note to self

dont' try to blog while both kids are awake. talk about disaster.

to pacify or not to pacify?

Picture us driving from MN to IA, a 3 hour ride, and the older kid is happily playing in the backseat but the one month old baby begins to wail because he is just not a car seat lover. I reach back to pat his tummy and sing soothing songs. Nothing works. We just stopped for a feeding and diaper change 20 minutes ago. Then I stick my pinky near his mouth and he grabs on with fury. Would you sit for hours with you body twisted to the back, with one hand holding a book reading to one kid and the other hand on your baby with a finger in his mouth? yes, you would if it meant happy, quiet kids. So now I have found something that sometimes keeps Adam happy in the car. The dilemma is this: aren't I just acting as a human pacifier? Why not get him a real one? I have always been so glad that we didn't use or need a pacifier for Laura. They just seem like so much hassle and can cause such problems. Keeping them clean, always having one handy, constantly shoving it in the kids mouth, possible speech problems, sucking on the evil PLASTIC all day, finding a way to get rid of it when they are 5. None of that sounded like something I was willing to do. But I'm thinking its not too sanitary for me to stick my finger in my mouth, wipe it off on my jeans and stick in my kid's mouth while driving down the road? And that is certainly a pain, too. Maybe we'll just never leave the house again?

Since I'm admitting bad parenting habits, lets keep rolling. Is it terrible to realize that your kid's diaper has leaked in the middle of the night (oh, and he's sleeping on you, so you have pee all over you too) and decide to just wait until the next feeding to change him since he's so quiet and asleep? 

Oh ,and I let Laura mix playdough colors today. It drove me insane, but she loved it.

Here's a nice little tape recording for you (don't worry, there's not supposed to be any video):

Happy baby

disposable camera

Here are some cute pictures from a disposable camera that we have been losing and rediscovering for a couple of years. It was lots of fun to check out pictures that we had forgotten about. I think I'll get another disposable and do the same thing.  

Jim's parents kept an outfit that Aunt Rosemary had bought him when he was a kid. Here's Adam in it this year:

And Laura in 2006:

Christmas

Christmas at our house was very busy, but wonderful. Jim came home early on Christmas Eve and we opened presents that afternoon. As you can see, we made out pretty well for just being the four of us! My mom and dad had left our presents here and those in the back are the ones we brought to Jim's family. 

The bathrobe from Gramma Ann and Grandpa Phil was the biggest hit of this day's gifts! 
We went to church Christmas Eve evening. It was a beautiful service and the kids did well. I just loved this dress that Laura wore. The hat it a little silly, but very cute and she loved it!
Christmas Day, we woke up late and opened stockings after breakfast. Then we went to my cousin Barb's house for brunch with that side of the family. We left from there to go to Jim's brother's house in Iowa. The kids did pretty well on the trip down and OK on the trip back. Adam's not much of a car rider, but he held out pretty well. Laura did awesome the whole time. The above picture is Gus, Bob and Kate's dog. He's such a good dog. Laura was very nervous about him, but I hope it helped her to spend time with nice dogs.  

pretending

Laura has been teaching me how to be creative. Its never been my strong suit, but she's a good teacher. Lately, she's been really big into pretending that our family members are part of another family or group. Here are some examples of who we've all pretended to be in the last couple weeks:

Sesame Street characters

Wonder Pets

Santa Claus and various sizes of rudolph (big, baby, etc)

members of my cousin Bill's family

members of our friend Dana's family

members of our friend Michelle's family

Big Big World characters

Dora characters

Mary Poppins characters

She just wakes up and says "I'm _____ and you're _____" and thats what we call each other for days. I know there are more, but this is what I remember

beauty shop

While trying to fill time on a snowed in weekend, Kim suggested we play "beauty shop".

a few pictures

his hair is falling out! receding hairline already
kim and laura playing in the snow. they were about about 30 min and seemed to have a blast!
kids showing off their skills

back

Well, I haven't written the last few days because I got hit with a killer of a cold and had no energy.  But it seems like since we got the sleep thing figured out just a little bit better, the cold dissipated. So it must have been a low immune system thing.

I'm typing this one handed while I nurse Adam and it reminds me of all the entries I posted in Manila on the little itouch with one hand. ahhh memories. 

besides the cold, we've been good here. Kim visited this weekend and we are going to Bob's on Christmas day, so we'll get to see family for the holiday. I'm also looking forward to celebrating our first Christmas with just our little family at our house. And we might stop by my cousins' house for the annual Christmas brunch before leaving for Iowa, so that will be even more family.

