August 24, 2011

Saying Goodbye

You were our first baby.


You were instantly a part of the family.


We celebrated many years together.


You hated bath time . . .


But you loved to get dressed up.

You saw our family go through many changes.


We will always remember you as the "good buddy" you were.
You will truly be missed, Teddy.

August 14, 2011

Eli's First Doctor's Appointment

On Friday, we took Eli to meet Dr. Shirley and she automatically dubbed him "the precious" as well (see post about Lela's first appointment). But to avoid confusion we'll have to refer to him as "the precious #2" and since I'm feeling especially lazy I think we'll shorten it to p#2.

Well p#2 demanded to be fed as soon as we were in the waiting room and I realized immediately that it was the first time, believe it or not, I had to breastfeed in a public place. So I was slightly hesitant at first but I figured if I was nonchalant about it, no one would notice. As far as I could tell I wasn't getting any looks and no one seemed to care that my indecency was was only concealed behind a thin piece of fabric. Eli did good too despite the fact that his feeding skills are touch and go at this point.

Once we were in the doctor's office, we realized Eli looked a little yellow. You can kinda tell in this picture.

Dr. Shirley noticed it too so she tested him for jaundice but it came back normal. P#2 weighed 7 pounds even so he hadn't quite gained back to his birth weight which is normal for a four-day-old infant. Everything else looked good but we did leave with a prescription for baby Zantac since he has been spitting up just like Lela did. Hopefully we'll only have to use it for a few months.

And in case you're wondering, this is what happens when Nathan is in charge of photographically documenting the event:

He would probably want me to share with you that he successfully completed the butterfly puzzle. He was quite proud of himself.

This picture requires some explanation.
There was a mural of Noah's Ark painted on the wall and Nathan felt the need to point out that the bird bearing the olive branch was not the theologically correct species. I guess a blue bird was more pleasing on a white wall rather than the obligatory dove.

Anyway, we go back to see Dr. Shirley this Friday so there's more to come.

August 12, 2011

Eli's comin' better hide your heart

WARNING: This post is extremely elaborative and mostly serves to remind me of the experience years down the road. Read at your own risk.

I am aware that Eli came without a whole lot of warning. That's not to say we didn't know he was on his way because I was having contractions all day Sunday, but by the end of the day it had tapered offsome and I wasn't sure if I had made any progress. So I went to bed Sunday night convinced I was in for another long day of labor judging by how labor went with Lela. I was awakened at midnight to consistent contractions and I timed them for an hour before I woke Nathan up. So we took our time and got ready to head to the hospital. I could tell the contractions were stronger but I just knew I had at least six hours before Eli made his appearance. Nathan packed up the car and then asked me one more time if I thought we could wait a little longer (we didn't want to spend twelve hours in labor and delivery like last time) and I told him we better go because I was determined to get an epidural this time and didn't want to wait too long.

So we got to the hospital around 2:00 am (after turning around to pick up my purse that I forgot) and got checked in by 2:30. I was surprised/relieved to hear that I was dilated 7 centimeters when I arrived but again I was sure I had a few hours left if not more. The contractions started getting stronger really quickly but I was comforted by the thought that my epidural was on its way because again I was convinced I was in for a long haul. Suddenly the contractions were very intense and I began to panic because I didn't think I could handle it very long. My water broke a few contractions later and I immediately had the urge to push. At this point the nurse asked me if I could sit up to get my epidural and I told her I didn't think so. (My actual response was more like a panicked "Well am I about to deliver!?!" She wasn't much help so I simply declined.) To make a long story short, Eli made his appearance at 3:42 am, just an hour and 42 minutes after we arrived! Good thing we didn't wait any longer!!




We are now officially a family of four :) Crazy.

August 3, 2011

Waiting . . .

So, I really thought Eli would be here by now. I was for sure he was coming early but I went to the doctor on Tuesday and nothing has changed in the last week. So he seems very content inside me and I don't think he has plans to come out any time soon. I'm still four days away from my due date so maybe I'm just being impatient. Especially since Lela was right on time (born in the wee hours of the morning the day after her due date), I have a feeling now that Eli will be the same way.
I forgot what it was like to have this feeling of anticipation to meet my child. I think it might be more intense this time since I was so convinced he'd be early. With Lela I knew she would come right on the due date and she did. I guess Eli likes to keep me guessing, and I suppose I'm okay with that ;)

July 21, 2011

Craziness

Everything has been slightly crazy around here. The only way I know to tell the story is through pictures, so here we go.

