1 Month Old

I'm a week or two (or four) late - so sue me. I'm just a little busy with a newborn, a full time job, and a house and a life to keep in order.

 

 

 

Clark is one month old! He is 8 pounds, 4 ounces and measures 21 inches. He eats 3 ounces every 3 hours, sleeps (mostly) in his bassinet in between feedings, recognizes daddy's voice, and keeps his eyes firmly planted on his momma no matter who is holding him. His likes include sleeping, snuggling with mom and dad, eating, sitting in his bouncy seat, and taking warm baths. Clark's dislikes include diaper changes, being awake, and being in his swing while awake (double whammy!).

 

He is getting very good at grabbing onto things like a knitted blanket and momma's long hair, is a champion belcher (like, grown man beer drinking burps...impressive and a little gross all at once!), and he's finally starting to fill out his newborn clothes.

 

Some highlights from this month were: taking his first out of town trip to see Aunt Tammy, Uncle Bob, Aunt Robin, Morgan, Aunt Becky, and Nick and Janna, going to church for the first time and sleeping through the whole service except the music (just like when he was in mom's belly!), and being mom's assistant at work. Momma's co-workers love him so much that they are disappointed on days when I don't bring him with me!

 

A couple of lowlights from his first month were an unexpected hospital stay (all better now!), and having some of his hair fall out on top of his head while simultaneously battling his first bout of acne - a combination that momma has coined his 'teenage-slash-old-man phase'...luckily, this should pass quickly.

 

His nicknames are vast depending on who you ask, but the ones that seem to have stuck the most so far are 'Bubba' (from Momma), 'Tooters' (also from Momma), 'Clarkie' (from Daddy), 'Clark the Shark' (also from Daddy), and 'Booger Butt' (from Aunt Tammy). I'm sure he'll appreciate those in his senior yearbook!

   

 

 

Swing or Torture Chamber?

Clark may only be 6 weeks old, but he already has a pretty distinct list of likes and dislikes. Much like his mom and dad, there is no real grey area for him when it comes to his temperament - when he is displeased, he lets it be known.

 

He's very particular about his preferences, and he's not afraid to let you know if you aren't obliging his wishes. Clark isn't a huge fan of being awake, so it is a bit of a struggle to keep his eyes open during the day. He will tolerate being alert for about 45 minutes immediately after eating, but only if you are bouncing him. We have biceps of steel after continuously bouncing the equivalent of a bowling ball for an hour at a time multiple times a day. And his choice of view whilst being bounced must be either staring at us or the ceiling fan. I would like to think that I am his preference to look at, but really, it's a tight race with the fan.

 

When our arms give out and we can't hold him any longer, Clark will accept being placed in his bouncy seat, but his first choice is to be in the carrier that is strapped to my chest. Sidebar: I am pretty sure there is security footage from Toys R Us that would win an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos starring yours truly trying to get myself and my baby into and out of various baby wearing contraptions. Thirty minutes and a sweaty, uncoordinated new mom later, we settled on the one that has a 6 point 'click' system so that I could rest assured that I probably wouldn't be dropping my baby on the floor when placing him in said carrier.

 

The downfall of both the carrier and the bouncy seat is that Clark uses them both as beds. This kid LOVES his sleep, and will take any opportunity he can find to catch some shuteye. Searching for something that we could use when our arms get tired from bouncing him and also wanting to promote awake time, we recently introduced Clark to his fancy schmancy baby swing.

 

This swing has 5 speeds, 10 noise options ranging from songs to ocean waves to crickets chirping, an adjustable volume switch, and hanging koalas for him to look at while swinging. Ryan spent an hour assembling the swing using an instruction manual entirely made of complicated diagrams, and I made a late night run to the store for the right size batteries because I couldn't wait one more minute to put him in it. He loves being swung to and fro when in his carseat and his bouncy seat, so we just knew that he would also love his swing. 

 

The verdict? He hates it. Like, really hates it. We're talking 'scream your head off for fifteen consecutive minutes while your mom tries every noise/volume/speed setting and tries to reason with you and tell you how much you love your swing, which just seems to make you angrier' hates it.

