18 month old!

Our baby girl is growing up fast. She has changed so much since she turned one. For one she started walking at 14 months and loves to walk anywhere now. Her favorite spot to run away from us is at church, going around the long hallways. Sometimes Kade and her chase each other from one end of the house to the other, but Kade gets bored with it soon since she can't really keep up with him. This winter has been so long that poor Anika can't even experience being outside. We have walked by our house a few times since we had warmer weather but right now it is just a mud pit and I can't find rain boots her size in Thief River. Anika is also becoming quite the talker and tries to say a lot of things. I was a little worried a few months ago that she is not saying much but she is on the right track now. Her favorite word of course is "no" and she can get pretty mad at Kade or me if she doesn't get her way. Somehow she has a lot more respect and fear of her dad and listens to him at once. She's been eating very good and sometimes she just wants to eat with whoever is eating at the time even though she already ate. She wants to feed herself really bad but liquid foods never end up in her mouth. I had to fight her to let me feed her for a couple of weeks but finally I won when she realized she can't do it. She is still very much a girly girl, loves putting on shoes, playing with make-up, and of course the dolls. In our church's nursery she is always trying to take care of smaller babies, bringing them toys and stuffing the pacifiers in their mouths. Little does she know that we are going to have a baby in our house soon. We'll see how she likes that, especially the crying because she starts to sympathy cry if anyone around her cries. I can't wait to take her and all the kids to the park once Spring decides to stay. Anika hasn't really experienced the playground yet since she is walking so that will be exciting for her. Not so much for me, chasing after her and having a newborn. Hope he's a good sleeper so he would just sleep in the stroller.

Ani's 18-month check-up today was pretty uneventful other than she got 2 shots. She is not measuring as tall as before, at the 75th percentile and her weight is at 25th like last time so that is very good.  She also hasn't been sick with bad colds, flu or ear infections like her little friends have been so I'm very thankful for that.  Her main reason for fussiness are teeth coming in and so far she has 7 including one moler, which is not that many but she can chew up a lot of stuff.

Ani is a 1 year old

Well, we missed the one year mark as far as updating the web site. Mainly because of going to Slovakia a few days before Ani's birthday. We did two little birthday parties, one at home and one in Slovakia with all the uncles and their families. We also didn't do Ani's 1 year doctor's check up until we came back so she was 13 months then. My mom wanted her to be at least up to the 50th percentile for weight but even though she made a big progress in Slovakia she was at the 25th percentile and 95th for height. Doctor was saying that is a great improvement but it's fine if she is lower because she has been from the beginning so she is just a little lighter than other kids. She has been changing a lot the last few months and her little personality is coming out more and more. She loves to walk around the house pushing her walker and chase Kade. He took over her new stroller since she still falls when she holds on to it and so they run around the house with those most days. Ani eats really good and so far hasn't complained about any food I gave her. The only thing is that when she eats she has to have her favorite toys or else she gets bored sitting in her high chair and won't eat anything. As long as she has something to play with she eats really good. I am not sure if that's a bad habit to learn. She is also quite a girl and her favorite forbidden place is in my night stand, digging through the little bottles of lotions, oils and stuff. I have to be careful about my makeup bag too because she loves taking all the things out of there. My biggest thing with Ani right now is to keep her clothes dry because she is drooling like a little baby and her shirts are soaked in a few minutes without a bib. So I had to dig out her old bibs but even those are just wet after a short time. I'm sure it's her teeth because they all come sooo slow. She has 4 front teeth right now, two up and two down but she chews up everything pretty good just using those. Otherwise, Ani is starting to be very vocal, repeating some words and trying to sing. Her favorite animal sound is a roar and she can do it pretty well. She also listens to dad a lot better than to her mom, I guess she has me wrapped around her finger a little bit. When she is not going to sleep Ehren just says "Ani" firmly and she doesn't make another peep.

Ani is playing in her kitchen drawer - with her own pots and pans.

8/31/07 - 11 months old

What a month of change has this been. Since Ani started crawling she has become a whole new person. She is no longer happy sitting and just watching what is going on. She has to be free and on the move all the time. We have to watch her every move because all the small objects go straight in her mouth. And just recently she started to get really mad, screaming and kicking mad, when I change her diaper and clothes because I am not letting her go. She also lets Kade know if he's doing something to her that she doesn't like. So overall a little anger is coming through, Ehren says it's the anger of Ester coming out. I am just getting nervous about our flight to Slovakia because she has to sit on my lap the whole time which I am not sure how she'll do without being sedated.

