Friday, March 23, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
First Laugh!
William just laughed for the first time! Seth was bouncing with him and he gave a distinctly adorable giggle. :)
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Bed head, burps, and baby dreams
William is so adorable. Some of my favorite things about him today are:
1) His hair. It's exactly like Seth's and almost an inch long, actually. He gets the same incredibly cute bed head disarray that Daddy does.
2) He loves me best for most things he needs. I do have the nomnoms after all. He prefers when I change his diaper to Seth doing it too, but he absolutely loves getting burped by Dad way more than me. Not sure why, but it's cute.
3) We can tell when he's dreaming. Normally it's about food (he makes little sucky lips in his sleep) but he makes the cutest little coos and gives the biggest grins when he's dreaming too. Though on the flip side, he has had nightmares too. The other night he screamed in terror for a few seconds. Freaked us right out too but he didn't even wake himself up.
1) His hair. It's exactly like Seth's and almost an inch long, actually. He gets the same incredibly cute bed head disarray that Daddy does.
2) He loves me best for most things he needs. I do have the nomnoms after all. He prefers when I change his diaper to Seth doing it too, but he absolutely loves getting burped by Dad way more than me. Not sure why, but it's cute.
3) We can tell when he's dreaming. Normally it's about food (he makes little sucky lips in his sleep) but he makes the cutest little coos and gives the biggest grins when he's dreaming too. Though on the flip side, he has had nightmares too. The other night he screamed in terror for a few seconds. Freaked us right out too but he didn't even wake himself up.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Buckling Down, In which life tries to find a new normal.
Thanks Caroline!
I just wanted to start off by saying just how grateful I am for Caroline and all she did coming out here. It was so much fun having her come out and being able to show off my beautiful little boy to her. ^^ Also, definitely need to get that Butter Brickle recipe. It's amazing. It was a huge help having her here to help us find our feet again after bringing William home and the freezer jam packed with enough food to feed an army has really helped me keep my sanity around here.
William definitely has a personality already. He's a very serious little guy, tends to be quiet, and loves to just sit there and stare around at all the new things. Looking out windows can entertain him for minutes at a time! Though going on wallks outside tends to knock him right out. His range of expressions are hilarious- mostly they trend towards these incredibly grumpy and serious looks, but he'll let the occassional Blue Steel or a little grin peek through. Though the last may just be gas.
He's sleeping pretty well. He's on a roughly three hour schedule now, which at least makes it somewhat predictable. But then he'll throw in days like today where he'll demand attention every single hour too. Unfortunately, he's not eating as cooperatively as he sleeps. He definitely prefers a bottle to breastfeeding and will only latch on if I trick him with a nippleshield. I honestly think he prefers it because of the plastic. Trying to ween him off it has been met with his first full blown tantrum and abject failure.
Seth's back to work this week, which means trying to find a new balance for how things work around the house. I'm still trying to find a way to get Seth home at a reasonable hour when he's got so many projects and things to do at work. It's frustrating how often he seems to get saddled with reports that have to be on his superiors' desks first thing the next morning, or how often he has to deal with this crisis or that crisis, or people on the west coast not taking his east coast schedule into account and calling him just as he goes out the door and they of course can't afford to wait until tomorrow to talk about it... You'd think people would plan ahead a bit better. Or at least give deadlines further away than 'tomorrow 8am' so he could come home before 9 or 10pm. It wasn't that big of a deal before William was born and the ridiculous amounts of OT he put it were nice , but now it'd be nicer to have him home with William and I a bit more. Otherwise I might go crazy being at home with William all day and only getting sleep in 2-3 hour slivers at a time.
I just wanted to start off by saying just how grateful I am for Caroline and all she did coming out here. It was so much fun having her come out and being able to show off my beautiful little boy to her. ^^ Also, definitely need to get that Butter Brickle recipe. It's amazing. It was a huge help having her here to help us find our feet again after bringing William home and the freezer jam packed with enough food to feed an army has really helped me keep my sanity around here.
William definitely has a personality already. He's a very serious little guy, tends to be quiet, and loves to just sit there and stare around at all the new things. Looking out windows can entertain him for minutes at a time! Though going on wallks outside tends to knock him right out. His range of expressions are hilarious- mostly they trend towards these incredibly grumpy and serious looks, but he'll let the occassional Blue Steel or a little grin peek through. Though the last may just be gas.
