Friday, December 30

Wednesday, December 28

the weather outside is frightful!



well, actually, it has been beautiful. 

the day before poppy was born, ellie and i celebrated our last day alone together at the athens zoo and playing in the park. we ate sweet potato fries, checked out some turkeys and did some serious off-roading in the stroller trying to make the baby come out (which obviously didn't work). it was one of my favorite days of all time.



in the month between thanksgiving and christmas there were some rainy days, but for the most part we have had unseasonably warm and wonderful weather. we've been taking advantage of it.
 we built a fire pit and made tin foil dinners. we've been going to the park as often as possible.








ellie has finally mastered all the slides, even the big ones. until a couple of weeks ago she would only go up the stairs and look down the slide. she would say "um, i go down the stairs" and come right back down. now she's a pro!

 

whenever we go anywhere these days, ellie asks if we're stopping at the park to play. she loves to play and i love letting her.


coming soon: christmas pictures. 
when we put the house together...


Sunday, December 25

ho ho ho!




merry christmas. 

xoxoxox, 
the fowler family 




Thursday, December 22

one month!





one month of poppy!


she's such a sweet little girl. 
she's getting big and chunky. 
i love her snuggly little body. 
she makes a lot of squeals and squeaks and likes to have little conversations with me, which is so different from ellie at this age. 
she has this funny little sideways crinkly smile which, of course, is beyond adorable. 
among the dozens of other little nicknames, i call her "toot sweet" and i'm sure you can probably figure out why (hey, i'm trying not to be too embarrassing as a mother). 
she puts up with a lot from her sister, but ellie's only fault is loving her too much. poppy gets more ellie hugs and kisses than we do! 
she loves ellie, too. she listens to ellie talk and likes to be able to see her playing. 


this past month has been a blur - not because poppy doesn't sleep, though. she does a pretty decent job for someone who is only a few weeks old. adjusting to a newborn in the crazy month between thanksgiving and christmas has been rough. i feel a little like rip van winkle, like i've been asleep but the world kept on going. 

one of these days i'll be back in the swing of things. 
or at least i'll be pretty good at faking it. 




miss penelope, we are so happy to watch you grow and change.  
we love you.

Tuesday, December 13

it's gonna get terrible up in here.



we're hitting the terrible twos early, i'm afraid.

this is why i haven't been posting much. i can't get on the computer without (not-so) helpful little fingers trying to type or some sort of trouble happening behind my back.

why do they call them the terrible twos? for the sake of alliteration? because i think a lot of other words might fit instead: wild, cranky, mischievous, hysterical, demanding, whiny, destructive, and restless... to name a few.

or loud. loud would cover most of it.



despite the fact the my daughter has become a wild thing, she is still a smart and sweet little girl (sometimes).

stories:

the other night, she emptied out a basket and pulled it into the front room. she was sitting in it and yelling something that we couldn't understand. "i riding on the arson!" is what it sounded like and she repeated it over and over, because that's what toddlers do: yell until you figure out what in the blankety-blank they are trying to say. finally, she grabbed the sides of the basket and said "whoa! whoa! whoa!" and shook her body and suddenly it clicked.
she was in a boat.
on the ocean.
"yeah! yeah, mommy!"


here's an admission that i am a a horrible human being and mother, she now recognizes both the walmart and the mcdonalds logos. i had some pictures that were printed at walmart and she saw the logo and immediately said "walmart!" and, of course, she spots every mcdonalds that we happen to pass while we are driving. in my defense, she does always want me to read the "abc's" (aka the words) to her whenever she sees writing.

 
she is always saying funny things. i mean, not just like it's-funny-because-a-little kid-said-it stuff but really funny.
the other day when we were at our appointment weighing poppy (who is now up to 9 lbs 12 oz, that's 6 ounces over the weekend), i said "poppy, are you ready?" which prompted ellie to say "i ready... to go home!"
wah-waaaah.
and when judge ran off in the woods, she stood at the back door yelling, "juuuuuudge! where are youuuuu? come heeeere! we have fooooood! and waaaaaater!"
the way she sounded, i'm not sure if i would come out of the woods either. it sure sounded like a trick to me. (he came back.)



