Laughing with Sarah

We went on a family vacation last week. There were many parts to it: driving to Des Moines, where Matt had a conference to attend. Sam and Ellie and I spent a day and half exploring the city. We went to the zoo and to the science center, swam in the hotel pool, and stuffed ourselves silly with good food. From there, we flew to New Jersey to visit Matt's family. The flight to NJ was uneventful and wonderful. Our kids really are great travelers. In New Jersey, we took an overnight trip up to Massachusetts to visit Matt's brother and family, and we took a day trip into New York City. Also great trips. Seriously. Our kids are great travelers. The night before we flew back to Iowa, we gave the kids a bath and changed them in to pajamas before Matt's grandmother ("GG," to the kids) came over for quick goodbye visit and playtime with Sam and Ellie. Earlier in the week, Ellie had received the gift of a superhero cape and crown, which she wore around ...

Eleanor Ann - 1 Year Old - December 27, 2017 Life with two kids is rich and full and wonderful and tiring...and some of the little luxuries, like blogging regularly and taking monthly pictures, have fallen by the wayside. The Type A part of me minds a little bit, because now Ellie won't have twelve matching monthly pictures in her baby book, and sometimes I feel guilty, because I managed to do all this for Sam...except that it was only Sam, and even then, it was a hard enough struggle to try to do all the things I wanted to as far as marking and celebrating his milestones. Ellie, we have been enjoying you (and trying to catch up to you!) so much that we haven't stopped to mark all of your milestones. We take lots of pictures and videos of you, but we are hardly organized, especially with some computer issues that have meant re-importing all of our photos, and so these days, we have doubles and triples of photos, stored in many and various places, and nothing is lost, but...

It hasn't been the best day. So I baked brownies. This morning, Sam and I waged epic battle over what shirt to wear. He insisted short sleeves, I insisted long sleeves. This led to an out and out refusal to wear a shirt at all. After about an hour of pleading, yelling, whispering, drawer slamming, bribery, guilt trips, reverse psychology, love & logic, and every other parenting maneuver (good, bad, and ugly)...he still was wearing no shirt. So I did what any reasonable parent would do. I picked him up, carried my shoeless and shirtless child to the car, and strapped him into the car seat, throwing a pair of shoes and a long-sleeved shirt into the front seat of the car. I put Ellie in her car seat and away we went. I naively believed that Sam would calm down during the drive and feel compelled to put on shoes and shirt when we got to school. Ha. He spent the whole drive demanding that I turn around, go home, and find him a short-sleeved shirt. We got to school and he r...

Five months...and twenty-four days...(June 20, 2017) Six months...and twenty-one days...(July 18, 2017) For those of you keeping tally at home, here we are at the halfway-to-Ellie's-first-birthday mark, which blows my mind. I cannot believe how quickly this last half-year has gone, Eleanor! You continue to shine as our our giggly, squirmy, happy, bouncy Ellie-belly. Big brother Sam can't get enough of you these days. He wants to shove his face as close to yours as possible, and grab your arms, and help feed you. He wants to hold you in his lap. He will pile your toys on top of you when he thinks you want to play. He calls you "Ellie-belly" like I do, and likes talking to you in the same sort of high-pitched voice that grown-ups use when they are talking to kids. I'm a little late in writing up this two-month update, so the timeline is a little out-of-whack, but this past weekend, at six months and three days or so, we decided to transition you out of...

Otherwise you'd cry. 7:30 a.m.: While snuggling with Ellie in bed and feeling grateful that it is Friday (my day off), I realize that Sam is still quiet, and wonder if I should wake him up or let him keep sleeping. It was a late bedtime last night, and very frustrating, and the boy needs his sleep. Except that Matt is about to leave for work, and if I am going to start the morning routine, it might be better to get Sam up now while there are two of us grown-ups. 7:50 a.m.: Wake Sam up. (This was my first mistake). He wakes up happy, and sleepily jumps out of bed to put on clothes because he is excited to go to Magpie for breakfast, like we do every Friday. He tells me that he is going to order a yogurt parfait. Before getting dressed, Sam asks me to read him a book. So I do. Then he asks me to read another book. So I do. 8:00 a.m.: Realize that I really really have to use the bathroom. Sam asks me to read him a third book, and I tell him that I will do it as soon as I am done...

