Craziness

So the computer crashed. Well, not really I guess, but it didn't work and we sent it in to get fixed. Apparently I got some virus and our computer guy said he could have fixed it over the phone in 60 seconds. That would have been nice to know before it was gone for a week. And I'm almost positive I didn't have all my pictures backed up. I just can't bring myself to check yet.

The honeymoon is slowly coming to an end. Molly is starting to have more awake time now, and she even cries sometimes. She's a month old already, I can hardly believe it! It's gone so fast...way faster than the boys, but probably because I'm so much busier now. She's even starting to lose her new newborn look. She hasn't been weighed for a couple of weeks, but she's probably getting close to 8 lbs. Her cephalohematoma is looking a lot better, but it won't go away completely for a while. Her cheeks are starting to get fat, which can likely be attributed to me shoving a bottle in her mouth more than half the time now. She's so hard to wake up that it's just easier to pump and bottle feed. I usually get up once during the night with her, and we've got it down to about 15 minutes! Everyone deserves a baby like Molly, this month has been surprisingly great!

I'll post new pics of the kiddies when I work up the courage to see how much I lost when the virus hit. Stinking virus.

Will

Will is such a funny little kid. He's sneaky, being the younger brother and all, so we always have to keep an extra eye on him. He's been so funny lately.

Watching Sam leave for preschool. He loves playing with Sam, so it's always sad when he has to go. But then I put Will in bed, and then he's sad that it's naptime.

He somehow managed (after coating himself in yogurt) to get one arm through the neck of his shirt. He decided to use a backscratcher to get the lights. It didn't work.

This kid loves his shoes. He loves to wear Sam's shoes lately, especially his snow boots. Sometimes we have to let him nap in his shoes because he gets really mad if we try to take them off. We choose our battles. Shoes in bed is something we care about much less than other things. Like getting a good nap. We care a lot about that.

Mike bought Molly and her soon-to-be buddy matching UofU sets. It came with a hat, booties, bib, onesie, and a blanket. The size on the box said 3-9 months, but the booties fit Will, and Mike could even squeeze the hat onto his head.

Mike has an indoor bike trainer, and Will likes to go downstairs and spin the back wheel. The tire makes his hands black. His hands make his face black.

Like father, like son.

Friday the 13th

I've never been a real girly girl, but having a baby girl is changing me. At least a little. I never bought matching bedding for the boys, but I was so excited when I found this on sale. It even has matching receiving blankets (that I haven't used yet). I love brown and pink and polka dots right now. My neighbor made the cute pillow. (And thanks for the crib Katie!)

She should have come today, but she's two and a half weeks old now! I know the red ribbon totally clashes, but the only clothes she has are pink. And I wanted a red ribbon today. She's been sleeping for about 2 weeks solid now. Well, that's not true. She has about an hour (some days maybe a little more) of awake time every day. Mike was reading something about newborns and it said they usually sleep for about 16 hours a day. Not this champion baby. She was fussy for about 5 minutes yesterday, and it was really weird to hear...she almost never cries. All I had to do was feed her and she went right to sleep. If only it would last forever.

Mike took me out the other night for my birthday. We went to the Salt City Burger Co, and we really liked it. I have to say, Mike has been so great since Molly came (well, before that too). Life has been crazy, and we've all been sick with a yucky cold. If the boys are up in the night he gets up with them, and he gets up with them in the morning too, so I can sleep a little longer. I ran to Costco this morning and he did the dishes while I was gone. What a superstar. Mike is the greatest!

The boys have been needing lots of outside time since Molly was born. Will especially loves to be outside. They go on lots of walks, and they even went sledding in the back yard while I was making dinner the other day.

Taking a break from sledding to do some swinging!

Sharing!

The other day Molly was fussing a little bit. Will made her happy by sharing a truck with her. I was right there by them, but I was looking down doing something. When I looked up she had a truck sitting on her chest, and he was pushing his car next to her.

And he tried to share his sippy with her too. He's also shared tennis balls with her, and today he took her bottle and finished it. The kid loves to share.

My Loves

These boys love their sister!! They always want to hold her and rub her head. She's managed to survive two weeks with them and their energy! She had her check up today. Her stats are:

Birth
Weight: 6 lbs 3 oz
Length: 18.5 inches

2 Weeks
Weight: 6 lbs 13 oz
Length: 20 inches

She's perfectly proportioned, her head size, weight and length are all in the 25th percentile. She's currently also the perfect baby. She sleeps pretty much all the time. We know it won't last, so we're enjoying it (a lot!) while it does. I was starting to get kind of worried about it, but she responds the right way to stuff like tickling her feet and changing her diaper, so everything's good.

