(Note: This post, for whatever reason, wasn’t showing up on our blog, so I am reposting it. It was originally posted on October 11th.)

Our baby’s 29 days old now. I took him in for a checkup today and he weighed 5 lbs 5 oz!

I think that’s huge, considering how little he started out. But the doctor said he’s still pretty small and I need to bring him in next week for another weight check.

Here’s a picture to give you an idea of his actual size. This is Wes wearing a preemie outfit, lying next to the same outfit in the three-month size.

The sticker on his cheek helps hold on his oxygen tubes. But the sticker on his other cheek had fallen off, so I just took off the tubes for the afternoon. We’ll have to replace them tonight, since he’s supposed to sleep with the oxygen on.

When all your pregnancy hormones start depleting, they’re apparently replaced with the photo-taking hormones. It just goes with the territory of new momhood. I couldn’t resist taking more pictures of him today, even though he wasn’t doing much.

Although here’s Wes doing one of his favorite activities: thrusting out his arm like he’s telling us to Stop!

And just one more cute one.

(Note: This post, for whatever reason, wasn’t showing up on our blog, so I am reposting it. It was originally posted on October 4th.)

Yesterday was Wesley’s three-week birthday. And tomorrow is his official due date. Hah.

He’s gaining weight well. He gained six ounces since his doctor’s appointment last week. Now he’s up to 4 lb 11 oz (with diaper on). The doctor wants us to keep him plugged into oxygen as long as he’s sleeping or in the car seat for long periods of time. I’ll be glad when that’s done with, because it gets annoying toting around his oxygen tube that’s taped to his face, and he keeps tugging at it and pulling the tubes from his nose into his mouth.

We’re adjusting to new parenthood and all the sleep deprivation that goes with it. Wes is a good kid, though, and is fun to have around. Today we took our first walk together around the neighborhood and made our first social call to one of my friends down the street. Wes was real easy, sleeping the whole time.

Next week we’ll take him to the doctor again for a four-week checkup to make sure he’s gaining weight all right, and maybe (cross fingers) the doc will let him off the oxygen.

Well, I wasn’t going to post any thoughts about the last three books I’ve read–Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse–but I changed my mind after I found myself talking about the books so frequently with others.

First of all, the books are young adult novels about a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire and is also best friends with (and eventually a little in love with) a werewolf.

Okay. Not really my type of plot. But my visiting teacher lent me Twilight and after reading that one I had to keep going.

Everyone upon everyone who likes to read has been talking about these books. You’ve probably heard them. But even after reading the books myself I kept wondering why: Why are these books such a hit?

I should point out that the books are probably most popular among the female readers because, in spite of the genuinely cool parts dealing with vampires and werewolves, the books are still fundamentally a love story. And a really intense love story at that.

So here’s my theory about why these books are so popular (in spite of the fact that the teenage girl, Bella, gets more and more annoying as the books go on): Stephanie Meyer has created another Mr. Darcy in Edward Cullen.

Unlike Mr. Darcy, Edward is seventeen, a vampire, and immortal. But other than that he and Mr. Darcy are one and the same: Extremely attractive. Sexy. Impeccably polite. Gentlemanly. And, more than anything, would do anything for the woman he loves.

This is the type of man women love to read about, love to dream about, love to think of themselves with. (Some of us, of course, are fortunate enough to already be married to someone with exactly these qualities. Minus the seventeen, vampire, and immortal bits.) I mean, how many women out there have watched BBC’s Pride and Prejudice a zillion times just for that part where Mr. Darcy dives into the pond and walks back in his wet shirt? What woman doesn’t wilt at the intense expression in Mr. Darcy’s eyes when he stares at Elizabeth Bennett? What woman doesn’t equate Mr. Darcy with the quintessential romantic hero and secretly wish they were Miss Bennett so they could be the object of Mr. Darcy’s attentions?

Don’t deny it, girls. You know it’s true.

Edward is the same way. Irresistible.

I think that’s a large part why we keep reading. We want to see Bella and Edward end up happily together, even though it possibly involves Bella becoming a vampire herself and breaking her best friend Jacob’s heart. And I know some people are really on Team Jacob and are rooting that he and Bella will end up together, but sorry, I think you’re in the vast minority. I’m all for Edward, and hope that Bella will get over her whininess and make us think that somehow she deserves such a man as Edward.

