Birthdays and Barf

It's been a busy couple of days for the Three Lews. Yesterday was Jason's birthday! So his reward...he got to stay home from work to hang out with Jackson and I. Ha...a nap under his desk Costanza-style would have been probably more appropriate. But we were very glad to have dad home in the middle of the week and I know Jackson enjoyed the extra time with Jason. We celebrated the big day with a trip to Costco and Jason played softball last night. I hope he had a nice birthday...I think he did.

Today I was back flying solo, and I think that the spit up gods needed to remind me about how delicate the balance of baby raising is and how they can take away my super easy baby at anytime and replace him with a curdled milk dispenser whenever they so choose. Today was vomitron day for mamacita. I fed him at 9 a.m. and when I was changing his diaper to put him down for his nap after 10, I had my first personal projectile vomiting experience. Super. Then later, when we went to the mall to meet Steph and Julian, I got spit up on again, and again when we got home. Then tonight when Jason and I got home from our birthday outing at Benihana and I took Jackson from Tera to wrap up his burping, I predicted 10 seconds before he did it that he would spit up on me again. I got barfed on about five times today. And fell and banged my knee. And Jason's car wouldn't start. And our new technology from Best Buy didn't arrive. If I could get away with not getting out of bed tomorrow, I would not get out of bed tomorrow. If for no other reason than to not be puked on again. But when your boy is four weeks old (!) you gotta get out of bed.

Let me reiterate that my little man is a super easy, happy, wonderful little boy and Jason and I say everyday how lucky we are that he is so easy on us. Let us hope that tomorrow, we get our little boy back and the curdled milk dispenser goes back to where it came from. For my part, I will be a very focused and disciplined and patient burper during all feedings to see if that will change my luck. Let's hope so.

Success At Last!

We got a Baby Bjorn. We tried to put Jackson in it once in a non-successful outfit which yielded a lot of screaming...so we paused for awhile before we tried again. I decided today that I wanted some exercise, and with it being 1 pm on a Wednesday, Jason was at work and therefore if I was going to exercise, Jackson was going to participate on some level. I glanced over at the Bjorn and decided to try again. Success! We went for a nice walk...approximately 1.75 miles according to my new iPod Nano with Nike+ technology (which incidentally is kickass). I'm tired but of course Jackson napped in the Bjorn so when we got home he was ready to play when I was ready to nap. We will need to work on this.

Today we went to a place in North Boulder called Play Grounds and met Beth and Jack and also Kelley and Colby. Kelley was the first person in class to have her kid...the first of FIVE boys out of six kids so far. It's fun to see the little ones and compare stories. Incidentally, I haven't given a shout out to Steph and Fernando from class who had (of course) a little boy (on Mother's Day, yay), who they named Julian. So we have five boys, three of which are J's: Jackson, Jack and Julian. That's kind of fun. Okay my J is napping and so must I or I will pass out.

No Kisses From Dogs That Eat Their Poo

Happy three day Memorial Day Weekend, loyal blog visitors. We had a semi-productive and exciting weekend...well as exciting as things get around these parts. Today we visited Grandma and Grandpa's house in Lakewood for Jackson to meet the Colorado Anholds. Grandpa has a brother and his family here in Colorado so we wanted to get everyone together to meet the wee lad. It was originally supposed to be a cookout, but inclement weather forced us to have an indoor throwdown which was a bummer. We also used it as a Jason birthday event as he turns 3-3 on Thursday; Uncle Eric and Aunt Jennie made his favorite cake...yellow with chocolate frosting. It was made from scratch and was very good! Thanks for the special effort bro and sis in law it was very nice.

It was a fun day. Jackson was basking in the glory of the Anhold women handing him around (thanks to Christine, Kristi, Jenny and Aunt Rita for making it possible for me to eat dinner) when he wasn't snoozing in his car seat. He also got to meet the family dog Buffy which was exciting. Buffy hadn't seen me in wow probably two months or so so she was very excited to see me first of all. Once we got over the initial Buffy-Lindsay reunion excitement, she took a sniff of Jackson and seemed okay with it. She tried to give him kisses a little later but the dog that eats her own poo really shouldn't lick the 24-day old baby who we try to keep from getting sick by scrubbing ourselves with soap and antibacterial stuff constantly. We also had a visit from the Dahman family, whose matriarch Tenby is a good friend from high school (Go Rams!). She and her husband Matt have two darling girls Taylen and Alenna, who provided us with a sneak preview of what three and one-ish look like. Something for us to look forward to.

