Alex's 2nd day - Post by Vladi

Today is May 9th, 2009. It was Alex's 2nd full day at home. We gave him a bath last night. We had fun bathing him. Angela and I did most of the bath since Sarah Beth is still recovering. Angela and I got peed on and SB and I got peed on his first night here when we changed him in the middle of the night on our bed. Today we took him to the pediatrician office. He showed no signs of jaundice. He was in the low risk category at the hospital and the pediatrician wanted to check him today. His weight is stable from Thursday. Sarah Beth is breastfeeding. The nightly schedule is somewhat crazy with doing it every two hours. We are starting to do it every three hours from this night forward so hopefully that will be better. SB thinks that all she does is feed him, change diapers and think about how she doesn't sleep. SB hasn't slept but a few hours the whole week, thats why the pediatrician said to feed him every three hours at night. Angela (Sarah Beth's mom) is helping us around the house a lot. I am glad that Angela is staying with us for a few weeks to help us out. I am coming back to work on Monday. I will definetely miss Alex and SB, but I want to save my vacation days since Angela is here to help us out. I know that I will need my vacation days until the end of the year with a little baby at home.

May 4th, 2009 (the day Alex was born) was the biggest life changing event in my life. I had big events in my life (including but not limited to moving to Israel from Russia, moving to U.S from Israel., becoming a U.S. citizen, getting married, etc...) but nothing compared to the day where you officially become a parent. Becoming a parent is a lot of work but the rewards make it worth it. It also puts a perspective of what my parents did for me when I was little and how challenging it is. They told me stories about it but you have to experience it for yourself. I feel bad for Angela since she has to go through all of this again. She said she is blessed and lucky.
Our cats adjusted well to Alex's arrival. It is interesting that before Alex was born- Maccabi (our big male cat) wanted attention more than Haifa (our smaller female cat), but now this has flipped. Haifa wants attention now while Maccabi is more content. Before Alex the cats were our babies. We still love them and hope that Alex will not be allergic to them. We try to give the cats as much attention as possible so they don't become jealous. I think it helps that there are two of them.

SB is planning to write a couple of blogs tomorrow- one that she has been planning for weeks.
A note to readers from around the world: In the previous blog I wrote about Alex becoming a UK fan. UK stands for University of Kentucky, not United Kingdom.

I wish all mothers a Happy Mother's Day tomorrow.