May 14th, 2008...Finally a word...

Hi All! Yes, it has been entirely too long since we last made a post. Things have been fast and furious around here lately, as most of you already know. We were finally getting somewhat used to being a family of four when life decided to throw some curve balls.

First of all, for those of you who don't know my best friend Anna has been in the hospital since March 4th. She went in for "minor" surgery on her jaw. There were some complications of the surgery that left her in a coma for awhile, and she is still recovering at this moment. Anna is making tremendous improvements, but it will be a long road.

That same day I was rushed to the ER only to discover that I have a bad gallbladder. Never fear, that bad boy is coming out tomorrow (May 15th). I am nervous about that, but am confident that things will go as smoothly as possible.

The next morning Dan was in another car accident, which resulted in the total loss of our second car the Elantra. Fortunately, he was not hurt in this incident. We are now the proud owners of two new cars, and thus two new car payments.

I also went in, unexpectedly, for surgery at the beginning of April. That went well, and I am ecstatic that is now behind me.

Now that all of that is out of the way, on to the stuff you all have been waiting for:

Aiden and Natalie are doing very well. Aiden is now 4 1/2 months, and Natalie is anxiously awaiting her 4th birthday. We registered Natalie for pre-school this year. She will be attending the Magothy Coop Preschool in Pasadena. The coop means that parents help out in the classroom, which makes it really nice and personal. As as teacher and a parent I love this idea. At his last appt (April 25th) Aiden was a whopping 17lbs 14oz (95th percentile) and 27 1/4 in (97th percentile...wonder where he gets that from). He started smiling at the end of February, and laughing soon after in the middle of March. His favorite things to laugh at, besides big sister Natalie (whom he adores and gets very upset if she ignores him) is having his feet touch his cheeks, playing peek-a-boo, and jumping up and down either in a jumperoo or on Mommy or Daddy. Around the second week in April I noticed he picked up the drooling habit and was "biting" me a bit. Well, lo and behold on April 18th his bottom two teeth popped through!!!! I still cannot believe it. Natalie was easily 7 months or so before her teeth started coming in. Aiden has been rolling over since late March/early April, and while he has not quite begun to crawl (yes, I realize it is still very early for this) he does dig his toes in, pop his bottom up in the air, and then slide across the floor on his face. It doesn't seem very comfortable, but he is like a little inchworm. I thought I would have several months left before I had to worry about him being mobile. I've said it before, "What am I going to do with a boy???!!!" We have not settled into a routine yet, but we are working on it. With everything that has been going on, it's been difficult, at best, to get anything really productive done.

Natalie is still enjoying ballet very much, and is looking forward to her recital in June (the 14th at Northeast High). She LOVES Aiden, particularly his head, and has been a great big sister. We have experienced a bit of trouble with adjusting to a baby in the house, but all in all I can't complain too much. We have to occasionally remind her to be gentle, but she just wants Aiden around all of the time. She loves to show him how to do things. Dan or I usually have to hold Aiden just so and say (yes we are fed our lines), "Watch Sissy brush her teeth. Aiden, do you see Natalie eating her vegetables?" Both Dan and I have found that our patience is much thinner than it is. Part of that is just the hustle and bustle of life in general, but we are both convinced that at the age of 3/4 children lose their minds. At first I was concerned. I thought it might just be Natalie. But, I see my friends' children and my niece and nephew exhibiting very similar behaviors, and their respective parents also at their wits end. So, it's just the age. Dan will say it is the "willful disregard" of what we tell Natalie, and the endless questions that do us in. Yes, we get the typical "Why" or "How" questions. Those aren't so bad. It's the, "Daddy, tell me what question I want to ask you; " or "Why do I love to collect caterpillars?" When we can't give her the right answers (and how could we since, well, we're not her), she becomes furious!!! Just recently she has been getting into some heavy conversation though. I think a lot of it has to do with the events that have taken place recently, and just natural curiosity. I mean in one night Dan went from explaining the creation of the Earth (big bang theory) through evolution. A few nights later we discussed God, Jesus, and heaven. Natalie wanted to know where heaven is. I thought Dan did a wonderful job explaining it to Natalie. He told her that we can't see heaven until we die and our soul goes there (we had a long discussion about what a soul is, how it gets to heaven, how it gets out of your body, etc.), and because of that people like to pretend it is up in the sky. So, we're thinking that it is definitely time for pre-school, and we're also talking about taking her to church sometime. We just need to find the right place. Probably a local unitarian church, but we'll see. It never ceases to amaze me how bright Natalie is. Yes, she's my child, and I am going to think that. That's cool, because those of you who are parents get to feel the same about your children. I just am in awe of this little person that is a part of Dan and I...even if I want to strangle her at times. I mean she is a typical toddler/preschooler in every sense of the word...good and bad. But, I am so proud of her thoughtfulness, imagination, and compassion. This morning, in fact, she thanked the Earth (something she has been talking about since Earth day) for "being the best planet." Oh yeah, and she gave her brother oxygen the other day by waving flowers in front of his face. This, the result of our conversation about how plants and trees are necessary because they put oxygen in the air that helps us breathe. She's our little tree hugger!!!

