Saturday, December 31, 2011

Out of town company

We are already to January 3rd, and I have yet to catch you up on all the excitement around here. So I am still behind on the blog posts. This one comprises December 26th through yesterday. And once this is published, I will be all caught up. Who would have thought that having two children would be so time consuming?
  Heather's mom and step-dad were able to come in town to visit. They got to play with Sara Beth and hold Hudson, which meant that Heather and I could sit and have a bit of a break.  I think everyone thought they were getting the good end of the deal on that one.
 While shopping at the local Sam's Club, Sara Beth went in one cart with "Ms Cindy and Mr Dennis" and went off in one direction while Heather and I went in another direction to fill our own cart. When we met up at the checkout lane, our cart was full of practical items like cat litter and popcorn, while Sara Beth's cart had some strikingly pink items in it. When we got home, Sara Beth had to try on her new stuff.
 This past week, we also went ice skating for the first time. Sara Beth enjoyed it, as long as I held her up. I enjoyed it too, once I found a pair of ice skates that did not crush my feet into pulp. And holding up 40 pounds of dead weight while in a crouch was a good back workout.
At one point, she did want to ice skate on her own. She successfully went back and forth from me to the wall of the rink several times, then she wanted me to help her spin like the professionals on TV. After a while, we had to get off the ice for the Zamboni machine. The driver kept smiling and waving at Sara Beth as he circled past. Sara Beth decided she wanted to meet the driver after he was done on the ice.  I was not as amused about her wanting to hang out with the first guy that gave her attention.
At the end of last week, Assi and her friend Sue were able to come by. It was good to catch up with Assi, and, of course, it is always fun to show off Hudson to whomever comes by to visit.

  I think Hudson really enjoyed everyone that came in town and held him last week. Now, he figures that he needs to be held at all times, and if he is not being held, then he will work his hardest to inform us of this. We're slowly easing him back into the real world. 


Christmas

Well, these weeks seem to be going by more and more quickly. Hopefully it had something to do with it being Christmas. Yes, I do know Christmas was already a week ago. And, yes, I'm behind on the blog posting, I'm planning on catching up this weekend.
  So, lets get started.  Jill came down for a week of relaxation before Christmas. And how better to relax than with a sleeping Hudson. He works like a tranquilizer.
On Christmas eve, we went to my parents' church along with Heather's aunt, uncle, and cousins. Right as we sat down for the service, Hudson started to make noises in his sleep as if he were hungry, so Heather whisked him out to get ready to feed him, but he wouldn't eat. After service, we all went back to my parents' house, and Hudson decided to finally eat right as we were sitting down for dinner. He successfully prevented Heather from being in the service and from eating with the rest of us. He has pretty good timing for things like that, but on the other hand, Hudson gave us a wonderful Christmas present by nearly sleeping through the night. He got up at midnight and 4am, but slept the rest of the night!
  That helped us get some rest because Sara Beth was definitely ready to open her Christmas presents in the morning. We let her open the gifts in her stocking and then got ready to go to church since it was Sunday morning.
 After church, we went to my parents' house for lunch, and then back to our house to unwrap the mountains of gifts that had appeared. It was a little crazy how much there was to unwrap. We went around the circle unwrapping gifts one at a time. About half way through, Sara Beth grew tired of unwrapping and went in the other room to play with the gifts she already had, so the rest of us took turns unwrapping the rest of her gifts.
 We tried three different times to get a Christmas family photo. In every situation, at least one person was rather unhappy.
 I may just have to break out the photoshop tools and create a composite photo.
Notice that in the one photo where Sara Beth decides to smile, Hudson decides that he is now unhappy.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Rotovirus

Well, this was a long week. In the middle of the night, I hear Sara Beth calling from her room, "my tummy hurts". I go back and take her to the bathroom and bring her back to bed. She still says that her stomach hurts and asks for some tummy medicine. She has done this many times before as a delay tactic to avoid me going back to sleep. I tell her she's fine and make her lay down to go back to sleep. Then she vomits. All over her bed. And her hair.
  So it turns out she really wasn't crying wolf this time. We have been very fortunate as this is the first time she has been really sick. She mostly laid around the house not eating until she felt better Thursday.
Hudson, on the other hand, has been eating like crazy and growing like a weed. Heather took Sara Beth to the Dr to check out what was causing the vomiting. While there, Hudson got a checkup, and the Dr's exact words were "this amount of growth is not typical". He has gained another pound.
  But he now fusses through the night, so that had cut into our allocated sleep time too. Who thought having kids would be so tiring :)

