Porky Snorter and the Chameleon

John's first smile on film!

This might be one of my shortest posts... sleep is a sweet commodity around here and I have a chance to hit the hay in the next half an hour!

John is three weeks old... last Monday he had his two week checkup and was 1/2 oz shy of 10 lbs even. That jumped him from the 50th-60th percentile for weight to 97th percentile! I was surprised. Makes all those night feedings seem not so bad, though... they're obviously doing the trick. So, he's porky... and he is so snorty! So much more so than Nora was. He sounds like a disgruntled little old man all the time. He did start taking a bottle from Brett last week (HOORAY!!) so I can smell the sweet scent of freedom in my future (Nora did not take a bottle... it was a looooong year).


chilling out after bath time

As for the Chameleon... if you've been around at all you know that Nora is having some sort of identity issue -- every day she's someone new. At first she was Grandma Beth, then Aunt Grace, then Uncle Jim... each for a few days. Now it changes minute by minute, and her roles have included Beth, Mike, Angie, Tom, Mommy, the mail lady, the package guy, the bank lady ("would you like a sucker?"), the plumber, the guy who brings you eggs for dinner (?!), a turtle, a butterfly, Sandy the squirrel, Spongebob, Patrick, a puppy, kitten Nora, baby John, a "real" baby, Grandma Di -- even Jesus. We went to have our car seats checked this weekend, and she told all the volunteers that she was Bob. They were awesome and played right along with her! Along with each of these alternative identites I usually get reassigned as well... often to match whoever she may be, but most frequently as Marguerite ("Marg-a-weet"). She even corrected the doctor at John's checkup to let her know she (Nora) was Aunt Grace and I was Marguerite. What a nut.

She's still getting used to having John in the house. She's very sweet to him, but lashes out at me and/ or Brett at least once a day with a tantrum. Hopefully not for much longer, but otherwise she's doing great. Here she is nursing her baby (who also has had multiple identities -- when she was Aunt Grace, he was Lucas; when she was Tom, he was Ethan; then he was Jacob (not sure where the name came from) and tonight before bed, inexplicably "Nunkie") :

she told me he gets milk from her belly button. Amazing!

Hope all is well with all you faithful blog checkers! Take care-

Sarah, Brett, Nora and John

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

Hey Ho, Let's Go

You should know that I came thisclose to posting TWICE in April, but then, as usual, things just didn't come together/ other things came up. So, here we are with what is most likely my post for the month of May!


Wearing Mom's rain boots

Operation Big Girl is coming along very well. Nora hasn't fallen out of her bed in a long time... I've lost track of when that last happened. I'm tempted to remove the featherbed landing pad, but think I'll leave it in place a little bit longer.


"I put on Dad's shirt aaallll by 'self!" Prognosis: "Little bit too big" (her face is peeking out of an armhole)


The baby is doing well, too. Nora and I went to see my "belly doctor" today and he said everything's right on track. I'm 30 weeks now, which seems like a big deal until I realize I still have 10 weeks to go. This little guy is very active, like Nora, but lately has been doing a lot of stretch-and-hold maneuvers, which are less than comfy when he pushes out the side of my belly! He's also up high, right under my ribs, so I'm eagerly waiting to see if he'll wiggle downward a little.


Doctor Nora (when the sunglasses hang down like that, they become a stethoscope, and she refers to herself as " Dr. Nora") The piece of railroad track is apparently a bandaid, according to the good doctor.


Dr. Nora attending to a patient (Louie the Lobster) who needs many, many bandaids

Our biggest development of the month comes courtesy of Brett's very hard work and dedication -- we now have a park in our backyard! He built a big swingset there over the past couple of weekends and all but finished it this weekend (there is a periscope that still needs to get attached, though Nora currently favors carrying it around to look at us. She points it down, looks in the end and then leans back until she can see our faces!) Needless to say, this is a HUGE hit with Nora. She helped out a lot on the weekends, working with Dad and reminding him to take breaks to push her on the swing once in a while. She loves to get "one big push" on the swing and then yells "I'm FAY-YAST!" (she sounds southern when she says 'fast' this way). She also loves zipping down the slide and driving the school bus to Aunt Genny-veev's house -- there is a steering wheel fixed to the inside of the fort/ house from which the slide comes down, and she has it in her mind that it is a school bus steering wheel. The problem now is coming inside, as is the case with many, many a toddler. We try to do the minute by minute countdown ("two minutes 'til we go in, one minute 'til we go in"), but most of the time she still ends up bawling as she marches into the house chanting "Nooo, Nooo, Nooo, Nooo, Nooo." She even tried to tell me the other day that she would just sleep on the slide. Nice try.