Yesterday Jackson and I went and checked out my indoor soccer team, Chickfila, in action. The roster is a little different as injury and pregnancy has depleted the ranks, but I look forward to rejoining them on June 22. They won, as usual, and Korie (who threw one of my baby showers) helped me out with a diaper change on the floor of the facility. I'm currently lobbying my teammates to change the name of the team to Milf Island since half of us are moms (it used to be 7 out of 10). 30 Rock fans...you don't need to ask what that means. But for the rest of you...visit here. If you aren't watching 30 Rock you need your head examined the show is hilarious.

Babies Are Disgusting

If Jackson were an adult, the following behavior would typically be frowned upon: pooping a substance which I can only describe as appearing to be the entire contents of a Gulden's mustard jar into his pants, throwing up on himself and others on a semi-routine basis, peeing on others, having to get snot sucked out of his nose by others.

Following an episode in which all four of these things happened in a span of 5 minutes, I sat on the bed in his room holding him and laughed hysterically. Then I tried to talk him into a good nap so that I can wash the aforementioned substances from my body...and mind. He has not yet accepted this proposal. You'd think a three week old would be more reasonable.

The good news is that his aforementioned bodily functions have automatically qualified him for legacy membership in Jason's fraternity. So we can rest easy there.

My Son is Hip

After his bath, Aunt Allie and I gave Jackson a fancy hairdo. I hate the pacifier, but the 'do is so happening that I will share this photo anyways. I'd like to note that we did not use any product on my then-18 day old child. Enjoy.

I also remembered that my ghetto fabulous digital camera also records some low grade video! So here are a few moments from Tuesday around feeding time while we are waiting for dad to get home from work. It's hard to hold an 18 day old and shoot video with a camera that is the size of a deck of cards so I'm sorry in advance for the quality of my videography.

Jackson's Day Out

We had such a big day yesterday! Jackson went to his first sporting event, the Big 12 Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Boulder. Mom had a small role in the planning of the event and as the former track & field SID at CU, I actually like track meets and wanted to go. So we went! Grandma Jane joined us for our day at Potts Field and it was very fun. It was WONDERFUL to see all my friends and colleagues from CU. Everyone was so nice and so happy to see the little man.

I will say this...the number of double takes was hilarious. People would look right at me, look right at the stroller and keep walking. The arithmetic involved putting together the concept that a woman that looks like Lindsay, that is not pregnant, that is with a stroller and a baby is in fact the Lindsay they saw waddling around campus for the last few months. That is the same person and yes that's her and she's here and the lump has emerged from her abdomen and is a rather cute baby with a full head of hair. People love the hair.

Anyways, we were there for two hours and I got tired so we went home. Of course the CU men went ahead and won the thing and we missed it, but those are the breaks when you're a new mom. Huge congrats to the Buffs and also to all my colleagues who put on the meet. I have been to several Big 12 and NCAA meets and you guys...you did a great job. If I hear one more backhanded, "Wow you guys did way better than we thought you would," compliment I'm going to scream. It was a GREAT event and you should be so proud.

Today is our first day without dad...he went back to work. So far we are doing okay and I already took a shower and got several things done that were necessary for me to feel like a normal person while Jackson was napping. Hopefully the rest of the day continues to go this well...keep your fingers crossed for us!

Embracing Parenthood

You are hanging out on a Friday afternoon and the child is sleeping and you hear something maybe not perfect/normal on the baby monitor. You go up to check on the kid, and find that he spit up second breakfast and is maybe semi-covered in it (face, hands, etc).

Pre-baby, when you are a normal person without children, you might think oh that's too bad or that's gross or whatever and hope that mom and dad can handle it. You may pitch in with a washcloth if you are feeling extra ambitious. I would probably turn around and leave the room if there was a parent there helping, and if not, I would alert the parent so that they could address the situation.

When it's your kid, you swoop into the crib, pick him up and immediately put him to your chest and try and calm him down (even though in this instance Jackson could not have cared less really he wasn't even crying...so really I was calming myself down) and wipe that crap off his face and hands with whatever is available...your own shirt for example. Then you get the snot sucker to hose out his nose and remove the offending materials from that area when needed. And continue to wipe his face off on your own shirt until a burp cloth becomes available.

Next example: I remember holding other people's children (well really just observing other people's children let's be honest I wasn't big on holding babies pre-JCL) and they had crud in their eye or in their nose or on their face. I was like, ew that's gross someone should really wipe that off or whatever. I can say I never pitched in on an eye booger or any other form of booger clean up.

