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Introducing: Soren Miles

Our second little guy has made his arrival!

Soren Miles was born on October 24, 2017 at 4:22 p.m. and we have been completely smitten ever since.  He's a little love bug who loves to cuddle, is a big grunter/squeaker, and has the brightest alert eyes when he's actually awake.

I think I mentioned on here before (and on Instagram) that I was getting a little sad about our days with "just Lars" coming to an end.  I felt sad for both him and us, knowing that our attention and hands-on time were going to be divided between two kids.  I really can't explain it, but nothing has felt sad about the transition since Soren has arrived.  Somehow instead of having to split your love between multiple children, your heart just grows even bigger.

It has helped a LOT that Lars has been nothing but extremely proud to be a big brother and wants to help as much as possible.

Don't get me wrong - Lars has been more clingy to both of us lately, wanting us to hold him more, and sometimes even fake pouting when Soren cries.  But overall, his reaction to his new brother has exceeded both of our expectations.  He helps grab diapers, "helps" carry the carseat, introduces Soren to all of our guests, and excitedly announces when Soren needs milk.  It's pretty dang cute.

Of course, with a new baby comes a lot of not so pleasant things, too.  Sleepless nights, sore nipples, physical recovery from labor and delivery (ugh), and postpartum hormones, just to name a few.  I think one of the most misleading things, when it comes to having a new baby, is all of the pretty photos that people post, without mention of all the unpretty things that are also happening.

Personally, my recovery from labor this time around has been one thousand times easier than with Lars.  I think this has mostly to do with the fact that my labor was so much easier.  I'll probably write out Soren's birth story and share in the coming weeks, but a quick overview is that it was much quicker, less physically exhausting, and during the DAY, meaning no sleep deprivation from the start.  It was a super enjoyable experience that makes me much less afraid of giving birth again, if we have more kids.

That said, I still tore meaning I had to be stitched up, and that makes a lot of things uncomfortable.  And postpartum hormones are no joke, friends.  For the most part I have felt pretty level headed, but there are some moments when I can cry for no reason, or something very little will make me really emotional.  This mostly happens when I'm super tired, so I've been trying to nap as much as possible to catch up on sleep I've lost overnight.  Really, I've just been embracing this part of the fourth trimester and trying to get through it.

As far as breastfeeding, my experience this time around has been different, mostly in a good way.  If you followed back when Lars was born, you might remember I had ductal thrush for SIX weeks before it was diagnosed.  This made my initial experience with breastfeeding pretty awful.  Every feeding was painful.  With Soren, I've been really careful to do everything I can to avoid thrush, clogged ducts, and mastitis and so far things have felt pretty normal.  My nipples were super sore for a few days, but after the initial shock of starting up breastfeeding again, they aren't sore anymore.

The biggest challenge I've had with him, so far, has been keeping him awake for feedings - both day and night.  He starts to feed and automatically falls asleep.  I don't remember this problem with Lars, so I haven't been sure what to do.  Luckily, he was over his birth weight when he was 4 days old so I haven't been worried about him gaining weight.  The problem is just making sure he feeds enough during the day so he's not up all night cluster feeding (still getting this one figured out), and also not being too engorged with milk, which is a really uncomfortable feeling and makes feeding even more difficult.

We were super lucky to have a ton of family around to help out the first couple of weeks.  My mom was around to help out with Lars during labor and afterwards which was amazing.  I really wanted Lars to be at home when we brought Soren home to hopefully make the adjustment as smooth as possible, and I think it really helped.  Marc's parents have been around with food and my dad and stepmom were here this weekend to meet Soren and spend some time with us.  Soren is a super lucky boy to have such amazing grandparents!

While I did some work ahead of time to make sure it wasn't complete radio silence on the blog, things will be a little slow for the next week or two.  I'm going to slowly get back into recipe development this week, to hopefully bring you some tasty Thanksgiving recipes.  Then next week we are heading to South Dakota for my brother's wedding!  My plan is to hit the ground running after the wedding weekend with lots of yummy holiday recipes...I can't believe the holidays are upon us!

Oh and I plan on starting back up with my Life Detox series next Sunday.  Be sure to check back to see my kitchen capsule!

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  1. I tied to send this, "What a beautiful family! Congratulations." but it says it is a duplicate message. Could I have said the same message when Lars arrived, or is everyone commenting on how beautiful your family is??? Let's see if this one goes through.

  2. Welcome to the world Soren! What a handsome little guy and glad to hear things are going a little easier for you this time around too! Couldn't agree with you more about having a baby! It's amazing but equally hard. You are a rock-star mama! Also that is awesome that Lars loves his baby bro so much 🙂
    Have fun at the wedding and looking forward to seeing more adorable family photos and upcoming recipes!