Brotherly Love...

It sure is hard to pose a two year old and a newborn and actually get a nice expression. Here are some of my attempts...

Alex is completely enthralled with "his baby". He constantly wants to hold him and kiss him on the head. He tries so hard to be gentle, but you know how it is with toddlers! Alex has already tried to teach him how to talk. Poor kid is in for a lengthy wait...

So far, the transition from "only child" to "big brother" has gone fabulously. Alex enjoys his role and takes it very seriously. Just yesterday I was tending to one of Connor's rather mucky diapers and Connor was crying heartily. Alex, from the living room, hollered, "Mama... what's the matter with my baby?" in a tone that indicated that I'd better solve the problem. Hee hee

Alex is very helpful. He fetches diapers and sleepers for me and tries to soothe Connor when he's upset, although Alex needs to work on his volume control as his "shushing" really isn't all the soothing. He has accepted our new addition into our family fully and we're very proud of how he is doing.

First Days At Home...

We are adjusting to our family of four. Cory went back to work on Tuesday so that was my first day "going it alone". We survived! Alex has been an amazing little helper, fetching me diapers, sleepers, etc. for Connor and "helping" with baths and burping. Connor and I went to our first Mom and Baby drop in this morning. He was easily the youngest baby there. Most of them are crawling already. Alex is learning how to use the toilet and needless to say, I feel like I'm drowing in bodily waste! LOL Daily, my diaper pail overflows and I am washing an awful lot of laundry. I'd forgotten how often newborns need to be changed. The boys have been great though, in that they both are letting me get a lot of sleep. Alex has been sleeping for 12 hours stretches and Connor now sleeps between 4 and 6 hours with a short feeding and then another 4+ hour stretch. So we are surviving and enjoying it! :)

Our New Year's...

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Our New Year's was eventful... to say the least. Our son decided to join our family on New Year's Day, at 6:20am. I went to bed New Year's Eve (1:00am... silly me!) not suspecting that Connor was coming any time soon. I woke up half an hour later in active labour. The entire labour was less than 5 hours from start to finish. We met Karin, our midwife at the hospital around 3am and were very surprised that things were moving along so fast. I was able to have my natural childbirth despite having had a c-section last time so I'm pretty darn proud of that. Connor was the New Year's baby at PGRH so he's received a lot of very generous gifts from sponsors in Prince George and he's been in several newspapers now. I'll post more when I don't have a squirming baby in my arms.

Merry Christmas!

Alex really enjoyed Christmas morning. He woke up a little on the grumpy side... but as soon as he saw the tree he perked up and said "Hey, Santa leaved us some presents!" We let him open one present on Christmas Eve --- the pyjamas --- so he had something cute to wear in the photos. They're a bit long, but really warm and cozy so he really liked them.


Here Alex opened his first gift from Santa. It's a castle ("Little People") that came with some characters, horses, dragons... really, really neat. He really liked it (as did his Daddy) who played with it just as much as him.

Alex's attempts to open his stocking were thwarted by the lumpy things stuck in it, so he turned it upside down and shook it instead!

Christmas dinner... we opened crackers. Alex played musical hats, starting off with a yellow one and eventually trading everyone at the table so he got to wear each one.

And here he is... our nephew, Brandon. Cory took quite a liking to him and was able to get some giggles out of him. We visited with him on December 21st and we'll get to see him again tomorrow (the 28th) as we celebrate Christmas with Mark and Victoria.

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday with lots of good memories! Here's to a prosperous and happy 2007!!!

Getting close...

Alex and I went to the annual Foster Parent Christmas party last Saturday. The Santa was a little odd looking, but Alex thought he was pretty cool. He even managed to brave sitting on his knee for a photo opportunity for me. Santa gave him 4 board books and he was so thrilled! Two Christmas parties and two Santa visits and Alex has got a "tato head" and "books". I don't think I should dare take him to see the Mall Santa, as that one comes empty handed!!!

We are getting very close to meeting our new son (well, very likely a son... there's always room for error on the ultrasound technician's part). We've officially passed the due date that the ultrasound predicted (December 21), but based on measurements only, those have a margin of error of 10 days give or take... January 1st is creeping up on us fast and we are hoping to avoid going past that date, but if we do... I'm okay with that, as my first born (10 days past his due date) was beautiful and healthy, albeit on the large size.

Here's this week's belly (taken today at 38 weeks, 4 days). A bit of a shock seeing it on the camera. I had no idea...

We're sure looking forward to our Christmas. This year we've decided to visit around Christmas and not during. Yesterday we had a great dinner at Cory's parents house. Everyone was there. I forgot my camera, of course, otherwise I'd be posting a photo of my nephew for all to see. Last year Christmas Day was too hectic and not enjoyable for us. Cory's sleeping schedule (he works graveyards) made the day not very relaxing (he got no sleep at all) so this year we're staying home on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We'll drive to PG on Boxing Day, but we're spending our first ever Christmas completely at home. We've extended the invitation to our families and my parents are coming out for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We're looking forward to relaxing at home and letting Alex take as long as he wants opening his gifts on Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas to all if I don't get around to posting another update before then! Hope your holidays are relaxing and peaceful!

Belly of the week...

Well, here's my 37 week photo. Mom thinks I've "dropped". I sure hope so. The baby is definitely head down, so that's a good sign... and I think I'm breathing a little better these days, so it's quite possible he has dropped. I really can't tell, though, because my stomach is just so darn huge!

37 weeks is a milestone we hit on Monday. It's when the baby is considered "full-term" which is great. Pregnancy is calculated as 40 weeks, but at 37 the typical baby can safely live outside of the body with fully developed lungs. It's safe for him to be born at any time and he would not be considered premature! Yay!

The last three weeks of the pregnancy (37-40) is when the baby spends a lot of time developing fat to keep him warm after birth. Basically, just growing bigger. 40 to 42 weeks is also considered full-term, but on the longish side... after 42 weeks the baby is considered post-term and can experience complications as a result of that. So, I'm glad we made it this far. But now the waiting game begins. He could be coming any day or he could still be a month off (Alex came at 41 weeks 3 days).

Christmas is coming!!!

So, after having the tree up for over a week now, with lights, garland, and an angel only... we finally finished decorating it yesterday!

We decided to go "low-key" on the house decorations and only focussed on the tree. Everything else is staying boxed up until next Christmas. Our reasoning... with a newborn coming soon, the less we have to put away after New Year's, the better!

The photos don't do the tree justice. It really looks great at night with the lights out and the tree plugged in. The first photo is one I tried on the "night portrait" setting of my camera, but not having a tripod, I can't hold the camera still enough for a non-blurry photo. The second one is with the lights off but the flash on, so that one's not so good either.

Alex was a really big help. He handed me the boxes of ornaments one at a time and then after I put the ornament on the tree, he put the empty boxes back in our big box. So far, things are going well. Last year the tree had to go behind the couch so Alex couldn't get to it (he pulled it over on himself on day 1). This year it's more out in the open and he seems to understand that the ornaments are just to look at, not to touch. Now, if anyone has any advice for getting that message through to my cats, I'd love to hear it!!! Next year, with a 1 year old, I imagine we'll be putting the tree behind the couch again, so I'm determined to enjoy it this year.