5.5 weeks in: i dream of sleep

jonahpants was 5 weeks old this past saturday. on friday we went to his one month appointment and he now weighs almost 11 pounds. no one would ever guess he was a late-term preemie. he gained 4 pounds in 4 weeks - so he went from the 20th percentile to the 75th percentile. my arms know it ain't no lie.

he's been good overall. there was that growth spurt stage at 2-3 weeks that was rough, and he's getting gassier which sometimes makes feedings harder. he's also learned that being held beats lying alone in the crib or bouncer. but overall i don't think we can really complain. it's hard and tiring but it's normal hard and tiring. 2 nights ago he slept a 4 hour stretch which was glorious. 4 hours feels like 7 these days. i hope he continues to stretch out his night feedings. i take naps every day but i'm still living in that sleep deprivation fog, the one where you'd give up riches and fame and a date with mark wahlberg for just 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. i'm bracing myself though - while most of the early days with lana are now a blur at best, i still remember very clearly one particular night when she was 6 weeks old. she didn't eat or sleep from 9pm-3am. she cried the entire 6 hours. we were in complete panic mode and utterly exhausted. when we started telling our pediatrician about it, he chuckled and said it was the "witching hour" which for some reason conjured very disturbing scenes from the blair witch project. apparently babies are known to be super fussy in the evenings. i was so relieved to find out it was a known phenomenon and it wasn't just our kid being a baby terrorist. after doing some extremely scientific research on the internets, i also learned that 6-9 weeks of age is particularly difficult for everyone involved. it is a period of rapid neurological development for the babies so they go through a lot of fussiness, this on top of the gas issue. so they don't eat well, don't sleep well, they cry and cry, and in turn make their parents cry too. all this to say, jonah baby, please be kind to mommy and daddy the next few weeks. 

speaking of terrorists, lanapants has become one. we've been very fortunate that lana has been overall very easy behaviorally. she is easy to take out and about, listens pretty well, has a very happy temperament and doesn't tantrum much. that was...until a few weeks ago. she has been an utter terror the past few weeks. it's probably a combination of jonah jealousy and becoming three soon. In the US we talk about terrible twos but in korea it's actually terrible threes and this time i think the koreans got it right. she is still very sweet to jonah and i don't think she'll ever take it out on him, but she often gets jealous if someone holds jonah, like she'll ask me to hold her right when i start feeding him. she throws tantrums for no apparent reason and we cannot figure out what's wrong bc she refuses to talk. she gives major attitude. she's regressing in the potty training department. it's pretty exhausting. and since she hasn't given us much reason to practice discipline until now, we find ourselves often wondering whether to approach her with toughness or gentleness. on monday she had a total meltdown and i felt i had no choice but to put on the mean mom face and discipline her pretty strictly. it actually worked though which was encouraging. while she's pushing boundaries like crazy she doesn't not care about our reaction - she definitely fears "time out" and getting punished. this is an area of parenthood i could do without - tips are appreciated from seasoned (and battered) parents. now i feel bad about all those times andy and i fought and drove my mom crazy, even though, obviously, he always started it.

anyway, to give my mom and me a break, sh took lana to my in-laws' place yesterday for the night. then my mom offered to take jonah overnight so i could get a real night's sleep. i tried to fight her bc i thought it'd be too tiring for her but she wouldn't take no for an answer. i couldn't really sleep for the whole night straight bc the milk factory operates 24/7, but i definitely slept so much better without jonah. i went to my mom's room to nurse him once at midnight, then pumped one other time. but basically i slept from 9-5:30 and only woke up twice so it was so nice! sh probably slept the night straight though… -_-

jonahpants: 3 weeks

jonah's actual due date was yesterday, 7/13 (again, can't IMAGINE), but he is showing no signs of being an early baby. in one week, he gained 1lb 3oz, so as of last friday he was 8lb 9oz. he is fattening up and getting noticeably chubbier by the day. he is definitely able to take in more at every feeding. he is rarely satisfied with 2oz anymore and has even eaten 4+oz here and there. he's falling into a pattern of cluster feeding in the evenings - eating almost every hour for about a three-hour stretch sometime between the hours of 8pm and 1am and then sleeping a good 3-3.5 hours till the next feeding. sometimes we get lucky and that stretch is 10-12, and other times we are not so lucky and it's 12-2 -_-.

