First Out of State Trip

This past weekend we went to Michigan to celebrate your cousin Caroline's third birthday.  You did great in the car.  We stopped once to feed you on the way there, and on the way home you didn't even wake up to eat!  You tolerated Joka breathing his horrible breath on you much better than I did.  I was constantly turning around trying to get him to move over or lay down, but you didn't seem to notice him.

It was fun to give you some longer periods of time with your cousins.  Jack seemed especially taken with you, and would smile every time he saw you.  You got to spend a little more time with your Uncle Scott, but it was a busy weekend, so he only got to hold you once.  He will get to see you more this summer at Sandy Pines, and show you all the fun stuff we can do there like boating and swimming, and one day you may get into the sporting tournaments there!  We had a lot of fun showing you off to everyone, and lots of people were pretty excited to finally see you. 

You had a rough time falling asleep both nights that we were there, but I think that is mostly my fault for drinking caffeine both afternoons.  Once you got to sleep you did great and let us rest for a few hours at a time.  We are excited to get you back to Michigan once the weather is nicer and we can take you out and do lots of fun things with your cousins!

Visits to Nana and Papa's house

Your dad has gone on two business trips in the past two weeks.  Your Nana and Papa were happy about this because it meant that we would come and stay at their house while he was gone.  They were very helpful to me while we were there, and loved getting to spend a long stretch of quality time with you.  They helped me to get through your first really fussy day.  You seemed to have an upset stomach and were refusing to sleep and just kept crying.  This is totally uncharacteristic of you so we all knew something was wrong.  They knew about this stuff called Gripe Water which Papa went out to buy.  We gave you some and it seemed to help a lot.  You ended up sleeping well and feeling much better the next day.  I was glad not to be at home alone while this was happening! 
You got to meet a lot of new people while we were there.  The visitor that came the farthest to see you was your dad's Aunt Sharon.  She came from Wisconsin just to meet you, and you had a great time snuggling with her while she was here.  You slept in a crib for the first time at their house, and did great.  You are quite the wiggle worm though, and would end up facing a different direction than the one you started in by morning.
Here are some pictures from our visits:

Some pictures of you at 3 weeks old

Your cousin Sydney and Aunt Cheryl

 Grandma

 Cousins Sophia and Raquel

Hanging out with Nana

First Cold

You got your first cold at 2 weeks old.  Man, it was a brutal one.  You got it from your Dad who was kind enough to share it with both of us.  You handled yourself like a champ.  You continued to sleep great, eat normally, and did not get fussy at all.  You prove yourself to be very laid back and flexible.  It was horrible to listen to you cough and sneeze, but I am glad that we got through your first illness and saw that you can handle yourself against some of the germs on the outside. 

3 Week Pictures

Levi's Bris

Last Thursday, 3/17, we celebrated Levi's Bris.  In doing this we dedicated him to God and joined him into the Jewish family.  This was both an exciting and traumatic day for me.  Levi did a great job handling, not only all the new people, but the fact that he had to get circumcised in a room full of adults he mostly didn't know.  I, on the other hand, almost both passed out and cried during the ceremony.  Everyone had told me that this is worse for the mom than the baby, and they were definitely right!  Levi did cry a little, but he cries every time his diaper is off, so who knows if he actually felt anything.  He had his Papa sitting right by his side the whole time, and his cousin Caroline encouraging him from the doorway.  I think my favorite quote of the day was Caroline saying "Don't worry Levi, Papa is with you.  He will take good care of you!"  They do truly have the best Papa a kid could ask for and Caroline knows that.  Someday Levi will too.  The Mohel who performed the Bris was also great with Levi.  He took a lot of time before the ceremony getting him prepared (mostly this means holding him and giving him wine and sugar water to ease the pain a bit) and afterwards, holding him to make sure that he didn't get passed around like a hot potato, so that he would have time to recovery and rest.  I really appreciated him, he had a great personality, you could tell he loved kids, and he was very comforting to me as well.  I was so glad that many of our friends and family came out to meet Levi and to share in this Mitzvah with us.  Here are some pictures, don't worry there aren't and of the actual cutting :-)

Announcing Levi Timothy Mertens

Levi was born on Thursday March 10 at 12:53 PM.  We have been home since Friday evening, and we are enjoying the process of learning how to be parents!  I created this blog to document the milestones of Levi's life, and to be able to share these things with our family and friends.  I am working on typing up the birth story which I will post here when it is done.  For now, here are some pictures. 

False Alarm

We had a false alarm yesterday.  We got so excited because we thought that you were telling us that you were ready to be born.  As first-timers, we are not experts on this process so, not surprisingly, we are jumping at every little twinge and hoping that it means that you are ready to come out and meet us.  I was having contractions all day yesterday, and started to time them around lunch time.  At that point they were about 5 minutes apart, but not at all painful.  We decided to run some errands and keep busy for the rest of the day and see what happened.  At around 10pm I decided to start timing the contractions again as they were coming closer together and getting a little bit stronger.  They were consistently 2 minutes apart for a whole hour.  Like I said, we don't know much about this process, but I did know that 2 minutes apart was pretty close.  I wasn't in much pain, but still figured it would be better to get things checked out than to miss the window on getting to the hospital.  We headed in and they hooked us up to a monitor.  I was having consistent contractions but they were not very strong. The nurse and doctor were super nice, and did not make us feel like the rookies that we are.  They had us walk the very short labor and delivery hallway for two hours to see if that would help things progress.  After the long hours of walking my contractions had gotten significantly stronger which was exciting news, so they decided to let us stay for a while.  They told us to try and rest and as I fell asleep the contractions disappeared.  At around 5:30 they decided that we should head home as this could be a long process and there was no telling how much more work these contractions had to do to actually start meaning something.  We were sad to be coming home without you here, but the more I thought about it I was grateful that you did not come out before you were ready.  I am hoping that next time we go to the hospital it will be the real thing, and that we will get to meet you very soon.  We cannot wait!  We are praying that you continue to grow strong and healthy, and that when you are ready to come out you will make it clear to us.