I'm sure you've all been wondering, how did the first night alone go?  Well, it went ok.  Much better than our first night with Isaac.  I was up about once an hour...usually to feed but sometimes to adjust the swaddle.  The good news is that Joshua usually went back to sleep quickly, so that was very nice.

Look...a tiny person is in the swing again.  In many ways, it's kind of sad that we're expecting this to be our last child.  The littleness can be a lot of fun!  But I'm sure that soon I will also remember why it's nice when they're older.  And I keep finding Isaac to be more and more enjoyable, so I expect I'll do the same with Joshua and not look back.

I finished Joshua's quilt over the weekend.  It had been very close for a while, but i put the finishing touches on.  So we now have a baseline picture at 3 days old.  hmm.  it seems like he's been around longer than that (in a good way).  The hospital distorts time a bit.

Isaac and Joshua.  As I was getting Isaac ready for bed I was struck at how much bigger he is.

A short tummy time.  Joshua had a dirty diaper.

Wednesday: home and pictures

At the hospital!  I think this is after the epidural, but I'm not sure.  Except for the contractions I felt in pretty good spirits, and with the contractions so far apart I was mostly in good spirits.

We have one like this from Isaac too.  (Yes, we did that on purpose.)  I felt as though I was sitting up more than it looks.

Joshua is born!  It was interesting how having the two kids at different times of the day changed things...we got some different pictures due to it.

Isaac came over and read a book with me.  The lift the flap books are awesome.

First family picture.

Another family picture.

Joshua at night, holding onto Ben's finger.

Leah and Joshua.  Leah is two months older than Joshua...and what a difference it made!!

Day 1 - Joshua

Day 1- Joshua and me.  There was more down time in the morning so I took some extra pictures.

New room.  You can see Ben in the bathroom mirror. :)

Our Congratulatory dinner.  And poor Joshua, the guest of honor, didn't get to eat any.

Isaac getting to hold Joshua for the first time.  It went pretty well.

Going home!  He is so small in the car seat.

Isaac wanted to get us some flowers.

Ben's first time looking after the two boys.  He did an awesome job.

Tuesday: day 1

Today was Joshua's first full day in the real world...I think it went well. We had a relaxing early morning and then the influx of people started...for about two hours it was one person after another.

Around 1pm I was asked to switch rooms because they had an influx of six people coming in and were running out of delivery rooms. That was fine with me. They transferred me out at a brisk pace. They weren't running, but they were far from dilly-dallying either.

We had our celebration dinner at night...and poor Joshua didn't get to eat any of it. Isaac showed up after that; he had been having too much fun at Grandma's house to be bothered to come any earlier. He did well reading the books for about thirty minutes and was then ready to go. He did help me read "dear zoo" to Joshua and that was fun.

We also had several visitors throughout the day: Betsy and Leah, dad and Pat, Jon and Nicole, and Derek, Julie, and Abby. Just the right amount to keep the day interesting but not overwhelming.

More pictures to follow...I don't have a good way to get them on the ipad anymore.

Joshua

Well, this delivery is a bit of a saga...

Friday:
12pm: VBS finishes
1:20: Isaac is picked up by Dad to spend the weekend up north.
1:35: I start having contractions. What great timing!
10:30: we go to the hospital because contractions are frequent, but neither of us think we'll be staying. I don't think they're painful enough and we both think I'm too happy.

Saturday:
1:30am: We leave the hospital. I'm having contractions, but they were farther apart than I thought. We might have been able to stay, but that idea was unattractive. The nurse thinks we'll be back later that day.
7:30: I wake up after having an excellent sleep; contractions start.
7:30pm: after continuing all day, contractions finally get close enough that we could go in again. Ben takes a shower first.
7:45: contractions stall out.
8:30: contractions completely go away. I guess it's nice that we're not at the hospital and I don't have to be embarrassed, but seriously?? They were happening all day.

