I Need Mary Poppins

Apparently my house-keeping has been slipping lately (no secret, really), so much so that the past few days every time Davey notices my cleaning up he comments, "Somebody's coming over." Ugh.

All Planes go to Michigan

This past Saturday Dave's group at work had a barbecue. I wasn't sure we'd be going, but when I heard it would be held in his co-worker's husband's airplane hangar, I knew we couldn't miss it. Davey just loves spotting airplanes and even hears them overhead while we're at home. When he's playing at the park, he's always the one pointing his finger up to the sky shouting "Airplane!" at the top of his lungs over and over until the other kids get excited enough too to join in.

Dave's boss and his wife are so sweet and when we got there, scooped Davey right up and brought him outside to watch the planes take off and land. Since it was the weekend, all of the airplane hobbists were having a grand old time taking off, doing tricks, fly-bys and landing again. There was no shortage of excitement for Davey as he exclaimed for each one and determined their color (I was glad to hear he was getting them right).

Later I was chatting with Betty (the Boss' wife) and she was asking how Charlie was doing and do we still have family here from California. I said that my mom had gone home and that she was actually from Michigan. She said, "Okay, that's why Davey kept saying all the planes are going to Michigan." He can't wait to get on one again himself and go see everyone. He has also been learning about the kinds of planes and was pointing out to me that these were not jet planes.

The funny thing about the night was that as excited as Davey was to watch the airplanes, he was hesitant about getting in the cockpit of our host's plane.

There was also a pretty cool tractor Davey got to sit on, and he was even promised that he could come back to help cut the grass!

Thankfully, Charlie slept the whole time so we were all able to enjoy ourselves. It was nice to meet a lot of the people that Dave is always talking about.

Wings

Yesterday at naptime I added a new lullabye to the repertoire, called "Wings." It's a sweet song that talks about giving your child wings to be able to accomplish his dreams. After I finished the song, Davey looked up at me and sweetly said "Give you wings?" It was sweet to know he was listening.

After he woke up and we came downstairs, he asked me, "Mommy have wings?" When I said no, he threw himself on the couch, crying and exclaiming, "Aaaaw! Davey want wings!" I guess he was really listening and took me at my word when I sang, "If I could, I would give you wings..." He just didn't know I can't, literally anyway.

It's Time

A great album by Michael Buble. But unfortunately that's not what I'm talking about here.

Darn it. It's time, I think. I've been thinking a lot lately about how and when I will potty train Davey for nap- and night-time. Luckily we were in the kitchen (i.e. not on carpet) today when Davey grabs himself and asks, "Davey go in diaper?" It took me a minute to figure out that he hadn't actually wet his pants yet and was for some reason asking my permission to do it. I'm quite sure he knew he wasn't wearing a diaper. The amazing thing was that somehow his pants didn't get wet at all. Underwear all wet, big puddle on the floor, but dry pants. 

This morning's incident is partly my fault. One of the stalling techniques Davey has tried to use in the past is to tell me he has to go to the bathroom after he is already in bed. After I wised up to his ploy, I started telling him to just go in his diaper. I knew that would backfire at some point and I guess we're at that point.

Anyway, I feel like this is prompting me to get him out of those diapers all together. The method I've heard a couple times is to stop giving the child liquid after dinner, have them go to the bathroom right before bed and then to wake them during the night once. Now might be a good time for me to do that since I'm having to be up in the night anyway... but I'm nervous that I'll have trouble getting him to go back to sleep. Anyone have experience/advice with this they can share?

Davey & Charlie

Davey continues to be very interested in his new little playmate. He really tries to play with him already, handing him his trains and zooming them around him (today he ran one right over his head). A common refrain is, "Charlie bigger play trains." I think the gift Charlie gave Davey at the hospital (his Percy train) helped endear him because Davey remembers, "Charlie give you Percy," several times a day. He also likes to use the underneath of Charlie's bouncy seat as a parking garage for his trains and trucks.

