Brandon's Puppy

Beauty

The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly.

-Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

Butterfly on our Hibiscus tree, Feb. 25, 2007

Matthew is 4 Weeks!

My little brother is "4" today, like me. He is so cute! I love him a lot, and I love to give him kisses. He sleeps a lot. Sometimes he looks at me and I try to make him laugh. Mommy says he doesn't laugh yet, but he will soon. Maybe tomorrow? He likes baths, like me! He doesn't have teeth, so he can't eat the yummy stuff like pizza and cookies and cereal and fruticas. He only drinks leche. I help mommy because I give baby his paci and I put his clothes in the hamper and his diapers in the garbage. I think he'll be big enough to play soon. What do you think?

To post, or not to post

My friend Tere posted this entry, inspired by this one over at Her Bad Mother (which I had never heard of, but I enjoyed reading and will be frequenting often). Since the inception of this blog, I had not given much thought to posting pictures on here, mostly because I have about ten readers and don't think anyone really reads much of what I have to say. I am not naive to the possibilities created by the internet of ill-intentioned strangers finding images and using them in ways that I don't want to think about, but I did not want to take away from the stories I am telling. I have never claimed or considered myself a good writer, and I'd rather post a picture with a few words about what happened, or why I took it, to tell the stories you read on this blog. However, about three months ago, my sister received an email forward with one of those slideshow parodies set to music with an image "stolen" from here. (For this curious about the image, it was the first one in this post). I was infuriated that an image of my child was taken from under my nose, and if they used an image for this parody, what other, possibly worse thing might be circulating in cyberspace? My first reaction was to never post another picture again, and once I calmed down a bit I looked into watermarking the images and other “safety” measures, none of which guarantee that this won’t happen again. I decided not to do a thing about it. Removing images from this blog will diminish the sentiments I try to communicate about this wonderful adventure called motherhood. This blog also serves another purpose, which I have fully taken advantage of: it is a live, day-by-day scrapbook of our lives. Removing pictures would completely alter these two intentions, and that’s not something I’m willing to do. So I will continue to post pictures until my children are old enough to have a say about it, or until this blog no longer exists, whichever comes first. I am glad to see that I am not alone out there, thinking about these kinds of "what-ifs" that tend to tear at a mother's heartstrings.

It's done!! well...almost.

The boys' room is FINALLY (almost) finished. As I mentioned previously, my dad and stepmom gave us the crib for our baby shower, but we did not receive it until last Wednesday. I called the baby store every other day since Matt was born, and they had not yet received the shipment containing our crib. I was told over and over that it was in "manifest", which supposedly meant it was on the way, but no one could tell me when it was scheduled to arrive and be ready for pick-up. I was finally told on Feb.11th that it had arrived, but this was because I called, not because they called us. My dad and stepmom went to pick it up last Wednesday and brought it over after work. Eric and I built it Saturday afternoon, and I was finally able to put the boys' room together. There are just a few things missing on the walls, but at least the essentials are in order.

Matt spent some time yesterday afternoon in his crib, looking at his aquarium mobile:

And here's a view of the rest of the room:

I will take more pictures once it's completely complete. ;-)

The Happy Homemaker

Being home has me in Martha Stewart mode. Yesterday we bought a poster of Monet's "Sunrise", as well as some curtain rods for the window treatments for our bedroom. Last Wednesday, I made Lasagna for dinner. I had way too much meat sauce left over, so Friday evening I used that to make Baked Ziti. And tonight, I made banana bread. You may remember I attempted banana bread for the first time almost a year ago.
Here is a re-post of that recipe, as well as a picture of tonight's results.

1/2 cup of shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon salt
4 bananas, mashed fine (very ripe)
1-1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream shortening and sugar, add beaten egg.
Sift salt, flour, and soda together and add to mixture.
Add mashed bananas. Beat and add vanilla.
Bake for 1 hour in a greased loaf pan at 350 degrees.

Celebrations

Today marks the 5th wedding anniversary of our dear friends Claudia and Ren. Happy Anniversary, you crazy couple!

Today is also Matthew's scheduled due date. Our little peanut not only arrived early three weeks early, but is thriving beautifully. See for yourself!

And yet another blessing today: My grandmother had an catheterization this morning and there were no serious findings. She's been in the hospital since Tuesday afternoon because her blood pressure rose pretty high and she complained of shortness of breath. She has a history of heart problems, so we were all pretty worried. Fortunately, today's procedure concluded that she has some blockage in a few minor arteries, but they can be treated with medicine, no procedures or surgeries are necessary.

So it looks like it's a good day on our end. How's your Thursday turning out?

Cubanitos

We received these from Marta this past Monday from her store Cuba To Go! Aren't they adorable?! She's got lots of other great designs. Go take a look around.

Thanks Marta! I can't wait to put these on the boys!

Grey's Anatomy

OH. MY. GOD.

Did anyone else see tonight's episode? I have absolutely no patience until next week!!!