Sunday:
6:00pm: contractions finally start again. It was a nice painless day...and it was nice not having to watch the clock. My contractions tend to not follow a nice pattern with respect to timing, and it always makes me frustrated.
8:30: I go for a walk around the lake after drinking some water. That was a mistake. Water has been going through me in about five minutes this whole weekend. Contractions are coming fast.
9:00: I sit down and contractions pretty much stop. I had actually been wondering if these were Braxton-Hicks as they were acting a bit differently.

Monday:
12:45am: I wake up with a contraction and the need to go to the bathroom. Which one woke me up?
1:30: the contraction. I get out of bed to try and not distub Ben so he can get some sleep. I do disturb Flurry.




4:45: I wake up Ben...we're going to the hospital! I expect to stay.
4:50: on our way to the hospital I only have one contraction...oh no, they're going to send me home. How embarrassing.
5:30: we get to stay! The contractions picked up enough to fool the nurses and I'm dilated to a stretchy four. We settle in.
7:00 shift change - we now have the nurse that helped deliver Isaac. I'm dilated to a five and the doctor breaks my water.
9:30: I'm dilated to a six and the contractions are slow (5-7 minutes apart) and painful. But phew, since my water was broken they can't send me home. It is one of my larger fears for some reason.
10:00: we decide to go forward with an epidural and petocin
11:00: I'm really starting to hurt and have been wondering where that epidural is. It finally show up, along with a friendly doctor.
11:15: ahh. We also have a nurse change and she start the petocin on the lowest setting. I'm dilated to a six.
11:30: I'm really glad that I have an epidural; some contractions are still mildly painful.
12:15: an alarm goes off on the petocin dispenser and a nurse comes in.
12:30: the baby's heartbeat goes out of the safe zone. The nurse tries a few things and then has me lie on my side. That helps, but she also checks on the baby's progress...baby is on his way! I'm fully dilated and at station +2 (I.e., the baby has started moving down the birth canal.
12:40: Ben goes to quickly grab some lunch while the doctor is called.
12:45: the doctor shows up faster than expected and gets everything ready.
12:48: Ben returns with lunch, surprised to see everything ready to go
12:53: I push through the last part of a contraction
12:58: I push through the first part of a second contraction...yeah, they're still rather far apart
1:02: I stop pushing so the doctor can cut the umbilical cord around baby's neck.
1:05: Joshua Alan is born!



Due to the speed and the umbilical cord, his breathing was a bit raspy...the fluid wasn't all out of his lungs. Nothing to be worried about, but the nurse monitored it and said that only Ben and I should hold him to keep the stress down. So we limited our visitors for the day, although an hour later he was doing fine. So we just had a nice, low-key evening.

Saturday: babies and puppies

Throughout the pregnancy I've had a problem where I'm super hungry and need to eat something and that means that Isaac wants to eat too.  Except that he doesn't need to eat because it's an hour after breakfast or something like that.  So I started saying that the food is for the baby, and he doesn't need any.  I stuck to that excuse, and he eventually learned that it meant he would get no food.

Of course, he thinks he has a puppy in his tummy.  So he's started to tell me that he needs to eat some goldfish crackers "for the puppy."

Friday: VBS

Well, I made it through the whole week of VBS.  Today's craft wasn't much of a craft, but did require a bit of set up time.

I also found one picture of Isaac from the week's pictures.  He's in the background, riding the tricycle.  Although I'm not sure his feet are on the pedals, so I have wondered how well it worked.  He seemed to love VBS...especially the slides and singing.  It was a very nice change of pace.

Thursday: play sand

Isaac received some moon sand (or something similar) last week at Jamie's wedding.  It has been his favorite toy since.  He loves to play in the sand, and this is something that he can do inside without a lot of prep, so I like it too.

Wednesday: babies, fish, eyebrows

I had my weekly doctor's appointment today.  She pretty much said that not much had changed since last Friday, but she did strip the membranes.  That helped with Isaac, so I'm hoping my body will react the same way this time too.  (Contractions started about 36 hours after with Isaac, so we'll know tomorrow night.)

