Baby Boys and Big Girls

This week Preston has been out of town again so I am being double teamed again. Things have gone relatively smoothly, with just a few hiccups here and there. Being on my own for a few days with the kids really makes me wonder how single mothers do it!?! Also, I have a TON of admiration for all of you moms out there who breast feed. One of the perks of adoption is that the bottle-feeding choice is a no-brainer, which means that Preston gets to help with at least one middle-of-the-night feeding (he can hold a bottle as good as I can!). Having to do every feeding around the clock for the last 4 days has really worn me out. Kudos to you ladies who do it all the time, you are better women than me.

Anyway, Daxton is doing great and getting bigger and bigger. Yesterday was his one-month-old birthday! According to my scale at home, he weighs a little more than 10 pounds. Here he is with his bear:

He is still eating all day (and all night) but is awake for a lot longer than he used to be, which is fun. He always has his eyes open sooo wide and just looking around everywhere. Here is an example of how his eyes usually look when he is awake:

Arden still loves him and thankfully hasn't asked us to give him back or anything like that yet. She is always trying to help him. She is so sweet to try and help, but we have run into some problems. She wants to help him eat, but pushes the bottle into his mouth too hard (this is my fault because I bought her a bottle for her "baby" doll that makes little sucking and burping noises, but only if you push is REALLY hard into the doll's face). She wants to help him burp, but can get a little over zealous with the burp taps if he doesn't burp in the first 8 seconds after she starts patting. I have even caught her a couple of times this week trying to pick him up herself, which totally scares me. I keep trying to deflect her attention to her own "baby," and here she is carrying her baby around in the Baby Bjorn:

Arden finally figured out how to go poopoo in the potty (I know, I know, sorry to subject you to a potty discussion, but this is my life now), so we are going to start the full-on potty training any day now...wish me luck! I will need it because I am a total wussie when it comes to this kind of stuff, and I have a really oversensitive gag reflex. I can't get my teeth x-rayed at the dentist without gagging like crazy. Somehow I have been ok with the diapers, probably because I can hurry and wrap it up and throw it away, but I am worried about the accidents that I know are in my future. Nothing to do but "mommy up" and deal with it, I guess.

On another note, I have been reading the book "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer this week. I haven't been doing much reading over the past few months, but it is one of the things I can do while I am forever feeding/burping Daxton. He is a slooow eater, and sometimes it takes him 45 minutes to finish a bottle. I am liking the book more than I thought I would, and it made me remember how much I like to read if I can find a good book. So, if anyone has any other books they have read lately that they have really liked, let me know what they are. I don't read a lot of "new" books...I mainly stick to the classics (Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Henry James, stuff like that) but I am kind of running out of those and have no idea what new books are good. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Plugging Along

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days...the sleep deprivation is catching up to me a little. As soon as Arden is in bed, all I want to do is go to bed too! But I thought I would do a little quick one so you all know I am alive. This week was Daxton's first week going to church (for Father's Day!). Here he is in his little church outfit:

Arden was her mischievous little self this week...on Monday, right after I gave Arden her bath I was giving Daxton his. Arden, who usually helps me clean Daxton, disappeared into my room. Of course, I couldn't follow to see what she was doing until Daxton was out of the tub...and when I did catch up to her about 3 minutes later, this is what I found:

My beautiful little girl thought she would make herself "pretty" by putting on some mascara....she seems to be a little fuzzy on the concept of exactly how mascara works, wouldn't you say?

Anyway, we are all doing great. Daxton is staying awake more and more, which is fun! He is so cute. We took him tonight to get his pictures taken by my sister-in-law, Jessica. She is a great photographer! I will post some of those as soon as I get them.

Popcorn Popping

Today is Daxton's 2-week old birthday! We are all doing pretty good and things are slowly getting back into a routine. Daxton still wants to eat every 3 hours, so there is still not much sleeping around here. But he is a good baby and doesn't cry much unless he is hungry. When he decides he is hungry though, he wants the bottle NOW! Anyway, we are are hoping that we can dodge the colic bullet again :). That is one experience I wouldn't mind skipping.

Well, nothing too exciting has happened this week. We are just hanging around the house getting used to being a family of 4. Preston is going out of town this week for a few days, so I will be truly double-teamed for the first time, wish me luck!

I was taking some video of Daxton (even though he doesn't do much) and Arden wanted in on the action. She is shy in public sometimes, and one of my friends in the neighborhood told me that last week was the first time she had heard Arden say two words together. So, here is Arden singing "Popcorn Popping," which proves she can say more than 2 words at a time. Unfortunately, I am singing along with her...Preston says that there is no way to get my voice off of the tape. To make it worse, I am trying not to laugh during most of it so it is pretty bad, I apologize. But Arden is cute.

And, here are some more pictures of Daxton and Arden from this past week. Arden still is doing great with Daxton, and loves to look at him and hold him. She has been sharing her toys with him for the past couple of days, which mostly consists of her getting out about 100 toys and laying them all around wherever he is laying. He pretty much ignores them all, but it is nice of her to try.

Also, my cousin Jayme had a baby boy this week and they named him Ryker. Congrats Jayme and Scott!

More Daxton

We are on day 4 with Daxton, and loving it! He is soooo cute I couldn't resist posting a few more pictures of him:

He still isn't sleeping much at night (he only wants to go about 2-3 hours between bottles, and it takes him at least half an hour to drink one!), but we think he is beyond beautiful, and he smells just like heaven (when he doesn't have a dirty diaper).

We also finally got his room finished. Here are some pictures of that too: