Lila's first Halloween!

Sadly, Lila had to spend her first Halloween in the NICU due to several issues that arose following her birth. But we didn't let that stop us from celebrating the holiday with her! We dressed John up in his giraffe costume and headed over to the hospital for a visit.

John had only seen Lila once before, and it had been a very short visit. The evening of the day Lila was born, Grandma Kay had escorted him into the NICU to see Mommy, Daddy and Lila, but John was way too excited about all the neat things to look at in the room that he gave his baby sister just a passing glance. A similar thing happened on Halloween when we tried to get John interested in her. I guess toddlers and NICUs just don't mix.

We at least got a few pictures.....in this one, you can see Lila wrapped up in a purple blanket in her crib in the NICU, with Mommy and John beside her.

Daddy got John to sit in one of the lab chairs for about 10 seconds so I could get this photo.

And, by the time I took these next photos, Grandma Bonnie and Grandma Kay had already whisked John out of the NICU to keep him from pulling on the cords of the other patients' beds. Here's Lila in the little Halloween outfit the nurses put on her! (She had a knitted pumpkin hat, too, that we took off.)

Back at home, we got ready to take John trick-or-treating (for the first time!) in Grandma Kay's neighborhood. We figured it would be easiest to take him in his buggy, so we did.

Getting ready to ring the doorbell of his first house.....

At his second house.....

At Jack's house.....Jack had just woken up from a nap, so he wasn't as excited as he normally would be to see his little buddy John.

We only went to four houses on John's first trick-or-treating experience because it was getting really cold out and Mommy was fatigued from having given birth just five days earlier. Back at home, we let John have a lollipop from his bag of spoils.

Mommy and Daddy secretly ate the remaining 5-6 pieces of candy from John's bag. The funny thing was, John never seemed to realize that the items he was collecting at each house were edible! I was amazed. I guess that's one thing he'll definitely understand when he goes trick-or-treating next year. Hopefully he'll also understand next year that he doesn't need to give the people at each house something in return for the candy -- he kept trying to hand people pieces of candy from his bag. He even tried giving Mr. Allemeier the stem from the pumpkin he painted, haha!

Here's a video of John practicing saying "trick-or-treat" after we were done making the rounds. The way he says it makes it sound like "choo-treat."

Welcome, Lila!

We've been waiting for you, Lila! Our beautiful daughter Lila Kay Schuchard was born on Tuesday, October 26th at 11:31 a.m. She weighed 6 pounds 7 ounces and measured 19 1/2 inches long. We are so happy to have her in our family!

The day of Lila's birth started very early. We woke up at 4:15 a.m. to get ready and called the Labor & Delivery Ward at 4:45 to make sure there was a bed available for me. Happily, there was! Here we are before leaving for the hospital:



By 5:20 a.m., we were getting settled into our L&D room, and an hour later, I had started on a bag of Pitocin. The doctor ruptured my membranes shortly after 7 (I was already dilated 3 cm!), and then my contractions really took off. Here I am in my bed, still looking pretty relaxed, around 7:45.



At approximately 10 a.m., when the contractions were about 2 minutes apart, the pain was intense enough for me to request the epidural. It was great to feel this epidural working so rapidly -- a luxury I didn't have when I gave birth to John because I received that epidural so late that it didn't have enough time to fully take effect. Soon after the epidural, I started having this really sharp pain in my lower left abdomen. It didn't feel like a contraction at all, so I was a little concerned. Andrea, our nurse, checked me at that point, and I was 9 cm dilated. Nobody could believe it! (I guess I waited a little longer than I should have for the epidural.) The doctor and L&D staff rushed around to get everything prepared for the delivery.

Once I was fully dilated, I pushed for about 12 minutes. It was much harder pushing with Lila than it was with John because the epidural made it difficult for me to feel myself bearing down. But at least it was a lot less painful! Overall, this birthing experience was about as good as I could possibly have hoped for. We feel very blessed that it went as well as it did and that Ross could be home for it.

Here is a video Daddy took right after Lila's birth.....listen to that cry!!

Lila after birth from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

And here is a video of Mommy holding Lila for the first time!

Mommy holding Lila from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

Finally, here are some pictures of the little darling from the first hours of her life.....by herself and with her Mommy and Daddy.

Finally, here's Mommy with the new big brother!

