Category Archives: Samuel

Christmas Decor

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We’ve got all the Christmas decorations up now!

We’ve got the perfect little 3 foot tree! It’s quite adorable!

“The stockings were hung from the ship’s wheel with care…” Pretty sure that’s not how the words go, but hey, we don’t have a mantel!

But here are our real stockings-

Sam really likes Christmas lights. We can set him in his bouncy chair in front of the tree for several minutes before he gets bored!

Well, he thinks it’s fun and then all the sudden I get this face staring up at me:

Then we find a new activity. Like sleeping!

Have you guys all decorated for Christmas? I just love how good the house smells with this tree up! Yum!

Month 3

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A few days late, but here are Sam’s monthly photos! Here’s a link to Month 1, and Month 2, in case you missed them! And  here is a link to a page that I’ll be updating every month with all of the pictures together, so you can see them side by side!

Sam With His Bear:

Sam in his Crib:

Sam with Crocheted Pillow:

Sam’s big growth spurts seem to have leveled out. He hasn’t gained much weight this month, but I’m ok with that because he’s still wearing all of the same clothes!  He’s 12 lbs, 1 oz (as of 12/3/11 and just about 22 inches) Looks like we’ve got a shorty on our hands, ladies and gentlemen- he is only in the 3rd percentile for height! But I am sure he’ll catch up. I’m pretty short, too, so it’s not a huge mystery which side of the family he gets that from.

We’re still working on figuring out Sam’s grumpy moods. He tends to be on the colicky side, or a “high needs baby”. He is a pretty demanding kid who always wants to be held and never under any circumstances wants to be put down if he is awake. Still getting up about 3 or 4 times a night, no matter how much we try to do a schedule or follow the “eat, play, sleep” routine he just likes to get up to say hi, and grab a bite to eat before settling back down. But lately we’ve had a few good days sprinkled in with the bad, and it’s so nice to have a happy and smiling kid at least a few days a week! But it is getting easier to deal with, mostly because I am finally learning his signs and can do something before he has a major meltdown! He is pretty social, though, and is usually pretty good if we are out and about, and he loves Chloe, because she dotes on him like nobody else.

But, hey, we are getting there and trying to stay cheerful because this too shall pass, right? He won’t always be an infant, and while I love my son (very much!) I am a little anxious for the next stage in his life. But we are going to enjoy this one while we’re here.

Don’t forget to check out the monthly pictures side-by-side here!

Being Mama.

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So, I guess Sam was just easing me into things… the first 8 weeks of being a mother was absolutely great. My recovery from birth was excellent, the doctor was impressed at how quickly I healed, I was surprised at how easy mothering came to me, Sam was happy, he was a great sleeper, he rarely cried and even then it was just a quick cry to let me know that he was hungry, or needed a diaper change, the only thing that wasn’t ‘easy’ at the beginning was nursing (nursing  those first few weeks was one of the worst experiences of my life. I would literally cry every time he had to eat, it was pure, toe curling, misery until he was 6 weeks old). He was such a happy, healthy, smiley little dude.

Then, 8 weeks hit and we got thrown for a loop. Suddenly there were tears, and lots of them. What is this? Where did this kid come from? He went from sleeping 14 hours every night to sleeping less than 8. He used to nap 5-6 hours every day to not napping at all, he literally would wake up at 5:45 am and not sleep at all until I put him to bed at 8:00pm. He would scream whenever he wasn’t being held, which didn’t leave much time for mama to do much of anything.  He would thrash his head around while trying to nurse, he would scream so hard he’d throw up his whole meal. We tried colic drops, gas drops, swaddling, every technique in the book, but Sam was just sad. I was beginning to lose my mind, and whenever you’re in the thick of things, it always seems like whatever you’re going through is going to last forever. You know what I mean?

I am happy to say that we are on the upswing. Finally. It’s been 3 weeks of not-so-fun times, but we’re working through it. I thought for a while there that I might just lose my sanity. I never thought I’d be a mama that let her kid cry it out, but eventually I did. And it worked. We didn’t do the traditional ‘cry-it-out’ method, but did a bit of a different version of it, which basically was putting him in his crib and if he cries his ‘whining cry’ just let him fuss for a while, but if he gets to the ‘really upset cry’ then go back in, comfort him, I would pick him up, pat his butt (he really likes that) and once he was calm lay him back down and repeat the process over again. It only took two nights and now we are back on track with naps and nighttime sleeping and the last two days I’ve placed him in his crib when he was sleepy, but definitely still awake and he hasn’t fussed at all. Just looked up at me, and then got comfy in his crib and went right to sleep. He’s still waking up 2-3 times a night to nurse, but that’s just fine with me for now. We’re (still) doing an ‘eat-wake-sleep’ routine, which sets a nice pattern for our day, and he’s getting 2 short naps in the morning/early afternoon and one really good long one in the later afternoon (usually from 3:00-6:30/7:00) and we’re (mostly) back to our happy, smiley, chubby-cheeked selves.

