Well, everyone, it’s the first time I have posted on here for a very long time — I had been leaving the blogging duties to Mr. Ben.  Tonight, though, I HAD to post because Abby hit a major milestone last night:  she slept through the night!!!  She went to sleep around 9:30 last night.  She woke up at 5:15 and was a very hungry girl!   Now, if only Ben and I had gone to sleep when Abby had gone to sleep, we would have been really happy!  Our little baby is getting so big so fast…

P.S.  Also, I am writing this post from my brand new MacBook Pro.  Happy Birthday to me – thanks Hubby, Abby, Ted, Julie, and Colin!!!!

Our little girl is getting so good at holding her head up! Kirsten caught these pictures of Abigail with her Blackberry this morning while Abby was having tummy time! At least she is tolerating this position now almost to the point of contentment. She used to shriek if you left her on her tummy.

Her neck is getting very strong! When you hold her up against you with her head on your shoulder, it doesn’t stay there for long, she picks it up and loves to look around!

Just a quick preview of more photos to come. We had a great weekend in the north country – North Dakota. We visited Kirsten’s grandparents, aunt and uncle, and some cousins over the holiday weekend. It was Abigail’s first big car trip and she was a champ, sleeping all but around forty five minutes of the almost ten hour car ride on the way up and all but around two hours on the way home.

Another big development this weekend? Abigail is starting to smile up at us as we interact with her! This photo was taken while we were outside shooting off a few fireworks in the backyard. She has her sun hat on for protection because the weather in North Dakota was gorgeous for us the entire weekend.

More pictures and fun to come from the weekend, so stay tuned!

Having a blackberry with a *decent* camera on it is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because I find that I have a small device with me almost at all times that I can use to take photos and upload them from wherever I’m at. It’s a curse because sometimes I fall back on it and don’t want to carry my DSLR or my point and shoot camera with me.

I leave you for the long weekend with these two photos. The first is of Abigail’s first smile in response to interaction with someone! Lucky Uncle Andrew! The second is of Abby napping with me a week ago or so. Such a precious moment that I got to spend just cuddling with her, feeling her breathe, sigh in her sleep, and wiggle around!

I hope that everyone has a great fourth of July weekend!

What a beautiful site, my three girls! In the past when I would day dream about my future family, it didn’t really occur to me that I’d be in a household full of girls! I grew up with my dad, my brother, and my mom. My mom affectionately referred to it as “the frat house.” Now that I have started a family of my own, and it happens to be all women (albeit, ones a dog, but still), my mom likes to tell me that I’m getting poetic justice for her years of torment.

Ah well, if this is what I get for my time in the “frat house,” then I’m A OK with it!

This comes a few days late, but it’s close enough. Abigail Joy has reached (and now passed) the 1 month old mark. It’s hard to believe that Kirsten and I have known her for that long. It simultaneously feels like a very short month and a very long month. At the time this picture was taken, Abby weighed 9.5lbs and was about 20 inches long. We’re very happy that she is growing and is healthy (even if she wasn’t happy at us for taking this picture of her).

Abigail, we love you, and we can’t remember what life was like before we knew you!

I couldn’t resist posting these two photos I snapped this past week with my Blackberry’s camera. They were both in relatively low-light situations, so I’m surprised that they turned out at all, a testament to the camera on the Blackberry, I guess.

In the first, Abby spits out her pacifier to have dad retrieve it again. What a fun game! In the second, she is smiling in her sleep. I know they aren’t really smiling on purpose at this age yet, but Kirsten and I like to think they are!

Have a great weekend everyone!

We couldn’t be happier. Mattie has always been a friendly, well-meaning, happy-go-lucky dog. She doesn’t have an aggressive bone in her body. When we are at the dog park and some other dog wants to get a bit more aggressive than Mattie is comfortable with, she’ll simply roll over on her back and be submissive. That being said, we were a bit worried, despite our confident outward demeanor. Mattie is a bundle of energy. She jumps on every visitor we have in spite of our best efforts. We were a bit worried she’d want to jump around all over the baby, not meaning to hurt her, but just because she was so excited to have a new member of the family.

That hasn’t happened at all. Mattie is still excited to sniff Abigail whenever the chance arises, but she does so in a controlled, friendly sort of way. To Mattie, Abigail seems to be an enigma, “Why is this little person here?” “Why does she make so much noise sometimes?” “And my goodness, she smells AMAZING!” I wouldn’t say that Kirsten and I are to the point where we’d leave Abigail and Mattie alone together, but Mattie is definitely taking on the role of big sister with aplomb.

Above is a shot of Mattie sniffing the car seat immediately upon us taking Abigail out when we first came home from the hospital.

We’d read that giving the dog a treat after they smell the baby or the baby’s things would help that dog associate good and happy things with the baby. It’s worked so far! Above is Mattie enjoying a “pup-eroni.”

