Weekend guests

We were fortunate enough to have family come to visit us for the weekend.  They arrived early evening on Saturday and we got to play outside before it got chilly and dark.  We cooked dinner and the kids played until they dropped over with exhaustion.

Miss M still loves E.  She was so happy to see her and have her come to her house.  Miss M still calls E by the name of Trouble. It's confusing to us and we try to correct her but get nowhere.  She started the weekend by referring to A as The Other Girl but thankfully she quickly started calling her by her given name.

Sunday brought a new day and some sunshine.  It was a nice enough day to hit up the zoo.  We recently bought a zoo pass to the local zoo and Miss M loves going to the zoo.  Everyone packed up and headed to the zoo with the exception of Mr. Man and I.

Mr. Man and I were able to enjoy a peaceful day at home just hanging out.  The zoo crew were gone all day. I thought they would make it for a few hours. They came home seven hours later.  It was a great day for everyone!

I got a few pictures via text of the girls enjoying the zoo.

Well Miss M was enjoying the zoo.  I am not sure what A was upset by...I am not sure anyone knew what was wrong with her.

 Only E could get Miss M to put her head in a hole for a picture opportunity.

Monday morning we woke up and watched cartoons and ate breakfast.  We had a little bit of time to play before our guests packed up and drove back home.  Luckily, we have plans to see them in a few weeks so it wasn't as sad to see them go as it is when we don't have a plan to see them again.

Blessing and a curse

I debated buying a sling/wrap to tote Mr. Man around in while he is really little since it would provide me the use of both of my hands when also dealing with a needy two year old.  As luck would have it, a friend came over and brought me one she had but wasn't using any longer.  It's been amazing! Mr. Man loves it.  It essentially curls him up and puts him to sleep.  This is where the blessing and curse comes in. It's great that it puts him to sleep and leaves me with two hands but then it's a curse b/c I don't want to wear him all day long and I can't seem to get him out of it without waking him up! Fortunately, he weighs less than 9 pounds so toting him around isn't strenuous. It is kind of nice to have him close by and not have to worry about baby monitors since he's essentially attached to me. 

We went in to the doctor's office this week for his 2 week check up.  He is healthy and happy and the doctor was pleased with his weight gain.  

Weight - 8 pounds 12 oz - 50%

Height - 22.5 inches long - 90%

Head circumference - 50%

We are supposed to be practicing "tummy time" to build neck and upper body strength but it's tough to do "tummy time" when he screams at me and when Miss M is on the move. I am sure his neck muscles will develop just fine in time.

Day 1 of the new normal

Today was the first day of Miss M, Mr. Man and myself home alone without Daddy and without help.

We survived.  It helps that Mr. Man is a relatively good sleeper thus far.  Miss M hasn't really experienced too much neglect because he sleeps most of the day.  She has even gotten decent at entertaining herself for small periods of time.  Now if only I could get her to clean up the war zones she creates when she plays by herself.

Miss M likes crafts and likes to paint.  Aunt Nessie bought her finger paint last weekend and as usual she wouldn't touch it.  She only wanted to use a paint brush which minimized the mess...until today...she wanted to finger paint.

And she was a mess...

And look Mr. Man's awake! Sort of.

Pretty as a princess

Andrew got Miss M out of bed Sunday morning and she insisted on wearing her princess dress.  Her princess dress is Rapunzel.  She also has her matching doll.

And she ate breakfast with us.  The doll that is...with her own bowl of Cheerios's and a spoon.

She then insisted...Miss M not the doll...that she wear her new coat and rain boots outside to play when it was sunny and 90 degrees outside.  In the long run the coat was a good idea because it protected her from the sun but I was essentially forcing fluids down her throat because I was worried about the heat coupled with the coat and polyester dress.

I found a new activity for her. I got a paint roller and a bucket of water and let her paint the ground. She enjoyed it and it was relatively mess free.  She has been into playing in and with the water outside.

Mr. Man slept all day...except for waking to eat and maybe an hour in the middle of the day.  It was nice to get things done but it made for a tough night.  I cooked all day creating an environment that was close to 800 degrees in our kitchen thus no pics of Mr. Man.