so anyway, when this happened today:


i got upset for a few minutes and thought about giving up on christmas entirely, but instead i whipped out the camera and took pictures of the carnage and then of her in time-out.


and if you're thinking that she took the time to remove all those ornaments from the tree, you're wrong.
she knocked the whole darn thing over.
because she was trying to run from me after i caught her locked in the laundry room, kneading two handfuls of gum.
which she got after hiding in my closet and removing everything from my bag.

this is one reason why we will never have nice things. 

and it all happened in a matter of minutes, while i was trying to get the baby ready so we could go to the park. 




and what is poppy doing while all of this is going on?
sleeping like a little angel.


i'll just have to hang on for those few moments when the stars align and everyone behaves like angels.



those few, few moments.





Saturday, December 10

new life.


love this girl:

 (she is saying "cheeeeeeeese!")

and this girl:



and we're loving our new life. we're still getting used to it, but we love it all the same. 

i can't believe we've had our poppy for two and a half weeks!

i also can't believe it is only two weeks until christmas. so not ready for that.


a little glimpse at our poppy right now:

she has already gained a pound (at least)! we had an appointment thursday and she weighed in at 9 lbs 7 oz - and that's on an empty stomach. still 21 inches. she's a big, healthy girl.

she has the pinkest little cheeks. i want to kiss them all the time.

i think she may have brown eyes like mommy and daddy.

she sleeps so well. i can't really complain about lack of sleep. i think i woke up more often when i was pregnant to use the bathroom. she's wonderful.

she seems to love (or at least tolerate) the chaos all around her.

she makes funny little grumbles and chirps when she doesn't want to be moved and her facial expressions are hilarious.



ellie update coming soon.


for now, just know that there is a lot of this:



 and this:


happening at the fowler castle.

(oh yeah, ellie decided that we live in a "castle" and she is "so happy," despite the face she is making in that first picture.)








Tuesday, November 29

baby weekend.


we're slowly making the transition from a family of three to a family of four. it has been a little more difficult than i expected, but we're getting there. i've been really happy to have husband home for a week to help and spend time hugging and relaxing with our kids. we haven't been doing much of anything at all and it is so, so nice. 

i mean, sure, there has been plenty of poop and screaming (mostly from ellie) and almost zero sleep, but that's okay. there has also been lots of chocolate and cuddling and cherry coke and i'm happy. 

a couple of (phone, sorry) pictures of our lazy life:


a little blur reading by the window.

she and daddy spent some time hunting for rocks in the woods to make a fire ring in the yard. it was probably the highlight of her week.


mama and ellie time - taking pictures of feet...


and dinosaurs...


and ourselves.

and yes, that is chocolate cake on my shirt. we shared a giant slice and watched a dinosaur show while playing with the phone.



little gas smiles all day long.

poppy is so relaxed and sleepy all the time. she's a dream of a baby so far. we have really enjoyed snuggling her, especially since ellie doesn't hold still for anything (she won't even sleep in our bed with us).


we'll be getting back into the swing of things and (gasp!!) starting to get ready for christmas in a few days. it's hard to believe there is another holiday coming up. our baby was our big holiday for this year. christmas is really no big deal to me.

for today, we're going to enjoy having daddy home and we're going to cuddle his brains out. 








Saturday, November 26

it's baby boo!








introducing penelope elizabeth
november 23, 2011 
3:46 pm

8 lbs 6 oz
21 inches



poppy is here! 

we're still in a whirlwind, so i have really let the blog go when it comes to the big news. sorry.

but are you ready for a story?
here's all about how our new little life started (caution: the mommy kind of "graphic details" follow).
(also, all times are approximate but as close to the truth as i can figure.)


wednesday, 9:15 am:

at 40 weeks, 4 days, we headed in for our appointment with the doctor. they wanted to check boo on the monitors, so we got hooked up and waited. she's not very active in the morning, but the doctor was more concerned about her lack of reaction to the three lollipops i ate... although i did tell her that three lollipops hardly even shines a candle to my normal sugar intake. but then, when the doctor reached in and tickled her head (yes, yuck!), she still didn't really move much. we peeked at her on the ultrasound, too, but not much was happening. her heartbeat was steady, but it should have been fluctuating more. her little fluid bed was starting to decline as well. it wasn't necessarily dangerous, but we decided it was time to call it quits.

