Fun Times as a One Month Old

Everyone warns you how fast babies change, but you don't really know until you have your own. At his one month visit Jackson had already gained 2.5 lb bringing him up to 10 lbs and grown 1" for a grand total of 22.5". He only wore size Newborn diapers for one week! By the end of Week 4 he had outgrown almost half of his Newborn clothes but wasn't quite fitting into 0-3 month, which limited his wardrobe quite a bit.

My friend Mary and her daughter Hannah brought us even more baby gear to borrow. Mary lent me almost everything we have, so we are forever indebted. Hannah is the sweetest baby and had a great time playing with Baby Jackson.


While some dads might be embarrassed to wear the koala carrier, Matt sports it proudly. In fact, he wore it into a port-a-potty with Jackson inside at an art show.


So far, Jackson is a helpful little guy and is happy to sit next to us while we work. I had a conference in Montgomery so he and Matt came. Jackson spent most of his first hotel trip obsessively staring at the giant window in our hotel room.



It's hard work being a growing baby. By the end of Week 3 Jackson was smiling, first at me and then at everyone including Aunt Robin and the man who owns 2nd and Charles. Aunt Robin was sweet enough to come stay with us for several days while Matt was out of town. She was our first babysitter and the first person other than Matt to give Jackson a bottle. We loved having her stay with us.

By week 5 he started cooing and talking up a storm, especially in the mornings. He loves having his bath and will stay in his little tub content as a clam for as long as we let him. Something tells me that he will love Grace even more than his tub, although so far she is still pretending he doesn't exist. We'll see how that goes.

Let the Spoiling Begin

Sara and Jen are my oldest friends. Jen and I were in the seventh grade together. We went to different high schools, but somehow Jen ended up in Birmingham at UAB for two years and we lived only a few miles from each other. She has lived in NY since 2004 and is just about done earning her DMD at Columbia. We call Jen "the smartest dumb person" we know. Case in point, at one point while visiting she excitedly informed us that Birmingham is at the foot of the Rockies. Did I mention she lived here for two years?















Sara and I met in the ninth grade. She lived a few blocks away and we had all kinds of crazy fun in high school, most of which if she wanted to, Sara could use to blackmail me. She married into the Navy and currently lives in Texas in a little town we affectionately call "Brownhole". She is a nurse by day, yoga/artist/superhero by night. It is impossible to fully describe Sara, but suffice to say everyone loves her, many are scared of her (rightly so), and has more random talents than most people have hairs on their heads.




Sara and Jen have known each other for years, mostly as the result of my telling them each stories about the other. They planned to come meet Jackson at the same time. It was hard to tell if they were more excited to see him or each other. We spent a great few days catching up, laughing, cooking fabulous food, and telling stories that made Matt just shake his head.

Just being a newborn

It's a rough life being a newborn. His favorite time of day is the morning when he gets to snuggle in bed with mama after daddy wakes up. He wiggles over so he is touching and can even roll onto his right side. We call him "side sleeper".



Daddy giving Jackson his first bottle. The first bottle was pretty messy and ended up more on him than in him, but after a couple tries he caught right on. We originally said we weren't going to give him a paci, but the first time Matt spent the night away in Mississippi I broke out the pacifier. You do what you have to.

Happy Halloween

It isn't easy to costume a newborn, but Aunt Robin sent him a Halloween outfit and I happened upon the cutest penguin hat so he would be appropriately dressed for the holiday. One of the parties we took him to had a Quentin Tarantino theme but dressing him like a Pulp Fiction character seemed a bit much.

Great Grandparents

Not every baby gets to spend time with their great grandparents and Jackson is lucky enough to have 5 of them! My grandparents were sweet enough to drive up from Florida the week after Jackson was born and stay for a few days. The best part of their visit... Gran's banana pudding :)

There aren't too many Grandads that will ride a jet ski over the age of 75, but this one does, and he gave Jackson his first life jacket so they can ride together this summer.

Nana's First Visit

Nana's flight from Orlando got in the same day we came home from the hospital. Grandma and Grandpa Wolford and Aunt Erin were still at our house, so everyone got to meet for the first time! Nana was thrilled to spend a few days with Jackson and got to be there for quite a few of his "firsts", including his first time at Daddy's flag football game, first bath, first faux hawk, and first trip to the grocery store.

First trip to the Botanical Gardens

First visitors

One of the drawbacks of living 9+ hours away from your families is that it is hard to plan to be there at the last minute. We were thrilled when it worked out that Matt's mom, dad and sister were able to head to Birmingham on Thursday to meet the newest Wolford. They stayed until we went home on Saturday, and took care of all three of us back at the house. It was wonderful to come home to soup simmering on the stove, fresh flowers, and a buffet of fruit, veggies and cheese. They even helped decorate the mailbox. Talk about some good grandparents! We really can't wait for them to come back again for a longer visit.



We had some other visitors at the hospital. Tom, Riley & baby Russell stopped by and Jackson got to meet his first little play friend. Russell is six months old so they will be buddies in no time. Pam came to say hello and held Jackson, even though she doesn't exactly "do babies".



