Two Months!

Can you believe it has been 2 months since Lucas was born? I know some of you can, since you feel like you've been waiting forever for me to update this blog. I wanted to let you in on a bit of what has happened in these two months, in no particular order...

* I finished teaching a class, including grading 51 course papers and exams
* My parents came for 3 weeks to facilitate the above, and we SORELY miss them!
* Rob worked on a big project at work requiring some overtime
* Meredith stayed home from school for a week right AFTER her spring break with a cold
* Rob, my dad, and our friend Nate built an awesome swingset in the backyard
* Meredith began using words like "anyways" and "but" to start sentences
* Lucas moved from "angel baby" to "angel baby except from 9-11pm" to "angel baby most of the time with unpredictable outbursts"
* Lucas established that his favorite song for Mommy to sing while holding and bouncing him is "You're the One that I Want" from the Grease soundtrack (the "hoo hoo hoo" seems to hit on something that makes him stop crying, at least temporarily)
* I had my second ever Mother's Day with children! (Note that on Mother's Day 2008 we were in Russia on Trip # 1 meeting Meredith - but had not yet gotten to adopt her)
* Lucas went from "up once or twice per night" to "up once or twice per night"....hmmm...
* Meredith went bowling for the first time!
* Lucas smiled!
* Lucas demonstrated an ability to scoot on his tummy, a couple of feet, in quite a short period of time. Yikes!

Those are just a few tidbits. Here are some photos to keep you going as well...

The first set are a little photo shoot (all of 2 minutes) that I did to capture some of Lucas's expressions...he was about 3 weeks old here.








The other set helps you keep up with Meredith:

* she caught the bouquet at Chris and Amber's wedding!


* she loved bowling and its associated snacks




* she adjusted her musical image (and apparently handedness)

These require a bit more explanation. Here is a photo from January, soon after she got her guitar. This was a Sunday morning before church. Instead of a more typical church outfit, she insisted on wearing the "Tweetheart" shirt that Grandma gave her for Christmas. Which was fine except it was chilly out, so she needed something under it. I did the best I could to pick out decent pants and some matching socks. Then she insisted on wearing her white church shoes with the ensemble, and proceeded to rock out on her guitar. This is one of my favorite pictures of her ever :) I consider it her grunge phase.

This picture was taken in April after Holli had given Meredith some awesome french braids. I invite you to comment on what you would call this musical style/image...is it pop, or something more?

* Finally, she found she couldn't get enough of her brother, so she brought a stepstool in by his crib to take a peek :)


Well folks, let me close with this. It is important to be honest. This is what our living room looked like a little over an hour ago when I started working on this blog entry:

And of course, this is what it still looks like, because I have been working on this blog! We are learning to prioritize the important things and leave other things for an undefined "later"....but that said, please leave a comment if you're reading this blog and want me to keep it up! I need the encouragement to make time for it to happen.

Thanks, and hope you enjoyed the update!

Onesies for Lucas!

My friend Holli helped organize a baby shower for me at the end of February. She posted some photos on her blog that show the very fun project we did! Next time I host a baby shower, I will definitely use this idea.

http://thinkingparents.blogspot.com/2010/03/great-idea-for-baby-shower.html

The rest of Holli's blog is great too, so feel free to add it to your reading list! She has, for instance, a post I like about post-birth doulas and the role they serve in a family with a newborn. Although I did not give birth, Holli served in modified version of this role for us over the past few weeks. In our case, she came over 2-3 times a week, for 2-3 hours, just to answer our questions, help us with some things that were new to us (bathing a newborn and filing down his fingernails, for instance!) and to help us stay caught up on things or run out to the grocery store or something. We also had her "on deck" to possibly help with some nights/early morning to allow us some sleep, but Lucas has turned out to be pretty manageable in that department. (Though he's decided it's OK to be wide awake and grumpy from about 9pm to midnight the last few nights...). It is a real comfort to have someone you can trust with your baby when he is only a week or two old.

That's all for tonight - Lucas is wide awake so I'm going to hang out with him for a while :)

A few photos to keep you reading...

I haven't put together the time for a long written post tonight, but I want to keep my devoted followers happy, so here are a few visual tidbits...

The Swaddle Escapee

The Obligatory Tiny Baby Foot!


