July and August

With a new baby and a new house, we all had to adapt to our new family and home. But we tried to take advantage of the summer months and all the activities they offer. We had heard that they had a dinosaur exhibit at the state fair so we decided to be adventurous and go. We are not state fair people, but our son is quite enamored with dinosaurs so we felt we had to go. They are basically....dinosaur robots. At first he seemed pretty fascinated. Mouth wide open, speechless. He was fine with the T. rex, brontosaurus, triceraptos...but somewhere in the middle he decided he was scared. To the point where he just wanted to cover his eyes (as seen below)


After the dinosaurs (which we went to first) he wasn't really into much else. We saw a fire engine, but he wasn't too into it. Saw some animals, not so much. We finally showed him a train ride and he finally perked up. So we decided to go ahead and sell a kidney and buy tickets for this little train ride. Let this boy have a little fun. You can't really tell from the picture, but he loved it.


We kept Anderson in daycare (or school as we call it around here) and sometimes he comes back a little messy. He is very into his art. We also live next to some strawberry farms. Sometimes, on my way to pick up Anderson from school, Lauren and I will stop by one of the strawberry stands and pick up a flat to eat for dessert. Unfortunately, Anderson will sometimes spy this flat of strawberries when he gets in the car, heads straight for them and stuff as many in his mouth as he can until I strap him into his carseat. So sometimes, he will come home looking like this:
(not sure if you can see it, but there is paint all over his shirt and hair and he's got strawberry juice on his face)


In August we celebrated Wilson's birthday and had a small party with family and friends. And had some fun just spending time as family.





And some pictures of our little princess Lauren. In August she was 2 months. Even early on she had a cute smile.


And sometimes when we tried tummy time, this would happen: (She fell asleep)



Bath time!

Chillaxin

Lauren, already relaxing at 12 days old

The Water Table

You know when you bring home your first baby, there's that moment where both parents are home and you can bask in the joy of your new baby while at home. Soaking it all in, easing yourself back into the daily routine of life. Well, that doesn't happen with your second child. The minute you get home, you have to hit the ground running because you have the first child who still needs/desires/craves your attention. We knew it would be a hard transition for Anderson so we really tried to do our best with making sure he got the attention he needed in the first few weeks of Lauren being born. We didn't want to shock him with a new member of the family and suddenly drop off in the attention that was given to him. In fact, I think we played with him more because we were so conscious of him.

The 2nd day we were home with Lauren, Anderson and I made a trip to Target because we needed some premie diapers and clothes for Lauren. All the newborn sized clothes were way too big for her! While there, I decided to pick up a water table for Anderson to play with. The kid loves being outside and playing with water so I thought this would be perfect for him to play with. I'll have to say that I have never been so right about something. This was probably the perfect gift for him and us. He could spend hours outside playing with this water table. Filling up cups and buckets, dumping the water out on plants, himself, us, etc... And the nice thing is that he could play with this by himself as we looked on, sitting exhausted in a chair in the shade with baby Lauren.

Here are some pics of his first time with the water table.

Bringing Home Baby

We only stayed at the hospital one night. We were pretty eager to get home since we didn't want to be away from Anderson too long. And since Lauren was doing fine and we weren't first time parents anymore, we were ready to check out and get back to our life. Or get our new life started.
We were pretty worried how Anderson would take this new change. Before, he would freak out if we held or even played with other kids, so we were prepared for worst. We had tried the usual recommendations - holding a baby doll so he got used to us carrying a baby. But our boy was too smart for that. He knew it was fake and didn't seem to really care. We crossed our fingers, put the little lady in her car seat (she looked so tiny in it!) and headed home.

Anderson had met Lauren at the hospital but bringing her home is a whole different deal. Surprisingly, he seemed quite smitten by her and he seemed to take to his new role as big brother really well. And he still has. He loves making her laugh, loves it when I ask him to watch her and in general, really loves her. Of course he's swatted at her a few times but that was expected. Here are some pictures of them a few days after we had brought her home.

