24 month=2!

Today my big girl is TWO! Oh my goodness, can you believe it? I certainly cannot! So many changes, so many improvements! She is speaking in SENTENCES; which as I was afraid of, the death of Eric and my speaking to each other around here, until after bedtime. Gwen is so expressive and so chatty at home and the running commentary of what is happening around us is pretty funny, if only she enunciated better. So many of her words sound alike and who knows what she has picked up so you really have to pay attention to context.
As I also mentioned, she is a great big sister! Little too involved sometimes, but she loves "baby Nate" and about the cutest thing is when he sneezes (coughs or any little sound, really) she says "bless you baby Nate". So sweet. She has moved out of the hold phase, into the hug phase and is happy to announce when Mommy is feeding baby Nate. (thanks Daddy for teaching her the word booby, that's going to come up and make for an uncomfortable moment at some point, I just know it!) Also she says "good burp, baby Nate". I guess you can tell how excited we are not to have to burp baby Nate anymore, he burps himself, but that is a story for tomorrow!
Gwen has finally admitted she knows her name, but randomly she thinks that as soon as you take a picture of her she becomes a baby and so she calls herself "Baby Gen" whenever she sees a picture of herself. This also causes a problem when you try to take a picture of her. She wants to see the picture of herself on the back of the camera, so pretty much all shots when she sees the camera are of her pointing at the camera and saying "Baby Gen"...so please picture that as you view the pictures taken of her in the last couple of weeks!
Gwen is very emphatic in her speaking and says and does things that keep us laughing. When you ask her if she wants to do something she usually says "Yeeaah", if she does. It really is amazing to us how she can answer us correctly, mostly because she was silent for so long, but if you figure she has been listening to 2 years of conversations, it is not that surprising. Gwen is becoming less distractable from things that you don't want her to do or get into. Yesterday she pulled some Ace bandage out of a drawer and wanted me to help her pull it out of the box, I said no and asked her to go find her hammer. Well, when I turned around she was sitting on the bed trying to open the Ace bandage box with the hammer! Not what I meant, but somehow she did finally get the box opened and it wasn't mutilated by her hammer!
It is funny how we had Nate at the exact right time to appreciate that fact that we now have a little girl and no longer a baby! Unfortunately that means that we have potty training and tantrums ahead of us. As far as potty training goes, we have pulled out a little potty and when Gwen is feeling like she is lacking in attention she says Pee-pee in the potty and then when you get to the potty and take off her diaper and ask her to sit on the potty she says, No. I don't want to make a big deal out of it and make her sit on the potty, yesterday she actually did, without her diaper! But, she is becoming the girl who cried wolf, who is using it for Mommy or Daddy's undivided attention. Did I tell you she knows where her butt is and she knows when her diaper is full! As far as tantrums go, we had our first major run in with those yesterday. Mommy did not give enough attention and there was no throwing of our self on the floor, but there was a lot of whining and squirming in a way that I had to stifle a laugh and made me wish I had the video camera out, just so you can see it! So darn dramatic...wonder where she gets that from!
Tonight we will be enjoying cake that there will be no pictures of, probably with the godfather, who also shares Gwen's birthday! Happy Birthday also to cousin Pete who went to a Brewers game, my godfather Uncle Ken and cousin Jan! Hope everyone has a great day! (Hope I can get this to post with pictures, if it doesn't it is because I have been trying to post pictures for 1 hour, on and off! I will try to get the pictures uploaded in a couple of days! There is one in there specifically for MaFitz (War Eagle!) and Beth, some of my frequent commenters!) Ok no pictures for now, server error, ARG!...I will certainly try to get them up later this evening.

Updated to add: finally pictures! (Beth how did I do with the hair?) If you AU fans liked the picture of Gwen with the pom-pom, you should see one of the books she got today for her birthday! I think she had a pretty good day, she definitely enjoyed opening presents (Christmas is going to be so fun) and Eric took many pictures, one day I will share them! Some of the pictures in this post were taken by Grandma during her visit...did I mention Gwen now says Gramma!

How are we doing?

I'll tell you how we are doing. You must be wondering how it has been here, I have started some posts and by the time I can get back to the post everything has changed! But now I have 2 kids, ahh!

