Transitions Since Christmas

As Christmas approached, Noah began to talk about Santa. I'm still not entirely sure where his information was coming from, but as I drove him home from daycare a couple of weeks before Christmas he began chatting in small sentences about "Santa coming" and "eating cookies". I told him yes, that Santa was coming and he would come to our house and eat cookies and leave Noah and Caleb some presents. I was then told "No," this would not happen because, "Santa is scary monster."

Well, here we are into January and Noah is still talking about Santa. He has really captured Noah's imagination and now that Noah has seen how he brings presents, we have decided that perhaps he isn't such a scary monster after all. This whole issue was greatly helped when Santa came to Grandma B's house. While upstairs in Aunt Kristen's bedroom Noah heard Santa enter the house, exclaim "Merry Christmas" and "Ho, Ho, Ho!" Then the front door shut as Santa continued on his rounds. When Noah came down, presents were gathered around the fireplace. Noah was very impressed by all of this and insists that Santa is coming again sometime soon, though we keep explaining that Santa is currently on vacation in the Bahamas for a few months.

Caleb, for his part, is currently very busy putting his crawling skills to use by chasing down any toy Noah leaves on the floor. Keeping up with both of them has become a big job, since Caleb no longer stays in one place when we set him down. Of course, Caleb can't quite keep up with Noah and this seems to frustrate him at times when he sees Noah leave a room without him. He calms down when we all sit on the floor and play together and I get glimpses of how much fun this will be in a few years when the boys can play together instead of just side-by-side.

Noah has also made a major transition over Christmas and New Years...he now sleeps in a his big boy bed. Noah got sheets and blankets (along with wall stickers and a lamp) with cars and trucks on them from Grandma and Grandpa Sam for Christmas. He calls it his car bed and it took only two nights to get him to stay in it for the night when he goes to bed. He has also had mixed success taking his naps in this bed as well. Of course, Travis and I are really excited and proud of this transition. The crib remains in his room for now, but will soon be in use by Caleb as I transition him out of my bed. The whole thing has gone fairly well, but most importantly, Noah wakes up in a much better mood. He enjoys being able to get out of bed when he wants to in the morning, rather than us coming to lift him out of the crib. His smiling face as he opens the hall door and comes running into the living room in the morning really brightens those days when I have been up with Caleb since 5 am. Now, if only potty training could go this smoothly.

Brothers

Caleb has begun crawling. I think he is just trying to keep up with Noah, but he sure is progressing quickly. Just a couple of weeks ago he was scooting like an inchworm, but last night all three of us watched as he lifted his belly off the floor and coordinated his legs and arms to make his way across his playmat, chasing down one of Noah's trucks. Caleb's goals seem to be to get as many of Noah's toys in his mouth as possible, so crawling has become a large part of those plans.

For his part, Noah is pretty good natured about having to share. If Caleb has one of Noah's toys, Noah will go get one to trade. So far this works, since Caleb is happy with any toy he can put in his mouth. Of course, Caleb's new mobility has meant that we have to pay special attention to keeping track of crayons and the small farm animals that wander across our carpet.

Noah has really proven himself to be a great big brother and has shown an intuitive knowledge of what infants need. The other day I had trouble getting Caleb to settle down and I could not figure out what was wrong. He was fussing and crying, would not eat and I knew he was tired. Noah came up as I tried to rock an upset Caleb and told me, with a very matter-of-fact look on his face, "Caleb crying." "Yes," I replied, "Caleb is sleepy and he is having trouble going to sleep." Noah reached over on to the table beside the rocking chair and grabbed the pacifier that had laid there, ignored in my attempts to settle the crying baby. "Caleb paci," Noah said as he aimed for Caleb's open mouth. Sure enough, Caleb took the pacifier and immediately settled down, closing his eyes and fell asleep. Now why didn't mommy think of that?

Noah's Second Birthday

Time has been moving so quickly. Noah is now two! Of course, if you ask him how old he is he will tell you he is three...and I'm not sure why that is. I suspect it's just his favorite number. This is the same child who loves to point at clocks and demand, "Mommy, see ABC's." I have explained many times that those are numbers, but that's a whole other story.

