TERRIBLE Twos

Last night was a night to hopefully never repeat. Lily tested every ounce of patience I have. Which, with limited sleep, isn't much. She woke up at 2am and didn't want to go back to sleep. Joel sat with her for about 45 minutes and she was all quiet and presumably back to sleep. However while he was sitting with her Tyler woke up to eat. So I got up to feed him. Joel had snuck out of Lily's while I was feeding. He can't shut Lily's door because that would wake her up again.  Unfortunately when I was done feeding Tyler, Lily heard me leave his room and she started screaming again. I ignored it hoping she would calm down and go back to sleep. I told Joel to put in ear plugs and get some sleep. About this time Lily got out of bed and was standing at her door crying. I decided to try to let her cry it out. 45 minutes later (now 3:45am) she's still standing at her door screaming. So I give in and go in her room to sit with her. I sat there til 4am at which point she's snoring so I successfully sneak out. I go back to bed and finally fall asleep around 4:30. At 4:40 I hear Lily standing in the hall outside out room crying. At this point I lose it. I march her back to her bed and beg her to go to sleep.  She just cries. At 5am Joel must have heard both of us crying and comes in and tells me to go to bed. Of course there's little point because Tyler is going to wake up in 30 minutes to eat. But i go lay down and leave Joel to deal with Lily. Sure enough at 5:30 Tyler wakes up to eat so I get back up and Joel and Lily are not in Lily's room. They are watching TV in the living room. I guess Joel gave up trying to get her to sleep. So I had Joel take her to daycare at 6:30. She had been up since 2. I'm sure she was a real delight today.

I took her to the playground after I picked her up this afternoon for some one on one time so that was nice. But when we got home around 5:30 she went in to meltdown mode and then screamed for the next hour- right through dinner and right through her bath. Joel finally got her to calm down and the last hour was pleasant.  Joel's putting her to bed right now and I'm praying down on my hands and knees for a peaceful night. PLEASE please please let her sleep all night. Please.

This will get better. This will get better. This will get better. Before I'm 60.

3 Weeks Old

People have been asking me if it's easier or harder this time around.  The new baby part of the second child is definitely easier than when I was on maternity leave with Lily.  I don't think Tyler is an easier baby necessarily but I'm a more experienced mom and therefore more relaxed about things.  I definitely don't get worked up over every little thing.  Plus I KNOW that it gets better and that eventually I WILL get to sleep for more than 2 hours at a time! 

However, having two kids is most definitely harder than one! Lily does pretty good with Tyler but we do have to watch her pretty closely.  Otherwise Tyler could be fed grapes or fruit snacks or he could be "loved" a little too tightly or he might make a new friend named Dora or Ellie who happens to be hanging out on his face!

I don't think we're really seeing any jealousy issues cropping up with Lily. She had started throwing those tantrums before Tyler was born and I don't think they have gotten any worse. In some ways she's gotten a little better now that things are calming down around here and we're developing a new normal routine.  Lily definitely does better when there's a schedule/routine.  I'm heading to Evansville next week for the Fall Festival (can't miss that!!) and I hope that she doesn't get too off kilter such that we have to start all over again when we get back home.

Joel and I definitely have to divide and conquer in order to get all the bases covered (cooking dinners, baths, feedings, POTTY TRAINING, playing, laundry).  I am dreading the thought of doing all this and working full time. Thankfully I have 9 more weeks before I have to deal with that! I have a brand new appreciation for my Mom and the fact that she had a handicapped child plus 3 more ages 3 and under. She's good. She managed to raise all of us without going off the deep end AND none of us are too messed up!

Tyler - 3 weeks old already!

Eating habits:  about 7-8 times a day.  We seem to be sort of falling into a schedule but it definitely flexes up to an hour either way.  Especially because at least once a day, Tyler only makes it 2 hours between feedings.  But we revolve roughly around a 7am - 10am - 1pm - 4pm - 7pm - 10pm - 1am - 4am.  It's kind of nice having a rough schedule because it makes it easier for me to plan my day.  But I don't force the schedule at all.  I "demand" feed Tyler.  If he's hungry, he eats.  If he's sleeping, I generally don't wake him up to eat.