i was dilated to a 5, her head was at +2 and my mucous plug had been gone for several days... but the contraction monitor had showed almost nothing going on in there. to sum it up, my body was ready for labor but it just wasn't coming. i thought they would give us a time and date to show up at the hospital next week. instead, the doctor went to make a phone call, came back and told us to head to the hospital. they would be expecting us. i was nervous, mostly because it seemed that they wanted to get boo out as soon as possible to make sure everything was still okay. i didn't want to expect the worst.

11:30 am:

after running home, grabbing our things, changing one last terribly sore bum and kissing our bean farewell, we signed in at the hospital. we mostly just waited for a while - they got a room ready, put a "just-in-case" i.v. in my arm and we settled in for what we thought was going to be a long, rough night. the plan was to break my water with the hopes that we could avoid the use of pitocin (and the eventual epidural to deal with the hell that is pitocin making contractions happen).

1:45 pm:

the doctor came in to check me and to break my water. i wasn't expecting her to come and break it so quickly, but there she was to work her magic. and the water gushed. wow. gross. i slipped into the mobile monitors so that i could pace around for what i thought would be a slow, uncomfortable afternoon.

2:00 pm:

the contractions started. and hurt. like crazy.

2:30 pm:

i got progressively more and more miserable and decided to try and get in the shower to relax.

2:40 pm:

in extreme pain, i started to hyperventilate and quickly got out of the shower.

2:50 pm:

i started whining like a baby, because the pain wasn't really letting up between contractions. i was not expecting it to go from zero to one hundred in one hour. with ellie, i had over 12 hours of time to get used to the building contractions, but this pain hit me like a bus. the monitor wasn't working, so the nurses couldn't see exactly what was happening. that is when i started telling them i couldn't do it, i didn't want to do it and to help me. help me!

2:55 pm:

they put an oxygen mask on me. i begged for and they refused to give me the i.v. pain medication because they couldn't get a good read on the baby's heartbeat. there wasn't really time for medicine anyway.

3:15 pm:

nononononononononono!

3:25 pm:

i couldn't keep from pushing anymore. they had called the doctor at some point, and she came in and checked me and told me to go ahead and push.

3:35 pm:

they kept telling me i was close, which i thought was just their way of trying to keep me from giving up entirely or passing out. i asked why they couldn't just reach in and get her out for me. the husband had been continually telling me that i was doing a great job (which i knew was a lie), reminding me to breathe and trying to get me to squeeze his hand... but i couldn't feel my hands. they said they could see her head, but i still didn't feel like that meant anything at all.

3:46 pm:

she was out! she didn't make any noise, though, and she looked so purple to me. she also looked exactly like ellie did when she came out. she had pooped on the way out and i think they were worried that she had swallowed something. they hurried to get her under the lights and cleaned up. finally i heard her cry but it was still a minute before i got to cuddle up with her. they said she was just quiet because she was shocked. "it's like she just got off of a rollercoaster and then fell off a cliff," the nurse told me.

i couldn't believe it was only two hours later. i couldn't even believe it was still that same day. i couldn't stop shaking uncontrollably for a good hour afterward. i can still hardly believe it even happened! it was a totally unmedicated birth, even more so than i had expected it to be. she is just perfect and there was no need to worry about her, she is just a sleepy girl and very calm. i'm glad she's here, though, and we're all healthy and happy. the timing couldn't have been better.


so that is that. she came wednesday, we got home thursday and spent friday having a little bit of a make-up thanksgiving with family. it has been pretty quiet but not exactly relaxing - ellie bean makes sure of that. she's a wonderful (but wild!) big sister. daddy is home for a little while and has really stepped up his game. even judge is being mostly well-behaved... but that doesn't mean anybody is getting any sleep around here. 

stay tuned to the new adventures of the fowler family.
and there will be better (not-from-the-phone) pictures eventually.