Now I'm a total nose squeegier and eye wiper and face wiper and whatever. Not to mention what comes out of his other end that we're responsible for cleaning up. I don't even think about it anymore...I just wipe it up. It was a total epiphany last night at 4:30 am when he spit up on me, again, and I just sort of said well kid, we have a feeding to wrap up and all my shirts are in the other room so we'll sit here in our puked-on shirts and get fed and then carry on with our evenings.

One more thing...Congrats to Alli Hunt and Paul Hogan, who are friends from CU who are getting married today in Charlotte, N.C. I'm thinking of you guys on your special day and hope it's a blast!

Two Weeks Old

So Jackson is two weeks old today and I really can't believe it. I play the "this time two weeks ago" game with myself today...at this time two weeks ago I was I believe on all fours because Jackson wasn't getting enough oxygen or something. My how life has changed for us in Longtucky.

This photo is from last night when we were having a small nap with mamacita during a very boring episode of ER while dad was playing softball. If anyone can tell me what the heck is going on with that show, please feel free. Dad's team won and he went 4-5...go Dad. Sally O'Malley brought us sandwiches and was cool enough to hang out with mom and Jackson for the evening which was much appreciated. For those of you who don't watch Thursday night on NBC...you missed out. Joy was in rare form on My Name is Earl. Do yourself a favor and watch it online.

In honor of being two weeks old, Jackson's umbilical cord fell off, which was not so frightening as it was dangling by essentially a thread for 12 hours. It fell off during a diaper change at 3 a.m. this morning, and I for sure held on to it so Jason could see it...honestly it's nothing to write home about. I think people save those but I think we'll unceremoniously put it in the trash.

Today after his second lunch we will go for a walk in the Bjorn in preparation for Big 12 Track & Field on Sunday. That will be our first real outing since Starbucks on Tuesday (?) honestly I can't remember what days we did what at this point.

Dad does back to work on Monday so Jackson and I are preparing for life with me as his sole provider of everything for the majority of each day. It should be interesting. It's one thing to have a newborn at home with both parents, but it's entirely another once one goes back to work. It's not like it's easy with two people in the first place. Jason and I have had a nice routine going where each of us is getting a decent block of sleep (like five hours even)...however that ends for mom on Monday. Check in with me on Thursday to see how that's working out for us. I think we can do it...and I'll let you know if we can't. :)

Out and About...Finally

So we finally left the house. We as in Jackson and his ma, together, for a purpose other than a visit to the pediatrician. We decided to go meet Beth and Jack at Starbucks at 29th Street yesterday at 3 pm. It wasn't a bold place to go, and I scheduled it during a time I knew Jackson would be asleep, recently fed and recently changed. And it paid off...he slept from the moment I put him in his car seat to go until the moment I removed him from his car seat when we got home. I did not have to change him, I did not have to feed him, I did not have to hold him...we just got to sit and be. Then we went to the Apple store to accessorize our new iPod Nano. It was wonderfully stress-free and set the table for bigger things. We will test drive the Bjorn tomorrow and hopefully will attend the Big 12 Track & Field Championships on Saturday or Sunday this weekend.

Today we got a visit from Kristen. She made us lasagna and we sat and ate and chatted. She is having a little boy in June so Jackson will have yet another buddy to play with. She also got us an amazing onesie that says, "I already know more than the President" which our son will proudly wear as soon as I wash it! Tomorrow Sally O'Malley will come visit and bring food and entertainment. If anyone else wants to visit, feel free to holler at me next week. Jason will be going back to work and I will be lonely!

Happy Mother's Day!

Yay! Happy Mother's Day to all moms! It's my first one, and I got the celebrating off to a fab start with some late night feedings. They went very well and me and Jackson did some good chatting and bonding during the burp phases. He slept awesome which was a wonderful gift for me from him.

Grammie and Papa offered to watch him for a little bit while Jason and I left the house for a date. I wasn't feeling like a big production, so we drove to Sonic. Seriously. Then we went to Target, continuing our streak at 8 consecutive days with a trip to Target by someone in this family. My goal is to skip it tomorrow, but we probably need some food or something. So yeah, we went to Sonic. And the entire time I obsessed about if he was sleeping or if he was eating or if he was fussing or whatever. It's weird to leave him. I swear that tomorrow I will take him out by myself, either in my car or in the Bjorn or stroller...mom's gotta suck it up...especially if we are going to see Beth and Jack this week.

Today's photo features our first attempt at a cute yet not exactly functional outfit. The result: Jackson let us know what he thought of our attempt to cuteify him. He barfed on this outfit, dad and the chair 30 seconds after we took this photo. Thus adding a loving story to the blog as well as another thing for me to worry/obsess about.

