Grant's Baby Blessing Day

April 28th Grant was blessed and given a name: Grant Ryan Stotts, of course! So I have beaucoup de pictures of him in his handsome stud muffin of an outfit. It was special for Perry to have his dad, Brent (Brother-in-Law), Zuriel (our neighbor), and the Bishop all in the circle to do the blessing. Perry was nervous but after he did it he was so happy and loved it and can't wait to do it again. There were a couple of things he felt impressed to say in particular which is always a cool experience. The Bishop asked me to come and bear my testimony of motherhood after the blessing was given so its a good thing I did my hair and make up and tried to look good that day! It has been a couple years since I formally boar my testimony. I enjoyed it. I wasn't nervous, it was actually just a different type of nervousness. Anyway I also felt impressed to talk about the covenants made in the temple sealing ceremony as well as how Grant has been entrusted in my care from God and he is God's child and I am his steward. We have an immense responsibility to raise him righteously or to our best knowledge and ability. So here are some cute pictures! Soon I will post some we took when he was officially 7 weeks old, with his 3 week old cousin in her blessing dress.

A Mouse!

We have mouse! And no it is not a pet! He is really cute superficially. But the fact that I'm not stupid makes him quite disgusting. They poop and pee and have diseases! This is not the first time we have had mice. Last year we had mice and killed them all. Apparently another has found a way into the apartment. We have a great trap so I'm just waiting to snatch him and kill him. I do not want to be paranoid about my already clean apartment having microscopic germs that could harm my baby. Ewe! Every surface the mouse touches I feel like I need to sanitize and I already know he has been above my canned items on my shelf. ARG! So annoying! He is a brave little mouse too because just sitting on the couch I see him poke his head here and there. I was talking on the phone and my music is on and it didn't even phase him. That makes me think he has grown comfortable around me and that means he has lived here a while. I just need to figure out what he is eating to survive. It is like he is taunting me because I see him and I can't do anything but wait for him to find the trap because we all know they are all too fast to just catch in a box or whatever. Bleh.

Cradle CRap!

So something that babies get is cradle cap, a scaly, dry, rash of sorts on their head, neck, eyebrows, forehead, ears, etc.. It can really be anywhere on the head. Grant is developing it on his eyebrows and ears. His head and forehead are kind of dry and his entire neck is covered in acne as well as a rash on his face. Babies have such sensitive skin! So there is no cure for cradle cap but just recommendations that may not even work. So today is Grant's bath day so we will be putting olive oil, mineral oil, or baby oil on his cradle cap 30 min before his bath. Then when we put him in we will brush his eyebrows and ears with a soft brush, and then rinse it and put a little more oil on it after the bath. This should help. I hope it does. Also I just need to remember to wipe his face everyday. I think the milk on his chin is causing irritation. Just wiping the burp rag on him doesn't seem to cut it. As far as his acne, he will just grow out of that eventually. Oh! My title is "Cradle CRap" because every time I say the word "cradle cap" I tend to say "cradle crap" instead! lol. That's basically what it is anyway. lol Oh and Grant may have a stomach virus because he has a lot of bowel gas and weird orange thick stools. The doc says it is either that or something I'm eating. I haven't been very good about figuring out what bothers him. I know for sure citrus bothers him because he had such a back stomach ache, curdled milk, and fussiness when I had citrus last. But anything else that has bothered him has been a mild irritation. He sometimes has curdled milk and acid reflux, but I don't think the acid reflux is due to food I eat. Maybe just the curdled milk. But he doesn't seem to have stomach pain, just ugly spit up. And maybe the gas. Anyway, do any of you have advice on how to isolate food. I feel like the only way to do it for me, instead of cutting from my diet to just eat a bunch and see what happens, because not eating it doesn't help because he just has weird spit up. I don't know if I'm making sense. I feel like I don't eat enough of anything that might hurt him to really make a difference if I don't eat it. LIke chocolate for example. Anyway, if it is a stomach virus that should last a week and we are coming to an end of the week from when the symptoms started. Luckily as I said in a previous post, that this isn't keeping him up at night because he is sleeping so well..LIke a baby I guess lol except for a long time.

Internship!

So I finally secured an internship and will be starting his on April 9.. a week from today! This is cool because I will be working as a Preschool teacher for Head Start. This is a government preschool for low income families. I will be working 12-4 Monday through Friday from April 9-June 4. That is 8 weeks of 20 hours a week. A total of 160 hours which is the minimum of minimums for an internship. I don't want to spend more time than I have to away from my baby. But Perry is really excited to spend time with Grant for a while exclusively. While I watch Grant in the mornings Perry will work and go to his 1 class. I'm currently trying to stock up my liquid gold a.k.a. breast milk for while I am away. I'm not really sure how much I will need but I think at most 2 bottles for each day. which is a total of about 8 oz of milk per day. Luckily my supervisor doesn't think it will be too much trouble to pump in the middle of my shift. And thanks to my mom's friend Nancy, I have a top of the line double pumper! Very helpful! So I will teach the children and just do my thing. Any other Preschool I would be doing outside of the classroom preparation at home which I was really trying to avoid. Luckily every Friday is prep day there and I can do that then. Also it will be easy preparation because since it is a government run program the lesson plans are basically already made and I just have to implement them. Awesome! I'm so excited to do it and experience it and also excited for it to be over with too because my mom and sisters are visiting me right after, as well as my friend Kim, from high school and I will be able to spend a lot of time with Perry and Grant every day before Perry does Student Teaching in the Fall. Fun stuff!

