Showing off baby brother

Young Linc entertained his first non-family visitors on Saturday, our friends Gardner & Allison. Greta had a great time sharing Grandma with Jay while the adults relaxed on the balcony. Grandma reports that at one point after she briefly held Jay while cutting up grapes for a snack, Greta turned to her and said, "This not your Jay, this MY Jay. MY Jay, Grandma." Carey remarked how interesting it was that Greta was possessive of Jay and not her grandmother. She was rewarded at the end of the afternoon though with a big hug and what Jay called a "smooch." It was a tad aggressive, but Greta was just coquettish enough to let Jay go home with a smile on his face. Carey also noticed how interested Greta was in her little brother when put in a position to show him off. She watched him wiggle in his bouncy seat, patted him on the head, and brought him make-believe cake from her tea party. Toddler show & tell, I guess. Both G and Alli took turns holding Lincoln, with Garnder looking particularly uncle-ish.

While the camera battery charges...

No pix to post, but a few stories. The other day while Carey and I were still at the hospital with Lincoln, Greta wakes up from her nap and she and Grandma go downstairs to play. Greta begins to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Makes it through the first couple lines no problem, but stops just before "like a diamond in the sky." Looks at Grandma and plaintively says: "Help me out here!"

Big Sister is also learning how to share. We have a bouncy seat that she remembers. Probably because she sat in it all the way up to 18 months. (It converts into a rocker.) Anyway, it's now one more place to put Lincoln as you run around the house picking up Greta's toys or relax for 3 minutes at breakfast. This morning Carey was doing the latter, so she pulled the chair into the eat-in kitchen and plopped him down in it. Greta was playing nicely at the kitchen table, using molds to make shapes out of Play-Doh. But when Lincoln's little fanny hit that bouncy seat, out came the screams of "No! Mine! Mine! Mine!" Carey intones a lesson about sharing in her best pedantic voice. Tears are streaming down Greta's face. Carey promises Greta can sit in it after breakfast, when Lincoln is done with it. But Big Sister is relentless. Continues throughout breakfast to point out that it's her chair and Lincoln is just borrowing it. After breakfast, Mommy picks up Lincoln and Greta drags the chair out of the kitchen. Makes it all the way to the living room, then tires from pulling it. I ask her where she wants the chair to go. "Upstairs," she says. "Not for Lincoln."

Memorandum

To: Lincoln David Merrill
From: Your father

Welcome to your new home. If this is going to work, we have to establish some ground rules.

• No peeing on Daddy. So far, so good, although that's probably due more to the fact that I've changed one diaper and your mother has done about a dozen.
• Sleep at least two hours at a stretch. You actually did quite well last night, dozing from 11-1 and 3-5. Keep that up and you'll attend a very nice college.
• Do everything your sister says. We don't have the energy to deal with an unhappy 2-year-old.
• Teethe before you're 1.
• Potty train before you're 2.
• But don't grow up too fast; this is our last go-round with an infant.

Discharge day!

14:31 on Thursday and we're home from the hospital. A cozy 72-hour stay. Carey got some rest and a few consults with the lactation lady. So far Linc eats like a champ. And often. When he's not eating, he sucks his thumb or imitates The Awakening sculpture by reaching with his wrinkly hands toward the sky.

God bless grandma

Ignore the fact that I've enjoyed a sit-down dinner for three nights and my kitchen is immaculate, and instead salute Grandma for what she really represents: Non-stop play time! Couldn't have done it without you, Vickie... thanks!

B&W Lincoln

My wife is hot

Lincoln is cute and all, but with the mammary glands all topped off, Carey is a picture of maternal bliss. I think it helps that she had her first post-birth shower this morning. Looks like we're on track for a Thurs. a.m. discharge.

Video to make you go awwwww...

Hand to God, Greta sang this Monday night, after we told her Lincoln came out of Mommy's tummy and couldn't wait to see her on Tuesday. (Click the small play button on the lower left of the window to watch.)

