In which Jenny learns that babies are made of rubber

Remember when I mentioned that Miles pulled Hannah halfway off of the couch last week? Well it’s gotten worse. At my mom’s house on Sunday night, I laid Hannah in her car seat after dinner because I can’t always hold her (fact: it’s just harder to stuff my face with desserts with a newborn in my arms), but I thought that leaving the car seat on the floor was just asking for trouble. So I put the car seat in an oversized chair that has a large ottoman in front of it, figuring that she would be safe off the ground and a little out of reach. Right?

Wrong.

My mom happened to peek her head around the corner to see that Hannah was no longer in her car seat but was instead lying on the ottoman by herself. I know she didn’t wiggle her way out of there.

So we’ve just been very careful since then. When Hannah’s chillin’ in her lamb chair, it’s on the counter. When she’s in her swing, I am always in eye sight. When I’m in the shower, she now comes into the bathroom where I can see her. Miles has tried to push her in the swing several times already.

But today, I’m not sure there was anything I could do to stop what happened.

We were in Costco where they have double-wide carts, so Miles sat in the cart with Hannah’s car seat next to him. We were on our last two minutes in the store when I stopped to look at the movies. I kid you not, I was no more than 2 feet away from the stroller when Miles did something that caused Hannah’s car seat to fall out of the cart and land on the floor, on its side. She, of course, was screaming, but appeared to be unharmed. I took her out of the seat to calm her down while several employees came over to make sure everything was okay. And while I held her, I tried to explain to Miles that he could really hurt Hannah if he touched her car seat. And how did he respond?

“Oh, no. Binkie.”

You know, because Hannah’s binkie fell on the floor when it toppled out of the car seat on the descent from the cart. No concern for how the baby was. Just the precious binkie.

I did call Chris at work to make sure Hannah would be okay and he assured me that as long as she was strapped in, she should be fine. He just said to watch her.

“For what?” I asked.

“You know, if she doesn’t wake up,” he replied.

Very helpful.

And then I called my mom who told me to write it down because someday I might find this funny. So that’s what I’m doing.

It doesn't help that I chose this morning to try on pre-pregnancy jeans.

So after I finish my Diet Coke, all three of us are taking naps. Long ones.

3 weeks of Hannah

We have survived three weeks now, and I’m beginning to think we’ll make it through okay. Maybe. Chris has gone back to work, I have left the house with two children multiple times (including eating out), and the house is still standing (and mostly clean). And last night I even made a dinner with a side dish and dessert. So domestic.

Hannah continues to be a really great baby during the day and an awfully loud grunter at night. She has been sleeping in our room for a multitude of reasons, but we’re hoping to get her out really soon. Her room is now painted, we bought a second monitor, but we’re just waiting on her schedule to get a bit better. Well that’s what I’m waiting on anyway. Chris is just waiting on me. I think I’m just to tired to walk to the end of the hallway to feed her at night still.

Her biggest problem these days is just trying to keep the hiccups from shooting spit-up out her nose. It’s not a very lady-like quality, which I keep trying to tell her, but she just hasn’t figured it out yet.

Miles still really loves Hannah and is getting a bit more aggressive with his desire to show affection. While I was making dinner last night, I had left Hannah lying on the couch because newborns can’t really go anywhere, while Miles played with his cars and watched a movie. I happened to look over as he was grabbing her hand and pulling her off the couch, even after I yelled, “No!” at him multiple times. She was halfway off before I grabbed her. Needless to say she is now spending more time in her chair on the kitchen island.

Sadly, we don’t have a terrible amount of pictures to show for our three weeks, but here’s one from my photo shoot the other day in which I actually took the camera off of Auto.

I apologize for her greasy hair, but baths have been few and far between with this sweet girl. Which leads me to the next picture from tonight, at three weeks, when I figured out if I don’t comb her hair after a bath, it’s curly. But only on her Mohawk.

I don’t think her hair is this red in real life, but I was experimenting with camera settings again. But there is hope yet that this brunette will become a red head, too.

Hannah Rae Johnson: The birth story

It’s been a week, and I’m finally getting around to the official update; I think that’s pretty good all things considered. If you don’t remember how my first birth went, you can read about it here. But I’m sorry to tell you that this story will not be nearly as interesting.

