Happy Autumn!

Nathan is all smiles at almost 2 months old!

Heading into month 2 as a family of 4. Wow, time flies! Nathan is starting to smile a lot now. He enjoys floortime exercise after feeds now. The best update? He puts himself to sleep with barely a fuss these days in his bassinet - day and night. Yay! He is sleeping for one 4-hour stretch at night. Oh, the joy of sleep. He's so much more interactive now. It's wonderful to see!

Emily is a tremendous big sister to Nathan. She's so loving as I knew she would be. She makes sure to kiss him goodnight and goodbye every day. When I pick her up from preschool, she skips past me to Nathan and gives him a whopping kiss on his head. We love her so much and we are so very proud of her.

Happy season to all!

Smile

Look Who is One Month Old!

Nathan is now 1 month old! Honestly, it feels like he's been here for 3 months, but that is just my sleep deprivation talking. I feel I've been up for 3 months straight! Ahhh, the wonderfully jetlagged world of a newborn. Up every 2-3 hours at night.

Here is what we know about this lil' dude with lots of hair thus far...

He's looks like Emily, but he's VERY different than Emily. 

To be expected. He's a boy, right? Biggest difference? He LOVES to snuggle with Mama, as in, he'll pretty much only sleep over 3 hours when only snuggled by my side in bed or in a carrier close to my beating heart. Wowza. I am not used to this violation of personal space. Now I understand a man's love of boobs! Emily never wanted much to do about snuggling. She was always fine sleeping away from us, but she was also on bili lights for jaundice for 7 days so she didn't know much else. This little guy is gonna be a tough nut to crack when it comes to that. I never thought in a million years I'd co-sleep with any baby, but now I understand why people choose to do it...to stay SANE and get some sleep!! 

From what I can remember, he generally cries a lot more than Emily did, mostly because he wants to be held. He spits up a lot more than she did. He's medium on the car seat. (Who said boys were less maintenance?!?!?) 

Emily never had an issue with it. Nathan usually squaks for about 15 minutes before settling in and calming down or sleeping. And he usually squaks because I had to wake him up from a cozy slumber to go, go, go...something I never had to do with Emily. We would stay at home until she woke up and was completely fed. This is not an option for little Nate. Feedings and sleep get constantly interrupted. Sorry, dude! Things to do! Poor, poor 2nd kiddo.

He now weighs about 7 lbs. 12 ounces. Birth weight was 7 lbs. 5 oz. He is a very slow weight gainer, which has my pediatrician calling me once a week for a check in. Apparently she's concerned he's not gaining quickly, but I'm not. So we are butting heads a little over this. He'll be a chunk before we know it, or perhaps that's just not his gig? I'm a firm believer in following these babies' leads and not freaking out over small things. He's happy and healthy and alert. That's all that matters to me. We are supplementing with breastmilk (more on that later - very cool story!!) and a wee bit of formula as needed until his weight increases a bit more. Breastfeeding is going well, but my milk took  looooong time to come in, which is part of the issue.

Hmmm, what else? He's starting to half smile. Emily adores him and he adores her. He smiled at her before me! I felt a little robbed over that. But she's the one who entertains him the most, and he loves it. I'm busy zipping around here taking care of anything I can, so I'm glad I have my little helper. She's handled the transition very well thus far. I can tell she is a little sad knowing he gets to sleep with us at night, so I always offer a naptime snuggle if she chooses. Today we all 3 fell asleep together...it was very nice. Otherwise, I play with her as much as I can, including while I nurse Nathan. It seems to keep her happy. She's in preschool, so she's got things to keep her busy anyhow.

Thank you for all your well wishes! We are adjusting very well to having a newbie around. I'm tired as all get out, but it's all worth it. That's what coffee is for anyway, right?

Nathan's First Photos

Welcome Nathan Matthew Mullet!

Nathan Matthew Mullet officially joined our family on September 9, 2012 at 6:13 p.m.

He weighed 7 lbs. 5 oz. and was 21.5" long.

Emily is thrilled to be a big sister. She's so loving and helps a ton! Today, she made her first drawing at preschool of us as a family, Nathan included. I almost teared up a bit. She's been so giving to him and hasn't had any jealousy or acting out (yet). We know this can possibly change later, but for now, we are so proud of her handling this so well!! It helps to have such wonderful support with friends and family.

Nathan is doing well. He's been slow to gain his weight back after losing 1 lb. thanks to Mama's milk lagging, but he's eating well, sleeping well and alert to the world. He's happy and healthy. He loves to snuggle and we certainly love snuggling him. Thank you for all your well wishes! Mama and Papa are doing great too.

My contractions started at 4 a.m. on the 9th. I stayed at home until noon...until the contractions were pretty unbearable. We arrived at the hospital where I had an epidural shortly thereafter. 5 hours, 1 Seahawks win and 2 pushes later, Nathan was here. We still can't believe after all Mullet boys producing girls, we have a BOY. It's incredible!! Little Nathan will be doted on by all Mullet girls, assuring him to be the sweetest, most sensitive and understanding man out there in 20 years.

36-Week Belleh

36 weeks!

The Final Countdown

4 weeks to go!

This pregnancy has definitely been a different beast than the first. It started off fairly smooth, but the last trimester has definitely thrown me some curve balls. I'm ready!

I'm now at near 36 weeks.
I delivered Emily at 37 weeks, so you can sort of guess how anxious I am these days. My plan is to be as 'chill' as possible in order to get this baby to bake a wee bit longer. Making it to 40 weeks would be great, but I'm not quite sure that is realistic.

Emily has been kissing and hugging my belly a lot. She knows baby is on the way and she's thrilled. Finally! A brother or sister for her. She's watched her close friends go through this transition for 2 years.

I'm starting to get a little emotional about it all - knowing this will be the last time it'll just be us 3. Emily has been such a beaming star in our lives, it's almost hard to imagine you can have that kind of love for another child. But I know we will. I found myself having this overwhelming feeling of love for this baby the other day as it was twirling around in my belly. I was wondering what kind of personality it would bring to our bunch. Is it a boy or a girl? THAT is the question.
Will it have the same eye and hair color? Will it be a good sleeper and good eater, no?
All these questions will be answered in a mere week to months. And once he/she is here, we'll no longer wonder. We'll only wonder what our lives were like without this little person.

The swing is out.
The bassinet is in our room.
The car seat is ready.
The hospital bags are packed.
Now we wait!