Outies

As a baby Sam does not remind me of the girls much at all. That is until I change his diaper and I gaze in amazement at his absolutely, unbelievable, humongous OUTIE!

Check it out! (ha-ha)

Sam at almost 2 months

Natalie and Amelia at 4 months
(notice the bandaids from their shots)

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with this type of phenomena. These are actually umbilical hernias. There is (was for the girls) an opening in the abdominal muscles. With age the opening closes and the "outie" goes "inie". In some cases it doesn't and a person could have it surgically fixed. I can't remember when the girls' closed off but I think it was by age one. Both Natalie and Amelia now have normal looking belly buttons.

What somewhat baffled me was that Sam's belly button did not pop out until he was four weeks old. I literally witnessed the actual popping while changing his diaper one day. Prior to the event he had a normal looking belly button.

To make the outie even more interesting you can gently press on it and cause it to go inside the abdominal muscle opening. When I do this it makes a swishing noise. One that is most definitely noticeable. In fact, if you cuddle Sam to you and he shifts positions so that his belly button is compressed you can hear the swishing noise.

To help illustrate just how much his button sticks out I had to take a profile view. His outie wins the household record for tallest that is for sure!

And if you are laughing at him and his outie right now, Sam has something to say to you...

Wordless Wednesday

A Reason to Celebrate!

With only four visitation moments:

12:15 feeding
2:00 pacifier reinsertion
3:00 feeding
4:00 pacifier reinsertion

Sam slept the whole night in his own crib!!!!!!!!! Can I get a hallelujah?

On a side note, there was no "sleeping in" today (as if we ever do that). The girls who were not in bed until 9:00 were up at 6:20 today. Sam was up to eat then too. However he fell back asleep. Why is it that when I get the baby to sleep the normally good sleeping 3-year olds decide to get up early when they went to bed really late?

Will there ever be a day when they all sleep??? I know, I know..when they are teenagers.

For today I will just rejoice in Sam's accomplishment and pray that it will continue!

Powder

Last night at dinner my brother was over and asked Mike what he had seasoned the potato mixture with. Mike listed a few ingredients one of which was garlic powder.

Natalie was listening to their conversation and interrupted with:

"Powder? Powder? Powder is for our butts."

I am entirely grateful to Mike for NOT using baby powder in last night's meal.

Random Things...

Sam slept from 9:30-1:45 a.m. last night. That means 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep for me. So at 2:00 a.m. while I was feeding him I felt quite refreshed...no joke! This is huge since I have not slept more than 3 hours in a row since before he was born 7 weeks ago. Granted he was sleeping in a bouncy seat. We are still working on getting him to sleep in his crib. Let's pray he will make his 4 hour sleeping stints a pattern.

Today is the three year anniversary of when Amelia was discharged from the NICU. At that point she weighed 4 lbs. 14 oz....today... who knows. On may 11th both the girls have a check-up so I will share the official numbers then. So three years ago today Mike and I had our first of many sleepless nights in our home.

Natalie's discharge anniversary is April 28th..just 4 days from now. At that point she weighed 5 lbs. 4 oz. and was our "corded" baby. I am glad she kicked that oxygen need because I got tired of tripping over that darn cord!

Lastly..baby laundry is good and bad. Good because it takes a long time to make enough to fill the washer. Bad because it takes literally FOREVER to fold all the tiny items.

...enough randomness for today...off to get the family ready to go out to eat as a family of five.

Please pray for us...seriously.

Wordless Wednesday

No "P" in the ool...

For Easter weekend we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to get away as a family. Thanks to Mike's parents we spent some time on the shore of Lake Superior. The girls had too much fun. They explored the wilderness, dyed Easter eggs, played with some extended family members and went swimming in the resort pool.

One funny incident that happened over the weekend involved Natalie and the pool. She was standing on the side waiting to jump in when panic started to rise in her. She was not afraid of coming back in but instead that she was in her words "pottying in the pool". Mike caught the whole event on film. You can see as she realizes some thing could be wrong, her investigation of the problem, her acceptance of our explanation that it was her swim diaper draining pool water not potty, and her readiness to swim again.

The pictures and her expressions are priceless!

Wordless Wednesday

Natalie

Amelia

Samuel

Amazing Feet!

Amelia woke up Sunday with a scratch on her nose. At breakfast I asked her about how she scratched herself.

Her response- "at night with my toenails"

This is an amazing feat on two accounts.

First because she could manage to get her feet to her face in her sleep.

And second...she wears footed pajamas!

Wordless Wednesday