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Well, mommy went and did it.  She left for a few days and then had the audacity to come back home with a baby to rival for Ethan’s time and attention.  He was less than pleased.  I guess my first clue was when he came to visit us in the hospital and would only go to daddy.  He didn’t want anything to do with me and even less to do with Isaac.  And I must admit that it hurt, I wouldn’t be human if it didn’t.  But it is getting better.  The first day home Ethan would barely acknowledge my presence; the second he would forget for a second that he was mad at me and grace me with a smile until I spoke and he remembered he was mad again; today was the third and he actually let me play cars with him for a few minutes.  So I think we’re on our way to getting back to normal.  I hope so since his grandparents leave for home on Sunday, Ryan goes back to work on Monday, and then we’re on our own again.  As for our other little boy, he’s a sweetie.  Of course, he’s been asleep most of the last four days but he’s rapidly becoming a part of our family.  Isaac doesn’t look much like his brother at all, it remains to be seen if they have any personality traits in common.  But he’s pretty cute, and I’m very excited to learn what he’s all about!

Our son Isaac was finally born this evening at 7:27pm! His full name is Isaac Stephen Melton, he was 7 pounds 1 oz, and 19 1/2 inches long. Mom and Baby are doing well and looking forward to introducing him to his big brother and grandparents tomorrow!

Here are the first pictures:

Everyone knows that pregnant women get weird cravings.  Sometimes they’re just temporary, sometimes they last the entire pregnancy, and sometimes they only hit in the wee hours of the morning, but we all get them.  With Ethan, I craved fruit and Dr. Pepper.  This baby is not quite so healthy though, and my cravings have run towards chocolate ice cream and McDonald’s southern chicken sandwiches.  Which means I’ve eaten McDonald’s a little less than once a week for quite a few months in a row now.  Which also means that Ethan has developed an affinity for their cheeseburgers; not that he gets one every week, just often enough for him to translate “lunch” into meaning stopping at McDonald’s.  And that is where the betrayal comes in.  Now whenever we drive past those golden arches, I hear a “lunch” from the backseat.  I was hoping his daddy wouldn’t notice, and I’m not really sure that he has, but I have!  So it’s just one more in a long list of reasons that his little brother should get here soon, so that mommy will stop craving the chicken sandwiches and Ethan will stop betraying me by pointing out oh so gently that maybe mommy should try making him a healthy lunch at home instead of hitting the drive thru yet again.  But I guess it’s not all bad as I’ve gained less weight with the ice cream baby than with the fruit baby.  But that may have been because I never lost all the fruit baby’s weight.  Hmmm, gonna have to think on that more.  Or maybe I’ll just go have a bowl of ice cream…

Ethan’s tastes tend to run more in line with his mom’s so far, which makes sense since I’m usually the one feeding him.   He overall eats most things, most would say he’s less picky than I am; though I don’t consider myself overly picky, other people may beg to differ.    He’s finally started to eat chicken, which he wouldn’t do until introduced to KFC fried chicken.  He’s still a little picky about it, but he will at least try and  swallow it now.  The one thing he wouldn’t eat at all until today was seafood, but seriously who can blame him?!  Not that we eat much seafood, I just can’t stand the smell or taste of it.  We went to Joe’s Crab Shack this evening (Ryan’s choice) and of course he ordered seafood while I had chicken.  Ryan gave Ethan some fish and some crab cake to try, which he did and promptly spit back out.  Naturally I was pleased.    But then we tried again, this time with “sauce”.  Ethan has recently discovered the joys of ketchup and loves to dip things in it.  The other day he just ate plain ketchup with a spoon and kept going back for more.  So Ryan tried dipping the fish and crab in ketchup, and down it went!  So naturally, this time Ryan was pleased.    I still hope he’ll develop a more discerning palate as he gets older, we’ll see.  But now at least we have discovered the secret to new foods, I just need to carry around ketchup packets in my purse along with the cereal.