Cheese!

We had a photographer come in and take family pictures and newborn pictures yesterday.  I won't get into the details. The photographer was amazing but was here for over four hours. It was intense. He did a really good job working with Mr. Man but four hours was a little much for me and eventually Mr. Man had enough too.

Miss M was not very cooperative.  I am sure we got a few good ones of the family and of her but it took a lot of licorice to get the job done.

Today I got out the camera and she was all about cheesing.

 Mr. Man wasn't into pictures today. He was still worn out from yesterday.

I would also like to note that Mr. Man has (very little) light brown hair. It does not appear there is a chance for red hair.

Grandma D stayed with us for the week.  It was a very good week and having the extra help was very much appreciated. Monday is our first day alone without help.  Luckily, we'll have another week of help with Grandma Lu coming in another week!

Grandma D and Miss M played outside a lot and did a lot of outdoor playing.

I think Grandma D likes him!

A few more

I am already negligent in picture taking of Mr. Man.  I recognize it. I am just hoping to keep all of us afloat when all our help leaves and it's just the three of us all day every day.  It's kind of a terrifying thought...and if I were completely honest I would say it's really terrifying. I am sure it will all be fine and work out and we'll develop our own routine but the idea of the unknown is usually a bit scary.

Here are a few more pictures of Miss M because she's decided she can say cheese and not scream at the camera all the time and Poppy had his camera when we went for a bike ride to DD.

Miss M loves herself some donuts - especially ones with chocolate and sprinkles.  She's definitely my child. 

Miss M got all kinds of fun new stuff while Poppy, Grandma and Nessie were here. She got a new hat, coat and shoes. She's looking pretty cute in her fancy new accessories. 

We're finally home...with Mr. Man

When we got home Wednesday night Miss M had a surprise for us. She loves surprises for anyone (but mostly herself).  She had a sign which read "I love you Mommy & Daddy". It was really sweet and adorable because Miss M doesn't do things on command and she just stood in her tower waiting for us to walk through the door.  She was pretty proud of herself too.

He's awake!

With as unsure as we were about how Miss M would react to Mr. Man based on her response at the hospital she has been quite responsive to him since coming home.

She wants to feed him a bottle, hold him, rock him, and tell him "it's alright baby". She has taken quite a liking to him for the most part. She clearly doesn't connect the dots that he's the reason why I can't be at her beck and call all the time - which is good - because it's probably safer for her to be mad at me than him!

She thought he needed his blanket. 

She thought she wanted to hold him here but then decided just patting him was good enough. She was really excited although you'd never know from the look on her face.

Here is where she started telling him it was going to be alright and then rocking him. We've had to work on gentle rocking as I think she would prefer vigorous rocking.

This picture is a bit confusing to look at because it's not positioned correctly and because Miss M decided when she was ready to hold Mr. Man that she do it laying down. I don't know why she felt this was the best way to hold him but it's what she insisted.  She laid down in the glider and we laid Mr. Man across her. She was impressed for less than 5 seconds. 

Mr. Man prepares for coming home

We were granted permission from my doctor that we could go home Wednesday if we felt like we wanted to. We were pretty anxious to leave because we wanted to see Miss M and because we weren't doing anything in the hospital.  

In hindsight, we should have stayed. There was too much discharge work to be done in a short amount of time. It all got done but it was a little difficult and we came to find out our nurse was pretty new thus making the process a little more stressful.  If we had stayed in the hospital Thursday night we could have avoided what felt like a million (or three) follow up doctors appointments. In all reality we probably could have avoided one of them but one of them would have been worth avoiding. 

Mr. Man successfully is gaining weight and didn't end up with jaundice since we've been sunning him...within reason obviously.  

Mr. Man is a fantastic sleeper - compared to Miss M. 

Mr. Man

Mr. Man has arrived.  He technically arrived a week ago.  I have been a bit busy thus the delay in posting.

I have affectionately started calling him Mr. Man and I think it's appropriate for him because he kind of looks like a little old man.