Between Halloween and his birthday, Noah has had an exciting two weeks and enjoys wandering around the house yelling "trick or treat" and "happy birthday" with equally happy abandon. For Halloween he was a dinosaur. On Halloween, it took a while to get out the door (Travis was gone for a couple of weeks for work, so everything look longer during this time) and at the first house he studied the candy for what felt like ages before picking one out of the bowl. After the second house he stopped halfway to the sidewalk and looked in his pumpkin bucket and then up at me. "More," he smiled, "more Halloween!"

His birthday was equally exciting this year. Now he knows: birthday=cake. For Noah, this sums up everything. Oh, and the presents! We kept things small again this year

This year I have begun to realize that between Halloween and his birthday on November 15th, Noah has a two week stretch of sweets and being spoiled. Our house is officially in detox from candy, cakes and presents. I staged an intervention on Sunday after Noah's birthday party when he demanded cake for breakfast and, when that tantrum failed, began pleading for a sucker. As the voice of reason, I tried to convince him these were terrible breakfasts and (evil person that I am) ignored his demands, giving him a banana. Well, he told me it was trash and promptly threw his banana and bowl in the trash. We had the same fight at lunch, same results, but this time he just dumped the food in the trash and set the plate on the floor. See, progress. (Ha!)

Caleb, for his part, is taking off. The other day I set him on his playmat on the floor while I went to get Noah a bowl of cereal and by the time I returned a minute later he had scooted forward a whole body length. I have a feeling that he will be a full-fledged crawler by the end of January. Noah is already telling him, "watch Caleb" and demonstrating the finer points of moving on his hands an knees. The two of them make quite a pair. I'm sure they'll be ganging up on me in no time.

Smiles, Coos and Monsters

Caleb is growing...in more ways than one. Not only is he our little chubby monkey, but his personality has really begun to emerge. In the past week he has begun to smile at us with big toothless grins. They are all too fleeting and we have yet to catch them on camera, but once a day or so we catch him sitting around with a very pleased look on his face that breaks into a smile, letting us know that he certainly can recognize his mom and dad. Most of these open-mouthed grins are directed at daddy, who knows just how to trigger smiles and the coos that will soon become giggles and words. His little personality is certainly growing!

We had our first monster in the middle of the night. Noah was crying out and when I went to get him, he would not stand or stop crying. My first thought was that he was ill and I kept asking him where he hurt. Nothing but crying in reply. Finally, cradling him in my arms while sitting on the floor, I said to him, "Noah, you are scaring mommy. Do you feel sick?" Suddenly the words came tumbling out. "Scared. Monster. Scary Monster. There." He pointed toward his closet where the night-light makes a shadow off the dresser. In relief, I nearly laughed, but caught myself as I hugged my small boy with tears on his cheeks. The monster was very real to him...and his shaky voice and trembling hands nearly broke my heart as I hugged him. "A scary monster? Oh, Noah. That must be so scary for you. I'm here." I turned to face the monster head on. "Go away, you monster. Get out of here. You stay away." I turned back to Noah and told him that monsters are scared of mommies and daddies. I also explained that he had a special light that scared monsters away. I held his hand as we walked over and turned on the lava lamp on his book case. This light, I promised, would keep monsters out. I tucked Noah back into bed after rocking him and whispering how much I love him. Even though a few other fears have recently emerged (sudden encounters with bugs, being outside in the dark, charging rhinos on Curious George), we are now 2 weeks monster-free.

