She's here!

Heidis due date of October 19th came and went. A few days later, we escaped Will  and Heidi sharing a birthday. The next morning though, I woke up at 2:30am to contractions 2-3mins apart. So I must have slept through a good bit of them! I woke Billy up and he was a bit panicked because the contractions were so close together, but we both managed a quick shower and made it to the hospital by 3:30.  My midwife arrived a bit later and broke my water.  I was so excited to already be at 7cm, but a few hours later, I had barely progressed.  I asked for something to take the edge off, and they gave me Nubian.  It made me so sleepy, but gave me a break from the intensity for about 30mins.  After it wore off, I decided I wanted the epidural, but it was too late and time to push. Ultimately it was what I wanted, but was so scared!!!  I think I only pushed for 10 minutes, but I don't want to ever forget that pain and think it was no big deal! I remember saying that I didn't want to do it anymore.  Billy and the midwife basically told me, "too bad!"

She came out screaming at 8:13 and with the cord wrapped around her ankle.  We couldn't believe she was more than 9lbs!  My mom and Will came to visit us about and hour later.  Will didn't care. And just wanted to eat crackers.  Ha!  But since then, Heidi has been such a great baby and Will has been adjusting.

Heidi rarely cries loudly(unless I give her a bath) and is a pretty good eater/sleeper.  She was back to her birth weight after 4 days and has given me close to 4 hour stretches of sleep at night.  I think having low expectations of a newborn, not having a pounding epidural headache and knowing a bit more about what I'm doing with nursing has made everything easier this time.  The only bump is Will's adjustment.  He wants to get in her swing, rock her a little too hard, and has spots of jealousy.  But, he's 2 and I don't think I can expect anything much different. Yesterday was my first day home alone with both of them all day and we survived.  The worst part was post-naps when they both had dirty diapers and we somehow got it in Heidi's hair.  Then of course, they were both hungry.  It was almost 80 degrees, so it was easy to play with Will in the backyard and keep Heidi inside where I could see her.  Today, I was able to get the three of us out of the house to take Will to school.  So far, so good!

Will is two!

Two years old! And he's going to be a big brother any day. We think back to two years ago...late at night, we finally agreed to go to the hospital during halftime of a Steelers vs. Bengals game.  Of course, since we were in Pittsburgh, we got to finish watching the game in the waiting roommate then the triage room.  After the win, Billy then started giving the birth of our first child his full attention. ;)

Sixteen hours later, our boy was born! Our life hasn't been the same since.  Not even close.  We keep wondering what we did with all our free time before Will!  I've been saying it for two years, but he really gets more fun all the time. 

He is now adjusted to being dropped off at school and knows that I will come get him each time.  It also makes the child watch rooms for MOPS and Bible Study easier.  He talks to his little friends, even if they don't talk back yet.  Most afternoons, we meet the same friend at the park, and they have a little routine of trading snacks, fighting over a ball and chasing each other.

Some things I want to remember about Will being two:

-A few weeks ago, he asked for ice cream for breakfast.  Obviously I said no.  A few minutes later, I went to the bathroom and found he had opened the freezer and was helping himself to an ice cream sandwich.

-I have a problem with not closing cabinet doors.  Billy has trained him to say "Close door, Mommy!" when he sees an open cabinet.

-He still loves puzzles, and can sit with 5 around him and put them all together at once.

-He is finally drinking water again!

-HUGE breakthrough with sleep.  I read on a local message board that some toddlers drink a bit of tart cherry juice before bed and it helps with their melatonin levels.  I made this juice into a popscicle and lo and behold, Will has been sleeping all night for more than 2 weeks.  This has never happened! Maybe a coincidence, but I will keep buying these $7 bottles of juice for now!

-He likes to share his snacks and food.

-His favorite toys are Little People, stickers and his kitchen/play food.

