First Vacation (and First Wedding)

We recently took our much-awaited first vacation as a family of four. Really we hadn't done what we consider a "big" vacation since I was first pregnant with Lauren, so we skipped over vacation as a family of three, mostly. Everyone told us before we left that it was a "trip," not a "vacation," since we were taking our kids. I thought that was pretty Debbie Downer of them, but then the morning that we left for St. Thomas both kids woke up sick. Like really sick. Like we probably would have taken them to urgent care sick. But did we take them to urgent care? No. Mama and Dada needed a vacation. Off to the airport we went (sorry everyone on our flight who was exposed to croup). There would be a doctor in the house in St. Thomas, after all. As a result however, Jack, during most of the trip, did not look like this:

Or this:

But more like this:

And this:

Mostly the former. Sigh. But we made the best of it, because if we were going to be home with two sick kids anyway, why not be "home" with two sick kids in St. Thomas? Because it looked like this:

And this (both shot from the patio of our villa):

And, every once in awhile, Jack managed to look like this:

And once both kids managed to look, at the same time, like this:

Most importantly, we got to spend time with family:

Witness a very important wedding:

And see a moon like this:

We were in St. Thomas for seven days, and we made it to the beach four or five of those days. We stayed at a villa with the new joint families all together (Arie and my clan on Dad's side, and Terry's three kids with significant others and two of her five grandchildren on the other side). It was a great opportunity for everyone to hang out and get to know each other. We even had a celebrity chef (he has a show on the Cooking Channel) for the wedding reception. AND, the day after Dad and Terry's wedding we found out that our family had expanded by one, when Matt and Jo announced the arrival of my first nephew Greyson!

Jack didn't like the ocean water at first, it was just a touch cold (which was refreshing, the air was warm, but he's used to bath water) and he cried a little. By the end he loved it and I could motor him around and he'd kick his little legs. My good little sleeper regressed quite a bit because he was so congested and had a bad cough (did I mention that one of his bottom teeth also started to pop through on this trip?), so most nights he ended up in bed with me and Sean, because honestly I couldn't handle walking around with him anymore (he required carrying and walking all throughout the day). Despite the sickness and sleeplessness, we had a great vacation. Luckily Sean and I have a kids-less vacation coming up next week. I think we'll plan a follow-up recuperative adults vacation after family vacation like this more often.

4 Month Stats

We just got back from Jack's 4 month well visit, and he passed with flying colors. A little on the tall side, a little on the slim side, but healthy as can be. Our pediatrician says he's probably just going to be on the tall and slim side and that the slight percentile drop in weight (50th to 40th) is nothing to be concerned about. He also predicts early walking. It will be interesting to see how early, but we're pretty sure it will be earlier than Lauren (approximately 15 months old). We are free to give him any baby foods we want (he already has cereal most days), but he doesn't really need them (nutrition-wise) until he's six months old, so for now it's just for fun, and to help with the reflux (they stay down better than milk). He got some immunizations (very sad) and then passed out in his car seat. All is well!

4 month stats:

Height: 26 inches (90th percentile)
Weight: 14 pounds (40th percentile)

Jack's Birth Announcement

A co-worker friend pointed out that I'd mentioned in Jack's 6 Week post that I took some photos for a special project but never shared what that was. Most of you received it in the mail, Jack's birth announcement. I knew that I wanted to do a superhero birth announcement ever since my BFF Cathy pointed out that pretty much any name with "Power" sounded like a superhero. Then, come to find out, Jack Power is, in fact, a Marvel comic book boy superhero. So there you go. Also, please note that we often refer to Jack as "Jack Jack," who we found out (we're out of the loop) is the baby from "The Incredibles." Interestingly, his name is Jack-Jack Parr, which is pretty close to Jack (Jack) Power. It was meant to be.

I realized that with a graphic design Art Director sister, I had some resources at my disposal, namely one of her artist co-workers. So the wonderfully talented Tait Jeter took the idea and ran, and came up with the above, Jack's birth announcement. He even created some cool address and return address labels for the accompanying orange envelopes. The cards were 5x7, and were technically post cards that I could have sent without envelopes, but I didn't want them to get messed up in transit, so I went the envelope route. I used a website called Winkflash to print them. They turned out so well, I love them.

Jack's New Life

I mean really. Jack is giving Lauren a run for her money in the eyes category, non? So Jack has some new ladies in his life, Ms. Brenda and Ms. Tina, in the infant room at Union Hill. Labor Day was our last day together before I went back to work, and after a week of work (well, a short week), I can say that I think we're both going to be OK. It definitely wasn't as hard as with Lauren, I think because with Lauren I had all kinds of doubts. Will she still love me? Will she resent me? Will she still know I'm her mom? I really thought all of these things. But she does, in fact, think of me as her mom. She does scream "Mommy!" and run to me when I pick her up. And while Jack isn't as vocal, I get an expression like this when I pick him up every night. Jack and Lauren are a sight for sore eyes every evening, for sure.

