Uncle Mimi

Meridith was the best man at our wedding - so we thought that it was only fitting that she should be Deakin's uncle. (might be confusing after she gets married and its uncle Mimi and uncle Paul...oh well we will cross that bridge when we come to it)

Here she is wearing the head to Deakin's Halloween costume...I think that it might still be a bit to big for him. It said that it was 0-6 months size...

Meridith also made it down to the Cherry Blossom Festival with us. Amazing how many tourist can fit along the river bank in between the trees.
We even colored Easter eggs while she was down. I have to admit that she is a bit more creative then we are - here is her rocketship.

Scott's Arm

I'm sure by now that everyone has heard that Scott is unable to fly - or leap semi-short fences. (although in his defense I think that the fence just sucks and needs to be replaced) The break in his arm was pretty terrible, by the time that they got him to the emergency room his left arm was 3 inches shorter then his right. It was a terrible hospital experience, so we need to be looking into a different hospital out here to be our primary care facility. Scott's arm left us in a bit of a bind. He is no longer able to care for Deakin and I don't have time to be full-time caretaker and law student. (So how do I have time to blog you might ask? I just got the baby to go to sleep and I have a little time before I have to go pick Scott up from the metro - not really enough time to dive into a paper)

We are very lucky to have helpful family and friends. Scott's mom flew out the day he broke his arm and so she and I traded off baby duty and hospital time. Scott's bestman Meridith (Uncle Mimi to Deakin) came down for a week to watch the kiddo while I caught up on school work and went to class. And several of my fellow law school classmates took turns watching Deakin at school so that I could go to my lectures. Deakin did get to come to one of my classes - he is getting well educated in the relation between law and economics! I want to thank everyone that helped us (although most of them don't read this so I will be thanking them on Facebook as well

My mom is flying out tomorrow and staying with us until graduations are over. My poor dad is giving her up for 6 weeks - hopefully he will be able to make it out to visit at least once before graduations to help split up his solitude (not that he doesn't have a vast network of family at home to keep him company).

So anyways, thanks to everyone to has helped out and to everyone that has been thinking about us. Here are a couple of pictures. There is an identical incision on the other side of his arm as well, because he broke both bones in his forearm they had to go in and place plates and screws. If I can get the x-rays to scan I will post those later as well.

Deakin - 4 months

Deakin is doing great. He is a very happy baby and Scott and I are very lucky. Deakin still isn't sleeping through the night well - but hes getting better, so there is still hope. We took him into his 4 month doctor visit and his pediatrician told us that he is doing great: 50% for weight, 75% for height, meeting all of the milestones. He still doesn't roll over, but the doctor said most babies don't do that until about 6 months now, and since Deakin hates tummy time I assume that he will be really close to that before rolling consistently. He did roll over once (tummy to back) about a month ago (I missed it, sad) but he has refused to do it again since. He can almost roll back to tummy, but he can't get one of his arms out of the way so he ends up on the side of his face and his arm. I actually think that he might learn to sit up before rolling over (I know that this isn't really a possibility but it feels like it could be) he loves to sit up with support and he is getting good at balancing that way with only minimal help. He also loves to stand up and has just recently started picking up his feet like is is trying to walk.

We started him on solid food this past week. He was a champ at his first feeding, he opened his mouth and swallowed - all with minimal mess. I was holding him while I was eating dinner that night and every time I would bring the fork up to my mouth he would open his up and follow the fork with him eyes - such a smart kid. However, subsequent feedings haven't gone quite as well - have to catch him at just the right amount of hungry. If he isn't hungry enough he just spits it out and smiles at you (quite the game) and if he is too hungry he will eat a few bites and then cry until you give him a bottle (just not fast enough of a delivery system). Scott says that Deakin has my patience and Scott's temper -- if this turns out to the true we are really in for it.

I will try and get some pictures up soon - I'm at work right now and don't have any with me.

Oh time - where does it go

The plan was to get better about posting...it didn't happen. I've decided that instead of trying to catch up with old post (Christmas, etc) that I am just going to start with new stuff. I think that the idea of trying to catch up was so daunting that I used it as an excuse to keep postponing it. I was always too busy to catch up.

However, I hate to ignore the last 3 months completely so here is the condensed version.

Scott and I traveled home to KS for Christmas. Deakin and I flew home with my mom and Scott drove home with the kitties. This means that Deakin's first flight was at 6 weeks - I was 18. We really need to get a bigger car - the two door caviler that we drive now just isn't big enough for 2 adults a car seat and 2 cats for making the trip home.

Deakin got so much stuff for Christmas that it almost didn't fit into the car for the trip home, even with Deakin and I flying back. Two months old is an odd time for Christmas. Most toys and things are designed for 6 months and up. So a lot of the stuff that Deakin got he still isn't really big enough to play with. But it will be nice to have all of the older toys come this summer when I am studying for the bar and he needs entertainment.

