Jack's birthday bash

And is was a bash! He made out like a bandit. More quality than quantity this year which is perfectly fine with us! This kid has too many toys than he knows what to do with.

I chose an afternoon party this time instead of a morning party so that it was easier on our guests. It's tough working around naps! We tried to get Jack down for an early nap so that he could be awake before everyone showed up but that just didn't happen. He tired to go to sleep but kept telling us that he was awake. We did eventually get him to sleep, just not as early as I wanted. Once we got Jack and Grace both asleep Eric and I went to go get the food, cake and balloons... all 3 dozen of them! Mental note, my car easily fits 3 dozen balloons and there was room for more. Maybe next year will be 4 dozen!

So people start showing up and Jack wakes up from his nap. Now, my poor kid is a slow waker. He really prefers to sit on the sofa with Daddy for a little while and watch tv and drink some milk to wake up. Poor thing didn't have that chance! He wasn't exactly pleased that so many people were in the house when he woke up.


But once he saw all the balloons all over the house he perked up. Of course he wasn't having any of my decorating with the balloons... he had to have them ALL!! And he didn't care who he bowled over when he was walking by them with all those balloons!!









Once it was time for presents and cake the fun really started. Let's see, some of his favorite gifts are his tricycle (from Mommy and Daddy), his Dinosaur book (from Aunt Leah), his tent (from Nana and Grandpa), his helicopter (from Uncle Mike), and the car carrier semi truck (from Aunt Chris). He got a lot of wonderful gift beyond those and has honestly played with them all!

Cake was fun. Since he had had us sing to him and let him blow out candles on his actual birthday he knew just what to do and was so excited. We all stood around him and sang and he was so excited to blow those candles out that he did it before we finished singing and I had to re-light them!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to Jack!

Has it really been 3 years? Three years since we've been able to both sleep in. Three years since the cats thought our lives revolved around them. Three years since the furniture in the living room wasn't overtaken by toys and baby things. Three years since the loudest thing in the house was Eric playing video games. Three years since we could fit more than one passenger in the back of our car.

Three years since we created a perfect little person that will always call me "mom."

Jack certainly has some faults. He is only 3, after all. He's stubborn, he's selectively deaf, he's got a temper. But he's mine. He'll always be my little boy. He's got a fantastic sense of humor, loves to make people laugh. He's absolutely fearless. He's loud. He still eats like a bird. He loves cuddling on the sofa after waking up. He loves his mom. He loves his dad. And he adores his baby sister.

His birthday fell on a Tuesday this year so I made sure to make some cupcakes, make his favorite dinner (spaghetti) and let him blow out some candles. The shear delight on his face when we walked into the living room singing "Happy Birthday" with 3 cupcakes with lit candles will last me a long, long time.

Jack is 3!!!! Here's his montage.

Without further ado, here is Jack's latest montage!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Gracie is 2 months old

And her brother adores her more than ever. When I laid the blanket out on the floor to take Gracie's picture Jack declares that he wants to lay on it too. So I got some pictures of the both of them along with pictures of her. Of course his half-chewed halloween lollipop was in the pictures too. What can you do?

At her 2 month doctors visit the poor thing got 4 shots and some oral vaccine that I can't remember the name of. But she is perfect otherwise.

Her stats:
Weight : 11 lbs 9 oz (75th percentile)
Height : 22 3/4 inches (75th percentile)

She's my healthy girl!

No! She's mine!

Jack is already playing the role of protective older brother. As it gets closer and closer to the time when I need to take Grace to Miss Linda's daycare as well I make sure that she goes in with me to pick Jack up so that she gets used to the sites and smells.

As naturally curious as kids are everyone will come gather around Gracie when I bring her in. They don't try to touch her or bug her, they just want to see her... heck, when you're a little kid there aren't many other beings that are smaller than you, right?

Jack doesn't like it. He gets very possessive.

And I quote: "No Thompson!" (as he pushes Thompson away) or "No Benny, She's mine!"

Let's hope he continues to be this protective when she's in high school.

They say...

They say that every child is different. Yeah yeah yeah, yada yada yada. Well, that's what I thought anyway. I just KNEW that Grace would always been skinny like Jack, that it'd take her forever to grow out of clothes just like it did for Jack. I worried that she'd be a poor sleeper like Jack and I worried she'd be a poor eater like Jack.

Boy was I wrong.

