Vicki and Heather visit

Last night, we had a special treat! My cousins, Vicki and Heather, drove up for a visit. I live closer to them now then I ever have in my life. It's so nice to be closer to them now. Vicki lives about 45 minutes away from me now. Heather is farther away, but was visiting Vicki this week, so they decided to stop by. We had dinner together and had a nice time catching up.

Adam's schedule was off because of the morning's pediatrician visit, and had also cried through several naps throughout the afternoon. He was pooped. So sadly my cousins saw less than one minute of his open eyes. But he didn't mind being passed around while asleep!

Mommy's little burrito

Boys

Last week, our friend Kim visited us (and brought us a yummy lunch from Cosi!). She brought her son, Sean, with her. Here's a picture of Karl, Sean, and Adam. Sean turned 1 a few days before Adam was born. Before we know it, Sean and Adam will be playmates!

Big Boy!

Adam had his 2-week check-up today. He weighed in at a whopping 8lbs., 2oz. So in 8 days, he gained almost a whole pound! The doctor was pleased with everything else he saw. Adam was not as pleased with the visit, though. The nurse had to prick his foot for a routine PKU test and wipe his blood on a little card. Adam seemed to mind the wiping, which took about a minute, more than the actual prick.

Mommy was also pleased with the scales at the doctor's office. She hopped onto an adult-sized scale on her way out of the office, to discover that she has lost all but 2 lbs of her pregnancy weight. :)

Grandma Gebhard Comes for a Visit

Here's the proud grandma, giving Adam one last cuddle before her trip back home. Adam, Mom, and Dad miss her already.

Happy boy

Adam loves to stare out our bay window.
I think he enjoys looking at the contrast of the trees in the sun.

Our little star!

A fish out of water

My friend Jennilee says I absolutely must take a break from blogging about Adam to tell you the following story:

On Saturday, when my mom arrived to help us care for Adam (see, I have to get him in the story somehow!), she asked to see our new fish tank. I took her into the den and turned on the aquarium light. But there were only four fish in the tank. There had been five the night before. The fancy fin platy was missing!

I looked for the fishie in all of the nooks and crannies of the aquarium with no success. I knew that she must be dead. I was ready to open up the filter and skim out a dead fish, when I remembered that we had not installed the back cover of the aquarium lid. I groaned, knowing that the fish must had jumped out. And of course, it had to be the most expensive one of the lot!

Karl grabbed a flashlight and found her behind the TV cabinet. He started to reach for her, when I reminded him that breakfast was ready. So we left the dead fishie there to eat our french toast casserole.

After breakfast, Karl returned to the task of cleaning up the fish. I told him it would probably be easier to wait until she was good and dry, but he wanted to take care of it right then. Good thing he did!

As he grasped the fish, it jumped out of his hand! He got it again and tossed it back into the tank.

She sank to the bottom at first and sat in a corner. We stood there gaping. The poor thing had carpet fuzzies on her, and was unable to operate one of her side fins. Her talk looked a little worse for wear, too. But she was alive.

We turned of the filter for a while, since she had trouble swimming against the current. But now, three days later, she seems to be as good as new! We have no idea how long she was out of the tank. It was at least 45 minutes, which is about the time it took us to eat breakfast. But it could have been up to 10 hours, which was the last time we saw her in the tank.

So Karl no longer tells people that we have five fish. He says we have four fish and an amphibian.

Status Report

I've posted a lot of pictures, but I haven't really told you how things are going. They are going very well!

Adam had his second pediatrician appointment this morning. They weighed him and he has already gained back the weight he lost after birth, plus 1oz! So now he is 7lbs, 5oz. The doctor checked his eyes, ears, and other parts. Everything looks great.

Amazingly, this little guy sleeps for about 3 hours at a time during the nights, which is very nice for mom! He doesn't really put up a fight about going back to sleep, either. Swaddling him after feeding does the trick. I still need naps during the day, but overall I have my rest. We're praying that this will continue!

My mother has been here since Saturday and will stay until Tuesday. We are so glad for her help. She is helping with cooking, laundry, and playing with Adam to give Karl and I some relief. Karl is especially grateful for the help since she is doing a lot of the things he would be doing while I am with the baby. He has even been able to to make a long-anticipated trip to Philly today to take care of some dissertation-related things at Penn.

The weather here is beautiful, so Mom and I took Adam for a walk in his stroller this afternoon. Even though our local sidewalks are quite bumpy, he slept through the whole thing.

Adam's first bath!

Well, technically this was not really his first bath. A nurse gave him a sponge bath in the hospital. But this is his first bath given by us, and his first time in a tub. At first he wasn't sure if he liked it or not--a few whimpers when we removed his clothes and sank him into the warm water--but once he realized the water was warm and snuggly he didn't seem to mind. He even showed his approval of the experience by spraying some pee into the water. Fortunately he directed it away from his mom.

"I don't know if I'm gonna like this!"

The water is warm!

All clean!

"Hey! This towel is getting cold and wet!"

"C'mon, mom! Hurry up and dry me off!"

A shot of his cute alligator robe

Of course we also took some obligatory "naked" shots to show to his future wife. But I don't think we'll post them here.

Adam comes home

Daddy, Mommy, and Adam were very excited to leave the hospital on Thursday morning. Enough will all of that poking and prodding!

