Pajama Tuesday

I was home with two sick boys today, though you can't tell it from these photos. I wanted to get some good shots of Wilder, since he's been a little neglected lately -- both on the blog and in real life. It was my first day home alone with the two of them, and I have to say, it went pretty well. I slammed a beer at 6 p.m. but hell, it wasn't like it was 10 a.m., right?

Anyway, here are the photos ... there were so many good ones I couldn't narrow it down more than this. I color corrected these in Photoshop: Can you tell the difference from my normal pathetic attempts at photo editing? Hope so.

PS. I also got some amusing if not exactly slick video today of Wilder being Wilder (it's hard to hold the camera still and be professional-like when you're being tackled). I'll try to get it up on YouTube later and link to it from here. You know, in my free time. Har har.

Laughing at Mama being a big dork

He's just so darn cute

I think this boy might look a little bit like me, no? Am I delusional?

Sitting still for one brief moment.

Little brothers make good dinosaur prey.

4 week update: Hunter's a chunkachunk

We had our one-month appointment today and Hunter weighed in at 11 lbs., 11.5 oz. That's a weight gain of 1 lb., 10 oz. in two weeks.

Uhh, note to self: You can officially stop worrying about whether this child is getting enough to eat.

Other than that, he's completely healthy and fine. We had to cauterize the lower part of his belly button with silver nitrate. The doc said it would hurt him, but he hardly cried a bit. That's my tough little dude!

Not much else to report. Jerry's had this week off and so the four of us have been able to spend lots of great time together. Next week my sister Tara arrives on Thursday for an almost week-long visit. I'm really looking forward to her being here; she loves to take long walks so I'm hoping we can do a couple of those a day ... our new neighborhood is great for walking.

We've also fired up the hot tub the last three nights. Soaking in it makes for very relaxing evenings and helps me get to sleep faster. Oh, and the last two nights Hunter's eliminated one middle-of-the-night feeding, so hopefully this is a trend that continues. I'm GREATLY looking forward to eventually sleeping for longer stretches at a time.

Enough babbling. Here's some pics from this week:

Hunter's first tub bath.

Snuggling with Pop

Jer works at the community garden.

There's those peepers.

Thirsty from not gardening, Wilder drains a juice box in record time.

Hunter shows off that frenulum that his Mama's been blathering on about.

Reason No. 5,718 why I love my husband

Because yesterday, during Wilder's pre-naptime book reading, when a broken-down Bertie the Bus asked Thomas the Tank Engine if he could take Bertie's passengers for him, Jerry ... err, Thomas responded: "Hells yeah!"

The womb bear speaketh ...

We have one of those teddy bears with the little contraption inside that emits what is supposed to be sounds similar to what babies hear in the womb. It soothes them, and the damn thing actually works. So, even though with this second kiddo I find the womb bear SUPER annoying, we put it on nearly every night to help lull Hunter back to sleep after his first or umpteenth nighttime feeding session.

And I swear, it speaks to me. I noticed it with Wilder. It's very rhythmic, and every so often you'll start hearing it say the same word over and over and over again. Luckily, so far it hasn't been "kill. kill. kill" or "eat at TGIFriday's. eat at TGIFriday's." or "Watch Oprah. Watch Oprah. Watch Oprah." But it can be somewhat random. Most nights though, due to sleep deprivation, I forget what it whispered to me in the darkness by the time I awake the next morning.

But last night, about 2 a.m., I swear this is what I heard: "Barack. Obama. Barack. Obama."

For the record, I have no idea who I'm voting for in the next presidential election. But based purely on the endorsement of the Womb Bear, I might have to go with the man who my father thinks might be a Muslim plant here to destroy our American way of life. (Sorry for outing you on that one, Pop, but you did forget my birthday this year, so we'll call it even ... oh, but honestly, I didn't even realize you'd forgotten it until you told me you had. I swear.)

Anyway, if I receive any more secret messages via the bear, I'll let you know. If only he'd chant out lottery numbers to me.

Wilder ...

hanging out by the window screen asking me "Whayoudoin' Mama?" (I was outdoors taking pictures of pretty alive stuff around the house that I'll post later.)

