Quick Brady update

It is hard to believe that Brady is 7 weeks old today!!  Here is a quick Brady update.

He is smiling some, and those smiles are so sweet.  I've tried to get a good smile photo, but none of the photos I've snapped do the smile justice.  I'll keep trying!

Sometimes when he gets ready to cry, his little pout is just pitiful- like his feelings are genuinely hurt.  So cute.

He has rolled to his side twice.  He seems to really like to lay on his back to stretch out.  Some evenings when we've entered his "fussy time" (typically between dinner and bedtime) letting him stretch out, looking at him, and talking to him is all that will make him happy.

Some days I think I see a schedule emerging, and some days he still takes a good 3 hour nap.  But most days he still likes to "cluster feed" some, and he will snooze for 30 minutes or less but then wake up.  He's usually awake and happy for 1-2 hours after he wakes up and eats first thing in the morning (around 7:30/ 8:00.)  After that, he hasn't let me know what his nap schedule is going to look like.

He's taken a bottle every other day or so for a couple of weeks now.  He hasn't had any trouble with it, and drinks 4-5 ounces at a time.  I'm a little nervous about being gone for school all day; it seems he is going to maybe need 3 bottles while I'm gone, and Anderson only ever needed two.  Fingers crossed that I can keep up!

He is good and chubby. I weighed him tonight and came up with 13.5 pounds.  His tummy and cheeks are certainly chubby.  His legs haven't quite chubbed up yet, like I know they will.

5 weeks old

6 weeks old- love the chins!!

Two of a kind

Anderson is really into pairing things these days.  For weeks now, he gets excited if he sees two of the same letter, shape, color, etc.  Lately he's expanded to pairing things that are similar and not just identical.

He points to the first one and says "Wuu..." and then he points to its match.  He's started saying "Ooo" for the second one, but often he just smiles and let's you say "two ___".  

For example, he was playing with his nativity scene one morning.  Ryan came in to tell us goodbye on his way to work.  Anderson was playing with Mary and Joseph, and I said "that's the mommy and daddy."  So Anderson pointed to Joseph and said, "Wuu" and then pointed to Ryan, all excited. :)

A couple of my other favorite pairs Anderson has come up with:

One baby, two babies!
(Anderson is very sweet with"Glow Baby" and gives it kisses, like his own baby gets.)

One Papa (seen here with my nephew, Tobias)

Two Papa!
AKA the dog whisperer... but Anderson is adamant that this is his Papa.
 Hahaha- cracks me up!  :)

Aunt Lauren and Uncle Kyle visit!

The first weekend in March, Auntie Lauren and Uncle Kyle flew in to meet Brady.  In just a few months, they'll be living in the DC area, so we are looking forward to seeing those cute Kinderknechts more than just 2 or 3 times a year.  :)

Anderson likes to show off some when we have company, and he was happy to see Lauren and Kyle. Anderson's latest favorite thing to do is "drawing."  By this, I mean he wants you to write letters and numbers as he says them... over and over and over.  He does like to take a crayon or marker and scribble some (maybe 10 %) of the time, too.  Kyle was kind and patient and wrote the numbers one through nine... fifty million times.

This is how Anderson counts:
"Wuu, Ooh, Eee, (stares at you until you say four), bye, (stares- you fill in six, seven), Eee, Nine (his best one ;))" and then he's finished.

And he knows quite a few letters and LOVES to recite the alphabet duet style as follows:
"A (he always sticks his tongue out a little to say A, so it doesn't exactly sound like A, and we don't know why...)
B... D, E, ......... I...ku.....nu, O, P...R...U.... Y..."

This is what he looks like at his drawing seat:

So just picture Kyle there for 30+ minutes as Anderson's lovely assistant. :)

Back to the point, once Brady woke up from a morning nap (by the way, good daytime naps are much more precious and few these days!), Lauren and Kyle got good quality time with our chubby little guy.  I love the pictures we got!

After Anderson's nap, and once Ryan got home from Saturday work, we all headed to the zoo:
(My mom and dad, Ryan, Brady, and I were all there, too.  But it looks like only L, K, Anderson, and the animals made it into photos.)

We had a family dinner at the Boathouse at Brandermill after the zoo, which we all really enjoyed. :)

The courtship

I remember when we were in the hospital after just having Anderson, one of the nurses said that we were in the period of "courtship" with our new baby.  We already knew that we loved each other, but we were spending a lot of time really getting to know each other.  I thought that was so sweet.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our courtship with Brady this past month, and we are definitely in love!

Feb. 24- one month old!

