These Shoes Were Made for Walking

Life has gotten more interesting with a walker. I'm realizing (belatedly) that I should probably get her some real shoes. She has a pair of Robeez, and a little pair of tennis shoes I got at a consignment sale a few weeks ago, but other than that, she's barefooting it.

I'm considering going to Stride Rite to get her fitted. My hesitation is the expense -- I can't justify spending upwards of $30 on a pair of shoes she'll wear for a few months at most!

Happy birthday, sweet daughter!

One year ago today, we welcomed our precious little girl. In some ways it seems like a long time; in other ways it seems like no time at all. Either way, it has been an amazing blessing and a joy to watch her grow and learn and change over the past twelve months!

Welcome, William!

William Robert Redelle made his grand entrance on Monday, June 29th, at 3:18 p.m.

As labors go, it was relatively brief and easy. I woke up around 1:30 on Monday morning with irregular contractions and couldn't get back to sleep. Elizabeth woke up with teething pain at 2:30 and since I was already awake, I told LB that I'd go try to get her resettled. That lasted until I had a big contraction as E was squirming on my lap. I called for backup and started timing contractions around 3:30. LB came back to bed around 4:00 and I said, "I really hate to do this to you, but these are five minutes apart."

I waited till a quarter till five, then called the doctor and was told to come in to the hospital. LB and I called his mom to come sit with E and took quick showers. I finished packing my bags and folded a load of E's diapers and went over the details of E's routine with my mother-in-law, and we were en route before 6.

When we got to the hospital, they put us in the same LDR suite that we'd been in with Elizabeth. I was only about 2 cm, so the nurses put me on the monitor for a bit and then sent me out to do laps around the second floor. LB walked with me for the first 45 minutes, then after I went back on the monitor for 20 minutes and went to do another 45 minutes, he went to get some breakfast since the doctor wasn't going to come check my progress until I was finished with the second phase of walking.

While I was walking, I had some bigger contractions that made me start to perspire a bit, but nothing that felt terribly strong. We called my mom around 7:30 to put her on alert and told her not to go to the airport until we heard from the doctor whether we'd be staying or not.

I headed back to the room around 9 and the doctor came around 9:45. He checked and I was at 5 cm, so we were officially staying and having a baby at that point! We called LB's mom and my mom to give them the news.

The doctor said with a second baby, I could sit around for four or more hours and make no progress, then go from five to ten and have the baby in an hour. Since my water hadn't broken on its own, he suggested that I might want to get an epidural once I'd gotten a bit farther along and then he'd break my water and things would probably move very fast at that point. I decided to stick with what I was doing for the moment and reevaluate as things went along.

I labored on my own for another 2 hours or so, then decided to get the epidural at 6-7 cm because I was getting tired after having been up for almost 12 hours and not having eaten anything since dinner Sunday night. LB went and got lunch (including the famous chocolate cream pie!) while we were waiting for the epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and had the epidural in place around 1 p.m. The doctor came and broke my water after that, which put me back at 5 cm.

I started feeling really nauseated, and the nurses said my blood pressure was too low, so they put me on oxygen and put a shot of something in the IV to raise it. I felt better pretty quickly and was able to fall asleep for about an hour or so.

I woke up around 2:30 and was feeling some pressure. My nurses offered to check my progress and I said I was willing to wait another half an hour or so. After about fifteen minutes, I couldn't wait any more, so the nurse checked and I was at 10 cm. She called the doctor, who got there around 3:00 and said that everything was ready to go.

I started pushing at 3:10. Two pushes and eight minutes later, William arrived. His first action when they handed him to me was to pee all over my left side. LB got some beautiful pictures of him. He weighed in at 7 pounds 9.3 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long.

I think that he looks a bit like my dad; he sleeps with his head tilted back and his mouth slightly open like Dad does. He has long slender fingers like a pianist or a surgeon.

Elizabeth met him on Wednesday. She came to the hospital to help us bring him home. Right now, she is fascinated with her baby brother and tries to pat him every chance she gets. She points at him and chirps and babbles.

We're trying to get as much rest as we can, and thankfully both of our sweet children are cooperating with this agenda. Juggling two little ones is a challenge we can meet better with a few good night's sleeps under our belts!

I feel the need...

