Bennett-isms

He's so hilarious. There is something at least once a day that totally cracks me up. Here's a few recent Bennett-isms:

Today at lunch, between bites of mac-n-cheese, Bennett looks up and says, "It's fun having a sister." And another one from a couple weeks ago...."Mom, thanks for bringing home sister." Phew. And I was so worried that he was going to resent her.


Bennett wanted to take a nap with his sister...


Bennett LOVES his trains. He plays with them every chance he gets. He is constantly asking me to build him a track. The other day Bennett was hounding me while I was feeding Leah.
B - "Mom, make a track." (Repeated about 10 times)
Me - "I can't right now. I'm feeding Leah."
B - "Oh come ON mom. You know you love it." (Can you just hear the teenager in his voice?? Where does he get this?)


Speaking of trains, he's really into the Thomas trains. He knows them all by name...Thomas, Gordon, Percy, James, etc. A little while ago we had a friend over named James. He was all excited and kept calling him "James the guy" (as opposed to James the train.)

Last week we had two nights in a row of Bennett waking up at 3:30 am and having all out screaming fits. For two hours. SO WIERD. Totally out of character. He woke up screaming and crying and we would try everything to calm him down. Then as soon as we would leave the room, he would start up again. Bizarre. ANYWAYS, after two nights of this, we were all zombies. I decided that I wouldn't let him sleep in or nap extra long to make up for it in hopes that he would go back to normal. Well, on the second day, I went in to wake him up from his nap. Of course, he didn't want to wake up.
"Mom," he said, "I just feel terrible."
Yeah, well, I have this great idea for you. It's called sleep. You should try it sometime. He hasn't had the problem since.

"Moooo. Hey mom, when I grow up, I want to be a cow."

As we were driving in the car-- "Mom, you can't eat cars. They are too big."
Apparently he has realized that I eat everything else in sight. He was just warning me that I might want to lay off the cars.

And finally, my favorite--
Keith and Bennett on a hike after watching an airplane fly over: "Airplanes are big and tough just like us, huh dad?'

I wonder where she gets it

I took Leah to the doctor on Friday for her one-month checkup. She now weighs 12 pounds 4 oz. Wow.

I didn't take a lot of pictures while Shannon was here because she does a much better job than I do. But I did document the cake. Yum. This cake is three layers and nearly a foot tall of chocolate sinfulness. It has everything bad in it that you can possibly throw at a chocolate cake. Expect maybe sprinkles. It uses two full boxes of baking chocolate, plus cocoa, heavy cream, cream cheese, sour cream, loads of sugar, plenty of butter. And, oh yeah, some flour to hold it all together. This cake is rich. She flew out to visit on the day after her birthday so I made it for her on the day before she went home. She ate one piece. And left me with the rest.



It was good.


We ate it all. Keith helped a little, but he left me home all day with the cake by myself. Oh yeah, and the kids. But a chocolate cake like that is awfully noisy when you spend all day alone with it. So anyways, it's long gone.

So anyway, back to Leah. I wonder where she gets all the extra weight. Hmmm. Baffling.

More awesomeness

Here's another little gem that Shannon and I stayed up all night laughing about....



I love how she keeps wiping it off her face.

And here's a special edition JUST for Shannon. I dedicate this post to you. :)


And one more because I just can't stop laughing. I'm sorry about all the vomit but it's just so darn funny!

Awesomeness

Another benefit of Shannon's visit was our time spent finding super random videos and funny blogs. Check out the total frickin awesomeness of this....

http://listoftheday.blogspot.com/2007/09/great-olan-mills-photos.html

(Sorry if it's not a link. I'm kind of an idiot and it didn't work out that way)

Happy and sad

I just took my sister to the airport. Sad. But so happy that she was here for a few days! We had so much fun and I miss her so bad already. I always think it's not SO bad living far away from family (after nearly 8 years of getting used to it) because the busy-ness of life just kind of sucks you in no matter who you live by. Then Shannon comes. Aw man, can't we just be neighbors?

Bennett cried when we drove away from her at the airport. "I need to see Frankin!" he said. : (
Poor kid needs a cousin. And his auntie.

Holidays

I know, it's a little late but I finally have two hands free for a couple of minutes so I'll post a few pics from our holidays. We had such a great time. Bennett had tons of fun opening presents and he got way too spoiled. Is it just me or is the tree looking slightly crooked? Either way, Santa definitely found us!

It was so awesome to be home with a new baby for Christmas. What a great Christmas present!


The binoculars have been one of the gifts that Bennett carries around with him a lot. He looks through them and says "Cheese! Cute." I guess I need to stop saying that with every picture I take.


The highlight of Christmas though, was the addition to Bennett's train set. He got a couple new trains and some more track peices. The first thing he does in the morning is run downstairs to build a new track. And it's the last thing he's playing with at the end of the day, without fail. He loves these trains. He entertains himself for HOURS. And with a new baby, that is worth it's weight in gold!



