Adventures

Here are some of the fun things that I've been doing lately:

Hanging out with John Ball and seeing all the animals at the zoo

Here I am with the Guanacos

And the ringtail lemurs

This is with Oma at the twins birthday party
Here I am playing with my cousin Leeum at his house
This is me at my Aunt Jerilynn and Uncle Jeff's wedding (don't tell anyone, but I also spent lots of time at salons getting pedicures and hairdos with the girls!)
I also went apple picking, seeing all the apples made me hungry
Dad and I both root for Michigan (in a couple weeks we're going to my first UM football game!)
As you can see, I'm a busy boy!

We can't believe how fast Orrin is growing! He is smiling a ton now, and starting to "talk" to me. I just had to pull out the 3-6 month clothes since he's outgrown all of the newborn and most of the 0-3 month stuff. We think he is going through another growth spurt because he pretty much slept the entire day yesterday, and surprisingly almost all night.

Can you believe he was just 4 weeks old here?!

And a few seconds later...

These are his one month pictures (taken two days late because I forgot). We're using the cow as a size reference, you can scroll down to see him with the cow at a few days old.
I like this one, he looks so contemplative. And notice that he is hugging the cow. :)

Sitting with his cousin Leeum - suddenly Orrin doesn't look so big anymore. I can't wait until they can run around and play together!


Spot likes to be involved in everything. I'm pretty sure he is letting me know I need to change Orrin's diaper here.
This was a few days ago - the difference is amazing! He was smiling huge for me but would stop as soon as I picked up the camera.
His poor face started breaking out bad this week, too. Hopefully it clears up soon, it looks painful.

I've got lots more pictures to share soon of some of Orrin's recent adventures. I'm doing this one handed today while Orrin eats so I'll put it off until I have both hands free. :)

Oliver

I have always meant to tell Oliver's story but I guess now is the last chance to do it.
I started volunteering at PigHoppers rabbit and pig rescue in July of 2002. On my very first day, a bunny came in. We all discussed what to name him - and I thought of the name Oliver after Oliver Twist since this little bunny was an orphan. This is the story that we heard that day:

Oliver had been first owned by a photographer around Easter time. Shortly after, a neighbor found him in the trash pile out front. He had obviously been attacked by some sort of animal as his ears and nose were chewed up and he was missing some toes. This person took him home and stuck him in a hutch in the backyard. When she finally called us, she said she hadn't really been able to take care of him since she had ALS, so a volunteer went and picked him up.

The story doesn't end there, though. I already had a rabbit (Fuzzy) and wasn't looking for another one. A few weeks after he came in, Oliver was adopted by a family as a pet for there 5 year old daughter. They had him for a few months but returned him that fall because the daughter wasn't taking care of him. After all this, Oliver was still a sweet and spunky rabbit. I took him home shortly after he came back to the shelter. He was a great bunny - litter trained and very friendly. He loved to be held and pet.

Anyway, he had a great life with me (I hope). The past year, he's been showing his age and for the last couple months could no longer use his back legs. Even more recently he was drinking a full bottle of water a day (a sign of problems in rabbits) and sometimes choking when he drank. Scott and I have been agonizing over when is the right time to put an animal to sleep and we finally decided last week that he was most likely suffering (even though he would still come to the door to be pet and get treats), so Friday we brought him in.

I know he was just a rabbit, but I've always loved his story. He went through so many bad things and yet always had such a good bunny attitude (believe me, I have seen rabbits with bad attitudes!). Is it wrong to be inspired by a rabbit? :)

Fun stuff

Time flies! I can't believe Orrin is almost 4 weeks old. He is growing so fast. At our first ped appt when he was 4 days old, he weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces. Two weeks later he was up to 8 pounds 3 ounces. Who knows what he is now, a week later! His belly is getting noticeably bigger, and he is getting longer. He has outgrown any newborn outfits, especially the ones with feet.

A few fun things we've noticed about Orrin:

He has a temper! It shows up either at bathtime, during fingernail cutting, and if he is hungry (which is always!).

He has webbed toes (the 2nd/3rd toes on both feet, but the left foot is all the way up to the first joint). Apparently this runs in Scott's family as one of the grandfathers had the same thing.

He looks just like Scott's baby picture, but he has my crooked yawn.

He is just starting to have non poop/gas related smiles, but still pretty rare.

He is a very noisy sleeper. Not snoring, but little squeaking when he breathes. It was really noticeable in church last week!

The doctor said he is very strong and cautioned us to not leave him unattended anywhere as he will probably roll early.

He has been able to roll onto his side almost from day 1. He prefers to sleep this way.

He has really skinny legs! I've been putting him in cloth diapers during the day. Last week I tried the prefolds and he kept leaking out of them. I'm pretty sure nothing even hit the diaper, just ran right out the side. This week I'm using the ones that I made and they are working pretty well, although I have to add another absorbant layer inside. I had no idea how much someone that little could pee! (And a huge thanks to Cara for the newborn covers - we only had one that was small enough for him and obviously it was getting dirty everytime so having a few more has been so helpful!!)

Maybe Scott can think of some more...

Of course we've been taking tons of pictures!

Wow

I guess first I should introduce Orrin, even though I think everyone knows by now.

He was born at 6:23am on Sat August 8th. 7lb 9oz, 20in

Labor was not so bad, it went on all day Friday and we finally went to the hospital at midnight. It was much more calm and relaxed than I thought - of course the epidural helped. I gave in around 3 or 3:30 am and got it by 4. That wasn't my plan but I'm glad I did it, the whole experience was kind of fun after that.

He is very healthy and eats and sleeps so well! The past two nights, Scott and I have probably slept about 7 hours each (broken up into segments of course). Not bad, although we're still recovering from almost no sleep at all last weekend and early this week. We're still learning about diaper changes though. We've gone through about 5 outfits a day so far, and washed the changing pad cover many times. Orrin likes to wait until the diaper is off to do his business.

We really appreciate all the help and food so far! We feel very blessed that so many people love Orrin too and want to help us out!

Scott and I had fun taking pictures the other day, here's a few.

Another update

I went in for my second Non-Stress Test this morning. The baby is very stubborn, I could feel him moving around in the waiting room, but as soon as they hooked us up to the monitors, he decided to take a nap or something. They need to see the baby move before they will let us go home. So the nurse brought me a cup of coke and we waited. Still sleeping. After about half hour, I got another cup of coke and the dr. shook my belly. Finally he woke up and all was good! I'm glad b/c we would have had to go to the hospital for a Stress test if he didn't (I'm not entirely sure what that is but it sounds like less fun). I had a contraction monitor on too and it was kind of fun to see them all. Pretty much at exactly 6 min apart. Too bad that seems to mean nothing for me - they've been that way for 12 hours now. And we've had several other similar times that end with nothing.
So the plan is to show up Monday night for the first half of the induction and the dr. will decide Tues morning how to proceed (just break my water or go w/ the pitocin). Either way, it is looking like his birthday will be the 11th. I'm optimistic that it could be sooner but trying not to get my hopes up since that makes me a little crazy.

Update

Sorry to everyone who is excited for the baby, but I'm still pregnant. We really thought we'd be going in last Friday or Saturday, but this little guy is stubborn. Actually I think he wants out too, but my body just isn't cooperating.
I'm going back to the dr. today and we'll be discussing induction but I don't think that will happen for at least another week as long as the baby is doing well. So I'm just trying to not go crazy right now.