Wait, Carson WAS born yesterday! Cut him some slack! Hahahaha.

Journal birth, joke

The parade has begun. Carson woke up every two hours or less last night, so we didn’t get that much sleep. Plus, he has pooped six times in his first 24 hours!

Thus, we were pretty tired this morning with the morning shift nurse came (she’s awesome), followed by the staff who assists with the birth certificate, followed by the pediatrician, followed by Kristin’s doctor’s colleague, followed by the janitorial staff, followed by the lab tech to draw blood.

Wowsa! Can we get any privacy here? At least we’re prepared for this onslaught after Braden’s birth.

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Kristin took a nice, relaxing shower this morning, then took a couple of walks around the hallway. She is feeling much better and has regained her appetite.

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The nurse is currently performing a hearing test on Carson, but the computer is acting up. So, she’ll have to come back later.

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Brian’s mom visited and brought lunch from Famous Dave’s. Mmmm!

Journal hospital, visitors

Poor Braden. We still don’t think he gets it yet. When he got to the hospital, it took us a long time to convince him to come inside the hospital room. Once he finally came inside, he refused to acknowledge Kristin and Carson.

We gave him gifts that we told him were from Carson, but that didn’t help. We even tried to give Braden his digital camera, but he wouldn’t even take photos of Carson. Eventually, after more than an hour, he at least was willing to touch Carson on the head and nose.

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Like with Braden, Brian had the pleasure of changing Carson’s first poopy diaper. At 5 p.m., Carson woke up and seemed hungry. Brian opened up his diaper to find the black tar that newborns have for poop. Brian also remembered to stand perpendicular to Carson, which was a good thing, since Carson also peed.

Carson had two more poopy diapers later at night. This is stunning, since it took Braden a while to poop. Plus, where did this come from?

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Our first nurse was young and very nice, but we think she is still a little too green. She made several mistakes and was somewhat forgetful. We think the nurse that replaced her was a bit stunned by what her predecessor did (or didn’t do).

Our favorite one so far is the third shift nurse, though sadly, we’ll see her the least.

The nice thing this year is we don’t have a constant stream of people (residents, interns, etc.) coming in like we did last year. That was super annoying, and it didn’t allow us to sleep ever.

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Good night at 1:40 a.m.

Journal diapers, hospital

We are pleased to welcome Carson Zhi Lee, born at 8:27 a.m., weighing 8  lbs. 3 oz. and having a length of 19.5 in.

Kristin was a trooper as always and is recovering now. We posted a photo on Facebook and were happily surprised by the immense number of comments we’ve had already.

Our families came around 11:30 a.m., and we took a ton of photos.

Journal birth, hospital

It’s a rare, quiet evening for us; maybe the last one in for a long while. We dropped Braden off at Kristin’s parents’ house this afternoon, then stopped by our friends’ house to watch the first half of the Packers game, before coming home. We had dinner while watching the rest of the game, cleaned, then double-checked we had everything ready.

We’re going to bed fairly early, as we have to check in the hospital by 6 a.m. before our 8 a.m. C-section. Kristin has to stop eating by midnight. We wonder if we’re going to get much sleep.

Journal home

Braden has really improved on the Angry Birds game. He’s better at controlling the direction of the bird, and he knows which birds change when you tap them mid-flight.

He plays it wherever he can–our tablet, Kristin’s iPhone, Kristin’s dad’s iPad, Brian’s iPod touch, etc. Brian recently gave Braden his old cellphone to play to Angry Birds, but that didn’t stop him from still asking for the other devices.

Speaking of the tablet, Braden is getting more adept at using it. We’ve already mentioned he can unlock it, but to see him move apps, add shortcuts, load YouTube, etc., is quite the sight.

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We can’t get Braden to stay in his room all night. Several months ago, he began coming into our room when he woke up in the middle of the night. We initially let him do it, but unfortunately it became a habit. Now if he comes in the middle of the night, we take him back to his room, much to his disappointment. Otherwise, if it’s close to time to wake up, we let him stay.

It’s harder to put Braden to sleep, too. He wants us to stay in the room until he falls asleep, but we simply don’t have the patience for it.

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Poor Kristin. Like Brian, she had to deal with an accident in the bathtub. It started with Braden passing some gas, then he had some diarrhea. He said, “Mommy, mommy, look!”

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We’re amused when Braden repeats things in a list. For example, we may say, “Braden, do you want any milk?” He’ll respond, “No, I don’t want any milk.” We’ll try again with, “How some juice or water?” He’ll then say, “No, I don’t want any milk. I don’t want any juice. I don’t want any water.”

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We finally got Braden to wear his new shoes, which we bought a couple of months ago. His Converse shoes were getting a bit tight, and these new shoes are so much easier for us to put on him.

Journal bath, sleep, talking, video games

We enrolled Braden at a Montessori preschool, and his first day was today. What helped ease his transition was that he attended class twice in December to get somewhat acclimated.

We like the location on the west side. It’s just off the Beltline, and not too far from Brian’s office and Brian’s mom’s house.

It’s cute to see Braden has his own locker. We have to bring his own snacks, since sometimes his teachers serve cheese, which he can’t eat.

We elected to the do the morning program, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Depending on the weather, the children usually end their morning on the playground. It was not easy to get Braden to leave!