He's sleeping pretty well. He's on a roughly three hour schedule now, which at least makes it somewhat predictable. But then he'll throw in days like today where he'll demand attention every single hour too. Unfortunately, he's not eating as cooperatively as he sleeps. He definitely prefers a bottle to breastfeeding and will only latch on if I trick him with a nippleshield. I honestly think he prefers it because of the plastic. Trying to ween him off it has been met with his first full blown tantrum and abject failure.
Seth's back to work this week, which means trying to find a new balance for how things work around the house. I'm still trying to find a way to get Seth home at a reasonable hour when he's got so many projects and things to do at work. It's frustrating how often he seems to get saddled with reports that have to be on his superiors' desks first thing the next morning, or how often he has to deal with this crisis or that crisis, or people on the west coast not taking his east coast schedule into account and calling him just as he goes out the door and they of course can't afford to wait until tomorrow to talk about it... You'd think people would plan ahead a bit better. Or at least give deadlines further away than 'tomorrow 8am' so he could come home before 9 or 10pm. It wasn't that big of a deal before William was born and the ridiculous amounts of OT he put it were nice , but now it'd be nicer to have him home with William and I a bit more. Otherwise I might go crazy being at home with William all day and only getting sleep in 2-3 hour slivers at a time.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Has it been a week already?
It really has. Seven days since my little angel fought his way into the world. Really, I should have expected the delivery to be rough considering how much of a wiggle worm William was even before he was born...
February 25 around 2-3 am I dragged Seth out of bed to go to the hospital. I have to admit, there is no better time to be rushing to the hospital in the DC area than the middle of the night. No traffic, we made all of our lights, and best of all Seth wasn't stuck downtown in rush hour traffic! We got there just when we were 'supposed' to and all the nurses were pretty impressed that we hadn't shown up six hours early or something like that. Things had moved along fairly quickly and I was sure that it would be a nice and easy textbook delivery.
Alas, the first little speed bump came when they called down for the anesthesiologist. Mind you, it was 3am and this was a small county hospital. They only had one present on the night shift and he was unfortunately dealing with a situation in the ER- and it was too late in the delivery process to give me the IV fed painkillers or else William would get too high of a dose. If there's one thing I firmly believe it's that painkillers and modern medicine are a gift from God and there are no points for going au natural! It took an eternity, and my OB was talking about just inducing me to speed things along without drugs when the on call anesthesiologist arrived literally just in time to drug me up.
And thank goodness he did! Stubborn as ever, William took his sweet time and a good seven hours later I went in for an emergency C section. Skull: 0, Pelvis: 1. We had been warned that William was big when we got the ultrasounds to check on his heart! I wasn't altogether there mentally at this point, but after a bit of touch and go William was born at 11:52am weighing in at 9lbs, 1 ounce, and 20.5 inches tall!
I got to see him briefly while I was still completely out of it, gave him a kiss, and then they whisked him off to the nursery. It wasn't quite the ICU since the county hospital didn't have the really equipment for specialized cases, but it was as close as it got there. Constant surveillance and hooked up to several monitors and machines and all that. Meanwhile, the doctors put me back together and Seth got to play photographer for the next day while I was tied up with IVs and couldn't leave my bed either! It was really hard not being able to see him, but Seth brought me pictures and little video clips every time he went to see him. You can see there that he has quite the goose egg and bruised head, poor guy. Thankfully it went down quickly and the bruises faded though. The doctors and nurses there were really top notch.
I finally got see and hold little William the next day and it just made everything absolutely worth it. No matter how much not-fun the entire process was and recovery is, I would do it again in a heartbeat just to hold him in my arms and feel that unconditional love between us.
Our First Family Photo
William and Daddy Bonding
It's interesting to see what features William inherited from who. To be honest, I can rarely see similarities between babies and their parents, but I think William actually has some distinct markers. He definitely gets his dark hair and eyes from Seth, though Seth's dad claims his eye shape is from me. His ears though are definitely from me. William and I have disconnected lobes while Seth doesn't. :) Most notably though, William shares my monkey toes! Seth was very impressed when William tried to grab his finger with his toes. All in all, he's ours and perfect! I can't wait to see how he grows up.
William, Meet Mr. Parrot!
On Wednesday we finally got to go home! The hospital staff were amazing and I wish I could have taken them home with me, but I was grateful to finally be going home even if it meant starting the big scary job of being 100% responsible for William at all hours of the day and night. And it IS all hours! I have no idea how people who have jobs to worry about do it. I'm lucky that Seth is able to take several days off and that Caroline is going to be coming when he has to start going back into work. I'm sure things will settle down into a routine soon enough, and it'll definitely be easier once I'm completely healed from the C-section, but it's still a big job. AnnaMarie, I don't envy you having twins as well as the girls!
