Sisters

I was curious to see how the three girls would respond to Aspen, and it has been interesting.  I was mostly worried about how it would be with Bristol since she is a little wild and crazy at times and acts very two-year-oldish.  (I was not prepared for her behavior even though it is perfectly normal.  Jade was very calm as a two year old and never really seemed to have the "terrible twos").  Well, Brooke likes Aspen but isn't too interested in her.  Once in a while, she asks to hold her, and she'll hold her if I ask her.  Other than that, she doesn't pay Aspen a lot of attention.  She is more preoccupied with her interests (reading, drawing, playing), and she has actually been playing with Bristol a fair amount also.  That has been very helpful at times.

Jade, on the other hand, has been very interested in Aspen.  She wants to hold her all the time.  If Aspen wakes-up, Jade will go and get her if we're not there first.  She also wants to pick out Aspen's clothes for the day and her pajamas at night.  Her interest isn't surprising, though; I remember that she was very interested in Bristol as a baby.

Bristol's response to Aspen has been the most "fun."  When she visited me at the hospital, she at first kept saying baby and giggling.  She soon lost interest, though, and started getting into things.  Then the first night that I was home from the hospital, Bristol woke-up at midnight and wouldn't go back to sleep.  It is pretty rare for her to wake-up at night when we are at home.  So we put her in our bed, and she was interested in the baby and not sleep.  This lasted on and off for about two hours until finally I had Trent put her back in her crib.  She wasn't happy about that and cried for about ten minutes, but then she went back to sleep.  The Monday after Aspen was born, Bristol decided she wasn't going to wear clothes anymore, including diapers.  She can be pretty strong-willed so she spent most of the day naked.  Thankfully, within a few days, we got her back to wearing diapers and clothes on a regular basis.  I am not sure if this behavior was just because she is two or if it was her way of dealing with a new baby in the house.  Either way, it was very frustrating for us.  Anyway, a few days later, Trent, Brooke and Jade went to Nevada to see family, and he left Bristol with me.  That was a big mistake.  I was trying to take care of a less than two week old baby, and Bristol was left with no one to play with since Brooke and Jade were both gone.  She was getting into everything, and I was getting very upset.  Other than taking care of Aspen, I was also hoping to get some things done.  However, I quickly realized that wasn't going to happen so I resigned myself to taking care of Aspen and just trying to entertain Bristol.  Things were a lot better after that, but I was kind of irritated that I didn't get to relax or accomplish much during those few days.  Since then, things have improved with Bristol.  She often asks to hold Aspen and will give her hugs and kisses.  Sometimes, though, Bristol will randomly hit her, pull on her, or try to pick her up.  I think she does that mostly because she enjoys our reaction.  When Aspen gets older, it will be nice for both of them because they'll have each other to play with.  Right now, Bristol and Jade play together quite nicely for most of the day while Brooke is at school so Aspen and Bristol will be able to do the same when the two oldest are both in school. 









One Month

As of this past Friday, Aspen is already one month old.  She still doesn't do much of course, but I can tell that she is definitely growing.  She already seems a lot bigger until I see other babies.  Then I realize that she is still pretty small.  On Thursday, she goes to the doctor for a check-up, and we'll see how much she weighs.  I know that she's gained at least two pounds, though. 

On her one month "birthday".

Aspen has also been working on her crying skills.  A couple of weeks ago she started crying a lot more.  Sometimes it is for as long as an hour and for no discernible reason.  That hasn't been too enjoyable, but it hasn't been that bad.  Sometimes it is just at an inconvenient time like when I should be making dinner and Trent is at work.  Then we usually end up having dinner late or eating something like cereal.  Luckily, Aspen doesn't do this in the middle of the night, and I had to deal with a lot more crying from Jade when she was a newborn (and I survived).  She would cry for hours, including in the middle of the night.  That didn't last forever, though, and I know this won't either.

Awake (and not crying!)

