Uncle Soupbone

Everybody needs an Uncle Soupbone. And fortunately Cohen has one. Christian's old roommate, Richard, who Christian lived with for a longer period of time than he and I have been married, has a nickname of Soupbone. Not sure where it came from but that's who he is. I'm sure there's an interesting story about how he got that one. Anway, he recently moved back to SLC from living all over the country (he's in the witness protection program for witnessing some mob-related murder or something like that...at least that's what we tell Cohen) and we're glad. Not only does Christian have another biking buddy but someone to teach him how to play the guitar. And Cohen has an "Uncle" who buys him cool stuff from REI! Here are the 2 of them seeing each other after a few weeks of meeting one another for the first time.

Yawning? Yelling? Having a good belly laugh together? You decide.

Cohen trying not to make eye contact. He doesn't trust anyone with dark hair or dark eyes yet.

An unexpected visitor

We were surprised as anyone else to find that Super Baby had returned the other night for a limited engagement. On Wednesday night we put Cohen down at 10:55 p.m. and he didn't wake up until I accidentally poked him at 6:00 a.m. I had woken up with a start and upon seeing it was 6:00 and I didn't hear a crying baby, I jumped out of bed to check and make sure he was still alive. As I was sticking my finger under his nose I accidentally bumped his nose and woke my little goblin up.

I cannot begin to tell you how completely different and better things are compared to 2 weeks ago. I was at my Mothers of Preschoolers meeting this morning and the things coming out of my mouth were the opposite of what I said just 2 weeks ago. What they say about a baby becoming easier after 6 weeks IS true. He's not fussy when he's awake and not eating, like he had been. And he's smiling all the time now and cooing and trying to laugh and stick his tongue out when we stick our tongues out at him. It's so much easier and better than even a week ago.

Since Tuesday I've been recording his feeding and sleeping schedule to see if there's a pattern and there really is, so now we're trying to keep to it as close as we can. He's sleeping 6-7 hours at night right now, which I think a lot of people consider sleeping through the night. I'm going to keep with this schedule for a week (if he'll let me) and then gradually move his bedtime up 20 minutes to see what happens.

But we're definitely doing better at Team Hancock. It finally feels like we're all playing on the same team, not 3 separate teams!

A mix-up at the fertility clinic

As soon as we found out I was pregnant, I started worrying that a mix-up might have happened at the fertility clinic where Cohen was created. While these things are rare, they still do happen, and I imagined we would be "one of those couples" that got the wrong sperm. Well, I'm so happy to report that that was not the case with us as evidenced below...

While it's a goofy picture of Cohen, he looks exactly like his goofy dad. You've got to love the fish eye feature on the digital camera.

I feel like we're rounding a corner, Cohen & I. I'm gaining more confidence and discovering that I actually know what his cries mean (usually). He's less pissed off (a.k.a. fussy) too. And breast feeding is going okay, although improvements could still be made.

I'm battling my 6th clogged milk duct in less than 4 weeks. Argh. These boobs are problematic. And my mid-wife doesn't have a solution as to how to prevent them. I think a visit with a lactation consultant (again) is in order.

Anyway, here are some cute ones of our little red-headed stepchild. Enjoy.

  1:10 p.m.

1:12 p.m. And he stayed that way until 4:15 p.m.

Getting ready to enjoy bath time. I'm so glad he likes it. Too bad he doesn't like his car seat as much as bath time.

 Toweling off.

  Getting greased up.

Free time

So the little man is pulling his 3 hour nap right now and I should be cleaning, working on birth announcements, paying those damn medical bills because of you-know-who, finishing the 34 thank you cards (hey, only 4 left to do), sorting through all the piles that have accumulated ALL over the house in the last couple of months, doing more laundry, replying to all the wonderful e-mails some of you have sent to me, and maybe even showering, but no, I'm catching up on e-mail, watching the Olympics and blogging.

But hey, I did get to eat lunch today, remembered to take my antibiotics for my inflamed incision (it's infected AGAIN), and massaged my boob to try and release the plugged milk duct (my fourth in 4 weeks). Still plugged. Oh, and I did get dressed and brushed my teeth before 1:00. So it's a big day. Hey, maybe I'll even go outside. Who knows. That might be a little too crazy.

I was going to include some photos of General Fusster but the laptop grew legs and walked off, taking all of the photos with it. I'll include some when I finish my post/rant about breastfeeding (I've been writing it for days but it comes across far too negative, so I'm trying to clean it up a bit before I publish it).

Happy Valentines Day!

Babies are time suckers. Between nursing, changing, bathing, soothing and playing with Cohen, there's not much time left for anything except the necessities for me, like eating, showering (sometimes) and sleeping. Sometimes I get laundry done, sometimes I work on the countless thank you cards I need to finish, and sometimes, just sometimes, I get to call someone and have a conversation. But those are rare. So it's no surprise that I just don't blog as much. I sense a change though since Cohen hit 6 weeks a few days ago and everyone says it gets easier. And it  has been easier the last couple of days, so I'm holding onto that.

