Maddie Lou is 2 (Months Old)!

Little girl is a growing girl and is already 2 months old! I'm not sure I would totally say "time flies when you are having fun," but I would definitely say "time flies when you have 2 kids!" Just kidding...mostly. It is hard to believe that she is already 9 weeks old, and that I sadly have to go back to work on Monday :( Here are some fun things about Miss Madelyn:

- 2 month check up she weighs 12lb 10oz (78%) and is 23 inches long (71%). At her 1 month check up she was 10lb 10oz and 22in (I think). I look at her and cannot believe that she has gained 5lbs and almost 5 inches already?! Just hard to see the changes since I am with her just about every second of the day.
- She is nursing 7 times a day, which has been consistent pretty much since she was a couple weeks old. She has taken a handful of bottles in practice for me returning to work (4-5oz), and does just fine with them.
- Naps are still a bit of a struggle, but I can say that this has seemed to greatly improved over the past couple of weeks. I think it was just hard for me to get a handle on her natural schedule the first 6 weeks with all the craziness...and hard to get a grasp on the idea of a newborn not sleeping ALL the time! For the most part she will take a decent (45-60min) nap in the am, a good 2ish hr nap after lunch, and then a couple super short catnaps late afternoon before bed. I've been starting to get her into a routine of going down for the night after her 7/7:30 feeding which puts her to sleep around 8 as long as she doesn't fight me too hard. I then wake her to eat before I head to bed between 10-11 and then she will usually sleep anywhere from 4-5:30am to eat, and then will go back down until 8ish which is amazing. She has certainly earned MAJOR points in the overnight sleeping department, and I am soooo thankful for that! Sounds like a ton of sleep when I look at it, but there are definitely days when she will only do catnaps all throughout the day, and days when she really fights to go to sleep. She seems to not want to miss anything! She'll often start to drift off, and then her little eyes will pop open like she's afraid to close them in case something exciting happens.
- Speaking of her not wanting to miss anything, she is sooooo alert! Pretty much every new person she meets comments on that within the first few minutes. Within her first week of life, she was making good eye contact and tracking us. She is aware of all the hanging friends on the play mat, above the swing and in her bouncy and really focuses in on them. And, I've noticed she really seems to know when she is in a new place. This past weekend at Jonah's bday party, I took her upstairs to eat and she was in awe looking around at everything in his room before she would concentrate on eating.
- Since about 1 month old, she has been smiling and cooing a bit at people, and just this week she's starting talking to toys as well. She smiles at friendly new faces a lot too. Her best smiles come in the mornings on the changing table, and when Andrew sings Twinkle Twinkle to her. She seems to be close to giggling, which I can't wait for :)
- She has really good head control and enjoys tummy time. Most of the time, she'll just relax on the mat and contently chew on her fist.
- Big brother has been doing very well with her too! He's held her a few times, and a couple of those times he was the one to bring it up. He's still not too big into kisses for her, but he will give her lots of pats. And, he likes to hold her hand when she cries to make her feel better. One day I was upstairs for a minute when she started to cry in the swing, and as I was coming down the stairs, Jack made his way over to her and held her hand :) That was my favorite because he didn't see me and did it completely on his own. Sweet boy.

Month 1 pictures:

just home from the hospital meeting the Stiches!

first night home

Meeting Gee Gee and hanging out on her kitchen table :)

Easter

1st (and only so far) family of 4 pic

The flash startled her. I think this picture is hilarious. Andrew tends to think it's not her best look?

Month 2:

1st bottle

Mother's Day snuggles for Mommy

look Ma, no hands!

1st pics together

cheeks!

love this view

Madelyn Lou is Here!

On Monday, March 31st we welcome Miss Madelyn Lou Noble to the world and our family! I'll give a brief run down on her birth story:

The prior Thursday, I went to my weekly doc appointment and was 4cm and 70% effaced. At that time, the doctor agreed to set up an induction date of Tuesday, April 1st (our due date) b/c of my progress and the fact that we live an hour away from the hospital. All that weekend, I felt that something was going to be happening soon. I was feeling very tired, having some cramping, and some other tell tale labor signs. But, come Sunday night, still nothing.

I woke up around 4am on Monday morning to fairly strong contractions about 10 minutes apart. As I laid in bed, I started to panic about Monday morning traffic up to the hospital, so around 5:30 I told Andrew I thought we should head up there to get checked out just in case. By 6:30, we were on our way and made it to the hospital before 8am.

While they were getting me set up with the monitors, I told the nurse about my experience last time and how the belt was not picking up my contractions. So she said she would put the belt lower (though still not where I said the contractions were located) and they monitored me for a bit. As the case was last time, I was told they were just picking up some uterus irritability versus true contractions...though they were still happening every 10 minutes. BUT, since I was due at the hosp at 6am the next day, they decided to keep me and make Monday "baby day."

By 1pm they decided to give me a bit of pitocin since I was dilated to 5cm and the contractions weren't getting any closer on their own. By 2pm I had my epidural and shortly after that the resident checked me and said I was complete, but that baby was still a bit high, so they wanted to let me labor down for an hour for baby to move down before pushing. 40 minutes later, the nurse said Dr.Locker was getting antsy and wanted to do a practice push. Once I pushed during the next contraction, we saw the resident's and nurse's eyes get big and say "ok, there's the baby.We're ready." 10 minutes and about 4 contractions later, out came Madelyn Lou!

