Well, we made it over a year and a half...

...before our first official ER visit.

We went to visit Great-Grandpa & Great-Grandma J and pick sweet corn and Lawrence tripped over his own feet (he has his mother's grace) and completely biffed it. His hands didn't break his fall and he smacked the pavement HARD. Before I could even get him scooped up, his forehead started bruising and it was a huge knot within minutes.

He's a tough guy, so he only cried for a bit and was then off to running amuck again. He was acting a bit weird(er than normal), though. He was spinning in circles, pointing toward the sky like something was there (there wasn't) and giggling...maybe he was seeing stars? He did it a few times, but then seemed normal. After his nap, his balance seemed off -- he was veering right when trying to walk straight. So after calls to Nana and Aunt Sandy for advice, I called the nurse hotline. She wasn't too concerned until she asked about any abnormal behavior and I mentioned the possible "seeing stars" thing...her tone changed and she said we needed to go to the ER because it sounded like it could be something neurological. Way to freak a mom out!

Thankfully, we got in right away at Children's and the nurses and doctors were really nice. Lawrence seems to be okay -- maybe a concussion, but no fractures or brain damage or anything. We do have to wake him up every three hours tonight -- yay!

The good news is, Law LOVES sweet corn!

It was Papa's birthday on Saturday and we celebrated Sunday...Lawrence really liked the cake...especially the frosting!

And a little update on Baby B#2 -- (S)he is the size of a turnip this week. That doesn't sound that big -- or cute -- to me, but whatever.

Also -- it kind-of seems that if the baby is only 5", I shouldn't really be quite this big yet:

The kid is ACTIVE. I can't believe how much movement I feel already...I've even felt it from the outside. I'm praying it doesn't mean this child will be as busy as Lawrence, but I think I'm going to be a pretty busy woman when Baby B#2 is mobile.

We get a peek at the little bean (or, er, turnip) next Friday and we're really excited!

Hope you're all having a fabulous (and less accident-prone) week.

We swore we'd never do it to our child...

We did it. We buzzed his hair. Ourselves.

I think Mike and I have learned one valuable lesson so far in parenthood: never say never. We had all these notions and plans about what we would and wouldn't do. Buzz cuts were pretty high up on the "wouldn't do" list. It takes a certain kind of head shape and face to pull off a buzz. Our son's head isn't perfectly round like Uncle Ry Ry's, so we thought buzz cuts were out.

We've been paying $10 every four weeks to get Law's hair cut for the past year. *I* don't even get a haircut every month. Shoot. I haven't had one in at least 3 or 4 months. It's a hassle to schedule an appointment and drive him way out to our trusted stylist, so tonight when Uncle D decided to trim his hair at Nana & Papa's, we thought we'd "just shape up the sides and back" on Lawrence's hair, too. Ha! Tired + too much sugar + cranky = not a very good haircut. So, we buzzed it.

(Not sure if you can see it, but I totally have a band-aid on my finger because I cut myself with the scissors during the whole ordeal)

(He wasn't real thrilled with the home haircut. Next time, I'll have to give him a sucker like Lynn does)

Law & Papa with their matching 'do's.

And if the photos weren't enough, here's a little video clip of my amazing skills with a clippers (um, yeah...I really need to buy the 'how to' video...but I suppose since he didn't end up with a bald spot, I did okay.)

He's a tall, skinny genius!

We had Lawrence's 18-month appointment today. It's hard to believe that his "Well Baby" check-ups are over and the next time we go -- for his 2-year check-up -- we'll have his little baby brother or sister en tow for his or her 2-week check-up.

Dr. K confirmed what we already knew -- Lawrence is tall and skinny. He weighed in at a whopping 23.5lbs and was 33in tall. That puts him under the 20th percentile for weight and he shot up to the 69th percentile for height. Auntie Jill came with us so she could get her immunizations updated before she goes to college. She brought her little record book where mom kept track of her stats/vaccines and we flipped through it while we waited. Turns out, Jill outweighed Lawrence by a pound...when she was half his age! At 9 months, she was 24lbs, some odd ounces. So, either Jill was a MOOSE or Lawrence is a peanut (probably a little of both).

Dr. K didn't come out and say it, but I could tell he was thinking it -- that Lawrence is super smart. Practically a genius. He was obviously impressed at Law's manners when he told him "thank you" after Dr. K handed him a tongue depressor. And his awe only grew when he learned how many more words were in Lawrence's vocabulary and that he can put 2-3 words together. He said most boys at his age only have 3-5 words and that the majority of kids don't use 2-3 word sentences until they're two. So, I think Mike and I can safely forget about his college fund -- our boy's gonna get scholarships! Nana had to burst my bubble, though...apparently I knew all my colors at 18 months. Guess we have some work to do...

