New years resolutions

In honor of New Years Eve, here are my family resolutions for 2011:

1. Create a better weekly routine. Rosemary and I had a great thing going before morning sickness hit me over the head and I spent most of this past year either sick or exhausted and it's time to get back into a good routine. This includes giving Rosemary more responsibilities including making her bed and brushing her teeth on her own every morning.

2. Add more physical activities to our daily routine. I'm going to start back on my almost-daily walks, find some sort of structured activity for Rosemary (I've looked into dance classes and gymnastics and am leaning toward the gymnastics for starters), and planning at least one activity for the whole family to do together on weekends, be it hikes, theme parks, or even just a day at the playground.

3. Stick to our budget. It is very important to me for our children to learn to be responsible and understand the value of a dollar. Last year I went a little nuts in the spending department and realized it wasn't setting the best example. I think this is going to be the most difficult resolution to stick to because I've gotten used to our almost daily Target retail therapy outings (hey, with a colicky newborn you'll do almost anything to get out of the house!). Hopefully it'll help me stick to the resolution to be more active. I can substitute walks and playground trips for the Target excursions and lunches out.

Some highlights of 2010:

- Finding out I was pregnant, finding out it was a boy, and giving birth! That was definitely the biggie of the year!

- Ryan and Carrie's wedding. Joe and I love spending time with the Brown's. We're still working on a way of officially becoming part of that family, but I'm pretty sure the next generation will find a way of making it happen.

- Trip to Ohio for Jess's wedding. It made me miss the hell out of her but also reminded me that there are awesome people in my life that will always be there, even if we don't get to be together often. Terra and Malachite joined us and Rosemary loved spending time with Malachite!

- Michelle's wedding 3 weeks postnatal. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd make it, but I'm so glad I did! This was another wedding that helped me to realize that people are in my life for a reason.

- Trip to Disney with a newborn. This was a much needed weekend getaway after 2 months of colic!

- Christmas with my family. That's always an important part of the year, made extra special by the fact that there were 3 grandkids there this year.

Things to look forward to in 2011:

- All of Xander's firsts (crawling, walking, birthday, etc)

- Rosemary will be starting preschool next fall!

- Getting my car paid off!

- Hoping for Joe's next big promotion at work.

- I'm planning on spending about a month this summer with my parents.

I also set a goal for myself- I want to learn how to play kid's songs on the guitar! Rosemary got a guitar from my parents for Christmas and I want to be able to play She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain on it. Rosemary loves that song and I need a new hobby that doesn't cost money so that's my personal goal!!

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Homeschool

Right around the time I found out I was pregnant with Xander I started an at home preschool curriculum with Rosemary. The basis was one letter and one number a week, along with books, songs, and nursery rhymes. I got to the letter G and the number 6. To make up for lost time, I've started doing things when I can find the time. Poor Rosemary found the counting book we started and got really excited. So today we got to number 10.

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Happy birthday to you, my little Rosamaru!

We decided to make Rosemary's birthday this year a celebration all about her. We let her decide how she wanted to spend her special day, and boy, did she have some good ideas!

On Friday, we invited Rosemary's friends to our favorite park for cupcakes. If you ever need an easy way of entertaining a bunch of 1-3 year-olds, give them cupcakes. It is messy, funny, and adorable watching them tear into them. I'm pretty sure most of them wore more of the cupcake than they ate! Here's the birthday girl enjoying her cupcake!

On her actual birthday, we let her choose what she wanted for breakfast. If you were a three-year-old, what would you choose? Rosemary felt spaghetti was the only way to start the day. Birthday girl wants spaghetti for breakfast, birthday girl gets spaghetti for breakfast.

When we asked Rosemary what she wanted to do on her birthday, she knew for sure she wanted 2 things. She wanted to go ice skating (she's been talking about it since July when they told us at the Countryside Mall ice skating rink that you had to be 3 years old to do it) and she wanted to see Santa. Her wish was our command! We dressed up our little ones and took them to the mall. Santa was awesome! He even sang "Happy Birthday" to her! (And doesn't my little man look adorable in his little bowtie onesie? I made the matching outfits the night before!)

