Photo Dump!

I decided that 1400+ photos on my iPhone was too many...so I finally took the time to upload them to the computer.  Here are a few from Aaron's first weeks for your viewing pleasure.

Aaron's first days

Sweet boy at 2 weeks

That's all for tonight.  There are so many more pictures to post and stories to tell, but I have two sleeping boys and it's getting awfully late, considering the 6:00am wake up call I'm sure to have.

Life's Adjustments

Well, it's been a long hiatus.  I should be folding laundry right now, but I felt inspired to write.  Warning: this post is a long one.  Our summer, aside from being extremely busy nonstop, can be summed up in one word: CHANGE.  While change is good (and in the case of adding Aaron to the family, wonderful), change is also very stressful.  That's a key reason why the blog has been empty for so long.  Stress - too much going on, too little quiet time :P

I guess I should step back and log Aaron's birth (because it's pretty awesome, actually) - so for those who don't like gory details, skip to another paragraph.  My water broke Sunday, May 27th at 9:45 after two hours of 10-12 minute apart contractions.  The nurse midwife called me twenty minutes after my water broke and during the wait, my contractions stayed steady at 10 minutes apart...until I was on the phone with her, at which point they immediately jumped to 3 minutes apart!  We still had Samuel, needed to do some last minute packing, and it was pouring down rain outside.  My mom hopped in the car and headed toward our house, taking about 30 minutes due to the downpour.  This whole time, my contractions were steady at 3 minutes apart.  Mom arrived by 10:30ish and we got Samuel around and out the door within 10 minutes.  At 10:43, I stopped counting contractions, as we were loading the car and heading out the door.  It takes approximately 5 minutes to get to the hospital...in that time, I had 4 contractions.  We almost ran a light, but Mike decided not to...which was good because right after the light turned green, we saw a cop pull up to the same intersection.  From the car door to the hospital room, I had another four contractions.  The nurse asked me to change once we got into the room, but I had two contractions before I got my shoes off, so she ordered me to just get in bed.  The good news was that the nurse midwife, Denise, was on the floor already!  Because she walked in the room, said "I just talked to you!" and "OH!  You're CROWNING!"  I remember looking around the room and noting the people present "nurse, nurse, midwife, husband."  With all parties in place, I decided to push and 3 pushes later, I had a beautiful baby boy with a full head of hair.  One nurse looked at the other, "Birth time 11:06."  The other nurse replied, "What time do we call admittance?"  "11:03???"  Mike said, "It's a good thing I didn't run that red light or that cop would have delivered this baby!"  And 23 hours later, we finally named baby boy "Aaron Dorsey."  Aaron because it's the name of a strong biblical character and Dorsey to honor my 100 year old grandmother, as it was her father's name.

For those who skipped the birth story, you may now rejoin!  The day after Aaron was born, we found out that Samuel had decided it was a day for new beginnings - he climbed out of his crib for the first time that night.  All the experts say that when the kid climbs out once, it's time for a toddler bed.  So, Samuel got a new brother and a toddler bed all in one day.  How exciting!  And STRESSFUL!  For everyone, not just Samuel, because as it turns out, toddler beds do not restrain toddlers AT ALL, so they can get out of bed as often as they like and run up and down the halls screaming.  So, we got a new baby who woke 3 times per night and a screaming toddler who wouldn't stay in bed.
Add to that stress the fact that a kid in Samuel's daycare got pinworms the Friday before we had Aaron, so we decided to keep Samuel home from daycare for a week (you can't treat new babies for pinworm, nor their nursing mothers), thus disrupting his routine.  New baby, new bed, new temporary routine.

We sent Samuel back to daycare a week after Aaron was born and things settled down for a couple weeks...until Samuel got a horrible diaper rash on his bottom (involving screaming every time we changed him), and we decided that we had to potty train him once and for all because we couldn't stand to see him in so much pain.  So, we kept him out of daycare so we could use just underpants (pull-ups were required until he was potty trained at daycare).  New baby, new bed, ANOTHER change in routine, and now we were thrown into the h*ll that is potty training a strong-willed child, who still wasn't sleeping well thanks to the new bed.

Potty training went amazingly well the first three days, but on the fourth day, he started to fight me.  At first, I thought we could just work through it and if he wet himself enough, he'd eventually "get it."  That was, until I realized he was intentionally having accidents whenever I attended to Aaron.  Talk about control of one's urine!  The potty training at home went on for 3 weeks, during which time we had a nice visit from Grandad (a post for another day).  After the third week, I decided I had to send the kid back to daycare because he wasn't going to back down with me.  Do you blame him?  Talk about screwing up his life!