8/3/07 - Breaking News!

Anika started to crawl yesterday on all fours! We were so excited to see it and she waited until we were all home so we can see it. Anika was probably the most exited when she realized she can get anywhere. Still she doesn't want to crawl on the hardwood or linoleum floor so she may stay in the family room where it's softer on her knees. It is not early to crawl by any means and Kade was walking well by her age, but for her it is an accomplishment because she has never been too active. Now I have to start hiding everything in her reach because she will get it.

7/30/07 - 10 months old

Only 2 months before Anika turns 1. She has been growing up in front of our eyes. Not much has changed since her 9 month update, but she is more and more interested in crawling. She can sit up from lying down and go on all fours, but she is scared to crawl forward and just scoots back on her butt. But somehow with switching the positions she can move far enough to get to her toys so that's enough for her right now. She pulls herself up on her knees in the crib but not up on her feet yet. We've just been so amazed at her personality and how she is just happy wherever we go even if she misses her nap. She seems to jabber a lot more and she can get pretty loud yelling about something, but she's not mad. She also loves watching any animals and just talks to them. Ani also loves water and it doesn't matter if it's the bath tub or lake, she loves splashing it. Lately she goes pretty crazy in the tub and I have to pull the shower curtain or else she splashes all over. I'll try to video tape it and put it here sometime. Other than that nothing else is new. When Kade is gone she really misses him and when she hears him come back she squeals because she is so happy to see him.

7/1/07 - 9 months old

Anika is 9 months now and we just had another doctor's check-up since she was 6 months old. She is continuing the trend of her light weight - only 16 pounds which puts her in the 10th percentile. She is 28 1/2 inches long which is 75th percentile so she's not short. Doctor says it's fine because she is maintaining the percentage. Other than that he didn't have any comments orr concerns, just answered our questions. He thinks Anika may be getting teeth soon which would be right around the time Kade got his first tooth also. Since she was born we only brought her to the doctor once which was last week because she had a fever over the weekend and I wanted to make sure she didn't have an ear infection. But it wasn't an infection and it went away on its own. So she's been very healthy so far.

Lately she has really been enjoying chasing Kade around in the walker (see the video below). She is pretty limited to where she can go because it is hard to walk with it on the carpet, but if she can't get to Kade he pulls her around. It is fun to see them giggle together. She is still very much a hands-on girl and she wants to grab anything within her reach, especially if it is not her toy but something she is not supposed to have so we are getting ready for trouble soon. I guess it's not a bad thing she is so slow in starting to crawl because she will be in everything. She is liking our walks in the stroller but we have to make sure no sun is in her face because her eyes are extra sensitive to it and she fusses about it right away. We have sun glasses for her but she won't keep them on so that doesn't work so great. Anika also loves music a lot. We have a praise baby video with worship songs and she just loves them so if she doesn't eat well I start singing those songs and she smiles right away.

5/29/07 - 8 months old

Such a big girl! Anika has been sitting up very well and sometimes tries to walk when you hold her hands. She would really want to crawl, but so far when she is trying to go after something she puts her legs and arms way up in the air as if practicing swimming. She is also starting to "talk" and says dada, mama, nana and other little things, but only if it's quiet. When we are with other people she usually doesn't even peep and just listens to everyone. So we think she will be our little social butterfly because she loves to just watch people. She seems to like music too and recently discovered clapping her hands so she's been doing that a lot. We decided Ani looks a lot like Ehren's great grandma on his dad's side and once we scan a couple of pictures of her we will post them here so you can see. It is strange to me because when I look at her she looks nothing like me, but her body is built kind of like me so we'll see if she grows up to be my height and stuff. It is such a contrast to Kade's big brown eyes. Other than that she has been very happy all the time, only fussing when she's hungry or tired. And she does eat a lot - 6 oz of formula every 3 hours and eats cereal or vegetables 3 times a day. She goes to sleep at 8 and is up between 5-6, sometimes 4 and she has to get a bottle then or else starts to cry really loud. After she drinks it she goes back to bed, but most of the time she just lies there awake until we get up. I wish she slept a little longer, but I can't complain about her. She does take 2 nice naps most of the time if nothing comes into our schedule. Her morning nap gets interrupted a lot when we get together with friends or run errands but she isn't too cranky about it so that's good. Besides Kade she really likes her daddy too and when he comes home she just smiles ear to ear.

