Baby Charlie

Introducing young Charles Bradford. He's "Charlie" to us. (Otherwise it kind of sounds like we should say "Sir" before his name and he should start talking with a British accent.) Note the chubby cheeks already. That was one of the first things I noticed about him when they held him up to me.


He was born at 8:09 a.m. on Nov. 15 (Daddy's birthday). As you can see, tipping the scales at a whopping 9 pounds, 4 ounces. He was 20.5 inches long, head 14.75 inches around. Turns out the C-section was wise for many reasons. For comparison, Ellie was 7 pounds, 10 ounces and 18.25 inches. So he's starting at Ellie's 6-week weight.


Getting acquainted with Charlie after the surgery. Things went really well with the C-section and I am having a slow-but-steady recovery. Even though things were very different than Ellie's birth, being in a hospital instead of a birth center, having surgery instead of delivering naturally, we still had a really good experience. We went in calm, knowing what to expect, prepared for him to come, and yet still had that laughing/crying-at-the-same-time euphoric moment when we heard his first cry, as if it were a total surprise that there was a baby at the end of all this.


Still in recovery. Brady said I was a bit loopy. And, as you can see, still quite swollen all over in my hands, arms, and face. It's slowly going down and I got to comfortably wear socks over my swollen feet for the first time today.


We got lots of visits from Ellie in the hospital. Here is a video of her meeting Charlie for the first time:


I wasn't sure how she would take it. For so long "Baby Charlie" was this growing mound in Mommy's tummy. She would come up and press her mouth into my stomach and say a muffled "Hi, Baby Charlie!" We thought she might be getting the concept until one day she did the same thing into Brady's shoulder. She seems to have overcome the transition from abstract to reality pretty well.


She's pretty enamored with him. (She's also finally learning to pose for the camera and say, "Cheese!" which has led to some pretty cheesy smiles.)


Here Ellie is introducing Charlie to her beloved "Schnappie" cartoon, among others.


She loves getting to hold him. Every time she does lately, she has this sort of nervous giggle the whole time, especially when he wiggles.


All dressed up to go home. We were actually grateful for the time in the hospital to recover and adjust to this new little guy. He is pretty mellow most of the time and eats like a champ. It has been such a different experience than all the struggles we had getting Ellie to eat, and then all the difficulties she had once she did start eating. It's one of the best things in the world to watch him eat and eat and swallow like it's no big deal. And then he burps and eats some more and it's so easy. And then we can just set him down after. No big deal. And we wonder, is this what it's like for other people when they have babies, or are we just playing house here? I felt bad always comparing him to Ellie that way, but Brady pointed out that Charlie was difficult on the inside, Ellie was difficult on the outside, so I guess they both have had their easy and difficult moments.


Charlie with Father of the Year. I realize there are a lot of good dads out there, but I think this past week Brady has taken the cake. He has done more than his fair share of taking care of this kid, sending me off to sleep more so I can hopefully recover faster. And he manages to take Ellie out now and then too.


Ellie is still adjusting to her new life with Charlie. She absolutely adores him and is great with him. It's the rest of us she doesn't always have patience with. Grandma and Grandpa have been saints, putting up with some pretty good tantrums that come with the age, the adjustment, and the budding two-year molars, and putting up with her non-stop chatter the rest of the time. If she is awake, she is talking.

The first day we got home with Charlie, we got him all bundled up and settled into his little bed. Ellie came in the room and peered over the side. She kept patting him tummy while he slept, saying, "Baby Charlie sleepin'. Night-night, Charlie. Sleep tight . . . bed-bugs bite . . . love you . . ." Whenever she sees him, whether he's crying or not, she will try to pat him and say, "It's okay, Baby Charlie, it's okay." And several times a day she wants to, "Go hi to Charlie," (go say hi to Charlie). So she is becoming a good little mother hen. The question is if Charlie will be able to keep up with her, or ever get a word in edgewise.