Anytime Charlie and Davey are awake at the same time, Davey is constantly in his face. I have to be creative to find excuses to get Davey away from him - I'm trying to minimize the window of opportunity for Charlie to get hurt; and I'm crossing my fingers.

One of the funniest things Davey says about Charlie is his interpretation of what Charlie says when he's crying - "Charlie crying, 'yes!' " He is always trying to leave the dinner table to go say,"Hi Charlie" or "What's the matter Charlie?" though I know that is as much of an excuse not to have to sit there as it is interest in his brother. We are cracking down on that now.

Charlie 3 1/2 weeks

During the last couple months of my pregnancy I didn't cook dinner very often so we were pretty inconsistent about sitting down for dinner together. During the two weeks my mom was here, however, we sat down together every night and I saw signs of Davey's behavior at the table and pickiness improving. So since she has left we are continuing to eat together no matter whether we are having a nice prepared meal or whatever we can scrape together and I am happy to say that we have had so much more success getting Davey to eat his entire dinner and to eat what we are eating. It still takes a bit of effort and cajoling, but he has finished his entire dinner almost every night this week. The time-out chair has become our friend during this process.

One of Davey's favorite desserts is a spoonful of whipped cream...

Can you tell he loves it?

(Looking at this picture, Davey just

admitted, "Davey look funny like that.")

A few more things about Davey these days...

• He's always asking, "Who's that... ?" and "What's that... ?" Whenever we're in the grocery store and they say something over the PA, he says, "Who's that lady talking up there?"
• He loves to tell us about what he's doing, even when he already has our attention,  "Davey doing this!" and "Davey was doing that!"
• He loves (and has for a long time, can't remember how long) to put things inside of things, i.e. carry his sippy cup inside of another cup. What made me remember this is just now when I got him up from a nap, we played upstairs for a few minutes and when we went to go downstairs he had to carry his trains one by one in this tiny little basket over to the other bucket that he was going to carry them all downstairs in. When we give him his rewards (now he calls them pee-pee treats and poo-poo candy, embarrassing when people are around, and will correct us if we call it a poo-poo treat instead of candy or the reverse) for going to the bathroom (yes, we are still giving them to him) he always has to find something for us to place it in, we can't just hand it to him.
• He loves to go around counting and saying the alphabet. He gets to thirteen easily right now but then skips to sixteen and gets the alphabet pretty on but often skips the letter J.

These things probably seem so commonplace to other readers; but I just think his little voice is so sweet, it makes everything he says sound cute! I don't want to forget this stage; it's my favorite so far, by far. Dave commented the other day that when he's on his deathbed, what he's going to wish for is to see Davey's smile at age two.

The Longest Day

During the day after that night of getting no sleep, I obviously wasn't going to be taking the boys out of the house. Mid-morning, however, Davey started telling me that it was "time to go." Where? I asked. He didn't care. He just likes to be on the go. But that surely wasn't happening, so I tried to distract him by offering to make cookies with him. It also helped to keep me going so I didn't spend the rest of the morning on the couch while Davey watched TV (of course Charlie decided to sleep finally now that it was day time). This was the first time I'd tried to make something "with" him.

Davey was very excited about the prospect and hopped right up on the counter to help. (Sorry, Dave, I know you're trying to teach him not to get on the counter.)

Davey stirred the batter a time or two...

and rotated the pan as I dropped the 

cookies on it, ...

but really what he enjoyed most was

 picking the chocolate chips out of the

dough and eating the cookies at the end!

Jinxed!

I guess I totally jinxed myself by posting such a positive entry last night. Davey and Charlie decided to collaborate to make sure I didn't have such a smooth start to my first day by myself with two children. Charlie kept crying and grunting all night -- he grunts very loudly and quite constantly and it keeps me awake just as much as crying -- and didn't finally settle into a decent sleep until after 4 am. Davey woke crying somewhere in that time and when he woke again at 6:20 am saying, "Davey go poo-poo," I thought that must have been why he was crying earlier and I'd better go clean him up or he'd have quite a sore bum and of course he'd go back to sleep. I guess it was my lack of sleep impairing my judgment. Davey did not have a dirty diaper and he did not go back to sleep. So I'm trying to survive this first day on 2 hours of sleep. Wish me luck.

