September Photos

August Photos

All Smiles

We're all smiles around here, these days. Okay, it's no cake-walk having two little ones and setting up a new home, and trying to find some time to sleep and talk to your spouse - but things are good. Little William just won't stop smiling and flashing those beautiful blue eyes at everyone in the family. We call him Buster Blue and marvel at the genetic Jenga that brought him to us so perfectly. Even Big Brother Buster Brown says, "He's so nice!" and takes his socks off to nuzzle his feet. Do I have pictures of any of this? No. Do I have time to do anything but keep up? No. But luckily we've had more visitors, dinner parties, and playdates than our entire time in Hawaii, so we are feeling pretty lucky. I wish that my grandmother was here to see that her genes (the blue eyes and calm disposition) have shown themselves once again in our little William Percy, named for her husband. I think she would be all smiles, too.

Happy Birthday!

Tomorrow is Buster Brown's birthday, so we celebrated today with a water balloon party and helicopter cupcakes. I'm not sure how he changed from baby to little boy in the last year, but it has definitely happened. I couldn't be prouder of him.

Happy Birthday, Matthew! I love you more than cupcakes!

New Baby

These shots are from our first week together as a family. I can't believe it's already been a month! I'm never going to catch up. I think I'll just start posting current pictures because otherwise William will be a toddler and I'll still be trying to post pictures from this first year!

Birth Day

Before I begin to tell you about the birthday, let me say that I'm not going to be posting as many pictures as I did with Matthew during the first few months. I'm trying to learn from some of the mistakes I made the first time, and one of those mistakes was putting hobbies and friendships over nursing and sleep. But today I'm feeling good, so I'm posting just a few shots from William's birthday.

I love all of my friends and family who have commented on how good I look post-labor. The truth is that the labor went so fast this time that I didn't even break a sweat. Now, don't take that to mean that it wasn't painful. It was. Very. But the last stage of the labor, the pushing part, took about ten seconds, so I didn't have a chance to really exert a lot. And I'm pretty sure these pictures were taken after I had eaten a huge plate of hospital food (one of my favorites, seriously), so my strength is back and I'm feeling great in these shots.

Jeff got to put Baby Brother under his shirt while I recuperated a bit, which scared the bejesus out of one of the nurses who came in a exclaimed, "Where's the baby?!" That was a sweet time for Jeff and his second son. Unfortunately, we've never been able to recreate it. Seems that William is quite alert and is no longer satisfied with a view of Jeff's chest hair.

Thank goodness Jeff's parents came to stay with us for a few weeks to help. They were able to take Matthew on the morning I had William so that Jeff could be with me. And I'm glad Jeff was there because the labor and delivery nurses were driving me nuts and didn't believe that a laboring woman could be as calm as I was. Jeff almost had to catch the baby himself because the nurses refused to call the midwife when Jeff saw the baby's head crowning and called for the midwife for the third time in ten minutes. All's well that ends well, though, and luckily a midwife was passing our room when she noticed the chaos of nurses trying to get things ready. I don't even know her name, but I'm glad she was there to make sure everything came out alright. (Ouch. Sorry.)

Matthew already loves his Baby Brother and hasn't lashed out much at all at the attention-hog. Truth is, Baby William is the calm, sweety we were hoping for - though I suppose we can't tell too much after only 8 days. Still, he turns his head in the direction of Matthew's voice and doesn't seem to mind having toys stuck in his face that Big Brother is "showing" him. As social as Matthew is, I think he's really going to enjoy having a playmate once we get this little one on his feet. Oh, and look at all that hair!

New Arrival!

Due Date

Today is the day that Baby Brother is, according to the medical community, supposed to grace us with his arrival into the air-breathing world. So far, no joy. But I have a theory: He's waiting until Thursday. Matthew was born the day after his Nana's birthday. Grandma's birthday is on Wednesday, so maybe Baby Brother is waiting for the day after that.

Or maybe he's just mocking the fact that I have said from the beginning that this baby will probably come early. I was worried I would have a baby in June. Or May. I was worried that all the stress from preparing to move across an ocean and the country, doing so, and waiting for a house deal that is apparently never going to go through, and chasing Child #1 would send this little one running for the hills, as it were.

