This Baby

Has found a pacifier he can hold in. In case you don't know how awesome this is, he can't create suction so pacifiers just fall out. But this 6+ months one j's bigger and wider and he can use it enough to at least satisfy his suckling reflex. I'm so proud. 

Has been giving us these precious little half smiles. Love love love. 

And has slept 6-7 straight hours at night the past two nights. 

Baby Update: One Month Old

Ben, at one month you: 

Weigh 10 lbs, 6 oz and are 22 inches long

Wear mostly 3 month clothes

Wake up once at night to eat and every 3 hours during the day

Like to be swaddled, awake or asleep

Have a slight red hint to your hair

Caught your first cold and sound like you've been smoking for 50 years. It's pitiful. 

Are not a huge fan of your car seat but this is slowly getting better 

Are incredibly loved and subsequently practically smothered by your brothers and sisters

Like to be held and worn

Get bored/tired pretty easily 

Have tried to smile but not quite there yet

Work very hard to hold your head up

I'm one month old!

Working hard

Your fan club is never far away

Spencer just talks and talks to you

In the moby

Watching tv with Josiah 

(The shortage of Ella and Ben pics stem from the fact that she is at school all day and once she is home and there is homework, dinner, bath, clean up, and bed I do.not.stop even to take a picture! All Ben pics happen mainly during the day when there is a little more wiggle room.)

A Birthday Letter for the 7 Year Old

Dear Ella,
We celebrated your seventh birthday last week. This is your second birthday here with us but the first one where you really got what was going on. You have been asking when your birthday was coming for months and months. I still can't believe you are 7. It seems so much bigger than 6!



This past year has been huge for you! Your language has taken off even more, even though that's always been impressive. You went from not knowing any letters or numbers and only counting to 10 to reading books and numbers to 100. Kindergarten helped set a lot of things in motion for you, but in first grade you have blossomed! You are a social butterfly, you are imaginative and active, you are respectful and kind. You make friends easily and with just about anyone. You are so smart and a hard worker. I had a conference with your teacher a few weeks back and she only had good things to say. You are growing in every area at school.





Here at home you are a delight. Daddy and I have noticed how you are coming into your role as the oldest sibling. It fits your personality well. God knew what He was doing when He brought us together. You are an excellent helper, so very patient with your younger siblings, and you desire to obey and do the right thing. You definitely do not shy away from asking questions to know every little thing going on around you or making your opinions known. Your tact is getting so much better. :) :) You have come a long way in understanding the importance of apologizing and forgiving. Those are huge lessons that we all need to keep on learning all our days on this earth. I know I am!



You and Kate are sisters through and through. You all get so frustrated with one another (usually because she wants what you have) but you always come back together, and usually very quickly. Spencer and Josiah are usually in the thick of it too. The 4 of you are something else. The games you come up with using anything you find are crazy creative. It's hard sometimes because you'll feed off each other and get wild and loud very quickly. But you all are great kids and for the most part attempt to fix it as soon as possible.






And my oh my do you love your baby brother! You do voice-overs for Ben often and they are pretty funny. I can not wait to see your interactions when he can smile and babble back at you! You have already told me your job will be to feed him food when the time comes and hold him when he gets bigger. You always want to see and kiss him as often as you can.


Art is something you really enjoy right now. In fact, you got advanced marks, the highest possible, in art on your report card. You have told me you want to be an art teacher when you grow up. You also love barbies, playing kitchen, bright colored clothing, hair bands, and dance parties.



I am so thankful to be your mama. And when you tell God that you are thankful He made me your mommy my heart swells in my chest. I get it wrong so often, especially with you. You are the oldest and that tends to be a bit of a guinea pig when it comes to parenting, but you are incredibly gracious to me. You are genuinely sweet and thoughtful. Thank you for being mine.



Happy birthday, big girl. Let's celebrate with a nail-painting party, shall we? I love you big!

