What a cutie!

If I do say so myself!

We went to church for the first time yesterday since Noah was born. Everyone oohed and ahhed over him, and especially over his size (8 lbs, 8 oz at birth, and I love to add "and he was 2 weeks early!" just for the extra gasp factor. I could say 3 weeks early, based on the due date my doctor gave me, but that would have meant a 41+ week pregnancy, so I stick with 2 weeks early based on a regular, 40-week pregnancy. An 8 lb, 8 oz baby may not sound that big these days, but when the mother is only 4'9" tall it's a tad surprising).

It's pretty funny that the people at church ended up being right... About a week before Noah arrived, several of the ladies at church told me I'd never make it the 2 more weeks until my c-section date. I just laughed it off since I was about as huge as I had been with Benjamin, and made it to my c-section date of 39 weeks and 4 days with him. Little did I know that Noah would be less patient!

We also got the obligatory: "2 boys! Now you need a girl!" comments and some even said we needed 2 more kids, period. No more kids are in the plans at the moment, though, especially after my doctor said that if I had a third, it would need to be born earlier. Earlier than 38 weeks... not terribly tempting.

Benjamin's first Kinder Egg

Easter has come and gone, and left behind a Kinder Egg for Benjamin. For the uninitiated, a Kinder egg is a chocolate egg with a toy inside. Benjamin managed to eat the whole thing without taking the plastic egg containing the toy out of the chocolate egg.


The conversation went something like this:
Frederic: Benjamin, look, what's that?
Benjamin: (silence)
Frederic: It's a toy!
Benjamin: Toy!
Frederic: Take it out of the egg.
Benjamin: No. (continues to eat chocolate egg)
Frederic: Look, a toy inside! Take it out!
Benjamin: No, no toy! (continues eating chocolate egg)
Frederic: Benjamin, look, do you want to see the toy? Take it out of the egg!
Benjamin: No. (continues eating egg)


Until finally there was nothing left but the plastic egg so he was forced to look and see what was inside (the Puss in Boots character from Shrek).

Noah did not get a Kinder Egg. But isn't he cute?

It has been brought to my attention

that I've been sadly neglecting our online photo albums, and more specifically that I needed to add more photos of Noah, who is clearly suffering from second-child-photo-syndrome. Poor little guy - you'd think as a second child myself, I'd make more of an effort!

Nuclear Bananas

As you may or may not know, most French houses have separate "WCs" (toilets) and bathrooms. Ours was no exception. What doesn't make sense to me in this set-up is that there is usually no sink in the toilet room, so you still have to go to the bathroom to wash your hands. So as part of our [possibly never-ending] renovations, we removed part of a wall to make our "WC" and bathroom the same room. This makes the bathroom as close as possible to a master-bedroom setup with the guest room, while still leaving it accessible from the hallway, and allows the door to not be directly off of the living room once we remove that wall. Back in August 2007 the bathroom vanity's marble top collapsed on top of Frederic's foot one night around 2 am, so we had to replace that also. Due to the removal of the wall, we needed to strip wallpaper and repaint.

It seems that Frederic and I are either both color blind to exactly the same degree, or else paint colors shown on the outside of the paint can rarely conform to the color inside.

For the guest room, we were looking for a "linen" color, but were wary of going too dark since the room is so small, so we ended up with more of a cream color despite the swatch on the outside seeming to be the "linen" color we were seeking.

For the newly combined bathroom, we chose a yellow color called "banana" for the walls, but it's got to be the most vibrant banana I've ever seen. Possibly a banana that has undergone nuclear radiation. Here are the before pictures:

And the during and after pictures:

We have not yet decided what we will do with the floor. Maybe some type of water-resistant laminate flooring, but the real problem will be how to update the floor under/around the water heater and toilet.

And just for fun, another picture of Benjamin holding his baby brother Noah:

Should have knocked on wood!

Since the last post, Noah has decided it's nicer to wake up to eat at night! Two nights ago he woke up at 5 am - still not too bad, and then last night he woke up at 3 am, but at least each time he slept until almost 8 after that one night-waking. Still, I shouldn't have mentioned it, the no-night-waking nights were even nicer!

We're still wondering where this boy got his curly hair from:

Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and a newborn that sleeps all night

All mythical creatures, right? Well... I'm almost afraid to mention it for fear of jinxing ourselves, but we seem to have one of these mythical beings in our house. And I'll give you a hint, it's not Bigfoot or Nessie.

Noah has been sleeping from 10:30 pm to 7:30/8 am, and this started while we were still in the hospital. When Frederic went back to work, his coworkers tried to console him that the night wakings wouldn't last too long. They couldn't believe it when he told them Noah was already sleeping all night!

In other news, Frederic and I both still have bronchitis, and Benjamin still loves to hold his little brother every chance he gets.

And the bathroom is still not painted!

Surprise Arrival!

Well - we did know he was coming, but we didn't think he was coming until March 13th!

As most of you already know, Noah James decided to surprise us and show up on March 8th instead. I had an appointment with my doctor that morning, and she decided that I would never make it to March 13th so she moved my c-section date up to that day! We hadn't brought my hospital bag with us, so Frederic and Benjamin had to go back home and get it and come back up to the hospital. Since my hospital is about an hour and half from home, by the time they got back, Noah had already arrived.

He was born at 12:03 pm and weighed 8 lbs, 8 oz and measured 19.5 inches long. His middle name is after my paternal grandfather. We decided on his first name after Frederic arrived at the hospital with his things. Noah had to stay in the incubator until then, but only because in French hospitals, you have to bring baby's clothes; and since we didn't have those with us, we had to wait for Frederic to come back with them.

We returned home today, March 12th, and are glad to be home! Benjamin is very excited about his little brother, called "the baby," "baby Noah" (pronounced "no-ahhhh"), or "baby brother." Here he is practicing with his baby doll for Noah's homecoming:

And here is Noah.

He can put on his own shoes!

This is what I saw yesterday when I walked into the living room:


We'll work on matching later, but he did get them on the right feet! Probably a fluke, but just pretend for my sake that you're impressed!

Counting down the days....

Tired as I am now, it's hard to believe I'll be even more tired when the baby comes!

Frederic started priming the bathroom today; I'd like him to get it painted before my mom comes next week - theoretically he has time; we'll see if that works out in practice.

Benjamin is busy these days reading his "baby" books - a friend loaned us a few books about big brothers and getting ready for baby to come home. We're not sure how much he really understands, but I guess we'll find out soon! In any case, he loves to read about babies.