Technical Diffuculties

Due to Technical Difficulties, blogging will be suspended for a while. We have an accepted offer on a house and worked our little fingers to the bone to get ours on the market. We also have to keep this house clean on a daily basis so I have to let something go. That would be blogging. Sorry. Enjoy some photos and know that we will be back soon.

Keep your fingers crossed that someone will want to love our house and PRAY that it happens soon.

Well Hello There Reid Alan Patterson

Welcome to the world. On my birthday nonetheless! He was born just after 1AM and weighed in at 8 lbs 10 oz. Yes that is 3 more oz than Jr. and 4 oz shy of Graham. Or as my mom put it, he will be bigger than Kimi by the time he is one.

Keep checking the St. Petes website for a photo and I will post one asap!

On another note Jr. was so very brave during his Dr. visit today and didn't even cry when he got a flu shot. Anyway he weighs in at a very healthy 38 lbs and is 38 1/4 inches tall. According to Dr. Frank he is 90% height but off the charts in weight. His head is also off the charts which may be helping out the hefty toddler mass. Because he was so good we rewarded him with the latest and greatest Tinkerbell video. He is smitten and told the nurse that Tinkerbell protects him from monsters and shadows AND alligators.

New Photos

Graham at 2 months and a week weighed in at 15 lbs 4 oz and was 24 inches tall (although I think the nurse botched it). He was all smiles until the shots. The damn shots. He did well, but now is one sad baby. Oh he was so tired tonight and was just in such pain. It is easily the WORST thing in the universe to see your brand new baby cry from pain the first time. . . or in Jr.'s case cry from pain for the 1 millionth time.

So here is the story, and it may be the best of all time.

Earlier today we heard rumors that Kim and Neil were having a baby. I spread this rumor to my mom and Ed. So this afternoon I took Graham to his 2 month Dr. appointment. So I could remember, I texted Ed Graham's stats. The txt read "15 lbs 4 oz. 24 inches. Ed returned my txt with "Gender and Name?" As in, what is the sex and the name of Neil and Kim's 15 lb 24 inch baby? I replied "Graham Coleman. Male." Poor Kimi, 15 lb baby.

We are all holding out to hear the good news.

As for the boys, Jr. is awesome. I mean seriously awesome. He spent his first night away from both of his parents at Nona and Pappa's house on Friday night. It was their present to Ed for his birthday. One morning to sleep in. I woke him at 8 AM to go pick Jr. up and rescue his grandparents from him. He did well, no crying at all. He just kept telling Nona and Pappa that his parents would be there soon to pick him up. He slept from 11 to 6:30 AM. Not ideal, but good enough. It will be better next time. YAY!






Graham is a sweetie pie. He goes to work with me and dazzles everyone with his smiles and coos. He is pretty easy at work - as long as I hold him tight all day. Working with your infant is HARD! Even with an easy baby it is HARD. We will hit our stride I know it. I am crazy stressed out trying to make it all work and I miss my maternity leave. I am so looking forward to going to Fairmont this weekend to ccelebrate my birthday.

I uploaded all of the photos from my phone. They are some of my favorite photos totally unedited. I love looking back at Jr. as a baby. Enjoy.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is going to be wonderful! Happy birthday love of my life!

Sorry no photos of the boys.

The Man Who Changed Everything

At almost 2 months old Graham has rocked our worlds. In a good way of course. And let me preface this blaaaaaag with a disclaimer: I have been thinking a lot lately. That is what you do during your last few weeks of maternity leave. Think. And bake, apparently.

The story of how Graham came to be. I had applied for three jobs, one with the EPA, one with the Dept. of Ag and one with the Forest Service. I had been shot down for all three in one week and I said to Ed, "F- it, lets have another baby." You see, we had been talking about it for a while, ever since we heard our neighbor girls (2 sisters) playing with each other in the backyard while we were trying desperately to entertain a 1 year old and get yard work done at the same time. We knew that we had better manufacture a little buddy for Ed Jr. The last of the rejection notices came in an email and I took it as a sign that it was baby time again. Everything happens for a reason, right?




Well the next day I got another email from the f.s. that they had not hired anyone for the job and to apply for the job again when it was going to be reposted sometime in the next month. No more baby, I said to Ed. Well it turns out it was too late. Once was all it took. As if Baby Gam was meant to be. In fact, I think he was.

I didn't think there was any way I could even be pregnant, and in fact one negative pregnancy test agreed. Still I was a little late. After a night of what shouldn't have been too many vodka tonics, I felt like hell and decided to take another pregnancy test. Positive?!?!? Oh come on. Magic baby.

The next step was the f.s. re advertising my *dream job* me interviewing and getting it. OH the late night crying sessions about whether or not I should take the job. Top that with a delightful surge of hormones and I wonder why Ed didn't take Jr. and steal away into the night.