This is the original of the picture that I posted to Instagram and Facebook yesterday, on Mother's Day. I posted it with the following caption: Never imagined I'd ever take a picture like this. My miracles number one and number two. #picaday #motheroftwo #babyeleanorann #bigbrothersam #mothersday #proudmama #ivf #infertilityjourney For anyone who has ever struggled with infertility, loss, or childlessness (by choice or not), or anyone who grieves the loss of a mother or a relationship with her mother, Mother's Day is a complicated holiday. For me as a daughter, I am one of the lucky ones. I have a fantastic mom, and we have a fantastic relationship. I have a wonderful mother-in-law, and we, too, have a wonderful relationship. But for me as a mother, my emotions on Mother's Day are still plenty complicated. My life these days is busy. Pleasantly so. My days are full of church and family, work projects and home projects, cooking, not enough cleaning, not nearly e...

Three months...and twelve days... (April 8, 2017) Four months (April 28, 2017) Once again, two months have flown by in the blink of an eye. All of the sudden, my little newborn is not so little anymore. Eleanor, you are bright-eyed, curious, emotive, sweet, smiley, easygoing, and feeling so much older than just your short four months on this earth. On the health front, you are doing great. At your four month check-up last week, you checked in as a long skinny baby who is pretty darn ahead of the curve when it comes to developmental milestones. It was nice to be at the doctor and have only good news. Earlier in March, you had a weird vomiting episode that sent us back up to the St. Mary's emergency department to get checked out. The good news is that everything was fine, inside-belly-wise (you tackled the repeat upper GI test like a pro!). The bad news is that you had sprouted an incisional hernia under your previous incision (a little soft lump poking out of your belly)...

One month...and eight days (February 4, 2017) Two months...and two weeks (March 15, 2017) Seeing as Eleanor's first month was pretty much dominated by hospital and doctor events (and seeing as life is a little too chaotic with two kids to take timely pictures and write timely blog posts), we're just going to shamelessly combine her one month and two month update into one post. Eleanor, you are settling into your own little personality! Your brother was a pretty easy baby. I remember thinking, at the time, that Sam must be the easiest baby in the world, an that we were so lucky. Well, you, my dear, are proving to be perhaps even easier than he was, at least in some ways. Sam hated being put down. You are quite content being set into a seat or swing. Sam needed to be rocked and nursed to sleep, and he often woke up in the transition from arms to bassinet/crib. You, on the other hand, are a champion sleeper. After the first week and a half of your life, when you hated be...

When Eleanor was born, I was totally shocked that we'd had a girl, since I'd been convinced we were having a boy. As I was processing the happy news of our little girl, I had a strange thought: "Hm. Since it's a girl, she can't have hypospadias like Sam did, so yay for not having to worry about surgery in the first year of this new baby's life!" I'm pretty sure I said this out loud to Matt. I'm pretty sure I jinxed everything. Eleanor and I came home from the hospital on Saturday, December 31, just in time for New Year's. All was well. In her first few days home, she didn't so much love sleeping at night - hated being on her back, and was awake every 45 minutes or so, which meant a lot of bleary-eyed days for us parents, and at least a couple nights of sitting up with her and sleeping on the couch. But other than that, all was normal. We went in for a weight check on Monday, January 2, and she had gained a great amount of weight, and the ...

Because Owlet's c-section was a scheduled one, and because it was scheduled for December 27, the only way that I was going to spend Christmas with my family was if they all came here, which they did. My mom came in time for Christmas Eve, and then everybody else came in Christmas Day or the 26th. Christmas Eve was a lazy morning of breakfast out (per tradition), and then gearing up for three evening worship services. After the first of those three services, both of my legs blew up like balloons. It hit me, then and there, that despite all of my anxiety about the c-section procedure, I was so very ready to be done with this pregnancy. I was tired. My legs were puffy. I had crazy heartburn. I'd slept on the couch more nights than in my bed over the last couple weeks because I couldn't get comfortable. I drank lots of water the rest of the evening, and came home between services to put on pj's and put my feet up. I committed myself to sit through worship except when I ...