Future Star

(maybe)

Since April, Kate has been going to what she has dubbed "singing class". One of my awesome neighbors teaches a singing/dancing class from her home, and yesterday they had their final performance. Kate was just TOO cute! She was having so much fun, and she made all the classic (and adorable!) mistakes.

Facing the wrong way...

Standing completely still while everyone else is dancing...

Pointing to her teacher and laughing...

Doing choreography (in this case jumping repeatedly) on her on schedule...

...and standing about two feet in front of everybody else.

hahaha!  Kate you sure do brighten up our lives!  We love you!

Max's Newborn Pictures

(Round 1)

I still have a lot of poses/shots I want to get so I'm sure there will be more to come!

I want to get one of these as a canvas for my front room.  But I love them all!  Which one is your favorite?

First week

Well it's almost been a week since little Max entered our lives. We were discharged from the hospital last Thursday morning. My mom and Alex stayed through the weekend to help us out. It was awesome having them here! They were such a big help with Kate and I couldn't be more grateful! Dustin went back to work today so today is my first official day all on my own with two kids. So far it's going well...

Max is doing great. He did lose quite a bit of weight since he was born. He was born at 7 lbs 9 oz, and when we took him to the doctor on Friday for his circumcision he only weighed 6 lbs 11 oz. We had some feeding issues in those first couple days but now we both got the hang of it and he is eating steadily every two hours. Yes, even at night. I'm very tired! He should gain that weight back soon and we have another appointment for him next week to check on his progress. He is such a good baby and we just love him! It's so fun having a newborn again. I just love to snuggle and hold him and have him sleep on my chest.

Kate is just in LOVE with her baby brother. I'm so glad she is transitioning well. She loves to hold him and burp him and play with him. She is always saying "he is so CUTE!".

I'm recovering decently I think. I'm in more pain than I was with Kate but I guess that's because this was my 2nd surgery. The pain killers they gave me make me super sleepy, so that's a struggle, but other than that I feel really great.

I am LOVING our little family of four!  I couldn't be happier. 

July 19th, 2011

Max Paul Watson

7 lbs 9 oz

19.5 inches long

I woke up that morning at 4:30 not at all well rested. I was so nervous and worried about the day ahead of me. Kate had not slept well either, which just added to my exhaustion. I got up, did my hair and makeup, finished packing the hospital bag, and we headed to the hospital.  We checked in, got settled in triage, and just waited to be called into the operating room.  I was extremely nervous.  I mean, yeah, I have had a cesarean section before, but I was in so much pain and so ready for that one that I wasn't even scared.  It was definitely a different experience walking into the operating room in no pain and fully feeling normal.  The worst part was getting the spinal, but the anesthesiologist was quick and I was very relieved.  There's just something about 80% of your body being numb that calms you down!  We started the surgery at about 8:15 and by 8:43 we were welcoming baby Max into the world!  It usually doesn't take that long to get the baby out, but my doctor said I had a lot of scar tissue from my previous section so she was taking her time and being really careful.

During my pregnancy I had gone back and forth a lot with the idea of doing a VBAC.  In the end I just scheduled my c-section.  Well, it ended up being a very good thing that I did NOT attempt labor.  My doctor said we would have run into some complications.  The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice, so that could have been really dangerous, and if I ended up having to have an emergency c-section after laboring, it would have been hard to get through all that scar tissue in time.  So that made me feel like we made the right decision!

Dustin is a brave soul and watched them pull our little boy out, and I cried tears of joy when I heard my baby cry.  Dustin said that he could actually hear Max crying BEFORE they even pulled him out.  Crazy!  About 45 minutes later we were all in the recovery room enjoying our first few moments together with our baby boy.

We got out of the recovery room around 11:00ish and went to our room.  There we met my mom, Alex, and my mother-in-law and all my sister in laws and their kids.   It was quite the welcoming party!  But most importantly, Kate got to meet her baby brother.

 

 

Hahaha.  This picture isn't all the way in focus, but Kate's face is classic!  I believe her exact words when taking this picture was "He's crying Dad"

 Kate LOVES her baby brother, and is doing pretty well with it all.  She loves to hold him and give him kisses, but she also gets really jealous when mom is holding him.  Yesterday she was unsure about how to feel about it all, although she did call Max, "Amazing!".  But tonight we brought her to the hospital and had some family time -just the four of us- and I think that helped a lot.  We are hoping to be released from the hospital tomorrow, and then the real adventure begins!

Max is a very healthy baby boy.  Yesterday we had some feeding issues, but they seemed to have worked themselves out today.  He is so sweet and such a cutie!  Welcome to the world baby Max.  We love you so much already!!

4 days...

I love being pregnant.

But, I HATE the last few weeks!

I am so uncomfortable right now.
I'm huge.
I weigh over 200 lbs.
I threw my hip out a couple weeks ago, and it kills every time I put weight on it.
I toss and turn all night.
I am so tired of being exhausted all the time.
I hate that I never feel full. Ever.


But it will all be worth it because in a few days, I'll have one of these again.

 Of course I remember that day like it was yesterday, but it's so hard to remember Kate that little!

It's so crazy that in only 4 days I will have two children!  I'm am so excited to be done with this pregnancy, but am also extremely nervous for what the future holds!  Will the surgery go okay?  Is the baby healthy?  Will I recover quickly?  Will I be a good mom to two kids?  Will I ever get a good nights sleep again?  How do you take care of a newborn again?