Noah's First Fat Lip

Unfortunately, Noah is at an age where he simply must try everything. It doesn't matter how bad of an idea it is, he wants to make sure that either it won't work or that it is really as dangerous as we tell him it is. This has led to more than a few tantrums over things including my inability lift him into the branches of a three-story-tall oak tree to pick acorns, not being allowed to play in the knife drawer and, notably, one that occurred when I wouldn't let him lick the sidewalk. (Okay, to be honest, we've actually dealt with that particular compulsion more than once.) Today he wanted to put his slide in front of the tree in our back yard before sliding down it. Travis and I told him it wouldn't work, that he would slide into the tree, that he would get hurt. He patiently listened and then waited for us to stop monitoring his every move. Suddenly he had moved his slide to the tree and before Travis could get to him he was sliding down. At the bottom of the slide his face met the tree. So, with the wisdom that comes with a fat lip, Noah now knows that mom and dad sometimes tell the truth...you can get hurt if you put your slide in front of the tree and insist on sliding down. Not that knowing this will matter much when we disallow his next daring stunt.

Back to Work

Things have gotten very busy this last week. I am ready to go back to teaching a class at UNL this next week and it has really been a scramble to put together lessons and prepare. Travis' new work schedule will keep him home on Tuesdays to watch the boys in the morning and maybe give me some office time on Wednesdays, while my mom will watch them on Thursdays. I am looking forward to having time out of the house, giving me time to teach and work on my thesis. It is hard to make that time on my own, so taking up the class has kind of forced me into it. Leaving the house is the most difficult part of the day, but once I start writing up lecture notes or editing papers I remember how important it is to me to have an intellectual life that gets me out of the house and distracts me from dirty diapers, laundry, and toddler temper tantrums.

Caleb is still focused on eating and sleeping, not doing much else yet. However, from time to time he smiles in his sleep and we look forward to the times in the day where he watches us walk around the room or gazes contentedly at the lights.

For his part, Noah has started to find that not everything happens as quickly when the baby is with mom or dad and has become frustrated at times. If he wants juice, he may have to wait for a couple of minutes while dad finishes changing Caleb's diaper. When he wants help setting up his train set, mom may need five minutes to finish feeding Caleb. For the most part he handles this with grace, but there are times when he feels he needs our undivided attention...NOW! Noah will point to the baby carrier or attempt to bring it to us, saying "rock" meaning "put the baby in here and rock him while you play with me." Of course, Caleb is not always okay with this plan. They already know how to pull us in two directions at once. If you call and we don't answer, it's probably because our house has become a noisy place...two children screaming at once drowns out the ringer on the phone.

At Home

As the visits, emails, and phone calls die down, we are readjusting to our day-to-day lives. Travis went back to work this past week and the boys and I are learning how to manage the daily routine with as little screaming as possible. In fact, things have been moving so smoothly that I have agreed to start teaching again this fall to fill in for another professor.

The smooth adjustment has been mainly made possible by the fact that Caleb sleeps. I never expected to have such a good child, though perhaps getting Noah though infancy was a trial by fire that I somehow passed and am being rewarded for. Noah had to be held every minute and even that wasn't enough to keep him from screaming or resolutely resisting sleep for hours on end. Until Noah was 10 months old, the most Noah ever slept on his own was 10 minutes. In fact, up to December, we still held Noah in the rocking chair all through his naps. Caleb, in contrast, will drift off and, after I lay him down, will stay asleep for 2 hour naps. Needless to say, I am really loving this.

Things have also been easier than I expected in terms of Noah welcoming the new baby. He doesn't seem to be too jealous, though he does order us to hand off the baby when he wants our undivided attention. From the first few days when we brought the baby home, if Grandma Beran was holding the baby, he would push her to me and tell her to hand the baby over so he could take her to play. Overall, though, he accepts that when no one else is around, he has to share his mom and is generally patient...well, as patient as a toddler can be.

He even has his moments of protectiveness. A few days ago my mother and I went shopping at SuperTarget with both Noah and Caleb in tow. My mom and Noah went around into the next aisle as I lingered over the diaper bags. All of the sudden Noah broke into cries of, "baby, baby, no! Mommy, baby!" and hear my mother trying to calm him. As I came around the corner I saw Noah pointing at a man holding a baby, perhaps two months old. It took a few minutes to get his attention, but we finally showed Noah that the stranger was not holding his baby brother and Caleb was still safe with mommy.

This is a story worth holding onto for after Noah and Caleb's first fist fight.