When Mattie had finished eating her treat and mom and baby were seated in the nursery, Mattie was allowed her first sniff of Abigail herself. It went well. Mattie’s tail wagged uncontrollably!

Mattie calmed down after a few minutes and resorted to a gentle sniffing. She was really quite cute as she investigated Abigail and they got to know each other. We really feel lucky that Mattie has adapted to her new role so well.

]]> http://www.webarnold.net/2010/06/08/mattie-and-abby-sisters/feed/ 0 http://www.webarnold.net/2010/05/26/the-happiest-baby-on-the-block/ http://www.webarnold.net/2010/05/26/the-happiest-baby-on-the-block/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 16:50:48 +0000 Ben http://www.webarnold.net/?p=21 Continue reading →]]> Some of you know that Abigail hasn’t been the best sleeper since we brought her home. In fact, I’d say that her most active and awake hours have been between ten o’clock PM and six o’clock AM. She essentially has her day and night mixed up (which, by the way, from what I’ve read, is not an uncommon situation for many newborns and they can auto-correct themselves given time). Well, Kirsten and I started taking shifts to be up with her. Kirsten would stay up with her to calm her between ten and two.  I’d stay up with her from two until six.  Usually around six o’clock, she’d go back to sleep finally so we could both  catch another hour or two of sleep until she needed to eat again.

Then we hit a rough patch where she wouldn’t even sleep at all over the course of those night hours. She was constantly fussy and irritable. She wouldn’t eat well, going for just a few minutes and then refusing to continue. Those couple of mornings Kirsten and I were like zombies.

Then we decided to try getting the “Happiest Baby on the Block” DVD from the public library and watch it. We had purchased the book a few weeks ago, but hadn’t had time to read it. Hopefully the DVD could give us an abridged version of the most important information, we hoped. We watched it Monday night this week and started applying some of the concepts that evening. To our complete surprise, they worked!

While Abigail is not sleeping through the night or anything, she does sleep for up to three hours at a stretch now, and goes right back to sleep after feeding. She even has better, longer feedings. Kirsten and I now wake up feeling much more rested. What did we do specifically?

1. We swaddled her more tightly. We’d been swaddling her already, but loosely, to the point where she could get her arms free very easily. A tighter swaddle ensured she couldn’t get her arms loose and wake herself up by accident.
2. Brought a radio into the bedroom to play static as a white background noise. It works, it calms her very quickly.
3. Introduced a pacifier. She’s nursing very well now and despite that, we were nervous to do this. We decided to make the jump and she’s taken to it quite well and hasn’t experienced any “confusion” when trying to nurse.
4. To soothe her after eating and a good hardy burp, I will take her from Kirsten and put her on her side in my arms and gently rock her that way. It works much better than keeping her on her back in my arms.

By their powers combined, the above steps have helped us, seemingly, get Abigail on the “right track” for a better sleeping pattern. I’m not saying she won’t regress some nights, but for the time being at least, Kirsten and I have gotten two nights in a row with around six hours of sleep, and that is something that we can both be very happy about!

Her mother woke me up at about 1:30am that morning saying she had been having some “bad cramps” since about 1:00. Those bad cramps turned out to be contractions. By 1:30 they were already coming about every six minutes and were lasting for about one minute or so. Being the Lamaze-trained father-to-be that I was, I knew that if we got closer to four or five minutes between each contraction, it was go time. Well, we hung around the house for a while and finally, around 3:30, decided to call the hospital to see what they thought. They said we should “come in to be evaluated.”

Well, thankfully, I’d been finishing our hospital bag packing between contractions and we were all set. We threw the poor puppy into her crate, loaded the car, made sure the car seat was in place, and took off for the hospital. Sure enough, we get there, they take Kirsten into a triage room, and about a half hour later, the doctor gives the word that we’re going to have our baby that day! I was in total shock! I could little understand at that point, that later that day, I’d be holding my precious little one in my hands.

We’ve already been home for a full week and things are going pretty well. She’s not the greatest sleeper in the world; preferring instead to be the most active between the hours of 10pm and 6am. She naps all throughout the day. This is good for Kirsten, who is staying home with her for eight weeks, it allows her to get some basics done… like showering. It’s amazing how God programs us for parenthood, however. I might feel like a zombie for a little while after getting three to four hours of sleep, but somehow, it’s always enough. I can function that day when I really need to.

I can say that I wasn’t prepared for fatherhood. Prior to her birth, when people would ask if we were ready, I’d respond: “yeah! I think so! As much as you can be anyway.” I didn’t really know how accurate that statement would be. There’s nothing, no class, no parental wisdom, that can prepare you for the feeling you’ll have when you first see your son or daughter and instantly, you’re changed. I know I am. I melted that first time she looked at me, and I think I’ll keep on doing so throughout her entire life.