So civilized

Evidently the boys got the memo this morning that they should sleep in. Matt and I had a lovely breakfast together, he left for a day of ski patrolling, I started up the dishwasher, poured myself a cup of coffee, and now it is 7:45 and I'm sipping said coffee and reading up on the news of the day. Grant is snuggled in bed after a good night of sleeping and nursing, and Cooper is zonked out in his crib.

Such a nice way to start my day! Now, I need to decide how early I can start calling my friends to see who wants to go for a walk with me. Matt said 8:30, but I think 9am is more appropriate.

Forgot

I had forgotten about so much.

Squeaky sleepy noises.

Soft soft cheeks.

Funny facial expressions with no warning or meaning.

The love of ceiling fans.

Importance of good burps.

Big big stretches.

But now it is all back again, and watching Grant makes me both appreciate him now, and remember how his brother was just as sweet and soft way back when. Awwww...

Lessons on skiing as a family of four

Today Matt and I braved our first recreational outing as a family of four; a trip to Snowbowl to get Cooper another day on his skiis, and to generally just get us all out of the house for some fun. We learned a few lessons...

1) Just like when we first had Cooper and became a three-some, learning how to get out of the house as a four-some is a little overwhelming and stressful. Matt timed it- from "oh hell let's just go" to "we're off!" took 45 minutes. I guess that's not awful, considering the toddler ski gear, baby gear, toddler snacks, nursing mom snacks, Matt ski gear, little diapers, big diapers, switching over the ski rack to the other car... Good god its a wonder we ever leave the house.

2) If you take an extra 45 minutes to leave, then ski-time gets impinged on by snack-time and as it turns out, you should have encouraged the toddler eat snacks on the drive to avoid crankiness.

3) Always check toddler ski boots for foreign objects before putting them on. When we got home around noon and Cooper took off his ski boots, an orange plastic spoon fell out. That could not have been comfortable for him. That explains why he kept asking Mom to carry him.

4) Failing to wake up and nurse the sleeping newborn during the ski lodge snack break will result in a baby that wails for most of the drive home. Rookie mistake! Can't believe I blew that one.

Other than that, it was a fun morning. Cooper did ski (despite his hidden spoon) a few runs and it was a gorgeous sunny day. And we all got some fresh air. Good times.

One week!

It has been a week since Grant was born! Wow!

So far, Grant has been a great little newborn. He's a great nurser and sleeper, and despite his size he's actually kinda quiet. His full head of dark brown wavy hair is totally adorable, and after one or two days of slight orange-ness, his skin color went right back to a handsome pink-tan tone (like his dad- not ultra fair like mom!).

Cooper has been doing really well with all the weirdness and change in his life. He's showing some small signs of stress (possessiveness of strange things, being more picky than usual with food, some nap disruptions) but he's really sweet with Grant and generally seems on an even keel. Today, Cooper even "gave" Grant some toys to play with. The poor kid was buried in them- I had to just keep making sure Grant could breath under the avalanche of loving gifts. The funniest part was that Grant slept through the whole thing. Cooper was adamant that Grant needed a minimum of a stuffed owl, two books, six markers, a blanket, a dog, a horse, and some plastic spoons. To nap with. You know, in case he got bored.

Cooper also has petted Grant's head, and tickled his feet. We haven't tried to get Cooper to hold Grant on his lap yet, because that seems like a lot for our cautious kiddo. It'll come with time. Matt and I agree that proceeding really, really slowly with Cooper is proving to be the right decision.

My recovery was a little rough on the edges at first but is dramatically better by this one week mark. Unfortunately, I sustained quite a bit of damage from Grant's quick exit and have been pretty uncomfortable with sitting and other functions that involve my bottom end. As of Monday I was still really uncomfortable, but somehow yesterday was a big difference, and today I'm feeling really good. At this rate, by next week, I think I'll feel pretty much back to normal even if I need to be careful with lifting heavy objects, etc.

Nap time is just about over... gotta go!

Grant Thomas "Radwood!"

We named the little fella yesterday! Welcome Grant Thomas!

