Funny Story...

Well, this one is on me.  I must write about it before I forget it, because with every month postpartum I easily forget how miserable I was towards the end of my pregnancy.  It was 7 days until my due date, my first child would have been a week old already, the nursery had been finished for weeks and I had been having true contractions for 2 weeks now.... I was READY! My mom, Caden and I were at the grocery store in the check-out line.  I glanced over at the magazine rack and saw a cover story reading.. "Kate is pregnant!".  You should have seen my face!!!  I turned to my Mom with the most disgusted look on my face and said, "I know they are roylaty and all, but HOW can she have TWO babies in the time it has taken me to have ONE!?!?"

I vividly remember her giving birth to Prince George while I was newly pregnant... here I am 39 weeks and counting and she is having another baby already!  :0  How'd she do that???  I obviously need some of whatever it is that she is taking!

Anywho, Carsten finally made his presence into the world without too much coaxing, although, I still compare him to the groundhog and think that our winter was so brutal,  he just wanted to wait for Spring!

3 Monthts

I feel like Carsten has hit so many milestones during this last month.  He is smiling - which I LOVE.  He sleeps through the night - which I also LOVE.  He had his first flight on an airplane when we went to Texas.  He has grown a lot and is really trying to roll over and I feel that it will be very soon.  We didn't have a doctor's appointment this month, so I did my best with his height and weight.  He is HUGE compared to Caden, he is wearing some 3-6 months and some 6-9 months clothes.  He is in size 3 diapers.  I got out the lot of 6-9 months clothes to put him in, and realized that Caden was eating solid foods when he wore them because of all the stains.  We have another 3 months before that happens!!!  I also have pictures of Caden pulling up in these clothes because he wore them good into the 9 month range.

Smiles

Philly has nothing on us, we are full of Brotherly Love!

First flight

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to make him laugh!!!

Photo taken by Becky Roberson, I think she did GREAT with this one!!!

Fireman Caden

I have joined a local Mom's group which has organized outings like touring the fire station.  I knew that this was something Caden would enjoy, so I arranged for Brad to stay home with Carsten and the two of us had a nice little outing.  He put on his fireman rain boots and his hat and carried the banana bread that we had made the fireman out to the car.  I must say that the tour was setup pretty strangely for a group of toddlers and their parents - it was a meeting room, with tables and chairs setup much like a class room, the kids were supposed to sit still and listen as the fireman spoke at the front of the room.  Thankfully the spiel didn't go on too long, as all the kids were getting restless.  BUT, for the one mom that INSISTED on asking her un-necessary question at the end of the talk, I apologize for the ugly look.  The kids were going to get to tour the station and the trucks right after the introduction.  The fireman was done with his intro and asked any questions.  And this one mom.... Ughhhhhh... she said that she had a question, which in itself made me angry because all the kids were already restless, but then when I actually heard her question.... OY VE!  COME ON LADY!!!

At any rate, we were finally standing in the large garage in awe of all the HUGE trucks filled with tools and hoses.  It was a little boy's dream!!!

2 Months

At 2 months I have started to get the hang of having two at home.  Thankfully Brad worked from home for a good portion of the 1st two months, which meant that he could chip in during the critical times, like breakfast, lunch and naps.  Carsten has started to get on a schedule, and will still eat every 2 hours, but can stretch to 3 at times.  He is getting up once or twice during the night, but goes back to sleep right away!  He's been making the sweetest little noises and is working pretty hard on his facial expressions.  I think a smile will be coming really soon!!!!

He weighed 13 pounds 8 ounces, which put him in the 81st percentile.  His height was 24 inches which put him in the 43rd percentile, but I must confess, I wasn't quite prepared to hold his head to take his measurements, so there is a chance that the number is skewed.  ;)

Easter

This post is coming so late that I am having a hard time remembering all the details, but what I do know is that we DID have a wonderful Easter celebration at our house!  We started the festivities with the town egg hunt at Lion's Park on Saturday morning.  It was chaotic.  There were tons of people there and the space where they had Caden's age egg hunt was pretty small.  I think that there was a mis-fire/jump start on the behalf of a few over-anxious parents, which really put the egg hunt off to a bad start.  Regardless, Caden did happen to round up 3 eggs for his basket and ended up completely overwhelmed, from looking at the pictures, it was warranted.  He did amazingly well with the large characters that were wondering around the park, and had his picture taken with many of them.

