A Really Boring Day

So, today was kind of a lousy day. Amanda has been fighting a cold and was home from preschool on Wednesday. I was pretty sure she'd be OK to go to school today, so I got myself up at 6:45 am as usual and got ready to go, then got her up at around 7:30. But while we were eating breakfast I realized she really wasn't well enough for school...she would have been fine but all the other parents would have been mad at me for letting her spread her germs around!

There was a slight panic as the other thing I was supposed to do this morning was take Sam to our Roots of Empathy classroom visit. ROE is a program that brings babies and parents into school classrooms for an entire year, to give kids a chance to see how babies develop and thereby help develop empathy for others. The program has been shown to decrease bullying in schools. Amanda was an ROE baby and we enjoyed it so much that when I realized Sam would be born over the summer (and therefore would be the perfect age for the program) I contacted the school district about volunteering again. We've been placed at a local middle school with a grade 6/7 class, and have only had one visit so far, during which Sam screamed (and I mean SCREAMED) the entire time. Oh well, at least it will make those kids think twice about having babies any time soon!

I purposely scheduled our visits for preschool mornings, since technically older siblings aren't supposed to come to ROE visits, but I figured I'd call and explain and see if I could set Amanda up with a colouring book off to the side. But when I got hold of the coordinator, she said that the class teacher wasn't in today, which means they're not supposed to hold the session! So we postponed until next week. So it all worked out OK, except that I'd gotten Sam all dressed up to go out for nothing! We did head out to the mall for awhile to run some errands, but other than that, it turned out to be a pretty lazy day. Part of the reason for this was that Sam slept terribly again last night - for a baby that's always done long stretches, these 2 hour "naps" at night aren't working for me!! Hopefully things will get back to normal soon or I might go crazy!

So there you go, a really boring recap of our day...

We have a very busy weekend planned - Amanda has birthday parties to attend on both Saturday and Sunday morning! Quite the social butterfly. We'll try to post some pictures.

And just for a dose of cuteness to counteract this boring post...here is a picture of Sam from a couple of days ago, on his way into the bath. He was so cute that I had to pull out the camera!

Introducing Sam!

So yes, it's been so long that we haven't even posted anything about our new baby! Samuel Jeffrey was born on July 31st (6 days early) at 3:02 pm after a very interesting labour experience. We wanted to attempt a VBAC, but with my past history and pelvic shape we had very low expectations that it would be a success. But much to our surprise, it actually worked! Labour was very different from our experience with Amanda (something I wasn't really expecting)...it started out easier, got bad very fast, and then progressed extremely rapidly (i.e., 3 cm to 10 cm in about 20 minutes!). Despite the cord being wrapped tightly around his neck (something we didn't know about until later), the delivery was pretty straightforward and recovery was 100X easier than our previous C-section.

Sam is generally a pretty happy and mellow baby, although he definitely has a temper! Much to our delight he is a better sleeper than Amanda; he was sleeping pretty good stretches (4-5 hours) at a couple of weeks and by 6 weeks was up to 6 hours or so, then 7-8 hours by 8 weeks. However, now at 14 weeks he's regressed a bit...he hit a big growth spurt at 12 weeks and I'm not sure whether it's still going on or whether we won't get our good sleeper back again! We're hoping things will return to normal soon.

One of the best things has been watching how Sam and Amanda interact. Amanda is such a little mommy with him...she talks to him in a high singsong voice and loves to play all kinds of little games with him. She has been a great helper to us, especially to me during the days when things get frustrating! Sam obviously adores Amanda and gazes at her happily for ages. She is often able to calm him down when Jeff or I can't. We were lucky that Amanda didn't have high expectations of what he would be capable of...just one of the nice things about them being over 4 years apart. We can't wait to see how their relationship progresses as he gets bigger!

A few favourite photos are below...or visit the entire Sam Collection on Flickr.
1 day old


13 days old


6.5 weeks


12.5 weeks


And a recent photo of Sam and Amanda together...

New Leaf...

We've been inspired to start posting to the blog again...just because we just have so much extra time on our hands these days (that, folks, is what's known as sarcasm). We've realized how much of Amanda's babyhood we remember because we wrote it down, and how much of Sam's we will probably forget if we don't! So we're going to try to get back into a regular habit of writing, but it might be pretty rusty for awhile.

We have no illusions that there are hundreds (or even dozens, or even any) readers out there, but while we're at it, it would be great to know who's reading! If you could leave us a comment we would appreciate it!

The Morning Dew

Playing on the Deck
Originally uploaded by JenJeff

It has been awhile since I've posted (Jeff). I just thought that I'd share this story.

We were at a friend's cabin a few weeks back and Amanda had left her colouring stuff outside on the grass the previous night. The next morning, we asked her to go out and get it and told her that it might be a little wet. She asked the usual "why?". We tried to explain that it was because of the dew. She asked "what is dew?". We explained that in the fall when it gets colder at night that water sometimes forms on things because of the temperature.

Our 4 year old replied. "Oh, you mean condensation"

Meet the Monkey!

I had the most frustrating ultrasound experience ever this week! Our ultrasound was supposed to be on Monday morning, so I dutifully got up 2 hours ahead of the appointment time and drank a full litre of water. You know you're in trouble when you haven't even finished drinking the water yet and you already have to go to the bathroom! By the time I left for the appointment I was totally miserable. Then I got there and found out that the computers were all down, so I couldn't have my ultrasound after all! Jeff and I had both taken 2 hours off work and we had pulled Amanda out of daycare for the morning, not to mention the water torture, all for nothing!

They were able to reschedule us for Thursday after work (this after I insisted we would not be coming in during the day and missing more work!). The unfortunate thing was that they didn't actually book us an appointment - they told us just to show up and they would "fit us in". I also pinned them down on how much water I had to really drink because I knew I would never make the commute home as uncomfortable as I had been on Monday!

Luckily they did get us in quite quickly (I had visions of us waiting for an hour), but they whipped us through pretty quickly. I seem to remember Amanda's ultrasound taking 30–40 minutes, but I think we were all done in about 10 minutes this time! The baby was sleeping away and barely moved for the entire time. I was a bit worried until I saw that heart beating away! The heart rate was around 150 bpm (quite a bit faster than at our OB appointment 1.5 months ago) and baby seems to be measuring right on target. The technician showed us a few different views, but did go through them very quickly. The bonus was that he switched quickly to the 3D ultrasound view and the difference was amazing! We could really see baby's face (he stuck to the face since we didn't want to know the gender). Amanda got to come in and see too, and she was very excited. She did seem to understand what she was looking at and really liked it when the baby moved! We only got two photos but they turned out pretty good. So all in all, a fairly good experience, although it would have been nice to have a bit more time in there!

So, without further ado, meet the monkey:

Pretty cute, right? We make cute kids. :)