James Monthly Photo (12 Months / 1 Year)

James is 1 year old today!!  He's about 28 lbs (down about a pound from last month). Still not walking but likes to "walk" with assistance back and forth between Mom and Dad. He can come up to a full upright stand all on his own and can stand for quite a long time (about 30 seconds) before sitting or leaning down. He is starting to dislike pureed baby foods and spits out certain textures. This morning he at an entire whole peeled apple at breakfast all by himself!

Happy First Birthday James!!

Maddie's 3rd Birthday Party & James 2 Month Party! (Video)

We had a combined party for both kids!  We celebrated Maddie's 3rd birthday and also invited over extended family to see James at 2 months (as opposed to the typical 1 month since the events were so close together).

We even got a video of the room full of friends and family singing Happy Birthday to Maddie!

We had a blast and it was so great spending the day with friends and family!

Madeleine's 3rd Birthday at Wonder Works Museum in Oak Park

Today is Maddie's 3rd birthday!! Rather than go to school, we took her to a new museum/playspace instead! Pau Pau came over to watch James so it was just Maddie, Mommy and Daddy!

We drove out to Oak Park and went to Wonder Works Children's Museum. We had never been before and I found a great deal on Groupon. Maddie had a blast! They had so many new and neat things there. They had a puppet show stage with a ton of puppets! They also had a real live stage with costumes. There was a craft room and Maddie enjoyed gluing buttons to paper. There was another section that was like a town or city, with little rooms - one was a jail, another was a store, etc. There was a huge conveyor belt for kids to put plastic play food on and it would go up the belt and fall down the other end. There was a huge slide in the center and on one end was a big fake tree for the kids to walk up and sit in. In all it was a really great space and we'll definitely go again!

James's Birth Story

We were scheduled to go to the hospital for an induction at 11:30am on Monday September 11, 2017! The doctor did not want me to go to far in the pregnancy due to my gestational diabetes plus insulin this time.

Thankfully Maddie slept in this morning until 7:50am so we had a little bit of extra time to sleep!  Joseph and I walked Maddie to school together since it would be our last time together as a family of 3 and I wouldn't be seeing Maddie for at least a day. When we got to school, she did not want us to leave! She clung onto Joseph until she got distracted.

We headed back home to do some last minute packing and cleaning, then headed for the hospital! First we stopped by the Portillo's drive through for some lunch as it would be my last meal until baby's arrival!  We parked and walked to the hospital and arrived just around 11:30am. They sent us directly upstairs to the Labor and Delivery floor (rather than go to triage first).

I got changed into my hospital gown and hooked up to the IV by 12:45pm. I had a bag of fluids, pitocin (started at 2 units) and sugar through the IV.

Around 3:45pm, the attending doctor measured me and I was at 3 cm dilated. My doctor wanted to break my water to get things going and OUCH was it uncomfortable! She said I handled it great and that most women could not do that without an epidural, which made me wonder why didn't they offer it to me first or tell me how uncomfortable it was going to be?!?

I mostly laid in bed and watched shows on the ipad. I was able to nap here and there between visits with the nurses.  I wanted to walk around but was really uncomfortable with the IV in my arm, plus I wanted to be lazy and just lay around and rest as I knew I'd need the rest!

At around 7:00pm, the new attending doctor came in to break my water AGAIN.  Apparently the first doctor only put a small tear in the water bag, and this new doctor really wanted to break it as I was only at about 4 cm.  This time it was about 100 times more uncomfortable as it was a tall male doctor, and the first doctor was a petite Asian woman.

I finally started to feel some contractions but they were not regular and not nearly as bad as I felt them with Maddie once my water bag really broke. I was able to nap a little bit again. After feeling a few more contractions, with some worse than others, Joseph finally convinced me to get my epidural. "Why be in pain?" he said. I finally agreed and asked for my epidural earlier than I thought I would get it, only because it was getting late and I wanted to get some more rest as it was already 9:45pm and I wasn't sure if he'd arrive on 9/11 or 9/12!

The epidural team came in around 10:00pm and Joseph had to leave for about 30 minutes while they completed the epidural and got me settled. This time the epidural really hurt!  I felt the initial numbing spinal shot go it and it was a really sharp pinch. Then I felt the epidural catheter go up and felt pinches go up on both sides of my spine.

Finally it was done and I was able to sleep. I had to lay on my side and they turned me every hour. My blood pressure was low (it's normal for it to drop but it was lower than they would have liked) so they gave me a bit of medicine. I had to wear a blood pressure cuff and it checked my blood pressure every 15 minutes so it wasn't the best rest as I kept getting interrupted, but I was able to quickly fall back asleep.

My doctor checked me at 12:00am on 9/12 and I was still at 4 cm!  I was checked again, probably around 1:00am and I was at 8cm!  She said to "get some rest" as it was getting close to having to push!  I was checked again later, probably 2:00am and I was at 9cm.  The nurse said my contractions looked great!  She said the next time she came in it would probably be time to push!

My spinal was wearing off so I could start to feel pressure but no pain (the epidural meds were working which blocks the pain).  It was different with Maddie since I had gotten the epidural later, the spinal medicine was there the whole time so I didn't feel anything! As we got closer and closer to push time, I could not feel the pain of the contractions in my tummy, but I could feel him getting lower and then would come "back up."