Sibling rivalry

Happy to report there's none so far! Might have something to do with the fact that Lincoln gave Greta a gift on his birthday! A wand, ballet slippers and a tutu. Have I mentioned yet how happy I am to have a son? It's awful nice to balance the family gender scale.

First slideshow

From the 7.2 mega-pixel camera instead of the 1.2 mp smart phone. But it turns out I was so busy live-blogging on the tiny keyboard that I only have 11 good shots! More today, I promise. Carey reports he did well overnight. His big sister has a touch of the summer coughs, so I stayed home to help Grandma pat her on the back between 2-4 a.m. Off to the hospital this morning for the first sibling meeting.

Linked up

Yay, he's in our room! X-ray wasn't alarming. Best guess is a fairly common c-section complication called trig traxisomethingorother. Clears up on its own as his little body absorbs the excess lung fluid. Still, he's on IV antiobiotics for 48 hours just in case. But he stays with us unless his breathing is really labored or he does something else to surprise us.

Observations: He lacks eyebrows or eyelashes. Or maybe they're really pale and his black newborn hair will give way to blond. Very big feet, especially compared to his sister. Skin as soft as Pond's cold cream. Wrinkly back, bright red after his first bath. Likes to open his right eye and keep his left closed. Curly ears and a barely perceptible grin when he's dreaming happy thoughts.

Breathe little buddy!

The retracted breathing continues, so while we're in a post-partum room, Linc is in the treatment room getting a chest X-ray. They want to see just how much fluid is in his lungs. All other vital signs are stable, so the docs are optimistic that it's just the usual fluid retention after a C-section. Say a little prayer that he doesn't have to spend any time in the NICU.

Name this blog!

We like the alliteration and the subject/verb. So... Greta Grows & Lincoln ????? Please chime in via the comments section.

Headshot

Carey wanted hair. Looks like she got a little. Black. And still slightly slimey. Breathing is a bit retracted, but no alarm bells yet. Amnio came back negative. Lungs are fully mature. 9/9 on the Apgar, which is like a perfect SAT.

Introducing...

Lincoln David Merrill. Born June 25, 2007, 11:48 a.m. 5 lbs, 12 oz., 18 1/2 inches. More when I meet up with Carey in recovery. Gotta make some phone calls now!

In the OR!!!

We're about 10 mins from meeting this guy! Docs are chatting about Knocked Up.

Ready for the hazmat

Carey's in the OR getting the spinal and I'm all dressed up ready to find the WMDs.

Stay on target...

We think we're about 15 mins from the long walk down the cold hallway. The field is prepped (dig the doctor lingo) and Carey is drinking some sort of base to balance the acid in her stomach.

I'm about to be a Dad!!!

Progress?

We've moved to a labor & delivery room and the OR is being "turned over," just like a Motel 6. A few late HR decels from Jr. has the doctor committee on edge, so we're having a baby today regardless of amnio result. Carey's still smiling, as you can see, and I've changed into my Banana Republic crew neck. Hospitals are cold. For the record, Carey guesses that he's 6 lb, 2 oz., I predict 5 lb. 9 oz. Doc just said it'll be about 1030 when we wheel into the OR.

Zzzzzzzz...

5 a.m. came early. Got here about 510 and had the amnio done by 630. Now we wait for results and then we're "No. 2 for takeoff" as they say in the airline biz. Just got the anaethesia briefing... we'll try not to sever your spinal cord, we hope you don't get a splitting headache, you'll feel pressure and tugging but no pain. Next post post-delivery. Wish us luck!

Otto eve

It feels nice to type that name one last time. I'm sorry, son, that it won't be your moniker forever, but we won't love you any less. The name we have chosen is, ahem, downright presidential. That's a hint for anyone who checks this blog tomorrow, I guess. I think I've configured this blog to accept mobile posts from the hospital (thanks, Jack's mom!), so I'll endeavor to post a few words and a photo for all to see.

