More pictures. She's a beauty!

I just looked waaaaay back in this blog to try and remember what I blogged about when Eli was a week old. Linden is wonderful, beautiful and perfect but, well, she doesn't do much. Not much to report.

She sleeps a lot, and even manages to get some shut-eye at night, often in her own bed. She's a sweet little thing, relatively calm with few big productions (other than those in her diapers--good heavens!).

We had her one week doctor visit today. She checked out well. She's gained a pound since we left the hospital (she was 8 lbs, 8 oz when we left) so she's topped 9 1/2 lbs. Big girl!

Eli's doing alright. He's acting up a bit, nothing major, nothing unexpected, but it is tiring, nonetheless. Bedtimes are especially tedious. We know this will pass and that he'll get adjusted, but it is still hard to take.

Linden Holly has arrived! I haven't gotten the pictures downloaded off my camera yet (there are tons of them, she's beautiful!), but I will post them as soon as I do.

Linden joined us at 12:37 p.m. on Friday, May 15. She was 8 lbs, 14.9 oz, 22 1/4 inches. At least tow of the baby nurses commented that they had never seen a baby this long in 25 years of nursing. She's a string bean, for sure.

She is, of course, beautiful beyond measure and clearly brilliant, even at 5 days old. She's a decent sleeper for a baby and a voracious eater. In short, she's perfect!

Eli is totally smitten with his new little sister and thinks she has come home for his own personal entertainment. He loves to kiss her and pat her and really wants to hold and carry her (um, no). He can't wait to teach her to talk, play tennis, eat ice cream and use the potty. He calls her "Baby Sister", which may stick for the rest of her life.

He is transitioning into big brotherhood pretty well, although he is clearly having a hard time getting used to his new position as NOT the center of the universe. He's been a little louder and busier than usual and has a hard time calming down, but we expected this so we're trying to take it in stride. From a mother's point of view, it is a little hard to watch, my little guy is now the big guy and he doesn't really get it. He can't snuggle with me like he wants to (I'm too sore!) and doesn't understand why he has to wash his hands and be gentle. He doesn't really get the new rules and even though he tries, he doesn't really like them, either. We'll get there and our family will be stronger for it, but it is hard to watch him struggle through it.

Pictures to come!!

Still no baby. Much like her brother, who was nine days late, she's taking her own sweet time getting here. Six days late and no sign of arrival.

I'm getting desperate. So desperate, in fact, that I took the advice of a friend and went out for eggplant parmesan at a restaurant on the outskirts of town. Apparently, this dish has a history of helping women go into labor in 24 hours. Old wives' tale? We shall see, but they have a wall of over 300 photographs of babies born 24 hours after eggplant parm was eaten by mama. Sign me up.

Kevin's response to my request for this dinner adventure was, "So let me get this straight: you want to drive 25 miles in rush hour traffic, outside the Perimeter, to eat Italian, which you don't really like, specifically eggplant, your least favorite food, because it MIGHT send you into labor?"

"Um, yeah," I replied.

The eggplant parm was actually quite good, even though I hate eggplant and don't really like Italian.

AND, if I go into labor, we get $25 off our next meal and a free baby t-shirt.

Come on Baby Sister!!

Eli has recently begun to enjoy accessorizing himself. It was not raining the day he decided to wear his frog boots to the store.

And I don't have any pictures because I was laughing too hard, but earlier this evening, he brought me a piece of pink tulle that had decorated the top of a baby gift. He asked me to tie it over his eyes with a bow in the back. Tulle is transparent, so he could see through it. He ran around the house in his cammo underpants with a big floppy pink bow tied around his head, randomly stopping to dance and shake his tailfeathers.

Weirdo.

I recently got a call from Eli's preschool teacher. I'd only dropped him off about 45 minutes before, but she sounded very concerned.

Teacher: Um, Noelle, Eli took a fall and I need you to come over and take a look at his eye.
Me: Oh? What happened?
T: Well, I think he's fine, but he fell and hit his face on the edge of a table.
M: Oh no. How?
T: He was playing baseball inside.
M: He knows better.
T: That wasn't the problem.
M: Oh?
T: He fell because he was wearing high heels while he was playing baseball.
M: (silence, muffling my hysterical laughter)

Eli was totally fine but did sport a colorful shiner for a couple of weeks. Here it is at about day 4.

Well, Baby Sister hasn't made her appearance yet. The due date is tomorrow but there's no sign that she's going to keep that appointment. And so we wait.

This afternoon, I casually said (in the direction of my belly), "Alright, Baby Sister, time to come out!" Ever since, Eli's been calling out "come out of there and play with us, Baby Sister!!" It is really funny and, actually, kind of helpful. Maybe Baby Sister will actually listen and come on out... that'd be great!

Eli loves his Grumpy. Grumpy loves his Eli.
There are the two in their matching outfits (though Grumpy is admittedly not sporting Spiderman) watching the Masters after a great Easter meal.

The fam, with strategically placed Easter basket.

Happy Easter everyone!

We had a great Easter yesterday. I was at church all morning (ahhhh, the life I lead...). Kevin brought Eli for our family-friendly service. He behaved beautifully and even took Communion like the big boy that he is.

Int he afternoon, we went to Grumpy and Grandmaman's house. The Easter Bunny, aka Grandmaman, hid a bunch of jelly-bean-filled eggs around the house and Eli had a field day looking for them. This is a previously untested activity but he took to it like a duck to water (there's candy involved, what did we expect?).

Laurie getting krazy with the krazy glue.















