Nighttime stories

Story time is still one of my favorite parts of the day. We've been doing this routine since Ellie was just a few months old. These days Ellie and Katie show up to the couch or mom-and-dads-bed each night with a stack of books, so I'd say they enjoy it, too. After stories the girls drag as many books as we'll allow into their beds and usually stay up "reading" on their own for another 30 minutes or longer. I love their enthusiasm for books even though it sometimes means grumpy girls the next morning if Brian and I don't go in at some point to enforce "lights out."
We're getting Charlie into the mix now, and Ellie loves to help hold little brother during stories when his mood allows for it. Hopefully we're raising another bookworm. 

1-2-3

One... Ellie in October 2009

 

Two... Ellie and Katie in March 2012

And three... last week :)

Three is not as easy as anything, never mind what song lyrics might lead you to believe. Our lives right now are absolute chaos. A haze of sleep, eating and feeding, work, cleaning ... and repeat. Luckily I've been assured by friends with this many (or more) kids, that life will be like this for the next 18 or so years. I won't lie. I've had a few "what have we done?!" moments since we brought Charlie home from the hospital... but we're having a lot of laughs and fun amid the madness.

Soaking it in

Wondering what Charlie and I are up to in recent weeks? Well he's either doing this:

Or this:

But we also get a little of this calm awake time from our little man.

In short, Charlie and I are doing great. It's weird how life with a newborn is both completely monotonous (feed, change, lull to sleep, repeat) and completely chaotic. I don't know what each day and night will bring -- whether Charlie will sleep for 10 minutes or 2 hours; whether he'll insist on being carried around all day or be content outside of mom's arms for a bit; whether he'll save some extra pee to release mid-diaper change or be kind to mom...
As these days of my maternity leave too quickly turn into weeks and fly by, I'm trying to soak up every moment with Charlie. I treasure our cat naps together, and I even try to appreciate our middle of the night feedings. Love this little guy.

A quick rewind

Yes, I was smiling in this picture... but I don't miss the days of that belly. I know I will somewhere down the line, but for now I'm enjoying the freedom of being able to sit down for story time with the girls without packing into the chair like sardines. Of course, just because Charlie is on the outside now doesn't mean he wants to be left out. He usually decides to wake up and fuss right when one or both of us is trying to settle down for stories with the girls. Also, like any self-respecting baby he senses when we've all finally assembled at the dinner table and makes sure to pipe up right then. Charlie is making sure he's still a big part of it all. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Love from sisters

Ellie and Katie are moderately obsessed with their new brother. We hear 100 times a day, "Look at the little baby!" in a sing-songy voice from Ellie, as she prepared to kiss and maul Charlie. Katie chimes in when she can and loves to offer kisses and hugs to little bro.
They are usually somewhat gentle, but neither totally gets how fragile Charlie is (despite his birth weight!). The blue chair pictured above rocks a little and the girls have nearly catapulted Charlie out in their efforts to push him up and down in it. He's going to grow up a tough little man.
I've seen hints of jealousy from both girls in these first couple weeks. Katie is asking for me to pick her up and to sit in my lap more than she has in recent months, and Ellie is acting out to try to draw attention away from the baby. It's adding some stress in a household with already sleep-deprived parents, but we're working through it.
Overall I'd say Ellie and Katie are handling the new addition to the family pretty well. I see they truly love this little man... and I foresee each of them teaching him bad things in the years to come!

Let's play... Ellie or Charlie?

 We have some baby picture twins on our hands! Can you tell apart the Ellie and Charlie photos?

(Pics 1, 3 and 5 are Charlie... 2, 4 and 6 are Ellie.) 

Charlie's big debut

Have to share the story of Charlie's arrival while it's still fresh in my mind. Two weeks ago today I went in for a checkup with the doctor. I was cranky, exhausted from lugging around my massive belly, and uncomfortable. I expected the doc to give me a sympathetic look and send me off with a "let's wait and see what happens."
But instead Brian and I found out I was already dilated to 4 cm and the doctor was ready to sign off on speeding up the delivery process a bit. The ultrasound that morning showed Charlie was already measuring 9 lbs, 6 oz and since I wanted to try to avoid a c-section, the doctor didn't want the baby getting any bigger. (I was also fine with that... and I was hoping the ultrasound size estimate was on the large side, like it was when Katie was born smaller than anticipated.)
A couple hours later, Brian and I were checked into Rockford Memorial. I was a ball of nerves. There are definitely pros and cons to having been through labor before... I knew it was a big job ahead, and more than likely Charlie was a bigger baby than I'd ever delivered.
My water was broken, which helped speed up contractions. (Side note: as evidence of how tight the quarters were in my belly, when they broke my water not much came out. The medical staff found out later that was because a huge pocket of it was plugged up near the top of my belly by Charlie's body. It doused the floor and some of the doctors and nurses later in the evening after Charlie came out. Oops!)
I got an epidural somewhere around 6 p.m. and they inserted an internal monitor to track Charlie's heartbeat and my contractions. The contractions, though they felt plenty strong to me before getting the epidural, weren't moving things along very well so I got some pitocin. However, they soon had to back off the pitocin because Charlie's heart rate was dropping from the strong contractions. They put me on oxygen to help improve oxygen to the baby. We waited a bit longer and finally I was at 10 cm.
The doctor came in and asked me to do a test push on the next contraction. After one round of pushing, at 8:25 p.m., she called for the labor bed to be broken down. Charlie was coming.
Now the scary part. I pushed so incredibly hard, eyes shut and all of my energy into it. Brian was so supportive, and the nurses surrounding me kept saying what a good job I was doing. The head was out after the second round of pushing. I didn't know what was going on, but Brian told me later they had to cut the umbilical cord from around Charlie's neck. They wanted to get the rest of him out pronto.
I still wasn't really sure what was happening, but kept pushing beyond belief when told to. In those find rounds of pushing (just lasting a few minutes more), the doctor had to do some wrangling to free Charlie. He had shoulder distotia, and Brian told me later how scary it was to watch them sweep one shoulder out and press his head down to free the other shoulder.
At 8:33 p.m. Charlie was born. They rushed him across the room to the newborn bed and I waited to hear his cry. I kept waiting and asking why he wasn't crying. Brian told me everything was fine, but unfortunately he's a terrible liar and I could see the fear in his eyes. He watched them work on Charlie's limp, purple body for what felt like an eternity. I guess it was just moments or minutes. FINALLY, we heard Charlie crying and I dissolved.

Our little prince was fine, though his face and shoulders were bruised from the rough delivery. I certainly was worse for the wear, too. But as soon as I got to hold Charlie in my arms, nothing else mattered. He was perfect. I once again got to experience the limitless mother's love. I couldn't imagine loving anything more than this little person who was finally in my arms after 40 weeks of waiting.
The nurses immediately started guessing his weight. At RMH they wait an hour after birth to do weight and other measurements on the baby, instead giving that time for skin-to-skin contact with the mom. I was NOT complaining. When I finally did give Charlie back to the nurse, we found out he weighed 9 lbs, 15.6 oz. He was 21 inches long. Our little man was not so little!
What a perfect bundle, though. Thankfully his bruising disappeared in the first few days and he seems to bear no scars from what could have been a much more traumatic birth. We are so blessed to have this healthy, happy St. Paddy's Day baby boy.