We were planning on inducing on August 6 (I got a call from the Doctor’s secretary yesterday to set everything up), but when I went in for my 38 week appointment on Wednesday, my doctor told me he would see me back the next day to deliver a baby. I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced, but that didn’t sound all that imminent—plenty of moms I know walk around for weeks dilated to a 2. But with Miles I went from dilated to a 0 at my 39 week appointment to having him two days later, so there was really no way of knowing.

But my doctor told me he knows these things…something about being an OB for 15 years and delivering over 3000 babies makes him some sort of expert, I guess.

So on Thursday I made sure to get those last minute things checked off my list. Okay, the one thing on my list: get my last mani/pedi. Chris really thought it was strange that I made that my top priority, but anyone with ugly calloused feet like me knows how important it is. We ran some errands in the morning as a family, had lunch at a local burger/ice cream place, I got my pedicure, battled Miles to take a nap, and then ordered some pizza for dinner. A real healthy day, I know. In my defense, the baby dropped so that I could actually eat without heartburn.

And while we were eating dinner, I had my first contraction. So I said, “I think I just had a contraction.” And Chris replied, “Like a real one? or like the ones you’ve been having?”

No, like a real one.

But I totally understand why he asked because I wasn’t real in tune with my contractions last time around.

So I started timing the contractions on my phone (amazing technology…because you know, watches just don’t cut it these days). So Chris started doing last minute things around the house (unpacking the office, etc.) because we were planning on having an Opening Ceremonies/House Warming Party the next night. I called my mom when the contractions were about 20 minutes apart, just in case. She decided to come spend the night so that she would be there if we went to the hospital.

After getting the hospital bag packed with all of the last minute items, putting Miles to bed (and crying because it was the last time he would be my baby), sitting down to watch some Project Runway, and emailing my doctor to tell him he was right, we went to bed because there wasn’t enough progress to go in. But as it turns out, sleep is really hard to achieve with ongoing contractions.

So while Chris slept, I watched a late night episode of NCIS and tracked contractions on my phone. At around midnight, the contractions were about 5-6 minutes apart and getting more painful. And since my Doctor told me to come in when they were painful, I woke Chris up and went to the hospital.

It was such a strange drive—so different than our drive to the hospital last time. For instance, Chris didn’t spend the whole time telling me not to push. And he didn’t have to pack his trauma shears and a shoestring just in case he needed to deliver a baby in the car. We just drove calmly to the hospital.

We checked in just after 1 am, and I was dilated to a 3.5. My doctor admitted me and sent me to a room to wait for my epidural. I wasn’t sure I wanted one until I realized that it was 1 am and that I would be laboring all night, and that without an epidural, I would never get any sleep. I thought that might make the pushing really, really exhausting.

Not a great picture, but feeling pretty good once that epidural was in.

The epidural went in just before 3 (the most terrifying part thanks to a Dateline I watched when I was 13 about women who were paralyzed from botched epidurals), and the doctor broke my water just after 3. I then was able to nap off and on (more off than on until the epidural started working in both legs) while Chris snored on the couch. Just after 6:30, it was time to start pushing which worked out nicely because my doctor and nurse were both off at 7.

But alas, this little girl did not want to come as quickly as her little brother. I pushed for about an hour and 15 minutes before she made her grand entrance with what the doctor referred to as jewelry (i.e. the cord wrapped around her neck twice), but after that was taken care of, she let out her cry and they handed her to me. I won’t include those pictures because babies aren’t really that cute until they are cleaned up.

She looks so much like Miles in this picture—except the dramatic difference in hair color.

We spent Friday trying to catch up on some sleep, which meant sending Hannah to the nursery for a while, and getting settled with our new little one. My parents brought Miles over after dinner to meet his little sister. He loves babies and was excited to see one so close, but lost his interest after only a few minutes.

 

We went home the next afternoon because it seemed like a good idea at the time. And then we realized just how small babies are when they’re born when we put her in the car seat with that enormous pacifier in her mouth.

And since then we have just been trying to adjust to being a family of four. But we are truly blessed to have Hannah Rae in our family and look forward to watching Miles and Hannah grow together.

Bubbles in the new backyard

We moved into our new house on July 13 and were able to get a bit settled before the arrival of baby girl, but I didn’t want to blog about her until I showed you how much Miles has enjoyed his new backyard.

This is was two days after we moved in and just after Chris had mowed the lawn for the first time (something he was literally giddy about).

Miles also loves to run down the small hill in the grass or to just go out to play with balls. Unfortunately, we have no fencing or covers over the window wells, so he can’t go out solo yet, but I think the grass is a big hit.