom’s parents drove over for our last weekend in Wisconsin. I’m thankful they were able to come over to see their newest great-grandchild before we headed south! The weather in February in the Midwest can be pretty hard to plan around. Here they are with Gerrit:

I just laugh at Gerrit’s reaction to the camera: completely solemn! One of these days he’ll realize you SMILE for the camera, not just study it intently.

My dad’s sisters had planned on driving over to meet Gerrit (and see us) that last weekend as well, but Mother Nature had other plans and dumped snow on them. They were pretty disappointed; I was too! So Gerrit will have to wait until our next trip up north to meet his crazy great aunts. 🙂

After nearly a month in Wisconsin, it was time to head down to North Carolina so Andrew could report at our next duty station. Since the rest of my family is in Tennessee, we made Chattanooga a stop on our trip. Only my mom had met Gerrit, so I was excited for my dad and youngest two sisters to meet our little guy!

Kelsi with Gerrit (sitting on his cousin!)

Kelsi’s little boy, Braxton, was pretty excited about meeting Gerrit! He wanted to hold him, play with him… pretty much anything that we would let him do ~~with~~ to Gerrit.

Aren’t they cute together?! Since meeting Gerrit, Braxton has become a big brother, and from what I hear he is loving it! I can’t wait until Gerrit and his new cousin, Nolan, are big enough to play together.

My sister Becki has said she won’t hold babies until they have some head control… so I’m glad Gerrit was almost 4 months old when she got to meet him. I wish we had had more time in Chattanooga for her to take some photos of him, because she has recently graduated with a degree in photography. Hopefully next time!

Last but not least, Gerrit had to meet my dad… his Papa! Gerrit’s middle name (Allen) is after my dad’s middle name. Since my dad didn’t get to pass on his last name to any boys, I wanted our first son to have part of his name.

I realize Gerrit doesn’t look thrilled to meet any of his family, haha, but he was much more interested in person! Like I’ve said, he is a pretty serious little guy. He really likes to observe people for awhile before he starts smiling and interacting with them. Slow to warm up to people, just like his momma. I’m hoping that the next time he sees everyone, he will get to play with them more and start to get to know them. I know he will love his crazy family!

I Am Not a Baby Person

March 11, 2015 nk3308 Comments

Yep, it’s true. I really am not a baby person.

Yes, I think they’re cute. And I love buying itty bitty clothes for them. I’ll even hold them and try to coax out a smile. But as soon as they start to squirm and fuss, I get a little panicked and start looking for Baby’s mama. And you will not find me volunteering to change a diaper!

But wait. I have a baby. How can I not be a baby person?! Actually, having a baby was my biggest fear about having a baby. If I could have birthed a 1-year-old, I would have. When I worked at the childcare center on base, I loved working with the pre-toddlers (12-24 month old kids). I occasionally would cover in an infant room, and while I didn’t hate it, I definitely was out of my comfort zone. Especially when it came to handling those little 6-week-old babies. I didn’t feel comfortable giving bottles, burping, rocking them to sleep… So when someone asked me, “Are you ready to have that baby?” I would honestly say, “Nope! He or she can stay in there til the due date!”

So, of course, our baby chose to come 3 weeks early. When I realized that my water had broken, panic ran through me. Not because I was afraid to give birth (I mean, yeah, I was, of course), but because I did not feel ready to actually have a baby in my life! But I suppose I never would have felt ready.

Look at that little guy! I felt so unprepared to care for him. Especially when it came to feeding. I think a lot of women struggle with breastfeeding in the beginning, even more so when they have to deal with something like a poor latch or a sleepy preemie. But we just got through a day at a time, and I guess somewhere along the way, I started feeling a little more confident.