Brady has continued to be such a good, easy baby.  Bless his heart, he likes to sleep (which is not how I described his big brother one month in!)  There are definitely times that he fusses because he wants to be held and snuggled, but he seems to really like and need two good naps (2-3 hours), swaddled and left alone during the day.  Some of those naps have certainly taken place in his car seat.  Ever since our first doctor's appointment when Dr. Christian said I didn't have to wake him up to eat during the night, we've been getting good 3, 4, or 5  hour stretches at night.  Two nights in a row last week (Wednesday and Thursday nights) he slept from 10ish to 6ish!  "Normal" the last couple of weeks has been awake and hungry just once all night.  Like I said, this was not our experience 20 months ago with Anderson, so I am fully appreciating this sleep!

This Fisher Price sleeper has been perfect!  It started right next to our bed, moved into the office that is connected to our room, and just last night into his own room.  These "SwaddleMe" swaddlers worked really well for Anderson, as well.

My favorite is having Ryan home all day on the weekends or having my mom come over to be with us for the day.  But the boys and I have sort of found our "groove" when it's just the three of us, too.  Anderson's routine is pretty set, but I still feel like each day is unpredictable.  We do our best to go with the flow, and if they are both crying for a couple of minutes, we just go with it.  This was more common the first couple of days, as Anderson would get upset when Brady did.  (I'm not sure if this was because he was stressed that his brother was upset or just ticked that I was giving Brady more attention.)  Either way, he has remained really affectionate towards Brady (or "Baby", as Anderson calls him.)  And after our few "transition"/ cranky days, Anderson really seems to be back to his easy, happy self.  When we hear Brady wake up and cry on the monitor, I say, "Do you want to go get your brother?", and Anderson says, "Yeah!".

Anderson is pretty content to play or bring me books to read while I feed Brady (thank goodness Brady took to nursing so naturally, allowing for some multi-tasking.)  Anderson does give Brady dozens of unsolicited kisses a day.  I love this.  Every once in a while I need to stop Anderson from loving on Brady too much (climbing over him to get the his head for kisses, for example).  Anderson just can't resist loving on Brady's bald, little head. :)

Snuggling with both boys-  did I mention Brady is chubby?? :)  He's about 11 pounds at one month.

Brady seems really close to smiling, and I can't wait!  He certainly looks at us sweetly and contentedly sometimes, and I wonder if that counts.  But I know a big ol' smile can't be too far off.

Here are a few other photos from this past month:

Brady's first sponge bath.  So far Brady does not like bath night.

The boys in their car seats

My mom has come to get Anderson for a Grandma and Grandpa date once a week the past 3 weeks.  This has given Brady and I some precious alone time.  He gets stared at more than he's used to on those days.  Here he is playing on the farm mat on our first "Mommy, Brady Day."



All bundled up to play outside on chilly February days.



This past weekend, Ryan and I took to boys out on a walk in the double stroller for the first time.  Brady was alert and happy most of the time.  Anderson liked his new seat-  we heard "Woo!" a lot as cars drove by.

Brady's birthday!

He is here!  He is such a good boy.  I hate to jinx anything, but he has been so good to his mommy.  So far SO GOOD!

Wednesday, January 23, I taught 21 first graders all day.  I had had signs of labor since Monday night, but I wasn't sure what was real and what was "false."  With Anderson, I had no real signs of labor until my water started breaking one night, so I really felt like I didn't know what to look for.  But I was definitely having mild contractions throughout the day Wednesday.  I had found a free app the night before to time and track my contractions, so I knew they were anywhere between 8 and 20 minutes apart.  But my excitement/ impatience was growing with every one.  I had my weekly doctor's appointment that afternoon, and I was hoping she'd say, "It's time!  Let's go have a baby."  I went ahead and brought a few extra things home from school and left my keys in my box, telling office staff that I didn't think I'd be back tomorrow.

My appointment went pretty well.  Dr. Dausch said I was dilated between 1-2 cm (compared to 0 the week before).  I was hoping for more, but she said she didn't think I'd make it to the scheduled c-section one week later.  She said she thought I'd be home nursing my baby on the 30th (she was right :)).  I was a little disappointed to head home, and I had to swing through Chic Fil A on the way to drown my sorrows in a chocolate milkshake.  I went ahead and called school and my board sub, though, and told them that I'd go ahead and start my leave tomorrow (I had visions of relaxing and sleeping throughout the day Thursday...)  That night we ate at Ryan's mom and dad's house, and my iPhone app was telling me that the contractions were now around 7-8 minutes apart.