Adam is full of little grins and coos. its very cute and rewarding. he has accepted sleeping next to me, rather than on me, which has improved my sleep dramatically. but he is soooooo noisy at night. the loudest sleeper ever.

Laura has realized this baby is here to stay and here to take away some of her attention. but she takes it out on me, not him, so that is good. 

Lots and lots of pictures

Click here to see my attempts to get a good photo for a Christmas card.

retraction

I take it back. 2 is not easier than 1.

Looks can be deceiving

Laura 2 weeks
Adam 3 weeks

They may look alike, but don't be fooled - very different children.  Adam is cuddly to the point of being clingy. Laura wasn't interested in cuddling, pretty much from the beginning.  Laura was pretty particular about everything, but Adam is super easy going. And most surprising, Adam is much more vocal with all his grunts, groans, coos, and burps.  

ambitious

I think I was a little too ambitious today. We went to the coop grocery store, open gym and chipotle with friends. By the time we ate lunch at chipotle, I was done dealing with 2 kids in public. I think we'll just have to stay closer to home than I used too. Laura will like that, though. She almost always wants to stay home if given the choice. When it gets really cold this winter, I probably won't want to bundle everyone up, anyways. 

doing good

dare i say that 2 kids is already going better than 1? Laura has been a delight so far this week and it seems like the extra activities that we get from Adam's presence have filled in the gaps where Laura and I would get bored and irritated with each other. I know there will still be hard times, but I've ended each day this week pretty happy and on pretty good terms with Laura. Just crossing my fingers that it continues...

Can I really complain that I'm so busy when I've never written this much in my blog before? 

I never knew that legs could be such fun toys. Whenever I'm feeding Adam and Laura needs some entertaining, I can get pretty creative with my legs. They can be a bridge, a horse, a gate, a door, etc. Probably good exercise, too!

Actually started thank you notes tonight, with Laura's help. Might even get them out before Christmas. What does that mean for my Christmas cards, though? Maybe by Valentines Day?

Whatever you do, don't buy a black nursing shirt. Cheesy baby spit up shows up like a flashing light bulb. 

Next time you make hot chocolate, drop a whole candy cane in there while its still hot and then wait for it to melt and dissolve. delish

Amazing

Getting a little chubby! Wondering if he'll have a chin for every week old he is. Thanks for the onesie, Kim!
my kids

Laura beat Jim in 3 games of Candyland, almost fair and square, tonight. She moved the pieces herself and totally understood how the game worked. Blew me away. She also figured out a matching game on the Thomas the Train website by herself today while I sat next to her talking on the phone. She chose the 'medium' level the first time and still won. 

All this almost makes me forget the moment today when she was standing by the toilet with her pants still on and had a double whammy accident (#1 & #2). Meanwhile, Adam is crying to be held, even though I hadn't set him down in literally 48 hours and the beeper on the oven is going off because the muffins need to be taken out NOW. I know that all parents have moments like this or worse and everyone survives. And I promise not to blog about every single one of mine, but this one actually made me laugh as it all happened, so I wanted to jot it down. 

pout

Wonder how long it will take for me to get tired of that little pout on Adam's face when he's about to cry? I can't remember with Laura. I feel bad because I can't take my eyes off him when he's sad. that little lip is too cute.

Jenny is...

Jenny is...

so glad that Adam's diaper changing cries don't wake up Laura in the middle of the night. 

astonished that the addition of one little person to the family means that I now need to do laundry DAILY.

going to miss her mom and dad and is terrified to be left alone with these 2 little kids all day, all week. 

so glad her sister introduced her to chocolate ice cream with crunched up candy canes and glad that her dad left swiss chocolate almond custard from Culvers in the freezer.

Goings-on at our household lately

Jim's getting really good at the Dora game.  He practices after Laura goes to bed.
"Holy cow! I'm growing up!"
cozy naptime
kneading bread with Gramma Ann
Decorating the tree.

One pound heavier

Doc said Adam is doing great at his appointment yesterday. He is now 8 lbs 8 oz, over a pound bigger than one week ago. That's a lot of diapers!

In other news, he slept for 5 hours in the bouncy seat last night with one break for diaper change and eating. The only catch was that my hand had to be on his chest most of the time for him to be content. I gave up about 3am and took him back to the recliner with me so I could get some sleep too. Maybe we're making headway towards him sleeping in the crib?