Since my mom was in town for a visit, I took advantage of the extra hands and we prepared a HUGE Easter feast for Saturday dinner.  We figured that trying to get that large and delicious of a meal out on Sunday lunch would be a little crazy, and it would have been.  We had Brad's co-worker, who is Canadian and doesn't have family around, over to join us... known around here as Uncle Kevin.  He's great with kids and likes to drink Brad's beer, so our door is always open to him.  :)

Sunday we woke up to Easter Baskets and eggs hidden in the yard, yes, even though we live in the Midwest, they were IN THE YARD!  I really do despise indoor egg hunts.  It was chilly, probably in the 40's, and damp with dew, but we got out there and hunted eggs.  Caden unfortunately returned to his old egg hunting ways (don't get me started on that story.... again) and it took him a good 20 minutes to find 15 OBVIOUS eggs.  The reason is that he stops and opens every egg, sometimes insisting on eating what is in them, before continuing on with the search. (Thanks AGAIN Mom!). :p

We then headed out to church, which was pretty eventful being that the Fire Truck AND Police Car showed up.  Turns out someone accidentally activated the fire alarm.  We headed home for the leftovers from the feast the night before and a nap, which we ALL needed!

We ended up dying eggs the Monday after Easter, but it was still a lot of fun and TOTALLY messy!

Carsten's 1st Easter!

Pre egg hunt, see the eggs in the back, AND all the people waiting?

During the egg hunt, doesn't it seem chaotic?!?

How Carsten spent his time at Lion's Park

New swim trunks from the Easter Basket

EGGS!!!!!!!!!!

How Carsten spent his time during the egg hunt

I tried to get a picture of the 2 boys together, BUT, Caden really resisted which then spurred a 5 minute session of tickling himself with the evergreen (it was pretty entertaining).

Another shot at a pic of the boys

Yes, it was hard to get all the dye off his hand!

This Guy...

This Guy...
Brad and I find ourselves saying that a lot these days.  We usually don't finish the statement, mostly in part because we're at a lack of words on what to say: "He's Hysterical!"  "Gawh!  He's SO STUBBORN!"  "He's Incredibly Smart!" but probably more times than not, "He's a MESS!!!!"  It's a roller coaster of emotions.  We laugh, and we I cry, and we laugh so we don't cry.

Pretty sure this is no coincidence, those tufts of hair are devil horns poking through!

Here are a few Caden stories to share...

It all started last fall when he was first stringing words together (before he was 2!).  There was one day in particular that really opened my eyes to our future... He was delaying nap-time by "washing dishes".  He climbs up in my kitchen sink and plays in the running water, transferring dishes from one side to the other. It was nap time, I kept saying, "Caden it's time to upstairs for a nap."  He kept washing dishes, and sort of ignoring me.  Then finally he said, "Hold on second!" in his strongest voice. "Washing Dishes!".  Hmmm, made me think, how many times have I told HIM that?!?

We like to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I cut Caden's into 4 triangles so that he will eat as much around the crust as possible.  One day when he was helping me make sandwiches (he made mine and I made his), he wanted to cut mine.  I said, "No Thank you, Moma likes her sandwich whole."  I finish making his sandwich, then turn and look at mine and there were all these thumb prints in it.  I said, did you make HOLES in Moma's sandwich?  He nodded and said, Hole Sandwich!

Back in the prime of me going to the doctor for a baby-check, he would pretend to get an ultrasound himself.  He would use the scanner from his cash register, hold to his tummy and say that he was listening for the baby's heart beat.  ADORABLE!!!

A few weeks back, Brad went upstairs to shower, and surprised us all when he came back down sin-beard.  I had to do a double take, before I realized what was different.  Caden did a double take too, then he said, "Daddy no neck hair".  HA!  Brad realized shaving the beard was a good judgment call since Caden mostly remembered it being on his neck!  ;)

He's been fighting sleep lately, he will do anything and everything to stay awake when laying in his bed.  A few weeks back, he was really fighting it one day, and he had layed there for 1 hour and 15 minutes when I decided to finally go get him up.  I went into his room and he had his hand pressed up against his ear.  He said, Minnie.  I said, are you calling Minnie (as in Minnie Mouse).  He said, yes.  I said, are you ready to go downstairs?  He took his hand off his ear, turned his palm upward, then with his other hand pushed an imaginary button and said off.  Then he was ready to go down!

One day recently he was calling me into the playroom.  "Moma!"  "Moma! Come to playroom!"  I was busy with Carsten, and was going to get there as fast as I could.  Then I hear him muttering something that didn't sound familiar to me.  I was trying to understand what he was saying.  Sounded like Danna.  And he kept repeating it.  "Danna!"  "Danna!"  "Danna Hopkins!"  Yep, he figured it out!  Mommy has another name, if she won't respond to Moma, maybe she'll respond to this!?!

