Wet Paper Towels

Our boy, Henry, has a secret addiction: he loves wet paper towels the way Simon Cowell loves uncomfortably v-necked t-shirts.

It all started when we started using wet paper towels to wipe down his hands and face after he’s eaten some solid food. He hates being wiped off, but loves the paper towel. His goal is to simultaneously avoid being wiped off while grabbing the paper towel in grubby double fists and jamming it into his mouth. And once there, he’ll keep it there for a long time. Occasionally, we can hear him sucking some of the water out of it (“fffffft, fffffft, fffffft”), but most of the time he just keeps various amounts stuck in his mouth and we can’t help but laugh.

The following video has some toddling in it, but don’t be fooled - the real star is the wet, white quilted-quicker-picker-upper dangling from the young man’s maw.

Binkies? Can’t stand ‘em. Lightly moistened paper products? Now you’re speaking Henry’s language.

Baby’s First Steps & Other Stuff

He’s done it! Henry took his first steps 2 days ago!  At just over 8 months old, our precocious child is mastering the art of bipedal locomotion

Our little baby, all grown up and toddling!  He definitely has a mind of his own and likes figuring out how to use his new body. Now that he’s mastered troublemaking at the crawling level, he’s ready to wreak havoc at 2 feet off the ground :)  The next video is from a week ago at Grandma and Grandpa Dunn’s house when he was even less stable than he is now.

You know that sticker that comes on the wipes container?  So does Henry.

One of the first Spring-like days of 2009, in the Dunns’ backyard with cousins

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Daddy Time

Sorry it took us so long to put these up! Here are some pictures of Henry since our last post!

This is our “sleepy wrap.” Henry loves it!

Jimmy’s an amazing father. He’s always willing to take a turn with the baby - especially when I’m at the end of my rope . . . and especially if he gets to watch the olympics!

Right before bath time.  Jimmy’s practicing kangaroo care - Henry doesn’t seem to mind the hair.

This is Henry with his great-grandpa. Can you see the resemblance?

Hello? Grandma? Jimmy tried getting him to play with some toys

Baby Henry, 1 1/2 weeks

I can’t believe we’ve had this baby for a whole week and a half!  He’s still beautiful and is changing all the time.  They say they can’t smile at this age, but boy does he look like he’s grinning sometimes!  There have been some long, hard days, of course, but on the whole, he’s a great, well-behaved baby

Welcome, Henry!

Here are some pictures of our beautiful baby boy!

He already likes to make faces

The proud father

. . . and mother

First family photo

Brand new conehead baby

Grandma Jarvis

Here He Comes!

2:33 pm

So, it’s been a while. It turns out that after you have a baby, there’s a lot to do (including sleep). Here’s a recap.

At 6:45 (ish) this morning, after only 20 minutes of pushing, Danika gave birth to Henry James Dunn. He weighed in at 8 lb 5 oz and a is a whopping 21 inches long. He’s got dark blue baby eyes (which Danika hopes turn brown), and his hair matches both of his grandpas - mostly bald and red-headed. He’s already breastfeeding like a champ (turns out we gave birth to a sucker), and he smiles in his sleep. We sure love this little guy.

The nurses have remarked about how strong he is (”he must have been working out in there”) and how calm he is (he’s only cried for about 3 minutes total, something we sure hope keeps up!).

Moral of the story: we made a small human being.

Wow.

6:06 am

After a night with little sleep and even less progress, we’re glad so see some light this morning. The last check we had was at about 4am (two hours ago) and we had only dilated to a 4, so Henry is taking his time.

We got a new nurse this morning who came in, checked Danika, and said, “you’re complete?”

“Complete?” we asked, stunned. “What does that mean?”

“You’re at a  10. Let me get some things and call the doctor.”

AAAAAH! Here comes the fun stuff!!!