Let me pause here for a quick acknowledgement of my amazing friends and life coaches who patiently listen to me agonize every decision in my life and give me fantastic support and advice. . . I call you the life coach committee.

I knew that if I stayed with my old job at the State that I would just walk away when Baby Gam was born and stay home with the boys. I knew that going to the f.s. already 3 months pregnant would be tough, I wouldn't have any leave and a great deal of my job would be held back because no one wants to take a hugely pregnant woman out in the mountains to look at soil. Plus I was making a commitment to working over staying at home. I mean who is going to pick up the boys after school? Imagine if you will the late night crying sessions Ed had to put up with. Well, right or wrong, I decided to do the best job I could as a mom and put my career back on track.

Well, the job turned out to be less than dreamy so far. I mean it could turn around and maybe it will. But here I stand again on the precipice of returning to work and again making the decision to not be a SAHM. Monday I return to work. The only consolation prize is that I get to take Baby Gam with me. Technically he could be with me for an entire year, but we will see how that pans out. Right now I am going on a month by month plan. We will see how it goes this month and then see how it goes next month.


The other thing about Graham is that he brought along with him a big ole eviction notice. We have really outgrown our house. There are a lot of things to love about this house, but the fact remains, it is small and two boys do not stack well. So we started house hunting (insert fork in eye). Our house needs grew and grew until we were looking at houses that were bigger than I ever imagined that we would need and had prices that blew out of range of what I thought we could afford. Oh and we will either live in the valley or MT City because apparently they just don't make affordable mini mansions here in town. . . So, in order to get the house we need (want) I must work so that we can afford a mortgage, shoes for Jr. and a little extra to take Selma to the vet and get her teeth pulled.

I am terrified of pulling Jr. out of "school". He is such a social creature and learns like crazy and I worry that keeping him home with me would stunt his development. Plus I can't watch that much George, Tinkerbell and Princess Frog without checking into Warm Springs.


So add to the list of things I think about every second of every day is how much I ADORE Sweet Baby Gam. Let me summarize for you. Magic baby, big busy toddler, new job, bigger house, conflicted mommy. Got all that?

I know that everything happens for a reason. Graham is meant to be, he is here to change things, make our lives better. He is as sweet as candy and as hard as it is going to be to decide to go to work every day rather than stay home and watch him sleep, we need a bigger house and Jr. needs school and his ladies. So maybe the best decision for him and our family is for me to hustle my ass to work on Monday morning and quit my bitching. Hell, I know what a lucky lady I am. So lucky on so many levels.


Okay since you were such a good reader and listened to me whine relentlessly you are rewarded with a video. We shot this to use later, blackmail if you will. Jr. freaking LOVES Tinkerbell. He is 100% ladies man. He told my mom the other night that he wanted to marry the little girl in the princess costume from the costume catalog herein referred to as "MY MAGAZINE". We just recorded Tinkerbell on the DVR last week and have already watched it at least 100 times. I invested in the other Tinkerbell video and have seen it maybe 50 times since Sunday, and already have plans for the big 9/21 release of the Tinkerbell trifecta. You may say that I am feeding his princess and fairy obsession, but no, I am just taking a little mental vacation from George. Fairies it is then.


As for Graham. Still sleepy. Still sweet. My mom and I took him on quite the little Labor Day road trip to meet his great grandmother. She and Ron were smitten and other than the sad tummy on the drive there, Graham was a champ. In fact, I think he loved the break from all of the hustle and bustle around here.




Bonus for you Cissie. So cute.

Woah

Graham is smiling! His first official smiles belong to Emily, but now pretty much everyone that smiles at him gets one back. How awesome is that?


These are the last two weeks of my maternity leave and zoom, one of them is almost in the dust. Graham and I chilled out this week barely leaving the house. Since he was born, it has been go go go and this week we snuggled a lot. I held him while he slept, I held him while I cleaned, I held him pretty much 24-7.

When I got pregnant again, I told myself and everyone else that the biggest lesson I learned with Jr. was to put the baby down to sleep and just plain old put the baby down more. Well, apparently I get an F from myself, because I just want to hold and snuggle Graham all of the time, and last night it paid off.

Graham, Ed and I were all sleeping snugly in our bed when all of a sudden Graham started choking (he is okay). He was flailing his arms, all stiff with his back bent backwards and red in the face. Bubbles were coming out of his mouth as he choked and tried to cry. It was pretty scary and lasted for at least 10 minutes. We knew he was getting oxygen because his face was red and he was crying. I know I woke up instantly and flipped him onto his tummy to clear out all of the saliva. The whole time this was going on I kept thinking - THANK GOD HE SLEEPS WITH US!

