After The Tenth..... When The Fun Really Begins

5:30 AM is now the witching hour. I can't explain it, but our adorable little daughter changes when the clock strikes 5:30AM. At this point her tiny and quiet little body starts squirming and grunting. Not just a little grunting, a lot of it and its LOUD. It is so loud that she wakes us up. The first morning she did it, I jumped out of bed to make sure she was ok and I when I reached the side of her Pack-N-Play, I found her fast asleep. It seems that during the entire time she's making all this noise, she's out cold.

Even stranger is that right around 6:30AM, the grunting and squrming ceases and she returns to the adorable, quiet little angel we know and love.

Breaking News: Father of 6 Week Old Baby Finds It Difficult To Find Time To Write Blog Posts.

To no one's surprise, the days just seem to slip away without any updates. If I'm this busy with help (Grandma just left on Thursday evening), what is life doing to be like when its just the 3 of us (plus Zoe)? Scary.

I need to take a minute and give a big thank you to my mom, who graciously put her life on hold for 2 weeks to come down and assist Annie and I. She cooked us dinner, did laundry, cleaned up after my messes and was just really helpful. What a selfless act! (I'm sure the 2 weeks of unfettered Macy access had nothing to do with it...it was all about assisting us.)

It has been a fun-filled and packed few days. Macy made some new friends in recent days, and their pictures have been added to the Friends of Macy page. Among those friends is Kelly B., who was in town from Wyoming and brought a bunch of cool gifts. Prior to her arrival, Kelly made items for Macy to wear and use, like knitted sweaters and a blanket and even needlepoints to decorate her room.

Unfortunately, this past week, Macy developed a new fondness for spitting up after she eats. We've followed all of the traditional instructions: feed her upright, keep her upright for 30 minutes afterwards, don't bounce her, etc..etc.., but so far only mixed results. If anyone has any special tricks on preventing this, let us know.

Rough estimates on the number of Macy related photos taken since her birth are now at 1,400 pictures.

On a side note, I thought I would mention that on sites like Facebook you have "friends", but on After The Tenth you are part of a "family" and there are a few After The Tenth family members going through some tough days. Please know that you are all in our thoughts and prayers. I've heard rumors that a photo of Macy can help, but a hug from her can really make a difference. Contact us today to schedule your next hug....

Last Friday night was going to be the first time since Macy's arrival that Annie and I played babysitter. If you don't think we have a lot of free time, our friends Joe and Steph have twins, so they REALLY don't have any free time. Annie and I volunteered to watch their girls while they went to the movies. Since grandma is in town, it would be 3 adults versus three babies, so I was feeling pretty good about our odds.

Joe and Steph arrived with a small audible, since the movie was sold out. They decided to check out the mall instead. Before they headed out, they graciously decided to feed the girls, which turned out to be the pivotal moment of the evening. It was just after Joe finished feeding Julie (or was it Katie? they are identical twins, so you'll forgive me if I get them confused) when IT happened.

As I mentioned, Joe was holding one of the girls when he camly announced, "uh-oh, she looks like she's going to puke." I remember being pretty impressed that he was able to predict this and also shocked that for the 2-3 seconds after this prediction he didn't really move. He just sat there and then sure enough...projectile vomiting, right on him. Obviously quite used to being father to infant twins, Joe took it like a champ, efficiently cleaning up his daughter, all the while ignoring the fact that the entire left side of his torso was covered in used baby food. Needless to say, his sweater was removed, which explains why in the pictures below, he's only wearing an undershirt. Please don't think that my friends are white trash and wear Hanes undershirts to go to the mall. (Not that there is anything wrong with being white trash!)

With a "ruined" sweater and a little girl with an upset stomach, going to the mall didn't seem that much fun, so instead of just going home like they considered, we asked them to just stay and have dinner with us. Glad that they took us up on our offer, we had a fun evening and even did a little baby "pile-on", which was hysterical to watch and photograph.