To our luck, there is now a train that goes around the mall! Rosemary loves trains, so of course we had to hop on after telling Santa that she wanted a penguin for her birthday! She was so adorable. She waved to everyone!

By this time we were all getting a little hungry so we went to the food court and let her choose what she wanted for lunch. I was sure she'd choose a big cookie from the cookie store, but she actually chose teriyaki chicken from Sarku Japan! That is her favorite mall food!

After lunch, it was time to strap on our skates and hit the ice! We all lasted about 30 minutes. Grandma and I both had these romantic images of all of us holding hands gliding across the ice with Rosemary in the middle. Um, not quite. The ice was a little mushy and bumpy and there were lots of 5-year-old professional ice skaters (I swear these kids were pros!) tearing it up! But we did have a really great time! Rosemary, Joe, and I made it around twice before Rosemary told us she was done. I was so proud of her! I didn't know if she'd even actually want to get on the ice when we actually got there, but she did it and she really gave it her best! The rink was packed with two birthday parties, and lessons, so it was very difficult to get pictures. I did manage to snap this one of Joe and Rosemary.

After ice skating, we went to Gymboree and let Rosemary pick out a new dress from her Lola and Grandpa. She walked up the first dress she saw, said that was the one she wanted, and sat down in front of the television in the store. It was an adorable dress she picked out, and she knew exactly what she wanted so that was easy! You'll see the dress a little further down in pictures. Before leaving the mall, we stopped for ice cream. She chose a vanilla cone with sprinkles.

After our busy day at the mall (which, it turns out is a perfect place to celebrate a birthday!), we all went home and took a nap before opening up her present. I really wanted her to have a dollhouse but after spending weeks scouring stores and the internet, I couldn't find one I liked. And I really didn't like the dolls I was finding to go with them. None of them looked like our family. So I called on my super-talented parents to help me out! Grandpa found a partially made wooden dollhouse and finished it by adding some floors and painting it in colors of my choosing. Grandma found some furniture, made others, and painted most of it herself. Over Thanksgiving all of us painted the rest together. I found some unfinished wooden peg people and had both sets of grandparents paint themselves while I painted my little family of four. I LOVE the way it turned out! There is no way we could have found a pre-made dollhouse that was as personalized (some of the fabric used for the bedding was leftover from a dress I made Rosemary) and I think when she gets older she'll really appreciate all the effort that went into it. Hopefully she can pass it down to her kids one day (a long, long time from now!).

Here's our family! From Left- Grandpa Bailey, Lola, Daddy (Xander in front), Mommy (Rosemary in front, I love the pigtails!), Grandpa Freeman, and Grandma. I'm going to bring some more unfinished pieces with me to my parents house for Christmas so my sister can paint her family. Rosemary definitely needs a cousin Malachite to play with!

I think she likes it! (We went back and painted a little more of the frame of the house sea green and I think I might add some wall decor at some point. But the house is so cute as it is that I don't want to mess it up!)

Here she is showing off her Rosemary doll! She's also wearing her new birthday dress from Lola and Grandpa in this picture! The girl has good taste!

We had pizza for dinner (her choosing, of course) and asked her if she wanted anything else. She said she wanted a balloon and lemonade so after dinner Joe and I took her to the grocery store and let her pick out a balloon. Would you believe there was a penguin balloon?! I didn't get a picture of it, but I'm pretty sure Santa put it there after Rosemary told him she wanted a penguin for Christmas! Before going off to bed for the night, grandma had one more present for Rosemary- this beautiful "princess" nighty. When my mom told me she bought Rosemary a neglige, my mind went to places not appropriate for a 3-year-old, but when I saw what she meant, I couldn't believe how absolutely beautiful it is!

All in all, Rosemary's birthday was the perfect day. Everyone needs a day that's all about them and that was exactly what her day was. I think we're going to make it a new tradition to let her choose her birthday activities from now on. We ALL had fun! Joe and I agree that December 11th is our new favorite holiday!

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She is Three...

