Oslo Ryan is here.

We welcomed Oslo Ryan ten days ago; he came at 3:58 AM on 5/20, weighing in at 8lbs 4oz [the same as Cohen at birth] and was 21 inches long [half an inch longer than Cohen was]. It seems crazy! He was just in my belly and here we are ten days later, settled into a nice routine, exhausted but overjoyed. Cohen was confused at first; he cried when he heard Oslo cry. But he's already adjusted really well, and aside from him not understanding that some things have to wait until Mama finishes feeding the baby, his days haven't been too different.

It was so wonderful laboring and delivering at my midwife's birth center. Such a better experience than the hospital with Cohen. It was a quick labor and delivery [I will post my birth story soon] and we got to be home not 3 hours later after having him. It was nice to get settled in at home and catch up on some sleep. 

Darren spent the first week at home with us [aside from a few half days during the week, when GMaw & Aunt Mandee came to help out]. With the three day weekend that gave us 9 days with Darren at home. Cohen was thrilled. He got to spend so much quality time with his Dad that week, he loved every minute of it. Yesterday was my first day alone with the boys, and it wasn't bad at all. It's already 2 o'clock here and today hasn't been too shabby either. The nice weather helps--we spend a lot of time in the yard, even with Oslo on my boob, lol. 

Os nurses much better than Cohen did at this age. His sleep is as expected: 2-3 hour stretches in between feedings. I'm not worried about it, I know he'll sleep long some day :] For now I'm enjoying our quiet time in the middle of the night, since we don't get many private nursing sessions during the day. It's nice to snuggle him and talk to him in the quiet of the night. 

He's due to eat any minute, so I'll leave with a few photos and post my birth story in the next few days.

A few hours old.

4 days old.

Cohen wanting to pick him his baby brother.

Daddy trying to give Oslo a binky. No dice, he doesn't like them.

A day in the life with one baby.

I'm 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant now. Plankton is ready to come out, and I'm ready for him to be here. I had an appt with my midwife last night. Baby is very very low (I'm sitting on his head all day; it's uncomfortable). I'm 50% effaced, and 3 CM dilated. My cervix "is mush. It's very favorable" ... hm, alright. This is definitely happening soon. I have contractions all the time, hopefully they are helping me progress slowly so the day of labor isn't so bad. Cohen's labor was so quick so as soon as the contractions are feeling time-able I am jumping in my car and heading to her house. We are all set up and ready for Plank; his room is ready, the Rock n Play is next to my bed, ready for him to move in. My bag is packed, the freezer is stocked full of meals, and we're down to the countdown of 12 days (or less).

This has me thinking. I'm kind of freaking out. I have some long exhausting days with Cohen; what will life be like with TWO babies?! I wanted to post what a normal day is like for us, so that one day I can look back and read it, all while laughing my ass off at how hard I thought it was with just Cohen; I'll probably be crying on my keyboard because it will be way more difficult (and more amazing if possible) with two!

So this morning looked like this: Cohen woke up at 7. I'm not sure what he's doing these last few days, because he used to wake up at 8. I think we need to try keeping him up a big later. Anyway, Cohen was up and changed, the coffee and milk were poured, and I started on breakfast. C was impatient while I cooked (not abnormal for him) so I had to hold him half the time so I didn't hear him whine. He loves to watch me cook. I need to get him a learning tower. Anyway, I got him in his high chair with bfast while I finished up mine. We ate, he threw food, he threw his silveware, he signed "all done", but he didn't want to get up, he ate some more, threw some more food, and finally signed "all done" and got out. I cleaned up from breakfast while he played in his playroom. This doesn't usually last all that long, but some mornings he surprises me with his independent play. I reheated my coffee for the 4th time that morning and joined him in the playroom. We built some megablocks, read some books, sorted shapes, practiced animal sounds, played with his cars, read some more books, stirred imaginary food in his play pots and pans, and he rolled around with the dogs on the bed while I browsed Facebook on my phone.