Gardenin' fools

So we started the Great Gardening Fiasco of 2008 today. I mentioned here a few posts ago that we had reserved a plot in Dallas' newest community garden in the Lake Highlands neighborhood. After a few weeks during which people other than us worked to clear off weeds and debris and build garden beds (at least we had a good excuse for our laziness ... "Oh, we would have LOVED to pull weeds and perform back-breaking manual labor, but alas, we were having the baby!"), there was finally an official groundbreaking today, complete with city officials and politicos coming out to "blah blah blah blather blather blather" about what this means for the community. Don't get me wrong ... I think it's great and I'm excited to be a part of it. But I can ALWAYS do without the self-promoting white guys in suits tooting their own horns.

So we arrived an hour late.

So in no time at all, the whole family had found our plot and dumped out 12 bags of gardening soil and couple bags of peat moss, spread it around and called it good. We need more soil (in fact, Jerry just got back from picking up about 10-12 more bags) and we'll go back later and spread that out. We're not planting until the irrigation system gets put in.

So here are some observations from today:

1. Thankfully, we are not even close to the only people with younguns out there. There were TONS of kids pitching in and running around in other peoples' plots and having a fine time in the way that kids are supposed to. Wilder, who is going through a super-sweet and obedient phase right now, was even pretty good and stuck close to Jer and I and had not one meltdown.

2. At 3 weeks, Hunter probably takes the youngest "gardener" prize.

3. Speaking of Hunter's age, our very nice plot neighbors introduced themselves. They're a young married couple that have two little girls and a dog. The male half of the couple mentioned that it was impressive that I was out there working three weeks after giving birth. I told him I was a fast healer and, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that -- he not knowing I'd had a c-section (how could he? He just met me ... dumb Kris dumb!!) -- this implied my, err, vajayjay was a super-speedy bouncer backer. Which would explain why he got away from me as fast as possible. Oh well ... I guess they might not be sharing fertilizer with us, eh?

So, all in all, it was a good trip, particularly for a girl who hasn't been out of the house much lately. I could have stayed all day. There were people to talk to who weren't attached to my breast (ahem, HUNTER ... JERRY ... kidding about that last one), and the noise of chatter and electric tillers lulled the baby into a deep sleep that gave me an hour of freedom.

So, without further ado, here are a few photos:

Can you believe he never woke up and pitched in? Man, this one's gonna be a total slacker.

Wilder shares his cookie with me (such a good boy ... of course, I threatened him with a pitchfork, so there's that)

Old & Young MacDonald

I save Wilder from certain death at the hands and tongue of this adorable Spaniel mix puppy.

Me with a pitchfork in my hand pretending to work.

More blathering and five photos

Hunter had his two-week appointment yesterday. He now weighs 10 lbs, 1.5 oz (he gained 11 oz!) and he's grown 1/4 of an inch, now measuring 22.25 inches. Don't know where he's at percentile wise, but suffice to say he's a big, hungry kid. His pediatrician says he has two chins and four cheeks.

Teri (Jerry's mom) left today. We were so sad to see her go. She was a TREMENDOUS help both with the boys and around the house, and it was great having someone besides ourselves to talk with all week. We're hoping she'll visit again soon. I know Wilder grew very attached to her over the week, even if he never let her cut his hair (he's sporting the "Nick Nolte" again. Sigh.)

I'm here by myself next week ... will be interesting to see how that goes. I'm so much more mellow this time around, though, that I'm not freaking about it like I did with Wilder.

Jerry got the pool cleaned and shocked a couple days ago and today he and Wilder have been out there, mostly just splashing and wading. No full immersions yet. It's much to chilly still for that, but it sure was great to sit there rocking Hunter while I watched the guys play. Wilder is doing awesome with Hunter. He's accepted him as a full -fledged family member. He hates it when Hunter cries and will race to find Jerry or I, and searches desperately for a bink he can stick in the kiddo's mouth.


Chillin' with the boys


Gramma gives Wilder his bath and encourages splashing with abandon. Wilder thinks "best gramma ever!"


Could there be a surer sign that summer is approaching the Scott household than this?


What's up Spike?


Handsomest boys ever.

New pics

Too tired to write captions. Enjoy. Love, k.