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

Today, my first born is a gorgeous, intelligent, funny, dramatic little princess who gives me my happiest moments, my moments of most frustration, and the biggest belly laughs I have ever experienced. There are a million things about her that I love, but here are just a few that I know I will never want to forget about my three-year-old little girl:

• I love that every time she hears music, she drops whatever she is doing and runs to her bedroom to put on one of her princess dresses so she can dance around the living room like Tina the Ballerina.
• I love that she has to have matching clothes every day and she will not leave the house without something glittery or shiny on.
• I love that she loves her brother and always wants to hold him. And that as soon as he starts to fuss she puts her hands up and says "I'm done!" She always says "I like having a little brother."
  
• I love that she always notices when I have a new shirt or dress or something for the house. She says "Ooh, that's pretty. I like your new princess dress."
• I love that everything pretty to her is "princess."
• She is the messiest eater in the world. I don't so much love this after 3 years, but I don't ever want to forget it. I still have to strip her down to her undies to eat dinner because she is such a mess!
• I love how she gets scared at silly little cartoons, like Toy Story, but loves scary Halloween decorations and zombie movies (no, we did not let her watch a zombie movie. It was the Halloween episode of Community and she would not go to sleep so we let her stay up. The entire campus became zombies and she LOVED it. For about a week she would walk around like a zombie and cracking up at herself.) But cute things like little yellow ducky puppets scare her.
  
• I love that she thanks me for the simplest things, like doing her laundry.
• I love that she is mine. She makes me want to be a better person. She repeats everything she sees and she is very sensitive. She has made me throw out everything I ever thought I knew about children and learn a whole new way of being. The Rosemary way. She doesn't follow a book. The "correct" way of parenting doesn't apply to her. She definitely has her own agenda and keeps me on my toes. She is at the same time the sweetest, most gentle spirit I have ever met, and the most determined, head strong little girl I have ever known.

I remember bringing this tiny little thing home from the hospital and opening up all my parenting books trying to solve this mystery that is baby. I wondered how they could just send me home with this fragile, tiny little thing and expect us all to survive! And now I look at her, grown into this perfect little girl, and realize how wonderful my life is, now that she is in my world.

Neck aches and back aches, oh my!

I need to keep reminding myself that one day I am going to miss the time when Xander could only sleep cuddled in my arms. I know one day he is not even going to want me to hug him in public. I need to enjoy the quiet, sweet moments when he is snuggled up and all cozy next to me. I'm sure one day I'll forget about the stiff neck and aching back that sleeping in a recliner for over 2 months is causing me. I'll forget about the aching knees from standing up and sitting down so often (I'm really giving my age away now). I'll forget about the sleep deprivation from waking up every 2-3 hours during the night to feed him. But for now, I just want one good night's sleep. In a bed. With blankets.

Merry (early) Christmas to me!

I have been trying to figure out what I wanted to put on this wall forever. I finally decided that white shelves would be just the thing and was ecstatic when we found them half price on black friday at hobby lobby! I asked joe to get them for me as my christmas present, along with some other home accents that I will post once I get them all prettied up. Since we live in florida and don't have a fireplace, this was the perfect place to hang our stockings! This is also the look I want to bring to the rest of our living/dining room space. I love the way it lightens the space! The white just feels so fresh! My dream is to make our house feel like a beach cottage getaway. Its such a tiny little house that it definitely has that cottage feel and I think once I get everything all prettied up, I might fall in love with my house.

edit: I love that I am able to blog from my phone, but I guess the quality of the photos just isn't top notch because this looks so much prettier in person!

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More Thanksgiving pictures

Joe amazes me once again with his photography. He was able to get a lot more pictures than I did over Thanksgiving. If you view it as a slideshow, you get some funny little action shots- like Xander going from smiling to spitting up to laughing about it and Rosemary breaking a Christmas ornament and then lamenting over it.

Here's a link:

Joe's flickr

Thanksgiving celebration

I wasn't able to get a lot of pictures, but here are a few from our thanksgiving celebration. I think my favorite tradition is going to the beach while the turkey is cooking! It was xanders first trip to the beach. He mostly sat under the shaded umbrella with me and nursed while rosemary played in the sand with her grandparents. I didn't get any pictures, but when we got back to my parents house my dad and joe took rosemary out in the kayak and fishing in their backyard. Joe took some pictures and when he gets them uploaded I will add them because it was too cute! She was wearing her swimsuit with a tutu while fishing! Later in the day we sat down and feasted on our 24 pound turkey and dozen or so sides.

