Like any nice mother, I lavish Henry with sympathy when he gets hurt. Too much according to my hard-hearted husband, but pish-posh to him.
Today Henry hurt his hand and came up to me crying. He held it out and asked me to kiss it. Even though I cover him with hugs and kisses when he gets hurt, I never "kiss the boo-boo." Which means my sweet boy came up with this on his own.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
A Dream Fulfilled...
I always loved seeing little girls in smocked dresses. The white ones with the little rosebuds are my personal favorite. I have always secretly harbored a desire to dress a child in one. I never thought I would have a girl, so I thought my dream was dead :)
Well, along came Miss Molly. And Aunt Heather with her giant boxes of girl clothes. I was sorting through them last week and found the most darling little smocked jumper. Could it be? Would it fit? Yes it did! Woo hoo!
It was as fun as I thought it would be.
Well, along came Miss Molly. And Aunt Heather with her giant boxes of girl clothes. I was sorting through them last week and found the most darling little smocked jumper. Could it be? Would it fit? Yes it did! Woo hoo!
It was as fun as I thought it would be.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Fun Facts About Molly
- She has thick, dark brown hair that defies styling. Her eyes are still a grey blue.
- She has rolls of fat on her thighs, and when she lays down her belly extends over her sides. So adorable. She has already outgrown her newborn diapers.
- She hates having her arms swaddled down.
- She is a great eater, and eats much more than Henry ever did.
- She snoozes most of the day, but she insists on being held. If you put her in a crib, her bed, her chair or her swing, she wakes about 10 minutes later. I carry her much of the day in something called a Moby Wrap. In this, she will sleep for HOURS.
- She loves bathtime. She gets completely silent and sucks on her thumb. Just like she was doing in her ultrasound pictures.
- Her feet are very long and skinny. She will soon outgrow her newborn outfits that are footed just because her feet are so long.
- She has already started to smile and laugh a little, I think she did it first around two weeks old.
- Her most alert periods of the day are during Henry's nap and when everyone has gone to bed at night. I am soooo tired!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Reporting for Duty!
Henry, Molly and I were all catching some extra zzz's this morning in the big bed. Molly woke and was a little stuffy. Henry woke and wanted to know what was going on. I said "Molly has something up her nose." Groggily, he reached over and shoved his finger up her nose. Ahh, brotherly love...
Monday, January 12, 2009
Looking for a UN Translator
Things were easy when Henry only had a few simple words. Words like "apple" are easy to say and hard to mistake. Words like '"banana" were a little tricker, but once you knew that "numna" was "banana" you were all set.
Now that he is learning more complicated words like helicopter and dump truck and stringing multi-word sentences back to back things are getting much more dicey. If you don't have context he is almost impossible to understand. If you add in all of the words that he just flat out makes up forget about it. Sometimes I think he is just screwing with us for laughs.
Now that he is learning more complicated words like helicopter and dump truck and stringing multi-word sentences back to back things are getting much more dicey. If you don't have context he is almost impossible to understand. If you add in all of the words that he just flat out makes up forget about it. Sometimes I think he is just screwing with us for laughs.
My Modern Boy!
Henry is incredibly helpful and sweet to Molly. He wants to do, well, literally everything for her. I had to draw the line one recent morning when he pulled up his little pajama top because he wanted to nurse her.
I thought Adam was going to have a stroke right then and there.
I thought Adam was going to have a stroke right then and there.
A Tiny Victim to Commercialism
I have a diaper station set up in our living room and bedroom for Molly. Periodically, I ask Henry to run and get me a diaper from the bedroom. I couldn't figure out why he kept digging through the entire bin, getting them everywhere. Or, why he would bring me more than one and then toss the others somewhere like they were garbage.
After a bit of investigation, I determined that he only wants his baby sister to wear the diapers that have ELMO on the front. All others are un-wearable in his tiny mind.
After a bit of investigation, I determined that he only wants his baby sister to wear the diapers that have ELMO on the front. All others are un-wearable in his tiny mind.
A failure of imagination
I recently made Henry a big batch of homemade orange colored playdough. We made up a game where we roll it out and then drive his tiny construction vehicles through it. They get stuck in it, we dig it up with the backhoe and load it into the dump truck. Great, messy (but supervised) fun.
Anyway, he wanted to play with it again tonight. I slyly told him to ask Adam to play with him in his room so I could catch a little break. I tried to explain the rules to Adam and he confidently told me he could make up his own game. After only 10 minutes, he was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Henry then followed him out with a small pail filled with tiny pretend oranges. He was dumping them into the back of his wagon and pulling them around the apartment.