I think I just needed some humility. God is seriously teaching me a lesson. I can’t be the person who always has it together, no matter how hard I try I am just going to exhaust myself, and for what? So I can say that I’ve always got the laundry done? So there’s always clean dishes? So I can make sure a blog post goes up every single day? I felt a lot of pressure (self-inflicted pressure, no one was making be feel bad!) when Sam was first born to be totally put-together, totally on top of everything, and I felt like I was doing a pretty good job of it, but two months into it- that’s when things started to fall apart for me, my ‘easy’ baby turned into a difficult baby. I have to remind myself that this is a stage, and this will pass. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner, rather than later) we won’t be getting up every hour at night to say hi to mama. Sometimes I just have to remember that we signed up for this. We knew it was going to be exhausting. We knew it was going to be challenging.

But it’s not all tiredness and frustration, because when Sam smiles or coos at me and I forget about the 3 hours of straight screaming. It’s a pretty good payoff, to tell you the truth. We’re trying to set a more firm schedule for the day, and I think that will help a lot with Sam. He seems to do better when we kind of ‘force’ a schedule on him. (i.e. making him nap, because I KNOW he’s tired, even though he’ll fuss when I put him down he almost always falls asleep within minutes of being swaddled now) Megan over at In This Wonderful Life posted a schedule that she keeps for her twins (just a few weeks older than Sam!) and that’s been super helpful, and we try to keep to that schedule, but I know sometimes that it has to be flexible when we are out and about during the afternoons, but being flexible is good- and he naps really well in his carseat, so he can still sleep even if we’re not at home.

I think I’ve just got to remember that there’s a learning curve with this whole parenting thing. I’m not always going to know exactly what to do, and I’ve just got to trust my gut and do what we have to do to get through the day, and to stay happy and sane. I’ve sure got a lot of respect for moms of more than one kid (hopefully I’ll be able to add myself to that list, eventually) because there is so much joy, so much love and so much happiness being a mama, and I wouldn’t take it back for anything. Ok, so that was some rambling… I’ll be back tomorrow with some actual craft related stuff.

Sam’s First Football Game

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This past Saturday Paul and I took Sam to his very first football game! University of Idaho vs Utah State! The game got down to double overtime, but unfortunately the Vandals lost. But it was a really, really great game, and most everyone was already gone for Thanksgiving break, so it wasn’t very crowded, which was nice.

I also made Sam his very own Vandals hat for the game! Unfortunately it’s on backwards in this picture, but you get the idea.

Sam did really well during the game. He lost it a little bit at the end, the crowd got really loud during the double overtime, but other than that I think he had a good time. Well, pretty much he just slept the whole first half.

(And yes, I did bring my knitting to a football game. It’s a disease, I tell you!) And then, Sam got to meet Joe Vandal! YES! I was pretty excited about this photo-op.

He’s also wearing a Vandals outfit, too, but you can’t really see the lettering on the side of his onesie says University of Idaho Vandals and it’s pretty cute, too. But the hat steals the show, the little lady at the concession stand just couldn’t get enough of Sam.

Go Vandals!

Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap

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Sam has a lot of hats, I know, but when I saw the pattern for this one I couldn’t resist making it.

I know, RIGHT?

I am loving this hat. And those boys. Seriously.

I love that it keeps his whole head warm (even his little ears!) but it doesn’t slide down over his face, like his other hats do. Every time we put a hat on him, 30 seconds later he’s fussing because it’s slid down over his eyes, and now that it’s cold here in Idaho, it’s definitely a necessity to wear a hat. AND it buttons underneath his chin so he can’t pull it off!


Sam was tired of posing, I guess, but he was a good sport while it lasted. So, in goes the “mute button”.

I’m thinking that there’s several little ones that might need this hat for Christmas. I better get started.

Snow!

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So, on Saturday we had our first ‘real’ snow. (We had a teensy bit last week, but it didn’t really amount to anything) We went on a walk in the snow, but it was really wet and cold and so we only walked for about 5 minutes before turning around and heading home.

But we got to try out our snow suit! It’s still pretty big on him, but we’ve got the next 7 months to grow into it.


