two is as bad as one... or worse...

We're transitioning... it's not easy. You would think that being relatively well seasoned parents we'd be prepared for the addition of an infant. Not precisely the case. One child: perfectly manageable by one adult. Two children: takes a well organized, not easily flustered, energetic, patient, and good humored adult. While i'm relatively well organized (or so i'd like to believe) I do not consider myself as having any of the other assets, as much as i wish i did... So here's to hoping i can cultivate all those other things and in quick succession.

All that said, we're doing relatively well. Sometimes it seems very do-able and other times it's a truely daunting task - raising these two completely dependent small people to be nice, caring, funny, happy individuals who are capable of taking care of themselves and hopefully others as well... They (whoever the ambiguous "they" may be) say that the goal of parenting is to raise your children to be people you like. I gotta say at times i don't particularly like my children right now... Don't get me wrong I do love them fiercely... but sometimes when they're both screaming, poopy, hungry, angry, defiant, challenging, and sleepless i'm pretty sure that success is simply not dropping everything handing Asa to Esther and heading west as fast as my feet can possibly carry me. Which is a nice little segue into sharing that i've been (probably as part of some deep seeded self-destructive notion) nostalgic for Arizona lately. It could be the Barbara Kingsolver Essays i'm reading (High Tide in Tucson - I highly recommend it! - and Thanks Terri!!!!), it could be the recent reiteration of the shackles and bonds of parenthood that leave me realizing how long it will be before things like backpacking, rock climbing, going to the bathroom alone, not wearing bras with with extra hooks and latches (which incidentally resemble, ironically, s&m wear), and having to pack as though we were attempting to survive some outlandish natural disaster just to get to and from the grocery store...

Well, when a hungry wee'un calls. The boobs must answer. I'm off...

Our wee 'un

Asa Kiernan Jones Matthews

Born at 2:30am on January 10th 2009. Total length of labor was 13 hours. Only 9 of which were in earnest and only 5 of which were pretty hard.

Arrived at the birth center at 12:30am and he was born 2 hours later after about 6 pushes.
6lbs 7 oz, 19inches long, 13cm head, nursed right away, and is so mellow compared to his big sister.

Everyone is doing really well. Libby and Asa are resting and recovering. Esther is soooo proud and a little overwhelmed. We're a little worried about Ben, he hasn't had much sleep and keeps getting fits of the giggles.

Love to you all.
And we're still not really answering the phone but we are thinking of all of you and can't wait for you to meet him.

Early Labor

We're in early labor. Yippie!! hopefully we'll be meeting our newest youngun' before the weekend is out.

We're not answering our phone though, sorry... not feeling much like chatting... just burrowing in and hunkering down...

Brushing up...

9 months and 2 days...
is it just me or do the sink and i have extremely complementary shapes?

gotta love that guy!

i&j were over for our weekly dinner - which for some reason i stopped posting about... i gotta get back on that...

anyhow two things occurred to me/us: 1) i didn't have a link to Ian's flickr page which is simply full of fun things to look at and 2) he's totally capable of helping me jazz up this blog so it's not such a dud. So... here's to ian and his nocturnal nature... maybe he can come up with something not too labor intensive that will help this blog be more fun to look at... yay ian!!!

now go look at his stuff

Due Date Schmu Date

Today is the supposed due date. Nothing's happening that i can tell...

sigh...

Still Preggers...

I'm sure you're all anxiously holding your breath and checking the site every few hours to see if i've gone into labor yet...

not yet...

Getting bigger and fatter every day. Peeing every 20 minutes, sighing every 15.

Just sittin' around trying to enjoy the semi-peace of life before the arrival of a new born... and failing... miserably...

Little Miss Impatient

I'm ready to burn all my maternity clothes... not that i really fit into even them any more. My pants won't stay up, my shirts won't stay down...

I'm anxiously awaiting the time i will be able to fit into clothes other than the same 4 or 5 pieces i've been wearing for the last 80 days...

(of course, i'm also anxiously awaiting the time when i get to hold and cuddle my infant son)

If anyone has any hand-me-down clothes they think i'd like, send them my way. I don't even know what i have in storage any more... I'm afraid i'm going to be bound to sweat pants for the rest of my life... sigh.

Best Present of the Year Award...

...goes to (drum roll)... Miah and Cessie for

And a Happy New Year

Merry Christmas

Is This Normal???

Too Many Due Dates!!

So if you're anything like me, Christmas is creeping up waaaay too fast. The irony of that is that the birth date is creeping up waaaay too slow. Well that's not entirely true. I'm not sure i'm ready for a new born just yet. I keep telling him to just let me get through Christmas and then he can come any time he likes... well preferably early...