This picture likely means nothing to you but it is the only documentation I have of the whole ordeal. It is actually the serial and model number on my refrigerator that I had to have handy since the 5-month-old appliance decided to freeze everything inside. Apparently it always thought the temperature inside the fridge was 80 degrees so it would run constantly.

Of course I discovered that everything was frozen solid the morning we were all trying to leave for youth camp. As if it wasn't stressful enough to get my pregnant self and my 15-month-old packed for youth camp, just pile on top of that breakfast became impossible with no useable milk or yogurt which are breakfast staples around here.

Anyway, we are still dealing with this saga almost a month later. The repairman made his third trip out to our house today and replaced another temperature sensor which he feels will solve the problem even though that's what he did the first time and it made absolutely no difference. Good news is, he says the next step will be to replace the whole fridge (at least I think that's good news).

Wow, that story ended up being way longer than I anticipated. Apologies.

One useful thing about the picture is, if you're in the market for a fridge, I'd avoid this model of Samsung ;)

Ok, I'm really done now.

Lela's new favorite thing is to swim in her kiddie pool. Unfortunately the set-up for it is a little more strenuous than I can handle being 8 1/2 months pregnant in the 102-degree heat, so she has to wait until Daddy gets home to go swimming.
She will ask me all day to go swimming and she'll even pull her towel out of the laundry pile to show me she's ready to swimming. But once Daddy gets home, we run and get her swimsuit on and then she'll stand at the back door and watch Nathan get everything ready. I know I'm biased but she has got to be the cutest kid ever.

Nathan's new project has been to make our entry hall presentable, which entails taking down the wallpaper and getting it painted. I started out helping him, but this is all the paper I removed before I was tired of standing.
He accomplished much more in the same amount of time.And a month later, to the date, here he is removing the last scrap of paper.Of course you have to take into account that we were out of town for two and a half weeks in there and he only worked on it during the evenings and weekends and I didn't help him a lick!

You may notice we had already put some sample paint colors on the wall. I guess when you've been removing wallpaper for a month, sometimes you just have to start another project or you'll go crazy!

He's actually much further along now and he should have it all painted this weekend. I would post a current picture of it, but it sorta looks like someone was murdered in that room right now due to the choice of wall color. But I'm confident it will look great once there are two coats on the wall, so I'll save the after shot for when everything is completed.

Lately Lela has decided she enjoys eating much more when she is in control. She will have none of this being spoon-fed or having Mom break up food into small bites. She can DO IT!
But it is really hard for me to watch her use the spoon on her own because half of the food ends up on her face or in her lap. She also has a banana sitting next to her cup that she takes bites from. Of course I have to intervene every now and then, especially when she tries to put half of the banana in her mouth at once!

Lela had a doctor's appointment a couple weeks ago and she doing good. She weighed 20 lbs. 8oz. and was 30 inches tall. Dr. Shirley always comments on how smart she is. Of course I think so but it's good to hear someone else say it.

Lela has also picked her favorite TV show. It's a show on PBS called "Super Why." She will point at the TV and I know she's asking to watch "Super Why." She dances to all the songs and is mesmerized for the whole show. Luckily we can watch it anytime since we have a Netflix free trail right now, but I'm afraid Lela's in for a rude awakening when the trial ends!

Lela is also teething right now. This is a picture of her when she was trying to eat her favorite snack, goldfish, but started crying because it hurt her mouth. It was really sad but her little face is so sweet I had to get a picture.
Unfortunately, I think the teething is also making her really picky and she will hardly eat anything we offer her. Basically she only eats yogurt, cereal bars, bananas, applesauce, goldfish and peanut butter sandwiches. She will occasionally take bites of other foods but then she'll spit it all out about five minutes later. I swear she has a secret pocket inside her cheek somewhere!

Well, I realize that was a lot of information all at once about a lot of crazy random topics but I had a whole month of material to cover! That's also why the title is so applicable.