Nick's Special Day and Meeting His Cousins!


Nick's baptism was in March & we had a houseful of visitors. This was the first time he got to meet most of the family. His Gammo is holding him in this picture. This is the only time he's ever worn shoes!!









This is Cassie, she's Nick's oldest cousin & she is also photo shy. I couldn't get her to pose with the baby & only got this picture by sneaking up on her. She was 13 when this picture was taken. She is my older sister's daughter. He actually met her in February when she helped bring my mom down to take care of me & Nick.














Tigger and Pooh are old troublemakers from the 100 Acre Wood. Wait - that's Nick and Clayton. Clayton is my younger sister's little boy. They have gotten along fabulously, except for a little jealousy from Clayton. He wasn't jealous when his Dad & stepmom had a little girl, but when his Uncle Bryan had a baby boy - watch out! He thinks he's a little baby expert since his little sister is only a month older than Nick. It's really cute to watch him help take care of Nick when he visits.


Jake and Rockelle are his cousins on his Daddy's side. They were 13 and 3 in this picture. Their Daddy is Bryan's brother. Jake had lots of experience helping with his sister & is an old pro with babies. Rockelle loves babies and always asks if she can "pet" him. She loves rubbing Nick's fluffy hair.






We had a full house that weekend. Uncle Rod & Aunt Traci stayed on the nursery floor and his cousin Rockelle slept in the crib (she's a tiny little thing & Nick was in a bassinet in our room); His Aunt Ne-Ne, Uncle Allan and Clayton slept in the guest room; and his cousins Jake and Cassie slept on the couches. We had 27 people at our house for dinner after the baptism. It was great to have so many family members and friends share in Nick's special day!

A Month of Firsts

There's a lot of stuff in this posting, but a lot happened that first month & I couldn't decide what to cut out.


Nick got to come home from the hospital on Friday, Feb 4. They didn't release us as early as they had anticipated because they had to do another Billy-Rubin test (for jaundice). Nick had a slightly high count, but it looked worse since he's so fair (how could he not be fair - his Daddy is fair-skinned & I'm so pale I practically glow in the dark) . They released us just in time to drive home from downtown Indianapolis during rush hour on a Friday! Nick didn't mind though, since he was all drugged-up on Tylenol. He had his circumcision earlier in the day.


Nick's first football game. As I was having Braxton-Hicks contractions throughout most of January, we made a lot of jokes about Nick wanting to watch the Superbowl with Daddy, but we didn't really think it would happen - that's just the first time Nick let us know that he is now in charge of our "Events Calendar." He was 4-days-old for the game. He also made his first 2 bye-bye trips that day. He went to the library so Mommy could check on his pictures (we didn't have a computer for a few months), and he made his first emergency room visit late that night when Mommy got an infection. That's been his only visit so far - and he slept through the whole thing - thank goodness.


He entertained his first non-Gammo visitor when he was 9 days old. Joni is a manager at my work, and brought me some things I left at work that I needed in order to make his birth announcements. She didn't want her picture taken, so she tried to get out of the side of the shot - unfortunately for her, Bryan didn't know how to work the zoom on our new camera yet. Since Nick was 3 weeks early, I left work at 6:45 pm on Feb 1st, fully intending to be at work at 8:30 the next morning. Little did I know that my water would break right after dinner.


At the tender age of 10 days, Nick decided that he could not have his arms restrained and refused to be swaddled if his arms were involved. He proved this by wiggling and squirming until he popped his arms out every single time. As soon as this resulted in a blanket covering his face, mommy & daddy relented even though he would wake himself up sometimes with his involuntary movements. We thought this was cute at the time, but it was just a precursor of the terrors to come. We didn't realize that he would HATE anything that involved (or that he thought might involve) restricting his arm movement. Hence - he has hated his car seat since the second time he was in it. This hatred has crossed over to involve anything with a seatbelt. He usually refuses to ride in the stroller (since it has a belt), he also refuses to ride in the baby carrier (since his arms have to go on a certain spot to keep him from slipping out), he sometimes won't sit in his highchair with the full belt on, and he even started refusing his bouncy chair and swing even though those only have lap belts.


Nick made his first phone call when he was 3 weeks old. Since all of his grandparents, aunts, and uncles live out of state, he does a lot of phone talking. I have to admit, I've created a bit of a phone monster & he's not even a teenager yet! He thinks that every time the phone rings, he should get to talk & push buttons. He also thinks his Gammo lives in the phone.....




He had to pose for his first staged pictures when he was 3 weeks old. It was so easy for him, that he slept through half of the pictures. I took the pictures at our house after his bath. This was also the day he had his first "baby butt" picture taken, but I will not embarrass him by posting any of those.




Nick had his one month doctor's appointment and his first trip to Mommy's knitting group on the same day. All went well. He met Meghan, the 2 1/2-year-old daughter of one of my friends that day. It was the first time he met and interacted with another child.

All About Me

















Nick was born at Indiana University Medical Center. It was a busy night on Feb 1st, and I got the last available room. It was just me and Bryan through the night. My mom arrived shortly after Nick was born the next afternoon and was his first visitor. She stayed from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday evening. One of our ministers also visited while we were in the hospital, but it was just us most of the time.


We named him shortly after he was born, and are so glad we waited. His name seems to fit him so perfectly. He is the most gorgeous baby (I am unbiased, of course), and was very alert. The nurses went crazy over him. Even though the hospital was busy, there were only a handful of babies in the regular nursery. Many of the babies born here end up in the Special Care nursery or next door at Riley Children's Hospital. The doctors wanted to keep an eye on Nick because of the medications I take, but everything went beautifully and Nick was as healthy as can be.

In the next few weeks, I will give short summaries, like this one, about the things Nick has done so far.