Marshall!

Better late than never...announcing:

Marshall Anderson Kahl
Born March 27, 2011 at 2:24pm
6 pounds, 10 ounces
20 inches long

We've had an eventful week and a half, so it'll take at least a couple of posts to catch you all up. Please be patient with us!

Marshall's arrival began with Butler's win in the Elite Eight game to send us to the Final Four. Our friend Jen came over to watch the game and bring us dinner. She gave us a warning when she arrived - the last time that she brought a pregnant friend dinner, she went into labor at 2am the next morning. Well, we only made it until 1:11!

After fending off short contractions every ten minutes until about 7am, we finally decided to head to the hospital. The doctor said that it was likely early labor, so she recommended that we just move forward with our C-section. Jason had spring break that following week, so we had just a few things still left to do...as I've heard a few times since then, "Man plans. God laughs." One of those "little details" was Marshall's name - we didn't pick it until a few hours before he was born!

So here are some long-awaited pics of his first day. Other than a low temperature, the nurses and doctors gave him a clean bill of health (that day).

Right after delivery, taking his usual pre-birth pose:

All cleaned up after his first bath. Marshall was very alert and had his eyes open quite a bit:

And we can't forget big brother!

More adventures to come...

The Home S-t-r-e-t-c-h

In two days, little Coney (yes, we still call him that) will be at 37 weeks, which means I'll be full term. I'm feeling every bit of the full part. Is it sad when every person I walk by gives me a smile or a look of pity? Yes, I know I look huge, but imagine how it feels to actually be this huge!

I've been having lots of benign yet uncomfortable contractions, but the doc says I'm far enough along that they won't do much to stop the baby from coming at this point. "No need for bed rest now" she says...but it sure feels like I need some sort of rest! I'm so busy at work trying to get everything together for my maternity leave, and I'm busy at home, well, trying to rest. Jason has been a great help, but you can only do so much when you're both working and have a two-year old. Discomfort and exhaustion aside, the doc doesn't seem to think I'll have too much trouble reaching the C-section date on April 4. We'll see!

Coney is still a very active little boy, too. All the books and websites say that movement will diminish at this stage because there just isn't enough room for the baby to kick. He still seems to do a pretty good job at it! Yes, the movements are more stretches than kicks, but he still manages to get quite a few jabs in.

Big brother seems to still be taking this all well. We took the hospital tour last night, and he seemed to be interested in the whole thing. Miles was a bit confused why the nursery didn't have toys or kids in it like at church...but then again, there weren't any babies in it either! The standard for our hospital is for babies to "room-in" with the parents, so it was like a ghost town in there. Pretty amazing considering that our hospital has the largest number of single rooms of any maternity unit in the entire country.

In other news, we're cheering on the Bulldogs as usual and just enjoying as much time as a family of three as we can. Miles has been really into playing "Daddy's games" - or any board game that is not geared for children. He loves putting together the Trivial Pursuit pies and saying the numbers and colors on the Uno cards. He even got out Scrabble this weekend and spelled some pretty interesting words:

He must be a future student of Arabic, because he mostly "reads" from right to to left. Plus, it's confusing to know whether a line is an upper-case I or a lower case l. Nevertheless, we're so proud of how great he does with his letters. And here's just a cute after-church pic:

We finally have the nursery together (almost)! Here are some pics of the airplane-themed digs:







It's been painted for a while, but we finally got around to putting stuff up on the walls. No, we weren't insane enough to attempt the stripes ourselves...it was well worth the reasonable price we paid for someone else to do it.

Miles still seems to be in good spirits about being a big brother, although we have had full-on arguments about the baby's name. I think he may go into a fit of rage each time someone calls the baby anything but Coney Kachow...hopefully that phase won't last long. We've been trying to enjoy our remaining time as a family of three, even though our busy schedules and my preggo-fatigue tend to get in the way. Here's some Daddy-Miles story time:



And some time Miles and I enjoyed outside on rare warm couple of days last week:



Too tired for too much more narration - will post more soon! Only 5 more weeks and change until our family grows by one!

Cabin Fever

Last week was the great Snow-pocalypse of 2011. For those of you not in the central Indiana area, that meant about an inch of ice and 30-40 MPH winds during the week, then a surprise 5 inches of snow on Saturday. We were lucky to not lose power - just lost a little bit of our sanity. Jason was out of school from Tuesday - Friday, and Miles' day care was closed on Wednesday for the first time in the 2+ years we've been taking him there. No "Ice" day for me - as long as there is power/internet, I'm working - but I did work from home three days in a row.

Needless to say, Jason was running out things to entertain the boy for 2 1/2 days, so Miles also was excited to get back to school on Thursday. For once, I was excited to get back into the office too. I felt a bit guilty as I drove him in - the fact that I didn't see pavement until about 3 miles from our house didn't help either. On the way in, Miles told me he was excited to see his best friends Collin and Scarlett - I explained that they might not be there and that a lot of his friends were probably home because of the snow. Boy, was a I wrong! The whole crew was there, so the other two-year-olds' parents must have been about as crazed as we were. ;-)

Here are some pics - Jason's "Charlie Brown" tree, and the inch of ice coating the top of our pergola.






These pics are all we have to offer - the flash is still broken on our camera. Of course, we're out of the warranty, so it will cost more to get it fixed than to buy a brand new camera. Looks like Miles is getting a new toy called Canon PowerShot! The new camera is on its way (NOT a Canon this time), so hopefully we'll have better pics to share soon.

In Coney news, I had another thankfully uneventful appointment last week. Heartbeat is in the 130s, so he must be running out of room to kick and move so much. The nurse said that my latest round of bloodwork for the Anti-M came out great, so I won't need to be tested again until I go in for delivery. Hooray! Only 8 weeks to go...