Caleb's Quick Arrival!

There is nothing predictable about having a child. Though this is probably a truism, we were not at all prepared for what transpired in the wee hours of Sunday morning. For the past couple of days I had been having contractions, but they were irregular and, for the most part, weak. Of course the midwife said to wait to go to the hospital until they were 5-7 minutes apart. As Travis left for work Saturday night they were a bit stronger, but I decided to sleep through most of them, trusting that when we needed to go to the hospital I would know. I woke up around 2:30, but was still able to doze through most of them, so I held off on calling anyone until 4 am. I called Travis at work and told him that though they were 10 minutes apart, we might go to the hospital when he got off work at 7 since they were getting stronger and uncomfortable. He called me back 15 minutes later and said he would just come home now and we would all try and get some sleep "just in case". Thank God he came home when he did. Travis was home a little before 5, and since my contractions had stopped for 20 minutes, I figured we had plenty of time to rest.

However, at 5:30 I had a contraction that doubled me over in bed and I grabbed Travis' hand saying "maybe we should go now..." When it was over I decided to see how far apart the next one would be before I called the midwife to let her know I was coming in. The next was 7 minutes, but as I stood up to get the phone I doubled over, looked over at Travis and said, "You're not going to believe this, but I feel 'pushy'." I made my way to the bathroom, no later than 8 steps away, and felt a certain need to push. I tried to hold back, but my water broke as I told Travis, "The baby is coming now." He replied, "We have to go to the hospital." "No," I breathed, "I have to push now." He asked me what to do and I told him to call 911. As he did so he hopped around the bathroom on one foot, in a state of panic that actually had me smiling...or as close to smiling as I could be. He got on the line with the emergency responder at 6:00 and was giving them our address as our second son was born at 6:02.

It all happened VERY quickly and I soon was cuddling our new baby downstairs in the dining room as the fire truck and ambulance pulled in front of the house. At all of the commotion of people arriving at the house, Noah woke up, not upset, but delighted to have his own personal fire truck in his front yard. He didn't even notice the baby as he pointed out the window chattering happily, "fire, wee-ooo, fire truck." Of course as I climbed up on the gurney and was taken to the ambulance, he became upset, but Travis, in a moment of inspiration, grabbed him a doughnut, which Noah found just as exciting as the fire truck.

So, Caleb Adam Samuelson dropped into our world amid very unexpected circumstances. He is 7 pounds, 8 ounces and 18 and a half inches. Big brother Noah is still uncertain as to what is all going on, but I am sure when we return home tomorrow with the new baby there will be some surprise at how everyone's lives will be changing. We will be home as of Tuesday afternoon and we would welcome people to stop by the house for a visit in the afternoons over the next week or so between 2:30 and 6:30. You can also give us a call or an email if you would like to visit at any time. We can't wait to share our joy and excitement with friends and family!

Making Preparations and Picking Names

People always talk about the strength of the nesting instinct in the last weeks or days of pregnancy. A woman at the park the other day told me that she was washing up her salt and pepper shakers and knew at that point she was ready to have her child...and went into labor 12 hours later. Of course, I didn't admit that I polish our salt and pepper shakers every month, baby or no baby. However, over the past couple of days, in a burst of productivity, I have prepared and placed in our freezer: lasagna, a tray of manicotti, taco bake, enchiladas, bean and hamburger bake, teryiaki chicken, corn and cheese cassarole, a dozen salmon cakes, and one and a half dozen banana bread muffins. It took me hours to put it all together and there is no more room in the freezer, but I am energized by the thought that I will have little to do when making dinners right after the new baby arrives. So energized, in fact, that I think I will spend the next few days scrubbing floors and cleaning ceiling fans.

According to my midwife, things are looking very good and the baby is healthy. Somehow, I have had more energy recently than the past few months and am taking advantage of this by finishing up projects around the house and taking Noah out to a park almost every day. I'm not sure how long this "second wind" of energy will last, but we are taking advantage of it now.

