Eric's arrival
Eric James Massini was born on 10/10/2012 at 5:41 a.m. after a grand total of 3 hours of labor. Although in some sense the speed may have been a blessing, it was super intense, at least from my perspective. I honestly hadn't decided on the natural birth idea vs. epidural, but baby boy decided for me.
He weighed 8lbs, 1 oz... a full 2 lbs more than his big sister!...and was 20.5" long. I'm happy that we have a healthy baby boy, and glad that the pregnancy is over.
For those keeping track, we tried the shrimp quesadillas on 10/8 for lunch, so we were a little bit outside of the 24 hour effectiveness window, unless you count the leftovers I had the next day.
Annie got to spend the day with Graham, who was awesome and showed up at our house in about 5 minutes after we called at 4 a.m. and then took a personal day for our growing family. We can't thank him enough. They came by the hospital to meet Babyeric, all one word as Annie says it.
All the grandparents came up that day, too.
A week has passed since we became a family of four. For the most part, we've just been hanging out around the house, although John and Annie have ventured out more than all of us as a group.
Annie has stayed home with us most days and has really been enjoying the big sister role. She constantly wants to know where Babyeric is, wants to hold him or "pet" him, and give him lots of kisses and hugs.
She helps me pick out a new diaper when it's time to change him. She's been very much into being helpful, from putting things in or out of the dryer to putting toys away to grabbing a blanket or burp cloth if it's out of my reach. She has been doing really well using the potty before bath time every night, and is quick to tell us that she is "big" when it comes to certain things. But she wasn't too sure about sharing the stroller or a certain blanket.
Annie also has some new musical instruments, including her very own guitar from Eric, which do make it difficult to stay quiet. So far he seems to have inherited John's sleeping ability and doesn't care too much what is going on around him.
She found a harmonica and insists on playing the high notes. She played the same tune over and over around the block tonight.
Eric has been doing all the things that babies do. When he's awake, he wants to be eating. Then he usually goes right back to sleep. He's gaining weight well. He does have a bit more hair than Annie did, and it seems darker, although hers started out pretty dark. I personally think he looks a lot like her and slightly like his uncles did when they were babies.
We had a couple of days with my mom here at the beginning, and Eric really enjoyed snuggling with her. Doug and Sarah were here for a while on Saturday. More visitors to come this weekend!
It's been awesome having John home full time, too, and he and Annie have had a lot of quality time including trips to the grocery store, and going to the playground or on bike rides. They've been weeding the garden and trimming bushes--Annie likes to help with her own bag of leaves/weeds/clippings, and really likes wearing the gardening gloves! They even pulled out the inflatable pool tonight. Yes, it's still that warm. Oh, and they've read Peter Rabbit roughly 300 times. I think we can all just about recite it from memory now.
We have had a couple of outings to the pediatrician's office, to church, and one to the library and Uppercrust. Yesterday, we all went out for brunch at Sisters and then went to the playground down the way in Haile. Eric slept the whole time, which made it easy. Annie was running laps between the slide and the steps, could NOT get enough. She's completely fearless! She also had to keep us entertained, telling John he was a "crazy boy" and offering to help him out of the tunnel.
On the way home, we had two tired babies.
We're still slightly in awe of the fact that we have two of these little ones now. Of course, Annie seems huge in comparison, despite her tiny stature. Lots more adventures to come!