I incredulously asked Adam if he was serious in his intent to let Henry wander the apartment (unsupervised) with little balls of playdough. He pooh-poohed me and I just told him that I would not be responsible for the outcome.
Apparently he failed to imagine the mess that Henry was capable of creating. He was later removing it from our bedroom, Henry's toy kitchen, the wagon, a gift bag, the piece that was ground into Henry's bedroom carpet, Molly's bouncy seat...who knows where we will find it tomorrow.
Men!
Anyway, he wanted to play with it again tonight. I slyly told him to ask Adam to play with him in his room so I could catch a little break. I tried to explain the rules to Adam and he confidently told me he could make up his own game. After only 10 minutes, he was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Henry then followed him out with a small pail filled with tiny pretend oranges. He was dumping them into the back of his wagon and pulling them around the apartment.
I incredulously asked Adam if he was serious in his intent to let Henry wander the apartment (unsupervised) with little balls of playdough. He pooh-poohed me and I just told him that I would not be responsible for the outcome.
Apparently he failed to imagine the mess that Henry was capable of creating. He was later removing it from our bedroom, Henry's toy kitchen, the wagon, a gift bag, the piece that was ground into Henry's bedroom carpet, Molly's bouncy seat...who knows where we will find it tomorrow.
Men!
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Friday, January 02, 2009
Sledding with Dad!
Despite all of the excitement, Henry and Adam have managed to squeeze in a little sledding.
The Henry Update
Despite our dire predictions, Henry has adjusted beautifully to being a brother. I don't think he has experience more than thirty seconds of jealousy. We could not have asked for a better outcome. He always wants to hold her, kiss her, hug her. He watches me carefully and tries to replicate what I do. Today he was rubbing her belly, telling her that it was OK. He tells me if she is crying and learned quickly to tell Grandma that Molly needed a diaper change, not me. Smart boy :) Tonight he was laying on the couch and Molly was squawking bit. He sat up, looked back at me and said "Ma, EAT!" Just feed the damn baby already!
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Molly's Birth Story
The saga started on Monday, December 8th. I squatted down to make the bed and felt a small trickle. I went to the bathroom to confirm that it was not just my leaky bladder (sorry people, if this is too much information you might want to stop reading now!)
I called out to Adam, who was already dressed for work that I thought my water had broken (although just a little bit.) I placed a call to the OB's office for some direction. Based on my description and my lack of contractions, he told me that I needed to go to Labor and Delivery right then to be examined. I called our friend Jill and asked her to come over. Jill is also pregnant (8 mos at the time) and has a son Henry's age.
After she got there with her son, and Henry's subsequent meltdown we headed off to L&D. The nurse took me into the bathroom so that she could examine the fluid and try to catch some of it on the test strip to see if it was indeed amniotic fluid. She agreed that she did see something, even thought it was just a small leak. She was very concerned by the color of it and thought it qualifed as looking like meconium was mixed in (this is not good). They whisked me out of triage and straight to a labor room. If meconium is involved you need to deliver right away because of a risk to the baby. They hooked me up to the monitors and I was only contracting every 10 minutes. The triage physician's assistant came into the room and was annoyed that they had moved me to L&D since she was not convinced my water had broken. Apparently she and the nurse don't get along and I was in the middle of their pissing match.
They did an ultrasound and the baby looked fine and there was still a ton of fluid. They asked me to walk around a bit to get the water to break more conclusively. After being there about an hour they decided to send me home since they didn't think it really broke and there was no danger to the baby. We picked up Henry who was now at Jill's house and headed home. We called Barry (Adam's brother) and asked him to be on-call should we have to go to the hospital that night.
I continued to have more leakage and intermittent contractions throughout the day and night. They were very light and I was able to get some sleep. I woke the next morning and they had completely stopped. I asked Adam to work from home again just in case. I also wanted to go see the OB since I was not convinced that I was not leaking and was worried about an infection. He saw me at 11:15am and although I was not contracting on the monitors, I was now 4cm dialated. He did some more tests and agreed that he didn't think my water had broken.
I decided to drown my sorrows by picking up some Shake Shack burgers for lunch. Adam, Henry and I tucked into a nice greasy meal and I immediately started to not feel well. I was contracting ever 8-10 minutes, but they were pretty uncomfortable so I knew they were the real thing. We called Barry and asked him to come over for dinner (or at least by 8pm) so that we could get Henry acclimated before bedtime. One of my bigger fears was having him wake during the night without us there and be scared.
