Family – Life as Lauren

If you know me in real life or have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I LOVE LOVE LOVE Thanksgiving. Christmas is great and all, but have you ever tried a holiday centered around food that doesn’t require you to buy any presents?? Wonderful!! This Thanksgiving was definitely not what we thought it would be. Back in June, we thought we’d finally finally be able to host (and put our dining table to use!), but Corona Virus had other plans. My parents were going to join us, but at the urging of my sister, a nurse who’s had first hand experience working with COVID patients, we came to our senses and decided to cancel. Still, we were able to do a quick food swap (and photo shoot), masked and distant in our back yard. We did a few FaceTime calls too, so we still got to “see” everyone.

I know we could not have the traditional Thanksgiving weekend we had hoped to have, but man does having a baby make up for any COVID disappointment. We still got to have our Thanksgiving Eve ramen, we still got to eat that big old T-Day meal, we still got to watch holiday movies and bust out the Christmas decorations. I wish we could have done all of that with our families, but baby cuddles more than made up for it!

I mean, we were probably going to get take out this year regardless of restaurants being open to indoor dining or not. Uncle doesn’t seem like the easiest place to bring a baby. And I could finally enjoy a bowl of ramen without having to fish out the egg and sprouts. My first full beer too!

Thanksgiving Day photo dump!! I picked up a pumpkin pie and breakfast treats on Wednesday and it made it feel so holiday-y to be running errands, even if it was in a mask. We ate our pastries and semi paid attention to the parade — mostly what we do now is stare at Dempsey and briefly glance up at the TV, ha ha — before heading into the kitchen to cook. We were in charge of turkey, gravy, rolls, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and vegan gravy. I think it all turned out really good!!! Mom brought stuffing, cranberry sauce, carrots and bacon and wine. Oh and a Baby Yoda hat! It was slightly too big so that it kept falling over Dempsey’s eyes and it was too funny. I hadn’t seen my sis in so long, so it was nice to finally see her face in person 🙂 Post-meal, we took a walk (I’ve always wanted that to be a T-Day tradition) and FaceTimed with Lori, then we settled onto the couch to watch Happiest Season (guys, I’m sure it had its faults, but I liked it!) and have dessert (Joey made use the best whipped cream!). Our two sleepy boys were OUT!

Friday involved couch cuddles and Christmas decorations. We ordered all new personalized stockings for the family and now I’m like “wait, do I have to fill these now??” We also ate lots of leftovers, watched so much TV (two episodes of the Amazing Race and the finale of Great British Bake Off) and topped it all off with Hillbilly Elegy, which Joey liked but I thought was just okay and I can’t really pinpoint why but it didn’t super excite me.

Saturday was super unproductive and I think I let the ennui get to me because I wasn’t in a great mood. We did break out and take a walk though and when I felt like I couldn’t eat yet another plate of leftovers, we took advantage of a gift card my friend Kate sent us and ordered a small feast from Mizu. I was trying to rev up the energy to make turkey soup and couldn’t find it, so this take out felt extra nice. Oh and earlier in the day, we watched The Family Stone which I’d seen pieces of but never the whole thing and good god was it sad and uncomfortable!!!

Sunday already?? As I write this, I’m sipping my second cup of coffee, watching the baby nap and listening to Joey work outside. We ordered Stowaway for breakfast and even though we were annoyed at having our order cancelled TWICE and then having to go pick it up, the crullers were amazing, the Colorful Colorado was perfect as always and they gave us a free coffee for our troubles. In other words, they got us again!!! I think I’ll spend the rest of the day ~~with caffeine jitters~~ fitting in shower for me, a bath for the baby, maybe some reading (but more likely, just watching crappy holiday movies) and we’re FaceTiming with my brother and fam later! I hope you have a great holiday weekend and the Sunday Scaries aren’t treating you too badly today!

This little one has been in our lives for two weeks and it simultaneously feels like he was just born yesterday and like so much has happened since he was born. Both are true, in a way. He has met all his grandparents and even all his great grandparents, plus my sister, Joey’s brother and this past weekend, he got to meet the whole King crew, including his best friend Henry! These moments are so sweet.

Josh asked us what’s been the hardest part of having a new baby and we guiltily answered “nothing?” I mean, waking up in the middle of the night to change or feed him isn’t always easy and eating with one hand maybe isn’t ideal but at the same time, it really is. Nothing about this little baby feel like an inconvenience to me. I am so happy to cater to his every need.

Breastfeeding has already been such a journey. The good part about starting out on a “three-part feeding system” (supplemental milk, breastfeeding, pumping) is that it can only get easier from there. We dropped the SNS at the beginning of last week. It was taking over an hour to feed him, plus I was pumping out a lot, so I knew he could just get what he needed from me. We were following up with a bottle just to make sure he was eating enough but he started spitting up EVERY TIME, which was alarming. We had a follow up appointment with the lactation consultant last Tuesday where they were able to weigh him, let me feed him, then weigh him again so we would know exactly how much he was getting from me (cool!) and yeah, we were way over feeding him with the bottle. We are finally finally just at breastfeeding with a nipple shield but I know we’ll wean ourselves off that too. It’s just a matter of time. Whew! So that’s that.

My parents returned our dog last weekend and he was pretty riled up for the first couple of days — he would not leave Joey alone! — but he seems pretty disinterested in Dempsey and I’m more than okay with that! We’ve let him give him some sniffs and he’s licked a foot or two, but that’s about as close as I’m comfortable with. My fear was that the baby would be crying in the middle of the night and the dog would go crazy barking. OR, that the dog would be barking and wake the baby up, but neither sounds seems to bother the other. A miracle!

Recovery-wise, I’ve been feeling great! Maybe I had it easy or maybe I was so over prepared for postpartum recovery that I had it built up to be worse in my head. Either way, I’ve honestly barely felt any pain — sitting was semi-uncomfortable for a few days — and I am so so thankful! I’ve been able to take some family walks with Dempsey in the stroller and Andi on his leash and it’s felt so good to walk around. I will mention that hormonally, I’m definitely still a bit all over the place. Most of the time, I feel so so happy but I’ve also balled over Chrissy Teigan’s personal essay, teared up watching The Way I See It (I miss Obama so much!) and felt really emotional about Joey returning to work (even though he’ll be working from home, it won’t be as blissful as the past 13 days of baby cuddles, Halloween movie watching, family visits and saying to each other “we made this!”).

In other news, Dempsey spent his first Halloween meeting friends, trick-or-treating at his Grandma Lori’s and hanging out with his Grandma and Grandpa Dorsey. Our friends Troy and Kenzie passed along some of their boys’ clothes, which included both a newborn pumpkin onesie and a newborn mummy onesie. We figured he’d dirty one of them at some point, but both costumes actually made it safely through the day. I ordered Joey and I some mummy face masks and a mummy bandana for Andi, so we could all match. Dempsey was obviously still the cutest 🙂

Everyone keeps asking if we’ve been reading and/or singing to him and uh… we’ve been watching scary movies and The Great British Bake Off with him. Is that the same?? Okay, so that’s one thing to get better about. Mostly we just hold him and watch him sleep and tell him and each other how much we love him. Maybe not the most productive way to spend time, but certainly the best way 🙂