Life: the first 2 weeks

Its hard to believe that two weeks ago, Avery didn't exist!  Well, not as we know her now, anyway.  She's had quite the exciting life for a two-week old.  She's been to two football game, one in which she got to pose with the NBA trophy.  And which she slept through the entire game... and then more after the game (probably why she is wide awake right now at 9 pm).

 

 

She also has made a few trips to her daddy's work.  She showed off her future playground to her aunt and uncle one weekend and her grandma the next!

She's taken some selfies with mom... this time posing in one of many outfits she inherited from her cousins Emma and Reese.

Clearly, she already wants to be like her big brother, picking up his bad habits.

She's had her head rubbed by her big brother countless times. He will be a good protector.

 

She's also done a lot of sleeping.... during the day.  She seems to have her days and nights confused, which makes for some peaceful days... and not-so-peaceful nights.

 

 

Grandma is visiting this week... thankfully.  Eric's been working a lot this week/weekend and I keep having moments (multiple tears from multiple kids) when I realize that me alone with three kids will be my reality in the near future!  But for now, I am thankful that grandma is here!

 

Newborns vs. toddlers

Here I am, the same place I was last Saturday afternoon, sitting here on the sofa watching football.  One notable difference...I am not in labor!  I am not pregnant! Avery is alive!  I can't tell you how happy I am with those differences right now.

Its been a wonderful week.  You know what newborns do a lot of?  Sleep.  The boys have spent the last 36 hours with their grandparents and it has been so peaceful around here.  I enjoy the chaos (sometimes), but there is also a strong correlation between a relaxed mom and a quiet house.  Know what you can get done with a newborn around?  Everything.  Know what you can get done with a 2 and 4-year-old boy?  About 10% of that... and then they'll add 12 things to your list.

Here just a few of the many ways in which newborns are easier than toddlers:

1) Avery sleeps more.  Ok this one is obvious, as are its advantages. 

2) Avery doesn't ask questions.  Not even one.  I can put on shoes and not be asked why I chose those shoes.  I change my clothes and not be asked why I still have a big tummy.  I can go to the bathroom and not be asked if I am wearing a diaper.  I can go 10 minutes without hearing what, when, where, why, who??

3) Avery can't eat my food: I found myself eating a cookie while holding Avery today.  My first instinct was to hide the cookie so she didn't see, and then I realized that unlike her brothers, Avery doesn't have super senses when I take a bite of a cookie or rustle a bag of chips.  She won't drill me about what I am eating and can't she have some butpleasejustone and whynotbuti'mreallyhungry.

4) Avery doesn't make a mess: A newborn's mess is restricted to very small area.  If they spit up, you might be talking a foot-long radius.  Hopefully, the poops stay in their diapers.

5) I read/relax while Avery eats: This is a stark contrast to when the boys eat.  I am taking orders, filling cups, wiping spills, encouraging progress, rolling out napkins, picking up dropped forks.  Basically, doing everything except reading/relaxing.

6) Avery can't do anything herself:  Here's a tricky one that would seem to go in favor of toddlers, but I would have to strongly disagree.  Things happen very quickly for this very reason. She doesn't want to strap herself into her seat.  She doesn't want to peel her own bananas.  She doesn't want to use the sharp scissors.  She doesn't want to blow bubbles by herself.  The list goes on forever.

7) Avery doesn't care what she wear: (Nor does she want to put it on herself... see above).  This means that getting dressed is so very easy.  In contrast, I have to mentally prep for mornings and bedtime when clothing changes are required. 

Ok, the boys are 10 minutes away from home, so I'm going to soak up the final minutes of Avery alone.  Even though they are not the easiest creatures on the planet, I love my boys and would miss out on wonderful moments like the ones below if it was only Avery all the time.

Avery's birth

I'm not sure where to start Avery's labor story.  Perhaps it was 2 weeks ago when I started getting irregular contractions regularly.  They were quite the tease and by this weekend, I was ready to be done with contractions, pregnancy, and the well-meaning questions of family and friends.  Friday night I woke up around midnight with contractions.  I slept fitfully (with some crazy dreams including tornados and having to say goodbye to Brady in anticipation of my imminent death) until 3 when a strong contraction woke me up. I had a bowl of cereal and woke Eric up, breaking the news that today was the day we would have our baby!

I was wrong.

