lanky chunkster

Little Miss finally had her 2 week check-up, a little on the late side. She is now 9lbs, 9oz and 23.5 inches long with a 14.5 inch head. Her last weight check was at 4 days old when she weighed in at 7lbs 6oz. So in just over 2 weeks she has gained more than 2 pounds.... Woohoo! I guess she IS getting enough to eat.

She is well above the 100% for length, 70% for weight, and 50% for her head size.

She has had a little cold for a few days now and had a temp of 100.2. I am so, so thankful it wasn't any higher. At our hospital if your under 2 month old baby has a temp of 100.3 or higher it means an automatic trip to the ER for a spinal tap. Umm, no thank you. We will check it often for the next couple days, but she should be fine. Micah had a similar thing happen at 9 weeks and came super close to getting a spinal tap. Thank God for a compassionate Dr. who spent extra time evaluating him so he could avoid a spinal tap.

Plaster.... art?

Men... skip this post. Unless you want to feel really uncomfortable. Skip, skip.

For all my pregnant friends, this is just how different 2 pregnancies can be. The casts were both done at 38 weeks and the kids born at 38 weeks 3 days and 38 weeks 4 days. You want to guess which was the 6 pounder 18 inch mini and which one was the scale tipping 8 pounder 22 incher?




So much for objects in the distance appearing smaller......

Summer

Creative. Cheap. Close. Connection. Community.

That's the criteria for our summer fun. Got any ideas?


I am excited about this summer. It's the first summer in years that both me and my husband are both up for some social interaction. He has been studying or traveling for job interviews the last 3 summers and last summer I was just a mess emotionally. So glad that is over! My hubby is still testing and interviewing with fire departments but just locally right now. So....

We need some plans!

House Arrest

If you need me, I am at home. Indefinitely.

I am on house arrest. My car is in the shop this week as we do our part to stimulate the economy by running up thousands of dollars in repair bills. So glad we can do our part to help our country. I suppose I could use my husband's car this week and let him ride his bike to work, but there are 2 problems with that plan.

1. His car has no air conditioning.
I guess thats not such a big problem other than I detest arriving places completely drenched in sweat from the black leather interior. Yuck. I also will not put a newborn in a car without AC.

2. His car is a stick shift.
I have never really mastered the stick shift and still have horrific flashbacks of rolling back down a mountain hill in Colorado while my mom yelled at me to get it in gear. Fun, fun times. It was in that moment that my parents swore up and down that they would never buy another standard transmission. I have had a bit of a mental block about it since then and come up with lots of convenient excuses not to learn. My current excuse is that I do not think it is wise to learn to drive with my precious toddler and newborn in the car as I would surely kill at least one of us.

So I will be home. All week. Maybe longer. I think my house may actually get cleaned this week.

Edited to add: I just read this and realized it reads like I am really annoyed by being home all week. I actually am quite the homebody and am looking forward to just being HOME!

love multiplied

Before little miss was born, friends of multiple kids kept telling me that I would love the new little one just as much as I loved M. And I believed them, and it is absolutely true. I love her as deeply as I love her brother.

What no one told me, was how much deeper my love would become for my firstborn as I watched him tenderly touch his sister's head for the first time. I thought I already loved him as much as I possibly could!

smitten

My husband has a new love. If you were to ask him , he would insist that it isn't any different than when M was a newborn. He would say he loves and treats them exactly the same. He is so smitten he is delusional. M was my baby. Sure, my husband was there when he was born and was completely taken with him. My husband was in school 20 hours a week and working full time when M was born. He didn't have much time or energy to just admire his son. And M has always been a mama's boy and daddy has always been second fiddle.

He gets up with her in the morning and will sleep on the floor next to her bouncy seat so she can rest. He steals her away as soon as he comes home and lavishes her with cuddles and kisses. He admires her girly little outfits and tells her she will never, ever get to date. She gives him smiles in her sleep and he just melts. He simply adores her. I am not sure if she is a daddy's girl but she definately has him wrapped around her little finger. He is so smitten that he has requested another baby right away. Tomorrow if I could arrange it.

