Our week...

Where has the week gone? Erin is now two weeks old, which seems amazing to me. She had a weight check on Tuesday and went from 8 lb. 2 oz. the previous Thursday to 8 lb. 8 oz., so all was very good! She doesn't go back until her two month appointment now. She continues to amaze us. She is definitely a different baby than Kyle was. While Kyle was not a fussy baby, he was alert much of the time and intent on taking in his surroundings. Erin still sleeps much of the time, although she is beginning to spend more time awake. Now if we could get the awake portion of her day to be during the daylight hours!

Kyle has been exercising his right to being a toddler whose world has just been dramatically rocked. He is entering the realm of naughtiness. We're working hard to ensure that he gets a lot of attention of his own so that he is not looking for attention in ways we'd rather he didn't. He is still fascinated with Erin, so that is good. One of our bigger challenges is that every night we spend an hour or two telling Kyle to go back up to bed. He is so certain he is missing something since Erin is downstairs with us when *he* has been sent upstairs to bed. He also chooses to get up at least once during the night to see what's going on since Erin is often awake. You would think he would sleep in a little later... but think again.

Our week used to be filled with a variety of activities, but this week's main event was that I managed to go grocery shopping with Kyle and Erin by myself! I was proud of Kyle, who sat in the cart for the first time ever and did a very good job of staying seated. Erin slept through the entire event, LOL. We also hit McDonald's with Beth, Troy and Jack yesterday so Kyle could get some running around time in. Oh, and also two rides in the double stroller this week... one on Monday to go to the Memorial Day parade and one yesterday since the weather was nice.

I am becoming more of myself again. After a bit of a difficult recovery from delivering Erin, and then one of the worst colds/coughs I've had in years, and then pink eye, I may be *knock on wood* healthy again! AND, I've been wearing my regular clothes since Thursday... bye bye maternity clothes! I can feel it coming... I'm going to feel the best I've felt in months. :)

And a few pictures from the week...

Kyle and Jack watch the Memorial Day parade.

Our little mermaid. Erin must have spent a lot of time in the womb with her legs drawn up tight and crossed, because she still loves to do that. The funny thing is that when she stretches her legs out again, she often ends up with both of her legs stuffed into one leg of her outfit.

Daddy stopped by to see Kyle in the cement truck. It was the highlight of his day!

Erin does actually have eyes! :)

Ahhhh, tiny baby feet.

And a brother's love...

Happy One Week, Erin!

I can't believe it's been a week since Erin entered our world! She has slept through most of it, so she probably can't believe it either! Her days and nights are mixed up, but she seems to be switching that over a little bit (or at least one can hope!)

Kyle continues to get along really well with Erin, and is always checking where she is and excited when he sees her.

She had a pediatrician appointment yesterday and is down to 8lb, 2 oz, so we're heading in again for a weight check on Tuesday. She was sleeping so much it was hard to get her to eat, but she seems to be eating a lot more in the past day or two so I'm sure all will be just fine. Other than monitoring her weight, she is perfect!

Erin gets some loving from Kyle:

And some protection from Mulligan:

The Arrival of Erin Elizabeth Bos

We are so thrilled to announce the arrival of Erin Elizabeth Bos, the newest blessing in the Bos family. She is absolutely amazing and we couldn’t love her more!

The stats are:

Erin Elizabeth
Born Friday, May 16 at 9:08pm
8lb, 11oz
20-1/2 inches

As readers of this blog know, Erin began to make hints about a month ago, so I was ready to welcome her. The story of her actual arrival began with more contractions Thursday night (the third night of them that week!) that continued on most of the night. After stopping for a couple hours, they started back up again and I dropped Kyle off with my sister before heading to my 11:30am OB appointment. I also took the bags we’d already packed.

Even though I was contracting through my appointment, I was dilated and effaced the same as I was the previous week, so the doctor said to head home and he scheduled induction for May 21. I was so disappointed because I was certain that it was truly Erin’s arrival day. I got back out to the car and called Mike in tears before turning the car back toward home.

Only ten minutes into the drive home I realized I had already had three contractions that were stronger than they had been. I pulled over and called my OB office. The nurse told me not to go all the way back to South Haven (an hour drive), but to come in so they could hook me up and monitor my contractions for a bit.

I spent the better part of the afternoon on the machines, watching the contractions come and go. They had become more regular than they had been for the previous two weeks, and were becoming stronger. When the OB on duty was able to get there about 4:30, I was ready to head up to labor and delivery. I quickly called Mike and told him to get to Kalamazoo… he’d been on standby until then since I didn’t yet know if they would keep me or not.

By the time I was upstairs at 5:00 the contractions had become so strong and frequent that I was really worried that Mike would not make it in time, or that I would miss my epidural window. I was able to get the epidural at 6:00pm. As with Kyle, it started out working great, then wore off on one side. While more painful, this actually worked out okay because I knew when to push for both Kyle and Erin.

We were ready to go just after eight, and after an hour of pushing Erin entered the world at 9:08pm. We were overjoyed to see that we had a beautiful little girl to complete our family! She surprised us all by topping Kyle’s weight by more than two pounds and his length by more than an inch. She did stay in the warm, cozy womb a week longer than him, though.

