3 Months

The most recent picture I have on the computer. This was taken at Garrett's birthday party 2 weeks ago.

Next week is going to be a hectic week for me, so I thought I should take advantage of a spare moment right now and go ahead and record Cooper's 3 month post.

Yes, he will be 3 months old one week from today. Awesome! We are getting closer and closer to the "fun age". He's basically fun now, just not quite to the point of independent playtime. I love it when they're able to sit up and play with toys and I even love it when they can crawl. Yes they get into EVERYTHING, but it's such a fun age. They're active, but not throwing tantrums yet.

Cooper at 3 months (or almost):

-Sleeping 11 hours at night (!). He still wakes up once a couple of times a week for his pacifier or because he's rolled over and can't roll back the other way yet, but I'm ok with getting up for these things. He typically goes right back to sleep. It doesn't always work that way for me though...

-Just today, we've switched to a 4 hour feeding schedule because he wasn't finishing his bottles at every 3 hours, and a 3 1/2 hour schedule doesn't work for the bedtime that he has. The new feeding schedule went really well, so I'm in hopes it will continue to work.

-He's started sitting in the Jumperoo for periods of time during the day. At first, he didn't like the instability of it in comparison to the Exersaucer, but now I think he actually likes it more. He doesn't jump any yet, but he likes sitting there and playing with the toys.

-He's starting to grab at toys and attempting to play with the toys on his baby equipment. It's really cute to watch.

-I've moved his carseat so that he now sits by the window with a space between him and Garrett. He seems to be a lot happier there.

-In a few weeks we will start baby food! I think he's ready for this. He watches us really closely when we eat and he holds his head up really well and sits well in the Bumbo seat.

-He loves to laugh. If we sound remotely as if we are laughing or are about to laugh, he will crack up. (Provided he's in the mood to do so of course).

-I'm still figuring out a napping schedule. That's a bit of a frustration for me because he seems to require more sleep than Garrett did at this age and he's really cranky if he doesn't get it. So I'm working through this to figure out how often he needs to nap and for how long without affecting his nighttime sleep.

I feel like an extremely boring person at the moment. But kids are my life for this season. Hopefully I'll get back to writing some psuedo-interesting posts again, until then, this is all I got.

Professional Pictures

For those of you who aren't my friends on Facebook (or never check your account), I took the boys to have their pictures taken yesterday at JC Penney's.  I've been taking Garrett there for the past couple of years and really liked the way his pictures turned out, so I was looking forward to what they would do with both boys this time.

I was not impressed.  

Maybe they're not trained to work with small babies.  Or maybe we just got a bad photographer.  Either way, I was somewhat disappointed in the results, but I went ahead and ordered some shots because I'm not going through all the hassle of getting both boys ready and there on time (despite someone having a dirty diaper in the mall parking lot and getting to change yet another one in the car.  I might as well move my changing station out there as often as I'm changing diapers in the seat of the SUV.  I changed another one just today!).  Not to mention just the general hassle of scheduling the appointment and going through all the poses and the breakdowns.  Last year's picture taking was perfect.  Garrett was terrific.  This year's photographer totally intimidated him and he cried several times.  He's much past the age of just crying without being hurt or totally tired (and this was at 11am, so he was NOT tired nor was he physically hurt.)  

Anyway, here are a few of the decent shots that I ordered.  

The best shot of the boys together.  Not wonderful imo, but it's cute.  Cooper's totally in the smiling stage right now, yet this photographer couldn't seem to get him to smile to save her life.  Not that she tried very hard...

For this picture, the photographer kept trying to get Garrett to cradle Cooper like a newborn.  Cooper weighs, at the very least, 12 pounds.  I can barely cradle him without something supporting my arm, there is no way Garrett could hold him that way.  That's why he looks awkward in this picture.  

Literally the best picture of Cooper.  Pathetic.  Yes, it's cute, but I capture pictures that are, in my opinion, 10x's cuter than this at my house.  And he's typically smiling.  She kept insisting that he lay on his stomach initially, but she had a bunch of weird pillows under him which made him slide down and he wasn't comfortable.  So she moved him to his side and did not attempt another position after that.  

A strange pose for a boy, but I love his long eyelashes, so I like it.

You can tell that his eyes are shinier in this picture.  He had been crying because he didn't understand what she was saying when she kept telling him to look through the hole.  Rather than SHOWING him (hello, he's 3!!), she just kept repeating herself over and over until he started crying and I had to go to him and show him how to do it.  While I was holding Cooper.  Ugh!  I would have complained to someone, but she was the only employee working that day.

I'm surprised she actually took this picture.  She kept telling him over and over to stop smiling like that and keep his fingers down.  But this is totally Garrett.  So I do love it!

Tomorrow is the big birthday and the big birthday party!!!  I'll be sharing pictures from that as soon as I can.

2 Months

(This should have been posted on the 17th, but seeing as how I'm spending this week in my (relatively small) bedroom with both boys due to the fact that our central a/c kicked the bucket and we now have a window unit in the bedroom which doesn't cool much past the hallway, I'm doing more entertaining and less blogging at the moment.)

Cooper,

You are 2 months old today! It seems as if you've had a big growth spurt in the past couple of weeks. You've already moved up to size 3-6 month clothes with a few exceptions in the 0-3 month outfits. All of the sudden, you seem to fit well in your carseat. No more of the "tiny baby thinking he's big enough for this seat." You actually are.

The past couple of days, I've had a strangers stop me and ask how old you are and they've been surprised and said they thought you were older. You might like those compliments now, but trust me, once you hit 30, you won't. (And what's up with strangers asking people random questions about a baby they see at Walmart? Seriously, if you want attention, just take a small baby out in public and you'll get it. Or a screaming toddler. But I try to avoid that kind of attention whenever possible. I can just imagine that moms of twins, triplets or quads probably aren't able to get anything accomplished when out in public. PSA for everyone thinking about approaching a mom with a small baby. Besides not touching their hands or face (for the love of all that is good), please try to use all context clues before asking "Is it a girl or a boy?" If the baby is wearing blue with no pink pacifier and no bow on its head, then it's a boy. If the baby is wearing pink or has a big bow on its head, then it's a girl. And moms, you can't get upset if your baby is wearing gender neutral colors and you don't have anything else on them to signal the rest of the public that its a boy or a girl. Cooper always has a blue pacifier in his mouth if he's not already covered from head to toe in blue or wearing something sports related. Yet I've had several people ask me if he was a girl or a boy. Let's use our brains, shall we?)

At 2 months:

•You still are not completely sleeping through the night. What's up with this? I checked in Garrett's baby book and he started sleeping all night at 7 weeks old and never looked back. You'd better get on the ball with this one.

•I haven't really shared this publicly because I kept thinking it was just a fluke. But I think it's safe to say that you can roll over. I have had you on your stomach at various times and found you on your back with no one around who would have rolled you over. This has happened once or twice a week now for about 3 weeks. I haven't witnessed the actual event yet, but I know it's only a matter of time.

•I don't know how much you weigh right now. We go for your 2 month checkup in 2 weeks so we'll find out then. And you'll get your first shots. With all the confusion with our pediatrician's office when you were first born, you haven't gotten any shots yet so I'm sure this will be a fun visit. Especially since Garrett will be getting his 4 year shots at the same time.

•You're very happy when you first wake up, whether it's first thing in the morning or after a nap. When I lay you on the changing table, you immediately start smiling really big. Sometimes you even coo and talk to me.

•You're enjoying the swing, bouncy seat, exersaucer, and bumbo seat more and more. You still do not like the activity mat much, only if you're laying on it on your stomach.

