He smiles!

I dare you not to eat him.

He gave us his first smile the day after his one-month birthday, but he's still very stingy with them. I finally caught one on camera phone today. How stinking cute is this guy? Ayayay I just can't stand it sometimes.

One month

He celebrated with a raucous all-nighter. It was awesome.

Now, for some random and unrelated observations on Elliott's first month ex utero:

• He's generally a decent sleeper, just as long as he's in full-body contact with me. I realize I'm setting the stage for misery by allowing it, but in the middle of the night there's just about no trade I wouldn't make to just get back to sleep. Try me.
• I should know better than to ever write about a child's sleep habits, because children, even as young as one month, read their moms' blogs and respond by making liars of them.
• Scratch everything I just wrote. He's a terrible sleeper.
• Children don't fall for reverse psychology. I'm screwed. 
• He doesn't look like me or Greg, as far as we can tell. Still, he's pretty cute. 
• When he was first born, I said to Greg, "Weird, he doesn't have any teeth. Do you think we should call a dentist?" Greg said, "I don't know, I guess maybe? I can't remember: How many teeth did Nora have when she was born?" He was serious.
• Nursing has been really, really hard this time around. Another thing I thought would be a breeze with number two, especially since it was so easy with Nora. But it's been painful, and now I have mastitis, which is basically like the flu with the added bonus of boobs that feel like they're about to self-destruct. Fun times. 
• Elliott is a pretty serious little kid. He furrows his brow so intently sometimes that it turns completely white. I'm looking forward to the smiley stage, but enjoying this scornful phase as well.
• Time is passing quickly, as it always does when you're watching your babies grow. It's different this time than last, though. I think with the first I often wanted time to accelerate so we could get through the difficult aspects of whatever phase we were in. With the second, I realized how wasteful it is to wish away even a minute, given how precious each minute is. The passage of time seriously depressed me with Nora. This time around, I'm prematurely nostalgic and look back wistfully on photos from two days ago, but at the same time I know that each of the next stages holds its own beauty. And so I'm slightly more at peace with Elliott's rapid growth. 
• Speaking of rapid growth: He was 8 lbs. 2 oz. when he was born. In the hospital he dropped down to 7 lbs. 9 oz. On day three he was 7 lbs. 15 oz. At one week he was 8 lbs. 14 oz. At two weeks he was 9 lbs. 11 oz. (I realize this is interesting to no one but his parents, but since I have never done a baby book, this is where I record such things.)
• His first month birthday falls on a Friday the 13th. Spooky! Do you think it's too early for his first horror movie marathon? 

The all-nighters are catching up with him.

Sibling love

The big kids' first meeting with their little bro:

All in all, the big ones have adjusted very well to their new sibling. In fact, I think it's brought them closer together, as they're forced to find fun and companionship in each other when mom and dad are busy. Their interest in the baby comes and goes; most mornings Nora comes into our bed to hold the baby for about four seconds, and then she forgets about him for the day. Sidamo is interested in him when he does something interesting, like poop audibly.

We are careful not to let Nora alone with the baby unattended, as her affection can sometimes get a little too, umm, assertive (as we've learned with the chickens). His second night home, Nora asked, "Why does Elliott need to have a sleepover with us?" Greg answered, "Well, he's our baby, so he's going to be having quite a lot of sleepovers with us." She asked, "Why did we need a baby?"

A little later, I saw her walking toward Elliott with a pillow in her outstretched hands: "He's cold, so I'm just going to warm him up."

Yikes.

But fears for Elliott's survival aside, I'd say life is going pretty well so far with three. It has helped that Greg has taken off work, so he has been on big kid duty while I've tended to the baby. The timing is quite lucky, actually: Elliott was born just before the kids' schools closed for two-and-a-half weeks, and I shudder to think what I would have done if I'd been thrown into full-time care of three kids without Greg's (enormous, indescribable, superhuman …) help.

Sidamo's 6th

Here's a very belated happy birthday to my first little man. Sidamo turned 6 a couple day's before the baby was born, and we had a super-fun celebration for him and about a billion of his closest friends at a local sports club.

The day started with pancakes, champagne (a.k.a. apple juice in champagne flutes), and presents.

