Introducing Tyler Edward

Tyler Edward Jones was born on Tuesday, May 3rd at 7:49 A.M. exactly as scheduled!  He was 21" long (just like his big brother) and 8 lbs 3 oz (I guessed 8 lbs 2 oz!)  And he is absolutely perfect!

Tyler is as cute as can be and definitely resembles Timmy.  Here are pictures of each of them at birth, see for yourself!  (Timmy, then Tyler)

I insisted on being the one to announce Tyler's name, which meant that all of his grandparents had to hang out in the waiting room for about an hour and a half while I was in recovery.  Tim went back and forth from waiting to recovery and said that I was driving them all crazy.  I think it was perfectly fitting since they were getting to see my baby and I wasn't!

When it was finally time for me to move up to my room, Tim was with me, and we ran into my mom and Timmy in the hallway, who were taking a walk.  Timmy didn't seem too phased by my being wheeled around in a bed, and the first thing he said to me was, "Mama! The baby not in your belly anymore!" So, apparently he did understand what was going on!  They brought Tyler to us and Tim and I had a few moments with just him before letting everyone else come in.  Timmy climbed right up onto the bed with me and Tyler, and he gently touched his cheek and gave him kisses.  Timmy is definitely in love!  When everyone had filed into the room I finally said, "So... this is Tyler Edward."  Everyone seemed to like the name, and it turned out that Timmy had said it a couple times in the waiting room, so a few people had picked up on it.  Dad didn't say anything, but he did tear up a little, Edward was my PopPop's name, and it's my brother's middle name.

The rest of the stay in the hospital was a bit of a whirlwind.  The first night was a bit rough as Tyler was awake for most of it, finally Tim just stayed up with him for a few hours, walking and rocking him while I slept, then after I fed him the next time, I just let him stay on my chest for a few hours and he was happy, so Tim slept.  We had lots of time to nap during the day with him so we survived.  Mom brought Timmy every day and he and Tim would go do something fun while Mom visited with me.  We noticed some hospitality upgrades at the hospital since our stay when Timmy was born.  One day they brought us a special dinner menu and Tim got to eat with me.  When they brought the food up it came on a table with a white table cloth and extra chairs!  You could also have your babies first portraits taken, but we skipped that.  On check out day I got a complimentary massage!  They were appreciated additions!

Tyler is a sweet little guy and very easy going.  He is also very good at nursing, he ate while we were still in the operating room!  This was a huge relief to me as it was a goal to do better with it then I did the first time around.  Tyler sleeps a lot, has a very strong neck, hates getting his diaper changed, and has posed for hundreds of pictures.  I am so looking forward to learning more and more about him!

The experience of having a scheduled C-Section was wild.  I thought that I would know more of what to expect since I went through it before, but it was really different.  While everything was clearly organized and professional, I felt like there were a billion things going on at once, and that it was very hectic.  Of course with my first one, I had already been in labor almost 24 hours and had been drugged for most of them, so I was really just more aware of what was going on this time around.  Same goes for the spinal block and epidural, I was much more aware, and it was not comfortable!  One neat thing was that the same hospital doctor that assisted with Timmy's delivery also helped with Tyler's!  When I realized it was him, thanks to his connection to Radford and VT, he even went and changed his scrub hat for me, to the VT one he wore during Timmy's birth!  Everything went smoothly, though my doctor confirmed it was a very good thing that I went for the repeat c-section instead of a vbac, because it turns out that part of my uterus was very, very thin.  She said for a 3rd child I need to have 'a petite little girl' and that they would do the c-section at 38 weeks!  I was not nearly as exhausted this time as I was after Timmy's birth.  That made the wait in recovery seem even longer!  But finally getting to hold Tyler made all of the annoying parts of pregnancy and the following painful days of recovery all melt away immediately.  Now we'll see how we do at home!

Pre-Baby Brunch

This past weekend Elena, Jenny, and my Mom hosted a Pre-Baby Brunch for me.  I was reluctant to call it a baby shower, because I know that you used to only have a shower for your first baby, but people kept asking if I was having one, and I loved the idea of getting together with all my friends.  I have not been keeping in touch as well as I would like since I've been pregnant!

