More updates and pictures

Jude seems to have recovered from the tongue clipping very well. He is struggling with his latch occasionally, but he is having to re-learn how to nurse again. He latches better on one side than the other. I think it is just how my body is made that it is easier for him to latch on my right side than it is on my left.

Last night was great! I think he only got up twice to eat, so I got fairly decent sleep. YEAH!!

He is still a good baby. Not crying much, mainly just when he is hungry or wants held. Julia is still a bit jealous, but we are working on it. She still very much loves her brother and is in his face a lot! Although, it really upsets her when he cries, especially if she is holding him.

Oh, and the poor boy is wearing pink! I don't have a lot of boy outfits in his size. The ones I do have I try to save for when we leave the house. So when we are just hanging around the house, he wears a lot of Julia's old clothes. Oh well....

Here are some pictures from the last 2 days...

Daddy taught her how to climb the TV antenna tower at Jerrod's parent's house.



I changed Jude's diaper on my lap and this is how he fell asleep....


And some quick pictures from tonight. I cannot believe how much Jude has changed looks in just 5 days!! His skin has also cleared up a lot.

Full bed

Julia sure has a full bed. She insists on sleeping with both her Blankies, her babydoll, her baby's blanket, a sippy cup of water and now has added a stuffed lizard and book to the mix. The stuffed lizard and book were a gift from Jerrod's aunt and uncle right after Jude was born. They are a HIT!! I have to read the book several times each night at bedtime. Julia also has several other stuffed animals at the foot of her bed.

Her bed can look pretty crowded most nights, but as long as she is happy and confortable, I am okay with it!

Tongue tied is clipped

We had Jude's tongue tie clipped today. It was worse than the pediatrician had thought. The dentist that did it said that he grades them on a scale of 0-14, Jude was an 12! Apparently all the nursing issues I was just passing off as him just learning (struggle to latch, long nursing sessions, breaking off frequently, etc.) are all classic signs of being tongue tied.

Two quick snips and it was over. Jude was more upset over the instruments being in his mouth than the actual procedure! A couple cries and he was better. The doctor did have me nurse him right away so he could hear if he was using his tongue. Jude was back asleep before we made it back to the car.

I think tongue tied must be hereditary because we have found out that several people on Jerrod's side had the same problem as babies. We actually think Jerrod might be slightly tongue tied. The doctor said one of the issues adults have is that they cannot roll their "r", and Jerrod can't. Upon looking, I can see that Jerrod's membrane attaches MUCH farther up towards the tip of his tongue than mine does.

So now I am really glad we decided to just have it clipped. AND Jude stuck his tongue out at me for the very first time tonight! I did not realize until he did it, that I had never seen him do it before. He never did it before because he couldn't!!

Today's pictures

Today we learned that if Julia uses the "Boppy", she can hold Jude by herself without us having to hold his head!! She was very excited about this.


She loves holding her little brother..


Cuddles have to be shared...


I leave Jerrod and Julia alone together for 5 minutes while I nuke some lunch and this is what I come back to find!! I told Jerrod to make sure Julia did not get marker everywhere, I did not think that HE was going to be the one using the marker inappropriately!!


This picture is actually from yesterday.
Our first family picture as a family of four!

Four generations

On Sunday Jerrod's parents and grandparents came to visit. We took advantage of having four generations all together and snapped a couple pictures.

Four Generations of Couser men..... And yes, all Couser males look alike!!



Four generations of Couser females, plus Jude.....

Comfort level

It is amazing how much more comfortable and laid back you are with a second kid.

The difference in Jerrod is just astounding!! With Julia he was scared to hold her, change her, dress her, etc... As a result, he rarely did. Most of that came from having never been around babies before and just not knowing how. Now with Jude he is an old pro!! He is constantly holding him. He has even changed several diapers! He says changing Jude's diapers are SOOO much easier because he knows his way around boy parts. He said that with Julia, he just did not know how to clean her well.

Jerrod is also able to deal with the crying a LOT better!! Not that Jude cries a lot, but sometimes I am tending to Julia and he is crying to be fed and Jerrod has to console him until I can finish up with Julia. Not only is Jerrod able to deal with Jude's crying, he can actually calm him down!! This is a MAJOR improvement from Julia's infant days.