In Baby B#2 news, I'm getting huge. I think so anyway. I'm taking pics of my belly each week like I did with Lawrence and I'm pretty sure I'm as big now as I was with Lawrence at 19w. And I'm carrying wayyyyy higher...not sure what that means. The baby is the size of an apple this week. I don't think that sounds that much bigger than the peach it was last week, but I guess apples are denser. The whole fruit correlation thing is weird...and don't they know that any reference of food to a pregnant woman is a bad idea because it can induce cravings? I guess it'd be worse if they were comparing babies to junk food, though...I'm sure I'd be even bigger if my weekly emails said "your baby is now the size of a Swiss Cake Roll" or "your fetus weighs the equivalent of a Snickers bar."

(Damn. Now I want a Snickers bar.)

That's all the news for now. Hopefully I'll have some pics or videos to include with the next post.

Happy 4th...on the 8th!

Hope you all had a great time on the Fourth.

We spent the day with our surrogate family, the Bahls (Tracy's kin). We've adopted them as our third set of parents because they're awesome. And because they have a pool. And good food. And fireworks. And did I mention the pool?The pool was rather cold, but Lawrence liked riding on the Jet Rider.

And he did awesome with his life jacket. He was "swimming" with it on...he's getting practice in for the Lake trip next month!I stayed out of the pool for the most part. I did ever-so-gracefully (not a pretty sight) plant myself on a raft and float around a bit, but the water was much too cold for my taste. What is with this odd, unseasonably cool weather this summer anyway?!

Auntie Tracy spoiled Law rotten as usual. She introduced the "dip dip" thing to him a few months ago and he's been obsessed with condiments ever since (thanks again, Trace). Someone kindly brought a veggie tray *just* for Lawrence (at least he thought so...) and Tracy let him drink...er, eat...most of the dip. He did eat a couple carrots in the process, so I guess that was a good thing...The Fourth of July also happened to mark Lawrence's 18-month birthday. My "baby" is officially and undoubtedly a toddler now. I can't believe it! I also can't believe that last summer, he was just sitting up and starting to learn to crawl. Here's a pic of Mr. Man commemorating his big milestone into toddlerhood:

And here's a picture of him last year on the Fourth:

He's only changed a little, right?

Law has his 18-month appointment this week, so I'll try to remember to update you with the ever-exciting stats. I love finding out his "official" height, weight and head circumference and I can only imagine that you are all on pins and needles waiting to hear how much he's grown, too!

Never a dull day

Saturday morning, I was EXHAUSTED. I'd had to be at work at 5am Friday morning and Mike was at work due to the storms until midnight that night...and had to be back at 7am Saturday. So, when Lawrence woke up at 6:30am with a poopy diaper, putting his pants back on him was the last thing on my mind...I just wanted him to go back to sleep ASAP so I could.

I didn't notice anything unusual at first when I came in Law's room. He was smiling a bit more coyly than normal...and then I noticed his diaper. Laying in the crib. And the huge puddle of pee. Doesn't he look proud?:

I learned a valuable lesson: NEVER leave a toddler's diaper easily accessible.


Since I haven't kept up as well as I'd hoped (and promised...oops), I thought I'd share a bunch of new pics. Here are some from Lawrence's first dip in the "big pool" this summer:




Saturday night, the ding-ding woman came around. I never had the joy of an ice cream truck coming down my as a kid and I thought it would be fun to get Lawrence something. Since we never had cash, we did have to rob Lawrence's piggy bank (don't worry -- we paid him back already), but we rushed out and each of us got a little something. Lawrence had his first ever popsicle. He wasn't so sure at first, but he ended up eating the WHOLE thing!

Then he had to go for a quick dip in the pool with daddy to get all the sticky off. (I know it looks a bit like he's crying his head off in this picture, but if you make it bigger, you can see that he's smiling really big).

Here are some pics from the BBQ at uncle RyRy and auntie Sarah's a week and a half ago. I'm bummed I didn't get any good shots of Lawrence with his out-of-town relatives, but there were only about 15 digital cameras there, so I'm hoping someone else got some cute ones. For now, here are some pics of just the boring ol' local family members:
Lawrence with "his two dads:"
Lawrence with his auntie Sarah (and other family members):
My little stud:

In other news, Baby B #2 is as big as a lemon this week -- 3.5" from crown to rump. Woot! I've been feeling lots of movement and I love it. I can't wait the little peanut is kicking hard enough to feel it from the outside (I'll probably regret saying that later...Lawrence used to play soccer at bedtime...).