He's a sweet baby.  I recognize that he's only been with us for a week but he's already more content in life than Miss M was until she turned about a year. Well, that's probably an exaggeration...maybe she was more content at 7 months but she was not a content baby.

We got up around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, May 8th.  We drove to the hospital to start the induction.  I had to be pumped full of an antibiotic for four hours before they could start the pitocin.  The doctor broke my water at 8:45. I was going to wait until 9 a.m. to request the epidural but by 8:50 I was ready for the anesthesiologists.  They arrived and had the epidural going by 9:30.  I was in a lot of pain by 11:00.  I requested another boost of the epidural shortly thereafter. I was having extreme back pain which was not going away with the epidural.  The doctor came back in around 11:30 and Mr. Man arrived at 12:02 p.m.

Mr. Man was 8 lbs and 7 ozs.  We have no idea how long he was when he was born. I need to remember to ask when we go to the pediatrician next time.  He came out face down which caused some facial bruising so he looked blue when he came out. It was a bit disturbing but he shaped up pretty quickly.

It took us a few hours or a day to decide officially on a name but the birth certificate people came around and a decision had to be made.

There may be a lot of photos in the next few posts because I couldn't decide.

 In this picture I think you can see how his face look blue.

A few hours later he wasn't as blue and he got to meet his first visitors. Grandma and Poppy drove in Tuesday to stay with Miss M. Aunt Nessie also came to stay. It is safe to say that the only thing Miss M went without for a few days was her momma.  Other than that she was a pretty spoiled girl. She deserved to be spoiled - her world just got rocked.

When everyone came to the hospital Tuesday evening Miss M was not impressed. She wouldn't even come into the hospital room. I imagine it was a bit frightening seeing her momma in a robe and in a hospital bed.

She came around but as you can see she didn't initially warm up to me rather she wanted to play with Aunt Nessie.  She didn't pay any attention to Mr. Man at all. I am not even sure she looked at him or she went out of her way to look away from him.

I took the advice of my sister in law and brought gifts to the hospital for Miss M from Mr. Man.  We all know Miss M loves prizes. She did enjoy her prizes but still no love for Mr. Man.  When it was time for them to leave it was a bit rough. Miss M didn't want to go but she was brided out - probably by M&M's - and Aunt Nessie told us that she was fine a few minutes later and telling them how the baby got her prizes.  The book we're reading is one of the things that Mr. Man bought for Miss M.

One week and counting...

Technically we have less than one week before we officially become a family of four.  The induction is supposed to be scheduled for Wednesday, May 8th.  I say "supposed to be" b/c the doctor has confirmed the date but we have yet to hear from the hospital regarding the time we are suppose to show up at the hospital.

I find having a date set both wonderful and terrifying.  I like the unpredictability of going into labor so you don't have to anticipate when you're going to actually give birth but the ability to plan who is going to take care of Miss M is glorious.

I am ready for baby #2 to get here. I am kind of tired of the anticipation of how everything is going to go and ready for everything to just happen (b/c the anticipation stresses me out more than anything). I am sure I will regret saying that when he's not sleeping and Miss M isn't sleeping and I am just plain exhausted.  Miss M's sleep patterns are all sorts of off right now between not going to bed until 11pm some nights, waking up for 2 hour stints some nights and going on a nap strike for the last couple days. I am hoping things get better and not worse with her sleeping but her lack of sleep is exhausting for everyone.

Miss M and I have been taking advantage of the nice weather and hanging out outside.

Miss M prefers the shade. I prefer it too based on not wanting to put sunscreen on either of us. We took our Gak outside that Aunt Ness made and used our tools and cookie cutters to make shapes.

We also enjoy dining al fresco.  We had lunch and dinner outside yesterday. We have a screened in porch area which is great b/c the bugs can't attack us and I can leave the mess for a little while without worrying about how many bugs we'll have attracted.

I read somewhere that vinegar kills weeds. They recommend putting the vinegar in a squirt bottle and spraying it directly on the weeds. I thought this would be a fun task for Miss M since it's a safe alternative to chemicals from the store.  She loved it although I think all our plants might be dead soon b/c she was spraying everything.  We eventually switched to spraying water. Lets hope it wasn't too late.