 Doesn't that sound like a nice hour or two in the playroom? No, it was only 25 minutes at most. Cohen will not spend more than 5 minutes doing one activity. He's nuts. So we did it all again; basically just kept him entertained with music and toys and books for maybe an hour total. I made him his daily smoothie (he's obsessed. Fine with me; a handful of spinach and fruit blended with milk is a tasty treat to him). Then we went upstairs so we could get ready to play outside. I don't know what we're going to do when it's raining; we spend at least 2 hours a day outside. More like 4 or 5. It kills so much time, burns so much energy, and Cohen is in such a good mood. Anyway, we were upstairs for about 45 minutes--he played with the dogs and the toys in his room while I got ready. He watched a 15 minutes Baby Einstein clip while I cleaned the bathroom and sorted through some of his old clothes to pack away. I got him dressed and we went outside.

Swinging, running around, kicking soccer balls, shoveling, pushing around his tractor, more swinging, water table, and more running around. We spent about 45 minutes outside, took a quick trip to the store (he loves the ladies at the store, and they love him), had a snack, went back outside, checked the mail (his current favorite task), enjoyed more swinging and more running around kicking soccer balls. Finally it was lunch time; he was being a fuss bucket as he was tired, so it was a task to get lunch heated while he threw his fit about God knows what. But finally he gobbled lunch, we had a dance party in the living room, went back outside for a small session of YOU GUESSED IT-swinging. He was getting sleepy in the swing so we came inside, read some books, and I put him down for his nap. That was at 12:45. I was exhausted and now had the decision of what to do during naptime; I always get dinner at least prepped so cooking isn't so stressful later. So I did that, finished some cake ball truffles I made the day before, and ate lunch. Here I am now. It's 2:10 and I'm praying to get another 45 minutes at least. I'd love to do some yoga and fold the laundry in the dryer. Some days Cohen naps 3 hours--being outside exhausts him. Others, like yesterday, he only gives me an hour and half. You just never know how the ole nap is going to be.

I'm exhausted just thinking about the day we've had so far. Only 4 more hours until Darren gets home! Yikes! I'm out of here to get some yoga in before he wakes up. In a couple weeks I can write a post about a day in the life with my two babies--if I can keep my eyes open long enough to post! Ha!

Me at 9 months knocked up. 38weeks1day.

My bear on Mothers Day <3 Love him.

A couple of posts to come

I have three blog posts all started and saved, and I never finished any of them. I'm at work so I'm going to just finish all of them. First, an update post!

We're on the last few days of March and it's definitely been a better month than the other shit months we've had in 2012. I've been working a lot and getting bigger and bigger. Here I am at 31 weeks in all my glory:

It's insane how fast it's all going by. I have 2 months until this baby will be here! The crazy part is I"m literally excited to go through labor and delivery again; especially knowing it could possibly be my last time doing it. 2 might it for us. I can't wait to experience it again, and it will be so much different/better at a birthing center with just my midwife and some loved ones around. My midwife is really awesome, and I'm so glad I'm going this route!

Cohen is doing really well. Being a peach and sleeping 8:30-8ish perfectly, and has OFFICIALLY moved to one nap a day. Let me tell you about the one nap a day: at first you fear it. You're scared because you normally get a nice break from 10:30-12ish and then another one at 3:30ish. Cohen is normally an hour-90 minute napper in the morning, and then maybe 45 minutes in the late afternoon. I didn't always get to enjoy the second nap becaue I'd be at work, but that hour in the morning was CRUCIAL to my day going well. I'd usually prep dinner for the evening, do yoga, and clean, or enjoy some lying around time. So when Cohen started waking up after half an hour from his morning nap I was like.. WTF IS GOING ON. Then he'd completely skip his evening nap. NO NAP WHATSOEVA. I was full on panicing. Then about 2 weeks ago, I forced myself to keep him up later, no matter how sleepy he was. Instead of going down at 10:30 I started keeping him til 11:30 for a few days, and then eventually until 12:30 or 1. So it's definitely rough; he's up at 8 and I have to keep him happy and entertained for 4.5-5 hours without a break for myself. I'm still not used to it, BUT it pays off when he goes down at 1, and sleeps for 2 hours, sometimes even 3. YES. THREE HOURS. It isn't exactly glorious for me now because I leave for work one hour after he goes down.. so I have one hour to myself, and then I go to work. BUT I'm only working for another 5-6 weeks.. so soon I will enjoy that 2-3 hour nap EVERY DAY, and I will also have a new baby soon after that, so that long nap will be a God send.

