Schedule? Ha!

5 weeks old yesterday!

Just when I think we've established some semblance of a routine, it's thrown out the window. However, some things that continue to happen without fail and like clockwork:
1) Carter never wants to go back to sleep after Dad leaves for work in the morning, robbing Mom of a much-needed extra hour of sleep.
2) Carter usually sleeps in the late afternoon during my one hour guilty splurge of watching Gilmore Girls reruns. No matter how peacefully he appears to me sleeping, he wakes up just before Dad pulls into the driveway. It doesn't matter if Dad gets home at 4:30 or 6:00 pm, Carter always times it just right.

Pumpkin Daze this weekend! I've started a list of things we'll need to bring for the trip. We may need to buy more luggage to carry it all.

The pictures from our professional photo shoot look amazing! Some of my favorites are uploading to Flickr right now.

Happy Birthday Karen! Hope you have a fantastic day!

Baby Stats and First Date

My multi-tasking skills have always been quite good in my opinion. But now I have transcended to a whole new level. As I type, I am rocking the baby in his bouncy chair with my foot, uploading photos on my computer, all with the washing machine and the dishwasher running, and stopping occasionally to add items to my growing shopping list.

The baby is doing great! We had a doctor appointment last week and he's up to 9 lbs 4 oz and 23.75 inches long. His length puts him in the 97 percentile for his age so he's pretty long! He's already starting to hold his head up a little bit and he likes to listen to music too. We had some professional photos taken this week and I have to say...the little guy is a natural. He hardly fussed at all and seemed to love having his photo taken. As soon as we get these pics, we'll get them online. In the meantime, check out the very unprofessional pictures we've taken on Flickr sometime today.

My mom left this morning after spending the week here with us, helping out with the little guy. She was especially a big help yesterday. Mike and I got to clear out our vegetable garden. We harvested the remaining peppers (over 30!) and pulled everything up for composting. You should have seen the enormous horn worm we found. Ew! Then Mike tilled the ground for our winter preparation. It was great to be outside on such a nice day. I can't remember the last time I could do something without feeling physically limited in some way. It was liberating!

Then last night, Grandma watched the baby again since Mike and I had plans for our first post-baby date. We went to the sold-out show of the St. Louis Symphony performing the score to the Lord of the Rings movies. It was so amazing! I had goosebumps nearly nonstop...the vocals, the orchestra, all of it was really wonderful. Then we hurried home right after to see our boy to bed. Thanks for all your help Mom!

Today we are back on our own and the house is quite while the little man sleeps. We're counting down the days to the annual Pumpkin Daze festival in Republic, MO. The little guy will get to meet so many new family members and begin to learn the art of growing huge watermelons from his Papaw.

Dreamy Laughter

Today our baby is 3 weeks old! Parenthood is still surreal. Will we ever really feel like parents? Every time we look at his face, it seems impossible that he was actually inside me...or that we created him.

While he was sleeping in my arms today, I swear he giggled. I wonder what he was dreaming about. The smile lingered on his face for a few seconds. I can't wait to start seeing that smile all the time.

Few new pictures on Flickr and also a video!

Home Alone

Day 2 of Mom and Carter's home alone experiment. Today has gone better than yesterday. Some things I've learned over the last couple days:

1) No baby is a textbook baby. Every baby is unique.

2) Stick to my own system. What works for other people may not work for me.

3) Personal hygiene isn't really that important.

Mamaw and Papaw have returned to Arkansas. :-( I've posted some new pics on Flickr of their visit here. Thanks for your help you two!

Missing Dad Already

A somewhat sad day in the Bunn household. Mike had to go back to work today. Thankfully his parents are here for several days so they will make the transition to stay-at-home-mom a little easier.

Yesterday we took Carter to his first volleyball game. He was amazingly well-behaved the whole time, though he did get a little warm in the Moby Wrap. See pictures on Flickr.

Speaking of pictures on Flickr. If you wish to download some of the pictures from Flickr, you are out of luck. Flickr protects its users' photos from copyright violation and prevents rampant downloading. If you really want a copy of a particular picture (or several), just send me an email with the names or descriptions of the pictures. I will email you the original files or work something else out depending on your needs.

Cheers and Jeers

Cheers for M&M Premiums! The Triple Chocolate are divine.

Jeers for baby wipes. While extremely handy and effective when being used, I hate how they fail to come out of the dispenser without pulling 3 or 4 extra wipes along. Why can't I just pull out one wipe without them sticking to each other?

Cheers for Bert's Bees lip balm with pomegranate oil! Lip smacking!

Cheers for Standford vs. Illinois volleyball tomorrow afternoon in St. Louis! Go Illini!

Cheers for the Moby Wrap! See below. We still need to practice getting the right fit. Carter was extremely wiggly when I decided to try it out.

Jeers for pacifiers...none of which seem to satisfy my baby.

Jeers for still having to wear maternity clothes even though I'm no longer pregnant.

Cheers for finally being able to wear my wedding ring again, and also my favorite shoes. Be gone swelling!

First Doctor Visit

I know it's late. Time ceases to have any real meaning though when the 10-day-old infant gets hungry.

Yesterday was his first appointment with his pediatrician. I really like her a lot. She has been doing this for a long time and so she seemed to be able to read my mind. She answered half of the questions on the list I had brought with me before I even got a chance to verbalize them. She must be familiar with the new-parent mindset. She made us feel like we were doing a good job, which was a huge relief. The baby has nearly completely regained his birth weight so we are definitely on the right track. She gave him a clean bill of health and sent us on our way.