May 9th

Today is May 9th - the day Charlie was supposed to be due. It's absolutely amazing to think about, that I could still have been pregnant these last three weeks, instead of spending time getting to know our little guy. How different the last three weeks could have been! And I wouldn't change a thing.

Today is May 9th - Mother's Day. A day to reflect on all the moms in your life. I am lucky, on so many counts. First, to have my mom. I often think about my own childhood when trying to decide how to handle the various challenges my kids throw me. I've learned a lot from my mom and to this day don't know what I'd do without her. And that's just her as a mom - you should see her as a grandma!! Second, to not only have a mother-in-law I like and respect, but who also rocks in the grandma role. My boys are so lucky to be loved by all the moms in their lives. Third, I am surrounded by so many amazing moms, friends I rely on for daily support, who provide the opportunity to vent and then laugh about the ups and downs of motherhood. I've learned so much from all of you, and I'm so grateful to have you in my life! And last, but absolutely not least, that I am blessed to be the mom of two healthy boys. Nothing could be better.

Today is May 9th - our friend Brady's 5th birthday. We had the chance to attend his birthday party on Friday, which started at a local "Pump It Up" - a big warehouse filled with elaborate bounce houses, inflatable slides, and obstacles courses. Zach had a blast... jumping and then jumping some more:


Then he discovered they had an air hockey game (the place where he gets his hair cut has an air hockey table; he's actually been asking to get his hair cut lately so he can play!):

And then there was the cake...


Charlie slept and ate his way through the party, not realizing the fun he was missing!

I hope you all enjoy whatever May 9th brings you!

Our Charliebug

I was a little nervous before Charlie was born, because I had received so many warnings that the second baby is usually nothing like the first. Since Zach was a relatively easy baby, I was picturing our second as a baby who wouldn't stop crying, who had reflux or colic, who would get his nights mixed up with his days, etc etc. And... somehow we hit the jackpot again.

Don't get me wrong, we don't have that miracle newborn who sleeps 8 hours at a stretch. While there's certainly no pattern yet, I count myself lucky if he goes three hours between feedings. We've had some nights where he's woken every two hours to eat - those are not my favorite nights. But once he went four whole hours, so I'll just keep hoping we have a repeat of that.

One of my favorite things about this little guy? He does not wake me up by crying. In fact, he never cries at night. Instead, I wake up to the very sweet sound of snuffling and grunting, as Charlie does his very best to get some part of his hands into his mouth. Ehh, ehh, ahhh, mhmmm! A much better way to wake up than the adrenaline rush that comes when you wake up to a screaming baby.

It took us a few nights to get to this stage with Charlie. The first few nights he ended up sleeping with Scott (who somehow can manage to sleep while holding a newborn) for some portion of the night; he absolutely would not fall or stay asleep by himself. I was concerned, to say the least; we are not co-sleeping people. But then we realized the reason he wouldn't sleep was that he was desperately fighting to get his hands out from under the swaddling blanket. So now we swaddle him with his hands up near his jaw - and voila - a happy baby who does his best to soothe himself when he wakes up! Looking back, we remember that in every one of our three ultrasounds he always had his hands by his face - clearly his comforting method.

The whole snuffling sounds thing presents a dilemma for me, since I don't want to get up and feed him until he's truly hungry. But his cute little noises are enough to wake me up, and I don't really want to lay there awake for a half hour until his noises get a little bit more urgent and distressed either. One solution is to move him into his own room, of course, since he's currently sleeping in Scott's closet. But I'm not ready to wander all the way down the hall several times a night quite yet. So I think in the meantime I'll just keep trying to learn to sleep through the sounds emanating from the closet.

I took Charlie in to the pediatrician for a weight check on Friday. When we left the hospital that Monday, Charlie had dropped from 6 lbs 2 ozs to 5 lbs 11 oz. By Wednesday at his pediatrician check-up he had gained 2 oz. The doctor wanted him back to his birth weight by last Friday, based on the estimation that he would gain somewhere between one half and one full ounce per day. So that gave him 9 days to gain 5 ounces. When I took him in and got him weighed, he was... 6 lbs 9 ounces! He gained 12 ounces in those 9 days - what a rock star. It was nice, to say the least, to get confirmation that he was in fact eating well. Perhaps we'll be able to move on to newborn-size clothes soon!