We avoided most of the black friday madness by sticking to shops at the beaches and ended up finding incredible deals on all the things I have been wanting to update our dining room! I can't wait to get home to get everything put up!

We are in the car on our way home now to put up our christmas decorations! I have been wanting to put our tree up since xander was born so I can't wait!

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Tangled and dresses!

We packed a lot into today! This morning we packed the family into my parents minivan and we headed out to the first showing of Tangled. Rosemary has been asking to see it for weeks and it finally started playing today so she was really excited! As is typical for her, she was scared through all of the cutesy parts and laughed when the action picked up and the movie got a little scary. She has her fears backwards. Xander did amazing during his first trip to the movie theater. He slept the whole time!

Joes parents arrived today, bearing gifts for the little ones. As you can see in the picture, Rosemary had a good time opening her bag! Of course, her giant loot-filled bag wasnt enough, she wanted the shirt daddys parents got him instead!

And finally, I finished Rosemarys Thanksgiving dress tonight. I have made her one every year and I was so worried I would nt find the time to get it done this year. We made a special trip to Joann fabrics and let Rosemary pick out the material. It took me a couple weeks and all I had finished until we got to my parents house was washing and ironing the fabric. Tonight I put the finishing touches on the dress. It's reversible. On the one side is her handprint turkey and on other is nothing else but ballerina princesses for the self-proclaimed "princess of the princesses."

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Camping out

I think my dad might be the coolest grandpa on the planet. Rosemary wanted to sleep on the porch so he set up the tent and they're sleeping out there tonight!

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Grandma and grandpas, day 1

I think the kiddos like grandma and grandpas house. Xander had been amazing. Hes only had one crying fit, and that was in the car. He hasn't even spit up much! Rosemary has been precious. Grandma and mommy went on a few errands earlier while rosemary played at the playground with grandpa and daddy. I wish I had pictures of that. I guess she made friends with a 7 and 9 year old! I can't get over how well behaved our kids are! I guess it helps having all that attention!

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Xander is (almost) 2 months old!

Today was Xanders two month doctors appointment. He jumped from the 25th to 77th percentile in weight! My boy is getting big! The pediatrician said the prilosec should start taking effect more this week so hopefully we will start to see less spit up and less fussiness soon! We are also going to try to supplement with a different formula to see if it helps. That will be nice and give me a break every once in a while. He also got his vaccines today which was not so fun. Now we are on our way to grandma and grandpas house!

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Pre-Thanksgiving Festivities

edit: I updated this from my phone and didn't realize the pictures were going to post like this. They should be in the text. But I'm sure you can figure it out! The second picture is from the It's a Small World Ride- Xander's first ever theme park ride!

Thanksgiving is almost here which means it's my favorite time of year- Joes vacation!!! To celebrate, we decided to take the kids to Disney World! Earlier this year joe and I participated in the give a day, get a day program. We volunteered making blankets for sick children through the Linus blanket program and received two free disney world tickets. The tickets were about to expire so we decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and take Rosemary and Xander to the most magical place on earth. It also happens that Joe had some hotel points so we decided to make a whole weekend getaway out of it. I was so nervous about taking Xander at such a young age, but luckily my fears turned out to be completely unnecessary as all four of us had a magical time!

We made a little game out of it by not telling Rosemary where we were going. We simply told her to pack a suitcase and a swimsuit and that we had a surprise for her. We kept asking her where she thought we were going. She pointed to every building we passed and asked if that's where we were going. We finally told her that it was some where fun and she guessed a playground. We kept her guessing until we pulled up to the hotel. Now, one thing you have to know about Rosemary is that she loves hotels. She would have been perfectly happy if we stayed there all weekend and protested a bit when we told her we had an even better surprise for her. Luckily the hotel had pictures of Mickey Mouse which eventually led us to telling her where we were going. She got pretty excited when we told her she was going to see some princesses and Mickey himself. It was already 2:00 by the time we got to Magic Kingdom which worked out perfectly because right as we entered Main Street, Cinderella appeared, followed by Belle and the rest of the princesses in a street parade! Rosemarys reaction was priceless. She got really shy, completely starstruck seeing all her princesses at once! After the parade cleared we had our first look at Main Street all decorated for the holidays. We took a minute to get a picture of me and my kiddos by some of them.

