Back to himself

Here's a video from this morning. Caleb has been sick for the past 4 days with an eye infection and sore throat. Yesterday he was really fussy but today he seems to be doing a lot better. Thank you eye drops and amoxicillin!

Last minute trip

Derrick and I bought cheap plane tickets last Thursday and flew out to Utah Saturday through Tuesday. We had so much fun and it was nice to have some help with Caleb. Here's two pictures of Caleb on his first airplane ride. He did great--slept almost the whole time. Thanks Great Aunt Mary for the cute outfit (the hat doesn't fit yet).

Here's what Derrick and Scott did for a lot of the time there. The favorite NES game was Contra and Super Contra.

Once when I asked Derrick to hold Caleb. Here's where Caleb ended up.

Great Grandma Isaacson holding Caleb for the first time.

Four generations of Isaacsons right here. On my side, Caleb has a Great Great Grandma still alive in Pennsylvania. Maybe we'll get a picture of 5 generations someday.

Here's Aunt Julie holding Caleb. Everyone loved holding Caleb, especially Grandma Isaacson and the Aunts. Everyone was so sad when we had to leave. We hope we can see them again soon!

Let's Catch up

We took Caleb on his first walk last week. It felt good to get out!

Ok, so we love to do the matching shirt thing. Here's Derrick with a Dunder Mifflin and Caleb with a Dwight bobblehead onsie. Those hanging flowers in the back are a gift from our neighbors when they came over to visit Caleb for the first time.

Father and son times are the best. I love when Derrick reads to Caleb from his spanish scriptures and when he plays the hymns one handed while holding Caleb. Derrick's a great dad!

Grandma Isaacson asks Derrick to text her pictures everyday of Caleb. So, here's one we took last week to send to her.

More Caleb

I'm going to be posting a lot more often. Now that we have a baby there's so much more to post. First off, when Caleb is sleeping in his chair he always seems to get in these funny model-like poses. Here's two of them:

On Friday night Caleb's umbilical cord stump came off. So, on Saturday night we gave him his first bath. He hated the washcloth bath before but loved sitting in the water and being cleaned. He only cried when we started taking pictures and then when he got out. He had to be cold.


Here's me holding him after he was all changed and clean after the bath:

Sunday we took him to church. He ate right before church and then slept for the full 3 hours. He woke up right at the end so we rushed home and fed him. Some people in our new ward invited us to dinner that night so when Caleb was done feeding we went to their house and Caleb slept the whole time we were there too. What a good baby! Here's Caleb dressed up in his Sunday clothes (they're a little too big right now):

Today we went to the doctor's office and Caleb is back up to 7 lbs 13 oz. Almost his birth weight. He's progressing really fast because the doctor said most babies hit that mark at week 2 and Caleb is at 9 days. He has been eating a lot.

Lastly, here's a video of Caleb from today while he had some hiccups:

Tax Day Tea Party

All across the nation on Wednesday, April 15th, people gathered together for Tax Day Tea Parties in protest of large government spending.


Danielle was nice enough to stay home with the new baby so I could attend. The protests took their theme from the iconic December 16th, 1773 Boston Tea Party that protested taxation without representation.

taxdayteaparty.com explains the modern tea parties:

The Tea Party protests, in their current form, began in early 2009 when Rick Santelli, the On Air Editor for CNBC, set out on a rant to expose the bankrupt liberal agenda of the White House Administration and Congress. Specifically, the flawed “Stimulus Bill” and pork filled budget.

The protesters were ordinary Americans concerned about the out of control government spending on entitlement programs that will enslave ourselves and generations ahead with crushing debt.

I attended the nearest tea party which was in the Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park in downtown San Jose from 5-7 pm. I made a sign from an image I downloaded and drove down hoping to find someone else when I got there. It wasn't hard. There were several hundred people in the park and multiple news stations with their big vans covering the event. In case you missed all of that, you could not miss the constant honking as rush hour commuters drove by and honked and gave big thumbs up in support. It was a blast!

It was a pretty easy crowd to to join too. There were people from all walks of life: young parents with kids, senior couples, war veterans waving flags, and young adults. Luckily it wasn't the wild chain-yourself-to-a-government-building protest. A kinda geeky engineer like myself fit in much better. :) Probably more effective too.

There were also some entertaining signs. Some of my favorite were these:


Here's a quick 360 degree view of the group with cars constantly honking in the background.


