the negotiator

How much do you love my boy's stylin' jammies selection last night? Hand-me-down Madagascar shirt, Rocket jammie bottoms, and fighter plane galoshes, but on the wrong feet. Love him! He definitely knows what he wants (clothes, food, activity du jour) and may possibly throw a small fit if he doesn't get it. Okay, that mostly happens at bed and meal time when fatigue and hunger have set in. But since our day consists of 3 meals and 2 "bed" times, it can happen more than we'd like! When said fit starts to happen (say at the dinner table when he flips over his plate full of food - oh yes!) we've given up on a time-out chair. No, we go with full banishment to his bedroom. I don't even care if he's playing while in there, he knows he stays in there until he's in the mood to be nice. I'm sure this tactic won't work much longer (as I learn from those going before me). But I need to clarify, he's normally a fantastic kid and very susceptible to our reverse psychology efforts. But he's gaining on us!

Right now he's back in the bathroom negotiating with Wayne about potty time. Miles' Aunt Elizabeth told me that the promise of power tools convinced Evan to become potty trained, so we set forth that when Miles poopies on the potty, he will earn some new power tools for his tool kit. He knows when he needs to go, because he races back to his room and slams the door for some "private time". So we figure we'll just follow him and remind him of the deal for power tools. He's back there now discussing with Wayne the idea that just a pee-pee gets power tools too. Sorry, smarty, we already know you can pee on the potty! In milestone tracking, he woke up with a dry diaper for the first time ever today. Huge! Guess I need to get off my duff and get that boy trained. This "new baby" excuse can only get me so far, right?

Ah, the wee one. She's turning a month old this week! She had a big week, meeting Aunt Elizabeth, Uncle Shay and cousins Evan & Kate. Kate was just dying to hold her over and over, which made Miles want to as well - he hadn't yet, if you can believe it! She's been taking it pretty easy on us most of the time, although last night she threw us a curve ball, staying basically awake until almost 2, ouch. For us cool kids who were already on the 9 p.m. bedtime schedule, that one really hurt. But when she does finally sleep at night, we've been getting a good 4 hour stretch, sometimes twice in a row, so can't complain too much. And we're just loving how much more awake and alert she is during the day. We're getting some good time staring into those big blue eyes. But hopefully tonight they will close for the night at around 11. Pretty please, sugar pie?

Ol' Blue Eyes

I may have to give up the weekly shot of sweet Audrey, at least for a few weeks. Besides being a couple of days late taking it, she is not a huge fan of the pose. Could have something to do with the lack of neck strength causing her to slump onto the bear every time. Then she just gets mad, "mommy, what in the world are you trying to make me do?" So this week's photo looked a lot like last week's: mad face and punching fists. I did lay her down on her belly, which she didn't mind too much. So I'll try to get the shot next week, but may just wait until she has a little more head control. But check out those blue eyes! And her hair has gotten redder as it grows.

Speaking of hair, she had her first salon visit today. She (take a wild guess...) slept in the carrier while I got a much overdue cut. But she was the attraction of the day there. Seems that 5 employees are pregnant, and the rest must have the baby bug because she was never without an audience cooing, watching her REM-cycle eye flutters.

And the last little tidbit.. we had her 3 week check-up yesterday. Sweet little Audrey weighs 10 lbs. 2 oz.!! She's already outgrowing some sleepers and onesies. Time to break out the new spring wardrobe!

Oh, and Raven (the one who took this gorgeous photo of Audrey) has entered a blog banner design contest on TypePad, so please go vote for her cute little owl!

A wild goose chase

Some of the time lately has felt like a wild goose chase. Like when trying to get two kiddos ready to go somewhere and Miles refuses to go potty, change diaper, get dressed, eat his snack, eat the snack that he asked for 2 seconds earlier, take the orange cup (not the green cup), leave the huge toy behind. Then he finally gets ready and it's Audrey's turn to have a blowout diaper (they usually sound worse than they look), spit up on her shirt, need to sit down to eat, then take 15 minutes to burp. So I've been learning that if we want to meet daddy for lunch at 11, we need to be awake and going by, oh, 6:45 a.m. :)

But Miles did go on an actual wild goose chase this weekend! We were partying with Mary Kate for her 3rd birthday a the cutest little zoo I'd never heard of before. They had donkey rides (Miles rode Cocoa, who had to poop while Miles was riding him), emus, camels, sheep, goats, even a kangaroo and a couple of zonkeys. No, not a typo, zonkeys. Miles LOVED it. He ran, skipped and bounded all over the place, but never once did I see him just plain walking. He was way too excited for a boring walk around the zoo.