I've really been talking to Kate about the baby, and now she's really excited for him to join our family.  She's still spending every waking moment within arms reach of me, but at least she's not sad about her brother anymore. 

4 days left!  Crazy!

Next week, according to Kate

"Kate, who's coming next week?"

"Gwandma!"

"Why is Grandma coming?"

"To swing down"

"What are you going to do with Grandma?"

"Ride in the big car, and take a walk"

"Who else is coming next week?"

"Umm....baby brudder!"

"Are you excited?"

"Yeah...I big sister!"

"Are you going to buy him a present?"

"No.  Kate present!"


"Why are mommy and daddy going to the hospital?"

"To play with the cwock"

"The clock?"

"Yeah and eat mice cream"

"Are you going to hold baby brother?"

"Yeah I hold and kiss it."

"Do you love baby brother?"

"Yes"

12 days to go!

Today I had my 37 week appointment. The baby's heartbeat is good, my blood pressure is good, and I'm measuring right on schedule. I elected to not get checked until next week, so I don't know if I'm progressing or not. My guess is not, since I haven't been having any contractions or anything. Well, maybe a few here and there but mostly I'm just super uncomfortable all the time. I've definitely hit that "too-big-to-do-anything-or-show-my-face-in-public" phase. I do not feel cute, and I am so ready to be done with being pregnant.

Since I had my camera out, Kate just had to take pictures too!  It's funny, she only wants to take pictures when I'm trying not to.

It was her idea to pose like that.

Which brings us to what this post, like most posts, is really about...Kate.  You may be wondering how Kate is handling all this.  Well, not that well actually. 

It's really starting to hit her that the baby is coming soon.  She goes back and forth about being "happy" and "sad" that baby brother is coming.  She has gotten SO clingy.  Anytime I'm on the computer she'll come and close it.  Anytime I try to watch something for myself on TV she'll turn it off.  Anytime I start to clean, she'll just make a bigger mess.  Even when Dustin is home, she insists on sitting with mommy.  She's been harder to put to bed lately, and she comes into our room at least twice during the night.  90% of my time right now is devoted to paying attention to Kate.  I'm trying to not be not be irritated by it, and just soak up the little bit of time left as just the two of us. And most of the time that's just what I do.  We cuddle and watch movies, read books, sing songs, and lay on the couch and talk.  It breaks my heart a little bit that she's so worried about the new baby, so I'm praying that she'll adjust well.

So that's our lives right now.  We're just waiting and waiting.  I hope these last 12 days pass quickly!

Toy-A-Day

Today as I was browsing through some crafty sites, I came across this blog. It's called Toy-A-Day and it's pretty cool, so I thought I'd share. It's just a bunch of paper toys that you can print from your printer, cut out, fold up, and voila! a new toy!  It's definitely more for boys, but I did find a few characters to make that Kate would recognize. To save you some time, don't search for Disney characters. All things Disney have been removed from their site. Seriously Disney? It's a two inch paper doll. You couldn't stand to not be making money from that?

Anyway, here they are.  Kate sure got a kick out of them.  They do have arms too, I was just too lazy to put them on.

Well, these little toys did their job for about 10 minutes.  But at least it was something new and different for Kate.  I'm always looking for new crafty things to do with her, but it's hard when she's just two.  Does anybody have blogs they follow that are about crafts for smaller kids? 

My Birthday

Yesterday was a good day. In the morning, before Dustin left for work, I got my presents. Kate LOVES birthdays and she was more excited than I was to open the presents. I got a pair of Nike sandals (the super comfy memory foam ones), but unfortunately I have a bad case of pregnant feet right now, so they don't fit!! I also got Monsters Inc. and a couple of Zero candy bars. But that wasn't all! Dustin said, "All right Kate, let's show Mommy her big present" and Kate ran into the room wearing these.

That's right!   We are going to DISNEYLAND in October!  I am so so excited.  We have three day park hopper tickets, and are staying in the Disney Paradise Pier hotel!  I have always wanted to stay in the park, but never have because we all know that it's ridiculously expensive.  Well, we got a good deal and I think it will be so worth it to stay there when you have little kids.  I can't wait!  This will definitely be a totally different Disney experience for me.  I've never gone with little kids.  So it's going to make it so different and fun.  Kate will just love Pixie Hollow, all the princesses, Mickey Mouse, toontown...etc.  It's going to be a blast!

The rest of my day was pretty normal.  I babysat in the morning, took my daily nap, Beth came over in the afternoon to give me a present (photography props!) and that evening we all went to eat at Arriba Mexican Grille.  I love this place, it's one of my favorites, so I was really excited to go.  Until we got there.  It was packed!  On a Thursday evening!  What I didnt know, is that yesterday 88,000 people in Mesa lost power in their homes.  No electricty= no air conditioning, and yesterday it was over 100 degrees. So EVERYBODY was trying to get out of their house that night.  We waited 45 minutes just to be seated, and then the service was super slow because obviously they weren't expecting so many people.  But even with all that it was still fun and we had a good time. 

It was a wonderful birthday!  I hate that I'm 27 now, but at least my age still has a "2" in front of it right?

18 days until baby Max arrives!