Journal preschool

We are still amazed by how much Braden can eat. On Thanksgiving morning, he ate about three full bowls of oatmeal. We were worried if he was going to be able to eat Thanksgiving lunch (with Brian’s family) and Thanksgiving dinner (with Kristin’s family) … but he did.

At our first Thanksgiving meal, he was offered some cocktail wieners but adamantly refused them. After Brian got Braden to try the sauce, he ate about eight of them!

When we go out to eat, he likes to order now (if he’s not too shy with the waitress). He’ll either ask for chicken and french fries or hot dog and french fries, though sometimes he asks for chicken AND hot dog. Coincidentally, we were eating at the Madison Club for dinner last week, and they gave him sliced hot dog as the amuse-bouche, before his entree of chicken strips.

Despite all this eating, Braden has not grown in the last two months. Brian measures his height at the beginning of each month, but Braden has stayed the same from October to December.

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The other day Braden climbed into his stroller and wanted to be pushed around. That made us realize that we have not gotten him to ride in his stroller for several months. In fact, we couldn’t even remember the last time he (willingly) rode it.

At least he still rides in the grocery cart. He likes being handed the food, which he then throws into the cart. On quicker shopping trips, he likes to carry the basket.

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We like watching Braden play with his toys. He’s at the point where he’ll have his toys talk to each other. For example, he may have his crocodile chase another action figure, who will say “don’t eat me! don’t eat me!”

Braden also enjoys reading through the Toys ‘R Us catalog. He tells us every toy that he wants. We think he’ll LOVE Christmas this year.

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Another one of Kristin’s cousins, Gretchen, just gave birth to her second child, Addie. Congratulations to Gretchen, Todd and big brother Bennett!

Journal congrats, feeding, toys

What a difference a year makes. In 2010, Braden didn’t eat much or any of the candy he collected on Halloween (Kristin ate it). This year, candy was all he wanted to eat in the days following Halloween.

Still, we were surprised that he didn’t seem in the mood to go trick-or-treating, despite how much we promoted it to him. On the Friday before Halloween, Brian took Braden to State Street, where several hundred children went business-to-business. It wasn’t until Braden saw other kids dressed up that he finally put his SpongeBob costume on.

On Monday, we went to Monona, and Braden again refused to dress up until he saw other kids in costumes. (Oddly, he loved wearing the costume at home.) Then when we went trick-or-treating, Braden got tired after just a few houses and begged to be driven or carried. Thus, we only stopped by about 6-8 houses.

Kristin did a great job training him to say “trick or treat” and “thank you,” though we had to nudge him a bit due to his shyness. Speaking of shyness, Braden now knows that he’s shy, since we say it so much. When he hides from people, some times he’ll say, “I shy.”

Brian called Braden a candy monster the other day and Braden got upset, screaming “I’m not a monster!”

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Brian dressed up as Duff Man from the cartoon “The Simpsons.” It was cute to hear Braden say, “Daddy dressing up as Duff Man?”

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A few weeks ago, Braden discovered that we store our DVDs in a cabinet by the TV when we pulled out one of his Sesame Street videos. He hasn’t really explored it much, which made us extra surprised by what happened last night. The movie “Elf’ (with Will Farrell) was on TV, and Braden went to the cabinet and pulled out the DVD of “Elf.” We were stunned.

How the heck did Braden recognize the movie from the just the side of the DVD case? We doubt he can read the word “elf.” That kid never ceases to amaze us.

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Braden was half scared, half amused by the lobster Brian ordered for dinner the other day. The amusement came from the fact that he thought the lobster resembled Mr. Krabs, a character from the cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

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The following situation happened before, but it’s fresh in our minds since it happened last night again: Braden refused to have his face wiped after eating spaghetti, but we did it anyways. He then ran over to his bowl of spaghetti and dunked the bottom half of his face in it to get it messy again. What a funny guy!

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A shout-out goes to Kristin’s cousin Katie, who gave birth to her second daughter (Evelyn) last Friday. Congrats to Katie and Scott!

Journal candy, TV

It always seems that groups of women get pregnant at the same time. Not only is Kristin pregnant, but so are a bunch of her coworkers and two of her cousins. Plus, some of our neighbors and friends have just had babies recently.

Here’s a photo from the UW football game vs. South Dakota. Cousin Katie (next to Kristin) is due in November, cousin Gretchen is due in December and Kristin follows in January. It was funny when Brian took the photo, as a woman behind us said, “Oh my God, are all three of you pregnant?!”

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Braden is getting more and more curious. He’ll often ask what an unrecognized object is used for. When he comes across a TV show he doesn’t know, he’ll ask, “What’s this show called?”

Interestingly, though, he still doesn’t know what the word “why” means. When we ask him why he has done something, he honestly doesn’t know how to answer.

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Braden has noticed that daddy does most of the cooking at home. When he sees Brian in the kitchen, he’ll say “Daddy cooking?” But when Kristin cooks on the rare occasion, Braden says, “Mommy not cooking!”

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We do think that Braden knows a baby is coming soon. He likes the book about having a little sibling that we read him (he usually picks this book every night). Hopefully this will ease the transition for him.

Journal curiosity, pregnancy