The doctor came back in around 3:00am and checked me and said he was "half way out!" and that she was afraid I would have him on the table and they wouldn't have been there!  They quickly set up and brought the delivery aid items over.  After only about 10-15 minutes of pushing (I think I only pushed through 4-5 contractions) his head came out!  I still wasn't able to see him, but when his head came out, the doctor said the umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around his neck so she cut it rather than Joseph (but they still let Joseph cut it later).  I saw his head and he his head towards me like Maddie did and gave a huge cry, and I gave another push and the rest of his body came out.  I could immediately tell he was bigger than Maddie was when she was born (almost 1 pound larger!)

They immediately put him on my chest and then took him to the baby table to get cleaned up and measured.  He stored 9/9 on the Apgar scale!  The nurse gave him back to me and we tried nursing and he latched immediately!

Welcome to the world, James Nathaniel Wagner!

Joseph cutting James's umbilical cord

Introducing James Nathaniel Wagner!

We are happy to announce the birth of our son - James Nathaniel Wagner!

I went in for my induction at 11:30am on Monday Sept 11.  He was born on Tuesday September 12, 2017 at 3:37am. He weighs 8 pounds 7 ounces and is 21.00 inches long.  Some photos are below.

Mom, Dad and James are all doing well. We can't wait for Maddie to meet James!

Otto's 2nd Birthday Party!

On Sunday we drove out for our friend Otto's 2nd birthday Party!  He was going to have pony rides again and a petting zoo!

It was a chilly May day!  I forgot a hat for Maddie but luckily had my own hat in my pocket she could wear.

Maddie loved sitting in all of Otto's cars and pretending to drive around. She was NOT interested in the pony rides at all, she was in fact a bit scared of the ponies. She didn't show much interest in the petting zoo either until Joseph showed her she could feed them some hay!

She loved singing Otto "Happy Birthday!" and of course loved getting her own slice of cake!

Video: Counting to 8 and Singing Happy Birthday to Pau Pau!

We took Pau Pau and Uncle Jeff out to dinner the night before New Years Eve to celebrate our birthdays! (Vickie = September, Uncle Jeff = November, Pau Pau = December). We went to a place in Chinatown that we've been to often that has really good seafood.

Earlier that day we told Maddie we'd like her to sing "Happy Birthday" to Pau Pau when we saw her.

Here's the video. She starts by counting to 8!  She can actually count up to 12 with no issues (and counts to 20 but messes up the numbers a bit in between). So cute!

2 Year Check Up!

We went to the doctor's this morning for Maddie's 2 year check up appointment.

She is still at the top of the charts for growth.  She is now on the "toddler" growth chart, and since she is now 2 years old, they predicted her adult height at between . . . 5'8" - 5'9" tall!!

She is still on track or exceeding her milestones.  I explained to her yesterday we were going to the doctor for a check up (she kept saying "check out") and went through all the body parts the doctor was going to go over, so Maddie was very prepared and patient as the doctor checked her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc.

Official Stats:

Weight: 29.25 pounds - 85th percentile (up 3.0 pounds from 6 months ago at 26.25 lbs)
Height: 36.5 inches - 97th percentile (she has brown about 3 inches in 6 months!! She measured 33.25" at her 18 month appointment)
Head circumference: 48.0 centimeters - 70th percentile (up 0.5 cm from 6 months ago)

Maddie also needed to get 2 shots and 1 finger prick to check her blood for lead levels.  We calmly explained to her she was going to get a finger poke and that it would hurt, but she would get a bandage (she has loved bandages since helping Joseph with one a few days ago when he cut his finger - to the point where she will "hurt" her finger to get a bandage).  We also told her she would get a shot in each leg and that it would hurt for a little bit, but then she would get TWO bandages, AND a special treat afterwards. Knowing she would say lollipop, we asked what kind of treat she would want, and of course she said lollipop.

She took the finger prick and the 2 shots like.a.champ!!  She did not budge or cringe or cry!!!  We are amazed at how well she did!  After getting the last shot she immediately said "lollipop!"

We're so proud of our big growing girl!

Maddie's 2nd Birthday Party!

On Sunday we celebrated Maddie's birthday with local friends and family! We had a total of 10 kids over (including Maddie) and lots of friends and family - we had a great time!!  We set up a big inflatable pool with tons of ball pit balls! The kids had a blast! And we think the adults did too!

After a while we brought out the cake and Maddie was so excited to sing and more excited to eat her cake!  It was also Uncle Jeff's birthday, so Pau Pau got him his own cake and sang to him as well. Everyone was so excited to eat TWO birthday cakes!!

We had a lovely time. Thanks to all our friends and family who came out to celebrate Maddie's 2nd birthday!!

Lots of pictures and videos below!

Ball pit fun!!

I crocheted Maddie this dress! The 2 will be removed so she can wear it later.

Dress off, zoning out to some Elmo on the TV before bedtime.

Happy 2nd Birthday Maddie!!!

Maddie turned 2 years old today!! We can't believe how big and fast she has grown! She amazes us every day. We are so lucky to have her in our lives and can't imagine our lives without her.

Here's a cute video of her singing Happy Birthday to herself (after I sang it to her - I cut my part out).

I took the day off and took her to her Art and ABC's class. Then after her nap we went to Little Beans Playspace for some more fun!

I did not get many pictures today but here are the few I did take today on her actual birthday.

Answering the phone at Little Beans

Learning about static electricity