Baby Aspen

Aspen was born three and a half weeks ago, but time just seems to be flying by because it doesn't feel like it was that long ago.  She was born on October 25 at 3:58pm, and she was 5 lbs. 10.8 oz and 19 inches long.  I don't know why they didn't just round up or down and say 11 or 10 oz., but they didn't.  So now I feel like I have to say the .8, and it seems a little too specific but oh well.  Even though I was induced ten days early, I was surprised that she was that small.  I thought that she would be at least six pounds since Bristol was 6 lbs. 5.5 oz. and she was two weeks early.  Even the newborn size diapers were big on Aspen, and when we brought her home, all of her smallest clothes were huge on her.  I can tell that she's grown because now the diapers fit her just right and she fills out her clothes better.

The delivery went well.  I was actually a little nervous about being induced especially since I was only dilated to two the day of the induction.  I was worried that I would be in pain longer, but it went better than I expected.  We arrived at the hospital at 7:30am, and they started me on antibiotics.  This time around I had group B strep (which is part of the reason for my induction) so I had to have antibiotics so it wouldn't be passed on to the baby.  Since my labors are usually so fast, I wasn't even induced until 11:30am.  They wanted to make sure that I had the first round of the antibiotics (which takes about four hours to administer) before I was even in labor.  So for those four hours, we didn't do much.  The nurse took care of a whole bunch of administrative stuff with me, and then I napped a little.  Trent read, surfed the internet on his iPod, and went and ate lunch.  It was nice to have that time to nap and relax before labor.  Then at 11:30am, the doctor broke my water and they started a little pitocin.  For the next two hours, I had contractions, but they didn't hurt at all.  Sometimes I wasn't even sure if I was having one or not.  Then they started to hurt a little but just barely.  That lasted for an hour, and then all of the sudden at about 3pm they started hurting a lot more.  The nurse checked me, and I was dilated to a 4.5.  She checked me again at 3:30pm, and I was a 7 so she turned the pitocin off and called my doctor.  The doctor was there in fifteen or twenty minutes, and they quickly got the bed and everything else ready.  By that time, I was at ten.  The doctor told me to push whenever I was ready.  I was ready right then, and Aspen was out in just a couple of minutes.  So I was really only in pain for about an hour.  I just wonder how fast labor would have been, or at least the painful part of it, if I wasn't induced and went into labor on my own.  I am glad that I was induced, though, because I was able to have the baby in Tucson, and we were able to know when Trent's mom should come to help us.

Oh yeah, Aspen's middle name is Beverly.  Trent't mother's mother was named Beverly, and her birthday was also October 25.  She was killed in a plane crash when Gayle was a young adult so Trent never met her.  We thought that this would be a nice memorial of her.

Two Years Old

Bristol turned two years old on October 20, and we did nothing for her birthday that day.  Instead we waited until Sunday the 23rd.  Trent had to work (he leaves at 1pm), and his next day off was Sunday.  Since I was going to be having the baby two days later and I was trying to also prepare for that, I didn't bother making a whole birthday cake.  I just made cupcakes, and I am sure that Bristol didn't care either way.  While waiting to sing and then eat the cupcakes, Bristol was very funny.  She kept saying "cupcakes" because she was eager to eat them.

Bristol is getting to be more fun especially now that she is talking a lot more.  She frequently says "I love you" and gives lots of hugs and kisses.  She is also pretty tough.  Like many toddlers, she falls down or gets hurt a lot, but it often doesn't bug her at all.  Recently, she had her blood drawn to check for lead (tangent: I am pretty sure none of my other kids had this done but the pediatrician here says they do it at one, two and four years so I am wondering if it has something to do with this area), and when they did it, it didn't bother her one bit.  I was worried that she was going to cry and squirm, but she was fine.

One funny thing about Bristol is that she still doesn't have much hair for her age.  When she was one, she was still pretty bald.  She definitely has more hair now, but compared to most two year olds, she doesn't have much.  Although when I look at pictures of her from a few months ago in the summer, she has more now so I guess it has been growing lately.  I think that I expected her to have more hair because Brooke and Jade did (especially Jade), but at least I don't have to worry about doing Bristol's hair yet.