Jack is changing every day. He's getting a lot better about standing, holding his head up, etc. We bought the "GoPod" (above) with our November trip to St. Thomas in mind (we weren't quite ready to pack an ExerSaucer), and so far we're loving it. Jack doesn't stay in it for incredibly long periods of time, he's still working on his strength, but this little gem keeps him entertained for awhile, and you just strap in new toys to the loops. It collapses, kind of like those fabric camp chairs, so we can take it all over the house. I highly recommend.

Jack loves his binky, but he loves to suck on his two fingers, as above, even more. I kind of prefer the binky because you can take it away...I have a feeling he'll be doing the finger sucking a lot longer. Good thing it's cute.

Jack and Lauren are still pretty big fans of each other. If he cries, Lauren says "ooooohhh, Jacky, it's OK! You're just so little!" and other words of encouragement.

Jack is starting to eat some cereal at school, although I couldn't get him to eat any this weekend while we were at home. He still sleeps through the night, bedtime is at 8pm and then he usually wakes up around 7am or a little before. He plays in his bassinet when he wakes up, just cooing and looking around. I know I shouldn't say these things because new parents might be reading this...it's not fair, I know. But if it makes you feel any better, Lauren was the same way and then put us through hell while I was pregnant with "sleep regression" (that's such a nice way to say it, right? Not so nice in real life). I expect it may happen with Jack, too, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now they're on the same bedtime and wakeup schedule, and it's kind of the best thing in the world.

Jack still nurses or has a bottle around 6 times a day, with cereal once a day. Slowly we'll start introducing some other baby foods and the schedule will probably change a bit. Typically he has one long nap in the morning, and a shorter one in the afternoon. He's still happiest being held or carried around when he's awake, but when he wants to sleep put him down, he's not interested in you anymore. Like Lauren, he can almost always be soothed by walking around outside and looking at the trees, although it's not like he's fussy that often. He's still on the reflux medicine and it seems to be working...he can still spit up his own body weight, but it doesn't seem to bother him as much. We go in for a well visit this or next week, I'll share those stats with you when I get them.

All in all, we are making it work as a family of four. Weekends are go time, and exhausting, but we are so very lucky that the exhaustion (yes, you're still exhausted even when you have good sleepers) seems like only a minor inconvenience. We are so thankful for every day we have with these two little creatures.

Jack is 3 Months Old!

It's hard to believe, but Jack is three months old. Which means that yours truly will be back to work soon (after Labor Day), and Jack will be following in his sister's footsteps and starting in the class that she started in at UH. His teachers are very excited to have him and keep asking when they get him every time I go in to pick up Laur. Back off, ladies! For now he's still mine.

Just like Laur, at 12 weeks he woke up all of a sudden and is so much fun. He laughs, smiles a ton, and even found his feet last week. He still prefers to be standing (I know, Grandma, this will allegedly make him bow-legged), thinks sitting is second best (and laying down is the WORST) and can hold his neck up like a two year old. Sean and I predict that, unlike his sister, he will be walking well before his first birthday. WELL before. He continues to mostly sleep through the night. He doesn't eat during the night anymore, since he turned 7 weeks old (night at our house is 8pm to 7am for both kids), but sometimes wakes up politely requesting a binky (by politely requesting I mean he screams bloody murder until he gets a binky) or that I re-swaddle him. I happily oblige since it takes about 10 seconds and means I get to go back to sleep. Life with Jack is good. Even though I went through it with Lauren I can hardly believe that some day he'll talk and have his own little personality. I mean he has one now, of course, but you know what I mean. Sean and I might be the two luckiest parents in the world.

Jack the Sleeper

It's hard to believe our little boy is 9 weeks old, and by the time some of you read this he'll be 10 weeks old. This maternity leave is flying by. We recently had Jack's 8 week appointment at the pediatrician. He was 25 1/4 inches long, and 11 pounds 13 ounces. This puts him in the 50th percentile in weight and well off the chart in height. We talked to the doctor about my suspicion that he has reflux issues, and because of some of the symptoms we described we ultimately decided to put him on Zantac to help him feel a little better. The weight wasn't a huge concern since he's still in the 50th percentile, although considering his height, and the fact that he was a larger baby at birth, it might be a little low because of the reflux, so we'll see how he does after he's on the medication for awhile. It definitely seems to be helping what appeared to be some pain after he eats (not every time, but enough that it concerned me), and he looks a little plumper now, so maybe it will make his weight go up a bit, too. Or maybe he's just going to be tall and skinny...only time will tell.