I took him back to daycare and said, "Phyllis, he's in undies.  We know he'll do great for you because he's not mad at you.  He has enough control to pee on the floor on command when we're busy with Aaron.  You won't have that issue.  Good luck!"  And sure enough, he did great for her...and he'd come home and have accidents left and right for us and would fight us to use the potty.  It was torturous, but we survived.

Aaron and I got a relatively quiet three weeks home with Samuel back in daycare and we enjoyed that a lot!  Then, we had a several day visit from our Texas cousins, which was really fun, but changed Samuel's routine again because I kept him out of daycare much of that week.  Another week back in daycare, and then our family went on a vacation, where we trekked all over Indiana and Michigan...this apparently also caused stress for Samuel, although the trip had some very nice perks for all of us.  However, during vacation, we finally realized that Samuel was completely overtired from a summer of not sleeping well, and we had to build a new, much earlier bedtime routine to get him back on track. 

We got home from vacation Thursday, had Aaron baptized Sunday, and I went to work that Monday after 12 weeks off.  Aaron joined Samuel at daycare and the countdown to Samuel's first day at preschool began.  Two weeks after Aaron went to daycare, we moved Samuel to an all-day preschool program.  Yeah...after all that change this summer, we actually decided to put him through one more major change.  Evil, I know.  But at this point, it was like, "hey, let's just rip off the bandaid!"  So, we're a week into preschool and Samuel is adjusting.  He's also peeing and pooping on the potty with little resistance to us, and is finally (most of the time) in a pretty good bedtime routine (although, it takes a present and devoted parent two solid hours to get him to sleep).  He still complains about going to preschool, but once he's there, he slips right into the routine and always seems to be having fun when I arrive to pick him up.  His teachers say he is adjusting well and we're getting the routine down.

Giant sigh of relief!  We survived the craziest summer of our lives and honestly, Samuel is a trooper!  He had a lot to cope with in his toddler-sized life.  I hope we NEVER experience that much change in such a short time-frame again.  I'm sure we will, but I'll always look back to this summer and remember we survived it, too :)  The saving grace for us this summer is that God blessed us with an absolutely wonderful baby.  He's very laid back and sweet.  We would have absolutely lost our minds if he had been more difficult!

We are daily grateful to God that He brought us through all this and proved to us that we have the strength to raise our boys, even through tough times (which I'm sure we will have many more of as they grow!).

I honestly will try to get pictures up soon!  I've gotten some awesome ones of our beautiful boys this summer!

Aaron!

Fun in the Sun

The weather in Michigan has turned warm again and we have been enjoying every bit of it. Samuel loves being outdoors and does a stellar job of getting dirty and sweaty. With the onset of summer and all the outdoor play, you can also imagine that our rambunctious toddler has become quite injury prone...I'm sad to say that the poor kid is covered in scrapes and bruises these days. He's just so busy exploring his world. Our neighbor told us this week, "I have never seen Samuel walk. He always runs."

Some favorite "fun in the sun" activities are helping with the garden, digging with trucks in his sandbox (which we filled with pea gravel this summer since his sand was always wet last summer), and playing at any given park.

Before I sign off, you may not hear much from us for awhile...baby boy is due in 11 days, so we may be consumed for a bit. I will try to get a baby announcement up shortly after his arrival, though.

In the meantime, enjoy these picture of our recent adventures.

Samuel's Development - age 2

For Samuel's sake in the future, I like to post about his development every now and then so he can learn about himself when he gets older.  Here's my personal observations...I'm sure they're biased :P

Samuel has been really fun to watch this spring as he grows and learns.  We are amazed everyday at the things he knows and is learning to communicate to us.  He has so many words and is learning how to carry on conversations.  His cognitive skills are blossoming.  He can identify nearly all the letters of the alphabet and is learning the ABC song.  He has mastered all the basic colors, shapes, and gobs of animals and their sounds.  We are working on numbers...he seems to have more difficulty understanding numerical order and doesn't identify his numbers nearly as well as his letters.  He seems to follow and understand picture books like Arthur, Clifford, Curious George, and he loves Dr. Seuss (which thrills Mommy!) - Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss's ABCs, One Fish Two Fish. 