Snow on a cactus. That’s not something you see all the time…

Well, Moscowvites- here’s to being cold for the next 7 months. Cheers.

Who Does He Look Like?

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People often ask me who I think Sam looks like, me or Paul. I just chuckle and say “Definitely me”. Unfortunately I don’t see a whole lot of Tong in him, although maybe once he grows up and stops looking so baby-ish he’ll get more Tong features, but for right now he’s definitely very Gronewold! Wanna see some proof that this baby looks a lot like me?

This is me, circa 1986. And in case you need a comparison picture, here is Sam, circa 2011. (This picture of Sam is over a month old, but it was the best comparison one I could find.)

This picture is the only picture of Paul as a kid that I could find on my computer, I am sure his parents have some more, and believe me when I tell you, he was a really, REALLY adorable little kid.

I am a little surprised that my fair-skinned, light haired genes were more dominant than Paul’s, but as long as he gets Paul’s musical talent, sense of humor or his artistic skills then I don’t mind at all.

Coffee Bean Cardigan, Booties and a Pumpkin

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So, I made Sam a lot of sweaters and things before he was born, and I am so excited that now he’s starting to actually fit into some of the things that I’ve made! The Coffee Bean Cardigan fits him now (well, the sleeves are a little long, but oh well!) and so do the matching booties! (I blogged about both here before Sam was born)

He was being kind of a squirrely little model for me, so I didn’t get any great pictures…

And I think he was trying to distract me, like in this next picture, I like to imagine he was saying something like “Oh, look mama, over there!”

But I am just glad to have some warm clothes that fit him now, because MAN it is getting cold out there. There was talk of snow here a few nights back, but fortunately it didn’t snow. I know I should just embrace it, but it’s really hard because we have such a short fall season here. I feel like once I had the baby all the sudden it was winter! Which is ridiculous! It was 95 degrees out the day Sam was born, and he’s only 2 months old and now we’re talkin’ snow?! What! At least now he’s got his handknits to keep him nice and toasty. And he’s wearing the hat I made him in the picture below.

And here is Sam holding the pumpkin he picked out (hah, right) It did have a stem on it, but some little trick-or-treater accidentally kicked it off the porch and it got knocked off. I never got around to carving it, oops. Oh well, I guess I will just leave it on the porch until the snow comes and buries it, like last year.

Month 2

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Sam is now two months old. I can barely believe he’s 2 months old! It’s ridiculous, really. He’s growing at a pretty rapid rate, and is chunking up quite nicely. So here are his Monthly pictures! (Here’s a link to Month 1, in case you missed it!) And I think until I make a decision on which shot I want to use every month I’ll just keep taking these three shots and doing them, and decide later. I’m still leaning towards using the first one, with his bear for contrast as to how much he’s grown. Here is a link to a page that I’ll be updating every month with all of the pictures together, so you can see them side by side!

Sam, with his bear:

Sam in his crib:

Sam with crocheted pillow:

It’s amazing to look at the pictures side by side. There’s such a HUGE change from month one to month two. It’s AMAZING how much he’s changed! He’s so cheerful in the mornings and he’s started talking and singing to his mobiles. It’s adorable. This morning when I went to get him he was happily singing to his elephants. He gets pretty fussy in the evenings, but I think he’s just getting bored with me by the end of the day, but Paul can usually get some smiles out of him. He absolutely LOVES it when we sing to him, he just lights up whenever Paul plays the guitar or we turn on music, he especially loves classical music and he starts crying when we turn it off!

He’s sleeping pretty well at night, he goes down right at 8:00pm without a fight, and will sleep until 1:00 or 2:00am before waking up to eat, and then will sleep again until about 5:00am, gets back up around 7:30 (he hears his dad getting ready for work and doesn’t want to miss out on any fun!) but once Paul leaves he falls back asleep and usually sleeps until 9:30 or 10:00am. We started a bedtime routine when we got back from Tacoma almost two weeks ago, and I think it’s helped a lot. We go into his room, make sure it’s really dimly lit, he nurses, we swaddle him, sing him 2 or 3 songs, then lay him down in his crib and give him a pacifier and he’ll go right to sleep. Sometimes he wakes up about 30 minutes later, but just needs a pat on his bum and he’ll fall right back asleep. His naps during the day have gotten really sporadic and short, but I figure since he’s sleeping so much at night it’s ok and I don’t mind too much, cuz he’s so stinkin’ cute and fun to hang out with. We try to get out of the house at least once a day, even if it’s just taking a quick walk around the neighborhood, and he’s always happy when we leave the house. Probably because he gets attention from all the ladies wherever we are.