Sleeping habits: each day we seem to progress with a little more awake time.  He's napping pretty well and not doing too bad at night.  The biggest sleep challenge we have with him is after the ~10pm feeding, he sometimes doesn't want to sleep and then it's midnight before we get him back down. Joel and I have taken turns but it makes for a VERY short night when I don't get to bed til midnight and then Tyler's back up at 1 to eat again and then again at 4 and then Lily's up at 6:30 and it's time to start the day.

Prayers and Potty Victory!

Today Lily told us she had to potty and she took off running for the bathroom.  I chased after her and got her on the potty.  At first, she just sat there jabbering away about Dora.  She had a book with her which was hilarious!  I was beginning to think she was just interested in sitting on the Dora seat and reading her Dora book. 

But then, she grunted a couple times and BLOOP!

I started cheering and hollering and good jobbing and high fiv-ing and then Joel came in and he started in a round of high fives.

Lily was grinning from ear to ear and she said, "I did it!!"

She also had a victory one day last week at the day care but I forget to mention it.  Ms Christina said she's the only who's managed a #2 on the potty so far.  She's showing them boys how it's done!  Now if we can get her to pee on the potty.....  :)

Another fun Lily story....tonight at dinner, Lily was just jabbering away like she usually does.  Half the time, I have no idea what she's talking about and/or she's changing subjects so much that it's impossible to follow along.  Plus we're usually interrupting her to tell her to stop talking with her mouth full or to watch what's she's doing because she's getting yogurt everywhere or to ask her to use her fork/spoon instead of her hands or whatever.  You get the picture.

But tonight, I notice that as she's jabbering, she's folded her hands and she's saying grace!  I didn't catch all the words and it was pretty broken up but she was definitely praying.  It was so cute and so precious.  And then I felt like a schmuck because we didn't teach her that.  She learned it at daycare.  I'll have to find out what they pray so we can do it at home. 

 

2 Weeks Old

We made it through 2 weeks!

Eating Habits:  Breastfeeding about 7-8 times a day (roughly every 3-3.5 hours).  Tyler is a very different eater than Lily was.  Lily learned to latch immediately out of the womb (we're still working on Tyler's latch) and she would eat fast and furious for about 5 minutes (if that) and then she would slow way down and take her merry time.  It would easily take 20-25 minutes per side to feed her.  With Tyler, once I get him latched on good (may take a couple minutes), he goes to town and eats furiously until he's done - usually 10-15 minutes per side - at which point he spits me out.

Sleeping Habits:  Tyler's still sleeping at lot during the day and he's doing much better at night.  For the most part, he goes right back down now after I feed him.  Sometimes not, but he's content in the swing so I'll sometimes put him in there and go back to bed.  Not ideal, but I need my rest too.  Which brings me to another point.  I suck at sleeping.  I'm still only getting a couple hours a night but it's not because of Tyler.  I just can't sleep.  Boo.

Awake Time:  We're starting to get more smiles and facial expressions out of Tyler during his awake time. 

We are usually able to keep him awake for up to an hour after at least 2 of the day time feedings. We're lucky to keep him awake any time at all for most of the other day time feedings. We are trying to follow a pattern of:

1) Eat
2) Awake
3) Sleep

We did this with Lily and I think it really paid off as she got older.  For one thing, she never got used to needing to eat in order to fall asleep.  It's hard enough being a breastfeeding Mom and being the only one who can feed the baby.  It becomes even harder if you're also the only one who can put him to sleep too.  So anyway, this is the pattern I will keep working on while I'm on maternity leave.  We don't have a schedule....that might come a little later.  I was never really successful to have a schedule with Lily while I was on maternity leave.  We'll see if that changes with Tyler but it's too early to worry with it right now.

In Lily news, she's been doing somewhat better at going to bed at night.  Joel's been on bedtime duty because it usually falls around when Tyler's hungry.  Unfortunately, the last two nights, Lily got up during the night, crying for Mommy and Daddy.  Not sure why.  The first time, it took Joel over an hour and half to get her to go back to sleep.  Last night, it was only about 15 minutes. 

In the last two weeks, Lily's developed a new favorite word:  "MINES."  Everything is "mines."  The daycare teacher even made a note of it on her weekly report!  : )  Funny except when whatever it is that she claims is hers, is, in fact, NOT hers. 