So far this year we have taken a few small trips with family. We went to Longwood Gardens early in the year with Dan's family. Even Aiden enjoyed this trip. We also were lucky enough to go to the Baltimore Zoo in April with our cousins from NC. That was a great time, and Natalie enjoyed playing with her cousins Alex, Chloe, Samantha, and Ginny! Well, that's about enough for now!! I am posting some pics, which I know is what you all really want anyhow. I promise we will get more up a.s.a.p. (hopefully Dan will have time to work on that while I am recouping this weekend), and we will be sure to post more blogs.

Hope you are all well!!!!

More family resemblance

O.K. Danielle here for a brief moment. I was looking through some of our pictures, and came across some old ones. I have been taking most of the credit for the looks of our children. I have always stood by the fact, however, that Natalie is now looking more and more like Dan and that Aiden was born with, at the very least, his daddy's eyes. Well, here is a picture to take in. This is actually Dan...but I swear to you this is Aiden in disguise!!! By the way, baby boy is now 11lbs 10oz and 22.1in long. He's doing well, but is in reflux meds (thank goodness). They seem to be helping a bit, but it's still too early to tell. Natalie is still enjoying being a big sister, and I think we are finally getting somewhat used to being a family of four. I am feeling much more normal now...so bring on the visitors (if you so wish)!!!!

Somebody call Guiness; I think we have a record here.

Aiden pooped on the ceiling.

This entire post will be about this event, so if that's not the sort of thing you'd like to read about, then you might want to browse through the older posts and see if there are any that you missed. Or you can look forward to my next post, which will be a nice one about Natalie's joy at being a big sister.

Ok, now that we've gotten rid of those people, we can continue. So, as I was writing, Aiden POOPED on the CEILING. Mind you, this was not as a result of a game of Spiderbaby (think Spiderpig from the Simpsons Movie). Aiden is too little to appreciate being Spiderbaby -- unlike SpiderNatalie, who laughs uncontrollably -- so we haven't tried it. Even if we had tried Spiderbaby, he would have been wearing at least a diaper, and, in keeping with the law of gravity, one would expect that a game of Spiderbaby would result in poop on me, rather than poop on the ceiling. But I'm starting to digress. The point is that Aiden was on this changing table, which sits 32" above the floor, when he managed to poop on our 8' ceiling:














This actually happened about two weeks ago, just a day or two after we brought Aiden home. I had his diaper off in order to change him, and shortly after peeing on me, he had a particularly explosive bowel movement. I hadn't noticed the mess on the ceiling or the wall at the time, because, frankly, it never occurred to me to check whether he had pooped on the ceiling. So it was the next day that I happened to notice a stain on the wall. Investigating the source of this stain caused me to notice another stain on the wall, and the stain on the ceiling. If one drew a line connecting these three dots, it led right back to the changing table.

I think this may be record-worthy because of the distances involved here. First, he got the ceiling. Based on the way I usually place Aiden on the changing table, I measure the distance between the stain on the ceiling and the launch-point at 6'8":

This picture was taken with the camera on the changing table at the approximate launch point. In order to avoid a distorted sense of scale, I set the focal length of the lens to 35mm, which, for a digital SLR camera, is approximately equivalent to the focal length of the human eye.

With the camera set up the same way, I measured the distance to a cluster of stains located between 7'3" and 7'8" away:

Thanks to my lovely assistant who helped hold up the tape measure, albeit with a lot of sighing and eye-rolling.

Finally, the one that I will submit for consideration as the world's record for distance covered by poo propelled unassisted from an infant less than 1 week old: a wall 9'8" away:

Because of the angle, it was too difficult to get a picture of this one with the measuring tape in place, but the stain is located behind the nightlight, which appears near the center of the frame, just to the right of the first round wooden post.

So that's all for now. As you might imagine, we have quite a bit of cleaning up to do, and not just because of this incident.

No. of times Aiden has peed on Daddy: 6
No. of times Aiden has peed on Mommy: 5
No. of times Aiden has peed on the new carpet: 8

A Little Family Resemblance

Aiden at 1 day old.

Natalie when she was a few days old.

I think Natalie's forehead is a little taller and her nose is a little longer, but other than that, they look quite a bit alike. Danielle says that their mouths are different, but I'm not convinced.

