Some pictures.....finally!

Most people reading this know most of the details, but here they are again:

Our precious little boy, Andrew Dean (Drew) Sloan was born on September 22, 2008 (Mommy's birthday!) at 2:24pm. He weighed 8lbs, 4oz and was 20 inches long. He looks a lot like his older brother! We got to the hospital at around 10:30 and he was born less than four hours later, so it was a fairly uncomplicated delivery (aside from the fact that I didn't have an epidural and I never could have imagined a pain so awful!).

We're doing great....the adjustment hasn't been as bad as I expected (so far!). Drew still sleeps almost all the time; every day since Saturday, he's had two or three long periods (30 minutes to 1.5 hours) of awake time per day, but for the most part he still sleeps almost all day. So far, he seems to be a little bit more laid back than Grant. From the very beginning, Grant would wake up and cry like crazy when he was hungry. When Drew wakes up, he whimpers and fusses a little bit to say that he's hungry, but he doesn't cry very much at all. I'd say my biggest problem right now is getting him to eat enough at each feeding....he tends to fall asleep after just a few minutes, and then he wakes up wanting to eat again after sometimes only 1 or 1.5 hours.

And Grant has welcomed his new brother much more easily than I'd expected. The first couple of days after getting home were hard for him; he'd lay on the floor and cry when he saw us holding Drew. But by Sunday, he was okay watching me holding or feeding him. And he doesn't seem to resent me like I thought he might. But he's become quite possessive of Dean.....he still gets quite upset when he sees Dean holding the baby.

Something really cute happened a couple of nights ago. Grant wanted Drew to lay on his little couch next to him. He laid there and held Drew's hand for probably 15 minutes. A couple of times Drew started to fuss a little, and I'd start to pick him up, but Grant grabbed him and pulled him down next to him again! It was really precious. Grant just looks enormous laying next to his tiny brother! He likes to hold his hands and feet, and he points to his umbilical cord and says "ouchie!"

I am loving having a little newborn again....these past few days have just been wonderful. I look at my two sweet little boys and feel so richly blessed!

Here are a few pictures....

Drew on the scale: 8 pounds, 4.2 ounces
He was sucking his thumb when they brought him back to me after being cleaned up! Since then, he hasn't figured out how to do that again!

Getting burped for the first time.....so tiny!
Nana, Papa and Aunt Corie brought Grant over that night to meet Drew. He'd look at him and call him "baby" and "Drew," but he was more interested in playing with the balloon that Rob, Leah and Evan sent!

Grant's second visit, on Tuesday afternoon. He'd walk over and touch his hands and toes, but again, he was more interested in trying to eat my food or finding things to play with in the hospital room!
Daddy changing Drew's diaper....
Drew didn't care for it too much!
Sweet picture of Daddy and Drew (during one of his rare awake times!).

Grant and Aunt Corie on Wednesday, after we came home. Grant had SO much fun playing with his Aunt Corie (and Nana) while they were here. He'd take Corie's hand and drag her all over the place to play with her. He was mad at her when she had to leave on Thursday morning! He did so well with all of them while we were in the hospital for two days....they played outside a lot and watched many episodes of Super Why! I don't know what we would've done if they hadn't been here to take care of Grant during those days.

Belly pictures and baby update

Taken the night before we evacuated......Wednesday, Sept 10 (2 days shy of 38 weeks, according to Sept 26 due date):Taken in Bryan on Sept 14:

I saw my doctor this morning. I am now almost 4cm dilated, and 80-90% effaced! He told me that our hospital is taking in a lot of patients who would ordinarily deliver their babies at UTMB in Galveston (which is closed). So right now they're checking on whether I'll still be able to be induced on Monday (it's an elective procedure, and they may not have enough room). Now that Dean's parents are here, I'm wondering whether it would be better to just wait to go into labor naturally.....I've heard that labor is more intense when you're induced. And this probably sounds crazy, but I'm considering not getting an epidural this time.....I don't think my epidural did much good last time.....but I am definitely open to it if I'm in enough pain!