The Past 3 Weeks

The past three weeks (the first 3 of Charlie's life) have gone quite smoothly. Especially when I compare to my last childbirth and recovery experience. There are many factors that play into it.

First, Charlie has been a very sleepy baby so far, I'm guessing due in large part to his arriving early. It is pretty obvious that a baby who sleeps almost all of the time will benefit his mother's recovery. He usually has between one and three waking periods per day, mostly with a happy disposition. Around the beginning of the second week, he started developing the early-evening fussy period that many babies experience (including Davey) and by Saturday night of that week the fussiness lasted all night long. It became clear to me that he was very uncomfortable due to gassiness so I purchased some Mylicon and began giving it to him before each feeding. It was amazing the difference it made almost immediately. I am still giving it to him and am nervous to stop since it seems to work so well. Supposedly it isn't harmful in any way to the baby because it isn't absorbed into the bloodstream; Mylicon simply lessens the surface tension of air bubbles so that they will combine and be able to be burped up more easily.

Charlie 5 days old during one of his rare wake

times. His favorite place to lay is on the ottoman;

he will be so happy that I can't resist picking him

up (I'm trying to be careful not to spoil him like I

did with Davey) but then he will often fuss. He's

happier on the ottoman than with me sometimes!

A second factor is that Charlie's feeding schedule is pretty well regulated. The hospital staff recommended waking him to eat every 3 hours and we have been able to maintain that rather well. I re-read the Baby Wise book and it's method recommends feeding every 2.5 - 3 hours and it really has been working well for us. I didn't read that until it was too late with Davey and I really believe that doing that has made a major difference in his disposition. With Davey I kind of fed on demand and didn't really know what to interpret as demand and thus I think I fed him way too often, offering to feed him almost every time he cried. It ended up completely exhausting both of us. Now, with Charlie on a pretty regular schedule (I will vary the 3 hour schedule if he really seems hungry) it is so much less physically and emotionally draining and it is so much easier to plan and schedule my day.

Third, I had less to recover from than with my last birth. I still had an incision that needed to heal (that was the worst part), but I didn't have the extensive tearing that I had last time. I still didn't leave the house for a week, but at least I could get up off the couch sometimes. After about the second week, I was still feeing sore and wondering if it was ever going to go away and then the next day I felt great. The entire recovery process isn't quite finished yet, but the pain is gone and I am gaining more and more energy every day. Friday I didn't sit down much all day and wasn't paying for it later. :) I have been able to take Davey to playgroup and storytime at the library while my mom has been here, giving him some mommy-time and me some time out of the house. We all took Davey and Charlie to the zoo yesterday

Fourth, I've done this before. With the last birth, I had all the adjusting to do of being a new mom and no experience to guide and reassure me. This time I was expecting it to be very difficult and having realistic expectations helps it not seem so hard. I have much better perspective and patience for a newborn now.

Experience didn't help me much with bathing,

though. For some reason I was very nervous to

give Charlie his first sponge bath, so (I'm

embarrassed to say) it didn't happen for 5 days

after we got home from the hospital and

obviously didn't go so smoothly (yes, I edited

the photo a bit but I love seeing his little body).

His umbilical cord fell off after 5 days.

The last and probably most important reason is the support I have had. Dave is a very supportive, understanding and involved husband and parent. He takes initiative to try to anticipate my needs and will rush to me when I need his help. My mother is also wonderful and came to help me for a full two weeks. She kept very busy helping with Davey (she got him up every morning so I could sleep), keeping the house clean and making all the meals. Not only that, she always made extras and now we have meals in the freezer to help ease the transition into real life.

I know I'm not out of the woods yet (reality will surely hit me this week -- and probably hard), but so far I'm feeling good and trying to focus on all the positives we've had. We are so happy to have Charlie as a part of our life, especially since life with Davey has been such a joy we know it will bring more.

*************

A few tidbits about Charlie...