Then we were off to Fantasy land and the Small world ride, one of my favorites. Rosemary was so adorable. She kept clapping and singing along with the attraction. After small world, we checked out Mickeys Philharmagic, Rosemarys first 3d movie experience. She is still talking about donald coming out of a bucket asking about his hat. She remembers the tiniest details about everything and talks about them nonstop. After some more exploring, Xander and I made ourselves comfortable on a park bench so I could feed him while Joe and Rosemary went on some of the other rides. Then it was time for some dinner for the rest of us. Rosemary only wanted to eat my food and started pouting when I wouldn't give her my pbj. But she was much happier when I "shared" her grapes with her.

After dinner we made our way to Mickeys Toontown where we met the princesses ! I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Rosemary tried showing Cinderella who the real princess was!

After meeting her idols, we took a train ride through the park before going to Mickeys house for the mickey and minnie meet and greet. If you don't know about our last time doing this, let me just say we were very nervous and made it a point not to in any way touch that litigious rodent Minnie! We did get a photo of the kids and me with the mice, if you can make out Xanders head behind mickeys ear!

It was already getting dark by this point, and I was exhausted- Disney was fun with two kids, but a half day is enough with an 8 week old! We hopped the ferry back and settled into our hotel for the night. We had the whole family cuddled in one bed that night and it was so nice! Xander did amazing- way better than his big sister ever did at a hotel as an infant! He even slept 5 hours that night, only waking up to eat and then going straight back to sleep. The two of us ended up staying in bed until almost 10:00 am! Joe and Rosemary brought me breakfast and went swimming while X and I cuddled in bed all morning. We got a late checkout so we took it easy that morning then headed up to see our good friends Ryan and Carrie, who Rosemary loves! We had a special treat because Ryans parents were visiting. His mom is a baby whisperer and made me feel infinitely better about Xanders fussiness. She had 8 kids and said all of them were like that and it's completely normal. She understood every thing I was going through and all my fears about having something wrong with my milk our questioning if it's something I did when pregnant or something I'm eating, etc that is making him colicky. I felt 500 times better after talking to her. And Xander loved her! He slept almost the whole time cuddled up to her and was perfectly content when I put him in the car and stayed happy just about all the way home from Orlando! Carrie is so lucky to have her! Her experiences as a mom are going to come in handy in April when they welcome their own little one into the world! Rosemary is in love with Uncle Ryan and Aunt Carrie and protested fiercely when it was time to go, but we will see them again soon!

So this is just the start to our thanksgiving holiday. Next stop: grandmas and grandpas house!

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Xander's Story Part 2: The Reflux

The first couple weeks home were like a honeymoon period. My parents stayed for a week and a half taking care of Rosemary, Joe, and I while we took care of Xander. Joe went back to work after 2 weeks and things went surprisingly smooth when I was on my own. And then week 3 started. Hello again, colic, my old friend. We went through it with Rosemary and I was decided not to go through it again. This time it came accompanied by lots and lots of spit up and a nasty case of baby acne covering his face, arms, back, and starting to creep onto his stomach. I went ahead and made a doctor's appointment because it seemed to be getting worse. The doctor suspected reflux and a dairy intolerance (which aggrevates the reflux as well as the baby acne). She gave us some tips on how to deal with the reflux (keep him propped up, gripe water, Mylicon) and suggested I remove dairy from my diet. I started seeing a little improvement in both his skin and fussiness after removing dairy, but not significant improvement so I went ahead and also took out soy and wheat, the other 2 big allergens that can cause intolerance in babies. After 2 weeks of no improvement with the reflux we were prescribed Zantac (the acne comes and goes). After another 3 weeks of that and not much improvement, we were prescribed Prilosec. It's been about a week and a half now and I am seeing some improvement. I've also started tracking his behavior (nursing, fussy times, and sleep). One of the biggest problems with the reflux is the lack of sleep it causes. At his age, babies should get about 16 hours of sleep a day. He was getting less than 10, and most of that was at night. He'd scream all day. I've been tracking his behavior for 3 days now. The first day he slept a total of 11 hours in a 24 hour period. The next day I saw where he was really fighting sleep and I found ways to soothe him and he slept a total of 15 hours in the 24 hour period. I think by the end of tonight, the total will be 14 hours for this 24 hours period. So, not exactly as much sleep as we want him to get, but a significant improvement from pre-Prilosec days. It's a lot of work for me, and poor Rosemary is just not getting the attention she needs, but I'm hoping it will all pay off and he will soon be able to sleep better and faster on his own.

