Isabella is grace-ing our lives...

 

Already in the first two+ weeks she has been in our lives, Isabella has brought so much joy into our home!  One of the most rewarding things to see is how Mercer's big brother instincts have kicked in.   He is so kind... so gentle... so sweet... so loving.  (Here, he's counting her fingers.)

Many of the same fears and observations in the early weeks of us tending to Mercer are the same with Isabella: 
- the whole chunky mustard poo situation occurred.  now, she's moved onto a different style of poo for the most part
- we're still scared to death to trim finger nails and toe nails, but it necessary & we just do it. 
- we're trying to get back into the swing of swaddling and shushing in order to get a better night's sleep (we're still doing a little bit of shift work and figuring out how to get through each day / each night)
- we're still tracking feedings and observing that some of our early victories of stretching out her feedings at night have somewhat reverted back to middle-of-the-night feedings

Overall, however, we're more relaxed.  Partly because we've been through it.  Partly because we're at home and have a lot of support of friends and neighbors.  Partly because we had more time to prepare.  (oh wait - that last part's not true!)  I was looking back at Mercer's entry into our lives and there was a lot of mention about researching baby products.  That all paid off, as the things we brought into our home for him are still very appropriate, non-toxic, durable, and still in use.  So - there's less time trying to figure out what's needed and more time staring at baby girl!

Isabella - at her 3 day old appointment - did not do anything dramatic like Mercer did "christening" of the doctor's office.  There was one interesting thing that happened, however:  at the pediatrician's office, she was measured several times, but came up an inch short each time from her original birth length:  18" at 3 days old where the hospital recorded her length at birth at 19".  We all agreed at the doctor's office to take the difference thinking the hospital had to have written down the length incorrectly -- so the "official" 3 day old measurement is 18 1/2" long. 

The doctor confirmed what we had been observing:  Isabella is a healthy baby girl.  We reported that Isabella had rolled from her back to her side the first night we had her.  The doctor was actually amazed at her neck strength -- holding her head up already at 3 days old.  Since then, we have also observed her schooching in her crib (starting at one end and eventually working her way to the other side), and using her legs to push her up over the boppy pillow / to push up over our shoulder as we're holding her.  Actually - the other day - she had her hands underneath her and had lifted her upper body.  (She looked like she was ready to crawl if she could get her legs under her and used them to scooch!)  We will have to watch her, for sure!  Looks like she's going to be very active!

The only thing that came up at Isabella's appointment was her very very dry skin... but that's pretty much been resolved already and at her 2 week old appointment, she got an A+ report card (they give everyone an A+, honestly).  Her head circumference is normal at 52%.  Her weight and height are low on the charts for a 2 week old (around 16 - 17% compared to other kids), but she was born a little smaller than a lot of babies are.  She's now weighing in at 7 lbs, 4.8 oz.  Heck - I was just reading about a baby that one of my former colleagues had:  10 lbs... I wonder if Isabella will even be 10 lbs at 2 months old??  We'll see. She has a 2 month appointment in January.

All-in-all, things are going really well. She's a very content baby.  She's starting to smile (and not just from gas or "pushing something out").  She seems to recognize Todd, Mercer, and myself now.  She pretty much only fusses when she's hungry.  She's a voracious eater and seems to grow hungrier each day (looks like we'll be increasing her food consumption again this week).  She's a good eater - just like Mercer was.  She doesn't spit up very much at all.  She's at 16-17% now on the growth chart... I imagine she will be closing the gap by the next doctor's visit.

My mom was able to come down for a visit last week to help out while I'm working (yes - still working... not sure when I'll be able to "take leave").  She came to the doctor's appointment with me and thought the doctor was a little rough on our precious little girl.  (At the hospital, they were practically tossing her around, so I guess we're gentler than we need to be?)  Mom held the baby a lot, folded at least a dozen loads of laundry, did a lot of dishes, and played with Mercer / gave him some extra attention.  It was a nice to have a helping hand.  Here's a photo of the proud grandma~

The week before her visit, we did a couple of memorable things as a family:  we all participated in our first family fun-run... the Gobble Jog... a fundraiser for a local food bank.  Isabella went too (but we did not register her, as she just rode in the stroller).  Later that day, we went up to a neighbor's house for a late Thanksgiving lunch.

So much to be thankful for...

Last week, a prayer was answered.  We brought a baby girl into our home:  baby Isabella.  

Similar to Mercer's entry into our lives -- we have been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, yet, we were unprepared because of how quickly things happened!

With Mercer, we had a 1 day's notice before he was born -- seeing if we were interested in pursuing the opportunity (which, of course, we were).  We found out we were selected the day after he was born.  We were boarding a plane the next day headed for Colorado to pick him up. 