We're starting to notice lots of imagination from Samuel, which is really fun.  He has been playing fire truck a lot lately, putting out all kinds of fires in our house.  It's a good thing we have him to keep us safe!  He also uses his fire truck hose (which he swings around in circles) to play "Cowboy, Wasso" (lasso).  He's begun trying to build things, instead of just stacking blocks.  Lately, we've been building lots of carwashes out of blocks and stages out of Duplos...granted, his constructions don't usually look like what he says they are, but the point is that he's imagining what things could be.  He's also started pointing out shapes that look like other things.  For example, as he eats his toast, he likes to tell us the shapes he has made - like the toast that actually looked kind of like a horse recently.

We've begun to observe that he can recall and communicate things after the fact.  We came home from the Nature Center one day and I said, "Samuel, tell Daddy what we saw at the Nature Center today."  Samuel said, "Birds!"  I said, "What bird was your favorite?"  He said, "Turkey!  Bye bye Turkey," because we had watched the turkey eat and then turn around and walk away.

Some other fun conversations we've had are as follows...

Samuel: (fake cough) "I want coffee." 
Mommy: "You want coffee?" 
Samuel: "Yes."
Mommy: "Coffee is for grown-ups, not for kids."
Samuel: (fake coughs) "I coughing." 
Mommy:  "You want coffee because you are coughing?"
Samuel: "Yes, pwease."

Samuel: "Mommy, sky."
Mommy: "What do you see in the sky?"
Samuel: "Anmals."
Mommy: "You do? You see animals in the sky?"
Samuel: "Great" 
Mommy: "Do you see birds?"
Samuel: "No, horsie."
Mommy: "What's the horsie doing in the sky?"
Samuel: "Neigh...I see animals in parking lot."


Samuel: "Mom, I want hot dogs pwease."
Mom: "Are you ready for dinner?"
Samuel: "No, two minutes, mom."
Mom: "You'll be ready for dinner in two minutes?"
Samuel: "Uh huh"
(We give Samuel two minute warnings whenever it's time to change activities...looks like this may backfire :P)

Mommy: "Let's get your jammies on and pick out a book."
Samuel: "Jammies, brush teeth, read books, pray, go nap time," thus summarizing bedtime routine.


He's at a super fun age and is sweet, polite, and sociable.  We still have lots of "terrible twos" struggles, though.  He's quite a willful child and lets us know when he's not happy.  We're always on our toes trying to stay one step ahead of him, but more often than not, we're simply learning how to cope at each stage and trying to prepare for even bigger challenges when the new baby arrives.

Easter 2012

A few weeks ago, we got to celebrate Easter.  This year was really fun because Samuel really began to "get" it...at least the Easter Bunny part (fail, Mom and Dad - he should have learned more about the Jesus part!).  We enjoyed a special holiday with Uncle Dan, Aunt Andrea, Kyla, and Parker.  The kids are so fun to watch together, especially Kyla and Samuel since they're so close in age.  It was a great Easter and we are looking forward to Easter next year with two little boys to enjoy it!

(love this picture even though it's blurry - he was so excited about his new truck!)

Comings and Goings of the Spring

There isn't a lot to report since January.  We've spent a good deal of time being sick since Samuel's birthday.  Samuel and Mommy in particular have picked up nearly every virus known to man, I think.  Samuel has generally bounced back after a day or two...Mommy has picked up everything Samuel had and has taken a week or two to recover from everything.  Hopefully it's just because of the pregnancy and I'll be healthier after baby boy arrives.  That said, baby boy has managed to stay healthy throughout the pregnancy, regardless of my illnesses.

Since we've had so much illness, our comings and goings have been somewhat limited.  We take a few pictures here and there when we get out, but we haven't had any super exciting expeditions to share.  Here are some of the fun things we've done, though...

 Samuel's first time sledding

 "I think this is fun..."

 "This is fun!"

 "This isn't so fun anymore!"

 And then we were done....

A couple weeks later, warm weather, giggling on Grandma's lap

 Grandpa's Little Helper

 Loving the huge sandbox at the children's garden

  Note the even warmer weather!

 Samuel found a "pancorn" (he couldn't quite say "pine cone")

Sweating up a storm at the park

 Daddy's little helper

Little Firefighter in the Firetruck at the park

 Wearing Daddy's hat...yep, they share hats...my son has a large head

(Note that we're dressing for colder weather again...boo!)

 "Pway football, Mommy!"

 Someday we will have to do a Senior photo just like this :P

 More fun at the park

Petting the clydesdale at the zoo

Carousel Ride...Samuel wasn't a big fan...