I do what I can

Hailee has always been a fan of string cheese. It has long been one of her favorite snacks. As a four year old, she's not a fan of moderation. And that's where the trouble started.

A few months ago Hailee discovered that she could now open string cheese packages on her own. In celebration of the event she promptly opened and consumed six string cheese packages in a row. We thought the obvious natural consequences would have been enough to deter a repeat performance. Unfortunately, the medicine worked on day three which prompted this reaction: "I can eat as much string cheese a I want Mom! I just need to take medicine for my stuck bum."

Well, baby James also struggled with a "stuck bum" in his first few days of life. Sure enough Hailee was there to encourage him.

Hailee: "Come on baby James, you can do it. You can be stronger than that poop. I was stronger than that poop. I had a stuck bum once too."

Baby James promptly fills his pants.

Nicole: "Thanks Hailee for being so supportive. I'm sure your baby brother appreciates it."

Hailee: "Yeah...I just do what I can."

With help like that we could have dozens.

I know Everything about babies

Ever since she figured out Nicole was expecting Hailee has been anxious to meet her baby brother. On the way to Nicole's ten week check-up Hailee asked her, "Now do we get to get the baby out Mom?"

The wait is finally over. Little James was born on Wednesday night at 9:59 pm. After testing his mother's patience with 10 hours of pitocin and little progress, James decided it was time. Apparently he wasn't interested in a drawn out delivery. After a few pushes his vitals signs abruptly dropped off the charts. This prompted our OB to break out the vacuum and with a final push he was out.

I figured he was in some sort of trouble but I was not expecting to see the guy come out looking blue and lifeless. I fully expected that the NICU team would run off with our baby but after some furious unwinding of the umbilical cord that was wrapped around his neck he made a quick recovery.

For having had such a rough entrance he's been quite pleasant. He grumbles when he's hungry or when the nurses unwrap him for check-ups but isn't much for crying. We're holding out hope that he'll be as mellow as Hailee was as an infant.

In the meantime, Hailee has become quite the child care expert. She has informed us the she knows "absolutely everything about babies." As much as she may enjoy it I don't think we'll be leaving her to babysit any time soon.

For now she'll have to settle for holding the baby and exhausting her Aunt Ruthann who has been sweet enough to spend the last couple of days with her.

Although he was born smaller (7 lbs 6 oz & 20.5 inches) than his sister, James appears to be determined eat his way through the size gap. He's keeping Nicole rather busy with his requests for food and isn't impressed with mealtime interruptions. If nothing else, he's certainly inherited the Cunningham appetite.

Preschool Program

On Friday Hailee's preschool had a little class program where they sang the songs they had been learning all year. She has loved going to preschool this year. If you ask her what she has learned she'll tell you that she hasn't learned anything, but it's been good for her to get out of the house and meet new friends. She loves the girls in her class (there are only 4 girls and the rest are boys.) And she also informs me which boys are nice and which boys are not so nice. My favorite thing she told me was... "Mom, Alex is always nice and he just has the cutest little cheeks." That had both Todd and I cracking up.

This is Hailee and her teacher Mrs. Quaid.

They are growing plants at school and Hailee had to show me her grass plant. She also has sunflowers that she has brought home and is taking such good care of. She told me that she knows everything about plants.

The other thing she has informed us she knows all about is babies. The other day she and Todd were talking about getting ready for the baby and she said "Oh dad I know all about babies." She is getting so excited for this baby to come. She has been counting downs the days. She has been a little nervous about what to expect while I'm in the hospital, but after a blessing from Todd she has been feeling much better. At one point she wanted to me have the baby at home. Yeah...I sure hope not.

Due date is set...

The most exciting thing that happened at my doctors appointment this week was they set my induction date. So next Wednesday (unless he decides to surprise us beforehand) we will have a brand new baby boy (unless the million of ultrasounds we've had are wrong....I make them check every time). So far all the tests have been perfectly normal and he is healthy and not too big (so my doctor assures me). They are inducing me just one day before my due date. We do have another growth scan this Thursday to check the size of the baby, but my doctor is confident, since my blood sugar levels have been so good, that I won't have a huge baby. In some ways I can't believe that it's already time to have this little one. In other ways I'm so ready for him to be out so I can finally really meet him.

