I haven't abandoned the blog...

...we've just been really busy! It's been a non-stop whirlwind of family dinners, outings, gatherings, and fun for the past week or so. Also, I'm getting ready to return to work on Monday (insert dry heave here) so I've been spending every possible minute with my sweet baby boy cuddled up in my arms.

As soon as I have a bit of time, I'm going to write a decent blog update and upload some picturse from our wonderful first Christmas with Maddox.

On a quick note, Maddox is now rolling from his back to his side and has decided that he's going to be a side-sleeper! He's also beginning to reach for me when he's laying on the bed or his changing table (which, of course, makes me swoon!).

A picture is worth a thousand words...

10 weeks

Our sweet boy is 10 weeks old! Here are some Christmas-y pictures!

We're so excited that Christmas is less than a week away! Brandon and I are looking forward to spending our first Christmas with Maddox- we are so incredibly blessed.

Maddox met Santa

Brandon and I took Maddox to meet Santa yesterday. It was so much fun (well, for Brandon and I at least...Maddox really couldn't have cared less!).

Sleep Begets Sleep

Ohhh yeah! Little Maddox James Garrett slept through the night last night! He's been gradually increasing his long sleep stretch during the night and finally slept from 10pm until 4:45am. No nighttime feeding at all! I obviously know that this probably won't be a regular thing for quite some time but it feels great knowing that he's at least capable of sleeping that long (and I definitely don't mind staying in bed all night long instead of having to get up for feedings and diaper changes). I've realized that he sleeps much better at night if he takes at least one long morning nap (2 hours or so) and then another long afternoon nap. On the days that he doesn't nap well, it's like he can't settle down enough to sleep at night. He's still sleeping in the pack & play in our room and will probably be in there for a few more months at least. I still cannot imagine him being alone in his room (I'm sure he wouldn't mind but I'm not ready). Usually he starts the night in his pack & play and ends up in our bed after his middle of the night feeding. I guess we can add co-sleeping & bedsharing to the list of things I thought I'd never do as a mom!

9 Weeks

Our little nugget is 9 weeks old!

Maddox and I are having a lazy PJ day today since we're coming off of a very busy week/weekend and right into another busy one. Last Thursday, we went to Grandma & Grandpa Garrett's house so that we could visit with family and Maddox could meet his Great Grandpap and Grandma Keener, Great Uncle Dan, and Great-Great Aunt Loretta and Bob for the first time. On Friday, we had his 2 month pediatrician appointment where he weighed 12 lb 14 oz and was 24 1/4 inches long. His development and growth is on track! Friday night, we kept our sweet little nephew Preston for a while (both boys slept the entire time...almost too easy!). Saturday was a busy day- we started the day with errands and Christmas shopping, went back to Grandma & Grandpa Garrett's to spend the afternoon (playing cards with the family while laughing along to Hanunkah music was the best!), and then went out to celebrate Kristi's 7th anniversary of her 21st birthday that night while Mamaw & Papaw watched Maddox. Sunday was a day of rest (with our weekly grocery shopping trip thrown in).

Maddox is starting to enjoy tummy time a bit more and is cooing and squealing nonstop- I love his sweet little noises! His hair and eyelashes are growing longer and he's starting to reach for toys/rattles that we dangle (love that word) above his head.

This week should be a fun but busy (aka exhausting) one. We are resting today, visiting Santa tomorrow when Daddy gets home from work (and will probably try to finish up some Christmas shopping while we're out), going to see Addy in her Christmas program and having lunch with the Lerch/Dancoff clan on Thursday, having date night while Uncle Jeff and Aunt Lisa keep Maddox Thursday evening, and then having a few friends and their babies over on Friday evening to celebrate the season. Hopefully the weather will cooperate this week so that I don't have to drag Maddox out in rainy/cold/nasty conditions.

Only 11 days til Christmas!

2 Months Old...

Trouble in Toyland

Brandon and I started shopping (on Santa's behalf, of course) for Maddox's Christmas gifts last week. We thought we'd really done a good job finding this particular Fisher Price toy:

Apparently, I am going to have to start researching every single toy that is brought into this house. Earlier this morning, I was catching up on some of my favorite blogs when I came across an article saying that this toy was put on the "Dangerous Toys List for 2009." Looks like a return to Wal-Mart is in our near future! Here's the article link for other fellow parents that may be interested: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/perilous_puppy_is_put_down_p3sFAgThdyaDRqcuuQUoXI

8 Weeks Old

It's hard to believe that Maddox is 8 weeks old already...although I think I could start every single post like this because time is flying by! He's growing so fast and is really starting to show a bit of his personality. For whatever reason, he always laughs and coo's up a storm when he's on his changing table and LOVES his play mat (especially the mirror because he likes to stare at himself). He's also rolling from his back to his tummy more often now and is holding his head up very well. We're still working on his sleeping schedule (even though he makes his own schedule right now) so that everything runs smoothly when I return to work on January 4th- YUCK! The thought of having to go back to work makes me want to hide in my closet but the one thing that comforts me is that Mom (Norma) has GRACIOUSLY agreed to come to our house a few days a week during January and February so that we don't have to put him in daycare until March. This is a huge relief & blessing...THANKS MOM!!! I will still be working from home at least 3 days a week but am going to attempt to drag myself into the office one or two days- it will probably be good for me to get out of the house and focus on my career again. We put our Christmas decorations up last week and Maddox loves being able to look at all of the blinking lights. Our plan is to take him to visit Santa this week (and we'll get a picture made, of course). On Thursday, Maddox will be able to meet some very dear family members for the very first time- his Great Grandma and Grandpap Keener, Uncle Dan, and Loretta and Bob. I am so excited for him to meet them! He is officially 2 months old tomorrow so we'll post the official 2 month pictures later this week (I would do it now but he is just waking up from a nap & is going to be demanding food in a minute!).

