Sunday, May 31, 2009

Noah's blossoming vocab and Jacob's first month



Noah is learning new words all the time. Half the time you don't know what he's talking about, but the other half of the time, we're impressed :)

*He just learned to say "football", and his father has never been more proud.

*I asked Noah what he wanted for dinner. He said: "Cake!" I said "What else do you want to eat?" He said: "Rocks."

*Noah will pray. He automatically folds his arms when we put food down on the table in front of him, and sometimes he remembers even when we forget. When says the prayer, he rambles on for a minute (much less, depending on how hungry he is), and then at the end says amen. There's nothing cuter than hearing your child pray!

*When Noah wakes up in the morning he runs to Jake's bouncer (where he sleeps) and says enthusiastically: "Hi, Jake!" Noah holds his arms out when he wants to hold Jake. When Jake cries, Noah says: "Milk!" He likes to give Jake a kiss every night before he goes to bed. And then there's also the hitting and grabbing and poking, but we try not to draw too much attention to that (On a side note, we made it through 18 months without hearing the word "no" come from his mouth. But now that we have a newborn around the house, he hears "no" enough that he has finally adopted the word into his vocabulary!)

*When I am putting Noah down for bed, I ask him what song he wants me to sing. He used to request the horse and cow song (by making horse and cow noises). But now he says: "Mom Dad Juice Cook-cook [cookie]". so I changed the words of the song to "think of juice and cookies too/ [then he says: mmmmm!] know that mom and dad love you."

As for Jacob, he doesn't say much, but he does make lots of grunting and snorting noises. It makes sleep for us a little tricky at night, but on the bright side, the noises let us know that he is breathing! He's a good little baby. Very cuddly. That's the best part of newborns! He's growing out of his newborn diapers, he is definitely not the scrawny little 6 pounder from a month ago. His hair is still dark, but we'll see how long it lasts. He smiles in his sleep sometimes, it's very sweet. He is a good little baby! After a month, we are getting accustomed to having the little guy around. We are happy to have him!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Daddy's Home

Summer vacation is here! Which means that we get Kyle all to ourselves for the next few months! We had a party to celebrate Kyle's last day of school, luau-themed to welcome summer. We were all in our bathing suits (and even me, post-pregnancy! Which explains why the guest list was very exclusive-only the guest of honor and children under the age of two were witnesses!) Check out Noah's speedos.
Little Jacob, looking very festive.
We are so excited to spend more time with Kyle. It is amazing how refreshing it is to have another adult in the house all day. I don't have to countdown the hours until he comes home anymore! Kyle is so much fun to have around, and is also a huge help. It's amazing how much easier it is when the child-to-parent ratio is 1-1! Anyway, we love him and are so happy we will be seeing more of him!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

My New Hobby

I always liked the idea of golfing (my dad and brothers and my sister played growing up), but I've never done anything with it. Kyle told me he wanted to buy me clubs for my birthday, and my mom and I found a good set of women's clubs at a yard sale, so it's official: I am now a legit golfclub possessing golfer. For my big birthday date, Kyle took me golfing so I could put those clubs to good use.
While we were out, Kyle asked me if it was in my top ten of good dates, and I thought about it and realized that no exaggeration, it was the best date I've ever had. You know that's a good sign when you can go out with your husband of almost 3 years and top every other date you've been on. We are still in love! It felt good to get out of the house and step away from all my mommy responsibilities for just a couple hours and be with my man. The golfing itself was fun too, even though my current golfing abilities are kind of ridiculous. Here's video proof:


But I must say, with Kyle's fine teaching and demonstrations, I am improving. Not to brag or anything, but my man's got skills, and also I bogeyed one hole (in which I even had to hit the ball over a pond). We're shooting for the 2030 US Open pairs competition.

My Day


Oh, how I love laundry day. At least someone's smiling!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Not a breeze

That first honeymoon week is long gone--Grandma went home, Dad went back to work, and so it is just Mommy and the boys at home together, all alone. A friend said from the sounds of my last post, life with two children is a breeze. I didn’t want everyone to get the wrong impression about things, so here is the rest of the story.