Here's a couple pics I snapped with my phone:

Caleb, Day 5 and 6

Day 5 Caleb went to the grocery store for the first time. He was looking around a lot when we first got in, but after about 3 minutes he just conked right in my arms. I could see a few people whispering, "Look a little baby." Little babies are so cute. Here's proof:

Day 6 Caleb wore his onsie with Dilbert on it. Derrick happened to be wearing his Stanford Engineering shirt. We had to get a picture of that combo. Also, another video. I can't get enough of that cute face (neither can either Grandma)!

Caleb Derrick Isaacson...the first days of life

Well, he's finally here. The sweet little addition to our family. Saturday morning I woke up to contractions. I didn't know that's what they were at first but we figured that out soon enough. We got to the hospital at 2:30pm and when they checked me I was 6cm dilated but since my water hadn't broken yet she could stretch me to 9cm. I got an epidural and as soon as that kicked in I felt no pain whatsoever. It was amazing! I'd recommend it to anyone. Here's us after I got the epidural.

After a little bit of time they broke my water and I quickly got to 10cm. This is the amazing part--I pushed for a total of 13 minutes and through 4 contractions. Again, no pain at all. They told me not to tell anyone that it was so easy because most women don't have it that easy. He was born at 6:28pm. As soon as he came out he was peeing all over the doctor, then they put him on my chest and he peed all over my arm too. He was crying and crying but I was so happy to see him. I was totally crying at that point because I was so overjoyed to see my baby here and healthy.

They cleaned him up, weighed him in at 7 lbs 14 oz and measured him at 21 inches.

Then they took me to my room and then Derrick went to the nursery where they were bathing Caleb, putting up on the security device and clothing him. When they broug ht him back to me I loved holding him. It's hard to believe he is my baby. Derrick and I are totally in love with him. We think he is so cute especially when he's awake and his big blue eyes are looking at you. This is my favorite video of him.

We had a bit of a rough time at the hospital since we had a shared room and the baby next door screamed the entire night. Even though Caleb slept for a few hours we couldn't enjoy that time to sleep. That was frustrating. Also, we had a hard time with eating. Before we left the hospital he dropped down to 7 lbs 1 oz. The doctor was a little worried because that's a little more weight than is normal to lose. She told us to rent an electric pump and after he's done with a feeding give him a little more with a syringe and then have a check up the next day to see if he's doing better. I felt totally sad because I felt like I was doing a bad job and frustrated because I didn't know how to help him latch on.

We left the hospital Monday evening and had to stop at the drug store to pick up my pain meds and then at another store to get the pump. Caleb slept the whole time and even through us making dinner. He woke up right when we finished eating...what a good boy. However, we were then up almost the whole night for one reason or another. After many hours of me being up with him Derrick offered to watch him and let me sleep. When I woke up Derrick was really happy and he said how he just had quality father son time. I am so glad that I have Derrick home to help me. There is no way I could get through this early stage alone.
On Tuesday we went to the doctor's office and Caleb gained 3 oz. Yay!!! He's doing so much better with feedings and I felt a lot better when I heard he was gaining weight.


Here's Caleb in his lamb seat. My mom gave it to us and I'm so glad we have it because he'll sleep for 4 hours straight in it...what a life saver.

Random

When I posted our trip to Yosemite last September I said I would try to figure out how to flip a video and then I would put it on. Well, 7 months later I figure it out. Here's Derrick's amazing ability to skip rocks. I couldn't see very well in the screen while I was filming but he didn't skip the rock 4 times like I said...it was like 10! See for yourself!


Also, here's another stomach picture from 1 1/2 weeks ago. I went out yesterday to the bank and Walmart and even though I'm due on Saturday I swear every other pregnant woman I saw was bigger than me. How is that possible?

Nursery...almost done

I went to Michael's yesterday and got these letters and stuff to make these lambs. All I used was cardboard, felt, yarn and glue. I felt so crafty making them. I also felt a little pain too. I totally gouged my left palm when I was cutting the cardboard. It doesn't look bad but it's kind of deep. That's ok because I like how the lambs turned out so it was worth it :)



On the wall above the crib I still want to put this picture of Christ as the Good Shepherd. It's my favorite!


Above is a little container with lambs on it. It is going to be our dresser for now. I love the cute stuffed lambs we got!

Here is the glider we just bought...it matches the crib perfectly! We ordered it online for in-store pick up so we won't get it for another week or two but I'm excited!