Seth is 2 years 5 months

Pictures:

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Monthly Update:

Wow – this has felt like a long and busy month.  And I guess it has, between Halloween events, a new baby, and Thanksgiving.  The biggest new change for Seth, of course, is the baby.  He at first seemed mostly ambivalent – would always want to know where the baby was when he came in the room and whenever he didn’t want the baby around, he was sure to tell me – “The baby needs to be in his crib”.  For the first week or so, he called the baby Jonas, because our friends had a baby named Jonas a few months ago.  He finally figured out it’s baby Logan now.  And he likes to kiss the baby and say hi, but I think he would still prefer if Logan was sleeping in the crib 95% of the time.  For awhile there he would tell me ever morning “I love Logan, but I do not love him at night”, so I wonder if Logan’s crying is bothering him.  He has started waking up and wanting Katsu at night most nights now, but I think is more a transitioning thing than a getting woken up thing.  He hasn’t showed any violence or anger towards the baby yet, so it is going better than expected.

Otherwise, Seth has gotten pretty whiny.  Although Seth’s voice is naturally so high, sometimes it’s hard to tell a whine.  But he is kind of whiny/grumpy lately.  It’s so nice when he cheers up and is happy and you get to hear a happy voice out of him – like a breath of fresh air.

Seth had hives again this month – for like 5 days or something, pretty bad and all over his body.  At first, we thought maybe a food thing, but not when they stayed around that long.  Thankfully, they didn’t seem to bother him, but they sure looked awful.  I always get worried taking kids to the park when they have stuff like that, even though I know he isn’t contagious.  I mentioned it to the pediatrician and she said it could be environmental – probably related to the stress of having a new baby … interesting.

Seth’s new favorite thing to do is to hide things.  The only reason I know that he did it, is because he will say, “I swiped it.  Ha ha ha ha ha”, with like this really evil laugh.  Of course, he is fascinated with Swiper from Dora – definitely his favorite float during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

Seth is getting a little more stubborn lately.  He refuses to pick up toys.  We have gotten the Gunny Monster out this week and he takes away all the toys that aren’t picked up.  But that doesn’t seem to motivate Seth and then Andrew just suffers, too.  I guess we will have to try something else.  We have really been trying to push potty training this week, but Seth is also really not motivated about that.  It’s a little frustrating – kind of wishing I had pushed it more when I was pregnant even though I was super exhausted.  I know he can do it if he will try.  Some days he comes to me wanting to put on underwear “so I can get candy” he says, but most days he just wants to wear diapers.

Seth is definitely a love/hate sort of person.  He never hesitates to tell me if he is tired of me and wants me to go to work.  Lately, anyone he is not happy with, he will tell to go to jail, which I guess is in Mommy and Daddy’s room (not sure why).  He also told Grandma when she was here helping with Logan that he wanted her to go home half the time.  On the other hand, he will also just come up and say that he loves you, too.  Not sure why.  He also is having a love/hate relationship with Andrew.  Half the time they play together well, the rest of the time they are beating up on each other and Seth tells me how he does not like Andrew and (again) he needs to go to jail.

Seth is really into building his train tracks and does really great tracks that are elevated, even.  He loves to play with his shinkansen on it.  He also really loves doing his Dora puzzle, looking through books, and building things with Trio blocks, and playing with the large trucks – especially the fire truck.  He is still pretty shy and prefers not to go out places without Andrew along.  Well, he says he always wants to go to the park, but actually he gets lonely/bored without Andrew and doesn’t like to play much with kids he doesn’t know.

Seth really really loves the new tricycle he got this month (after playing with it at a friend’s house) and wants to ride it every day! 

He really loves Nursery.  He wears the craziest clothes to church because he refuses to be dictated into wearing clothes.  The days I have tried to make him wear church clothes (and I am pretty lenient), he throws hour-long fits and once threw up in the car on the way to church.  Just not worth it.  But he is supposedly the best kid in nursery.  He knows all the songs, talks and participates and plays nicely.  So at least my kids are well behaved somewhere!

Well, we love our little Seth – he is a sweet boy (though a bit grumpy).

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Fun Things He Did This Month:

- Halloween events (which I already posted about):  Trunk or treating at the church, trick or treating and costume parade in the Central West End, Andrew’s Halloween preschool performance, and trick or treating in the neighborhood.  Another year with our cute Seth dragon.  Seth would have been happy wearing his costume all month long.