But maybe the opposite is true. Maybe he's waiting until things are truly settled before making an appearance. Maybe he knows that there's only chaos out here in the world and that he's got it good in that warm, dark cave. Or maybe he's just trying to mess with me.

Whatever the reason, he hasn't arrived yet. I appreciate all the calls and emails to check in on me, and I apologize that I don't have more to report. It's business-as-usual around here: mornings out with Matthew, quiet time in the afternoon, evenings spent catching up with Papa, and nights full of tossing, turning, and peeing. Speaking of which...

Hide & Seek

Baby Brother is winning our latest game of hide and seek. We think we know where he is, we've even been calling to him to come out and join us because we're all sick of playing now, but he has other ideas. The size of my belly is closing in on ridiculous, so I'm pretty sure he's still with me and not in the bushes, but Matthew insists on looking anyway. Stay tuned to find out when he decides to come out of hiding...

Happy Fourth

Matthew and I went to the Fourth of July Kids Parade today a few blocks from our house in our new stroller. I didn't realize that we would actually be part of the parade, or I would have done a better job of decorating the stroller. Actually, that's a lie. I'm too huge and hot to go the extra mile these days. Luckily someone gave us a little flag so we didn't embarrass ourselves!

We had fun making pinwheels and hanging out with our neighbor, Rachel, and her new little boy. Then we headed over to the air station for the first time to check out Papa's new work digs and the cookout they had for the folks on duty. The "tup-tup" I put on Matthew's hot dog, ended up mostly on his his white shirt. Voila - Red, white, and blue outfit!

After lunch, we headed over to the helicopter hangar for a tour. Matthew absolutely LOVES helicopters, so he had a great time pressing buttons and turning knobs. Luckily, one of the helo crew went with us so we didn't break anything. Then Matthew ran around like he owned the place for a few minutes before we came home to get some sleep in anticipation of tonight's fireworks show!

The Belly

I realized that I haven't posted hardly any pictures of my belly during this pregnancy. So I asked Jeff to take a few pictures while we were out at the beach yesterday. *Warning: There are a couple of gratuitous belly shots below, so don't scroll down if you aren't prepared!*

This pregnancy seems to have flown by in some ways, and in others I feel like I've been pregnant forever. So much has changed since I heard those magical words from the doctor, "You're a little bit pregnant." That's the last time I ever ask the doctor to "throw in" a pregnancy test to the lab work while my husband is out of town. He finally guessed the news over the phone since I kept saying, "Maybe it wouldn't be that bad if we didn't have to move this summer after all. Or maybe we could leave really early. Or maybe my mother could come and live with us. What do you think?"
And I'm so thankful that we decided to find out that this one is a boy. (Though, I must admit now that I'm not entirely convinced, even after seeing pretty obvious signs on the ultrasound.) We were pretty sure that this one was a girl from the very beginning because so much about the pregnancy was different. Even now, this little one is so so so active. He makes my stomach shake like a bowl full of jelly. Most days I feel more like Sigourney Weaver in Alien than the peaceful mama on all the pregnancy ads.

My belly is different, too. Matthew was like a box. With him, the belly went straight out from the rib cage, then straight down, then straight back in at the pelvis. It looked like I'd swallowed a flat rate box. This little one is much pointier, like a satellite. And my belly is rounder and juts out at the belly button, which is really attractive, especially when it precludes me from being able to cover the entirety of my belly. Matthew gets an eye-full, I know, because he likes to put stickers on my belly (ostensibly for Baby Brother) underneath the horizon, so sometimes Jeff informs me that I have stickers on my belly that have likely been there for hours.

And I can't tell you how many times I've looked down to find remnants of something I've eaten on my shirt. The worst is olive oil, which looks a lot like water when it hits, but never seems to dry. So I think I've just splashed from the sink, only to realize some time later that I still have stains on my shirt. The other day, a teenager at the supermarket pointed out that the olive oil stains on my shirt looked like a happy face on my belly. He was so enthusiastic about it that I was hard-pressed to be upset. But it did take some convincing that I had not, in fact, done that on purpose.

I will say, though, that throughout the past nine months, I've felt pretty relaxed. I don't know if it's the surging hormones, but I have been as Zen as is possible for my A-type personality. I hope it doesn't all go to crap once I deliver, but I'll admit that I'm bracing for the worst. But things have to go better this time, don't they? I'm older, I'm more experienced in parenthood, and I've adjusted to life as a stay-at-home mom. No matter that we've only lived in this area for a couple of months, or that Jeff is starting a job that will have him working longer hours and possibly deploying more often. Ignore the fact that we're moving into a new home just a few days or weeks after the baby's born, or that Matthew will be transitioning to his first day school situation within weeks of baby's birth.

