The Talens' Tales

First the picture: Wilbert took this picture on Sunday morning coming back from milking. We awoke to a winter wonderland that was truly beautiful. I had a tough time getting up that morning, but once I looked outside, I praised God for the beauty that I saw all around me. Second, an addition to the list of weird Wilbert sayings in the middle of the night: You want me to get water from each of the taps and put in the bottle? I am not sure why he thought that, but I quickly reminded him that our son needed milk, not water.

Today Joash is five weeks old. He is looking pretty good, don't you think? We are doing well too. We are still getting up when Joash wakes at night to feed and still supplementing with the bottle, but he is letting us get some longer stretches of sleep at night, which is so nice. However, it still can be tough to get up in the night. Wilbert still has some very funny things he says when he is waking up in the middle of the night. Here are some of my favorites. I always say, "Wilbert," and then wait for a response and then say, "Will you please get up and get the bottle for Joash." Here are my latest favorite responses: I don't know. I will get up in 22 minutes. (And my favorite, which may have been influenced by watching Avatar before going to bed) I am in the Navy Reserves and there a plug in the hall to warm up the bottle.

One nice thing about being from two different countries is that we can celebrate more holidays. And since there are a few more people from the states here, last night we had our own American Thanksgiving feast. There were six couples and all of the wives and two of the husbands were from the States. So the Americans out numbered the Canadians, which doesn't happen very often. And we had a feast. There was turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, bread, stuffing and three different kinds of pies for dessert and a pumpkin cake. It was wonderful. And the fellowship was great too. The hosts said there was no assigned seating, so the ladies all sat together at one of the table and guys at the other. It was funny how it worked out, but we had great conversations full of laughter. It was a great way to celebrate a holiday. Hopefully we have started our own tradition here.

Joash loves to cuddle, which we both love to take advantage of. In other news, the snowy, wintry weather continues. It is a good day to stay inside and take advantage of some more cuddling time.

Check out my four week muscles! I can't believe that Joash is four weeks old already. It seems like it was just yesterday that was born. Thankfully things are going really well. Today he had another check up with the public health nurse and he is out of the woods weight wise now. I am so thankful for this. Now we can just do our own thing and let Joash take more of the lead as to when he would like to feed and things like that. He always eats so much better when he wants to eat. As he grows, he is more alert too, which is quite fun. It is pretty clear that he needs his sleep though, too. Today's public health visit overlapped with his nap time and was all out of sorts until 1:00 when he finally settled in for a nap after his second feeding following the public health nurse visit. It amazes me how I can be pretty frustrated with him and then looks at me with his big blue eyes and does something cute that makes my heart melt once again.

It is snowing. I shouldn't complain. It isn't really sticking to the ground much yet and in Minnesota they had a Winter Storm Warning last week. So we really have had it pretty good. And there was a confused woodpecker. He was pecking at some of the wood that separates the different panes of glass on our windows. I tried to get a picture, but I was too slow. I just hope he doesn't return and start pecking on the glass.

Joash looks very calm in this picture. That was not so much the case last night. He was irritable and fussy from about 6-10 pm last evening and nothing seemed to soothe him. We were about at our wits end. Then, when I tried feeding him again at 10, he finally calmed down and fell asleep. And he slept until I woke him at 3 to feed. That means I got four hours of sleep in a row. I am pretty sure that is the longest stretch of sleep I have had since he was born. And after the evening, it was much needed. Thankfully he woke up very happy today, so hopefully we are getting back on track. His weight was up again yesterday, but not quite as much as they would like. So, we are continuing to feed often and supplement as well. But, I can tell that his skin is a better color, he is growing (some of his newborn stuff is almost too small) and he is more alert. The other day he was laying under his gym and he was hitting one of the danging rattles that made a nice noise. He did that for a long time....