 

 

As a mom, I do pretty well with his crying. I don't ever rush to pick him up, but instead I try to give him a few minutes to work it out on his own. Before you send me an email, I carefully watch to make sure he is okay and not in danger, and then I try talking to him or offering his pacifier or various other methods to help him practice self soothing. Then, I set a time limit of when I will pick him up if he hasn't calmed himself down. My one caveat to this rule is when he gets real tears. Real tears rolling down his cheek and that sweet bottom lip curled under, and I am rendered helpless. Such was the case this morning after his swing induced meltdown, so I caved and rescued him from the apparently terrifying koala contraption.

 

 

Five minutes of cuddling on mom's chest and staring at the ceiling fan, and all was right in Clark's world. He used his harrowing experience to his advantage and looked so peaceful and content that I gave in and let him go to sleep on me. As much as I would love to cuddle him all day long, this house doesn't clean itself and we can't afford a live in maid, so I bundled him up in one of his favorite blankets and we tried the swing again.

 

 

It turns out that as long as he is sound asleep and has no awareness of where he is, he is mostly okay with the swing. So now his list of things to use as a bed include (in extremely particular order): mom and dad's arms, the carrier, his bouncy seat, a bassinet, and a swing.

Babies Are Gross..And Adorable...But Mostly Gross

If our house were an industrial factory, we would have to change the 'Days Without A Bodily Fluid Related Incident' sign to say '0'. In the last 4 weeks and 2 days, we have pretty well managed to avoid any disasters. Unless you count the time Clark peed through his and his dad's outfit while they were both napping. My favorite part of that story? They were both so tired that neither one noticed until I picked him up and pointed it out!

 

Today, I was Clark's victim. Having been around several babies in my day, I am a pretty seasoned diaper changer and can get the job done at a near NASCAR pit stop pace. This morning, I apparently let my guard down and whilst getting the first side of his diaper fastened, my baby managed to pee everywhere. I have never been great at geometry, so I can't tell you at what degree the trajectory was coming, but I can tell you that it was impressive.

 

With his diaper half on, he peed through the top of the Pampers, down the side of the chair, and onto the floor. Somewhere in there, my socks were sacrificed on Clark's behalf to the golden shower gods. In no more than 5 seconds, my child, my furniture, my floor, and my socks were all in need of a serious cleaning. I don't think they make a Hoover carpet shampoo specifically for infant smells, but luckily, we do have a large container of their Pet Plus brand on hand at all times. For anyone wondering, there isn't all that much difference between a newborn and a puppy...at least as it pertains to getting their urine out of the carpet.

 

I'm getting a little ahead of myself, though. Before I could even get the shampooer out, I picked up the peeing machine and put him in his carrier strapped to my chest. Within a minute, while I was still sanitizing the recliner he had christened, I heard it. I may only be 4 weeks into being a parent, but I am already well versed in the sound every parent knows and fears. The sound that alarm clocks should make, because it causes such an immediate reaction that the 'snooze' button would quickly become extinct. I'm talking about the unmistakable sound of baby puke.

 

The moment I heard it happen, I reached to wipe him off when I noticed that he didn't have a drop on him. Like, not a drop. Not on his outfit, not on his mouth, nowhere. I, on the other hand, had it in more places than I care to list, the most horrifying being in my hair. In. My. HAIR! This child was literally strapped to my body and had not a drop of vomit on himself, yet somehow it was in my beautifully flat ironed locks.

 

His next move? Immediately falling asleep on my chest. An hour and a half later, the carpet is freshly shampooed, a load of laundry is done and a second load is in the works, and he is still knocked out. There's also still puke in my hair, but when this is your view, what's a little dried vomit in your messy bun?

 

 

Having a Baby AND A Life

Clark is a big 3 week old now! It is utterly amazing how much time goes into keeping one tiny person alive, fed, bathed, and dressed on a daily basis. He's actually pretty easy to take care of, just time consuming. The challenge is getting anything else accomplished - like, say, getting ourselves dressed or fed.

