The Calk Family: Being Thankful

(Today is Mamo's birthday - Happy Birthday Mamo!)

I am thankful to be George's mommy! George is our sweet, newborn baby - just 6 weeks old today!

During my first conversation with Bonham, he said that he wanted as many children as his wife would let him have. Ha! I worked at my parents' day care at the time and I said that I only wanted 2. We both discussed that we would like to have some of our own biological children and then adopt two more. As time went on and we had one child and then another... Bonham said 2 was good and we should stop there! And trust me, there were days that I felt the same. But for the longest time, there has been a part of me that has felt like I was supposed to be a mommy of more children, whether biological or adopted.

After going back and forth on which path to take for expanding our family, we decided to have another baby. We aren't getting any younger! We learned of our pregnancy on the evening of January 23rd of this year. We were only 3 weeks and 6 days pregnant. Our due date (which I loved) was October 3, 2013 (10/3/13)... again with the math. :)

If you remember from my previous post, we had picked out George as our boy name when we were pregnant with Jayna. Since we didn't use it but had it picked out, I didn't feel like we could use it when we were pregnant with Barrett. We actually didn't even discuss it as an option with Barrett. But before we were pregnant this time, we knew that we wanted to use it. We like that all of our children have a family name. George is named after Bonham's maternal grandfather, George Bonham Wright. Bonham is also named after him, but only his middle name, of course. We had picked out Cecilia Marie for a girl's name. Cecilia was my great-grandmother's name and Marie is my middle name. It's still on the table if our next baby is a girl. :)

George is a sweet little baby who makes the cutest expressions and the BEST smile - I try to catch it as often as I can. I look forward to when he has responsive smiles on a regular basis. He has given a few recently (or maybe it was good timing), but it's not consistent enough for me to add it to the baby book! Bonham likes to say that he is expressionistic, but I told him that's not really a word. George sleeps better than Jayna, but not as good as Barrett. I would say that he sleeps the normal about of time that a baby should. He has a good pattern of sleeping, eating, pooping, and being awake. He has his days of being fussy, but overall he is a very good baby.

George loves his sister, Jayna! And she is so good with him. Bonham jokes that I am his favorite person and Jayna is his second favorite person. Barrett loves him too, but gets bored with him fairly fast. I know that once George is up and around, that will change. Both of the big kids tell us multiple times a day that they are glad we had George and that they love him. That makes my heart happy. I knew that they wanted us to have more children, but you never really know how they will react once the baby is here. They both still talk about the next baby, so I think they are handling it well.

This is a picture of them in their shirts to announce

they will be having a baby brother or sister...

I wasn't going to post my birth story, since I had recently done that HERE. It's kind of funny how George's story has similarities from the other two, but was still it's very own story... I had a delay to get admitted and got a late start on the induction like with Jayna (not as extreme though), The labor went quickly (not as quick as Barrett's though), and I received an epidural like I did with Jayna.
George was born on September 25, 2013 at 2:38pm and weighed 6 lbs, 5 oz and was 19.5 inches long. He is now 6 weeks old and weighs a solid 10 lbs. He is filling out quickly and looking a little chubbier everyday.

George is exclusively breastfed and it's going really, really well. Before he was born, I had a goal to breastfeed for at least 6 months. One of the nurses at the hospital encouraged me and said that I could go a year! I left the hospital thinking, "maybe". It's going so well this far that I am thinking 6 months is no problem! Fingers crossed that I can go a year! :) I breastfed Jayna for 4 months with no pumping, Barrett for 5 months with some pumping. Right now, I am feeding George and pumping an additional 12-18 ounces a day to freeze for the future! I fully expect my supply to go down when I go back to work, but it's awesome right now!

I had people ask me what we would call George when he got here. And of course I would answer that we would call him George. I wouldn't want to call him Bonham, because that name is already being used! Haha! But in case you want to call him something else, here are some things that we call him, some others have called him, or just things that we are okay with people calling him....
I like to call him George, Georgie Worgie Pumpkin Pie, Georgie, or Pumpkin Pie
The kids like to call him George or Georgie. Other names are Little George, LG, Geo, G-Bo, G, and Jorge!

My prayers and dreams for George are that he grows up to be a strong, healthy, loving young man who lives his life right. I pray that he loves the Lord, loves his family, and loves himself. I hope that he knows that he is loved and that he finds a wife that will adore and admire him and their children.

Here are some pictures of our precious boy,

because I know you haven't seen enough in the past few weeks!