February 2007

02/28/07

We're pretty tired over here.  Everyone except Charlie has a cold (or still has a cold, in my case).  Charlie's having nursing problems.  Tommy's starting to really stress out.  This is the hard part.  At least I know it all will get easier in a week or two.  That's the good thing about this not being our first baby.

02/26/07

In an effort not to over-do it, here is a random sampling of relevant sentences and pictures. 

We came home from the hospital Saturday afternoon.  Time spent in the hospital this time = just over 72 hours.  I keep forgetting that I'm home a couple of days earlier than last time.

Charlie spends a lot of time sleeping.  Of course, he wakes up a lot too.

Tommy is very proud to offer all visitors a slice of birthday cake, made for Charlie by Tommy and Grandma.

At his 4-day-old pediatrician appointment today, Charlie weighed 7 lbs 15 oz.  My milk came in this morning, so we expect him to be back up to his birth weight very soon.

First meeting.

"The best present in the whole world from MY baby brother Charlie."

Charlie has lots of dark hair, but seems to get cold easily, so he's almost always wearing a hat.

Items shown are to scale.

Not all pictures taken these days are of Charlie.

He has a small skin tag on his lower left cheek.  The pediatrician tied it off today with a small, tight stitch.  It should fall off soon.  Strangely, I'm going to miss it.

This one likes the bouncy seat just as much as his brother did.

02/22/07

We have a new addition to the family!  Charles (Charlie) David Epp was born just after noon today at Presbyterian.  He was 9lbs 3oz and 20.5in long.  Sally was a little worried about the C-section based on the trauma from last time, but it happened without any problems.  She really didn't feel a thing and is recovering very well.  Sally is in Rm 604 at the hospital for the next couple days.  The phone number there is 505-222-2604.  Enough with the chit-chat, here are the pics.

2/22/07 (Before the event)

Today's the day!  We'll be leaving for the hospital in an hour or so.  Watch this space for the baby announcement tonight or tomorrow!

02/20/07

I think I'm starting to feel a bit better.  I know Tommy is feeling better, and David seems to be successfully fighting his cold off with lots of extra sleep and Vitamin C.  I'm to the point now where I almost always have one clear nostril.  That's a huge improvement.  Plus, the gigantic aching tenderness that was my left sinus is now just a moderate aching tenderness.  I do have the beginnings of a cough, but maybe that will pass in the next 48 hours.  I hope so, since I'll have both a baby and an incision 48 hours from now.  At the very least I seem to be more calm about the whole thing today.

02/18/07

David's sick now too.  Ug.  At least I can still offer you pretty pictures.

There's a new pregnancy picture up for week 38.

02/17/07

Tommy and I are both sick with colds.  Hopefully the virus will run its course by Thursday.  I probably won't be posting a lot here until I feel better.  I will put a pregnancy picture up tomorrow, but can't promise more than that before the C-Section.

I'm not going to have David send announcement e-mails out on Thursday.  He will update this website instead.  I will send e-mail announcements out when I get home from the hospital, but that won't be until Sunday or Monday, so if you want the news as soon as possible you can check here late Thursday night.  Right now, the plan is for the C-Section to happen at noon.  David will come home to show Tommy pictures and put him to bed from 6:30 to 8:30 pm or so.  We're planning for him to post the baby pictures and details on this website at that time (including name - so stop asking me for advance information).  After Tommy's asleep he'll come back to the hospital to spend that first night with me.  If there's no update, just be patient and he'll get to it when he can.  Sylvia will be here with Tommy, and she will have a short list of close family to call with the announcement Thursday afternoon.  We'll be at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, if you need to reach us, but please don't call before Friday.

02/14/07

Happy Valentine's Day!  So when do you capitalize valentine, and when don't you?  I'm going to go with capital letter for the holiday since it's both a holiday and the name of Saint Valentine, but lower case for the cards/presents.  I'm probably wrong, but can't be bothered to look it up. 