Anyway, I'm still feeling pretty good, but my sciatica has been bothering me quite a bit the past few days (and nights). Last night I woke up really uncomfortable, and ended up going downstairs and laying on the couch at around 3:45. But I really feel blessed......I was in so much pain when I was only 30 weeks pregnant with Grant, so I can handle a few days of discomfort!

I will post some pictures of our time in Bryan tomorrow if I get a chance......but we will see how much longer Drew decides to wait!

We're home!

The past few days have been kind of a blur....here's a synopsis of what has happened. We found out on Monday afternoon that the power in our neighborhood had been restored. This was wonderful news.....by this time, less than 30% of CenterPoint's customers had been restored, so we were among the earliest! And by Monday, Clear Lake's hospital was open, but my doctor's office still was not. So we decided to wait until Tuesday to leave.

We had so much fun on Monday.....it was nice and cool outside, so after Grant's nap we went over to Research Park (on A&M's campus). Grant ran around, looked at the ducks, and had a good time!

Then we went to eat dinner at Harvey Washbanger's (Dean's favorite place to get hamburgers in B/CS). We ate outside and Grant's dinner consisted of about half of Dean's french fries! Of course I couldn't get him to eat even one bite of my chicken, but he loves french fries! I'm glad we're raising such a healthy eater. :)

On Tuesday morning we headed back to Houston. As we drove into the northwest part of town, things didn't look too much different than normal......a few awnings and signs were down, but I didn't notice much more than that (at least on the highway). But the farther south we got (especially once we got on I-45), it started to look really dumpy. Most of the billboards were pulled off their structures, and there were bent telephone poles and store signs everywhere. It was a little bit shocking once we got off the interstate to head to our house......most of the stoplights were mangled and hanging awkwardly. The boulevard that goes towards our house has tons of trees, and many of them were laying on the ground. Our neighborhood was full of people cleaning up the messes in their backyards.....mostly just a lot of tree limbs and fallen fences.

It was just a little bit eerie walking in to our house......there was definitely a smell (a mixture of spoiled foods and kitty litter that hadn't been cleaned in five days!). And our backyard looked so much different to me. There were shingles laying all over the yard (even though we only lost them in a couple of places), and Grant's playground was a little mangled. Part of our fence separating our front and back yards was completely on the ground, and the trees were missing so many of their leaves. It felt like we had left our house in the middle of the summer, then came back in January! Our crepe myrtles and hibiscus plants were beautiful and blooming when we left, and they looked so bare.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but I largely expected that everything would pretty much look like normal. We spent most of Tuesday just cleaning up (and thankfully our neighbor Brynna came over to play with Grant, which was a WONDERFUL help!). Yesterday we cleaned up the front yard, and we went out to get some cat supplies. We also went shopping at the Randall's down the street, which was operating on generators. The store was SO dark inside.....certain aisles were lit up, but others looked almost pitch black.....we should have brought a flashlight! And they were still in the process of removing food from the freezers.....I can't imagine how many millions of dollars worth of food has been thrown away across this area by all of the grocery stores that lost power!

Today Dean went back to work.....and my doctor's office is finally open! By the time I finally got through, my doctor was booked for today. But I'll go in tomorrow afternoon for a checkup. I feel Drew moving around quite a bit, so I haven't been worried about him. Dean's parents are on their way here as I write this.....they should be here in a few hours. And this morning, Grant and I went to Target, which has power and is already on their way towards restocking perishable foods. Dean's parents are bringing some meat and other things with them, so that should get us through until the stores are restocked! And I also noticed when we were out that the city is making a lot of progress in clearing away debris and cutting up the trees that have fallen. I can't imagine what this area looked like just after the storm passed......and it makes me wonder what Galveston looks like. Yikes!!

Some pictures we took for insurance......here's one of the sections where the shingles came off:The downspout from our gutter was bent around our house (and now has completely come unattached).

