Nora Dancing

One last post for 2009 to give our baby girl the spotlight. We haven't yet captured her rolling over on film, but here's a cute movie of Nora 'dancing'.

Christmas 2009 in MD

We finally reached the end of our Christmases with our Christmas gathering at Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's house on the 30th. It was Aunt Katherine's dream Christmas, she always wants to delay opening presents as long as possible, and this year the lateness of opening presents was beyond her wildest dreams. Not only did we wait till the 30th to celebrate Christmas on this side of the family, we didn't actually open any presents until after dinner. Despite the delayed presents, it was a lovely Christmas. Katherine and Lee were in town, Jen came with her friend Brian, Jeff made it (although Krysta was feeling sick), and Joe came over (but Holly was back in Texas). Nancy and Danny were out of town, but Christoper was there to represent the Smiths. All and all it was lovely Christmas.

(click here to see all the pictures)

Chistmas 2009 in Iowa

At 8:50 on Christmas morning, Owen awoke, walked past the stockings and tree to his grandparent's kitchen and demanded a bowl of cereal. He promptly ate 2 spoonfuls of Cheerios and then declared he was going back to sleep, which he did, until 11:30. After another trip to the kitchen for some more cereal, he finally declared he was ready to open presents shortly before noon. 

It was actually pretty appropriate given the holiday has largely been a series of fits and starts. The weather meant that Cousin Caitlin (along with Uncle John and Paxton) had to come down Monday rather than Thursday in order to meet her god-daughter but that Auntie Ellen had to work. It meant that Uncle Bernie couldn't come at all. And it meant that Grandma Z's Christmas dinner for 18 was more of a Yuletide lunch for 8. 

But eventually gifts were opened, candy eaten, and visiting done including a playdate with second cousins Ethan, Simon and Grace. Owen and Nora got a lot of extra time with Uncle Dave and Aunt Kara and eventually Uncle Steve and Aunt Becky made it along with cousins Olivia, Maura & Sam.

 

 

(click here to see all the pictures)

Sledding in Iowa

Our original travel plans this year were drive from DC to Katherine and Lee's house in Cleveland on Saturday December 19, and to drive on to Iowa the next day. However, on Friday morning we woke up to a forecast that called for up to two feet of snow to fall in DC starting that night, so we amended our plans, quickly packed the car, and hit the road on Friday afternoon to beat the snow. While this was clearly the right decision from a travel perspective, it saddened us (well Allen and Owen at least) to miss the blizzard '09. According to our neighbors (who thought they were getting a great deal when we told them they could use our house for their family who were coming into town, but ended up having an extra house to shovel out) 18" of snow fell in our neighborhood. It surely would have been great fun to play with Owen in the deep deep snow, but as a consolation prize, we did get about six inches of snow in Iowa, and went sledding at the pond with cousin Kent, and later in Iowa City with Olivia, Maura, and Sam. All and all, Owen's first real sledding adventure was a big success.

Christmas Miracles

It was a momentous day: Nora rolled over for the first time and Owen had his first concert. Guess which one was captured on film (although in our defense, Owen's was scheduled weeks ago whereas Nora's was spur of the moment)?

 

Classroom 9 sang, "Jingle Bells," "Happy Kwanza," and "Spin the Dreidel." It was short and sweet, and I'm sure there will be many more to come, but this first concert of his was pretty cute.

1000! & the Potty Train

We just changed Nora's 1,000th diaper! She reached 1,000 diapers a full 45 days faster than her big brother. Supposedly girls potty train earlier than boys, so Nora might still have a chance of staying under Owen's lifetime total. Speaking of which, Owen is over 7,000 diapers now (7,386 to be exact), but I don't think he'll reach 8,000. He likes to say that he's, "on the potty train," and he really is doing a great job with what we like to think is the more critical half of the engine. In the last 48 days he has only had 4 accidents pooping in his pull-up! He is quite proud to tell us that, "we don't poop in our pull-ups, we only poops in the potty." On the other hand, he also likes to say, "we can pee in our pull-ups, or in the potty." With the drive to Iowa and back coming up later this month, we're not in a huge rush to get him out of his pull-ups, but after we're back, it'll be time for the potty train to really leave the station.

Trains & Trees

 

We made our annual trip to the U.S. Botanic Garden on Sunday to see the Holiday Trains, and I have a feeling Owen is going to be watching this movie a lot in the next few months ;-) If a trip to see the trains wasn't enough, we also met up with the Brad & Marlo and Andrew & Claire and their families for the Christmas tree lighting in the Brown's neighborhood. It was a bit too dark for pictures (at least with tired kids on our shoulders), but the tree was beautiful and the cookies were delicious. Not bad for a cold December day. 

