Photographic Evidence of Second Child Syndrome

We have fully documented evidence of Second Child Syndrome at our house. In this case, the evidence is the lack of photographic evidence of our second child. With Evan, it's almost as if we never put the camera down. First bath...we have fifty-three pictures. First drool, twenty-four pictures. First diaper...ok, just kidding.

Amy is now holding her head up quite well, grasping objects and pulling them towards her, and occasionally giving out cute coos, smiles, and laughs. Evan is learning more new words every day, and has started stringing words and phrases together to make 5-6 word sentences. We are thankful that he can communicate 95% of his needs instead of crying until we guess what it is he needs. Strangely enough, I think the arrival of his baby sister kicked his language development into gear. It's almost as if Evan is thinking, "Well, I better learn to talk, or they'll never have time to figure out what I want!"

With the arrival of Amy, we've reached "Hang on, it will get better" mode. Kudos to all of our friends who told us that having two is more than twice the work of one. I took Evan out on Thursday afternoon to go to Birdsong Nature Center and the public library, and let me tell you...just being responsible for one child is paradise. Thankfully, Evan is usually just fine by himself. He has started the rapid descent into the twos, which in our house means that he can amuse himself quite well, play well with us, and has a relatively predictable schedule. All of these highly desirable traits go out the window when Amy's needs supercede his.

Evan is being a predictable first child whose life has been interrupted by the arrival of a second child. He is being very sweet to Amy and not trying to hurt her, as I have heard some first children will try to do. Instead, he is working his torture on his parents. (Full disclosure: as a second child myself, I am sincerely sorry for being the root cause of any emotional trauma my older sister may have inflicted on my parents.) Evan's current psychological weapon is saying one thing, but meaning another. For example: dinner is over, Evan says "all done" and pushes the plate away. Picking up the plate and taking it away brings crying usually reserved for those watching "Untamed Heart." (if you've seen it, you know.) We're learning not to give in to this, and hope that it will stop soon.

Amy is being a typical second child. Her only trouble seems to be some acid reflux, which if you're thinking is the same as spit-up, is not. The fine line dividing the two seems to be multiple hours of gasping crying episodes whenever she is put into a horizontal position. We have some medicine for that, and it seems to be helping. Combine the acid reflux with her having to adapt to Evan's schedule, and one can reach new levels of "baby's upset." Because Evan and Amy are almost exactly two years apart, our friends say that all will be better when Evan is three and Amy is one. We're sure that is true, but right now...that is 287 days, 4 hours, and 55 minutes away. Suggestions until then?

We are home!

Christie and Amy were discharged from the hospital this morning. Christie is doing very well, and Amy is continuing to look cute and sleep a lot. She has to use her bili-blanket for another day or two to help with the jaundice, but at least we're home!

All is well

All is well here in NewBabyLand. Everyone got a great night's sleep. NewDad was declared the smartest man on the ward for having an Aero bed. Perhaps there could be a side business here...selling Aero beds in the waiting room? We woke up several times for Christie to feed the baby and for the nurses to check Amy, but we got excellent rest.

Several commendations are in order here. Thanks to the grandparents, Julius and Julia, for swooping in when Christie went into labor and taking care of Evan while we went to the hospital . Christie went into labor around noon on the 3rd, and we went to the hospital around 9 PM. Christie wasn't far enough along to be admitted, so we came back home to rest and wait. Around 1 AM, "not-kidding-around" contractions started and we went back to the hospital and were admitted.

Thank you to the nurses and midwife who helped with the delivery. They definitely studied up on bedside manner, as they made us feel like part of team that does this every day. The labor went without any complications, and Christie was the only person delivering a baby for most of the time, so we got lots of attention. This is in contrast to Evan's birth, when the entire ward was full of women in labor and Christie's doctor arrived in our room right as Evan was being born. I'm not sure of the name of the nurse we had that night, but let me tell you, she knew her stuff.

Thanks to Dad again, who came along to the hospital on the 1AM trip and sat in the waiting room. He brought his camera and computer equipment, and within thirty minutes of Amy's birth, had multiple pictures posted on his Picasa website.

Thank you also to Kevin and Stephanie, who hosted Evan's pre-birthday celebration last night. Kevin and Stephanie's son, Morgan, now shares Amy's birthday on July 4th. Christie had this great idea to get Evan's birthday (July 26th) celebration out of the way before her due date (July 19th). That way, we'd have the party done before she was 40 weeks pregnant or had actually had the baby. You see how well that turned out. =) I was able to go to the party for a while, and Dad and Julia brought Evan. Everyone had a great time!

