Childs Tracks

Timothy had his first visit to the doctor today, at 1 month old.

Weight: 10 lbs 1 oz

Height: 21″

Ignore the 10 lb weight of the last post… my bathroom scale was not very accurate. It said 10 lbs one day and 5.5 lbs another day! But at 3 weeks old, he was 9 lbs 8 oz. Still an excellent weight gain!

Things are going well overall. Reflux pain has kicked in, so he’s not been too happy the last few days especially, but we got Zantac today, so hopefully that will get better soon! Otherwise, he’s nice and healthy. He nurses great, sleeps plenty, has some nice alert wakey times, and makes Daddy proud with some of his burps.

Tuesday, June 16, I brought Bosco and Kira inside in the evening. About 30 minutes later, Bosco started vomiting white foam. He was bloating. I sent Doug to the emergency vet with him, and at first the vet thought he’d be fine, but then x-rays showed that his intestines had twisted up on themselves. We had him try surgery, but his stomach and intestines were already dying. Bosco was put to sleep. He was a our honeymooon puppy… our first baby. He taught us a lot about parenting. He was a beast in his puppy days, but grew up to be a wonderful adult dog, and we deeply miss him.

A couple days after Bosco left us, we realized that we needed another dog. Kira was needing a friend, and so was the rest of the family. Doug looked online at the GSRCA website and found just the right dog for us at this point in time… His name was Kelly. We’ve changed his name to Dax. Saturday morning, we loaded up the kids and Kira into the van, plus an empty crate for Dax, and headed down to Montgomery – about 3 hours away. We all barely fit, Aaron had to prop his feet up on Kira’s crate, and you had to turn Kira’s crate to get her in and out, and you had to lift Dax’s crate completely out of the van to get him in and out.  We met Dax and let Kira get to know him. They got along great and we liked him too, so we brought him home.

Dax is doing really well in his new home. He and Kira complement each other well. She’s calmed down a bit with his influence (although she still counter surfs and gets into the trash!), and he enjoys playing a bit with her. The kids like Dax as well. He’s a very laid back dog, making him easier to fit into the chaos that is young children.

Timothy was 7 lbs 8 oz at birth, 7 lbs 10 oz at 3 days old (didn’t lose weight), 8.5 lbs at 10 days, and now is 10 lbs even at 2.5 weeks!!! Apparently, the BBQ Doug has fed me the last couple weeks has done a lot of good!

Things are going well with baby. He’s obviously eating well. He sleeps well too. He pretty much sleeps most of the day, waking up now and then to eat, and then he’ll have a couple awake periods at some point, sometimes lasting 45 minutes or longer. At night, he’s sleeping about 2-3 hours at a time.

He has a very strong neck. He likes to hold his head up, but of course it’s still at the wobbly stage. When on his tummy, he can lift his head and turn it from side to side.

He hates diaper changes still, and screams his head off the entire time. Loads of fun. But I have to change his diaper in order to get him to eat, because he’s a finicky nurser! He has to be completely awake and not having any gas issues in order to nurse at all. But once he starts nursing, he’s incredibly efficient. He’s done pretty quick, and doesn’t comfort nurse (very similar to Aaron in that regard).

Life with 3 is going fine. Aaron is learning that I can still catch him even if I’m holding the baby. Aaron also wants me to hold his hand more when walking somewhere (even within the house), but that’s fine. Joshua’s been a GREAT help… especially getting me diapers when tons of poop is coming out and I have run out of diapers to catch it with. Timothy has great aim, and has peed on his own face once, peed on the boppy twice, pooped on my lap twice, and of course peed randomly during diaper changes a million times. You would think I’d be good at covering them up during a diaper change when it’s my third boy!

So all in all, things are going well. We see the midwife again on Monday at 3 weeks old.

Timothy David Childs was born today, May 25, at 4:01am. He weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and was 20″ long. In usual fashion, he was 1 day shy of 37 weeks, just like his brother Aaron! Nonetheless, he is very healthy and doing great!

The birth took place at a rented house in TN, attended by midwives. This birth was completely different from the others, in that I actually had time to mosey on up there AND get in the water. So Timothy was a successful waterbirth! Yay!

He’s nursing well, has slept much of the day, and his brothers seem to like him so far. Aaron likes to come up and say “baby feet!” as he points to his feet.

Mom and Dad are both tired from being up all night (and Mom from laboring, of course), but we are also doing well and happily resting at home.

I’m 36 weeks 2 days today. Pregnancy has continued to go well. I’m now getting a good bit more uncomfortable, as baby is probably 7 lbs now. He has been vertex (head down) for about 4 weeks now, and was on the right side, facing my left. The other day, he decided to flip to the middle, facing my back. That’s the position they typically come out in, so it’s a good thing, but it’s making my belly protrude more!