Thanksgiving 2009

A little bit of catching up to do in this post. First of all, we had a lovely, traditional Thanksgiving at Nancy & Danny's house this year. Nancy made her famous mole gravy, and Elaine baked her fabulous pumpkin pie. Katherine & Lee were in town, and Adrienne came up as well. Danny built a gigantic dining room table to accommodate the masses, while Owen and Makayla were relegated to their own, private kids table. Some traditions weren't quite the same, for Katherine, Adrienne, and Christopher the drinks weren't flowing quite as freely as in years past. They are getting older after all, or maybe it was just the marathon Katherine and Adrienne had just run in Richmond, or perhaps it was Nancy's twin brother taking up the slack (the less said about this photo the better ;-). Despite the lack of alcohol, Owen was sure to maintain one Thanksgiving tradition, as half way through dinner he took off his shirt and ran around the house shouting, "naked boy!" Yes, a wonderful time was had by all.

The next day, despite a freak hail storm, we ventured out to Eastern Market to pick out our Christmas tree, and then went up to Silver Spring for dinner at Mom mom's house with aunt Katherine & uncle L and aunt Jen. Owen and Makayla had a great time playing together, and we all stuffed ourselves with a lovely dinner for the second night in a row.

To complete our Thanksgiving weekend, on Saturday we took advantage of sunny skies and relatively warm temperatures for a trip to the zoo with the Hyatts. Nabeel and Megan were in town with Kaden and Liam, and it is always wonderful to see such great friends. Owen and Kaden had a blast looking at all the animals (they even learned a thing or two about giant tortoise mating habits), and Kaden even tried to teach Owen how to read a map.

All and all, we had a lot to be thankful for this year, and we celebrated in style.

(click here to see all the pictures)

Where the Wild Things Are

We haven't written up our Thanksgiving blog post yet, but in the meantime we thought we'd put up a few movies for your post-Thanksgiving enjoyment. Both videos are inspired by the previous post, "Soothing the Savage Beasts." First up, Owen may have been a bit shy at the instrument petting zoo, but he was very enthusiastic when Grandpa Don broke out his old trumpet. He wasn't sure what to do at first, but once we showed him the zerbert sound he had to make with his lips, he started trumpeting like a pro.

 

The next movie moves from the instruments to the savage beasts. Here is Owen's dramatic reading of 'Where the Wild Things Are.' (Note that he won't read this book to his baby sister because he thinks it's too scary for her, so he prefers to read 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' to her instead.)

Soothing the Savage Beasts

We live a few scant blocks from the Atlas Theater and while we've walked by it numerous times while making our way to various eateries and taverns on the H Street Corridor, we'd never partaken in its cultural offerings. But a few weeks ago, I received a notice that the Capitol City Symphony would be performing a children's concert complete with an instrument petting zoo at Atlas and decided that we should broaden our horizons.

Owen and I were joined for our inaugural concert by Mia & Marlo and Luke, Claire & Andrew (Allen and Brad stayed home with Nora and Ben). Owen was a little freaked out about touching the instruments and wanted to storm the stage instead, but Mia had a blast with the timpani and Luke got some quality time with the strings, before taking their seats.

They sat in rapt attention for the conductor's introduction and Skidmore's percussion piece, and did pretty well through Copland, Strauss and Britten. But Luke decided to get his groove on during Bernstein's Candide Overture and Owen & Mia followed suit. By Shostakovich's Festive Overture the eight year old in the row ahead was giving us dirty looks. We probably should have left before the Strauss finale...

After snapping a few pictures in the lobby, the crew literally ran back to our place to grab Nora and the boys before chicken racing to the Argonaut for some pub fare. Which I understand mirrors Itzhak Perlman's post-concert ritual...

A Room of One's Own

We've been debating when to move Nora to her own room for a while now. Allen has been advocating sooner rather than later since she's been sleeping through the night for over a month now and he'd like his side of the bed back. But I've been a bit reluctant as Nora is our baby and probably the last one we'll ever have sleeping in our room.

However, Nora's a restless sleeper and after a fitful night where she slept seven and a half hours but I was up every hour to check on her, I finally caved and agreed to move her into her own room. She slept 8 hours and 29 minutes the first night, a personal best which she then topped the next night at 9 hours and 1 minute.

It's a little lonely back in our room with her gone, but much more restful.

School Daze

We live in the District of Columbia, a district not generally known for its public education system, except in notorious terms. While we purchased our house in anticipation of Owen's arrival, we didn't anticipate that we'd still be living in DC once his elementary education began, and so no consideration was given to what school was associated with our address.

This appears to have been a terrible oversight.

See, while we love our neighborhood and don't want to leave it for several more years (there's lots of kids Owen & Nora's ages; it's close to H street and its numerous cool bars and restaurants; I can walk to work; we're close to Allen's dad's and a reasonable distance to Allen's mom's...), we're not loving our neighborhood school. Miner Elementary is a lovely campus, but it's on the border between our neighborhood and one which isn't particularly safe, has no diversity, and regularly scores below the district's average test scores (which are significantly below the national average).