It's 9 p.m. and I just stared at my firstborn for the last time as my only child. She's in her angel sleeping post, hands over head, ascending to Heaven in her dreams. She is, if you'll indulge me, the most beautiful little girl in the world. I can't believe we're on the verge of adding another member to the family. And I really can't believe that my heart can expand enough to give back all their love.

But thank you, readers, for watching Greta grow. We'll rename this blog later in the week and I'd love to hear your suggestions. We like the subject/verb ring. Greta grows and ___ ___? You'll have the first letter tomorrow, promise.

Last weekend as a trio

Last picnic on the playground post-bagel shop, last ride on Daddy's shoulders, last trip to the zoo, last family portrait of three.

Panty raid

Pull-ups mastered, Greta is now moving swiftly into womanhood. She has 10 new pairs of underwear that she realizes belong on her bottom, but she couldn't resist pulling them over her head after we unwrapped the package. Our future sorority girl!

Why we don't eat yogurt in the car

The resolution isn't great on my camera phone, but her sunglasses are smeared with Stonyfield Farm's organic French Vanilla and her fingers are a sticky mess. This shot, of course, is just before she ran those fingers through her hair. But hey, Daddy had the foresight to put a bib on her, so after a good scrubbing at daycare, she was clean as all the other kids. And more satiated, too!

Otto update: Final checkup went well. All of your prayers must have worked. Some pre-op paperwork on Sunday and a VERY early trip to the hospital (5 a.m.!) for an amnio and delivery. Then y'all get to find out the name and we'll have a little contest to rename this here blog.

Who let the dogs out?

Ahh... 2000! We return to that halcyon year every evening at the Merrills, when Greta finishes her bath and wraps up in her Pottery Barn dog towel. After a quick pat dry, she puts it over her head and wears it like a cape while crawling out of the bathroom and around the upstairs. This, of course, causes her parents to break out into that all-too familiar chorus, punctuated with howls of "woof! woof! woof! woof! woof!"

All together now... see if you can get it out of your head. "Who let the dogs out? Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"

The beautiful game

We re-encacted my father's beautiful pen and ink drawing of Greta and me on the soccer field Sunday. Greta's holding my left hand in the drawing, but I like what the image says all the same. And I really like my broad shoulders. Would you want to mess with that guy when he has a full head of steam and a ball on his left foot?

Potty training

I guess it's working. Greta just woke me up so she could fart once on the toilet. Poor thing fell back asleep washing her hands, propped up on her forearms, leaning into the sink.

My day

It began inauspiciously with a 6:10 a.m. greeting from Greta. Carey swears she would have answered the bell if she wasn't 35+ weeks pregnant. But we had some private time together until 7:30 -- early breakfast of yogurt (always with "crunchies," which means anything from crushed Life cereal to oatmeal & honey granola sprinkled on top) and Elmo Aquadoodle play on the deck.

At 7:30 everyone showered (Greta now prefers that to taking a bath) and we made plans to get downtown for my soccer game. We loaned one of our cars to the Humphreys the day before, so it was decided that I'd bike to the field on the National Mall and Carey and Greta would Metro and meet me there. Then we'd drive home in the returned car.

I had a very relaxing pedal to the mall and the ladies took their time via mass transit. We got creamed 3-0, but Greta and Jay had a great time, with both displaying impressive ball handling and sharing skills.

Post-nap, the McMahon clan stopped by for a pool-side BBQ. Cousin Kate was as chatty as ever and cousin Lauren continues to work on her lower body strength. Girl has legs like tree trunks! It was nice to see Greta around a 7-month-old. She was curious, but not much more than that. Much more fun chasing Kate in- and outside the pool.

We ended the evening with a Father's Day cake, just to teach Greta that this is indeed one of the most special days of the year.

Cockadoodle Zoo!