Tongue tied

Jude's pediatrician appointment today went well. He weighed 8lbs 12oz., but my milk came in yesterday so I figure he will be back to his birth weight in no time.

The rash he has is partly just a newborn rash, and partly that he just has sensitive skin. Julia was the same way, so I know how to deal with it. I am refraining from milk right now too in hopes of helping.

The only issue the pedi found was that Jude is tongue tied. Basically, that little membrane that connects his tongue to the base of his mouth has grown too far forward. So his tongue has limited movement. This can effect nursing and later in life can effect speech. The treatment for it is to clip it back when they are babies.

I could either go to a dentist my pedi recommends who will just do a quick snip of the membrane in his office, make sure he nurses well, then send us on our way. Or I could go to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist who would put Jude under general anesthesia for the procedure, which would also involve a hospital stay. Needless to say, I have an appointment with the dentist tomorrow for the procedure.

Actually most pediatricians will just do this right in their office during a routine visit. Unfortunately, my pedi has never been trained on how to do it, which is why she recommended this dentist.

Quick update

Things are going well. Julia loves Jude but is a bit jealous of all the attention Jude is getting, especially from me. The fact that Jude nurses for so long is not helping. She want mommy to do everything for her. She is also doing a lot of "look at me" things. We are trying to give her a lot of personal attention and praise. We will just have to see how things go.

Jude is still doing well. We had to take him to Children's today to have blood taken so they could re-test his jaundice levels. They were high yesterday at the hospital, just under the level of treatment, but at a level where they usually keep the baby an extra day to re-test. They only let us go under the condition of having him re-tested today. Lucky, the levels increased only slightly, which means his jaundice levels have probably spiked and Jude's liver will now soon catch up and clear up the jaundice.

The first night home went well. He was up several times to eat, but I did manage several hours of sleep. So it was not too bad. Julia screamed her entire first night home!

Jude is covered in a rash though, I think I remember Julia having this same issue. I guess Jude has just as sensitive skin as his sister. We will just have to be careful about what products come in contact with his skin.

Now for some pictures.....





For some reason this picture is flipped the wrong way, but I thought it was just to precious and had to share it anyway.

Eating machine!!!

Jude is an EATING MACHINE!!! From the time he was born, he was an excellent nurser. My milk has already come in and he will nurse for an hour if I let him. I was still struggling to get Julia to nurse at this point. He is already a much easier baby than Julia was. I just hope that keeps up. We go back to the pedi tomorrow, I am interested to see what his weight is....

What a big difference in kids....

Here he is....

Jude is nursing as I type this..... This guy can really nurse!! I was still struggling to get Julia to eat at this point.

Here is baby Jude......




Big sister Julia is pretty excited about him too.

Jude has ARRIVED!

Sorry I did not post sooner, but I apparently cannot log into Blogger from my phone. So this post had to wait until we got home.

Jude Brokaw arrived at 8:20am July 31, 2009 after a QUICK labor and 3 pushes. He weighed 9 pounds and was 22 inches long. He looked pretty beat up at first, with lots of bruising and swelling on his face, but a lot of that has cleared up already.

Contractions started about 1:30am, but did not start to get really painful until about 2:30-3:00am. We got to the hospital at about 5am. At 5:30am I was only 1 cm dilated, by 6:30am I was 5 cm. They actually tried to slow labor down a little so my favorite midwife could get there in time. Jude was also sunny-side up and my midwife had me in a couple different positions to get him to roll over before the birth. Luckily, he did.

I did the whole thing natural, no epidural. I was regretting that fact right before delivery because of the pain level and the fact that I was getting almost no break in between contractions, but it was all over really fast and I am glad I did it.

I am downloading pictures now.

Today the day?

I think this little boy might actually be born today.....

Finally in labor. Packing bags now. Contractions every 2-6 minutes apart and PAINFUL!

Will update when I get a chance.

Ride 'um cowgirl!!

These are from a couple of weeks ago.

Jerry and Debbie dug out Jen's old bouncy horse for Julia. She thinks it is great and loves "riding the horsey".

Congrats to my sister

My hometown county fair is this week. Today my littlest sister (who is in her last year of 4-H), showed her beef feeder calf. Unfortunately, they arrived at the fair today to find that the calf got really sick over night. They had the fair vet look at it and it was feeling a bit better by show time, but still did not look as good as it should have.