•You had your first total meltdown in the carseat a couple of days ago. You were screaming hysterically and very highpitched. Daddy was so thrilled to be in the car when you decided you hated all of us and, most especially, your carseat and pacifier.

•You take 5 ounces at each feeding and eat every 3 hours. Sometimes you've stretched to 3.5 hours, but those have been few and far between.

•You are very hit and miss with good naps. I think you've taken maybe 2 three hour naps in the past 6 weeks. Most of them range from 30 to 90 minutes long, which, frankly, aren't long enough. In the next month, we will be working on better naps and sleeping through the night, so get ready.

•In the past month you've made your first trip to see 2 of your great grandparents along with other relatives, been to your first movie with me and Garrett (Ice Age 3), joined us as we ate at Texas Roadhouse, had your first major diaper explosion (thanks for doing it in your carseat and not on me. That onesie will never be the same.), and took a bath with Garrett in the big tub.

In the next month, you have Garrett's birthday party, a family vacation, joining me at the church, when I get back to my normal work hours, and I'm sure much, much more, to look forward to.

And obviously, you are very excited about it all.

8 Weeks

Cooper is 8 weeks old today.  His personality shows more and more and I'm afraid we have another Garrett on our hands.  He was being really vocal last night, cooing and "talking" to Keith when he got home from work.  Keith looked at me and said "Great, we have another talker on our hands.  We're both gonna be deaf before these boys are grown."  Garrett is quite the chatterbox. Poor Keith.  Between me, Garrett, and now Cooper, maybe, he's just going to do a lot of nodding and tuning us out.  

With Cooper getting older and changing looks, we've been debating over who he looks like.  We don't really think he looks much like Garrett, though the following pictures may say otherwise.

Can you tell who is who?  You've got to love the pictures of them screaming.  At least it shows a bit of the reality that goes on in our house.  

I also found this picture of me as a baby to compare with a picture of Cooper.  I think he might resemble me a little.

A Garrett story:  He has taken to saying "I'm gonna tell God."  Not in a tattle tale sort of way, just in a way that he wants to have a convo with God.  This is always after his bedtime prayers, so I guess he feels his mumbled prayer isn't cutting it and he needs to tell God other things.  Mostly listing all the things God made.  Like rainbows.  And Spiderman.  

6 Weeks...Almost

As of tomorrow, Cooper will be 6 weeks old. I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with his sleeping! Saturday night he slept from 10:30pm until 5:00am! I guess technically he slept from 8pm to 5am, I did get him up to eat at 10:30, but he barely woke up to do so. Last night, he did the same with a brief intermission at 3:00. I would have fed him when he woke up at 3:00, but I thought it was 1:00, so I just gave him his paci and went back to bed.

My alarm clock is one of those atomic clocks that sets itself and keeps time based on some highly scientific method that, I have no clue how it works, I just know that the time is accurate and I don't have to worry with changing it come Daylight Savings Time. So last night, when I heard Cooper waking up, I checked my clock as I got out of bed. When I saw that it was only 1am, I simply gave him his pacifier and went back to bed. Keith asked me "Is he done eating already?" and I told him it was only 1am, so I was going to have him hold off till 3:00 if he would do so.

He said, "But it IS 3:00."

And I said, "No, it's only 1:00. Your clock is wrong."

Garrett is notorious for playing with Keith's alarm clock and changing the time on it, so we both assumed that was what happened and went back to sleep. When Cooper woke up 2 hours later, I got up and headed to his room to feed him. When I turned on the lamp in his bedroom, I glanced at his clock and, surprise!, it was actually 5:00, not 3:00. Apparently my clock WAS wrong. I felt badly because had I known it was actually 3:00 2 hours prior, I would have fed Cooper. But thankfully he didn't even take the full bottle that I offered him, so he wasn't THAT hungry. When I got up later this morning at 7:00, my clock had fixed itself! I hope it doesn't do that again because now I'm not going to trust it to be correct.

On another note, I know I badmouthed summer television programming, but I can say that I'm thankful for "Wipeout". Garrett LOVES this show. He will readily agree to just about anything in order to watch it. Inevitably, he will have his own obstacle course set up in the living room by the end of the show. He also enjoys giving us a play by play, along with a visual, of what each person has done. Thank goodness for baby equipment because it gives him more items he has to maneuver around.

Tomorrow we're headed to my cousin's house to see her and her new baby along with a visit with my grandparents. This will entail a 1 hour car ride there and back. It will be Cooper's longest car ride yet and our longest amount of time spent outside of the house so far. When Garrett was about this age, we did something similar, except we drove 2 and a half hours one way to meet up with my family in Huntsville for a day. Just me and Garrett. He did really well and slept the majority of the trip. So hopefully the same will apply for tomorrow.

And finally, the prerequisite picture.

About a week ago, I went in to check on him at naptime and found this. The sucking of the thumb.

One Month

Cooper, you are one month old today.

I know. I was surprised to realize it too.

At one month:
~You weigh a little over 10 pounds and are roughly 22 inches long.

~You consistently wake up between 2am and 3am for a bottle. Then you're up again around 6am. I'm pretty good with that. So long as during this next month you start making some adjustments to this schedule. It's hard going to bed at 11pm (because I wait until 10:30ish to give you one last bottle before going to bed myself) and then getting up 3 hours later. But thankfully you go back to sleep after this feeding, most of the time.

~The first two weeks you tricked me because you rarely spit up. I was falsely led to believe that I wasn't going to have to deal with reflux like I did with Garrett. But these past 2 weeks you've shown your true colors. I've taken to wearing ratty t-shirts all day so I don't ruin my good shirts. Daddy hasn't been so lucky.

~You are starting to show signs of having a temper. You have no idea how thrilled I am to discover this. Why do I think so? You have this high pitched shriek that you let loose whenever you're searching for your paci (like a chicken pecking the ground) and you can't find it. I love when this shriek occurs within inches of my ear.

~You despise having your clothes changed, don't love having your diaper changed, and get really irritated when you're hungry or sleepy. So far we've had little bouts of crying that don't have a reason behind them, but you definitely let us know when you're not happy about something.

~You love taking baths, seem to enjoy riding in the car, and tolerate the swing, activity mat, and bouncy seat for limited amounts of time. Unfortunately, due to the spitting up, I'm not able to use any of those very often because I have to keep you upright for atleast 30 minutes after eating. Seeing that you are usually ready for a nap only an hour after waking up, we've not been able to enjoy the baby equipment much, yet. But we'll get there. I can't wait for you to be holding your head up really well because then I can put you in the Bumbo seat during this time.

This picture is a little deceiving. It looks like you could sit in the Bumbo for a little while. But in reality, this
is really what happens when you're in that seat for any longer than 15 seconds. But we'll get there eventually.

I thought I would try to begin taking your picture sitting in your crib and I'll do this every month to see how you're growing.

This was the best I could get.

And lastly, here's a picture of Garrett when he was a month old. For comparison.

Cooper Gage

Seeing that Cooper will be 4 weeks old tomorrow, I figured now was as good a time as any to finally write down how everything went on his birth day.

Because I was scheduled to be induced early on Wednesday morning, June 17th, Keith's mom came up to our house on Tuesday afternoon in order to spend the night and watch Garrett while we were at the hospital. Since she was sleeping in Garrett's room, we put him on the floor in our room. I had a hard time falling asleep that night, but around 12:30 am I woke up. I'm not sure why exactly. I leaned over the bed to adjust the blanket over Garrett and then laid back down. A couple of minutes later, I had a strange sensation and then I felt water trickling as if I was peeing in my pants. But I was pretty sure that I wasn't peeing in my pants. Of course, when you're 9 months pregnant, you can't be totally positive, but I felt pretty positive.