Gotta run. :)

Baby Two arrived!

Well, I did not really expect yesterday to go the way it did... but hey, I'm not complaining.

As I write this, a 9 pound baby boy is making sleepy squeaky noises next to me. He's a cute kid, and apparently was very, very ready to escape the womb when he finally set his mind to it.

Yesterday started out pretty normally. I took Cooper to daycare, toodled around the house for a while, and then decided to take my midwife's advice to "encourage labor" with some castor oil. Its yucky stuff, but harmless, and sometimes it can start labor maybe a day or two ahead of time. With 10 days behind me, I figured "why not?" so I made a weird castor-oil-banana-chocolate smoothie and went about my business (mostly, cleaning the house).

At about 10am I didn't feel so good... kinda just generally crummy. So I figured it was time to take a nap, and laid down. At about noon I woke up to two things- my phone ringing, and a seriously intense abdominal cramp. It didn't feel like a contraction- it just felt really unpleasant. The downside to castor oil is that it gives you diarrhea, and sometimes some bad cramping. Not the end of the world, but yucky. So I figured that was what was going on.

Off to the bathroom I went. After several more cramps, plus the effects of the castor oil, I decided to call back whoever had called me. It was my doula, Michelle. She wanted to see how I was feeling today. "I'm having some really bad cramps, its no fun." Michelle wasn't convinced. "You mean, you are having contractions? How far apart?" I was in denial. "No, no, these aren't quite right. They are waaay to close together for contractions, and they don't feel anything like the contractions I remember. Totally different. I think its just the castor oil side effects." She was dubious. She said she'd finish up her errands and come over in a short while.

I called Matt. "Honey, I feel crummy. Can you please come home? I'm not really in labor, but I feel gross and want you here." He said he'd be home in about 30 minutes.

So now its 12:15. These damn cramps are getting bad, and weirdly, they've become very consistently about 2 to 3 minutes apart and 30 seconds long. All of a sudden it dawns on me. Not only am I in labor, I'm in active labor. NOW. Big time. And I'm all alone in the house. This is trouble.

So I call my midwife's practice. Nurse Tina answers, and within about 30 seconds she pronounces, "Don't do anything. Just keep breathing. Get on your bed. We'll be there in 20 minutes. Try to relax."

The midwife pipes in "We'll be there right away. Just try to relax."

Now I'm in full blown ridiculous labor. I call Michelle again to try to tell her to hurry, but I can't even talk. She knows its me by the number, and can hear me being miserable while trying to talk, so she's saying, "OK Leigh, you are fine, just hold on, I'll be there in about 15 minutes. You're doing great. I'm coming really soon."

Matt got home around 1:20pm, thank god, and things were looking like a baby was coming right now. The midwife and her two nurses busted in the door about 15 minutes later- and the midwife immediately sat down next to me (I was headfirst hiding under blanket, trying not to explode or have a baby) and said "As I came in the door, it sounded like you are pushing. Are you pushing?" Me: "No! I'm fine! I can't be pushing yet! No!" I was like a 13 year old. Total denial. Everything is fine!!

Ooops. Within about 2 minutes (now about 2pm), I started pushing like crazy, and Michelle appears out of nowhere to apply cold washcloths and help Matt stay sane. After 45 minutes of frustrated pushing that seemed to be going nowhere, the baby finally passed under a particular bony arch (the same bone that Cooper got stuck behind for about 3 hours because he was at a funny angle). Amazingly, I could feel it happen, and my whole body remembered that now we were home-free (so to speak). He was born about 1 minute later in a big rush of shock and excitement. Matt almost missed it because it all happened so fast- he was busy trying to arrange for a ride home a few hours later for Cooper and had to hang up abruptly on a very confused friend and run over to my side.

But then we had this big new baby in the living room, crying very softly and snuggling into my chest. Oh my god! It was 2:46pm. What just happened? Didn't I just get up from a nap?