As of this week, my midwife is on call, so if baby decides to come, we don’t have to go to the hospital. Yay! I’m hoping he’ll get closer to 37 weeks… even 38 weeks might be nice (just to avoid some preemie-like tendencies), but Aaron was 36w6d, so we’ll see what this one decides to do.

I lost my sewing mojo for several weeks, but finally cleaned off my cutting table this week and started sewing diapers again. I’ve done 2 covers and 2 fitteds this week. It’s progress! I’ll just keep working on them until he makes his appearance!

Last night, we had a van issue that Doug had to get fixed. I told baby to stay in until the van was fixed. He listened. Yay! Van got fixed this morning. We moved all the car seats around last weekend, so the older boys are in the very back now, a captain’s chair has been removed from the middle row, and the baby’s car seat is installed in the other captain’s chair. The boys seem to like their new configuration. Aaron can even use the cup holder back there, which is awesome. Maybe there won’t be sippy on the floor anymore! I’m able to fairly easily strap them both in, even at this size, so it’s not too bad. Joshua unbuckles himself and Aaron, so I don’t have to climb in for that part.

As far as how I’m holding up… My hips ache when I sleep on them, and my pelvis is rotating more easily now. Everything is obviously loosening up for the upcoming birth. I can’t stand up too quickly or I’ll be in pain. I’m also getting a LOT of Braxton-Hicks contractions, but those are not painful… just annoying. Pretty much, if I walk across the room, I’ll get one. :p But I haven’t had any prodromal labor or anything like that, so I’ll count my blessings. I’m hoping to avoid that, since I’m likely to labor quickly, and I don’t need a bunch of false starts confusing me! Midwife is an hour away, and it will probably take my mom close to that amount of time to get here to watch the kids. And I’m *really* hoping to get a waterbirth this time. We saw the birth house a couple weeks ago, and it is awesome. The people that have been working on renovations have done a great job. It looks so nice inside, and the hot tub is nice and large. Hopefully I’ll get to use it this time.

The kids are still excited about the baby. Aaron often runs up to me, pointing at my belly, and yelling “Baby! Baby!” He also will point to various baby equipment (bassinet, bouncy chair) and say “Baby!” So I’m pretty sure he understands. Joshua is looking forward to it as well, and when I say baby might come in May or June, he says “I think June.” He wants the baby to be in the same month as him.

Well, that’s what’s going on with me. The next post in this category will hopefully be an announcement!

I’ll actually be 29 weeks tomorrow. Weeeeee!

Had my 28 week OB and midwife appts last week. Everything is peachy keen. Fundus was measuring 29cm (should be roughly the same as gestational age, give or take a couple cm), so that’s good. Baby was kind of diagonal last week, but midwife was pretty sure she was feeling a shoulder down low, so he was working his way toward vertex. This morning, I actually felt movement top and bottom on the same side, so I think he’s vertex now! Or at least was this morning. He still has plenty of room to flip around.

I’m overall feeling good, with the exception of some SPD (Symphisis Pubic Dysfunction) that my chiropractor works on weekly and keeps me walking. Before that, I was starting to not be able to walk at night especially – very painful. I have some stretches I can do now to keep me going all week.

I’ve been working on the baby’s diapers. Once I finish the soaker, I’ll put up pictures of his bamboo velour diaper that is so soft and squishy!!!

The kids are excited about the baby. Joshua looks forward to playing hockey with him. Aaron… well, he loves babies in general.

Joshua is almost 5! He starts Kindergarten in August of this year, and he had registration last night. He got to meet his teacher and see the classroom. He enjoyed himself. The teacher is really sweet and sounds like she’ll have a really fun class. She told the kids they’d get to stick their hands in pudding and shaving cream. We’ll see if Joshua does that, as he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty! They also get to ride a “pickle” for field trips, which is the green school bus. I know Joshua will love that!

The teacher asked the kids to draw their families on the white paper at their seats while she talked to the parents about curriculum and such. Joshua drew a rainbow. He’s not really an artist, and isn’t much into drawing yet, so I think he wasn’t quite sure what to do! If she’d said to draw a letter or a number or a hockey game, he could probably have done that.

Joshua is looking forward to school. Lately, he’s been counting to 100 (over and over and over again), “chunking” words (sounding out each part of the word and putting it together, pointing out sight words that he knows (plenty of them!), and telling me addition facts like 6 + 3 = 9. He learns a lot of this via starfall.com. There’s one story on there that does some math, and the rest he asks me and just remembers what I’ve told him! He’s definitely got a math brain, which isn’t surprising. Both his parents are good at math. His mommy even enjoyed calculus.

Joshua has a few friends in the class already, including his best friend Daniel. Joshua and Daniel are very similar kids (both will likely be geeks as they get older!), and Joshua has spent the night at Daniel’s house a couple times. So they play pretty well together and are both excited that they’ll be in school together. While Joshua is very much like his mommy in personality (shy!), I think he’s a little more willing to go play with other kids he doesn’t know, so I’m sure he’ll make lots of friends.