Anyway, Tommy made valentines for all our scattered relatives, but they're sitting right here next to me on the desk.  I should have mailed them, but I didn't.  Sorry about that.  I claim pregnancy-immunity for dropping the ball.  He loves everyone and wishes everyone a happy Valentine's Day.  You can pick up your cards next time you visit.  It's always possible I might buy some envelopes and stamps and put them in the mail sometime this week, but I doubt it.  Want evidence that I probably won't mail the cards?  It takes me five minutes to put my socks on.  There's a dish towel on the floor of the office that I've stepped over about 28 times but haven't picked up because it's just too much trouble.  There's snow on the ground again and I'm not leaving the house until it melts.  Tommy's had lunch meat, raw veggies and crackers for lunch every day this week.  David's super-romantic valentine present was a bag of Doritos and a package of Red Vines.  Should I go on?  No, you get the idea.  I'm conserving energy over here.

For now, here's one current example of Tommy cuteness.  While we were picking up Daddy's Doritos and Red Vines at Wal-Mart yesterday (a stupid and unnecessary outing that wiped me out for the rest of the afternoon), I snuck a valentine present into the cart for Tommy.  I thought he might not notice, but he did.  He asked me what it was.  I told him it was a valentine present for him, a secret surprise, and he couldn't look at it until Valentine's Day.  The next thing I knew he was doing his sneaky walk and trying to put a kitchen timer from the aisle we were passing in the cart.  I asked him what he was doing, and he said "it's a secret surprise for you Mommy!"  Now, I really should have said thank you and just bought the two dollar kitchen timer since it was so sweet that he thought I should have a present just like him.  I wasn't thinking, though, so I told him to put it back because we didn't need it.  Poor Tommy.   

02/13/07

They now have matching Big Red Shoes.

"Look Mommy!  I found this great snack in the 'frigerator.  Can I eat it for dessert?"  I'm not going to argue if he wants to eat spinach for dessert.  I guess I didn't need to worry about just giving him hotdogs for dinner.  He found a way to eat some vegetables.  Then David and I ate brownies after he went to sleep.  At least one of us is ultra healthy.

02/12/07

Baby Update:  I just got back from my last OB appointment before the C-Section.  I asked him to do an extra ultrasound to reassure me that the scheduled C-Section is the right decision.  Yep.  It's the way to go.  I'm at 37 weeks right now, and as of this morning every single ultrasound measurement the doctor did showed the baby weighing in at ten pounds already.  Plus, my girl-detecting intuition is totally faulty.  He's most certainly a boy.  The doctor also saw lots of fetal breathing, which is an excellent sign this early.  He still has 10 more days to practice breathing and to grow, so we should be in excellent shape for the C-Section on Thursday, February 22nd.  I think he might even be bigger at week 37 than Tommy was at week 37, since Tommy still had four full weeks of growth before he was born.  However, I think this one will weigh slightly less than Tommy's 11 pounds at birth, but only because he's going to be born 18 days earlier than Tommy was.

02/11/07

Time for another pregnancy comparison picture.  It's kind of funny that we keep ending up with these pictures of Tommy hugging "baby" (ie my belly).  We don't ask him to.  He just wants us to take a picture like this every time I stand next to the wall for my comparison picture.

02/10/07

Well, I'm pretty sure we've chosen a name.  I made David JUST PICK ONE ALREADY.  I think it's a good one, but it will remain our little secret for now.  I will tell you that it's not one of the names on the poll.  I guess that was a fun but pointless exercise.  The final tally was 63 votes for Henry and 47 votes for Patrick.  That's good, because I did end up liking Henry more than Patrick.  We could still go back to Henry as an option, but I'm pretty sure we're going to stick with David's choice.  We'll tell you the name when he's born.  I still think it's going to be a girl - despite the ultrasound evidence - so even our chosen boy name doesn't sound quite right to me yet.  We'll know for sure soon, as will you.  Yes, I have a girl name picked out...just in case my intuition is correct.

02/07/07

About an hour after that doctor's visit yesterday we were getting on each others nerves so much that I loaded us into the car and drove to the park.  It's been gorgeous here the last couple of days (highs in the 60s), so it was good to get out of the house.  We spent 90 minutes out in the glorious Albuquerque sunshine.  That really cheered us both up.  Tommy made a little friend and had a great time running around.  I spent most of the time sitting on a bench, but still managed to get my first spring sunburn and overdo it so much that I was paying for it all afternoon and evening.  It was worth it to clear the cobwebs, though.  David stayed home from the gym last night so I was able to go to sleep at 8:30 pm and slept like the dead (with occasional brief interruptions for bathroom breaks) until 6:30 this morning.  Ten hours of sleep does a pregnant body good. 