This means that when applying to the District's school lottery, we will be out of area for all of our top choices. Moreover, as it is a lottery in the truest sense of the word, there is nothing we can do to improve our chances of getting into one of our preferred schools.

But Owen turns 4 before September 30th 2010 and so the search for a suitable educational institution is on. Last night we went to Peabody's Open House, Thursday is Maury Elementary and next week is Ludlow-Taylor. The week after Thanksgiving we attend the Capitol Hill School Information Night at St. Peters. All of which culminates on January 28th (or there abouts) when we electronically submit our application and hope for the best.

And begin weighing the pros and cons of homeschooling...

Oh, What a Night

Despite living a mile from the action, we spent the Fourth of July at home watching the Capitol concert on TV because I was eight months pregnant and Owen is a bit freaked out by fireworks. At some point during the concert, the cast of "Jersey Boys" started singing and I turned to Allen and made some comment -- the nature of which is a source of debate. I maintain that I conveyed that we could skip that show when it was in town. Allen states that I actually insisted we should go and while he was surprised by my new found love of the falsetto, since I regularly sang "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" to Owen when he was an infant, it wasn't completely ridiculous that I would want to see the Frankie Valli story live and in person. So Allen very lovingly purchased tickets to the musical as a "thank you for carrying my child for nine months" present to a less than enthusiastic me, and convinced Mom Mom to babysit.

When Mom Mom signed up to babysit two kids under the age of four, she didn't realize that she would be just getting back from a business trip to Austin that afternoon and that Grandpa Don would be in Florida that weekend, leaving her outnumbered and weary when she arrived at our place. We have to hand it to her though, she really rose to the challenge. While Owen was pretty self sufficient (he wouldn't let Mom Mom go upstairs with him at bedtime and actually gave her a kiss through his closed gate before putting himself to bed), Nora refused to go to sleep and so Mom Mom was "on" for pretty much the entire 4 1/2 hours we were gone. Fortunately, Nora spent most of the time smiling and cooing at her grandmother, which made the evening easier to bear.

As for us, we learned that "Jersey speak" involves a lot of swearing, that Frankie Valli has a lot of fans over 50, and that maybe I shouldn't be so catty around my husband.

Storytime

Halloween 2009

I've always found Halloween to be stressful, which I attribute to my Des Moines roots. Des Moines has always been a town that believes in quid quo pro and so while most municipalities feel that donning a costume and the implicit threat of tire slashing is sufficient to warrant candy on Trick-or-Treat night, Des Moines insists that in addition, young children tell a joke at each home. From an economics standpoint, this makes no sense as the jokes tend to be bad, the telling painful and the process time-consuming which means ending the practice would be a Pareto improvement. However, the custom persists which meant I spent the weeks prior to Halloween studying my brothers' Boys' Life magazine to cull some suitable joke which was invariably appropriated by my best friend by the third house of the night, forcing me to resort to, "What's big, red, and eats rocks?" (A big, red, rock eater).

This year was going to be easy, however. Owen had informed us in September that he wanted to be a lion and I ordered a costume right away, we inherited a pumpkin costume for Nora from a neighbor and Allen and I decided to recycle our costumes from last year (as he'd spent hours on his which wasn't properly appreciated at the time, and with a new baby and the Cap-and-Trade bills, didn't have time to create a new one). The plan was to attend the Brown's annual Halloween blowout, do a little trick-or-treating there, and then swing by Grandpa Fawcett and Claudine's for Owen to help hand out candy.

Only Owen's costume was too small and the day was too warm for Nora to wear hers. Owen didn't nap and interrupted Nora's while practicing his roaring. It started raining. And after three hours of playing at the Browns, Owen announced he didn't want to go trick or treating, he wanted to go home.

While perfectly understandable given the inclimate weather and the absence of a nap, we'd made promises and we were going to keep them, by damn. So we drove back to Capitol Hill with both kids asleep in the car, looked for a parking place near Grandpa Fawcett's and when one did not become available, drove home, parked illegally, made a very grumpy Owen don his costume again, and had Allen push him in the stroller (with its rain cover) while I carried Nora (with an umbrella) to East Capitol street.

There Owen sulked for a while but ultimately rallied and Nora mostly slept. Allen and I had a much needed drink. We never did any actual trick or treating (though strangers did hand us candy as we walked the mile in the rain), and we didn't get a picture of the kids with their jack-o-lanterns until the day after, but all in all they had a pretty good time.

And no one asked us why the chocolate chip cookie went to the doctor's office. (Because it felt crumby).