Mom and I did the invitations with my new Silhouette cutter that I made Tim buy me for our anniversary.  I thought they came out really cute!  Jenny did the decorating and found fun games for everyone to play, knowing about my obsessive scrapbooking she even found a game for people to write me advice using candy bar names and she printed everything on coordinating monkey paper so I could keep them in my scrapbook!  The food was all delicious too!  Everything turned out so nicely.

 

 

 

And it was so nice to see everyone!  Besides Sami, who I manage to see at least every other month, I think it had been 4-6 months+ since I had seen any of the other guests!  It was great to do a little catching up, but it also made me miss everyone more and feel like I needed dinner dates with them all individually to really catch up!  Hopefully everyone will be able to come out to meet the new baby after we're a little settled, and we can catch up then!

 

  

 

 

 

More Pregnancy

3 weeks from tomorrow I will be done being a pregnant woman (for a few years anyways) and I will be the mother of two instead.  I am ready to be done being pregnant this time around!  I am definitely looking and feeling pregnant right now.  I am lucky if I sleep 3 hours before having to wake up to pee.  I know this is going to continue with feeding the baby, and be just as often, but I'm figuring at least I can get comfortable on my back or stomach between feedings!  My feet are also getting swollen quickly if I am standing for too long... and in my hot office with no A/C until June 1st... my feet are swollen just from sitting, by shortly after lunch.  I will be wearing sweat-capri's by next week, I'm sure!  This weekend I pushed myself to get the basement organized and my feet were so mad at me that they were itching!

I am also torn between happy and sad because of how the new baby will affect my relationship with Timmy.  I am just as excited to see him in his new role as Big Brother as I was to see Tim in his role as Father last time.  I know Timmy will be wonderful at it!  It just will be different too.  This weekend when Timmy woke up, I talked him back into his bed to cuddle with me.  I'm trying to take every opportunity to give him my undivided attention and just talk to him and cuddle him as much as possible.  I even find myself agreeing to get on the floor and play choo choo trains for longer periods of time this week.  It has been amazing watching him grow and change seemingly every day, and I know that will continue, and we'll get to watch the baby do it too.  It's just one of the many situations that will come up in life that will force the dynamic of our relationship to change, hopefully this one is hitting the hardest because it's first, and because of my hormones!

On the positive side, I love that the delivery is just days before Mother's Day!  :)  Yes, my gift expectations are higher then usual, but Tim always delivers with gifts!  ;)  This baby is still wiggling around like crazy, which I love.  Timmy has felt the baby move a bunch of times, and he likes coming over to snuggle with the baby and give my belly kisses now.  He recently received a doctor's kit as a gift, and he immediately put the stethoscope on to come listen to the baby.  He and Mom will be coming to my next appointment Wednesday morning to hear the baby for real.  We are getting so close!!!

The Nursery and Timmy's Big Boy Room!

