Pasta is one of our “go-to” foods for Simon—he will almost always eat it. But when he was learning to feed himself, I couldn’t get him to eat long noodles (spaghetti, linguini, etc.)—they were just so messy and discouraging. Then we went to visit Jamie, and this little tip I picked up from her changed everything: after you’ve cooked the noodles, use a kitchen scissors (or any scissors, really) to cut them into small pieces. I prefer to cut the noodles before I add the sauce; it’s just a little less messy that way. (Of course, a knife works too, but the scissors are just genius.) Works for me.

And because it’s so cute, here’s a video of Simon eating spaghetti (and falling asleep).

And just for fun, a birthday retrospective.

You should know that Rebecca’s blog, View from the Prairie Box (and her professional portfolio coming soon), is worth checking out anytime. I just can’t get enough of the last couple of days, though, because she’s been featuring photos of my kiddo (I haven’t commented on her posts, but I look at them obsessively and am giddy and amazed that he’s MINE, MINE, MINE!). As you can see for yourself, Rebecca did such a great job capturing the squeeziness that is Ian (as well as a few heartbreakers of Simon and Ian together). I have way too many favorites to pick just a few. Anyway, check out the pics . . . and here are a couple more (I could go on and on):

Since before Ian was born I have been worrying about how to get Simon to take his nap each day. For better or worse (better because I love to snuggle with my little guy, worse because it is often inconvenient) Simon has always needed someone to lay down in bed with him to go to sleep, whether for a nap or at night. Until today. After a great morning of playing next door, he was good and tired (as evidenced by the colossal fit that he threw for getting his coat on and all the way home). What has been working so far is to lure him upstairs with the prospect of helping to put Ian down for a nap in his crib, and then Simon and I casually wander into Simon’s room and lay down for his nap too. Today, though, Ian was having none of it, so I had to go collect him. I knew Simon was *this close* to sleeping, and I convinced him to lay down in his bed and look at his Bible book while I fed Ian in the chair. I figured worst case scenario would be that I would get Ian back to sleep and then come back to start the process over with Simon. No need. Within just a few minutes, Simon was asleep looking at his book. Hooray!

I am hoping that this is a good step toward getting Simon to sleep on his own. I am pretty certain that he won’t need someone to lay down with him in junior high, but some days I wonder. I almost don’t dare to dream about what new worlds that might open up for us—perhaps a babysitter that can put him to bed at night? Oh the possibilities! On the other hand, I don’t want to get too excited yet—if I’ve learned anything about my kid it’s that what works today might not work next week and almost certainly won’t work next month. In any case, though, I have two sweet sleeping boys right now and an hour or so to catch my breath.

In the spirit of Jamie’s post today, I figure one picture is better than no blogging at all.

The littlest Morehead will be three weeks old tomorrow. He’s simply delightful. So far he’s a quiet little guy. He’s a great eater and a good sleeper. Simon seems to be adjusting quite well—he is very affectionate and gentle with “Baby!” We haven’t noticed much, if any, jealousy. He loves to help by bringing diapers or the boppy when we ask for them. Things definitely do go better for all of us, though, when Simon gets his nap.

It was quite a surprise that Ian arrived almost four weeks early, and here, as best as I can remember, is the short version of how he joined us:

I had a regular thirty-six-week checkup with my midwife at 10 am on a Monday morning (December 28). My blood pressure had been climbing for the last couple of weeks, and the midwife said she would like me to spend twenty-four hours in the hospital to do some lab work and see if my BP would come down with bedrest. I was incredibly disappointed, knowing that this could mean that my hopes for a natural delivery (VBAC) and “normal” time in the hospital (baby in the room, baby coming home when I did, etc.) could be ending. But at the same time I really wanted to think that it would be just a daylong thing and that I would be going home at noon on Tuesday to finish out my four weeks in peace.

My mom had come down to help get ready for baby, and she was with me at the appointment. We headed downtown to pick up Jason and then turned right back around to go to St. E’s (we dropped my mom and Simon off at my Aunt Marlyce’s house, so Simon could get a nap; we, of course, thought that Jason would be picking them up in just a couple of hours). Jason and I got to the hospital around noon, and it probably took an hour or so before I was checked in, blood drawn, hooked up to the baby monitors, etc.