(click here to see all the Halloween pictures)

Pumpkin Patch

For his birthday, Uncle Dave and Aunt Kara gave Owen a Peanuts DVD which includes, among other holiday specials, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It's become Owen's go-to DVD whenever he tires of watching The Sound of Music (because occasionally Owen does tire of it), and so it was clear that for Halloween we needed to find a sincere pumpkin patch to pick out our jack-0-lantarns.



Unfortunately the weather and a fairly packed weekends schedule had conspired to keep us away from Butler's Orchard until this past Sunday when none of our friends could join us. Owen, apparently inspired by the Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown special, picked out a particularly sickly looking specimen (Allen eventually nixed in favor of some more robust gourds --clearly he needs a few more viewings of said Christmas special) and carried it around with him while Nora slept the morning away. After some caramel apples, we headed home for the carving and obligatory "You didn't tell me you were going to kill it!" outburst. It was pretty good day and Nora even woke up for a brief photo-op.

(click here to see all the pictures)

And so it goes...

Owen's interest in his baby sister has been fairly limited -- specifically to when someone asks how he likes being a big brother or when a present is involved. This hasn't been an altogether bad thing as it's limited the number of times Nora's life has been in immediate peril to one (it involved our leaving her in the high chair while fixing breakfast and Owen almost tipping said chair over trying to get a better view). We feel particularly fortunate in that Owen's latest past-time involves acting out various scenes from "The Sound of Music." We're less concerned with his spinning on a pretend mountain top and singing "So Long, Farewell" than searching for the children in the abbey and saying he's going to kill them (somehow the message our son took from this classic is, "Pretending to be a Nazis is fun!" Fortunately, he's now moved on to telling us that Rolf made bad choices and that we don't like Nazis).

But lately, Owen's been a bit more protective of Nora -- making sure his daycare friends don't touch her, letting us know if she's asleep in her carseat while we're driving somewhere, giving the odd kiss. On Saturday he even helped give her a bath before the neighborhood block party so she would look extra pretty while meeting our neighbors.

The brotherly love was short lived, however. After a well-meaning but horribly misguided neighbor gave all the small children on the street nerf guns, Owen and his friend Jalen decided to use Nora for target practice (thankfully they both have very poor aim). I found myself uttering a phrase I never thought I'd have to say to my son, "Please don't shoot the baby."

The gun has mysteriously vanished (thanks to Daddy), but given the Supreme Court's overturning of the DC handgun ban, we're now practicing constant vigilance in our household.

One Month of Sleepy Nights

Nora is one month old, so it's time for an incredibly wonky post without any pictures, but with lots of data and charts! When Owen was one month old we did a post titled, "One Month of Sleepless Nights." Well we're still using the trixie tracker, and we're both still economists, so there really is no better way to show what a dramatically different baby Nora is than to delve into the data and examine how Nora has slept away her first month. Without further ado, here is Nora's first month of sleepy nights:



All the blue areas represent naps, the yellow areas show when she was awake, and the light blue is transition. Nora averaged a little over 15 hours of sleep a day for her first month, and slept completely through the night for the first time when she was four weeks old!

For comparison, below is Owen's sleep chart for his first month. Owen averaged about 13 hours of sleep a day and never came close to sleeping through the night in his first month (he didn't accomplish that feat until he was almost four months old).



We have all the data, so let's break this down a bit more. The chart below shows each of Nora and Owens naps with the start time on the X-axis and the length on the Y-axis. Let's focus on two areas, first the green ovals in the upper right of each chart: Nora fell asleep between roughly 10 pm and midnight and slept for over four hours 17 times in her first month with the longest being over 7 hours (note some of the dots are overlapping); Owen, on the other hand, did the same four times with the longest still well under 5 hours. In a related area of the chart, the red ovals in the bottom left show that Nora put us through the frustration of falling asleep in the middle of the night and waking up again in less than an hour only five times. Owen on the other hand treated us to these middle of the night cat naps 17 times in the first month.



One more way the trixie tracker lets us look at this data is a comparison to all the other trixie tracker users. The chart below shows Nora and Owen's average hours of sleep per week, along with the average for all trixie tracker babies, and the 95% confidence interval. Owen started out well below average and then ended up tracking close to but a hair under the average. Nora on the other hand has always been well above average for sleep time, and by her fourth week is near the top of the range!



What does all this mean? Probably not much in the long run, but for now we are all blissfully sleeping through the night, and my fears of feeling like a zombie from long and sleepless nights have proved completely unfounded.

Aunt Katherine and a Party

We're beginning to get used to being a family of four now, venturing out of the house a bit more with both of the kids, seeing our friends and neighbors, and figuring out split parenting duties now that we no longer outnumber our children. Aunt Katherine came to town last weekend to meet Nora and Owen was invited to his friend Sophia's birthday party, so we had a full weekend. On Saturday, Daddy and Owen went to the birthday party where Sophia greeted us by saying, "Hey everybody, it's my best friend Owen! Owen, I want you to meet all of my grownups." Owen and Sophia have always been close, and it was fun watching them interact outside of daycare. All of their daycare friends were at the party, and the highlight was a concert by Mr. Derby in Sophia's back yard. I wasn't aware, but apparently Mr. Derby is quite the star amongst the three year old set here in DC.

