At home with Caden

It is hard to believe that Caden is almost 3 weeks old already. I guess the sleepless nights begin to run together and the days just pass right by! We have good nights and bad nights, which don't seem to be consistent either way right now. I am trying to watch what I eat to see if that has any affect on the boy. So far this experiment has gotten me nowhere. Caden has changed so much in the past few weeks, his face has filled out a little more and he has definitely gained some weight. At his two week appointment his weight was at 9lbs and 4ounces! A full pound (and then some) up from his birthweight! He has started smiling more, but I think it is just from gas.

I am going to try and get a picture every week for a full year, we'll see if I can keep it up. Here are the first two weeks.

Caden's Uncle Joe, Aunt Amy and cousin Joey (4 1/2 months old) came for a visit two weekends ago. Check out the two boys together!

On Sunday, Mark and I took Caden to Fraze pavilion for the SeaFest seafood festival with Caribbean music. It was fun until it started to rain and then once it stopped it was so muggy and sticky we decided that it was time to head home. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, bad mommy. He slept the whole time anyways, until he started getting rained on! oops!

He is finally here!!

Well, if you haven't heard we had our baby last Wednesday! Caden Joseph Francis was born at 5:29am weighing in at 8lbs 2ounces and 20 1/2 inches long. He is beautiful and wonderful and we are all doing well!

It took some convincing to get Mark to believe that I was in fact having contractions starting at 5pm on Tuesday afternoon about every 5 minutes. He said "I thought I had a few more days, I don't know if I'm ready!" Well, our little one ended up wanting to come 6 days early, what can you do!?!? So, Mark quickly ran through our hospital bag to make sure that he had everything and we called Dr Karr to see what we should do. The Dr said to go to the hospital and just get checked out. So we said goodbye to Nia, loaded the car and made our way to the hospital. Once there, they admitted me and we made our phone calls to the family to let them know that it was in fact time! So...my sister and Dad began the drive from Cleveland and made it to Troy around 1:45am. Things progressed somewhat quickly and we welcomed our little boy into the world at 5:29am on Wed August 6th. Many thanks to my "coaches" for all of their motivation and letting me squeeze the heck out of their hands. I was glad to hear that they had no bruising and/or broken bones!

Mark, Caden and I came home from the hospital on Friday and have been enjoying introducing him to everyone as well as getting him comfortable in his new home.

Caden leaving the hospital!

Scot, Amanda, Maddie and Izzy meet Caden.

Maddie meets her new cousin!

Nia was very excited to meet Caden as you can see. She likes to lay close to Caden, but doesn't crowd his space. We are very happy with the way she has accepted the new addition!

Here is the link from the hospital website:

http://www.uvmc.com/body.cfm?xyzpdqabc=0&id=14&action=detail&ref=95459

(If it doesn't work, I delivered at UVMC and the photo is up on the online nursery.)