Stretching out and yawning after a bath, which he didn't love. Ellie wanted to get him some boats to play with, but I told her I didn't think that would help yet.

Now a quick story about his name. After giving Ellie a name that had so much significance to us, we wanted to give this baby a name that would be meaningful to him and us as well. So we decided we would also give him a family name. Technically, he is named after Brady's grandpa, John, who went by Jack, whose nickname was Charlie. It was a few years after we were married before I knew that these were all the same person. The story, as I heard it, is that years ago someone left a mug (or something) with the name "Charlie" on it at Brady's grandpa's house. When his kids were young and would ask him for something, he would tease them and say, "Oh, I'm not your dad. I'm your Uncle Charlie." (Some of you might recognize the beginnings of Brady's teasing humor.) The name stuck as kind of a joke, I guess. Brady grew up knowing him as "Grandpa Charlie." So Charlie is named after his Great-Grandpa Charlie (or John, or Jack). Technically we could have had three sons named after him, but we're pretty happy with the boy we have now!

The Final Stretch

T minus 12 hours and counting. I've been counting in hours since yesterday around 4:00 p.m. I swear Saturday had about 40 hours in it. This has been the longest week. Ever.


Lately Ellie loves to help Grandpa stretch after a workout. She will sometimes drag me or Brady over by the treadmill and insist we get down on the floor with her to stretch. As I am facing the final hours of pregnancy, I am allowing myself to indulge in thinking of all the things that I can look forward to once I am no longer pregnant. Being able to get down on the floor to play with Ellie again is one of them. Seeing my ankle bones again after all the swelling goes away is another. And maybe eventually doing a little exercise and stretching.

Several weeks ago the doctor determined that I was going to need a C-section to deliver this baby. When it came to scheduling we found that hospital policy would not allow us to schedule any earlier than Nov. 15--Brady's birthday. We had hoped to go for a nice 11-11-11, but I wouldn't have been 39 weeks along yet, so it was a no go. At the time I had asked Brady if he wanted me to wait until the 16th, since we couldn't go earlier, but he said it would be just as well to share a birthday as to have them back to back. A couple months ago, one extra day didn't seem that big of a deal. (Eight months ago I would have paid someone to put me into a coma until this week, but that wasn't an option.) This afternoon as I dosed out another round of nausea and headache medicine, I thought of grateful I am that he is willing to share his birthday and not make me go through an extra day of this difficult pregnancy. Nov. 16th seems a million years away.


Saturday we had what will likely be Brady's last solo birthday party for a while. (This picture is actually one my sister took at Ellie's family party, but I couldn't resist stealing it and I forgot to take any that night and this is about what it looked like.) He spent most of the party making amazing pizza for everyone else. He's been a pretty good trooper through this pregnancy, taking on more than his share of parenting duties, keeping me supplied in whatever comfort food seemed to help at the time, and putting up with my general misery. The end of this pregnancy will likely be the best present he could get this year. Hopefully in the midst of all the exciting events tomorrow he will get a nice break too and maybe even a little birthday nap. Happy birthday, Brady! Just 11 hours and 45 minutes to go!

Monkey Business

As I have been trying to get organized and all nested for this new baby, I have noticed a trend in the baby paraphernalia we have collected for this kid. I started it by selected the fabric for his baby quilt and the ball I made for him, but there is definitely a lot of monkey-themed baby boy clothes out there. You'd think this kid was going to be born with a tail.

I remember when Brady's brother Sam was about five years old he confided in me that he wished he could have a monkey tail. His reasoning: "'Cause then I could go pewm!"( he made a sort of high-pitched, laser-like sound as he swung his hips back and to the right) "and pick that up over there, and then--pewm!" (he made the same motion to the left) "and pick that up over there . . ." He continued to demonstrate the longed-for tail's abilities, swinging his hips back and forth up the length of the kitchen, and I had to agree that a monkey tail might have its advantages.

