Visiting Auntie G & Frankie D.

As part of the week of Nana Fun-time/Last Days of the Only Child, Linda took Luke up to visit his Auntie G, who is now living in Cloverdale which is super north of us.  Auntie G lives in a cute little place out in the country and her backyard overlooks the Russian River.  Luke adores his Auntie G and her sweet dog, Frankie D. 

Todd and I were excited to have a little time to ourselves before the arrival of Miss Lily.  They left Thursday afternoon and returned Friday afternoon.  Todd and I did romantic date things like, running errands. We did go to a late lunch on Thursday, which was fun.  I couldn’t remember the last time we didn’t have to rush, we were able to enjoy our time together, even if it was boring grown up things like going to Costco and grocery shopping.

Back to the fun stuff though!

So Linda, Luke, Auntie G and Frankie went down to the Russian River where Luke had a fabulous time playing in the river, making mud pies and splashing around.  Would you believe that in my highly emotional, hormonal state, I completely cried when I looked at these pictures as I saw my little baby suddenly such a big boy!

Luke and the ever-watchful, Frankie D.

Playing in the river and being careful of the current

Nana was the end-point – the current was pretty quick past her

Fun with Auntie G!

Love that little stinker’s smile!

Do you know what to do if you find a big ol’ rock?

Luke knows.

Have we talked about Luke being a performer? Yeah, well, he is not shy and loves to be in front of people. (weird, I know) In fact, Luke’s pediatrician at his 4 year appointment told me that I shouldn’t only pursue sports with him, I should get him involved in theater as well. *sigh* Should have seen that coming.  Depending on who you know best (Todd or myself), know that both of us were heavily involved in theater/singing growing up, so clearly, Luke got that as well.  In fact (on a totally unrelated note) both Todd and I have decided that once the kids get older and more independent, we want to get back into performing and being a part of community theater.  We both love performing and we can’t wait to embarrass our kids. :)

So here is Luke, using his mic to perform as Freddie Mercury, from Queen (see screen) I will say that Luke has good taste in music, thanks to Todd.  Most of time, we listen to music during dinner.  Sometimes it is classic music (Luke’s current fav: “In the Hall of the Mountain King), or 80’s pop, or punk (loves Bouncing Souls) or classic rock (Queen). After dinner often becomes a dancing time. Perhaps there will be another post about that.

Big Brother

Luke does love being a big brother.  We definitely fluctuate between love of our baby sister and jealousy.  He wants to see her first thing every morning and give her hugs and kisses.  He doesn’t like her being asleep, so he will definitely poke and squeeze her to wake her up.  Guess how happy that makes Mom? Luckily, Lily is a resilient little girl and can often sleep through most of it. (Blessings of a second child)

The other day he did admit that he wants to sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s room just like Baby Sister.  *sigh*  Todd talked to him about how he was able to sleep in our room when he was a baby (granted, it was only for 3 days because he was such a noisy little bugger) and that she will be moving into her own room, in her own crib soon enough.  Poor kid – he’s been an only child for so long, this is definitely a difficult transition time.  I’m hoping that when she gets older and he can interact more, things will get easier.

These pictures are all from the first time that Luke held Lily.  Luke pretty much demands to hold her every night after his bedtime story.

First Day of School

 

Luke started Pre-K on Monday, August 27th.  Please note: this is two days after I gave birth.  I was clearly not a part of the “Back to School” fun that I would have normally been a part of.  Todd, Lily and I were coming home from the hospital that Monday, so it was up to Nana (Linda) to take Luke to school.  Bless her heart, she took a picture of him outside of his classroom.

Please note: Luke’s goal every day is to wear an Angry Birds t-shirt every day.  I can only wish that he was that passionate about listening or following directions. *sigh*  He has great teachers this year – I hope they will continue to be patient and guide him to be a good listener.

Bragging Time:

Luke is academically very advanced – he knows all his letters, their sounds, the vowels and their two sounds.  He can read many one-vowel words (when he’s in the mood) and knows his numbers, and can count up to 100.  Though sometimes he repeats his 40s :) He can write his name, Mom, Dad, Nana and Lily.  He doesn’t like writing the letter “M” though. 