- Visiting Mom and Logan in the hospital and also getting to spend a couple days at Matias’ house and a day at Owen’s house.  The boys were so excited about spending time with friends that they were disappointed when my induction happened later than scheduled.  Seth was pretty hesitant when he first met Logan all by himself (while Andrew was at preschool), but he has quickly warmed up to him.

- Spending lots of time with Dad the week he took off work.  He especially is enjoying riding his trike and playing football and frisbee in the front yard. 

- Spending time with Grandma during the week she was here.  Seth really enjoyed helping make cookies!  And he was excited when Grandpa was here for a day.  The highlight for them was definitely showing Grandpa and Grandma the Chinese buffet they love so much.

- Watching the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV (loved Dora’s float), watching the dog show later, eating Thanksgiving dinner (mostly in love with the cranberry sauce, though Seth liked the turkey, pie, and ice cream, too), watching football with Daddy, playing at the park with the whole family, and riding his tricycle.

- Putting up the Christmas tree with Andrew and Daddy and then going to the park and Sonic together.  And a morning of watching Cars and Curious George.  A great day-after-Thanksgiving.

- Some park visits, a trip to the zoo, and spending lots of time at home with family.

Andrew is 4 and 1/2 years old

Pictures:

Monthly Update:

This seemed like a pretty busy month for Andrew.  A month full of birthday parties, Halloween events, sickness, and of course, the new baby.  Andrew came down with some really nasty vomitting/diarrhea illness and had to take a few days off of preschool.  I was getting worried because he threw up for a couple days and quite a lot – he just couldn’t keep anything down, poor kid.  We spent a lot of time watching TV and movies just to keep the kids still so they could get better.

Andrew is still enjoying preschool, but this week was a little harder since Katsu was home and I think Andrew wanted to stay at home and play with him the whole time.  He still much prefers the girls at preschool, but it sounds like he is starting to play with some of the boys, too.  There were parent-teacher conferences this month, but just like 2 days after I had Logan, so they just sent home the paperwork.  He is doing really well – drawing/coloring and working with scissors still need some work, but as I said before, he is now really interested in them.  He enjoys doing crafts and coloring at home now and spends a lot of time making pictures for his friends at preschool and writing their names on the pages.  His letters have gotten much better.  His teachers also say that he prefers the quieter activities to the more active ones.  I’m a little surprised (though he is a lot less active than Seth) mostly because at least 50% of his play times is doing shows or making forts.

Andrew is still very talkative, especially to adults.  He seems more hesitant to play with children he doesn’t know, to the point of being unkind sometimes.  He’ll say, “But I don’t want to play with other kids, I only want to play with Seth”, but of course, he doesn’t want to share <toys, play ground equipment, etc.> with the other kids in the meantime.  This has caused some conflicts, especially a huge one at stake conference which resulted in me (only a few days away from having a baby) carrying a kicking, biting Andrew down the hall, while trying to cajole Seth into following me.  Yikes!  So, yes, the tantrums are still here, though I think I am coming up with some better strategies to deal with them.  Sometimes, I think the world would just be so much better if I could be a perfect follower of the book “How to Talk so Your Children will Listen” … some day.

Andrew was pretty hesitant about the baby, but seems to be warming up.  He really enjoys holding Logan and tells me about how good he is at holding him.  He also likes to talk to him and always wants to see his face.  He is constantly asking me “What is the baby thinking?”.  On the other hand, sometimes he gets his face really close to the baby and makes really loud noises – kind of aggressive.  We’ll see how it plays out.  He still is sort of disappointed that Logan is a boy.

Andrew spends most of his quiet play time doing elaborate play with his trucks and animals and his new army men that Logan “gave” him when he arrived.  He is really obsessed with army men.  I’m not thrilled about it, but oh, well.  Of course, he also thinks that all army men are “bad” guys – I am trying to give him a more nuanced idea, but I guess 4 years olds are bad at nuance.

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Fun things he did this month:

- Another Music and Movement class at the library.  Andrew is too cool to join in most of the time, but enjoys it when the good songs are on.

- Crazy birthday party weekend.  Andrew went with all of us to a bounce house party at Monkey Joes.  He loved it.  He went on almost everything and had so much fun hanging out with a girl (one of Katsu’s colleague’s daughter).  He also went to his first drop-off party on the same day at a gym.  I think he had fun, but he complained that he didn’t get enough “free play” – sometimes I laugh at the thins he says.

