Some pictures from the last few days -- here's Patrick just before we went home!

In the car seat for real this time!

We're going home!

Chile and Jack heard Patrick making noises and decided to check it out.
In the bassinet!

Cake from the shower.. blue champagne. Sooo goood.Patrick hung out in his papasan today... he was really interested in the hanging toy.

Tried to grab it...

And just plain cute...

He finally had a huge poop tonight, so I'm feeling a lot better (I'm sure he's feeling a lot better too). Hopefully he'll do more sleeping through tonight with how awake he was all day. Had the first appointment with the pediatrician, and he weighed in at 5lbs 8oz, so he has been eating just fine. Everything else, he's small. That's the only thing. He doesn't even fall on the charts yet with average sizes of month old babies. The doctor is pretty sure he'll catch up soon enough.

Sorry for not posting anything for awhile! It's been crazy, trying to get the house into shape for the baby shower we had today! The house looked great, by the way. It was the first time we were really able to go "Look at how different this house is!" Jon has worked so hard on everything in here, and it's so nice.

I'm having trouble typing because I'm holding Patrick at the moment. I'm trying not to use my left hand as much as possible. We tried to put him to sleep when Jon went, but Patrick wasn't having any of that. So I'm hanging out with him in his room for a little bit to see if that does the trick. I seriously hope this doesn't turn into the kid who only sleeps when he's being held thing.

I am starting to worry about a couple things now... like eating and poop. I decided that I need to keep a record of how much he eats and when, but today was so crazy it wasn't even worth it to try and track it. I don't think he's eating as much as he needs to. Which leads to my second concern - that I haven't changed a poopy diaper in a while. Neither has Jon. I'm going to chalk most of this up to the crazy transition to home from the hospital, and all the commotion that was going on here today.

The shower was pretty fun. We were able to see a lot of people we hadn't been able to for a long time, and they all got to meet Patrick. I'll definitely have to do laundry tomorrow to wash all the clothes he's gotten! Our hostesses were amazing - if you've never had the blue champagne cake from The Cake Gallery, you should try it sometime. Or I'll get it again sometime, and invite you over. Maybe for Patrick's first birthday.

I'm not sure how to go about setting a schedule for Patrick, since I'm awful at planning, so we'll see how these next two weeks at home go.

I promise there will be pictures soon.

If you can tell by the time, I haven't gotten a whole heck of a lot of sleep tonight. That is because Patrick did in fact come home! We picked him up around 6 last night, and he's been here ever since. Obviously. So far, so good. I was pretty sure that every little noise he made was going to keep me up, and I was right about that.

The only thing that didn't work out is that I woke up with a migraine yesterday morning, and at about 2am again this morning. So the lack of sleep is even worse than it would have been.

We'll have to work on this whole feeding schedule thing, getting bottles ready for him to eat on time. Also, he's peed all over the crib twice while I was changing him. You would think I'd have learned on that one too.

Chile and Jack are already being protector dogs. While we were having dinner, the dogs were both watching the bassinet and every time he made a sound they would stand up and go see what was going on. Chile is too short, but Jack could look over the side and make sure he was okay. I have a picture of this, but it's 6am and I'll upload pictures after I get a little more sleep.

Other than that, uneventful. The stupid cat thinks that she gets to sleep in the crib though. She will learn about that one.

Okay... time to see how much sleep I can get this time around...

Tonight might be your last chance to come see Patrick at the hospital! The nurses seem pretty certain that he'll be going home tomorrow. I'll talk to the doctor sometime this morning and I'm sure he'll have something to say about it.

He was 5lbs 3oz last night, and he's taking bottles just fine! We're taking the infant CPR class, and getting flu shots ASAP.

If you're planning on being around Patrick at ALL we ask that you get a flu shot too. And if you feel even a little bit sick, please please please stay away. We love you, but stay away :) It's getting to be RSV season and that's the last thing that we want Patrick to pick up at this point.


He's coming home soon!

Sooooo big.

He's finished all his bottles today!

Still at 5 lbs 2oz.

Exhaused parents, going to bed. Okedoke, good night!

5lbs!

18 3/4 inches long!

Kid is getting big! They upped his feeds again today, so he was at 42ccs, now I don't even know for sure what he's getting. Patrick did take an entire bottle for dad tonight!

Aunt Katie held Patrick for just a second before Shannon, the charge nurse, came in and tested out the car seat again. There's been some confusion about the car seat. It DOES have a 5 point harness like they want us to have, and the straps weren't done tight enough to hold Patrick in properly when they tried the first time. Shannon made some adjustments, and he fit! Sort of.

He didn't seem to mind too terribly much. He's so tiny though!

After all the excitement of the bottle and the car seat, I was changing Patrick's diaper and he thought it was a perfect time to pee. So he soaked the bed sheet, his blanket and the floor. Me, instead of covering him with his diaper, I jumped out of the way. Little stinker.

I put all the bedding in Patrick's bed today, and we have a new chair from Grandpa Max. We also have cousin Colin's old basinette ready to be cleaned up for when Patrick comes home! Just a few more days, we hope!

No big changes... Patrick still isn't finishing his bottles, so we're back in that holding pattern. He finished one today, left about 12ccs in another, and the other ones were put down his feeding tube today. He's been sort of a sleepy kid. We gave him a bath tonight, and he was awake after that! If we'd had a bottle ready right away, he probably would have finished it, but we didn't, and by the time we did, he was comfy and sleepy. I was holding him while the bottle was getting ready, and he was lifting his head and arching his back and Jon figured out he would calm down with his pacifier. We need to get this timing for bottles worked out better.

Other than that, he's at 4lbs 15oz. Still too little for the carseat we have, but we just need one with straps that get smaller now. We're back in the range of 7-10 days for him to come home with his current eating patterns. At least we'll have the house ready!