OVER!

There are a few things that are over.
One, Brad's anatomy class.
Thank you.
Now he came home today at noon. Awesome.
My baby's first month is over.
That means my postpardum is almost over. 6 weeks almost.
I went to the doc today because my hands swell excessively (more than when I was pregnant) and I'm starting to have a lot of pain in my hands. So its determined I have carpal tunnel. Which is normal and caused from swelling and hopefully will go away with time.

I love my doctor. Gosh. He is just a gem.
Here is a pic I just snapped of my baby just seconds ago.
I'm scared he is growing up too fast.

Brad thinks this sleeper is girly.

Well...he didn't say that he said, "Were you trying to make him gay?"

Which is totally inappropriate, but...whatever. I'm inappropriate sometimes. 

Brad also saw a random guy walking in the parking lot today. He had his t-shirt tucked into his shorts.

Brad said, "Is it tuck your shirt in day?" 

Brad then said, "Cuz you're nailin it."

Like the guy heard him.

But I laughed so hard.

Back to my baby.

These are pictures I took when he was 1 month old.

You see I went to visit my sis in arizona, that's another blog post.

So everybody does stats....every month right? That's the mom protocol? 

Well good thing I freaked out the night before he was one month old, because he had a high temp and was acting funny for 12+ hours.

And I took him to insta-care. 

He weighed 10.2 pounds, and was still at 21 1/2 inches. (And he was perfectly fine, just had some unknown problem, but no fever)

He was 7.15 pounds and 21 inches at birth.

He is mostly bald.  With some hair on the back and sides.

He still has trouble pooping....(is that stat worthy?)

He smiles at us, not just gas smiles, and it seriously is the cutest ever.

Everyone says he looks just like Brad but has my eyes.....

But I swear they are Brad's shape of eyes....

We lay Miles on his belly and he puts his arms under him and pushes up and kinda rolls/tips over onto his back. That has to be something cool right? Mr. Strong Man.

He has a few nicknames from us..

Bud, buddy, sweet cheeks, stinker (used when he poops up his back, or de-binks himself), love, lover, lover boy, cutie patootie. 

Not sure which ones will stick.

He loves being held, and is a good sleeper. He takes about 3 naps in the day each over 2 hours. Then he sleeps from 11-5AM, I feed him and he falls back to sleep till about 8 AM. Usually when I get him out of his little bed that is next to our bed, I feed him on one side (BREAST MILK) and then he is just out cold. Sound asleep. I try to burp him and he just hangs his little head over so asleep.

Mom, I was just hungry for a minute, now I need to go back to sleep.-Miles at 5 AM.

He has a little bit of baby acne. It comes and goes.

He poops and when he poops it is yellow and up his back. Constantly changing diapers. Constantly scrubbing clothes out. I have this vow to myself that I will not let any of his clothes get stained. That means I scrub stuff till my hands hurt..maybe that's why I have carpal tunnel. Goodness.

He is constantly moving. My goodness he is like a motor. Brad says he is trying to find the gas and clutch with his feet, because it is crazy. Even when I am holding him. He doesn't just veg out. He is active! Except when tired, he will just lay on me till he is asleep.

He stares at Brad and I, and when we put him down he just watches us wherever we go in the room.

He gets grumpo when he is hungry or tired, or just plain spoiled and wants to be held.

How can I not spoil him? He is my sweet little baby.

I was a judger of people who spoiled their kids.

But now I get it.

You love them too much to not spoil them.

Plus how do you spoil a 4 week old? He's brand new, and doesn't know much about this new world yet. So all he knows is mom's uterus. So mom's breasts are the next best thing. I know that's creepy weirdo, but sometimes he can only sleep if he is nestled on my chest. 

Again and again we are so blessed to have this sweet baby in our lives. We know (Brad knows better than I because of his deep knowledge of embryo development) that it is a complete miracle that I was able to get pregnant, and that I had no problems, and that this doll came into our lives. And we thank God every single night in our prayers.

Miles Layton Clark Our Baby

As you may know, I had my baby.
Miles Layton Clark
7lbs 15 ounces
20.5 inches
Born on Sept 15, 2012 at 2 AM
More details on birth later. Birth story in progress. We need to compare this baby, its urgent.

I always said when I was pregnant, "Nobody prepared me for pregnancy. Nobody told me how sick you get, or how uncomfortable it is."

Right after the baby was born I said, "Nobody told me that this would make me the happiest person I have ever been, nobody told me that."

Everybody did tell me that once you have the baby you forget about pregnancy.
Which I think is misworded.
It should be, once you have the baby, you will see that little baby is worth any pain and suffering, and all the pain and suffering in the world, and you would do it as many times as your body can endure, because the joy is unexplainable when that baby is put onto your chest for the first time.

I have said a million times:
"I should have done this sooner, this baby is the greatest gift from God."
"Brad, did you ever think we could be this happy?"
"Every couple considering having a baby, stop considering and do it, it is the best thing that has ever happened to me aside from marrying Brad."