Despite all that, she won Grand Champion Beef Feeder with it!!!

Although, it was really funny seeing her pull around a calf. It was not something I ever thought I would see!

Congrats Stacey!!

Progress?

I am hoping I am making some progress towards going into labor.

Yesterday Julia and I went to the fair to watch my nephew and sister show their pigs. I am not sure if it was all the walking, the heat, the chiro adjustment I had that morning, or what, but I started having more regular contractions. By the time we left the fair I was having contractions averaging about every 5 minutes (one of the reason we left before the show was over). Some of them were starting to get a bit uncomfortable too.

Unfortunately, once I went to sleep last night, they fizzled out. So far nothing today!

I am hoping that the regular contractions I had yesterday is a good sign that maybe labor will start on it's own really soon.

Jerrod's family thinks it is going to happen today because today is the 28th. Jerrod was born on 11/28, Julia on 12/28, Jerrod's grandma on 1/28; so they think the 28th is a day that babies are born in their family. Well, if that is going to happen, something needs to start happening really fast!!

I want to go back to the fair this afternoon and watch my sister show her feeder calf, but Jerrod is not to sure I should be driving that far (it is about 40 minutes away). BUT walking the fair is what brought on the contractions last night, so maybe they will do it again tonight!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Today I turned 31! Had a pretty relaxing day. Julia was sick and wanted held a lot, but I did not mind that, it is so rare that she will let you hold her anymore.

My in-laws took me out for lunch and brought me a birthday cake. They did not stay long though, since Julia was not feeling well.

The rest of the day, we all just lounged around the house, and did not do too much. I wanted to sweep and scrub the hardwood floors, but Jerrod would not let me. He said they were fine and he was not going to let me do any crazy nesting cleaning today.LOL

I did start a new book today and I am loving it so far. So I think I might just go to bed early tonight, read awhile and actually go to sleep fairly early!

I thought maybe Jude would come out and share my birthday, but I don't think he wants to share his birthday with his mommy!

Sick Julia

Julia is sick today. This is the first she has been sick since this winter. She is running a fever and just wants held. When I ask her what hurts, she opens her mouth (so I think her throat hurts). I think this is one of the first times Julia has been able to tell us where she is feeling sick at.

Luckily, once the medicine kicks in, she is feeling much better, but still complains about her mouth hurting (once again, I think she means her throat, she just does not know what a throat is.). So she has ate several popsicles today. She was loving that!

Normally, I would wait a day or two to see if she gets better on her own before making an appointment to see the dr., but with a baby due to arrive anytime, I think I will try to get her in tomorrow if she is still feeling poorly in the morning. I don't want her to get worse, only for me to go into labor and then Jerry and Debbie have to deal with Julia being sick, dr. visit, etc. I also don't want her being sick around the new baby.

Talking in the third person

I am not sure if this is normal for a kid Julia's age, but Julia still talks a LOT in the third person.
It is almost always "Julia go do this", "That is Julia's", "Julia did that", etc..., it is rare for her to say "I", "Me", or "Mine", when referring to herself or her things.

I don't know if I should start correcting her on it or just let it be. I am not worried about her speech or language development, she is leaps and bounds ahead in that department. This is just one of the weird quirks I notice she does.

Overdue!

Well, I am now officially overdue!

BUT, I figured this boy would be late. I really love being pregnant and try to cherish every moment of it since there was a time I did not think it was ever going to be possible. That said, I think I am ready to be done being pregnant this time. I am VERY lucky that I have fairly easy pregnancies. Even now, I really don't have much to complain about, so I am trying to be patient.

Here is me in my overdue pregnant belly glory!!! (Take today at 40 weeks, 1 day pregnant.)

Night out at the farm

My dad's birthday was yesterday. So we all went over there last night to celebrate. But since the fair starts this week, the fair animals still had to be worked with.

We had supper first, then all the fair animals came out to be worked with. Julia was LOVING IT!!!

Petting the "cow". It is actually a feeder calf, but I thought that might be a little too detailed for Julia. I was impressed she touched it.



She tried to feed the calf a sugar cube, but the calf licked her with his rough tongue in the process and she did NOT like that. She has a weird thing where she does not like to be licked by animals.