Amy and Susan were sweet enough to come as we were discharged and saw us off. They could have beaten us home considering Matt drove 15 mph the whole way home.

The Penguin is HERE!

My official due date was October 12. That morning we saw Dr. K, who scheduled an induction for the next Tuesday since nothing much was happening. As the day wore on I felt a little more uncomfortable, but we were supposed to meet friends for dinner. By late afternoon I really wasn't feeling up to dinner at all, but Matt convinced me to go. Our friend Amy had flown in from Madison as a surprise dinner guest! By the time we left dinner the contractions were pretty strong, so we came home and started timing them. They were all over the place so we walked around the block a few times. By 10:45 it was time to call the doctor and my water broke while Matt was on the phone with her. We headed for the hospital pretty soon after that.

Once we were at the hospital things moved quickly. I wanted to try to put off an epidural for as long as possible and managed to hold out until about 7cm. By about 1am it felt like time to push, but the baby just wouldn't move down far enough. We kept trying but finally decided a c-section was the only way and waited for my regular doctor to get there for the surgery. Our friends Amy and Susan came to stay with me in the recovery room. Another friend, Natalie, is a nurse at Trinity and she came over as well. All three of them got to see the baby as Matt wheeled him from the delivery room to the NICU right after delivery.

Amy Weems with Jackson on his way to the NICU


Susan Davis with little Jackson

"Nurse Natalie"



Jackson Foster Wolford was born at 11:32am on October 13, 2011. He measured in at 7 lbs 8 oz and 20.75". Matt still got to cut the umbilical cord. I was so proud of him for making it through the surgery! It was amazing to me how fast the actual surgery was- it took less than 4 minutes!

Penguin Palace

Picking a nursery theme has been as difficult as picking a name- more on that in a later post. The original idea was a nice, pastel seashore theme. After quite a bit of time searching, most of what we found was either too Florida beach tacky, not right for a baby, and/or all primary colors. One of the first decor pieces we bought was this really neat tile fish mosaic. Matt picked it out, but it wasn't until we got home and I went to move it that I realized it weighed a good 25lbs and there was no way we could hang it above the crib. Talk about an accident waiting to happen...

Eventually I found a crib bedding set that we loved. It turns out that crib bedding sets are ridiculously expensive, especially considering that they say not to use a crib bumper anymore. Basically you end up paying a couple hundred bucks for a sheet and crib skirt! What a ripoff! Amazingly, Matt's mom found material that was very similar to the pattern we loved. She is quite the seamstress and agreed to make the bedding for us, which makes it even more special :) Aunt Erin helped a good bit so a HUGE thanks goes to both of them. This is the crib bumper and you can see all three of the materials we used.



After months of not knowing what else to put in the room, one day a month or so ago we went to see Mr. Popper's Penguins and afterward Matt said, "Why not do a penguin theme?" How we had not thought of this before remains a mystery. By the time we got home I had found some really cute things on Amazon and Etsy. You can only use so many penguins without turning the place into a seaquarium, so we still needed something for the wall behind the crib. Preferably something that didn't weigh a ton and wasn't a death threat. Lo and behold the idea came to use polka dot decals (my neighbor who hosted the BaByQue loves them and put some up in her kitchen recently). It should be noted that I am terrible when it comes to accessorizing. I envy girls who can pick out cool jewelry and have perfect pictures, rugs, draperies, etc in their homes. So I was pretty proud of the fact that the dots just happened to mimic the dots in the fabric- although to be honest it was a total, unplanned fluke.


Putting up those darn dots was a challenge to my OCD. Oh, and there are 192 of them. How can you not make everything mirror image? Matt got a free pass on that project since nothing makes him more crazy than seeing me hang pictures without using a level or GOD FORBID a tape measure.




We also have to thank Aunt Rachel for making the cover for the changing pad. It matches the chair fabric perfectly and is soooo soft. A friend's mom crocheted the white blanket on the chair. It is just gorgeous. Turns out that Matt's mom made him one just like it as a baby. My sweet friend Sara made the animal collage. Her little boy Cole told her, "If Auntie Fleah doesn't like it can I have it?", but there is no way she is getting it back. Sorry buddy but Auntie Fleah is keeping that forever. Last but not least we ordered prints of both of our families so the little Penguin will have everyone who loves him most watching him every night. The pictures aren't here yet but once they are, the room is officially done.

Now all we need is a baby.

Babymoon

A wonderful co-worker of Matt's offered us her house near Pensacola Beach for Labor Day week, and knowing that this would be our last adult vacation for quite some time we jumped at the chance. Little did we know that this would be the week that Tropical Storm Lee would choose to hit the Gulf! The weather our first day was nice so we got in a tour of Fort Pickens and a picnic at the beach. The waves were about 5' and breaking right on shore so Matt got in but I was afraid to go out further than my calves, even in front of the life guard, it was so rough.

By the second day it started raining, but not enough to keep us from checking out a butterfly house and Navarre Beach. We spent a lot of time watching season opener of college football and just relaxing. All in all, the perfect babymoon.

Speaking of baby... we are down to 35 days now. He should be 5.5lb and 19"- although it is starting to feel like he is 19 feet and 55 pounds. The kicks and jabs are pretty ferocious.