I would never prescribe co sleeping to anyone else, but for me today, I am holding this little turkey close and knowing that someday he will sleep in his crib and I am not going to rush to that day. Plus I know that someday he will grow up to think that I suck and I will have to take his car away, so I am getting all of this loving in while I can. He is only a baby once, when I think back about Jr. I don't regret one moment I spent holding him. Jr. at 5 weeks.

It is amazing how much you don't get done while holding a baby, and damn it I am going to take the rest of my maternity leave to do just that. Oh and keep up with the Kardashians. . .







MIL and FIL, thanks for a great visit. Jr. still wakes up and asks where you are. I told him that you had to go back to Florida to protect the baby sea turtles from the birds so they can swim away into the ocean.

One Month - a few days late

Graham was one month on August 19th. I am late posting because it has been a whirlwhind few days.


Friday the 20th was our 5 year anniversary. For our anniversary I bought Ed a gun. When I pulled it out and gave it to him he said - "oh you got me a little gun." Little? I got him a super cool old school .22 for killin gophers and teaching two boys to shoot guns. It is a lever action (whatever that means) which I figure allows just enough time for us to rip the gun out of Jr.'s hands if he is up to no good. Plus, it is exactally like the gun I learned to shoot with at my grandparents house. My bother and I are still alive and have no bullet wounds, so I figured it was good enough for my kids to learn. The guy at the store told me it was a nice little family gun. Yikes. Really it is the action not the gun that is a monumental 5th year anniversary gift. You see, I HATE guns. I ABHORE guns. But I married a gun nut (and I say that in the nicest possible terms). Ed has guns and shoots them when he goes hunting. Jr. is already planning to kill bears, dragons, alligators, dinosaurs and magpies (!!!) with his guns so I figured that I would show Ed just how much I loved him buy getting over my self and buy the Colemans a "family gun".


*Happy Anniversary Ed - 5 years is not enough, I want more!*

Did I mention that I am now a registered gun owner? Hello? Freak out?!?!? What is next? Moving to Wyoming? Just kidding. Love WY. I hear Laramie is nice.

Friday, MIL and FIL rolled into town. Jr. is positively THRILLED to have his GAMMAGAMPA (yes, just one word and no "R"s) to play with all day. Ed and I are positively thrilled to have two extra sets of hands to help out with the babies, toddlers, food, walks, playing outside, locking Selma out. . .



Oh and one more thing - Gross Papa (Grandpa Bill) is turning SIXTY tomorrow. Sadly he is out of town for work, but Friday we are going to rock 60 like you can't even imagine. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOO! HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPA BILL! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GROSS PAPA!

Flickr can suck it

I am with Picasa now.


*check out the photostream at the very bottom of the page.

Four

On the 19th, I can stop counting the number of weeks and start reporting months. Does that mean I can stop blogging weekly? Just kidding MIL.

Either way, today he is four weeks old and I haven't taken any good photos of the babies in the last week.

Jr. is pushing two more 2 year old molars out, but is taking everything in stride. We had a good weekend with him, he was full of sweetness and spunk. This weekend he told me that he was going to marry me. I asked him who his dad was going to marry and he told me that "Daddy is going to marry Selma." I then asked him who Graham was going to marry and he told me that "Graham is going to marry a horse." Daddy is a lucky man. I ordered some *good god please let this work* hippie breath freshner for Selma. I hope it gets here before the Colemans do. She stinks so bad, she can make it uncomfortable to be outside with her. Outside. Poor dog, I want to stop yelling at her to go away and love her again, but it is so hard when she smells like a landfill in a swamp.

Graham is still working on the sleep championship of the universe. He is awake a little more these days, but not much. In fact the participants at Kimi's shower this Sunday were very dissapointed that he slept so much. I think they wanted to hold him, but no one was brave enough to take the sleepy bundle from his Nanny.


Graham sleeping peacefully in his swing. I can't help but compare him to his brother all of the time, but let me say this Jr. NEVER slept in a swing, much less allowed himself to fall asleep IN a swing.



The last pregnancy shot of me. The last time I will ever be pregnant and the last time I will ever be that heavy (hope and pray). The weight is coming off slowly, but my back feels better and it is nice to look down and see some normal looking legs and feet.

Overheard

If you were here today during one of Jr.'s giant dumpsters this is what you would have heard.

"Give er ell mommy!"
"Show me your poop face mommy!" "No like this mommy like this!" Demonstrates the poop face.
"The odor in the air in my butt! Stinky!"
"Give er ell mommy!"
"Push out the poop mommy!"
"Mommy you are a princess."
"Big stinky aligator poop."
"No, mommy I will flush it."
"I want to sleep naked mommy."
"Blueberry poop! Huge poop! Diaper in the toilet?"

The whole upstairs is a stinkfest. What on earth does that kid eat?