We've had a better day so far today too.  Tommy had great fun at our weekly playdate with Claudia and Duncan.  The kids all got along well and they even played outside for a while after lunch.  Plus, Cindy and I agreed that Tommy and Claudia seem to be at almost exactly the same level of diction, enunciation and vocabulary.  That made me feel a bit better about the whole speech therapy thing.  He really might have just been having an off morning yesterday.  Unfortunately, Tommy had TWO accidents while we were at their house.  I think this is a new-baby-anxiety thing or something since he's been accident free for a long time and now is struggling again.  Tommy didn't seem to mind too much though, because he got to borrow Claudia's dry clothes.  We're home now and he refuses to change into his own clothes.  He especially loves her fuzzy sweater.  Without prompting from me he told them thank you for letting him borrow Claudia's clothes before we left.  Hopefully getting to wear fuzzy pink and flower embroidered clothes isn't such a positive incentive that he now tries to have accidents when we're at their house.  That would not be good.

  Hopefully he won't be too unhappy with me when he's 12 for posting this cute picture of him in Claudia's clothes.  He's so happy to be borrowing them.  He just looks serious because he's tired from all the great playtime. 

02/06/07

We had Tommy's 3-year well-child doctor visit today.  He weighs 37 pounds and is 40 inches tall.  That's above 90th percentile for both, but still higher on the charts for height than for weight.  He hadn't been to his doctor in about nine months, so it was all a bit new to him. 

The doctor said we need to get him an evaluative appointment with a speech therapist.  I'm a bit miffed about this, but we'll do it.  She didn't hear anything major but said that she can usually understand 90% of what 3-year-olds say, but could only understand about 70% of what Tommy was saying.  Plus, she said I was doing a lot of translating for him.  I guess that's a bad sign or something.  It's entirely possible that the whole thing can be contributed to the fact that he was talking about unusual things like gulper eels and submersibles, but I'm not the most unbiased observer.  I hesitated to even mention it here since the whole thing is making me a bit unhappy, but since this is kind of the permanent record of Tommy's childhood...

Anyway, back to regular life.  David's brother and sister-in-law came to visit Sunday night.  Did you know that many restaurants, including Gardunos, are closed in Albuquerque on Super Bowl Sunday?  We didn't.  It took us a while to find someplace open for dinner.  Tommy had a great time visiting with his Uncle Terry and Aunt Amy.  He just loves having visitors.  We had the usual grumpy afternoon yesterday after they left.  He hates to say goodbye to exciting visitors who play with him, especially when Mommy's being all annoying and sitting on the couch being uncomfortably pregnant and stuff.  He'll stop crying about their absence in the next few days.

02/04/07

Time for another pregnancy picture.

02/03/07

I had a great birthday yesterday.  I went out to a movie in the afternoon, and then the three of us went out to dinner together.  In the morning we went to the hospital to pre-register for the C-Section and I got some good news.  It sounds like they haven't been enforcing their no-child-visitors rule this winter.  It's possible Tommy is going to get to visit me and his baby brother in the hospital.  That might change, so we're trying not to get his hopes up too much, but it's nice to know that it might be possible.  Getting a visit from him every day will make the hospital stay pass much more quickly.

Here are the pictures of the nursery.  We still have a few things to do, but not much.  We have a wall shelf to put up somewhere.  The closet is a bit of a disaster, but it shouldn't take more than half a day to fix that.  Eventually we WILL pick a final name, and then we'll want to put the name up on the wall in wooden letters like Tommy has.  I think it turned out pretty well, especially since we wanted to keep a queen-sized bed in there for guests and Sleepless-Sally-Nights.  The pictures start at the door and move counter-clockwise around the room.  I didn't take a picture of the wall that has the closet and door on it, which would be last in this series.

See the archives for earlier entries.