 

In those three weeks, we have managed to have a teeny tiny bit of normalcy in the form of two dates. Like, we left the house together and didn't take Clark and actually got to be 'Ryan and Heidi' for a few hours instead of 'Mom and Dad'. It. Was. Splendid! It was also, apparently, nearly cause for having CPS called on us.

 

We posted a picture of us on our date on social media, and people freaked the freak out on us. It didn't help that I had also gone back to work for 4 hours that day and the mommy police were already on a stakeout in front of my Facebook page, just waiting to judge my next move. Here's the thing - I work a mile away from home, at a desk job, and he was in the care of  his FATHER, not a stranger I met at the mall. Despite the 1950s belief that is still floating around out there, Ryan is not a babysitter - he is an equally capable PARENT, who is more than qualified to care for our son by himself. And he's pretty freaking awesome at it, too.

 

Despite my Mother of the Year award apparently being in jeopardy due to the fact that I left the house without my child within the first 3 months of his life, we risked it and went out to dinner. Contrary to the reaction on Facebook, we did not leave him in the kennel with Mia and go gallivanting around town for six hours. Clark was snuggled with a responsible CPR certified adult who is a seasoned childcare professional. He was fine.

 

Was it hard to leave him? A little. Honestly, I fully expected to cry when we dropped him off, even though I completely trust the good friend who offered to watch him for a few hours. But as we got in the car and headed off to a real dinner, with real conversation, and not having to wipe anyone else's butt, I was giddy. It felt like all of the fun things of a first date, with the security and comfort that comes with being married.

 

Clark is awesome. He's cute and snuggly and sweet and funny and we are so over the moon in love with him that I can't even find sufficient words to describe how much our hearts burst for him. But he's also needy, and smelly, and only sleeps for 3 hours at a time, and he doesn't contribute at all to the upkeep of our house. That makes for 2 exhausted parents who still have to take care of ourselves, our jobs, our dog, and our house...on top of all of the new responsibilities we find ourselves elbow deep in (literally).

 

We made a promise to our pastor and to each other before we were ever married that we would make a weekly date night a priority before we had kids specifically so that we would be in the habit of going once we had kids. It has been such a positive part of our marriage for 3.5 years - we each look forward to Monday night every week because we know that no matter what else is going on in life (like being invaded by a 7.5 pound adorable tiny human who requires almost all of our daily attention), we will have a few hours of focused attention on one another. No work, no phones, and now, no kids.

 

Those 2.5 hours of getting to be Ryan and Heidi are important not only for us, but we believe they are just as important for Clark. One of our overarching goals for his life is to teach him to not be afraid. We believe that exposing him early to new people, experiences, and a sense of independence from us will serve him well in the long run. And us going on a date each week without him not only fosters those principles in him, but it also allows us to keep our relationship as a priority. I may not win any friends with this ideal, but our goal as parents, from the very first moment of Clark's life is to prepare him to leave us and to be successful when he does so. It is also our goal to still be happily married in 18 years when this baby bird gets a shove gentle nudge out of our nest.

In case you are questioning our cold, made of stone hearts, here's some photographic evidence that we love our child and spend 99% of our time bonding with him, and also that he's the cutest baby ever:

 

Introducing Clark Scott

Clark Scott, you made your debut in this world on 12/29/2015 at 9:22am, weighing 7 pounds and measuring 20 inches. Thanks to your amazing dad, an angel on earth of a nurse, and your speediness (thank you!), it was a relatively easy 13 hour labor and delivery.

You look exactly like your dad - lucky for you, he's the best looking guy around! Your lips have perfectly defined peaks like his, your cheeks take up half of your face like his, you both have unfairly naturally long beautiful eyelashes (I pay good money to make my lashes look half that length!), and when I catch a glimpse of your eyes, they take my breath away the same way his do. I can only hope that you'll also inherit his sense of humor, his quiet strength, his passion for fun, and his love for Jesus. I would add that I hope you're even a smidgen as gifted of a musician as he is, but with half of your genes coming from me, the deck is stacked against you...sorry about that one!

