Sleep, Glorious Sleep!!

I discovered "Gripe Water" yesterday. It's an herbal remedy for gas, hiccups, colicky baby stuff. Looks like water and smells like black licorice, but it's supposed to work even better than the mylicon drops. Baby A doesn't seem to benefit at all from the mylicon stuff.

Now I can't be sure yet that it is a result of the gripe water, but Baby A actually slept for over 6 hours straight last night. She usually only sleeps like that in the afternoon. Night time for me usually consists of feeding every two hours and at around 1 am she screams for at least an hour before going back to sleep. So six straight hours of sleep for me was heaven!

I felt so rested today I actually went to the gym and worked out for an hour. I haven't done that since I first started getting dizzy with pregnancy. It kicked my butt, but in a good way. I hope to make this a habit 3 times a week from now on.

Now let's just hope that Baby A's new sleeping schedule will become a habit as well.

"Professional" Shots

My sister-in-law, Rachael, recently picked up a new fancy camera and has been going professional with her photography skills. She's proving to be quite the natural talent. She took some family/individual photos for us after Baby A was born. I think they turned out fantastic. In fact I've added some of them as permenant fixtures on our blog now (See above and to the side.) You can decide for yourself. (Unfortunately the slide show program cut off the bottom of some of the pictures.)

If you would like to see more of her work, she's started a blog to showcase her photos at http://picturesareworth.blogspot.com/.

Our Little Star

We're learning how to convert video to a digital format. Here's our first two attempts. The first has good audio, the second has the actions. We couldn't seem to get both in one video.

(You can pause the music playlist at the very bottom of the entire blog if you don't want to listen to both simultaneously)

Enjoy!!

(now if someone could just tell me how to save this as an MP3 and upload it to my playlist on this site; THAT would be cool!)

Big Sister

Actually Little M is doing much better than I had expected. So far, I haven't detected hardly any jealousy and on the contrary, she has been trying to be the best big sister ever. She wanted to hold Baby A from the first time she saw her, and is always very gentle in her touches and kisses. She fetches diapers and wipes for me, and tries to calm the baby when she's fussing. (She's decided that all she has to do is call Baby A "Sweetheart" and that will make everything better.)



This afternoon I laid down for a nap while Baby A was sleeping and later awoke to her starting to get fussy. I came downstairs prepared to nurse, to find that Little M had attached the toys to her bouncer chair and was attempting to feed Baby A from the bottle that Alex had warmed for her a few hours ago. And she was just getting her to calm down when I showed up. It warmed my heart to see her trying to comfort her sister, rather than just coming to get me to do it.


Another funny thing that happened today. M had helped me bathe Baby A and I was getting her dressed again, when I turned to find Little M had stripped her clothes and hopped into the baby tub, not wanting to miss out on the fun.




We have been struggling a bit with the obedience lately though. Maybe related to having a new baby, maybe it's just part of being almost 3. As a result, M has been spending a bit more time than usual in time out. Yesterday, I was chewing a piece of gum while nursing and M decided she wanted one too. For several reasons, I had expressly told her "no" and as I could see she was on her way to my room to get it anyway, I informed her that if she came back with gum in her mouth that she would be sent to time out. She quietly slipped away. When I finished nursing and was about to go check on her, I heard the time out timer ring in her room and she shortly came back. She had nothing in her mouth but she informed me that she had eaten gum and thrown it in the trash. I went upstairs and sure enough the last piece of gum was gone from my dresser and thrown away, chewed in M's trash can. I expressed my sorrow at her disobedience and said she'd have to go to time out. Then she informs me that she already went to time out. She had apparently climbed my dresser, gotten the gum, and gone straight to her room and put herself in time out, setting the timer, and then happily chewed her gum in her room during "time out." I guess she decided that time out was worth a piece of gum. She was so proud of herself for having beat the system. I almost felt bad putting her in a real time out. Is that double jeopardy? Maybe it is, but it didn't seem to me that the first time should count. Although M certainly felt it did. Poor girl. Alex and I couldn't stop laughing later on when I told him about it.

Welcome Baby A

These last couple weeks have been a sort of babymoon for us as we've tuned the rest of the world out for a little while and just spent some time with our new baby. But now it's about time I started picking up all the loose threads of my life that I've been ignoring, one of which is this blog. First let me tell you a little of the birth.

Everything went better than we could have expected. I started having contractions about 2 weeks before our due date (which come to think of it was today). But they weren't lasting very long and Alex had to work on Fort Carson the next day with no way to back out, so I took it easy, not wanting to have our baby without him. But as soon as he got home from the base, we went on a long walk to my brother's house, just to visit. Once again, some contractions, but they didn't seem to be sticking. I kinda gave up on having her that day, and we made dinner plans with my brother and walked home to get ready, (and to make Alex's birthday cake.) However, this time they stuck. I kept having to take breaks in the cake making, and Alex ended up making most of his own cake.

