My three week old chunk!

So Emmett is actually almost 3 1/2 weeks, but I am just a behind as always on my posts! Here are some pictures of my little chunk-a-monk. My babies always fluff up quickly, and since Emmett had his tongue clipped and has been nursing better, he is holding true to history. But I do think that he looks much bigger in the pictures than he does in real life. I'm not sure how much he exactly weighs, but in Tuesday he was only 8lbs 7 oz, so that is still a little guy!

He is still my angel baby. He rarely cries, and when he does it is easily remedied. Now he hates having his diaper dirty, so that will bring on some fuss, but a quick diaper change and he is as content as ever. He loves being in his swing and loves being cuddled with. His eyes still look like they are going to stay blue, so Tig is thrilled at that thought!

He has a nice nighttime routine and will give me a wonderful 4-5 hour chunk of sleep from 11-3 or 4. And during the day he spends almost equal amounts of time awake and asleep - he will be awake for an hour and a half or so just looking around and observing everything, and then will nap just as long. And he prefers to nap when there is noise going on around him. If the house gets too quiet it actually wakes him up! I guess he is just used to all the commotion that is part of our lives! Right now he is sleeping with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat going on in the background. (The good version with Donnie Osmond and lots of kids in it! Thanks Mom for letting us borrow it!)
Owen has gotten over his aversion to the baby and will kiss him and hug him and play with him finally. He does have a strange new attitude lately though that I think is attributed to having Emmett around. Owen is quicker to lose his temper and throw a little tissy-fit, talks like a baby every now and again, and tries to get away with things. I am working on spending more one on one time with him to help him realize that he didn't really lose his status since Emmett came. He was a big boy before and still is. So far it is working - when I have spent a good bit of time with him during the day, everyone appreciates it because that means he doesn't yell at the other two big kids as much and is a more pleasant boy to be around.

Teagan is still just as addicted to Emmett as ever. Perhaps the reason he never cries is because between her and I he never really has a chance to get too angry. At the tiniest sound from him Tig will stop what she is doing (whether she should or not!) and go get him. She started changing diapers a lot more this week and has done about 1/3 of all of them for me... how wonderful is that?! (although I do love that mustardy smell of breastfed newborns, it's a little warped I know, but it is a happy thought in my book! It's not like I want a perfume that smells like it or anything, I just smile whenever I do smell it! And I also love their tiny little tushies and roly-poly legs!)

Emmett is still a swaddle baby and feels more relaxed if he is warm and tight. We took him this week to get an ultrasound of his spine and found out that he has a tethered spinal cord. It was supposed to be a quick 15 minute ultrasound, and after about 3 minutes of being naked, cold and being massaged on his back with the ultrasound wand, Emmett got fidgitty. But when a nurse curled his legs up and held them tight to his body and I curled his arms up and cradled his face - he felt nice and swaddled in our hands and calmed down and was great for the next 45 minutes of ultrasounding. They called in a couple of experts and the Pediatric Radiologist and they both confirmed the tethering and also found a small cyst in his spine. They said the cyst would probably go away on its own or stay and cause no problems, but the tethering needed an MRI to see how much was tethered and whether surgery was needed. He said we still had a 50% that Emmett wouldn't need surgery, and the MRI we have scheduled for next Monday (23rd) will definitely let us know.

So that was a bit of an emotional horse pill to choke down for me... what I thought was going to be a no brainer ended up requiring more thought than I had planned. To top it off, Primary Children's Hospital called to confirm the appointment and told me that he has a 10am MRI but can't eat anything past midnight the night before AND is going to have to stay over night on the 23rd because he is going to have to be sedated for the MRI. Gulp, gulp, gulp. Three more pills to force down. Now, how do you keep a one month old happy when he has to go 10 hours without nursing??? And who exactly schedules a 10am appointment for him knowing he was going to have to fast?? I am going to call back this week and ask the nurses at the hospital about that... that just seems so unhealthy/painful/wrong/bad/sad...for him. I already tried to reschedule it for earlier, but there weren't any early appointments for another month and a half and his doctor wants him in soon. I know it is important to find out if his cord will grow okay on its own or if we need to fix something, but sedation...fasting...hospital stay overnight...my baby. Yikes, too much thinking, it makes us tired just trying to think about the different paths this could go and reading all the research about it and what is involved and what could be involved if we do have to pursue this further than just the MRI. Here's a yawn just thinking about thinking about it! See his cute little double chin that is coming?! Don't you just want to squeeze and kiss it's soft little skin?

Ahh...take a big breath in through the nose and out through the mouth...We're still banking on the coin toss landing heads up and everything being fine with him, so today there are no worries. I tend to like Scarlett O'Hara's attitude in situations like this, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow. "
So (smiley face back on!) that is a run down of my three week old little one. He is as perfect as ever, as yummy smelling as ever, and life for us all is still good!