While the reflux talk is all so very exciting, I've yet to tell you the most exciting news: JACK IS SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. Has been for awhile now, actually. At 7 weeks, just like his big sister, Jack magically slept through the night. We have had a few nights where he wakes up in the middle of the night, usually because he's Houdini-ed himself out of the swaddle, but for the most part he sleeps from 9pm to 7am. What a dream. I feel human again. In case you're wondering, we achieved this miracle through the techniques in the Baby Whisperer book with both kids. Thank you Tracy, for your sleep training methods. We're basically running a baby boot camp over here. And thank you, Lauren and Jack, for apparently being prone to long bouts of sleep. Or maybe Lauren and Jack should thank us, since both Sean and I are pretty good sleepers ourselves. You're welcome, children. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.

Jack is getting more and more interested in what his big sister is doing, and what's going on in the world. He's also learning self defense at a very young age, as Lauren appears to have lost control of her limbs and often knees, kicks or elbows Jack in the face. Poor Jack. But you'll thank her later when you're tough Jack, I promise. Above and below, Lauren can't stand to not be the center of attention and cuts in on Jack's cuddle time with Grandma Power. The Power grandparents visited this weekend and were as surprised as us at how much Jack has grown.

Jack is a dream of a child. After he sleeps for 10 hours, he wakes up and eats, plays a little, and then naps for three or four more hours. This is when I head to the gym for an exercise class; my teacher calls him the class mascot (he sleeps in his car seat next to me the entire time). You can see that the gym class is working for him in the photos above, he has crazy neck strength. But it's not just the sleep, Jack is happy and easygoing. He's starting to smile a lot more, and in fact when he wakes up in the morning he doesn't even cry, just wriggles a hand out of the swaddle, sucks on it a little bit, and then when I go in to get him gives me a huge smile. Love this boy. I've always heard that you're only given as much as you can handle, so apparently I can't handle much because I've had two amazing babies. There's a lesson in there, I think.

Jack is 6 Weeks Old!

OK, by the time I actually post this he'll be 7 weeks old, but work with me people. I took some photos of him at 6 weeks, mostly for a special project that you'll see later, but I thought that since I haven't posted since the end of May I should throw a ton of photos from that shoot up in this post to distract you from the fact that I'm way behind in posting.

Life with Jack is still grand. He's not quite the sleeper that Lauren was yet, but part of that is my fault because I let him fall asleep on my chest way too often. But sometimes mama's tired, and when the baby sleeps three hours or more straight on your chest, sometimes you let him fall asleep on your chest. I'm working at undoing the bad habits now, and even moved back into our bedroom with Sean last night (I've been sleeping in the bed in Jack's room since we brought him home). Hello husband, I missed you. Of course then I went in to comfort Jack at 2am and fell asleep with him, you guessed it, on my chest again. Oops. Oh well, such is life.

OK, some tidbits about our little Jack Attack. He's starting to smile, and even smiled when I walked over to him last night. [cue heart melt] He likes to "coo talk" back and forth with us, and even he and Lauren coo talk to each other. He puts weight on his legs and stands up whenever given the opportunity (pretty sure Lauren didn't do that until she was about a year old). He can hold his head up for minutes on end, and is even hanging out in the Bumbo. He doesn't mind tummy time (Lauren hated it).

He spits up. A lot. Like a lot a lot. A lot of parents nod understandingly when I say this, as did I to other parents before Jack, but I don't think they're quite comprehending how much he spits up. Lauren spit up a lot, and that's what I considered spitting up. Jack's spit up makes Lauren's look like a slight dribble of drool, despite the fact that she'd sometime soak through two burp rags. We're talking projectile. We're talking three and four burp rags is the norm. I know that's kind of gross, but I'm keeping it real. He eats seven times a day to the tune of four burp rags a feed...you do the math, I'm doing laundry all the time. I took him in for a weight check because I was worried he wasn't keeping anything down. He weighed 11 pounds when I took him in, which was on the same percentage projectile as his 10 day visit, so I guess he's keeping something down, but I'm still anxious for our 8 week visit to make sure it's not something to worry about.

Jack is great in the car and in the stroller for reasonable amounts of time. He likes to be carried around and he likes to go for walks in the Bjorn. He is both a lover and a fighter. He sometimes cares if his diaper is full (Lauren did not). He tolerates baths (ditto on Lauren), and even sometimes enjoys them.

In sum: we're going to keep him.

We have no idea who he looks like. If you have an opinion, please leave it in the comments.

It's a Boy!

