Whitney Coker

Hey Whit. I don't remember your married name. This is a little weird to post a note to you here, but I don't have your email and you follow my blog. You changed your blog to invitation only sometime while I was busy having a baby. Invite me! I miss seeing pics of your adorable kids. Do you need my Google name or email or something? Let me know.

Aren't blogs funny? I feel like I've gotten back in touch with people and have renewed friendships through our blogs, even though we still may not have seen each other in years. Gotta love the internet.

Zinnias

Nothing much to say as I am still dreadfully exhausted, but I thought I'd share a couple of pics I took of one of my zinnias, one of my favorite flowers because they're so cheerful and easy to grow from seed.

More newborn pics

Okay, here's some pics I took the other day. I will probably use one of them for the baby announcement, so act surprised if you see one of these again!




This last one is of Blake. It was taken by a real photographer (Stefanie, who did my maternity pics), hence the better quality :) I think he and Cullen look so much alike as newborns it is uncanny. Of course, Cullen has more hair, but that is about it!

Last night we played Sorry with Seth and Kyle made up some "crazy cards" and put them in the deck too, they said things like: "flail your arms until your next turn" and "wear a crazy hat for 2 rounds." Friggs, being as weird as us, absolutely loved it. In fact, he had so much fun he was inspired to sing us this song, set to no discernible tune:
I had the funnest day ever
In all America
and the world and the universe
not leaving any place out in the world
Some days I get spankings
cuz I need them...
but not today.
I want to do only things I want to do,
but I don't always get to.

Cullen at three weeks

We are doing well around the Stringer household. Cullen eats like a champ and is a pretty easy baby, although he is turning out to be sensitive to dairy, like Blake was. No problem, we're taking care of it with NAET like we did with Blake. By the way, that's Natural Allergy Elimination Therapy. It sounds kinda hokey, and I would never have tried it if I had not had a solid, trustworthy recommendation for it. But, we did it with Blake and it worked, so we're doing it again for Cullen. Basically it's Applied Kinesiology and acupressure. I don't really care what it is, if it works, I'll do it. But, I digress. Cullen is doing well, and I am adjusting to little sleep. Hopefully it won't be too long before he's sleeping through the night - maybe a month or so. Seth and Blake slept through at about 6 weeks, but I'm not sure what to expect for a heavy preemie. Do those conditions cancel each other out and make him normal? Or will he do things at the "adjusted age"? We'll see. Anyway, here's some 2 and 3 week pics. He's three weeks old as of yesterday.

Breastfeeding

That's right men out there. This post is about nursing, so if you're squeamish turn back now...
Okay. In general I really do love nursing my babies and I nursed Seth and Blake for a year. It's all fine once you get the hang of it again and your body settles into it. But may I just take a moment to gripe here - I hate engorgement. It's ridiculous that I have had more pain medicine for my boobs than for giving birth! They're huge, they're leaky, I could feed about 2 and a half kids. Now, I know that too much milk is a blessing, but sheesh. Here is a list of things that make me have letdown:
1. My baby crying.
2. Anybody's baby crying
3. My baby making nursing sounds
4. Kyle pretending to make nursing sounds just to annoy me.
5. Thinking about how much I love him.
6. Ambulance sirens
7. Baby goats bleating (seriously, when I had Seth our neighbors had goats. It was ridiculous. They sound a lot like a real baby crying).
8. Writing about letdown...

Is it this way for everyone?? I go through approximately 20 nursing pads a day.
Venting aside, we really are doing great. He has already surpassed his birth weight and is a happy little guy.

More Cullen Pics

We're nowhere near settling into a routine at the Stringer house. Cullen is 11 days old today and we have had company at the house every night since he was born. It has been awesome to have family staying with us, cooking, cleaning, oohing and ahhing over the baby, and cousins running a muck with wild abandon. But, we're also looking forward to a little more "normalcy"- or as close to it as we ever get, anyway.
I have a ton of pictures of Cullen already, but I wanted to dedicate this post to his admiring grandparents. Both of these pictures were taken while we were still at the hospital, as our parents met their newest grandson for the first time.



Chuck and Marilyn, aka Papa C and Grammy





Carlton and Gloria, aka Pa and GloGlo