That's the catchy name the folks at Smithsonian's National Zoo call their annual weekend morning when the zoo is only open to members. A minimum $50/year makes you a member. We joined a couple years ago, after calculating that the free parking, animal crackers and kid-sized popcorns would pay for themselves over the course of three visits. But today was our first "Members Only" event. I wanted to wear my jacket, but The Sopranos ruined it for me as a fashion statement. Nothing could ruin the day for Greta, though, even the fact that it took 20 minutes to find parking and it took Daddy and Gardner another 40 minutes to park the second car. But we met up near the Big Cats and had a wonderful morning. Carey tells me Greta really liked the meerkats, those cuter-than-they-should-be rodents who now star in their own Animal Planet TV show. She also admired the seals and watched the elephants get trained. Here's the photo of the day, with a link to the full slideshow.

Score one for this Dad

There are maybe 16 kids in Greta's daycare class. That translates to 16 fathers. So how many were at Father's Fun Day today?

Two. Me and the only other Dad I know -- Rock Rockenbach (real name Richard). His wife Tracey works in Carey's office. I realize a few may be keeping the world safe for Democracy in the Global War on Terror, but still the turnout was pitiful. But that's OK, because the Freihofer's danishes were even worse! That's all it was -- choose from lemon or raspberry and enjoy your Dixie Cup of water. Thanks, Dads, for all you do.

Carey swears Sunday will be much better.

Naturally I don't have any photos of Greta and me together, but I did manage a couple of her with her friends.

Father's Fun Day

No pictures of it yet because it hasn't happened, but I'm tingling with anticipation. Greta's daycare has invited all fathers into the classroom today from 3-5 p.m. and my kind boss is letting me skip out early. I biked to work, but brought the camera in my Camelbak, so should have some photos to post later tonight.

Turns out this Dad likes being recognized. :-)

Yummmm, Orajel!

Greta's final few teeth are finally coming in. So after brushing them, she asks for "medicine." Still not very good at saying no, we give her a pea-sized portion of Orajel that she likes to apply herself -- to her tongue. Thus numbing it. And forcing her to make this face.

Otto update: Two more check-ups before birth! He did well today on the monitor for 30 minutes, so we hope to make it all the way to June 25th. Yay!

How we sleep

Remember all those posts in 2006 about sleeping? (Note to fellow bloggers: this is why we should tag/label posts, so I could easily link back to every previous post about sleep.) How proud of ourselves we were that Greta slept ALL NIGHT in her own bed? How in the first two years of her life she'd spent the night in Mommy and Daddy's bed only twice?

Well, that was then. This is now:

I think it's officially a pattern. Greta sleeps fine until sometime between 4-5 a.m., then something wakes her up (often a morning train) and she saunters over to the baby gate in her doorway and says, "I want Mommy." This morning she tried "I want Mommy" a few times and when she got no response, she tried, "I want Daddy." With Father's Day just four days away, I sprang into action and we all got two more hours of sleep.

34 weeks!

In two very short weeks (fingers crossed) I'll be a father twice over. I'm starting to think that there's a direct relationship between the number of children one has and one's sentimentality. That's the only thing that explains why I got choked up reading this book excerpt from Tim Russert that I produced today at work.

Carey had her 34-week checkup today and Otto (which, sadly, will be nothing but an in-utero name soon) passed with flying colors. Still, their standard of care and her previous pregancy dictates that they operate on June 25. Which means we have just two more weeks of this singular blog title and very little time to capture memories like this one:

First swim

I worked too late on Friday to enjoy most of it, and I'm mostly sorry because I missed seeing my 34-week pregnant wife in a bathing suit. But I pulled up outside the pool and saw from Greta's smile that she had a LOT of fun. Carey reports that she wanted to put her face in the water all the time! And as you can see from the photos, it's obvious she was the coolest girl at the pool.

Jam face

Greta was in a good mood this morning so I kept her home for breakfast. Toast with jam, yogurt, half a banana and some cheese. Much more jam than Mommy usually uses, I guess. Greta seemed very excited about it. A solid three teaspoons of liquid sugar to start the day off right. She smeared it on her face, then stuck out her tongue and tried to lick it off. Mommy must have taught her that.

