Three Weeks Old

Hello everybody! Noah Thomas checking in on my three week birthday! Just thought you'd like to know how things are going.

Today Mom and I played a new game. She stood me up on her lap, and I pushed off with my legs, so we bounced. I got to jump really high!

I also got a bath today, which I HATED. I was so mad I turned purple. I don't know why Mom picked my birthday to give me a bath. Maybe she thought I was a little stinky, since I hadn't had a bath in about a week.

By the way, Mom is a trickster. She tries to make me kiss her by kissing my cheek. I always think that means it's time to eat, so I turn towards her with my mouth wide open, and BAM! She gets me to kiss her. Sneaky.

Dad, on the other hand, is pretty cool. We like playing together. Except he figured out that I am ticklish on my tummy and the bottoms of my feet, which is not so fun for me. It just makes me squirm a lot.

I have to say, I am pretty strong, if I do say so myself. I can hold my head up for a really long time, and I can even do a push-up to lift my shoulders up, too. I'm a big boy.

Here are some new pictures of me:

Dad and me during tummy time

Taking a nap

Hanging out

And check out my newest video!

Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow

So Noah has been nursing non-stop today. Literally. For HOURS. The poor kid couldn't decide if he was more hungry or tired, and apparently he opted to eat rather than sleep. Every time I thought maybe he was drowsy enough to detach himself from eating and go to sleep, he informed me of how very wrong I was. I finally got him to get quiet enough to sit alone in his chair (where he sleeps), and as soon as those little eyelids shut I made a bee line for the bathroom to try to take a shower (at 3:25pm--yes, I said he was eating ALL DAY). When I got out, he was still sleeping! Hallelujah! And a minute later I realized I was singing--silently, in my head, of course--the Doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.

Seriously, today a nap is a blessing. Straight from God.

While talking to my friend, Sara, to get some mom advice on what to do, I mentioned that some days I feel like we've got everything worked out, and some days I just don't know what to do. She said she thought that was totally normal and that it sounded exactly like her experience, even now with a toddler. So in case you're wondering, this is what motherhood is like, at least in my limited experience so far: some days are hard, and some days are great. But I still think that little dude is drop-dead cute, no matter what kind of day I'm having. And we definitely have more good days than hard days.

Incidentally, if you have called me in the last month and left a message and I haven't called you back, I am so sorry! Please just assume it's because my life has been crazy (which it has), and that I really would like to chat. I realized yesterday that I had not returned a call to a friend a couple of weeks ago who really needed me to call, and I realized how very remiss I have been with everyone. So if you called and I never called you back, call again. :) And my life is still crazy on some days (like today), so if you do leave a voicemail, I will make it a priority to call you back, but give me a day or two, just in case. :)

Not Being Pregnant

Reasons it's nice not to be pregnant anymore:

1. I can reach my feet and put my own socks on.
2. I no longer have cankles.
3. I can walk up stairs without the tops of my legs touching the bottom of my very large belly.
4. My back doesn't hurt.
5. I can hug my husband without my belly getting in the way.
6. I no longer have an American Gladiator appetite.
7. I get to be home with little Noah.
   

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Today is Nathan's birthday! In honor of completing his 26th year, I'll tell you 26 things about him:

1. He is one of the goofiest people I know. He likes to make up songs and silly puns.
2. He is one of the smartest people I know.
   
3. He is a kid at heart. One of his favorite Christmas presents was a sled.
4. He loves blueberry pancakes (which I made for breakfast this birthday morn).
5. He did not want to name Noah after him. A Nathan Jr. was out of the question. He didn't even want to give Noah his middle name.
6. He is one of the humblest people I know.
   
7. He usually really enjoys zombie movies. Go figure. (Lauren does not, so he stayed up till 2:30 to watch one the other night.)
8. He usually really dislikes running errands. He especially hates it when we're out doing something and I mention dipping into an extra store to get such-and-such (in other words, doing an extra errand).
   
9. He is good at figuring out all the cables and stuff that go with the computer and TV. This is a good thing, because I would be watching static without him.
10. He strongly prefers Macs over PC's and has pretty much converted me. Our Mac is pretty dang nice.
11. He told me once when we were dating that his favorite weather was 95 degrees and sunny, and that this was a great day to play baseball. I'm pretty sure I thought to myself that this was not the guy for me if he loved 95-degree weather.
12. He hated living in Harvard Square. He just didn't like having no outdoorsy space around. He is not much of a city-dweller.
    
13. People like him. I don't know anyone who doesn't like Nathan. He's an easy person to get along with.
14. One of his old office mates calls him "Scooter," or "Scoots," for short. Don't ask me why. I guess this is more a statement about Chris than about Nathan.
    
15. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, he was blonde and chubby when he was a toddler but turned darker and lankier a few years later. Because of this, I maintain that rather than being switched at birth, he was switched at five. His parents deny this. :)
16. His nickname as a kid was "Nate-o Potato."
17. He is a bit of a homebody. He usually prefers to stay home and watch a movie rather than go out.
    
18. He is really helpful. He usually helps with the housework, especially the dishes, although clutter and other things that need doing usually don't register on the "I should take care of that" meter. (The exception to this is when people are coming over, in which case he turns into this super cleaning machine. I wish we had people over every day.)
    
19. He is really picky about his hair. The boy can spend some time in front of the bathroom mirror.
20. He is an Eagle Scout and a member of the Order of the Arrow.
    
21. He loves animals and can spot a wild animal quicker than anyone I know.
    
22. He can be pretty competitive, especially when it comes to board games. For example, he has a hard time liking Puerto Rico because he has never won.
23. He can do the absolute best velociraptor impression you've ever seen. I mean, it really is amazing. He looks and sounds JUST like the raptors from Jurassic Park. The thing is that he'll hardly ever do it for you. If you've seen it, you're one of the lucky few.
    
24. He was awesome throughout the labor and delivery process. He was a really great, encouraging coach, and I think he thought the whole process was pretty exciting.
    
25. He is a great dad. He can swaddle and change diapers and make up songs like a champ.
    
26. Pretty much every day, he looks at Noah and says, "I like him a lot."

Oh-EE-oh-NUH-muh-nuh

So today Nathan and I drove through McDonald's, and Nathan asked the guy at the drive through what kind of McFlurries they have.

The response:
"Oh-EE-oh-NUH-muh-nuh."
"What?"
"Oh-EE-oh-NUH-muh-nuh."
"Oh. I'd like the M&M."

Apparently he was saying "Oreo and M&M." Somehow--I'm not sure how--Nathan's brain deciphered "nuh-muh-nuh" to mean "M&M."

That made us laugh half of the way home. Next time we're going to Chick-fil-A. ;)

Nicknames

Noah's nicknames (so far):

• all the normal ones: Baby, Sweet Pea, etc.
• Little Dude
• Noah Balboa (since he punched my mom from within the womb)
• Stinky Stinkerton (you can guess why)
• Buddy or Bud
  

Two Weeks

Yesterday was Noah's two week birthday. I took a couple of pictures of him after he had finished eating and was curled up in the Boppy pillow. He's grown a lot over the last couple of weeks, and I think he just keeps getting cuter.

Isn't he sweet? ;)

Of the Grandparents and For the Grandparents

Noah and GG

Noah and Grandpa

Noah and Grandpapa (or Papa?)

Noah and Grandmama (?)
(I'm still unsure of Nathan's parents' grandparent names, but it's not as if Noah will be pronouncing them any time soon!)

Noah's first bath!
He did NOT enjoy it.
Noah still does not like his hat.

Noah, sucking his hands.

A word of caution: I am posting this little video of Noah for the sake of the family members (great-grandparents, especially) who have not had the chance to meet him yet. Unless you are a great-grandparent, you are not likely to find this interesting or entertaining in any way, so feel free to skip it. :)

Just Look for the Good Looking Guy on the Harvard Website

So before this blog turns into the Noah Blog, I thought I'd tell you a non-Noah funny story.

About a week ago, Nathan got a funny phone call in his office. It was a woman calling from a production company in London who wanted him to consider being the geological expert on a show they're putting together on ghost towns. She explained that they're putting together a team of experts in several different fields (archaeology, geology, etc.) to do testing at the sites of different ghost towns to figure out why the people left (e.g. there was sulfur in the soil, etc.). So she was calling to find out if Nathan would be interested in being their geology expert, doing soil samples, etc.

She opened her pitch by telling him that she had found him on the Harvard website and thought his research would match up perfectly with what they were doing. What's funny is that, I'm sorry, but no lay person can decipher what it is exactly that Nathan does based on the description of his research online--it's just too technical. It was apparent that she didn't understand exactly what he does, because what he does doesn't match up with the type of research they want done on these ghost towns.

Let's see if you understand what Nathan does, as described on the Harvard Earth Science Dept website:
"I am a fourth year Ph.D. student focusing on numerical modeling of blind-thrust faults, including the influence of mechanical stratigraphy on the development of fault-related folds. I primarily use the Discrete Element Method in my modeling approach."
Yeah, I didn't think so. I don't know what it means, either. He has to dumb it down for me a good bit for me to get a general grasp on what it is that he does.