Our little Houdini is expert at wriggling his arms out from being swaddled by pulling his arm right out of his sleeve.

I'm wondering if he's going to be left-handed like

his Grandma Adams since it's always his left arm

that he gets out first.

At his one week appointment, Charlie had gained back his birth weight plus another six ounces, weighing 6 lbs 6 oz and measuring 19 and 3/4 inches. The doctor also identified a mild case of jaundice so we began placing him in the sunny window...

Charlie catching some rays.

Davey has been such a champ, taking all of this in stride. He is very interested in his baby brother always wanting to say hello to him, hold him, kiss him, etc. His favorite thing to do is say, "Hi buddy," like daddy did once in the hospital.

The big brother.

At Charlie's two-week appointment, he had gained another 3/4 lb to 7 lbs 2 oz and grown another inch! His jaundice was gone.

10 days old with filled-out cheeks!

Grandma Paulson thoroughly enjoyed her time with Charlie. He has had regular sponge-baths and I haven't given him another one yet! She also gets lots of smiles from him (though I did get the first ones when he was 5 days old).

Charlie is grateful Grandma is doing them since

with her expertise they involve no crying.

Dave has fallen naturally back into his role of father to an infant, looking so natural! Though he made a comment on facebook the other day about doing something with Charlie and someone commented on it about loving hands-on fathers. When he saw this, Dave commented, "There are other kinds of fathers??" Darn -- he wasn't supposed to know!

Doing "the walk" that parents know so well!

Davey loves being a part of what Charlie is doing and loves to "lie down together."

2 cute brothers hanging out.

Davey loves to hold Charlie.

Our happy family of four!

Laughing Stock

Church for us today was in a brand new building and at a new time (9 now instead of 8 - yahoo!). So with Dave going alone with Davey to a building he'd never been to before and my limited help this morning, he was sitting in the back during sacrament meeting. The bishop kindly announced the birth of our son but announced it having happened on Monday. Dave tried to discreetly mouth that it was Sunday, the bishop then corrected to Tuesday and finally got the message that it was Sunday. After that being awkward enough, Dave decided to let it pass when the bishop went on to say that our baby was still unnamed, of course to a reply of muted snickering. Ugh, how embarrassing. I know we took a little longer than most people to name Charlie (it was Monday afternoon), but for him to be a week old with no name, people must think we're nuts. Now I'm actually hoping to be asked to speak so I can set the record straight! (Well, maybe that's stretching it a bit... don't pass that along ;)

The Birth of Charlie

It all happened quite unexpectedly and differently than I had envisioned it. Davey was a week late and ultra-fast and Charlie was two and a half weeks early and my contractions had to be helped along after my water broke.

The final belly picture.

We tried to get the same picture we have with Davey of

entering the hospital, but the camera's battery was dead. Luckily

we found the extras we had packed once we got inside.

My water broke around 11:30pm Saturday night and by 5am when I called the hospital, my contractions still weren't following a consistent pattern. We dropped Davey off at our friends' home, the Holidays, and got there around 6:30am. I was dilated to a 3. My doctor of course wanted to start me on pitocin right away but I was quite sure my body knew what to do after last time and would kick in any minute. Plus, I was deathly afraid of that big epidural needle that I knew I'd need to weather the intense contractions that would accompany pitocin. But I gave in around 9 (no further dilated) and followed the advice of my doctor and nurse.

I made it through the administration of the epidural, knowing it would be worth it, and it sure was. It was absolutely amazing the difference between the births of my two children.

Settling in after the epidural and oh-so-comfortably awaiting the birth.

It felt like cheating. I still can't get over the difference in how easy and smooth it all was this time. Once I felt the urge to push, I had to still wait quite a while for the doctor to arrive at the hospital. The baby was then born after 5 or 10 minutes of pushing. I really can't get over how pain-free it was. Pushing was still work, but not painful.

Charles Lawrence (though he wasn't yet named at the time) was born at 12:46 pm on Sunday, December 28, 2008.

The first picture of our little angel.

Delivered by Dr. Jacob Tal.