To tell you the truth, around here the first couple of weeks with a newborn are like living in a manic depressive household, all of us; we are all a little nuts! For me, I forget that Nathan is not yet a month, so the word schedule means nothing to him. I am starting to feel better, less hormonal, most days. I am starting to work through what Nathan wants/needs when he is fussy. But more on that later, like in a couple of days!

Here are a couple pictures...this is from 4th of July. We had planned on going to see fireworks, but it was raining and then Nate's crying made us so exhausted we went to bed.

So you can see how much Gwen loves her brother, I think these pictures tell the story!


Gentle GWEN! We are still working on that pressing on his belly/head/any other vital organ is not cool! We are also working on she can't pick him up, no matter how much she wants to help Mommy! Pretty scary.

Showing Nate what he should be doing!

Tummy Time

While Gwen was sleeping almost 2 weeks ago, Nate would not nap, so being the kind and not cranky Mom that I am I made him do tummy time. Seriously, I am embarrassed to say these pictures were taken on the 20th! I can say with certainty that poor Nate is not getting as many pictures taken of him as we have from Gwen's first weeks. Poor kid!

Nate can totally hold his head up on his own, I of course didn't get a shot of that. He is getting pretty strong and he is a pretty good boy, I won't tell you what his issues seem to be, but then what I talk to Eric about when he gets home from work?

I think Eric and I are much saner at this point than we were almost 2 years ago (side note: can you believe Gwen will be 2 in less than 2 weeks! AHH!). We were at IKEA yesterday, which is about a 45 minute drive, and this woman randomly started talking to us (this happens to me a lot, Eric notices) asking about how old our kids were and commenting on how good we looked and couldn't believe we were out with a 2.5 week old. I realized that is pretty amazing, we would not have attempted anything like that before, oh and did I mention we also went out to dinner! I have realized that this time around, even though I spend most of my day running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I am able to run around like a chicken with my head cut off. I think Eric would agree it is a nice change from what it was like after Gwen.

In Gwen news, she has so many words we can hardly understand her. Sometimes she says things we can't even believe and yesterday's car ride proved that Eric and I won't be talking to each other much anymore, because we won't be able to get a word in edgewise!

First bath!

I thought maybe I would post Nate's first bath pictures. It is amazing how different it is with the second. Yesterday was Nate's second bath and I did it by myself, while Eric was bathing Gwen; I know I would not have attempted such a thing without someone waiting in the wings. And, I am sure Gwen had been washed several times by now. As you can see, he doesn't like to be naked!

All clean and sound asleep!

Status update

You are probably wondering how it is going here. I would love to say everything is peachy-keen, but I can't lie! Nathan is proving to be difficult, like Gwen, but also different than Gwen. Like many babies, Nathan has chosen the early evening to drive Momma crazy, I think it could be a combination of many factors. I think it is a chain of events starting with, Gwen is riddled up because she knows Daddy is on his way home, and she is excited and starting to drive Momma crazy, Nathan senses all of this and starts acting crazy and then we are all crying simultaneously, ok not all of us, but Gwen and Nathan are. I also wonder if Nathan by the end of the day has had enough of me and wants some bonding time with Eric. Last night Eric went to bed early and told me to take Nathan for a walk outside, I did, whereas with Eric, Nathan would be asleep in 10 minutes, I walked for a mile (rather slowly 'cause I am still recovering) and he cried intermittently the whole way. It makes you doubt yourself when you can't get your child to chill out and fall asleep no matter what else happened all day.

Nathan is a pretty good sleeper, and a good eater. He sleeps 3-4 hour blocks at night (which we know could change at any minute) and during the day he wants to eat every 2 hours. He often falls asleep while eating, I am too busy paying attention to his sister and then he gets mad when I remove him. And, does he ever get mad!! He gets red all over and turns to purple quite easily when he is angry.

I wrote this post last night and wouldn't you know it things were lovely around here last night. I had called the doula and asked her to come over and hang with us, Eric apparently has a meeting every Mon night at 6p. I thought I would be insane by the time he got home close to 7p. The doula feels that it would be bad for one of her clients to go insane and the time when I need the most help is early evening and all my friends are busy during that time also. Today was a much better day than we have been having around here. I was able to get a nap and last night Eric had the kids in bed by 8p, so I was able to get to sleep 9:30. It is amazing what a good night of sleep can do for your attitude. But, I was able to put Nathan to sleep today and I am hoping that we can get to sleep earlier around here. I have a backlog of pictures that I need to post, but I would imagine that one day I will get to posting pictures again when I am not beaten down by 2 children! I will leave you with a couple pictures from today. This one is from Gwen today, I thought I was going to bust up laughing when I came into her bedroom and found her like this:

(and yes she did this by herself, I don't know how she got the stocking and that attitude was all her own!) Here are pictures I took waiting for Nathan to wake up so he could finish eating.

