Max William Wooten: 06.29.2011

We are so happy to report that we welcomed our second son, Max William Wooten, into the world on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 6:48am. He was 7lb 15oz and 21 inches long. I am working on getting all the photos from his birth and the hospital stay done as well as my labor and his birth story. We could not be more in love. So far he is beyond amazing and has outdone himself in the "good baby" department. 

Welcome Max...

Better late than never?

So I closed the last post saying that hopefully the next post would be an introduction. Here we are a week later and guess what this is not.....  Apparently either we'll have two little (late) peas in a pod, I just have an amazingly comfortable uterus or my body doesn't know how to finish out its job. I really never thought we'd be here at five days overdue again after Carson came 8 days late. From everything I have heard it is more common to go over your due date, but I just had a feeling all along that I wouldn't this time. Wishful thinking.

At the doctor's last Thursday I was 4cm dilated and 75% effaced. I wish I didn't know that information because it gave me some false hope. I didn't think you could be that far along for an extended period of time. Last night I finally had a few hours of what I thought was real activity with a lot of pain and then it all stopped. I'm not going to count on anything anymore. The other option is to go in and have them break my water. Luckily I've got enough progress that I wouldn't have to be induced with drugs and breaking my water would undoubtedly get things moving. I already did the whole "schedule your child's birth" thing with Carson though. I realllllllly don't want to do it this time. As crazy as it probably sounds I want to have the experience of waking Carl up and grabbing our bags to head out in a frenzy. You know, like most normal people do. But at this point I only have a couple days of fight left in me before I cave and we just go in.

We've been trying to keep busy, but it is so hard to think about anything else. Sunday was a gorgeous and hot day so it was perfect to go to the pool. My mom had a one piece that fit me and we all headed out. It felt so good at the time in the water, but I couldn't believe how sore I was that night and all of yesterday. I had to go to the store yesterday morning for more Tylenol because I was out and couldn't take it!

Carson has been on a picnic kick so we told him we'd have a pool picnic.

After a good nap we went for a drive to a new area close to us that we had never been to. We had dinner and just explored without getting too far from home. I asked Carl to take what I hoped would be my last belly picture when we got home. You can see that Carson insisted on doing scooter circles around me the whole time.

As for the little monster, in the last week he has had his ups and downs. He seems to be really excited about the baby coming, but has had some unusual crying episodes too. I'm sure it will be hard on him no matter what. 

I've been trying to get him to say his ABC's forever now and he would always just stare at me. Then all of a sudden one day not too long ago he said Q-Z out of no where. Next thing we know he is busting out the whole thing. He has repeated it day in and day out every since. He says it for anyone that will listen in person, on the phone and even to the grocery checkers.

He made a pine cone bird feeder at daycare a few months ago and had been asking me to make one here. I've never come across any pine cones though. Last week we randomly found two while we were out. He thought it was so much fun to make them and pick where to hang them in our front yard. He showed all his friends. :)

Other than that he has been so good yesterday and today. He must sense that I need to chill and has been playing without too much incident. He is watching Toy Story on my laptop next to me as we speak. He'll stop what he's doing and come over to kiss and pat my belly. He really can be sweet when he wants to. Yesterday he wanted to nap in our bed and I wasn't going to argue!

After being up from 1:30 to 5:00 this morning and up for the day at 6:00 I can't WAIT for nap time today!!!!

It's the final countdown!

I'm not really sure where this post will go or why it's even in existence.......... I guess I just have a bunch of random thoughts in my head at this point. I thought all along that I would have this baby before my due date since Carson was 8 days late. I assume our children will always keep us on our toes so why wouldn't this dude come super early? I guess I've got a nice comfortable little womb in there though. Today I'm 39w4d so pretty darn close to our due date. Last Wednesday night I was up with my first bout of real painful contractions, but they didn't last. I had a doctor's appt that next morning where I found out I did have some progress (1.5cm, 50% effaced), but nothing else has happened since. I had two semi-contractions while eating dinner last night and that's been it for 5 days. 

