the PARTY week

Blue was obsessed with this birthday. It is the first one that he really gets. Most of his friends at school have already turned four so he was anxious to join their ranks.  We have been counting down the days for weeks and planning out just what he wanted to eat and do. He wanted cantaloupe and cashews for snack. He wanted chicken nuggets for dinner but we settled for his second choice - BBQ - which has a wider appeal. He wanted chocolate cake but ended up being so distracted by his presents that he didn't eat a bite of it. And he wanted superhero stuff. Which he got in the form of costumes, toys, and legos. We have been coaching him about what to do and say when someone gives him a present and in the moment he was way too distracted by everything to remember. But after the initial excitement had passed he had the sweetest unprompted thank yous for everyone. 

We had a party with his friends the following Saturday - he invited six boys and two girls and most of them came. It was a very cute little crew running around the house. It was supposed to be at a nearby park but as luck would have it the weather was bad. We pushed all the furniture up against the walls and the kids seemed to have a good time regardless.

They played with toys and jumped on the bed, designed their own shield, had a Silly String war, and ate chocolate cake. Everyone came dressed in superhero garb and Wiley wore her favorite pink dress. Graham and I hear a lot about Blue's friends but we don't get to watch them all play together very often. It was a fun morning for us all.

the SWADDLE sleep

Blue liked heavy bottom pats and Wiley liked a good stroll around the house. Brother's key ingredient for falling asleep is the swaddle. Maybe it is because he is the third and there just aren't always any available hands to do the work of getting him to sleep.

He takes most of his daytime naps in the swing and settles down for the night around 8pm. I wake him up just before I go to bed around 10:30pm to give him one last feed, but as you can tell from the photos above, he doesn't really wake up. Then he sleeps in his bassinet til around 6am, sometimes requiring a few pacifier retrievals along the way. So I feed him at 6ish and he goes back down til whenever the chaos of the house in the morning wakes him up. 

happy FOUR years

Happy four years to Blue! Here is what he is up to these days...

- Questions, so many questions. Lots of the classic "why?" but his trademark is "what'd you say?" which actually ends up sounding more like "say?". He says that means he is thinking about it and needs more time to answer. But his questions are really thoughtful and not always easy to answer. Like, after learning that buzzards eat dead animals, he asked if "buzzards eat other buzzards?". Hmmm. 

- Letters and numbers. He wants to know how to spell everything and likes sounding out words. He has a much better grasp on letters than he does numbers. He gets out of sequence in the teens and manipulates numbers so that they work for him. Like saying he is 69 so that he is the oldest. I just let him enjoy pretending he knows what he is talking about and hope that leads to him enjoying numbers in general and figure understanding them will come later. 

- Superheroes. This must have come from his friends at school but he is into Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, etc. Anything where there are bad guys and good guys and they get to fight is "awesome" in his book. Transformers, which have been his thing for the past few months, fit right into that mix. We watched some old school animated Transformers videos for a while but it was too much of a trigger for his boy brain. 

- Long-sleeves and pants. He has been into having his skin "covered" for years now and I don't fully get it. Poor guy lives in Austin though where it is still in the 90s during the day so I send him to school in shorts and a t-shirt and he comes home and changes into pants and a sweatshirt. 

- School. There is a good little crew of boys at school that Blue really enjoys. They run around the playground in a little pack. He didn't have a crew at his school in Tokyo and I think that was a big part of why he never really settled in. The social aspect is the most important part for Blue. 

- Siblings. Blue loves and enjoys his siblings. And, this is a real change, he is actually pretty gentle with them these days. He has always been sweet and gentle with Brother but Wiley arrived when he was an impulsive two year old and she had to endure years of mild abuse. Wiley went on a little weekend trip with my parents and Blue really missed her. The more the merrier in his book. He is still holding out hope for a baby girl next round. 

- Chatty Cathy. It is not just the questions but a constant stream of words coming out of this kid's mouth. We were all ready for Wiley to come home to help us absorb some of those words. Graham finally had to tell him "you know what, Blue, I think I'd like some quiet time. My voice hurts." He said "my voice hurts too, Dad". G laughed and said something like "then why are you talking so much?". Blue didn't have an answer.

You can't help but love this one. 

It's gonna be a long year waiting to turn five ;).

the "NORMAL" one

Every birth is a little different, and I think classifying some as "normal" can make doctors and other caregivers overreact a bit when what they expect doesn't come to pass. But I must say it was nice this time to follow the textbook, so to speak.

My original due date was August 9th but my doctor in Japan pushed it back to the 13th based on early measurements of the baby. I was really hoping my increased walking and activity level would encourage the baby to come a little early but the 9th came and went along with the 13th. For several weeks leading up to the birth I was having occasional contractions and I was pretty uncomfortable in general but the real test was just being on edge, waiting for something to happen for so many days. My labor with Wiley was very short so I was constantly assessing my body for any early warning signs that would help us get to the hospital with a little more time to spare this round.

I had an acupuncture appointment at noon on the 21st hoping to induce labor naturally. It was a lovely, relaxing experience but I left pretty certain that it had accomplished nothing. Whether it did or whether I was a week plus overdue and just ready to have the baby, who can say, but around 4pm I felt a shift, literally. I think the baby must have dropped because all the sudden I had to pee and felt a nerve pain when I walked. I also started to have some more intense contractions. My mom was visiting and we decided she should just go ahead and take the kids on home with her. Graham was finishing up a meeting at work so my friend Corie came over and we walked around the block hoping to keep the momentum going. The contractions were still really irregular, and almost non-existent if I was sitting, but they were strong. And I remembered a midwife saying at one point that the strength was more important than the regularity. My last appointment a few days prior I had been measuring just shy of 5cm. Graham arrived home around 6pm, we called the doctor (the midwife was on call! yay!) and she said to come on to the hospital. My contractions picked up on the way and by the time I was there and in bed I was measuring 6.5cm. That was around 7pm. I sat in the bed and answered a whole slew of boring questions (how much did you weigh before you got pregnant? how much do you weigh now? etc...) for about an hour. Then I got up and stood at the side of the bed for about thirty minutes when my water broke just after 8:30pm. I got back in the bed for a bit and then pushed for another bit and Brother was born at 8:56pm. My sister and the above mentioned Corie got to be in the room during the birth which was fun for all.

I said all along that my planned hospital birth would be the one where I didn't need it. And that was true! Third time's the charm.

kicking and SCREAMING

This one did NOT like the bath. Screamed the whole time. But he smells a lot better now so it was worth it. 

And I got to wrap him up in a towel and snuggle for a few minutes. Wet baby towel snuggles are one of my favorite things!

TEN days old

Taking good pictures of babies is really hard. Here is my second, or maybe third, attempt at getting a good shot of Brother's face. He likes his pacifier and tends to furrow his brow, but I think some of these are pretty cute.   

the FIRST week

In photos...

Lots of just laying around and being lazy over here. For some of us anyway ;).