Grandpa got to come down and visit too, which made me really happy. William's middle name, Kemp, comes from him and it was awesome to see all three generations of the Pease family together and know that William is going to carry on the family name and legacy.
February 25 around 2-3 am I dragged Seth out of bed to go to the hospital. I have to admit, there is no better time to be rushing to the hospital in the DC area than the middle of the night. No traffic, we made all of our lights, and best of all Seth wasn't stuck downtown in rush hour traffic! We got there just when we were 'supposed' to and all the nurses were pretty impressed that we hadn't shown up six hours early or something like that. Things had moved along fairly quickly and I was sure that it would be a nice and easy textbook delivery.
Alas, the first little speed bump came when they called down for the anesthesiologist. Mind you, it was 3am and this was a small county hospital. They only had one present on the night shift and he was unfortunately dealing with a situation in the ER- and it was too late in the delivery process to give me the IV fed painkillers or else William would get too high of a dose. If there's one thing I firmly believe it's that painkillers and modern medicine are a gift from God and there are no points for going au natural! It took an eternity, and my OB was talking about just inducing me to speed things along without drugs when the on call anesthesiologist arrived literally just in time to drug me up.
And thank goodness he did! Stubborn as ever, William took his sweet time and a good seven hours later I went in for an emergency C section. Skull: 0, Pelvis: 1. We had been warned that William was big when we got the ultrasounds to check on his heart! I wasn't altogether there mentally at this point, but after a bit of touch and go William was born at 11:52am weighing in at 9lbs, 1 ounce, and 20.5 inches tall!
I got to see him briefly while I was still completely out of it, gave him a kiss, and then they whisked him off to the nursery. It wasn't quite the ICU since the county hospital didn't have the really equipment for specialized cases, but it was as close as it got there. Constant surveillance and hooked up to several monitors and machines and all that. Meanwhile, the doctors put me back together and Seth got to play photographer for the next day while I was tied up with IVs and couldn't leave my bed either! It was really hard not being able to see him, but Seth brought me pictures and little video clips every time he went to see him. You can see there that he has quite the goose egg and bruised head, poor guy. Thankfully it went down quickly and the bruises faded though. The doctors and nurses there were really top notch. 
I finally got see and hold little William the next day and it just made everything absolutely worth it. No matter how much not-fun the entire process was and recovery is, I would do it again in a heartbeat just to hold him in my arms and feel that unconditional love between us.
Our First Family Photo
William and Daddy Bonding
It's interesting to see what features William inherited from who. To be honest, I can rarely see similarities between babies and their parents, but I think William actually has some distinct markers. He definitely gets his dark hair and eyes from Seth, though Seth's dad claims his eye shape is from me. His ears though are definitely from me. William and I have disconnected lobes while Seth doesn't. :) Most notably though, William shares my monkey toes! Seth was very impressed when William tried to grab his finger with his toes. All in all, he's ours and perfect! I can't wait to see how he grows up.
William, Meet Mr. Parrot!
On Wednesday we finally got to go home! The hospital staff were amazing and I wish I could have taken them home with me, but I was grateful to finally be going home even if it meant starting the big scary job of being 100% responsible for William at all hours of the day and night. And it IS all hours! I have no idea how people who have jobs to worry about do it. I'm lucky that Seth is able to take several days off and that Caroline is going to be coming when he has to start going back into work. I'm sure things will settle down into a routine soon enough, and it'll definitely be easier once I'm completely healed from the C-section, but it's still a big job. AnnaMarie, I don't envy you having twins as well as the girls!
Grandpa got to come down and visit too, which made me really happy. William's middle name, Kemp, comes from him and it was awesome to see all three generations of the Pease family together and know that William is going to carry on the family name and legacy.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
OH MY FREAKING SHOOOOOOES!
So today I got home from my doctor's appointment and running to the store to see how much it would cost (too much) to get my ipad's screen replaced after I cracked the corner of it amid my ungainly and rather whale-like flailings to stand up from the couch. And my day immediately brightened beyond all belief. For lo and behold there on the porch was a box. A box from Aunt Reeny who had just sent me a bunch of baby books for William (thank you! They're his first!). This box though... it was aaaaall for me.
