A Man on a Mission

We are thrilled to announce that our little boy arrived this past Sunday, July 13th (his due date!) after a VERY quick and intense five hours of labor (thanks, buddy!) -- here are some pictures.

John Patrick Huffman
8 pounds, 11 ounces
20 inches
Born at 2:53pm, July 13, 2008

Everything went very well, he came so fast though that we didn't even have time to call our families to tell them he was on his way. Minor labor started as we walked out the door to go to Mass. By the time we got home, things were getting more intense, so I started keeping track. Within 45 minutes, I knew we'd be going to the hospital, so we activated the Nora-watching plan. Within 20 more minutes, my mom arrived and we were out the door. 30 minutes later, I was huffing and puffing in a wheelchair at the admissions desk... 5 minutes later in triage, they bolted me straight into Labor and Delivery where a SWAT team of nurses hustled my admission (they can't order the all-important epidural w/o me being in the computer). Within a short period of time (that felt REALLY long to me), the anesthesiologist arrived and got me set up with my epidural, which helped a lot. I relaxed a little for a short period of time, but about ten minutes after they rolled me onto my right side to get the epidural to work better on that side, my water broke. Brett popped out into the hallway to notify the nurse, and when she came in to check it out, she told me not to move. She said as soon as they rolled me onto my back, I was going to have that baby, and they wanted to give the doctors at least three minutes to get into the room and get gowns and gloves on! SWAT team #2 swarmed into the room, five minutes later they said "let's go," and about ten minutes after that, John was here! Brett and I barely felt like we were keeping up with the developments as we found out about them. As we were getting ready for delivery (we were right there... the nurse was telling me to get ready for my first push), our head nurse turns to Brett and says "I forgot to ask! How are you going to be with all of this? Will you feel faint?!" I would have laughed if it weren't for everything else I was focused on, because if he did have an issue, it would have been way too late for him! He was trapped in the room by the position of me, the doctors and all of the support staff, even if he'd wanted to bolt! But he did great, just like when Nora was born.

It turned out that Chris had dropped Beth off on his way to our house (we'd called them when it was looking probable that I was having real contractions, and they left Portage immediately). We'd actually gotten a call in the room that one of our parents was there, but it was right after the nurse had told me not to move and called for the doctor, so Brett told the receptionist he couldn't come out because the baby was coming, and could she please tell whichever parent it was to call the other parents to let them know? So when all was said and done, he went to the waiting room and found his mom, John's first visitor.

My parents were by that time on their way to the hospital and arrived ~15 minutes after Beth came back

And Brett got in touch with Chris at the house who got Nora up from her non-nap and they came about 15 minutes after my parents

Nora seemed excited to see us and the baby, but was a little wary of all the hospital equipment, my IV and blood pressure cuff, etc.

Andy came to visit after everyone got back from dinner

and Genny and Clare arrived straight from Chicago later on, but still in time to meet John on his birth-day!

The next day Lon, Diane and Brett's grand-pa Riggs came over to see John

and Angie

and Genny and Clare came back with Tristan (Andy's girlfriend) -- I unfortunately don't have a picture on my camera so will have to get copies from Gen or Clare

and Beth and Chris brought Nora back up to visit again

Everything went very well with all the post-delivery checkups, so we opted to leave the hospital a day early and came home at about 10pm Monday. Since then, we're just getting used to having a baby in the house! W/ the early discharge, we had to take him to teh pediatrician yesterday, and his weight was down to 8lbs 4oz. But we took him back today for a jaundice check (he was looking a little tan, and you know we aren't tan folks!), and he's already rebounded to 8lbs 6.5oz. Looks like he might follow the same porker track his sister took in the first year. He's a very good baby, so far only cries when he's hungry, naked, or gassy, and is otherwise very mellow. Nora is very interested in him and getting more and more comfortable with him around.

Thanks for all your well wishes as the due date approached, and thanks to those of you who have already e-mailed us with congratulations... we really appreciate it.

Take care,
Sarah, Brett, Nora, and John

I can do it all by myself

The title is a little homage to Nora's favorite thing to say... even when she's not necessarily doing anything by herself. "I can put my shoes on all by myself. I need your help, mom. [mom helps] I put my shoes on all by myself!"



Sorry for not even meeting my low, low standard of one post for month last month! As we get closer to the baby's due date, our level of activity around here has been rising steadily. Last week was extremely productive (items crossed off my lists left and right... it was great!) If this continues, this week looks to break a record as far as us getting things done! Brett finished building a new closet for our bedroom, and we moved our clothes in there last week... it's great! And now the baby's room is officially full of just the baby's things (it was our catchall for everything that didn't have a home during the closet-building) That was a big effort, and he did a really nice job. We've also been getting a lot of lingering jobs done... our home will be in the best shape it's been in by the time this little guy arrives! Even so, Brett's been great about making time for Nora. They went to the zoo a few weeks ago on the Family Membership Nora and I got him for Father's Day... the penguins were a huge hit, and she has been talking about them ever since (and demonstrating how they walk).


