Stock-o- Taco

Stockton has been really cracking us up lately! He walks around babbling all the time.  I hope after his surgery next week I'll be able to tell more of what he is trying to say. 

He has a new fascination with stickers. He puts them all over him and me.  He has to taste a few too.

He is in his new room now the baby is here.  Sometimes I don't know where he went and I'll find him in his closet playing with some of his toys.

These are his "cheese" faces.  Whenever I take his picture he gives me a few looks like this.  He loves to be outside.  It's been hard with Brett here I don't get outside with him very often.  He just recently had a stomach flu and It was so heartbreaking for me because he would want me to hold him all the time and I couldn't because of the baby.  I would go from cuddling him to putting him down, changing my clothes, then picking the baby up.  I was trying to hard not to get the baby sick.  It's hard because he is still my baby and yet I don't have enough time in the day to treat him as much as my baby anymore.

He is so funny about his crib.  He gets all of this blankets and makes a little "nest" to lay on top of.

His new thing is giving Brett a "kiss" on his head. He really loves his brother. 

I need to get a video of him kicking a soccer ball.  He can dribble it all the way down my yard.  I can't get enough of this kid.

Brett at 1 month

     

I had saved all of these things on pinterest about taking pictures of newborns so I could get some shots of Brett after he was born and about a week ago I started reading them and they said to take the pictures when the baby is 5 to 10 days old.  I was like ah crap because it was like day 25 or something by then.  But I tried anyway.  I want to try again when he is really sleepy though because most of my pictures he was wide awake which is really unlike him. The poor little guy has gone from being really congested to a HORRIBLE diaper rash (he apparently has really sensitive skin) to having his eye almost swollen shut from a clogged tear duct.  He has had a ruff time.  Today is doing good but who know's about tomorrow! He is still my little snuggle buddy!

I caught a sleepy smile from Brett.  He just started really focusing on our faces a week or so ago so I'm guessing a real smile is a little while away.

A lot of people asked me when he was born if I thought they got my due date wrong because he was so big for being early.  I really don't think so because of how sleepy he has been and how he really doesn't really hold himself up at all yet unlike my niece who is a week older then him.  He has had a harder time focusing on stuff and being alert.  As nice as it was to not have to be pregnant that last month (and it was) I would rather him come a week at least later. I think he would have had a little easier time though some of this stuff.

soccer

It's been a interesting year of watching Tyson play soccer.  The kid can run so dang fast but when you get him with other kids playing soccer he just runs around with the mob of kids in the back.  We tried bribing him to play harder and it kind of worked.  Finally Tyson's last game something clicked and he was getting in there and kicking the ball a lot!  It was fun to watch!

  We knew all of the kids on Ty's team so that made it fun for him.  The only one missing is a girl that is in his kindergarten class named Peyton. His coach is our friend Scott.

He told me he doesn't want to play soccer anymore but I'm hoping that if Bryan works with him this summer he will change his mind.

Can you hear me?

I can't get enough of this little guy!  He is my favorite then he drives me nuts in the same minute.  This is his "cheese" face even though he really can't say cheese.  I'll explain- at one point a few months ago he would say 10-15 words like Jesus, this, that balloon etc. and pretty soon I never heard him say them anymore.  At his 15  month check up my dr. noticed fluid hanging out in his left ear but we weren't sure if it was a infection on it's way out or not.  So at his 18 month check up when he had fluid in both ears pretty bad we got an appointment with the ENT.  Ty went in to get his tubes out and got Stockton evaluated to get them in.  Poor Stockton was beside himself.  He FREAKED out! He screamed all the way through Dr. Blotter looking in his ears and the test they did to check the pressure in his ears.  It should have taken like 2 minutes for the test but it took like 15 because he just sat and screamed on my lap shaking. His left ear totally failed the test and the right one was not that far behind it. So we will get tubes in his ears in a couple of weeks. It breaks my heart to think about it because dr.'s scare him so bad but compared to the surgeries that Tyson's put us though this is no big deal. It's like a 10-15 minute thing.  I just feel so bad that he can't hear!  He babbles all the time so I'm really interested to see what he does when he can finally hear.

Life with 4 kids

I knew things were going to be hard when Brett was born when I was feeling overwhelmed with my 3 kids let alone having a new baby.  The first day home I just kind of sat and stared at the wall all day having no idea how I was ever going to do this on my own.  I've gotten a little more of the hang of it but it's still really hard.  Stockton has actually done really good with Brett for the most part but there are times I'm holding the baby and Stock feels like it should be his turn on mom's lap.  

The hardest part is feeling like there just isn't enough of me to go around.  Especially for Stockton.  All of my boys have been acting out in one way or another with the change but it's hard when I can't hardly go outside with all the kids.  Stockton wanders a lot and it's hard for me to chase him with Brett in my arms.  I tried walking to pick Ty up from school (3 blocks away) and Brett screamed the whole way home and my older two fought.  ugh.  

I have been REALLY blessed to have such a awesome baby.  He is so good! There are only a couple of things that get him crying and that's when he is cold coming out of the bath (he SCREAMS) when he's hungry sometimes but even then he just grunts.  His nose bothers him a lot too because he is SUPER congested.  It wakes him up a lot.  We were really scared because my boys have had a minor cold and it's our lot in life to get sick newborns so we were relieved to find out at his 2 week check up his nose was just new baby congestion and didn't look like a cold. I have to spray saline up his nose all day to help him breath better but other then that he is doing great. 