Before I was a mom...

Before I was a Mom
I made and ate hot meals.
I had unstained clothing.
I had quiet conversations on the phone.

Before I was a Mom,
I slept as late as I wanted
And never worried about how late I got into bed.
I brushed my hair and my teeth everyday.

Before I was Mom
I cleaned my house each day.
I never tripped over toys or forgot words of lullabies.

Before I was a Mom
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom
I had never been puked on
Pooped on
Spit on
Chewed on
Peed on
Or pinched by tiny fingers

Before I was a Mom
I had complete control of:
My thoughts
My body
And my mind.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom
I never held down a screaming child
So that doctors could do tests
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
When I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
Could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond between a Mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small
Could make me feel so important.

Before I was a Mom
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay
I had never known the warmth
The joy
The love
The heartache
The wonder
Or the satisfaction of being a Mom.

I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much before I was a Mom.

Week 7 & Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone and even though most of us enjoyed turkey with all of the fixings, Maddox has been busy enjoying his hands. He now is having a lot of fun sucking on his hands/fingers/thumbs and to see him do it is pretty funny because it looks like it takes all of his focus to bring those little fingers to his mouth. Of course I'm now on high germ alert and constantly washing/wiping his hands to make sure they're clean before they get snacked on. We enjoyed a fun weekend of spending time with both of our families on Thursday, Black Friday shopping with Gram, Granddad, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Jeff, and Preston on Friday, and spent Saturday baking cookies and hanging out with everyone again. Maddox was a little thrown off of his sleeping schedule since we were gone so much but hopefully he'll settle back into his routine this week.

Maddox 1, Mommy 0

If there's one thing I've learned in my 6 1/2 short weeks of being a parent, it's that babies are consistently inconsistent. For the most part, Maddox is a good sleeper. On average, he goes to bed after his 9-9:30pm bottle and then wakes up every three hours or so to eat throughout the night before waking up for good around 5-6am. He usually takes a morning nap for an hour or so around 8am and a longer afternoon nap for two to three hours around lunchtime. Well, on Sunday night I thought I'd won the lottery...he slept for FIVE hours (and this was after taking a couple of long naps during the day on Sunday). Well, I should have known that my gloating would come back to bite me and it did in a big way last night. I put him in bed a little late (we had dinner with friends and started our nightly routine a bit later than usual) around 11pm. He grunted, groaned, and moaned for a while before finally going to sleep around midnight. At 2am, my little grunter was wide awake and demanding to be fed and refused to go back to sleep after that. I got him to sleep for another hour between 4-5am but other than that, he and I have pulled an all-nighter. I definitely agree with others that say that sleep deprivation is the hardest part of being a new parent. Personally, when I'm sleep deprived, I feel irritated, grouchy (sorry Brandon...), and always feel like I'm coming down with something (even though I'm not b/c I always feel fine once I get a little shut-eye). Anyways, here I sit watching my little angel sleep soundly in his swing after a night of no sleep. I should be trying to catch a cat nap while he sleeps but since I've already chugged a huge cup of coffee, that won't be happening. Instead, I'll sit here and bore you all with my pointless 6:30am blog and then will peruse my usual websites (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Amazon, The Bump, etc) until he wakes up.

I will blog later tonight or tomorrow about mine and Lisa's rendezvous with Jazzercise later today. We're on our way back to our fabulous pre-pregnancy selves, one Jazzercise class at a time! This should be entertaining...

Have a lovely (and hopefully well-rested) day!

Crystal (aka The Zombie with permanent undereye circles that is considering intravenously injecting coffee to stay awake today)

6 Weeks

Maddox is 6 weeks old and growing so fast! He is smiling more and more every day and his smiles are still making me melt! He also rolled over from his tummy to his back on Thursday. This is going to be a busy week for us. We're having dinner tonight with Dave & Abby (can't wait to see them and talk about Baby Sexton who's due in May!), Lisa and I are going to kick off our post-pregnancy fitness routine tomorrow with a session of Jazzercise, on Wednesday I'll be preparing side dishes and other items to take to various Thanksgiving gatherings, and we'll be spending the day with our families on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for this year- we are truly blessed.

Precious

Over the last day or two, Maddox has started smiling at me! Talk about making my heart melt.... this sweet little boy amazes me every day!