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Hudson's dedication

Well, you know how I have been saying that Hudson is a champion sleeper and that Heather and I have been getting tons of rest? Well, I take it all back. The past several nights, he has been a rather restless sleeper, and has kept Heather and I up most of the night. This more closely matches the expectations about having another infant around, and we did get some reflux medicine for Hudson on Friday that should help with the issue.

The big news is today, we stood up in front of the church to dedicate ourselves as parents to raising Hudson as part of a God oriented family. Sara Beth came up to, though I held her the whole time since she was a little apprehensive about being in front of the whole church.
A package came in the mail from Heather's dad and Assi on Friday. Sara Beth saw the gift to her and asked to open it early. Heather acquiesced, and Sara Beth got to work playing with her new unicorn puzzle, though she did need a little help putting it back together again. 
Hudson has really started to fill out. He definitely has a double chin now, and, in addition to keeping us up in the middle of the night, he is also starting to be more aware of us during the daytime, and has begin to track us with his eyes.
 He is also getting really good at pooping. Really good. The picture doesn't really do this justice, so let me give the story. Friday night, Heather is playing with Sara Beth while I go to give Hudson a bath. I draw the bath water and undress him. I then take off his diaper as I move him up into the tub but not quickly enough. He squirts a good amount of poop onto my pants. At this point, I stop and call out to Heather to bring me a wipe to clean myself off. Hudson then squirts some more onto my other pant leg. I figure he is definitely done by this point, but he proves me wrong by then pooping again on the carpet and the side of the tub. Needless to say, Heather ended up giving Hudson a bath while I took a shower.
Quite often, we are asked how Sara Beth is handling being a big sister. So far, she has been wonderful. If Hudson is crying in his swing, she will ask if she can go push him. She tries to help me carry his car seat around, and this morning, she sat down in front of him and ate her breakfast while watching him sleep.
School let out for winter break last Thursday, so they celebrated their happy birthday Jesus party in class that day. They had a book exchange.
 And got to eat cupcakes. They also had juice boxes, but  nearly all juice boxes contain apple juice in them. Sara Beth's digestive system reacts poorly to apple juice (in her own words, she has said it turns her poop into syrup). Fortunately, Heather had a spare water bottle for Sara Beth to drink, so we were syrup free that day.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

More cookies and a bath

First of, Heather wanted to point out that Hudson grew 1.75 inches for his 2 week checkup, not a measly 1 inch. I stand corrected.

Since Hudson arrived and Heather has been recovering from the c-section, I have made her lay low and stick to reduced activity levels. But when Sara Beth requested to bake Christmas cookies with Heather, she couldn't resist saying no. Sara Beth was having a lot of fun until too many of the yellow sprinkles gushed from the container. That resulted in some tears, but it all got resolved in the end and eventually all the cookies were decorated and she ended up giving some to her teachers at school.
 Hudson got his first bath yesterday. Sara Beth said she wanted to help, and we figured it wouldn't be an issue for a little while. Sara Beth actually did a good job of cleaning his belly and arms. I handled everything below the waist, and Heather cleaned Hudson's face and hair. All in all, it was a success.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Growing like a weed

Hudson went in for his two week checkup on Friday. He has gained 13 ounces (up to 7 pounds 6 ounces) and has grown nearly an inch since he was last measured 10 days ago. If he continues at this rate, he will overtake his sister before he is 6 months old. Also, I found that I enjoy making him ride a cat like a cowboy.
 So, in the past couple days, Sara Beth has asked two big questions. First, she asked if we could get another baby. She wanted another baby brother or sister. While that is a huge compliment to Hudson's temperament, we told her God made our family with four in it.Then, she asked if Santa Clause was real, I sort of side stepped that question as I was not prepared to answer it yet.