Pretending one of the rocks for the rock wall is her camera while she waits for her first ride on the swing



First ride on the swing with Dad



"Working very hard" with Dad in the backyard



Helping Dad work on the swingset (Brett is wearing the martian marathon t-shirt I mentioned last month... don't know if you can make out the green alien on the back)


So aside from this flurry of building and playing in the backyard, we've had a string of fun weekends -- Beth and Chris and their good friend Judy were here to celebrate Beth's birthday (Nora went to her first fancy restaurant ["fentfahnt"] with tablecloths and no kid's menu!), Nora and I hit a baptism party and this past weekend we all went to a first Communion party. She loves parties. And still loves to dance. Mercifully, Brett has been working hard to expand the request list beyond the Beatles Birthday Song/ "cake song." Her favorites play list now includes:
"the sneezing song:" The Globe, Big Audio Dynamite
"the tucker song:" Old Dan Tucker, Bruce Springsteen
"well well well song:" Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On), Alison Krause and Robert Plant
and possibly her new favorite...
"hey ho song:" Blitzkrieg Bop, the Ramones
This one is so popular, that when I say "ok, let's go {to the store, to church, to bed, etc} she often responds "Hey, Ho, Let's Go!" When it's playing, she also likes to yell out random works she picks up, like "Backseat!" and "Ready to Go!" which are, sadly, pretty much the same and only words I can make out because of the way The Ramones sing and play! When almost any song she's heard more than once comes on, though, she usually calls out "Oh, I know song THAT!" Several of her sentences are put together in random order, but she's getting better and better. As her talking and inflection improve, though, it really makes it obvious that she's growing up. I'll miss her goofy sentences!

Thanks for checking in. Here's to fast swings and fast songs -- have a good month! Sarah, Brett, Nora and the little guy

Operation Big Girl: Commencing Now

skunk face

Sorry to you frequent blog checkers... I know I just don't keep up the news like some other bloggers. Frankly, I wouldn't have enough to write about if I write every day. And, I'm lazy. :)

Here are some pictures from Easter weekend. Nora started waking up with crazy hair that weekend, and it's been non-stop since then. When I say crazy, I don't mean a little messy -- I used the description that she looked a lot like that mug shot of Nick Nolte from a few years ago, and I still think that's the best parallel yet. We spent the weekend visiting Brett's family, Saturday with his Dad and Diane, and Saturday night/ Sunday at his Mom and Chris's house. Nora had a blast, and a special treat was that her Aunt Amanda was in town (Nora started calling her Aunt Panda that weekend, and laughing, so I think she's trying to be funny! Today, though, she called her Anda Panda... we're getting further from the name rather than closer to it). We were also able to visit with Brett's Grand-pa Riggs, his Aunt Pam, Uncle Warren, and cousin Josh, as well as Beth and Chris's good friends Fred, Nancy, and their daughter Kelsey -- we had one wound up kid on our hands Saturday night with all that visiting!

Crazy hair on Easter morning and a new instrument from the Easter Bunny

Tamed hair and her Easter dress, playing with more new stuff

Finally thought to get a picture of the three of us taken

Our biggest news lately is that Nora is officially sleeping in her big girl bed. On Sunday March 30th, we put her down for her first nap in there. She was, to say the least, confused. She would sit up and cry every time Brett tried to leave the room, and I heard several exclamations of "Snooze CRIB!?!" After several attempts, I went in and convinced her that this was a special day, so she got to sleep in her bed. All sounded quiet after that, so I left the house. When I came home, Brett told me he'd gone into the basement (right below her new room) and could hear little footsteps up above him! He got her to settle down for her nap and she finally went to sleep. When she woke up, we greeted her with great fanfare, hugging, high fiving, and all around big-deal-making. That was the trick. After that, no more disagreements about where to take a nap. She then started on a short stretch of falling out of her bed every other day, but has successfully stayed in bed at naptime for almost a whole week now.

Last Sunday night, we started her sleeping in there at nighttime. So far, so good. She tumbled out of bed sometime in the middle of the night Sunday, and again at about 7:15am Tuesday morning, but the last couple of nights she's made it all the way through the night and stayed in the bed. To be clear, she's in a twin bed w/o a boxspring, so it's low to the ground. In addition to that, we have a queen sized featherbed doubled up on the ground next to her as a landing pad. When she does tumble out, she doesn't get hurt and is actually game to get back into bed and continue the sleeping. Like I said, so far, so good. It seems she has made a clean break with her nursery!

