Stephanie meets Clementine

Fair warning:  While this blog is usually all Stephanie all the time, I will take a few minutes to talk all about me AND introduce a new, and likely recurring, character...
New baby had been measuring very small towards the end of the pregnancy, and, while it may seem slightly counter-intuitive, this, among a couple of other reasons, landed me a date with an induction early this week.  While I was concerned about the interventions that sometimes come with inductions, I was happy that I could easily plan for Stephanie's care and that I would be in the hospital for delivery, because I honestly wasn't sure we would make it when I was in labor the first time, and they say the second one is faster than the first.  The plan for Steph was that Kevin would hang with her at the library and parks near the hospital until delivery seemed imminent, at which point Mary would meet them at the hospital and Kevin could join me.  In the meantime, I had our doula with me, and I felt like that properly supplied my need for a support system during labor.  Well, as should have been expected, things progressed rapidly and the doula took the initiative to change our plans, and had Mary go immediately to the library and trade cars with Kevin to send him directly to the hospital.  Rightly so, as baby was born within 5 minutes of his arrival.  While I refuse to acknowledge the term "easy" to describe my labors with both kids, as there is nothing easy about going from zero to baby in less than two hours (my doctor, on the other hand, described it as frightening, which I think is a good description).  I looked a little worse for the wear in photos immediately after, but appear nicely recovered in photos several hours later.
Mary gave us a few hours to recover and then brought Stephanie to the hospital to meet our newest character in the family, Gwendolyn, weighing in only one ounce more than Stephanie (and I pulled some pics from the archive for comparison purposes).  My research about introducing a new baby said that I should not be holding new baby upon seeing my older child, because she would mostly only want to see me and might rush to hug me.  This was not at all true for us.  She wasn't all that excited to see me... after all, we had been apart for less time than a normal daycare day, and she had an awesome morning with Kevin and awesome afternoon with Mary.  Nor was she terribly interested in the baby.  She did look at her, ask to see her hands and feet, and then requested that Mary play Curious George on her phone.  When she came back to visit that night, she was actually very excited to see her sister.  She wanted to hold her, and at one point demanded to Kevin, "Move Clementine closer so that I can see her". We assured her that "Clementine" could be her special sister name, but we were fairly committed to some version of Gwen.  By far, my favorite moment was when Stephanie asked to take a picture of her family, and got several good shots of Kevin, Gwen, me and "Gwen's big brother" Buzzy Bee.
We are all home now, and I enjoyed my quiet recovery in the hospital getting to know Gwen, and Kevin enjoyed his stint as a stay at home Dad.  Stephanie is doing great with her sister.  She wants to show her things and let her join in the games.  Gwen is at least as interested and good at games as Buzzy Bee!

Last days pregnant with Steph

and a few days before I had Gwen

Baby Gwen

Baby Steph

Photo by Mary right after we introduced Steph and Gwen

Stephanie's family!

Easter Weekend

By Easter weekend, we knew for sure that new baby would arrive, ready or not, the following week, so we tried to have one more fun and active weekend.  Lawrence had an Earth Day parade, which Steph and I went to after her dance class.  Then there were Earth Day activities at the park, but the only one we saw were the bouncy houses and bouncy obstacle courses (as large houses being pumped up with huge air pumps are very Earth friendly and certainly don't waste absurd amounts of our precious energy resources).  Regardless, for the reasonable price of $5, your child could bounce all day.  Since bouncing around is pretty much what Stephanie does all day most days, I knew she would get some serious bounce for our bucks!  There was a rope climbing portion of the obstacle course, and Stephanie scaled it better and faster than many of the other children (we have always thought she was part monkey...).  It was a highly unregulated bounce experience, and kids were just piled in there, which would generally be concerning, but Stephanie really just had a blast and moved through it all so quickly that it didn't seem to matter how many kids there were.  In fact, when the line for the rope climb was too long, she took to just scaling the wall without the rope (so apparently she is also part Spiderman)!

Sunday, of course, was Easter.  We went to morning church, which had a small Easter Egg hunt afterwards.  Then home for lunch and nap, during which time the Easter Bunny set up an elaborate egg hunt with picture clues.  After "nap", which of course she didn't sleep after being told about the Easter Bunny's imminent arrival, she did her egg hunt.  She was unimpressed with the Easter basket at the end, as she just wanted more clues to follow and was disappointed that the hunt was over.  Just a note on the outfit she wore to church... This was the outfit we negotiated for.  We wanted her to wear a dress, and she wanted to wear pajamas with her bathing suit cover-up on top.  We got the dress with the promise that she could wear and bring any accessories she wanted... She took full advantage of this offer, and we ended up barely being able to see the dress.

Her Sunday finest

One of the clues in the eggs.  I think the Easter bunny really outdid himself!  And as a special favor to us, he hid the clues such that it maximized her running around the yard, just to get a bit more time out of the hunt and burn off a bit more energy.

Stephanie's Colorful Breakfast

One of our favorite quick but warm breakfasts is 9 grain cereal.  Cook it up in a little bit of milk, add raisins or brown sugar (or, better yet, both), and it is a very satisfying breakfast that everyone enjoys.  Kevin made it this morning, and I noticed that it appeared to contain quinoa, not a grain I was used to seeing in my 9 grain cereal, so I asked him about it.  He said, "Oh, I decided to make 10 grain cereal this morning."  Stephanie piped up, "It's 9 green cereal, that's why I got my green spoon!".  Kevin and I then got to have one of those parent moments where we just looked at each to acknowledge the comedy of the situation.  Perhaps this explains why Stephanie is such a fan of the cereal... and all along, I thought it might be the brown sugar and raisins!