Tantrums, Cuddles, and Coral Onesies

My last 36 hours at home has been filled with cuddles from both boys. Even though Steven Edward is testing his limits, he still wants to cuddle a lot which is good for my heart right now. Here is a picture of Samuel doing what he does best.....sleeping. You may think it funny that he is wearing an outfit that might appear pink, but never fear it's Coral. What was Gerber thinking? It came in a newborn boy pack of sleepers.....and it was sandwiched between two blue ones so you didn't quite notice the contrast until you got it out at home. It even has trucks on it....I mean really. I have put a pink monkey beside Sam so that you can see the OBVIOUS difference in colors. My husband has forbid him to leave the house in it...but he never said anything about our blog!


We are officially home and doing well. The first night after getting home was a little hard, I was tired and Steven Edward had a difficult time. He would cling to my legs and cry because I couldn't pick him up. He also took up a new past time of hitting while he played. He hasn't seemed to take any of his frustration out on Samuel though and overall he is doing really well. He has been a bit more whiny and wants lots of attention, and I assume this will get worse in a week or so once everyone is gone. But I am feeling good enough to let him sit on my lap and read, and even get down in the floor to play with him. This has helped a lot. I am practically off of pain killers other than Advil, and other than getting tired pretty easily, I feel like I am recovering very well. Samuel pretty much just sleeps and eats. I often forget I have another son, which is helpful when Steven Edward needs so much of my attention. It's just another way you can see God's master plan. He brings them into your life when they don't need but so much attention and they gradually demand more and more. Sleeping is SO much easier than it was when I was pregnant, but I'm not getting a lot of it. We'll see how life is once I'm here alone and no longer have the help of my amazing mother and mother in law!

Thank you all so much for your love, support, and prayers. God has once again proven his faithfulness and has showered us with goodness that can never be earned or deserved. Praise the Lord for the healthy arrival of Sam and the support that we have received from all of you.

Samuel Andrew

Well-even a planned C-Section can become an event evidently if you're me. After getting my amniocentesis (why is it that when something is going to hurt all doctors just say....a little pressure) I went into something pretty close to active labor....contractions 3 minutes apart where I couldn't really talk in the middle. So off they send me to the hospital, where once hooked up to a monitor they had a 5 minute heart deceleration where the baby was at 60 beats per minute.....so my scheduled 2:00pm C-Section suddenly was bumped up, and the results of the amnio were no longer relevant!

Oh to be normal.

Either way God is so good to us, and at 2:11 on October 22, Samuel Andrew entered the world.
He was born 6 pounds 12 ounces, 19 1/4 inches long. We are both safe and healthy....and due to percoset and a wireless connection at the hospital, I am even able to post on this blog. Nice.

Samuel bears striking resemblance to Steven Edward at birth- and they both seem slightly akin to a troll or wrinkled old man - either of which you can use the word cute for. Here are some pictures.... Enjoy.













This is me...laying in bed half asleep. They weighed me after this and I had only lost 2 pounds. Is that even possible? I blame it on the fluids they were pumping into my body.


Striking Resemblance


On the left - Steven Edward....on the right Samuel


On the left - Steven Edward.....on the right Samuel.

I personally think it's their nose everything below it. It looks exactly the same! Samuel has lighter (and less) hair than Steven had and his side burns are less pronounced.

There were a few confused moments in the beginning....due to miscommunication, his name was announced Samuel Anderson instead of Samuel Andrew....and the doctor also told the families that he had red hair. This spread like wild-fire. Not so much. Either way I assume his hair will fall out so who knows what color it will come back!

Pregnancy Update

So, I'm 35 weeks and a couple days and here is one of my few belly shots that you'll see. Overall pregnancy is hard for me so I'm not gung ho on taking tons of pictures as a reminder.

The past week has been very hard for me in a few ways. First I have been incredibly uncomfortable in terms of itching and my emotions, which made me suspect that my liver counts and bile acids were rising. I went to one of my last Doctor's visits today and the blood work showed that my counts were about as high as they were when they originally discovered my condition. This makes me VERY uncomfortable physically and is not ideal for the baby. My doctor didn't think it would be wise to up the dose of my medicine (which could lower my counts) because I am already on a "pretty high dosage" as it is.

