Ivy's expressions

Mom took a bunch of pictures consecutively to catch Ivy's changing expressions.

 

I AM WOMAN!!!

I am woman; hear me roar (and groan, and moan, and cry, etc.). Wahoo! I just gave birth vaginally for the first time!! I was in the comfort of my own home, as planned, and I used no drugs and did not have any interventions! We now have a beautiful baby girl. She is joy personified and we named her Ivy Fiona. Levi and Ivy get their names from my maternal grandfather's maternal grandparents, i.e. my great-grandparents Bodily, which is why Levi's middle name is Bodily. Ivy makes sweet little sounds all the time and she is growing like a weed. Sometimes her hair looks like it's thinking about maybe turning red (the grandmas would just die of happiness). 

These two pictures are of Ivy just after her first bath.

 And this is her the morning after her birth. She was born at 8:30 pm on Saturday the 27th of November. She weighed 7 lbs and 8 oz and measured 20 inches long.

She is now 3 weeks old and still seems tiny to me. I think she is now about the size Levi was at birth. She likes to hide her face in my arm or a hat or a blanket when she sleeps. Her baby acne is clearing up. Her cheeks are getting fleshier, as is the rest of her body (good thing, she was a stick at birth!)

Levi loves Ivy. He likes to hold her or give her hugs, comfort and calm her, be sure she has enough blankets, help bathe her, and call her "my sweet boy" (just right at first). Now he has mostly learned to say she and her instead of he and him. He talks about our "little baby" and wants to know where she is and if she's OK. Ivy returns the affection, as much as any 3-week-old might be able to: she watches him and lets him hold her.

 Levi and Ivy meet.

Nathan is a wonderful father for both children. He certainly looks forward to Ivy being able to interact on a larger scale, yet still enjoys holding her and talking with her. He stayed home the first week after the birth and took very, very good care of me. He made sure that I followed the midwife's instructions to the letter, and brought me food and things to do, and changed all the diapers. Even though he may not believe me, I can with conviction say that I have the best husband.

Mom stayed with us for the next two weeks after Nate had to return to work and cooked and cleaned and entertained Levi and even helped me prepare neighbor and friend gifts. We made sugar cookie dough and wrapped it such that it can be frozen for a while if people don't want another treat in the house right now and we included some homemade frosting. Because Mom was helping me, everything got done AND they looked super-cute rather than hum-drum.

Nate's sweet mom, Suzanne, came out to be with me a few times when Mom had to go in to work and that was very helpful. I/we are so very lucky to have both our moms close by and also lucky that they are willing and able to help. I hope I can be of as much help and comfort to my children's families sometime in the future.

The grandmas and great-grandma are tickled pink to have a granddaughter and I enjoy having a girl. So, now we have one of each and I can give the highest recommendation for boys and girls. I love being a mother. I feel fufilled, blessed, favored, lucky, happy. There is absolutely no other thing I would rather be doing.

Our family

I am now 35 weeks along and the arrival of the newest member of our family is swiftly approaching and we are very excited. It is being awfully difficult to stand up, roll over, stay comfortable, etc., but it's all worth it. I feel our little Ivy move a lot. Molly, our midwife, was over yesterday morning and told us that Ivy is facing forward and that is why I can feel so much movement of her limbs. I haven't felt her so much today, so maybe that means that she has turned around, which would be a good thing. The birth will be much easier if she is facing backwards.

Levi knows who is coming in November and where she is right now, though he still occasionally points to the wrong belly, e.g. his own, Nate's or Mom's. He kisses my belly when he wants to say hi to Ivy, and he even knows her middle name: Fiona.

Levi is very good at "lawning" with the toy lawn mower and toy trimmer we bought at a garage sale recently. He is very good at taking care of Froggy and at telling his two-foot-tall Elmo that "It's OK." We read The Bernstein Bears' New Baby yesterday and I think maybe we should do that more often and find other such books to help him prepare for the new arrival.

Nathan is a wonderful father. He loves to read stories with our son

and go with him to the Living Planet Aquarium. They always come back from the aquarium with great stories about everything they saw and how big it was. This last time, they were there while the frogs were being fed, which was really cool because the frogs aren't usually very interesting, but at feeding time they are all sorts of active. I'll have to get some pictures from Nathan of Levi at the Aquarium. They also like to play outside on the lawn and go to the park. Levi has become quite the independent boy and can climb up and down almost everything at the park and go up to and down from the slide all by himself.

