Last week of June

Yes, June.  I didn't get to post some of Owen's last days as a solo kid because we had an unexpected interruption in early July!  


Some things he's into these days:  He's finally understanding jigsaw puzzles and doing them mostly on his own though he likes some guidance.  He's very into sticker books even after he's used all the stickers up (this requires some creativity from the adult to keep the book interesting instead of dead air).  Now we "kick a ball" in the basement, and he follows it up with "in the dark?"  He loves to turn light switches off and on (now that he can finally reach them!) and kicking the ball in the dark is somehow really fun for him, though generally discouraged by adults.  

Hide and seek is his latest venture, which is pretty hilarious since he understands neither hiding nor seeking.  :)  I'll have to video it one of these days, but he'll run off to hide and either stand in plain sight or hide and start counting with the seeker ("3, 4, 6, 7").  It seems he can't be both not seen and not heard!  One night we really worked on it with him and ended up with him with his hands over his eyes in plain sight still counting.  When he's the seeker, he looks around the room and says "where did he go? I don't see him!"  It takes some prodding and suggestions for where else he should look.  I love that he's getting to the age where we can play games with him though!


Most common phrases heard in our house:  

• "pregud" - pretty good, in response to "how was ___?" 
• "I'm not sure" - see below
• "umm.....okay, sure" - used for difficult decisions like "do you want PB&J for lunch?" with a long pause 
• "Where did Bo go?" - heard way too much with nary a glance first
• "I don't see it" - he never finds anything.  :)

Anyway, he was very into measuring things with Daddy's measuring tape.  One afternoon he measured everything in sight.  He's really picking things up quickly now, which is pretty fun.

He got in some quality play time with friends.  Eating lunch with Carson while Mommy went to a doctor's appointment.  These guys are best buddies!

Jacob, Carson, and Owen playing with Owen's cars in the wood chips at the park playground.  Who needs slides and swings when you have sticks and dirt and cars?

This playtime at Carson's house was only about 4 hours before Owen became a big brother!  Who knew?  They had so much fun in the pool and sweeping water around the patio.  Hopefully, I'll be able to take him back to the real pool before it gets cold again.

The summer isn't complete without a nearly weekly trip to the zoo.  He and Carson stopped to pose with a lion statue near the actual lions.

Petting goats at the zoo and pushing his own stroller.

This explorer's tent is at the zoo, too, and has tribal music that plays when triggered by a motion detector.  Owen wowed his (and my) friends with his dance moves once again.  Wish I'd recorded it!

Also at the zoo, we took a toddler's "P is for Penguin" class.  It was less than an hour long, covered different types of penguins and had a craft, but the best part was petting a baby penguin!  They are sooo soft; their feathers and down were like rabbit fur.

Lastly, a look at our fabulous crop of strawberries this year.  This basket was all collected in one evening!  (This is something like a 6"x10" basket, to give you an idea.)  And they were so much better than what we can get in the store.  This output went on for at least a couple of weeks.  We made strawberry jam, strawberry pie, froze a bunch, and ate a ton as is.

Party of Four

And then there were four.  We said good-bye to Granna and Grandad last night and hello to a week on our own.  Gulp!  Now we'll really see what we're made of.  We are so thankful to Granna and Grandad for their help and support while they were here entertaining Owen, cooking meals, chauffeuring us around, doing heavy lifting, and providing extra hands where needed!

Owen has been very interested in Hadley when she's awake.  Usually he's within six inches of her face.  :)  Here he's showing her the features of his old bouncer.  I love his expression in the last photo and her little feet sticking out before that.

Hadley also got her first bath.  It was just a sponge bath, since she still has her umbilical cord, but you can see the phases go from curiosity to anger to relief at the end.

And I had to document her first hair bow.  :)  It's stuck on with Karo syrup!  

She did great at her 2-week check-up.  Her stats were 20.5" long (75%), 7 lbs 8 oz (25%) and head circumference of 14.25" (13%).  Another long and skinny baby and above her birth weight already, so we were happy!  


So here we go forward, our Party of Four.

Owen and Hadley

We continue to make the adjustments from one child to two with small "firsts".  Like the first trip with both occupied car seats in the car, first outing with both kids, and the first time big brother held little sister:

Most of the pictures these days are still of Owen, since Hadley sleeps so much.  Owen playing with grandparents:

Owen playing with Daddy - lots of cardio, somersaults, and handstands:

Owen playing with the cat (pretending he is a cat):

Owen playing in the rain (yes, we finally had rain, and on the night when we were going to take Owen to his first baseball game = rained out):

Owen playing with his old baby things.  Time to hand over the reins of this little chair, buddy.  It was sagging nearly to the floor.