Turns out every child really is different.

Jack was always in the 10th percentile for weight.
Gracie has been in the 90th percentile. She's already outgrowing her 3 month clothes and won't be two months old for about 2 weeks. Jack wore his until he was between 4 and 5 months old.

Jack was a HORRIBLE sleeper and didn't sleep through the night until after he was a year old.
Grace slept through the night this past weekend at 7 weeks old. And she's been waking only once a night since then.

Jack was a terrible eater and we couldn't get more than a couple ounces of food down him as an infant.
Grace is a champion eater and will actually over eat if I don't cut her off after a certain amount of time.

Jack was horribly colicky for so so (so so so so) long.
Grace was (what we think) colicky for about a week.

Jack was always such a serious kid. We'd just smiles out of him but he didn't give them out freely.
Grace will smile and coo every time she sees us and will even smile and coo at some of her toys.

I do hope, however that Grace takes after Jack in how fearless, energetic and smart Jack is. Well, maybe a little less energetic would be nice. I guess she does have it going for her to have him to learn after. And I know he'll teach her everything he knows. He loves his sister so much and just can't kiss and hug her enough. I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.

No kid wants underwear for Christmas

So we were talking up the whole "Santa" thing to Jack the other night. Explaining that he'll come to the house and leave his presents under the tree to which Jack exclaims "Go to the mall and see Santa and we have a tree and he brings presents and there's snow." But he says it so fast it may as well be one long word.

So we ask him what presents he'd like Santa to bring for him. We ask him if he wants some Thomas trains.
Jack : "Yes!"
We ask him if he wants some more cars.
Jack : "Yes!"
We ask him if he wants some clothes.
Jack : "No!" (But said in a very "Duh, why would I want that" tone of voice)

Turn your head and coiffe

First of all, if you are a Simpsons fan you'll understand the title of this post.

I decided today to wear my hair up. No big deal, I've done it plenty of times but just not very recently. I guess Jack thinks it's been a while since I've done it anyway.

So I go to pick Jack up from daycare and we get in the car and I'm asking him about his day and he just stops, looks at me and asks "Mommy, your hair is nice and pretty?" Awwwwwww! Way to melt a mother's heartstrings! So I ask him "Do you think Mommy's hair is nice and pretty?" and he declares "Yes!"

That's my boy. He keeps up with the flattery like that and he'll do well in life.

One month already!

I can't believe that Gracie is one month old already. Really. I feels like I just came home with her.

She's been such a great baby. Generally laid back, cries only when something is really wrong. Of course, that all increased a week or so ago when she turned colicky. But I think that we've found something to work for us. I'm now giving her Mylicon (removes gas bubbles) with each feeding and we're swaddling her during her "colic hours". It seems to be working, yesterday we got through the evening with NO colic crying and she slept for 5 HOURS!!!!! Let me repeat that in case you think you read it wrong... that was 5 HOURS!!! I can't tell you the thrilled feeling I had when she woke up at 2am to eat. I *almost* felt rested! And today she's actually napping normally again. No more wiggling awake in the middle of her naps with a bad gas bubble.

So we had her one month checkup at the doctor yesterday. She is 10 lbs 1 oz. I think that deserves being repeated too... that was 10 lbs 1 oz. She's only a month old. Jack didn't weigh that much until he was 3 months old! I'm so not used to having a child with fat rolls either. Her legs have fat rolls, her arms have fat rolls, she has an extra chin and even her fingers are chubby! Jack never had an ounce of fat on him. Actually, come to think of it, he still doesn't. Little bugger.

The doctor was also thrilled with her development. When she put her on her tummy to see what she'd do she was picking her head up (a little) and moving her arms and legs as if she wanted to move around. Dr. Tsoi just laughed at her and told her she'd have to wait a little for that. And she was also impressed when I told her that she's tried 3 times now to roll over. Granted, I doubt it's a consious (did I spell that right?) effort but she did it none the less.

Here's a few pics of my chubby little girl on her one month birthday.

Time for some visual stimulation

Gracie loves her time on her play mat... especially the two red objects and the little mirror. Little did she know she would get the added stimulation of her brother on her mat with her.

I had to warn him a couple times that he had to be more gentle but otherwise he thought it was just great to share the time with his sister.

Bath time!