The fact is I'd go through the whole thing again to have a child as wonderful as Matthew. Just be forewarned: This blog may get a bit dark for a while, but the sun will come out...

Pappy's Visit

Last weekend, Matthew's PawPaw came to visit. By the end of the weekend, he was Pappy and we were all sad to see him go. On our last night together, we checked out a Tampa Bay Rays game. Pappy is a big baseball fan, and Matthew's initials spell MLB, so we knew it would be a memorable occasion. Matthew's favorite part were the peanuts, which his Papa and Pappy couldn't shell fast enough for him. At one point he was eating the shell out of pure desperation.

Later on, I think he was getting full because he pulled a partially-chewed, dried cranberry out of his mouth and stuck it right in Pappy's! I saw the whole thing, but it was loud in the ballpark and I wasn't quick enough to intercept. Luckily, Jeff caught the moment immediately after the trade on film. We would have stayed longer, but by the 5th inning, I was in so much pain from sitting that I had to throw in the towel. These days, I don't have much room to myself with what feels like another tall, and even more active, baby boy inside.

Matthew really enjoyed himself at the game and talked for days about going to the "baseball game up high". He was especially impressed at the hitting which was profuse, but mostly achieved by the opposing team. No matter and we had a lot of fun. The stadium here is lots of fun. They have cool things like this horse that Matthew played "Bronco" on. Doesn't he look like he's ready for the rodeo? Anyway, we had a wonderful weekend and Matthew can't stop talking about "Pappy come back soon"!

Whale Watching

Tonight we went whale watching after dinner. Oh, wait. My bad. We actually went swimming, but this picture of me in my I'm-to-cheap-to-buy-a-maternity-bathing-suit had me fooled there for a second. It looks like my body has eaten my suit. If this picture had been taken head-on with Matthew in my lap, it might look like I'm wearing nothing at all. Which, let's face it, isn't far from the truth. Good lord. The local pool is great and during the summers they have evening swim in the super fun activity pool. Tonight was the first time that Matthew has even really seemed to enjoy being in the water. He loves his bath and he loves throwing things into water, but he has never been comfortable in the water until tonight. He even wanted to go down one of the water slides, but I put my foot down on that one because I wasn't convinced he knew what he was asking.

In fact, Matthew's fear of water is the reason that we decided to shave his hair off. After months and months of apprehensive hair washes, things reached a fever pitch a few weeks ago with screaming in the bathtub anytime we got near his head with a cup of water. So, I solved the problem by eliminating the need for hair-washing for the moment. I'm hoping that my the time his nice highlights have grown back in, he'll be ready to do the deed himself. So far, so good.

Matthew calls his new haircut the Fuzzy Buzzy, which usually comes out sounding more like "Suzzy Buzzy". (I'm posting a video of him saying this, so check the sidebar to hear it for yourself.) It's precious when he talks. And boy does he talk. He must get it from me because the child doesn't stop talking unless he's eating or sleeping. He likes to talk about putting keys into locks, playing "cockpit" (playing in the front seat of the car), helicopters taking off and crashing, squirrels and Papa eating peanuts, and whether or not it's time to eat (specifically whether ice cream, cupcakes, or cookies might be on the menu).

We're trying to be patient while waiting to hear about the house that we've got an offer in on. I've resigned myself to the fact that we'll be in temporary accommodations when Baby Brother arrives, but I certainly can't complain. I can, however, say that I'm freaking out about not having enough food put away in the freezer and I've been killing myself to cook a pot roast, 2 meatloaves, and a lasagna in the last two days. Luckily, Jeff was around to make dinner because I forgot about the immediate need for food in my quest to feed us in the future. Ah...hormones!

Nana's Visit

This weekend, Nana came to visit and we had a great time showing her all of the new parks we've discovered in the past few weeks. I'm big as a house these days, so I spent most of the time trying to find a place to sit down, or an excuse to go back into the air conditioning. Overall, I'm feeling good, and it was so nice to have a visit from family when we've been so far apart for so long.