- Magic House – Seth has not been here since he was under 1, so we all went for the monthly free night.  It was crazy and packed, especially so since it was (unbeknownst to us), a Trick-or-Treating night.  The boys collected a few toys from the costumed workers, but mostly had a blast checking out the exhibits.  Andrew LOVED the huge slide.  He and Andrew always went so they were together and you could hear them coming because they were laughing so hard.  He also really loved the construction site part and worked really hard there.  It was a really fun evening and the boys were exhausted when it was all done.

- Weekend with Daddy!  Morning at the Clayton Vehicle Fair – the boys LOVE this, seeing the trucks and the helicopter coming in (how cool is that!).  Then, they went to a Chinese buffet and also went to their favorite rocket ship park.  Unfortunately, Seth spent the rest of the day throwing up – poor kid and then Andrew came down with it a few days later.  But it started out fun …

- Halloween events (which I already posted about):  Trunk or treating at the church, trick or treating and costume parade in the Central West End, Andrew’s Halloween preschool performance, and trick or treating in the neighborhood.  Another year with our cute Andrew dragon.

- Visiting Mom and Logan in the hospital and also getting to spend a couple days at Matias’ house and a day at Owen’s house.  The boys were so excited about spending time with friends that they were disappointed when my induction happened later than scheduled.  And Andrew only missed a half-day of preschool from me being in the hospital – not bad at all.  He even brought in a footprint from the baby to preschool to show his class.

- Spending lots of time with Dad this week.  He especially is enjoying riding his bike and playing football and frisbee in the front yard.

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Funny Things he said this month:

- to Seth, “Pierce Morgan, why are you eating popcorn?” – yes, Andrew I realized knows the full names of each America’s Got Talent judges

- Andrew (as walking up to a girl on a playground): Hi! I am Andrew, I am four. What is your name?
Girl: I am Samantha.
Andrew: Samantha? That's a pretty name. What are you doing. Can I be your friend?
Girl (Looking somewhat uncomfortable): Ok
Andrew: Do you like going on a slide? We can go on a slide!
Seth (Noticing that Andrew's introducing himself, comes running over): I'm SETH! I am two I am two I am two I am TWO!!!! YEAHHH!!!

- We were talking about a friend’s mother who didn’t cook, but always got carry-out, delivery, etc. 

Amanda – Yeah, she never cooked for her children.

Andrew (wide-eyed) – Did they all die?

- Andrew (talking about Logan): Well, I think we will be friends actually because he is a lot cuter than I expected.

- Andrew:  I want to be a girl.

Mom:  Why?

Andrew:  So I can be a mom.

Mom:  You can be a dad.

Andrew:  I want to stay at home with the kids.

Mom:  You can be a stay-at-home dad.  Some dads stay at home.

Andrew:  No – not just some days.  Every day.

Followed by a longish conversation about stay-at-home dads.  Andrew is still skeptical, which I find funny because I know we see stay-at-home dads around town quite frequently.

Logan Birthday Party and more pictures

We always have a little birthday party after a new baby is born.  We did it a little early this time so the boys would feel more connected to their new baby brother.  Katsu made the cake this time and we also had sparkling grape juice (the boys didn’t like it, but enjoyed saying “Cheers”).  We sang Happy Birthday, let the big brothers blow out the candles, and exchanged presents.  The boys got baby Logan a turtle bath toy.  Logan got Andrew some little army men, which he was very excited for.  Logan got Seth a football, which Seth was ecstatic for and had been pining over for a very long time.  It was fun!

Pictures of Logan at the Hospital

I finally uploaded the pictures onto my computer, so here are some more pictures of Logan.  Also, the view from our hospital room – you could see the temple, because it literally just across the highway.

Halloween 2011

We had a fun Halloween this year.  We wanted to make sure that we did all the fun things in case the baby came early and messed up the boys celebration.  But no early baby and we got everything done.  We didn’t get pictures at everything, but I’m sure you can imagine.

1)  Party at the library in the beginning of October.  After this, the boys wanted to wear their costumes practically the whole month.  They were both dragons again and seem to want to be dragons forever, which is fine by me.

2)  Trick or Treating at the library with Seth.  Andrew was sick, but would have been at preschool anyway.  Seth was very shy during the story time, but knew exactly how to do the trick or treating.  Because it was at headquarters, Seth got to go down into the dungeon like part of the library – they probably trick or treated from at least 20-30 people, pretty impressive.