The first thing I heard when they saw him was, "Look at the hand!" Apparently it came out with his head. He probably liked his hands near his face in the womb since he always has them there now. Thinking back on it, Dave realized the doctor was telling him to grab the baby's hand; it would have been so cool if he'd have taken it and "guided" him into the world.

My first time holding him.

His official weight was 6 lbs 0 oz, but apparently he was really

5 lbs 15.7 oz and 19 inches long.

I was able to hold the baby for about an hour (he nursed the whole time and screamed when I took him off!) before they whisked him away to bathe him and observe him to make sure he was able to maintain his body temperature. I was not happy when they said I wouldn't see him for 3-4 hours. In the hospital where Davey was born, the baby literally does not leave your side the whole time you are there (they don't even have a nursery for you to send them to if you wish). They do everything in your room where you can watch, which I liked a lot better. Though I did grow to like it a little by the time I left because I was able to get more sleep with them taking care of everything except the feedings at night. I was also quite impressed with how quiet the hospital was and they pretty much left me alone at night. It actually felt like true recovery time rather than constant poking and prodding.

Such a sweet little yawn!

Dave picked up Davey from the Holidays about 5pm on Sunday and brought him to meet his new brother. When they walked through the doorway, Davey says, "Baby Jared!" mistaking his brother for his best friend Lauren's baby brother.

Davey has been wonderful with Charlie. He is very interested him, wanting to hold and kiss him a lot, hold his hand, point out all his features ("baby brother have eyes, nose, toes," etc...) and is quite entertained by his "making baby sounds." Davey was very happy to see that his baby brother had brought him some gifts, the definite favorite being Percy, a replacement of Davey's former favorite train that he had lost while carting it around somewhere.

Though his baby brother was of most interest to him, notice that Percy

is not far away on the table next to Davey.

What a helpful big brother he already is.

Monday I had a really fun visit from my friends Amy, Jamie and Mary. We enjoyed chatting while Dave was nice enough to watch the kiddos in the waiting room. Davey and his two best pals Lauren and Sammie apparently had a ball together, so it was a nice time for Davey to get out some energy, but did exhaust Dave a bit. We also had a nice visit from Ramona Oettli, our ward's Relief Society president.

An example of the crazy, spontaneous things Dave described

this trio doing in the waiting room. They laughed and laughed and

thought they were hilarious, though Davey and Sammie

look distracted in the picture.

It was a really nice touch that the hospital sent a cake with a Happy Birthday Baby message.

Davey had fun poking it and eating the icing before we took the picture.

On Tuesday, we were both ready to go home. Davey did very well with me being gone (and Dave too, having to do everything for Davey while running back and forth to the hospital and getting together the things I didn't have ready yet) but did show he missed me Monday evening when he implored, "Mommy, come home." I sure missed Davey. I am so so happy to have Charlie as a part of our family, so I hope this doesn't come off wrong, but there is a small part of me that is sad for the era of just pal-ing around with Davey all the time to come to an end. Davey is such a sweet boy and such a fun companion. But now I'm sure we'll just have more fun, right?! I think part of the reason Davey seems to be doing so well with the change (not to say I don't expect some jealousy still to come) is his desire to have a more exciting life. He loves change and activity, excitement and being on the go.

Ready to leave the hospital.

Our first photo as a family of four!

While I was getting ready to go home, I commented to Davey that our whole family was going home, Charlie included. Davey squealed with joy, jumped up and down saying, "Davey hexcited!" On the ride home, Davey was so cute, laughing and giggling at all the things baby brother was doing. (We took so long deciding on his name that Davey still isn't used to calling him Charlie.) He even shared his Percy train with him, placing it in his lap.

I couldn't resist taking a little video of him, he was so happy, though I had to hide that I was doing it so he wouldn't stop what he was doing immediately, hence the limited view.

Every few minutes after we got home, Davey would run over just to see him. So sweet.

A few pictures of our sleeping angel... (just ignore the hat falling off his head)

When Dave first saw this picture, he thought it was Davey.

I agree that he looks quite a bit like him.