For the first couple of hours they took my blood pressure every fifteen or twenty minutes. My nurse warned me that with my BP didn’t seem to be coming down and that I probably wouldn’t be going home until I delivered the baby (for those of you who know Simon’s story, that news was all too familiar to us). I am sure that my BP was not helped by the fact that I was told Simon would not be able to visit and that he would only be allowed one sibling visit after the baby was born (this turned out to be a false alarm—the kids visiting restrictions had been lifted the week before). I’m not really sure, to be honest, who was making the calls at this point (the doctor on call? my midwife?), but they started telling us that we would deliver the baby within the week, maybe even that day or the next. And they wouldn’t let me eat “just in case.” I was starting to feel really lousy.

Jason was furiously making calls (he said it helped him to have something concrete to do). Things started changing so quickly that I’m sure he had to make each call three or four times just to keep up. Rebecca stopped by to visit, and we were making plans for Jason to go home and gather stuff (pjs, toothbrush, camera, etc.) while Rebecca would stay to keep me company. But sometime during our plotting, the nurse came in with consent forms and a surgery prep kit saying that we were going to go ahead and deliver the baby today, as soon as she could get me prepped, in fact.(!) (Since Jason obviously wouldn’t have time to go home, somehow we arranged that Rebecca would go pick up my mom and Simon and collect some essentials for us at home—I lost track of the details, but it worked out, and I am so thankful for her help!) At this point, I just wanted to scream “STOP! STOP! STOP!!!” I don’t remember being angry at the time, just flustered. Later when I had time to think about it, I was furious—I hadn’t even talked to my midwife or my doctor; I knew that baby was fine because we had just been listening to him on the monitor; I knew that my BP was high, but I also knew that it was not higher than it had been for the three weeks I was on bedrest before I had Simon. There was nothing to suggest such an emergency, and I was feeling very rushed and overwhelmed. I asked who would be doing the surgery and why it had to be so soon. I was told that the doctor on call would be doing the C-section and that they were hustling because now was when an OR was ready. I gathered my wits about me enough to say that I wanted my doctor to do the surgery (and that I would wait until he could) and that I wanted to talk to my midwife.

Again, the details are fuzzy to me, but my midwife worked it out so that my doc could do the delivery at 7 pm. That gave us four whole hours to get used to the idea of having a baby that day (better than twenty minutes, I guess). And it gave our parents and my sister time to get to Lincoln in time for the birth. I don’t remember much about the rest of the afternoon—I took a bath in the giant tub in the room, I felt yuckier and yuckier since I couldn’t eat and my headache was getting worse, and I’m pretty sure we rested as much as we could. And Jason kept on making phone calls.

Our family all arrived about 6:30. Simon ran around the room entertaining everyone and helped me stay a bit calmer than I might otherwise have been.

The surgery was delayed a half hour or so, but all in all it went very quickly. The anesthesia went much better than it had with Simon. That was the part I had been most worried about, so I was relieved when that was done. I threw up on the table, so that was pretty glamorous. Other than that, though, the C-section was pretty uneventful . . .

Well, except for the fact that our second son was born, that is. Ian Clifford Morehead was born at 8:04 pm, December 28, 2009. He weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces and was 19 inches long. He had a sweet little cry, but I didn’t get to see him much before they took him away to the nursery (Jason was there taking pictures the whole time and even got to cut his umbilical cord). He started out in the regular nursery, but before the night was over, they did transfer him to the NICU, where he spent nine days before we got to bring him home (perhaps a story for another post).

After checking the weather for the umpteenth time this morning, we finally decided not to brave the potentially treacherous Nebraska roads in the midst of the predicted storm. So we’re hanging out at home for Christmas after all. Although we’re disappointed to not get to spend the day(s) with our families, we’re enjoying some sweet family time with just the three (well, four) of us.

Nope, these aren’t mine. They’re my parents’ cards; my mom worked late into the night last night to get them ready to send out. Since it’s already December 23, I’m going to go ahead and make the call that once again I’m not sending Christmas cards this year. Other years I have felt guilty about it, but this year not so much.

Simon thinks that this hot chocolate mix is lick-the-container good.

Rebecca continues to inspire me (in more ways than I could ever say, but for the present post I’m specifically referring to photography). After dinner tonight we spent a good while (not long enough) playing with camera settings (and hoo boy do I have a lot to learn!). Part of my problem is that I don’t even know what I don’t know. But as we talked about aperture and light metering and white balance, I started to get really excited. So I think I might be on the verge of a genuine kick (imagine that 133 days into my photo project and almost 2 years into having a really nice camera that I know NOTHING about).