Packing on the Pounds

So we are back from our week old doctor's appointment and it was a resounding success on so many levels. First of all, Jackson...well he's a good eater. Real good. So good that at 8 days old, he has already gained three ounces. He weighed in at 7-12, checked out at 7-6, and today is back up to 7-15, so in one week he has gained, ahem, 9 ounces. One more ounce and he will weight 8 pounds! That's awesome. He also, as usual, was a little warrior during icky blood tests. Whether it's icky blood tests, elective surgeries to his manhood or whatever, he sails through them without so much as blinking an eye. What a stud. He is also green booger free and all his wounds are healing very well.

After the doctor we visited Beth and Chris and met their little boy Jack. It was fun...both our boys met their first friend! It was fun for Beth and I to trade horror stories from labor and delivery (she wins by the way) as well as for Jason and Chris to chat about their experiences. It was just good to see other first time parents...it's hard to find people to relate to who are going through this for the first time. Most people either have never done it, or did it awhile ago and sometimes it's hard to relate on the same level in that moment when you need them to.

Then when we got home, Jason's parents, also known here as Grammie and Papa, were here with lunch and to meet their third grandchild. It's great to have them here lending a hand!

One Week Old!

So today, we are celebrating Jackson's one week birthday! I have spent many moments throughout the day thinking to myself, "This time last week I was:" and so on. When we were up this morning at 3:30 am for food and diapers, I told Jackson that was about the time I woke up his dad to tell him that we maybe needed to consider a trip to the hospital.

To celebrate our milestone, we decided to venture outside for a reason other than to visit the doctor. Which incidentally, we will do again tomorrow. So we thought a trip to the ChiDog deli across the street would be a sufficient test for us. Jackson woke up at noon from his mid morning nap and we had lunch and a diaper and put on a new outfit since he peed in the other one. Then he pooed...new diaper again. Then he peed....new diaper and outfit again.

So now we are out the door and dropping off the down comforter at the dry cleaners on the way to the deli...and he spit up on himself. Then he got hiccups. Then we finally arrived for our hot dogs at the deli, ate them and then sat in the park for like 10 minutes in the gazebo thing just sort of contemplating how terrifying it was to be outside. We took a photo, seen above (don't worry he was only in the sun long enough for us to snap a photo to prove we actually left the house), Jackson fell asleep and we went home and he had a nap. So far it's been a good day...

Family Outings...Sort Of

So we've been back to BCH a couple of times to take Jackson to see the pediatricians. Tuesday he got weighed in...he lost six ounces before we left the hospital on Sunday since birth so they wanted to check him out. Thanks to his healthy eating, he put back on 1.5 oz so yay Jackson. We also had an interesting time addressing his piggy nose. You see, my son, he has a booger problem. He has to have his nose cleared a lot. The problem is, after he was born, we didn't learn real well the process to do this when the boogers have turned to stone. So the pediatrician put saline in his honker and proceeded to suck the snot out several times. The result? A block of lime green snot. Seriously. It was neon. Who knew this was a possible color that a human being could secrete? Did I miss something? Anyways, he went to the ped another time this week too, but I'm still to emotionally scarred to blog about it.

Last night Grandma Jane and Grandpa Monty drove up from Lakewood with some dinners for me and Big Man. We haven't been doing a lot of eating...basically we feed and diaper our son, then recover from that by doing laundry and attempting to maintain some order. If bread crumbs happen to fall into our mouths in the process, then that's fabulous. Anyways, they came up and partied with Jackson and I while we got Jason to go play softball. We had a wonderful time and watched the Rockies come from behind to beat the Cardinals. As a home of Cubs and Rockies fans, this was the best of both worlds.

We also have to say thanks to Dave Plati from CU, who shared our news with Drew Goodman who calls the Rockies games. At the top of the fourth inning, we got a nice little shout out welcoming Jackson to the world on live TV! That was very special and we really appreciate it...we hope to get a digital copy so we can share it with our friends and family.

One last shout out to our friends Beth and Chris Petersen. They were in our childbirth class and Beth delivered a little boy, Jack Emery Petersen on Wednesday night at 11:19 pm. We're super happy for you guys and can't wait for our wee lads to hang!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

We, well I, secretly hoped that Jackson would be born today so that he could have a pinata and we could have margaritas in the hospital. That scenario didn't pan out.

The Family Lew is in the midst of day three at our Longmont home. It has not been without challenges, obviously. Our biggest collective challenge: remembering what it is we were about to do. As in, "Oh I need to go do this" and 15 minutes later having done 8 things other than that thing I need to go do. New parent ADD.