1 Week Old (a little late)

We made it through the first week!

 

Eating Habits:  Breast-feeding about 8 times per day (roughly every 3 hours).  Breastfeeding is going well but working with Tyler on his latch.  It often takes 2-3 tries to get him to latch on properly, but once he's on, he's good to go!

Sleeping Habits:  He slept a lot during the first week.  Except at night.  Pretty typical.  He seems to be a good sleeper - not letting much get in the way of his shut eye.  Including his big sister grabbing him, trying to hold him or hold his hand.

I tried to think of other catergories to update on, but at this stage, all Tyler does is eat, sleep and mess himself (and I thought updates about messing himself might not be that interesting to people other than his parents who are counting dirty and wet diapers).

Lily loves to hold Tyler's hand while we're in the car.  SO cute.

Getting adjusted

We are slowly settling in to our new routines.  Although, my mom has been here doing all the hard work like cooking and cleaning and laundry, so it's not exactly how it will be going forward.

The biggest adjustment so far, really, is Lily.  She's been on a slight regression with respect to some things ever since we started her at daycare.  Some of those things are getting worse.  Like bed time.  She seems to be scared to sleep by herself now.  She says "Mommy sit."  "Daddy sit."  She wants someone to sit with her while she goes to sleep.  This process takes 20-30 minutes, at least.  And then, if you try to sneak away too soon and she sees you, you have to start all over.  We were so spoiled before with just being able to read her a story, sing a song and leave the room.  This is the hardest thing to deal with for sure because this is the point in the day where everyone is tired and everyone's patience is at it's lowest.  We'll get through it but it's HARD.

The other thing we've got going on with Lily is I've had to introduce "Time Out."  And in a serious way this time.  She has hit her brother on two occasions.  Both times, she hit and I told her that we don't hit and we have to be nice and gentle with the baby.  Both times, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, she hit again.

Time out!

She understands now what time out is.  She doesn't want to stay there.   So I stay there with her.  So then she wants me to hold her.  Which I won't do until she finishes time out for one minute (I need to get a timer so she can understand "one minute").  The whole time, I'm explaining why she's in time out.  Afterwards, I give her a hug, tell her I love her, and then try to get her to apologize to Tyler.  We haven't had a successful apology (with words) but she doesn't launch into another attack of her brother immediately.  Also, any time we get stern with Lily for any reason (like spitting out food or jumping on the couch or whatever minor infraction) she looks at me and says "Time out!"  Very funny.

But she does love her new baby brother and wants to "hold it" all the time.

 

Going Home Day!!

It's day 4 and we are going home (ready or not!). 

Going home day always seems to take forever.  You know you have to leave so you're just ready to get on with it but it seems to take forever to be officially discharged.  I have patience issues. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at home, resting.  Meme and Papaw had taken Lily for the day so it was a nice and quiet arrival home.

When they dropped Lily off, they had Kjestine and Whitney with them, who were getting to meet their new cousin for the first time. 

That night, putting Lily to bed was a SERIOUS problem.  She threw probably one of the biggest tantrums I have ever seen.  Screaming her head off.  Crawling out of bed.  It lasted a couple hours when all was said and done.  Oh man.  What are we in for now?

Hospital - Day 3 Tyler Daniel Basham

When I woke up Friday morning, I was ready to commit to a name for our new baby boy.  Whew!

Tyler Daniel Basham

What a relief!

We also had lots of visitors on the third day in the hospital!

Emily and Chris Eadler stopped by.  Chris was educating me on the various pain medicines I was taking.  : )

Stephani and Jason Hoy came in to see the little guy.

Aunt Pam and Uncle Larry also stopped in to meet our new addition to the family.

Papaw Jim finally held Tyler!

And now the not so great part.  With my C-section with Lily, I wound up with a terrible, itchy, yeast infection all along my incision due to the pain pump leaking all over me.  When all was said and done, it was 3 weeks before everything was diagnosed and sorted out and I was back to normal.  So this time, I said, if that pump leaks even ONE DROP, I'm pulling it out.  I can handle increased pain in the hospital for 3 days way more than I can handle itching for 3 weeks.