After Sophia's party, Owen and I rushed home to pick up Nora and Elaine, and headed up to Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's house for dinner. Aunt Katherine and Adrienne were both there, and Nancy, Danny & Christopher were there as well, making it feel like a Christmas dinner in September. We all had a wonderful time, dinner was delicious, Owen stole the marzipan flower off of the cake, and Nora slept like a baby.



(click here to see all the pictures from Sophia's party)

Busted

It turns out that Nora's birth was no cakewalk for her either. Apparently, Nora broke her clavicle en route (not an unusual feat for babies over 8 lbs) and while our pediatrician assures us that it's healing nicely and that she's not in any pain, it's a little disturbing to find out your newborn is broken and that your birth canal was the culprit. It's also a bit surprising because we really thought that her big brother would be the first to bust a limb, having made a practice of making Mommy nervous by climbing and jumping from heights not generally advised to the under three foot crowd. Miraculously though, Owen is still whole while Nora is merely fused together, which makes one wonder if this is an indication of things to come.

All By Ourselves...

Grandpa and Grandma Z left on Saturday. This was a much better planned trip than when Grandma Z came to help out with Owen's birth and arrived 2 weeks before Owen did. This time, they got here 2 nights before my water broke and had just enough time for them and Owen to get reacquainted -- they learned Owen's fake cry and how to tease him out of it; Owen learned that sometimes Grandpa and Grandma Z accidentally put diapers on backwards -- before we left them to each other for several days.

It all worked out swimmingly -- Owen got some extra TLC (and trips to the library and park) and Mommy and Daddy got used to having freshly laundered and folded clothes as well as a well cleaned kitchen. Sadly, eventually Grandpa and Grandma Z had to go home (or at least to Uncle Steve and Aunt Becky's for Sam's 5th birthday party). Owen became very sad and slept most of the day away after their departure (which was funny since the previous day in his major tantrum since Nora's arrival he told them he wished they'd get lost). Nora cried. Mommy and Daddy just lamented how nice it was having two extra sets of hands to either hold Nora or entertain Owen.

We seem to be muttling though, however, and I think Grandpa and Grandma Z are happy to finally be home in their own bed bereft of the occassional baby crying in the next room. Until Christmas at least...

100!

We just changed Nora's 100th diaper (and Owen had his 6,901st, although he keeps telling us that he's going to stop wearing diapers now that he's a big brother and in Ms. Courtney's classroom at daycare...and we keep telling ourselves we'll stop tracking him after he's potty trained at the latest...) For reference, Owen' had his 100th diaper way back on September 2nd 2006 and Nora is averaging 3 more diapers than Owen had at this age.

Edelweiss

Owen has been obsessed with Mary Poppins lately, to the point where he can sing just about every song in the whole movie. (He even knows the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank lyrics, it's really cute hearing him reach for the lowest notes he can and sing, "All from tuppence, prudently fruitfully, frugally invested in the, to be specific, in the Dawes, Tomes, Mousely, Grubbs, Fidelity Fiduciary Bank!")

Why do I mention this in a post titled 'Edelweiss'? Well, we'd been meaning to make a little movie of Owen singing a Mary Poppins medley, but we never seemed to have the camera around at the right time, and after Nora was born we gave him 'The Sound of Music' as a big brother present, and his musical obsession changed with the wind.

This time we're not missing our opportunity. He's still working on the lyrics, but every time 'Edelweiss' comes on he grabs his guitar that Mom Mom gave him for his birthday (which he'd been asking for for months by the way), and starts to sing and play along. So without further ado, here is our latest musical sensation.

Bringing Home Baby

Vive le difference. Owen's homecoming was fraught with obstacles and uncertainties: Would his bilirubin level be low enough? (It eventually was). Should we let our obstetrician perform a circumcision at 9 o'clock at night after performing three back to back c-sections? (We did). Would Allen get to play in the EPA softball playoffs? (He didn't and they lost).

But with Nora, it all pretty much went like clockwork. Initially we were told we'd be checking out Wednesday since our insurer had a new policy that all healthy, normal deliveries completed by 7 pm (Nora was born at 6:54 pm) should be discharged the next day. However, after I pointed out that having authored the economic analysis of the Mothers and Newborns Act, I was pretty sure such a policy was illegal, they seemed content to let us stay until Thursday.

