Holy Moly

Bop strikes again and Stella couldn't be happier!  What a lucky little bean!  I mean of course... I would have just died for one of these when I was little.  I have even had a good bit of fun playing on this thing.  The slide is really fun and fast.  We've even had Sasha on the slide and she thinks its fun too.  It's so much fun that Stella calls the whole gizmo "blue slide."  

For those of you thinking this mini mansion o' fun looks like a good idea... let me just forewarn you.  It came in 5 boxes, every single piece had to be put together.  I would think that they could have at least put the chains on the swings or maybe the wooden steps on the rope ladder, but no.  One of the bags of screws had 710 screws in it and that was just bag A... only one of the bags labelled A - N,  AND it came with an instructional DVD!!!!  Of course we didn't watch that and it took 2 solid days with 3 people working on it to get the thing together, 3 trips to Lowe's, new pneumatic tools, saw horses, a shovel, levels, squares, ladders, drills, clamps, sunscreen and lots of beers for the daddies.  

All in all, I really do think it was worth it.  We can't wait to see what fun brother will have and are already prepared to see some climbing onto the roof and jumping off action.

During a brief break from Blue Slide, Stella was kind enough to read a book to Yates.  He was a very good listener and she was a very good sweet "reader."

A couple more things... remember what happened last Wednesday?  Someone (Stella) had a major - entire breakfast - have to go home - throw up accident in the car.  Well its Wednesday again and guess what happened?  Yates had an equally disasterous, outing-ending - go home tear apart the car seat and bathe the baby -  throw up in the car.  It wouldn't be quite so bad if it was like, uh oh, someone threw up.  Lets get a wipe and clean it up.  But its not even close to that.  It's like oh my gosh.... try not to panic, race home, strip everyone and everything in the vicinity of the throw up, clean it, lysol wipe everything, take the car seat apart and then be stuck at home for the entire day b/c we are waiting for the car seat to wash and dry.  Ugh.  Seriously, what is the deal?  I don't particularly care for dismantling drenched car seats, but I'm getting really good at it.  

And finally, my peonies bloomed!!!! YAY!!!  I am so excited : )  The pictures won't upload for some reason, but I'll add them later.  Ta-ta.

not again...

it really is amazing how you can look up and its 3:30!  where did the day go?  i'll tell you.  it went to changing 17 million poopie diapers and to scouring the car, carseat and all its tiny parts and stella b/c she threw up big time in the car again!  luckily she had just thrown a fit to open a container with 84 foam letter and numbers in it and threw them on the floor, right in the perfect place for throw up to land on all of them.  seriously!  omg.  so sick!  she did this once before and it was terrible.  this time its triple terrible b/c michael is in houston and i have 2 babies!  ugh.  thankfully brother was very sweet and patiently sat in his carseat while i stripped stella and her carseat in the drive way.  

i loooove jon and kate plus 8 and i wonder what she does if someone throws up in the car.  thinking about her and being thankful that its michael and meredith plus 2 instead of plus 8 helped me just get over the disaster and clean it up.  i have a thousand things to do.  the carseat is still completely apart and needing to get in the washing machine and i'm soaking 84 pieces of foam in the sink... ta-ta.

Semi-Celebrity Week

I went from having nothing at all to say to having more to say than time to type. So here I go. I never ever ever ever see famous people. Other people do and I wonder if I just don't recognize them. So this week I ran into 3 barely famous people and I'm so excited.


I saw Phil Stacy, an American Idol loser and Marion Lee from Project Runway. Phil was dorky. He was at the galleria with some weird dudes and he was walking around singing and trying to draw attention to himself. Ok... we see you. Goodness. Marion was at Barneys (where else would he be?) with a guy that had so many tattoos on his face that I almost ran into a rack of clothes from staring so hard. I almost missed Marion (who is from Tyler of all places on the planet) b/c of tattoo guy. But anyway, I was so excited to see him b/c Project Runway is my very favorite show on TV. Then the least famous, but best was "Maren's Mom." One of the little girls in Stella's mother's day out is in ads for hotslings. They are the one's pictured above "everyday." Anyway, she gave me some sling advice and Yates rode in his sling for about 2 hours today. He even had a nap! Before he would cry and stick his legs out straight when I tried to put him in it. Having 2 hands was huge!! That is why she was the best barely famous person of the week.

So now for the important things. Yates and Stella... sweet sweet babies.

Yates is such a man. Its so cute. He is always so hot and sweaty and is the most tickelish person I have ever known in my life. He laughs and smiles all the time and its so funny. Also, he is huge! His size 2 diapers don't even reach around him, he is barely squeezing into 9 m clothes and he has been sleeping in Stella's 12-18 m t-shirts at night (b/c he gets too hot in anything else.) He has done some big things this week. He sat in his bumbo, did the sling, played in the jumperoo (loved it) and right now he is taking a nap on the bed all by himself for the 1st time ever! Yay!