Cohen has also become a signing master. Okay that's a total overstatement. He signs "more", "please", "all done", and he claps for "yay" and rolls his hands when we sing Patty Cake and say "roll it, pat it!" It's pretty cute. We're working on signing "milk" and "food" but he's taking his sweet time with those ones. It only took him like EIGHT EFFING MONTHS to learn "more" and "please".. Lol. Whatever. Any communication between us will help when there's a newborn on my boob all day long and I have to try to cater to Cohen, too. Oh fun times.

I've been doing a lot of work for Britt's wedding. It's coming up and I couldn't be more excited! I've done some help with the invitations, and tried out a few center peice ideas for her. Burlap wrapped around a mason jar with a bundle of dried lavender in it. So gorgeous and understated. I'm making an adorable sign for the flower girl to hold (Kev's neice) that we saw on Pinterest. It'll say "Uncle Kev, Here comes your girl" and she'll look adorable holding it! It's turning out cute. I've also done some emailing for her; getting quotes on flowers, cakes, etc. I'm trying to help as much as I can since I'll be out of work in May and then it'll be crunch time since the wedding is July 14.

I've been reading about photography. Just a little hobby to start. It'd be nice to have good pics of my kiddos throughout the year. I'm starting just by reading the fatty manual that came with my mom's Nikon d40 (that's what I'll be using, seeing as I "borrowed" it months ago and she hasn't noticed). Once I actually learn how to use it, I'll move on to reading some photog blogs to get a better idea of what I'm doing. It's just a little hobby to have on the side. Since, you know, I have so much free time.. :-/

Okay that's about it. Stay tuned for I'll finally be finishing my post about meal planning and hippie life. Holla!

let there be light.

"Oh look at me, I'm going to update all the time!!!1!"
But wait, I have an excuse. Last wednesday, at 4:30am we heard a loud, scary banging & then our power went out. We were already awake thanks to Cohen, who I'm guessing heard the first loud sound minutes earlier. Darren looked outside the window & just yells a medley of things in panic. I hear "explosion", "fire", "tree", "sparks". I'm obvs in hysterics & I call 911. Darren went down to see that 2 trees had fallen, 1 blocking (TRAPPING) us in the house. The other had completely ripped our powerlines out. Hours go by & nobody has come. I took it upon myself to call PUD (as the 911 operator said she would), & we weren't even on dispatch. Awesome. So after sitting in our freezing house for 5 hours, we bundle up & trek over a ditch to our neighbor's house. Food & warmth! We then spend a few hours with our friends Jared & Mallory before going home at 4:30 in the afternoon & PUD shows up an hour or so later. They cut down the tree & tell us they can't do much about our lines & to call an electrician. WAHHH. We stay at my ILs & the next day we find out its pretty bad, were looking at a week or so. :(

I hate to sound selfish or ungrateful, I know it could be a lot worse. But this past week BLEW. Cohen didn't sleep as well as usual, & would wake up at 6:30 for the day (not his norm). We didn't have any of our food but didn't have much room to fill up with groceries if we were to buy them. The tiny area for him to play wasn't as babyproofed as our house so I had to get off my lazy bum & chase him around all.day.long. It was rough on Darren & I not to have much alone time. Even just to talk about our day & cuddle like we usually do at the end of the day. Living out of a suitcase is not for me (or my 1 year old for that matter).

Fast forward a week, & were home. My car is toast for a week or more (stoopid) but I can't think about that right now. We just got power last night. We have no TV or internet, tho. So I'm pretty bored. Cohen & I have been playing a lot of silly games. Once he goes down for his nap ill be working on a few things for the nursery. Its almost done!! Just some curtains to make, a crib mattress to buy, & a few little crafts to finish. I'm excited!

I'm 22 weeks (& 2 days) but I feel closer to 30 weeks. The baby moves & kicks much more than Cohen did at this point. I'm showing now--I'd post a pic if I wasn't on my phone. Oh well.

Okay time to entertain my kid. Peace out girl scouts.