1:50 am

Okay, it’s all dark in here now.  After being checked at midnight with no change in the dilation (effaced to 80%, though), Dr. Ludlow decided it was time to start Pitocin. Pitocin can make for some monster contractions and Danika could really use some rest, so we decided to get an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in at about 1am and ran a garden hose down Danika’s spine. Almost immediately her feet started to tingle. Now she can’t really feel either of her legs, which she comments about all the time.

“I can’t sleep because my legs feel so weird!”

Helping her shift from one side to the other was a hoot.

Anyway, now that the Pitocin and the epidural are working together, there’s not much left for Danika and I to do but get some rest before the real work starts later this morning. The contractions are getting harder, and she’s now past a 3 (finally, a change!), but she’s feeling good, especially since the anesthesiologist gave her a Jeopardy-esque clicker that he called the ‘happy button,’ which will increase the flow to her epidural whenever she feels discomfort.

Now for some sleep (hopefully). More in the morning.

11:47 pm

We’ve finished ‘Clueless,’ which wasn’t as good as we remember it being (and I don’t think either of us remember it being that good) and we’re now halfway through ‘The Three Musketeers,’ which Danika has never seen (I couldn’t believe it either). At our last check, the uterus had moved forward (a good thing) but hadn’t dilated further (not as good a thing). Tina, our nurse, is coming in to check again in a few minutes. If we still haven’t changed after that, she’ll give the doctor a ring and see if he wants to start Pitocin (contraction juice).

The contractions are coming every few minutes - a pretty good clip - and Danika says she’s at a 7 out of 10 on the pain scale during the contractions (”say eight!”). We’ll see how far she goes before we get an epidural. It turns out labor isn’t just about pain, it’s about endurance.

9:42 pm

Okay, so we’re officially in the hospital and HAVING A BABY!

We came in this evening at about 7, having consistent, but not remarkable, contractions. We had seen our new doctor, Dr. Ludlow (we really like him), earlier that afternoon. He told us that he was assigned to be the resident doctor tonight anyway, so we might as well come in if we were having contractions (which we always are) and he would see what he could do about it.

So, we came in, he stretched Danika manually (yikes!) and about an hour later, he came back and broke her water. Hooray! For those of you that don’t know, once the water is broken, there’s no turning back. You are either going into labor naturally or they’re going to get you there chemically. So, here we go!

I’ll try to post updates sporadically throughout the night. The doctor said to count on about 1 cm/hr, plus another hour or so forpushing. Right now (9:45pm), we’re at almost a 3 (out of 10), so we’re looking at having the baby at 6 or 7 in the morning. Here comes a long night.

Pictures later (not gross ones, I promise).

The Waiting Game

Well, for anyone who hasn’t heard, we still don’t have a baby.  The doctor called off the inducement last week and now we’re 4 days past our due date.  Let me tell you, that is not a nice thing to do to anybody.  My mom had already bought her ticket to come out from North Carolina, so she’s been here for a week.  That’s been really nice.  We’ve made curtains and cute things for Henry.  Of course I’d rather have a baby, but at least I haven’t been really bored while I wait.  Anyway, here are some pictures of me this last week.  The weird thing is that I’m STILL GROWING!  Every day this baby gets bigger - a scary prospect.  The plan now is to induce (for real this time) Thursday if he hasn’t come by then.

Guessing Game!

For an activity last week, my family all made guesses about Baby Henry, and we thought that would be a fun competition to have on our blog!

So here’s how it works: write a comment with your guess for hair color, eye color, weight, length, and day and time of birth (you could also include length of labor if you want). The person with the most right answers will get a fabulous, yet-to-be-determined prize!

To start you off, here are mine and Jimmy’s and my family’s guesses:

Jimmy:
Hair: tow-head blond (very little)
Eyes: blue
Weight: 8 lbs 6 oz
Length: 21 in
Birthday: July 3, 6:42 am
Labor: 9 hrs

Danika:
Hair: bald
Eyes: brown
Weight: 6 lbs 15 oz
Length: 20 in
Birthday: July 4, 7:15 pm
Labor: 7 hrs

Daddy Jarvis:
Hair: dirty blonde
Eyes: blue
Weight: 6 lb 12 oz
Length: 19 1/4 ” long
Birthday: July 9 at 11:00 p.m.