We go back next Monday for a follow-up, and for his 2 month wellness visit (ack! Vaccines! This is NOT going to be fun!). Hopefully by then we'll see even more improvement.

So that's what's going on health-wise with our little guy.

Reflux aside, he is the cutest little boy I have ever laid eyes on. In his happy moments (and there are increasingly many) he loves to indulge us in these huge, toothless smiles that light up the room- and my heart! I was privy to his first smile, but it was so quick that I almost didn't believe it happened. And the next smile episode lasted a long time- but only with Joe! And then he smiled at a friend's grandmother before smiling at me again and I was starting to feel a little left out. But the past 2 days have been all about smiling for mommy! I love his little smiles. They make it all worth it! I'm pretty sure when he outgrows the reflux (and I'm confident this WILL NOT last forever!) he is going to be a happy little boy!

I just found this picture in Joe's flickr. I guess he's been smiling even longer than I thought! This picture was taken on October 9, so he was about 3 weeks old.



Hehehe. I just found this in Joe's flickr, too. This is what I usually hear (when I'm not getting those cute smiles) during the 9 to 13 waking hours he has each day

Xander's Story Part 1: The Birthday

I guess it's time I step back a couple months and fill everyone in on the addition of Mr. X to our family. It wasn't exactly what we expected.

My original due date was October 1, but according to ultrasounds I was measuring a little further along, so I expected to go a little early so I wasn't that surprised when around 11 at night on September 22 I started feeling the familiar pangs of contractions that I remembered from the first time around. By midnight, Joe and I were at the hospital ready for the show to begin. I got my epidural and got a few hours of sleep before the doctor came in to break my water. Just like with Rosemary, the water was stained green, signaling meconium. Since we experienced that before, we were not the least bit nervous, but spent the rest of the time waiting to push joking about how our kids like to poop. It wasn't until he popped out and the nurse told us she was going to clean him up and let us hold him for a couple minutes, but that I couldn't feed him because his breathing seemed a little labored, that we got our first hint that something might be wrong. After Joe and I got to see him and give him kisses, the nurse took him back to observe him. Sure that his breathing was not quite right, she called the NICU nurses back (they were in during the delivery to pump him clean from the meconium, but left soon after), who agreed that something was wrong and they needed to take him down to the NICU for observation. We didn't really know what to do. I had just had a baby and now he was gone? It definitely wasn't what we expected. The worst part was when I was wheeled out of the delivery room to the mom and baby room and they play a little song. It didn't seem right since I didn't have him in my arms like I did with Rosemary. We asked them to take us right to the nursery where we found him hooked up to a bunch of monitors and getting prepped for an iv to get some fluids in him. After a period of observation they formally admitted him into the NICU, hooked him up to oxygen to help him breath, and took an x-ray to confirm what the problem might be. The x-ray showed that his lungs were covered in something- confirmation that he aspirated the meconium. They immediately started a round of heavy-duty antibiotics to prevent infection and ran a bunch of blood tests to make sure there was no bacteria or other cause of infection already detected. The next 24 hours were the scariest of my life. Joe and I kept vigil by our baby, mostly staring at the machines that were recording his vitals, watching his breathing struggling to get to where it needs to be. After starting the oxygen, his breathing was finally regulated and he was no longer struggling. He had so many tubes hooked up to him that I can't even remember what they were all for. He wasn't having any wet diapers so they upped his iv to a higher nutritive cocktail. He still wasn't having any wet diapers so they pumped his stomach (again) and a bunch of mucousy fluid came out. They kept a reverse feeding tube (not sure if that's really a medical term, but that's how it was being used), first in his mouth, but he kept pulling it out, and then finally in his nose where it wasn't causing him to gag as badly. It was about another 24 hours before they finished pumping him and nothing came out and we could attempt to feed him (I went back to our room every 2 hours to pump to stimulate my milk glands). We gave him formula to see if his body was going to digest it or what would happen. Luckily, he took it just fine and his body knew what to do and we started seeing wet diapers. I don't even remember when they removed the oxygen, but I know it must have been before we fed him. Things started looking up once he was breathing on his own and he was able to eat. After what felt like an eternity, we received the results from his final blood work and the news was great- no inflammation, no sign of infection, and he could go as soon as he finished this round of antibiotics!!! It ended up only being one extra day in the hospital and they were kind enough to let us keep our room so we didn't have to leave without him.