Mommy

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Baby Hands

Disclaimer: overload of Ben sleeping pictures

I love baby hands. You know, their little hand placement when they sleep. Just kills me with the cuteness. 

Side by Side

Think Ben favors Kate? I do. 

And I do love when he wears something of Spencer's. This little Calvin Klein sleeper was a consignment find and one of Stuart's favorite outfits spencer ever wore. Here is a pic of Spencer in it somewhere around 8-10 weeks and Ben in it at 3 weeks. :)

Feeding: 3 weeks in

Well, my little man is 3 weeks old today. Not going to lie to you (that would not be my style, to sugar coat) but it has been a long 3 weeks. Anyone who told me that this baby would seem easy compared to twins didn't think about when the twins were born I had no other children and this time I have 4 other children. Yes, I do like I can strap him in a carrier and walk my other kids to the playground, but I would not classify this time around as "easier." At least not yet.

But I digress. This post is supposed to be a feeding update.

Well, last time we chatted, Ben was eating from a Haberman. We stuck with that for the first 5 days or so, but man, he was a fussy eater. Screaming instead of eating. We couldn't figure out if it was gas or reflux or what was going on. One night, in sheer desperation, Stuart looked at me and said, "We are trying the Pigeon."

The Pigeon nipple/valve is a specially designed feeding says the for babies with cleft lip and palate. It looks like a standard bottle nipple,but one side is hard and the other is soft. Basically the hard side goes up in his mouth on the cleft and the soft side goes down on his tongue. His tongue depressing the nipple causes the valve to open which allows milk to flow. It's pretty neat because all the work is on the baby. With the Haberman, the person feeding was also squeezing the milk timed with the baby's movement. Ben is eating so much faster with the pigeon and we haven't looked back. The goal is to keep a feeding under 30 minutes because once you get past the 30 minute mark the baby is basically burning more calories than they are taking in.

He is eating very consistently every 3 hours, morning and night. He's pretty punctual unless he is screaming his head off. :) He also is very gassy, which at times makes eating a super big challenge. But we are figuring him out, the best way to provide relief, and what he likes and doesn't like.

The other big feeding update is that I have decided to stop pumping. This was a very hard decision for me. One that I still am sad about daily. It came down to the point where even though I was really pleased with my milk production (basically not having to supplement at all) I also was tied to the pump every 2.5-3 hours. I was missing out on a lot of what my other kids were up to. And they were missing Mommy. So after a lot of talking, we decided it was really best for the family if Ben was formula fed. I just don't have the margin to be tied to the pump right now. I have nothing against formula, I just also wanted to be able to provide breast milk for my baby. But I also don't want to be a slave to the pump either at the expense of the rest of my family. Ben's belly wasn't really tolerating the formula we were using on a full time basis, so just yesterday we made the switch to a more gentle one, hoping that will help.

This week we also had an appointment with feeding and nutrition at the craniofacial clinic at the children's hospital. It was so helpful and I wish we would have had a consult like this with Spencer at the very beginning. They watched Ben eat to make sure he was doing what he was supposed to, weighed him to see how his weight gain is going, and then answered any questions I had. He weighed in at 9 lbs, 5 oz (up from 8, 15 at birth) and 21.75 inches (20.5 at birth). Basically he is doing exactly what he is supposed to!

We don't meet with the surgeon until March, but the nurse practitioner snapped a photo and sent it to him (don't you love technology sometimes?) and he recommends a device called a Latham prior to his lip repair. A Latham is an extra surgery (it is placed under anesthesia) but has great success getting Ben ready for lip repair. It is an orthodontic device that is placed in his mouth and daily a screw is turned to tighten and close the gap that exists in his gumline and lip. (If you have followed us for very long, you may remember Spencer had taping prior to his lip repair, just trying to bring the two sides of his mouth together.) Lip repair can be expected when Ben is 3-5 months old and palate repair somewhere between 6-9 months. This surgeon does palate surgery a little earlier than some because he likes to get ahead of the game on speech.

So that's our little Ben update for now!


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