Three Weeks Old

Lincoln is three weeks old today. Daniel says it only feels like a week since he's been born but with everything that has happened plus the lack of sleep from nighttime feedings, it definitely feels like 3 weeks to me :) We have really enjoyed getting to know Lincoln a little better. He's a sweet little boy who has been smiling in his sleep since he was a few days old. He even laughs in his sleep. It's so funny to hear/watch such a little baby laughing. He must have pretty funny dreams. We've gotten him to smile a few times while awake but we're never ready with the camera.

One of the things I love most is that he is very cuddly. He LOVES to be snuggled. He sleeps best when held which makes it a little difficult to get things done around the house. Thank goodness for slings!

Lincoln rarely cries which is very nice. The only exception is when we change his diaper. He really hates having his diaper changed. Stephen always loved having his diaper changed so this is a new thing for us. The good thing is that when he falls asleep while nursing and I can't wake him up, I just change his diaper and he's good to go.

I think he just hates being naked which means he also really hates bath time. He screamed through his first bath and couldn't be consoled until he was wrapped in a towel. Since then he has gotten slightly better with each bath but it's definately not his favorite activity.

He looked a lot like Stephen for the first week or so but now he's starting to get his own look. We're excited for his looks and personality to develop more and more as the days pass.

I love dressing him in holiday attire - here's a montage of my favorite outfits in the order I like best:

First Snowman!

We awoke yesterday morning to a load of good packing snow. After it warmed up a little in the morning I couldn't resist the temptation of a little romp in the snow with Stephen.

As we rolled a big ball for the base of our snowman, I realized this was Stephen's very first snowman building experience so we ran in and got the camera.

We had a great time building the snowman but his interest began to wain before we had time to find materials for eyes and smile, etc. So I just used the leaves that we picked up as we rolled for the eyes and called it good. (These pics are a little small but if you click on them, they'll get bigger).

Stephen gave the snowman a big hug and then proceeded to knock him down. Gotta love boys!
After we played with the snowman pieces, Stephen and I went to an untouched area of the front yard and made snow angels. Not only was it Stephen's first time making snow angels it was my first time too :)

Stephen & Lincoln

So how is Stephen handling the addition of Lincoln to our family? Much better than we had expected. We attribute the ease of the transition to having Grandma Earl here showering attention on Stephen so he doesn't feel left out.

At this point, Stephen is really enjoying having a baby around and refers to him as "my baby Lincoln." He asks to hold him quite often - 'course it only lasts like 8 seconds at the most :) He loves to give Lincoln "hugs" which basically means that Stephen lays his head somewhere near Lincoln's body (it's rather comical to watch all the creative positions he gets himself into). Stephen giggles at all of Lincoln's squeaks and burps and when Lincoln is fussy Stephen gets in really close and says, "It's OK Lincoln, it's OK. No cry - HAPPY!"

We realize that all of this might change when Grandma Earl goes home but our fingers are crossed that Stephen will always enjoy his little brother.

Delirium

We had been home from the hospital for a couple of days and everything seemed to be getting back to normal. Then as I was getting ready for bed I started feeling a little "chilled." I figured it was because we had forgotten to turn the heat up. But then it got worse and then I'm told I said some pretty crazy things. Seems I had a temperature of 104. I took medication to try to bring it down but it would only work for a little while and then shoot back up. I don't remember much except that I kept asking Daniel for his belly measurements. He kept telling me that I was delirious but I was confident that I wasn't because it made so much sense to me. I remember explaining very carefully that we needed the measurements because we were moving to a new house and our bedroom was rather small. I needed to know how big his belly was so I could calculate the volume to see if he could fit in our room. Since everyone was pretty concerned about the fever it was good I could bring some comic relief to a stressful situation by being temporarily insane.

The next day I still had the fever and felt absolutely awful - I thought it was just a flu and it would pass in 24 hours but Daniel was insistent that we call my OB. It's a good thing we did, they had me come in immediately. I must have looked as bad as felt because a couple nurses apologized for not recognizing me. One sweet nurse came in and held me for at least 5 minutes as I sobbed. It's been a long time since I was that sick.