Respect the Classics, Man!

Amongst the dozens of toys in Miles' repertoire, some of his latest favorites are his monster trucks. A friend commented on how strange that was that our child would be into something so philistine, considering that we also try to expose Miles to the "classics" when we can. Well, there's no escaping our good ol' WT roots, so we're happy for him to make some new trucks friends, as long as he doesn't ask us to take him to the Demolition Derby just yet.

Part of this duality was evident when Miles started asking "What's his favorite song?" for each truck. Luckily, each truck comes with a name/identity, so it was easier to make up a correlating song on the fly. For instance, Taz sings the Looney Tunes theme. Others were more of a stretch - "Captain's Curse" sings "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain and Tenille. I'll just have Miles demonstrate the rest of his favorites.

First up is Grave Digger ("Digger" for short), who has his slogan written right on the side, "Bad to the Bone":

Next, a little Alice Cooper for the school bus monster truck:

In the grand finale, it's Predator's Theme. It's a stretch, but "Eye of the Tiger" does say "stalks his prey in the night"...even though you might not be able to glean that from Miles' version:

In other news, I had my 28-week appointment for Conan last week, and all is well! He's still measuring just a few days ahead, and his heartbeat was in the 140s. This appointment was also the dreaded glucola appointment, where you drink the super-sweet drink (not that bad), and they test your blood for gestational diabetes, anemia, and, for me, my anti-M numbers. I came back anemic again, but that's easily solved by popping a pill. The BEST news is that I do NOT have gestational diabetes this time around! I actually spouted "Praise the Lord!" to the nurse when she called to tell me. I am so unbelievably relieved!

Conan Ka-Chow Kahl

Just a quick update on the baby-naming front, according to Miles...

During our pre-bedtime chat last night, Miles reminded me, "When the baby comes out, his name will be Coney." I explained that we could call him Conan until he was born, but then we'd probably be naming him something different once he arrived. Miles politely explained:

"Yes, and after the baby comes we'll call him...Ka-Chow! Because that's what Wiping Queem (Lightning McQueen) likes to say."

Speaking of names, take the poll at right and let us know how you really feel about the name Conan.

No new pics, but a quick video of Miles playing his new Wii game. It's Diego - just like his friend Jack's - and Daddy bought it for him for continuing to do such a great job on the potty. We've never seen a Diego episode, but it matches his Pull-Ups! He finds it hilarious.

Little BIG Man

When did my boy get so big? Yeah, I'm sure that's not the last time you'll see that phrase here. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Miles utters the phrase, "because I'm a big boy" about 37 times a day, so you think it would have clicked with me by now.

"I get two pieces of candy because I'm two years old and because I'm a big boy."
"I eat yogurt and cereal and toast with jelly for breakfast because I'm a big boy."
"I go the Pacers game and see Boomer and then eat a big, big ice cream because I'm a big boy."

OK, so his big boy phrases do sometimes involve things other than food, but I'm drawing a blank here. I recently read that a 31-month old should be speaking in 3-4 word sentences now...did they mean 3-4 clause compound sentences, because that's what I hear every day!

Miles also has been officially pacifier-free for a week now. At first, I didn't think our plan of giving the paci to baby cousin Gavin would work. Of course, we could only find two out of the three pacis to bring to Gavin's, then we left one of those two in the car. We thought we'd try to give Gavin just the one Colts paci as a symbolic gesture. When Miles inquired next about the paci, we reminded him that we gave the paci to Gavin. Not surprisingly, Miles said, "But what about the red and white paci?" We said we were saving it to give to Gavin...and Miles said ok and slept through the night. The next night, we went through the same thing but instead got, "Where's my blue paci?" Apparently, our lame-o excuse of "we're keeping it safe until we give it to Gavin" is working, because he's only asked a couple of times since then and has given us no fuss!

And the grandaddy of all Big Boy accomplishments...Potty Training! OK, so we're not out of the woods yet, but we are making HUGE strides! Although we've had on-again, off-again success, we were on a hiatus due to some traumatic incidents over Christmas. Then in swooped day care to the rescue! They decided it's easiest to get all the kids on board at once and asked if it was ok to start Miles on the potty regime. Glad they asked Jason instead of me...I would have given them a giant "DUH!" and done a jig in celebration. It's amazing what consistency and/or peer pressure has done. Despite one little accident today, Miles has kept his Pull-Up dry and clean for two straight days!* That phrase even skims over the giant hurdle that he's actually wearing a Pull-Up...something he only did if there was a full moon on the 2nd Thursday of the month before.


* Disclaimer - there are a couples ifs, ands, and butts (ba-dump-bump) to this phrase. First, I wanted to spare you the details of bodily function talk. And I'm not counting some incidents only caused by Miles' stomach bug today (I think). Also, I definitely had to leave out the part where Genius Mommy couldn't figure out the mechanics of boys' potty positions in a public restroom. Oh, and overnight doesn't count. Dry for two straight days...my story and I'm sticking to it.

Our camera has a blown flash (or something), so pictures will be limited. We did manage to get this post-potty one of the BIG boy with his BIG lollipop after a BIG ol'...well, you know.



And we couldn't leave out the little guy! Here's a picture of Conan and my BIG ol' belly! It's still no glowing, posed, side-belly shot like I had with my first pregnancy...Jason had to disguise taking this picture as taking one of Miles. See how I excited I look at the prospect of three more months to go? Comfortable sleep positions are harder to find, picking things up from the floor is a chore, and I've already resorted to asking Jason to take off certain pairs of my shoes for me. It'll all be worth it though!