Oh, I have so much to write about and so little free time! Easton seems to think he can only be happy in someone's arms so that seriously limits me on what I can do. We are working on that issue and it means a lot of crying (for him) and stress for us both. I've got bills to pay, laundry to do, trash to take out, dishes to do and dinner to figure out. Will post stories and pictures as soon as I can.

What's my favorite thing about Thanksgiving? A house full of people. Jason's family is here this week and we've got a VERY full house but I love it. (And NO Leslie, I'm not just saying that because I know you read this. Haha) That's one of the thngs I miss most about living in Oklahoma...holidays with a big bunch of family around. Today we just kind of lounged around and took it easy. I don't know what the plans are for tomorrow but I know we'll have fun. It is so sweet to see everyone oohing and ahhing over Easton and playing w/Alexa and Mason. I can't wait to get cooking for Thanksgiving and go shopping and get some cute new stuff for Easton. Nanny and Aunt Leslie want to buy some stuff for him. I think the girls are going shopping and the guys are going to Antietam. Well, Easton will have to come shopping with us but he told me he'd much rather be with his mama because she's got the good stuff. :) I may not get to blog much while we've got company but I'll do what I can. Happy Thanksgiving!
P. S. Happy Birthday, baby boy! You're 3 weeks old today!

Easton,
Your daddy taught you how to stick out your tongue yesterday. You should have seen the two of you! Sitting on the couch and sticking your tongues out at each other. It was so funny! You are staying awake more and more these days and usually you prefer to stay awake at night when we should all be sleeping. I know we’ll get the hang of the sleeping at night eventually but right now your tired mama thinks it can’t be soon enough! But for now, we will just keep reading Mother Goose and Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb at 4am and I’ll keep singing (badly) every lullaby I can think of.
Before I met you I could not have imagined I could be so happy staying at home all day. Now I find myself losing great big stretches of time just staring at you. You make the funniest faces! I see a lot of your daddy in you but one of the things I know you got from me is the ability to raise one eyebrow and give “the look”. Maybe one of these days I’ll actually be able to catch you doing that and take a picture. Another thing you inherited from me is the fact that you are NOT good at waking up. I usually wake up cranky and so do you. Boy, I am in for it when you start school! (Now I know what my dad went through trying to wake me up! Sorry dad! Don’t worry…I’ll be getting it back tenfold I think.)
You are sleeping right now and we had a pretty good night last night. Thanks for sleeping in your crib most of the night and letting mama and daddy get some sleep. I love you, my sweet, funny little milk-breath boy. You are my favorite.
Love,
Mama

We have got to get this boy on a schedule! I'm reading "BabyWise" right now and it has some good ideas on how to get your baby on a schedule and have them sleeping through the night by the time they're 8-12 weeks old. Boy that sounds good! (Hopefully it's not too good to be true.) It's 10 minutes til 5 and I haven't been asleep yet today! Anybody ever heard of anyone using BabyWise? Did it work for them? I know of one lady who had a baby that everyone described as the "best baby in the world" because he was a BabyWise baby and was so content and happy all the time. I think his mom said he slept through the night at 6 weeks old because she put him on the BabyWise schedule. At this time of night (er...morning) I'm willing to try it! Hopefully this post makes some sort of sense but I can't guarantee it. Maybe I should not be blogging on so little sleep. :)

We've had a great weekend. We haven't really done too much but it's been relaxing. Jason was off work on Friday so it was nice to have him here for a 3 day weekend. We didn't even really leave the house all weekend except to go to the grocery store on Friday. I'm getting pretty good at the "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing, don't you think?

I've been wanting to take Easton to the daycare to show him off but I've been trying to wait as long as possible to take him some place with a bunch of people just because I don't want to risk him getting sick. I really miss my friends from work and want to let them meet Easton but daycares are such germy places! It's OK when you're a grownup but he's still so little and I don't want him to catch whatever bug is going around there this week. (And there's always something going around at any daycare.)