Booger update

Another installment of the booger chronicles. In case you missed the first chapter, you can find it here. (ha! isn't cool that I figured out how to do that?)

Now, whenever I ask Laura to take her fingers out of her nose and use a Kleenex instead, she matter-of-factly tells me that when she's sleeping, she puts her fingers in her nose. Well, I guess I accidentally created a "nose picking safe" zone. I don't remember talking to anyone about it in front of her, so I'm not sure how she realized that it was a funny thing to remember. Guess she just figured out the loop-hole. So, always remember to wash her hands first thing in the morning!

Random Baby thoughts

-There's nothing like having a tiny baby to make you open your eyes and realize that your older child is no longer a tiny baby. Holy cow, she is big and mature! 

-I'm acutely aware that we probably won't have another kid and I really really don't want Adam to change at all. When Laura was brand new, I couldn't wait for her to start moving, talking, crawling, etc. But this time, I'm already sad about the changes I can see in him from a week ago. I hope I don't smother him and turn him into a dependent mama's boy. ha

- I love it when newborns stretch. They arch their back and stick back their bottoms and heads, curl up their fists and stick them in the air, and wrinkle up their foreheads like old men. So cute.

-Its amazing how you will let personal hygiene go when you are super sleep deprived. But this morning, I showered, put on clean clothes AND brushed my teeth and hair. Big day for me.

Code Pink

Been meaning to tell this story while its still fresh in mind, so here goes...

As I was wandering the hospital halls after we had Adam, I saw the Director of Nursing at the nurses station. I know her because she also attended the Seattle conference last summer with me. She came over and gave her congrats and ogled the baby appropriately. Then she asked us to help her out with a Code Pink drill, which is the code they use to announce a lost baby. She explained the scenario and we put on a show. Jim took Adam to an administration office to hide and I asked the nurse to get my baby from the nursery. When she couldn't find him in the nursery, they called the Code Pink and the entire hospital went into shut down. Everyone left their posts to stand in the halls and look for Adam. Cops came to interview me. All the babies were emptied out of the nursery and returned to their moms. They stopped and searched everyone leaving the hospital from all exits. According to the scenario, they were supposed to be searching for a lady with a red bag who supposedly stole the baby. But instead, they latched on to Jim and thought he was the one who stole him. They described him over the PA and kept asking me if we were having marital problems. Then they called it off and told everyone that they found Jim in the admin office. He had to do the walk of shame, bringing Adam back to me while everyone glared at him on his way back to the room. Poor guy. So that was our exciting hospital story (besides the birth of our baby, of course). I found it much more emotional than I thought it would be. We were afraid to leave our room until the nurses found out that it was just a drill. Some of the nurses had been so emotional about it and worried about me, it was truly touching. We felt pretty guilty to put them through that, but glad that they run drills periodically. Turns out that they did stop the red bag lady to check her bag, so they would have caught her.

tiny tank

The home care nurse stopped by today to check out Adam and I. When we left the hospital on Tuesday, he was 7 pounds 6 ounces. Today (3 days later), he was 8 pounds even. Dude. I felt like I was feeding him a lot, but now I *know* that I am feeding him a lot. The nurse said she typically looks for a 1/2 oz gain every day. Well, we blew by that somewhere around noon on Wednesday. Anyways, its great news and everything else is going well with both of us. 

Here's a video of Laura singing Happy Birthday to Adam. Might have to turn up the volume.

First Family Photo

Laura's latest

Gramma Ann and Laura seemed to have a great time while Jim and I were at the hospital.

Tea party!





Look Linda! The lego table works with Duplos too. Its been lots of fun.

more

had some trouble getting more pictures on the last post. here's another try. thank you to everyone for their congrats and well wishes. We are home now and feeling pretty well.

Playing with the hospital bed was at least as much fun as seeing her new baby brother.

Arrival of Adam Robert

Adam was born 5:22pm November 23, 2008, a healthy 7 lb 13 oz and 21 1/2" long.



More details and photos to follow.

Adam!!

he's here!! Adam Robert was born yesterday November 23rd at 5:22pm. He weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces and was 21 1/2 inches long. He has a nice head of blond hair and was nice and pink and healthy from the beginning (apgar of 9 if you know what that means). He's nursing well and slept some last night so we all got a little rest. Big sister laura is beside herself excited and gets to meet him today.
Pictures to follow when we can.

