11 Months

Happy 11 month anniversary to my wife! 11 months ago today we were married in Minnesota. I'm amazed at how much as changed even since then. There is a new addition to our clan, and we have moved tons and tons of snow, and we've got all the plans set to expand already. I was hoping to delay that for 3-5 years down the road, but I don't think we'll make it. I'm excited to get it started, but it's going to lead an adventure this summer. We'll probably be limited in our area that we will live in. I can't remember if I've mentioned this already, but we are in the planning stages currently, so update coming later.

Olivia is being quite the attention drawer. This weekend we had all but 1 of our siblings here. We had a great time with all of them, and the weekend seemed quite shortened, but it was well worth while to have them all here. I also found out that we can pack 5 cars into our drive way as necessary. There was some plowing going on here, so with the company, we moved everything to the driveway. It was quite a sight, but it worked. Olivia is growing like crazy! She's eating like crazy as well. She's getting more and more awake time, and it getting way to smart for her own good. Still is playing games with us when changing her diaper. Earlier today, we've used what we learned from her to avoid using 5 diapers. It would have taken 5 with the number of bathroom breaks she took while undergoing one changing, but Heather wisely avoided it, and we decided to just take a bath instead of continuing risking changing diapers. After the bath, we felt good about how savvy we had been. Ok, how savvy Heather was. There ya go. Olivia is calling for me now, so I gotta run spend some quality time with my daughter!

The Diaper Quandary

So, after 11 days of our new baby, Heather and I have come to find an issue we are not sure at all how to change, handle, or deal with. I think I could count the number of times one one hand that Olivia has kept the new diaper after a diaper change on for longer than 5 minutes. Usually, the first five seconds are all it takes for her to "load" a new diaper.

The other day, she wore 4 diapers in about 20 minutes. We've found that she doesn't necessarily like sitting in her poop, so she'll wait until you have the diaper off to continue going. Sometimes, I think the little bit that was let out is just a ploy to get us to take off her diaper. We've had her pee and dirty brand new diapers virtually every time she get's changed. Earlier in the week, I thought that I'd foiled it and done it right, even waited an additional 5 minutes for her to finish her business, but as soon as I pulled the old diaper away and the new one was in place, it promptly became the 2nd old one. This evening, I had it totally foiled. I wiped her up and didn't move the old diaper away, and sure enough, there came the second pooping. Yessssss! I'd done it. I cleaned it up again so proud of myself that I'd only used the one diaper. Then, as I'm carrying her back out to the living room, I feel the rumble, and know.....she's done it again. Ohhhhhh. Ohhhhhhh. Don't even....... I was not a happy camper. Not mad at her necessarily because I know she doesn't know better, but mad that there goes another diaper out with the trash.

New Tactics

Well, so far we've had Olivia for 9 days now. It's been an adventure. We've tried to be calm and just learn all we can, but everything is new and when you don't really know what you're doing to start with, its hard to not think something is up sometimes. So far, we've finally got her bilirubin levels under control, so she's doing very well. She's starting to spend more time awake and does more lung exercises (screaming) than she did right after she was born. Part of that is the bilirubin levels are down, so she's feeling better now. Eating is still and adventure. We are getting that worked out and figured out as well. Sleeping isn't as bad as I'd thought it might be. I'm still losing lots of it, so that's bad, but Heather is losing more of it, so that's why we're building nap time into her schedule. I'm hoping we can figure out how to continue that even into my work week. She's napping now, and it's been over two hours. I've got supper in the oven already, and Olivia is out here with me, and I'm just working on computer things with our home machines

I'm also getting ready for our foot of snow. I'd rather keep the 50 degrees than the foot of snow, but I guess on the up side, I get to use my snow blower again! I don't remember if I'd posted it or not, but I've pretty much figured out how to run the thing. The faster I go, the better it will blow. I'll have to use it a couple of times in this upcoming storm, otherwise a foot of snow would be a little much for it. Anyhow, I told Olivia she could come out and help me with the moving of snow. She just laid there and kept sleeping, so I'm not totally sure what that meant.

The smallest blog follower....

Well, it appears my last blog post was apparently being followed by LB. She didn't like her dad saying mean things like she wasn't here yet, and also the facebook posts from her auntie that she didn't want to wait for her to be born anymore. At 6:37 Thursday morning (literally hours after my last blog post) we had our baby girl.

Olivia Hope
2/10/11 - 6:37am
6 lbs 14 oz - 19 in long

Here are some photos from our stay at the hospital and from our first day home. More can be found at the Baby Olivia photo gallery.

And the baby is.......

......still not here yet! I'm getting plenty anxious already. We've got everything ready, so when it's time, we load up and head for the hospital. 7 minutes. That's what it takes to get there, and I'm all over it. Next week, I might even practice the drive so that I'm ready to do it in my sleep (which as I see it is likely to happen). I was fairly certain during the snow storm she might make her appearance, but it still waiting on something. My guess is, she's waiting on warmer weather! Great. She better not wait until April....

The most confused Phone Caller Ever

Today has to be one of the most odd phone conversations I've ever been a part of. I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. So here is the text of our conversation (and no, I did nothing to embellish this at all, for real!)

Me: Hello, this is Tyler
Caller: Yeah, who is this?
Me: This is Tyler
Caller: Who?
Me: Tyler
Caller: What, who is this?
Me: This is Tyler (now i'm getting louder and more aggravated)
Caller: Just a second, I can't hear you...........Ok, now who is this?
Me: This is Tyler
Caller: Oh, ok, well, what did you need?
Me: (With a very shocked expression) Uh, you called me
Caller: What?
Me: (Now getting somewhat disgusted) You called me. My phone rang, and it was your number, and I answered it
Caller: Uh, I don't know....
Me: Ok, you are the one that called me
Caller: (Now very confused) Oh, well, I guess I must have dialed a wrong number
Me: Yeah, you must have. You called me at 605-354-2401
Caller: Oh, well, I don't know, but I guess I have a wrong number
Me: Apparently. Bye (and hung up)

I did not alter this in any way. That was the exact conversation. I've never had anyone call me and then try to tell me they didn't call me. I was fairly annoyed by the end of this. I hope I don't hear back from that screwball again!