Throwback Thursday: Home from the Hospital.

So today Matt's brother and sister-in-law are bringing their second child home from the hospital.  We talked to them for awhile last night about the logistics of all of it.  It brought back a whole slew of memories.  So how about a Throwback Thursday Home from the Hospital style.

Here's Round 1 back in March of 2009:

I remember starting to go down the road of "I can't believe they are letting us take this baby home!" and Matt SHUTTING ME DOWN.  His take on it? "Yeah she's OUR kid.  Of course we are taking her home.  No one can care for her better than we can.  Period."  And that was it.  No more jitters.  Because he was completely right:

Then Round 2.  When I thought our girl would want to ride on my lap with me out of the hospital.  Yeah not so much:

She wanted to help push because she was a BIG GIRL.  That was pretty much her attitude from there on out.

We were also super worried that time about our dog.  She was pretty new to our family and kindof a crazy pooch:

The big introduction.  She was fine with him pretty quickly.

Round 3 was completely different.  We were outnumbered!  And I COULD NOT WAIT to get home.  The hospital stay - being on my own away from the other two and under the care of nurses who had AGENDAS - was awful.  We couldn't get out of their fast enough:

Run! Don't even stop for a picture just GET. ME. HOME.

The Dude did want to ride with me.  He wanted everything with me.  He was not so into being helpful or acknowledging his sibling at all:

The girl helping me give her new brother a bath while the dude sulks in the background.  Pretty perfect summary of the day.

He got over it eventually and now they are best of friends - they are literally racing cars together under my legs as I write this.  The dog introduction was very different this time around as well.  Tiny got dumped in the middle of the kitchen while we were unloading/taking care of the other two.  And then we were like oh, right.  Someone should have told the dog:

I think she sniffed him once and moved on with her life.  Babies aren't that interesting to dogs until they get in a high chair.  My biggest memory from that time, though was that sometime while I was in the hospital the girl took a huge chunk out of her hair.  It was BAD.  So I left my Tiny, hoped he wouldn't need to nurse in the hour I was gone, and took my daughter for her first haircut.  MILESTONES:

It was a good introduction into the world of trying to manage THREE.  So yeah.  Those first few days home - especially with other kids in the mix - are INTENSE.  Intense and kindof magical. 

We wish them well!

Tiny's First Haircut.

So.  Our Tiny?  Has amazing, curly hair:

Glorious toddler locks!

I've been obsessively photographing it for months now.  It's downright angelic:

Middle child:  "Why aren't you taking a picture of meeee?"

But lately we've turned the corner from "shaggy baby" to "seriously when are you going to cut it?"  And it's always in his face.  And.... SOB.... it was time:

So on Sunday we took him for his first ever haircut.

Before.

I wanted to just trim up his bangs.  Make it so it's not in his face but keep the "curlers" as my girl calls them. 

But once we did that he looked like a girl.

 Plus Matt was in the background yelling "Cut. His. Hair." at me...

 So.... I told her to just trim it around his ears a bit.

That ended badly:

Why would you give me a mullet?

Glorious Mullet of Toddler.

So I gave in and cut it all:

My heart on the floor.

And you know what?  HE'S ADORABLE:

Yes.  With one swipe of the scissors he transformed from a baby to a little man.  And No I wasn't quite ready for that.  But... actually I kindof am.  A world with only big kids and no babies sounds kindof interesting.

Everything with 3 kids is interesting.

He looks so grown up!!!!

Before vs After.  Baby vs. Man.

All 3 of the men in my life have had haircuts this week and are looking quite dapper:

And for as worried as I was about his curls never coming back... well all it took was a bath:

Short curls!

Love my Tiny!

STEPS!!!

So!  Something has been happening over the last few weeks.... the little guy has been taking some steps!

This is not of him taking steps but it's one of my fav. pictures of him lately so... yeah.  WATERMELON.

It's happened SO gradually.  There was no big These Are His First Steps moment.