There's so much I want to write about but I'll save it for another day soon. In the meantime, enjoy some photos of our little Valentine. Even though there were no gifts exchanged and our Valentines Day dinner will be with 2 other couples (not so romantic eh?), it's still the best Valentines Day ever, thanks to the addition of Cohen Gray Hancock to our formerly drab lives.

Smiling at Daddy before he abandoned us to go for a run with his buddies. Marathon, shmarathon. Cohen thinks his dad doesn't need to train for it. He should just do it off the couch.

Hanging out with Mommy who decided to get all festive and wear red on V Day.

First walk post-op

Well, last Wednesday, at the encouragement of my mid-wife, I took Cohen out for my first walk post c-section. It was finally a sunny day and I was feeling good, despite an infected incision and sore boob. So I loaded him in the Bjorn, zipped him inside my jacket and set out. I was able to walk 2 blocks, very slowly. I had no idea how much major abdominal surgery can take out of you.

Since last week we've ventured out a few more times. On Sunday Christian and I walked to a new coffee shop a couple of blocks away and got lunch to go. It was so nice to go out a few extra blocks.

Hopefully by next week I can walk a few more. I'm just glad he likes the Bjorn. He was being Mr. Fussums yesterday around 5:00 so I stuck him in and trotted around a couple of blocks and he was asleep before I hit the end of the driveway.

Now if only I had the smarts to figure out how to use the baby sling.

Is that a baby in your jacket or are you just happy to see me? (I honestly couldn't come up with anything better) 

Who knew motherhood was really like this?

Well, I certainly didn't. I mean, I knew it was hard but I didn't know it was THIS hard. Even with an adorable baby, I still found myself giving him a choice to either nap in his bassinet or the garbage can the other day. I hate to admit that, but I was at my wits end. I got about 3 hours of sleep the night before and he hadn't slept from 6:30 a.m. (and it was approaching 1:00 p.m.) and was uber fussy. I couldn't calm him down enough to put him down at all without him screaming. I wasn't going to tell anyone about the thoughts I had that day (of what I would do to him if he didn't stop screaming) but I called my friend that night and told her and lo and behold, she said she had the same thoughts with her screaming baby and she sort of thought that a lot of women have the same dark thoughts.

And the guilt. Oh the guilt I had because of those thoughts. And the tears I started to shed because I felt like the worst mother in the world. Because here I had wanted this baby for so long and had gone through a lot to get him and now I wanted to throw him in the garbage.

Exhaustion + Out Of Control Hormones = Crazy Woman

So there's all of that and then there's all the physical stuff that makes motherhood hard. I realized over the weekend that I'd been in some sort of pain for over 4 weeks. It started out with 60 hours of labour, followed by recovering from a c section. Then I had a stomach ache for 2 weeks straight. Then an infected incision (at one point my husband said "what's that awful smell coming from you?" and I had to admit it was my incision retaliating against me for who knows what reason). And then the latest ordeal were plugged milk ducts in my boob. Do you know how painful that can be? I'm trying to come up with an appropriate description but nothing I come up with is clean enough for this blog. But you should know that if you ever do encounter plugged milk ducts yourself, an electric toothbrush can do wonders! I need to write to the makers of Sonic Care and let them know that their toothbrushes do more than keep the cavities at bay.

But we've had a good couple of days. No schedule established yet. We're just taking every day as it comes since we never know what it will bring. Like who knew that today would be Cohen's first real blowout? I sure didn't. My sister and I were laughing while we were chatting on the phone because as I was feeding him this morning he had the most hilarious toots (I put it on speaker phone so she could hear them). Yeah, the laughing stopped when I realized he had poop smeared all the way from his butt to his neck. And then I had to figure out how to get the poop covered onesie off of him without getting crap everywhere and then transport him and all of this bath stuff to the kitchen. Somehow the stars aligned and we had a really great bath time and I got the poop out of his hair and the onesie in the garbage (wasteful? no, smart).

Anyway, we're continuing to muddle through, one scream, one tear, one blowout at a time.

Enjoy some recent photos of Average Baby (I'm working on a new cape since he's lost the title of Super Baby).

  After the blowout. Sparkling clean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, I really hope he outgrows the cross-eyed thing, although it is really cute and makes me laugh every time. And don't bear ears just MAKE an outfit?

 

 

 

 

Just monkeying around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Giving him a massage after his bath the other day(although it looks like I'm trying to choke him). See the black & white snail to the left? That's Snaily McSnailerson who Cohen loves to chat with every time he gets his diaper changed. He fills Snaily in on the day's events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Ducky listening to Mum sing all the songs from "The Sound of Music". Julie Andrews had better watch her back, right Cohen?

 

 

 

 

 

Nobody puts baby in the corner

Well...maybe they do.