4/30/07 - 7 months

So much has happened since Ani's 6 month's update. The day after her 6 month appointment she started to stand up and loves standing since then. She sometimes starts to walk when holding her arms but mostly just stands with her knees stiff. She also doesn't complain about being on her stomach other than when she is frustrated that she can't reach her toys. We are trying to encourage her to crawl and she really wants to but when she tries to do it her arms and legs go up in the air, like she's trying to fly. Eating is getting better and she loves cereal with a little fruit in it. For some reason she's not excited about anything else like vegetables or plain fruit, she makes faces like it's too strong of a flavor. So I guess one step at a time. I have officially stopped pumping when Anika was 6 and a half months. I hoped I could do it longer, but all of a sudden my milk supply went way down and from the whole day I was barely getting enough for one bottle. So I decided to just stop and not stress about it. It seems like such a relief right now, not having to worry about what time I need to pump, clean all the bottles and stuff. If Anika was breastfeeding that would have been different but this way it doesn't work forever, at least for me. But 6 months is pretty good and Anika has been so healthy since birth that I'm not worried about her. We go outside now every chance we get although so far it messes up her sleeping routine. There is just always something, but we're not going to be couped up inside because of it. Anika loves the stroller though and just loves to watch what is going on wherever we are. She is our little observer, just watches everybody and doesn't make a sound. Well, that's when we are around. Turns out she is starting to have separation anxiety because she has been crying in the nursery when we're at church and the minute she sees us she is fine. She is getting big and seems so much heavier all of a sudden that it is a workout to carry her in the car seat to a store. I will have to carry her without the seat pretty soon. Well, so much for now. Check back at her 8 months.

4/2/07 - 6 months old!

We just had our 6 month doctor's appointment today and everything is going great. One concern I had was that Ani won't put any weight on her legs while other babies her age are standing up. Her doctor said that it is a little uncommon to not stand up at all but when he checked her legs he said she is definitely strong enough, she just doesn't want to do it. She really is a day and night difference from Kade who was walking by himself at 7 1/2 months. I guess she's just going to be very laid back. Other than that she is in 75th percentile for height (26 1/2 inches) and 15th percentile for weight (13 1/2 pounds) which is a little improvement from last time. I would be shocked if she didn't gain more weight because she has been eating 6-7 oz every 3 hours and her cheeks are looking a lot chubbier. We also started giving her cereal at night and she does ok for now. She doesn't eat much of it before she starts to complain and I have to really force it in her mouth but at least she eats some. I tried giving her some sweet potatoes, but she had enough after 3 bites. I thought she would like it since it is sweet, but I guess we have a picky eater here. Kade used to eat any food we gave him, there wasn't anything he didn't eat so this will be interesting. Ani is still pretty quiet and is becoming quite the people person. She just loves watching people talk and when we visit with someone she just sits quietly and watches us. It is not always easy to make her smile (which she probably got from me) but Kade has become Ani's personal claun. He loves being with her and always wants to be where she is. Her gums are pretty swollen and she drools a lot so her favorite thing to do is to chew on things, preferably someone's fingers. Her first tooth may be coming soon. She also seems to like music a lot and if she does "talk" it sounds like she's trying to sing in a high pitch. I cannot wait for the warm weather to come so we can go outside every day. Anika loves to sit in the stroller but we only had a few nice days so far to do that because it's either been raining or snowing. Here are the pictures I took of her the last few days. We also took her to JC Penneys and got her 6 mos pictures there. She did pretty good other than she didn't smile. She still looked cute and Kade did great too. We probably took too many pictures, a family picture and the kids but now we're done for a while. We may do a couple poses of her on her 1 birthday but not this many shots.