We are actually hoping that he comes close to a weekend, like this Thursday or Friday would be perfect! :)  Carl's vacation time doesn't start until July 1 because that's his work anniversary date so we're hoping the two personal days he can take when we have him fall around the weekend. Otherwise he's going to have a pretty tough time going right back to work after a mid-week hospital stay. I've told him that he is more than welcome to come home and sleep here since I think I can handle the nights alone. We are so lucky that Grandma Susan has a ton of vacation time and a flexible work environment so we don't have the added stress of what to do with Carson. She'll hopefully be able to take a few days off to help when he gets home and Carl's vacation time hasn't started yet. I'm honestly more worried about dealing with Carson in the first days than I am the baby!

It may sound a little dramatic to say that I'm afraid of what Carson will do at first, but he can be a real handful. On Friday we were upstairs when my boss called. I had to run downstairs to get on the computer so I let Carson stay up there. I didn't want my boss to hear the wrath of dragging him down the stairs and getting settled. It had been WAY too quiet for this short duration so I was dreading what I'd come up to. Turns out he went in and pulled out an entire bag of Grandma's makeup. It was all over her floor, crushed eyeshadow, black smudges in the carpet, everything. Then he proudly showed me his "purple cheeks!". I eventually found that what he had was a purple lipstain that he drew on his face. He thought it was so cool and that Daddy would be so proud of him. :)

 

He does and says so many funny things every single day. I absolutely love watching him learn and grow. He busted out the full alphabet this weekend out of nowhere and will say it to anyone that will listen. The other day he came in the office to find the light shining down through the glass of his desk. He was so excited that there was a rainbow in here and looked at me like a crazy person when I tried to explain it to him. He wanted me to take a picture of it on his feet so he could see it.

 

He's constantly riding his bike out in the backyard these days.....and if he gets off at least he keeps his helmet on. :)  Safety first!

He very lovingly helps Daddy rub my feet (aka sausage toes).

He's getting so much better with potty training. And when he's not, he's a diaper box robot.

He helps out Daddy and Daddy's pals with any and everything guy related. He got to take a ride in Justin's tool truck this weekend.

Basically he's just a hoot.

As far as baby stuff goes, I think we are just about all done and ready to go. The changing table finally showed up on Saturday and we found baskets for it yesterday. The crib is all put together, the clothes are put away in the drawers, the swing is all together, the carseat is cleaned and my bags are as packed as they can be at this point. 

My mom and I were at Babies R Us last weekend and found a side-cap of clearance shoes. They had this ONE pair of baby Pumas that were marked down from $29.99 to $3.80. I couldn't resist because they were beyond cute and then when I bought them they actually rang up at $1.85! Totally worth it for his own first pair. We have kind of turned into a Puma family so it seemed fitting. I also got Carson a new pair of Nike's for $6. I had her search out the last size 10 and when we got home they were way too big on him (which is weird since he's almost an 11 in everything else). I went back and bought the 9's too to wear now since they were so dang cheap! I sure love me some clearance items. Here are the Pumas:

 

As far as my gear goes I definitely have a favorite. I casually asked my friend Erin about her PPB diaper bag a while ago because I was eying this one online, but hadn't seen one in person. The bag was backordered everywhere so I figured I had time to decide if I wanted to buy it or not. Well, we have awesome friends because Erin & Nick, Megan & Justin and Luke all surprised us and got it for us as a gift. I was so shocked and they really shouldn't have. Not to say that I'm not thrilled! I've had it on my desk staring at me ever since. I decided I don't want to use it until the baby is here so it feel fresh and new for the experience. I am having a serious obsession with gray and yellow right now so this just hits the spot!

Hopefully the next post will be an introduction! Hey, a girl can dream, right?