That all being said, Luke is very *ahem* willful and we are continuing to work on him understanding that he is not the boss.

Here’s hoping for a good school year!

Lily’s Nursery

I wanted Lily’s nursery to be girly without being over the top, and the bedding I found in stores was not what I wanted.  I did find this bedding with polka dots, paisley and  bows. Girly and modern, but not too much so.  Not enough to send Todd into hysterics.

Todd’s mom, aunt and grandmother gave us all our bedding and matching accessories and they are beautiful!

Thanks to Pinterest, I made the cutie puffs for over Lily’s crib.

Although I have never recovered anything, ever, I decided to recover the glider and ottoman.  The glider was originally maroon and the ottoman was blue.  I looked into professional recovering, but it would be $300. Seriously. I could buy a new set for that. So instead I spent around $30 on fabric.  My original fabric choice (with coupon) would have run $15/yd, which was too much to spend on the off chance that it would actually turn out.  So $6/yd seemed like a more plausible option. And it worked!  I wanted to refinish the ottoman to match, but I ran out of time. Oh well.

I needed an endtable next to the glider to have a place for bottles, burpies, glasses, etc. but I couldn’t find anything that I really liked that wasn’t ridiculously expensive.  As I was cleaning out our office, I discovered a scrapbooking “file cabinet” in the closet and mod-podged the top using leftover fabric.

This is an older pic of the shadow boxes, but it’s close enough.  The shot above is updated.  I used Luke’s old shadow boxes that had been painted in a baseball theme and repainted them in pink and green, along with modpodging the outside. (Have I mentioned how much I love mod podge??)

I purchased this pink birdcage at Ross for $10 – it is super cute!  The topiaries are from my fireplace mantle and I had moved them into the nursery during Christmas-time as the Christmas mantle décor took up all the space.  So I bow-ed them and they are now in the nursery.  I love ribbon. And bows.  I have a ribbon problem.  The pink champagne was a gift from one of the parents from my 3rd grade class from last year.

I absolutely adore Lily’s nursery – it is one of the brightest rooms in the house and is so sunny and cheerful.  I love the colors and how comfortable it is.  It will be a wonderful room for Lily to grow up in.  And a big thanks to my mom for helping me clean out the room/closet and decorating, as it had become a dumping ground once Luke moved out and also thanks to Linda for helping with decorating.  It is fabulous!

Lily at 2 weeks

 

This week, Lily had her two week check-up.  I was anxious about the appointment because I haven’t supplemented with formula at all with her, and I was nervous about her weight gain, or perhaps lack of.  We love our pediatrician and I was excited for him to meet our little miss. 

So here are her stats:

Weight: 9 lbs 8 oz (up 1 lb 8 oz from birth)

Length: 21 inches (up 1 inch from birth)

Wahoo!

A few things about Miss Lily at two weeks:

• She is pretty much a rock star.
• She sleeps. She eats. She poops.
• She is fulfilling her end of the deal. I love that.
• At night, she is averaging anywhere from 4 to 6 hours of sleep at a time. 
• During the day, she’s eating regularly every 2 hours and napping frequently.
• She doesn’t cry or scream when Luke is in her face or poking at her.
• She really doesn’t cry or scream at all.  She squeaks. And grunts.

This is all completely opposite of Mr. Colicky-Baby Luke.

I don’t know if this is just a Second Kid Standard, but I’m sold on this kind of kid.

A little about Luke being a big brother at two weeks:

• He is quite “Lenny” about his little sister.  (from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men)
• He doesn’t quite get the idea about being “gentle” so we’re working on “don’t pet the rabbit so hard, Lenny.”
• Luke wants to be around Lily all the time. Mostly he just wants to wake her up to talk to her and poke at her.
• I love that he loves her, but holy cow . . . relax, Luke!

We are loving having Lily in our family – she is such a precious, sweet little girl.

The Arrival

Miss Lily is 2 weeks old now, and I have my life together enough to be able to share her arrival story.  I went into the doctor the day before her date and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was already 4 cm dilated and 50% effaced.  That was much further than I had ever been with Luke prior to my induction.  Knowing that she wasn’t going to be on time (I just knew) we scheduled an induction for Saturday, August 25th at 1:30 pm.