Isaac also got some goldfish today.  He was so excited.  And it helped me go to the grocery store as we were out of the basics and I really didn't want to go.  I also got him some goldfish crackers so he could eat goldfish while watching goldfish.

Then later this evening Ben asked Isaac if he could wiggle his eyebrows.  Isaac proceeded to move his whole head up and down...which did wiggle his eyebrows.

Tuesday: watering can

Isaac and I went to the pool this afternoon and he proceeded to sit on the side of the pool and played with a toy watering can for thirty minutes.  He also enjoyed swimming in the deep part and seeing his friend.

Monday: VBS

I'm volunteering this year again at Vacation Bible School.  I always tell the coordinators they can put me where ever, and this year I ended up as a craft helper.  (They knew I was pregnant and needed to be somewhere that I wasn't too critical.)

The time went a lot faster than I was expecting.  We pre-folded some boxes which ended up being a smart move - the craft took the whole time even with the boxes folded.  And the kindergartners and first graders wouldn't have been able to do it...once I had folded five it was easy, but if you only have one to fold it would be hard.  There were three groups of kids...it was interesting to see how much a year or two in age changed what they were able to do.  And in between the kids we had clean up and re-setting up and figuring out how to make it work better.  One change we made was increasing the space between the tables.  I was trying to help some kids during the first session and just felt like my belly kept getting in the way.

Isaac was in nursery during this time and I think they ran him hard...we both took very good naps.

Saturday: Sun's still up!

So after being so excited that Isaac was staying in his bed...he stopped.  The last few naps have been rough and then tonight he got up too.  He likes to tell us that the sun is still up and so it is wake up time.

It's possible that he's about done with naps, but I'm not ready for that quite yet.  So I'm trying to hold it off a little longer.  Next week is VBS, so hopefully he'll be rather tired after that.

Friday: today

I didn't get my nap today.  Someone stayed awake for the whole hour that I do give myself.  I got up to get him up at the end of the hour and he was by his door...I think I almost hit him.  But he was so excited and told me in his high squeaky voice that the sun was up so it was wake up time!   So much excitement.  It was almost worth missing my nap...but not quite.

I had my OB appointment today.  The baby has dropped (I was measuring 3cm less this week than last week), am 80% effaced and dilated to 2.  She told me I should schedule next week's appointment, but she wasn't really sure that I'd make it that long.  I'm trying hard not to get my hopes up too much.  I'm not sure it's working, but I'll survive if it does take a little longer.

A friend volunteered to watch Isaac while we went on a date tonight, so we took her up on that!!  We weren't out very long, but long enough that I didn't have to put Isaac to bed.  Bedtime is one of the worst times...I'm ready for him to be in bed and he stalls just a little more than normal and between the two it is annoying.  And we got to have fun by ourselves.  Although Isaac apparently got out of bed a few times...it's the first time he's done so at night.  I'm hoping it isn't a trend and that he was just rather tired.

Week recap: wedding

Jim and Jamie got married today!

The weather was beautiful...again, not too hot or too cold.  Isaac didn't manage to sit through the service, but we just wandered off a bit where he was hopefully not too loud but I could still sort of see what was going on.  It was a late night by the time the reception was done, but he did a great job.

And now we have a bigger family!

Week recap: visitors!

I've been a little behind in blogging...a lot of stuff has been going on!  First we had some friends from Minnesota stay with us for two nights.  It was a lot of fun.

We visited the Critter Barn.  Animals are always fun to watch.

Ben was a favorite with the cats.  There were a lot of cats - I'm not sure they were a favorite of his.

They got to hold ducklings.  The ducklings were surprisingly well behaved.

And they pet angora goats.  They look like sheep.

Later we visited the beach.  I thought it was going to be on the cold side.  (Apparently we were having a polar vortex visit us too).  But it was perfect!  The sand wasn't too hot or too cold.  The breeze was just right for full sun.

