Chatterbox

Elizabeth likes to talk. A lot. I can't always understand what she's saying, but she's pretty good at making herself intelligible.

Right now, she's in love with names. She doesn't really say her own yet (when she tries, it comes out sounding like "Li-bef"). She has been saying the names of her friends and teachers from school pretty frequently, and she likes to talk to and about her brother, who she calls "Wee-yum." He responds to her calling him by looking up and grinning.

She is also figuring out that you have to talk to the person on the other end of the phone. Over the holidays, we got her to say "Hi" to both Auntie Krissy and Auntie Cara, and this weekend, she actually had a conversation of sorts with her Nonie...if "Hi," "okay," "okay," and "Bye" constitute a conversation. I think she believes Nonie is on every phone or phone-like object; she passed the phone at her Grandmama and Papa's house the other day, pointed and said "Nonie!" and she picks up her monitor when she's on the changing table and talks to Nonie.

The Little Dude is finally starting to sleep through the night again. He's never been quite as good at that as his sister was; he will go for 6-8 nights and be fine, then have 3-5 rocky nights. This time, it's accompanied by better naps, so maybe he's settling into a nice pattern.

He is trying desperately to move and has gotten up on hands and knees. Unfortunately, when he gets up on his hands and knees, he goes backwards and then gets ticked off that he's farther away from whatever his goal was. He prefers to lie belly-down and pump his arms and legs like he's doing the skeleton at the Winter Olympics in hopes that somehow all this activity will propel him forwards.

Still here!

We made it through the holidays successfully. Right before Christmas, we were disappointed to get the news that Logic Sister and her family would not be able to come to Atlanta for a visit since Logic Niece has been very ill. (She is now doing better, but is scheduled for surgery later this month -- prayers, please!) We haven't seen them since their move to Texas and they hadn't yet met William, so...

Logic Boy packed up William and headed out to Dallas for a couple of days before Christmas. Both Daddy and Son had a great visit, and Daddy handled his first solo flight avec bebe like he did it every week.

Our Christmas was pretty quiet. Elizabeth and William aren't at the stage where they want to wake up at 4 a.m. to see what Santa brought, although William still likes to get up at 4 a.m. from time to time to party. Elizabeth seemed to know a little bit about what was going on with Christmas this year: she can say "Santa" and was VERY interested in both her Nativity scene and the Christmas tree. She has been saying "hi!" and "night-night!" and "bye!" to the tree for weeks.

We spent time on Christmas Eve with Logic Boy's parents and grandmother and had a wonderful time. Logic Mom made the fabulous Chocolate-Citrus Cake from December's Southern Living magazine, and it was AWESOME. Even more awesome was the fact that she sent it home with us...yum. On Christmas Day, we had the Random Oenophile and Husband over for dinner, which has become our Christmas tradition. William had a very rough evening, unfortunately, which meant that either Logic Boy or I was up rocking him every 30 minutes or so, but we enjoyed getting to visit with them.

The Grammar Parents came into town on their way back from Peru on January 1 and we had fun with them. Elizabeth is wild about her Nonie, and William had fun sitting on the couch and watching football with his grandpa.

Now we're back into the swing of things with school and work!

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!