Arnold Articles: His first breath took ours away...

Lucas Henderson Arnold made his big debut on April 29th at 7:52 AM. Luke was 9.2 lbs. and 20.5 inches at birth. He is a healthy, precious baby boy! We are in love all over again! At first, everyone thought he looks just like Hudson; however, after a couple days (to me) he is starting to look different than Hudson. I have also caught myself accidentally calling Lucas "Hudson" just by habit. So far, Luke has been quite mellow and easy... although, I know this could change after a few days. We had lots of visitors at the hospital to see our new arrival, which was a lot of fun!

My delivery went smoothly for the most part. The only setback was that the first spinal didn't take, so they had to do a second one! I was not happy about this as the spinal is the part I was most worried about, so repeating it was not fun! However, it was better than the alternative.

A few things I will remember about Luke at 3 days old:

Luke's bottom lip quivers when he cries. At first, we kept thinking he was cold and then realized that it was his normal cry.

Luke likes to sleep on his side and he can ALREADY turn over onto his side on his own (beginning yesterday). He has done this a couple times where he was on his back and turns over to his side.

He likes his paci. I packed one just in case even though Hudson wouldn't take one, and Lucas loves it! He will keep it in his mouth for a long time. So far, we've only given it to him a couple times.

He likes to cover his eyes when he sleeps. He will either put his hands or his arm (when he's on his side) over his eyes when he sleeps. I haven't figured out yet if this is a comfort thing or if he is blocking any light to his eyes.

Luke loves to smile! I've caught several smiles while he was sleeping and while awake. Although, they aren't true smiles right now, I'll take them because they are so cute!

Our first night at home has been a piece of cake, so far! Last night, we got him up once during the night to eat (at 2:30), and we had to wake him up for even that. In fact, I think it took me at least 20 minutes to get that boy awake to eat! This is exactly how Hudson was!! Wanting to sleep all the time and it was such a chore to get him to eat. Once he's awake though, he's been breastfeeding like a champ! He starting off great as soon as we got out of the operating room and has been doing wonderful from the beginning. This is such a relief because it was so difficult with Hudson, which consumed most of my time when he was a newborn.

Last night, soon after we arrived home, my mom brought Hudson home to us.... WOW!! Hudson was very ticked when I opened the front door holding Lucas! He starting clinging to my legs crying and screaming. So, I gave my mom Lucas and went over to the couch to hold Hudson (since I can't pick him up right now). He got on my lap and then immediately got off and ignored me for a little while. You could tell he was not a happy camper. However, at this point, I think it was more because we left him for a few days rather than the baby at home because I don't think he realized that the baby was staying at our house. This morning, I got him up while Lucas was still sleeping in our bedroom, and Hudson was happy as ever... laughing and playing with me this morning. After Hudson was up for about half an hour, I brought Lucas out in his bouncy seat to seat next to me at the computer. When I brought him out, Hudson gave me the biggest smile and said baby. He's being sitting in front of him for several minutes looking at him closely and saying baby, so today he likes Luke's existence. I'll keep you posted on how it continues!

Also, everyone's been telling me and it's SO TRUE - Hudson seems enormous and heavy now! I figured that since I was prepared for it that he wouldn't seem so big to me, but that was wrong. It's so weird how much bigger and more grown up acting Hudson seems now with Luke here.

Here are a few pics, but I will get all of the pics from Luke's delivery organized and post them soon! Check out all the smiles I caught on camera while he was sleeping, and these were all separate smiles!