My goal was to make it until the morning before having to call for backup.  I packed me bag and read my book.  And was surprised when I woke up at 6:30 am.  Thankful to have gotten some sleep, but realizing that those two hours of sleep meant birth was a bit further off than I expected.  I had contractions all day, but not consistently and not super strong.  Just super annoying, especially when trying to figure out plans.  Will this baby come today? Tomorrow?  Where are the boys going to go? Should Eric's parents come?  Then just as my contractions were amping back up, I got word at 5 pm that the other Amy and Eric (my brother and his wife), just had their 3rd baby boy!  What fun it would be for the cousins to share a birthday!

Birth finally was on the horizon and we planned to drop Brady and Jackson off with our neighbors for their first sleepover.  They were very pumped to sleep at Micah's house.  I put them to bed together around 9:30 and my contractions were pretty strong at that point.  Brady couldn't understand why I couldn't immediately answer his every questions or respond to his every request for the last few hours and I didn't feel it was necessary to explain that in order to get his sibling out of my stomach, mommy had to feel a whole lot of pain.

So the short story is the boys went down, we went to the birthing center and had a baby 4 hours later.  The longer story is Brady cried until Gracie (age 11) and Micah (age 9) came to sleep with him and Jackson in their bed and I felt like crying until Avery (age 0) came to join us in the world.

The birthing center experience was great (or great under the circumstances).  It was so nice to just pull our car out front and walk right to our room. I remember filling out forms and checking in to the hospital with Jackson and being given a sticker with my name and "Labor and Delivery" typed on it for the person sent to come fetch me.  Like their might be some ambiguity about what I was doing there.  Eric has concerned about the longer drive to the birth center, especially if I was in labor during rush-hour.  At 10 pm, rush hour traffic was not a problem, but football game day traffic was.  After sitting at flashing yellow light for 5 minutes, Eric got out of the car, ran to the cop and asked him to flip the switch because his wife was in labor.  Only so many times you can legitimately use that card in your lifetime.

I did feel like having 2 previous children without medication helped a bit this time, at least I knew what to expect.  Contractions were painful, but I knew the stronger and closer they were, the closer I was to pushing.  Of my three kids, laboring with Avery was the best.  Until I got to the pushing.  "The third one just pops out!" people tell you.  I pushed only twice with Jackson, so I bought into this myth.

I'm not sure what made this one so challenging or why I struggled to push her out, but I'll just say that I am SUPER excited to know that my labor and delivery days are behind me.  I remember being in the bathtub (which felt really nice between contractions), and the midwife giving Eric instructions on how the birth was going to go down, since he was going to be the one to catch the baby.  I think he said something like, "this seems like a lot of work," to which he got the stink eye from his wife.

After some moments I wish not to relive, he pulled her out of the water, wander her to me, at which point I was able to make the assessment that "it" was a her!  Truly, I was just so happy to be done and holding a healthy baby, that the girl part wasn't as exciting as you might think.  But it was so wonderful to just hold her since it was my first baby not to be whisked away for suctioning.  We transferred to the bed, she nursed right away, Eric cut the chord, and we just hung out.  I really appreciated not being in a hospital because with the exception of quick and unobtrusive checks, they just left us alone. She was awake for over an hour, then we all fell asleep on the bed from 4-5, exhausted for different reasons.  I've never felt like I've needed sleep as much as I did for that hour, and woke up feeling refreshed.  We left a few hours later and swung by the Davis house on our way home to show Brady and Jackson their new sister.  We'd left our house at 10 pm and returned at 8 am.  Eric, the baby, and I all took a long nap before the craziness returned home (in the form of a 2 and 4-year-old).

I was a touch nervous about returning home so quickly, but I loved it, especially since back up arrived (in the form of Grandma and Pop) to entertain the boys that afternoon.  I'm feeling great and Avery is doing great as well.  Knock on wood, but she seems to be a fairly chill baby (pleasestaythatwaypleasestaythatwaypleasestaythatway).

Here are some pictures of her first days on earth!

 

Daddy!!!!!!! Daddy why can't you hear me?????

 

 

Bedtime lullibies

Jackson is super into Avery (though he has trouble with his she/her pronouns), and always wants to hold her "by me-self." Before Avery was born, I thought that nothing was cuter than Jackson singing.  But now I know that nothing is cuter than Jackson singing to his little sister.

 

Introducing...

Avery Kay Hoots!  Born September 13 at 2:48 am.  She was born in the bathtub (as planned) and weighed in at 7 lbs, 13 ounces and 22 inches, beating both brothers in the weight and height categories.  Possibly wins in the vocal chords category, too, when she decides to use them.

Our family is in love!

 

 

Her birth story to come...