38 weeks - Maternity Photos

I am more than lucky to have an amazing friend and fellow photographer that also just happens to be pregnant. Jamie is about 6 weeks behind me, but is having twins so her belly couldn't be cuter and perfectly round right now. We have been trying to plan a day to get together and do each others maternity photos for weeks now. You can imagine how easy it is to reschedule when you feel a bit unmotivated at this point. We were obviously losing time that we can't get back so we made the commitment to meet up on Wednesday night. Goody for us that this day it decided to be totally stormy. We got about three minutes of shooting Jamie in and one of me before it started raining on us. We waddled back to the car and tried to head further East to get ahead of the storm. It didn't rain any more, but was SO windy that it was nearly impossible to get a good shot of our faces. The wind made our hair a total mess and we could only stand in the one direction with it coming right at us. Not the best scenario...... But I am more than happy with what I ended up with. I hardly even have a record that I was pregnant with Carson so I am so grateful to have these photos now of this baby in my belly.

 

I also had my 38 week check up yesterday. I haven't had any activity or contractions to speak of so my doctor's appointments are pretty lame. They ask me if I have any questions, I say no, so they ask me questions that they already have answers to. It's a waste of time, but I guess it has to be done. The good news is that my blood pressure and all the other stuff looks really good this time. At the end with Carson they thought I was developing pre-eclampsia and had some concerns. This pregnancy has also measured exactly the same as with Carson. With both of them I have been the exact number of centimeters I should be up until week 36 when I measured 34cm. Then at 38 weeks I am measuring 35cm. Luckily that is normal and will hopefully mean this guy will be in the 7-8 pound range too which I am more than happy to handle! At my 36 week ultrasound he was head down. I hoped to get a good look at his face, but his arms were up in front of it and you could only see one eye and part of his forehead. Oh well! She did confirm that he is for sure a he though.

We are pretty much prepared at this point. I'm still waiting for our changing table to come in that we bought on April 15. It was only supposed to be back-ordered until the end of May and now they are saying it could be another couple of weeks. I really want to get his clothes put away and the room finished so it's the last piece of the puzzle that is driving me insane. We're ordering a new swing and a few little things this weekend (Amazon gives you an extra 10% off if you create a registry!) but it isn't crucial to have from day 1.

But for now I am trying to appreciate how good I still feel at this point of my last pregnancy. I'm getting a tad anxious about how having two will really all play out. I still don't want to wish it away and I'm attempting to get as much sleep as I can. Unfortunately Carson has been up by 6am every morning, even on weekends, which is no fun at all. He even fell out of his bed at 1:30am this morning because he was so restless and wouldn't stop moving around.

Memorial Day Weekend 2011

We ended up having a relatively eventful and fun long weekend, even though we went into it without serious plans. Saturday morning we went to grab some breakfast and go grocery shopping. Since my husband is wonderful he has been coming with me for a few weeks for the big grocery trips to do all the heavy lifting. On the way home we could see it was a gorgeous day and he said he wished we had gone for a drive. I obviously asked why we still couldn't because it wasn't that late. And it wasn't like we had anything else to do! So we quickly got ready and our stuff together and took off for the mountains by 11:00. 

I hadn't been pushing a four-wheeling trip lately because I was scared of what my bladder would feel like. Sorry if that's a little too much info.....but I'm uber-pregnant now! Carl knew of a trail area we could go to that wouldn't be too rough above Idaho Springs. Let me tell you, the first ten minutes of the trail before we stopped to air down the tires were BRUTAL. The little guy woke up and was kicking out my sides as he was also shifted right on my bladder. Every bump was almost torturous. After the air-down I was 99% good though. We ended up in a completely different place than Carl thought we would and we still don't really know what summit we were on. It was so gorgeous though. Carson took about 2.4 seconds flat to jump in the biggest puddle he could find and he climbed every hill in the area.

Carl drove the Jeep up in every precarious position he could to make me as nervous as possible.

See a theme with the hills???

I begged Carson to stop and just look at the camera with a smile for one teeny tiny second. Instead I got this.

Carson only wants to be doing what his daddy is doing. I came back from a much needed potty break at the gas station when we were done and found this. Carl was putting air back in the tires and Carson was right there as his wingman.

On Sunday we had big plans for the morning. We have been anticipating the day we take Carson to his first movie for a long time because we love going so much. When we saw months ago that Kung Fu Panda 2 would be out this weekend we said that would be the first one. Believe me, our household could recite the first one in our sleep thanks to Carson! We went to the earliest showing and got there early enough to get the best seats. At first he was running up and down the aisles and we were a little worried. But he eventually sat in his seat for the previews and ended up doing really good! He had three of us to go between and sit on our laps, but he stayed in his seat for the most part. He didn't try to escape once and ate a little too much movie popcorn. He actually didn't seem to be overly impressed by the whole thing. At one point in the middle he asked to play with my phone. Go figure. 

