Big Brother

Huston has been adapting so well to his role as big brother. He hasn't shown any real signs of jealousy so far and has pretty much just gone with the flow and adapted to Arden's presence in our house. He likes to give us little status updates on her, like "Baby Arden open her eyes!" and "Baby Arden move her feet!" Several times when she's sneezed, he has said "Bless you, Baby Arden" and he frequently peeks over her bassinet and says "Hello, Baby Arden" or reports to us "Baby Arden sleeping her white bed!"
He likes to operate the lights and sounds on her bouncy seat for her and seems to consider this his job any time she's in the bouncer.


Yesterday he made me laugh out loud because he grabbed his "Bear Bear," patted the round part of his belly, and randomly announced to me "Bear Bear have Baby Arden in belly, too!" He was pretty excited to make this connection between mommy's round belly and Bear Bear's round belly. Today when Arden was in her bouncy seat with Huston operating the lights, he yelled in amazement "Baby Arden have fingers, too!" This was quite a revelation, apparently. Maybe because she's always swaddled or in blankets?

I can't wait to see how their little brother/sister relationship develops as they grow older.

The Birth Story

For those interested (and why wouldn’t you be?!), here is the story of Arden’s birth.  Don’t worry – I’ll spare you the gory details and just hit the highlights!

I woke up at 5:30 on Sunday morning with a mild contraction.  Several minutes passed before I felt another mild one, and I briefly considered going back to sleep because it was so early, but thought I should go ahead and start getting ready because I was already 6 days past my due date and knew this was probably the real thing.  I woke Clarke up and told him I thought I was in labor and that I was going to take a shower, and he mumbled, “Oh really?  Okay,” and then went back to sleep.  In the shower I had a few more contractions, but they weren’t terribly strong or close together.  By the time I started fixing my hair and getting my bag together, they were getting stronger and closer together, so I woke Clarke up and told him to start getting ready and to call his mom.  It was shortly after 6 o’clock at this point – maybe 6:15.  As I was packing my bag and getting ready, my contractions were getting stronger and stronger, and much closer together.  By the time Clarke’s mom got to our house around 6:50, I barely had time to catch my breath in between them.  I remember thinking that either labor was much more painful and difficult than I had allowed myself to remember, or I was much closer to delivering than I would have ever expected by that point.

Clarke finished his shower around 7 and I got a wave of nausea about that time that sent me running to the bathroom to be sick.  (Okay, sorry – that’s one gory detail).  We were in the car at 7:10, driving to the hospital which is only about 4 minutes from our house.  I was so grateful that we didn’t live far because by this point I was beginning to feel the need to push, but still trying to tell myself that I couldn’t possibly need to push yet because I hadn’t been in labor long enough.

We parked on the wrong side of the hospital and I got in a wheelchair and let Clarke push me up to labor and delivery because there was no way I was going to make it walking.  We got up to the nurses station and when I told them that I was feeling the urge to push, they all burst into action.  They got me in a gown and into a room and one of the nurses confirmed that I was fully dilated.  (She actually said something else, but writing it would make two gory details and I don’t want to push my luck.)

They kept telling me not to push yet, which was the last thing I wanted to hear.  I heard one of them say to call the doctor and I asked “Is she still at home?” and they said that yes, she was probably at home.  I knew she would never make it in time if she wasn’t already at the hospital.  Praise the Lord that she was!  It seemed like a few seconds later that Dr. Deem was coming in – I think she had just gotten into her office when they called her.  I had never met her before, but she was so incredibly kind (as were all of the nurses) that I instantly felt better.  While she got ready, they told me not to push a few more times and I thought I would die.  Then she broke my water, I pushed through four contractions, during which I could hear Clarke saying “oh my gosh…oh my gosh…oh my gosh” and Arden was born at 7:44 – a mere two hours after my first contraction and hardly more than 3o minutes after we left our house. 