This week, the baby can grimace, pee and suck its thumb! Crazy! Auntie Jill said "the baby has a THUMB already??"

Here's a pic of what the baby looks like right now. It's obviously not a diagram of me because my butt is MUCH bigger.

We rescheduled my ultrasound for August 1st -- less than a month away! It's a bit on the early side for when they normally do them (18-22w), but with the way my appointment scheduling worked out, it made more sense to do it then. Apparently they put the video on DVD now, so hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to put a clip on here!

Hope you're all doing well!

Well, THAT was anticlimactic

I had my 13-week appointment today. I knew we'd get the heartbeat and planned to ask the doctor if she'd kindly listen to make sure there weren't two buckaroos swimming around in there. I've been seeing Dr. S. for nearly 8 years. She's always come in the room alone. But, of COURSE the day that I want some investigation done, she had a student with her...and let her operate the doppler. Homegirl put the gel on and found the heartbeat quickly. *relief* of course that Baby B's ticker was thumping away (at 160bpm if you want to know so you can try to figure out if it's a boy or girl). But she just stopped there. I specifically asked the doc to listen for two and the student just kept listening to Baby B...she never even approached the left side of my abdomen with the wand. So, we're pretty sure there's just one (even though I'm "huge") -- the world's fastest prod at my uterus by Dr. S. concluded that I'm not excessively large. Dr. S. said "well, I've only been caught off guard by twins once. I guess you'll know for sure when you have your ultrasound at TWENTY WEEKS." Uh, doc...that's like a month and a half away. It would kind-of be nice to have an idea of what's going on with regard to the growth of our family sooner than later, ya know?

I digress. The point is, we're assuming it's one at this point. I'm going to feign absolute offense to any and all people who insinuate I'm larger than I should be and therefore must be carrying multiples. This is my second baby. My uterus and stomach muscles were maxed out less than a year and a half ago. My body has just surrendered to pregnancy a little early this time. I guess the upside is that I look pregnant and people aren't just giving me the "is she pregnant or just fat" once-over...

I've been trying for 20 minutes to upload some photos to distract those of you who were hoping for news of double the fun from your disappointment, but Blogger isn't cooperating. Maybe tomorrow I'll get REALLY motivated and take some video of Lawrence talking. I've been meaning to do it anyway because it's just way too cute and I'm sure I'll regret it if I don't capture the "teeeeeeeease" thing (please) before he learns to say "Ps"...

In my defense, I've been busy growing a human...

So, there's really no excuse for not updating in nearly two months. But, since I can only use it as a crutch for about 6 more months, I'm going to blame my laziness on pregnancy.

I fully intend on updating much more often so I can keep everyone in the loop with Baby B and, of course, Lawrence.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I'll definitely be asking her to confirm that there is only one baby in my ever-expanding belly. The "it's got to be twins" comments abound and are starting to make me just a teensy bit nervous. A) I know I'm not just fat because I've lost 11lbs. B) At my first appointment, my doc listened for the heartbeat and found it...and she said "I'm pretty sure that's just your heartbeat echoing in the background, but we'll check your uterus size to make sure..." and C) I was listening to the heartbeat the other night in bed with my home doppler and both Mike and I thought we *might* have heard two separate heartbeats. I really doubt it's twins, but I need to KNOW if we have one or two on the way at this point!

What will also be discussed at my appointment tomorrow is my due date and whether my doc will consider inducing me a few days (or weeks...) early if I'm progressing and everything looks good. I went early with Law, so I'm hopeful that I'll go into labor on my own before my due date again, but I'm not even joking when I say I AM having a 2008 baby. It's not really about the tax deduction (though that would be fabulous), but our insurance plan year runs by calendar year and they just upped our deductible and max out-of-pocket and I can't bear to think about paying both twice. Ack!

We won't be finding out the sex of this little one, so we want to have both a boy and girl name ready. We're set on the girl name (and not sharing...sorry), but we could use some help on the boy one. Here's a link to our name poll:

We may end up reposting this later if we add/remove names and we'll definitely take suggestions, too. We're having a really hard time coming up with a name that's as awesome as Lawrence Axel! Ha!


I'll post tomorrow to give an update of the doctor's appointment...and to let you all know if there happens to be twins in there.