Thursday came and by 10 am I had already been given the thumbs up and Nora had passed her bilirubin test with flying colors. Since circumcision was not an issue, we simply had to arrange for Allen to come get us and officially be escorted out. This turned out to be slightly more complicated than we initially thought.

Due to Nora's surprisingly slim legs and feet (given she weighed almost 9 pounds), the security tag which alerts the staff if someone should try to remove her, kept falling off during our stay. We had it re-attached numerous times and apparently the last time they did so they forgot to reactivate it. Moreover, they forgot to take it off when we left. While no alarm sounded, they apparently realized the mistake and had security hold us in the downstairs lobby while a nurse came to remove it. (There was talk of a guard losing his job, but we left before that was sorted out).

We made it home by 12:30 pm, just in time to see Owen, Grandpa and Grandma Z back from a fairly extensive walk. Owen got to watch his baby sister nurse and make sure that Mommy and Nora would stick around before the entire household took a nap. Afterwards, Grandma Z enticed Allen into a trip to the grocery store with promises of a homemade rhubarb pie which expanded to grilling pork chops and having Mom Mom and Grandpa Don over for dinner.

We had a hard time prying Nora from her grandmothers' hands in order to try and get her down for at least the first part of the night, and Grandpa Don got Owen a bit riled up for bedtime, but eventually we all settled in for our first night at home as a full family.
(click here to see the latest pictures)

Nora Atchison Fawcett

Between facebook, email, and text messages I think most of our loyal blog readers are well aware that Nora Atchison Fawcett was born at 6:54 pm on Tuesday, September 1, 2009. She weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs, 14 0z, and was 21 1/4 inches long at birth. It is somewhat amazing how the speed and style of communication has changed in the last few years with iPhones and facebook enabling a much more real time reporting of events, this blog is feeling down right old media, but it none the less provides a forum for a much more detailed account to preserve for our family history. So, for all of you die-hards out there lets dive into the details!

Compared to Elaine's pregnancy with Owen, this has all been a very different experience. For one thing, this baby was far more active, kicking up a storm, where as Owen was comparatively calm in utero. With Owen, we were constantly being told how big the baby was and his due date seemed to be a moving target always moving up even though Owen ended up being late. This time around, we ignored any revised due dates, and Nora showed up right on schedule, almost a pound heavier than Owen! Also, whereas a sonogram technician's slip up gave us a pretty good idea that we were having a boy with Owen, this time around we were completely in the dark. We were always pretty set on a girl's name, still being happy with the name 'Nora' that we picked out for a girl before Owen was born, but we never quite settled on a boy's name. (We were still debating between 'Henry' and 'Calvin' between pushes.)

One similarity is that, as with Owen, Elaine's water broke sparing us the any debates about contraction timing and when to go to the hospital. This time around, Elaine's water broke at 4:40 am, so we were relatively well rested for the big day ahead. We quickly gathered up our bags, told Grandma and Grandpa Z what was happening so they could take care of Owen for the day, sent a couple quick emails on the blackberry to make sure Allen's latest analysis would be delivered to the Senate Finance committee, updated facebook, and headed out the door to the hospital. This time around there were no doubts from the hospital staff about Elaine's water having broken, so we were checked in right away and didn't have to walk the halls for hours to prove she was in labor. This also meant that the epidural arrived much sooner, providing much needed relief. Elaine was dilated 1 cm when she was first examined at the hospital, so we knew we had a long day ahead.

With Owen, Elaine also started out around 1 cm when we arrived at the hospital, and after 18 hours of labor she was stalled out at 8 cm requirng a Cesarian section. This time aroud the plan was for a VBAC, but given past history, we were a little nervous about how things would progress. By 11:30 am, Elaine was at 5 cm, much more progress than we were expecting by that point, and we started feeling more optimistic about avoiding a C-section. By 2 pm she was at 7 cm and our wonderful Nurse Robin was becoming quite confident that Elaine would deliver the baby before her shift ended at 7 pm. When they checked at 3:30 pm, Elaine had blown past 8 all the way to 9 cm, and upon hearing this, Mom Mom headed down to the Hospital excited about meeting her new grandchild. At 4:40 pm, exactly 12 hours after her water broke, the cervix was gone and it was time for Elaine to start pushing!