And a story from just today... We were having a picnic on the back porch and had Carsten laying out in the sun to help the continued fight with jaundice.  He was so cozy in the warm sun, he fell fast asleep.  Brad said, "look at him eating up that sun!".  Caden said, "No daddy.  No eat sun.  Babies eat only milk." ;)

His favorite color is yellow, mostly because it was his first recognized color and he's stuck with it.  But when we ask him what he wants to eat, it's yellow this or yellow that.  He loves to be outside and LOVES to dig.  He is a digging machine, we should just call him excavator - for real!  Sand, dirt, snow, you name it, we dig it!  He's been into working-out lately.  He watches daddy when he works out, and actually mimics many of the moves, jumping jacks, pull-ups, abs, etc.  Now that I have started jogging again, he likes to jog with me.  Yesterday he jogged close to a mile!  CRAZY!!!  And yes, he did sleep good!!!  When he does get to watch tv, it's always MICKEY MOUSE!  He loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and everything Mickey!!!

These days he is also totally into snakes!  He loves snakes!  He wants to pretend that there are snakes coming to get us.  He likes for us to pretend that our food is snakes when he eats them.  And he wants to "talk snakes" every night before bed.  But since we are going to bed, I don't want them to be scary snake stories, so we talk about City Snake and Country Snake, and about the Snake that builds sandcastles!

Our 2.25 year old is so damn responsible (I have to throw the word damn in there because it can be frustrating!).  I almost feel bad for him and want him to relax more, but it's just part of his personality, it's what makes him tick.  There are things that he is in tune with, that I know some moms can't get their teenagers to care about. He is always HELPING us out, whether we want it or not.  As dangerous as it is, he unplugs things when they are not in use (even though we have told him not to and punished him umpteen times for this) - including alarm clocks and baby monitors that we have to plug back in before they function. He sweeps up his crumbs off the table, even though they all end up being flung across the kitchen. He folds laundry, where he actually shakes out the wrinkles, only to wad them back up in a pile that he calls "folded". He unloads the dishwasher and tells me where everything goes.  He scolds the kitties when they get on the furniture.  He tells Moma to be safe every time she is using scissors.  We had a collection of plastic sacks that we wanted to take upstairs to line all the trash cans with. Brad had put them on the steps as a reminder for the next time he went up.  3 days passed and we didn't think anything of it.  I went to one of the trashcans that is seldom used, and found all the plastic sacks.  I asked Brad, did you do this?  He said no.  It was Caden, he was doing us a favor!  Bless his responsible little heart!!!! God love him!

He's definitely catching on to things.  He can count to 15, if you don't mind him skipping 11.  He'll rattle off the ABCs, but not quite in order.  We are working on recognizing letters, and he knows A, B and C to date.  He also knows circle, triangles and crescents.  He's pretty much got the colors down.  He's working on words to certain songs, like Ball Game, Pat a Cake, and Baa Baa Black Sheep.  He has most recently learned to undress/dress himself, that can be interesting at times!

Snake shaped pancakes!  Ewww... Gross!!!!

Dressed himself, don't mind the one arm being twisted, it's a new fashion statement.

1 Month!

Here we are, a month later and it feels like merely seconds have passed.  It's amazing how much faster the time flies when you have other children to chase after!

Carsten has been a GREAT baby!  Yes, there are times where he wants to be held, or times that he has trouble sleeping.... but comparing him to Caden, he has been a MUCH better baby.  Recently he has been giving us 4 hour stretches at night.  On most nights my sleep only gets disturbed twice, which is AMAZING!!!  Other than sleeping, eating and repeating, Carsten isn't up to too much.  He likes to lay on his back and kick and stretch.  He will grab for and hit a few items that are hanging from his tummy time mat.  I think he is still trying to find his hand to pacify himself, but will take a pacifier on occasion.  We're in the middle of an intense paci-breaking session with Caden, therefore I am not to eager to get Carsten addicted to this habit too.

Caden did great the first couple of weeks as a big brother, but has just recently started to rebel against the baby some.  Carsten was not allowed at the breakfast table the other morning, and there are times when Caden doesn't want me to sit down and feed the baby.  Caden and I try to read magazines or look at search and find books while I am feeding Carsten, to make the time go a little faster.  I try to tell Caden how much fun it will be having a brother to play with for years to come, but I know that doesn't make a lot of sense to him now.  I keep telling myself that HE WILL be very thankful for the lifelong friend we have gifted him with.... someday.

Here are a few pics of Carsten at 1 month!
11 lbs
22 inches
(Our new pediatrician does things a little differently, so I don't have the percentages right now, but he was in the 80's)