The need for speed!

Elizabeth's new favorite game is chase. Whether she's chasing the dog or me or having me chase her, it's all hilariously funny to her. She'll stop mid-chase and dissolve into giggles. She also likes to play a variation on my sisters' and my old game of "Oops, I'm Sorry." She goes one way around the downstairs and expects her co-player to go the other. When she sees the co-player, she bursts out into laughter.

I'm ready to toss all the baby feeding manuals that say that babies prefer bland foods. Elizabeth has decided that nice bland bananas are no longer delicious. When bananas come near her, she clamps her lips shut and turns her head away. She prefers things like black bean soup, applesauce with cinnamon, and corn chowder. We tried her on the corn chowder tonight and she scarfed down almost an entire bowl replete with black pepper and thyme. She looked interested in her dad's asiago peppercorn bread, but both LB and I thought that the bread was a little too chewy for her four teeth.

In New Baby News, my doctor thinks he's probably going to come early like his big sister did. I'm okay with that as there isn't much I can think of to recommend about being pregnant in Georgia in the summertime...provided he doesn't come till after Saturday afternoon. We're having company then and I'm looking forward to seeing them!

Summer is i-cumen in

Tomorrow is officially the final day of the school year. I have a faculty meeting in the morning followed by a luncheon, and then I'll be a stay-at-home mom until the end of August.

I'm excited to spend these last few weeks before William is born having lots of one-on-one time with Elizabeth. She is a ton of fun these days. She has learned to crawl -- FAST -- and thinks that being "chased" by Mama or Daddy around the downstairs is utterly hilarious. She's also learning to eat "real people" food. We went to lunch at Swallow at the Hollow yesterday with her Grandmama and Papa, and she had barbecued pork (no sauce yet), homemade mac 'n' cheese, and a taste of a french fry. She's a big fan of chopped pork like a good Southern girl should be!

She also loves HappyBaby organic puffs and Joe's O's (the Trader Joe's answer to Cheerios). Both these treats have the benefits of being something she can feed herself and something she can drop for Bowden. He has figured out that she drops things now, so every time she is in the high chair, he is right there under it, waiting with bated breath for a morsel to hit the floor.

I think that William might make an early-ish entrance (or maybe I just hope he will!) because I'm starting to nest. I'm checking things off the to-do list rapidly and am cleaning odd things, which I did about two weeks before Elizabeth was born. If he's on the same timeline as his sister, he should be here sometime after Father's Day. Since both grandmothers have said that the week of June 29th is off-limits for his birth (one is going to Texas to help with LB's sister's move and the other is hosting the annual family golf outing that week), he'd make them both happy if he came early!

Welcome niece!

My sister and brother-in-law welcomed their beautiful daughter this morning!

Flickr update!

Pictures from Easter are up. We'll try to get some pictures of Elizabeth pulling up and standing posted this week!

Well, she thinks it's baby food!

Now that Elizabeth is nine months old, the list of what she can't have food-wise is pretty short. We're letting her try all sorts of "grown-up" food, and she seems to find almost everything to her liking. LB and I made this soup the other night, and we figured that we'd at least give her a taste. She gobbled down two big spoonfuls before I took my bowl back from her, and when we reheated the leftovers, she ate a big bowlful (minus the scallions and sour cream).

Black Bean Soup (adapted from Cooking Light)

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup minced onion
1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
3 tablespoons chopped carrot
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup water
3 (15-ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
Sliced green onions (optional)
Light sour cream (optional)

Preparation
Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add celery, minced onion, bell pepper, and carrot. Cook 10 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and the next 4 ingredients (through black pepper); sauté 3 minutes. Add broth, water, and beans; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes. Cool slightly.
Process till smooth with a stick blender. Garnish with sliced green onions and light sour cream, if desired.

Ready for college life

Dear darling daughter, as much as we love hearing your chortles and babbles and coos and giggles, we aren't as amused at 3:30 a.m. to hear them as you are. Really. Mama and Daddy don't care how entertaining you find Bear and Lambie in the wee small hours of the morning; it's all right for you to keep that to yourself.

Crawling!