After lunch on Friday, she asked if she could do some dusting around the house. I gave her the duster and told her to go wild. And, as you see, she is in her gymnastics leotard. She is enamored with gymnastics.
 In case she didn't love going to the gym enough, today, one of her fellow gym classmates had her 4th birthday party and rented out the gym to play. Sara Beth had a great time getting to use the big girl equipment. She loved running up to the horse and then I would help her jump up onto it, then she would leap from there into the foam pit. There was a rope swing into the pit as well, but she bumped the rope into her teeth and didn't want to do it again after that. I tried the rope swing after all the kids went into the other room to eat cake and ended up tearing off a layer of skin from rope burn. I think the lesson here is that I need to develop a stronger grip.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Cookies and Tummies

Yesterday, I worked a full day at my job, the first full day since Hudson arrived. Heather has almost completely recovered from her c-section. I can tell she is doing better because she has resumed cleaning and laundry again instead of allowing anyone else to do it for her. 

Today, Heather and the kids went over to my parents house to help bake Christmas cookies. Sara Beth studiously placed the red-hots on the cookie Christmas wreaths and pressed out the sugar cookies.
 We thought that Hudson should start doing his "tummy time." Sara Beth loved it, never fussing when she was placed onto her stomach, and Hudson appears to be the same way. He pulled his head up and looked around for quite a while. Sara Beth sat next to him and practiced her flash cards for colors, shapes and letters. She got all of them right and was showing them to Hudson one at a time so he could get a head start on learning.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Family, games and books

Heather's aunt and uncle were able to come over on Sunday to hang out for a while. Hudson, of course, made an excellent arm warmer while Sara Beth performed her duties as a tour guide, pointing out her play room, her room, and Hudson's room.
 I have been trying out different genres of video games with Sara Beth to see if any of them interest her. So far, she has gotten a kick out of the original Mario Brothers and Marble Madness. This weekend, I tried the more recent Zelda: Wind Waker. She really enjoyed the more cartoon appearance to the game and so we played it for a couple hours over the course of the weekend. Sara Beth sat in my lap and helpfully pointed out whenever I missed a coin or when to hide when I tried to sneak past a guard.
 I went into work for the first time since Hudson was born. I only worked in the morning, so that I could slowly ease back into things. I was a little concerned that Sara Beth had gotten used to me around the house and would cause trouble now that I wasn't around. I needn't have worried. Instead, she tucked Hudson into a custom made pink bed (with Heather's help), and then read to him.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Glass and pictures

Well, yesterday was exciting. Sara Beth got to go to the urgent care center. She stepped on a piece of glass, and it embedded itself too far into her foot for me to extract. So we go to the local urgent care center. All the way, she is asking if she is going to get a shot, and we couldn't give her a definitive answer. The answer turned out to be yes, the doctor did give a shot of lidocaine before digging around in her food. That was Sara Beth's least favorite part of the trip. Her favorite part was when they gave her a handful of suckers to munch on, though one did end up getting stuck in her hair.
 Heather made some tutus for our friend Melissa. In exchange, Melissa said she would take some photos of Sara Beth and Hudson. From what I saw, the photos look excellent.  She really has a way with kids.
 Initially, Sara Beth was not interested in getting her photo taken at all. After some persuasion and a pep-talk, she reluctantly agreed to it. About half way through, she really got into it, especially when she saw that Hudson got his picture taken too. Every shot that Hudson got, she wanted to be photographed in a duplicate pose. This got difficult when Hudson's picture was taken in a basket that Sara Beth couldn't fit.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

A warm December

Its December first, which means: first day of the advent calendar. Sara Beth has been eagerly awaiting this day since we put it up at the beginning of the week. After a busy morning of practicing her gymnastics moves around the living room, Sara Beth got the opportunity to open the first door. 
 Hudson still sleeps like a champ. He did cause a little trouble last night around 1am when he couldn't decide whether he was hungry or sleepy, and he kept deciding the opposite of what we were providing at that moment.Once we began stripping of his swaddled blankets and me poking him, he stayed awake long enough to finish eating and the crisis was averted.
 We got several packages in the mail today. Hudson got an authentic University of Alabama outfit from Heather's dad, which Heather was very excited about, and Sara Beth got a box of candy from Heather's cousin, which she was excited about.
 She got to take the sucker with her while we went on a walk around the block, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather. By the time we got home, this is what Sara Beth's face looked like.
 Also, while on the walk, Sara Beth found a burnt out Christmas light that she wanted to turn into a necklace. I eagerly got out the soldering iron out and began to attach a ring to the bottom of the light bulb to loop some ribbon through. She was excited, until it began to smoke and emit the typical solder odors. Then she was less interested in being nearby.
 I must say, Hudson is like a tranquilizer. I planned to hold him on the couch for a while. Heather took this picture of me in the middle of my hour long impromptu nap.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Outside

