Christmas 2009

Christmas has come and gone, with many stories to share and photos to show. New photos are up at our Smugmug site.

Reilly on her new bike:

Oh, the stories I could tell...

Today's entry brought to you from "guest blogger" Shawn...

Mommy: Reilly, why were you crying?

Reilly: Daddy said he had three stories, but he only told me two and one of them was unusual.

Mommy: Why was it unusual?

Reilly: One didn’t have any characters in it, it only had an orange. So it was unusual.

Week 24

What’s different this time around? I can’t remember a thing.

When we were pregnant with Reilly, we would read a Week by Week book as each new week turned over. The book was complete with pictures and taught us all the details of what was going on with our growing baby. I always knew how far along I was, how big the baby was, what she was doing, and what to expect the week to follow. We sometimes (always) would read the next week in anticipation of what was to come.

Early last week someone asked me how far along I was. I-had-no-i-dea. I had completely lost track. The blog we read had been put on hold, knowing I could look it up and read the weeks that had passed to see what this baby has been up to. I thought if I went to the blog it would come to me, but as I selected a week and read, I wasn’t sure if I had experienced it already, or if it was a sign of what was to come.

I’m grateful for my monthly doctor visits for one primary reason: to keep me on track. We had an appt on Friday…24 weeks. So far, the baby continues to grow and her heartbeat is strong. I still don’t have much of an appetite, more aversions than cravings, although a nice plate of steamed broccoli with butter, salt, and pepper sounds wonderful right now!

We’re supposed to be thinking about things like registering, setting up the nursery, and taking a hospital tour. All I want to do is settle in and watch a movie. Brian, on the other hand, is entering the nesting phase. As I type this, he’s in the process of burning all of our CDs, dating back to the early 1990s (who remembers ABC – Another Bad Creation??), just the first step to making room in the soon-to-be-named-nursery.

Photos as excuses...

It's Christmas crazy over in the Overcast household. Here is a link to some photos until I can find a moment to get down some thoughts: click here.

Child Labor

Shawn and I are continually surprised at the interest and understanding that Reilly has exhibited in regards to BabyO2. Reilly talks to the baby, kisses the baby -- all via Shawn's belly, and as was exhibited yesterday, has taken to writing to the baby.

Her most recent comment was:

"Daddy, do babies work?"

"No, Reilly, they are too little."

"Well Mommy's baby went to work with her today."

"Good point."

Shawn had traveled to her office in Orlando, and in Reilly's mind, that meant BabyO2 was also "working." I guess in some ways, Reilly wasn't too far off.

A dear LaLa letter

When I got home from work yesterday, Shawn showed me a little piece of purple paper on which she had written down a note to the baby, dictated by Reilly. You should know that Reilly has named the baby "LaLa." The text follows:

"You are a new baby to Reilly born a new baby. LaLa, you are a friendly baby to all of us at the same family at the same friendly house. Dear baby, from Reilly, Shawn, Brian, Grandma and my friend Gracie, Stacie and Gary, Reilly has a new pen from the treasure box from big kids school."

Thanksgiving photos are up!

Photos from our annual Thanksgiving trip to the mountains are up at Smugmug. Click here to view.

Not on the Thanksgiving menu

We were about 24 hours into our Thanksgiving vacation in the mountains of North Carolina when Reilly started acting funny--a certain combination of cuddly and cranky that only means one thing: she was getting sick.

A forehead check indicated fever, so we gave her Motrin to make her comfortable, and she dutifully fell to sleep.

The next morning she was acting normally and was her usual self throughout the day, but around 5:00 in the afternoon, the fever came back with a vengeance and with a new twist: an all body rash. And the rash, it was fiercely itchy.

Shawn did everything she could to soothe an over-tired, feverish, and itchy little girl, but it took two hours and quite a bit of crying before Reilly finally fell asleep.

The next morning, my dad found a pediatrician in Franklin, and they fit us in first thing in the morning. The diagnosis: strep.

We got our prescription, and took it to Kerr's (we actually had some trouble finding it, as the accent on the lady at the pediatrician's office made it sound like "Cars") got our pink liquid antibiotic, and happily gave Reilly her first dose.