Tim painted the nursery a few weeks ago and Timmy's room shortly after. We took our time getting some much needed accessories, and even though a few things still need to be hung up (okay, well I have to finish making them first...) in each room, I couldn't resist photographing and sharing the rooms any longer! I knew I wanted cutesy, baby jungle animals for the nursery theme this time around, and Tim leaned heavily towards monkey's. When we settled on this adorable bedding, the rest of the room came together easily! I am making a cross stitch for this baby like I did for Timmy (don't worry, it will probably get it's own post when it's complete!) I hope to have it finished up in the next week, and can't wait to get it framed and hung up over the changing table! I'm also repurposing a shelf that was in Timmy's nursery, and hope to have it finished soon too. Most of all, I can't wait to meet our little monkey next month! Timmy immediately loved the nursery, I mentioned before how he helped Tim with the sanding and other things. He still walks in and says, "Wow!" So I was really anxious to get his room done shortly after the nursery, I wanted him to feel like his room was special and new too! We were all in his room when Tim started peeling off the Winnie the Pooh wall paper border, and Timmy actually tried to stop him, "No Dad, that's mine!" But we explained to him that we were going to put up new things in his room and he was okay with it, and he loves the end result! Timmy's Big Boy Room is Disney Themed. His current favorites are Toy Story and Cars and he loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse too, so we incorporated all of them and a few others. When Tim and I couldn't decide which themed wall paper border we wanted, we showed Timmy the pictures and let him pick! :) This is actually how we settled between our top two choices for the baby's name as well! Haha! Anyways, Winnie the Pooh remains in the artwork between the windows and in the crossstich I made while I was pregnant with him. The large Pinochio painting was purchased for Timmy on our cruise last year, we were missing him so much and it reminded us of him, so we splurged! If it weren't for our Peter Max painting, Timmy would have the only real art in the house! I think Tim's gone a little crazy with the fathead stickers already, but he's angling towards adding one more! My hope for this room is that it can keep growing with Timmy, that we can change out pieces and parts with new favorites, I figure chances are good that something Disney puts out will continue to entertain him for years to come!

Pregnancy

I never wrote about my pregnancy with Timmy, and haven't yet written much about this one either. I might be setting a bad precedent for this poor baby by comparing him to his big brother already, but I wanted to mention a few things now, before both pregnancies blur together in my memory! I have been very fortunate with both of these pregnancies, I only have common complaints, no major problems or severe symptoms to worry about.

Of course the complaint that all women start with is 'morning' sickness. When I was pregnant with Timmy my friend asked me what morning sickness feels like and I think I came up with the perfect comparison: morning sickness feels like being hungover for 6(+) straight weeks! With Timmy I only actually threw up a handful of times, typically in the morning, but I felt like hell all of the time for about 6 weeks. The more active I was, the worse the queasiness was, oyster crackers became my lifesavers. I threw up a couple times at work, but apparently no one noticed. Tim and I have kept to the "don't tell anyone until you're 3 months pregnant" rule pretty well, and that made morning sickness worse for me, because I couldn't really talk about it without explaining why I was sick for so long! This time around I didn't actually throw up a single time, but the constant nausea lasted for closer to 10 weeks!!! It was really rough!

My next major symptom would have to be exhaustion! With Timmy, during my first and third trimesters I went to bed between 7:30 and 9:00 every single night I think! I could not get enough sleep. I went to visit my Grandma in Ohio during my first trimester and while I was at her house I slept for at least 12 hours a night! This time around I do not have that luxury. My first trimester I napped with Timmy on Saturday and Sunday every weekend, and I went to bed when he did, but that's between 9 and 10! Now that I'm in my third trimester I am probably averaging half a Timmy nap per weekend. ;)

Strange Pregnancy Cravings? Not really. With Timmy I drank a whooooole lot of slurpee's and I had a whole lot of ice cream. (To be fair, we were opening an ice cream store at the time, so I might not be able to blame that part on the pregnancy!) I've come up with a slightly better solution this pregnancy, I'm drinking almost-frozen Gatorade instead. Mid-morning at work I put one in the freezer, and mid afternoon it's perfect! I figure I'm cutting out some of the sugar this way at least! With both of these pregnancies I have had EXTREME aversions though! My entire first pregnancy I had a garlic aversion. I couldn't even stand the smell of it, and I am a garlic lover. You'd be surprised the number of meals that contain garlic in them too! When I did accidentally eat something that turned out to have garlic in it, it would taste awful, and I would taste it for the rest of the day, even with constant gum chewing, mint eating, and teeth brushing. I remember one Saturday evening in particular that Tim was preparing chili for the next day's Redskin game. After I went to bed he added a bunch of spices, including garlic, to the slow cooker. When I woke up to pee in the middle of the night, and opened our bedroom door, the smell of garlic coming up the stairs almost knocked me out. I felt like I was literally swimming in garlic, it was unreal. I almost left the house in the middle of the night for my parents', but I managed to fall back to sleep after opening our window and putting the fan in it! This pregnancy my garlic aversion wasn't as bad, but I had the same reaction to onions this time around. Garlic still smelled good to me though, and even tasted okay, but the taste would stay with me all day like before. Luckily it only lasted a little ways into the second trimester this time!