Now the fun part will be getting mommy ready to go early enough that we can all get out of the house and get to school before 8am! This morning, Joshua is so tired from the excitement of last night that he actually asked to go back to sleep. It’s 9:20am and he’s in bed sleeping some more.

Aaron is almost 28 months old! In December, he got tubes in his ears, and his speech has vastly improved since then. I can actually understand the 2-3 word sentences he’s trying to tell me! He still drops the end consonants off most of his words, but he’s starting to add a few here and there. I can certainly understand a lot more than I could before, and my Aaron to English dictionary grows by the day.

He enjoys playing hockey everyday with his big brother, and he also likes to sit and watch Joshua play starfall.com. Since I pulled out my exercise ball to use as a desk chair (good for pregnancy posture), they’ve confiscated by actual desk chair to use at their computer. Normally, they used to stand up to use the computer. Now they sit together in the chair and it’s very cute.

For Christmas, Aaron got a Hot Wheels set – the Mega City Pack and 10 cars. These are up in his room, and he has two favorite cars that he sleeps with. I call them his “sleeping cars”. Yes, normal children would sleep with stuffed animals. My child sleeps with Hot Wheels. I’m pretty sure Aaron will enjoy helping his daddy fix cars when he’s tall enough.

Aaron is also a helper around the house. He still empties the dishwasher for me, and he also empties the dryer.

Size… Haven’t weighed/measured him recently, but last time I did, which was maybe a month or two ago, he was about 38.5″ and 33 lbs. He wears size 4T shirts and size 2T or 3T pants (kind of inbetween sizes at the moment).

Oh, Aaron also likes to do Wii Fit with me and Joshua, and it’s funny to watch him do Yoga and the Advanced Step! He has his own balance board, which is a wooden box from a Melissa and Doug toy set. He turns it over and steps on and off, side to side, etc. Or he’ll stand on it and put his arms up and lean to the side for Half Moon pose, or he’ll put his leg behind him and put his arms out for Warrior pose. Very cute. I really need to do a video of him and Joshua doing Wii Fit with me.

Slacker me has not updated pretty much the entire time I’ve been pregnant, including the pregnancy announcement itself, so… I’m pregnant. It’s a boy (we think… u/s was not THAT clear, so still could go the other way, but we’re planning boy stuff).

I’m due June 16. Pregnancy has gone well so far. I’ve felt good up until a couple weeks ago when my hips started hurting a bit, and then last weekend I had some severe leg pain that seemed to be around the veins of my leg (but no noticeable changes in the veins), but a chiro visit this week has made me feel MUCH better and I can now walk again. I did pretty well getting this far before needing the chiro. Last time, I had to start around 12 weeks. So yay for exercise and strong abs!

At our 20 week u/s, baby was measuring just a couple days ahead, which is a bit strange for my kids – they usually measure 2 weeks ahead by now. Of course, that just influences are skepticalness about the gender result, but maybe this boy is doing a growth spurt later, or maybe he will actually get past 37 weeks? Who knows! All important parts were present, and baby looks to be perfectly healthy.

Pictures of the u/s are available in the “Nursery #3″ album of the Photo Gallery.

Aaron is 2 years old!

Weight: 32 lbs (~90%)

Height: 36″ (~85%)

He’s doing everything he’s supposed to be doing, except talking, but he has made progress with that, even in the last month. He’s repeating a LOT of words now. He goes for a hearing test this week, and then we go back to the regular ped in 2 months to see where we are with speech. The pronunciation is the difficult part, since it’s hard to tell if the language is there if you can’t understand any of the words he says, but pronunciation is typically dealt with at school age, whereas language is dealt with now if it’s a problem. But we’re getting there. The good news is that even though he’s had a cold for a couple weeks, he did NOT have an ear infection when he went for his doctor’s appt! Yipee! That’s two colds in a row that he’s not gotten an infection. So it looks like he is outgrowing the ear infections, which is common around this age. He’s still miserable with the cold (as am I… and Joshua has come down with it too), but hopefully that will clear up soon.

The boys dressed up as pirates for Halloween, and they got to go trick-or-treating. It took Aaron a little bit to figure out what was going on. He tried to go inside a couple houses and got upset when we wouldn’t let him. Eventually he got it and started holding out his pumpkin for candy. He got tired toward the end, so Doug put him on his shoulders, which prompted the pirate/parrot jokes. Turned out that his tiredness was mostly from lugging around the heavy pumpkin!

Aaron has been to two hockey games this season, and he really enjoys watching the players. He’ll just sit there and watch for most of it. Towards the end, when he gets deliriously tired, he’ll want to crawl on me and such, but for at least the first two periods, he usually just sits nicely in his own seat and watches the game. At home, he loves “gah-gee” as he calls it, complete with spatula and backward hat. I suspect Aaron will be on the ice a bit sooner than Joshua was.