Two Years

Dear Patrick,

I absolutely cannot believe that it's been a full two years since that day I went into the hospital with what I thought was a kidney infection and left a mother. The time has flown by. I keep looking at your little brother, and even though he's much bigger than you were at this age, it's impossible for me to believe you could have been that tiny a mere two years ago.

Regardless of what you think of your little brother--I do think you're warming to him at last, by the way--it's been wonderful having him around. I have never appreciated you more than when I set you side by side with a newborn. You truly are a big boy. You are much more independent than I realized, even when you're begging for attention. Walking, talking, and even sleeping through the night are much bigger milestones than they seem at the time.
Your second birthday was quieter than your first, as we expected. This weekend was not a good time for most of your extended family to travel, so we had our first family party with just the four of us. It was nice not having to decorate, or even clean, for the occasion. We are still planning to have a big family party with all the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., but I'm glad we got to celebrate within our own family first.

The early part of your day seemed unremarkable to you. You threw tantrum after tantrum, frustrating both Daddy and me, and your obvious need for an early nap threw our plans for the celebration. Once you'd slept some, though, you were raring to go with the whole birthday thing. You opened your own presents this year and loved to tear the paper off--and try to put it back on. It took Daddy to show you that the real present was hidden in the paper and not the paper itself. And once you realized that, you fell in love with your new toys. We could barely get you to leave the last toy to open the next; in fact, several times you were opening the next present with one hand while holding the last present with the other hand. It means the world to me that you embraced your birthday presents the way you have, that we were able to predict your likes so well this year. It's a nice change from the "whatever" attitude you had about many of last year's presents.

The cake was also much more fun this year. Although your cake was much more simple than last year, I have to admit it was more tasty as well. Your daddy put a lot of effort into baking your cake himself, and he did an excellent job. I'm thrilled that your reaction to the cake showed your agreement. You absolutely devoured the whole piece we gave you and would have eaten more if we'd dared give you that much more sugar. It turns out you really, really like cake. I don't blame you.

And now we start life with a two-year-old. I have a feeling that this year will be as much of an adventure as last year, if not more. Just like last year, I have no idea how to imagine you on your third birthday. I hope you'll be just as full of life and laughs as you are now and just as loving and loveable. I look forward to understanding more of what you say and watching you grow up physically, but at the same time it saddens me. I know that this fun (when you're not throwing tantrums) two-year-old phase will be short-lived, and I'll be remembering this fun second birthday as we get your driver's license in another fourteen years. Who said you could keep growing up anyway?

And for the record, I love you so much more with your brother around, despite what you seem to think sometimes. My heart grows each day, letting me love you even more.

Mommy

Note to Friends and Family

As many of you may be aware, tomorrow is an important occasion in our house: Patrick's second birthday. You might have gathered from the lack of mention of the event that not much is happening for it, at least not right now. We are planning a very small family party for the four of us tomorrow, but the big celebration will be postponed.

Patrick won't know exactly when the big party has happened either way, so we've decided it makes much more sense to plan a big party when people can actually come to it. So any of you who are planning to be in the Dallas area over Thanksgiving break, consider this your formal invitation to Patrick's second birthday party. We're still working out details about exactly which day and where to hold the party, so I'll keep everyone updated probably through e-mail when those details get settled.

If any of you have preferences about what day to hold it (say, if you're heading home early or something) or have great ideas for a good location, please let me know. Otherwise, we hope to see you there!

They Keep Getting Cuter

Remember Patrick's obsession with going bye-bye? And how he brings Daddy his shoes when he wants to go, and on command when they really are going somewhere? Well, it was only a matter of time...
Every kid needs pictures like these at some point, don't they? I think it's cute that he already wants to fill Daddy's shoes.

Nathan may not do things that are quite as cute (think poopy diapers every hour), but he keeps getting cuter every day without even trying. I think this is one of my newest favorite pictures of him.

I love the wrinkly skin, like as big as he is, he hasn't quite grown into it yet.

My Boys

I've been delaying writing the post all about what life is like with both boys because it seems that I can barely find a few minutes of empty arms (when I'm not trying to sleep) to organize my thoughts. Finally both boys are napping at the same time, though, so I'm taking full advantage of my five minutes before I expect Nathan to wake up hungry.

Nathan is fortunately taking after his big brother in one respect so far: his love of sleep. I can only hope this sticks around. He has plenty of awake periods during the day, but he tends to sleep well at night. He wakes up every three to four hours to nurse and sleeps--well, like a baby the rest of the time. I'm not suffering from lack of sleep nearly as badly as I expected to at this point. Of course, it helps that Patrick also consistently sleeps well all night, giving me plenty of time to catch as many z's as possible around Nathan's sleep schedule.

The only sleep problem we've encountered appears to have been a reaction to my diet. It seems that after making me crave so much chocolate for the last nine months, now Nathan has a strong reaction to it, keeping him awake like I'd had a cup of coffee shortly before. Any chocolate intake between lunch and bedtime will spell out a bad night's sleep for us all. That's not too cool of my youngest son.