One night while we were living in Knoxville I heard a song that brought the utility of monkeys into question, though. We had stopped at a store to pick up just a couple of items. Being very pregnant with Ellie at the time, I opted to wait in the car while Brady ran into the store real quick. The radio was on a station that we had really liked; they played a lot of local bands and live music. I was only sort of half-listening when I became aware of this chorus repeating:

One monkey don't stop no show,
yeah, one monkey don't stop no show,
mmm-hmm, one monkey don't stop no show . . .
So get on board!

[Sidenote: I have no idea who was singing this song at the time. I looked online later and found the song has been sung and recorded by a number of famous singers, Dolly Parton among them. If you ever go to or live in East Tennessee, you will learn that Dolly Parton is the embodiment of all things good and right in the world, and therefore lends credence to anything she touches.]

By the time Brady got back, the song had ended, so I had to reenact the lively chorus for him. As we laughed over the song, the question arose in my mind that if one monkey doesn't stop the show, just exactly how many monkeys does it take to stop the show? At what point do you put your foot down and say, "No. No. That is too many monkeys. I will not get on board"? I have a sneaking suspicion we are going to find the answer to that question in the next week or so . . .

The Second Half

Brady ran another half marathon yesterday, along with my brother and one of my sisters. Working on my own slow-but-steady race, I was not quite the cheerleader I was last time. We only had about six or so days of Autumn this year, so by yesterday at the start of race time, it was only 25 degrees outside. Instead of going to wait for him at the finish line and take pictures, I wished him luck and went back to bed. I'm pretty sure this is what he looked like at the finish line, though:


He finished with roughly the same time as his last race, but the course and weather were much tougher this time, so actually that means his performance improved quite a bit. Way to go Brady!

Look Who's Two!

Ellie turned 2 on Thursday. We have had quite a few family birthdays recently, so she has been getting the idea of what exactly that meant for a while now.

She really liked having candles and getting sung to. After we put her to bed that night, I heard her singing "Happy Birthday" to herself through the baby monitor.

Brady gets credit for finding the perfect gift: The Wonder Pets stuffed animals. She has slept with them every night since. Here's a video of her introducing each one and saying Ming-Ming's catch phrase ("This is sewious"--Min-Ming has a bit of a speech impediment). She is still working on getting over a cold, so might be a little hard to understand:

Her birthday kind of got spread over three days since we had a family party the next day, and a delivery of a big present from Brady's parents the next. Ellie has been enthralled with far too many new toys, and may think this is going to be a daily tradition from now on. Her gifts this year are bringing out her more nurturing, feminine side. She occupied herself for quite a while with her little kitchen from my parents.

And she's pretty excited about her new baby with accessories from Brady's parents. She had just gotten up from her nap and found this new arrival, but went right to work feeding and caring for her new baby. A nice, well-rounded diet of ice cream. Such a good mommy.

A Nationally Declared Month

This month has been declared "National Blog Post Month," or "NaBloPoMo." The idea is that people are supposed to post on their blogs every day of the month. Why? I have no idea. I'm not sure that all two of my readers would want to hear from me every day, although this particular month does seem a likely candidate to present enough blog-worthy moments.

It is also "National Mustache Month," or "NaMuMo," I guess. Following on the heels of October's big push for breast cancer awareness, someone declared this as a real thing to raise awareness about men's health issues. Apparently people sponsor this. We have a good friend who has the tradition with his brothers of always growing mustaches for Thanksgiving. Apparently they were ahead of the trend. As for Brady's participation in this nationally declared event, well, I told him no one is paying him to grow a mustache, so maybe not this year.

It is also "National Novel Writing Month," or "NaNoWriMo." I'm not making these abbreviations up. People really use them. Apparently everyone is supposed to try to write a novel this month. The challenge is to write a little over 1500 words a day to get a roughly 50,000-word novel complete by the end of the month (which is actually a pretty short novel). Brady told me about this last year and my first response was, "That's the worst idea ever."

