2 months

Lydia had her 2 month checkup today. She is happy(mostly)and healthy. She weighs 12 lbs 12 ounces (95th percentile) and is 23 inches long(75th percentile) I can't believe how much she is growing and how strong she is. We think she is pretty special. :)

swimming lessons

Laila loved swimming lessons. I was nervous about how she would do because she does not like Brad or I to help her swim but of course she listened better to the teacher. She was mostly smiles through the lesson and said she had a lot of fun. She won't let us talk about it though because she says it is embarrassing:) Maybe because I was the mom sitting there with my camera out the whole time..haha. I was also the mom with the little boy who desperately wanted in too so settled for throwing mom's empty coffee cup in. awww the memories I will have.


oh and that picture of Lydia is just cute!

Strawberries

We took the whole family strawberry picking for the first time Saturday. As I suspected Landon loved picking them and eating them and was a big help most of the time. We left only after he started to pick up handfuls of dirt trying to bury mom's feet. Laila wasn't too impressed with anything. She is in the phase where she is worried about bugs and she was too afraid of what was lurking in the plants. I am hoping this is a short phase because some of my fondest memories growing up were playing outside in the woods of terrace heights and getting dirty.

We had fun. I wish we would have gone a little earlier in season as we did not have a lot to choose from but I did make plenty of jam for my girls pb&j sandwhiches.

Life update and photos

oh how I love my Lydia. She will be 4 weeks old on Wednesday and time could not be going by any faster. She is a champ eater and pooper. I had to take her to the doctor last week at 3 weeks and she weighed 9 lbs 3 ounces. She was born at 7lbs 6 ounces. That is some good growth. She is also a good crier..meaning she likes to cry. She cries when naked; so undressed, changing diaper or taking a bath. She cries when she has gas which is all the time. She cries when she needs to get that burp out which she has trouble with. She also cries(screams?) every night before falling asleep. BUT.....she is a good sleeper at night. She usually eats at 2 am and 6 am which I think is great. I know her crying won't last forever. I cherish those smiles and content moments where everything seems perfect with the world. It's amazing how you marvel at your children and every little thing they do. Even with the third, everything she does is amazing and adorable.
Landon is doing so much better with her now. He ignores her much of the time which I prefer to him trying to push her off my lap or pick her up. He likes to come up in the chair with us when I am holding her and point to her and say "It's cute" with this big grin on his face like he knows he is saying something really sweet and mommy should be so proud of him even if he refers to his sister as "it."
Adjusting to three is a lot like adjusting to two so far. However, when mommy is nursing I have two kids taking advantage of that fact, getting into stuff. I asked Brad what am I supposed to do? Landon doesn't listen when I tell him to go to time out. I have to physically put him there. So I could say, ok Landon in 15 minutes YOU ARE GOING TO TIME OUT! hahaha
Laila is done with preschool for the summer. On to Pre-k next year. This is a picture from the end of the year "show" they put on at Kneeland Park last Thursday. She did sing most of the songs but I could barely hear her because she definitely was not the most excited and outgoing. It was probably one of the cutest and funniest things I have seen in a long time. Oh and the picture only shows part of the class, there are 13 kids.

Junior jog

nervously biting her nails
I like to tease Brad that he was running with the wrong girl
this was how she showed her excitement


This Saturday Laila ran her first race with Brad by her side. It was 1/4 mile starting at the Shelton Inn and finishing at the post office. She did great, stopping only momentarily to wave at her mommy. She seemed so excited and proud of herself when she was done. Each child received a Paul Bunyan book and a medal. Laila wasn't too excited that everyone got a medal. She didn't quite understand that. Anyway, I didn't get the best pics of her running because they started the race 10 minutes early so I wasn't ready and I was on my phone with Brad's mom explaining where I was. Also, my daughter is lightning fast. :)

the only way to relax

Lydia 8 days old
Landon 8 days old
Laila 10 days old

The birth story

We arrived at St. Peters at 7:30 am to be induced. I was checked to see what kind of induction they would try. I was only 2 cm but they were going to try and brake my water and start pitocin. After about a half hour of poking at my bag they were only able to poke a hole in it. Therefore, during labor every time I had a contraction I felt like I was peeing myself:) They started off slow with pitocin and it took about 3 hours for them to get me going with regular contractions so at about 11. They were having a hard time reading my contractions and the baby's heartbeat kept dipping so I had to have a monitor placed on her head and on my uterus to monitor both of those. I had wires everywhere it felt like. I was told that they were very busy that day with c-sections so if I wanted an epidural I would have to wait until after 2. I was a little worried because it seemed that my contractions were constant and I was unsure how I would cope. I was having back labor and Lydia was posterior which meant they were a little concerned she would come out nose first. The nurse told me back labors can take longer which was not encouraging. I progressed pretty slowly until about 2:30 when the anistesiologist came to give me my epi. He was able to do it pretty quickly and they gave me another dose of poticin right away as well. Unortunately, I felt no relief. They kept saying oh just give it 5 more minutes and we will give you some more and see if that helps. When that poticin kicked in things got intense. I was 5 cm dialted about 3:10. I knew things were going fast so I told them to check me a few minutes later and I was 8 cm. About 5 minutes later I said I need to push NOW and they checked again and I was complete but they told me I had to wait. I went from 5 cm to 10 in 15-20 minutes. The anistesiologist actually walked in while they were setting me up for pushing to readminister the epi and he was shoved out the door. Lydia was born at 3:41 so I pushed for 5-10 minutes. My doctor never made it to the hospital. There was a resident doctor and a midwife they called in later that delievered Lydia. I was planning on getting into more details of the pushing stages just because they might make people laugh but I will just say that Brad was in a headlock the entire time and his butt kept cramping:) You can ask him about that!

Lydia was born with her cord tightly wrapped around her neck and body. She was blue and not breathing so she had a bit of a rough start. They took her to the nursery to see the specialist but was quickly brought back to me. She seems perfect to me now:)

This was by far the hardest of labors, but most exciting. It seemed like everything that could go wrong did but I got a beautiful little girl out of it.