the big thing that happened this past week is we found out that jonah needed to get circumcised…again. our pediatrician told us two weeks ago that he didn't like the way it looked, and that he thought my OB had botched the initial job by not taking enough skin off. so last week we went to see a pediatric urologist who confirmed that it would need to be redone. he said we had a choice to do it now or later on when he's around 2, but later on means general anesthesia because it's hard to control a flailing 2 year old. needless to say, we were so pissed. it's hard enough to deal with the fact that they have to go through it once (though, i'm pretty sure it's harder on us than it is on him), but to have to make him go through it again really made us mad. i called my OB and told her what our pediatrician said, but she stood by her procedure and said she did it right, and that she was making sure she didn't take too much off because that comes with its own complications. i mean, what do i say to that? i just left that conversation at that. anyway, so we opted to do it right away - why not avoid general anesthesia if you can. so today was the procedure. we really really loved the pediatric urologist. he was so friendly, warm and reassuring, and true to his word, the whole procedure seemed to take less than 10 minutes. i'm just so glad it's over and hopefully this time it's done properly and we don't have to deal with this again.

my recovery feels like it's two steps forward, one step back. there are days when i feel pretty good, and i don't know, maybe because i feel pretty good i overdo it, which makes the next day not feel so good? not sure if that's the case or not but i guess it's possible. some days i don't really feel the incision too much, and other days it (and the surrounding area) stings/pinches/pulls/hurts so much. today i actually felt a little pelvic pain and i freaked out that the SPD was coming back, but i'm hoping it's not that...and that the pain was just a result of sleeping on my side last night, which i think was a bad move. i think (hope/pray) that i'm still just very stiff in the pelvic/hip area and the sleeping on the side put extra pressure on those bones. we'll see how i feel the next few days. once i hit one month postpartum i'm going to start going to the chiropractor/acupuncturist again. i think that'll help my hip, pelvic bone, back, etc. loosen up a bit. i'm starting to feel restless though. i can't wait to feel normal and be out and about again. because i only gained 13 pounds during the pregnancy, i've lost all the extra weight, but it'll take a while for my belly to go down and for me to be back in non-maternity clothes. but once i am wearing my normal clothes again, i feel a shopping spree coming on. :D

jonahpants! (smiling after making a big poo)

7/7/14

if jonah hadn't come early, tomorrow would have been his birthday. 7/7/14 would have been a nice birthday...but i think the good lord knew i was really at my wit's end and so allowed for jonah to come early. i can't IMAGINE still being pregnant, and with how my pelvic pain was progressively getting worse, i probably would've been on bedrest the past couple weeks if he were still inside my belly. speaking of pelvic pain -- i am now basically off pain meds (fully off the percocet and only taking advil as needed) and it seems like the pelvic pain is gone! i guess it's really true that it can go away right after you give birth. just shows you how powerful (and scary) hormones are. the hormones are also making me experience some crazy mood swings. my highs are so high and my lows are so low. they're pretty short-lived but i can actually feel them coming on. i don't remember them being so distinct and recognizable with lana.

jonah was 2 weeks this past saturday. at his 2 week appointment, he weighed 7 lbs 6 oz, so he gained a half a pound in a week! boy eats and sleeps and poos like a champ. i think since yesterday he's been going through a growth spurt. he used to sleep a good 3-3.5 hours in between feedings, but since yesterday he's been waking up sometimes every hour or every other hour screaming and ravenous. -_- of course, it's more frequent at night. i think his days and nights are slightly flipped, much to our dismay.

lana has been a great older sister. the first week she definitely acted out but since then she seems to have gotten into the swing of things. she is so sweet to jonah and gives him lots of kisses, and whenever she wants to touch him she says "i need to wash my hands first, right?" i think she's liking this whole new sibling thing because everyone that comes over seems to be so concerned about how she's adjusting that they bring just as many gifts for her as they do for jonah! we keep joking that she'll want more siblings to keep up the parade of gifts coming to her.

sh goes back to work on wednesday and i am kind of dreading it. when he's home, it's 3 adults to 2 kids so we outnumber the little suckers. once he goes back to work, it'll be man to man with my mom and me. lana goes to school mon/wed/fri so those days will be easier, and come august she'll be in school every day. just gotta get through the first several weeks and hopefully we'll fall into a rhythm.
i'm feeling much better the past few days - the incision is less painful and i'm more mobile. i still feel really tired by early afternoon though and that's when i try to get in my 2 hour nap. the hardest thing is breastfeeding. i forgot how hard it is! we really do have parenting amnesia. i keep saying "was breastfeeding this hard with lana?" and it probably was, but i really have a hard time remembering. i'm already dreading the prospect of pumping at work even though i have 12 more weeks until i have to deal with that. i can't believe some mommy friends pumped 3x a day. i mean, how do you get any work done? also, how do you even manage that? i mean...i just HATE pumping. i'm just aiming to do one time a day. i wanted to pump in my office but my new office at TD, well, the walls are glass. -_-

here's our little guy - he's getting better at opening both eyes and staying awake for longer stretches. he's also always making these super serious faces.