Getting Settled at Home

We're sorry for taking so long to post anything else on the blog, but we've been trying to adjust to life as a family of four. Allison and Delia got home from the hospital last Wednesday and so far Delia is proving to be a wonderful baby. She's very sweet and mellow and likes to sleep. Mommy and Daddy (especially Mommy) are hoping this love of sleep continues. Right now she eats every 3 hours, but we're hoping that as she gets bigger, those stretches of nighttime sleep will increase. Most of all, Delia loves her big brother, and luckily the feeling is mutual. John Grayson refers to her as "Baby Delia" and likes to tickle her toes and talk to her. He introduces her to anyone that comes to the house and keeps telling us that he wants her to get bigger so he can play with her. He says that now, but we'll see how he feels when she's grabbing his monster trucks and chewing on them...

John Grayson remains a very observant little boy. Allison has been sitting on a pillow because she's still sore from the delivery, and the other night JGray announced that he was also bringing a pillow to the kitchen table because "my bottom sore like Mommy's." He also thinks that Allison breastfeeding Delia is "very silly" even though he did try to do it himself once when he was holding her. Mommy had to explain that only mommies could feed babies. We'll leave the rest of that conversation up to Daddy...

Delia also had her first bath over the weekend. Unlike her big brother, who screamed the entire time, Delia seemed to enjoy the experience. John Grayson helped Daddy with the washing while Mommy played photographer and proved to once again be a huge helper.

Here are some pictures from the last week:

Ready to go home from the hospital

Big brother and little sister

JGray helping with Delia's first bath

Delia Ellen Schmitt

Around 2am on Monday morning Allison began to feel a couple contractions. Recognizing that the entire family would benefit from a whole nights sleep, my wonderful wife let us sleep until 7. I was planning on working on Monday (no disrespect to Dr. King, but I had been out of the office for a week already) but I knew very quickly that we were going to have a busy day.

Rewind to August of 2006, we spent over 13 hours in the labor and delivery room because we admitted too early, we were sure to not have that happen again. We were not going to step foot into a hospital until we were well on our way (contractions 5 minutes apart). Throughout the day on Monday we watched some movies and walked... a lot. We walked through Target and most of the Short Pump Town Center. A highlight had to be when the lady at the Crate and Barrel was asking Allison when she was due right in the middle of a pretty severe contraction. My ever polite wife still stated the due date of January 24th, even though delivery was immanent. Around 3:30 we called the doctor and they brought us in. This is when things started getting a bit hairy. He brought us into the office first because he did not want to send us in unless it was the real thing. Something that he did while checking Allison's progress kicked off a quite the chain of events.

4:30- We walk to the car to get Allison's bag and the labor stuff.

4:50- We are shown our labor and delivery room.

5:00- John unpacks thinking we will be there awhile (note the previous long labor)

5:10 - Allison grabs John's hand

5:30- Allison requests an epidural, but she has to put down a bag of IV before this happens

6:00 - Allison nearly breaks John's hand

6:10 - Allison's body is saying push, the Dr. is saying no, and the other doctor is trying to put in an epidural.

6:30 - Allison releases John's hand, pain has subsided (for both Allison and my hand)

7:20 - We are informed that our little girl is facing the wrong way, are told this will be a tough delivery

7:40 - We start some pushing

8:20 - Delia Ellen Schmitt arrives!

I guess we shouldn't have waited as long to show up, but it was quite exciting nonetheless.

Vital Stats:
Birth Date: 01/19/09

Birth Time: 8:20pm

Weight: 6lbs 12 oz

Height: 19 inches
Health: Perfect

Name Origin: Named after 2 of her great grandmothers, Delia (Allison's Maternal Grandmother) Ellen (John's Paternal Grandmother).

On Tuesday afternoon Delia got to meet her big brother. She was so excited! She even went out beforehand to buy him some gifts to ensure that he would know that she loved him and meant him no disrespect. At first JGray was pretty confident that Delia would want to play with the Dragon that she bought him...

