Happy 1 month Birthday!

Wow its amazing how fast a month goes by!

Sean is growing like a weed, we think he is between 9.5 and 10 lbs already, but will find out exactly on Friday at his one month pediatricians appointment.

We have enjoyed all of the visits from all of our various family members, and we are planning our first flight down to Charlotte, NC for Thanksgiving, and long car ride to Bloomsburg, PA for Christmas to spend both with family.

Lets see... milestones.
*Sean has been able to lift his head on his own since he was only a couple days old, and he has gotten much more adept at it ever since.
*Sean has graduated from sponge baths to a baby bath tub, and he loves sitting in the warm water.
*Sean actually has a bedtime routine, which is such a relief for Brian and I.
*Sean has outgrown his newborn size clothes, and is now permanently in 0-3month size.
*Sean has outgrown newborn diapers, and is now firmly in size 1.
*Sean is able to recognize Mom and Dads voices, and follow us across the room with his eyes.

We are completely in love with him, and can't believe how quickly he is growing up, the time goes by far too fast. In the mean time, here are some of our favorite pictures from the month.

Happy 1 Week Birthday Sean

The baby ticker is down.
The hospital has billed the insurance.
I have changed diapers.
I know the true meaning of sleep deprived.

This can only mean 1 thing...

Last Sunday at 3:57 pm, Sean was born. He surprised us by deciding he wanted out a week early. He was 7 lbs 15 oz at birth and 19 inches long. Helene had a relatively quick labor and is an amazing and very proud mommy and I, well I am just beaming with pride. Over the last week the three of us have gotten to know each other better, we are settling into a nice schedule, and getting more and more sleep and rest.

Thank you to everyone for your love and support. I present, Sean Patrick McLaughlin...

Maternity Pictures

Belly Side Shot
Originally uploaded by bjmclaughlin

There are some new pictures of Helene up on Flickr. There has been some demand for maternity pictures so Helene and I are working on getting some pictures. We took these today outside and we are going to do some studio shots later this week. Click through to my Flickr site to see all 4 that I have posted.

A Small Update (On our not so small son)

We had two appointments today, the OB and the special case OB with an ultrasound. No new pictures as he wasn't in the best position to get a 3D picture but they got all of the measurements they needed. Sean is measuring at 35 weeks but is only 33 weeks in, which means he is a big boy. He is estimated to be around 5 lbs and is the picture of health. One of the more amazing things at this stage is being able to see all 4 chambers of the heart on the ultrasound. Really just incredible. He is head down in what the ultrasound tech called the "launch position" and kicking Helene with some real strength.

All is well and we are counting down the days.

A Little Heartbeat

I know, it has been a while since I posted. Many things kind of happened at once after we were in the hospital. Baby stuff started happening faster, a trip to Charlotte, basement was still flooding, had basement waterproofing done (which consisted of them jacking hammering the whole of the perimeter of our foundation and putting in a new drain system), etc...

Finally starting to see the light. The nursery is coming together (big thanks to Helene's family for the phenomenal paint job) and I will get pictures of that up soon. The drywall and framing that had to be pulled apart for the waterproofing job is getting fixed right now. New carpet for the basement should go in sometime in the next 2 weeks. Once we get there, we will rapidly get back to starting to feel like we have a normal life, which, within about 8 weeks, will include our brand new son.

Speaking of Sean. Wanted to post his latest ultrasound picture and a clip of his heartbeat. Both in the embedded YouTube video below. Enjoy!

Thats No Moon...It's A Kidney Stone

For anyone who hasn't heard, it has been an interesting week for Helene and I. Helene was admitted to the hospital on Monday night with bad back pains and some other nastiness. The good news..the baby is fine. The bad news...Helene has a 2 centimeter kidney stone and they don't want to remove it till after the baby is here. Any procedures to take it out are risky for the baby. So that leaves Helene on percocet for the rest of the pregnancy. This also means no driving, for some reason they don't really like people driving on narcotics, and work is an unknown. She is, at least, not on bed rest.

Thanks to everyone who has given us love and support over the last week. Oh, one other thing you may not have heard...

The baby's name is Sean Patrick McLaughlin.

Too Bloody Hot...

This is just not right for early June. It is currently 104 dgF at the weather reporting station closest to our house, heat index of 119 dgF....

Don't believe me, see the screen snap from Weather Underground...