Whew! This last week has been quite a whirlwind! Sam is already growing and developing right before my eyes. Poppy is doing a great job of adjusting to being a big sister. Marc and I are both pretty much sleep deprived and have gotten into the habit of sleeping whenever Poppy and Sam are sleeping (which means it has become the norm to go to bed at 8pm). And we've had tons of visitors stopping by to meet this newest addition. Between all of that, the blog has definitely been put on the back burner, but just like when Poppy came home, it is really important to me to have all of these little things documented. So be patient with me as I try to catch up here...
[caption id="attachment_1780" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Very first picture."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1781" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Getting ready to go home from the hospital."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1782" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Poppy's new favorite thing to do."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1783" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="What he does all day long."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1784" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="My "two amigos" have turned into my "3 peas in a pod"."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1785" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Trust me, this isn't the same pic as the one above. Seriously, all day long, he sleeps like this with his arms up."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1786" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Did I mention that she loves to hold her baby brother?"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1787" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Can you tell that he's a little peanut? He barely fits into any of the clothes we have for him!"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1788" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Poppy has been loving all the visitors lately, especially her cousins."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1789" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="And she loves having someone new to play with her."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1790" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Poppy calls pacifiers "baby feeders". When Sam really wants his baby feeder, he will hold onto it with both of his hands so that it doesn't fall out."][/caption]
And here are some of the random things I wanted to have documented...
Labor and delivery: definitely did not go as planned or expected. Last Tuesday I was at my doctor's office for my weekly appointment (with 2 weeks to go before my due date). Just before the doctor was about to begin my exam, I felt a little trickle down there and got super embarrassed because I thought I peed a little bit (these things happen when you're 9 months pregnant). My doctor told me to lay back for my exam and I felt an even bigger trickle. Super embarrassing. My doctor looks up at me with a shocked look on her face and I turn bright red and said "I'm so sorry, I think I just peed a little bit." She said, "Um, no, your water just broke." Luckily, I wasn't having contractions yet, so I was able to drive home and meet Marc before we both headed to the hospital. We arrived at about noon and within minutes we were checked in and hooked up to a monitor that measured my contractions and the baby's heartbeat. When I saw on the monitor that I was having contractions, I kept bragging to everyone that they didn't even hurt and that I didn't think I would even need an epidural. Well, they ended inducing my labor by giving me pitocin and within a few hours I definitely changed my tune about the pain level with the contractions and was asking how quickly they could get me an epidural. Thank God for that epidural. Anyways, within a few hours things were really progressing. I had the best L & D nurse, and Marc and my mom were there with me the entire time. By 4:00 I had dialated to 5 cm. and by 7:00 I was at 10 cm. The nurse gave me a quick tutorial on how to push (seeing as we never quite got around to taking those birthing classes) and this was what I was a little nervous about. For the past couple of months I had been joking that during delivery, the baby was just going to jump out. Well, basially, he did! He was out within half an hour and only a few pushes at 7:40pm. The doctor was shocked at how quickly the day progressed for me, and I was just relieved that it was over. We were all on pins and needles waiting to see how much the baby weighed (big babies run in my family) and I was so excited that he ended up being a little peanut weighing only 7.2 lbs.
The name: oh the drama we caused by waiting a whole 24 hours before we named this poor kid! I was scolded by numerous nurses and hospital workers trying to complete my paperwork, as well as hounded non-stop by friends and family. So we've had a ton of people asking if Samuel is a family name. Nope. In June, I read East of Eden by John Steinbeck and fell in love with one of the main characters, Samuel Hamilton. There were a few other contenders - I really liked Gus and Finn, Marc loved Luca (which I thought was a little too Italian for me) and then at the last minute I threw in Levi after reading about Matthew McConaughey's son in UsWeekly. :) So the day after he was born, when Marc and Poppy came up to the hospital to have dinner with me, we gave all those names to Poppy and told her to pick one. She picked Sam. And my dad's name is Robert. And that's how Mr. Sam Robert Marrano got his name.
Big sister: Poppy is doing so great with this huge adjustment in her life. She is so gentle with him and just loves to help take care of him in any way she can. She also pleads with us to not share him with anyone as soon as the doorbell rings. "Daddy, can you just hold him? I don't want to share him with anyone. I want to keep him all day!" And here are just a few of my favorite things she has said in the past week:
"Babies eat baby milk from their mommy's booby-boob's".
When she was looking for him because he wasn't in his bassinet, "Where's my Sammy-boy?" (we've never called him anything other than Sam or Samuel)
When waking up in the morning to snuggle with Sam in our bed, "Hi cutie-cutie! Oh, mom, he's soooo cute!"
Where does she come up with this stuff?
So I promise to make an effort to do better blog posts and take some cuter pictures of Sam this week. Good night!