Oops, I done it again...

Over/under on how long I'll stick with blogging again: 3 weeks, or 4 blog posts

So, much has happened since our vacation...That was 9 months ago. About the time it takes to grow a baby...oh wait...

Yup, so we're officially a clan now. Not just a trio, we added a 2nd guitarist to our merry little band. We found out in July 2010, discovered the baby was a she in November 2010, and named her Darcy Noelle shortly after. The original plan was to have a C-section on March 15th, at 39 weeks pregnant. On March 8th, the doctor sent Shannon for a non-stress test to make sure the baby was moving okay. I can clearly remember the discussion as she was going in for the test, because she wanted BBQ for dinner, but we had no idea when the test would be done, so I had just planned to make something for Noah and we'd figure out dinner afterwards. Well, around 8pm that plan went out the window because as they were doing the non-stress test, they saw Shannon was contracting, and pretty regularly and quickly. After an overnight observation, her doctor advised us to go with the C-section a week early, since he was confident Darcy was good enough to go and the contractions wouldn't stop with meds or fluids.

So, at 12:28pm on March 9th, we brought baby #2 into the world. So in addition to coming a week early, our second suprise was when they weighed her. Noah was...a big baby. 9 lbs 5 oz, 21 inches long, pretty heavyweight size for a baby, even at 42 weeks. As the doctors measured Shannon during her pregnancy, they came to the conclusion that Darcy would be BIGGER if not as big as Noah. So imagine our shock when the scale read 5 lbs 12 oz. 62% of Noah's birthweight. I actually decided to put their scale pictures side by side to compare...

Image wouldn't fit here...

So when she then dropped birthweight, it got even scarier for us, getting down to 5 lbs, 2 oz by the time we left the hospital. She's maintained since then, and we'll hear from the doctor today if she's gained. If she hasn't, I have to know where it's going. We're trying to let her dictate when she eats, but we usually supplement at 4 hours with about 40 cc of milk if she isn't eating. She's been eating much better, so I have to think the weight is about to come up.

Noah has been taking it in stride. We're all adjusting to new routines. Noah has been waking up and running into Darcy's room before we can get him. This wouldn't be an issue, but he likes trying to poke her. Also, he's waking up at around 4am or 5am, which is crazy early considering it takes him until 8:30 or 9 to go to sleep. We've been adjusting too. He's very pushy for an almost 3 year old, and since we're already stressed about Darcy, we end up getting frustrated a lot. Most recent example is the football shirts. Noah has two Redskin shirts and two Ravens shirts. Over time, it's gotten to be that he will try re-wearing the shirts a 2nd day in a row, or throwing a fit if we ask him to wear a non-football shirt. I think we both reached a breaking point on Saturday. All his football shirts were dirty, so we put him in a guitar shirt. I didn't count, but he must've told us around 40 times on Saturday that he wanted to wear his football shirt. And he's also in that "flip-flop phase" now. The one where when I ask him to make a decision, he says "okay I want spaghetti for dinner. No! I was ham steak. No Ham Steak! I want spaghetti...". He's still an awesome kid, and I love him like crazy, but he's definitley a 3 year old in his mannerisms.

And that's been my life for the past two weeks. I have work emails open, but they've smartly not included me in many things because I end up doing stuff even when i'm supposed to be ignoring work. I start working again tomorrow, albeit from home so that we can begin making sure Shannon can handle everything without me around (driving, getting lunch, getting things to drink, etc). More to elaborate on later, hopefully I can stick with this blog thing for longer than a month. We shall see...