I am really feeling a bit lonely for my friends but don't want to risk him getting sick just because I want to visit with my old coworkers. But if I don't find some way to get out of the house I think it might get a little ugly around here. :) Going to the grocery store, while it DOES technically get me out of the house, isn't really my idea of a fun way to spend the afternoon you know? And I'm trying hard not to spend any money right now so going shopping isn't an option. Wish I could just window-shop but I've never been very good at that. I always find a "too-good-to-pass-up-deal" and end up spending so it's just better that I don't go shopping at all. Especially with all the pre-holiday sales going on right now...that would just be too hard! :)

What do you think? Should I take him to the daycare and just not let anyone get too close to him unless they wash their hands? Or should I stay away entirely until he's a little bigger?

And here's a picture that I'm sure Easton will hate me for when he gets bigger. One of the moms at the daycare gave us a cute owl outfit with a hat to match and I just had to take his picture in it. He was just too cute to resist! :)

Here's one of my favorite pictures I've taken recently. Too bad it's a little out of focus!
It's my favorite for 2 reasons:
1. He's smiling!
and
2. A lot of times he looks at you with only one eye open. That's why he's earned the nickname "One-Eyed Jack". It is too funny!

Trying out the black and white setting on my camera today. What a cutie! :)

Yesterday was Jason's first day back at work since the baby was born and I was stressing out about how it was going to go. How would I find the time to take a shower? Or eat? Or do anything, for that matter, except for taking care of Easton? Well surprise! It went SO well! After a long night, we both slept in until 10:00 and then I got up and fed and changed him and we read some books. After that, it was time for him to take a nap and I took a shower and dried my hair while Easton slept. Then, I was able to find time to clean house and do all kinds of things I didn't think I'd have time to do. Thank goodness, because we had 3 of our friends stop by last night and the house looked great. I even managed to give Easton a bath and do all the laundry. It was a great day.

Especially for the Wright family:

Here's a pic of Easton in one of the cute onesies you gave him. I put the bib on him but it was WAY too big! It came down to his knees almost! :) But he'll have plenty of time to wear it later.

Our dr's appts went well. I got my staples out (YUCK! But not painful at all) and the dr said I am doing well. After that, we went and got Easton's carseat inspected and Sgt. Luttrell at the Friendship Fire Station was so nice! Very thorough and informative and we DID have his seat in right, but he showed us how to make it fit in there more snugly and safer and that made us feel a lot better. After we left the fire station, it was time for lunch. We ate at the Jiffy Sandwich shop and then it was time for Easton's well-baby checkup. He did so well! He weighed 7lbs 10 oz and that made me feel good because he had gained weight since we left the hospital. He was average on weight, average on head circumference and above average on length, which we already knew.

That night was a TERRIBLE night for us! Easton slept through most of our running around during the day (BIG MISTAKE!) and then was awake ALL NIGHT! I think I got about 2 1/2 hours of sleep that night. Poor Jason had to get up at 5 to be at work the next day so he finally gave up and went to sleep in the guest bedroom. He asked me if I minded and I said no. He'd already been up helping me try to pacify Easton for most of the night and even changed a few diapers so I felt bad that he'd be tired for work the next day. I called him to check on him around lunch time yesterday and he said he was doing OK.

It's amazing to me how one day we were both people who needed a LOT of sleep to function well and the next day we were OK getting by on only a few hours or so. I know that's part of being a parent, but it was like someone flipped a switch in both of us and put us into full-time "parent mode".

Here's a picture of Jason and Easton on a walk:

Easton had his first trip to the grocery store today. He did so well! He slept right through it and never made a peep. We were all pretty tired after we came home so we laid down and took a 2 hour nap. I wonder how long it will be before a trip to the grocery store does not leave me wiped out. Probably never. :) I have a dr's appt tomorrow at 10:30 to get my staples out and I can't wait. These staples feel gross! Then we'll probably stop in at Jason's work and show off our cute little guy before his dr's appt at 2:15. It is going to be a busy day but I'm looking forward to getting out of the house.

Jason goes back to work on Tuesday. I'm kind of dreading it. It has been so nice having him here to help me. He's a very hands-on daddy and I love watching him w/Easton. I also love having him here just to talk to. I'm afraid that when he comes home from work at night that I'll just pounce on him and want to talk his ear off because I'll have not been around another adult all day. I'll try to keep that in check but I know it's going to happen some. I'll be glad when I can drive again so I can go visit the daycare I used to work at and have lunch with my friends and with Jason.