38 weeks

Almost to the end! I finally feel pretty ready for what's ahead.  Mom gets here in a week and the nursery is pretty much complete.  Her glider that I ordered from Target took over a month to get here!  My midwife and the OB that I see will be at a conference in Grand Cayman the 14th-19th, so it's likely I'll end up with another OB from the practice, but that should be fine.  Some timing though!

The acid reflux is in full force now, which isn't so bad, because I had it much longer with Will.  Overall, I just feel huge and uncomfortable, which is par for the course.  Only a few tops fit me now, so my friends see me wear the same outfits over and over.  Speaking of friends, they pulled together an awesome breakfast to celebrate Baby Heidi a few weeks ago - and planned it while Will was in school.  I was really in awe, not really realizing I had met so many great friends in our nearly two years here.  

Another funny comment from a family with 3 kids at church: "We're not sure if things really fell apart after the second kid, or third."  Haha.  Again, so encouraging.  I imagine it will be crazy for a while, trying to wrangle Will for diaper changes, feeding Heidi and just getting out of the door some mornings.  But pretty much everyone figures it out, right?

Will at 23 months

Not sure how another month went by so quickly!

Will is changing so much lately-mostly in his vocabulary.  We can have little conversations now, even if they are a little obscure.  I keep asking him who is in his class at preschool, and he keeps telling me "Owl!"  I have no idea what he is referring to.  He can string four words together now.  My favorite is "Daddy clean up mess!"  

The kid loves songs and requests them all day.  Mostly Wheels on the Bus, Yankee Doodle, Ring Arouns the Rosie and the "party song" aka Happy Birthday.  When he gets in his crib, he always asks for "song" and "back" which means he wants me to sing and rub his back.  I oblige, of course.  :)

His sleep is still erratic.  One backfire, that may change as he gets into more of a routine is his nap after school.  I assumed he would be exhausted and go right to sleep.  Nope.  His brain must still be turned on, because it is usually quite a task to get him down for a nap on those days.  Other days, are pretty easy.  We usually have something fun to do in the mornings, and are back home by lunch and start winding down.  I know I NEED his nap time to get rest too!

Another weird phase right now is fighting getting washed during bath time.  All we hear is "No soap! No soap! No soap!" So that's not easy.  Billy has been taking care of baths, and I'm the sideline cheerleader, trying to get him to calm down.

Eating is still pretty good.  Still on the milk kick, but he drank a cup of water at school last week, and a every watered down cup of Gatorade for me this weekend.  He loves pickles even for breakfast and has been chowing down on applesauce and oranges.  Now that he can talk, it does make things a little easier.  Until he requests a popscicle for breakfast.

He hates diaper changes.  It is a serious task to get him to lay down and be still.  Just getting him in his room and shutting the gate is a small victory for me.

He loves going to the park.  We still go just about every afternoon and some mornings too.  He likes to see other kids there and refers to them as "friends".  We have gotten him into watching football-mostly the Steelers of course, and he likes when we all put on our jerseys.  His favorite book right now is the 3 Little Pigs and when I ask what the wolf does, he says, "Eat piggies!"

He'll be TWO next month!  Sometimes he seems like such a big boy, but other times, still so little.  I'm up in the air about a party still, because I'm about to have this baby, and he wouldn't know the difference.  We have been practicing singing Happy Birthday though.  We'll celebrate of course because October is THE month for birthdays around here.  Maybe two of his little friends over for cake and balloons...we'll see in a couple weeks!

Will at 22 months

This month almost went right by and I didn't even realize Will was 22 months old. Almost 2 years!  Things seem to be happening so fast with him now, especially his language.  It is so fun to watch and hear.  He tries to repeat so much of what we say.  Yesterday I told him I needed to wipe his snot bubble(gross, I know) and of course, he immediately repeated "snot bubble".  Billy then heard this and got him to say it over and over.  Hilarious for everyone, I assure you!