Flying!

Readers with kids won't find this all that profound, but here it is anyway: Parenting requires equal parts patience and imagination. The emphasis was on the latter in the Merrill household last night. I got home around 645 and Greta was just starting her dinner. She plowed through a plate of meatballs, corn and grapes and then was ready to play. But play what? All the old toys suddenly seemed, well, old. So I fell back on a less-than-imaginative option: Elmo. But even the furry red guy didn't excite her. So little, in fact, that she pretended to fall asleep on the couch. I seized the opportunity to cover her with pillows and sing, "Where, oh where, oh where is Greta?"Voila! She loved it! Wanted to play "pillows" from every position on the couch and with all eight of our couch pillows. I milked it for 15 minutes, easy, covering her up, then tickling her through the holes and uncovering her with exclamations of "peek-a-boo!"

Loved it so much that she didn't want to stop for her bath. Couldn't even get her to go upstairs. Until I noticed the laundry basket and asked her if she wanted to go flying. I swear I saw her eyebrows arch and moments later she was sitting in the basket, gripping the side rails, while I intoned in my best flight attendant voice that she should identify the emergency exits at the side and rear of the plane and make sure her tray table was in the upright and locked position. We soared up the stairs and into every room, banking high on the turns before landing gently on my dresser.

I asked Greta if it was the highest she'd ever been and she answered with a giggle -- "Yeah!" She was level with the water colors and could see herself in Carey's mirror on the other side of the room. Her smile was all I needed to end my day.

Daredevil

As Greta grows, so does her confidence. She can't jump yet (isn't that odd?), but she's beginning to think she can fly. My father will be happy to learn that we've had a couple scares on the stairs, when Greta suddenly decided to walk down them unassisted and without using the railing. And the other day this is how she decided to get off the couch. Naturally I grabbed the camera before I grabbed her waist.

Sleeptalker

Our baby girl talks in her sleep. Usually it's "I want Mommy" or "I want Daddy." We make a case-by-case decision about whether it's truly worth getting out of bed over or if she's just mumbling as she rolls over.

But she's started to vary her exclamations a bit, recently introducing, "I want cake" (yes, following our neighbor Jennifer's birthday party), and Sunday night, a new twist. First it was "I want Mommy," then "I want Daddy," and THEN, "I want Jay." I figured "I want Jay" was worth checking out, so I went in and told Greta that Jay is 2-years-old and has his own middle-of-the-night issues. So don't go asking him for succor and comfort in your time of need. I'm the only man you'll ever need, daughter.

Bike ride with Daddy

"Rain, rain take a hike, Greta & Daddy want to bike!"

That was the sing-along Sunday morning as we set out on the Arlington & Alexandria Community Bike Ride in a persistent sprinkle. No. 1 playmate Jay and his Dad Gardner joined us. Because it's hard to hook up a bike trailer, check tire pressure and all the rest with a child running through the parking lot, we were delayed at the start and missed the mass exodus. But that was OK. We soon learned that a 7-mile bike ride with 2-year-olds is much more about the journey than it is the destination!

About 3 miles in we stopped at the "rest stop," an 1800's-era train car along the W&OD rail trail. As you can see, Greta & Jay did their best Truman whistle-stop impression. They also enjoyed the boxes of limitless bananas. Greta had two, having burned so many calories sitting in the trailer and pointing out the birds to me.

We were the last to leave the rest stop and even had one of the marshals ask us if it would be OK if he went on without us. Apparently he was charged with "bringing up the rear." I told him these trails were native to me, so scoot along on your fancy carbon-fiber commuter bike. I'll bring this ride home on my Schwinn Voyageur with Burley Solo trailer.

About a mile from the finish, the lulling vibrations finally got the best of Greta and this is what she looked like when we got back to the car. But when we got home, she told Mommy lots of stories, so I guess her first sanctioned bicycling event was a hit! It made me feel really special, and that's really what's it all about, right?