We first learned that you would become a part of our family on Monday, May 4th, 2015 - Star Wars Day. Please don't grow up to love Star Wars - your mom doesn't understand any of it, or how it is different from Star Trek. We were thrilled, terrified, and in a little bit of disbelief that you were real...similar to how we feel right now.

Your name is very special to us, and it comes from both sides of your family tree. Long before I met your dad, I had started a list of future names that I would like for my children. My top two names were Ryann (for a girl), and Sloane (for a boy or a girl). Then I fell in love with a tall, handsome, wonderful man that you will know as "dad", but to the rest of the world, he is Ryan Sloan. And because he is the biggest party pooper of all time, he wouldn't let me name you Sloane Sloan.

Your name comes from your Great Uncle --- Larry Clark. You won't get to meet him in this lifetime, but I assure you, that you will hear stories about him for all of your days. He was your mom's uncle - Grandpa Higdon's only sibling - and he was one of my very favorite people in all of the world. He passed away when I was just a teenager, but he made a lasting impact on my life.

As you may have gathered by now, Clark is an homage to him. Also, Will Clark was your dad's favorite baseball player when he was growing up. He became a St. Louis Cardinal at the end of his career, and Clark Street is the street where Busch Stadium is found (you'll learn that we take our Cardinals baseball very seriously in this family!).

That brings us to Scott. Your Great Grandma Kay's maiden name was Scott, which she gave your Pop as a middle name. He passed it onto your dad, and we are passing it onto you. Knowing our rebellious personalities, you'll probably be the one in the family who refuses to carry on the tradition, but that's a story for another day.

We found out that you were a boy on Friday, August 14th, 2015...your Great Uncle Larry's birthday. In a further point of significance, it is also your Great Aunt Donna's birthday - Grandpa Higdon's brother and Grandma Higdon's sister had the same birthday! The irony was not lost on me, as we already knew what your name would be whether you were a boy or a girl, and I couldn't help but feel like it was a wink from my Uncle Larry that day.

He didn't have any kids of his own, but he always treated me like the most important person in the room. I was a picky eater as a kid (your dad will tell you that I still am...don't listen to him!), but I loved Goldfish crackers and chicken strips with French fries. Every time we visited his house, the minute I walked through the door, he would take my hand and walk me to the kitchen where he would open the lazy Susan and point out the industrial sized box of Goldfish crackers, and give me a wink like it was our secret. Because he didn't have children of his own, he wasn't great with respecting a kid's undying wish to be "bigger" (it's overrated - stay little for as long as you can!), and he always referred to me as "The Baby". When I was 16 years old and driving a car, he still only called me "The Baby". I hated it at the time, but as I look back on it, I love that he did that. Every single time the adults would be discussing where to go to dinner, Uncle Larry would chime in with "It needs to have chicken strips and French fries - the baby likes that." Again, he had no kids of his own, so he didn't realize that literally every restaurant in the world serves that meal. Long after my food preferences had grown to accommodate many other meals, Uncle Larry made sure that wherever we ate had the great delicacy known as "chicken strips and fries".

He was a very, very funny man. Just like your dad and grandfathers, there was always laughter when he was in the room. Big, booming, deep laughter that filled your soul with joy. I hope that you'll laugh as often as he did - it really is medicine for your soul. Most of the funny stories I know about Uncle Larry aren't terribly appropriate for someone your age, but ask me someday what "Just patting the dog" and "Two pats and a push" means...I promise you, I will remember.

As an extra little tidbit, after we had your name decided, we realized that when mom lived in Las Vegas, I lived in Clark County. Since moving to our current town, we live in (and you were born in) Scott County. You'll learn that your dad is a geography nerd, so I find it pretty fitting that your name also has a nod to that.