Grant's swingset/playground:The fence separating the front and back yards (Dean has already propped this up). Many fences in our neighborhood were completely down, so I guess this isn't so bad!
This little pool was between the shed and the house. The wind blew it out and whipped it around so it rested here! Kind of interesting to me.....

Storm

Thank you Katy, Shalonda, and Meg for your comments!! Shalonda, I will get in touch with you as soon as things get back to normal!

We are up in Bryan now at my parents' house....we've been here since Thursday. We woke up Thursday morning to find out that our zip code was one of the mandatory evacuation areas in Harris County. We live in Clear Lake, fairly close to Galveston Bay. The storm surge would have to be 20 feet high to flood our house, but there was a threat of that. So we packed up quickly and left our house by 10:30am....I didn't want a repeat of our Rita evacuation a few years ago, especially when I was almost 38 weeks pregnant!

Thankfully it only took us 2.5 hours to get here, only 30 minutes longer than normal. Even up here in Bryan, the storm was pretty bad....I'm glad we weren't in Houston or in the direct path of Ike!! My parents, Grandma and Dean ended up spending quite a bit of time yesterday cleaning up leaves and small branches that had fallen off the trees in their yard. They filled up 5 or 6 garbage bags! But as far as our house goes, we found out that our friend Stephen (who lives a couple of streets away) went by our house and saw only some fence damage. We are thankful for that! And of course we don't have power, but I'm checking regularly to see updates.....as of right now, I think only 27% of all Center Point customers have electricity.

We are planning to go down there at some point in the next couple of days....the hospital where I'm delivering the baby is open (as of this morning), but my OB's office is closed indefinitely. So I'm not sure it's wise to go back if my doctor is not even available! But we'd like to at least go back to check on our cats and to throw away all of our spoiled food before it starts to smell really bad! It was really frustrating.....Grant and I had gone to WalMart on Wednesday and I bought a ton of perishable food, not realizing that the storm was turning towards us. So now we have a refrigerator and freezer full of spoiled foods.....and I HATE to waste, so this has been driving me crazy! Oh well, what can you do??!

We are keeping an eye on things today....we will see what happens! There's a chance I might have this baby here in Bryan! Margaret, if you happen to read this before I talk to you, my dad talked to a friend of his who's an OB, so he gave us his number to call in case I go into labor. Last night, I could have sworn I was going into labor because I had a bunch of Braxton-Hicks contractions in a span of about an hour. And they started to become a little painful, too. But they eventually stopped, which was a relief! My parents and Grandma left today for Mexico, so I'm not sure what we'll do with Grant if I go into labor!! It's just not the way we expected all of this to go! Dean said that maybe we should name the baby Andrew Ike Sloan!!

Evan's Party

First, some pictures from Evan's party, and then an update of this week.....

The birthday boy!! The party was a train theme, so Evan looked like a little conductor!

Grant loved playing with Evan's new train set, and also with his Thomas flashlight. He carried this thing around with him for so long.....poor Evan's toys were used by the time he finally got to play with them! Evan's cousin Sophie is the little girl in the picture.....
He found the cupcakes!!
That little stinker kept (quietly) reaching up onto the counter to get more frosting, before we realized what he was up to!

This is Leah's good friend Brooke.....Grant had never met her before but formed an attachment with her! Towards the end of the party he'd grab her hand and tug her along with him wherever he wanted to go!
Rob and Evan.....Evan looks so much like Rob when he was little (at least to me!).
Evan and Grant playing together after the party.....Grant loved these little water bottles.....I think it made him feel like a big boy to drink out of them!

The kiss!! If only Grant hadn't had his paci in his mouth!
Me and Leah.....
Me and Rob.....
Grant only slept for about 45 minutes on the way home and was actually quite fussy. But for some reason, he perked up once we got into Houston and was all smiles! Here, we were getting gas, and Dean kept making faces at him from outside the car (Grant loved it....why couldn't he have been this happy during the whole car ride??!).

Now an update from this week, which has flown by.....Grant had a high fever on Monday for a little while but never showed any real symptoms (except that he fell asleep on my lap on the couch, which means he really didn't feel good.....he never does that anymore!). His fever was gone by Tuesday, although he's still acted very fussy and tired this week.