And a lesson for everyone who keeps their camera on auto..........DON'T!!!!!!!! I am so disappointed everytime I hand over my camera and turn it to auto. Normally I could just pick the settings I'd want for them to use and it would be fine, but for a while I have used an alternate shooting method that doesn't make that possible. I don't use the typical shutter release and can't flip it over easily. Auto is my only option to get out of the other mode. Cameras are stupid. If you give them any control you'll be disappointed. I couldn't believe in this lighting situation it picked a shutter speed that wouldn't be acceptable in bright sun. I mean, could we be any blurrier?!?!!?!

On Monday we ended up with a good-sized gathering at our house. It always goes from a casual grilling to a party. We had a ton of fun though and really good food. Carson played and played and played. Once again he just wants to be one of the guys. He got his first experience with frisbee golf and doing "recon" to fetch them all over the fence. 

Another bug we had to hold and let crawl on him. Yucky yuck yuck. Luckily my mom doesn't mind them at all and is the designated bug-catcher.

After everyone left we all crashed on the couch. Carson hadn't even attempted a nap so we knew he was pooped. It was 5:30 and in about 3 minutes he went from wanting to play with my phone to being in a knocked out ball on my lap. Poor kid was DONE.

For Mother's Day my mom planted a new flower on my front porch. It had gotten cold just after so we haven't had any flowers. Three of them came to life yesterday though and they're so pretty!

35 Weeks.....35 Days?!?!

Well, technically this was yesterday's milestone, but it still counts. I looked at my app for the start of week 35 and it happened to say that I had 35 days left also. Yikes. This is starting to get much more real since we are barely pushing a month. 

I have been so so so tired lately. Sleeping is a pathetic attempt to get sort of comfortable for a few minutes until I have to pee again or my hips/groin feel like they'll explode. I am just SO thankful that I'm still not having any major issues with my lower back like I did with Carson. That was the main story in my third tri with him and then I had total back labor. I actually feel pretty good right now other than the exhaustion. And it helps to have Carl and my mom as such huge helps in my everyday life. I know once we have two boys I'll look back at life with only Carson and laugh at how easy it was. It's all relative at the end of the day.

It's been raining (and crazy hailing) all week long. We finally had a clear-ish day today so we have been playing outside. Apparently it was a little too dry for Carson so he dumped out his sandbox lid full of rain water all over the patio. Boys and their puddles....

I realized we haven't taken any belly pics for about two months. I set up the timer just to get a quick something and Carson came over to "love my belly". He's being very sweet about the baby coming. He always tries to look in my belly button and puts his ear up to it saying he can hear the baby crying.

Denver Botanic Gardens

We finally had good enough weather to go play at the gardens with Erin and Ava. I told Carson we were going to go play in the dirt and he wasn't going to argue. Somehow both Carson and I got sunburns even though it didn't feel warm enough at all. The wind here ruins lots of nice days, but the sun did feel great. Of course the froggy boots had to come, but they did come in handy with all the dirt around.

 

 

 

They let the kids plant lettuce seeds and bring the home. We'll see how fast I can help him kill this plant too.

Nachos!

Maybe he was just getting ready for Cinco de Mayo? Nope. Carson can be a little obsessive over certain foods. He finds something he likes and locks onto it. One of his current favorites is nachos. Just plain chips with shredded cheese. He actually will swipe the cheese for a quick snack too. That has been a little messy more than a few times.

This morning (read, still in pajamas, so early) he was getting stuff out of the fridge. I told him to put it all back because he had just had breakfast. I then see that he has gotten a plate out of the dishwasher, gotten the cheese and the chips and has started to make nachos for breakfast #2. He was smiling and having a great time so who am I to stop him? The camera came out instead. 

He sat there and ate the cheese straight off the plate before he would let me actually heat them up.