3)  Ward trunk or treat.  It was so dark and just our ward this year.  They brought in pizza and grilled hot dogs and brats, which I think was an excellent idea – easy and yummy.  They were also showing the Cardinals game as it was the last game of the world series.  Yeah, Cardinals!  The boys really enjoyed going from trunk to the trunk.  The older kids were pretty fast and already doing second and third rounds by the time Andrew and Seth got to the end.  I think Seth felt a little run over at times, but they both got tons of candy and had fun.  I am always amazed at how much some people decorate their trunks. 

4) Trick or treating in the CWE (Central West End), the district around Katsu’s work.  We parked at the hospital where Katsu works and walked over – the boys got a little tired, but everyone thought it was so cute to see their costumes.  We made it in time to see the end of the costume parade and the boys joined and even marched onto the platform to show off their costumes, though they were too nervous to wave.  We waited around until it was time to trick or treat and then went into area businesses.  We took a less buy street first and then worked our way back down.  It was fun, reminded me of Ann Arbor, and fun to see all the other kids costumes.  There was even dressed up characters like Dora there, too.  We also saw lots of pets in costume for the pet parade later.  We had some lunch at Subway because we were starving and then the boys were totally pooped and fell asleep in the car on the way home.

 

5)  Andrew’s preschool performance.  On Halloween, Andrew brought his costume and then had his performance at the end of the preschool day.  The kids all came in their costumes and each class performed two songs.  Last year, no one in Andrew’s class said a single word, so this year the kids were older and you could definitely see improvement.  Each kid said their name and what they were (so many ninja’s in Andrew’s class).  Then, they had kind of like music and movement type of songs.  We only took a video, but we’ll have to post it later.  It was pretty cute.  We all enjoyed it.

6)  Real trick or treating around the neighborhood.  Our condo we are renting is on the edge of a pretty nice neighborhood (I was shocked when I saw that what looks like a pretty average house was selling for 900k!  Anyways, I digress).  So, we trick or treat there.  Our street doesn’t get a ton of trick or treaters, but the street at the end of ours is packed.  The houses really go all out too with tons of decorations.  One house has like 30 different tombstones/scary things all over the yard and we like to walk there all month long.  And several houses have parties going on with little fires and food.  Anyways, all the parents kind of walk in herds, while their kids are just kind of running around.  And, of course, only in St. Louis would it be requisite to have a drink with you.  Half the parents at least were carrying around cups of wine or other alcohol.  Crazy.  Anyways, the boys had tons of fun.  Andrew had SO much to say, and very rarely was it Trick or Treat.  More like, “I’m 4 and Seth is 2 and we live on XXXX Drive and what is that in your house and I am a green dragon and Seth is a red dragon and ….”  Seth mostly just said Trick or Treat and thank you.  Seth is also absolutely in love with Dum-Dum lollipops, which is beyond me.  Anyways, I tried to teach Andrew a joke this year, but he wasn’t into it.  Thankfully, he is still young enough that no one expected him to tell a joke or perform (the usual request in St. Louis, weird, huh?).  They were worn out and Katsu had to carry Seth home and their bags got too heavy.  What a rough life!

Happy Halloween!

Logan Chiune Funai is born

Logan Chiune Funai

born 11/2/2011 at 3:32 pm at Missouri Baptist Hospital

8 lbs, 20.5 inches long

Logan is a good nurser and is much happier now that he is getting some real milk.  He loves being swaddled and wearing socks, and cuddling with mom and dad.  He is already starting to put on some weight and get back up to his birth weight.  He has a little bit of jaundice, but not too much yet.  He is pretty mellow – only a little squawk when he got his Hep B vaccine – but does not like his clothes being off.  We love Logan.

Birth Story in lots of detail:

I had been having contractions off and on, but it looked like the baby definitely wasn’t coming early like Seth did, so we had plenty of time to do all the Halloween celebrations.  The week before Halloween, both boys got pretty sick.  First, Seth and then Andrew.  They had some sort of stomach virus and had a day or more of tons of vomitting and then gradually recovered over a week.  Not fun at all.  In the middle of that, I got sick one day too.  At first, I thought I was in labor because I had contractions 3 minutes apart for quite awhile, but nothing really happened.  But I was miserable miserable, couldn’t eat, just laid on the ground all day in a fetal position.

So, after that, I was definitely up for an induction when my doctor suggested it.  Seth’s labor was very fast (about an hour) and if I went into labor it would take at least an hour for Katsu to come home, get the kids to friends, etc.  Plus, I had been induced for both the other boys when my water broke and if I had to been induced and we have no family around, I would rather be induced when I now we have friends to help watch the boys.  So, my doctor scheduled an induction for 11/2 at 7 am.

