When you're buried

Time flies when you're buried under life's responsibilities. Baby Harry turned six weeks on tuesday. The reality of laundry for four is setting in. 5:30am this morning...Greg is soothing Harry who won't go to sleep after I fed him at 4:30. Jude opens his door to reveal soaked pajamas and a wet bed...pull ups can only handle so much apparently. I head downstairs to get the just washed extra train sheets and blanket. Today I will rewash the ones I washed only two days ago. The ordinary busyness of our new life is still overwhelming.

We decided to have the doctor fix our dog. Surgery to compensate for torn ACL and meniscus. One big bill and two days more before we see him.

Lots of outings while Harry sleeps. Splash parks, the zoo, and even a trip to meet Thomas the tank engine, are helping mommy survive with two little ones. Two day a week preschool starts next week

one down, many to go

baby harry is now one month old! we are happy to reach this milestone with our now healthy, good eating baby boy. particularly after yesterday's doctor appointment gave us the all clear to let harry sleep as much as he will at night. no more setting the alarms to make sure he eats on schedule.

chillin in the bassinet

our family helpers have come and gone. now comes the real work of figuring out how this family of four thing is possible. will we ever find time to watch our favorite tv shows again??
right now its a cycle of surviving the day, getting jude to bed, putting jude back in bed after several potty requests, cleaning up the chaos and feeding harry before crashing on our pillows.

3 millers and a baby

speaking of mister jude, our 3 year old is living up to his age...plenty of opinions, answers of automatic 'no' followed by a more reasoned response, crashed together with adorable cuteness, conversation and laughter.

trucks and balls are my favorite toys

jude decided the other day to read a story to George our dog. our patient pup got to hear a bit about Curious George the monkey or at least see the pictures, because jude can't read yet.

story time dog

poor george is dealing with what the vet believes to be a damage ACL. he limps around in the mornings til the medicine kicks in. we are waiting for x rays to confirm a diagnosis and help us learn more about potential treatments...and cost. its hard when advanced pet care is available without advanced insurance to help with the costs. at least the rest of our family is healthy as we celebrate one month with harry.

happy harry

if you've read this far you are clearly a fan of baby harry, so here's the info from his doctor's appointment:

weight: 8lbs, 3 ounces 15th percentile
length: 21 inches 50th percentile

Read & Roll

Jude, like most little boys, enjoys having stories read to him at bedtime. In a recent development, however, he has begun turning the tables and reading the books back to us. Now before you award him a scholarship to Oxford on account of reading at three years of age, we should point out that we think he is reciting them from memory.

Still impressive.

And continuing the theme of doing things early, Harry has proven himself quite adept at rolling from side to side at three weeks of age. He is nearly rolling over already, and seems heavily motivated by his desire to eat anything he can reach... in this case, we've found him attempting to suck on his sheets. Seriously, he ends up practically face-down, twisted all around and gnawing at the sheets, after we've started him out on his back. He may be smaller than Jude was at this age, but he's a heck of lot more agile than Jude was.

early outings

kara wanted to take advantage of grandma carole's 9 day visit to practice an outing or two with the new family. we took a short trip to one of kara's favorite nearby places, brookfield zoo.

harry and the penguins

kara figured the 3:2 ratio of adults to kids would equal a successful, take-it-easy trip. jude enjoyed his time with grandma and daddy but for kara the trip revealed how difficult or impossible this outing would be without them.

family at the zoo

she spent the first 30 minutes nursing and changing harry in a convenient private area of the children's zoo. still to be determined is how in the world she can occupy jude during the time harry needs to eat on the go.
fortunately the issues did not need to be solved on this trip. after a pleasant picnic lunch, jude had fun following the over/under path of a free roaming peacock.

jude as peacock

a few days before we managed a simple walk around the block.

trial run of new stroller

the short outing was a good chance for kara to get fresh air and break the cycle of nurse, sleep, eat...and for the boys to try their new double stroller.

the new way we roll

we decided to go with the baby jogger city mini double. at 27 inches wide it fits through most commercial doorways and it is compatible with our maxi cosi carseat.

1st walk, 8 days old

harry was underwhelmed by the whole thing...he slept the entire walk.

let's compare

it was special to bring baby harry home in the same outfit worn by his brother jude when he left prentice hospital back in 2008. here's a look at both:

baby harry

baby jude

harry ready to go

unhappy jude heading home

2008 leaving the hospital with judeready to load harry

more visitors

when we talk about folks meeting harry, we can't forget about george the dog. poor thing already went through the huge transition of jude. and now he's been kicked out of his sleeping spot in our bedroom for the baby bassinet once again.

seems wrong to call these cat naps

George is handling it all remarkably well. he came running if harry cried for the first day or two but now he seems to take it in stride. we are still working on where he sleeps at night. its some combination of the living room, the bathroom rug and occasionally crammed next to our bed.

among the other special visitors in the early days, grandpa scott and nana jane.

with 4 day old harry

we are grateful they could make the trip from champaign to meet the newest addition to our family for several hours. grandpa scott resisted the temptation to 'check harry's hips'.

who is bigger?

who is bigger...doll or baby?

sleep where have you gone?

we are at day 13 of harry's adventure in the miller family. and so far the biggest change is the sleep or lack thereof. greg and i are both running on fumes but making it through our days.
harry is enjoying more awake times.

harry at almost exactly one week old

we learned at his day 3 doctor visit that mister harry was down to 6lbs 5 ounces from his 6lbs 15 ounce birth weight. with doctor's orders we had to set the alarm and get up to feed him about every two hours.

ya, we spend a lot of time sorta like this

unfortunately at his day 10 visit harry had only gained 2 ounces and he still had jaundice, the yellowy skin that indicates the body's little waste management system is not working completely yet. (insert tears and discouragement here) finally last friday we called in the expert. barbara helped get harry on track with eating, instead of the fake out not eating he apparently was showing us.

but still the sleep is fractured.

where have all the zzz's gone?

finally today we got good news. Harry is up 5 ounces since thursday and his jaundice yellowy color is minimal and no longer an immediate concern. whew! i bet we all sleep happier tonight, even if we don't sleep very much.