Happy Birthday Aiden!

Aiden Daniel Smith was born at 6:23 pm on Christmas Eve. He was 9 lbs. 13 oz. and 20 3/4 inches long. That makes him and inch or two shorter than his sister was at birth, but over a pound and a half heavier.

Aiden started on his journey at about 2:30 am on December 24th, when Danielle's water broke. She wasn't having contractions then, so we took our time getting ready and headed to the hospital at around 3:30. Danielle starting having contractions every 3-4 minutes along the way.

When we arrived, Danielle seemed to be in active labor, having strong contractions every two to three minutes. She continued to have them for several hours, but after 11 am, she stopped making progress. Her doctor convinced us to try Pitocin at around 1 pm. But Danielle, being exhausted and worn down from almost nine and a half hours of labor, decided that she would not be able to bear the pain of Pitocin-induced contractions without an epidural.

The epidural turned out to a great decision. Danielle got a little sleep while she had her strongest and most frequent (and painless!) contractions. Unfortunately, after a few more hours of hard contractions, she still hadn't made any more progress. Danielle's doctor recommended a c-section around 5:30 pm. Although it was the last thing she wanted, Danielle agreed that it was probably best for Aiden.

The surgery started about ten minutes after six. Around 6:23, we heard the doctor and her 3 assistants all gasp simultaneously and cry out "Oh, my GOD!"

That, of course, threw Danielle into a panic. But we quickly realized that it was not an aortic hemmorage that has caused them to cry out, but rather shock at Aiden's size. The rest of the dialog among the surgical staff went something like this:

"Wow! That's a big baby!"
"That's 11 pounds, at least."
"I'll bet 11."
"Get that baby on the scale; I can't wait to see what he weighs."
"Ow! He bit me." (the surgeon)
"That's future linebacker there."
"Oh, he's peeing on me."
"He's breathing well. Nice and pink, that's what I like to see."
"I'll help you clean him off."
"Oh, he's peeing again."
"He got me that time."

A few minutes later it was all, "congratulations," and "here's your baby." It turns out that he was not even quite 10 pounds. But he was more than big enough. A mark on his head showed that no matter how long Danielle had pushed, he would not have come into the world any other way. So the delivery was not what we had intended, but we feel like we make all the right decisions.

Danielle says that surgery was painless, and that she did not even experience discomfort while the surgeons pushed and pulled on her belly. In fact, the only discomfort she experienced was from her IV, which was rather poorly placed in a small vein in her hand.

Danielle is now experiencing the pain and discomfort of recovering from major surgery, but Aiden is by every indication, happy and healthy. We expect to come home on Thursday.

Aiden managed to pee on the nursing staff a third time before we left the operating room. We're going to have to be careful about keeping him covered.

Under New Management

Dan here. So I think this blog thing is supposed to be my deal now. What does that mean for you? Probably less frequent and shorter posts, and almost certainly poorer spelling.

So here's what new (I started this post a month ago, so actually, these things aren't really new any more. Consider this fair warning about the future quality of these posts):

(1) Baby shower. I thought we shouldn't have a baby shower because we've already had a baby and we have most of the stuff we need. But, I was told in a diplomatic sort of way that I'm apparently a baby-grinch, and that I should just pipe down and clean the house.

Anyhow, we had the party a few weeks ago. It was a huge success, with a much larger turnout than we expected. I think Danielle was a bit overwhelmed by the preparation and the number of people, but she had a great time. We received many thoughtful gifts. Many thanks to all those who helped make the day special for Danielle, and a special shout-out to Mia, Anna, and the Moms (Turner and Smith), who all went way above-and-beyond in helping us get ready.

Not that anyone cares, but I vacated the house during the estrogen onslaught, and went to see Dan in Real Life, which was very good.

(2) Carpet. We bought a lot of it; just shy of 900 square feet. It looks great. We should have done this a long time ago.

Those of you in the market for carpet might want to know this about Home Depot's much-advertised special featuring whole-house carpet installation for $199: it does not include removal or disposal of the old carpet, which adds $299 to the price. It also does not include installation on stairs ($4/stair) or moving furniture. After learning all that, we went elsewhere.

Pictures

Nikki was in town from Texas a few weeks ago. Amanda and Josh stopped by to catch up on old times.

And here are some pictures from Thanksgiving at Grammy and Granddad Smith's. Aunt Connie helped the kids make a gingerbread house.

Natalie loves her cousins. And she especially likes to shower Alex with hugs and kisses, whether he likes it or not. (Connie took this one.)

Grammy bought T-shirt transfers for the inkjet printer. Every kid got a T-shirt with his or her picture on it. Natalie is decorating hers with a fabric marker. (Connie took this one too.)