I had my checkup with my OB on Monday.....thankfully he still thinks I'm 2cm dilated and no more than 50% effaced (whereas his nurse practitioner thought it was more like 70% last week.....). Hopefully this means I can make it to the 22nd, when I'm tentatively scheduled to be induced!

I probably shouldn't have dropped Grant off at Mother's Day Out on Tuesday since he had a fever within the past 24 hours, but I am a bad mom and did it anyway! I had an eye appointment at 9:30am, so in my defense, I wouldn't have taken him if it weren't for that. And I picked him up immediately after my appointment was over......so I'm not THAT bad, right?? I just knew it would turn out horribly if I had tried to take him with me. It was SO nice being able to ask the doctor questions.....and I spent as much time as I needed afterwards looking for glasses.

By the way.....for any pregnant women.....my eye doctor told me (I never knew this) that it's not good for your eyes to wear contacts when you're pregnant, and especially during labor (and for a month afterwards). I've noticed that my eyes have been really dry lately, so I'm planning on wearing my glasses for at least the next 6 weeks or so. Just an FYI, to anyone who wears contacts and may not have known that!

And....lastly.....we are keeping our eyes on Ike. I couldn't believe today that the projected path has come up towards Houston again. I know it will likely change again, though......and even on the news tonight, they made no mention of any evacuations in Harris County (we live in southeast Houston, so we're in one of the storm surge areas). I'm definitely hoping for some much-needed rain, but hopefully it will stay far enough away to spare us the strong winds! My worst fear is that I'd go into labor on Saturday morning and be forced to drive in 75 mph winds to get to the hospital! And, we're supposed to go to the Astros' game on Friday night with my friend Margaret and a lot of her family. Her family has an entire box for that game, and they invited us to go. Dean has been looking forward to it so much, so I hope we can still go (even though it's not looking very likely now....).

And....one more thing....I found out tonight that Grant's Mother's Day Out is canceled for tomorrow because of the storm. Waaaahhhh!! Grant has been really pushing my buttons (especially today) and I was very much looking forward to a break tomorrow! Oh well, maybe we will go and get donuts in the morning (that always makes for a fun adventure and gets us out of the house for at least a little while......).

No worries, Dean is fine.....

He survived the night! He read the blog before we went to sleep and said this morning, "well, at least I'm still alive." Last night, I told Dean that he just had to accept the fact that I was going to be mad at him for a few hours.....and I do feel much better today. I'm getting used to Grant's new look and I can honestly say that he DOES look more clean-cut now (he REALLY was needing a haircut badly!).

We left at 7am to head to Austin for our nephew Evan's 2nd birthday party. We had so much fun! Leah did a great job with the train theme, and all the kids loved playing with Evan's new toys! At one point after the party was over and everyone else was gone, we sat Evan and Grant down next to each other and asked them to give each other a kiss. They leaned in and touched their faces together.....it was so cute! I will post a picture of that (and others) when I get a chance.

Please pray that I don't kill Dean tonight!!

I know this sounds vain and is not a big deal in the scheme of things, but right now it seems like a big deal and I'm so sad. Tonight when Dean was bathing Grant, he cut his hair.....he has definitely needed it for a while, and I've made a couple of appointments to get both Grant's and my hair cut in the past week, but I've had to cancel them because Dean hasn't been able to leave work to come with us (and we definitely need an extra pair of hands to help with haircuts!).

Well, Dean cut it tonight in the bath, and it is very short. I think the front and sides look fine, but he cut about 2 inches straight off the back.....meaning that all of Grant's cute curls are gone.....all of them! Again, this sounds very vain of me, but I loved Grant's shaggy hair and it was shocking to see it all gone, without even any warning. And what's worse is that he still needs a haircut, because now it's all the same length in the back, making it look like that awful 70s-style haircut (if you've seen the movie "No Country for Old Men," think about the hairstyle of the bad guy). I tried to trim and layer it a little bit, but I was scared I'd make it look even more weird.

