Long time no see!

Well, it's our fault "long time no see," but as you can probably imagine, life has been a little crazy around the Lawrance household lately. In my little bit of time each afternoon when both kids are napping, attempting to take a nap on the couch usually wins out over laundry, blog posts, and many other "to-do's"! (Note that I said "attempting." Alli usually has other plans for me.) As I type, they are both napping. However, today the only place I can get Alli to nap is in the front carrier. In addition to all of the craziness that comes with two kids, Scott is devoting every extra minute he has to finishing his doctorate. He is planning on graduating this spring and neither of us can wait until he is done.

The last several nights have been pretty rough. We have taken several steps backward in terms of how long Alli will sleep. If it wasn't for Scott being such a wonderful husband and taking on a signifcant portion of the nighttime load, I would probably only get 2-3 hours of sleep. I keep reminding myself it could be worse. While she doesn't like to sleep for very long on her own, at least she is not screaming the entire night. However, we are both REALLY REALLY hoping that we start taking steps forward again VERY soon!

Alli is growing like a weed! We have not been to the doctor lately, but I guess that she weighs at least 9 pounds now. She is eating like crazy and spending more and more time awake. She has even smiled at me a couple of times! Ethan continues to be very interested in Alli. He likes to be a protective big brother. Although like a typical 2 year old, he has definetly been testing me lately, especially when my hands are full taking care of Alli.

I just barely missed getting the real smile on camera!

Kristy and Josh came over for a playdate on Monday. Ethan really enjoyed extending his roll as big brother to big cousin. He was very interested in "Dosh" and stuck pretty close to him and Aunt Kristy while they were here. They left while Ethan was napping, and when he got up he was very upset to find out that they are gone. In the two days since, he has frequently told me about "Dosh"!

Alli looks like she is thinking, "What's your problem, buddy?"

Alli Update

Alli had her follow-up cardiologist appointment today. She was seen by the doctor who read her initial echocardiogram in the hospital. For those who haven't heard, she was diagnosed with a heart murmer and they found a VSD (congenital defect in the septum that separates the right and left ventricles). Since she was not having symptoms, they were not really concerned, but wanted the follow-up to be sure.

We started with a weight and measurement check. So far Alli has grown an inch and is up to 20 inches. Her weight came in at 7 pounds, 12 oz...up from her last check at 6 pounds, 13 oz a week ago. They also tried to do an EKG, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation test, but Alli wanted nothing to do with those and fought the tech the who time.

Dr. Steinberg came in and examined her...listened to her heart and thought it would be good to repeat the echo. After the examination, he said that everything looked great! She actually had two VSD's on the initial echo, but he couldn't find one of them today and the other was so small, he couldn't hear in on exam. He said that she should not have any problems in the future and certainly no restrictions with activity or sports in the future (made daddy happy!). Things looked so good that he gave us the option of not coming back in the future since everything looked so good. We may go back at the one year mark, but we'll see.

As you can imagine, this is relief for Megan and I...not that we were all that concerned, but its nice to get the all ok from the doc. Its especially nice to hear that she has no restrictions as she grows.

I'm back to work now and trying to adjust to full days...so far I've done pretty well, but we'll see how things go toward the end of the week. Megan is doing well thus far at home with the two kids. Ethan has been great with his new sister - always wanting to be involved helping (watching) us change her diaper. He has even started giving her some kisses on the head at bedtime. I think we'd both say we're pretty lucky to be blessed with the two children we have.

Well, that's it for now. Promise to post more pictures in the next day or so.

Scott

Cousins!

Scott and I have a new nephew! Ken and Kristy had their first child yesterday...Joshua William was born at 6lbs 9oz and 21.5in long! Today we went to visit and got some great pictures of Allison and Josh together with their dads. We tried to get one with big brother/cousin Ethan, but he wasn't going to sit still. You can see more pictures of Josh on Ken and Kristy's blog...the link is to the right!

New Pictures

Here is a close-up of Alli following her bath the other night along with some pictures of her with Ethan and a good one of him holding on to mommy.

First doctor's appt

We took Alli this morning to Dr. Roscoe's office for her first official appointment. Dr. Roscoe said that everything looked great and that she's doing fine with everything. Her weight has gone up to 6 pounds, 13 oz so up another 6 oz since last Wednesday when we had her weight check.