He is beginning to look more like a little man, than like an old man, less wrinkly.

I thought you would like to see pictures of the kids (wow that is weird to write!) side-by-side. I think it is easy to tell which is which, but there are definitely similarities!
In other news, we had a low key Father's day around here, we made Eric breakfast and let him sleep in. Then he got to do whatever he wanted to do and pick whatever he wanted for dinner. I think all and all a day he enjoyed! He didn't even have to take the night shift last night! Love you babe! Thanks for being such a great Daddy!

Obsessed

I know that many of you have been wondering how Gwen feels about Nate. As far as we can tell, up to this point, Gwen is obsessed! When ever anyone goes to get her from her crib she says "baby", before she even says Daddy! I know you know what that means, Eric has been dethroned, and I have moved to #3.
This is not to say that everything around here is running smoothly, Gwen is having some difficulties adjusting and yesterday she spent most of the morning baiting me (it was just the 3 of us making breakfast for Daddy), she just wants to hug and hold "baby Nate" and doesn't understand much about being gentle, but then again she is 2. I have heard the story of some older siblings that put their younger brother in the trash because they wanted a sister.
But Gwen has a genuine love for Nathan and that is good, we have some videos taken by Mom so you can see just how much she adores him...we try to no longer talk about his eyes, since she poked him in the eye already, bad Mommy, who knew she was so fast on the draw!

Demand much?

I received a phone call this morning demanding a picture of Nate so people can see his face. If you click on a picture on the website it will enlarge the pictures so you can see them larger than life. Here are pictures of just him you can enlarge. Do you see that his hair is lighter than Gwen's? Well, I guess you might not remember what Gwen looked like as a baby, but take my word for it, his hair is lighter.

I have arrived!

So, I thought you would like an update of the fun and exciting things going on around here. As you may or may not have guessed, I had a baby yesterday, a happy, healthy, sleepy baby, who I have to wake up to feed every 4 hours. Gosh do I feel lucky. I know it won't last, so I am doing my best to indulge as best I can, which included my free hospital neck message this morning. I do not think it is possible to sleep very late in the hospital in the mornings, boy it is one person after the other around here. But, I guess you probably don't care about that you want to know more about this:

Yesterday as I mentioned in the blog, I was induced by the Dr breaking my water. Unfortunately, I arrived at the hospital at 7:45 and didn't actually get my water broken until 11:00am, the fluid was clear thank goodness and apparently I had been having contractions, but couldn't feel them, I was at 4cm when they broke my water. Do you know that it took an hour to get the antibiotic that was necessary to get 2 doses in before they could break my water. I should have known then that anytime our nurse said 15 minutes she meant a lot longer. Apparently they got very busy shortly after we arrived. When the Dr B broke my water that is the only time we saw him. We finally were able to get up and walk around. I received my next antibiotic dose and finally at 3:30 I was checked again, 4.5cm and we were allowed to walk again. Alleluia. By this point, I was done with this pregnancy and started doing anything the doula would suggest to get the baby down and out. Different swaying techniques and what-not. At about 5 we went back to the room so I could rest, we weren't really timing contractions, they seemed to still be about 5 min or so apart. I got into the shower and I felt like the contractions were coming closer together and I was getting the urge to bear down, the doula said since I was 5cm and we knew Gwen was stuck there for a long time I could bear down a little (I took that to mean, just bear down as much as I wanted). The nurse came back in she said my next dose of antibiotics had arrived, they wanted to monitor the baby for a little bit and so we got out of the shower and into the bed. She just finished hooking me up to the monitors and I said, I feel burning. The nurse said let me check you and the head was crowning. Now, if you want to see a flurry of activity you should probably wait until about 6 to have a baby (the nurses change out at 7, my favorite Dr rotated in at 5:30!) and already be crowning. I was told not to push and a flurry of activity ensued. I think I now know what it feels like to be a car/driver at the Indy 500. Eric says there was no one in our room and about 5 sce later there was about 5 nurses and our Dr ran in, she hadn't even put on scrubs yet for her shift. Two pushes later we were staring at this handsome little guy:
That's right, we had a boy! Nathan Quinn, 8lb 10oz 22.25in. at 6:12pm. It is amazing how 1.25in and 5.5 oz can make in appearance. Nathan seems so long and lean compared to Gwen. One day I might show comparison pictures. (Please ignore the double chin in this picture it is the only one I have of the 3 of us)
Here are some more pictures, mostly of Gwen and Nathan, here she is with her first look!

