He's here!

My goodness... so yeah.  We had our baby.

Louis Daniel was born on the morning of New Years Eve day, surprising us 10 days early, weighing in at 9 lbs 1 oz.  We're calling him Louie.  What a crazy whirlwind the last week has been.  The birth was super quick and really beautiful (yet painful)... and life since we've been home has been exciting, emotional, and exhausting.  We're having fun getting to know our little guy.

He looks a lot like Gus did as a baby, with a cute little pointy chin and fuzzy blonde hair.  But he's blonder, and he makes the most hilarious grunty noises all the time.  Oh my goodness, such a loud sleeper, he grunts and squeaks and gurgles, and his little cry sounds like a Pterodactyl, it is so hilariously dramatic.  He's a pro at nursing, which I am so thankful for, he has a perfect latch and is super efficient and fast.  Not a little grazer who would constantly fall asleep on me while eating like his brother was.

That first day or two home were hard, I won't lie.  I was pretty overwhelmed with the state of our home, in complete disaray as we were still in the middle of getting organized for the baby.  We hadn't gotten a lot of things on my to-do list done, and it made me feel really stressed out, trapped on the couch all day with a baby who was quite ready for his mama's milk to come in, and wasn't going to let her put him down until it did and he was good and full.  My milk did come in though, on Monday evening, and I can't say how relieved I was.  Louie was also releived, and now actually lets other people hold him besides his mama, and is awake and alert and not crying for good periods of time throughout the day, AND he's sleeping 2-3 hours full stretches in the bassinet at night.  Things are going good.  Also, yesterday Gus went to my mom's house for the day, like he usually does on Wednesdays, and Dan and I were able to get this placed organized, baby's room no longer is full of tubs and boxes, the baby clothes are all organized and in one place, the changing table is set up to actually change a baby on it, rather than store various crap.

I've been emotional about Gus and how this is all affecting him, even though he's doing really just fine, and he's been very sweet to the baby.  A few times where he's acted out, but mostly he just has gone on with his life, and stops every once in a while to say something about baby Louie or give him a kiss.  Obviously it's a huge change in his life, but I want the transition to be as seamless as possible, and I've tried to make sure I'm the one to put him to sleep a few nights this week, even if it means I was nursing Louie while doing it.     

Oh, and did I mention the week we have a baby has to be the week that we get a freaking rodent in our house, for the first time in 8 years of living in this old place.  At first we thought it was a shrew, but now we're pretty sure it's a mouse, but we cannot seem to catch the little bastard and it is driving us insane.  We came home from the hospital and there was mouse feces ON OUR BED.  Seriously.  At that moment I was like, "what the hell is the universe trying to do to us?!"

UGH!  Freaking mouse.  In my house.  In the room where me and my baby sleep!

Anyway, I'd like to take some time for a proper update very soon, and of course the birth story, it's just so hard when you're getting so little sleep to use any of your free time to not... well... sleep.  Or do laundry.  Oh GOOD GOD the laundry.

I'd also like to finish my Christmas post, which I was working on while in labor Saturday morning, but couldn't quite finish since things progressed from relatively easy contractions 10 minutes apart to, yelling at Dan, "We need to go to the hospital NOW" within about 2 hours.  

So for now, this mish mash and a few pictures is all I can muster.