Everett's Naming Ceremony

Super awesome E made from coffee filters & spray paint.  I LOVE it.

Everett's super fabulous Godparents. 

It ended up that the crazy child has the chill Godparents and the chill child has the crazy Godparents. And please know that I mean "crazy" in a completely awesome kind of way.

Everett experiences a proper rack for the first time and immediately falls asleep. 

That being said, I adore this picture.

Cupcake Kiss.

J-man goes in for the full, two-handed lean, while Charlotte plays it cool.

Guess who was in a mood by the end of the day?

 

Cheers!

Baby Feet

I love my babies.



   

3 months old

Hi sweet baby!!!! Last weekend you turned three months old and I'm in complete awe about it. Every time I get you dressed I have a moment of genuine confusion as to why the 3-6mo clothes are fitting you, and then it sinks in and I still feel confused.

Thank god you're everything that we thought you would be. The yin to Charlotte's yang. She's all energy and flames and bursts of light, and you're like a little sailboat. Just peacefully riding the waves up and down and smiling throughout all of it.

I spent 9 months saying to you: You have to be calm. You have to sleep. You have to give me an easier delivery. I'm non-negotiable on all of it. Thankfully you're a good listener. 

Daddy predicted this years ago. When I was pregnant with your sister he said "I think we're going to have a girl first and she's going to be mouthy and sassy and fierce. Then we're going to have a boy and he's going to be emotional and soulful and calm." He's a smart one, that daddy of yours.

While I'm in no hurry for you to get older or reach your milestones or be less of a baby, I'm in a huge hurry to get to know you as a person. I learned from my first go-round with parenting that that is by far the best part. 

Right now you smile all the time, sleep through the night like a champion (since 10 weeks, with absolutely no effort on our part), don't like to be left alone, love to be held, and have no tolerance for dirty diapers. Except the smiling thing, all of these little indicators are different from the way Charlotte was as a baby.

Charlotte adores you and talks constantly about "when Everett is older" and how many things you'll be able to do together. Read books, play outside, go to the beach... her list is endless. My biggest wish (and parenting goal) for you two is to become friends. Genuine friends who respect, protect, and love each other. 

The blessing of a sibling is one that can only be truly understood once you're older and you look around and realize that no one else in this life will have a shared history with the two most important people in your life - your parents. No one will really understand when you pick up the phone and dial her number and say "Oh my god, mom is insane..." And then you'll finish that sentence with something that other people could understand on an intellectual level, but not on a gut level. Not the kind of understanding that produces the doubled-over laughter that only siblings can share in regards to their parent's own brand of crazy.

Because, like everyone else in life, daddy and I have a whole lot o' crazy. And one day I hope we can all sit around the table, glasses of wine in hand, and laugh and laugh and laugh about all of it. The way that Charlotte ran off to Europe to follow her crazy poem-writing boyfriend... the way that you secretly had a girlfriend for months before it occurred to you to tell any of us... the embarrassing way that daddy is willing to do Happy Dances in front of all your friends... the way that I always say accidentally inappropriate things and make you want to crawl into a hole.

We just started our life together as a complete family of four and there is so much awesome to come that I can't even take it all in.

Easter Family Pics

Thoughts on 2

Hey, look! I have a blog! Who knew.

Oh, you guys, I've missed you! And if you had the pleasure of reading all of the fascinating, creative, thoughtful posts that I've been regularly writing to you in my head, you would be all UP in my business because they've been AWESOME. Seriously, your mind would be BLOWN by my thoughts.

Alas, they're all still locked in my head. Actually, no, they're not. They all fall out each night around 1am when I'm up for nighttime feedings. So really we're both being left out of all the would-be awesomeness.

So let me just puke out to you, incoherently and inelegantly, what's been going on.

Starters - two kids is awesome. Way better than one, I think. On that first one everything is new and unknown and they just keep getting older and doing new, unknown things and every time you learn something your knowledge is useless because then they're on to something else new and weird and confusing. But the SECOND allows you to get all kung-fu parent on their ass.

