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!
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?
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.
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!
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!!
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.
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
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. 
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!
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.
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 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.
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.
Yep, still here. Hopefully the suspense of my not posting yesterday didn't get anyone too excited!!
I won't even say it, but since I'm blogging, you know what I'm NOT doing at this time!!
I can't complain too much at being 2.5 days late. Since both Ellie and Eileen were 9 days late, I don't deserve much sympathy from their mommies. I can complain about my day at the O.B. office, sheesh! The doctor in the office is also the on-call doctor for the hospital and they just had an onslaught of deliveries and emergency surgeries. So while waiting, the nurse hooked me up for a non-stress test. Basically they strap some sensors to my belly and chart the baby's heart rate and activity for 20-30 minutes. It would also track contractions, if I were having any! Since my appointment was before lunch, the test measured her heart rate but she was asleep, so there wasn't much activity. They had us leave to get lunch and come back to do it again.
Okay, so I recycled that news brief from when Miles was being stubborn in August 2005. But the evening after I sent that e-mail I started contracting, so maybe this will trigger something later today! If not, we go see the OB in the morning and we'll at least schedule something in case she really decides to hold out. So that leaves the decision: do you choose February 29th for a birthday? I'd think it would be pretty cool and special! I looked up some famous Feb 29th babies and they include Ja Rule, Tony Robbins and Dinah Shore. So it's no Elvis (me), but a little more relatable than Yasser Arafat (Miles).
Still here.... didn't I just say that last week? Went for the check-up yesterday and nada, zilch, nothing progressing toward labor at all. Of course with Miles I was like that at the full 40 week point and 2 days later he was here. So no worries yet. They did say they wouldn't let me go past 41 weeks, so that means March 1 is the latest she should arrive. Overall I'm feeling pretty good. Sleeping generally well, getting around fine. The most annoying part right now is the kickboxing session going on in my belly. I mean look at that baby floating around over there with 4 days left. No way, that is NOT accurate! She is all wrapped up on herself filling every available cranny and STILL punching and kicking like a champ. In fact when the OB was listening for her heartbeat (with the doppler near my bellybutton), I suddenly got a tumor-like protrusion there, about 2 inches outward. She was elbowing the doctor right back! Feisty one, I do believe.
That's a happy grrr! from Miles the Leopard. Since I'm not much for getting on the floor and playing these days, I'm having to entertain Miles in other ways. Cousin Evan shared some costumes he'd outgrown, so we're trying out dress-up this week. He likes hats of all sorts, but I was curious how he'd respond to a full suit (it wasn't fun the last time we tried). He enjoyed it, though he didn't want to wear it for very long.
But the kitchen and "keeping room" (how awesome is that description!) are coming along... kitchen only needs backsplash, paint and cabinet trim. Oh and flooring. Sounds like a lot, but the parts we need & use are done and fabulous, so I'm not too worried. The wall to the next room to it is gone, and we have new bookshelves with cabinets in there now. Today they are running the crown molding and building our little eating nook in the kitchen. So hopefully by the end of this week all that we'll lack is a good paint job. Thank goodness for low-VOC paint so that can get done even if Miss E. is here!! I've been laughing with dad about how long this carpentry part seems to be taking (other people are doing it). Seems 15 hour work days are NOT the norm in the contracting world, just dad's when he's building his little girl's kitchen!
Oh yeah, I've been forgetting to post the picture of our counters. I don't want to show much since there's no back splash to really finish it yet, but here you go. We used Yorkshire by Cambria and LOVE it. Wayne stain tested it the first night... I didn't realize when he made his smoothie that the blueberries had splattered on the counter. The next morning while making breakfast I saw all these little blue specks everywhere.... Argh!! but they wiped right up. Phew, would have been heartbreaking to ruin our counters on the 1st day. They are living up to the non-porous, non-staining claim!
Not that I expected not to be. It's just funny going to these weekly appointments. Wayne always asks, "so what's going on at this one?" and I tell him, "they're going to tell me I'm still pregnant." That's really about it! Oh and tell me how much weight I've gained, but thankfully that's been about the same as it was with Miles so I'm not super stressed about it.
I think Miles is getting excited about baby sister. We've been talking a LOT about her, and he likes playing in her room, pulling out all her toys. He puts his bears in the swing, you know, for practice. Yeah, right. Hopefully he wasn't practicing for baby sister the other night when he bopped Chelsea on the head with his bedtime story. Just walked right up behind her and pop! on the noggin. Not that it hurt her, but that was the end of the bedtime routine and lights went out. He cried for a while and when Wayne went back in to see, Miles said, "What happened to me? What happened to Chelsea?" So Wayne went through the "we don't hit, we don't throw things" spiel and said good night. All was calm. Hopefully Miles really was thinking about what he did and the repercussions, but who knows. Maybe we're just in for a ride here in the next couple of weeks!!
Ha! Just kidding! Not going to tell you yet. We're not really settled, and Miles has started waffling over the issue (of baby sister's name, that is). We had our ultrasound this morning... we're at 37+ weeks, so less than 3 weeks left, unless she pulls an Ellie on us. Since Miles was full term (and a little more) they fully expect her to take as long. But in perfect CYA form they tell us to "be prepared, it could happen anytime now!" Oh, and yes, we did do the double check... she's for sure a she! And like a good girl, she's head down, all set to deliver.
I have been trying hard to keep up with the photo-a-day project. I'm not following any rules, just snap something. Some sites want it to be a self portrait, some say something "artsy" but that's not for me. I can't say I've been especially creative most days, but I try. I've learned a few tricks with the camera - and some more with Photoshop. It will help when we can unpack all the office/living room boxes and I find my camera manual again! So here is the wrap-up for January. I only missed 3 days, and one of those was before I decided to try.
