Dancing Dude

So today we were going to pick david up from work but ended up with an hour to kill in the city. I decided to be brave and try and find the Haitian embassy on my own. Wesley we really into helping me "find" it and was looking for street signs and such. We found it pretty easily and a parking space too! We went inside to find out if I could sign up to help with anything this weekend in the area. We were waiting in line and Wes said "Mommy, are we in Haiti?" I didnt know how to explain that to a two year old so I told him that we were in the embassy. A Haitian man standing behind me heard him and asked me if he has just said Haiti. I told him he had. The man then asked if he wanted to go there or had ever been there. I told him he sort of had because I had gone when I was pregnant with him. The man looked slighty shocked and said with doubt "YOU have gone to Haiti!?" After it was my turn to talk to the lady organizing and Wesley was walking around looking around and had taken off his jacket. I finished with my questions and asked his to put his jacket back on. He ignored me and continued to explore the embassy, he was sitting in chairs and looking at artwork. He then started walking up to people and saying "bonswa" (good afternoon in creole). He went over to a man who had just walked in the door and very loudly said "bonswa!" and started jumping up and down. The man said "bonswa" back to him and started jumping up and down with him. Eventually the jumping sorta turned into dancing together...... the man.... The Haitian ambassador to the United States!!!

Paxton starts to smile

He has started to smile this past week. He is a photo of one of them. I love the dimples the smile produces!

Helping Haiti

This morning when I was watching the news I saw a report saying that they needed people to help sort donations that had been made to get them ready to ship to Haiti. So we decided that we would all go downtown and I would go work for a bit and David would take the boys and find something to do with them. After going to a few places and finally finding one that was not too full already I left them and got to work. They went and got some food and then hung out across the street at a soccer field and were watching people play. After I had been there a while I got a text from David with the following conversation Wes: Mommy help Haiti? David: Yes she is. Wes: I wanna help Haiti. So cute! He is very interested in Haiti and the people there. He talks about Chama (the girl I sponsor) quite a bit. He also says he wants to go there and we had a conversation yesterday about how he had been there when he was in my belly! When I was almost finished working I went and got him and brought him over to the work area. I showed him the bin that had the toiletries in it and I worked on sorting out a box and he would carry the stuff to the toiletry box and put it in. He was very serious about the job. Once that was over we left. While walking back to the car he grabbed my face and turned it to look at him and asked me very seriously "Mommy did I help Haiti?" I was very happy to tell him that he had! I love that he loves to help!

GG vs Wes

So while in Maine for Christmas Wesley started to pretend to play soccer with Bethany. They passed the imaginary ball back and forth a few times and were having a great time and laughing. Then GG (his 70something year old great-grandma) decided she wanted to get involved in the game so she went and found a real soccer ball. She put it on the floor and started passing it with Wesley. They passed it back and forth a few times and he got one past her and she had to go chase it down. Meanwhile Wesley thinks he has "scored a goal on GG" and is fist pumping the air and yelling "DC United!!!" It was very amusing to see him get so excited about scoring a goal against his great grandma!

Brave Wesley/Wimpy Mom

Today we had a doctors visit. Wesley has been waking up in the middle of the night crying and complaining of knee pain. We think its caused by flat feet but took him to our pediatrician just to make sure. They wanted to do a blood draw just to rule out some of the really bad things it can be. First of all I was by myself with Wesley and Paxton and those car seats dont get any lighter to carry babies in. So we go up a flight of stairs to the examination room. Then down 2 flights of stairs to the lab. I am burning up from carrying the car seat and helping Wesley walk down. We get to the lab and you can see the look on the clinicians face. Obviously drawing blood from a 2 year old is not her favorite part of the day. We go into the room and she looks for a good vein to draw from. She then explains to me that I am going to have to lay Wes on the table and trap his knees between my legs then lay my body over his stomach and hold his shoulders down. She also said that she was going to bring another nurse in to help hold him down. She exits the room and Wes looks at me and asks what she is doing. I tell him that he is going to lay down and they are going to put a tie around his arm and poke him really quick and get some of his blood and if he is good then we can go get ice cream. He looks a little leary of the nurse when she comes back in. So we begin the process of laying him down and getting me situated into the correct position and the nurse holding down his arm and the clinican ready to draw the blood. Wes looks so little now and I begin to shake just a bit. They insert the needle and all he says is "ow" in such a tiny pitiful voice that I start shaking really badly and all of a sudden feel very hot. He does not move a muscle the whole rest of the time and just lays there perfectly still.... meanwhile I am about ready to pass out at the thought of that thing going into his arm and am having flashbacks of getting my blood drawn when I was pregnant and the pain that that involved. At one point they suggest that we sing Twinkle Twinkle and I start and my voice is shaking so bad I sounded like 90 year old woman. They finish up and he jumps up from the table and gets his shirt back on. Takes the paper to carry back up the flight of stairs to check out and marches out of the room announcing that he is ready for some ice cream! The nurse looked at me and said they had never had a kid handle it as well as he did. They then proceeded to ask me if I was ok and did I need any help! We quickly left and went and got Wesley his ice cream (I didnt get any!
~Mommy

Big Boy Pax

Yesterday I took Paxton for his one month check up. The pediatrician came into the room laughing and said how Paxton was the total opposite of his brother. He was 9 lbs 10 oz which puts him in the 50% for his weight and he was 22 1/4 inches long with puts him in the 80% for his height. He is not the peanut that his brother is!

Road trip

On the drive back from Maine Wesley was being very well behaved. He took a long nap and woke up super happy and was quietly playing by himself. When we would stop he would get back in his car seat without any fighting or complaining. So on one of our many stops David decided to reward the good behavior and get him a treat... a nice bright pink smoothie. He was very excited when they came back to the car with it and very quickly got into his seat so he could start to drink it. We started driving again and he was very quiet for a while. After a while he announced that he was "painting". I turned around and even in the dark could see that he was covered from hair to pants in pink smoothie and was painting the window with his smoothie covered straw! David and both tried to hold in the laughter but totally failed. So much for being good!

Joke

I was trying to teach Wesley a knock knock joke. It went something like this. K-Wes say knock knock. Wes- Knock knock. K- who is there.. Wes say orange. Wes- Orange. K- Orange who. Wes- Orange juice! He came up with the punch line all on his own. Not at all what I was expecting. He thought it was a pretty funny joke too.

Paxton rolls over

We thought is might have been a fluke thing at first but then he did it six times in one day! So at three weeks old Paxton can roll over
from his belly to his back. Pretty crazy!

NY 2010

We were invited to a friends house to celebrate the new year. It was an American/Austrian new year celebration. We also attended a british new years with other friends (new years there happened at 7pm our time so we were able to attend both!) We had some great fish and chips at the British one and fondue and raclette at the Austrian one. Wesley made it all the way to midnight without any problems (thank to aunts and uncles keeping him up late while in Maine). He watched the ball drop and was even showing off his dance moves after. Pax just slept through it all!

Christmas

We made the trip to Maine for Christmas. The drive up was not much fun but on the way back was one of the easiest even with a 2 year old and a 3 week old. We beat the storms home which was very nice. While up there Paxton got to be baby Jesus in the manger. Pax got to meet all his aunts and uncles and grammie and grampie. Wesley got to drive a snowcat (groomer) and ride a snowmobile. We had a huge italian feast for Christmas dinner which was so good. Wesley had a blast playing with his cousin Avery.

Brothers

Just a few of the cute brother pictures!

Paxton is born!

Woke up on Sat the 5th of december and it was starting to snow. I felt a pop and thought that my water had broken but I was not totally sure. I called the midwife and she said to relax at home and keep checking in with her. I was not having any contractions and actually felt really good. I spent the morning chatting with my friend in Austria and got Wes dressed to go play in the snow. I even made everyone meatball subs for lunch. We put Wesley down for his nap and went upstairs to lay down myself. I had one big contraction and I told David we needed to head to the birthing center. We arrived there at 2 pm and things went into hyper speed. Paxton was born at 3 pm! Wesley was there to witness the birth of his little brother and was able to hold him when he was minutes old. Wesley has been such a great big brother and loves to "nuggle" with him! It was a great birthing experience!