Amy is doing well here at the hospital. It looks like we will be able to come home tomorrow, assuming that the results of some blood tests continue to go in the right direction. She is having some bilirubin/jaundice problems similar to the ones that Evan had when he was born, but so far, she's responding much better to the light treatment than Evan did. We may have to take the bili-blanket light home with us, but we'd prefer that over staying in the hospital for 4 days like we did with Evan. She is sleeping well, nursing well, and looking cute.

I've added a box at the top of the page. My email address list that I use to send out messages is getting unwieldy, so I'm experimenting with setting up a real mailing list. You can subscribe to the list, unsubscribe yourself from the list, change your email address, etc...without having to go through me. I will continue to send out the regular email list a few more times, but after that I will go to the user-managed list.

That's it from here. I'll post more after we get home.

Born on the 4th of July!

Amy Grace Ariail arrived on the scene at 7:23 AM. She weighs 7 pounds, 13 ounces. Christie was in labor for about 17 hours, but had no complications. Amy Grace started crying immediately upon arrival, but quickly settled in for a snack and was quite content. Now she is in the nursery getting her first bath. More to follow...

More pictures will be added at my father's photo site in the 2008-0704AmyGraceAriail folder.

Evan Goes Blueberry Picking

In an effort to give Christie some rest this morning, Evan and I went blueberry picking. He loves to eat blueberries, but has never seen them growing. When he got out of the car, he walked over to a blueberry bush and got a very excited look on his face. He pointed at the bush and proclaimed "Buberr!" I could not be prouder.

Check out the video of the morning's events.

Let the Waiting Begin

Christie finished week 34 on Tuesday, and reports that she is ready for this whole thing to be over. For those of you who are not oriented to pregnancy math, the end of week 40 = due date. Delivery before 38 weeks is "premature," but anything after 38 weeks is "normal." Anything past 41-42 weeks doesn't happen much anymore, because most doctors feel the need to "do something" at that point. Scientific studies are inconclusive on whether the "do something" need is caused by the 42-week pregnant woman grabbing the doctor by the collar and saying "DO SOMETHING!" or not. Although I think pregnant women might be able to survive past 42 weeks, I'm not sure their doctors would. More research is needed.

Christie has been busy nesting over the past few weeks. For you fathers-to-be out there, "nesting" is a polite term to describe how everything you thought about the way things should be for the new baby is wrong. Seriously, the quickest way to figure out the best arrangement for baby furniture is for the father-to-be to pick the arrangement. That way, the worst possible arrangement (WPA) is immediately seen and the mother-to-be can see clearly to the best possible arrangement (BPA). Note to fathers-to-be: The BPA can and will change...sometimes daily.

On a more serious note, Christie really does have things coming together here. The nursery is 90% put together, the car seat is in the car, and the hospital bag is packed. Newborn diapers are stocked (have they always been that small?), and the infant toys have been unpacked. Soon we'll start cooking some food to throw in the freezer. That's for the nights to come when achieving cold fusion looks easier than cooking dinner.

In other news, Evan is saying lots of things now. Our favorite is "stop" and "go." He knows what red and green traffic lights mean, so he is quite happy when he sees one while we're out and tells us what to do. Occasionally at a red light, he gets impatient and says "go," and thinks it is funny.

Evan's second birthday is rapidly approaching, and NBG's due date happens to be about a week before that. We're doing all we can to get things taken care of while being mindful that we could actually have a second child anytime before, on, or after Evan's actual birthday. To that end, we're celebrating his birthday a few weeks early with one of his friends whose birthday is on July 4th. Evan's only two, so I don't think he's got the actual date of his birthday pegged in his Blackberry just yet.

Christie has also set up a registry for Evan (and NBG as well). We're experimenting here and trying out myregistry.com. Please understand that we're not asking for gifts here...it's just a way to answer that question of what to get if you were planning on getting something but hadn't yet. On the main page, you just put in first and last name (Evan or NBG, Ariail) and the appropriate registry comes up. It's pretty neat, and Christie reports that it was very easy to set up.

Other than that, we're keeping busy here with Evan. We're enjoying the last few weeks of one of us being able to take a break while the other one plays with Evan. According to knowledgeable friends, that period of life is going to come to an end very soon. We'll take it while it lasts.

It's a Girl!

That's NBG (New Baby Girl) in the picture above. Christie and I went in to the doctor's office Friday afternoon for a 4-D ultrasound. If you've only seen the old 2-D ultrasound images, the 3-D/4-D images fall into the "medically unnecessary" category. You pay for it out of your own pocket, but those pictures are so amazing! I've posted a 3-D image above, but we got to see several 5-second clips of actual video (that's where the 4-D name comes in). We managed to see the baby yawn a few times, stick her fist in her mouth, and generally look cute. If you look closely in the picture above, you can make out a hand (close to the mouth) and a foot (level with the nose, but to the right).