Travis, in the meantime, is working on names for the baby. He has a small list for our new little boy, but goes back and forth on his favorites every few days and brings in new ideas every now and then. I have turned the naming responsibility over to him almost completely. Partially, it is because I trust his judgment and like most of the names he is considering. Then too, I also know that I will retain the right of veto in the delivery room after giving birth. Travis has been really through in his considerations. From matching up middle names, checking initials, to practicing each name in cursive to see how hard it will be for the child to learn to sign, Travis is examining names from all the angles. Of course, he has enlisted Noah's help as well: Noah is regularly asked to repeat baby names as we explore what he can and can't say...and what just sounds adorable. Eli, for example, is pronounced (by Noah) as "why," while Emmett comes out perfectly. To keep things interesting, I always throw in Tenzin, a tibetan name meaning "upholder of truth" and the birth name of the Dalai Llama. To our amazement, Noah has no problem pronouncing this "foreign" name, even though half the time we ask him to say Will it comes out "wheel". Perhaps we'll just have to have Noah name the baby, though his top choice when we ask is usually Tractor.

The Heat of Summer

As the 90 degree days drag on, we have made some necessary adjustments to our days. We are drinking more water to stay hydrated, Travis has switched to working nights instead of afternoons, and, most traumatically, I refuse to take Noah to the park to play between the hours of 11 and 4. Of course the buzzing of mosquitoes, the burning heat of the plastic slides, and hair soaked with the sweat rolling off his head means nothing to Noah, who insists that we should allow him to tempt heat exhaustion in pursuit of fun. We try to placate him with trips to the library and short adventures in backyard gardening with popsicle breaks. This only works about half the time.

Indoors, we are cleaning the house, moving around toys, and generally trying to prepare for the new baby who will arrive in a month. It has started to really sink in that going from one child to two is more than just having another baby...the struggle will be chasing Noah and taking care of him at the same time. It seemed hard enough the first time!

My friend Brande threw us a baby shower the other weekend that was greatly appreciated and it was a lot of fun to have time with friends before I dive head-first back into the haze of caring for a newborn. Of course, we do have some things of Noah's that will just be passed down, but new diapers and gift cards have been a great way for us to concentrate our money on the big things that we will still need, like another car seat, another set of furniture or dresser for the baby's clothes, and providing for all those other things that Noah can't pass down just yet. At less than two years apart, it almost seems like planning for twins in some ways.

The shower was also a wonderful break in a very busy time. Though I am still writing my thesis and will have to prepare for comprehensive exams in the fall, I have managed to get caught up on writing papers for the classes I fell behind in after having Noah. This time around I am taking some time off instead of plunging right back in...but I know keeping busy won't be a problem.

Our First Posting - An Open Letter

Time is moving quickly for us. With Noah at nearly 19 months old and his baby brother due in less than 2 months, it seems we have little time to sit still...and we expect even less from the coming year or two. All this activity leaves us with so much we wish we could tell friends and family about what is going on in our lives while making it difficult to communicate with everyone individually.

For example, Noah is already at a 62 word vocabulary (something Travis tallies daily) and has become our little parrot. And since I am 7 months pregnant (Melissa, not Travis), his growing independence has become a welcome blessing. Our most impressive feat so far as parents may be getting him to go to bed and take naps on his own. All it takes is a book and a drink of water and he's ready to be in his crib where he lies down on his pillow and says "bye, bye" as you leave the room. Of course, for any family, these things are relative, but as Travis said the other day, "If you would have told me that he would be doing this a year ago, I would have just laughed at you." However, we must admit to still letting him have a pacifier as he goes to bed...but sleep has been a first priority in this house since November 2005. The pacifier is our next battle. We move forward with "toddler steps."

With so many developments and requests that we send pictures (which we know we don't keep up with enough), we have decided to start this blog for you, our friends and family. Now, when we're busy keeping up with two boys, 20 months apart, you may have a better chance of keeping up with us. Then, with just a few spare minutes out of our week we can keep everyone up to date and not lose any sleep over our poor correspondance skills. Heaven knows, we will already have enough keeping us awake.