The guilt. Splitting time and attention between two children is a little tricky. When they are both awake is the hardest. It’s kind of ridiculous but I can’t give one attention without feeling like I am ignoring the other one. A smart mom friend told me that I just have to get used to ignoring someone, especially because the more kids I’ve got the more ignoring you have to do, so to not worry.

The isolation. I know people with two children get out of the house, but I haven’t dared yet. The thought of lugging a newborn and toddler around in public makes me a little queasy. And my double stroller intimidates me.

The diapers. Newborns poop a lot. And my toddler’s poop is less frequent, but exponentially more disgusting.

The challenge of keeping a toddler out of trouble while caring for a newborn. Highlights: Noah learned to open the refrigerator, so you can only imagine the new world of trouble that brings. Noah finding the jar of vasoline. Noah diving headfirst off the couch, falling off a chair he had pulled up to the kitchen sink, and slamming his finger in the closet door. It could be much worse, so I can‘t really complain. Every day is an adventure!

So it’s not a breeze, but I wouldn’t say hurricane or other natural disaster. I think we are going to be alright. I guess I could be cheesy and say that the love makes the other stuff not so bad.


Friday, May 8, 2009

A week later

We have had a whole week of Jake now. It has been an adventure getting accustomed to the little guy. I realized that God was so kind and merciful when He designed newborns to sleep 22 hours of the day. I think I might not have appreciated that the first time around when I just wanted to sit around and stare into baby Noah's eyes all day. But now that baby Noah isn't an only child anymore, I have a lot more to keep me busy! So now I am thankful for the sleepiness of newborns. I have had good quality time with Noah, all while Jake sleeps, so that has definitely helped the adjustment for Noah and for me. He's still my first baby, after all.



(what we do while Jake is sleeping)
It is really funny how different having Baby #2 is. The delivery was like night and day. I was thrilled that the rumored "shortened push time for subsequent births" applied to me. When it came time to push Jake out of there, I got all geared up for another long pushing session. I put my hair back in bobby pins and prayed like crazy I could endure. But after what seemed like thirty seconds later (like Kyle already mentioned, it was actually six minutes), Jake was out and laying on top of me. No oxygen masks required or weird heartburn or panic that they'd have to cut me up and pull him out. It was so fast and nice.

Although I think because of the fast delivery, I lost serious sympathy points for the recovery period. Oh well, sympathy is overrated.

One thing that didn't change with baby #2 was the nerves associated with having a baby. I did not think it was any less scary this time. Even though I had done it once before, that gave me no guarantee that I could do it again! And a relatively smooth labor and delivery does not gurantee a repeat. The worst part of the delivery was before I got the epidural (I had to wait because the anesthesiologist was in surgery), not because it was unbearable pain at that point, but I heard a lady down the hall screaming like she was dying, and I knew that I would be doing the same thing if I didn't get all numbed up before push time. But that blessed man came with his blessed medicine and I was saved from the same fate of the screaming lady down the hall.


(Monitoring my contractions)
The bonding was a little different too. I think because I didn't spend the 9 months of pregnancy obsessing over the little fetus, I needed to do more of the bonding after Jake's arrival. But we do love him and more every day, so we're definitely going to keep him. And hopefully he can hack it in Noah's world! The first and second times that Noah met Jake was very sweet. Noah patted him and kissed him on the head, without us even telling him to.
But since we have gotten home from the hospital, Noah has found other things to do with the baby! He is a little on the rough side, but he isn't malicious about it, so we let it go and intervene when necessary.


Jake is such a sweet little baby. He seems to have an easy temperament and he is very loveable! We are happy to have him around and excited to get to know him better.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Jacob is here!

Our little guy was born last night at 8:00 on the dot. He worked hard to make it easy for mom. The long delivery lasted 6 minutes or 9 pushes. Pieper did great and is feeling good. Here are some shots of the little guy (6lbs 8oz; 19in.)


Jacob Miles Campbell