Our little sweetheart arrived on March 26th at 3:12pm weighing 9 pounds, 1 ounce and measuring 20 3/4 inches (6 days before her due date). I had a day of contractions at 35 weeks and from then on had contractions on and off almost every day. A couple of nights before she was born I woke up with a terrible migraine (very unusual for me) and it didn't occur to me until the next evening that my blood pressure could be causing it. Rob took it and it *was* high, but I was feeling lazy and didn't want to go to the hospital so I went to sleep. At around 1:30am the contractions started again, and at 7:00am my blood pressure was still high, so we went to the hospital.
I wasn't planning to have an epidural, but the Doctors recommended it to help bring my blood pressure down. I did wait until I was 9cm though, and asked them to make it very light. I could still feel my legs and most everything - just not pain. It was the best labor I've had - no throwing up and shaking the whole time like with Ben and Jack. =-)
By Emma's 2 week Doctor's appointment she had regained her birth weight and then some - almost 10 pounds! She will be 7 weeks old tomorrow and is about 13 pounds now.
She's not sleeping through the night yet, but yesterday she did several 5 hour stints between feedings. Today, not so much. Hopefully since she is past the 12 pound mark she will start sleeping longer at night. Fingers crossed!
So far she does not like her paci (which we are fine with) and won't take a bottle either (which we are not so fine with). Other than that she is a little sweetie and her brothers adore her.
Jack
Jack has become quite vocal! He makes all sorts of grunts and growls and screams and can throw a class A tantrum at any time (and does, several times a day). He is often jealous of Ben and Emma when we give them attention so we're trying hard to make sure he gets his share.
He has started singing although he can't say the words to anything quite yet. He likes the Alphabet song, Twinkle Twinkle, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. I sing Twinkle Twinkle to him in his room before his nap and he either hums or sings along and giggles. When I come to the "up above the world so high" part he always looks up and points to the ceiling.
He can say a lot of words pretty clearly and can otherwise get the point across if he wants something. He's also started putting together phrases like "Hi Daddy!" and is in general a little giggle box. Doesn't take much to amuse him and his laughter is infectious. He also likes to let Ben pull him around in the wagon outside a lot. Let's see... his play kitchen gets a lot of use too. He will get his little plastic frying pan, put his chicken nuggets from dinner in it, put it on his stove and push the button that makes the cooking noise and then take it to the coffee table and stir it up.
Whenever a vehicle with a siren goes by outside he runs to the window and says "car? car?". He likes to point at the bunnies outside and if you aren't watching him, he will follow them wherever they run off to.
Grandpa Huber assembled the bunk bed in the boy's room and Jack did very well in the bottom bunk with rails for about a month until he figured out how to climb out and then wouldn't stay in bed for naps or bedtime. One day I found him on the top bunk so he is now back in the pack-n-play beside the bunk bed until we think he's ready.
Playing with Mommy's hat.
Letting his big brother pull him around the yard.
Ben
Ben is our little chatterbox. He pretty much talks, sings or makes some sort of noise from the second he wakes up until he goes to bed. He seems to have grown quite a bit recently and everyone has been saying how big he's getting.
We are finally potty trained! Gigi and Grandpa Shertzer took him to Chuck E Cheese today as a reward. He still won't go poo in the potty because he says "it will hurt", but he will ask for a diaper and then go right back to his "big boy underwear" when he's done. Lots better than having to change every diaper for 3 kids all day!
Ben loves to play outside and does a great job of staying in the safe part of the yard (and telling me when Jack is *not* staying in the safe part).
His terrible 2's and 3's seem to be gone for the most part. I guess he gave his share to Jack who started his very early.
Both boys have been watching the "Your Baby Can Read" DVDs and are doing well with them. It's hard to tell what Ben knows because he rarely will do things on demand. I know one day he's just going to start reading something and then I'll wonder how long he has been able to do it. Recently I've been working with him on "he" and "him" for boys and "she" and "her" for girls. He often calls Emma "him". I have also been pretty diligent in correcting his verbs and verb tenses. The way he talks now is cute, but I figure it's better to get it right early while he's still learning.
Ben loves sleeping in his top bunk! We do have to keep the boys out of the bedroom during the day though unfortunately. They are too prone to go right up to the top bunk and start jumping around.
He is still one of the most grateful children I've ever seen and will effuse "Oh THANK you!" whenever you give him something (and sometimes just when you ask him to do something). We also get to hear "I love you" or "I love you so much!" several times a day or more. =-)
Some cute/funny things Ben has said lately:
"I exploded!"
"I fell down and hit my head and I cried and I hurt my heart too and my heart is crying."
Me: "Ben? Why is Jack crying? What happened?" Ben: "Jack fall down in the grass and I didn't do *anything* to Jack."
Watching Daddy and Uncle Dury re-roof the front porch
(Uncle Dury's recently acquired RV in the background)
In his PJs, outside enjoying the nice spring weather.