Little missy was in attendance at the party, but she slept through all the excitement. She did have a big day Tuesday when she went to work with daddy. Well, actually she went to work with mommy too. I had to do a little end of 2007 clean up in the files (yes, I know 2007 has been over for a while) so we spent a couple of hours hanging out with Wayne. He was so excited to give her first lesson in the merits of excess cash flow and high returns on capital employed. Yes, she slept through most of this visit too.

Oh yes, happy Easter to all! Audrey made her debut at the 9 a.m. mass, sleeping in the Baby Bjorn the entire time (are you sensing a theme?). Miles and Audrey had a visit from the Easter Bunny too! He left eggs scattered all around our yard. They also had another visit, YaYa and B came in town and joined us for Easter services. Then following a quick stop for some hot fresh Krispy Kremes, they headed back home with Miles in tow. It is his spring break so he's spending a few nights with them and visiting his cousins. And mommy and daddy are planning on relaxing and enjoying some down time. Oh wait, we have a 3 week old baby. Never mind. At least I will be able to follow the "sleep when they sleep" advice for a day or so. At least I'll try too, it will be pretty tempting to "be productive" in that downtime. Maybe I'll be able to blog a little more? Or start scrap booking her baby album! Yes!!

quick update...

Two weeks! Definitely some change from last week's photo. While she was still slumpy onto the bear, she was much more, um, reactive, to being posed there. She had some good strong kicks and punches going. Thankfully Raven got some gorgeous shots of her on Sunday, so we have this time documented in a much better way.

We're all hanging in there! Our first day of mommy, Miles and Audrey went pretty well. I did have to whip out the Little Einsteins on Demand at the end of the day, and Wayne came home for lunch, but overall we did well and I survived. We had painters here that day or it probably would have been easier. Convincing Miles to stay put in the room with me while I fed Audrey took some creative thinking, but now that it's just us and we can be anywhere in the house it's better. The hard part today was keeping Miles from coughing all over her. Yes, the men of the house both have head colds and so far the ladies have steered clear. I've tried telling Miles that his big boy germs are just too strong for the baby, so he has to stay away from her. Not the easiest to sell when he just wants to be a sweet big brother and give her the pacifier!

Oh and the picture may give away the rest of Erin's story (read about her crazy week!!!) but we did make it to Cracker Barrel with the kids this weekend. Audrey slept through the whole thing but Miles and Eileen hammed it up for each other. Both of them were covered in anything sticky from the table: jam, syrup, mac n' cheese

On to some kitchen updates! We're done but for a few cosmetics: back splash, knobs on cabinets, and the breakfast area (table, cushion & lighting). It's fantastic and we love it!!! Here are the before & afters:

One week down

In addition to my photo-a-day goal (which I've been doing, just haven't organized February yet), I thought it would be fun to track Audrey's growth through the year like Heather Ann is doing with her son. We even have the exact same bear to use! It's the cutest, softest bear from Old Navy. In fact Miles has 2 of these bears - both named "Brown Bear" - which he has to sleep with every night. They are no longer soft and fluffy, but like the Velveteen Rabbit, they are both loved very much.

The photo "shoot" was hysterical. I don't know if Heather tried a one week shot, but most of the shots are of her sliding over onto the bear. I did several of her on her belly, but to see the change I wanted to have her sitting up. Then the poor thing sneezed and went face first onto the chair, so we called a wrap on that session!

We've all been enjoying having YaYa here this week helping out - especially Mommy!! While Miles has been a fantastic big brother, I think it's been great for him to get adjusted to the idea of sharing mommy while still having another person around to play with. YaYa has to leave tomorrow, so Friday will be the big First Day of me, Miles and Audrey together all day. I know it seems to Miles that I'm always feeding her, which means always holding her, but at least I'll be able to do that wherever he is, his room, the playroom, wherever.

Speaking of the big boy, he has 3 of his 2nd molars coming in!!! Only one more and he'll have all of his baby teeth.

Off to sleep now. Audrey's been a real champ on the feedings, taking them closer together during the day and spacing them out at night. I think we even had one 4 hour stretch - which means about 3 hours straight of sleep for me by the time I get her changed, fed, burped, swaddled and back to drowsy sleep. Just praying that she keeps extending those night sleeps!!

Hanging out

Here are a few more shots from Miss Audrey's arrival. I also added more to the Shutterfly link at the right (or click here). I haven't uploaded January or February, but hey, I know what you really want to see!