Fast forward to 2 am Thursday morning, and I was wide awake timing the contractions (which were becoming less comfortable all the time).  By 6 or so that morning, I told Ryan I'd start getting ready to see if the contractions would stop, but I was going to go ahead and call my mom so she'd be ready if we needed her to come over.  They ended up about 4 minutes apart, so we officially started getting ready to head out.

My mom arrived around 7:30, and we got to the hospital around 8:00 (Ryan did great getting us there quickly, even in snowy weather and morning traffic).

**Edit: Somehow I had left out one of my very favorite memories of this morning.  As we drove down Nuckols Rd., we saw a bus driving behind us. Sure enough, it was Richard driving his morning route.  Ryan rolled down his window and gave him a thumbs up, indicating YES WE ARE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL :).  He beeped the horn in excitement.  Such a sweet part of that day!**

I told Ryan that I couldn't guarantee that they'd have us stay, but that if this wasn't labor I did not want to know what labor was like.  I was  apparently the third prego to arrive since 7:15, so it took a while to check in at the ER and get "transported" to my room.  Luckily, Kelly's sister-in-law Blair ( a L&D nurse) heard that I was on my way as her shift ended, so she got us a nice room with her favorite nurse.

I got my epidural around 9:30, which was none too soon!  By then I was definitely in pain, and my blood pressure started dropping, which left me one sick puppy.  For about an hour, I was pitiful (I'll spare the details), but finally the epidural kicked in and my unpleasant side-effects subsided.  By now my mom had taken Anderson to Kathy's house, and she was ready to come in and see Ryan and I.  Dr.  Dausch came and checked on me three times in the next few hours (Mrs. Ives and Kelly came, too!).  The third time Dr. Dausch checked on me, she said it was definitely time to push.  Three contractions later, Brady was born (1:48 pm.)  So many little things had gone wrong delivering Anderson (thus the c-section), so I was so happy that Brady and I had done so well.  We stayed out of the OR- yay!  He was perfect and healthy and here- yay!!!!

Brady Parker Ives
7 lbs. 7 oz. ~ 20 1/2 "

We did it!  Woo Hoo!

Ryan's mom, my mom and Kelly were still in the waiting room, so they got to come see the little cutie.  Ryan's dad (who had come by earlier, before I was "together" enough for visitors), Casey, Anderson, Steven, and my dad were all able to visit throughout the evening.

When Anderson first came, Brady was back in the nursery.  This was probably for the best, allowing Anderson and me the sweetest reunion.  He hugged on me and would not let go.  The nice nurse let him stay (literally sprawled out across me) while she checked me over.  He and I were both so happy to be together. :)  Pretty soon, the nursery nurse brought Brady in.  Anderson wasn't thrilled to share me right away, but he had lots of family nearby to play with, so he had a good time. :)

The next morning (Friday), Anderson came back and there was a smaller crowd (just my mom, Ryan, Brady, and I.) He was less wound-up and more interested in Brady.  Here are some "family of four" photos from that morning.  (*Disclaimer*- I had just taken my shower but was waiting for mom and Anderson to arrive with my blow dryer in a couple of the pictures, thus the towel turban...)

Anderson found Brady's nose

LOVE my boys

Sweet baby boy

Friday was a good, relaxing day for Ryan, Brady, and me.  We loved seeing the snow falling out of our window, and we took turns snuggling our little snow baby.  Brandon and Heather stopped by that afternoon to meet Brady, and Dr. Dausch popped back in to check on us.  That evening, our parents visited again, along with Anderson.  Ryan, Anderson, Nannie, and Papa left around 6:30 to have dinner.  Ryan was staying home Friday night with Anderson- "boys night".  My mom headed out around 7:00 to pick up Outback for the two of us (I had only eaten hospital meals for 2 days now... Outback was a great idea!).  We ate, watched "Say Yes to the Dress" and took turns snuggling Brady until about 10.  Then she headed home, and Brady went to the nursery to sleep until he was hungry.

Daddy and his littlest guy

Dr. Dausch and some of  her biggest fans :)
(I swear Brady seemed comfortable, even though it doesn't look like it :-/)

Heather and Brady

Brandon and Brady

Saturday morning, Brady and I had a lot of "just the two of us" time between doctor and nurse visits.  Daddy came around 11, and we got ready to head home.  I really did enjoy our hospital stay- the nurses were all really nice, and I loved the quiet time with Brady and the not-as-quiet-times with all of our visitors.  But we were all definitely ready to go home, get our Anderson, and start life as a family of four.

Dressed and ready to go

Close- ups :)

Love the cheeks!

Snuggled in the car seat... here we go!

HOME :)