SHOES! BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I promptly went dancing around the house in them with gleeful abandon until the neighbors probably thought I was crazy or going into labor. Or both. You have to understand. These aren't just any shoes. These are incredibly awesome gorgeous late 18th century reproductions that I have been drooling over for months but just couldn't justify buying yet. And I'm already getting back to work on the entire outfit too with the pockets I talked about last post! So thank you so much Reeny! You have no idea how much this means to me! I'll be dying the shoes eventually too (blue, most likely) so I'll keep everyone updated on that front when I get there!
SHOES! BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I promptly went dancing around the house in them with gleeful abandon until the neighbors probably thought I was crazy or going into labor. Or both. You have to understand. These aren't just any shoes. These are incredibly awesome gorgeous late 18th century reproductions that I have been drooling over for months but just couldn't justify buying yet. And I'm already getting back to work on the entire outfit too with the pockets I talked about last post! So thank you so much Reeny! You have no idea how much this means to me! I'll be dying the shoes eventually too (blue, most likely) so I'll keep everyone updated on that front when I get there!
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
William's Baby Blanket! And other stuff...
Well I finished it tonight! :D William's baby blanket is actually one of the projects I'm the most proud of. It wasn't particularly difficult or tricky compared to some of my others, but I think it's definitely one of the most meaningful. I love the pink baby blanket mom made for me and I used it until I was worn practically see through. Now it's zipped up in plastic and tucked away. Though I'd like to get a shadowbox frame eventually and put it up on the wall eventually
For William's blanket I kinda geeked out because, well, I'm a geek and so is Seth. And we first met at BYU's HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) club. There's a store online where you can print your own designs onto fabric so I busted out my mad image editing skills and dug up some high quality PDFs of some of the prettier primary source manuals. For the main part I extracted some of the figures, cleaned them up, and paired them with the original text describing the guard as well as the name of the guard in fancy letters.
Pulled out the seven guards for sword and buckler for the border around the entire blanket. :)
All in all it was a lot of fun to do. I really love Spoonflower's service and the quality of fabric and printing was really high. I've got some other fabric on order from them right now too for a few other projects. Seth got me a serger that arrived today too so I'm looking forward to busting it out and doing some really cool projects with it. Working with knits is infinitely easier with a serger than just with a sewing machine and finishing interior seams will be a breeze now... *sighs happily*
Anyways, William's doing well. We had a little scare this past month when a little hiccup was heard listening to his heartbeat during a checkup. My OB sent me over to get it checked out further just in case and we got another ultrasound to make sure it wasn't a structural problem. Thankfully it wasn't and the ultrasound specialist doctor guy (real specific, I know) told me that it wasn't anything to really worry about. It will probably go away on its own when he's born and completely on his own circulatory system if not before. Though I am banned from all caffeine now, including chocolate. :( Lucky I'm not a coffee drinker though eh!
I go in for another checkup tomorrow. We're getting close now and I'm ready for him to come now! I feel like a beached whale, particularly when trying to get up. I've also got an eye exam tomorrow to get a new contacts prescription and really need to set up a routine dental appointment for later this week too. Should have done an annual cleaning months ago but at that point I was still puking whenever I brushed my teeth. (Glad that symptom is gone now!) Best to squeeze as much of these sorts of things in before I have an infant in tow!
This pregnancy has been pretty draining all throughout and I was bleh for so much of it that I'm really glad I'm finally getting my energy back as I get everything ready for William's arrival and do a few things just for me that might not get to happen as much after he arrives! My 18th century costuming plans got put on hold the week I found out I was pregnant (and I had just barely finished patterning the corset and was literally about to buy the boning for it that week too!). But I'm easing back into the swing of things sewing-wise. Seth finally agreed to let me make a costume for him :D so I'm starting with an 18th century outfit for him and already got the fabric for his waistcoat. That should go together pretty quickly this week or early next since it's very simple. For my own I'm still planning on making the piemontaise but can't do too much there until after William's born and I lose this baby weight and get back into shape! In the meantime there are a few accessories that don't require sizing.
Right now I'm working on the pockets. In this time period the pockets weren't sewn into the clothing but rather tied around the waist and accessed through slits in the sides of the skirt. They were also often elaborately embroidered with flowers or other motifs. This is the design for one of the pockets, based on a surviving example from Williamsburg, but a friend who can draw turned the leafy flowers into thorny vines for me and I added the pomegranate design into it. I'll post up pictures of it when I'm done! I've got about 1/4 of it done so far. The vines go pretty quickly.
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