2/27/07 - 5 months old

Anika keeps growing and she has been a very good baby lately. Mainly because she gets to be entertained by Kade almost all day. She is happy just watching him play which is what we needed for Kade when he was a baby because he wanted attention all the time. For some reason Anika hasn't been very talkative lately, only when there is complete silence. Maybe she feels like she has to wait for her turn to speak up. But she giggles a lot and Ehren and I are quite jealous of Kade because he makes Anika laugh most of the time. Her sleeping pattern at night is getting a lot better and she has been sleeping all night for a few weeks with the exception of a week when she got a runny nose and kept waking up from being so stuffed up. During the day she takes one short nap in the morning and one 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon, so that's great. We tried giving her cereal a couple times and finally last night she seemed to really eat it and was excited when she saw the spoon. But we will wait until she is 6 months to really start feeding her cereal. I am still pumping 4 times a day and she is able to eat that 2-3 times a day because I don't produce enough anymore. It's been working great so far and my goal is to at least make it to 6 months and then we'll see if I will keep it up. Anika is also getting a lot stronger and can hold her head up really good when on her stomach. Loud noises don't bother her at all unlike Kade who still runs away when we vacuum. One thing she really gets upset about is a poopy diaper. She starts to really fuss even before we can smell anything and when I change her she is the happiest girl ever. Well, here are some pictures from today. Sorry if I get a little overboard, I just love them all.

1/29/07 - Anika is 4 months

Well, another month has gone by. Anika has been eating a ton since she turned 3 months and she has also developed a habit to eat between 2-3am even if her last feeding is at 9pm. I thought for sure she would catch up to the average weight for her age, but not so much. She is still long and skinny in comparison to other babies. Her height is in 75th percentile and her weight, which is 11p 11oz is only in the 10th percentile. So maybe she does need that 3am feeding, but where is all that food going? Kade was eating a little less at this stage and he slept through the night. I was hoping the pediatrician would tell me something about her eating at night, but all he said was that it is normal and that his 18 month old just started to sleep all night. So not what I wanted to hear but it figures he would say that. So I guess I'll have to cope with less sleep for a while longer. I tried letting Anika cry but then she just cries until I finally get her and give her a bottle. Other than that she is talking a lot more and in a really high pitch - I am not looking forward to her girly screaming. She laughs at Kade a lot and he is becoming a little comedian for her. It is fun to watch them together.

12/27/06 - I am 3 months old!

So we have reached the 3 months mark. It has gone by so fast and Anika is getting bigger every day. I just started taking a ton of pictures of her, like almost 100 in half an hour. Ehren was giving me grief about it but I don't want to miss a good expression. Anika is getting very alert now and loves to interact with us. When we talk directly to her face she stops fussing right away and gets really excited. It is fun to watch her grow. Kade likes to play with her too and thinks he needs to do something every time she cries so pretty soon she is surrounded by all the toys he brings to calm her down. She has been sleeping very good at night, only wakes up once and then she sleeps in so I can get more sleep in. During the day she sleeps on and off but not for very long at a time. That's ok though because she hasn't been too crabby. Well, here are only samples of the 100s of pictures I took of her for her 3 months.

Princess dress for our princess

(from nanna)

Our blue eyed girl - so far. Kade's eyes turned brown fast so who knows if she'll have brown or blue eyes, both will be pretty.

I love my baths

and hanging out with my dad

and my big brother Kade.

12/20/06

12/11/06

Anika is playing with her Christmas gift. I opened it for her so she would have something to do since she's been so fussy during the day and she really loves it. We wish she played on her tummy more but she hates it and instead of working at getting her head up she just lies down and cries or falls asleep. She has been sleeping really well at night and sleeps in her crib in Kade's room now. Last night she slept 6 hours straight and the night before she slept 8 hours straight, from 10:30pm until 6:30am. I of course couldn't sleep and kept checking on her every hour to see if she's ok. :) Hopefully she'll be getting better and better at sleeping longer at night. She really loves attention and if I could hold her and talk to her all day long she would be happy. The bump on her head turned out to be nothing, the x-ray showed it was not a bone and should go away on its own. It is really small now and if you don't know about it you wouldn't notice it. Other than that not much else is new with Ani. She really likes me for some reason and when I come back from being gone and she hears my voice she calms down right away. Kade never had a preference over me or Ehren so it is a little different.

November 27, 2006 - 2 months old!

I cannot believe it has already been 2 months. Time just flies by and I don't know where the days go. It is hard to go anywhere now with 2 kids, like grocery shopping because it has to be timed just right after Anika eats and then when we come back almost the whole day is gone. It seems like all you do is clean, cook and feed the kids and then start all over again. People don't even know how hard stay home moms work, it is way harder than any stressful job out there. So I do miss work, just to get away from the same routine and to be around adults but I would not trade staying home for having to work full time because those moms have no time for their kids and it is very sad. I want to look for a part time job sometime next year, but I try not to think about it because it may take a long time to find something I would like in Thief River. Right now I just really want to start working out which is really hard to fit in the day. I actually went running a few times already and I felt very out of shape, but it has been hard to do anything consistently mainly because I've been so tired from the lack of sleep but I need to just do it.