More pictures (by request)

5 Weeks Old

It's hard to believe that Maddox is five weeks old already. People aren't joking when they say that time flies once the baby is born! These past few weeks have been better than I could have imagined and the love that we feel for this sweet little baby is overwhelming. Brandon and I sometimes just sit and watch him in awe (and count our blessings every single day).

Besides eating (a lot), sleeping (a lot), and pooping (a lot more), Maddox spends his days rotating between his swing, his bouncer, being held by one of us, having tummy time, and cruising through the mall in his stroller (someone may have developed an early shopping habit...). In the last couple of weeks, he's discovered his voice and is entertaining us with a host of coos, gurgles, grunts, and squeals. I'm still waiting on him to smile at us in recognition instead of because of gas but that hasn't happened just yet. We don't have any kind of eating or sleeping schedule yet- we feed him when he's hungry and let him sleep when he's tired. Hopefully in the next month or so we'll settle into a schedule so that my transition back to work will be a bit easier.

Here are a few more pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Month 1 in Pictures

Here are some of our favorite pictures from Maddox's first month...

Birth Story

Here's how it all happened (I know the details tend to get lost in translation so here's how it went down...).

First, I have to warn you, this is long-winded. If you want the Cliff's Notes version, I was induced, labored for 24 hours, and ended up with a c-section.

Wednesday, October 7th- Went in to the OB for what I thought was my "normal" 40 week appt. I expected to hear that I had no progress and thought that the doctor would talk to me about an induction around the 41 week mark. Before the doctor ever came into the room, the nurse took my blood pressure (which was high...it spiked around 37 weeks and went up and down from that point on). As soon as the doctor walked into the exam room, the first words out of her mouth were "Well, your blood pressure is high again...we're going to go ahead and get you delivered." Whoa....excuse me?!? As in RIGHT NOW? Sure enough, I was promply put in a wheelchair and wheeled straight to the hospital's labor & delivery department. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. I was checked into the hospital around 4pm and was in my room, hooked up to an IV and started on Cervadil to jump start labor & dilation by 5pm. I was surprised to find out that I was already contracting every 5 minutes when I was checked in (but couldn't even feel the contractions!). After the cervadil was started, my contractions picked up and I was given Ambien in hopes that I would get some sleep that night (yeah right...if I only knew how the next few hours would go!). Between the hours of 10pm and 7am, my contractions really kicked into high gear but all I was feeling was back labor. At this point, it was too early for the epidural and I was in some serious pain since the contractions were coming right on top of each other with little to no break in between.

Thursday, October 8th- Around 7am, after having a hellish night and begging for the epidural, they finally came in to give it to me. Pure bliss...at least for a little while. Once the epidural was given, Dr. Little came in to break my water and to see how far I was dilated. I was at 4cm. I was told that I would just have to 'labor' that day until I got to 10cm but that given the progress I'd already made, I could probably expect to give birth by late that evening. At this point, pitocin (AKA, Satan's drug) was also started to help labor continue to progress. As soon as the pitocin was started, the contractions were on a whole new level. Even though I had an epidural, I could feel a ton of pressure with each contraction and wasn't able to get any rest. I was already exhausted and knew that I had a long road ahead of me! Throughout the course of the day, the pitocin was increased several different times. At one point, the doctor and a couple of nurses rushed into the room to have me turn onto my side. Apparently, Maddox's heartrate was having decels. They decreased the level of pitocin and told me that we should still be on track for a 'normal' delivery. After a stressful day of staring at his heart rate monitor (and having his heartrate monitored via a censor placed on his head), we still thought we were in a good place. By 2pm, I had progressed to 6cm. Dr. Little said that I should continue progressing and that she'd expect me to be at 8cm by 4pm. 4pm rolled around and I had made zero progress. Also, his heart rate was still fluctuating and I had some serious swelling. Then I heard the dreaded words..."I think we should think about a c-section." At that point, I had a meltdown. After laboring for 24 hours, was I really going to have to go through a c-section? What about the 'natural...but medicated' delivery I'd planned? After a very dramatic (sorry folks...I was terrified) few minutes, I was off to the operating room! In the operating room, things were a blur. I was given a lot of meds and was high as a kite. I don't remember all of the details. I do remember that Brandon looked absolutely terrified!

At 5:38pm on Thursday, October 8th, 2009, Maddox James Garrett entered this world. He weighed 8lb 5oz, was 19 3/4 inches long, and 100% perfect. Apparently, he was "sunny side up" which means he was facing towards my front instead of my back and that's why my labor never progressed.

Due to all of the drugs I was given, I couldn't move my arms so the nurses helped me hold him the first time in the operating room. As soon as they held him over my face so that I could give him a kiss, he puked right on my face (as if saying "Hello Mommy! Nice to meet you!"). After I was stitched up and put back together, we were wheeled to our room.

Our hospital stay was amazing and we couldn't have asked for a better team of doctors and nurses to take care of us. We were discharged and at home on Sunday where our life as a family of three began.

Welcome!

Now that Maddox is a month old and I have a few minutes here and there to blog, I thought it would be a good idea to move our blog from the Totsites hosted site to Blogger. Please save our URL to your favorites and follow us as we chronicle all of the new and exciting things that Maddox is up to!