New Faces...New Places

I'm all recovered from the spider incident. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes. Aunt Nicole and Grandpa Richard came to visit last week. I was a little delirious still from all the Benadryl and drugs but turns out I'm no longer the main attraction for visitors anymore, so I'm not sure they even noticed. (Okay, so I'm sure that I never really was the main attraction, but a girl can dream, right?) Dylan, of course, loved the visitors and had a great time!

Looking awfully cute sleeping on Nicole with coordinated stripes!

Dylan had his follow up visit with the surgeons at Children's Mercy. Dr. Ostlie continues to be very impressed with his progress. He'll need another surgery or two to fix the hernia that he still has. Basically, with the subsequent surgeries, they will pull his ab muscles to where they belong and flatten out his stomach. They'll also give him a belly button! After the last surgery, he'll be back to normal. And the subsequent surgeries are much less invasive than the initial, usually only requiring an overnight stay. His stomach is very soft and doesn't seem to bother him at all. We'll continue to follow up with the surgeons every few months until we decide when to do his second surgery. It'll likely be sometimes around the age of 2. The good news is, other than the bump he has on his stomach, he's perfectly normal!

Now the main thing we're focusing on is Dylan gaining weight. He was up to 7 lbs. 13 ounces on Friday. He's consistently gaining but not quite as much as we'd like. He's eating really well, but we think he just burns a few more calories than a normal baby because he's still healing and breathes a little harder than normal because of the extra pressure in his chest. We're supplementing my feedings twice a day with some extra calories from formula, so hopefully he'll start gaining a little more quickly soon.

I also had my final check up with my doctor. Everything looked great, so I'm clear to do anything. Billy even made me attempt to run this week. I ran a mile and then ran/walked the mile back. I actually felt better than I thought I would.

Dylan continues to change so much every day! I think I forgot to put it in the blog, but he's already rolling over. He did it for the first time around 4 weeks old. He has a little bit of an advantage because his stomach sticks out creating a bit of a fulcrum, but it's still pretty impressive. My theory is that he doesn't love lying on his stomach so he figured out very quickly how to remedy that situation! We'll try to get it on video soon and post it!

He has also begun to smile a lot! They are so cute, it's pretty much impossible not to just melt when he smiles at you. Sometimes he gets so excited he smiles with his whole face, so big his eyes close...just like his daddy!

Grinning on mommy's lap!
I know he looks like he might cry, but I assure you he was laughing!

Dylan and I have also begun to explore the outside world a bit. Kris gets a lot of credit; she keeps arranging fun things to do that aren't too overwhelming. We were in Children's Mercy nurses withdrawal, so Dylan had his first lunch date with Anna, one of our nurse's little ones who is a few weeks younger than Dylan. As you can see, Dylan is pretty chill about the whole thing, while Anna is clearly pumped!! Then on Friday, we went out to lunch for Kristen's birthday. A bunch of nurses and kiddos met up at a brew house and Dylan and I crashed the party. It was a great time and Dylan loved being held by some of his favorite nurses. We've missed them all since we've been out of the hospital!!

Holly, Kristen Dylan and Anna (see, I told you Anna was pumped!)
Dylan and his favorite nurse on her birthday!
Dylan has missed Sunny taking care of him!

Yesterday, Amy and her kiddos came to visit from Iowa. Karson and Aubrey are as cute as ever! And both were very interested in Dylan. They were very cute with him! Amy, Kristen, Lars, Dylan and I went out to lunch. It was very much like the good old times in college. We had a great time and enjoyed catching up!
Today, Aunt Nicole comes back to celebrate the second half of her Memorial's Day weekend with us. My dad and Billy are in Vegas, so it's just us girls, Morris and Dylan. Hopefully, Morris doesn't get too sick of all of us! We also have plans for Erin, Carrie Mac and Grandma Toni to come back and visit soon, so we're super excited for all the upcoming visitors. And of course my mom comes every weekend, so I hardly even consider her a visitor at this point!

Ella is still very interested in her cousin!

Sleeping like a baby in grandpa's arms!

Mother's Day, Spiders, Emergency Room...Oh My!!!

Okay, before anybody gets too worried, everybody is fine. Dylan is doing great, it was yours truly who ended up in the emergency room on Mother's Day (not exactly how I anticipated spending my first mother's day! Saturday afternoon, I put on a pair of jeans. I felt a prick but thought that it was a tag or something. I took the jeans off to get the tag out and found a spider. Needless to say I wasn't thrilled about that (see, I never should've stopped wearing sweatpants!) It didn't really hurt or anything, so I wasn't very concerned.

Dylan, Ella, Andrea, my mom and I went to Deanna Rose which is a free petting zoo that afternoon. Ella loved feeding the goats! Dylan slept through most of the trip, but enjoyed being outside.

That night, when I woke up for the 4 a.m. feeding I noticed my face felt flush. My mom agreed, but we weren't very concerned. By Sunday morning, it was more flush and had spread to my chest a bit. My face was also getting a little swollen which is about as fun as it sounds. I took a couple of doses of Benadryl knowing that I was likely having an allergic reaction to the spider. I felt pretty crappy most of the day and by 4 that afternoon the redness had spread throughout my entire body. My mom was just about to head back to DSM, but instead we decided, after consulting with my grandpa and my personal nursing staff (thanks Beth and Kris), to head to the hospital.