Todd has made me promise all last week and all this week that I not go into labor. He keeps assuring me that next week will be better, but really better for him is going to be sometime mid April. He knows I'm really not willing to wait that long, even if the baby boy is, so he says he'll be okay for next week. Work has been really busy for him, but the people he works with are wonderful and things will be fine for him to take a day or two off for the baby. Then mid April he'll be able to take a little more time off once the end of the quarter is done. Next baby we'll have to schedule a little better around the finacial calendar.

What to do when the doctors office gets a little boring....

Hailee loves coming to my appointments with me, at least she loves the end when the doctor comes in and lets her "help" with the ultrasound machine. Have I mentioned how great the clinic I go to is? (Thanks Natalie for the recommendation) Any way when I'm doing the NST test she gets a little bored. I mean really how exciting is it to watch a paper print out the baby heartbeats, movements and contractions. That was only fun for a few times. Now Hailee has found other ways of keeping busy....namely coloring, reading, or taking pictures. I've already warned her I don't want anymore pictures of me, the angle she takes them at is not super flattering in the best of circumstances, let alone 9 months pregnant. This appointment we forgot her books so she did her best to keep entertained by taking pictures. It always cracks me up to download what looks interesting to her. There are usually a lot of self portraits of funny faces and pictures of her feet. What can I say the child loves her shoes, a fact that causes Todd a little bit of worry (he is imagining teenage years at their worst). But what girl doesn't love shoes, she comes by it naturally.

After some 20 pictures, several warnings about not photographing me (or the baby) the doctor comes in and she gets to help with the ultrasound. My favorite part is when the doctor is pointing out all the different parts. ("Oh look there is his ear...") He points out the babies eye and Hailee asks "What color are his eyes?" She was a little disappointed that he couldn't tell from the ultrasound. I assured her that we would know soon enough, although Hailee surprised me and kept her baby blue eyes until she was 18 months old, then they went brown like her daddy's.

Tomorrow we're off to the doctors again for a growth scan and a better look at our little one before he arrives (to make sure he's not to big, the weekly ultrasounds at the doctors office are just to check fluid levels not the size) and another NST test a couple of hours later. I feel like most of our time is spent at doctors offices. No wonder Hailee has gotten into playing doctor so much. She loves putting on her headphones and putting the end of the chord on my tummy to listen to the baby.

Wild weather, daylight savings, and eye doctors...

One things we have noticed in Oregon is how crazy the weather is. Not extreme temperatures, things just change quickly. Monday we had snow, sun, rain, sun, hail, sleet, sun, and ended with a little rain. The weather can change in minutes. So while we had snow rain and hail through out the whole day we saw blue sky and sun in between. Hailee doesn’t get excited anymore when she sees that it’s snowing, it always melts before much accumulates. The only fun she has now is trying to catch snow flakes on her tongue.

I really wish they would get rid of daylight savings, it just throws off everybody's sleeping schedule. Hailee has been falling asleep in the car and now since it doesn't get dark until later she has a harder time getting to bed. I liked when it was getting dark at 5:00, because as soon as it's dark Hailee thinks it's time for bed. I'm not looking forward to summer when it doesn't get dark until 9 or 10.

I really wish I would have gotten some pictures at the actual eye doctors appointment. Hailee had such a good time and I really like our eye doctor. He was so good with her. Saturday we went with Todd so she could see what was going to happen (our appointments were on Tuesday), the whole way there she kept telling us that she didn't need to go to the eye doctor because she could see just fine. Then when we got there and she started looking at all the cute glasses and trying them on she was so excited to come back and pick out her pair on Tuesday. Unfortunately her eyes are just fine and she doesn't need glasses. We'll go back in a couple years and see if she does then. She was so good through out the whole appointment. They had to put some drops in her eyes to relax them and she was so pleased when her hands went "glury" just like the eye doctor told her they would. Then he gave her these special spy glasses and she was so pleased to wear them. In the morning when the medicine had worn off she was really pleased that she could read again. She was such a good girl that she even got an ice cream cone on the way home. Then of course once she was done she fell asleep again. Agh daylight savings....are we ever going to get back on schedule.