With Isabella, we got a call the morning after she was born about the opportunity to pick her up THAT DAY -- November 14th.  Todd was a "single dad" the day the call came and the huge responsibility of pulling everything together fell on him, as I was in California on business.  

After Todd and I spent hours conferring, reviewing the health history, and discussing how to make the logistics of this work (while I was on the other side of the country).... we decided to "go for it."  He was able to call in at his office / explain that he needed to take the day off so he could begin working on the tasks at hand:
- Getting the homestudy documents pulled together so we could turn over a copy 
- Buying a car seat and installing it in the car
- Pulling out and cleaning a lot of Mercer's old stuff together clothes, bottles, and gear

He was almost ready, but got a call about an hour before he was to pick up the baby that it was post-poned 'til the next day.  On one hand, it was disappointing, but on the other hand, there was a sigh of relief.  There would be another day to prepare and get ready + there would be time for me to catch a flight home.  Whew!

I made it home Thursday morning.  We went back through the homestudy documents, went through more of Mercer's baby gear, sorted through items that neighbors & friends had dropped off the night before, and even ran a couple of errands.  We were trying to stay busy until "the call" to go to the hospital came.  

It felt like it took forever, but the call came and around 2:30 pm on Thursday the 15th, we met the adoption agency director at the hospital which was less than a mile from our house.  After taking care of all of the legal stuff, we went up to the nursery where baby Isabella was released.  As seen, I had to ride down to the door in a wheelchair with the baby.  Once in the car, it took us no time to get home & begin getting settled.  This beautiful bundle was really in our home!!!  It was a little scary (for me) the first day trying to remember how to take care of a newborn, but it all came back very quickly!

We got settled in, tended to her needs, figured out a few additional items we needed to purchase (such as formula so that the baby would have enough food to get through the night!), then I picked up Mercer from school.  

He and I went shopping quickly.  He picked out a little pink doll to give his new sister.   He was shy at first, but then grew more comfortable with her and even started interacting and playing with her. It was such a blessing to watch him laugh, smile, kiss her, and rub her head.  That night, he even laid his favorite stuffed animal on her lap to share with her (but he did ask for it back right before he went to bed).  It was a beautiful day for all of us!

Isabella Grace Groves
Born Tuesday, November 13th at 5:56 am

6 lbs 13 oz

18 1/2" long
Marietta, Georgia

Brought to our loving home Thursday, November 15th

Catching up

There was so much to blog about last month.  Actually, we've done a lot (so far) this month too.  But in an effort to catch up... here are the cool things to blog about as of late.

Todd & I had a meeting with Mercer's teacher.  All-in-all he's doing VERY well.  She says that he's different than many boys.  He's active and rough-and-tumble like normal, but unlike the other boys he is also extremely observant about his classmates, teachers, and surroundings.  He notices when someone is not there, he notices when the teacher is not feeling well.  He notices when the slightest of things have been changed and will ask why.  We heard from his teacher last year and the teacher this year too that he is very caring -- has a huge heart.  For instance, if a kid in the class doesn't have a place to sit, Mercer will give up his chair.  Interesting!

She says he's the leader of the class.  Whatever Mercer does - the rest of the kids do.  (You wouldn't know it talking to him after school each day, though.  He and his classmates do have tiffs.  So-and-so pushed me.  So-and-so scratched me.)  Mercer does his fair share of doling it out too, unfortunately.  She also told us that sometimes he acts-out because he's frustrated.  He's a perfectionist and if he's trying to do something / can't master it... he's really hard on himself.  He's ambitious and really wants to learn. 

He is excelling in his school work.  There's really nothing that she's concerned about -- in fact when she realized he's only 4 -- she said that he's excelling.  For some reason, she thought he was 5.  At the conclusion of the parent-teacher conference, she kept saying that she couldn't believe he was only 4. She wanted us to let him know how proud we are of him because this is very important to him -- that he knows he's doing a good job.  We're impressed with what all he's learning -- countries, states, numbers, and putting words together with sound groups.  We are happy about the choice made to keep him on the same track in the Montessori program. 

He's also getting better at riding his bike & trying to perfect the skill.  One day when we had some nice weather and nothing on the calendar, we decided to head over to a local park to practice his bike-riding.  This park is level and has a nice loop that he could ride on.  Literally, as soon as we got there, there was another little boy getting out of his car next to ours -- his family had brought his bicycle too.  


The two boys talked and then started riding their bikes together.  This other child was pretty proficient at it & would speed off, but it motivated Mercer to try to keep up and to continue riding even if he did take a little tumble.  Of course, he had to play on the playground while there as well.  And - Todd and I encouraged that we go on a little hike while at the same park, as there's a nice bridge over a little stream we like to look at.  




We've done some other hiking this fall as well... because of the letterbox ("treasure stamp") hobby that we have, we were directed to another BEAUTIFUL hiking spot along a river in North Georgia.  

