It's been awhile...

So, I've been away from the blog for almost a month now, partially because I've been busy with 2 kids & partially because somethings have transpired that I haven't wanted to commit to paper (or computer screen or whatever). Here's a brief overview of the last month, I'm sure more details will follow:

1. Cooper is now 9 1/2 weeks old. Still very long & skinny, totally the opposite of Gavin. He is eating well & sleeping VERY well (almost too much at night). He has started to coo (sort of sounds like he's saying "how") & is giving big smiles anytime he is well-fed. Still totally feels like a newborn though, only 9 1/2 lbs.

2. Gavin has been having a blast this summer. He got two new boys at day care to play with & has completely outgrown the pull-ups. YAH!! I think a lot of the credit goes to having two boys close to his age that are potty-trained for him to watch everyday, he wants to be a big boy around them, but still wants mommy to baby him at home. He is starting to enjoy "reading" books at home, he flips through the pages & tells you what is happening & why the people are happy or sad or whatever. My favorite is his Noah's Ark book when he says "these people are being mean to God, and God is sad, they are hurting him." So funny that he picks up so much on the facial expressions in the pictures & regurgitates stuff that I have told him only once before.

Now on to the crappy stuff....

3. Barry's stepmom is still not doing too well. She was temporarily moved to a nursing home in Galesburg, but that only lasted for 2 days before she came down with an infection & had to be sent back to ICU. We did get to take advantage of the time at the nursing home & brought the boys over to see her. She had been so disappointed not to get to see Cooper up close. (I have to admit that I am relieved not to have to take Gavin back into that nursing home, though, he was really scared by all the people he saw in the front lobby, he didn't want to go back.) She is still on a ventilator & having trouble keeping her blood sugar at a good level given that she has the infected bed sore. We are still hoping that she will find the strength to get off the ventilator for good, so she can start moving towards more mobility & getting moved back home, but that seems to be far off.

4. On July 29, we lost one of our students from the campus house. I say "one of our students" but what I should say is our favorite student (if you're allowed to have favorites. Kerstin Taylor babysat for Gavin, dog-sat, & house-sat for us for the past 3 years we have been in Macomb. She is the one female student that I instantly bonded with & that we accepted into our family without hesitation. We are feeling a great personal loss & at the same time trying to discern how to meet the needs of our "kids" who have lost a friend. She was loved by everyone & known by everyone & we don't even know how this coming school year will be impacted with the loss of such a great leader, friend, and servant. I had a very brief talk with Gavin, not sure how much to even try to explain to him, but not wanting to just never mention her again. He just simply said that he would go see her at Jesus's house in a couple weeks; I told him not til he gets a lot bigger. They still haven't released her cause of death, but it seems to have been heart failure or something similar, very quick & unexpected.

5. We found a house that we were just in love with, and everything seemed to being falling into place: we had a great renter for our home, it had a pool, was totally within our budget, had a small room off the master suite (my scrapbook nook), and was only a block from our day care lady, but in the end another offer was accepted. It was at first very discouraging because we are so ready to move & get Cooper settled into his own room (or a shared room with Gav). It's been an emotional roller coaster for the past 6 mos. trying to sell our house, every week or two having someone that seems interested, then having it fall through. Every time we have found a house that we liked, it has been sold so quickly. We've heard that houses just aren't selling this year, but everything we want to buy certainly has. I'm trying to be patient & just let God work it out, but it's so hard at the same time. There is so much second guessing involved, I could make myself crazy re-thinking whether we should have offered more, or if we should have taken that ridiculously low offer that we got a few months back. We're at a place now that we really don't want or need to profit from the house, just sell it so that we don't have to own two places at once.

5. School starts in less than 2 weeks, and I think this is the first time I am happy to say goodbye to summer. I miss the hustle of students in town, and the busyness that overwhelms us at times but reminds us that we are doing something productive. I have missed the college students, at times they seem to be my only friends, and have missed Gavin's friendships with them as well. He has 50 some aunts & uncles that smother him with attention, so I know the summers are probably a bit of a letdown for him as well. I am excited to see how my new position really takes off when the kids are back in town as well. It's been a slow summer for me with trying to learn a new position in the midst of taking a 6-week maternity leave.

I've done a lot of thinking this summer...about my role at home, at CSC, at our local church and I've decided that I haven't been putting myself out there as much as I should to get to know people, students, my co-workers. I let myself stay busy at home with the kids so much that I have come to realize that I haven't formed the kinds of deep friendships that I had back in Downs. I have a few close friends, but in the absence of a small group to be involved in, I haven't felt quite the sense of community that I once depended on so much. I know my life as a campus minister's wife & as a mom is unique & to some extent limits my ability to have close friends, but I have made that an easy excuse not to get close to people. I'm not sure what I need to do to break out of my rut, but I now know I'm going to have to try more, friendships don't come as easy for me as they used to.


P.S. I hate how long this is, without any pictures....sorry

Proof that he is my son

Just because people always insist that Gavin is a "little Barry." I thought I would post these two pictures that showed up on my camera last month. I would assume Gavin took the one of me judging by the odd angle. See, he DOES look like me!

Cooper - 6 Weeks

It's hard to believe that Cooper is just over 6 weeks now. He has grown & changed so much and of course I have been so busy enjoying him that I have fallen off the blogging bandwagon, so now to quickly sum up how the last 6 weeks have been....