We almost left the doctor's office without pictures and without knowing our new baby is a girl. The ultrasound technician was having trouble with the machine because the computer was crashing, so we didn't get very far the first time. As we were packing up, I mentioned that we just wanted to know the gender...so the technician kindly rebooted the machine and turned on the older 2-D technology (that didn't crash the computer). Within seconds, we confirmed it was a girl. If that hadn't worked, I was going to be convinced that we didn't need to know at all and that we should wait. To make a Friday night even better, the 3-D/4-D ultrasound worked this time and didn't crash. Both parents were ga-ga at this point. I'm quite relieved now, because we were having trouble coming up with boy names again.

Christie is about 30 weeks in now, and she's ready for week 40 to be here and have the whole thing over with. She has stopped sleeping well, can't breathe deeply, and is having back pain issues periodically. Thankfully, the back pain seems to be linked to the baby's position...so it does come and go as the baby moves around. We are currently in a good phase right now. I have no idea what it is like to be pregnant, but I do know what severe back pain is all about. If you've never had it, it isn't one of those "oh, suck it up" kind of things. I'm guessing that's what the whole pregnancy experience must be like.

Evan is doing very well these days. He is babbling a lot, and can say many recognizable words. At least, they're recognizable to us. He's signing and saying "more," which is a useful concept to understand. He also regularly uses:

• mama/dada
  
• yes/no
• juice
  
• milk
• blueberry (ok, it's "bu-bear," but we know what it means)
  
• choo-choo (too cute!)
• thank-you (it's tank-u)
  

Evan is running around, getting into all kinds of things, and generally being an outstanding 21-month old. We've avoided our share of major disasters lately, with the only notable exception being the inevitable discovery of fire ants. His hands and arms had about 20 bites each, so he looked pretty rough for a while. Still, if you ask him today where the ants bit him...he'll point to his hands. We think he learned that lesson well. Maybe he can teach his little sister to avoid that in the future.

Um, we have some news...

I'm guessing that by looking at the picture above, you can figure out what the news is. With my apologies to those of you that didn't know already, WE'RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!! Woohoo! Christie is about 19 weeks in, and today was the first ultrasound. All went well there except for determining the gender. The baby was pointed in the wrong direction, was turned the wrong way, and was generally uncooperative as far as that important information was concerned. I'm convinced that it overheard Christie and me talking this week. You see, we were all decided that we wouldn't find out the gender until it was born. Then, earlier this week, we changed our minds...thinking it would be nice to register for girl clothes if we need them. NewBaby overheard that decision and immediately moved to stop that one. We know babies make life more difficult and can be frustrating at times, but this one is getting an early start. We have another ultrasound in two months or so, and hope to learn more at that point.

Christie has been progressing through this second pregnancy well. Somewhere in our conversations, we had briefly entertained the thought of three kids. During a hazy week of the first trimester, Christie emerged from the bathroom and said that plan was cancelled. The first trimester was predictable. It wasn't as bad as it could possibly be, but it did involve the typical symptoms on a daily basis. Yuck. Somewhere around 13 weeks, all that went away and the "good" trimester started. She has been able to feel the baby for a week or two now, and I was able to feel it moving yesterday. Having felt that and heard the heartbeat today, I am now convinced that this is really happening. Christie was convinced around week 1.

Evan is doing well and is growing fast. He is now 19 months old and is walking, climbing stairs, babbling, and starting to feed himself with a spoon. He's only using a few words at the moment, but we know that he knows more because he can listen and do simple things that you ask him to do. He still loves reading books with us, although we confess that we do occasionally "lose" the book that gets read 20 times a day. It usually turns up after a day or two. If you click on the changing photo in the upper right corner of this page, it will take you to my Google photo site where you can see more pictures of Evan and family. Below that link, there are three YouTube videos of Evan. Two are from earlier postings, but the top one is pretty new and features Evan "reading" one of his favorite books. I've still got something to figure out about the aspect ratio, b/c Evan looks a little squashed...but that's a project for another day. If you want to see what a more professional job looks like, head over to schmoopiebeta.com and watch the iPhone parody commercial made by some friends of ours with a baby just a bit younger than Evan.

In closing, we just have to pass along some thanks to Evan's grandparents. About three weeks ago, Evan came down with the flu. He got over it in a day (thanks, Tamiflu!), but Christie got it next. She went down hard for about a week. I had to work, so Dad and Julia came and picked up Evan, took him to their house and kept him for two days. That, however, was not good enough for them. When I went to pick Evan up, they also sent me back home with a casserole for dinner that night and a pound cake because it was Christie's birthday. How awesome is that? Baby-keepers that send you back home with food? That's like having a babysitter pay you. Thanks, it was delicious!