Wow, looking at pictures I realize I am a bit behind.  Here are a couple of pictures of Levi playing (wrestling?) with his friend Sam:

Sam and his brother Shay are new very good friends of about 4 months, I think. Their dad, Larry, works with my mom at Stampin' Up! and their mom, Jen, and I are become fast friends. Shay just turned 4 and Sam is exactly 2 weeks younger than Levi. The also wear cloth diapers, but are recently potty-trained and Jen, generous and kind soul, gave me all of their diapering regalia, OK maybe not regalia exactly, maybe paraphernalia is a better word. Anyway, I'm tickled pink. Now I really will be spared the necessity of ever buying a diaper again in my life!

Next are some pictures taken and Andrew's house:

Nice hairdo, oder? And these last two depict Levi enjoying his favorite (most requested) treat: a popsicle. We love visiting Andrew and his mom, Samantha, who is an old dear friend of mine. We first bonded over Smith's chinese food and Jane Austen way back in 2000, I think.

These next pictures are of Levi eating half of a massive burrito before going to Taylorsville days with Same and Shay and parents:

Levi eats very well and likes most food, but he is getting a little pickier as he grows up. Oh, well.

These next pictures were taken a couple of days after Levi's 2nd birthday. I snapped the one of him on the shelf as he was stressing out about how to get down. He has much more climbing confidence now, but I've not seen him climbing any shelves since that day.

Levi loves to check the mail:

Still a girl!!

As of yesterday, the baby we're expecting in a couple months is still a girl.

This is a picture of her profile. Her head is on the right and she's got two hands right there in the middle and I'm not sure exactly what's on the left end of the picture.
The placenta is high up in the back of the uterus, so about as far away from my scar as it can be. Wahoo!!

Levi Update

 The latest with Levi...

Our sweet boy is growing up. He can: climb and descend stairs facing forward without any help, unscrew containers (e.g. mascara, toothpaste, small jars, etc.), open doors (he can turn the handle and pull to open the door, but hasn't quite mastered the turn-and-push maneuver), and take really good care of Froggy (his favorite soft toy). His vocabulary and general language use are exploding. He picks up and can reproduce nuances and has a great command of the idiomatic uses of English for one so young (at least, according to me). He is very complementary, i.e. he often complements haircuts, chins, tummies, bums (e.g. "beautiful haircut", "nice chin") , and even an occasional action (e.g. "nice catch" when Nathan caught him from falling at the park the other night). He has recently started to reply to requests with "Oh! Sure, sure, sure" and loves to help and have responsibility.

We recently tried a merry-go-round for the first time at a park near the Riverton Library. He likes to go very slowly, which was just fine with me. (That's a piece of apple that he's holding right there.)

Later that day, Levi was a great assistant in a grand cookie-making venture at Grandma Boo-boo(my mom)'s house:

He is growing up and getting so tall. He weighs about 30 pounds lately and is growing (grown?) out of his diapers, so I plan to get busy this next week and make him a batch of diapers that will fit for a little while longer. Or maybe this is just the time that has come to potty train. Hmmm

The latest update with Ivy is that she officially has a middle name: Fiona. Suzanne, Nate's mom, really likes the name Fiona. A while back I asked her to think about whether she would like Ivy to have that as a middle name or if she, Suzanne, would rather have Fiona as the first name of some future granddaughter. Well tonight, we discussed it and Suzanne proclaimed that she likes the name "Ivy Fiona". Wahoo!! I really wanted her to agree to that, as I have grown quite attached to that pairing.

Also, I finally finished the phenomenal project of sorting all of the girl clothing that I have. I sorted into the categories: 0-3 months, 3-6 M, 6-12 M, 12 M-4T, stained, and to-pass-on-and-let-it-bless-someone-else's-family. I thought that I had more than enough of just about everything, and since the sorting I have found that to be sort of true. I have a TON of 0-3 M, quite a lot of 3-6 M, maybe enough 6-12 M, and practically no 12 M and bigger clothing. I also have very few girly socks, no tights until little Ivy is at least 12 M, and no long-sleeved onesies that will fit her if she's any bigger than 8 lbs. So, now we know what to look for in the clearance at Target and at garage sales (wahoo, we love garage sales!)

Also in preparation for the arrival of this next little one, I followed the advice of my dear Auntie Becca and got a copy of a book titled "Hypnobirthing" (for only $1 at a garage sale) and am appreciating the information I have read thus far. Nathan and I are also taking a birth class of the same title and enjoying it. The main goal is to have a pain-free, natural (completely free of medical interventions) birth, and I'm really starting to believe that Nathan and I can do it.

The book also speaks of the baby's abilities and experiences before birth. It says that a baby in the womb experiences the mother's reactions and emotions. The baby also recognizes familiar voices, so the recommendation is to read and sing and talk to the baby and be sure to let her know she is wanted and loved. It is also helpful to let her know that she is coming to a good family where the parents love and take care of each other and their children are wanted and loved.