Anika just had her 2 month appointment and she is doing great. She weighs 9 pounds and 5 ounces which is only at the 25th percentile, but isn't bad. It is all because of her finicky eating, she is already concerned about her weight. :) She is about 23 inches long and that is up in the 70th percentile so she is getting longer. Her head measures in the 50th percentile so maybe she'll have a smaller head than Kade who was always in the 95th percentile for head. The only concern the doctor had was Anika's bump because now that the swelling went down you can really feel the scull around the bump and it doesn't feel right, like there are soft spots where there shouldn't be. So we have to go have an x-ray done so they can make sure it's ok.

Other than that she is sleeping well at night, usually going right back to sleep after she eats. She also started to nurse a lot better just about a week or 2 ago, but the last few days my supply suddenly went down and she wants to eat more than what I have so I've been trying different things to help with that. Hopefully it will catch up to Anika so that we don't have to supplement with formula. Kade is a good help with her because he entertains her while I do stuff around the house, or rocks her when she is fussing. He would like to do a lot more, like give her a bottle straight from the fridge or shoving a pacifier in her mouth when she cries so I do have to keep an eye on him to see what he comes up with, but he's not too bad.

October 31, 2006

Anika is a month old already. She is growing up so fast and loves to watch all of us. She is eating a little bit more now and sleeps good for the most part. There are days when she just wants to be awake and interact with us and then it's harder to put her to sleep but she's not bad. Her bump is going down too so that's good. Other than that not much is new. Kade likes to help out with everything and really likes Anika. We usually read a book while she eats since she can really take her time sometimes.

October 17, 2006

Anika finally gained her birth weight back. We had a 2-week appointment last week and she still weighed a few ounces less than when she was born so the doctor wanted a nurse to come to our house to check if she has gained more weight. Other than that everything was great and she is very healthy. She still has the lump on her head from being pressed against the pelvis so long but the doctor said it is nothing to worry about, it's just some blood trapped in between the skin and the bone. So the nurse came in today and Anika weighed 8 pounds 5.8 ounces which is pretty good. The nurse said she is not worried at all since she gained more than expected since her last visit a week ago. The first time this nurse came was because I was concerned with Anika's breastfeeding and wanted her input on it but there wasn't much she could tell me. She said I was doing everything right, that Anika is just a lazy eater and not a good sucker. So I am still pumping and getting used to the idea of having to do it the whole time. I have a friend who did that so I know it can be done, it just takes quite a bit of time. We are still trying the breastfeeding, she just never drinks enough so I have to give her a bottle afterwards. One good thing is that I have more milk now and our freezer is full of extra milk that Anika doesn't eat. Other than the eating she is pretty good though. She is very alert and watches all of us carefully. She also doesn't fuss unless she is hungry or tired. Sometimes she doesn't want to go back to sleep right after her 4-5am feeding but it's not too bad. Ehren has been helping putting her to sleep at that time since that's when I'm the most tired. Anika is a little princess though because if you pick her up a little rougher or accidentally bump her just a little she yells out a big cry as if you broke her arm. So she is very different from Kade already. He was a lot more fussy all the time other than when he slept, but he ate like a pro in comparison to her. It will be interesting to see what she is like when she is a little older. I am going to try to take more pictures, it is just hard because they all seem to look the same with different outfits on and it is hard to keep her posing for too long.

October 16, 2006

October 6, 2006

Here are some pictures of our 1 week old girl. She has been sleeping very good and the last 3 nights she no longer stays up in between the feedings so that makes me a lot more rested. The only trouble we're having is with the breastfeeding. Anika is just very lazy at sucking and so my milk suply went way down. At first it seemed like a blocked duct because hardly any milk was coming and now that it looks like it is over I still don't have very much milk so she gets very frustrated when breastfeeding and just wants a bottle. It is just amazing how much stuff you have to go through, starting with pregnancy, then birth, recovering, and then there is always struglles with breastfeeding or sleeping. It's just been very frustrating for me because Kade nursed really well and I feel like I'm failing. Plus it doesn't help that I am so emotional now. Other than that though, everything is great. and we're adjusting to the new addition. Kade has been pretty good, only acting up a little. He really likes Anika and wants to help me with everything. He has to help even with my pumping, putting the pieces together. :) It is nice that I don't have to worry about him doing something to Anika because he is really gentle. He can just be pretty rough with trying to put the pacifier in her mouth when she doesn't want it. Anika too seems to like him already and watches him when she's awake.

