Week #5

Dunning is 5 weeks old this week and I can't believe how quickly time has flown! He is such a little man now! We were by ourselves this week as Dad traveled on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We survived although we were a bit sleep deprived -more than usual! When Dad got back, he said it looked like Dunning had grown while he was gone!

This week I told my work that I would not be coming back from maternity leave. I am taking my two weeks paid maternity after my medical leave is up, two weeks of paid vacation and then a year of personal leave, so I will still remain a Wal-Mart employee for a year. If I decide to change my mind, I can return to my old job until the end of March, after that I would have to find another job. After a year, if I decide not to come back to work, I will no longer be an employee. It was such a hard decision, because I work with such a great group of people, but my job was very stressful and very demanding of my time. I feel that this is the best decision for my family, although I am very nervous about it! I hope I don't get bored at home and spend all my days eating and watching TV while Dunning sleeps! I can't wait until it gets warmer so I can take him to the park and go running.

Next week I go for my six weeks check up to make sure I have healed from delivery. I have lost 35 out of 45 pounds and that leaves 10 more to go!

Blogger returns

Well, it's been so long since I have posted anything, I am not quite sure I remember how!

Little man is here and letting everyone know - he has quite a set of lungs on him. He's as cute as can be and is good most of the time. :) We are still working on a steady nursing schedule - he sometimes likes to eat too much and then spit half of it up and then eat again in an hour. He is supposed to eat every two - three hours. He likes to be held alot. But he is doing really good at sleeping at night. I go to bed really early and get up once in the evening, once in the middle of the night and then once in the early morning and am up for the day (usually), with a nap after lunch. He does well sleeping in his crib - better actually than his bouncer seat or swing. I can't wait for him to get to the stage where he plays with toys and can hold his head up.

He is starting to sleep better at night - 5 hours last night! That's a pretty big accomplishment and the most consecutive hours of sleep I have had since I had him! It reminds me of being back in college - when you would go to sleep around 3 a.m. and have to get up for class around 7 a.m. and think that 4 hours of sleep was sufficient... Granted, you could always nap in your car if you had too...Now you just pray for him to take a nap so you can pick up the house, eat something, get food out for dinner (because it will take you 3 hours to make it between feedings and changings and crying spells) and catch a 30 minute nap.

Two weeks ago we had an adventure - the power went out in our house for 18 hours and we had to vacate to Auntie Lindz's house so we didn't freeze! Other than the trip to the doctor's office, it was our first trip out. I realized that I am an idiot and didn't have the car seat installed properly, so the entire trip, I was checking his head each time I stopped because it kept flopping around. We finally figured out what was wrong the next time we got out of the house and even got a cushion for the head at Wal-Mart, where we saw Auntie Gracie, so I would feel better about going out with him again in the car seat. The third trip out to my office to show him off was a big success.

Fortunately, I have had help from my friends, family and my wonderful husband. I still think he cries too much sometimes and freak out and think there is something wrong with him. But it is apparently normal!

Dunning will be 4 weeks old tomorrow. Below are his stats when born and current stats.

Weight: 8 lbs 1 oz

Current weight: approx. 10 lbs

Length: 18 in

Current length: approx. 21 in

I have lost 30 of the 45 pounds I put on! Hooray! I can't fit in to my pre-pregnancy jeans yet, but I can get them pulled up over my bum! Double Hooray!

Baby goes International

July took Lynn to Tokyo, Japan on business. While the trip was LONG - 2 hours from Bentonville to Chicago, 11+ hours from Chicago to Narita airport, 2 hours from the airport to the hotel - it was worth it! We got a lot accomplished business-wise, AND Lynn got to see one her close friends, Angie, who recently moved with her husband to a Southern island of Japan to be a missionary.

While we were there, we experienced a near-miss with a pretty large typhoon, two earthquakes on the west coast of the island, but felt in Tokyo, and a nuclear power plant leak that was reported the day before we left. They say that if an earthquake ever hit Tokyo directly, about 300,000 people would die from falling signs alone. Everything is built close and up, up, up. Needless to say, Lynn is not looking to go back anytime soon.

The group did some sight seeing (actually business related, but fun nonetheless). We went to Kamakura and saw a temple. We were fortunate that a traditional Shinto wedding was going on and we got to see what that was like - a lot of ritual involved. We saw a giant Buddha, a golden Buddha, and well, just lots of Buddhas in general. He's pretty popular over there. It rained on us the entire time, but a good time was had by all, despite the fact that we were all soaking wet.