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!

Summer begins!

It's been a weird summer weather-wise.  One day it will break 80 degrees, the next won't get to 60, and in between the wind is blowing too hard to feel much above 70, so it's been hard to really get out and enjoy "summer" as in bathing suits and popsicles.  Though it's been pretty good for sitting outside and gardening!  


Here are our first strawberries of the year.   Owen has been excited to find the red ones, since that's what we told him we could pick.  I love these plants, because they don't require one ounce of effort to come back year after year, and they are very productive!

It did warm up to the mid-70s and sunny skies last week, so we went and checked out the splash pad a couple of towns away.  Owen had a great time with all of his friends and really didn't want to leave!  He had a much better time than last year!  They need to put one of these in our town, seriously.

Owen and Everest had so much fun screaming when the huge bucket up top dropped its contents with a great whooshing sound.  I don't think they were getting wet, but they were squealing like little girls and running off before returning anyway.  :)

Looks like a water fountain, no?

And of course, lots of fun with Carson splashing in the water spouts despite the chilly water.

He also adored the adjacent carousel, and threw a fit after his first ride was through.  We had to do one more ride just before we got back in the car to head home, but he was so tired, he was pretty much sliding off the horse.  Needless to say, he fell asleep in the car about 10 minutes later!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!  We had a pretty good time here celebrating with good food, nice weather, and presents.  I don't think Owen really grasped the whole "it's Daddy's day" concept, but he enjoyed helping John open presents, especially the remote-controlled helicopter, and was pretty well-behaved all day.

It just cracks us up when he does this.  He's reading the comics from the Sunday paper at the table after breakfast - totally unprovoked and with a very serious look on his face!  He is, after all, closer now to being 3 than to being 2!

I didn't really get a posed father-son picture for the occasion, but I like this one from a few days ago after playing in the sprinkler.  Owen's holding on tight to his horsey for a ride back to the house.  He loves his Daddy!!!

And, lastly, a belly update on the missing piece of our little family.  I'm nearly 36 weeks along, which is when Owen decided to join us, so it could be any day now!  Let's hope it's right between 37-38 weeks, since I feel stretched like a balloon these days, and sleep is hard to come by already.  One of Owen's little playmates actually asked me if I had a ball in my shirt!  Ha ha - I love it.  :)

I'm With the Band

So we know that he likes dancing to music, but now he's added singing, guitar, and drums to the mix.  Obviously, the singing will be more impressive once he knows all the words to a song, but I think he's got the charisma of a future lead singer.  :)  The guitar is something we like to call "Bo-tar", since his guitar is currently his pillow (named Bo).  We didn't get the drum playing in this video, but he's actually pretty good with sticks on one of his friend's little 3-drum set.  And he loves drumming on the table with his hands, complete with a little cymbal "psst" at the end.

Toddler games

I think I mentioned it before, but Owen likes to request certain clothes when I'm in his closet.  This can be really frustrating when he's being stubborn, and the particular item is in the dirty clothes basket!  But it makes him really happy for the rest of the day, and he'll even tell strangers that "I'm wearing my ___ shirt!"  His number one requests are his car shirt, moose shirt, and Mater pajamas (Thanks Aunt Jenn!).  Here's a picture of the last one:

He loves his friends!  If I can tell him that Carson and Jacob will be somewhere, it makes for a very persuasive argument for us to be there, too.

I just thought this picture of him playing on a slide at a local gym with his friends was pretty cute.  (He's waiting at the top in white.)  They went up and down the slide for probably 20 minutes in an endless loop, until Owen tripped and cut his lip. :(

Lastly, it was warm enough one day last week to break out a new water toy I got for him.  It's a plastic tube with wiggly arms that fixes to the end of the water hose.  He had so much fun, even though it wasn't a very hot day, the wind was blowing, and the water out of the tap was pretty chilly!  He was squealing pretty much the whole time, as you can tell from the video.  I'm sure we'll have much more fun with this as the temperatures rise in July/August!