My OB said that I had endometritis which is an infection of the uterine lining. He said that I was bad enough that he considered sending me to the hospital. I was so happy when he decided that he would try the outpatient treatment first as long as I promised to call in if my symptoms worsened in the slightest. I was sooooo relieved not to have to go to the hospital again. Fortunately, my body responded well to the outpatient treatment and in a few days I was feeling like myself again. In times past, they calculate that endometritis was responsible for 16% of the maternal mortality rate. Thank goodness for modern medicine!

Baby Blues

Lincoln has been such a good little baby except for one little bad habit - he occasionally stops breathing. He stopped breathing for a bit when he got stuck in a gag reflex on n the hospital, but then the day we were supposed to leave the hospital he had a full on "blue spell" that lasted over a minute. It was very scary. The night before his blue spell, the nurse had talked to us about what to do if our baby ever turned a "dusky blue" color. While she was talking I thought to myself, "I wonder what dusky blue looks like?" Well I definitely found out and it's not a color I like at all.

The weird thing is that just a couple hours after his blue spell they went ahead and released us from the hospital and we came home. A few hours later he stopped breathing again. I was stressed to say the least. How would we ever sleep? We'd have to take turns watching him all night long.

We called the pediatrician and he was very upset because they had never notified him about the breathing problems. He said he never would have let them release us if he knew, so he met us at the hospital and checked us all into the pediatric ward.

The worst part of the evening was all the blood work they had to do to discover if there was some type of infection causing the apnea. They kept trying veins but they were so small they couldn't use them very well. At the end of a very long hour, Lincoln had bruised hands and arms and they had only filled half of the vials. After they left I scooped up my little babe and wept with him.

Next came x-rays and hooking him up to a monitor. The monitor was actually rather nice. We could see his oxygen levels, every time he took a breath as well as his heart rate. The alarm went off occasionally through the night, half the time it was a false alarm and at other times Lincoln just needed a little stimulation to get breathing again.

The bed they put him in was huge! He looked so tiny in that big crib. They had a nice bed for me and a tiny recliner for Daniel to sleep in. Needless to say, I slept better than Dan did that night.

The next day he did much better - the monitor didn't go off very much at all and all of his tests came back ok. I rocked the baby and daddy worked on his laptop until the doctor came to see us. He diagnosed Lincoln with reflux induced apnea. Stephen had reflux as well, but he was always a good breather :) So, the pediatrician put Lincoln on the same medication that helped Stephen and prescribed an apnea monitor for us to take home. The monitor has given us a lot of peace of mind. Sometimes new babies breathe so shallow you wonder if they are breathing at all. It's nice just to look over at the monitor and see the little flashing light that tells you that he is actually breathing. After taking an infant CPR course, we were finally released that evening and came home for keeps :)

Poor Stephen had seen very little of mommy and daddy over the last few days. Luckily for him and the rest of us, Grandma Earl showered him with attention. We're so glad she's been able to stay so long.

Lincoln has been doing extremely well since the hospital stay. To the right is a picture we took a week after his blood tests were done. His little hands still look bruised but they are healing up very nicely. The apnea monitor goes off very rarely and we haven't had any more blue spells. It looks like we'll only need the monitor for a couple more weeks. We're so grateful for all our family and friends who remembered us in their prayers. We feel so blessed.

He's finally here!

Well so much for the OB's prediction that I would go into labor 7 days from the last post. I think my feeling that I'd be giving birth right around Thanksgiving was far more reliable :)

The day before Thanksgiving we welcomed little Lincoln Lewis Earley to our family!
He looks like a carbon copy of his big brother Stephen and he had the same birth stats too: 7lbs 6 oz and 19 inches long.

Lincoln is on the left, Stephen is on the right

We couldn't be happier to have him in our family. Stephen loves "Baby Lee-con" and so do we. We're grateful that he chose to arrive after we moved into our new place and after my mom traveled to Utah to help us.