Favorite Jackson thing of the day: When he's hungry, whomever is holding him is treated to what we have affectionately nicknamed "the piggy." If you want an exact idea of what this sounds like, watch "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie's mother asks Randy to "show mommy how the little piggy eats" and you are getting literally the exact sound that Jackson makes...and minus the meat loaf and potatoes getting pushed around on the plate...an idea of what he's doing while he does it. It is precious.

Just as precious as the action photo taken moments ago featuring Jason and Jackson watching the tube? Yes.

Home at Last...and Photos!

We're home...we're tired...here are some photos of our little man. I took the blurry ones...I was apparently incapable of using any type of focus with Jason's camera. My bad.

Jackson Conrad Lew

Whew...Happy First Day

Howdy blog watchers from Boulder Community Hospital! Just taking a quick second to say hi and thanks. We've received well wishes via email, text, Facebook, phone and everything so thanks en masse. We'll respond individually before the artist formerly known as Little Man graduates from college.

Also big thanks to Allie for blogging, feeding Jason and just being great in general to our little family.

Jackson, who is incidentally darling and awesome, just celebrated his one day birthday. And will celebrate by eating...again....

FINALLY! ;)

The moment we've all been waiting for... baby Jackson has arrived!!

7lbs 12oz - 20.5 inches - 5:38p.m.
Blue eyes, dark hair... and so cute! (my opinion of course... but it'd be hard not to agree)

Congrats Lindsay and Jason!! Everyone loves you and is so proud!! :)

C'monnnn Jackson!

Or do I still have to use "Little Man" when he's probably at least *half* into this world...? There's an image ;)

Alright... sorry for the delay in the update... As of 4:30 Lindsay was pushing! I don't know how long this process takes, but I can only imagine that we're getting pretty close...

Again, I'll be sure to keep the updates coming when I hear something... with the next one hopefully being his weight, height, time of birth, etc! (Maybe a picture... ooh, now we're talking)

Allie's First Update

Hello Lindsay's devoted blog fans... I am taking the initiative to post another update, as I'm not sure how much more Lindsay will be able to contribute from here on out... especially in the new position that I left her in... (going to leave out those details).

Lindsay is 8cm dilated and things are definitely moving along! The little man is taking over from here, it seems. Linds has the pleasure of maneuvering into different positions that will be "better" or "more comfortable"... for the baby ;) How sweet of her. I left after the latest switch; right after the nurse warned me that this one would be a bit more of an uncovered position, unlike the ones before. Good timing, thanks nurse.

I must say that Lindsay looks and sounds great. I was with her during a few contractions while Big Man was eating (at least one of them gets to consume more than ice chips) and she was very calm and worked through them pretty quickly. She has had a couple of what she has called "episodes" as her body is reacting to some of the drugs, but so far nothing too alarming and she's handling everything really well. It's no surprise when I say that while Lindsay has mentioned how great and funny Amy the nurse is, Amy is loving the comedian that is Lindsay. How could she not? Preggo's sense of humor is still going strong! (How am I doing with keeping up with the blog "names"? I'm no Lindsay, but I'm trying!)

A few notes to leave this post on... the TV had the Brady Bunch movie on when I was in the room and not to worry, Lindsay has made it clear that her child will not be born with that on at the same time. Also, a few posts back she mentioned something about Baby Mama and how she was less than thrilled when Amy shouts how the contractions “feel like shi##ing knives." While they are painful (even with the epidural), that is a bit of an exaggeration. Phew!

More to come… and next time, hopefully, I'll be able to come up with a creative title.

2-4-6-8 Come On Cervix Dialate!

That subject is courtesy of our labor and delivery nurse Amy. And is hilarious incidentally. So things have slowed down so we'll be using some drugs to try and get the ball rolling again.

The epidural, I must reiterate, is awesome. Allie brought Big Man some bagels and we are watching Caddyshack. Little Man is continuing to do well and prego is just chillin. We have six different monitors attached to me at this point.

That's pretty much it for now. Time for more drugs. Be back later...maybe ;)

Labor Update

Howdy blog fans. Here's an update from BCH at 917 am. Epidural is in and is outstanding. We had a little dizzy spell and stuff but all is well. They are taking good care of prego and Little Man. I am officially in active labor and my diet consists of ice chips and IV fluids. Big Man is doing great and was a great coach during active labor when I was handling those contractions. We are progressing well. Hope everyone is having a fun Friday. I just signed a form as "parent" which was a trip. I guess me and Big Man will be those by the end of the day!

Thundercats Are Go

Its 738 am. We've been at BCH for 3 hours. The epidural is on the way. Contractions are horrifying. Do not try this at home ;)