One Month Old!

Today marks one month since Baby Julie met the world. It's hard to remember life without her. Of course it's hard to remember anything when you haven't slept for a month...

Julie is growing and growing. Her little limbs have stretched out and are starting to fill out. Her hair is showing more and more curl as her ends flip out in every direction. What can I say? She's still very sweet and, yes, she is still pulling her own hair.

Reese is going through some adjustment right now. She had been doing very well, but I think Todd's eye surgery threw her off a bit. Todd's been her buddy since Julie was born - waking up with her, taking her to school and picking her up, playing with her. Of course after having surgery on both eyes, he's had to spend a lot of time resting. He's almost back to normal now, but I think it's left Therese a little unsure about things again. Earlier this week she was crying in her sleep (while sleep walking one night!) and she's had a hard time when Todd's left her at school the past few days. We've resolved to spend more one-on-one time with her and trying to be more patient and she seems to be doing better. We have been working on what it means to "obey" - every time we tell her to do something or not do something she's been demanding reasons why. We've been trying to convey that she needs to obey because we are her parents and she needs to listen to us. This is where the need for lots of patience comes in. Anyhow, yesterday she was telling Todd to do something and said, "I'm going to give you 3 reasons why. First, BECAUSE I SAID SO..." Ha! I hope this isn't what we sound like to her!

Reese has continued to crack us up in other ways. On Wednesday, when we were eating lunch, she informed me with all sincerity, "Mommy, if I didn't have a belly, I couldn't eat food!" I told her that is true. Then she said, "And if I didn't have a belly, I couldn't give you a hug! You'd go right through me!" :-)

On a final note, I'm starting to get a little concerned about Reese's theological beliefs. Every night before bed she gets to pick one Bible story for us to read to her. Last night she requested "the one where Jesus cuts off the guy's ear." I was pretty happy when she started liking VeggieTales because I thought maybe she'd absorb some of the Christian lessons brought out in the cartoons. Of course now she just runs around telling everyone, "On VeggieTales, on Jonah, they say UNDERWEAR!" (I have asked her if they also talk about mercy and compassion to which she answers, "Yeah, at the end. But they say UNDERWEAR!")

Therese showing off her ECDC shirt. She thinks it is HILARIOUS because it has four hands on it...

Crayons, Where Are You?

Sorry once again for the lapse in posts and pics, but we are all still recovering from Todd's eye surgery last Friday. Todd's recovering from having his eyes muscles messed with and I am still making up for the lack of sleep suffered from taking care of both girls (Todd, being the wonderfully nice husband that he is, usually gets up with Reese between 6:30 and 7:00am since Julie is a bit of a night owl).

Last week my dad and Jan visited for an evening to meet Julie. She slept the entire time. Well, not the ENTIRE time. She woke up to eat twice and then fell immediately back to sleep. Reese enjoyed their visit, especially going outside to play Frisbee with Todd and my dad. Todd’s parents also visited for a few days in order to help take Todd to Indy and back home for his surgery, bring us meals, meet Julie, and watch Reese over at her cousins’ house. She loved spending time there and has been begging to go back ever since.

Reese’s penchant for pretending has been rapidly developing. She likes to make us coffee (she prefers brewing Ethiopian and Sumatra coffee even though she won't drink them because she says they’re “too bitter”), hot chocolate, tea (usually Irish Breakfast Tea), and she makes me “carmy mochawakos” (caramel macchiatos). We have quite the pretend Starbucks running in our playroom. She has also taken to talking to her crayons. Maybe that isn’t so strange. What is really strange is that they’ve started talking back to her. She’s appeared to convince them to play hide-and-seek with her. Thus a conversation (all from Reese) that I heard the other day went something like this:
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 – Ready or not here I come! Crayons, where are you?”
“We’re over here!”
"Where?"
"We're hiding in the cushions!"
“ There you are."
Reese has also recently developed a love for telling us stories. This week we’ve learned a lot about her cousins and her friends at school. Incidentally, we’ve also been trying to work on distinguishing between being silly and telling lies. Earlier this week she told me that a lie keeping a blueberry in your mouth and not chewing it… Right... We’re having trouble with this. How do you explain a lie to a 3 year old? Especially a silly one whose sense of humor and fun you don’t want to ruin? She further challenged us last night by asking what the word “through” means. It is remarkably difficult to explain the word through, especially in 3 year old language. Try it. It’s hard.