This coming Wednesday (October 22nd) I will go in the morning to get an amniocentesis test, where they will check to see if the baby's lungs are developed. If they are, I will have a C-Section later that day. If they are not, they will push my C-Section back until October 29th. This is the second thing that has been hard for me....trying to let myself accept that Wednesday may not be the end point. I am very uncomfortable, nervous, and quite tired of this entire situation and I very much want it to be over. I write all this so that you may stop and pray.....please pray that the Lord will continue to protect the health of the baby and that the lungs will be ready by Wednesday so that I won't have to go through this much longer. I am physically and emotionally tired. Thanks for praying.

Nesting

So...it is official, I've finally started nesting! And about time too. Today I cleaned the baseboards, the window sills, vacuumed, dusted, pulled out infant clothes, slightly organized the nursery closet, and am about to go finish the bathrooms....that is another story all together.

So after a day of cleaning, I start to work on dinner. My son is doing his normal - grabbing my leg and whining. Eventually I cave and have him on one hip and am preparing with the other hand. Normal I suppose for a mom. Eventually his father comes upstairs and says, "how are things going?" I explain the situation and then put my son down to run along after his daddy. I (silly me) assume that this means he is going to watch or play with his son. After 10 minutes I walk back into our room to check on the boys and tell them dinner is about ready - and what do I find? My husband is putting a lock on our bathroom cabinet (which was long overdue- yes) and my son is playing in the toilet. His father knows this is going on and seems to think it is funny - and is quite happy for the distraction to keep him out of the cabinet while he is working. Meanwhile there is toilet water splashed all over the floor and the toilet itself. My husband is proud that Steven Edward knew what to do with the plunger and the toilet brush....I on the other hand could have done without such knowledge.







Thank you so much honey....for keeping him out of the cabinet where our towels and my extra make up reside and teaching him a new fun habit of playing in the oh so sanitary toilet water. I hope your day at work is wonderful tomorrow while I run from bathroom to bathroom convincing my son the toilet is not a fun bucket of water to play in, while attempting to keep all the doors shut. This may be my new nightmare. As of now - I'm off to mop the bathroom floor and then hopefully catch the middle (I will miss the beginning and fall asleep before the end) of the Giants game.

8 days and counting

The Nature Center

We got a family membership to the Nature Center here in Asheville, which is great because it can also get us into 250 other zoos nation wide! It is a great place for Steven Edward because it is small enough to do in 1-2 hours, and it focuses on animals that are native to our area. So he has a great time. Today they had a big fall festival called Hay Day. It was lots of fun and it was the first time Steven Sr. got to go with us too. There were lots of extras represented today....like pony rides, face painting, cloggers, and fire engines!













Eleven more days!

13 Days...

Not that I'm counting....

So today can be summarized by a quick story. It started like any other day-I got up as my husband was about to leave, helped him put together his lunch, and got my son out of bed. We read some stories as he ate a banana and drank his milk. Eventually we make it to the breakfast table, where he insists on sitting in an adult chair rather than his high chair for breakfast....fine. We clean the breakfast dishes and prepare to leave the house by packing bags, sippy cups, snacks...you get the drill. We finally make it to the car 5 minutes after our supposed arrival time and head out of the house. This particular day it's raining, so we are headed to the mall. Yes, I know what you're thinking...and I thought it too....I never thought I would be the mom that goes to the mall with her child, but lo and behold it has happened. I'm not quite to the mini-van, but we do walk the mall and play at the food court playground. And my son loves it. As I'm walking to the play area with two of my good friends and their children, one of them tries to put my tag back in my shirt. I hear her chuckle, and say...."um..Courtney, your shirt is on inside out." How does this happen? How can you be up for a solid 3 hours living your life and never notice that you are wearing your shirt inside out? I suppose that this is the life of a woman who is tired, about to give birth in 2 weeks, and is chasing a toddler. It worked out perfectly though, because as any good mom would, my shirt was already covered with my son's snacks....so I got to start anew on the stain department with a simple flip. Nice.