Let's see, what else can I tell you about our little guy? Since he is either sleeping or eating most of the day, there isn't a lot of news. :) I've been delighted to see several gas "smiles" - he's going to be quite the charmer when he starts smiling for real. He continues to pee about half the times when we change his diaper; either he's getting used to it or we're just better at damage control. He does continue to scream his head off any time his clothes are removed. But trust me, I'm not complaining since that's pretty much the only time he really cries. Like his brother, he goes with the flow.

We have been overwhelmed (again) by the outpouring of good wishes and congrats, from family, friends, and neighbors. And not to mention support - thank you all for the offers of help, whether it's an outing for Zach or a meal for all of us. We count ourselves as truly lucky to have all of you in our lives.

Cough cough

Three-quarters of our family have come down with some sort of sore throat and cold combination. Fortunately the remaining healthy one is Charlie... at least that's our assumption! So until I have the energy for a more thorough blog update, here's a few more cute pics from the last week...

P.S. I'm amazed looking at those last two pictures (left taken Friday; right the previous Sunday) - look at what a difference a few days makes. Charlie is growing before our eyes!

Zacharoo update

Let's get caught up with some Zach stories and updates:

To answer the question we get asked the most often, Zach really is doing well with the adjustment. He has moments of neediness, generally directed towards me. That is rather unusual, because typically, if his dad is around, I am more or less invisible to Zach. So to have him want to snuggle me or play with me when Scott is right there... not too hard to figure out what that is about. He also tends to have these "needy moments" right when I am feeding Charlie - again, fairly obvious what is going on in his mind. But I've gotten much better at multi-tasking - doing things like reading books, playing go fish, etc, while making sure Charlie gets fed too.

Zach is fascinated with Charlie. His fascination comes in what I would describe as bursts - short, intense, and frequent. He often wants to look at Charlie's eyes, and of course likes to stick his face as close to Charlie's as he possibly can when he's studying him. He is generous with his hugs and kisses too. We've had to give some specifics as to what "be gentle" means - where it's ok to touch, how it's ok to touch, etc. He hasn't shown any animosity towards his brother (yet?), and we haven't heard the dreaded "take him back" yet either!

But here is a story to illustrate exactly where Charlie ranks with Zach. We had left one of Zach's cars - a character named Sally - at my parents' house the last time we were there. They were unable to find her when they came a couple weeks ago, so my dad ended up going to three different stores before he was able to find the elusive Sally. Zach loved the story of how grandpa searched and searched, and was thrilled to have the new Sally. So a few days after Charlie was born, Zach was outside playing cars in the driveway. Our neighbor, who I had emailed with the news of Charlie's birth, came home and called out "Zach - I heard you have someone new at your house!" Zach's response? An enthusiastic yes, as he held up... Sally.

Zach has also figured out that Grandpa is a big teaser, and spent much of the week my parents were here practicing his own teasing skills on Grandpa. Our favorite was when he said, out of the blue - Grandpa, you don't go to work OR go curling. All you do is just sleep all day and sleep all night!

As I know I've mentioned before, Zach is a pretty laid-back and flexible kid. But I'm starting to notice that while he's not overtly strong-willed, in the sense that if he knows we want him to do something he'll resist just to prove he can, he definitely decides when it's time for him to accomplish something. A perfect example was potty-training; he'd been going to the bathroom at our prompting for quite a while, and then one day decided he was ready, and that was it - he would let us know every time he had to go, no accidents.

A more recent example has been swimming. Scott has been taking Zach to the pool at the Y all winter, playing in the water but trying to teach him to swim at the same time. Scott made some progress - we could put two fun noodles under his arms and he'd swim around independently. But the last time I was in a pool with Zach was in early March, at Scott's birthday party. Zach clung to me for dear life, and wouldn't jump off the side of the pool unless we were holding both of his hands - he didn't trust us to catch him. So imagine my surprise when Scott came home from the Y a few weeks later and said Zach swam by himself! He apparently decided he was ready, and suddenly was not only swimming by himself, but jumping off the edge, swimming back to the surface, and then swimming to Scott. Since then Scott estimates he's swum (swam?) as much as 11 yards by himself. I wish we could show you video or pictures, but unfortunately our Y has strict privacy rules... I guess some adults don't want their picture taken in their swimming suits! Hopefully he'll remember how to swim and we'll be able to capture his skills this summer.