Our parents came, bringing Rosemary with them, so she was able to see her baby brother for the first time. She wasn't allowed in the NICU, but there was a window where she was able to see him and blow him kisses.

Finally on September 26 at 4:00, we left the hospital and brought him home.

Here are a few pictures from our stay in the hospital.

Here he is when he first got to the NICU for observation


Here he is a few hours later with oxygen, but before the feeding tube


Here he is the next day, no oxygen, but still has the feeding tube (we didn't get a picture of all of them together, it was just a bit much for us to look at and we weren't exactly thinking of taking pictures for posterity)


Here he is ready to eat! (please excuse my lack of makeup or hair style. It had been a long couple days)


And finally all packed up and ready to head home!


And finally, quite possibly the cutest video in existence. Rosemary meets her baby brother.



OK, maybe this is the cutest video in existence. Rosemary singing "Rockabye Xander"

I am going to miss this one day...

Joe gave me this wrap as a gift when we found out I was pregnant with rosemary. It ended up being one of my most beloved baby gear items. She used it up until almost age 2 and I can see xander is going to follow in her footsteps. I love my baby bjorn for parks and shopping and most things out of the house or times when I need my hands, but seeing their little faces all smooshed up and having their warm little bodies all cozied up to mine while in my maya sling is priceless. Especially after a full morning of fussiness and trying everything else to get them to sleep. Sure, I cant scrub the toilet (ew, germs), or cook dinner (wouldn't want to cook the baby) but I can enjoy reading and coloring with my precious Rosemary while Xander rests peacefully in my arms. And when he sleeps, we are all much happier.

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Hush little baby

After 15 hours (from 4 pm to 7 am) this little monster is finally asleep. I showered and now it's time to get the girl up. Another no makeup day...

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Fussy

Details to come later. I am currently on two and a half hours straight of screaming xander. Joe is out of town. It's my birthday.

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She loves him...

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

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Me and my kiddos

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Yay! I just set up a mobile blog so I can blog right from my new phone! Expect to see lots more blogs from me in the future!

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Links

Since my camera and computer are still unworkable and I am using Joe's netbook, therefore unable to post lots of fancy updates with pictures or bookmark pages I want to go back to, I'm going to use this to bookmark some pages I want to go back to.

http://themaskedmommy.blogspot.com/search/label/Peg%20Dolls
http://www.etsy.com/shop/theenchantedcupboard?ga_search_query=little_peg_people&ga_search_type=all&ga_page=&order=&includes[0]=tags
http://www.skiptomylou.org/2010/06/12/peg-dolls-from-dollar-store-crafts/
http://themamadramalogues.blogspot.com/2010/05/crafty-project-little-fairy-peg-dolls.html
http://www.etsy.com/listing/54438889/6-families-of-7-free-storage-bag-do-it?ref=sr_gallery_14&ga_search_query=wooden+dollhouse&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_page=2&order=&includes[0]=tags&includes[1]=title
http://www.etsy.com/listing/54386597/wooden-doll-furniture?ref=sr_gallery_26&ga_search_query=wooden+dollhouse&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_page=2&order=&includes[0]=tags&includes[1]=title

It's a....