Lauren

Anderson was born 16 days early. And at my 37 week appointment, my doctor said I was 2.5 cm dilated an 80% effaced! And it could happen any day for me. And it actually happened the next day. My water broke and I went into labor.

So, when it came to around 37 weeks when I was pregnant with Lauren, I fully expected pretty much the same progress. If I was early with my first, then I should be early with my 2nd, right? So when they checked me at 37 weeks and I was ZERO cm dilated, but 60% effaced, it was pretty much a letdown. I knew I hadn't had as many contractions with Lauren, but I didn't expect ZERO! So then I resigned to the fact that this baby was going to be (gasp) on time. Wha wha wha....

One week later....(9 days before due date)

I think I woke up around 3:30am with some strong contractions. I think I sat in bed for a good 15 minutes before Wilson woke up and realized that I was starting to have strong regular contractions. After 30 minutes of them being 8 minutes apart, we decided to call Wilson's mom to come over and watch Anderson while we made our way to the hospital. We got up, got ready, finished packing our bag (I decided to wait to pack my tolietries, thinking I would just throw everything in there at the last minute) and that didn't take too long. So I went ahead and plugged in my straightening iron to pretty up my hair a little. I didn't dry it night before so it was just a little wonky. And I didn't really want it to look wonky in any pictures. So, I straightened my hair. Don't worry. I was very safe about it. As soon as I started feeling the contractions coming back, I quickly put down that straightening iron. Of course, Wilson yelled at me that this wasn't that important. I yelled back "I beg to differ. Plus, we can't do anything until your mom gets here anyway!" We were just waiting around. Might as well be productive, right?

By the time we got checked into the hospital, it was just after 5 am. The nurse got me set up in the room (right next to the one Anderson was born in!) and checked me. 6 cm and 90% effaced!!! Woohoo! My body was workin! We got settled in, the doctor came in to give me my epidural (I had briefly thought about not getting it, but I hated how I couldn't talk to anybody and hated the sound of anyone talking to me and hated anyone touching me. I wanted to be in a good mood while having this little girl so I went ahead and got it, but asked for the lowest possible dose they could give me, which the doctor kindly agreed to because my blood pressure was quite low to begin with). My OB came in and checked on me, realized that I was starting to go backwards, so he decided to break my water to make sure we were going in the right direction. I think that was around 7am. The nurse came in to check on me and told me to tell her if I started feeling any pressure. I think it was maybe 30-40 minutes later that I told Wilson I started to feel something. I wasn't sure what it was, it was probably nothing, but we should call the nurse anyway. She came in, peeked and her eyes got really wide. "You're ready to go!"

Soon, things started happening real fast. All those people came in, the baby incubator was wheeled in. The nurse asked if I remembered how to push. Kinda. So she said maybe we should do some practice pushes before the doctor came. Ok. Got into position and gave it my all. Halfway, she yelled "STOP!" And told another nurse to get Dr. Scates right now. I remember waiting for a little while and feeling the need to push. Wilson asked how I felt and I said I feel like she's right there. The nurse responded with "Yes, she is right there." Finally, Dr. Scates came in and it was show time. I started pushing at 8:25 am, gave some really great pushes, and at 8:29 am, Lauren was born.

Lauren Abigail Jang was born on June 3, 2011 weighing 6 lbs 6 oz and 19.5 inches long.

I remember saying something like "That's it?" before I heard her sweet little cry.

Look at all that hair!

Resurrection

Yes! I am resurrecting the blog! Finally, after all these months. So what happened? Ummm..life happened. And I will try to recap these past months as best as I can. I will try to do it mostly for myself and for my family than anybody else. But the big things you should know is that we now have a baby girl :) and a new house. I know. Big things happened. And that's how we got so busy. And I didn't have time to blog. And any free time I had I spent sleeping or cleaning or cooking. Basically just trying to keep up with life. I know. How selfish of me.