If you look closely, you will see that the heroine of this book, Lily, is wearing the same goofy fake nose/ mustache/ eyebrow glasses on the cover of the book as the ones Nora is sporting for the reading!



A little update on Nora, since this will likely be the last blog entry in which she is the main star, she's had a big month and a half or so since I last wrote.

I also gave her her first haircut. Brett came home from work and said "she looks like a different kid!" Since it was her baby hair, it was all different lengths, which made it hard to cut it into any particular style. She did great at sitting still, though (still being a relative term), so once it grows out a bit, I might take her to the kiddie salon to see if they can shape it up a little.


getting her first haircut


running around during a dance session... this is post-haircut


We also finally removed the featherbed landing pad in her room, and so far, so good. She has, however, started getting out of bed during naptime and going through her things, looking out the window, emptying dresser drawers, putting on lotion (silly mom, why did you leave it within reach if you didn't want me to touch it?) etc. So we've had a few talks about what she can touch (books and 'guys' [stuffed animals]) and what she can't touch (the shade, anything in or on the dresser) when she's in the room by herself. That is still sinking in. The other day we went in to get her in the morning and the first thing she said was "I didn't touch that shade all by myself," which appeared to be true (apparently it was very tempting since she had to tell us about it right away!) The next morning, she said the same thing even though the little strip of wood they put in the bottom of the shade was 3/4 of the way out and hanging onto her bed --hmmmm, if it wasn't Nora, we have an elf problem in our house!


This "N" is hanging above Nora's bed, and a few weeks ago I came in after an unsuccessful nap attempt to find poor "Baby Elmo" hanging by his leg like this! I asked her how he got up there and she just shrugged.




A few weeks ago Brett went to get Nora up, and found this scene... we didn't even count the books, but I can tell you there are at least three pairs of shoes in there.

Aside from her learning to do more and more on her own, she's been keeping us laughing with all that she talks about now. She says something that makes us laugh almost every day... a lot of pretending going on around here. In fact, for the beginning of the week, she was a puppy, and corrected me if I just call her Nora. "I'm PUPPY NORA, mom." For the last three days, she's been Grandma Beth, I've been Grandpa Chris, and Brett has been Alison (her aunt). She is very committed to our roles... if I forget to address her correctly, she'll repeat what I've said and add "... GRANDMA BETH" to the end of it until I correct myself! During her nap today, she was calling to me and interrupted herself as she said "mom" and changed it to "Grandpa Chris." A week ago, she was wearing her green blanket over her head and told us she was an alien (a very hard work to wrap your tongue around, apparently... it took a couple tries!) When she pushed the blanket back from her face to talk to us, it hung on the top of her head and she promptly told us she was Mary, and followed that up with "I like to dance!" (A little known fact about the Blessed Mother!) She spent the rest of the day with a blanket on her head being Mary and taking care of her baby doll, Jesus (who she alternately referred to as "Baby God"... I thought that was a surprising hold on Christian theology for a 2 year old!) Her guys are also up to more and more interesting things... a few weeks ago I came into the kitchen to find that she'd set up Little Fil with some lunch, and had two other guys (Buddy the wooden dog and Hundley the dachsund) waiting for their turn to eat:



pretending to be a "space monkey"

The other night we watched the last highlights of the olympic trials, and she was fascinated by the runners. She was a big fan of Lolo Jones (sprinter), and this morning when we were asking her if she remembered any of the runners, she told us that Lolo was "Lolo of the Jones." Her memory surprises me all the time, so don't swear in front of her!

Other than that, our obvious other event is that the baby is due this month. This coming Sunday, to be exact. The doctor said everything is looking good, things are starting to happen but there's still no telling if he'll be here by Sunday. I'm feeling like I can go up to a week past my due date, but after that, I make no guarantees as to how pleasant and/ or patient I'll be! We've got his room straightened out and cleaned up, and I pulled out the rest of the newborn baby stuff from our storage closet earlier this week (car seat, bouncy seat, the good old Boppy pillow, etc). His clothes are washed, his bed made... we're all set -- except for his name. Fear not, we're coming along on that too, though. We're just kind of last minute namers, as it turns out. :)

So given that I'm not a lightning-fast blogger and am about to be knocked off the computer completely by bringing a new baby home, this might be our last post for a little while. I will try to at least get some pictures of the little guy up once we bring him home.

Thanks, as always, for checking in. Wish us luck as we hit the final stretch of the baby waiting game!
Love,
Sarah, Brett, Nora, and he-who-shall-soon-be-named