Look at me I'm a moo cow!

I know I'm biased but I'm pretty sure we have the cutest kid on the planet! What a lump. This isn't the greatest picture but it's the best we could get. Kristin turned Nicholas into a giant moo cow for Halloween!

Not much new to report here. He's been getting much more alert and eating and eating, and eating......... Oh yea, he poops too. Tomorrow he's going to the doctors again to get the jaundice checked. He started looking like a banana again this morning so we just wanted to have him looked at. Other than that he is cool, content and figuring things out. Today he discovered he has feet while he was getting a diaper change. It was pretty funny to watch. He was screaming and crying and when he reached up and grabbed his foot curiosity took over.







We just found out out next door neighbor is 17 weeks preggers so Nicholas is going to have a little friend his age to play with. If we stay here they can get together and do yard work together while their daddy's have a beer on the deck!

So that's the exciting world of the Cutler's right now. He's being such a good baby I can't even believe it! Hopefully it stays that way.

My many faces

Today we learned how to express our emotions while watching our favorite sporting events. This is the face we use when someone slams a double off the Monstah!

This is how we tell the ump he sucks!

This is the face we use when we see Timlin coming in from the bullpen in the ninth inning when we are up by 2!

This is the face we use after too many hot dogs and beers at the park...

Sleep is for the weak!

Look at the little man! This is him in his car seat leaving the hospital. He's got some room to grow into!

Our first night home presented some challenges for all of us. He was getting to know the place and feel things out while being uncomfortable from one of the most disturbing procedures he will every have. I can't even discuss it with out shivering.......... None of us slept very well last night is what I'm getting at.

Today has been a different story. We've all sort of found our way and place in the family. Seems to have settled down nicely. Even the animals are figuring things out fairly well. Nicholas had his first pediatrician visit today. Somehow I was the one who ended up getting a shot from the doctor. It's almost flu season! Dr. Friedman said he is doing well, just wants to see him pack on the lbs. If he keeps up the pace he's at it feels like he'll be eating a 1/2 gallon of milk in a feeding. Only other concern with him is the Jaundice. He's still got a touch of it so we're going to keep an eye on that over the next week.

He is really the most well behaved baby. We couldn't have asked for anything better. We're hoping it stays that way. It has been nice just having the 3 of us here today. Everyone is relaxed and getting to know each other. We're working on a routine still, but we're getting there.

If anyone wants to come visit just give us a call. A couple of ground rules before coming: If you have the slightest sniffle, cough, or twitch of any type of sickness, please hold off. This little guy would be devastated if he got sick right now. He would end up in the hospital again. There will be plenty of time to get to know him when he gets to be a little bigger and stronger. Waiting a few days would be the best for everyone. You will be put through a thorough decontamination upon arrival! I don't want to scare you, but you will have to get naked at the door.

It's time for a feeding so I'm off. Hope everyone is well.

Mom I'm Home!

In a great turn of events the doctor let Nicholas come home early today! We couldn't be any more thrilled. The doc said there was absolutely no reason for him not to come home today unless we were not comfortable with it. He passed all his final exams at the hospital today and convinced everyone he is fine. Right now he is coo coo cooin' away in his bassinet. I'm guessing filling a diaper.

We arrived home around 6:15 to the wet sniffing noses of the cats and dog. They are doing great dealing with his arrival. Tigua keeps sniffing his little head and has managed to control himself very well. He is laying right next to the bassinet. He's such a good dog!

Lastly, here is our one request. We would like to have tomorrow (Tuesday) to ourselves as a nice quiet family day. If you could all please hold off calling or coming over until Wednesday, we would really appreciate it. We haven't been able to be alone with each other yet! Visiting hours will go back into effect Wednesday morning :)

That's it for now. Hope everyone is well.

Eat, Sleep, Poop - Repeat!

It's been a couple of days so here is what has been going on! Nicholas is doing incredibly well. He's happy as can be and moving around like crazy. You wouldn't know it from these pictures though. He does like to sleep! He's already picking up his head and stretching out his feet pushing against things. He's making good eye contact, even smiles and laughs. I thought he was smiling at me, turned out to be a happy fart...... He's up to 5lb 6.5oz which doesn't surprise me with how much the kid is eating. You can even see the difference already in the pictures. Today he had his second bath and seemed to like it much better than the first one. Rumor around the nursery is that he's coming home tomorrow night (Monday) or Tuesday. I'm thinking he'll be here Tuesday. There are some things that need to be done still that I think will push it to Tuesday.

Kris and I are tired and ready for him to come home. I've been going up to see him after work for a couple of hours the last three days which has made for some long days. Thank goodness my set is over. When I go to work and want to sit around it never happens. Kris has been spending the better part of the days up at the hospital feeding the little man. Sorry to say, I don't have a ton of new photos. I'll work on that tomorrow.

All around things seem to be going very well...... More tomorrow!

Can you believe he is here!

Wow! I'm not quite sure where to begin... What a week and a half it has been!

First, thanks you to everyone for all of your warm wishes and help over the past week and a half. It has meant a lot to us and made our lives easier. Second, I decided to give this blog thing a shot to update everyone. Trying to keep everyone up to date with a combination of e-mails, text messages, and phone calls has gotten extremely hard and time consuming. I figured one central spot for info and pictures would work better. So if your interested keep checking back. I'll make improvements and keep it up to date as I can. OK..... Lets recap the events of the last week and a half! Nicholas Alan Cutler made his grand entrance into the world at 6:31pm on Saturday October 18th. Six weeks early. He is named after a bunch of people. His great grand dad, grand dad, and dad are all named Nicholas, we just have different middle names. Alan we borrowed from his other grand father! He's the cute guy in all these photos. Weighing in at a featherweight 5lb 1oz and 18 inches long! Kristin's water broke EARLY Wednesday morning (3:34am is the time I saw when I went running down the hall to see why she was screaming my name.) So we called the doc and off to the hospital we went. They checked her out and did an ultrasound on the baby, everything was in good shape. They gave her some steroids to help Nicholas's lungs, brain and intestines advance as much as possible before his arrival. Then they gave he medication to hold off any labor. This went on for two days. Friday morning all medications were stopped and they let nature takes it's course. Did I mention that every time they did an ultrasound his size put him a week ahead. So, although he was 33 1/2 weeks he was measuring almost 35 weeks in size! That helped him a lot. Early Saturday morning I got a call from Kris. It was time, this was going to happen today. Off I went to the hospital. Many labor pains, and an epidural later. We had our son Nicholas. What can I say about Kris - she made it look easy. Since then Nicholas has been in the NICU at New Britain General Hospital. The staff there has been amazing. We can't say enough good things about them. Nicholas has been fine since birth. He hasn't needed any interventions other than some IV fluids and light therapy for billiruben (sp?). Like his dad, he's eating way to much way to fast! Today he weighed in at 5lb 3.8oz., a good increase since he had dipped into 4lb territory, which was completely expected. Today we received more good news. He is coming out of his heated plastic hut into an open crib tonight, and best of all, it looks like he's coming home Mon night or Tuesday morning! We can't wait! Well that's about it for now. I'm going to get more images up onto the web so everyone can see. It may take a day or two so check back for directions! Hope all is well and than you all so much again. Not really sure how we would have done this without you all!