All ready for his first car ride!


Mommy's friend, Maria, comes for a visit
falling asleep on Mommy's lap

checking out his Winnie-the-Pooh themed crib

Enjoying some tummy time in his crib

Winking for the camera

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the cutest of them all?

Can you spot Adam in this picture?

Introducing Adam James Russo

Born September 11, 2007

10:19pm
7 lbs., 4 oz.
20.4 inches

We love our baby boy very much! I have to say that the labor was harder than I expected, even with the help of my epidural. But he is worth every bit of morning sickness, each stretch mark, contraction, and soreness that it took to bring him into the world.

He has a very pleasant personality and has not fussed very much at all, except when hungry. (He's good at eating, too!) He loves to be held. He has a thick head of blond (or maybe strawberry-blond) hair.

We should be discharged from the hospital tomorrow (Thursday). We're very glad that the hospital has a wireless network connection so we can use our laptop to keep in touch with you all.

I'll post photos here as I take them.

He likes to sleep!

Adam likes to be held by his daddy.

Here's an artsy black and white photo.

Here I am after 20 hours of labor.

Due Today

Yes, I'm still pregnant!

No signs of labor as of yet...

I'm trying to take advantage of the time I have now. This morning I went shopping at Wal-Mart. I got some groceries as well as some other things I've been meaning to get for a while.

I'm going to nap if I can after lunch, then spend some time doing some deep cleaning around the house. I'm having trouble sleep at night sometimes. I don't want to start out labor already tired, so the naps are for a good reason. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

National Arboretum

We saw the US National Arboretum for the first time on Saturday. Our friends Ethan and Wendi, and their twins Calvin and Josiah, have a family gardening plot there. There was an ice-cream social for all of the family gardeners on Saturday, so they invited us to come and see the garden. One of the best parts was that it was sponsored by Ben and Jerry's! The ice cream was free to all, so we helped ourselves. I had two small dishes of "Phish Food," which is very similar to rocky road, and a small dish of chocolate chip cookie dough. Karl had strawberry ice cream and strawberry-kiwi sorbet.

We also came home with some produce from the garden. Ethan and Wendi gave us a bagful of tomatoes of many colors--from green striped, to yellow, to tomato red. I also got three varieties of basil from the herb garden. All we need now is a hunk of fresh mozzarella! They also gave us a yellow squash. I'm still deciding what to do with it. If you have a good recipe, please email it to me!

mmm


the herb garden

basil!

There were activities for the children, including face painting, music, and crafts. The boys made garden flags out of paper which they used in a parade. Somehow, poor Ethan got put in charge of assembling the children for the parade. It was fun watching him corral children wearing cucumber and tomato costumes, waving flags, and shaking rattles full of beans.

Ethan gets a break from parade leading to snap some pictures


the arboretum's coordinator takes over the parade with a drum

On the way out, we drove by the "capital pillars." They were once part of the US Capitol, but removed when the capitol was expanded in 1958. Somehow they ended up in the arboretum. There is a small fountain in the center of them, which we could barely see from the car. Kind of a weird scene, if you ask me. But at least they are out to see instead of in a warehouse somewhere.

Our New Pets

Since leaving our little pond behind in Philadelphia, Karl and I have desired to set up an aquarium in our new home. My dad bought us a 10-gallon aquarium and filter a few years ago, to keep our pond goldfish in over the winter. So last week we bought a lid, light, heater, and thermometer to fit it. After getting the water circulating and dechlorinated, we went to PetSmart to pick out some tropical fish.

We decided to start with a pair of red-wag platys. We didn't want to buy too many, in case the aquarium water was not as good as we thought. The platys were the cheapest fish available at $1.49 each, and Karl liked their orange-red color. So we purchased a male and a female. I also picked out a live plant called a wendtii red.

the pair of red-wag platys


a crisper shot of the female platy


the wendtii red plant

They seemed to thrive through the week, but last night I noticed that the male was being rather aggressive to the female. He was nipping at her tail and she was spending most of her time hiding in the plant. So I researched platys online and found out that they are happiest in small groups of at least two males and three females. So today I went by another PetSmart and bought three more platys. This time I chose a pair of Sunburst-wag platys, a male and a female, and a female fancy-fin platy. The fancy fin platy is solid yellow with a large, frilly dorsal fin. I also bought some stems of a frilly green plant called wisteria. The fish seem to be calmer in this bigger group.

a sunburst-wag platy


the central yellow fish is the fancy fin platy, but she has her fin tucked away!

I had trouble getting good pictures of the fish because they move so quickly. They also associate me with getting fed, so as I approach the aquarium they rise to the top and dart around looking for food. After about 10 minutes of standing still with the camera, waiting for the fish to wsim into my view, and about 40 pictures, this was the best I could do:

a sunburst platy swimming by the wisteria plants

No Labor on Labor Day

I did my very best to explain to our baby that it was Labor Day yesterday. Either he didn't understand or already is not listening to his Mama!

We spent yesterday at a church picnic in Arlington. It was a potluck with hot dogs and spicy bratwurst provided. There was so much delicious food! We were stuffed by the end.

Also at the picnic were two other ladies whose due dates are soon after mine. We were hoping that at least one of us would go into labor. As far as I know, we're all still pregnant.