After going to the bathroom to try and confirm that it was in fact my water breaking, I went back to bed with a towel. I lay there and tried to figure out what to do next. It should have been obvious, but I was tired and my first thought was that we were scheduled for an induction the following morning, would it really matter if I went back to sleep for a bit before going in? Plus I wanted Keith to be able to get some sleep in too. But when he rolled over and seemed to act like he was awake, I told him that I thought my water had broke. We both got up and ready to head to the hospital. I called my doctor's office just to confirm what I was supposed to do (yes, go to the hospital.), we left a note for Keith's mom, and we headed to the hospital.


I started having a few contractions on the way, but nothing intense or worthy of speeding, so Keith drove calmly to the hospital. That doesn't mean we avoided some crazies on the road though. About 15 miles from our house, a truck came across the median of the highway, got tangled up in the wire median divider and ended up facing the wrong way in the left hand lane on our side of the road. Thankfully we saw a policeman headed in that direction so we didn't feel as if we needed to stop to see if they were ok.


When we were about 10-15 miles away from the hospital, we came thisclose to getting sideswiped by some insane person driving a silver SUV. Thankfully Keith was paying attention and swerved into the lane next to us or else we would have been hit. The SUV kept going across all lanes of traffic (and there were about 4 on this particular part of the highway) and came thisclose to driving off the side of an overpass! Apparently the driver came to their senses and swerved back on the road. We saw them again a few minutes later driving about 10 mph in the right hand lane with their turn signal on. Who knows what was going on with them. Thankfully we made it to the hospital in one piece and found a close parking spot in the parking garage. We could have parked in the spaces provided for women in labor, but those have a time limit and I didn't want Keith to have to leave to move the car and I felt ok to walk that distance.


By this point, it was 2 am. We were taken to the room and I got changed and had monitors strapped to me. The nurse checked and confirmed that my water had definitely broken and the monitor was showing that I was having some contractions. So we decided to let things progress on their own. We watched some TV and read magazines for a while. My contractions got intense at times, but nothing terrible. The nurse had said I could have my epidural whenever I wanted one, but I told her we would hold off on that for the time being. At 4 am, I had only progressed to 4 cm (I was at 3 cm when she first checked me). The resident doctor on call wanted to go ahead and start pitocin, so we did, but a very small amount. Keith has a brain for numbers (of course, he's an accountant) and he could remember that my initial pitocin level with Garrett was a 7, whereas this time with Cooper, the nurse started me at a 2. I was able to labor for 2 more hours before I was ready for the epidural. At that point I was only at 5 cm, so I was afraid that we were in for a long labor. With Garrett, it took 6 hours from the time of the epidural to delivery and I was at 6 cm when I got it. Based on that, Keith and I were estimating that Cooper would be born around noon.

(Pre-epidural, between contractions.

Keith took a picture while I was having a contraction, but that one is not getting posted.)

An hour after getting the epidural, my doctor arrived. He told Keith "Talk about a day being destined to be." He checked me and said I was at 6 cm and he told the nurse to start my catheter. Before the nurse started it, she checked to be sure my epidural had completely taken. In her words, "there's no point in having an epidural if you can feel the catheter". Unfortunately, I was going to be able to feel the catheter for some reason and in fact, I was feeling some of the contractions on my right side. They were dull enough that I didn't feel like I was in excruciating pain, but I could definitely feel them. So she called the anesthesiologist in to "top me off". I should have said no and sucked up the bit of pain. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Once my epidural was topped off, I started feeling like I would pass out. Then I felt like I couldn't breathe. The epidural was almost too strong. I couldn't feel my legs at all. (I wanted a "walking epidural" which is what I had with Garrett, but this was a total epidural.) I was numb up to my chest which made me feel like I couldn't breathe. I had moments of my hands feeling tingly as if they were going numb too. On top of all this, they insisted I had to lay flat on my back which is about the most uncomfortable position you can be in when pregnant. At one point they even had the bed tilted to where my feet were elevated above my head. I know that was supposed to help my "feeling faint" but it was making me feel even more like I couldn't breathe. I don't think I even need to point out that Keith was a little freaked out by all of this. Though he did great and was right there for me, bringing me drinks of water and fanning me with a magazine when I felt hot. They ended up giving me a medicine to bring up my blood pressure because it was dropping so low and that didn't set well for me either. Thankfully throughout all of this, Cooper's heartrate stayed perfectly normal and everything for him was fine. I was surprised that they never did an internal heart monitor on him, but apparently the external one was picking him up just fine.

At 9 am, the nurse came back to finally do the catheter after all the craziness of the epidural issues. Before she started it, she checked me to see how I was progressing and, surprisingly, I was now at 8 cm. She said once she got the catheter started and my bladder was empty, she figured I would be fully dilated because Cooper would have room to move further down. 15 minutes later, my doctor came back to check on me, he said "it's time to push". 15 minutes to dilate 2 additional centimeters! It didn't go near that fast with Garrett. The nurse started getting the room ready for labor and my doctor helped me get into position to push. I could not feel my legs even a little bit, so they had to lift them for me into the stirrups. I swear those could have been someone else's legs, that's how little I could feel them. It was crazy! I pushed through 3 contractions and Cooper was born at 9:30am! Only 15 minutes after my doctor said it was time to push. With Garrett, the delivery room was full of people, several nurses for the baby, a nurse for me, my doctor, and a resident who was assisting my doctor. For Cooper's delivery, it was just my doctor and my nurse. Cooper was almost completely born when a baby nurse showed up to take over with him. The doctor put Cooper on my stomach and the first thing I noticed was his really long fingers and toes. They told me that he had the umbilical cord hitched over his shoulder as if he wasn't going to leave without it. Much preferred to it being around his neck like it was with Garrett.

(Right after he was born and they handed him to me.)

Our hospital stay was short. I abhor being in the hospital. It is depressing for me and I didn't want to be there a minute longer than I had to be. When our night nurse came to introduce herself at the beginning of her shift, I asked her how soon we could be discharged and she said that some patients request to leave 24 hours after delivery, while others stay the full 2 days. I told her that I wanted to leave as soon as they would let me, so she said she would be sure and complete all tests that would need to be done on Cooper, that night. So all we would need is both of our doctors to sign the discharge papers the next day. I think I might have slept for 2 hours that night, so that, combined with maybe 2 hours the night before, I was so tired by Thursday morning. I knew there was no way I would be able to tolerate the hospital for another night. Thankfully my doctor showed up and joked with me about my desire to run away from him, but he signed my discharge papers and did Cooper's circumcision. At first, the hospital pediatrician didn't want to discharge Cooper because he was borderline with his jaundice levels, but since she knows our pediatrician and I had already called and had us scheduled for an appointment the next day, she agreed to let us go home.

(Daddy and Cooper once we were moved to the recovery room.)

I have felt 100% better this time than I did with Garrett. Sure, there are some hormonal issues as most post partum women have, but nothing at all like what I experienced with Garrett. I feel like that can be attributed to 1.the shorter hospital stay, 2.the fact that this was my second baby and I felt more prepared mentally for what was to come, 3.possibly just a difference in hormones this time, for whatever reason and 4.having my mom (and subsequently, dad) here to help for 2 weeks. I have also physically healed much faster than I did with Garrett. I only needed one or two small stitches this time in comparison to a little more work with Garrett (though he had a huge head which probably is why Cooper ultimately was born pretty quickly and with minimal damage. His brother paved the way for him.)