The cutest thing Stella does right now is count. If you ask her how many, she says 5,8,9. If there are only 2 things, the answer is 5,8. She knows how many 2 is and will tell you that there are 2 of something, but if she's going to actually count the 2 things its 5,8. So funny! Her other 2 big accomplishments are that we are leaving the mammas in her crib and we tried pull ups. She never thinks twice about it when we ask her to leave the mammas in the bed. When she's sleepy she asks for them and is happy to see them at nap and bed time. Going without the mammas is huge. I'm so excited to be doing well without them. I bought her some pull ups this week and she loves wearing them, but doesn't quite get it yet, so we'll wait a bit on those. I wish I could write about all of the cute and smart things she does, but if I did that I would be missing all of the things. Sorry its taken me so long to write...

Shhhh...

Everyone (Stella, Yates, Sasha, Deion) is sleeping! I love it! While I have second, literally, I will just say how much fun Yates has been this week. It is amazing how quickly that newborn stage passes. He loves to talk and laugh and stand up. He definitely is out of that sleeping constantly stage which is good and bad. I have already... nevermind... he's awake...

Easter Egg Hunt

I was so excited about today's Easter Egg Hunt b/c I thought it would be fun of course, but I also was looking forward to having a good story to post. Well, I'll start with the good stuff. It was fun. The babies looked really cute. They matched each other and even their easter baskets. There was a petting zoo with baby pigs, goats, chickens (rainbow chickens), ducks, bunnies, guinea pigs... lots of animals and it was adorable. Stella loved it but we weren't able to stay and play as long as she wanted to b/c brother was outside of the fence in his stroller crying. It was sad (little did I know) b/c I did not want to leave Yates outside of the fence alone and I had to go into the petting area with Stella. I didn't now what to do. Luckily, a friend was standing outside of the fence and offered to watch Yates for us while we went in. When we had to leave, poor little Stella was crying, "More chickens please, please more chickens." : (

Anyway, we proceded to hunt the eggs. Stella was fabulous. We got all positioned in front, patiently waited for the nice Pi Phi lady to say 1,2,3 go and off we went. Stella got lots of eggs, thus lots of candy... ugh. Sweet brother slept in his stroller for us. We played with our friends for a while and ate lots of candy then decided we should go. It was a little chilly and very windy. But, we started heading for the car and spied a slide, so we had to go do that for another 30 minutes. Ok, so we did the slide and now really we needed to go. Brother had come out of his seat and was super hungry. We are walking to the car... This is where it all goes bad. (Keep in mind, I'm not wanting to tell this story to anyone so maybe typing it will be easier.)

i hope you're sitting down... when we were leaving the playground, stella refused to walk about 1/2 way to the street and i was walking a bit ahead of her. i locked the wheels on the stroller and went back to get her, turned back to check on the stroller when i was about... i don't know... too far away and it was rolling toward the street! i took off sprinting and didn't make it. y wasn't strapped in b/c i was going to nurse him and change his diaper when we got to the car. the stroller completely flipped over and he flew out and went tumbling through the dirt about 6" from the street. it was AWFUL! i scooped him up and he was screeeeaaaming. i went back for stella and she was crying. some lady picked up my stroller and all of my crap, then some other lady came and took yates away from me b/c stella was sitting in the dirt also screaming and still refusing to walk. it was soooo bad! she put y in the stroller and we made it to the car. we all got in somehow, crying and shaking and just sat in the car crying... all of us. he has a red spot on his eyebrow, but he is perfectly fine other than that. i feel soooo terrible and delinquent.

We did make it home, I somehow managed to cook dinner and spent the rest of the night holding Yates and watching for any weirdness that might be caused by ones mother letting one fly through the air and land in a pile all covered in dirt when you're only 7 weeks old. Uh, it makes me sick.

So... just call me Britney. Big. Fat. Stupid. Easter Britney.

news...

Tidbit number 1:

Brother has outgrown the newborn diapers and is now in 1s. Gasp! Why do mommies get so sad over bigger diaper sizes? I do know the answer, but it is so funny that we all do it and all know that it is a staple topic of conversation among mommies.








Tidbit number 2:

The graffiti aritst that I have been a huge fan of for probably 5 years actually came over to my house today!! "What?" you say. Long story, but I hunted him down and, after an arrest for his illegal artform, he has become a legitimate artist. I commissioned him to do a piece for us/me. I am sooooooo excited and can't wait to see what he comes up with. I mean look at that cute girl he graffiti-ed on a box car... Driving through Dallas and seeing something cute like that in an unexpected place is so much fun and made me love this guy. For some reason I never thought he was a real person that I would actually talk to, but he is and yay!