An early Halloween celebration

John got to wear his giraffe costume a week early for a special pre-Halloween event at Ruth Lake. Shockingly, he kept his costume on the whole time! He didn't try to take off the hood or unzip the bodysuit at all. He even left the hoof-straps alone.

That evening, John got to take his first hayride (pulled by a bright green tractor that he LOVED). He also got to pick out a huge pumpkin from the pumpkin patch to take home.

But the real highlight of the evening for John was a golf cart ride with Uncle Steve.....

After the golf cart ride, John met a little girl dressed as a strawberry. John kept saying "choo choo" to her, and she called him "horse." Don't worry, Elise, it was an innocent conversation. John only has eyes for you!

Daddy and his little giraffe!

Daddy's homecoming

Ross arrived home for his two-week break on Friday, October 22nd. The timing could not have been better -- just as we had hoped, we would have a few days of downtime as a family of three before going in to be induced for baby #2!

John and Grandma Kay came with me to O'Hare that day to pick Ross up. I had debated whether to take John, since Ross' flight was arriving during John's usual naptime, but after talking with Stephanie, I decided that the all-important nap could be pushed back for this special occasion! I am so glad he was there to see his Daddy right away. Just as I suspected, John took one look at his Daddy, smiled, and ran the other direction (this is John's usual routine when he sees someone he really likes).

I never doubted that John would know who his Daddy was when he saw him again, but it still was a relief to hear John call him "Daddy" to his face!

Grandma Kay took a few short videos of our happy reunion at the airport -- thanks, Grandma!

Daddy's homecoming from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

Daddy's homecoming part 2 from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

Gone fishing!

John went fishing for the first time with his Uncle Nick last weekend. Ruth Lake Country Club was hosting a fishing tournament for kids, and John was the youngest entrant at 21 months! Mommy went along to take photos and change diapers.

I was very surprised at how eager John was to hold the fish that he caught (5 or 6 altogether). He didn't flinch at all when Uncle Nick put the first one in his hands! Apparently slimy fish are less scary than furry petting zoo animals! (John won't even get within arm's reach of any of those.)

Although we put all the fish John caught right back in the water after they were counted and weighed, several of them, sadly, did not make it. Another casualty of the fishing trip was a white t-shirt John was wearing underneath the long-sleeved shirt -- one of the fish bled on it, and the spot still hasn't come out after three washings. Oh well, I guess I should've known better dressing John in white to go fishing!

Visit to the Lincoln Park Zoo

John and I drove into Chicago on October 3rd to meet Ethan and Lindsay Richardson for lunch and a trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo. John ADORES his Uncle Ethan! As a special treat, I let John sit on his uncle's lap during lunch.

It was a perfect day for the zoo. Besides seeing the animals, John was able to take his very first ride on a Merry-Go-Round at the zoo -- with Uncle Ethan, naturally. Ethan explained to us that John turned down quite a few animals before deciding upon the camel. Yes, the camel. I was pretty surprised, since I didn't think John even knew what a camel was! John was smiling the whole time.

Thanks again, Ethan and Lindsay, for the wonderful visit. We loved spending time with you!

21 months!

Yikes, John is 21 months already! I've been thinking about John's 21-month birthday for a really long time -- since March 12th, to be exact, since that was the day we found out we were pregnant again and that was the day we calculated that John would be 21 months old when his little brother or sister was born. I think 21 months is going to be a great age for John to become a big brother! He is now very much a little boy, and even though he still has his "baby" moments, I would say he is much better prepared to "share the spotlight" (so to speak) with another child than he was just three months ago when we first moved to Illinois.

For this month's post, I limited myself to talking about just two areas in which John's changed a lot - language and playtime. I have a whole bunch of pictures to upload for future posts, so I can elaborate more about how John's changing in those posts.

Language

September was another HUGE month for John's language development. He is like a little parrot now, repeating back anything you say to him (often adding a question mark at the end, as if he were asking if he said it correctly). Grandma Kay Ellen and I both think it's wonderful (and hilarious) that we can have mini conversations with him now! Today while we were parking at the Children's Museum, John and I had a nice little conversation about the trains at the Naperville station, which is adjacent to the museum parking lot......

John: Choo-choo all-gone (gesturing with his hands out to either side).

Mommy: Yes, there aren't any trains at the station right now. Where did the trains go?

John: Home.

