Mother of Two

So today was my first official day on my own with two kids. Mike is now back at work and all of our family visitors have returned home. It was a little hectic.....

5:15 am--Peter wakes up and I start feeding him


5:30 am--Mike leaves for work. This is it, I'm officially outnumbered


5:55 am--Peter finishes and goes back to sleep


6:15 am--I am finally able to fall back to sleep for a few more precious minutes of sleep


6:45 am--I hop into the shower. I know that by the time I get out of the shower I will hear both Peter and Olivia crying but I selfishly enjoy my nice hot shower.


6:55 am--Sure enough I get out of the shower and hear both Peter and Olivia are awake. Peter is hungry again and Olivia is singing at the top of her lungs.


7:00 am--Olivia seems happy enough so I focus on Peter, he gets a new diaper and a pacifier and I go to get Olivia.


7:15 am--Olivia is especially feisty this morning and refuses to sit still while I get her dressed. She insists on picking out her clothes which I let her do but she kicked me while I was changing her diaper which resulted in an immediate time out in the corner. Olivia was upset about being put in the corner and she stood up to test my resolve (her favorite activity lately). I told her to sit back down and she "responded" by squatting and peeing in the corner.

7:30 am--Clean up the accident in the corner. Get Olivia and Peter dressed and head downstairs.

7:50 am--Breakfast. Cereal for Olivia and I sit down at the kitchen table to nurse Peter. I experience a few moments of confidence. I'm totally doing this! Both kids are happy and eating. I am the ultimate multi-tasker!

8:05 am--Phone rings, Mike has a question about paperwork that he's left in his office here at home. I frantically search through the desk to find the paperwork all the while still trying to feed Peter.

8:15 am--Olivia announces that she's "all done" and before I can do anything she tries to simultaneously get down from her booster seat and carry her bowl to the sink. This results in her spilling her bowl of milk all over the floor.

8:30 am--Breakfast is over begin cleaning. Olivia's speech teacher is coming to the house for their weekly sessions now that she's not at school all the time and the house is a mess. I spend the next 45 minutes frantically cleaning. The speech teacher is due to arrive at 9:30.

9:15 am--The house is reasonably clean and I sit down to feed Peter again. Olivia takes this opportunity to take out all the toys that I have just finished putting away. She's being quiet and amusing herself so I don't really care.

9:20 am--I hear the garage door open and Mike walks in. It's the day before Thanksgiving and it turns out they've all been released early. My first day solo with 2 kids is over. It's not even 10 am and I'm exhausted and completely relieved that he's home early! He's just in time! I finish feeding Peter and happily pass him off to Mike so that I can spend the next hour and a half playing with Olivia and her speech teacher.

I learned a couple of very valuable lessons from my first day alone with two kids:

1. I know that I will be able to do this
2. I will happily take all the help I can get

Family of Four

We're still here, just enjoying each other as we are adjusting to being a family of four! Olivia is still loving the baby and being a big sister. I'm really surprised at how helpful she is! I wasn't expecting her to be so helpful but she loves to get Peter's blanket or his pacifier or bring me the boppy pillow.

Mike's parents were here when we were in the hospital and my parents are here through this weekend. It's been great to have all the help around the house. Olivia has loved the extra attention from her grandparents. We've just been busy spending time together and hanging out.

Pictures of Peter

I just posted some pictures of Peter on Shutterfly, click on the link below to check them out:

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It's a BOY!

Mike and I are proud to introduce the newest member of our family......Peter Salvador Leiva. Peter was born via c-section on 11/11/08 (veterans day) at 8:57 am. He weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs, 3 oz and is 20 and 3/4 inches long. He does have a lot of hair but it's nothing compared to the mop of hair that Olivia was born with! The delivery was surprisingly smooth, the surgery went well. The doctors were all impressed to see that Peter's umbilical cord was tied in a knot. Apparently this is a sign of good luck or good fortune in many Asian cultures but I can't seem to find anything on google about it. Anyone know anything about this?

Peter and I are doing well and resting comfortably. Thank you so much for all the thoughts and well wishes. Here's the first of many pictures to come.....

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day! I can't wait! Mike and I have spent all day reminding each other that we'll finally get to meet baby leiva tomorrow. The car seat is installed in the car, the bags are packed and loaded, we're ready. Now all we have to do is get to the hospital by 6 am tomorrow. I know that I will miss Olivia but she seems to have adjusted to Mike's parents and she didn't even cry when Mike's mom tucked her into bed tonight. We'll be in touch......

Baby Update

So the update is that there isn't an update. Mike's parents got here this past Thursday and we've spent the weekend showing them around the area and watching them get to know Olivia. Unless something happens before then it is looking like Tuesday is the big day! We can't wait to finally meet the newest member of our family!

Elections-West Coast Style

So last night's election night was our first one spent on the west coast. Throughout the election season we've been able to experience the best that the politically active northwest has to offer so we were looking forward to settling in for a long night of watching all the election coverage. Last night we got Olivia into bed around 7:30 and ordered pizza so we could veg out in front of the tv, watching the coverage. We had just settled in with our pizza and drinks (virgin mojito for me), we were happily channel surfing between the major networks, starting to get excited about the hours of fun ahead only to discover that right around 8pm our time, it was over. That's it, no more fun, no more diagrams of red and blue states or television anchors excitedly debating split states. The polls had barely closed here and a winner was announced. It's not that we're not excited about having a new president but seriously, it was over already! We miss the east coast, the election parties, the sitting glued to the tv for hours watching television anchors with their fancy diagrams. It must be very disappointing to live in Hawaii, you're half way through the work day and the whole thing is over.....

I seriously cannot stop

This past weekend in addition to celebrating Halloween we continued our mission to organize the house. Mike is being such an understanding husband, I know that I am driving him absolutely crazy. He keeps trying to get me to rest and I keep finding random projects that I have to do. Over the weekend I ....

• Re-arranged the living room furniture again
• Took everything out of the kitchen cabinets and then put it back in the cabinets but this time it's much more organized
• Washed 5 loads of laundry (we actually did have this much laundry, I didn't just wash clothes that were already clean, that really would be crazy and laundry isn't my favorite chore)
• Took all the books off the bookshelves so that I could make sure the shelves were really clean before replacing all the books
• Took everything out of the linen closet in the master bathroom, refolded and reorganized, and replaced it

I think I even inspired Mike to do a little nesting himself. He went through all of his army gear that had been stored in the garage and moved it to the closet in the guest bedroom. Now both cars fit in the garage!

Halloween Fun

I hope you all had a Happy Halloween! Here are some pictures of the Halloween activities we've participated in over the last week....the Fall Festival at Olivia's school, decorating and carving pumpkins, decorating halloween cookies and trick or treating.

I've uploaded some of the other fun Halloween pictures to shutterfly so if you're interested in seeing more Halloween fun check out this link:

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