30 days of Mason

Mason had his first check up on January 9th (almost his 1 month mark).  It's crazy how much faster time is going with this second child.  He was supposed to have a two week check up, but because of moving and Christmas break, we had to put it off.  He's been really healthy until yesterday (we both have some congestion--probably from the weather actually behaving like winter now), with the exception of the tear duct and some baby acne/eczema.  Here are his stats from the doctor's appointment:

weight: 11 lbs 8 oz - 85th percentile
height: 23.5 in - 95th percentile
head circumference: (not sure) - 50 percentile

Like I said, he's a big boy!  He's been a great baby so far, too.  It may have something to do with all of the holding and attention that he's been getting up at Nana and Pop Pop's though :)

Mason would sleep for hours with them on this rocking chair.  It's either the magic rocking chair or their magic grandparent powers...

Mom mentioned how she never had a picture of us kids being held by our grandmas.  So I made sure to get one of her holding Mason :)

Look at those chubby legs!  Are he and Chase even related? :)

Poor little guy has some baby acne...hope it doesn't last too long!

18 Months! (20 months, really...)

(this is the face he made when I asked him to smile for the camera...)

I'm a little behind on updating for Chase, but it's been a bit busy these past two months...anyway:

Chase was 18 months on November 21st.  At his doctor's appointment, his stats were as follows:

weight - 21 lbs 4 oz - 5%
length - 32.5 in - 50%
head circumference - 46.5 cm - 10-25%

(we really do try to feed him a lot, though it doesn't look like it...)

He is so much fun at this age.  He's still not quite intelligible unless I know what he's trying to say, but he is getting better at actually trying to say things.  He loves dancing to music, but usually wants to be held while Buddy or I dance around.  That was getting pretty exhausting when I was 9 months pregnant.  Not sure why he loves dancing so much (it sure doesn't come from Buddy or I), but it's really cute how excited he gets.

(Chase playing with one of his new toys lately.  I haven't told him that it's bad luck to open an umbrella inside...wait, is that really a thing?  I thought someone in middle school told me it was bad luck, but now I can't remember...)

He's starting to show his personality more, too.  He's a little imp with the things he thinks are funny.  Like when Mommy and Daddy say "no", or when we make throw-up noises (I have no idea why this is funny to him).  He loves to direct people to do what he wants, too-I think I have a video of this somewhere.  He'll start dancing or drumming or spinning and then point at everyone in the room individually to make them join in, too.

(Daddy and Chase with beards)

(this is him directing us to join him drumming on the plastic tubs)

He still loves baby einstein, and will take any opportunity to watch it.  He loves being on the computer for that reason (we watch most of our baby einstein on youtube), for youtube videos of just dance 3, and for some online games at pbs.org and fungooms.com.

(yes, he can fit a record number of straws in his mouth.  His mouth is surprisingly large :) )

I think it's partly due to baby einstein, but he is really good at knowing his shapes, and can do puzzles of simple shapes pretty easily.  He has a melissa and doug wooden shape puzzle that says the shape when you put it in its spot. It's really cute to hear him try to repeat the names of the shapes--especially "octagon"("op-a-guh"), "diamond"("bun-dah"), or "circle" ("gir-cuh").

One thing I think is pretty cool is that he can recognize a few words when we write them out in all caps.  He knows DAD, MOM, CHASE, NANA, and POP POP.  We tried to get him to learn MASON, but he hasn't quite gotten it yet.  Since he pretty much knows all of his shapes, we've been working on the ABC's, numbers and colors.  I bet he knows more than we think, but he doesn't talk well enough yet to show it :)

He had a bit of an adjustment the first few weeks, but Chase is turning out to be a great big brother.  For the most part he ignores Mason, but he asks more and more often to hold him, and he's great at giving Mason his binky, or has even tried to help wipe his eye (the one with the clogged tear duct).  I'm sure they'll be great friends in a year or so.

Mason Hulet Beazer

If you haven't heard already, he's here!  He's a (big) healthy boy, and we're so glad to have him in our family.

Mason was born at 2:02 am on December 10th, 2011.  He weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20 inches long.  Except for a lot of grunting, he's been a happy baby.  He eats well, and he's not very fussy.  The only issue he has to deal with is an obstructed tear duct in his right eye, but that should clear up on its own in the first year.  He looks a lot like Chase, but much chubbier :)

Now for the birth story:

It's too bad that my doctor told me that I'd probably deliver during my 37th week, since Mason didn't actually come until the 39th week.  That makes for a very long two weeks :)  You can probably tell here in my last pregnancy picture that I'm not too happy about still being pregnant.  This was 6 days before Mason was born--at 38 weeks:

The friday night after the doctor told me I would probably deliver within the week (December 2nd), I went into labor-but it turned out to be 8 hours of false labor.  My mom was scheduled to fly in on Sunday the 4th and leave on Saturday the 10th, so we were really planning on the baby coming that weekend.

Alas, it was not to be.  It wasn't until my mom had been here 5 days and changed her flight to leave on Wednesday the 14th that Mason decided to make his appearance.  It was Friday night (the 9th) at about 8:30pm and we were watching Super 8 (dumb movie, I thought...) that I started having real, and regular, contractions.  They quickly became 5 mins apart and we decided to head to the hospital at 9 pm.  We got there at 9:50 but they didn't get me up to a room for about another half hour.  Because my doctor wasn't the one on call I had to deliver at the same hospital where I delivered Chase (which I didn't want to do--I didn't have a good experience with the nurses there, and it's an older, less-updated hospital).  When they finally checked me in to a room, the nurse checked me and I was dilated to a 7 already.  She was surprised and decided to get another nurse to double check.  When the other nurse came in a minute later, I was dilated to a 9!  They immediately started rushing around thinking I'd deliver really soon, and I was excited to think that the labor would soon be over and Mason would be here!

Again, it was not to be.  I was 9 cm dilated with pretty intense contractions--and no epidural!---for 4 more hours!!  The nurse said I sounded like a train whistle whenever I breathed out.  That's what happens when you never take a birthing class and you make up your own way of breathing :)  The doctor on call didn't want to come in until I was 10 cm, so the nurse told me to let her know when I start feeling different pressure "down there".  Buddy was doing great at helping me get through contractions, but the hours were getting long and I was getting desperate and emotional.  I kept telling the nurse to come in and check me because I thought I'd felt a different sort of pressure, but it was never anything, and she would leave soon after.  I finally asked if the nurse could stay to help me get through the contractions--I felt like I needed more people distracting me than Buddy even though he was doing all he could.  Then I was begging her to try and stretch me to 10 cm.  The first time didn't work, but she tried again later and had me push to get to a 10--and it worked!  Immediately all heck broke loose:  My water broke and he was coming!  Two more pushes and he was out!  I'm pretty sure I was screaming at this time.  I never knew I could be so loud.  The nurse pretty much delivered the baby, since it all went so fast.  The resident on the floor barely ran into the room in time, and the doctor never even made it to the hospital!

It was so relieving to see Mason for the first time.  To know it was over and he was healthy and perfect...and big!  Chase was only 5 lbs 12 oz, so when I saw Mason he looked like a giant baby.  He was taken to the well baby nursery after I nursed him for the first time, and he joined us soon after in the recovery room.  We're so glad to have this little (big) guy in our lives!  It's already proven to be a lot of work to have these two boys close together, but it will get easier, and I'm sure it will be awesome to have them close in age when they're older..as long as Mason's not beating up on Chase by then :)