In most baby books, when there's advice about beginning crawlers, it usually says something like "Put a toy just out of baby's reach and s/he will crawl after it." Elizabeth doesn't seem to care if a toy is out of her reach. If I take something from her and put it out of her reach, or she throws something out of her reach, her reaction is to ignore it and move on to something else.

But she just cannot resist Bowden's toys. When we move them so she can't get them, that's when she takes off crawling, desperate to get her hands on his things. He's quite nonplussed by this turn of events and gives us these hurt looks that seem to say "Do you SEE what she's DOING?!" He knows he isn't allowed to touch her things and he doesn't, so he's having trouble understanding why she won't leave his things alone.

Maybe I just haven't found the right toys for her yet. I should try Petsmart.

Chomp!

We've started sitting Elizabeth down with us at dinnertime to get her used to eating at table with the family. The other night, she was in her high chair between the two of us and we were both holding her hands as LB said grace.

In the middle of the prayer, Elizabeth yanked LB's hand to her mouth and chomped down full force on his finger. He was hard-pressed to continue praying at that point!

She's learned how to blow raspberries as well. She decided to give LB an object demonstration of her new talent at dinner last night with a mouthful of carrots.

And then when he was giving her a bath, she managed to splash so hard that she soaked him, the counter, and the floor. Time to retire the infant tub.

I'd like to say I didn't laugh, but I'd be lying.

Tooth or consequences!

Elizabeth got her first tooth this weekend. It's the one on the bottom left in front, and it looks like the bottom right one is going to follow it quickly. We may not know for a while, though, since she doesn't like to let us look at it. She'll open her mouth, then stick her tongue out over her lower lip.

She didn't give us much in the way of teething drama (runny nose, drool, fever, diarrhea) other than a fit of hysterical crying on Friday evening that was solved with a dose of Tylenol and some snuggling from Mama and Daddy.

Learning Curve

It never ceases to amaze me how much Elizabeth learns and absorbs. She recently started to clamor to be put down on the floor so she can play independently instead of being perfectly content to snuggle in somebody's arms for hours on end. She is absolutely fascinated by our dog and watches him constantly when she can see him. Getting to him is one of the reasons she's desperate to start crawling. (What she doesn't yet realize is that even when she's more mobile, he's still going to be faster and more agile than she is and will be able to get away quickly.)

On the crawling front, Elizabeth is able to roll herself around pretty ably and get up on her arms, but the only direction she's been able to scoot herself is backwards. This fact irritates her very much when she realizes that she's expended a great deal of energy in going away from her objective instead of toward it.

Yesterday, she was on the floor playing and I was sitting next to her. She saw a toy just out of her grasp and strained hard to reach it, brushing it with her fingertips and trying hard to grasp it. My first instinct was to move the toy into her hands, but I stopped myself. Let her be independent, let her do it herself, a little voice in my head whispered. Instead of putting the toy closer, I put my hand behind her feet and let her push off. She scooted forward and in a matter of seconds was happily chewing on her toy.

I think most parents' first instinct, when they see children straining hard for something that would be so easy for us, is to do it for them. It's hard to watch a child struggle when you know you could make it easier. My lesson yesterday was not to step in and make it easier by moving the objective, but rather to ease the path by giving a little support from the rear. I hope that as she and her struggles get bigger that I can remember that wisdom!

News of our world

Lunch with Godmomma at E. 48th Street Italian Market:



"I distinctly saw four cannoli on that plate. Where are they?"




"What do you MEAN, you ate them all?! And that I'm not old enough for cannoli?"




"Nooooooo!"


Sorry for the recent lack of updates -- things got a little crazy with the holidays!

Most of our readership (all two of you!) already knows this, but just to make it public: Elizabeth is going to be a big sister in early July! Numero Due is due on July 9th, which is one week to the day before Elizabeth's first birthday. I sincerely hope that Due follows his/her sister's lead and arrives early. We are going to find out and make public this baby's gender in a few weeks, so stay tuned!

As for the holidays, Elizabeth got to share her first Christmas with all her in-town relatives plus her aunt and uncle and cousin-on-the-way from California and her grandparents from Indiana. It was one big party, even though she didn't really get what was going on. She likes red wrapping paper and tried to help tear it off her presents. After Christmas, we went over to Augusta and then on to Hilton Head to spend time with more family and friends.

I hope your 2009 began as well as ours did!