Esther update: She pooped in the potty for the first time today!! Yippie. I'm sure she'll hate me some day for announcing this over the internet. But firsts are just so darned exciting... especially if it means i will be changing one less diaper...
Kirstin stopped by on her way north for the holidays. It was wonderful to see her even though we were both a little off kilter...
This guy is the new mascot for VOCC - Veterans of Christmas Chaos.
And this beautiful woman is my Aunt Mary. She was my Yaya (nanny) when i was a wee babe. I was Yaya to her oldest wee babe and said, though no longer wee, babe is now Yaya to my wee babe... ahhh the circle of life. So we had a little party at our house the other day. Mary got to see our new addition and the girls got to play together (her youngest is a year older than Esther). And I got to eat the extremities off of gingerbread men.

So here's hoping you all get your holiday stuff done and don't feel as much of a nutbar as i do.

How Loved I Am!!!

Okay, so regardless of the fact that this happened almost a week ago and i'm a real slacker in terms of keeping up with this blog - Jessie threw me a surprise baby shower!!!

My Jessie sure loves me!

We had set it up ages ago to work on Christmas projects together at her house on Saturday. But when i got there her house was set up for a party, which she denied at first but finally broke down and told me about the baby shower after talking to my mom on the phone about needing more paper plates while i was eaves dropping.

Anyhow, it was glorious fun complete with gruesome birth stories, tons of food, and lots of laughter. Thank you to all those who made it and to all those who couldn't we missed you!!!

I also got a few "wish i could be there" shower gifts in the mail a few days after the shower - Kit, thank you for our sleepy wrap, if this babe is anything like Esther was we will get a lot of miles out of it!! Jodi, thanks for all the hand-me-down baby boy stuff!!! It's all perfect! Esther helped me go through it all and even attempted to put on a few outfits...

Update

So we're all moved in to our addition. We have been sleeping down here (in a separate room from Esther for the first time ever) for the last 5 days or so. The first 4 went pretty well but last night she was up 5 or 6 times at least.

On Wednesday Ben and I dropped Esther off with her Tita j and went on a shopping splurge to Ikea and Target. We spent a small fortune on things to make our house more comfy and organized and then spent the rest of the day putting them all up, in, on, etc... It makes me so unnaturally happy when everything is in it's proper place. Also our house seems huge now by comparison.

We're still doing some little things like finding new places for all our pictures and putting together the kids' room. We're waiting to get rid of our bed frame and next week we hope to get the crib in place for still-without-a-name-fetus. But it's all coming together nicely and it makes me super happy.

I began packing my birth bag today. Getting all the stuff that we'll need together in the event of an early labor (yeah right!). And making lists of things i need to buy, make, etc. (Last week i made a half dozen pee pee teepees.)

And christmas is looming... i'm hoping to not be a giant raw nerve of stress and bitchy-ness this holiday season. We've made pacts with several friends and family members to not get each other anything and we're skipping out on the massive family get-togethers that tend to leave me with an eye twitch (although still hoping someone will load up with left overs and be kind enough to give us some!! **hint hint nudge nudge**).

Still lots of stuff to do (like make a ton of Christmas presents and put together a baby crib) but feeling a lot less under-the-gun than just a couple weeks ago.

I will post pictures of our addition when i can get some of it looking clean and organized. But if you're that anxious to see it, feel free to come by for a visit. Lordy knows we won't be seeing too much of anyone after the birth so now's the time to get our visits in.

Hope to see you all soon-ish...

MOVING IN!!!!!

Yay! We're moving in to the addition.

Yesterday we did a big loft to loft transplant of our storage stuff. We don't have closets or a garage or an attic or basement but we have three lofts. On is full of baby crap. One is pretty much empty now and one we just filled with our permanent storage stuff... files, old love letters, all my expedition gear, some other junk...

We're already into making big messes in our new room. Makes it... home-ier.
We just moved our futon down to our new bed this morning and have been watching movies, napping, cuddling, etc all day. good day for it too, nice and rainy...







and the Trumpet... have I mentioned that the phone is no longer the best way to reach us due to my recent deafness?

And Esther has decided that if Daddy gets to make that much noise so does she... that's a Kazoo she's playing... I'm hoping for ear plugs for christmas... and maybe some lavender bath salts...

Pictures of the Addition and other things

This is Ben's new torture device.


These are my baskets of Christmas-gift makings... we're making all our gifts this year... well mostly i am...

This is Esther reading magazines.


Yay the addition!! This is a picture of the loft-to-be. Ben's picking up lumber for the loft floor as we speak. To the right and in pictures below you will see my loft ladder and my cute little shanty-closet.

Thar-she-blows!!
This is the far wall. The thing the fan and materials are sitting on is our bed. That's not a good picture of it but you'll no doubt get to see it after we move in and it looks more like a bed.
This is the office corner-to-be.
My big bookshelf (that's slightly relative, it's big for our house but not huge as far as shelves go). And the back door.

We hope to be in moving-in mode by the weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

The Real Me...

I'm a wreck... I hate waiting. I am the most impatient person in the universe. I keep trying to get better, distract myself... come up with small projects... I've even taken to sweeping all the rugs instead of vacuuming them because it takes more time and is somehow more physically satisfying...