On another train of thought, I have my amnioscenthesis test in 13 days...and assuming all goes well, should have my new baby in my arms that afternoon. The suspense of the gender is killing me, not to mention the back aches, the itching, and the never sleeping. So needless to say I am so ready for this to happen. Not quite sure I'm ready for the baby, but there really is no turning back as far as that goes. I also am not ready to look at something so tiny and funny looking and be convinced that it is adorable. I mean....looking back at pictures of my son, who I thought was perfect at the time, he really was quite funny lookin. I expect nothing different from this one. Here are some pictures of Steven Edward when he was born....see for yourself.

Since he was 6 weeks early he was crazy tiny....this blue outfit was a premie outfit my mom picked up for the way home!













Look at all those wrinkles and arm hair! Funny lookin'.






But no matter what he looked like....I loved him and I thought he was beautiful.

Steven Edward at 18 Months

I can barely believe that my son is already 18 months. And more than that right now, I can barely believe that he will have a little brother or sister in 3 weeks! It is hard for me to look at him and think he will have to grow up quickly and stop being the baby.....but in many ways at least he thinks he is ready. So what is he doing now?.........

*He LOVES to climb. He is on everything and anywhere we go with steps or anything that may resemble steps he is headed for them!

*He loves to drink out of a "big boy" cup. It is an easy way to get water into him. He will drink an entire cup and just giggle between sips.

*He has 16 teeth....four top, four bottom, four molars, and four incisors.

*He is always on the move and is quite fast. Everywhere I go where he is walking I always get comments on how much work he must be to keep up with and then eventually a pity face when they then see my belly.

*He jabbers all day long. Not so much words you can understand, but he is always talking. He will grab his play cell phone, say..."hello" and then just jabber away laughing at random times. It is quite cute.

*Our current words- car, truck, clock (which sounds remarkably like car), shoes, all done, uh-uh, door, dog, uh-oh....and he is trying to say lots of others. I'm sure there are some that i can't decipher that I'm not giving him credit for. But to be honest....I'm being lenient on pronunciation.

*He knows most of his body parts (excluding the elbow and knee) and loves to stick his tounge out at you when prompted.

*One of my favorite things he does is holding our hands for the blessing before we pray. I'm not sure why but this makes my heart quite happy.

*He loves watching football with his Mom and Dad on the couch on the weekends. He will just sit holding his own little football mesmerized! We have slightly laxed our no tv rule for sports....we figure it is just like real life....um...kind of.

*He still loves his cars and trucks-and has had a great time playing with Hotwheels and his Daddy's old orange Hotwheels track.

*He has also figure out how to open the fridge and often when I'm filling up his water cup will run to the fridge, open it and try to pull out the milk. This has become a punishable offense.

*Speaking of punishable offenses....he is into throwing EVERYTHING. So we have a rule that he is only allowed to throw balls. This is our newest challenge.

*He suddenly loves shoes and hats. He constantly brings them to me to put on.

*He also enjoys pushing things around the house. He will go the pantry get out the mop or broom and push them all over the place. He also does this with a toy lawnmower and a wooden duck that flaps its wings.

*Reading is still one of his favorite things-picutre books of family or himself, Richard Scarry, truck books, and Good Night Gorilla are his current favorites.




Well-I'm sure I've missed some things but I'm also sure you're tired of reading about my son. But this gives me a great time and place to brag on him and to adore the gift God has given me. I know I will love the next one just as much-I just can't quite imagine that yet.

All these pictures are from Steven Edward's 18 month pictures. We are putting together a panel or vignette in black and white of 5 shots of him. These are some that the photographer (Warren Sanders) put on his own personal blog to let people see his work. Feel free to check it out for yourself if you're interested.

His site
http://www.wsanderphotography.com/

His blog with Steven's pictures
http://www.wsanderphotography.com/blog/?page_id=106