I have been looking at him, while he has been looking at me, and I am overcome with the greatest spiritual feeling and I pull him into my chest and sob and pray and thank God for this amazing little baby.

I am trying to convey to you, that having a baby has been the most challenging and rewarding accomplishment I and Brad have ever done in our lives. We love it, and we love baby Miles.

Now...I am working on the birth story: with pictures! But it is something that I don't know if I am ready to revisit emotionally yet. It was such an overwhelming amount of joy that I can barely look at the pictures and I am in this grateful/lucky/blessed/crying mode that makes me appreciate life so much, so I'm going to keep working on it. Plus it will probably be the longest post of my life, so I am waiting until I have just the right emotion status, and time frame to do it.

But in the mean time: Miles is the cutest little baby. And I cannot spend enough time with him, and I never want to leave him. I am recovering from child birth, we came home from the hospital on Monday. Nobody told me I would need constant ice packs on my undercarriage and strong pain meds for days/weeks after birth, but it is more than worth it. I will post more about the after birth recovery later when I feel like grossing you out. This is a time for comparing.

Who does Miles look like???????
I am not really stressed about it, but that's all anyone wants to talk about, and I never have good answers, so finally I rounded up some baby pictures.

Who did you get the most physical genes from Baby Miles???

Daddy?

Brad's face is longer than Miles' face. . So I think he has my cheeks and face structure.

But to me he has Brad's nose.

And Miles makes this face all the time. This picture could even pass for Miles.

This is the newest picture of Brad, I think he was 6 days old here.

This looks a lot like Miles, but obviously Brad is older here.

Now let's look at Mommy.

Hello swollen, and cheeks and hair.

Hair! And still a little swollen.

Oh Blessing day. I had the cheeks.

Now to me this looks like Miles, but gosh its so hard to tell!

Let's be honest here, this picture is 100th percentile in the adorable charts.

But this is probably my best newborn pic as far as being able to see features....

Now for Baby Miles.

Prepare to die of cuteness attack. (That's when pictures are so cute you have a cute attack and its hard to recover from that......so beware)

 Can you just melt my heart Miles??? Who do you look like?? I don't even know. 

Today Brad said a prayer, I hope its not terrible to quote prayers on your blog.

He said, "We are grateful for baby Miles."

He went on to say, "We are grateful he drew the long straw in the genetics pool."

I love how Brad said it in this way. Hopefully God has a sense of humor. Basically, thankful he is so cute. We are so in love. 

I always just dedicate my prayers to Miles now.

Thankful he is so perfect. Thankful he is healthy. All my thanks are directed towards him.

And all my 'please bless' sayings are directed at him.

Please bless he will be healthy. Please please bless he will be safe.

This is a picture of him the day he was born. Well....he was born at 2 AM, and we spent a foggy Saturday in the hospital.

So this is at 4 PM. After we had all had a little rest.

We will talk more about our hospital stay/birth story later.

For now...we are comparing.

Does Miles look like Mommy???

Or does Miles look like Daddy?

We will forever be in this questioning process?

We again are so happy and blessed to have this wonderful baby in our lives. 

We can't tell him we love him enough. I can't stop kissing him all over his face. I love being his mama. 

I love how our family has become so much more. I love him more than I ever knew my heart could handle. We had no idea bringing a child into this world was such a bonding beautiful experience. And I am here to tell you, this baby is more than a bundle of joy, he is more than any words could ever explain. Nobody tells you that having a baby will make you the happiest person you will ever be. Everyone always says its all about family. Now I really understand. 

Took a break

Sometimes life gets super hard. And fast. It goes fast and you realize its March and your husbands baby sister gets married and you are in Texas visiting the 2 year old triplets who are six and then you realize they aren't babies anymore and its sad.

And the dog Emma isn't 3 anymore. She is 7, and in dog years that is 49. She is old and has hip problems!! WHat? What happened to my rambunctious friend that would jump up in my arms!?!?!

And since when did they play Wii? Where are the diapers? Man, time flies, and I thought oh goodness I need to savor life more. I need to go on walks, I need to get a dog, I need to call people more talk about old times, and what's happening now. I have this problem...I always look to the future, what is coming next. Now I just need to slow down and look at right now.

And Right now I am watching 3 6 year olds jump over rolling logs and they act as if they are really doing it. We were in the car driving today and they said, "We are Jewish." I said, " No you go to a Jewish school but you aren't Jewish."
Bryce: Oh, we are Mexican.
Me: No. You are American and Canadian.
Reid: What are you?
Me: I'm American
Trevor: I don't even know what Jewish means.
Me: It is a religion, like Catholic, Mormons, Methodist, it means you believe in God.
Bryce: Ya we believe in God and Jesus.
Reid: Yes, I believe in God, Jesus, and Santa.

I thought to myself, oh great, when you realize Santa isn't really are you going to think God and Jesus aren't real......? We will find out I guess!

I'll enjoy 85 degrees while Utah enjoys random bursts of snow, wind and rain.