We're home and settled in!

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone! We're so happy with our new addition!

We came home on Wednesday, and it's been kind of a blur since then. Our days have been crammed full of playing, cuddling and nursing! Ella is a good baby so far - she pretty much just sleeps and eats. She's spending more time awake now, which is nice. She spent the whole time Grandpa Bill held her on Saturday staring at him! However, Ella is not a fan of her crib. Ben was in his crib from night #1 - we'd swaddle him and tuck him in, and he was fine. Ella likes to be cozy - she is a cuddler - so I'm putting her in her car seat/bouncy chair to sleep in at night, and that seems to be working. We'll make an effort to get her into her crib in a couple of weeks, but for now, we all need our sleep.

Ben is adjusting very well. He always asks to hold her, and will give her kisses and touch her cheeks and ears very gently. Ben is also concerned when she cries - "Why's he crying?" or "Ella crying!" And he wants her to wake up when she's sleeping - I'm trying to get him to stop that! All in all, he's being a great big brother and loves her so much already. It is so special to see their relationship starting!

Here are some pictures:



Enjoying the bouncy chair!


Daddy, Ben and Ella


More excitement in the bouncy chair...


Big brother Ben holding his baby sister Ella!

OK, that's all for now. I'll try to start posting stories and such, but no promises just yet!

Carrie

A picture is worth 1000 words.

They better be. I'm too tired to be witty and verbose. Here ya go!

Just born (about 5 minutes old):

Cute Little Bum:
Daddy gets in close:

The reaction to seeing Daddy from that close up:


Practicing the lip to melt Daddy's heart already:

Really seeing Mommy for the first time:

Ben delivering his baby:

And lastly, a size comparison. I guess I have to stop calling Ben my 'little' bug. I thought he was still tiny until I saw tiny Ella in the flesh. I forgot how small they are! Ben is telling us in this picture "His name is Ella!" We'll work on the pronouns.


Thanks for all of your good wishes. We'll start making phone calls when we're less tired (around the year 2015).

Gord and Carrie

p.s. Carrie is the Bestest Baby-Making, Kid Loving, Mommy-Type Person and Wonderful Wife Ever (BBMKLMTPWWE). Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sacrificing yourself to attain this wonderful result. Love, Gord.

She's Here!!!

Little Isabella Grace Sheppard. Born: April 25, 2006 at 3:55 a.m. 8 pounds 12 ounces. Some number of centimetres long (less than 1000). Cute as a little peanut. Here is a cute picture of her and Ben:


Carrie and I were pleased with our 'reception' at Children's hospital. Here's us, 30 minutes after the birth:

More pics of our gorgeous family to come!

Gordo

(Sorry, I forgot the camera at the hospital)

Well...

Just a quick update. Carrie and I were in the hospital for a few hours today - everything is all right! Carrie was (is) having a weird pain on her right side, and she hadn't felt the baby move all night Saturday night. So...in we went to the hospital this morning to get things checked out. The baby is fine - it's moving fine and the heartbeat was really good. Carrie was (is) in low level labour, but still not dilated more than about 1 cm. So, we wait until tomorrow for the fetal assessment and Doctor's visit. There is some talk that they might induce her then.

I'll post more when I know more. For now, I'm off to bed.

Gordo

p.s. A BIG thank you to my Mom for coming out and taking Ben. She was instrumental in making today bearable.

Nope...

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and there was absolutely no change from last week. Bummer. I am now 4 days overdue. Not much else to say. They won't induce until I'm at least 10 days overdue, so I guess we wait. My OB told me to walk for a couple hours yesterday - so I did. And another hour today, with an upcoming hour after I'm done this blog entry. My feet are sore. I have contractions when I walk, but they stop when I'm done walking.

Gord and I were talking tonight about general stuff, when Ben walked up and said, "Daddy, it's complicated!" We stopped talking (obviously, as a 4 syllable word was just spoken by our son!) and just looked at each other with puzzled expressions. I asked, "Where on earth did he get that from?", and then answered my own question. He has this book called "What's inside?" and it talks about what's inside Mommy's tummy when she's having a baby. But it starts out asking "what's inside the suitcase?...what's inside the present?..." and in the middle, it asks "what's inside the television?". They then show a picture of the inside of a TV, with all the wires and switches and stuff. The text says "oh, it's complicated!" So THAT is where he got it from. But still, we were stunned that he just came out with it for no apparent reason. What a kid!

Here are a couple of pictures, for your perusal...