By 3pm, I was really uncomfortable and told Adam to call Barry and ask him to come over sooner. Being in labor with your toddler in the house is actually a good thing. You have to work so hard to remain in control and not scare them that it helps deal with the pain. I'm sure Henry was mildly curious though why his mother kept squatting in the corner every 5-7 minutes!
Around 4:30pm, I was now contracting every 3-5 minutes. That was the measurement that the PA at the hospital had given me to come back in. I casually called my OB's office to let the on call doctor know that I would be heading in soon. The assistant to my doctor came onto the phone and told me that the Dr. wanted me to go RIGHT THEN. I told her we were waiting for Barry and would leave in about an hour. My doctor then got on the phone and told me that if I didn't want to give birth in a taxi cab I should go to the hospital. Apparently the PA didn't take into account how dialated I already was and that this was not my first child.
Barry arrived shortly after and I was ready to haul ass to the hospital. I was in excrutiating pain and knew it was not long now. Henry threw the mother of all tantrums and was in complete hysterics. I was trying to calm him down (even carrying him) in the midst of my contractions. Picking up your 26lb toddler in the middle of a contraction is not something that I recommend!
Somehow I survived the cab ride (in rush hour traffic) and made it to the hospital. I could barely make it a few feet in between contractions so Adam commandeered a wheel chair to get me into the elevator (embarrassing but I didn't care at that point.) The waiting room was packed and I sat there sweating and feeling like I was dying, I am sure scaring the other women half to death who were just there for monitoring. Luckily my OB had cleared me to skip triage and they got me right into a room.
They checked me and I was 6cm dialated. The world's slowest nurse filled out my paperwork and tried to find a vein to start the saline IV required for an epidural. She couldn't get it in and I think my cursing, sweating and shaking scared her off because her supervisor came in and I never saw her again. They finally got the damn bag started and then the anesthesiologist was no where to be found. Adam was literally pacing the hallways looking for her. Poor guy was pretty scared of the demon that had overtaken his wife. She finally came in and I told her to just give me whatever paperwork I needed to sign, I promised not to sue her.
Just as they were prepping me for the big needle to the spine, my water broke in a huge gush. I literally felt the baby shoot down like she was on a water slide and I screamed. It qualifes as one of the strangest feelings ever. Somehow they got the epidural in and I was now in heaven. The doctor checked me again right away and I was 10cm and it was time to push. She asked me to take one practice push and she saw the head. She ran off to get a nurse and two pushes later the baby was out. I was sitting up enough to see the sex before Adam could shout it out. He admitted that he thought it was a boy initially. I was shocked (and thrilled) to see it was a girl, I truly expected a boy. I could not believe how pudgy she looked. The doctor handed her to me right away, something I didn't get to experience with Henry because of the fever I had during labor. She was so cute and I was just stunned that she was here so quickly.
We started calling her Molly immediately. She is named after Adam's great-grandmother Molly, who died when his grandfather (his mother's father) was a young boy. We wanted to pick a name that started with an M to honor Adam's mother Marlene, who died when Henry was 7 weeks old. Marlene was named an M name after Molly, so it all flows. We picked Anne because that was Marlene's middle name and is my mother's middle name as well.
As you can see by the picture, she was born with a full head of black hair and she has light eyes like Henry. She is such a sweet baby and we are thrilled to have her!
I called out to Adam, who was already dressed for work that I thought my water had broken (although just a little bit.) I placed a call to the OB's office for some direction. Based on my description and my lack of contractions, he told me that I needed to go to Labor and Delivery right then to be examined. I called our friend Jill and asked her to come over. Jill is also pregnant (8 mos at the time) and has a son Henry's age.
After she got there with her son, and Henry's subsequent meltdown we headed off to L&D. The nurse took me into the bathroom so that she could examine the fluid and try to catch some of it on the test strip to see if it was indeed amniotic fluid. She agreed that she did see something, even thought it was just a small leak. She was very concerned by the color of it and thought it qualifed as looking like meconium was mixed in (this is not good). They whisked me out of triage and straight to a labor room. If meconium is involved you need to deliver right away because of a risk to the baby. They hooked me up to the monitors and I was only contracting every 10 minutes. The triage physician's assistant came into the room and was annoyed that they had moved me to L&D since she was not convinced my water had broken. Apparently she and the nurse don't get along and I was in the middle of their pissing match.
