The Barry's: March 2010

Collin's first month flew by, especially since we weren't home until he was almost 2 weeks old.

Here is a picture of Collin on his original due date (St. Patrick's Day) and a few from March 18th at exactly 1 month old.

It is amazing how fast the weeks go by! Collin is now 7 weeks old. He had his 2 month check up yesterday (a week early) and got 3 vaccinations :-(. He now weighs 8 lbs 8 ozs and is 21 inches long.

He is in the 10th percentile for weight and the 5th percentile for height, but Dr. Talbot said if they adjusted it because he is a preemie he would actually be around the 25th percentile for weight.

Here are a few pictures of Collin from this week, in his motorcycle outfit, so you can see how much he has grown from the previous pictures.

I also got the disk of Collin's newborn pictures from the photographer. You may have already seen some of these from the sneak preview I posted a while back but here are a few more.

On another note...Since I am so far behind on updating the blog here are a few updates that I would have posted...if I had the time.

Little Miss Helpful

Kaitlyn has a new excuse for getting out of bed at night. Normally what happened, prior to Collin's arrival, is that we would put her to bed and she would get up 4 or 5 times before we went to bed to come to talk to us and she would just make up an excuse for being out of bed (my leg hurts, I have to tell you something, etc.)

Now her tactic is to act like Little Miss Helpful and she uses this a her "Get out of bed free" card. When she hears me in Collin's room, or if she just wants to get out of bed, she opens her door and asks "Do you need any help?". If I say no, she tells me "Well, just wake me up if you need any help", as if she would actually be sleeping ;-).

A hungry baby and the Easter Bunny

So Chris and I tackled the task of taking the kids to see the shopping mall Easter Bunny the week before Easter. (It feels weird to type "the kids" as I am not used to that term yet because I am so used to saying "Kaitlyn"). Everything was going fine when we arrived, Collin was asleep in his car seat and Kaitlyn was on her best behavior. We went into the mall and changed Kaitlyn into her Easter dress and fixed her hair and stopped in Baby Gap to find an outfit for Collin (I had been on the search for weeks with no luck, so this was our last resort because everything was either to big or too ridiculous looking). We found an outfit for Collin at Baby Gap and headed over to see the Easter Bunny. The line was fairly short and was moving pretty fast so we thought it would be smooth sailing. Once we got to the front of the line and it was our turn we took Collin out of his car seat and he woke up. He was doing fine at first, but then the camera lady decided that she would just take her own sweet time so Collin decided that while he was waiting on her, he would try to nurse the Easter Bunny. Once the camera lady decided she was ready to go Collin had his face buried in the Easter Bunny's fur looking for a meal and so the first 3 pictures were of Kaitlyn smiling pretty and all you can see of Collin is the back of his head.

Then the computer crashed before we got to pick out our picture and so once the lady got it up and running again we had to take new pictures. By this point, Collin is screaming because the Easter Bunny won't feed him and so this picture is what you get when you take a hungry baby to the Easter Bunny. Kaitlyn was of course smiling pretty and Collin...well see for yourself.

Happy Easter!

I will try to post more pictures, and possibly video, soon and maybe even a few more updates!

PS I started drafting this post on March 13th so even though I posted it in April the posting date says March 13th because it obviously took me a long time to complete it!

So we are still settling into our new routine but Collin has made it pretty easy on us so far.

Collin's routine consists of waking up, getting his diaper (changed all the while squealing and grunting because he has suddenly realized he is starving even though he was asleep seconds earlier), eating and sometimes getting a diaper change again and new outfit and blanket after his diaper leaks all over me and him while he is eating, going back to sleep for 2.5-3 hours and repeat. In the past 24 hours Collin is working on setting some kind of record for the most outfit changes by one baby. I think we have gone through at least 6 onesies/sleepers!

He is apparently very attached to his umbilical cord as he has not parted with it yet and he is now 20 days old and it is still hanging around!