We didn't make it to the top where the big waterfall was located, but we found a nice smaller water fall along the way.  We had to "climb" down on tree roots & vines to get down to this smaller fall; we heard that getting to the larger fall required even more climbing up roots and could have been possibly dangerous for a 4 year old -- so -- its OK that we didn't make it that far!  We were happy to have discovered this spot where camping is allowed.  Todd thought it may be fun to have a guys camping night sometime with neighbors & their sons.  

We also went apple picking this fall.  We went to the same place as last year:  Mercier Orchards.  Mercer enjoyed going all the way to the top of the trees.  This may be the last time that Todd can pick him up to reach the top of the trees.  Next year, he'll just have to climb to the top of the tree on his own!

The hike, the apple picking, and the corn maze about rounded out our fall travels to the mountain areas.  We got to see a lot of nice color in the trees and get out in the crisp fall air.

This week...

...Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast.  It was absolutely devastating in New York City and surrounding areas. Todd's family is safe and thankfully, their homes were not flooded.  Todd's mom and dad have been staying in south Jersey with his sister, Tonia, until their power returns.  Tonia's kids have been out of school, too, and will actually celebrate Trick or Treat on Monday, November 5th.  Here in Atlanta, we were getting strong winds from the storm and the power flickered. It's crazy to think that the same storm was having a (minor) impact down here.  Our hearts really go out to those affected -- especially those that are suffering a great loss of a loved one.  Also, it's hard to imagine your home being completely flattened and all of your possessions (like photos) washed away.  It will take years for the northeast to recover from Sandy's wrath.

Halloween went on here as planned. For Mercer's costume, he resoundingly wanted to be Spider Man. (I was a little bummed that we didn't make something - like last year)  Oh well... little guy knows what he wants now.  I went to his school's Halloween party the morning of, but noticed he was not wearing his costume.  The teacher said he was acting like Spider Man -- running all over the place -- so he had to take it off.  ~ha~

He really only wore his full costume for photos, though.  During the neighborhood Halloween party after school and while actually trick-or-treating he took his mask off.  Here's a shot of him in (partial) costume with a little girl that he must really like a lot.  This little girl, Edith, lives in our neighborhood, goes to our church, and is in his class at school.  They ran around the neighborhood party together, but it always takes him awhile to stop acting shy around her when we see her out of context of school. 

The weekend before Halloween, Todd carved a great Spider Man pumpkin.  Mercer and I made a Mr. Potato head (ish) pirate pumpkin.  He really got into where to stick everything & drawing extra features on the pumpkin too.  He was pretty proud of his "creation."

All-in-all, he had a great time. 
 

so much to blog about... so little time...

There's too much to blog about right now, so I'll have to create a series of posts to blog about soon regarding:

- our parent / teacher conference

- Mercer riding his bike

- going apple picking

- halloween (coming up in a couple of days)

Now... a post about T-ball:

Todd coached Mercer + five other 3-5 year olds through their first season of organized baseball.  There was one child who was really hard to control (the youngest) and a couple of others who didn't really ever seem to "get it."  But - the other 3 (including Mercer) did seem to understand the sport and actually showed a lot of progress since the first practice and first game.  Actually, one of the coaches from the other teams pulled Todd aside to talk to him about Mercer's abilities towards the end of the season.

 

Mercer was an anxious ball player, was quick to field the ball from almost any position he was playing (except first base... he learned to stay put when he was on 1st), he was getting pretty good at throwing, and could hit some of the balls from the live pitches.  Sometimes he seemed a little over-anxious as he wanted to control the ball during each play - but as someone told us - this is better than him not being that interested in making the play.

This level of game was perfect in that no score was kept.  All of the kids got to bat each inning. They actually got the chance to hit balls pitched.  If they didn't make it after a certain # of pitches, they would then be able to hit off of the tee.   If they got out, they stayed on base / stayed in the game.  

Some of my favorite memories of the season:

- one of the kids during a game hit the ball, then ran to first.  he didn't stop, however.

- once all of the kids hit, the team runs all of the bases to clear the field.  this same kid was on 2nd base & upon urging by "coach Todd" to run to home -- the kid made a diagonal from 2nd to home plate. Actually - this was quite smart as it was the shortest distance there~

- early in the season, Todd made up a very important rule:  no tackling your team-mates!  The youngest kid asked "but what about tickling your team-mates?"  

- the last couple of games, one of the little boys kept calling me "Mrs Coach" when he had a question (I was usually in the dugout with the kids trying to keep order, doling out water, and getting them out onto the field when it was their turn to bat.)

- the kids were more interested in snacks after the game and other kids outside the fence.    

- each practice, Todd gave away baseball cards to motivate the boys + on game days, one of them got the game ball.  the kids were perhaps more excited about who would get the game ball than they were about snacks.