You'd think, given my background as a writing instructor, that I'd be all for this. You'd think wrong. Yes, I think people should write, and should hone the skill. Everyone would benefit from doing more of it. It's a great form of communication, learning, expression, exploration, and so much more. But not everyone should write novels.

For me, the thought of so many novels being written in November conjures the image of an overflowing submissions pile on some poor editor's or intern's desk in December. My inner-editor cringes at the thought. I used to be that person, the one who had to wade through the "slush pile" looking for potential acquisitions. Sometimes it was an entertaining part of my job as an editor to take a break from the computer screen and red pens, kick my feet up on the desk, and read submissions for a while. But sometimes reading manuscripts that ranged from the preposterous to the infuriating to sometimes the just plain boring was less than enticing, and often low enough on the priority list that the pile of submissions just grew and grew faster than I could keep up with. The thought of so many more people getting it into their heads that they should be novelists doesn't sound so great to me. I mean, I guess it's okay if everyone writes a novel, but in my experience, not everyone should presume to be a novelist.

All these national month assignments made me wonder just how one gets a month declared something, and on a national level too. I suppose their ambition is laudable at some level, but who decides these things? Who makes it official? Today I was amusing myself with some abbreviations of activities that should be declared and nationalized into their own months. Then I thought, who am I kidding? Between the discomfort and nausea while I wait for this baby to come, I'm not doing much of anything. Once the baby comes, I'm probably going to be recovering and adapting to a growing family, I probably won't be getting out and doing much either.

So, I finally arrived at declaring it "National do Nuthin' and Nap til Noon Month," or as I like to call it, "NaNuNaNoo(Mo)." (Yeah, it was a stretch to get to that one. Thanks for hanging in there on this one.)

Lucky Duck

It would seem that Ellie has something for duck costumes, although I think technically her previous venture as a duck she was technically supposed to be a baby chick. Either way, she is pretty cute as a duck. For those readers lucky enough to get to watch the animated series "Wonder Pets" on Netflix streaming several times a day, you will understand why ducks are near and dear to Ellie's heart. She adores the wonder pets. She talks about them, sings about them, pretends to play with them all day long. Her favorite character is the duck named Ming-Ming. So nothing would do for a Halloween costume but for Ellie to be a duck so she could actually be Ming-Ming. (To be honest, some of this insistence was as much on Daddy's part--he gets a good dose of "Wonder Pets" most days.)

So we got Ellie all pumped up for going to the church to "trunker-treat." I had been feeling bad about how little I have been involved in Ellie's outings during this pregnancy. It's become such a novelty for her to have me along that when she knows I'm going somewhere with her she gets all excited, running around the house and announcing to anyone who will listen "Mamma's coming! Mamma's coming! MAMMA's COM-ING!" So I felt like I really needed to put forth the effort and go. I took an extra dose of nausea medicine, crammed my swollen, Fred-Flinstone-like feet into some real shoes, and got myself out the door. I even managed a costume.




(What I should have put on the sign was "about two weeks" since that's all anyone asked me that night, but I've never seen a magic 8 ball with that answer. Also, this is not actually a maternity shirt, so not very flattering at this point in pregnancy--the things we go through for our kids)



The duck head was so big, Ellie looked like she was perpetually about to fall over as she walked. She talked quite a bit about wearing the costume and knew that the primary goal of wearing it was to "get candy." The whole night, though, we could barely get her to look at anyone, or anything other than the ground for that matter. Might have been the costume, but she was a strangely shy duck. Of course over breakfast the next day she managed a very cheerful, articulate "trick-or-treat!"

Halloween candy has proven to be a bit too nauseating for me this year (which may be a good thing), but I have learned the true value of a roll of Smarties when dealing with an almost-two-year-old who has a bit of a cold and is starting another round of teething.