Tonight is your first night home. You and I are snuggled on the couch as I write this while the rest of the house gets some much needed sleep. I keep stopping just to look at you, kiss your head, and thank God for the millionth time for picking us to be your parents. We prayed for you before you were conceived, we prayed for you while I was pregnant, we prayed for you while you were being born, and we'll pray for you every day for the rest of our lives.

We love you, Clark Scott. Welcome to this crazy ride!

Thanks, But No Thanks

I have heard a lot of bad advice over the years, but never more consistently than since I have been incubating a baby in my body. I'm sure most of the people mean well, but the more bad (like, really bad) advice I hear, the more I support removing warning labels from products and letting the epidemic of idiots just sort itself out.

 

Among the worst of the worst (so far) have been the following gems of infinite wisdom:

 

1. Sleep Now So You'll Be Well Rested Before Baby Is Born

Let me tell you something. Life as a pregnant woman can be broken down into two overarching categories: peeing, and thinking about needing to pee. I literally realize how much I have to pee while I am washing my hands in the restroom...after peeing 30 seconds earlier. This happens all day and all night. You know why? Because I have a PERSON sitting on top of my bladder. Which makes what little sleep I do get incredibly uncomfortable, which makes me toss and turn the whole time, which makes Ryan toss and turn.

 

This week, I have woken up for the day at 3am, 3:30am, 5am, and 2am. I'll be both impressed and depressed if we truly get less sleep once baby is here.

 

2. Baby Needs To Be Exposed To Germs IMMEDIATELY

I made the mistake of telling a few people that Cletus won't be making any big trips out of the house to crowded places until he has served between 8 and 12 weeks this side of my uterus, per my highly trained physicians and their separate, but uniform recommendations. When people hear of our plan to let our baby build an immune system before exposing him to the dirty hands and runny noses of strangers during cold and flu season, it's like I can see the expression 'helicopter parents' flash across their pupils.

 

What always happens next is a dissertation about how newborns need to be subjected to viruses and bacteria from the zero hour or they'll end up the next real life bubble boy. If that's your parenting style and your pediatrician signs off on that protocol, cool. If you haven't had a baby since before the surgeon general cautioned the general public about lighting tobacco on fire and breathing it into our lungs multiple times a day, then we're probably going to trust our doctors and our instincts on this one.

 

3. You Won't Bond With Your Baby Unless You Nurse

This one both makes me laugh and makes my blood boil at the same time. Mention one word about pumping, or God forbid FORMULA, and there will be a petition for state custody of your child. Like there's Bottle Fed Anonymous groups meeting in church basements with people swapping weekly stories about how the void in their life from not being breastfed has led them straight to shooting heroin. Dads don't feed their babies straight from the tap, regardless of whether it is Similac or Mom's milk in that bottle they are using, and they seem to generally like their kids so I'd say bonding is probably happening.

 

4. Don't Take The Medicine Your Doctors Prescribed 

Oh, you saw a commercial saying that the medicine I take to keep myself and our baby alive has a 1% chance of causing a superficial birth defect? Well, I see commercials every day about a little blue pill for sexual efficiency that runs the risk of causing 'sudden loss of vision and hearing', but apparently 40 million Americans are cool with taking that chance. At least our priorities are straight.

5. If You Don't Provide a Pacifier, You'll Never Break Him Of Sucking His Thumb

Listen, I am all for different parenting styles and I am also open to the idea that our baby might not do what we have planned for him. For the record, we have pacifiers lined up and ready to go during hour #4 of a screaming marathon. When people have asked us about our plans to use a pacifier, we tell them 'We are going to try not to use one, but we'll see what happens.' The reaction we receive is as if we have just announced that we will only be feeding him twice a week - once on Monday, and again on Thursday, the same schedule we use for watering the plants.

 

The argument for pacifiers (which, AGAIN, we are cool with using if our baby needs one for a while) is always 'well you can take a pacifier away, but not a thumb!' Yes, this is true, but unless our kid is an idiot, we're pretty sure he'll find his thumbs anyway. I assure you, while we may screw him up in other ways, you have our undying pledge that we will not send him to college sucking on his thumb, completely crippled by the fact that it can't be taken away from him so he never learned to self soothe. Pinky promise.  

