Favorite Things

Rowan is two months old now (Dr. on Friday,we'll post his stats.) So I thought I would share some of his likes and dislikes. Let's start with his dislikes:

• Being held in the cradle hold, unless you plan on nursing him or he is already knocked out.
  
• Putting clothes on, diaper is fine, but he would prefer to go with just that.
  
• The television, I guess he gets overstimulated by all of the background noise. We've now downgraded our cable to the very basic since we don't get to watch as much as we used to and when we did it was muted anyway. Maybe we will read more now.
• Red lights, stop signs or anything else that requires you to engage your brakes while driving. He prefers the car to move the entire time he is in the car seat.
• The bottle and a pacifier: we've tried a few different ones but he tends to gag and push them away. We've had a little success with this bottle and by success I mean no gagging. He has not actually sucked on it, maybe in time he will.
  

It could be much worse - he is a relatively laid back baby. Now for the things he likes.

• Smiling and laughing at Esten's forehead. He thinks it's a riot. Esten always wraps a towel on his head to dry his luscious locks after a shower and Rowan finds that humorous also.
• He has a mobile that he received from my uncle for Christmas and that is his new favorite thing to stare at. It is safari animals and he will lay alone in his crib and watch it go around and around long enough for me to get a restroom break and possibly check the mail (Oh the little things I appreciate now.)
  
• I have a touch lamp next to my side of the bed that I use at night and the lamp shade on it is embroidered with vibrant flowers, vines and birds. When he is awake at night and early in the morning he stares and talks to the lamp.
  
• The Grateful Dead - If he's fussy (luckily not too often) Esten plays GD vinyl albums and dances around with him and he usually falls asleep. If the music stops he wakes. Maybe it's just music he likes, but we're going with GD for now.
  
• He is still enjoying his tummy time. He presents new and I must say, very cute noises when he is on his tummy. This is a video from the beginning of this month. We'll post a new one soon from his play mat.
  
• Pooping in a clean diaper. It never fails, just after we've changed him he will let it all out. TMI?
• Taking a bath is another go to activity if he is upset. He has a plastic tub that has a hammock type contraption that keeps his head out of the water. He kicks his feet over the hammock to get them in the water and he will scoot down to get more of his body in the water too. Hopefully he will continue to like the bath.
  
• And lastly he loves to nurse. He's getting better at not wanting to nurse every 30 minutes but no doubt he loves it.
  

Rowan and the Dogs

If you know Shannon and I, you know that we have dogs. Three of them actually, Ian, Maddie, and Pablo. I bought Ian, a fawn coated weimaraner, for $150 when I was a sophomore in college from a gay couple in Cook's Point TX, outside of College Station. He's almost nine years old now. Maddie came from the Mason ranch, a rare cross between a German short hair pointer and a Welsh corgi. We call them Porgies. This happened by accident, but if you look at all the labradoodles and picapoohs that are around today, maybe we were just ahead of the times. And then there is Pablo, the chihuahua. Not the chic hand-bag size Paris Hilton chihuahua, but a healthy 10-11lbs, depending on the month chihuahua. We took him in after Shannon's brother and his wife had Kyra, our niece, and decided the house wasn't big enough for the both of them. He spent some time at Shannon's parents' house, mostly in the back yard which doesn't work out to well for a 10lbs Houdini that can climb a chain-link fence. However, given the soft spot Shannon has in her heart for puppies, he eventually ended up coming back with her after a trip to Corpus Christi. You see, everybody loves chihuahua's because they are perpetually small, like puppies. Needless to say, he has carved himself out a nice spot in our home and our hearts over the past couple of years.

So why blog about this? Well, on more than one occasion people asked us about how we were going to deal with the dogs and the new baby. To Shannon and I, there was never really a question. They are family and with the addition of Rowan, our family would only get bigger. We have it easy anyhow, our friends Bo and Elizabeth have 7 or 8 dogs, I can't remember the exact number, but it is alot. And they just had a baby. It never crossed our mind that we might "get rid" of the dogs to make room for the baby. After all, that is how we ended up with Pablo in the first place. We were cautious of course, and the introduction of the dogs to Rowan has provided some laughs and material for this blog.