Joash is quite a good sleeper. This is partly due to his jaundice and hematoma, but I do hope that it is also just a part of a his personality as well. I am a person who needs my sleep. My mom like to tell the story about how when I was little I would ask if I could go bed. So, yes, I like my sleep and I hope that my son takes after me. But as all new parents know, sleep is usually not part of the equation when you have a newborn. And with Joash's weight loss, we have been needing to wake up every three hours to wake up Joash to feed him. so our sleep is broken up into 1 1/2 to 2 hour chunks during the night. Since we have been needing to supplement Joash at every feeding, our routine at night has been that I get up and nurse Joash. Then, when I am nearing the end of the nursing time, I call Wilbert so that he can get Joash's bottle ready. Wilbert then feeds Joash his bottle, changes Joash's diaper and settles him back in bed. A pretty good system we think, but we have some...

The question everyone asks now is who does Joash look like. We think he has a bit of both of us clearly showing in his face, but I will let you decide for yourself. Joash at 18 days (don't you just love his chubby cheeks?) Denise as a newborn (Apparently Frohawks were in during the early 80's as well) Wilbert at a few days old. looking a little leery of whomever's lap he is on.

A while back I wrote about a random couple who had gotten in touch with us because they read my blog and they are moving to PEI. Well, last week they were on the Island and they stopped by for a visit. We had a very nice time getting to know them better. They know quite a bit about our lives from the blog, so we spent most of the time learning about their story. They hope to move to the Island next year some time. It was very neat to hear how God has worked in their life and how they are feeling led to the Island right now. Here we are together. They even brought a gift for Joash. We hope that we can keep in touch with them as they move to Island.. Hurray for new friends

Not only was Joash a surprise in coming early, but it was a surprise to me that he was a boy. We never found out what we were going to have, but I always pictured myself having a girl. I think it comes from growing up in a family with only sisters. What do I know about boys? Sure, I am married to a wonderful one, but really, what do I know about raising a boy? But, I do wonder if subconsciously I knew I was having a boy. There were several times where I was purchasing something for the baby and I went with a more boy choice rather than a girl choice. Or maybe it is just my personal dislike of pink that drove me to chose the blue tone fabric for curtains and Boppy pillow cover. And a few of the gifts I received would have worked for a girl, but were certainly more boy color themed as well. Either way, I love my little guy and wouldn't trade him for the world. But, I do hope that some day he will have a little sister. I don't know what he thinks about that idea though.

After Joash was born, he started to lose weight. I know this is normal and all babies do this, but he lost over 10% of his birth weight and that was a concern for everyone. Thankfully, the public health nurses that come to visit us at home come for this very reason. They then suggest a plan of action to help get his weight back up. There were lots of reasons why Joash lost so much weight. He was early, a bit jaundice and has a large hematoma on his head from birth. He is very sleepy and doesn't even really wake up when he is hungry. And mama's milk was really slow in coming in. So eventually our action plan required us to supplement his feedings with some formula. We started out doing a line feed so that he wouldn't get hooked on a bottle too early. But, since it looked like we would be doing this for a while, we finally had a to get a bottle. Mom, Dad and Joash took at outing to the store to get what we needed. We were in a hurry because we were expecting some visitors wh...

So, my wonderful husband started a long and elaborate post shortly after Joash was born about the day of his birth. If he ever finishes it...well I would be surprised. Trying to finish everything we were going to do before the little guy came into this world is enough work in and of itself. And since today is the one day after the day we expected him to arrive, I will give you a few details. The key to the whole story is that my husbands's parents were gone to the Netherlands, trying to squeeze in a trip before the baby came. They even went earlier then they first intended to on account of the baby being born. So, we were in charge of the farm and my husband's sister who is in high school. We were staying at the farm since that is a million times easier than running back and forth all of the time. I was doing enough running myself, getting things from our house and getting my sister-in-law to all of her stuff. On Monday, October 25th, the day before my husband's parents wer...

"Hi, everyone! My name is Joash and I am one week old already!" I always wondered why people who had babies seemed to fall of the face of the earth. Now I know. More to come soon about the birth and life so far of the newest Talen (and cutest baby on the planet), Joash.