Jack is such a great big brother. Ignore the fact that he's still too young to care about being quiet while she's sleeping and he's just great. No, really, he just loves her. We've taught him that she has to be awake for him to give her hugs and kisses otherwise he would give them to her constantly, whether it woke her up or not. He calls her "baby girl" and is always asking to hold her on the sofa. He even tries to put toys and rattles in her hand.

So, with all this in mind you can only imagine how excited he was when it was time to give Grace a bath! I quickly had to give him the task of "rinsing" her tummy with the cup. Otherwise I'm not sure what he would have tried to do. :-) He was so good at it. He even helped me rinse out the tub and run fresh water when she decided to poop during her bath. Yes poop. Not once, but twice. But we got her clean with a lot of help from Jack!

Not fair!

I tell you, it just isn't fair. How can a newborn already have a cold? At least Jack is learning to share, right?

But seriously, she's 3 weeks old today and she's been sick for 2/3 of her life. It just doesn't seem right. I finally broke down on Friday and took her to the doctor since the cold just wasn't clearing up and you'll never guess... she has an ear infection!!!

So here's my darling daughter, she's had a head cold for most of her life and now she has an ear infection. But what amazes me is that she's still so good!! She sleeps well (except for the congestion interfering), she's in good spirits most of the time and she only cries when something it truly wrong.

I can't wait to meet who my daughter really is once she isn't sick anymore.

Gracie is 2 weeks old

And just as cute as can be!

Best Big Brother Ever

A little history... We call Jack "Baby Boy" (always have) and so logic says that we call Gracie "Baby Girl."

We just got home from picking Jack up at daycare and he wanted to help get Gracie out of her carrier. So Eric got her unbuckled and Jack "helped" pick her up. Well Grace had been passed out cold in the car seat and when she got picked up she let out a little whimper. Jack says "hush hush, what's wrong Baby Girl?"

How cute is he?

Welcome to the world Grace!

Welcome Grace Sophia Redcay!

So sometime around midnight on Sunday night I started to get contractions. But they weren't anything fantastic so I pretty much slept through them. Around 2am I decided to start timing them and they were about 8 minutes apart. By 7am when we all got out of bed (leave it to Jack to sleep in on THIS day) they were 5 to 6 minutes apart. I got in the shower, then Eric howered and we were at the hospital by 9:30.

Apparently I didn't look like I was in labor so the nurses almost gave me a hard time about being there. The one nurse was downright snotty because I hadn't called my doctor for him to tell me to come in. Uh thanks but it's 9:30 and my contractions are 2 to 4 minutes apart, I'm pretty darn sure I'm about to have this baby. Dummy. Anyway, they hooked me up and sure enough, now they believe me. And I was at 3 cm. The one admitting nurse that I really liked popped her head in and asked me to rate the contractions on a scale of 1 to 10 and I told her 7. She just smiled and said that I was her pain hero. I guess that means I have a high threshold for pain? They admitted me by 10:30 and the contractions were no more than a minute apart. I walked
the hallways and my room for about an hour and just couldn't take it anymore and asked for the epidural. Eric and Leah agreed that I had put in my dues and if I wanted it that I earned it. Well, once again there wasn't enough time. The nurse couldn't find a vein to put the IV in and my blood work hadn't even been run when the doctor came in to check on me because she was on her way to do a c-section. I was in the middle of a contraction and she was going to leave without
checking how dialated I was (in her defense, I hadn't really been there that long I don't think she knew how close I was) but I managed to ask her to check me right in the middle of my contraction (all back labor again. ugh). She checked and I was at 9 cm and Graces head was
right there. So she told the nurse to stop trying for the IV because I was going to be ready to push before the conversation was over. The doctor left to get ready and to postpone her c-section, I managed (barely) through a few more contractions that made me want to jump out
of my skin. The doctor got back and she wanted me to try a practice push. Practice! Ha! That was the first push. She told me that when the next contraction came to "get angry and push" (LOL!) so I did. Out came Grace. Two pushes. (Yay me!) All 8 lbs 2 ounces of her. Yikes, I really had no idea she would be that big.

So not only was my little daughter too stubborn to listen to all of us and be born early in August (little stinker waited until Sept 1) but then when she came out she also wanted to wave HI to the world and brought her hand out next to her face. Little stinker, she must be my kid.

I'll save you all the details of what needed to be fixed up on me but all in all I actually feel really good. And so far so good with the breastfeeding!