The L.A. Dime

To give Sophie a little one-on-one time, we set up a little pool party on our patio yesterday afternoon. She put on her bathing suit, took all her “swim friends” and had a great time getting wet.

The adjustment for her has been going well – one of her first questions upon waking up every morning and when getting picked up at school is: “Where’s Baby Clay?”. She asks to touch his hand or hold him every chance she can and wants to watch or be involved with everything we do with him.

There have been a few times where we’ve had to tell her to be more gentle or that right now wasn’t a good time to hold him, which has made her very sad. Brad and I are still adjusting to having 2 kids that we want to give our full attention to and some days are better than others..

She absolutely loves her new school though and asks to go all the time. While there, she gets to swim every morning, make a ton of various art work (she calls them her “art projects”) and learns new songs daily. They have a different theme to focus on/learn about every week – Beach week, Recycle week, Space week,….but her favorite so far seems to have been Dinosaur week. It feels really good knowing that she enjoys going there and is happy to learn and grow.

As I hold my newborn Baby Boy and have a conversation with my Toddler Girl, I feel a little overwhelmed by the big responsibility. However, I also feel extremely thankful to be given this opportunity and grateful for my hubby who is there every step of the way, ready to tackle this challenge as a team.

By this time last week, I was high on Petocin and an Epidural counting down the minutes to finally meet Baby Riddell. Within a few hours, that wish was granted and for the past week, all 3 of us have fallen more in love with Baby Clay every day.

He’s a very mellow dude — once he’s been feed (he’s up to 3-4 oz already!!), he’ll sit and watch us for about 30 minutes, before he dozes off again for a long nap. He likes to be held close, doesn’t want his arms swaddled and has even cracked a few smiles (although I am sure completely involuntary, they are super cute nonetheless). So far, he’s still awake more at night than during the day, but hopefully that’ll get switched over in a couple of weeks. While I see a lot of visual similarities between Clay and Sophie, one behavior that is exactly the same is…yup, you guessed it…”sharks mouth”. Anytime Clay is ready to eat, he opens his mouth very, very wide, throws his head from side to side and as soon as the food is on his lips, devours it.

His first doctor’s appointment went well, he had his first trip out to park yesterday and his first bath.

Below are his “week 1″ shots – taken this morning.

After one night at Hotel Cedars, we decided it was time to come home and start our new life as a family of four. Clay’s first car ride went fine – although with temperatures in the high 90′s, I have to admit that I was really hoping that our AC wouldn’t stop pumping out that life-saving cool air.

The first 2 days at home have been good — Thanks to Jan who continues to keep Sophie entertained as we are re-learning all the little “baby things” you forget….like having a burp cloth close by at all times, how to swaddle and functioning on less sleep. So far, Clay is following his sisters footsteps in taking lots & long naps during the day and getting up about every 2.5 hours at night to feed. He’s learning how to sleep in his bassinet without being held and we’re learning what his favorite holding positions are.

We’re trying to capture his various looks – he’s very expressive (especially in his sleep) and I am falling more and more in love with those big blue eyes (who knows if they’ll stick around). While taking some pics of him last night, Sophie posed too so we got a great “paparazzi shot” of her.

Another big help these last 2 days has been food deliveries by our closest friends – Thank You Aiyana for bringing over that yummy lasagna last night and working with a crew of others to set us up for this next week with warm dinners!!

As Jan took off this morning, we are gearing up to start our new life today…on our own…and I just can’t wait!

After all these months of telling Sophie about her becoming a big sister and involving her in the baby preparations around the house, it was finally time for her to meet her little brother. Jan brought her to the hospital last night and upon inspecting the room, she was ready to lay eyes on Clay. She had a huge smile on her face, jumped up & down and threw her hands up in the air. She asked what “her” name was and Dada tried to explain that Clay is a boy….she didn’t care much though and asked to hold him. She said he was cute and that she loved him. She then requested that I unwrap him completely so she could inspect his toes, feet, belly, chin and head. She was quite thorough and seemed satisfied with the overall results.

We settled into bed around 10:30 and Clay actually slept for a 6 hour stretch. While that was really nice (as both Brad and I had not been sleeping well the previous nights), the nurse wasn’t happy with me for letting him sleep past his “every 2-4 hour feeding schedule”. Today we have a series of tests lined up but are hoping to check out of the hospital later this afternoon/early evening.
Stay tuned on how our first day at home goes….

Richard Clayton Riddell arrived today, at 2:21pm, weighing 8.1oz and measuring 21.5 inches. He’s passed all his baby tests, has had 2 feedings, 1 bath and a lot of kisses.

My water broke at 2am, we arrived at the hospital at 6am and after 14 pushes, he entered the world. A huge Thank You to Faleena for coming over very early this morning to help get Sophie up and to camp….and to Jan, who drove down from Napa Valley and will spend the next few days with Sophie at our house…and to Zack who brought us yummy food!!

Clay seems to be a strong little fellow – he tore right through the measuring tape while the nurse was trying to get his head circumference and also wouldn’t bend his legs during the flexibility exam. We’re not sure yet what his stance is on being swaddled.

It’s been 6 hours since he’s joined our family and we are simply amazed and thankful for this new baby. Thank You so very much to all of you who have supported and shared our joy over these past months — I could feel all of that love and support as I was laboring today!