Mommyhood

So being a mom is a lot different than I ever expected. It is wonderful and exciting and.... HARD. The hard part is what I didn't expect. Yes I knew it would be hard and what not but didn't realize how hard. It gets easier everyday however so that is nice. I haven't posted because I haven't had a moment to spare from either mommying or doing dishes, laundry, homework, showering, eating, reading scriptures... I do the latter things when he goes down for a nap. He is supposed to take up to three naps that add up to 7 hours, but he takes one 3-4 hour nap and some snippets through out around that nap usually in my arms or something so I can't really do anything. Anyway.. back to the topic. Mommyhood. The hard part was first recovering and being exhausted from no sleep at all and trying to rest while awake to help my body do its thing. Then it was harder when my mom left us. She helped sooo much. I recommend having a mother around the first two weeks if they are really committed to being a great help. She cooked meals, brought me ice for my crotch, burped the baby after I nursed, etc...It was wonderful. She left and I slumped into a type of depression for about a week or so and cried my eyes out from missing her and not having a constant companion with me at home. I am really a people person. For those of you who know me in rexburg I don't probably seem like it but really I'm a social maniac and I love being with people. I can't stand being alone. So not that I am alone I call my family frequently, but I try to be able to be alone since I will be home with children for the rest of my life now. I think obviously my children will be super entertaining, especially as they grow older. Speaking of which, Grant is 6 weeks yesterday. Somewhat of a milestone since I'm supposed to be practically healed down there... which isn't quite so because I still feel pain and achiness from time to time. Anyway, life is good. Grant is settling into a schedule. I think his schedule is pretty good. I do want to modify it a bit but I can't complain. He has been sleeping from 4.5-5.5 hours a night for the first stretch and then maybe and hour or two after that. But to be honest, if he stayed up after 5 hours of sleep I would still be happy because there is a huge difference between that much undisturbed sleep and 3 hours, one hour, 2 hours, ... There is just no comparison. But a rested mom is a happy mom. It is kind of a joke that they tell you to get rest when you are a new mom because it doesn't happen and you body doesn't get used to sleep deprivation for at least a month.

So Grant has started to smile a lot and not just when we make weird noises but when we talk to him. Its really cute and fun. If I can ever figure out how to upload a video I will definitely post it.







Grant also slowly enjoying bathtime more and more. Isn't he cute in this frog towel?! He is our little froggy. Especially when he curls up his legs against his chest when lying on my chest/shoulder.

Anyway so life is good and exciting. He will be two months in a couple weeks. Posts to come will be one on his baby blessing day and his new church get up that we bought him. Oh and a bowtie!

Grants Baby Announcement

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Induction

So I had another appointment today and saw doctor Evans. We did an ultrasound first and the baby was sleeping so he wasn't moving for the tech or practicing his breathing. So we sat there for the full amount of time they allow for that test and I drank some cold water and drank some juice and he finally started moving around but he scored a 6/8 because we still didn't see him breathe. So the tech had the prescribe a non-stress test (NST) to check out the baby. So the baby was awesome on that test and moved a ton and did great! We saw the doctor right before NST and checked me and I had digressed. I am dilated to a 1, effaced 75%, and the baby is no longer engaged or dropped and back at a -3 station. That was a tad disheartening. The doctor then talked to me with a very intimidating look on his face and asked why we were adamant about going all natural. I explained and then he said, "Well through all the births I have done I know nothing good happens after 40 weeks except for a delivery." So we were kind of upset at how tactless he had been. After the NST he came to talk to us again. We were able to explain in more detail about our perception of things and why and what circumstances would change our mind and what not. We also assured him we aren't totally against induction, but it was something we were hoping to avoid. Then he proceeded, more tactfully I might add, what he was thinking about the situation and if we were induced, how it would all play out. We agreed with his concerns and liked the way he wanted to induce. Our thoughts were to have him strip the membranes and then if nothing happens by our next appointment on Friday then we would consider an induction. Then we asked him to strip the membranes and he said he already did. Then he asked which doctor saw us last, and it was Barton, and he said that Dr. Barton definitely did during our last visit. So we thought, well if nothing happened from that point until now there is really no point in waiting to be induced. So he went to go find out a time and day and we decided on Wednesday night at 7:30 they would insert prostaglandin gel into the cervix to try to naturally ripen it for 12 hours. After that he and we hope that it will jump start my natural contractions and make me go into labor basically on my own. If that doesn't work then they will give me small doses of pitocin to try to make my contractions regular. Anyway so that is the plan. The baby should probably come by late Thursday evening and that's because I'm hardly dilated. It will take a while. We are happy with our decision and just hope everything goes smoothly and as close to our birth plan as possible. Next time I blog we will probably have a baby!