... unfortunately she was not too interested in that. Ok, if she was not interested in Dragons, she had to be into Monster Trucks!


Once again, she was not too interested. Realizing that it was going to take awhile before she could convince her to play, he settled down to hold her. He assured us that he could do it on his own.

He did a great job with her. We could not have asked for him to be any better. It was shocking for both Allison and I to realize how big he has gotten as we saw him there with a little baby.

Staying put, for now

I just got back from the doctor and Baby Girl still looks great. There aren't any major changes from last week, so it looks like she's being cooperative and Mommy will be able to keep her promise to Daddy of not having a baby while he's at school!

We go back to the doctor next Thursday, unless of course, she decides to make her big appearance before then :-)

Cooking with Pop

John is in Charlottesville all week for school, so John Grayson and I had dinner with MaMa and Pop on Monday night. Pop loves to bake, and any of you that have come over to our house for dinner and have had the pleasure of a Pop-made dessert know that he's quite good at it! Well, John Grayson joined in on the fun Monday night, helping Pop make the sauce for the chocolate souffles. Yes, I did just say that Pop made chocolate souffles for dessert. It's okay to be jealous :-)

John Grayson wanted to wear a baker's hat, but the plastic measuring cup was all he could find. Luckily he didn't seem to mind.

Here are some pictures from his first attempt at baking. From the photos, it looks like it will be the first of many adventures in the kitchen:

Helping Pop with the mixer.

Tasting the final result.

Yum, that was GREAT!

John Grayson's Special Day

Thursday was John Grayson's special day at school. At his school, the children don't celebrate their birthdays but instead get another "special day" in which family can come for the last 15 minutes of the school day. We made a poster with pictures of family and his favorite activities and also brought in our iPod so the kids could get up and dance. The teachers made a crown for John Grayson to wear.

JGray did a fantastic job of talking about his poster! He immediately told everybody about Dusty and going to the beach and digging in the sand. When it came time to get up and move, the kids became surprisingly bashful, JGray included. Eventually a few of them got up to dance and thanks to some energetic spinning from Daddy, John Grayson thoroughly enjoyed himself.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjwHMu1eEbY

Baby Update

John and I went to the doctor yesterday and things are slowly progressing. Now I'm 1-2cm and 60% effaced. For those of you who don't have children (and don't want to grossed out with details), let's just said that we're moving in the right direction...

The doctor seemed happy with my progress and said that she thinks we'll make it another week but not much past that. Of course, now that she's said that I'll be pregnant for another 3 weeks :-) With John at UVA for school next week, we're keeping our fingers crossed that the doctor is right and Baby Girl will continue cooking for a little bit longer!

Cold Weather Fun

John was on vacation for almost two weeks at the end of the year, so we had lots of time for fun with Daddy! The highlight for John Grayson was a Richmond Renegades hockey game. Uncle Stephen works for the team and was able to score great seats for us (3rd row) and even gave JGray a puck. JGray really enjoyed the fast pace of the game, although he only made it for 1 period.

When asked about his favorite part of the afternoon, he immediately stated, "Ice skaters go bam into windows." Good thing those die hard fans behind us didn't hear how emphatic he was about calling them ice skaters instead of hockey players :-)

Medieval Doctor and Baby Update

While the blue trike has been a hit, it takes a back seat during the cold days to JGray's two favorite Christmas presents, a play tool set and a play doctor set. Within the first few hours of play these two sets have been mixed up and have led to some interesting diagnosis and treatments by our boy.

After examining me with his stethoscope, I was told: 'Daddy, you have a boo-boo on your thumb, I will saw it off'. A quick examination of Allison's head with the toy dental mirror and she was told, 'Mommy, you have a headache, I will drill it'. Seeking a second opinion, JGray then retorted; 'Don't worry Mommy, I will be very gentile drill, then I will hammer'. I don't know how that made it better, but in his mind somehow it did.

In other news, Allison and I went in for our baby appointment this past Tuesday and we were told that she is at 1 cm. Our little girl is considered full term as of next week, so we have been told that we are on labor watch from this point going forward. It should be an exciting January!