Beth made little baby t-shirts with animal decals.



















Laurie made thank-you cards with fancy envelopes--pre-stamped!!
















The spread-- yum!


















Courtney's French onesies














As part of my education into the world of little girls, Erin made a bow holder. Eli, lover of all hair clips is definitely going to be jealous.


Erin made leftover bags to take home. Lunch the next day!



Conventional wisdom divided on the subject of showers for second babies, but when my friends Erin and Courtney suggested a small "craft night" baby shower for me, we all agreed it'd be a great opportunity to get together some of our overworked mommy friends for a relaxing night of friendship and creativity. Courtney and Erin did a great job pulling it together and everyone had a fantastic time. The crafts were AMAZING. What a talented bunch of friends I have! Thanks, everyone!

G'daddy gave Eli a Mr. Potato Head for Christmas. Eli calls it Mr. Tato and has recently taken a real shine to it. He often (thought not always) gets the face parts in the right places.














I asked him to show me what face Mr. Tato was making.

In the car recently, we were listening to music on a rock station. Eli, constantly asking questions about EVERYTHING, asked what the song was about. My edited version of the storyline was this: "Well, buddy, he's singing about a woman that he loves very very much. And he is singing the song so she'll know how much he loves her."
"Oh," he replied, without missing a beat, "she's his mommy?"
I think there are still little pieces of my heart on the floormats of the car.

My boys.

When did Eli go from being a baby-child to a real kid?

I love our aquarium membership. It is only getting better since we figured out it is really easy to take the bus. We met our friends the Millers there a few weeks ago. Truthfully, I think Eli was much more interested in whatever Baikal was doing than in the fish.

Now I'll back up.

Shrove Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras, is a big deal at our church. We have a big bonfire for the burning of the palms the ashes from which are used for Ash Wednesday, the next day. After the bonfire, we eat a pancake feast to symbolize ridding the household of "luxuries" like sugar and fat, pointing to the austerity and asceticism of Lent.

Eli, of course, remembers the fire and the pancakes.

Note: He's sporting this year's "special hat" in these pictures. I'm wondering how many more years I have while he tolerates me making these things and putting them on his head. He is such a good sport.

Looks like I'm headed for another record. I completely missed blogging the month of March!
Ah, well. here's the update: I've got 5 weeks of pregnancy to go. It is unlikely that I'll be posting any pictures of me. For some reason, I'm particularly sensitive to how HUGE I am this time around. I'm really not much bigger than I was with Eli but I feel enormous and blobby and uncomfortable and I think it shows in pictures. So instead of pictures of me for which you will need your wide-screen settings, you'll have to just use your imagination.

I've taken a couple of days off work this week to get some ducks in a row and get a little rest. I cracked a rib a few weeks ago and it makes it really hard to sleep (and drive and cook and yawn and breathe...) so I figured in stead of becoming a complete basket case, I'll get a little bit of rest before the craziness that is Holy Week and Easter. After Easter, I'll be at 37 weeks and she is more than welcome to come any time!

Midwives tell me that Baby Girl looks, sounds, measures and feels happy and healthy. Eli tells me that he's REALLY ready to see her and has begun to pout about how long she is taking to join us. Really, you have no idea, kid!

We broke the news yesterday to Eli. "Happy Valentine's Day, kid. You're getting a sister."

Well, okay, it wasn't quite like that, but after a lot of confusing circular conversation, here is where Eli has landed: a baby is coming to live at our house but not tomorrow. She will be Eli's baby. He will be her bigbrotherbigsister. But for now, the baby is hiding in Mommy's belly and can't go to the zoo yet. And he can't wait to teach her how to use the potty.

He does talk to her though, and it is really, really cute. Today when I got home from work, he lifted up my shirt and spoke into my belly button, "Hi little baby. I went to the zoo and saw the elephant show. Bye now." Then kissed my belly and pulled my shirt down. But this evening when I asked him if he wanted to include the baby in his Daddymommybasco nighttime prayer, he replied, "no, Mommy, the baby's hiding." Like duh.

And, finally, friends, a Bump Update.
She's due in early May and I'm getting big as the goodyear blimp.
Yes, I said "she". Eli's getting a baby sister.

We spent a week at the beach with David and Jaime and cousin Hunter. We had a great time. There was never (never never never) a dull (or quiet) moment thanks to Eli the Entertainer. He loved his new audience in his aunt, uncle and cousin and they in turn, loved to laugh at his joke and silliness, which was great since we're getting a bit weary of the same old material. At 18 months, Hunter is a sweet quiet little guy and I'm halfway surprised that his parents didn't try to shield him from Eli's antics so that he'd not learn any of the crazy tricks.

We found an old kite in a closet that we brought out to the beach one afternoon. Eli fell madly in love with it and we flew it three times. He's a good kite flyer. He loved it so much that one afternoon we couldn't even separate him from it to ride the stroller home. So he flew it right behind the stroller the whole way back to the condo.

And, ladies and gentlemen, WE HAVE ACHIEVED POTTY.
There are still occasional accidents, but shortly after the first of the year, Eli declared that he wanted to use the potty and wear big boy underwear. And now he does!

We have had some amazing breakthroughs in the last month. I mentioned the big boy bed. He loves it. LOVES IT. He sleeps beautifully in it. It took him a month (until this morning, actually) to realize that he can get up in the morning and pad down the hall to our room. This is fine as long as he does it in the morning and not in the middle of the night.

here are some pics of him getting ready for his first night and then some nap shots because sleeping kid-babies are so gorgeous.