I need to move into the addition NOW!!! I know a week and a half is not long to wait but as Stephen so tactfully pointed out it really could be ANY DAY NOW!!! unlikely... chances are, due to my inability to be patient this kid will take his sweet old time and just like Esther i will be in labor for THREE FREAKIN DAYS!!!! AGAIN!!!!

Esther has a stinkin' cold yet again! She spent the first two years of her life not getting sick at all and then BAM she turns two and instant germ fest. What's with that?? I don't even know where she picks up these germs it's not like she goes to the petri-dish that everyone calls day care.

And it's cold... i usually like the cold... but it's just making me feel more isolated and trapped right now. I have to bundle the dickens out of Esther before we go anywhere and it's just now worth putting up with the whining.

I want an island. A nice little island all to myself so i can go crazy in the warm sun by the ocean. Or else, i want to stay in my pajamas all day, eat nothing but mac n' cheese, and watch bad sitcoms about trite people who get themselves into stupid situations...

Oh yeah and I want out of this FAT SUIT!

Close but no Ciggie

I got an e-mail from Stephen the other day saying "it should be any day now, huh?" or something along those lines which made me think that for those of you that i'm oh-so-rotten about keeping in touch with you're probably wondering the same thing.

We are getting close to the wire but we're not quite down to it yet. We had a birth center appointment yesterday. As of today I am 33 weeks (for those of you who don't know pregnancy is a 40 week long event give or take a few). All is going well. The babe is growing nicely. Constantly wiggling, kicking, punching, and headbutting my bladder. I'm feeling great for the most part. A little achy at the end of the day, a little crankier than usual, a little hungrier than most... but nonetheless probably better than your average 33 week gestating mother.

We're about a week and a half from moving into the addition. It's absolutely beautiful and I will post pictures as soon as i think to do it...

That's pretty much it for us. Just working and waiting and trying not to watch our savings dwindle...

Hope you are all doing well!

Esther's Birthday Pics!

Start at the bottom of the post.

More Wizard of Oz...


Her very first taste of ice cream. I made my Dad wait until she was 2 years old. She took about 6 bites and then had enough. She also didn't want to try any flavor but vanilla. All the others she didn't even want to touch let alone taste...
this must be a particularly scary part like when the trees are throwing apples...


And here is the Dorothy Doll that Lolly made. Esther and Dorothy are actually watching the Wizard of Oz here. Her absolutely most favorite movie. If you put it on you get a whole 113 minutes or however long it is to do whatever you want...

I'm not sure what Ben is doing here but Esther doesn't seem to even notice let alone be entertained...
I like how Ben's expression is the polar opposite of Miah and Dad's
Making Breakfast with Manang Miah.

Climbing off the bed to go wake up Lolly and Granddad
Esther watching Charlotte's Web with Granddad early one morning before Mom and Dad were awake.
Dad and I taking a load off

Playing in the tent with Cessy
That Elmo is possessed and was a present from her Opa!

Whooooo HOoooo!!!

Before 7am I snuck away from my over-crowded bed to check and see who won...

Then i came back to bed and held hands with Ben excited to think about our country's future.

Unfortunately Esther did not get to trapse about town in her halloween costume lastnight as we spent the better part of the evening/night in the ER. Esther's been sick the last few days with a very high fever. Since it didn't go down we decided to take her into the ER. She's fine though. Some kind of viral thing that she ought to get over on her own. Some kids are just prone to higher fevers it would seem. Poor thing has been absolutely miserable (and doped up on tylenol/motrin) for three days now. She only wants to be held and when she's not crying she's whimpering... I haven't been able to get a thing done and my shoulder is sore from holding her non-stop. She hasn't even been able to sleep until today. She's finally getting a good rest. She's been asleep for over 3 hours now. I gave her a hot salt bath, suctioned her nose, gave her baby motrin, hot tea, and garlic oil in her ears... 

quick update

Just a quick update while waiting to get pictures off my mom's camera (and because Mel specifically requested it).

Esther's 2nd birthday was yesterday. We celebrated by spending a few days at White Oak Campground which is where i spent several days while in labor with her. It's right around the corner from the Birth Center (which is like 2 hrs from our house). My parents drove Esther up in the Camper (or "Bus" as Esther calls it) Miah and Ces met us there. We ate pumpkin muffins with cream cheese icing, sang happy birthday, gave her lots of presents (including a Dorothy doll that my mother stitched by hand and her very first train set!!), snuggles, and attention. We bought lots of things at the Amish markets (food mostly). And then we came home thoroughly exhausted and not particularly happy about an end to our little family vacation.

We had our 30 wk check up with the Birth Center. All is well with baby #2.

Ben and I have removed the TV to storage and have decided to go on a TV/movie-free diet for a couple months.

The addition is coming along nicely. We hope to be moving in around Thanksgiving time. If anyone has any leads on cheap/free building materials or a not-so-ugly rug let me know.

And a little Esther story to finish off the post:
She's bouncing around on the bed a couple weeks ago watching me get dressed. As i'm changing my shirt she stops bouncing, looks at me and says "I like your nickles ma."