But we’re still loving this whole parenting thing, it’s just getting even more fun now that Sam is more interactive and he smiles and coos and just generally lights up our entire lives. We love you, Sam!

On Becoming A Mother

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In some ways its easier than I thought it would be. I honestly thought that the movies had it right when they show you this glimpse of life with a newborn baby. You know, the mom with unwashed hair, piles of laundry everywhere, dirty diapers strewn about the room, you get the picture. So, when Sam came along and life just kept on going I felt like we had a pretty good handle on things. And this may be just because I have a fairly easy baby, but life seems pretty darn good these days. And to be terribly honest, being pregnant was way harder than being the mother of a newborn.
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I got so many people telling me “Oh, just wait until the baby is here, you don’t know what tired is yet! You’ll be so exhausted! Sleep while you can!” and while, yes, it’s true, having a newborn is exhausting, it’s also the biggest, most amazing, wonderful, exhausting job there is. And being pregnant is exhausting, but in a much less fun way. There are no cute baby giggles and grins in pregnancy, instead it’s barf-buckets in every room of your house, hospitalizations for severe dehydration and nausea, crying because your back feels like its breaking, swollen feet, fainting spells, you know, fun stuff like that. Don’t get me wrong, while I didn’t enjoy pregnancy, I don’t want to knock it too much, because the end result is pretty much the best thing ever. And I really mean that.
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The story of me becoming a mother and, well, this is a long story.
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So, here we are on September the 2nd. I was pretty miserable, as all pregnant women are during the last weeks of their pregnancies. I was so ready to be done. I had a doctors appointment two days prior and was given some discouraging news. I wasn’t really progressing towards labor, (I was dilated to a 2, but I had been there for about a week) although since that was still 4 days before my due date they weren’t concerned about it, except for the fact that my back was really ready to give out on me.  Pregnancy did not do kind things to my back. (For those of you who don’t know, I had a spinal fusion when I was 15 because I had severe scoliosis) I was ready to throw in the towel. So, the doctor suggested we wait a few days, come back in two days, on Friday the 2nd, and check again to see where we were at. So, I waited, but unfortunately hadn’t progressed at all, so he suggested that we induce. I had been hoping to not go that route, but at that point I was ready to get that baby out. He said he was free that evening to start the induction. I said “Ok!” and called Paul at work and told him that we were having a baby this weekend! It was kind of nice to know in advance, because I was able to call my mom and tell her that we were having a baby sometime in the next few days, so she should get her rear-in-gear and head over.
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We got to the hospital in the late afternoon on Friday to start the induction. By 5:00pm I was in my own little room with my IV started and the ‘primer drugs’ in me, but this stuff is really just to get things ready for labor, not to send you INTO labor, but for some reason it started labor hard and heavy. And it was all back labor, which, for those of you who have experienced it, well, it’s basically like having your lower back hit repeatedly with a baseball bat. I felt like I could handle the regular contractions ok, but the back contractions were something else entirely. So, after about two hours of hard laboring they checked me and I hadn’t dilated at all. Not one little tiny bit. Seriously?
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Two hours later they checked again and I still hadn’t dilated at all, and by this point I was pretty much climbing the walls in pain. I was taking hot showers, walking the halls, having Paul giving counter-pressure, but I just wasn’t progressing at all. So after 4 hours of labor (around 9:00pm) they stopped the ‘primer drugs’ and gave me a shot of Numorphan, it helped me relax a bit, but even so it was a pretty rough evening. Around midnight I still hadn’t progressed at ALL (not even a centimeter after 7 hours of near-constant contractions!) so the doctor wasn’t sure what do to. So, we called the anesthesiologist. Ok- an epidural. I had really wanted to avoid that, but it didn’t look like I was going to be able to relax enough to dilate, and I wanted to avoid a C-section even more than I wanted to avoid an epidural, so I agreed. The only catch was that since I have a fused spine, the anesthesiologist was a little unsure if she’d even be able to get the epidural in. She said she’d give it a try, but she had several surgeries that she had to do beforehand, but knowing that there was a chance for relief got me through those next several hours, but that’s when the vomiting started… I’m not sure what made me start throwing up, but that continued until Sam was born.