Nathan is definitely a cuddler, too. I wondered when he was so reluctant to leave the warmth of my belly. During the day, he wants to be held as much as possible. The moments are rare when I can set him down happily for more than a couple of minutes at a time. He gets fussy quickly. Sometimes rocking him in his infant chair helps calm him down, and sometimes it doesn't. I need to try the swing that Patrick hated on Nathan. Maybe that will save my arms a little bit (not that I mind holding my baby one bit!).

Patrick is adjusting reasonably well. As expected, he's desperate for attention nearly all the time. Any time I have to hold or feed Nathan, Patrick is suddenly hovering around me, bringing me toys to play with with him or wanting to crawl into my lap. I can usually accommodate him, scooting over to hold him with the empty arm or playing along with whatever game he's playing with his toys at the moment. But sometimes even that isn't enough attention for him and his antics to get that attention get increasingly outlandish. Without a doubt, he knows what things are the biggest no-nos, and he'll go straight for those. Negative attention is still attention, after all.

At the same time, though, he seems to be coming to an awareness of his baby brother. There are times I've caught Patrick not only showing interest in Nathan but even doing something sweet for him. Patrick has stroked Nathan's hand or foot several times to attempt to calm his crying and even tried to rescue him from the infant chair when it was clear that was not where Nathan wanted to be (although that could have been either Patrick's newest obsession with latches or his possessiveness of the chair). He's also showing a lot of interest in the whole nursing thing. It hasn't gotten to the point of making me uncomfortable yet, but I'm starting to see boys' fascination with breasts. It certainly starts early!

I'm still waiting for a good opportunity to get pictures of the boys together. Right now the only way Patrick will get very close to Nathan is when I'm holding both of them, which makes taking pictures difficult. He's also a little careless about the "gentle" concept when it comes to his brother; I don't think he understands how much more fragile Nathan is than Mommy or Daddy. He's simply not mature enough to handle being alone next to his brother, much less holding him. It's too bad because I really want pictures of both my kids together.

Speaking of pictures, I've been taking them regularly of both boys, but as usual I'm running into the problem of finding computer time to download, edit, and post them. Trust me when I say you'll know right away when I do.

Two Check-Ups

Today we had check-ups for both boys. This was my first outing alone with the two of them, and I'm proud to say I survived. It was not without its mishaps, but they have more to do with having two kids who both need to be confined to either a stroller or infant chair while en route to the final destination. Ever try carrying an infant chair while pushing a stroller? It's not as easy as it looks, and trust me when I say it doesn't even look easy. Fortunately both boys were on their best behavior (until we were leaving and Nathan got hungry).

Okay, on to what the doctor said. Patrick was there a few days early for his two-year check-up. (Two years?! It still doesn't sound right to me.) He weighed in--on the big boy scale--at 21.8 pounds and is now 31 inches tall. Both are still remarkably small for his age but are big leaps based on his growth pattern over the past two years. In other words, the doctor was quite happy with his physical progress. He is also right on par developmentally, which was a relief to hear.

The funniest part was watching Patrick with the doctor. He recognized him for the grandfatherly type that he is and adopted him as part of the family right away. He was bringing him toys to play with and didn't resist at all to the poking and prodding. I think he kind of liked the attention. The doctor was thoroughly impressed with that, saying that most two-year-olds hate even being at the doctor's office.

Nathan's part of the appointment was even easier. He needed a routine blood check, which he naturally screamed through. Fortunately he's still at that age where he forgets pain quickly, and he stopped crying just a few minutes later. The most interesting part of his appointment was when they did his weight check. If you remember, he was born at 8 lbs, 2 oz and dropped to 7 lbs, 10 oz by his appointment last Tuesday. He weighed in at 8 lbs, 11 oz today. That's up a full pound in about a week. Yeah, I doubt we'll have too much trouble keeping him on the charts.

Great News!

I'm an aunt again! I just heard from my big brother, and they had their first little girl tonight shortly after 8:00. It was a short labor, only two hours of recognizable contractions, and she did it without pain medication. I'm so excited for them. Once I've checked to make sure they're okay that I share more particulars, I may have more details for you. Congrats to the new mommy and daddy!

My First Broken Bone

My doctor confirmed today that I've most likely suffered my first ever broken bone. It seems as though Nathan broke my tailbone during his birth. It's frustrating because there's nothing that can be done to help it heal; I'm just on lots of pain meds to help me cope until it does. Unfortunately, some of the more effective medicine has also been making me sick, so I've been trying to suffer without it. Needless to say, the pain has made taking care of both Patrick and Nathan difficult. Matt has been a huge help, but his boss doesn't seem to like the idea of him avoiding work until I'm all healed up.

So I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up with updates here often enough, and I'm not taking nearly enough pictures to satisfy even myself, much less posting the ones I have. I hope you'll all be understanding as I work toward getting used to taking care of two children on my own during the day and coping with the pain at the same time. Eventually I'll feel better, and life will settle into a decent routine again--and then I'll be able to blog on a more regular basis again.