* The c-section went as planned. I went in to surgery at 7:30, and he was out at 7:39 without any complications. The worst part of the whole ordeal was the 5 attempts it took to get the IV in my arm. Also, have to say having a catheter put in is sooo much worse when you can actually feel it.

* Cooper was 7 lbs. 8 oz. & 19 3/4 in. long. His face looked so much like Gavin's right from the get-go that I was really having a hard time not calling him Gavin (still happens every now & then.) There wasn't much debate about his name, it was the name we had picked for Gavin, but then Barry changed our mind (yes, that's how I meant to word that) and he became Gavin. So, I finally have my Cooper. Gavin calls him Bubba or CJ, but Daddy is trying to make Coop stick, so we'll see...

* My recovery wasn't too bad, but the first 2 days home from the hospital were the worst part, just did soooo much more moving at home than I was doing at the hospital. I was so thankful to have my sister & her kids staying with Gavin. He was so busy having fun with them that he didn't feel abandoned by me or Barry. Boy, did I miss him that week though, it was nice to be home so I could have more time with him.

* Cooper had his one-month checkup (which actually ended up being at 5 weeks 5 days, and is now 9 lbs. 4 oz. & 23.5 in. long. He's 80% for height & 20% for head size & weight. Kind of the opposite of Gavin, at least in regards to his weight. Gavin put on weight soo fast & his head always seemed to big for his body. The biggest indicator that Cooper is really long: We had to move the straps on his carseat up to the second set of holes cause he sits so tall in the seat. I also noticed that the seat only goes up to 29 in. & he is already over 23! If he grows another 4 in. in the next 6 weeks, he'll be out of this carrier way earlier than Gavin was!

* About week 3, we all came down with colds that were pretty nasty. Gavin's only lasted a few days, but Barry was sick for almost 2 full weeks. We'll all saw the dr. during that time & probably dropped $200 on medicines (I know at one point I was taking 4 different things everyday & several of them more than once a day.) What a relief it was to get past that time.

* We spent week 5 in Indy with my family, so Gavin got more time to play with Addie & Avery. He enjoyed fishing, swimming, papa's boat, the big playground, the rock climbing wall, fireworks on the 4th, and probably the highlight of the week: Seeing Toy Story 3 at "the big movie place." He is still talking about how we can see Toy Story 3 again next time we go to gramaw & papa's house. We were also able to get some good pictures of the whole family & take the kids to get cousin pictures together for the first time.

* I started back to work this week & actually survived my first few days without any tears. It was rough trying to settle down to sleep the first night, with my mind racing about everything I needed to take to day care & remember to talk to her about. I was anxious but it helped that I feel really comfortable with our day care situation now. Nikie has been so good with Gavin & really understanding of how tough it is to head back to work. I'm surprised how easy the transition really was. It helped that Cooper gave me & Barry his first real smile the weekend right before he started at day care. I knew it would be any day now, and was nervous about him having some of his "firsts" at day care when I wasn't around. Now, if I can just get him to save his first laugh & his first steps for me that will be great!

* On a sort of unrelated note, we've been making trips to Peoria every weekend that we are free as Barry's stepmom has been in ICU at a special hospital there. She had bulging discs in her neck that required surgery the week that Cooper was born, and was left partially paralyzed. Since that time, she has made tremendous progress in regaining mobility but is still on a ventilator & unable to see the kids until she gets out of ICU. Prayers for her continued recovery would be appreciated. How hard it must be to not be able to see the boys, when I know she really wants to. We've discovered that we can hold them up outside her window, but she won't be able to hold them for quite awhile still.

Here are some pictures of the past 6 weeks!




 





 

The dimple

Early morning hours

4 days to go....

I'm only 4 days away from my scheduled C-section, and really starting to go stir-crazy. I had kept hoping that I would go into labor sooner & not have to spend the 3-day weekend at home waiting, but have since given up hope that things will progress any sooner than planned. I don't think all the castor oil, foot rubs, and walking in the world can make this baby come out any sooner.

Gavin is getting very excited now that his paper chain is down to enough links that he can count them all by himself...he insists that the babies bed should be in his room, so we may have a little fight about that when we move the bassinet back into our room. After a few nights of the baby crying, surely he will change his mind about wanting to share a room.

To help kill the time this weekend, I'm hoping to find as much fun stuff for the 3 of us to do as possible. In lieu of our usual garage sales on saturday, Gavin will be competing in a fishing contest, which I would imagine will be pretty funny. Maybe if he has good luck there, he'll be asked to go on the Pim boys fishing trip, as they never seem to catch anything (except a lot of slack from the wives they leave behind...)

Unfortunately, none of the area pools are open yet, but we may have to get a kiddie one with how hot it will be. Would be nice to lounge in a pool at least once this summer, not sure how much I'll get too post-surgery.

Next post, you should see some pictures of the newest Reed Boy!!!

Baby Gavin - Oct. 2007

I've been taking a trip down memory lane lately, thinking about what Gavin looked like when he was first born & how funny his facial expressions were.
Only 18 days (maybe less) until we get to meet his little brother. I can't wait to see how excited Gavin is after waiting so long for "Bubba" to arrive.
He's probably starting to think there isn't a baby at all, just mommy's big tummy.

He has a paper chain on his wall, and loves taking on off everyday, but doesn't seem to know what he is counting down towards....





I have a funny feeling that Bubba will look just like Gavin, and we'll have a hard time telling the pictures apart.