Ummm, no. I told him we will talk about it when he is 30!

sibling love

cowboy baby

Gram and Papa came to town and that means 2 things:

1. New toys!
2. Photos for future humiliation.

Today, he received a play grill for the backyard. Fun, but not humiliating. He also received a retro cowboy outfit which was less fun for him but very humiliating. I had a hard time holding the camera still enough to take photos as I was laughing so hard. Poor kid!

And there were 2!

It's my third day flying solo with the kiddos. So far, so good. M has thrown random pieces of plastic food at his "sitar baby" in a few moments of angst. Mostly he offers her a paci and moves on to Thomas the Train and torturing the cat. Poor, poor kitty.

We did make it to the baby dedication on Mother's Day. We were greeted with your crazy at least a dozen times but both kids did great waiting our turn. Our church family has been praying for that little miss since September when I went on bed rest and it looked like we would lose her. She became a member of our church's family long before her birth and it was neat to be able to dedicate her as such a tiny baby. I didn't take any photos though. Oops!

We have survived 2 doctor's visit, a trip to church, and 2 trips to Target as a trio. It's different and takes infinitely longer and more patience. Miss thing loves her sling and that has been my saving grace to get out of the house.

Little Miss is mostly doing wonderfully. She has jaundice like M did, but a much less severe case. She is really sleepy because of the jaundice and would sleep around the clock if we let her. Her father let her sleep for nearly 7 hours straight the other night! Oops! We are supposed to be feeding her every 2-3 hours to help get rid of the jaundice. I feel a little guilty about sleeping so long myself, but it was pretty glorious too! I am having so much fun dressing her up, although only her preemie clothes fit!

The biggest challenge by far has been getting nursing going. I really took for advantage how easy it was with M. It's just a whole different ball game this time. I think it may be way TMI for a blog, but lets just 2 vicodin did virtually nothing to reduce the pain over the weekend. And my daughter and I have both cried all the way through several feedings. Mercifully, things are going well now.

More than any other emotion, I feel blessed and so incredibly thankful. She is here and she is wonderful. My son is more amazing than ever.

Little Miss in all her sweet sleepy glory.

Even Steven

We are now a 1 boy, 1 girl family!

Little miss arrived @1:09pm this afternoon weighing in at 7lbs, 140z and 22 inches long. Photos to come later!

I can't wait to dress her up in something girly!

Crafty Distraction

Tomorrow is the big day... or at least thats the plan. I'll update here when I can, hopefully from the hospital! In the meantime, I have been distracting myself with all sorts of little projects. The main one being coming up with a dedication outfit for a baby boy and a baby girl. Our church does dedications twice a year, Mother's Day and a random Sunday in November. To my formerly Lutheran husband, it is sacrilege to let your child learn how to roll over before you dedicate them. So we will TRY (crazy... crazy.. I know) to try and make it this Sunday. With a 3 day old.... and a 2 year old. Hence the need for 2 outfits. My friend M has been politely hinting for some photos so here they are.

Keep in mind 2 things. I don't sew clothes. Ever. I am a straight line sewing kinda girl. So the dress is my first article of clothing ever to sew in entirety. Be kind. And 2, the photos SUCK. It has been raining here for days and there isn't any natural light to be had.

First the little man outfit: I got the idea for the onesie from this site: leila and ben.
Moo has a matching one in a bigger size and my husband requested one too.... umm no. Dork.
The rest of the outfit is from Moo's baby days or Target's dwell studio. Love their Dwell line!





I also made just a few pacifer clips. It is my optimistic hope that this kid will take one as M has been a die hard thumb sucker for all but 6 weeks of his life.


Now the little miss outfit.
I went a little crazy here, but I LOVE little girl clothes, hair clips, ect. Infinitely more fun than boy clothes. The dress is made out of one of our wedding decorations. I got the template here, but it was way to small and I had to go and make things difficult by adding lots of ruffles. I like ruffles, what can I say. The hat and baby legs are made from a pair of little girl tights and I adore them. and the felt hair clips were inspired by this site.