Of course, it leaked.  The nurse pulled it out the night of the surgery.  She pulled off the all the tape, except the strips over my incision.  Whew, I thought.  Crisis averted.  The nurse was nervous to take out it without doctor permission, but I assured her I had already talked to the doctors about this and they were fine with it.

However, the next morning....I was ITCHING.  NOOOOOOO!!  I had a rash.  It was awful.  I call the nurse and ask her to take a look and told her what happened last time.  She gave me the medicine I needed to treat a yeast infection and we moved on with the day.

Nope, not working.  The doctor looks at it and thinks it's a tape allergy but he doesn't know.  They prescribe an anti-histimine and tell me to put cortisone on it and I'll be fine.

Day 3.  NOT FINE.  It's getting worse and I'm going NUTS.  I had a total meltdown that afternoon, right before we got our influx of visitors.  I was begging and I mean BEGGING, for help and relief and to have this sorted out before I was sent home.

It was not.  :(

Hospital - Day 2

The second day in the hospital was pretty calm.  My baby was deemed ok by the doctors and was no longer under constant watch as of the evening before.  I didn't get much sleep that night...my brain just wouldn't shut down long enough to fall asleep in between the feedings and nurses doing their thing.

I wasn't able to keep any food down after my surgery - hard to imagine being so hungry but unable to keep it in my stomach!  I kept trying to eat, thinking, I was all better.  But I was not.  Anyhow, on day 2, I made up for it.  I was ready to eat!

Mom and Jason came up to visit.

Marie came in that evening to try to take some pictures of the little guy.  It didn't go too well.  Everybody was tired and cranky and hungry.  :)

I had spent a lot of the day trying on different names for my beautiful son.  I was still struggling.  Sigh.....we had it narrowed down to two names but I just couldn't decide.  Nurses kept on asking me if we had a name yet.  The administrator who fills out the Social Security and Birth Certificate stuff stopped by and asked me.  No pressure, but we need a name.  Gah!  Joel and I settled in one direction and I said I wanted to sleep on it one more night. 

Hospital - Day 1

After the doc stitched me all up, I was moved to recovery down the hall where I met up with Joel and my new baby boy.  I was soooo thirsty the first thing I did was ask for a drink of water!  Then we worked on getting baby "hooked up" to get a drink too.  He did ok during his first try at breast feeding but he didn't latch on quite as quickly as his sister.

I'm in love already at this point!

Joel and baby were with me for quite a long time in recovery.  It seemed like last time, they let me try to breastfeed Lily and then they whisked her off immediately to the nursery to be cleaned up.  This time, they let me dictate when I was ready for my baby to be separated from me.  That was a nice change.

All the grandparents were very excited to meet their new grandson as he was wheeled out of recovery!

Proud Grandparents!

Sorry folks....no name picked out.

I had to spend a little more time in recovery.  I had to show I could move my legs and I had to stop requesting morphine for at least 15 minutes.  It's amazing how motivated you can be to lay off the drugs and deal with the pain if it means you get to see your baby again sooner!

Then I was reunited with my baby!

Then it was Meme's turn to get her hands on the little guy!  Papaw's a little too skittish with the babies on their first days of life.  He wasn't ready to hold him yet.

And about that time, Mom comes in with Lily who she just picked up from daycare!

Tentatively touching baby brother

Kisses for Mama

Kisses for Baby Brud-her

Lily holding her baby brother for the first time

Around this time, the nurses are fluttering in an out checking on me and checking on the baby.  My poor little boy is making this very sad whimpering, whining, grunting sound and has been every since he came out of the womb.  Two or three different nurses said, "I really don't like the sound that he's making."  So they whisk him off to the nursery to be checked out by the doctor on call.

Honestly, I wasn't too worried.  This same thing happened with Lily, only it was two days after she was born instead of the day she was born.  Baby boy was having a little bit of a hard time catching his breath.  This is apparently very common in big babies who are not squeezed through the birth canal.  There is excess fluid in their lungs that doesn't get pushed out and it causes them to labor a little when breathing.  While that doesn't sound like great news, I guess I remained calm because I had been through it before.  But I did make sure to voice my opinion VERY LOUD to EVERYONE who would listen, that under no certain terms was my child to be given a bottle in lieu of breastfeeding without my being consulted first (this happened with Lily). 