Mommie Jarvis:
Hair: strawberry blonde
Eyes: brown
Weight: 7 lb 2 oz
Length: 20 1/4″ long
Birthday: July 1st at 6:45 a.m.

Kelly Jarvis:
Hair: brown/ turns blonde
Eyes: brown
Weight: 7 lbs. 3 oz
Length: 22 in
Birthday: July 7 at 3:28 p.m.

Jack Jarvis:
Hair: dirty blonde
Eyes: blue
Weight: 7 lbs
Length: 21 1/2″
Birthday: July 11th at 8 pm

Sophie Jarvis:
Hair: blonde
Eyes: brown
Weight: 6 oz.
Length: 9″
Birthday: July 9th at 2 p.m.

Have at it!

creepy dreams

I guess my pregnancy wouldn’t be complete without a few weird dreams.  I’ve had 3 noteworthy ones to date:

1. Somebody else gives birth to my baby
I guess I let another lady give birth to my baby for me, and it was the day of the birth, and I was on my way but late, so I missed the whole thing.  Then when I got there, Jimmy had already given her a name (this was before we knew it was a boy), and he named her this name we’d never talked about and I really didn’t like.  And then to top it all off, no one would let me hold her!  It doesn’t seem like much, but you know how some dreams really affect you?  I woke up sobbing from this one and cried really loud so Jimmy would wake up and comfort me

2. I give birth to someone else’s baby
In this dream, I woke up because Henry moved a ton - like jumped from one side to the other - and I noticed that there was a baby sticking out of me.  I thought I was in labor, and (not to be too graphic) pulled this baby out. Then I noticed that he was like 3 months old.  He was the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen!  Dark hair and bright blue eyes and perfectly plump!  I kept trying to tell people he wasn’t mine but I’d decided to keep him.  Then I remembered Henry and got really worried that this baby had hurt him somehow.  I was trying to find the doctor to check on Henry when I woke up.

3. Creepy scary dream
I just woke up from this dream and am still a little creeped out.  We had our birthing class last night and they talked a little about relaxation techniques, so I decided to practice them as I was falling asleep for my nap this morning.  I relaxed everything and let it all melt into the bed, and that’s how I fell asleep - which might have influenced my dream.

I woke up but couldn’t open my eyes - I was dreaming, but I was also partly awake.  I could just barely squint with my right eye and see a little, but that was it.  I heard Jimmy come home from work, and I talked to him and then heard him leave again.  Then I heard the shower going, and I chatted Jimmy to see if he was still home, but he was at work (I had fallen asleep with the computer right next to me).  So somebody was in our house and I couldn’t see!  I rolled around the bed, trying to see anything helpful out of my squinty right eye, but I couldn’t make out anything or see anyone.  I started to panic and still couldn’t get my eyes to open - and then suddenly they opened and I was actually awake, and the shower noise was gone, and I hadn’t moved at all.  It was so real and so scary!

she’s got a weigh about her

Here we are at 18 weeks! I chopped my hair off when I stopped taking showers every day. There are some things that it’s just easier to do without - hair and showers. Besides being pooped out at 4:00 every day, I feel great now! A few aches and pains, but that’s no biggie. I’ve been able to feel the baby kick now for about 2 weeks, which I guess is pretty early for your first one. At first I thought every gas bubble was a kick, but now, thank heavens, I can tell the difference. Baby kicks feel kind of like little muscle spasms . . . or gas. This week, though, I’ve felt it roll over, which tickles like you’re riding on a hilly road, or a roller coaster.

Plus also, I love maternity pants. I’m still a little small to be wearing them all the time, but I’m too big for my normal pants, so whatchya gonna do? They feel like sweat pants, but they look like jeans or khakis or what-have-you. Amazing!

Then                                                                 Now