Raising Watsons

Fourth of July is pretty great at our new place. There’s two bouncy houses, two pinata’s and lots of little pools that lots of little people explore ALL day. The night ended with the Watson clan sitting on lawn chairs in the front yard watching the impressive home fireworks display put on by three neighbors on our little block.

Happy Birthday America!

Tucker’s first pinata.  To be honest, I think we’ve engrained so much “NO HITTING” in his head that he had a really hard time when we gave him permission to hit.  Or maybe it just wasn’t fun with permission.

Emilia giving high five’s for the big day in her special outfit.

There was some sweetness

And lots of play time.

Emilia pretty much sums it up for me here.  Fourth of July with kids is actually ten times more exhausting than Fourth of July as carefree of-age adults.  To quote a friend with a similar family make-up – I used to be all “Hey, it’s late enough to have a beer!”, now I’m all “Hey, it’s late enough to put on pajamas!”

When I look through these pictures I always hear the Jaw’s theme.

Tucker LOVES Emilia. Sometimes a little too much as it’s really hard to explain to a two year old that they’re smothering a small baby, but we’re happy to have the problem.

Smothering aside, Tucker is happy to do anything for Emilia. If she needs a burp cloth, blanket, pacifier or other baby necessity, he is the boy for the job. When he walks in the door for school before saying Hi or playing with toys he asks “Where’s Baby?” and gives her a kiss. Similarly, he must kiss her before going to bed. If she’s upset he holds her hand and says softly “It’s okay, Baby”. On occasion he will say her name, which sounds something like “Mena”.

Emilia seems to dig her brother so far, or at least she tolerates him.  She does like watching and touching Tucker.

My favorite Tucker/Emilia moments are when Em is breastfeeding, Tucker grabs his milk sippy cup and lays down next to her. No pictures, obviously, but it’s pretty sweet. Here are some pictures that have been cleared for the public.

Emilia’s first day home

Tucker has always been a cuddler, now he enjoys family cuddles.

Sometimes I look over and Tucker is just staring quietly at her.  Or patting her head.

Kisses!

Even though she’s only a few weeks old, every once in a while you feel the connection between them already.

And boy, do we hope to see more of this!  (Thank god we bought the king size bed.)

Remember this day?

Not one good picture on picture day.

World, meet Emilia.

Em likes sleeping, cuddling, kisses from her brother, breastfeeding and pooping (lots). Birth story below.

Emilia was born early Saturday morning via elective C-section, though Mom had been experiencing light contractions for days. The nursing team and doctors were PUMPED, everyone had their caffeine that morning. Surgery started at 7:15am and Emilia was out by 7:50. Mom was well taken care of by nurse CoCo throughout with warm blankets and constant care. Dad stayed with Emilia until her cord was clamped and blood/tissue collected for banking. Then they came over where Mom fell apart in tears at her beautiful girl (that’s a lie, Mom was crying the since they popped that little head over the curtain).

Emilia was breastfeeding in the hallway between the operating room and the recovery room. The recovery room nurses were quite surprised that the baby not even 20 minutes old was latched on and happily nursing. My guess is Em smelled the milk, Mom had been pumping since Thursday night. Another thing the nurses were shocked about was that Mom brought in two ounces of pumped colostrum. Apparently, nobody does this as I was the talk of the floor “this is the girl who brought in her own breast milk BEFORE the baby was born” was passed from shift to shift. My thinking was if I’m out of commission on pain killers (like I was one night with Tucker) Ben can feed her the good stuff instead of formula. One nurse asked me to blog about it.

Mom had some complications that kept her in the hospital another day, but overall we couldn’t be happier with our stay at Cedars and the new addition to our family.

We’re ridiculously proud to announce the birth of Emilia Ann Watson!

Born 06.02.2012 at 7:50am
7lbs 0oz, 19.5 inches

Big brother is STOKED. Video to come.

Tucker hasn’t quite mastered the use of fork and spoon yet but we felt it was a good time to expand his utensil repertoire.

He wasn’t 100% sure of their intended use at first.

SUCCESS!!!

The night was rough – 37 weeks preggo Mom was given a fat and bloody lip delivered via head butt from the Lil Man. On the inside, Lil Ms had a foot stuck for about a day in the same spot resulting in internal belly bruising. A persistent cough kept Mom and Dad up most of the night till around 2am when they found solace on the couch and the guest bed, respectively.

Tucker was up early, which is normally the time for our cherished family snuggle/sleep time. The alternate sleeping arrangements threw the little dude, plus Dad had to leave for work early resulting in morning interruptus, which if you’re Tucker looks a little something like this:

milk is too coooold
i need more cereal
no, not milk, I want juice
i need more milk IN my cereal
cereal all done, I wanna ride the fire truck
i don’t want to go to school
noooooooo, don’t take off my payamas
NO SHOES
crocks!
my feet are all dirty
oh, it’s just sand
i want that oooone.  yellow oooone.  (winter jacket which is too small)
no, mama. blue. jacket. is. too. small. (actually fits)
nooooo jacket
I don’t want sunglasses
it’s too bwight outside
where are my red sunglasses?
i don’t want blue ones

At this time, lunch packed, car loaded, door locked and grouchy toddler a foot from the car I realize it’s picture day. It’s picture day and Tucker is dressed like a 2 year old hobo because his school believes heavily in “sensation (aka – messy) play”.

It wasn’t easy, but Mom and Tucker managed to put on a respectable outfit and compromise on a jacket-less, blue sunglasses day. Tucker looked great.  We won’t be showing any pictures of busted up, exhausted mom.

Times are tough in the Big (bouncy) House.  No shoes, no food, no drinks.

Boys hanging out, looking for trouble..

best to keep your allies close

in case you need to break out

but most of the time they just toss you back in.

A boy on his own could start to lose it around here!

If you do break out, be prepared for a new identity and a fresh start.