The fever was gone the next day. Unfortunately for everyone, Reilly's rash worsened, the itch intensified, and then proceeded to last four more days.

I don't want to say that it ruined the vacation, but it kept a current of emotional stress running through our days and especially our nights. And I will say that when Reilly started to improve, it gave us yet another reason to be thankful.

I'm happy to say that Reilly is doing well now and the rash is finally gone, one week later. Also, we never have to worry about finding a doctor while we are at the cabin--we are now official registered patients at Pediatric Associates of Franklin.

A full heart

The other day, Reilly's grandmother pointed out something unusual to me. She told me to watch Reilly closely after I give her a kiss.

I did so, kissing her on the cheek, and was amused to see Reilly take her hand, rub the kiss off her cheek and onto her hand. Nothing too odd here, right?

But then Reilly licked her hand and swallowed.

When I asked her what she was doing, she said that she was swallowing my kisses so that they could get to her heart.

I don't know where she got this little ritual from--I think she might have come up with it herself--but I do know that it borders between extraordinarily cute and a little bit OCD because she does it with EVERY KISS she gets.

The things she carries

Reilly loves to pick up scraps and bits of things that she calls her "treasures." Once she has become connected to her treasures, she will not let them go. Here is a recent example:

This pile of sticks, leaves and palm fronds pictured below sat in the corner of our hotel room for three days, and lo! beware the housekeeper who dared to remove it from its location.

Most often I don't come across her collections until I empty out her pockets at the end of the day. Here is a recent stash of treasures after a day at school:

I like to wonder what it is that attracts her to these things; is it the weight, the texture, the color, or just the availability for her little hands to grasp them?

A word from the mother: Week 18

This entry brought to you by guest blogger: Shawn

This is my first entry since being pregnant. I vacillate between feeling incredibly guilty for not having documented a single thing about this pregnancy and just enjoying the moments as they come. The second time around has been a bit more difficult as far as morning sickness goes, and I'm only now starting to feel better. The nausea and food aversions lasted longer this time than it did with Reilly.

It is hard to compare this pregnancy to my first because for some reason I don't remember much about the first. I suppose that's a good thing, and my memory loss encourages me to take this one as it comes. I guess this is the first of a long list of lessons our new baby is sure to teach me.

About a week ago, as Brian was sleeping next to me, I began to panic about not having felt the baby kick. Though it was only 17 weeks, I woke him up and told him we had to look in the scrapbook his mom had made us from our pregnancy with Reilly, to see how far along I was when I first felt her kick. The book confirmed that I felt Reilly move for the first time at 17 weeks, so I relaxed and waited for Baby O2's first move.

I wouldn't have to wait long. The very next night, the baby kicked. I tried to show Reilly and Brian what this felt like by gently fluttering my fingers against their open palms.

I'll now borrow a line from Amalah's blog: "New This Time:"

I can't sleep. It takes me forever to fall asleep. I wake up at least twice to go to the bathroom, and can't fall back asleep. And I still get sick from time to time. But this time around is oh-so-much-sweeter to see through Reilly's eyes. She is so excited and loves her baby brother or sister so very much. Every morning she puts her ear up to my belly and then tells me what the baby is saying. She often tells me what it's saying by holding my hand out and tapping my hand.

What's next? The BIG ultrasound. Only 2 weeks away!

My buddies

Reilly and her three best friends:

School Picture Day

It's been a long month at work, so the old baby blog was pushed to the wayside. Work officially let up as of 7:00pm this evening, so let's catch up, shall we?

First up, the school picture. Shawn was out of town, so it was up to me to get Reilly in the correct outfit, brush her hair, and get the proper hair clip in place. Success?

You might remember that last year, Reilly's school photo came back with a little girl pictured who clearly didn't like the photographer. The expression on her face was 100% mistrust.

Shawn and I spent a lot of time prepping Reilly to smile for the photographer, so it will be interesting when her photos return to compare what we have here with their final result.

Happy Halloween!

Second Child Syndrome

It’s a common occurrence: The first child has five photo albums of its first year, each meticulously pasted, in order, into a carefully selected book. The second child has one hastily put together album and a shoebox full of disorganized photos.

