And we have our champion!

pottytraining champion, that is! all day today rachel has been telling me when "the pee pee's coming!" she even wants to go sit on the potty when she has to fart. she still calls this "pee pee" so i don't know the difference. i guess she either thinks it feels like she has to go or she just thinks farts belong in the potty too. i'm very proud of her. i was getting discouraged yesterday b/c i realized all i was doing was making her sit on the potty all day and i thought she probably wasn't paying attention to what it felt like after all that... but i guess she figured it out at some point! so she's going to wear her big girl panties to church tomorrow (with a change of clothes in her bag, just in case!)

another fun story... yesterday i took rachel outside after she went potty to give her a little change of pace. she kept walking under our back porch, looking under there, and saying "wow! amazing!" then she'd run back to me and say "i've never seen that before! that's exquisite!" seriously. my jaw dropped open when she said this. super genius? i think so.

in lucas news, he went 6 1/2 hours between feedings last night. super genius #2? i think so.

How did the first day of potty-training go?

pretty much how i expected with both successes and failures. rachel peed in the potty twice and actually managed to poop there too once (unfortunately the poop was in her little potty chair, not the actual toilet, so i got to clean that one up... but better than cleaning it off the carpet!). she had 3 accidents. she was pretty upset by the accidents and would "i'm sorry. i didn't mean to." i gave her lots of hugs for that one :). i tried to have her pee before bed but it just wasn't coming and it was getting late. chuck got her off the potty and she was really upset that she didn't pee (what a big girl). this morning she couldn't wait to put on her tinkerbell panties and sit on the potty again. she peed within a couple minutes and ran down the hall half-naked yelling "mommy, i pee peed in the potty!"

i'm pretty proud of this little girl :)

i took rachel to walmart this morning and let her pick out big girl panties. she picked out dora and tinkerbell underwear. we've had one successful peeing in the potty experience! one poor green crayon got dropped into the toilet, but i see that as a necessary casualty. rachel is now donning her new pink dora panties while sitting on a bunch of towels watching little einsteins and drinking apple juice. :)

Teaser...

...tomorrow morning we're going to walmart and rachel will be picking out big girl underwears...

...crazy stories are destined to come.

It's Happened!!

lucas went for a 6 hour stretch last night between feedings! from 10pm to 4am! that's "sleeping through the night" according to the medical community. of course, this is by no means "sleeping through the night" by my personal standards (rachel sleeps from 8:30pm to 8:30am. THAT is sleeping through the night!), but for a 5 week old that's pretty impressive! i'll take what i can get :)

Family of 4

1 month old!

3 weeks old!

2 weeks old!

Bragging Rights

so i took lucas to the doctor this morning for his 1 month check-up (can not BELIEVE he's one month old tomorrow!). this little champ has gained 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks. that's freakin' a lot! he's 10 1/2 pounds now! i guess i need to stop worrying if he's getting enough to eat or not...

the doctor also commented on what a great big sister rachel is. when lucas was lying on the table and fussing while the doctor poked him, rachel climbed up on a stool so she could hold his hand. i mean, how sweet can you get?

also, for the past couple night's he's been doing a 5 hour stretch in between 2 feedings. it took rachel another month and a half to get to that point. (for any moms out there who want to shoot me for this, please refer to my entries following rachel's birth. i think i deserve a break this time.)

and in fun news, chuck and i met 7 years ago today, thanks to bethany anne lind mendenhall. i thought he was a cool junior (i was a little freshman at the time), and he thought i talked too much. :)

One month later

The Labor Story (not for the faint of heart, or those about to have a baby... like danielle)

*i take no offense if you choose to skip this post, but since people keep asking me about it, here's the story!*

well you may recall my entry on february 18th about how i went to the doctor after having contractions all night and they sent me home at 4 cm dilated and i sat in the car in the parking lot and cried about it. that's how the day started. i went back home (rachel was at her friend abigail's house for the morning so i was free to lay on the couch and mope for a while). at about 11:30 the contractions started again. since this was the 4th time i was having contractions i knew better than to be getting excited. still, i started watching the clock just in case, b/c the doctor said that when the real thing started it would go fast.

he couldn't have been more right.

at about 12:30 or 1:00 i called the doctor and said i was having more contractions. the nurse told me to come on in and they'd check me again. i really just wanted the whole ordeal to get underway, but i knew i couldn't handle being sent home again. anyway, i told chuck to come on home and aunt melissa to head on up (she was going to watch rachel for us when we were in the hospital).

we headed on back to the doctor. all the nurses gave me sympathetic looks when they saw me come back in. the doctor checked me out again (the same doctor i saw that morning). he said i was 5 cm and i should head to the hospital (which was good for him b/c i was going to kick him in the face, otherwise).