I think Pablo was the first to meet him after we brought him home from the hospital. Without hesitation, Pablo took to licking him in the face, as is Pablo's way of showing his affection. He is really good at giving kisses, usually ten at a time. I have a feeling that somehow Pablo thinks Rowan is his baby, maybe because of the time he spent on Long Island with Shannon when Rowan was in the womb, or the days on the couch laying his head across Shannon's belly. He loves Rowan.

Ian was second, and he gave Rowan a few good sniffs to the head. He is a bit more of a snoot when it comes to the licking, you've got to earn his kisses. I don't believe he has licked Rowan yet, but someday soon I'm sure.

Maddie was third. She was very cautious, as Maddie is, and sniffed him from head to toe. After doing this she proceeded to urinate on the carpet in his room. I'm still not sure why she did it. Maybe she was marking her territory, scared, or she just really had to go. She was embarrassed, and I didn't scold her.

I think some of the first sounds to come out of Rowan were those that he learned from the dogs. Barks and squeaks that I know he didn't get from me. You know he heard a lot of them while he was in Shannon's belly. The dogs have really taken a liking to him. He smiles sometimes when Pablo licks him in the face, sometimes he gets irritated, depending on his mood. He hasn't really started acknowledging the dogs too much but over time I'm sure he will. Its not without its difficulties of course, like when they go off on the UPS man while he's taking a nap, or Pablo gets a bit too excited and starts running around in circles while Rowan is, well, taking a nap. We discipline them, sternly at times, but do our best to make them realize that they are family too, even if they moved down the totem poll just a bit....

I've posted a few pictures that chronicle some of these moments. I hope you enjoy them. There is even one of the whole family, including the cat.....who has his moments as well.

First Basketball Game

Esten and I took Rowan to his first basketball game last night. He even had to buy a ticket. A new rule that everyone, no matter your age, has to have a ticket was put into place this year. We discovered this as we were trying to enter the game the first time. The lady stopped us and told us we had to have a ticket for him. We tried to argue our way in but, no! So we went and bought him a ticket. When we went into the game the second time through a different entrance, I decided that I was going to hand the lady just two tickets to see if she would ask for the third ticket. Well, she didn't. Note to self: next time try this method before you buy a $25 ticket. Apparently not everyone is enforcing the new rule, it's just there in case you feel like being a jerk and making a 6 week old baby pay.
Despite this we had a great time, especially since we won. Esten took the picture above and notice Rowan's horns down sign. How funny and I swear it was not forced. Rowan is enjoying observing his surroundings more and more these days, so needless to say he was very impressed last night. He looked around at the banners, lights, and crowd (particularly the Baylor fans yelling loudly in the section next to us.) He enjoyed himself until about 3 minutes left in the game. He was done and fell asleep on my shoulder.
We have been amazed at how forgiving he is at our antics. We took him out to eat sushi with some friends the night before and he did the same thing. Just looked around the entire time. He better hope we don't get tickets to the Phish shows in NY this summer, because if we do, he's going with us. (Calm down, I'll find him some ear plugs or something before we go.)

Rowan's Birth Story continued...

I'll pick up where Shannon left off...

From around 8am until 10am we played the waiting game and I started getting things ready and put in the car. Shannon's contractions were never more than 5 minutes apart and never less than 60 seconds long. Around 10am she was hungry, so I started to make her some toast and oatmeal in the kitchen. Before I could finish making second breakfast, her contractions started getting more intense, lasting 60-70 seconds and 2-3 minutes apart. During her pregnancy we had always said that our goal was to stay at home as long as possible, but it was at this point that we decided to head for the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 11am, checked in, and since it was early in the day we were lucky enough to get a room with a window. Early on in Shannon's pregnancy we decided we wanted to try and have a natural, drug free, child birth. We had prepared diligently for this by taking Bradley Classes, practicing labor situations, and developing a birth plan. Needless to say, in today's world of labor and delivery on demand, a natural labor and delivery isn't exactly supported by most medical professionals. Our first nurse, while willing to go along with what we wanted to do, had probably never been a part of a natural child-birth.

