Avery Elizabeth Paris - March 29, 2008

The newest member of our family joined us on March 29, 2008 at 2:23pm. After all of our concerns how how small she was, she weighed in at 6 lbs 5 oz and measured 19.5 oz long. There was a bit of confusion about her actual birthweight though. The scale in the delivery room showed 6 lbs 0 oz but she weighed 6 lb 5 oz a few hours later in the nursery and weighed 6 lbs earlier this morning, so everyone has concluded that there is no way she only weighed 6lbs at birth. Regardless of how much she weighs, she's doing great. She wants to eat essentially anytime she's awake so that has been challenging but it's a great sign. Robyn is recovering well and is already free of all tubes, is eating solid foods, and just took a shower. Looks like we'll be at the hospital until Wednesday but Robyn and Avery are doing great. So far, Avery seems to have a very laid back disposition and only cries until she realizes that someone is taking care of whatever ails her (dirty diaper, need for food, etc). She also loves to be held which has been great for dad and Nanny (Robyn's mom).

Jack has been really excited to see Avery and has been really cute around her. He keeps saying, "She's so little" and "she's so cute" and has been talking about her to pretty much everyone we see, nurses, doctors, kids at school, people at the cafeteria, etc. He told us he wants her to come home so that he can show her his toys and teach her to ride his tricycle. Such a good big brother.

Below are some pictures form her first 24 hours.

Easter Egg Hunt

Jack got invited to an Easter egg hunt at his friend Zion's house and he had a blast. Before the egg hunt, Jack played and swam in the pool in the pool with Daddy. The actual egg hunt went really quickly (that's what happens when you have lots of three year olds), but they all still had fun.

Robyn's doing great and we found out on Friday that the baby is growing fine. She's still a bit small for her age, but the doctors aren't concerned anymore.

Robyn & a funny Jack story

This is probably the one and only time we'll be excited to point out that Robyn has gotten bigger. The full story is that she's put on a pound and her abdomen has gotten bigger since last week, both of which are good signs that the baby is putting on weight as well. We get the baby weight measured again tomorrow, but things look pretty good for now.

Jack had a classic line tonight. We were signing some documents to increase our home equity loan in preparation for remodeling the house. The notary was here and as part of the process we had to put our thumbprints on a few of the documents. Jack thought this was neat and wanted to do it too, so we grabbed a blank sheet of one of the forms and let him do it. After he'd stamped a few, the notary made a joke that Jack now had to help pay back the loan, and I then asked him if he was ready to go to work. He responded saying, "Noooo, I'm not a man, I'm just a kid!!" He was pretty adamant about it and it took a minute to convince him that we were joking and that he didn't actually have to work. He's becoming quite the funny little guy!

Baby #2 Update 2

Robyn's been feeling a bit exhausted recently and had some contractions Friday while she was being monitored. As a result, the doctor wants her taking it easy and resting 2 to 4 hours a day. Needless to say, this is not the easiest thing to do with active Jackie running around and while she is trying to finish up her last script. Over the weekend, she was able to rest and at least not be on her feet much. This seemed to pay off as she has felt much better the last two days and had only one contraction while being monitored today. That is great news and means we're less likely to have to have the baby earlier than we'd planned. She goes to a different doctor on Friday to have the baby measured again. As long as the baby's growing well, we'll be able to wait at least another week to have the baby.

Baby #2 Update

We're down to the last three weeks now and we're certainly ready for the little girl to make her appearance. Well, we're not quite ready as we still need to do some rearranging in the house and buy a few things, but we're excited nonetheless. Jack is getting excited as well and was talking about how he will get to show the baby how to do things and will get to hold her. He also likes reading his book about being a big brother. His future baby sister still does not have a name yet, although we've narrowed it to two.

Below are some pictures of Robyn and the new baby to be, in utero! We found out from the doctor last week that the baby is a little on the small side, so he wants Robyn to try to take it easy and to get monitored at the hospital twice week. Everything looks ok so far, but we'll need to keep an eye on how well she is growing.

Trip to Palm Springs

Two weeks ago, we went out to Palm Springs for a weekend of relaxing before the baby comes. Although Robyn is winding down her last quarter at UCLA and needs to finalize her last two scripts, it seemed like a good time before things really get busy. We got in Friday afternoon after a quick stop at the outlet malls and spent most of the weekend relaxing. Robyn got a motherhood massage and Jack & I went to an outdoor zoo called the Living Desert. One of the attractions is the largest model train set I have ever seen. It's HUGE! I didn't think I was going to be able to get Jack away, but eventually we went to see the giraffes, zebras, bighorn sheep, etc.

One common activity was feeding the ducks that were outside our room. Jack had an absolute blast chasing them and having them eat out of his hand. On Sunday, we couldn't leave until we fed the ducks which turned out to be more work than we thought since most of them were hiding from the wind. Eventually we found some on the 18th fairway of one of the golf courses and managed to feed them while staying out of the way of golfballs.