On Saturday morning, I started calling the hospital to see if there was a room for me so I could go in and have this baby! Alas, they were overbooked and understaffed, so they asked me to call back at noon.  And then when I called back at noon, they told me to call back at 5 pm.  While I was spending my afternoon calling, I also started having contractions.  This wasn’t the first time during this pregnancy, I had contractions earlier in the week and the week before, but had never progressed.

This time, they were progressing quickly, and I thought my water might have broken.  I called the hospital around 4:30 and they told me to come on in.  I arrived at the hospital at 5, was checked and admitted and into my room by 5:30 pm.  While I was in observation, a nurse came in to tell me that he had called my cell phone to tell me there still wasn’t a room for me for an induction.  He told me to ignore the message, since, you know, I was having a baby and all.

I progressed quickly and was asked if I wanted an epidural. I had originally wanted to go without pain meds, as that had been my goal with Luke as well.  I reflected on my first delivery experience, I remembered how I hadn’t progressed and both Luke and my blood pressure plummeted.  I remembered being given the choice of an epidural and a c-section.  Knowing this, I didn’t want to get to that point again with Lily, so I took the epidural.

The epidural worked quickly and I couldn’t feel a thing. Score!  Before I knew it, the nurse told me it was time to have this baby as I zipped right along to full dilation.  She brought the doctors in quickly, as they had just delivered another baby. 

I still couldn’t feel a thing at this point and when the nurse informed me to push during contractions, I told her she was going to need to tell me when those were.  4 minutes of pushing, and Lily Grace was born.  Apparently, she was sunny-side up and as she came out, she twisted herself out like a little corkscrew, which reduced my tearing. Good job, Lily!

The nurses flopped her on my chest and of course I cried and cried.  I was so happy to have my sweet little girl.  The doctors rushed out to go deliver another baby.  We had some time to enjoy skin-to-skin contact for a bit and then the nurses asked if they could take her to clean her up and weigh her.  As they took her, Lily’s foot hit me in the face (thanks) and I realized she left behind a present. She pooped ALL over me.  Now, we’re not talking a little poop, we are talking a HUGE GIANT impressive, shock-the-nurses kind of poop.  It takes a lot to surprise labor/delivery nurses.  They just kept saying, “I have never seen a newborn poop that much!”  As I still had no feeling from my waist down, I was stripped down to nothing and had all the poop cleaned up off of me. Bleh.

Our L/D nurse made a sweet little bow for her hat and we took a ton of pictures.  She immediately latched on and started nursing, which was an improvement over Luke.  

Isn’t she pretty??

Todd was so glad Lily had a round head. Apparently, when you push for 4 minutes verses 1 hr and 15 minutes, you get a better shaped, less “alien-like” head.

 

3 generations

Guess what? I’m your mom!

“Todd! Take my picture too!” (Thanks, Mom)

Love our precious little girl

Daddy and his little girl

This is where I am at right now.  Having a *ahem* rather "precocious" 4 year old is a challenge on a good day.  I love my Luke-pie, but boy can he be frustrating.  I have to remind myself frequently to have patience, to remember that he's only 4 and that he is a sweet, funny boy who does mean well.  I know that my expectations can border on the ridiculous/impossible, as I am used to working with much older kids who respond to my redirection.  Luke certainly has a mind of his own and things have to be done his way. Unfortunately, with Todd and I - we are just as stubborn and things have to be done our way. *sigh*

My grandmother said that you should never be surprised by your children's personality - you get back what you put in.  So perhaps the most frustrating part of all of this is that Luke is so much like Todd and I.  It doesn't help that he really does listen (even though he doesn't always do what he is asked) and will often repeat what we say to him.

Example:

Luke: Mom, you frustrate me. But I love you. I will always love you.  You need to listen to my words. 

Me: Luke, you frustrate me, too.  And I will always love you, too.  I am listening to your words, but we are still not watching TV and you need to listen to my words because I'm the mommy.

Luke: But MOOOOM.  

I think I have a 15 year old trapped in a 4 year old's body.

I know I need to slow down and enjoy my time with Lily, as it will go way too quickly.  I already feel the time constraint of going back to work (November) and a little of the sadness of knowing that she will be my last baby.  I want to speed up time and slow down time concurrently.