It's a Boy!!! As most of you know, although we found out that Lauren was a girl at 18 weeks, this time we decided to wait and be surprised. After having Lauren, we realized that truly just having a healthy baby is all that you can ask for, and besides, it is what it is anyway, so why not wait, right? It was really an experiment, people feel really strongly about either finding out while you're pregnant, or waiting. We wanted to see what all the hype was about. After having done it both ways, Sean and I both decided that the waiting was more fun, although I don't feel so strongly about it that I'd tell people that waiting or not waiting was stupid (surprisingly, people actually told me that we were stupid for waiting...calm down, people).

So, here's the birth story. Jack was in no hurry to make his appearance. My May 6th due date came and went with no sign of a baby. A week passed. Then several more days. Finally on Monday, May 16th I had a doctor's appointment (my doctor was out of town the week before, and I'd told him that I was going to wait him out, although I didn't think that would really work).

At my appointment my OB did an exam and found that I was about 40% effaced, and maybe 1 cm dilated. In other words, I wasn't close. He wanted to do a quick sonogram to make sure I had enough fluid (once you go over, you start having non-stress tests and they check your amniotic fluid level, just to make sure that everything's still operating the way it should be...Jack aced the tests). I asked if he would check the size of the baby, too; he'd been saying all along that the baby was "average" sized, but I just knew that the baby was bigger than average. The sonographer took some measurements, did a calculation, and...predicted a 9 lb. 8 oz. birth weight. Not exactly average.

We went back to the exam room to discuss our options. After the size prediction, and the fact that I wasn't progressing at all on my own, a c-section was looking more and more likely. I'd been trying hard to have a natural birth after my c-section with Lauren (Lauren was frank breech, and a c-section was my only option), but because I couldn't have pitocin as a result of the prior c-section (correction, I could have it, but in limited amounts), it was either go on my own (or at least mostly) or another c-section. We scheduled a c-section for Wednesday, May 18th and I left the office feeling a little defeated. We were still in the building after leaving my OB's office when my water broke. So we turned around, headed back in, and confirmed that maybe Jack was finally ready to make his way into the world (although we didn't know that "he" was a "Jack" at the time). My OB didn't look too thrilled with my water breakage...although it was a sign that labor was starting, the fact remained that I was not even remotely close to being ready for delivery.

Off to the hospital we headed, tout de suite, with no time to run home and grab our bags. I think it was around 3pm. We checked in, got to our room, and waited. And waited. I had small contractions, but I wasn't progressing. Finally at 11pm my OB came in and recommended that we go ahead with the c-section. I was torn. I'd hoped that with my water breaking maybe labor would ramp up and I'd be able to avoid another c-section. We debated and debated, but the clock was ticking since my water had broken, and ultimately we decided on the c-section, although with a lot of tears. By me, of course.

In the end, it was the right decision. We found out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around Jack's neck twice, and things could have easily ended badly (like I labored for 24 hours but then had to have a c-section, or, much worse, because of his size and the fact that the cord was wrapped twice that Jack went into distress, lost oxygen, or worse if the cord tightened around his neck). I was so thankful that we'd just done the section and that we got a perfectly healthy baby out of the deal. Sometimes things work out the way they're supposed to.

It was quite a moment, first hearing the baby cry, and then finding out that it was a boy. Everyone exclaimed that he was a big baby, but I had to wait for what seemed like forever before I got to see him while they checked him out. He did great on his Apgar test, he got a 9 and then a 10 (out of 10). Sean was with him as they examined him and then brought him over to me for my first viewing. He was perfect. He looked tiny to me, but my relative scale was a 30 pound 2 year old, so I'm a little skewed. Jack was born at 12:08am on Tuesday, May 17th.

Getting to hold Jack for the first time in the recovery room.

OK, so maybe he does look a little, um, "healthier" than most newborns in the above photo.

Above, photos of Jack in the hospital, 1-3 days old.

The photo above is Jack at 10 days old. His pediatrician wanted to do a weight check (he'd left the hospital weighing 8 lbs. 7 oz., 12 oz. lower than his birth weight, which is perfectly normal). He's doing so well that we get to skip the two week appointment altogether and will see the pediatrician when he's two months old. His 10 day/2 week stats:

Weight: 9 lbs. 4 oz. -- already back over birth weight, his doctor and nurse were surprised

Length: 21.5 inches -- he's recorded at 21 inches at birth

Head circumference: 15 inches -- 14.5 inches at birth

Lauren is doing splendidly. I think she really enjoys being a big sister, although mostly it's the novelty of it all. She calls Jack "Baby Jack" (as do we, most of the time), and wants to see him first thing when she wakes up in the morning and when she gets home from school. Although she's maybe acting out a little on occasion as a result of the newest member of the family, for the most part she's handling it much better than we expected. We are all adjusting to life as a family of four, and can't imagine our lives without Jack now that he's here.