The hospital gives new babies and moms skin-to-skin time for about an hour before they even bathe the baby. It was wonderful bonding time as we snuggled close during our first moments together.

During the rest of Erin’s hospital stay we learned that she is a sleeper! She never stops sleeping, and we barely get to see her with her eyes open! Her little squawks, though, and her mom’s constant need to keep gazing at her, did mean that it was still a weekend light on sleep for her parents.

Since her arrival home she has continued to be a sleeper, I struggle to get her to wake up enough to eat. She is beginning to have better spurts of alertness, however.

Kyle has proven to be a top-notch older brother. He loves to gaze at Erin and give her kisses. If she makes any noise Kyle wants me pick her up and “help” her. He asks where she is the minute he comes down from a nap or in the morning, or if he spies her without asking he immediately gets excited to see her.

We could not be more blessed to have Erin Elizabeth join our family. She is perfect in every way and we can’t wait to share our lives with her.

Kyle meets Ronald

Ronald McDonald, that is! Our local McDonald's had Ronald McDonald in town today, so Kyle got to go and meet him. At first he didn't want me to let him down and he didn't want to get too close, but even then he wasn't acting scared, just unsure. Once he warmed up to him you would have thought Ronald McDonald was his best friend! He wouldn't leave his side! It was really cute.




Need a place to sit? Try Ronald's shoe!


And this was not Kyle's first time meeting Ronald, he met him at the South Haven library more than a year ago. This was a close as he wanted to get, then. Today's Ronald was better, LOL.

My little charmer

Kyle has learned, somewhere, to turn on the charm. He knows when he is asking for, or attempting to do, something that he may or will be told no for. Examples of this include asking for a cookie, or peeking down the stairs when he is supposed to be going to bed. When he does these things, now he gets this little grin on his face that melts your heart. It’s a, “How could you turn this smile down?” look.

The charmer grin also comes out when he is being told something he doesn’t particularly want to hear. When I am asking Kyle to do something he doesn’t want to do, he will often simply ignore that I said anything. I have to tell him to look at me and I firmly repeat what I asked. Until recently, he would look at me with a mild scowl on his face. His way of showing me that he really didn’t want to hear what I had to say. But now that the charmer has come on the scene, when I ask him to look at me he turns with his little charmer grin firmly displayed. I keep waiting for him to bat his eyes at me, LOL. I know what the look is saying, “You can’t possible continue to ask me to do that which I don’t want to do when I am this adorable.”

For the most part I am able to stick to my guns and say no, or continue to ask him to do whatever it is he doesn’t want to. But occasionally that charm is just so dang cute that I’m not sure anyone could say no to it… certainly not his Mommy.

Oh, and my charmer is also my polite boy. In addition to the charming grin, Kyle also likes to respond to any request he prefers not to do with a very polite, “No please!”

And the answer to everyone's question is...

No baby yet! After a month of the signs pointing to go time, this baby has decided it very much enjoys its space in the warm and cozy womb... much to its mother's dismay. Let's just all say a prayer that this stubborn streak will not continue once the baby has arrived! The baby has now cooked longer than Kyle did and wreaked more havoc on its mother. Sigh... soon.

Too many cookies?

I will admit, while pregnant with Kyle and this one we have had more cookies in the house than usual. Most often they are Oreos. In fact, when I was pregnant with Kyle, Mike and I were watching a show about pregnancy. The show mentioned that often pregnant women crave foods that have nutrients the baby needs. Without missing a beat, Mike said, "What the heck to you think the baby needs in an Oreo??"

Anyway, I digress. Today Kyle and I were shopping at WalMart. As he often does, Kyle took my list out of my hand. He then continued to tap his finger on each item on the list, saying, "Cookie, cookie, cookie," on each one.

Today and the last trip to WalMart he also asked the cashier at least three or four times, "Cookies?" with his hands up in a questioning way. Apparently it is *very* important that the cookies in the cart make it through the purchase process and into a bag headed home.

Me thinks the boy gets too many cookies...

The waiting game

I am a planner for the most part. I like to have a plan, know what I’m doing, what’s coming up, etc. The baby doesn’t want any part of that, so I am left in this plan-less limbo where everything I do includes the qualification, “depending on the baby.” I have ceased making any firm commitment to being anywhere or doing anything.

Thursday night/Friday morning I had contractions that kept me up from 2:45am on. We had an OB appt in Kalamazoo at 8am anyway, so we left with everything packed. And came home again… contractions are done. I would have loved a May 2 baby, it was Kyle’s half birthday (happy two and a half, Kyle!!) and it would have been cool to have the baby then. Nope!

On the other hand there is progress going on, so it appears the baby’s arrival will be sooner rather than later. While I’m not sure it will be this weekend, I would be surprised if it wasn’t this week. I’m restless. Ready to be through the pregnancy discomfort and anxious to begin this next stage of our family’s life that we’ve been anticipating for so long now.

We’ve planned all we can plan. Now we just wait with anticipation for the arrival of this glorious little girl or boy… on his or her own schedule!