The emergency room trip was pretty efficient overall. They agreed that I was having an allergic reaction to the spider bite. They gave me a shot of a steroid and a stronger antihistamine through an IV. The IV was actually the worst part. The nurse tried to start it on the top of my hand. She didn't get it initially, so was wriggling the needle around which obviously doesn't feel very good! She went through the vein, so my hand started puffing up. She wanted to get a vial of blood before sticking me again, so she could use a smaller needle. Finally, I told her that if she didn't take the IV out, I was going to. Luckily, she got the next one fairly easily. I felt amazingly better after I left the hospital.

My mom stayed the night and we bottle fed Dylan with milk that I had pumped before he was eating until we could talk to the lactation consultant and see if it was okay to feed him with the drugs they sent me home on (luckily it is!). So, I'm on Benadryl 4 times a day, a steroid (Erin, I'm in the prednisone club now!) and pepcid which apparently helps with the antihistamine. I'm definitely improving; although still have some redness in my face. Unfortunately, the Benadryl makes me even more tired/lethargic than normal, so I've been struggling a bit. I think Dylan can sense that I'm not quite normal around him.

I went to the doctor today for a follow up appointment. The nurse practioner agrees that I'm on the right track and thinks that within a few more days I'll be back to normal. I still have to be on the look out for any signs of infection and if the redness comes back all over again they want to hear from me. However, she thought both of these things were unlikely because it's been a few days since the bite. Luckily, I threw the spider in the trash and we were able to get it back out to examine it. Based on the internet searches, we're all pretty sure it was a brown recluse. We're hoping it might be an isolated incident, but we are contacting exterminators to have them come check the house out.

A special thanks to all of the friends who have made meals and brought them over. They have all been delicious and it's so nice not to have to worry about what to cook a few nights a week! We're all very grateful!! Also, a big thanks for all of the mother's day wishes. They were very much appreciated, sorry I didn't respond, but as you can guess it was a little hectic!

Below are some pictures from this weekend. There aren't any pics of me from Mother's Day, because I wasn't feeling very photogenic with my bright red/puffy face.

We illegally took this picture of Ella on top of the buffalo. Of course, after we did it a million other kiddos tried to climb them until a worker at the petting zoo came and yelled at everybody. Only 15 months old and Ella is already a bad influence!!

Grandma and Ella in front of the combine

Ella and Andrea feeding the goats. The big goat figured out where Andrea's stash of food was!

First trip to the zoo! And of course Dylan is sporting some cute overalls for the occasion!!

It's hard to see, but earlier this week when Andrea and Ella came over for dinner, Ella got pooped on by a bird in our driveway. Andrea was not nearly as amused as we were!

Proud grandparents!

Debbie came to visit us and brought us a great meal!

We made sure to get a picture of Lars holding Dylan this visit!

Sleeping like a baby on mommy's chest!

Can You Believe It's Been a Month?!?

So believe it or not, Dylan is over a month old. Let's hope all of his future months aren't quite as eventful as this one. He continues to do great and we continue to get into our routine. Although, it's hard to call it a routine when nothing we do is ever the same each day. Who would've thought I'd get to the point where taking a shower would become an accomplishment!?! From what I can gather, Dylan is actually very good for a baby. Sometimes it's just hard to remember that at 1:30 in the morning when he's been crying for a few hours. Many thanks to my mom and sister who have continued to take his fussy shift so I can get some sleep. Although, I'm a little worried that all these nights with Andrea might delay Ella getting a little brother or sister.

We had the first Ella and Dylan encounter. Andrea brought Ella over for lunch last Friday. She was VERY interested in Dylan, but we mostly let her touch his foot to avoid spreading germs. She waved at him a ton and seemed a little confused on why he didn't wave back.

Dylan also had his first official date. Jamie brought over her little one Caitlin. Caitlin was born about a week and a half after Dylan, so he's already going for younger women! Carissa also came all the way down from Minneapolis just to see the little man...or maybe it was for a wedding, but who's keeping track.



We had a great weekend with Nicki and Toni coming to visit. My mom had stayed for the whole week, so we had a full household. We took Dylan on his first couple of walks (the first with me carrying him, the second in his stroller). We also took Dylan's official one month pictures (although, I'm pretty sure we have multiple pictures of every day of his life!).

Enjoying some quality family time!

Yes, there is a baby underneath all of that stuff!

Getting ready for walk #2

I love my bouncy seat!

Yesterday was also a fairly momentous day, for me that is. Yesterday, was the first official day since Dylan was born that I dressed in something other than running pants. I know, I'm getting pretty fancy with jeans! I figured the statute of limitations on the c-section excuse for not getting dressed probably ran out around 5 weeks, so I was pushing it! Although, it's hard to compete with how cute all of Dylan's clothes are (yes, for those of you keeping track, that's the second hoodie that he owns!).