A Welcome Home Cake! (lots of interest there)

(fun sidenote: I got the pants Lucas is wearing out of my old Cabbage Patch Kid suitcase -- washed them up and they fit great! I think my Aunt Lynne made them about 25 years ago.)

A Welcome Home Cake! (this time there really IS some interest from someone! I love the perspective in this shot - Meredith looks enormous and Lucas looks tiny, which is just how it feels for us!)


Comfy With Daddy -- the floor

Comfy with Daddy - the chair


and finally...

A New Approach to Bouncy Seat Comfort (thanks Holli for the pose and Breanna for the seat!)

"I'm a Big Sister Now!"

Many people have asked us how Meredith has responded to Lucas. In a personal sense, she doesn't mind him and seems to like him all right -- she gives him a little pat on the tummy or on the head sometimes, and even a little kiss now and then. The issues she has with him are more indirect - she does not like it when he cries, and is gradually learning not to burst into tears herself every time he does. And when one of us is holding him - especially feeding him - she wants to also sit in the chair or in our lap so as not to lose out on our attention. In general, she has also been acting up some, but this had started before Lucas arrived....the terrible 2s have come late, or the terrible 3s have come early!

Meredith has a "big sister" book that a friend gave us, and it has a page where the big sister helps with feeding her brother and states "I can help. I'm a big sister now!". Yesterday, Meredith wanted to help hold the bottle for Lucas while I fed him. Great! Then as soon as she had her hand on the bottle she looked at me and said, "I can help. I'm a big sister now! Like in the book! 'I can help! I'm a big sister now!' 'I can help! I'm a big sister now!' " She said it probably 8 times in a row, very impressed with the connection she had made. I'm so glad the book has managed to help her understand reality with a brother!

Here are a few pictures featuring both kids....we'll start with their first meeting in person (not counting through the nursery windows). When Lucas was discharged, according to hospital protocol, we needed to be wheeled out of the hospital. How do I look for a woman with a 3 day old baby? Got rid of that baby bump real quick, eh?

Meredith was already in her carseat, so I put Lucas in his and then managed to squeeze in between the two of them, anticipating that the ride home could be a little rough.


Little did I know how excited the kids would be to meet each other. Within about 5 minutes here's what I had next to me:


When we got home, Meredith was awake again and now ready to really meet Lucas. She gave him a gift and we think he liked it (he also gave her a little duckie that she enjoys).

Then she got a chance to hold him!

What a proud big sister!

The next day, we went out for a family stroll, with Lucas in his new (read: used) Cadillac stroller. Don't worry, we kept him more shaded after the photo op.

Hope you enjoyed these pics!

As a bonus, I need to post a few pics that I hadn't yet gotten to on Meredith's blog, that I can't bear for you to miss. I did not yet post the photos from Sunday Feb 28, at which time I was at our baby shower and Rob and Meredith were...well....you get the picture.







You can now find her waving her little Canadian flag (thanks, Kyle and Robin!) and saying "A Canada flag! Not a American flag, a Canada flag!", and then, in the tune of the national anthem, she will sing, "O Canada!" We still have to figure out if she is technically a Canadian citizen (as well as American and Russian), but either way it's pretty clear that she is Canadian at heart.

New Beginnings

Welcome to our new blog! This should be our permanent family blog - the original "Hamersma Adoption" blog and the "Magnificent Meredith" blog are officially retired.

The impetus for this new blog was the arrival of our son, Lucas Simon, last week. Since his name isn't Meredith, the blog bearing Meredith's name didn't seem like the right place to write about him! This also illustrates the transition Meredith must endure in real life - a movement from the limelight to a shared stage with another child.

Here are a few pictures to get us started, and we will plan to update as regularly as we can. Right now we're feeling a little sleep-deprived (though better than expected) so please be patient!

Below are some pictures from the hospital where Lucas was born on Monday, March 8, to his birthmother and birthfather. On Thursday, we brought him home from the hospital to join our family. The transition was very smooth, and I think that having 4 actively involved parents for his first few days of life was a luxury few children enjoy! (We will have photos of his birthparents in his baby book for him (and others) to see, but I avoid posting photos of other people online, so the photos below only include our family).

Here are some photos from the day Lucas was born. He was adorable and alert from the very beginning!







Sometime soon we'll start posting photos from home, but for now this is all we have time for. The bed is calling! Thanks for reading.