One of the reasons for this blog is to try to give Baby O2 a fair shake in this regard. I kept up a weekly blog for Reilly for two full years. Part of the reason was to share Reilly with our friends and family—we were living in New York and thousands of miles from home. The other reason was to document this little baby that was changing every day before our eyes.

People say that your second child is different, that the second child doesn’t get the same attention of its mother and father; gets the hand-me-downs, has to compete with the other sibling.

I can see how that would be true, after all, we’ll have Reilly—our spirited and demanding first child—to take care of in addition to our infant. But Baby O2 will also get to grow up with a sister, and will benefit from the knowledge and experience we’ve gained—sometimes painfully—from raising that same sister.

Of course, it’s happening already. This blog is not just about Baby O2, and in fact, has mostly been about Reilly so far. Baby O2 is learning to share before he or she is even in this world. My hope is that this will be a benefit, and that his or her life will be richer for it.

Changing of the seasons

This afternoon, Reilly was walking across the backyard with me when she stopped, looked at the grass and said, "Look Daddy! It's fall!"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that the grass was brown because I had killed it with Round-up.

I wonder where she got this idea from?

Tonight I put Reilly to bed, sang her "Sweet Chariot" and "Amazing Grace" and closed her door. Moments later, she popped her head out of the door, so I got up from the couch, picked her up, and put her back in bed.

Since this happens nearly every night, I was annoyed, and when she said, "Daddy?" I wanted to tell her to be quiet and go to bed already, but instead I said, "Yes, honey?"

And she said, "Daddy, if I have a baby, I'm going to marry Jordan."

Jordan is a sweet little boy in her preschool class.

"And Daddy, if I have a boy, I'm going to name him Cha-Cha."

Adorable.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

In the bathroom once again (where everything interesting in our house seems to happen), Reilly turns to Shawn, and apropos of nothing says:

"Mommy, what do you call a bear with no socks?"

"I don't know Reilly, what?"

"Bear-foot!"

A moment of quiet ensues, and then Shawn and Reilly share a laugh over the successful delivery of Reilly's first joke.

Conversations from the throne

Today, Reilly said, "Mommy, I have to go poopie. Come with me and tell me a story."

Shawn responded by saying that she didn't know any stories.

Reilly said, "It's okay, Mommy. We can just talk about something: God...Santa...the weather..."

Shawn said, "Okay, let's talk about the weather."

Congratulations!

The other morning, Reilly turned to Shawn and in surprise said, "Mommy! Look!"

She gently placed her hands on Shawn's belly, which has just recently started to show. Then she cuddled her head alongside Shawn's waist, looked up, and said, "Congratulations, Mommy."

Done trying

We always knew that we wanted a second child, but had not discussed it in earnest since Reilly was born. The difficulty of surviving through Reilly’s colic was a powerful prophylactic and it took a few years for us to consider putting ourselves through that trauma again. I guess Shawn and I were just waiting until it felt right.

I think it is easy to assume that it was Shawn who finally approached me about a second child, but it was actually the other way around. I remember that two friends at work had recently revealed their new pregnancies, and that somehow I knew immediately that I wanted to experience what they were—the happiness, the intensity and the inexplicable parental bond to a little person who was still the size of an olive.

I thought it through for a day or a week or a couple of months, I don’t remember exactly, but if I were to guess, I think is safe to say that we started “trying” in February of 2008.

If you need help with the math, it took us nearly two years to get pregnant.

The “trying” was fun at first, not just for obvious reasons, but because of the dreaming. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would we name her Scarlett? Where would we put the crib and how would we figure out our leave from work? Would we name him Ian?

***

We spent some time with a brilliant doctor who prescribed a couple of medications for Shawn. The negative aspects of this course of action included a financial obligation that was not covered by our health insurance and turning the whole process of conceiving into a very cold and lifeless medical procedure.

Except for one thing: we created a life.

Here we are at 13 weeks and it still doesn’t seem real. After months of having hope stripped away, it is hard to believe that we are actually pregnant. I find myself strangely emotionless about the whole thing which is easy to pin on the fact that my hope over the past two years was consistently rewarded with disappointment and a range of other unfortunate emotions.

Today we had an ultrasound. The baby shone through clear as glass and proceeded to show off a series of acrobatic moves, performing little jumps and leg stretches for us.

And for the first time, it felt real.