Peeing. Baby Boy Jones #2 must be using my bladder for his pillow. As soon as I hit my second trimester I had a strange phenomena start happening: every time I stand up, I have to go pee. It does not matter if I just sat down for a moment, when I stand back up, I have to go pee. This is surprisingly more annoying then one might think. Literally EVERY time I stand up! That means every time I get out of the car, every time I stand up at work to get something off the printer, every time I get off the couch to do something with Timmy, the first thing I have to do is go pee! I'm pretty sure it's eating hours out of my day! With Timmy I started needing to pee frequently towards the very end of my pregnancy when he was taking up all the room in my body. I'm scared to see what happens in the next few weeks when this baby is full size!

Also at the very end of my pregnancy with Timmy, my hands and feet started retaining water. If I tried to vacuum the whole house in one morning, my feet would swell considerably and I would have to sit with my feet up for the rest of the day so they would return down to their 'normal' size! I have not had that start this time around, so we'll see.

A week before Timmy was born I had my regular doctor visit and my blood pressure had suddenly spiked after being perfectly consistent throughout my pregnancy. The doctor told me I was officially on bed rest and to go straight home from my appointment. I have to say that was a lovely week of relaxing and sleeping on the couch. But I do hope that I can work right up to the day before Baby Boy #2 is born so I can have my full leave time at home with both of my boys after he comes! With the scheduled C-Section this time around, he'll be born a full week before his due date, so hopefully that will negate the week of high blood pressure I had before.

Now... I do need to say that I certainly do not hate being pregnant. I realize this is a lengthy post about my complaints, but the joys are much easier to remember, and I really had to think about the details from my first pregnancy to write this.

My absolute favorite part of being pregnant is feeling the baby move around! Timmy was never overly active. Tim only felt him move a handful of times too, because most of his movements were during the work day. When he did move though it was so strong I was always sure it was a kick. Baby Boy #2's first movements were ridiculously strong! I was regularly surprised that they were not painful for me because of the force! Those only lasted a little while though, I kept telling Tim that the baby was "rolling around like crazy" and once he convinced me that the baby was not rolling, I decided that he must just be stretching. I'll feel little butterfly movements going across my belly several times a day. I think Tim has only felt this baby move a few times, but we have watched my belly moving around a few evenings. :) When I have doctor appointments and they put the microphone to my belly to hear his heart beat, he always kicks back exactly where the microphone is touching. One woman told me that she frequently has the baby push back, but that she has never experienced that force or the perfect aim like with this baby!

The other favorite part of pregnancy is seeing the sonograms. It certainly makes the baby more 'real' and I can start to imagine what the baby will be like and picturing my life once they come out! Every time I see a sonogram I tear up with excitement!

Timmy

Baby Boy #2

Timmy has spent a little time playing with my belly. We've encouraged him to talk to the baby and give my belly kisses, but he's not interested. I had my mom bring him to my last doctor's appointment, and he heard the heartbeat and watched the doctor feel my belly, and that made him a lot more interested. When he told Tim about the visit he said "That baby is soooo noisy!" and he started rubbing my belly more, we tell him he's massaging the baby. I did make the mistake of looking in the mirror one evening and telling Timmy, "Look how big mommy's belly is!" and now he keeps telling me, "Mom your belly is SO big!" This apparently is not really true though. Even now, 7.5 weeks before I'm having the baby, I have to tell people that I'm pregnant (even my General Practitioner!) and then they don't believe how far along I am. The doctor has said that everything is measuring just fine, so I guess my body type just hides it well, and this baby is leaning into me more then out!

I didn't expect this to be such a novel but I'm glad to have it all written down so I'll always remember! If you've read all the way through, I'll reward you with a Belly Picture from the very end of my pregnancy with Timmy and one from now, this is actually the first I've taken since I'm just not showing that much!