so we did, making many a phone call along the way to family.

it was about 3:30 when we got into my own special delivery room and i got to don the lovely attire of a laboring mother... a shapeless, backless hospital gown.

the contractions kept on rolling and i was doing pretty well for a couple hours. they were definitely getting stronger and closer together so i was thinking i had to be at least 7 cm along. the doctor came back in to check me... i was a disappointing 5 1/2 cm... so the doctor wanted to break my water. this is exactly what i did not want to happen, b/c i remember fondly from rachel's labor that after they break the water, the s**t hits the fan.

so they broke it, gallons of water came out of me, and the s**t hit the fan.

now anyone who knows me knows that i have an extreme phobia of anything medical... like the IV that was currently stuck in my arm. it's this phobia that has made me want to go natural in my labors. only an absolutely blinding, excruciating, horrifying, violent pain would make me ask for a huge needle in my spine. well, let's just say that 30 minutes later i was asking for the huge needle in my spine.

my sweet sweet nurse who was sitting next to me and holding my hand said she'd be back in 5 minutes with the epidural guy. she told me to go sit on the edge of the bed so i'd be ready when he got there. i managed to get myself over there. chuck was standing in front of me and massaging my shoulders (which, unfortunately, offered me absolutely no relief at this point).

then i started screaming. i screamed and screamed and screamed. the pain was so incredibly intense, there was just nothing else to do... but scream.

then i had to push. the head was coming and there was no stopping it. chuck called for the nurse, who came running in and got me in position. i was pushing before the doctor was even there. i pushed and pushed and pushed. now at this point, i couldn't hear anything. my ability to understand english flew out the window. i didn't hear anyone counting and apparently the doctor was telling me to stop screaming. didn't hear that either. i just pushed. i pushed for 5 minutes. now, when i say that it makes it sound easy. i really thought this 5 minutes was more like an hour. i sort of wondered if i was going to die like the millions of laboring women throughout history. seriously.

but then i got to hold my son. my great big healthy son.

and so much for my epidural.

my labor lasted about 7 1/2 hours total, and we had only been at the hospital for 3 1/2 hours before lucas was born. rachel's labor was this wonderfully positive experience. i guess this time the newness and excitement just wasn't there, and i knew the kind of pain i was about to face, and i was not excited. thinking back on this experience makes me shudder and it will be a long time before i can ever think about going through it again. but i do know that if the Lord blesses me with another child, i'm asking for an epidural as soon as i get to the hospital.

but my son is an absolute joy and the perfect addition to our family. and there's nothing like the joy i feel when i see how much rachel loves him and how she interacts with him. of course, in the end, the pain is completely worth it.

but yikes. it was rough.

How are things going?

well. definitely pretty well. going from having 1 kid to 2 is definitely a huge adjustment... i'd say not quite as huge as from going from 0 to 1, but still a very significant adjustment. you'd think that having 2 kids would make everything take twice as long... you'd be wrong. it's more like 4 times as long. how is this mathematically possible? i don't know. but i still find it to be true.

lucas is a much easier baby than rachel was (which is WONDERFUL). he actually cries for reasons that i can pinpoint instead of just crying all the time. i deeply appreciate his communication skills in this area :). nursing is going well (another thing that i botched up the first time around). i am deeply regretting having quit it so soon with rachel now that i sort of know what i'm doing. the hardest part of the whole ordeal (and i knew it would be) is the lack of sleep. there's just no way to catch up on your rest. your body goes through this incredible, intense, excruciating, draining process of labor and delivery and all you want to do is rest after that... but guess what? now you have a baby that needs you all the time! even when you're in the hospital and have a nursery to send your baby to when you want to get some sleep (which i highly recommend doing, by the way), the nurses come and wake you up every couple hours to take your vitals, give you pain medication, and help you go pee (yes, you need help with this). and now that i have 2 kids, there's no "sleep when your baby sleeps," which is a huge bummer b/c lucas sleeps most of the time. but at least this time, i know that the exhaustion is temporary and i will actually get a full night's sleep again one day. this information is truly invaluable.

rachel absolutely loves her baby brother. she's constantly saying "awwww, hi lucas. he's so cute. hi baby. it's ok, baby. shhhhh, lucas is sleeping. i wanna kiss him," and my personal favorite, "oh no! my brother!" when lucas is crying. she loves to hug and kiss him, tickle his toes, and always wants to hold him in her lap. she's definitely a little mommy. she hasn't really shown much jealousy, but she has been much more clingy and whiny with chuck and me. but hey, getting a younger sibling is a big ordeal, so i'm cutting her a little slack.

well, i hope this is coherent. i don't have the energy to read it all over. if it doesn't make sense, i apologize.

yet to come: the labor story (NOT for the faint of heart...)