So after she finished telling him what they were doing, he said, "Well, this looks like a very interesting project, but I have two concerns. First, I am working on my Ph.D. and will be spending my time on my own research for the next year and a half. I don't know what your time line is, but I wouldn't be able to be involved until then. Secondly, the type of research you want to do is not what I study. You really need an environmental geologist, and I work on large-scale fault systems."

But she was not about to give up. "So when will you be done, exactly? June 2009? Okay. And as for the type of research you do, even though soil samples are not what you concentrate on, I assume you've been trained in that area, too." Which is kind of a naive assumption, since Nathan has had only a touch of that type of training, and only at the undergraduate level. I thought they were looking for an expert, here!

So then she told him they'd be using "guest stars" (not "guest experts"--this also cracked me up) for certain episodes. The example she gave was employing a diver if they find a ghost town under water. So Nathan gave her permission to keep his number on file in case they want to use him as a "guest star" later on. Nathan later pointed out to me that if a town is under water, he is pretty sure he can figure out why everyone left. Ha!

So here is what I think: I think they said, "We need a geology expert. Where do you find experts on anything? Harvard. Go look at the Harvard website and pick out the best looking person." And I think that is why Nathan got that call. Which cracks me up.

Here is the site, in case you want to take a look.

About Noah

We've had our Noah for a week now, and we've had a chance to get to know him a bit. Here are some neat things about him:

• He is a great eater. The boy eats a lot. He lost a lot in the hospital (the full 10% off his birth weight), but at the pediatrician's office yesterday we found he had gained 6 oz. in two days! He's been making up for lost time.
• He makes an Elvis lip when he needs to burp.
• After he starts nursing, once he calms down a bit and realizes that he can just enjoy eating, he lets out the cutest sigh. He takes a cleansing breath and lets it out with a little "Ahhh," as if he's thinking, "Okay, now I can relax."
• He has a dimple on his right cheek.
  
• He LOVES to snuggle. I have never seen a baby love to snuggle so much. He'll just curl up on your chest and be totally happy. How can you not love that?
• Because he loves to be near you so much, he does NOT love the bassinet. He insists on sleeping either on you or next to you. We are working on getting him to sleep in his own bed.
• He has the biggest yawn in Christendom.
  
• He gets about a hundred kisses a day.
  

Our Little Cowboy

Our little cowboy did NOT like wearing his cowboy hat today.
These pictures cracked me up!

Update

I feel like I have so much to say, but I am making a conscious decision to spend any "free" time resting rather than typing (or thinking), so I will have to wait to give you more details on the delivery and the first few days of Noah's life. Suffice it to say that he is super sweet and very cute, and we love him a lot.

Nathan is continuing to post pictures at the link in the post below, so if you check back, you'll see new pictures periodically. Here are a few, as well:

Noah Thomas Benesh

Noah Thomas arrived at 1:41 am today, January 9! He weighed in at 8 lbs. 11 oz. and was 20" long.

I'll write more details later, but in a nutshell, they induced at 2:15pm because my blood pressure was a little high and because the baby was big. My body was ready, though, and they were able to take me off the pitocin after a while. The nurse said she'd never seen anyone contract so often or consistently, so everything was going well, but I still ended up with a C-section after three hours of pushing because the baby was turned a funny way, and that plus his size meant he just wasn't coming. So they did a cesarean and we got to meet our boy! The doctors and nurses could not stop talking about how cute he was. Apparently not all babies are as cute as Noah at birth. :)

I am sure I'll have more pictures to post later, but check out this link in the meantime:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nathanbenesh/Noah_Thomas_Benesh?authkey=_OYvN6bEPq8

Baby Update, 1/7/08

Okay, people, this kid is coming soon!

Here is the update on the doctor's appointment today. I am still 80% effaced, but I am now 1-2 cm. dilated. Yay! I got all the typical questions: Any bleeding? No. Any contractions? No, dangit.

While in the office, the doctor stripped my membranes, which sometimes helps move things along. She also scheduled an ultrasound for tomorrow morning to check on the baby's size.

Then she scheduled an induction for this Friday, January 11! Yay! Finally a date!!

Things got a little more interesting when she said she noticed my blood pressure was a little bit up. That meant that I had a non-stress test today and that I'll go back and see her on Wednesday to have my BP checked again. So they hooked me up for the non-stress test, where they put a couple of monitors on your belly--one to watch the baby's heartbeat, and one to monitor contractions. I've had two of these already, and of course, the contraction line is always silent. While the nurse was reading the printout, she said, "Have you been feeling any contractions?" "No." "Well, you're having one right now."

"What?!?"

