First Bath

After three weeks of sponge-bathing, Liam got his first official bath.  He loved it!
Not one tear.  Not one peep.  Not one whimper.

He is going to be a little fish!

My priorities

liam hanging out with his mimi pelton

Liam is so blessed to have wonderful grandparents on both sides.  And Matt and I were blessed to have his Mimi here for our first night out without the little guy.  We left Liam at home for a date night with his Mimi, while Matt and I had a date night to celebrate the big 3-0.

We had a lovely dinner and, after checking in with Liam--who was having so much fun with his grandma--we even decided to tack on a movie to our date.  We saw Inception--which was so good and thought provoking.  And we made it back for the babe's evening feeding.  All in all, a good night.  Liam had no issues with us being away, and Matt and I decided that it is so important for us to have "just-us" time.

Matt and I have always said that when we have children, our priorities need to remain the same.  #1 Priority: our individual relationships with God.  #2 Priority: our relationship as a married couple.  And then, when we started having children, they would become our #3 Priority(ties).  We are cognisant that it is so easy to allow the child to creep up to the #1 Priority--and don't get me wrong, I am not saying that we are going to ignore our beautiful boy or put his needs on the back burner.

But I do STRONGLY believe that it is of utmost importance that our son sees his Mom and Dad love the Lord and love each other and be wholly committed to those covenants.

I was lucky to watch my parents model this.  When my dad got home from work, he had couch time with my mom first.  We had to wait for our time with him.  My parents went out on dates and left us with baby sitters.  They even went on multiple vacations without us.  Come to think of it, they went on their "good" (Hawaii etc) vacations without us and only took us on camping trips and road trips to Washington state.  And you know what, we were not deprived children as a result of this.  We were well adjusted, secure kids--mostly because we knew intuitively that our parents' relationship was secure and their commitment was real.

So with all that said, we are going to work on making sure that Matt and I have "couch time", that we go on "dates" and that we continue to keep our priorities in place.  And a trip to Hawaii sounds like a good idea as well:)  But I think we will bring the babe on that one.

I am sooooo popular

Liam has had lots of friends come visit these past three weeks.  He loves all his new friends!

my dad

I love my daddy because he holds me, he burps me, he walks me around the house to make me happy and he feeds me.

-Liam

My little helper

Look who helped me with the laundry!

Happy Birthday Aunt Nicole!

Aunt Nicole,
I miss you!  Hope you have a happy birthday.  Thank you for all of the presents you got me for my birthday.  I owe you some good birthday presents for you!
Love, Liam

My old man

My husband turns thirty today.  And his birthday gives me much to celebrate, because without his existence I would not have the two greatest joys of my life--my love with him and my beautiful son.

Why am I the luckiest girl in the world?

- He is committed to Christ.

- He is my best friend.

- He loves me and Liam with everything in him.

- I love watching him be a daddy.

- I am more in love with him everyday.

- He makes me laugh until I pee my pants.

- He makes me oh, so very happy.

Happy 30th to Matt--you make 30 look great.  Here's to 30 more.

Tummy Time

I only had him do it for about one minute, but he liked it.  He will be a tummy time pro in no time.

Give and you shall receive.

This blog is going to be a long one.  For those of you who are skimmers, here's the brief version:  Give and you shall receive.  For those that want to read on, below is a short story on the so, so, so sweet young girls that are in our high school small group and the meandering thoughts about my son's future....

The fall of last year, Matt and I became youth small group leaders through our church.  We, along with about 8 other adult leaders meet with high school students once a week to discuss the Bible, life issues & relationships and have fun.  Of course, this seemed a bit daunting at first.  Would we be able to relate to the students?  Would they trust us?  Like us?  Think we were sticks in the mud?

The thing that convinced us to do it was the memories of youth leaders that invested in us when we were in high school.  They were 20-somethings and 30-somethings that chose to hang out with us awkward, annoying, gnarly teenagers over their peers and provide a model of what a cool, devoted Christian looks like.  They invested in us and we wanted to "pay it forward."  And by the way, all of our small group is pretty cool--no gnarly teens yet.   Little did I know that our "paying it forward" would "pay me back" as well.

On Tuesday, a handful of our small group girls came over to meet William and surprised us with some A LOT of gifts.  I remember being in high school, not having an income--and I know that the onesies and blankets that they brought were a sacrifice for our little boy.  It was such a sweet sight to see these young girls cradling and cooing at William and sharing their love with him.  I realized that while our intent was to "give back" to them, they had in fact given so much more to us.   Below is a shot of them meeting William, and then a shot of William meeting all of his new clothes from them.  So sweet and so generous.  What a blessing.

As I sit here watching my little boy sleep (in an outfit furnished by our small group girls),  I imagine what he will be like as a Jr. High and High School student.  I don't care as much about whether he is gnarly or awkward as much as I care about his character and convictions.  Who will pour into his life?  Who will invest the time to offer wisdom and guidance when he doesn't want to come to us for it?  

And it hits me...  It, may very well, be one of these young men from our small group.  Here is one to boggle the mind:  One of our high school young men, Josh, is the son of a woman who was my Jr. High youth leader.  It has already come full circle, and it could come full circle again.  Someday, Josh could be hanging out with Liam and his friends on Tuesday nights, talking about God and girls and life and probably the fight that Liam had with his mom and dad earlier that night (lets hope not...but it's possible).   So we better be the best leaders we can be to inspire this generation to be the leaders and role models for the next.