The themes of the day—sports and Legos—reflect the themes of Sidamo's life right now. Every minute of every day, it seems, is spent doing Legos, playing sports, or talking about Legos, sports, and the intersection of the two. He likes to play football, by himself and without a football, on the rug in our living room. Here's what it looks like: He throws himself to the ground, tackled by some phantom linebacker, and then asks for help dissecting the play. "Was I in bounds? Did I get a touchdown? Where was my knee? Did you see the clock?" And you better come prepared with solid answers, unless you want to see the instant replay (in slow motion, or course). I have learned more about football and basketball in the past few months than I managed to learn in three-plus decades of life.

We normally do mellow birthday parties at home, but this time we decided to outsource the whole thing since it was four days past my due date. So in a completely uncharacteristic feat of organization, I arranged all the details of the party back in August. The theme was basketball, and Sidamo was in heaven. He even had a basketball-shaped cake, courtesy of my extremely talented friend Sarah.

Sidamo had a great time, both on the day and in the coming days, when he dedicated himself entirely to building all the Legos he received on his birthday. The thousands of pieces were almost enough to carry him through Christmas, when he received thousands more.

Happy belated birthday to my sweet, funny, brilliant, and completely sports-obsessed little man. We love you!

The birth

I love hearing other women's birth stories, so I'm going to share here the details of Elliott's arrival. If childbirth makes you woozy, go ahead and skip this post. If long, detailed stories about suffering with happy endings strike you as self-indulgent, move right along. Otherwise, settle in and read on.

Nora's birth was hard. I was induced when I was a week overdue because of apparently low amniotic fluid (turns out I had plenty), and the induction was slow and difficult. Maybe more so because I didn't want an epidural. I managed to deliver without the epidural, but it took 30 hours—22 of which were spent on pitocin, which causes really intense, non-stop contractions. Not pleasant.

This time I was determined not to go down the same road, so I opted for a home birth. I found a wonderful nurse midwife with a home birth practice and saw her for my whole pregnancy. She, and pretty much everyone I met, assured me that a second birth that started on its own would be smoother, quicker, easier. I had high hopes.

At 6 p.m. on Monday, when I was six days past the due date, I went into labor. By midnight, contractions were two minutes apart and pretty strong, so my midwife came over. She examined me, and I was already 4 cm dilated. Awesome. It took me 20 hours to get there with Nora. We all thought baby would be there by sunrise.

During the night she checked me again, and I was at 5 cm. And when she checked me again a few hours later, I was still at 5 cm. After 14 hours, I was still at 5 cm. We tried everything to stimulate labor—including walks around the neighborhood during which I'd have to hang onto Greg every 2 minutes to work through a contraction. (Our neighbors have some stories to tell.) Still no change. At around 3 p.m. my midwife suggested I get in the tub and think about whether I wanted to transfer to the hospital for pitocin. I was exhausted and in lots of pain, and while the idea of giving up the dream of a home birth was hard to swallow, the idea of being done and holding my baby pulled me toward the hospital. I decided to transfer, but that if I had to have pitocin again, I was getting an epidural. Pretty quickly, we were packed up and headed to the hospital.   

The quick relief I had envisioned (honestly, I thought we'd pull up, they'd give me an epidural, and they'd wake me when it was time to push) did not come to be. Somehow it was 5:30 or so before I finally got into a room. Not long after that, I met with the anesthesiologist about that epidural, who crushed my illusions entirely: Because of the rods in my back, I was not an epidural candidate. So I had to have the pitocin again, and again with no epidural.

I cried.

And then we got on with it. I was given fentanyl, which took the edge off and let me rest but didn't eliminate the pain. It made it manageable, though, and it made me a little loopy and happy (at least between contractions). The pitocin did its job and got the labor moving in the right direction, and by 10:54, a mere 29 hours after labor started, little Elliott Owen was in my arms.

So far I'd say he was worth it. And I'd also say three kids is plenty.

Welcome Filbert

a.k.a. Elliott Owen (though truth be told, the four of us still call him Filbert about 75% of the time). He was born 12/13 at 10:54 p.m. Stats: 8 pounds 1 ounce, 20.5 inches, and a whole lotta perfect. We're all smitten.

Thankful

 

And for my countless other blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Playgrounds of New York

You Can Dress Them Up

Here's one of about a million photos from our recent trip to New York. Is it just me, or do the boys look like Secret Service agents tasked with keeping the crazy lady away from the president?

Biotin supplements

I can't say enough good things about what biotin supplements have done for our family's hair health.

You really should give them a try.