They monitored me for about 20 or 25 minutes, and I had at least four or five contractions! And I barely felt anything! (Although I did learn to recognize them a little bit.) Nathan thought it was oh so funny that I had been having them probably for days and didn't know, and I felt like a total doofus, but, honestly, who wouldn't kill to be in my position? Contractions and no pain?! I guess I'm still having them now, three hours later, but I honestly am not feeling them. I just assumed they'd be painful. They're not, for me (or at least, not yet). The nurse said everyone was different in terms of how uncomfortable they feel. Since I just read Michelle's labor story this morning, I had something to relate that to.

What I'm a little confused about is the fact that they told us to call the hospital once the contractions were about a minute long and five minutes apart for an hour. Well, that's what they were in the office (for twenty minutes, anyway), but they sent me home. Not sure what that means. But I'm assuming that it's not as if I'm going to get through labor pain-free and all of a sudden be like, "Oops, there's the baby on the floor." And I WAS only 1 or 2 centimeters dilated. So I guess I have some time.

But I'm glad the baby may be coming before Friday, because I'd rather go into labor spontaneously, if at all possible. If I have to be induced, that'll be fine, but this way it'll probably be an easier labor with fewer chances of complications. But I must say that I am still secretly hoping that I don't have to go to the hospital until after the ultrasound tomorrow morning, because I am still a tiny bit paranoid that this boy is actually a girl, and aside from having a ton of blue baby clothes and a blue cowboy room, the other reason we're not really prepared for a girl is that we have not 100% settled on a girl name (if it's a boy, we have two names that we'll choose from once we take a look at our boy). Okay, I know this is just my own weird paranoia, but I will still feel better if they do a triple-check before he's born. :)

So that's the scoop!

Due Date Belly Picture

Week 40 Belly Picture

How the heck did my belly get so big?!?

I've been tired and kind of blah the last several days, but I decided that today was a good day for a picture, which meant that I had to wash my hair and put makeup on. So ta-da! There you go.

Today is the actual due date: January 4. Right now it's 2:30, and I don't get the feeling this kid is going to come on his due date. This morning, Nathan said he had a feeling something might happen today, and there is certainly still time for that, but even if it started now, I don't think there's enough time to actually go through all of labor and have a baby before midnight.

Everyone's anxious to meet Baby B. My mom keeps speculating about what color and how much hair he will have. Nathan had some brown hair, I was completely bald (not even an eyelash), and today she said she thinks he will have red hair. Who knows?

I have a feeling that, since his profile clearly showed Nathan's nose in the 19-wk ultrasound, he will look like Nathan but will have my fair coloring. The funny thing is, though, that Nathan was fair when he was little, too. In fact, the running family joke is that I maintain that instead of being switched at birth, Nathan was switched at five years old. Up until then, he was a chubby, fair kid with blonde hair and light eyes. Then, all of a sudden, in pictures from when he was around five, he switches to this tall, lanky kid with brown hair. His parents swear he is the same person. :) So who knows what this baby will look like? We are all looking forward to finding out.

Did anyone notice how huge my belly is? Maybe you should all start placing bets on how big the baby will be. In fact, that would be a fun game. Leave a comment with your guess--how many lbs. and oz. do you think he will be? To get you started: the nurse practitioner guessed 8-8.5 lbs., while the doctor is not giving any numbers other than to imply he could be any size up to like 10 lbs. So somewhere between 8 and 10.

I Think This is Funny

I had spicy Thai food for dinner in hopes of inducing contractions.

All I got was a nosebleed.

Baby Update, 1/2/08

I had another doctor's appointment today. I am now 80% effaced, but I'm not dilated at all. So I am making progress, but it's slow. Who knows, though--I could still go at any time! This week has actually been the first time when I feel like things are happening. I had one random contraction, and other than that, I've just been feeling a little funny from time to time.

The doctor did have me make an appointment for Monday in case the baby hasn't come by then so that we can "make a plan" at that time, since they don't want me to go beyond week 41. (My due date is this Friday, January 4.) She might schedule another ultrasound to see how big he is, because she's getting concerned about his size. Looks like we're going to have a big boy.

That's about it!

How Everything Turned Out

Here's how our Christmas tree turned out. It ended up being far too wide to put in the corner of our living room, so we moved it to the dining room. We are still a little short on ornaments, so we supplemented our decorations with Christmas cards and paper stars that Nathan made.



And here is Dad, making the toy box:


And Mom, painting the mural in the baby's room:


While Nathan and I were out volunteering at our church's New Year's Eve celebration, Mom and Dad were busy putting the baby's room together. It turned out so nice! Here's the finished product:

Mom painted the view from the front of Nathan's parents' house in Waco, complete with horses (Red and Leo) and one of the dogs (is it Bear, Bella, or Baxter?). :)

Can't get enough good books! I recommend Library Lion, No David!, and The Velveteen Rabbit. :)