In other kid news, the baby is still growing right on schedule. We had a checkup yesterday and the doctor said everything looked good. Nora came with me and heard the doctor mention he'd seen a couple of kicks when he was measuring my belly. To hear her tell the story now, though, "guy said KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK!!!" [complete with vigorous kicking action]. Later last evening, she also added "baby brother says BANG BOOM BING BAHM BOOM!" (I assume from all the kicking he's doing!)

In other Huffman family member news, Brett ran a half marathon last weekend! It was called the Martian Marathon, apparently they just wanted a theme. You should see the t-shirt he got... it's the most creative/ involved race shirt design I've ever seen. I'll have to post a picture... it's wild. There is a martian-man on the back that Nora just calls "funny guy!" Anyhow, he got great weather for the run and ran a very respectable 1:44, about 8 minute miles. Whoo hoo! I was hoping to figure out a way to get down to cheer/ watch him finish, but Nora was still in sleep-in mode (we'd let her stay up a little later the night before because her aunt "Genny-veeve" was in town and we were visiting with her, Uncle Andy and my mom and dad), so he was done before we would really have gotten out the door. Maybe next time!

From the race day photos, Brett running 13.1 miles

Nora in training, running around the house

A super dorky picture of me, but alongside Nora pretending to have a "tummy like mom's"

As always, thanks for checking in. I'll try to post again soon, but let's not kid ourselves... probably more like a month from now. :)

Love,

Sarah, Brett, Nora and the Little Guy (Kick Kick!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Nora sporting the "Sah-puh-cah-cahn" pin... which was mine when I was a little kid (I guess that makes it vintage).

Happy St. Patrick's Day, friends and family. We hope you enjoyed the wearin' o the green and all that. I, luckily, didn't get pinched... I realized too late I didn't have any green maternity tops. Our baby boy woke me up this morning with some intense gymnastics or irish dancing -- that's the first time I've felt that much moving and shaking from him!

Last week Nora started telling me things she likes, which was a surprsing change. She seems to understand at last that the pronoun "I" applies to herself when she says it. It started out with "I like oranges! I like Monkeys!" When I asked "what about daddy?" then she'd respond "I like daddy!" and so we went through all of her grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, stuffed animals -- you are all liked. Last night in the car, for the first time on her own she started a statement "I love...." and I thought "oh, how sweet, maybe someone in her family?" No. "I love Costco." Costco?!? Second on the list of things she loves: "I love cars."

Ahh well. We still love her and send our love out to you, too.
Sarah, Brett, Nora and the little guy

Still Snowy

Not much to report these days... just waiting for spring to, well, spring. We had more snow last weekend and this weekend, and it was actually warm enough for Nora to go out and play. It's been a weird winter, snow followed by intense cold, so before the last two weeks, she'd only been out in the snow once. Needless to say, she had a ball getting out of the house. Cabin fever has her in its grips! Last weekend she and Brett were able to build a snowman, though she was more interested in throwing snow chunks on him. Yesterday they managed to build a snow heap for her to slide down, but it wasn't good snowman-building material (our original snowman met his demise two days after being built). She came into the house rosy-cheeked, asking for hot chocolate!

Inside, Nora's been designing more outfits for herself. Her favorite pieces are her puppy pants, the ladybug sweater ("from China!"), the yellow beaded socks, and her skirt/ wing combo set -- mostly worn for dancing to the ever-present "cake song." Here's a picture of her in a pretty great get-up:

Getting ready for the snowball fight...

... and the "throw"

Nora, Brett and their snowman (Ned? who loved the book "Snow" by P.D. Eastman and Roy Mc Kie besides me and Nora?)

Guess who loves the snow!

While we don't know much about our second kiddo's personality yet, we do know something! I had the mid-term ultrasound toward the end of February and we found out that we're having a boy! With Nora, we didn't find out, so it's been fun to know this time. I had a checkup last Friday and the doctor told me that all of the ultrasound results looked great. Our little guy is measuring a slightly bigger than average at this point, so if we project that out to a full-term baby, he'll likely be closer to 8lbs than 7 lbs. Not a big surprise... Nora was 8lbs even. The ultrasound itself was great, he was moving all over the place. So much so that the tech had a hard time getting several of the shots she needed. Along with his moving and shaking, we saw him practicing swallowing, like a little fish. We could see his mouth open, gulp in, and close... it was pretty cool! Here are a couple of the ultrasound pictures, though they look a whole lot like any other ultrasound picture you've ever seen!

[head in profile to the left, arm up and bent, looks like he's putting his thumb into his mouth]


[lying on his back, head in profile to the left again, knees pulled up to his belly, his hand is the white spot that appears to be hanging in midair above his mouth/ neck]

As always, thanks for checking in with us. Here's hoping that spring is right around the corner!

Love-

Sarah, Brett, Nora & the Little Guy