But just a couple of days ago, I felt something that I hadn’t felt before. I have loved Gerrit from the moment he entered our lives, but until the other day, I hadn’t felt that powerful love moms talk about. The love I would describe as “fierce.” I was just watching Gerrit sleep, and I felt this wave of emotion that was love, tenderness, protectiveness… just an overwhelming feeling that I had never felt before. Is it a “mom” feeling or do dads feel it too? I don’t know, but it was amazing.

Here’s my little guy now:

I cannot imagine a single day without him, and I love how he makes me feel. The cuddling and snuggles are wonderful, and I just love being this little guy’s mommy! Gerrit, you have turned me into a baby person after all.

Daily living

Sleepless in… Seymour Johnson

March 9, 2015March 9, 2015 nk3306 Comments

Okay, I know I’m letting myself get too excited about this already, but Gerrit has started PUTTING HIMSELF TO SLEEP AT NIGHT. Yes!

I had been seriously struggling with his poor sleeping both at nighttime and during daytime naps. I mean, I dreaded putting him down for a nap, and my anxiety would rise as evening approached. Some nights I would only get 20-30 minutes of “me” time from the time that I put Gerrit to bed until I finally went to bed myself. It was so frustrating. Andrew would try to help, but he would get fed up with the fruitless process of rocking/patting Gerrit to sleep only to have his eyes pop back open as soon as you put him down in the Pack ‘n Play. Or Gerrit would start trying to suck his arm, and Andrew would come back out with, “He wants the boob.” So it was mostly me dealing with our Sleepless in Seymour Johnson baby. And as soon as I went to bed? Gerrit would wake up, and I would be so tired from trying to get him to sleep for the past 3+ hours that I would just bring him to bed with me. Same with naps: I would often lay down with Gerrit for his naps just so the kid would sleep longer than 20 minutes. I had NO LIFE.

Then the night before the dreaded Daylight Savings Time began, we had a change. We had had dinner with friends of ours who are also living in TLF on the base (the same ones we had had over the evening my water broke!), so Gerrit was going to sleep later than usual. I was afraid we were in for a rough night. I did my normal bedtime routine: bath, lotion, hang out with Daddy, put in sleep sack, lights out, nurse/lullaby. And when I put him down, those eyes opened just like they always do. I patted him for a few seconds, then just lay down on the bed, dreading how long this was going to take. He did his usual things: raising his legs in the air and thumping them down, making little grunts and peeps, and looking around. But then, instead of escalating, he started calming down. And then he stopped moving. I lifted up my head and looked over at him. Was he asleep?! Seriously?

I walked out to the living room and just looked at Andrew.

“What?” he asked.

“I think he just put himself to sleep,” I whispered. And then I told him what had happened.

About half an hour later, we heard him stirring. I groaned.

“Will you please try to pat him back to sleep?” I asked Andrew.

Half an hour later, he came back out. He had a funny look on his face, so I was sure he was going to tell me that I had to go in and nurse him back to sleep.

“What?” I asked. “Is he asleep?”

“Yeah,” Andrew replied. “I never touched him. I just lay down on the bed and watched him that whole time, and he went back to sleep on his own.”

We just looked at each other. And then Andrew asked the question that I had also been thinking: “How long has he been able to do this?” We worried that we had been actually interrupting him while he had been trying to put himself back to sleep for days… weeks maybe! I had read about this in one of the many books I had read, but I didn’t think the things Gerrit had been doing were actually his attempts to self-soothe himself. Funny enough, I had JUST read a blog that very day that had the leg-thumping thing listed as a self-soothing technique.

Gerrit was still asleep when I went to bed later that night. He did wake up about 3 hours after I had originally put him to sleep, so I fed him and put him back in his bed. He woke up so I let him try to self-soothe. Well, I let it go for about half an hour: him talking to himself, thumping his legs around, sucking on his tongue. But then it started to escalate, so I brought him to bed with me again. But it was definitely progress!

So here we are, the next night. And things are going well again. I’m trying not to get TOO excited, but at least now I know Gerrit CAN put himself to sleep. We may not be so sleepless in the near future!