Brother and Sister

Amazing to me...know you've all already seen these pics, but kinda neat to see the two kids side-by-side.

2 Year Well Baby Visit

Lauren's 2 Year check up went very well this morning. Several of the nurses commented on how tall she is as we walked in. She wasn't very interested in being weighed or measured like a big girl, so we resorted the old-school baby scale and measuring on the table. Maybe next time! She didn't get any shots and impressed the doctor with her vocabulary and diction. A verbal kid? Mine?? (smile)

Stats:

Height 37.5 inches
Weight 34 lbs 4oz.

Still way off the charts in height/weight. They calculated her BMI and she's at about the 50th percentile, especially when considering her height. The doctor predicts she will continue to get taller but her weight will slow down until she's long and lean like her Mommy.

The convential wisdom says to double their height at age 2 to determine their approximate adult height....uh-oh! That would mean 6'3" (or 5'15" as Todd puts it!). Let's hope she slows down on the height thing too...that's WAAAAY tall for a girl! Watch our son will be 5'6" (giggle!)

It's Almost That Time of Year Again...

Every year my Aunt Jean makes a special card for my dad to kick of his umpiring season. She asked me to take a pic of Lauren with a baseball item for her "Umpy". I've been waiting to post this until I knew my Daddy had seen it for himself.

Lauren was so excited to take a picture for Poppa Umpy. She was giggling the whole time. It couldn't have turned out better!

Good Luck Umpy...

Meet Our Son...

We had out follow-up visit to the perinatal specialist today to make sure the brain cysts had disappeared. We got a clean bill of health, and everything looks wonderful! He is currently about 1.5 lbs. and loves to do sommersaults! :)

They surprised me with a 3-D ultrasound today, so I actually got to "meet" our son...pretty fun and exciting. I felt like I could reach out and literally touch him...

Here he is, in 3-D! He appears to have the same little nose and lips as Ladyug. His arm is in the upper right-hand part of the pic...running his fingers through the non-existent hair on his bald head. :)

This scrunchy old man face makes me think of some of Lauren's newborn pics too...The umbilical cord is crossing his face and his arm is raised above his head again.

The 'money shot'...definitely a boy! Todd's response? "That's my boy!". ahem.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers while we awaited our follow-up. We are so excited for you to meet our new addition this summer!

Big Morning for our Big Girl!

Lauren had her first poop on the potty this morning!! For the past couple of weeks she will occasionally ask to sit on the potty. This past week and weekend we saw a definite increase in the requests. BUT...it's always just been a phantom sit (i.e. she sits and thinks she's gone "I DID IT!!"). We always cheer the good try and always let her sit when she asks, in hopes it would encourage the process. She's gotten very good at taking off and on her own pants and diaper. We have some asks that ended up being right AFTER said activity, versus BEFORE, which is what we assumed was the case this morning. This morning, however, was different. She told Todd she wanted to poop on the potty, so he got her all set up. Minutes later I could hear her saying, "I went poopy. I went poopy. Daddy? I went poopy on the potty". Expecting him to come in and congratulate her on a good try, yet again, I heard the surprise in his voice. "You DID go poopy! YAY!!!". We cheered her on, and rewarded her with 2 M&Ms, as promised, despite the 6am clock. :)

Granted, it's the first of many steps and mis-steps on this process, but so exciting for us nonetheless! Did I mention that an hour later she had a poopy diaper?? .... oh well.


PS. I cannot believe I dedicate a whole posting to my child's poop. Wow.

Beautiful Day for Swinging...

We've had a warm spell the past few days, so last Saturday Todd and I took Lauren to the park at our Swim/Tennis club to enjoy the beautiful weather.

She loved it so much she didn't want to leave, so we had to promise to come back on Sunday!

Boy, oh Boy!

It's official...we are having a BOY this time around. Both the ultrasound tech and the doctor chuckled when we asked them to verify just one more time, as they showed us...it was quite obvious when you knew what you were looking for/at. The last triple-check (thank you Dr. Matsumoto for humoring us...), our son was grabbing his "junk". SO...yep, definitely a boy! :)

Here is a profile shot of him. They took lots of pictures for us, but Baby Boy was moving around so much that in most of them, unless you were there, you won't really know what you are looking at.

I will have a follow-up ultrasound in 4-5 weeks to confirm that some cysts have disppeared on their own by week 25, as the doctor predicts, so we are sure to have more photos to share at that time!

Estimated weight was 13 ounces, and length is about 6.5 inches from head to hiney! He looked beautiful--- all his organs appear to be functioning as they should, all his fingers and toes were present and accounted for, his legs are growing nice and straight, etc. All the signs we wanted to see. He's is quite the mover and shaker (and y'all thought Lauren was a busy girl...what do we have in store?!), and is seated quite low, which explains the very frequent trips to the bathroom that are still occuring...he's kicking me in the bladder on a very regular basis!

Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers, and well wishes while we awaited the news!