Just something cute about Yates:

He squeezes your hands and fingers with a serious death grip when you are holding his pacifier in his mouth for him. I think its so cute b/c it seems like he likes to hold hands. He will fall asleep holding on so tight and if you move at all he is awake and unhappy. I think he's saying, "Why did you move? We were holding hands." What a sweet boy...

Oh Brother...

Poor Brother... You have one nice weather day and you get wagged outside and stuck in a toy stroller...

Stella and I had him in her Baby Stella stroller in the back yard. He does not look amused, but was very sweet to let us play baby dolls with him. Baby brothers are so much fun! Stella was so proud of herself. She wanted her fingers to be touching him.

At least he got a sweet kiss for being such a good brother. Also note that this is Yates' first regular day time outfit... Doesn't he look handsome (despite the frown)? Its been so cold here, I've just kept in little sleep sacs or footed pjs. Not on the pretty weather day! The boy is in clothes!

Its only been a week, but I feel like so many little things have happened. Yates and I have gotten into a pretty good little routine and I am finally starting to feel like I know what his noises mean. He is sleeping really well and is typically waking up around 3:30 and 7. It could be way worse. Just this week he has really started to laugh and smile and talk to us. It is sooo cute! We might have another ham on our hands. As some of you may know, Yates is a thumb sucker. However, I have been determined to keep him from doing that b/c I worry about his teeth. Anyway, he doesn't really suck his thumb much at all, EXCEPT in the bathtub for some reason. It is so funny. As soon as he gets all wet in the tub, in goes the thumb. Of all places. Any and every other time he tries to find his thumb, he acts like he can't find it.

Stella is really starting to enunciate and combine words. Just since Yates got here, she has made lots of progress. We've been so proud of her for saying "Please" so well and for starting to say it so early... even though it always sounded like "pluhh." Today during lunch at Snuffers, she said, "pleeeece" I was soooo excited! Stella also started to say "Cow" instead of "Ca"... which in the past could have been cow or car. She is up to 3 and 4 words sentences, such as "No Da Sasha" (see Stella code.) She has been so sweet to Yates and very patient when she needs to be. A few days ago she put her finger inside of Yates' pacifier for him as she always sees us do. Michael and I thought it was so cute!

I'm starting to feel like I'm going to survive too. Figuring out all of the whens and hows takes some time I guess. The one thing that is going to take some serious effort on my part is not completely losing it when everyone starts screaming at once. One baby, fine... two babies, ok... two babies and a needy pet or something burning on the stove, I'm going to scream... add the phone ringing on top of that and its over! What time is it?!?!? Where is Michael?!?!? AGH! See, thats going to need some work. Thankfully, I have the best, most helpful, understanding, sweet, thoughtful, patient, easy going, cute husband in the world and 2 pretty cute and really good babies!

... and no one died

We (The Bean, Brother and I) just conquered the grocery store together, but alone for the very first time ever!!! I'm excited and disappointed. Excited that I'm not completely helpless, but disappointed that

1. Now everyone will know that I can go to the grocery store.
2. I will probably have to go back.
3. Now I'm going to have to cook the things I bought.

It seems silly to regular people I'm sure, but this was a huge, huge deal. First you have to get everyone fed, dressed, hair fixed and poo poo, tee tee free. Then you have to load the car being sure you dont forget diapers, wipes (lots of each - especially the little ones), pacifiers, burp cloths, a blanket, the list, purses, the little animals Stella is gripping, cell phone, "Da" AND "Mla-Mla," keys, dry cleaning, kleenex for Bean's runny nose and the babies. Then you have them in the car and think, "Well, I better do everything I can do while I have them all strapped in." So you waste so much time at the cleaners etc that your worried that the sleeping baby will wake up and the awake baby will fall asleep, they're both hungry and dirty now for sure and this grocery shop is going to be a disaster... at least thats what went through my head. I envisioned getting about five things then having to make a run for it.

Amazingly, nothing really bad happened. Stella did stock her Mama on a shelf, insist on opening and eating the goldfish, spill a package of blueberries and walk through them in the checkout line, sneak 2 BIG snickers onto the conveyor belt, then refuse to walk to the car and staged her own little sit in in the parking lot. Yeah, she just sat down right on the concrete with moving vehicles being driven by oooold people with poor eyesight whizzing all around. I tried the "Bye Bye, we're going to car" thing and she was completely fine with it. So... we had to go to the car and go back for her once Brother was in the car. ( I dont know how to carry the baby carrier and the big baby at the same time yet.)