Oh, you wanna puke up blood on me at four days old?? BRING IT, little man! Your sister ALSO did that at four days old and we thought she was CLEARLY bleeding out from some kind of stomach hemorrhage and was about to die at any moment from all the blood spewing. You didn't even get a raised pulse out of me with that one because I am WISE now. I know it's booby bleeding from that miracle known as breast feeding, and we only go to the doctor (calmly! and without worry!) after it continues for a few days. HIGH YAH! SUCK IT, NEW PARENTHOOD!

Also, long before I even got pregnant, I took God out for a cappuccino and we came to an understanding about the second one. I nicely explained that he used up the entire jar of Bat Shit Crazy with the first one and now he needed to use up the entire jar of Zen Baby with this one. So while we're only 7 weeks in, I think we saw eye-to-eye on our conversation. I fully envision a future of my very calm and understanding son being paraded around the house with painted nails and in some kind of dance costume that his sassy older sister put him in.

So anyway, two feels totally natural and settled an awesome and complete. And I can't overstate enough how lovely of a math equation it is to have the precious adorableness of a newborn, minus all the newness, because all that's left is the overwhelming amounts of happy.

The last relevant update is that, much like those 8 glorious weeks of bed rest, we've entered into full survival mode around here. Between B's graduate thesis and his final class, every day after work, and every Saturday and Sunday he needs to spend at the library. So except for Sunday mornings until noon, when the library opens, it's just me and the monkeys.

Luckily it's bright and springy outside, the double stroller has been ordered, and Charlotte is currently in a "good phase." Side note - I've learned that much in the way that a toddler's emotions swing from second to second, they also seem to have inexplicable phases of being happier or crankier. Luckily for both of our sanity, we're in a good phase.

In the meantime, I'll try to actually visit the blog and blow your mind with all of the aforementioned mind ramblings of awesomeness.

Siblings

 

And baby makes four

Introducing our big fat bundle of joy, Mr. Everett James Berry. (And if I hear you call him EJ, please know that I'll smack you) 

It took him 13 hours to get here and he was a whopping 9lbs 10 oz despite all of those high tech measurements and calculations they made a week and a half before he was born that said the exact opposite, but I'm VERY happy to report that all went well. All of my emotional scars from Charlotte's complications-filled delivery got softened a bit when the universe was kind enough to prove that not all deliveries have to be horrifying. Thanks, universe, for totally rocking.

And in further rock-the-house news, B got two full weeks of paternity leave this time, as opposed to the three days he got with Charlotte, so it's been two weeks of complete blissed-out awesomeness around here. I've been on a permanent high unlike anything I've ever experienced.

If the pregnancy hadn't made it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that me and pregnancy are not friends, I would even consider a third little bundle one day, but as my body spoke quite loudly this time around, we're taking Perfect Girl and Perfect Boy, counting our blessings, and calling it a day.

Other than two days in the first week home from the hospital where she was clearly sleep-deprived and clearly adjusting, Charlotte has been amazing.  She was so maternal during the whole pregnancy, and especially at the end, that I knew that would carry right through. When she first met "my brudder" she was absolutely enamored with his fingers. She kept delicately touching them and showing them to other people. It's amazing to get these little glimpses into the toddler mind.

She's very proud of him and excitedly shows him off every time someone comes to the house or when we Skype with family. She also likes to hold and feed him, but only for about 10 second intervals. After that it gets boring.

This was the next day in the hospital. Everett was born at 4:55pm, so B and Charlotte went home that night to sleep in their own beds and came back the next day to visit. It was the perfect situation for me because I really needed the one-on-one bonding time. Labor and delivery and visitors is all such a whirlwind that you need the dark silence of your recovery room to truly connect.

All snuggled in our fleeces.

There aren't words to describe how I feel about this picture. 

If it had a caption, all it would say is "Love."

  

Radio Silence

Hi, all, I'll be back in two weeks. Right now I'm mostly avoiding blogs, Facebook, phone calls, and emails so we can just relish in this unbelievably happy time together. When Charlotte was born B had started his new job and was only able to be home with us for three days before returning to work. So to have two weeks together has been the most wonderful and joyous luxury - I don't want to miss one second of it.

In the meantime I'll be spending my days tired and smiling and standing in awe as to how fortunate I am that my family is finally all here and comprised of the three most amazing individuals I know. Lucky, lucky, lucky - that's us.