Conversations

You know, I can definitely see what we as a society have sacrificed to have our independence from each other. In neighborhoods like ours, where you sort of know your neighbors.  You wave as you go in and out of your garage but don't really spending much time with each other. Having my mom here the last few days has made such a change in my perspective. Its crazy to have another adult around all day! True, the help with the housework and Laura has been great, but I don't think that's everything. The adult conversation, and with another woman (no offense, Jim or Laura), really makes a difference in your day. I'm sure Jim appreciates that I don't just run from the mouth when he comes home now. This is what it must be like in cultures that live in close quarters with their extended families. Sure we'll probably get sick of each other after a while, but it is really nice to have someone to communicate with throughout the day. I know I chose to not work, so I don't mean that I'm complaining about my choice. Its just that stay at home moms really do have a tough time when their only interaction during the day is with a child. I can see why my other SAHM friend and I generally talk several times on the phone each day (also because we're good friends and enjoy each other's company). I hope I don't neglect her while my mom is visiting. 

nope, not yet

i'd like to blame my 9 day blog hiatus on the fact that our new baby is taking up so much of my time. But...that's impossible because he's still in my belly. And my mom is now here helping do EVERYTHING (its truly wonderful!) so i can't even say that I've been too tired from housework and toddler care. 

Everything here in this household is pretty good. I'm a little anxious about when the baby will come, but not really just dying to have him show up. I'm excited to meet him and all, but he sure is easier and safer inside than outside. We'll take him when we get him. And Laura is pretty thrilled to be an almost-big sister. 

That's all I've got right now. Will say more when there's more to say.

Budding artist

Here is Laura's first happy face. 100% her idea and 100% her handiwork. 

And so it begins....

Our first real snow of the season last week. It had melted by afternoon, but the kids had fun for a little while. Those are the poofy-est mittens ever! 

Laura-isms

A few things that Laura has said lately that I want to remember...

"I'm Dr. Seuss the Bandage Girl!" (ala Dr. Dan the Bandage Man Golden Book)

"Your fur is soft, Mommy" as she lays her head on my arm. Yes I know I have hairy arms, thanks for pointing it out, kid.

"When I grow up into a big girl, I will paint my fingers blue and my toes purple. And I'll buy the paint at the store!" (I clarified that she meant her WHOLE fingers and toes, not just nails)

"When I grow up, I will put cold stuff in the microwave and push buttons. Then I'll check it and it won't be warm enough, so I will push more buttons until its warm enough."

What would a good mom do?

So, Laura slept really long at nap time today. To the point that I wanted to check on her. I opened the door slightly and she was rolling around groggily. I tried to close the door, but she spied me and said "I just want to sleep more". From experience, I knew that if I just left the room, it would spark a total breakdown. So I came in quietly and curled up next to her to enjoy the infrequently witnessed 'wake up procedure'. She closed her eyes and wiggled around a little. Then, she proceeded to shove her pointer fingers up her nose. I mean, seriously shove them up there. Sometimes both sides at the same time. She was really digging for gold. So then I get the Mom Instinct to say something like "Laura, please don't put your fingers in your nose. Use a kleenex if you want to get the boogers out." But then I thought, I barged in on her alone time and how sad would it be to have the first words I say to her be an admonishment? It would totally ruin the mood. Plus, she's not really a nose-picker yet (or so I thought). So I chose to stay quiet and cringe during the 10 minutes of nose digging. I didn't see any go in her mouth, thankfully. I'm not sure if she's thought about that yet. I was rewarded with a nice, cuddly time with my daughter and some nice, germy hugs after she woke up. 

Parenting is full of moments you never would have imagined.

Big big pumpkin

Haven't put up a belly shot lately. I'm sure the orange is very flattering! 3 more weeks to go...

Halloween Ladybug

OK, I deserve some award for getting these up within an hour of returning from trick or treating. We opted for the free members' party at the zoo instead of going around the neighborhood. It was a lot of fun and we got a nice variety of stuff instead of just candy. There were small toys and things like animal crackers and Cheez-its too. Plus, it was before dark, which is much better for Laura. We spent about an hour there and really had fun. Here's some pics:

fashion trends

I don't know if its something she picked up in school or she made it up herself, but Laura's really been into this new way of fastening her velcro shoes. It cracks me up and makes me think of french-rolled jeans or the way we used to tie our dexters with little curly-cues instead of bows.