24x7= 1 week old!

Our baby boy is one week old! I am posting this when he is actually 10 days old, but the pictures are true to age. I don't remember it being this easy with Reina. Was it her strong-willed personality, that fact that we were new parents and didn't know the huge commitment we just made, or because my milk didn't come in for almost 5 days and she was screaming for food? Golly, I still can't believe I made her starve because the lactation nurses would have scoffed if I fed her formula. This time around is so much easier! My milk came in right away in the hospital, just as Baelor latched right away. He didn't latch unusual like Reina did and cause bleeding for weeks, just a hardy latch. I'm kind of waiting for the "hard part" to happen. If it's this easy now, when is it gonna get hard? I felt like Reina has gotten easier every week of her life...yes even with her being a sweet and sometimes sassy 3-year old. Is Baelor going to start out being sweet now and go downhill from there? In any case, I'm totally in love with him! He has the BIGGEST newborn cheeks I've ever seen (except for cousin Lucas Mitchell), and squinty eyes. I haven't seen much of his eyes as he still prefers to leave them closed, or partially closed when he isn't sleeping. His left eye still gets goopy though, no matter how much I wipe it clean.

The only thing we have really been battling is his jaundice. He had medium/high bilirubin levels when they checked in the hospital and went down to just medium bilirubin levels while still in the hospital. He had his levels checked again at the doctor's office and found them to go back to high levels. Ugh! He is nursing great and pooping great so why the high levels? He has been pricked on his feet at least 5 times now, so his cute little heels have needed lots of kisses. He still hasn't reached critical levels where he needs an ultraviolet bed, luckily. I think we are in the clear now as he is over a week old and appears to be looking less and less yellow each day. We have had a few sunny days so I've tried laying him in the light in hopes of soaking in some rays, although the sun was moving so quickly he's probably only had 2 hours of sunlight. The only thing I can do to help him get rid of the jaundice is to keep nursing him. I have been on the ball with nursing him every 2-3 hours...yep, even waking him up to eat. I just hope he doesn't get used to eating this often as we will eventually try sleeping longer in the night.

I was going for one of those cute, sleeping baby on their tummy shots...he was flailing around instead

I've found that Baelor sleeps much better in bed with us, at least at night. He sleeps pretty well during the day in his own crib, or wherever I happen to set him down. But for some reason at night, he knows it is my sleep time and likes to be curled up right next to me. Baelor likes to feel my belly expanding next to him...I can't blame him since it was his home for 9 months. I've tried quietly laying him down in his bed after a feeding and rubbing his back, but he already catches on to the fact that he's not in our bed. That little stinker! So with our last doctor's visit, being 9 days old he has already reached his birth weight, plus one. He is 7 lb. 8 oz now! Hurray! He is starting to pack on the pounds already. Get ready for even chubbier cheeks! Baelor already takes a pacifier. I've resorted to this as he nurses sometimes both sides and still wants it in his mouth...sorry dude, not gonna be your pacy.

We're not sure who he really looks like yet...hard to say when they are this little. Sometimes I see Reina, sometimes I see a complete stranger. He's gotta perfectly shaped head, and soft, silky hair like Reina had. I call it Pepe hair as it feels like my dad's hypoallergenic cat, Pepe. His eyes and mouth are smaller than Reina's were, but so is the rest of him. He definitely looks like a boy though. I don't think people will mistake him for a girl unless he enjoys Reina's dress-up clothes more than she does, which should be easy. Minus a full night of sleep, I don't miss anything before Baelor joined our family.
Oh and the name....how did we come up with it? Well, I thought that I had made it up years ago...yes, before Reina was born. I thought Reina was gonna be a boy so I've had this name for a long time. I asked Paul if he thought it sounded "made up". Come to find out, Paul's absolute favorite author had a character in one of his novels named Baelor...so Paul, or I guess his favorite author came up with the spelling. The middle name is Leevi. This is Finnish spelling for Levi. In Finnish it is actually pronounced Leh-vee, but we are going to go with the English pronunciation of the name. For those of you who do speak Finnish, I am perfectly happy with you pronouncing it properly though :)