But I do love being a mommy. Easton has been sleeping anywhere from 2-5 hour stretches at a time, so I'm pretty lucky. This morning he woke up and wanted to stay awake about 5:30 so I just took him into his room and read Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes to him and nursed him and he was back asleep in no time. It was so sweet to have that one on one time with him doing what I love to do...read. Hopefully he grows up to love to read too. We're working on it! :)

Wow! Check it out...there's a new ticker at the bottom of this page. Scroll down.

Patches is checking out the new addition to the family.

(Don't worry...this was only when we were introducing the cats to Easton for the first time. Otherwise, we never leave him unattended and the cats in the room at the same time.)
Proud papa
Hey dad...is this where milk comes from?
Mama and her sleeping boy
This is what most of my nights look like.

Easton's first car ride
Drive carefully, Daddy!
Finally at home
Happy Halloween!

I'm back! :) Want to know the rest of the story? Here's how Easton came into this world.

(This is in 2 parts. The first part is what happened the day before Easton was born and the 2nd part is what I told Jason to write down while I was in the hospital. I wanted to make sure we didn't forget anything so I could put it all in Easton's baby book.)

Saturday: Dad and Tina were here (YAY!) and we ate breakfast, got cleaned up and went for a drive. We drove down part of Skyline Drive to show off the beautiful scenery and fall leaves there. The Skyline Drive runs 105 miles north and south along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park. (Yes, I copied that from the SNP's website.) It is a beautiful drive and we knew it would be a nice easy way to see the sights without being a lot of walking or anything too strenuous for me. There are many lookout points along the drive and so we got out quite a few times to take some pictures. At one of the stops, I decided it would be a good idea to sit on this huge rock so Jason and I could have our picture taken.

Here's the picture:

I don't think anyone really thought it was a great idea for me to be climbing around on these huge rocks, but I wanted my picture taken! :) And it's not like I was rock climbing all day...just this one time. And I'm glad I did. Because who knows? Maybe that's why I went into labor that next morning. After the drive, we ate dinner at the Cork Street Tavern and went home and crashed on the couch for a while.

And this next part is written to Easton from dad with a little help from mom:

Easton,

Mom was feeding Pumpkin and Patches at about 8:15 on Sunday morning when her water broke. She came in to wake me up and said "Good morning! I think we're going to have a baby today!" Mom was not having any contractions so she took a shower and got dressed. Dad took a shower too and Pawpaw David and Tina helped us gather our packed bags to get ready to go to the hospital. Pawpaw David helped Dad buckle your carseat into the Malibu and they followed us in their rental car into Winchester. We stopped to get a DSL cable at Dad's work, Kingsdown. We gave Pawpaw and Tina a tour of the plant and then drove to the hospital.

When we got there, nurse Crissy checked Mom and said "Yep. Your water broke. You are not leaving until you have your baby." They admitted Mom to labor and delivery at 11:15. Mom was hungry when we got there but knew she couldn't eat anything until after you were born so she said "We should have stopped at Cracker Barrel." :) Luckily, Dr. Leonard was on call. Mom likes him and is glad he'll be the one to deliver you. The nurses got mom settled into her room and hooked up to the monitors.

By 2:30, Mom wasn't having very strong contractions, so she was put on pitocin to help move things along. The dosage was increased every 30 minutes. At about 3:30 we started playing cards to pass the time. We played Skipbo and Dad won a game and Mom won a game. The pitocin really started to make Mom's contractions stronger and stronger and by about 6:00, the nurses gave Mom some pain medicine in her I.V. so she could get some rest.

By about 9:30, the contractions were coming every 2 minutes and were very strong. Mom was doing her breathing exercises and trying to watch TV and talk to Pawpaw David and Tina between contractions. Dr. Leonard came in and checked Mom and you still were not ready. He said "I think this baby's too big" and suggested a c-section. We agreed and they prepped us for surgery.

We went into the delivery room and you were born at 10:23. You weighed 7lbs 15 ozs and were 21 1/2 inches long. We were so happy to finally meet you! We called everyone we could think of and let them know all about you. Mom was admitted to the Mother/Baby unit and you were taken to the nursery to be cleaned up and checked. Over the next few days, Mom rests and learns how to feed you. We have lots of visitors and take a lot of pictures. You are so cute! We can't wait to take you home with us. We love you, baby boy!