Sleeping is still not great.  I thought he was on to something early this week.  There were three days Ina row that he slept all night and past 6:30am.  Then on Wednesday, he couldn't get to sleep for nap or at night, and two of those nights, was up for two straight hours.  I have no idea what is going to happen when Heidi gets here because he still doesn't want Billy at night.  His eating is pretty good though. He's pretty consistent with what he eats.  Still a lot of fruit, loves noodles with parmesan, peanut butter, and some meats.  Still drinking only milk; no water for some reason.  Vegetables are easier now, as long as this cowboy figurine we found sings a song about carrots, avocado, etc.  Whatever works!  

He can count to ten, and sometimes twelve.  Most of the time, he skips the number one and nine.  But just in a month, he has changed so much!  Billy got him to do it, by inticing him with throwing him on our bed, which he loves!  I don't know why one and nine are consistently skipped though.  

This kid scares me, by what he is not afraid of! We were at a new park, and before I could realize what was happening, he scaled a climbing pole and got onto the playground that was much taller than me.  He's so fast!  The puddle jumper I bought him for the pool has been great!  Now, even as I see him darting toward the lazy river, I'm not quite as panicked. We have had so much fun at the pool this summer!

In less than two weeks, he starts a morning pre-school at our church two days a week.  He knows one teacher from the church nursery, so I don't think drop off is going to be hard for him at all.  His class is four boys, so they should keep their teachers busy!   For about a month and half, I'll have 6 kid-free hours too!

A few funnies:

Yesterday, I was shooting his ball at the basketball court with him and every time I missed, he said "nope!" and laughed.

I was cooking dinner and then noticed a naked little body hugging my legs! He can now take off his shirt, shorts and diaper - and those cloth diapers are not easy to get out of!

My mom sent him the 3 Little Pigs book and when we read it, he flips through all the pages to find the wolf.  He mostly says, "Wolf. Eat. Bad!"

He runs away when he realizes it's time to change his diaper or he'll tell me "no" when I ask him if it needs to be changed.  Ok, this is more frustrating than funny.

He knows that pirates say "arghhh" and always requests his pirate pajamas.  He also asks for the raccoon pajamas, which we gave to Lucas in the beginning of July. How does he remember?!

When he swings at the park, he always says, "Mommy, too?" 

31 weeks

Countdown is now in the single digits in weeks.  I finally ordered a crib, and it arrived yesterday.  One thing down, 25 to go! We decided to keep Will in his crib, since he's still not a great sleeper, and this way, they'll both end up with full beds once the cribs convert.  The fed ex man isn't going to be happy with the rest of the ordering I plan on doing over the next few weeks!

            

See Will's little head getting into trouble in the background? Taking him to dr. appts is so fun.

It seems that I got so big all of the sudden!  Baby Heidi is pretty much full grown, and is just fattening up now.  You know I love a chunky baby and I hope she does not dissapoint!  I've been so hungry lately, I am sure she's getting enough to eat!

This pregnancy is different in some ways.  I have an outie belly button, which I never had with Will.  I started eating meat again a lot earlier.  The heartburn is minimal, in comparison to last time.  My lower back and what I think is my sciatic nerve hurts so bad, I have a hard time walking sometimes.

A mom of three boys was chatting with us at church today, and Billy was asking about having multiple children.  She sort of laughed and said that it really is a full time job for about six years.  What???  No.  I guess with all the tying shoes, meals, baths...until they can do it on their own, it can be consuming.  For some things though, I can already see it getting easier with Will now that he can(sort of) talk.  

So since I've barely done any documenting of this nine months, I just wanted to jot a few things down to remember!

Mo?

Just another cute story I want written down...

At Will's pediatrician appointment last week, the doctor needed to look in his ears and mouth.  Most toddlers I know won't let that just happen.  So being the baby whisperer that she is, the dr. told Will that Elmo was in his ear and she needed to see him. Lo and behold, he let her take a look! Then she said Cookie Monster was in his left ear, and Big Bird was in his mouth and she needed to see them.  He was such an easy patient after that!

For the rest of the day, he kept pointing to his ear and asking me, "Mo?" - as in Elmo.  Several days later now, he still remembers it, so today, I tried to tell them that they moved back to Sesame Street.  He did not buy it!