Shannon was 4cm dilated when we checked into the hospital. Over the next two hours, she dilated to 5cm, but was already feeling the "urge to push" as most women do during labor. After initially laboring on the bed, we decided to change positions, so we moved to the couch, and then to the bathroom, where she labored over the sink. At this point, an angel of a nurse decided to start taking care of us. She was more of a doula that a nurse, and helped with some counter-point pressure techniques, position changes, and relaxation techniques. Although Shannon progressed slowly, her contractions were always intense and no more than 60-90 seconds apart for the majority of her labor. She was tough as nails, and though there were times where she said she didn't know if she could continue, we went on. By 8pm, around 16 hours into labor, Shannon was fully dilated and Rowan was at second station, so Shannon started pushing. After an hour or so of pushing, the nurse told us that the baby was "sunny side up" or face up. Besides making the labor more intense and painful because the baby is on his back, this also makes it more difficult for the baby to push his way out. She pushed for another hour, usually two or three strong pushes with each contraction. No matter how much Shannon pushed, Rowan didn't seem ready to come out. Around 10pm, the doctor came in, checked Shannon, and said that if things didn't start progressing, we might have to think of about a cesarean. Rowan's vital signs were fine, his heart rate was increasing slightly, but nothing out of the ordinary. The doctor said he would give us another hour.

It had been a long, long, day up to this point, and we were both emotionally and physically drained. During Bradley Classes we had talked about the complications and what ifs that might happen that would make you have to depart from a natural birth, but of course we didn't think it would happen to us. At this point, I looked at Shannon and told her that our baby would be here one way or the other, and that is all that mattered. I said lets give it everything we have left for this last hour. And we did, but Rowan wouldn't budge. He had basically lodged himself in the birth canal and given the circumstance of Shannon's water breaking so early and him being face up, it made things really difficult. So after 19 hours of unmedicated, natural child birth, we decided to have a cesarean. We were disappointed, of course, as all of our energy over the previous 39 weeks and the previous 19 hours of that day had gone into having a natural child birth. But all of that disappointment faded. Rowan was born at 11:24 on November 30, 2008. He was beautiful when he came out, even if a bit stubborn! We have no regrets, and would do it again if and when it happens. I can't explain how proud I was of Shannon on that day, and everyday since. She is amazing.

Rowan's Birth Story

I went into labor around 4am on Sunday, November 30th. I woke up for the usual early morning trips to the bathroom and then could not fall asleep again because I was uncomfortable. So I woke Esten up and we decided to get up even though we knew we should try to get as much rest as possible. We thumbed through our Bradley Method book to review the physical and emotional signs of the stages of labor. My contractions were about 5 minutes apart in the beginning. We ate cereal and took a shower getting ready for what we were pretty sure was the big day. At about 8am I was laying in the bed and my water broke and my contractions were getting closer together and more intense. And at this point I don't remember anything else well enough to write about it. Esten help me!

Paperwhites and Daffodil?

I named this blog with the certainty that Rowan would be born in December. Paperwhites are the birthday flower for the month of December. Esten's birthday is also in December, hints the plural. My birthday flower is Daffodil (March.) How cute. And then Rowan was born on the last day in November at 11:24pm. Almost. The birthday flower for November is Chrysanthemum which makes for a really long blog name. So it stands, Paperwhites and Daffodil. Esten and I intend to chronicle our new life with Rowan here. Most of our posts will probably be about him, but who knows... check back to see.