The downside to this recovery period has been a horrible allergic reaction that I had to the medical tape that was used to hold down my epidural line. I had a slight reaction after having Garrett, but it was cleared up with the use of Benedryl and hydrocortisone cream. Since I knew I had a problem the last time, I made sure that I took a shower as soon after delivery as I could and I had Keith wash my back really well. I figured that in doing so I would eliminate or further minimize any reaction.

That assumption was totally false and it may have even made it worse, I'm not sure. From midway down my back, to the backs of my thighs, and from one side to the other, I was a solid hive. It was beet red, raised and swollen, as well as itched like nothing I've experienced. I went through tubes of hydrocortisone cream and Benedryl and it was not helping one bit. A week later I finally went and saw my regular doctor to see if she could help me out. The nurse and the doctor both literally gasped when they saw the condition of my back. They could not believe how bad it looked. They gave me a cortisone shot and some steriod cream to rub on it and after several days it finally started working. You can still see where it was almost 4 weeks later. It looks like a bad sunburn and my skin is really dry. But thankfully it doesn't itch and I'm assuming that it's healing, albeit slowly. Now I know to tell anyone and everyone that I'm allergic to medical tape, please don't touch me with it!

So that was my experience with having baby #2, the last of the Mohicans. Keith still quizzes me to see if I'm really done having babies and I can answer that with an emphatic "Yes! Yes, I am!" As soon as my ob can schedule it, I will be having a procedure done in order to insure that no more babies will be brought forth from my loins. And that day will be a good day.

(Not so) Brief Update

Our pediatrician's new office called us yesterday to say that the opening date has been pushed back yet again. Initially they were supposed to open July 6 and we were scheduled for Cooper's 2 week check up that morning. Then the doctor personally called the Friday before and said construction wasn't going to be finished by then and we rescheduled for the 16th, which would have been more like a 1 month check up than a 2 week check up. He asked me a few questions over the phone to see how things were going and felt comfortable with waiting a bit longer for Cooper to be seen. It's not like he hadn't already been seen a couple of times after the hospital because of the jaundice, so we knew he had put on some weight and everything else was looking ok. Then the office called again (and called me Mrs. Cooper and referred to Cooper as "Dungan". Yes, I know Cooper is a last name, but who in their right mind would name their kid Dungan?! That's a crazy last name, let alone to give a child that name as their first name.) They told me that the opening was now being pushed back to the 20th AND they may not have all their paperwork for Blue Cross until August 1st, and guess what? We have Blue Cross insurance. So, the doctor said he wanted Cooper to go ahead and see one of the other pediatricians at the old office, just for this check up. I went ahead and schedule Cooper's 2 month check up while I was on the phone with them (and Garrett's 4 year check up will be at the same time. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around having a 4 year old...) Let's hope everything is all straightened out at the new office by the end of August. I hope our pediatrician is going to be extra nice to us after dealing with this hassle.

On top of all this, I called the old office and scheduled an appointment with another pediatrician who I was familiar with. A few hours later, the receptionist called and said that doctor wouldn't see us since Cooper wasn't sick and isn't her patient! I explained to the receptionist that our pediatrician (who had been at this practice for 5 years or more) was the one who told me to call and schedule this appointment. So the receptionist, of course, has to call me back. 45 minutes later she calls and says that one of the other doctors would see Cooper. Does there have to be this much involved in making a freakin' doctor appointment?!

This morning we finally had Cooper's 2 week check up only 10 days late. He weighs 10 pounds (!) and is 22 inches long. Both put him in the 80-something percentile and his head is in the 99 percentile. I really liked the nurse, but the doctor was a little odd. I'm glad we're sticking with our old doctor. When he checked Cooper's hips to make sure they felt good and nothing was dislocated, he was really rough! Our doctor checked them when we were there for a jaundice check and he didn't do it anything like that. Cooper never cried once during that exam, but he cried several times with this doctor today. Then the doctor kept asking me if he was easily consolable. I was like "Yes, except when he's being tortured. Who consoles easily after that?" He didn't even cry that much when they had to prick his heel again for the PKU screening.

Thankfully we're done with that and won't go back to the doctor for 6 more weeks. It should be fun taking both boys for check ups and having both of them get shots. I'm definitely making Keith come with me to that appointment. Today, I did it on my own and it went ok. There's just so much stuff that you have to cart around when 2 kids are involved, rather than 1. Especially when one is a newborn. I can't imagine having my boys any closer together in age than they are. Garrett does so well with helping me and staying with me when I can't hold his hand. I don't know how some of you other moms did it with a newborn and a toddler!

I will try not to post without including a picture, even if it has nothing to do with today's blog. It's mostly for my mom's benefit. :)

3 Weeks

I have to admit that I am not a newborn baby-type person (if I haven't already confessed to that). This stage is just one to get through by grinning and bearing it, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, it's nice to hold a cuddly newborn baby fresh from a bath, but, for me, that's one of the few perks of the newborn stage. You also have to deal with lots of fussiness (and all out crying/screaming times) and little sleep on top of the fact that babies really can't be entertained at this point.

I'm still figuring him out, but we're beginning to get a schedule going and I'm in hopes that a few more weeks of it will have him sleeping a good chunk during the night. Right now, the longest he goes is 4 and a half hours at a stretch and then he'll go another 3 and a half hours and then it's every 3 hours throughout the day. Technically he's getting up once a night, but in my reality and our household's sleeping times, he gets up twice a night. Which isn't bad and I'm thankful because I know it could be worse.

It has been interesting to deal with Garrett and Cooper on my own. So far it hasn't been too bad. Garrett is old enough to entertain himself and somewhat take care of himself. He takes himself to the bathroom, can get himself dressed, get and open a snack, and can open the fridge to get out a drink if he needs one. Not to mention that he is great at bringing me things like diapers and pacifiers. And he gives me moments of sanity because he's someone I can actually talk to during the day who can respond and make sense (most of the time). Of course there are those moments where it can be really insane because he's being extra loud when I'm trying my hardest to get Cooper to take a nap (he fights sleep with every fiber in his being right now). Those are the fun times. haha But then it's all worth it when I see Cooper smile at Garrett (and Daddy) for the first time. Not sure why I'm not worth the first smile since I do change the bulk of his diapers and get up with him in the night, but I'm not bitter. :)

We were supposed to have had Cooper's 2 week check up this past Monday, but last week, our pediatrician personally called me (which is rare!) and said that the construction was a little behind in his new office so we rescheduled the 2 week check up for next week when he'll technically be a month old. I am interested to see how much he weighs. He's been a pretty good eater so far.

I've been working on my labor and delivery post in my spare time (ha!). So maybe that will be finished by his first birthday.

I had to include a couple more pictures. This one was taken on Sunday when he went to church for the first time. Garrett picked out those shoes for him while I was still pregnant and he was very proud to see Cooper wearing them for the first time. Cooper even got a special introduction by our pastor on Sunday. Thankfully we were in the auditorium when the pastor mentioned him. I had to take him out during the service because he was being noisy and seemed to be on the verge of crying.

Garrett fell asleep watching "Incredibles" and Cooper was also asleep, so I had to document the moment. I'm sure it was a rare one!

2 Weeks

I cannot believe it has already been 2 weeks since Cooper was born. Time flies when dealing with a newborn. It also feels as if it's dragging since you see random hours between midnight and sunrise. Today was actually the toughest day with Cooper so far. I'm in hopes that it was just an "off" day and not how things are going to be from here on out. I'm too tired to write more, but hopefully my days will begin to develop some semblance of a routine and I'll have a moment to sit down and actually write a blog. Monday is his 2 week check-up so I will post an update then. Our pediatrician is moving offices which is why we weren't able to get the appointment this week. I'm curious to see how much Cooper weighs. He's starting to take 4 ounces, or close to it, at each feeding and I can tell that he's filling out.