Once, a co-worker of mine asked me something to this effect: "What should I do to make sure my daughter turns out as well as you did--avoiding so much of the filth of this world."  I pondered the question for a moment and responded with two reasons:

1) Parents that modeled faith and provided me with a healthy fear of God, consequences and right vs. wrong.

2) Peers that had the same belief system and collectively decided to stay out of trouble and "do the right thing."

I would now add a third:  Role models, aside from your parents and peers, who can invest wisdom and a Godly example into the next generation.

Diaper Lessons

I was a nanny for years and changed many a diaper, but I specialized in girl diapers. Though I am sure that I have changed quite a few boys' diapers before--I apparently have forgotten the rules.  Either that, or their parents came home to a wet treat every time I babysat.  For those of you who need a refresher, here are some diaper-changing rules.  Follow them closely if you like a pee free day.

Rule #1 - Cover the "wee-wee" while changing.  There are a couple options for this, some less effective than others.  And we have tried all of them in the last week: hand (doesn't work very well and often redirects to other places in the room), washcloth, absorbing it in the new diaper (its like throwing a quarter in the wastebasket), and the most effective: "pee-pee tee-pee" (as shown below in William's fave camo print).  We recommend the tee-pees.  They absorb well and are machine washable.  It's like a stylish accessory to the diaper changing process.

Rule #2 - Point the penis down when putting on the diaper.  Matt says that it is simple science.  If the wee-wee is pointed up, all of the force pushes the tinkle to the sides, around his back and out the back side of the diaper.  We learned this the hard-way on our Frette sheets, couch (twice now), on mommy while I was feeding him and on Mimi's lap.  The picture below was the first offense to the couch and the least offensive.  The spot on our bed was probably 10 times larger.

The problem is that Liam has become a master at distracting us with his charm and good looks.  I mean, look at how darn cute he is laying on the couch.  Of course we forgot about the rules!

Rule #3 - Beware of a second round of poo while in the act of changing.  We aren't sure how to predict this happening, but on multiple occasions, Liam has decided to poop as we are changing the diaper.  If anyone has any advice on how to eradicate this, please comment.

Rule #4 - NEVER, EVER, EVER leave a naked Liam naked for long. No MATTER HOW CUTE HE IS!  Last week, we had Tori Wible come over for a photo shoot.  Of course, our shots were mainly nudie photos (hopefully he wont hold it against us later).  Unfortunately, this resulted in a golden arch of urine all over her props and equipment and poop all over his swaddle blankets.  Again, don't be fooled by how cute they are.  Take a look below at how sneaky he is--trying to distract us with his adorableness:

In 9 days, here is the tally: 

Pee on Furniture: 3 times

Pee on People: 8 times

Poo while changing: 4 times

Poo while looking cute for pics: 1

He's winning the battle right now, but after enacting these tips hopefully we will win the war!

Daddy Date

Liam loves his daddy time.  Matt decided to stay home for two weeks to play with his son, and Liam is very content in his arms.

Happy to be Home

He has a couple nicknames already--"monkey," "bird," "pooper," "the most adorable baby ever born".  Whatever we call him, HE IS OURS!  It is incredible to know that he is came from Matt and I and that this piece of perfection lived in my belly just a couple days ago.  Above all, it is humbling to know that God chose to entrust little Liam's life to us.

And so it begins--our family, this new life, and the great responsibility that comes with it.

I was ready to leave the hospital first thing in the morning the day after D-Day, but we had to wait until 24 hours after the delivery.  So at 2:30pm, on the dot, our new little family was allowed to leave the four walls of the hospital.  He calmed down for the car ride but as you can see below, he was very distressed about us putting on his outfit.  Thanks to daddy for picking out the going home outfit.  It fit perfectly!

Though it's a little larger than the pad he lived in the last nine months, William has adjusted very well to his new surroundings.  After a tour of the home, (I had to show him where he was going to live!) he let me know that he feels right at home.  "How did he tell you this?", you ask.  He slept, and slept and slept.  I am pretty sure that he felt very comfortable from the get-go.

Here are some pics of our family at home on day one.

Goodnight :)

He's here!!!

On Sunday, July 11, 2010 he finally arrived.  William "Liam" Thomas Kratz was born at 2:24pm weighing 8 pounds,  4 ounces/20.5 inches long and looking just like his daddy (pretty much the only features he got from me are his nose and dimples).  It is so incredible to see what God has been working on in my womb for the past 9 months.  I am biased, but I am pretty sure that he is perfect.

We are soooooo thankful for a healthy baby and a complication free labor/delivery.

As you probably read in my previous posts, I was overdue by a week.  I finally came to the conclusion that nothing I did would coerce him out (medicine ball, sex, pineapples, pedicures, walking, "curb" walking, walking, walking, walking--NOTHING did the trick), so we decided to take up the Dr. on his offer to induce.

I was hesitant, because I wanted to stick to my birth wishes as much as possible and with pitocin comes stronger contractions (leading to a higher likelihood of getting an epidural) and about a 50% greater chance of having a cesarean.  Fortunately, I was able to avoid both.   Dr. Cueto (a.k.a the best OBGYN EVER!) broke my water around 8am, gave me pitocin to speed things up at 9:30am and I delivered right before 2:30pm the same day.   Much faster than I thought it would take.  For all of those wondering--YES, it was extremely painful, but YES, you totally forget about the pain the moment your beautiful, slimy, screaming baby is laid on your chest.

He came into this world with quite the fan club--thanks to all of the family and friends that came to support, help, meet our little man and celebrate his birthday--birthday cake, presents and all!

It was without a doubt the most beautiful day of my life so far.  Here is a sample of the joy we experienced.