Given that we never reached this point with Owen, we weren't entirely sure what to expect. Elaine's friend Audra was due the day before Elaine, and she just gave birth to her son a couple days earlier after less than an hour at the hospital and just a couple of pushes. Marlo just needed a few pushes to deliver baby Ben a few months earlier. Not that we expected things could possibly go so quickly, but after the first half hour of pushing or so, the epidural began to wear off and the pain began to intensify. After an hour of pushing we began to see a little swirl of dark hair on our baby's head, but the baby still had a ways to go and the pain was beginning to get to Elaine. She may even have wanted to get up, but soon the doctor arrived and solved that problem for us. Elaine's usual doctor wasn't at the hospital, but her evil faternal twin sister was. As Elaine was straining to push, the doctor came in and mumbeled something about having to give up on the VBAC and do a C-section. This of course made Elaine all the more determined, and after the doctor left, she beared down for another half hour of pushing and our baby was finally ready to come out. The nurse called the doctor back and our baby was delivered at 6:54 pm. After a little twisting around, we saw we had a little girl, and we could stop debating boys names and welcome Nora to our family. It was a truly remarkable experience that I was ever so fortunate to witness (not sure Elaine would feel quite the same way feeling everything first hand). Seeing our little girl for the first time she stole my heart and overwhelemed me with joy (and that certainly goes for both of us).


(click here to see all the pictures)

Birthday Boy

Wow. Three years. 36 Months. 1095 days. All Owen, all the time. We're a little freaked out about all the change that is about to come and how we'll all adapt, but hopefully we've learned enought over the past three years to muddle through.

1. You can lead a boy to the potty, but you can't make him pee.
2. Don't touch Owen's haircut.
3. Not all sticks are created equal.
4. Watching too much Mary Poppins may induce your child to break into song and dance, as well as panhandle.
5. Mommy and Daddy are not perfect substitutes, and if they try to be there will be tears.
6. Never underestimate the value of a good-sized box.
7. Naptime does not come with a moneyback guarantee.
8. Farm relatives have the best toys ever.
9. Always be jumping.
10. The twos really aren’t so terrible.
    

Diving into the County Fair

Sunday was just about as full as a day can get. We started out the day waiting in line with the crowds for delicious dim sum at Oriental East in Silver Spring with Mom Mom, Grandpa Don, and Jen. Somewhat surprisingly, Owen actually did pretty well eating, although we weren't quite adventurous enough to order the chicken feet off of the secret menu.

After dim sum, we went back to Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's to squeeze in a little swimming in their neighbor Rose's pool before nap time. For the last month or so, Owen has been taking swim lessons every Saturday. So far those lessons have consisted mostly of Owen fearlessly leaping into the pool and trying to doggy paddle back to the edge (with a little support from Daddy). Last time we went with Brad and Marlo to their pool, we remembered to bring Owen's water wings, and Owen had such a great time swimming free in the big pool, that he even convinced a reluctant Mia that swimming could be loads of fun. Well, combine Owen's love of leaping, a pair of water wings, and a diving board, and our little boy had the best time ever jumping and flipping off of the diving board swimming to the ladder, climbing out and doing it all over again. In a little over an hour he probably jumped off the diving board thirty times, and squealed with joy the entire time (the video at the bottom of this post gives just a little taste of the fun).

Exhausted from a big morning, Owen and Daddy took a nap to prepare for an afternoon at the Montgomery County Fair, and Mommy headed home for a well deserved break (can't blame her for not quite being up for lots of walking around in the August heat while nine months pregnant...). Well rested from our naps, we met up with the Brown's for our second annual trip to the Fair. We were joined by Marlo's family to make for a quite the crew, and armed with our knowledge of the fair grounds from last year we made a bee line for the animals, fire trucks, and the combine slide. But the biggest hit this year was something Owen and Mia were too small for last year, the pony rides! Mia was a bit scared at first, but eventually they both had a grand time riding around on their beautiful ponies. To top off the evening we had dinner at the fair with ice cream for dessert, Mia even shared her cone with Owen. Next year the family will be a little bigger, but we'll be sure to go back for more fun at the fair.

(click here for all the pictures)

Party of 13

 

Historically we've shied away from big birthday celebrations for Owen, primarily because 1) we have a very small home which will only accommodate a limited guest list; and 2) renting a venue to celebrate a day that will never be remembered by the guest of honor has been hard for me to justify. But this year is different, mostly because we've been a little worried about how Owen will feel about his place in the world once the new baby comes and want to make sure he realizes he's very important to us, but also because Owen is turning three which means there's some chance we'll get credit for this in the future. We decided to go big. To that end we spent a month or so investigating various venues before deciding to hold his third birthday bash at "The Little Gym" a few weeks prior to the actual DOB (lest baby #2 decided to crash). 15 friends were invited; 12* were able to make it, and for an hour and a half on Saturday August 8th, they ruled. But despite the parachute, the air track, the balance beam, the uneven bars, and even the Conga line to the party room afterwards, Owen informed us that his favorite part of the day was blowing out the "3" on his cupcake. Afterwards, we went over to Mom Mom's and had a lovely dinner Mom Mom and Grandpa Don as well as Mia, Marlo, Luke, and Claire before getting a very happy and tired little boy back home and into bed. *Thanks to Leo, Brady, Fiona, Sophia, Tadashi, Will, Katie, Gavin, Chloe, Sophie, Luke, and Mia for making Owen's birthday party such a success! (click here to see all the pictures)

A Boy and His Stick

There's just something about a good stick. Owen's Grandpa Fawcett (my Dad) tells a story about how when he was little, his grandmother (Owen's Great Great Grandma Melissa Fawcett) amazed at all the toys available to her young grandson, told him that when she was a little girl they didn't have all of these toys. Shocked at how deprived his grandmother's youth must have been, Dad asked her the most pressing question on his mind, "Did you have sticks?" When his grandmother said that yes they did have sticks, Dad lost his concern thinking that as long as she had sticks, everything must have been just fine.