By this time we called the midwife, Dotti. She didn't really believe that I was going into labor. (Mainly because I had called her, as opposed to Alex, and was able to talk through my contractions) She had me go lay down for a while to see if they would let up. They didn't. She reluctantly agreed to come check me, and Alex took little M to my brother's home for that dinner we had planned. Her husband was scheduled to come set up the labor pool that evening, and it was just starting to fill up when Dotti announced that I really was in labor, and we'd be having this baby soon. We feared that the pool wouldn't be ready in time. (It takes a lot of hot water to fill that thing.)

Anyway, labor got more intense, the assistants showed up and started taking care of everything. They really were angels. Alex and I just had to concentrate on getting through each contraction. Just as I was really wanting to get in the pool, it was about half full and we decided to get in anyway, while it continued to fill. Nothing felt so good as relaxing in that warm water between contractions. Before too long, Alex got in with me, and the next thing I knew it was time to push. Thank heavens that part has always been short for me. Two pushes and we had a baby in the water. Alex was able to catch the baby, and I was finally able to relax with my new baby in my arms. It all took 4 1/2 hours from the time we walked home to the time the baby was born. (A great improvement from the 36 hour labor I had with M.) And Alex now shares a birthday with both his brother and his new daughter.

There were no complications at all and my recovery has been a breeze except for an annoying cold I had for well over a week (it's hard enough getting sleep with a newborn without a racking cough added to the mix.) Once again, I thank my Heavenly Father that Baby A didn't get sick from either me or Little M, although I was constantly afraid she would. Thanks to my sister-in-law, Rachael, we now have the baby anouncements done. I'll be sending them out to immediate family members as soon as we can get my computer fixed. If anyone else would like one, please email me your current address and we'll get one sent on the way.

Baby A is beautiful and doing great! She was two weeks early so we had to be careful at first that she didn't get too cold or hot until her body could better regulate that itself, but she's doing wonderful and sleeps a lot; which I am grateful for. My mother came out to help us for a week. She was an angel, helping around the house and especially entertaining Little M all day, so she didn't feel brushed aside with all the new baby fuss.

You know, overall, I've spent a lot of time these past two weeks just looking at my two beautiful girls and kind, thoughtful husband, and marveling at how blessed I am. We've received so much help from friends and family, and really, I can't think of a single way this experience could have turned out any better than it did. (except maybe the cold) I'm so grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who has been watching over us and has blessed us so much with all these wonderful people in our lives, and a beautiful, new, healthy, miracle to hold and love. I really love being a mom!

Our new baby!

On Wednesday evening at 8:35pm, our new daughter was born. She weighed in at 6 lbs 14 oz and was 19 inches long. The labor took a relieving 4 hours... relieving because our first baby took 36 hours of labor before entering the world.

Here's a picture of the family now. We're testing out two names for the baby and will decide soon.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't called already. Love, the Leahys

Rewards for Good Behavior?

So, a few days ago, I took M with me to run a few errands (something I increasingly do as JoDee's pregnancy progresses) around town. One of the stops was at Blockbuster. JoDee had been excited to watch the movie Emma http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WpLozLqLZ0 with Gwyneth Paltrow and I was tasked with the job of finding it.

Well, after I had found the copy that I hoped was the right one (I didn't know at the time that the Paltrow Emma was the one JoDee wanted to see), I went up to the register to rent it and found out I needed a new Bbuster card. The clerk gave me an application and the whole process took some time.

During this 10-15 minute period of time, M was playing with the candy in the aisle and, periodically, bringing a package up to me and showing it to me. I responded once with, "Yes, honey, that does look yummy! Would you mind putting it back?" And she did.

A few minutes later, she brought another piece of candy up to me: "Hmm, what kind of candy is that?" She told me she didn't know, but that we needed it. So I told her I was sorry but we weren't going to buy it.. unless she had some money. I asked her if she did and she said no. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but I guess we can't get it. Would you mind putting it back?" And she did.

Every parent knows how nice it is not to have to nag in public and I was grateful for M's good behavior. I wasn't the only person pleased by M either. A guy in the line behind me made a comment about what his grandchildren would be acting like and said he couldn't believe she was putting the candy back. I laughed and said, "Well, if she doesn't, she doesn't get to come with me next time. Not that she always behaves, mind you." The clerk made a comment about M and about how terribly behaved his 2-3 year old nephew was. This generated a short chat about the challenges his brother was facing as a single father and I wrote down the name of a book that had really helped JoDee and me with M.

Well, after all that fuss, I finally got the movie and was nearly leaving the shop when a lady came up to M and another boy that was behaving well and gave them both a small bag of candy that she had bought them for being such good children. M thanked her for the treat.

Loot!

On the way home, I found myself musing at how M got rewarded for good behavior.. how pleased I was at her good behavior and how I hoped she wouldn't expect to get something every time she acted well in public. :D

Found something else that took place since my last post. M served a nice picnic breakfast or lunch, I have no idea what time of the day this took place but I'm still wearing my 'jammies,' so I'm hoping it was a breakfast event.

If you look closely, you can see some of her princesses and a little statue of Mary that JoDee had to buy while in Russia.. something about a glow-in-the-dark Mary that she couldn't resist.