We found out the morning that he was born that I had the same complication that I had with Stephen but it had gone undiagnosed for at least a month. This meant that they should have induced me nearly 2 weeks earlier to avoid the high rate of stillbirths with this problem. Fortunately, Lincoln came on his own (only a week early) which meant no Pitocin and no epidural - he came "naturally" just like his mama wanted him to :) and to our joy and great relief, he was born alive and breathing!

We're glad he was born the day before Thanksgiving since it was President Lincoln who instituted a national Day of Thanksgiving based on the desires of George Washington. We hope our little Lincoln will always see the need to raise his voice in gratitude to his Heavenly Father in times of plenty as well as times of crisis.

Prego update

I promised a tummy update a few weeks ago and I'm finally getting around to it.
So this is what I look like at nearly 37 weeks.

I just had an OB visit and it looks like this baby is coming early just like Stephen. I'm dilated 3.5 centimeters and 70% effaced. My OB seems to think this baby is coming in the next 7 days. I know that most women would be glad to have the baby come early, but we're moving this Saturday so I'm just a tad concerned. We just pray the baby stays in until at least Sunday. It would be nice if he stayed in there until a week from Sunday but based on the contractions I had today - that's probably not happening. The killer is that my due date is December 4th! But I've known since the day I found out I was pregnant that this baby would be born around Thanksgiving time so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Luckily, I finished crocheting the hooded baby afghan I started a couple of weeks ago as well as the edging on the last of the flannel blankets I made. Just in time . . .

Uncle Cameron

Stephen has been a little obsessed with Uncle Cameron since we've been home. I think it's because Cameron downloaded a few really fun app's on his iphone that both Stephen and Gordon enjoyed playing with.

One morning while in AZ, Stephen and I got up earlier than Uncle Cameron. I was talking with my mom when I realized that I hadn't seen Stephen in a few minutes. I went looking for him and found him running past me as fast as his little legs would go. I ran after him and found out why he was running. He had been sneaky - he went downstairs, found Cameron's iphone and swiped it. When I caught up to him he said, "Cameron! Cameron!" and handed the phone back to me.

Two mornings later I found Stephen sitting very quietly in an overstuffed chair. I wondered what he was playing with. When I came up to him I noticed he had Cameron's laptop on his lap. He was stroking the top of it very gently saying, "Cameron, Cameron" in a little whisper. Hilarious.

Now when he sees a laptop he always says, "Cameron k'puter." Which is funny because his parents are on laptops all the time but it's all Cameron now.

The other day I heard him singing a song to himself. (He does this quite often - it makes me laugh. I always thought it was a little girl thing to make up songs - I guess not.) Anyway, while singing this particular song he would periodically say, "Cameron." So I guess it was a song all about Uncle Cameron. I couldn't make out the other words so I don't know what else about Cam he was thinking.

Sometimes he comes to me with a cell phone asking to call Cameron. So I guess Cameron has hit favorite uncle status - and it didn't take much on his part ;)

Flying to and from AZ

The flight to Arizona was the closest we've ever cut it getting to the airport. We left late to begin with and then 1/2 way there we realized we had forgotten the computer bag with both of our laptops in it. So we had to turn around and go home to get it. Dan dropped us off at the airport with 30 minutes before our plane took off - seriously. He drove off to park the car in long term parking and I headed into the airport to check in with Stephen and 2 suitcases. I'm sure I looked quite the site - pregnant woman dragging a 20 month old and 2 large suitcases through a crowded airport. It made the people at the Southwest desk feel sorry for me though so they helped with the bags and disregarded the time and just told me to "hurry to the gate."

Because it was Southwest, the gate was the furthest one away - of course. I tried having Stephen walk for a minute but I knew we'd never make it so I picked him up and hiked the trail. The funny things was that there was this guy in a suit who was in front of us through security. He spotted on of those carts and hailed it saying "You've gotta get me to gate 18 immediately!" Hmmm that was our gate. Well the cart guy had to turn around and dodge people and go down elevators etc, so there were times we were ahead of him or slightly behind him. In the end we made it to the gate at the same time! I thought that was pretty funny.