The four oldest cousins climbed up on the tractor to watch the pigs being washed on the trailer hooked to it.




Uncle Bill was also washing the calf.


Yum.... A freeze-pop!!


Walking the pigs with daddy. This is the first time Jerrod has walked a hog since he was in 4-H 15 years ago!! (Jerrod was helping walk some of the pigs)




Julia found a Sit and Spin. She really liked it and was getting it to spin her around pretty fast!


After all the animals were taken care of, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Grandpa (my dad). They then re-lit the candles and sang to me (my birthday is tomorrow). She loves birthdays and singing "Happy Birthday", so she thought it was great that she got to sing it TWICE. She even helped me blow out my candles!!

Today is Due Day!

Well, today is my due date with this little guy. Unfortunately, I don't think he is planning on coming out anytime soon.

Had a midwife appointment yesterday. Still no progress. Although, she did find the heartbeat up high on my belly and she was worried that he flipped breech again. I was almost positive that he was still head-down, but she wanted to make sure. So I got a 20 second ultrasound right then. They had the probe on my tummy long enough to see that he was indeed still head down and measure the heartbeat. Whew!

I am also starting to get cankles. I guess I cannot complain since I am full term! My hips are also really starting to bother me. I think running after Julia makes the end of pregnancy a little harder on my body.

I already have my appointment scheduled for next week. We will talk then on a induction date. Urgh.. I really don't want to be induced again. I will deal with it if I have to, I just hope I don't have to.

Oh, I still have not packed my pack. I had always heard that if you had everything ready weeks before the baby is due, the baby would definitely come late. Well, I thought maybe the opposite would be true, that if I did not have things ready, he would actually come on time! So much for wishful thinking!

I think I am going to take Julia to the Boonshoft Museum this morning. This way she burns off some energy, my house stays clean, and I will walk, walk, walk and maybe that will help move things along!

I will definitely be posting any major updates in my blog!

Do all kids do this?

Potty training has been going well. But I have noticed lately that she is having accidents right in front of the toilet. It is like she needed an extra 2 seconds to get on the potty. Is this normal for kids who are potty training?

I try not to get mad at her for this. She is at least trying to make it to the potty. It is just frustrating to clean up when if she would have just not waited quite so long, she would have made it.

Meeting her new cousin

My older sister had her baby last week.

Today we were both at mom's house making homemade applesauce. Julia got to meet her new cousin, Justin, for the first time! She was in LOVE... She just loves babies...

Saying 'hi" to Justin for the first time...



She just wanting to touch him, and kiss him and hold him, etc....

Stop on Red!

I now have a little back seat driver!

Julia has recently started to pay attention to the color of the traffic lights. S0 I explained to her that red means stop and green means go. So now every time I pull up to a red light she tells me to "stop on red" and then "waiting til it change green". Once it finally does turn green she tells me "green means GO!". So now as I drive through town, I have a little back street driver telling me how to drive!

Julia is also really starting to stutter a lot when she talks. I am not concerned about it. I really think it is just her brain is working faster than her mouth and she is trying to talk faster than she can; which makes it come out as a stutter. I'm sure it is just a short phase she will soon be over. In the mean time, I am trying to be patient and let her get the sentence out without me saying it for her.

I also quite often get a running commentary from Julia about what is going on in the show she is currently watching. This is especially true if it is something she was seen before. Then I get a play-by-play of what is going to happen. It is just so funny and cute!

Gavin almost died yesterday

Gavin is our youngest cat. He is probably close to 5 years old, but is a perpetual kitten. He is also deaf. BUT he is Julia's buddy. That has saved his life more than once, including yesterday!

Jerry was over trying to finish up Julia's new room. He was painting the closet doors. Anytime we do a messy project around here, we lock Gavin out of the room, because we know the havoc he can cause. Well, I guess I forgot to warn Jerry about it. He started painting the doors white while Julia, Debbie and I were out picking up some last minute things. When we got home he explained that Gavin about lost his life...

Jerry had put the wet paint can lid on top of the dresser while painting. He knew Gavin was in the room with him, but did not think too much about it. Next thing he knew, Gavin was no longer around and there were white cat paw prints all throughout the house!!! Yep, Gavin stepped in the paint lid, then proceeded to track paint all over the house. When we got home from the store, Jerry had just finished going around the house on his hands and knees scrubbing up all the white paw prints! Luckily, we have hardwood floors and it was fairly easy to clean up.