Andrew and I were both convinced we were having another boy, but in the back of my mind I was still holding out a little bit of hope for a girl. When she came out, she was turned over and while Andrew was asking "what is it? what is it?" I was saying "I don't see anything" (in terms of boy parts) and then the doc said "It's a GIRL!" I instantly burst into tears I was so excited. It was such an amazing experience to be able to hold her right away and get to know her a little bit versus our experience with Jack. We are so excited to start life as a family of 4 with our little boy and now our precious baby GIRL :)

Funny Boy

Jack Harold is quite the character these days. Just a few funnies I thought to document:

- Every morning when we get him up, we'll ask how he slept and what he dreamed about. If one asks "how did you sleep?" he will reply "good!" but if you ask "did you sleep good?" he will reply "noooo" with this sad, pathetic face. That usually leads to telling us he had bad dreams. And 9 times out of 10, the bad dreams are about poop.

- Speaking of poop, over the weekend we went to dinner at Giordano's. Jack did great for the most part, except for the few screams at the top of his lungs for no reason, or when he started yelling poop repeatedly. That's when the phone came out to entertain him.

- Last night during dinner as I was asking him questions about his day, etc he started answering every question with pancake. For instance, I often call him Bubba and Andrew calls him Clark, so when asking him if he'd rather be Bubba or Clark, he told me Pancake.

- He doesn't say "yes." he responds with either "k" or now, my new favorite "eeyyyy." I have nicknamed him The Fonz.

- He loves to play grocery store. He has his wallet with play money and a credit card, and will bring his groceries over for me to scan and bag, he'll pay, and then walk back to his kitchen with his little Jewel bag of groceries. So cute. Sometimes he'll start to walk away with an item that hasn't been paid for, and will start giggling like crazy when I say "excuse me sir, you need to pay for that hot dog" like he knows he's being bad. Shoplifter in training, awesome.

- Since the time change, Jack has had some trouble adjusting and has been messing around in his crib for 30-45 minutes before falling asleep. He'll sing, jabber, or find other ways to entertain himself during this time: https://vimeo.com/89525317

excuse the shaky camera work, we were cracking up.

37 Weeks

Full term, wahoo!!!! Here is baby swiss chard. So happy this baby has cooperated and stayed cooking this long...but now I think we're ready for him/her to come out and play any time! For the most part, I am still feeling ok and moving around decently. But there are definitely some days where I feel so much pressure it's hard to walk without waddling, crossing my legs is a chore and rolling over and getting out of bed at night is a nightmare. I think Andrew would say there are more days like the latter lately :) I also hate getting dressed in the morning for work. Jeans all day never sound comfortable any more, and I am a much happier person in my sweat pants. But who isn't? But I know that I will miss being pregnant (for the most part), so I am just going to soak up these last few weeks and try to be as pleasant as possible. I said "try" AJN :)

We are getting so close to meeting BN2!!!!!!!! Can't wait to find out if we have another Mister or a Miss!!

Last night I swore I could tell that the baby had dropped, but now looking at this pic, the bump still looks pretty high. 

Word Explosion

For quite some time now, though Jack has a lot of "words", everything he says is just 1 syllable and he hasn't strung 2 words together. Every once and a while he would let out a full "Grandma" or something a bit more substantial, but when asked to repeat it, he never would. Within the last couple of weeks, we have made GREAT strides in the talking department. He is trying all sorts of new words and putting some phrases together! And, he is starting to do them on his own vs us asking him to repeat words after us. Some of the most recent examples:

- strawberry

- popcorn

- pancake

- cupcake - see video here

- cookie - see video here. Clearly bribery for sweets is not lost on this kid. And also, Grandma P wins for nutritionist of the year :) 

- new car

- more please

- all gone
-delish (courtesy of Ga&Ga Noble)

- excuse me
- Lucy

- naughty kitty (referring to Lucy)

- snowflake

- Lion King

- ambulance (am blance)

- hippopotamus (ip pot)

- school bus

- helicopter (el cop)

-downstairs

-outside

-coffee
-zebra
-ballpit
-Grandma (vs Ga)
- Grandpa (vs Ga)

and I'm sure several others that I am forgetting! GREAT JOB, JACK! You'll be a chatterbox in no time :)

Catch Up

So, clearly I've fallen behind in my blogging. It has been a busy 6 weeks of 2014 with birthday celebrations, work travels (for Andrew) and any other excuse I can use for not updating :)

But, the good news is that Baby Noble is still cooking away and doing great! We are now at week 33 and baby is the size of a pineapple. I went to the doc last week and I was measuring just a little bit behind, so doc booked an ultrasound before my appointment next week. Oddly enough, I will be 34w2d for the ultrasound which was the gestational age that Jack was born. The doc didn't seem too concerned, as I measured just a week or 2 behind and they usually give a 2cm "grace" window, and as she said "besides, ultrasounds are fun." So, we are excited to take 1 last peek at the nugget before his/her big arrival!

Here is week 33:

Jack comparison:

Week 29 - Baby Butternut Squash

Week 28

Well we have not been good the past 2 weeks with taking a picture of the bump. Sorry baby. But I did manage to take a selfie (excuse my skills - I am not a skilled selfie taker, and I am ok with that) before my work holiday party on Friday. The bump was looking crazy big and basketball like. So, here is our THIRD TRIMESTER baby Eggplant.