Saying "cheese" last night while having his bedtime snack of Cheerios!



A pic from tonight - in his cool "Mr. Men" shirt!

No news...

Nothing yet. A few contractions here and there, but nothing to write home about (or blog about, as the case may be!). Due date...come and gone...

We headed back to the dog park this morning. Ben did not get wet, except at the end when he was stomping in the puddles. Charlie was soaked to the bone, as per usual. Ben and I came home and went for a three hour nap. Nice.

I know there has been tons of stuff Ben has been doing that I could write about, but I'm drawing a blank.

Oh, we have some friends whose son Zack is Ben's age. Ben and Zack have a bit of a love/hate relationship. They talk about each other all the time, but when they're actually together, it can get kinda rough. Different personalities, ya know? Anyways, Ben's latest thing is to say, "I be Zachery" and then proceed to scream at the top of his lungs. Very shrill-ly. And the kicker is, that's what Zack does. A couple of weeks ago, they were fighting over a toy and Zack took it from Ben. Ben started to cry, and Zack gets up in his face and screams. And Ben only started doing this the past couple of days. How does he remember that?

Ben also loves to play kitty. He'll come up to you and say, "be little kitty" and then meow and meow and meow at you until you pet him, scratch him behind his ears, and tell him what a cute kitty he is. What a character.

Did you know that Ben has a baby in his tummy too? He likes to tell you that while he's lifting his shirt up to his armpits. Mommy does not do that.

That's about all for now. As always, I'll keep you blog-readers posted.

Mommy's update!

OK, I had a doctor's appointment this morning (which turned into the afternoon - one of the rare times my doc is running late!). Baby is still just fine - the head is low. She gave me an internal exam too - I'm only 1 cm dilated. But it's a start. And as she said, it doesn't necessarily mean anything - they don't know what causes labour to start. So I came home and walked 2 miles on the treadmill to get this kid to drop and get labour started! I had some contractions (or strong Braxton Hicks?) during the walk, but not really since. I was hoping for Friday or so, but that doesn't seem likely! We wait and see...

That's about all for my update! I'm tired now...

c

What a day...

...in a good and funny way!

The day started with us heading to the Pediatrician for Ben's checkup. His weight is normal for his age, but his height is in the bottom 25th percentile. Thanks mommy! Other than that he was declared healthy and in a very high percentile for cuteness.

After I came home, we had dinner (Ben is eating like a champion, by the way. Finally.) Usually when we eat dinner we turn on the stereo for a bit of music. After dinner is finished, Ben usually becomes a "Dancin' Fool" (that reference is for you, Garth). He INSISTED that mommy and daddy get up and dance with him. So we had our own pregnant lady, fat man, crazed kid and manic dog mosh pit for a while. (While Ben dances, he sings "Dancing, dancing, dancing..." over and over. SO cute.)

Speaking of eating, the other day Ben wanted some watermelon. He asked for some "watermelman". Hee hee.

We then decided to go for a walk. While we were getting ready, Ben said "Go walk dog park?" We figured that was as good a place as any, so we packed up the kid and the dog in all of our crappy mud gear and out we went. We weren't even 20 meters into the park when Ben decided to splash in the puddles. Splash splash. So, while he was otherwise occupied we turned around to watch Charlie chasing frogs in the flooded ditch. Then, (you know what's coming, don't you?) SPLASH! WAHHHHHHHH! Ben had decided to follow Charlie and he fell almost up to his neck into stinky, yucky, dirty dog poo runoff ditch water. Carrie took a booter while running to get him, and almost tumbled in herself. SO...5 minutes after the start of the walk we loaded up the stinky dog, the stinky kid (now sans all clothes except a partially soaked shirt and a completely soaked diaper), the stinky mommy, and the stinky daddy (I didn't fall in - I just smell bad) and we headed home - with a stop for slurpees of course. Ben got a grape slurpee. We asked him what it tasted like and he said "Tastes like purple." What a kid.

So, after a long bath for Ben and mommy it was time for beddie boo. I leaned over to kiss my sweet boy on the back of the head just as he whipped his head back to find a book - headbutt to the lower lip and teeth. So I left crying like a little girl - leaving mommy to fend with the book reading by herself.

I'll leave you with a pic of the bug playing outside. What a cutie!

Blog ya later!

Gordo

A post about nothing in particular...

Life is chugging along at the Sheppard house. No baby yet.

Ben is good. His sleeping is better again - no more waking up at 5:40 a.m. He's sleeping in until about 7:30, which is MUCH more reasonable, even for Gord.