Once again, time has gotten away from me. About 20 minutes after posting my last update, my computer died :( I've had my beloved Powerbook for about 5 years and the only problem I've ever had is that the power cord keeps getting tripped over or the computer gets dropped and the power cord gets bent. We've replaced it twice, but I knew that one day the power cord would be the death of me, and, unfortunately, that day has come. Part of the cord broke off inside the computer. It's too far inside for us to remove. Hopefully one day we'll get around to playing with it and maybe luck will be on my side and we will be able to save it, but for now, it's sleeping. Which also means I've lost about a years worth of pictures of Rosemary and haven't uploaded any new pics since March. Oh this makes me sad. So until I get around to setting it up so I can upload pics onto Joe's netbook, I'm only going to do quick updates with big news.

Sooooo........ we had our 20 week ultrasound last week, and Rosemary is going to have a little brother! Both Joe and I felt all along that it was going to be a boy, so it really came as no surprise (we both have pretty good intuition it seems!) but actually getting used the the reality that this baby isn't going to have cute little pigtails and pretty dresses has been weird! I guess I need to learn boy things. It seems we'll have to start adding cars to our toy collection and choosing a haircut for our little boy. The doctor also said it looks like I might be a little further along than the dates we were given so it's possible Baby Boy will celebrate his birthday in September. Who knows- maybe he'll share his birthday with his cousin Malachite!

Rosemary was recently switched to a transition bed. Her crib is convertible so we have it in the "daybed" mode. It's been an adjustment for her and we often find her asleep in her doll cradle, on top of the toy box, or in the middle of the floor since she can now get out of bed on her own. It's super cute and would be even cuter if I could post a picture of it ;) We've also started potty training. It's a work in progress. I'm starting earlier than I planned. Knowing she'll probably regress when Baby Brother comes, I wasn't going to push it, but lately she has not so delicately let me know that she might be ready. I'll spare you the details, but just know that I have cleaned up my share of poop and pee lately. It's been lovely (haha)! So hopefully things will progress with that and who knows- maybe we will only have to buy one set of diapers come October!

March

I have lots more pictures from March, so I'll try to only choose a few to share.

Joe had a business trip so I spent the week of St. Patty's Day visiting my parents. We tried introducing Rosemary to the leprechaun, but she wouldn't go anywhere near him. We also took her to lunch. The tutu she's wearing is the one I made at the Moms Night In tutu party!



When we got back in town, the weather was so beautiful that we decided to spend a day at the beach with Rosemary's friend's Lukas and Noah.



The next day, my parents came into town so we could celebrate Easter a little early. The first thing we did was make an appointment for my mom and I to take Rosemary to get her 2-year pictures taken (at 27 months). She was so good that she got to ride the carousel!

The next day, my in-laws came to help us celebrate our early Easter and we dyed Easter eggs. It was Rosemary's first time and she LOVED it!



You're probably seeing a lot of this face. It's her "smile for the camera" face.

My mom made this adorable bunny cake!


On Saturday the weather was BEAUTIFUL so all the ladies (me, Rosemary, my mom, and my MIL) packed up the car and headed to the beach. We ended up at the causeway, but that's close enough! Rosemary knows that it's very important to apply lots of sunscreen.



We also tried to stay in the shade.

Here are both grandmas and Rosemary.

While we were enjoying the nice weather, the men were working hard. My parent's neighbor actually gave them their old wooden playset that their own daughter had outgrown! My dad single-handedly took apart almost every single board, brought it to their house, packed it in a U-Haul, hauled it the four hours to our house, and started putting it back together in our backyard. On Saturday he finally had some help from Joe and my father-in-law and together they were able to get the entire thing put together in no time.



When we came back from the beach, this is what we saw.


Here's the proud grandpa, and my hero of the month, pushing his little girl on the swing.


We ended up switching the bars with a bucket swing. It was a good decision. We've had the bucket swing for almost a year but never had the time to build a frame for it. I'd say this playset is a little more impressive than a simple frame for a swing! And Rosemary obviously loves it. It's almost impossible to get her off. And it has this effect, which I LOVE:

The day my parents left I threw a little "baby sprinkle" for a friend of mine who is having her second baby. Due to a last minute change of plans because of the chance of rain, I hosted it at my house. I've been looking for an opportunity to make a diaper cake so I decided to give it a shot and I was pretty happy with the way it came out!
I was nervous about having that many kids over at once, but thanks to the swingset it was a success!

That's about all I can remember for now. I've also been blogging for a couple hours so I think I need a break.