So it was hard to not see my baby for most of the rest of the day while he was being observed but I busied myself with talking with family and watching Lily open her "big sister" presents!

I hope she doesn't think she always gets a present on her brother's brithday!

Dora!  Could we get her anything else?

We also talked with the grandparents and my sisters about name choices.  We needed some help or outside input or reactions or something.  And by "we," mostly, I mean me.  Joel was over it.  He wanted to pick a name and just move on already.  I just couldn't get there yet with what I thought the right name should be.  We didn't come to any conclusions, but at least I had some other inputs to bounce around in my brain.

Finally, later that evening, they brought my precious boy back to me and we were able to get a family photo on baby's birthday!

I'm looking a little worse for wear at this point in the day and Lily was in major meltdown mode from being over tired, but I was determined to get this picture!

Kisses

Hugs.  Lily was very sweet toward her baby brother!  We'll see how long this lasts!

Baby Boy Basham - Welcome to the World Little Buddy!

The day started like any other day. Get up, get ready, get Lily dressed and get her breakfast and take her to daycare. But then instead of going to work, I came home and tried to keep myself busy and distracted until it was tme to go to the hospital to have this baby! I wasn't feeling too nervous. Mostly I just felt HUNGRY (silly rules about no eating before major surgery....pfff)!  I did some last minute packing, took some pictures with Joel and then it was time to go!





Peanut #1
39 weeks 0 days

Peanut #2
38 weeks 4 days



Once we got to the hospital things moved fast at first but then it was a lot of waiting before the surgery. It was even a lot of waiting before they put the IV in.  With Lily they did that right away. While I was waiting I was starting to get more nervous but more about having surgery than having a baby.

Finally they came to get me and walk me to the OR. Of course I'm just wearing a hospital gown so my butt was hanging out. They draped another gown over my back but everything still felt a little too breezy for public. :)  Having surgery is not a time for modesty!

Once in the OR the anesthesiologist got started on my spinal. It's the strangest thing when you can't feel your legs and even stranger to rely on other people to move you around. Very weird experience.  Once they laid me down on my back I immediately felt nauseated so they stuffed this wedge under my right side to get the weight off of whichever major nerve it is that runs down that side of your body.

At this point the doctor still isn't in the room and neither is Joel.  My shoulders, near my collar bones, started hurting. It felt like something was crushing me.  I remembered feeling that same sensation with Lily.  I just wanted Joel to be there so he could rub my shoulders or do something to take my mind off the major discomfort I was feeling.  I started to cry.  The anesthesiologist thought I was kind of weird ...guess I came up with a complaint he'd never heard before!

But before too much longer the doc comes in and asks me if were doing a "tubal." I had no clue what he was talking about. Apparently its not uncommon on a repeat C-section for them to go ahead and tie your tubes "while they're in there."  I said I wasnt ready to say no more babies but told the doc not to ask my husband cause he might have a different answer!

About that time, Joel walks in and things start rolling.  Dr Albers was doing this delivery whereas Dr Davis had delivered Lily.  I didn't know what to expect but things were different with Dr Albers.  For one thing, Dr Albers was using an "electric knife" (his words).  It was evident something was different because I could smell my burning flesh.  Cool, eh?

I think it was also very different this time because this baby wasn't breach.  When Lily was born, she was in there wrong side up and so it took a lot of pushing around on my belly - shoving this way and that way.  I suppose to get all the appendages in order to come out that 6-7 inch incision.  This time, since the baby was head down, it mostly took a couple giant pushes from the nurse and out came baby! 

 All the while, both the doctor and the nurse keep saying, "Oh my this is a big baby. Oh boy, we got a big one. This really IS a BIG baby!" 

Once baby was out, I had to ask, "What is it??"  (Cause it totally didn't go like in the movies where the doctor proclaims the gender right away...)

The doctor and Joel said at the same time, "It's a boy!" 

Then Baby Boy Basham cried.  I cried.  It was beautiful moment.



The doctor said, "A 10 pounder for sure!"

He was right.

Then everyone asks, "Does he have a name?"

Oh sh*t, we were supposed to figure that out, weren't we??  Whoopsie!

More to come on "A Baby Story..."