His first "I can climb in a box!" moment.

With my daughter it was a clear line.  She decided to do it and went from this to running in two weeks.  Which exactly how she's done everything.  Reading?  One day she couldn't do it and the next day she could.  Because she decided to.  Matt got home from work that day and she literally told him "By the way I can read now."

With my middle child - the Dude - there was a "first steps" moment where he commanded the attention of a crowd.  Actually, just about everything the Dude does he does to command attention:

Guess which one is an extrovert?

But my Tiny*?  He's an overthinker.  He works it out.

So it's been incredibly gradual.  First a long reach.  Then a step between things.  Then two.  Then three.  He clearly makes a conscientious decision about if he's going to walk or crawl.  You can almost see him do the math on the situation.

"If the distance to the couch from this chair is X than the number of steps I need to take is Y. If Y exceeds 3 than crawl.  Except if the number of toys carrying exceeds 2 or if Mommy is there to catch me."

In the last couple of days his equation seems to have flipped.  Walking is preferable to crawling.  At least for short distances.  Matt was able to capture a couple of videos while I was at the park the other night with the big kids (meeting a new kindergarten classmate!  Yay!):


Yay walking!!!!

*Tiny is his newish nickname.  It has really stuck.  We all call him it.  It's funny because the opposite is true - he's our biggest kid.  He is literally only 6 pounds lighter than his brother and is kindof a bruiser.

Three turns ONE.

You guys. I'm not sure how this happened but all of a sudden the little guy is ONE:

Who, Me?  I was just born like yesterday

His first birthday was spent like much of the rest of his life... being dragged around after his siblings:

You would think I would have a problem with this.  You would be wrong.

But between the ballet camp performance (you tube video here) and picking the dude up from grandma's house we made plenty of time to celebrate:

Balloons!!!!  BEST DAY EVER!

We just had a small family get together.  Like we do for first birthday's.  Just some grilling out with the grandparents.  And to be honest his gifts from us were new to him hand-me downs from his siblings (sorry, kid.  I love you but we have enough plastic in our house):

I don't know the difference.

But we made sure to include his favorites.  We had cheesy mashed potatoes as the side - his favorite food EVER.

For dessert we skipped the cake.  I know there's the whole cake smash tradition thing for first birthdays... but he's no stranger to the cake game.  One of the many benefits to being #3 - you get cake way before you probably should.  And it's just not his favorite.  He likes it but not nearly as much as he likes bananas.  Or ice cream.  So we skipped the cake and did banana splits.

GIVE ME THE ICE CREAM!

It was a celebration all around.  We made it!  We handled the Year of Three Kids 4 and Under!  We got through the newborn/toddler/preschooler insanity!  

 And it is so, so worth it.  I am so glad this little one came into our lives:

 He is a very serious guy.  You have to earn your smiles with him.  He doesn't give them away easily:

But that doesn't mean he's unhappy.  Just thoughtful.

 He doesn't talk much - even now that he has a few words he's content to point at what he wants instead of vocalize.  Part of it is his serious nature - he's never going to be a person who fills the air with words - part of it is having an older brother who never lets anyone get a word in edgewise:

He's happy to go along with whatever his siblings want.  I've joked that he's the chihuahua who thinks he's a mastiff because he's a baby who thinks he's a big kid.  He wants to be in the fray no matter what adventure we are dragging him on or what his crazy siblings are doing:

His siblings dressed him up like a pirate and put him to work in the ship's kitchen.  Seriously.

His likes and dislikes are becoming more and more clear every day.  Likes:  Sand, wheels, army crawling, mashed potatoes, ice cream, stuffed animals, his hedgehog, pointing, and chasing his siblings. 

Wait for me!!!!

Dislikes:  Snakes (seriously the kid is terrified of them), being treated like a baby, crackers that don't have peanut butter on them, and his car seat.

It has been so fun watching him learn and grow and his little personality develop.  I can't wait for all that comes next!

Happy Birthday, Little Guy!