So, why, after all these months, have I decided to start blogging again? Mostly for myself. Mostly so I have a record of what went on our lives. There have been many times where I notice something about Lauren (our baby girl who I will introduce you to shortly) and wonder if Anderson did something like that at his age. I don't remember! So I come back here to my trusty old blog and there it is. With pictures and all. And now, with no blogging, there's no where to see what my little girl did in the past. And she doesn't deserve that. She's too cute and precious and wonderful and sweet for me not to remember anything about her babyhood. So, I'm here to record it so we can all see and remember just how precious she was/is.

One of the first things my OB said to me and Wilson during our first visit of my second pregnancy is that "you gotta take pictures of the 2nd child. You hear it all the time, that the 2nd child never has any pictures. And then they grow up wanting to see those baby pictures and notice that there are about a million of the 1st child, but only a handful of the 2nd. Don't let that happen." Well folks, I swore it wouldn't happen because we love taking pictures of the kids, but it's happened. And again, she doesn't deserve that. Her cuteness and sweetness needs to be shared! And I'm hoping that by keeping up with this blog will not only let me have a record of what my children were like and what we did, but also force me to take more pictures of my kids - both of them. And if you get some entertainment and like to hear about what we did over the weekend, or that our kids aren't perfect and smiling as the pictures always seem to show, then that's great. And if you'd like to follow along as we make our house a home (we are currently trying to decorate and make it a home with our personality) then that's even better. Because I think I am going to try to track that as well.

Oh, and as far as the new blog title. That's just something I threw up there because we are obviously not 3 Jangs and a Dog anymore. That's just too outdated. I want to think of something a little more creative but, for me, creativity takes time. And if it's one thing I DON'T have, it's time. So if you'd like to suggest a new title, please do so! I'm open for suggestions! Just keep in mind that this is a family blog :)

Chicago in April

The first week of April, we headed to Chicago for 4 days. I knew it would be hard to travel with two kids later on this year so I wanted to go back and visit my parents before I couldn't travel anymore. I made it just in time as I was 32 weeks during the visit and I think the cutoff for flight travel is 32 weeks.

This trip was very Anderson oriented as we hit the spots and sights we thought he would really like. We took advantage of the free night at the Chicago Children's museum on Thursday night (as did a lot of people). This was a great museum (albeit kinda crowded) because it's made for kids and I didn't have to worry about things being destroyed or where he was going. It was a place made for kids to climb, explore, tear apart, etc...

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If there was one thing he loved, it was this excavation pit. They had bark made of recycled tires and kids could pretend they were digging up a dinosaur. The whole looking for a dinosaur thing was totally lost on Anderson. But he did know that he could play with bark and could dig. Two things he loves to do. Oh, and throwing bark. We literally had to drag him out of here kicking and screaming so he we could check out the other exhibits.

Those carrots aren't real kiddo.

The next day, we spent the day at the John Shedd Aquarium. The morning was a little rough since we had to spend quite a bit of time in line, but once we were inside he LOVED it. He loved seeing all the animals, particularly the octopus. It was funny though because being the cautious kid he is, he wanted to get close but not too close, and he wanted to be held the entire time. And when we came home, all the animals we saw at the aquarium were all he could talk about - sharks, dolphins, whales, octopus! He even got his first movie experience with a 10-15 minute movie of Planet Earth. He wouldn't wear the 3D glasses but he loved it anyway. He even had his cheerios and water out while watching the movie to complete his movie experience. And when the movie was over, he just looked around at all the people leaving and said "more movie!"



He didn't want to touch anything or get too close to anything in the aquarium except for this. A wall of star fish with people that donated money. He was all over this.



Our last day in Chicago was a beautiful day. So much so that we were able to walk to Millenium Park to see the bean.

Doesn't this kid look great in yellow??



Let me tell you something about Anderson. He loves himself. He truly, truly loves himself. He loves looking at pictures of himself, he loves looking in the mirror and seeing himself, and he really does think he's just about the cutest thing alive (he is). So when he got to the bean, he loved it. It was Anderson all over all the time!