Nevertheless, at six weeks, we turned a corner.  Rhett now lets Abel be within arms-length and will talk to him and give him kisses.  We’ve attempted (nearly daily) to let Rhett hold Abel, but he’s not interested in being that close.

Here are a few of my favorite recent pictures of my boys.

Bath buddies

Two very tired boys after a rough trip to the doctor.  Rhett diagnosed with bronchitis and Abel got his 2 month shots.  Brutal.

This one says “Moommmaaa, get that big bad baby off me!!”

Don’t judge.  Rhett rarely gets his hair brushed these days. 

They’re more than 1,500 miles away.  My heart is broken and I feel so helpless.  What do you do when your family is hurting and you can’t give them a hug?  We’ve sent giftcards to help with their basic needs, and we’re working to gather pictures and other special family things they have lost.  But it just feels like it falls short (too short) of the devastation.

It’s been humbling for us over the past 24 hours.  It’s been a good reminder that we are promised nothing.  That we deserve nothing.  All of these things that we have and that we enjoy and that we take for granted everyday are gifts from a good God.  They are grace to us.  And if it were all taken today, it would be devastating.  It would be really, really hard.  But would we be able to sift through the ashes and still declare that God is good?  And that even this is for our good?  Would we see it as an opportunity?  Man, I really hope so.  

I borrowed this idea directly from Dandee Designs. There’s not a single original idea of my own here.  If you’d like a free printable of the card, click here: Have a Ball Printable

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here is the latest on Baby Abel and a few photos at two months:

• Weighs 11 lbs, 3 oz (25th percentile) and is 23.5 inches long (75th percentile).
• Still sleeps a lot – 4ish naps a day.  Usually wakes up just once in the middle of the night around 3:30 AM.
• Started smiling right at 6 weeks old.
• Loves to be held tight.
• Prefers to be swaddled.
• Usually needs a pacifier to fall asleep, but pretty quickly spits it out after falling asleep.
• Might be a Momma’s boy.

Because I can barely remember if I ate breakfast, much less what happened last year, I need to record the birth story.  This is mostly for me, but since this is the world wide web, you’re welcome to read on.

I woke up at 6:02 AM.  I immediately told Doug that I was having contractions (plural), which makes me think that maybe I had been having them for a while, but had been sleeping through them and somehow subconsciously knew I was having them.  Right away, we started to time them.  They were about 7-8 minutes apart to start.  We laid in bed for about 1.5 hours timing pretty regular contractions.  I took a bath, thinking that if this wasn’t labor that maybe the hot water would help with the back pain.  The contractions continued.  I already had my weekly doctor’s appointment scheduled for 10 AM, so we just decided we’d wait till then to see if it was go-time.  Doug took Rhett to preschool (thank you God, for your perfect timing!) and we headed to the doctor.  Naturally, we stopped at Chick-fil-a on the way for breakfast.  I ate a chicken biscuit while trying to breath through contractions, and somehow enjoyed every bite of it.  We got to the doctor’s office around 9:45 AM.  I checked in and told them I thought I might be in labor. They very quickly got me in a room and my doctor came in and said “So, you’re having contractions?  What do you think?  Maybe 4 cm?”  I had had a false alarm two weeks prior, so I was a little gun-shy.  He checked and said, “The reason you’re feeling so crummy is because you’re at 8 cm.  We need to get you to the hospital.”  My doctor’s office is right across the street from the hospital, so they wheeled me across the street in a wheelchair (very dramatic).  Before I left, he told me that if I wanted the epidural that I would need to tell them right away because I didn’t have much time.  So, in the wheelchair on the way across the street, I decided that I wanted to go without the epidural (we’ve made a note to ourselves for next time – decide ahead of time, and take a class on how in the world to give birth).  We checked into the hospital at 10:30 AM.  For about an hour I had really intense contractions 2-5 minutes apart and then all the sudden my doctor’s crew arrived and it was time to start pushing.  I pushed 5 times and the newest Brown arrived at 11:58 AM.  Abel Bradley was here…and a BOY!  We were so surprised, but so thrilled.

Here are a few pictures from the big day.

Daddy and Rhett on Abel’s birthday

This picture was immediately after checking in at the hospital.  The last picture of my second pregnancy.

And here is what we came for…

Our first picture as a family of four (excuse Daddy’s sleepy eyes)

And finally, we were amazed at how much Rhett and Abel looked alike as newborns.  Brothers!  Rhett is on the left, Abel on the right.

Welcome, Baby Abel.  We are so glad you came.

]]> http://onbeingbrowns.com/2011/12/29/welcome-abel-bradley/feed/ 1 http://onbeingbrowns.com/2011/12/18/a-2nd-birthday-letter/ http://onbeingbrowns.com/2011/12/18/a-2nd-birthday-letter/#comments Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:28:41 +0000 amanda http://onbeingbrowns.com/?p=1253 Dear Rhett,

Today you are turning two years old.  I can’t believe it.  I’ve had no shortage of people tell me that having kids would make time speed up.  They weren’t kidding.  Having you in our lives and watching you grow and your personality develop has made time go too quickly.

This past week I have spent a lot of time thinking about you and the blessing that you have been in my and Daddy’s life over the past two years.  I can hardly think about it without tears coming to my eyes.  I am overwhelmed by how blessed we are to be your parents.