Miles is doing great with Audrey so far. He wants to be around her all the time and has the sweetest grin on his face when he says "baby sister!" I guess calling her that for all these months is a hard habit to break, but he's starting to get used to calling her Audrey. We'll have to work on some other names in the house too, as "daddy!" has now become "Wayne!" screamed throughout the house. At least he hasn't tried to call me Nicole yet. Although he did call me Aunt Nicole once...

We're on our own tonight. PawPaw and Mimi headed back home this morning. They made it safely despite the 6(!) inches of snow predicted for Memphis. For the last few nights I've been getting up to feed the Sweet Pea and then calling Mimi down to burp and rock her back to sleep. I think she was fairly easy to get back down... guess I'll learn in the next several hours. Hope I have the same touch Mimi did... we got a couple of 3 hour stretches between feedings last night, which seems like an eternity when she'd been doing 90 minutes to 2 hours all day. But at least she's eating well. And I need a new nickname - Pamela would be appropriate - and theme music by Kelis.

Found a song named Audrey by Dave Brubeck. Got to have that jazz connection to Miles! Click here to listen.

Off to sleep while I can... tomorrow YaYa comes over to help out for the first part of the week. Not sure I'm ready for a full day home alone with both kiddos. That would require mucho nap time for mommy!

Overdue...

Overdue seems to be the theme for all things Audrey, but I am overdue on letting you see our beautiful angel!! Of course we've been a tad bit busy, so sitting down to blog has taken a way-back seat to sleeping, eating, etc.

She's doing great... slept a lot the first night home and is now waking up a bit more to eat. We learned our lesson and used the hospital nursery as much as we could at night - take heed new-moms-to-be: they will bring them back to eat and you will sleep MUCH better!!

This photo is day 3, first full day at home. We had 2 big outings!! First was to the pediatrician where she had a great check-up. She'd already regained almost all the weight she lost, so we don't have to go back for 3 weeks. Our next outing was a very short walk to enjoy the gorgeous weather. We weren't the only ones loving the sunshine. We ran into Audrey's first boyfriend, Fenn, who lives next door. He's almost three months old. Then we saw the mommy-to-be across the street and learned she's having a boy this summer! Our little street is becoming baby-central. We also passed several other neighbors who were excited to see that Audrey had finally joined us.

Anyway, think that's about all the blogging I have in me now. Miles is a bundle of energy and is still figuring out this "share the mommy" thing. Could be an interesting next few weeks.

She's here!

Announcing the arrival of Audrey McLean!!! I know, I know, Audrey wasn't even in the poll. That's why we had the disclaimer in there. The name came up last week and we really started liking it. We asked Miles about it and he was sold instantly. Evelyn was his fave by far, but as soon as we added Audrey, there was no wavering. "I like Auuuuuuu-drey," he says.

Anyway, we were scheduled for induction Monday but I started having contractions Sunday. By the evening they were getting pretty strong, so we went on in. By 5 a.m. when they would have started the induction meds, I was already 5cm! So I got my epidural and rested through a few hours of contractions until it was time.

She took a little more work than Miles, but not too bad. We started pushing at 9 and after about 4 contractions decided to wait about 15 minutes to try again. That time it took about 3 contractions and she was here at 9:50 a.m. We quickly learned why she took a little more effort that her brother - she's 8 pounds 8 ounces, 20.5 inches long! He was 7 lbs. 11 oz and 20in. That extra week of cooking gave her a slight weight advantage. It also gave her time to grow in a thick head of dark brown (reddish?) hair and some fingernails! Girlfriend needs a french manicure!!

She's doing very well, snoozing away on daddy's chest while I type. We're on wi-fi from the hospital and didn't bring our camera cord, so no photos yet. Soon, I promise (as if there's any doubt.)

A new first for Miles

So if you haven't thought about it in a while (or don't have a toddler) it is really difficult to master holding up two (or three) fingers on one hand. When Miles turned two we had to teach him to hold up the index finger on each hand and say "I'm Two!". Lately he's been working on the one handed 2 and 3, even explaining the mechanics to Wayne: "Hold down dis finger with th' thumb. No daddy, like dis!"

Now he's practicing all sorts of counting and demonstrating his skill. This morning while watching Saturday morning cartoons in bed with us I hear, "hey Mommy, hey mommy, what dis?"

I raise my head from my pillow and try hard to tell him he's holding up one finger, while not laughing too hard. My son is flipping me the bird at 7:15 a.m.