Siblings

We are slowly adjusting to life in a multiple child household. Luckily for us Fiona adores her little brother. She pats him and says “he nice”, and wants to hold him and take care of him. So far there isn’t a whole lot of jealousy, but I assume it will come.

But for now I am loving watching them interact with each other.

And bond with each other.

I’m sure she is telling him all the ways to drive us crazy, and that a hug or an “I Love you mommy” makes us forget all of those things that drive us crazy.

Life with a toddler… and a baby

Things have been busy around here. Our son Lincoln Gray was born on September 15th at 3:28 pm.

I normally try to keep this blog work related, but I will get personal with this post and tell the story of little Lincoln’s arrival.

Lincoln was scheduled to arrive on the 14th, but the results of the amnio that I had earlier in the week were not the results we were hoping for, and one of my dr’s wanted to wait another 12 days. Due to me being a high risk pregnancy I was scheduled to deliver at 36 weeks and 3 days, which I realize is early. But our other living child; Fiona, was an emergency c-section and the type of c-section my dr performed meant that all future pregnancies would need to be early deliveries or risk both my life and the childs. We knew this going into the pregnancy and understood the consequences.

But the results of the amnio showed that Lincoln’s lungs needed 12 more days to mature. My husband and I had a meeting with my other dr on the morning of the 15th to discuss options. How long do we wait? How long is it safe? After meeting with the dr, we discovered I was in early labor, and she decided to err on the side of caution and sent me over to labor and delivery to wait until I hit 4cm’s (I was 3cm at her office) at which point I would deliver. We figured it might be day or even 2 days. So we came home got my stuff together and headed over to the hospital. In the 2 hours it took for us to get to the hospital (we took our time), I was 4 cm and having contractions every 2 minutes.

88 minutes after we got to the hospital Lincoln was born via c-section. And we discovered the amnio results were wrong. He came out screaming with lungs that were fully mature. He was a big boy and weighed in at 8lbs and 3oz (not bad for a 36 weeker!) and was 20.5 inches long. I got to see him before he was taken to the nursery to wait for me to finish up with the surgery. I got to hold him just 45 minutes after delivery. It was a very different experience then my previous 2 deliveries, and one I will treasure for the rest of my life.

I stayed in the hospital for 4 days before coming home to embark on the next chapter of this adventure we call life.

I will be taking a few weeks off of work as I recover from surgery but I’m sure there will be the occasional post of the kiddos and how life is changing as we introduce another child to our family.

Haircut

Earlier this week I took Fiona to get a hair cut. She was very excited at the idea of a hair cut, and I think she told the lady cutting her hair “I get my hair cut” at least 20 times.

She was very cooperative during the process; looked down and held still when asked.

Fiona’s hair grows so slow that we rarely get her hair cut, and when we do its just to even it out and clean up the ends.

But her hair cut does look really cute! And she is still talking about it.

Playdate with Molly

Since I can’t really take Fiona anywhere, her friend Molly came to our house to play. Those two little girls run around and wear each other out. They are so cute to watch, I really hope they stay friends as they grow up (also Molly’s mom is fabulous, and its so fun to hang out with her while the girls play).

The girls colored together.

They did some cooking in Fiona’s play kitchen, Molly made pasta, and Im not sure what Fiona was making…

There was lots of giggling.

Some dancing (those two LOVE to dance)

And a little harassing of the dog.. . or a little harassing by the dog.

The girls had a lot of fun (including tibi, who followed those little girls everywhere). It was a great way to tire Fiona out without me having to be up and around too much.

Pool Time

Over labor day weekend we took Fiona to the pool. I sat on the side of the pool, occasionally dipping my feet in. Mark got to do the fun part and went swimming with Fiona, while I did nothing more strenuous then click the shutter on my camera.

Fiona had a lot of fun swimming with her daddy! I think she is enjoying all the daddy time she has been getting lately.

The pool we went to has a really fun splash pad area, and Fiona had a blast chasing Mark through the water.

Our community pool is actually opening back up due to the “extremely warm weather”, warm might be a bit of an understatement so I’m glad our pool is back open for the rest of the month. This is a record breaking summer with over 80 days with temperatures 100+, and summer isn’t over yet!

Photos from the couch…

Dear blog, happy 100th post! I just wish I had more exciting photos to post, but since I’m listening to my dr’s and spending the majority of my time hanging on the couch the next few posts will just be photos I can take from a comfy chair.

Its not always easy to keep a 2 year old entertained when I can’t do much. We have watched movies, colored, played with blocks and built tunnels, played with bubbles, had friends come over and Fiona has helped me cook.

The other day Fiona had a blast playing with bubbles.

She is getting pretty good at blowing bubbles and using her bunny blower. She loves that she can make bubbles.

A few weeks ago we gave Fiona one of our old point and shoot cameras. She always sees Mark and I using our camera’s and now she gets to use one herself.  She thinks its pretty cool that she can take photos. Her favorite subject is tibi

Life with a toddler

One of Fiona’s favorite activities is painting. For her birthday I bought her fingers paints and over size paper so that she could paint.  The only problem is she rarely sticks to just painting just on the paper.

Yes, she paints in her diaper. Do you see all that paint on her hands?

Her favorite thing to paint; her hand print. She loves to trace her hand, or even better cover her hand in paint and put hand prints all over the paper.

And when she gets bored of the paper? She moves on to painting herself.

Most painting sessions end with a paint covered Fiona getting a bath. But its worth it to see that smile as she spreads paint on the paper and tells me what she is painting. “This is Pico, where are his ears? I know! There are his ears (as she smears more paint on the paper)!”

Who knows what she will grow up to be; an artist, a doctor, a programmer? The least I can do is encourage her to be creative and explore the world around her as she grows.

Exploring Texas, Natural Bridges

For our anniversary Mark and I went exploring, which is one of our favorite things to do. We headed out towards Groene, TX (which is pronounced Greene), and went to explore a cavern system called Natural Bridges. There are two different tours and we opted for the longer, easier tour.

The photos don’t do the place justice, it was absolutely beautiful and awe inspiring.

It was a fairly easy tour and if your in the area I would highly recommend visiting Natural Bridges. We followed up cave exploration with lunch and wandering in Groene. It was a great day!