Its been a rollercoaster of a week - Week 3

I'm getting bigger!! 

When I took the picture above, it struck me that Austin looks like he's gotten 'bigger'.  Granted, its only about a lb or so - but he's looking a little less newborn these days.  I mean, is this the same little guy just a week or so earlier?

As for week three, well, the title says it all - its been a bit of a rollercoaster this week.  We had a great time at Cousin Andy's on Easter Sunday.  We forgot out camera, but will have to ask Andy and Anita for copies of family pics for Austin's first easter.  He pretty much slept through the whole event - we put him in the Ergo so that we could carry him around with us and avoid the crazy family dogs disturbing him.  He was a hit, even while sleeping.  He cuddled up with Aunt Anita for a bit too!

My parents arrived later that night for the week.  It was great having company for the first week that Mike was back at work.  We definitely saw a more fussy Austin this week.  He still goes back to sleep pretty well at night (so far only 3 or 4 nights where that was more of a challenge), but has much more alert time during the day and had several days this week where he was really fussy and it was a challenge to get him to nap.  I even resorted to the ole 'put him in the carseat and drive around' method- which miraculously did work!  Thankfully, grandma was there to cook, clean up, and give mommy and daddy a break.  She finally got him to pass out on her lap the other afternoon, and we were afraid to move him in fear of him waking up! 

To add to the fussiness - the poor little guy got circumsized on Friday (the 13th, yikes!).  The hospital has a new policy where they circumsize within 30 days of birth instead of during the initial hospital stay.  He was a champ and barely cried during and after the procedure.  Of course, now diaper changes are a little more complicated with the addition of gobs of vasaline to help with the healing....which led to mom and dad getting hit by a stream of pee multiple times over the past few days.  At least now its just kind of funny.

Unfortunately, this weekend added one more fussiness factor.  While breastfeeding has been going pretty well these past few weeks, this weekend I developed thrush.  Basically, a yeast infection in the baby's mouth that transmits to mom's breasts causing quite the itching and burning sensation.  Its been fairly uncomfortable all weekend, but thankfully both of us have meds now so it should be clearning up soon.  Hopefully that will help with his fussiness too!

Over the weekend the weather was amazing, so we made sure to get out of the house and enjoy the spring together.  Saturday we went to the Brighton Dam a few miles north of us to walk through a 5 acre trail of Azaleas in bloom.  Again, Austin slept the whole time in the Ergo.  We hope to take Grandma Ellen there when she visits.

 Sunday we checked out the nearby Lake Needwood recreation area and walked about 2.5 miles around part of the lake.  Turns out it was pretty hot and poor Austin got a little cranky in the Ergo so we cut our trip a little short.  We definitely want to head back later this summer - they have pontoon boat rides and babies are free!