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.
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!
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...
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!
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.
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. 
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.
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!
Life is pretty sweet here in Florida. Jeff has been taking some much-deserved time off for the last few weeks and we've been settling in to our new community. We live in a rented condo for the moment, while we wait for word on our new house. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I don't think we'll be in our new home before the new baby arrives. Luckily, the interim place Jeff found is beautiful, fully-furnished, and only two blocks from the house so the transition shouldn't be too hard when it's time.
We live about two blocks from some of the prettiest water in Florida. We're on the bay side of the peninsula, so there are lots of breathtakingly beautiful birds. Matthew can already identify by name an ibis, a seagull, a pelican, and a duck. One of our favorite things to do is to walk over to the water and watch the pelicans dive-bombing for fish. It's really quite impressive and I would not want to be an unlucky fish.
Of course, the best thing about the water near our house is that there are manatees who regularly show up. When Matthew first saw these big, beautiful creatures, he was with his Nana, so now he calls them nanatees. I'm not sure how much he understands about their name, but he definitely knows that he likes them. We see these guys at least once a week on our walks along the water, and I hope I never get so used to seeing them that it doesn't fill me with gratitude for our new life.
When we get too hot, we usually head over to the children's museum around the corner. It's one of the best I've ever seen and I think Matthew's parents have as much fun as he does. It's run by Americorps volunteers and the people are so good with kids. Each day, they have a show-and-tell presentation where the kids can hold a spider or draw a picture of a fish. The even have parenting classes, which Jeff and I love because it's oh-so-challenging to have a toddler on your hands 24-7. 
We have gotten lots of inquiries as to our whereabouts, well being, and future plans in the last few weeks. The truth is that we are fine and enjoying our new life in Florida. I wish I could say that we have all been well during the past weeks, but Matthew and I both fought through colds following our multi-flight journey, and now he is battling an unknown illness that has caused him to have alarmingly high fever for the last four days without other symptoms. Luckily, we have Jeff to help nurse us both to health, and I'm hopeful that we'll be back on our healthy feet again soon.
After our car was stolen a few weeks before our move from Hawaii (did I mention that already?), we were not looking forward to purchasing a new one. But car negotiations in Florida - and in this "new" economy - just aren't what we went through in Hawaii, and we now have a beautiful new car, car seat, and car toys to carry us around town. Jeff's car has arrived in Orlando and we're trying to figure out the best way to retrieve it that doesn't involve listening to car-seat-whining for the 2 hour drive there and back. We're putting that off until next week.
After 10 days in a hotel when we first arrived, we moved into a beautiful, furnished condo that Jeff found. He's truly the best at researching options and I'm thankful each day that he's on my team. Having a washer, dryer, dishwasher, couch, and no one knocking on the door to ask if we want housekeeping is priceless, not to mention the fact that this place is cheaper than the hotel and in the neighborhood where we're trying to find a house.
Finally, our big little boy continues to amaze and entertain us. He's all words now. We taught him his colors and now he's able to make compound phrases like "white airplane" and "Blue Thomas [the train]". What's more, he says, "I see" in front of things he sees, making him the youngest child ever to form a sentence (or something like that). My favorite phrase of his is "swim soup" as in, "Let's put on our swim soup and go to the pool." In the last two days, he's started saying what things are NOT. For instance, we've been teaching him his letters and he's been saying that A is "sailboat" because of its shape, I suppose. This morning, he walked in and pointed to the A and said, "not sailboat". When I praised him and asked him what it was, he said, "A". So smart.
A few days before we moved out of our house in Hawaii, Buster Brown put his shoes on all by himself and set off on a walk before I had even stepped out of the house. I guess the days of dependence on mommy are not long for this world. Of course, his shoes are on the wrong feet, so maybe I've got a few more years things to teach after all.