Another example of Zach's independence has turned out to be really helpful now. When he first mastered potty-training, we were doing just about everything for him, as far as pulling his pants down, putting him on the toilet, etc etc. Well... we started taking small steps to get him to do parts of the process on his own, and sure enough, one day he suddenly insisted he could do it himself, and would I please stay out in the hall until he needed help (unfortunately our faucets are not kid-friendly; he isn't strong enough to turn the water on himself)? This boy will do things at his own pace, that's for sure!

In other Zach news, he went to the dentist for the first time last week (I was not about to reschedule... we had to wait 3 months to get in with the highly-recommended, in-demand pediatric dentist in town!). I was so proud of him. He hesitated a little when asked to get in the chair, but otherwise showed no fear. The hygienist did a fantastic job, showing him each instrument (i.e "Mr. Thirsty, Mr. Squirty, etc) before she used it, letting him touch everything, etc. He asked lots of questions, and when we left told the dentist himself that he'd come back. :) We did learn, not surprisingly, that his thumb-sucking has done some damage to his teeth - when he was lying back in the chair I could clearly see, for the first time, that his front teeth definitely angle outwards. This apparently is not a big concern; it will self-correct when he stops sucking his thumb, and his permanent teeth won't be affected. But I was surprised to learn that the teeth on his upper jaw have shifted inwards due to the pressure of the sucking, resulting in his top teeth not aligning with his bottom teeth when he closes his mouth. So there may be some orthodontics in this kid's future. Although I think he was headed that way anyway, based on his genetics!

I also have noticed something lately that has made me feel good, and proud of my son. We've emphasized manners pretty hard with Zach, and I've been delighted to see lately that it's sinking in. Several times we've had someone hold open doors for us lately (seems to happen more often when you have a stroller and a preschooler with you!), and Zach, completely unprompted, has said "thank you" to them as he goes through the door. It absolutely warms my heart, especially when you see the look of surprise and amazement on the person's face. They clearly don't expect someone Zach's age to thank them for holding a door open for him!

Charlie's first week

Our little peanut is already 10 days old! We don't have a lot of big news for you, since not much has been going on other than eating, sleeping, and changing diapers.

Speaking of which... we're having a very different experience with this little boy. I used to wonder why people needed those tents you put over a little boy's private parts to keep him from peeing all over when you changed his diaper. I think Zach did that about 5 times total. Charlie? Probably happens 75% of the time we change his diaper!!! Anyone have any advice??


^ The worst phase of Charlie's newborn rash (harmless, but so angry-looking!) - his poor little left eye swelled up quite a bit.

^ Charlie's first bath, delayed about 24 hours until we were certain his blood sugar was ok. Apparently stress can drive down blood sugars, and bathing is definitely stressful for this guy. If you want to see him scream, all you have to do is take any portion of his clothes off.

^ Wendy and Chris visiting in the hospital - thanks again for rescuing us when we had to head to the hospital in the middle of the night! Charlie's first carseat ride home; because he was premature, he had to pass an apnea test first, to ensure he wouldn't stop breathing when in the carseat. We're happy to know that he won't. :)

^ Enjoying some time outside with grandma reading to him, and snuggling with grandpa. It's been so wonderful to take this little guy outside... I don't think Zach got any fresh air until he was about 3 months old!

^ Charlie's thinking pose; ready for a nap - in clothes that fit him! Thanks to the Tanious family for lending us some preemie clothes - he was absolutely swimming in newborn sizes!

^ Wink wink! We went to the doctor last Wednesday, and once again Charlie was pronounced perfectly healthy. He had put on two ounces since we left the hospital - on his way back to his birth weight!

Brothers

Take a nap or review and edit pictures so I can update the blog? Those seem to be my choices these days; guess which is winning? Charlie and I had a pretty good night last night, so I thought I'd include some of the pictures of both our boys over the last week.

Many people have asked if Charlie looks like Zach. I've never been good at the whole "he has your eyes and my chin" thing; so I won't give you a detailed analysis of their comparative features. In my opinion, they look similar but not the same. In other words - they look like brothers. What do you think?

^ Zach and Charlie, both less than 1 week old (Charlie sporting his now-gone newborn rash)


^ First meeting - Zach insisted we unswaddle Charlie so he could see all of him.


^ a kiss from big brother; Zach examining Charlie's fingers


^ More kisses; Dr. Seuss with with dad


^ Showing Charlie his cars; no idea what that face is about!


^Snuggling...

Visitor flashbacks

Three years later... our friend Caitlin has changed a lot! (Zach on the left, Charlie right)

Three years later... Grandpa K hasn't changed much: