they're girls

Annabelle: My foot is someone else.

Me: Oh, really?
Annabelle: {lifting the other foot} And this foot is someone else.

Me: Really? What are their names?

Annabelle: Mmmmmmm....they're both girls.

{Because who isn't a girl at our house these days? Poor Daddy... :) }

one week

 

I can't decide which is the bigger accomplishment: pushing an almost nine pound baby out of my body or taking two babies to the grocery store and getting everything up three flights of stairs successfully without any tears, pukes, or blowouts. Seriously. I'm pretty sure I need a cape. Granted, this feat was mostly possible because I have a super chill newborn, but still. I think a cape is in order.

 

We've had our little Lou for a week {yesterday}. I feel like time is passing much too quickly; every day she looks a little different. It's the worst part of having a baby. All that time that previously passed so slowly during pregnancy suddenly hits warp drive and it just flies. I wish I could freeze some of the moments: her little gassy smiles that are becoming more and more common, her intense eyes that stare-stare-stare, her always flexed feet and toes and skinny straight legs. Thankfully, we take too many photos for our own good. And here's a selection from her first week. Perhaps if I post enough, I can freeze some time.

 

 

fake 'n' bake

So I make babies with blood that fights with my blood. And they end up on the dang bilibed lights. To say I dislike these bilibeds would be a mild description. They make my babies {and me} cry. That said, they do the trick and they keep my babies healthy. Lydia's bilirubin levels were better than Belle's, but she still had to spend some time (about twenty four hours) in the tanning bed (and she has seven prick marks on her poor little heels to prove it). And although I expected the lights for her, it didn't make it any easeir to slide her squishy loveable body into that glowing envelope. My babies - thankfully - love to be squeezed and loved and snuggled. And a plexi glass bilibed doesn't exactly reciprocate.

Don't worry - Annabelle and I hung up some rainbow streamers left over from her birthday in Lou's view so she wouldn't have to stare at a plain white wall when she was awake (she spends a decent amount of daytime with her ridiculously already accurate eyes open). And my mom and I spent hours up with her at night trying to help her feel better. Bleck.

So glad it's over and we can love on our little Lou again.

i'm coming home

It's kind of funny. You walk into the hospital very pregnant, a family of three. You walk out missing that ridiculously large stomach and with an extra person in your car. And trust me when I say that the extra person in the car is much preferred to the extra stomach on the body. :)

NOTE: This is the same outfit Annabelle came home from the hospital in. The only difference? They weren't floods on Belle. Little Lou is tall (and big). Most of the newborn clothes I pulled out when I got home are already obsolete and she's into the official 0-3 months clothes. You go girl.

plus one

The night before I was to be induced (yes, it was totally planned, gotcha), as I put Annabelle to bed, I completely lost it. I could barely hold it together enough to sing her bedtime songs. She noticed and asked, "Mommy sad?" When I walked out of her room, I sunk in a heap of tears. I sobbed. It was hard to explain, but suddenly the reality of losing the time with just Annabelle hit me with full force. Suddenly I realized that things would be different. Things were going to change. The predictable life of love and routine that we had so carefully shaped for the last two years would change. It's a strange paradigm to be in - wanting my new baby so very much, but fearing the change that would occur as that new baby changed everything and grew us to a family four.

My induction was a dream (besides the small issue of being sent to a different out-of-network hospital). The pitocin did its magic. I "suffered" through contractions for a few hours before I wimped out and got that blessed epidural, we waited a few hours (read: I totally snoozed), I pushed through five contractions literally without breaking a sweat (a sharp contrast to my labor with Annabelle, during which I sweated enough to fill a small lake), and our big baby girl was there.

Annabelle was waiting in the hall with her aunties and before the gender had been revealed, was outside the door requesting, "Go inside and see my sister?!"

She walked in to the room tentatively. And who wouldn't. Hospitals are weird. And Mommy was in a weird dress with cords and wires hanging out of her arms. She wanted her aunties to stick close to her, to keep her safe. But she also wanted to see Lydia. She wanted to touch her and hold her and give her loves. The next morning at home, as Daddy got ready to go, she followed behind, and in classic toddler style repeated over and over, "Go see Lydia? Go see my sister? Go see Lydia? Go see my sister?"

And when they arrived that morning and she gave her baby sister some more loves without reservation or jealousy in her sweet understanding toddler heart, I realized that everything would be okay, that sometimes change is good and beautiful and comes in eight pound twelve ounce packages. And how wonderfully perfect those packages can be.

introducing...

Lydia Lou Cheney

July 20, 2011

8:59 p.m.

8 pounds 12 ounces

21 inches

Yes! It's a girl! AGAIN!

it's been said

While eating a banana and burping shortly after a swallow: "My banana barfed."