This year has been a year of many firsts for you –

• We saw you take your first steps in February. I had been working with you on walking while Daddy was at work, but you waited until Daddy got home to take those few steps. You wouldn’t believe how excited we were. You took three steps from Daddy to me and we acted like you had won a national championship.
• You said your first real word in June.  “Cook” – short for cookie. Your first sentence shortly followed – “cook please.” You, son, are a little man after your mom’s own heart.
• The highlight of the year for me was our first family vacation.  The three of us took a 14-hour drive to Colorado.  You slept nearly the whole way there.  For me and Daddy, it was a time for us to get out of the summer heat and out of our normal routine and just enjoy you and enjoy time together in a new place where there was nothing to required of us except to spend dedicated time as a family.  I will never forget that trip.
• And we welcomed your first sibling just a few weeks ago.  Abel was born just three weeks before your second birthday.  Right now, you’re not really sure why in the world we would mess with a good thing and bring home another baby.  Every now and then though, we’ll catch you giving a blanket, a toy, or a pacifier to your new baby brother.  It’s these moments that I get excited about the big brother that you are becoming.  Abel has so much to learn from you.  Daddy and I are praying that you would soon become best friends and that you learn to love Abel well.

This year has also challenged me to live out what I said last year – that I was a child of God and not bound by fear, and therefore I was able to steward you well as my son.  The older you have become, and the more “boy” you become, this has become increasingly more difficult.  You are all boy, that’s for sure.  You love to climb and have no fear and no concept of danger.  The trouble is that there is nothing worse for me than when you are hurt.  The times that you have fallen on the sidewalk, been hit in the head with a swinging wooden porch swing, climbed out of your highchair, climbed on your dresser and tipped it over, and all the other could-have-happened scenarios have broken my heart. I think that most of the time, I have been more upset when you get hurt than you are.  I have such great fear that something will happen to you that I can’t do anything about, or maybe worse, something will happen to you that I could have prevented.  It makes my heart ache, Rhett.  I am praying and asking people to hold me accountable to this fear.  I want so badly to be a mother that loves you really well, with an open hand and an outstretched arm – knowing that you are a gift to Daddy and me.  Being parents is by far the best gift we’ve ever been given.

Rhett, I cannot tell you how much I love you.  I can’t believe how full my heart is.  I am so proud of you.  I am anxious for your third year – I can’t wait to get to know you better.

I love you,
Momma

(result of running into an occupied porch swing)

And…I’m still pregnant.

I am going to the doctor weekly now, and at my last appointment my doctor said that the little turkey will likely be here before Thanksgiving (that’s two weeks from today, if dates aren’t your thing).  That’s a story we’ll continue to track.

And now, for another belly photo.

The finished product with the builder and the sleeper

We set up the bed in his room and let him get used to it for about a week before we let him try sleeping in it.  The first naptime was a disaster.  He immediately fell out of the bed, crawling over the rails.  Two days later, we successfully tried again.  He slept for about 2 hours (about an hour shorter than his usual naps) and I heard him awake before he had a chance to get out.

The napper

Good nappers deserve ice cream

That night did not go so well.  We put him in his bed (after clearly communicating expectations of him not getting out), but he quickly realized the freedom he’d been given.  He used the opportunity to unload a toy box, go through his dirty laundry and unplug and hide his nightlight.  After about 30 minutes of correcting him, and then hearing more banging around, it was quiet.  After 15 minutes of silence, Doug snuck in to find him back in his bed, fast asleep.  I was shocked, as I had been prepared to let him sleep on the floor if he fought the bed too much.

Things changed at about 4 AM.  After hearing what he thought was someone breaking into the house, Doug jumped up out of bed (for some reason, in my middle-of-the-night delusion, I thought he was starting laundry – so I wasn’t worried).  He stood at the top of the stairs and then heard something that made him realize that Rhett was awake too, in addition to the robbers (Browns don’t think clearly at ungodly hours).  After a couple seconds of panic, Doug found Rhett in his bathroom…in the sink.  In the middle of the night, Rhett had taught himself how to reach and turn a doorknob, and then walked down the hall into the new baby’s room and into their shared bathroom, climbed onto the toilet, and onto the countertop, and in the sink.  The noise Doug heard that he thought were the bad guys was just a candle that Rhett had knocked off the countertop.  I was unable to pull myself together after the fear of what could have happened set in.  So, we let Rhett sleep the rest of the night in his crib.  The next day, we made Rhett’s room into a small prison for children – childproofing everything.

The next night’s sleep was successful.  Slept all night until woken up around 8 AM.  Here he is waking up from his first night’s sleep in his big bed.

Since then (one week ago), Rhett has transitioned well…with one exception.  A few nights ago, we heard him banging around before falling asleep (a routine that we haven’t figured out how to manage yet, but usually lasts only about 15 minutes).  This time though, I sensed that something was different and asked Doug to go check on him.  Moments later, I hear Doug running around upstairs yelling for Rhett.  Turned out, he had somehow gotten into his bathroom again, (maybe I didn’t close it all the way), and had gotten into the toilet.  Soaking wet.  Even his hair was wet.

My dad responds to this behavior with a laugh and a “he’s just a boy, he’s got to explore.”  To this, I must ask what in the world I would do if we had another boy?  I mean, I know I wouldn’t be the first mom to have two boys.  There are a few others out there.  But how?  How do you manage brothers?  With one boy, I am ready for us to move into a bounce house with no sharp corners, no concrete, no toilets or bathtubs for inquiring minds.