Everything else was textbook and hardly worth talking about. I have some pretty extensive stitches, but a nine pound baby can hardly be expected to pass through unnoticed, and I remember from last time that the recovery to comfort "down there" is usually quick. Baby's hobbies include snuggling, nursing, mewing, pooping and sleeping. He's kinda quiet, especially in comparison to his older brother's newborn "air raid siren" imitation that even made the nurses remark, "Wow, that kid is LOUD." But nope. This one is kinda quiet and mew-y, the way I always thought newborns would sound. Funny.

He's 9 pounds exactly, and 21.25 inches long. That's extra long, by the way. He assessed at 37 weeks, which means that he was in outstanding condition at birth and suffered no ill consequences for being past due date. In fact, it sort of confirms my idea that he wasn't past due at all. I never felt "past due" myself- I still felt totally fine up until like 9:45 yesterday morning.

We are finishing up choosing his name today, and will let you know.

Still in there

Baby Two is a stubborn little thing! Oh well.

I read an article in the NYTimes yesterday about toddler speech, and I must say I was all smiles. Despite Cooper's slightly slow start to using words from 9-15 months or so, he now would rank above average in terms of the type of words he uses, how many he uses, and how many he strings together. For instance, he often will ask where something has gone. "Blue marker go?" The 'where did the' is indicated with exaggerated sign language of a hands in the air, palms up, eyebrows up, shoulders shrugging plus the way he says it is very obviously a question. That, in toddler speak, is a pretty darn good sentence! Very cool.

His love of color names only started about a week ago, and it is very fascinating to me. His favorite colors are green, orange, and yellow. He also likes purple, blue, white, and black. He stubbornly refuses to say red- although I did trick him into saying it the other day, and so I know he's physically capable of saying the word itself. I won't push that hard on red again. I was mostly worried that the R was not working for him, or possibly that he doesn't see red, and now I'm pretty sure neither of those is the case.

Grey and brown seem to be a bit too abstract right now, but he'll say them if prompted, and can pick out a brown object from a selection of other easy colored things (like a pile of brown, yellow, and red crayons). He likes saying pink, but I don't think he really has that one down yet. I think he mostly says pink because it is a fun word. PEEE-NK!

Getting closer

I'm excited to report that at yesterday's checkup, Baby Two was doing extremely well and I'm showing a lot more signs of pre-labor prep. According to our midwife, Baby is in a really good position, I'm at least 3cm with 50%, and the fact that I gained four pounds in one week is probably a sign that my body is prepping for the regular fluid loss that comes with delivery. Weirdly, my wedding ring and engagement ring still fit fine. I do recall that in the final week of my first pregnancy, I couldn't wear them because they were getting pretty snug and I was scared they could get stuck. So that's interesting- makes me wonder if I similarly gained fluid at the last minute that time, too. I had the baby on the day of my scheduled checkup, so there is no way to know if that was the case or not.

The other thing that was rather heartening is that as we were chatting at the end of the appointment, she started pulling all sorts of stuff out of her supply closet. I asked what she was doing, and she said, "At this point, you are a loudly ticking time bomb. I don't want to be surprised if you go into labor this afternoon, so I'm going to go through all my stuff one more time just to be extra sure."

Well now... THAT'S a vote of confidence! When your midwife determines she needs to nest, you know its real.

Unfortunately, that was yesterday. And last night yielded no baby. But still, it is good to hear, and makes me feel a lot more confident that I won't make it to my past-due deadline (this coming Monday). Not that it would be horrible, but induction is not at all what I want, so I'll be glad to avoid it.

Darn!

Today, being the 7th anniversary of the day we met, is now a historic day for two reasons... Matt just beat me at scrabble for the second time ever. By two points.

Let it be known that the first time he beat me, I had the flu, so we've always had this caveat that maybe that's why he got the better of me.

But this time, no excuses. I lost fair and square.

Also, note that about two years ago, while I was in labor with Cooper, I had one of my most impressive scrabble words ever- "management" which was both a scrabble (I used all my tiles) and a triple word score, sealing the deal on kicking his ass between contractions. And then I had a baby. That was a good day.