We're (Almost) Ready!

As the clock ticks closer and closer to D Day, we decided that we better get some of our crap in order. I have the tendency to over prepare, so I have made a conscious effort in this pregnancy to educate myself just enough to feel confident, without researching every possible scenario at painstaking length. We have clothes hung up by size, the diaper genie is assembled and lying in wait, and last week, we took the next step in making this whole process real in our minds: a hospital tour.

 

We arrived early to scope out the parking/ER drop off lane, knowing that there is a pretty major construction project currently going on at our hospital that has hindered the parking lot. When I worked at a hospital, I always loved checking out the cars next to the Labor & Delivery building, because dads were instructed to 'pull right up to the door and get mom inside - you can officially park later'. I could always tell which vehicles belonged to new parents and which belonged to the old pros, because some cars would parallel very nicely in a calm manner, and others would come to a screeching halt with 2 tires on the curb as dad jumped out, barely getting the car in park in time to run around and usher the mom to be through the doors. At the hospital we will be using, everything is housed in one building, which makes for a much less comical viewing of the parking situation.

 

Once we found a parking spot, we followed the maze of signs into the hospital and toward the elevators. I find it a little cruel that they make a pregnant woman who is about to give birth trek to the very top floor, but hopefully on that day people will have mercy and get out of my way. Our plan is to labor at home until the absolute last minute that we have to go to the hospital; a strategy that was reinforced by the nurse who gave us the tour.

 

Upon the elevator doors opening on our floor, we had two options; walk straight into the waiting room, or stay on the elevator. As we would soon learn, accessing anything on that floor other than the waiting room is harder than strolling into the Oval Office uninvited. In fact, each baby is fitted with a house arrest device of sorts and even if it is just bumped the wrong way, the entire floor goes on lockdown - an alarm sounds, stairwell doors lock shut, elevators are stopped in their tracks, and nobody can enter or leave until the cause of the alarm is pinpointed. Our sweet nurse assured us that the devices are incredibly sensitive, so if we hear the alarm sound during our stay, it does not mean that a newborn has been stolen. Either way, it gave us a huge sense of security that something as small as Cletus (how I refer to Baby Sloan - Cletus the Fetus) brushing his leg up against a blanket can send the baby Secret Service into action.

 

We learned everything about the process - where each stop along the way will be, what will happen, what our options are, and the hospital policies that are enforced. Most of their mandatory policies are centered around visitors.  Our nurse even said multiple times, 'I strongly encourage you to think very hard about who you want here with you. Pick people who will be calming. And remember that you can only have 2 people, no exceptions.'  I get the impression that they have seen their fair share of bat$#*! crazy guests on that floor...my plan is to try to convince them to tell me some of the worst ones, because that's the kind of person I am. If I succeed, I promise I will share.

 

One policy that they employ is a 'Golden Hour' where we can get to know our baby without tons of people filing in and out, then after that, I get to eat and shower before they ever move us into the room where we can have visitors. Not that I will be looking glamorous like Princess Kate a few hours after having a human extracted from my body, but it's still nice to know I that won't have to entertain while starving and looking like Nick Nolte's mug shot. After hearing so many horror stories about hospital births, it was refreshing to hear how 'pro mom and dad' this one is.

 

Oh, and their birth plans --- music to this planner's ears! Everything you can think of (and so much more that you would have never thought to specify!) - from whether they can or can't offer our baby a pacifier, to what I want to wear, to what role my baby daddy wants to play are all covered in that sucker...plus more! Our OB's office had us fill one out and the hospital will receive and review it before we ever arrive so that our medical team is on the same page and doesn't have to burden us with a thousand questions. That alone was enough to put me at ease about the whole process. As someone who doesn't do well with surprises, I appreciate that they covered every single 'what if' scenario so that we know what to expect even if things don't go exactly according to plan.

 

Now, all that's left to do is have a baby! Oh, and install the car seat. And assemble the bassinet. And pack our bags. Okay, now we're freaking out again.