 My blood pressure has going up into stroke level's so I had to get on medicine.  It was around 150/100 area a lot.  I'm not sure why my body was doing that because even though life is crazy I have been way more stressed out before he was born and Bryan was in finals.  It's been nice that he has been able to be home in the evening since his last semester has ended.  I LIVE for him to come home everyday and help me with the kids.  I only wish he really knew what it was like to have all 4 alone.  I can't go to a store with  him.  How do I get around with Stockton who doesn't follow me or let me hold his hand and the baby who I have to carry.  


Even though things are so crazy right now I know it will be all worth it.  It already is worth it.  I'm just loving having Brett around!  He is the sweetest thing ever.  I could hold him all day if I had the time. My boys love him to death.  Stockton even loves to hug him.  I love his little chicken legs and how cuddly he is.  


I love my kids- I still can't believe I have 4 little boys! 

 Isn't he sweet???

This is Stockton's "cheese" face. 

first days home.

The first few days home with a newborn are always crazy but bringing Brett home was really crazy!  Stockton had a cold so he was excited to see the baby and we had to push him away.  On the plus side he was really happy to see me.  He kept hugging me and wanting me to hold him.  I had never been away from Stockton for more then a couple of hours his whole life so it was odd for him to wake up one day and have me not be there.  My older boys were bouncing off the walls because they were so excited to have Brett home.  Tyson especially was going crazy.  

 Tyson wanted to share his favorite bunny with Brett.  Bunny and Brett are the same size just about!

 Blake loves to hold Brett.  He still asks all the time to hold him.  He is a lot more calm then the other boys when he holds him.

 After a couple of days I finally got a picture of Stock with his new brother! He LOVES to hold him (me holding the baby in front of him.) He likes to pull the baby right up next to his face and hug him.  Then he tries to poke him in the eye.  Why do kids always do that to babies?

 Between his blood sugar issues and janduice testing (he had to go get tested three times poor little guy but he never had to do the light bed. ) his poor heals were all sorts of chewed up.  He got pretty close to needing the light bed (his numbers got to 16 and 18 is where they put them on lights) but we lucked out.

 Brett's cord only lasted 5 days or so and that meant we could give him a real bath.  Like the rest of my kids he hated his first bath but he likes it now.

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful baby! He is so content and hardly makes a peep.  I didn't even know where his binky was for a couple of weeks because he never really needed it!  He sleeps a lot and does ok at night.  I have a hard time putting him down!

Long Story Short...

I woke up early Wednesday April 25th feeling like my water was starting to break and ran in the bathroom.  I was loosing a lot of blood in what I figured was my water breaking so Bryan and I got dressed and hurried up to the hospital around 2am.  A few hours later I was already to 8cm when my nurse told me that she was sure now that my water in fact hadn't broken yet and I was just loosing a lot of blood.  I was scared I was bleeding out I had lost so much blood!  My placenta had torn off the wall and was causing me to bleed but with my labor moving so fast it was faster to just deliver me then to do anything else.  I can't imagine how fast my labor would have been had my water actually broke.  It was only like 45 minutes later I was complete (with my water still not broken) and they called my dr. to come in and deliver me.  He broke my water and I started pushing.  10-15 minutes later Brett David Palmer was born at 7:29 weighing a whopping (for being born at 36 weeks) 7 lb 7oz.  I couldn't believe it!  He was a couple of pounds bigger then I thought he would be.  He was considered what they called late pre-term but he was still a premie. Bryan and I were so worried about how well he would do being born this early we didn't get any video or pictures for the first 20 minutes or so not wanting to have video or anything of him struggling.  He really didn't cry at all when he was born which scared me really bad.  I kept looking at Bryan trying to see if he thought he was ok but I could tell he was a little panicked too. He sounded awful at first but was able to breath just fine on his own. 

 You can kind of see that the scale says 7lb 7 oz- it's the first picture of our little guy.

Usually my babies open their eyes after they were born but Brett pretty much had his eyes closed for all but a few minutes while I held him.

Brett with our dr.  Brett Horsley- he was content to be delivering another Brett.  

I finally got to hold him in what seemed like forever.  We had a good snuggle for awhile. 

First bath

Stockton was getting a cold so Bryan just brought up my older boys to see him.  They could hold and talk to him all day!

Blake and Stockton were born with blonde hair and tyson with a tiny bit of darker hair but nothing like Brett!  Bryan keeps teasing me about the mail man coming over.  Until you look at his face and see his Palmer nose that is.

The boys with Grandpa Palmer

We never got a family picture in the hospital because of Stock being a little sick so this pic is the best I got.

Bryan had two final projects/test/presentations the day after Brett was born and that with work and helping with my other boys meant he wasn't at the hospital very much with me.  He came as much as he possibly could but it was just the craziest time Brett could have been born ever. So I got a lot of alone time with the baby.

Brett had blood sugar issues the whole time he was at the hospital.  He had to get his heel pricked every three hours to test it.  It would be good then it would go way down then back up then down the whole time.  Finally he got two good tests in a row and they left his feet alone.  It was hard to go through that alone at the hospital.  Brett was so sleepy that he was really hard to feed and I had to kind of force formula down him.  When he woke up he ate way good but would fall asleep before he was done.  SO GRATEFUL for him being premie that he never had to go the NCIU.  He was really, really close but I got to keep him with him the whole time.

I hate how fat I look in this picture but Brett looks cute so I posted it. 

A rare photo of his eyes open at the hospital. 

We are just so, so grateful that Brett is doing so well and is so healthy!  He could have had so many problems being born a month early but he has done so well! He is the biggest sweetheart and so far is a very, very content baby.  He doesn't fuss much and when he does a hug from mom or dad makes him feel better.  Bryan and I are totally smitten with him.  I'm so happy my little surprise baby is here and that he is mine!