Surviving Week 1

It's only been a week so far? It feels like at least two weeks, possibly three! Well unfortunately, Ben was stricken with a horrible case of strep throat. Today is the first day that he feels semi-okay, and lo and behold, today is his first day back at work. And that's pretty much our luck. But my darling husband managed to somehow deal with the massive aches and pains, loss of appetite, and cold sweats, while at the same time still being a good Daddy and helping out with the boys. Sadly enough, this picture below basically illustrates the way Ben spent the little down time he had...

So with a newborn comes the photoshoots... of course, I learned with Braedyn that at this stage, there isn't a whole lot to take a picture of. I had a huge amount of pictures of Braedyn's first couple months, and about 75% of the pictures are of him sleeping. And while they are still cute pictures, honestly... how many pictures of a sleeping baby do you really need? All of which will somehow resemble the picture below.

But wait, what happens when you get a great photo opportunity like the one below... Baby Chase smiling, just one week after birth? I mean, how do you resist pictures like this?!? In reality, let's face it... we all know he's probably smiling in his sleep because he just passed some gas. But in my mind, all I see is a picture of a very content and photogenic baby. So yeah, no matter what, I'm pretty sure I'll still end up with WAY too many pictures of a sleeping baby!!

And how can we forget about the Little Boy. Braedyn has done remarkably well with Baby Chase. He ignores him for the most part, haha. But other times he loves to help out, such as throwing away dirty diapers, trying to give the pacifier to Chase, putting one finger over his mouth and saying "Ssssss" (read as: Shhhh) whenever Chase has a crying fit, and giving Chase kisses on the forehead. He really is going to be a great big brother, he's so loving. And the only thing he asks for in return is the use of Chase's bouncer seat whenever he feels like lounging! I guess that's not too much to ask.

So overall, Chase is a really good sleeper and sleeps for about 3 hours at a time. This is great as I manage to get more sleep at night than I had planned. You see, if you set your expectations low, you'll always be pleasantly surprised. In fact, the only thing I can complain about is that I've pretty much run out of shows to watch on the DVR. We all know summer tv programming is bad, but it's extremely bad when you're relying on it to keep you awake and entertained during the first couple months of taking care of a newborn. Thank goodness for the Olympics coming up soon. Trust me, I'll be dvr'ing every - single - event, regardless of how boring it is!!