Here's hoping that the irritability from today does not carry over into tonight. I can handle some fussiness when I've had a bit of sleep. I'm not sure how I would deal with it on no sleep.

So Far...

So far: exhaustion at home is MUCH preferred to exhaustion at the hospital

So far: breastfeeding=massive failure. Thank goodness for formula. Not so much for mommy guilt.

So far: jaundice isn't bad, but holding down a brand new baby for a heel prick isn't fun. Monday is round 2. Hopefully also the last round.

So far: Cooper is much more laid back than Garrett was.

So far: Garrett LOVES his brother and wants to hold him and take care of him whenever he gets the chance.

So far: my hormones are much more in control than they were with Garrett. Here's hoping that continues.

So far: I'm definitely allergic to the tape they use to hold down the epidural line. My back looks like a horrible sunburn and itches like a mound of fireants crawled all over it.

Most definitely: My mom is the best. She's been such a big help with the kids and the housework, not to mention just helping me maintain a modicum of sanity. I'm so glad she's here for 2 weeks. I'm not even going to think ahead to the complete basketcase I'll be when she leaves.

Most definitely: I have the best husband EVER. He has been awesome with keeping up the laundry and dishes. Not to mention helping with the boys, finishing up the project in our bathroom, staying with me overnight in the hospital, even though I insisted he go home and get some sleep, covering my back with hydrocortisone cream every night, and many, many more. I couldn't do this without him. (Of course I wouldn't be in this situation without him either. LOL)

I promise I will post more later. But for those who are not family or friends with me on facebook, Cooper Gage was born on June 17 at 9:30 am. Pictures will be posted soon. Maybe.

Cooper's Room

And now for Cooper's room.  

As I mentioned earlier, we still plan on painting the letters that spell his name and hanging them on the wall, but that probably isn't going to happen before he's born at this point.  But I don't really care either way.  When they do get hung, they will go to the right of the window.  As you can see in this first picture, that wall is blank.  I think I explained before, but we never bought a changing table when we had Garrett because his nursery (which was the room you're currently looking at) had a full size bed in it so we just changed him on the bed.  But now that bed is where Garrett sleeps.  However, I have a hard time paying money for something we won't use for very long, so I hauled out the Pack N Play which really doesn't get used much, and set up the diaper changer in there.  Hopefully this will serve as a nice substitute for a changing table.  The mobile on it came with the Pack N Play, so I figured I would go ahead and put it out in hopes that maybe it will hold Cooper's attention while he's getting changed.  I hung the blanket that goes with our crib bedding on the outside of the Pack N Play in order to hide our stash of diapers.  FYI, the bottom of that Pack N Play is almost full of diapers!!  For some reason, the lighting in this picture is off.

The lighting here is much better.  In the corner behind the crib is where I currently have the baby swing, bouncer seat, activity mat, and diaper pail.  On the side of the crib that you can see, is actually an exersaucer and bouncer seat that some friends of ours loaned to us before we were given brand new ones.  I need to take them back to their house, but haven't gotten around to it.  So, those are not ours and will not be staying there.  We also have some baby equipment under the crib.  I'm trying to utilize every inch of space in his room.  And you can see Garrett talking into the baby monitor like it's a walkie talkie.  I'm sure that won't be the last time we see that.

In case I haven't already said so, the nursery theme for Cooper is the same as Garrett's.  Barnyard animals and John Deere tractors.  The "Texaco" sign is one that was given to Keith when he was little.  It doesn't exactly fit the theme, but I thought it would be cute to hang.  

The lamp on this shelf was made for me by my sister Christie when she was in junior high woodshop class.  The baskets in the shelf have baby toys in them and other miscellaneous things that Garrett has outgrown.  Like his Tickle Me Elmo and a Bouncing Tigger.  Of course now that everything is out and organized, he's more interested in playing with these toys again.  Funny how that works.  

Right by the door, is our stack of things that will be accompanying us to the hospital when the time comes.  Cooper's room seemed like the best place for them.  I would keep them in my SUV, but one of the bags has snacks and bottles of water in it and I don't want anything to ruin.  The bag on top is our new diaper bag with Cooper's name monogrammed on it.  I found when I had Garrett that having my Boppy pillow at the hospital was a big help, so I've put it with our stack to be sure I have it.  The chair in the corner was mine from when I was in college.  We have a set of 3 that float around the house as needed.  I realized that Cooper's room wasn't going to have anywhere to sit down.  We have a rocking chair, but it's in the living room and I have no plans of doing any rocking in the middle of the night, so I just stuck that chair in there in case we need a place to sit at some point.

This just gives you an idea of how full his closet is.  Of course when you don't have a dresser or chest of drawers in a bedroom, that adds more things that need to be kept in the closet.  My current method of organization is as follows: the top basket has an assortment of things in it, mostly things we'll need in a few months time, that are also small and needed a place to hang for the time being.  The second basket has crib sheets and waterproof pads.  The bottom basket has blankets.  You can also see that I have blankets stuffed next to each basket as well as a stack on the bottom shelf.  Garrett was given a TON of blankets when he was born.  The organizer next to the shelves has hats, socks, onesies, bibs, burp rags, sleepers, and more receiving blankets.  The clothes hanging on the left are 0-3 month outfits and on the right are an assortment of outfits ranging from 6 months to 12 months.  I also have onesies stacked on the top shelf that are in bigger sizes.  And I won't begin to list out all the other baby equipment hanging around up there, waiting until they're needed.  While it's nice to have most everything you need when baby #2 comes around, it's hard finding places to store all the equipment until the baby grows into it.

The elephant with the mirror on it and the bear in the corner of the crib were both Garrett's.  The elephant has a handle that the baby pulls and makes a mouse run around on the mirror and it plays music and lights up.  The bear is actually strapped onto the crib and has a sound machine inside its stomach that plays heartbeat sounds.  That is supposed to be soothing for newborns and Garrett loved it when he was a baby.  Draped over the side of the crib is a "lovey" that my friend Kelli gave to Cooper.  

And finally, the diaper changer/Pack N Play.  I've already got a waterproof pad down just waiting to be peed and/or pooped on.  The pillow will get moved I'm sure, but it was one that was handmade with Cooper's name embroidered on it by someone that Keith works with.  

And that's it.  I applaud you if you read through all of this.  Since I've been asked this question a few times, I will say that, while most of the furniture and decorations are from Garrett's nursery, everything is hung in a different spot, the crib sits in a different spot, etc.  I did attempt to do things differently so they won't one day be looking at pictures of their nursery and have a hard time figuring out whose room was whose.  

So that's it!  Hard to believe that in less than 2 weeks, the inhabitant of this room will be here.

Garrett and Cooper

I promise I will post pictures soon. I'm still illiterate when it comes to uploading pictures on this Mac and I forgot to upload the pictures when I'm on the Dell, but I have several I want to share and I'll do it soon.

I wanted to share that we've finally decided on Cooper's middle name. First off, we made a list of about 5 names that we both could agree on. One of them was Cole, which is why I had previously asked about first and middle names starting with the same letter, but ultimately Keith took it off the list. So we narrowed it down to Gage and that's the one we're going with. I know it's different, but I like that name, though I was hesitant to pick it for a first name, so we decided to go with it as the middle name instead. The funny part is that we know of a set of boy twins named Garrett and Gage, but that's not the reason behind our choice, though I will admit that was probably the first time I had heard of the name Gage.

Cooper has been pretty active lately. Keith was able to feel him kick the other day, so that was pretty cool. I'm also definitely showing now. I hadn't really noticed until yesterday and then I had a lady ask me when I was due the other day at the store, so it's always funny when strangers start to comment.

