life with two

In short, life with two kids is...hard. At least right now it is. They say it gets easier in a couple months; please tell me "they" are right!

The kids somehow always need something at exactly the same time, which usually means that Emerson is forced to be patient (a toddler being patient, haha) while I take care of Jane first. (Unless Emerson's need is immediate, like when he's about to fall off a chair or grab a knife or dump cereal milk all over the floor, in which case Jane sometimes has to cry for a few minutes while I take care of things. And that is always sad.) Plus Emerson is in the throes of toddlerhood (lots of tantrums and not listening), and Jane requires being held every waking moment.

It's also a lot of fun—seeing them start to interact with each other, having a beautiful baby to snuggle with, and being able to watch both of them grow and develop is incredible. We're certainly blessed!

Here's a quick catch-up of what we've all been up to for the past little while.

Jane

Jane was born on April 18 at 9:02 p.m. 

Not a newborn picture, just a cute one!

For the longer birth story, you can read my other post. Summary: labor lasted 6.5 hours from start (i.e., having my water broken) to finish, and pushing took roughly 1.5 minutes. Win!

She's a pretty long little bean, and she has the biggest, prettiest, most alert blue eyes.

She loves to smile and eat and suck her thumb.

She also loves to wiggle and roll around.

Jane is the spittiest baby ever. She spits up all day, on everything and everyone. (No one wants to see a picture of actual spit-up, so here's one of a cute spit bubble beard.)

But she's an incredibly good sleeper. She's slept over 12 hours for the past 3 nights (she's not quite 4 months old)! What??

She has a love-hate relationship with the pacifier. Emerson likes to help her with it.

She has a great surprised face (although it does look similar to her regular face).

And she's starting to like the Bumbo. Hooray!

Emerson

This little two-year-old is always on the move (hence the blurry pictures).

He still loves cooking and especially loves to "cook" with us at the kitchen counter.

Wearing Uncle Ryan's vintage sweater on a rainy July day.

He's talking up a storm, with some recent vocabulary including "Change you!" (change my diaper), "Whar-you?" (where are you), and "Help you!" (help me). Also, he somehow learned "Don't want to!" Ugh.

He loves bananas, milk, and broccoli. For real, the kid loves broccoli. I have no idea how it happened, but I'm not complaining.

Best of all, he loves his baby sister. He randomly comes over to give her the sweetest kisses and hugs (unfortunately I haven't caught a picture of that yet).

Instead, we have this gem. Don't worry; he wasn't actually smothering her.

He'll frequently lie down next to her, and it's pretty darn cute (but hard to get a picture of, obviously).

His favorite is getting to hold "Bebe," which usually lasts approximately 9 seconds.

He still loves Daddy and even tries to be like him.

He just moved into a big boy bed a couple weeks ago, and he's been handling it surprisingly well. He likes to sleep on his giant stuffed frog.

Yes, that says that it's 80 degrees in his room. Thanks, no air conditioning.

 He's a goofball, and we love him!

Mr. Potato Head glasses.

Everyone

We were able to travel to Utah for my family's reunion in July, and it was tons of fun. The actual reunion was fun, that is—driving there with an infant and a two-year-old was not fun. A 16-hour drive turned into 23+ hours EACH WAY. So much driving, so much crying, and so much chaos.

Emerson was definitely the easier of the two on the road.

In the end, it was all worth it! But we will definitely not be doing that drive again any time soon. Or ever. Definitely ever.

At the reunion, Emerson got to take a few rides in a four-wheeler and loved every minute of it.

Disclaimer: This is a reenactment. He didn't actually sit in the front seat by himself.

We played with cousins, went on hikes, did crafts, and made some great memories. (PS, thanks family for letting me use all your pictures.)

Campfire singing.

Emerson's GQ pose.

Emerson and Ryker.

Hangin' out with Grandma Stitt.

And Aunt Aubrey.

The boys folding their arms for the dinner prayer. The cutest.

Hiking with Grandma.

Getting a great view from Uncle Ryan's shoulders.

Aubrey carried Jane for the second half of our hike. 12 extra pounds of baby makes a big difference!

Incredible views all over the place.

It's been a fun summer!

Jane Aurora Lee

I was scheduled to be induced the morning of April 18 at 7:30 a.m. (two days after Jane's due date). The night before, the hospital charge nurse called to inform me that it might be too busy to do it in the morning, so I should call at 6:00 a.m. to check with them. I called the next morning, and sure enough, they were too full. I called again at 8:00; same story. We kept calling back, as instructed, at 10:00 a.m. and noon. By that point, I was seriously frustrated and bummed out. Would she even be born that day?! No one knew. Then we were finally told we could come in at 1:30! Hooray! Only six hours later than what we’d been planning on…

We got checked in and got to our room relatively quickly. The plan was for Dr. Heffner to break my water first, since we were pretty sure that would be more than enough to start labor. Surprisingly, she (Dr. Heffner) came in to break my water around 2:25, so that was nice to get things going right away. Also surprisingly (but not in a good way), I was still only dilated to a 3, and breaking my water was incredibly painful. But then it was over, and contractions started pretty soon after.

No one had told us this before we checked in, but the policy on the labor and delivery floor was to be on a clear liquid diet until after delivery. I hadn’t eaten since 9:00 a.m. because I thought I’d be able to eat at the hospital. That was unfortunate (definitely an understatement).

Around 2:45, Andrew and I took a walk around the floor for 20 minutes. By the time we were done, the contractions were getting more uncomfortable, but not very painful yet.

Our labor and delivery nurse, Lisa, was awesome. She suggested a bunch of different laboring aids, and at 4:15, I decided to try out the Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. It felt great and helped to ease the pain, but as soon as I got out, that relief was gone! Contractions started getting a lot stronger and closer together. Lisa told us that the tub usually had that effect; if it was real labor, getting in the hot water would kind of speed things up (while if it hadn’t been real labor, it would have slowed things down).

I’d already told the nurses that I planned on getting an epidural, and we knew that before getting the epidural, I’d need to have fluids given through my IV, which would take a good amount of time. By this point, I was really in a lot of pain—more pain than I had ever experienced. With Emerson, I got an epidural before the pain got this bad (with him, I had Pitocin, so the contractions were much closer together and harder to handle even with lower pain). So around 5:10, I told her I wanted to get the fluids going to start the whole process. The anesthesiologist got there around 6:00, and by 6:30, the epidural had mostly taken effect. It was fantastic.

Lisa checked me around 6:45 and to my horror, I was only at a 3-4! (I bet I was still at a 3 and she just said that to make me feel better!) So after that, I just tried to get comfortable and get some rest, because we figured Jane wouldn’t be coming for a long time. It was frustrating that I had gone through all that pain for no dilation (and it definitely made me feel like a wimp), but it didn’t bother me too much. I knew it wouldn’t do any good at that point!

Around 8:50, Lisa came to check me again. She got a surprised look on her face and just said to me, “10!” Yay!! The epidural had worked its magic. Lisa called the doctor to come in immediately for delivery! She got there a few minutes later and got to work setting everything up.

At 9:00 p.m., we were all ready to push. (Well obviously, I was ready to push and everyone else was ready to catch/clean/help.) Right as Dr. Heffner was telling me to do the first push, Andrew said, “I’m just going to run to the bathroom really quick before we get started!” Dr. Heffner replied, “Uh...you might not want to do that quite yet!” I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t. I did one real push (not even a set of three; just one!), and then they told me to stop. Then I did three tiny pushes (she would say, “Push…okay stop! Push a little…okay stop!”), and Jane was born at 9:02! Easiest pushing ever. It almost makes me scared for the next kid; they might just slide right out without me knowing.

When Jane was born, Dr. Heffner brought her right onto my chest. I remember just looking at Andrew and smiling and tears coming to my eyes; our little girl was here!

It happened so fast! I held her there while I got stitched up (and while they kneaded my stomach to death, ugh). Then I was able to nurse her before they took her to the weighing station in the room. When they said she weighed 8 lbs, 13 oz., I thought that their scale was wrong! Haha. Emerson was only 8 lbs, 2 oz., and she felt just as small as he had. But it was right (of course)! She was just a cute little chunk.

Emerson didn't know what to think at first, but he's really warmed up to her since then. He loves making her smile, and she loves watching him do pretty much anything.

We've got two cute kids!