This summer we updated our living room furniture and have been working to get the nursery in order.

LIVING ROOM

Here’s the Before:

We moved out our old entertainment center and bookshelves to make way for our new stuff. We purchased a matching set of bookshelves, entertainment console, cocktail table, and sofa table from the Antique Chanticleer collection by Stanley. We bought it from a wholesale dealer in Ohio, and the furniture shipped to us all the way from North Carolina. It took forever. We ordered it last spring and it finally arrived on August 4th.

Here’s the initial After:

Here’s the bookshelves with our books displayed:

And, lastly, our whole living room with the new flat-screen TV in use. (Good thing the furniture came in time for NFL and college football season!)

NURSERY

I’ve also been working on the nursery so baby Wes will have a place to live when he joins us.

My sister lent us the glider, and the changing table was a gift from John’s sister. I put up the sage green curtains and found the white and green baskets to go in the changing table.

The closet right now is the room’s main storage facility, since we don’t have a dresser for the baby. Aren’t those little outfits hanging up so cute?

Here’s the Crib That Shannon Built. I swore I wouldn’t buy into the packaged crib sets, but dang, this jungle set from Target was too adorable to pass up.

The nursery’s not ready yet, but gradually things are getting in order. Our goal is to try to get everything else done we need to this week, because at the end of it technically I’ll be full-term and baby Wes might be on his way before we know it.

This past weekend was a monumental event in my life and our unborn baby’s: Our first Def Leppard concert.

Def Leppard is John’s favorite group. If you had asked me six years ago, before I met John, who Def Leppard was I would have said, “Whoosat?” But now I not only know who they are, I know a lot of the words to their songs and could sing along on Friday night.

Us before the concert started. (That’s me 36 weeks pregnant.)

I got us the tickets for John’s birthday in July. We went to one other concert together this year, to see Dashboard Confessional at UVSC last spring. We were sure that John, at the ripe then-age of 28, was possibly the oldest person there. Definitely a Generation X thing.

It was quite a different story at the Def Leppard concert. There were all sorts of people of all ages from every demographic. In fact, we were on the younger side of the fan base. However, I did see several families who brought their kids–and their kids could sing along just as well as their parents.

Since it was a rock concert–and a concert featuring groups whose hey days were the 80’s–we saw all sorts of attire that outside of the concert arena might be considered fashion faux pas: leather pants, leg warmers, orange hi-tops, mini skirts and leggings . . . you name it, we saw it.

We arrived early and got dinner from the concession stands–cheeseburger for John, chicken parmesan hoagie for me, and a lemonade between the both of us. Then we got in our seats and enjoyed the perfect 70-degree weather until the first act started. First up was Foreigner.

Then we had Styx.

And–finally!–Def Leppard.

Oh, man, the crowds went nuts when they came out. They were really fun to hear in person.

Def Leppard doing an accoustic piece.

Wesley even danced around a bit in the womb. Apparently he’s already a fan.

Last night we bought a crib. I picked it out myself during a quick scoping-out trip to Baby Depot (part of Burlington Coat Factory).

I have to say that the price of cribs is astonishing. On average, they cost about $200-400. Spending $400 on some wooden slats just seems enormously outrageous to me, especially when you consider that you have to purchase the mattress and bedding separately, at additional cost. And if you want to buy a themed bedding set (like “Bee My Baby” or “Day at the Zoo”) you should be prepared to dish out at least $150. And, of course, if you get the themed bedding set you’ll probably be tempted to buy the matching lamp, mobile, pillows, baskets, nursery organizer, stuffed animals, etc., for hundreds of dollars more. What’s wrong with a couple sets of plain sheet sets and maybe a blanket?

Anyway. Back to the crib. It’s Simplicity Chelsea in honey and cost $159.99 plus tax.

It’s a simple crib compared to some of the other models, but that’s probably why it was only $159.99. I feel like it’s a good size and not too over-the-top like some other styles I saw. The next day I showed John a picture of the crib online and he said, “Why not?” So I went back and picked it up last night. The box barely fit into my car’s trunk (I scraped up my elbow, knee, and ankle trying to cram it in). And it’s still there because I need John’s help to pull it out again.

So. We’re officially People Who Own a Crib. For a baby. Every piece of furniture or clothing we acquire that was formerly foreign but now normal and necessary reminds us that we really will be having a baby in two more months.