Ben’s Blog

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I haven’t had much time, and when I have had the time, I haven’t had the energy. I blame sleep deprivation.

Speaking of which, it’s gotten a little better. Luke started sleeping through the night a couple of weeks ago. I guess he thought mom and dad needed the rest. He had been getting up for a bottle around 1:00am or so for a long time. Last night he went to bed a little earlier than usual, and we forgot to give him his bedtime bottle. I was worried he would wake up in the middle of the night hungry, but he didn’t.

Liam’s been sleeping pretty good lately too. He still gets up every three hours to eat, but in between bottles he sleeps fairly soundly. Cassie and I both look forward to when he starts only getting up twice to eat. Of course, we can’t remember when Luke started doing that.

Luke’s swimming lessons have been going good. All of us have been looking forward to them. He’s definitely gotten more comfortable in the water. Next week will be his last week. Cassie’s tried to take some pictures, but it’s pretty dark in the Turner Center and none of them have turned out very good. We’ll keep trying.

I took off this afternoon, and we’re about to head to Belmont. Luke will be going to his first high school football game. I’m pretty sure it’ll be my first one since my brother graduated five years ago. I’m looking forward to it.

This was Cassie’s first week to keep the boys on her own. I’d say it went very well. Luke continues to warm up to Liam, but we still have to keep an eye on him. He still likes to shake Liam’s bouncer occasionally.

Liam is doing better about sleeping at night. Occasionally he’ll stay awake for a short period at night, but it’s fairly rare. He gets up about three times to eat during the night, and Luke still gets up once around 2am. That means Cassie and I have to get up twice each. I’ve been drinking two cups of Earl Grey tea a day, just to keep going. It could certainly be worse, but I’ll be glad when Liam starts sleeping for longer periods of time.

Luke was supposed to have his first “swimming lesson” at the Turner Center on campus last Tuesday, but they postponed them a week due to pool renovations. (Which they didn’t bother telling us until we got there for the lesson.) Luke and I will be doing that for the next month on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully I’ll get a few pictures.

Speaking of pictures…we’ve taught Luke to take his bottle by himself. This helps Cassie when Luke and Liam decide it’s time to eat at the same time during the day. One day this week I came home to the scene below. I thought it was cute. Luke had apparently spilled something on his shirt earlier, and Cassie didn’t bother putting anything back on him because he was about to eat. Notice the glob of milk about to hit his chest in the second picture.

Liam is two weeks, one day old today. He went to the pediatrician for his first checkup this afternoon, and he’s still looking great. He’s already gained a few ounces. He still wants to wake up for long stretches during the night, but he’s gotten a lot better. He’s going about three hours between feedings on average, but at night he’ll occasionally go longer, so we can’t complain.

We had to drag out the old bouncer for Luke.

Luke has adapted well to being a big brother. He occasionally likes to bounce Liam’s bouncer, but other than that he’s being very sweet. Luke became very fond of playing with our dishwasher and oven, so we now have gates on both entrances to the kitchen. He’s also been trying to climb things. Yesterday he managed get up on the couch by himself.

Luke’s discovered our laundry nook. He’ll open the sliding doors, get in, and close the doors behind him. A couple of weeks ago he locked himself in his room. I wasn’t able to pick the lock, so I had to take the door knob off the door to get him out. He hasn’t really learned any new words lately, but he’s jabbering up a storm.

Cassie is still doing great. She goes back to the doctor on Friday, but we expect a good report.

We all made it home from the hospital before noon yesterday. Everyone is still doing great. In fact, Cassie is at Wal-Mart as I type. Liam is laying on the bed behind me, snoozing away.

I took 374 pictures while at the hospital. I managed to weed those down to 64 good, mostly non-redundant ones, and I’ve posted them on my Zenfolio page. There is definitely still some redundancy, but keep in mind that my primary audience here is grandmothers, and they don’t seem to mind.

Before I go any further, we really appreciate everyone who visited, called, emailed, or commented on the blog post. It’s great to count all of you as friends, even if we don’t get to see some of you very often.

As you can see in the pictures, Liam has a respectable head of dark hair. I was blond when I was born, so that most likely comes from Cassie. He also has Cassie’s distinctive “chin dimple” as well as her cheek dimples when he is sitting just right. He also has very long fingers and toes. He’s a little lighter (4 oz.) and a little shorter (3/4″) than Luke was, but Luke was 2 days late and Liam was 8 days early, so we’ll give him some time to catch up. (more…)

I had hoped to make it home for an hour or two today to post a full update and maybe a few pictures, but I hate to leave Cassie and Liam at the hospital for too long. Therefore I am stuck posting on my iPhone again. I long for broadband and a full-size keyboard.

Both Cassie and Liam will get discharged around noon tomorrow, so hopefully I can post a more complete update and some pictures tomorrow night.

Liam’s pediatrician has been around several times and says he is doing great. You couldn’t tell it from the picture I posted, but he has a good bit of dark hair. Most peple agree Luke looks a lot like me, but Liam definitely has several of his mom’s characteristics.

Cassie is doing great too. They took her off her morphine drip this morning, but she’s still getting around well and isn’t in too much pain. I know she’s doing better than I expected at this point.

Luke is doing well in his role as a big brother. He likes to give Liam kisses, has held him a couple of times, and even helped feed him this afternoon. Yes, I have pictures. He’s liked the hospital in general too. He’s very social, and there’s lots of people to play with and say hi to.

More later.

Liam Nicholas Pharr was born at 10:24am this morning at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi in Oxford. He weighed 7 lbs. 2oz. and was 19.75 inches long. Both he and his mom are doing well. More later.

We have to be at the hospital in less than seven hours. Yes, I should be in bed.

Cassie’s mom is here to take care of Luke in the morning. He usually gets up around 7:30, so there’s a good chance he’ll wake up a big brother. He knows something is up, but of course he doesn’t fully understand the situation. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles it.

Since Cassie’s having a C-section she’ll be in the hospital until around noon on Friday. My parents and grandmothers are coming to be here for the birth tomorrow, and my mom is going to stick around and take care of Luke for the rest of the week. Cassie’s mom will be back next week. We’ll need a lot of help because Cassie won’t be able to pick Luke up for at least two weeks, and he can be a handful on his own.

This time feels quite a bit different from when we had Luke. It’s a little surreal. It hasn’t sunk in that I’ll have another son tomorrow. It’s going to be an interesting transition for everyone involved.

Unfortunately there is no public wifi at the hospital, but I’ll make a quick post on my iPhone after Liam is born and everything has settled down.

For those of you that have been completely out of the loop, our first son, Luke Benjamin Pharr, was born on June 1, 2007. He’s now a little over 14 months old. I posted his early pictures on Flickr and his later ones on Zenfolio. At this point I’m a little behind on both taking and posting pictures, but there should be some more up on the Zenfolio page soon.

Luke started walking about a month ago and hasn’t slowed down since. He had been flirting with the idea for a while, but never could get up the nerve to let go of the furniture. He’s fairly tall for his age, so reaching into drawers and on top of cabinets is no problem.

(more…)