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Around 3:30am, they checked me again, so about 10 1/2 hours of hard laboring, there was still no progress, and the anesthesiologist was finally free they moved me into the birthing room and started the really fun process of getting an epidural. She had me leaning over and hunching my back as much as I could, which isn’t much due to the rods in my spine, but when she stuck the needle in my legs started going crazy and kicking out all over the place. It was surreal. I had absolutely NO control over them and they were totally doing a Riverdance. But then something went wrong and all the sudden I was surrounded by 4 nurses holding me down, yelling and pulling the IV out of my arm and trying to get a new one in. Apparently something happened to my IV while she was attempting the epidural and my blood was coming out instead of fluids going in, which isn’t a good thing. I had no idea what was going on at that point. One second they’re trying to shove a huge needle in your spine and your legs and going crazy, and the next you’re being pinned down by 4 (very strong, I might add) nurses who are armed with needles. Once they solved that little dilemma we got back to trying to get the epidural in. Since she couldn’t get it in while I was hunched over, they had me lay down on my side and they got it in that way, and then when I asked why my arm was completely numb the anesthesiologist  got a little worried, because your upper body is NOT supposed to be numb… then a nurse realized that it was numb because one of the nurses was in such a rush to get the IV started in my other arm that she forgot to take off the tourniquet and it accidentally got left on there for about 20 minutes.
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Once they got the epidural in I was able to start relaxing a little, and around 5:00am the back labor stopped and it was just regular contractions that I could feel, so it was a lot more tolerable. Around 7:00am they finally started me on Pitocin. (Pitocin and I are not friends) At 7:30am the doctor stopped in and broke my water. That was one of the weirdest sensations of my life. Then around 9:00am I was finally starting to progress, but I was still only around 3cm, which really isn’t great progress, but hey, 1 cm is 1 cm, am I right? But the doctor was concerned because Sam’s head still wasn’t engaged in the birth canal, even after 16 hours of contractions, so he basically told me that we’d watch it for a bit more and then if I hadn’t progressed at all I’d have a c-section. (Nooooo!!!)
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Around 11:30am I was having non-stop contractions still, so they stopped the Pitocin, and I was dilated to about 4cm, so it was still really slow progress. (And just FYI, the epidural totally did not take away all of the pain. I thought it would, but this was still really painful)  Then around 1:00pm they restarted the Pitocin back at the lowest dose, trying to get my contractions to be productive.  Around 2:00pm I had some weird breakthrough pain where the back labor started back up again and I was losing it. So the anesthesiologist came back in and hit me with a megadose of the epidural, but since I was laying down flat and it’s a gravity drug (basically it will go whichever way gravity pulls it) it hit my chest and lungs, so I couldn’t feel myself breathing and I started panicking and they had to put me on oxygen because I was freaking out so much and hyperventilating. I remember being really scared that I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe, even though I was breathing just fine apparently.
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Then around 3:30pm they checked me again and I was only at 6 cm, he mentioned c-section again… I begged for a bit more time, he said ok, and when he came back to check it at 5:00 pm I was at a 10. 24 hours to get there, but we were finally there. I could have danced around the room if I had been able to move my legs! After 22 1/2 hours only dilating 4cm (I was already at a 2 when admitted to the hospital) I went and dilated 4 cm in an hour and a half. I was so proud of my body FINALLY cooperating.
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It was go-time. I hadn’t slept in over 36 hours, was nearly delirious, and as soon as the doctor gave the go-ahead to start pushing I forgot all about hitting that epidural button… and if you forget to push that button every 30 minutes, well, then your epidural wears off really, really fast. So, then there was the pushing. Sam wasn’t even in the birth canal yet, so I had a long way to push him down. Oh man, I did NOT think it was going to last that long. I figured once I started pushing he’d be here soon… I was wrong. They do call it labor for a reason, it’s hard. Two hours of pushing, blood vessels in my face and neck making my face spotty, sweating profusely. Finally, a few minutes before 7:00pm the doctor again mentioned a c-section because the baby wasn’t making his appearance. That just made me all the more determined. It had already been two hours of pushing, and once the doctor said that if I didn’t get him out in the next few minutes he would have to take me to surgery, well, that was the push I needed. Apparently this was the point where I started sounding like a wild animal, but hey, you do what you need to do, right?
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7:01pm, September 3rd, there was Samuel. My Sam. 7 pounds and 5 ounces of pure, beautiful goodness. He was mine! My very own, my tiny little love. I’ve never felt anything like that before, that love of seeing your own child for the first time. Your own flesh and blood.  I know I was sobbing at this point, probably a mixture of exhaustion, hormones and relief knowing that labor was finally over. When I said his name out loud for the first time after he arrived I knew it fit him, his name means God’s Word, My Beloved in Hebrew. Knowing that our gracious Heavenly Father has entrusted this tiny little human, this small soul, into my possession is beyond my comprehension. He has blessed us beyond belief, and we are so happy to the parents of this little man, little Samuel David, our little Beloved.
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And that’s the story of how I became a mother.