I bought Cooper's coming home outfit yesterday too. It's a cute, little overall outfit, with a light blue t-shirt, and blue/green plaid overalls. I bought a newborn size because I remember how big clothes were on Garrett, even newborn stuff at first. And he wasn't a tiny baby. He weighed 7 lb 12 oz and was 19" long. So assuming this baby is roughly the same size or even a little bigger, this outfit should fit just fine. I debated having him wear Garrett's coming home outfit, but decided against it. I'm keeping a box of memorabilia for each boy and those outfits would probably be the only baby clothes I'll save, so they need their own.

As I type, Keith is painting Garrett's new room. I'm in hopes that by next weekend, the painting will be finished and I can start to move his things over to the new room and maybe even move him in within a couple of weeks. I think it will really start to feel "real" when the crib is set up in Cooper's room and I start washing baby clothes and hanging them in the closet. My mother in law is fixing a few pieces on Garrett's crib bedding and I plan to reuse that. If Cooper was my first child, I would be appalled at the thought of reusing baby bedding, but now I just find it a waste of money since he will only use it, at the most, for 2 years. But if for some reason my mother in law isn't able to fix it or I find a really cheap bedding set that I love, then I might consider buying something else...

Garrett has earned himself a new nickname: Motormouth. He talks constantly. This morning we brought him into church with us because it's been a few weeks since he's been in the worship service. He talked the ear off of the greeter who came up to us and said hi. She told us "I'm so sorry you're raising such a shy child. It's really a shame." Ha! He would have kept on talking if I hadn't told him to tell her bye. Of course that mouth got him in trouble about 1/4 of the way into the pastor's sermon. Garrett was being loud, so I got out crayons and some color sheets for him to color on. He says "I don't want to color!" in a voice loud enough to be heard from the front stage. I told him to be quiet (we had already had a talk before church about not talking in church and if he needed to say something then he had to whisper). He said it again in the same voice, so I picked him up and we started heading out of the church. We were thankfully only 3 rows from the back. Garrett immediately started yelling "I want my Daddy!" It was a lovely scene. I took him straight to the nursery, even though he didn't want to go, and explained to him that when he gets loud he can't stay in church. He was not happy about it, but hopefully it will be something I can point out the next time we decide to take him into church with us.

I know some of you are wondering why we even bother taking him when we have the option to put him in the nursery. In 6 months, he won't be able to go into the nursery anymore and our church doesn't have children's church. I would prefer to slowly get him used to how to behave in worship services now while I have the nursery to fall back on when he's behaving like he was this morning. Rather than just start things off when he turns 4 and have to train him from the beginning. I'm sure that would result in Keith or I spending time out of the auditorium because I refuse to allow my child to disrupt the services. You never know when someone sitting around you really needed to hear what the pastor had to say, but your child afforded them a reason to be distracted and ignore God trying to get their attention. That's not to say that children will always sit quietly and motionless throughout a church service, nor is it to say that those same people wouldn't find something else to distract them if your child wasn't acting up. But I still don't want to contribute to any excess noise during the worship services when I can help it.

Now that you've had your sermon of the day from me, I'll will close here with the promise to post again soon with pictures. Joy spoke at MOPS a few weeks ago about how to get the most out of your digital camera and how to take the best pictures with any camera, not just the expensive ones.  So I've been attempting to use some of her tips when I can, and I do see a difference. (Thanks Joy!) I'm looking forward to trying them all out on Cooper in a few months. Atleast he'll be still enough to try it, unlike some of my other subjects around here.  

Random Kid Stuff

I *think* we've decided on a name.  But I'm not going to share it yet because we still haven't agreed upon a middle name.  I made a list of about 5 middle names that we both like, so we'll hopefully narrow it down soon and then I'll feel free to share our decision.  What's your opinion on first and middle names starting with the same letter?  Most people are rarely called by both names, and I'm not a mom that tends to "middle name" my kids, I'm not sure if Garrett really knows that his middle name is Lucas because he rarely hears it.  I don't know if I like first and middle names starting with the same letter, but one of the middle names Keith likes starts with the same letter as the first name we've picked, so if that's the only one we can agree on, then I guess that will be the name we'll go with.  I'm just curious what other people think about that.  

I don't know if it's because I'm beginning to anticipate a newborn in the house, but Garrett just seems more and more grown up all the time.  I know once the baby comes home, Garrett will appear to be a teenager to me because of the drastic differences between the two.  This morning he was laying in bed with me while Keith was getting ready for work, he rolled over and said "Hey Momma, I have an idea, why don't we turn on the TV and watch Sesame Street?"  Not a big deal to most of you, but Garrett has been a bit behind with his speech and while he does a great job with communicating to us, I've never heard him say such a long sentence and do it so clearly.  The part "I have an idea" cracked me up because that's the first time he's ever said it.  

Another Garrett story briefly (he's currently saying "Psst, Momma, I want you to turn the lights on in my new room."  I hung up a Toy Story poster in there yesterday to see how it would look, but he hasn't moved in yet.)  Yesterday, when I went to pick him up from MDO he was wearing a different pair of pants than he had on when I dropped him off.  I asked his teacher if he had an accident, which isn't a big deal.  She told me that when they were out on the playground, Garrett came up to her and asked if he could pee in the grass, she told him no, he can pee in his yard at home, but he can't pee on the playground (very good rule!).  So she asked him if he needed to go inside to the bathroom and he told her no.  Of course a few minutes later he came up to her and said he had an accident.  I'm only surprised that he asked permission to pee outside instead of just dropping his pants and going.  Which would have been funny because the church playground sits beside the busiest street in our town.

I just want to end with a big congratulations to my cousin, Stephanie.  She found out yesterday that she's having a baby girl.  She's due a few weeks after I am.  Now I'm curious to know what my other cousin, Andrea, is having.  She's due right between Steph and I.  (My sister is due with her second boy 2 months before me!)  Our family is doing our part to contribute to the so called overpopulation on the planet

It's a.....

Just in case you weren't aware, today was the big ultrasound to find out if we're having a boy or a girl. And in case you haven't already heard it's a(nother) boy!

Just in case you didn't believe me.

Everything is healthy and looks great. He wasn't super active, but we did catch him stretching his legs to kick my bladder. While I have felt from early on with this pregnancy that I was having another boy, it was still a little surprising when it was confirmed. And I will confess to a brief moment of mourning the loss of the girl that I'll never have, but I'm overwhelmingly very excited for another baby boy to join our family.

I feel like I already "know" boys and "know" what to expect from them. That's certainly not to say that all boys are alike, they certainly aren't (right ladies?). But as far as the general care and well being of a child, I'm already familiar with the boy aspects of them. I've potty trained one boy, wiped and diapered one boy, dealt with circumcision care with one boy, etc. Not to mention all the baby boy clothes that I've saved since Garrett was born. Those will definitely come in handy, especially since they both will have summer birthdays. Most of the clothes should fit in most seasons. Of course I'll still have to buy some new things for baby boy, especially matching things for outfits that I'll also buy Garrett, but I won't have to go out and buy a new wardrobe as I would have undoubtedly done if we were having a girl.

I think Keith was a little disappointed in knowing that a girl wasn't meant to be for us. He was afraid that I would be upset by not having someone to go shopping with. I've managed to do most of my shopping alone or with my mom or a friend for the past 30 years, I'll be fine for the next 30. Then he said that I would just have to deal with having him and the 2 boys along with me, and I politely declined. Doesn't sound like the fun, girl shopping trip that he's thinking of. Hours at the Academy is not my idea of a good time.