Well, 7 am came and went, much to the boys chagrin as they were dying to go play at their friend’s house.  Finally, the hospital had space at 11 am.  We picked up Andrew at preschool, dropped the boys off and headed to the hospital.  After waiting for a room and getting processed, we finally made it to the room.  Everything seemed to take awhile.  I think I didn’t get an IV until around 1:00 and Pitocin started until around 2:00.  I wasn’t feeling particularly well – for some reason I had a headache from the morning and also as soon as I changed into my hospital gown, I got really shaky. 

Otherwise, things went smoothly.  I was 4cm when I got to the hospital (I had been 2-3 cm the week before and 80-90% effaced).  By the time the Pitocin kicked me up to regular contractions, my doctor wanted to break my water and I was measured to be 6 cm.  The contractions hurt at this point, but no more than the ones I had been having the last couple weeks.  But I had been feeling worn down and shaky the last week in general and wasn’t sure if I could deal with transition labor, so I decided to get an epidural.

The epidural didn’t get put in very well.  With the first try, spinal fluid leaked out, but they did get it in eventually correctly – Katsu said it took several tries and he was starting to get concerned.  I wasn’t in too much pain, so I surprised it was so hard.  But the epidural worked and I didn’t feel much pain at all until near the end of dilation when I could finally feel my contractions (this was reassuring to me because up till that point I didn’t really feel in labor).  Very quickly, I felt like I needed to push.  They found my doctor and we got all set up and about 7 pushes (over like 3 contractions later), Logan was born.  I had a small episiotomy cut right before I was about to tear, so thankfully no tearing.  This is my first time without a 3rd degree tear, so hopefully it will heal better.

This was definitely the most enjoyable of my labors, because I felt not too much pain, so I felt like I could actually enjoy and remember the labor.  This is also the time I felt like I felt the urge to push and felt like I knew what I was doing, too (even without an epidural with Seth).  The total labor time was probably about an hour – not bad at all!

Logan looked good (although a little blue on the extremities) and after a bit of rubbing started crying.  He also peed when he came out.  He has lots of hair, because he is our baby, of course, but one of the nurses kept commenting that he was too pretty to be a boy. 

Okay, back to the epidural.  So, as soon as they put the epidural in, I had this horrible back pain.  It just felt pretty uncomfortable, but it gradually got worse through labor and then afterwards.  I had been warned that I would probably get a headache from the leaking spinal fluid.  And by the next day, the back ache intensified and then went up through my neck.  It was like this horrible throbbing pain.  I felt like I could probably deal with it, but my body was not dealing with it well.  As long as I lay flat on my back (or partially on my side to alleviate the back pain), I felt fine.  But if I sat up or got up for even 5 minutes, I would start vomiting or passing out.  Nursing was getting to be impossible. 

So, the anesthesiologist came back and gave me a blood patch.  They had left my epidural line in because they figured this would happen, so basically they take some blood from your arm and then put it through the epidural tube and they believe that it clots the leak in your spine.  Then, the headache should go away.  When they give you the epidural the first time, they don’t say much.  But when they read the list for a blood patch it’s kind of scary – possibility of paralysis or death … even though it’s the same risks basically as the first epidural.  Less for me, since I already had the line in.  Afterwards, I had to lay flat on my back for 2 hours.  Then, I was allowed to lift anything (although the baby is probably okay) or strain for the next 2 days.  Thankfully, the patch worked and the back/neck pain went away and I feel mostly normal.  I am scared to death it will come back, though.  I mean, how do you take care of a newborn if you can only lay flat on your back?  Really?  So, now I am kind of thinking if we have more kids, no epidural.  Because I think labor pains are way easier to deal with (and way shorter) than an epidural headache.  Yikes.

Otherwise, Logan and I stayed in the hospital just over 2 days … it took FOREVER (like 5-6 hours) for the pediatrician to finally come to the room and discharge Logan because they kept having pediatric emergencies (poor other families …).  Katsu stayed at home with the boys each night, which always is a little hard for me taking care of the baby in the hospital all by myself for 12+ hours a day, but it was okay.  The boys came by once, but it was a little crazy because it was when I was dealing with the spinal headache and when it got really bad.  They left just before I got the blood patch.

Now, we are home and figuring out the whole newborn thing again.