Somehow we made it home, unloaded the groceries and got them in the right spots (or close enough) with only a little crying... and no one died!!!

The picture is of Stella having some pizza @ Will's Chuck E. Cheese birthday party last weekend.

Second Attempt

So, saying its been a while would be a pretty serious understatement...

Last Post: pre-Stella

This Post: Yates is here

I have no idea how or when good bloggers find the time to do this on a regular basis, but I'm going to try to give it another shot. Maybe since I'm glued to couch holding Yates and/or trying to rewind whatever song just ended on Sesame Street, I can squeeze in a little blog or two.

I just got Stella (who is sick) down for her nap and tried to write some thank you notes while holding Yates (he hated that idea). So now I'm still holding Yates and trying to type. I guess there's no such thing as doing one thing at a time anymore. I should have caught on to that while trying to potty holding one baby and having a conversation with a 19 month old all at the same time. Hopefully I will get into a rhythm and will figure this 2 baby thing out, but for now, I'm about 90% clueless. I have just enough of whatever it takes to keep us all from starving to death and in clean diapers and clothes.

So the excitement of the day today happened when I called the doctor to ask them what I should be doing with a sick toddler and a newborn in the same house. They were kind enough to instruct me to keep Stella away from Yates. Ooohhh... ok. I'll do that. Impossible! Poor babies. Seriously, what am I supposed to do? I can only wash hands and Purell, I guess. I just really, really, really hope Brother doesn't get sick. Its bad enough seeing Stella being sick. We'll see.

Here are the babies...

Stella watching "Sessy" with her purse, my shoes and no pants and Yates sleeping with Daddy. Aren't they cute!

Where's Stella?

So we're only hours away from our due date with no action at all. Delivery Jealousy mounts every day. First we had Gwen and Gavin... I know they were due in June, then Brangelina... I know they were too, followed by my own OB/GYN... who was due 3 days after me for a fact and that would be June also. Now we have the neighbor, Emily... originally due after me and now scheduled for a c-section on Thursday. That is June and of course perfectly fine, but I thought my baby was coming in May??? She is just a baby however... I shouldn't expect her to already know her months.
Today we had a doctors appointment and got our "membranes stripped." Yes it was as bad as it sounds, but hopefully it will help us toward our goal. If not we get to go back for round 2 on Thursday.
We've tried everything else on the planet: staying vertical, staying horizontal, staying active, staying inactive, eating an entire pineapple, having an all sports session in the backyard (softball, basketball, football, even badminton), 2 hour power walks, bike rides and most recently and desperately the breast pump and castor oil.
You'd think I would stop and say to myself, "Hmmm, it appears that this baby is not ready to come out." But no. For some reason the thought lingers that I just might, by some teeny tiny chance, have some influence on when I get to have this baby. Unfortunately, logic is out the window, but so is sleeping. What can you do?

Baby Class 3, Hospital Tour, and Work from home-ish

Today... Monday.... ewww, but "Baby Class" usually makes up for the Monday factor. Today's baby class was very real. Lots of episiotomy and tearing talk. Poor Michael couldn't wait for the next topic. Luckily I realized in the nic of time that one of our classmates, a fellow daddy to be, looks a little too much like Dwight Shrute from The Office. We got to giggle about that for a good hour. We learned all about where to go in the hospital and saw all of our room choices. Be forewarned... the curtains are so, so, so bad and the tvs actually have "wood" sides and KNOBs to change the channel!!! Wow. Good thing we aren't going to be there for the decor.
Everything else about class was quite normal. The Samoans were very kissy, as always; The Tall Skinny's asked questions that they already knew the answers to so they could nod in approval; The Teacher, Leah Sawyer, did her usual thing, but no acting out a contraction today : (; The Yucks were yuck and the She Yuck lifted her t-shirt sleeve, as she has done every class, to show her home done 10" rose tattoo and pouted the rest of the time; Circlage made sure everyone knew again that she has a circlage... nothing new... oh wait. We found out that the Germans hadn't been to class b/c She German went into early labor at 29 weeks and is now on bedrest.

Now this work from home thing isn't going exactly how I had planned. After discussing it today, it sounds like I will be able to work from home all of 3 days before I had planned to start my maternity leave any way. Oh well. We'll see what actually happens. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and the A/C in my office will be working. Yes... thats right... no A/C for the pregnant girl. Why would I want to work from home??? hmmm...

on your mark... get set...

well here we go. i have been wanting to start a "baby blog" for a while and just never could seem to get it done. my hope is to use this space to capture thoughts and moments that i want to remember. we'll see how i do : )