Brayden Thomas Wood

We are so happy to have our little baby boy here with us! He was born exactly 2 weeks early on Sunday Oct. 16, 2011. As you know, up until my last appointment before he was born he had been breach/transverse, but luckily he decided to turn on his own! Justin and I were watching Grey's Anatomy and I told Justin towards the end of it that I thought I was starting labor. I started having contractions at 10:00pm Saturday night. We stayed up until about 11:30 to make sure they were still coming regularly and they were. I decided to go try and take a nap since it would probably be awhile and Justin tried to clean up the house. Of course I couldn't sleep since I kept getting woke up by contractions, so I tried to start cleaning and packing as well. My mom was out of town coming home Sunday morning, so we had to call my brother to come and stay with Kaitlyn while we went to the hospital. We left for the hospital around 8 or 9 AM. When we first got there I was admitted into Triage. My contractions up until then had been painful, but not unbearable. Then all of the sudden he must have turned inside me and I started having the worst back labor ever. I literally felt like I was going to die! I was screaming and crying for an epidural, but the midwife was tied up in another delivery and I couldn't be admitted to the hospital room until she checked me again. The nurse made me walk for an hour to dilate to 4cm. I felt like my back was ripping in half. Literally the worst pain I have ever felt. I really don't know how I would have survived the entire pregnancy without pain meds. I was naseous from the pain. Finally my midwife came and checked me and I was at 4cm. I got admitted to my room and was able to start the fluids for my epidural. Unfortuantly the nurse couldn't get my IV in. It hurt so bad so she called another nurse in to put it in. Luckily the second nurse was able to insert it correctly and I was able to get my epidural about an hour later. After that everything was perfect! They broke my water and everything went quickly after that. I felt a lot of pressure like I needed to push but I guess they didn't think I would be ready so quickly. They kept waiting to check me even though I told them I was feeling pressure. Finally they checked me and said "Wow, the head is RIGHT there!" They paged the delivery nurse and suited up very quickly. They told me to push and he came right out on the first push!

They put him on me and I was immediately in love. It was different than with Kaitlyn. Not that I didn't love her, but I felt it more strongly this time. I think maybe b/c I already know what it was like to love a child now, when I didn't yet know with Kaitlyn. He immediately started sucking his thumb so they told me to let him nurse and he did for quite a while. They didn't even take him from me until like 2 hours later! I guess they could just tell that he was healthy. He weighed in at 7lbs 7 oz. and was 19.5in long.

Most all my family was out in the waiting room so they all came in right away. Kaitlyn did suprisingly well at the hospital. I think she really did understand that he was here and was part of our family. She has adjusted pretty well as far as acting like she loves him and doesn't try and hurt him or anything. But unfortuantly she is not taking the lack of attention as well. She cries a lot more now and whines all the time. If I am pumping or nursing she will just stand at my side and cry. She has also started doing a lot more bad stuff for attention. So hopefully that will all pass soon. I know it will get better, but I hope soon! So far Brayden has been a little angle and we love him so much!

About to head to the hospital

About 1 minute after he was born

Kaitlyn meeting Brayden for the first time

Welcome home!

Brayden's Room

So we are finally done with Brayden's room. Our house has been in shambles ever since we started converting the guest room into Brayden's room. We had so much storage in there and stuff that we needed to sell on craigslist and we are still trying to find places for it. I need a basement...or at least bigger closet or attic or something! Currently our loft area and master bedroom look like a tornado has went through with all of the random boxes and clutter lying around looking for a new home. But at least his room is now ready for his arrival! We went with a jungle theme. I am not as happy with his room as I was with Kaitlyn's, but mainly b/c I feel it is just too bland. But we didn't want to go through the hassle of putting up moulding to have two different colors and all that, and thought the green walls might be too much, so we just went with a cream color and I painted some letters for his name and a couple of canvases to hang up b/c I am too cheap to buy anything premade! haha! I thought they turned out pretty good, but of course it is a little hard to see on these small photos. My mom and I found this awesome giraffe on craigslist and then I bought some wall stickers of jungle animals.

Zootastic

Zootastic had a groupon a while back that my mom and I both bought. So Kaitlyn got to go twice in about a 2 week period. She enjoyed it, but I have to say that I personally think Lazy 5 Ranch is WAY better. Zootastic does have a few more animals that Lazy 5 does not, but overall the experience is more fun riding the hay ride I think at Lazy 5. But anyway here are a few pics of Kaitlyn petting and feeding the animals:

Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

Kaitlyn turned 2 years old last week! I can't believe that she is now a "2 year old" That seems so old, but yet I still feel like she is a baby in so many ways. To celebrate, most all my family was not around, so we didn't bother with a party since she still had no idea what a birthday was. That morning I took her to a local place called "The JumpE Place." It was awesome and really cheap so we will be going there again for sure. She had a good time jumping on all of the inflatables and going down the big slides. I think having a sibling is going to be so good for her in the long run, b/c she is finally at the age where she enjoys playing with other kids around her same age. She had so much more fun at the JumpE place when this other little boy would jump around with her. I am so sad that I forgot my camera though :( She literally had a smile on her face for about 45 minutes straight (which is rare) and I wish I could have captured some of those happy moments. So then we came home and had a little lunch and then it was nap time. After her nap I tried to take her outside to get some pictures of her since I had forgotten earlier. This is about the only one that came out ok.
That night once Daddy got home, we ordered a pizza (which is one of her favorite foods) and just made her a homemade bday cake. A very laid back birthday, but we just didn't see the need to do very much for this one. We will definitely make a much bigger fuss about it next year when she knows what's going on!

Just a few comments on this stage in her life for me to be able to look back on:

She is still fairly behind on communicating and talking, but she is starting to get better. She still doesn't say yes or no and won't say any words on demand. But she has started just randomly coming out with quite a few new words here and there which I am happy about. A stranger probably could not understand even 90% of them, but we do, and that is good enough for me for now! I guess some kids are just slower than others at talking.

In other ways, I feel she is pretty smart for her age. She can identify most all the letters of the alphabet by pointing to them when we ask her where they are and can actually say about 3 or 4 letters. Her numbers are a little harder for her. She can only identify about 5/10 of the numbers on a regular basis. She also knows all of her basic colors and will even say each of them but blue for some reason whenever she randomly sees something that color. She also knows most of her shapes: triangle, square, oval, circle and sometimes rectangle.

We haven't had our doctor check-up yet so I don't have all of the stats to post yet. Overall she gets better with age! haha. She has gotten much better with her separation anxiety and will now stay with Justin and my mom with no problems. We have finally broke her of her milk bottle and she will now drink it on her own in a sippy cup. She is currently sleeping in a toddler bed and takes one nap a day. She is a pretty good eater and will eat most anything for a bribe of ice cream or candy :)