She leaned in to look at him so I asked her if she wanted to kiss him, and you see she did! Mom and Gwen were able to make it to visit after he was born, even though it was past her bedtime. But, Grandma was watching her, so I am sure she is having a super fun time and they are breaking all our "rules".


Here is the proud Papa again. Eric stayed the night, but he had an appt this morning and he stopped by the house and then he came back here and wouldn't stop holding Nathan, I would complain, but Gwen will be here this afternoon and I know she is going to have to be in Eric's lap the whole time she is here, so I can't blame him.

I might be able to get out of here tomorrow mid-day, it apparently depends on the pediatrician and how much of a stickler they are about the Strep B and monitoring. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, they are much appreciated and I know that is why everything worked out so well.

Well, it seems my little man is starting to fuss, so it is my turn to hold the baby. Did anyone get all the predictions true from the poll?

Oh and just in case you are wondering the significance of the name, Nathan has no significance, something we could agree on, but Quinn is Eric's father's name.

23 Months

So, today Gwen is 23 months, and 23 months she definitely is! She has her moments when she is definitely 2, but overall she is still a lot of fun. She is definitely learning so much so quickly. As I have said her vocabulary is expanding not only in quantity of words, but also in phrases. She is putting 2 words together, maybe even 3. We don't have sentences, but Gwen definitely believes she is talking to us in sentences. It is unfortunate that we have no idea what she is saying, except for the last word, which is not really helpful.
This is the scene when Daddy leaves. Saddening, isn't it?

The 2-ness is going to hit us hard in the next couple of months I am sure, but she isn't so terrible and as of yet we don't have tantrums, so to speak. We have a lot of pouting and "No's". Apparently the pouting is directly from me, my Mom says it is very familiar.
Gwen's dancing technique has changed so much, we need to try and get it on tape, which I think is my Mom's mission while she is here. She still LOVES listening to music and I just got her a CD off iTunes that she can't help "grooving" to. Sometimes I wonder if she is singing, but she doesn't use any words, but she does this high pitched humming.
Gwen is really into her baby dolls. She loves them and carries them around the house, we don't really take them out in public, they often get taken to the car, but in our excitement to get out of the car we throw them down into floorboards. We have even started feeding our babies and we love to swing them in baby #2's swing.
I am certainly impressed with Gwen' s memory she remembers and comprehends more than we realize, and unfortunately that can be a detriment to me, because at 9mon pregnant I can't remember everything. Gwen will put stuff back and do certain tasks that I have done and I wonder where she got the stuff she is doing and then I remember she is mimicking something we have done.
It is going to be an interesting change around here to see how Gwen reacts to the new baby, consensus is that Gwen will be a good big sister, which I am sure she will be, but I do worry about her wanting to squeeze the baby when she "'ug"s it. She loves hugging babies! Then there will probably be Mommy lap issues!

It might be a while before I get the new baby post up, so, I hope you will have some patience with us. I guess the decision was made easy for me about what to do since Mom's window of visit is dwindling and I didn't want to push the baby out unless it is necessary. I am not the kind of person that takes pills, you would be hard pressed to find pain relievers and such that aren't expired, so chemical inductions are not high on my list of things to do. I am hoping that the baby is happy and healthy and not such a cry baby...like his/her big sister, and once the eviction notice is received s/he will take the hint and get out! I don't want to be in labor forever, like last time. (ok so it was 24 hrs, but when you are in labor without sustenance for that long, it is forever!) Have a great Wed...oh and on a crazy sidenote in Gwen's Mother Goose book it says Wednesday's baby is full of woe! I should have researched that also before I picked my induction. (Monday's baby is fair of face...Gwen was born on Monday)