DAYS OF GRACE: Three Weeks

Anthony was three weeks old this past Thursday, and it seems like it's been forever ago since the day he was born, but at the same time, it feels like these three and a half weeks have flown by and it was just yesterday that we were headed to the hospital.

Things are still going really well...of course, his days consist mainly of eating and sleeping with lots of diaper changes thrown in between, but Anthony is starting to stay awake more and more during the day and so we're enjoying some play time now as well. He is still pretty consistent with the three hour schedule we started him out on and working to establish a routine each day with him has been no problem. There have been a few days he's deviated a little, either with going through a little growth spurt or fighting sleep. He's also had a few nights that he's gone beyond the three hours (usually four hours, but he's had a couple of five hour stretches).

Personally, I am feeling so much better following the c-section. Not quite back to 100% yet, but again, each day gets better and better. The biggest thing I dealt with was some pretty severe swelling in my feet and legs, but that only lasted just over a week and made a world of difference in how I felt once it went down. The other thing I struggled with was trying to get up from a chair or rocker while holding him...at first, it was hard enough for me to stand up on my own, much less while holding him, so I always had to have someone come and get him for me. This made the nights especially hard since David was having to be up at every feeding, but after those first couple of weeks, my incision felt so much better and had healed enough that I could. So, for the last week I've been able to take care of him completely by myself during the night, and David's been able to get a full night's sleep, which is important for him since he went back to work full-time only a few days after Anthony was born.

I have to give a ton of credit to my mom for how well things have been going so far. She's been with me everyday during the week while David's at work to help me take care of him and is also taking care of things around the house like laundry, cooking, and cleaning, so I've been able to get a lot of rest. She's also been there to take both me and Anthony to doctor's appointments, and we've had a couple of days that we've ventured out and had lunch with David and my brother and to run some errands.

Even though Anthony's only three weeks old, here are some fun things we've observed about him already:

At his two week appointment last week, his weight was 9 lbs., 7 oz., so he was able to gain back to his birth weight plus a little bit more in the two weeks. He has also grown over an inch measuring in at 22 and a quarter inches.
He's a side sleeper and refuses to sleep on his back. Even when he's on his back in his car seat or bouncer, he turns his head to one side and would turn his whole body if he could.
When he sleeps, he loves to have his arms and hands free and up near his face or head. We were able to swaddle him the first couple of days after we came home from the hospital, but quickly realized he hated having his arms wrapped up. Even now, we can't even cover them with a blanket. Pretty sure this is something he got from his Daddy.
Even though he's pretty snuggly, he can't stand for you to touch his arms. This may go along with the way he likes to sleep, but if you try to touch his hand or arm, he always pulls away from you and will glare at you.
He is unbelievably strong and alert already. He's been holding his head up a lot, and he'll even use his arms to push off of you if you have him up on your shoulder. Since he doesn't like for you to touch his arms, he will fight you like crazy. He's always rolling around from side to side or from his back to his side...again, he learned that early on when we put him on his back to sleep and he insisted on being on his side.
Everyone keeps trying to figure out who he looks like and the majority of comments from people have been that he looks like either me or my brother, Collin.
So many people keep telling me what a good baby he is and that we don't know how blessed we are...he really is though and has been since day one.

Well, that's enough rambling about us for now...here's what I know you really want to see - pictures from the last week or so!