The next day we went to Dutch Village.  They have a lot of animals too.  The goat walked us.

And Isaac really liked this baby goat.

And he tried on some wooden shoes.

Saturday: employee picnic

This evening we went to the employee picnic for Ben's work.  As always, it was huge.  It was also raining/sprinkling a bit, so that made it interesting.

Isaac enjoyed carrying his own umbrella.  The rain never got so bad that we considered leaving early, and had several spots were it stopped all together.

This was the first year we made it to the go-karts.  Most of the time Isaac seemed to be having a good time, although the crazy driver probably scared him a few times.  He did say he wanted to go again, so we took that as a good sign.

Ben and Isaac won an "EE hat" at the carnival games.  (It was nice to come home with something that has a good chance of being used that wasn't a stuffed animal.  Although to be fair, some of Isaac's favorite stuffed animals are currently from the carnival games.)  Isaac also really liked his wrist band.  Sunday morning he told me I could finally cut it off and once he realized what that meant and that he couldn't get it back on we had many tears.

There were also bumper boats!  Ben and Isaac went on these twice...and the second time Ben got soaked by a little waterfall.  It just meant that it was time to leave.

It was nice having a child that was old enough to do some of the more fun things and understand what was going on.  Now he just needs to grow a few more inches so that he can ride some of the rides.  Probably next year.

Friday: today

During breakfast:
Isaac: Eagles go up up?
Amanda: yup
Isaac: Mom go up up?
Amanda: No
Isaac: Mom no wings?  (With an arm motion)
Amanda: Yeah!

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We finally got some shelves built in the basement.  I'm excited...and here's a poor picture.  It's at one of those angles that is hard to photograph.

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We met Betsy, Ethan, and Leah at the park.  Isaac played really hard and crashed within a minute of getting in the car.

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I had my OB appointment.  I'm 50% effaced and only dilated to 1...but the doctor might have just been saying that to be nice.  The baby's head is down but not facing the right way.  I know I still have several (three) weeks left, but I was really, really hoping for different news.

Thursday: not sneaky

I packed some duplos in my hospital bag since I don't know if Isaac will need to be entertained. He found them, and was so excited...are these for me? I told him to put them back but I expect he'll remember.

We proceeded to play with Allen wrenches for about 45 minutes. Who knew they were so fascinating.

Wednesday: Curious George

The library had a Curious George event today.  Betsy and I brought our kids; thinking it might be busy but not too bad.  It was packed.  By the end, after we got our pictures, I could tell Isaac was rather overwhelmed and he wanted to be picked up and held on tightly.

We went to the playground for a little bit after that.  It was a beautiful day for it.

2.5 years old

I finally took Isaac's 2.5 year pictures.  Of course, it was raining so the lighting isn't great, but good enough.

Sleeping: Isaac's still an awesome sleeper.  The transition from the crib to the twin bed went so much better than I was even hoping for.  Basically, Isaac stays in his bed after nap and night time until we come get him.  It's almost as though he doesn't realize he can get out.  I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Potty training: still not super wonderful, but we're definitely seeing progress.  He had five days in a row without accidents, which was promptly followed by four days with several.  He's dry for naps and often dry at night.  I expect we'll have another relapse when the baby comes, but since we've dealt with several of those hopefully it will be short.

Talking: I think his vocabulary has grown quite a bit again in the last few weeks.  He is still hard for non-parents to understand, but it's getting better.

Other: Isaac still says he has a puppy in his tummy, but overall seems excited for the baby.  He's been a big help putting the furniture together.  He likes playing games on the Ipad, but is always willing to be done when we say so.  (He always asks, "Mom's turn now?"  But the fact that he turns it off so easily makes me more willing to let him use it.)  Duplos and playing in the sand are still some of his favorite activities, although he also likes reading.  He's recently started doing somersaults and finds them rather hilarious.