Great-grandma and the Crazy Great-grandkids

As I mentioned before, Jeremy's grandma visited us and graciously decided to stay to help when Jeremy's mom came down with a stomach bug just two days after Clara's birth. We so appreciated her help and so enjoyed the unexpected, extended time with her! It's been a while since we've seen her, but the kids warmed right up and loved having Grandma around. (Lydia crawled into bed with her pretty much every morning.)

Grandma read lots of books and supervised lots of digging, swinging, and running outside. She helped prevent and mediate fights, washed dishes, changed diapers, kissed owies, protected the baby, cuddled the twins, wiped dirty hands and faces, and did all manner of tasks that eased my load as I recovered from childbirth. We are eternally grateful, Grandma!

 Oh, Lydia

Thanks, Grandma, for putting up with all the craziness around here! We miss you lots and were so glad to have you here!

Two-week-old Clara

I meant to post more pictures and updates on Clara (and the rest of us) recently, but . . . well . . . even with the wonderful help I've had, it's hard to make time for blogging. Of course, snuggling and nursing the new one takes priority. And the three big kids need love from Mama, too. And there's meal planning now, cooking, naps to orchestrate, various small chores, etc. My easy recovery and constant help (Grandma McNinch and now my mom) since Jer went back to work have certainly made for a happier postpartum period, though!

Now Clara is two and a half weeks old, or 41 weeks gestation (today)--the same age as her brother when he was born! I still marvel at her early arrival. And here she is--growing and rooting and snuggling and breathing and nursing and fussing and hiccuping on the outside. I love how she bobs her head and snuffles, mouthing my shoulder, when she's hungry. I love how she latches on desperately and settles into methodical, contented sucking. I love how she pulls her feet up under her and sleeps so peacefully on my chest (which she's doing right now). I love how tiny she is. I love the smell of her head and the softness of that new baby hair.

Her long feet are like her older sisters', and she angles them and points the little toes when concentrated on nursing. Her pretty hands still have some long nails, but I'm afraid to trim them and risk clipping her finger (Jer felt so bad when he did this to newborn Josiah).

She has deep dimples, probably more pronounced than Lydia's. Her Neuman eyes are like the other kids', I think, but she has a bigger nose than her sisters do. Her cord fell off at six days but needed cauterization (as Abby's did). It looks like it's closed and healed now, but her belly button sticks out quite a bit--my mom says it's a slight umbilical hernia. Hopefully it'll go down on its own?

 
We had a pediatrician appointment when Clara was five days old. She weighed 6 lbs 7 oz at that check-up--three ounces more than birth weight! At one week old she weighed 6 lbs 9 oz. The doctors were surprised she was already well over her birth weight. Of course, even with gaining about an ounce a day, she's still pretty small . . . smaller than plenty of newborns fresh from the womb! (A friend of mine just had a 9 lb 3 oz baby--almost three pounds larger than Clara at birth!) But we can see all her nursing taking effect--her cheeks are rounder, her double chin is developing, and her feet and hands and bum clearly have more padding.

As we expected, Clara was quite sleepy the first week or so. She still sleeps much of the time. But her awake periods are longer, and she's more focused when she looks at people. Sometimes she looks like she's almost ready to smile at me when she stares at my face, bright-eyed and interested.

 
Last night she cried and fussed on and off for about an hour or so--nursing consoled her briefly, until she became agitated with the let-down and cried angrily. I think her belly bothered her, but change in position, burping, etc. failed to relieve the discomfort. Finally she did settle down, nurse quietly, and fall asleep. But it all reminded me of Josiah's colicky evenings as a baby. I hope she doesn't end up with hours of colic every night for weeks like he did! And perhaps I need to take a look at my diet to eliminate some potential irritants.

October Catch-up

Clara has sort of stolen the stage on the blog, but I did have lots of pictures and things to post about from October! Now that we're into a new month and onto a new child, though, I'll try to condense our October happenings into a post or two. So here we go . . .

1. It's not exactly new to October that we have some cute kids (yes, I'm biased). Also not new: I was still pregnant. But I took pictures to document both the cuteness and the pregnancy!

 Lydia

 36 weeks pregnant (photograph courtesy of Josiah)

 The duo

The trio

2. We went to the McCormick-Stillman Train Park for the annual train fair.

 Daddy and his girls--L on left, A on right

Our neighbor Tim has a display of model trains set up there each year, so we enjoy visiting his tent and seeing all the other cool train set-ups. The kids especially like one in which they can push buttons to make trains and signals go.

We walked through the indoor museum area, too, and then Jeremy took the kids on the carousel.

Abby didn't cry this time, but she didn't feel comfortable taking her hand off the pole to wave, either!

After some play on the playground, Jeremy and the kids rode the train, and we let them try out the inflatables briefly before we went home for lunch.

These are also the last pictures we took before Abby's fateful accident in which she "lost" her tooth (got it jammed up into her gum) later that day.


3. The girls' hair is out of control--in a good way, mostly. Lots of people comment on it every time we go out.

Lydia 

Abby

I loved when it started curling last year, but little did I know to what fullness of glory it would grow (and we may not even be there yet!).

4. We have very little in our garden right now (we pulled most of the summer garden out before we left for Michigan in late July), but our basil surprised us by growing to astronomical proportions with little to no help from us. Last year's basil was sickly. I'm not sure what made the difference with this year's!

Basil

We have two sweet potato plants and a pepper plant still growing, too. But I think we've decided against doing a winter garden. Maybe we'll plant some lettuce and a few vegetables--we'll see. Our lemons are yellowing, though, and we're excited about the neighbor's blood oranges that hang over into our yard as well!

Sweet potato plant

5. Jeremy and Josiah have had ups and downs with the soccer team and practices. A few especially wild kids have stretched Jeremy's patience and his coaching skills. They've also taught Josiah some new words and influenced him to try some new-to-him bad behaviors and attitudes. But Josiah has also learned some soccer (and maybe teamwork?) skills, and he even made two goals in a row a couple games ago.

There he is, after the ball! 

Go Sabertooths!

Grandma and Pa came down for a weekend to see him play and spend some time with us. We really enjoyed their visit! They even babysat the kids two evenings in a row so Jeremy and I could go out to eat. It was our last chance to do so for a while--Clara came the very next weekend!

6. Aunt Bobo (my sister Elisabeth) came to visit for four days after she was in Los Angeles for a friend's wedding. We all enjoyed having her here, though the time was brief! "Aunt Bobo is funny," Josiah often says. "I like her. When she's coming back to our house?"

7. Good family friends from Dubai--Mr. and Mrs. Penman--came to dinner Wednesday, Oct. 28th. (Their son was the friend whose wedding Elisabeth attended the previous weekend.) I had hoped to go to that wedding, but with my due date so close, we couldn't be gone. I'm glad we got the chance to see the Penmans, though! The kids took to them right away--wanting to roughhouse with Mr. Penman and read books with Mrs. Penman. (And they missed Clara by just over a day!)

Ring around the Rosie 

 Wrestling with Mr. Penman

 Neumans and Penmans 

(Crazy that this is the night before I went into labor!)

And that brings us up-to-date with October pictures! Now bring on the overload of baby . . .