Enjoying Autumn

Henry is one month old now. Still new enough that we have no patterns or routines with him, but old enough that we have had to fully re-embrace life in the outside world. There really is no other option when you have a very active and willful toddler at home as well. It's not like the first time around when we could sort of hibernate with our newborn for a while.

Henry experienced his first bath a week or so ago. As is obvious from the photo below, he did not enjoy it. His second and third bath have gone much more smoothly.


Molly, meanwhile, has had quite a few adventures with Daddy lately as he valiantly and tirelessly tries to find ways to amuse her on the weekends. Last weekend they climbed the "big rocks" up to a local hawk watch. Molly enjoyed collecting little rocks and interacting with the dedicated birders who are always up there. One lady came stocked with a bag full of little finger puppets. Were they for the hawks? Who knows. But Molly was a lucky recipient of a little froggy.

Little Helper

Molly likes to feel included in taking care of Henry. We try to let her help where she can, mostly in diaper changes. We let her hand us Henry's diaper and help calm him down when we're changing him. She also enjoyed when we gave Henry a sponge bath, because she got to bathe her baby doll at the same time. She did a great job, and that doll has never been so clean!

Wacky Family Fun

With a new baby in the house, Daddy gets to bust out the Baby Bjorn infant carrier. He decided he would test it out on Molly, who used to spend quite a lot of time in it as a baby. Now, however, she's just a wee bit big for it:


This weekend we went to a local pumpkin stand and had fun taking pictures in all the cutouts. Molly also painted a pumpkin that we took home and are displaying on our front porch. By the time she was done the pumpkin was almost totally green.

New Baby: First Week Down

Henry is coming up on the 10-day mark. We're all still adjusting, and Molly has definitely been acting out. She's throwing more tantrums and being more defiant. We are trying to come up with creative solutions - getting her involved in helping to take care of the new baby, and giving her fun outings alone with Dad.

Mom and Henry are still working out our nursing, which I think is the toughest part of the newborn phase. There is definitely a relentlessness to nursing. He is doing better at it than Molly did, but we're still not on auto-pilot by a long shot. Henry is also still jaundiced, with elevated bilirubin levels. We've had to get his levels tested every day this week, and we will keep checking next week. No fun to have to take him to the hospital and have his blood taken each day. But he's a trooper - he just sleeps it off!

In the meantime, we've enjoyed his snuggly ways and are feeling more confident and less stressed with baby #2 than we did with #1.

Molly & Henry

After so many months of hearing about the baby in Mommy's tummy, Molly is very happy to be able to hold and hug her baby brother "Hemry." (She'll get it.)

We've really enjoyed these visits to the hospital when all four of us can be together. Looking forward to discharge tomorrow so we can start nesting in our own home.

Update: Grandma and Grandpa T. called from Australia this morning! They finally got the messages we've been sending that the baby had arrived. They are thrilled to hear that they are now two-time grandparents and that Mom and Henry are both fine. And they saw kangaroos today! They also sent Molly some beautiful books, which arrived yesterday and Molly read at bedtime.

Welcome, Henry!

Well, it turned out to not be weeks away after all. Henry Phelps became the youngest member of our family on September 29, 2009. And despite being pre-term at four weeks early, Henry is perfectly healthy and weighed in at birth at a respectable 6 lbs, 9 oz. That's only one ounce less than Molly's birthweight and she had an extra week and a half in the womb.

Henry and Mom are doing fine in the hospital, and Dad has been busy going back and forth between hospital and home. We got lucky that Henry was born on a Tuesday because that coincided with the beginning of Molly's four-day week at daycare. The nurses here in the maternity ward have been wonderful and we are really grateful for all they do -- it's a tough job!

Henry is very cute. We've forgotten how tiny they are when they are newborns! Mostly, he has just slept through the past two days, but he's opened his eyes a few times for use to see eyes while they are still that newborn ocean-blue color. I forget now how long that lasts before they turn their permanent color.

We're looking forward to going home and getting started with this next phase of our lives and we hope that friends and family will be able to come visit us soon. Unfortunately, Henry's Grandma and Grandpa T. are travelling around the other side of the world for the next few weeks and we haven't yet been able to give them the news. If you are reading this in Australia, Grandma and Grandpa, congratulations -- you have a grandson! xoxoxo