Hesselblogger: Ryan: Month One

Let's be real, this blog is mainly going to be about our kid from now on. Good thing he is changing a lot and we will have a lot to update! The first month getting to know him and his personality were amazing. Never have I ever felt so many different emotions within the span of a day or sometimes even an hour. Exhaustion. Fear. Amazement. Inadequacy. Confidence. More exhaustion. Total and pure love. It has been a roller coaster, but now that we are (well past) the other end of his first month, I feel like we are getting the hang of things and are able to enjoy him even more.

Maybe someday Ryan will want to read this and know what he was like as a little baby. More likely, I will use this to look back and remember all of his milestones and all of the wonderful "firsts" and how they made us feel. So this is my recap to Ryan of some of our most memorable moments for his first month on Earth:

We called you our little Tomato Head. When you would get upset about anything, you would work yourself up so much that your entire body would turn the brightest shade of red. It was especially apparent on your little round head with the contrast of your intense blue eyes. Your dad and I would joke with each other that we had to figure out what was wrong with you and meet your needs before you turned into a tomato, hence the nickname. At five weeks, you grew out of this almost completely. Call it a combination of you figuring out the world and not getting so upset over every little thing and us figuring out how to be parents to you. It was a hilarious and sweet thing in the midst of some tough moments to see our Tomato Baby and I will always cherish that early memory.
You snore!! It's not always incredibly loud and it's not all of the time, but when you are truly exhausted, you will emit the cutest little snores. One morning, after I had been up all night with you and we were both at the end of our ropes, I woke your dad up to take care of you for an hour so I could get some sleep. He took you out to the living room where we were keeping your swing, and set you in there to help you relax. Apparently it worked, because you passed out and he got to hear your first snores. He recorded it on his phone so I could listen when I woke up and I'm so glad he did! It was adorable, and helped me get through that day and many others.
We put you down on your "activity mat" with toy animals hanging from it every morning to play. So far, your favorite is the Whale that sings the alphabet. You love the ABCs and will pretty instantly calm when you hear the tune. Twinkle, Twinkle also soothes you, as it is set to the same tune :)
You get your dad a good calf workout with what we call the "Daddy Bounce." We would spend a lot of our days trying to calm you by bouncing you, walking you around the house, swinging you and swaying you. But the best way to get you to sleep when you are overwhelmed is to have Matt sling you into the baby carrier and do calf raises that bounce you while you remain close to his chest. We watch your little fists go from clenched to limp as it puts you right out so you can get some rest while your dad gets killer calves.
You really hate being restrained. All babies are supposed to love swaddling, so we perfected the tight burrito wraps that are supposed to help babies sleep longer. You can't STAND having your arms restrained! You scream and fuss until you can wiggle your arms out of the swaddle and put them on your face. Once they're out, you seem a lot happier, so we gave up on the swaddle and now just put a light blanket over you while you sleep. Car rides are not your favorite either. I think you don't like the sensation of being buckled in and restrained. We will have to work on this, since we have places to go and you can't walk anywhere in the Arizona summers!
Your little wobble head cracks us up and scares us. You try to use your neck muscles to lift your head off of our chests, but your head is so heavy in proportion to the rest of your body that it bobbles around erratically. A lot of times, you wind up slamming your head into our face or chest in an effort to get up. But you are getting stronger every day and this won't be an issue for long.
Holding you is probably the thing I will remember most from the time you were so little. For the first two weeks, you would only sleep in my arms so I ended up spending the nights in our recliner holding you. The rest of the waking day wasn't much different - I think I probably averaged about 20 hours a day with you in my arms! But as tiring as that was, it was such an amazing bonding time for us as mother and son. You were comforted by my touch, and I just loved having you close enough to feel your soft skin and smell your sweet hair whenever I wanted. You didn't really recognize my face the first month, but you knew when I was holding you and you would relax and melt into my arms. And I would look at your sweet face so much that Matt warned me I was going to pull a muscle in my neck from staring down at you!

The first month, it was just so hard to believe you were real and really living with us and sharing our home and our lives. We felt a love for you like we have never felt before, and each day brings us more and more joy. Happy one month tiny tomato!