Jingle bells?

I think Benjamin thought that our minivan (which I *love* by the way--Toyota Sienna) was a one-horse open sleigh because he was laughing all the way home from the hospital. Seriously, leaving that jail cell of a crib and the monitors and tubes must have had a bigger impact than we realized it could have on a nine-month old because he was cracking up all the way home! And he couldn't even see us! We weren't doing it. Just the sheer joy of being free, I suppose!

Speaking of laughing, I feel sorry for those of you who don't have a funny husband. Because mine is dorkily (is that a word?) hilarious. On the way home, we passed the entrance to the Chattanooga Warner Park Zoo. We've never actually been, and you can't see anything from the entrance. We had to turn right and pass the side of the zoo, and Matthew said, "Where is it? I don't see anything!" I assured him that yes, there is a zoo somewhere in that vicinity, and yes, I've heard it's decently sized. He scoffed, "I think they just took a pony and a rabbit and called it a zoo." Oh my. (Okay, so you probably had to be there, but I thought it was funny. And evidently so did Benjamin b/c he just continued laughing in the back seat, facing the other way.)

So, yes, we are home. And it is glorious. And as much as I miss Andrew and his sweet voice, he is going to stay at my parents' house until after his nap. That will give us some time to finish unpacking (almost finished already!) and just kind of relax. We're about to give Baby B a bath and then hopefully he will take a good nap.

I think one HUGE silver lining in all of this is that I *think* I have successfully gotten B 100% on the bottle, which is a tremendous accomplishment. I am still pumping but will most likely run out of milk soon, as my supply is already dwindling. I'm mixing the milk that I do have with formula and will do so until all the milk is gone. I have not nursed him since early in the morning (2:30) on Tuesday, and while it's bittersweet, I think that this was probably the only way it could've happened without a huge struggle. Prior to this, he would NOT, I repeat, NOT take a bottle from me OR MATTHEW! We had had luck having a couple of other people do it (at their houses with us nowhere around), but he just wouldn't do it from us. But now he does, and it's so nice. I knew that I didn't have enough milk to be able to nurse him without supplementing anyway, and there's no way that he would put up with nursing one minute and then drinking a bottle to make up for the milk that was lacking. So this is great!! I fear that it will be hard to teach him how to use a sippy cup in a few months when he transitions to whole milk, and we do have to heat the formula/breastmilk up quite a bit for him to take it, but those are things I am willing to deal with to wean him so effortlessly. So, YAY! A big answer to prayer.

We can't give B a "real" bath for about a week b/c of his incision, but we are going to try to get him as clean as humanly possible otherwise right now b/c after a week in a hospital bed, He. Is. Nasty.

Talk to you soon!!