October 3rd, 2006 - We're home.

Anika is one week old tomorrow. We got home on Friday morning and we are slowly adjusting to a new life. My stay at the hospital was great, it was so nice to get a break from Kade and just rest whenever I wanted to rest. When I had Kade I just wanted to get home but this time I enjoyed the service. I've been feeling really good too although now that we're home I am a lot more tired from the nightly feedings. Anika is doing really well for the most part, she is great during the day, eating every 3 hours and not fussing much at all. At night when she eats around midnight she is good and goes back to sleep right awawy but we've been struggling with her 3am wake up time. After she eats she is just wide awake and wants to be held until almost her next feeding at 6. So that is making me pretty exhausted by morning. We've been trying different things to help her go back to sleep, but so far she's just been awake and sometimes pretty loud. But I guess that's not too bad since she's so good during the day and I can rest some then when Kade lets me. It is still too early to tell though, she may change her mind and start sleeping at different times. We will put some new pictures of her on the web site soon, we've just been too tired to do it.

A mother's note - Here is how it all happened

Well, I'm finally done! Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We feel very blessed for such an easy delivery. My contractions started around 3pm on Tuesday 9/26. They felt like the real thing so I started to check how far apart they were. Almost right away there were about 5 minutes apart. But since I've had contractions stop before I thought I better not make a big deal about it. I called Ehren at work and he decided to leave work in case it was for real and got worse fast. But at 8:00pm they were still the same, 4 to 5 minutes apart. They were probably a little stronger, but still didn't seem too bad. I did have a bloody show earlier so that made me think this was it. Ehren's mom came to pick Kade up in case we were going to the hospital.

We decided to go in at about 9:30pm. Better to be early than sorry. When we came to the hospital, I was dialated to 4-5cm and they told us to just relax and wait for the labor to progress on its own. First they hooked me up to all the monitors and I was surprised at how many things we got to avoid when Kade was born ;). So we watched TV and I was bouncing on my rubber ball, waiting for some more dialation. I was getting a little bit nervous then, but still the contractions didn't bother me too much. Nurses said to let them know if I want something for the pain, not epidurol but some other drugs. I said I don't need it now and I didn't want them to make me feel groggy when I had to push. So they told me to just let them know when I start feel pressure down there and they would check on me then. So we thought it would take a long time since the contractions have been the same for so long. But at about 12:30am I suddenly felt a lot of pressure, called the nurse and she was going to check me. I was not happy with her because of all the doctors and nurses ever checking me, no one was as rough as this old nurse. She was practically a wrinkly grandma and she was digging so hard in there that she raptured the membranes with her fingers. She said I was just about fully dialated so they were going to call the doctor in, who was sleeping at home at the time. But after my water broke the contractions got really bad, mainly because it felt like I had to push right then, but couldn't because I had to wait for the doctor to come who came in about 15 minutes. She came in at 1:00am and our little Anika was born 1:06am so really the pushing only took about 6 minutes. To Ehren and me it felt like a lot longer. I don't remember how many pushes, it took a few contractions but the pain was really unbearable. I was a little embarassed afterwards because it's like you're a different person during the final pushing stage. I kept saying "help me" and "I can't do this", but I guess in the end I did it. You feel like you're being ripped apart and you want someone to stop this. But the only thing you gotta do is push. It felt like a huge relief when she was out and then finding out that she really was a girl was the best. Ehren was really wonderful and helped me a lot. To my surprise, the rough grandma was great during the pushing and kept encouraging me. So overall it was a great experience and much more relaxed and calm than with Kade. Some people tell me I must have a high pain tolerance but I think it is just the way my body handles contractions. Because believe me, ever since Anika was born I keep taking the pain meds for the cramps because they hurt way more than the ones during the labor. Nurses and my doctor were really surprised at how fast my interns went back to normal and said no wonder I've had bad cramps.

All in all, we're both doing great. Anika is healthy and beautiful and she's slowly getting better at breastfeeding. She can cry pretty loud, but it is the cutest cry. It still hasn't sunk in that she is a girl, it is just a new baby now. Most of all it is so different to have 2 kids now and we are trying to be sensitive to Kade right now. He's getting used to the idea of a new baby sister, but so far he has been wanting a lot of attention so we'll see how it goes when we're home settling in.