(Yes, that’s one day’s worth.)

Last week on Forest’s one week ‘birthday’, I decided that I needed to take weekly photos of him this year. Let’s hope that as time goes on that I don’t get lazy and forget! Forest had his two week check-up today. He made us look like total rookie parents in the doctor’s office by first completely barfing up the bottle we were giving him, something he’s only done three times since he has been born, and then we couldn’t find the burp rags we had tucked into his bag so we had to suffice by cleaning him up with paper towels and Kleenex. Of course I found the burp rags…

On Saturday, August 30th Chris and I went out to Sam Houston National Forest to take photos before Forest arrived. Over this last weekend we wanted to recreate the same scene to include Forest’s arrival so we drove out to the same spot in the forest yesterday afternoon to introduce Forest to the forest! Other than a trip to the pediatrican earlier in the week, it was his first trip out. Chris’ dad and step-mom were in for a few days to visit and so we made an afternoon of it, stopping for lunch in Montgomery before heading out to the forest. Timing his feedings with my own eating needs…

It’s been a week now since we’ve had Forest in our life. With the postpartum hormones and my general sentimentality it doesn’t take much for me to break out in tears, especially when I think about how quickly the week passed by. The time at the hospital seemed to creep slowly, but of course by the end of the day and the visitors left I’d think that it all went so fast. And here we are now a week later and my baby is a week old and only going to grow older with each passing day, it makes me want to grip the reigns on time even more tightly.…

Warning: This is a very long post, at more than 6K words. I had to write it all down for my sake. Photos at the end. As I said in my post announcing the birth of Forest, his birth was not anything near what I’d envisioned all of these months. It all probably started with his 36 week ultrasound and his estimated weight at that time being 7lbs 5oz. With still another four weeks to gestate my midwife was concerned he was going to be quite a large baby. She scheduled a 39 week ultrasound for a followup measurement. It is widely documented that measurements this late in the game…

Forest Katahdin, born 9/3/2014 at 12:12 am. He shares a birthday with my paternal grandfather, who unfortunately Forest won’t get to meet since he passed away two years ago. Almost 24 hours ago this little dude arrived into the world! It’s hard to believe it has already been a whole day since he came into our lives. We’re pretty smitten with him! He’s was a big guy, too. Not the 9 pounder the ultrasound estimated but close, coming in at 8lbs 12.3 ounces. So far he’s a pretty good baby and doesn’t really cry unless he’s getting his diaper changed. We’re working on keeping his blood sugar up since he’s…

Well, we made it to 40 weeks and to September! And here we are just waiting around. Nothing going on, no major signs of labor, just some mild cramping on occassion that turns into a whole lot of nothing. It’s even more annoying that a chick I follow on You Tube who has always been due somewhere around the same time as me posted a video that she was having contractions and would likely be in labor over the weekend. Insert pouty face here. It would have been great to have been able to go somewhere for the weekend, over to Austin or down to the beach, but no…gotta stay…

I opted for a video this time around. There’s rambling and a four letter word towards the end. Just Google ‘Lightning Crotch’ and you too will throw out four letter words. Yesterday I had the two worst instances of it thus far and I swore the baby was ready to break through! My 39 week appointment is today, preceded by another growth ultrasound. I’ll just predict the ultrasound and say, ‘Yes, he’s still giant’. Only a few days left in August so we still might have our September baby…who knows.

Like the new baby mobile? We had to say goodbye to my Ford Ranger since you aren’t allowed to drive with a baby in a two-seater truck. Plus, at 12 years old and 154K miles she was definitely in need of some repairs. I think this was taken the day we got the truck back in October 2002 when we were living in Melbourne, Florida. Ah, I was skinny! And not swollen! And the truck was shiny and new! It was a little bittersweet turning over the the truck I’d driven all of these years, especially since I was giving up a stick shift. I’ve driven a stick since I…