John has also started recognizing letters of the alphabet and what they "stand for." Every night we play the "What's this letter stand for?" game in the bathtub with his spongy press-on alphabet. For example, I'll hold up the letter D and ask him what it stands for. He'll immediately say, "Daddy." John also knows that:

B stands for baby

C stands for "Cah-oo" (Caillou, a preschool cartoon character)

I stands for I

J stands for "Naan Naan" (John)

L stands for "Wiwa" (Lila)

M stands for Mommy

T stands for "choo-choo" (train)

It's interesting that John never says the letter itself, just the word that he associates with the letter. He doesn't seem to know what sounds the letters make (except for the letter I).

Another interesting thing is that John knows when he's looking at letters versus numbers. He'll spout out random letters when he's drinking from his letter cup, for example, whereas he starts counting "1, 2, 1, 2" when he's drinking from his number cup. I've heard John count all the way up to 6 while we were reading a page in of the book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, but usually he just counts to 2 or 3. He likes to count as he walks up and down the stairs at Grandma's house and when we turn on the two lamps by his highchair in the kitchen.

Some of John's new words that he uses most frequently include:

Cah-oo (Caillou, the name of a preschool-age cartoon character on t.v.)
car
Chee-os (Cheerios)
en-nen (engine)
hebby (heavy)
ki-ckle (tickle)
kiss
Ma (Grandma)
man-no (mango)
muff (muffin)
orange

paper
Pee-doh (Playdoh)
pen
pump-nin (pumpkin)
tar (guitar)
Wiwa (Lila)

John can identify the following colors by name:

blue

green

orange

purple

red (he has trouble correctly identifying red sometimes.....he says green for it a lot)

yellow

Playtime

John had his first day of the "Parents' Day Out" program at our church on September 14th, and he now goes every Tuesday from 9 until 1. He absolutely LOVES it! I love it, too, of course - having four hours to myself one morning a week is wonderful!

There are seven other children ages 1-2 in his class. They play with toys, sing songs, make crafts, read stories from the Bible, play outside, and eat lunch. Here are some pictures of John with the backpack and lunch bag I bought him to take to "school" each week.

John's two teachers say he is a very well-behaved little toddler in class! After his first day, one of his teachers said she thought he would make a great older brother because John likes playing with all of the youngest children in his class (he is one of the oldest at 21 months).

Every time I pick him up, I get a little "report card" of how his day went. There's usually a note on there about how much John enjoyed playing with the toy lawnmower outside on the church playground, hehe.......which leads me to my next point......that John is still obsessed with the toy lawnmower he got for Christmas from Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Jeff! I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, since he is a boy - anything vehicular (with wheels, of course!) captures his attention for the longest periods of time.

John still really likes playing with the train sets Grandma Kay Ellen got for him at IKEA. I would say his trains are the toy he wants to play with most frequently. Here's a video from last month of him playing trains in the basement:

In addition to his trains, John has a number of miniature cars and trucks and tractors that he likes to push around on the floor. He even has two books with wheels that he plays with this way (one is a fire truck and one is a dump truck).

As for bigger vehicles, John still plays with his Step 2 buggy a lot. He prefers to push it around the neighborhood (rather than be pushed while riding in it). And last week, John finally started riding his Scoot-On Radio Flyer bike that was a birthday gift from Stephanie and Elise! Uncle Ethan put it together for us on Friday, and it has already been a huge hit. It took a day or so for John to figure out how to ride it (at first he didn't want to sit on the seat at all), but he now cruises around the house on it like an old pro. As you can see from this next video, he goes so fast on Grandma's wood floors that he almost runs over the videographer.

On the new bike! from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

One more playtime activity I've introduced John to is Playdoh ("Pee-doh," as John says). I'd been thinking about whether John was old enough to play with Playdoh for a long time, and I finally just caved in and bought a set at Target a couple of weeks ago. The recommended age is 2, but John rarely tries to put things in his mouth anymore. I put John in his highchair with the large tray attached and let him play with one color of Playdoh at a time. He likes to use cookie cutters to make shapes. He also sticks toothpicks and golf tees in it, hehe. Here he is with a Playdoh clown nose.....

So that's it for the 21-month post! John is in for a really exciting next couple of weeks, and I can't wait to see how he reacts to everything. Daddy will be arriving in 9 days, and Lila will be arriving shortly thereafter (hopefully).