Anyway, again, we could have MUCH bigger issues than this, and I guess in a day or two I'll be over it. But I'm sure Grant won't have curly hair forever, and I was hoping to enjoy it for a little bit longer! Who knows.....maybe it will grow in curly again. I told Dean he could never touch Grant's hair again.....poor thing, he was just trying to be helpful and I guess he didn't realize that my definition of a "trim" and his are much different!

First Day of School and Happy Birthday Evan!

First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our sweet nephew Evan! Hope you have a good birthday, and we look forward to seeing you on Saturday!

Today was Grant's first day of school! I got a little teary-eyed as he woke up this morning, and I also teared up a little bit as we pulled into the parking lot. But after dropping him off, I got distracted by talking to friends, so I was fine when I left the parking lot! And it was a great feeling to have three free hours in my day! I went shopping at resale shops for a couple of things I still need for Drew (without much success). But it's so much easier to get errands done without taking Grant along with me!

Here are some pictures of Grant with his backpack and lunchbox as we were getting ready to leave this morning:


He only stayed from 9am to 12pm....they don't stay until 2pm until next week. While we walked down the hallway towards his room in the morning, we could hear kids crying all over the place! And in his classroom, there were three kids standing by the door just sobbing, plus another little girl crying while being held by her mom outside the door! Grant cried as I handed him off to his teacher, but a friend told me a few minutes later said that he was doing fine when she walked by his room.

I picked him up at around 11:55, and Grant was the last one to be picked up! His teachers said he did great! Apparently when they went outside to play, Grant lifted up his hands and screamed "outside!" I've never heard Grant say the entire word "outside," so this would be a first! Most likely he said "ide," but it didn't surprise me that he was excited to be able to play outside.....at home, he begs to go outside more times per day than I can count!

And.....that boy has no fear! He has started doing this regularly: when I pick him up, he wants to get out of my arms and run all over the place. Today I could hardly keep up with him! He'd take off running and never even look back to see if I was following him. So we walked around the church and played a little more before getting in the car (where he fell asleep after less than five minutes!). Anyway, I was so happy that he had a successful first day!

Here is a belly picture we took on Sunday (Aug 31)- 36 weeks according to my doctor's due date of Sept 26, and 35 weeks according to my original due date of Oct 3:
I went to my weekly checkup yesterday, and I met with the nurse practitioner (my doctor is out of town this week). She thinks I'm about 2cm dilated now, and 70% effaced. Last week, I made an appointment to be induced on Sept 22 (my birthday!), when I'll be over 39 weeks pregnant. Yesterday the nurse practitioner said she'd be surprised if I make it that far! I hope I do.....I still don't feel mentally ready yet, although I feel like I'm getting closer. I'm definitely getting excited to meet little Drew......I'm just not sure I'm ready for all the changes that will come with him!

Meet the Teacher Day

Yesterday Grant and I went up to our old church to meet his teachers for Mother's Day Out (his first day is tomorrow!). At our new church, he has been doing SO well in the nursery over the past 6 or 7 weeks....he always runs in there and starts playing, and he doesn't even notice that we're gone. So I was hoping he'd do the same thing yesterday, even though his MDO is at the same church where he had so many problems for so long.

He was only in the room for about 30 minutes (the parents had a short meeting with the director of the program). He did cry when I left, and his teachers said he cried off and on during those 30 minutes (although I know there were other kids who cried a lot more!). I was a little disappointed.....I wonder if he just has bad memories from that place and will always be nervous in there! I really hope not!

Anyway, I am trying to make a mental list of the things I want to do from 9 to 12 tomorrow (he'll usually stay until 2pm, but that doesn't start until next week). I want to make sure I make the most out of those three free hours! But Dean says I need to be careful not to wear myself out. I love being with Grant, but I am very excited to be able to do errands without fighting with Grant every time we get into and out of the car!


By the way......this is a side-by-side comparison of two US Weekly magazines that have hit the shelves in the past two months. Media bias, anyone?????