The Past 8 Weeks....

Liam is 8 weeks tomorrow and boy has he taught Jesse and I ALOT since he joined our family.  I have never known such exhaustion but it is an exhaustion i wouldnt trade for anything.  Since he was born, he has been termed a "good sleeper" by friends that are moms.  I still consider him a sleeper-in-training because i get up 2x in the night since we switched him to the 8-8 schedule our pediatrician recommends.  In the earlier weeks, he was 11-11 which worked for me cause i would go to bed at 9 and Jesse would take the night shift (highly recommenr that new moms) and i would only have to get up once and it would be a more acceptable morning hour then the 3am wake up i am doing now.  But again, wouldnt trade it for the world.
If anything, i would say the hardest part to this new mom thing was and still is breastfeeding.  I will spare you all the details but the first 2 weeks were hard.  I would take childbirth with no epidural 10x over if with our next child we can skip over those weeks.  You want to give your child the very best but let me tell you, no one prepares you for the emotion tied to breastfeeding or the difficulty.  No one tells you the first 2 weeks are the worst with your hormones all over the place and your milk supply not fully in yet.  What does that equal?  Tears from both you and your baby.  Jesse deserves a medal for what i put him through.  You question your ability to be a good mom, you pass the screaming baby to him and say things like "make him stop" or "i cant handle this."  He looks at you like "What do you want me to do, your the one who has the milk" or "i know you will kill me if i make a formula bottle because you want him to be only breastfed."  O the fun of those first weeks!!!  Some of you know exactly what i am talking about and are having flashbacks to those days and can only laugh now because those days are over.
I think this past week was the first week that i thought to myself, "i can do this."  Liam is smiling and is more verbal, meaning he makes more noises then just crying.  I get excited for morning because i know when i go in there to get him from his crib i will see his precious smile. He also is more interactive with us, which makes it less like staring at a campfire (thanks Jackie for that analogy).  It only gets better from here on out and we cant wait to see what he is going to grow up to be.
Until next week....