Jerry said he thoroughly cussed out Gavin and kept telling Gavin how lucky he was that he was Julia's buddy. I tried to explain to him that Gavin did not hear a word of it, but I think that mattered to Jerry.

(Disclaimer - We would never actually kill Gavin, I was just being dramatic. His perpetual kitten antics are a bit much to put up with some days, but he is a wonderful cat.)

Eye dr. appt

Julia had an eye dr. appointment this afternoon.

Normally I would not have taken her to the eye dr. until she was closer to starting school, but she was doing this weird blinking thing that I did not know what it was. She did not seem to be straining when playing, drawing, etc.. The blinking appeared to be a sub-conscience thing and not something she even realized she was doing. I figured it was probably either hay fever or a weird toddler quirk. But my brother had really bad eyes as a young boy and even went through a couple years of eye therapy to help correct some of his eye issues. Soooo, I thought it was better to be safe than sorry, and have her eyes checked out. We are paying for vision insurance on her anyway.

First off, her eyes are just fine. The dr. said the blinking must just be some weird quirk she recently started. He did say that she will probably have to have glasses in the future. Apparently, at Julia's age, toddlers are supposed to be far-sighted. Julia was not. You would think that was a good thing, but it is not. Luckily, she was not near-sighted either. She was right smack in the middle, not far-sighted, but also not near-sighted. He said that at her age, that is usually a good indication that she will become near-sighted in the future. Not surprising since both Jerrod and I are near-sighted and wear glasses for it.

Secondly, I am SUPER IMPRESSED with how well Julia did at the dr.'s office. I was telling her all day that she was going to the eye dr. and he was going to look in her eyes. I explained to her that he was going to shine a flashlight in her eyes, look really close into her eyes and might even stick things on her eyes. I told her how it did not hurt and how mommy and daddy has this same dr. look at our eyes. By the end of the day she seemed pretty excited to see the dr. I know she always does better at a dr.'s visit if I explain everything before hand. Well, it worked even better than I expected!! He had her identify different pictures of different sizes, covered her eyes one at a time, had her wear funny glasses, shone a flashlight in her eyes, even used the machine where you have to put your chin in the little holder while he looks deep into your eyes. She was not afraid of any of it!! She was not even hesitant about doing these things. I thought for sure some of it was scare her and she would start crying. That was not the case! I am still amazed!

So unless we start noticing her having problems seeing things far away, she does not need to go back until she is closer to starting kindergarten.

Yellow Rings

Since the Air Show was going on this weekend and all the jets flying over makes it really loud at our house, we try to stay out of town on this weekend.

Yesterday we decided to take a stroll through a hippie town not too far away called "Yellow Springs". When we told Julia where we were going, she kept saying Yellow Rings. THEN, once we got there, she kept asking where the "yellow rings" were at!!LOL I guess she thought it was a thing, not a place.

Just outside of Yellow Springs is an AWESOME ice cream place. They produce their own milk from their jersey cows right there to make their ice cream. You cannot go past without stopping for some ice cream.

I think this was the first time we have gone since Julia has been old enough to eat ice cream. We let her pick out her own flavor. She said she wanted the "blue one". Which turned out to be Cotton Candy. We let her have it anyway!

I think she enjoyed it!!


And this is what I saw at one point during the drive... She said she had a "snag" that she was getting.

More big girl bed success!

The second night of the big girl bed went even better!!! Actually, I could not have asked for it to go any better!!

She skipped her nap yesterday, so we went to bed a little earlier since she was so tired. She cried a little when we put her in bed because she wanted to sleep on the couch. But I tucked her in and sat right next to her and sang to her. I think she was asleep by the third verse of Amazing Grace!

Then, we did not hear a peep out of her all night!!! She came up to our room about 7:30am (her normal wake-up time). She was saying the sun wake up (her cue that she is allowed out of bed).

I think I will now wash up the crib bedding and move the mattress up to the infant setting!

Big girl bed

Last night was the night we made the move to the "big girl" bed for Julia. Her room is almost complete, just adding some finishing touches now. It is done enough for her to sleep in. We bought sheets for her new bed yesterday. I still need to get a blanket for the bed and Debbie is still working on the quilt top, but we can just use her quilts from her crib until then.

