Poor Charlie

I just had to post this photo. Ever since Brooks has come home, Charlie has been a bit displaced. He's adjusted fairly well in that he's never been aggresive toward the baby. But I still think he's sad that he is no longer the "baby" of the house anymore. So I found him like this last night ... curled up with his blanket in Brooks' boppy. Poor Charlie!

Bath Time

I love bath time. The last few weeks, I have just brought Brooks in the shower with me, while Dad stands on the outside assisting with the washing. I love my naked little baby and I LOVE the skin to skin time. But this morning we were in a hurry to shower, so he received a bath in the sink this afternoon (every little boy I know gets a bath on Saturday before church ... ours is no exception). Here's some of my favorite pictures.

My handsome little boy!

I love those big eyes!

Getting dried off. He's looking right at dad. So cute!

Balance

Before Brooks was born I was pouring through information on stroller travel systems, vaccinations, natural birth techniques and more. Being a parent requires a lot of decision making. One thing that seems increasing more complex is the topic of parenting in general ... more specifically, how to organize your baby's routine, or lack of routine. Here's what I mean ...

I found myself torn between two parenting methods: The hyper-scheduling method (the "let 'em cry it out or they'll be spoiled" folks) and Attachment Parenting (the "never let your baby cry or it could damage his psyche" folks). Of course everything was theory until Brooks arrived. Then it was time to figure this all out.

I liked the idea of establishing a routine (scheduling method), but found I didn't like listening to him cry ... at all. And I liked the idea of rocking my baby to sleep (attachment parenting), but found it was very demanding and sometimes exhausting to do before every nap. But after 6 weeks, I'm happy to say that we've found a pretty good balance.

Brooks eats on a flexible 3 hour schedule following the pattern of eat, awake, sleep. But of course there are days where we deviate from that rhythm. Sometimes he eats every 2 hours or he might go 4 hours between feedings. There are days I'll let him fuss himself to sleep, but if he full out cries/screams, I'll go rock him for a while until he falls asleep. Plus with a little bit of routine, I now have an idea as to why he is crying; whether he's hungry, has gas, needs to be changed, or is tired (never knew babies cried when they were tired ... just thought they fell alseep). We certainly don't have everything figured out, and probably never will. But we sure do know more than we did 6 weeks ago. Just think what we'll know 6 weeks from now!

Air Show

This weekend was the big Air Show here in Sioux Falls. Lots of cools jets & planes, plus the Blue Angels flew! It was a beautiful day, and the little boy in Chris really wanted to go. So we packed up and headed to the airport, all three of us! As soon as we arrived, Brooks needed to eat. I searched for the promised "breastfeeding tent" advertised on the website, but could not find it. So I found myself feeding him in an army medical tent. Guess I can add that to the list of strange places I've nursed the baby. Then we met up with some friends to watch the show.

Some of the jets were ridiculously loud and we discovered that the earplugs we brought for Brooks were far to big. We requested some from the army nurses, but discovered they don't make earplugs for 6 week old babies. Guess we should've looked into that before hand. Oh well. So I ended up putting Brooks in my Moby wrap and whenever jets flew over, I pressed his head into my chest and covered his ears. It worked! He slept through the whole show. Then because the sun was so hot and I didn't want to smear sunscreen in his hair, I held Chris' hat over his head the whole time. Thus, we ended up like this!

All in all we had fun. Besides the diaper blow out and a screaming, hungry baby on the shuttle bus back to the car, we had a good day!

Grandma and Grandpa 2

This last weekend Chris' parents were able to come over from Belgrade, MT to see Brooks for the first time. What a treat! Grandma held that little boy all weekend and Grandpa was very proud. We are so blessed to have such amazing families. If only they didn't live so far away :o(

We also had Brooks dedicated at church on Sunday. What a special day for all of us! Here's just a few pictures from the weekend.

Mommy's Little Helper

Spending all my time at home with Brooks has caused me to be a little creative in getting the household chores done. Today, Brooks helped fold the laundry; and by help, I mean stare at all the bright colored t-shirts I folded. What a good little helper.

More Pictures

Last Friday, our friend Brent came over and took some family pictures for us. He did an amazing job!! You can check out more of his work at http://www.brentkastner.com/ (shameless plug for a good friend/photographer). Here's some of my favorite photos.