Julie continues to grow and settle in to life outside the womb. She is starting to sleep in larger chunks of time (making it to 3 hours a few times now!) and is having more awake time. She is the spit-up queen, soaking her clothes (and ours) with great regularity. She is still sweet and rather quiet, not crying much unless she’s too tired, being changed, or (of course) pulling her own hair. This week she had her first bath in her little baby tub and, true to form, spit up in the bath water right away. Reese loved putting water on Julie’s belly a little too much. She’s such a good helper.

Ok, now after all of that, here’s what you’ve been waiting for – some pictures:

Julie loves her bouncy chair almost as much as we do

Knocked out

Julie trying to eat my finger
(I don't know why this got turned around)

So sweet

Reese in her new hand-me-down shirt from cousin Anna

Three Year Old Theology

With a campus minister for a mom and a future theology professor for a dad, it's bound to happen. The topic of God is bound to come up. Yesterday Reese sidled up next me on the couch, put her hand on my knee, and with all seriousness said, "Mom, God isn't a boy or a girl. Isn't it silly that on VeggieTales they called God 'He' and 'Him'?" Then she laughed at how funny it is that Larry the Cucumber referred to God as a "He." Yep, Todd's definitely been working on her...

Going Home and Settling In

We were released from the hospital the evening of Friday, July 2 to face our first (nearly) sleepless night at home. My mom and Dave came to town on Saturday afternoon in order to meet Julie and to offer some help. They cooked great food, helped with laundry, and ran Reese ragged. Therese has been adjusting to her little sister very well - she is very concerned when Julie cries, is constantly putting more blankets on her "to keep her warm" (despite the 90 degree weather), and gives her plenty of hugs and kisses. She is very sweet, but maybe a little too smart. When we brought Julie home, we explained to Reese that the rocking chair in the family room is "the chair for rocking babies" because she kept trying to kick me out of it while I was feeding Julie. Of course, the next time Reese wanted to sit in the rocking chair, she grabbed her baby doll and told me that I had to get out of the chair because she needed to rock her baby :-). She has also started "feeding" her baby the same way I do... Of course sometimes it is from her belly button. She likes to explain to us, "She's not eating ME, she's eating MY FOOD."


Julie is still very sweet. She recently discovered that she can cry at times when I'm not changing her clothes or her diaper, but we in turn discovered how to make her take a pacifier. She still doesn't like to sleep for very long and thinks midnight is a wonderful time to play, but she's so cute that it's hard to be upset by that. Like all babies, she has an iron strong grasp. She's super wiggly and fast. Yesterday, when Todd bent over to give her a little kiss on the cheek, she stole his glasses. She wriggled and waved them around before Todd could get her to relinquish her new treasure. On THREE different occasions now, we've heard Julie scream her lungs out only to find her fist clenched around and pulling on her hair. We had to pry her individual fingers open to get her to stop hurting herself. Todd tried to explain to her that she's not displaying the kind of intelligence expected in this family :-). Poor little girl!


Here are some pictures of us settling in to being a family of four:

Julie in her carseat
Mamie and Papa reading to Reese from one of her "big sister" presents

Our little burrito

Yep, she learned to cry

Reese rocking her baby

Getting some sun

Who is bigger - Reese or Julie?

Mommy and Julie
Ready for bed - we had to take away her hands so she'd stop pulling her hair

Reese's FAVORITE - "the jumping sprink-a-ler toy" from Mamie and Papa

Baby Julie's Birthday!

On June 30 at 7:37pm Baby Julie entered the world. She was 6lbs 9oz and 19 inches long. We can't get over how small she is (Therese was 9lbs 4oz!). She cried very little (accept when the doctors and nurses were poking at her) and has yet to cry much. She's very sweet and very content. When she "smiles" we can see a hint of dimples in her little cheeks.

Therese had been so excited to meet Baby Julie. Everytime someone would ask Reese when Julie was coming she would say "on her birthday." She insisted that we would sing Happy Birthday to her when she was born. Therese came to the hospital on Thursday (July 1) to meet her little sister. She stared through the nursery window and said in a very soft, high-pitchced voice, "Awwww, she's so cute" and "Awww, she's so sweet" over and over again. She had everyone in the hallway cracking up. She also liked to repeat, "Look! She has such a little nose and little holes!" (by which she meant nostrils).

Here are some pics of the big event:

Baby Julie the night before birth

So little!

Daddy and Julie

Reese meeting Baby Julie
Snuggled up ready to go home
Daddy holding Julie
Todd and his two little girls