On New Year's Eve, we had an awesome Cambodian hot pot feast and had Keith's little bro and his wife over. We put Bennett to bed and Keith woke him up again at about 10:30 so they could ride the subway downtown to watch the fireworks. They had a blast.



The next morning, Keith's mom had to go home. So sad. She was SUCH a huge help during her two week visit! She had arrived the night before I went into labor so it was awesome that she was here to take care of Bennett while I was "busy". We loved having her here!


I'm so mean for posting this pic but I just gotta....she was having too much fun playing around with Photo Booth on our Mac!

My beefcake

Leah just went to the doctor for her 2-week checkup. This girl is a tank. She already weighs 10 lbs 8 oz! Watch out Raegan and Sadie (her 4 month old cousins!), Leah is only a couple ounces away! She is going to be at a good fighting weight pretty soon.

And in other news...I survived Keith's return to work. It was a bit tenuous at times but we managed. I took a shower every day this week. And no one was seriously injured or starved. By the way, thanks to Adri for reminding me about the baby bjorn. What was I thinking? Either I'm so out of practice that I've forgotten all my good mom tricks, or I've just been in a state of shock with only a survival instinct keeping me going. Either way, the bjorn was a lifesaver yesterday. Although, it would be a lot more comfortable if she wasn't such a beefcake. I'm going to have to start a weightlifting program to keep up with this girl. I'm going to start pulling muscles by hauling her around if I'm not careful! : )

Alone

Keith went back to work today.

Meanwhile, I'm getting my butt kicked. This having two kids thing is seriously rough all alone. Leah got super spoiled when Grandma Card was here and doesn't really know what it's like to not be held all the time. I'm amazed how much I was able to still do one-handed though. I actually made dinner, did some laundry, AND had a badly needed nap (while holding her, of course). But by the time Keith got home, it was already bedtime and I was totally cooked. He had to bail me out and take over with the bedtime routines or else I would have melted down. Although, he might argue that I melted anyway. : )

Two more days until the weekend.....I can do this.

Right?

"I'm crying about my mommy."

Bennett has been a good big brother. He seems to really love Leah and always wants to kiss and hold her. His kisses are a little rough sometimes but his intentions are good.

The only thing where he has struggled in the past week is bedtime. Normally he is really easy to put down. We read a few books, sing a couple songs, then say goodnight. He rarely has problems where we need to go back into his room to calm him down. But the last few nights he's been freaking out crying for mommy. Even if Keith is in charge of bedtime, he still cries for me. He calms down if I'm in the room but the second I leave, he cries for me hysterically. So unlike him.

Last night after I walked away, he did this and Keith went in to soothe him. He asked Bennett why he was so sad. His response was "I'm crying about my mommy."

Keith settled him down and came downstairs to tell me this. Oh, it broke my heart! It still makes me cry just thinking about his hurt little feelings. I am trying really hard to pay lots of attention to him. As much as I can (since I'm still sore), I get down on the floor and play with him or read him books or just hang out like we used to. But it's still different and it always will be now that I have another person to take care of. My little guy is so tender.

Meet Leah!

Here's the estrogen Keith promised....

Wow. Where do I begin? What an amazing couple of days we've had. We are so completely in love with our little lady! She is SUCH a good baby and is just so much fun to look at!

Meet Leah Elizabeth Card! Isn't she adorable?!?!


I'm posting the birth story so if you aren't interested, scroll down a bit. It's not too gory....

Labor started on Wednesday morning very early. In fact, the onset of labor is exactly the same as it was with Bennett. For both it was a Wednesday morning and contractions started at 2:30 am (about 3:00 am for Bennett). They were about 5 minutes apart from the beginning. Although they really didn't hurt much, there is no such thing as sleep once you realize you are in early labor. I tried to occupy myself until morning came without waking anyone up. Finally, I went back to bed and waited for Keith's alarm clock to go off at 5:00. I knew that once he knew, there would be no sleep for him either. I let him hit the snooze button a couple of times and when he started to get up for work, I told him he was getting the day off! Then the both of us tried to kill another hour or two before we started making noise. We watched mountain biking and random adventure videos on You Tube and timed the contractions. Finally, at around 7, we started taking showers and getting things together. The contractions were still not bad and I was fully expecting to be in labor for many, many hours (Bennett was 30). However, I was pretty sure my water had broken just as the contractions started to I definitely had to get to the hospital because of an antibiotic I was supposed to get before delivery.