+

When sliding around me to reach something: "Scuse me Mommy."

+

When bumping into me when sliding around me to reach something: "I sorry Mommy."

+

When announcing she's finished with her dinner: "I want not any."

+

When trying to get our attention: "Let me ask you a question."

(She doesn't actually have a question.)

+

After I told her she needed to use the potty not a diaper: "Stop saying that!" (Oh boy.)

+

After I moved her leg to pull a towel out from under her: "Don't push me!"

+

After I hear her whimper a bit and ask what's wrong: "I just need a hug."

(If that doesn't melt you, I don't know what will.)

+

If she sees a popsicle in the vicinity: "Let me hold it please?"

+ 

After I ask her a litany of dinner options: "No, I good."

+

When trying to be conversational: "Uh-whatchadoin' Mommy?"

(The inflection of this smooshed up sentence makes it really excellent.)

+

After reciting with me (for the billionth time) what will happen when Mommy

"goes to the doctor to get the baby out," she finishes the conversation with,

"And remember, Mommy loves me so much."

(I almost cried. I'm so grateful she listens so well.

Because while I'm not here, I really need her to remember that.)

itchy

I itch.

From head to toe.

Every inch of skin, including my scalp.

And it's considerably worse at night because then I have time to just lay there and think about SCRATCHING.

It doesn't stop.

I finally gave up and went and got a popsicle and turned on Gilmore Girls.

Ridiculous.

Again, I repeat that being up with a newborn is so much more preferred than this option, scratching myself into my grave.

Dying.

the cure for cankles?

For any of you nearing your last days of pregnancy, I have a suggestion: I need you to eat more watermelon than you've ever eaten before. I'm being serious. Like, this isn't just a slice here, a slice there. This is a deep and committed relationship. Anytime you want a snack, eat watermelon. And then eat a little more.

Because I sincerely believe that the only reason I don't have cankles (at nearly 39 weeks) is because I eat watermelon. All. Day. Long. The other day I lugged a huge watermelon up the stairs, walked inside, cut it open, and stood over my kitchen sink until I had eaten an entire fourth of that honey, by myself.

It's not really normal the way I consume watermelon. Honestly. Ask anyone who has been around me for more than five minutes. And I know it bloats my belly and makes bathroom visits much more frequent, but when your belly is already sticking out to Nevada, you might as well just keep eating the dang stuff. Especially if it's the secret cure for cankles.

I'm just sayin'...

concentrated

Ever since she was super tiny, Annabelle has had an excellent "concentrating face."

It may be one of my favorite faces really.

The best part is it hasn't died. It isn't as pronounced or cross-eyed, but she still has it.

When she gets into something new or challenging, you can inevitably find her, crosslegged, feet together, precise fingers at work, and that face puckered into sheer concentration.

Of course now, it's interrupted with, "Look Mommy! I did it!" But the concentrating face lives on.

two weeks notice

source (I really want these)

Dear Baby Cheney:

I just wanted to mention that we're two weeks out from your official due date. And that your big sister made her entrance exactly two weeks prior to her due date. And that it would really be just fine with me if you wanted to come any day now. Well, for the most part. That whole awkward water breaking in the middle of the grocery store stresses me out. So let's just try and keep that to less embarassing locations.

But really. I hope you know how excited I am to meet you. I have a hospital bag packed with chocolate and tiny tiny baby clothes. And I'm ready to kiss on those sweet little cheeks of yours. So when you're ready, you let me know. Until then, I'll just cherish your attempts to move around (because really, there's no more room in the inn kid) and the way you stick your bum out of the left side of my stomach. How could you be so cute already?

All my love,

Mommy

a little hike

I know this is hard to believe, but I actually took this. Fo' real.

On Saturday morning, before it got too hot (and before we showered or put on our day faces), we took "a little hike" (as Belle calls it) back at the Temple Quarry Trail. (Guys, it's so flat and not at all a hike. But I still get completely winded and hope that it will induce labor every time we go. Yeah. Right.)

I can't tell you how much fun it is to watch Annabelle "hike like Daddy." She even asked to wear his fanny pack when she couldn't fit her water bottle into her pocket.

And don't mind me, just REALLY pregnant there. There's just no excuse for that. Wowsers. And that sweet wide angle lens does wonders for stretching out my face and our appendages. At least it stretches me tall? I may have mentioned this before, but that lens is Jess' favorite (it does take great landscape photos) and the total bane of my existence (it completely distorts human beings, as illustrated below).

Although that stomach is no distortion. That's total reality.

In any case, it was a beautiful "little hike," perhaps the last we'll take with just our Boo. But then I'm pretty sure we'll love hiking with a little one in a pack too. (Totally just rhymed. Awesome.)