 

Todd was happy to see how excited Mercer was about baseball -- always wanting to practice at home.  Todd was always rewarded by the improvement he saw in all of the players since the beginning of the season.  It was a lot of work, but he said that he enjoyed coaching more than he thought he would. I actually really enjoyed watching Todd interact with the kids.  He did a great job commanding their attention while making learning baseball rules and techniques fun. 

Beginning of fall in north Georgia

We snagged a deal on one of those group coupon websites to get BOGO tickets for a corn maze up in north Georgia.  This one is touted as the largest one in the state -- at 7 acres of corn field (and 3 miles of trails).  One thing that was interesting about this one:  they had 6 stations throughout the maze that you tried to get to and stamp your card to "prove" you were at all 6 stations.  I know we didn't cover all 3 miles of trails, but we did walk for awhile & get outdoors.

We ran into some kids that go to Mercer's daycare about mid-way through.  We were all close to the edge of the maze, so we all stepped out for a few minutes to converse with some cows that were as curious about us as we were of them.  The boys were enthralled with the udders hanging down, the cows drooling, and going to the bathroom!  It was hard to peel them away, but cool that they were so interested in the bovines!  (Isn't this gorgeous rolling farm land?!)


A couple of highlights of the walk through the maze include Mercer playing "corn cob soccer" and giving a yellow flower to the little sister of his daycare buddy.  

(He originally picked two flowers & gave them to me.  He then took one of them back & ran to the little girl to give one to her instead.  It was so cute!)  We learned that he also draws pictures for her at daycare and gives them to her too.  hmmmm.....

After we all made it out of the maze, we hung out for a little longer at the farm -- taking a short hay ride & watching Mercer burn a ton of energy in the hay bale jumping area.  Honestly, he had SO MUCH fun doing this -- and it was so great because it's so low-tech!  There are so many terrific shots that Todd took of Mercer playing in the hay bale jumping area... here are only a few of the photos.

 

We went to lunch afterwards.  We ate at a local burger join that had a walk-up window and an outdoor dining area.  It was a little chilly to sit outside, but it overlooked a neighboring horse farm, so of course we had to eat outdoors.




 

We decided to take a more scenic route home and try to find a letterbox that had high marks for beautiful scenery.  Hmmmm... a hike along a river with rapids... ruins... sounds like the perfect afternoon activity for us!  We literally may have driven over this bridge and looked over the edge as we passed and said "that's nice, a river." 

But - the letterbox prompted us to get out of our car / know that there are trails and a boardwalk along the edge of the river / and give us a little history about the place:  the ruins in the foreground were for an old logging road covered bridge.... that this part of the Amicalola River was coined as the "edge of the world" by kayakers who brave this class IV rapids because the river seems to literally drop off over this bank of rocks seen... and that there's a place that you can walk out to / sit on some large rocks in the middle of the rapids. 

 

Spending the day together as a family and being surrounded by the beautiful scenery all around was absolutely fantastic... we made great memories this day.

 

 

 



We went to the fair for the first time...

... and Mercer had a great time! 

The very first thing that Mercer wanted to do... go to the TALLEST ride:  the Ferris Wheel!

We rode it and scouted out what all was scattered across the park. Mercer was not afraid at all.  I wasn't afraid, per se, but he did wriggle around a bit when we were up in the air & I was afraid that there were no safety harnesses or seat belts in the carriage~

We wandered around for a bit & stumbled across the kids area - where he could tackle a bunch of rides on his own. He "flew," he rode a motorcycle, he rode on a catepillar.   The last one he wanted to tackle I didn't want him to do on his own:  the lady-bug tea-cups.  He wouldn't have been able to spin the car as much on his own (or known to have spin).  So - he and I took a ride on that as well & had a lot of fun doing so.

Not to worry:  Todd got in on some action too.  He & Mercer went "fishing" for a prize. (two little stuffed animals that M has slept with each night since - of course).

One of the things that Todd & I thought was kind of cool:  this obstacle course / series of climbs & ramps.  He worked his way to the top, then he was rewarded:  he got to go down a HUGE slide.  Mercer was grinning & clasping his hands the whole time he descended.

He said he would like to go back again.  (we did not have a doubt that he would)

Over the weekend, we also went to a Braves / Mets game.  It was the last regular season game & the last of a few games that we got to go to courtesy of my company tickets 14 rows behind home plate.  Perhaps because Mercer is a little older or because he's now playing ball -- he did a much better job this season of watching the game.  (Of course he did spend a bit of time running around in the kid's zone, but not as much as before.)  It's now football season and he has started watching a little bit (maybe 5 minutes -- as long as his attention span will allow -- of any game)

This coming weekend won't be as jam-packed, but I'm sure we'll do something fun.