This semester has been going well. Scott has been busy doing housework. He actually insulated our attic during snowmagedden (I'm sure I spelled that wrong - oh well, you know what I mean the week of 30 inches of snow). We came to the realization afterwards that this was probably a bad idea, if he had hurt himself there would have been no way to get him medical attention. Luckily everything went smoothly. We have finally gotten most of the way unpacked, due in part to having a housewarming party which gave us a set deadline to get things done by. Other housework included have 3 large trees cut out of our front yard. The tree guys gave us quite a deal on the front yard, but while they were there they pointed out that one of the huge trees in the back yard was rotting. We are lucky that this tree survived the snow storm. There was no way that we could leave the tree up - so we ended up spending a lot more on trees this weekend then we had really planned on. I can't wait to get our tax refund - our house fund is getting really low (and since we bought a house we know that we are getting at least 8k). However, when I sat down to do our taxes I found out that my school job withheld state taxes for New Jersey...I've never been to NJ let alone lived there. So now I have to file state taxes with 3 states: VA and MD because we moved, and NJ because my school is retarded.

Other exciting news, not only did Scott get offered a spot in Johns Hopkin's PhD program, the best school of public health in the nation, but they are going to pay him to go. Scott is getting funding that will cover all of his tuition plus about 20k for living expenses. This means that we will be able to cover our mortgage/living expenses when we have our 2nd kiddo - so I can take off more then 2 weeks for maternity leave. Woohoo - after Deakin I realized that 2 weeks at home is really just not enough time. At least Deakin was at home with Scott and my mom after those two weeks...the 2nd kiddo probably won't have the same luxury.

That I believe pretty much covers the last three months - home for Christmas, Scott's school, house stuff. Deakin will get his own post.

Bringing Deakin Home

I guess this is just going to be a little bit out of order - obviously we brought Deakin home from the hospital before Halloween - but I can't figure out how to reorder the post without deleting one - and I'm just not going to bother to do that. I figure that this is a positive step for my anal self - or maybe my slackerism just coming out (less sleep and finals approaching will cause that).

I ended up getting discharged the day before Deakin did. Deakin had jaundice and had to stay an extra day working on his tan. It was really sad but it ended up working out for the best; while Deakin was hanging out with the most expensive babysitters I hope to ever employ Scott, Mom and I were closing on our new house. (a post about the house really will be coming I promise) After leaving the closing we dropped Mom off at the house, because she couldn't come into the the nursery at the hospital anyways and went to pick up our son.

The clothes that we bought him for coming home in were way to big. He was born at just shy of 8 lbs and these clothes were labeled as starting at 8 lbs but really I think we could have fit two of him in the pants. :) Oh well because now (beginning of Dec) the pants fit great - although he is about to outgrow the shirt. I find it odd that the shirt and pants are the same size from the same place and yet fit so very differently - I guess all babies are just different sizes. Deakin is long and skinny, a "banana baby," as opposed to an "apple baby." Bananas are supposed to be healthier - I hope so.

Dressing babies is hard the first time that you do it - in fact I'm convinced that the nurses must get a kick out of it. I didn't look - but I have a feeling that they were peeking through the window laughing at us... :)

We did however finally manage to get him dressed, and by the end of it he was not a happy camper. (and you can tell in this picture how big his clothes are - they were about to eat him alive)

Once we started rocking him in the car seat he settled down very quickly - that is one of the great things about Deakin, he settles down very very fast - what a good baby :)

Baby's first car ride

Kiko was very interested in what this new toy we brought home for her was. Jude on the other hand still wants nothing to do with him and its been 5 weeks. I hope that he gets used to Deakin some day - otherwise it is going to be a very long life - especially when Deakin gets mobile.

And last but not least - Grandma finally got to hold the baby. Due to the swine flu going around, they were not allowing visitors in the nursery so Grandma had only got to see him through the window for a couple of minutes.

Halloween

I love Halloween and we were so excited that Deakin made his arrival before Halloween. We actually ordered his costume while we were still at the hospital. We didn't want to buy it ahead of time because then we were sure he wouldn't get here in time. So we rush shipped it right before Halloween. Originally he was going to be a turtle, but I was worried that his shell might make it harder to hold and/or lay down an infant that was only a couple of days old - so we went with a tree frog instead. When his costume got here it was huge - way to big for a newborn, even though it said that it started at 0 months. So we rolled the legs all of the way up and balanced the head covering on - he will still be able to wear it next summer, if not next Halloween. We are thinking about dressing him up for St. Patties day because its so cute and the color is right :)

Two days before Deakin got here, Scott and I both carved pumpkins. Mine is the kitty and Scott's is the scary face. The plan was to buy another pumpkin and carve it for Deakin if he arrived in time. We put off buying the pumpkin (not like we were busy or anything) until the day before Halloween - and everywhere was sold out. Scott finally found the little pumpkin in the floral department with a sticker of a goofy face on it. On Halloween - right as trick or treaters were showing up (so much fun to have trick or treaters this year) Scott scraped of the dumb face and carved Deakins pumpkin, which says "Boo!"

Here was the inspiration for Deakin's pumpkin. Isn't he too cute.

Halloween was a lot of fun. Deakin wasn't old enough to enjoy it (obviously) and he was not a big fan of his costume (only stayed in it long enough for a few pictures) but we had a good time. We had two little trick or treaters (maybe 2-3) come inside and chase our kitties - their dad was very apologetic but it was adorable, a Georgetown law grad who noticed the hoodie I was wearing and talked about what a great school it is, several congratulations on a new baby (he was helping hand out candy) and lots of people complimenting us on our awesome pumpkins!

...so I finally found some time....

Its been a month since I last updated the blog, so I have finally found some time to write about everything that has been going on in our lives - baby, new house, school, etc. So get ready for several blog posts all at once :)