(No) Labor Day

Happy Labor Day from this non-laboring mother!  I'm officially due tomorrow which means in just over 24 hours, I will be officially wrong about this baby not being late.  You'd think after my 3rd child, I'd learn not to predict when my babies will be birthed.  And you'd think I'd just expect a late baby (Brady was 11 days, Jackson was 4).  But I'm not mad about it!  We had a low-key Labor Day weekend and after an influx of sign orders at the end of last week, I got almost all caught up (thanks to my husband for taking the boys out of the house a few times this weekend).

Some other things that happened this weekend:

-Friday checkup: I'm giving birth at a birthing center which will be a bit of a different experience than my first two births.  As you can see by the pictures, its a nice place to have a kid.  Unfortunately, you don't get to enjoy the spacious quarters for too long, as they send you home 4-6 hours after birth.  I had to suppress a laugh when the nurse asked if the boys would be present for the birth (this is the type of place where people actually do that).  When we were in the room, I explained to Brady that this would be the room that his little brother or sister would be born.  The doctor would help mommy have the baby and then we would bring him or her home.  My child, who asks 75 questions an hour, said, "ok."  No follow-up needed, apparently.

-Painful naptimes.  Having the boys share a bed has its advantages... and disadvantages.  Like trying to get them both to sleep at the same time.  Nighttime usually isn't a big problem (mostly because Jackson crashes), but Jackson gets amped up at nap time and instigated his brother into talking/playing with him.  Yesterday, I left to run an errand to Home Depot after 1 pm when the boys were in bed.  It was a fairly lengthy visit, but when I walked in, Eric looked frazzled and I heard giggles from upstairs.  About 20 minutes after that, I managed to get them to fall asleep, which meant we had to wake Brady up to make it to a 5 o'clock church picnic.

-Painful nighttimes. This applies only to me.  Eric seems to have wonderful, uninterrupted nights while I wake up 5-10 times each night.  This can be fully blamed on my children, but about 80% of the blame lies in the unborn one.  But that other 20% really ticks me off when they come and bug me during a time where I am actually sleeping.  I make one, sometimes two trips to the kitchen each night for a snack and make countless trips to the bathroom to pee.  I am being adequately prepped for a newborn.

-Durham Bulls game: First and last game of the season.  Stayed about an hour.  Here was the breakdown of how it was spent: Sitting in (or near) our seats (8 minutes).  Standing in front of the mister (14 minutes). Standing in line for the balloon man (37 minutes).  Playing with the balloon (1 minute).

-Church nursery. I picked up Jackson after churh on Sunday morning and the workers there were amused by Jackson's antics (the kid loves to talk).  He spent his time calling his friend Micah on the phone, building a high dive out of blocks, telling them about preschool, and making sure another little boy didn't escape from nursery, and very insistently trying to tuck his shirt and explain how his shirt needed to be tucked in.  Example #239 how Brady has rubbed off on his little brother.  It doesn't matter how many times we tell Brady that he doesn't need to tuck in his shirt, he wants, no needs it high and tight.  And apparently Jackson is on the same path.

With onsies in our future, we won't be worrying about tucked in shirts (or opinions) for child #3....at least for a while!

Pregnancy: my final days

In my last post, I laid out what I would miss about summer.  Now let's move to this pregnancy which is coming to a close.  And as long as our plans are the same as God's plans, this will be the last week (or two) of pregnancy of my life!  Here's what I will and will not miss about pregnancy,

Will miss: Guilt-free eating.  Not that my food consumption is generally ridden with guilty thoughts, but I don't think twice grabbing that extra cookie, or four.
Will not miss: Heartburn.  I'm on bottle #2 of Tums.

Will miss: Compliments. I'm thankful when people tell me that I look great... but I realize compliments are disproportionate to my non-pregnant state.
Will not miss: My ban on alcohol, sushi, and deli meat... in that order.

Will miss: Sleeping without hearing the cries of a newborn throughout the night
Will not miss: Sleeping without the uncomfortableness of a baby living inside of me.

Will miss: Wearing elastic every day
Will not miss: Peeing every 30 minutes

Will miss: The boys talking to the baby through my stomach
Will not miss: The boys pounding on the baby through my stomach

Will miss: Kicks
Will not miss: The struggle of daily tasks (picking up toys, squatting to help Jackson use the potty, washing dishes)

Will miss: The anticipation and excitement of wondering about our new baby!
Will not miss: Questions.  People asking what I want and what I think I am having (husband, I am looking at you).

Here's to enjoying my last days as a mother of two!