On Sunday Molly gave us a bit of a scare. While I was feeding her I noticed a big, soft bump on her head. We took her to the doctor, and they said it was a cephalohematoma. Birth trauma (probably from the forceps when they yanked her out...trust me, it was traumatic. I'm still recovering from it myself. Plus she was posterior (facing up instead of down), so I would say trauma is a good word for it). They recommended we take her up to Primary Children's for a CT scan of her head to make sure there wasn't a skull fracture. There wasn't, and other than the bump, everything is great. The bump will go away in time, but for now it makes me really sad to see it.

Molly Grace

She has Will's crazy hair and Sam's face. I think she's starting to take on her own look now. We're acquiring more pink as we go, but she still gets wrapped up in some blue.

A big kiss from big brother! Will loves Molly!

Getting ready to go home from the hospital.

We were pretty worried about how Will would take this new person in his life, but he liked her right from the start! He loves to give her pats and rub her head.

Sam loves his new sister! He loves holding her and is very gentle with her. What a great big brother!

First bath with Daddy.

I got to meet Molly a lot sooner than I expected! I should still be pregnant for another week and a half! Sam and Will were right on time, so we just thought she would be too. We should have expected a girl to mix things up and keep it interesting.

Sam is sitting next to me reading as many words as he can. He's sounding out tons of words lately. By the time he gets to kindergarten he'll be reading bed time books to me!

2 Sleeping Babies

I have 2.3 seconds...because I have two sleeping babies and Mike & Sam are at church. That's right, I now have TWO babies! Molly came 2 1/2 weeks early, and I think we're still in shock!

So here's how it went. Tuesday morning we got up and had breakfast at 8:30 with the boys. At 8:45 I was done and starting to pick up around the kitchen. Contraction. I think, That wasn't a contraction, the baby was just kicking funny. Please. A couple minutes later I had another one, but I decided not to tell Mike yet in case it was just a Braxton Hicks. By the time the next one came I told Mike I was having contractions, but I wasn't sure if I was really going into labor. They kept coming. And coming.

After about an hour and a half of throwing clothes in a bag, getting the boys ready and packed, doing the dishes, mourning the fact that there was no time to do laundry, running around like crazy people, and trying to mentally prepare myself, we headed out. We picked Sam up early from his playgroup and dropped the boys off with Grandma Grace (who had a very busy day and dropped everything to help us). We got to the hospital at 11:45 and after explaining that I go REALLY fast and was positive for GB, they put me in a delivery room right away. I was already dilated to a 5 1/2. And it was starting to hurt. The nurse showed Mike a cool way of putting pressure on my knees instead of my back, and she put pressure on my head and neck, and it really helped me through my contractions. And then I got my epidural. Heaven! The pain just stops. It's like magic. Good thing too, because Molly pulled a Sam and came out smiling (or at least looking) at the doctor. Ouch. For me. Oh, and the doctor had to pull her out with the forceps because Baby M's vitals were dropping and she was afraid I was hemorrhaging because of a placental abruption. Mike was starting to get pretty freaked out at that point. A NICU team came in and checked things out while my doctor sewed me up, and everything was fine.

Molly Grace Clayton was born January 27th (the day after her daddy's birthday) at 2:26 PM, weighed 6 lbs 3 oz, and was 18.5 inches long. And she was exactly 2 1/2 weeks early. She was so much smaller than the other babies in the nursery that the nurses were calling her Peanut. She weighed more than a pound less than the boys when they were born. Her discharge weight was 5 lbs 12 oz, but she's already starting to put weight on! She had gained 2 oz by yesterday, so things are looking good.

We got home from the hospital on Thursday, and after we were settled, Mike headed out to buy bunk beds for the boys. He put them together that night, and the next night we moved Will (and his crib...we're not giving that up yet!) into Sam's room. Sam's old bed was too wide to move the crib in also, hence the bunk beds. On Saturday we had to take Molly to the doctor, so we went to Target too to buy her some newborn stuff. She's so small that everything drowns her. All the newborn sized stuff we had was huge on her, so we had to get her something else to wear. I guess it's good that we were so unprepared, since we would have had to buy new stuff anyway.

We're so happy to have our baby girl! Sam calls her Baby Sister (but if you ask him what her name is, he'll tell you it's Molly Baby Sister Altamont Dr.). Even Will likes her (he was the one we were worried about). He says hi to her and is very gentle when he touches her. We're all still adjusting to the change, but so far things are great! And I'll get some pics on here as soon as I can, which may be in about a month. :)