We got to the hospital at 9:30 and they determined that my water had broken so I was definitely getting admitted. I was 4 cm dialated at that point. I got into my delivery room at 10:30 and met my "team". Once I got onto the monitors, the contractions slowed to 7 or 8 minutes apart so they started talking pitocin. I really didn't want pitocin since I was hoping to go as natural as possible. I had an epidural with Bennett and ended up pushing for FOUR hours. I attribute my horrible recovery to the epidural because of the long pushing phase. I had decided that I would rather hurt for a couple of hours with less/no pain meds than hurt for 6 weeks because of having no control of my body during labor. So, when they started talking pitocin, I was afraid I would end up caving. But they convinced me that pitocin was the way to go since I had a history of long labor. I definitely didn't want to be having a baby 30 hours later so I went ahead with it. Literally within a minute, the contractions started coming at 2 minutes apart. Ouch. There was just no break in between. So I broke down and got the epidural. I think the anesthesiologist was standing outside my door waiting for me to give in because he was there pretty quick.

This is just before the epidural...does it look like there is a nearly ten pound baby in there???


There ended up being a problem with the epidural because it went into the wrong space. It ended up being a spinal instead. I don't really understand the difference but basically it meant that the meds were not continuous and controlled with a pump. It was just a one time dose that they were going to adjust later. Whatever, it felt divine. I still had total feeling in my legs but I couldn't feel the contractions. I got about an hour and a half of nice rest. Then, all of a sudden, I started feeling it again on my right side. So I rolled over hoping it would redistribute the meds. Instead, that caused it to wear of completely! I went from 0 to ten on the pain scale in seconds. I could feel EVERYTHING and it hurt. They checked me for the first time since I got to the hospital and I was an 8 and fully engaged. Then my legs started shaking like crazy--I was in transition. They went running for the anesthesiologist but came back saying everyone was in the OR so I just had to wait a bit. Except that I started feeling a ton of pressure. Another quick check indicated I had only a lip of cervix left. I felt like I had to push NOW. Everyone went running. There was no doctor and I was pushing. The nurse prepping the table said she could see head. Seconds later, the midwife ran in and threw on a gown while everyone else was breaking down the table and getting in place. I was totally pushing by this point and within 10 minutes, she was out! She had a great scream right away and I held her for a while before they took her away to wipe her off and weigh her. She was gorgeous! What a relief to have her here!

They said she was a big baby when she was born and I was shocked to find out how big when they put her on the scale!!!


Isn't she cute? She came so fast that her head never got smashed. Everyone kept commenting that she looked like a c-section baby because her head was so nice and round.


She was 21 & 3/4 inches long. I love baby frog legs....


Big brother meeting her for the first time. She was about 4 hours old. He LOVES his baby sister!


Bennett and daddy looking at her little piggies.


My babies--


Little Leah-


A smile?


Proud Daddy-


Welcome home!


My girl...


Bennett loves to give kisses.




So we are adjusting to being a family of four. So far so good! She is a great sleeper and she is eating well too (would you expect anything less from 9+ pounder?). Nights have been pretty good and I actually have to keep waking her up to eat. She easily goes 4 hours at a stretch at night right now. Hopefully it stays that way for a while! I'm feeling pretty good too, considering. Not fantastic, but certainly not as bad as I did after having Bennett. I could barely walk after he was born so I consider myself lucky that I can stand up long enough to take a shower without crying. So as traumatic as it was to have a natural childbirth with very little warning, I got exactly what I wanted. I was able to have a lot more control of the process and it did a lot less damage as a result. Plus, I got a healthy baby girl!

We feel so blessed to have her here! It's especially sweet to be able to cuddle a newborn at Christmas. What a sweet reminder of the birth of our Savior and the reason we celebrate during this time of year.

Home Sweet Home

Momma and Baby sister are home safe and sound. Hopefully Andrea will feel up to blogging in the morning and will post some photos and infuse a little more estrogen than my "strictly the facts' boring posts.
This is Keith signing off.

Leah Elizabeth Card!

Mommy and baby are doing well and hope to come home in the morning. The blog master will be back and hope fully she will get some pictures for you all to see how perfect she is.

Uh, no news is....Great News

As you all probably guessed if the daily blog goes silent then likely something big happened. Big being the operative word. Can you believe a 9 POUND 12 OUNCE perfect baby girl! She is beautiful. I'll let Andrea fill all of you in on the gory details but will say that once she decided to come, she came quick. (unlike her passive older brother) Her name is still in contest. More details to come when the blog master feels better.

Tick-tock

And here's where everything starts to get real annoying. This could go on for days. Two weeks in fact, as my doctor won't induce me until I'm two weeks overdue. Being pregnant really sucks right about now. Made even worse by the fact that my friend that was due the same day as me had her baby yesterday...and another friend due a week after me had her baby today.

And here I am. Still pregnant.

Keith's mom arrived today. At least she has Bennett to play with....

Due Date

And still nothing.

At least this time I didn't go on a 20-mile mountain bike ride on my due date. I learned my lesson last time. It didn't work then, why would it work now?