Baby came early

Larisa surprised us all by going into labor on Wednesday. That was 11 days early. It was just like the first time in that we both sort of looked at each other in awe and thought, could this really be the day. Luckily she went into labor in the morning so I didn't even go in to work, and the baby was born by 4:34pm. Everything went quite well. Some of our kind neighbors watched Lydia for us. We named the baby Tyler.

My mom flew in on Wednesday night. She changed her flight since she wasn't planning on coming for another week and a half. The birth came so early in the day that I was able to pick her up myself with Lydia. We stopped by Google to get some food and drinks. Mom is being a lot of help. We're really glad to have her here. She watched Lydia for two days while we were taking care of things, including while we were at the hospital.

Lydia is enjoying the "baby brother." She says that phrase all the time now. She catches on so quickly. She also picked up that his name is Tyler, and she pronounces it quite well. Even though she has fun looking at him, covering him with blankets, and putting the pacifier in his mouth, we can tell she misses the attention. She's been complaining and defiant more often than normal. This evening she begged me to go out to the car with her. I finally got the keys and took her for a drive. Then I decided to stop by this creak near the Stanford "dish" and take her for a walk. We had a lot of fun, but she sure didn't want to go back to the car. When I brought her home she insisted on playing in the car for a while.

The other day we went to a one-year-old's birthday party. Lydia played in the pool with the other kids. Then we ate cupcakes, and Lydia did something very characteristic of her. She started gathering all of the small cupcakes (they had two sizes) from one table to another one. She wasn't planning on eating them, she just likes to gather things. All of the adults had a good laugh. Luckily there were plenty of cupcakes. Then after playing there a while she came to me and said "baby brother," so I took her home to see Tyler.

Mom (Vivian) said that she was in the playground with Lydia the other day, and Lydia was sitting in a swing. Then one of Lydia's friends came and started being swung on another swing. After a while Mom thought, what is all that screaming. They were both shouting "no" to each other over and over. That's how little girls "play" with each other. They stop each other from playing with their toys, and sometimes they aren't even sure what they are trying to stop the other one from doing.

Mom noticed today how Lydia makes sure she has your attention when she's saying something important. She grabs both sides of your head, holding your cheeks with her hands, and looks you right in the eyes when she says something like "bread" or "go-go" (meaning she wants to go somewhere else) or "baby brother."

Tyler is eating well, and we are getting very attached to him. We have been taking shifts at night because he likes to keep us up then. He had a tong-tie, which wasn't caught in the hospital, so his feeding has gotten off to the wrong start. We had that taken care of, and we're feeding him from a bottle for a couple of days to let Larisa recover from the damage.