I figured that he'd sleep in a bit this morning, because I had him out late at our friends' house last night. We didn't get home until about 10:15, so Ben wasn't ready for bed until 10:45 or so. But nope, he woke up at about 7:40 - and REALLY wanted his mommy. I tried to explain to him, as I rushed around, that I had to go to work. Cue the waterworks. So I told him only two more days, and then I can stay home with him. For a whole year. I don't think he really got it.

It's funny...this morning he wanted only me - Daddy wasn't good enough at 7:40 a.m. - but last night, Gord worked a little later and picked me up from work. I went into the house first, and he came running to the back door, saw me, and stopped short, just staring. I said hello to him, but he just looked at me like I was an alien. Then Daddy came in the door, and he belts out, "DADDY! DADDY!" And for the next little while, he wanted only Daddy. Last week was great timing for the baby coming, 'cause it gave Ben and Gord some quality time together. They bonded. So when Mommy constantly has a baby attached to her in a couple of weeks, Ben has a back-up.

I had another prenatal appointment on Monday. All is well. I think the baby is definately lower now, which is a good thing! My OB isn't overly descriptive in what she's doing - blood pressure "great!", heartbeat "good", "moving at least 10 times a day?", "group B strep negative", "could be anytime now!" That was my appointment. But baby is moving lots, and I feel weird things at what I would imagine is the bottom of my uterus/cervix. But I'm speculating, of course. I'm no doctor.

One and a half days of work left. As of 5:00 p.m. tomorrow, I'm on mat leave. Can't say I'm not glad - I feel exhausted at days end. It sucks sitting in a chair all day too - when I get up to inevitably take a bathroom break, I feel like I have a medicine ball between my hips. Ah well, only a couple weeks to go, if that.

We got our new furniture on Tuesday night. It is soooooo comfy. Of course, the old furniture is still upstairs, so we are still reminded daily of what we had - it makes us appreciate the new stuff that much more! Maybe I'll get around to posting pics of the furniture and of the kitchen this weekend, 'cause there are some people out there who haven't seen either!

Uncle Chris moved out this week too. Ben will miss him. Gord and I, not so much. JUST KIDDING! I liked having him around. But now he's heading back up to Gillam for 6 weeks. Then he's done his stint up there. And he'll be posted permanently in Brandon after another 3 weeks of training or something like that.

OK, that's it. I'm going to eat my lunch and then go to the bathroom, again.

sheppard out

No real news...

Nothing too exciting happening lately - sorry blogland!

Ben stayed at his Grandma Susan's last night. We haven't heard yet how he did sleeping - in the playpen to boot - hopefully, he was a good boy for her. He didn't eat a lot of supper last night, but he did eat TWO bites of chicken. Real roasted chicken. The night before, he ate a whole sausage. Dipping it in ketchup sure helps! He then proceeded to eat four or five whole baby carrots. Can Mommy say "Wa-hooooooo"?

Gord has had a good time with Ben this week - well, the last three days anyway! Once the napping issue was sorted out, things went a lot smoother. Apparently, the past two mornings when Ben went to "wake up Daddy", he climbed into bed, leaned over to whisper into Gord's ear, and said, "Sweet-heart"!

I really think Ben liked his week with Daddy! Yesterday, Gord set up the biggest train track yet and Ben played happily with his trains! He is really starting to play more independently now too. He'll play with his cars and trucks and trains all by himself. He'll jibber-jabber to himself, lord only knows where his imagination is taking him!

Baby #2 is good - still hanging in there! I have one week of work left, so the baby has to stay put until at least next weekend! My department went out to lunch yesterday, and I had the spiciest thing on the menu. Everyone was joking around that I was trying to get the baby out, but really, I just wanted the Kung Pao chicken! Nothing happened anyways... Two more weeks until I am officially due - and we've got the most important stuff ready - some clothes, diapers, the car seat. But I still need to pack a bag for the hospital...that's on this weekend's "to do list".

Our little nieces, Fiona and Ruby, went home this week. The new little family is coping well, from what we hear. We even got a little movie of the girls emailed to us yesterday...gosh, I wanna hold 'em, just to feel what a 4 1/2 pound baby feels like. Ben was twice that, for goodness sake! We've gotta get their little baby gifts sent...another "to do" this weekend!

Just as an aside, I just finished watching "Meet the Fockers" on TV. I love that movie. It is too funny.

later gators.

Are you proud of me honey?

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