I think Owen is in a similar boat now. He has lots of toys, but his favorite is his stick. He's managed to keep the same stick for over two months now. The stick is his violin, his microphone, his baton, his horn, his chimney broom, his lollipop, his birthday candle, his ice cream cone, and his constant companion in all outdoor activities. It's not allowed in the house, but every time he goes inside, he puts the stick down in its bed on the windowsill. At night he wants to go outside and give his stick a hug and a kiss to wish it good night.

Someday he'll break this stick, and while I'm sure he'll find a new one, I think we'll all be a bit unreasonably sad at the loss of such a great stick.

Dentist

We've been a little nervous about Owen's first dental appointment as an introduction to our dentist last year didn't go too well (Owen spent most of the interaction cowering in Allen's arms). Moreover, we figured that the moment of reckoning regarding Owen's "be-be-bes" was upon us as dentists are notoriously anti-pacifiers and while we are loathe to go against a doctor's advise, we are terrified of what should befall us should we actually take Owen's sleep companions away. But Dr. Sheila Samaddar and the rest of the crew at the South Capitol Smile Center allayed all our fears. They quickly got Owen to sit in the big chair, allow them to put their hands in his mouth and not freak out when the big toothbrush tickled his teeth. After gushing about how well he did, their only comment was that he had a little bit of plaque on his front teeth and that we should keep doing what we're doing which means the battle over the "be-be-bes" has been deferred a bit. 

Time passed

Usually when we go a couple of weeks without a blog post it's because nothing particularly notable has happened in our lives. And while we're not above memorializing the mundane --we have blogged multiple times about Owen's diaper count, after all -- we generally like some hook to accompany our online ramblings.

The truth is that a fair amount has happened over the past two weeks, we just haven't found time to write a blog post about any of it: Owen started swimming lessons (and in order to enroll him in said class Allen and I made multiple phone calls, had some words with a Capitol police officer, drove around a street blockade, and begged); Owen went to a birthday party; Owen and Daddy went on a field trip to the Botanic Garden; Owen taught Grandpa the lyrics to Blitzkrieg Bop; Mommy & Daddy went to the Wilco show where Captain Slurry made a special appearance (thanks to Brad and the store which provided him both with the alcohol and the free tickets).

The main reason we haven’t had any time to blog is because Owen has decided to make our lives a little more difficult -- it seems someone might be less thrilled with the prospect of a sibling than initially appeared. Potty training has completely stalled. Tears are a frequent companion. Bedtime has drifted to what is considered late night in the Central time zone.

We haven’t quite found the right strategy to get potty training and bed times back on track. But as the baby is set to be here in seven weeks and we're running out of creative parenting strategies, we thought we'd open it up for your suggestions as to how to improve our current lot (and keep in mind that I'm not allowed to drink).

Hazel Marina Pearson

Congratulations are in order for Chris & Elise, and their beautiful new baby girl, Hazel Marina Pearson, born on July 2nd. Head on over to their blog (mochi) for some great pictures of the new family!

And the Band Played On...

Uncle Dave and Aunt Kara were in town for three full days last weekend. Despite the brevity of the trip, they managed to hit several museums, the Capitol and the Library of Congress. But probably most importantly, Allen and Dave formed the band, 2454, toured the country and earned a jet before breaking up due to artistic differences (as well as geographical ones). Expect a reunion tour come Christmas (assuming we can fit Rock Band and it's accessories in the minivan)...

(click here and here to see all the pictures.)

Father's Day

 

Elaine and Owen gave me the game 'Rock Band' for Father's Day, and Owen has decided he loves to play it with Daddy. He likes pretending to play along with the guitar, and he really likes grabbing the microphone and singing. So far his favorite song is 'Biltzkrieg Bob', especially the "Hey Ho, Let's Go!" part, but as soon as the song is over he wants to play, "Hey Ho, Wait For Me!" Aside from all the rocking out, we celebrated Father's day with a trip to the pool with Brad, Marlo, Mia, and baby Ben. Owen and Mia had a great time playing with the killer whale torpedo (which Brad and Allen also found fascinating), and Elaine enjoyed relaxing in the water and not feeling the full weight of baby number two. We also finally got to see the finished product of the great Brown family home renovation, and we were of course suitably impressed.