Welcome Baby Ben!

Benjamin Joseph Parsons
Born July 15th 2009
7lbs 12.5oz 20.5 inches

*Note: I'll try and update with the full labor and postpartum story soon. As you can imagine, we're all a little tired around here, but things are really going well. Jake is an awesome and caring big brother, and he's adjusting well. Ben had some pretty significant jaundice at birth which required an extra 2 days in the hospital as well as a bili bed and blanket for a week. He's doing great now. I also discovered that I'm allergic to betadine (the stuff they use to sterilize your skin for procedures) - more on all that to come.

Tomorrow's the Big Day! (hopefully)

Tomorrow is the big day! We're going to the hospital in the morning to induce labor, and hopefully baby Ben will make his big debut tomorrow as well. Inductions can be tricky things for those of you who've never had the pleasure (read: sarcasm). It can take a while to get the dose of the medicine (pitocin) correct for each woman's body, so it can take a long time to get the process going smoothly. Often the docs will have to give you a special medicine to help soften the cervix as well (yeah, TMI for all the men out there); thankfully in my case, I'm already just about 3cm (of 10) so my MD doesn't anticipate needing it (that can slow things down even more).

Please send your thoughts and prayers for a healthy (and quick and not-too-painful) delivery for both baby Ben and me. Hopefully pictures will be soon to follow! :)

Blankie, an unofficial member of the household

Like most two year olds, my son has been known to throw a temper tantrum or two from time to time (read: daily - well, maybe not that bad, but sometimes it seems like it ;)). Our pediatrician recommended starting "time-outs" with Jake - picking a safe spot for him to sit, setting a timer for two minutes, you know the drill. The offense we've chosen to tackle with the T.O. at this point is a screaming tantrum, both for our sake and the neighbors'. We have a nice little routine set up, complete with a warning beforehand and a brief discussion/hug/"I love you" afterward, and though he generally screams through the whole time out, he has only once continued to scream or screamed again after a time out.

This morning, Jake and I were downstairs and he had his "blankie" with him. All of a sudden he says, "Blankie, you need time out." He marched it over to the bottom of the stairs (his TO spot), asked me to set the timer, then went over after a few seconds and said "Blankie, no more screaming. I wub you."

Other conversations with blankie have included:

"Don't be scared Bwankie, it's alright. I'll ho-ju (which means "hold you").

(after hitting Blankie with a soft stuffed baseball) "Oh Bwankie! You o-tay? I sowwy. Give a kiss" *kisses the blanket*

He's so sincere with this stuff it just cracks me up, and it's sweet that he seems to be developing empathy/sympathy - even if it's towards a blanket ;)

These are going to get me in a lot of trouble...

... both when Jake is a teenager and when Dad finds out I posted these 0:)

Jake's 2nd Birthday Party

For Jake's 2nd birthday party, we celebrated at the Big Backyard. The Big Backyard is a converted warehouse in New Berlin that has lots of play structures, slides, ride-on toys, and balls to play with. It's definately one of Jake's favorite places to go (and one of Mommy's because it's air-conditioned). Jenna, Aunt Diane, Luke, Carla, and Tony ended up joining us. We were so glad they could come, and Jake had a great time with his friends :) We had a pizza dinner, followed by Thomas the Train cake (or Choo Choo Twain cake, as Jake said), then presents and party favors. Luke picked out a dump truck with Duplos for Jake all by himself (what a big boy!), and the Michael family got Jake a set of toy golf clubs (Yay golf! as Jake would say). Then it was playtime, and did they have a blast. Thanks to the BBY staff, they were awesome as usual. Oh, and Jake has two outfits on because he spilled apple juice on the first one (though I'm telling you, nothing helps a mildly constipated kiddo like a couple hours at the big backyard, and I have the stinky diapers to prove it). Enjoy!


When we got to the Big Backyard, we had a welcome sign waiting for us! (In case you can't read it, it says "Happy Birthday Jacob!")

Here's Jake getting a first look at his birthday cake. Initially he didn't like all the attention. Then he realized a) there's a choo-choo twain on the cake and b) he got to blow out the candle! (that was the real kicker)

This is Jake blowing out the candle. He was really excited about it and eventually got it (with just a little help from Mom, Dad, and cousin Jenna ;))

Ahh, delicious choo choo twain cake!

Jake's favorite thing about the Big Backyard - ding dong! (That's houses in Jake speak)

Jake's other favorite thing about the Big Backyard - the car! (which, thanks to Grandma Sue and Grandpa Earl we have at home - sidenote: if you purchase this car, be sure to give yourself plenty of time and plenty of beers to assemble it)

Jenna Benna going down the slide! We were so glad she and Aunt Diane could come to the party!

Here's one of my pictures of Lukey. He's such a cutie, too bad I didn't get his face! All of the other pictures of him are very blurry - he's a man on a mission! It was also wonderful to catch up with Carla as she finished up her third year of med school that day (woo hoo!).

I love this picture of Jake and Jenna playing together. Check out the huge smile on his face :)

We had a real blast at the party, and Jake cried less than usual when we left. He also slept like a rock that night (yay park!).

Short post today.

Hi all,

Short post today. I do have pictures of Jake's Big Backyard birthday party (which he thoroughly enjoyed) and will try to get them up asap. Been a busy couple of days - working on my research, some long but productive days for Ryan at work, trying to figure out how to parent a two-year-old, and dealing with Perry pup's anxiety issues (poor little guy). Also had my 36 week OB appointment. I'm 1cm dilated (the final dilation amount during delivery is 10cm), but it's not predictive of when I'll go into labor; baby Ben continues to do well in there.

So last but not least, a prayer request for a med school acquaintance: John, a very bright ER resident (today's his first day) and his wife moved to Arizona for residency, and two weeks ago his wife got very sick very quickly. It turned out she had toxic shock syndrome (staph or strep bacteria from an infection release a very potent toxin resulting in the person getting very sick with few interventions available). She's needed machines to do the work of her heart and lungs until yesterday, when she was deemed well enough to come off bypass. She continues to improve, but please keep Britney, John, and their young family (3 cute kiddos) in your thoughts and/or prayers.

Have a great day everyone, more updates to follow soon!