They did an ultrasound and the baby looked fine and there was still a ton of fluid. They asked me to walk around a bit to get the water to break more conclusively. After being there about an hour they decided to send me home since they didn't think it really broke and there was no danger to the baby. We picked up Henry who was now at Jill's house and headed home. We called Barry (Adam's brother) and asked him to be on-call should we have to go to the hospital that night.
I continued to have more leakage and intermittent contractions throughout the day and night. They were very light and I was able to get some sleep. I woke the next morning and they had completely stopped. I asked Adam to work from home again just in case. I also wanted to go see the OB since I was not convinced that I was not leaking and was worried about an infection. He saw me at 11:15am and although I was not contracting on the monitors, I was now 4cm dialated. He did some more tests and agreed that he didn't think my water had broken.
I decided to drown my sorrows by picking up some Shake Shack burgers for lunch. Adam, Henry and I tucked into a nice greasy meal and I immediately started to not feel well. I was contracting ever 8-10 minutes, but they were pretty uncomfortable so I knew they were the real thing. We called Barry and asked him to come over for dinner (or at least by 8pm) so that we could get Henry acclimated before bedtime. One of my bigger fears was having him wake during the night without us there and be scared.
By 3pm, I was really uncomfortable and told Adam to call Barry and ask him to come over sooner. Being in labor with your toddler in the house is actually a good thing. You have to work so hard to remain in control and not scare them that it helps deal with the pain. I'm sure Henry was mildly curious though why his mother kept squatting in the corner every 5-7 minutes!
Around 4:30pm, I was now contracting every 3-5 minutes. That was the measurement that the PA at the hospital had given me to come back in. I casually called my OB's office to let the on call doctor know that I would be heading in soon. The assistant to my doctor came onto the phone and told me that the Dr. wanted me to go RIGHT THEN. I told her we were waiting for Barry and would leave in about an hour. My doctor then got on the phone and told me that if I didn't want to give birth in a taxi cab I should go to the hospital. Apparently the PA didn't take into account how dialated I already was and that this was not my first child.
Barry arrived shortly after and I was ready to haul ass to the hospital. I was in excrutiating pain and knew it was not long now. Henry threw the mother of all tantrums and was in complete hysterics. I was trying to calm him down (even carrying him) in the midst of my contractions. Picking up your 26lb toddler in the middle of a contraction is not something that I recommend!
Somehow I survived the cab ride (in rush hour traffic) and made it to the hospital. I could barely make it a few feet in between contractions so Adam commandeered a wheel chair to get me into the elevator (embarrassing but I didn't care at that point.) The waiting room was packed and I sat there sweating and feeling like I was dying, I am sure scaring the other women half to death who were just there for monitoring. Luckily my OB had cleared me to skip triage and they got me right into a room.
They checked me and I was 6cm dialated. The world's slowest nurse filled out my paperwork and tried to find a vein to start the saline IV required for an epidural. She couldn't get it in and I think my cursing, sweating and shaking scared her off because her supervisor came in and I never saw her again. They finally got the damn bag started and then the anesthesiologist was no where to be found. Adam was literally pacing the hallways looking for her. Poor guy was pretty scared of the demon that had overtaken his wife. She finally came in and I told her to just give me whatever paperwork I needed to sign, I promised not to sue her.
Just as they were prepping me for the big needle to the spine, my water broke in a huge gush. I literally felt the baby shoot down like she was on a water slide and I screamed. It qualifes as one of the strangest feelings ever. Somehow they got the epidural in and I was now in heaven. The doctor checked me again right away and I was 10cm and it was time to push. She asked me to take one practice push and she saw the head. She ran off to get a nurse and two pushes later the baby was out. I was sitting up enough to see the sex before Adam could shout it out. He admitted that he thought it was a boy initially. I was shocked (and thrilled) to see it was a girl, I truly expected a boy. I could not believe how pudgy she looked. The doctor handed her to me right away, something I didn't get to experience with Henry because of the fever I had during labor. She was so cute and I was just stunned that she was here so quickly.
We started calling her Molly immediately. She is named after Adam's great-grandmother Molly, who died when his grandfather (his mother's father) was a young boy. We wanted to pick a name that started with an M to honor Adam's mother Marlene, who died when Henry was 7 weeks old. Marlene was named an M name after Molly, so it all flows. We picked Anne because that was Marlene's middle name and is my mother's middle name as well.
As you can see by the picture, she was born with a full head of black hair and she has light eyes like Henry. She is such a sweet baby and we are thrilled to have her!
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