Matt's first well-check visit

Our little piglet met his pediatrician today. He was very well-behaved. We were very pleased to hear that he is in the 25% for both height and weight, having grown an inch and a quarter and gaining a pound and four ounces since he was born 16 days ago. For those keeping track, he's now 19-1/4 inches, and 6 pounds, 10 ounces.
Brandon wasn't even on the chart when he was this little!

Here he is, relaxing, as we were waiting for the doctor:

Need a Valentine?

I'll share...

A few more presents

It's been raining gifts around here for the last few weeks.

We received these adorable things from Rachel, Jim, and RTY the day after we arrived from the hospital:

(Don't you just love the onesie on the left? "I'm new here". I LOVE IT!!)

And my mom dropped these off from her coworkers on Thursday:

(His first overalls...too cute!)

Thank you all! I can't wait to see him in these adorable outfits!

The milestones begin...

Matt lost his umbilical cord stump today.

And in other baby news, he's been drinking 3 ounces for the last 2 days.

Which is Which?

Can you figure out which is Brandon and which is Matthew?

YAY, More Presents!!

Thank you, Tia Chanty!!

Paparazzi

Mo-om! Enough with the pictures already?! Can't I eat a meal in peace???

My Boys

Matthew's Birth...

...was quite an experience. After the false alarm on Monday, I knew Matthew's arrival would be soon, I just didn't know it would be SO soon. I awoke on Tuesday morning around 7AM with mild contractions, and told Eric to take Brandon to school because they were hitting me every five minutes and I didn't want to drive the six blocks to the school. While he was gone, I called the hospital and spoke to the nurse that monitored me the day before. She said that she could not tell me not to go, but that they were extremely busy and if I could still tolerate the contractions, to wait a while. We had breakfast, and I tried to sleep off the contractions with a little nap on the couch, but by 9:30, I told Eric "I'm getting dressed, and we're going". A very wise decision on my part, as you will soon see.
We passed by my sister's house to drop off Brandon's things (she lives about ten blocks away), and arrived at the hospital at about 10:30AM. By 11, I was in a labor and delivery room with a fetal monitor, and the contractions sped up to every 3-4 minutes. The midwife on duty accessed me at about 12:30, and at this point I was 6 cm dilated and 100% effaced. The contractions were no longer just uncomfortable, they were painful. Blood was drawn, and an IV was inserted into my wrist. Once the blood results were ready, the anesthesiologist was to be called to administer the epidural, and I was to be given penicillin because my GBS reading was positive. At about 1 PM, the midwife tells me that the doctor on-call (which happens to be my friend Marilu's boss, quite a plus!!) is on his way because my doctor was on-call at the other campus and can't make it. "GREAT! He missed Brandon's delivery, and now he's missing this one too", I thought. Turns out he wouldn't have made it anyway...by the time the doctor accessed me, I had dilated to 9 cm. Most of you know what this means: Too.late. for. an. epidural. That thought hardly had time to settle because by the time the doctor finished his accessment, I felt the urge to push. My water hadn't broken, so the doctor burst the sac and saw that Matthew was RIGHT THERE. He and the nurses scattered all over the room getting the necessary items for the delivery, and even quarreled about someone not calling the Neonatologist, a concern stemming from the lack of penicillin prior to delivery. Eric almost didn't make it to see his son come into this world because when we were informed I was 6 cm, he had gone down to the car to get our bags. This give you an idea how quickly I progressed. Eric walked in, dropped the bags, and grabbed the video camera. I never imagined I was going to deliver without drugs, but there I was, pushing him out, He was out in three or four pushes, and now, in retrospect, I can say that the worse part of the whole thing is the pain of the contractions. The lack of anesthesia allowed me to actually feel the contractions, as opposed to being told when to push, and I could also feel that I was actually pushing. Brandon's (active) labor took 45 minutes because I could not feel what I was doing.
Matthew entered this world at 1:27PM. Just imagine: if I hadn't left my house at 10, I probably would have had him here at home!
He was checked, cleaned and wrapped, and they handed him to me for about half an hour before he was to go to the nursery for a four-hour observation. He was only 3 ounces heavier and just a quarter inch bigger than Brandon was at birth, but he just didn't seem as tiny to me.
When they took him away, it seemed to surreal. After so many months of planning and waiting, he was here.

So there you go, a recap of our exciting Tuesday afternoon, during which we became a family of four.

A quick hello

Hey everyone! Thank you all for your wonderful messages. We are home, arriving about two hours ago. I'm such an internet junky that I settled the baby and started checking emails and messages while my mother-in-law fed Matt. I have quite a birth story to share, but that will have to wait till tomorrow. For now, I share some pictures of our little peanut.
Special thanks to the best Great-Uncle in the world, and a few of my friends for helping spread the news!!

Shhhhh. Be bewy bewy quiet....

Pssst. Keep this to yourselves: I have it on good Uncle Val authority that Amanda and baby MD might be released from hospital this afternoon. All that's pending is a quick check of baby MD's little private part, post snipetty-snip.

This is top secret stuff, so dont tell anyone, especially that nosy next door neighbor...