Now we start the name game. I hope we'll settle on something relatively quickly because I don't like waiting till the last minute for decisions like this. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to know that the evening I have planned for us involves watching "How I Met Your Mother" while perusing the Baby Name Book during commercials.

Before I forget, I did also see my doctor today for my monthly check up. My blood pressure was really low and I lost another 4 pounds, leaving me down a total of 13 this pregnancy. I wish losing weight came this easily when I'm not carrying a baby! I'm doing absolutely nothing differently than I normally do when not pregnant so it has to be the hormones. At next month's visit I will get to enjoy the lovely glucose tolerance test. I'm really looking forward to drinking that flat, orange drink and then sitting for an hour in the waiting room until it's time to draw my blood. I'm salivating just thinking about it.

And I'll leave you with one final look at baby boy. This was the best profile shot we could get because he enjoyed having his elbow up by his face.

One More Week!

Exactly one week from today we will hopefully know if we're having another boy or a girl.  As Keith so eloquently put it yesterday, "You know we're having a girl because we already have all the boy stuff.  That's just how it works for accountants."  Meaning, obviously, that having a girl will cost us more money than having a boy.  I don't think he even realizes the half of it.  

While neither of us really cares one way or the other, so long as the baby is healthy, I think he's learning towards a girl whereas I'm leaning towards a boy.  One of us is bound to be right.  

We're almost done cleaning out the guest room.  All that's in there now are a few of my clothes that I currently can't wear but will have to find a spot in my closet (along with my wedding dress, I'm not sure what to do with that), 7 containers full of blankets and/or picture frames that need to find a spot in the garage or attic, and the baby crib, which will be moved to the baby's room once there's a free spot for it.  Initially I planned on painting Garrett's new room a grayish blue color because all of the walls in our house are what we call the builder's khaki color and I'm getting tired of it.  However, yesterday I was really taking a hard long in that room and decided I don't have the energy or the drive to tackle painting right now.  Keith didn't really want to change the color, so he agreed to touch up the walls and baseboards for me so atleast everything will be fresh before Garrett moves in.  Now I need to buy curtains and a curtain rod along with some poster frames and we'll be ready to start moving Garrett over.  I would like him to be completely moved in by April for a few reasons.  One would be that he will have plenty of time to adjust to the new room before a new baby will take over his old room, and two, we will have enough time to get the baby's room ready before it's born.  

As for the baby's room (ie Garrett's current room) it will need to be completely repainted because toddlers are hard on their walls.  But since we're just repainting with the color that's currently on the walls, it shouldn't take as much work as a new paint color would.  

Is anybody else tired after reading all that?

Back to more important things, I'm feeling the baby move every day now.  Nothing too crazy so far, more squirming with the occasional kick or punch, but I know it will get more and more noticeable as it gets bigger in there.  The other night, Keith put his hand on my stomach, so I moved it to the hard spot where it was obvious that the baby was laying.  I pushed around on my stomach to show him that you could definitely tell that was the baby because everywhere else wasn't that hard.  He freaked out and told me to stop pushing on the baby, I was going to poke its eye out or something.  I promise I wasn't pushing hard at all.  

I can't wait to post next Monday and announce to everyone what we're having.  Hopefully it won't be too much longer after we find out that we'll also have a name chosen.  I've got a few ideas, but we haven't talked seriously about names yet, so I'll wait to share until we have the name picked.  

And I'll close with a somewhat funny story about Garrett.  On Friday night, he had his tent in the living room, so Keith said he was going into the tent to play.  Keith's leg couldn't fit in the tent, let alone his entire 6'5" body.  So he stuck his upper body into the tent and Garrett said "Daddy's stupid".  Well, atleast that's what we thought he said, but I did some quick analyzing of his sentence and determined he actually said "Daddy's too big".  I had to reassure Keith that was what Garrett said before we started in explaining that we don't call people stupid.  Thankfully we've avoided that discussion.  For now.  

Baby Update

Today I had my 3rd doctor's appointment and I took Garrett with me again. Keith had initially planned to stay home with him for the morning but this is a really busy time of year for him and he just couldn't take off a few hours. It worked out well because Garrett has been really good at the last 2 visits with me. I know that with all the appointments I will have between now and June, he'll be attending several, so atleast he's getting used to it now.

The highlights of the visit:
-Lost 2 more pounds for a total weight loss of 9 pounds since getting pregnant. Not intentional, I promise, just a strange side effect that pregnancy has on me, not sure why! I do eat and I've only upchucked once...
-My blood pressure was good. I've never had a problem with it before, but now that I'm 30, I'm aware that there's always the chance it could start giving me problems. My mom started taking bp medicine when she was about my age. But today's was a good number: 120/70.
-Heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time, very exciting! This also confirmed that I have been feeling the baby move. This weekend I felt several very distinctive punches/kicks in the same spot. I basically assumed it was the baby moving, but when the doctor was searching for the heartbeat, I told him where I had felt it move the day before, he moved the doppler there, and we immediately started hearing the heartbeat! While he was pushing around on my stomach looking for it, baby was squirming a little too and I could definitely feel it. Very cool!
-And the most exciting news...4 weeks from today is the BIG ultrasound! I can't believe it! I really thought I would have to wait another month, but I asked when we'd be doing it and he asked me if I could hold off for 4 weeks.

He said their new technician is really good, which is exciting because at our first ultrasound with Garrett in this doctor's office, the tech at that time couldn't tell if we were having a boy or a girl. She did confess that we were one of her first ultrasounds, so she just didn't have the experience doing them. Plus, Garrett was stubborn even then, had his legs crossed and pulled underneath him, as well as the cord between his legs. So, while we have experienced the letdown of not finding out the baby's sex at the first ultrasound, I really hope we don't have to do it again. We did end up having a 3D ultrasound done and that was when we found out Garrett was a boy. Good thing too, since I had sworn up and down he was a girl. Had we not found out, we would have gone into that delivery room with pink clothes in our bag, I swear. This is why I'm hesistent to feel very strongly one way or the other about this baby's sex. I told my doctor today that I am still feeling like it's a boy and he said "Well, you have a 50% chance of being right!" ha ha He said you really can't go off of the similarities and differences in a pregnancy to determine the sex because it's not a good indicator. So 4 weeks from now we'll see if it's boy #2 or (heaven help me) a girl.

Garrett still insists it's a girl, which is just the strangest thing to me. Does a 3 year old really know the difference between brothers and sisters or boys and girls? The only brother and sister he hangs around with occasionally are his friends Drew and Avery, but they don't refer to themselves as brother and sister, so I'm not sure what he's thinking a sister is. But he did tell me today that he's a genius so maybe he does know. (My dad has this thing that he does with his grandkids where he teaches them to say "I genius" as soon as they start talking. Today was the first time Garrett has said it without being prompted by someone else. I hope that's not a bad thing...)

The only negative for today's appointment was the weather. It's very cold and rainy here and they were predicting freezing rain as well as slick roads. I watched the news before we left at 8:30 this morning and they said things were good at that point, so I drove through the rain with one eye on the roads and one eye on the outside temps. It hovered between 32 and 34 degrees. I left plenty early, went by the bank and still made it to the doctor's office 20 minutes before my appointment. They had me in and out before my actual appointment was supposed to start. Apparently a lot of people had cancelled today because of the bad weather potential. My doctor even thanked me for braving the weather to come in. I'm glad I did go because I didn't encounter any problems, other than driving in the rain, which I don't enjoy, but it wasn't bad. When I was getting Garrett into the car after the appointment, he started freaking out because the umbrella was dripping water inside the car. I had to ditch the umbrella, stand there and buckle him in, while it was raining without anything over my head. I'm sure I looked lovely on the drive home.

