Calvin: Month 1

Hey Calvin- today you are 1 month old!!! Yeah!!! So far you have been mostly a good baby but your cry is like nails on a chalk board. You like to be held- a lot- I mean- a lot, a lot. Maria is super sweet to you and I hope that continues. She really likes putting things on you while you are in your swing. She also likes to pat you but she isn't always so gentle. We have to keep an eye on her when she is with you. I'm trying to remember all the things you have done in your first month of life because believe it or not we haven't just been sitting around the house like we did when Maria was born. You've been out shopping with us on multiple occasions.

 Since we are having such a mild winter we go out on walks whenever we can. You are ok with being outside but you really like bouncy stroller rides or riding in the car. On February 11 we had big family gathering at Nanna and Gramps' house in Driftwood to celebrate Nanna's birthday. You met all your cousins and aunts and uncles on my side of the family for the first time. You've even met some of our friends! You eat like a maniac and sleep quite a bit. You wake up about every 2-3 hours during the night to eat. Daddy wakes up with you to change your diaper and I feed you. This is all kind of a blur to me because of the lack of sleep. My parents took Maria for one night and we only had you at the house. Wow- what an easy night that was! Having just one child is so much easier than 2! We love you Calvin but please take it easy on the crying because it is seriously loud and annoying.

daddy gave your first bath!

our little soccer hooligan!

happy birthday nanna!

On the day that you were born. . . .

before

Welcome to the world Calvin Piers Tyler! Here is what happened- the story is pretty quick so don't blink! We checked into Seton Main hospital about 8AM. We got settled into the labor and delivery room. There was an admin nurse that went over a bunch of questions with us. There was a training nurse and her instructor that gave me an IV port. Dr. Gooch came in about 9AM and broke my water, started a pitocin drip about 15 minutes later. About 9:30AM I started having regular contractions. About 10AM I asked for an epidural. About 10:10AM the nurse came in to check on us and to get the epidural started. This is when things got interesting. She checked me and then said she would be right back. She came back into the room about 10:15AM and much to my dismay informed me there was no time left to give me an epidural because I was already at 10cm. The look on my face must have been priceless followed up with "chris- whatthefuckamigoingtodo ican'tdothiswithoutanepidural!".
I only had about 3 minutes to panic because the next contraction I had was a pushing contraction she told me not to fight it- to go with the flow. 3 minutes later the head nurse in charge was in the room telling me not to push and at the same time telling Dr. Gooch that if she was going to deliver this baby that she better run, Calvin's head was already out. The nurse in training was in the corner of the room looking like a deer caught in headlights (probably similar to my look when I found out there would be no epidural). My doc got into the room just in time to catch the rest of Calvin. His official birth time is 10:25AM. The lady next door to me asked for an epidural at exactly 10:25:01AM. The first piece of info we got was the baby was a boy. The second piece of info we got was that he weighs 9 pounds 5 ounces. The third piece of info we got was that he was healthy with all of his limbs, 10 fingers and 10 toes. The rest of the info I got is TMI but let's just say, Calvin is a big baby that came out very fast. . ..

The rest of the day was spent recovering and staring endlessly at our handsome baby boy. My parents brought Maria to the hospital later on in the day. She was very interested in meeting Calvin for the first time. She was very sweet and gentle with him.

my parents, maria and chris went to eat dinner at waterloo ice house and brought back my free chocolate shake! this my new favorite picture of chris and maria.

The first night with Calvin was about as smooth as it can be with a newborn. Between him being checked out, me being checked out, him needing to be fed and nurses dropping in, there wasn't much sleeping going on.

this is chris changing one of the 6 poop diapers that calvin made on the first day.

I can't help but feel blessed- somewhere, sometime in my life I made some kind of good karmic choice so I that ended up with 2 sweet, beautiful healthy children- at least for the time being....

talkin' and drinkin'

Dear Maria- I have no idea where you picked up on this. . . .

lazy sunday

yay! maria slept all the way through the night last night! i hope she is on the mend and this cold is going away. she was pretty quiet this morning. chris made french toast and then we hung out on the sofa and watched some cartoons for a little bit. maria is starting to look more like a little kid and not so much like a baby anymore. i am also feeling very, very, very pregnant these days.

cute pix of Maria

These are my newest favorite pictures of Maria.

She grabs on to this little bell on the back door whenever she wants to go outside. She grabs it like every 5 minutes! Unfortunately she picked up a post trip cold and we've been dealing with snot and coughing and several wake ups through out the night. I hope she gets better soon. 

LA: Day 8

This was our last morning in LA. We got packed up and checked out of the hotel. We turned in our rental car at Hertz and they were nice enough to leave us in the car and drive us to LAX. Let me just say- the Hertz rental car place at LAX is huge!!! The guy that drove us said this location is the biggest Hertz in the world. I believe him. We thought we had left with plenty of time but alas we had to get bumped up in the baggage check line for American Airlines. I don't know what the deal was but there were about 100 people in line to check bags and 3 agents checking bags. All I can say is at least they pulled us forward and took our bags before the check in time expired. Security was a breeze to get through- I guess because everyone was stuck in the baggage line. The flight back pretty emtpy. We had a whole row to ourselves! We enjoyed our trip out to the west coast but we were very happy to get back home too.

BTW- way to go horns!!!!!

LA: Day 7

Today we didn't do much- after chasing Maria around all day yesterday I was totally exhausted! This pregnancy is wearing me out! I took Maria to Downtown Disney and we shopped around for awhile. I loved going in the LEGO store and Maria just liked being outside. We bought Chris a vinyl TRON Mickey figure. I think he liked it.