I wonder...

As things start to get closer I sometimes start to wonder what this little one is going to look like. While finishing cleaning out Hailee's rooms and unpacking the last of the boxes I ran into some pictures of Todd his grandmother sent us. They live in California and Todd spend many vacations at the beach near their house. He loved (and still does) the sand and water.

I hope our baby looks like Todd...I guess I'll just have to wait and see. I think if we get a blonde little guy that people will wonder if he is really ours since Todd is so dark now and Hailee has my hair color. I still can't believe how blond he was as a kid. He didn't really get dark hair until he was 12 or so.


One thing we do know is that he probably won't have very much hair. Neither Todd, Hailee or I had very much hair until we were a little older. (Todd still claims he had more than Hailee and I did and that the reason it doesn't look like it was because he was blonde..I'm not sure I'm buying it.)

Doctor Appointments

So for the past couple of weeks we have been going to the doctors twice a week. I have a NST twice a week and a ultrasound (amniotic fluid check) once a week. When Hailee isn't in preschool then she gets to come with me. She has loved it and my doctors office is great about being sweet with her. They have me hooked up to some monitors for 20-30 minutes to check to make sure the baby is doing good (so far all the tests have been very good). Hailee's favorite part is to come over and watch the paper coming out and say "It's looking pretty good mom." Then when the doctor comes in she quickly informs him that everything is looking great. The last couple of times when she has been with me they've done the ultrasound and the doctor has let her help. They tell her when to push certain buttons and she is so excited to be a helper. I really like my new doctors office because they are really great about helping her feel like a helper. I think it's really gotten her excited about this baby and being a big helper.

The good and bad news is the baby is still nice and small (I'm measuring a week small) which means I probably won't have a huge baby, but it also means that he probably won't be inducing me early either. I have another ultrasound scheduled in a few weeks to really check the size, so we'll see what that says. He did promise me that he would let me go over my due date, so that is at least something. We are excited that everything looks so good so far and the gestational diabetes has been just fine. It has been really easy to avoid brownies and cookies. With the threat of a 10 pound baby those things just don't sound so good. We have been loving salads, cottage cheese and yogurt.

In other baby news we did finally get the crib set up and pulled all the baby stuff out of storage. I've gotten most of it washed (car seat, bouncer, swing etc...) and I'm feeling a little more ready for this baby to come. We also went to Target and picked up the essential things like diapers, wipes, and onsies. There is still plenty to do, but if the baby comes tomorrow he'll at least have a bed, a car seat, and be able to get his pants changed, other things we can get as we need them. We are all getting very excited for this new little one to come, but at the same time are happy waiting for the right time for him to come. We just want a healthy, happy, preferably not 10 pound baby boy.

I wish babies came in bags

Yesterday after trying to do Hailee's hair while she was trying to play her computer game and finally saying... "Hailee you have got to move closer to me I just can't bend over that far." To which she replied "Ah mom, I wish babies came in bags." By this point I was very confused and asked a few further questions to try and figure out what she was talking about. I finally figured it out. Last week we watched the movie Dumbo and at the beginning it shows all the baby animals being dropped off by the storks in adorable white little bags. Then Hailee said "If our baby came in a bag then you could still bend over mom and I could play my game." Well she did survive taking a break long enough for me to braid her hair and I have to say I'm sure there are a lot of mom's out there that would love it if babies came in little white bags from a stork. I am, for sure, one of those moms. Only three weeks left....but who's counting right....I just hope this little one doesn't decided to wait an extra week like Hailee did.