So now I sit here trying to muster up the energy to finish the laundry and clean the kitchen. I've got all my Christmas decorations on the dining room table and a bare Christmas tree standing in the living room. Eventually we'll get to the point of having everything packed away into the attic for another year. I told Keith last night that in 4 weeks I'll be exactly halfway through this pregnancy. That freaked him out a little. We both started listing off all the things that need to get done between now and then. It should be fun! I'm not as anxious to get this pregnancy over with as I was with Garrett. I guess this go around I know what's coming up and I'm not quite ready for it. I'm sure by June I will be.

Little Nudger

I think I've been feeling the baby move for the past couple of days.  I'm not positive about it and I know it's early, but on the other hand this is my second pregnancy and it's only 4 weeks earlier than the first time I felt Garrett, but I'm not sure if that's really what I'm feeling.  It's just a very light "bump" in roughly the same spot, a few times a day.  I haven't gotten my hopes up too much because I'll be honest and say that even when I wasn't pregnant over the past 3 years, I've felt strange things at times that I would have sworn was a baby moving or kicking.  What I'm currently feeling is very light in comparison to those "phantom" movements, so that's what makes me sit back and take more notice of them than I usually would.  But I feel pretty sure that even if I'm not feeling it now, I will be feeling it in the next month or so.  I think that will make this baby seem more real to me.  Right now it's pretty easy to just forget that I'm pregnant, but once there's something moving around inside of me, it will be a bit harder to forget it.  

Tonight we're going to eat supper with some friends of ours for my birthday.  We're all busy between now and Saturday, so Wednesday was the only night that worked for us.  She's made homemade lasagna which I haven't had in a while, so I'm very excited to eat that!  I better take some Pepcid before I leave though.  The heartburn has started to kick it up a notch the past week.  That's actually making it a bit harder to forget I'm pregnant because heartburn is just part and parcel of pregnancy for me.  This friend will more than likely have a homemade dessert as well.  A while back she made a homemade cheesecake and it was soooo good.  She's a very good cook.  Her son has requested that Garrett bring his "Snotrod" car.  (If you've seen "Cars" then you know who I'm talking about.)  Apparently her son has a new obsession with Snotrod.  Unbeknownst to him, he's getting one for Christmas, but right now, he's dying to play with Garrett's.  His mom told me today that he said he was thankful for his bear and that Garrett was probably thankful for his Snotrod.  Because who wouldn't be thankful for Snotrod?

(Shout out to the "Twilight" series with my post title, for the uninformed out there.)

12 Week Check-Up

This morning I had my 12 week check up at the doctor. With Christmas parties coming up, I've already booked my babysitters and didn't want to ask anyone to watch Garrett for me this morning as well as watch him when we have a party this weekend or next week, so I decided to suck it up and take him with me. Knowing that I will be having these appointments atleast once a month between now and June, it's only natural that eventually he will have to come with me to an appointment or two. Monday morning is definitely the best time to go to the ob/gyn. We sat for maybe 5 minutes before the nurse came out and got me, so that was nice. I was a little apprehensive about having my blood pressure checked while my 3 year old was sitting on my lap, but surprisingly she said it was normal.

Then I had to weigh. As I stepped onto the scale I remembered that I had my cell phone and keys in my pocket. Not smart. But again, surprisingly, I lost 7 pounds this month! Pretty shocking since I don't think I've been all that sick. Plus, last night I ate a few frozen waffles and pancakes because I was having a weird craving. I figured those would show up on the scale this morning, but that didn't happen. I should explain that when I was pregnant with Garrett, I ended up weighing 2 pounds less when I checked into the hospital compared to what I weighed at my first pregnancy appointment. For whatever reason, I tend to lose weight in pregnancy. Since I have it to lose, it doesn't concern my doctor, so that's nice.

As most of you know, the next step at the pregnancy doctor visit is peeing in a cup. This is truly fun when you have a 3 year old in the bathroom with you. He told me he needed to poop in a cup after I was done. I convinced him to hold that thought until after I saw the doctor.

Unfortunately this was one of those appointments where you have to strip down for a complete exam. Again, lots of fun with the 3 year old in the room. Thankfully I had a sucker in my purse, so that managed to get him through the first part of my exam. During the second part, my doctor started laughing, always something a practically naked woman wants to hear. He explained that he happened to look up at Garrett, who was sitting behind me, and he had his shirt lifted and was looking down at his stomach while my doctor was examining mine. After a question/answer session, I was free to head down to the lab and have my bloodwork done. Garrett sat on my lap while she drew my blood. He made a few comments about my "boo boo", but he was mostly interested in the rubber glove that the tech gave him to play with.

After that we were ok to leave. I was loaded down with formula samples, that may or may not expire before this baby is even born, as well as the paperwork that I have to fill out for the hospital. Overall it was a good appointment and I'm glad to know that Garrett can behave himself in that setting. I don't plan to take him to every appointment, but I'm sure he will accompany me a few more times before this baby arrives.

Oh and he told the lab tech he was having a baby sister. That's the first time he's ever said that.

FYI

My first 'real' post on my new blog.

As you can see, I've transferred all my old blogs from MySpace. It was time to breakout into something different.

One of the first questions I've already been asked is where I came up with my blog name. As you know, my name is Lydia. Growing up one of my many nicknames (my family is big on nicknames, I'm not even sure how many I've had) was Lid the kid. I think that was the most prevelent of everything that I've been called. So when I found out that I was pregnant with baby #2, I decided that I wanted to start a new blog where I could journal my thoughts and feelings on this pregnancy as well as all the crazy and wonderful things that Garrett gets in to. My first thought was what to name the blog. I didn't really want to do anything with my kids' names, obviously the second child is yet-to-be-named and I didn't want anything solely named for Garrett. So Lid and the Kids just kinda came to me and there you have it.

Since my last blog from a couple of months ago we've been busy. Obviously a baby has been conceived and is currently in the development process. I've also taken on a parttime job working for our church. And Garrett has been full-steam ahead.

First things first, the pregnancy. I'm feeling decent right now. Occasional nausea and many, many afternoons of exhaustion, but overall, everything is good. My younger sister, Grace, is also pregnant. She's 9 weeks ahead of me and she has had terrible morning sickness. So all I hope for is that I don't go through what she has gone through. Of course I also hope and pray for a healthy baby as well. I would honestly love to have another boy, but we'll see once we have the gender ultrasound. I'm guessing that will be in February.

Garrett gets bigger and more "grown-up" all the time. He's loving Mother's Day Out (or preschool, whichever title you would prefer to give it). He talks about his teacher constantly, so I think that's a very good sign that she's doing a good job with him. He knows all of the ABC's, can count to ten (though he doesn't really recognize any numbers), and I've most recently discovered that he has also learned the days of the week. When his class had their Halloween party, his teacher led the students in their morning activities as the parents watched, and Garrett impressed me by being able to recite all of the days and even knew what day of the week that particular day was. He still doesn't know any of his colors. He calls everything yellow, except for yellow, that he calls blue. But I know he'll catch on eventually. He is completely potty trained with the exception of bedtime. Just this past week, he's been waking up from naps completely dry, so I've (hesitantly) been putting him down without wearing a pull-up and so far we've had no accidents!

I'm very excited about the upcoming holidays. I can practically taste the turkey and dressing. Yum! I've also started my Christmas shopping. I'm actually normally done by this point of the year, but I've been a slacker the last few months, so it's time to get my game face on and get everything purchased. I'm hoping to get my Christmas tree put up in the next week or so. It's a little early for it, but we're going to be out of town for Christmas this year, so I want some extra time to enjoy it.

It's hard to believe that we're already in mid-November. The countdown is on for 2009.