Owen "helping" Grandad pick strawberries by eating his inventory faster than he could pick them.

And finally a couple more Hadley pictures (all asleep).  More to come!

Hadley getting ready for football season!  Hook 'em!

Meet Hadley!

Following in her big brother's footsteps, Baby Girl arrived a couple of weeks early.  Meet Hadley Claire Peterson, born July 2, 2012 at 9:17 pm.  She was 7 lbs, 2 oz and 19.5 inches long.

The medium-length version of the story is that my water broke in big, gushing Hollywood style while we were eating dinner at home a little before 7pm on Monday (7/2/12) night, but I wasn't having any contractions at that point.  After making a few calls (including my doctor and a friend to watch Owen over night) and some last minute packing, we made it to the hospital about an hour later, whereupon it was discovered that I was already halfway to full dilation.  This would have been great news, except that Hadley was breech, and no one delivers that way anymore.  So a Caesarean section it would have to be.  Sigh.

Dad suiting up - Scalpel?  Check.  Smelling salts?  Check.

Mom putting on a brave face pre-surgery.  The hospital gowns are so flattering!  :P

Because I was progressing quickly, there was no sitting around idly.  There was a little drama with a competing delivery, but my doctor decided to push us through first (no pun intended).  So within an hour, surgery was underway and all went pretty well, except when briefly shown our daughter, who was quite Smurf-like in color.  After a few minutes of hearing no crying, we asked where she was and found out she had been taken to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) and placed under an oxygen mask/hood.  She was born with a pneumothorax (collapsed lung), which made it difficult for her to breathe, but is apparently not uncommon when babies skip the trip down the birth canal.  Dad was able to go and check on her, but I had to wait a couple of hours in the post-op recovery room before I could see her.  Below is the oxygen hood just over her head, but the incubator was open so we could hold her hand.

By the next morning, she was out from under the oxygen hood and breathing on her own, but they wouldn't let her leave the NICU until she had had two successful feedings, each lasting at least 15 minutes.  You can see the IV that they stuck in her head in the 2nd picture.  Seems that it's too challenging to hook an IV up to a newborn's hands/arms, although they still tried and failed a few times according to her various scars!

IV-free by Tuesday evening, though you can see the red marks the tape left on her head!

Owen, Granna, and Grandad came back to the hospital on Wednesday morning to see Hadley.  This was Owen's first time to meet his sister.  She gave him a Lightning McQueen car to break the ice, which Owen thought was pretty awesome! 

Other hospital moments:  One of the nice pediatric nurses crochets these adorable hats and gives them to babies to take home!  She was so stylish in her bassinet.  :)

First non-hospital clothes for her car seat test.  

Because of her brief time in the NICU under oxygen, Hadley was required to do a 90-minute car seat test where they record her vital signs while she sits in her seat.  I think it's to make sure she can breathe properly and doesn't flop over in the seat.  She slept through the whole test and passed!  [Owen had to do this same test (because he was technically not full-term) before he could leave the hospital in Texas, too.]

Our "stork dinner for two" served the night before we were discharged from the hospital. Not too bad for hospital food: grilled chicken, London broil, asparagus, baked potato, green and fruit salads, cheesecake, and sparkling cider.  

Big brother Owen is still figuring out what to make of Hadley.  Though he's been pretty good trying to share Bo and some of his cars with her, she's still a curiosity.  So far, it's been good.  I think there are enough distractions to delay the realization that the pedestal is now dually-occupied.  :)

And some more pictures of her since we've been at home...  She, of course, loves to be held.  Not so much against the shoulder, but more so that she can look around with her big, bluish eyes and take it all in.  She is what I like to call an "aggressive sleeper" in that she sleeps easily, frequently, and was pretty oblivious to most of the goings-on in the hospital environment.  But when she's awake, she's not wasting any observation time staring at the back of a chair!

She also likes to stretch her long arms, fingers, and toes.  Her feet and hands do not resemble anyone's that we know - they are so long and slender!  (Hers are the little ones!)  Ha!  We already took her to a follow-up pediatrician's appointment where her stats were something like 26% for weight and 71% for height.

She's pretty quiet, making mostly squeaking sounds with an occasional loud squawk if she's been kept waiting too long.  I'm sure that won't last too long, since she'll have to compete in volume with her brother to get attention!