Supposedly, it is getting colder outside as we get closer to Christmas, but, apparently, the weather has it's own plans. It was a nice spring like day so we decided to spend part of it outside. Hudson said "Hi" from his protected position under blankets.
Sara Beth was very excited and begged Heather to let her help push the stroller around. 
 Meanwhile, I was climbing on our roof installing Christmas lights. Fortunately, I learned from last year's mistakes and successfully avoided blowing any fuses. Surprisingly, Sara Beth was not interested in going for a walk this evening to look at Christmas lights around the neighborhood. Instead, she was enthralled in watching me play Zelda: Wind Waker. I began playing the cartoon like game while she was waking up from her nap, and, if she had it her way, we would have played that game all evening long. After she finished her dinner, she asked if she could wait in the TV room for me to finish my dinner. And when she went to bed for the night, when I asked her to come up with a happy thought to ponder while going to sleep, she said she would think about playing Zelda with me.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Another day, another 20 diapers.

Hudson is still pooping like a champ. But, fortunately, he is sleeping like a champ too. He slept from 1 am on, and at 5 am, I woke up with a start and realized he had not woken us up all night. I rushed to ensure that he was still breathing. He was sleeping contentedly until I woke him up 30 minutes later to make him eat.

While Sara Beth went to school, I drove Hudson and Heather to their respective doctors. Hudson was examined and weighed, and, even with all the sleep he has been getting, instead of loosing weight like the typical baby after leaving the hospital, he has actually gained 3 ounces since Sunday! Heather got her staples removed, and is definitely feeling better (She was not weighed at her appointment, but she probably wouldn't want me posting any weight details even if they were part of her appointment). 

 When Sara Beth got home from school, she wanted to hold Hudson. We let her, under close supervision. She wanted to rock him back and forth rather rapidly. Fortunately, Heather was at arms reach to help instruct in the proper ways to rock a baby. 
 For dinner, I got some chocolate mint milk for Sara Beth. She loved it and even licked the inside of the glass after drinking every last drop of it.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Preparing for Christmas

Well, there are certainly skills that I need to remember about caring for a baby.

Skill one: not getting pooped on. Last night, I changed Hudson's diaper 5 times. Once, he peed on the wall. Twice, I got pooped on. Several times, I put on a clean diaper, just to have him immediately soil it. I think I only had one diaper changing mission that completed without incident.

Skill two: functioning on less sleep. Heather looked at me last night after feeding Hudson and asked "Do you think I should feed him on the other side, or give him some junk food?" I told her "Just feed him on the other side," to which she responded, "Oh, but he brought his baseball and football here." She had no recollection of the conversation in the morning when I asked her about it.

Hudson's great aunt Sue headed back to the cold land of Wisconsin, and his great great aunt travels back to Georgia tomorrow morning, so they dropped by to say good by. We were able to snap some 4 generation photos.

Along with the first picture of Heather, Hudson, and I. Sara Beth was in no way interested in getting her picture taken, so she was off to the side waiting to eat lunch. We'll have to wait a little longer to get all four of us in a single picture.
Traditionally, we will put up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. Hudson put a monkey wrench in those plans. But today, we began the process. Hudson supervised from his swing. He pretty much slept through the day, only waking on occasion to poop on me, or to get some more food (which he quickly turned into more poop).
Sara Beth got all excited about the decorations and all the people, so she decided to change into her gymnastics leotard and show off some of her tumbling skills. A little later she asked me to be the gym teacher, so I gave her some routines to preform
Sara Beth kept asking about the Christmas tree angel. So, once we put on all the ornaments and lights, she helped me put the angel on the tree.