12 Days Before Timmy's Birth

7.5 Weeks Before Baby #2

(Okay, this is pretty clearly pregnant...)

Here's a less obvious shirt, from the front, the next day!

32 Months!

I noticed that sometime over the fall my blog lost it's monthly entry +special events format, and I realize that will probalby be a permanent change once I have two little boys to write about, but I'm going to try to get back to it while I can! On his 'birthday' this month we stopped by Grammy's house and she gave him a bunch of Thomas DVDs, so as soon as we got home he asked, "I watch a moooie please?" So we set him up with the laptop, and he found a very comfortable way to watch!

Timmy keeps looking and acting older and older seemingly every day now! We got him a much needed haircut last weekend and it made him look so much older too! Timmy has bounced back and forth in recent evenings asking for us to play with him on the floor and playing beautifully by himself. I love listening to him when he plays by himself! He typically plays with his Disney cars, which are about matchbox car size, but all characters from the movie. They talk to each other by name and are just as polite as Timmy, using 'please' and 'thank you' all the time, and even an occasional 'you're welcome'! He's starting to evolve from just smashing into each other to setting up races or having Sherrif chase everyone, telling them to slow down. I also notice him using places from tv shows we've watched. Recently, every car he had was in a race to climb a mound of blankets he named "Mistletoe Mountain" which is the name of the mountain on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The last time I saw him playing with his Thomas and Friends trains in my mom's basement, he was almost reinacting a scene we had recently watched on that show. Percy had a very, very long train, and stopped at the bottom of their Mistletoe Mountain and said "beep, beep, Toby, can you help me please?" and then Toby pulled up behind Percy and helped him push the load up the mountain.

Timmy just helped Tim with the painting of the new nursery. Every time Tim went in there and shut the door, Timmy was right behind him knocking on the door asking, "You need help, Dad?" He put a sanding block to good use and used his toy hammer when it was time to nail in the trim, and he did a lot of the clean-up help. When he saw the final product his response was "Wow..." and that continued for a few days whenever we went in to change his diaper. "Wow... Dad do that, and Timmy do that too!" It was so cute to see him wanting to help and I like seeing him be pleased with his work as well!

29 Months

Yesterday Timmy turned 29 Months old. It was also the last day of his second round of music class, so I decided to take part of the morning off to go with him and Mom to see what they do in class. It was so cute! It was neat to see him participating with the other kids and following the word clues in the songs to hop, sleep, eat, shake, etc. Towards the end of class the teacher gets out tons of instruments that they can check out on their own. We had a lot of fun!

I am happy to say that during the last month Timmy has made huge strides in speaking and sleeping again! At this point I notice at least one new word each day, and he uses sentences a lot (which is helpful in determining what the heck he's talking about sometimes!) We are also going on 11 nights in a row of Timmy letting me tuck him in and leave before he's asleep, and then him sleeping through the night! Unfortunately I am not sleeping through the night... as baby #2 is already making me wake up to pee a few times a night! I'm not really even showing yet (depending on my shirt) I'm scared for what will happen when baby gets bigger! We have gotten Timmy to believe that there is a baby in Mommy's belly, and he will even kiss the baby from time to time, but I think that he thinks we're crazy and he's just playing along to not hurt our feelings! ;)

28 Months.... and news!

Timmy turned 28 months yesterday and we spent the weekend sharing some news with our families and friends!!!

We brought Timmy around to each grandparents house with a sweatshirt on over this t-shirt and enjoyed seeing everyone's reactions when the sweatshirt came off! We are happy to announce that Timmy will be a Big Brother some time around May 11th! This will time out to about 5 weeks before Timmy turns three!

Tim wants to be surprised as to whether we are having a boy or a girl this time around... I am going to try to go along with this plan. I will be analyzing all sonograms though, that's for sure! He says I can buy the bedding I want a few weeks before for either a boy or girl and we'll just return the one we don't need and he also says he'll have the nursery painted before I get home from the hospital. I am putting this in writing here so I can hold him to it! ;)