Well so I'm at the gate a little out of breath but the problem is that i don't have a husband at the gate and I wasn't go to fly to AZ without him. Standing at the gate I called him - he was just going through security. I asked the man taking our tickets when they were going to close the gate and he said, "3 minutes - no later!" so I told Dan to run. He got there with 30 seconds to spare! Whew - what a ride.

Going home was not was eventful but there was a hiccup. Dan had a meeting in Phoenix which ran a little long. We packed the bags, loaded them in the car and on our way to the airport realized that there was absolutely no way we would make our flight :( So I called, moved the flight and we went back to the house for a more leisurely departure. It meant that we didn't land in SLC until 11:30pm, though. Did Stephen sleep on the plane? Of course not. He hasn't fallen asleep on an airplane since he was 3 months old. He gets far too excited. This time he found the safety information guide and was mesmerized for about 10 minutes. That gave us a little break which was nice.

Trip to AZ - Grandpa's 60th B-day!

Another great reason for going down to Arizona was to help celebrate my father's 60th birthday. We planned a big family bash for him in between General Conference sessions on Saturday complete with games like "pin the tie on grandpa" "marshmallow toss into grandpa's mouth" and a grandkid talent show." But I think the part dad liked the best was when we gave him a neck, back, hand and foot massage all at the same time - everyone just took different parts and we went at it. He was in heaven. So much so that I think he slept through most of the second session ;)


The more I grow up the more I consider it a blessing everytime we get to spend time with my dad. He's a great man and a good example of righteous living - we're glad that our little guy has someone so wonderful that he can look up to and try to emulate. Happy 60th Dad!


If you look close enough in this picture (you can click on it to make it bigger) you can see the scrapes that little Stephen sustained when he fell into a rosebush the morning we left. Poor kid - he got scratched up pretty badly on his face, head and arms.

Trip to AZ - General Conference

It's been years since I've been able to watch General Conference with my whole family. It's a rather different experience now that there's a bunch of little ones running around. It's more like pandemonium and utter chaos. Luckily we could digitally record it for later viewing when the kids were asleep!

Grandpa was a good sport. He tried to keep the Gordon and Stephen quiet so their parents could watch at least a few talks in peace.

Stephen sure loves being with his "papa." Toward the end of our trip he started calling him "grandpapa" so I guess my dad moved up even more in esteem.

For some reason the music was the only thing during conference that caught the attention of Stephen and Gordon. This picture on the left cracks me up - they were absolutely mesmerized for the entire song. Way to go MTAB! The picture on the right depicts what most of the sessions looked like at our house. Kids playing and moms on the floor trying to keep them entertained with dad's taking turns now and then.


When I had the chance - I did have a General Conference project I was working on. I was putting a blanket stitch on one of the swaddle blankets I made so I could crochet an edge on it. The blanket stitch took 10x more time than the crocheting did - I'm definitely doing something different next time around.

Trip to AZ - Cousins!

I'm trying to catch up but I can't seem to finish it all in a day so excuse the long string of posts from our trip to AZ :)
So the cool thing about everyone going to the Goldwater dinner was that we had a mini-family reunion all week long!

Stephen was able to spend a lot of time with his cousin, Gordon, when we were down in AZ in July and he has talked about Gordon ever since. Needless to say, he was ecstatic to get to play with Gordon again on this trip. As soon as he'd wake up in the morning he'd say, "Gordon?" and he'd run upstairs to see if Gordon was already awake. (He usually was since he's a very early riser much to his parents chagrin.) These two played pretty well together most of the time. Stephen is now even more obsessed with Gordon and asks about him nearly every day (often multiple times throughout the day).

As always, Grandma's playroom was the main center of the children's awake time. The slide being the biggest pleaser.

Mom had these holes cut out so the kids could peak down - it was almost better than the slide itself.

If you look carefully you can see the slobber both fresh and dried that flows out of this hole. Both Stephen and Gordon seem to have excess saliva so when both of them are peaking through the hole it can get pretty wet ;)

The weather in AZ was still nice enough to go swimming one last time this season. But not so nice that you wanted to go everyday. Once was enough for all of us ;) (from left to right: Laura, Gordon, Ella, me and Stephen)