Here she is as we tucked her in.



She is AWESOME!!! I was expecting a fight to keep her in the bed. She tried to get out when I was tucking her in, but I explained to her that just like when she sleeps in the crib, she is not allowed out until the sun comes back up. (That is the only way we can keep her from climbing out of the crib) Well, it WORKED!! She was asleep in about 30 minutes and did not try to get out ONCE!!!

She did fall out of the bed around 4am this morning and came up to bed with us. But she did fall back to sleep in our bed until 7am. (She almost NEVER sleeps with us.)

I consider this a HUGE success!! Hopefully tonight goes just as well, if not better!!

Julia did look so tiny in the big twin bed. So grown up...... Very bittersweet.

39 weeks

I am 39 weeks pregnant today. That means one week until my official due date.

I had my midwife appointment this morning. Not much happening in the way of progress. In fact, the midwife told me to go ahead and schedule my ultrasound and appointment at 41 weeks. In this practice, if you go overdue, you have to have an ultrasound at 41 weeks to make sure the baby is still fine. After that, they will let you go to 42 weeks before they induce you. So the midwife does not think labor will happen anytime soon.

I am sad at the lack of progress, but not surprised. I figured that I would go late again.

I really want to avoid induction again, but that may not happen. Maybe if I wait until 42 weeks it will be a little easier. (I was induced at 41 weeks with Julia.)

So it could be 3 weeks yet before I have this baby!

Other than that things are doing fine. Having some swelling in my ankles this week, but nothing too bad, I can still wear my rings too. I have been having heartburn, it is almost impossible to bend over, and I think Jude just might break a rib with his kicks, but nothing to complain about.

I did get Jude's hospital bag packed this week, but not mine. I figured it will take all of 5 minutes to throw stuff in a bag, so I am not worried. I can do that while in labor if need be. Same with Julia's overnight bag.

The toys are MOVED!!!!

Well, we did not get Julia's room done today. We just have to paint the closet doors, varnish the entry door, put on door handles and touch up the trim. One more day should do it. I am holding off taking pictures until it is completely done. BUT, it is done enough that Julia can move in. I had Jerry build LOTS of shelves in Julia's new room, this way all of her toys can be stored in her room and NOT in my living room!

I will post pictures of the shelves when I post pictures of the new room.

BUT since the shelves are up, I finally got to move all of Julia's toys out of the living room!!! I cannot believe how much bigger the living room seems now!! That girl has got a LOT of toys!! There are a very select few things that will stay in the living room, just because of space. (the barn and cozy car)

This is what the living room looked like before, with all of Julia's toys cluttering it up....


This is what it looked like tonight after I got all of Julia's toys moved and things re-straightened. The blue and white bins under the coffee table are the baby toys. I thought that this would keep them separate from Julia's toys and also teach Julia that Jude can only play with the toys from these blue bins and not her's.


Gavin was also checking out the change....

Really thirsty?

This was taken 2 weekends ago.

I made coffee, and of course, Julia needed some. A little bit later I thought I would see if she liked cranberry juice.

This is what I saw when I walked into the living room! She was drinking out of both cups!



In other GREAT news, construction should be finished tomorrow on Julia's new room!!! Hopefully Friday night will be Julia's first night in her new room sleeping in her "big girl" bed!! I will get pictures after it is done.

Diaper bag

It is so funny that we were finally getting to the point where we did not have to drag a diaper bag with us everywhere, only to have another baby. So we will be dragging a diaper bag with us for at least another 2 years!

I did buy a new diaper bag for this baby. So at least it will look nice for awhile...

Clothes hamper fun!

I thought Julia needed a new clothes hamper for her new room. This way the smaller one can stay in the nursery. I could not decide if I should get a fun one, or a more traditional looking basket-type one. I think I made the right choice!!

Julia LOVES, LOVES her new clothes hamper. She thinks it is really neat to play in!



This is what it looks like when the "lid" is closed. It is supposed to be a lady bug.


This is what happened when I said to wave at me so I knew she was in it.....


This hamper has been HOURS of entertainment to Julia so far. If I would have known that, I might have bought it much earlier just as a play toy!