I got to hold her as soon as she was born, which I didn’t get to do with Huston, and Clarke got to cut the umbilical cord.  She scored a 9 and 10 on her Apgar test – a “9” one minute after birth and a “10” 5 minutes after birth, which apparently is very uncommon.  The nurse at the pediatrician’s office said she’s only seen 3 “10’s” in her seven years of working there.  She weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces – exactly the same as Huston – thus confirming my suspicion that she was waiting to be born until she had caught or surpassed him in weight.  She seemed so calm as they cleaned her up and weighed her and she had her eyes open almost immediately, just looking around without crying, surveying this new world she had entered.

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We had lots of friends and family come visit us the first day and Huston got to come up to the hospital, too.  He was more interested in pushing the elevator buttons in the hallway than he was in inspecting his new baby sister, but he must have been observing more than we knew because Clarke’s mom told me that later in the day he said, unprompted, “Baby Arden say ‘aaaah’” while flailing his arms around, imitating her crying noise.  He really enjoyed pushing the buttons on my hospital bed when he came up for the second time later in the evening, and drinking from the big straw in my cup. 

There’s lots more I could write about our first week home with Arden, but it’ll have to wait until later.  Stay tuned!

Arden Ruth

The UPS Man

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I couldn’t decide on a Halloween costume for Huston this year, but given his love of doors and doorbells, I could think of nothing more appropriate than a UPS man.  We stayed home and passed out candy this year, and Huston got really excited to hear the door ring and see the kids.  He especially liked helping put the candy in the kids’ bags.  In the pictures above, you can also see him helping himself to some candy and putting it in his own “munkin.”

His costume came with an adorable hat, which he, of course, despised and refused to wear.  Here are some pictures of him hating his UPS man hat this year, along with some of him hating his Yoda ears from last year.  We’ve got to get this kid a costume that doesn’t involve anything on the head!

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I tried to let his pumpkin wear the hat, but it only lasted long enough for me to take this picture.  Apparently, it’s really not okay for anybody to wear hats.

Big Boy Bed

I'm a little behind in posting this, but Huston has made the transition to his big boy bed! It went sooo much smoother than I anticipated, and he's loving his new room and bed. He slept in it for the first time on October 15th and went to bed just fine, but woke up screaming in the middle of the night. I think he was just confused and disoriented because that was the only time he has had any issue at night. The next day we tried nap for the first time and it was not successful. He ran out of the room several times and kept opening and closing the door. It was pretty hilarious, though, because he would always run back in his room and shut the door when he heard me coming to investigate. We finally had a successful nap on probably the third day of trying, and it's been great ever since. Although sometimes I do have to go in his room to remind him that he's supposed to be sleeping, because I'll hear him talking and discover that he's gotten about twenty books out and they're all spread across his bed.
Almost every morning when he wakes up and I walk in his room to get him, he says "all done seep-sing (sleeping) big boy bed." He always refers to it as his "big boy bed" - I guess because that's what I always call it.

Some randomness:

Huston has been really interested in his little storybook Bible lately. He asks to read his "Bible book" and last night he wanted to do it "all by self" (as has been his frequent request lately). I asked him to read it to me and he said "Jesus God's son, Noah build it big boat, Noah get two." I'm assuming the last part meant two of every animal. Pretty adorable.

"Elmo's World" has been replaced by "Barney" as Huston's favorite TV show. He especially loves the "Wild West Adventure" episode, which he refers to as "Barney clock in it" because there's a clock that rings at the end of the episode when it's time for the "showdown." (He is extremely obsessed with clocks). He almost always asks to watch this episode as soon as he wakes up.

He loves for me to sing the Barney song before he goes to sleep, and also likes to sing it himself. His version goes "I wuv you...fweet wuv me...we happy family...wuv me too." The other night I had asked him to say hi to baby Arden in my belly, which he did, and then he later came back and rubbed my belly and sang baby Arden the Barney song.

Huston has also discovered "The Dick Van Dyke Show" - a Rogers' family staple. He loves the theme song and gets really into the physical comedy and the dancing and singing on it.