In other news, still no baby. Still not in labor. Will let you know.

The best bad dog ever

This morning, Cooper and Lucky got into a love-fest of giggling, doggie slobber, rolling around on the floor, and general cutest kid and dog behavior ever. I can't tell you how adorable it was, because nothing could do justice to how dang loving and sweet those two are together. He's the best dog in the world.

And then after lunch, I was reminded of the dark side of loving toddler-dog relationships. Cooper was quietly settling in for a nap in his darkened room, and Matt was heading out to grab a few things from the hardware store. I heard whispered up the stairs, "Bye hon- I'll be back in a little bit." And then the door closed. And a few moments later, I heard this odd sort of smacking wet sound from downstairs. So I peered through the slats of the stairs to see what on earth was going on. The dog had his paws up on the counter and was gnawing on the rock hard stale loaf of neglected banana bread that I was intending to give to the chickens. He knew I was upstairs and that Matt had left, so the coast was clear. He'd clearly been plotting this for a while, in my opinion. The timing was too impressive to suggest anything less.

What has this to do with Cooper? Well, when Cooper was learning to eat, he spread food far and wide and we depended on Lucky to do a lot of the cleaning. This was Lucky's really first taste of "people food" on a regular basis, and he's learned to like it. Not like it, actually. He learned to love it. And steal it. Find it and eat it. We've had to totally change our food storage behaviors as a result of this, and we are still making mistakes more than a year after this all started.

Sigh.

He's the best dog ever.

Bad dog!

Ok, we are so ready now

I was cool with it when Baby Two decided not to arrive on the 25th, my quasi-random guessed birthday for this child, because Matt and I had an unexpected trip to the ER after he took a severe fall on the ice and we thought he might have broken his leg. It didn't seem like a good idea to have a new baby plus a husband that could hardly walk. So it wasn't too bad when the three or four days of painful hobbling did not coincide with labor plus a newborn.

And then Matt (the poor dear) got this horrible stomach bug on my due date. I will not elaborate for the sake of my readers. Let's just say he's been very much laid up, we've been sleeping in separate quarters to avoid him breathing on me, and only today is he really eating again and acting like himself. I've been keeping the kitchen and bathroom obsessively clean, washing hands every 15 minutes, and it is looking like Cooper and I might escape without getting this nasty thing. So that's great.

But now he's better. The bruising on his leg is fading away, and he's eating regular foods. Besically, Matt is no longer a liability.

So let's do this thing. Baby Two... your turn.

Merry Groundhog Day

I figure I need to start fining this kid twenty five cents a day for being overdue.

On the bright side, I slept for 9 hours last night, interrupted twice (very briefly) by my bladder. And I bet that won't happen again for, oh... 6 to 9 months, starting very soon.

Due date

Today is baby's due date! Hurray! I did not think we'd get here. But we are here, and I really can't complain. I feel good and baby seems happy in there. So... whatever!

We had two interesting developments in Cooper world this weekend. Totally out of the blue, Cooper has stopped using his infant-language-developed invented word for his favorite sacred yellow blanket (which is best understood written as "Cee-cee") and switched to a very close variation on blanket, namely, "Bankey." Without any transition time, obvious reason, or hesitation. It is just a "bankey" now. Matt and I are both puzzled and amused by this. We never corrected him, we just stuck to saying blanket ourselves. But I sort of thought that Cee-cee was here to stay. Farewell, Cee-cee! Hello, Bankey!

The other thing that Cooper did this weekend is try to teach himself how to hop. He wants to be able to get both feet off the ground at the same time. He's having a hilariously and adorably hard time DOING this, as his technique leaves a lot to be desired. Practice will clearly make perfect. Sometimes he tries to help himself out by bracing an arm on the couch for more lift, which often ends in a bang as it makes him lopsided and thus encourages the attempted hop to end in an awkward fall. Regardless, he cracks himself up giggling as he tries, which is incredibly cute. This morning after breakfast he was attempting to hop, and he started laughing so uncontrollably that he almost fell over. It was great. What a funny little kid.