My routine consists of nursing Collin on demand, which usually happens every 2.5-3 hours, but surprisingly; I feel like I have alot of downtime in between his feedings during the day. Now at night when I am trying to get back to sleep after being awake for an hour, it doesn't feel like there is that much time between feedings, but I still don't feel as sleep deprived as I did with Kaitlyn. I think the second time around is definitely easier! Maybe it is because I knew what to expect but it seems easier this time to find time for things like eating and showering! Don't get me wrong, I am still exhausted but not as overwhelmingly as much as I was last time.

Chris' new routine has been helping me with Collin throughout the night (he usually gets burping duty after I feed Collin because I just don't seem to be able to get him to burp like he does for Chris) grocery shopping, washing clothes, and making sure I take care of myself during the day, then cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, bathtime and bedtime with Kaitlyn in the evening. I know that he is exhausted and there are times when we are both delirious so it is good that we have each other to keep things straight. Chris is sure to win Father/Husband of the Year this year, at least in my book!

Last week we had Laura from Studio Bloom Photography come to our house to take Collin's newborn pictures. It was fun, but it was alot of work for all involved.

Collin decided he was starving as soon as Laura arrived so I had to feed him right when she got here. Then instead of falling fast asleep like he usually does after eating, he was wide awake. As you may or may not, know taking pictures of a newborn is definitely easier when they are sleeping because you can pose their little arms and legs when they are asleep and they leave them in that position. This is especially helpful when the baby is naked and you are trying to cover certain areas with their legs! Collin would let Laura pose his legs and feet and right when she got ready to snap the picture he would decide to stretch his legs and show off all his little parts we were trying to cover.

I put Collin in one of his pea pods that Mee Mee got him for one of the pictures, keep in mind he was naked underneath the pea pod. Collin decided that since it was a "pea pod" he would make it a pee pee pod and emptied his bladder and I didn't realize that until I picked him up and held him against my shirt so then my shirt was also wet.

I wanted to get a few pictures of Kaitlyn with Collin in his birthday suit and I had bought this really simple white dress for Kaitlyn to wear in the pictures. I got Kaitlyn all dressed in her outfit and sent her into Collin's room to take pictures with him. Laura had Collin wrapped up inside a piece of material and she took a few pictures of Kaitlyn with Collin all swaddled up and that worked out fine. Then I asked Laura if we could take the wrap off and get some with Collin in his birthday suit with Kaitlyn; this is when the photo shoot ended for Kaitlyn. She refused to take pictures with him while he was naked! Laura, Chris and I tried to think of every possible thing we could say to bribe Kaitlyn to get her in the picture but she wasn't having it. We took a few more pictures of Collin by himself and some with me and Chris, then it was time to take a picture of the whole family. Collin was, of course naked, and Kaitlyn refused to get anywhere near him. She finally agreed to get in the picture but she sat on Chris' lap as far away from Collin as possible and she had her arms crossed in most of the pictures and looked as if she was miserable. This is when it got really interesting...

Sometime during the process of taking the family photos Collin decided he had to go to the bathroom and apparently pooped all down my shirt and on my jeans, only none of us noticed because Laura was mainly focusing on our faces and we were all looking at the camera. When we finished taking the family pictures Chris looks at me and said "Kara he pooped all over you". So needless to say, I had to have a wardrobe change for the remaining pictures.

It was all worth it though because the pictures are so cute. Laura put a sneak peek of the pictures on her blog. Click the link below and look for the posting on March 9th titled "Newborn Boy" and you can see a few of the pictures from our session.

http://www.studiobloomphoto.com/blog/

We haven't left the house much during this time because the pediatrician suggested we keep Collin as isolated as possible during this time because he is a preemie and is more susceptible to respiratory viruses and that could put us back in the NICU, but we have had a few visitors since we have been home.

Here are some pictures of Collin with some of his first visitors.

Collin & Mee Mee